Gname the Gnome

We have a new addition to the family, his name is Gname the Gnome! As a joke for Jeff, he was waiting under the Christmas tree! Cooper seems to have problems with these little figurines in different peoples yards... so the best way for him to get familiar with them, was to buy our own little friend! ...what a better way for him to be part of our family! So, check back often and see where Gname the Gnome adventures have taken us all!!

Scraplifting ideas or casing a card

Adding color to the cards! No more red and green! The fish and the frog are new images I copied from the SU mini catalog - Punny images! I like the simple lines, 'cuz it's easy for me to incorporate my own twist to their design!

Back to my creativity

Its a girl thing! I'm back into making cards! All the holiday snowmen, ornaments and jingle bells and Christmas trees are put away until next year! That is stamps, embellishments and pieces for cardmaking. Hoping to find new customers and make lots of new cards this year!

Happy Holidays from Macy's

If you are looking at my blog for the first time today, December 20.... what the heck have you been doing??? Five more days 'til Christmas!!!The Robinson Holiday note has now moved down a few inches on this page. So get with it and check it out!!! You've missed Jeff's birthday too!!! To celebrate? We hopped the Metra train to Downtown Chicago to check out the sites and sounds of the Holiday season. Here we are in front of the 2-3 story Christmas tree inside Macy's!! The winter coats are deceiving, it had to be almost 50 out and no WIND!!

You better watch out .... 'cuz Santa Claus is coming to town!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Check out the Holiday newsletter further down in the blog. Adding holiday concert pictures.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas

&

Happy New Year

What a difference a day makes! Winter weather arrived in Illinois on December 1st! So great to have all the outside decorations up on Thanksgiving. You'll see further down, we were wearing short sleeves then! Today we got up to 10" and the kids were off school and the parents didn't make it to work!!!

Enjoy the holidays! Say hello to long lost friends and family! Make this day and every day count! Best wishes to you all!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Happy Holidays!!!


From the Robinson family in Crystal Lake, Illinois, our new home since June 2006. Jeff started a new position at Hexion Specialty Chemicals in January. He was commuting 70 miles each way from Carpentersville, IL to Racine, a couple of times a week, until we moved the first of June. It was great having our family back together for the new home adventure. We are just over the Cheddar Curtain (Wisconsin State line) and are now 57 miles southwest of our old homestead of Franksville, Wisconsin. Please don't consider us FIB's (I'll tell you what that means, if you don't know) and I don't think we'll EVER cross over to the darkside of being: Bears, Cubs, White Soxs or Bulls fans! We are in good company most the time! We have found a lot of other Greenbay Packer and Wisconsin Badger fans!

Sly "COOPER" Robinson is almost a year and half old! He enjoys sunning himself, sleeping and eating! We consider him a CatDog! He swats at toys and chases tennis balls, sleeps on the steps and is quite playful! He still has difficulty staying in the yard... there are soooo many new smells!! Plus, he likes to go visit many of his new friends: Cosmo, Kramer, Charlie, Zelda, Buddy, Charlie and Oliver!

The kids are off to a great school year! Both are at the same school, Hannah Beardsley Middle School. Here's a picture of them in downtown Chicago. We decided to take a day trip and find out what the excitement of the Windy City was, taking the Metra train and having lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in the basement level of the John Hancock building. When we got home, we were exhausted from all the walking and feel like we are true suburbanites!

Kai is in 8th grade and playing house hockey with the Crystal Lake Leafs Bantam Team. He plays defense and got his FIRST ever penalty playing a tournament Nov. 18 in Holland Michigan. He seems to enjoy playing his Baritone and is in band and Jazz band. A kid at heart, he can watch a serious Military documentary and during commercials flip over to the cartoon network and laugh histarically and some 'potty' slapstick joke. Remember this: His future goal is to be an architect! Mmmmm.... think it's for the money, not the artistic achievement of creating!

Holly is in 6th grade and has fit into the cool social scene at school. She is fighting us all the way, and for the moment is still playing flute and piano. This year we are going to try something new, club volleyball. It does appear that volleyball clubs create championship girls teams around the area. She is a true "tweener".

The family got to enjoy a relaxing cruise to the Bahamas this summer. We have gotten to the point where mom & dad can't 'entertain' the kids and the cruise didn't have enough for them to do! Yikes~! Well, I guess sitting by the pool reading a book with a nice fruity drink is NOT the fun the kids had in mind! I'm still waiting to win the lottery! Don't know how that will happen if I don't play. I am thankful we are all well! We have laughs every day, sometimes at the expense of a child's actions or our own silly pratfalls! Keep this blog as one of your 'favorite' sites to visit. I try to update my Creative Greetings often. Every once in a while, something else fun sneaks in!

We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, 2007!!!

The Robinson's

Cards, Cards, Cards

Some cards from my current collection. Since I was busy this week making 4 window valances, I didn't get to make any cards! Going through paper withdrawel!! The individual snowman and the Gingerbread man are hand drawn. But the group of snowmen is SU. Cute background paper is from JoAnn's... a winter paper stack. Used Crystal Effects on the orange snowman nose, and gel pens with glitter on the 'groups' scarfs, hats and hearts!

Before & After

Pictures of the valances I created this week. Only took me about 20 hours, cutting, sewing, pipping, lining and stapling! I like how they turned out. Thanks to dh for cutting the boards and putting them up. Makes the entire room seem warmer. Next, matching pillows!

I don't have any solutions, but I certainly admire the problem

Today's selection are my most recent additions to my Creative Greetings! Love the purple paisley with the polar bear. Used circle punches to create his head and ears. I think he'll make someone smile on their birthday.

Happy Holidays with the bold stripe... all the presents are hand cut out... hole punch for the dots. I like it when they are straight, but crooked (hand made not a die cut template) lines are ok too... not so perfect.

The snowflake card is actually on it's side... turn it 90 degrees right, a bi-fold card. Once again, just a few different sized circle punches. I like to add ribbon to give it just a little pizzazzzzzzz!

I got new Winter Card Mat paper at JoAnns.... it's all these cool blue and green tones, perfect for snowmen and snowflakes!

If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost!

More snowmen! Can't get enough of the different varieties! The one on the left is just regular circle punches, the bottom part of the hat is the SU word window punch. Yeah, on the right snowman, I can use my white gel pen on something. Old star punch.

I just got the new Happy Everything stamp from SU. I like it! The garland is a small grass stamp from Stamps by Judith. She always shows examples how to use her stamps in multiple ways. Added some beads to give it a funky feel. That santa is soooo darn cute. Copied him from some magazine. I keep plugging away at holiday cards, here at Creative Greetings!

I love snowmen!

A few versions of my favorite snowmen for the holidays. The one's with the dog are supposed to be my cartoon character for Cooper!

The beJolly stamp is TAC. I cased the Happy Holiday circle from SU.... it's created on the computer. I love the purple and green together, very unexpected

Off to make more Creative Greetings!!

The Little Goblins

Dracu-bubba and evil tweener devil!!

PACKER FAN

Oh ya gotta dress your dog up for Halloween. Cooper is a Brett Favre Fan!

Go Packers Go

The ultimate reason is 'because'

I used a pencil eraser to make the 'ornamental' dots on the Happy Holidays card.

Did a little idea casing from the PaperCrafts magazine, Holiday Cards! The Santa is cut out and pieced together and made into a tag.Instead of magic mesh on the blue card stock, I have been using just basic white drywall tape. Such a cool and cheap texture.

I really like the embellishment using a safety pin, adding other images or fiber with it.

Made the stripped paper behind the snowman. I looked through all my patterned paper and I must have used up all of last years Christmas theme paper. But how easy to use a ruler and markers to make your own stripes.

Okay, enough thinking of the holidays, need to do some more 'Fun' Creative Greetings!

The eyes have it!

This Creative Greeting card is for my mom who had cataract surgery today! Get Well Soon!!

Fun is just a point of view!

Looks like all these posts are in a purple theme! It's amazing when you look through old magazines and see cards that you get an instant feel for creating. The SNOW one was actually a summer party card sample. I liked how the eyelets were placed. And love the snowmen!

I like scraplifting the SU sea scenes. This fish is intense with the scales and bubbles, but he is so cute! Inside it reads 'happy birthday fishes!" get it? instead of wishes??? hee hee! Enjoy the day!

Imagination is the foundation of reality

Today's Creative Greeting cards are a varity of seasons and celebrations. Holly wanted to know why I started making Holiday cards... it's that time of year where everyone thinks ahead and the holidays are less than 2 months away!

I love the GHOST - he's scraplifted from Hero Arts - cute and simple!

Cute Primitive snowman!!

The faux stamps are from Splitcoast stampers, it is so versitile to add what ever image you want to highlight.

Sorry about the slight blurrrrr....this is a shaker card... little red & green sequins inside a little baggie. Love shakers, but they take time to create.