Good-bye Laura!

This is a layout I made for one of my co-workers that was leaving our department for a new job. I think it turned out pretty cute. I am going to have to make one for myself too.

In Loving Memory of Grandma Thomas

I am a little behind on this.

My dear grandmother passed away on Saturday, August 8th at 6:35 pm. She was 89 years old.

It started on Monday, the 3rd. I got a call at work and she had a stroke that morning. I spent most of the morning with her at the hospital until she was transferred into a room. That Thursday she was taken to Willow Tree. The room was stale and unfriendly. Grandma didn't seem to be doing in better. I got a call Friday morning from my mother that she was being taken out of Willow Tree due to some unforunate events that happened there and going back to Peach Tree. I immediatly went of Friday night to see how she was doing. It was worse. They had her in a lift chair tring to get her back into bed. She looked lifeless, but she still smiled at me and held out her hand to me. I helped them get her back into bed, get changed and cleaned up. Mom, dad and I stayed with her until about 9pm. We were all back by her side by 8am Saturday morning.

We put on her favorite music and she tapped her hand to the rythmn of it. She said she was dancing with grandpa. Later that evening she passed away. From there, it was a rather quick week. I had injured my back moving grandma, so I was bedridden for roughly 4 days. Wed. night was her viewing and Thursday morning the funeral. It was simple, but nice.

I will keep fond memories of her with me. She truely was a blessing in my life. I enjoyed going to there house when I was little and going over to the park with their rv. Camping out and playing in the forest of toys there. Feeding the ducks and playing croquet. Haveing family dinners there and playing games. Lots of good memories. I miss her already.

She was ready to go to heaven and dance with my grandpa. I am thankful she wasn't in pain and it went fairly quickly. Grandma's saying was "that's just the way it is". So I wrote this poem for her funeral.......it fits her to a tee.

That's Just The Way It Is

My life is coming to an end

That's just the way it is

Death is finding all my friends

That's just the way it is

I can not walk the way I could

or take care of myself the way I should

But my family still loves me

I know this for sure

That's just the way it is

I'm ready to go there

and dance in the sky

with my husband Stan

and family near by

I've said my goodbyes

to all whom I love

now God can take me

to heaven above

do not be sad

that my being is not there

for I'm well taken care of

with family up here

That's just the way it is.

Bo Bunny Birthday Card Challange

Bo Bunny had a Birthday card sketch challenge. So I decided to enter. This is what I came up with using what scraps I had left from the the other challenge. It is rather simple, but still cute I think. What are you comments?

Bo Bunny Design Team Entries

So here are my entries. I am very proud of them. The first one is my creative project (tic tac toe), the second one is my card and the third is the layout. I showed them to my parents and my dad, being who he is says, "Bo Bunny, does the rabbit smell or something?" It took me a minute, but I got it. lol. I love his sense of humor! Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think! Thank so much!

Sympathy Cards

I made some sympathy cards today. Unfortunetly in the 2 1/2 weeks I have been gone from work, 5 patients have passed away and I need to send them out. So this is what I came up with. I am happy with them. They are simple yet elegant, I think. Enjoy!

envelope thank you cards

Here are some more thank you cards I did. These are made from a letter size envelope and cut in half. The tag pulls out with the greeting on it. They are so easy to make! Have a great day!

This is the quick card I made for my dad for his Birthday. I also made him a Homemade Huckleberry Cheesecake, his favorite. I used sewn mulberry paper for the grass and ribbon for the sun beams. enjoy!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my father's birthday. I am so proud to be his daughter! He is a wonderful, loving, caring and supportive man. He is always there when I need him and he doesn't inquire about anything unless you ask him. He is a quiet man and Husky fan. His since of humor just makes me laugh. The other day we were in Lowes looking at the shelving section. My dad sees a box that has a outside dryer in it (the kind with the pole and things to hang stuff on that you cement in the ground outside). He says, "Hmm..(with the most serious face), I wonder where they plug that in?" I just cracked up laughing. Partially because it was so stupid, and partially because it took my mom a minute to get it. lol. He is a lifesaver to me and the family. That is the pun behind the picture. The picture was taken on our Cruise a few years ago when they were teaching us about safety on the ship. I love to hang out with my dad. Before I switched my hours at work, we would go golfing every Wednesday. So, Happy Birthday Dad! Thanks for being such a great father and wonderful man! Someone I can really look up to and count on when I really need it.

Here is the second set of cards for my mother. I am very pleased with these. I embossed/border punched the two rows, and stamped the rose image. It is a matchbook style card. Enjoy!

moms monogram cards

This is what I came up with for the first run of my mom's monogram thank you cards. It is kind of hard to tell, but in the cut oval I stamped Thank You. Hope she likes them!

Note Card Set

It took me about a week, but I finally finished my notecards sets for sale. I like how all of them turned out except one. But oh well. I will put them up on my store site next.

I have not done much else the past few days. I shopped a bit with my parents the other day. It was nice to get out of the house. Yesterday I rested and worked on my cards. Today I finished up my cards.

I still have more cards to do. I need to make some more thank you cards, two birthday cards, some sympathy cards and some special cards for my mom to use. So I will be posting those as I do them. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Jacob's Ladder - My first attempt

Good evening to everyone! Today was an ok day. Due to not feeling to great I slept most of the day. However, towards the evening I got a gust of energy and decided to try my hand at making a Jacob's Ladder. There are definetly some things I would do differently next time. They don't tell you in the directions to embellish the coasters first. They say put them together and then embellish. Well, if you are going to use brads or such, you need to embellish them first. lol. All in all, I am very happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoy it! Karissa



this is the first side

this is the back side

So today went pretty well. I decided to try and venture out again today, so I went to the Farmers Market with my parents so they could pick up some fresh vegetables again. We then went to look at some furniture stores. They recently bought a new house after living in the only one I have known for 36 years. I am very happy for them though. They are very happy. Anyways, they didn't find anything really. I then came home and played on my computer a bit. I decided to make my thank you cards today. I posted my sample of it to the left. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. It has been awhile since I have been able to stamp or scrapbook. Let me know what you think of it. I am off to do some homework and then to bed for the night. Ciao!

Win $1,000!

Entry Title: Win $1,000 at TheCuttlebugSpot.com!


I have just discovered that The Cuttlebug Spot is having a contest - "The Journey to 1,000"! They are trying to reach 1,000 followers by the end of July and need your help. To enter all you have to do is go to their site, sign up as follower and complete a few easy steps and you could win a $1,000 gift certificate to Custom Crops (www.CustomCrops.com)! GO NOW and check it out at www.TheCuttlebugSpot.com

What to do.....

I have been in bed for 5 days now. I had surgery last monday and total bed rest since. I get up every once in awhile and check my emails, fix something to eat, go to the bathroom. But today I got antsy. I finally got up and took a shower (I really needed one after laying in bed for so long). That really wore me out. But I was craving a pop. So I got dressed and headed out the door. Needless to say, I got my pop, but I was right back home again due to the uncomfortable pain of moving around.

I rested a bit and headed back out again to the $ store. I needed a few essentials. I came right back home again. My tummy hurts, so I think I overexerted myself today.

I listed some more stuff on my webstore site. I have more to list, but is so time consuming. Maybe I will do some more tonight. I really need to get busy on my homework. I have not done any all week and am getting behind. But I have been so doped up on pain meds, that I couldn't think straight.

I am very grateful for my parents through all of this. They check on me everyday to see how I am doing. Between them and my dogs, I am blessed. I am however, very dissapointed in my co-workers. Not one of them has called to check up on me this week. I think that is so rude. Oh well, maybe they are glad I am gone and really don't care. Who knows.

I have another week off before I go back to work. Since I can't do a whole lot, I think I will make some thank you cards for those that sent me flowers and well wishes.