Missy's Creative Corner

Eternal Families

2011-08-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, Mormon). With our beliefs is the belief that families can be together forever. Through certain covenants with our Heavenly Father we can be sealed together for eternity. It is a wedding. Most young members are married in a temple. This can only be done if you have followed all the commandments and have gone through the process to attend the temple. It took my husband and I a while to get to that point but that point happened over a year ago. Here is a bit of the story. I posted about Jason and my wedding anniversary but forgot about a very important day in our lives. It happened 1 year ago plus some. The date was August 14, 2010. It was a beautiful day and a very hectic crazy morning. A morning that should have stressed me out to the max.We were in Sand Diego, saw the Mormon Batallion museum, Sea World and downtown San Diego. It was an awesome weekend.Then on the 14th, a Saturday, we headed to the San Diego temple. It was wonderful an amazing day that I will never forget. There was nothing about that day that went the way it should. But it was beautiful and I wouldn't change anything for the world.Now I can say that my family...Jason, 3 wonderful boys and I will be together forever. I know that no matter what happens to us while we are here on this earth...after this life we will still be a family, my boys will still be mine and my Jason and I can be together forever. There is no greater feeling than knowing that after we pass from this life I will still have my family with me.If you are interested to learn more about our faith please feel free to check out this wonderful website. My baby younger sister is celebrating her birthday next weekend. I will be working on getting a card done for her before it is late...I hope anyway. Plus, since my mom, that I know of, hasn't posted the cards that she made my husband and I for our anniversary and a adorable card she made for my boys when they started school I felt it appropriate to share them here. So, stayed tune... Thanks for stopping by!!!

Everyday Elegance

2011-08-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

As you know, I am an Air Force Wife. I am proud of that title and so proud of my husband for the work he does. I couldn't be more happy and proud of him than if he was a famous doctor or rich business man. Actually, I think I am more proud of him because he is neither of those. What he does, and all the other service members, is very important, lackluster and under appreciated.Right now he has been gone, it has been 2 and a half weeks since he left us and still has several more weeks before he his home. He is attending a 6 week long class, I may have mentioned this in another post. At the end of this class there will be a graduation. Thankfully he is a days drive away so I am going to pack up my boys and we are going to his graduation. The boys will not be able to attend the official graduation because it is a sit down dinner and they have age limits (it is a semi formal dinner after all and I can appreciate that). Thankfully a sweet family friend has offered to watch the boys so I can attend.I have been busy looking for a nice dress to make him proud and also found this wonderful web-based company to adorn my outfit.

Everyday Elegance is a military based company but also has other items for everyone. I had a question and received a quick response and then after I ordered it I got a quick email saying it was shipped. I love this company and would recommend them to anyone. I hope to be able to buy something else from them soon.The bracelet came in this beautiful mesh bag. The gold tag has my name written on it. I couldn't be more happy with my bracelet and can't wait to show my husband.The "Air Force" charm was an add-on but very well priced. There has been new items added to their inventory just since I ordered this bracelet.I will admit, once I got my bracelet in the mail and proceeded to put it on I got this horrible feeling that it may not fit. That feeling quickly dissipated. It was a perfect fit and if you are worried about it please don't hesitate to contact them and ask. They have great customer service.If you do decide to get something from them please let them know I sent you. This review was just because I loved it so much. I was not asked to do it and actually have not mentioned this review to the company (maybe I should :) )Well, that is about it for me today. Thankfully I got some sleep last night so I am feeling a little more productive, which is good since I HAVE to go grocery shopping today :)Thanks for stopping by!!!

Better late

2011-08-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

My days are all mixed up. I don't know up from down half the time but the good news is that everyday is one day closer to being with my husband again.Last weekend my middle son was sick with some kind of stomach bug. He woke up with it and by the next morning he was fine again. A week later I end up feeling sick and was down Friday night through Saturday. I had hoped that was going to be the end of it. At about 10:30 last night my big man tells me he had gotten sick. Needless to say we did not have a good night last night and having a not so hot day today.But with all that said I figured I better get something up before everyone thinks I ditched the blog again.

I started out making this card as part of the teacher's notecards but then decided to make it as the thank you card for my boys to give their teachers on the first day of school, with the notecards.We got our letters in the mail and both my boys know who their teachers are and hopefully it will be an awesome year. Good think is that they both have friends in their classes :)That is it for today I hope to have more for you soon.Have a great week!!!Thanks for stopping by!!!

Issues with google

2011-08-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else been having issues with writing comments on some blogs? For some reason there are some blogs that I read, try to leave a comment and it won't let me do it unless I do it anonymously.It has only been for a couple weeks now. I thought it may have just been a glitch in google (blogger) that wasn't allowing me to do it at the time but the longer it continues the more I wonder what changed.

Trying new foods

2011-08-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

...while the husband is gone is not a good idea. I have been following Gina's skinny recipes blog for a while now. It wasn't until right after my husband left that I decided to look at her blog for dinner ideas. See, it was already time to go grocery shopping and I like to have dinner meals planned out in advance so I can buy specific foods instead of buy a few things and then try to make meals out of them later.

I found this great salad recipe. I just changed up the crab meat for chicken since I already had it.The reason why I say it isn't a good idea to try new foods while my husband is away is because we usually sit down, eat dinner as a family and all is good. Since he has been gone I haven't been pressing the sit and eat issue. Since it is summer they are also more excited about playing with friends than being forced to sit down and eat any meal. So, when they saw this new "salad" on their plates they didn't want to have anything to do with it. It was the avocadoes that threw them off. Can you believe it? They wouldn't eat anything because they don't like avocadoes. Usually I am fine with that, just leaves more for me but with hubby gone that meant basically a whole bowl of delicious, healthy salad has gone to waste.I think it was a great summer and healthy salad and after my husband comes home I will be trying this again. Maybe I will leave the avocadoes out and the hubby and I can add them as we want. Here is the direct link to the recipe. Of course her picture is much better than mine.Sorry about the lack of watermark right now, the hubs has the computer with that program on it and I am not sure where the disk is to install it on this computer.Also, I do have a card to show you. Hopefully more after this weekend. I am still trying to get my crafting mojo back after such a long break. I will share the card on Monday.Have a great weekend!!!Thanks for stopping by!!!

Teachers gifts

2011-08-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that I had some cards I was making. I got the idea from two blogs I have been seeing. One idea was because a lady was making stamps out of the sticky foam sheets she bought from a craft store. After getting her children involved she had the idea to get the kids to make cards for the teachers they will be having this year.

I loved the idea of making cards for the teachers. What a nice way to say hello and start off the school year than to make cards. These were so easy to make.

I only made these two but I plan on making about 5 for each teacher. I will have two in school this year. My oldest will be in 2nd grade and my middle man is starting kindergarten. I am so excited for him, myself and so sad to have my middle man gone all day long.

The funny thing they do here in South Dakota (or maybe just our school district) is have the kindergartners only go to school for 2 days the first week. We start school on a Tuesday and should be getting a letter with teachers names and also telling us if my middle son will be starting school on Tuesday or Wednesday. If he starts school on Tuesday than both my boys will have the same first day and middle man will only go Tuesday and Thursday. If the letter says my middle mans first day of school is Wednesday then he will go on Wednesday and Friday. They call it get to know you week or something like that. After that it is Monday through Friday like the rest of the grades.

So, the cards are fairly self-explanatory. I used PTI's Vintage Cream cardstock. Stamped the apple image in pure poppy, simply chartruese, and momento ink, rich cocoa. The image is PTI, except the work, that is imaginisce.

I had the idea for the border thanks to Lorie at Live-Laugh-Love-Create. I just used a regular black writing pen and a ruler.

I hope their teachers love it and I am so excited to have a paper craft on my blog once again.

Have a great Tuesday!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Etsy

2011-08-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

I have been doing a lot of thinking. Several people have questioned me about selling my cards and photography. I would love to do it but not sure how well it would work out for me...would I earn money or lose money. Losing money is not an option for me. I could though, like everyone, use a little more income. Any money I can earn to help out my husband with the income would be a huge help.I am still not sure that I am willing to take on this challenge but if I do I would like to have a different name than the one I use for this blog. Something catchy and fun.I thought it would be fun to put this info out there and see if anyone has any neat ideas for me. If you do please leave a comment here.Don't worry, I actually made a card today. An idea I got from two different bloggers I frequent. I will show them here tomorrow.For those that are still out there sticking with me, thank you so much.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Photography

2011-08-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

As you may have guessed from my recent posts...I have really been getting into photography. I have thought several times about taking a photography course.I have been keeping up with several photography blogs and have come across a blog by Kristen. She is a photographer who also does workshops. Now, she is located in a different area of the country than where I am so I am unable to attend. BUT, she does have a very basic/beginners ebook she is selling online. I just recently bought it and because of it have already been having fun playing with the settings on my camera.I am telling you because she has done some updates and added a few things to her ebook, 2nd edition you can say but has left the price minimal and affordable.

For $10 you too can get this ebook and learn a lot of un basics about cameras and how to take better pictures.I am looking forward to learning more and spending more time with this book. It is going ot make scrapbooking so much more fun for me.

Berretta Rd.

2011-08-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to say that someday I do plan on having paper crafting on this blog again. I have been away from it for so long that my creative side is fading. I need to seriously start stalking some paper crafting blogs and either CASE or just gain some much needed inspiration. So, if you come here for paper crafts than please don't leave me yet. I will have things to post soon.

Today I wanted to share a picture I asked my oldest son to take for me. The day before my husband left for his 6 week military course we decided to go with friends and let off a bit of steam

Little man isn't quite ready for this kind of adventure yet. We have taken him out twice but neither time has worked out very well. I think we have finally learned our lesson that little man needs to be with a babysitter the next time we decide to shoot some guns.

He really is a great trooper and actually took a nap but after all morning he had finally had his fill and we had to pack up and go.

My older two love shooting guns. My oldest more than the middle but they both have lots of fun. For those worried about guns, we made sure and gave them a lesson on gun safety before our outing. They have been around guns for so long that they are becoming quite the experts. I am sure that my boys know more about guns than some adults. And to be quite frank, I would rather have it that way. I grew up around guns and I believe they are a great way to protect yourself as well and a fun hobby.

While shooting off the guns a cow wandered by our area and then this whole herd showed up. Quite interesting.

Before we left I had to get some pictures of the flowers that were out. We had been out this area in the Spring but there wasn't much growth. This time it almost looked different and unrecognizable. These flowers were only a few of the gorgeous scenery we had the pleasure of seeing.

9 years...

2011-08-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

is a long time. It is almost a decade.But that is exactly how long I have been married to my best friend. For 9 amazingly short years. There is no way it feels like we have been married for 9 years.We were married in Oklahoma, where my husband was stationed at the time.

I can't believe that the two young people in this picture is us. I had almost forgotten. I do believe that I love this man today more than I did that day. In fact, I believe I understand the meaning of love more today than I did that day.

This year isn't the first year we have been seperated on our anniversary. In fact, I think he was gone for our first anniversary. Needless to say I was introduced to the way of the military very quickly.

Since we are seperated by distance only, my husband sent me these. I think they are absolutely gorgeous and in my favorite color. I couldn't have asked for a better person to match my personality. We are opposite and yet alike, we balance each other.

I know people say that all the time but I really believe that is the best way to explain us.

I look forward to being with this man for eternity.

Embrace the Camera

2011-07-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Emily at "The Anderson Crew" I have something to blog about.I believe I mentioned it while on vacation. Many years ago when I was a teenager I joined "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". That means I am LDS or more commonly known as Mormon. I don't mind being called a Mormon but do prefer LDS.Anyway, to get back to the story, I met 2 wonderful girls while attending what is called "Institute". It is like college (for college student aged yound adults) classes strictly geared towards learning more about the scriptures.One night we decided to spend the night in our building and watch movies. That is when I was introduced to the movie "Mystic Pizza". I had never heard of it before and I fell in love. We decided that each one of us was one of the characters in the movie. I wish I could remember who was who but I can't. After marrying my husband years later and finding out that there is actually a Mystic and and Mystic pizza I had to go. Well, this last vacation I finally got the opportunity and I couldn't have been more happy. I hope to be able to go back and explore more of the town.The pizza was amazing and everytime we are close I will be sure to stop in and get some more.I had my husband take a picture of myself and my little man while waiting for our Grecian pizza to arrive...

Soon I hope to be able to start posted some pictures of cards and scrapbook pages. I am so far behind you wouldn't even believe how far if I told you.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Vacations

2011-07-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

Why does it always seem that after taking a vacation you need another vacation?
We have been home for about a week and a half. I still don't feel like I am back in the swing of things. I have so much laundry to do, house cleaning and my sleep is all messed up.
Can I blame that on the fact that we have been trying to squeeze in as much family time as possible before my husband leaves for a 6 week class?
Yep, that is right, my husband is leaving Sunday for 6 weeks for training. He will be a day's drive away and not in harms way so I can't complain. I feel horrible complaining when he could be leaving for 6 months in a war torn country. Instead he will be gone for only 6 weeks and 8 hours away AND he will basically be sitting in a classroom the whole time.Meanwhile...

I have these 3 precious guys to keep me busy and company. Half way through we will be starting school so that will be a huge thing to help time pass by.

Plus, we will be able to go to his graduation so I am already looking forward to that.
My older two will be able to get out of school for a few days so we can be at the graduation but I think it is worth it.

With all of that said...I really do hope that things start calming down soon, my sleep schedule is back and I feel like I can get in my craft ~~room~~ corner and start creating again.

Have a great Wednesday!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Movie Projectors

2011-07-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

I am not sure who is old enough for this but... Remember way back when...when we watched our home movies the same way we watch them in the theaters?With projectors on the wall/white screen/white sheet?While visiting my in-laws we were able to get our hands on their projector. It was awesome being able to watch some of my husbands old movies on the wall. To see that my youngest son is a lot like his dad. To see my father in law when he was young...and alive. I love that through these movies my boys will be able to see their grandfather.The sad thing is that after watching several movies we ended up with a blown bulb. These bulbs are not like the bulbs out today. They have prongs at the bottom instead of a screw.I scoured the internet as much as I could last night and couldn't find anywhere to buy a replacement bulb. Does anyone know of a place or have an alternate option?
I would really love to be able to see more movies of my husband as a kid and someday show my kids old videos of my family when we were kids.

Bronx

2011-07-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Just popping in real quick to share some photos I took while in New York. We went in to see a Yankee game. I tell you, it was the most amazing game I could have gone to. History happened right before my eyes and I couldn't have been more excited...the rest of the game just continued to get better.It was a rushed trip so unfortunately I do not have any pictures of us there but I know there will be a next time. These pictures I took while trying to get on the freeway back to Connecticut.I also played around with some more filters. Again, I have so much fun with picnik that I can't decide on a favorite. My husbands aunt and mother say I should try to sell my photos. How awesome would that be? I would love it.

Our time here is coming to a close. We will be driving on first thing Friday morning and although I am excited to get home and my own routine I am sad to leave family. Leaving family is difficult because you never really know when the next time will be.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Library

2011-07-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday all!!!I decided to sit and share a photograph I took. Wednesday we headed to New Haven, Connecticut to go to the Yale Peabody Museum. The nice thing is that they participate in this great program called Blue Star. For summer there are a bunch of museums around the country that allow military and family to access their museums for free. I have taken advantage of 2 of those museums so far and it ha been great.While in New Haven I was amazed at all the beautiful buildings. That is one major thing I LOVE about New England. There are a bunch of old gorgeous buildings that sill exist.Leaving the museum I was able to snap a shot of this beautiful building. Afte returning home and looking at the picture I see that it is a library.This is the original shot I got.

Then I played around with the preset editing on picnik.com (I LOVE that website)

I can't decide which version I like better.

Have a great weekend!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

End of another season

2011-07-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!!I hope you all had a wonderful, happy, and safe 4th of July. It was so nice to be away, with family. I am here to show you the card I made for my oldest son's baseball coach. This is the first year he didn't have his dad as, at least, the assistant coach. It was a difficult transition for him and to be honest me as well. I, of course, waited until the last minute to get something together. I started with spring rain cardstock, to match the team colors. The main image is a Whimsy stamp and was stamped, once with staz-on and the other with versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. I had hoped that would help with the bleeding when I colored the image. It did with for most part but since it wasn't a clear stamp it was a bit difficult to make sure both images matched up.

The chevrons were also stamped with versamark and clear embossed. I was done with all of that but after looking at it a bit I knew that it needed something else. That is when I thought of doubling the buttons. I think it added just the right finishing touch.Since coaching takes more time than you can imagine I figured it would be nice to give him a gift for the family.My mother in law a while back, gave us some popcorn plastic "bags" to eat our popcorn in at home during family movie night. I thought that would be nice, who doesn't like movies and popcorn.Of course I added some hot cocoa mix to go along with it. I know it is summer but if they don't to drink it now that can save it for the winter. I have some wonderful pictures I want to share with you soon as well.Have a great week!!!Thanks for stopping by!!!

4th of July

2011-07-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

May freedom forever ring...

Have a wonderful and safe holiday.

Mistakes

2011-06-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

I set out to make a card last night. Instead I made the same mistakes I made before when I tried to sit down and make the same card, so I gave up.I recently found a bunch of single sketch copic markers at Hobby Lobby. As you may know, those markers can get pricey. BUT I have also realized that they give 40% coupons. So, I have been buying markers one at a time when I could. So I had a few new markers I have been wanting to play with.Can't make a card so why not color instead. I do hope to make these adorable girls into cards before we leave on Friday.The reason I am writing all this is because I wanted to show you what most of you probably already know.The black ink that I use is Staz-On. I thought that was supposed to be good for copics. But this is what happened when I colored my images.

Adorable girls, right? I think so.

Look at this precious thing. I think she is so elegant and precious. But after I was done I saw this...

Not so pretty.But I pressed on and went to another image.

Again, not so pretty.

So, I let the last one dry overnight and figured once it was good and dry it would bleed anymore.This is how it turned out.

From first glance, again so cute. BUT...

Yep, more bleeding. I think I need to find some different ink. I have heard Momento is good but I just haven't went out and got it. I use Papertrey Ink cardstock and I haven't heard of anyone else having any problems using their copics with it. I think I just need to go get some black momento and try that.

Vacation

2011-06-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

It seems like just yesterday we were hitting the road to move half way accross the country. Who in their right mind would want to pack up again drive the other half? Well, we are. My husband's family, my husband, is from the east coast. It has been several years since we have been there. In fact, the last time was when my Father-in-law passed.

source found here

It is time to go. None of my husband's family has seen our little man, except in pictures. Considering he will be 17 months old on Saturday I think it is about time they get to meet their grandson, nephew, cousin.With that being said, I think you may have figured out I won't be sharing much on here, not that I have been anyway.I do hope to have a few things done before we go, I will try my best to be able to schedule some posts and also share some photgraphy with you here as well.

source found here

We plan on doing some sightseeing, Yankees Stadium, Mystic, Peabody Museum, but mostly just visiting with family.

source found here

The East Coast is beautiful and I believe even with just some time with family will bring many wonderful photography opporunities worthy of sharing here.

Embrace the Camera

2011-06-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks to this great blog I watch almost daily I ran across another blog that I love to read. It is called "The Anderson Crew". This family is so fun and lives life to the fullest. Something I strive to do everyday but sometimes let regular life get in the way of.Emily, the writer of the blog, does this great "challenge" for us. She challenges her readers to "embrace the camera". That is, take a picture or have someone else take a picture with you in it AND a friend child, spouse, parent, anyone.I wanted to share this picture because I LOVE it so much.I have thought about editing it a few times but just cannot bring myself to do it. I quit honestly, in my most humble self, think it is the best picture I have taken.

Just a refresher, we are now living in South Dakota, my husband is in the Air Force.

This is the day we decided to head to Deadwood, South Dakota...where "Wild" Bill Hickok was killed. We visited the town, where he was killed, where he is buried and took family pictures. It was an amazing day. I would relive it again if I could.

I took this picture when we were heading home. My middle man loves to be the subject in all my pictures. I don't remember if I had seen this done before or how I even came up with the idea but I LOVE it. I am so happy to have it.

If you want to join in on the fun get your cameras out and start snapping and then link up to the post linked above. There are no prices to be won just the reminders of the wonderful times we had.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

AdSense

2011-06-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else heard of this? I was moving things around on my blog yesterday and ran across what blogger is calling AdSense? It is a way to help earn money just by blogging.I tell you I can use all the extra money I can get. I didn't have a whole lot of time to look around to completely understand how this works but am interested.If anyone else has done some research or uses it and had opinions please let me know.If I ever find time to do some more research I will and hopefully you will be seeing ads on here soon. I just don't want them to over power the blog and make it something I didn't intend when I started blogging in the first place.

Nothing

2011-06-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

It is a rainy, dreary day here. I had planned on visiting a museum here but my little man decided he was going to catch up on some much needed sleep today. I finally went in to get him around 1pm this afternoon. He was just about to wake up anyway, from what it looked like but he is very cranky. I think he is already starting to get in his 2 year molars, and he isn't even 18 months yet. In fact, he isn't even 17 months yet, that will happen in about 2 weeks.

Anyway, because I wanted to share something very neat I found while looking through my blog list Even though it doesn't feel like summer with this rain I can't wait to try this.I am also going to look for some cool glasses like these. After all, if you are near a Hobby Lobby, they are having some great deals on summer dishes and a 40% coupon on anything in the store.Go check out oopsey daisy here and have a blast.Thanks for stopping by!!!

SFYTT

2011-06-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!!! I wish I could say I was super excited that it was Friday but I am not. Tomorrow is kinda gonna be just like another work day around here except instead of working the hubby is going on a 4-wheeling trip. It won't be all day but basically another work day.I am contemplating driving to Deadwood again for the "Wild Bill Days" events that are going on.Anyway, enough of my complaining. I have a card for you today. I intended it for my Sisiter-in-law who is celebrating her 22nd birthday today but instead, I think I will save it for one of my nieces. I like it but I don't think it suits a 22 year old.

I used the layout that Jen Del Muro holds every month. It is called "Sketch for you to try" or SFYTT.

I need to run because I have lots of things to do today. I need to make a card for my husband since Father's Day snuck up on me, I hope to be able to make a card for a baptism that I hope we get a chance to go to tomorrow and I still need to make my husband's father's day present.Should be loads of fun since I also need to sneak in some outside play time so my boys don't get stir crazy and drive me insane :) If you haven't seen it be sure to go to this post and enter to win a wonderful book I had the priveldge of receiving for free as well. Thanks for stopping by!!!

Thank you/Get well

2011-06-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

This has got to be a quick post. I have planned a very busy day for us today. It actually seems nice again today so we are going to meet up with some new friends at a local park for a few hours before getting lunch. After that I need to run to the store before getting home so my middle man can get ready for his second game of the week.I wanted to show you a card that I made for a service member. A friend from church mentioned that her cousin was injured while fighting overseas. Right after he saw 2 of his men KIA he was injured, a broken leg and the loss of the other among other injuries.She has requested that friends make cards, signs, short notes of encouragement. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to say thank you to this man for the sacrifice he made for us. I also included the boys in this but didn't take a picture of their pictures. I didn't even think about that until just now. Although I am worried about my older sons picture. He decided to men in a shootout. One is the bad guy and is bullets are flying over this soldier's head. The other guy is the soldier and not only does he have a rifle like the bad guy but he also has a pistol and all of his bullets are hitting the bad guy. My friend assured me that her cousin is on so much pain medicine that he probably won't even understand it anyway.

I made it very simple because 1) I didn't have much time and 2) most guys like simple.The cardbase is blueberry sky. Then on the white cardstock I stamped the trees from PTI's through the trees set in enchanted evening, used a red copic marker to make the border and the sentiment is also from through the trees stamped in pure poppy ink.

I did want to put some sparkle on this card to push it to the next level, just seemed to ordinary without it. I used my clear glitter pen to highlight some of the trees branches and some diamond stickles to accent the sentiment.I need to make another card for my sister-in-law. I can't believe I forgot her birthday was Friday. So, it will be late but it will get made.

Winner!!!

2011-06-14T12:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently I have been on and off long enough that most of my followers have left me :( I will have to do more giveaways and hopefully we can bring them back.Since Lorie was the only one that left a comment she wins the copy of "The Pirate Queen". Lorie, if you can email me your address I will get that book out to you as soon as possible. With all that said, here is another book review. This book is called "Lilies in the Moonlight" and it is by Allison Pittman.

I can't say enough good things about this book. Once I got started on reading I could not put it down, no kidding. Even when I was suffering from a migraine I decided to take a bath and take this book with me (actually, that happened twice). When we were having a rainy, nasty day...I picked this book up and started reading. Next thing I know it was after my boys bedtime and I finished Mrs. Burnside, an older lady with dementia.

After a party Lily finds herself in the backyard of Mrs. Burnside, passed out and injured.

Lily meets Cullen (Mrs. Burnside's son) and begin a stormy "relationship". Cullen has his own demons but his are more obvious.

I say relationship because they aren't a couple but because Lily is living in his house they find themselves running into each other a lot.

With Mrs. Burnside's oblivious help these two people find hope and a chance for new beginnings.

So, let's do another giveaway. I will give a little more time for this one. Let's keep this one going until next Sunday, the 26th of June. I will annouce the winner on the 27th, Monday.

Same rules apply, leave a comment and you get one chance; announce it on your blog, a second chance; follow me on facebook or here and you get three chances to win. Of course, if you already follow either on facebook or here then let me know and that will still count.

I do have a card to share with you tomorrow so I hope to see you then.

*disclaimer* I was given this book free from Multnomah in exchange for this review

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Finally a giveaway

2011-06-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Life has gotten really hectic here with baseball in full swing now. Having two of my boys playing baseball this year has proven to be difficult but I will do it for them.So, because I have threatened it and since I don't have anything to share at the moment I am going to giveaway a book I have read and received for free.Do you remember this post?

If you want a chance to read this book for free just leave me a comment. If you want extra chances to win then share this post on your blog (leave a seperate comment), want another chance to win? "Like" my page on facebook or follow my blog here. That will give you a total of 3 chances to win.This giveaway will last through Sunday and a winner will be announced on Monday morning, June 13th.

Gift cards

2011-06-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

Hello Thursday!!! I can't believe it is Thursday already. Does anyone else feel the same way? I guess having a 4-day weekend here and keeping busy those 4 days certainly helped in making this week go by fast. We have a fun filled weekend planned again. There is going to be an air show here so we plan to go to that as well as go visit Mt. Rushmore for the nightly lighting ceremony. It promises to be amazing.So, these are the cards I made to put inside the cardcase I made for my son's teacher and counselor. I thought I had a better picture of the teal and green one. I wish I did. I loved how it turned out, especially with that flower at the end. I took the idea from Nichole Heady. I pretty much CASEd every card I made for the teachers. I had planned on making 10 of each but I ran out of time (I am a bad procrastinator) and I only had 10 envelopes so each teacher got 5 cards.

These are single layer cards I made for the teachers that resemble the cards I gave them.

I used a new stamp I got from Geny Cassady here from My Time Made Easy. This set is called Killer Curves.

I dry embossed the smaller kraft cardstock. I love the houndstooth look.

And this is the whole sets packaged up. I just wish that I had listened, or paid attention when putting the sets together. My son asked that the red be for his teacher and blue for the counselor and that is how we addressed the cards. BUT when putting the cases together I made the blue for his teacher and the red for the counselor. So, his teacher has his counselors card. Too bad, or maybe good, his counselor was not at school the last day so I have her set to give her on the first day of school next year.

Well, that is about all I have time for. Sorry the pictures are so raw but my editing program is on my other computer. I need to see about adding it to this computer so I can more easily edit pictures and post them here.

Have a great day and as always...

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Teachers gifts

2011-05-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday all!!! I hope everyone had a great Memorial Weekend. We had a very busy weekend here. Started our sightseeing and had a great time.

We decided to head to Deadwood, SD. I don't know how many have seen the HBO series "Deadwood" but that was sure a deciding factor in going. It is an awesome town and I honestly can't wait to go back. There is still so much that we haven't been able to see or do.

For today though, I wanted to show you the cards and half of the gifts that I made for not only my son's teacher but also for the counselor. She did a lot in helping my son get more comfortable at this school and I really felt like there is something I needed to do for her.

You might remember the melon berry version of this card in an earlier post.

I also made these cardcases and filled them with some cards for them to use.

I am crunched for time (baseball season has started here) so I am going to have to leave it at that. If you have questions about the this project please leave me a comment and I will respond there.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Pencils

2011-05-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today I become the mother of 2 kids that are in school. It really saddens me but I am so proud of my boys. Everyday I learn from them and get annoyed by them. But with everyday I see something in them that makes me so proud of them. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have them.

I wanted to show you something that I made for the office staff (they are made out of rolos and hershey's kisses). I also learned a few things while making them so if I make them again, I know better how to do it.First thing I learned: tape the rolo wrapper to the rolo foil (otherwise they will move around and possibly fall out of the wrapping. Number 2, I scored the yellow cardstock every 1/2". This made it so much easier to roll the cardstock.I got the idea from a blog I found from another blog and just had to make them. They are too cute not to share.The paper is all PTI (Harvest Gold and Berry Sorbet) and so is the stamps. I also used regular kitchen grade foil for the tip. That little bit just adds so much to the whole look.

I added the stamped pencil and "No. 1" on my own (not on the original post that I saw). I thought it added just enough of reality. Like the No. 1? I know I am cheesy but I really like it and I think everyone else did as well.

Well, I think that is about it. I am going to run. We have a long weekend planned with fun stuff. I hope our boys love it as much as we do.

On Tuesday I will have more of what I made for the teachers.

Have a great Memorial Day!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Sidewalk Chalk Paint

2011-05-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Wow!!! Mark your calendars, I have two posts in two days. I wanted to show you some of the fun we had here in yesterday afternoon. It is was supposed to rain all week long so I didn't expect to get any outdoor playtime this week. It even looked like it was going to rain this morning but by the afternoon it looked and felt beautiful.Thankfully I also stumbled upon a "recipe" for some sidewalk chalk paint. What is better than that. I know my middle man loves to paint and he loves to play outdoors so this is just a great way to combine it all.

My middle man has to be in all the pictures and he couldn't wait to dig into the paint.

I wanted to show you these to explain what I said earlier. This is the view of the clouds from my front porch.

Then I turned 90 degrees and the sky looked this beautiful.

The 5 minutes that my boys were actually getting along.

He had to take a time out to eat his marshmallows.

Most of the artwork we created yesterday. I contributed with a couple of flowers and "Welcome Home Daddy" sign.

All in all it was a great afternoon and something I will definitely do again. I just need to make sure to have more of the ingredients so it will last longer.Thank you to a friend from church for sharing the recipe.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Dude!!!

2011-05-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday!!! I am happy to say I actually have something to share with everyone today.

My oldest had a birthday party to go to on Saturday and I am glad because it made me get to crafting. I have a niece whose birthday is next week so I need to get busy making her card as well (thankfully I already bought her present. Now I just have to get it in the mail :D )

On the invitation they had pictures of "The Transformers", "Wolverine", "Super Mario Brothers", and "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".

When I thought about card ideas I wanted to do something to mach the idea behind the party. That is when I remembered my surfing turtle stamps from Our Craft Lounge. His name is Kona and I thought he would be so cute to go along with the mutant turtle pictures. If memory serves me correctly the mutant turtle skateboard not surf but close enough, right?

I actually saw this same, sorta, layout on another blog but there are so many blogs and it was so long ago that I can't remember where. If you have seen it please feel free to let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

I think that is about it for me today. Hope you all have a great Monday.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Armed Forces Day!!!

2011-05-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

I am a little ashamed today. I happened upon a friend's blog today and she informed us all of Armed Forces Day. Did you know it was today? As an Air Force wife you would think that I would have known that. The military holds a precious place in my heart, not just because I am a military wife, not just because I am a Marine's daughter, or that my brother, uncles and many other members of my family served but because without them and what they do/did I wouldn't be able to do what I want and enjoy everyday.Please stop by Lorie's blog here and read some more info about Armed Forces Day.Sad that the people we are celebrating cannot celebrate as well. So many are overseas and fighting for their lives and others even here at home have to work to make sure that we are prepared in case something did happen.I love you all, my military family.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Argyle

2011-05-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

Happy hump day everyone!!! Is it me or has this week been going slow? I would normally like that but it has been crazy here so I need Saturday to arrive so I can have a chance to relax for a bit. Don't get me wrong it has been fun crazy but crazy nonetheless and I need a bit of a breather.

I bought a stamp set from Geny Cassady. It is a My Time Made Easy stamp set and I just had to play the second they arrived. I think she may have some more for sell so if you are interested in getting some discount stamps go check it out. Of course, I couldn't but as soon as I could, I did. I am in love. It was so fun and I honestly think this is a great card and so happy to show it off.

I am not much in a talkative mood today though so if you want details please ask. I had hoped to have this post of sooner but I woke up with a migraine and it still isn't quite gone. I tried to post using my phone while recouping but for some reason my phone doesn't like blogger, or my signature, not sure which.

Sorry about the pictures. It has been cloudy all week and no sign of it stopping until Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Another Cowboy

2011-05-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone!!! I hope you all had a great weekend. Mine, of course, ended way too quickly. I ended up waking up late this morning and rushing my big man out the door with only 15 minutes to get there. Sure enough, we turn the corner and the bus is already at the bus stop. Thankfully the bus driver is kind enough to wait.I am showing you a scrapbook page I made. It is a year old. I can't believe how much my little man has grown.In a small town in Wyoming there is a museum that we like to visit. One becuase it is in the town that our big man was named after and two, it is the town we thought we might retire in, until we moved to Alaska.

The museum is "The Buffalo Bill Historical Center". I was taken there for the first time by my then, boyfriend, almost 11 years ago. Every year they do a big open house with musicians that play music from the 1800s. Usually there are a couple of musicians that my husband know who play there but due to the economy things were scaled down and his friends were not able to go this time. Hopefully next year as I am sure we will be going again.

I used PTI pattern paper, blueberry sky cardstock, vintage cream cardstock and The Paper Studio's PP called Mirabelle.

I did things very simply. The blue paper clip I actually got in the mail with some pamphlets for Rheumatoid Arthritis (apparently someone thinks I have arthritis)

and the tage on the side is actually a Labels 11 die that I scored in half and attached to the blueberry sky cardstock with a rustic eyelet.

Also if anyone knows another way to attach chipboard letters, besides stampin' up blue glue let me know. This is the result I got since I am unable to keep the letters on the page long enough for them to stick the first time.

I hope you have a great Monday and if you aren't and need something to help you smile check out this song.

http://youtu.be/JOrcqqpHCt8

If anyone knows how to embed videos on blogger please leave me instructions in the comments.

I hope to have more soon.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Little Prayers

2011-05-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

I got this book from my Blogging for Books group I joined. It really is a great program if you love books. I love to read and I hope that my boys will also gain that love of reading from me.This book, "This little prayer of Mine" was the second book I received from Blogging for Books. I love it. It is a quick read, great for the little members of the family, but it is also great for the older kiddos who are learning to read.It is set up like a poem which makes the reading seem more like a song and easier for bigger kids to figure out. I would recommend this book to anyone with little children. I hope that my boys learn to say their prayers just like the adorable kids in this book. For legal purposes, I was given this book for free by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Mommy

2011-05-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

I got the email that my mom has received here card so here it is for all of you to see. I had something in my head of what I wanted but it didn't quite come out the same way. I didn't let it discourage me, remember ("It is only paper"). I still really like how it turned out though.Again, I gotta run. I love having company visiting.I will be back with details on the card and hopefully soon after I will have some more projects to share with you.

Mother's Day

2011-05-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

My goodness, I didn't realize I had been missing for so long. We have been quite busy here. I won't bore you with the details. I do have a couple of Mother's Day cards I wanted to share. I will save my mom's card until I know she has it since she reads my blog.

This card I made this card for my Mother-in-law. I ended up matting the cardbase with berry sorbet cardstock and then again with white cardstock so it had the border of berry sorbet. I was going to use a copic and just draw it on the base of the card but I didn't have a copic to match. I am working on adding on to my supply of copics but it is slow going.The sentiment base was cut out using Wplus9 die. I also used Wplus9 coordinating stamp for the border.Otherwise, everything else is pretty self explanatory and I need to run. My little man has what I am hoping is his last Physical Therapy appointment He is doing so well walking around and driving us all crazy :)I hope all you Mom's, mom's to be and someday mom's had a great Mother's Day.Thanks for stopping by!!!

April showers bring May flowers

2011-04-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday Eve everyone!!! We have an appointment to see the doctor for little man's check-up. I can't believe he is almost 15 months old. Really? Where does the time go? It makes me so sad knowing he is my last little guy and growing up so fast. He is walking all over the place now. He loves walking and doesn't want any help.~~We locked ourselves out of the house~~ my middle man locked us out of the house yesterday so while waiting almost 20 minutes for a nice gentleman to come unlock the door for us, little man had to walk around the front yard. To help him from falling I tried to hold his hand but he wouldn't have it. He was walking up the slanted driveway, on the grass, around the corner, everywhere. I was so proud and so sad at the same time. Proud of him and his growth but sad for me and losing my baby.Well, on to my project. I saw this tutorial on Michael's facebook page and knew I wanted to make some. After finding some old photos I need to scrapbook I tried to do that but nothing was coming to me so I decided to make the flowers to help the creative juices.I first made the big one with 8X8 PP I won, I think it is Cosmo Cricket Christmas paper. I used the same pattern just different colors.

After sitting for a while wondering what I was going to do now. I decided to take some of my boy's construction paper and cut it smaller, 6X6 this time. In the center of both flowers is a vintage button I bought a long time ago at Michael's.

I do have an idea now to actually make the "floral paper ball" with the smaller blue flower. Mostly those decorations are used for weddings but since I don't know anyone who is getting married I did know what to do with my flowers. I am excited to try it out but it will take a while :)

The big 8X8 is not perfect but that is what I expecting with it being the first try. Also with the bigger flower you may have noticed that it takes 5 sheets to make one flower. They are put together with hot glue. The video makes it seem a bit difficult but it really isn't after you really pay attention and get the idea. The second flower probably took half the time the first one did.

I also wanted to share this picture with you. I took this after we were done looking at houses for our friends who are moving up here soon. We couldn't be more excited to have them close again. The only reason why I HAD to take this picture is because of what is say. For some it may not make sense at first but it says, "Home of Wall Drug" and on the other side it says "Wall". There is a city in South Dakota called Wall. It does have a place called Wall Drug. In fact, there are signs all over the place guiding you to Wall Drug. It is a cool place for kids and we are going this summer when the giant dinosaur will be able to be played on. Most of the advertisements for Wall Drug say "Where the heck is Wall Drug", it is out in the middle of nowhere.

BUT, this water tower is not located in Wall, SD. It is on the side of a road in Box Elder, SD. Box Elder is another small town just outside of the Air Force Base here.

Well, I gotta run so I can be ready to take little man to his check up. I know he is going to need shots but I am not sure if he it is too soon after his last set. I hope he doesn't get them today but then again it would be nice to get them over and done with.

Have a great Thursday!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Happy late Easter!!!

2011-04-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter Monday!!! Has anyone else ever heard of it? I didn't until this year when I looked at my son's schedule. He had Good Friday off and today (Easter Monday). The school district here also considered those two days off as his "spring break". I don't get it but whatever...I wanted to show you another small thing I did to decorate for Easter. Hopefully I get busy on this stuff much earlier next year. I found this idea on another blog I frequent. I wish I could remember where I saw it. When I have a bit more time I will do some research and see what I can come up with.This is an easy and quick decorating tip. One I am sure to add to next year.

I also added some eggs to my front room window as well. I just didn't take any pictures of those because I wasn't sure how to take the picture without getting a glare.

Happy Easter Monday!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Groupies

2011-04-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday all!!! Happy Good Friday!!!

I have a very busy day ahead of me. My oldest started what they call spring break here, basically he has the next 4 days off. I have quite a few activities that will keep us busy so hopefully there isn't too much fighting going on in my house.

These cards I whipped together so quickly. They are my first attempt at a single layer card. Yep, couldn't quite do it. I had to add the tags but I do like how they turned out.

The ink is simply chartreuse from PTI with coordinating DMC floss.

Plum Pudding

Hibiscus

Melon Berry

It is kinda hard to see but I used the flourishes from Silent Night (PTI) and stamped it in Versamark and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

Hawaiian Shores (this is actually probably my favorite color from PTI.

Again, flourish from Silent night, heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

Here is the whole group of groupies.

I hope to be back later to fully explain everything. Have a great Good Friday and Easter Sunday if I don't see you again.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Color Cue

2011-04-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that I love Wplus9 stamps. There really isn't anything I don't like about the company. What I love even more is that they just launched their own line of cutting dies. I won the first die and I am in need of getting the new one with the coordinating stamp set.

Wplus9 does a Color Cue Challenge. I have yet to figure out the frequency, I am thinking probably about one a month but I could be wrong. This is the current color challenge.

To find out all the info go here.

This is the card I came up with. All but the paper and ink are Wplus9, those are PTI. I started with a dark chocolate cardbase and took some Hawaiian Shores cardstock, used pure poppy ink to stamp the background with the Damask Frames stamp set.

The flower/branch image was stamped first with versamark on kraft but I didn't like how little it showed so I restamped it with Tim Holtz distress ink. That image is from the Woodgrain Silhouettes stamp set.

The sentiment was cut from kraft ink with the first die that Wplus9 released (All Occasions Label). I stamped it with the coordinating stamp in pure poppy and the sentiment is from the same set stamped in fresh snow (Brothers & Sisters).

For a little more flare I took some "pure poppy" and "Hawaiian shores" DMC floss with some twine and tied it around the Hawaiian shores mat then tied a brown button and called it good.

That is about it for this one. Today is my son's Friday. Apparently here in South Dakota they think a 4 day weekend over Easter is spring break. We do have a fun activity to go to Friday afternoon for the hubby's work so that should be fun.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Easter banner

2011-04-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

*updated with info*

I don't have a lot of time to explain anything at the moment. I finally have a chance to get to the gym after about 2 and a half weeks. I never thought I would be a gym kinda person but I have realized that going to the gym has helped me throughout the rest of the day. And since it has been so long I can see that I need the gym. The last several days for sure, I have been having a difficult time getting myself up and ready to go in the morning. Here are some pictures and I will be back later with some info.

After making this banner I realize that I definitely prefer the other style of banner. There is a lot of things I like about this banner, the haphazard strings from sewing and the uneven banners. I seem to like the seemingly unfinished banners. I was going to cut off the edges of the vellum paper and the strings but decided I like it better leaving it as is.

Okay, so the paper is DCWV (boys nursery). The buttons are a mix of buttons I found in my stash and PTI. The embellies are prima flowers, egg shaped stamped with PTI polka dots and guide lines, there are a few things from my stash as well. The letters are from my chipboard collection from creative memories, painted with acrylic paint and sprinkled with embossing powder (the same way I did our welcome sign). The vellum strip was stamped with PTI pond life stamp that says "Hippity Hop" it was intended for a frog but I thought it worked for the "Easter bunny" as well. I used 4 different inks, lavender moon, plum pudding, simply chartreuse and summer sunrise.

I think that is basically it Nothing to extravagant. In fact, I think I may be working on another one for next year because I am not sure about this one.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

April 18th...

2011-04-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

and this is what I woke up to. This is a tree in our front yard.

I wasn't disappointed at all, actually I was quite excited. Here in South Dakota we keep hearing that this is normal and we are "due" for one good blizzard. Every time it snows I wonder if this is it. So far, that isn't the case. It was snowing half the day and raining the other half yesterday. Today there is a bit of snow and wind and keep wondering if it is going to continue towards our blizzard. The weather forecast still calls for snow/rain for the rest of the week so we shall see what happens.

This is my oldest on his way to the bus stop with Daddy. See, my husband had the day off from work yesterday. We didn't want to tell my oldest in the morning because then he would want to stay home from school. Since we had so much trouble with him getting to school since we moved that another excuse for him to not want to go was not an option.

He is so brave and is doing so much better. He fought me a bit again this morning but he actually smiled when he was walking up the bus steps. He makes me so proud.

I am so glad that I was ~~given this spirit~~, entrusted with his spirit, to teach him and help him grow in the gospel and find his way back to our Heavenly Father.

He is growing up so fast and it makes me sad. Yet, next to the bus he looks so small and vulnerable. I pray that I will be able to help him in his growth both in the world and in the gospel.

This is why my husband had the day off yesterday. I got to attend what is called HeartLink here on the base. It was a great time of learning what is available to us as spouses not only on the base but in the community. What is expected of our husbands and what our role is as the spouse.

This is me getting ready to head up to the cockpit of a B-1B bomber.

Here is a few of the nose. This particular B-1 was in a hangar being worked on, that is why you see all the tubes and equipment around it. The big tube hanging from the ceiling is air to keep the equipment cool.

How I have always wanted to have the opportunity to fly in a fighter jet. This is the closest I have been, even though the bomber is not a fighter jet. There is 2 seats, the other was to my right. The room that the pilots have to maneuver in is minuscule. I don't know how they do it. I was barely able to get my other leg into the correct position. But I had a blast seeing where my husband works and what he deals with on a daily basis.

This is a different jet. I didn't realize it was being worked on as well. But it was outside as we drove by and wanted to get a full shot of the plane.Do not worry, I checked with my husband to make sure I wasn't posting pictures showing anything I shouldn't be showing. I am grateful to the wonderful people who put this program together for us spouses and help us to feel more like the community and wanting to hear our input. So many other bases seem to forget about the military family and focus 100% on the military personnel. It is nice to see that this base actually believes that the spouses, our children and our opinions are important and mean something.I hope your Monday was wonderful. I had hoped to make it to the gym again after 2 weeks but both the hubby and I forgot to switch the car seats back to my car so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!!!

Happy Sunday!!!

2011-04-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we stayed home and did nothing...that only happened because my husband was on-call. The distance to church and back is too far away for my husband to be at work in the allotted timeframe. Since we missed him last Saturday with the hubby/daddy and a few others recently I didn't want to take the boys to church and miss more precious time with him. I was disappointed though, because it has been 3 or so weeks now since we have been. I need that inspiration and spirit to get me going again.As you are reading this I am off exploring a B-1B. That is the plane that my husband now works on here in South Dakota. He is very proud of the fact that he was a part of the support in Libya just a few weeks back. I am very proud of my husband and what his job means for our family and OUR country. So on to my fun and happy Sunday...

I have been wanting to make homemade bread for a long time. It is something I want to get into more...making homemade instead of always buying from the store. After what almost happened to the government I realized we, as a family, seriously need to work harder on being more self-reliant. That aspect has been on my mind for a while but with a move and trying to get settled into a new home it is very, very slow going.

I learned a few things, like your arms really do get a workout if you do it right. Also, it is so rewarding knowing that what your family is eating was something you personally made from scratch. My husband, my oldest son and I all had a sandwich made from one of the loaves of bread. It was amazing, if I do say so myself.

These are cookies I made. They are actually called "Chocolate Coconut Cookies" I got the recipe from my mom. I am not sure where she got it from. I meant to ask her several times but still have not.

I like to refer to them as haystack cookies. It is hard to see but the coconut makes them look like little haystacks.

Well, I think that is about it for me today. As soon as I get back from my adventure exploring our new home I will post pictures. I am excited but being away from home for the whole day is a bit scary. I haven't been away from my boys for that long in a long time. It is like going back to work for the first time in 7 years. But I know it is going to be fun and some much needed time away from my everyday life. Hopefully I will come back with some wonderful inspiration and fun projects to share.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Masks

2011-04-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!!! I hope you have a wonderful weekend planned. We are not sure what is going to happen for us this weekend. We should know by end of the day if we can even start making plans. I think that is going to be the norm for us while here.

I wanted to share this picture with you and show off my crafty boys. I had a meeting to attend yesterday morning and since my husband had the day off my 2 little guys stayed home with daddy (big man was at school). While I was gone my middle man decided to have some crafty fun with my supplies. One of the things he got a hold of was my stickles. I have forgotten about them so I guess it wasn't a big deal (at least they were getting used.) Unfortunately during his craft time he got stickles on the floor or kitchen cabinet.

Later in the afternoon my husband decided to put some locks on the kitchen cabinets since little man has been throwing things around. Needless to say some of the glittery stickles got on my husbands drill cord and the cool thing, it is my favorite color.

What you don't see in this picture is that after it was taken my middle man grew tired of holding the drill and dropped it. The drill bit, that was still in the drill, landed first and broke. Now I owe the hubby some new drill bits :(

The card I am sharing with you today is one I used trying to channel Dawn McVey. Her style always inspires me and wants me to try to be better. I saw a post of hers explaining how she is always able to make beautiful cards. She said something that made sense but at the same time was like a "duh" moment. "When things aren't going just right just take it apart because it is only paper." (not a word for word quote). Cards are only paper...duh, I knew that but I didn't understand it.

Why do I share this, because I wanted to make a thank you card, I wanted to use the new PTI Make it Monday challenge. The challenge is masking.

I used a Martha Stewart border punch at my mask and sponged using plum pudding ink. The border is spring rain cardstock. The flower is prima and the button is PTI.

The sentiment border was stamped using a WaltzingMouse Label 4 stamp with versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. The sentiment itself is stamped using 2 wplus9 stamps in black. The fun stuff in the middle was first drawn on with a white gel pen and the circles were stamped with PTI polka dot basics stamps in fresh snow. I also added a bit of fun with a scrappy cat stamp on each corner and ran over it with a glitter pen.

I am so happy with it I am glad I took Dawn's advice and took apart what I didn't like and started over instead of just finishing just because I had already started something.

Have a great weekend...just got word, we may be without the hubby (he is on standby), not sure :(

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Orange Juli-esque

2011-04-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

I know, it is April, high 40s outside and calling for snow and rain tonight, tomorrow and Friday morning. What do I do...make a orange smoothie. I have been wanting to do this since I first saw the recipe but just haven't done it. I found it on Melissa Phillips blog. ~~Unfortunately I cannot link you directly to the recipe because I can't find it. I have searched through several pages of her blog and still have not come acrossed it.~~

My wonderful sister has come through for me and emailed me the link, so if you are interested in some homemade orange julius drinks here you go.

The pictures aren't that great because I didn't think about taking pictures of the drink and posting them here until this afternoon. I had a bit extra from last night so I went for it. It takes wonderful and reminds me so much of the orange smoothie you can get at Orange Julius. Of course, I will still go there and get smoothies but for those times when I am really craving something and can't go and just grab it I know I can make it at home.

Enjoy!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Blogging for Books

2011-04-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here it is, finally. (picture courtesy of google books) I have been able to sit down and slowly read this book. If you don't remember I signed up for this program called "Blogging for Books". I didn't know what book to start with or why I even chose this book but I did and I am glad that I did. It was a very refreshing and uplifting book, so heartfelt. This book jumped right into the drama but was still so going in. Not only did it have the main storyline but so many other side stories are brought in seemingly out of the blue. It makes you wonder what the main story really is. I do have to admit that after really getting into it I realized how refreshing it was to read a book that intertwined faith without realizing what was happening. I loved the way I found myself finding ways to uplift my own spirit and learn ways I can possibly improve my own life. All in all I think it is a great read and I will be keeping this book around and highlighting quotes and thoughts that hit me the most. Just to make sure this review is legal I need to say, “I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”.

93 years

2011-04-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone!!! I am back with a fun and different card. Not something I normally create. Because of that I like it and I don't like it. I love the shabby look it seems to have, to me anyway but I am also not sure if there is just too much going on or not.

This card is for my grandmother. My grandmother is 93 years old today. She is my last grandparent and now that we have moved I am no longer close to her. I miss her terribly and loved the 3 years that we got to spend near her, my parents and my sister. Being military brings it's joys and disappointments when it comes to moving. I love moving and getting to see new places I would never go to but being away from family can be hard.

Back to the card. I used simply chartreuse for the base. The PP strip and the sentiment scrap are both PP from My Mind's Eye "Home is where the heart is". I just love this paper. So fun and such bright colors.

I used my Martha Stewart border punch for the PP and the twine is really just some rope I bought a long time ago from my local BX (base exchange) at Edwards AFB. I tied it at the top and glued a blue button tied with terracotta tile DMC floss, I also added a metal charm for some extra fun.

The sentiment was stamped with staz-on ink on PP that was stamped (WaltzingMouse stamp...Label's 4) with dark chocolate cat's eye ink first and then again with versamark and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. The doily is from Hobbly Lobby and is actually for baking (the idea I got from Dawn).

The flowers are from my stash, I can't remember where they are from. I also rounded the bottom edge to match the round flower. I love that little touch.

Oh yeah, the cardbase was stamped with simply chartreuse and heat embossed with kaleidescope embossing powder. I realize after that using regular ink doesn't work so well with embossing but I still like the uneven cover it gives it. I hope my grandmother loves it as well.

Happy Birthday Grandma!!! We all love and miss you.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Two for the price of one

2011-04-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Today I am doing something unusal for me. Showing you two cards in one post. I feel guilty that I haven't posted anything new in a while. Here is why that is. After the hubby's schedule calmed down I started with my migraines and the next day it went into something else. I thought I had a bought of strep but according to the test done this morning that is not the case. Some kind of viral thing that may have lead into a sinus infection. So much fun dealing with all of this stuff, a child in school, a very rambuntious 5 year old and a 14 month old that is just about to start walking. Yep, my two younger ones are late bloomers. But that is fine with me. The longer they take to walk the longer they get to be my baby's and the less time I have 3 boys running around my house. And since my baby is my last I want him to stay that way for as long as possible. So the cards: they are late birthday cards for one nephew and one niece. I have a whopping 4 nieces and 2 nephews. That makes 9 grandchildren for my parents. I love it. This is for my nephew who turned...um...oh this is sad...he is 2 and had is birthday all the way back in February. I know, I am an awful aunt.The card base is blueberry sky and the PP is from My Mind's Eye, I just love it. I used some DMC floss and then the kraft cardstock was cut out using a Labels 4 nestie. The dinosaur was stamped with versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I wasn't going to color him in but couldn't help myself. Now, I wish I hadn't but it is too late now, the card is on it's way.Oh, the dinosaur is a stamp set from Our Craft Lounge.

This card was made for my now 15 year old niece (the oldest of the grandchildren). She loves anything anime and does a great job drawing as well. I thought this Greeting Farm stamp was perfect for her. The blue is felt I picked up at Hobby Lobby for a whopping .25 cents. The PP is some that I won from a blog. Thanks Wendy.

Well, I am not feeling 100% still so I am going to leave you with that. Hopefully I can get some down time to read or create. I so want to do more creating. I have so many ideas in my head not energy to get them out.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Welcome

2011-04-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

ETA: The banner was made using the tutorial from Flutter by atomicbutterfly here. Thank you so much Kelly Lunceford. I know I will be making many more.

Welcome to my blog. How have you all been? I am finally back in action. I know, what has been wrong with me. I kept making trips to the stores trying to find supplies for this banner, mainly paint and chipboard letters. Turns out there isn't a craft store, that I know of, in Rapid City that carries Making Memories paint (is it only sold online?). Also, silly me forgot that I had bought a whole box full of chipboard EVERYTHING from creative memories a LONG time ago. So I bought some chipboard letters for no good reason. I guess I get to make another banner though :D

I took several pictures to show you what it really looks like. I used paper from Hobby Lobby "The Paper Studio". I just love the vintage feel of all the paper patterns. The letters were painted with acrylic pain and since I didn't have glitter I used embossing powder. After the glue dried I decided to see how it would work if I did emboss the powder (I didn't actually intend on doing that since I wasn't sure how it was to affect the paint). I love hwo it turned out. The cameo is a button I found at Michael's a long time ago.

I love this one because of the kraft butterfly. My older sister cut this butterfly out for me using her silhouette. Man, I cannot wait to have one of my own.

This is to show off all the glitter madness. I just love it. Not too much glitter but just enough to make it fun and exciting.

I hope you all have fun and exciting plans for the weekend. We are actually going to be jammed back with activities all week.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Birthday

2011-03-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since I have posted. Not because I haven't wanted to. I have just been a crafty slump. I don't what it was. Things have been going well for us. My son is better with school, still reluctant to go but he goes without a fight so I am not complaining. The only real "bad thing" that has happened here is that my husband was put on 12 hour shifts last weekend. My oldest had Friday off of school and we had made plans to do some fun family activities Saturday evening. Instead I got a text message late Friday afternoon from my husband, he was to work 12 hour shifts until further notice. There went our weekend plans. Thankfully that only lasted until late Sunday afternoon. So, he missed church as well but we had a nice surprise when we got home. I was so happy to see him but worried that it meant he was leaving on a deployment. That is still up in the air but for now he is home and we are on a regular schedule again : ) Now for the card...this was made for my niece's birthday which was last Thursday. She is now 15 years old. That is scary for me. When she was born I was planning my high school graduation. Yep, I am "that" old ;) My niece is beautiful, talented and very friendly. She is just a sweetheart and I hate that we are no longer close to her to help her celebrate her birthday. She will be graduating from high school herself in 2 years, another scary thing for me. You better believe I will be there for that though. As most 15 year olds are (I think anyway) she is very much into anime stuff. She can draw anime like nobody's business. She hopes to graduate, go to college and become a singer. The smart girl that she is though she has a back-up plan, math teacher (I am so proud since that is what I want to do). Who knows, we may end up doing our student teaching at the same time :DAfter seeing some of her drawings though I told her that I think she could do very well if she pursued her art talents. I wish I had, a well known art school scout came to my house to look at my work. She wanted me attend their art school, I didn't do it :( Oh well, live and learn. All of that to show you my card. It isn't my best but I am glad to have just finished a project. Still working on my banner :(

I am actually a bit distracted right now. I am either suffering from a mild case of a head cold or allergies. I took some meds and feel a bit better but still a little out of it.

What I can tell you is that I used PTI cardstock, PP is from a goodie bag I got from Wendy Sue from just me...and my little world. The stamp is The Greeting Farm and was colored with copic markers.

This is the inside, of course..I used some more PP from the same pack that I got from Wendy Sue Anderson. The flower is all made up from my stash of things and the sentiment is from Wplus9.

I still need a couple of things to finish my banner. I hope to have that done with a few more things soon.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Family Home Evening

2011-03-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

This post isn't about something I made but something I bought, from a friend who made it :)For those do not know, my family belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In other words, we are Mormon. As a mormon family we ~~attempt~~ have what we call Family Home Evening (FHE). It is set aside for Monday nights but if needed it can be rescheduled for a better, more suitable evening. My family has been pretty off and on about holding FHE. I try to do my best but sometimes it gets difficult just because of every other day to day tasks. I have a friend, Angie, who makes items with vinyl.After many, many months trying to find something to help us get back on track I remembered Angie and wondered if she had made any boards to keep track of our FHE assignments. Lucky for me she did with a few variations. I talked to my husband and we decided on a certain board. I emailed, got a quote and said, go for it. So now we have our very own FHE board and I couldn't be mroe pleased with it.When I said I wanted to take pictures my middle monster of course had to pose with it. Here it is for your viewing pleasure. And if you decide you would like something made with vinyl here is her blog and a list of what she does.

I do have something I am working on but I don't have all the supplies so I am waiting for the chance to go to the craft store. I have sat down to make a scrapbook page or a card and I just can't get motivated to do anything. I think it is because I need and want to get this other project done. I hope to have something crafty of my own for you soon.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Embossing fun

2011-03-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lack of posts the last couple of days. Wednesday was a bad day in our house but we made up for it yesterday. I hope you all had a great St. Patrick's Day. My husband is Italian so not someone you would expect to celebrate an Irish holiday but...I am a mut with some Scotch-Irish so I wanted to have some fun with this seemingly unimportant holiday. Next year I hope to have a fun banner to hand on my door. This year I got busy making a traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner, complete with french bread (I forgot to add the food coloring and make it green) and some green punch. I found the recipes here. Only my oldest son didn't love the punch but everyone loved the french bread. I made corned beef and cabbage for teh first time too. It smelled wonderful while it was cooking and it tasted great. I was worried about it turning out alright, my husband comes from a family where everyone knows how to cook. My mother-in-law is a great cook and is always trying new things. I was worried that my corned beef wasn't going to compare to hers but my husband loved it all and couldn't get enough. I believe we have started a new tradition in our family. I can't wait for next year already :)

Today I wanted to share with you the card I made with the same layout I used on the previous thank you cards. This time insted of stamping the medallions in fresh snow ink I stamped them in versamark. After stamping them all I used some kaliedescope embossing powder and embossed them. It is like a little rainbow medallion in the center of every tag. I love how it turned out. The cardstock is smokey shadow and scarlet jewel. So pretty. Today I hope to get a "Welcome" sign made for our front door. I still have my flower heart I made last Valentine's day up. I think it is time to move on. I thought about making a sign with our last name but we already have a fun sign on our porch with our name on it that my parents made. I may have shared it here but if not here it is.

My Dad used his amazing talent and cut out all the elements and put it all together. My mom used her talents and painted it to really look like a moose. Now what you don't see is two adorable little birds they made. One sat on the top of the moose's head and the other on the sign. Unfortunately with the wind we got in California and during the move to South Dakota we seem to have misplaced both of the birds.

2011-03-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday everyone. I hope you had a great Monday. After the morning I had a wonderful day. It was a nice day yesterday so we spent some time outside, I got to chat with our neighbor. It was so nice. We are supposed to have a few more warm days so I look forward to more days outside before we get some more snow. Yesterday I mentioned a card I wanted to make because of a bag I saw one of the ladies from church carrying...I believe I mentioned a few days ago that I also won the March release from Wplus9. I am so excited to say that I received my wonderful goodies in the mail yesterday. Of course, as soon as I got the chance I had to play. Then I came up with this idea to make some patterend paper with some of the stamps I got. I incorporated about 3 or 4 Wplus9 stamps and only Wplus9 stamps. The embellishments and the paper are not Wplus9 or course. The paper is PTI, true black, blueberry sky and ripe avocado.

I started out by using the new Wplus9 set (Brother and Sisters) and making the patterened paper on true black using fresh snow ink. At first I didn't buy the fresh snow ink for a long time. I honestly didn't see the point buying white ink. Now I am glad I did.

The center "snowflake" was stamped from another Wplus9 stamp from Mendhi Medallions. I love that set and it definitely hasn't seen enough love lately.

The tag was made using the new and first Wplus9 die. I used my cuttlebug to cut the tag out using both blueberry sky and ripe avocado. It cut so smoothly and cleanly, I love it. When I use my cuttlebug though, I run the die or empression plate/embossing folder 4 times (forward, backword, forward and then backword one last time)...I do that with ALL my dies, PTI, nestabilities, etc.

The border was stamped using fresh snow ink. After finding just the right sentiment in Mendhi Medallions I realized there needed to be something more on the tag. I found this cool stamp in the Damask Frames, it was stamped using versamark. The ribbon, button, and bling are stuff from my stashes. Lastly I threaded the button using black DMC floss.I just love these cards and I had so much fun creating them. I can't wait to do some more stuff. After stamping the center medallion in fresh snow I thought it would be fun to try it in versamark and then using embossing powder. Also instead of black cardstock and white ink I want to use white cardstock and black ink.Like I said, I have a lot of thank you cards to make so might as well make things a bit easier on me by using the same layout/look with different stamps.That is about it for today, look forward to being back for more goodies to share.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Thank you

2011-03-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

I am a bit later in posting than I had hoped. It has been another Monday. Another fight with my son to go to school. If things don't calm down after this week a think a meeting with some of the adults at the school is in order.I have been going to the gym after taking him to school. It has been great. I am so kicking my butt and I am not even doing much. Hopefully soon my body will get used to it and I can last longer than 10 minutes :)

These cards I made using my ~~new stamp set~~ first stamp set from "My Cute Stamps". I found it thanks to Geny Cassady. She does an amazing job with her cards. I have copied her layouts many times. I have more thank you cards to make and one I am going to try out. I got an idea for a layout, kinda seen it before, but after seeing a ladies bag at church yesterday I got an itching to make a different kind of card for me. I will hopefully have it done in time to post tomorrow.Until then, I hope Monday treats you well.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Verve revisited

2011-03-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

Do you remember this post?I decided to try the layout again for my nephew. I wanted to do something a little more age appropriate. So I pulled out my dinosaur stamp from "Our Craft Lounge". I used my copic markers to color up the dinosaur and ended up with this card.

The card base is Papertrey Ink. I also used some Wplus9 stamps to add some background to the kraft square.

The "happy birthday" is PTI and stamped on a vintage cream cardstock strip.

That is about it for this card. I hope you had a great week and fun things planned for this weekend. I am going to try and have fun this weekend but my husband has to work his 2nd Saturday in a row. Thankfully he has Sunday off and I will have help at church. Next week is full of 12 hour shifts but at least he will be home for dinners. I am not sued to these hours anymore. He hasn't had to work these kind of hours since the first year of our marriage and that was over 8 years ago. Nothing like new places and new experiences. I know we will all learn to adjust.

Like I said, I have new stamps on their way from Wplus9 and I also received my "My Cute Stamps" set in the mail and look forward to playing with them.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Nieces

2011-03-10T14:05:00.000-08:00

One of my four nieces celebrated her 2nd birthday last month. Unfortunately, circumstances have made it impossible for me to even meet her yet. Something I hope to correct sometime soon.I finally got this card made for her. I know it is a little growin-up for a little girl but I just couldn't help myself.The card base is vintage cream and matted with som PP in my stash.

I used spring moss cardstock for the banner and used fiskars border punch on the side. The stitcher are rub-ons. I used a verve stamps die for the tag (hawaiian shores) and used a wplus9 stamp to add some more dimension to the card.

The "M" is a sticky letter I received from a nice lady I go to church with now. She also gave me the flower. They are both Petaloos and are all white to be colored or designed anyhow you choose. Lastly, I took some stickles and went around the end for bling. I got the idea from another card I saw. I wish now that I can remember where I saw it. If it is yours, please let me know so I can add it here.

Verve layout

2011-03-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

*edited to add information about the card

Welcome Monday and Friends!!! I hope today is going well for you so far. I do have a project to show you but no time to post about it. Here is where I got my idea for the layout:

And here is my version of this layout. Enjoy and I will be back later with a few more words.

WoooHooo!!! I am back. I had to get some serious house chores done. I am still not 100% done but I need a break from folding almost 2 weeks of laundry :D

So this card started out as a card for my nephew. He turned 6 in the middle of February (yep, I am that far behind). Since it has been so long since I have crafted I decided to look around at some layouts and go from there. I just bought some new paper from Hobby Lobby. I believe it is the store brand (The Paper Studio). I just love the vintage look and what I used is only a small fraction of what is in the pack.

After the card was finished and I looked at it I just wasn't pleased. Don't get me wrong I love the way this card turned out just not for a 6 year old boy.

The rest of the card is all PTI. So fun and now it will be put in my stash until I need it for someone older :D

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Storage

2011-03-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

Hello Friday!!! I know, I thought I was back for good but life gets in the way. I haven't had much time or desire to craft. My oldest is having some serious growing pains here. If he isn't fighting to not go to school he is sick, first it was strep and yesterday we find out he has an ear infection. I hope after this he is all better and life can settle into some kind of a routine.I did manage to get A card done (not a good start considering I need about 15-20 various cards made) and some storage for my new dies.Most of you may have seen it already or make some already but I am just now getting to it since my sister showed me hers right before we left California. Here is what Dawn McVey came up with.
This is how mine turned out:

As you can see even the Verve Stamps work with the dimension Dawn gave on her blog. I will be getting the brand new Wplus9 die as well so hopefully they will work otherwise I will be making bigger cards for those.

I will also say, my sister cut out the label for me before we moved with her silhouette. Something I hope to get someday.

Something I didn't mention yet. If you love Wplus9 stamps and have facebook run over there now and become a friend of their page. They give out coupon codes for only facebook fans and just the other day a giveaway for the entire March release. Guess who won, yep, yours truly. I will soon be the proud owner of 2 new Wplus9 stamps and the very first Wplus9 die. I cannot wait to get my hands and them and create, create, and creat some more. Thanks for stopping by!!!I attempted to sew them like Dawn did but I can't seem to get a sewing machine to behave for me. I just took my pink ATG gun I got at Michael's and taped the clear cardstock down. So far so good, when I do get a sewing machine to behave I will sew them though. I just think sewing will hold a lot better.

Information

2011-02-28T08:03:00.000-08:00

Just a quick not to say that I have my eye appointment today. That means, hopefully, I will have working eyes again by the end of the week and I can be a regular participant in my own blog and in my craft "room" again.I have so many thank you cards I need to make for some wonderful people in California and beyond. I also still have nephew birthday cards I need to make that are already several weeks late. Another niece who is having a birthday in March I would like to get done on time for a change. So much to do and so little time to do it all.On another note, I received my "Blogging for Books" book last week so hopefully was I have eyes again I can start reading. As soon as I am done I will be posting a review here. I haven't heard of this book before or the author so I am excited to try something new.Thanks for sticking with me.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Pictures

2011-02-24T08:13:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this with you yesterday but I didn't want to post it without editing it to hide the children's faces.This is another something I made for my son's teacher in California for Christmas. She is a great teacher and it was so sad to leave her in California while we headed to South Dakota.

We are starting to get better about going to school. My son is having a hard time because for Kindergarten and 1st grade (the first half anyway) he had the same teacher. This wonderful teacher that has helped him grow and learn so well. Now he is thrown into this new school, new kids, and new teacher. Poor kid.

I am not sure about the PP but most everything else is PTI products.

I am late in getting cards made for 2 nephews and a niece. Hopefully I will have all 3 done soon. Not much I can do anyway (it is snowing and it is supposed to continue through Friday). I have new products and toys to play with as well so it should be fun to start playing again. I just hope I am not too rusty. I might have to start off by CASEing a few others. I already found one card I want to CASE for my nieces card. I can't wait to get started.

Have a great day!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

A project and an excuse

2011-02-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

I made this journal for my son's teacher in California for Christmas. See how bad I have been about blogging and creating? The holidays and the move have really messed me up. I hope to get crafting again really soon.Tuesday I received a new set of Wplus9 stamps and can't wait to use them. Where we are now we also have a Hobby Lobby. I didn't know what I had (while living in Oklahoma) until we didn't have it anymore. Now that we are back in a state that has Hobby Lobby, it is my new favorite store. I have already been there once and plan to go back many more times. I did do well and only bought this stuff called ribbon glue. I hope to try it out soon and I will let you know what I think of it.Just a heads up here. Monday (for the holiday) we went on a road trip to a place called Wall, SD. It is the home of Wall Drug Store and so many stores and souveniers. While there I somehow ~~misplaced~~ lost my only pair of glasses. Yep, I guess when it comes to glasses I revert back to being a child. Luckily I was able to get an eye appointment this coming Monday (I am way overdue for an appt. anyway). But that means that until I get my new pair of glasses I will not be doing much of anything. I can still see but everything makes my eyes strain and therefore gives me a headache.Hopefully by the middle/end of next week I will be in full swing again. Man, after all these mini trials we have had since moving here it is going to make things so marvelous when we make it through. I can't wait for that day :)Thanks for stopping by!!!

2011-02-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

This tag I made for my son's class. He had a book exchange at school. Me being me, I couldn't just send him to school with just any old book and simple tag. I whipped this up in no time.

The stamp is Whimsy and the PP was in my stash.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Kinda back

2011-02-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!!! This is going to be a quick post.We have made it to our new house. We now live in South Dakota. It has been quite the change but one that we are excited for and can't wait to get completely settled in.I do have cards I made before we left and haven't posted so I am going to just share the pictures with you and if you have questions please let me know.I almost have all my crafts put together again and many cards I need to make so as soon as I do I will post them here.Also, a heads up to those of you who are book lovers. I have heard from another blogger friend. There is a program called Blogging for Books. If you have a blog and like to read books you can sign up, get free books. All you have to do is post a review of the books on your blog, their webpage and one other site (ie: amazon, walmart, etc.) I should be receiving my first book in a week or so. As soon as it is read you can find my review here.So, here is one of my cards I haven't posted yet.

Update

2011-01-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

I know it has been forever since you have heard from me. Things have gotten wild and crazy for us here in the DeTullio household. For one we had birthdays and then the holidays, more birthdays, and now we are in the middle of a move. Right now we are in temporary housing so we can get our house cleaned and ready for inspection. We should be on the road to the middle of the country by the end of the month.I hope that once we get there and get settled I can get back on here and start creating again. Until then, I do hope to find a few minutes to check in on everyone else. I am sure to gain a lot of new techniques and invaluable insight as well.Take care.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Happy Birthday Cody!!!

2010-11-17T09:43:00.000-08:00

I am either late or early depending on how you look at it. My oldest son turns 7 on Friday but we had his birthday party last Saturday. It was loads of fun and his friends and him had a blast. We had a bounce house, that actually caused a few tears and bumps, a pinata that was loads of fun for the kids. I think they had a lot of aggression to get out :)

This is the card I made for my son. It is a bigger replica of the invitations I made for his part. Since the "recipe" is the same as the invitations I am going to make this short and leave you with a Happy Wednesday!!!I hope you are having a great week.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Birthday cards

2010-11-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

It has always been that when September hits the birthdays begin. My younger sister's birthday is in Sept., my younger brother is Oct., my dad's birthday is mid-Nov., my older sister and I are in Dec., my older brother's birthday is January and my mom is Feb.Add just some of the extended families birthdays and I have a brother-in-law in Oct, my mother-in-law in Oct., my husband and son's birthdays in Nov. my middle son in Dec., my youngest in Feb., my niece and another brother in law in March.If you add all that up that equals a TON of birthdays really close together.Since I desperately wanted to make a birthday gift for my son's teacher that adds just one more birthday to the mix but I enjoyed doing it.So today is the teacher birthday card.I started again with rustic cream cardstock (do I have to tell you how much I LOVE that cardstock?)

The PP is from K & Co. which I absolutely love. Although it is vintage and flowery I think can work very well for boys scrapbook pages as well.I stamped the bottom (Pure Poppy) cardstock with polka dot basics (PTI) in versamark ink and punched with a Martha Stewart punch.The main image was stamped with the latest PTI anniversary set. I love how the image came out kinda blotchy. I didn't do it on purpose but I love how it worked because it gave a very vintage feel to the whole card.Thanks for stopping by!!!

More birthdays

2010-11-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this fun project with you guys. It would have been a lot easier if I had my new toy to help me make it. Here is a link to my new toy and I cannot wait to use it.I made a bunch of notecards for my son's teacher. Her birthday was yesterday and since he didn't have school yesterday or today I wanted to get them done to give her on Wednesday.I knew her birthday was November, as is my husbands, father's and my oldest son's whose birthday party is tomorrow.I was lucky to find out the exact date so I knew I needed to do something special for her. I wanted to do something for her because she was my son's teacher last year when he was in Kindergarten. She is an amazing teacher and I couldn't have asked for a better teacher for my son's first year of school and for us as a family.

Like I said, I was rushing so I didn't get to do anything fancy but I hope she appreciated it.

I will share the card I made her on Monday.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Veteran's Day!!!

2010-11-11T08:54:00.001-08:00

I am copying this from a friends blog. "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

~John Stuart Mill
Thank you to my husband for serving, my father, father-in-law who saw more than he ever wanted to in WWII and to all the rest of my family who served.And to all the service men and women who are currently serving this great country. Thank you for your sacrifice so that I can be free.

Hubby's birthday

2010-11-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

This is the card I came up with for my husbands 38th birthday. Yes, I just said how old my husband is. I have decided that birhdays are just a number and should be celebrated. After all, it means that you are still alive. Who doesn't want to be alive?

So I started out with a kraft base, because I LOVE kraft paper. And it is so neutral. The blue is the new PTI color Blueberry sky. Love it, it is just such a soft and lovely color. I stamped the middle with polka dot basics (PTI) in versamark and then broke it up with Fine linen ribbon.

the main image is based with kraft paper and then I used cream cardstock to stampe the image (Through the trees, PTI) in tea dye distress ink. The sentiment is from Through the trees also and stamped in black. I just inked up the edges with tea dye and cream ink. I am so pleased with it and my hubby loved it as well, that is all the matter after all.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Birthdays

2010-11-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post today. This is a card for a late birthday. I mean really late too. My brother in law's birthday was Oct. 20th. I just got the card done last week and in the mail today. I asked my sister what his favorite color and he said black. Okay, so what do I do with black for a birthday card? I decided to use it as more of an accent.

My sisters favorite color is green so I went with that as the other color. I scored it with my scor-pal and used a sponge to accent the embossing.

The circle is actually one my other sister cut out for me using her silhouette (man, I want one of those).

The stamps are from PTI round and round anniversary set.

Pretty self-explanatory. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Your're invited

2010-11-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

My Goodness!!! Does anyone else really believe that today is Friday? It has been a very short week here for me. I have no idea what happened. I am happy and sad all at the same time. Time...seems to be slipping away from me. My baby is 9 months old, as of the 2nd, my oldest will be 7 in two weeks, and my middle precious boy will be 5 next month and starting kindergarten next fall, well, summer. I am not sure what I am going to do home all day with just me and the little guy. I am thinking my house is going to be quite spotless, either that or a messy house because little man and I have been playing all day long. Only time will tell and time can drag on. Anyway, speaking of my oldest little man turing 7 in two weeks. We are doing his birthday party a week early because we are heading out to Wisconsin to visit my sister the week of Thanksgiving.

I had to rush and get the invitations done last night because the plan was to have them to the kids today so they had time to make plans or change plans if they so chose. I say that was the plan but that isn't what happened. Again, this morning we had a little extra time so I wasn't going a million miles an hour. That is until I saw the clock and realized we should have left the house a couple minutes prior. In my haste to get all 3 boys out the door I forgot the invitations. I was going to bring them up to the school during recess (we couldn't invite all the kids so I wanted to hand them out secretly so we didn't hurt feelings) but my little man wasn't cooperating so the invitations will have to wait until Monday.I started by asking my big boy what he wanted on his card. He chose super hero Billy from Pink Cat Studios. He also wanted to color them. I asked him his favorite color (because it changes often) and he chose green, specifically New Leaf green from PTI.The background was stamped with Wplus9 Design Bacics: Background 1 stamp set in vintage cream. The ribbon is fine linen colored with copics. The sentiment is from PTI's very first set (Paper Tray). The buttons were just in my stash.I didnt' have any stamps to use on the inside so I just wrote out all the details. I wanted to make it simple since I had to mass produce. The cards are 4 1/4 X 3, a perfect size for invitations, just wish I had a smaller envelope to put them in.I hope you have a great weekend. This Sunday is my husbands birthday. We aren't doing anything special, maybe take the kids to watch "Megamind" but that is about it. If he ever tells me what kind of cake he wants I will make that. He already bought his own birthday presents so I don't have to worry about that.Happy Birthday Jason!!! We love you so much. Thanks for stopping by!!!

Stamp sets for sale

2010-11-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have some stamps I haven't used in a very long time and figured since we are moving they should probably go to a home that will love them. Our Craft Lounge - Kona --$8 barely used All that scraps - Bear Hugs --rubber stamp barely used -- $5 Gina K. Designs (Stamps by Carolyn King) -- Whimsical Autumn -- $10 I also have a MFT set with farm animals. Some fo the animals and the gardner are stained black due to using staz-on ink but that doesnt' affect the great quality of stamp. If you would like a picture please email me your email. Asking $8 I have a Marth Stewart stamp set I bought at Michael's on sale. It is a label set. Have the alphabet, some wreath, "thank you" "your invited", etc. If you would like to see a pic please email me.Asking $5 Thanks for your help in dimishing what I will need to pack. Thanks for stopping by!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

2010-11-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

I know I am a day late but I wanted to wish you all a happy birthday and show off my boys. I hope your Halloween was filled with fun and awesome candy.

My little man was woken up from a nap to go trick or treating so he was not a happy camper.

This was a display they had at the pumpkin patch we took the boys to 2 weeks before. I love the set up and had to take a picture, mainly to post here.

Cloth pumpkin

2010-10-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!! I wanted to pop in real quick to share with you the pumpkin I made. I actually gave it away last night. It wasn't my own idea, as usual. I read about it on this blog and just loved it and knew I had to make one.

I don't kow how many of you have heard of the Halloween tradition of "booing" your neighbors. After 3 years of living in the same neighborhood we finaly got boo'd. I was actually very excited and planned on making some homemade sugar cookie pumpkins to hand out. After going to the website to print out some directions to go with my treat I realized that homemade may not be the best treat.

Instead I packaged up some candy and put this cute pumpkin with it. Just for some more festive goodness.

I made this pumpking with muslin. I stamped it with some pumpkin and leave stamps using all sorts of browns, reds, and greens, and a little bit of yellow.The ribbon is Harvest Gold grosgrain ribbon. The leaves I bought at the $1 section at Target. The twirlies are flower wire I bought at Wal-Mart for $1. A fun, easy, adorable, inexpensive decoration for you and/or family and friends.I did plan on keeping this one but after getting boo'd I thought it would be neat to give it away. Besides, we found out we will be moving sometime next year so anything I can get rid of now is less I have to have shipped to my new address. I just wish I knew where that was. Hopefully next month we will have some options. Sometimes military life can be so frustrating :)Have a great rest of the week. I do have some pictures from our church Halloween party so I might post a couple tomorrow but other than that I think I will see you after Halloween. So, I hope you have some fun parties in your future. Have a safe and happy Halloween.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Gratitude

2010-10-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

This card was made using a SFYTT sketch I found. I love how it turned out. The colors, although Christmasy (sp) are just fabulous for any occasion.

I made this card for a sweet lady who reads my blog and is a regular. I had a giveaway recently to help with the wedding invitations I was making (which I guess I am NOT making).

She was the only person to respnd so I sent her a Veggie-bella stamp, another Christmas/winter stamp set and some other googies.

I wanted to also make her a card to show her my apprecation for her comments.

I started with kraft cardstock matted with ripe avocado cardstock. The pp is from many different companies and the stamp set is one of PTI's anniversary sets which I love.

Busy as usual so this is going to be all for today.

I did make those pumpkins I posted about earlier so as soon as I get pictures of it I will post it here.

Tonight is our Trunk-or-Treat party at our church. The boys are excited to FINALLY be able to wear their costumes. I will post a few pictures here as well.

Have a great week!!!

First Halloween decoration of the year

2010-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!! I am so glad to be posting here. It has been wild and crazy and is promising to be that way for a while. We have been enjoying some wonderful thunder and lightening storms. Unfortunately the worst came in the wee hours of the morning and woke everyone in the house up, except my little man who slept right through it. Thanks to all of the excitement it has made for 2 very moddy little boys. One is taking a nap now, hopefully to catch up on some of that needed sleep, the other, at school. I hope we can get them to bed early tonight to help with their moods. With the storms though, it left us without power for about 5-6 hours yesterday which also meant no internet. I am so glad to have it now, I didn't realize how much I rely on the internet to stay in touch with the outside world.The base we live on isn't the greatest in terms of family friendly. There are a lot of civilians that work here so they do cater more to the civilians. I only say that because the base doesn't seem to believe in generators so not only were we without power so was most of the stores. In fact, our grocery store (Commissary) and BX (Base Exchage, kinda like a wal-mart but much, much smaller) are still without power and are not expected to be back up until noon local time. I hope they estimate is correct because I NEED some things from the store. If it isn't open I will have to drive 15-20 mins to the closest town and hopefully be able to find what I need.Anyway, enough of my ranting about the happenings here. I was led to this blog and this wonderful, fun project. I had jars, I had mod podge, so I went to the store and bought some festive tissue paper.

This is what I came up with. I didn't have black felt so I figued I would just use black cardstock. I think it turned out awesome as well. I have another jar or two so I hope to make the Frankenstein and ghost soon.I also have another blog I found here. I plan to make these lovely pumpkins with a few alterations of my own to fit what I have to use. I hope to have them done soon and posted shortly after.Hope all is well in your world.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Simple Birthdays

2010-10-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hello all!!! Today I am going to share with you the card I made for my Mother-in-law. Yesterday was her birthday. It was also my younger brother's birthday. Now, all 4 of us kids are stair stepped, meaning we are all one year apart. This will only last until December when my older sister and I celebrate our birthday though.So, Happy Birthday Joan and Brian!!! I am sorry we weren't able to celebrate with either one of you.

This card was made using a layout and basic style I CASEd from Dawn from Wplus9 here.I just love the sophistication and simplicity of it. I love the color combo I chose to use too. I wish I could have used cream or rustic cream instead of white but I am out. Dang it. And now that PTI came out with 2 new colors this month I am afraid something is going to have to wait. How I am supposed to keep up with all these gorgeous colors?Okay so the base is scarlet jewel (a gorgeous color that I have not used like I should) I matted the main image with white and ocean tides.The main image was stamped on vellum using versamark ink and then embossed with detail silver embossing powder. I used some stickles to dot the centers of the circles (Wplus9 Mendhi Medallions).the sentiment was stamped with PTIs fillable frames #8 and then I just cut it out by hand since I don't have the cutting dye yet. The sentiment is one I got from PTIs latest anniversary set. Then I just used the smaller version of the medallion in SUs baroque burgundy. Then just added some rhinestones and a button. Oh yeah, can't forget the ribbon, that is a cheap-o walmart find. The ribbon was wrapped around and then I used my bow-easy tool and used a dot to adhere it to the ribbon.

I also went ahead and decorated the inside using white cardstock and stamped the ribbon image on the side using ocean tides ink and then the medallion in SU baroque burgundy. The "happy birthday" is from Inkadinkado birthday wishes stamp set. I just love how simple and lovely it is.I think that explains it all.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Joy in card-making

2010-10-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Hello all!!! I hope you had a fantastic weekend. We actually got a LONG weekend and I am finding out it was out of the norm. My son had Monday off from school as well as my husband was off from work. It was a nice, kinda casual, busy weekend. We have a lot of things we are trying to go through and get rid of. Kinda like spring cleaning in the fall. Today I wanted to share a card with you that I made for my husbands co-worker. He is getting married next month and made a comment about a certain kind of invitation HE would like for the wedding. It sounded like so much fun that I HAD to make one. I finally got to it on Sunday night.

I started out with black cardstock and stamped polka dots with fresh snow ink. The bottom half of the card is smokey shadow cardstock stamped in versamark with my scrappy cat flourish stamp. The black ribbon is actually my fine linen ribbon that I colored black with my copic marker.The sentiment was stamped with fillable frames #4 in fresh snow ink on enchanted evening cardstock (the wedding color is navy blue).

I also decided to do the inside. I just used some simple rectangular cardstock in smokey shadow and enchanted evening and then wrote the sentiment with my white gel pen. The coffin was had drawn using my gel pen on enchanted evening cardstock. From what I hear it was a huge success : )This is sad to say but it was the most fun I have had creating a card in a LONG time. Call me morbid if you want but it is what it is. I am glad he like it so much.Well, that is about it for now. I do have another card to share so hopefully I will have that up in the next couple of days.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Wedding invitations

2010-10-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!!! I am so happy to see Friday again. What a long 2 weeks it has been, at least it feels like it to me. How about everyone else?We don't have any set plans for this weekend. Do you guys have any fun and exciting plans for this weekend?So some friends of ours are planning on getting married next month (it got bumped up thanks to the military). That is the same thing that happened to my wedding. My husband and I had a date set for Sept. 28th. Then he got orders to Alaska. Since we weren't married I wasn't part of his orders so we had to rush our wedding and do all the paperwork to get me on his orders and plan on our move and all the fun stuff that comes with that.I was asked to make the wedding invitations for the wedding. I didn't want to get too elaborate because I am not sure how many I need to make just yet and the time restrictions are going to make it difficult.This is what I came up with as a rough draft.

I know the bride likes purple, as do I, so I looked for some nice paper I could use that had purple in it. The PP is DCWV latte. The cardstock is the new PTI color Fine Linen and plum pudding.The flourish was stamped with my scrappy cat stamp and embossed with kaleidoscope embossing powder. I just love the sparkle. The sentiment was stamped with PTI's $5 set called Favor it Wedding and tied on with brown dmc floss to a button.Now, I have a special treat for everyone. Like I just said, this is a rough draft. We are probably going to go shopping this weekend for some supplies to make more. BUT I am not sure about the layout just yet.This is what I am going to do. Please tell your friends to come one over and take a look, leave a comment with an idea I can use to spruce up the layout. I will pick a random winner to get a Veggiebella stamp that needs some loving and some extra embellishments I have but haven't used in a long time.Okay, go to it, 2 simple steps to win some goodies.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Another page

2010-09-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

This page I made for my youngest son's 5 month birthday. I have been trying to keep up with the monthly pictures. I kinda feel guilty about it though because I didn't do that with my other two. I hope they forgive my shortcomings.Not much to say about it and not much time to talk about it.

I was trying to copy a simple layout used for my desktop. I love how it turned out. I have been trying to recreate a look like this for a long time. Nothing really matchy matchy or any real form. I think it makes it more fun and keep the focus on the picture.I need to do the journal part of it. I think I am going to make a bigger tag and then put it behind the pictures since the center and sides of the picture wasn't glued down, just the top and bottom.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Scrapbooking

2010-09-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh!!! I feel so happy that through this hectic, stressful time for me I was able to get some scrapbooking done. There is absolutely NO stamping involved either. It was so nice and I feel so good about getting some projects done.I started with a picture of my oldest son on our trip to Wyoming in May, I think. I am so bad with time frames anymore.

The paper is K & Co., ancestry.com, and making memories.I don't have a lot of time to dilly dally on the computer so I will just say a few things.It may be hard to tell but the squares on the side have been paper pierced and then I used a white gel pen and a green spica pen to make it look like it was quilted. I thought it fit the look of the page. I love using old techniques like that. I haven't done that in a long time which made me realize I have misplaced my paper piercer. I hope I find it soon or it is off to the store to get a new one.It is a pretty simple and fun layout so I am going to leave it to that. I hope you all have a fun filled week up ahead.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Craft blunders

2010-09-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Good Thursday everyone!!! Wow, what a week it has been. I tell you, my head is just spinning with all the things that have been going on. I hope to be able to share some of it soon.Today, since I haven't had much time to sit down and create something lovely, I figured I would just show you this.

I found this and another blog with some ideas but now i can't find it. I thought it would be perfect for my little guy to play with while we were at church. He can get a bit fussy the first hour and I feel bad that people have to hear him or we have to leave. It seemed easy enough so I set out to make one. I got some felt from Wal-Mart and when I got home I got my sewing machine, some plastic (I didn't have vinyl) and starting planning my fish. I should have known it wasn't going to go right when I cut off the fishes tail after 2 seconds into cutting him out.Well, my sewing machine is having issues. I had before and my mom was able to fix it but it is doing it again and I just can't seem to get it right. I think I am going to get a new sewing machine. I have had mine for several years and it was an inexpensive model I got at Walm-Mart.Since the sewing machine wasn't working I thought I would try the hot glue. It worked, after I burned my finger and gave myself a blister. But once it was all dry and I looked it over I decided it wasn't very safe for my little guy to use.

I will try again when I have a sewing machine that works and cleary vinyl.I hope you give it a try though, it would be fun for road trips too.Thanks for stopping by!!!

C.C. Designs

2010-09-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!!! It has been a crazy fun week this week. There were days I thought it was later in the week than it was but to believe that we are already at Friday is crazy as well.This week I started volunteering in my son's class. It is fun to see what he does all day. It is especially nice because ever since he started school I would ask him what he did that particular day. The response I got was either very, very short or "I don't remember". I had a few moments to talk to his teacher about him and his classroom behavior and it was refreshing to have a casual conversation with his teacher instead of the formal parent/teacher conferences.Anyway, today I am showing you the card I made for one of my niece's birthday, finally. She had her birthday on the 6th of September. The same day as my younger sister. This card is going all the way to Kansas so it is definitely going to be late. I hope she likes it.

This card actually came together so easily it shocked me. I started slowly. Just grabbed some white cardstock and measured it. Decided to go with a different size. This is a 6X4 1/4 size card.

I had the polka dot PP on my desk so I started to play with it. I had intended on using the shape on the front but used it for the inside since I used the frame on the front instead.

I was rummaging through my desk and happened upon a stash of already stamped images I got from my mom and sister and this one just seemed perfect for my niece. The colors I used are aqua mist, melon berry, plum pudding and harvest gold. I didn't intentionally pick any of these color they just seemed to pick themselves. I think they all work together really well.

I have to admit, it was so much fun coloring images again. I haven't done that in ages. You might see more of them on here in the near future.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend planned. Nothing planned here so we shall see what comes of our weekend. I know the hubby has something he is going to do for a few hours in the morning tomorrow so we shall see what transpires for us.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

In Remembrance..

2010-09-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you. There are mornings I wake up and wonder where I am at and what day it is. This morning, even though I was up late, I knew exactly what day it was, how I was woken up and what every aspect of my room looked like back then.I remember our roommate knocking on our door telling us he got a call to go into work (he was Navy at the time) and just minutes later my husband got the call.My prayers go out to the families that were affected by the horrible, unconscionable acts of a group of people.My prayers go out to the service members and their families who are still fighting the fight. May they all return home to their families safe and sound.

Another late one

2010-09-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

My younger sister's birthday was this past Monday (Labor Day). We like to joke in our family. My Mom was literally in labor on Labor Day. I wasn't going to say how old she just turned (since she is my YOUNGER sister but it is only a number, right?)So, my wonderful younger sister celebrated her 30th birthday on Monday. I wish I could have been there to help her celebrate, she is in Wisconsin and I am in California. We have been through a lot together and I am so proud to call her my sister. I look up to her a lot.Happy Late Birthday Carrie, I love you!!!

So to start off I know I wanted to use green since it is her favorite color. I also used one of Geny Cassidy's layouts she used recently. I just love her simple and fun layouts. It makes it so easy for me to put something together quickly since I don't have a lot of extra time to create.The base is Simply Chartruese and then topped with kraft cardstock (I am not a fan of plain white and my vintage cream and rustic cream cardstock is out, gotta get more).I used Harvest Gold stamped with simply chartruese dots and a fiskars border punch to add some pizzazz :)The ribbon is also harvest gold and I used a spring moss button to add a little more color to the embellishment.The main image was stamped with chartruese again and is a Waltzingmouse stamp (Label 4) and then the metal is actually a clip I bought at Michael's a long time ago.That is about it for today. I hope you have an awesome weekend planned. We aren't doing a whole lot here. Tonight we are going out to dinner with a bunch of my husband's co-workers and their families. I am excited, I love getting together with friends and making new friends.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Precious blessings from Heaven

2010-09-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a quick post. Just wanted to pop in and show you the card I made for the precious baby girl from the baby shower I was lucky enough to attend. The basics are the same except instead of paper I used the heart prints stamp from PTI and stamped it in several pinkish colors.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Welcome back

2010-09-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

to me.I am sorry about my lack of posts lately. I tried to get something posted last week because I actually had things to post but last week was just H-E-double hockey sticks. If I wasn't down with horrible allergies, I was down with massive migraines. I am so glad to have last week behind me.Today I wanted to share with you one of two baby shower cards I made. I had a dual baby shower last Tuesday (the only day I actually felt like a human being).It was for two lovely new mother's in my ward. One is a mother of a little boy and the other has a precious little girl. This first card is for the adorable little boy.I got the idea from my desktop picture my older sister made me.

I don't have much time. I have to catch up on household duties. We got back yesterday evening after taking a trip to Yosemite. It was awesome and I am so glad we went. My husband had been wanting to go since he was young so it was awesome to be the one he got to go with and share the wonderful experience with him. Plus, our boys were all troopers. I love all my guys so very much.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Color Cue Thank you

2010-08-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it is Thursday and I am just now getting on here to post something. I needed a few more thank you cards and I so love Wplus9 that I decided to participate in the color cue challenge. Wow, what a challenge it was for me.

I chose Aqua Mist, Harvest Gold, Pure Poppy and White.

I wanted to use Vintage cream but apparently it doesn't show well on Harvest gold so I went with what worked.

I didn't like how this card came out, I will be honest. I think it had a lot more to do with the bold colors in the challenge. Also, I had the aqua mist in the frame background but that was it and it was bothering me. I couldn't figure out what to do because I didn't have any ribbon. I really need to work on changing that fact but it is so hard to keep up with everything.

This is when I realized I could cut some cardstock and make it into some ribbon. After added just that little detail on both sides of the main image I enjoy the card more.

I already have a recipient for this card so it will be in the mail as soon as I remember to get some stamps :)

Many Thanks

2010-08-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!!! Hopefully you guys all have wonderful plans for the weekend. We don't really have anything planned and that is probably a good thing since we had such a busy weekend last weekend. I am so glad that it is Friday though. It is rough getting used to early mornings again.I have a few thank you cards to make so I thought I better get started. I was going through my PTI cardstock flip book trying to decide on a color scheme when I remembered some PP that I haven't used yet. It is PTI library ledger and some I bought at Joann's a while back from ancestry.com.

The cardbase is vintage cream (I so need to get some more since this was basically the last of what I have) and then topped with dark chocolate (again, almost out). I colored in some of the dots with a glitter pen and the ribbon was just stashed in my desk.The detail flair is some I bought at Joann's. It is from Me & My Big ideas garden chipboard set. The boot is actually a button I got at Michael's and the only stamp I used on this card is from Wplus9 (Mendhi Medallions).Have a great weekend!!!Thanks for stopping by!!!

Verve challenge using Wplus9

2010-08-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting myself in my craft room to start playing around. I started by using a new set I finally bought from Wplus9 (Mendhi Medallions). I have been wanting this set since it first came out and finally got to use it.

I started the day by organizing all my PTI colors (cardstock) and then making a "book" of all the colors so it is easy to flip through and decide a great color combo. I am also going to copy my mom and sister and put the copic colors on the label so I know which ones to use.So, I was reading Lorie's blog and decided to get a good start on cards again by using Julee, from Verve stamps, sketch. It was fun and easy.I wanted to go monochromatic with a neutral color. I decided on the blues, ocean tides, hawaiian shores and aqua mist. The base is Smokey shadow (love that color and wish I had bought the ink before they stopped selling it, now I have to wait a few more months). I also used vintage cream for the sentiment.I think I used just about every element in the Mendhi Medallion set because I love it so much. Even the sentiment is in the set. Again, if you have not had a chance to try out their stamps, run, do not walk over to their site and try just one. They are priced VERY reasonably and so easy to use.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Vacation

2010-08-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!! Sorry I have been MIA again for a while. We were away for a long weekend. My oldest started school today so we took some time off and went on a long weekend trip to San Diego. I will post a couple pictures.

Hopefully I will have something crafty soon since I got some new stamps while I was away. I can't wait to play with them.

Niece's birthday

2010-08-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone!!! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. It was a very nice weekend here. I love nice weekends. We got to spend some time with great friends on Saturday. It is so nice to have good friends. Today I want to show you a card I made for my niece. I am so way late it is pitiful. I hope she will forgive me.I used a painting that my older sister bought my husband and I a long time ago. It is this picture

It has meaning because when my husband and I met for the first time it was in Las Vegas. We took a trip to the top of the eiffel tower. While up there they were having the grand opening of another casino with fireworks and all. It was just amazing and I believe I knew at that moment that we were going to be together forever.

The base of the card is summer sunrise stamped in versamark using polka dot basics. I used a label Nine nestability and cut one mat in harvest gold and the other in lemon tart. The butterfly is a sticker I bought a while back.The bottom is a strip of simply chartruese punched with a fiskars border punch and wrapped with sweet blush ribbon. I then tied 2 harvest gold buttons to the ribbon using some rope.I hope she enjoys this card. Now I just need to get her a present and put them in the mail.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Happy 4th

2010-08-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

I have been slacking in my duties as a scrapbooker. I am so behind on everything. I haven't scrapbooked much of our activities since we have been married, my middle son is still an infant in his scrapbook and my youngest has only 2 pages documenting his 3rd month in his.My husband has been bugging me to get going and I don't disagree with him. Since I do have some pictures already printed up I pulled them out and got started on putting them on a page.This is the only picture I took of my boys during our 4th of July celebration. I had a migraine that day and was doing my best not to be the party pooper. I did end up falling asleep on my couch while my sister and her family babysat for me (I didn't intend to fall asleep, thanks).We did head to the base sponsored festivites where we road a carnival ride and then watched the fireworks display.

I need to resupply my stash of paper with 12 X 12 paper so I can have some paper to scrapbook with. I was able to use this paper that is actually for a cruise. I just covered up the steering wheel with the red paper and the rest of the ship with the white ribbon and stars.The red paper is pure poppy and was stamped in versamark with Wplus9 background stamps, then I embossed it with kaleidescope embossing powder. I figured it was perfect with the little stars in the center of the circles and then the shimmer of the embossing powder.The ribbon I got from Wal-Mart a while back and the stars were punched with my fiskars punch using stamper's select white cardstock from PTI and inked with pure poppy and enchanted evening ink. I added the eyelets (from Stampin Up') for an added element. Then made the streams of light with stickles.The journal section was cut using the notepad dye from PTI that I won and stamped in simply chartreuse with the journal image in the school time stamp set.I had the "4" from another project I started but needed a 3 not a 4 and then just found a "t" and an "h". I inked them the same way using pure poppy and enchanted evening so all the colors were represented.The picture was put together with a simple strip of simply chartreuse cardstock covered with some pp I had in my stash (cut using a nestability die) and then rounded the corners of my picture to match the corners of the nestability. I also had the small sentiment from a stash I got at Michael's when they were having a bunch of stuff on sale. I figured it suited the picture nicely and the colors worked out great.I really need to keep up with my goal to make one page a week. Maybe I should change that to 1 page every two weeks/2 pages a month.Well, that is about it for today. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend planned. See you back here on Monday.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Giveaway and trying to sell

2010-08-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is going to be just a quick post. I frequent this wonderful blog called V and Co. She does some awesome things with her sewing machine and such. I would like to get more into sewing and decorating my own house.She is giving away a Silhouette machine, yep you heard me right. Go here to find out how to enter to win. Also, I have to Twilight paperback books I have been trying to sell. The first one "Twilight" and the second "New Moon". If you know anyone who would be interested in purchasing these books from me please email me. My email is on the sidebar. Have a great day.Thanks for stopping by!!!

8 wonderful years

2010-08-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I am sorry for my absence yesterday. I woke up with one of my wonderful migraines. It wasn't bad so I had hoped it would disappear quickly but that wasn't the case. I spent most of the day in bed. Thankfully my husband was able to help out when he got home from work.

Today is a special day for my husband and I. We said our vows 8 years ago today in front of friends, family and God. Thank you honey for being willing to spend the rest of your life with me.

This morning I made him a quick card using the same basic layout as the card I made for my parents. And yes, I did use ocean tides again. When I received the cardstock and showed it to my husband he really liked it so I figured I better use it for his card. The base is kraft stamped with the guide lines...lines diagonally.Then I used smokey shadow (punched on the bottom with a fiskars border punch) for the bottom and topped it with ocean tides cardstock. The twin is actually rope I bought at my local store. The sentiment border was one my sister cut out for me with her silhouette ( I love that thing).The sentiment is from PTI: Through the trees. I thought it was pretty fitting for an anniversary card.Well, that is about it for today. I do hope to be able to play with my new goodies soon.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Shocking

2010-07-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything crafty to show you. Well, anything crafty that I made. I didn't say anything when I first heard about it because I just didn't know how it was going to work or how long it was going to take. But...if anyone buys from PTI (Papertrey Ink) they know that they have a monthly release full of all kinds of giveaways.My mom and sister have been with PTI since the minute they opened and got me started on them probably around the time I moved back to California, almost 3 years ago.Every month each one of us enters to win any of the stamps sets that they are giving away for that month. For over 3 years now none of us have won anything and were beginning to think that it would never happen. Well, the day after the release party my mom sent me a text. It turned out that I have been randomly picked as a winner of one of the prize packages.

The package I won is actually perfect for me. It was called the school time package. It consisted of the pack of cardstock of the new color, harvest gold, each spool of ribbon (6), a bag of buttons, some felt, 3 of the new stamp sets (school time, school time additions and teacher's apple) and the spiral notebook page die. I am so excited and can't wait to dig in and starting playing with all of it. I won it with a comment about how I planned on making a "scrapbook" of all 3 of my boys school years, kindergarten through high school. I had a similar book that was given to me by my kindergarten teacher (I think). Such a great treasure.As soon as I get some goodies made up with these awesome supplies I will be posting them for sure.I hope you all have a great weekend.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Anniversaries

2010-07-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!!! I am trying to keep up with everything but it has been difficult. Monday was my nieces birthday and I have yet to make her a card and get her a present. Today is a special day as well. Today is the day (32 years ago) that my parents said their vows in front of friends and family and God. I am so proud to say that my parents are still married after all these years. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!! Now if you don't want to see your card then I would suggest leaving the blog for a few days as it just got out in the mail.Yep, another thing I am late on. I got their card made yesterday. I have to admit too, I did not come up with this concept. I basically stole the layout from Lorie from Live-Love-Laugh-Create. Lorie got her basic layout from the CPS challenge for this week which is being sponsored by Flower Soft. The card base is 4 X 8 1/2 made from rustic cream cardstock. I used ocean tides ink and sponged around the entire edge. Then used ocean tides cardstock cut at 4 X 3 1/2 stamped using Tim Holtz tea dye distress ink and PTI background basics: hearts. Now, I have to tell you. I finally bought the PTI background basics: text style stamp that I have been wanting since it came out and planned on using it right away. Since I was making an anniversary card though, I thought the love sentiment on the hearts set made more sense. The hearts from the same set were stamped using vintage cream ink. The ribbon, button and twine are some I had in my stash. Then I used Martha Stewarts border bunch with dark chocolate cardstock for the bottom. The sentiment was made with kraft cardstock and stamped with the newest PTI anniversary set, round and round with fresh snow ink and colorbox chalk dark chocolate ink.Well, I think that about does it. I hope my parents love it as much as I love how it turned out. I also hope they are able to enjoy a wonderful night or day out for their anniversary.I love you Mom and Dad, here is to another 32 years of wedded bliss!!!Thanks for stopping by!!!

Color Cue

2010-07-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday!!! It seems that I have been a little behind on my posting.I have fallen for a new stamp company called Wplus9. I have only one set from them but plan to get many more.

Over at Wplus9 they have a challenge colored color cue. They give you about 4 colors and challenge you to make project using those colors. I loved working with these colors. I chose to use berry sorbet as my coral color.

Since this card is a very simple card I am going to leave you with just a few details. The background stamp is Wplus9. The other stamps for the sentiment are PTI (Life and little lady).

The frame is one that my sister cut out for me using her silhouette. I love that and would love to get one of my own. What a neat tool that is.I hope you had a wonderful weekend.Thanks for stopping by!!!

Father's Day a month late

2010-07-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

...but better late than never, right?Since hubby was gone for a month he missed Father's Day. I thought about getting something and sending it to him but I didn't do it. I just wasn't up to doing any projects.When it was getting close for my husband to return I knew I had to get started on his Father's Day present. It wasn't going to be anything he really wanted but I wanted to do something for him as a Father.

I saw on a gift bag before my husband left, a picture of a father and his son sitting on the kitchen counter. All the pictures showed was their legs and feet hanging off the counter and thought that made for an awesome pictures. So, before my husband left I had him gather the boys and I took a picture of all 4 of them sitting on our back fence. I decided to give it more of a black and white feel to it and then mat it in a frame.I took it one step further and thought it would be even more special if we froze time for just a bit and put each of the boy's footprints on the mat. I had the two older boys write their own names above their print and then I wrote each of their ages underneath their print.The polka dots were stamped with PTI Polka dot basics in enchanted evening.The saying on top was something the boys got from church so I do not know who the author is. I matted that with smokey shadow cardstock and edged it with enchanted evening ink. The brads I had in my stash from Joann's.Thanks for stopping by!!!