2019 - A New Year of Hope and Promise

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, full of family and friends and love and all of the magic that makes the Christmas season so memorable.  And I hope you had children in some of your seasonal activities, because they truly and honestly exemplify the true magic and meaning of Christmas with their innocent delight and joy.  I hope you found many reasons to smile and appreciate every moment.

As you can seem this is starting out a little reflective, but it's how I get (usually) the beginning of a new year.  I have given up on resolutions (whats the point?!?) but I do try to set some goals for myself in a more meaningful way.  I want to do better and be better in my daily life and interactions with family and friends.  I want to handle challenges with strength and determination and not buckle under the weight of them, at times.  I want to be present in all that I do and more focused.  I am working on that with my new planner - building in tasks that I can complete and being careful not to set myself up for failure.  I am looking ahead to each month and picking one task that I can complete (like deep cleaning i.e. purging excess in one room each month).  If I look at it monthly, it's not so overwhelming and it doesn't stop me before I get started.  I am learning.

And I realize, even at the age of 65, I am still a work in progress and I hope I will always be as that keeps me going.  And the older I get, the more I want time with family and friends.  I want to cherish every moment and take it all in.  I want to be the best me that I can.  Staying focused will help with that.

 I am as committed as ever to card making, cooking, baking and learning new things.  I love the challenges and gently pushing myself out of my comfort zone.  So I hope to share more that will motivate you to venture out of your comfort zone too as that can be so scary and so exciting and fulfilling at the same time!

Enough about me and my thoughts...........as this post is also about beginning anew.  A year ago Friday, my daughter in law lost her beautiful, strong and vibrant sister, Darcy, to that awful disease - cancer.  It has been a tough year, but she and Scott have managed to embrace the present and move into the future with renewed hope and love (and with baby #2 on the way, that helps).

I knew Friday was going to be a difficult day,  so I wanted to send her a special card to convey how much I love her and am thinking of her.

Megan loves lilies so I wanted to incorporate them in the card.  This embossing folder seemed the perfect solution.  I gently went over the image in several colors of embossing mouse (gilding wax might have been better but I was temporarily without it) so I did the next best thing.

 I foiled the sentiment on vellum and love how that came out.

And I added one little embellishment - see the tiny gold ladybug on the lily?  Before Darcy passed, she told Megan to share with her daughter and Carter, that whenever they saw a ladybug, that was Darcy looking over them.  So I wanted to add a special ladybug to this card as a special tribute to Darcy.

So hard to believe a whole year has gone by.

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Losing a Second Mom...... Card...

Several weeks ago a dear lady left this earth and the world is not quite as bright as it was.  She was like a second Mom to me when I was growing up, and I adored her.  Her family and mine lived on the same block and I think I spent as much time at her home as I did at my own!  Her oldest child was my best friend from the time we were 3 years old.  All of these years later, she is still one of my dearest friends.  How lucky and blessed am I?

My girlfriend should have been my mother's daughter.  My Mom loved that she was so career oriented and a real entrepreneur.  My mom started a children's clothing store pretty much on her own in the 1940s downtown here - and it was unheard of then for a woman to have her own business, let alone have it become successful!

My girlfriend's mother was a teacher before her children were born, and then stayed home with them as her family grew.  She was a homemaker in every sense which I loved as well in later years. She spent hours knitting and doing needlework, especially needlepoint, which was also one of my favorite things to do.  She was an inspiration to me and I loved her dearly.

Sympathy cards are not anything I enjoy making, but this one was especially different.  I used a 3D embossing folder from Crafter's Companion coupled with a beautiful digi image from Graciellie Designs.I wanted something simple and elegant and I think I achieved that.

Here is a closeup of the beautiful digi image from Graciellie Designs.

                        I printed it on a laser printer, cut it out with the Silver Bullet Platinum 

and then foiled it with sparkling silver.

You can see how that foil reflects the light beautifully.

I used Nuvo embossing paste to highlight the dimension  

from the embossing folder and added small white pearls.

Again, I am painfully reminded to take time to tell my family and friends how special they are to me and to cherish every moment of every day.  Life is an amazing gift, but it has an expiration.

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