Great Giveaway!

Meridith Anne of Lizzie Anne Designs is giving away some great blog candy over the next couple of days in celebration of getting over 10,000 hits to her blog. Today she's giving away 7 fantastic stamps to ONE lucky winner! Go check it out here, and Good Luck!

She's reminded me that I didn't celebrate my own milestone of 1,000 hits, so I think I will have to come up with some blog candy next week. What do you think? Do you want another tile? Be sure to let me know in your comments.

Coats, coats & more coats

Well winter has definitely hit, and we need our coats. We need our coats, boots, scarves, gloves, hats, earmuffs...

So where do you put all of that stuff? (Especially if you have more than one child?) My friend came up with a pretty good solution for her family. She put up coat hooks in her hall closet (low enough for the kids to reach), and they are now labeled so each child has a place to hang his/her things. Genius!

I'm going to be doing the same thing with our laundry hampers. This ought to eliminate any confusion over which laundry hamper belongs to which child. I'll post pictures when I have them.

Digital Sunday

Just a quick post tonight. Isn't it amazing how far we've come in this digital age? I remember my dad's old TRS-80 from Radio Shack. It had one game, "Olympic Decathlon" which was highly pixelated and you had to press keyboard keys to run it. He recorded data on magnetic tapes (using a specialized tape recorder), and his modem had a cradle which you had to physically put the phone into.

Tonight I've checked three different email accounts, video-conferenced with several members of my family, downloaded digital photos of the pinewood derby and updated my blogs. Yesterday I visited a bulletin board I'm a member of, and I played a video game with my daughter which is light years better in graphics than the "Olympic Decathlon" I used to play with my dad. Isn't the digital age amazing?

And in a lot of ways it allows us to reach out and make better connections. I live pretty far from some of my family members, but with video conferencing I can visit with them on a regular basis. How cool is that?

I have to say I'm grateful for the ways technology has improved my life.

Beautiful Ballerina

Well apparently my camera doesn't like taking pictures of pale purple (I took 15 pictures with a ton of different settings & couldn't get the purple to come out darker), but here is the card I made with LAD's brand-new ballerina stamp. I used Bazzill papers and SU! inks. The ribbon is from American Crafts. The background stamp is In the Background from LAD.

I had fun making her. I colored her hair dark brown to play off the ribbon as well as a tribute to my daughter (who has taken to calling herself "Princess June" after the Little Einsteins character). Both have darker hair. :D

I've been posting a lot of paper crafting projects lately, so I think that I will post some vinyl projects next. Stay tuned...

A Bouncing Baby Boy!

I have a nephew! Well technically I have 10+ nephews, but the newest one made his appearance yesterday! He was a little over 8 1/2 lbs. & 21" long. Another nephew was born about a week ago. (He's adorable too!) He weighed just over 8 lbs and is 20" long.

So in honor of my two nephews, I thought I'd post a baby boy card.

Actually, I used this for my little boy’s birth announcement. I have to admit, I stole this fabulous idea from C. Tepa Farias. We swapped cards at a SU! convention, and I just knew I had to have this card. Her version was in pink, and used a different background stamp and ribbons, but it was just too cute not to "lift".

And speaking of babies, I'm really happy to report that my friend with the broken kneecap is doing so much better. It was tricky getting around with a newborn and a cast, thankfully that came off a little over a week after the baby was born. She then wore a brace for a while, but that is off now too. She's able to bend her knee & drive again and has regained most of the motion in her leg. She hasn't been able to do any running yet, but I'm sure that is coming. (The baby is only six-weeks-old after all).

Babies are so sweet aren't they? (Especially when they are napping :D ).

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The other day I mentioned the sweet new stamps I got from my friend, Meridith Anne of Lizzie Anne Designs? She gave me the brand-new pirate, pirate saying, and ballerina from their winter release. (Before they were available for purchase). I can't tell you how excited I was/am. I had planned on having a card posted with my cute new stamps already, but life has interfered with my plans. I'm hoping to finish the ballerina card tonight and post it tomorrow.

Happy New Year Resolutions

Have you made New Year's Resolutions? I did. Once again I'm trying to get myself organized. (Well my office that is--the rest of my house is okay.) I went so far as hiring a professional organizer last year, and we made good strides until I was put on partial bedrest.

Things sort of fell apart from there.

But I'm at it again and now you can see more of the floor in my office. The thing that buries me is the sheer amount of papers. I have all my crafting projects and their ensuing mess, the forest of paperwork that comes home from school, the home improvement/decorating swatches, pictures, sale advertisements that get thrown into a box, the scouting stuff, the catalogs and magazines I want to look at, and I have to go through all my old Stampin' Up! papers to sort out what needs to be kept (for tax purposes), and what is useful for this point in my life. The things I've been able to keep organized are family finances and my Walls of Wisdom papers and information.

I'm feeling positive though. I've been making good strides, and I'm more than halfway there. The kids and I have a new system for incoming papers, and we've been decluttering and finding lots of things to give away or to sell.

In this whole process, I've uncovered more old cards I had made. I thought I'd post a picture of one of the first Spectrum pad cards I ever made. This was almost 10 years ago, and before we started using decorative wire. (We were using decorative edge scissors still though--funny how things go around).

I had wanted my balloons to pop off the card, so I used some dimensionals and some thread I had knotted together and then taped behind the balloons to make it appear as if they had strings. I used my trimmer to cut out a window for the "Happy Birthday" to appear through. I sponged the edges to help the dimensions appear a bit better.

Isn't it funny how some things (like decorative edges) go around in cycles? Do you have a favorite trend that has come back? Do you have resolutions you'd like to share? I'd like to hear from you.

One of my other resolutions is to do a little more scrapbooking. I just checked out the new sneak peek designs at Lizzie Anne Designs, and I'm in love with the new princess set. I think it was made for my daughter. I'm definitely going to be getting this new set!

The Gift that Keeps Giving

Happy New Year! I apologize for the funny error with the photos from my last post. My computer randomly dropped my internet connection while I was uploading my photos as I was posting. I reconnected and thought it went through alright, but apparently I was wrong. You should be able to see the photos now.


My friend Mica send me this darling gift in the mail. She rolled the white lunch sack, and made her cards with Stampin' Up! stamps and materials. I particularly love her card. It's simple, but very cute. The two-sided paper and stitched ribbon add a fun flair.

(Alas, this year I sent Mica and the other 200* people on my Christmas card list store-bought cards--though in my heart I stamped them one). As I mentioned in my last post, it was a particularly busy Christmas for us this year. And to top it all off, one of my children had us singing "All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth". My sweet pea has been miserable as two bottom teeth made their way through the gums. Add to that an ear infection and pretty much all my sweetie wants to do is be held.

I don't know if you've ever tried stamping with a young one in your arms, but it's pretty impossible. :D

Anyway, inside Mica's cute wrapping job was this recipe card holder. I had cut the vinyl letter for her and her church group as well as a few extra for gifts she was making. I guess I was one of the lucky recipients of the gifts!

Thanks Mica! I love it. I've already got my favorite Williams-Sonoma recipe for Butternut Squash soup on the metal board and ready to go for dinner tomorrow. I'm so excited to use this. Mica knows I love to cook (when I have the time), and I have needed a good recipe card holder for a long time.

And speaking of gifts, let me just say there are definite advantages to being such good friends with the owners of the best new stamp company out there, Lizzie Anne Designs. Meridith (Anne) sent me the cutest new stamps for Christmas, AND THEY'RE NOT EVEN AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE YET!! (Okay, so if you wait a few more days you can get them too, and BELIEVE ME you want to get these stamps).

Not sure what I'm talking about? Well throughout this week LAD is revealing several new stamp sets they adding to their already fantastic collection on January 7th. Today they revealed four new sets. I can't tell you what the stamps that I received are yet (I promised them I wouldn't spoil their surprise), but I can STRONGLY encourage you to check out their sneak peeks throughout the week.

So what was your favorite Christmas gift this year? Was it handmade? I'd like to hear from you if you are willing to share.

*The actual count is 199 Christmas cards--really it is. When you have as many aunts, uncles, cousins and friends from numerous moves as we do it adds up quickly. :D