January Thoughts and a Birthday Card

This week it feels a lot more like January (46 deg F this morning) -- last week, it was 80 deg F in Houston and I had to run the A/C.

I'm not big into New Year's Resolutions. As one of the hosts on KSBJ said, "If you know you need to make a change in your life, why wait until January First?" However, this year I want to stay quiet and follow God's will in my life. I've been reading the Mitford series by Jan Karon and I think there's a lot to be said for the simple life in a small town....as long as there's a scrapbook store in that small town! LOL!

My friend, Kathy, already has our Show 'N Tell lunches organized for this year. I'll have to send them my blog link so they can see the birthday card I made for my sister. I'm ever so grateful to share a passion for scrapbooking with her -- she does a terrific job on her cards and I am constantly inspired by her creativity. (I confess that sometimes all I have for Show 'N Tell are Tami's cards, especially if I've been travelling a lot for work.)

Here's the birthday card I sent Tami. I don't usually use pink, but I found a virgin Heidi Swapp kit hidden away in my room -- and of course, thinking of Heidi makes me think PINK! I also was inspired by one of Dawne Ivey's happy new year cards (pg. 96) in the Dec '08 issue of Cards (my great hubby got me the magazine for Christmas).

Thanks for taking a look at my blog!

2 Sketches 4 You (Laura's Sketch 16)

After a sunny 2 week Caribbean vacation, I feel relaxed AND creative. I sketched a scrapbook page layout almost every day in my journal so that the Puerto Rico scrapbook should go quicker than normal!

Today feels like Friday, since I got 2 extra comp days for 2008 and will not have to go back to work until Tuesday, 6 January 2009! Instead of working on house projects, I'm giving myself a "crop-in-house". Now, we'll see how much my little furry friends help me......

With such a great Christmas, we needed lots of thank yous! And, I recently subscribed to Quick Quotes canvas club of the month (yeah, like I need more scrapbook club of the month stuff...LOL!). I've used their yummy "Brown Sugar Collection" papers on these cards. (Other supplies are flowers: unknown, brads: unknown, bling: Michaels, stamps & ink: Stampin' Up, chipboard: from Tami's ideas cut with Sizzix, paint: Making Memories.)

Andy said he liked the second card better since it has two flowers -- he hadn't seen the sketch but I thought the first one was closer to the sketch. I kinda view the sketches as guidelines and idea starters! I'm not very good at being exacting (probably why I'm a terrible cook -- I tend to forget ingredients).





Especially a big thank you to Tami for the Quick Kutz. Hobby Lobby has these dies and the coupon does not generally exclude Quick Kutz. Yeah! I'm going to have some fun!

Happy & Safe New Year to all! (And I say good riddance to 2008!)

Thanks for looking at my blog.
Teresa

2 Sketches 4 You (Kazan Sketch 15)

OOOOh! A Scor-It tool! I saw this on Craft TV Weekly (www.tvweekly.com) about a year ago -- so totally cool!!!!


I was inspired by the colors in a Pottery Barn catalog for the birthday card. I turned Kazan's sketch 90 degrees (from portrait style to landscape style). When I saw the sketch, it looked like a door to me. I put a slit into a sheet of cardstock and slipped the "card" inside (see the second scanned image where the "card" is opened

Supplies include: cardstock & printed background paper (Club Scrap), tab punch (Stampin' Up), flowers (American Craft), bling (Precious Finds), and glimmer mist (Tattered Angels, though I'm not sure how well the glimmer shows up in the scanned images). I also used Cricut Teardrop font ("Happy"), Sizzix Junk Drawer font ("birthday"), Spellbinders (shapes).

For Heidi's bonus sketch, I used K&Company Christmas paper, Sizzix ornament diecut, Sizzix Curlie Girlie font, Mizuhiki paper cord, ribbon & brads (unknown). I wanted to use the word "jubilant" but it's just too long for a card because I was feeling very JUBILANT yesterday when the contractor finally came to cut the granite for my cooktop. In the past 6 months, I've learned that even minor remodelling is not for the faint of heart!

I hope everyone has a terrific holiday! Thanks for taking a look at my cards.