Tall grass and Halloween swap goodies!

Hi there! Thursday already! Friday will be here before we know it! :) I have had such a busy week and have plans for a pretty full weekend. There just seems to be so much going on right now, but that is usually the case!

It was very cool and rainy here today! It felt an awful lot like Fall leaving and Winter creeping in! I am really hopeful that we still have several weeks left of Fall weather though because it is my favorite!

I wanted to show you a card I made for my MIL's husband recently. He cut our lawn for us one day last week as a total surprise and I wanted to say thank you to him. I happen to know that he has a very special place in his heart for brownies, so we made him up a big pan of them and I made hom this little card:



Next thing! I signed up for a Halloween swap recently and had to make up 7 little goody bags full of Halloween treats! The catch was that there could not be any candy! It was much harder than I thought it would be! It was fun putting them together though! Here is a picture of my finished treat bags:



Two of our kitties were hopeful that whatever was inside that basket might be for them! Sorry kitties! LOL Hope that you are having a good week! I will be back soonest with more to share! :) Have a great day!

Halloween Stamp Club!

Boo! Happy Wednesday to you! I have some fun projects to share with you from my last Stamp Club get together! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful, fun group of girls! We get together once a month and stamp and play, play, play!

Since I am trying to stay ahead of the holidays and since our theme was Halloween out came all of the spooky supplies! Of course, with keeping with the theme there was candy (specifically chocolate!) everywhere! My favorite kind of event!

Here are the projects we did:


I used the Top Note Die to create this little purse. It opens to reveal a small basket shaped box who's purpose is to hold some candy! Notice the candy is missing....hmmmm! :)


This is the purse open!


Here is a close up of good ole' Frankenstein! I used the new SU! XLarge label punch for the face base and hair and the 1/2" circle punch and hole punch for the eyes and nose. Isn't he cute?!


Next we played with the brayering technique! This was our spooky brayered layered (which is just too much fun to say!) card!

This next set of cuties are made using the new SU! Petal Card Punch! That thing makes the most adorable little chocolate holders and they happen to hold a Hershey's Nugget perfectly! I got the idea for these little guys on Patti's blog! Check her out! She is amazing!












...and the whole family!


This is a simple 2 X 2 box. I used the Word Window punch to create a picket fence around the whole thing and stamped and cut images from Fangtastic!


...another view!


...and another!

Ok, I have about a bazillion things to do today so I am off! Thanks for stopping by and hanging out a while! I will be back soonest! :)

...and 40 just keeps getting better!

Hello and happy Saturday! How is your weekend going? We have had a very full weekend so far. I had a great stamp club last night with some of my favorite girls and have lots of fun projects to share with you! I will share those tomorrow, but wanted to show you something else today! This is a thank you card that I made for my very special friend, Kelley! *Hiya Kelley!!* I made it to thank her for all of my wonderful birthday signs that she surprised me with! You can read more about that here. I planned to give it to her last Tuesday night because she and I were going to dinner for my birthday! She and I always have the best time when we go out! Lots of laughing and carrying on!! Well on our way to town on Tuesday she got a text from her hubby saying that he was not feeling well. We decided to cut our evening short so she could go home and take care of him. On our way home we stopped by a local health food store to get him some tummy soothers and when we walked into this place I was greeted by a room full of people! My amazing hubby had made arrangements to throw me a giant surprise party! The two of them (and her sneaky, wonderful hubby!) had been in cahoots for a while! It was amazing!! There was a band and the whole thing was catered and there was pink everywhere! LOL There were so many people in that room that I just love! I was on cloud nine! I cannot even put into words how special the whole evening was! I feel like the luckiest person ever to have so many wonderful, amazing people in my life! Talk about an over abundance of warm and fuzzies!! I have got them up to my eyeballs! :) Anyhow, seems I made a long story long! LOL If I haven't lost you yet here is the card I made for my very special friend to say thank you:




Her favorite color is green so I went heavy with the green! I discovered how to make these cutsie little rosettes on the very talented Andrea's blog. I have made oodles of them! They are just so delicate and pretty! I will skip the details of this card, but if you have any questions just pop me an e mail! :)

I didn't make him a card, but my husband definitely gets Husband of the Year Award! He s truly amazing! Love you, Cory! Lots and lots and lots and lo....

I am off to try to make a dent in my To Do list! I will be back tomorrow with lots more to share! Have a super night!

Paper Princess Challenge!!

Hello! Monday already?! Sheesh...where did the weekend go? :) Today is the day that my wonderful blogging group face off and present our challenge cards! Once a month a hostess from our group (Heeeey Colleen!!) sends out a kit and we have to use everything in the kit to make a card! We are divided into two groups and it is a friendly little competition! Here is my challenge card for this month:

Happy Birthday to Meeeee! :)

Hello and Happy Sunday! Today is my 40th birthday and I have had the absolute best day ever!! My wonderful hubby and 3 of my children took me to lunch at a wonderful Indian restaurant and then we went to one of my favorite places...the craft store to browse and do a little shopping! Then this evening we had a cookout and they surprised and spoiled me with a cake and ice cream (chocolate with more chocolate topped with chocolate and chocolate on the side!) Do they know me well, or what?! My oldest daughter made me a couple of beautiful picture collages! My youngest daughter made me a pair of Smores earrings! My youngest son spoiled me all day and my oldest son called me tonight to wish me a happy birthday (gosh I miss him!!)! Hubby gave me a beautiful pair of dragonfly (I just love all things winged!)earrings and a matching necklace! They are just beautiful!! Then all day long I have had the sweet good fortune to hear from so many people that have touched my life in one wonderful way or another! I received really special e mails that made me all misty eyed and phone calls from my wonderful folks and grandma and uncle and pretty cards and FaceBook messages galore! My very sweet SIL and family brought me a goody basket with a gorgeous teapot (I collect them!) and lots of chocolate-y goodness and handmade cards from my nieces. My MIL brought me another beautiful teapot! I have been spoiled absolutely rotten! THEN when we got home from town I was greeted by a very special and amazing surprise!! I have this friend (Hiya Kelley...you baboon!) who has been the true meaning of friend to me. She has been there through thick and thin. I have known her since our 20 year old's were in kindergarten together and I wouldn't trade her for all of the chocolate in the world! Take a look at what she did while I was away today:


This was on our mailbox!


She made me a giant banner!

A humongous #40 balloon in case I forgot how old I am! LOL


These signs were sprinkled all the way up the driveway! We have a looooong driveway!


She even got my mom and step-dad in on it! The pretty flowers are from her too!!


And another!


And another!


This one was my favorite!!



And another!!


And another!!


And another!


This was one of the many she left inside and she signed her name real tiny on the bottom and gave herself away! Although I had a sneaking suspicion it was her from the very first 'billboard' she left on the road!! LOL


She also left all of these amazing things on the table for me! If you hadn't noticed my favorite color is pink! :) She decorated the Goblet and filled it with pink m&m's! The wine is pink, the gifts inside the bag were pink! She left me a giant candy bar and a beautiful mug full of chocolate! I LOVED everything!! Even the prunes and prune juice she left me! LOLOLOLOL A jab for turning 40! She is the greatest!! Love you, BFF!


These are some of the teapots I received! Thank you Catherine and Joan!! :) Love them!


Another close up! isn't this gorgeous?!

I am feeling really lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life!! Thank you to everyone who thought of me today! A giant thank you to a special someone for the very sweet song too! You know who you are! Thank you to my wonderful family! I love you all more more than there are stars in the sky and bigger than the moon is bright! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I will be back tomorrow with something craft-y to share! Night! :)

Fall Stamp Club!

Hello! Wowza! What a full crazy day we have had today! It started with rushing out of the house at the hour of 'waaaay too early' for a soccer game! That went well! We won 2-0! Goooo Team Yin!! Then we stopped by a neighboring communities gi-ganto yard sale for some shopping! I scored a beautiful tea cup and saucer and a teapot! I collect both so that was super fun! Then we came home to re-group and get a few things done then we went back to town to deliver one of our kiddo's to a bday party and hubby and I went on a mini date! We stopped by a new little Italian restaurant and had some appetizers and dessert! Yummmm-o!! Now I have just a very few minutes to get this posted because we are headed back out the door to go and retrieve the birthday party go-er and then it is back home to slip on my jammies and hit the hay because I am worn out! LOL

I told you I would stop by and share the projects from my last stamp camp though, so here I am! The theme was fall and I served warm apple pie w/vanilla ice cream of course, pumpkin muffins, apple cider and all sorts of little fall themed foods! We had a really good time!

These are the things we made:


Little box made using a Big Shot die and adorned with a punch art pumpkin!


The box open! I gave each girl chocolate to fill their boxes with. You may have noticed that mine is empty! Chocolate never seems to last too long around me?! :)


A simple card made using the masking technique and water coloring.


Teeny tiny boxes made using the new petal punch! That thing is so cool! It punches and embosses!!


These little boxes hold a life savor candy perfectly! These would be super cute along with a gift tag!


A fun pinwheel card made using fall colors!


Mini notebook using the new 2 step owl punch!


I stamped this cute owl from the set Aviary on the bottom corner of each page!


Ok, time for me to scoot! :) I will be back soonest! Have a great night!

Coaster Magnet!

Well hello there and happy Friday to you! :) I hope you had a good week and that you have a long list of happy, fun weekend plans ahead of you! Our weekend is going to start with dinner in town and then we are heading over to watch a college soccer game or two! We are a big soccer family! My kids have all played for years and some are still playing! My hubby and I have coached and organized a league for many years and are currently team parents for our kid's soccer team! I just love soccer and everything about it and I really enjoy watching the college games! I am looking forward to that! Then on Saturday morning we will head back to town for my kid's soccer game! :) I love those even more than watching the college teams play!

I also have some super exciting news about my standing on her head, back hand spring-ing through the house, always doing a cart wheel or other flippy equivalent kind of thing kiddo!! My youngest daughter is now on Team at gymnastics!! She has been invited to compete! She is so excited and we are so proud of her and excited for her!! This does mean more running for us though...lots more, but she is really quite good and I am very curious as to where this could take her! Practice will jump from 2 x a week to 4 x and meets will take us out of town almost monthly. Life is short though and you should jump in with both feet or in this case cart wheel, round off and back hand spring your way through it! :)

I have a simple project to share with you today! My demo group recently ordered some plain coasters to divide up between us and the nice lady that we ordered them from was very intrigued by the fact that we planned to craft with them rather than place our drinks on them! LOL So, we decided to do what any responsible group of crafters would do and each make her a coaster project! I made her a fridge magnet!
I covered the coaster with Greenhouse Gala DSP and made two of those fun carnations to pretty it up! I used my Big Shot to make some leaves and added a bow and a simple sentiment stamp. I added a super sticky magnet to the back and Viola! Easy Peasy! Here it is:



What do ya think? :) Ok, I am off to tackle my lengthy to do list today! Have a great Friday! I will be back tomorrow with lots to share with you from my last stamping club!

Inspiration is all around us!

Hello! I apologize for my absence! Sometimes life gets really big and very busy! Lately, it has been both for me. I have had a lot going on and it feels like we run all the the time. We are still without a second vehicle since the accident and that in itself has been something of a challenge! Soccer is going full force, my home school group has started meeting again and my daughter just got some really exciting news about her gymnastics (which I will share tomorrow!). As usual, I have really missed the time I spend her on my blog with you! I hope to be around much more often now though!

I have a project to share with you today from my last demo meeting! Our challenge was to find something that we could use as inspiration for a card. I knew immediately that this Kleenex box was going to be my inspiration! I remembered buying it thinking that if you had to endure the sniffles that this pretty box might just make it easier! LOL :) Here is my card and the item that inspired it:





I used the main color of the box as my card base and pulled all the sprinklings of color for the color on my card! I stamped the tall stemm-y (fancy new technological term!) looking flowers in craft white and stamped, cut out and added the other flowers on pop dots! I made the frame using SU!'s new double border punch and centering it on each side of a 3 inch square. The ribbon on the bottom 'ties' the whole thing together! This was a fun challenge! :)

Paper: Pear Pizazz, Very Vanilla and Tangerine Tango
Stamps: Apple Blossom Level 2 Hostess set
Ink: Craft White, Pumpkin Pie and Regal Rose
Punches: Flower form Punch Trio, Double border
Extras: Pumpkin Pie Ribbon and Pearl Embellishments

I hope that you have a wonderful Thursday! I finally have a day at home and am hoping to get caught up on a few things around here...or I could blow it all off and spend the afternoon stamping! :) Big grin! What is a girl to do?! I will be back soonest with more to share!