peace & joy

Happy Friday and thanks for taking the time to visit the charmed life blog.
We had a terrible storm on Wednesday which left thousands of homes without power in the southern suburbs where I live.
We were unable to get into our home so we spent the night at my mother-in-laws.

It's a crazy story but when the power went out it left us unable to get into the garage.This is how we come into our home most often.

I had a key to the front door but the storm door was locked so that was a no access as well. I didnt have a key to the storm door with me.
I didn't have the key to the french doors on our deck so another no access point.

I was with my grandsons in the early afternoon. They live North and their power went out for only a few hours. The rain stopped quickly so their football practices were not canceled. I dropped them off and then headed off to the Community College near their home for my Photoshop Elements class.

When the class was over at 9:30 I called my hubby, who was at work, and he told me our power was off. He didn't finish up until 11:00. I realized there was no point in making the 40 minute drive home when I couldn't get in the house. So I called my Mother-in-law, and we both went there for the night. That was the closest for my husband to drive from the airport where he works.

The power was not supposed to be restored until 11:30 pm on Thursday night. We went home anyway on Thursday morning with some ideas about how to gain access.
But, thank the Lord, when we arrived home at 10:30 the power was just restored. we were very happy when we found no damage to our home.

The community right next to ours was really hit hard. There were so many downed trees and power lines that still are not repaired.

I tried driving through there on Thursday evening to get to my cooking class and even I got lost because there were too many streets closed. Traffic lights were not working and some people do not realize that if traffic lights are out you treat it like a 4-way stop sign. It was quite a free-for-all, believe me.

Lesson learned here: I put the key for my french doors on my key chain with my car keys. I found the key for my storm door and put that on the key chain as well. So if I lock it I am no longer kept from getting in the front door. If the garage doors lose power, I can't get in from the outside so keys are vital for the other doors.

Anyway, that is why I haven't posted for a few days.

My card for today covers 3 challenges on splitcoaststampers. And a 4th challenge on the ooh la la creations blog , and a 5th challenge and new challenge for me from the StampInsanity blog.

1.  The Thursday "ways to use it challenge" was titled "holiday headstart". Our hostess, Julia, challenged us to make a holiday card and the one we chose was up to us. I chose Christmas.

2.  For the Friday "free for all challenge" , our hostess, Jeanne, challenged us to use scallops on our card. I made my card shape a scallop.

3.  The "queen for a day" challenge" this week was giving honor to Carla Suto. The idea on this one is to visit the "queens" gallery and select a card and re-create it in your own style. I chose a card that she made with a scallop nestabilities die.

4.  The ooh la la blog had a challenge to use the sentiment as your main feature on your design. My card does just that.

5.  I found another challenge blog at StampInsanity. This is an embossing challenge and my card fits right in for this one as well.

I have wanted to make a card in this shape but just never tried it. So thank you Carla for challenging me to get out of my comfort zone and make something different.

I used Stampin-Up cherry cobbler cardstock and the matching jolly holiday designer paper. This is one of their new colors and is really a pretty shade of red.

I took the cuttlebug embossing folder, "season greetings" and used just the words "peace and joy" for the center of my card. I added some poinsettias and that completed this card.

I liked how this turned out, and it would be really an easy one for mass producing. I don't usually do that for my Christmas cards but I might make a few more of these ones this year.

That's it for today my friends-take care and God bless!!

card recipe:
paper: su cherry cobbler, vv, jolly holiday dsp
accessories: cb ef, hero arts poinsettias, nesties scallop die