Moments in Time

Sadly, 90% of my Christmas card recipients did not get a hand stamped card. But I did manage to send some out to my TAC direct downline, and several stamping/scrapbooking friends. This was my 2007 Christmas card.

(Snowflake stamp by The Angel Company, all paper from Hobby Lobby.) I've seen a combo of red, cream and dark chocolate brown or black this year. I get tired of the usual red & green for Christmas, so I decided to give this combo a try.

I bought this Fluffles stamp A) because it's just so darn cute & funny and B) because I knew it would be perfect for Ali's card. (You know you're stamp addicted when that's all it takes to make you buy a stamp!) She loved it! I used a lot of glitter on it for my glitter girl. The pine bough looks yellowish, but it's because of the Icicles glitter on it.


This is Jessica's card. I bought this stamp from CC Designs because it was cute and went with the reindeer giftwrap paper that I bought this year. (You can see a pattern to my buying, can't you? Doesn't take much, lol.)


I also made her this card to hold the Old Navy card we gave her for Christmas. The stamp is a "Hanna stamp" -- I knew it would get a lot of use with two clothes crazy girls in my house! :-)

Well, it's almost 11 PM and my two "mice" are definitely still stirring (I can hear loud giggling from upstairs), but at least the stockings are hung by the chimney with care. :-) I often wonder if we're the only ones crazy enough to have stockings for our pets, too -- all of them, even the snakes.

Tiger always considers the Christmas tree his own personal little kitty cave. He likes to lay under it:


The girls and I volunteered at the Humane Society today. I figured they'd be short on help, plus it got the girls thinking about something other than themselves and presents. The shelter's had a lot of people bring in puppies this week, so the girls were in heaven! There was one (adult) dog that ... ooh, if I didn't know that DH would have a fit, she would've come home with us. She's a beagle/basset mix (mixed with lab, I think), and her name is Sidney. She was so dejected in that cage, but when you went in with her, she climbed on you, kissed you and whimpered. She definitely a people dog and needs a home - fast. I've already volunteered to foster her if she doesn't do well at the shelter. Hmmmm, if it wasn't Christmas, I'd be willing to deal with a grumpy husband just to give her a home.

By dinner time, the girls were both very hyped up and dying to open their one Christmas Eve gift. Ali chose to open her present from Jessica (Jess made it herself):

Jess opened her present from my friend, Pam (more clothes - she was thrilled!):


After dinner we went out driving to look at Christmas lights. One guy decorates his whole (huge) yard every year and asks for donations for Habitat for Humanity. This is just one part of his display:

Pretty cool!

May you have the gladness of Christmas
which is hope;
The spirit of Christmas
which is peace;
The heart of Christmas
which is love.
- Ada V. Hendricks

Hallelujah, winter break has begun! I think everyone at work today was really ready for this break - the kids, the teachers and the staff. (In fact, it would probably be a tie as to who was happiest!)

The stamping portion of my blog has been pretty much neglected! Here are a few card sketches I created today for my yahoogroup, midmoStampAngels. (Click on either sketch to see a larger version.)

If you'd like to be aware of current and future Angel Company promotions and get my weekly stamping/scrapbooking newsletter, the "W", click below to join my yahoogroup.


alt="Click here to join midmoStampAngels">
Click to join midmoStampAngels


Oh before I forget, I've been tagged by my friend and fellow Sept98Mom, Carla. I'm supposed to show my desktop but I'll admit that I'm not sure how to do that. I will share that this little guy is on my desktop (don't look at me - my husband did it!):


I'll tag Gwyneth and Kelly. Surely one of them knows how to do this properly!

We got hit with another winter storm this weekend. I'm not wild about snow, but usually I just grumble a bit and live with it... but, when it interferes with our family tradition of going to cut down our Christmas tree, well, that's another matter!

Last weekend's trip to the tree farm was iced out. This weekend's trip was looking pretty dicey, but fortunately, we didn't get as much snow as they thought possible. That, and I have a husband who doesn't mind driving around in the snow! The first place we stopped was deserted. I guess they didn't think anyone would be crazy enough to drive around in the snow to hike through snow to cut down their own tree. Well, we're that crazy, apparently!

We wound up at our usual place, Log Providence Pines. Even I had to admit this was a beautiful sight:

Of course, we spent a good 30 minutes trekking through the snow to find a good one about 4 rows from the entrance! Isn't that how that always works? Here are some photos of our adventure. Click on any of them to see them larger.




And here's DH with our beautiful tree (which unfortunately had to spend the weekend defrosting in my garage so it's not up yet):



The weather interfered with several planned activities, but fortunately we were still able to get to the lake for the annual cookie swap with my MIL and SIL. Here's a sampling of what's going to work with me tomorrow:

Thursday saw our first appreciable snowfall of the year. Ali and our neighbor, Katie, had fun making their first snowman of the season. (Those electrical boxes make nice props, huh? lol)

This weekend saw the arrival of more frozen precipitation, only this time in the form of sleet/freezing rain. Yuck! Although we got a snow day out of it, so I shouldn't complain. Tomorrow will be cleaning and baking day. I've spent a lot of time baking for Christmas. I got the most delicious recipe for Chocolate Caramel bars from my fellow Sept98Mom, Tami. Yum!

I found some time to stamp this weekend -- for fun! (i.e., not a craft show!) I participated in a few of the Stamping Bella challenges over on SplitCoastStampers.com. Here are my two Bellas (click on either photo to see it larger):



The past few months, I've been stamping a lot for craft/vendor shows. Here are some of my domino pins:

I love stamping on dominoes! They're fun and fast.

These are some lunch pail tins that I "altered". I covered them with scrapbooking paper, using Modge Podge, and embellished them with glitter, ribbon and silk/paper flowers. A lady called to order these from me (she saw my vendor display at Curves) and it turns out she used to be in my book club. I guess it really is a "small world"! (Click on either picture to see it larger.)



Well, it's off to bed for me so I can get up and finish my baking tomorrow. Good night!

Well, I intended to post at Thanksgiving time. I'm just hoping that the saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" is not true - or I'm in big trouble!! :-)

We aren't in full Christmas swing here yet, but we're working on it. Last Saturday I took Ali to Breakfast with Santa at one of the local high schools. She didn't want to actually see Santa -- we'd already seen him at the mall to put in her request for Elizabeth and her Tea Gown. (Elizabeth is an American Girl doll for those of you uninitiated in the ways of all things AG!) But she did have fun making several crafts, including this paper chain, which she later lengthened at home:

This put Ali right into the Christmas spirit! She asked me on the way home if we could go buy egg nog. When we got home, she gave DH no peace until he built a fire!

Tonight's holiday activity was Jessica's school choir concert. Here's Jess (she's the one in the pink sweater):


Most of my spare time lately has been consumed by Jessica's basketball activities - driving to/from practice, going to games, etc. (Thankfully her friend Brianna is on her team and lives just up the road. We alternate shuttling the girls, which helps a lot!) Here's Jess in action (well, waiting for some action!):


Here's a little holiday decoration from the girls, made with Jessica's K'nex: