Calling all fans who love Cardz TV Stamps!!!

Hello my crafty friends. I have some great news for Cardz TV fans who love Cardz TV Stamps, Mary has a new blog called Cardz TV Gallery and she has selected some of us to be Cardz TV Gallery designers! How exciting right?!! It is currently under construction but will be up and running with our first post on Sept. 26th!! I can't wait until you can meet the new Cardz TV Gallery Designers, they will have a new project for you everyday using Cardz TV stamps, how exciting!!! So mark your calendars for September 26th and come see our debut! In the mean time you can follow us at:

http://www.cardztvgallery.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you all there! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Cricut Artist Gate Fold Cards

Hello my crafty friends, happy TGIF to you all. I have been playing a little bit in my crafty room. I had saw a video from Joy over at Obsessed With Scrapbooking make a card using the card base on the Artist cartridge. It was so dang cute, that I had to make some cards with this card base. The only Cricut I use was for the base. The papers are from SU, don't know which packs they came from, I bought a bunch when they were on clearance. The first card I used a die and sentiment stamp from My Creative Time. 

This is the inside of the card. All the cards will look the same only with the matching paper on the inside that was used on the outside. I haven't placed sentiments on the inside yet. Some I may and some I won't. I will let them blank to write in.

The flowers on this one are dies from My Creative Time.

More die flowers and stamps from My Creative Time.

The sentiment on this was is from CardzTV and the coffee cup is from a generic stamp set.

Take A Moment

Please take a moment to pause and remember the victims of 9/11 today. It is a day that changed America. So many lives lost for no good reason. So many lives lost to fight to save the lives of American's trapped in the burning Twin Towers. So many lives lost from fighting to protect our great Nation. It's a day that is burned into everyone's memory, we all know what we were doing and where we where when we got the news. For me it was news that I knew was going to send my son to war. To a war that has lasted for 13 years and no sign of letting up yet. My son has been deployed most of his adult life, with 5 deployments under his belt and with another coming up. My son was only 19 when he left for war. I wasn't ready to let him go but I couldn't control it. I'm very proud of my son, he is the true sense of an American Soldier. So please take the time today to remember all those effected by 9/11. We all were effected in some way or another. Today is chemo day for hubby so we will be sitting and reflecting on the last 13 years as well as that day that changed our lives forever. Remember our soldiers today saying a little prayer for those who are deployed right now and for the ones that will deploy, they so deserve our prayers for fighting to keep our Nation free and safe for us. They give us the ultimate gift when they give their lives, asking nothing in return. I could never, ever do our soldier's job so they have my highest respect and admiration!! God Bless America and God Bless Our Soldiers!!! Thank you and crafty hugs, Brenda

Be Good To Yourself! - BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are enjoying a lovely start to your week. As you know if it is Monday then it is time for another BBTB2 challenge. Our sweet and talented Diana (and my twin-lol) has challenged us to use a purse die cut from a Cricut cartridge. So it is all about the purses this week. I know many have purse fetishes but I just try to find one that meets my needs which is hard for me to find. I don't carry a lot in my purse so don't usually need a very big one, but I like lots of spots to place what I do carry. Also with only being 4' 11" a large purse looks pretty silly on me. lol So I don't have many purses but I do love looking at them in the stores. So for my card today I made a changing screen shaped card. For the panels I used two different pattern papers, my purses came from a few different cartridges: Paisley, Forever Young and Everyday Paper Dolls. My dresses and my sentiment came from My Creative Time. I used a SU punch to punch for my  changing screen legs and the Fiscars Threading Water punch for the top screen edge. I didn't cut a lot of the layers to the purses because of cutting them small, but I did use homemade enamel dots and a flower from SU. The purses are supposed to look like they are sitting on a shelf, not sure I quite pulled that off, but that is what it is. lol I was going for a look of a screen in a window display with the dresses hanging from it and the purses sitting on a shelf that is attached to the screen.  I hope you will join us this week and make a Cricut purse project. Need some inspiration?? Look no farther than my BBTB2 design team sisters, they have some wonderful inspiration for you! Thanks for stopping by today, your comments always make me smile and I'm so thankful for you all. Crafty hugs, Brenda

 Close up of the purses and dresses, yeah I'm no dress designer! lol Or purse designer!

Since I used snippets for my purses I'm going to see if I can join in the Pixie Playground Challenge where you are to use snippets on your cards.

I was invited by Leslie over at The Memory Nest to share my project so I've linked up with them. 

Home of the Free...because of the Brave-BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are enjoy this Labor Day! I am hosting over at BBTB2 this week and I chose the theme, "stars and stripes" in honor of 9/11 which will be here soon. As most of you know I have a son who is in the military and 9/11 sent him to war putting fear in this mother's heart. He will be deploying yet again next summer to Afghan putting the fear back into my heart. This will be his 6th deployment so you can see why 9/11 is near and dear to my heart, not only because my son was deployed but because so many lives where lost that fateful day. It is something that I still can't make sense of, nor can I make sense of anything these horrible people (can we even call them people?!) still do causing our sons, daughters, husbands and wives to be deployed constantly. Constantly putting their lives at risk, still losing yet more lives each and every day because of 9/11. It is such a bittersweet day for me and always will be. I always want to honor those who lost their lives that day, those who fought to rescue those that day and to our military soldiers who continue to fight everyday for our freedoms. So thank you in advance for joining in on this challenge. Now onto my card. I guess you can tell that I love our soldiers, one in particular. lol So on my card I used the Cricut cartridges Artbooking and George and Basic Shapes. I used the red striped overlay from Artbooking cut it at 4 inches. Then I used my Gypsy and place stars on a rectangle shape at 4 inches tall from George & Basic Shapes and cut it out. I saved my stars for later use as well as a few of the stripes. I also used MCT dies for the "Uncle Sam" hat. My sentiments came from MCT stamps as well. The "because" was a generic word stamp set from Hobby Lobby. I put some stickles on my stars and scattered three sequins on the blue layer. The red dots are tiny seed beads I melted to make my own enamel dots. For the inside I just used a few of the stripes and the stars. I hope you have enjoyed my card for today. Thanks for joining me today and if you play along on this challenge maybe you will give your card to a soldier and thank them for your freedoms. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Entering this card in Craftin Desert Diva's Link it up Linky Party - Anything goes.

Creative Blog Hop

Happy Monday Morning my friends! Yes, we are back around to Monday again. How did that happen?! lol I have a different post for you today, a second post for you. If you are looking for my BBTB2 post it is below this post. This will be a longer post, but not overly long, so grad your favorite beverage and sit with me for a spell. It's by turn to join in on the fun with The Creative Blog Hop, which is held each Monday. A quick explanation - TCBH is the brain child of a blogger , who's identity seems to have disappeared along the way as the hop progressed. The hop includes all kinds of artists: watercolor, paint, mixed media, and cards, as well as writers, photographers, and all sorts of needlework artists.

The idea is for each of us Bloggers to get to know each other better - some describes this as a game of "Tag, Your It". Each bloggers answers four questions about themselves and afterwards they "tag" three other bloggers and so on - then it goes on with the next three bloggers. Or so it should. However this one will end with me as I did not get three other bloggers to join in with me as they all have their plates full right now. Life is just that - life - and it must go on regardless of our hobbies and sometimes it doesn't allow time for this sort of thing no matter how fun it is to do.

The hop is only held on Mondays.

Just FYI there are knock-off hops going around called "Getting to Know Me" and "Blog Hop With a Difference" , which is fine. They are structured similarly, but some have different questions, so there might be some confusions as all these hops are hopping around all over Blogland. It's all good as we get to know one another a bit better. 

So how did I come to join in? Come and meet my "tagger".

The sweet and talented Mary of Carolina Cards. I met Mary when she was surfing Pinterest and came upon something I had made. She came to my blog and left me a lovely comment and said that her mother had Lupus too. Well I emailed her back and a relationship blossomed and the rest is history! I have come to call her Momma Mary as I had said one time that I wish I had had a mother like her growing up. She said she would be proud to be my momma and thus she became Momma Mary to me. She always has great advice for me just like a mom should and I value her advice greatly. She does have one daughter that lives in FL, Momma Mary lives in SC. So that is hard for Momma Mary and her hubby not having their daughter in the same area/state as they are in. And trust me, I know how that feels! Momma Mary is a very talented card maker and does wonders with Dylusion sprays, Copic Markers, with just about anything she picks up to use on a card. Her newest toy is a Gelli Plate that she is working with and learning. She has a beautiful card on her blog using the Gelli Plate for the first time. She always amazes me with her creations!! I haven't gotten to meet Mommy Mary in person yet. We had planned on meeting last year when we took a vacation down south to see my aunts and uncles, but time was short and just didn't lend to getting together. Next time however, we will be going to meet Momma Mary first. I'm so anxious to meet her in person as I know we will get along well. Our values and believes are the same and to tell you the truth, I feel like I have already met her in person. I really love my Momma Mary! 

Now about me:

I am a 54 year mom, wife and grandma. I started life off in South Carolina, moved to MD when I was very young and went back to the south as a tween. Then we came back to MD and as a divorced adult came to PA because cost of living was cheaper for a single mother. I met my husband and have finally enjoyed having roots somewhere. My mother moved a lot and I ended up going to 13 different school not including the schools I went to twice. So it was very important for me to have roots down and my kids to go to school in one school district, which I am happy to say happened.  I have been doing crafts of some sort since I was a young child. My home life was not an idea one. I had been kidnapped several times by my biological father when I was 3 years old-which I vividly remember to this very day. I never knew him except that he was my father and a bad man. My mother is an alcoholic and was very abusive. I was either on my own for a lot of things or else taking care of my half brother and sister who are 10 and 12 years younger than me. One day in the 4th grade, I took a book out of our school library that was about making crafts. It had the how to's in the book, so one evening while my mother slept. I crafted. It was something as simple as gluing yarn around a store bought Christmas ball but I was hooked. I've been crafting every since. Reading was also a "get away" for me too and I read a lot. As I grew, my crafting projects changed. I did cross stitched, made animal pillows for the younger kids, plastic canvas, a little stamping and so on. Then one day while listening to my boys moan about how we never go anywhere or do anything I decided to get into scrapbooking so they could see that no we didn't go places that require a lot of money we did do a lot together and had tons of fun. I had no clue how to do scrapbook but thought I would use rubber stamps and stickers to help me document our lives. With 6 boys we didn't have money to go to the movies a lot, or to amusement parks and such. Now the boys love looking at the scrapbooks and they realize that we did do a lot together even though we didn't have tons of money to spend on doing things. 

After my younger son was in school, and with most of his bothers grown, I got a job at our elementary school. I always had volunteer in our school district and wasn't looking for a job but a job landed in my lap. I LOVED my job!!! To me it was the perfect job, summer's off, working with sweet students that I just love and being out the house with adults as well as children. But it came to an end when my health issues over took my ability to work and keep up with my family at home. So I resigned and have missed it and longed for it since. Now I stay at home taking care of my husband who was diagnosed with colon cancer last Oct. He will be doing lifetime chemo, so it is a long and somewhat rocky journey but one we are making together with confidence and faith in our Lord that things will go well. I also sent my "baby" off to college a little more than a week ago. I can tell you I wasn't ready for an empty nest, but like always life marches on. We have 7 grandchildren which are such a joy to us and we love having them over to spend the night with us. 

I love riding the 4 wheeler with my husband to see how his crops are growing, I love to read, to mow-yes you read that right, I love to mow the grass, I also love to hang out in our pool and on the deck or in the hot tub, when able I love to tinker in the flower beds, I do a lot of cooking and baking which I enjoy too. I just don't always enjoy the clean up end of it but don't dread it either. I used to help hubby out on the farm some with hay and straw or to fill the drill up with whatever he was planting at the time. That how ever isn't something that I can do now. I still help out but  by guiding him when he is backing lots of equipment into the shed or by hooking and unhooking equipment and such. lol I think I'm easy going and easy to please. I'm very much a home body and a tank of gas can last me well over a month or more. I do enjoy getting out some, but my love is my home so when ever we do go away I'm always so happy to get back home. I guess the old saying "home is where the heart is" is really true, at least for me it is. I am a country bumpkin who is plain and ordinary and I love my life as it is a good one. One I never thought I would have as a young child. 

So now hubby and I are starting a new phase in our life of being empty nesters. It will be a new thing for us as we have never been "kid-less". When we married we had "yours, mine and ours". Although I will have to say that even though I didn't give birth to all 6 boys, they are all mine in every sense of the word. So this new life with just hubby and I is a little strange, but one I am looking forward too. Besides are we every kid-less??? I know our youngest will be back home each summer and with the cost of living he won't be moving out anytime soon on his own I don't think. I am looking forward to it just being hubby and I but it's a little scary too as my life was devoted to being just a mom and a wife. I know that I will enjoy having this time once I get used to it. Hopefully it won't be as demanding as raising a family. lol Although I've enjoyed raising my sons. 

I've so enjoyed meeting so many wonderful people here in blogland. Everyone is so sweet and kind and I feel as though they are my friends even though we haven't met in person, they are still every bit of a good friend as the "real" people in my life. I enjoy seeing their crafty projects and can spend a great deal of time on the computer. I have taken one of the 5 bedrooms over for my crafty space and I love having it all to my self. My youngest and hubby got me a nice flat screen tv for my room so I can sit in there and craft away as my body allows all the while having the tv on to watch.  It's my own little haven to get away to while hubby farms. 

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know me some and I hope I haven't bored you to tears!!! Now on to the interview questions:

1.  What I am working on now?  Nothing specific, although I do have projects that I've started and have never finished. So my goal is to get those finished. I also have DT projects that I need to do weekly and I want to do a mini album for my DIL of her baby shower to our youngest grandchild. But my biggest goal is to rearrange my crafty space and paint the room and get better organized. My crap crafty goodies was plopped into the room as my son wanted the basement bedroom that was my crafty space. So he moved my crap crafty goodies up to his old room and it was just kinda thrown in there with not much thought and it really isn't working for me. 

2.   How does my work differ from others in my genre?  I don't think my work differs all that much. I'm not fancy with my projects and I tend to craft more on the plain side. I also love to copy or CAS other's but always give credit where credit is due. Or at least I hope I do! I hope that people are flattered because to me it is the highest form of flattery. I know I would be so flattered if someone wanted to copy something I made. lol  I love layers, shabby chic and just about everything but I don't do that. I tend to lean towards CAS cards and layouts. Clean and simple just always catches my eye when I see a project that is clean and simple. I will try out a new technique from time to time, but also know my limits of what I can and can't pull off. lol So I will just continue to admire the people who can do the techniques I can't. 

3.   Why do I create what I do?  Well that is easy, I create cards, layouts and home decor because my boys, DIL's and friends love it. I love making my family happy, I love looking back on memories and I love seeing the joy in other's eyes when they get something they really love from me that I've made. It gives me pleasure to please other people as well as myself. Creating gives me something to do while my hubby spends many hours farming the 4 farms he farms after work. But mostly because I enjoy it and because of the pleasure my family gets from my creations.

4.  How does my creative process work?  Well that's a good question! I have to say that I'm really a "fly by the seat of my pants" crafter. A theme can get my creative juices flowing, and if a theme doesn't then I go to Pinterest to see what is there to inspire me as well as lots of blogs. I will also start with my pictures if I'm doing a layout for my inspiration. Cards, well they just kinda evolve as I work on them, I don't always have a vision in my head for them. I love using sketches for layouts as well as cards cause to me they take the thinking out for me but it doesn't take any of the creative process away. When Mr. Mojo is gone on vacation, nothing inspires me. lol  But to me if you have a sketch or inspirational photo you can always come up with something.

Now this would be the time that I would introduce you to other bloggers that I've tagged. But since I was unsuccessful at tagging anyone because of the demands of life I will just tell you thank you for stopping by today and I really hope that I didn't bore you to death! I hope you have enjoyed learning more about me and will come back to sit a spell with me again. Please consider popping over to visit Mary of Carolina Cards to learn about her life as well as some others. It has been lots of fun learning more about other's out in blogland. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Dressing Up-BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We did, our son came home this weekend. Yes, I know he was only at school for one week. lol But everyone was coming home so he thought he'd do the same. I'm not complaining one bit! He will be home for a few weekends in a row and then after that, not so much so. Of course he worked the whole weekend. At least we know he has good work ethics! 

Today on BBTB2 our sweet and talented host is Maureen. She has challenged us to us a dress form or dress this week because it is all about fashion! I have no fashion sense, so this wasn't a great challenge for me. lol I was short on time so I didn't get my cute dress fancied up so it is just a sweet, country dress  .I used the Nifty Fifties for my dress form and dress, some burlap paper and My Creative Time stamps and dies. I hope you will go over and check out what inspirations my design team sisters have for you today and then "dress up" and join us over at BBTB2 with your project. Thanks for stopping by today and visiting with me. I always appreciate your sweet comments and hope you will stop by again soon! Crafty hugs, Brenda