Button Buddies and Friendly Phrases for Stamping411

Hi Everyone.

Happy Monday.  I hope you all had a fabulous weekend.  I certainly did, and managed to stay cool.  Lou, however didn't have such a great weekend. He left on Saturday morning to go to Hong Kong and finally arrived this morning!  His journey was quite amazing – in fact, I will share his email update with you tomorrow night!

I saw this sketch across on stamping411 and loved the clean lines. 

I thought about it for a while – especially how I was going to incorporate the circular element with the sentiment.  I also decided to use a color combo I have never used before – Cherry Cobbler and Blushing Bride!

This is a card that will be going to the troops – don't forget we are in the middle of our Operation Write Home card drive for the troops. 

I decided to leave the decoration on the inside very clean, to leave the service member lots of space to write their own message.

Card ingredients:

• Card stock: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White
• Stamps:  Button Buddies, Friendly Phrases
• Accessories:  Regals Buttons, Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine, Pearl, Cherry Cobbler ribbon

I have another couple of ideas for cards using this sketch, so might even manage to play along again this week.  You know the drill… pop along to stamping411 and see what the operators have created – sure to inspire you!  Maybe even inspire you to play along!

BLOG HOP ALERT!

One of the swaps I did for convention was an organized swap.  It was a FANCY FULL swap.  The cards were full cards, meant for sending.  The request was to create full cards, with multiple embellishments.  There were some corkers I can tell you!  Some really fabulous swaps.  The organizers have set up a blog hop for a few of us on Friday 7/29, to share with you some of the cards.  I hope you will come back on Friday and check it out.  I promise, you won't be disappointed.  I will be sharing with you the card that I made using Faith in Nature.  I just love that set!

On a personal note

Some of you have been asking how my leg is progressing.  Well, I can tell you it is certainly progressing in the right direction!  The swelling has gone down considerably – but still evident, the color is more muted and overall it is less painful.  It's impossible to fully straighten my knee, though and that's keeping me from driving.  The knee clicks and pops like crazy, a sure sign the meniscus is torn. I also can't turn it to the right. I still have a couple of weeks before I go back to the Dr and then they will determine whether to go in and fix it laproscopically or not.  The strangest thing about my leg? the overall color of the leg.  It's this ghastly pale custard yellow, which, when contrasted against my English pale pink upper leg, looks really odd!

I thought you might like a little pic of the progression.  I will spare you and show you only one shot.  You can see the overall yellow color of my leg – especially when you compare it against the color of my heel.  The blood pooled most on the other side, so I spared you that, too!  I also made the pic small so that you don't really have to look if you don't want to!  You can see that Bailey was not that impressed that I was disturbing him on his blanket to take this pic!  Honestly, no sympathy from my cat!  You can see the leg is still swollen…. but SO much better than the last set of pics I showed you!  So… thank you to all of you who have sent me good wishes, healing prayers, etc.  They were much appreciated

I can't finish my post tonight without mentioning a couple of things.  Sometimes events in the world are so large and so catastrophic – so utterly overwhelming, that it is hard to focus on them.  The incredible drought in East Africa is one of them.  It's stunning – in the worst possible way – how devastating this is and how many millions of people are affected.  It's also stunning how hopeless one feels to do anything effective to help.  Reaching out to the aid organizations and donating is the only thing I can possibly do.

Then, the events in Norway shock you completely.  Violent attacks of this magnitude are always shocking, even more so when they are done from inside.  I remember, all too well, the shock of the Oklahoma bombings, for instance.  I was amazed that one totally deranged, bigoted, astonishing small minded, grotesque individual could wreak such havoc.  The guy in Norway fits into the same category.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the innocent victims who were caught up in this atrocity.

Then, on the other hand, there are small events.  A single death.  The death of someone who struggled with fame, fortune, incredible talent, amazingly low self-esteem and the demons of addictions.  Addiction is a terrible disease.  Whether it's drugs, alcohol, overspending, hoarding, gambling, over eating, under-eating… addiction is a disease.  I'm a complete Jazz/soul junkie.  I was weaned on the stuff!  Amy Winehouse was an astonishing talent.  A woman with a voice that was not only technically amazing, but could make you feel pain and emotion like no-one since Billie Holiday.  A voice that was at once familiar, timeless and yet, fresh and totally inspired.  A woman whose lyrics were raw and unfettered.  A little girl trapped inside a womans body and an addicts mind.  I hope she is finally at peace.

I will finish on a lighter note.  I have a video to share with you.  Y'all know Im crazy about animals, well a colleague sent me this video link….. Check it out if you haven't seen it already.  It's phenomenal.  Just click on the pic to go to the link on youtube

I promise… it will leave you laughing.  On that note, thank you all for visiting my blog…you know your visits and your comments mean a great deal to me.  Hugs and prayers tonight for those in need.

Jaydee