It's All About The Journey

Merry Christmas!

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas.  Wayne and I had a beautiful day. We have our small traditions that make each Christmas so very special.

This year makes the second year that I  was not able to make handmade Christmas cards  so I ordered some photo cards and sent out as many out as I possibly could. I wish I had saved one of the photo cards that I made so that I could share it with you but due to time I did not get a chance to scan one in. I did however make a card using one of the many templates from the MDS program by Stampin' UP! It's simple but I hope you like it. I am also sharing a few Christmas photos that were taken on Thursday and Saturday night of this week.  It is always a special time when we are able to get together with some of our family.

 

 

I know that it is not made by using card-stock but I did print it out on photo paper and it came out awesome! It does not cost too much to print and it's was nice to have that one extra card that I needed to send out quickly.

We celebrated Christmas with most of our children and grandchildren on different days leading up to today. It was good to see them and to spend some time with each of them. Of course we took lot and lots of photos. I wish I had time to share more then just two photos today but time is short. 

Here is a photo taken of myself with my daughter Jennifer, and my two oldest granddaughters Molly and Darcy.

 

Yesterday,we had Colleen, Hillary, Peter and the grandchildren visit us for Christmas. As always it is so good to see them all. Here is just one of hundreds of photos that we took of them. 

 Lastly, I would love to share a photo of our Christmas tree. It is the first time I have taken a photo of lights and made them look like the star effect. A very easy thing to do. :)

 I truly hope that all of you had a very happy and a very blessed Christmas.  Thanks for stopping by. I hope to be back paper crafting as soon as possible. 
Stay  warm, stay safe and Smile. :)  

 

A Card A Collage of photos and Personal Stuff

Oh my gosh! It has been almost one month since I have last Posted anything to my blog. Honestly, I have been so busy that the days are truly flying right by me. I feel like the last 6 weeks of my life has been a whirlwind.........good but way too fast.

Last night I *needed* to take a break from all things business. I needed to create something.....anything. So I went to the PPA site and decided to make a card using the PPA117-CAS Element of Style-Ribbon challenge. I did start a Christmas card last week but the pieces are still sitting on my counter just waiting for me to put it all onto card-stock. Due to the amount of time I had to make a card I turned to my MDS program to create one.

Here is my card.

 I used the Spice Cake DP. I love the colors in this paper! If you would like to see this card a little larger and clearer just double click on the photo. As you can see it is a simple design. But that's my style. :)

On Tuesday, October 25, Wayne and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.  As some of you know one of our traditions for our special day is to take our photos. It's fun to see what we look like now and what we looked like 14 years ago. We took lots of photos but I put up  a collage of 4 to share with you.

 I'm still not sure why my photos look blurry on my blog. But again, if you double click on the photo collage it will look bigger and a little better. We had a very nice day and a wonderful anniversary. If you follow me on Facebook then you have already seen these photos. :)

Wayne and I have been very busy putting the business together. In between taking photos of our family, friends and the Elderly at an Assisted Living home we have been non stop. I knew that there would be a lot of work involved  in our new venture but in all honesty I did not realize that it would be way more then I had expected. Every day has been a learning experience for me. Tomorrow I will be taking photos of Molly, her boyfriend and Darcy.That is if the weather co-operates. Wayne has set up a studio in our home. There is still a lot of work to do before it looks the way that I want it to. But it is all set to for us to take portraits. And for now that's what is important.

So we are expecting a snow storm y 2-3 pm tomorrow (Saturday). The prediction is 3-6" of very heavy snow with high winds. This is the type of weather would normally get in late November to January.  A strange year of weather indeed. This is our second snow fall since Wednesday.

So much more has been going on my way, but I will stop here because I know how busy all of you are. Thank you very much for stopping by to see me and checking out what I have been up to. I would love to hear what you have been up to. So if you have a free moment please write to me or leave me a comment and let me know how your doing.

In the mean time stay safe, stay warm and smile. :)

A Card, A Page Two Photos & Happy News

This month is my 5th year anniversary of  blogging. Five years of sharing my paper crafting, my photos and my personal day to day life happenings. I have no idea how those 5 years have gone by me so fast, just that they have. I have had a lot of fun meeting many of you over the years be it in person, through email letters or by all of the wonderful comments that so many of you have left for me to read. It has been quite the journey for me. My journey is continuing and in so many ways it is changing. More about that later. First I would like to share the card and the page that I was able to make this week.

 I made this for the PPA113-Technique-Heat Embossing. As always, if you have time to visit PPA then check out all of the beautiful cards that have been made. Lots of inspiration to be had.

Here is my card.

 
Here is what I used.

Stamps: Gifts of Christmas.(SU) Card-stock:Very Vanilla(SU). Inks: Versamark (SU). I used  a die from Spellbinders, and a  French Pastry Dollie from a dear friend. Hi Gail. :) . Accessories:Gold embossing powder(SU) red crystals, and a small red ribbon. I also used Champagne Mist Shimmer paint also from Stampin'UP! I felt a little sparkle was needed for this Christmas card. I wish that I had photographed my card better so that you could see the pretty shimmer.

I was able to participate in a Soul Sisters challenge this week. I hope you like my page. The challenge was to use the color orange.

 

 

In this page I used a photo of my niece Renee. I had the pleasure of photographing Renee, my sister and her family. The photo was taken 2 weeks ago. Renee is a lovely and very smart young lady. I loved spending the day with all of them. My page was made using the MDS program by SU.

Wayne and I have been keeping extra busy this summer. One of the things that we did in late August was to attend our towns Old Home Day. There were a few things that made this day special for me. Having Wayne and Kathy (cousin) there with me was one. Having the weather be wonderful was another. While we walked around looking at the different vendors and stopping for ice cream, I heard a man singing and it made me stop what I was doing. I just had to see who this awesome voice belonged to.  And then of course I  had to capture the moment. :)

 

New Hampshire's very own Folk Singer, Troubadour, Irish Balladeer and Actor, Jim Barnes.

 
 
If all goes well tomorrow, Sunday Oct 2 at 1:30 PM I will be going to listen to him sing his beautiful songs at Meadow Ledge Farm in Loudon, NH. :) If your in the area I hope you will be able to stop by.

 

Personal News!

I will try and keep this as brief as I possibly can. Although I will continue to create cards and pages I will not be doing them as often as I have been.  Why you might ask? Because I am onto the next part of my lifes journey. I have been a stamper, designer and a scrap-booker for the past 7-10 years. I have loved every minute of my creating with paper. I still do but perhaps many of you who have been following my blog have noticed that my passion for photography has been growing for the past couple of years.  I have been taking photos for many years most often of our family and it has been great recording many of the memories. I will continue to photograph our memories but I have found myself wanting more......needing more.  And that was when I decided that I wanted to go professional. Now for the good news. Wayne and I are now partners of a photography business together. Wayne will be doing more of the technical things that need to be done. He is very good at all of the things that I do not mind doing but would prefer not to do. We make a good team in life and know that we will be a terrific team in this business. The name we chose is Cardini-Anderson Photography. Not too different from the name I was using. I hope that we will have our website up and running by next weekend. That will be one of Wayne's jobs. :) Needless to say Wayne and I have been out straight doing the many things that needed doing.

I will be posting the cards and pages that I make. It may not be weekly but when ever I have free time I'm certain that I will be playing with paper, stamps and digital pages.  I hope that you will continue to follow me on my journey. Maybe you could check in with me from time to time and say hello. :)

Stay safe,Stay cool/warm and Smile. :)