Christmas Album from The Button Farm!

Well last month I was a lucky recipient of this Adorably cute kit from the Button Farm. I actually was notified back in November that they were sending me out their monthly kits but had no idea what was coming.   First let me say this.... I am was not a huge chipboard embellisher but after putting this album together I feel much different about chipboard now.   Their accessories are so cute- all of them!   From the rusted jingle bells to the mini  postcards to the chipboard shapes.   And their paper is so freaking pretty!

I had a lot of fun putting this together even though it did take me almost a full bottle of my beacons glue.  But you know me and my glue. Angela from Button Farm suggested distressing the pages with ink and I went crazy and did every thing-paper, album and embellishments.  I used the Tim Holtz-Tea.  The final layout is very vintage old Christmas.   Because of the all the details it was definitely a full weekend project but worth every minute of it.  

They offer some other cute albums on their website, so go check it out! And thanks for stopping by. 

Catching Up Part 2 and Blog Name Change.

Ok I know Christmas is over but I did promise to show you some of the stuff I did over the holidays.

Last month I had the pleasure of teaching a class at the Maitland Senior Center.   What a great group of people.   We made Christmas cards, stuffed them with a single shot of coffee or tea and then sent them out to the troops.

The folks that attended said they really enjoyed my class and didn't realize it was quite easy to scrapbook, I even had two men in my class and was asked if I could come back!

On another note you may have realized I changed my web address to just EnspirationDesigns.com.  I came to the realization that I am and have a desire to be a crafter of many trades. As I have mentioned before most of my projects are "enspirations" drawn from other crafters and recently I have been "enspired" to attempt other things like photography, home decorating and canvas painting.  I have some very talented, artsy friends and I am learning all kinds of new things from them.   Have no worries most of my posts will likely still be card making and scrap booking as these are my main passions.   But I would like to share with you my many other projects too.

Don't forget to come by later I am going to post one more Christmas project, it was also my favorite one this year!

Catching up, Happy 2013!

Hi folks! so yes believe it or not I have been crafting, just as usual not posting. Right after Halloween I started making gifts, cards etc and of course had plans to take pics and post but just ran out of time to do so. And all of my creations now are being enjoyed by my lucky recipients. (or so I hope-lol).

Aside from that our holidays turned out to be not so great. We started off feeling very festive and in the Christmas spirit but they ended on a rather sad note.

The week before Christmas Scott and I headed to Manhattan. We pretty much froze our hineys off. But it was just what we needed to be reminded of how much we love our Florida and the beaches. We keep saying we couldn't wait to get back to Florida and head to the beach with our lab Dexter. While we were there we did see the Rockettes-Christmas spectacular, the Rockefeller Christmas tree, the ice skaters in Central Park and Santa! We ate some of the best food and enjoyed cocktails at some swanky bars with great friends and family. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and my company-my husband Scott. Scott has been very busy with work and school this year and at times we literally were just two ships passing in the night. It was a great time to reconnect and remember how lucky I am to have a great guy!

We came home Christmas Eve night and after settling in our Dex had a massive seizure. This was his first ever and it was long, too long. We immediately rushed him to the emergency vet and started treatment. We pretty much knew what this meant and spent most of Christmas Day and the days after sobbing and preparing for the worst. Although at one point Dexter showed some improvement ultimately he lost his battle and we were told he likely had cancer. After two and half weeks we made the most difficult decision.

We miss him very much and have struggled day to day but we are finding better and better days.

Dexter would have been 12 on 1/31/11. I know in lab years some are saying this was to be expected but I feel we should have had more time. Especially when at his recent routine vet visit,  we were told he is in great shape and had a very strong heart.  This was no surprise as we kept him very active with us. I have been doing a bit of research with canines and cancer and what I have discovered is so disturbing.

Basically the belief is what we feed our furkids could be the in the large the reason for them developing this illness. The reasons vary from ground up chickens that have cancer to agents from the heating process known to cause cancer being in their food. The government regulations do not prevent this or monitor.

Furthermore in general canine cancer as well as human cancer is on the rise. There is also a strong belief in human cancer that what we put in our bodies is causing this terminal illness. This is scary and disappointing, considering our government has a hand in this.

Something so simple as making sure our staple items-like eggs and milk are the purest they can be could be a such a gain. But what is feed to our cows and chicken, hormones given for mass production and conditions of the how the animals are farmed are harming and contributing to the problem.

ok well let me get back to craft talking. :) I do have a few pictures from my christmas crafting so  stay tuned as I will be posting those and some new ones for Valentines Day.