One layout three cards

I recently bought a roll of black washi tape with white polkadots on it. It goes with the Smashbooks line. I don't have a Smashbook, just the tape.

I cannot stop using this tape! I'm totally addicted to it. It is sort of freaking me out. I've not been showing all the PILES of Christmas cards I've been making with it, but believe me... tons.

Here are three super simple cards with it.
I love this chicken stamp! I picked it up the other day at Big Lots. I think it originated in either the Joannes or Michaels Dollar Bins. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set. Colored with pencil and OMS.
Here we have an adorable Gina K duckie. I have a whole set with these cute ducks. Pencil and OMS again.
And this one. These boys are colored to be reminiscent of my two oldest boys. They are from an awesome set by There She Goes. I love that store for painfully adorable stamps.

Well it is the new year in 9 minutes. So good luck with that and all. I'm not that into resolutions and such.

hello

I had the best day today visiting with my friend Laura. She makes all this tons of stuff from scratch and all organic and all. She was making an amazing smelling chicken soup. Despite all my sniffling and hints I didn't seem to come home with any. So I'm making my own ham bone soup. But I put a TON of garlic an onions and celery in it. YUM! My grocery store was giving away free poinsettia's too. Fun. Also me and the boys walked there. Always an adventure.

Here is a fun card I want to share. I want to tell you that it is NOT crooked on top like that. I just looked at it in real life and it's not. I'm not sure if it was then I fixed it and forgot, or if it is something about the camera angle. Anyhow imagine it not crooked.
It is the papertrey circle background set again of course. And again, heavily inspired by Susan over at Simplicity. And I love it.

Gifts for Strangers

So I saw an AWESOME youtube video the other day. It is about Gifts for Strangers. I am so totally inspired! I'm so doing this for next year. I'm going to collect up cool gifts I find, good deals and such, all year then go out with the boys and give them all to strangers. If any of my local friends want to join me let me know, if any of my not-local friends want to join go on the site and they have all the info.

I have a related story to share. When we went driving looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve we saw a house that had a nice sign saying they had a living nativity going on. It welcomed us to stop and get out and see it. It was so nice, a friendly party of strangers, they had hot cocoa and cookies, and the nativity and a Shepard (who was the homeowner) telling the Christmas story. Then he invited the boys to take presents out from under his tree. He probably had 50 wrapped gifts under there. The boys each took one, they were super grateful. We opened them on Christmas. Stephen got a cool nativity ornament that you put one of your tree lights into and it glows, Ethan got a full children's nativity set. I was blown away at the time and expense and love that went into such a wonderful Christmas gift to that man's whole community.

My other Christmas inspiration, came too late for this year as well. We LOVE driving and looking at Christmas lights. I always wish I could let the homeowners know how much joy it brings our family. So next year I'm going to make up a bunch of Christmas thank you cards, we will all write in them, put them with some candy and when we see a house that really touches us one of us will jump out and deliver the card to the doorstep. Yall feel free to keep me to this plan. I'll try not to have pneumonia next year.

Atlas Wreath and kid art

Ethan bought himself a fancy schmancy art kit yesterday, raced home and started painting. He later added a face, this is just work in progress. Can you guess what it is?
I have been working for a few days on this wreath. I love it. I love all things atlas. I think the colors used on maps are just outstanding. I cut pieces of one of my old atlases I get at thrift stores into strips that were 8.5x4, then rolled them into skinny cones and glue gunned them to a wire wreath I happened to have.

Came to me in a dream card set

I have terrible insomnia. I also have pneumonia and am taking forever to recover. I spend a lot of my nights tossing and turning and coughing. A few nights ago (Before Christmas) I was half asleep when the idea came to me that I HAD to make a certain card set. It had to be the particular cards and for a particular teenager I know. Side note, I know AMAZING teens, and have no point of reference for understanding the phrase "Kids these days" because all the ones I know rock.

I was excited to find the notecards worked out perfectly! I embossed a 4x5.25 piece of kraft cardstock with the woodgrain embossing sheet by Papertrey. Then I punched 3 hearts out of one of my vintage atlases. Sewed them down the center onto the embossed sheet and attached that to a folded card.

For the envelope I made it out of some kraft text weight paper I have (and am out of and bummed), then lined it with the atlas paper. So easy but just exactly how it looked in my dream.
Here is the stack of them:
And here they are in a Papertrey card box.
I wish I had taken a photo of the wrapping, I wrapped them in another atlas page, then tied it with red cotton lace and sheer cream ribbon. Then I used a silver and white bird with feather tag.

I hope she liked it. I was quite happy with how it turned out.

baby it's cold outside

Actually it's not. It is like 80 and humid. But making these cards made me feel the chill of the season.

While I was taking my photos Calvin was super upset and crying at the window. Here is a picture:
He didn't get a long enough nap. Poor thing.

Clowning Around

Here are two cards I made with a cute clown I picked up at Michaels. Same card, two different color schemes. I think the pastel is better for a younger kid, like a 1 year old and the other for a 3 year old. Of course you never hear 1 year olds say, "I really like the soft tones on this card".

Speaking of one year olds mine ate my glasses case today! Weird kid. :)

Thank you set

I made a card set of Thank You cards using my new Papertrey circle background set. Love this set! Love the idea of coloring just a few of the circles in.
Easy as can be. I just took some scraps out of my scrap bin, that were about the right size, trimmed them to fit just right and colored some of the circles to match. On the gray I used gray and yellow, felt it needed a kick.

Super simple Modern Christmas

I have been reading Simplicity (http://simplicitybylateblossom.blogspot.com/)for about forever. Susan is, hands down, my favorite cardmaker. She is also the cardmaker I copy most by a landslide. She recently got Modern Basics by Papertrey and I knew I had to order it myself. I had been thinking about it for some time, but when I saw she had it I knew she would use it in a variety of ways that would appeal to me. And she did!

So here is one of my first cards using this new-to-me set.



It is crazy simple but I really like it. I'm working on my 2012 Christmas cards. I'm doing all handmade for next year. I've been doing the photo cards for a few years.

In other news: I'm CRAZY sick. I have pneumonia and bronchitis. It is horrible. It is taking forever to feel human again. I'm sooooo tired. The coughing fits are terrible.
All my Christmas stuff is ready except the food. Can't do that so far ahead though.
I'm dog-sitting the most perfect, adorable dog ever. It has been great to have Odie here during my illness because he is very cuddly and has been a huge comfort to me.
My kids and husband have been great to me during this. Letting me rest a bunch and stuff. Just what I need.

Happy Halloween

Of all the recent cards, somehow this simple one is my most favorite.

I've long loved this stamp. I got it in one of those cheap dollar bins at Michael's Craft Store. It is one of my few Halloween stamps that I still have and I doubt I will be getting rid of it.

Just for fun, I also made this:

This is Stephen's Mummy costume for this year. I have sense added legs to it, longer ones I mean. He loves it. He also insisted on all that blood, although you rarely see mummies with blood. I want to wash it off for a more authentic look but he LOVES it. :) We dust it all with baby powder so he's all dusty and stuff. Fun! We have already had one Halloween Party! We always have a ton of Halloween festivities.

I didn't make the other boys' costumes, Ethan is a turtle and Calvin is a shark. They are adorable, I'll get pictures on here in the next few days.

take care

Here is another card I made this week. (well last week, it's Sunday so it's a new week.) I like the colors and the simple design. I LOVE the huge sentiment. This second picture shows the colors a bit better.
I always think it's good to have some get well cards on hand.

happy thanksgiving

I was inspired by some of the simple designs in the most recent Papercrafts Magazine. I have been wanting to use the turkey set by Papertrey and I saw this cue acorn. It could barely be more simple but I like it very well.

I might make more stuff today. I have a day off. Brian took the older boys to Wild Adventures, it's just me and the baby and he's a pretty good napper. :)

Octopus time

So I've been watching a lot of HGTV and decorating shows. My decorating style is "Collect up stuff I love and put it all in the room with also some random hand me down functional but boring old stuff". It works for me.

In my collecting up stuff I love I often go on Etsy for inspiration. I found some art the other day that I love at PRRINT. Especially the octopus printed on dictionary paper art.

So I made some:
I found the cool 9-UP frame at goodwill for $3.99 and I already had an old dictionary. So I put them together with some printed octopus pictures, colored them with my copics and done.

I had an extra octopus that I didn't quite like for the wall art so I made him into a cool notecard:
Easy peasy!

So I've been gone for EVER. I've been busy and under inspired. While I was gone:

• Calvin and Stephen both had surgery, they are both fine.
• I lost 15lbs and gained 5.
• I'm still working out regularly.
• I made some new curtains and a cool skirt.
• I started playing Farmville and it is wasting a lot of my time.
• I got chickens! You know, pet chickens! I love them.
• Calvin stands now and almost walks.
• Stephen is doing great in 1st grade and Ethan is doing great in Kindergarten.
• Brian's job is WAY better and he's home a lot more now.
• I got published twice.

Some other stuff happened but that's enough catchup. I have a lot of projects already photographed that I hope to share to get me going with the blog again. I've missed it.

Took a few pics today.

Today is actually Ethan's birthday. I didn't take pics of him today. We had his party Saturday past and took pics then. He's amazing and adorable. Ethan has the most pure faith of anyone I know. He's FIVE now if you can believe it!

So here are photos I did take today.

Cleaning up at CVS

As you may know I've been doing some "couponing". I mostly do a few deals at Publix and the CVS drugstore Extra Care Bucks racket. Two weeks ago I spent all my ECB (these little cash register print out thingies you can use like cash in the store, certain items give you them.) in one purchase that didn't give me any back. This is horrifying in the ECB world, but Calvin needed a sippy cup and I didn't want to pay actual money for it.

So I rolled up into CVS today with a stack of coupons and some actual real dollars. I got all the stuff in the above photo for around $7.50 total! AND I have $7 in new ECB for next week! I have to tell you I felt like I won the CVS lottery.

More makeup fun.

Wanted to let you know about a fun giveaway on another blog.

Check it out HERE. The Trace Face Philes is a super fun blog. :)

There is even a group on facebook. All talking about nail polish all the time. LOVE IT.

Makeup, catchup

It's been forever.

I don't know why.

I'm still super into makeup lately. I'm recently all inspired by this blog:

Confessions of a Glitterholic. She's doing a giveaway for some fun eyeshadows right now.

I have not made a card in months. I'm ashamed of that fact.

I have lost 10lbs though! :) I'm happy with that fact.

Here is a fun pic of Calvin:

Isn't he just perfect! It's no wonder I don't have time for crafts, I just play with this baby all day.

Pink Hair.

Here is my newest hair color: My facebook friends say it looks like My Little Pony.

I love it! :)

Brian likes this one much more than the dark turquoise.

Recent Nails, featuring a rad French Mani.

Here are some recent nails. The top right was a fun SUPER pink one. The top left was just me playing with some new polish. I don't love that one. Wouldn't you know it lasted days and days. The bottom two pics are what I'm sporting right now. I love how it turned out. My first French. I liked it so well I did my toes too.

I have mixed feelings about loving a mani though. I like changing my polish every second day. This is day three though and it still looks great so I can't justify changing it. That's fine I rekon, I have laundry I should fold instead of polishing my nails.

Well that's about it around here.

My A Muse Studio Came

My HUGE package from A Muse Studio came with my starter kit. I'm about to give you the painfully honest review.But first here are some things I made:

Ok first I'll talk about the kit contents as a whole. I think it's a great kit. I went with the delux kit and I'm glad I did because I love the inks (more on that in a second) and I got the print paper as well. I mostly wanted the inks and the extra catalogs. I think it's a brilliant kit because you get the sampler stamp sets, they put together a wide range of the stamps they offer. They are fun sets. No Christmas I noticed. I wonder if they will change WHAT the sampler sets are ever? Anyhow they are a great sampling of the A Muse stamp line. The downside is if I buy the sets some of the stamps came out of I'll have doubles. My only complaint about the kit is that there should be more cardstock. Two sheets each of about 10 colors isn't enough for me. I feel super stingy making cards. Of course I'm used to having nearly unlimited cardstock. I'll just have to order more. But I wish the kit had two packs of the assortment and a whole pack of white.

Specific reviews:

Ink. I personally LOVE this ink. It sits so nicely on the paper and the colors are fresh and true to what you see on the inkpad. It is pigment though and does NOT dry quickly. In some environments you may need to heat set it. It's crazy humid here and I didn't have to heat set, but I keep hearing that it's smearing for people. That is a shame. I think I'm willing to run that risk because I'm such a freak about color looking right. I absolutely disliked most dye inks. So I'm happy.

Cardstock: It's totally different from all other cardstock I've used. It's more like cardstock weight paper. The color is fresh and vivid, but only printed on one side. I love this because the inside of cards is a nice white. I think it's very professional looking.

Print Paper: It's the same as the cardstock but with a print.

Stamps: this is important.! They are cling mounted, and come in DVD cases much like the new SU stamps. You do NOT have to mess with the sticker lables though. They are printed on the foam! So you won't have that sticker not being clingy enough issue some folks had with SU. I LOVE that! They are also already die cut for you. They stamp great.

I think the rest of the supplies I got are pretty standard. The cleaner works great, the ribbon feels good. OH! You get a swatch book with all the cardstock colors. I love that because the kit doesn't include all the cardstock colors so I can at least see them all.

I'll let you know as I discover any new characteristics of the A Muse Studio stuff. I plan to make an order next week, I need more of the cardstock.

Hair and A Muse

Look: I always want to dye my hair weird colors. Well I did. Hurray! I love it. I mean I super freakoutcrazy love it.

Also I signed up to be an A Muse Studio consultant! I'm so excited. I don't have anything to show you for that yet but I will.

That could be good news for you if you love a bargain. I'm thinking about selling off a large portion of my other stamps. I think I could get down to almost all A Muse. I'll keep you posted.

Bouncy Ball Nails.

This is my current nail polish job. I kept thinking this manacure reminded me of something. Then I realized what it was. THESE super bouncy balls I used to get from gum machines as a kid. Doesn't it look like that?

I did this with water marbling technique. If you are interested in that google it or look it up on youtube because there are so many great videos and I could never do it justice. The short of it is that you swirl polish on the surface of a cup of water then dip the nail into the water to catch the swirl design on your nail. I used scotch tape to tape off my finger tips so I didn't make a huge mess. Oh, and I painted my nails white first so the colors would really show up. Which was good because I ended up doing it so a lot of the white showed.

I love this manacure. In these crazy bold colors it really appeals to kids. My boys cannot stop looking at it. It couldn't be more fun.

Non Nail News:

I haven't stamped in a few weeks, but I did get the new A Muse catalog from my good friend Sherri and it's ADORABLE. I can't spend any more money for the rest of the month, but Sherri can expect an order from me next month. I do wish they were clear, but I'm sure there are just as many folks who are thankful they are rubber.

I've done two Zumba classes now. I LOVE ZUMBA. It's so crazy fun. My class is an hour of really intense cardio but it just flies by. I'm super uncordinated so I'm sure I look a fool, but I'm having fun. I did have to get new tank tops to work out in. I have a really long torso and super short legs. I don't really mind except clothes are not made for that. When I'd throw my arms over my head to do the dance moves in Zumba my floppy, stretch mark scarred stomache would pop out. It's all mirrors in there. It freaked me out. So vanity won the day and I got some el cheapo $7 Target tanks. I think they are strictly speaking sleepwear, but they are thin, long and cute. So I'll be the girl at Zumba in the sleep top. haha.

St. Patty's Day Nails

So I let Ethan pick my polish this time. I had a feeling he'd go for green. But when he handed it to me he said, "not a silly design Mommy, a classy design this time." After I got over the complex that gave me for a few moments I figured a kid would think glitter tips are "classy". I was right. The green is some shimmery Mabeline polish I've had for EVER. I half expected it to be dried out really. But it was ok. So two coats of that, then I painted just the tips with topcoat and dipped the tips of my nails into Martha Stewart Antique Gold craft glitter. After that I put about 6 coats of SV topcoat on top. It needed that to get rid of the catchy feeling of the glitter which was driving me INSANE. They feel all smoothe and normal now. :)

I bought a lot of polish lately. I must stop! I only have the two hands. haha. But anyhow I ordered online some black, gray and topcoat in a matte finish. I also got a metalic gold, metalic sliver, royal blue and a dark brown. Dark brown looks very trendy/hip on me, but I did it on Roniece yesterday and with her fab dark skin it looked really neutral/classy! So that polish is a WIN. I also figured out two things. 1. I can't swatch polish on Roniece. Her nails are way darker than mine and her skin is also way darker. It tells me nothing. 2. I CAN swatch polish on my boys! They have my same skin color so I can really tell what it will look like. Ethan thinks it's funny to have a handful of polish swatches. Stephen has entered the phase where he worries what people will think of him, so he's into me doing it, but requests it get removed before school the next day. *sigh* growing up.

In other news:
Calvin is HUGE. Super grown up looking to me. And a fatty too. I mean a nice round baby fat, the good kind.
I am still working out. I tried a Zumba class last night. I've never sweat so much in my life, but the hour class went by so quickly because it is so fast paced and the music is great. I'm really seeing results from all my working out/dieting. I decided on a reward system for myself:
15lbs lost - pedicure
20lbs lost - 1 hour massage professional.
30lbs lost - new jeans, nice ones, any brand I want.
40lbs lost - Brian said he would get me a Day at the Spa package.
50lbs lost - New Wardrobe
60 lbs lost - Brian said he would get me anything I want. Like a vacation to Alaska or something, although he'd REALLY like to go tropical with me if I'm down 60lbs and get me new bathing suits and all. *wink*

So I need to stay on it. Because I'm sore! I'd kick a baby seal right now for a massage.

More playing with my nails.

This is my newest nail art. I hand painted Chococat on my nail. It's not perfect, his ears should be fatter and more to the sides of his head and I have one of his wiskers sort of growing out of under his ear instead of nearer to where it should. But it's definately recognizable as Chococat, so I'm happy!

This really intense turquoise is two coats of Sally Hansen's Hi-Definition nail color in number 14 Spectrum, over two coats of Ulta's white polish. I love this HD polish because I've done it over a few colors now with totally different looks. It has a slight holographic effect to a purple-ish color. Fun stuff.

I'm really having fun doing my nails. I know it's such a simple thing, but making that 30 minutes or so every few days to pamper myself is bringing me great joy. All the kids in my life are enjoying it too. Kinda makes me wish I had girls so I could have all their little girl friends over for a nail art party.

TSG97 Get Crafty Birthday Girl

I needed a card for a birthday we are going to this weekend. The birthday is at Pump it Up which is a huge inflatable bounce house place that is apparently super fun. We are all looking forward to it. When I saw that the There She Goes challange for the week was to use kraft I knew I would do the challange for the card. I bought the entire March Release of new stamps last week, they were so stinking cute, so I had this adorable girl to make the card with. I was holding Calvin while I colored. I'm not totally in love with this coloring job and I'm thinking that's why. I didn't really focus on my shading or anything. Basicly just tried to stay inside the lines. :)

have a great day

Been a while. I'm not even going to apologize or make promises to do better. I'll just do what I can. :)

I did clean my craft room and made a fun card to celebrate: The girl is by The Greeting Farm and the sentiment is by Hero Arts, the print paper is from the line Cherry Delicious by Sassafrass. I cut several layers for the girl. Stephen tells me it makes it 3D. He might be a bit obsessed with 3D.

In Other News:

My new obsession is doing my nails. Fancy fun nails. I don't know how long this mania will last but for now it's fun. Here are my current nails:

Quick Smile

So these accents. I've had them for ever. I bought them in huge packs years ago. They are by Making Memories. I do love them but I feel like I'm never going to use them up. haha. So I just grabbed two of them and paired them up with some thickers to make a really quick card.

tooty fruity

I recently bought a bunch of Sassafrasslass stuff from Crafty Steals. Some papers and a ton of the cute felt stickers. I love these fruit ones, so I used every single one on these 6 cards:

The ribbon and cardstock is all Stampin' Up, the papers are various neutrals from different Sassafrass paper pads. The adorable sentiment stamp is My Favorite Things.

All 6 of these cards took about 20 minutes total to make and they are stinking cute. Success!