Well Christmas is over, but I thought that I would show you the cards that I made.  I have been trying to do more with my Cricut Explore.  I am finally getting the hang of some of the features and how to do them.  Boy, is there a learning curve, especially since I very rarely used my expressions.  Hope that you all have a great happy and healthy New Year.  See you in 2015!

I have been playing with my cricut Explore for the past few days.  First I made some flowers, then I decided to delve into vinyl. Even though I did a very simple design, I found it a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I guess I will start on next years gifts very early in the year.  I am beginning to come out of the box so to speak.  I NEVER would have tried anything like this a few years ago.  Now just to find the time to watch You Tube!  I just usually find myself reading a book on my I Pad instead or playing games.  MUST stop the games.  I really need to make some changes for the new year.  My first change will be cleaning up my scrap room as much as I can with this bum leg of min.  It has really put a damper on the holidays this year.  I am not even suppose to be rafting as my leg is suppose to be elevated.  Not so easy when you are trying to scrap.  Very awkward position and uncomfortable.  Now off to finish my online shopping as I finally got my new credit cards after my husband thought he lost his wallet.  It was sitting on his desk the whole time.  He found it after we cancelled everything! OY!

I have 't done any scrapping since my last post.  I have been having too much fun with my children and grand children visiting.  The last one goes home December 3rd.  We had a great Thanksgiving just being together.  Today, we went shopping for the kids winter clothes.  I usually do this myself, but as long as the mom's were here, I just let them go to town.   I ordered my deep cut blade and housing for my explore, a new blade and a cartridge.  Had my mom buy me a new printer as a Chanukah gift.  I am shopped out.  Hope to do some crafting this week when my son and daughter-in-law go down to Miami to visit with a friend.  I was going to go, but I think I need some me and scrappy time.  See you all next week.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I have just come back from a 5 day cruise of scrappers that I have met thru Facebook.  We all decided to make an 8 x 8 layout about ourselves to trade with each other.  This is the one I made last minute. I was just having mojo block for weeks, but finally came up with this.  Two colors of glimmer mist and some Florida type stamps.  I then typed out a little about myself, and glimmer misted those also. The cruise was a blast.  We saw Lady Antebellum perform aboard ship.  Too bad, the weather was uncooperative.  Cool, cloudy and some rain.

It has been a tough week.  I did something to my left knee 6 weeks ago, and now the pain is getting worse.  I have now been to the doctor twice.  The first time he drained my knee of fluid and put in cortisone.  Yesterday, because the pain was worse, he is sending me for an MRI.  He has even given me pain meds as he could see how much it hurt.  In the mean time, I did this SVG for the holiday.   I did not use any patterned paper, so I stamped some of the pieces.  Using the explore and understanding the SVG's is a real learning curve.  Unfortunately I do not have anyone who lives near me who has an explore for some help.  I am still persevering with it.  One day I will know what I am doing.  

I have been struggling with learning how to use the cricut Explore.  Here is a card that I made for a friend.  I just felt like it took hours, and then I ended up putting it together wrong.  I left out one of the pieces, but because of the type of glue I used, taking it apart would have been a major indertaking, so I just left it.  It still looks okay, but will have to try it again.  I am determined to learn how to use this machine.

What a week.  I finally went to the orthopedic doctor after trying to heal thy self.  He was able to draw out over an ounce of fluid from my knee.  What a differece  No pain today!  Now I was able to sits down an do some scrapping.  The first is a card that  was just fooling around with Distress markers.  So grateful to You Tube.  I don't think that there isn't a thing that you cannot find on there.  Then I decided to play with my Kiwi Lane templates and learning how to weld letters on my explore.l  Again, You Tube came in handy.  These were pictures from last spring from n art fair in Jupiter, Fl.  I still need to think of my journaling, but I thought that I would show it to you know.  Journaling is my weak spot in scraping.  Thanks for taking a look.

Here are the Christmas cards that I just finished from the kCTMH Workshop on the Go collection.  There are a toto of 15 cards with  envelopes.  Once I got the cutting and stamping done,  it took no time at all to get them put together.  You can go to my site:  scrappygirl123.ctmh.com and click on October party to order this or other products.  Don't forget your stamp of the month for $5.00 with a $50.00 order.  Start your holiday shopping now for yourself and your scrappy friends,  If you decide to host an online party, you can earn free and 50% off items.  Happy shopping.

I finally to this card done yesterday.  I am still new at using my Cricut Explore.  This took me 5 tries to get it sized correctly.  Whew!, I think I finally have it down pat.  Our anniversary is tomorrow, the 17th.  Let's see if hubby remembers.  I have not given him any reminders yet.  I might not leave this in the bathroom tonight after he goes to sleep like I usually do.  What do you think?

As promised, here are a few photos.  first is Harper, then Max and Finally Bruno, my new puppy.

Here is a Tim Holtz tag that I did a few weeks ago.  Right now I am not working on any projects as I just had some surgery on Monday, and am not allowed to raise my arms for a few more days.  Will write and show you  ASAP.

Thanks for looking.

It has been a few years since I have written on my blog.  Just to catch you up a little, I now have three grandchildren.  I just love visiting with them.  My eldest, ?Max is almost 2 1/2 years old and lives in Washington state.  The middle one, Jett, lives in Connecticut, and the baby is Harper, living in Las Vegas.   I gave been retired for a little over a year for medical reasons.  I recently bought a Yorkie,Bruno.  He is such a joy to me, keeping me company during the day.  Thanksgiving this year will be in our house.  Three grandchildren and a dog.  Should be complete chaos, but I am looking forward to it.  It will be the first time that I will have all three together at the same time!  So, for now, that is my crazy life.  I have also become a consultant for Close To My Heart.  I love their stamps, and they have teamed up with Provo craft for their own cricut cartridges.  For now, I will just let you absorb this info and look back on the previous years.  I will get to all the crafty stuff in a day or so along with pictures.