Freebies

Lastly, if you want to see the kits I have created for the Gingerscraps contest here are previews and links to the Gingerscraps site where you can download them for free. The last one was especially challenging because we had to use a song, movie or book as inspiration and anyone who knows me will tell you I love old musicals. My husband's favorite is Brigadoon, I love South Pacific! So for our wedding song we chose Some Enchanted Evening, I can just hear Mario Lanza's voice singing this song. It gives me goosebumps. So that was my inspiration and we were to do up to 12 papers and 20 elements. I did 19 elements but had many more in my head but ran out of time. I am very picky and always quality check my elements which is time consuming but I think it's very important. So I will stop rambling and tell you to hurry over and check out the kits! There are some other fantastic free kits by some very talented designers so check those out too!

This is the kit for Week 1 - It is called Forest Park- after the beautiful park in St. Louis and in honor of my father-in-law.



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Here is week 2 - It is called Java Delite - in honor of my friend Wendy who hangs out with me at the organic coffee house in Crystal Lake.



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And here is week 3 - Some Enchanted Evening - for my husband Bob



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Here is the overall LINK to the contest so you can see all the wonderful posts. Remember download links are in the descriptions. Enjoy!

Now for the Good

Now if I can stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks, I want to tell you all the good things that have happened. First, Christy Skaggs accepted me on her CT. I was CT'ing for Shannon Harris until she retired. I love Christy's designs and her team is great. Please check out her kits at GDS. Then, more joy, after entering the Supreme Team Contest at GDS for the 5th time, I was finally selected. YAY. I love working with the kits and it definitely stretches my LO skills and makes me think out of the box. It is a 3 month assignment and I love it! And right now I have my fingers crossed that I will finally become a designer. I have entered the GingerBread Ladies contest at Gingerscraps.net. I have been taking design classes for several years and play around making things for myself and my sister, but now I am hoping to really be able to design. Gingerscraps is a wonderful site. I entered their Survivor contest awhile back and even though I did not win, I think one of my favorite LOs of all time is the one I did of myself eating bugs. It is such a hoot!

November was a sad month

So many things have happened over the last month that I don't know where to begin. I'll start with the sad. My father-in-law passed away on Saturday, November 21, 2009. He was 87 years old, but he was in great health, at least according to his doctor whom he saw a week before he died. Who's to know when your time is up. He was standing out on the street corner in St. Louis doing charity work (old newsboys day) which he had done for 50+ years and was doing great when a woman saw him fall down. She thought he missed a step on the curb and went over and administered CPR because she could not find a pulse, a doctor also stopped to help and administer CPR. They did resuscitate him and an ambulance took him to the hospital. Originally, they thought it was a heart attack. We immediate left for St. Louis, a 5 hour drive (after taking the kids out of school) and found him all hooked up to a ventilator and monitors at Barnes Hospital. The doctors were pretty grim and after running tests determined it was not a heart attack but that his heart just stopped-anyway it turned out that he never woke up and the ventilator was keeping him alive, barely. As soon as the whole family arrived (some coming from LA, PA, NH, TX) we abided by his wishes and removed the ventilator. He died peacefully. He was a great man and a gentleman. He loved animals and they loved him. He would never kill a living thing. He would capture a bee or moth that had gotten in the house and take it outside. He loved nature and spent hours on his lawn and he was generous to a fault! It was so amazing at the funeral. People came from all over, even his former postman. Neighbors we had never met brought food and air mattresses. No one had a bad word for my father-in-law...Like I said he was a great man and I will miss him so much!!!