Monday, November 25, 2013

November Papertrey Bloghop

Happy Monday, I hope your weekend was a good one. Today is also the 25th of the month which means its time for another Papertrey Bloghop. This month the challenge was to make a miniature paper house using the template on Nicole's blog and this inspiration photo
 I LOVE little houses and anything that has to do with them so when I saw this challenge I had to participate. This is what I came up with.


I started by converting the template into an SVG file then I added the windows and doors. Next I cut the base and roof  out of Sweet Blush and aqua digital cardstock and put them together. When I was done I used spray adhesive and applied angel dust glitter. The house really sparkles in real life. I hope you can  see it in the photo. I decorated the roof with baby pom pom trim, silver tinsel and homemade tissue paper fringe. I also added digital sheet music patterned paper reduced to 50%. Finally I finished it off  with tiny pearls, the banner from Door To Door which fits perfectly and a silver glitter star with a button hot glued to the middle. I placed the house on a  square piece of white cardstock then attached more tissue paper trim to look like snow and placed it on my cake stand. The bottle brush trees are from this Etsy shop. I also bought some matching wreaths which I was hoping to add to the circular window but they have not arrived yet. When they do I will add them if they fit and update the photo. ETA: The wreaths I ordered were to big so this is how I finished it off instead. The small photo is how it was before.
After

 I love how this came out. I hope you do too. I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes  up with now. I hope the rest of your week is a good one and you have a great Thanksgiving if you are celebrating this week. I know we have a lot to be thankful for this year, I hope you do too. As always I appreciate you taking the time to visit and thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Catching Up

Happy Wednesday.  I hope all is well where you are. Things have been a bit crazy here and I never got the chance to do an October update like I said was going to in my last post. I am going do that now along with sharing some new stuff for November.
My mother continued to have the IV antibiotics for most of October. She passed out one Saturday morning after my father dropped her off at the hospital for an infusion. Thankfully she was not hurt but nobody took her to the ER to be checked out. They took her up to the infusion center and did the antibiotics like nothing had happened. When she got home and told my sister and I what had happened we called her doctor and she said to take her back to the ER. I don't understand why then didn't take her there after it happened,. Anyways after doing numerous tests they said she was throwing PVC's but didn't think it was anything to be concerned about and said it was normal for some people. After being there for hours they decided to stop the IV antibiotics and send her home. She is still having some issues with feeling faint but no one seems concerned. She had her third surgery last Friday. This time it was for the skin grafts. I was hoping that she would not need them but she insisted on having them done. Thankfully the surgery went well and the leg had healed enough on it's own so there was not a lot of grafting to be done. She was in the hospital for 3 days this time though and went home Monday. She is not suppose to be putting any weight on that leg until Thursday but has already been doing more than she should, I just hope she doesn't do anything to ruin the graphs. We celebrated her 69th birthday on the 8th of October. With everything she went through this year we were very grateful that she was able to celebrate this one. This is the card I made her.
I got the inspiration for it from one that Heather Nichols made here.
I have been having major problems with USPS. It all started in August when they changed priority mail to 2-3 days on the labels. I have had several priority mail packages take over 5 days now and did not make it in time for the buyers parties. Because of that I will not use priority mail for orders that need to arrive in less than 5 days now. I now have to use express mail for buyers that need things in less time or they have to be willing to take the chance. Last week I found out that express mail delivery can only be guaranteed if the package is taken to the post office. They cannot guarantee it will arrive back to the post office in time if it is picked up even though they offer free pick for them. I think  that is totally crazy and is false advertising. It does not say that when you schedule the pickup. It is no wonder they are going out of business. Unfortunately FedEx and UPS are double the price. I do not drive or have the time to be going to the post office if I did. As a small business owner this is very frustrating and upsetting. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.
I was finally able to make the Christmas tag I wanted to for last months bloghop. I got the inspiration for it from Marybeth's blog during the Papertrey Bloghop last month. I wanted to make a version that would fit a gift card so I had Rich draw one up for me then I converted it to and SVG. This is what I came up with.
I used the Polka Dot Parade #9 tree and stamp set. The to and from are from the Tiny Tags Set.
If you would like the svg file I would be happy to share it just send me an email.
That's all for now. I hope to be back Monday with a project for this months Papertrey Blog Hop.  Until then I hope the rest of your week is a great one.