Birthday Card for My Sister-in-Law

Good Morning,

Tomorrow is my sister-in-law Denise's Birthday and I wanted to make her a special card.  I am about to tell a story that many of you have heard before so if you have already heard this story, feel free to get up and get yourself a BIG cup of coffee or maybe put on some music and dance through this part of my blog and come back and join me when I get to the card.

 So...Once Upon A Time (every good story starts with Once Upon A Time as you know) I was working for the Federal Government and I really loved my job.  Then the horrible Meniere's Disease struck me down and I had to retire on disability.  The weird thing about Meniere's you can be sick for weeks, then better for weeks, then sick again.  You never know when it is going to strike so you can't plan your life around it.  I was so sorry to leave my job!  I really loved my job.  I didn't have a lot of friends outside my co-workers and I didn't have any hobbies.  I would get up in the morning and watch all of my neighbors go to work and wonder what in the world I was going to do with myself that day.  Have you ever heard the saying "When God closes a door He opens a window" well, in my case, He opened two windows.  The first thing that happened was that I rescued my dog Louie from a kill shelter.  It really opened my eyes to the plight of dogs in this country.  I started working with shelter dogs and it has become a huge part of my life.  The second window was my sis-in-law Denise.  At that time, she was a Creative Memories Consultant.  She talked me in to coming to her house so she could teach me to scrapbook.  I am laughing as I write this because I didn't like it very much!  I just found it very confusing...there were these stickers and you had to crop your photos and place them on the page...it seemed overwhelming.  Denise is an incredible teacher.  She has so much patience and boy she needed it with me!  The reaction of my husband and children was so rewarding.  They really liked my work and they were so encouraging, suddenly I could see the value in taking all those old photos out of boxes shoved into the back of the closet and making albums filled with love, joy, sadness...well, filled with my heart.  Over all of the years and all of the different people that I have scrapbooked with, Denise has remained my constant "buddy"  we just recently were Copic Certified together.  So Happy Birthday Denise!  I love you and I thank you so much for bring out a part of myself that got lost somewhere along the way.  You have made these years that could have been so difficult a lot easier and I can never thank you enough!

Recipe for Card

Digital Stamp - http://www.kennykdownloads.com/colormejanette-digi-stamp.php
Sentiment by me
Copic Markers
Paper - My Minds Eye "The Sweetest Thing"
Miss Caroline 6x6 Paper Pad "Hoowdy Doody"
Embellishments - My Minds Eye "The Sweetest Thing"

Challenges
http://kennykskraftykrew.blogspot.com/