Sunshine and Joy on a Winter Holiday :)

Hi everybody! Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Such a pretty day today! Here in W. NY we have bright sunshine and frigid cold temps...but still...it's in the 20's! Some of my stamping buddies out there are really cold!! Gina K in Wisconsin has been below 0 this week! Eek! Still, only a dusting on my lawn, so I can live with it! My husband and daughter are snowboarding today....and here I am doing report cards and school work....warm and cozy, at least! ;)

I've also been super busy preparing for teaching my grad class...it's a new area of teaching for me (augmentative communication: do any of you know what that is?) and I am putting together the lectures...it will be a really tough class topic wise, material wise, etc. so pray for me, won't you? thanks! You guys are the BEST!!

Well, I have been stamping in my in-between times...my friend Betty is starting these monthly CREATE! nights at her house where we gather to stamp cards that will eventually go to a person needing encouragement...maybe a grieving parent, lonely man, anxious mom, etc. Betty received just such a card when her son was born as he had had a stroke in utero...he is a precious young man now, but Betty remembers what it was like to be so worried that you might lose your child. That card has meant so much to her and she wants to give to others what she herself received. So several of my stamping buddies got together and made some cards! It was fun! Here is a card I created using my "It doesn't get much better" Thomas Kinkade stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms!

This card only took about 15 minutes to put together. I used Tim Holtz' Distress Inks and my brayer on the stamp and on my first try: TA DA! Doesn't it look like a photograph? I really love how those stamped images look. Amazing really....now I have a nice guy birthday card, just like that!

Then I did some stamping for my friend Erin's b-day...but I can't share those pix until Wednesday...after I give them to her! I think you'll like them, though! AND I went to an SU party and we made two cute cards....so you see, I have been creating!

In fact, I can share a picture that my daughter was making...as she borrowed my prismacolor pencils. There are German words within the "webbing"...although off the top of my head, I forget what they were.

Here is a close up of the girl she was making. Cool, huh? She is aspiring to do something with her art such as graphic designs or something. You just never know what will come up!! :)

Isn't the hair so cool? Can't you just FEEL the wind blowing. The assignment was to make a fantasy-type picture. She just shaded the webbing to finish after her coloring was done. She "framed" it in DP that looked like a wooden door. Sorry, she was up too late for me to get a pic. Of course it was due the next day....of course!! Sigh!

Finally, today I wanted to share a few things that my pastor's wife brought back from Haiti...she thanked my family for providing a dinner to her family during the trip she and my Pastor were on by gifting us these cute things! This first one is an angel made by a woman in Haiti. I just love her! To think she came all the way from Haiti to here to us! What a blessing!

This next one shows some coasters and a little painting of Haitians. I really like this one, too. I always love when I can experience a place through the work of artisans from other countries. Gives you a feel of a page from their life. We are talking about taking a team from church to Haiti to do some building and such and bless the people there. I hope it works out to do that!

God is so good to knit our hearts together, isn't He? Even from a half a world away!

Well, people....more to do! Have a great week! I promise to come back this week and deliver those pics of the things I made for my friend!

Blessings!

Kim