Nobody said life on the farm was easy....

Sorry I didn't get to post anything yesterday....we had an emergency on the farm. The guys were here loading corn out of our grain bin and hauling it to town. My father-in-law was climbing the bin to take a look inside, when the ladder he was on gave way, and he fell about 20 feet to the frozen ground. He landed on his upper back/shoulder area. I was glad that my brother-in-law was at least out there with him, because the bin is far enough away from the house that I would not have heard him. My BIL did run up to the house to have me call 911, which I did, and then I frantically ran outside (in my slippers!) to try and be of assistance. The ambulance took him to the local hospital and after CAT scans and x-rays, it was determined that he's got a compression fracture in his middle back. While he will be very sore for quite some time, he will be fine. We are quite thankful, as it could have been much worse. We are also grateful for the many volunteer emergency workers that showed up to help him out.

While many people don't understand what it is that farmers do, the work they do can be dangerous. Climbing bins isn't fun, and they work with a lot of heavy equipment, and augers that will eat fingers if given the chance. If given the chance to know a farmer, you will likely meet a down to earth person that works as hard as they possibly can. I watched my Grandpa farm all of his life, and he was probably the hardest working man I know. He loved to farm - from raising pigs and cows, to tending to the crops.... he loved every part about it. Some of his cows, he even named, and I remember him being quite fond of a bull of his. We could feed his cows out of our hand, he was friendly to them, and they were friendly back (most of them anyway!) I find a lot of that same passion in my own husband. He takes pride in his work - I think that is just common nature for a farmer. We talk about some of our cows like they are our own children - we don't necessarily name them, but we do know them by their number. We do have a bull that we've pegged Nike, as he's got a Nike Swirl on his forehead. We care about our animals, we care about the crops in the ground. It's our livelihood and I feel deeply that everyone should respect the farmers greatly. They work extremely hard to create the food that goes on your table. Life on the farm is NOT easy!

Okay - so there is my rant for the day.....

I'm sure you guys are ready to see some creations! Back to my wedding themed week - here is a VERY simple invite to create. I didn't come up with much for coordinating products, but it would be pretty easy to do. I printed the invite on my computer, allowing for room for the Upsy Daisy stamp. That, I stamped with So Saffron (but first inked up my stamp in Versamark b/c I don't have a So Saffrom Craft pad), then I heat embossed it using Irridescent Ice EP. This gave it a nice subtle sparkle. I think it really helped "glam" it up a little but, but it still maintains the nice innocent feel of the daisies.

Here is the favor box - it's a little bit bigger than I would have liked, but it works. I used a texture plate and the Big Shot to create the polka dot texture on the Old Olive paper, then used the same technique on the daisies. Those were die cut with the Big Shot using Nestabilities dies.

Here's a better view of the invite:

Alrighty folks....I'm off to catch up from the lack of work I did due to yesterday's excitement....catch ya later!