Out of Commision.....sort of

I had surgery last month to repair a torn rotator cuff.  The recovery is long ans painful with pain meds and lots of physiotherapy.

I really wanted to get my holiday cards made for the kids and staff at school, but as I am not allowed any resistance on my arm, that means I can't even fold a piece of card stock in half!  So instead I put my Cricut to use and made tags instead.

 I know they will understand why they will not be getting the usual fancy gifts this year.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

I am recovering from surgery that repaired my torn rotator cuff.  I am taking some time off to help with the recovery.  I thought I could catch up on cards, albums and scrapbook pages, but alas, no.  I had more pain than I had anticipated, so although I have managed a few easy card ideas, I will not be able to do all that I wanted.

My friend Kietha shared an idea for a mini album, it was so lovely, and I had an idea immediately, so I had to give it a go.  It was pretty easy to put together, and I didn't use as many embellishments as I usually do.  So here is Thomas through the years at Christmas...

 

I did manage to make tags for the kids and staff at school instead of cards.  These were pretty easy, as I just used my Cricut machine to do all the cutting so I only had to assemble them.

 The cute reindeer with the red nose are for the kids, and the other reindeer are for the staff.

I wanted to add something different to my Holiday Decorating this year, so I put mt Cricut to use and came up with this idea.

I have a JOY one as well, but I am in the process of redoing the embellishments as I really didn't like the way they looked.

Now I am working on my annual newsletter that I send out to family and friends all over the world.  My challenge is to edit it more so that it goes from 6 pages without photos to 4 pages with them!

A few new cards

 

This is the card I made for the children in my class

 This card I made for friends of mine for Canadian Thanksgiving last week.

 I got new stamps from the Stamps of Life from Stephanie Barnard and tried them out

Think Pink

These are a few bookmarks that I made in honor of Breast Cancer awareness.  I saw a few people today who were returning from their Run.

Hallowe'en is creeping up on us.

I made these cards for a fundraiser, and wouldn't you know it none of them sold! 

I took a bunch of my cards to the weekly Couchsurfing meeting at Tranzac on Brunswick to sell to other CSers.  All the money collected would go to the Food Bank.  Other people brought along non perishable food items, Anf taught salsa for a donation and Joanne did Henna tattoos.  I asked for a minimum donation of $2 and ended up with $77.  I was happy with that.  It made my stock of cards lower which means I can make many more!

It's beginning to look a bit like.......

Christmas!

I made a list of things to do over the summer, and I have completed almost every task I set out.  One of the things I didn't get to was to start my Christmas cards.  So this morning I got up and had an idea of what I wanted to do.  Here are a few that I came up with.

I think I like the hot chocolate one the best with the snowman a close second.

The hot chocolate takes a bit of time as I have to use markers, then stamp 3 times and cut out the cup and heart from patterned paper. The stamp is Hot Chocolate from Imaginisce Snag 'em Stamps.

The snowman is all cut out by my Cricut machine using the Winter Woodlands cartridge, but again the time in setting up the paper, and gluing it altogether, not to mention the 2 embossing plates, D'vine swirl and Swiss dots from Cuttlebug.

The snowflake one was to try to come up with nontraditional  colours for winter/Christmas.  It is okay, but not a card that I will repeat. The snowflake is also from the Winter Woodland Cricut cartridge.

I used the same sentiment in all three, from a stamp set I won early this year from Debbie at Country Heart and Home.  I added Stickles to all the cards too, just to bling them up a bit.

New Stamp Set

I get a stamp set once a month from Stephanie Barnard who is in the States.  I love her sets, and what makes her very special to me, is that she only charges $1.50 for postage and packaging.  I have wanted stamps from other companies in the US, but they charge more than the actually set, so I don't usually bother buying anything from south of the border.  Except for the lovely and versatile stamps from The Stamps of Life.

Here are a few cards I put together using her August stamp set.

The September set has just been sent out, and I am looking forward to playing with that one as it is a Hallowe'en set.  Then kids at school will love it, I'm sure.

Baby Boy Mini Album

I've spent the last couple of days working on this baby book.  I had a friend in mind when I planned it out, however I still don't know whether she is having a boy or a girl.  Anyway I love the way this one turned out, and if she had a girl, then I will have to make another one, and this one will be available to purchase, should anyone be interested.  Just drop me a line and let me know.

It has many pockets where there are double sided circular tags waiting for photos.  There are lots of smaller tags to record the events and there are some other bigger tags to either add photos to or to journal on.

I used patterned paper from DCWV called Nursery, it is the from the Baby Boy 6 x 6 paper stack.  I used brown lunch bags, cardstock, white ribbon, ink and stamps, and a few other embellishments.

There is a slide show on the right panel of this blog, or you can click on it to go directly to the pictures.  Check it out.

New Paper Purses

I bought this template from Becky over at Inking Idaho and hadn't had a chance to try it out until today.  I love the way they turned out.  I will spend more time with this template and with some patterned card stock, to save one of the steps.

Sympathy Card

I just found out yesterday that a friend of mine that I work with lost her husband.  I have no idea what the circumstances are, as I am not able to talk to her, so I wanted to make her a card to let her know I am thinking of her.

I used the flower from the George cartridge and the scrolls are from the Home Decor cartridge.

Another mini album

I really loved making Beatriz's black and white mini album, and wanted to try my hand at another one.  I am trying my best not to buy any more paper or cardstock this year, as I have so much of it.

The album I made for Beatriz used double sided patterned cardstock.  I only had a few sheets of double sided, so I thought I'd give it a go.  The papers were from a kit I got a while ago, and since I wasn't a big fan of the colours and design, I hadn't used them yet.

The covers and inside covers still need work, but I wanted to post it now before I go to bed.

So here it is, what do you think?  Leave a comment to let me know.

Front cover

Inside Cover

Page one (2 small tags and one big one)

Back of page one (One big tag)

Page two

Back of page two

Page three

Back of page three

Page four

Back of page four

Page five

Back of page five

Page six

Back of page six

Inside back cover

Back of book

More sweet candy!

Jessica in Australia is celebrating the fact she is now a design team member for The Stamp Spot Online Store by giving away some pretty nice stuff.  Check out the link, follow the instructions on how to enter, and wait for the happy news! You have until June 9th.

Cute Flowers

Go and check out Amy's blog.  She is giving away some gorgeous blog candy.  Just follower her or subscribe to her and leave link to your blog.  You have until May 31st.

April's Project 12

I have been busy making other paper crafts in the past month and my Project 12 completely left my mind.  The cut off date is the 20th I believe, so I quickly threw this one together.  I like the paper colour combination, I knew which photos I wanted to use, but when I put it together, it looked a bit lopsided and crowded!

Anyway here it is.  The photos are:
Frenchy, celebrating her 5th year in Canada at the Fox and Fiddle pub
A stall outside St. Lawrence Market on Easter Day
Smoke from a fire at my building
Dinner at the Hard Rock after watching Grease at the Canon Theatre
Beatriz at the Distillery District on Easter Day
The Black Jacks for the scavenger hunt at Nathan Philips Square