Baby Girl Quilt

I felt like making a baby quilt. But Calvin has a mountian of them already. So I posted on facebook that whoever first wanted one I'd make a baby quilt for them. My friend Gail took the bait. The quilt is not actually for her, it's for a friend of hers. Love it! :) AND the baby in question is a GIRL. Love a chance to make a girl project.

I searched etsy for perfect fabrics, but decided in the end to use fun stuff from my stash instead. And here is what I came up with:
Closeup:

So I have some super fun sewing to do. I'm going to use the bright pink for binding I think.

In other news I really want to make these but all m&m's aggrivate Stephen's peanut allergy. :(

Also I'm hosting Christmas dinner and I invited almost 20 people! FUN. Of course I think only half will make it.

She has a baby then just drops off the planet...

I know! The thing is I've been tired. And in love with Calvin. I can't tell you how much time I spend staring at him. Not enough time actually! I love it! We are all good. It's cold season so we all have or are getting over colds. Ethie is the worst right now.

I did do a bit of crafting. I made this wreath with Roniece:

I got the idea from THIS Junkmail Greetings post. Mine doesn't look as good as hers. I just realized that. Oh well.

Otherwise my craft room is the same horrid mess it was BEFORE I had Calvin. I've barely set foot in there. It's a shame. The good news is with no muse lately I've not bought any craft stuff. Saving money is good. Boring, but good.

I don't know when I'll get back into crafting. But when I do I'll post again. I know it's lame to have a blog and only post once a month. Maybe next month I'll get regular.

See you then. And Merry Christmas!

Calvin is home!

I went in yesterday for the induction. Here is the birth story:
They induced me at 9:30am and I had him at 12:30pm.

It sort of went too fast for Brian. He had left to go home, make lunch, vote and come back. When she came in to check me a few moments after he left (without our one cell phone) she said, "Oh where is your husband, you are really close at 7cm" Well with Ethan, the time between 7cm and baby delivered was just an hour. So I called home hoping to catch him and tell him to skip the voting. 20 minutes later I felt the "urge to push". I was shocked. I called her in and yup, baby was right there. Like I could touch him. RIGHT THERE. I didn't catch Brian! He was on his way, but I was ready to push NOW. Thank heavens we live close. My Dr said it was ok to wait as long as I could stand it. Baby was looking great on monitor. Brian walked in expecting more labor, baby was out within 3 minutes of him walking in. Everyone was suprised at how fast the delivery went. I loved it. I mean I was overjoyed. I didn't break a sweat, didn't strain, just popped him right out.

I guess because the delivery was so super easy I've felt great. I'm sleepy, I didn't sleep great the night before and last night I had a brand new baby wanting to nurse every few hours. But otherwise I'm fine. (Yeah, a bit sore, that's expected) I cannot believe how easy it all was. Makes up totally for the rough pregnancy.

Calvin is perfect. He has brown hair, which was my wish. He barely cries, the nurses were all amazed. I mean like he's cried out twice at all. But he's breathing fine, nurses great, no jaundice at all. Sleeps in nice chunks mostly. He fell alseep in the car on the way home and is still sleeping in the carseat right now. (about 1.5 hours) He is already trying to hold his head up.

Well that's the birth story. :) Love you all.

This is one of my favorite pics. Ethan is in LOVE with his new baby brother. Stephen is not so much. He's ok about him but he doesn't like babies just on principle.

What all have you been up to Erin?

Honestly no one asks that because they know the answer will be, "What do you mean what have I been up to? I'm 39 weeks pregnant you fool! I just try to make it through the day without crying mostly!" I'm kidding. It hasn't been too bad. Some false labor, went to the hospital and everything. Totally lame. I'm inducing on Tuesday, so the end is in sight.

I did get to do most of the weekend's parties I wanted to do. The kid school ones, Brian's work one and the church one. I had to miss Roniece's birthday though and I was bummed. I was just soooo tired, I had already been to THREE parties that day.

Anyhow here are pictures from Halloween. I love the horse dressed up as a ladybug.

Also you may have heard our whole family has become obsessed with Lego. I never had lego as a kid. It's not woe as me, I mean I had plenty of toys, just not lego. So it's all new to me! We rescued a bunch of lego from Brian's Gram's closet. Some of it belongs to Dan, but we are putting everything together (OCD Brian and Dan saved all instructions of course) then sorting what was Brian's, what was Dan's and returning Dan's stuff to him. As we finish a set we are taking photos: In the first set the last 4 pics are a cool 4 level jail Stephen made up. The guys all on top are not fenced in, but if they jump they will most likely die as shown by the random body parts on the street. Even if not die then the huge scary drago in the last pic will get them. It's not a very friendly jail situation.

I build that gas station all by myself by the way. I'm getting better with my lego skillz.

I also built that beach scene. Alas, it belongs to Dan. The pirate ship is one of Brian's most favorite sets ever. He has been talking about it for years. Good to finally see it all built and such. He won't let the boys play with it yet though. It's on top of the fireplace.

A few more small sets (I really like building those small sets) and some "Islands" sets that are definately Dan's. (Ethan is bummed because all the alligators are Dan's.) The Race Way set is ours though.

As we finish a set that is "ours" after looking at it for a few days we are letting the boys take it apart or play with it or whatever. We therefore have a TON of fun lego to play with now.

Well that's about it for us. Oh random: Brian won't give out candy today because it's Sunday and no Trick or Treat on Sunday. We just got our first and only Trick or Treaters right now. I feel so bad ignoreing them. :( Come back next year. Also isn't 8:30 a bit late for trick or treating? It's been dark for 2 hours... Anyhow I thought we were going to get away with it, lights off and all, but I guess not.

Basket Kitties

Oh look, another There She Goes kitty card! This one was for the weekly Sketch Challange over on Splitcoaststampers. Colored them with copic markers. The paper is all Stamin' Up! So my background papers. I saw on a few blogs people using print paper for their background and I loved it. I had some really fine print papers from my subscription to Scarlet Lime so I decided to start doing it. I love the look. But then I noticed I would intentionally NOT use a print paper because I really liked using that print as a backdrop for photos. I'm not sure that's a valuable enough use for a paper. So these two prints, the orange flower dot and the writing looking paper I used together on a card I made yesterday. I'll put up a pic in the next few days. I love the card, but now I don't have that awesome orange (which I use a lot) to use for a backdrop! Not sure how I feel about that.

In other news:
Still pregnant. I still feel good. Tired easily but good. So I'm ok with not having Calvin yet. I have a fun weekend this weekend to keep me busy. Next weekend though I have no plans at all. Then the weekend after that I have THREE super fun parties if I'm still moving around. Brian's work Hallowen party, my bff Roniece's birthday party and the church Halloween party. I'd love to be able to do all that, I had kinda figured I would not be able to. So I'm torn now. I'm ready for Calvin to come, but I want to have all that fun too!
Ethan is on his first ever campout right now. I'm very excited to hear how it went. Stephen and I watched Back to the Future last night, ate some Twizzlers and he slept in the big bed with me. In a few hours we are meeting Marcia, Gram and Aunt Ann for lunch. Brian and Ethie E will be home late this afternoon.

sweet friend

Today's card uses more of my new There She Goes stamps. Have I mentioned I'm a bit addicted to TSG lately? I decided to keep this card super clean and simple. I colored the flowers with orange then shaded in with some red copic marker. Cut it down, stamped a greeting and mounted on black. Added some pearls and done.

Funny story: I showed the boys how to do this blending with copics. I use an acrylic board and scribble the darker color on it, then pick up a bit on my lighter marker and use that to shade. So I show all this to the boys. Am I daft? Now they have no interest in their 100 crayola markers, they want their own copics. They are 4 and 5. Copics are $4 each. Um... NO. I told them to try to do some shading with the crayola ones. I may be mean but I don't even let them use the copics. I mean I did buy them one HUNDRED crayola markers! Stephen also mentioned to me the other day that the quality of white cardstock he has isn't cutting it. Which is likely becaue I gave him all the el cheapo cardstock I had as I only use high end. I'm breeding craft snobs!

Had my 37 week baby appt today. Everything is fine. Kinda boring report, but a good one! My dr thinks I'll go all the way to 40 weeks. I'm shocked, I've never gone all the way. Of course no one knows when a baby will come. I just want to get through this weekend. I have several fun things planned. After that I'm good with whenever.

here kitty kitty

I played with some more of my new There She Goes stamps today. I absolutely and loving this company! I think it's because for a while I was so hooked on the simple style of Papertrey and similar that I got into a bit of a rut. Then I remembered how fun really adorable images are to work with so I'm really into TSG for now. I'm ok with the inconsistancy. :) I still love the simple style, but right now I'm into cute.

Today I'm sharing two kitty cards. The base cardstock is gray, not quite as dark as it is in my photos. I'm not sure why they came out darker, the pattern paper and coloring is right, just the gray. Whatever...

The one with two kittens I colored to mimic the kittens that have moved into the backyard. I guess they didn't "move into" it as they were born under our shed, I guess they have always called the back yard home. Anyhow one is mostly gray and one is white and orange. They are super playful but have never spelt anything for me with blocks.

Stephen's card and a personal challange

First up is Stephen's card from the Sketch Challange a few weeks back. He loves doing those sketches. This card he calls "Party chicken" Dan you see the really lightly stamped party chicken up there near the sky? Interesting note: Almost all Stephen's cards lately are trifold cards. He learned this "Taco fold" watching his teacher fold letters. He's actually quite good at getting a really straight tri fold. Something I'll be sure to remember next time I need to send out a pile of letters. ;) So I'm doing a double personal challange. Ready?

No more buying lego OR craft stuff for the rest OF THE YEAR. Now this sounds crazy but I'm having a baby in a few weeks. I know I'll be busy and tired. Also my boys have asked the grandparents for lego, so I'm sure they will get plenty for Christmas. And I have TONS of craft supplies already. I mean I have sets and sets that I've barely used. I have about 15 refills for my adhesive gun still. I have about 8 feet of cardstock stacked up. I don't NEED anything. I love to buy, it's super fun, but I'm going to see if the buying is my addiction or if the crafting is.

Oh in other news!:
I really wanted this kind of baby carrier wrap thing I see sometimes. Couldn't figure out what it was called. "It wraps around, thin material, sort of makes an "x" your baby goes in the front, weight even on your back so it doesn't hurt" Wasn't cutting it. My family tried to find such a crazy thing. They could not. Because of my lame description. But my good friend Savin knew exactly what I wanted! She bought me a Moby Wrap at Target of all places last week! I LOVE IT! I came right home from church (where she gave it to me) and wrapped several sized stuffed animals in it. It's so comfortable. I had a sling the over the one sholder type, but it always hurt my back if I wore it for any length of time. This wrap is so nice!
I also bought a pack of binkies for Calvin. I guess I'm ready. I cleaned out the purse I'm using as a diaper bag and stocked it with diapers and wipes. OH you know what I don't have any of? Diaper rash cream. I'll have to get a tub. (Do they have it at the hospital for me to steal?)

ETA: I do have a SU order on it's way to me... That doesn't count! I mean starting with new purchases!

MOre fun with my new stamps

I had to do a few challanges with my new There She Goes stamps. This is for the TSG blog challange this week and for the Sketch Challange from last week on Splitcoast. You can't tell, I think, but the girl's hair is glittery. And here is a photo of the kid's side of the craft room. It's not usually this clean. They both like to craft on the floor (there is a whole bunch of open floor in this room too) and they make a huge mess. We have to sweep almost every day. But when it's all clean it sure looks nice doesn't it?

Treats and clean!

I had to jump on the bandwagon and get some of those 1x8inch bags to make treats in. Here is my first one. I am thinking I'll give these out this Halloween. (Or Brian will, I'll likely be having a baby or so huge and tired of being pregnant that I'll just laze in bed.) I used leftover Jelly Belly candies from my baby shower. I only had enough for this handful of them, clearly I'll be needing more candy. This ADORABLE stamp is one of the new ones I got from There She Goes stamps. LOVE IT.

ETA: Sorry I forgot the link to the tube bags! HERE is where I got them. They shipped super quick. Shipping was 4.95 for 100 or 400, I got 400 of them. Seemed like an ok shipping for that many, but lame shipping for just one pack of 100. Gotta justify that shipping you know. They also hold m&m's, skittles and decorated pens well accoring to the girls on splitcoaststampers.

Also I thought I'd share pictures of my craft room as it's clean for now:

It hasn't changed in a while really so you may not see much difference. I'm really happy with this arrangement. I've kept this basic arrangement for several years and don't have any plans to change.

None of the sports stuff is mine. We all share this room as a hobby room. Brian collects sports crap and the kids have a little craft table and their own craft supplies organized on the other side of my desk. (I need to show that to you, It's pretty cute)

The shiny gift bag you can barely see on the bottom left of the second photo is STUFFED full of stuff I cleared out when I cleaned. Tomorrow on Facebook I'm going to sell that stuff. I arranged it in 9 "lots" or sort of related groupings. The prices are going to be pretty cheap, I'm trying to get rid of this stuff. All the money goes to Brian's TV fund. We have never had a new TV, all hand-me-downs or thrift shop ones. Ours is on it's last leg, so it's time to enter adulthood and buy our own TV. (Because none of our family happens to be upgrading right now.) He really wants one of those new flat ones in 42inches. He never really wants big stuff like that so I'm giving all the money from selling my stamps to the TV fund. I mean I watch TV too so it's not totally altruistic, although I would be happy with a tiny TV I don't really care. I'm sure I'll enjoy a nice big one though.

See how nice I am not using the money for the "zip up to my knees" boots? I'm such a nice wife. He should buy me boots to thank me. haha.

Baby Shower photos

Yesterday was my baby shower! It was super fun and I think everyone had a good time. I got gobs of presents for Calvin, diapers, clothes, fun toys. :) The food was delicious. Savin made her famous egg rolls *swoon*. Right after the party Brian and I went in attack mode and we had it all cleaned up in less than an hour, so now I'm in a perfectly clean house, with a fridge stocked with all my favorite foods as leftovers! How awesome is that?

So here are photos. I want you to pay especial attention to the horrible look on my face in some of them. I'm not sure what to say! Let's all just laugh about it and remember me at cuter times. In this next set it looks like I'm horrified of Ethan doesn't it? I am NOT horrified of Ethan, I love him to pieces.

This set has pictures of the decorations and food. Yup, those are CamiCakes. Jealous? Everyone loved them. I had ordered everyone's choice of flavor and made pics to label them.

Here we are playing that game where there is a melted candybar in a diaper and you have to figure out what kind of candybar it is. (and it looks like poop) Ewwwwww. This game scared me because Stephen was home and the candy bars all had peanut. We handled them like they were rat poision after the game was done. Oh I'm also getting some adorable shoes for baby Calvin in this set! SHOES for babies are soooo cute. Silly but cute.

Well that's all for photos. We had such a fun time. Well I did at least.

After all this we went down to St. Augustine to see Brian's mom and Gram. they didn't get to come up because they have been sick. We brought them some party food and their cupcakes. They gave us bunches of presents. Some for Calvin, but some just for us! Fun. Then we went to a pizza place (yum) and the outlet mall. I finally bought the size and stuff of my bowl for my Kitchen Aid mixer and got a pouring shield for it. Brian got three pairs of jeans, his were ratty.

At the Bass outlet there was a pair of boots. I desperately want black dressy boots that go to my knees. I feel that no other item of clothing can make me happier. But I have HUGE calfs. It's all muscle, but they are really thick. So high boots never zip over them. But last night this pair DID. And they looked HOT. A few ladies trying on clothes gathered around to discuss the hotness. I want them SO BADLY. Alas they were $60 and Brian, voice of reason that he is, talked me out of them. I feel kinda ill about it. I've had buyers remorse, but never "not buying remorse". If I keep dreaming about them I'm going to have to just go get them. They were so cool!

That girl is so full of excuses

Guys I'm so sorry. I do care about this blog and my readers (especially you Suzi!)

It's one thing after the other. I have been sick, pregnant, sick kids, traveling husband, this week I'm getting over that stupid flu and cleaning my house a TON. (I thought it would be easier for me to have my baby shower at home because I woudln't have to drive anywhere... totally forgot that means it's ME that has to super clean her own house!)

I actually have a TON of new stamp stuff, seem to be able to find time to place some orders at least. Sigh. I AM going to make and post some stuff.

You know, soon. Or not so soon.

Anyhow thanks for sticking with me. Maybe I'll have some cool blog candy to thank you guys for still visiting even though I'm all random and rare lately. I hate random rare blogs! ugh.

In other news: No negative health reports! We are getting over that flu but doing very well. Calvin seems totally fine in there. My kids are both loving school now. (Ethan prayed his way into loving school, totally unpromted by me, I've never been so proud.) Things are going well.

Flu season strikes

So this week me, Ethan and Stephen all have come down with what appears to be the flu. It's like a super bad cold, with cough and low fever. I seem to be the worse. I sent Ethie to school today but felt guilty after I left. I made them swear they would call me if he appeared sick. I don't know that they would call though.

I did have a parent teacher conference with Stephen's teacher. She was already in the know about his being crazy smart. She has him in a table group with other really smarty pants kids. She's also getting him tested for gifted at midterm. If that goes well he will be in gifted starting with 1st grade. She said he doesn't appear to be having any issues like that he's getting bored and causing problems. She will keep an eye on it. The thing is he's having a TON OF FUN so we don't want to move him out or anything. Plenty of time to be a huge nerd later, be a happy Kindergardner now!

Brian is in town and healthy. That's a relief. No more travel for him until after the baby comes.

I am supposed to have friends over for dinner Sunday but may have to cancel. I'm bummed, I know we were all looking forward to it. And I'll have to cook one way or another, why not still have them. I can't decide.

My car battery died. Not that I'm up to going anywhere anyhow. Turns out we have had that battery for 6 years. I guess they just die sometimes. Brian said he would take care of it after work tonight. He had this illness a few weeks ago, he knows how I'm feeling.

Well that is all my excuse for no new cards. All I do is sleep. It's sorta best that me and the boys got it at the same time. They are low energy right now which works for me.

xxoo,
e

And colored in!

Just now I colored in the scene I stamped out yesterday. I LOVE coloring these kids. I can't wait to do another and color with copics. I decided to make the boy end up on the outside of the card and keep the sentiment simple: Then when you open it up you get this whole cute scene.

My friend Tracey suggest I draw smiles on them. Said they looked a little sad without. As I'm having the Ethan is sad issue here I'm loving being able to cheer a kid up with a simple smile. :)

And that's pretty much it. I drew in the floor and the smiles. I colored everything with watercolor pencils. Oh wait, the wall is actually super light blue and it's colored with watercolor crayon. The rest is pencil. These kids are going to be SO FUN to play with and color.

Oh look, another post. The card that had to be made

So I bought this HUGE Sugarplums kit from All That Scraps the other day. I want you to know this was, at $46.80 the single most expensive stamp set I've ever purchased. But it is SO CUTE. I've been wanting a few Sugar Plums for a while and this way I got a bunch! Anyhow when I saw it I knew I'd make this very card: I'm going to color it tomorrow. But I had to show you how it's looking so far now. I drew in the hardwood floor. I'm going to color it with watercolor pencils. I'm really happy that it come out the way it looked in my head.

I also took the time to make a post it note mask for each and every kid in the set. So anytime I want to have them sitting on something I don't have to ask myself it it's worth the time to make a mask for them.

The only thing about this set that's a bummer is that there is only 1 boy in the 6 kids. I mean two boys would have been enough. Why just one? :( Course the girls are all adorable, it will be ok.

In tiny other news:
Stephen told me he likes Music class at school more than Art class at school. I find this to be a huge failure in my parenting. I mean loving math best is one thing but music? Sorry kiddo, but there is nothing in your genetics to suggest you have any future in that area.

Mojo Monday 157

So I've followed Mojo Monday blog forever. I've done some of the older sketches just for fun. But this was the first Monday that I've ever seen it and said, "I'm going to get up RIGHT NOW and kick out that sketch". For an added challange I decided to make the sketch with stuff I had on my desk. Roniece pointed out that when you have this luciousness on your desk calling that a "challange" is a bit unfair, but whatever! Honestly my desk is a rare mess and I have all sorts of awesome junk on it. This stuff is from this month's Scarlet Lime kit. No stamping either! Breaks my heart sometimes to make cool cards with no stamping.

In other news:
I feel good just tired. I know I've mentioned this tiredness before, this won't likely be the last time I mention it either. Today I'm VERY irritable. There are a variety of personal reasons for it, but I'm coping. One lame reason is that for some reason no mail delivery Saturday OR today! What the heck is that about! And I AM expecting a package or two! LAME.
I'm thinking of taking Ethie out of preschool. Did anyone quit preschool and if so what are your feelings on it? I think I can get more done with him in way less time and his social skills are fine. And he hates it. Apparently he cried all day today. But he cried quietly so it didn't disturb anyone so they didn't call me or mention it. He said you only get in trouble if you cry loud so he just cried quietly. Can you imagine how that makes me feel? I'm going to give it a bit longer but if he doesn't start improving in his work OR enjoying it more I'm pulling him.
Stephen's math is still an issue at school. I emailed the teacher asking for an appointment and mentioning the issue but the mail got returned as undeliverable. I don't know how else to reach her. I guess I'll put a note in the bag and ask for an appointment. If you don't read facebook the problem is that Stephen is REALLY advanced in math. Like crazy advanced. So because of this he is having trouble focusing on the math at school because they are counting up to 6. Stephen does multiplication, simple algebra, adding fractions, negative numbers and add and subtract up to two digit numbers. So "count the worms and color in blocks to show how many there are" isn't really keeping his interest. I can keep doing math at home, that's fine, but if that's the case I need his teacher to at least know what's up. Maybe she can give him some other worksheets or something? I am not going to NOT teach him the math he asks about though. "What if a number is LESS than zero, how do we work with that number" I'm not going to say, "You don't, you are 5, you count to 6 and stop asking me silly questions" I'm going to say, "here we go" and draw a number line and show how it can go below zero and how we put little negative signs on those and such.
Anyhow school is frustrating in a lot of ways. Stephen does LOVE his school though, and he adores his teacher. I mean hero worships her really. If she could give him some good math worksheets he might not ever want to come home! haha.

Happy Thanksgiving

So last week Mark's Finest Papers did a blog hop. It was so fun and used stamps I had just purchased so it was extra fun for me! It was one of those blog hops where if you comment on everyone you are entered to win a prize. And I won one of the prizes! I got an unreleased Thanksgiving stamp set! And it made me think... I didn't have any Thanksgiving stamps! So now I do. This girl and sentiment are from the set. Isn't she darling?



I paper pieced her clothes using paper from Cosmo Cricket's Material Girl line, I colored her skin and hair with copics. The sketch here is actually today's Sketch Challange over on splitcoaststampers. It is the type of sketch that usually scares me, different layers and shapes and stuff.. But I had colored the girl last night, not knowing what I'd do with her, so I just made it work. :) Oh and I used the Papertrey woodgrain embossing plate on it too. LOVE that woodgrain plate.

In Other News:

That stinky summer cold has hit our home, one at a time mostly. Me and Ethie are overlapping. Oddly Stephen hasn't gotten it, he's usually the first to get sick. I think it's actually his being gone at school all day that's protecting him. (I'm sure he will get lice next week to make up for it or something.)

Brian comes home tonight then travel is over until the baby comes! I'm a little over 32 weeks now. I feel huge and tired but otherwise ok.

OLW19 and New Stamps!

So last night on Facebook me and some freinds discussed if I needed the newest Halloween set by Mark's Finest Papers. We all thought I did. Tracey really wanted me to get it and make this kid/ghost into the little friend from Charlie Brown who cuts too many holes in his ghost costume. I'm really lucky because Faith lives very close to me, so my stamps where hand delievered by her son Markie just about an hour ago! New stamps in less than an hour delivered by a cute child. You gotta love that! Also my kids said, "We don't know his name but it's a new mailman who is a kid!" When I asked who was at the door. We have a "don't answer the door unless you know who it is policy" of course.

Anyhow I'm really tired tonight, couldn't sleep last night. So I just did one quick card with this. Using TJ's idea to make him that one kid with all the extra holes. I LOVE this stamp set. Also these are my first MFP stamps and my review is that they are JUST as high quality as any other clear stamps I have. :)

This is also my entry in the One Layer Wednesday challange this week, which is black and white with a spot of color. Technically I have three spots of color but I'm going with it.

Stephen's There She Goes challange card

Stephen also wanted to do the "kraft, black, teal" birthday card challange for There She Goes. Here is his card: And here is what he has to say about it:
This is sciencey, I added butterflies for a little bit of detail. There is presents to make it birthday. The background is very colorful. If you can see, on the bottom, there's a popcorn looking kind of sheet with red and turquoise. And it's very beautiful to me, you might think it's beautiful too.

My There She Goes Monday Challange

So you know I got those new There She Goes stamps and I love them so much. Well they are celebrating their 2nd birthday and I think I'm going to play along. It might get boring because I only have two image stamp sets, but whatever! haha. The first challange is a color challange. You can see it HERE. Basicly it's kraft, black and teal. All the cards for the challanges have to be birthday cards. Which is rough because none of my TSG stamps are even remotely birthday... hmmm. Anyhow I'm going to try to make it work! :)

So you know Stephen is playing along with this challange. He is not very serious about using just the colors recomended, but he is working very hard this very second so I'm gonna share it.

Christmas Girl

I am totally in love with the SU set Greeting Card Kids. The old fashioned look to these sweet kids is just darling. For this one I used some glitter on the tree and flocking on the white parts of her outfit. I also used a million red jewels. I also love these colors. That blue is delicious. In Other News:
Water Dog, our salamander died yesterday. Oddly I was on facebook yesterday joking about what a lame pet he was. I feel badly about that now. He was kinda cool. I don't think salamanders make great pets though. They don't play or cuddle or anything. They should just be in the wild. Anyhow Water Dog was a pet that Brian and I got when we were first married. We have had him over 10 years. He was super cute, looked like he was smiling all the time.
I just told the boys that he is dead. They are a little bummed. They are excited that now we can fill the tank up and get a second fish. About a year ago we got two little feeder fish to see if WD would eat them. He promptly ate one and then never ate the second. Eventually we named the second one "Norm" and started feeding and caring for it. So now Norm is alone and will need a friend. Anyhow the kids are torn between being sad for Water Dog and happy to get a new fish.
I feel weird. Kinda guilty. I don't know, 10 years is a long time for a salamander in captivity. And what could I have done? I hope he died peacefully. I hope he kinda enjoyed his life. I know he was well fed the whole time, that's really all I could do for him.

New stamps and publication news

I got new stamps in the mail yesterday from There She Goes. I've been eyeing them for a while and I'm so excited I finally placed an order. They are clear and yes, the high quality kind of clear. :) For my first card I combined two sets I got. The Chemistry one and the back to school one. My 5 year old son loves science and reading about science and talking about it and every such thing. So I made this for him. :) I drew the thought bubble. Not very well either.

This one uses stamps from the back to school set. I love this set, it's just super duper cute. I stamped the boy and girl over and over, connecting their little table lines so it looks like a whole group of them reading nicely at the same time. I made this one for Stephen's teacher. He's doing so well and loving school so much, she must be doing a lot right!

Finally some snap shots of two cards I have in the Just Cards! Holidays issue. The spooky house and three ornament cards. I didn't know I was going to have anything in this issue until it came in the mail yesterday, super fun!

Inspired by...

Tonight I'm going to share some cards I've made recently inspired strongly by my Papercrafts publications addiction. I usually take an element here or there and call it mine, but the other day I fell so in love with a few that I really used a lot of the details.

1. This Christmas card is heavily inspired by a card in Card Style. The original on page 27 is by Gretchen Clark. She used a different stamp set and green instead of orange but it's really close. I loved her card and had to make my own! (She used that cute Holiday Button Bits set by Papertrey on hers.) 2. I think I shared this already. Maybe not. I dunno. Anyhow this turtle card is inspired by another card in Card Style. Page 10 has the frog card. Its' by Courtney Kelley. Adorable!

3. This happy birthday card is inspired by THIS card which was an online bonus in the July/August issue of the magazine. Maile Belles made the original and it's darling.

I think those are the ones I've made recently that I really needed to tell you where I got the ideas from. I love to use other cards as starting points, but like I said I don't usually take this much. But you know what? It was FUN to make all these cards and I love them. I feel no shame! haha. I did want to let you know who made the originals though. I don't know what I'd do without Papercrafts publications. I think I buy ALL the special issues. No wait, I didn't buy that food one. I almost never give food as a gift. I'm not sure why, but I knew I would not use that one.

Feel Better

I saw a card in a recent Papercrafts publication (have trouble keeping them straight!) that I loved. It was similar to this, in that it had the one strip of a bold pattern paper and then something cute going on over it. I had to give it a go. I'm VERY happy with how this card turned out.

The turtle is by Cornish Heritage Farms. I love them, sad they are closing. I colored him with copic markers, trying to use colors from the pattern paper. That's how he ended up with some red spots. I don't think I've ever put red on a turtle but I like it bunches. The word bubble thing is by Hero Arts. I bought that set to make my cute animals say cute things, but I quite often forget to use it. Both the turtle and the word bubble are up on foam tape.

Tomorrow I probably won't blog, although I'm trying to blog more often. Look at my to do list for tomorrow:

• Kids to school
• OBGYN appt
• Get Ethie from school
• Get Popeyes chicken
• Take Popeyes chicken and some magazines to Roniece at the hospital, she's having surgery. I don't know if they will let her eat the chicken but I'm gonna try.
• Home to get Stephen
• Harrass Stephen into doing homework and eating snack
• Rest a bit hopefully
• Feed kids dinner
• PTA meeting. I'm super excited about the PTA meeting, it's my first one! I want to be one of those super involved PTA moms, but I can't sign up for much just yet because I'm having a baby soon you know.
• BED, I have to get the kids to bed earlier, they are SO tired in the mornings, I guess school takes a lot out of you.

Speaking of school, it's going great. Stephen LOVES Kindergarden. He's not bored at all (his main complaint about preschool). He thinks all the activities are very cool. It's also making him learn faster. I'm not talking so much about the stuff they are teaching him, although there is that too, but the stuff we do at home. He has these word cards I've made, probably about 70 of them. All summer we worked on them, he would usually get all but about 10 right on the first try. I did them them other day and he got them ALL. It's like his mind is in learning mode more because of school. He's also reading GREAT. He is taking a stab at new words and getting better at sounding out. I'm very impressed.

Both Ethie and Stephen have made friends in their class that live right near us! Ethie has a friend who lives in the house right around the corner. He is excited because it's actually the house with the trampoline! We can see their yard from ours. Stephen has a new friend down the street named Ethan! He seems like a really nice boy. Talks a lot. That's me, Erin, saying he talks a lot. I want you to think about that... ME, Erin, saying this kid talks a lot. haha! He's funny and sweet though.

NO bully issues. They are in there but have mellowed or something. Stephen is not super good friends with them, but he said they are nice enough. It must be weird to be in Kindergarden with your brother. I would think they would take longer to make friends because they have each other? I think if my kids were the same grade I'd request them not to be together. Course I don't know, my kids are a year apart. Then Calvin, he will barely be in school with brothers at all!

Baby Shower and Bunnies

I've been working on my baby shower invites and favors and such. Here is what I have done: Stamped envelopes, Invite outsides (need to type out the words, that's always hard for me) and tons and tons of the little milk carton birdhouses. I'm going to make a little googlie eyed owl for each bird house. Fun stuff.
I also made some other random fun cards. Today I'll share some bunny ones.

I forget who makes the stickers I used but t hey sure are cute.

In Other News:

Both kids are started in school. Stephen in all day Kindergarden, which he's loving. He started last week. He loves his teacher, is making friends and said it's not boring at all. He does think the day is long and that makes him tired. Ethie started today in PreK, it's half day so not so long. He already knew the teachers from last year when they had Stephen so he's going to get along just fine. He was mad today because he had to do "library" as his station instead of "dinosaurs" As my friend Tracey pointed out, a station called, "Library" never stood a chance against one called, "Dinosaur" I mean seriously. haha. He's such a good boy though, he just did what they told him anyhow. He did get in an argument because he only goes by "Ethie" and they kept calling him "Ethan" I did fill out a thingie about his nickname, but I guess they didn't pass it on. I talked to the teachers today though and they know to call him "Ethie" and even let him do that for learning to write his name. No one hassles a Michael for going by "Mikey" why give Ethie a hard time? haha. Actually I met a mom today who was complaining because her daughter "Alexandria" doesn't answer to "Alex" but the same teachers wanted to have her learn that for writing her name. Funny how some nicknames are so accepted and some are not. I love these teachers though, I've known them a year now. This is a minor issue. (Unless you ask Ethie, he's pretty serious about it.)

I'm feeling GREAT lately. Yes, tired, yes achey by the end of the day, but really fantastic otherwise. Love that!

One of my best friends is moving to Bosnia tomorrow. I'm excited, it's a great opportunity for her family and it's just for one year, but DANG that's entirely too far! :( I'm gonna miss her!

I did iron the quilt and layer it and it's about halfway done with the tieing. The problem is that it's stinking HOT here and I have to have it all in my lap to tie. I will finish it soon though.

Sleepy Thanks

I made this card for this week's Sketch Challange over on Splitcoaststampers. It was a fun sketch and encourged me to use a whole bunch of different print papers. I used stamps by Crafty Secrets. The papers are all Stampin' Up. Here is a fun cloak I made. I really wanted it to be a capelet for myself, but it was WAY too short, it was silly looking on me. So I adjusted the button to be higher up and it makes an adorable cape for a little girl. The girl in question got it today and she loves it.

It's reversable too!

I'm still procrastinating ironing the seems on my quilt top. Sigh.

Smile

This morning I made a "smile" card. I used papers from Sassafrasslass's Nerdy Bird collection for the card and Cosmo Cricket's Ready Set Chip stickers for the word. The cardstock is by Stampin' Up!. Ribbon is Papertrey. I also made a fun bicycle envelope to hold it. It's a 5x7inch card so I needed to make it a custom envelope. I'm not sure who makes that paper, but it sure seemed to go with my card. :)

Today I'm going to get the batting for the quilt and start work on that. Fun stuff! Brian is excited to be warm at night.