Hold Dear

in honor of my Momma!

Today is my sweet Momma's birthday! I think I'm safe posting the birthday card I made for her since she's still in the hospital. She's doing great! Thanks again for all your sweetness in sending out your good thoughts and prayers. My whole family appreciates it! So actually, life is pretty good right now...Glen's doing great, Miranda's doing great, the cats are doing great - they were BOTH sick this week and required vet visits! I am extremely grateful for all the love, good stuff and blessings in my life.

So in honor of my sweet Momma....what with her birthday and new hip and all, I'd like to have a blog giveaway!!!

I put together two packs of "assorted candy." You know, candy? Assorted ribbons, beads, and embellishments? Like candy! Yum! :-)

All you have to do to enter this little giveaway is to please leave a comment on this post wishing my Mommy a happy birthday! I'll put your name in the birthday hat and then on Sunday, December 2, I'll draw two names and you'll each get a pack. If you have a color preference...green/blue or pink/orange...please tell me. Otherwise, I'll just surprise you! :-)

Thanks and good luck to you!!

I know this has been a very happy post but I do want to mention that if you get a chance, please do go visit our dear Stephanie and maybe leave a kind word. Her family is going through the worst possible tragedy and I know that sometimes during the darkest of times, it helps to know others are thinking of you. Thank you.

ETA: The winners have been picked! Please go here to see who won! Thanks!!!

My Momma!

Slam dunk...momma's got a new hip!

Just wanted to share with you sweet souls my Mom's surgery went exactly as planned. She's doing GREAT and gobbling up the ice chips...maybe she thinks they're peanut M&M's?! :-)

Thank you SO much for your prayers and very kind words of encouragement. I truly appreciate you. Please consider yourself hugged!!!

Hugs (see? I wasn't kidding!),

Michelle

My Mom is Hip!

SO raise your hand if you're getting new hips tomorrow!!! That's YOU, Momma!! :-)

I'd like to ask all my sweety friends, real and online, to please think some good thoughts and to include my dear, sweet Momma in your prayers tomorrow! She's been living with pain for several years and tomorrow she's FINALLY getting that those new hips she's been hankering for!

Thank you all so much and I'll be sure to let you all know how she does! It's also my Momma's birthday on Friday so in her honor, I think I'll have a giveaway for some blog candy. Not sure what the prize will be...but you can bet it will be something HIP! :-)

Good News Everybody!

Howdy! So remember how I said I wanted to stay in my jammies all day on Thanksgiving? Well guess what? Mission accomplished! :-) Oh man, that felt good! I slept in, laid around, lounged, relaxed, and then sat on the couch for awhile. Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly like that but pretty darn close! Just totally relaxed and spent the whole day just hanging out with the Glenmeister. We watched a movie (Wild Hogs), we kept the fireplace going all day, made grapefruit martinis (yum!) and had a very lovely tofurkey. I didn't even do any crafting to speak of. And I really haven't been on the computer much. That's unusual but I think I needed a break from EVERYTHING! The whole week leading up to this long weekend was more crazier than usual...our dear little old man kitty cat, Tommy, has been sick and Miranda got very sick from an abscessed Brown Recluse spider bite. SO much on my mind so I needed some down time.

Friday (my birthday!) was another great day. The BEST present I could have hoped for was an early morning phone call from Miranda telling us she was getting her antibiotics and doing much better! Thursday was a really rough day for her (and for me, thank you very much!) so after speaking with her, I totally felt like I could breathe again! :-)

Later in the morning, Glen and I went for a walk and hung out at our local coffee house for a bit. And then how lovely that when we got home, it wasn't long before the florist came by the house to deliver a beautiful bouquet of birthday flowers from my sweet friend Lilli!!! I had also received a bouquet of assorted yellow flowers from another sweet friend Heidi at work on Wednesday. Thank you Heidi! Thank you Lilli! Aren't they gorgeous??? :-)

Sigh. We have to keep anything edible out of reach of Mr. Atticus so the flowers have to live on the fireplace mantel.

I don't mind though. They add lots of fab color to the mantel! Ha! I promise there's more color in the room than this picture would lead you to believe!

I spent the rest of the day organzing and fritzin' and fratzin' in my crafty room and then we went out to dinner with some friends. A perfect birthday! Not much in the prezzie department on this day but I'm *cough* Art and Soul *cough* okay with *cough* Silver Bella *cough* that this *cough* ArtFest *cough* year! Thanks Glen, for always being my pal! :-)

So then on Saturday, my mail box was FULL! I received some birthday cards and a few gifts! Technically, the gifts weren't birthday gifts but their timing was perfect! I got a wonderful card from my Mom with the most beautiful words that a daughter could ever want to hear from her mother (thank you Mommy...sniff!) and then I got a card from my sister Simone that I think is probably the cutest thing I've seen in a LONG time!

 

You have to click on the picture so you can fully appreciate how cute these little girls are, each holding their kitten. Add to this the candy bars (Please let them be Three Musketeers! Please let them be Three Musketeers!) and you got pure happy.

I also got a packet from Hope of Paper Relics. That sweetyheart had a drawing from cards she collected on Vendor Night at Silver Bella and I was one of the winners! Oh yeah, HOO-RAY for Paper Relics goodies!

Thank you Hope!!! I love it all!!!

Then I also got a package from my very sweet friend Wendy. She is just the kindest (and hilarious!) girl!

I love the tablet and the very cool box it came in and I am also totally adoring the "ticket" sticker with the "M" on it! I LOVE that kind of stuff! I really appreciate your thoughtfulness Wendy. Thank you, dear heart. :-)

Saturday evening Glen and I went to the Northwest Film Institute and watched "Helvetica." It was the COOLEST movie!!!! It was one of those where I just hung on every word! If you love typography or graphic design, you have GOT to see this movie!

So that brings me to today...a little bit of tidying up and lots of crafting. I've been working on my Journal for the Round Robin that Elise is hosting and I've been working on putting together a package for Gina! I had an idea for a swap and Gina graciously offered to do a "test" swap with me! I'm SO glad we did this because she answered the swap theme with some pretty inspiring items!. AND she's already sent me her package and I'm still working on mine! That girl is good! Thank you Gina!!! I'll be talking about the swap in a week or so! Eeeeee! I'm really anxious to share it but I don't want it to get lost in the whole hub bub that is the holidays. It's totally inspired by this kit I bought several months ago! :-)

I hope you all have a great great week!!! My Mom is having hip replacement surgery on Wednesday so I'll put up a request the night before asking that you keep some good thoughts for her and add her to your prayers. I figured it'd be okay to ask you for this favor because after all, you are my peeps! :-)

XO

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi there...just wanted to shout out a big happy four-day weekend howdy to you! Yay!

So with Miranda being in Hawaii and Glen's brother and family away on vacation, it's gonna be just Glen and I this year for Thanksgiving. And here's some irony for you, Glen's brother and family are on vacation in Maui, of all places!!! The plan is for Miranda to join them for Thanksgiving and they're all going to a luau together!

I'm kinda looking forward to it being just the two of us. I don't think that has EVER happened! It'll be a bit lonely without the girlie but with my birthday added in there (on Friday -- oh yeah!), I will be taking full advantage of the situation and will do minimum cooking, housework, etc. Heck, I'll probably even stay in my PJs all day on Thanksgiving. Make some tea, put on a fire, watch a movie, followed by a nice meal and some pumpkin pie...all in the comfort of my flannel, polka-dot PJs? Love it!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a few Thanksgiving-ish images. My very kind friend, David, lent me a binder he bought at a garage sale a while back. He said he paid something like a buck for it. It is a 4" binder full of samples of "scrap" made in Germany and England.

Gorgeous gorgeous stuff. When David showed this to me, I pretty much went bonkers! He said I could pick out what I liked and keep it. Gulp!!! Well, after pouring through it, I realized I wanted it all! David is an extremely kind and generous soul but if I had actually taken the pieces that caught my fancy, he would be getting back an empty binder!! So in the interest of preserving our friendship and not appearing like the scrap-greedy creature that lurks only slightly below the surface, I decided to just scan what I liked and make sure David gets to keep his binder. :-)

Thank you again David...and I hope to get the binder back to you VERY soon! :-)

So with tomorrow being Thanksgiving, I did not want to miss the opportunity to say to you, dear reader, THANK YOU. Thank you for your comments, your support, your encouragement, and for the amazing friendship that you have shared with me, both online and in real life.

I feel very loved and very grateful.

Lately, I have been experiencing DEEP feelings of gratitude for all that I have in my life. I began meditating two times a day over a month ago. This past week, at the end of my practice, I started stating what I am grateful for. I keep it separate from meditation but I thought if I did it at the same time, it would become a habit. So far, it's been an absolutely glorious and fulfilling experience. It has served to keep me grateful of things throughout the course of the day. I intend to keep this as a practice and see it become a deep-rooted habit. I even caught myself this morning anticipating my gratitude time as much as my meditation time! :-)

Wishing you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving and for those of you traveling, a safe journey to you!

XO,

Michelle

There's STILL more...

...Silver Bella stuff that is! I know I know, I've been going on and on about Silver Bella but there was SO much happening! I'm just gonna try to finish up my show and tell and get everything that I wanted to share with you done in this post. It's almost been a week since I've been home but you know what? I truly am just today feeling back to normal. So with that, sit back and enjoy a little more glitter with me...won't you?

Here are pictures of the instructors and/or class projects...

I had two classes on Friday. "Wish Journal" with the FABULOUS Kimberly Kwan and then "Life is a Lovely Collage" with Rebecca Sower.

The Wish Journal class was SO much fun. I adored Kimberly...her energy, her humor, her light, her fun. What a GREAT way to start the Silver Bella classes!

Here's the front and back of my wish journal...

So I didn't get a picture of myself with Kimberly in our class but I got one on Vendor Night. So how cute is this lady???

Next up was "Life is a Lovely Collage" with Rebecca Sower. Sigh. This class was so fun. Very comfortable. Just being in Rebecca's presence is uplighting. She is absolutely the epitome of grace and elegance, not to mention I LOVE her scrapbooking style. I went through her book "Scrapbooking Life's Little Moments" last night and man, she was doing some pretty innovative stuff way back when.

Here's a very prized picture of me with Rebecca and then my sweet project and little treat I bought from her on Vendor Night.

Close up of the collage...

Then on Saturday I had three classes, Jenny and Aaron's "Let Them Eat Cake," "Bella Banner - Soft and Shabby" with Pam Garrison, and then "Bella's Bracelet" with Teresa McFayden.

Here's my Let Them Eat Cake project. I haven't finished it just yet...but here's a peek of it in progress...

Jenny and Aaron are SO cute together. Very fun dynamic. I didn't get a picture with them which, of course, I regret. Next time!

Next up was Bella Banner Soft and Shabby with the oh so fabulous Pam Garrison.

I haven't finished this project yet either...still need to carve away the edges to reveal the scalloped chipboard bases and still need to glitter the J, O, and Y. But...I'm not sure I actually want to finish this... may just learn from what I did and try it again...only next time...not so much of everything! :-)

And then a picture of me with Pam Garrison (Eeeeeeeeee!) :-)

And then my last class at Silver Bella (sniff!) was with Teresa McFayden. We made these sweet bracelet's from vintage French velvet ribbon.

I did, in deed, finish my bracelet, but the colors in this picture aren't real true...that band is a luscious brown velvet ribbon. The blue...well...you can tell how fabulous it is! The center is an earring I just picked up at Second Chance (the amazing junk shop in Omaha).

So that's all the classes...then there were the swaps I participated in! Man o' man was this fun! Here are a few pictures...

During the swap...and then all the tags I received...

So people created these thinking we'd use them as tags? I don't think so! I'll be using these as ornaments! AMAZING work!

Then there was the ATC swap...more amaziness!

And the charm swap...the packaging for these charms was simply amazing!

So while all of the charms and packaging were gorgeous...the charm from Carol aka Raised in Cotton came with a VERY special treat!

Can you believe that? "Silver Bella" pink m&m's??? HOW fun!!! So now are you getting the picture of why I kept calling this whole event "magical?"

There was also the Miss Scarlett's Velvety Ribbon Pendant swap but I didn't snap a pic of those yet. I'll show them to you soon.

I just have a few pictures left to show you...I got prezzies from my buddies Kari and Lilli. Such sweet wonderful women. SO glad we found each other and became friends. They're just the best. :-)

From Lilli...

Thank you Lilli!!! :-)

From Kari...

Thank you Kari! :-)

Okay...we're down to the wire now...just a few last pictures of some fun goodies I bought on Vendor Night and around Omaha at Second Chance and Fairmont.

From Poppy Ink.

And then just a great big assortment of things from the likes ofHope at Paper Relics, Heather Bullard at PastPresent Collection, Tammy Gilley, Pam Garrison, and Heather at Speckled Egg.

And you know what, dear reader, this isn't even all of it. There's also the ginormous stack of sheet music I bought for real cheap at Second Chance and some other bits but alas, I think I'm done. I will leave you with one last picture...today I went to Goodwill and check out what I found...

So was my good vintage Christmas mojo was workin' or what? :-)

more Bella goodness...

Oh dear. I was kinda feeling like I didn't take a lot of pictures at Silver Bella but now that I'm going through them, I've realized that I did! I've got LOTS to share and I haven't even taken pictures of my shopping loot, projects from my classes, or the prezzies I received from some special pals!!! This is definitely gonna take another post...or two. :-)

It's been absolutely fabulous popping around to blogs and Flickr seeing everyones pictures from Silver Bella. Sigh. I know the term "magical" keeps being used to describe this weekend but honestly, I promise to never use that word again to describe anything other than Silver Bella. It's the best one to describe this experience.

This is my sovenier postcard (which was taken while I was cutting ribbon from Kimberly Kwan). Silver Bella had an official photographer! Kim Haynes was her name and she is a talented and adorable gal!!! I propped the postcard up with a selection of my new fab jewels that I bought at Second Chance!

Before I get too far down this sparkley road, I have to say that my entire trip to Omaha was charmed. Totally. Right from the start...my flights were on time, any shuttle I caught was on time, my hotel room was great, all my luggage followed me everywhere I went. With the exception of a surly waitress and an impatient shuttle driver...it was all just fabulous! But I didn't really expect anything less...do you remember how I even came to get the money for Silver Bella? If you don't, you can visit this old post of mine. :-)

My first day in Omaha, Thursday, was C-R-A-Z-Y! From the moment I got on the shuttle at the airport to the hotel, I was swept up in swirls of happiness! I got on the shuttle and walked past a few women, heading towards the back. They called out..."Oh no you don't, you belong with us!" This fab group of ladies turned out to Janey, Susan, Natalea, Hope, Heidi, and Carol. I'm glad they rescued me from the men in the back of the shuttle...they claimed to be on their way to a scrapbooking convention, but I wasn't buying it. :-)

During the course of the next few hours, I met up with Wendy! I was SO happy to meet her!!! I also got to meet all the Jacksonville girls...Jamie, Ann, and Jeanie and then there was Suzanne! Oh and then there was Jennifer! So here's a little funny...while all the Jacksonville gals went off for their photo shoot, Jennifer, Suzanne, and I had our own photo shoot... :-)

Then from there it's just a blur of happiness and glee..I got to meet the very sweet Robyn, Heather, Cindy, Lisa, Carol,  Amy, Cerri, Tammy, and Natalie. I may be getting out of order as to when I met each person but I do recall there being a point when I literally had to step away because I felt very close to tears. SOOOOO happy!!!

My BFF Lilli arrived and then while we were in the lobby, we got to meet Kari at the same time!!!! That was a hugfest-o-rama!!!!

Lilli, Kari, and I went to Spagetti Works for dinner and then headed over to Second Chance which was closed to the public and open just for us Bellas! There I got to meet Karla S. and Julie B, whom if you recall, was the sweety heart that sent me a copy of Teresa's book, "Foof-a-life." Thank you again Julie!!!

Some fun pictures taken at Second Chance...

A picture from happy hour...

During happy hour I got to meet a few more FAB Bellas...Heather, Karla N., and Leslie. Oh I bet there were more!!!!

Friday was our first day of classes...I'll share pictures of my projects and the FABULOUS teachers with you once I get those pictures taken. In between classes, a group of us went into town for some shopping. Can you say Photo Op???

Here are Heather, me, Stacy, Kari, Carol and Melissa. WOW!!! I was hanging around with THESE people!!! I truly felt like I was hanging around celebrities!!!

We bopped around town a bit. In another shop called the Fairmont, we found the Jacksonville contingency...so Wendy and I got a picture together!

I loved this wreath!

The Old Market area of Omaha is SO cute...

Say "O!" (I LOVE taking self-portraits!)

Doesn't this wall look altered? WAY cool!

Back at the hotel, we had our Bella luncheon. Lilli entertained us with her exquisite violin playing. This girl is SO talented!!!!!

In my next class (projects and teachers to come with my next post), I got to meet the lovely and funny Heather. She was with her two sisters and mom...oh that just made me so happy because it totally reminded me of my two sisters and mom....well, if we all did art... :-) They were SO funny together! At one point, Heather was saying something to her Mom and threw in a "Yo...!" CRACKED.ME.UP! Here's a picture with them (sans the sister taking the picture) on vendor night, with them all wearing their CUTE aprons!

Okay, I think I'm gonna stop here...not that I want to but I think the old hamster in my computer is starting to get tired. I've got a few more fun pix to share as well as pictures of the gorgeous Prima Bellas and my projects. There's also some more fabulous people I met in my classes! CRAZY FUN!!!!! Oh, I also gots to get busy updating my blogroll! I have SO many peoples I want to start stalking monitoring! :-)

Happy day hugs to you!!!

Glitter Hangover

I'm back from Silver Bella and am still in full recovery mode. I got home about 11:30 AM or so on Sunday morning and by noon, I was ready to lay down for a nap (I'd gotten up at 3:45 AM to catch my flight home.) I fell asleep instantly and didn't get out of bed until about 9:00 PM! HOKEY POKEY I guess this Bella needed some rest!!! And even with getting up at 9:00 PM, when I went back to bed around midnight, I fell right back asleep. It must have been just what I needed because when I did wake up around 7:00 AM, I felt rested and back on schedule.

Before I left for Silver Bella, I worked like a crazy woman gettings things finished up for swaps, putting together gifts, doing some last minute shopping, cleaning the house, etc. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it was all worth it! In return for all my work I got an absolutely magical and incredibley fulfilling weekend! Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my entire weekend would be like one long Christmas morning! My whole Silver Bella experience, from start to finish was, as you can imagine, amazing, fantastic, fulfilling, glorious, and wonderful. Did I mention it was spectacular? It really was more than I could have possibly imagined it would be. The city, (Omaha, NE), the hotel, the shopping, the people (I'll be going on and on about that for awhile, I'm sure!), the instructors - I got to take classes with Kim Kwan, Rebecca Sower, Jenny and Aaron, Pam Garrison, and then there was Ms. Foof herself, Teresa McFayden. It was all just magical!

I'm sure I came off like a total goof at times because I was absolutely giddy as I kept meeting person after person. I got to meet people I've come to know, admire, and respect, all through blogging and e-mail. It was glorious seeing these online friendships come to fruition. There were also people I hadn't met before that I got to know and then became friends with. It was just amazing! There were times when I even felt some tears of happiness!

I have LOTS of pictures to show you but for now, just this one...

As I mentioned, one of the best parts of the whole Silver Bella affair was meeting all my favorite blogging and online pals. I was especially happy to see former bloggin pal, now BFF/partner-in-crime, Lilli. This weekend absolutely would not have been as fun if she hadn't been there to share it with me! And then there was dear Kari! I swear when I saw her, I felt like I was seeing a celebrity! We've known each other via our blogs for about a year and a half now and being able to finally meet and see her "in person" was SO thrilling! Quite an amazing woman.

It was the same with Wendy! I've only known this fabulous gal online and now I can say that we are now friends. Real friends in real life!

And I have to add in here that it is just so very fulfilling to realize that all of these beautiful ladies that I got to meet are, in deed, just as fabulous and sincere and sweet in person as they are online! Maybe even more!

I am still unpacking, uploading pictures, sorting through all my class projects and new treasures I bought at Second Chance when all us Bellas had our private "Gone Junkin'" party. I also have lots of treasures from the FABULOUS vendor fair to show you! SO much! So please come back by real soon!

Oh I did want to mention that I learned a very important lesson this weekend...when I am away, Glen is NOT to be allowed to go to any fundraising banquets! While I was at Silver Bella, Glen attended the annual Neuberger Banquet. While on the way home from the airport, he informed me of all the items he bid on...and won! Cha-Ching! Oh well...I can't be too mad...one of the items was an "indulgence" gift basket that he bought for me. The baskets includes some hair care products, candles, and a one and a half hour massage! Love that man!!!

Bella bound!

Hey there! I'll be catchin' a flight to Omaha, NE tomorrow to go to Silver Bella. SOOO excited! I'll take LOTS of pictures!!! Don't want to miss one detail of this event!

A few quick pictures to show you...here's a picture of one of the charms I made for a swap. I finished them a day or so ago but just couldn't get a decent picture!

And a quick peek at all my swaps, all packaged up nicely...I'm also bringing some chocolates for a few pals o'mine! :-)

So while I was packin', I turned my back and look what was goin' on...someone was trying to stow-away!!! Nice try, Atti Cat!

 

Okay, I'm outta here! Gotta get to bed...this Bella has to get up at 3:00 AM!  See ya on the flip flop! :-)

all dressed up!

No not me!...well not yet anyways! :-) I've been finishing up more Silver Bella bits but I wanted to pop in and share with you the dresses I received from two separate dress swaps I participated in. I made a few dresses and in return, I received some sweet sweet lovely lovely little minature dresses!

First are the dresses I received from Heather aka Speckled Egg's Vintage Paper Dress swap.  All of the participants were to create five paper dresses using vintage materials. I had fun with this because I got to dive into my stash vintage wallpapers and laces! If you want to refresh your memory with the dresses I sent, you can visit here.

Oh so lovely!!! Heather provided some lovely ribbon and minature clothespins for us to display our dresses. I'm SOOOO happy with these! Thank you SO much Heather for a fabulous swap!!!

The other paper dress swap I participated in was with Heather aka Jeweled Elegance. For this swap, Heather paired us up and we were to create two dresses to send to our partner. My partner was Rachael aka The Rose Room. One dress was to have a Fall theme and then the other was designer's choice. I didn't post mine on my blog because I didn't want to ruin the surprise for my swap partner but I did get them up on my Flickr. :-)

I love how Rachael wrapped the dresses she sent me in sheet music. It looks vintage too. Grin!!! Rachael also sent a sweet handmade card and a blueberries sachet that smells divine!!!!

Here is the Fall inspired dress...oooohhh....a cape! How marvelous!

And then this dress...sigh...Rachael said it was inspired by my love of Jane Erye. Okay...how did she know? Really! Did I mention it recently? I absolutely love Jane Erye and have known for years that when it's my time to go, THIS will be the last book I read.

Thank you SO SO much Rachael! I LOVE my dresses!!! And thank you Heather for the fun swap!!

Okay...time to get to sleep! Only THREE more sleeps until Silver Bella!!!