back in the days when I updated this blog regularly, I might have a post per card created! well, now that I've reached slacker status, here's the latest quarterly update, and Christmas cards I sent this past year! back in the days when I updated this blog regularly, I might have a post per card created! well, now that I've reached slacker status, here's the latest quarterly update, and Christmas cards I sent this past year!

one was purchased from a store where I regularly purchase bird seed and some garden supplies... the blackbird with the snowflakes 2nd from the left in the middle row. I thought my niece Jessy would like it! some were made at my fav SU rep's classes (starting from left, the first 3 in top row, the first and last in middle row, and the first in the bottom row).

I HOPE to return to regularly posting... time'll tell whether that turns out, eh?! I like Clean And Simple cards most!

happy Thanksgiving Day in the year of the pandemic...

I'm thankful to get back in the swing of blogging again, if only to share some cards I sent this past week celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family. Some were made pre-pandemic and I'd saved for this occasion, one was store bought as it made me think of my niece Jessy, and I made the owl one this past week. It was nice to be playing w my paper crafting supplies. It's been a while! 

I simply stamped the owl, then used some SU stampin' blends to color, fussy cut it out and mounted it on some 1" strips of SU fall color card stock I'd mounted directly onto the card base. Well, sounds like my son's about ready for bed so I'd best get moving!

stamps: Unity Stamp's ...bountiful owl; paper: Neenah solar white, asst'd SU fall colors card stock; ink: Memento's tuxedo black, SU's bermuda bay, cajun craze, daffodil delight, ivory, old olive, and pumpkin pie stampin' blends

happy b'day, Mary!

haven't been doing much in the way of card-making lately, and got off my duff to make a simple winter-y card to celebrate my sister-in-law's b'day recently. I've always been a fan of black and white with a splash of color. I was being lazy and am regretful I didn't get a very good photo before putting it in the mail. oh well, such is life...

stamps: Deep Red's snowy path, Altenew's Something Wonderful (inside sentiment); paper: Neenah solar white, an SU unknown red; ink: Memento's Tuxedo Black; tools: Cuttlebug with SSS handlettered happy birthday wafer die

fav stamp camp card - a happy Mother's Day card

I went to stamp camp led by the lovely and talented Angie Jarman last night, and here's my fav card. We generally make 5 cards and this month they were primarily feminine cards with Mother's Day as the inspiration. Both my and my DH's Moms have passed away, but I made a couple cards - 1 for my fav sis' and one for my niece Jenn. I always figured the holiday doesn't mean you're limited to only making cards for your Mom. Heck, they're both Moms!

This beauty of a card was inspired by the sample in the catty using the Floral Romance DP. Angie switched colors and added the butterfly. I picked a couple of the fresh fig frosted flower as purple's both my and my sister's fav color.

I ended up ordering some of the cardstock and designer paper used for this card today. She drew the inspiration for this card from the catty, and I love the layered look.

stamps: SU's; paper: SU's mossy meadow, old olive, petal pink, and sahara sand card stocks and Floral Romance DP; ink: sahara sand; tools: SU's leaf and butterfly punches; embellishments: fresh fig ribbon and frosted flowers

thanx, Jenny!

I'm going to see Lionel Richie this summer! Whoo hoo!

My neighbor Jan posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago that Lionel Richie is going to be at DTE (fka Pine Knob in southeast Michigan) in June, and her daughter Jenny commented something to the effect of "Let's go, Mom!" I couldn't help myself... added in a comment that if there was room I'd love to make it a "gal's night outing" and go with them... and the rest, as they say, is history!

This is my thanx card to accompany my portion of the tickets that Jenny recently picked up!

LOVE Lionel and am SO looking forward to seeing him in person... never have before, but I've loved him since he was with the Commodores back in the70's and even more so after he went solo!

card deets are minimal... stamps: n/a; paper: The Paper Cut's champagne metallic, HPC's 1010# dark red vellum card stocks; ink: n/a; tools: Cuttlebug with william & walter's thanks cutaway; other: cutout that methinks I'd lifted from a box of candy

The Left-Handed Sandwich

snipped from their blog post, UK bakery chain Sayers announced the launch of a new “left-handed sandwich” designed to fit more comfortably in the left hand and result in fewer embarrassing “spills.”

All the ingredients in the left-handed sandwich had been rotated 180 degrees in order to redistribute the weight of the sandwich, so that the bulk of them skewed to the left. The packaging was also altered so that the door opened to the left.

The company's Head Sandwich maker said: “Depending on how well the left-handed sandwich goes down we may look at mirroring this across our whole range and producing left-handed doughnuts.”

Welcome March - Brain Injury Awareness Month!

March is pretty special in our household, not only because the spring equinox falls on Wednesday, March 20, 2019, at 5:58 P.M. EDT, marking the astronomical first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but it's also a month of birthdays (mine, my brothers-in-law, and my mom-in-law).

it also reminds me of how thankful we are to still count my niece Jenn among the living. during Brain Injury Awareness Month I'm mentally taken back to the hospitals where she spent so much time recovering from an auto accident resulting from her texting and crossing the median on southbound 127. she'd been returning home from picking up her eldest son from her mom-in-law where he'd spent some vacation time. thankfully she was close by Sparrow Hospital, where she and her eldest son received care quickly (if it weren't for a friend offering to babysit her infant at the last minute, he'd have been in the car seat in the seat that was accordion smashed halfway into her car and I've no doubt he would have died); the car was crushed to the middle, right up to her and her son. they both suffered traumatic brain injuries along with other injuries and continue treatment to this day. she's an amazing young woman and very determined, evident before and since the accident. BEFORE the accident she worked multiple waitress / hostess jobs and was able at a young age to own her own home; SINCE the accident she's worked hard to improve and gain her independence and is back in her home with both her sons. every time I see her I'm reminded how close we came to losing her. I vow to never text while driving. 

on February and Black History Month

Since the 1970s we've celebrated Black History Month in February, but had you ever wondered why February was selected as the month to celebrate it? American historian Carter Woodson is credited with launching Negro History Week in February 1926 as both U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist, author, and orator Frederick Douglass were born in February. Fifty years later the association Woodson founded promoted February as Black History Month and U.S. President Gerald Ford urged Americans to participate in its observance, as would future presidents.
~ w thanx to Encyclopedia Britannica for the info

so... how many times have YOU moved in your lifetime?

Have you seen the Allstate Insurance commercial that leads off with actor Dennis Haysbert making the claim that the average American will move 11 times in their lifetime? I drift at that point... thinking about how much I loved him in the TV series 24 and the movie Absolute Power, how many moves I've endured so far during MY lifetime (12, in case you were wondering). It's surprising how much more mobile Americans are than, say, Europeans, who are reported to average living in 4 homes thruout their lifetimes!

I think most folkes would count ALL the places they've lived, including with their parents... and I'm thinking most first homes are "starter" homes, followed by homes selected for their proximity to school districts when starting a family, and then retirement into a smaller home. PB and I took all 3 into account at 1 time with our first home purchase after marrying; ours is a relatively small house with 3 bedrooms, a 1,450 sq ft ranch tho' methinks it feels much larger. We ALMOST purchased a 2-story but had been trying to find a 4-bedroom ranch and grew tired of the search. It was meant to be; we'd also been talking with a builder and the house we were going to have built was our home with one exception - where the kitchen/dining area was flip flopped along with the entry into the eat-in area (with the new build the dining area would have been right off the entry and the kitchen next to the garage; in our home the entry hallway is solid wall and the entry to the dining area is off the great room). Neither of us were interested in a formal dining room and against diet professionals' guidance, usually take our meals into the great room to eat in front of the TV, tho' we do have an eat-in kitchen. The kitchen table is a collection space for dog supplies right now, and moved aside to allow for a large crate that our dog still sleeps in.

So... my 12 moves? During the course of my lifetime I've lived in my folkes' "starter" home, then moved to their first home in the suburbs, then to 2 different states due to my Dad's career moves, then I moved to my first apartment, later to a nicer lakeside apartment, then a 3rd floor golf course-side apartment in the same complex after my nice 1st floor apartment was broken into, then to a duplex "starter" home, back in w my folkes after a fire, then moved to a 1-bedroom apartment due to my career transfer (my first time on my own with no roommates), then to a 2-bedroom townhouse within that complex after PB and I wed where we started our own family, and landing here, where we moved shortly after my youngest son's 1st birthday.

So... I'm above average, LOL! How about you??

Pantone Color of the Year - 16-1546 Living Coral

One of my fav end-of-year wraps is in December when Pantone selects their color of the upcoming year. This year the kind folkes at at Pantone have selected Living Coral ... which just so happens seems to be the color of the "publish" and "send feedback" buttons of the Blogger app!

In the press release they note it's "an animating and life-affirming shade of orange with a golden undertone. We get energy from nature. Just as coral reefs are a source of sustenance and shelter to sea life, vibrant yet mellow PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral embraces us with warmth and nourishment to provide comfort and buoyancy in our continually shifting environment." Want to see some of their past selections? They list them going back to 2000.

A quick Google search on samples of coral in fashion and I see it's pretty much everywhere, from clothing to nail polish to sheets and comforters to drapes and pillows! I just returned from a quick review of my closet to see whether any of my latest purchases include any coral but I seem to have been picking a mustard yellow lately in new clothes.

it's National Squirrel Appreciation Day!

anyone who knows my DH well knows of his love/hate relationship w these furry critters so I just HAD to share that it’s here ... the long-awaited National Squirrel Appreciation Day!

maybe a bit of background is necessary. we've long had bird feeders around the yard, and he's been known to use the kitchen sink's spray nozzle to squirt at them thru the screen, try noise makers, or air pumps to detract them from the cardinal's sunflower bird feeder just outside our kitchen window. our prior next door neighbor buddies even found an approximately 2x18" sign that reads "BEWARE OF ATTACK SQUIRREL" and mounted it nearby the feeder to gently harass him.

not that I torture the man unmercilessly, but one year I went to great lengths at Christmas and gave him a large gift bag of squirrel-related items - a book, mug, hat, shirt, stuffed toy, Squirrel Wars DVD (it'd been a 2004 40-minute show that aired on PBS and is both enlightening and very funny), AND very nice squirrel-proof bird feeder that has an outer cage that drops down to cover the access to seed openings if something heavier than the usual and customary bird lands on it. the silly squirrels STILL attempt to land on it now and then. we've since added 5 more feeders to the back yard and are regulars at our local J J Cardinal's Wild Bird & Nature Store. If you're local to Grand Blanc MI you should really scope them out... and tell 'em Sue sent you!

The list maker in me LOVES year end!

yep... it's all about lists, and the obsessive list maker in me LOVES year end! EVERYBODY gets into the act any my subscription emails are full of year-end lists! when I went hunting Google images for pictures to use in today's post, I even found pictures depicting lists of things to write lists about!

today's topic: on FAV MOVIES
I didn't hit the movies as often as I would've liked this past year. one of my movie buddies has moved south and it just didn't happen all that often, but I did manage to see the following flix in order of appearance:

• Forever My Girl - even tho' it was formulaic it was still a great one
• Black Panther - the Marvel superheroes never disappoint
• I Can Only Imagine - the story behind the song, and both are favorites
• Avengers: Infinity War - the Marvel Avengers just kept on coming; I sat there thinking, "who ELSE will be in this?!" as I purposely avoided checking previews
• Book Club - nice, but I expected so much more from the stellar cast
• Solo: A Star Wars Story - I'm of the camp that you can love BOTH the Star Trek AND Star Wars series
• Oceans Eight -  sigh... another stellar cast but this one was disappointing
• Yellow Submarine - awesome after all these years; nice to see the audience was mostly a 45/45/10 split between 50-65 year olds, 20-somethings, and those who brought their grandkids/kids. my 30YO son and I attended, and it's been a blast sharing the Beatles experience w him over the years (and kudos to SIRIUS for the Beatles channel)!
• Nutcracker and the Four Realms - definitely on my "to purchase" list, this one was GREAT!
• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - I for one have been SO geeked that JKR decided to create prequels to the HP saga tho' I've gotta admit that, while I read each of the novels in rapid succession, I've yet to read the class books, one of which the Fantastic Beasts movies were based on. I LOVE the casting picks and anxiously await future releases. 
• Ralph Breaks the Internet - I've a computer background and thought the ways they depicted technology in the film were t'riffic
• Mary Poppins Returns - sigh ... still swooning here
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse - Sony, you folkes did Marvel-ous and I'm sure Stan Lee is smiling!