1,000 Hits and some Blog Candy

Okay, so I think it's time for some blog candy. I reached 1,000 hits. Which in the grand scheme of things isn't a huge deal, but you have to start somewhere, right?? So leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a name on...let's go with Monday. I am going to the craft store tomorrow, so I'll post pictures of the blog candy goodies I pick up tomorrow or Sunday. Hopefully this will bring some of you lurkers that have been visiting but not commenting out of the woodwork! :-) Looking forward to reading your comments! Have a great Friday everybody.

Color Challenge

This card was based on a color challenge on SCS. It was to use Orchid Opulence, Certainly Celery, and Pumpkin Pie. I don't yet have all of the colors of SU product, so I matched them as closely as I could with inks and paper that I do have. This is the result...
It is a 5x5 card. I used $1 stamps that I purchased at AC Moore a couple weeks ago. I also used my new cuttlebug embossing folder. I bought two of them on a whim last time I was at the craft store to just try them out. I think I'll be getting more! :-) I love the texture that they add. So if you haven't tried them, you should. The two that I got were only about $5/each at Moore's.

Quick Card

Hi Everyone, I know I promised to post more projects, and I have several to share, but I need to photograph them. SO, here is a quick card that I did for Beate's sketch this week. It's super simple, I didn't embellish a whole lot.

I haven't been posting much lately. Sorry for that! But I've been kind of trying this new thing of actually taking some time out of the day just for me to do something for me. So, I've been working out a lot and things like that to try to make myself healthier and happier and much less stressed. With Will being gone and kind of having all of this extra responsibility heaped on me was really dragging me down. So, I've been taking some time to get refreshed and rejuvenated. Thanks for all of your support! Only 66 more days until he comes home!! YAY!! :-)

Well I did it...

I am officially a Stampin' Up! demonstrator now. I have debated for a long time about doing it and figured its now or never! But my kit is ordered and I have my demo ID # now. So if anyone wants to host a workshop or attend one that I have at my house, leave me a comment with your email so we can talk! I am very excited to get started and just cannot wait until my kit arrives. I will be stalking the UPS man til it gets here, haha.
I am finally feeling better after my illness all last week, so I'm going to do some sort of crafting tonight after the kiddos go to bed. So stay tuned, more coming soon!!!

I made it!

Ok, so this is the first night this week that I wasn't asleep by 9! I managed to get a quick page done to share with you. This is Caitlynn wearing her new "had to have it" headband. It's one of the ones with the scarf attached to it. My little double threat girl with style and personality! :-)

Good night everyone!

Quick Note about Carolina Girls

Hi All,
I had a request to give more info about the Carolina girls that I'm always talking about. I joined Splitcoast stampers, and found this wonderful group of women who call themselves, the Carolina Girls. I attended their big shoebox swap event last October. We have two big swaps per year. One here in Charleston and one in Columbia, SC. The Columbia one is coming up April 26th. You can find all the info about it here. (If for whatever reason that link doesn't work...go to http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ and then on the right hand side there is a link for "Get It Together". Click that and then just look for the Carolina Girls thread.) Anyway, back to my point. These women are amazing. I was so nervous about going to the first swap because I'd never done anything like it before and I didn't know anyone. But I went, and seriously you are friends with these people within seconds of meeting them. In addition to the twice a year big swaps, we have a smaller group of women (all from the Carolina Girls group) who meet up once a month to do a smaller swap and a project designed by the hostess. We take turns hosting. It's a great time. So much talent and creativity and the projects are always gorgeous. And you just can't beat the laughter and great conversation. If you need any more info about it, please feel free to ask away...I'd be happy to answer any questions!

Now..I will try to post again later with a project, but no promises because I am unfortunately coming down with something. I am achy and have the chills, and now a sore throat--ick! But I will try to muster up some energy and post again this evening! Have a great day!

OH, and thanks to all of you who commented for help with the vaseline issue. It sort of worked it's own way out with the regular washings. It is MUCH better today! And I appreciate all of the comments--keep 'em coming! I love to see that people are reading and to hear what you all have to say!

Fun Sunday

Today was very refreshing for me. I was able to get out and go to my Carolina Girls get together. These women are just the best. I always have such a great time and laugh like crazy. It's definitely good for my soul to be a part of such a wonderful group. Thanks for the great project, Michelle!!j

Then I got home and hung out with my girls and we went for a walk/bike ride. I'm trying to get Caitlynn used to the idea of taking her training wheels off. She's kind of nervous about it. So we're easing into the whole thing. It's definitely time, though.

And then after getting them off to bed, I was FINALLY able to scrap a little. I wanted to scrap this page quickly while the event was still so fresh in my mind. This just happened yesterday. Hayley decided to "style" her hair using Vaseline. This is her second attempt at hair product innovation. Last time she used Caitlynn's lip gloss and it took me a week to get it out. This time, with the vaseline, I've already washed her hair about 6 times. I've tried dish soap, baby soap, my clarifying shampoo, baby powder, and my last attempt was lemon juice to try to get it out of her hair. It's not working. AHHH! So she looks like a little grease ball. A losing battle that I have stopped trying to win. I guess this will just work it's way out of her hair too. But I've definitely learned the hard way that she can now reach certain shelves and I need to re-organize! She, of course, thought it was great fun. And I must admit, the vaseline did work to get her hair to stand on end... haha. And of course, what does mommy do? I get the camera.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Crazy

It was a crazy week that went by CRAZY fast. I feel like such a slacker for not posting anything, but I've barely had time to check emails. Insane.

I did get to talk to Will a lot this week, which is probably the reason why the week flew by so fast. He was in Kuwait again and I was able to talk to him a little bit on Tuesday night, a little bit on Wednesday, and then a lot on Valentine's day, which was a wonderful surprise. I had Valentine's dinner at my friend Julie's house and came home to Will being able to talk. So that was a good day. Anyway...this is the one crafty thing I got accomplished this week--my swap card. I promise I'll have more to share soon!!

Jam-packed weekend

We had a crazy weekend around here. Caitlynn has become quite the social butterfly over the past couple of weeks. I finally broke down and bought her a new bike on Friday. So then on Saturday she just HAD to ride it over to her BFF Tori's house to show it off. We were just planning on stopping by for a quick hello, but ended up staying for 3 hours. AND then were invited back for Caitlynn to have a sleepover there and for all of us to join them for dinner. So we came back home, did some house work and then headed back over. I am really enjoying getting to know Tori's Mom, Julie. We have decided to become workout buddies! I'm so excited! So Cait had her 1st sleepover and had a blast. And then this afternoon a couple other little girls from the neighborhood came over and asked if Cait could play with them. So she spent about 4 hours today playing outside with them. She was a busy little bee and I was busy just keeping up with her so we are all kind of pooped out.

I did manage to get this card finished today...I started playing with a sketch for my Carolina girls February get together and I'm not completely happy with this, but it's a start and it was fun to play for a little while. So those of you in the group, this is NOT my finished card! :-) Just a rough start!

Lucky in Love...

My latest assignment for the Pink House was to use these new Green Day papers by Reminisce that will be coming soon! Even though I'm partly Irish, I haven't gone out and celebrated St. Patty's day in quite some time, so I thought this would be a little challenging for me. Turns out, I was wrong. Hayley's birthday party last year fell on St. Patty's day so we were all out and dressed in Green and my best friend, Alaina, snapped this picture of Will and I together. Lady luck was definitely smiling on me when he came back into my life. I feel incredibly blessed and these papers gave me the perfect way to document that!

So here is the first project resulting from my creative time for the weekend!

My "homework" was to use the striped paper and the shamrock paper (both have yummy glitter!!) and the stickers. They also have a paper with the polka dots, but I created this one myself to sort of mimic the look of the other one because I thought it was super cute! And I did actually go back and add even a few more dots on it after this photo was taken because I noticed some "holes" in the photo! The actual Reminisce Polka dot paper is glittery, mine is not. Then the letters are Thickers. All can be found at the Pink House, with the Reminisce paper coming soon!

Bad bad blogger!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged much the past few days. I have just been a busy little bee and trying to squeeze every second of spare time into family fun stuff for my kiddos after my crazy month in January with all that scrappin'! Things are calming down and I have lots of free time tonight, so I'm going to get crafty for the first time all week! Gotta love Friday. So pictures to follow hopefully tonight, but tomorrow morning at the very latest!

My new hair cut

Ok, so last Saturday I was able to go out and have a few hours of "me time". I got my eyebrows done and my hair cut. I am trying to adjust to the new 'do. It's taking some time. I got probably 6 inches cut off. I wanted it to be layered and the overall length to stay about the same, but what I got was this chin-length bob type style. Oh well...it'll grow! But in the mean time, it's taking some getting used to. Here's what it looks like...

Contrary to what the picture looks like, it doesn't come even close to touching my shoulders. But you get the general idea. I do love the way my eyebrows turned out. She did a great job with that, so I'll probably go back to the same woman to have that done...but not so sure if I'll have her cut my hair again! Any of the Charleston area ladies that have a good hair person let me know!!!

Some Weekend crafting

I didn't get much done this weekend as far as paper crafting goes because I was very busy with some "house" projects. I finally finished painting our downstairs bathroom. Will and I started it before his deployment, but only got about halfway finished with it. I managed to get it primered and painted over the weekend, and now all I have left to do is touch up the trim in a few places. So glad to have that finally about finished. I was able to have a little bit of "me" time on Saturday and got my hair cut. It's much shorter than I wanted, but I think I'll get used to it. I'll try to post pics of that later. For now, here are the two things I got done over the weekend. First was a card that I made using a CPS sketch. And then the CD holder was super simple. I just traced around one and used it as a template to make this one out of Valentine-y patterned paper. I made the mixed cd as an additional part of Will's homemade V-Day gift for this year. I had to actually be on top of things this year to get it mailed out in time. I have to take it to the post office this afternoon! But I'm excited for him to get everything.

I was also emailed a few questions about the book I made and how I did the inside pages. So here is a look at my cover page. I used these small wallet sized photos throughout the whole book and then also did journaling and embellishing. Hopefully that answers your questions...sorry about the delay in getting that to you!

As promised...

Ok, sorry for the HUGE delay in the pictures. Today just really got away from me. I can't believe how quickly it went by. So here are the last two layouts that I did to complete the challenge. And a group shot of all of the paper layouts that I have here at home. The ones that I turned in for the Pink House aren't included, obviously, and the 2 digital pages, but those were all shown individually over the past month. I just thought it would be fun to get a shot of them all together. I am just so thrilled that I was able to complete this. Ok, so anyway here are the pictures...and for the next week or so, expect LOTS of cards! :-)

A crazy day yesterday...but I finished!

Ok, as an update, I did finish my 31 in 31 challenge. I got them all done! YAY! I did a little happy dance when I finished the last one. I still don't have pictures to share. I know, I'm slacking, but I WILL get them taken and posted today. Yesterday was a little crazy...

Caitlynn didn't come home from school yesterday. She usually walks in at 2:30, and by 3 she still wasn't home. Iwas calling her friends houses, and all kinds of stuff and couldn't find her. My friend Denise came to pick up her son, Hayden, and she stayed with the rest of the kids so I could drive around...no sign of Cait. Then Denise drove around and still no sign of her. I was completely panic-stricken. Imagining all kinds of horrible things, so I was crying and a big mess of emotional turmoil over my baby being "missing". A little boy across the street told me he saw her get off the bus and that she was headed home, but she never got here. It's only a block and a half that she has to walk or I would pick her up from the stop. SO, as a last resort before I called the police, Denise went out with a picture of Caitlynn and knocked on doors until she found her. And she did find her. At a new friends' house that I don't know and she didn't even remember her name. She said she just wanted to feed the ducks with them. AHHH!!! Terror turned to intense anger and I sent Cait to her room until I could calm down to deal with her. So, my heart goes out to all of the families that lose their children for "real". Who have kids that are abducted or some other circumstance. I went nuts after mere minutes of not knowing where Cait was...so God bless Denise for helping me find her. And thank God that she was safe and sound. I know I will be hugging my kids extra tight from now on.

pictures coming this afternoon! Thanks for your patience!!