Leslie Hanna, a.k.a. Crooked Stamper

On Christmas Day, Leslie Hanna of the Crooked Stamper blog passed away. This is a huge loss for the stamping community. Leslie was active on so many challenges (she ran Shopping Our Stash and Crooked Stamper Sketch Challenge, and played along regularly with Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, et al.) and attended numerous stamp gatherings. Lots of people knew her in real life, on Twitter, and online.

I will miss my friend. We met regularly for lunch at our favorite local place, and had conversations that lasted hours. She recently invited me to attend a zentangle class with her at a local stamp store. Her passing caught us all by surprise. She and I had already made plans to meet up after my boys were back in school next week.

I want to share the Christmas card she sent me this year, and what she wrote inside.

Card by Leslie Hanna

Such lovely details and use of color! That door nob is perfect.

Leslie was generous, funny, and talented. She would hate all the fuss and attention she's getting right now. But the last act of love we can give to someone is to grieve their passing. There's a whole lot of love going out right now, a lot of people whose lives Leslie touched. Our hearts go out to her brother and two sons whose loss is so much greater than mine.

Goodbye, my friend. We'll do lunch again one day, and have plenty to talk about.

Merry Christmas to All

I'm sitting in the dining room at my sister-in-law's home in Omaha, Nebraska, looking out on a winter wonderland of beautiful snow and feeling so very grateful as we celebrate the coming of our Emmanuel, God with Us. Let the spirit of this season of love and hope be more powerful than the spirit of fear and hate, and let each one of us be a part of that good work to bring a kingdom of light and peace to the whole world.

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Merry Christmas to All!

Quilt Inspiration

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The other day, I stole a little time from adulting to make a card inspired by this quilt I found on Pinterest. Of course.

As you can see, my stamping isn't quite as precise as you KNOW I want it to be, but the warm, fun effect of all these shades of red and orange makes me happy anyway. Stamping diamonds perfectly right turns out to be a lot harder than stamping squares.

Just sayin'.

Anyway, while we're on the subject of quilts, here's a picture of my mom's birthday gift to me last year, which is finally hanging on the wall where it belongs.

Please note that my mother does all quilting by hand. Every last stitch, from piecing to quilting to final binding is hand stitched with love. Because she's the boss. If you look at an enlarged version of the picture, you'll see where I get my love of precision from. You'll also note the holiday-themed book fabric of the border on the quilt, which she chose for me because she knows me so very well!

A wee update for any who are interested. My jury duty was cancelled for the second time in two months (YAY!), and I need a root canal in a molar (BOO!). I reacted badly to the painkiller the dentist prescribed (BOO!) but recovered quickly enough to serve as liturgist during worship this morning (YAY!). Hope to get an appointment with an endodontist this week but need someone to drive me there and back (BOO!), and George can take the day off whenever I need so he can take care of his honey-bunny (YAY!).

Life: it is what it is. Some parts are good, some parts are bad, and gratitude poured over it all makes it manageable.

Merry Christmas!

Supplies
stamps: Clearly Besotted Geometric Patterns
ink: various dye inks
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, gridded acrylic block

Sympathy

Our Stephen Ministry group signed sympathy cards for the family of our dear friend Karen at last night's meeting. This is what I made for the group.

The basic design didn't come easily, although it is extremely simple and easy to duplicate. Sometimes, the simplest designs take forever to "discover"--and then you slap your forehead and exclaim, "Why was that so hard!?!?"

The silver pen outline of the raised panel really makes these pretty.

This sentiment, from Papertrey's Tucked In: Sympathy set, goes perfectly with the exterior sentiment from Beautiful Butterflies, doesn't it? Love that.

I'm trying to stamp the backs of my cards now and will initial under this pretty stamp from Papertrey's Birds of a Feather.

I hope you are all enjoying preparations for the holidays. The shopping side of things has me more excited this year than in previous years. I've become a very bad shopper over the years (this Scrooge gave mostly gift cards last year), but by letting go of a lot of uptight tendencies and habits of thought, and focusing on looking for cool gifts for people I love, it's a lot more fun. Christmas cards are coming along as well.

To my Jewish readers, Happy Hanukkah!

Blessings of the season to all.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: various
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, silver metallic marker

Adulting

This.

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Yep. I'm all over this.

Every year, I try to make Christmas-themed, single-panel thank-you note cards for me and the boys. The first batch of them looks like this:

I added the little berry stamp to the envelope return-address corner just for fun.

What are you working on right now? Please share so I can live vicariously through you. Crafting time is still so limited right now!!!!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Hero Arts
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: envelopes