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.

Top Done.

So over a year ago I joined a 9 Patch quilt a long. It was supposed to be a throw sized quilt. We were to do a certain number of squares a day and it would be done in a month. I started great. Then decided to make a king size for my bedroom. Then totally lost interest. Totally. But I wanted it done. So last week I dug it all out and today I finished the top!

If you count from the top row 4 is off. If I were a better quilter I'd have fixed that when I noticed it but I am not so I didn't. Here's to hoping I can train myself not to see it and just enjoy the quilt!

I'm going to tie the quilt. A few reasons, one it's huge. But mostly I want it to look old fashioned. And I do NOT hand quilt. I'm also going to use this wool blanket from Ireland that I have with the batting. I'm trying to make a REALLY warm quilt. I like looking at it, but Brian needs the thing. He is one of those people who is always cold when they sleep. I sleep with one sheet and that's it. All weather. Brian is under layers and layers of crap and still cold. I'm hoping this helps him.

You can also see where I hung some of my mini quilts over the bed. They make me happy. In other news we went to Savanna this weekend. Just a little two day thing. It was cute, I'd never been. I think it would be a really fun place to go with just me and Brian. The boys got bored at times. We went to a Bar-B-Q place and look at these ribs! Can you really appreciate the HUGE size of them? I was in SHOCK. And they were the most tender meat I've EVER eaten. You would think huge ribs like this would be a bit tough but they were insane. You barely needed a knife to cut them up. This was what Stephen and I were splitting but we ended up all sharing our food. It was all super delicious. Oh that weird fried thing is a fried pickle. That was Stephen's side item choice.

blast from the past and general update.

This cool envelope is from years ago. I still love seeing it in my photos file though. I have long sense mailed it. (I think to you Kim?) I don't have any of these stamps anymore. Sometimes I miss them.

I don't have anything new to share. I have made a few things but not much. Mostly I sleep and try to entertain the boys. I'm feeling lots better than a few weeks ago though, far less fainting. I'm just crazy tired. I can't explain how tired. Like I feel like I will DIE if I don't get a nap tired. Also my lower back hurts a lot lately. I'm not sure if that's baby weight pulling, from being so inactive and sleeping so much or the baby settling down on some nerve of pain. Maybe a combo. I'm trying to do a bit of exercise to help the back but anyhow.

I know that all sounds so drab but I DO feel lots better. I've been able to get back to going to church. Last weekend Brian and I left the boys (whith a kidsitter) and went to Orlando for two days. It was fantastic to get away. Brian's work is SO stressful lately. He worked 14 hours yesterday. It makes us all stressed. Poor kids hardly see him becaues they are long asleep when he gets home. POO on stinking jobs and cutbacks making Brian do two people's jobs.

Crap I'm complaining again!

In awesome news I am all motivated to finish that 9patch quilt I started last spring. (As in spring '09) I figured out how the blocks will work out and such, cut sashing pieces and started sewing the rows. I will need 11 rows and I've done 4 of them today so far. I can't sew all day (back thing) but that's good progress. I'm excited to see it come along.

And that's what's going on in Erin World. Baby is fine, my heart is fine, my general health is fine. I'm 27 weeks. That suprised me, I thought I was 30 weeks. I refuse to be pregnant for another 13 weeks. that can't be right (it is totally right) I'm going back to NOT counting so it can sneak up on me.

Oh kids start school really soon. Stephen in Kindergarden, Ethie in preschool. We are all excited and a smidge nervous. I know Ethie's teachers really well, same ones S had last year. I don't know Stephen's teacher yet but I'm sure she's fine. Stephen is very excited about school lunch and picking his food and getting chocolate milk once a week. (His rule, not mine, I don't have to have rules about healthy eating with him, he's a health nut)