Rudolph Day

Hi my crafty friends, I have two Christmas cards I wanted to share with you. The first one I'm entering in the Rudolph Day challenge. Rudolph Day always starts on the 25th of each month and ends on the last day of that same month. So it is always fun to play along so I will have a nice stash of Christmas cards when the time comes. For this Rudolph Day card, I used a stencil from Stamplorations that I won over at Darnell's NBUS challenge one time. I used white embossing paste with the tree stencil, it actually has to trees in this stencil! Then I put SU gold embossing powder on it. Let it dry and then heated the gold. I popped it up on foam tape to my card base.  I need a little more practice with getting the embossing paste smooth. lol  I did the sentiment the in the same embossing paste. Just a very simple CAS card. 

For my second card, I was going to enter it into the Muse Christmas Vision challenge, but of course I didn't get the card photograph so it didn't get entered. But I did play along! So that makes two more Christmas cards for my stash. For this one I used a SU stamp set, added some stickles and some Wink of Stella to the pine cone and needles. I also moved the pine needles just a smidgen and re-stamped with white ink to make the pine needles not so stark looking. Not sure I like it though, but it is done, so it is staying that way. lol  Nothing really to this one either. Cut my ovals using a My Creative Time die. Just easy peasy, plain Jane. 

Thanks for taking the time from your busy day and visiting me. I so love when you do and your comments always lift my spirits! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Dance Like No One's Watching-BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, since hubby's fever has come down and he has started treatments again, I decided to get back on my DT. I have missed crafting and I'm rusty to say the least, but hopefully I will get back in the swing of things. Hubby's last chemo treatment was rough on him. He was feeling a little sick while getting treatment so the nurse gave him some saltines to nibble on. Got home and he promptly ran to the bathroom. I felt so bad for him. Then the nurse and pharmacy got here to get hubby's pump placed on. The pharmacy delivered the meds and then left and then the nurse got hubby set up with his pump. No sooner than she got it on him than he was back in the bathroom. When he came out he was so white, his lips were so white and it was a little scary to see. His heart rate was up of course so the nurse said she wasn't leaving until his rate was back down. So I got him settle in his recliner, covered him up because he was freezing and the nurse checked him a little later. His heart rate was back down so she left and he rested. The next morning he felt good to go so I was a thankful wife!

Today over at BBTB2 our challenge was issued by our our sweet design team sister, Emily. Her little girl is going to be starting dance soon so that is our theme, dance. I didn't know where I was going to go with this challenge. But in the end this is what I came up with. My dancing girl comes from the Cricut cartridge Shall We Dance. My mat is from Elegant Edges and I had my Explore write my sentiment using the Quarter Note cartridge.  I punched a Martha Stewart butterfly and two smaller butterflies using a Studio G punch. I added some pearls and called it done. Let's see your dance projects and make sure to use your Cricut cartridges. Can't wait to see what you do. 

Thank you for taking time from your busy day to visit me, I always love to read your sweet comments-they always make my day! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Get Well Soon!-Cardz TV Gallery

Hello my crafty friends,  hubby's fevers are doing much better. He still has a low fever, but at least it isn't 104 anymore. Today is chemo day, so I am sitting beside hubby while he gets his treatment. I dare say I think they are working on the tumors and that is why the fevers have came down.  It's so nice to have him feeling better now and he even has been going into work for a half a day this week as well as getting the planting done on the farm finally! That made my heart sing when he got out on the tractor. Farming is his passion, so when he wasn't feeling well enough to even farm, I knew it was bad. So things are going pretty good and I attribute that to all of the prayers from you and others!! I am coming back to crafting and my design teams and it feels good to know we are getting back to a kinda' normal routine again. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers! 

Today it is my turn to post over at the Cardz TV Gallery.  I am using the Cardz TV stamp set called Mixed Messages and you can get this stamp set here. There are a lot of great sentiments on this set, the one I'm using today is "doctor's orders...feel better soon" for a get well card. The SVG files I used are from Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbon. The center step card base, layers and the cute pills and pill bottle all came from there. These SVG files pare together with Mary's stamp set perfectly! Thanks for stopping by today and make sure to stop back the rest of the week at Cardz TV Gallery for some awesome projects from my design team sisters!! As always thank you for taking time out of your busy day to visit me. Your comments always make my day!! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Muse-Christmas Visions Challenge

Hi my crafty friends, a little update on hubby and then I have a card believe it or not. Hubby had a partial treatment today, the one chemo he didn't get because that is every two weeks, so next week he will get it. He is have some better days, not great, but better and better is always good! Still getting fevers as well, but they aren't as high, but we have been keeping on top of them with the Tylenol and ice packs. Next week he will get everything in his treatment including the pump he will wear for 48 hours. But it will be done differently this go around. The pump gets dropped off here at our home and then a nurse will come to the house will hook hubby up and then will come back to take it off. Last time the nurse in the chemo center put it on for him and then we would go back in to get it off. It will be nice not to have to run back in just to get it taken off. Now it is a wait and see game, hopefully this treatment will shrink the larger tumor and make the smaller ones disappear like it did last time. So keeping the faith and fingers crossed and looking forward to better days with some normalcy. This care giver is getting worn out! But will continue to care for hubby as long as needed. The funeral for my mother went well and it was good to get together with family. DS has been home from college for a week now and it is good to have him home. I think. He still has boxes and his crap all over the house. lol He has been working in the fields and working at the movie house, so not much time for him to clean up his stuff. Hopefully soon! It is just finding a place to store everything until Aug. when school starts again. Hubby isn't able to get into the fields yet, so some of our sons are doing what they can. Hopefully soon hubby will be able to get in the tractor and go, he really needs to and I really need him to be able to do just that! 

There's a new challenge in town and it is called Muse-Christmas Visions. A designer team member posts a card and you are to take inspiration from that card. Here is the card that was posted by designer Kimberly Wiener:

Beautiful isn't it?! Well I happened to receive a box of watercolors from my Momma Mary for my birthday, wasn't that so sweet of her?!! Thanks Momma Mary!! I haven't done much watercoloring, in fact, I don't think I've done anything but smooshing with distress inks and a spritz of water. lol So this may very well be my first time watercoloring. And even though it isn't great, it isn't to bad either. I will take it! The inside turned out better than the outside did, but that's ok, I'm still pretty happy with it. I took Kimberly's card and kinda' CASED it-I did say kinda' didn't I? lol  So besides my new Koi Watercolors which are NBUS, I also used a NBUS stamp set that I won in a NBUS challenge by my Auntie Darnell! Thanks Auntie!!! I was happy to be able to play with some of my NBUS, got plenty  more to go though. 

Recipe:
watercolor paper
Koi Watercolor Pocket Field Sketch box paints
DCWV Gold Foil paper
My Creative Time Stitched Rectangular Frame Dies and More
Stamplorations Holiday Sketches Christmas Flower stamp set
SU Vanilla cardstock for the card base
SU Gold Embossing Powder
Sequins from Peachy Cheap

Update

Hello crafty friends, I'm back for an update. Had to take hubby to the ER because his fever got to 104. Kinda' freaked me out!! But with all the testing they did and what was done earlier in the week, everything came back perfectly normal. No gall tones or badder trouble or anything. It's a double edge sword, because I didn't want anything to be wrong that needed surgery, but was kinda' hoping they found an infection somewhere that they could just treat with antibiotics to make these fevers go away so hubby could go down to Hopkins. But that isn't the case, they have decided that it is the tumors causing the pain he is having and the fevers, so they want to get started on treatments ASAP. I was prepared to beg this morning to get them to start a treatment this week, but I didn't have to, thank the good Lord for that. Treatments start tomorrow morning at 8:40 am. It will take 3 consecutive weeks to get his full treatment plan into effect because of the paper work and such as he will be wearing a pump for 48 hours after treatment again. I just pray that the treatment at a lower dose this time around works and the side effects stay low. This was hubby's first treatment when we started on this journey but at a higher dose, but the side effects got to back and doc had to take him off it. The side effects are: cold sensitivity-has to drink warmed water, can't touch anything cold or it gives extreme pain, thankfully it isn't winter this go around! He couldn't even breathe in cold air as it would cause his throat to close up on him or I should say gave the sensation of it. He feet and fingers went number, so it got so he was falling a lot and couldn't button buttons and that is when doc pulled him off. It was the only treatment that worked on the tumors though. It shrunk the largest tumor by over half and the smaller tumors disappeared. So now I need it to work again with minor side effects so he can stay on it. Once or if the tumors are knocked back then the fever will leave too. So I'm still asking for prayers that this time around the treatment will work and not give him the side effects of the neropathy (sp) because that is what will cause them to pull him off this treatment. This treatment plan was the doctor from Hopkins backup plan in case the study didn't work. I wish we could have tried the study first, but God had other plans. So we will go with His plan and then if it all works out and the fevers leave, hubby will be able to wait the 28 days after getting off treatment and go down to do the study. 

Then on top of all that going on this weekend, my mother passed away Saturday late afternoon and I have the viewing and funeral stuff this week too. So I'm a bit scatterbrained to say the least. I didn't have a relationship with my mother, she chose alcohol over her family and was very abusive, so I had to make the choice to walk away from all of that in my 30's. Tried to go back a few times hoping that things had changed but they hadn't. My step-father said that she was still drinking heavily when he found her slumped over, he thought at first she just passed out cause she did that all the time. I guess she would drink herself to were she would just pass out. So even though I didn't have a relationship with my mother, she was still my mother and I want to go to the views and funeral and to support my step-father. He was an abused husband as my mother was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. But I hope she is at peace now and not having to fight all the demons she was fighting. Sad it turned out this way but it was her choice, not mine. She gave me no choice but to walk away. So please keep hubby and myself in your prayers.  I need prayers to keep my sanity through all this. Thank you for reading this long post and if you stuck with me this far, I'm happy. If you didn't I totally understand. And most of all thank you for all of your support and prayers, I really believe that your prayers is what is keeping hubby's "numbers" looking very good and healthy. Crafty hugs, Brenda