Hi Everyone,
This is my very first blog post!  If you can see the time I am posting this, you will learn a little about me.  I am a night owl---it is currently 1:20 am.  I come alive at night...maybe its because I can never rise before all my children and this is my uninterrupted time. 
Well, I don't know if it was wisdom, hormones, or insanity... but two weeks ago I signed up to be a consultant with Close To My Heart which is a scrapbooking/cardmaking business.  I have never been a person who likes to have "at home" parties.  Yet here I am signing up to be a consultant for a business that is based around "home parties".  What  caused me to do this??  I am not completely sure.  I LOVE to create and make things--especially gifts.  I LOVE getting out pictures and looking at my children and creating scrapbook pages.   AND I enjoy people!  So I hope to encourage other people to be creative, make some memories via scrapbooking, and create cards to encourage others.  I also hope to make some extra money to help out different ministries that God has laid on my heart. 
I began scrapbooking about 7 years ago.  I wanted to create a scrapbook of my oldest daughter for her graduation Open House.  Since then I have had two more graduate and I created an album for each one of them.  Last year I began digital scrapbooking---I really enjoy that and hope to grow in that area.  Close to My Heart has a digital scrapbooking program that is free to use called Studio J.  So I am going to check that out and will tell you more about that later. 
One thing that did make me really want to sign up as a consultant was Close To My Heart's partnership with Cricut.  They have created a very exciting product---the Cricut Artiste Collection.  I really want to get this.  I have a Cricut machine and there has been so many times that I will go to the craft store looking for Cricut cartridges that would help with cardmaking and gift-giving (like cute little boxes and bags) and not find ANYTHING.  WELL, I need look no longer!!!  Cricut Artiste has a Cricut cartridge with OVER 700 images to make cute gifts and cards.  But that isn't all.  CTMH (Close To My Heart) packages it with stamps (3 stamp set) AND chipboard cutouts that go with what you can cut out on the Cricut.  IT IS AMAZING!!  I will  try and get some images put up on this blog so you can get excited too! 
OK, friends, this is getting LONG and you won't want to read it then!  So signing off---I hope I can figure out how to get pics up.  So MORE ....LATER!!