Blog Candy Drawing

I have been struggling for weeks to get the full listing of everyone that voted, posted, blogged and otherwise assisted in helping with the ScrapBox Contest.

I am so grateful to ALL of you that helped me in this contest. I really wanted to be fair to everyone and make sure you all got your entries in.

So far, I have tallied the following:

Bernice 70 entries = Numbers 1-70
Rita 20 entries = Numbers 71-90
Anne 50 entries = Numbers 91 - 140
Julia 10 entries = Numbers 141 - 150
Lisa 10 entries = Numbers 151 - 160
Claudia 5 entries = Numbers 161 - 165
Ellin K. 10 entries = Numbers 166 - 175
Barbara 35 entries = Numbers 176 - 210
Dawn 25 entries = Numbers 211 - 235
Melissa 35 entries = Numbers 236 - 270
Vicki 20 entries = Numbers 271 - 290
Granny Ann 10 entries = Numbers 291 - 300
Cheri 10 entries = Numbers 301 - 310
Rhonda 25 entries = Numbers 311 - 335
Amanda 10 entries = Numbers 336 - 345
Crystal 20 entries = Numbers 346 - 365
Jackie 35 entries = Numbers 366 - 400
Anne 10 entries = Numbers 401 - 410
Melody 10 entries = Numbers 411 - 420
Abby 25 entries = Numbers 421 - 445

Before I enter your names into the random number selector, please let me know if I have your total entries correct.

The blog candy will be:

Pebbles, Inc. - Mackavilli foam stamp set
Fiskars Deco Scissors - Heartbeat & Mini pinking sheers
Top Line Creations Complete Page Kits:
Wonderfall
Christmas
Laughter
Family
Tropical
Deluxe Card Template
Chipboard Scallop Circle Mini Album
12 sheets of pre-cut alphabets in patterns & solids
Birthday Card making Kit
Baby Card Making Kit
10 Things I love about my Pet Mini Album

....and more!

I will make corrections to the number of entries until Friday, and the drawing will be on Saturday.

Thank you again for your support!

Father's Day Card

My mom wanted a father's day card for my grandfather, so this is what I came up with:



My grandpa loves fishing, and some of my favorite memories are of all of us down at the little lake tossing a line in the water.



Grandpa was so devoted to my grandmother, and we wanted to be sure to include a quote about how much his love for her meant to all of us.



I used various scraps of cardstock that I had in my stash. I used my new Sizzix Texturz Plates to make the embossing on the brown and beige backgrounds. I sanded the brown cardstock to bring the core color to the surface. The blue background paper is mullbery paper. The words were stamped using my poetry stamp set. The stickers are from Jolee's. All of the edges were inked using ColorBox chalks.

I hope you like my latest card. Thanks for checking it out.

Pirate Background Challenge

For Scrappy Frogs we had a challenge to use this pirate ship style background to make something. The background was a freebie from Dustin Pike.

I colored the background using watercolor pencils and crayons, and used my H2O (water) pen to blend the colors. The cardstock is a leftover from another project.

I wanted to go a little different, so I tried to make it more of a manly card with fishing embellishments. Sorry, the picture on this one turned out a little dark.

Back to Creating!

Here is a graduation card I made for my cousin's daughter's 8th grade graduation:




















I wanted to do something a little different, so I used old cd's from our computers. My crop-a-dile was perfect for making the holes in the CD's for the binder ring. I used my circle cutter to make perfect circles to cover the cd's, and I used Creating Keepsakes papers. I adhered the papers to the cd's using tacky white glue, and let it dry overnight.

I used Creating Keepsakes sticker sentiments. I jazzed them up with Clear Stickles. I had some small Offray ribbons that I cut to decorate the cd's and the binder ring.

I hope you like the card!

A Very Close Call...

Too close for comfort~

This is part of the fire crew from the jail that helped to put out the spot fires.

Yesterday a distant neighbor was clearing their property and burning leaves. The winds came up, and the fire quickly got away from them. My parents and I had just left the house to do our grocery shopping. Joe called on the phone to tell us that he was seeing fire trucks and smelling smoke. I was in shock, and said, "Are you sure?" He was serious!

We left everything we had in our carts and walked out of the store. As we were driving home, we could see the smoke plume in the air.

We remembered as we were leaving the bank that the Cal Fire truck went by with sirens blaring. We commented something along the lines of, "Oh no. I hope there isn't a big fire. We finished up at the bank and went on to do our shopping at Walmart, and my cell phone started ringing. It was the call from Joe.

This is one of the trucks that passed us as we left the bank.

All the way to the house, I kept thinking about what I would want to save and what could just be replaced. I decided to grab my photo albums, my laptop, some clothes, our toiletries, our medication, our bank account information, important papers, my camera, and the animals.

I never saw my dad drive so fast. We were all really worried. We pulled into the driveway to see firetrucks, smoke, and neighbors with hoses. I went into the house as fast as I could. Made sure Joe and the animals were ready. I grabbed my photo albums and camera. I then grabbed our meds and toiletries. We had just done laundry, so I figured a basket full would get us by for a few days.

This is the view from our front yard.

Then through the whole house and property I went taking pictures. I wanted to document everything in the house, but I also wanted to document all of the items outside, too. I figured insurance would be easier if I had immediately before pictures.

After the house was photographed, I went outside to photograph the fire, firefighters and of course, get some videos, too. LOL Leave it to a scrapbooker to want pictures of their house burning down!

This is the fire line they cut just yards from the house.

They were able to cut a fire line around our property and the neighbor's property mere minutes before the fire jumped into our back yards. The firemen on scene told me later that we really got a lucky break. They figured they were going to lose our house and the neighbor's house. When they came in with the D-8 Cat to cut the fire line, they ran into a fence. It slowed them down, and they had to cut through the fence to continue the line that would protect our houses.

The fire was moving very fast, and it took them from 5 - 10 minutes to get the fence down. The wind had slowed slightly, and that gave them the time they needed to get though the fence. He said if that small lull in the winds hadn't happened at that very minute, our places would have been in serious danger. Both houses most likely would have burned. As it was, the fire came in less than 100 yards of our house.

This is the D-8 when it first was cutting the lines (the fire is right in front of it).

Honestly, I was okay with whatever happened. I really didn't freak out or worry. I just figured it was all stuff, and stuff is replaceable. Maybe that attitude was what saved the house. Maybe it just wasn't our day to burn. Either way, yesterday our family was extremely lucky. We can look out the window, and count our blessings that the fire stopped there.