Today we continue to have rain falling and lots and lots of people without power. What a sad, sad thing, this storm called Sandy. It has changed so many lives. Some have lost their life to her. I'm thankful that being here in Ohio, we've only gotten a small taste of her fury.
Today we celebrated Halloween at school. If there's one day of school that I hate, it's this day. We worry about educating our students yet today from 1:05-3:25 Halloween parties played in each room. 2 1/2 hours for Halloween games, and food. Something's wrong with priorities here...........tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this.
In our area, Trick or Treating has been moved to Sunday where the weather will be nicer and dryer. Yippee! Another day to celebrate. Sorry about that, but that's what happens when you have to spend the day with wild kids, insistent parents, and chaos in rooms and hallways of the school. Now I remember why I took this day off many years if I could.
Here's a cute item for my sale Saturday. Here's where I found the idea.
Elf Kisses from Kim's Kandy Kreations (follow the link to get the poem ready to print!)
I had to use regular Hershey Kisses as Walgreens didn't have Christmas candy out yet. I used SU's small cello bags and attached the poem to designer paper and stapled them together. Then I punched a whole in the papers and added ribbon.
Look at the two gorgeous Fall cards I got from Hope and Rose. The first card is from Hope. Can you see the tiny gold specs? They are shiny and add so much to this card. Thank you Hope.
This card is from Rose, Hope's sister. Rose's card is so pretty with the different colors for the acorns. I just love that background as well don't you? This looks like a hole in a tree that holds a squirrels food for the winter. Thank you so much Rose.
Check out the rack on this guy. He was walking through our yard and stopped to eat near our kitchen window. We don't often get to see the males, especially with this much head gear. What a great way for God to once again show me the beauty he's created all around me.
Here's an older song, but thought with the events of the last two days, there surely are angels among us helping others out without being asked. Pay It Forward is where this song is from, sung by Alabama.
May you find peace and love. May you find someone to help. You will change their life and your own as well. Go be and angel to someone.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessing of the Day:God got me through this dreadful day at work.
Blessings,
What a very unusual day we had. We got our first hurricane day off. We've had snow days and ice days, and no power days, but NEVER a Hurricane day! We had our power go out last night at 11 or so which didn't matter much we were all headed off to bed. With lanterns in tow we each went to sleep knowing we had today off.
This morning we awoke to no power as well so we did the best we could for meals. Peanut butter was used this morning as well as fruits and milk. :)
Here are some photos of the Cleveland area today. The first picture is Cleveland Lake Front.
This picture is from Fair Port Harbor, where you can't even see the break wall with the water going over it.
I did get to stamp today once our power returned. This was for the color challenge today where I used the masking technique to get several layers on my card. We had to use cherry, white or vanilla and olive for our colors.
I also worked on some things for the sale Friday and Saturday.
This is the front of the reindeer food.
Here is the back of the Magic Reindeer Food packet.
I also have some Santa Snacks with a cute little poem attached to it. The poem says:
It's that time of year
When his work keeps him busy
The time of year where stress runs high
These help to calm the poor, old guy
Santa snacks are pretty with their
Red and white stripes
Allowing him to work long into the nights
If you're stressed and don't know what to do
Open your bag and enjoy a few!
Well since we didn't get a call to stay home tomorrow I've got to get to sleep.
Blessing of the day: We got our power back, we all stayed safe, and Tim got the servers up at work.
It's been such a long, long week, I'm sure you know that since I haven't posted anything lately. I've got pictures to show you though. I had to make a few santa cards for the show this weekend. I had some customers asking for Santa. So I'm making some more this week. This is an old fashioned Santa stamp that I got at the convention last weekend. I wanted a vintage look for the card.
Here's that Santa again and he's on top of red flocked paper. cool huh?
Here's another Christmas card I made this weekend. Love the ribbon and what it adds to the card.
This is an acrylic block collage made at Jane's Saturday. Her block was shaped like this which made it look cool.
Isn't this Pure Innocence girl darling? I added some sparkle to her hat and boots as well as her tree.
I tried to use my new picture window with Santa looking in to see if kids are asleep. I tried to add snow to the window pane.
I found these things this week while on FB. They spoke to me so I saved them to share with you.
It's way past my bedtime. I have to get up early to place my Stampin' Up orders!
Today's the BIG day where most stamps are 15% off the regular price! Stampin' Up's NEVER done this before. Get your order in before the clock strikes midnight. Stampin' Up goes by mountain time and they are two hours behind us here in Ohio.
Happy Shopping!
Today has been a good day. I got a lot of work done at work and somehow managed again without my assistant. She's returning to work as her daughter is now home with her two boys. She will have to balance her time between home and the hospital. Please continue to pray for that sweet baby named Connor who continues to hold his own. I got to stamp tonight. Here's what I came up with.
Here's my card for today's color challenge of using pretty in pink, vanilla and primrose. I used the acrylic block collage technique. I did have dessert because I used the embossing folder from SU called Lacy Brocade. I used perfect layers to make the pink and black frames around the image. I added the scallop black ribbon and Congrats which is a retired SU stamp. I sprayed this with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and sparkly paint.
I came across this tonight and thought it was worth repeating. I don't know about you but I feel so fortunate that God doesn't give me what I truly deserve.
Here's a song by Britt Nicole called All This Time. See what you think.
Thank you for stopping by. We're beginning Indian Summer this week here in Ohio. I enjoyed it by sitting on the screened in porch with coffee and Tim.
Blessing of the Day: I talked to my twin and tongue surgery went well and she's healing, but still in pain.
Today I got to put together cards that I had colored last night. We had a busy day Saturday. I went to the Strongsville Stamp show and spent about 4 hours looking around and purchasing things and doing make and takes. This was the first year however, that some make and takes had to be paid for.
I made a cute one from Amuse Stamps.
This is the little matchbook I made at the Strongsville Stamp show this weekend. This is from the Amuse stamp company. We stamped and colored the image, punched it out with the circle punch then mounted it on the scallop circle. This was attached to the red paper. We put a red and white round mint candy in the fold of the matchbook and stapled it in near the bottom so we could tuck the edge of the paper into the matchbook. Cute Idea. I thought it would be cute to add a business card to and hand out to people during the holidays.
Here are some cards I put together today. These are Bugawumps which were new to me. I found these at the Convention in Strongsville and found out that this company will close December 1st. I was happy though to talk to Laura the owner and she even gave me a free stamp!
Today was a busy day. We had church until noon, came home to eat, then went to an appointment, then went grocery shopping. By that time it was about 3 p.m. and I was happy to be home. I got to put together the cards I'd been coloring.
Here's an old Steven Curtis Chapman song that really spoke to me tonight called, His Strength is Perfect.
Time to get some sleep. Thanks for checking things out here.
Well today I come once again to ask for prayers. My assistant's daughter had her son at 25 weeks. He is 1 lb. 10 oz. He was breathing on his own for a while but is now on a respirator.
This mom already has two boys that are active and being watched by my assistant.
My assistant's other daughter had surgery and it seems like something didn't go right with it. I am so sorry they all have to go through this.
Today I took Sarah and her two friends to an Apple Farm. Her friend's family owns it and her friend was working there. The girls had time to talk and shop. I got my cider and apples while they got pumpkins, fudge, candy apples, etc. The things that thin teenage girls can eat! LOL
The girls made lemon bars that looked wonderful! I'm not eating that kind of food so I had to stay out of the kitchen except to take this picture. We stopped to pick up pizza and that smelled delicious too, but I didn't have any. This has been a challenging night for sure!
Thanks for stopping by,
Blessing of the Day:Sarah got to spend the evening with her friends
Blessings,
Today Tim and I went to Amish Country for a get-away. First we went to Ashery's Country Store where they have all sorts of great things to buy. We got healthy stuff like spices, soup mix, cashews etc. NO Chocolate.
Next stop was Mrs. Yoder's Restaurant. Yum what a great lunch we had. It was a challenge not to order pie though. We got a few hand painted pictures from there which are amazing.
Last stop was Lehman's Hardware. Oh my gosh, it's like a small city inside. We walked forever and still didn't see all of it. It is filled with so much stuff. We came out with purple popcorn seeds, coffee, and a pottery mug. We spent an hour there and still didn't see all of it! We'll have to go back sometime.
I was able to do the color challenge for Tuesday and use Monday's acrylic collage technique. Take a look. We were to used vanilla, pumpkin and chocolate chip. Now all I can think of is pumpkin roll with chocolate chips in it! LOL
I used the acrylic block collage from yesterday. I stamped pumpkin and choc chip on the block, spritzed it then stamped. I used Autumn Days stamps in tangerine and choc chip stamped off on the base of the image. Then I stamped choc chip as the main image. I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to position the orange letters off a bit from the choc chip. The edges were sponged with pumpkin using a dauber.
Here is the card I made for today's Way To Use It challenge. Here's another Pure Innocence Cutie I just got. She's serving turkey dinner. I colored the wreath with red crayon for the crayon resist technique but after putting gumball green ink over it I couldn't see it well so I added red marker. The wreath is Su's embossing folder. The red paper is from SU as well. The ribbon is retired SU ribbon. I miss this style ribbon.
Here's a song I heard tonight that spoke to me so I wanted to share it with you. It's called
What Faith Can Do by Kutless.
I took my salad to eat at my work table in my card room. It had a bit of ranch dressing on it. I came out of the bathroom and Sam the cat is licking the dressing off my salad! Yuck! I had to get rid of it. It was a great salad Tim made with snap peas.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessing of the Day:Time with Tim
Blessings,
Look what God brought to me after yesterday's serious post. It's called, Jesus Hold Me Now, by Casting Crowns. His timing blows my mind and makes me cry at the same time.
Here's the card I made last night for the New technique and Clean and Simple challenges. This was a very cool technique called acrylic block collage. I stamped different colors of ink on my acrylic block, spritzed it with a bit of water and stamped. next I put post-it-notes around the block image. I stamped with pumpkin and real red colors. The last thing I did was remove the post-it-notes and stamped a main image and text in espresso ink. It was soooooo hard to leave this the way it is.
Thanks for taking time to visit.
Blessing of the Day:God shows me he is here with me.
Blessings,
Today was another one of those days where I wonder why I do what I do? Teaching is one stressful thing after another. Do you know that for a lot of parents these days they see school and teachers as the ENEMY? Yup, they come in complaining that you sent a note home telling how their child did something wrong, and they come in defending their child and want the consequences dropped! Really? That's what it's coming to? Kids can do things wrong and not have consequences? That's really going to bring about major issues as this generation grows to adulthood.
I had a kindergarten student who had not behaved and had his card changed from green(you're good and following the rules), to yellow(you've made a mistake and not followed the rules). This child asked me and the general education teacher if we would flip his card back to green because he didn't like it on yellow. His mom said maybe he could earn his green card back. Really? We're at a point where kids are trying to negotiate with parent's help to make it look like nothing happened?
Where has the idea of if do the crime, you do the time gone? If you misbehave, you have a consequence, plain and simple. No do-overs! Just do-betters!
We have a 2nd grader, new student today(this was his first day of the 2012-2013 school year for him and his brother.) who raised his hand to answer a question and when the teacher didn't call on him, he threw his pencil at someone. When the teacher turned to get workbooks for students to use, the student(remember it's his first day) got up and left the room.
This is a 2nd grader on his first day! It's sad to see kids so bold at such a young age.
So many teachers are getting burned out with all they are asked to do. Other than being a kid's mom and dad, we're just about everything else to them. We wear so many hats in a day that it's exhausting keeping up.
I see many teachers after a few years just quit teaching and find something else. Not that they will be appreciated, but at least they won't be attacked by parents who don't appreciate what is done for their child each and every day.Parents who don't support authority but support their child and what they say. Most of the students now in our building are on free or reduced lunches. Many are transient and have had many different schools in their short life.
I pray that something changes in our land. I pray that God is pushed back in by all of the Christians out there. Why are we sitting back and allowing the minority dictate what we want?
We want God back in our schools, homes, government and the world. We see what we have when God is removed......utter chaos and hate.
You know, teachers don't go into education because of the pay. They go in believing that they can change lives of kids who will be our leaders some day. We yearn to reach kids and teach them to think and learn, to do what they dream of. To work hard and be proud of themselves. To teach them and see that little light bulb go off and know it's because of your patience and creativity that the student learned something that for them was difficult.
God help us with the mess we've created.
Here's a song that calmed me after writing all of this. I'm sorry I vented but I really needed to let you see what education has turned into.
Listen to Casting Crown's song, You're Already There. I hope it brings a peace and calm to your heart.
Here's another song I found called If We've Every Needed You by Casting Crown.
May these songs bring you peace and joy because we know Jesus is with us every step of the way.
Thanks for stopping by today.
Blessing of the Day:Tim had the day off and built a shelf attached to the ceiling to store things.
Blessings,
I've actually finished a challenge on the day it was given!! Woot-Woot! Here is the item I made for today's featured stamper. Here is what I made to honor Cheryl. I used the directions from Andrea Walford. Here is the card from Cheryl that I used for inspiration.
Instead of red and brown for colors I added some green for the mug by coloring the stamp. I also used the ribbon and designer paper and rhinestones.
I may try to simplify this so I can make some for our Christmas Fair at church. Thanks Andrea for the easy to follow videos.
Here's a song Susan Carlson posted on her blog, and I loved it! So thank you Susan. Listen to Kutless sing their song, Even if.......
Today began with beautiful sunny, warm weather and ended up with windy, rainy weather. I know stay in Cleveland long enough and you'll get the weather you want.
Blessing of the Day: We had a great Marriage Bible Study at church.
Thank you for visiting today.
blessings,
I pray that you too are secure in God's promises and know where you will spend eternity.
Here is a song that I just recently heard that really boosted my spirits. Read the words as you listen to this song. It's called Promises by Sanctus Real.
I got my many errands done today and put all of the stuff away from Card Ministry and got to stamp a bit. Here's what I did to try to catch up on challenges on SCS for this week.
This little guy, Rhubarb is for the negative challenge. You had to use the negative of something you cut out. This is the inside of my card.
This is the outside of my card. I love this sweet-n-sassy set called Rhubarb's Autumn Joys.
Here's one that I made using a paper that I stamped leaves in different colors then cut the paper into a 3x3 square which was cut into fourths.
This card was for two challenges. The first was to use two circles, the ornament and flower. The second was the color challenge of this week. You had to use midnight muse, mustard and razzleberry.
This card was made at Card Ministry for the music ministry to use.
This card was also made at Card Ministry as a thank you.
Are you like me so tired of the political signs and phone calls? I know who is king and the election won't change a thing.
Do you ever have those kinds of days where you are down and don't feel good about yourself? I saw this on such a day. God works in wonderful ways doesn't he?
Thanks for stopping by today.
Blessing of the Day:I got to spend some time with Tim today without the kids!
Blessings,
