My VERY Happy Birthday

I love April, my birthday month...This April, early in the month, Erica asked me if I'd seen what was in the candy dish on the mantle. It was Orange Slices!!! My favorite! She told me if I only ate 3 a day I'd have enough for the whole month! Instead, the dish was empty in about 3 days! YUM! For my actual birthday, the 27th, Erica sweetly got off work early to spend some time with me. She fixed me this fabulous strawberry layered cake! Bruce said it was the best cake he's ever eaten! She also gave me a manicure and pedicure, and arranged for our party of 8 to have dinner at the fun Boca di Beppo! After dinner, I got to open my lovely gifts! I was so curious as to what Heidi had sent me, since she'd given me some hints on her Blog. I was just speechless when I opened her carefully wrapped Hanging Birthday Cake card! It was me at age 5, all adorned on this gorgeous Birthday Cake themed altered art card. It's an amazing piece of art I just love!!!! Then I opened the other part of her gift...The Vintage Sewing Basket full of Vintage craft supplies!!!! First I pulled out the absolutely adorable letter "S", 8 inches tall and full of charm for me. I love the sweet Scottie Dog, and the pie recipes, buttons and beads, and complete with a sweet little bird perched on top! Just amazing! All the items in the basket were just too good (read authentic collectible quality Vintage). I could only gasp. Erica was with me while I opened it, since Heidi warned me it was "private". I didn't know what she meant? Underwear? A spa package? Unfortunately, Bruce walked in on us opening it, and said, "She sent you junk?" That's what Heidi meant about private. Only my private eyes and heart could fully understand the enormous value of this very special and thoughtful gift. Oh I just love it Heidi! Thank you very, very much! I stayed up til 2AM looking over every very special button, and each piece of ribbon, and all the Vintage sheet music, French words and books, and the precious little Audobon bird and nature book. Just amazing. I soon used some of the items for these 5 ATCs. They may or may not be done...Not Sure! I read somewhere that the main error Newbie ATC-ers make is adding too much to their cards! I just had to show this gift since it was so very unusual. I did it at the risk of leaving out other very thoughtful gift and card givers. I loved each loving email, phone call, card, gift, thought and prayer from all my loving friends and family. I had tears of emotion from several of your thoughtful items.

Love and Blessings to all,
Sallie (Now 1 year older, and after 3 cakes...several pounds heavier! But happy!)

April Birthday Girl!

Here's a sweet little April birthday girl, from awhile back... I'm trying to imitate Heidi's site, but I don't have the precious full-color pictures she does! So, this is my version! This little girl has 5 candles on her cake, too, just like Heidi's girl! Happy Birthday to all the April birthdays out there! (Mine included! April is a great month to have a birthday - it's usually so beautiful most of the month.)

Here are the actual ATCs I sent off to my 2 swap partners yesterday! One lady liked sheep, so I gave her 4 little lamb stickers on cards, and stuck them in ribbon so she can remove them. She also loves Vintage, so I made a Vintage look card. The other lady liked "ugly art" and neon green, so I tried to make one card my ugliest art ever! It's a parody of the George Washington stamp, I don't know if it has any merit or not. That's why I sent this lady, who also likes sunflowers and patches, 3 cards instead of 2! I also made her a neon green felt case to hold the cards. Hope my swap partners like their cards!

Newbie ATC Swap

I'm a NEWBIE! Yep, a newbie to ATCs...and I'm beginning to find what I was warned about is true: ATCs are addictive!!! These are just too much fun! I stayed up way, way, way too late last night, trying to put these cards together. I'm in a "Newbie ATC" swap at Swap-Bot, and the Newbie category is exactly where I belong. I'm not at all a painter, but that's the glory of ATCs - anything at all that you do to the card is acceptable! This is a dare to anyone reading this who's never made one: Go cut some card stock 2.5" X 3.5" and have at it! Today, the fun of having the Mazda 6 loaner car bombed. The key is lost! And, if we can't find it, it'll cost between $100-$200 to have a locksmith replace it. And we have to do that quickly, because Erica's car may be finished any day now, and we'll have to return the rental car! Start looking, Nathan!

Easter 2007

I just LOVE the Mary Engelbreit tear-off calendar Easter picture this year! Isn't she carrying the sweetest things? I had to post it here to forever save this one.

I finished my purse "party favors" for our church Women's Meeting tomorrow night. I got this purse pattern a few months ago from the Karla Dornacher web site. I had ribbons to match each color card stock, then decided I liked the gold chain-look better. I especially like the sound of the chain dangling on the purse - almost real! I hope all the ladies like what I filled the purses with. The picture shows what is in each purse. This will all be a surprise! I am also planning to lead several "purse themed" games with the ladies. Most know about the traditional purse search games, but have you ever heard about a team purse scavenger hunt? I hope they like the purses and the games! Here's the site where I get a lot of my games and ideas, the Creative Ladies Ministry site by Julia Bettencourt.

We had a lovely and meaningful Easter, and enjoyed several little outings over the weekend. We're making good use of our rental car, necessary while Erica's car is being repaired after her small wreck. Bruce and I drove to San Francisco Saturday, and enjoyed the new art museum at Golden Gate Park, Ghirardelli Square and the wharf, and lunch at Mel's diner! Then, today we took a quick over to Santa Cruz, just for a bowl of minestrone soup, a little taffy, and some sight seeing. Fun!

The Fun is in the Trade! Some more ATCs

Here's another several ATCs! This is just the greatest fun for me! They don't take too long, and the result is a little piece of very satisfying art. And the fun is in the trade! Look at the very lovely and fancy 2 Heidi sent me "Rose" and "Fleur". These are made from a cut-up Scrabble board! Amazing! What fun to exchange these! Just like my son and daughter used to trade stickers, POGS, and baseball cards. Thank you, Heidi, for your lovely cards! I got brave and signed up for a New-bie ATC swap, so I have to make 4 more cards by the end of the month. For a great time, go to Swap-Bot.com and join in.

Jenny's Vintage Kitchen Swap Goodies!

Here's what I hunted down for my Vintage Kitchen Swap partner! Oh, I had so much fun hunting items for my very first swap! I enjoyed many recreational shopping trips to all sorts of stores, the thrift shop, ebay, and Heidi even brought me the cool picnic basket planter from Oregon! I posted a picture of my kitchen, since I've been talking about Vintage Kitchen swaps. I recently realized my kitchen, at age 54, is really and truly vintage - or at least retro! The first picture is the items all wrapped up, so Melissa H. should not look at the second picture if she hasn't received her items yet!

Vintage Kitchen Swap Items Arrived!!!

What an exciting day it was when my Vintage Kitchen Items from Jenny's swap arrived!!!!!! My swap partner, Melissa H., worked very hard to find vintage kitchen items to match my kitchen. Thank you so much, Melissa!!! Here's a picture of all the lovely, thoughtful items: vintage gold bundt cake pan, syrup and sugar dispensers, Carbon's Golden Malted Pancake & Waffle Flour, sweet note from Melissa, darling Duckie bag full of chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies, Vintage crocheted potholder, big stack of recipe cards, 3 red-handled cookie cutters, white handled flat whisk, vintage Mrs. Wagner's pie tin, and the gold/floral pillow case - for me to craft items from!!! What a wonderful assortment of Vintage Kitchen items! The gold/white/green crocheted pot holder went immediately up on my wall - what a treasure! The Vintage gold bunt pan is also up on the wall, on display. What sweet treasures from this fun swap. Mine came all the way from New Jersey. I'm planning to make pancakes from the mix real soon, and we'll see how that tastes. The syrup dispenser reminds me of one Grandma and Grandpa had, a real emotionally charged item to own and treasure. Have you ever seen a cuter Duckie bag? This is a vintage look duck, with just the sweetest face! Well, I love my items and knew everyone would want to see them.