Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Thank you all very much for your encouragement, support and friendship since I started my blog! I appreciate every visit and comment!

My hubby and I are going out to eat early and then have a quiet night at home. What are your plans? Whatever they may be, stay safe while you're celebrating! Here's to a fabulous, fun and crafty 2011! :)

My top 10 Favorite cards From 2010

Hi all!

I've seen a couple of blogs lately that have shared their favorite cards from the past year and I thought it was a fun idea. Dawn's here and Donna's here. I think they are actually joining in a challenge where prizes are given away, but I decided to just share mine for the fun of it. It was kinda cool to go back and look at all the cards I've made. So here are my top 10 favorites, in order from most recent, to ones made way back in March.































Hope you enjoyed! I'm working on a special post to thank all of you who sent me Christmas cards and will be posting it soon. Have a wonderful day! :)

My Favorite Gift and Some Cards

Happy Sunday!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! My hubby gave me some awesome gifts this year! I got a gift card from Archiver's. . .YAY! My oldest son gave me one too, so I see a fun shopping trip coming in my near future! :) I also got a big, hard-cover book, filled with card ideas. . .Love it!


But my favorite gift that my hubby gave me is this:

I have always wanted one of these and it is so cool! He picked it out all by himself. The size, what it says and the font too. I think he did a pretty good job! Thank you, honey! :)



I had the chance to play a bit this past weekend too, and made a card for a friend.

I used the new Leaf Cluster cling from Hero Arts and lots of glittery Stickles.



I also made a couple of thank you cards for the Hero Arts challenge this month. This one is with the new Hand Drawn Flower, stamped on patterned paper. Very simple card.




And for this one I used the new Flower Bird Garden stamp. I decided to do the embossed, layered resist technique and I really like the way it turned out.




I have five more days of work, then I have nine days off! Not traveling anywhere, just time away from work. My favorite kind of vacation! Have a good start to the week and thanks for stopping by! :)

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

I am working all day today (Thursday) and will be doing the same tomorrow (Christmas Eve) until 4:00pm. We will then head over to my sister's house to have a fabulous dinner, open gifts, talk, laugh and simply enjoy each other! Christmas day will be spent at home with my boys and hubby. A nice quiet day to relax and do NOTHING! Can't wait! It's been a crazy, busy couple of weeks!


I'm missing my mom quite a lot these days and am so grateful to have family and friends, both here at home and all over the world because of this wonderful, shared hobby of ours! I feel very blessed to have met so many amazing, generous, kind and fun people like all of you! Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving such wonderful comments! I appreciate your kindness!

Love and hugs to everyone and Merry, Merry Christmas! :)

New Hero Arts Stamps!

A happy hello!

I've had a Friday and Saturday filled with last minute shopping, wrapping and crafting with some new stamps! I even baked a batch of cookies! If you know me at all, you know that I never bake, and actually don't even like to do it, so that was BIG! And I love what new stamps can do for one's mojo! Especially when they're from my favorite company, Hero Arts!

Here are several cards I've made with the four new stamps I bought on Friday.


I love the Hand Drawn Flower! I have other plans for this stamp, but made this one red and yellow for a friend and co-worker who is in the hospital. She loves this color combo.




And this stamp is so beautiful. I had planned on embossing and coloring the image in a totally different design, but then had the idea of using the gold embossing powder. This Flower Bird Garden stamp speaks for itself and stands on its own quite nicely!




Then there's the Tree Trunks wood stamp. Love this one too! I thought of birch trees right away and made this card first.




Then I wanted to try something real simple and made this one too.




Last, but certainly not least, is the Large Blossom cling stamp. It is a smaller version of the same, larger background stamp, and I know it is going to be a favorite of mine!

I wanted to make something fresh, colorful and spring-like. I'm really missing warm weather. It's been so snowy and cold here this month, and we are suppose to get another snow storm on Monday night! Not sure where we're going to put it all!

That's it for me. It's getting late so I'm headed for bed. Have to work tomorrow. Have a great night and a wonderful Sunday! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Paper Whites, a Christmas Tag and a "Yummy" Church!

Happy Monday!

I have lots to share today, but before I get started, I thought it would be fun for you to see a couple more photos of our big blizzard. Here is my hubby, in the middle of the storm, trying to clear the driveway with our snow blower.






And this is what it looked like, on my deck, the following morning. Beautiful but very cold here now! Temperatures are below zero!






Now onto a tag that I made, using the Happy Holiday Tags set I received from Linda, for winning a random draw on her blog! Thanks Linda!

I won't go on about how I made it because I need to show you the amazing graham cracker church that our cake decorator made at work.




Everything you see is edible! She used Fondant which is an icing-like substance used to decorate cakes. Here is her masterpiece!

Isn't is amazing?! She does a fabulous job, loves doing it and is the sweetest person ever!




Here is another view.





And a close-up of the fabulous roof! Yes, that is a bell inside the tower!






See it inside there?






Here is an even closer view.






And a close-up of the doors. She is going to save it so that next year she can add pews inside!




And here is Renee, posing with her amazing church.





So one more thing I thought you'd enjoy. My Paper Whites are blooming and are they ever pretty!



I took these photos at night with the flowers against the window so you could get a feeling of how white and beautiful they are! Love them!


Okay, that's it for me today! Hope you enjoyed! I'm off to go Christmas shopping! Have a fabulous start to the week, everyone! :)

Wee Memories Giveaway!

Hi all!

Jenny's giving away a Color Cubbie on her blog! Wonderful storage for all your markers, pens, pencils and paintbrushes. Check it out here.

BLIZZARD!

Happy Saturday!

I've been finishing my mass-produced Christmas cards today and came across a little problem of running out of red gems. I'm using them to decorate my wreaths on the cards. I would normally just head out to Archiver's, but that is just about impossible today because of the fact that we are getting completely DUMPED ON! Overnight, 6 to 7 inches of snow fell and right now, as I type this, we have close to blizzard conditions! The wind is howling around 30 miles per hour and it's snowing again like mad! We have gotten at least another 7 inches today and more coming! Here are some photos to share with you.


Looking out my front door.




Neighborhood street.





Neighbors digging out.




This is my deck!


Thanks for coming by today! I'm safe, dry, warm and cozy and hope you are too! Stop back on Monday when I'll have some photos of the beautiful graham cracker church that the cake decorator at work made! You won't believe how awesome it is!

Hero Arts is Havin' a Blog Hop!!

This Friday, December 10th, Hero Arts is having a Blog Hop to show off the NEW stamps from their 2011 catalog! It's going to be a blast! Don't miss out on all the fun! Click here for the details and come along on the hop!

Come See the Store. . . it's Lookin' Fab and Festive!

Hi all!

I worked yesterday, but it was not a normal day in the floral department. It was year-end inventory day. Not my favorite thing to do (all that counting) but I finished a bit early so took some photos of the decorations around the store.

I'll start with where I spend most of my days. Here's a shot (just like the one I took at Halloween time) as you walk toward the floral dept.





And here are a few photos of the department. This first one is of my bouquet case.




This is where I place most of the 6-inch plants.




And of course we have all sorts of Poinsettias! Even purple for those non-traditional-loving shoppers!




This one is my favorite this year. White poinsettia, painted with a gold shimmer. . .so elegant!




Gotta love the glitter!




A few fun things we sell this time of year.












And now for the decorations around the rest of the store. You may have seen this tree in the Flickr discussion thread.




Here's another sort of tree!




These next photos are of cute decorations, placed up high in the various departments. Excuse the weird angles. . .tough to get a good shot from down below.
















This is how we decorate the signs down each isle. I'll have to let my boss know that the Bar Soap/Cleaners sign is a bit crooked! :)




And here is what hangs over the cashiers. Remind you of a certain Hero Arts Snowflake?



I will have to take a couple more photos at the end of this week. We are having an open house with lots of food demos, an ice sculpture and remember the big haunted house that our fabulous cake decorator made out of graham crackers? (See it here.) Well, she is in the process of making a big huge church! Can't wait to show you!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of the store! Have a wonderful week! :)