Happy New Year!!

Well, we are about to usher in 2009 and I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! May 2009 be a blessed year for you all!

Just wanted to post a pic of my kiddos from Christmas. We asked them to give us a pose with an attitude, and they sure came through. If it were a scrapbook page, I would title it "In the hood(ies)". The hoodies were made for the kids by my mom. She is seamstress extraordinaire! (Hi Mom!!!!) The kids love their hoodies and fleece stuff from Grandma!! (Even if they don't look like it in this photo!)

I will be back after the first of the year with more pictures of projects! Have a safe holiday!

Is it gone yet??

Is Christmas done yet?? Well, after downloading the pictures from my camera's memory card, I am quite convinced that it is. Between photos of projects I did for gifts (and I didn't photograph all of them...) and the photos we took of the Christmas season, there were 314 photos to be moved around. Yikes.

I looked back at the photos I had taken and thought about what kind of projects I had done this year. I have done 15 mini albums and one 12 x 12 album. I didn't count the cards and DT projects or the pages I did for my own family. It was a productive and busy year. (Can you hear the pride in my voice???? hee-hee.)

Below are two photos from an album I gave as a gift. The recipient has a daughter that plays soccer, so I added some soccer pages. When the album is folded up it is approximately 6x12. There are two sets of binding rings (Zutter) on each side because the book opens on both sides. (Making the album approximately 18x12 inches.

This photo is of two 6x12 panels. They work together to form a layout. The mats for the photos were run through my Sizzix Big Kick using a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The soccer ball on the bottom right was an Accu-Cut die that I used from the workroom at Archiver's. The grid behind the photo mats was done with magic mesh. (I don't really know the brand name, sorry Peeps.) I is a canvas mesh that I layed on the cardstock and then dabbed green Makine Memories craft paint over it. Then I moved the mesh and it left this negative image. It reminded me of grass and a soccer net. (Yep...that's me. All about the symbolism.)

This photo is of the album with all three panels open. The panel on the left is the same as the left panel in the top photo. The right panel in this photo is the back side of the right panel in the top photo. The middle panel was underneath the right panel in the first photo. Confused yet?? The soccer girl is a die cut from the Quickutz Silhouette and the word "life" is a Making Memories rub on.

I was so pleased with how this album came out. It was fun and funky. I love that! I will have more photos of this album in the days to come. It has some really fun "features" to it. I have enough photos of all those gift albums to last me a couple of months of blog posts. (aren't you lucky!??)

Well, Peeps, I hope you had a great Christmas and now are anticipating heading into the new year. I am excited to see what it will bring! At the Gem house, we always pray that it will be a good year with good health and that God leads us to make wise choices. We found out last week that my DH's employer changed health insurance carriers. That is always a big, big deal for a family that has two people that have a rare, chronic illness. On another note, however, my DH graduated with high honors with his accounting degree in December. He has worked 2 1/2 years to get to this point. Now we are just trusting God to provide the right job for him.

Hope you have a great New Year's week. I still have a list a mile long to do before the kiddos start back to school here at the Gem house. They are at loose ends because of all their free time. Next week we will be getting back on schedule with school to do every day. This mom is not sure she is quite ready for that! yikes!

Be safe out there and thanks for stopping by!

Candy alert!

Newsflash! Hurry, hurry! The opportunity to win only exists until 3 p.m. (EST), Monday, Dec. 15. Your chance to win over $200 in prizes. Check it out at papermonkey.org.

hurry, hurry.....

Oh, my. Is Christmas almost here? We have been invaded by sickness at our house. The kids have snuffly noses, I still have traces of a cough and my voice isn't back to full strength, and my husband has an all out congestion/cough problem. I wish it would all go away. However, we will just get to deal with it while it is here!

I can't believe Christmas is so close to being here! Do you all have your shopping done?? I am close to being done, but still have several gifts on the table to make. One more week of schooling the kiddos and then we will be on Christmas break. I am so much more ready than they are for this to happen! It's a long time from Labor Day to Thanksgiving without a break from school. (If you hadn't thought about that...I ASSURE you it is true!)

This is the last of the Christmas themed cards I will be posting. I have a bunch of photos taken, but just not any uploaded to my computer. (I don't have time to do that right now...I am too busy making the projects and photographing them.) I am in survival mode...

The wreath image is from Prickley Pear. The patterned paper is Basic Grey. It is actually NOT a christmas paper, but goes so well with the card that I couldn't resist. Speaking of Basic Grey, have you checked out their new Wassail line for Christmas?? Oh, it's luscious. It has paper that is very "christmasey", but it has some that could be used all year long. It's very versatile and quite lovely. My DD and I did some little gifts with that line of paper and they turned out fabulous! Oh, and I digress... The image here is simple and straightforward. Therefore, I have no more deets to add.

Hope all your holiday preparations are going well. I am off to work to teach a class this p.m. It's snowing here in Idaho today. You probably just think that is normal. However, we don't live in the mountains. We live in the the valley. In the middle of the desert. We really don't get a lot of rain and snow here in southern Idaho. My kids are outside with their "snow gear" on. They love this!!! I am trying to imagine what our life would be like if they lived in a place that REALLY got snow!?

Hope you have a great week! Thanks for stopping by.

Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen...

Well Peeps. I am looking forward to my weekend off. Yep. One whole weekend. Well deserved, since I worked four out of five Saturdays in November, including Thanksgiving. (cue violins here...) Anyway...I am also working on a chest cold with laryngitis. (My husband LOVES when I get laryngitis...just one more reason to tease me.) The only house cleaning chore on the list is to clean the bathrooms. A job I really, really detest. However, I am glad that no one else sees the condition of the bathrooms...because I would truly be embarassed!!!

Then, other than that little chore, I am going to scrapbook. And scrapbook and scrapbook. Oh, I might throw in some cards too. I do have to do some tags and cards to go along with the gifts I have been slaving away on. (I had better get busy. I think I will scrapbook for a while and then clean the bathrooms....hee-hee.) If you want to see some festive and beautiful christmas tags, you ought to hop on over to Tim Holtz's blog and check out his "12 tags of Christmas". They are fabulous.

As for my card, well, the reindeer and believe stamps are from Prickley Pear. The reindeer is stamped in Versamark, the "Believe" is stamped and then I used white embossing powder on it. The patterned paper is from Chatterbox. I love the simplicity of this card. I don't do my own Christmas cards. I used to, but it got to be such a chore that it wasn't something that as enhancing my holiday season...so I just quit. It takes a lot of time to put together 60 or 70 Christmas cards. I love them, but after the kids were born, it was just too much. However, I did this card for the Prickley Pear design team. Since it is the Christmas season, after all!

Okay, Peeps! Have an excellent weekend. I am off to scrapbook, make cards and then photograph them so I can share them with you later!

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

and this penguin doesn't seem to mind! I did this card as a "thank you" to a friend who has gifted me several times this month! She is very generous and has such a giving nature. I wanted to thank her with a special card.

The penguin is an Archiver's Exclusive die from Quickutz (still available at your local Archiver's stores). The stamp sets are: Snowflakes (Hero Arts-Warmest Winter Wishes), flourish on left (Stampendous-our of their Jumbo Tree set), Flourish on the right (Autumn Leaves-double scroll) and the sentiment is from Hero ARts). The snowflakes and flourishes were stamped with Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder. Then I added some bling and ta-dah!!! The penguin has a happy home!

It is still in the middle of the day here at the Gem House, so I must be off to teach my kiddos. History and Phonics are up next! Have a great day, Peeps...thanks for stopping by.

Believe....

that I will finally post a project again!! And here it is! Okay...this is just ONE of the many projects I have had going on, and now am finally getting posted!

This is a card I did for my design team project over at Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. Nicole has some lovely Christmas stamps. You ought to head on over and check it out! She also has asked another lovely lady to be part of the design team there, so you will want to watch out for Sally Lynn MacDonald.

On this card, the "believe" was stamped with white ink on a dark blue cs background. Then I used a totally "un-Christmas" background. It is a shimmery paper from the Luxurious Line from DCWV. On that icy looking paper, I used Versamark and stamped those little snowflake/twinkles using another PPRS stamp. I used a tinsel embossing powder on the Versamark. My embossing poweder had some silver glitter in it, but was mostly clear. It worked perfectly for the look I was trying to acheive. (See close-up below.)

Those are pretty much the details. I did add some bling to make it a bit more sparkly.

I must tell you that here at the Gem house, things are wild and crazy. With two young children, how can Christmas be anything but crazy??! This Gem mommy is close to losing her mind today, in fact. (That started LOOONNNGGGG before the kiddos arrived, however.) Lots of working at my part-time job, doing school with the kiddos, extra projects and just added stress seems to be taking it's toll. It might end up being one of those "Calgon, take me away!" weeks. (Okay...I am showing my age. How many of you out there remember those Calgon commercials.)

I will be back soon to post more projects. I have several already dumped to my hard drive now, so life will be easier for a while. Or not.

Have a great week, Cyber-Friends!!

Enablers, Be Aware!

Okay, Peeps....here is another blog candy alert. And ya' all might want to order some Shimmerz Paints while you are over checking out their sight. They are celebrating the Grand Opening of their Online Shopping Cart!!! Hop on over there and check out how you can win some Shimmerz, and if you don't win, you will then know how you can buy some! (okay...it is such great stuff that you might want to purchase it regardless of whether you win or not!)