Prairie Paper & Ink

AmyR's 22 Week Update! VIDEO

LOTS of people requesting this so here it is :)

 

To watch on YouTube click HERE <----click!

And if you've missed any of the previous card posts (as I've been posting a ton lately) be sure to scroll down and check them out :)

A Peek Into My Life

My girls have been begging me lately to play Wii Mario Kart with them - and so I did the other night and thankfully my camera was handy and Tim was able to get this bit of video without Josie noticing. That kid cracks me up - and as hard as it is for me to admit (I'm a little competitive by nature) she can kick my @$$ at Mario Kart a good half of the time. Which is saying something b/c I'm not *horrible* at video games (just don't ask my hubby for his opinion LOL).

She gets very into it - and our cat makes a bit of an appearance too:

 

You can watch it on YouTube HERE <------click!

And if you missed it I posted a new card late last night so be sure to scroll down and check that out.

I'm An Auntie! (again)

A couple of days ago my younger sister had her baby - a little boy they named Wesson who weighed in at 7lbs 3oz - he's just a tiny little thing!

I went to see her yesterday and got to cuddle the little guy for a bit - man you forget how tiny your kids were!! 

And of course I had to make her a card and had a couple little gifties for him as well:

I picked up these little blue sandals and the socks a couple of months ago - they're SO small (this is an A2 card - 5.5" x 4.25" to give you an idea!) so I had to buy them.

I made the card to go with the gift - so I pulled out my The Best sentiment set.

The 'sweet, small & wonderful', 'baby', and 'boy' are all separate stamps. I inked them up with white pigment ink and stamped them onto kraft cardstock. I embossed them with white detail embossing powder (I chose detail because it's finer and the smaller words wouldn't come out as clear if I had used regular embossing powder).

I colored in the 'baby' letters with Copics using B01, B02, B04 and W3. You can check out my post HERE where I did a video showing how I faded the colors the same way I did on these. 

I used my Spellbinders Label 11 Die to cut the sentiment out.

I used my CuttleBug Swiss Dots embossing folder on the pale blue cardstock, and added some May Arts Textured ribbon. 

I pulled out several buttons from my stash and sewed them onto the cardfront.

On the inside of the card I used one of the sentiments from my Baby Sentiments set - I stamped it onto kraft cardstock with white pigment ink and embossed it with the detail white EP. I then used the largest of the Labels 11 dies to cut it out and adhered it to the inside and that was it!     

Fishin'

Thought I would share my hubby's YouTube debut LOL!!

Tim and I went fishing a couple of weeks ago and met up with his brother and sister-in-law who came out on the boat with us for a bit before they had to head back home.

We had already been fishing for a couple of hours and Tim had already caught 4 fish - and I of course had caught nothing.

They pulled out the video camera and my sister-in-law posted some of it on YouTube:

For those wondering the fish he caught was a Northern Pike, also known as a Slough Shark or a Jackfish.

They have rows of tiny razor-sharp teeth - that's why he was being so careful trying to bring it up. Getting bit by one is NOT fun!!

I also took a couple of pics that day:

  

Mother's Day Post #3

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!!

I had an uneventful Mother's Day. Tim and I went to the city last night for the late showing of Iron Man 2 (I've seen the first one several times and couldn't wait to see the new one - I know I'm a nerd! It helps that Robert Downey Jr. is good eye candy though ROFLOL!! *wink*) and didn't get home 'till nearly 2 am - I loved the movie so it was worth it. Since the girls slept over at Tim's parents we both got to sleep in - THAT was a nice way to start the day. Since I started working out of the house and with both of the girls in school I rarely sleep in anymore.

Anywho - we had a quiet day and everyone is winding down before the girl's bedtime. They each made me cute cards for Mother's Day (or Mudder Day as Josie pronounces it LOL) and we got flowers from the restaurant where we went for lunch with Tim's parents and friends of theirs - so if I can keep the cat from killing them (she has a thing for plants! She's constantly clawing/ripping/chewing my houseplants! I barely had the pansies in the house more than 20 minutes before she was attacking them!!) I'll be planting them as soon as it warms up enough here.

SO - I still have a few more Mother's Day cards to share that I made last weekend so here goes:

This one was SUPER quick and simple - the patterned paper (all of these were made with the Basic Grey Kioshi papers - I was on a roll with them!) did all the work!

I used my SU! Bigz Butterflies dies to cut out the butterflies and attached them with Kioshi brads.

The ribbon is May Arts satin.

The sentiments are from my All Women set.

The inside was kept simple - I lined it with patterned paper then stamped another sentiment from the All Women set onto a piece of cardstock then trimmed it and adhered it.

Kioshi patterned paper, and Kioshi brads and stitched brads. The Primas were from my stash. The lace is the Kioshi self-adhesive ribbon doilies - SO quick and simple to add a bit of wow to the card!

More sentiments from the All Women set.

The little floral strip is also from the self-adhesive ribbon doilies pack.

This one I really liked - mostly b/c the layout was simple as I wanted to focus on the sentiment.

I combined the 'Mother' from the All Women set with a verse from the Friends Sentiments set - it just *worked* YKWIM?

The inside was kept simple. With some of the cards I purposely left off the 'Happy Mother's Day' sentiment - as they can be used for any occasion - birthday, thank you, thinking of you, just something nice to give to your Mom :o)

I saved this one for last as it was my favorite one out of the bunch I made.

I used my Spellbinders Blossom dies (all but the largest one) and cut the shapes from 2 of the patterned papers. I sponged the edges with SU! Perfect Plum ink to add some definition then attached them to the card with a Kioshi brad.

The dragonfly was a Martha Stewart punch - I punched it from heavy weight vellum then adhered it to the card with Mono Multi. It seemed to be lacking something so I covered it with Crystal Stickles - which worked perfectly!

Again I kept the inside super-simple by just lining it with more patterned paper and that was it.

**Side note - some of you that have followed my blog regularily over the past year (or more!) will remember that my mom crushed her foot in an accident several months ago now. I remember some of you asking how she was doing not too long ago.

She's been doing good! Her foot - well it was more her toes - 2 or 3 of them were crushed and had to have pins inserted - it was a gross and painful process and took FOREVER to heal. Since she runs a coffee shop (that serves food at lunch, plus baking that she does, PLUS she caters - seriously if you are ever travelling through Rosetown, Saskatchewan make sure to stop by Fresh Ground Coffee house on Main Street - you won't regret it!) she was never able to take enough time off to "put her feet up" - so that slowed down the healing process considerably.

The ONLY thing that sucks for her (and me) is that she might never be able to wear heels again. And if you knew my mom and saw the size of her shoe collection (heck **I** haven't even seen it - don't want to - I'd prolly be green with envy!! I get my love of shoes from her.) you'd know how much that would suck. And it sucks for ME b/c her feet are at least 2 sizes smaller than mine - so it's not like I could you know - help out and give some of them a good home *huge wink*!! But the fact that she's able to run around and whatnot at all is a good thing.

But yeah it's been roughly 6 months or so since? And she's active (LOL you should hear her running down the hallway when she's got things to do - people hear her and think it's some kid running around and nope! It's always her) and doing good. I don't have to help out at the coffee shop hardly at all now - maybe every rare once in a while.

She works pretty much seven days a week - a lot of people don't realise just how much time she puts in for her business. Thankfully she took today and tomorrow off for a bit of a break so I won't even see her 'till Tuesday.

I already got and gave her some stuff for Mother's Day weeks ago (I couldn't wait and gave it to her early b/c they were perfect for her) which drives her nuts. She HATES being given things early b/c then there's nothing on the actual day - but what she doesn't know is that I got her another present and will be giving it to her when I see her on Tuesday (and since she rarely goes online and I don't even think she's ever been to my blog - she's not a person who is familiar with technology - I generally have to walk her through it step-by-step - there's little-to-no chance of her seeing this) so she'll get an extra surprise.**

That's all for my rambling today!! Happy Mother's Day again everyone!   

Happy Easter and the View

Just a quick post (#2 for today so be sure to scroll down and check out all my latest posts if you've missed them!).

This morning we all got dressed up and took some family pictures before Tim's parents picked the girls up for church.

I got the girls' Easter dresses from Costco (for CHEAP!! I LOVE Costco for stuff like this) - Veronica picked them out when we were there after her dentist appointment last month.

Anywho here's one of the pics that made the cut:

 
Happy Easter from my family to yours!

I also wanted to post this as well:

This was the view from my kitchen window as the sun was setting:

 
Another reason why I love living in Saskatchewn - they don't call it "The Land of the Living Skies" for nothing!!  

Personal Stuff and Some Cards

**you can scroll down to the dotted line if you want to skip all my personal chatter!**

I have been MIA for almost a week - sorry everyone! 

It's been a crazy week - Tim's parents are on vacation (they got an AMAZING deal and are in Hawaii for 2 weeks) so Tim and I both have had to be in constant contact to make sure one of us can pick up the kids on time from daycare and whatnot (between the two of us we work over 100 hours a week - that's why it is wonderful that his parents can pick the girls up for us when we're working late or when something happens etc).

On top of that both girls have been sick off an on for the past week and a half, and although I tried fighting it I came down with a monster cold and spent all of yesterday on the couch. I still feel pretty rotten but I've got too much to do!!

A lot of you have asked for updates on my mom - she's doing really good. Her toes have healed from where she had the pins (the pins were taken out the week before Christmas) and her biggest issue is not being able to bend them (she's going to work on that to see if down the road she'll be able to but as of right now she can't bend them at all). 

She obviously also can't wear anything with heels - which if you know my mom is a big deal. She prolly owns more than twice as many shoes as I do (heck prolly more than 3 or 4 times!!) and the majority of them are heels (she's on the shorter side (compared to me anyway! I am 4 or 5" taller than her and my sister) so she always wore heels). She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to wear heels again (and if I wore the same size of shoes as her I'd get a sick sense of satisfaction out of it b/c then *I* could wear them BUT she's got way smaller feet than me!) so she's resorted to anything that's flat and COMFORTABLE.

But anywho she is doing good :o)

My brothers are doing good too - my older brother (the one that got laid off right before Christmas) found a good job at one of the potash mines outside the city. There is a chance it could turn into a better job down the road as he has a lot of experience and the person above him might retire soon. And my younger brother and his family got moved into a new apartment and things are settled down and as of right now no more drama!!

OH and yes I had my dentist appointment last Monday for that wonderful root canal and it went fine. My dentist really is fabulous as I didn't feel a thing - it was just uncomfortable as it was in the very back tooth on the top. Then of course I was frozen for several hours after that and had to go to a few places to get supplies/groceries etc etc and I looked like I had had a stroke with one side of my face all frozen.....I got a few funny looks from people but oh well!

...........................................................................................................................................................

I've made a few cards over the past week and a half and finally finished them, took the pics and whatnot and I'll share these ones with y'all today:

I had stamped out some of the images from Diane's Valentine Critters set ages ago and had colored them while I was at work. I just love all the "critters" in this set - I think they're all so CUTE!!

When I got them home I decided to add red Stickles to all the hearts, then after that had dried I cut them all out (you can check out this post I did on detail cutting (it includes a video) HERE <----click!) 

All of these cards are little 3x3" notecards - I don't have envelopes for them but if I need to I will just make some later on.

I used some patterned paper from the haul I got not too long ago and of course had to use some of the new ribbon too!

(here's a direct link to this exact ribbon I used - Pink with Thin White Stripe)

The yellow paper is just one of the opposite sides of one of the patterns - I really love how this AC collection has this pop of yellow. It's unexpected yet it just works... 

I don't have the list of Copics I used on the bunny image but I do have the ones I used on the bear and the elephant.

COPICS USED:

Bear:

E33, E35, E37, R83, R85, R27, R29.

Elephant:

C3, C5, C7, 0, R83, R85, R27, R29.

I used my circle and scalloped circle nestabilities to "frame" each of the critters, and attached each of them to the circles with dimensionals.

The little pink braddy things are Bella Dots - when I was digging through all my embellishments I came across them and they were the perfect color so I glued three of them to the bottom right corner of each card :o) 

I didn't bother taking pictures of the insides this time - all I did was line the insides with one of the pale pink solid sides of the AC patterned papers and that was it! 

Cookies and I Survived Christmas!

Well I survived the weekend! I am EXHAUSTED though!

And here is the picture of the shortbread cookies that I made - honestly they don't look near as nice as they should - I was rushed and tired and just wanted to get them DONE - so I just whipped them together - drizzled on the white chocolate (Wilton's white chocolate wafers I melted in the microwave) and sprinkled on the crushed candy canes.

A hint if you decide to make these yourself - they look MUCH better when you use just red and white candy canes - I only had the red/white/green ones on hand - so when they're crushed the colors start to look muddy and it's not as pretty!

They taste great though so that's all that really matters :o)

Christmas day with my family was all craziness as usual - there's over 20 of us now and half of that are all under the age of 11. I was able to pull my older brother aside and give him one of the gift cards for groceries - he normally wouldn't accept something like that but since he doesn't know who gave it to him there was nothing he could do about it - and I know he'll put it to good use - so thank you!!

With my younger brother and his girlfriend I was able to give the gift cards and diapers and baby items plus everything that I had bagged up for them to use. When we got it all packed into mom's vehicle they barely had enough room for themselves LOL! After having 2 girls myself I had a LOT of clothes to give to them which was nice - they really needed them and I needed to get them out of here so it was a win-win for both of us.

Christmas for us was great - Tim and I celebrated with the girls on Sunday and it was nice. We had got the girls a doll house (from Costco for cheap!! Of course we had to put the whole thing together and that took some time) and cleaned and re-arranged their room so that they can actually play in there from now on (more a gift to ME - I'm tired of all their toys and whatnot being strewn throughout the house) and the look on their faces when they saw the doll house was priceless.

Anywho I hope y'all had a fabulous Christmas and have a wonderful New Year!

I'm back at work early tomorrow morning and will be working all day for the next 3 days and am SO looking forward to New Years weekend - hopefully I will get the chance to clean the house (it looks like a bomb went off - all this hosting and having family over has given me little time to get anything else done - but I'll get to it all eventually).

I'm headed to bed - it's all I can do to keep my eyes open to finish this post!!
 

This has to be a really quick post! It's after 7 pm and I'm right in the middle of baking shortbread cookies - I haven't done ANY holiday baking this year (insert sad face!!) and I am determined to at least get this batch of cookies done! I make them special though - I put them through my cookie press and make them into christmas tree shapes, then I drizzle white chocolate over them and sprinkle crushed candy canes on top - YUM!! I'll take a picture of them when I'm done to post (at least then y'all will have SOMETHING to look at!!)

Anywho - both Tim and myself had to work today, and right now him and the girls are at his parents having supper - so I've got the house to myself. I've got the Christmas music on top volume and you can smell the shortbread - it FINALLY feels like Christmas!!

My mom was also over after we were all done work and helped me do a bunch of prep for tomorrow so that I won't be running around (as much!) trying to get everything done for Christmas dinner!!

I also wanted to say a HUGE huge thank you to ALL of you. Not only for donations for my brothers (and I will be personally thanking each person who sent $$ - this weekend I plan to respond to those e-mails!) but for all the well-wishes and kind comments. It means SO much to me!! I went and got a couple of gift cards from the grocery store for them and also got a couple of big packs of diapers and baby wash and baby lotion and whatnot with the money that was donated - that will be a huge help.

OK I have to run - I still have cleaning to do, presents to wrap, and things to get ready!! I have three full days of Christmas to get ready for (tomorrow with my extended family, Saturday with Tim's side of the family, and Sunday with just Tim, myself and the girls - that when we plan to have our own little family Christmas) - so lots and lots to do!!

I hope you all have a VERY Merry Christmas!! HUGE ((((((hugs)))))))!!!

Gotta run before the cookies burn!!

UPDATE

Wow - I am speechless at all the love and support that's been pouring out since my last post just a few hours ago!!

I had only meant to update y'all on why I've been so quiet and in no way was trying to drum up support or anything like that (not that ANYONE said anything I just wanted to add that!!) and I've been getting comments and e-mails asking how you can help!

First off I just want to say THANK YOU - even just the offer of wanting to help is appreciated. It really means a lot to me!

Second - if you want to send money for my brother and his family you are more than welcome to do so. The easiest way is to just send it via PayPal and you can do that through the Tip Jar on the right sidebar here on my blog.

There is a spot during the process where you can add a note and that's where you can say it's for my brother and his family etc etc.

Any money that is donated to them I will withdraw and will get them gift cards from Superstore (a large grocery chain here in Canada), WalMart etc etc so that they can use them to get groceries/diapers/clothes etc. A good friend of mine has given them a carseat and I have a stroller/carseat combo that I'm giving them so that is helping them a TON already (carseats are so expensive!). Plus between my sister and myself we have a bunch of baby items/clothes and whatnot that will be given to them as well.

Ummmm right now I guess that's the best way to help. I have had a couple of people asking if they can mail a cheque and that is fine as well. I would just have to send you my mailing address (they don't have a mailing addy at this point - they aren't or can't go back to their apartment and at the moment are staying with her grandmother - we might try getting them out to stay at my mom's but everything is still up in the air at this point) and would do the same thing - deposit it and then buy gift cards with the $$.

Also a couple people have asked if it is gang-related. Honestly I don't know. My brother isn't in any gangs that I know of BUT I do know he has done a lot in the past that makes me think this might be a retaliation of some sort. He has been wanting to change for a while now - I just hope and pray that this was the final wake up call b/c it could have been SO much worse!! The gang situation in Saskatoon is a lot worse than people realize and there are a lot of terrible people out there - I can't say much more than that as I obviously am not going to get myself or my family involved.

Anywho - that's more than my 2 cents on this subject for today. I need to get going as I was planning on buying groceries today for Christmas and that will be a trip in and of itself! Plus I want to make Christmas dinner extra-special this year - cruddy things have happened but gosh-darn-it everyone will get fed and fed WELL at my house!!

I appreciate the concern, the positive thoughts and well-wishes and prayers so very much. All of you guys are such wonderful people!

(((((hugs)))))

More Drama As Always!!

And yet again all my grandiose plans of stamping and creating so that I actually have some eye candy to post on here fell to the wayside this past week - but it wasn't my fault.

Not only did I work 12-ish hour days - we had some family drama to contend with as well.

My older brother was laid off at his job (one week before Christmas - nice) - the company he works for (he's a machinist and took 2 or 3 years of school and training for this job) hired 30 immigrants and laid off 7 Canadian workers last week. I feel horrible for him - what a rotten thing for him to deal with.

As if that weren't bad enough - my younger brother's apartment was broken into the other night. Thank god they weren't home (him and his girlfriend have 2 little girls - a 19 month old and a newborn) because the criminals bear maced the place (think pepper spray but a LOT more powerful). When they realized no one was there they trashed their apartment and stole everything - the Christmas presents, the carseats for the girls, their clothes - everything.

My family is trying to get things together for them as they have nothing right now (and no they didn't have insurance - he's only 21 and what they had wasn't really "worth" a whole lot - but it's all they had). 

I've been going through our house setting aside all I can spare to give to them, thankfully we all have girls on my side of the family (I have 7 neices plus my own 2 LOL) so there will be plenty of little girl clothes - and I never bothered to sell off all my baby stuff (not that I've been planning anything - I've just been too busy to bother so it's all in the garage) so we should hopefully be able to get them back on their feet.

With all this going on I obviously haven't had a chance to even think about stamping let alone answer e-mails or anything else!

Sorry for the rather depressing post!! Sadly that's my life at the moment - but it does make me VERY thankful that Tim and myself have jobs, that we have a roof over our heads and that our children are healthy and happy and SAFE. I may be more busy than I could have imagined right now and can hardly think straight - but I'd rather be crazy-busy than be the opposite!! 

Even though I seem to be tempting fate EVERY time I say that I hope to be stamping again SOON and will hopefully be posting something creative right away - I WILL say it! Tim was helping me clean the house today and I don't work tomorrow so hopefully between all the pre-Christmas cleaning and prepping I have to do I can sneak in a little creative time and post something for y'all here!

Thanks for bearing with me and all the drama of the past few weeks - I really appreciate all your comments and support!

*mwah*

As Requested...(warning! Very long-winded post!)

At the end of this post I've included a picture of my white Christmas tree with pink ornaments that I've got in my dining room. You can scroll past all my blah, blah, blah if you want to skip all the personal stuff!!

Before I get to that though - HUGE apologies for being pretty much MIA for how many weeks now?? Between my salon downtown, my family, housework, and just LIFE in general lately I don't have near enough time to get anything done!

I haven't stamped in WEEKS - literally every time I sit down for a little "me" time something happens to interrupt me.

Case-in-point: I was going to stamp this weekend - Tim's work Christmas party was Saturday night and I don't work Saturdays so I thought I'd spend the early afternoon stamping and whatnot.

I was sitting in my studio for no more than 10 minutes when I got a frantic phone call from one of my sister's friends. She was babysitting my nieces while my sister was out of town getting some Christmas shopping done and whatnot when the youngest cut one of her fingers pretty deep.

With my sister being 45 minutes away I was the closest family around to go to the hospital as the friend can't handle needles/blood/all that fun stuff.

So I packed up my kids, took them to Tim's parents earlier than planned and spent the next couple of hours waiting for a doctor at the hospital.

Thankfully the cut wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was, and my sister got back before the doctor even showed up - so we both got to deal with the traumatized 18 month old while the cut was glued by the doc (I was praying that stitches wouldn't be needed b/c that would have been even worse!). She will be totally fine as she was moving her finger and whatnot so the cut wasn't super-deep.

SO - that was my excitement over the weekend. But I'm starting to wonder why something always seems to happen when I want to STAMP!!??

Needless to say by the time I got home it was time to start getting ready for Tim's work's Christmas party. It's the one night a year we get to go out and have fun and sleep in the next morning!

This year it was at the curling rink - blech. I do NOT like curling at ALL - and I especially wasn't going on ice when the temps outside were near -50C (That's about -58F - that's not a typo!! It was a freaking COLD weekend!!)  with the windchill. The curling rink is literally a block from our house otherwise we wouldn't have even gone in that type of weather! Plus there was a lounge area where everyone could eat/drink/hang out and it was at least warm in there - though way too small for the amount of people that were there.

I also refused to curl b/c the x-mas party is the one night a year when I dress up! It was too cold to wear anything dressy so I stuck with nice jeans and shirt (with a hoodie to keep warm!) but I did wear my purple 4" heels LOL!! I used them as my excuse for not curling (I had brought boots but kept them hidden as I was determined I wasn't curling!).

Regardless we all had fun though - but I made sure to pass around a few ideas for next year as to what they should do for the Christmas party - so maybe it will be a WARM activity!! My #1 suggestion was to have it at the local bowling alley and it be glow bowling and an '80's theme (I know I'm a total nerd but I think it would be SO fun!!) - so we'll see what happens.

I could go on and on - I haven't "chatted" on here with y'all in forever!! I was going through withdrawls!

I'm glad you guys liked my glitter and re-inker ornament tutorial video :o) I'm finally done all the ornaments I had sitting around the house - some from last years sale LOL.

AND - like I said here's a quick pic I took of my white tree:

It's actually a different tree than the one I had last year - that tree was OLD and one whole side of it was yellow (I got it from a friend of my mom's). I had bought tons of white shimmery garland last year to try and fill that old tree and help cover the white but in real life it was pretty sad looking.

Then this year I saw this tree at a local store - in real life it is SO pretty. 6.5 feet high and it's actually shimmery!! When I first saw it I fell in love - but there was no way I could buy it as the original price of it was ridiculous (way more than I paid for my huge green tree in the living room that I got at Costco - on SALE of course!) - it sat in the store all by itself until a week or two ago when I found out it was on sale for almost half price! Woot woot!! So of course I got it *grin* 

AND it's pre-lit which was a big bonus as my lights are getting old too and it is SO difficult to find white wire Christmas lights! Everything is LED now and I searched EVERYWHERE for white wire and came up dry - all I found was the icicle style lights for outside.

I've also been searching for PINK lights (of course!!) on white wire for this tree - and THAT has been a pain as well. I looked everywhere and even had people check to see if they could order them in for me and NO ONE had them! I've been looking for a couple of years now and didn't think I would ever find them!

I finally did some online searching (and even that was slim picking!!) and found some. I didn't think they would show up 'till after Christmas but they came a few days ago! I didn't want to have to UN-decorate the tree to get the lights on so I just wrapped them around as is LOL.

I know it looks rather pathetic now - but this tree is still a work in progress. I plan to get/make more ornaments for it and I am now on the hunt for a pink tree skirt (something I will prolly have to make as well- I know one of the department stores in the city might have some as they seem to get in some really funky ornaments and in weird colors - but unless I can get things on a really good sale I won't buy them as they are pretty pricey!!).

Here's some of the snowflake ornaments that are on the tree as well:

If you click on the pictures it will take you to the original posts I did and explains how I made them.

Small snowflake ornament <-----click!
 

Large Snowflake Ornament <----click!

I hope y'all enjoyed this (very long-winded!) post!

I love Christmas - and I love my two Christmas trees .I didn't even bother taking a picture of the other tree - I might try later - but it's HARD to get a good picture and it never does the tree justice!

Plus this year I put the main tree in the corner of the living room as I'm hosting for both sides of the family and I especially need all the space I can get with my side as there will be around 20 of us here!

Oh and as for the cat - she's getting pretty good at learning to stay away from the trees. I make a really loud hissing noise every time she tries to go under them and whatnot and she'll run every time she hears it.

We've pretty much settled on just calling her "Princess" even though I am STILL not happy with that name! She just doesn't LOOK like a Princess to me (although she acts like one of course - I caught her curled up on my lap top the other day b/c it was warm - and just the LOOK she gave me when I scooted her off of it....) - when I think of the name Princess for a cat I think big white and fluffy - total opposite of the skinny tabby nut we've got here.

I will say though that she is REALLY good with the girls. Josie has finally gotten over her issues with her and is constantly hauling her around and getting in her face and talking baby-talk to her (it's HILARIOUS) - and she just takes it. In fact she's been playing all day with her (LOL a few minutes ago I went to the bathroom and it looks like the cat had an accident in there - which is odd since we haven't really had ANY issues with her over that since we got the litter box. But I think that's as far as the poor thing got before Josie chased her down again and hauled her back to her room to play ROFLOL!!) although I think she's finally escaped and is napping somewhere warm where Josie can't get to her.....*grin*

K this post got WAY WAY longer than planned! Sorry! TTYL!

Another Crazy Week

Yesterday was Josie's 4th birthday (I still can't believe my youngest is 4 already!!!!) - we haven't done anything yet for it as we're having a party for her on Sunday (she is SO excited about that LOL).

Actually I shouldn't say that - Tim made cupcakes during his lunch hour and dropped them off at daycare for Josie to share with all the kids (pretty cute eh?). I had hoped to but ended up with a last minute booking and had to work - so he made them - and he prolly did a better job than me anyway (he's a way better cook than me - I can admit that!!).

I'm also glad we had planned on having it this weekend as the poor kid got sick last night and is still sick today.

I had to stay home this morning to be with her as she's too sick to go to daycare, then Tim is coming home for the afternoon so that I can go to work.

Here's my poor birthday girl:

She fell asleep on the couch right after we got back from dropping Veronica off at school. It didn't take the cat very long to figure out that curling up with her was the warmest place to have a nap!

Speaking of the cat - we still haven't named her. The girls call her kitty (and Josie still at times calls her Princess Sparkles LOL) and I just call her 'that cat'. No one can agree on a name and so far nothing seemed to be "it" - so we'll see if we ever settle on a decent name!

Anywho just thought I'd share this little update for now. I had hoped to make a card or two while I'm here but my stamp room is a DISASTER right now - and I can't create in a mess like this! So I'm going to clean up as much as I can this morning then hopefully get back to crafting ASAP!!
 

Shocking I Know

I actually stamped today!!

AND I actually got a card done!

Yes, only ONE card.

Between dropping V off at school then picking her up, running an errand for my mom, dealing with a miserable 3-year-old doing a little house cleaning (why I felt I NEEDED to really clean the stove top today is beyond me....)and chasing that d**n cat out of my studio - I'm impressed that I got even the ONE done!

Speaking of the cat - here's a pic of her that I took today:

**notice the sock in her bed?? This cat has a thing for socks. She just goes nuts and attacks them whenever they're left out. And this one she appears to have taken full possession of LOL**

I REALLY think we need to come up with a new name for her. I refuse to call her "Princess Sparkles" (more often it's "that d**n cat" LOL) and the girls don't even call her that anymore either - they just call her "kitty". We need a normal name for her - any suggestions??

OK on to the card - as some of y'all know tonight is release night over at All That Scraps - all the November stamps will be up right away actually (10pm EST is when they go on sale!) and one of those sets is by me - called Christmas Card Greetings.

So I definitely had to make at least one sample using my new set - and had to use some of the other soon-to-be-released stamps - I just had a heckuva time trying to choose which stamps to use!

I decided to go with the Holiday Swiss Pixies - so here's the first card I've finished so far:

I also pulled out all my new My Mind's Eye Colorful Christmas papers and whatnot that I ordered weeks ago - it's been sitting in the box it arrived in ever since so I was happy to finally pull it out and use it!

This card also took forever b/c it's been HOW long since I last stamped?? It feels like forever - but it's been a good couple of weeks - maybe more......so yeah things just weren't working like they usually do (more proof that one needs to stamp OFTEN! *grin*).

I stamped this Swiss Pixie onto CCD White cardstock that I die cut in a circle and colored her in with Copics before I masked her and airbrushed the green around her.

COPICS USED:

E50, E51, R20, E25, E27, R39, YG25, R83, BG05, BG07, N1.

And then of course I had to bling her up with a bunch of Stickles.

The sentiment from the Christmas Card Greetings set was stamped onto a circle of pink cardstock that I trimmed with my paper trimmer before adhering it below the Swiss Pixie.

I added flower and felt snowflake from my stash that I attached with a MME brad.

The little bauble-thingies (the name of them escapes me at the moment) in the bottom right corner of the card are from Stamping Bella.

For the inside of the card I added more MME patterned paper along with a piece of white cardstock I die cut with one of my nestabilities dies.

I finished it off by stamping one of the (many!) companion sentiments from the Christmas Card Greetings set and that was it!

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Oh and another update on my mom - she's doing fine. She's got a full cast on - all the way up to her knee and she can't put any pressure on her foot for the next two weeks. So she's hopping on one foot prepping and baking and catering and all that as usual (if you knew my mom this wouldn't surprise you). She definitely has to take time out to rest and DOES. Now that she HAS to maybe we'll finally get the chance for me to do her nails and pamper her a bit (since a pedicure is no longer an option - at least for a good while) as she's been wanting to get her nails done for weeks now and has just been too busy.

Another Quick Update

Thank you all again for the well-wishes for my mom!

She had surgery on her foot on Friday - there was more than one break and they couldn't be set properly so the specialist had her in for surgery.

And of course my home phone line is completely down (I've been having issues with the phone for MONTHS now and when I finally couldn't take it anymore and contacted the company - they sent someone out to "fix" it last week and guess what - it worked for like 3 days and now I have NO working phones in my house!! But at least I have internet LOL. I have to wait 'till Monday to get it fixed!) - so I've only been able to use my cell phone.

I called mom to make sure everything was OK and that her surgery went OK (she said it did but then said she had a horror story to tell me about the surgery - but wouldn't tell me till we can talk face to face as she doesn't like me "wasting money" by using my cell - typical mother *grin*) - and hopefully I will be seeing her tomorrow.

Oh and for those that asked HOW it all happened - she was trying to move a HUGE (like 5 or 6 feet high) mirror that weighed 50-60 pounds and it slipped and came down on her foot and crushed it. How she managed to do that without screaming or swearing a blue streak (as I would have done - y'all would have HEARD me!!!) is beyond me but she was in massive pain.

ANYWHO - I've been running around like a crazy person for what - 2 weeks now?? I'm hoping things calm down for a good long time now.

I've been dying to create - I have a TON of new stamps sitting in my studio (a bunch are from the new All That Scraps release that's happening on Monday!! ACK!) and I just have been so drained that I couldn't stamp to save my life.

I didn't get anywhere near all the projects done that I wanted to for Halloween - but I am learning that there are a lot of things that I can't control and that rather than stress about unfinished projects or plans that aren't working out it's just better to cut my losses and move on. It's not an easy lesson but I'm working on it!

And at the moment since *I* can't post anything stampy y'all should definitely check out the ATS blog right now - there are a bunch of sneak peek posts up and if you leave comments on them you will be entered in to win the stamps being previewed!! Good luck!!

I'm exhausted - it's been a LONG day and I am secretly hoping that I can sleep in tomorrow - that would be beyond fabulous! And maybe just maybe I can get some time to stamp!! *crosses fingers*

~till later