We are here! We are here! We are here! We are here!

Or at least, I am here. I just love Horton Hears a Who. First of all, who doesn't love an elephant who hears voices. And secondly, don't we all just want to be noticed? I look at my little wall of subscribers and feel loved. I'm sorry I have been neglecting you.

So today Isabel is not feeling well. I'm sorry she is sick, but oh, I have needed a "play day"! She is happily watching cartoons on the couch and I am sitting in my studio deciding whether to create something or organize. LOL Which do I like better? Anyway, I am keeping her in popsicles and happily watching Julie & Julia. What a lovely day!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother's Day. My kids are getting to the age where they like to participate in it more and are so excited to make me/buy me things. This year, Collin's teacher at school really outdid herself with having the kids make things for Mother's Day. On Friday, Collin happily ran out of school holding a plastic cup in which he planted some flowers that were beginning to sprout. He proudly thrust it at me shouting "Happy Valentines Day"! I love it! He was also thrilled to have some other surprises for me in his bookbag. He enjoyed playing a "can you guess what I made you...don't look in my bag" sort of game with me all that afternoon. The kids also picked me out some gifts (from Goodwill...we are not rich, you know...lol) that they were delighted with. Isabel got me the school house and Collin got me the tiger. I am a lucky mom.

Although my time to create has been sparse, I have made a few cards lately. Of course, I keep mailing them off without pictures. LOL However, I did try a new type of card called an easle card. You can find the directions for it here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/easelcard/

It was much easier than I thought and really a lovely card to decorate. You should give them a try.

Now that we have had a nice chat, I am going to get back to finishing up some layouts. How refreshing is that?

It's a rainbow kind of day...

So today I have a RAGING headache. Wow. I don't know where it came from, but it is about flattening me. However, the sun is shining in my studio window. Did you hear me? That blows any headache pain right out of the water. Hurt away head. My sunny room is glowing.

The day did not start off well for me. Collin was throwing up last night. No fever. No other symptoms, but random throwing up. Which he does not handle well. At all. **Can you say drama queen?** Apparently the male "I'm sicker than anyone has ever been in the history of sickness and will die soon" gene is alive and well in my house. Yippee. I sent him to school since he does not indicate being in any other way sick...and he was running around like a lunatic at 6:00 this morning. And arguing with his sister. Hey. Don't judge me.

After taking him to school, next on my agenda was Isabel's room. Ummm...can you say tiny toy disaster? I was NOT looking forward to the day long battle to get her to clean. She truely does not care about her room. But I can't even walk in there without getting hurt and REALLY need her to develope a clean gene (it can happen...ask my sister). So....I got an idea. My friend, Kasey, gave Isabel a pretty, purple fairy costume last night. Isabel wanted to wear it today. I asked her if she knew what fairy it was (we are very into Tinkerbelle here). She said no. And thus the cleaning fairy was born. She promptly put on the cleaning fairy outfit and CLEANED HER WHOLE ROOM! No joke! Here is a pic. to prove it:

See! My day just keeps getting better and better! I found some fantastic rainbow paper in the K and Company Girl Scouts stack that was just crying out to me. And since her room was done, i had time to play with it. I had some pics. of Billy I really love from last summer that I wanted to scrap, but I wanted some wallets of several different pics. I can do that on my photo printer, but you get the same picture on the print four times. It won't let me do any differently. So I discovered Photosheet. It is a free program that lets you put 4 different photos on one print. It works beautifully! I love it! The story I shared on this page is about Billy's need to insist that I moved to Puerto Rico just to marry him. LOL Nothing was further from my mind at that time, but it makes him happy to tell everyone that. So I had to record my side of the story for my kid's sake.

I was very careful to save every scrap left from that adorable rainbow paper, and was able to make this card and still have some left over.

And, since this was my rainbow day, I also found out that I won a blog hop from Zva Creative! They will be sending me $30 of their new releases from CHA! Check it out! http://www.zvacreative.com/index.html WhooHoo! So rage on headache! It is still a great day!

Some great buys and a new found love...

So I had a great shopping weekend! Poor Billy...he got dragged around with me. I decided to try some discount places and we ended up at Big Lots and Tuesday Mornings. :) Didn't buy a lot, but found some great deals at both places.

Then I stumbled on a buy/sell thread on 2 peas and found the most amazing stamps that a lovely lady was selling. They are from the company Pink Persimmon (http://www.pinkpersimmon.com/shop_stamps.html) and I love love love them! I can't wait until they get here!

Since I have nothing much to do (LOL) I have found a new hobby that I am LOVING! It is inexpensive and my kids are thrilled with it...FELT FOOD! Yep. I said it. You heard me. I love to browse Etsy and see the cutest food on there. I wondered how hard it would be to make some things for Isabel, so I started browsing the web. Oh, my goodness! Great ideas...tutorials...and they are so cheap to make! Here is what I managed on Sunday:

Actually, I made 3 of the eggs and am finishing up the 4th piece of bacon. Isabel has requested pop tarts next. LOL Serioulsy, I don't sew...so if I can do this, it is not bad at all! I didn't even us my machine...these are all handstitched, baby! I will even share some of my new fav. sites with you. See. The work is practically done for you. And, Crystal...I can totally see you doing this!

http://alltwistedup.blogspot.com/search/label/Felt%20and%20Felting

http://americanfeltandcraft.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/c-is-for-cookie-free-chocolate-chip-cookie-felt-food-tutorial/

http://americanfeltandcraft.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/felt-food-carrot-free-tutorial/

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=222947.0

http://halfpintpixie.com/2008/11/09/felt-food-of-yumminess/

http://weefolkart.com/?q=node/283

http://indiecrafts.craftgossip.com/2010/01/21/free-felt-food-tutorial-hot-stack-by-turkey-feathers/

http://feltorama.blogspot.com/2009/01/felt-food-tutorial-waffle-cone-and-ice.html

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/toys-kids/free-felt-food-tutorials-we-made-it-and-so-can-you-085169

http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2007/09/tutorial-hand-sew-felt.aspx

http://www.oneprettything.com/?p=8509&c=felt-food-roundup

http://www.ikatbag.com/2009/04/how-to-make-strawberries-for-picking.html

http://keeperofthecheerios.com/2008/12/best-felt-food-patterns-from-around-the-web/

http://lbbspassion.blogspot.com/

http://www.onecraftyplace.com/2009/02/27/felt-food-tutorial-round-up/

http://oneinchworld.com/blog/index.php/2008/12/felt-lettuce-tutorial/

http://snazzlecraft.blogspot.com/2009/01/free-felt-food-pattern.html

http://untilwednesdaycalls.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-just-couldnt-leave-it-alone.html

Go forth and create!

Happy Birthday, Molly Joy!

My BFF Sarah's sweet little girl, Molly just turned 2! I just can't believe it! I remember the day she was born (her twin brothers were hanging out at my house so Grandma could be with Sarah during the delivery). She was so tiny, perfect and beautiful. It is such fun watching her grow. Isabel loves her and Collin tries to make her laugh every time we play together. So, in honor of Molly's birthday, I made a little mini album about her. I (are you ready for this?) broke out my stash of Sassafrasslass. The holy grail of paper (okay, I say that about quite a few brands, but, anyway). And I CUT INTO IT! Whew! Now that is true love for Molly. I kept it as simple as possible (she is only 2) and refrained from my usual flowers and buttons, since the likelyhood of them getting pulled off is pretty high. LOL

The card is made with the new Once Upon a Princess. Love that cart! So cute and lots of fun things on it! Girly, but with some boy options, too. So here it is. In all it's glory. And in my opinion, the pictures of my Molly are truely the highlight.I have been sending birthday cards to all of the kids at our church and thought I would make a new set. Change it up a bit. Get a little crazy. Okay, they are not that crazy, but I have been doing the same design for a few months now (I make them in bulk) and thought it was time for a fresh take on it. :) Seriously...loving the party hats...especially on the bunny. The animlas are all Studio G stamps. I keep it simple since I have to make so many of them. :)

Cosmo Cricket Craziness...lots to show you...

I really need to stop reading message boards. They are like the bad girl in school who smokes in the bathroom and tries to get you to skip class. I might as well get a pink ladies jacket because I am easily influenced. Sale at Tuesday Mornings you say? I have to find some way to pop in there. LOL And I went. And I shopped. And, OH MY GOODNESS! I found such great deals! Really cute embellies for only 99 cents or less...

And (are you ready for this?) a fantastic deal on a Cosmo Cricket Craft Kit. An overflowing box of everything I need to make a plethera (totally fun word) of projects. Want to see? I thought you might.

And inside the box there was....a set of 2 8x8 albums...a tag album...a chipboard album and a mini book...and.....

a card kit...love banner...picture frames...magnetic frames for the fridge...photo cube...and....

adhesive, paper, embellishements, ribbon....and.....Alphabets (stickers, chipboard and cardstock), chipboard embellishments and stickers.A $50 kit for only...$15 dollars!!! It is beautiful and it has everything I need to finish a bunch of projects. Cool, huh? They had it in a pink set and a blue one. I got pink. I should have gotten several, but wanted to spread the wealth. :)

Besides shopping, I did manage to eek out 2 cards this week. I found some GREAT inpiration. Mojo Monday inspired this one:

This next card was inspired by: http://papertrufflez.typepad.com/paper_trufflez/2010/01/one-of-a-kind.html

Enjoy your weekend. :) I'm hoping to play with my new Once Upon a Princess Cartridge.

Snow Day....and not getting much done.

Oh, give me a home, with sound proof walls...and an ability to stick my kids in a room and ignore them. LOL Okay, I am way to good of a mom to do that. Therein lies the problem. I just care too stinkin' much about my kids. So I interact with them...and have very little time left for me! Oh, what a world! What a world!

On the bright side, I did get a Mojo Monday card done. What? It's Tuesday, you say? I so did not need to hear that. Why would you even tell me that? What is wrong with you? Seriously?

Here is the link to the inspiration (even though you don't deserve it):

http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/2010/02/mojo-monday-125.html

And here is what I came up with:

And just because I can't just show you ONE card...here are 2 oldie but goodies I made a while back.

I may be back. I'm hoping to play some more tonight.

A break through and some goodies!

If you have seen my scrapbook room, you might just notice the massive amount of paper I have. You need cardstock right? And I don't want to run out, so....I have a lot of that. And patterned paper is so pretty! And it comes and gos so quickly that I feel the need to own it now before they discontinue it. I have stacks of single sheets of patterned paper and about 25 different stacks from companies from Basic Grey to Sassafrass Lass. Sigh. I am in paper heaven. I knew Michaels was getting in some new things so I decided to pop in there on Saturday when Billy took the kids to the pet store (they are right by each other after all!). And there it was! Paper that made me gasp. Pretty paper that I have no idea what I will do with it, but it is so beautiful I had to buy it. By the time I got the discount on it, it only cost me $10 and change, so the price was great. But how to sneak it past Billy...LOL To my surprise, I showed him the paper when we met at the van and HE LOVED IT! Called it art and said we should frame some of it!!! Seriously doing the happy dance about that! No guilt trips. No "how much paper do you need" speech. For one brief moment we were one about my paper addiction. Sigh. Doesn't get any better than that. Want a peek at the bonding paper? I'm warning you...it's too pretty to pass up.

I found this great MM package of baby embellishments on clearance there, too. Love all of the different pieces and it doesn't have to be just for baby items.

They had some new Studio G stamps, too. I am trying to cut down on my addiction to those and use what I have, but come on. This bunny was begging to come home with me.

I have been seeing alot of cool paper flowers and embellishments made out of book pages. I love my books and have no intention of ripping them up, even for the sake of art, so I made a quick trip to Goodwill to see what I could find. I managed to find a thesaurus and one of my favorite books, Turn of the Screw. I can't wait to rip them apart. I found some cotton twine, too. Good deals!