Thankful Thursday with A Jillian Vance Design!

Hello my Sweet Friends,

Today I have a project that I have been working on for a wedding for a friend of mine.  She placed an order for 150 leaves for her "Wishing Tree" to be put up at their wedding so this is post one of two.  Post two (after Oct. 1st) will be of the entire project, including the tree and all.

First of all, let's focus on the thank you card I made for the order she (they) placed.  This is featured today over at A Jillian Vance Design Design Team (AJVD) blog.  I'm bummed that I haven't seen more of you over there!  Please head over and participate in our September Blast challenge.  It's super easy.  Now onto the card...

 This is my easel card.  The "E" stands for their combined last name.  For this project I used the stamp sets "Autumn Leaves" and "Swirly Monograms" available to purchase here.  The leaves on the upper part of the card are stamped, and the "E" is also stamped with embossing ink, then embossed with some gold powder.  I just love the way it turned out!

 For the big leaf, I used one of the leaves that I created for the "wishing tree".  I thought it would be nice for them to have this card that ties in with all the leaves that people are going to write wishes or blessings on.  (see completed project below).  I also used a MS punch/stamp set for the leaves on the base.  You ink your paper, then punch 'em out. Very fun set.  I then used some flowers I had from my Memory ~ Works store.  If you are interested in purchasing them, contact me.  They are fall colored and glittery.  I used a Bo Bunny brad for the centers of the flowers.  My paper is Bazzil cardstock and the green paper is from the Cloud 9 Designs - Seasonal 12x12 pack.  I just love that pack and have been using it for all of my holiday creations lately!  The small leaves were cut from that pack as well.  Of course I inked my edges, using Stampin' Up boxed set of fall colors and also one of my Colorbox Cat's Eye pads, which you can also purchase from me! :0)

 I am soooo happy with this "E".  I wanted it to look elegant and it  does!  These are two separate stamps from the Swirly Monograms set from AJVD.  So loving that set!

 This is a closeup of the stamped border leaves.  Don't they look awesome on this paper?  It looks like they are a part of it and not actually stamped on there, which I love!  They are from the Autumn Harvest set from AJVD.  

So, there you have the Thank You card portion of this project.  Below are the actual 150 leaves, plus a basket I loaned them for the wedding and the card in the center.  My sweet Hubs stayed up and helped me in the middle of the night to get these all done in time.  (He put the ribbons on). :0)  It's not everyday a DH will actually sit side by side and craft with his wife!  I'm a lucky gal. :0)

 And here you have it... 150 leaves with ribbons to hang from a "tree"!!! I will post pics of the tree after the wedding.  I'm so lucky, I actually get to be the one asking people to put their blessings on the leaves and I get to explain that I made them!  Great for marketing, eh?  My sweet friend actually asked me to do that and to get pictures because she wants me to get some more jobs off of this.  Wish me luck!

 We inked all  the edges of each and every leaf before punching the holes and adding either 10" or 12" of ribbon.  We wanted to vary the length so they would hang from the tree a little more naturally.

 There were actually about 5 different colors of leaves used to match their Autumn wedding colors.

Ta Da!!!  Finished project with a thank you on top. :0)

Thanks everyone for coming by to check out my creations for today.  Please come back soon as I will have a new post by Monday at the very latest.  Hoping to have some more for you tomorrow to be honest, but you know how that goes... all depends on my illness and if I'm productive or not.  I have been sleeping for days on and off.  Today was the first day I actually got to make a card and it will be up for next week's AJVD projects so stay tuned!

XO ~ Amy Jo

Catching Up - Christmas Part One

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, for those who celebrate.  I had one of the nicest Christmas' ever!  I am soooooo lucky and spoiled rotten!  My husband is just the best, but we'll get into that later... We ended up staying home, not travelling for the first time EVER for the holidays and it was just lovely!  Woke up when we wanted, opened presents when we wanted, played some games and then my BFF came over for dinner and some more games and presents! 

Now, on to the good stuff... So, for Christmas, as you all know, my hubby bought us wedding rings as an early gift.  I have a better picture to post now so here they are...

Jesse's Ring

My Ring

Aren't they just gorgeous?  I'm so happy!  Well, as if that wasn't enough, there was a particular present I've wanted for a while now and have been pestering my hubby to death about it.  Surprise!  I actually got it for Christmas even though it cost a small fortune.  Like I said, very spoiled and the best husband EVER!  Wondering what it is or do you know me well enough to know what it would be? ;)  No further delay, here it is...

For those of you who don't know what this is or have been living in a hole (jk - lol), it's a Cricut Imagine, the newest, greatest, coolest machine for crafters EVER invented!  Top of the line, prints, cuts, does everything!  It came with the Imagine More cartridge and all my other Cricut Expression cartridges will work on here too!  I am just the happiest gal alive!  Now, if only I felt well enough to get out of bed to go play with it, that would be even better, but to be honest, just staring at it from my bedroom makes me happy! LOL

Besides all that I got some awesome clothes, stuff from Pampered Chef, an Amazon gift card, and my BFF actually went out shopping on her own for scrapbooking stuff for me (she's not a scrapper).  I am so amazed with what she ended up getting me!  She has awesome taste.  I'll post a picture when I have a chance.  She got me some paper and stamps and jewelry and a book that I've been wanting.  That girl knows me so well, I didn't tell her this was a book I wanted, but it was actually on my order list for Book of the Month club!  It's Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner, one of my favorite authors.  I've loved everything she's ever written!  I made an awesome haul this year, don't cha think?  What a great Christmas!  It's not even close to being over for us though.  I still have presents to make, wrap and send to other family members and friends, and we're still receiving gifts from family and friends!  Yay, I love it when Christmas lasts longer than just the day.  :0)

I have a lot more to share with you guys, but my arms are just hurting so badly right now, that I have to stop.  I will be posting a step by step of what I made for my hubby and some more pics and things either tonight or tomorrow so please check back!

Love you all and thanks for following me!
XO ~ Amy Jo

New Plan from the Doc and my Surprise Present!

Hi Wonderful Friends,

Well, I went to the Dr. on Thursday and I've been pretty much on so  many pain meds that I can't even see straight!  Turns out my doctor is not only a pain management specialist, but also a doctor of osteopathy, and he can do trigger point injections!!!  For me, that's like three docs in one!  Thing is, he gave me a chiropractic adjustment, which I haven't had done in a long time and it threw me into a really deep flare.  For those of you who don't know what a flare is, with Fibromyalgia it is where certain things trigger your body into major pain mode and for me, flares generally last a week or so.  My back and neck feel great, but for some reason my shoulders (which is where I have most of my troubles) really acted up (arms and hands too).  I always have pain there, but this is really something!  It will be good in the long run though.  My body was completely out of alignment and had been locked up that way for so long that my shoulders were starting to curl inward and that's just not good!

Also, while I was there we decided to try a different way of managing the pain for now.  We decided to get rid of the Vicodin and try Opana IR (immediate release).  Now, for those of you wanting to try this, most doctors have never even heard of Opana.  It's twice as strong as Oxycontin and a sister drug to Morphine, but still you can function.  At least on the Opana ER (extended release) you can.  So now I take the IR 4 x a day, along with my Opana ER, Lorazepam, Naproxen Sodium, and Citalopram.  I have to tell you though that I have really good insurance, thank goodness.  The Opana ER would be $600 a month and the Opana IR would be $1000 a month!!!  I cannot believe that!  I have taken my first two pills and so far it seems to work a little better than the Vicodin was, but the copay on Vicodin was much cheaper so we'll see.  If it doesn't do too much, my doc said it's a good indicator that Opana is no longer working for me and my next steps might be to do a complete detox (with monitoring and a drug to help me wean given in office either IV or injection).  Then we would start with a clean slate and start over with meds, but I'm pretty darn scared of the detox and I can't imagine being off pain meds for 2 to 3 months!!!  I can't even be off for a minute at the moment, so that seems like a huge step, but at least it's an option.  That is what I went in for, to see what my options were.  If you're wondering why I'm writing all this, I just want everyone who has this to understand some of the options out there for pain management.  It was hard to even find a specialist who understands Fibromyalgia and will listen to my needs.  I got really lucky, but it took a really long time to find him!

On a totally different note (fun stuff now), my husband surprised me with a present last night!  We have been common law married for almost two years now and we don't (didn't :0)) have rings.  I opened my present last night and inside was a BEAUTIFUL diamond ring with pink sapphires!  Even sized down to a 3 1/2, which is still a little big on me, but I'm not takin' it off! LOL  He also had another box with a ring in it for him to wear!  I'm so stoked, now hopefully people will actually believe that we are really married even though we did not have a wedding.  If you look closely at the picture, you will see that it has pink sapphire accents on each side.  Hard to tell from this pic, but I'll take one of my own to post tomorrow.  Just had to show you guys what it looks like now! LOL I just love it and am so happy to have something to wear on my ring finger.  :0)  It's just a temporary one until we can afford something else, but by temporary I mean like 5 years or so! 

Well, I'm off to finish reading some blogs, but I hope you all are well asleep (if you're supposed to be), having fun (if you're not)!

XO ~ Amy Jo