Pretty Little Present

Emily’s dance studio was asked to march in the annual Pitman Christmas Parade held last night.  Unfortunately, this weekend I am suffering from the annual “Torrence Thanksgiving Stomach Flu” (hits at least one of us every year – one year, it took out our whole family AND the entire Meehan family too), so I wasn’t able to go.

But I did manage to take a photo of Emily in her costume before she left.  They asked for the girls to dress up as reindeer, Christmas trees or presents…so I decided to do a little recycling of her Halloween costume:

I removed the puppies and covered the box with wrapping paper (that just so happened to be about the same color as her coat) and some ribbon.  I replaced the rope with the same ribbon and added a tag that reads, “To:  Mommy/From:  Santa”.   The tag was going to read “To: Emily”, but my six-year-old pointed out to me that made no sense.  “Mommy, how can the present be TO me when I AM the present?”  I couldn’t argue with that.

Thanksgiving With Family

We spent Thanksgiving yesterday with Mike’s family in Elizabethtown, PA.  Even the dogs came along, dressed for the occasion:

It was nice to see Mike’s family again – especially his grandmother, Nan.  Here she is with Mike, his brother Mark and sister Terri (Mike’s brothers Don and Fred couldn’t make it yesterday):

And here’s the Torrence gang from NJ:

It was also nice to see some cousins too.  Matt and his cousin Devin were born just days apart – here’s Nan and Devin with his mom and dad (Mark and Sue from Littitz, PA):

It was a long day – we had a two hour drive each way – but everyone enjoyed spending time together.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 10th wedding anniversary to my dear husband, Michael!  It was 10 years ago yesterday that we were married on a lovely day on the beautiful island of St. Thomas.

Thanks for the most wonderful 10 years of my life – here’s to many, many more happy years together.  I love you!

Happy Thanksgiving – Plus, Even More Card Ideas!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

You know – I’m still not finished posting all of the cards I made for the ‘Shop til You Drop’ event a few weeks ago.  I’m going to just finish posting all the remaining cards today because…well, I’m pretty bored with posting them day after day – and I’d like to move on to something else.  So today, I’ll throw the rest of the cards out there for you…

I think I made over 20 designs with 2 of each card for that event – all made in one weekend.  I could have made my Christmas cards with all that work and have been done by now!  After all that effort, do you think I could actually use THESE as my Christmas cards?  Would anyone even notice a big orange lion on their holiday card…

Maybe a pinwheel?

This technique is really cool – the petals are made from folded tab punches!

How about some butterflies?  This started out as a CASE but morphed into something else…

I love the paper piercing to go along with the ‘journey’ definition.

Let’s see…what else did I make?  This was my make-and-take card (another modified CASE from Stampin’ Success):

And for this one, I copied was inspired by a color combo I saw in a magazine:

And I made a few baby cards too:

C’mon!  Those could pass for Christmas cards…baby Jesus?  Right?  Okay – maybe not.

So here’s another couple of actual Christmas designs sorta CASEd from the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini:

Hmmm…now that time is running out, I may use one of these simple designs for my own card…let’s see if I have any creativity left inside me…

A Few More Cards

Just a few more cards – these were CASEd almost directly from Stampin’ Success – with a few variations to work with my stamps sets and supplies:

Card(s) of the Day

I still have quite a few of these new cards left after my ‘crafting frenzy’.  Unfortunately, turnout at the ‘Shop til You Drop’ event was not quite as I’d hoped.  I put a LOT of effort into this event!  The good news is – I’ve got lots of cute holiday crafts to display this year and a WHOLE bunch of cards just ready for any event that comes up (and I got a fantastic chair massage while at the event, too!).

So here’s a card CASE’d just about directly out of the Holiday Mini Catalog:

I had fun watercoloring this one – and I was thinking of using it as my holiday card this year.

A few more cards that were almost totally copied right from Stampin’ Up! promotional ads:

Love those holiday rub-ons!

Card of the Day

Here’s today’s card:

Card of the Day

Here’s today’s card:

Card of the Day

Here’s today’s card:

White flower is embossed with white embossing powder.

Card of the Day

Here’s today’s card:

Center flower is raised with dimensional adhesive and has Dazzling Diamonds glitter in the center.  Watercolor crayons were used and image is embossed with black embossing powder.