This week's Midweek Throwdown Challenge at OWH is to make a "for the girls" card. These cards would be used for our soldiers to send home to their female loved ones.

My creation:















Supplies: pp - so old that I haven't a clue; stamp - Indadinkado; dies - Nestabilities

Today, I had my follow-up visit with the surgeon -- all is well. Of course, he may need glasses, 'cuz he said I looked great!

TTFN

This is a card I made for my daughter-in-law's birthday this weekend. Inside, she will be pleasantly surprised when she finds a gift card to a nail salon. I get a lot of my ideas and inspiration for cards during the Papertrey Ink new releases. This idea came from Heather Nichols when she introduced Fillable Frames #8 this month.










Supplies: pp - Imaginisce; die - PTI; stamp - PTI; ribbon - American Crafts; button -PTI Vintage Raspberry Fizz; MS Bakers Twine

Yesterday, I finished this book by Jason Wright. It was quite good - very thought provoking!

Here is this week's card sketch for Operation Write Home:











For my card, I decided to create a birthday card:










Supplies: pp - Sandy Lion; stamp - Hampton Arts; dies - Nestabilities; embossing folder - CB Polka Dots

Right now, we should be winging our way back from California after having attended my brother-in-law's wedding. But, alas, we had to cancel our trip. The day after coming home from the hospital after my appendectomy, my husband started having pain, swelling and severe redness in his left calf. So, Dr. Jayne immediately got on the internet and decided he had a blood clot. No sleep that night! He is not a doom-and-gloom-type person, but, even he was quite concerned. When he got to the doctor's the very next day, they, too, thought it was a blood clot. After an ultrasound, they decided it was cellulitis. He was started on antibiotics -- no change. Then, he had to go in daily for shots. The swelling just started to go down today, but they are concerned that it is taking so long to clear up.

What else happened? Oh, yeah, my less-than-2-year-old, apple green Dell laptop's screen went black on Saturday -- dead!! Peter took it to see the Geek Squad at Best Buy, thinking just to look at it would be almost the price of a new laptop. They opened it up, took out the board, put it back in and it works! Best of all ---- no charge! We couldn't believe it!

TTFN

This past weekend we were planning on doing our last-minute running around before leaving on Thursday for California to celebrate my brother-in-law's wedding. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans!

Last Thursday, I started getting back aches, and eventually abdominal pain. By late evening, the pain had shifted to my right side and by 2 a.m. we were leaving for the emergency room. After waiting 2 hours before being seen, they did a CT scan to check for kidney stones -- nope, acute appendicitis. Within 2 hours, the surgery was over and I came home the following morning. As of today, I feel like I'm back among the living.

I was able to make a necklace on Sunday to wear to the wedding. I used Swarovski crystals and pearls strung on 3 strands of crinkle wire:















And, these are the earrings I made to match:

The Midweek Throwdown challenge at OWH is a simple one -- make a birthday card for our soldiers to send home to their loved ones!

Creatively, I seem to be in a bit of a rut; all my cards tend to look the same. But anyway, here is my card:











Supplies: dies - PTI, Sizzix; brad - Doodlebug; felt; not a clue as to the pp I used, though!

Using this sketch posted on OWH by Teresa Kline of Enjoy the VA Sunshine ...













... I created this winter card:















Supplies: stamps - PTI; pp - KI Memories, Rusty Pickle; dies - Nestabilities, PTI; felt

My husband and I are travelling to California next week, so I knew I needed reading material. I took a trip to Books A Million and purchased 3 books. This is the 1st one I have started to read. I've read other books by Jennifer Weiner, so I was pretty sure it would be a good choice.

It's Monday and time for another OWH Stars & Stamps Sketch Challenge.















For my card, I flipped it and went with an all-green theme:










Supplies: stamps - Savvy Stamps, PTI; CB Embossing Folder - Polka Dots; pp - Daisy D's

With a bit of inspiration for yesterday's Madison Avenue blog, I made this card for my husband, since tomorrow is our 34th wedding anniversary.











Supplies: embossing folder - CB Polka Dots; dies - Nestabilities, Slice Animal Crackers; crochet lace; MS Bakers Twine

For this week's Midweek Throwdown at OWH, the challenge was to create a fall-themed thank you card for our heroes to send home to their loved ones.

Here is the card that I created:










Supplies: very old Chatterbox pp; stamps - Heidi Grace, Inkadinkado; die - Nestabilities

After spending Labor Day weekend in Atlanta with our son, daughter in law and granddaughter, I finally got around to this week's OWH sketch challenge.

the sketch:











and, my card:










Although I followed the sketch, I did stray a bit from the challenge. It was supposed to be a thank you card using the color yellow. As you will notice -- not a thank you card and no yellow!

My supplies: stamps - Magenta, PTI; CB snowflake embossing folder; dies - Nestabilities; clear embossing powder

Sat down yesterday and completed another layout of our granddaughter, Caroline. This layout was inspired by a design I had seen on Sarah de Guzman's blog, Red Oak Lines. She does great layouts, quite often centering around her two dogs Maui and Hilo.

Anyway, here's my layout:













Supplies: paper - Coredinations, The Paper Studio; die - Slice Noteworthy; buttons - PTI Holiday Mix Vintage; bakers twine - MS; title - Foam Thickers

I'm off to do a companion page, now.