Oct 24, 2017

Heart Surgery Update




Had heart surgery on Friday, October 13th up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. The surgeon cut out of piece of my heart that was too thick and blocking blood flow, and also did some work inside the left atrium of the heart. The purpose of the surgery was to increase the amount of oxygen in my lungs so that I am no longer short of breath, have more stamina, and can up my stamping game!  It is also supposed to delay or prevent the onset of arrhythmias. Oh, and the internal defibrillator I had was removed. Amen to that.

The best part about having the surgery is that I'm no longer debating whether to have it. That amount of anxiety will wear you down. Time will tell whether the surgery was successful but I am already at peace with it.

Now recovery begins. I am very pleased at how far I've come already and hope to be back in my craft room in the next month or so. Thanks for reading this -- my blogging has been intermittent and I am always happy to see that I have folks who are still here.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Grateful for the best husband ever.



Oct 7, 2017

Winnie and Walter World Cardmaking Day Hop


Winnie & Walter is celebrating World Cardmaking Day with a bang. There's a sale, challenges, and this blog hop. All details can be found here.

More than delighted to be part of the Winnie & Walter World Cardmaking Blog Hop. There's some super serious talent here (some of my favorite crafters) and I cannot wait to see what they are sharing. You should have come from the mega talented Nina Marie Trapani's blog.

Plus prizes!! 5 random winners in total will be drawn from all the comments left on the different stops along the hop. Deadline is October 13th. Each winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to the Winnie & Walter shop.

I've got two cards to share. First up is one of my favorite color combinations -- gold, white, and black.



The sentiments and dies are from Winnie & Walter's In Bloom: Frenchy's Festive Florals with Angelica Suarez. And I LOVE this sentiment.

The "tree" triangle is cut out of Modern Graphic paper from Essentials by Ellen. It is black and white paper, but I put it through the Minc to add gold foil on top of the black dots.  The Joy die is stamped and layered 5 times to get a nice thick focal point.


The next card was a snap to make. Fell in love with this simple Noel cutaway die. Used a very bright red cardstock (Holly Berry from Memory Box) to go with the bold typography.


The next fantastic cardmaker on the Winnie & Walter blog hop is Vanessa Menhorn.

Hope you are able to carve out some time to stamp today!

MOOD WHEN DONE = What the heck am I doing as part of this lineup of stampers?? Thanks to Taheerah with Winnie & Walter for inviting me. Haven't done design work in over a year and this was fun.

Oct 6, 2017

Courage for Everyone


There are some moments -- the really big ones -- where folks face a life threatening now or never moment -- the amazingly courageous fire men and women who run into a burning building, the person who jumps down onto the subway tracks to pull a fallen passenger to safety, or the neighbor who picks up the phone and calls child protective services when they witness a parent abusing a child. Those are the moments where courage does roar.

However, this card is for those other moments -- the ones we all face -- the moments of our daily lives that seem overwhelming, but are numbingly common.  It's for the parents of an addict, the wife of a man dying from cancer, the single mom who never has enough time or money to take care of her kids, the homeless man who stands on the median of a busy street near my house collecting money, the woman entering a nursing home, the lonely teenager with autism, the woman whose afraid to leave the house, the worker whose supervisor is a bully, the woman overwhelmed by depression, etc.

In other words, this card is for everyone, because we all need courage at times.  It uses a sentiment from a fantastic Essentials by Ellen stamp and die set called, fittingly, Courage. It was designed to raise funds for breast cancer research as well as bring awareness to the disease. But the sentiments also work for all the other moments in life where need to stand up a little taller and face things that we don't want to face, and still put dinner on the table and make the bed (and sometimes go upstairs and make a card).

I hope you have courage to face whatever is going on in your life. If you were paralyzed by fear or anxiety yesterday, I hope that today you are standing a little taller.

MOOD WHEN DONE = I'm good! I like the card, the sun is shining, and now it is time to clean up the mess I made creating it and the cards I'll show you tomorrow....