I am in Florida and before we left home, I took photos of cards I made thinking that I could post photos of those cards while I was here. Well, I did not crop any of the photos and my mini netbook has no photo editing tools on it! So, I am reposting the photo of a Valentine favor I created and posted last year. The sweet treat heart cups are so perfect for this time of year, to say nothing about cute wedding shower favors. I hope you have a nice day and can find yourself a little stamping time.

Sunshine

No--that is not snow! It is the white sand of the Florida panhandle! This photo was taken from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Hotel in Pensacola. And the building is the Landshark tiki bar located on the property--where many people Waste Away--LOL! It was closed when we were there. But the hotel is beautiful. Our room was overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and was all about water, shore and Jimmy Buffett. Our son is not too impressed that we are down here and he is stuck taking care of our dog and our house. Have a great day!

Email Problem Seems To Be Fixed

I woke up this morning to my recent emails. Unfortunately, any emails that were sent to me yesterday I have not received. I have been told that I won't receive them as they were returned to the sender as undeliverable. Any questions? Call me at 847-636-2504 as I am on vacation--YEAH for me!

EMAIL PROBLEM

Wanted to let you know that AOL mail has been down all day. AOL said they did not have a server crash, but Iwonder about that. When I checked email this morning I received a message that AOL was doing service maintenance and check back in a few mninutes. 12 hours later, I still had no email. In talking to my daughter I found out that her emails sent to me were kicked back to her saying that there was a problem with my email account. Tomorrow Sale-a-bration starts and I am concerned that if you sent me an email today, you are wonddering why I have not responded. I did not reply to it because I was not able to send or receive any of my emails. Please resend it and hopefully I will receive it and be able to open it. As you can imagine, I am not at all happy with AOL at this time.

GO BEARS!

Sale-a-bration Reminder

A reminder that SAB begins on January 25th. For those of you familiar with SAB you have probably already started a list of free products you would like to earn. For those of you who are new to Stampin'Up, SAB is a great time to stock up on your Stampin'Up supplies. For every $50 you spend (before tax and shipping) you will receive a free item from featured products in the sale-a-bration mini catalog. You will be able to shop directly from my website at www.stampintimesomewhere.stampinup.net. and receive SAB freebies beginning January 25th. Have a great day!

Card Recipe Box

While posting my class schedule for the month of February, I have included a note about my March 5th class. Many who attend my classes have commented on the fact that the card recipes I give come in handy for future reference. Now you will have a pretty place to keep those card recipes! Or if you prefer, you can save your favorite food recipes in it and display it in your kitchen. (I am making two~~one for my scrap room and one for my kitchen.) We will also be making a matching card. If you are interested in attending this class, I need to know by February 12th so that I can order the recipe boxes and paper. All I know is that this is a perfect addition to any room and serves a useful purpose, too.

Choose the Occasion

How many times have you gone to your card stash to find that you didn't have one "Get Well" card, but quite a few "Birthday" cards? Take a look at your card inventory and then sign up for this card-making session scheduled for February 12th. Each card will use a stamp set that has a variety of sentiments so that you will be able to stamp each card with a "needed" greeting rather than everyone using the same greeting. Or stamp an image in place of a greeting. These are two of the cards we will be making at the Choose The Occasion class.

My 3x3 Valentines

I had Archiver's most recent mailer on my desk for a couple of weeks now. I keep looking at their mini card class thinking that I can make similar 3x3 cards using my supplies. So I did, only I made 7 versus their 9, but mine are all pretty cute--if I say so myself! I used a combination of Stampin' Up, Close To My Heart and Tim Holtz products. And as always, the quality cardstock and ink are the base for quality cards--you all know I am talking about the Stampin' Up cardstock and ink--lol! Seriously, there are some great products out there for papercrafting. But for me, it starts with good sturdy cardstock and matching ink and I get that from Stampin' Up! Have a great weekend and find yourself a little stampin' time.

Sure Cuts A Lot Favor

Sunday is Cricut Sunday and I wanted to create this month's favor using the SU heart-shaped treat cups. I decided to see what I could do with my Cricut and SCAL. I purchased SCAL from Michelle at ScrappingTable.com because she offered a great price and also offered free theme sets of SVG images. One of the sets she offers is "Love's Shaping Up" which has numerous hearts and other images perfect for Valentine's Day. One of the images is this lacey heart-shaped frame which I wanted to use. I adhered the lacey frame to a scallop heart shape that was also in the "Love's Shaping Up" set. But now how was I going to get the heart punched out for the treat cup? If I made the scallop heart smaller so that my SU punch would fit in the center, then the edges of the treat cup wouldn't be covered up. The cut out heart needed to match the SU treat cup perfectly--how do I do this? I went to bed last night trying to figure out how to get the perfect heart shape in the center of another heart. This morning I had success--scan a heart that I punched using the SU heart punch and then trace it in SCAL! I am so proud of myself right now. I know there is a way to make this favor more symmetrical, but I think this is pretty darn good! Have a great day.

Heart Treat Cups

Tomorrow is the Valentine card class and thanks to a box of these heart treat cups jumping off the shelf at me, this will be the extra little something we will be making tomorrow. Last year I really enjoyed making these favors as did anyone who was creative with the Heart treat cups. The response for these was huge. Since I forgot about these treat cups. I wanted to take the opportunity to remind my followers that you, too, might have some of these in your closet waiting to be used again--lol! And if not, you can order the supplies directly from my SU! website: http://www.stampintimesomewhere.stampinup.net Item & Number: Full Heart Extra Large Punch # 119883; Heart Treat Cups #120435; Sweetheart stamp set #120415 (wood) or #120780 (clear mount). I used Melon Mambo cardstock and ink. Unfortunately, the ribbon is no longer available. The little stamped hearts are from the Filled With Love stamp set. Too cute and perfect for your children, their teachers and anyone you want to make feel special. Have a great day and find yourself some stampin' time!

Our six-year old granddaughter reads--a lot. She has been reading books from the Puppy Place Series. The book she and her mom were reading the other day was about puppy mills. The kids in the book made signs to ban puppy mills and had a petition and so on. This brought about a discussion about puppy mills. Her mom explained a little about puppy mills and now Sydney is very concerned. She thinks puppy mills should be banned and wanted to know what she could do to help these puppies. A family friend rescues dogs and so Jenny suggested that Sydney could ask her grandparents and aunts and uncles for loose change so that she can buy things that these rescued dogs and puppies need. My little activist made this collection bucket for her house so that anyone who comes over and has some loose change can help the cause. She wanted to put a sign in the neighborhood pet store that says "Ban Puppy Mills", but her mom asssured her that this bucket would be a better option and would be very helpful. I know how important reading and books are, but I never thought one book would lead to a six-year old having a cause. Just another reason I am so proud of Sydney.

Paper Rosette

I have seen paper rosettes and they are just gorgeous. I have attempted to make a few paper rosettes and they were nowhere close to gorgeous. They seemed to be a lot of work for a not so pretty result. Thanks to Tim Holtz, that has changed. I was in Archivers the other day and they had the Tim Holtz die to make the paper rosettes. I had a coupon, so I purchased it. As my granddaughter would say, "easy peasy"! The die is perforated every quarter inch, so it is easy to fold and I am not scoring a 12 inch strip of paper every quarter inch. The finished rosette is approximately 2 5/8". Now I need to see what I need to do in order to make smaller rosettes and larger rosettes. But that will be done when I find myself a little stampin' time on another day--lol!

Valentines For OWH

Hope you had a great weekend ringing in the New Year. We did and tonight I finished up the Valentines for Operation Write Home. I am posting photos of a few of the cards I will be sending tomorrow. I try not to make duplicates, but many are similar. I will use the same pattern paper but change the stamps used. Or use the same paper and stamps but use different ribbon and/or embellishments. When I make cards for OWH, I do not limit myself to SU products. For these cards I used a combination of SU and CTMH stamps, various punches and embossing folders and Sizzix and Cuttlebug dies. The possibilities are endless! Tomorrow I will drop these off at the post office for delivery to Dixie in North Carolina. She will see they get to the proper destination. If you aren't familiar with Operation Write Home, check out their website at http://www.operationwritehome.org/. Making cards for those in service to our country is such a small thing compared to what they are doing for us. I make these cards knowing that someone who is loved and missed will receive one of my cards and for a moment feel not so far away.

2011

Happy New Year! May 2011 be happy, healthy and successful.