And so we begin...

Hi.

My name is Carol Hartery. I am an early childhood consultant and an avid papercrafter. I enjoy reading other papercrafting blogs and thought it might be fun to share some of my ideas with other papercrafters.

Since this is my first posting on this blog I am going to tell you a little about myself. I am a single parent with two amazing children, Robbie (nearly 25) and Marie (who will turn 23 on April 3). They have both graduated from college, but are planning to return to school this fall. Marie will be working on her Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy and Robbie will be enrolled in an Early Childhood Education program.

I love to cook, bake, read, and papercraft. I am a former classroom teacher. I taught preschool, kindergarten, first and second grade. I ran a family day care program when my children were younger so that I could be there for their first step, first word, first time they played with playdough, or painted a picture.

I left teaching about 13 years ago to work in a teaching resources store. While I worked there I started to present early childhood workshops to teachers at the store and for local Head Start programs, public and private preschools, public schools, and child care centers. I still present workshops and they are a favorite part of my life.

I have only been papercrafting for about a year. As I said earlier I enjoy reading other papercrafting blogs and studying the card ideas that can be found on those sites. I tell my friends that I feel as if I am taking a graduate class in cardmaking as I study blogs, books, and magazines and try out and learn new techniques.

I have lots of photographs of my cards to share with you. First I should tell you that my sister Jeanne has a Maltese named Riley. Jeanne loves her dog as much as any of us love our children. A few months ago I purchased a Serendipity stamp called "Puppy with a Heart" to use to create my sister’s valentine. I forgot to take a picture of the card, but I can tell you that my sister loved it. Riley’s birthday was last week and I used that same stamp to create a birthday card for her. Easter is this Sunday and I used that same stamp again to create an Easter card for my sister.
I stamped the image of the dog, embossed it, and cut it out. Then I carefully cut along the dog’s chin and added a birthday gift to the birthday card and an Easter egg to the Easter card. I plan to use this stamp over and over again for my sister and will just continue to alter the image that is under the dog’s chin.

That’s all for today. Will be back tomorrow! Carol