It's Almost Here!

Are you ready for Christmas? I've been cleaning all day and adding things to the "take away" box too. In fact, this one is ready to go out to my car and be taken away.

My dear husband made delicious barbeque for dinner today. Really yummy and such a help to me. He also cooked the eggs for me to make deviled eggs with. Now I wonder if I can ask him to do a couple other little things tomorrow early? Need a few things from the store (like milk - essential) and have 2 small plants that need potting before they die. Just that would be a help.

I still plan to fix the eggs for I go to bed and fold some laundry. Will wait to clear dining room tomorrow after I've baked cookies. Just don't have room for everything so need a place to put the pans that usually live in oven until needed.

Every time today that my back threatened to go into spasms, I'd come in to computer room and sit in my drafting chair under the fan. It rained here today and was a bit cooler, but where is that cold front we were supposed to get? Anyway, while in here, I finished up a few things that I had in the works.

I've decided to offer the border in Cookies & Milk 4 Santa as a freebie in my shop for a limited time. Probably just until Thursday. If you want this

You will need to visit my shop at Digi Style Designs: http://digistyledesigns.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=85 Merry Christmas!

Christmas freebie and new products

Been busy like everyone else at this time of year and sciatica acting up too. Yesterday it was nearly 80 degrees here! about same today but by Christmas it is expected to be windy, about 40 degrees and maybe rainy. I've still got things to do, of course. Have a couple more gifts to wrap, the dining room to clear (it's been gift wrap station and baked good cooling area), and still some more clearing up to do in guest room. However, my son isn't arriving until Friday so that gives me a little leeway so I don't get too exhausted.

I added these to Digi Style designs Winter Wonders section:

There are blue and yellow/gold CU element packs in the works but not likely to be added until after Christmas. Only on PC now because grandson and husband are having a marathon football day and the noise and thier reactions are just too much for me lol.

If I don't get a chance to get back to blog before Christmas, I wanted to be sure to wish you all a wonderful holiday full of warmth and love. I hope you will have all your loved ones around you and if some can't be there, I hope you will hear from them. Some of us have family and friends in the military who will be unable to be home this holiday. We will be missing them and thinking about them during this time and offering up prayers for their safe return to us. I made a little QP for you today. It's simple but you could add something more to it to jazz it up if you'd like. Pick it up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/64ztWL9C/ws_xmasvelvetqp_free.html?

Merry Christmas! Hugs, Sher

Christmas Is Almost Here! New stuff & freebie

Christmas is going to be here before we know it! I imagine you have been as busy as I have been. No, I'm still not ready and I've made myself a promise that in 2014 my goals for the holidays will be to have family wish lists by first week in November so I can start shopping; Christmas cards written Thanksgiving weekend, the tree and ornaments pulled out that weekend, wrap and tag gifts as they are bought so that only bows need to be added in December. Any major cleaning should be done by first week of December so that it will only be regular upkeep the rest of the time. (I've a bad habit of turning sewing room/guest room into a disaster throughout the year because storage is a problem here.) I'd like to get tree and other decorations in place that first week in December so that after that I can leisurely add bows to gifts and stack them, do holiday baking gradually where possible and be able to relax at least the whole week of Christmas when husband is on vacation.

But this year, I seem to be madly running in place. I've been frantically busy last few days. Went for 6 month dental cleaning and discovered a cracked filling which will have to be replaced and built up for future crown. Finally got my new wreath together and on the door. Dad came by and gave me my mother's "flying" angel for the tree top. Naturally, putting it up I got all emotional remembering Mama. I do miss her so. the tree is all decorated which is a job. It's only a four foot one as I can't manage a larger tree any more but this one is a challenge because the top has never fit snugly and it always wants to lean one way or another and tries to dance around. Hubby and I agreed that this is it's last year. And we I've had 3 family birthday this month: BIL Mark on 12/2, Berkeley (my future DIL) on 12/7, and my son on 12/14.

I've baked and packaged 7 of my Brandied Christmas Cakes (aka fruitcake - my recipe) and delivered one already. There is chocolate chip cookie dough in fridge ready to bake first batch on Sunday when grandson will be here. All my guys love chocolate chip cookies best. I'd also like to make some Russian Tea Cakes if I've got time. Have made one pound of fudge already but need to make at least 2 more.

And I'm learning to make something new. My husband, although Italian, grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY and loves Jewish food almost as much as he loves Italian dishes and Chinese (his best friend from NY is Chinese). Anyway, he's been craving lox and bagels. Of course, no bagels made here taste like those from NY but Yago's does a fine job and those from Costco aren't bad in a pinch. Lox, you probably know, or more properly grav lox, is specially cured salmon. It's pricey when bought from a deli. However, it's possible to get good salmon from Costco and cure it yourself. I checked a bunch of recipes and decided to give it a go. Put it in to cure last night and drained off liquids today. It will be several days of this process before it's ready to eat. And my husband can enjoy it all. I don't care much for fish. Added a few more Winter Wonders things tonight:

The Snow Angels are from old Victorian scrap and were used in a long ago kit I'd made.

And just for you - a free stacked paper which coordinates with Winter Wonders: Get it here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/MoIwTHAC/ss4cu_ChristmasStackedPaper_fr.html?

Happy Birthday Jeremy! and new papers

Today my "Baby J" turned 36! Hard to believe. He's in PA watching the snow and wrapping Christmas gifts. I talked to him on the phone and expect to see him and his girlfriend a day or two after Christmas. Couldn't love him more. Spent a few hours at my father's today talking with dear Miss June about her recently departed sister. She's holding up pretty well considering how close they were. Picked up the fruit cake mixture I'd stored in Dad's fridge and then ran a couple errands. Doused the fruit with more brandy when I got it home and stirred in chopped pecans. Will probably bake some tomorrow. Wrapped a few more items but didn't do much else. Did pack up these stacked papers I made in Winter Wonders theme and put them in store minutes ago:

Other than being in Winter Wonders color and overall theme, they are . . . well, I guess you'd say "assorted." We seem to have caught all the mice that came in, which puts my mind at ease. Now tomorrow I have to get my tree up, do some baking and maybe make a batch or two of fudge. Sending husband to Costco to pick up spiral ham which we'll have for Christmas dinner. So much cleaning to do in next week that I don't want to think about but will just go day to day and hope my fibro stays mild and back doesn't act up too much. Are you ready for the holidays yet? Hugs!

Winter kit from Wonderland Scraps & freebie too

It's chilly here. Supposed to be in 20s tomorrow but not rainy for a change. Don't know about you, but it seems Christmas has crept up on me. Oh, I knew it was coming but it's almost here! My new wreath isn't made and the tree isn't up. Haven't done any baking. Most gifts are wrapped and tagged, just waiting bows, but I have a couple more to shop for. Still don't know when my son and his girlfriend will be here and I've got lots to do to get that guest room ready. In short, I'm a mess lol! Putting this kit in stores tonight. It's called Vintage Winter Holiday and uses chilly blues and some browns (see new header above made with it). There are 18 full size papers and 39 elements. I didn't try to show all in preview.I've also made a set of stacked papers with it and a freebie quickpage for you.

As always, you can find these in Wonderland Scraps shop at Digi Style Design. (We have a wonderful new look to the site.) And here is your freebie:

You an pick it up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/ZQri80Aq/ws_VintageWinterHoliday_QP.html? Hope you like it. I'm off to bed as I've got a busy day ahead tomorrow. Got to run to Dad's to pick up the bowls of fruit cake mix I stored in his fridge so I can bake them up this weekend. Going to try to make a run to Bed, Bath & Beyond, then come home and while laundry is in the works, I'll vac living room and pull out the decorations. All must be done before my husband gets home with our Friday afternoon lunch date goodies. Tomorrow it's going to be Firehouse meatball subs. Yummy! Take care and when you start feeling the stress of all your doings, set aside 15-20 to take some deep, cleansing breaths and meditate or at least allow your mind a break from all cares. Hugs!

Added just now

Some more CU4CU products in Winter Wonders:

Have been busy around house today and expect to be again tomorrow but another freebie soon.

Another wintery day & Christmas kit added plus freebie

Another dreary, wintery day here. Chilly and rainy all day. Made turkey potpie - warm and comforting. {utting this Christmas kit in store for Wonderland tonight. It's called "Berkeley's Christmas." Berkeley loves pink and green and prefers to wish you "Happy Christmas" rather than "Merry Christmas." This kit is in celebration of the joy she has brought to my son's life. Kit includes:12 papers; 42 elements: 2 angels, bird, bouquet, 3 bows, candy, cocoa mug, 3 cookies, elf, 3 frames, 2 garlands, 3 gifts, mistletoe, mittens, 4 ornaments, santa, 2 snowflakes, 2 snowmen, star, stocking,. 2 trees, 4 word art, wreath. Not all shown in preview & some reduced in size for preview purposes.

And I have a freebie made form the kit - a goody bag topper and a bookmark.

You will find it here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/CEN_DYZO/WS_BerkeleysChristmas_freebie.html? Hope you like. Hugs, Sher

A couple more Winter Wonders products & news form homefront

Norfolk can be a weird place to live with temperatures in 20's one day, 70's the next. Everyone here near the bay is experiencing a problem with unwelcome house guests in terms of mice and rats. We're told it's because a hard winter is coming our way. We live across from an open field so when the field mice go looking for a warm place, they visit us. Which really freaks me out! Terminex has been out, after we caught a pair, set bait trap under house & in attic and told us they are staying busy lately with calls and be glad it's just mice. No, I'm not glad it's mice but it could be worse and I shudder to think about that. Anyway, I've also got a company inspector coming out on the 11th to look for possible points of access and fix those. But something else has occured which has drawn my attention away form that problem. There's a sweet lady I've known since I was 5, who keeps company with my father since my mother passed away. They go to doctor visits etc together and communicate every day to make sure each is doing well. My mother actually got this started before she died, telling my Dad he ought to call Miss June and take her to lunch because she felt sure June didn't get out much. It's turned into a real blessing for each of them. But poor June, this time of year has been awful for her. Two of her children died in December, and she slipped on wet leaves and broke her hip a couple years ago. Friday her older sister who had respiratory problems was sent from the assisted living center she's been in about a year to the ER. My Dad called a little while ago to say the sister passed away in the hospital last night. Naturally, June is taking this hard. My husband has been on vacation and will go back to work on Monday. Until then, I'm going along with whatever plans he has. think we'll be wrapping up some gifts tonight. I did manage to finish up a couple more products for Winter Wonders. I've got a set of stacked flannel papers (I love the fell of flannel and it's such a wintery fabric). And also a set of velvet papers that uses the same pattern and includes all the colors of Winter Wonders, so 10 fullsize papers. These are exclusive to Digi Style Designs. Here's hoping for some better news tomorrow!

Winter Wonders Now In Store

It's already the second of December! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was pretty quiet. For dinner guests, we had my father and his friend, Miss June, and our eldest grandson, Tyler (15). My husband helped me with most of the cooking and he got up early to roast the turkey, which was one of the prettiest he's done. We enjoyed a traditional meal: turkey, stuffing, gravy, potato salad, kale, cranberry sauce, country ham, and yeast rolls. Of course, there was pumpkin pie and eggnog for dessert later on. Got one bit of bad news over the holiday. My son's girlfriend has applied for financial aid to go back to college and become a laboratory technician and found out the program didn't qualify for aid so she had just three days to pay the tuition. She has some college credits, but from some years ago so will have to do some preliminary work for a semester or two. We're hoping she will find another funding source as taking tuition out of their budget will be difficult now that only one of them is working. A mean cold streak here brought us two unwelcome guests: tiny field mice. There is an open field across the street from my house and this happens around this time every year or so. I don't care how tiny they are, it always freaks me out! Fortunately, we had some glue traps and caught two and I am expecting Terminex on Thursday. The Terminex man will set out a special bait and trap near garage to entice them to go there instead of coming in. On the plus side, Enterprise called and the adjuster came out to assess the damage. I'm told a check is on it's way to us to have the Blazer fixed. The new dryer is in place and is being used. And Christmas gifts I ordered on line are coming in; most have arrived. Still have a few more gifts to buy but the bulk of it is ready for wrapping. Christmas cards have been mailed out. We also managed to roll a bunch of loose change we'd been putting off taking to bank and that deposit was over $100! Digi Style Designs has started our new Create_A_Kit as of yesterday. This one is called Winter Wonders and will run through the end of January. I've added a few things to my shops which I'll show oyu here: I'm working on some papers, overlays, and element packs so keep watching. And be sure to check out all the other offerings in Winter Wonders here: http://digistyledesigns.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=266

Last zip for freebie kit

Last zip is more papers: http://www.4shared.com/zip/Ha1yi9wu/ws_LUGT_papers3.html? Tomorrow (actually today already!) will be busy with more cooking and cleaning. Thursday is the holiday so I'll be with family & Friday I'll be recuperating from all the preparations lol. I think if I manage to write Christmas cards on Friday I'll be doing well and will just relax otherwise. Because I will likely not be on-line until after the holiday weekend, I'd like to take this time to wish safe travel to all who will leave home to join family and friends in other areas. I hope you all with have a safe and happy holiday with loved ones. When you offer prayers of thanksgiving before the meal, I ask you to remember to include mention of those dear ones who are departed and those who cannot be there to share the meal and fellowship with you. Please don't forget to include the brave men and women serving in our armed forces. Pray for peace and for all those in need who may not have anyone to offer a prayer for them. Be thankful that you do. I'll leave you with the beautiful words of the doxology written in 1674 by Thomas Ken as part of two of his hymns. In the Episcopal Church (& other Christian churches) we sing this as the offerings are presented and it seems truly appropriate for the occasion. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow/Praise Him all creatures here below/Praise Him above, ye heavenly host/Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost./Amen"

Freebie time! 2nd element zip

Quick post. Have been cooking all day. Many thanks to my sweet husband for running errands and helping in the kitchen. He's a keeper. Here is 2nd zip of elements for Let Us Give Thanks http://www.4shared.com/zip/qH7Kb6PI/ws_LUGT_elements2.html? Good luck with your holiday cooking. Hugs!

2nd free LUGT paper zip & insurance ping-pong

Another day down the tubes. Yesterday we shopped for new electric dryer looking for a simple model like I've had. Today my husband went out early and bought the dryer. It will be here Monday. We went out to lunch at Olive Garden as our Friday lunch date. Came home full and sleepy with a piece of chocolate mousse cake in fridge for later. Had a lot of trouble with pain in my spine last night so took some more Tylenol and napped. There was a message from Progressive to let us know that they are "Excessive coverage" in this case and Enterprise Rental will be contacting me to have damages repaired. Progressive guy added that what Enterprise doesn't pay, they will. We'll see. But you really aren't here for my boring life stories, are you? I added the second zip for the papers of Let Us Give Thanks and I hope you'll find this time it goes well. Get it here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/BVhdaAqI/ws_LUGT_papers2.html? Tomorrow I'm back to cleaning. Tonight, recovering from Italian food lol

Corrected link for Thanksgiving elements & new stuff

First, I apologize for being in too much of a rush the other night when I posted the link for the first element zip for Let Us Give Thanks. Please go back to the original post for the corrected link. My thanks to Stacey for bringing this to my attention. I will be adding the other parts over the next few days but it might be a little erratic, so be patient, please. Added a couple more Harvest Moon things today:

I still have a few more things in that folder to finish up and load before the month's end. I'm not expecting to be on-line much or at PC over the next week or so. My husband will be on a 2 week vacation starting Saturday and between holiday cleaning and cooking and entertaining, shopping for new dryer, Christmas shopping and, yes, continued battle with insurance companies (neither of the 2 companies involved on the driver's end wants to pay!) designing and blogging will be last in priority. I do have 2 templates and a PU element package ready for next CAK, Winter Wonders, which will start December 1st, but that's it. Lots of ideas in my to-do folder but not sure how they will work with the chaos of the next month.

Hope your holiday planning and shopping etc is going well for you. It's a wonderful time of year but stressful for numerous reasons. We miss loved ones no longer with us or who can't make it home to celebrate. We juggle the usual demands of family, work, and household, adding in planning holiday celebrations, additional shopping, cooking and so on. At times it can be overwhelming. Just remember that the reasons for the season are what is most important. Focus on being grateful for the blessings we have. Whether you are Christian or not, understand that Christmas is a celebration of love: God's love for us and our love for one another. If you don't accomplish everything you would like, it's okay. Do what you can and accept what is. Maybe you can't afford to give the sort of gifts you'd like to give but whatever you give with love, even just a hug, should be (& hopefully will be) recognized for the thought and love you've put into it.

Let Us Give Thanks - first paper zip - freebie!

Running late but here is first zip of papers. It's about 35 MB and I warn you, some of these art nouveau styled papers seem a bit wild to me. It was an experiment at the time and now I see so much I could have done differently lol. Link is here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/U1cdWWNo/ws_LUGT_papers1.html? Expecting to add more Harvest Moon papers later today.

New Harvest Moon products

You can find these in my shop at Digi Style Designs: http://digistyledesigns.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=85

A Thanksgiving freebie

Thanksgiving is almost upon us and I don't know about you, but I have so much to do! It's not like we will have a large amount of company. Just expecting my father and his companion and maybe our grandson, Tyler. Still, because of pain issues and low energy, it takes me a long time to do things and right now I'm trying hard not to feel overwhelmed and stressed. In addition to cleaning, meal planning, usual chores, and trying to weed out some books and craft supplies from my large stash, I'm having to nag Progressive about paying my claim. I'm trying to do on-line shopping for family too, and today I realized that hubby and I will be buying ourselves a new dryer for Christmas. But I'm not complaining because I heard the life expectancy of electric dryers is about 4 years. I bought this one when my son was a few months old and he will be 36 next month! I am grateful it's lasted so long and the matching washer is still working. Maybe I can get by with that until spring. I've also been cleaning up some computer files and came across an old kit I made for thanksgiving when I used a different designer name. I can't tell you it's my best product but you might find some of it useful, so I'm going to give it away over next few days. Many of the papers were based on art nouveau wallpapers that had fall colors or would look good in fall colors. Here is an overall preview: The first zip is full of elements and you can get it here: (Corrected now - thanks Stacey!) http://www.4shared.com/zip/6Z2X5r4G/ws_LUGT_elements1.html? Hugs

New Stuff, Freebie, Update

Started the day with sinus headache becauses it's turned really cold here. Weatherman says some chance of snow - please! this is Tidewater! Tomorrow will probably be 70's again! Next up a call from Progressive who is insurer for the guy who crunched into my car. Almost first thing he says is, "You've got collision coverage on your insurance?" I tell him that isn't the issue - his guy was drunk or drugged or whatever and is totally at fault. He tried to say that since it's a rental car the guy was driving, they might not pay the claim. Sorry - not going to wash with me. I know your personal insurance covers you when you drive a rental. Man didn't ask anything about my car and any problems I might be having, didn't arrange to come out and see the damage. He just says "We're investigating." So I call GEICO who said to let them know if I had any trouble. Sent copies of police report to both insurance companies and now I wait. Putting a couple Harvest Moon products in store tonight:

These are all Harvest Moon Create A Kit products which you can find at Digi Style Designs. All our CAK products are between $1 - $4 and allow you to mix and match, choosing only what you like to create a Harvest Moon kit for your use. And now, for your patience in reading my chatter, a new freebie:

Pick it up here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/Su22gxV0/ss4cu_fallborderfreebie_1112.html?