Hello :o)

I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted.

In a nutshell, here's what went on between then and now. Last spring got incredibly busy with work and I had little stamping time and even less to post. In June my husband of 18 years passed away. I am amazed at the toll his passing has taken on me, given that I saw it coming and thought I had tried to prepare myself. It was his second cardiac arrest in 7 years, and he died at just 48 years old. Two words of advice: quit smoking. I haven't been able to stamp since, along with a huge amount of other things until just recently, so hopefully that will come back at some point too.

But God has blessed me beyond belief with friends and family who have cared for me and about me. And included in that is the overwhelmingly beautiful support you have shared with me in the form of cards in my mailbox. I've finally managed to scan them and have posted them below so you can share them with me. The personal notes inside brought tears to my eyes many times, and I can't thank you all enough.

Love Nancy

Off topic but still arty :o)

I've had these 6 tiles lying around waiting to be put somewhere for the last couple years. The vegies are very 3-D (the pepper sticks out almost 2"!) and have an uneven shiny glaze, allowing the clay to show through. I just love them - they're made by the Fresh Fish company of MN - and if I remember right someone had them out at their garage sale for $1 when I came along. So I decided to hang them over my stove, to add color and remind me that vegetables are wonderful :o) Sorry for the rotten photo quality - I was too impatient to wait for better light! LOL

Love animals AND daily trivia?!

then you should definitely go check the two new clickable links I added to my sidebar - one for cats, one for dogs! They will take you right to a fun site with a daily quiz question and whether you get the answer right or not, it counts for food that goes to shelters to feed cats and dogs. Thanks to Shell for making me aware of this thru her blog! If you'd like your own clickable links there is an icon on the top of the site page labeled "Banners" and they make it SO easy.

And when you're done there, just in case you're glued to the computer and can't (or won't >;o) go stamp, check out the fun Jigsaw puzzle link under the Non-stamp related links in my sidebar :o)

Well, I still have the flu and believe it or not, my energy is used up for now! LOL

A little note and some fun

Oh my goodness, I have been a very bad blogger this past week! Sorry for my absence - I have been working like mad in my spare time to get my TechniqueJunkie sample cards for the April newsletter ready. If you haven't gotten yourself a subscription for the year you might miss my debut issue as a 2008 designer, and that alone would be horrible!! LOL Seriously, you can't buy more stamping inspiration for a $20 bill.

I have a little stamping entertainment for you though - go to Susan's Smartworks blog and check out her wonderful mini tutorial this week. That should keep you occupied for a little bit, and if you finish that up I believe the company is having a 35% off sale as seen on Mama Dini's blog (see sidebar) so head on over to browse.

Have fun! :o)

So Much News!!!

I am feeling so honored to have been given this award by my great friend and fellow stamper Manna Go check out her blog if you've never been there, and enjoy it some more if you already have! :o)

It would be impossible to narrow down the bloggers I love, but here are a few you may have missed and need to see! To them I pass on this award...

Debbie at Thinking Inking , who posts nearly every day and has a perfect eye for color! Her use of Copic markers is legendary, and her range of themes and techniques is wide-ranging.

Shelly at Stamping With Shelly , whose link was sent to me by Linda, knowing I would love her multilayered works of art immensely! Her work is unique and you can look at a card five minutes straight and not see it all, but you won't miss anything with her great descriptions and sources given.

Kimm at Kimm's Daily Grace , who offers beautiful and varied artwork, tutorials on aspects of card making, and mini challenges for color combos, etc. Her artwork will inspire you to try all kinds of new and interesting things!

Please check out my sidebar for more awesome blogger's work, and more coming soon!!!

My second happy news is this fabulous custom rating sign made by Erin Grotegut of Stamper Storage. You can also click on her link under the item in my sidebar anytime if you'd like to contact her. This particular image is a custom order and design so no borrowing allowed :o)

My third, but no less happy, piece of news is that this card below that I shared with you earlier (see post index, it's under animals) is appearing in the brand new RubberStampMadness magazine! It is included in an article on one of my favorite stamp companies, I Brake For Stamps!

Thanks for sharing my joy!

More Exciting News!!

Good morning :o)

Pat of TechniqueJunkies has asked me to sign on for the rest of this year as a designer for the newsletter!! I am very excited at the prospect of putting out some inspiring cards for the subscribers and sharing any stamping knowledge I come across along the way.

Along the lines of sharing, I was able this past week to index the TJ techniques from 2007 into a list indexed by supplies used. So if you have a product at home sitting neglected, or remember using a specific item in a technique last year but can't remember the technique name, just go to the list and look for a key word. For instance, say you get the urge to use some acetate sheets - find Acetate on the list, and right under it you will find a row of all techniques that use acetate, with the newsletter publication date listed next to each technique. All TJ subscribers can access this file by going to the TJ Yahoo home page, clicking on Files, scrolling down to the title of the file, and clicking on it. That should open the file for you to glance thru or print out.

New Blogs Alert!

I'm so excited to be able to tell you guys to head on over to Pawsitively Inky!! Brand new today! Cheri's work is beautiful and inspiring - I've been hoping like crazy that she would start up a blog so the rest of the stamping world can see the wonderful things she produces. I think you will want to bookmark her page for sure :o)

Also, go see Card Art Etc. right now!! Just in case you missed it, Shirley's blog has been up and running for a few days and it is awesome! I'm always so intriqued to see how she uses color and sparkle! And she is generous with the info in case you want to try your hand at something similiar :o)

My top five...cookbooks!

Thought I'd start a new topic - My Top 5 - for Sundays since I don't usually get a card posted. (Sundays are also the day the sidebar items change for those reading them :o)

I was just cooking a pot of Ham, Potato and Leek soup and remembering the awesome cookbook it came from. So here they are ... my Top 5 cookbooks at the moment:

NOTE: I am not a gourmet cook (although I very much appreciate fresh, well prepared food) and have little time and patience for kitchen duties, so you KNOW these are great, user-friendly books! (You'd think I owned stock LOL which I don't ;o)

1. HOW TO COOK WITHOUT A BOOK by Pam Anderson

~ she takes basic premises (soup, sauteing, etc.) and shows you an easy, delicious base recipe and ways to add to this for an endless list of different recipes to suit any taste. Great for those of us unable to throw items into a pan with apparent abandon and have them come out tasting like anything at all. The basic soup recipe has served me very well.

2. THE PERFECT RECIPE by Pam Anderson (okay, I feel stupid! I did not realize till just this minute that these were by the same person - no wonder they are my top two!!)

~in this book LOL she lays the book out into chapters of American favorites (Everyday Classics, Special Dinners, Be All and End All Desserts, etc.) and tells you all the different ways the test kitchen tried cooking them. It's awesome to read thru the process (her writing style is not the least bit dry or heavy). The One-Pot Chicken Pot Pie alone is worth buying the book for. (Which by the way, is a dish I've never liked till this recipe - I made it to humor my husband and then fell in love with it. It's absolutely nothing like any I've ever had.)

3. SAVING DINNER by Leanne Ely (who I found thru the Flylady site)

~this book is awesome! It's laid out in seasons, then weeks. At the beginning of the week is a shopping list, and then the recipes. Each recipe has the nutritional values and suggested sides (realistic ones - this book is all about foods your family will eat!)

4. COOKING THIN WITH CHEF KATHLEEN by Kathleen Daelemans

~ real, fresh food, easily turned into what feels like gourmet. Lots of sidebars listing shortcuts and valuable tips. Buy this book for the Pork Tenderloin with White Wine Sauce - it's so delicious!

5. SIMPLY THE BEST by WeightWatchers

~ laid out like a typical cookbook, this is full of made from scratch, full flavor dishes. Lot's of comfort foods you grew up with and love to eat. I really like that there is a little blurb about the contributor and all the nutritional info. Can't wait to try the Hot Asiago Spread!

I hope this helps revive someone's kitchen time - real food cannot be beat, and I need to make an effort to eat more of it myself :o)

A huge thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! You guys are the best. All the comments here and in my inbox have been so appreciated. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :o) Thank you!

On another note, a quick update on my "new year's resolutions" progress. My house is not quite as picked up or as clean as I'd like, but I have been doing the treadmill 1/2 an hour a day 5 days a week, and a personal Bible study first thing each morning. So I'm happy - anything changed, even small, is progress in my book! LOL

Have a great weekend!!

Exciting News!

I just want to let you all know that I get to be a guest artist on the April issue of TechniqueJunkies!

I know it's not too late if you want to sign up for this year's worth, and I promise you won't be disappointed! There really isn't a better subscription to anything out there for under $20 a year!!

The issues are published every other month which gives you just enough time to try all 10+ techniques per issue. In addition to the full-color six page newsletter with complete instructions for all techniques, you receive a password for access to the online site which contains pages of all techniques with step-by-step photos, plus inspiring artist sample artwork. And as if THAT'S not enough, you get to join the email group and receive fabulous artwork and great stamping tips that other members share daily!!!

If you go to the site, you will see a sample of the Milkpaint technique - this is how the step-by-step photos with instructions appear on each online technique page.

So come join me, and about 2000 other subscribers - you won't believe how much fun you can have and how many of those various items you bought willy-nilly over the years will now be put to good use ;o)

Catching up!

Hope you all had a beautiful Christmas. I got to see family and travel out of town, which all seems to have rejuvenated me. I've spent the past week thinking of little changes I should make and what I'd like to see happen with my time in the coming year, and I have written it all down where I can glance at it for a refresher if/when LOL I forget my goals. No super-lofty ones but a bit of a plan I think I can work with on a regular basis :o)

Will be posting again soon - I want to share a new product I found with you so I'll go take some photos....

Hello!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but I was fortunate enough to have my Mom and Dad here for few days this week! We got to stamp a bit and they both made a card :o) We just used a very quick easy technique with some instant gratification! I'm hoping to post scans of those shortly. Oh! and I want to share an awesome new product I found and love! Plus I've been tagged and need to get that info together...

~ Now on to some musings ~

Adding to this blog over the past two months has really pointed out to me how hard I struggle to balance my life even a little bit on an on-going basis. Covering all the bases all the time feels impossible most days! I have a stack of unwashed dishes in my kitchen right now to prove it ;o)

I'm mulling over New Year's Resolutions, which is something I hardly ever do. But I am feeling the need to prioritize more than ever this coming year to make sure I fit in all the really important stuff, and set up some guilt-free stamp time too.

Feel free to leave a comment on what you want to change for yourself in the new year even if it's just in baby steps - maybe it will save me the trouble of having to think on my own LOL I'm kidding, of course, as everyone has different needs, goals and dreams, but sharing thoughts with others can jump-start our own creativity as we've all seen in stamping. If I get a workable format/list/plan down on paper, I'll share it with you (maybe Jan 1st! :o)

OT -On a hh mission!

I'm on a mission this winter to clear our house of anything we don't like or don't use. I've mentioned our small area space and it's starting to feel smaller! I don't remember what got me fired up to do this a couple weeks ago - maybe my other off-topic ranting about my newspaper pile and how freeing it was to just toss it! That's HARD for someone with pack-rat tendencies - all the Cleanies out their are rolling their eyeballs at that >;o)

I know it's a rotten time to get into all this, right before Christmas, poor weather to have a garage sale, equally poor weather to schlep a load to the local charity, but oh well! Gotta strike while the iron is hot :o) (Must be an old blacksmith term - can you tell I grew up too close to the prairies of ND?! LOL)

So if you're here strictly for stamping info, I must warn you there isn't any today! I wasn't even going to share this info below but then I thought it might help someone else too. I did use my circle punch LOL but in the effort of getting the job done rather than following my perfectionistic tendencies to make it perfect, the letters are hand-scribbled on heavy manila index cs and not stamped on pretty paper like they should be. LOL To you who have known me awhile, see how far I've come?!

Here's what I did yesterday:

This is a closet I share with my stamping supplies :o) It's all tops of one sort or another. I got this brainstorm in our other closet with really poor lighting to make some tags for the rods like they do in retail clothing so I could see all the way to the back corner and know what's there (the closet is 10 feet long with one single door!) I just used large heavy weight manilla index divider cards, punched them with my 2" circle punch, and then cut them into a square around the circle. I cut the corners off with a scissor and a slit in the center of the larger side to slip it onto the rod. If I had a quick way to get larger circles I would have just used two circle punches so they'd be prettier - like donuts! LOL

I was finding all my clothes were kind of organized by type but in my denial of recent weight gain over the years I had not removed my too-small clothes. So I took each item out, and if I hadn't worn it in the last six months and still liked it I tried it on. Now I have to be honest here - every organization book and diet guide will tell you if your clothes don't fit to get rid of them - but I kept anything I was still able to wear as recently as last summer. I have a section that says Too Small right on the tag now and if they don't fit by this next summer I'll reconsider, but at least they are not in with clothes I can wear now.

So I have all the bottom pieces in the other closet with the following tags for sections: Jeans, Winter Skirts & Dresses, Summer, Too Small (by only one size HA HA!) And in my tops closet I have the following 3/4 Sleeve, Long Sleeve, Button Up, Turtlenecks, Polar Fleece (I wear ALOT of this because it's so warm and easy to wash), Sweaters, Zip Sweatshirts, and for Layering Only (slight stains etc. to be worn ONLY under other things) and Summer.

I'm feeling good about this set-up, so good in fact, I've been doing laundry all day today knowing I have a place for everything to go when it's done. It's been very motivating for me and I would be thrilled it it helps someone else too!

OT - Under the weather

Sorry for the lack of a post today - not feeling the greatest at the moment. Just wanted to pop in and give you a link to a great blog I found just now that has ornaments like I mentioned in yesterday's post!

http://papertrufflez.typepad.com/paper_trufflez/2007/12/goin-ornamental.html

Shadowbox Magnets

Hope your weekend was a good one. I probably should have wrapped up my Christmas shopping but it was so cold I felt like doing catch-up work here in the house most of the time instead!

One of our first Christmases as a newly-married couple we cut large stars out of corrugated cardboard and decorated them with beautiful ribbon bows, tearing some of the top layering off to reveal the corrugation (in an artsy way!), and highlighting them with glitter. The basic color-scheme was red, gold and kraft. But the special part was, inspired by my Grandmas's tradition of ordering christmas ornament balls with everyone's name on them and hanging them on the tree each year, we spelled everyone's name in glitter, one per star.

Now it might sound tacky, but it actually made for a beautiful tree, with all that gold and red and the kraft against the green of the tree, and some white lights. I think we filled in with different-sized traditional red ball ornaments.

We still use those ornaments and I can't tell you what a treat it is to go find "your" ornament, especially for the kids. It gives a great sense of continuity year after year. Fortunately we made about twice as many as we had names for originally so we've been able to add names to those as there are new additions.

The shadowbox magnets below were featured in the RubberStamper magazine earlier in the year, but I thought I'd share them again because I got to thinking what awesome Christmas tree ornaments you could make...

This shadowbox-style ornament could become a cool new tradition, with everyone getting to make their own, putting in whatever is important to them that year, then signing and dating on the back. The general make-up is a background circle, a cut-out image or two pop-dotted, a ribbon around the inside edge and something to shake (sand, microbeads, etc). Just add ribbon around the outside with a loop for hanging. These containers can be had really reasonably priced at a Joann's or Michael's, usually in the wedding aisle as favor boxes.

A great time to make these would be when everyone is sitting around after Thanksgiving turkey, too full to do anything but sit! It would be best to have circles pre-cut and stickers, etc. available for those who want to put about five minutes into one and then watch the game :o)

Tins measure about 2" across and 1" deep

Just a few notes:

You can add dimensional glue or glitter to parts of your image for extra shine as in the flower one, or magnet words as in the ocean one.

Tape or glue the stamped circle of cardstock down firmly as that is your base for the other elements.

I think I used very tacky double-stick tape for the ribbon on the inside, as glue can tend to discolor ribbon and give a lumpy look.

Be sure to put glue along the threads on the inside of the lid and twist it shut when you have it the way you like.

I'd like to make some Christmasy ones and if I can get some done I'll post them.

Thanks for looking!

OT - Lightbulb moment!

I have had a flat wicker basket full of newspaper pages on my living room floor for at least 6 months. It is full of really great information I've culled out and meant to reread, do something with, etc.

Okay, now I don't have it anymore!

I picked up all the paper at once, didn't even look to see what treasure I was holding lest I be tempted to hang on LOL and tossed it all in the kitchen trash!! I feel so free, and have already reappropriated the basket to catch mittens and hats as we come in the door.

Did I mention I saw a tiny spider lurking in the paper before I tossed it - see what happens when I let stuff pile up unabated - it comes alive! And did you ever hear that you will never be more than three feet from a spider of some variety in your entire life??! Don't know if that's true but it makes sense now LOL

So here's a freeing thought - what if we took all those unfinished stamp projects we have had tucked away forever and just tossed them???! Oh I can hear the gasping already ;o) But we would gain space and the freedom to create new stuff in the style and colors we like right now - now THAT'S potential! If you can't bear to toss them, how about passing all the fun little scraps and background paper to another stamper or an art-loving neighbor kid who can either use them or toss them guilt-free?

Okay, I'm ducking now in case the rotten tomatoes start flying >;o)