Chubby Cardinal & Life Update

I love chubby cardinals.....not sure why, maybe because they look more cuddly when they are fat :).....anyway, when I decided to design a cardinal stamp set, I knew the the bird would need to be chubby. I think this one fits the bill :).

I made this card for yesterday's SCS sketch challenge. I can't even remember the last time I played along with one of their sketches and my how I have missed them!! The sketch challenge has always been my favorite :). Since things have finally calmed down a bit for me I headed right to the sketch challenge for inspiration and this is what I came up with.


I've been saving up all my Christmas paper scraps so I found some really great papers for my card. It did take me a while to figure out how I was going to lay them all out, but I have been a tad out of practice so that's my excuse ;).

Here are the supplies I used:

Stamps: Christmas Joy (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps)

Paper: misc. scraps

Ink: Memento, Copics, Versafine

Accessories: ribbon, Nesties, Lacey Eyelet border die available soon at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps

On a different note, I thought I would fill you in on some of the reasons I haven't been around blogland much over the past month or so...

A couple weekends ago was the Heirloom Stamp Show in York, PA, one of the two shows we planned to do this year. We had a GREAT time and I can't wait until the next show. They are always a ton of work, but so worth it :). There is nothing like mingling with other stampers. Here are a few pics from the show....

This is Mary Faus, myself and Cathy McCauley. Mary helped at the Heartfelt Creations booth on Saturday and then came back to shop on Sunday. She also volunteered to take some pics for me since my camera batteries died! Can you tell we were having a good time? I can't remember why we were laughing but it was obviously very FUNNY :).

This is part of our display.....look at all those gorgeous creations!! THANK YOU to my amazing DT for sending in projects to help beautify our booth :).

Here I am with Dan and our son Aidan. He came along to help and proved to be a fantastic cashier :).

Just a fun shot of one of our make 'n takes for Sunday.

And another fun shot of part of our booth.

Show prep consumed much of my time in September, but in addition to that I have been having some health issues that have had me visiting different doctors and having various tests and things done. I am not going to go into a lot of details, but I will tell you that they still aren't sure of a diagnosis. I was tested for Lyme Disease, Lupus, and rheumatory issues, but my bloodwork all came back fine. My neurologist says it could be a number of things including MS, but without doing lots of further testing, there is no way to know. I am ok with that and will continue to wait on the Lord for strength and patience. The next step in the process of getting to the bottom of this is to have four MRI's and an EMG....I opted for just two MRI's for now plus the EMG, so once those are completed (hopefully within the next few weeks), I will post another update.

The busyness of life lately has lead Dan and I to the decision to send our boys back to school. Homeschooling was getting to be almost impossible for me. So they recently started attending a Christian school about 35-40 minutes away and I can tell already that things are much less stressful. I am so thankful for that and for the Lord's providence and guidance.

I am hoping once I get into a new routine that I can get back into creating and sharing. Until then, I will post when I can :).

Oh....one more thing.....in case you have been wondering how those little kitties are doing....

They are getting big :).....and they love sleeping....

....pretty much anywhere ;).....

Thank you for visiting!! Buh-bye!