Sweepstakes Winner

Hi everyone!  Thanks for your patience with the announcement of the winners for the Christmas Card Sweepstakes.  It has been a crazy holiday season and throwing in preparing for CHA Mega Conference and Trade Show made it even crazier.  I will do a wrap up of CHA as soon as I can wrap my head around it.

If  you recall from this post, we had a good old fashioned sweepstakes.  I asked for Christmas cards to be submitted for a chance to win My Sweet Petunia's new product.  At the time, no one was aware of what the prize would be.  Once CHA announced that the product was up for Hot Product for 2016, the cat was out of the bag.

I will start with the random winners.  I had 286 cards sent in.  I took each card and entered it into a spreadsheet.  Every card was assigned a number.  Using a random number generator, the winning number were 7, 141, and 249.

Teresa B.  from Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina
Patty H. from Westfield, Indiana
Jennifer T. from Salt Lake City, Utah

The second part of the Christmas Card Sweepstakes was to pick my top three favorites.  It was very hard to select because there were so many good cards.

Marie F. from Oslo, Norway

This card caught my eye because of the coloring.  The design was simple but made an impact.  She submitted several cards and it was hard too choose from her entries.  All of her cards were so amazing.  Marie, your attention to detail is extraordinary.

Teresa K. from Morehead City, North Carolina

The sparkles caught my eye.  The picture does not do it justice.  The blue in the background makes me want to go color.  She also submitted several cards

Rubeena F. from Jersey City, New Jersey

This one was postmarked December 24th.  Talk about last minute....  It was worth the wait.  This was my most favorite from all the entries.   It was so cleaver to use the sequence for the tea bag.    The watercoloring is so elegant.  The little spoon is so cute.  Rubeena, you need to email me with a list of supplies, because I want them all.  If you have a YouTube channel or blog please let me know so I can follow you.

Jaydyn's Pick
Cyndi S. from St Louis, Missouri

Jaydyn said that she loved the kitties the best.  Cyndi said that she made 50 of these with the help of her MISTI.




Thank you to all those that participated.  There was a lot of hard work that went into each and every one of these cards.  I do have to admit that there are just a few cards that I will keep and do a Periscope about later.  The rest will be mailed to the wonderful people of Splitcoast Stampers to donate for their card drives.

Winners will receive a Mini MISTI that was handmade by me.  Your Minis will be mailed to the address provided by you.  Congratulation!

Mini MISTI

It's a new year and I have a new product to share.  I actually have been sitting on this for two years. Mini MISTI was created at the same time as the original.  That's right I have had it all along.  One of my friends was surprised that I could keep the secret for so long.

It is a great companion to the original.  Mini MISTI is perfect for smaller projects.  A folded A2 card will fit in this 6 x 7 version.  The stamping area measures 6 x 4.75. Although the stamp area is much smaller, you can still get a lot of techniques out of this little beauty. The smaller footprint will be awesome on our desks.  Not to mention how stinkin' cute this is.

The one you see here is one that I made.  Let me tell you that it was even harder to make the little one.  Not sure how I survived making the originals way back in the day.

I have a short video on how this Mini MISTI works.  It's a short video and the techniques are not limited to those you see.  The video is so fast because I was limited to 2 minutes to enter into the CHA Hot Products Showcase.   The Mini was selected as a finalist in the CHA Hot Products 2016.

Mini MISTI is available for preorder at My Sweet Petunia.  Estimated shipping is March 1st.

I hope you love this version as much as the original.

Merry Christmas

This morning I was up at 5 am.   I received a message from the other side of the world that was quite disturbing.  My disappointment in the situation was growing and I decided I would not let it fester.

Instead of turning on the computer and delving into my vast emails I now receive daily, I decided to jump right into a new study about the parables of Jesus.  My mind was distracted about this situation so I did a quick prayer to stay focused.  I had to read the lesson out loud to keep my mind from straying.

The lesson was so good and provided me peace of mind.  It was about dirt.  I found my answers in dirt.  The parable was about soil and the four different types.  Shallow soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and good soil.

I feel that I worked hard to create the good dirt.  I worked hard to prepare the soil to build my business.  I cultivated my seed (idea) and watched it grow.   While the rocky soil produces a fast result because it skips the step of preparing the soil, the seed is close to the surface and grows fast.  However, because it was not prepared the sun comes along and scorches the plant. The little plant is no more.

That is where I think I have the advantage over the rocky soil.  I did not take any short cuts.  So after reading the lesson, I was jumping for joy in the clouds like these little reindeer.  Thanks for sticking with me.


Supplies used:
Mama Elephant: Reindeer Games and matching dies
Lawn Fawn:  Large Stitched Rectangle Stackables, Puffy Cloud Borders, and Spring Showers
Simon Says Stamp: Big Scripty Holiday Greeting

Prayers

I was a scrapbooker first before I was a card maker.  I LOVE to scrapbook.  I miss scrapbooking.  Haven't done it in almost 1 and a half years.  I know I will get back to it soon.  Things are starting to even out and I am getting to be on a schedule and find that I have more time for crafting.

What I love about scrapbooking is that you get to relive the moment as you scrapbook.  Pictures or an event that took minutes to occur can be relived in the hour or hours that it takes to document it.  My goal was not to get to as many pages done but to spend time with the memories made with the people in the photos.  I could spend all day on a two page layout and be perfectly content savoring the moments in the pictures.

Well, I found that I can do that with card making.   Let me back up a little first.  When I was first approached by the Women's ministry at church about doing a card ministry, I had never made a card.  

I went to the craft store and purchased some DCWV note cards.  They had a printed pattern on the front  and I would use my Cricut to make die cuts to add to the note card.  Then I started to buy stamps, blah, blah, blah and here we are today.

I got this pre made thank you card from a customer that reminded me of the DCWV note cards.  I liked the pattern so I decided to reuse it to make a card.  I got to spend time with the sweet lady that sent me the card as I re-purposed it into the card below.  Hope you enjoy.

City Christmas

I grew up in Houston in the Aldine district, not far from Bush Intercontinental airport.  Houston is a huge and I mean huge city.  When I joined the military I ended up in San Antonio and that is also a huge city.  So until I was 22 years old, that is all I knew.

Now we live in a village.  No, literally.  The sign says, "Welcome to the village of Sherrard".  Population 600.  No stop lights, no traffic.  I love where we live but there is nothing to do here unless you golf or fish.  I shouldn't say nothing to do.  If you are a crafter, there is plenty to do here.

So when I go visit my mom in Houston, I feel swallowed up by the immensity of the city.  However, there is much to do and so many friends and family to get caught up with.  There is so much good Mexican food to eat, especially my mom's.

So here is my Houston Christmas card.  I hope you enjoy the video .

Stamps Used:
Cozy Christmas 
Calling All Heroes
Kitchen Sink Owl & Autumn Moon 

Find Joy in Giving

Until last April, I worked part time as an MRI/ X-ray tech.  I was good at patient care.  Most of my patients were in pain or  had fear of the MRI.  Person to person interaction is much easier for me because I can tell from their facial expressions what is really going on.

The majority of the time, people were annoyed by the time I took care of them. Long waits to see the doctor for 2 minutes, then wait again for their x-rays.  The room is cold and the table is hard and then I have to position them in ways that make their pain surface more.

I could tell who was really hurt or who was trying to get away with fraud of some kind.   There are other things that health care workers see day in and day out that would make you doubt the morals of our society.   That is how this doubter was born.

I have a really good friend that does her best to keep me accountable on all things customer service related.  She has got a tough job and I am blessed that she is sooooooo patient.  With that I have to confess that I have a problem with being told what to do.  My inner child comes out and says, "You can't make me!"

Our last conversation, which I call reality checks, she told me that I need to give people the benefit of the doubt.  After 23 years in the health care industry, doubt is hard to let go.    So, needless to say, I find it difficult to follow her advice.  All she was hearing from me was, "But, but..."  She was sooooooo patient.  I am sure if I was in the same room with her she would have smacked me in the back of the head.

I promised her that I would do better at GIVING the benefit of the doubt.   I doubted that I was going to fulfill my promise.   Then God sent me validation in what she was saying.  He definitely has a sense of humor when He tries to humble us.   I was getting ready to post my next card when I realized what the sentiment on my card said.  Now keep in mind, I made this card 3-4 weeks ago.

God definitely has great timing.

Snow Globe Christmas Ornament

My Sweet Little Petunia and I went shopping today for a new Christmas tree.  I have tried for the last 3 years to buy a tree after Christmas and have been unsuccessful.  So this year I thought I would try early.

I am sure that the deals are better after Christmas, but I have already spent time and gas on looking for my new tree.  I thought that it would be crazy out there.  Surprisingly, it was not.

We wanted to get a pre-lit tree so that it would be easier to assemble.  I also wanted a fancy one that could switch between white lights and colored.  We finally came across two trees that would qualify.  From the two, I let Little Petunia pick.  Of course she has to pick the one that only had the floor model left.  So we got 20% off the tree because it was on sale and an additional $50 off for the floor model.

Now we have a new tree to hang this cute little ornament on.  It was hard to come up with something original because you can only put so much in the shaker globe.  I had not seen anyone do a see through snow globe.

Hope you like it and that you remember the reason for the season.