Our Love Story

Well....I was "supposed" to be taking a break this week..traveling to PA to visit my family but because of the blizzard there--our flight was cancelled :(
The kids are disappointed to be missing our family Christmas party, the Pollyanna (gift exchange) and TIME with their cousins. But I would rather be safe than sorry! Still hoping we can get there for a few days.

In the meantime, I consoled myself with a little project. My two youngest wanted to craft this morning so I had time to finish this mini album I started while they cut 1,000 snowflakes!

I used the GORGEOUS new Be Mine collection from Echo Park and paired it with the coordinating stamps from Unity Stamp Co - I Adore You and With Love.

I still might add some journaling on this but this is the basic project. I love being able to have stamps that coordinate with my favorite paper brands....makes it so easy to create projects you love.

Hope you are having a wonderful week!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Merry Christmas!

.......from my family to yours! This is our tree. (Yep..fake because of my allergies.) EVERY ornament has a special meaning to our family and it makes it so much fun to pull them out every year and re-live all the great memories. We purchase an ornament on every trip we take and the kids each pick out an ornament each year and we put their name/year on it. There are also lots of ornaments the kids made throughout the years. I love it! Here is a little Christmas treat holder (as featured on the Echo Park Paper blog this month):

Hope you have a blessed day! Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog...I am so grateful for my blog friends!

I am taking some time off this week to relax and enjoy family time. I have a few posts scheduled but will mostly be MIA. SEE you in the New Year!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Thank YOU from the Artman Home

Today, in the midst of holiday preparations...I wanted to take a minute and share a special email I received last week. A thank you to all of you who took part in the Heart to Heart Card Drive for Alzheimer's caregivers. This letter is from the Support Services Administrator at the Artman home, where they received over 100 cards for their staff as a result of the drive.

Dear Carolyn,

I’ve attached some pictures of some of the cards that we received and put on display. These beautiful cards still hang in our hallways, as I walk by I still see residents, families and staff “taking a peek” and I love watching the smile appear on their face. We had our annual Resident & Family Christmas parties and we received so many comments about the cards. At these parties, we always do a little speech before grace is said and we mentioned you and your grandmother and how so many amazing cards were sent to us from all over the world including Brazil, Australia, Israel, Canada and obviously all over the United States.

One amazing letter really touched me personally as well as all our staff. I would love to share this with you:

“Thank you so much for all that you do for your patients. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, so I am all too familiar with what a challenge they can be. In memory of my grandmother, I have included cards for you to use. One for every one of my family members that miss one amazing woman”.

We have read this card in so many meetings and discussions, and it touches our heart time and time again. This particular lady sent us a boxful of beautiful blank cards which we have shared with our staff.

Carolyn, you and your family and the memory of your grandmother will always be a part of the Artman family. Thank you for always keeping us close. And more importantly, thank you for the smiles you brought to the faces of our staff. I hope you stay in touch.

Merry Christmas
Nancy Twomey

Thank YOU all for making these amazing people feel so special and appreciated.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Echo Park Christmas Cards

Hello! Nothing like the last minute---Just wanted to share some Christmas cards I created with Echo Park paper:

Hope you are having a great (and not to hectic) week!!! Back to holiday preparations!

Thanks for stopping by!

Blog Candy Winner

The winner of the Echo Park Be Mine collection is lucky #12 (as selected by Random.Cara). Congratulations to Shelia who said...
"Cammie, I voted and will continue to vote. Please everyone vote. If we can save one child just by the simple action of voting, look what we as a group have accomplished. No one should ever have to go through the agony of the death of a child. I know."

Congrats Sheila! Just email me your address and I will get that right out to you!

Thanks for stopping by!

Build a Birthday Card

Hello! Happy Sunday! Yesterday was my son's 8th birthday....we had a great day...just cannot believe eight years have come and gone so fast :(

I have a fun little card design to show you today. I created this with the new template from My Favorite Things called Build a Birthday Card that I helped to design! Woohoo! It is so easy to use this template alone OR with your Cricut Expression, Silhouette, Wishblade, Pazzles or KNK machines.

and here is the inside:

What do you think? Such a fun template. I have more designs created with it to share soon!

Don't forget...you have until 8 p.m. tonight to enter to win the BE MINE collection from Echo Park. See post below!

Thanks for stopping by!

Win Echo Park Be Mine Collection

A friend asked me to pass a request on. Something SIMPLE, FREE and FAST that you can do right now....

Something that could give a little girl the chance at LIFE.

The backstory---A family in NY has three girls. Their youngest, Hannah, was progressing normally until about 3 years of age. Suddenly her foot started to turn in. They took her to some doctors who finally diagnosed her with a terminal neurological disease, which was devastating since it was an orphan disease (meaning, that so few people have it that there is little research, and no funding.) Thus, they were given a death sentence for their child.

Her parents started Hannah's Hope Fund to raise money to cure the disease. In the past 2.5 years, their small community in Upstate NY has raised over 2 million dollars. Hannah's parents hired a slew of researchers to figure out the GAN (Giant Axonal Neuropathy) gene. This month, they are competing for a Pepsi Refresh Grant for $250k. This grant will allow Hannah and the other children with GAN to go through the human clinical trials in November 2011. They have the gene figured out - the way to fix it now....they just need to raise money to finalize the process.

This Pepsi Refresh Grant will pay for the clinical trials. It will allow Hannah (and other children with GAN) to live a long, healthy life!

Voting is easy - you can text your vote daily to 73774 (which stands for Pepsi) and the message is 104051 (Standard text message rates apply.) If you have to pay for text messaging, you can vote online at refresheverything.com using your email address. You just create an account, sign in and listen for the pepsi can opening and pouring, then click on $250k and find Hannah's Hope Fund. They are currently in 1st place, but there are so many people vying for this grant, we need to keep up the fight!

If you would like more information--here is Hannah's website: http://hannahshopefund.org/data/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=39

Leave a comment on this post if you go and vote. I will randomly select one person to receive the fabulous NEW collection from Echo Park paper--Be Mine! You have until Sunday night at 8 p.m. (central) to enter to win! *You can continue to vote all month long though! The winner will be announced on my blog on Monday and will have until Wednesday night to email me their address.


Thanks and xo. Off to hug my children!

So excited!!!!

Yipee!! I woke up this morning to some fun news-

My Echo Park project was selected to be featured on their blog today.

If you want to see it you can check it out here:

http://echoparkpaper.blogspot.com/2010/12/day-4-guest-designer-carolyn-king.html#comments

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Tuesday Trigger Tag!

Hi there! Well, I HAD to play along with this weeks Tuesday Trigger on the Moxie Fab Blog because I couldn't take my eyes off of the inspiration photo when I first saw it.
Here is this week's inspiration:
Yummy! Just look at the awesome colors!
I know you will want to play along too---just create a project inspired by the picture above and then add your link to the Moxie Fab blog.

Here is my tag that was inspired by the photo:


Did you see the little Christmas tree cookies in the top of the picture? Yep. I was inspired by those and by the gorgeous colors and all the yummy frosting. I stamped the script background from the Gina K Winter Wonderland Stamp TV kit onto the tag I cut with my Cricut Expression (woohoo!). I cut some tree shapes using the Winter Wonderland Cricut cartridge and some Echo Park designer paper.

To capture the softness of the frosting, I used some white felt (My Favorite Things) to line the bottom of the tag and cut it with the Jumbo Scallop die (My Favorite Things). I stitched along the edge of the felt hills to add some more texture.

Do you see the snowflakes on top of the cupcakes in the inspiration photo? I used Snowflake Wonder dies from Spellbinders to cut out the felt snowflake and added a sticker (Echo Park) on top before adding a pink rhinestone. The tag was sponged with some Tea Dye ink (Ranger).

That is it :) Thanks for stopping by!

Merry & Bright WSC challenge

Hello! It is time for another MFT Wednesday Stamp Challenge. This week the challenge is Pure Innocence Christmas: create that last minute Christmas card using PI stamps!

Well, if you know me well....this surely is last minute as I had all my Christmas cards* finished and mailed weeks ago. (haha!)
Yep...so this isn't really what I consider last minute but I did keep it simple 'cause I am so behind on the aforementioned* task:

I used the PI set, Make Mine a Double, for this card. True--it is a summer set but it is easily transformed into a holiday set when you swap out the ice cream cone for a gift!
The sentiment is from Merry & Bright. I added some designer paper along the top and used the Small Scalloped Border Die-namics die to cut the top part of the card.

Designer paper is by Echo Park.

Wanna play along? Head on over to Kim's blog at 11 am EST (on Wednesday) for all the details on how you can be entered to win a $15 gift certificate. Kim will also have a a complete list of participating designers for this week's Wednesday Stamp Club so you can check out all the samples before you play!

Thanks for stopping by!

Deer Tags

Happy Monday!!! My weekend was great...but busy. Got a lot of Christmas shopping done and we had my son's 8th birthday party yesterday at a bowling alley. It was a GREAT time and he loved every minute of it.

So...I only had a little bit of time to play with my new toy (Cricut Expression) this weekend. Just enough time to read the quick guide and figure out how to cut a few things :)

Then, I figured I should MAKE something with the pile of deer, tags and sentiments I made during my practice session-

So I created some gift tags...Designer paper and stickers are by Echo Park.

What do you think? Be gentle...it is my first time using this powerhouse of a tool. Do you have a favorite??

Thanks so much for stopping by! (Stay tuned this week...just sayin'!)

Christmas Inspiration and THANK YOU!

Hello!!! Happy Friday!

First of all....I want to say THANK YOU so much to all of you who commented on the Echo Park paper page on Facebook for me. I won a Cricut Expression because of all of you! I am so delighted to finally own one of these. To celebrate: fun blog candy will be coming soon. Just have to wait until I can get my hands on the fun new paper I want to include and then I will post it!

Here are two Christmas cards I created with Jillibean Soup. First, a Christmas tree: I used one of Jillibeans Green/Quartz star picks for the top of the tree (it is inserted between layers so that the pin part doesn't poke out.). I cut out the little flowers and attached them to the tree. I added some yellow rhinestones to coordinate with the pin. I also used a SRM holiday sticker on this one.

Next is my JOY card:

I used JB corrugated letters for the sentiment, painting them with white acrylic paint. I punched the snowflake and added some of the designer paper to the middle of it. I finished the card off with some stitching along the side panel.

Hope you have a GREAT weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

All Hearts Come Home for Christmas

Hello!! It is time for the weekly MFT Wednesday Stamp Challenge! This week the challenge is to create a winter wonderland. Here is my attempt:


I used the Pure Innocence set - Sending you a little Christmas - for this card. I LOVE this sentiment so I wanted to stamp a scene that went perfectly with it. So, I simply stamped half the image from the set and then cut out a heart for her to pull. (TIP: When I got this set, I performed a little surgery, separating the girl from the sleigh with a straight cut. This way I can use the image WITH or WITHOUT the sleigh being pulled. I knew I would want to mix it up a lot and this allows me to without having to mask.)

I created the hills of snow using the Jumbo Scallop die-namic die. (This is one of my favorite dies because it can be used for scallops or the decorative edge of a card or for grassy hills, snow hills, etc. Very versatile!)

Designer paper and snowflake stickers are by Echo Park.

Wanna play along? Head on over to Kim's blog at 11 am EST (on Wednesday) for all the details on how you can be entered to win a $15 gift certificate. Kim will also have a a complete list of participating designers for this week's Wednesday Stamp Club so you can check out all the samples before you play!

Kid funny: My 5 year old, Lauren, said to me yesterday : "Mom, can you come downstairs and feel my heart because I don't think it's beating."

Thanks for stopping by!

Music Inspired Project

Hello!! Today I am super excited to be joining my fabulous friend Kimberly Crawford on her 12 Trendy Days of Christmas: Day 9. Today's theme is music and here is the project I created:

I used a fun ornament from Darcie's for this project. I covered it with some music paper (Merry Christmas: Christmas Carol by Echo Park) to relate to the theme. I sanded the edges and sponged the edges with tea dye ink (Ranger).

I cut the holly from some patterned paper (Merry Christmas: Holly Berry by Echo Park) and attached it to the top. The sentiment is from Light of the Season (Gina K Designs).

Be sure to check out Kimberly's blog to catch all her fabulous posts in this series!

Have a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by!

My BIG Boy!

Remember that little boy in the layout below this one------

Well.....this is the same kiddo---over 7 years later-

I used the same patterned paper - Little Boy Collection by Echo Park to create this. Just used it is a more "Big Boy" way!

At Age 7, We weren't sure that you were old enough to play on a select team...

But your drive, energy and passion convinced us to give it a try.

It is so much fun watching you do what you LOVE to do!

I also used some stamps on this layout-Sporty Accessories by Gina K Designs. They were the perfect addition to the photos and paper!

REMINDER: If you are on FACEBOOK...can you PLEASE go to the Echo Park Paper Page and hit "LIKE" and then comment that I sent you! It is for a contest they are having and I am trying my hardest to win!! Thank you so much! Contest ends Monday night!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Can you please do me a favor???

If you are on FACEBOOK...can you PLEASE go to the Echo Park Paper Page and hit "LIKE" and then comment that I sent you! It is for a contest they are having and I am trying my hardest to win!!

Here is a page I created using their Little Boy Line---such a cute collection!

This picture is of my son when he was a few months old.

We tried so hard to get you

to look at the camera..

But you just kept staring at

the clock on the wall.

Thanks so much!

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!!