Happy New Year

My house is finally back in order after all the Christmas festivities. However, all my Christmas cards have not gone out yet. And I am sending them late! I worked too hard, and I dare say, they are too super cute not to send them just because I missed the big day. I am guessing people will still appreciate them even late. They have now become Happy New Year cards :)

We are planning a little family party tonight with all the appetizers, champagne, noise makers, sparkling grape juice and silly hats the four of us can handle! I am excited. Of course, there will probably be a mock midnight around 9pm for the kids. There is no way we are keeping them up until midnight! They don't do well with less than normal sleep. Gotta love night terrors!

Anyway, I hope you all have a blessed and safe New Year's celebration and that 2009 brings you lots of love, laughter and adventure. Here are a few of the cards I made for special orders this past month. I will post my Christmas card soon!






Thanks for looking!

Holiday Crafts

Two more days until Santa comes ... the threat is not working (and never really did) on my kids. They are so excited they are driving me a little nuts. I still have some wrapping to do but luckily have spent my last dollar on presents. We are good to go :) Tonight I anticipate watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, settling in with a cup of hot chocolate and surrounding myself with lots of toys to be wrapped.

Here are a few of the crafts we did this year (and one from a few years ago that I still love):



This is one that I made with hurricanes from my wedding. okay so this one was quite a few years ago. But he is held up well and makes an appearance every Christmas. I think he is adorable :) Super easy to make and a good gift.



The kids and I made this cute little guy from a kit I got inexpensively from Michael's. He was easy and they had a ball putting him together.




This fun garland of stars was made from the SU! die cut kit in the holiday mini catalog. I really enjoyed making these and thought they looked cute on our kitchen valance. I might keep them up for a while after Christmas. I am looking forward to putting almost everything else away this year. The clutter is getting to me!

My Christmas cards are *almost* done so once I get them all in the mail I will post a picture. I like them and thought they were pretty simple but elegant.

Happy Holidays!

excuses ....

Okay, so if you have tried to keep up with my blog lately you will have noticed that I have not been posting much (or anything!). So here is my excuse ... we had to get a new laptop as our poor, overused, other one had finally seen its last download! We loved it to death. And I transferred all my pics to Shutterfly, as to not lose them completely. Learned that from experience when Teagan was 4 months old. But I can't download pics from Shutterfly to blogger. So, I don't have many pictures of my cards and projects to share as of yet. And, my back-up/secondary excuse is that I had a lot of special orders the last few months (yea!) and so wasn't doing much card making or crafting for myself.

I am almost finished with my Christmas cards so will post those once I drop all the ones being mailed at the post office. Until then here are a few samples or recent work:







These were all made for a friend to use as her Christmas cards. I made all the samples and she liked them all (that was nice and easy!) She requested a mix of all them. I will share some others in the next day or so :) Meanwhile here is also a pic of my crazy kids during our annual Christmas card photo shoot:



Needless to say, this was not the one chosen for this year's card but one of these years we must may send out a goofy card because this type of picture is much easier to get!

Merry Christmas :)

Thanksgiving

I am sitting here with my newest neice all snuggled up in my arms and the older kids watching Max and Ruby in the other room. All is right with the world. I am so grateful for my healthy, beautiful children and my husband and the home we have made. I love being home with my kids to hear all the silly things they have to say and watch them discover new things every day. I do have this nagging little tick-tock, tick-tock feeling that I want another baby. I am trying to fight it but I just don't know that its going to go away.

We went to a Frosty and Friends event the other day and Santa was there. Kamryn was feeling kinda shy and didn't want to talk to him. Teagan, or course, jumped right up and asked for a Wii! Which we are not getting him -- he's only just turned 5 -- doesn't that seem too young?? Anyway, I was trying to prompt Kammy to ask Santa for something and mentioned that what she wanted had a mirror. And Santa guessed that she wanted a princess vanity! She (and I) were shocked -- the look on her face was PRICELESS!

Last night we went to have pictures taken with Santa at the mall. All the way there I kept trying to get Teagan to think about asking for something besides the Wii. So his next best answer to give to Santa's "what do you want" question was -- one of every boy toy! Yes, that is what he said! He is so "ilarious" -- that's what T and K have been saying lately -- everything is "ilarious"! So, I have been praying that he is not too disappointed Christmas morning when he does not get a Wii and does not have one of every other boy toy under the tree waiting for him.

Ah, kids! I am blessed.

Thanks, Bridgett!

Bridgett was so nice to give this award to me a while back, and I was in the midst of crazy prep for the craft show so my blogging took a hiatus. I am back in the swing of things and wanted to thank her :) So here is my wonderful award. Thank you, thank you, thank you :)

1. THE WINNER CAN PUT THE LOGO ON THEIR BLOG.

2. LINK THE PERSON YOU RECEIVED THE AWARD FROM.

3. NOMINATE AT LEAST 5 OTHER BLOGS.

4. BEFORE LISTING THE NOMINEES GIVE A BRIEF REASON WHY YOU CHOSE THEM.

5. PUT THEIR LINK ON YOUR BLOGS

6. LEAVE A MESSAGE ON THEIR BLOGS

I am nominating the following people because I am consistently inspired by their blogs! This goes for Bridgett's too ... check her's out she just made the most adorable bat sour cream container!

Jami : http://westamphappy.blogspot.com/

Kristin: http://sunshinesmilesstamps.blogspot.com/

Deena: http://acreativeneed.wordpress.com/

Tabitha: http://tabithastamps.blogspot.com/

AnnMarie: http://didsomeonesaystamp.blogspot.com/

Oh, and check out this blog candy: http://angeldrummer.blogspot.com/

Happy Halloween and Birthday To Teagan :)

My baby is going to be 5 on November 3rd! I can't believe it and might cry! This feels like a big one. He decided that he wanted to have an UPSIDE DOWN party ... fun is that? The boy did get some of my creativity! The party is on Saturday and we will have about 25 people squeezing into the house for the fesitivites. It is going to be cozy and chaotic but tons of fun, too. We are serving upside down cupcakes, playing silent chairs, seek and hide and doing an upside down birthday globe craft. I think I am probably more excited than he is. And the icing on the bottom of the cupcake (hee hee) is that my Mom is flying in on Friday and neither of the kids know! They are going to be SO EXCITED!!

Here is a pic of this invite:

While I was sitting at the Craft Show, I decided that I could probably get a little crafting done so I worked on these super cute Halloween cards. I love these Little Monsters from Unity. I think their stamps are so cute. I have a few others I can't wait to play with :) I felt like it needed something else but I had limited supplies to work with there ... only what I brought with me. So, its a tiny bit plain but I just love Frank!

Thanks for looking! Happy Crafting :

Craft Show Withdrawal!!!

My first craft show is over and done with it! It was lots of fun and I made some money. Not sure if it was "enough" to make the hours and hours and hours of work ahead of time worth it but I did have fun doing all the prep so maybe?! Hubby isn't so sure, but what's he know :) Just kidding! Below are some pictures from my practice set up the night before. My best sellers were the journals with beaded pens ($5) and the tic tac purses ($1). I pretty much sold one of almost everything else. This was a very small craft show (only the 2nd year) and got pretty slow towards the end. I was happy with my first outing, though. I will be posting the items that have not sold in my Etsy Store. I was contemplating another show at a local elementary school but I think with my sister's baby coming around that same date, I might be over committing myself. Still haven't decided for sure but I do need to make a decision very soon. Hmmmm?! Well, I have been working on some other stuff since the show ended but I will post those projects tomorrow :) Thanks for looking! I am going to try really hard to get back to posting almost every day. I have missed blogging and and blogging friends!

Albums and Placecards

Here are a few more projects that I have been working on for the upcoming craft show. I have not spent as much time downstairs as I probably should be. I think I got a little intimidated by what I was doing and needed a break. Plus I think I am having wisdom teeth issues and have had migraines several times this past week. My new doctor gave me some meds though that help but getting them is annoying and discouraging! Okay, on to the pics, I have to apologize because my batteries are about to die in my camera so I was trying to get these really quickly and the lighting was not so great. Not the best pictures but hopefully you can see how cute the projects turned out.

First, two decorated linen albums. The top one is decorated with SU! Home Decor and Rub Ons, plus some fun brown fibers. I love this color blue and brown together. You may have noticed that in some of my other projects ... hee hee! And the bottom picture is of a light green linen album embellished with felt boy stuff and fun ribbon along the spiral. Even though I have a boy, its sometimes hard to do projects that are masculine. I know I am not the only one who struggles with this!! I thought this was a good boy project. It'd be perfect for camp or scouting pictures.

Oh, these pictures are so not good ... sorry!! The next two photos are of placecards that I plan to sell in bunches of 10. The top one is wrapped around a pumpkin shaped peppermint patty. And the bottom three are a little more traditional placecards -- just three different styles. The bottom three are all embossed to add a little more formality but that is hard to see in my awful picture! Trust me they look pretty elegant in real life :)

I will be working on some more stuff today ... Magical Reindeer Food and hopefully some cards. I am also doing some not so fun organizing, displaying, signage and packaging ... nothing worth taking pictures of, but I may blog a little about that later.

More Craft Show Stuff Shown By Vanna, I mean, Kammy!

Kammy being "Vanna" to show off the gift boxes that I plan to sell at the craft show. I got a pack of 6 boxes at a SU! garage sale for a real bargain. I think they turned out really cute and who doesn't love a gift box you don't have to wrap yourself. Throw a little tissue paper and your gift in there and viola! A perfectly pretty little present!

Okay, so once Kammy got in the picture than Eliza and Teagan wanted to pose, too! So here are the other two kidlets. Peighton was at school but we were thinking about her :) Notice Teagan's "owl eyes" -- is that not the funniest thing you've seen!

And here they are alone so you can actually see them. The front and one to the right were covered with American Crafts paper (from Archivers) and embellished with ribbon and some a tag. I love the new curly tag punch from SU! The box on the left is covered with Bella Rose paper ... it is so cute and cheery!

And lastly, for today, is a little PMS (Pamper Me Silly) Kit. I have two of these to sell. They are small tin lunchboxes from Joann's and I used PMSabella on the outside. The poem on the back reads:

We all have "one of those days" from time to time.

When you are feeling sad, mad or irritable with no rhythm or rhyme!

Don't Despair!

Don't pull out your hair!

Turn to your P.M.S kit for a quick repair.

Inside you will find lots of goodies to make you feel divine!

So hopefully everything will be better in no time.

And I also found some good BLOG CANDY ... check out Susie's and Jenny's

Happy Craftin'!

I have emerged from the basement ...

long enough to give you another sneak peek at my craft show items. My back is killing me, my kids were in their pjs all day and my house is not as neat and tidy as I'd like it to be. But I am making good progress on the craft show. I am just not sure how much I should be taking with me. So I guess I will just keep working until the day before. So ... drum roll, please ... here they are:

These glass ornaments are so easy to make and look so sweet. I just love this Snowman Nativity set from TAC.
These are lollipop Halloween treats made from a very old SU! set that I still think is adorable. I don't get tired of it since I use it only once a year.

I saw something similar to these on SCS and just thought they'd be a big hit at the craft fair. They are kid oriented thank you notes that they can fill in the blanks on. I made six different sets of five cards with matching stamped envelopes.

I have been so anxious to try this pinecone paper ornaments. I found the instructions last year and even bought the styrofoam balls ... but by the time I got around to them I was tired of holiday crafts so tucked them away in the cabinet. They were easy and so cute. I do need to invest in a thimble though ... ouch!

I also really wanted to try to to make these cute tic tac holders. I thought about selling "Cold Play" but this set came in handy for these so I will probably keep it. My kids are addicted to tic tacs right now so were super excited to see them used in this way. I was inspired to try to make them into little purses. Too cute ;)

Well, time to get the kids in bed and turn on the presidential debate ... and of course, continue to craft! What do you think of my stash so far? Thanks for looking!

Craft Show, October 25th

I have committed myself to doing my first ever craft show at Messiah Lutheran Church in Weldon Springs on Saturday, October 25th from 9am - 3pm. I hope that if you are local you will come check me out. I am very nervous and have been working my fingers to the bone to get ready. I am still not even close, to be honest, but still have some time so am not in a full-fledged panic yet. I am including a picture of just a few of the things that I will have available for sale at the show. Other than getting ready for that, I have an order for birth announcements that need to be completed, Teagan's birthday invitations and our family Christmas cards! Things are a bit crazy, as I am sure they are for everyone. I know that I have been MIA from my blog since returning from vacation pretty much so just wanted to pop in. I hope to be able to begin posting some every day or so again. Thanks for your patience :) Any suggestions, advice, comments on doing crafts shows would be much appreciated.

Tagged ....

I have been tagged by Bridgett so here goes:

The rules:

1.) Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2.) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3.) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4.) Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The facts:

1.) I am the oldest of four kids
2.) I have a puppy named Rocky -- my third child
3.) I have lived in 5 different states and have moved 12 times in my life
4.) I have my own Virtual Assistant business and an Etsy Store
5.) I have not been crafting in almost a week! Ugh!
6.) My aunt made me a sock monkey when I was 6 months old and I still have it!
7.) My pride and joy is my husband, and our two children

I think everyone I know has been tagged so I am going to skip that part of it :) This was fun, though! Be sure to check out Bridgett's blog.

Instead of tagging someone else, why don't you leave me a comment and share a fun fact about you!

I really have been crafting ....

Here are some things I have been working on:

An altered composition notebook using some of my new TAC stamps. I am going to have a few of these at a craft show I plan to do in October. I also made a matching beaded pen. I did these while I was on vacation and the pen is currently MIA, which is why its not shown. Hopefully I can find it!




I purchased some plain albums with the thought of embellishing them. I was so nervous, though, that it took some time for me to use them. They have been in my basement for months! I finally got brave and did a couple. The baby girl one was fun to do because I got to dig around and use some embellishments and paper that I was saving for God knows what ... I guess this :) Now, if I just knew someone having a girl soon. I think this will make its way to Etsy or the craft show, too.


On this linen album I wanted to try rub ons. I had read on SCS that they would work but, again, I was a little nervous. I think it turned out so cute. I am really pleased. I stamped the word FAMILY in stazon ink and it isn't as crisp an image as the rub ons, but I don't think it takes anything away from the album at all. I got these rub ons at an SU! garage sale so you may see more of these in the future.

And these cute little suckers I am SO EXCITED about :) They are coasters covered in last year's Halloween Designer Series paper, and embellished with binder clips to hold the pictures and stand the coaster up. Viola' the most adorable frame. I am in the process of making some of these for Christmas, too. The pictures is one of my favorites of Teagan right before he turned one. Does he not make the cutest monkey with a binkie you ever saw?? I am also using this as my entry into Shelli's SoShelli Creative Contest for October where her challenge was to create something for Halloween.
I hope to get some more stuff done soon. I have been trying to get caught up on cleaning and straightening after vacation so the basement has not been used much. I am itching to be creative, though, so maybe tomorrow.


Thanks for looking! G'night!