I've Sluffed Off of the blogging...

and I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since I posted any updates! I really don't have any good excuses except to say that the holidays probably threw me off a bit and I just haven't been feeling like doing much of anything these days. So, rather than come on here and moan and groan about how life sucks lately, I decided to stay away. But, I'm back.

Christmas was okay. Our lil' family all gathered here at our new home on Christmas Day and it was really nice. We all had many many thoughts of dad and happy memories of him circulating around all day long and I know that I could feel his presence here in spirit. Rather than having an empty space at the head of the dining room table where dad usually would sit, we placed a pillar candle in place of the plate-setting, and lit it while we were having our meal. My mom, my brother, my niece and I also received very special gifts that day courtesy of my sister-in-law, Wendy. After dad died and we had gone through his things in preparation of moving mom, Wendy saved articles of dad's clothing and gave them to her sister who makes quilts. So we were all very surprised Christmas day when each of us opened up boxes with our own lap-sized quilt made from fabric remnants of dad's clothes! She also included this framed poem inside the box with the quilt...

Little bits of fabric

Sewn into a quilt

Form a warm and loving blanket

From which memories are built,

And when you seek

Peace and comfort

In the quiet of the night,

It will keep you warm and snug

Until the morning's light.

All of the quilts looked different, as each was made using different pieces of his clothing. Mine is white, tan and blue... the blue from a pair of basketball shorts he liked to wear while lounging about the house. The tans came from some of his khaki pants and the white from his t-shirts. I just love this quilt, and we keep closeby on the back of our reclining chair.

A new Michael's Crafts store just recently opened up in our area and I am very excited about that! I haven't been close to a craft store since living in Altoona, and that's been almost 4 years already, so it's about time our area here finally got something. I NEED crafts and scrapbooking stores!!! I also applied for a job there too. I thought it would be perfect since I had 5 years of experience from being a Scrapbooking Dept. head at an AC Moore. I finally feel that I'm to the point where I can get back to working in the public again (most days anyway). I still have anxieties of being around people in public who have babies, and that is one of the things that keeps me from wanting to go back to work. I know probably most people can't understand that and may find it odd, but it is in a way, a disability for me (at least that is my view of it). I hate it, but it is now part of a process for me and I need to work through it. The grieving process and the cycle of re-grouping one's self after the loss of a baby sometimes feels like an eternity. Anyway, looks like I was too late to the party in applying for a full-time position as they were all filled right after the New Year and all that was left were part-time. I did have an interview but was not hired. After finally initiating that first step of wanting to get back to some normalcy, it was a bit disappointing not getting a job, but I'm already over it. So for now, I am still just working from home doing my Design Team work for Creative Xpress, and maybe when the time is right again, something else will fall into my lap.

Since I'm behind in my blogging, I'm also behind in showing my previous CX projects so I'll finally get caught up in posting some of those...these are my projects that were featured over there for the month of November. The scrapbook page is one of my all time favorites... it's photos from my wedding day of dad and I dancing. Such a happy memory!

My assignment this month was to create a Father’s Day page using embellishments created with the Cricut Expressions and Cuttlebug machines.

Having just recently lost my dad, this “Father’s Day” assignment could not have come at a more perfect time. I find scrapbooking to be very theraputic when dealing with a personal loss, and with this I was able to create a meaningful page about my father that I can now treasure.

A full tutorial with supplies and instructions can be found over at my CX BLOGS at Creative Xpress.

And here are 2 Mother's Day themed card ideas that I did...

“God Sent Mothers” Card

Because of the message of the quote that I used here for the card’s sentiment, I chose to create an elegant looking Mother’s Day card. Full tutorial can be found HERE...

Tic Tac Toe “MOM” Card

Again, you can see a full tutorial for this card HERE...

Thanks again for taking a look! :) Enjoy the rest of your weeek!