Receipts Part 2

Hello! Can you believe that it is Thursday already!? Sheesh! Where in the world has this week gone to?! I have a super quick post for you tonight! Just wanted to stop by before this day got away from me too to spend a few minutes with you and to share part 2 of my Receipt book pages with you! I have been working on craft commitments ALL day long and it has been wonderful! I have made the BIGGEST mess ever, but I don't care! I have had the best day working on all this stuff! I am trying to catch up on some swaps that are due and get ahead with some of my cards and get caught up with a few other projects! I was very productive on the craft front! :) My sink is full of dishes though and not a thread of laundry got done, but I am a happy girl tonight! I hope to finish up my craft to do list tomorrow! The dishes and laundry will just have to wait! I made three more pages for my receipt book today and here they are:


April!


May!


June!

I will be back soonest to share the rest of the months with you! Have a wonderful night!

A fishy party!

Hello and happy Wednesday! :) I have had such a full and nutty day! I ran all day long and then rushed home to work on my daughter's birthday invitations. We are going to have a small family birthday party for her! She is in love with all things ocean and she decided that would be a perfect theme so I went with it! We picked up some beach-y looking decorations and plan to play beach games! There will be beach music and ocean themed goody bags! She is so excited! :) So, of course the invitations needed to have an ocean feel! I wanted them to be cute but simple so this is what I came up with! I used my Cricut (so in love with it!!) to cut the waves and the sea horses! I tore tan looking card stock to make the sand and added some dazzling diamonds to make the sand sparkle. I sponged blue for the sky and masked a bright summer sun! I cased the punched mermaid beauty from this site and drew her little face on! All the party details will be on the back! I made an extra for a scrap book page! Here is a picture of the invites:



I will be back soonest with some more pages from my receipt book! Have a wonderful night! :)

How much was that?!

Hello! How are you today? I have a super quick post to share with you because I am dragging tonight...sooooo sleepy! :) I had one of those if it can go wrong it went wrong today kinds of days! I am anxious to get to bed and write this one off! LOL

I mentioned that some of my New Year's resolutions were to get more organized and to pay off debt so today's project has to do with just that! Because we are working on paying off debt I am paying closer attention to how we are spending our money. I am trying to keep track of where it all goes and needed a way to do that so I am making a receipt keeper book! I want to keep both a running list and copies of receipts all in one place. I needed it to be practical, but wanted it to be cute (of course!). LOL I bought 12 5X7 yellow envelopes and am in the process of decorating the face of each one. Each month will get it's own envelope. I will keep all the receipts for that month in it's envelope and will keep a running list on the back of money spent each month. I have three of them to share with you today:


January!


February!


March!

Each month gets a little tab on the edge with the month name and once I get them all finished I will bind the left hand edges and add covers! I will be back tomorrow to share more of the months with you! Now I am heading to bed! Night!

CCC# 15

Well hello there! Happy Monday! :) I am so excited to say that I have been on the ball today! I have been working on my organizing projects and knocked a big one out today! I also finished my Crafty Critter Challenge card! This challenge was hosted by Terria! *Hi Terria!!* and was so much fun to do! Here are the particulars:

1. Make a card using buttons.

2. It MUST be a little girl theme, meaning use all girl papers, buttons and colors.

3. Next, post your creations on your blog between January 4th -8th ,2010. As you post link your name to our Mr Linky here on the blog.

I was so excited to use one of my Paper Pretty stamps for this one! I stamped her twice. Once on white card stock and once on pink. I cut out her dress from the pink one and paper pieced it onto the white one. I trimmed it small to try to give the appearance of a layer of lace under her dress. I added some Stickles polka dots to the bottom of the dress and added some pretty flowers. I used my Fiskars heart border punch for the bottom front of the card and put coordinating paper behind it. I mounted the image on blue to break up all the pink and then again in the same DS paper. I used a tiny little yellow button in the center of the flower! My card base is Whisper White. I plan to send this card to my Grandma becasue it reminds me of her! :) Here is my card:



Isn't she just the sweetest!? I just love that image! :) I hope that you have had a good Monday! I will be back soonest!

11...already?!

Hello! How are you?! We had a big day around here today! My very youngest baby child turned 11!! Yikes!! Where in the world does the time go?! She was born 11 years ago today in the worst ice storm in years! The hospital is an hour and 20 minutes away but it took us a couple of hours to get there in the sleet and ice! She was born tiny...only 5lbs 8 oz! She is the sweetest little person ever! We spent the day hanging out and playing games and watching old tv shows! Birthday rules at our house say that the birthday person gets their meals and dessert of choice! She gets a party next weekend with the extended family, but today she was all ours! Here are some pictures from our day:



Birthday girl!


Birthday sign I made for her! I used my Cricut to cut the letters and to make the flower. I cut out flower pieces in three different sizes and curled their petals and layered them to make this flower. I added a button and a ribbon and leaves cut using a SU! die. She always makes us pretty signs on our special days so I wanted her to have one also!


I saw this card on Lynn Pratt's blog and fell head over heels for it! She has such a fun blog! I knew right away that I wanted to CASE it and this is my variation. This first picture is with the bear arms all folded up!


This is with her arms open ready to give a giant bear hug! Isn't she just the cutest?!


This was Hannah's breakfast! She wanted Crepe Suzettes! Yummmy!


Her favorite all time dinner is mac and cheese with a hot dog octopus and a side of tater tots! :)


Her dessert of choice was mixed berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream!

We had a great day! I know this little lady is going to grow up to do amazing things because she is an absolutely amazing person! Love you big, Hannah!

I am working on some organizational projects and will be back soonest to share those with you guys! :) Have a great night!

Happy New Year!!

Hello and Happy January 1st to you!! I hope that your holiday season was a wonderful one! Ours was very nice! My son was able to make it home for Christmas and then surprised us and showed up for New Years too! I was so happy to have all of my kids together for the holidays! :)

So here we are in a new year and with the new year comes the trusty ole' resolutions! Did you make yours yet?! I made mine and thought I would share them here to help keep me accountable!

1) I want to become more organized!
2) I want to pay down our debt this year!
3) I want to become a more faithful scrapper, picture taker and blogger!
4) I want to continue on my path for improved health and consistent exercise!

I resolved last year to walk every day of 2009 (at least one mile a day!) and managed to do so! 365 consecutive days! It got me to thinking (and wondering) if I am capable of kicking the butt of one goal what other fantabulous things I might be able to accomplish! I mean really... the sky is the limit!

As for #3...I am really excited at the thought of scrapping more this year! I use to LOVE to scrap book but have fallen away from it. I think it is really important to capture and document all those amazing moments of your lives and those of your families so I am going to actively scrap this year! I have set my crafty goals as follows: 50 cards and 75 Scrapbook Layouts this year. I think those are reasonable goals and am looking forward to meeting them both! To my Crafty Critter buddies...if you see me falling behind someone throw something at me! :)

I have the cutest project to share with you today! I made several of these from one of Lauren Meader's Timeless Templates. She is amazing and her templates are all top notch! I was hoping to squeeze a dozen cookies into each of these but they were either smaller than I thought they would be or my cookies were ginourmous! LOL Maybe a little of both! Bigger cookies are always better! ;) I did not have the stamp set that coordinates with this house project so I had to get creative. I used all Stampin Up! stamps. I used a tag stamp for the door and used a retired hostess set for the windows. I folded the shutters out to make the windows look more welcoming! Then I added goodies in each of the windows. There is a wreath on the front door that I made from 2 circle punches and a snowman out front to welcome any passing by visitors! I tore Whisper White card stock to make snow and added Stickles to give the snow some shimmer! The top of the house lifts off and I filled the houses with candy! These were so much fun to make! Here are some photos of the houses:


Front of house!


Side of house!

Other side!

Back of house!

I hope that you had a good 2009 and that you have an even better 2010!! It is a new year and a new decade! Time to make some changes and mix it up a bit! Think hard about the things you want to accomplish and GO FOR IT!!! I plan to! :) Have a wonderful day! I will be back soonest!

Christmas Bears and the family!

Hello! How was your Christmas?! Hope that you and yours had a wonderful celebration! It seemed to rush in and rush out so quickly this year! We had a very nice celebration full of family and yummy food and lots of goodies! Our son was able to come home despite the yucky weather and spend almost 2 days at home with us, which was super nice! It melts my heart to see my kids all together! :)

I wanted to stop by for a few minutes and share a couple of the gifts I made with you guys! I have 2 nieces and wanted to make them something special this year so I took out my SU! Build a Bear dies and went to work! I made each of them several little bears to dress and oodles of clothes to dress them in! They each got their own box to hold it all with tiny little envelopes to hold all of the clothes! It was a lot of fun! Here are some pictures of the finished project:



The bears and their clothes!


Their envelopes with the clothes inside (fronts!).


(fronts and back!)


Box insides!



Closed Box!


Box with lid.


Box #2 closed.

Here is a picture of hubby, the kids and I on Christmas morning! This is the famous hold the camera out at arms length and try to get everyone squooze into the frame shot!! I am crazy about these folks!!



Hope that your holidays have been wonderful so far and that the rest of the year is as happy! I have lots to share with you and will be back soonest!

Have a wonderful day!

Some Christmas fun!

Hello!! Happy Sunday! How is your weekend?! We are still homebound with lovely snow everywhere! :)

Recently I had a few of my wonderful friends over for a mom's craft night and we had so much fun! I thought I would share a couple of the projects with you that we worked on! We got a late start on a weeknight so I wanted to keep the projects brief but still went for that AWWWWWWW! factor! I saw both of the reindeer on SCS and am not sure who the original artists are (so if they are your wonderful brainstorms PLEASE contact me because I would LOVE to give you credit!!). I thought the Hershey bar reindeer were too cute for words! I will be making several more of these and tucking them into lots of Christmas gifts! The other project was Christmas tags! Simple and sweet! :)






I have lots more to share and will be back soonest! Meanwhile, have a wonderful day! :)

CC Challenge #14 and some other things!

Snowy hello to you!! We got slammed with 11" of snow last night!! We are house bound for several days because we live at the top of an almost mile long driveway and our vehicles are having none of this snow business! I am experiencing a little bit of stress because the stockings are NOT all hung by the chimney with care! In fact I am not even close to being finished with my Christmas shopping or Christmas dinner shopping or card mailing or package mailing...LOL I will be really lucky if I can get down the driveway to get things finished up this year..oh well! What can you do, right?! There is a giant pot of chicken and dumplings on the stove and a cozy fire in the fireplace! Things will be ok! :) I will hold off on the stress until later because right now I am enjoying being stuck inside too darn much! :)

I have lots to share with you tonight! :) First of all is my entry for the CC Challenge #14! This was a toughie! This challenge was hosted by Jennifer B! (Hiya Jennifer!!) and the guidelines were:

My challenge to you is to use LSC249 from SCS, White Christmas. I've always wanted to do a card like this, and now it's on SCS also. The deets are:

* Use only white card stock
* You cannot use patterned paper, unless it's all white
* Use only white or clear embellishments
* You can use one color of ink, but nothing more
* You cannot do any coloring, such as copic or water coloring

Easy peasy, right!! Nope! This one threw me for a loop! Such a simple card just seemed so difficult! I enjoyed it though! I used white and red as my one and only color! No embellishments, no ribbon, no fancy doo dad's! Here is my entry:



Please excuse my stinky lighting! Time got away from me and it completely escaped my mind this was due today! I took the photo inside (at night!) just a few minutes ago!

Also, wanted to share a picture of hubby's car in the snow! :) He drives a Fit which is a tiny, little car! I got tickled when I saw how tiny it really looked in all of this snow! Here is the picture:



Finally, a couple pictures of my snow angels(!!):




Hope that you are having a warm and wonderful weekend! I have much more to share and will be back soonest! :)

A little Christmas Cheer!

Hello! How are you?! Doing well, I hope! I have a quick post to share with you tonight! I wanted to get my home school group involved in a community service project this holiday season and so we spent a couple of hours putting together 90 food baskets for our community this week at our holiday party! It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it! Here are some photos of them assembling the baskets and the finished product! :)

Also, pictured is our Christmas tree! For the first time ever I let the kids do all of the decorating! I am still struggling with this darn cold. It has moved into my chest and knocked me flat on my back! We normally add popcorn and cranberries, but time just got the best of us this year so the tree is popcorn-less! LOL The picture doesn't do the tree justice though because it came out beautifully! :)

We are getting slammed with a snow storm tonight! We have about 9 inches so far and they are calling for a total of 22! I am hoping to spend most of tomorrow in my jammies catching up on all things crafty! :) I should have some fun things to share tomorrow!

Have a wonderful night and I will be back soonest!

Snowy night!

Hello! How are you today?! Hope you are doing well! I am trying to fight off a little cold, but am feeling like I am in Round 11 going down for the count! LOL I hate not feeling well! (Who doesn't!?) I just have waaaaaay too many things to do right now to be under the weather! (Who doesn't!) LOL Sigh!

I wanted to stop by for a few minutes and share a card with you! I took this card to my home school meeting this week and taught the mom's how to do masking and reverse masking! Several of them were new stampers so it was a fun challenge! Everyone did great! This card just feels so "Winter is here!!" to me!! I just love that little snow guy too! I mean how cute is he?! Everything I used on this card is Stampin Up! Holler away if you have any questions!

We are waiting on a load of wood for our wood stove to be delivered and then we are heading into town to get our Christmas tree! :) Although I am not nearly even remotely close to even being close to being ready for Christmas (LOL) I love this part! Getting the tree is always so much fun! Lugging it in and making it beautiful! :)Hot chocolate and cookies and Christmas Carols! :)

I hope that you have a very nice weekend! I will be back soonest! :)

CC Challenge #13 and some great big thank you's!!

Hello, hello, hello!! Sorry to be MIA for a whole week (Yikes!!)! I decided I wanted to give my blog a face lift so it has been under construction for the last week! More about that later though! :)

I wanted to stop by and share a few things with you today! :) Time for Crafty Critter challenge #13! Here are the rules:

1)My challenge for you all is to create a card using the Split Negative technique. Found here!
2)You can post your cards anytime between Nov 28th - Dec 7th.

I have never done one of these, so this was really a fun challenge! I figured since 'Tis the season' I would go with a Christmas theme to maximize my crafting instead of doing the laundry, dishes and mopping time! Big, cheesy grin! You know...multi-tasking by finishing my challenge card AND making another Christmas card! Giggles! I used red and white as my negative image colors and mounted the whole deal on a green base. I added gold cording and a white sparkly gem. The stamp set is Snow Swirled by SU! Here is my card:



Fa, la, la, la, la... :)


Recently, I was awarded a very nice blog award by several of my fellow Crafty Critter friends, Tracey, Colleen and Terria! Thank you so much for thinking of me girls! You guys are absolutely the best! Here are the particulars with this award:



1. Thank the person that nominated you.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link the person that nominated you for this award.
4. List 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 bloggers that you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

7 things about myself:
1)I am allergic to vinegar!
2)I like sunflower seeds on my cottage cheese!
3)My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving!
4)I am a choc-holic!!
5)I want to live at the beach!
6)I still do not know what I want to do when I grow up!
7)I love the color pink!

Since so many of the wonderful ladies that I blog with have received this award too I will refrain from passing it back to them, but please know that I think you all have amazing blogs and do wonderful work! :)

Finally, (you still with me?!) LOL I wanted to say a great big warm and fuzzy thank you to my wonderful (not to mention devastatingly handsome) IT guy for fixing my blog all up for me! I tried and fell pretty much flat on my face (read NO computer skill here!)! My IT guy rushed in and beautified (is that even a real word!?) it all up for me! Thanks hubby! <3

I hope that you are doing well! I will be back soonest becasue I have lots to share with you guys! Have a wonderful day!

Great big hug!