That girl is so full of excuses

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

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

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

You know, soon. Or not so soon.

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

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

Flu season strikes

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

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

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

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

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

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

xxoo,
e

And colored in!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mojo Monday 157

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

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

Happy Thanksgiving

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



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

In Other News:

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

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

OLW19 and New Stamps!

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

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

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

Stephen's There She Goes challange card

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

My There She Goes Monday Challange

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

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

Christmas Girl

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

New stamps and publication news

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

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

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

Inspired by...

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

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

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

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

Feel Better

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baby Shower and Bunnies

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

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

In Other News:

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

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

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

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

Sleepy Thanks

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

It's reversable too!

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

Smile

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

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

Top Done.

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

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

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

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

blast from the past and general update.

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

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

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

Crap I'm complaining again!

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

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

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

Easy Thank You cards

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

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. :)