Oh my gosh! Color me embarrassed! It's been almost a year since I've posted here! Of course I have an excuse for the last 3 months since my computer's been kaput. And now I'm using our friend's computer. So no new pictures for now. It'll be quite awhile before we get our's fixed.

Thanks to our friend Shawn. Who was so gracious in allowing us to come stay with him. I'm sure you all know what it's like to get into financial difficulty. When you get behind, it just keeps getting worse and worse.
Just like a snowball in a cartoon. It snatched us up along the way and it kept growing until there was no stopping it. So now maybe we'll be able to get ourselves straightened out. And help Shawn during the process.

We are doing well otherwise. I guess the biggest thing that's happened since my last post is that my mom passed away in Feb. She fell out of her chair and broke her hip. She required surgery, so they did it almost right away.  But she never came back (mentally) from that. I'm sure she had gotten so dehydrated, and that probably didn't help. Sh wouldn't drink anything. Mostly because she didn't want to get wet and have to be changed. Because she got cold when I had to clean her up. She hated being cold. I kept telling her to get up and walk around, or move her legs to keep the circulation up. Then she wouldn't get so cold.
When it was all over, we did as she had always wanted. She always said to cremate her then sprinkle her ashes in the woods. She always loved walking through the woods. So that's what we did. We waited for a good weather day. Then we went to Pete n Mariannes house where we had a cookout with all the family members there. Then Mariannes dad said a prayer after we spread her ashes. It was a lovely day to enjoy our family. The only one missing was my grand daughter in law Nicole. She had to work. But our Michael came and brought our sweet little Hailey. She got to know our Mason who's the newest addition to the family. They walked around the yard holding hands for a bit. It was so cute watching them.

Well I'm off to finish up some laundry and then work on some cards that I'm behind on. I hope all of you are well and enjoying your summer.
Big Squishy Hugs...................Jessica

Hello everyone. I know, yes I am ashamed that I haven't done a better job at keeping up with my blog. I'm thinking about closing it down all together.
But I will post a couple of pictures, so you can see what I've been up to. It's been a bit of this and that.
I've altered a couple of cigar boxes where I keep some of my goodies. The first one keeps all my hand made flowers. As you can see, I used the G45 Once Upon A Springtime paper stack. I really enjoyed fussycutting some ot the images. The little flowers on the bottom left corner are made with Card Candy that Envys gave me a long time ago. I laid them on a bed of the branches made by a M Stewart punch. The fairy and bird are flying off the box a bit. I love the way it turned out.

The second one I made for my granddaughter's 18th birthday. She said she was going to keep all her "important stuff" in it. The large white Gardinias are from ACMoore's wedding section. They were on sale quite awhile back. So I got 2 packages. The picture was one I got from the internet. the small flowers on the bottom, are ones I made using petals cut from the Cricut. The larger flower was made from some white petals I also got at ACMoore. I sprayed them with my own spray. There are 2 layers of lace then topped it with 2 of the petals. Put a pearl inthe center. The Cala Lilies and the wheat sprays come from Cassies Art Fire store. The blue beaded trim is from her store also. The music paper is from a DCWV stack. I can't remember which one. What do you think?  Some of you may have seen these on my you tube channel. So you can skip over this part! lol
This is Don's  daughter Jennifer. She is such a beauty. This was taken during a recent trip to Puerto Rico. She had a wonderful time.

And this beautiful little guy is my newest grandchild, Mason. He's just 10 months old and took his first steps a couple of days ago!
This is Mason with his Papa. (His moms dad) Some of you have been praying for him because his cancer has come back. He is now in the end stages and we are just waiting for him to leave us. So I'd like to ask for prayers tor Tina's family. Her mom, Donna,and all of Will's family too. Pray for strength to get through these next few days and all the things that must be done afterward.
Thanks so much y'all.

I think I like this new platform here. I will hold my opinion until after I get this posted. Thanks for stopping buy. Have a great day.
Thanks
JESSICA

Catching up....again

It's been a long time since I posted here. But I've been busy, so I have an excuse:)
I'll post a couple of pix of some cards I've made. Also of an album I finally finished for my son, Matt, with pix of his new son! Well relatively new anyway. Also made a couple of layouts about our friend Will, that recently passed away. I gave them to his mom after a memorial service we had for him. And I forgot to take pictures of them! Why do I never remember to take photo's?

Here are some cards that I made using patterns I got from my friend Valita. There are many patterns for sale at her blog. It's at http://valitasfreshfolds.blogspot.com

These are my first attempt at using these folds. So they're not too good...yet. This set of patterns has 8 different flower folds. I've only managed 3 of them so far. I'll do them again before I go on to more of them. Thank you so much Valita for these lovely patterns. Valita lives in Australia and makes copies of flowers indigenous to that region to. I had never seen them before. But they do look like the real thing! She is amazingly talented. Go check her out!

The album is made from the pattern I got from Kathy at Paper Phenomenon. It's a Toy Box with a mini inside. I made one for Matt's brother, Pete with pix of him and his granddaughter Hailey in it. You saw that in the Christmas post.









Mason is almost 4 months old now! And he looks like this. He's just started laughing out loud! Yes, I'm a proud Gramma.

Well, that's all today. It's a great day outside, so I'm going outside to read in the sunlight! I'll catch you all in the blogosphere!

Oh my gosh, I just realized I forgot to post my card for Enfys' challenge. So people are clicking my link and just seeing my other creations. So here it is. Sorry
folks
The background is some scrumscious grey cardstock my sweetie brought me. The red and white are (I think) from Stampin Up (some my friend Eileen sent me last year). But they've been in my stash for so long, well you know how it is. The ribbon and ric rak were also in my stash as were the flowers. I used Elegent Edges Cricut cartridge to cut the shapes. I tried cutting two of the red ones, and fitting one inside the other. But I couldn't make it work, no matter how small I cut it. So I just popped one up on the card and glued the circle down under it. It has the look of a Christmas ornament. So I may save it for that. But I think I could use it for any number of occasions. Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs, Jess

January update!

Well I finally got back here after a very long lazy holiday period. I had a lot of things to create for Christmas gifts so I didn't get as much time on the computer as I normally do. And I still didn't get it all finished! There just wasn't enough time.
So here I am with picures of some of those gifts. Most of them were layouts to add to their already existing albums. I made a new album for my grandson Michael and his wife. I've already done a couple more layouts for their book. Then I made a Toy Box mini album for Pete with pix of our sweet little Hailey's first birthday party. She has him wrapped right around her little finger. I'll share some pix of that project. And I've now finished Matt and Tina's Toy Box mini. Which I'll give to them on his birthday. Of course the second one looks better than the first. Which is the way it goes. I imagine that if I make another one, it'll be better still. It was way more fun the second time around. I got the pattern and instructions from Kathy at Paper Phenomonon. If you haven't seen her work....run do not walk to her website! She is so creative.
So here goes the photo uploads...I hope...I never know how it will go...




The first pic is (of Course) out of sequence. It's the top of Pete's Toy Box. Next is an empty page for my grandson Joseph's girlfriend. And then 2 pages for Joseph of a trip to NC to visit Michael. Almost 10 years ago...Oh am I that old...
Then the first page in Michael and Nicole's album. It's of Hailey at her first birthday party...in tears.It's one of my faves.





Next is a pic of Pete looking at his album. Next are pix of the album and it's box.


Finally there is another page for Joes girlfriend,Linda. They're matching pages. One of these days I'm going to figure how to get the pix in the right spots! lol Or not.
Then the last few are of the pages for Matt n Tina's family album. Which is also new this year.
Next post I'll have pix of the Toy Box I made for Matt and Tina. Till then I hope you enjoy looking.

Catch Up

I have a new Grandson! Mason Lee Smith was born on Nov 25th at 2:23pm. He weighed 7lb 14oz's and was 21 inches long. And he is beautiful...of course! These two pix are of the proud parents, sweet Tina and my son Matt. He waited a long time to be a daddy. And is so proud of his son. I already hear him say "That's my boy"! All went well and that Friday wasn't 'Black Friday' for us! lol

I've finally gotten back into my scrapping. I've moved some of my things into what is now our 'spare' room. But some are still in the livingroom. So...sometimes I have to stop and go fetch something to finish my project. Not the best way to craft...but as they say...it is what it is. Eventually I hope to get everything moved.
The layout is for a Challenge at Let's Scrap.ning. They send me an envelope with some goodies in it and we have to use it all on a layout. This is the 3rd time I've played along. It's fun to see whats comes in the mail and then figure out how to use everything. We all get the same supplies, but all of the projects are so different.
I used some old pix from a family Chritmas when the boys were about 5 and 8. The pix brought back some good memories.

I've also started making cards again, and am making Christmas gifts too. I Have to wait on my Dec. check to finish buying the necessary supplies for some of my planned gifts. So eventually I'll post pix of the finished projects here.
I'm going to try to do better about posting here. I got out of the habit, so I have to work at it a bit until it becomes a habit again.
Thanks for checking in with me.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. And I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, or Happy Hannakah or what ever you celebrate.

Whew!

Well, I've been among the missing for several weeks as I've been ill...very ill. In short, I went to the hospital in an ambulance...had pneumonia and was sceptic! They told my family to gather as being sceptic can kill you... quickly.
I was in ICU for a week. Then they sent me to a rehab facility to make sure I could walk without falling down! lol Then home.
The problem was they were afraid to give me antibiotics because I have some alergies. So they didn't give me enough to get me better. So after I was home for a week and my brain stopped working... I didn't know who I was, where I was...what year or day it was.. who the president was... etc. (Nor did I care!). So my sweet family took me to a different hospital as they weren't happy with the docs at the first one. This time they did all sorts of tests, kept me for 5 or 6 days. They decided the brian issue was related to all the pain meds I'd taken over the years. I'd taken MSContin for about 10 years! You can't take opiates without them effecting your brain. So they took me off them...the withdrawal wasn't wonderful... but it wasn't terrible either. And I'm happy not to be taking them anymore.
Pain...sure I have pain... and lots of it... but I just take over the counter stuff like Aleve. I still have to take meds for the nerve pain in my feet... I'd forgotten how bad it could be! But that's ok... I'm glad its there to take.
It also helps me sleep...which I wasn't doing. From the time I came home from the rehab hospital, then the last hospital, I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours at a time. When you don't sleep...well it's just not good. So after about 2 weeks when I finally got a good nights sleep...I began to feel I might live!
I was still fighting a low grade temp every day and some other issues that weren't clearing up as they should. So I called my family doc for some more antibiotics on Monday, and can already feel the difference.
I guess the pneumonia was so bad that there were black streaks in my lungs! They said there may not be any coming back from that... well you know I'm stubborn right...But all prayers are appreciated!!!!!

I'm sorry to have droned on and on...I just thought this might be the best place to let everyone know what's going on with me.

However... on a more positive note... Saturday is my Great Granddaughter's first birthday party. So we're going down to their house for her party. I'm excited to see them. I haven't seen them since Hailey was 4 or 5 mos old. They only live a couple hours away, so when I'm better and able to drive, I'll be going down to see them more often. That's the plan anyway.

Well, I hope this finds you all well and happy or resonably so... I haven't done anything creative in a very long time. I have to make a card for Hailey, so hopefully I'll get back into it soon.
Hugs to all................be well
Jessica