it has been awhile

Seriously??!!

I have not posted since August?

And here it is the end of October!

oh the shame......

Quick recap since I last posted-

School started for the kids. I was volunteering in the kindergarten room (totally loving it too) when I was offered a subbing position. It was a permanent sub while the school was working out the need for aides with the students. It was going pretty good, minus the part about the house falling apart and me being stressed out. I applied for the paraprofessional position and interviewed but did not get it. Now I am back to being a regular sub with a relatively clean house and able to volunteer with my favorite students the kindergartners!

Also we took an amazingly wonderful fun filled trip to Walt Disney World!! oh my what a great time we had. Cannot wait to go back and do it all again. We did stuff we hadn't done before and probably won't do it again (Expedition Everest) and totally loved Snow White's Mine Train ride!! While we were there, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. It seemed fitting since that is where we honeymooned all those years ago. And it was fun to share it with the kiddos.

Picture taken at Be Our Guest in the ballroom on our anniversary

Once we got back, I had a card order to make up. My yoga friend wanted some more note cards and I was more than happy to oblige. Here they are.  

I am working on a new owl card and hope to have a couple of sets of them completed by the end of the weekend that I can post. We shall see!! Hopefully I won't be gone as long as last time.

disney layouts recently done

These layouts I have been working on during the month of August. I would love to say I am making headway with this trip, but alas- I am a picture taker and then cannot decide which ones to use as they are all so amazing. So I will keep on trucking along and getting these pictures into a few albums and remember all the fun we had on our Walt Disney World 2008 trip.

We met Goofy, Daisy and Donald at Camp Mickey Minnie. I am pretty sure I have already scrapped the pictures of us with Mickey and Minnie. If not they will be coming! I have used PageMaps for each of these layouts. At least all of these pages started as a PageMap. Sometimes they don't end up looking like they started but that is my jumping off point.

Kira and her Mickey head ice cream. He was wonderful until he fell on the ground. It was very hot and we kept encouraging Kira to eat a bit faster or it would fall. She was a little upset but not too bad. She enjoyed herself.

Donald did not want to let go of my girl. So cute.

Hanging around Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Gorillas at the Animal Kingdom.

Off to see what other pictures need to find their way to paper at this moment.

disney disney disney (2008 trip)

And it continues!! More layouts from our 2008 Walt Disney World trip. I thought I had posted these but I seem to have forgotten to do it. They have been done for awhile, I lost track of them. I am loving doing this trip as the kids were so small!! Kira was six and Alex was two. I also notice that during this trip, I didn't get too many pictures of Alex. Probably because he spent much of the vacation in his stroller sleeping!

Lots of DCWV papers, stickers, Sizzix Sizzlits for the fonts, gems, brads, stamping, twine, Disney themed papers I picked up at Disney, punches, border punches, Mickey head scissors, and washi tapes.

Enjoy!!

shameless plug

Have you started thinking about Christmas cards? 

Cards for gifts? 

Gift tags?

Teacher/ hostess gifts?

Well the holidays will be here before you know it. Now is the time to place an order with me for your handmade personalized paper crafted items. Head over to my website and see what I currently have for sale as well as examples of what I have created in the past.

Don't see what you are looking for? Please ask. I am always up for a challenge to create an item that you will fall in love with and be proud to give.

Click on the image below to get to my website.

I can be reached at my email as well as on Facebook. 

Click the image below to get to my FB.

I hope I can create something amazing for you!

do you yoga?

I do.

Finally.

My friend Catrina started her yoga teacher training last year and I didn't think I could do it. Seriously. I am not the most limber or athletic of types. I have not done much moving since I broke my leg six years ago. Yet with Catrina's encouragement I have started taking yoga classes. And guess what?? I totally love it! What a great workout and a relaxing time all rolled into one! My only regret is waiting so long to take her up on her offer to teach me.

Catrina graduated at the end of July and is now a full fledged yoga teacher and amazing at that!! She asked if I could come up with some yoga themed greeting cards for her to write her clients notes on. Sure why not?! I asked her favorite colors as well as her favorite yoga poses (tree and lotus) and hit the Google Images for free images from the internet.

Below are the cards I created for her as a thank you for inspiring me to get moving as well as a congrats for completing her training!

Love, Light, and Energy is her FB page- check it out.

If you are in the market for any yoga cards (or any other type of cards for that matter) give me a shout via email and I would be more than happy to create some personalized cards for you.

budget committee meeting tonight

It has been awhile since the Attorney General sent the cease and desist order to the current chairperson of the Newmarket Budget Committee Amy Thompson- May 21, 2014 to be exact. Since then there have been a couple schools of thought. One being she should be removed from her position for partaking/ spearheading the letters sent to Newmarket residents that were full of lies and misinformation. The other one being to let her stay and complete her term on the committee.

I feel there is another way to end this situation. Let her stay however make it known on the Budget Committee record of minutes that not everyone on the Budget Committee was a part of sending those letters and in no way did each member of the committee agree with what was in them. Some of the members were a part of the Vote No group and had their hand in the letter, they managed to keep their identities a secret. 

This is one of those town issues that should not be swept under the rug and forgotten over the years. 

A resident of our town. 

An elected official on the Budget Committee. 

The Chairperson of that committee. 

Sent out Vote No letters to residents with no valid group name or author.

Even after discussions were had online and in the newspapers, no one came forward saying they were a part of this group calling themselves "Newmarket Citizens for Responsible School Solutions/ NCFRSS". It was all very secretive.

Why be so secretive if you believe in something that strongly?

The letter below appeared in the newspaper in June and is from Amy Thompson.

Free speech denied being denied in Newmarket

Saturday, June 7, 2014

It’s a dark day indeed when ones constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights are used as a battering ram.

(See: http://tinyurl.com/Newmarket-vote)

Acting as the chairperson of a group of taxpayers called “Newmarket Citizens for Responsible School Solutions” which advocated a “no” vote on the seriously flawed plan for a new school facility that could have bankrupted the town, I sought guidance on how to proceed with a mailer. I was given vague and misleading information by both the state and the postal service. In one instance it was explained to me that the governing RSA 664:14 applied only to statewide issues. It was because of this misinformation that our mailing was “out of compliance”. The AG’s office has stated that this is a “Closed Matter”. There is no “there” there.

That is the sum total of what happened. I sought information in an effort to be sure that we were in compliance and I was, I assume, unintentionally misinformed. The losing side of the school issue would insist that I (we) made a deliberate attempt to deceive and conceal our identities and that is a complete falsehood.

It’s that simple.

No vast conspiracy to mislead anyone and I can assure you that any future mailers will most certainly be in compliance.

As Americans we have a constitutionally guaranteed right to express ourselves on public matters. Sometime we win and sometimes we lose the argument. It’s utterly appalling how some will resort to aggressively vicious personal attacks simply because they wind up on the losing side of an issue. It’s one thing to suffer a loss at the ballot box but it’s quite another to be subjected to the thuggishly aggressive attacks of the sore losers.

This same group would further attempt to punish me for the exercise of my free speech rights by urging my removal from the chair of the Newmarket Budget Committee, once again, because I actively disagreed with them on the totally unrelated matter of how to proceed on the school issue.

I want to thank the people of Newmarket for all the messages of support and understanding. I’m not going away. I am a woman who will not be pushed around because of my opinions.

These outrageous attempts to silence me on public matters will not succeed.

Amy Thompson
Newmarket

Yes Amy Thompson does have the right to free speech. But she needs to follow all the laws accordingly to use that free speech.

Her passing the buck on being "unintentionally misinformed" by receiving "vague and misleading information by both the state and the postal service" is just that.... passing the buck. I did a Google search of RSA 664:14 and found the information quickly.

II. Political advertising to promote the success or defeat of a measure by a business organization, labor union, or other enterprise or organization shall be signed. The name of the enterprise or organization shall be indicated and the chairman or treasurer of the enterprise or organization shall sign his name and address. Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit contributions which are prohibited under RSA 664:4.


III. In the case of printed or written matter, the signature and address of signer shall be printed or written in a size of type or lettering large enough to be clearly legible.

Residents and voters of Newmarket- let us not forget this incident as we go forward in trying to solve our school situation. Remember who has done and said what when their terms come to a close in March 2015.

happy happy birthday!

Back again with the rest of the birthday card creation craziness! You may notice that there are not twenty-five different cards posted on these two posts. That is because a couple of these I ended up doing doubles of since I liked them so much. But yes I did do all twenty-five cards!!

Added some stitching and ribbon to this card.

Cut my DCWV stripe paper at an angle to change things up a bit.

This one is created with washi tape. I loved the dots and the rainbow colors at the store so they had to come home with me. I heat embossed the sentiment in gold and added gold thread to create a rainbow with a pot of gold feel.

Pretty straight forward celebrate card.

Love my Fiskars hexagon punch!!

Letting the pattern paper do the work on this card. Also added three Fastenater birthday themed staples to the card.

These staples are holding down a piece of baker's twine.

Cutting out candles from the pattern paper. Silver heat embossing. Sewing and pop dots.

Again making the pattern paper do the work as the sentiment! Added a bit of white twine under a Fastenater staple. Foam dots under the candles. Sewing.

Now I have birthday cards for a bit which is good since my Disney pictures are screaming at me to play with them!! I have been totally ignoring them for a few weeks here. oh the shame!!

you say it's your birthday

I have been severely lacking in the making of birthday cards. I don't know why, but I have. Then comes a request to see my birthday cards and I have none to show. I mean... major eeek!!

I grabbed a package of prefolds with envies and went to work. I would like to say I whipped out the following twenty-five cards in a few days but it took more like weeks to get them all done. I did manage to get about twelve done to show and sell. The rest I finally completed last night. Next time don't try to create so many cards all at once!

New stamp set in action here (new as in sitting around forever and finally managed to drag it into the light of day) I stamped the honeycomb on the yellow hexagons with versamark ink to give the tone on tone look. The bee and the sentiment are both heat embossed with detail embossing powder. I added some glossy accents to the bees wings. The sentiment is raised with some foam squares.

Used one of my Spellbinder dies for the label to house the sentiment. Paper from a DCWV summer pack and a few blings for good measure.

Heat embossed sentiment. Fiskars border punch. Celebrate ribbon and foam squares.

Embossing folder (swiss dots) Spellbinders scallop circles, Studio G $1 stamps from Michaels, paper from DCWV and bling.

Pretty simple one here. I let the pattern paper be my sentiment.

Used a fiskars border punch to create this notebook look. White twine, bling and DCWV paper stack.

Stamp from a set I have had forever and have no clue who the manufacturer is. I didn't keep the backing paper.

Used silver detail embossing powder on this one.

This sketch/ layout was on the Operation Write Home FB page. I left off one of the elements as I didn't need a sentiment spot with this pattern paper. But I loved the look of the black matting on the next two cards.

Off to get the next group photographed for your viewing pleasure.

field day 2014

Time once again for the elementary school's annual field day. It was supposed to be last Friday but a HUGE storm system was parked over New Hamsphire so field day was rescheduled for today which turned out to be a most perfect day for it!! Beautiful sunny weather. Hoping I put enough sunscreen on Alex for the day.

Here is my guy walking with his teacher. As soon as he saw me, he started waving like mad- so cute!

Here is his class with their banner. The last topic they were studying was rocks and minerals and being as we are the Granite State.... they went with it!! Cute kids.

And I cannot forget my kindergarten loves! Here is their sign. All three classes walked together wearing penguin masks. They looked absolutely priceless. At this point when I was taking this picture, they all had taken their masks off since they were hot. It is a rather long parade. It starts from the end of the school that is farthest away from their classroom, and heads to the assisted living facility that is across the street from the school, and THEN down the school's driveway to the field for the calling and cheers from all classes.

Anywho... it is a lovely day for fun in the sun. And hard as it is to believe, Field day is the one school event I do not volunteer for. I will go in and help with costumes and take pictures during the parade, but then I am done. I don't need to be a lobster.

party for a thirteen year old

Yup. Somehow I have managed to raise myself a female human being to the ripe old age of thirteen!! Amazing!

We are having a sleepover this Friday to celebrate this achievement. I dug out some new stamps and went to work.

The top and bottom purple swirl is from a Studio G $1 stamp set in my stash, and the party information is a stamp I picked up at Michaels by Delta/ Rubber Stampede. Perfection!

I used my new Paper Smooches Spectrum stamps and dies for the unicorn and cloud as well as the small hearts I stamped. The shadow under the unicorn is from the Paper Smooches Shadows stamp set. I didn't have any gray ink so I stamped off the image once and then stamped it on the front of the card. The party! sentiment is from a Studio G $1 stamp set from my stash.

Kira colored in each unicorn in different colors using her colored pencils. Sorry for the blurry images I have no idea what happened! They all looked so crisp when I was taking the pictures!!

I added two different clear glitters from my Stickles collection. I have thought about getting a Wink of Stella glitter pen but with my LARGE Stickles collection I have a hard time justifying that purchase at this time. I placed some Stickles on one of my acrylic blocks and used a paint brush to apply the Stickles. Tried to keep the glitter from being too thick and lumpy that way.

The cute smile face comes in the Spectrum stamp set and I love how it looks on the cloud!! I popped the cloud up with some foam tape. I used some purple spray ink from Recollections- purple shimmer on the background which came out so cool!!

All of these invitations were handed out and we are going to a FULL house of teenagers this Friday. Hoping Kira's room can handle that much estrogen for the night. Gonna be a great night.