Happy New Year!

From me, Tank and all the kitties :)!


To help ring in the New Year, we're giving away this cute digi of my kitty Tank on our Facebook page, but you need to hurry, because he'll only be available as a FREEBIE New Year's Day!

May the Lord richly bless you in 2012 and may you draw closer to Him than ever before!

Hugs!

Warmth & Blessings

I have a bittersweet announcement today....Roxie, the amazing sketch challenge hostess over at SCS, is stepping down after 6 years of fabulous sketches. She has asked Taylor, Holly and myself to fill her very big shoes and carry on the challenge. We are so sad to see Roxie go, but at the same time are excited, honored and humbled to have been asked to take her place.

Here is the link to this week's sketch challenge. I hope you will join me in playing as a tribute to Roxie.

On a different note, my hubby had surgery on his nose yesterday to help with his breathing. Praise the Lord the surgery went well, however he is suffering from some discomfort. We're hoping his recovery is quick and that the surgery will prove to be a help to him. Your prayers would be much appreciated.

Enjoy your day!!

Card Details....

Stamps: Snowflake Flourish & sentiment from Cozy Friends (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps)

Paper: Snowfall (BoBunny)

Ink: CTMH-Moonstruck & Desert Sand, Versafine-vintage sepia

Accessories: ribbon, snowflake stickers, Stickles, Nestie oval die

It's Winter....I think???

So today is the first official day of Winter, but here in PA it's 58 degrees. Can you believe that one? We had a freak snowstorm on Halloween and on the first day of Winter we get Spring temps. Oh well, I am not complaining. It certainly could be worse ;).....although I must admit, I wouldn't mind a bit of snow for Christmas :).

Since we don't have snow but it is officially Winter, I thought a snowman card would be appropriate. The challenge over at Splitcoast today is to use a digital image, paper, or element so I used a digital stamp for my card.


I colored the image with Copics. I created a polka dot pattern on the snowman's scarf with my Copic blender by just adding little dots over the red. The blender "ink" pushes the red ink and leaves dots....I love using my blender to create patterns :).

The name of the ornament designer paper escapes me but it was a 12x12 sheet I had picked up at a local scrapbooking store (Joys of Life in Mechanicsburg, PA). The scallops were cut with the Sweet 'n Sassy Scallop Dies. The other DP's are various scraps I had stashed from previous cards.

Well, I don't know about you but I am counting down the days till Christmas. We have a large family brunch on Saturday and my hubby's parents and brother (and his dog) will be staying with us for a few days so I have sooooo much prepping still to be done.....oh and of course, I cannot forget, today is my middle son's 12th birthday :)!

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, despite all of the running here and there.......and be sure to have yourself a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Craziness

Do you ever feel like the holidays are more stressful than enjoyable? I am almost there myself so I decided it was time to take a moment......to just.......breath........and........focus.......on.......what it's REALLY all about.........Christmas isn't about Santa, elves, sweets, presents, trees, decorating, caroling, ornaments and parties......it's about something SO much bigger than all of that.......the greatest gift was given to all mankind.......the gift was Jesus.....the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He was born to die that we might live.....through Him. What an amazing thought to ponder. So during this extremely busy season, may I invite you to join me in stopping, even if just for a moment, to reflect on this most precious gift, the reason we celebrate.....and while you're at it, why not thank your Heavenly Father for that tremendous gift. :) He is so worthy of our praise and thanksgiving!

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord!
Luke 2:10b-11

Crazy 4 Cocoa Blog Hop

Welcome to the second stop in today's Crazy 4 Cocoa Blog Hop :)! If you are just happening by you may want to stop by the Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Blog to get the scoop on this fun hop.


You may have heard we're going a bit bonkers for Cocoa Mouse this month. Over the past couple of years, that silly little squeaker has made his way into many a stampers' heart so we thought we'd celebrate him all month long. One way we're celebrating is with a Cocoa stamp and digi SALE! Through December 31st, all Cocoa stamps and digis are 10% off!

We're also celebrating with today's fabulous blog hop. The Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps DT has teamed up with some of our Sweet 'n Sassy Digi Challenge gals to bring you nothing but Cocoa today......BUT, the best part is, YOU get to play along, too!! And if you do, we'll enter you into a drawing to win your choice of 1 free Cocoa stamp set or 4 free Cocoa digis :)!! You can find all the specifics on the SNSS Blog.

As we continue spreading the Cocoa love, I have this sweet Christmas card to share with you featuring Santa's Helper Cocoa. Our little friend is always getting into to something, but that's not a bad thing. He's a very helpful little mouse, you know! ;)


For this card, I dug out some scraps and kept it simple. My image was stamped on Neenah Solar White CS and colored with Copics. I then matted it with red CS and added a few layers with DP and CS. The sentiment is stamped directly on the card base. I added some ric-rac and pearls to finish it off. Overall, a pretty quick Christmas card and very easily reproducible. You can even use different DP's for the panel under the image :).

I hope you enjoyed my Cocoa CAS Christmas card (wow, now that's a lot of C's!). Your next stop in this Crazy 4 Cocoa Blog Hop is Bridget Finlay. I guarantee she's got something to share that will knock your socks off!

Just in case you get lost along the way, you can find the full list of blog hop participants HERE.

Enjoy the rest of the hop!!

C-ya next time!