Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving and My Workspace!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone! Hope all had a fantastic feast and great time with family and friends. One of my daughter lives next door to us, so even in the worst of weather, we have dinner together! There is always more food than we can possibly eat! My older daughter lives in Virginia and my son in Georgia, so we rarely spend holidays together.

A couple weeks ago Anne posted a play along to show our work space at our jobs. The girls I work with thought I was losing it when I started taking pictures of my desk and work space!
Here it is!!

I normally work only Mondays and Tuesdays. I hate starting the week or the morning with a messy desk!

So when I leave for the day or on Tuesday when I'm done for the week, I clean up and put away everything on my desk.

Yes, I am obsessive about a neat work area!



This is how my desk generally looks while I'm working. Each of those files on the desk is a payroll I have to do. One week there are 16 and the next week 13. The majority are weekly, but there are 7 or 8 that are bi-weekly and one monthly. There are also 3 seasonal.

I really enjoy my job and talking to the payroll clients. After all, everyone likes the payroll preparer. And---all of my phone calls are promptly returned!

The windows above my desk open to a short hallway going to the waiting area and are one-way mirrored glass so I can see out but no one can see me. I can open the window and assist clients if the receptionist is busy. All in all it is a great place to work.

Thanksgiving blessings to one and all,

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Thursday Night Classes

Last Thursday night several ladies from my church met for the first week of a 6-week study using Leslie Parrott's book You Matter More Than You Think. All of us need encouragement and praise and to find our place in God's plan for our lives. When I got home and checked my emails there was a "chain email" there from my friend Ruth. Here it is:
Prayer
Leave yesterday alone (it's gone)
Live today (count your blessings)
Don't worry about tomorrow (it may not come)

Dear God,

The lady reading this is beautiful,
classy & strong and I love her.
Help her live her life to the fullest.
Please promote her and cause her to excel
above expectations.
Help her to shine in darkest places
and love where it is impossible to love.
Protect her at all times, lift her up
when she needs you the most and let her
know that when she walks with You,
she will always be safe.
This is just what we were discussing at class. I had been working on some more Thanksgiving cards, so I copied this Prayer and put it inside the cards and will distribute them this week.

I named this one Thanksgiving Encouragement.









Have a wonderful, blessed week,

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Thanksgiving Cards and More!

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking here in western New York!

The clean-out/clean-up of my sewing/stamping room has begun. A friend of mine who does sewing for local charities came and picked up all the fabric I had ready that was in my sewing room closet. YES! ! ! ! I still have more to gather up, but didn't have enough space to get it all out at once :-( I didn't take any before/after pics though. Some of my stamping stuff has been put in the closet so I can at least move in my room :-)

Our weather here has been beautiful with the exception of a couple days. That is about to all change. The weather reports say s--- is on it's way. We had a dusting a couple weeks ago, but it was all gone by afternoon. I am not a snow person at all and winter here in New York seems to go on forever.

Thanksgiving is just 12 days away! Where has 2008 gone?? I have been making some fall and Thanksgiving cards and stamping out wishes for Splitcoast Stampers WishRAK, which I joined about the same time I started my blog.

A couple Sundays ago our Assistant Pastor Matt did a short ventriloquist presentation to announce the Thanksgiving To Go event the area churches do for shut-ins. We deliver a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to any person who calls in and requests one. Last year we served nearly 300 dinners. Pastor Matt had a turkey puppet named "Tom" of course. So I made a turkey card and sent it to Pastor Matt anonymously. Just a word of advise - "Pastor Matt, do NOT quit your day job!"




















On the front I stamped the image centered, then masked it off and stamped the lighter images without re-inking the stamp. The inside was colored using the bouncing brayer technique. The turkey is popped up with dimensionals.

I finally did get my Christmas Toppers done for the October SBS card swap. I realized that I had not taken a picture after the envie was addressed, sealed and stamped. So I sure hope that DebMeg posts a pic of them!

While Becky and I were making the toppers, I also dug out some of my embellishments from last year. We could have saved ourselves a lot of time if I had thought of them a couple hours sooner :-(
I stamped a snowman card using a TAC snowman trio stamp from Bunch of Flakes set.
Then I cut apart a snowman head trio and attached them to my card. The hats are from the SU Crab & Company stamp set. The card went to DebMeg with her toppers. It turned out to be really cute! I hope she likes it.


Then last but not least, are the cards I made for all of my SBS 22 sisters!! I found this gorgeous fall ribbon on one of Becky's and my shopping trips. It's sheer with the design printed and the glitter already on it!

The sentiment is from SU's set Give Thanks. It's stamped in Chocolate Chip on Naturals Ivory, mounted on Chocolate Chip and popped up on dimensionals.

I didn't really like the ribbon ends showing on the inside of the card, so I asked my friend Kim for suggestions to hide them.

Following her suggest to line the inside of the card with designer papers, I did just that using a different paper on each card.


Here are a few of my favorites. The inside sentiment was computer printed in brown ink. The edges were inked with either Chocolate Chip or Pumpkin Pie.

The cards were really simple to make using the ribbon and are stunning!

Thanks for looking!
Thanksgiving blessings to all!