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Simple Beauty

Sometimes it's the simple things that are the most beautiful! This card looks difficult but it really only took me 15 minutes to create! I used the Lattice Die from the Just Imagine Store for the background. I cut three leaves from green cardstock using Kreaxions Punch #602 and six flowers from pink cardstock using Kreaxions Punch #603. I adhered two flowers together and curled the petals on the top flower then attached to a green leaf. Then I adhered them to my lattice and base. Add a sentiment and some pearls or bling and you have a simple, quick and easy but beautiful card!

Materials – Cardstock – American Crafts, CTMH; Stamp – Stampin Up; Ink – CTMH; Pearls – Queen & Company

Just a few scrap pieces of cardstock, a die and two punches. How much easier could it get?!

Happy Punching! Ginni Gass, Design Team Member

TOOT TIME!!!

I went to visit my grandson and my family for the first two weeks of March and what a wild time it was! I arrived on a Friday and by the end of the weekend I was super sick. Monday afternoon I was in the emergency clinic getting lots of meds and spent the next 3 days sleeping, waking up coughing, taking meds and eating, then sleeping again. So much for visiting! I finally started feeling better which was good cuz I needed to make Noah's birthday cake for him like I'd promised! It turned out GREAT and I was really glad I'd made it on Friday so I could visit Saturday. Unfortunately things didn't turn out well that day either since a turkey decided to fly down and hit a vehicle on I-95 just outside of Washington DC which caused the driver behind that vehicle to panic and slam on the brakes which caused a 3 car accident. My daughter and her two sons were in the third car!!!! It was a pretty serious accident but they are all okay. She had a minor injury, the airbags made them all cough a lot for the next few days and the car is totaled. Needless to say that caused a lot of other plan changes for the rest of my vacation! So all in all I rode on two planes, a train and several automobiles plus visited the emergency clinic twice and coughed the entire time all during a two week vacation! YIKES! So a bit of good news was quite welcome when I read my emails!
First email was from My Scraps & More informing me that I'd made the design team there! Tammi Bennett is the owner and let me tell you that her store has some AWESOME papers and embellishments and her customer service is THE BEST! Place your order today and it will be in the mail either that day or the next! She's got something on sale almost all the time and her product is quite current! Be sure to check out the store! And the My Scraps & More forum is a happening place with challenges, games and lots of fun times! It's very exciting to be a part of this new team! Here's the link to the announcement to see who else made the team with me!
Here's the layout I created using Tammi's sketch for the tryouts -

The patterned papers and brads are all from the My Scraps & More store! The picture is my husband Steve and I at my brother's wedding last April.
Materials – Patterned Papers – My Mind’s Eye, Cosmo Cricket; Glitter Paper – DCWV; Flowers – Unknown; Chipboard Letters – Thickers; Brads – My Mind’s Eye; Flowers – Prima, Unknown; Corner Punches – Kreaxions #917 (Hearts), EK Success; Pen – Sakura Gel Roll; Ink – Colorbox

The other email was from Lucy Chesna at My Sketch World. I've been a member there since February 2009 and I've been on the design team most of that time as well. She asked me to return as the One Hour Sketch Challenge Coordinator and of course I accepted gladly! I LOVE hosting the OHSCs and look forward to our first one April 21st at 9 PM Eastern time. If you love a great place to hang out, love being supported and love a great sketch then My Sketch World is the place to be! Here's the link to see the announcement about the other awesome ladies who made the MSW Design Teams!
So while my vacation was chaotic and crazy but fun, it was wonderful to know that I'd come home to lots of scrappy fun! I had also been asked by the Just Imagine/Kreaxions company to return to their design team as well! (I used the hearts punch Kreaxions Punch #917 for the corners on this page.) There's a FABULOUS new team this term and I'm really enjoying what the ladies have been posting on the blog already!
I'm gonna be quite busy with three design team assignments, but I can't WAIT because I love all three companies and I can't wait to share all their amazing products! So keep checking back to see what wonderfully fun projects I've created and be sure to check out all three sites! I've listed the design team members' blog links to all three teams so be sure to check them out as well! I promise you won't be disappointed in any of the forums or blogs!
Happy Scrapping and Happy Punching!

Happy Birthday Noah!

Eight years ago my daughter was just barely 29 weeks pregnant. The pregnancy had been difficult and when she called one afternoon complaining about strong back pains, I told her to get to the doctor quickly because she was in labor. The doctors tried valiantly to stop the labor and finally on the 3rd day I asked if she needed her mommy to come be with her. She said yes. I knew it was bad then! Within hours I was on an airplane on my way to Norfolk, Virginia. It was an hour from the hospital to the airport and I just barely made it to the hospital in time. Forty-five minutes after I arrived the doctor decided they couldn't wait any longer and off my daughter went to have an emergency C-section. Next thing I knew out came my first grandson Noah at 3 lbs 1 ounce and 18 inches long. The nurses called him a "little peanut". For the distress he had been in the past few days he was in remarkably good health. But being so little they whisked him away and put him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It was hours before we were able to see him and when we finally did, this is what we saw. Little Noah Daniel all hooked up to tubes.




Within 24 hours Noah was doing so well they had taken him off the respirator and he had won everyone's hearts in the NICU! And then it happened. We got a call from the nurses that we needed to come speak to the doctor right away. It seems that one of the nurses had noticed Noah's tiny belly getting larger and larger so she called another nurse who agreed they needed to call the doctor. An x-ray was taken and after Mom & Dad gave their permission surgery was performed. They found a 3" obstruction in his large intestine the size of a quarter!!! What a huge problem for a tiny baby! The doctor informed us afterwards that if little Noah hadn't been born when he was that he would have either died in the womb or right after he was born - they never would have known there was a problem!!! Thank God for His miracles and for His wonderful NICU Nurses!!!!! Within 3 months he was home and within 6 months you'd never have known anything was wrong with him! That was another miracle!
That was eight years ago. Today Noah sees the scar on his belly and knows the story about how God moved people to save him. He calls it his miracle scar. It's the only sign that anything was ever wrong with him!!! We are all quite happy that God chose to bless us with this wonderful little boy who from the time he know what they were has loved cars of any and all kinds. And who from the time he was 2 has wanted to be a race car driver. For several years he thought that my brother Tony was Tony Stewart and was devastated to find out he wasn't. Then Noah decided that he liked Jeff Gordon best because he used to have fire on his car and every time Noah would see Jeff Gordon he'd say "Look Mommy! It's ME!" We have no idea how he found out about NASCAR but he did! Today his favorite thing to do is play racing video games and he still wants cars for presents!
When I asked him last Christmas what he wanted for his birthday, he had one request. "Gigi, I want you to come up for my birthday party and make me a Cars 2 cake with all the characters on it. And I want the REAL cars so I can play with them afterwards." So that's what he got!!! I flew up to Virginia and made him the cake and we had his party at my parents' house with all my family. (He'll have another party with his friends later.)
And would you like to see a current picture of that poor little baby hooked up to all those tubes??? Here's our little Miracle Boy!

Happy 8th Birthday Noah! We love you!!!