I'm Back!!!!!

Whew! I'm finally back! I have tried for so long to get back on here. Being a young senior citizen is starting to take it's toll on my mind. I have decided I am just going to have to find a very safe place for all of the different passwords I have to use everyday. I have tried several times to post but just didn't have the time to wait and search and create a new password. My family has been so sick as of late that the most we can do is get up, go about our day, come home and collapse.
I feel so bad that I didn't even have the energy to do anything, for anyone, for Valentine's Day. My poor husband only received a quick ecard, only because I could do that from my bed on my Nook tablet. We did get to enjoy a wonderfully peaceful date night on Friday. Dinner at Red Robin and a movie. We saw the movie "safe Haven". What a great date night movie. It was so funny to see all of the couples coming in and hear all the guys in the theater going out saying, "I didn't see that coming, what a great ending". We highly recommend seeing it.
I have been trying to get out top my craft room for so long. I keep looking online at what everyone else is doing and can't wait to feel better enough to do something soon. I totally missed my Valentines opportunity.
I sort of have tomorrow off but have plans that will be taking me away from my craft room again. My time will come soon.
I hope everyone has a wonderful week. God be with you.

Happy 2013

Happy New Year everyone. I love the thought of a new year. Fresh like a day after it rains or the snow melts. You see the new little seedlings poking their heads up through the moist earth. A very good friend of mine got married on December 30th. I am so excited for her and her new husband. They have so much to look forward to.
I am still sort of in a creative slump. I have a couple of new projects to start. Two of my children did youth theater for many years. They also did a lot of school activities such as choir and drama. So over the years they had collected many tee shirts depicting the different venues. These were memories of a wonderful childhood.
We didn't want to just throw them away so I cut the fronts and backs into squares. I then sewed them together to form a quilt top. Then I placed a quilt batting in between a very large piece of fleece. It was big enough to wrap around the four sides to make the binding for the edges. When I finished that I tied all the corners to each of the squares on top to keep the batting from sliding around. When I finished them they had a beautiful way to remember all the things they did.
I have one more to start. I was going to start it today, but the day got away from me. We cleaned up most of our Christmas decorations and got them put away. Why is it that just when you think you are done you find one or two more things that have eluded detection and will probably be up until next year? The house always looks so empty after you're done. But hey it's a fresh New Year. May God be with us as we all look forward to a bright strat to a new year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We would just like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Have a wonderful day enjoying the company of those who love you most. Celebrate the joys of living in the knowledge that Christ was born on this day so that we may live forever. God bless you all from Rubeescreations!

One week away...

I can't believe how fast this year has passed. As usual I am struggling for inspiration. I like to hand out goodie treats for the holidays to the school staff where I work and to the in house staff I work with. My problem is I like to come up with something different each time. I will probably end up doing goodie bags just because I am out of quick ideas. I tried a couple of things today but was just not satisfied with the results. I know something will come to me. With some good strong coffee I don't need much sleep, haha.
On Tami Whites blog she demonstrated a really cute Grinch and Max the dog mini candy bar holder. I might give that a shot. I hope everyone is having a quiet holiday season filled with love and family. We all need to say a prayer for the families of Newtown who lost loved ones. God bless us all.

Happy Hoildays

Becky and I had a great time on Saturday. We went to a first annual Christmas party put on by three scrapbook stores. It was a wonderful event. We had been looking forward to this for a very long time. We received a great goodie bag full of fun and new products to try out. They had three free make and takes and some really good bargains. They also had some extra stuff we were not expecting... free food! I kid you not, this was fantastic!!! Oh yeah there was also a champaign toast. The whole thing was free! I can't say it enough FREE!
I found some really good stuff and can't wait to have time to try it all out. Becky and I found some alcohol ink pens, Spectrum Noir. They are a lot cheaper than Copic. Now I just need to learn how to use them. I checked out YouTube and found a couple of good videos on them. So if anyone has any tips I am so ready. I love the look you can achieve with them. I already know I will be needing some more colors, haha.
We also got to meet some really nice ladies. That's one of the things I like about going to these things. We are all there because we enjoy all these goodies and can't wait to use them. We get great ideas from each other and we all know how crazy we are. I can only remember the names of two of the companies one was Crafter's Companion and the other one was Bee Creative. I am so sorry I can't remember the third one, but we really want to say thank you to all three. We had a wonderful time. If they do it again next year, I'm there. God bless.

Happy "Early" Halloween

Hello my friends, I am so proud of myself. I actually finished something early and not midnight the night before. It's that time of year again when I prepare goodie bags for my staff and the school staff  on the campus where I work. I am always looking for something different that I haven't done before. I found some really cute Halloween stamps in the dollar bin at Michael's. These were too simple, but that's what I needed. I think they turned out really cute. One stamp, circle punch, scallop punch, pop dot it up on some orange paper. Tape that to a piece of green paper folded in half and stapled to the top of the bags fill with trail mix. There ya go. Oh yeah a few doodle lines and some liquid glass on the eyes.
The pretzel bags I bought a long time ago. I was going to make chocolate covered pretzels, but that would mean I would have to go into the kitchen. Not my thing, haha, maybe someday. So I chose to fill them with trail mix. Here are some pictures of them I think they are cute. Simple but cute. Well there you have it, Happy Halloween everyone, God bless and be safe.

Hello, Hello...

Is anyone out there? I have been trying to post for a couple of weeks but just can't get the computers I am on at the time to work with our blog. I told myself tonight no matter what I was going to post something. So here I am. I have been in a crafting slump as of late. Becky and I went to the scrapbook expo in Ontario last Friday. I haven't had a planned day off from work in over two years, I felt like I was playing hooky. I did have to go in for an hour and a half, but then off we went. We had so much fun time. We usually attend these things on Saturday and the crowds make it sort of hard to get around and see everything. But Friday was so nice, we were able to leisurely just walk around and see  most everything. I think we got lost and turned around just like always but it was still a lot of fun. We were able to take a class and learn some new things. We saw Elena from Charity Wings and talked to her about some of her new endeavors. One was an Art Center she is trying to find a "home" for. We were very excited to hear this. It was so nice to see her again.
I made my hubby an anniversary card tonight. We are celebrating 36 years tomorrow. But since he works third shift and I work afternoons we won't be able to do anything tomorrow. So this weekend we are leaving town to spend some quiet time together. Things get crazy around here sometimes. Here is picture of the card. I found the stamped image in a box where I keep my Valentine stamps. It was perfect, it says "I'm nuts for you". We are all a little nutty around here. Have a great rest of the week and God Bless.

Monday Monday

Yes it,s Monday again. I am having a lot of trouble getting going this morning and it's not like I went to bed late. Maddie is having the Monday morning blues too. I had a really lazy Sunday. I spent a good part of the day checking out everyone else's blogs. I wanted to go into my craft room but just couldn't do it. But I did have fun checking out what everyone else was doing. It just didn't motivate me enough. Oh well I hope everyone has a great week. God bless.

Cards and More Cards

A dear, dear friend asked me to make her 24 birthday cards. I did pretty good it only took me about three weeks to make them. Each one was different and special. I Had so much fun but I also saw a certain style I have. I was able to use some of my new cricut cartridges and some fun stamps I forgot I had. I made a big dent this past weekend when I sat down and just stamped a bunch of images. I then hooked up my portable DVD player and put on "Under the Tuscan Sun" and just water colored to my hearts content, what a perfect day. I then dove in to putting them together with just the right colors and patterns. This is where I have the most trouble and need the most help. I really need to learn how to use sketches, it would make at least the lay out part easier and more interesting. Here are a few of the ones I really liked. Happy crafting and God Bless you all.

End of Summer

   Summer is quickly coming to a close. I love summer and will miss using our pool everyday, the longer days and laid beck slowness summer seems to bring. We are rapidly heading full on into the holiday season, when life always seems to speed up like a roller coaster ride until January. As a crafter I do like this time of year. There are so many reasons to make cards and put together scrapbook pages full of holiday memories. Now that I think of that last statement I have to laugh at myself... I don't need a reason! ha ha

 I have been doing a little card making throughout the summer. We certainly had enough birthdays to make cards for. I also made most of the party decorations and favors for my grand daughters second birthday party and a baby shower for my niece. It was an interesting summer. Below are some pictures of  the birthday party. As you can see it was a Tinkerbell theme. Blowing out her candles and listening to a story read by Tinkerbell.  It was one of our hottest days of summer but everyone had a great time. There were lots of things to do and lots of spray bottles to keep us all cool. See her dress? I got to make her birthday dress, just like I did for her mommy when she was little. Sewing, my second most relaxing thing to do. So these are some of the things that has kept me busy this summer.

baby shower invitations

We are so excited. There will be a new little one joining our extended family soon. My niece is expecting a little boy in August. We are preparing for her baby shower and I got to make thin invitations. They are into basketball so this is what I came up with. I found this cute saying for the front and then put all of the information on the back. Now we will be moving on to the rest of the decorations and planning the rest of the shower. Here is a picture of the invitation I put together. I made it on a 5.5"x4.25" blue card stock. The white squares are 2"x2", light blue squares are 2.25"x2.25". The light blue rectangle was 1"x 5" and then I printed the words out on my computer on white card stock. I punched the basketball with a 2" circle punch from orange card stock. Then I used my cuttlebug and swiss dots embossing folder. I drew on the lines and distressed the edges. Then used pop dots to add dimention. I printed all the information out on white card stock and them mounted that to the back of the card.

Another year

It was that time of year again, our annual Relay for Life. I think I did an all time high for me this year. I walked 4 1/2 miles for the American Cancer Society. We always spend the night and I think I am more sore from laying on the ground than I am from the walking. Anyway, we had a good time as always. It's funny, some of the people on our team we only see once a year, but we always pick up like it was last week. We are all there because Cancer has affected our lives one way or another. My favorite part is cheering our walkers as they pass our site and counting their laps.
When you are out there walking you have lots of time to think, especially when you are walking after dark and all the luminaries are glowing in remembrance of people who lost their fight as well as those who fought the fight and won. This is another favorite time of the day. When we celebrate all the survivors. They all get a dove to release and then they walk a lap together.
I guess what I am getting at is don't forget to tell someone how much they mean to you cause you never know. God bless all you.

I'm Back!!!

Life has finally started to settle down a little. My sister who came out from St. Louis, for our father's funeral, went home yesterday. My baby boy, graduated from high school on Thursday, May 31. And last of all, knock on wood,  but I hope things have settled down a little at work, we will see as we end our school year and go into summer.
I have been trying to get some scrapbook pages done, as I have so many wonderful pictures to use. My son's prom pictures, a couple of award ceremonies and of course Graduation day. I did an Easter one of my grand-daughter hunting eggs. I will post those pages soon. They are not as fancy as some of the ones I have seen lately, but they get the point across. Now I just have to organize the pages into different books. Right now I have just been putting them into an empty album I had laying around.
Well it's Sunday night and time to get ready for another work week. God bless you all.

Last day/ Memory book

It has been a very different sort of month and a half.  My father had been in the hospital for about a month. He would have days that looked like things were on the mend, then the next they were telling us it's over. This roller coaster went on all month. They just couldn't figure out what was wrong. When it came down to it there was no more they could do for him. So he was moved to the seventh floor of our local hospital, which is the "keep them as comfortable as possible" floor. I thank God he was only on that floor for a little more than 24 hours.

God's hand was in this day all the way. His last day was a very beautiful day. I went to work as always and then went to babysit my granddaughter. I had been thinking about him all day and deep in my heart I knew it was his last. That day before I left work I had gotten word that the training I was supposed to be at that night was canceled. My mother had been with him most of the day. My sister came and took her home for dinner. When I was done with my day I went to pick her up so we could go and be with him. We sat there reflecting and watching him struggle to breath. At about 8:30 P.M. the nurse came in to check his temperature and blood pressure. He slowly stopped breathing and we alerted the nurse who had turned her back for a moment. She took out her stethoscope and tried listening for his heart beat. She slowly looked up and shook her head at us and then said how sorry she was. My mother had come closer to him at that point and was saying her good bye when he started breathing again. The nurse told her he was just letting out his last breath. I called everyone and told them he had passed. The nurse left us alone to say our good byes and to let her know when he finally stopped breathing.

In the mean time God was working with us again. Fifteen minutes later the nurse returned and we told her he was still breathing. She checked his heart beat again and looked at us and said he was putting up a fight. God gave us two more hours with him. That night, at my sister's second job, there was more than just the usual two people scheduled. So she was able to leave and come to the hospital. My oldest daughter's husband had just come home from work. She had just put the baby down for the night and was able to come and be with us. A close family friend and my niece all arrived at the hospital. When they all showed up we told them he was waiting for them. He kept breathing another two hours. God had given us a little more time to let my father know how much we loved him. My sister and daughter leaned over the side of the bed and whispered "it's okay you can go now" and he took his last breaths.

At 10:16 P.M. he went to be with our Lord. He was surrounded by his loved ones. This was one of my fears, I didn't want him to die alone and he didn't.

The nurse came in and had to tell us again that he was gone. I really felt sorry for that poor nurse more than anyone. We all stayed a little longer to say our final good bye. I was the last to leave the room and I touch his hand and told him to "sleep well" and "I love you."

Of course later after we all thought about it, we came to the same conclusion...We had just changed the TV to "Toddlers in Tieras". My father heard that and probably said to himself, "if this is what we are watching, I'm outta here". I'm sorry we are a weird group. I guess this is our way of coping. It has been a hard week and little things will make me start crying. But God IS good and I will always remember my father's last day.

His memorial is this Friday. My daughter and I have put together a memory book of his life from some pictures I had laying around. Here are some pictures of the album below...



every time my daughter and I looked at this we would start crying.



Happy Easter, He is Risen!

Praise God for this most wonderful morning. Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, LIFE has been happening big time around here. I just wanted to stop by this morning to share a quick little card I made last night.

The bunny was from Gypsy Wanderings off of my Gypsy of course, cut at 4" from pink and chocolate brown card stock. I used a dollar stamp from Michael's, some Perfect Pearls, a piece of scrap patterned paper I have had for years and an edge punch from Recollections and a tiny piece of violet ribbon. And of course pop dots. Super simple. Hope you all have a joyous day of celebration. God Bless you all.

My Pink Stamper Blog Hop

Hey, I'm back! Here is my cards I made for the blog hop over at My Pink Stamper. I am starting to get into these blog hops. Especially now that I have figured out how to post on them, details, details. I made two cards. the rainbow one is from "Hello Kitty" and the hat one is from "Paper Doll Dress Up". The shamrocks are from "Paper Doll Dress Up". Of course I had to use stickles and gems. I also like the buttons. I love the color green so this was perfect for me. Go over to www.mypinkstamper.com and see some more really cute ideas and join the blog hop.
I don't have any Pink Stamper stamps yet. But income tax money is coming soon :). Hubby promised me a little of it, so there you go. I already know which one I want too. Here are the cards.
This is a monumental day, two posts in one day, LOL.
Time to finish getting my laundry out of the dryer, set the clocks ahead an hour and head for bed. After church we are having family time to celebrate some birthdays. We are so lucky that we all live in the same town. God Bless you all.

graduation cards

Okay I made my first submission to cricut magazine. I have more in the works. I did two variations of a Graduation gift card/money holder card. We will see. When ever I look at the magazine cards they always look so simple to make and they are, so I tried to keep mine simple this time too.

My son graduates this year and I asked him which card he liked best and he chose the one on the right, because it has some pretty embossing on it. He told me to keep them because I will be needing them. I wasn't able to get the inside pictures to line up right on the screen but both of them have a place for either a gift card or money. In the picture below the embossing looks like a kite, but it is really a graduation hat. The one on the left looks like the owl has chicken pox, LOL. Well need to get busy on the rest of my projects. My next one is a scrapbook pet page. The page is done, I just need to get my dog to sit still long enough for a  picture.That will be harder to do than the page was. Have a great weekend my friends and God bless you all.

Hump Day...

I am so glad we are on our way to the weekend. I don't think I have anything happening Saturday. Then Sunday after church we will be celebrating my husbands birthday and mine, which was yesterday. I hate when it is on a weekday and a Tuesday at that. If it hadn't been for the box of chocolates, two cards with gift cards inside and all the well wishes on facebook, it would have felt like any other Tuesday. I woke at 5:00 a.m., was at work by 6:25. Got off at 12:30 and went over to my daughters house to watch my grand-daughter. That was the best part of the day, you'll have to go to past entries to see pictures, LOL. Then was home by 6:00 and ate a frozen pizza. Oh yeah my daughter made me birthday cupcakes. Thank you Becky.
 I am hoping to have the energy to do some cards or scrapbook or do something crafty, Saturday. We went to Anaheim for the scrapbook Expo, a couple of weekends ago and I am still trying out all the goodies we got there. I have been allotted some of our tax return for the Expo when it comes here to San Diego in May. I can't wait!!! :) Well thanks for visiting. I'm hoping to have some pictures to post this weekend. God bless you and have a great week!

Babies First Year...



I was invited to a former employees baby shower today. She stated on her invitation that they were going with a jungle theme for their new little girl. Times being what they are, I decided to make her a "Babies First Year" mini album. I think it turned out so cute. I used the jungle animals from Create a Critter. I made one pocket page for each month. But instead of putting the months on the tabs, I wrote the numbers, 1-12. I found a stack of paper that was perfect for the backgrounds for each page. Then I stamped a journaling heart for the mommy to be to write a little note to her precious little girl. Each month has a place for a picture on the outside and a pull out page for more fun pictures, mementos or what ever. On some of the pages I added 2 1/2 inch jungle animal from the Create a Critter cartridge. I wasn't able to stay for the whole time so I didn't get to see her open her gifts, I hope she enjoys it. It was fun to make and didn't take me that long to make. I have made one for myself except I put the months on the tabs. I almost forgot to take a picture for February. I ended up taking a picture of our cat doing what he does best, sleeping on my extra craft table chair. But then I remembered something else that happened in February and put that in there too. I love mini albums because they don't take as much effort for me to do a page. So thats my mini album. Have a great Saturday, God bless you all.

 12 pocket pages with numbers

Scrapbook expo, Anaheim

Becky and I made our way from San Diego to Anaheim to shop till we dropped today at the Scrapbook Expo. We found some really good deals. My favorite part was when we stopped by "The Stamps of Life" booth. Stephanie and her husband are the nicest people. She is exactly the same in person as she is in her videos. She is the sweetest person, they both are. I bought too many stamp sets today. There were some really good deals. By the time I got home and took all my stuff out to look at again, my head was spinning. Oh my, where to start. Then I got tired and had to go lay down and take a nap, haha. After my nap I was able to focus again and I made a couple of cards. What a fun day. I hope everyone else had a terrific day, God bless.