Wonderland

Yes, it has been a while again.  

At least this time it was for a good reason.  I got a new job.  It is part time, but requires commuting all over the bay area.  I'm not familiar with the bay in general, so learning a lot about sitting in traffic! I'm an independent contractor, so that is taking some getting used to as well.  All the kiddos are in school, so my working hours are all in the afternoons.  I set things up so that I am home Mondays before 5 and work from home on Fridays.  I wouldn't want to be in traffic on those days!!!

I've made tons and tons of cards!  Way way too many to post!  I've made several Halloween cards and have begun on Thanksgiving cards.  I'm frustrated to say that I accidentally mailed off several of my Halloween cards without taking pictures!  I thought I had taken the pics and I had not.  :(  I will be sure to get the Thanksgiving pics.   Here are a few of the Halloween cards:

Will try to get on more frequently as I get a routine down.  :)

Lupus fog

So yeah, it has been a while.  I have no followers, so I guess it doesn't really matter if I don't post regularly.  But I was hoping to establish a habit of posting.  But this time around I've got a legitimate excuse instead of the "umm I just forgot." 

I have lupus.  With this lovely diagnosis comes a whole host of fun side effects and symptoms. When lupus is acting up, it flares.  This is an increase in disease activity. A lupus flare affects everyone differently. Lupus is an autoimmune disease, so it can affect anything at all in the body.  I've had lupus for 27 years.  You would think I've got it all figured out by now...

Once you have one autoimmune disease you are magically a magnet to collect more.  I also have fibromyalgia, Raynaud's, and Sjogren's.  So all this back story is to say that I have not felt well in the past few weeks.  It started slowly that I didn't really notice until the last 7 days that I officially feel bad.  No energy, no appetite, headaches, fevers, trouble concentrating, memory issues, I lose my train of thought all the time, I can't remember words, I got lost driving to get bloodwork done, etc.  Still trying to get to the bottom of this. Not sure which of my lovely labels is causing this hoopla. I got all the fun blood work done, so I'm hoping for some answers soon.  So for now my official story is I'm lost in lupus fog.  And yes, this is a real thing.  Google it if you don't believe me.

I have been able to get a few cards done, but no pictures of them yet.  Will try to do that soon. 

Oh yeah, whoops it's Sunday

Yep, missed a Friday.  Oh well.  I haven't been too creative this week.  I should say, I haven't made too many cards this week.  I got side tracked finishing up my Keeley's first year album.  I had left off on Week 4.  I've caught up to 5 months.  :)  

Here are the 2 cards I have made this week.  I had to practice a lot to get this rose stamp from My Favorite Things, Blooming Roses.  I just couldn't get the layers to line up at all.  I just have a difficult timing seeing through the clear stamp.  I even tried my Stamp-a-majig.  I couldn't get that to work perfectly either.  It just took a lot of trial and error.  These 2 aren't perfect, but they look close enough!  

My Celti has been losing some weight.  She just isn't eating as much anymore.  She sleeps a lot more now too.  Sigh, I guess I have to admit she is getting older.  She is about 11 years old.  That is guessing since she is a shelter dog.  My vet thinks she was about a year when I got her and I got her in 2003.  

Here are Celti and Keeley in the craft room with me. The dog had been sleeping on that towel (I've been looking for a small rug to put there... )  and then Keeley just decided she wanted to lie there... lol

 

Busy Beaver

I have been a busy beaver this week. 

I found a great site for my photo editing and adding the watermark.  It is really user friendly.  It is at PicMonkey  

I still haven't found the best way to take my photos.  These are all slightly off and you would never know that I set up 4 light sources.  I think I need to get a floral frog or a photo stand to hold the cards upright. 

 

My first Christmas card of the year.  Nontraditional colors are always fun!

  I am trying to decide if I should be making the photos larger on here.  Right now I'm using the medium setting. 

I will play around with taking photos again this week.  I tried outside but there was always a weird color thing happening.   All the windows in my house have shade screens on them, so the light coming inside is muted.  So using natural light isn't an option. 

I'm proud of myself!  I posted 2 days in a row!  :)

My little Darcie is finally learning how to use the dog door.  She was able to get outside three times today.  I had to use kitty treats to coax her back in.  But she is definitely getting the idea!  I can't wait till I can get rid of the litter box!  It is so not good for me health wise.  

Furry Friday!

I actually do have several pictures of new cards I have made this week, but I haven't loaded or edited them yet.  The plan is to do that tomorrow and figure out the watermark I want to use.

So here are my furry kids this week: 

Skecher sleeping on my bed... again.  He does this frequently.  Too cute.  Makes ya wanna just rub his belly!

Here is Keeley this week.  I caught her in the tree.  Doesn't she look guilty!  She has caught 2 birds this week a mocking bird and a scrub jay.  I took all my feeders down last year, except my hummingbird feeder... because of her.  I felt guilty luring birds to the yard, only to have her try to kill them all.  The humming birds are way too fast for her.

Darcie's new favorite place to sleep is behind my Cameo Silhouette machine.   I have to remember to check if she is there when I go to turn the machine on!  She is only 4 months old, but she looks so big in this picture.  lol

I got a picture of my dog, Celti this week.  She doesn't like her picture taken anymore.  When she sees the camera coming she hides.  So I got this one with my phone.  I think it might be her cataracts and the flash.  Celti is a shelter dog, so our best guess she is an Australian Shepherd mix of some sort.  She was born without a tail.  She is about 11 years old now.    She always sleeps upside down like this. 

There will be cards in tomorrow's post!

Furry Friday

Here are my furry kiddos. This week every picture I took of my dog, Celti just didn't turn out.  :(  I will try harder this coming week.  

Meet Skecher.  He is 7 years old.  He is my big fluff ball.  He is what I can an On Demand cuddler.  In general he isn't a big cudder.  But he has these moments where he just demands to sit in your lap or ontop of your keyboard or craft table.  He will let you lavish him with attention until he begins to drool over everything, purring up a storm.  Then he just decides he is done and walks away.  

Here is Keeley.  She is a bit over a year old.  She is the hunter of the family, regularly horrifying me.  She loves me so much that she brings me "gifts" frequently.  

 And this is the baby of the family, Darcie.  She is almost 4 months old. I'm bummed this pic turned out so out of focus.  It is so cute! 

Oh yeah, I have a blog...

So I obviously need to come up with a better system to remind me to keep this up to date!  One of my favorite cooking blogs, Plain Chicken  does a Meow Monday where she just posts pictures of her 3 cats.  She doesn't post pictures of her children on her blog. I've always thought that was a cute, fun way to have something consistent in the blog even when you don't have much else to say that day.  So I was thinking of borrowing her idea and doing a Furry Friday.  That might help me remember to post on my blog!  I won't want it to be all about my fur babies, because people will start thinking I'm that crazy lady with tons of animals.  We will see if this can help me post more regularly.

I got my first real commission.  My aunt wrote a lovely poem years ago when my grandfather passed away.  She prints it on cardstock and sends it to bereaved friends and family when they are in need.  She asked me to make card fronts with her poem on the inside.  I've been making sympathy and I'm praying for you, cards all week.  

I needed some breaks from all the somber, serious cards.  I made my cousin Matt a fun Pittsburgh Steelers card for his birthday.  I made my brother a similar one, but with Mariners.  I wasn't sure of Matt's baseball team, so I stuck with what I knew, he is a major Steeler's fan.

I made my mom a cute card she needed for a 2 year old's birthday.  I had so much fun with this one!  I just used my phone's camera, so not too great.  I had fun with my copic markers on this.  I need more brown shades.  I would like to get more depth to the bear.  This super cute stamp is from Lili of the Valley.  Her store is in the UK, but totally worth the shipping charges. 

 Oh and here is the cutest snuggly picture!  Darcie was cold so she tried to snuggle up with Skecher.  Sad part is a few moments after I took the picture he got irked and moved to another nap spot.  Silly boy.

Better late than never

It is almost a month later... So much for writing consistently.  But I have been working on my photography skills.  I've played with some of the functions on my camera.  It is over 2 years old so it isn't exactly current.

Here are some pics I took while visiting my brother in Washington.  

I was specifically working on the close-up feature.  I think they turned out pretty good!

I got a new clamp light from Home Depot so I could start working on the lighting for taking pics of my cards. Clamp Light

Here are a few new cards I've taken pics of so far.  I still need to work on the lighting. 

I love how these two turned out.  Something about the combo with red and turquoise.  For the purple one, I dyed the ribbon so that one side was purple and the other was blue.   But the lighting is still bad.  I had a lamp on each side and it still looks dull.  

Also, on the agenda is adding a watermark to my photos.  Anyway, this post is long enough for today.  It is frustrating I have so many cards in the last month that I made, and the photos are terrible!

Starting a blog

So it is finally happening.  I'm starting a blog.  Yep, it's true.  This will be a place for me to share paper creations, blessings in my life, my furry friends, my rambling thoughts, maybe even some of my battles with the wolf.  I guess I will have to see how this evolves.  I've always wanted to start a blog, but I've been realistic with my inability to write about myself.  I've started several diaries in my life, and they go well for 2 weeks or so.  Then I just seem to lose interest, or start to feel that my life is too boring so I stop.  I figured if I didn't limit myself in just posting about ME, and include my paper creations and other things I could feasibly make it happen. 

I've discovered that I really need to work on my camera skills.  I'm perusing photos of my cards that I've taken.  Boy, do these need work!  Nothing is centered, occasionally not in focus, can see weird stuff in the background (no, I'm not a neat crafter!)  But that is not going to stop me from sharing!  So to get things started, here we go!  Some of my recent creations...

I sent this one to my Aunt Bettie.  Just wanted to send something to make her smile.  I had her in mind when I purchased this cute bunny stamp.  

My mom requested this card for someone at her church.  I love these scripture stamps that I got at Our Daily Bread.

So it is official.  My first blog post.  I survived!  :)  We shall see if more posts actually take place...