An Apple A Day

I'm so happy with this card. I dreamed about it.... which I've been doing a lot lately.  Some cards turn out great and some don't even turn out. But I could hardly wait to do this one.  Tom gave me an Ipod for Valentines and I haven't even played with it because I had to get it out of my head!

Sentiment:  An apple a day can keep anyone away if thrown hard enough. ~ Stephen Colbert

I like to send encouragement or get well cards that give people a chuckle.  Laughter is the best medicine!

Apple from Makin' the Grade Cut twice 

at 4.5 inches in Red

Cut once in Brown at 4.5 inches.

Sandwiched the brown between the

 two red apples creating a pocket 

for the sentiment.  Rectangles cut with

George at 2.5 inches and 2 inches.  

Lady bug and layers cut at 1.5.  Ladybug,

leaves and caterpillar from Walk in my Garden. 

Caterpillar cut twice, once flipped in DS so that I could

double side him so he looked right from the back.  

Caterpillar was 3". Leaves were 2"

Flower was an EK success punch. Accent on the 

apple From the Kitchen.

Sentiment is computer generated. 

Hope it made you smile! 

Sleep and Dreams

So, I haven't been sleeping much lately.  Not sure what is keeping me awake for sure, but last night I took some meds and went to sleep and slept HARD and even dreamed about things.  When I woke up this morning I had five cards on my mind to design.  Here is what I have completed so far.

Racoon Ravings.

I've been doing a lot of animal cards lately because they work for men and kids too.  I love flowers and could make every card a flower card, but then the men and children would be left out.

Saturday Sooner than it should be...........

My life has been a series of Tom saying hello and goodbye.  From the very beginning of our relationship Tom was saying hello and goodbye.  Twenty years in the Navy of Tom saying hello and goodbye and now more than five years of Tetra-Pak and Tom is still saying hello and goodbye.  Today was goodbye.  I always know it is coming and dread the day it arrives.  The time when he will emotionally separate from me and go into the other room to do the ritual packing and mental departure, while I sit in the other room trying not to be any kind of emotional mess that makes it more difficult for either of us.  There are lots of rituals we go through as he prepares to leave, lots of little routines.... years and years of these.

This Saturday came sooner than it should. I didn't want it to come. He's off traveling the world again. I'm alone again. Just me, my little apartment decorated with the paper chain from all my crafting scraps, the blinking solar Christmas lights that twinkle until they have used up the days supply of sun and my cricut.  I dream about my cricut at night and design cards that never really look like what I actually create in real life.  I've discovered this week that I am not very good, I'm okay at my craft but not great.  I want to be great. So, I'm not going to put up another card onto any of the competition sites or the cricut messageboards until I have one that I think is great.

Like all these years of coming and going, hello and goodbye, if you practice at something long enough, you become accustomed to just what it is, a routine in your life, for good or bad, it is a routine. I want excellence to be a routine. 

So, these are the last of the cards that I have made for my Cricut Card Fairy Army today after Tom left and I went through my normal ritual of his leaving:

 

 

 

 

Routines are good things in life even when we don't want them to be.  They let us set up a pattern for whatever it is we need to accomplish. I'm working on my accomplishments.

 

Onward and Upward,

Manic Monday

Someone stole my bicycle AGAIN.  I'm so upset that I'm crying this morning. It's hard enough to be a foreigner in this country and to have my only transportation stolen twice is making me crazy.  So, I had to create something that would make me smile.  I did these two cards.

First I chopped up the pregnant woman from New Arrival cartridge and made her not pregnant, then I cut her legs off so I could make it look like she was whimsically riding in the cart. The cart is from My World, the lettering from Storybook and Lyrical Letters.

Made this twilight card for my daughter-in- law.  The author said the broken ribbon (from the cover of Eclipse) is meant to mean the choices that Bella has to make and that we all have to make.

This OCD remark is just funny.

Super Sunday!!!!!!

Super Sunday!  A day for Worship.  A Day for the start of the Football Season.  A day that my DH is sick, sick, sick in Brazil.  Maybe he has H1N1 but he'll never go to the Dr.  He's alone and sick in a foreign country and there is nothing I can do for him.  So, since I have been working on these "man cards" I put together a couple that I think a man would not mind getting.  Simple with a little humor.  These are NOT original ideas, but they are MY cards.  SYI for the bug and a wonderful woman named Ruth Howard who creates fun cricut cut files.  She created several nursery style animals on her site and she allows free downloads of the files.  Most of these created in George, which I have and love, so I downloaded her crab.  Then I used it for this get-well card.  Click here for her blogspot  (Ruth Howards Blog)

And the Inside:

A closer look:

I liked this card because of the absence of the crab, which I thought was funny on my paper pad after I finished inking the crab for the front of the card.

This picture was hard to take... without the flash it was too dark, with the flash, the plastic that I put around the jar to make it look more like a jar, flashed too bright. 

I hope my DH feels better soon.  It is so lousy to be sick in a hotel far away from anyone to care for you. I know because being sick in Italy while Tom was in Mexico, Brazil or anywhere else is NO FUN.

Lots of prayers Tom.  I love you!