It's Been a Long, Long Time

Boy, time flies whether you're having fun or not! I still don't have a new computer, I'm working on a borrowed laptop, but it's time to get back to my blog or people will take me off their list.

I have signed up for a swap...Parasols, Pink Lemonade and Polka Dots. Just love the images that title conjures up. There is a questionnaire to be answered and posted so here goes:

What is your favorite summer drink(s)?
Iced tea or pink lemonade.

What is your favorite summer activity?

Being outside!


If you could spend a lazy summer afternoon reading, what would be in your hands?

Any book by Jodi Picoult or a big stack of decorating or paper craft magazines.


What is your favorite type of craft/art medium?
Mixed media with vintage papers....sheet music, book pages, and trims and buttons

What is the one art/craft supply you absolutely have been dying to have or try?Score-Pal and beeswax...but not together


What are your favorite colors in our "rainbow sherbet" theme? Pink, lime green, yellow,orange,aqua (or blue)?

All of them but soft versions....pink being my favorite. I always tease my husband that if he dies, I'm doing the whole house in pink....he says that would kill him.


What is your favorite sweet treat?
Ice cream! We all scream for it you know. Of course you can't mail it so.....my favorite candy is licorice, mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Are there any craft supplies you would not be interested in receiving?
Can't think of any.

What is your favorite song today?
Anything on the 'Wicked' soundtrack

How do you 'pamper' yourself during the hot summer days?
I love to go to the book stores where it's sometimes downright cold and drink coffee and look through books and magazines. (Actually, I like to do this in the winter, too, when it's bitterly cold outside....only then, I might have hot chocolate)

Do you have any kidlets or pets?
No pets....3 adultlets and one adorable 7 month old grandson.

What is your best potluck dish for summer get-togethers?
Ina Garten's coleslaw-Love it!

If you could take a summer vacation anywhere, where would it be?
I've never been out of the country so that leaves a lot of possibilities. My favorite vacation spot is Rehoboth Beach, Delaware......at the Bellmoor.

Describe your decorating style. Does that say anything about your personality?
My husband likes Scandinavian modern and I like shabby cottage-we have an interesting home. I like comfortable & cozy and some vintage thrown in.

What are your initials?
JEG

Why do you like to join swaps?
Sometimes they take me out of my comfort zone. It's great to meet new people and a challenge to choose or make stuff for them. I've had good experiences and some not so good.

You have $25 to spend just on you for a little treat. What do you buy?
Rubber stamps, paper or magazines

What's one craft or art supply you absolutely can not live without?
My framers tape guns

Who's the last person you hugged?
My sweet husband

What's your favorite number and why?
4 and I don't remember why-it's been my favorite since I was a kid.

Samantha-I'm sure this is more information than you'd ever want to know about anyone but there it is.

Tomorrow we leave to go visit Charlie (who is 7 months old now) and his parents. I will update more on this poor, neglected blog when I return early next week. I have missed you and hope you haven't given up on me.

Have a good week and Happy Father's day to all Fathers and Grandfathers and especially to two first-timers, Eric & Dan.

Posies and Party Dresses

On Tuesday evening I had a wonderful time with some women I used to work with. Barb, Carol, Cindy and I met for dinner and then traveled to Ellwood City to our friend, Patti Kuhn's, flower shop, Posies by Patti. Twice a year Patti invites friends to her shop for an evening of flower arranging. We bring a container that Patti suggests and she supplies the flowers and the assistance to make a seasonal arrangement. In the past we have made arrangements in tea cups and pumpkins. The flower choices were plentiful and included gorgeous roses in shades of orange and deep, deep burgandy, yellow and white. My arrangement only had one white rose because poor David, with his wicked allergies, wouldn't be able to handle any more than that. Patti is a generous, loving , friend and you can tell that she enjoys watching us create our "masterpeices". It is always a pleasure to visit her lovely shoppe. In addition to fresh floral arrangements, she has the most wonderful gift and decorative items. My house has many beautiful treasures from her store. I thought it might be fun for you to take a mini tour. The first picture is Cindy, Carol, Patti and Barb.

The second part of this post is about a party dress. We are very fortunate, in this part of Pennsylvania, to have a premier rubber stamp store close by. Stamp Fanci is a jaw-dropping store with thousands of stamps and supplies for stamping. The owner, Margie, is knowledgeable, creative and fun to know! She will always take the time to demonstrate something you'd like to see, whether it's Tim Holtz crackle paint, the Zutter Bind-It-All, different pens and coloring systems or the (I absolutely MUST HAVE) Nestabilities dies. The classes at Stamp Fanci are planned and thought out well in advance and clearly explained and you always leave with many finished projects and the printed directions in hand. Wood mount and clear stamps-she has them all! Needless to say, I've spent many dollars in this Mecca. It's cheaper than therapy, right? Anyway, she has just gotten some of the classiest stamps from a company called B-line. I collect dress form rubber stamps and when I saw this beauty I knew I just had to have it for my collection. I was rummaging around in my supplies and came across this "special" tag that I purchased a while ago on Etsy from Living Room Floor. I thought they'd be perfect together. I think the pale pink seam binding was just the right touch. I've contacted Stephanie from LRF and ordered 10 more of these tags to make more cards with different themes.

Two posts in one day. Is anyone still awake? Have you wandered off to watch Oprah or CNN or are you still with me? I do tend to ramble. Ah, now I can just concentrate on cheering Bethanie on while she works on my "lost profile". Who needs Survivor, when you can have this excitement? Keep your fingers crossed.

Wish I had a lemon bar!

It was the worst Monday...it was the best Monday!

This has been an interesting week with my computer. Shortly after my last blog post on Monday, I couldn't get on-line or find any of my folders. Monday evening, my super techno friend Bethanie was walking me through a bunch of steps to correct the problem, on the phone, while she was making fried rice for dinner and keeping an eye on daughter Amelia, my little 10 month old friend. She has determined that Windows has lost my "profile" and that all of my folders and other info is on my hard drive but misplaced. It's hard to have no profile....I miss it and I want it back! Bethanie will come here tonight and help me restore all of my precious files.



That was the down side. The up side is way up!





Heidi Woodred, of Everyday Cookies fame, and I had a tag swap. On Monday, my little goodie parcel came from Heidi with these beautiful tags. You really must read her blog and visit her Etsy store. She writes interesting stories about home life at Sweet Woodruff Acres in Oregon, has great recipes and shares her beautiful art projects. Go take a peek and spend some time visiting.





The other bit of excitement came when I found out that I won some blog candy on Vicki Chrisman's (This Art That Makes Me Happy)blog!!! She is a designer for Heartwarming Vintage/Crafty Secrets products and her blog is filled with inspiration! My prize is 2 Journaling booklets from Crafty Secrets. I can't wait to see which 2 Vicki is sending.


The links to both Vicki's and Heidi's blogs can be found to the left of this post or simply click on their names above. Thank you ladies, for making a frustrating day more bearable.


The other happy thing that happened on Monday was getting new pictures of Charlie. He is 5 months old now and these are the newest shots of our sweet grandson. The picture of Charlie with the beautiful woman, is our daughter, Michelle, who went to Maryland to visit her favorite nephew. None of us can be away from him for too long without needing a Charlie "fix".






So, that was the good news and the bad news for Monday, which I am just posting now. I have so much more to share with you but tomorrow is another day. I'm praying that Bethanie can work her magic and my profile will be restored soon. I just feel weird without a profile, ya know?

Variations on a Theme

I retired in 2006 after working for over 30 years in the dental field. I never had to have my hands in anyone's mouth....my responsibilities were in the front desk area as a receptionist or office manager. (My hands were in insurance forms and financial arrangements.)

At the time of my retirement, I had worked for 8 years for Dr. Dahar, an orthodontist. I loved my job, the women I worked with and especially the patients and their families. I decided to persue my love of scrapbooking and paper crafts as a mini-profession and I'm not sorry I did. I love working for hours on projects in my craft room and seeing the people I create for smile at the finished projects. I also work one day a week at a local scrapbook store, Your Memory Page, which is, unfortunately, on the market block. I make minimum wage there but I love the store and the people I've met through working there.

All of that being said......I still do some creative work for Dr. Dahar. He is often asked to contribute something to be auctioned off for charitable organizations and so I create gift baskets for donation which contain gift certificates for orthodontic treatment or electric toothbrushes and the like.

At other times, he takes gifts of food or flowers to dental offices that refer patients to his practice as a little thank you. This month, he is taking potted flowers to several of these offices and I was asked to create a tag to go with the plants. This tag is a 4-inch chipboard coaster that I have decorated using paper and Quickutz die cuts....I love the seed packets....mounted on a balsa wood stick to be stuck in the pot.

After finishing the tags for Dr. Dahar I decided to make a variation of the tag to send to Heidi Woodruff for a one-on-one tag swap we are doing. This is the second tag I made...

It was OK, but I know Heidi likes a vintage look so I made another variation which was this one...

No seed packets or ants, but the flowers are there and the little fairy on the scalloped cloud. So there you have 3 variations on a theme. What do you think?

Heidi, if you're reading this post, I am mailing your little package today. There is another tag made just for you that I don't want to show until I know you've received it. I will write more about our swap at that time, too.

Oh, and we've all looked at pictures of craft desks/tables, either neatly organized and looking like they're never used or like mine.... with hardly an inch of exposed surface left to work on.

Thank you for visiting today. I love it when you visit and leave a comment. Have a good day....I'm off to the post office to mail Heidi's package and then back to clean up my room!

We ARE GaGa for Garlands!

Tamy just sent out the badge with the pictures of everyone's garlands from the GaGa For Garlands Swap. What a beautiful display! She's going to post about it today and then maybe we'll find out who made each one. They are all lovely. It is great to be surrounded by such a talented group of women!

Is it just me or is Blogger having a problem? A friend posted on my blog today and it's not showing up. I've also had a few problems uploading photos. Anybody else having issues? Email me if you can't post to my blog. Thanks.

Garland Reveal

Today is the day to reveal our garlands in the GaGa For Garlands swap hosted by Tamy Ottomeyer.

The interesting thing about any swap is that you have to be a little bit of a detective (personally, I'm a Monk fan!) to find out things about your partner...who she is, what she does, what she likes, that sort of info. That's what makes these things interesting. In reading Robyn's blog (yup, from the beginning) I learned that Robyn has been married for almost a year and a half and her husband has a job that keeps him away from home for weeks at a time, she works in a hospital, she has a lot of friends (people who actually comment on her blog), she has a dog & cat, and she loves to "junk" and craft. The colors she picked for her garland were pink & green.

The garland had to have "celebrate" incorporated somehow and I decided to celebrate Robyn herself. I used an 8x10-inch art board for the garland and chose images that depicted Robyn. She has dark brown hair and I imagined her daydreaming like the lovely lady in the chair. The image of the couple is obvious and the one of the 2 girls represent Robyn and her best friend Adrien who plan Mystery Trips each month. (Such a fun idea!)

Robyn, I hope you enjoy your garland as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. Celebrate your life with joy.

Note: The picture of the garland with the pitcher of tulips was taken when I thought the garland was complete but then I remembered that I needed a flower.....so the sheet music blossom was added!

Another note: YAY PENS!!!!! Another win over Ottowa last night making the series 3-0.

LETS GO PENS

Just a quick break in the regularly scheduled programming to say THANK YOU to our Penguins for a great game last night!

A Gift for Pam & A Peek for Robyn

It has been a long time since I've posted pictures of anything I've made and I have been busy, really I have.

For her birthday, I wanted to give my friend Pam an initial charm pendant made by Mimi, another dear friend. I've spoken about Mimi's work before and her lovely things can be seen here. In order to make the presentation a little more special, I covered a paper mache box and added a punched scalloped oval stamped with a P, a little Quickutz bluebird and my favorite sheer dotted ribbon. I accompanied this gift with a ribbon tied assortment of greeting cards I made. Pam was pleased which made me happy. There are certain friends who prefer handmade gifts and are very appreciative when you make the effort.

And now for the peek for Robyn. As I mentioned, in an earlier post, I am participating in the GaGa for Garlands swap being hosted by Tamy Ottomeyer. Our banners are to be in the mail this week and I'm almost finished with Robyn's. I thought I would post a peek of it here.....

Robyn, If you're reading this, I'm hoping to get it in the mail to you tomorrow. My husband just had some surgery yesterday and I've had to stick close to home but I think I can skip on over to the post office and get this on its way to you. I hope you like it.

Now you know that none of my posts can end without adding of a picture of my very special sweetie....who has been very sick this past week. Feel bettter Charlie...Gram sends kisses! He's 4 1/2 months old and still a happy guy-even when he's not feeling well.

GaGa for Garlands Swap

Just wanted to jump in here and mention that I am participating in the GaGa for Garlands Swap. I love garlands-this one will be fun and only one swap partner. My partner is Robyn. We've already exchanged information so we're ready to roll.
All of the gifts from the Hippity Hop Easter Swap have been exchanged and opened and now I must post my pictures. I have to honestly say that this was a great group of women to swap with. All of the gifts I received were inventive and down-right adorable. Some, but not all, of the women have Etsy shoppes. I am still enjoying my treats and hate the thoughts of packing them away.

SweetBellaBug

Wow-another sweet friend, Bethanie, has jumped on the Etsy bandwagon and opened a little store. It must be the desire to see Spring arrive-both my friends are busy making sweet things for their shops and they have a soft, Spring-like look about them. I'm all for Spring. We woke to more snow this morning, although it's supposed to be in the 50's by week's end. Ah Pittsburgh!

Anyhoo, check out Bethanie's shoppe here. Sweet Dreams is an example of one of the vintagey-look items she is selling. Such a sweet sleeping baby surrounded with glitter and vintage buttons. Cute on the door of baby's room, don't you think? Bethanie also doesn't have a blog but I think you can email her through Etsy. Also note...there is a picture of a "real" beautiful baby on her Etsy store page and that would be the adorable Miss A, Bethanie's little girl. Miss A is the happy baby (in the picture above the sleeping baby) who comes to play with me most Thursdays. She is happy in this picture because we've been watching out for squirrels together...long story for another time! Although we're not "real family", she is very special to me...and David, too.

So-any more friends out there with Etsy shoppes???

Dandelion Wishes

I am fortunate to have some very talented friends. One of my dear friends has decided to take a leap and list her things on Etsy. Her name is Mimi and she makes the sweetest soldered charms. Some are made using vintage images or bits of vintage hankies or lace. I have one with my initial that I wear every day. You can see her things for yourself here. Now, we just have to convince her to start a blog. Here is one of her lovelies. Wouldn't this look cute in someone's Easter basket?

I just want to say that this picture of Charlie, taken at 2 months, has been our screen saver ever since we got it. Every time we turn on the computer this picture makes us laugh. I know...I'm gushing again. I'm a Gram...gushing is allowed! *wink*

Hippity Hop Easter Swap banner

Here are the pictures of the banner I made for the Easter Swap. The pictures are in Flickr, too, but my sister doesn't know how to access them so this is for you Barbe.

I took the pictures of the individual pennants before they were tied together with sheer brown dotted ribbon. Each pennant is 5-inches wide by 6-inches long. A good size to hang over your kitchen window while you do the dishesAs with many other things, they look better in person. I am hoping my swap-mates like them. Thanks for taking a peek.....just don't tell the green group.

If you look to the left of this blog you will see a banner for the Hippity Hop Easter Swap hosted by http://www.boobyfish.blogspot.com/ that I have been working on. You can see a tiny peek of part of my project here. This is the biggest swap I've participated in and seeing who the other artists are in my group, (that would be the green group) I am just a tiny bit intimidated. (OK, hugely intimidated!) It will be exciting to see what beauties come my way. If I can figure out how to upload to flikr, I will post pictures there.

So, I'm back in the blogging saddle again. I promise not to be gone for so long. I don't think I'll be posting every day but feel free to link to any of the bloggers on my favorites list-they have pretties to look at and sometimes even recipes for some delicious goodies. Thanks for dropping in on me today.

Did you miss me?

It's March 4. I haven't posted anything for almost 2 months. When this happens with other bloggers they say "bad blogger". Well, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging. I envy those bloggers who just write a little post EVERY DAY, and then show a picture of beautiful things they've made since the day before AND cooked a delicious meal from scratch, all the time tending after small children or working full-time. My hat is off to you.

What do I do?

I spend too much time reading their blogs, whipping a meal together in the last 30 minutes before David comes home and of course thinking about this guy at the top of my entry. Since my last post Charlie (with his parents) came to visit us in January and we just came back from visiting him (and his parents...hahaha) He's now almost 4 months old and smiles just like this most of the time. We love this boy (and his parents too)

I am a work in progress...

I really hated to remove Kris Hurst's beautiful Christmas banner but it was time. I don't know anything about banner design...but I'll learn. In the meantime, I just love these two little kidlets. They make me smile.

But wait......!

I can't forget to post a recent picture. Jane has been so faithful in updating us almost every week. Babies change so quickly and it's hard to believe Charlie is 2 months old already. We haven't seen him since November 14, but he is bringing his parents and coming to Pittsburgh this weekend which is another reason I have to get rid of this crud. We can't wait to see him again. I've never seen a baby smile as much as Charlie does. He must be gettin' lots o' love. ;)

Before I move on to 2008 (why am I always 10 steps behind??) I thought I would post some pictures from the end of 2007.

These pictures are a sampling from a Baby's First Christmas book using a Basic Grey scalloped 6X6-inch album. Boy, are these little albums fun to play with. (You will notice that this is a book for a baby girl. Have I done a First Christmas book for our grandson Charlie? No, not yet.)

I painted the scalloped edges of each page and then cut the paper/cardstock square so that the scallop would look like a ruffled border. I love the pink, green, and red color scheme with a little light blue thrown in. Everyone has asked me about the snowman. He's just 2 circle punches with a little vest made from a template. The nose, smile and arms are drawn with a marker. This same snowman was used on a tag in a class taught by Carolyn Dewey at Stamp Fanci. Very talented woman, Carolyn is! Everybody loves the little snowguy. Most of the other elements are Quickutz. Look at the scalloped photo corner on the cover-it's from a Quickutz Revolution set of 3 graduated sizes. Do you sense I love scallops???

OK-I am nursing a rotten bug right now. All this blogging has been exhausting...think I'll go take a little siesta.

YIKES!

How did the time pass so quickly between November 15 and January 4?
I have obviously been remiss with my blog....but don't give up on me yet. I have some new things to post..some picutres and updates. Don't go away....stay tuned.

There's a new boy in town....

and his name is Charlie...and we love him! Charles Dylan Gleason arrived on Monday, November 12th, at 2:03 in the afternoon. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 14 oz. and was 20 1/2-inches long. We drove down to Maryland on Tuesday night and were able to see him for a little bit at the hospital. He was surrounded by his 2 other adoring Grandmothers (Nana & Grammie) and a friend of Jane's. We were totally overwhelmed upon seeing this little tiny baby for the first time. Truly a miracle of God. For now, he looks most like Eric; fair skin, light (sparse) hair & eyebrows, but who knows-in a month that might all change.

They all came home from the hospital on Wednesday around noon so we got to see Charlie again at home before leaving to return to Pittsburgh. It is going to be hard for David & me (by the way, we would like to be Papa & Gram) to be far from this sweet little angel. Our kids are all scattered along the East Coast and we don't get to see them as often as we'd like. We will, however, be seeing Mike & Jackie in New York this weekend (for the Steelers/Jets game-GO STEELERS!) and Michelle & Woody in their new place in Jersey City next Tuesday. For Thanksgiving, we will be with my sister and family in Chatham, NJ.

For now, we will just have to be content with a little dose of Charlie and hope that we can see him again soon.

We love you sweet baby....and your Daddy & Mommy, too.

Thanks to our family and friends for their prayers and good wishes. For those in Pittsburgh...get ready for the "Proud Grandparents Picture Barrage"!