Merry Christmas and a Free Vintage Christmas Image

Well here we are, Christmas is almost upon us. Are you ready? I'm sure a lot of you are saying YUP! Plus a lot are owning up to having the presents all wrapped and either under the tree or ready to be put there. I hate you! lol

By now, you can probably guess that I'm not ready. Today is going to be one very busy day, I still have some key people that I need to shop for and boy do I hate having to fight the masses. But the ole chin is up, the shoulder pads are on and I'm ready to head off for my adventure. Pray for me.... lol

Have a very Merry Christmas and for those that need a last minute card.... here's a sweet cut out that I used to create my cards for the grandkids. I only used two dimensions because I was mailing them. But with the extra Santa, you could add a third dimension and bring him out even more. I used red and green card stock and just nestled Santa in front of the fireplace. I was in such a rush to get them mailed that I forgot to take a picture of it... figures right... lol Other than the fussy cutting which took about 10 minutes the card went together very quickly and I loved the end result. So here you go.... a quick last minute card that I'm sure will delight the receiver. Make sure you click on the image before you save it.




Important! This image will only be available for a short time, so do your save right now. Oh, it's set up to print on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of card stock.

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas with oodles of love and family and the best food around!

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Peggy

New Cut Outs Announcement and Free Vintage Santa Image

Hi Everyone,
I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and that you're at least on the way to Christmas. Do you have your tree up yet? We don't, that's an activity that we like to complete on Thanksgiving weekend, but all of our decorations are at our house so they have to be picked up and brought out to DMIL's. That's happening now, so maybe tomorrow we'll be able to complete the tree.

It's been so busy around here the last couple of weeks and I have tons to tell and share. Last weekend, we decided we would try and take care of some of the leaves around here. And you know kids and leaves, well, I just can't resist sharing my Where's Kaiden photo. lol



The Internet connection at our house has been totally unstable for a month or so. Then we found out they were upgrading all the equipment and that new modems had to be installed in order to be compatible. No wonder, I had a devil of a time keeping the ftp and web server up. LOL.... So anyway, since we're at DMIL's it didn't really make any sense to keep the connection up at home. So instead, I got busy and did my research and wound up putting both of them up on the net. It costs me a little bit to rent the disk space and pay for the hosting, but honestly, it's not as much as a broadband internet connection and they have the worry of keeping the hardware up and running. I think that's well worth the few bucks a month that they're charging me. A Christmas present to myself... lol So the web site is totally updated and available to the world. YAHOO!

It's been a busy crafting week. Jordan and I made stars from paper rolls last weekend. We had a great time and really enjoyed spending the quality time together. She is my little crafting buddy and I think she enjoys the time as much as grammy does. lol I was really bummed to find out the batteries were dead in my camera so I don't have any pictures to share, but she was totally into it and as serious as could be while she was working on her stars. Jordan took her very best one home to put on her tree and I didn't get a pic of it, but here's one she decorated with a candy cane.



Thanks so much for the idea DeeDee . I had the rolls all cut and glued together so all we had to do was paint and decorate to heart's content. Jordan had a blast!

I'm really kind of bummed because I like to have new cut outs and CD's for the Christmas season, this year has been such a downer that I really haven't accomplished a whole heck of a lot. But this week, I focused on creating a couple of new cut outs that are available in the stores. Christmas Collection #4 and #5 are from scrapbooks that haven't been published on a CD yet. What do you think?






I'm really loving the Santa's. In fact, I stayed up really late a couple of nights just to try my hand at a couple of Christmas cards - see I told you I was in the crafting mood lol.






Finally, I have a cutie Santa image to share, now you know how much I love Santa right! Anyway, I included him with his sentiment and without. Make sure you click on him before you do the save.




Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

Free Vintage Turkey Image and Luminary Project

Hi Everyone!

How have you all been? Are you busy creating or just wishing you had the time to spend on creating? It seems like this time of year the bug grabs a hold of me and I really feel the need! The weather here has been cloudy and rainy and chilly so its perfect for just staying in and keeping cozy warm.

Anyhow, as I was meandering around different blogs I ran across a really cute idea and tut on making luminaries from recycled boxes - sure wish I'd save the link but hind site is always better than foresight lol.

You know the reuse/recycle kind of stuff that my dear friend DeeDee does. She's always so cleaver! I used a brownie box and a mac and cheese box. You basically, very carefully, take the box apart so you can turn it inside out which gives you the blank chip board to work with. The tut showed how to take a piece of paper that is the correct size for the face of the box. Fold it in fourths and then cut a design for the face of the box, kind of like making the paper snowflakes. Trace the pattern on the box and cut it out using an Exacto knife or scissors.

It would probably be wise to have a basic idea of what image you're going to use for the luminary so that the cut out will be big enough to properly display the image. Now you need to think of how you're going to light it up. Of course real candles are a nono, but the little LED lights that are everywhere would work wonderful. I elected to use little battery operated tea lights. I liked the way they flicker and give the feel of a real candle. Once, you decide how you're going to provide the light, cut a hole in the back of the box that will be big enough to allow the lighting source to be put in the box but not so big that it will let a lot of the light escape.

Now it's ready to be decorated. I choose to use acrylic paints but inks, charcoal or markers could be used to dress up the box. Once decorated, it's time to put the box back together. I found this to be the hardest part because the edges kept pulling themselves apart. I was using tacky glue and a glue gun would probably have been better but I didn't have mine so tacky it was. After about the third try, I decided to try and hold it together with rubber bands and put a weight in the box to help hold down the edges. This worked wonderfully and the edges finally sealed.

Oh one other thing, because of the size of the boxes I used, I needed 3 of the little tea lights in the box in order to have enough light shining through. All in all, it was a fun project and I intend to make some with a Christmas theme, It's easy enough that the grandkids can make some also. But I think I'm going to try something a little bit different. Maybe I'll be able to try it and let you know the outcome with my next post.

Now don't laugh... lol Here's my experimental luminaries...



Ok, enough of that. Is it too late for another Thanksgiving image. I know I'm cutting it close for my Military families, but maybe you can still use it for this year. This is another card from my Provencher collection. It was originally a Christmas card, but I associate Turkey's more with Thanksgiving than Christmas. Our traditional Christmas dinner is Lasagna - so much easier than a turkey and it can be made ahead of time :)

So enjoy, and make sure you click on them before you save them.






One last thing, I'm looking for a MAC follower that would like to help me out. I'm trying a new download process for my CD's and I need a Mac person to try it out and help me create documentation on the process. If you're interested let me know via a comment or an email. So if you're a Mac user and savvy with your computer and would like a free CD be sure and contact me.


Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

The Pumpkin Patch and Free Vintage Military Thanksgiving Image

Hi Everybody!

The weekend is here! Hip Hip Horrah! Not that weekends make a lot of difference to us, but I know there are a lot of you out there that really enjoy them because you don't have to work and boy do I remember those days! lol

So do you have any big plans for the weekend? There's not much planned here. I think it will be a lazy weekend, next week should prove to be quite full so we kind of want to save our energy.

Last weekend, we decided we'd attend a Pumpkin festival in a little town about an hour away from here. Arthur, Illinois is an Amish community. As we pass by their neat little houses, I stare with envy at their gardens. Each one of them was lush and beautiful even at this time of year. I've always wanted to be a good gardener, but never succeeded at it. I think I get inpatient and bored with it. I've always been in a fast paced world and being patient and watching a plant grow just doesn't work for me. So, I guess I'll continue to stare in disbelief and wonderment at their gardens.

The kids got a huge kick out of seeing the horse and buggies traveling down the highway. It was quite unusual for them and very interesting. I thought about taking a picture of one of the buggies but I've heard the Amish don't like that. I can understand their point of view. They're not an oddity just a people with a different type of life style. It would be kind of like someone taking pictures of me or you because we're wearing say a tie-died tee-shirt. I think I would be irrated after awhile.

The day was gorgeous although the wind did pick up in the afternoon and made it just a little bit chilly. Everyone had a good time, when we left, our little wagon was full of pumpkins and our belly's full of wonderful food.

My DH, DMIL and me - notice our little wagon is empty for now!
We had plenty of picture opportunities throughout the day. This is an ark filled with two of every kind of squash and pumpkin that is grown at the pumpkin patch.
DMIL with her cheesy grin that I so love. lol

Tara(my daughter) and DMIL in the paw paw van.

We had such a good time, that we're going to add this to our list of "Fall Must Do's" next year.

Last week, I added a couple of new Thanksgiving Cut Outs. Have you seen them? I think they turned out super cute! You can find them in the ebay shop here and the Etsy shop here . One of these days in the very near future, I'm going to have to spend an afternoon at home so I can get the web shop all updated with the new items... lol It's been really hard to gather enough free time together in order to spend the time at our house doing this.







Thanksgiving is coming up quick, especially for Military families whose soldiers are overseas. So here's a Thanksgiving card specially for them. Make sure you click on the image before you save it.




Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

Free Vintage Halloween Image and Blogging Sale

Hi Everyone,

Several new followers have joined recently and I always appreciate new followers. :)
So welcome and I hope that you visit often.

Taking care of business first:

Don't forget about the CD sale for my blogging friends, buy the two new volumes, Christmas Vol 14 and Collection of Cuties Vol 2, and get a free CD of your choice. Just include which CD you'd like to receive for free in the Paypal message area or email me by clicking here. You can find the volumes here for ebay or on Etsy here and here . The special sale will end on October 15th at midnight CST.

Whew, now with that finished....

How's your week going? Great, I hope. Our weather is absolutely gorgeous, sunny and in the 70's - absolutely perfect!

I love this time of year, the trees are just starting to change, all the craft, flea market and fall festivals are going on, caramel apples and cider are everywhere yum! It's my favorite time of year.

Halloween is just around the corner. I love seeing all the kids dressed up and trick or treating - what fun! If you've been following my blog for a while you know that I always lament on the small number of Halloween cards that I have - so few (sigh) not even enough to create a cut out for you. My whole collection of Halloween cards is up to 3. I keep thinking that one of these days I'll hit pay dirt! lol Until then, I'll share my little collection with you. Make sure you click on the free image before you save it.



You can find the other two Halloween images by clicking here and here.


Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

Collection of Cuties Vol 2 and Christmas Vol 14 New Releases

Hi Everyone,
I'm supposed to be paying the bills but guess I'm blogging instead.. lol

Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know that I was finally able to complete a couple of new CD's. Are you surprised? I've been working on them forever it seems. With Dad being so ill, there wasn't a lot of time to finish them up. But now, they're all done and believe it or not they're even posted on Etsy and ebay.

So what are they? Well, Christmas Vol 14 has tons of great images. It has a bit more Santa and Snowmen images than what's usually on one of my Christmas CD's but it has a good mix of other Christmas images as well. I'm particularly fond of the Cowboy Santa, I think he is so unusual, what do you think?




And I love this Snowman Santa. How could you make a better image than using both of my loves! lol





If you'd like to see a few more images on this CD you can visit my Photobucket account by clicking here or if you'd like to see all of them you can watch the video by clicking here . It's about a 5 minute video, so get that cup of coffee or glass of wine and enjoy. lol

I'm really excited about the second CD. It's the Collection of Cuties Volume 2. I've really been working on this for a really long time. The Cuties collections are comprised of images that I really, really love. I take extra care and time to try and make the images super perfect and blemish free for you. It's really hard for me to pick just a couple of images to highlight but I think my favorites are in the Kids folder, for example this one...





and this one





If you'd like to see a few more images on this CD you can visit my Photobucket account by clicking here or if you'd like to see all of them you can watch the video by clicking here . It's about a 7 minute video, so if you need a refill on that coffee or wine now's the time. lol

I'm so excited about releasing these two CD's that I'd love to thank all my wonderful blogging friends that have stuck around through this rough period in my life. So what I'd like to do is offer a special sale for you. If you buy both of the new CD's I'd like to give you a free CD of your choice. Just include the name of the free CD in your Paypal message area or send me an email containing the name of the CD. Now remember don't purchase the free CD just include the name in the Paypal message area. This offer is good until midnight October 15th, 2011 so hurry and don't procrastinate too long. :)

Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

Trevor's Home and Free Thanksgiving Vintage Image

Hi Everyone!

I'd like to thank everyone for the sweet comments left on the tribute to Dad. You'll never know how much your comments lifted out spirits and helped us through a very tough time. Thank you so much!

Are you getting into the fall mode? I'm having a really hard time with it because it seems like summer hasn't even shown its head here. I guess that's because we were so busy that we really didn't get to participate in the normal summer activities. Cookouts and swimming and short trips and enjoying the grandkids during their summer break was almost totally absent from our schedule. :(

But a few good things did occur. :) We were able to squeeze in some time with my family. We were successful in getting DMIL out of the nursing home and the grandkids did get to spend the night a couple of times. As we get our schedule squared away and the estate moving along and the guardianship for DMIL finished, things should come back to somewhat normal.

My dear sweet Trevor is home on leave from Afghanistan for three whole weeks. And guess what? I haven't fixed him a good ole mom's home cooked meal yet and I asked him what he would like. Well you know what he said..... a turkey with all the fixin's. He said he won't be home for Thanksgiving and he would really like to have it early. So tomorrow night, we're having Thanksgiving. What a hoot! Have you ever tried to find a huge wompin turkey in September? Well, I think you can kind of forget it! I found 2 - 10 pounder's which are going to have to do. Guess that's pretty good... double the drumsticks.. lol But anyway, Turkey and dressing, baked beans, mashed taters and cranberries and apple salad with pumpkin pie and devil's food cake with homemade butter cream icing are all on the menu. Are you getting hungry yet? lol Anyway, I'll be very busy tomorrow with all the cooking. Thankfully it's cool outside so I won't die from over heating! lol

So in the spirit of our early Thanksgiving dinner, I thought I'd share a Thanksgiving image with you. This image is from the Provencher album. I think I've talked about it before. It's the album that was supposed to have Halloween images in it and all it had was one. But it did make up for that with tons of military images that I do intend to share with you in the near future. But for now, here's one of the cutest Thanksgiving images that I've seen. I hope you enjoy it and as always make sure you click on it before you save it.





Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

A Tribute to Everett D. Daily

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I've been away for so long.My dear sweet father-in-law passed last Wednesday at 12:50 pm. I feel compelled to write a tribute to him but must confess that I'm really having a hard time doing that. What can I say about this dear sweet man to help you understand how special he was?

He was a big burly man, strong as an ox with a size 20 ring finger and wearing EEEEE width shoes. I think I've told the story before about how he used to get his beers paid for by betting that he could bend a quarter with his fingers.. a true story and Dad won lots and lots of beers on this bet. But he was gentle of heart and specially caring for the ones he loved.

Although he could never bring himself to come out and tell you that he loved you, he was very free with his gestures of love. I witnessed him holding Mom's hand so gently, like he was afraid he'd break it. I've seen him cup his son's face in those huge hands when both of them were suffering from the physical as well as emotional pain of the situation. I saw him shed tears of sorrow over the rift between him and his daughters. And I'll never forget the pats on the head, and squeezes of the hand and the phone call checks when I'd finally leave late at night and head home to take care of our animals and house.

For the last 3 weeks of his life, I stayed 24/7 at Dad's house to help my hubby take care of him and mom. I saw the glint in eyes fade away, I saw how the cancer and his daughters robbed his body and his spirit away from him, I saw how his main concern was mom and that she would be taken care of. I saw him so painfully and slowly give up and decide that it was too hard to continue.

I was fortunate to be with him when he passed. I rubbed his head and gave him a kiss and a squeeze of the hand and his nurse rubbed his head and he ended his journey. So peaceful, so quite, just like the dear sweet man that he was.

We love you and miss you terribly Dad! Thank you so much for being there, for teaching us those ever important life lessons, for supporting everything that we did, for loving us and most importantly for just being our dad and a grandfather to our children and a Greatpapa to Jordan and Kaiden. We all love you and miss you terribly.


















Have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

Craft Us Crazy Challenge and Free Vintage Christmas Image

Hi Everyone!

How's your summer going? It's speeding by from my point of view. We have been so busy that it doesn't seem that we've had the time to enjoy it. DFI is doing better, he is getting a little stronger everyday. He felt well enough that we were able to take him to 2 different firework displays over the holiday. He really seemed to enjoy them. My camera has a fireworks setting on it so I thought I'd take some pics to share with Trevor. I don't think I took them correctly because of the way they look, but I really like them anyway... lol I'm not sure how they celebrated the 4th in Afghanistan but I bet they didn't have fireworks.





Here's DFI, all bundled up against the night air, enjoying the fireworks.



It brought us great joy to be able to help him participate just a little in the festivities.

DMI is still in the re-hab center. She's supposed to be finished with her antibiotic on the 11th and we're sure hoping she'll be able to come home. DFI is anxiously awaiting her return. After 62 years, it is really hard for him to be separated from her and we can't wait for them to be together again.

We have 2 birthdays to celebrate during the 4th's festivities. Trevor's, on the 2nd and my hubby's on the 4th. We really missed celebrating Trev's Birthday but we thought about him a lot. For Larry's, we had a mini pool party with a great cookout and of course the traditional fireworks display as a conclusion to the day. We don't usually do cake in the living room but we wanted DFI to be able to sing him Happy Birthday so we took the festivities to him so he could participate. DFIL is not in this pic but he's sitting in a chair to the right and isn't Jordan just the sweetest - all engrossed in PaPa's birthday. Jordan made and decorated PaPa's cake for him. She did a great job! All in all, it was a good day and everyone had a great time.



Starting on July 7th, PeggyLovesVintage is sponsoring a contest over at Craft Us Crazy. You can check it out by clicking here. Maybe you'll win the 5 Cut Outs but you have to enter to have a chance!

My wonderful Sis has agreed to be a guest designer for the challenge so be sure and visit her blog to see what she has created. You can visit her blog by clicking
here .

The challenge is celebrating Christmas in July. I had intended to have a new Christmas CD all ready to announce with the contest but alas it's not quite ready. Hopefully it will released soon so keep checking back because I'll announce its availability here. So instead, I thought I'd share just one of the new images from the new Christmas Vol 14 CD.

Aren't these just the cutest snowmen? Make sure you click on the image before saving it.



Take care now and have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy