Stamper Storage InkStak Sale

We're having a sale over at Stamper Storage... Have you been waiting to order your InkStak? Don't wait any longer! Hurry over to Stamper Storage and save 10% now through December 5th!

Tradition! The Riley Tree

Today I am grateful for my sweet friend & client, Georgia White.

Many years ago a little boy (who lived across the street from Georgia) named Riley Thayer fell into his parent's hot tub and drowned. For the past 8 years I have been blessed with the opportunity to do something really special with her to honor little Riley.

Each year Georgia shops for toys and stuffed animals and books and fun things throughout the year and on the Monday before Thanksgiving we load up a pre-lit Christmas tree and drive to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City.


For the past several years we've set up the tree on the same unit, the Neuro Trauma children's unit. We stuff animals and toys and coloring books and all sorts of fun items for children into the branches of the trees and then tuck in bows to fill in any holes.

Left to Right: Me, Lindsay (G's granddaughter),
Dayna (my secretary/coworker), Georgia, Melanie (G's helper).

There are usually so many toys and goodies stuffed in the tree that we don't need tons of bows & this year was no exception.

There are many children on this ward every year when we go up and inevitably there are a couple who are coming and going from rooms. (We are not allowed to photograph them, even with parent permission.) Some years there are even children who get to go home while we are there and we let them choose a toy from the tree to take with them. This year there was a small boy, maybe 2.5 - 3 years old who was wheeling back to his room in the little wagon his mom was pulling. He was propped up with blankets and was wearing a back brace and just did not look happy at all. His mom picked him up and walked him over to the tree and started showing him all the fun things on it. We all noticed when he saw the tree, and then when his little eyes locked on Sponge Bob and then how his little face lit up when he saw Patrick the Starfish on the other side of the tree. I could not stop the tears from welling up to see the joy on that little boy's face. He went on his way with a little Sponge Bob nestled next to him in his wagon.

Marie Hendrickson (PCMC Foundation Office) & Georgia

Thank you, Georgia for such a wonderful Christmas tradition! I look forward to doing this for many more years with you!

Thanksgiving Goodness

Today I am grateful for William Bradford and the brave souls who left their homes in England (1607 and 1620) and came to start a new life in the New World. (I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before but anyway...) Brent is a direct descendant of William Bradford, in fact his grandfather is named William Bradford Grotegut in honor of him, Brent's dad is William B Grotegut and Brent is actually William B Grotegut. Crazy, but cool.

Brent and I had a fabulous day. We slept in in the morning and got up and slowly starting making all the treats for the day. We only had Brent's parents over for dinner this year... his brothers were scattered elsewhere for Thanksgiving.

I did a semi homemade dinner this year, meaning I didn't make everything from scratch. Brent and I each have things we make each year... this year Brent made the stuffing, the turkey, peas n carrots, gravy, thawed out the rolls that Mrs Rhodes made, and the smashed spuds. YUM! I made a dutch apple pie, salad, ham, and green bean casserole. I'm very allergic to turkey and so we have a ham every year... I keep trying to get turkey completely out of my kitchen, but have not been successful yet. LOL! I made a yummy beverage by pouring Fresca over frozen strawberries... festive and delicious!

I snapped some photos of our dinner, but nobody would let me snap photos of them. (Brent's parents are particularly bad about the whole "no photo" business... ergh!)

I didn't go all out with fancy table decorations (candles, greenery, etc) this year... By the time we'd gotten most everything prepped and cooking I was sooo tired, so I just pulled out a festive table cloth and my china dishes for dinner and set Mr Turkey as a centerpiece. I do like to use my china to make dinner a little more "different than a normal meal". :)

Hope you all had a wonderful day wherever you spent your Thanksgiving :) Inky Smiles!

Sneak Peak

Here's a sneak peek of the project that I'm editing photos for. :)

{Early} Thought For Thursday - A Single Lovely Action

Today I am grateful for the kindness of strangers.

Last fall, my sister and brother in law moved from a dinky town in Illinois to a larger town in Iowa and bought this older home... They've since been remodeling and trying to update it and improve it to make it comfortable to live in. Along the way they have found one problem after another and have sunk so much more cash into it than they'd planned on & now they are expecting baby #3. Just a couple of weeks ago the furnace went kaplooey... another thing added to the pile of woes and worries. Money has been tighter than normal & they've been avoiding spending on extra things like going out, etc.

Last week she was a recipient of a Single Lovely Action (aka Random Act of Kindness). She said that she was out running errands with the 2.5 yr old b/g twins and everyone was tired & hungry so she decided to stop at McDonald's and get kids meals and dollar menu items to hold them over until they finished their errands and got home. Anyway.. when she pulled up to the pay window the attendant informed her that the car in front of her had paid for their meals. My sister said that was the coolest surprise that someone would just randomly pay for someone.

A SIMPLE Single Lovely Action that made someone else's day! How cool is that? It was awesome to hear and we talked about the Pay it Forward concept... She told me how it really got her thinking about what little things they could do to brighten someone's day.

What Single Lovely Action can you do this week to lighten a load or brighten someone's day?


Surprise RAK !!!! To help pay it forward I have one set of 3 pairs of chipboard covers (sizes are 4x4, 4x6 and 6x6) by Zutter Innovative (Bind It All) to give away.

Leave a comment here on this post and commit to performing at least ONE SLA/RAK within the next week. You don't have to tell us what you're going to do... just that you promise to do it :)

PS. I'm editing some photos for a fun artwork post and have a couple of really neat things to share in the next couple of weeks! Stay tuned :)

A Puppy with an Attitude

I am grateful for my sweet Sadie who has quite the attitude & thinks she's the Queen of Sheba. We have friends coming from Washington to stay overnight tomorrow and I'm getting the house and two guest rooms ready. Sadie is not cooperating. LOL!

This is how I found her after tucking in the slip cover on the clove seat and placing the pillows back on the love seat neatly....

This is the look she gave me when I ordered her off the love seat.....

And this is what she was still doing while I was glaring at her with the "mean mommy glare" that means "I meant what I said...move it!".... LOL! The little punk!

Still need to put baseboard trim back up and finish things around the house... the "minor remodel" is coming along nicely. We've taken a break for a few weeks, but I'm ready to get finished... :) I will post more about the remodel another time.. hopefully sooner than later :)

Thoughts For Thursday: Gratitude - Day Fifteen & Artwork

Today is day #15 for me on this journey. I have been keeping track of my daily gratitude and compiling it on my computer. I am having way too much fun thinking about my blessings... and it's hard to choose just one per day to write down. Here's where we're at today:



Tonight I am going to visit some ladies for church and I am bringing them a fun little gift. Years ago when I was with CTMH, I received one of these in a swap or a buy in or something, I don't remember. I liked them so much that I made hordes of the little guys to give to friends here and there. They are SUPER simple and inexpensive to make.



Materials Needed:
Blank notepads (3x5x3/8") - I picked mine up in 6 packs at WalMart
12x12 paper cut into 3"x 10 3/8" strips
Coordinating cardstock for embellishing
Coordinating ribbon
Stamps - I used "Give Thanks" from CTMH & Watercolor pencils.

Decorate and embellish the front as desired and tie a ribbon around the flap... easy schmeasy and you have a cute little gift for a friend. :)

Gratitude - Day Six

How are you doing keeping track of your blessings? I started my 30 days of Gratitude on November 6th, so today are days 1-6 for me. (Keep in mind that you can start whenever you want... just go for a straight 30 days.)


A few folks have emailed me and asked what supplies I used to create the digital Gratitude page and I realized that I forgot to mention that... The supplies used are from the absolutely FREE digital kit Harvest Spice (Oct 2007) by Shabby Princess. It's a SUPER fabulous kit and I absolutely LOVE it. Be sure to surf around their site and hit the "Downloads" page and be prepared for a whole lotta digital megabyte love!!

Thoughts for Thursday: Power of Gratitude

"It's not the power of the curse,
it's the power we give the curse."
~ Billy, from the movie "Penelope"

This month I am trying to focus on the abundance of blessings that God has given me. We (the sisters in Relief Society -women's organization) talked in church on Sunday about how sometimes we EXPECT certain blessings from God and sometimes don't get those blessings, but we do get other blessings that He knows that we NEED.


Take a look at this amazing video about a young man named Nick Vujicic:



and then check out this one... pay special attention to 3:30 minutes....



Sometimes we may feel "cursed" because we don't get the blessings we EXPECT.... but I love how little Billy said at the end of the movie, "It's not the power of the curse, it's the power we give the curse." So very true!!! Basically, by giving ourselves an attitude/perspective adjustment, we can go from feeling miserable to seeing how God has TRULY blessed us.

The holiday season can really be hard on a lot of people. During this time of year the world seems to focus on the "haves" and "have nots"... often times we see so many things we don't have and want. "The grass is greener...", "If only I could....", "I'd be happy if...", "I'm not perfect enough" type of ideas... Let's do something about this.

So here is the challenge for us:

Click on the image to the left to view it larger & print it off. (Sorry, it's huge, about 1 MB.)

For the next 30 days take a moment each day to write down something that you are grateful for. Then maybe snap a photo or write a journal entry and make a scrapbook layout or keep a photo journal of it to remind you.

It can be anything... a sharp pencil for sketching notes, a warm bath, the love of a friend/sibling/parent/spouse or significant other, the smile on a strangers face, a bed to sleep in, a favorite pair of shoes, a difficult child (because that means God entrusted you with His child), a burnt loaf of bread (because that means you have the ingredients & knowledge to bake bread), your job, etc.... Whatever you feel grateful for.

I guarantee that at the end of 30 days you will see an ABUNDANCE of blessings. You may even want to continue writing them down because as you focus on your blessings you will find more than one thing every day to write down.

Feel free to share on your blog, invite others to join us, and post what you are grateful for. So what are you waiting for??

Let It Snow

Here's a really simple little card... I was playing around with some scraps (from partial embossing the other day) while cleaning up my office this morning (I didn't get very far in cleaning). We woke up to about 2.5" of snow this morning and it's been brrr cold all day.

I used CTMH cardstock, I think it's Crystal Blue. It got mixed in with some other blues, and I haven't found my CTMH color ring (buried in boxes still somewhere) yet.

Anyway... it was partial embossed the other day for this mini tutorial and I tore some white cs for contrast. I used grey Velvet Thickers from American Crafts for the sentiment and stamped "let it" in CTMH Twilight ink and traced it with a silver Sakura Gelly Roll glitter pen. I also traced and colored in all of the raised snowflakes with the Sakura pen and finished it off with a big fat white satin ribbon. I think if I spent more time on it I could have come up with something awesome, but this was fun to just play around with and doodle and color. :) I wish you could see the glitter in person.. It's so sparkly!

A Simple Card 3 Ways

Here's a really simple card that I did with the partial emboss side fold. I needed a card for a friend and had fun playing around. One card with the sentiment moved around = 3 cards. I used my Fiskars Threading Water punch, some generic green cardstock and Papertrey Ink printed paper & ribbon. I am in LOVE with the Cuttlebug polka dot embossing folder. The stamp set is from CTMH - September's Stamp of the Month - Treasure Life. I love this stamp set and am getting a lot of use out of it! Glad I got it for free, too!

Partial Embossing with a Cuttlebug

I have got to stop promising to post things "later" in the day in my posts. Sometimes the day just gets away from you and things come up. I know I promised this yesterday, but we got super busy after we worked on the yard and didn't get back home until late in the evening and then an unexpected guest stopped by.... so excuses aside, here we go...

Miranda asked about partial embossing with the fold on the left, instead of at the top as I have shown on this post and this post. This is showing partial embossing on the card base. You can always partial emboss on a card front that you adhere to the card base, too.

1.) Determine where you want the fold of your card and how much you want to emboss on the front of the card.

2.) Line up the folder so that it covers the area that you want to emboss. Set on the plates and run through your Cuttlebug. In this example I am partial embossing from the top of my card and tucked the back of the card around the outside of the embossing folder.





3.) In this example I am partial embossing from the side of the card and left the card open and unfolded.


It's really super simple and basically, you can partial emboss anywhere on a card as long as the embossing folder and the paper you're embossing can fit in the space of the Cuttlebug plates.

Sketch Challenge {013}

I've been checking out cool artwork on the web lately and it seems that "cropped corners" are highly popular, so I figured that I might try my hand at them, too! It has been quite some time since we've done a Sketch Challenge and I had some time to play around in PSE today while waiting for laundry to be ready to switch over and get folded... (oh the joys of laundry)....

So ladies n gents... here's a Sketch Challenge for you. Use this basic sketch, add some patterned paper, a sentiment, something metal or sparkley and maybe a stamp that you haven't used in a while (or yet) and make a card or a layout, digi or paper.

Share the link to your artwork in the comments on this post because we all love to see everyone's take on a sketch! ** If you have trouble posting your link, try making it shorter using TinyURL. Blogger seems to have a hard time with long links in comments.

Inky Smiles!!

PS - I have an answer for Miranda's question on my last post as well as a few cards to show you later today. But first I have to help Brent with some yard work (winterizing everything) before the snow flies (yes, we're expecting a storm in the next few days... ugh) and my yard is buried.