Riley Visits Again

The next card in the Riley Moose series for my nephew Nate is on it's way to his mailbox!

This time Riley was in the Thanksgiving play dressed as a pilgrim holding a turkey.

I try to find designer papers to match the theme of the card page I'm working on. This piece just seemed to fit.








A Thanksgiving tradition in my daughter's family is to go get their Christmas tree a day or two after Thanksgiving. Then it stands in the den or living room for a few days to warm up and let the branches relax. Decorating it is sometimes done all at once; sometimes the lights are put on and the rest of the ornaments are added at a different time.

The snowflake paper was perfect for cutting the Christmas tree! After I took this picture, I added some iridescent snowflakes to the background.





Here's Riley going home after the "Great Christmas Tree Hunt Adventure"!

His scarf is a piece of very narrow ribbon tied around his neck and held in place with tine glue dots. The white lines from a piece of designer paper look pretty much like a road.









When my daughter was shopping last week, she found a stuffed Riley that looks very much like the stamp Riley. Of course she had to get it for me to send to Nate!



"Teddy Riley" will be going out in the mail in a couple days. I want time for the card to get there first!



I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Blessings,

Cards for Co-Workers

My co-workers are all fabulous ladies!

Barb is our receptionist, typist, mail lady, billing gal - anything she is asked to do she does without complaint.

This is the card I made for her - House Mouse Little Nibbler. Inside says "Don't Ask! It's been one of those days!" She has "those days" nearly every week.

The pencil pieces are popped up on dimensionals.

Jean handles hundreds of pieces of paper in her daily routine of posting ticklers, typing letters, keeping up with investment transactions for clients,and anything needed to be done to help keep the office running smoothly.

Her card is Gruffies "Bear-ied in Paperwork". I took home a couple sheets of paper in the colors she sees most often on her desk to use on her card.

She loved it!

Terri is a super mom to 2 darling little ladies and a super shopper. She finds bargains everywhere she shops. I wish she would do my shopping.

Her desk is also covered in papers as she does data entry, bookkeeping and taxes for her clients, but I had already used the Bear-ied in Paperwork stamp.

So to honor her super shopping abilities, I used Sarah Kay's stamp "The Joy of Giving".

I decorated some of the envelopes with this cute Santa's Mail stamp from the $1.00 bin at AC Moore. It really livens up a plain envie. Don't know how the post office feels about decorated envelopes, but so far they haven't refused to take any of them.

Tomorrow I'll give Barb and Terri their cards.

Until next time,

Blessings,

Riley Moose Goes Calling

Riley Moose has become one of my favorite stamp charactors. He is just so darn cute no matter what he is up too. I made a card for my 15-year old nephew, Nate, with Riley coming to call.
Nate has an old red tractor he loves to drive all over the acreage his parents own and across a field to his friends' Fred & Pam's house.

Nate was diagnosed with T-cell Lymphoma in July, 2008. His parents keep everyone up to date on Nate's progress on a website called Caring Bridge. Hence Riley's reference to a bridge that cares!

He has been undergoing very rigorous chemo therapy and has responded miraculously to the treatments, all the while without complaining. He has been a real trooper through it all.

Of course Riley does all the fun things that kids do including Nate!

Here is Riley in his pirate halloween costume.

Riley had to help pick pumpkins for Thanksgiving dinner pumpkin pies!

The orange printing doesn't show up very well. It says

"Here I am in the pumpkin patch. Bet you couldn't guess that - HA! I have to go now and help get ready for Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm glad I'm not a turkey (Smiley face). Nobody has stuffed moose."

I hope to continue the Riley "visits" throughout the year with each one representing seasonal activities. Maybe I will be really ambitious and make a second card each time and put them into book form later.

Blessings,

Thanksgiving and My Workspace!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone! Hope all had a fantastic feast and great time with family and friends. One of my daughter lives next door to us, so even in the worst of weather, we have dinner together! There is always more food than we can possibly eat! My older daughter lives in Virginia and my son in Georgia, so we rarely spend holidays together.

A couple weeks ago Anne posted a play along to show our work space at our jobs. The girls I work with thought I was losing it when I started taking pictures of my desk and work space!
Here it is!!

I normally work only Mondays and Tuesdays. I hate starting the week or the morning with a messy desk!

So when I leave for the day or on Tuesday when I'm done for the week, I clean up and put away everything on my desk.

Yes, I am obsessive about a neat work area!



This is how my desk generally looks while I'm working. Each of those files on the desk is a payroll I have to do. One week there are 16 and the next week 13. The majority are weekly, but there are 7 or 8 that are bi-weekly and one monthly. There are also 3 seasonal.

I really enjoy my job and talking to the payroll clients. After all, everyone likes the payroll preparer. And---all of my phone calls are promptly returned!

The windows above my desk open to a short hallway going to the waiting area and are one-way mirrored glass so I can see out but no one can see me. I can open the window and assist clients if the receptionist is busy. All in all it is a great place to work.

Thanksgiving blessings to one and all,

Thursday Night Classes

Last Thursday night several ladies from my church met for the first week of a 6-week study using Leslie Parrott's book You Matter More Than You Think. All of us need encouragement and praise and to find our place in God's plan for our lives. When I got home and checked my emails there was a "chain email" there from my friend Ruth. Here it is:

Prayer

Leave yesterday alone (it's gone)

Live today (count your blessings)

Don't worry about tomorrow (it may not come)

Dear God,

The lady reading this is beautiful,

classy & strong and I love her.

Help her live her life to the fullest.

Please promote her and cause her to excel

above expectations.

Help her to shine in darkest places

and love where it is impossible to love.

Protect her at all times, lift her up

when she needs you the most and let her

know that when she walks with You,

she will always be safe.

This is just what we were discussing at class. I had been working on some more Thanksgiving cards, so I copied this Prayer and put it inside the cards and will distribute them this week.

I named this one Thanksgiving Encouragement.









Have a wonderful, blessed week,

Thanksgiving Cards and More!

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking here in western New York!

The clean-out/clean-up of my sewing/stamping room has begun. A friend of mine who does sewing for local charities came and picked up all the fabric I had ready that was in my sewing room closet. YES! ! ! ! I still have more to gather up, but didn't have enough space to get it all out at once :-( I didn't take any before/after pics though. Some of my stamping stuff has been put in the closet so I can at least move in my room :-)

Our weather here has been beautiful with the exception of a couple days. That is about to all change. The weather reports say s--- is on it's way. We had a dusting a couple weeks ago, but it was all gone by afternoon. I am not a snow person at all and winter here in New York seems to go on forever.

Thanksgiving is just 12 days away! Where has 2008 gone?? I have been making some fall and Thanksgiving cards and stamping out wishes for Splitcoast Stampers WishRAK, which I joined about the same time I started my blog.

A couple Sundays ago our Assistant Pastor Matt did a short ventriloquist presentation to announce the Thanksgiving To Go event the area churches do for shut-ins. We deliver a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to any person who calls in and requests one. Last year we served nearly 300 dinners. Pastor Matt had a turkey puppet named "Tom" of course. So I made a turkey card and sent it to Pastor Matt anonymously. Just a word of advise - "Pastor Matt, do NOT quit your day job!"




















On the front I stamped the image centered, then masked it off and stamped the lighter images without re-inking the stamp. The inside was colored using the bouncing brayer technique. The turkey is popped up with dimensionals.

I finally did get my Christmas Toppers done for the October SBS card swap. I realized that I had not taken a picture after the envie was addressed, sealed and stamped. So I sure hope that DebMeg posts a pic of them!

While Becky and I were making the toppers, I also dug out some of my embellishments from last year. We could have saved ourselves a lot of time if I had thought of them a couple hours sooner :-(
I stamped a snowman card using a TAC snowman trio stamp from Bunch of Flakes set.
Then I cut apart a snowman head trio and attached them to my card. The hats are from the SU Crab & Company stamp set. The card went to DebMeg with her toppers. It turned out to be really cute! I hope she likes it.


Then last but not least, are the cards I made for all of my SBS 22 sisters!! I found this gorgeous fall ribbon on one of Becky's and my shopping trips. It's sheer with the design printed and the glitter already on it!

The sentiment is from SU's set Give Thanks. It's stamped in Chocolate Chip on Naturals Ivory, mounted on Chocolate Chip and popped up on dimensionals.

I didn't really like the ribbon ends showing on the inside of the card, so I asked my friend Kim for suggestions to hide them.

Following her suggest to line the inside of the card with designer papers, I did just that using a different paper on each card.


Here are a few of my favorites. The inside sentiment was computer printed in brown ink. The edges were inked with either Chocolate Chip or Pumpkin Pie.

The cards were really simple to make using the ribbon and are stunning!

Thanks for looking!
Thanksgiving blessings to all!

Birthday and Friendship cards!

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday and today was my granddaughter's birthday! What a joy both of them have been (most of the time)!

Here are the cards I made for them.

This card is for Becky. She has found some of the most incredible cards and stamps on the web and this Sarah Kay is one of them - Fanny's Cuddle.

This was colored with Copic Sketch markers. I used Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip and white cardstock. The pink flower is a Prima and the brown is from the Pretties Kit and colored with Chocolate Chip marker. The brown satin ribbon is probably from AC Moore.

This one is for Megan, my granddaughter. She loves purple! This is another Sarah Kay stamp - My Sweet Lili.

The image was colored with Copic Sketch markers and cut with a scalloped oval Nestibilities die. I glued a tiny purple gem on her ear and a tiny flower on her teddy bear's bow. The ribbon is from AC Moore. The cardstock is from DCWV Nana's Kids mat stack and is mounted on SU Lovely Lilac.

My SBS22 sister Norma spoils me with the most beautiful cards.

This one is breathtaking! It is all glittered up. The picture does not do justice to the beautiful work Norma did on this card.

Thank you so much, Norma.

This last card for tonight is the Round Robin

card that was sent me after it was finished.

The bees' wings are colored with a gold glitter pen, which does not show in the picture. My friend Kim did a great job finishing it.

That's all, folks!!

Blessings,