It's been a a year of changes in my life. My oldest son graduated from high school (yes, I'm old!) and then decided to defer college a year (which was a wise decision) but actually thought he'd hang out in our home playing video games - not! I began working full-time but in an interim situation to gain experience. (I graduated with a degree in accounting a little over a year ago). I'm now looking for just the right job to begin my second career (or my third career if I count my years as mom). My youngest left the large public high school to do cyber school from home, which was a necessary but not an easy transition. It's been busy.
I only did about half the card posts in 2015 that I did in 2014. That's a little sad, but it also kept cardmaking as my escape - not my job. I kept the design team positions that I most loved. I was first on board with the Curtain Call team and continue with that. I love being part of Freshly Made Sketches - it's the nicest, most caring, and friendliest team around - not to mention great sketches. My "company" team is Taylored Expressions - their product is such a good fit for me. I've often stressed over design team commitments, but truly, working with their product is easy every single time - I love it.
I've had some of my peak cardmaking accomplishments this year. I was published for the first (and the second time!) My first published project was in the November 2015 Happy Holidays special edition by CardMaker magazine. It was a trio consisting of a coordinating card, tag and luminary using Taylored Expressions products, focused on their Nativity Border die. I was thrilled to not only be in the magazine, but one of the trio was pictured on the table of contents page! I also had cards in the British publication Die-Cutting Essentials but I actually haven't seen that one.
Another milestone was reaching 1 million pageviews on my blog. I know that's a fairly meaningless number with the use of things like bloglovin' and feedly - but it still brought a big smile to my face when I saw the number. Thank you all! What means the most is how many of those viewers I feel like I know. I can't believe how much this community cares about each other - it's a wonderful place to be.
Picking cards to put in this post can be difficult. I'm always amazed that some of the cards that I like the most get very few views, while other cards that I'm not even convinced that I should display get lots of attention. I think it probably relates to the memories. The cards that I like may not be the best from a strictly artistic point of view - but I love what they remind me of. So here are my favorites for the year, picked for a variety of reasons. I hope you enjoy them too.
Products by Taylored Expressions
Sponging doesn't always work well for me, but this was an exception. I love the soft color gradient behind that beautiful tree
![Heartfelt Tree](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7372/16589478302_f98e8d5626.jpg)
![Taylored Expressions Under the Sea](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8802/17893202078_f80b4aaf7f.jpg)
![Beach Balls For You](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8806/18190812341_8634ff83fe.jpg)
![FMS 199 Get Well Soon](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/453/19634005494_721c514893.jpg)
![Cheers](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5659/21300598335_de3fd78dd7.jpg)
![Merry Monday Rainbow](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/732/21624609086_fdf83a597b.jpg)
![TE Watercolor Panel: Joy to the World](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/630/21793384471_83e42484b5.jpg)
![TE Holiday Grumplings](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5686/21566918111_00696677e5.jpg)
![MMLights_Glitter](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5806/22515448985_af197d7426.jpg)
![Gift Giving with Happy Santa](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5640/22125206133_c888515ab2.jpg)
![Gift Giving with Happy Santa](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/623/22732764492_3bf2cf2e03.jpg)
![FMS Peace on Earth](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/595/22549864813_12c6f6de0c.jpg)
![Taylored Expressions Blender](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5632/22439071756_9f432834ff.jpg)
![TE Love You a Watt](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/697/23502621542_0f68848b88.jpg)