There's a party going on

I love to listen to 70's and 80's music when I am scrapbooking and this line makes me think of one of the local DJs in Indy. But I am very excited about a special birthday party that is going on tomorrow. It is hard to believe, but Emma's Paperie is turning 1 year old and we are going to be celebrating. Please join us on the Emma's Blog for lots of prize drawings, fun classes and a special Guest Designer with a sneak peek of products yet to come! The posts start a 9am (Eastern time) and will happen throughout the day until 9pm (Eastern time). Prize drawings will be posted every hour! I hope you can be there!

So, in honor of the birthday party, how about a few birthday cards to get you started?

Hope to see you there tomorrow and have a wonderful weekend!

Spring Fever

Yes, I have it. It is no secret to anyone that knows me that I am always cold. I am so ready for the warm sunshine and the budding flowers. My favorite season is definitely fall but spring is a close second. So in honor of more perfect weather I do not have a spring project to share with you (hopefully coming soon) but I do have a fall layout I worked on this weekend that I would like to share.

Love taking pictures of my girls laughing. It just makes me happy every time I look at them. :) I used the Leaves die cut from Sizzix for this page and then inked all the edges of each leaf.

I am off to take a shower and go up to volunteer in L's room. It has been a couple weeks since I have been there. I am missing those kids. :)

Have a fabulous day!!!!!

Emotional Day

What a day yesterday was! If you read yesterday's post you were probably aware of the fact that I was a little bummed about the prospect of losing the house that we finally decided on to another buyer. All that disappeared when we went to go spend part of the afternoon with Kimber to help her decorate for her husband's homecoming from Iraq. Welcome Bill!! We are so very excited to have you coming home! Enjoy your day with your sweet family! You have to check out her blog to see the cool effect she added to the picture of the flags we put up. Her new blog header looks cool too.


Last night we heard back from the realtor for the home we were hoping to buy. After several counters back and forth, we are now the proud owners of a new home!!!!! I am thrilled beyond belief. Thank you for everyone's well wishes and all of your prayers. I am so happy to have that all in order and ready to get on with the move. We will be closing at the end of March and moving right after the girls start spring break here.


So, how about a layout. Yes, you heard it right. I have actually done a couple of layouts in the last couple of days. To create the pattern paper in the top left and bottom right I simply placed letter stickers on white cardstock and painted over them with acrylic paint. After removing the stickers I outlined them with a marker. I also created a fun strip using letter stickers.



I haven't taken a picture of the other layout but I will post that one as soon as I do. Thanks for stopping by. Have a fabulous day!!!

Buyer's Market?

I will never claim to be an economist but I have decided the economy is on the up turn. My basis for this decision you may ask, we did NOT find a buyer's market while looking for homes this weekend. Of course I am kidding about the economy, but it was a bit discouraging. We had been working with our realtor finding homes that we would like to visit when we went house hunting this weekend. By the time we got down there on Saturday morning four of the houses we had planned on looking at had sales pending. Two of those houses were serious contenders in our minds. So we continued to look at the ones that were still available and found one we like. By the time we drove home yesterday, our realtor called to say that someone had put an offer on that house, as well. I have to say, I was a bit upset. We really like this house and are prepared to put in an offer but this is not what I wanted at all. What happened to the buyer's market? Well, on an up note, it is a beautiful house. :)

Have you gone to visit Emma's this last week? Cindy is getting so manyyummy products in right now and she has been posting some of those on the blog. She also put the new projects up this weekend while I was gone. Oh yummy, yum, yum. You have GOT TO GO see these projects. The amazing Melissa Phillips has been doing our sketches and this one is just fabulous. Here is my take on the sketch.

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Make sure you get over to the Emma's Blog to check out the sketch and what the other artists have done with the sketch.

Hope your week is fabulous and thanks for stopping by!

Oh Mojo....where are you?

I think my mojo has already packed up and moved. LOL I remember this happening the last time we moved too. I finally have time to do a little creating but have absolutely no desire. :( I have been reading a fair amount though. I finished another book yesterday. I have been a fan of Mary Higgins Clark for some time and it was nice to read another book from her. I have now started another Karen Kingsbury book. I will let you know what I think of this one. :)


I am excited about tomorrow though. I am going to look at houses with a friend of mine when the girls are at school. I am so ready to get in some of these houses. :) This is my favorite part of the moving process. We have four houses on our agenda. Wish me luck.


So...since I haven't been creating much, I thought I would share another layout that was published a couple of months ago. This one was in an issue of Memory Makers. I still love this layout. This is by far one of my favorite traditions of ours. Every year since we moved to Indy, we have gone to the Indians game held on the Fourth of July. After the game you can stay and see the fireworks right from the stadium. I am hoping that since we won't be too far from Indy, that we can continue this tradition.



Well, that is all for today. If I don't get a chance to post tomorrow morning before we leave, have a fabulous weekend!

Grandma memories

Thank you to everyone who has said a prayer for us with selling this house. I am so incredibly thankful for you. The buyers signed the papers last night. As long as inspections go well we are done.

I wrote yesterday about the book by Karen Kingsbury that I just finished. The main character had a very strong relationship with her grandmother. It really got me thinking about my grandparents. I have very fond memories of my mom's parents in particular. They used to own a farm and we had free reign of the place when we were there. One of my favorite memories is spending hours with my cousins playing in the hay barn. Isn't it funny how such simple things can stick with us for so long? I also remember that my grandma ALWAYS had cookies and also would keep popsicles in the freezer in the garage. We would first check to see if there were popsicles in the freezer and then send my little sister in to ask. It didn't matter if dinner was going to be in 10 minutes my grandma would always say, "ahh yahh" in her sweet german accent. Just thinking about that makes me smile. I wish she would have lived long enough for me to get to know her better.

How about you? Do you have any special memories about your grandparents? I would love to hear them. :)

Alrighty, now for another card I created this weekend.



That cute little bird is from some SEI paper I had laying around, the Chick-a-Doo line I think. I cut off the feathers on his head and added my own with some colored wire I had. Are there any scrappers out there that remember that wire. You know, from the days of wire art on layouts. I bought a whole bunch of it and never used it. It sure makes cute head feathers though. :)

Have a very happy Tuesday and thank you for stopping by!

All worth it!

As many of you know, we put a TON of work into our house over the last couple of weeks trying to get it ready to sell. We put it on the market late Thurdsday night and had our first showing on Saturday. We had three other showing on Sunday and we have one today. The good news is that the people who came through on Saturday loved it so much they came back on Sunday and put an offer on the house. Nothing has been accepted yet, but I am thrilled! God is so good!!!

The girls have off of school today so we are going to head to the library. I need to get a new book and they need to get some reading done for school. I have already finished Divine by Karen Kingsbury and it was very good. I had a hard time putting it down. I do have to admit though, as much as I loved the book, the end was a tad slow. I didn't fly through the ending like I did the rest of the book. If you are looking for suggestions for children's books, I have a fabulous author to suggest. K is reading a book by Bill Wallace and LOVES it.

Last night I was fortunate enough to find some time to make a few cards. I am hoping to get some scrapping done today too. Here is one of the cards I made last night.

I added half a pop dot under each of the butterfly wings to keep them from going flat. All the paper and stamps can be found at Emma's.

Have a wonderful week and stay warm!

Come one, come all

Well, today is the day. The house is officially on the market. I am nervous and excited and hopeful that it will sell fast. We have put so much work into it that I am really hoping for a pay-off but we will see.

Since we have been so busy I missed the start up of our new Bible Study at church. They are doing a study about Ester and I would have loved to do this one. I was afraid though that the time committment of this bible study would just add to the stress. I really am missing the reading though. So last night while DS and I were at the library I picked up a new Karen Kingsbury book. This one is called Divine and I am already loving it. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Christian fiction. It is a story about a modern day Mary Magdalene. I am already about a fifth of the way through it and plan on snuggling up with my book for a little bit today too.

OK, so how about a new project? Yes, this one is actually new! I know, I know...it has been a while. LOL Well, actually the Fabulous one I posted the other day was new too but that is about it. I am hoping things will calm down enough that I can get some scrapping in between showings now that the house looks good. Anyway, I did this layout using a sketch by Janelle over at Magistical Memories. As soon as I saw the sketch I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I have so many pictures from Christmas that I haven't even touched and this was the perfect chance. So here is the sketch:

And here is what I did with it:

I hope that your weekend is wonderful and relaxing. See you Monday!

Yay, it's almost Friday!

Woohoo, I can not wait. We actually get to relax this weekend! The house is ready and I plan on just sitting and relaxing, going to a gymnastics meet, and doing lots of crafting!

Two appraisers come today, as well as, some guy to check to make sure we don't have termites. I have to get everything ready for the Valentine's Day party at school tomorrow in K's class and I have a project for Emma's to get done. It's going to be a busy one today.

I thought I would share a card with you today. This one was published this last year in Cards. This is still one of my favorite American Craft lines. Love the colors.

After creating the card I hand cut out a flower from the pattern paper and placed it on the card. I then cut out petals from a second flower. I used a pencil to lightly curl them outwards and attached them here and there over the original flower. After that I simply tied a button to the center and added some ribbon and the sentiment.

Have a wonderful day!

Ick

Happy Wednesday everyone,

Feeling a bit puny yesterday and this morning. I didn't do a whole lot besides sit around. I did get a layout done that I will show you when I get a photo of it. Hopefully the rain goes away soon. We are supposed to put the house on the market today too. Not so good for pictures. Keep your fingers crossed the weather improves.

I do want to share a layout I did for Emma's Paperie this last week. The challenge was to use the color Kraft. I started with the Kraft colored background but got a little carried away with the other colors. LOL Lots of bling and fun on this one too. It makes me happy though. Have you been over to the Emma's Paperie blog lately? Cindy has been posting lots of yummy products that are starting to come in and you don't want to miss the other amazing kraft projects.

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As alsways, thank you for stopping by and have a fabulous day!

A Tearful Good-bye

Happy Monday to you all!

Whew! I feel so relaxed! Haven't heard that from me in a while have you. We pretty much finished up the house this weekend. All the windows sparkle, the walls are all touched up and everything is clean. My parents came this weekend to pick up Doc and take her to their house. We figured it would be much easier on her that way. I was worried she would end up sneaking out when they were showing the house and the carpet cleaners today would have scared her to death. It was not easy, though. Both the girls had a really hard time. They know this is not a long term situation but to them I know it seems like forever. The girls sat in my office for about 15 minutes just petting her and saying good-bye. There were quite a few tears when it came time for my parents to leave. :( The house does seem extra quiet this morning. Doc usually hangs out with me in my office. She loves to sit behind my paper stacks or on the back of my chair.

Lauren had an especially hard time last night. Doc comes in by her a lot of nights as Lauren is falling asleep and lays down by her. There are many nights I will go in and find Lauren asleep with her hand on Doc because she fell asleep petting her. Last night I was thinking about how we came to get Doc and Lauren's reaction to her. So I thought I would share this layout with you. This one was published last year in a book by Scrapbook Trends.

I have some assignments and projects I hope to work on this week now that most of the cleaning and organizing is done. I can't wait to share some new stuff with you.

Have a fabulous week and thank you for stopping by!

Bear Hugs

Thank you everyone for the encouraging words yesterday. You are all so very sweet. I am feeling less over whelmed today. A little sleep does the body good. :)

Due to all the wonderful cleaning (bleck) that is going on around here I am going to share another layout that I did a while ago. I did this one for Cindy Smith's Valentine's book last year and it is still one of absolute favorites.

My youngest is an absolute stuffed animal fanatic. :) She has more than I care to count. This one was my fault though. We were looking for the perfect birthday present for her when I found this guy. He is huge and soft and she loves him.

Have a wonderful day!!!

A Balancing Act

We decided when we found out that we would be moving that we would try to keep everything as normal as possible for the girls. I though, "no big deal, I can do that." Lately though I have felt like a juggler with way too many balls in the air. I am just waiting for one of them to fall. Besides trying to get the house ready, I need to get everything in line for DD's Valentine's Day party at school next week and get volunteers in line for the school carnival. My sweet realtor keeps finding houses she thinks I might like and has been sending me a billion e-mails. I am volunteering at school again today for the program I wrote about yesterday and I have to meet with the moving people and another realtor tomorrow. All this and DH is out of town all week. The worst part of it is that I feel like it is affecting my mothering. I have not been the most patient mother these last two weeks and this morning I found a paper for yearbooks. It was supposed to be turned in last week. Of all years, my kids are going to want one this year. I plan on going up to school and begging today. :)

Anyway, thanks for sitting through all that whining. As a reward, I have another project for you today. We were challengedon the Emma's Paperie blog to use these boxes from Creative Imaginations.

I have used these boxes several times (love them!) so I decided to change it up a little bit. I turned the flap backwards to open it up a little bit more.

Thanks for stopping by today. You all mean so much to me! :)

The Joy of Children

I had such a great day yesterday. My DD's school does a program called Everybody Counts. The goal of the program is to make children aware of different disabilities. One day each year several volunteers spend a little over an hour with the children doing hands-on activities with them. Each grade level focuses on a different disability. I got to spend time yesterday teaching the kids in L's class about hearing impairment. There was an experiment with sound waves and a quick game. I had such a good time and it reminds me how much I miss teaching. I am not quite ready to go back yet but I do miss those sweet faces and being in the classroom. Tomorrow I get to be with the 4th graders doing activities about physical disabilities. Should be fun!

I wanted to share a quick card with you. I do like that a little bit of the paper piecing is making a come back. Not sure if I am ready for all the paper piecing projects of my past (you should see the little girl on the slide I made) LOL but I do like using it once in a while. To create this card I simply found a soccer ball image and printed it to match the size of my Magistical Memories chipboard circle. I then cut it apart and used it as a template for my black pieces. I did it this way because I wanted to change the direction of the stripes on the ball but you could easily just print it on the back of black patter paper and cut it out. I printed a second ball on white paper and used the back for the white parts after inking the edges. Piece everything back together on a painted chipboard circle.

The mountain of laundry in my laundry room is about to take over the whole house so I better go dig in. Have a wonderful day!!!

how cool is this?

Morning everyone!

I got an e-mail from my sweet friend Sarah last night congratulating me. Of course I was interested and had to check out what she was talking about and found this. Go down about a third of the way and you can see the step by step. That is my layout! :) If you click on the link you can see the full page, although the step by step doesn't actually match my layout. LOL Thanks Sarah for pointing that out! I would have never found it on my own.

Our weekend was quite productive, thanks to my in-laws who came. L had a gymnastics meet this weekend so we didn't have a ton of time to work. We got all the bathroom cabinets and pantry spotless, the ceiling fans and vent sparkle and all the baseboards are now clean. This week I plan on doing touch up painting and catching up on the laundry I have left get out of hand.

I wanted to share a card I made using some yummy Magistical Memories Chipboard. I think I am going to change this into a postcard and send it to family and friends when we move. I used one of the Scalloped photo corners for the roof of the house.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope that your week is fabulous.