ER not SU!

That is one beautiful head!!! She was being a kid and playing and running around last night and fell. She hit her head on the corner of the play area furniture and it was wide open and bloody. Gregg dropped us off at the ER (8:30 at night in the middle of a big snowstorm) and then went home to wait with the boys, no sense in having them wait around there too. Fortunately we only had to wait about 45 minutes and they were able to glue it (that would be the purple haze - good thing purple is her favorite color!) so no painful or ugly stitches! Did I mention we are meeting my entire family for family pictures on Thursday? Oh yea!! Maybe we could cover it with a tiara. That would be appropriate. :)

She must remember some of her previous experiences in the hospital last year because at one point she turns to the doctor and says quite boldly, "I'm not sleeping in this bed. I'm sleeping in my bed." He tried not to laugh and assured her she was right.

Nope, no stamping last night.

cold and flu season

It started with one and spread quickly. By Friday we all had different degrees of cough, fever, and aches. Carter missed three days of school and Owen just one but even Gregg missed a day and a half. So far Mak and I seem to have the least of it and trying to keep it that way. We have gone through tons of tissues, cough syrup, foaming soap and hand sanatizer. The upside (knock on wood) is none of it seems intestinal and there is school vacation this week to recover for everyone except poor Gregg.

I have not stamped in a while but I do have stuff to post.
This is the card I did for my workshops. The ribbon is awesome! I actually took a marker and just ran a stripe down the middle. I was so excited to have it match the card colors exactly!

This was just playing around. I tore some post it notes strips and blocked off an area. Then I stamped and colored. It was hard to see the defines space so I used a black marker to just free hand a boarder. The ribbon I just doubled up but the only problem there is I punched through the front and back.

ahhh, laxatives!

Not sure if that was appropriate but that is how we all feel around here. Life is good, huge success with Mak and now we just need to make sure things stay easy for a while!

Oh man, if I thought no one was reading this before, now you really have all deleted my blog!!! Sorry!

A card, I know, the real reason you came. Ok, how is this one? I had questions yesterday about my other card. I don't post full recipes for them, that takes too much time and most entries take less than five minutes or I could not do it. But feel free to send an e-mail or leave a comment if you have a question. This does use the new SAB set that matches the scallop punch. Gotta have that and it uses that new striped ribbon, yum!!! And did I mention that I FINALLY discovered we had a polka dot background? I think I just wrote it off as no biggy and then of course the infamous Cindy L. MADE me use, love it, and NEED it!!!! Now I put it on EVERYTHING. Hmmmm, Carter is still sick and will probably sleep a lot again today, he might look good with polka dots! :) Stamp anything that will stay still long enough!

Sick baby.

My baby boy is sick. He may be only a foot and a half shorter than me but I can still get him in my lap and rub his head. My poor Carter had a cough a week ago and it seemed to have gone away but he came home from school coughing yesterday. I'll keep him home today and baby him and maybe some rest will help him feel better and kick this. Rest and about a dozen books read aloud until my voice goes. Ugh, I hate it when they are sick, I just want to instantly make him all better.

On that note I probably won't get to stamping BUT... I have a card prepared just for you already! These are not colors I am used to but were dictated by those really cool fuzzy flowers in the tin and now it is really growing on me. Forcing me out of my comfort zone.

Tuesdays with Fran

It's Tuesday. How do I know? Lunch with Fran, my good buddy. Mak and I take a hot lunch over and chat with Fran every Tuesday. I am not sure who has more fun, Fran or Makenna. The two have their own little conversations. A two year old and an 81 year old. :)

I got chastised for lack of stamping samples. I have been stamping. But did not want to post my workshop stuff because that ruins the surprises for my gals (did I mention before there are 3 projects and one involves chocolate?) and I can not post my swaps yet and ruin the fun for those ladies but I did finish one and the other is in progress. So what is left?

MB says just go whip up some stuff with your sale-a-bration stamps before the time is gone. Well, why did I not think of that? I created 6 fast cards this morning in about an hour with A LOT of trips to the potty - yup that still continues with some slow success in the #2 area!

I will post a card a day until I run out or maybe keep going if I can get some more done. The only problem is I had to pull my stuff out of my workshop bag to use it and let's just hope I remember to put everything back in to go up North on Thursday! Yeesh, really test the brain.

This card uses a green rub on from SAB and then punched out flowers with silver brads were stuck on there. Having too much fun with rub ons. Want to try? See you Thursday!


This was a very kind gift. It is the top to a glass jar a friend made for me but with the awful weather she slipped on ice and dropped the jar and it shattered but I saved the beautiful top and that is a Sale-a-bration stamp!

Last cake

Done with cakes for a while. So tired of the frosting. The green and blue are darker than I usually like but I was working with some frosting I had leftover from the 12 pounds I made for the school party yesterday. The sugar feens should be happy! Just NOT bringing it home!

more quotes

Found another picture of those cute kid quotes. I promise as soon as I know how to get my hands on them I will let you know!


And don't ask about the potty training, we start fresh today. NOT giving up. Maybe try actually staying home. What a concept! Are you sick of the updates yet?

All dressed up and lookin' like a DORK!

Ok, I love to be a little silly and being in an elementary school totally makes it ok to do. So I found adorable socks and put on my red shoes to celebrate Valentine's Day with the parties at school. Except you could not see my socks so I rolled up my pants. Yup, total dork! Even went to Home Depot looking that way! My seminary kids never said a word. Must have felt bad that I was so dorky. But I gotta tell you, every time I looked down, it just put a big happy smile on my face!


Still potty training, and not an easy thing with the chaos of the day but only one accident is pretty good. (**WARNING!!! This next part is TMI but in the mom world you HAVE to share this info.) It has been three days since she has had a bowel movement. I bought prunes but she won't eat them so I cut them up and put them in chocolate cookies I made last night! YUMMY! YUCK, chocolate and prunes, the stuff of my nightmares! But no progress yet, that girl has got some serious control!

If I am lucky I might actually stamp tonight. Did I mention the swap I had due? Oh and a tag swap too but that is easy to whip up with no restrictions. ahhh!

Hope you enjoy your Valentine.

can you see it and potty day 2

Can you believe the little girl can hold it for 6 hours?!?!?! Yea, crazy, but she has peed twice on the potty and no accidents. It was a miracle! I know, still a lot ahead but I am enjoying the moment!

I found these stamps that are at CHA (Craft and Hobby Association trade show) that lots of blogs are talking about. They cracked me up. I hope you can see them. I am so going to need some of those! They are made by Inkadinkado!

If you can not read them, try this link and scroll down a bit to find the picture.
http://www.craftcritique.com/

Oh the potty!

All I want to do is stamp! Not clean the house, do my seminary lesson, cook for the elders tonight and especially run to the pottty with Makenna one more time. I sooooo get an A+ for whining today!

I went and got lots of fun incentives at the dollar store this morning. I take her in every 20 minutes and we sit there for at least ten and about 5 minutes later she has an accident. Oh did I mention I did not want to do more laundry either.

Lots of poeple tell me to wait until she is ready. Since the only thing I am sure of it is it will not be soon enough, I am trying another theory. If we go a couple of days and I have no diapers in the house then she will have to use the potty. Stop laughing. :) Crazier theories have been put to scientific tests and worked! We will see how much patients I have in a few more hours.

I did manage to squeak out a little stamping. I would run down and stamp and then sit and color on the bathroom floor. I have a swap to do with a new set and not sure of the color combo I want to use. So which color do you vote for? Come on, you can do it. Send me an e-mail or a comment and don't tell me she will potty train before college. :)

Two posts in one day!

Wow, what will you do? Does that make up for missing Monday?

Saw this design on a couple of other blogs and had to whip one up! Do you remember the old Chinese Fortune tellers we made in school? Turn it upside down, stick a pencil through the middle and voila! Kinda goes with the baby shower theme I did the invite for. Would look so cute on the tables. Probably should fill with chocolate but all I had was gold fish.

What are you waiting for? Go make one. 8 1/2 inch square paper and use a bone folder, cardstock is way tougher than notebook paper!

It really worked!

The kids are home with a two hour delay this morning. I had planned to make and post a card but with no ideas of what I was going to do, that can be a long process. So I put the sketch book to the test. I picked a design layout, grabbed some stuff and made a card I did not hate in under 5 minutes while talking to my sister on the phone and nothing disasterous happened upstairs. Hmm, going to have to try this a few more times.

I took a tip from several cards I had seen lining all the layers with black and I liked the look, it pulled it together. The only hesitation was finding a circle big enough to use for the scallop background. I ended up using the round tab punch. I punched two, layered them at a 90 degree angle to make a full circle and you barely see the seems behind the scallop! FAB!!!

Take the kids to school time!

Busy Bee.

Yesterday was not what I had planned on. If you asked me Thursday what I was doing I would have told you that my husband and I would be in Boston, without the kids. :) But those plans changed almost as fast as we made them and that is ok. MB tells me everything is for a reason. The reason must be so I would have something to post to my blog? HA!

I actually did get a lot accomplished but I won't bore you with the whole to do list, just the blogable highlights.

First there was the cake. We had seen it made on our favorite cooking show. America's test kitchen on PBS on Saturdays. They made it look easier than it was. It was not hard, just time consuming. It is a butter cake, with lemon curd filling and I think they call it a 7 minute frosting (though it did take longer than 7 minutes). Kind of like Meringue. I have resisited the urge to cut into it. (Picture of that later- oooh, ther drooling!) We are taking it to my in-laws later today and I knew it would transport better over bumpy New England roads if I did not cut it. Hmmpf!

The second project was a lot of stamping but... I can't show you most of it. That would ruin the fun if you are in my clubs. But the teaser is, there will be three projects this month! Oh I just can not stop, I get too excited! You are going to L-O-V-E it!!!!

Here is at least one I can share. Can you see the sparkling glitter?

The last thing I was doing just before going to bed, as Gregg was saying, "Put down the stamping stuff and come to bed." I decided to make a sketch book. I think all my cards start to look the same. I grabbed an SU art book and started to draw different card designs. No laughing at the bad drawing. :) I was hoping if I only have a sketch instead of a picture I will not stick exactly to what they did and I will have more ideas. (I'll post a card I cased later! LOVE casing!) Now I need to make my book look FABULOUS on the outside.

Everything but stamping!

Why have I not posted? Because I have not stamped!!!!! I have done a ZILLION other things on that to do list I keep perpetually but not one of them involves stamping. Okay, I did go to that meeting last night and got lots of good ideas so those will come out this weekend- I hope!

Today I hate red, well red frosting anyway. I volunteered to help a friend and make an Elmo birthday cake. I never made them for my own kids. They always wanted to decorate their own cakes. Now I know why I do not like red or character cakes. I think he turned out pretty good for free handing. I would like to say my cake days are done for a while but I have another cake to do for the shower in two weeks. I am looking forward to that. Making a fondant baby!!!! and not a stitch of red in sight!

Enjoy Elmo, I have a lot more on that to do list to finish today!