Happy New Year!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful healthy and happy holiday and New Year celebration! We were in Minnesota for almost 10 days... what started out as a week kinda got extended. I still don't know where things are and haven't unpacked fully yet... there is still a suitcase waiting to be unpacked in the car! I was so psyched to come home and receive so many awesome cards and gifts from such amazing blogging friends.

I was late in sending out cards - and feel so totally lame - in the middle of my parents visit, my son's birthday party and a ton of holiday parties and packing to go to Minnesota - some how time seemed to slip away! but - i am resolving to send Valentine's day cards to everyone!

I first want to start with a present that my dear friend Christianne of Eye Can Stamp sent me all the way from Germany. She sent this in the holiday madness here and I wasn't able to post it - but I just want to share this sweet gift that she sent from across the ocean.
She created this beautiful thinking of you card that is just lovely - has amazing texure and is just so beautiful to look at. And inside she wrote just the most sweetest letter - I feel so lucky to have met you through blogland!! She included some awesome stamps that I have been savoring and saving to play with (I am making a card with them that is coming YOUR way!!!) and an awesome fridge magnet with the temperature and the cooooolest coolest mug ever!!! This mug of a cute cow on the front, TOTALLY surprised me when I lifted him out of his container and he yodled at me!! How cute is that!! Every time I lift up the cup - he yodles!!! This cup sits next to me at my craft table and totally makes me smile every single time!!! Thank you so much Christianne for sending this beautiful package my way - you are soooo sweet!!!! Please go and check out Christianne's blog: Eye Can Stamp.

When I was in Minnesota, I got to meet my blogging buddy Tracy of Zuke's Girl!!!
How awesome to meet a person you have met in craft blogland!!! Tracy came over to pick me up and we went out to breakfast - which was a great way to get to know each other more and share stories. She then took me to all the awesome scrapbook stores in the area - and man, was I in heaven. We made some awesome purchases at the first store and then went to another store - where I got lost in the aisles and aisles of goodies - we had a alot of fun shopping and got some fun cupcake stamps that need to get inked!!! We then stopped by her house and I got to meet her sweet family and see her awesome scrap space - wow! That was awesome - you truly have an awesome space to craft away!! We then went to Archiver's.... ummm.. its a good thing that I had already spent most of my money - because - I think I would have just wanted to buy the whole store... sigh! We ended our day by doing a little shopping at the Mall of America for our family members and had some yummy chocolate from Godiva! Yum!!! and some more chocolate from the Lindt store -- imagine whole stores devoted to the celebration of chocolate! YUM! Tracy also gave me this awesome notebook that she created - it is just beautiful and on the inside she stamped Sunny Sankari !!! How sweet is that!! Thank you so much Tracy!!! It was so great to meet you and hope to see you soon, next time we are in Minnesota!!! Please go check out Tracy's awesome blog Zuke's Girl!!

We had such a fun trip in Minnesota, we celebrated my husband's birthday, had a mini family reunion, got to go watch a movie (just the two of us! care of his parent's watching the kids! yay!), went to the zoo, did lots of shopping, ate a lot of yummy food, celebrated Christmas and went sledding and had general fun and merriement. It was great to come home and come home to such beautiful cards and presents from my awesome blog buddies:

Here is a beautiful gift set sent from Maria over at Stampin' Inspirations. She is just the sweetest. She is one of the reasons that I even got inspired to create a blog.
Maria is so talented, sweet and has been such a beautiful inspiration to me. She does lovely tutorials that are so clear and instructive and beautiful sketches and cards, projects and photos. I started emailing Maria almost a year ago and she always answered with such lovely sweet and inspiring emails. Maria created this lovely gift bag with a sweet bag tag, a beautiful holiday card and a lovely CD purse - WOW! and to top it all off - she also sent a package of stamps! Thank you so much dearest Maria! The first card I am making with those stamps are for you dear Maria!!! Please go and check out her beautiful blog: Stampin Inspirations!

My friend Kim Burmeister of Clearly Inspired sent this beautiful card my way.
Love the sentiment and the bling and the sweet pic of your family inside Kim!! Kim is a fellow PCP DT member, desings for Molly Stamps and lives in Nebraska - we are hoping that we can run into each other someday as our states are right next to each ohter. Thank you so much for this beautiful card Kim!!! Kim is so sweet and its been really fun to get to know her through the magic of Paper Craft Planet! - please go and check out here blog Clearly Inspired.


Another one of my awesome PCP DT friends Melanie, of Hands, Head and Heart was kind enough to send me this beautiful card using the stamp from her newest stamp set release: Hand in Hand. You can check out her new stamps here. They are just beautiful and I can't wait to get my hands on some! They can be used for really every occasion that you can think of and the sentiments are just soooo sweet. This stamp set totally inspires me to be thankful for this sense of touch, for being able to reach out and touch someone and make a difference, for the all the times that my mom has held my hand or my dad as patted my shoulders or when I first held my children, held my DH's hand and for all the ways that we are touched in our lives - this is just such a beautiful set! Melanie is celebrating her blogaversary too - and that means a ton of cool stuff. Go and check out her blog Hands, Head and Heart!!! Thank you so much for sending this beautiful card Melanie!!!


Here is an awesome photo card from Susanna Boyd of Card of the Week. I love how she created this beautiful photo card holder and sewed it together to create a little cute folder.
Susanna is also the founder and creater of the awesome network: Paper Craft Planet. She had this idea and then went on to make it a reality - and now Paper Craft Planet is 5000 members strong! How awesome is that! I am always amazed by the power that one person has - and how we are able to influence and change the world. Thank you Susanna for all that you do to keep PCP running and for creating a place for all of us paper craft addicts... I mean artists ;) to have a place to all meet together!

And lastly, here is a card that made for New Year's using Lynn Mercurio's sketch from this week's Saturday Sketch challenge on Paper Craft Planet. The base red paper is gift wrap, the rest of the paper is from my stash, the stamp is from g studio, the ribbon is from stash, their is a glaze on the bottle and bubbles and the star punches and tag punch is from Creative Memories.


Last night I created some New Year's resolutions - 3 of which I have already broken (they include the words: cookies, chocoalte and snacking.... hmmm... not off to a great start - but then my cousin just told me that New Year's resolutions don't really start till the 2nd of January --- so I am going to follow her advice and pretend today was just a test run.... :)

Hope that you all have a wonderful New Year!!! May all your dreams be fulfilled and all that you desire come rushing to you!!!

I am so glad that I have created this little blog and met all of you amazing bloggers - you are awesome friends and I truly am grateful to know you all!!!

Much love and hugs to you all!!
Sankari :)