I am writing this with a very, very heavy heart. There is a woman that we knew in the church that we attended for many years whose granddaughter was murdered yesterday morning. What a horrible, horrible thing. Everywhere we saw the grandmother, we saw the granddaughter as she was growing up. They were very close, and my heart just hurts for her so much. I have been doing a lot of thinking today, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this.
  God is our father, Jesus is our betrothed, and they love us so incredibly much! So the conclusion that I have come to is this: God IS love, and He loves us beyond our understanding, and if we are saved, we are connected to Him with a connection that CANNOT be broken. The Bible says that we are seated with Him in heavenly places. That is possible because He is part of us and we are part of Him; we are connected, and as surely as we are here He is here with us, and as surely as He is there we are there with Him. Bad things happen because He has given us free will; we have a choice. He doesn't force us to do anything. Free will is a very good thing, but bad things happen because mankind has free will, Satan is working through people's choices, and we are born sinners.I know that God doesn't make bad things happen, people and Satan make bad things happen. I know that He loves us, and we have the promise that He will work all things together for good. I don't understand how good can come out of this situation, and I don't know that we will ever see the good or recognize it, but I do KNOW that good will come out of it, because He has told us this. We have a choice: we can trust Him and love Him, or we can blame Him and turn away from Him. I choose Him!
   Thanks for reading this; I hope it has been of some help to someone.

Christmas Decorations

 

After procrastinating since Thanksgiving because I had so much other stuff to do and I HATE decorating, I finally put the ornaments on the tree Saturday, and my wonderful daughter Beth came over and did most of the decorating. At least 2/3 of the ornaments on the tree are either antiques  that belonged to my mother and grandmother or handmade by me or friends.
   The next picture is of a sled that I bought at an antique shop at Hampstead, NC. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it, but when Beth found a tree in one of the boxes of decorations, she knew just what to do. I think it looks great!

This is another picture of it including the rocker. The snowman is one that I bought years ago and then lost. I knew it was here, but I just could not find it. When I cleaned out a closet in the laundry room last month, there was the box with the snowman and my frog that croaks Jingle Bells. I am so thrilled to be able to enjoy them again..

When I told Beth that I wanted the nativity on the hutch with the snowmen mugs, she thought I was crazy. She doesn't think that particularly goes together, but I like it! My mother, brother, and I made the figures in the nativity with plaster of  paris when I was a child, at the church I grew up in, Immanuel Presbyterian.

Lastly, I love the placemats that Daphene gave me last Christmas.

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed my decorations. Now that they are up, I am happy, but  I sure didn't want to bother with it. I'd rather be stamping!
Blessings,
Janis

More Samples!

   Here are the rest of the samples that I photographed today:

I used an old SU image and embossed everything in gold. Had a GREAT time tying the little bows on the stars (not!). I used a bowmaker, but it wasn't easy.

I used a Sizzix large snowflake die from SU and a SU image. Click to see the glitter.

This is my favorite card this year. I just love the color and glitz and everything about it! The ribbon, images, ink and paper are all SU. If I am becoming a broken record about SU products, it's because I was a demonstrator for them for eight years. I still buy a lot of products from them.
 This next one is my "other" favorite. I couldn't decide which photo to use, so I am putting them both on here.

I used Nestibilities Labels 1 and an old SU set.

This one has the MS lace edge punch, which I dearly love. I saw this used in several samples in a magazine earlier this year, and couldn't find one anywhere. Apparently a LOT of people fell in love with it as I did. And I LOVE the MS leaf punch.

I have a bunch of these red tags, and I grabbed one one day and started trying stuff out on it. I tried stamping with the frost white paint that is in SU's mini-catalog. That didn't work too well because of my method of applying the paint to the stamp, but I have come up with a better way to do it since then: I use a foam dauber to apply the paint. After a few days of trying out ideas on the tag, I decided that I might actually be able to use it so I stuck the angel image and snowflake on it.  The other tag didn't show up as well in the picture, but it has a distress ink bg, SU images, and the small fleur de lis pendant diecut from Spellbinders.

This is my version of Tim's first Christmas tag. I'm not real crazy about it, but shared it anyway. Hopefully if you click on it you will be able to see the rock candy stickles on the snowman.

This was made with the fleur de lis pendant die and MS lace punch.
Well, that is pretty much it. I have a few more, but have to get better pictures of them. I hope you have enjoyed looking at my samples, and that you will join me for a few pics of my Christmas decorations in the next post.
Blessings,
Janis

Finally! Samples!

Well, I finally was able to take some halfway decent pictures and upload them. And fast, too! They aren't the quality that I would like, but this is the best I can do right now. Hope you enjoy them!

I made the star from instructions that I got from another blog. I will find the link and post it sometime in the next few days. It is made using the SU tag punches. If you click on the picture you can see the glitter better.

I wish you could see how beautiful this is; the gold paper is so pretty, and the gold stars. I used a SU image.

I used distress inks on this one, and some rock candy stickles (I have decided to forego using capitals ala Tim Holtz).

                                                       Another SU image, and their Top Note die.

                        I think this was made with a current SU set, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it is SU.

I bought the gingerbread boy stamp at a craft store. The holly punch is Martha Stewart. I am loving this punch! The greeting is from a clear stamp set that I also love, and the card was cut with a Sizzix die that I got from SU.
   I have to run, will put more on later today.
Blessings,
Janis
http://www.marketamerica.com/livingfree

Good Grief!

Well, it has taken me several hours, but I have finally downloaded a picture from my camera into a computer! I thought at one point that I had crashed my laptop, but my daughter got it going again. And I don't even particularly like the picture of my tag, but it will have to do. It looks better in person. Here it is:(Drumroll)

When I colored this tag with distress inks, I was going to use it to do Tim's first tag of christmas, but it was so pretty that I decided that I wanted to do something else with it, so I put it aside. I like this one way better than the one I came up with that was like Tim's. I just wish it showed up better; the snowflakes are really pretty. I layered a white flake over a blue one.Actually, I punched the blue ones out of paper that I had stamped with a clear stamp  with blue on white, but it didn't stamp well, so I decided to punch snowflakes out of it. It looks great; too bad you can't really see it. The buttons were in a bag of buttons that I found at a yard sale, It was a huge bag, and I will not need any buttons for a long while. I have found some really great buys at yard sales and flea markets lately. My daughter and I went out a few Saturdays ago, and I told God that I really, really needed a white desk for around $25.00. We went to a local flea market and one of the first booths had a white desk for $25.00! It is new, but has a few dings, which aren't very noticeable. I love it! I had been using a dresser that I got years ago at a yard sale for my desk, and when my daughter moved back in with us in September, I had to move my stuff out of the office and put it in my stamp room. I put my Big Kick on the desk and a basket of dies, and I had a nice die cutting station. Then when she moved out, I didn't want to give up the desk and move it back into the office, so I had to buy another one. Cheap! I am thrilled with my desk!
   I am going to try to take some more pictures tonight, so maybe tomorrow I will have more samples to show. I have done right much for Christmas, so at some point there will be a lot to look at.
Blessings,
Janis
http://www.marketamerica.com/livingfree

Samples coming soon!

Stay tuned! I think I am really close to putting my Christmas samples on here. Maybe tonight!
   The house has been a disaster for so long, but I have slowly but surely reclaimed it, room by room, over the last few weeks, and today I am in the last room, the den. I have to decorate the Christmas tree, which has been sitting here with nothing but lights and a little garland since Thanksgiving, and put out a few other decorations, and then go through the boxes and eliminate everything that I can. THEN I have to clean the room and the house will be clean! What a relief that will be! I wish I could clean it and then leave so I won't mess it up before Christmas.
   Merry Christmas to everyone!
Janis
http://www.marketamerica.com/livingfree

Quest for Health, Part III and Other Things

   I am reading a really wonderful book, The Misunderstood God, by Darin Hufford. The lies that I have believed about God are amazing! I am so thankful that He is showing me the truth, and I am shedding tons of garbage that I have been taught. God is so sweet, and kind, and loving, and He loves us unconditionally, as we are.   
   I said that in this post I would talk about how I kind of messed up this year with my diet and put on a few extra pounds. When I first started my health regimen, I was here by myself because Andy spent 4 months working in Alabama, and I stayed here so I could concentrate on food and exercise. When we got back together, I started eating more food, and eating in restaurants more. I wasn't eating as much vegetables and fruit, and so I was getting more calories per meal. I have put on about 5 pounds, and I am hoping that at least half of that is water because I am getting way too much salt. I never stopped exercising, but you have to eat well because exercise alone won't keep you thin. My goal is to be back to where I was a year ago by the end of January. I didn't start this just to lose weight, and it is not all about that. I have to lose weight in order to control the diabetes.
   Something that I didn't mention about all this is the supplements that I take. I couldn't have done anything that I am doing if I didn't take the vitamins and antioxidants that I get from my business, Living Free. I am a Market America independent distributor, and I am so very thankful for the wonderful supplements that we have. I have taken a lot of vitamins for years, but I got to the point where I could hardly swallow all those pills and capsules. Most of what I take now is in our Isotonix line, which are supplements that you mix with water and drink. What a blessing! When you mix the right amount of powder with the right amount of water, it forms an isotonic solution which you drink on an empty stomach. The solution is the same ph as your body fluids, so the stomach opens the valve to the small intestine immediately, and the mixture gets into your bloodstream quickly so that you get maximum benefit from the vitamins because they don't have to be digested. Our number one product is OPC-3, which is a blend of powerful antioxidants. This product does a lot of different things for a lot of people; I have heard many amazing testimonies, like the girl who had MS and was in a wheelchair until she started taking OPC-3. When we met her a couple of years after that, you could not tell that she had any problems. I will be sharing testimonies from time to time about this and other products, because I just have to share what these products can do for you. I know firsthand what they can do, and I want health for everyone; always have. I don't make a huge profit on these products; I just want you to be healthy, have energy, feel good, etc.. I will be putting a link to my website on here when I figure out how to do that. In the meantime, I will sign each post with the address.
   I don't have any more pictures of my samples to put on here; I will try to do that tomorrow.
Blessings,
Janis
livingfree