Paper pieced lollipops!

This seems like one of longest weeks ever.  Not in a bad way though, in a weird way.  Since we were home because of the snow, it felt like a weekend in the middle of the week so it's odd that today is weekend eve!  Haha!

Yesterday I posted a picture of my desk and the card I was working on.  I picked up a $1.50 stamp at Michael's this weekend and I had several ideas for the stamp.   Stickles, coloring, paper piecing, etc.  This is what I ended up with.

I paper pieced the stamp, mainly because the bottoms of those lollipops were solid black and I didn't like that :)  I used my nestabilities to cut out the circle shape but it was too close to the edge and ended up straight on one side.  I remedied that by adding a file tab to cover up the straight edge.  The rest of the card just kind of fell into place.  I used older Basic Grey papers and October Afternoon label stickers.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a beautiful Thursday!  I'll be back tomorrow with another card.  See you then!!

WOYWW

Hello!!!  Today I'm linking up over at THE STAMPING GROUND with Julia to share what I have on my workdesk.

It's a mess, for me.  I'm working on a card with a new stamp I picked up over the weekend.  Not exactly sure where I'm headed with this though...

Thank you for stopping in today and I hope to see you tomorrow with a finished card.  Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Gesso!

Good Tuesday morning to you!  Guess what?  We're home again.  Yep, another snow day here.  Not sure how much snow we got because it's still snowing...  I'm hoping to get the house picked up this morning, start a load of laundry and then work on a couple of cards and maybe Project Life.

Awhile back, like maybe a year ago, STEPH and I wanted to art journal.  Then we roped TRACY into it.  I started out with the best of intentions, really wanting to art journal and broaden my horizons.  We were playing along with The Greeting Farm Heart Journal Challenge and I know I made it two weeks.  I'm not sure about Steph, but Tracy finished her journal and it was awesome!  I don't know if a weekly challenge is something that I can do, I think I need a more "go at your own pace" kind of a thing.  But I've been thinking a lot about art journaling lately and would like to give it another shot.  Maybe.  Haha.

So this weekend when I was at Michael's, I picked up some gesso.  There were so many different kinds, and colors!  I had no idea.  I'm not sure if I got the right kind or not, but I brought it home anyway and got to play with it on Sunday.  I watched a couple of videos on techniques and off I went.

This is the cover of my journal.  I did multiple coats of gesso and acrylic paint.  I used my heat tool to dry in between coats.

This shot is to try and show you the texture.  I used a tissue and baby wipe to blot the gesso while it was wet to give it a lumpy bumpy look.  After I was happy with the texture, coats, paint, etc I stamped on the cover and added a flower and some thread.  Was the gesso messy?  Yes.  Was it fun?  Yes.  Will I do it again?  Yes!

I'm usually such a slacker crafter, taking the easy way out a lot of the time.  This felt really good, to get my fingers painty and messy!  Good for the soul, right?

Okay, I'm outta here for the day!  Thank you for stopping by today and I'll be back tomorrow.  Until then, have a safe and happy Tuesday!

Felt embellishment card.

Last week I worked on making a couple of embellishments.  I wanted to try out that Papertrey Ink felt I had ordered with my thin dies.  Guess what?  It worked!!

Here's my card :)

The felt is 100% wool, but super thin.  It's weird, but in a good way.  It sure did cut right through, one time, with my thin Papertrey die and Cuttlebug.  I used the A,B,C plates.  Awesome, right?  Wrong, because now I want more felt.  Haha!

Did you have a good weekend?  We spent the whole weekend celebrating Abie's birthday.  She has finally learned the art of stretching out the birthday.  Friday night we took her out to dinner, Saturday night was her friend sleepover and Sunday was her actual birthday when she got her gift from us. 

I picked up some gesso at Michael's this weekend and I'm going to post about it tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping in today.  I hope you have a wonderful Monday :)

Project Life Week 7

Well I'm not sure what our total number of inches was, but it's definitely in the double digits.  Ew.  Ready for spring people!!  :)

Today I'm sharing week #7 of Project Life!

So the one thing I want to talk about this week is the picture down in the bottom left corner.  I took both pictures with my phone, a Droid Razr.  Then I have this app on my phone called Photo Grid that I make a collage with.  You can add, I think, up to four photos.  Then I have the Canon Easy Photo Print app on my phone, this automatically pulls up all the photos from my phones library, including the ones from the Photo Grid app.  I click on which ones I want to print and out they pop on my Selphy photo printer!  I also printed one that had four pics on it, but it cut the heads off of a couple of people, so I'm working on that :)  But, I love this app!  It's a great way to get more pics in my PL weekly layouts!!

Yesterday was kind of a blur.  After Mike got home, he and the neighbors went out with the snow blower and cleared a bunch of driveways up and down the street :)  all while the kids played together.  It was so awesome!  I just love our street and our neighbors.  The girls and Mike came in about 4:00 and got warm and we fixed dinner and were in for the night.  Mike is back at work today and the girls and I are home again.  Tomorrow night is Abie's birthday party, a sleepover :)  four eleven year old girls and even Landry is having a friend over!  Mike and I might need our ear plugs! 

I hope you have a great weekend and a wonderful Friday.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you soon!!

I was tagged! 25 things you have to know about me...or not.

Well, it appears they were right...this time.  It is currently snowing and they are pretty sure we're going to get near a foot.  I'm still skeptical about the amount :)

A couple of days ago, by bloggy friend JULIE tagged me in this fun post!  I met Julie through KATIE and have loved getting to know her.  She's a photographer, a scrapbooker, a Project Lifer, a Mom and oh so funny!  You should totally stop by her blog!


Today I'm playing along.
  1. Where were you born? Kansas City, MO

2. Were you named after someone? Yes, my paternal grandmother, whom I never had a chance to meet, but have heard great things about!  :)

3. If you have children, how many do you have? I have two beautiful girls.  They are funny and smart and wonderful!  (ask me again about this when A. middle school starts and B. puberty sets in)

4. How many pets do I have? We have a very large dog, Murray.  He's half lab, half St Bernard and thinks he can sit in your lap.  Such a sweet boy though.  Abie recently bought a lizard, a bearded dragon, with her Christmas money, and his name is Larry.  He's a pretty sweet boy too :)

5. What was your worst injury? Um, can't really think of anything.  One time in college my friends and I were walking up the three flights of concrete stairs up to our apartment and I tripped and scrapped up my shin really bad.  That hurt pretty bad.  Lame, I know, but that's all I've got.

6. Do I have a special talent? As an adult, no.  As a kid I could play you a song on my nose.  This involved humming a tune and flipping my finger on my right nostril.  Hahahahaha!

7. What's your favorite thing to bake?  Four ingredient chocolate chip cookies!  I can actually bake really well, I'm just lazy.  Ooohh, I also love to make banana bread! 

8. What's your favorite fastfood? It really depends on my mood.  Love a turkey sandwich from Subway, Burger King cheeseburger, mexi melt from Taco Bell or Papa Murphy's Pizza!!!

9. Would I bungee jump? Hmmm, maybe.  Slightly more possible if Mike were with me.

10. What is the first thing you notice about people? Their disposition.  Then their shoes.

11. When was the last time I cried? Last week, specifically Monday.  I was having a really rough time with side effects from my medicine and worried it wasn't working.  So grateful things are under control and back to normal now!!

12. Any current worries? Yes, worried about Mike making it home safely :)

13. Name three drinks you drink regularly.  One cup of coffee in the AM, water the rest of the day.  Bo-Ring!

14. What is your favorite book? I don't really have one.  I read a lot, and kind of go in cycles, reading all sorts of different things.  Right now I'm not reading anything though.

15. Would you like to be a pirate? No thank you. 

16. What are your favorite smells? A clean house, clean laundry, a spring morning!!!!

17. Why do you blog? I started blogging to share my cards and creations, but now I've made so many friends, I love to check in with them, pretty much daily, to chat or see what they're up to!

18. What song do you want played at your funeral?   Tell Me Something Good by Chaka Kahn!  I love that song!

19. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? Probably that I worry too much.  I worry about everything.

20. What is your favorite hobby? Papercrafting :)  I love to make cards, scrapbook, stamp on paper, all of it!

21. What do you look for in a friend? A sense of humor!  I love to laugh and I love to make people laugh too, so that's numero uno on the list!

22. Name something you have done you never thought you would do.  Get married.  I pictured my life totally different, but I LOVE it!!

23. What are your favorite things to do? Hang out with Mike and the girls, the neighbors, in the driveway on a warm summer night, with some adult beverages, and watch the kids play.

24. Any pet peeves? Yes, I'm annoyed by everything.  Haha!

25. What's the last thing that made you laugh? Yesterday at work, we had a discussion about one of the Unit Supervisors and how he owns all these gold cars.  Like a fleet of them.  Enough to start his own used car lot.  They are ALL painted GOLD!  Then my friend says, do you think he took them to Macco and said, "paint my fleet gold!"  We laughed so hard!!!!  

This was fun :)  Thanks for sticking around, if you did.  I'm supposed to tag some people, but you know I always take the chicken way out.  Haha!  If you want to play around, that's AWESOME!  Let me know if you answer the questions, I'd love to learn more about you!!  

On to other business.  Last week, or maybe it was the week before, I got a package in the mail from my bloggy friend MARY JO!!  She was doing a fun exchange with some of her friends that included her favorite things and she was giving away one of the boxes to one of her blog readers.  I was lucky enough to win!  Here's what came in the box:

Some hot pink post its, coconut M&M's (one package is missing because my husband took them to the office), some fun heart pencils, a paperback, a great mini notebook, a way cool gold Sharpie and root beer lip smackers!  I've already used the gold Sharpie, several times, as well as the post its and I'm planning on picking up a pencil sharpener for my craft room.  I love a good paperback and am looking forward to reading this one!  Thank you so much Mary Jo!

Well, since I'm home today I'm planning on doing a couple of loads of laundry and I have that Project Life layout to finish up on my table.  Then I have an idea for some fun embellishments bouncing around in my head.  I'm going to try and work on those.  Thanks for stopping by today :)  Have a wonderful Thursday my friends!

WOYWW

Hey, drive by posting today.  Haha!  I'm linking up over at JULIA'S BLOG, STAMPING GROUND today to share a peek at my workdesk, along with tons of other crafters out there!!

I've got last weeks Project Life on the table!  I've semi figured out the app on my phone for printing more than one photo, see the two and four pics per page above?  Only problem is, I cut Mike's head off on one.  Need to remedy that one...  Still a work in progress.  What is on your workdesk today?

After school today, the girls have dentist appointments.  Then we'll be home for the evening.  Overnight it's supposed to start snowing.  The weathermen are calling for the storm of the century (enter daunting music here)  This means that we'll probably get 2" of snow.  They've got their panties in a bunch because it hasn't snowed all year.  Poor guys, I feel kind of bad for them, they live for this weather stuff. 

I hope you have a beautiful Wednesday!  Thanks for stopping by today :)

Abie's birthday invitations.

Good morning and happy Tuesday to you!  Today I'm sharing with you Abie's birthday invitations.  We worked on these together.  I asked questions to get an idea of what she wanted and then if something wasn't working right, or if it looked wonky, we would change it up.  I also had several new products still hanging out on my desk so they ended up on the card too :)  Here's what we ended up with.

A little non traditional for a birthday invitation, but Abie is thrilled with them :)  I have to say, I used the Papertrey Ink Impression Plate for the first time and it's definitely that, an impression.  The imprint it makes is not as deep as a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  If I get a chance, I'll try and do a side by side picture.  I do like how it turned out though :)

Thanks for popping in today.  Volleyball practice is moved to Thursday night so we're home tonight!!  Girls have dentist appointments tomorrow night and Abie's sleepover is this weekend, so I'm sure this week will fly by for us!  I hope you have a great Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow with a look at my desk :)

Project Life Weeks 4, 5 & 6.

Good morning everyone.  I'm sharing the last three weeks of my Project Life today.  Very basic layouts here, pictures and words.  I do love the look of adding scrappy stuff to the layouts, but I still struggle with that, so more often than not, this is what my weekly layouts look like.

Confession:  all of these pics were taken with my phone.  I've gotten SUPER lazy and have just been snapping photos with my camera phone and then printing them out on my Selphy.  Love :)  I have found an app that will make a collage out of my photos allowing me to print more than one picture on one 4x6 sheet.  I'm still messing around with it, as soon as I have it figured out, I'll share.  Right now I'm still cutting people's heads off, need to quit that before I start telling you all about it ;)

Today is a holiday for us, President's Day, and we're all four home!  We had a great weekend, shopping and running errands on Saturday, went to the movies on Sunday, I'm not sure what we're up to today, but I'm so excited to be home with my three favorite people for an extra day!!  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!  Today I want to share with you the tags I made for the girls little gifts.

The base for the tags was from an October Afternoon miscellany pack.  The cards in the pack were too big and I kept skipping over them, so I trimmed these down.  I layered on a few PTI die cut pieces with my MME paper and stamped on my favorite PTI Valentine stamps.  To attach these, I did something a bit different.  Because the tags were a little tall for the size of the gifts, I punched two holes on the side of the card, right next to each other, then threaded the twine through and tied a bow.  It's super secure this way and I love the look, different than a tag dangling from the top, the way I normally attach it.

Do you have big V-day plans?  We're doing our normal, fancy dinner at home.  It's quite the tradition with us and I'm super excited about it! I'm trying out a new dessert tonight, we'll see how that goes ;)  I hope you have a fantastic day!  See you tomorrow!!  Thanks for popping in for a minute today, I appreciate it.

WOYWW

Good morning and happy Wednesday.  Sheesh, how did it get to be Wednesday already?  I'm linking up over at The Stamping Ground with JULIA and a bunch of other crafters to share a look at what my workdesk.

I have Abie's Valentines, that need to be moved over to her desk, remnants from Landry's Valentines, the girl's gifts, that tags need to be made for, various cutting and adhesive tools, string, remotes, phones, but for the most part, my work area is clean. 

I'm going to make a couple of tags for the girl's gifts, hoping to get those done and posted tomorrow.  I'm happy it's Wednesday, I'm happy I'm finally feeling well, I'm happy you came to visit today :)  See you tomorrow!  Have a beautiful Wednesday.

Landry's Valentines.

Morning everyone!!  Today I'm posting Landry's Valentines.  She was so excited to work on these :)

We bought a big box of Fruit by the Foot at the store and Landry picked out some Valentine paper she like.  I trimmed it to 2 1/2 x 6" and wrapped it around.  Then I die cut the tags and she did all the stamping herself :)  To finish them off we tied the tags on with a bit of string.

Abie is still working on her Valentines so maybe I'll get a picture posted later this week.  I hope you have a great Tuesday.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you tomorrow! 

Valentine Snack Mix.

Happy Monday my lovelies :)  I hope you had the most beautiful of weekends.  We spent Saturday  running errands in the morning and then having a wonderful little visit from my parents.  I just love them.  While I picked up the house and worked on laundry in the afternoon, the girls worked their fingers to the bone on their ever important Valentine boxes.  Sunday was spent at Abie's volleyball tournament.  The team didn't fare so well this time around, it just goes that way sometimes.  Afterwards, we took Abie and Landry out to dinner and spent the evening at home, relaxing, watching the Grammy's ;)

Today I'm working on this...

Valentine snack mix for Landry's class party on Thursday.  I got the idea from one of the other room Mom's which led me to Pinterest which led me to my own recipe.  I included:  mini pretzels, strawberry frosted mini shredded wheat, frosted cheerios, Valentine M&M's, Valentine candy corn, dried cranberries and strawberry wafer cookies cut into triangles.  I mixed all of this up in a plastic grocery sack and then scooped it out with a 3/4 cup measuring scoop into these cute snack bags (provided by one of the other room moms).  Isn't this the most fun, festive snack mix?  I just love how it turned out!  Oh, and you should smell it!  It smells delicious!

Do you make fun treats like this for you kids parties or to eat around the house?  I'm already thinking about what other holidays I could make a fun snack mix for :)  Thanks for stopping by today and I'm hoping to post the girls Valentine's tomorrow!  Until then, have a fantastic Monday!!

A couple of new things.

Good morning friends!  I hope this post finds you well :)  I didn't sleep well last night, but not because of the itching, because of the dog.  He woke me up every hour, twitching at the foot of our bed.  Every time he would twitch, his toenails would click against our footboard.  Funny right?  Not so much when your getting a great nights sleep :)  Bless his heart, those must have been some great dreams he was having!

Today I'm going to share an order I got in the mail a couple of weeks ago.  I haven't had time to do anything but unpack it yet, with the move.

This was the first order I'd placed in a long time, I was SO excited to get it.  The first stamp set on the left I see ARLENE use and every time I think, I'm so going to order that, and then I forget.  I just loved the sentiments on the second set, they make me smile.  I finally picked up one of PTI's Impression Plates and I'm anxious to try it out.  I've heard they don't make as deep of an imprint as embossing but, well more of an impression.  Ha!  I'm SUPER excited about those die cut tags, how adorable are they?  Last, I finally bought some PTI felt.  It's been on my list for a long time, but there are so many colors, I just couldn't decide.  I can't wait to try it out!

Last night Mike got home and it was so nice out we all played outside for awhile before dinner.  I had hopes of crafting, but when you get a 60 degree day in February you have to take advantage of it.  It's raining here this morning, of course I just washed my car ;), what I wouldn't love more than to fix a cup of coffee and stay home to craft all day, but duty calls.  This afternoon is the grocery store, but I have BIG plans for this weekend in the crafty arena!  Have a fantastic Thursday/weekend eve and I'll see you soon!  Thanks for popping in today and I really appreciate all the wonderful, sweet and kind comments about my new room :)

All moved in!

Good morning!  I'm happy to say that the doctor's appointment went fantastic yesterday.  She prescribed me a couple of different creams for my itchy rash and they started working immediately!  It's nice to be able to sleep again and not wake up because you're all itchy!  :)

I'm sharing a picture of my new craft room today.  The girls and I are all moved in and unpacked.

Now let me explain a couple of things.  This is our bonus room, above our garage.  We previously used this room as an upstairs family room and it housed my husbands VAST sports collection (it looks like a mini Applebee's).  Until the basement gets finished, some of the furniture and ALL of the sports stuff is staying in the craft room with us :)  So, that's why you see a bunch of pennants on the ceiling, a Cowboys run and McFarlane figures on the wall.  Haha!  Now, once the basement is done, we'll be able to decorate this room!

The first desk there is the girls.  That way they don't have far to go.  I'm the second desk back there, BY THE WINDOW!!!!!  I can't tell you how excited I am about that freaking window!  It's my favorite thing, besides the fact that I can just walk down the hallway now to switch the laundry over instead of having to walk up two flights of stairs!

I'm thrilled to be all moved in and am excited about my first crafty project!  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll see you back here tomorrow!  Have a beautiful Wednesday :)

Valentine recap.

Hey guys!  I thought I would share some of my favorite past Valentine projects, you know since I'm not quite unpacked yet.

 This was a Valentine treat I made for Landry's preschool class a couple of years ago.  I picked up the little boxes at the dollar store, twelve for $1 I think.  They were actually meant for a baby shower and had pink and blue ribbons on them.  I took the ribbons off, decorated the fronts and put some M&M's inside!

 Here's a fun card I made!  I bought a package of premade cards from, hmmm maybe Michael's?  They had a decoration on the lower right hand corner, but I just covered it up with my own decoration :)

 Here's another of my favorite Valentine cards, made with the same premade base :)

 A fun tag and some cute packaging for my youngest daughter's Valentine present a couple of years ago.

Lastly, another tag and packaging for my oldest daughter's Valentine present from that same year :)

I loved looking back at these fun projects!!  Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays.  I have several projects that I HAVE to work on this week, including boxes for the girls :)  In a craft room update...  we were able to get all of the furniture moved up to the craft room Sunday night, along with all of the tubs, supplies and tools.  My calves hurt so bad from all those trips up and down the stairs!  (next house will be a ranch...)  Last night the girls and I worked on unpacking all of our goodies.  It was so much fun, like we had just been on a huge shopping trip!  I still have one tub to unpack and it's the MOST important one, all of my stamps and inks.  I need Mike to hang up my shelf where all of those go.  Hopefully that will get done soon and then I can take a photo and get back to work!!

Thanks for all of your kind words yesterday :)  I really appreciate it.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'm hoping I'll be back tomorrow with a picture of the new room.  If not, I'll see you on Thursday with pics.  Have a wonderful Tuesday!!

Hey there!

Hey guys!  Sorry to go MIA on you last week.  I'm having a bit of a, well I hate to call it a health issue because that sounds scary, but for lack of a better word that's what it is.  It's nothing serious, but I went to the doctor on Monday, I couldn't get in to see my regular doctor and the one I saw thought I had one thing and it turns out I don't have what she thought I had.  I have an appointment with my regular doctor on Tuesday and I KNOW she'll be able to "fix" me ;)  So, needless to say, I've not been sleeping well, due to my issue, and when that happens the first thing to go is the blog, and crafting :(

On a more positive note, you know Mike and I are on the year of the purge, right?  Did you know that?  We worked on the basement all day long Saturday, moving things around and getting the basement ready to finish.  If you didn't know before, my craft area was down in our unfinished basement.  So on Sunday, we worked on moving my craft stuff upstairs.  Would you like to see where my craft stuff is?

It's in our living room.  (sorry about the blurry phone photo)  The craft room furniture is still in the basement.  We had to move the sectional out of our upstairs family room (which is where my craft room is going) out before the craft stuff could go in.  We hit a roadblock when the long part of the sectional wouldn't fit downstairs :(  Mike and our neighbor tried for like an hour to get the couch downstairs and it just wouldn't go.  So right now it's in the garage.  We had to stop for awhile because Abie had practice and we had a super bowl party to go to.  BUT, I'm really hoping to get the rest of the furniture moved tonight and then the rest of the week I can work on organizing and putting things away.

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post this week, so I'll ask that you stick with me one more week.  I appreciate you guys :)