Sledding into the New Year!

Happy New Year Once again! I love having time off from work to goof off in the studio. I am positive that I wouldn't be able to stand being away from work after a while...like 6 months or so. LOL! Seriously, I am blessed with a wonderful career that is stimulating and challenging (in a positive way) that allows me to live a charmed life.

Today I chose to participate in the SCS Ways to Use it challenge which was to incorporate time in your card theme. I also wanted to play the CPS sketch challenge. I love sketch challenges so CPS is one of my favorite blog challenges. There is a little prize & the due date for posting is 1/2, so there is plenty of time to play along.

Not too much exciting about this card, but it is nice to be back creating!

HAPPY NEW YEAR~!

Recipe:
Image: Vintage New Year Greeting Card
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point, DP-Prestwick (retired SU!)
Accessories: Scor-Pal; Snowflakes: red (SU! felt flurries), blue (3D felt stickers-JoAnne's)

Happy New Year!

Hello! I am happily celebrating the new year now. I am off work until Monday 1/4 and plan on stamping my heart out! I love the holidays and I had such an enjoyable time with family and friends. My husband and I saw the Broadway musical 'White Christmas' when it was it here in St. Louis. He surprised me with 6th row tickets...what a treat. The entire musical was great but I was so impressed with the tap dancing~ it was the best I have ever seen!

Another holiday highlight was when a small group of girlfriends went to the symphony to hear the Holiday Concert featuring vocalist, Lisa Vroman (best know as Christine in Phantom of the Opera) and the St. Louis Children's Choir. One of my friend's daughter sings in the Children's choir so that made it extra special. Our symphony hall, Powell Hall, in St. Louis is just beautiful- gilded gold, white marble, and red accents. Plus it was decorated for the holidays too. Below is a picture of the lobby area so you can appreciate the beautiful day we had.

I am not a dancer, musician, or singer. These talents are amazing to me thus I am grateful when I can enjoy through others' sharing their special gifts.

My card today was made using a vintage greeting card image. I purchased a CD filled with hundreds of holiday and winter images that I am really thrilled about. I used the sketch challenge from SCS today (SC261). I am not totally thrilled with the card, but it will probably take me a few days and cards before I get in back into the swing.

Happy New Year!

Recipe:
Image: Vintage Greeting card
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Craft (SU!), DP- Indian Summer (DCWV)
Ink: Riding Hood Red (SU!), Vintage Photo (Tim Holtz-Ranger)
Accessories: Button, RHR ribbon (SU!), Stampers Floss (TAC)

Holiday Gifts

Here are some of the gifts I made this holiday season. The first picture is a holiday snowflake pail filled with goodies- gloves, lip protection, hand lotion, notepad, tea, chocolate, photo/note holder or a 'purse' magnet. I gave these to the twelve people that work in my group except my assistant and my managers who received a store bought gift.

I made similiar ones for Brian's and my siblings except the contents and pail were different. The adult nieces and nephews recieved goodies in a small gift bag. We have twenty nieces and nephews so we just filled the bags with little things like packs of gum, chapstick, deck of cards and chocolates. We don't usually give to siblings and the nieces and nephews but I wanted to do something a little special and started hunting for stocking stuffer type items as early as August. All in all, I made nearly over forty holiday pails and gift bags. It was a lot of work but fun and definitely worth it to give an unexpected treat.
Below is a picture of how I decorated the banana walnut bread that I baked for my colleagues on the leadership team for our group. I loved the way these bread bands and tags turned out. I baked eleven loaves...and didn't even save one for us. What was I thinking?!?
This last picture is the gift I made for my best crafty girlfriends. The glass jars started in life as a Starbuck's Frappuccino bottles. I got the idea of using SB glass bottles from SCS except they were filled with M&Ms. As you can see, I filled my jars with buttons (not m&ms), and I also gave each friend a SU! keychain that was tied to a red ribbon bow. I had purchased the key chains over the summer when I was a demonstrator. The jar lids were decorated with a stamped circle image and ribbon was wrapped around the lid edge. I stamped each friend's initial in red, outlined with a green glitter pen and then punched and layered on top of a double band of designer paper.

I didn't realize until I took the picture that my friend's first name initials (Monica, Linda and Jody) are the same as my full name initials- MLJ.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Happy new year!!

Merry Christmas!

Hello friends and Merry Christmas!

This past month has been a whirlwind with children returning home from college (yipee!), business travel and end of the year reports, holiday shopping, attending and hosting holiday parties and gathering with friends & family, and daily visits with my mother. I have created a few new things but I haven't had the time to post. Later this week you will see a small collection of those holiday cards and crafts. In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas!