Erin K Creations

back to school tube.

2012-01-31T15:09:00.000-08:00

This is the last of my projects I had saved up. I have not really crafted in a few days because Calvin is getting all his molars at the same time. He is celebrating this with extreme fussiness, the need to constantly cuddle his mommy and a fairly high fever. I assume the fever is so that mommy feels bad and cuddles him all day. In any event I have been snuggling a sick baby not crafting. It is especially upsetting when I remember the grand new desk I have and the rearranged craft room!

Anyhow, Calvin seems much better today.

Also, here is a project. I submitted it for a magazine but it wasn't picked. So Brian ate the candy. :) I rekon I'll put a goodie in it next year for one of the boys. :) Or loose it before then. That is most likely.

Shaped Summer Rejects

2012-01-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

Made a few shaped cards. They were submitted but didn't get chosen for publication. I find shaped cards extremely difficult. I think these turned out pretty fun though.

Blast from the past Sunday

2012-01-29T15:47:00.001-08:00

I am sure I will not stick to it, but I'm going to try to start doing a regular Sunday thing where I share a project or two out of my "Old" file. It is fun to look at past creations.

The two I have today are very similar in description: Stair step card with Alice in Wonderland stamps colored with copic markers. But they do have quite two different looks.

On the top set I used Red Eowyn stamps. These are from the John Tenniel illustrations. In my mind these are the "Real Alice In Wonderland" images.

For the second project I used Greeting Farm stamps. I do not think they sell these anymore. Totally different look. The bunny on this set is ADORABLE.

Unknown stamps rock.

2012-01-28T07:58:00.000-08:00

I got the octopus and fish at a stamp show a few years ago. I love them. After making the Joan Bardee inspired card the other day I wanted to make another version where the woodgrain represented water and the octopus and fish just hung out on it. Victory is mine!

OLW 76 Color in Winter

2012-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

I am trying to start doing the One Layer Wednesday challenges. Last week was a masculine card. I find those very difficult and also had an absolutely horrible week last week, so I skipped that. This week is Color in Winter. The idea being that winter is all gray and white with occasional spots of color. I live in Beautiful Sunny Florida. We have a high of 81 today. The world is greens and blues and fluffy white clouds with flowers and oranges on trees all over... But I love, love love me some white/gray/color cards so I gave it a try.

Today on Joan Bardee's (I think I'm spelling that right, sorry if not!) blog she posted the most jaw dropping card. I'm referring to the middle one. (I tell you this because all 3 are pretty amazing)

So combining the OLW challenge and my Joan inspiration this is what I came up with. And I was happy with it until I just got you that link to Joan's card and can see now with it in front of me that mine is a poor imitation! LOL. But that's ok, I had fun.

Actually I had so much fun I made another card with an idea I got while making this one. I'll show you that card tomorrow.

Stamps are Designer Woodgrain by Hero Arts and that leafy thing is Papertrey. I can never remember my Papertrey names when I'm sitting her typing for you.

Lunch Box Notes another publication reject

2012-01-24T12:39:00.000-08:00

Here is another project that I didn't get published with. It is lunchbox notes. :)

They could not be any easier. White folded cards, my favorite decorative tape on the edge, stamp, color and cut out images, stamped greeting. I also rounded the top corner.

Then you pop them in a lunchbox in the morning to let kids know you are thinking of them. For some reason lunchtime is a huge source of stress for my kids. My oldest has a horrible peanut allergy. Last year there were incidents with kids teasing him with peanut sandwiches. This year a new principal wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. She made the peanut table. Sounds cool right? Stephen is the only peanut allergy in his grade. So it's the Stephen sits alone table. *sigh* Apparently halfway through lunch they fill up and random kids do end up sitting with him. Random kids with peanut sandwiches. Which is fine, Stephen is pretty mature and can handle it. The thing is that he's STILL sitting in a peanut area, but not with anyone from his class. So all the fun of being segregated with none of the safety. Stephen doesn't want me to talk to anyone about it though. He says it is fine. Well sometimes. Sometimes he says it's is horrible. I think it has to do with how much fun his classmates seem to be having over at the normal table.

I AM the map girl

2012-01-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

I make a ton of stuff with my vintage atlas collection. Home dec, craft, whatever.

I recently submitted this card to a magazine but it didn't get picked:
I'm not sure how the most perfect photo on EARTH didn't get picked but that's fine. :) But it is also perfect for the Moxie Fab World challange! Map to Your Heart.

You HAVE to click that link, even if you have no interest in doing the challange, Cathy rounded up some STELLAR map projects. STELLAR. There are even map tights! *swoon*

Case of Alicia Thelin

2012-01-18T12:18:00.001-08:00

In the recent Card Creations Get Inspired special issue by Paper Crafts magazine I fell deeply in love with a card called, "Chic Thinking of You" by Alicia Thelin. Stunning! I made one of my closest CASEs ever:Love it. :)

Time to go help my son find a book to do a book report on.

ETA: I think this is Alicia's blog: scrappybetties I mean that blog definitely belongs to a girl names Alicia Thelin, how many crazy talented card makers with that name can there be? So I think that is the girl, although this card I don't see on her blog. :) She ROCKS check her out.

Cute Food

2012-01-17T05:32:00.000-08:00

I have forever been impressed by artistic bento lunches for kids. Shaping my kid's lunch into a kitten has great appeal for me. I have put it off because of time, expense and a suspicion that such adorable foods produced an undo amount of waste.

My kids think bento is cute, but what they really always want are those stupid Lunchables. I cannot figure out why. I mean it's crackers and meat and cheese. Maybe a candy or fruit. And I spoil my kids with a small candy in their lunch almost every day anyhow... What is the appeal?

Then I decided to combine the two! I would do my own stile of bento lunches with meats and cheese, veggies, fruits. Here is one I did that isn't really bento at all as it's just sitting on a plate. But it was dinner time and why waste all my lunch box supplies when plate will do:

I especially like the heart bananas. :) So of course this created waste. What to do?

Oh yes! Give it to Calvin! He doesn't notice his cheese is not a star!

So this is what my kids have in their lunch boxes today:

There is some dressing for the broccoli in the heart container. :) They also have a yogurt and waters. :) Oh and a small candy. ;)

Paper Smooches SPARKS challange

2012-01-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

The Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge right now is to make a card inspired by this photo:What I want to make is a bedroom inspired by this photo! Love the wall!
I made this super fun card. It is for a friend of mine who... well, she has great taste.
I also made this heart one. Punched the heart and foam mounted it over the pink.
And I had to make a chicken card! Love this little guy. Now turn your head slightly to the right, tilt I mean... that chicken could be a muffin. Ethan pointed that out. :)

All these stamps are Paper Smooches. :) LOVE THEM.

OLW74 is really hard

2012-01-13T04:49:00.000-08:00

This week I gave the One Layer Wednesday challenge a try this week. Could I have picked a harder week? Well harder for me anyhow. The theme was "use pink and red... ONLY". That means no black. It turns out black is critical to my card design process.

I made several lame trash can cards. Well actually they were "flip that cardstock over and make something on the reverse side to preserve paper" cards. Man were they horrid.

Finally I made a card that was acceptable.
The car and sentiment are by A Muse and the little pink dots that you can barely see are by Alley Way Stamps.

I'm happy!

Speaking of being happy... Watch for ME in the July/August issue of Papercrafts Magazine! I'm so excited! I have tried a few times to get in there, it's a hard nut to crack. I'm so honored!

Not Crafts: Pimps

2012-01-12T05:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to keep two blogs anymore. It has been over a year on the family blog. I'm going to preface not crafty posts with "Not Crafts" Then my craft only readers will know they can skip those. :)

So last night me and the boys wanted a bit of TV time. Because we have a DVR my kids think I can just play any show at anytime. I offered Dirty Jobs, they countered with Infested (which comes on tonight so I didn't have any taped yet). We settled on Pimp My Ride.

First of all Pimp My Ride sounds like a great show to watch with boys who love cars, but it's not really kid appropriate. I should have gotten a clue from the name.

Or from this question:

Stephen: Mommy, what's pimp mean?

So it goes like this:

Me: Well in this case it means to fix up a car, but more than just make it nice, add all sorts of extras onto it.

S: OK... What does it mean in another case.

Me: Well... It's an adult thing, kids don't need to know

S: *HATES THAT ANSWER* Mommy tell me! I can take it.

Me: No

S: *thinks for a bit* Mommy I wanna see your pimp! *trying the new word out without knowing what it means*

Me: Nope, doesn't work in that sentence *because I'm stupid and am leading this nonsense on*

S: Ok... Mommy I wanna pimp you!

Me: FINE! A pimp is a job that adults can have, but it's not a good job, it's an illegal job where a person does bad things. These people like to wear silly fancy clothes and drive silly fancy cars, hence a show about fixing up cars and adding silly stuff is called Pimp My Ride.

S: Oh, ok. You could have just told me that.

Me: *think I dodged a bullet AND had a funny conversation*

S: I like fancy silly things... I'm gonna be a pimp when I grow up.

Me: *parenting fail*

Thanks

2012-01-12T05:33:00.000-08:00

Today I have a fun thank you card. These adorable stamps are by Gina K Designs. I colored with copics. I LOVE this super fat green stripe ribbon. I keep forgetting to tell you! I got ALL my cool orders a few days ago. They all came SUPER fast and on the same day. And I love my new stamps from Paper Smooches and Alley Way Stamps. I really think they have a similar look and work well together. I can't wait to share some stuff I make with them. And the ribbon/twine order from Etsy was great too. :)

In other news: Last night I started an episode of Tabitha Takes Over while folding laundry. Got 7 minutes into it and decided to cut my own hair. And it turned out great. So now my hair is shoulder length. It needed it, I still had some split ends, I assume from all the color I did last year.

The worst science

2012-01-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

My boys collect rocks and shells and "sea glass" and those "sea beans". The collections were getting all over so I had a BRILLIANT idea. I emptied two of those huge pretzle containers from the warehouse stores, cleaned them all up and put the collections in. Then I filled them with water, because rocks and shells look nice with water. Then put a few drops of bleach to help them from getting algae in them. Shut them tight and put them up on shelves to enjoy.

That was fine, I loved it, rocks were no longer all over, they were in one place. I congratulated myself on my brilliance, I almost wrote a super mom blog post about it.

See we love science here, anything remotely resembling a science experiment is something you can expect to be going on here. We do NOT love unintentional science experiments.

Some reaction occured. I don't know what. Maybe the bleach and the sea beans? Could it have been water and sea beans? I mean we found the things IN THE OCEAN, how can they not be waterproof.

Our cat snuck in and slept in the kid's room a few nights. Sometimes she has accidents. Also the kid has pet rats in there. So I assumed the stink was pet related. Cleaned the room, cleaned the rat cage, so on. Stink still there. Changed sheets, cleaned the kid, asked about gas... Still stinky. So I took my nose on a hunt.

OHMYHECK PEOPLE. Do NOT do the sea crap in a plastic jug thing. Pretty please do NOT. I thought the water had gotten skunky. I wondered why I could smell it still shut, but ok. Take them to the sink to dump them out. HORROR. I mean HORROR PEOPLE. Something happened to the sea beans. They split open. But that's not all. The insides of them turned (or always was?) into a white goo. The white goo is the most horrible smelling smell EVER. We had a snail die on us once, that is supposed to be one of the worst smells on earth. I promise you whatever the white goo is that leaks out of a seabean after a few months in water is worse. A million times worse. You will want to die if you smell it. I'm thinking about moving. (not really)

Of course the boys instantly know what I'm thinking, "Throw it ALL away!" And they start begging me to save the collections some way. You know, some way that involves me further handling the horror.
So I dumped the collections on the patio. Had the boys shoo the chickens away and sprayed them. A LOT. Of course I discarded the sea beans. Then more spraying. Tonight after the chickens go to bed I am thinking about throwing bleach all over them. Then more water.

When they are dry they can come back inside and live in plastic jars again. But with no water.

I need 5 hot showers.

whaaaaa?

2012-01-10T05:02:00.000-08:00

This giraffe (By Starvingartstamps) looks a little confused doesn't he? I colored him with copics. I think he's sweet. My bow is really strange on this one. I must have put an extra twist at some point. Weird. Stephen is staying home from school sick today. My poor Stephen gets sick pretty often. :( I do enjoy the super cuddle time though.

Calvin walks and almost runs now. He is trouble on two feet! It is a bundle of fun.

Ethan is in perfect health and doing great at school and happy and fun.

I have the best kids.

Sick Farm Animals

2012-01-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

This poor cow just looks like she needs a perking up. All these images are by Gina K and I don't think I need to tell you I love me some farm stuff. :) Colored with Copics. Speaking of sick farm animals, my chickens appear to have pox. :( So I guess that's Chicken Pox. lol. I did a ton of reading, there is a vaccine, which I was SURE they had. I'm a little (not a little, a lot) miffed about that. Anyhow there is not really any treatment. You have to just wait it out. They should recover in 3-5 weeks. If it doesn't get involved in blocking any respiratory areas. Then it can be more serious. After they are healthy again I can buy and administer the vaccine, which I will, of course, do. In the future I'm going to vaccinate all my birds myself. It is spread by mosquitoes. You would think we wouldn't have any now, but I guess we do. It cannot spread to humans, but every time I touch them now I get all itchy like I think I'm getting it. It looks terribly painful. I'm sad for them.

Happy Glittery Birthday

2012-01-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

About two years ago I made the most fantastic glittery flower card on clear cardstock. And it was lovely. Before I sent it to anyone it fell apart. But I spent too much time making the sucker to throw it out.

So finally, two years later I pulled the awesome glitter layered flower off and put it on a simple card:

The End

how special you are

2012-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

LOVE this set by Papertrey. I think what I like best is the phrase. No, the leaf image. I dunno, just love it. I added some berry dots from another set. I don't think these leaves ever have berries. They are ginkgo right? Anyhow, whatever I like the added color. I used my number one all time favorite stamp on the background. Designer Wood grain by Hero Arts. SWOON.

I'm going to a crop tonight! I actually leave in a few minutes here. I have a HUGE stack of stuff to work on, but I'm going to submit most of it to Papercrafts mag. I then have to wait a bit to hear if anything gets in before I can show you the "rejects". Wish me luck! I've never gotten into Papercrafts.

I am, however, in the current issue of Just Cards magazine! :)

Scrapbooking tip.

2012-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

ETA: Thanks Paige for the tip on making my title thingie fit right! It is perfect now. Everyone I hope you know who Paige Evans is, she's terribly famous and has the second cutest baby ever, and is a great scrapbooker and designer for American Crafts. :)

Today was Costco day. Actually yesterday was too which is stupid but it's a long story. Anyhow today is the day I brought a disk of photos.

So here is the scrapbook page I made today. I used the collage feature on the print kiosk. I picked the 11x14 collage, landscape, black borders. Then I picked 12 photos from my trip that I love. I had it auto fill the collage. You can move stuff but I didn't bother. I put a centered title and made sure it was short enough to fit on the center section. When I got home I sliced the whole thing into three long tall collages. One collage I cut again into two pieces. And WHAM my photos were all nicely arranged and matted, one of them with a page title on it! I simply added a journaling block and some accents and done.
And I also made plenty of prints to frame for my frame wall. Have I shown you that? I'll take a pic soon. Here are new pics I have to add to it.
I have more scrapbooking to do too. :)

Today was a good day. OH! I ordered a pile of new stamps and a pile of ribbon. Links!

All These Things Etsy shop. GREAT ribbon and bakers twine in a bunch of colors.

Alley Way Stamps is a new stamp company with stinking adorable clear stamps.

And Paper Smooches is Kim Hughes shop. I have not ordered but I used to be ADDICTED to her line at Cornish Heritage Farms, so I'm excited to get some of her new stuff.

All These Things has really reasonable shipping in case anyone wanted a medium or small order of ribbon and didn't want to spend a ton of shipping.

Both Alley Way and Paper Smooches have free shipping on orders of $40 so that's not bad. It works out to 3 stamp sets at about a total of $45.

I love Kim and expect that order to go smoothly, the other two are new to me so I'll let you know. I have been convo-ing with the Etsy shop owner Ryann and she is totally nice and cool so I expect that will go well too. I'll keep you posted.

Let's Talk

2012-01-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

I love these cute mice from There She Goes! I just made an ultra simple card with them. I drew the lines using a ruler and a pen. The phrase is by Hero Arts. I'm not sure what the one mouse has to say to all those other mice, but it looks important. I hope they are listening well with their giant ears.

So I think I updated my title bar thingie. I'm not sure I love it. I made it out of actual paper and stickers, then edited it in photoshop. I don't know why it stays so small. I increased the size a ton and it still came out small. I've decided to just like it small. I think I'd LOVE it if it filled the space better. Honestly I'm not very excited by the idea of working on it anymore. I read all blogs in google reader so I don't think too much about what the blog itself looks like. I just wanted something a little new.

thank you CASE and lighting

2012-01-03T08:29:00.000-08:00

I have seen this idea a few times on the net. I'm not sure where I saw it most recently, but I decided it was time to give it a go. Basically it is just almost cutting the leaves out, but leaving them attached some. Then I put tiny bits of foam tape under them near where they are still attached. Mounted that whole piece on another piece of white cardstock. You get a nice 3D thing going on. Subtle, but nice.

I know I'm always looking for new ways to photograph my cards well so I'm going to share mine. The first pic is how the whole setup looks on my desk:

Here is the butterfly clip from that setup. Not too bad for at night with no natural light available.The white background thing is a mini science fair project board I found at Hobby Lobby. It was $3.99, then on some percentage off deal. I like it because it stays up nicely. I used to do the two sheets of cardstock sort of leaned to an L shape but they would always fall and stuff and drive me crazy. I put a sheet of print paper that I think goes fine under the front of the project board to finish the look. I use the two lamps I happen to own and use at my desk. They are totally different. I tell myself the ott light's white light offsets the incandescent light's yellow tones nicely.

Love You

2012-01-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

I love cards like this where I get to go through all my scraps. I just punch a ton of hearts in any papers I like. I knew I wanted white so I didn't do too much cream based stuff. Then I picked out the hearts I wanted to actually use. I dumped the rest in a little jar I have for such an event. They are all on foam tape. Easy peasy!

Today I'm going to tell you a silly thing I do. When I feel like some retail therapy I pick an online store I like. Last night it was twopeasinabucket.com. I go through all the categories that ever interest me and fill a cart. I had like $250 in my cart. Then I walk away for a bit. Then I come back and edit the cart. I usually get rid of the expensive splurge things first. I then try to decide how much enjoyment I will REALLY get from each thing. Get rid of the things I don't think are then worth it. At this point my cart was about $60. Then I figure out what the shipping and such would be. And how long it would take to arrive. I love online shopping, but I don't like to wait more than about a week for stuff. Then I usually just empty the cart and that's the whole exercise. No actual stuff purchased. It is so super weird. This morning I did sneak away from the fam to hit a sale at Hobby Lobby. I bought two paper packs and two single sheets of paper. I like them. I'm happy. It was $11. Two of the packs I had in my online cart they did have there, part of the 50% off sale, but guess what? I didn't like them in real life! Weird.

No lesson to that story, just random sharing.

One layout three cards

2011-12-31T20:39:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-28T15:00:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-27T11:15:00.001-08:00

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

2011-12-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

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

2011-10-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-06-02T17:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-25T19:36:00.001-07:00

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.

2011-05-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-04-21T09:33:00.001-07:00

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.

2011-04-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-03-18T17:50:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-03-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-25T09:10:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-20T17:31:00.000-08:00

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!

Art and Children

2011-01-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

I think it's super important to give kids lots of access to art. I'm sure that has a lot to do with my own personal value for art, but whatever. I just think kids are so full of creativity.

So today when Ethie asked if he could use a paintbrush he found I not only said yes, but I got him out a large canvas I've been holding onto for no good reason. He wanted to paint his own version of one of my favorite paintings. It is just some unknown artist's flamingo. My mom got it at a thrift shop and had it hanging in her laundry room. I stole it from her.

Here is the original and Ethie's version: Both are now hanging in my room. Which is decorated in "Stuff Erin Loves" theme. :) Do you like his shades of pink and turquoise? We didn't even have pink, he made that coral-ish pink out of other colors. Love that.

In other news:
Calvin is still perfect. I'm still working on the baby girl quilt. I'm almost done with the quilting. :)

Baby Girl Quilt

2010-12-20T11:56:00.001-08:00

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...

2010-12-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-10-31T17:19:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-16T05:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-03T05:24:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-29T17:43:00.001-07:00

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

2010-09-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-08-31T17:36:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-08-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-08-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

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)

Easy Thank You cards

2010-07-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

I think you all know I've been pretty sick this pregnancy. It's mostly figured out. I have a heart condition that causes me to faint a lot. I've always had it,but when I'm pregnant apparently it's way worse. I've been just randomly fainting 5-10 times a day. Not cool. Because of this I cannot drive. VERY not cool. So I'm stuck home. Unless my awesome network of friends comes to the rescue. They help me get to Dr appts, take my boys to play dates for me and even have brought me some dinners so I don't have to cook. (Standing for more than a few minutes will make me faint.)

So I need lots of "Thank you" cards for all the support. One thing I can do is sit at my craft desk and whip out easy cards. And here are a few: The red flower I made using Papertrey flower dies and layering them. I used some glimmer mist in a shimmery pearl color to moisten them and sort of crunched them a bit to give the flower dimension. The background stamp is by Cornish Heritage Farms. (Really bummed they closed.)

This one used clear water to do the crunching and a Stampin' Up! scallop circle for the flower. I also used atlas paper for the flower. I get atlasas when I find them at garage sales or thrift shops for $2. For some reason that's exactly the price I'm willing to pay.I usually have one I'm tearing paper out of and a backup. I love to make atlas paper envelopes.

You can tell more in this photo, I embossed the actual card with my Papertrey woodgrain embossing die. LOVE the embossed woodgrain. I'm all about woodgrain right now.

It's funny about trends. Woodgrain is a trend right now and I'm 100% on board. LOVE it. But there is another trend out right now that I cannot master or even grow to love. It's the pennant banner trend. I get it, it's cute. I see cute stuff done, but I just don't love it. I tried, really I did but no. Not for me. In general though I love trends. I like how they bring something to focus that maybe I would not have noticed before. I also like how they pass. Some things are fun, but not forever. Of course sometimes I love a trend and keep it even after it passes. I figure that means I REALLY loved that thing. Either way I love trends, trendwatching and such. Fun!

10 years

2010-07-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

Today is my 10 year Anniversary. I mean mine and Brian's. We are not really doing anything today, he has Young Men's meeting after work tonight. But next weekend we have an overnight babysitter and we are going to Orlando. We plan to go to the Temple and eat out and go to Ikea. Fancy life you know! haha. :)

Here is the card I made for him:

Also my blogger let me do more than one photo today. I wanted to show you I finally got my hair fixed. It's been a few weeks actually. I finally died it a color that worked and it's pretty much my natural color. I don't look like a silly clown anymore! Also look! ONE chin, cheekbones and there is the slightest indication of colarbones here! I am HUGELY pregnant, but the rest of me has been loosing fat so that's good. :)

Stephen makes a card

2010-07-26T15:57:00.000-07:00

Stephen made this card for last week's sketch challange at splitcoaststampers. He kept very close to the sketch. He also mimiced the the staggared squares part of the sketch when he did a similar thing with the hearts. He wants you to notice that. And he drew the face hisself.

He made this card for his Nana.

There is a cute inside too but for some crazy reason blogger is only letting me upload ONE photo per post. It is driving me crazy.

jump for joy!

2010-07-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

I made this card with some of my super fun The Angel Company stamps. The set is called "jump for joy" and I think it's super adorable! All these jumping cats and a trampoline and phrases. Too cute! I watercolored the cat with marker ink.

In Other News:
I had to resign from the Paper Garden Projects. :( I've just been so sick. Also my computer died for a while so it was hard to keep up. Cathy is so nice, she didn't mind and understood I need to take care of myself.
So sickness. I have Vasovagal Syncope. Basicly I faint a lot. There is a reason why in my heart. You google it if you really need all that info. The point is it's not dangerous, but it's also not going away either. So I'll feel crappy for the rest of the pregnancy (I have it all the time, pregnancy makes it worse) but its not going to kill me or the baby. So it's good news! The one thing that is really totally stinky is no driving till it stops being so frequent. I'm fainting up to 5 times a day. The Dr said that's totally unsafe to drive with that going on. He threatened to pull my license if I don't promise not to drive. So that is a pain. I have a GREAT support system though so it will be ok.
We named the baby! The name is Calvin. Full name Calvin Verdie Kellogg. We are very happy with it.
Stephen (age barely 5) is doing multiplication and division now. He figured multiplication out on his own. Told it to me like had developed a new math. Then today he asked if there is an opposite of it, so I told him about division. He's mostly with the single digit ones for now, but check out this. I was in a SU DSP share. I got 6 sheets of each of the 16 paper packs of SU DSP. Stephen tilts his head to the side and tells me that the total number of sheets is 86 sheets. It's not, the answer is 96. But the point is my tiny not in kindergarden yet kid TRIED to multiply 16x6 in his head and got it pretty darn close. Freaky smart kid. I'm unbearable proud of him as you can tell.
Ethan is swimming now! It's very happy for us because right now we can all swim! He's happy and cute as usual. He's a real easy going kid. Love him. He is in love with Calvin already and tells him what's going on in our day by screaming it at the tummy.

Stuff I had hanging around

2010-07-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

So the other day I made about 10 cards. I just kept picking up something else off my desk and designing a card around it. It was a blast. First one is maybe a travel card? Like a "have a great trip" or a "I missed you on your trip" card. I love it for it's simplicity and the great colors on those circle chipboard stickers.

Next we have a card I made with a scrap of this green print paper. I decided to make it a focal point image on the card. The layout is similar to a recent Kristina Werner card. (the one I tried to CASE a while back)

This one was truly just playing with random accents I had laying around. I have a ton of little taglets and stuff like the paper flower. I then made a grid pattern on the white with my trusty scro pal and slapped my handmade accent thingie on. I like this because the accent is has a lot going on, like a little collage almost, but the card is still really clean because that's really the only busy thing on the card.

In other news:

Nothing good to report. I may have news tomorrow. If you are the praying type pray for both me and Brian. And also for the baby-as-yet-unnamed.

hi

2010-06-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

How cut is this bow? I tore some fabric I had into a long narrow strip to make it. The papers are either from October Afternoon's Thrift Shop or October Afternoon's Fly a Kite. I get them so confused, similar colors and awesomeness and all. The "Hi" is thickers letter stickers. REALLY simple card, but cute too.

In the sky

2010-06-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

I recently got the hot air balloon set from Papertrey. I love hot air balloons and my mom loves them too, so I figure she might want a set of cards.

This first one weighs a TON so I won't make a set of these, can you imagine having your whole set cost like $2.50 to mail each! haha. But it's fun for a one off! The balloon is shiny with crystal effects, so that's fun. Next is playing with the cloud stamp. For this one I stamped in white ink and embossed with white powder. The stamp is sorta scratchy looking, not totally solid. So of course the clouds are not totally solid. I'm not totally thrilled with the effect, but they stamp ok.

Then I tried it with the clouds stamped in white but no embossing. that's not bad either and was faster of course. I hand cute the clouds for the rainbow, but I did order the cloud die last night so I'm excited about that. I use clouds a lot so I figure it's a pretty good investment. I'm going get some white felt to make a whole whopping stack of clouds with.

And on this one I didn't really do a sky at all, just used the solid images to make a really quick card. I kinda like it too!

In Other News:

If you are a STamp Shack girl watch out. I finally cleaned out the WHOLE stinking craft room. I gave stuff like papers I don't care for and half sheets of stickers to the kid but all the stuff I think might sell is stacked up and I will sell on SS probably starting tomorrow! It's a TON of stuff. You are going to think I'm quitting stamping or something with this much stuff for sale. Really I'm just decluttering in a major way. It's more than half of my stamps though! a ton.

Baby seems to be doing great. No name yet, but that's ok I rekon. (actually it drives me nuts and I want to shake Brian and force him to pick a name, but he thinks it's no big deal.) Baby moves pretty often which I love. I get tired way too easily which makes me feel lazy. I also tend to black out/get faint spells and that's been pretty bad this week. Not really bad like I'm falling out all over town, just a pain. I totally blame the heat. It's CRAZY hot and humid here. Even my POOL is hot, over 90degrees! Like taking a huge bath!

I guess that's it for now, I made a TON of cards yesterday so stop back tomorrow, there should be a new post!

Cool off with Paper Garden Projects.

2010-06-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

Its another 4th Friday - so time for another challenge!

This month, we want to see projects that make us feel cooler. Whether that is cool colors (like blue and green), or cool images (like swimming, ice cream or even snowmen). Anything you think is cool goes.

For my project I made a small hostess gift you could bring to a summer party.

A spray bottle is the keeping cool part. Then a jar of candy and a sweet card. All packed inside a strawberry basket. I used papers from the October Afternoon Fly A Kite paper pack. These papers just make me think of picnics!
If you want to take the challange go make your "cool" card. Remember it can be a cool theme, like water or a cool thing, like a spray bottle or even cool colors! Just have fun and keep it cool.

After you make your project and upload it to the internet go The Paper Garden Projects Blog and use the little link thing to enter. You can win this adorable Kraftin Kimmie stamp:

In case you were wondering...

2010-06-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

The baby is a BOY!

I mean definately, even I could tell and I kept thinking the baby's butt was his head! (I stink at reading those ultrasounds).

I'm excited. I did think it was a girl so that was kinda shocking to me. I don't know why I thought that. Apparently Brian only makes boys. It was funny, when we came out Stephen was dancing and saying "Boy boy, three boys!" So everyone in the waiting room knew. Brian got high fives from some of the dads. But poor Brian wanted a girl.

Luckily for Brian they did all the healthy stuff first and I saw him fall in love with the baby. I mean I literally saw it happen, he was talking to it by the end and just in love. So when she said it was a boy he didn't really care, he already loved him.

Ethan is bummed. He cried! I don't know why he wants a girl so much, but he did. :( I'm totally ok besides not having a name picked out.

The name problem is that we have a few pretty good ones. But Brian loves his favorite, and I don't like it at all, and I love my two favorites but Brian doesn't care for them. We have no name we agree on. I'd say we are both liking Lincoln, but it's the second choice for both of us. It's weird, in the past we were SURE of the names.

Someone please have a girl and name her Lily. I'll buy your little girl cute dresses if you do!

new art!

2010-06-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

If you don't read my family blog, you might want to read THIS POST. It's about me nesting/redecorating. I'm having a blast. I think the family is in shock, I keep changing things. Brian is thrilled though because I'm also a cleaning FOOL right now.

Anyhow I bring it up because I made a new art for the room.

How cute is it? Sorry the colors are a bit too dull, we are about to get our daily thunder storm, so it's very cloudy in there. (well not IN the room, we have a roof and all, I mean the light is cloudy.)

I got the template and directions on Skip to my Lou HERE. It's designed by a guest blogger over there named Larissa. It was super easy. It does use a TON of pop dots.

Celebrate. Twice

2010-06-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

I made two careds with my new Scarlet Lime kit and made them both into "celebrate" cards.

Similar colors, very simple cards. easy goes to peasy!

Paper Garden Projects Summer Stroll Garden Walk.

2010-06-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Paper Garden Projects Summer Stroll Garden Walk
Take a stroll through the blogs of the Paper Gardeners and enjoy some friendly inspiration. This month we are focusing on some big summer fun.

While you visit, subscribe to each Gardener's blog and take note of each designer's name and their special summery garden walk word in their blog post. Once you finish your garden tour, send an E-mail to custserv@papergardenprojects.com with the list of designers and their garden walk word.

Everyone who sends the correct list of designers and words will be entered in a random drawing to win a prize. You need to send an e-mail to the address above; please don't leave your list as a comment. You have until midnight (EST) on Tuesday, June 22 to send your list.

And the prize? How about this fun summer unmounted stamp set from Kraftin Kimmie - Mae (love that hat!).

So enjoy the garden tour (don't forget your sunscreen). Here is the garden tour guide list:

•Cathy
•Amber
•Tangii
•Erin You are HERE!
•Andrea
•Alyssa

So on to my project! I made this card using some stinking ADORABLE Beach Bum Summer Penguin stamps. I can barely handle the cuteness of these penguins enjoying a vacation away from their southern frozen climate. I also used the Cover-a-Card Bubbles Background stamp on this card. I stamped it just one time on a scrap of turquoise paper for the card. I then used a craft knife to cut it in waves and just overlapped them until I was happy for the bottom portion of the card. The cover-a-card line of stamps are HUGE by the way. 5.75" square, so any of them can be used vertically or horizontally on a card. Didn't really matter so much with this bubble one, but GREAT for other designs. Love it! I did my coloring with watecolor pencils. I hope you are enjoying him.

If you are doing the blog hop you might be looking for my special word? My word is picnic. Best of luck to you!

kwernerdesign case

2010-06-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

So you may know I'm a huge Kristina Werner fan. When I saw today's Finally Friday post I got up RIGHT AWAY to make a similar card.
I don't have any black glossy paper with white flowers on it. I tried to make some with white glossy paper and embossing and inking with black, I made a huge mess. So I went in my scraps files. At some point I had stamped this flower over and over on black cardstock with white ink. I decided to use it! See the corner of the Thank You part, where it's sticking up a bit? I fixed that. I'm sure you were very worried. *wink*

I don't too often so clearly CASE stuff. I try to take elements or ideas from things, but this is VERY similar, even same colors. Of course I'm glad I did because I LOVE the original. Oh I want to say that my gray is the SAME gray she used, she's just a way better photographer than I am. I mean she's a way better cardmaker too, but THAT issue is photography, not ability to pick up dark gray paper.

So just for fun:
I went though aLL my stuf lately. A few weeks ago and again today. I first got out some of those huge zip lock bags. I filled up SIX of them with embelishments, papers, stickers and so on. I labeled each one with one of my kid's names. Well it's been the BEST. They make "cards" all day long every day if I let them. Of course they have good stuff, great stuff even. It's just stuff I was tired of or knew I'd never get around to using. But GOOD stuff. Oddly they get the most excited about letter stickers. STephen is starting to read and he likes to use them to label his art. VERY cute. Ethan uses them randomly. I have a stack of stuff for Brian for Father's day, Stephen SOLD an art piece to Roniece for a whole DOLLAR the other day! I think next week I'll do a post with all their art so far, some of it is pretty cool, all of it is CRAZY creative. Stephen even figured out how to make a pop up table on a card. haha, Ethie just brought me a "card" which he literally stuck hundreds of stickers on. I can't really tell what's going on, but he tells me it's a Dinosaur Eating the City. I can see the dinosaur and the city,I guess the rest is wreckage? hahah.

Check back tomorrow for my Garden Walk blog hop. I have a fun card for ya!

LIfe is better

2010-06-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

Today I have a super simple CAS card for you. I had been eyeing this "life" set by Papertrey for months and finally purchased it last month. Pretty much to make cards like this one. A few colors of ink, rounded corners, nice cardstock. done and done.

Martha Stewart Doilies

2010-06-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

So there are these little paper tag thingies, they look like mini white doilies by Martha Stewart right now. They are the hotness for creating your own embelishemnts. Like a good little crafter I had to jump on board! For the pink one I inked it up with pink ink, then covered it with glitter embossing powder, did the same with the little white prima. Otherwise this is a very simple card. You can't see it on my photo but the black piece is embossed with Papertrey's woodgrain embossing die.

Both of the above I just inked them in black then used this yummy red to make paper flowers. I used one of those HOT buttons I got on Etsy a few weeks back on one of them. Delightful.

Looks like I got fancy on this one but it ws super simple. Inked the doilie brown, added premade flower. I did stamp the background paper with a Cornish Heritage Farms background stamp. Easy goes to peasy.

I really do like working with these. they fancy things up very easily. I think they work with my generally CAS style too. I've seen them on VERY fancy cards and they look good there too.

Purse Card and camera woes

2010-06-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

Did you ever make a card you just can't get a good picture of? That is the case with this purse card. I'm going to include all three of my stinky shots. I can't reshoot because Brian it out of town again and he took the camera.

The thing is that the card is not nearly this washed out looking in real life.

Anyhow it's the next card from my working my way though Go To Sketches bookazine. I'm still enjoying that challange. Shaped cards are HARD for me. The next one is a pocket! Jeepers!

I used papers from the October Afternoon Thrift Shop collection and the stamp is from Penny Black's Salutations stamp set.

I rearranged some of my craft room yesterday. Just minor stuff. I have this strong itch to rearrange my whole house. Welcome nesting! I want to put my TV in the corner, get a second couch and arrange it on the current TV wall. I did move my kid's furniture all around on them. I just can't seem to stop! We are having a kid from church come paint my bedroom this weekend so that should fill up some of my nesting need.

Sweet Kids

2010-06-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

I know I personally have the sweetest kids. At 5 and 4 they are actually helpful, they let me sleep late, they are fun. I love them to pieces.

So when I saw the Sweet Kids stamp set at Paper Garden Projects I knew it was for me.

For both cards I kept it soft by using watercolor pencils on the kids. I wanted to have them be soft and dreamy. I stamped them in brown ink for the same reason. I love the sayings on this stamp set, so vintage!

Winner!

2010-05-30T15:30:00.001-07:00

Ok yall Sorry it's been a few days, I have some throat thing. coughing a lot and so on.

Anyhow the winner of the emmerson set is:

christy b., that's me! said...
Your cards are great, but a stamp with an Emerson quote on it...C'mon, that's like eating icing from the container when no one is around. :o)

Friday, 28 May, 2010

Christy B please email me your info to serinone@yahoo.com and I will get your goodies right out to you!

There will be more giveaways in the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Fourth Friday Challange Start to finish

2010-05-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

So this week is the Fourth Friday Challange with the Paper Garden Projects Blog. Click HERE to enter the challange and see all the deets. Basicly make a girly card, upload it, use the frog likn on that post I gave you and whammo you are entered to win a super duper cute stamp!

On to my project! The first step for me is usually flipping through my idea book or magazines and getting an inspiration. It could be a sketch or colors or just an idea. The paper pieced girl with the umbrella here is my inspiration. I liked the colors on kraft and the paper piecing. Then I pull some products for the card. Kraft cardstock, fun print paper and a cute girl stamp. I know I'll need these scissors too!

Stamp the girl a few times on print papers. I figured I'd need all three prints to really dress her the way I wanted to. Then the one on the cream is for the parts of her I will color.

Color the girl and arrange the paper piecing. It's not glued down yet, I'm checking to make sure I like it. I also drew in a grass line and sponged in clouds.

This next step is the longest for me. If I have a sketch it's easy I just use the sketch. If I don't like this card I put my stuff I want to use in a little pile and stare at it for a while.

Got some more stuff out and stared at it some more.

Stamped a sentiment. More staring. (Did really dig that sentiment with this girl though.)

Then whipped it up into a card. Here is another close up of the piecing. I really like it. I want this dress.

Here is a cute little button accent I made for it.

And here is the finished card. Ta-DA!!!

Ok here's all what I used:

Darling Sisters set by Greeting Farm

Sweet Kids set by Crafty Secrets

Kraft Cardstock

Thrift Shop Print paper by October Afternoon *Which is on sale 20% off this very moment!

Everything else is random stuff I found in my stash. :)

Ok Don't forget to go enter the giveaway contest. We all love to make frilly girly cards so it's EASY. The prize is THIS super cute stamp. Hey! I want that stamp! Can I enter? haha kidding

PS, the winner for my stamp set giveaway will be tomorrow, I forgot that I'd want to keep this post on top all day and not put the stamp set thing on there too. So it will be one more day, and I'll add a treat to the package for the winner!

Black and white floral and FREE STAMPS

2010-05-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Isn't this card cute? I really love this black on white polkadot paper. I've had it for years, I bought like 10 sheets. I'm down to just the smallest scraps now. It's by Making Memories, has some weird red and pink flowers on the other side. The card is super simple. Just some Papertrey flowers peeking in and a sentiment, bit of ribbon and a border punch. Easy goes to Peasy. You know what else is Easy Goes to Peasy? Winning free stamps from me. Over the next month or so I'm going to be randomly giving away some stamps and sets. I did a clean out of my stamp room. Some stuff I sold. Some I'm going to just give away. Roniece got a pile last night.

Today I'm giving away this cute little Stampin' Up! set. (not the just perfect alpha, I thought I was doing that then realized Roniece took it last night! opps!) The little quote stamp on this says, "The greatest gift is a portion of thyself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson" There is a super cool silhouette flower, a negative image bird and a butterfly attacking a flower. There is almost no evidence of use on these stamps. I think I used them once. They might be from hostess rewards? I'm not sure. Anyhow one of the commentors on this post will be getting this in the mail. Anywhere in the world. I'll pick the winner sometime tomorrow.

Erin K Creations

back to school tube.

Shaped Summer Rejects

Blast from the past Sunday

Unknown stamps rock.

OLW 76 Color in Winter

Lunch Box Notes *another publication reject*

I AM the map girl

Case of Alicia Thelin

Cute Food

Paper Smooches SPARKS challange

OLW74 is really hard

Not Crafts: Pimps

Thanks

The worst science

whaaaaa?

Sick Farm Animals

Happy Glittery Birthday

how special you are

Scrapbooking tip.

Let's Talk

thank you CASE and lighting

Love You

One layout three cards

hello

Gifts for Strangers

Atlas Wreath and kid art

Came to me in a dream card set

baby it's cold outside

Clowning Around

Thank you set

Super simple Modern Christmas

Happy Halloween

take care

happy thanksgiving

Octopus time

Took a few pics today.

Cleaning up at CVS

More makeup fun.

Makeup, catchup

Pink Hair.

Recent Nails, featuring a rad French Mani.

My A Muse Studio Came

Hair and A Muse

Bouncy Ball Nails.

St. Patty's Day Nails

More playing with my nails.

TSG97 Get Crafty Birthday Girl

have a great day

Quick Smile

tooty fruity

Art and Children

Baby Girl Quilt

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

Calvin is home!

What all have you been up to Erin?

Basket Kitties

sweet friend

here kitty kitty

Stephen's card and a personal challange

MOre fun with my new stamps

Treats and clean!

Baby Shower photos

That girl is so full of excuses

Flu season strikes

And colored in!

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

Mojo Monday 157

Happy Thanksgiving

OLW19 and New Stamps!

Stephen's There She Goes challange card

My There She Goes Monday Challange

Christmas Girl

New stamps and publication news

Inspired by...

Feel Better

Baby Shower and Bunnies

Sleepy Thanks

Smile

Top Done.

Lunch Box Notes another publication reject