Cards, Cards, Cards

January has been a very productive month for me in the card department. I think I made over 80 cards this month. I was asked to make a card to give to each of the town's schoolbus drivers for Valentine's Day (31 cards). I thought I would make something not too labor intensive, but things don't always go as I planned. The card I decided to make is from www.svgcuts.com.To make 32 cards I needed 16 sheets of deep pink 8.5 x 11 cardstock, 8 12 x 12 sheets of red cardstock,10 12 x 12 sheets of white cardstock, 2 12 x 12 sheets of purple cardstock, 2 12 x 12 sheets of pink cardstock, 8 sheets of 8.5 x 11 white cardstock, lots of glue and 2 spools of fine pink ribbon. Just about every cut had to be embossed with a different design. The message inside the card was printed on cardstock and trimmed to size. Once everything was cut and prepped it only took about 5 minutes to put all the pieces together for each card. The hardest part was tying the ribbon. The cards are all finished and ready to deliver on Tuesday, along with my invoice (yes, I'm being paid for this one!)
Last night was the card swap at the LSS (local scrap shop). I had to make 20 Valentines and 20 Thank You cards. There were 14 ladies in the swap and the extra cards that we made were donated to the boxes going to the soldiers.
I also made cards for a swap on Northeast Scrapbook Friends. That was easy, just 6 cards for two groups
Here's a link to my Smugmug Gallery where you can see my cards.
www.nerisews.smugmug.com

Tackling my Chaos

At least that sounds like I'm doing more than just spinning my wheels up in my pigsty (I mean, craft room). I came up with a "brilliant" idea today. I have an old paper sorter/printer stand from several printers ago that was just taking up space on a chest since my new printer doesn't fit on it. It's the perfect size to put my Cricut Expression on and I filled the paper slots with my 8.5 x 11 cardstock collection. The paper stand and Cricut fit to the right of my scrapping table, between my serger and embroidery machine.

I just finished a scrapbook page that I started in an online class Tuesday night. I'm finally working on pages from our trip to Montana. The online lesson was on distressing using Ranger Distress Inks. I didn't particularly like the way my efforts were coming out so I sort of did my own thing.  It was very "design as you go" but I'm pleased with the results. I don't usually use postcards in my layouts but the cards I got in Montana were so beautiful. I also found just the right spot for some of the embellishments that I bought on the trip. The final part of the layout was made with a 2" square cut out of one of the pictures that I actually did take, of the first bear that we sighted in Glacier National Park.

Rocky got into the neighbors compost pile again yesterday and suffered the consequences with an upset stomach. I don't know what they throw in there that's so tantalizing to him, but I wish they could cover it so he can't help himself to the "buffet".

We are counting down to our next vacation: April 18-25 we will be cruising from NYC to Bermuda on the Norwegian Dawn. It'll just be the two of us as the rest of the family has sworn not to travel with John again. Going to Bermuda was actually his idea. The last time we were there was 25 years ago on our first vacation together. We wound up doing a cruise this time because the price was so reasonable. It actually cost less than flying down for a long weekend, and all our meals and entertainment is included. Of course, taking John on a cruise has its downside...I know he will fuss over the mandatory lifeboat drill and waiting in line for dinner. At least there will be no formal nights on this ship so I don't have to make him get dressed up. I'm just looking forward to a week of R&R. There's no pressure to do a lot of sightseeing. If the weather is warm I'd like to do some snorkling. What do you think my chances are of losing 12 pounds in 12 weeks? I hate the thought of "dieting" because that just means that I'll automatically gain 5 pounds, but I sure wouldn't mind losing some weight before we go.

Keep your fingers crossed that my daughter gets called back to work. She just had an interview at her old company and it would be great if she could get the job. Also, think good thoughts for my brother who is planning on buying a lodge in New Zealand. He just needs to see if NZ wants him as a resident.

Getting my mojo back

After a pretty rocky start to the New Year with a bout of stomach flu and my mother being hospitalized for 5 days I am finally feeling myself again. Yesterday I was well enough to drive down to NY to have lunch with my mom. Instead of going out for lunch like we usually do, we stayed in and had bagels and lox and cheese blintzes with sour cream and cinnamon & sugar. That blintz was so good that it reminded me of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. How could something so simple taste so good? The only thing that could have made it any better would have been raisins in with the cheese filling.

In the evening John took me out to dinner to the newly renamed Brushmill on the Falls (formerly Sage American Grill, formerly The Chart House) in Essex. The name has changed but the menu remains pretty much the same. This is a great place to go for lamb chops or prime rib and since I never get lamb at home, that's just what I ordered. I started with a bowl (actually a small cauldron) of onion soup and John had lobster bisque. The house salad is a wedge of iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing and chopped tomato. It was delicious but mine jumped off my plate and landed, dressing side down, on the tablecloth making a mess. My lamb chops were served with rice pilaf and asparagus and they were the tenderest, tastiest morsels of lamb that I have eaten. John had a slab of prime rib that was very tasty and much more than he could eat. We both brought home dinner for tonight. For dessert we shared an apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. It was a very satisfying meal in a beautiful setting.

Today, after returning John's jacket for the 4th time I got to work on some cards for a Cricut-scraplifters card swap. The only stipulation was that you had to use your Cricut, but the cards could be any theme. The first card I made was with the Wild Card cartridge and Everyday Paper Dolls. I used stamps by Peachy Keen and Hero Arts and a Scalloped Fiskers circle punch.

The last card was inspired by a video at www.mypinkstamper.com. It uses Walk in My Garden, Cuttlebug dotted swiss embossing folder, a Fiskers floral border punch, Hero Arts stamp and a pinking rotary blade. I love sunflowers.