Please excuse me...I need to keep my nose to the grindstone!

Hi friends. I didn't want to just disappear into thin air but I wanted you to know that I'm taking a bit of a blog break (for maybe a week). I have 2 swaps to finish up and I haven't even taken the pumpkins down yet. Do you ever occasionaly get overwhelmed with the tasks at hand?
When I come back I'll have lots of pictures to share of all of the wonderful swaps I've been involved with. Sharon-your package is in the mail!
I'll be back soon~
Joyce

Ever Grateful!

This Thanksgiving, we are at my sister and brother-in-law's in New Jersey. We are having a wonderful time  with children and grandchildren, neices and nephews.
I wish all of my friends and family the Blessings of Thanksgiving.
Take time to say a prayer of thanks to God, for the blessings that enrich your lives.
Give lots of hugs and kisses!
Take time to say a prayer of thanks for the young men and women serving our nation in the USA and abroad.
I am so grateful for all that God provides for me on a daily basis. I am lucky to have a wonderful, loving husband; kind and thoughtful children; the cutest grandson in the world and an army of friends in my life.
Thank you for listening to me ramble on. Thank you for sharing your talent. Thank you for your words of support. Thank you for loving me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the mail

I love padded envelopes! I love opening my mailbox and seeing that manilla color in between the bills (ugh!) and the countless catalogs coming my way these days. This past week brought 4 padded envelopes my way.

In the first envelope was a treasure trove of paper crafting supplies from my sweet friend Elizabeth of Creative Breathing. Leftover bits and bob, papers, ribbons and the cutest photographs of vintage Christma cards! I will have fun playing with all that she sent. Thanks Elizabeth! Where did you find that tiny pink ball fringe!!!! It's the cutest!

In the second package was an embellished cabinet card from dear Linda Smith of A Swap for All Seasons. I am in a cabinet card swap that Linda is hosting and I won a drawing on the blog. Linda does a lovely job hosting and crafting and this card is more beautiful than my camera could capture. Thank you Linda-you are always an inspiration!

The third and fourth envelopes held items I had purchased from Etsy. Do you shop at Etsy? I love the unending selection of handcrafted and vintage items and I always look there first when I'm searching for something special! I try to buy handmade whenever possible.

The first items are paper strips with beautiful printed words on them. One set says "Thankful for...." and the second set has the words to "O Holy Night". You link the strips together to make a long chain. The Thanksving set is going with us to Thanksgiving dinner so everyone can write what they're thankful for. Then the chains can be brought out again next year to review. They are from Ormolu.

The last padded envelope just arrived yesterday and contained some cards by the talented artist Amber Alexander. She sells prints and cards of her wonderful and whimsical animal themed art. Last year I bought David a print of a squirrel in an apron (in honor of our resident visitor Edith Ann). When I saw these cards, I knew I had to get some. Edith....skating!!!!!! Who knew!

Don't you think it was a good mail week? Can't wait to see what next week brings!

NOTE: Sharon-thank you for helping me with my blog header. How does it look to you? It looks great to me! Big hugs to you!!!!!

More Craftiness

My craft shows are over for this year and I am relieved. Having back-to-back shows was a first, and I think a last for me. The stress of having to replenish everything in a week's time took a toll on my neck and shoulders not to mention my poor house. I am still working to get everything back in order. Here are some pictures from the second show. I did some different things this time....some decorated candles, tags and more banners...

I'm sure you must be tired of looking at so many pictures. Thank you for indulging me. I'll be back soon with some beautiful things that have come in the mail....

Good Night friends.

xoxo

My new blog header-I'm still trying to figure out how to size it properly. Once it is corrected, I'll give you the details on where it came from.

Ignore me for a little while...

I am playing around with a blog header...I have no idea what I'm doing.

Creative Chaos

I have not posted anything since Halloween and I have a little time now to catch you up on what's been happening here at Scrap for Joy.

This past Friday evening and then again on Saturday, I participated in an annual craft fair at a local church. My dear friends Bethanie, Mimi, Joni and I all had adjoining tables which made the time lots of fun. For the weeks leading up to this show I have been working many hours in my craft studio.....I would show you pictures but I haven't yet identified where the floor is yet! It was a good show and I sold almost all of the items I brought. This is a Good News/Bad News story! Next Saturday I have another craft show (one that I will participating in for the first time) and so I will spend this week once again chained to my work table. I don't know how the rest of you artists who follow this blog feel, but I never tire of creating away for hours at a time. Even though the stress to finish was enormous, I was happy the whole time.

Because I have been crafting so much, I have not been on the computer very often in the past 2 weeks. I'm sure some of my blogging friends think I have abandoned them completely. Not true! I have been checking in on your blogs off and on, I just haven't been commenting too much. One blog I did visit however, P.J.'s; Seens From the Back of My Eyelids, resulted in an interesting thing happening. I had read that she was having a blog giveaway of a $75 e-gift certificate for Amazon and I left her a comment. (I also joined her blog as a follower, she's is a really funny lady and a great story teller...go read for yourself) Well, when I got home exhausted from being on my feet all day I finally had a chance to read my emails and found out I won!!!! I was so excited! Isn't that the most wonderful prize?

So, back to the craft show. I will share some pictures of my table showing some of the things I made. This year I focused on my yearly card set "The Girls" and also decorated lots of journals and notebooks, made some banners (which went quickly...I'll be making lots of them this week) and perpetual birthday books. So here are some pictures. You might want to go and fix yourself a cup of tea first-this is long!

My decorated shopping bags, thank you inserts and business cards.

I had 28 journals, I have just featured several of them. Then there were the banners...

The Give Thanks banner was long-I couldn't get it all in one shot without losing the letter detail. And finally the cards....

30 sets of six cards, in boxes. 180 cards, all hand cut.

Here are some shots of Bethanie's table

and Mimi & Joni's table...

And finally...your's truly close to the end of the day....

Do I look glazed? So, don't worry if you don't hear much from me this week, I have lots to do and not much time. (Anyone want to come and work with me????) I love you all and thank you for your support. Thanks to all my friends who came to the show-it is always great to see a friendly face. Thanks to Sara and Gwen who brought their little daughters along-always love to see the kidlets. Speaking of kidlets....oh how I wish this little Nemo could have come to our door on Halloween...

Gram and Papa love you Charlie!

Until next time........xoxo