Gone missing

Sorry that I have been so neglectful of my poor blog this month. I have been busy planning the girls' birthday parties, trying to get my scraproom organized (a lot harder than I thought it was going to be) and still spending time with the girls.

Today we are waiting for the carpet guy to come and fix my carpet (it is pulling up in places), cleaning my kitchen, doing a little math review and then going to go see the move UP with some friends. The girls are really looking forward to it. I have heard great things.

This last weekend was wonderful. One of the guys who works for DH had a pool party, so we spent Saturday over there. Their pool is gorgeous and their property overlooks a pond. It was completely relaxing and we all had a wonderful time. After we got home on Saturday night we spent the night hanging out with the neighbors. We were just chatting while the girls played when we saw some test fireworks go off. Sure enough when the sun went down we were able to see fireworks from our driveway. We pulled out the lawn chairs and watched them from our yard. The view was perfect. It truly was a wonderful surprise.

Thought I would share a project or two with you before I go. I created this first card for the Card-A-Licious Challenge blog. Our challenge was to create a baby card using ribbon and stitching. I am a sucker for all the fabulous Melissa Frances designer stickers and tickets. I used some of them here along with a fabulous felt bird from Jenni Bowlin.



The second card was for Emma's Paperie. Cindy asked us to make a summer card. I just love these tags from My Mind's Eye. OK, who am I kidding, I love just about everything from My Mind's Eye LOL. I paired the tag with some bright colors and jute string to create this summery card.



Have a wonderful week and thank you for stopping by!

Family Matters

I hope everyone enjoyed their Father's Day weekend! Our week was a mix of hard work, family time and a bitter sweet good-bye (don't worry-nothing permanent!). Saturday we spent the day moving stinky mulch into all of our new gorgeous flower beds. I am so excited about the future of these beds but it may be a long time until we can afford to fill them with the trees and shrubs that are in the plans. There is a large bed at the front of our yard that we hope to fill some time this summer, the others will have to wait a while.

Sunday we went to visit DH's family in Illinois. We had a wonderful lunch and then took the kids over to a small spray park in my brother-in-laws' neighborhood. My sweet, mischievious L got her uncle quite wet. LOL My 2 year old niece was so adorable. It was fun just watching her run through the sprayers.

When we left Illinois the car was much quieter and lonelier than it had been on the way their. My two sweet girls are staying with Grandma and Grandpa this week. DH will be back over there for work at the end of the week so my girls got to stay for the week. Every summer since we moved back to the midwest (we lived in Texas for quite a few years) they have spent some time during the summer with my in-laws. I know they are having a great time but I do miss them terribly. Leaving my in-laws was harder than you would think. I was excited about the free time I would have and making all the plans of the things I would get done. It was so hard though seeing my girls standing there waving good-bye to me.

Yesterday I took advantage of my free time and drove back to Indianapolis to spend the day with my friend Mary. What a wonderful day, I always have such a wonderful time with her. We saw the movie The Proposal. What a cute movie, made me laugh a ton! We did some shopping and I got a few clothes for the girls, some books for their birthdays, and a great t-shirt for me from Ann Taylor Loft. After I got back last night DH and I went out for dinner and drinks. We sat out on the patio and enjoyed a beautiful night. All in all, it was a good way to start my week without the girls. Today has been a little harder though. The house is just so quiet. I may have to turn up my music and make some noise. :)

One more bit of family news, I found out this weekend that my little brother is going to be coming to visit next month. I am very excited. He is in the army and I don't get a chance to see him enough.

As a reward for making it through my long winded account of my weekend I thought I would share a couple of projects with you. The first is a card I did for Emma's Paperie. Since I started designing for Emma's I have become a big fan of My Mind's Eye. I love all of their great accents. They are so reasonable and absolutely adorable. I find myself using their papers over and over too. The tag on this card was no exception.

Make sure to check out Emma's blog to see the other amazing summer projects everyone has posted.

I also created another birthday card this weekend. Pretty easy to make actually. Simply used my circle cutter to make the base of the card. I hand cut the scalloped edge around the card and hand cut the cake as well. I used a bit of embroidery floss to add some stitching around the edge of the card.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I really appreciate the sweet people that take a time in their day to check my blog. You are all fabulous. I hope the rest of your week is peaceful and filled with love.

Birthday wishes

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I have had birthdays on my mind this week. July is creeping up on us and I am starting to gear up for all the business that it holds. Of course we celebrate the 4th of July and then soon after is K's birthday, then my SIL's, our anniversary, my brother's birthday, and then L's birthday. The girls have agreed to have a joint birthday this year since most of their close friends live right here in the neighborhood. We are thinking about doing a luau since we were just in Hawaii. I have already found some great ideas on-line. My favorite was coconut bowling. :)
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I have also been working on some birthday cards. I have decided to give Paper Crafts Gallery Idol a try. I finished up this little guy today.
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The girls have both fallen in love with him. I am going to have to figure out which one of them gets him for their birthday. LOL
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Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Relaxed and refreshed

Last week was a busy one but it was so worth it! We had such a wonderful weekend. K's meet, although quite steamy, was great. We got to hang out all weekend with friends that we haven't seen since we moved and watch my sweet girl swim. I am so incredibly proud of her! She swam a 200 meter freestlye this weekend (that is A LOT of swimming) and she did fabulous. She also took 16 seconds off of her 100 freestyle time and 4 seconds off of 50 breast. Can you believe that? Best of all, she worked hard and had a great time.

I have a couple of cards I would like to show you. I created these two cards for Magistical Memories this last week. The first is for the daisy challenge. The challenge was to use the colors yellow, white and black on a project. We were asked to include at least one piece of chipboard and at least one flower. Here is my project.

I used one of the pages from the Scalloped Lace book as the base for my card and a chipboard flower from MM as well. You have until the end of the month to get involved in this challenge. You can win an awesome chipboard package so head over there!

The other card I created is a birthday card used one of the new pieces of chipboard from Magistical Memories. I painted the Filigree Fantasy piece black and used it as an accent on this famine birthday card. Lots of lace edge punching and rhinestones on here. :)

Well, the kids are at camp for about another hour and a half, I better get some cleaning done. Have a wonderful day!

Looking forward to the weekend!

Hi all!

Another quick post today. Lots to do. DH's best friend and his daughter are coming over tonight to visit. They are in town for a soccer tournament and we get to spend the evening with them. It should be a lot of fun. DH's dad will also be coming over tomorrow afternoon. Gotta get cleaning!

K is finishing up her first week of swim camp. She really seems to be enjoying it. She has a meet this weekend so lets hope it is helping her. :) I am excited about this meet. K's old swim team will be there so we will get to see some friends that we haven't seen since we moved. After the meet we are going to go out to dinner with our friends Steph and Jamie. They are friends from our old church and their daughter used to swim with K.

I have a project to share with you today. Cindy at Emma's Paperie gave us this awesome picture to use as inspiration for this week's project.

Here is my project. I fell in love with the colors in the ball and decided to use them in my project. Check out the Emma's Blog to see a supply list and look at all the other projects done by the Emma's designers.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody!

New Stuff

Hi everyone!

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Been busy, busy, busy. We spent a wonderful weekend visiting my in-laws. My sweet niece turned 2 this weekend and we went over for her party. We had such a great time and wonderful food too. No better way to spend the weekend.

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As my title aludes to, I have some new stuff to show you. First, the girls and I have been busy shopping trying to find just the right accent pieces for this huge mantle in our living room. When we started unpacking after the move, I told DH that we just HAD to get rid of some of the decorations we have had for the last 15 years. That left lots of unfilled spaces. We are taking it slowly with decorative items but I did want to finish this room. Here is the mantle finished. Sorry about the glare on the picture. What do you think?

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The glass piece on the right along with the bowl of ceramic balls and the clock are all new. The canvas pictures of the girls were a gift from my in-laws last year. Aren't they stunning? The cool map and vase of flowers are from our last house.
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While I was out shopping I also found this adorable lamp for the area off the kitchen. Isn't it cute?

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I have also been working on a couple of projects for Magistical Memories. Last summer the girls went to a High School Musical camp. They had a program on the final day. The G clef chipboard piece by Magistical Memories was perfect for these pictures. I also used a mini photo strip along the bottom.

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I added white paint and some glitter to give it a little pizazz.

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Hope you have a wonderful day and thank you for stopping by!

Short and sweet

Morning everyone!
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Real quick post for you today. I am taking the girls to the library this morning, cleaning my house, doing a bunch of laundry and wrapping some presents for my sweet niece. Busy day ahead.
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I did want to share one of my Sizzix projects with you though today. I actually worked on two this last weekend but one of them was picked up for the February issue of Paper Crafts so I will have to wait to share that one with you.
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I used the Floral Flourish card die for this card. I just love that die. I added some vintage goodies and rhinestones flourishes.

Have a fabulous day everyone and thanks for stopping by!

I'm Back!

Hi everyone! Did you miss me? LOL

We had been having A LOT of internet problems over the last few weeks and then earlier this week it went out for good. We called the cable company and they were finally able to come out this morning. Hopefully all is fixed and we won't have to worry about this again.

We had such a wonderful day yesterday. K had a dentist appointment with her old dentist and so we headed back up there for the day. Did some shopping,I think I need to do this more often. My girls definitely need more practice. They were not very well behaved, which I have to say, is uncommon for them (except when we shop for long periods of time) :) Then we had dinner with some friends and spent the evening hanging out with them. I am so glad that we are close enough that we can do that kind of thing.

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Speaking of good friends, Kimber and her kids came down to visit on Monday. It was wonderful having time to catch up with her and the kids had a great time playing. She also brought me my copy of her new book, Scrapbook Secrets.

You have to check out this book, it is fabulous! I am so proud of her. It is so well written, you would never guess this is her first book.

Thought I would share a project with you before I go. I created this little mini album for Emma's last week. As soon as I saw the album in the store I knew I wanted to use it to document some pictures from our old house.

You can find the supply list here. Make sure to take time to check out all the other projects on the Emma's Paperie blog.

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Check it out! One of my projects from the July issue of Paper Crafts is on their blog today!

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Have a great day and check back tomorrow for some more projects!