Farewell 2007!

All stamps © by Stampin' Up!

2007 journey is almost over. Time to take stock of what I did this past year. Although with a shaky start, it seemed to all be OK in the end. God has been good to my family and has taken great care of us. Our holidays in Thailand this past summer was definitely the highlight of the year! And after we came back to the US of A, I have enjoyed the freedom of no longer being a homeschooling Mum, although I sometimes missed having Ty with me 24-7. Ty had a great first term in public school system. He enjoyed school and new friends tremendously. For that I'm forever grateful! I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for stopping by and for visiting me the last trimester of 2007. I hope I have inspired you in some little ways.

2008 holds many great promises and hopefully we can serve better and grow more mature spiritually. I don't have very many resolutions for the New Year. And the ones I have aren't the lofty kind either. Just something I really want to do and know I can accomplish.

• Stay in love and always be deeply passionate about the One true God of the universe.
• Go to bed at a decent time like 10 pm, instead of 8 pm. And get up at a decent time, like 4 am and not 2:30 am.
• Keep in touch better with family and friends.
• Improve my "stuccato" Chinese language.
• Study everyday for my US Naturalization Interview on February 19th.
• Stamp, try new technique and do one challenge at least once a week.

And that's pretty much all. Sure, I want to save up some money for Photoshop and go back to Thailand again and lose some weight and exercise regularly. But they aren't pressing at the moment. We shall see.

Have a fun and safe New Year's Eve day. And a great and creative New Year to one and all.

Lovely Tree

A quickie for today. Here's another one of Reversed Embossing technique. The card itself is very straight forward and self explained. But if you have any question, please ask. I'll try to get back to you in a timely manner :) Tree stamp is from the Lovely as a Tree set by Stampin' Up!

A busy day ahead of me. I also really need to get a move on with our Christmas cards. And there are cookies to bake and treats to make for Ty's classmates and teacher's gift and the school secretaries and the librarian and the crossing guards and, and, and ... I have come to realize that I would appreciate Christmas and it's true meaning much much more if there weren't so much of the busyness with it. I must start all of this in July next year! That way, I won't be so rushed when the next Christmas rolls around. You think I can do it?

Have a great Monday!

Warmest Wishes

A quick one today because family is coming for early Christmas dinner.

Would you believe it if I told you this is the very first Christmas card I did after I found rubber stamping back in 2003? I made about eighty of these and thought they were pretty amazing *SIGH*. Hopefully, I have come a long way since then :) Stamp was by Stampin' Up! and was retired a couple of years back. How I did it was I cut a piece of 2"x2" cardstock, rubbed it all over with VersaMark and embossed with silver EP, while the melted EP still hot, I poured on some more EP and reheated it. I did that about three times and had it nice and fairly thick. Again, with the EP still hot and melty, I stamped right into it with my stamp. If and when I messed up and didn't quite get the whole image, I just remelted the EP and start over. Fairly forgiving if you ask me :) I didn't know what to call this technique so I decided to name it Reversed Embossing! I'm sure there is a proper name for it. But for now, I'll just stick with Reversed Embossing. Let me know if you know what it's properly called!

Have a great weekend!