Valentine Inchy

I received a shipment yesterday from Stampin' Up.  I had pre-ordered the Valentine special but, darn it, the stamp is back-ordered!  It shipped today so I should have it by the first of next week.  I received the Valentine DSP so decided to work with it and a stampset I had on hand.  I pulled out the set, Cute by the Inch, which is a hostess set that I haven't used and found this cute little heart.  This card was simple to make - which is not my usual.  But, it was fun and quick and I like it!

I stamped the heart inchy in black and mounted it on black which I mounted on Real Red. 

I'm excited!  I made our airline reservations today for our trip to IRELAND!!  We are going there mid-March and will be meeting Ashley on her leave.  Our plans are to tour Ireland for a week and then travel over to England for a few days.  Just working out all the logistics will be a hassel but at least I've made a start by making the plane reservations.

A Productive Day!

I stuck to my guns on Saturday and stamped all day!  Oh what fun!  Of course, I had to take a little time in the morning to chat with Ashley.  Skype is such a wonderful thing!  We probably talk to each other as much now as we did when she was state-side.  Although this week, we have both been busy and haven't chatted in several days.  We made up for it yesterday though!  She is doing well and making the most of her life in Iraq.  She went to a "Hail and Farewell" one day this week.  All the companies put on skits where they make fun of something (or someone) there and the company who does the best gets to reward the "prize" to the person who was the butt of the joke in their skit.  Ashley's group won this time.  She says they never win and usually end up getting the booby prize.  In their skit, they did it all about the Captain who is in charge of the dining facility.  It seems that she practically strip searches the soldiers as they are leaving because you can only take 2 items out of the cafeteria.  If you can't make it to a meal (which in the doctors' case, is quite a lot since they are on call every other day until 8 pm), you can't have someone bring you a meal.  UNLESS, you have filled out the forms - a month in advance - and presented them to the captain in advance AND she hasn't lost them (which is the case for this month!).  Crazy, huh??  The forms have to be signed by a LT. Col and a couple of others.  Ashley said a couple of days ago, she & the the LT. Col. were at dinner and tried to take a meal back to one of the medics.  They were not allowed to because their forms had been lost - even though the LT. Col. who would have signed the memo was the one making the request.  Needless to say, Ashley eats a lot of her meals in her room - things we have sent her like mac & cheese, pretzels, with mustard, popcorn, etc.  Another problem with the mess hall is she has to be dressed in her uniform in order to go in to eat.  The gym is right next door and Ashley does Yoga there several times a week and doesn't usually want to get dressed again just to go in the cafeteria.  They are not allowed to go in with just their work out clothes (shorts & tee) on.  You would think this was some fancy restaurant - not an Army Mess Hall!!  One of the drawbacks to Ashley eating in her room (in my opinion!) is she is eating way too many carbs.  Even she remarked yesterday about it.  It is hard to think of things to send that she can microwave in her room that are not carb-packed.  Any suggestions out there?  I am sending a stick of pepperoni this week and suggested to a friend to send a stick of summer sausage.  I actually sneaked a few oranges in her box last week.  I forgot you can't send fruit overseas and was afraid it would get stuck in Customs.  But she received the box in the usual time.  It is great that it only takes about a week to get a Priority box to her!  Her birthday is December 22 so I will be getting a birthday box together this week.

While I was working away, my DH hollered up to me to look out the window.  To my surprise, this is what I saw:

 SNOW!!  We had a few flurries - mixed in with sleet off and on for about an hour.  Nothing stuck of course but it was sure fun to see!

Now - on to my creations!  I actually did several Christmas cards AND several Valentine cards!  During my blog reading last week, I came across one of my favorite designers, Gretchen Barron's request for Valentine cards for From Our Hearts who are collecting Valentine cards for the troops in Iraq and Afganistan.  You can read about it - and Gretchen's contest - HERE.  So before I got started with my Christmas cards, I whipped up a few Valentines.  They are pretty simple - using some DSP I had in my stash and/or some embossed cards I have had for a long time.

 This Hugs & Kisses card uses some DSP that I found in a pack.  I just added the Hugs & Kisses sentiment.

 This is an embossed card that I have had for over 5 years  - I made two of them and finally have used up those cards!  I used markers to color the LOVE and chalked the background in pink.

 Another of those embossed cards.  I stamped "miss U" with a retired SU set (All About You) and punched out some little hearts and glued them over the embossed hearts.

Another piece of DSP from a pack I found.  I stamped the boat onto cardstock and colored it with markers.  This is another SU retired set - Boatloads of Love.

Do you notice a theme?  I have my SU stamp sets on shelves in loose alpha order.  I started with the top shelf (A-D) and pulled stamp sets that I could use in Valentine and Christmas cards.  I am trying to use some of my neglected stamp sets!  Tomorrow I will share the Christmas cards I made so come back!!

Gotta run so I can decorate my tree before I attend an Open House Tour in my neighborhood.  There will be four houses in the tour all decorated for Christmas with different themes.  There will be appetizers and wine at each home.  The proceeds will go toward a Palliative CareCenter & Hospice that will be built soon in my town.  Then back home to get dinner ready so we can eat in front of the TV tonight while pulling on our Steelers in a TOUGH game!! 

Happy Valentine!

Hope your Valentine's Day was sweet!  Mine was pretty quiet.  We met my Mom and Marianne and Greg in town tonight for dinner and I gave them some Valentines.  I made Mom these flower pins that I made today.

 I woke up Saturday morning to more snow as I said in an earlier post.  Here are a few pictures I took yesterday morning.  It was a real pretty snow but by mid afternoon, the sun had melted most of it from the trees.  We still have some in the yard (along with some left over from 2 weeks ago!)  Our heat pump has been frozen solid for 2 weeks.  We keep waiting for it to thaw out to see if the motor is burned out or not.  In the meantime, we have it on emergency electrical power.

 Here are a few Valentines that I received.

 

This is a darling little box .... with Hershey kisses inside that I got from Judy.  It's so cute!!   I actually recycled it today and put some Hershey Nuggets (I ate all the kisses!) in it and gave it to Sonny!!

  

This is a pretty card that I received in the mail from Brenda today.

I received this cute bear from my upline, Carol.  Isn't he cute?? 

 And this card I received from my friend Margaret.  It's an easel card.  I haven't made one of these yet but I think I will give it a try tomorrow.  Thanks, Margaret!!

Well, the forecast is calling for more snow tonight!!  We'll see.  I don't think we are supposed to get much but it will be cold all week.  I'm ready for SPRING!!

Valentines Sweet Treats Cup with a Slider

I've been on a roll the past couple of days with making cards!  I finally got out of the house yesterday.  We were able to get our car out of the driveway in the afternoon and, with Sonny driving, we went to town!!  We had lunch/dinner out; then headed to the grocery store!  Such fun (ha)!  A new Lowe's grocery opened up last week and I had not gone yet so we checked it out then headed over to BJ's to stock up.  Today, we drove to the YMCA and then had a delicious Italian late lunch at Portofino's!  Yummy!!  Now, I don't have to cook dinner (2 nights in a row!!)

So, I got these Sweet Treat Cups 2-3 months ago and for some reason, I was just intimidated by them.  Don't know why I didn't just sit myself down and just DO IT!!  But, I always found an excuse.  So today, I made this cute little Valentine card using the round Sweet Treat cups.  I didn't buy the heart shaped ones since I had never used the round ones!  I found these little heart shaped candy wafers at Michaels - believe me, they look better than they taste!! 

I made little 3" x 3" cards.  I think tomorrow I'll try a larger card.

So you don't have to tear up the card to get to the goodies inside, I made a little slider door. Here's a picture of the inside with the door partly opened.

Here's the inside with little slider closed.

It was really pretty easy.  If you want to make one of these, check out Becky Roberts' blog HERE.