Christmas

We had fun at our August Paper Pumpkin class!  We found some cards on Pinterest and then my Stamping friends put their own spin on them and made some adorable cards.  The white Christmas trees have copper specks on them.  Because I’ve been a demo for 13 years and have almost everything I’ve ever purchased from Stampin’ Up!, we were able to put Copper Glitter paper stars on top of the trees.  Copper Glitter paper you say, yep probably back from 2005 or so.  I was so sure there would be Copper Glitter paper in the 2016 Holiday catalog, but instead there is beautiful Copper Foil.  “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” was stamped with my Copper ink pad again from around 2005.  High quality Stampin’ Up! products last a really long time!

Here’s our angels, again inspired from Pinterest.  If you haven’t signed up for Paper Pumpkin, this is a great time because it’s buy one month and get one free!

Well, have you wondered where I’ve been?  Superman and I went to Chicago for a work trip and had some fun along the way.  We stopped in Davenport and took Steve’s parents to lunch and played Euchre with them.  They won big time and we all had a good time.  After lunch we visited a park which they own and maintain for their town of Buffalo to enjoy.  It’s on the shores of the Mississippi River and the site of Grandpa Harold’s boyhood home.  Harold told me he waters the flowers by hauling 5 gallon buckets in the John Deere wagon that my Dad gave him fifteen years ago.

Here’s Steve with his parents, Harold and Ruby.

This is a picture of the park they’ve created.

Chicago is about 5 1/2 hours from our house.  We got to Chicago just in time to jump on the “L” and get to the Cubs game right before the first pitch.  It was a beautiful evening and the Cubs won!  Steve and I talked about how we need to put the “W” flag up outside our house because the Cubs are winning so much lately!  Hopefully I won’t jinx them by saying that. 🙂

On Thursday we had a little time to shop on Michigan Ave.  I made a bee line for Kate Spade to see if any of her current designs would inspire some more cards.  It seems like my Kate Spade inspired cards and gifts have been some of the most popular I’ve made.

You can find the directions for this card set  box here.

I did get some ideas, but I also found some Kate Spade sunglasses!

Aren’t they cute?!  Only $158!  So if you’ve been reading my blog very long, you’ll realize I would never pay $158 for off the rack sunglasses.  So we took our Kate Spade inspiration to another shop and I got adorable Kate Spade inspired sunglasses for $20.

I have more to tell you about Chicago and so much is going on at our house. I need to write down my stories before I forget them all.  OK… I have to tell you just 1 1/2 more stories tonight.

Keegan and I did therapy dogs today and I had a long conversation with Milton who’s 89 years old. We also met Garnet today and she’s only been at the memory care facility a couple of days.  Milton told us he was trying to impress Garnet that he’s lived so long, so when he met her a couple days ago he was bragging about being 89 years old.  Garnet wasn’t actually that impressed.  She replied, oh well I’m 98!  This lady doesn’t look 98, but she sure is sweet!

Milton also showed us his “Thank you for your service” poster which hung in all the barracks during WW2  He’s really proud to have it because they never sold them, but he really wanted one.  He’s also very proud to be a vet and the poster meant a lot to him.  The guy with the posters said he had an extra that he would ask Milton to “throw away” for him.   Milton has the poster framed and proudly displayed in his room. Anyway, on the way home Keegan said that also happened to him on Saturday.  Of course I was confused.  Keegan said he was working at the grocery store  loading bags into a customer’s car when the man tried to give him a tip.  Keegan refused and said they weren’t allowed to accept tips.  The man said it’s crazy not to accept tips since the boys make so little, so instead he asked Keegan to “throw away” his $5 bill for him.  It’s funny that my 15 year old can enjoy and relate to the 89 year old in memory care.  Every time I glanced over at Keegan today he was smiling and fully engaged with each person he chatted with in Memory Care.

Abby wanted to go to therapy dogs today, but she’s frantically finishing her summer homework.  Yep, in her AP English class she had to read a couple long books, answer questions and do annotations.  They tell the kids they have to do summer work to get used to it for college.  This summer at camp she mentioned that and all the college kids told her,”There is no summer work in college!”  Abby feels like she’s been lied to, which made it that much harder to get her summer work done.  School starts on Wednesday so she only has one more day to get it all finished.  Abby will get it done, she always does!

Blessings,

Beth 🙂