Out of the Mouth of Babes

My friend Laurie was over last night scrapbooking with me. Sammie had come downstairs to say goodnight, and got into a "long" conversation with Laurie about her two daugthers Nicole (19) and Chele (18)...

Sammie: Miss Laurie, do your kids share?
Laurie: Yes, they share - but not their clothes, they don't like to share clothes at all.
S: Do they get time outs when they don't share?
L: No, they are too old for timeouts.
S: What happens when they don't share?
L: Oh, well... sometimes I yell at them. Or I tell them to work it out themselves.
S: Hmm.... But time outs really work!


Oh my word... her tone was just priceless. My little 3 year old "helper" giving out parenting advice. It was too much. It did make me feel good that Sammie feels our discipline choice for her are fair, and that they are working! LOL...





Don't forget about the challenge! Yikes! Is today Friday? I'll extend the deadline to tomorrow (Sat) at 2 pm. I've gotten 2 entries so far from Lisa and Stacy. Check 'em out! They are uber cute.

Thanks for playing ladies!!!

Inspired by Lisa - and a Challenge

While browsing my "daily reads" I fell in love with some very simple, but elegant cards on Lisa's blog.

I had to lift them! And, what makes my cards extra special (in my book) is that these cupcake stamps had previously never seen ink! YAY! (They were an impulse purchase after seeing some amazing cupcake art by Sparkle).

I did add some texture to the white background of the card using my Cuttlebug - but I forced myself to use templates other than my favorite Swiss Dots. Some of these had also never been used before. Double YAY!

So here's the challenge. Using your "collector's items" (aka - stuff that you purchased on a whim, or that you've been "saving" for the perfect time, or stamps that have yet to see ink) create a card or layout. Post it to your blog or favorite board, along with a description of the items just now being used. Make sure to leave a comment here directing us to your post!

On Friday afternoon, I'll randomly select a winner from all the participants to get a handmade goodie from me. =) Happy Crafting!

(Supplies: Stampendous "Hey Cupcake" clear stamps, CTMH White Daisy, Goldrush, Orchid Bouquet, Pink Carnation and Breeze CS and markers. CTMH Black ink, 3d foam.)


ps... I just finished my latest knitting project - a snazzy scarf using this incredible yarn! It's about 3" wide and 9' long! Too bad I have to wait for cooler weather to wear it. If I can find some fun Lime Green yarn to match, I may add some fringe to the ends. I think that would be pretty cute.

New Video!

I have a new video tutorial for you to watch! I have been inspired recently by some wonderful quilt patterns, so I came up with this card. We are also making this card at my June Card Class - so if you are in the greater Seattle area and would like to come, just let me know!

I hope you enjoy the latest in my "Classy Craft" Video Tutorials. Happy Memorial Day!

Feeding the Ducks

We took Sammie to feed the ducks after church today. We like to go to Country Village in Bothell to do this. They have a wonderful man made stream and pond, with benches, cobblestone walkways, and even a gazebo. It's a lovely setting, and there are dozens of different types of ducks (and a few geese).

I brought my camera to get some practice in before my photography class (by Karen Russell) starts on June 2nd. Of the 179 pictures shot, these were my faves. =)

Happy Sunday!

I made this card for a swap, but I may make a few changes before the mass production begins.
The lion swivels on a penny track (two pennies stuck together with a round foam circle). This is also called a "tilt" card.

As always... I think the card is way cuter in person. =)

Anti-Procrastination

Yesterday my MIL had Sam for the morning, so I set to work on being creative quickly.

The goal was to complete all of my class cards and layouts for June and July - and I did it!

I don't want to overwhelm you all with pictures now... so here are just a few of the things I made. I'll post more over the next few days.

This is a father's day card (obviously). I found the shirt template here.

This card uses the June SOTM, and the "oh-so-bright-you-need-sunglasses" paper pack Whoops-a-Daisy. I used Ocean textured cardstock for the base. One side is lighter than the other - as you can see by comparing the part that says "happy everything" with the top of the card. I just **love** our TCS... I love it so much it is rare that I use it for classes, because I don't like to share. ;)

This is the layout I am teaching for June. My scrapbook classes are at the end of the month, so if they prefer to use the layout for 4th of July celebrations, they can. I have just found that my customers don't often take many pictures for the 4th, but I still wanted to use this paper for a "summer" themed spread. I think they'll like it regardless.


My little bugaboo was so tired last night, she fell asleep on the couch at 6 pm! We tried to wake her up for dinner, but she was out. So we put her straight to bed. I wasn't complaining though - it gave me an extra 2 hours to scrap!

Another scorcher...

It has been so stinkin' hot! Friday we hit the upper 80s, and yesterday got up to 91. Unbelieveable...

Thankfully last year we put in a window air conditioning unit, so it's cool inside. But for fun, we set up Sammie's kiddie pool so she could get outside and play in the sunshine.


I also experimented with the action mode on my camera (super fast shutter speed) so I could get great pictures while my busy bee was playing. Just look at those water droplets!


Very typical Sammie expression. She's shrieking with delight. (Looks a little more like a tantrum, but trust me... she was happy.)

Bitty toes.

She practiced jumping in and out of the pool.

I love how the water looks like it's shooting out of her fingertips - magic!

My happy girl.

I *love* EZ-mount! For about a year, I've been one of those silly people who adhered my unmounted stamps with doublestick tape. Ugh... so not a good way to go.

With my purchase of bella after bella (and a few fellas) and a ton of other UMs, I decided to it was time to invest EZ-mount. Boy am I a believer!

I purchased this Paris stamp off ebay over a year ago, and am now FINALLY able to use it! It's over 4" tall and 3" wide, and I could never get a good stamp with it -until today! YAY!

So for the next few days, you'll probably get to see several cards made with my long lost UMs.

On another note, it's a good day to stay inside and stamp - we're supposed to hit 90 today. GROSS!!! There's a reason I live in Seattle... I like the rain. sigh....

Supplies: cool paris stamp set i bought off ebay a year ago, CTMH black ink, CTMH black CS, CTMH patterned paper from a retired kit (heart of winter promo), 3d foam.

10,000 hit watch

Sometime tomorrow (or late tonight) my blog is going to reach 10,000 hits! YAY!!! I think a treat is in order.

Make sure to check the counter on the left hand side, and if you happen to be the 10,000th person to read my blog be sure to send me an email with your name and address. I'll mail you a handmade gift to show my appreciation!

Thanks for reading!


UPDATE: And we have a winner... errr or two! Congrats to Vicki and Charity. I'll get your treats out to both of you today.

Sorry to those that have trouble seeing the counter. I may need a new one, because I had TWO people that both saw 10k. Hmmm... wonder if we should be celebrating 20k hits?

Another Color Challenge

Kristina is having another of her weekly color challenges. This time it was inspired by the Martha Stewart ad below.

Colors are CTMH: Cranberry, Goldrush, Crystal Blue, Vanilla Cream, and Olive. (as close to the SU! counterparts as I could get).

I used the *new* Spot On Backgrounds stamps, as well as the May SOTM - Say it in Style. The ribbon is from the New England Ivy designer series and is no longer available. I hand stitched the flowers with white embroidery floss, and added seed beads for the centers. It's hard to see, but the inside of the red box says "thanks". The card is much cuter in person - but aren't they all? =)

Western Cards

Well it's got to be some kind of record - two posts in one day!

I'm doing a gathering on Saturday, and the hostess had planned on moving to Nashville later this year. That may or may not happen now, but regardless, she wanted a "western" themed party. It just so happened that the new CTMH Idea Book has a whole new collection of cowboy inspired papers and stamps! So we're good to go...

These are the cards I designed for her guests to make. I hope they like them!

Supplies (All CTMH): Sarsaparilla B&T, Barn Red CS, Colonial White CS, Black CS, Out West stamps, Black ink, Bamboo ink, Desert Sand ink, Cocoa ink, Black Bitty Brads, 3D foam, Sponge Texture Tool.

Supplies: Sarsaparilla B&T, Crystal Blue CS, Black CS, Barn Red CS, Colonial White CS, Star Struck stamps, Delightful Alphabet stamps, Black ink, Twilight ink, Desert Sand ink, Barn Red ink, Sponge Texture Tool, circle punch, 3d foam, sandpaper.

blowing bubbles

Sammie had her very first swimming lesson today! She was a little nervous before hand, and started out somewhat timid in the water with her teachers. This, however, is a vast improvement on how she acts in the water with me. She didn't cling to them, scream, or throw a fit of any kind (all things she does when I'm in the water with her).
They played a ring-around-the-rosie type game. She told me later it was the "fishy" game. The kid in the middle gets to pick the type of fish they want to be and has to blow bubbles as they swim out of the ring.




Sammie wanted to be a "Disney fish". I think she's been eavesdropping on my conversations with Dave about our trip in July. =)

We've told her a little bit about going to Disneyland, but she still has no idea what all of that entails.

I was so proud of her. By the end of class she was putting her chin and mouth in the water and was blowing bubbles. This is something she would NEVER do for me.

We go again on Wednesday, and I'm hoping they'll get her to put her whole face in the water. It's a process, so I know she'll get there eventually. But if she can do that, it will make bath/shower time so much easier.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

This is the card I made for my lovely mom. We had **SO** much fun yesterday.

In the morning I went over and had some breakfast with my mom and dad, then mom and I purchased our Disneyland airline tickets! We used her miles and we got first class for the ride down and back! Poor Dave had to buy his tickets through work (since he'll be at a business thing the whole week we are there) and he has to sit in coach! =( At least it's a short flight. We promise not to lord it over him too much. hehe...

Next mom and I headed to the this awesome little yarn store in the U-district called Weaving Works. I now know how novice scrappers must feel going into a store like Lasting Memories. I was totally, completely OVERWHELMED! There was so much to look at, and so many projects running through my head that I wanted to start, and thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of yarn I really wanted to buy! And, to top it off - they were having their annual super sale this weekend! After almost 2 hours of browsing and plotting, we made our way to the register. Mom treated me to about a dozen skeins of yarn, 2 new pattern books, and a few new needles (sz 2, 3, and 4) for Mother's Day. Thanks mom! I've already started on a new cute sweater for Sammie.



Afterward, we ran a few more errands, and then I went home to knit for a while while mom packed up her things for her trip. A few hours later, mom and dad (my step-dad Rick) came up and we went to the Clay Pit for dinner. It is and incredible Indian Restaurant and the food was D E L I C I O U S. Mmmm... if you go, I highly recommend the curried mussels. I'm not a big mussel fan - but these were sooooo good.

After dinner we headed back to our house for gifts and dessert. It was such a great day!

Today has been a little harder. I can't help thinking about Evan. I hope and pray that he is doing well. I know his birth mom is taking good care of him, but we still miss him so much.

We have such an awesome little family. I feel blessed to have my incredible husband and our precious daughter. Lately, my prayer has been that God would make me content with the family that I have.

If He brought more children into our home (through birth or adoption) I would be thrilled, but for now I feel Him asking for me to trust and wait - and live in contentment. This isn't an easy thing - but with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is what I'm going to try to do.

I'm not usually so open about emotional things here, so I feel I should leave you with something funny. If there is anyone out there who understands motherhood, it's commedian Anita Renfroe. Here is a little ditty she wrote about what a mom goes through every 24 hours... Enjoy!

The Mom Song

challenge card AND new video!

I've been watching "Make A Card Monday" since March (when my best friend, Christine, introduced it to me)! I love Kristina's creative cards and the way she shares awesome techniques every week. It makes having a case of the Mondays a whole lot sweeter.

Recently, she began a weekly color challenge. I've been dying to participate, but always seemed to find out too late - or have too much on my plate already to take on another creative feat. This week, however, I decided to make the time. I also decided to film my efforts and kill two birds with one stone - since I needed to prep a new "Classy Crafts" video anyway.

Here is her inspiration: An ad from a Pier 1 catalog...

And here is my card (sitting next to the sweet dandilions my darling girl brought home for me from the park this afternoon).

Here is the video of me making the card: (btw - if you want a list of supplies I used, they are listed in the credits at the end of the movie). Enjoy!

12 cards

I pulled out an oldie but a goodie - Caron Barnard's "12 from 1" cutting diagram. It refers to making 12 cards from 1 sheet of random stamped paper. I used patterned paper for my cards instead. I just LOVE how they turned out.

(Yes, I take my card pictures on my daughter's trampoline. The black background really makes the cards pop. Someday I'll invest in a real light box - lol).

These are a few of my favorite cards:

sorry this one is so crooked!

supplies:

paper: Making Memories (flower pattern), American Crafts "Metropolitan" for the stripe, CTMH Colonial White CS, Kiwi CS, Black CS, Crystal Blue CS.

stamps: (all CTMH) Thoughts of You, Post Marked, Butterflies, Say It In Style (May SOTM)

embellies: baubles, buttons, CTMH bitty brads, CTMH just blooms, CTMH black designer ribbon.

new artwork coming soon - i promise!

I am chomping at the bit to post some new artwork, but I can't!!!

I'm working on 2 top secret projects right now, and they are taking up SOOOOO much of my time. But, trust me - they are completely, totally worth waiting for, and I will post as soon as I possibly can.

In the mean time, I'm going to try and get down to the cave tomorrow and whip up some postable things. It's been ages since I used my bellas! ;)

Sammie came down and scrapped and stamped with me for about 40 minutes today (that was as long as her attention span would allow). I'm hoping to make it a daily thing with her. She really loves stamping, cutting, glueing and being creative, and since she's not napping anymore I could use all the spare moments down there I can get. We'll see how long she lasts tomorrow. Maybe I'll even pull out the watercolors! (ps - NO - not my watercolor pencils... just the cheap watercolor paints you can get for .99 at Fred Meyer! LOL).

And the Winner Is...

...JENA! Congratulations! Please email me with your snail mail addy and I'll get the fabulous goodie in the mail to you. To see Jena's winning layout click here!

Dave said that both layouts were incredible, and he really enjoyed looking at them (as did I). He chose Jena's for the creative use of clocks as a circular element, and the great tractor photograph!

Thank you both (Sharalyn and Jena) for playing.

I'll be doing another challenge soon! So check back for that.

Whirlwind Weekend

What a FUN weekend! My NSD crop went so well. Everyone had a great time, and I was amazed by everyone else's productivity! My sis-in-law got over 16 pages done! Can you believe it?!? Several other attendees got tons of pages done too, and the kits were a hit.

I'm thinking of doing something like this once or twice a quarter. It was so nice to have a WHOLE day set aside for scrapping without distractions.

This was the goodie bag I gave everyone who came. As part of the bag, everyone got to choose to use their papers to make a 2 page layout, or 10 cards. The Boom-di-Ada Creative Basics papers are soooo beautiful!

Here is gorgeous Lydia proudly holding up her pages. She used the "Monologue" layout from Imagine

My mom decided to make 10 cards with her papers.

The busy weekend continued yesterday with card class. I'm teaching it again tonight and Tuesday night. Dave is starting up a new semester at school today - so I'll have plenty of crafting time ahead this week while he does homework.

Oh! One more bit of big news for the day! Today is registration day for Karen Russell's "Snapshots of a Good Life" photography class!!! I'm taking the June classes and I couldn't be more excited - especially since I'm taking them for FREE! I won a blog challenge from Karen a few months back and this was the prize!!!! YIPPEEE!!!! Thank you Karen!

Happy National Scrapbook Day!

I'm having a big shin-dig here tomorrow... er, today. Lotsa paper crafting, food, prizes and fun! I'll have to post pictures of the event tomorrow, because I'm too tired to take pictures right now. I've been cleaning, and prepping all day, and even though my body is screaming for bed - my mind is racing. I'm just so excited!

Dave's going to go out drinking to escape the estrogen. No really, he is! There's a big brew fest downtown, so he and his buddies are doing that and Sammie is spending the day with Grandma 'Ree! (For those concerned that Dave will get "wasted", don't worry - he's not that kind of guy. He's a "connoisseur" - read "beer snob", and he goes to these things to get ideas for his own home brew recipes.)

And, because my crop goes from 10 am to 10 pm, Dave is finishing up the evening with a poker game at his boss' house. Did I mention that his boss' friend is a professional chef and he enjoys cooking for these parties? Yeah... don't feel too sorry for poor Dave, getting chased out of his house by a bunch of girls. ;)

ANYWAY.... Let's celebrate National Scrapbooking Day with a bit of a contest! I haven't done one in a while, and I've got a super cute mini album ready to go in the mail to the winner!

YOUR CHALLENGE, should you choose to accept it...

...is to make a 1 or 2 paged layout (with journaling)

...that includes one LARGE picture (5x7 or larger)

...and your FAVORITE QUOTE

...and somehow incorporates CIRCLES (thematic elements, punches, stamps, circular embellishments, etc)


Send a link to your page(s) in the comment box below by 11:59 pm Sunday night! The winner (as determined by my loving husband) will get an awesome prize handmade by me! Good luck!

April (snow) showers brought late flowers...

We thought we were going to miss out on the tulips in Mt. Vernon - but with the gobs of snow we got this year, the festival was extended a few weeks. YAY for us!

We spent two hours at Tulip Town last night. The fields were smaller than previous years, but still lovely to walk through. We had stopped at Roosengaard first, but all of their tulips had been decapitated and were nothing but fields of green stems. So if you're heading up before Sunday, you might want to head straight to Tulip Town. I really recommend going on a weeknight. We had the entire place to ourselves! It was excellent.

Sammie "sniffed" every single tulip. She declared that yellow ones "were NOT her favorite smell". Apparently they were more pungent than these pretty pink ones that were her favorite... and the purple ones that were her favorite... and the red ones that were her favorite...

There's something about Nona?! - Nah...it was just really windy! ;)

This is the classic Davenport shot. Over the 7 1/2 years we been married, we've perfected the self portrait pictures. Recently, I've shown Dave that if you hold the camera up high and angle it down, you avoid the double chin look. He doesn't care as much about that sort of thing because he only has 1 chin... sigh.

Another set of new kits

Here are two more kits I've been preparing for my Saturday Crop. They are made using CTMH's *NEW* 6x6 Display Albums (made of sturdy chipboard), and featuring 2 new paper packs from the Summer book - Sarsaparilla and Whoops-a-Daisy. Each kit includes the album, and twelve 6x6 pages with eyelets as the main embellishment. I've kept them really simple so that my customers can make them quickly and jazz them up according to their personal preferences.

I think they will make excellent Mother's and Father's day gifts. The albums are perfect for photos at a desk at work, and with 12 page protectors, could hold a total of 24 pages! With just a few quick changes, these would also make fabulous scrap calendars. Another neat thing - the albums fold flat - so they are a BREEZE to mail. :) Enjoy!

The "DAD" book:

The "MOM" book: