a not so pleasant discovery...

We have poison ivy growing in our front yard. It is attached to a tree that is dead, that was supposed to have been removed last fall (we rent this house). I run a day care out of my home, and my daughter and another of the children were messing with the plant growing on the tree last week. I was repeatedly assured that this was not poison ivy and that the tree would be taken care of because of the safety risk with having an extremely tall, skinny, dead tree in the front of the house that could break and fall on the house (which would damage one of my children's bedrooms) OR the driveway smashing either of our vehicles or both of them. Anyway, after playing that evening I am giving Cait a bath and notice she has a brown spot on her face that would not come off no matter how hard I scrubbed it. Eventually I just gave up thinking it was tree sapp or something just being stubborn. A couple days later, I sprout this horrendous rash on my neck and arms and get a phone call from the other girl's mother asking about Caitlynn because her daughter has a rash. So i start treating myself by taking benadryll and putting cortizone cream and zinc oxide on the rash. Now, almost a week later, the rash is not only on my neck and arms, but my chest, stomach, back, and legs as well. And I did not even have direct contact with the plant!! So my oh so NOT pleasant discovery is that I am extremely allergic to Poison Ivy as an adult, when as a child I could literally roll in it and not have it affect me at all. Thankfully Caitlynn has not had a reaction. As a result of all this madness, I have gotten zero sleep, and zero accomplished from my to-do list, AND I had to cancel being able to attend my big shoe box swap event this weekend. Not to mention a lack of blogging and anything recreational. Grrr.....

Hopefully I will make a full recovery and come back to scrapping and stamping soon. I am craving some creative time, but am too miserable to actually sit and do it!

Feelin' Rusty

Wow, so I feel like I haven't done anything really creative in AGES. I sat down to make a card this morning to send to Will...the last one before he comes home. AHHH! Did I say that? Here let me say it again, the LAST card before he comes H-O-M-E. Home!!! We have 18 days left til he's back. Can I just say that I am so so so glad that April is flying by?

My parents came into town and helped me to get some "house stuff" done. I took my kittens (well, they're a year old, I suppose they aren't really babies anymore) to the vet to get booster shots and to be tested for feline leukemia because of the conditions they were living in before we rescued them. Both tested negative, YAY! And they are getting 'fixed' this week as well. Good times.

SO, needless to say, life has been a bit hectic. My parents were here for a full week, and I was also working that week, so I had very little time to just sit still and relax let alone get anything really crafty done. Back to what I was saying, I sat down to make this card this morning for Beate's sketch #43 and I was feeling very very rusty. I enjoyed my little creative release, though. Hopefully I'll keep being able to squeeze time in around everything else I'm trying to accomplish before Will comes home.

Here is the card I did today.

Ingredients:

Stamps: SU! Boho Backgrounds

Paper: Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise, Gable Green

Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Gable Green

Accessories: SU White Grosgrain ribbon, Scallop Punch, Slit Punch (for scallop border), silver brad, and photo corner

Yep I'm Braggin' mini-album

I had some extra time last night after doing some crazy house cleaning and laundry while the girls watched Alvin and the Chipmunks. I wanted to make a "brag book" mini album to carry around in my purse. I have pictures of my kids on my zune and a couple other places, but nothing really crafty and cute to share on the spur of the moment. So I sat down with one sheet of 12x12 cardstock and worked out this little album. Now this wasn't rocket science, so I'm sure there are other people out there who have come up with something extremely similar to this, but I am really happy with the way it turned out. I'm planning on making a few more of these as gifts, but obviously the gift ones will be blank on the inside. If anyone is interested in a tutorial on how I made it, let me know and I'll try to get one together to post later! Here are some of the inside pages...

Have a great weekend everybody!

Absentee blogger

I may be an absentee blogger for the next few weeks. I have a lot of stuff going on this month to prepare for Will coming home. We have 29 days before he gets back. My parents will be in town all of next week. I have carpet cleaning people coming to clean our downstairs carpet, I have some painting to do to finish up our downstairs bathroom, I need to completely reorganize the garage because my parents are bringing all of my stuff that was left in Indiana for lack of room on the moving truck. I'm taking the cats to the vet to have shots and some tests done, and then to the spay and neuter clinic to have them both fixed. Not to mention all the normal every day stuff like work and feeding and bathing my children and laundry...blah blah blah. You get the idea!! So I'm going to be stretched pretty thin time-wise already. I will post when I can and create when I can and thanks in advance for your patience!!