One Year Anniversay

In April of 2017, our local scrapbook store closed. I had been doing a class there once a month. After receiving the news, the ladies wanted to continue our classes. I moved the class to my house on a the fourth Saturday morning of the month. Our April 2018 meeting marked our one year anniversary.   I wanted to do something special.  I wanted to make some cookies, but I just didn't get it done. Parkinson's got in the way. But I did get some little boxes made that held a Yankee votive candle. I found the pattern on Pinterest, messed up a few, and finally got eight made.

Then last week I finally made the decision to drop the card making meeting for a group of ladies from my church who have been coming to my house since February or March of 2012. We have had many good times together. I will miss them coming. Again Parkinson's has gotten in the way. The disease continues to progress for my husband. I just need to eliminate some stress from my life. I just can't do all the things I have been doing. Last week I was finally able to make that decision  and have peace about it.

I have to tell them tonight that this will be our last meeting. I have made some of the little boxes with a votive candle in each one. I hope they will each know how much their friendship  means to me.

God understands

Our Prayers,

even when we

can't find

The Words

to say them.

                     Author Unknown

Getting Ready For Our Valentine Lunch with Friends.

On Wednesday, February 14, we are to have lunch with three other couples. What do we have in common with these folks? All of our husbands have Parkinson's Disease. We have all been married about 50 years.  All of our husbands have had great careers. Our husbands are currently attending the "Rock Steady Boxing" exercise program here in Jackson. All are active in their church. Most of all, we enjoy being together.

Since it will be Valentine's Day, I wanted to do a little something special to celebrate our time together. I would like to share with you what I came up with.

First, I made these little boxes filled with candy. I purchased a bag of Dove Chocolates -- milk chocolate with swirls of dark chocolate wrapped in purple foil. For the box top, I chose SU Elegant Eggplant card stock.The box is small -- about 2 1/4" x 3 1/2"and about 5/8" tall. It holds 6 pieces of the chocolate. I made the flowers using a couple of punches that I have. I used Pale Plum card stock (a long retired color), sponged the edges with Elegant Eggplant ink, shaped the petals, glued two large pieces together, added one layer of the smaller petals, filled the center with glue and topped that off with yellow prills. I truly love making these flowers. I found some pieces of greenery and added them to the box top before gluing on the flower. To finish off the flower, I added a little bit of diamond stickles to the edge of each petal.

I wanted a card to go with the little boxes. I chose to do a little 3" x 3" card. It is made using white card stock for the base. For the top layer, I punched the heats out of white card stock, trimmed it to about 2 3/4" square, embossed that layer and added a piece of Elegant Eggplant card stock underneath. The last thing I had to do was make the envelopes. I think that the little boxes will look so pretty setting on the table.

I looked and looked for a sentiment to go inside the card. I couldn't find one in my stamp collection. Last night, I went looking on Pintrest. I found a quote that I thought might work. This morning I was playing with it, changed some of the words and this is the result. Using Microsoft Publisher, I created and printed the inside of my card. I was able to get the three cards I needed from one sheet of white card stock. I found the RGB code for "Elegant Eggplant" and used that as the color for the printing. It comes out being pretty close to a match.

Card in An Envelope

In just over a week, Grandpa and I are hoping to see our grandchildren who live in northern Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati, Ohio. I wanted to give each a card with a small cash gift inside. I decided that the ideal card would be one of the cards that is made inside an envelope. Mine turned out to be 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" square. I used double sided designer paper. The belly bands were made from a small strip cut from the leftover paper and turned to the opposite side. The challenge for me was how to decorate the inside of the cards and what accent piece to add to the belly band. I only got pictures of the insides of two cards. This was a fun project but I thought I was never going to get finished. My creativity was not working very fast.

CAS318 -- ABC with Spring Colors

This week's CAS challenge at SCS was a little different. It was "ABC (anything but a card) using spring colors". I knew what I wanted to do from the very start, but because of things beyond my control, I am just now getting my little gift posted. I first saw this idea on a video done by Connie Stewart at "Simply Simple Stamping". I made the sides of the bottom part of the box a little higher, but everything else is pretty much the same as her design. Here is the link to her video.

I made several of these little boxes and used them as little gifts for the gals in my stamp club and for favors at our family craft day on Saturday, March 28. The box measures 1 1/2 x 4 x 3/4 - inches and hold 3 miniature Reese's Peanut Butter cups.  

 

Card Candy

Here are the gifts that I made for all the gals in our stamp club. I ran across this idea during the summer and thought that I would give it a try. Fun to make and fun to get. These pictures were taken before they were packaged.

 

2014

I cannot believe that it has been so long since I posted anything to my blog. I have found that it has been hard to get back on track since Christmas. Today I want to post some pictures of Calendars I made. The design is one that I did after looking and seeing many different samples on Pinterest, Splitcoast Stampers and other wonderful blogs. My finished calendar measured 4 1/4 by 4 1/4 inches. I purchased the calendar pad from SkyBluePink.com. They made great little gifts tucked inside other things. The work of so many wonder paper crafters has inspired me over the past years. To you -- I say "Thank you!"

Gift Boxes for Chocolate Squares

This past week end I found the Spellbinders layered poinsettia dies at Micheals, and, of course, I just had to have them. With instructions and ideas from one of my favorite blogs, I had so much fun playing with the dies. I was needing some gifts for friends that I meet with for breakfast each week. I had gotten a variety of Ghirardelli Chocolate squares and  was trying to come up with a unique way of packaging them. I created a simple box that was just large enough to hold 8 chocolate squares. With the dies I made a small poinsettia to go on top and added a little bit of greenery using a die from Impression Obsession and a Martha Stewart punch. Tiny pearls were used to finish the flower.