Thursday, January 29, 2009

Centies!!!

So what do you do with the tiniest die in your square Nesties set?

Well, my daughters saw me making some Inchies, and thought it would be neat to make some smaller-scale ones for their dolls...so they used the smallest square Nestie die and made some Inchies; only these are smaller than an inch...more like a centimeter? So we decided to call them "Centies."

Sophia was able to find a small flower stamp for the red one. Her doll, Kit, wanted a Centie with a cupcake image, but we didn't have a tiny stamp, so Sophia just drew it...
ahh, those were the days, before reading glasses, sweet...

And here is Kit with her 3 Centies...they fit nicely in the pocket of her shirt. If we make any more for her, though, we'll have to make a Centie binder or something...hmm, or maybe a Centie box, or display board?

Monday, January 26, 2009

Bible Verses

I don't know how I got so lucky, but the people that surround me have been so supportive about my cancer. Some will email me a Bible verse, and some hand write them and send them to me...

With my diagnosis comes a fair amount of medical appointments and papers that I don't want to lose, so I decided to make a cancer notebook to keep everything in. I take it to all my appointments and the papers they give me go straight in there. It's just a simple white binder...nothing fancy or decorated, because I want to be able to get rid of this notebook one day, and would hate to throw away anything cute.

Anyways, besides medical stuff, I put some personal things in the binder. That way, when I'm at an appointment and start to get nervous, I just look at these things and can re-focus on what really matters. I have my favorite photo of my kids, taken on an especially happy day (it's the last photo on this entry). I also put all the verses people give me. Handwritten ones are in there, unaltered...it's like that person is with me holding my hand.

One verse was emailed by a dear friend, and I wanted it a bit more fancy than Times Roman font on copier paper, so I made a simple verse card. I had to laugh, because usually when I make a card for someone, I spend a large amount of time picking a color they would like. Then I remembered this was for me, and I love pink! so no-brainer on what color to make this in:

So much fun and really easy! I used Chopin Script for the font, and a little Inkadinkado bird for the image.

I'll take my binder with me tomorrow for surgery and my little pink card will be in there, and my photo and other verses, and I will be good-to-go! Okay, I'm also bringing my pink Ipod with Michael Buble on it, (I have to have a little bit of bubbly, even during the day...right, Anastasia?).

Monday, January 19, 2009

My Little Chickadees....

Anastasia informed me that I have not posted to my blog in a few days, and that instead of playing a mindless video game, I should spend my time in a more productive way...Okay, my little chickadee, here we go:


This was a fun and easy card made with my Inkadinkado Christmas birds. I used versamark and sparkly gold embossing powder for the image (regular gold gives better coverage, though). Image was cut with Labels 2 nesties and I used a gold paint pen along the edges. DP is Basic Grey Wassail. The snowflakes were punched with Martha Stewart punch, using leftover "messed up" paper from my parents' 50th anniversary card (I had embossed it and put gold perfect pearls on it, and it looked BAAD).

I don't know what kind of bird it is, but it reminds me of a chickadee...

And here are my other chickadees, basking in the glory of springtime flowers (okay, flower garlands at Michael's the other day, but we can pretend).


Was this post okay, Anastasia? Now to get back to my video game...I'm almost to level 6, then I get absolutely nothing for winning!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Happy Birthday, Orly!

Guess whose birthday is today? That's right....Him!

Anastasia (Orlando Bloom aficionado extraordinaire) informed me that it was his birthday today, so I thought I'd give him some blog time.

Now here's an interesting tidbit: his favorite color is yellow...and that is Anastasia's favorite color too! He has a dog....and so do we! The list of similarities is endless.

Anyways, Happy Birthday, Orlando, and thanks for stopping by for a photo-op with Anastasia!






Sunday, January 11, 2009

Mom & Dad's 50th Anniversary


Last month was Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary. It seems like I did this project forever ago, and can't believe it took me so long to post it...

I wanted to do something fun for their anniversary gift, since they've been a bit run-down with my Dad's cancer treatments. I knew I couldn't visit them until after Christmas, so thought I'd send sort of an "anniversary care package" filled with gold & wedding-ish things.

First, the card...didn't turn out like I wanted, and looks kind of like a typical card after all that work. I did make it as big as I could, so the finished size is 5.75" x 8.5". Construction is pretty straight-forward. The ivory paper is actually a pearlized paper that I embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and it has a cute shimmer to it.

Sorry about the photo: I finished this project up late at night and had to get it out in the mail the next day, so I couldn't get a great picture...


Next, Anastasia and I made a little remembrance gift: For the last 18 months, this quote from C.S. Lewis has been floating thru my head. Ever since Dad got sick again, I realized how absolutely precious each event with someone is. A few months ago, my dad said that he didn't want a big anniversary celebration because "fifty years is pretty commonplace, and not really a big deal." HA! It is a big deal to me, and wanted him to see what 50 years is, and each year's anniversary is the sum of the previous ones.

So we made this jar full of 50 wedding rings. On each ring is a tag with a year written on it (by Anastasia). Then a label on the outside. Really simple project. The hardest part was finding a jar that looked acceptable. After shopping all afternoon for one, I told Anastasia that it was a dumb idea, and we should forget it. She said, "No, let's get the heart bottle because anniversaries are about love." How cool is it to have your 12 year old daughter help you out like that?
Here's a close-up of the inside, because I can see Anastasia's cute printing of all the 50 years:
I wanted Mom to get giddy, like a new bride might be, so I made her a bouquet. I know it's not like her actual wedding bouquet, but I'm not too talented in the flower arranging department, so this is it. White roses, white tulle, and gold ribbon.
I also put some silly stuff in the care package: Anastasia and I found two old 50th anniversary plates at a thrift store, so I thought those would be fun. Then I got a 50th wedding cake topper and adhered it to a revolving/lighted base (from Michael's, with a coupon on 2 separate weeks, oh yeah). My parents are both diabetic, so I didn't want to send a cake, but at least they could have the fun topper!

All these were wrapped pretty, and put in a box that I had lined with a few yards of shiny gold fabric. I made a bunch of tulle bows (like the kind you would put on the ends of aisles in the church for the wedding) to fluff up the box. I threw in a few handfuls of Bride's ivory flower confetti, then carefully covered it all with the remaining fabric. I just wanted it to be an outburst of sparkly wishes when they opened the package. Before I sealed the box, I printed out "Happy Anniversary" in Chopin Script on ivory cardstock in the largest sized font on my computer, and put this on top of all fabric.
"This moment contains all moments." I still get teary-eyed when I read that. From 18 months ago, when they said he wouldn't live 6 more months, to now, when he and his bride celebrated 50 years together...December 13, 2008 contains those moments, and so many more...it is a big deal; a HUGE deal.

Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!