Creating

Hello!

Another week begins! And with NO snow/sleet to greet me outside my window - the forecast as I went to bed last night - and none expected until Thursday, it is looking good! This winter has been SO LONG already!

My card today is one of Mo Manning's digital images. I love all of her creations and this young artist is one of my favorites. You can find it here http://www.digitalpenciltoo.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wishing you sunshine!

Barbara Diane

More "Help For Katie" Digital Images #2 Assortment

Hello!

This wonderful smile belongs to Katie. She recently began her chemo #5 and still she smiles.

I have written of Katie before and the "Help for Katie" fundraiser for her and her family. For those of you who are not familiar with Katie, she was diagnosed shortly before Christmas with Stage 4 Stomaach Cancer. She and her husband have 3 sweet little boys and this unexpected news rocked their world. Katie's one option was chemo and you can follow her story on her blog 'My Paper Haven' http://katiespaperhaven.blogspot.com/ as she travels this difficult journey with determination and hope.

Check out her blog to view all of beautiful cards and chemo hats she has received in an outpouring of love and support from her blogger friends.

A second set of wonderful digital stamps has been created for you that can be yours in return for a donation to the Help For Katie fundraiser. I have a photo of the first set to the right of my blog postings which is also available. For information on how to donate to Katie's fund go to her friend Jak's blog 'Creating Beautiful Things' at http://www.jakheath.com/

Katie's story has touched my heart. One day I may post of the similarities in my own life when I was about her age and with 3 young sons but for now I can say that I follow the struggles of this brave woman and keep her in my prayers every day.

Thanks for stopping by today! If you can - donate to the Katie fund, send her a card, make her a chemo hat, leave a comment of support on her blog, keep her in your prayers - please do!

Wishing you a great day today!

Barbara Diane

Sweet Little Fairy

Hello!

Last week it seemed the days just got away from me and I am aftaid that this week is going to be a re-run! :<) So I am going to just go with it and create when I can.

This sweet little fairy is one of the wonderful freebie digitals from Meljen's Designs. The clouds are one of the digital images from True D Doodle Designs in the Help Katie package.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wishing you a good week!

Barbara Diane

Thunder Snow and Ice Everywhere

Hello!

We have so much ICE here in this part of WI this morning! I went out last night to clean off the car before the overnight temperatures reached freezing again and there was inches of slush covering the car. I was so glad that I thought to go out and clean that off as it would be terrible to have that freeze on the car over night. This morning the cars were totally encased in a layer of thick ice - the entire car was covered in ice which had frozen over the top of the snow that had fallen during the night. After I got the passenger door open and was able to start the car - I tackled the cleaning.

The first layer of inches of snow over the entire car had to be scraped off with the ice scraper before it could be brushed off - then there was the ice layer covering the entire car. By the time I had removed the frozen snow layer the car had been running long enough so that the ice started to melt and I had a few areas that I could start breaking it up on the windows. It took me almost an hour to clean off the top layer of frozen snow on the car and remove the ice from the windows. I was so happy that I had removed the slush layer last night - that would have been even worse.

Last week we had many days of much warmer temperatures so almost all of the snow from the blizzard and ongoing snow falls had melted and we had rain/sleet. But yesterday there was loud thunder and in a few moments it started to SNOW! It just came down like rain - it was quite dramatic looking and within minutes everything was covered with snow again. This is how it looked after just a very few minutes - you can see that it was grass before this began. I wish that the camera had been able to catch the rain/snow pattern in the sky as it fell but no such luck. It was very beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by today!

I hope to have new projects to share this week! I am so behind - last week just got lost. I spent some time visiting other blogs to see all of your creations and hope to see more this week!

Wishing you a great day!

Barbara Diane

February Page of New Birthday Calendar

Hello!

I forget every month to post! This is the February page of my new Birthday Calendar.

Thanks for stopping by today!

It's going to be a wonderful 49 degrees today here in this part of WI - tomorrow in the 50's!

Wishing you a good day!

Barbara Diane

True Colors of Katie's Card

Hello!

As I was getting Katie's cards ready for mailing I thought I would take some photos to show the true colors as the lighting was so bad when I first took them.

So many wonderful people have sent Katie cards and she has set up a gallery on her blog My Paper Haven. You can view them here http://katiespaperhaven.blogspot.com/ and also get an update on how this brave young woman and mother of three young boys is doing as she is currently on her third round of chemo.

Thanks for stopping by today!

We are having sunshine! And warmer weather! Today it is to be a high of 39 - tomorrow will be 45 and on Thursday it is supposed to be 52! Yeahhhhhh!

Wishing you a sunny day!

Barbara Diane

Hello!

Wishing you a happy, happy Valentines Day! I hope it is filled with lots of love and chocolate!


Thanks for stopping by!

Barbara Diane

Card for Katie and I Will Be MIA For A Few Days

Hello!

Please excuse the lighting in these photos. I wanted to finish this card for Katie before I was absent for a few days from my postings and I am not feeling well enough to re-shoot them. I am going to take some time away from crafting for a bit until I feel better.

The lovely swing is a digital image by Make It Crafty from the thank-you packet for those who donate to the Help Katie Fund - see right side of my blog - and the two wonderful little girls are a digital image that Mo Manning created to be used either with this swing or it is a set that also comes with a second image of a blanket and toys which they can sit on. These woman are all so talented! :<) The saying is a Stampendous stamp.

I cut out the little girls and attached to the swing with dimensionals and did the same with a butterfly cut from the background paper and attached to the upper left corner of the swing. The saying was stamped and then cut out and attached with a glue pen.

The poor lighting of these photos make it look somewhat vintage so I will pretend that I meant to do it that way! :<)

Thanks for stopping by today!

I appreciate all of your comments and e-mails so much! Thank you for your kindness!

Wishing you a great weekend! See you next week!

Barbara Diane

Owl Valentine With Pop Out Heart

Hello!

Love these polka dots! This little owl saying "Hi!" with a pop out heart inside the card is going all the way to Germany! I better get this in the mail! :<)

Thanks for stopping by today!

We have very cold weather here in this part of WI but the sunshine does help!

Wishing you some smiles today!

Barbara Diane

A Lovely Start To The Week - A Card From A Friend

Hello!

Another week starting - and what a lovely way to start it - with a card from a friend!

I received this beautiful card from my friend Shirley Chalmers - all the way from her in the United Kingdom to me here in Wisconsin, USA - I love it!

Shirley used one of my favorite images and her coloring skills and the detail she put into making this card are wonderful! Thank you Shirley! I have it on my bulletin board of favorite things in my studio area so that I can see it every day for inspiration. :<)

You can see all of Shirley's great creations on her blog http://nannieflash.blogspot.com/ so do visit her and spend some time with this sweet woman! You will be adding her to your favorites!

Thank you for stopping by today!

I wish you a happy Monday!

Thank you again Shirley! Your card is beautiful! :<)

Barbara Diane

A Crazy Week!

Hello!

This has been a crazy week! With the blizzard on top of everything else I was only able to make 3 projects for Katie this week - I wanted to make 5.

I just returned from a morning of labs, errands, etc. and now am on my way to get a haircut, pick up my son Jim from his group home (he is spending the weekend) and then finish more errands. I did stop at the post office and mailed the package off to Katie so hopefully she will receive it on Monday or Tuesday.

Thanks for stopping by today!

We have sunshine and warmer weather for the weekend! Wishing you a good one!

Barbara Diane

A Post-It Note Holder for Katie

Hello!

The digital image I used for this Post-It holder is also from the thank-you package of images that you will receive for a donation to the Help Katie fundraiser and was created by Tiddly Inks. The original image had only two little bears with their momma and as Katie has three little boys, I drew another little bear peeking out from behind her. As Valentines Day will be here soon and I know that there is so much love in Katie's family, I added the hearts.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Our area is slowly coming back to normal after the brutal blizzard. Roads are being cleared and stranded vehicles are being recovered from the ditches and snowdrifts, but we now have frigid temperatures. I think of the homeless and pray that no one is out there without shelter.

Wishing you a day being warm and safe.

Barbara Diane

The Storm They Called "The Beast" - Last Night

Hello!

Yesterday the blizzard that was named "The Beast" hit our part of WI. (see earlier post this morning) It was a brutal winter snow storm - no visability, high winds - everything became white. It was very scary to watch from the inside of my apartment - and I prayed for the people out in its fury.

Here are some photos from about 11:00 pm last night - the visability was so bad with the wind and the snow that it was almost impossible to see across the street.

One minute something could be seen . . .

and the next minute the wind would whip the snow around and it woud start to disappear.

We had so much snow - 16 inches of new snow by this morning. This is the top of the back of a bench that sits on the back patio of the apartment building - just sticking up out of the snow.

The following post will be photos from this morning.

The Storm They Called "The Beast" - This Morning

Hello!

This morning when I went outside to clean off my car it was a struggle to open the door. The wind had caused a huge drift across the sidewalk and up against the door. I kept pushing on the door until I had it wedged open just enough for me to slip through and trudged through the snow to the corner of the building and this is what I saw to my left . . .

and this is what I saw in front of me . . . . my car (the dark blue one on the left). Big snow drifts -filled the spaces between the cars on both sides and also at the back of my car.

The passenger side . . .

the driver side . . .

and the back of the car.

In the front of my parking space the handicap parking sign was in deep snow. The sidewalks had disappeared under more snow drifts.

The patterns created by the wind looked like waves.

This is how deep the snow was at the front entrance to the apartment building. You can see where the snow plow had begun to clear the parking lot.

These are our angels - they keep us from being trapped by snow! All winter they are out there before dawn and keep us safe. Their work is very hard - you can see how this man is struggling to get a snowblower through this drift that has formed in front of the apartment building.

And beside him comes the snow plow - working together. The other man of the team is using another snowblower on the sidewalks.

After I took these photos and brushed off the snow that I could reach on the car, I went back inside to get warm and get some coffee and breakfast. When I returned it took me one hour and 45 minutes to get my car free from the snow drifts so I could move it.

After that, another tenant and I shoveled out the drifts around some of the other cars and put that snow into our empty spaces. I should have taken a photo of that - we created such large piles of snow in our empty spaces that then we had to laugh as we didn't know how we would get back over them to the building! :<)

Thanks for stopping by today!

We have sunshine! Wishing some for you also!

Barbara Diane

The Beast hits WI

Hello!

We have been hit with a huge winter storm - as has so much of the country. This weather is insane – 33 states – 1/3 of our country was involved in some kind of severe weather – from blizzards to tornados!

Here in this part of WI a blizzard which they are calling 'The Beast" brought us 16 more inches of fresh snow after a heavy snow on Monday. Conditions last night were unbelievable. The National Guard was called out to help search for stranded cars. This morning on the news they said there were 130 cars stranded overnight in just our county. Twenty-eight fire stations were opened for shelters for the stranded. Hospital employees staying at the hospital overnight - even our university is closed. There was a state of emergency called and it was very scary looking to see nothing but white and blowing snow all around.

This morning everything is closed - schools, businesses. A blizzard warning is still in effect until noon and it will take until midnight tonight to clear all the roads. The wind is terrible and the drifts are high. When I went out this morning to take some photos and 'attempt' to clear off my car I could not get the back outside door to the apartment building open. I had to struggle to get it open enough to slip out as the snow drift against it was so high. When I did get outside I saw I could not 'clear off' the car as they were all closed in with huge drifts in between the cars. So I took some photos from the areas I could walk in and cleared off what snow I could reach on my car and came back in. The wind is whipping the snow around - we have a 1 mile visablity on the roads - and the temperature is frigid.

I will be back later with photos - the drifts are beautiful and look like waves from the wind. I need to have some coffee and breakfast and be ready to go back out when the parking lot is plowed to move my car so they can plow our spaces and then move it back. Our 'winter dance' so to speak and I am weary of it.

Be back later.

Barbara Diane

A Dresser for Katie

Hello!

I love making little dressers using the SU Matchbook Die for the individual drawers and the SU Top Note die for the dresser top. For this one I also used the top note die for an attached mirror and drew a square for the center. I made this one for Katie and added two images included in the thank you package for a donation to the Help Katie fundraiser.

The cute little dog and words images are Digital Delights by Loubyloo and the pair of beautiful little shoes leaning against the bottom of the dresser are made using an image by Jak Heath Designs. One of the things I love about digital images is that you can print them in whatever size you want! :<) The hearts were made using the SU Heart to Heart punch. I filled the bottom four drawers with little miniature surprises that I thought Katie and the boys might enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by today!

So much snow here! Couldn't hardly push the back door out to the parking lot open this morning because of the snow and the worst of the winter storm is to START today. The guys told me we were to get 8" more today! Well, the car is cleaned off and moved out of the snow drift to the plowed side of the lot and I will go out in a bit to move it back to my cleaned parking space. Need some coffee first!

Wishing you a great day!

Barbara Diane