HOW TO BEGIN

I have not been on my blog in some time. I think I wrote the morning of Jan 7th before I went to the hospital for the hip replacement. I feel like I am starting over on so many things...walking, card making, cooking, and being part of my life here with Bill and the cats and our son's family... and not sure how to begin again. Maybe this is age related or maybe I lost some of my pizazz while in the hospital and under the influence of morphine and the surgeons knife for my hip replacement. What ever the cause, being away for 12 days really was a change and I guess I will need to get back into the swing of things slowly.

First, my sincere thanks and appreciation for all the cards and calls, and visits. It made the time away much easier. I appreciate all the prayers and love and care. It warms my heart to know you care.

Secondly, my rehab went quickly and the food was plain but I thought good and varied and nutritious and nothing wrong that a little salt and pepper couldn't fix. I was told I am recovering quickly and that it was time to face the reality of getting along at home. Bill has been wonderful with laundry needs, and bringing me little treats and fast food. Luckily my weight stayed about the same. I still want to lose another 5-10 lbs. I see the doctor Feb 3rd for my check up.

Bill has a problem with his hip/bottom right now and is basically bed ridden. So I am trying to get some food in him and help him as much as I can.. Not sure what it is (pulled muscle or hip fracture, other).But he can not walk or sit with out pain. He is using the mobility scooter in the condo and I am using the walker. What a pair we are. He sees the Walk In doctor this morning. Our son will take him over and that will be difficult for him to even get to the car, much less get in it. I am so glad our son is able to help.

Please pray for him and for whatever the condition is he has. We will have to get Home Care if he has to have surgery too.

UPDATE for Bill. Turned out that Bill has a pulled/torn/ inflamed hamstring muscle where it attaches to his hip. He has to stay off of it for a week and "baby" it. It has been over a week since he saw the doctor in ER, and he is still feeling it and can not do too much. I continue to slowly improve but get tired easily and can not sit for longer than an hour without needing to walk, or lie down. Naps are my fasvorite time of day and I can usually take one or two. : ) I see the doctor tomorrow and hope I get a good report.

I was able to make a Get Well card for my DIL's father when I first got home. He had a knee replaced on Friday and is having a hard time adjusting to hospital life. I think he plans on going home when they release him and it will be so difficult because they have so many stairs in their house.

My card uses a PSX Lemon botanical stamp (John's last name is lemon so I thought it as good as any.) I matted the image with green and yellow and distressed all the edges of all layers. I used my Cuttlebug folder with squares and dots for the yellow background, also matted in green. I colored the lemon image with a variety of markers, some Copics, and some Stampin Up. And I used Tim Holtz Distressed "Old Pages" ink over the edges and over the image to make it look vintage and old. I popped the image up and added the saying "a little note" under on the front. Inside it says "Hope you feel better soon!". I was not able to deliver it, but my DIL was going up and I thought she makes a cute mail lady.

Temps are COLD, COLD, COLD and winter seems long already. Spirits are high around here since the Packers beat the Chicago Bears and will be going to the Super Bowl. The Packers were a 6th seed which means they were pretty far down on the list of favorites, but who knows, they just might pull it off. They play the Pittsburg Steelers wno have won the Super Bowl 3 times and it is the Packers turn to win!

Hope your week is blessed and full of God's goodness and love. Thanks for stopping by.

STRANGE NIGHT

One would think that facing a major surgery and going to bed at the normal hour would get a person some good sleep. NOPE! Here it is after 3:30am and I think I have only had maybe an hour. I have to get up (OOPS, I already am UP!) at 4:45, get my sweats, shoes and coat on, grab my bag and go to the hospital for a 5:30 check in. I think I will be ready! Maybe I will not need so much anesthesia because I will be tired. Heehee! So it has been a strange night so far.

My hubby Bill has been scanning in pictures from both our families. He has worked so hard at it, wanting to make a CD of all our pictures for the kids and grand kids to have. Here is one of my fave photos of me which is VERY VINTAGE. I think I was about 2 years old. Maybe some day I will make a card from it.

Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to say a little prayer for me today.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

Here it is a month since I posted. YIKES! Must have had my head in the Christmas wrap! I HAVE been making cards, and I HAVE taken pictures of them, but I did not get them off the camera into my computer yet...so nothing much to share. AND you are going to have to wait a few weeks more.

I am going in for my hip replacement tomorrow, Jan 7th and not sure when I will get back to blogging. doing emails, or making cards. Guess I will be busy with other things. : )

I hope in the next few weeks you are blessed amazingly by our Father. I covet your prayers for a speedy recovery.

My best always for your happiness, health and prosperity. May God the giver of all things and the maker of all things shine His face upon you and give you His peace and joy for the coming year.

Love to all, Martha

BLUE CHRISTMAS CARD

My last post was of my first ever Santa card, and this one is of my first all blue Christmas card. I even used blue ink for the stamping inside which says, "The Lord has come, let the world rejoice". Good words for all year long, in my opinion.

My card uses a smaller simple stamp of a dove holding an olive branch made by Stampendous 2005. I wanted the card to be CAS so the image was the focal point and not a lot of fluff, stitching or embellishments. I stamped it in Stampin Up Bordering Blue ink on a gray SU card stock. I had to hand cut the shape of the gray panel, and roughed the edges. The blue under the gray is cut with a Spellbinder 4 label die and embossed. The next panel down is a shiny steel blue CS which I ran through the Cuttlebug using the vine folder. I wrapped it with a blue ribbon that has a glitzy thread between the satin side and the sheer side. Makes it look like a present. I also used the Martha Stewart corner rounder which takes off a big bite! Last is a lighter blue paper with snowflakes scattered in the gray and steel blue. I added some Stickles to the snowflakes that show. The steel blue pearls are added in the corners. This has only the first two panels popped up. I added some white gel pen to the dove and covered it with Stickles to make it shine! It is relatively uncluttered compared to others, using simple shapes and lines. Thanks for stopping by.

Challenges:

MY FIRST SANTA CARD...EVER!

Some people make lots of Santa cards for Christmas. I never have in the 4 years of card making under my belt. I like them, but just never have. I recently bought this vintage Santa on Ebay in Sept, I think, and loved the round design of it with the holly. So I have designed my first Santa card, and now my brain wants to try some more to see what I might create.

I first stamped the image in Versa Mark onto a white card stock. I heat embossed with black ZING ebp and colored the image with SU markers and a few Copics for shadows in the beard and hat. I used my Cuttlebug to make a red smooth circle mat, then a black inverted circle mat. I cut the Santa out by hand and adhered to the Nesties and popped those up onto the doily which had been distressed with a Tim Holtz ink, and some Stickles rubbed over the edges for some glitz. The background mat is black on the white base card, then a dark green hounds tooth from a Christmas stack. I again used my Cuttlebug and cut out and embossed the red and the holly pieces and adhered them on. I added some white snowy dots to the doily and also the four corners. The red satin bow was tied using my Bow Easy. It is kind of dark in color, but very traditional. What do you think? We will always remember our first, right?

Be sure to check back about 5 postings as I added a bunch today. Thanks for stopping by.

Challenges:
Timeless Flourishes Tuesday: doilies
Tip Top Tuesday: anything goes
Tuesday Taggers: Santa
ABC Christmas:Holly & Berries, Red & Green
Marks Finest Papers: Red & Green
Crafty Ann's: Christmas
Paper Players: Christmas
Inky Impressions: Christmas
2 Sisters: Sparkly Christmas
The Paper Variety: Tic Tac Toe Christmas ( die, card, holiday)

MY TRIO FOR VERVE WINTER RELEASE

This is my first ever attempt at a "release challenge". I love the look of Verve stamps but I don't have any yet. I hope to rectify that problem really soon. Sorry for the occasional shadow from the overhead light. I am NOT a very good photographer, but you can get the idea of my projects.




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My TRIO begins with the little box on the upper right, that contains 3 tea bags in a Sugar Plum flavor. I wrote "You're TEA-rrific" on the little banner. I decorated the string on each tea bag with a piece of the plaid and a snowflake. The box I constructed with white CS, cut the plaid panels to fit, added the snowflakes with a rhinestone center on each, and put the banner across to help hold it closed. Inside I made a little card with the brand of tea, the flavor and the "caffeine free' info in case that was important and they wanted to find it again.

The plastic candy container was one of a set of 5 that I found at Hobby Lobby for $2.99...a really good deal in my book. What was cute about them was that they are a miniature of the big tubs with the flip over locks on the handles on the side. I made some peppermint bark (almond bark melted in the Microwave and crushed peppermint candy canes added and then spread out on a waxed paper covered cookie sheet. I chilled it and broke it into bite sized pieces.) I put a layer of red tissue with silver sparkle dots inside it to line the container. I made a cover of the dark green CS, added a row of the white Martha Stewart snowflake border on both outer edges, backed it with the plaid CS, and added my die cut sentiment and matted with the plaid in the next sized die. I wrote "MINT for you" to hint at the mint candy inside. On the front side, I put the small banner with "peppermint bark" so they would know for sure what was inside. I added the 3 snowflakes (also Martha Stewart snowflake punches) and a rhinestone in the center of them.

The card is the third item and pretty simple. I stamped a flourish in green over the plaid CS. I did that to all three projects. I matted the plaid with green, added the row of MS snowflakes using a border, added the "Merry Christmas" on the Die cut panel and matted with a green one the next size up. I added three MS snowflakes to the card. All the snowflakes on all three projects (except for the ones on the tea bags) were covered with the Martha Stewart "tinsel" glitter and it looks so much like snow. Love it! I made a red bow but decided it covered up too much and so chose not to use any ribbon. So that is my take on the "Trio Challenge" for the Verve Winter Release. Thanks for stopping by.

THANKSGIVING THANKS

Often times we are invited places and for some reason we don't get to express our appreciation. We recently were included in our DIL's family Thanksgiving. The food was wonderful, the company fun to talk to and a good time was had by all. I appreciate all the work and prep Johna did getting everything ready and keeping everyone on track. I did express my appreciation as we left to both the hostess and host. but sent a card too.

This card was made from a Fall collection of glittered CS. I used the corner rounder on the upper left corner and the lower right corner, and I mirrored that in the sentiment panel. I used brown and red as the matting colors. I used a red/orange ribbon behind and Matti and Emma helped make the lady bugs and Emma stamped the inside. It was a pretty quick card. Thanks Johna!