Here for you

Still fighting this funk. Here is a simple card. :) This is the set that I had a hand in designing for Gina K. I came up with a variety of sentiments. She did all the art and font and editing. It was a fun thing. Sort of the peak of my craft fame.

Enjoy.

Mother

Today I'll talk about my mom. She is great. She thinks I'm great, which is a fantastic thing for a mother to think. :) My mom is crazy talented with growing flowers and other plants. If you go in her yard it is like a tropical paradise and it feels like a huge garden, while actually being a small area. She never plants things that refuse to thrive. Everything blooms. Everything is lush and perfect. She has the touch.

Because of this I think of my mom whenever I see really lovely flower stamps. This one by Papertrey Ink really reminds me of her. I decided to use in a bit of a different way this time. Stamping and embossing it in white, then watercoloring the flowers. What do you think?

Kitchen and plagues

We are not having the best winter cold season. In the past few weeks Brian has been sick, then Ethan got pink eye, Calvin had Roseoloa, and now some sinus thing. I have the sinus thing and pink eye! Jeepers! We are all handling it fine though, but it has cut into my crafting/blogging.

Another thing that has cut into it is this:

I am redoing my kitchen! I took down some horrible wallpaper, painted the walls white, and am currently painting the cabinets white. And yes, it is a mess. Keeping it real. :) I am LOVING how my white cabinets look. The tile you see on the backsplash is not installed yet, but I will run that all around. Super excited about that. That will be the last step for now. Eventually new countertops and fridge and pantry doors. (Not showing you those things, they are horrible.) Oh a pipe behind my fridge broke yesterday. Plumber call was needed. HUGE flood. Always keeping it exciting around here.

Heart Cake Pops

Last week my church ladies group had a "Girls Night" and it was chocolate themed. We did a little mixer thing like speed dating each other where we got to mix around and talk to a bunch of different ladies. Then the chocolate. We were all invited to bring "something chocolate". Some people did cakes, cookies, chocolate dipped fruit, boxes of chocolate. I did these heart shaped chocolate cake pops. It was my very first time making them. They are super easy. Way too easy, I insist everyone make them if they are interested. They turned out YUMMY too. :)

Zipper card

Today on Capture The Moment Nichole has a post about all these new interactive card dies they are coming out with tomorrow. Some of them are AMAZING. I cannot wait for the "zipper" one. But it made me think, Erin, you should do a real zipper card. So I did:

I can put a little gift card or extra special message inside the zipper part. Also it really works. :) Stamps and dies are all Papertrey Ink. :)

I hope you had a great Valentine's Day. Every member of our family is ill or injured with something DIFFERENT from everyone else and my car broke down today. Somehow it still managed to be a GREAT day. I got to make a few cards, made a stellar dinner, the car repair was cheap and fast and my kids and husband all were sweet and loving to me. Also my oldest wrote the nicest Valentine to his middle brother. So yeah, great day!

I LOVE you!

The first thing I want you to understand about this card is the ribbon is NOT uneven. It is some sort of optical illusion making it look like it gets skinnier near the heart. I was fooled too and measured. Other than that there isn't really all that much to say. Super simple card here. The phrase is by There She Goes. Punched a heart, punched a mat, ribbon, stamp, mount on card and done. I like it though. I like these colors.

So big news, I found out I got a project in the upcoming Paper Crafts Special Issue Stamp It! Cards. :) I'm super duper excited.

Family Night and Valentines Day

Last night we had Family Home Evening. Our entire Mission District is having a special thing this week where we are all encouraged to invite our friends to church for this coming Sunday. (And by the way, if you are local please join us for church this Sunday at the LDS church on Hendricks Ave at 1pm.) So last night for Family Night we talked about why we would want our friends to come to church. The boys both said they think their friends would have fun at church and that they would have more fun if their friends were there. So we made invites for them. I wrote the address and they wrote notes and drew pictures.


You cannot read Ethans but it says "I like church" and it has a picture of him and his friend Nicholas sitting on a church pew together and Ethan is reading his scriptures. (Oddly he is not acting crazy and kicking the pew in front of him and generally running

amok. I'm not sure why that is?)

Stephen's says "You are very nice Ethan. It would be a pleasure" Then there is a picture of the church and he and his friend Ethan are inside and it says "I love my church". ADORABLE!!!

So this Ethan kid lives down the street and we delivered his last night. His family is going to try to come. We did say that if they felt comfortable we could bring just Ethan. Also Ethan down the street does not spell his name Ethan. He spells it some other way that I can never remember.

I hope the boys do have friends come. I think it would be such a nice thing for them to see their efforts come to fruition. But I know they will be blessed for making the attempt so either way they are winners!

I also wanted to share the super simple Valentines my boys are doing this year. Well... I guess I'm doing them. I printed the "You brighten my day" out a bunch of times, punched it with a heart punch, punched the scalloped heart out of pink. Then I made slot holes in it and slid a glow stick inside. The glow sticks are 15 for a dollar in the dollar spot of Target. Get it? You "BRIGHTEN" my day and it has a glow stick? I love Valentines Day, if only for the puns!

Speaking of reasons to love stuff, my church's Enrichment Meeting this week is all about chocolate! Same address as above Thursday evening at 7pm, ladies only! CHOCOLATE. I am trying to go. If I do I think I'm going to make chocolate cake pops. If I make them I will take pics and show you.

Why would I not be able to go? Well cars. See we bought a new-to-us car this week! It is a '92 Dodge Stealth. This car was the HOTNESS when we were in High School. Brian wanted something sporty. He got it. However, buying a 20 year old car has it's downside. The car is at our trusted mechanic getting a few minor things fixed up. Should get it back today. In related news we sold our Camry. In like FIVE MINUTES. Apparently we priced it a smidge too low. '93 Camry for $800 is a great deal it turns out. I had over 40 offers within an hour. Should have rounded them all up and had an auction! LOL. I wished I had one for everyone who called. I hope the guy who got it enjoys it and it serves him as faithfully as it has served us.

Ok final news, I submitted a total of 12 cards to the Stamp It Cards special issue by Papercrafts Magazine. Wish me luck!

friends

Last night I went out with a group of friends. There were 13 of us. It was for one of the girl's baby shower. We had a BLAST. It was at the Melting Pot, I had never been, that was fun and yummy. The conversation was the most fun. Every few years something so funny happens that I loose my mind in my laugh and do my hyena laugh. I cannot stop it from happening. It actually sort of hurts and usually I have to fight not to pee myself. But it is also a sign of me having the most fun ever. And last night I sure did break out the hyena. My friends had never heard it. We all had a total blast. I stayed out late too!

This Friendship card reminds me of nights like that. Even though this card is quiet and classy the sentiment rings true.

Also I'm redoing my kitchen and this is pretty much the colors I'm considering. :)

I'm a total zombie today. I got home late, then couldn't get to sleep for a while, then Calvin woke up before 6. Turns out he is, in fact, sick. He will be fine, it's some virus. He is ALSO getting like 8 teeth all at once. Poor guy. I did get him some medicine today and I hope he feels better soon. But for now he is taking a nap and I think I will too.

Chickens! :)

Yesterday after school me and the boys rode out to get some new chickens! We now have 5. 5 is the absolute most that our setup can take (according to us, technically you can put more, but we like them to have room) so we are now complete. We got a buff Naked Neck which are also called Turkens because with their naked necks they look a little like a turkey. Super cute! She is all we went out there for but when we arrived Ethan and Stephen both fell in love with this white Cornish Bantam. She is a tiny thing and super sweet. I love how all our chickens are so different from each other. It's a little Chicken United Nations out there.

To celebrate new chickens I decided to make a chicken card! The sentiment is by Paper Smooches. How cute is it? The stickers are BoBunny and I looked high and low for them after seeing them in a magazine. Found them on clearance at Hobby Lobby. SCORE. I think I need more actually.

In other news Calvin is all better! It was teeth I think. He looks more grown up to me now. I'm sad about that and happy at the same time. Moms, I know you understand. It is nice to have him back to his normal happy self. Course I need to make sure I get lots of rest because normal Calvin is a lot more work than sick Calvin! :)