Is there anything better than card making???!!!!

Seriously. Years ago, I had some special little friends. Babies and toddlers, and I wanted to give them something special for Christmas. I found some plastic sleeves, bought rings from the hardware store, and made tiny little scrapbooks, using clip art, stickers from the Hallmark section of the Walgreens, and photographs I had taken of my little sweeties. As I look back, they were pretty crude, but I know that the kidlets got a kick out of having books about themselves. A few months later, a friend told me of a new phenomenon that was beginning to take hold--scrapbooking. I hit Michaels, and lo and behold it had to be like walking into heaven.

I was immediately hooked. Just so you know how long ago that was, there were no 12x12 papers...only 8 1/2x11. I made myself a couple of scrapbooks, and was quite proud of the results. These were the days of   fancy edged scissors, and 'Magic Matter' and 'Coluzzles' as the epitome of tools. Then the concept exploded across the country, and yeehaw, we got a scrapbook store in town. (It's closed now.) The whole industry changed and became so much more fun. Amazing papers, embellishments, techniques, die cutting machines, and so much more appeared on the markets. I was witnessing the paper crafting evolution (gee!, doesn't that sound grandiose?!!) (Insert huge belly laugh here!). And I seriously loved scrapbooking. I got my sister hooked. I was happy.

Then. Ah, then. My dear friend Sandy was making beautiful cards at our monthly Scrap and Stamp events, and she introduced me to Stampin' Up. Still, I was a scrapbooker, not a card maker!! I bought a few SU products, mostly to be polite. (At that time she was not a demonstrator) Then around Valentine's Day about 5 or 6 years ago, DH and I were grocery shopping. He picked up a few Valentines for SOME (and that's the important word here) of the grandchildren. And they cost $21!!!!!!!! Wha....???? Why were we spending that much money on cards and not even getting cards for everyone...how much more was this holiday going to cost us?? I started adding up the numbers of children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers...and all the cards we sent during the course of a year and decided then and there that enough was enough. I haven't bought one card since then. And I'm even more hooked on card making than I ever was on scrapbooking.  And we're talking HUGE addiction to scrapping. I'm in trouble. But in a good way. DH says it keeps me off the streets! Lol.

But why this discourse on scrapbooking? Am I giving up cardmaking?? NEVER!!  No, (shorter story here...) one of our sons and his family went to DisneyWorld for a vacation. He handed me a flashdrive with over 600 photos on it, and I opened my trap and said, "I'll make the kids a Disney scrapbook as part of their Christmas present." What the heck was I thinking?!! I'm so out of practice. And that's what I've been doing since Saturday. Guess how many pages I've gotten finished? Six. Six pages. Call me Rusty from now on... But I'll get the whole book finished by December. And I might even post a few pages. But not now. I put it all away. The last page I finished is crap, and I won't even look at for awhile. It's going to be ripped apart and remade. But not now. I needed to feed my other addiction. The one I've come to love above all other addictions. I could give up chocolate, but not cardmaking. And so that's what I did this morning. I made a card. Ah....it felt really wonderful to do that. I'm now a happy camper. Is there anything better than cardmaking?! I don't think so.

Tired of reading this post? Well, I promise to stop babbling and get to business right now. I don't play often over at Just Us Girls, but fell in love with the current challenge. You've got to see this:

Don't those colors just make you *sigh*?! Just had to play! And....I bought a set of Lawn Fawn stamps the last time I fed my shopping addiction at Archivers, so decided to play the Lawnscaping Challenge as well. 

And here is what I made:

It's another card for Marilyn. I really wanted the sentiment to stand out, so I left it uncolored. The card base is Bazzill, the rest of the papers are scraps. Lawn Fawn stamps, and 3 squeekquins which I colored on the backs with Sharpies. I colored the bird with Copics and both stamped images are popped up. And there you have it. Happy dances everyone.