Sometimes

Happy Wednesday everyone! I am so excited-the sun is shining and it is going to be a great day. I have been busy, busy, busy creating some summer kids' camps for Creative Charms. I will share them with you as soon as I get the pictures taken.
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For today though, I have a layout about my sweet oldest DD. She is growning up so fast and turning into such an amazing person. I just wish I could slow down the time a bit. The two different pieces of chipboard on this layout are from Magistical Memories. I painted them brown and then added a bit of glitter and some 3 dimentional paint. I made the butterfly on the left by punching three butterflies using one of my Martha Stewart punches. The middle piece is vellum. That beautiful background paper is by Crate.
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Have a fabulous day and thanks for stopping by!

Time Crunch

Happy Monday everyone!
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I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Got a lot of projects on my plate for the next couple of days.

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When you are busy and in a time crunch, have you tried using sketches to jump start the creative process? I find that a lot a sketch is exactly what I need to get me started. I was honored to be asked to participate in a new special issue that Paper Crafts recently put out called Go-To Sketches.

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The sketches the Go To Girls created were unbelievable and I had a hard time choosing which ones I was going to use. Not only were the sketches fabulous but the cards and projects that are included in this book are amazing, incredibly inspiringI promise that I will be pulling this book out a lot. Anyway here is one of the projects I have in this book.

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I need to share a project for Magistical Memories with you as soon as I get a picture. It was pretty dreary yesterday. Hopefully I will have it for you tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by and have an amazing day!!

Welcome Spring

Can you feel it? Mmmm...spring is in the air and I am one happy girl! I love everything about spring. I love the bright sunny mornings and the crisp evenings. I love seeing all the trees and flowers start to come to life. I love the thought of spending my Saturday mornings watching my sweet girls run around the soccer field, their pink cheeks and and smiling faces reminding me how good it is to be a kid.
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I have a few cards to share with you. The first card celebrates spring and all its glory. I created this card for this month's Emma's Paperie workshop. You can find all the supplies and the instructions to make this cute popsicle stick fence on the Emma's Paperie blog.
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The second card I have to share with you today is for the Contest going on over at Magistical Memories. The contest rules are to create a project using the colors green and gold and the word lucky. I started with the front page of the Butterfly book. I cut the butterfly out of the ring (I am using the circle for a layout that is on my table right now). I then painted it with red acrylic paint and stamped with a background stamp by Stampabilities. OH....make sure you check out Hobby Lobby this week!!!!! All their Stampabilities stamps are 50% off and they have some awesome background stamps! Anyway, after stamping I added Gold Stickles to the edges and let it dry. This gorgeous paper from K&Co. made the perfect background the card.
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Make sure you check out the contest here for all the details. You could win a pack of awesome Magistical Memories chipboard!
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Have a fabulous weekend! I know I will! Soccer starts tomorrow and then I get to head to Indy for some scrapping with my sweet friend Kimber. So very excited! Thanks for stopping by!

Paint fumes

I can still smell the fumes throughout the house but they are completely worth it. I am absolutely thrilled with how each room turned out. Each room perfectly matches my sweet daughter that belongs to lives there. :)
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My youngest has loved the color blue for as long as I can remember but is completely a girly-girl. A few years ago we found her this beautiful comforter at Pottery Barn. The comforter is still in perfect shape so we kept that and DH and I painted her room to match. It is hard to tell the true color from the photo but it has a bit of a purplish tint. I have ordered three white 6x6 frames that I am going to put over her bed.
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I created all of the flowers for the walls using this flower die from Sizzix. I cut the flowers out of white Contact paper and then attached them randomly to the walls. I then used hot glue to apply rhinestones to the center of each flower. If you choose to do this make sure you put the glue on the rhinestones and not the flowers or you will melt the Contact paper. L loves how her room glitters and is especially fond of it at night with her night light makes the rhinestones look like stars. :) I made the canvas in this picture a couple of years ago and it matches the color of her walls perfectly. The sides were painted blue and the paper on the top is from Webster's Pages. I believe the butterfly transparency is from Heidi Swapp. I then hand cut the title and wrote below the butterfly a quote about inner beauty.
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My oldest daughter is completely different. She is quite happy in jeans and a t-shirt and even happier if that t-shirt has a peace sign or says something about love. :) She picked this Pottery Barn teen bedspread out for her Christmas present. The colors are a bit off in the first picture but her room is a really pretty aqua color that matches the bedspread and brown on the opposite walls.
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I created the peace signs at the top of her walls using Contact paper as well. I used my Creative Memories circle cutter to first draw the circle for the peace sign. I then used my ruler to create the inside parts of the peace sign. I then cut all the round parts with the circle cutter, making sure to skip the straight edges when I did the inside. I then used my scissors to cut the straight edges.

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My in-laws gave K this enlargement of a picture I took of her when we were in Hawaii. We told the girls that if they helped us sell our previous house (keeping their rooms neat and picking up their stuff) we would give them some kind of reward. DH and I decided while in Hawaii that we would splurge to let them swim with dolphins as their reward. I just love that picture.
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Today I plan on getting a few more cards done. That is after I take L's shoes to school. They are going to a ballet today and so she is wearing a new dress and her dress shoes. She has a change of clothes in her backpack but forgot to put her tennis shoes in. grrrrr. :)

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Have a fabulous day and as always thanks for stopping by! It means a lot to me.

Owl love

Hello everyone!!!
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Whew, what a week. It took so much longer to paint the girls' rooms than I had originally thought it would but I am so happy with how the rooms turned out. More importantly, the girls love their rooms. DH and I dropped the girls off at his parents and came home on Wednesday night. While he was at work on Thursday and Friday I bought supplies, put up tape and prepped everything. We painted Thursday until midnight and every other night until at least 1. We didn't go to bed until 3 on Friday night. I am beat! I will hopefully be able to share pictures with you tomorrow or Wednesday.
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Meanwhile I do have some cards to show though. The first card was for a sketch for Emma's Paperie. You can find all the supplies and the sketch on the Emma's Paperie blog.
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I created this card for a recent Paper Crafts call. Sadly, they did not love it but I am really happy with it and can't wait to give it to one of the girls' teachers. That cute little owl at the bottom is one of the new Sizzix die cuts from their new fall collection. Isn't he adorable? :)

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

All is quiet

My girls have spring break this week. We got back late last night from dropping them off for a visit with their grandma and grandpa. DH and I plan to use the time they are gone to paint their bedrooms. I absolutely love the color of the walls in our new house but I would like to have a little bit of a variation and the girls would like to have their own styles deplicted in their rooms. I will make sure to take pictures when we are done so I can share them.
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Last weekend, K had her final swim meet of the season. It turned out to be even more fun than I had hoped. K's meet was located at the pool she used to swim at before we moved. So she got to see her old coaches and swim against friends that she had practiced with last year before our move. I got to spend the whole meet catching up with a dear friend that we had gone to church with. After the meet we had plans to meet friends at Chick-Fil-A so that my girls could have lunch and play. These are the sweet girls that joined us.
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L had been fortunate enough to have one of her friends' mom volunteer to pick her up during the meet so she didn't have sit for the whole 4 hours and watch. During that time it seems that the two girls (my little stinker and the dark haired one in ponytails above) schemed to get L to sleep over. Keep in mind we did not have pjs, extra clothes or even a toothbrush for her. But we had nothing going on Sunday and knew she would have a ball. Well then of course, K's friend asked if she could stay the night too. So, as it turns out, DH and I had a quiet date night last Saturday. :)
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I have a project to share with all of you today. I had been working on this layout last week but the weather had been so dreary the whole week I never got a chance to get a good photo. Finally after the weather cleared up some I was able to get a picture. Lots of goodies and techniques on this one.
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I used a Fancy Frame by Magistical Memories to hold the journaling. I painted it red and then covered it with red Stickles. I did the same with the heart at the top of the layout. The little tab at the top of the photos is also from Magistical Memories.
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To create this bird I used fabric glue to attach a piece of fabric to plain chipboard. After it dried I sent it through my Sizzix machine and created this cute little bird. I then used my sewing machine to stitch around the bird with red thread and inked the edges. I wound the branches together using some colored wire I had in my stash. Do you remember when that stuff was so hot? LOL I then used my Sizzix machine again to punch out the vine and wove it through the branches.
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The flower was created by using floss along one side of a piece of twill. I then pulled the floss to gather the twill and made the flower.
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Thanks so much for taking time to visit my blog today. Have a fabulous weekend!!!

Oh what a night

Wednesday night was one of the oddest nights. K had swim practice and swam like a star. They were doing test sets (trying to advance to the next level). She had to swim eight 100 meter free styles all in under 1:45 with less than 30 seconds between each and then swim 5 IM (all four strokes) in under 2 minutes...AND SHE MADE IT!!!!! I am so proud of her, there is no way on earth I could do that. She has also decided to move up which is another big step because her two close friends will not be advancing. So after all that excitement, we come home, celebrate her victory, have dinner and get her ready for bed. That's when she started getting sick. The poor kid threw up about every fifteen minutes until 2:30 am. We finally fell asleep around 3:15. Needless to say, we didn't do a whole lot yesterday except watch TV and snuggle.
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K's class has been working on reports about famous Americans. K's report was on Ben Franklin. They collected a ton of research (mostly done in school-LOVE that), wrote poems, watched different videos and then had a presentation that was due. On Tuesday K presented to her class and then Wednesday afternoon the kids presented to parents and other classes in the school who wanted to come. Here is K's costume (my little swimmer was so excited to learn that Ben invented swim fins LOL).
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I was excited to find that coat, glasses and those shoes at Goodwill. They were perfect! We created the wig by using a bald cap we found at a local costume shop and then hot glued white yarn to the back. It was fun to go and talk to each of the kids and hear about their famous Americans and see all the amazing costumes. These kids really got into this project.

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Wanted to share a new love of mine with all of you. Have you tried these???

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These muffins taste awesome and they are great for Weight Watchers because they are low in fat but high in fiber. When you are trying to watch what you are eating a lot of times you end up sacrificing on taste. These muffins are seriously yummy though!

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Before I go I have a project to share. Last week's assignment for the Emma's Paperie Blog was to make birthday tags. I created these bright, happy tags using some of my favorite goodies from Emma's. Make sure to check out the blog for my supply list as well as all the other designers' amazing projects.
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We have our final swim meet of this season Saturday and it is at K's old pool where she swam before we moved. Looking forward to spending time with friends that we miss terribly. Have a wonderful weekend!

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Thanks for stopping by!

Retrospective

Good morning everyone,

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Sorry I have been missing in action this week. I have been a bit of a funk for the last week or two. I have been feeling like I am not doing enough lately. Questioning if I am really living my life the way God wants me to. Am I using my talents to the best of my abilities. The results-no mojo. I was able to go back to Bible study yesterday and it did me a world of good. I not only needed to hear God's word but being around women that I can talk and share with was exactly what I needed.
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Busy day today. I need to:

run K's poems she typed and left on my computer up to school

get the sheets washed

kitchen floor mopped

a layout for Magistical Memories finished (everything is in place I just need to glue things down)

do a card for next week's sketch at Emma's Paperie

work in the library

go to K's Famous American presentation

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But first I want to share two Emma's projects with you. The first project was the one I gave the peek of this weekend. It is hard to believe that I have had the priviledge of designing for Cindy for two years already. I have enjoyed every single minute of it! So to celebrate Emma's Paperie's second birthday, Cindy had a party on the blog. I created this gift box for the occasion.
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You can find instructions and a supply list here.

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The second project I have to share is a card I created based on this month's color challenge.

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I also wanted to share an exciting giveaway with you! Check it out!

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National Craft Month Celebration & Giveaway at Creative Charms

In celebration of National Craft Month Creative Charms has an exceptional offer for all new friends & "Followers" by treating them to something special from their garden of embellishments! "Friends are the flowers in the garden of life"... and one can never have too many friends or too many flowers! As such, Creative Charms would like to invite all new friends to add themselves as a "follower" in ther Creative Lounge Designer Gallery (at http://creative-charms.blogspot.com/) . Each week during the month of March a new follewer will be chosen to receive a $5 Gift Certificate/ coupon code for their choice of products from http://www.creativecharms.com/. Sign up now, while supplies last. Thank you friends!!

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Have a fabulous week everyone!

Happy Birthday to Emma's Paperie!!!

It is hard to believe that Emma's Paperie has been in business for two years already! I have had so much fun being a part of such an amazing store.



Make sure you stop by the blog for a ton of chances to win prizes and see the amazing projects everyone has cooked up for the party. I thought I would share a quick sneak for you of my project.



Have a great weekend and don't forget to head on over to Emma's today!

Much Accomplished

I am feeling so much better today! Yayyyy! Thank you for all your well wishes. I did get a ton accomplished yesterday. I decided to skip Bible Study yesterday morning so I could just take it easy and get better. I used that time to start going through my photos and clean my scrap room. I organized, backed up and edited about 2/3 of the photos I need to go through. It is a job that has needed to be done for quite some time but I have put it off because I had other things to do. I have to admit, I had so much fun looking at all those pictures yesterday and I am looking forward to finishing up today. I wanted to share a few with you that made me smile yesterday.
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My little peanut, L, lovin' on her new baby doll, Christmas morning bedhead and all. :) Was she really ever that small?

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Can you pick out K in this picture? Yes she is the one with blue frosting teeth and the cheesy smile! LOL I love this picture because of the sweet girls sitting with her. The sweetie in the pink is K's best friend that we went to see in Arkansas last summer. That was all K wanted for her birthday, was to go see their family. How could I say no. Paula, if you are reading this, we miss you guys! The little girl in the stripes is also a dear friend of ours. I went to visit her family last month the weekend before CHA Anaheim. I drove down to San Diego and spent a couple of days with them. LOVE that family!

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This picture just makes me laugh. My mom and I took the girls to Lake Michigan when I was up visiting my parents a couple of years ago. I had my camera and wanted to take some pictures of the girls by the lake. Through the course of the day the girls got closer and closer to the water until they were IN the water. Then K started to kick water at my mom. Goofball! That was the start of quite a water fight! We ended up driving the girls home in their underwear and coats. LOL

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OK, so how about a couple of projects now. I have two more Graphic 45 cards to share with you. The first one uses the Domestic Goddess line. I created the flower using the same technique shared in yesterday's post. I then used some cream colored floss and loosely stitched along one side of my lace. I then pulled the thread and gathered the lace into the yo-yo that I placed behind the flower.

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For this card I used several different papers. I added rhinestones to a clock I cut from a piece of patten paper. I then cut a heart out of a different piece of pattern paper and used my glue gun to add the lacy ribbon to the outside of the heart.
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I hope you have a fantastic day and thanks for stopping by!

Sick

Eckkk. That is how I am feeling this morning. I guess when you snuggle with two sweet little sick girls all week you are bound to catch it yourself. Hmmm...may have had something to do with them climbing into bed with me.
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K's meet went very well this weekend. Thanks to everyone who wished her luck. She did not make divisionals but had a fabulous meet just the same. She dropped time in every event except the 50 breast stroke, including taking over 4 seconds off her 100 breast. I am so proud of my little champ. She felt pretty crummy Sunday morning, the day she needed to swim the 50 breast for divisional cuts but decided to go anyway. We made sure she knew how proud we were of her for giving it her best shot.
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Have two projects to share with you this morning. Both projects are using some Graphic 45 that I picked up at my LSS. Just adore their vintage look. This first project I covered a door hanger that I found at Hobby Lobby on clearence last year.

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I have been playing with making my own flowers. The small flowers with rhinestones in the middle were simply made using two flower punches. I added the rhinestone brads and then bent up the petals to give them some dimension. The larger flowers with the pink pearls in the center took a little bit longer but were still a lot of fun to make. To create these great flowers you cut a strip of pattern paper approximately one inch wide. Wet the strip with either spray starch or water and rol into a long straw-like tube. Hot glue one end to a piece of coordinating cardstock. Then simply twist and spin the tube around the center adding hot glue where needed to keep the flower in place. When you reach the end of the tube, tuck the end under the flower and hot glue in place. After the glue has dried trim off the excess cardstock and attach to project. Add rhinestone, pearl or button to the center of the flower.

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I created the card below again using some great Graphic 45 papers along with an image from the fabulous Tammy Tutterow. She has the most adorable images on her blog for free download. As soon as I saw this one I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

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Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a wonderful day!