The Countdown to Christmas has begun...

I have had zero time to be creative since Thanksgiving. I am hoping to have time tonight to get crafty. I need to get caught up on some birthday cards and start my Christmas ones. I did manage to start my Christmas shopping finally.
Our trip home from Indiana was a nightmare. What should have been an 8-9 hour trip took 12 hours thanks to a lovely flat tire in Kentucky about 100 miles from Knoxville, TN (the halfway point between Indy and here). We changed the tire in about 20 minutes, but then had to drive the remaining distance home on the doughnut spare tire because the tires for my car are a rare size and have to be special ordered. UGH. So instead of getting home late Tuesday, we didn't arrive home until 6:30 Wednesday morning. Just in time for Cait to get on the bus and since she slept the whole way home, I went ahead and sent her to school. Will and I both had to work on Wednesday on very little sleep for me and none at all for him, so it's been a very long week. Hopefully we'll be all caught up on sleep by Monday! I'm sure it still won't keep me from staying up late to get some scrapping/card making done! :-) Check back tomorrow and hopefully I'll have some fun stuff to share!!

Happy Turkey Day!

This was my first ever Thanksgiving away from home. I have to admit that I was a little homesick this morning because I didn't wake up to the usual smells of Thanksgiving. My mom wakes up at about 5 am to get started on the holiday cooking and preparations. Instead, I woke up and had to come down and get it started! I was nervous about cooking everything myself. I've helped in the past, but always under the careful direction of my Mom.

I can happily report that our meal was AMAZING! We had all of the usual things--turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, pumpkin pie, and crescent rolls. And I also baked some chocolate chip cookies that my girls were eating ALL DAY LONG. And some rice krispy treats also. We were all stuffed and I fell asleep for two hours on the couch and woke up to the dishes all being done already by my sweet and thoughtful boyfriend, Will.

Here are a few pics of our day...

Then after this part was all said and done and the girls were in bed, Will and I watched some football and I was able to complete this scrapbook layout for my sister. She is a scrapper/stamper as well, but she is 7 months pregnant with her second child, a baby boy to be named Logan Michael, and doesn't seem to have much energy for scrapping lately. She asked me to do a LO for her with one of her senior pictures from high school.
It is a 12x12 layout. I used patterned papers by Chatterbox. Cardstock by Paperbilities. Stickers by Provo craft. Felt Flowers are from American Crafts, brads are by fun expressions and the ribbons are both offray.

I did my fun ribbon trick again--I can't help it, I am just so excited that I figured out a way to make decent looking bows!!

Hopefully my sister likes how this turned out.

Thanksgiving Eve

Hi All,
I do not have a project ready to post. I have been super busy around the house. Will and I decided it was finally time to paint the living room since we have the time off this week. Well, it turns out that it's taking THREE coats of paint to get it done, which was a little more than we bargained for! :-) But it's looking really beautiful...I can't wait to see what it's like when we finish it! I'll post pics as soon as the room is photo ready! Off to bake some cookies and make rice krispy treats! Happy Turkey Day!!

Merry Christmas Decorations!!

Thanks to all of the inspiration that I've been finding on other blogs, I've been trying to make some Christmas Decorations. This is the latest creation. I made it last night while Will was flying and I plan on making a couple more.

I used a styrofoam cone that I purchased at Michael's, though I got a couple more tonight at Walmart. The patterned papers are all from the Provo Craft Christmas slab. I used plain silver straight pins with a small head on them, but other people were using the colorful pearl looking ones. And then the stars on the top were ornaments that came in a package of 16 for like $2 and I thought they would be the perfect topper. They had them in gold also. They came with thread strung through the tops, but I snipped it off, since I don't intend for the tree to hang anywhere :-).

I attended a swap with some of the Carolina girls today and had a GREAT time! Thanks Ronee for being such a great hostess! We made two really great cards and the swaps from the other ladies...so fantastic! I'm so lucky to belong to such a wonderful group of talented creative women!! I have so much more to share, so more coming tomorrow.

Super Scrapbook Saturday #2

Sorry I've been quiet on the blogging. I've been a bit busy, so I haven't posted even though I have been very productive. I made a different set of swap cards that I like even better than the ones I already posted. I also made a Christmas tree decoration that I will post later in the week because I have to get a "topper" for it. And of course I did the scrapbook page that I'm going to share here.

This is another 12x12 layout. I do create some in an 8.5x11 format, but I haven't shared any of those yet! This is a picture taken of my little family unit during our last visit to Indiana at the pumpkin patch. The large floral patterned paper that I used is by Bo-Bunny Press. When I saw it, it made me think of Fall which is my favorite time of year so of course I just HAD to have it ;-). All of the other papers are from the DCWV Fall scrap slab that I got as a door prize from the Carolina girls swap last month. The photo corners are also DCWV and coordinate with the papers. The stickers are by American Crafts and then the smaller text is Georgia font. I inked all over the papers and stickers with a chocolate brown stamp pad by ink it up. I almost added some brads and ribbon, but I couldn't find a placement i was happy with that didn't make the page look too cluttered. I kind of want to frame this page...I love this picture of my family. If only Caitlynn had been sitting up so you could see her whole face...but hey, she's in there and looking in the general direction of the camera just like the rest of us, so I'll take it!! Who needs perfection?? :-)

CPS Sketch #39

During nap time today, I quickly whipped up this card for Card Positioning Systems Sketch #39 . Of course, this is the first time I've done a sketch from that site. I've been on a roll this week doing sketches from different blog sites. They are helping me immensely to play with the stamps and supplies I have now and also helping me to use up some of my scrap paper which is REALLY building up. I used the swirls from the SU Priceless set and the flower image is one of the dollar stamps from Michaels. The patterned paper is a scrap left over from the scrapbook LO that I did on Saturday. And the large purple twill is actually from the packaging of a quilt that I got at Target. Cardstock is paperbilities. Inks are from Colorbox.
I've only been stamping/cardmaking for about a month now and I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of things. But practice makes perfect and I'm really enjoying all of this practicing I've been doing!! And it's definitely a great way to spend the kid's naptime!

Swaps DONE!

I have another swap coming up on the 18th. I'm excited. Only my second one ever, but I had so much fun at the first one that I just can't wait for this one to come up! The theme for it was something brown. I absolutely love brown. I used the pale blue/chocolate brown color combo and came up with this card. The patterned paper is from that Rob and Bob for Provo Craft Slab again (didn't I say I'd use it up in no time at all?!) I apologize for the somewhat blurry photography this morning. I used my creative memories cutting tool to create the ovals. The sentiment stamp is by Technique Tuesday. Ribbon is by Offray. And the brads are making memories. The Chocolate brown cardstock is Paper Reflections and the White is paperbilities. At first I had it where the ovals were alone without the ribbon behind it and the patterned paper lined up with the bottom with only one strip of brown across the top of the patterned paper, but I thought it just looked too blah. So I added the ribbon and repositioned it and then added the second strip with the brads and voila. Finished product. It's pretty simple overall, but I think the color combo calls for something more elegant and simple. It actually took me about 3 hours to get 8 cards done because I was watching Dancing With The Stars. (I really think that Marie needs to go next.) Then we had Monday Night Football on, so I was pretty distracted throughout the whole cardmaking process. But I'm glad I got them finished and I am pleased with the end result, even though it is nothing like my original vision! :-) But I must say that I am EXHAUSTED today after staying up past midnight last night and getting up at 6 am today. I WILL get to sleep at a decent time tonight. Probably right after the results show for Dancing...Happy Tuesday everyone!