Cloudy soon to be Clear

Hi everyone.  I know I have been MIA for a bit.  I took some time away for the Thanksgiving Holiday with my family.  We ate way too much, which is normal on Thanksgiving Day.  We are blessed to have so much to be thankful for.  I travelled all day Friday so that I could visit with my son and grandson down South.  Fabulous weekend, great visit.  Yesterday I had cataract surgery on my right eye.  Needless to say, my vision is still cloudy and full of black floaters.  I pray it improves quickly.  I am having my left eye done next Tuesday.  I am so looking forward to getting to a point of clear vision.

I hope you all had wonderful times over the Holiday as well.  I must admit, I did do some Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.  I am almost done with my Christmas shopping.  I have not done any Christmas decorating yet.  How many of you have your trees up already?  I do need to swap out the Turkey wreath for a Christmas wreath on my front door.  That will be my first sign of Christmas.  I also need to gather up all of the pumpkins and place in the compost pile. 

Today I put together a little Christmas Flair for you.  I love Flairs.  I hope you do too.  Click on the preview to download it.

Shopped til I dropped today. Thankful for all all my blessings.

I spent most of the day shopping today.  Some Christmas shopping, some personal shopping, some grocery shopping.  Regardless of the reason, tis the season!  I have so much to be thankful for.  I want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!  Prayers that everyone has someone to share time with and plenty to eat.  Love to you all!

Here is a little Thanksgiving gift.  Click on the Preview to download.

Welcome to my Great-Niece Emma Leigh!

My nephew and his wife just welcomed their precious baby girl tonight!  Emma Leigh.  I love her name.  She is adorable.  They live 5 states and over 800 miles from me so I must be content with pictures.  Mother and baby are both doing well.  I made these welcome pages using the Baby Talk Kit by Deanne from Scrapbookingdom.

Here are a couple pages I made with the hospital photo they posted. 

I made something bright and cheery tonight to welcome our new baby girl.

Lost in the Woods!

I am back from my four day Scrapbook Retreat and I must say, it was quite an experience.  The Lodge we were at was isolated in the mountains and woods.  There was no phone reception where we were and very poor Wifi.  If you walked to the far back portion of the Lodge you could get some poor phone reception, but it was better than none.  Downside of this is it pulled you away from the retreat and you not only missed out on scrapbook time, but announcements and such.  I was not happy with that.  The Lodge was absolutely beautifully decorated for Christmas.  That I loved.

I was able to create some things, even with the extremely small amount of items I took with me.  I knew they would be selling paper and other items, and they would have garage sale tables available for those who wanted to purge.  I took advantage of all of those and made it through pretty well.  We had around 40 - 50 ladies in total attend.  Quite a variety of styles to check out and get ideas and inspiration. 

There were 9 workshops and I attended all of them.  We made Borders, Christmas cards and a variety of page layouts all using customized Kits.  I truly enjoyed every one of these.  Here are the things I created in those Workshops.  The pictures do not do them justice,  They are beautiful!

We played with Gelatos on the Wise Men and  Believe Cards.  Not sure I was pleased with the results of that but it did get easier the more I played with it.  For anyone who has not tried Gelatos, give it a try if you get an opportunity.

This last set has an accordion drop down page under the strip on the left.  There are two additional pages in the Kit that go with these.  We only created two of the four in the Workshop, so I have not created the other two yet.

Here are the pages and cards that I completed or at least started and will complete at home where I have what I need to add the Titles and finishing touches.

I had a lunch date today with some of my friends from school.  I made each of them a card.  I found these stamps at Hobby Lobby and fell in love with them.

The pink page below was made for a Washi Tape contest.  The contest was to see who could make a page with the most creative use of Washi Tape.  I actually won!  It really surprised me. 

Back to the real world!  I am registered for two additional retreats next year already!

Deanne from Scrapbookingdom has released a couple new Sister Kits called Lavinia.  There is a CU Paper Kit and a sister PU Embie Kit.  If you love and appreciate lavender you will love and appreciate this Kit. 

Here is some pages I created using these Kits. 

Since I spent the last four days surrounded with Christmas trees and decorations, I am offering some seasonal items as today's freebie.  Enjoy!  I will chat with you next time!

I was Framed!

Today I packed up some scrapbook items and loaded up the car.  Scrapbook Retreat here I come!  We were asked to bring our very first scrapbook to compare with our current pages.  This will show how far we have come, or not come, since we started.  Another thing we were asked to bring is an unusual photo.  These will be given to other scrappers who will then create a layout with them.  They won't know any details about the photo.  This might be very interesting.  I hope I get a photo I can actually do justice to.  I dug through my photos to try to find some good candidates.  This could be very interesting!

With all of the time going through pictures, I was inspired to create another Frame Cluster.  I do hope you like it and can use it.  Click on the Preview to download. 

Granny Smith Kit by Scrapbookingdom and Freebie

Deanne Gow-Smith from Scrapbookingdom has just revived and old favorite Kit called Granny Smith.  Although this Kit centers around Apple Pie, it can be used for many types of pages or cards.  If you like to make recipe pages or cards, this Kit is a must have.  Check out her Etsy Store for this Kit and all of her gorgeous Kits.

Here are some pages I made using this adorable Kit.

I love Apples.  I try to eat one every day.   Growing up I always heard the old saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away".  Who knows how much truth may be in that saying, but hey, we all need to believe in something, right?  Apples inspired today's freebie.  Click on  the Preview to download.

End of another season is upon us

It is officially Fall where I live.  We have been so blessed and fortunate to have had an extended period of warmer weather.  Flowers in bloom, gardens still producing and providing nutritious healthy food to feed us.  We had a hard frost a few nights ago which ended our growing season.  I finally turned off the soaker hose to my straw bale garden.  I picked all of the peppers available, one last meal of green beans, and some more tomatoes, whether green or ripe.  In all honesty, I left the Kale.  At this point I am all kaled out for the season.  I got a late start to my garden this year and I was blessed with an extended growing season so that I could enjoy a full season and harvest.  I still have flowers in bloom that somehow survived the hard frost.  What graceful beauty we are gifted with.  Time for cleanup and on to the compost bins for my garden of love.

Flowers are such a gift of beauty and love, aren't they?  That is what inspired my gift to you today.  I put together a mini kit for you today.  It is personal use only, and I hope you enjoy it and can add your love and touches to capture your beautiful memories.

Click on the Preview to download.