aunt scrappy

Pink

2012-02-18T18:21:00.000-05:00

I just love the dress die from Lifestyle Crafts. This time I cut a dress out of white paper with white patterns on it. I then used a sponge to add the different shades of pink. And I found that little purse in with all my brads and eyelets.

I like that simple style, black, white and a touch of color.

I am still knitting the Tree of Light shawl, getting closer to the end. It's such a beautiful pattern. I can't wait to cast off and get a picture of it :)

We´ve had pretty nice weather in the last few days. My little one has had a whole week of 'non-sick' days. His first healthy week of the year. But now my older one is down with a flu of some sort. He's got high fever (103-104°F or 39-40°C). He spent most of the day in bed. Fortunately I was able to take little bro out for a while so big bro could rest, the weather was wonderful and our flowerbed seems to think it's spring time already.

We are expecting rain tonight and I think we'll have more flowers blooming after the weekend. I think they are coming up a week earlier than last year. We haven't had much of a winter so it doesn't really surprise me.

Well, I better check on my little patient, his meds seem to be working a little bit.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T10:54:00.000-05:00

I made two different versions of the same card.

I chose white, pink and gray as my Valentine's color combo this year. The stamps are all from Stampin'Up and the colored card stock too. I used white card stock from Papertrey Ink for the base.

My son didn't think it was enough to have "Love you" on the front so he added "I love you" there at the bottom. The cards are also sprayed with silver shimmery mist.

I'm not expecting any Valentine's day cards in the mail, I have never gotten a Valentine's card in the mail before and don't expect that to change. My hubby doesn't believe in celebrating V-day, or birthdays or any kind of special days so I don't expect any extra hugs or kisses from him today.

I did get some extra lovin' from our friends in Waynesville yesterday. I spent the whole day there and my boy's had a chance to be with their daddy all day....and they loved it. I heard them talking about "mommy-free Mondays". So I guess I should try to find things to do on my own on Mondays so they can get daddy-time. It would be nice to get a break every now and then.

Well, I gotta finish up the card for my boys, my 6 year old will get home early from school, all loaded up with candy I believe ;)

Brrr...

2012-02-12T11:44:00.000-05:00

Winter finally hit us here in the mountains. It snowed all day yesterday but it didn't stick to the ground. I would have liked to just stay indoors yesterday but my 6 year old had an OM practice (Odyssey of the Mind) in a cold barn so we had to bundle up and go there for about an hour. They have dress rehearsal this Thursday...yikes...if they could only stay focused on what they are doing and remember what to do. There are seven kids in the group, age 6-7, and they can not get any outside help on their project, not even from the coach.

It was so cold and windy last night. I think the squirrels found a hiding place in our attic and our heat pump couldn't keep up so when we got up this morning the temp in the house was 59°F (15°C). And in almost 4 hours it has only got up to 62°F (16.7°C) so the boys and I are bundled up and I baked a cake to try to warm up a little bit.

Anyway, I've got a girly confirmation card to show you. The stamps I used are all from Stampin'Up, I don't know if the top two are still in the catalog but I'm pretty sure the background stamp has been discontinued.

I've been using a lot of gray and white lately (with a dash of color). I've been reading a lot of Scandinavian interior design blogs and it seems that white and gray are very popular now. So that's where my inspiration comes from.

With Valentine's day coming up my 6 year old has been wanting to make V-day cards and I found this idea through Pinterest:

I took a picture of my son and got enough prints for his class. Bought lollipops, punched holes on top and under his fist and put the lollipops in.

And he made tags for the back, wrote down the kids' names and his name and stamped a heart using his finger. We just taped the tags on the back of the cards. This way we were able to make cards that were not too girly and he did not have to make 23 cards by hand (he would have preferred that to buying cards but I know he'd never be ably to finish all of them).

I made 4 V-day cards for the boys to send to 4 ladies in their life, I'll probably only post a picture of one of them since my 6 year old so kindly tried to make them look a little bit better by drawing/writing on the front of them. It apparently was not enough for him to have the inside and the back to draw/write on :( And I was not smart enough to take pictures before he got his hands on them.

I hope everyone is staying warm this weekend. I'm gonna go see if the cake has cooled off enough for a little bit of frosting.

Pink dress

2012-02-05T20:58:00.000-05:00

I have not bought much stuff for my card making in the last few months, I seem to have plenty to last me almost forever. But when I saw this dress die from QuicKutz/Lifestyle Crafts I just had to have it. I love making dress cards and it's more fun if you have different types of dresses to use. So now I've got a dress stamp, a dress template and a die.

I cut this dress out of a vanilla colored patterned paper and sponged the pink color on it. Making the color darker at the top and lighter at the bottom. The paper is shimmery and very easy to sponge on. The just a simple embossed background. This could be a birthday card, graduation card, confirmation or whatever you want it to be. Simple and easy.

I have been busy knitting in the last week, I finally got enough courage to start knitting the Tree of Light shawl. I've had a printout of the pattern for over a year and it just looked too hard....but guess what....it's pretty easy. I hope my shawl turns out as pretty as the ones I've seen on Ravelry. I haven't taken a picture of mine yet, I'm only halfway done but here's a link to a BLOG where you can see a picture of it. Or if you are on Ravelry you can find it HERE.

My little one got a couple of days off from being sick last week. We had a friend over to play with him on Thursday and Friday he got to go out with his big bro and play in the yard for about an hour. Well, wouldn't you know it, by Saturday morning he was sick again. Today there was so much sunshine and he and I were stuck at home all day. Indoors. So we've gone back to making train tracks, painting, beading and building with blocks. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping he'll sleep through the night. I had to get up in the middle of the night and give him medicine through his nebulizer last night.

At least his fine motor skills are ahead for his age.

Well, I've got a couple of birthday cards and Valentine's cards to work on tonight so I better get on with it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Wedding easel card

2012-01-30T08:56:00.003-05:00

We had a pretty nice weekend, it was chilly but warmer than usually in January. I got a little bit of yard work done, my bulbs are all a bit confused, I've got tulips, daffodils and crocuses coming up. My little one is still not up for going outside to play, I can't wait for warmer weather so he c an go out and play without getting sick again. It doesn't matter how much I bundle him up. He gets to take his brother to the bus stop in the mornings but that's about it :(

Anyway, I wanted to show you this wedding easel card, it's so not my style but I was thinking of wedding dresses and wedding cakes when I made it. It's got a lot of layers that I made with my nestabilities dies. I just wish I had had pink roses.

Yesterday we went for a Sunday drive. I had this place in mind that we saw while driving around on Thanksgiving. I wanted to take pictures back then but there were too many people around. Yesterday we didn't have the fall colors and the sun was getting to low in the sky but I gave it a try anyway.

It's such a beautiful spot and I will defenitely be going back for more colorful shots.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Tilda w. tulips

2012-01-25T22:32:00.000-05:00

The weather here this winter has been kind of crazy. Not crazy bad, just different, we get warm days and then cold days and then warm again. Warm as in spring like weather. So all my bulbs, tulips and daffodils are coming up 2-3 months too early, yikes.

So I thought this card was perfect for this post. The stamp is from Magnolia and the papers are from My Mind's Eye. I used ink from Stampin'Up to color in the image.

The weather today was pretty good, we had a chilli start but it got warmer as the sun came up. So in the afternoon my little one got to go outside to play for the first time in at least 3 weeks. The poor thing had to be bundled up, I don't want to take any chances. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping he'll be fine for a few more days at least.

Our yard is pretty big and it looks like we (or I) won't be done raking the leaves before fall hits us again. I tried talking my hubby into getting a leaf blower and he wouldn't do it. Well, I'm telling you, if I don't get help raking those leaves I'm going to have to go buy a leaf blower myself! We usually do this together but this year I've not been getting any help :( Except from my boys...hehem...jumping in the piles and spreading them all over the place again ;) This should have been a snow post but I have a feeling we wont be getting any snow this year :o That white stuff is busy keeping Iceland covered this winter (so glad I'm not there!).

Anyway, I still haven't finished that last confirmation card I talked about in my last post but I'm almost done knitting my son's socks :)

Have a great weekend!

C. C. Designs

2012-01-23T23:23:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late posting this. My little one is repeating last winter's sickness. He literally got one day off antibiotics before he got sick with a cold again. Which means both of us stay home all the time. He doesn't know anything else but it's driving me nuts being stuck at home. He's a little trooper. His coloring skills are improving and his speech has improved a lot too in the last couple of weeks.

Anyway, I do have a couple of cards to show you. I got out a C.C. Designs stamp that I've got and patterned paper from My Mind's Eye. I love this paper collection, it's called Quite Contrary.

Two cards, same style just different patterns from the paper pad. I managed to make a few cards this weekend and want to make a couple more before I send off a box to my mom. I've got the confirmation cards just about done, got the last one on my desk halfway done.

I am also knitting socks for my older son, striped (blue, red and orange) and he loves them. I'm only halfway done with the second sock, the first one took me too long to make.

I´m going to end this short post with a picture of my little COOL dude using his nebulizer.

Gotta stay cool, even if you're not feeling to good.

More male cards

2012-01-14T09:46:00.000-05:00

I'm excited to show you another design of mine. Another design I made as male confirmation cards.

I plan on making more of these. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the background and Nestabilities dies for the circles.

I decided to keep the color combo simple, white, black, gray and pale plum/bashful blue.

I'm really happy with these cards.

I wish I had more pictures to show but I've been pretty much stuck at home with sick little ones and been sick myself.

We're supposed to have pretty chilli weather this weekend but at least the sun will be out, that's a nice change from the rain we had last weekend and the first days of the week.

I hope you're having a great weekend!

Male confirmation cards

2012-01-07T09:50:00.000-05:00

My first post of the year, yay! I wanted to write it sooner but my little one has been sick for over a week now. He almost started the new year at the hospital but we managed to get his coughing under control after he'd been coughing non-stop for 2 hours and having a hard time catching his breath. Poor guy, I was hoping he was over his lung problems but now he's on some sort of steroid that he gets through his nebulizer and antibiotics for an earinfection. Not the best start of a year for him.

Anyway, I've got a couple of cards to show you. I'm a little bit proud of them. I've been wanting to make male confirmation cards (or any male cards for that matter) that are not girly and that stand out a bit. And I came up with this design and another one that I'm saving for another post.

My Cuttlebug and my Nestability shapes/dies came in very handy.

I drew the bow ties with a sharpie but come to think of it, I think I may have a stamp that could do the job.

What do you think? They don't have to be confirmation cards only, they could be graduation cards or even birthday cards.

I want to show you a picture of the last sunset of 2011. I was too late to actually see the sun go down but I noticed the colors in the sky and thought they were so beautiful.

And here's one of the last pictures I took of my boys in the year 2011.

I hope you all had a great start of the new year and that it just keeps getting better and better :)

Baby boy

2011-12-31T10:30:00.000-05:00

I can't believe 2011 is almost over, just a few hours left. We had a pretty busy year. I took so many pictures this year I don't think I have the time today to post pics from each month of the year like some bloggers. Not today. The little one is fighting a nasty cold and big bro is getting ready for a long playdate with a couple of his (girl)friends. They'll be going to the movies, playing and making crafts, I know he's going to love it. If the little one feels up to it after his nap today he might get to join them for a couple of hours.

There'll be no festivities tonight in this house hold, hubby is scheduled to work...as always...we might hear some fireworks but we never really see them from our house. I do have plans to watch the Reykjavik fireworks live on the computer tonight though.

The sun is shining today and I should take advantage of that and take pictures of the cards I've made recently. I've got a few ards in the making too, I got my stamps out yesterday after what feels like a long break. I do have a couple of baby cards to show you now though.

The stamps are from Inkadinkado. The papers are old from from Kelly Panacci.

I used Spellbinders dies and a Stampin'Up border punch.

I'm gonna go enjoy the sun while it's out.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!

Santa tags

2011-12-23T08:21:00.000-05:00

I went to a Stampin'Up workshop earlier this month and we made Christmas gift card holders

This santa giftcard holder was my favorite...lots and lots of glitter. It's made using punches and Sizzix dies mostly. I thought it was so much fun and decided to try and see if I could make something similar at home, using my tools. My Santa is a little bit smaller, perfect size for a gift tag.

The body, head and wreath are made using Spellbinders dies. The mittens are Sizzix, the hat and the beard are hand cut. It's not as pretty as the bigger one but it was still fun to make and my 6 year old made one of his own.

I managed to get one good picture of the boys for this years Christmas card, it was hard to get them to sit still and look up at the same time ;)

Happy Holidays to all of you :)

Wise men

2011-12-08T00:03:00.000-05:00

Not the usual Christmas colors. I just felt like trying something new. If that's possible when using old patterned paper.

The stamp is new to me. I think it's from Hero Arts, I've already packed my Christmas stamps and moved on to confirmation cards.

I'm not sure which card I like better but I do love that border punch (EKsuccess).

Christmas is around the corner and my older boy is getting so excited, he's been bugging me to put up the Christmas tree and when he saw I had cleared the corner where we usually put it today, he got super excited. The tree is still in the attic though. Maybe I'll get it down tomorrow....I'm just not looking forward to stringing the lights on....bleh...that's the worst part. But I am looking forward to having the tree up, decorated with the lights on....if only I could just snap my fingers for that to happen.

I've got a few Christmasy things I need to take pictures of (like gift card holders) when we get better and brighter weather. We've had a lot or rain in the last couple of days and it's currently snowing a little bit. But hopefully it won't be this gloomy in the next couple of days. Hubby is wanting me to take pictures for FindaGrave.com too. Which takes me back to this past Sunday. We drove to the nearest cemetery to look for a couple of old graves. It was late in the day just before sundown. My two year old was all over the place and I got tired of chasing him around after we'd been there for a while. So I took him back to the car, started the car and tried to warm it up for us while listening to Christmas music. After a while I felt the car was getting cold again and right at that moment my hubby came in and suddenly the car just died. We tried to jump start it but it just sucked the juices out of the charger. By that time it had gotten dark outside. My car didn't even have enough power to unlock the doors. Man did we get depressed, I've already spent more on fixing the car this year than the car is worth. Well, we had to leave the car at the cemetery and we actually left it there for a couple of days. Trying to think of a way to get it home without paying a fortune for a tow truck. We decided to try jumpstarting it again..... and wouldn't you know it...we had no problems getting the car home and it's working fine now! You can try all you want to explain to me what happened....I'm pretty sure it was a ghost teasing us!

Have a great weekend :)

Stampin'Up Christmas

2011-12-03T01:05:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Stampin'Up workshop at my demonstrators house. We made three Christmas cards.

We had the option of embossing the tree panel here but I decided to keep it simple. It did look good with the embossing though. We added glitter dots to the tree.

I really like the color combo here, the stripes look a little bit busy. I think I would not use patterned paper under the ribbon if I'd do this again but I still think it's cute.

This one is my favorite. Simple but classic. We made the patterns on the red and green panels, using red ink on the red one and green on the green. I think the stamp is just perfect, I with I could buy it as a single stamp (not in a set).

This week has been a bit busy. My 6 year old is having a hard time getting back on his sleep schedule after the Thanksgiving break. When he doesn't get enough sleep his mood is terrible and he gets mean.

He didn't fall asleep until after 9:30 pm tonight, same with the 2 year old but at least he takes a nap every day.

Tomorrow we've got a breakfast date with SANTA ;)

Baby girl

2011-11-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

I got out one of my Inkadinkado clear stamp sets the other day. I was in the mood for making baby cards.

On this card (the giraffe card) I added glitter using glitter paint and Crystal Effects. I don't really need the Crystal effects but I just wanted the glitter raised a little bit. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey and I cut out the image using a label die from Spellbinders.

Í added glitter to the little rabbit too, but this time I embossed it with Versamark and Iridescent Ice glitter from Stampin'Up. I used a border punch from EKsuccess, Prima flowers, Stampin'Up ribbon and Spellbinders' label die to cut the image. The green paper is from Basic Grey but I don't remember where the pink one is from, it's from my scrap pile.

I´ve got a couple of cards I'm working on but we'll see if I can get anything done tonight. My little one took a late nap and slept for almost 4 hours so he'll be staying up late tonight and his brother too. Maybe, just maybe that means I can sleep in a little bit tomorrow...I doubt it though.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T09:46:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers. Unfortunately I don't have a Thanksgiving card to show you, I didn't make one this year.

I do have this Hanglar card I made the other day.

The image is colored with SU inks. The patterned papers are from various Basic Grey collections.

And Here is a girlie Christmas card I made using my favorite stamp from Inkadinkado (My Mother's dress is the name of it).

I've got the turkey cooking in the slow cooker and waiting for the smell to fill the house. The sun is shining again after a couple of stormy, rainy days and my boys are getting along great (for about 5 min. at a time).

Hope your holidays turn out great and be safe while Black Friday shopping!

More wedding cards

2011-11-18T12:04:00.001-05:00

This wedding card is pretty simple but I really like it. The background paper is from Stampin'Up (possibly retired) and it's the same as I used in this post but I just kept it white this time.

The image is a stamp from the dollar bin I think at A. C. Moore, I can't find it in my crafty mess right now. I stamped the image, painted parts of it with glitter and then decided I wanted the whole image covered in glitter. Got out my heat gun and, versamark ink and my iridescent ice glitter and covered the whole image in glitter.

Here's another card I made at the same time, the image is from Hampton Arts. I covered it with UTEE and heat embossed it 3-4 times, then put it in the freezer to be able to make it crack.

I ended up using regular white card stock even if it doesn't match the image or the patterned paper, but very vanilla card stock didn't match either. I really like that patterned paper, the pattern is raised. It's hard to get a decent picture of it though. I think it's from Heidi Swapp.

Hope you are having a nice day. I know I am and I'm going to do my best to find time to do something crafty!

Simple Christmas

2011-11-15T11:44:00.001-05:00

I made these cards a while back but somehow I missed taking pictures of them. Fortunately I hadn't sent them off yet to the shop that sells my cards.

I only used one layer. The colored rectangles are made using post-it notes, a sponge and an inkpad. I also used a stam from Stampin'Up and a sentiment stamp from Iceland.

Gleðileg jól means Merry Christmas.

My older son can't wait to decorate for Christmas, he's been singing Christmas carols since July and watching The Polar Express since late August I think. He asked to go on the Polar Express (trainride) for Christmas and told me he would rather do that than get any toys from us. So that's the plan, we've done it before and it was so much fun. I've also told him he can decorate his tree on Black Friday....I'm hoping that'll keep him from bugging me to put up the tree in the living room. I don't want to do that until maybe the middle of December. My family always put up the tree on the 23rd of Dec. and took it down on the 6th of Jan. That's when most Icelanders celebrate Christmas.

Anyway...we've got Thanksgiving to think about now. No plans yet other than making croc pot turkey like last year :) I just hope we get good weather so we can go on short trips and explore new places.

Have a good rest of the week!

Card sharks contest

2011-11-14T14:30:00.001-05:00

My friend, Anna Sigga, told me about this card contest over at The Scrapbook Nook Blog and I decided to give it a go.

Challenge: Phase 10

Phase 10 is a fun rummy-style card game by Fundex. The object of the game is to play each hand, building off of that hand according to that Phase's requirements, until you have completed all 10 Phases in the game.

Since we do not have weeks for this challenge (smile) we will complete 3 Phases for our 'Card' game.

Phase One: create your card base

your base MUST include the following (everyone will be dealt the same hand to begin the game)

ONE pp background

ONE smaller block of pp or cardstock

ONE strip of pp, trim, chipboard or sticker across the bottom of the block of pp or cardstock

ONE decorative trim at the bottom of the block below strip of pp or trim

Before moving onto Phase 2, take a picture of your 'card base'

Phase 2: embellish (build) your 'card' hand.

you may add any embellishments, trims, chipboard, sentiments, anything you like to your card base.

before moving onto Phase 3, take a picture of your card

Phase 3: post your finished card along with Phase 2 pic

Here's my phase 1:

And phase 2:

I used pp from MME's Quite Contrary (Jack and Jill) 6x6 paper pad. The dress was hand cut using a template I made.

I think it was fun making the card this way and I'm going to see if I can fit in more contests from the Scrapbook Nook, my boys and I got a stomach bug this weekend, I hope my husband won't get it too. I'm slowly recovering.

Weddings and babies

2011-11-12T23:42:00.000-05:00

I've been in the mood for wedding and baby cards lately. I need to make a couple more wedding cards and at least one more baby card. Here's a wedding card I made a couple of days ago.

The background paper started out white but I decided to change it to gray using my brayer and then used a sponge to put pink on the edges. I used a wedding cake stamp from HamptonArt. The images is covered in glitter paint (watercolor iridescent medium). It's my "new" favorite glitter, no gluey mess to deal with.

And here's a baby boy card.

The background here started white too, I used my brayer, a background stamp (from SU) and silver spray mist. The giraffe stamp is from Inkadinkado and I used a label die from Spellbinders to cut it out.

I'm going to keep this short, both my boys are sick, one has a bad stomach bug and the other one has something I can't figure out...might just be teething (there's been a lot of crying and shadowing momma in the last couple of days and not much eating). I feel like I might be catching the stomach flue to....I hope not though. I just hope your weekend is going better than mine!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Christmas

2011-11-09T00:03:00.001-05:00

I know, I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet and all I can think about is Christmas. I have to make my Christmas cards early so they can reach Iceland in time. I've already sent a bunch over there. I've actually stopped making them this year, haven't had the right mojo to make more. I've moved onto wedding cards.

I made a couple of cards using a stamp I really like from Stamping Bella. It's not new but they still had it the last time I looked at their page.

I actually had the images already colored from last year and glittered and everything. Just had to assemble the cards. I think I like the top one better but I do think that the purple (elegant eggplant from SU) and the rock color (river rock from SU) look good together.

Last week I decided to try and take a picture of my boys for this years Christmas card. We got their pajamas in the mail almost 2 weeks after I ordered them. They were shipped from Atlanta, Georgia (4 hours from here) and they went on a road trip with the UPS to South Carolina, North Carolina (3 places, the closest one 2 hours from here), Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee and back to North Carolina. I just hope they had a nice journey lol! But I tell you, it's not easy to get my boys to be still during a photo shoot. The little one was all over the place while the older one kept trying to think of new poses which usually included his hand in front of his face or the Christmas lights in his face.

I did get a great shot but can't show it untill right before Christmas. We had Christmas music on and the boys had so much fun.

The little one ended up putting allt the 350 lights on big bro's head.

This reminds me, I've started a new photography blog. I have friends who are trying to push me into becoming a professional photographer and I'm looking into it. There's a lot to think about and a lot that needs to be done so it might take a while for me to get "there". It's only got two posts right now but I'm working on more.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Christmas and birthday

2011-11-02T20:42:00.000-04:00

I'm going to make this a quick post. I was going to post this last weekend but kind of got sucked into all the Halloween stuff going on :P

I really like this Tilda stamp from Magnolia but I'm having a hard time making a cute card with it. Looking at this card now I think it's just ...bleh... nothing special. I don't have any cute flowers to match the patterned papers I used. I think that would have helped.

I used a stamp from hÄnglar & stÄnglar on this card. I colored it last year and I used some sort of snow glitter on the scarf and the mittens. It's pretty simple and I think I like this one better than the first one. The colors are a little bit brighter.

I've got a couple of picsfrom my little one's birthday party. We had a dress up birthday party and he was dressed up as a dinosaur. He had no clue what to do with the candle we put on his cupcake and has obviously not been exposed to fire very much lol!

We got perfect weather. Only half of the people we invited showed up but the kids had fun and that's what matters, right?

Hope you have a great rest of the week :)

Fall Foliage

2011-10-25T23:35:00.001-04:00

Isn't it just typical. My car was in the shop for a week and cost me an arm and a leg to get it fixed. As soon as I got it out my hubby took his car to the shop. They've had it for 2.5 weeks and it's going to cost another arm and a leg. We haven't got it back yet and my car has gotten sick again, we can't take it to the shop until we get hubby's car back. I've got two appointments tomorrow for my little one, speech therapy and a doctor's check-up and I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the car won't stop on me. Please keep your fingers crossed for me.

Enough with the sulking, here a simple birthday card I made a while back.

The sentiment says, "On your birthday". I used stamps from Stampin'Up, an embossing folder from Cuttlebug and a borderpunch from EKsuccess.

Next is a Christmas card that looks pretty simple. I don't know if you can tell that the image is covered in glitter. After I stamped the image and cut it out (using a label die from Spellbinders) I sponged the edges.

After the sponging I covered the whole image with Versamark, poored Iridescent Ice glitter on it and heat embossed it., that's about all the hard work I put into it. The stamp, ink, paper and glitter are all from Stampin'Up. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the background.

We have been having the most gorgeous fall here in the mountains. The colors have been so vibrant. The Blue Ridge Parkway has been a popular place for taking fall foliage pictures. I live very close to it but have not really been on it to take pictures of the bright colors. I took the Parkway on my way home from my son's speech therapy a couple of weeks ago and took this picture.

That was before the peak in colors. My mountains are so beautiful, no matter what season we're in but fall is my favorite season here. It's not too hot and not too cold.

So pretty!

I've been going nuts on Pinterest when ever I get the chance. If you need an invite just send me a note.

Go love your families!

Soccer/football and knitting

2011-10-21T20:05:00.001-04:00

Man, has this been a busy month for me. Since my last post we've gone to a fall festival at school, a corn maze and to the movies with the boys. I also had to prepare my little one's birthday party. Of course he got a bad cold two days before the party and had to use his nebulizer. The next day we went on the parkway, like thousands of others, to see the fall colors. But mainly to take fall pictures of my friend's girls. It was hard to find a place that didn't have any tourists! But we found a couple of good places. Then of course I had to edit the pictures. This Sunday is my hubby's birthday and next weekend we've got Halloween.

Fortunately I've got a few cards I haven't posted yet ;)

My hometown in Iceland is pretty soccer crazy. Most of the kids play soccer and have favorite teams in the English League and possibly the Italian and Spanish too. I know I used to like Man. Utd. in England and A.C. Milan in Italy.

So I made birthday cards using soccer images. These two cards are made using the Man. Utd. colors. I made them pretty simple. I was so glad to find the girl stamp. Because the boys aren't the only ones playing soccer!

The boy stamp is from Gillian Roberts (Stampavie) and the girl is from La-La Land Crafts.

And lookey here, I actually finished some knitting. I made this cowl, it took me way too long and I kept making silly mistakes. The pattern is pretty easy to remember but I was trying to knit and watch tv or something and kept messing up.

But I like the final result. I used icelandic wool, Kambgarn, that I bought when I was over there last time.

Here's a picture from our visit to South Carolina. It was taken at the Walnut Grove Plantation í Roebuck.

Anyhow, the boys are watching a movie and I plan on getting crafty when they've gone to bed :)

Have a nice weekend!

Tilda and Little Red

2011-10-04T23:22:00.001-04:00

This little Tilda from Magnolia is one of my favorites. I was having a hard time getting good pictures so the colors are a little bit off. I wanted to make two cards using the same image and the same patterned paper (BoBunny I think) but make them look totally different.

I think I managed keeping them different from each other.

I kind of got into making a bunch of Christmas cards so don't be surprised or offended by it if they take over my blog hehe. I don't do Halloween cards or Thanksgiving, not being raised in the US has probably got something to do with that. So I skip those holidays.

My older son had Monday off from school and hubby usually has Sundays and Mondays off from work so we decided to do something fun last weekend. We went on a short trip to South Carolina, to a town called Ninety Six. What a fun name fort a town. We stayed the night in Greenwood and I got to go to Hobby Lobby for the first time. Are you kidding me!?! The store was huge, the stamping/cardmaking department not so much. But I wish I had spent more time in the home decor department. I spent too much time in the Christmas department, I really had to force myself not no buy enough decorations to cover a whole Christmas tree. Too bad the store is a little bit too far away for me to go there again anytime soon.

I´m going to end this post with a picture of my little one, taken almost a month ago. Isn't he cute? ;)

Bicycle race

2011-09-27T20:55:00.002-04:00

I planned this post a few days ago and got the pictures ready but I spent a big part of last week taking care of my littlest one. Trying my best to make him feel better. He had a bad cold and fever and basically cried from Tuesday to Friday and nothing seemed to make him feel better. Saturday he started pulling on his ears and yesterday we took him to see his doctor who confirmed an earinfection. Finally he's feeling better. This month has been rough on him, he's been sick a total of 2 and a half weeks and lost a couple of pounds because he wont eat when he's sick. So I'm finally getting a chance to finish this post.

I made this card a while back using stamps from Stampin'Up. I printed the sentiment. Used a border punch from Martha Stewart and a ribbon from Stampin'Up. The background stamp is my absolute favorite and the flowers are on my top ten list of favorites...maybe even top 5 list.

Here's a Tilda card I made a while back too. Tilda is from Magnolia and the borderpunch is from EKsuccess. I used a die from Spellbinders to cut out the image. The pink flower is actually from a dollar store, the roses are from Prima marketing.

My older son got an invitation to a friend's birthday party here in town. It was held in a place I know existed but I didn't know there was a nice playground and a bicycle/walking path behind the place, you can't really see it from the road. It is so perfect and just a few minutes from my place. It is perfect for riding bikes and I don't have to drive to Asheville to let my boys play and ride their bikes/trikes.

The kids had so much fun at the party and the weather was perfect.

Now I just have to teach my son to ride his bicycle without the training wheels ;)

I hope you're having a good week, mine has been a lot better than the last one, so far.

TFL

W is the letter

2011-09-17T20:03:00.001-04:00

W is the letter for Winter. Here's my first winter/Christmas card.

I just love this color combination, it's classic, light blue/dark blue/white/silver. And this stamp (Stampin'Up) is one of my favorites for Christmas cards. The felted snowflakes are from Martha Stewart and the background stamp is from Stampin'Up.

Here we've got some more Stampin'Up stuff and I used my new border punch fro EKsuccess.

I was thinking this could be used as a sympathy card. Pretty simple and there's room for a sentiment if I can come up with something.

Guess who we potted in Asheville a couple of weeks ago!

W is the letter for Woody Harrelson! We went to a festival down town and there he was, trying hard not to get noticed...I told my friend that he would have fit more in had he worn a skirt or something silly like everyone else :p (it was one of those super silly festivals). Apparently he's been in town off and on this summer. filming a movie.

I can't fir the letter W to this picture, my english vocabulary isn't big enough. But this is the shack we spent a couple of hours in last weekend, listening to old records and dancing. I just love this place and Aunt&Uncle are wonderful too. Ah...W is the letter for Wonderful!

I Wish you a Wonderful rest of the Weekend!

MuMu the goat

2011-09-15T22:03:00.000-04:00

I was going through my card making folder on my computer and found this card.

I had totally forgot about it. I made it last month for a friend who turned 5. We missed her birthday and I thought the image fit perfectly for belated birthday wishes. The image is from Whipper Snapper Designs. The patterned paper is retired Stampin'Up designer paper.

I have a lot of pics to go through and resize but this next one was just waiting to be posted.

I love making easel cards and this one would fit perfect on a small present.

We had a busy weekend last weekend. Got visitors from Florida. My 6 year old had his third and last try outs for Odyssey of the Mind at school (he made it on a team, yay!). We visited with aunt and uncle in Weaverville and met up with more family there. Plus some hens, ducks, roosters and a goat.

Aunt and Uncle have an old shack on their land, full of antigues, and we spent a couple of hours in there listening to old records, dancing and having fun. Little Jesse got to see a goat for the first time and he called it MuMu. He made sure to show it his favorite stuffed animal and was not afraid of it at all. Sylvan, my 6 year old, wouldn't go anywhere near it.

I just love this pictureI snapped of the goat doing stretches or something, LOL!

Sunday Sylvan and I went to a birthday party and had a blast. Monday night Sylvan wasn't feeling too good and Tuesday morning he had a little bit og fever. He stayed home from school and has been home since then, his fever just kept rising until this morning when he finally felt a little bit better. I was starting to get pretty worried, but tomorrow he'll hopefully be able to go back to school.

My car's been in the shop since Monday and tomorrow I'll finally get it back, but I'll have to pay a small fortune to get it...yikes... :o

I wish all of you a happy weekend, we're getting cooler weather and I'm ready for it!

Mini cards

2011-09-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

I've been makng a few mini cards that could go with a small present or a bouquet of flowers.

I think this one would go great with a gift for a horse owner. There are a few of them in my home town.

The stamp is from Stampin'Up. And I used my nesties to cut the circles. Distressed with a sponge and ink from Stampin'Up.

I was going through my dies and embossing folders and found this image from Cuttlebug. I've had it for years but I think this is the first time I actually use it on a card. I hope you can se the butterfly, it was very challenging to get a good picture of it. I like the simplicity of this tag/card.

My knitting is going very slowly, I'm about half way through the balaklava for my son. I haven't done much crafting either. My boys have been a pain in the neck at bed time all week. Not falling a sleep until ten pm. The little one has been wanting my to stay in the room with him while he's fighting sleep and half way through the week he got sick and has been fighting an upper respiratory infection for a few days now. That means I´ve been stuck at the house working full time as a snot cleaner and he's been using his nebulizer every 3 hours or so. Today he seems to be doing a little bit better but is still fighting a cold and I'm feeling a bit under the weather. We might get out a little bit after his nap, there's a festival in Asheville we want to go to if it doesn't start raining.

My big boy is trying out for "Odyssey of the mind" at school, they've got three try outs to see which kids will make it on a team. They don't have enough coaches for all the kids to get on a team. He's only 6 years old so I think if he can't make it on a team now he can try again next year.

Here's a peaceful picture from Iceland to end this post.

Have a great week everyone!

Two cards and a LO

2011-08-26T21:43:00.000-04:00

Here's one of the cards I made just after we got home from Iceland.

The stamps are from Stampin'Up and the card stock from PTI, I might try this again in different colors. I added glitter and Crystal Effects to the flowers.

And here we've got a 12x12 layout. I used a sketch from Beggahuna.

I noticed afterwards how crooked one of the castles is/was and I fixed it. The flowers, ribbon and tag are all things I got as RAK (random act of kindness) from icelandic friends a few years ago. I used glimmer spray on the background card stock and the heart. On the tag I wrote what the day is like when we go to Lake Lure.

Here below is a small card 3x3 inches (I think, possibly 3.5x3.5). The rose stamp is from Stampin'Up, I'm not sure where the other one is from, I've had it for years and just recently started using it. I have seen it at A. C. Moore though.

This card is made for small gifts or bouquets. The rose is stamped on a shimmery card stock using white ink, heat embossed with clear embossing powder and then colored in.

And now a couple of pictures from Iceland.

We took the boys to see the geysers. The one on the picture is called Strokkur. It was not at the highest point when I took the picture, I was having problem with tourists walking into my pictures and was just lucky to get this one without somebody's foot or shoulder in it. I have never seen so many tourists there before, I have also never been there when the weather was nice, it's always been rainy and cold.

We took our older son for walks in the lava around volcanic craters not too far from my parent's house. And he loved checking out the caves in the lava. Some of the caves were used as hiding places when the "Turks" (Algerian pirates) came to Iceland (to my hometown) in the year 1627. Here's a link to the story in english.

You've probably heard about hurricane Irene. It's getting close to the coast of North Carolina now. I am so glad we live way up in the mountains, far away from the coast. We might get some rain and thunderstorms but I think we're too far away for the hurricane to reach us. I do hope and pray it wont tear up the coastal towns and the people there will be safe.

Anyway, the first full week of school is over and we've got no big plans this weekend, hopefully we'll get to splash a little bit, the weather is still warm enough for that.

Have a nice weekend and thank you for stopping by.

Yes I did it

2011-08-23T22:31:00.000-04:00

I actually made a couple of scrapbook LOs. There's a challenge going on at the icelandic scrapbook forum and I decided to give it a go. I am working on my 3rd layout at the moment, I'm one layout behind.

It's been so long since I made a scrapbook page that I'm pretty rusty. The first LO was supposed to be inspired by an icelandic singer/songwriter (Páll Óskar) and we were supposed to use glitter and other bling. Well, I've only got boys but decided to give it a go. This picture is from last spring, my little one was trying out those sunglasses for fun. The text says something like this "I'm beautiful, I'm handsome, I'm glamorous...not everyone can be gorgeous like me!". The page is yellow (looks a little greenish on the photo), I used red spray mist and gold glitter mist to make it glittery and shiny. I also used stickles glitterglue for the title.

Here's the second page I made, we were supposed to make a page about our "dream place" to travel to or our favorite trip. I picked a picture from our Iceland trip og the glacier Snaefellsjokull. I wanted to keep it simple, I'll be adding it to my "Book of me" scrapbook.

I've taken a few days off from making cards, I'm out of plastic envelopes and instead I got out my knitting and cast on a balaklava for my little one. I don't have any pics yet though.

Here is a picture from our Iceland trip. We were driving in the south when we saw this building from WWII. My hubby wanted pictures of it and I thought they'd look good in black/white. The weather was pretty nasty, raining and cold, but I think it just set the mood for the picture.

I've already taken pics of the cards I was working on last week and will post them soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

My mother's dress

2011-08-17T00:06:00.003-04:00

Yeah yeah, I know, enough with the dresses. At least you know I got mym money's worth out of this stamp from Inkadinkado. It's just so awesome I can't stop using it.

I made a few of these circle easel cards and sent to Iceland. They are the perfect size for small/medium gifts or bouquets. I tried different backgrounds and different color combinations.

I used my Nestabilities dies for the circles and scalloped circles.

I've been working on a few cards since we got back from Iceland, made a few small ones and a few regular sizeds ones, total of 18 so far. At the same time I don't feel like I've been spending enough time at the desk. Just a few minutes here and there. That's about all I get when I've got both boys shadowing me 12 -13 hours a day. I've taken them to Splasheville in down town Asheville 3 times in the week we've been home. My husband's car died so now the boys and I are stuck at home while hubby goes to work which is usually not until 5:30 pm but on Tuesdays and Wednesdays he works/volunteers at a museum before going to work and he leaves the house just after lunch. Ugh, I can't stand not having the option of taking the boys somewhere after lunch, and not being able to use the car until the next morning. We can't walk anywhere from our street, it's just our street, another street and then the highway and no sidewalks. Today was a long day at home but hubby mowed the front yard so the boys were able to put water in their playpool and play for an hour or two. The weather was just perfect. Tomorrow we get to meet Sylvan's 1st grade teacher and Thuraday is his first day in 1st grade :)

Well, enough of the boohooing from me, I've got a couple more pics from Iceland.

Here's my dad putting Theodor Jesse on my uncle's horse, my son is named after my uncle (Theodor). And you can see one of my nephews behind my uncle.

This picture was taken from inside a cave. My friend, my twin sister and I took our boys to a lake (we've all got 2 boys) to let the boys play in the sand. I let my little one stay with his daddy though. We were there for almost 5 hours and it rained almost the whole time but the boys loved it and we were able to have our picnic in the cave out of the rain.

My first grader playing at the lake, he had so much fun.

TFL

More dresses

2011-08-08T23:32:00.001-04:00

Can you tell I had a blast making these dress cards? It was so much fun. I've made 5 so far.

Here I embossed a part of the front with a folder from Stampin'Up. I then covered the embossed part with scrap paper and sprayed the upper part red. I Ended up spraying pink on the lower part too. The card is only made with half a sheet of card stock.

Here I covered the front with patterned paper. I think it's from Webster but I'm not sure. I put a little bit of glitter in the teal circles.

I used used patterned paper (Fancy pants I think) on the whole dress and inked the top part of it.

I've got more pics to share from our trip to Iceland. We finally came home today after spending the weekend in Florida. Thursday was tough, we got up early and got ready for our flight to Boston and that flight went pretty smoothly. Then we had to go through customs and all that with our tired boys and of course the flight from Boston to Tampa got delayed about 45 minutes and there was nothing for the boys to watch on the tv so when we finally got to Tampa I was pretty much exhausted. One of our bags got damaged pretty bad and we won't be using it again, it's got a big hole in it now :/ But at least they didn't loose our bags this time. Here are some more pics:

Snæfellsjökull glacier up close. West Iceland.

The boys checking out the beach at Búðir, Snæfellsnes, West Iceland.

This falcon was posing for us and other tourists at Búðir.

Here we see Hekla, a volcano in South Iceland. My parents have a summer house not far from the volcano. We spent a whole week at the summerhouse.

This is at Gjáin, South Iceland. You can get there by hiking or if you drive a jeep or car with a four wheel drive. Last time we went there we hiked but this time we drove my dad's small jeep. It is absolutely beautiful there. Three or more watefalls and a few caves.

I am so tired, we drove 10 hours from Florida to North Carolina last night. I don't rest very good in a car and did not get a chance to nap today. Today is my birthday too and I spent the day unpacking a little bit, doing laundry, cleaning the flowerbed (the weeds sure multiplied while we were gone) and taking care of my boysa. I even fixed my vacuum cleaner. No festivities. When we were getting ready to go buy a cake my hubby got called in to work so we'll do that tomorrow. I sent the boys to bed early and I don't think they've ever fallen asleep as quickly as tonight. And I think it's time for me to hug my pillow now.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Fancy dresses

2011-08-02T15:36:00.000-04:00

I have been super busy here in Iceland. We spent a week at my parent's summerhouse without internet access. We went to a few places in the countryside and took a lot of photos. But let's start with the two cards I'm showing you today.

I found this template through a magazine, you can find it here. The picture aboce is of the first dress card I made, I didn't use any patterned paper. I used lace paper as a stencil for the skirt. The top I covered in purple ink and heat embossed it to get the glitter to stick.

Here I used patterned paper for the skirt and dry embossed card stock for the top. I do find it easier to work straight on the card stock instead of adding patterned paper. I had so much fun making these.

Here are a few pics from our trip.

Steamy lava

Lava sunset

My little one

The boys at one of many waterfalls we checked out. This one is called Skógarfoss.

My older son checking out the rescue boat in my hometown.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog before we leave this thursday, if not I'll do my best to blog next week.

Sailing

2011-07-18T18:28:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since my last post already. I'm on vacation in Iceland now and we've been so busy traveling.

I wanted to show you these cards I made just before our vacation. I had just bought this set from my SU demonstrator. I think it's not available anymore. My hometown is a "fish"town. We've got all sizes of boats and fish is a big part of the towns "income". So I figured I could make something that would be fit for a fisherman's birthday.

I heat embossed the images on the first two cards with UTEE to make a broken glass effect.

And on the last one I used a lable die from Spellbinders to dry emboss and as a stencil for the backgound.

And now to my trip. We drove to Florida to see my MIL for a couple of days before flying to Iceland. We then flew from Tampa to Boston and from Boston to Iceland. In Tampa we asked the guy at the check in to make sure the bags would be checked in all the way to Iceland and he said he'd make it happen. When we arrived in Iceland, after travelling all day with a toddler and a 6 year old, we waited and waited for our bags to show up. Until the terminal was almost empty. Two hours we waited and no bags and it by the time we got to my parent's place it was almost 3 am. You can only imagine how tired and cranky the kids were. I took the airline TWO DAYS to track down our luggage and get it to us. The guy in Tampa, who had also told us he wanted us to tip him, had not checked the bags all the way like he said he would. Anyway, we've got our stuff now and we've had a couple of rainydays and a few sunny days and I've taken A LOT of pictures. Here are a couple that fit this post so well.

The sun had just set next to the glacier (on the left).

This is the same area about 20-30 minutes before the sun went down. It's an old lighthouse just outside a fishing village/town. The weather was perfect and what made it even better (if possible) was that and old friend of my came to see me there, we hadn't seen each other in 6 or 7 years.

You should be able to click on the pictures to see them a little bit bigger.

I'll try to post again this week, next week I'll be at my parent's summer house.

TFL

Purple butterfly and fireworks

2011-07-04T19:42:00.000-04:00

I went to a Stampin'Up workshop at my demonstrator's house the other week. I think the card below was my favorite project.

I did have to change the "frame". We had an embossed purple panel that we had to distress with paint and I messed mine up, so I swapped it for a white panel. The background under the butterfly is what made this card so much fun to make. We started with a piece of glossy white card stock. We added shimmery white paint to it, using a plastic bag to get a pattern. After the paint had dried we sponged the card stock using two different purples, a pink color and a yellow color. After covering the card stock with those colors we stamped the text and flourishes. The paint gave the card stock a little bit of texture and shimmer.

Yesterday, after spending most of the day in our pajamas, we finally got the boys out of the house and got ourselves burgers and fries. My hubby is working tonight so we celebrated the 4th of July a day early. We went down town to watch the fireworks and I got to try the firework setting on my camera. Now I just need a tripod so my firework pictures can turn out the way I want them to ;)

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

And today I finished reading the last book in Stieg Larson's trilogy of the girl with the dragon tattoo. I started reading it late Saturday night. Almost 600 pages in 2.5 days is pretty good, I would not have been able to do it if my hubby hadn't kept the boys busy. I have to take it back to the library before we go on our Florida/Iceland trip.

I'm going to try to get some posts ready ahead of time, that I can post while I'm in Iceland. I've got a few new cards to post.

I hope your weekend was great!

TFL

Lake Lure

2011-06-30T23:21:00.000-04:00

Lets start with the card.

I masked a part of the card before I stamped it with a background stamp from Stampin'Up. I then sponged the stamped part and embossed a frame with a scallop edge rectangle from Spellbinders. I stamped the flower image, using 4 stamps from Inkadinkado. Added a little bit of Stickles and Crystal Effects. The edge is punched with a Stampin'Up border punch. The sentiment says "Congratulations".

My older son has already finished karate camp and Vacation Bible School and now his swimlessons are almost over. I'm trying to keep him busy so he wont drive me completely nuts. "What can I do now?" is his favorite question I think, at least I get to hear it every five minutes. I took the boys to Lake Lure on Monday and they had so much fun. So on Wednesday I did it again. It takes us about 30 min. to get there. It's a very scenic drive but I'm lucky my boys don't get carsick very easily because it's a very winding road, up a mountain and down again.

My camera has a widescreen setting and I tried it for the first time. It's great for landscape pictures.

When the boys sat down for snack time they got a few hungry visitors begging for bites.

A week from now we'll be driving to Florida to visit with my MIL before we fly to Iceland. Most of my family will be seeing my little hurricane for the first time.

Have a great weekend and Happy 4th of July to my American visitors.

Always friends

2011-06-24T00:03:00.000-04:00

I made this easel card for a friend's son who turned 6. I think the stamp is from Sugarnellies.

The patterned paper is, I think, all from BoBunny. Not sure about the green one but the rest is. I used Prismacolor markers for the coloring.

This next card is a pretty simple one. I made a few of these to be used for kids in my hometown in Iceland. The colors are the colors for the sports teams there (soccer and basketball mainly).

The stamps is from Stampavie/Gillian F. Roberts. I used a Sizzix embossing folder for the background. Extremely simple.

Here's my little Red Tornado.

We went for a walk the other day and saw cardinals and other pretty bird, beautiful flowers and a bunny. But this "thing" he's got was the most interesting thing to him. He even took it home with him. He's trying really hard to say words and slowly adding to his vocabulary. Apparently not fast enough though, he'll be starting speech therapy when we get back from out trip to Iceland. He's a cute little mess maker, his job seems to be to keep my house turned up side down, I start cleaning up and he's right behind me making a mess again.

My older one went to karate summer camp last week and totally loved it so we might switch him from gymnastics to karate in the fall. This weeks he's going to VBS (Vacation Bible School) in the mornings and taking swim lessons late in the afternoon. Next week he'll only have swimlessons. Don't know what we'll do during the day, maybe do picnics at the playground or go to Lake Lure for a little bit of "Beach Fun".

I've got a few cards I need to take pictures of but we've been getting hit by thunderstorms so the lighting is not the best. I have also finished knitting a pair of socks for myself....a pretty ugly pair of socks, but I like them and I'm going to wear them a lot, I'll get pics when I've given them a nice bath.

I wish you all a perfect weather for whatever you've got planned this weekend :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Male greeting cards

2011-06-15T09:13:00.000-04:00

I made these cards a couple of weeks ago. Thinking they can be used as Father's Day cards, male birthday cards or even graduation. The sentiment says "Congratulations".

The stamp set, ink, ribbon and some of the card stock are from Stampin'Up. The punch for the sentiment is also from SU. I used an embossing folder from Sizzix and dies from Spellbinders. I love my little Cuttlebug and am so happy I can use dies and embossing folders from all the different companies in my little Bug.

I haven't taken any pics of my boys this week, the older one is going to a karate summer camp here in town and the little one and I have just been hanging out. I took him to Splasheville yesterday but he wouldn't go anywhere near the water. I might take him to the pool today but we are expecting thunderstorms so we'll see.

I did sneak out on Monday evening, just before sunset. Drove to the wealthy part of Asheville, Town Mountain, and took a few pics of the sunset. Here's one of them.

I've just got a point and shoot camera...but it's an awesome one. Canon Powershot sx120is.

It's not one of the teeny tiny cameras out there but I'll recommend it to anyone :)

I hope you're having a great week. We've got thunderstorms in the forecast every day for a week. But I think it'ds about time we get some rain here so I'm happy about it :)

TFL

A birthday card and the end of the school year

2011-06-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

My friend's daughter turned 7 the other day. And I wanted to make her a girly card without using pink, I guess to make it more of a challenge for me but mostly because I wanted to use the pretty DCVW paper I had in my scrap pile.

I used a stamp from Magnolia and ink from Stampin'Up to color the image. I also used 3 different dies from Spellbinders and Prima flowers.

The birthday girl and my older boy get along so good, they've got the same personality. He wasn't sure about going to a dance themed birthday party but he ended up having a blast. The little one had fun too.

It's been so hot here lately and we hadn't had rain in a couple of weeks until Monday afternoon, we got about 15-20 minutes of downpour. And that evening my hubby was off work so I was able to sneak out by myself and take pictures of the beautiful sunset.

This morning I went to the "Award Day" at my son's school. The Kindergarten classes had their ceremony at 9 am. I think all the kids got an award for being good at something so they all got to go on the big stage.

I'm so proud of my son, he got an award for "Outstanding Academic Achievement". Now I just hope he can stay on this track for the rest of his education. We are looking forward to starting 1st grade in the fall. But now it's time for a break, Friday is the last day of school and after that we'll have Vacation Bible School and swim lessons....then a trip to Iceland in July.

TFL

This and that

2011-06-04T23:33:00.001-04:00

I lost my mojo after a couple of weeks of making a bunch of cards to send off to Iceland. But at least I've got some of those cards to post on my blog. Here's one of the few girly cards I made.

No stamping. I used an embossing folder from Cuttlebug, borderpunch from Stampin'Up and a butterfly die from Papertrey Ink. The patterned paper is from BoBunny and Basic Grey.

I made a coupe of onesie cards. You can find the onesie template HERE. I made prints in different sizes.

Pretty simple. I used a nestability die for the neckline and leg openings and also for the frog image.

We've been having a "close to record breaking" heatwave here in the last few days. It is hot here before 9 am so we've had the water hose turned on and the kiddie pool out. My town hasn't even gotten the thunderstorms predicted for the mountains here, I've heard the thunders but they were far away.

I´ve only taken my little one to the playground once in the last week or so. My car's not in a good shape and I'm a bit upset that I got a big crack in my front windshield thanks to a big truck hauling gravel. The crack is right at eye level.

I took the cat picture at the playground, I've seen this cat there before and this time my little one was happy to have it as a playmate, we were the only ones at the playground.

This picture I took this morning. The boys were playing with water and soap and all of a sudden the little one sneaks off and get these sunglasses from inside our house. He thinks they are so cool.

My older boy and I have found a great way to cool off in the heat. We make our own smoothies:

1 cup mandarin oranges

1 cup peaches

1 cup strawberries

1 cup low fat ice cream or 2% milk

Put everything in the mixer/food processor and mix. And it's ready. And if we have a little bit left over we put it in an icecube tray, add popcicle sticks and freeze. YUMMI!

For some reason my little one has no interest in drinking smoothies and he is not a picky eater at all.

I hope you're all having a nice weekend!

TFL

Simple boy cards

2011-05-25T21:02:00.000-04:00

It's so easy to always make girly cards and it doesn't help that my older son has mostly girl-friends. So I decided to make a few easy boy cards. No girly stuff, very plain cards.

The stamps are from Magnolia and hÄnglar&stÄnglar. I picked out papers from my scrap pile and tried to match the colors I used on the pictures to the colors on the papers.

I hope I can make up for those dull cards with a little bit of my photography.

TFL

Butterflies and sunsets

2011-05-23T15:54:00.000-04:00

I]ve been wanting to get a butterfly punch or a butterfly die for my Cuttlebug for a long time now. I was running out of my white card stock and was ordering more when I saw this butterfly over at PTI.

So I sawed it from being stuck at a warehouse and now it's my new pet. Dimensions - 2 1/4" x 1 1/2". My older one was invited to a birthday party, his favorite (girl)friend turned 6 the other day, so I made a card using the butterfly for the first time. It's a pocket/envelope and a tag. We had to leave before she opened the presents so I don't know if she liked the card or not.

Yesterday we had a pretty warm weather, the picture below was taken at around 10:30 am.

And this is how the day ended....

I actually had a thunderstorm behind me when I took the picture.

Have a nice week everyone

Pirate birthday

2011-05-21T10:06:00.001-04:00

I made this card a while back, I didn't even know I still had it. The stamp is from Magnolia.

I used paper from Basic Grey, they're from three different collections. The ribbon I bought 3 years ago, in Iceland. That's how long it's been since I saw my family. We'll be taking our boys there this summer though. It's going to be fun, they've got plenty of cousins to play with.

The little one wants to do everything the bigger one does.

We are going to spend the afternoon at the Montford Festival in Asheville, hopefully it won't rain on us.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Congratulations

2011-05-14T19:28:00.000-04:00

We've been having sunny/thunderstorm weather here lately. Yesterday I took Sylvan to Splasheville in Asheville (water play area) and we had great weather there, I did hear a couple of thunders. While we were there, my husband and the little one were at home and they got a bad thunderstorm with hail, it's only a 15 min. drive from my house to downtown Asheville.

As long as we don't get a severe thunderstorm I don't mind the thunders and lightnings.

Enough about the weather, here are a couple of cards I made. They are not very big just under 4 in. I think. But I think it's a perfect size for the dress stamp.

My Nestabilities came in handy for those. I had already stamped the dresses a while ago so all I had to do was cut the card stock and glue everything together. The pink/red dress was originally white but I decided cover it in pink ink with my brayer and then add glitter to it. I have already sent both of those cards to Iceland.

Here's my boy playing in Splasheville, I can't wait to take my little one there, he's not feeling good at the moment, got a little bit of a cold and fever thing going on. I might take him there sometime next week while Sylvan's at school.

Congratulation Azerbaijan on being no. 1 in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Have a nice Sunday everyone :)

Magnolia fairy

2011-05-13T21:04:00.000-04:00

I was looking through my old DCWV paper and wanted to try the color combination in this patterned paper. It had lighht blue, red, white and pale purple (I used pale plum card stock from SU).

I paper pieced the dress. Used my nesties on the circle and the scallop circle and a Martha Stewart border punch. This color combo was not as easy to use as I thought it would be and I think if I use this patterned paper again I'll skip the pale purple and possibly the red color.

We've been having pretty warm weather here lately and thunderstorms, fortunately not really bad ones right here but there was a deadly one in a county not far from here.

Here's downtown Asheville right before a thunderstorm hit it.

And below is my little one splashing in his pool, he´s done that a couple of times this week, unfortunately he's sick now, he's got a fever and a bad cold. I hope it's not from splashing in the water, the sun had warmed it up really good before he got in and it was in the lower 80's (Fahrenheit).

TFL

Fairy Princess and Prince Charming

2011-05-10T23:49:00.000-04:00

I bought this stamp from Stamping Bella a couple of years ago but I haven't used it very much. I didn't like all the extra space I got when I cut a rectangle around the image. Until I thought of using this oval die from Spellbinders. It turned out pretty good I think.

I picked the papers before coloring in the image. The flowers are from a dollar store.

I seem to have lost both my cardmaking and knitting mojo. I'm trying to get it back. My little one keeps me pretty busy and the older one is not getting enough sleep so he gets pretty cranky. I think his problem is that it doesn't get dark until after 8 pm and his bedtime is 7 pm. He needs at least 11 hours of sleep to not be cranky and tired when he comes home from school and he's not getting it.

Here he is, Prince Charming, picking flowers for me (he asked for permission to pick those flowers). He made me a few drawings and picked out a few things aroun the house as a mother's day gift for me (including a "belt" for my vacuum cleaner *lol*).

I also got things he made at school, including a "breakfast in bed" bag that had a teabag and a breakfast bar in it. Unfortunately the breakfastbar has apples in it (I'm allergic to apples) so the breakfast is still in the bag. Maybe he can give it to his dad for Father's Day.

We don't really celebrate Mother's Day or Father's Day or any of these so called special days, we just took the boys to a playground and "let them loose". There was a little girl there that thought my Jesse was the best, but Jesse wasn't too sure about her ;)

She wanted to hold his hand but he kept running away.

And finally she caught up with him :)

TFL

Bikini card and Big Love Fest

2011-05-04T13:00:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I made one of these cards. They're so fun and easy to make.

I think the hardest part is to pick the patterned paper for the bikini. I used card stock from Stampin'Up and the patterned paper is from my scrap stash.

I got the template for this card from HERE.

We had a busy weekend, even if we didn't have much planned. Sunday we had to get some copies for passport applications and decided to drive through downtown Asheville. We had no idea there was a festival going on there. We saw a lot of people and tents up so we decided to see what was going on. Turns out it was the Big Love Fest

We got there just in time to see The Mad Tea Party play. They were so much fun. People and kids were dancing to their music.

My boys had so much fun dancing and running and being wild with the other kids. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold. And it wasn't too crowded either, just perfect. We had a blast.

I did make one mistake there, I sat on the ground too long and now my back is not good. I can barely stand/walk...let alone carry my little one. I'm hoping to get better a.s.a.p. so I can make more cards and go for walks with the little one.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Pink easel card

2011-05-03T10:00:00.001-04:00

I couldn't resist making another easel card like in my last post. Here I used an image from Magnolia. I got out my prismacolors to color it in. Most of the patterned paper is from Basic Grey.

Very pink and girlie.

And here's a picture from Easter. Little Jesse wants to be and do like his big brother so bad. He thinks he can do everything his brother does. I'm actually surprised he wasn't able to get over the bottom tire. I'm constantly getting him off the kitchen table and the back of our sofa. He's a climber without any fears.

I'm going to keep this post short, I've got more posts planned and more cards I want to make.

Thank you for stopping by :)

Orange and black easel card

2011-04-30T18:58:00.000-04:00

I had this Stampavie image all ready and waiting to be used. I looked through my scrap stash (which seems to be endless) and found some Basic Grey papers I thought matched the image pretty good. I saw this easel card over at my friend's blog and thought it would be fun to try.

It looks like a regular card and you can open it like a regular car OR open it like I did in the first picture. I really like how it turned out.

I've been "on a roll" making cards since I moved my little one to another room and moved my craft table to the master bedroom. Now I just have to be creative when finding time to blog, the computer is in the same room as the little one and I can't see what I'm doing in the dark (even with nightlights on). And during the day I'm busy keeping up with my little hurricane. He's quite a handful.

Here a cute picture of my older boy from our trip to Linville Falls. He's heard the story about how his dad was trying to be romantic while we were dating. He picked up a dandelion and blew it in my face. Unfortunately I happened to be breathing in and got the stuff in mymouth and a little bit down my throat and found out I'm allergic to it. Now my son thinks it's fun to try to blow dandelions in my face.

He's got Monday off from school which was fortunate because we have to apply for a renewal of his passport and we'd rather not have to get him out of school early to get that done.

TFL

A winter wedding

2011-04-27T10:00:00.000-04:00

I had been wondering if I could use the Inpressabilities from Spellbinders in my Cuttlebug and the only way to find out was to search on Youtube. And of course they had a few videos there to teach me how to do it. I watche Gina K.'s video a couple of times before I gave it a try.

I inked up the embossing plate before I embossed with it. You can click on the image to view it larger. I used an embossing plate, scallop circle die, circle die and a snowflaker die from Spellbinders. No stamping this time. This is one of the invitations I've made for my niece. She'll have to pick one design out for me to make for her wedding later in the year.

Here are a couple of pictures from our visit to Fort Polaski in Georgia.

My little one has been trying to run in the last couple of weeks. His walking is not "perfect" yet but he wants to speed things up a little bit. He's trying to be faster than me, I think. If I let him play in our front yard he runs up our driveway and tries to go out in the cul-de-sac. He keeps me busy, I have to say.

TFL

A new neighbor

2011-04-22T20:48:00.002-04:00

I've got a big stash of stamped images, some of them I have already colored, some are waiting to be colored and some don't need any coloring. I've been going through that stash and picking out images to use and the image on this card is one of those.

I had already colored the image with some pieces of patterned paper in mind. But it's been too long and I couldn't remember what I had in mind. I think I did ok though, finding paper to match the image. I bought the flowers at a dollar store last year or the year before.

We've been trying to get back in our old rutine here at the house but it's not been easy. The little one's been waking up more often than usual and waking up at 6:30 ready to start the day. The older one has been wilder than usual, not falling asleep until late in the evening and that makes him cranky in the mornings. I hope things will be better next week. We're just going to be lazy this easter and stay home.

I wanted to share this picture I took in Glen Alpine, NC, a couple of weeks ago. I can only imagine how beautiful this hous must have been years ago. Now it just looks kind of creepy. Makes me wish someone would buy it and fix it up.

And here's a picture I took in our yard a couple of days ago.

I'm not really fond of this new neighbor of mine but he is NOT poisonous and he likes rats and mice. My older son noticed him in our front yard while he was outside playing. I have to admit that I zoomed in when I took the picture, I was not standing that close to him. This is the third time we see a snake in our yard (first time this year though). This is a black snake, I have seen a garter snake too.

Happy Easter everyone!

Black, white and red

2011-04-16T15:20:00.000-04:00

When I saw this patterned paper I just had to have it. It's so pretty. It may look a little bit blurry on the picture but that's the print , the pattern is raised and kind of hard to take a good picture of it.

This is a very simple card, no stamping. I used a border punch to get the lace under the ribbon. I used a sizzix die to cut the heart out of card board or chip board. Cereal boxes are great to cut shapes out of. I sprayed the heard with red smooch shimmer mist. I love this color combination, white and black with a hint of red.

Last week was my older son's spring break. We had planned to go on a trip to Linville Falls and Brown Mountain over the weekend and spend a couple of nights there. Then we were just going to relax at home and celebrate my older son's sixth birthday. Well, we did make it to Linville Falls with a short stop on the highest mountain east of the Mississippi river, Mt. Mitchell. We put our stuff in the cabin and had lunch and were driving around the area when we got a phonecall telling us my FIL had passed away. We decided to stay in Linville Falls one night, and then we drove home. My hubby got a 4 hour rest before heading to Florida. We drove to Savannah, Georgia, and stayed over night in a Microtel before driving all the way to Lakeland, FL.

Before leaving Savannah we checked out Fort Polaski. I had fun taking pictures there.

Here's the birthday boy, wearing a crown he got at school.

His birthday was the same day as the funeral so we haven't celebrated it yet. He did get to go to Chucky Cheese's the day before his birthday and he loved it, even if the only kids there were he and his 3 year old cousin. So we went to Florida for spring break but there were no beach trips, no amusement parks and no sun bathing. We did get to see the family and eat a lot of good food though and the boys have a had a blast playing with their cousins. They don't get to see them very often.

Tonight we'll be heading back home with a stop in Georgia again. an 11 hour drive is a bit too long when you're travelling with little ones.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

TFL

A special confirmation card

2011-04-10T09:00:00.001-04:00

Made for my niece. Today is her confirmation and I'm not there to celebrate it with her and the rest of the family. There's no doubt in my mind that she's the prettiest girl in the group ;)

I used one of my favorite stamps, the dress from Inkadinkado. I used a retired background stamp from Stampin'Up, a doily and a gold layer behind it. The cross is a brad I got somewhere.

And here's a picture I've got og my niece and nephew.

I think this card is one of my favorites of all the cards I've made. And I'm ending this post with a photo I took the other day of one of my tulips. I put the tulip in a jar full of water and put it in the window, then I taped a piece of black card stock to the window to get the black background. Pretty easy. And I just used the light coming through the window, no extra lights.

Til hamingju með daginn Ingibjörg!

Wedding invitation ideas

2011-04-05T10:32:00.001-04:00

I've been working on some ideas for wedding invitations for my niece. She has not chosen the colors for the wedding yet (she's got a few months to think about that) so I'm trying to make cards that would be easy to change the colors to what ever she wants.

I started with this very simple one layer card. I used a stamp from Prima Marketing and a chipboard heart that I covered with Smooch spray. And a red ribbon at the top.

Then I decided to add a layer, used the same stamp as before, cut it out with a label die from Spellbinders and sponged a little bit of color on it. Punched out two heart from chipboard, sprayed with red Smooch and covered them with Crystal Effects. Added a red ribbon.

And the third version. I added a dry-embossed layer (embossing folder from Sizzix). Then the layer with the stamp and heart. And a red ribbon.

Here are all the three cards together.

I think I like the one to the left the best. What do you think?

TFL

Tilda and Lake Lure

2011-03-30T22:31:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I managed to find a little bit of time to make a "Magnolia" card. I had the image ready colored, just added a little bit of glitter to it and cut it out. This little Tilda is going to somebody's graduation.

I basically just had to figure out how I wanted the card to look, it didn't take me long to find the right colored paper to use and I think doilies look so good with the Magnolia stamps.

Last Friday morning, when I took my older son to school, the sunrise over Bat Cave/Chimney Rock/Lake Lure looked so pretty. It was a little bit chilly but I decided to take my little one over the mountain and go for a nice walk by the lake.....but all we got to do was play at the playground. Turns out they were doing some controlled burning where we wanted to walk so we couldn't do it. After about an hour there we came home smelling like we'd been at a bonfire.

I love watching the sunrise when I take my son to school and I wish I could take a picture of it but usually, by the time I've dropped him of the magic is gone and I can't take a picture while I'm driving. Maybe I'll actually get out of the house at 7:30 am on a Saturday or a Sunday morning just to catch that magic. That's a big MAYBE...lol!

Tomorrow I'm going to buy a new craft desk. We're going to move my little hurricane to his own room and move my craft corner to the master bedroom and the desk I've got now is too big. I'm kind of excited about this. Hopefully my little one will start sleeping through the night!!! I'm desperate for a full night sleep!

TFL

This and that

2011-03-24T23:20:00.000-04:00

Here's the last card I made using the card from Craftgawker as my inspiration.

I used Kraft card stock as a base. Spellbinders die for the panel, Sizzix die for the heart and a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the dots on the heart. The patterned paper is from my scrap stash and I used a retired Stampin'Up background stamp on the panel. I'm hoping to get creative this weekend, I'm still getting over my cold and sore throat. I had a relapse but no fever this time. I didn't do anything crafty for over a week and did not even open a book to read. I did however play with my camera and my flowerbed has been blooming in the last few days. I love watching my flowers grow. I´m still waiting for a bunch of tulips to come up but a few of them are in bloom right now along with the daffodils.

My little hurricane has been enjoying the weather and my older one picked me some flowers from the front and back yard.

We´re expecting rain and thunderstorms this weekend and I'm going to try to get some knitting and card making done. And who knows, maybe I'll even may a scrapbook layout...! I have started knitting a shawlette, Baktus. I'm knitting the wavy version from yarn my sister sent me in the mail. We sent each other "care packages" full of yarn and other fun things. I got mine in the mail but the one I sent her got sent to Canada by accident and it's been sitting there, stuck in the customs for over a week. I don't know how it's possible to mix up Iceland and Canada....usually packages get sent to Ireland instead of Iceland...but Canada...??? Doesn't make sense to me at all. I sent an email to USPS and told them about this but have not received a reply. I might just have to collect the insurance money for a lost package and buy everything again. We'll see.

Anyway, I hope you have a bright and colorful weekend (I'll be browsing the internet for my dose of colors in the rain here).

TFL

A card, a shawl and the moon

2011-03-20T13:24:00.000-04:00

Here is another card I made at the same time as the card in my last post.

I used Very Vanilla card stock from Stampin'Up instead of Kraft card stock. I think everything else is about the same.

I finally finished my shawl, it took me way too long to finish but that's what happens when you've got a little one getting into everything he can think of.

We've been having some rough days in the past week, starting with my older son getting sick with a bad cold and had to stay home from school. Then my younger one (who's barely had a day without a cold all winter) started feeling under the weather. On Thursday it was my turn and I got down with a sore throat and fever. We took the little one to the doctor on Friday morning and were told that he's got RSV. Today I'm finally feeling a little bit better, after 3 days of feeling either too hot or too cold due to my fever. The little one seems to be doing better...but my hubby is not doing so great. And this weekend (well, Friday and Saturday) were the warmest we've had this year and we were so going to enjoy it....well, maybe next time. Last night I knew the moon was supposed to be super bright and was bummed out because it was cloudy here in the mountains. At 1am I was still up (don't know why, because I was still feeling yucki at that time) and as I turned out the lights to get ready for bed I noticed how bright everything was outside. So instead of going to bed I put my jacket on and grabbed my camera. I had the hardest time figuring out which settings to use to take my pictures but managed to get a few decent ones, here's one of them:

TFL

Love

2011-03-13T19:00:00.002-04:00

I was browsing Craftgawker and found a card that I really like. I wanted to make my own version of it.

I used Kraft card stock for the base. Then I use Very Vanilla card stock from Stampin'Up for the panel. I used a floral background stamp (retired Stampin'Up) and Sahara sand ink on the panel. Added a doily and then ran it through my Cuttlebug using a label die from Spellbinders. Added a ribbon and a chip board heart that I sprayed with red mist. Pretty simple and easy to make.

We had a very sunny and bright day yesterday and I drove up a steep hill to get a good view of the sunset, it was a little bit windy but warm. I took a whole bunch of pictures of the mountains and the sunset.

TFL

Project Give Thanks

2011-03-12T00:12:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to spread the word about this new blog and hope you will too!
Project Give Thanks

I'll be back with a new post on Sunday.

Male confirmation cards

2011-03-08T21:13:00.000-05:00

I went through my scrap stash in search of something that would go with Night of Navy (dark blue), Old Olive (olive green) or mellow moss (moss green). I'm not sure where the striped paper is from but it's been a favorite for a long time. I've had it for years and always thought it was too pretty to use.

The patterned paper here is actually old/retired from Stampin'Up.

The cross stamp is from Stampin'Up and the card stock too, except the white card stock, I got it from Papertrey Ink. It looks so pretty when it's embossed. The embossing folder is from Cuttlebug/Provocraft and the die template is from Spellbinders.

Monday morning was so pretty here in the mountains. When I was getting ready to take my older boy to school I had to run back in and get the camera. The mountain tops were covered in frost and snow. I took this picture outside my favorite grocery store.

TFL

Sympathy cards perhaps...I'm not sure

2011-03-03T21:36:00.001-05:00

I made these two cards last month. They are very simple and easy to make. I started with just the embossed circles and scalloped circles but thought they needed to be a little bit bigger. I don't really know if I like them or not. Maybe if I'd add a sentiment or something they might look nicer.

Gold cross and gold ribbon.

Silver cross and black/silver ribbon.

The polka dot embossing folder is from Cuttlebug and the roses are from Stampin'Up.

---

My hubby and older son went on a trip to Florida last weekend to see my in-laws. And my little hurricane had his mom all to himself for 5 whole days. He was THE boss, I tell yah. He won't even let his mom spend 5 minutes on the computer, it's like I'm torturing him he squeals and cries if he sees me even just going in the computer room. In the last 5 days he's made sure his momma stays busy. Fortunately we had great weather and I was able to let him explore our front and backyard.

We even got a visitor and he told us spring is here ;)

I finished that icelandic book I was reading (it felt weird reading it in english) but I have not yet started the next book on my list. Instead I worked on my shawl.

I've knitted a little bit more since I took this picture. It's pretty easy, which helps when I've got a one year old destroying the house ;)

Don't be surprised if I bombard you with wedding invitations, I'll be making the invitations for my niece's wedding later this year. I can't wait to start experimenting and trying out different color combinations and styles.

Have a nice weekend and thank you for stopping by :)

Bookworm

2011-02-26T23:55:00.000-05:00

I made this set of cards a couple of weeks ago and have not done much since then, I have to admit. Well, at least not when it comes to card making.

I used Echoes of Kindness from Stampin'Up again. I just love that set but don't worry, I've put it away for now. I'm trying to work on some confirmation cards. My hubby and older son are in Florida visiting with my in-laws and my hurricane and I are spending the weekend together at home. He's making sure his momma stays busy. Today he figured out how to climb out of his crib, figured out how to climp on the kitchen table and managed to headbutt the floor and not on the carpet part (90% of the floor has carpet). He found my brayer which still had ink on it and started chewing on it. A couple of days ago he managed to open one of my SU ink pads and got purple ink all over himself. I was pretty optimistic to think I'd have time to read a couple of book, make a few cards and knit....and make a bunch of food for the freezer. I did manage to use my slow cooker today and got a little bit of food made for the freezer.

In the last week, week and a half I have managed to read A LOT. Three books thank you very much, in three languages. Stieg Larsson's The girl with the dragon tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor, 567pgs), Dorothy Koomson's Marshmallows for Breakfast (440pgs) and Åsa Larsson's Blóðnætur (Det blod som spillts, 365pgs) and I'm reading an icelandic book I found at the library (in english). I'm waiting to finish that one so I can start Stieg Larsson's The girl who played with fire.

I just finished knitting yoga socks for my son, not that he does yoga, he wanted me to make socks with no heel or toes. And I just started knitting Citron.

And it's starting to look a little bit like spring :) Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty warm, 75°F and I think I'll try to keep my little one busy outside as much as I can ;)

TFL

Birthday princess

2011-02-20T19:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a card for a birthday princess. I took the picture beforfe the glitter dried on the butterfly.

The stamps are from My Cute Stamps, the patterned paper is from Stampin'Up (old). I paper pieced her dress and cut the images out using Spellbinder's die templates. I also used a border punch from Martha Stewart.

Here I used Spellbinder's dies again. The cross is a stamp from Stampin'Up, I'm not sure where the background stamp is from.

I took my little one for a walk down by the river and we spotted this pretty cardinal. He moved around so much that I think I was lucky to actually get a picture of him.

I hope you had a nice weekend. We had great weather and we drove to Lake Lure for a picnic. They're fighting wildfires over there but I don't think any homes are in danger.

TFL

More V-Day cards

2011-02-14T20:42:00.000-05:00

I made a box for my husband and filled it with Reese's hearts.

I couldn't decide what I wanted it to look like. Not too girlie.....but it's hard when the colors associated with V-Day are red, pink and white. I used natural white card stock and cut it with a Spellbinders die template. Ran it through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder that I had applied a little bit of ink to and then I sponged the edges.

I made a little pouch for my older son and filled it with peanutbutter m&m's. The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket and has robots on it.

And here's a picture of my son wearing his new socks that I knitted for him. I love the colors (he picked the yarn) and they are very soft but I did not like knitting with this yarn. He is using the left over yarn for his spool knitting.

TFL

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-13T20:40:00.001-05:00

My son has been busy making card for his class mates. He got his first heart from a girl the other day and was so proud. She had made him a big foam heart with glitter foam stickers. So cute. Since he was so busy making all those cards I decided to make a couple of cards for a couple of women in my boys' life.

The card stock is from Papertrey Ink. The embossing folder is from Sizzix, the heart stamps are from Hampton Art and the sentiment is from Stampin'Up

TFL

Valentine's Day

2011-02-11T20:15:00.000-05:00

I went to a Stampin'Up workshop a couple of weeks ago. I try to go every month but usually end up only going every other month or less. We have so much fun making the cards and things Betsy, the demonstrator, has prepared for us. Last time we prepared for Valentine's Day.

This is a box for treats:

I think it's so cute. My son is going to give it to his teacher.

Here's a card that is also a treat box. So clever!

All the products are from Stampin'Up.

And here's a sunset picture I took the other day.

I'll be back this weekend with more Valentine's cards.

TFL

Waiting for spring

2011-02-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

I'm not really waiting for spring, I don't mind the winter weather all that much. But my cards do remind me of spring. I was looking through my scrap paper and found these patterned papers from DCWV. They are so pretty and some of them even have a little bit of glitter on them.

I used the same stampset from SU as last time. And I was able to match SU inkpads and ribbon to the patterned paper too. I also had to use my nesties, I got from Santa last Christmas :) And a Martha Stewart border punch.

Here's my little hurricane wearing his newest hat. I used Knit Picks Pallette yarn to knit it. It's very thin and will be perfect for spring. It's not quite thick enough for cold winter weather.

And I'll end this short post with a sunset picture from Asheville. I love playing with my camera and if I want to take more pics I'm going to have to clean out my memory stick. Sunday is supposed to be pretty nice so I'll make it my goal to empty the card and spend Superbowl Sunday taking pictures somewhere.

TFL

Ferming - Confirmation

2011-01-26T22:26:00.000-05:00

I've started on this years confirmation cards. Only have 4 done so far but at least that's a start, right?

I used stampsets from Stampin'Up, Crosses of Hope and Echoes of Kindness. I wanted to try making an easel card and of course couldn't do it the easy way with a regular shaped card.

I used a die from Spellbinders to change the shape of the cards, cut, embossed and used the die as a stencil. The flowers have a little bit of Stickles glitter on them. And I use ribbons to help the cards stay open. there's room for greetings under the ribbon. I think I did pretty good, if I say so myself, making easel cards for the first time. And those stamps are just so pretty.

And look here, I finally got a picture of my neckwarmer and my newest hat. Unfortunately I didn't notice until afterwards that my neckwarmer is inside out on the picture so you can't see the twist in the stitches. I have, since I knitted the neckwarmer and the hat, also finished a hat for my little Hurricane (who by the way started walking today, yay for him) and another neckwarmer for me. I am currently working on another hat for me.

I want to end this post with a sunset picture of Asheville, NC. I'm still learning how to use my camera and get all the setting right (instead of using the Auto setting). It is so hard to take pictures here in the U.S. without getting powerlines somewhere on the pics.

TFL

Another wedding card

2011-01-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

brrr...it's a cold morning. I was hoping for a two hour delay at my son's school but it didn't happen. It was supposed to snow here but I guess the snowflakes got lost. It wouldn't have mattered much, I didn't have to drag my son out of bed like usual, you see, he lost his first tooth yesterday :) He was so excited to see what the toothfairy would bring him. He made her a picture and (spool)knitted her something. Well the toothfairy, I guess, got a little distracted and left the picture and the knitted thing on top of the printer and my son saw it this morning and got upset about it. He wanted to blame me for stealing the stuff but I am innocent...I would have made sure he'd never see the stuff again...hehe.

Well, onto the card. I used the stamps from Hampton Art again.

I used a border punch from SU, embossing folder from Sizzix, and circle dies from Spellbinders. I kinsd of like the color combination.

My son wanted me to make him a Christmas card, and I waited until Christmas Eve to make it and stuck it on the tree for him to see.

It's an old/retired set from SU...but new to me. I think it's so cute (the stampset that is).

I have also done a little bit of knitting. I finished the neckwarmer but have not taken a picture of it yet. I have also finished a hat for myself.

I used PINK plötulopi, which is unspun icelandic wool. If you are on Ravelry you can find the pattern here. I changed it a little bit.

And I just wanted to post this cute picture of my little one having a fit in the bathtub. He thinks standing in the coolest thing....but I disagree ;)

Hope your weekend will be nice and full of crafty activities :)

Dresses

2011-01-17T21:14:00.000-05:00

I made a couple of cards using the dress stamp from Inkadinkado. I had stamped a bunch of dresses a while back and just picked out two from my stash.

This dress is covered in iridescent ice glitter from Stampin'Up. The swirl stamp is from Hamton Art, from the same stamp set as the wedding couple from my last post.

This dress I sprayed with glimmer mist and then covered the dress with Crystal Effects. The dress stamp is one of my favorite stamps.

And this is just a picture taken in my back yard. It's my neighbor's shed. I took the picture last week, I just love the colors. We had a lot of snow and my son's school was closed 4 out of 5 days. And the only day he went to school, they only had classes from 11 am. to 2:30 pm.

I'm going to take some time for card making this week. We had friends staying with us this weekend so I only got a little bit of knitting done. My neckwarmer is done, just need to wash it. And I've started knitting a hat for myself. I've been using a hat I bought in Sweden 11 years ago, so it's time for a new hat!

I'm going to a Stampin'Up workshop this Thursday and I'm crossing my fingers and hoping my boys won't get sick like the last time I had signed up.

TFL

A wedding card

2011-01-12T00:41:00.000-05:00

I gave myself a little bit of time last weekend to make a couple of cards. I'm saving one for another post, this is the other card I made.

The base (white card stock) is from Papertrey Ink, The gold card stock is from Stampin'Up and the black one I got at A.C. Moore. I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the background (embossing folder from Sizzix) and to cut the circles (Spellbinders). The stamps are from Hampton Art. I paperpieced the dress, using retired paper from Stampin'Up.

This is what I've been up to the last 4 days:

Wednesday will be the third day in a row my son is out of school due to bad road conditions, snow and ice. We're not hating it too much...hehe. Monday it snowed quite a bit but the snow was to dry to make a snowman but Tuesday the snow was perfect for it. My little one is not too fond of the snow so he gets to have some daddy time while I play with his brother in the snow.

Here's a picture of the neckwarmer I'm knitting. It's going sooo slow, I'm a little bit past halfway through. The yarn is icelandic wool. The pattern is very easy, I did manage to make a couple of mistakes....but they're not too noticable ;) I haven't decided what my next knitting project will be, maybe socks or mittens for myself.

The sweater my son is wearing in his picture was a Christmas present from my twin sister, she knitted sweaters for both of my boys.

TFL

hÄnglar & stÄnglar Christmas card

2011-01-07T19:41:00.000-05:00

I have to say I think this card and the tag below it were my favorite Christmas Creations last year.

The stamp is from hÄnglar & stÄnglar (Sweden). The patterned paper is old/retired Stampin'Up Christmas designer paper. The white roses I got from Norway. I used a Marthe Stewart border punch, Nestabilities and Glimmer Mist. My SIL got the tag on her Christmas present and she put in on her Christmas tree :)

I'm planning on getting creative tonight. I've been knitting but I'm itching to make a few (hopefully) cards when the boys have gone to bed.

I'm knitting a neck warmer for myself. I don't have a picture of it yet, I've not knitted enough yet. But you can see it here!

I hope you'll have a nice weekend. We've got a Winter Waether Advisory, it's snowing but the snow seems to be melting as soon as it hits the ground.

TFL

Happy New Year 2011

2011-01-01T21:35:00.005-05:00

I've been a very bad blogger. I've made quite a few cards but not given myself time to blog about them. I blame the changes we had in the fall. My older son started Kindergarten and somehow he changed into a little monster at the same time. He uses all his energy at school to be nice and behave but as soon as he steps off the bus he grows horns...hehe. It's been quite stressful I have to say. I do enjoy being able to spend some quality time with the little one, Hurricane-Jesse. That's my nickname for him. He's almost 15 months now, climbs on everything and gets into everything....but is not walking yet. The brothers get along pretty good most of the time. I don't get to spend much one-on-one with the older one unfortunately, but we did play Scrabble for almost 3 hours on New Year's Eve and he really liked it.

Here's Hurricane-Jesse:

Sylvan:

And here are a few of the Christmas cards I made last year:

And here's one of my favorite picture's I took this Christmas

It's taken (by me) at a restaurant in town.
Now, we'll see if I'll be a better blogger this year....crossing fingers! I might show off some of my knitting too.

Well, I'm off to read one of the books I got for Christmas....

TFL

Summer girl

2010-08-07T11:10:00.000-04:00

I wanted to use some of my bright "summery" patterned paper and came up with this card.

The patterned paper is from K&Company. The stamp is from Magnolia and the border punch from SU. I used my scalloped circle die from Spellbinders to cut the background for Tilda. Her dress is paper pieced. "Of course" I added glitter to the wings and the wand ;)

TFL

Wish Big

2010-08-05T23:54:00.005-04:00

When I saw the new sketch over at the Mojo Monday Blog I just knew I had to give it a try. My son's friend is turning 5 this weekend and he's a big fan of rockets. I dug out my rocket stamp from the SU stamp set Pun Fun and tried my best to match it with patterned paper from October Afternoon. I just love those colors for a boy card.

Here's a close up of the rocket, I covered it with Crystal Effects.....no glitter this time! ;)

Today felt like a Monday to me. I was going to take a shower and the lightbulbs were all out (there are 5 of them) in the bathroom...I had to shower in the dark because we were out of lightbulbs. Then I started getting ready to take my older son to the pool and it started thundering. Late in the afternoon (or early evening) I loaded my boys in the car and headed to the store to buy more lightbulbs (and groceries) and another thunderstorm hit us with a lot of rain.....so I just drove to Little Cesar's and bought us a pizza.....and the boys waited in the car. It was just not my day today....until I made this card...it made me a little bit happier :D Now I'm just hoping we wont get more thunderstorms for now. I've got errands to run tomorrow, gymnastics signups and a birthday party to go to on Saturday and my own birthday to celebrate on Sunday :)

I wish you all a great weekend!

TFL

Ladybug and a baby elephant

2010-08-04T22:34:00.004-04:00

I made a card for my friends baby girl. I haven't sent it yet because I've been knitting something for her.

I used a stamp from SU, Nestabilities to cut out the rectangle shape of the card and the circles. The patterned paper is from BoBunny.

This card I made for a little ballerina who loves ladybugs. My son's friend turned 4 this summer and this ladybug from Inkadinkado was just perfect for a card for her. I cut the card with my Nestabilities and my Cuttlebug.

Here's a closeup of the ladybug.

I also want to share a picture of what I found in my flower bed the other day:

A black widdow!!! Luckily I have a husband who was able to get rid of it for me ;p This is actually the second time we find one in our front yard.

This little bug is defenitely not as dangerous....although he's got 2 teeth now:

We actually call him "Red Bug" because his hair is red ;)

And here's my Kindergartner. We've been keeping him busy this summer and now he's just waiting for school to start.

TFL

Cardlifting or CASE-ing

2010-07-12T22:31:00.007-04:00

My computer finally died and I've got a new one now. Decided not to buy Toshiba again since my old one kept breaking down. But this also means that all the cards I had on my other computer are stuck there, I had put some of them in my gallery over at scrapbook.com so I was able to save them on the new computer.

As I was browsing my gallery I noticed that I've got +500 cards in it. So I decided to challenge myself to pick a card from some of my old ones and "cardlift" it.

Here's the card I picked

I made it in June 2008 and the stamp set is from Stampin'Up (Embrace Life). The card stock and patterned paper are also from SU. I used my scalloped square Nestabilities too.

Here's what I came up with:

I used the same stamp set but changed the colors. I added glitter, another flower and made the scalloped square smaller. The card stock is from Stampin'Up and the patterned paper is from BoBunny.

Here I changed it up a little bit more. Moved the center square, had fewer small sqares and made them a little bit bigger. And used one of my Magnolia stamps. It's the first time I use the pirate stamp. I don't have any pirate-like paper so I just picked out something from my scrap pile.

A friend of mine has challenged me to pick one of the oldest cards in my gallery to cardlift...yikes....we'll see how that goes!

TFL

Cards from my scrap pile

2010-06-23T18:54:00.004-04:00

Here's a good way to use up some of the scrap paper you might have piled up (like me).

I used patterned paper from Basic Grey, border punch, ribbon and markers from Stampin'Up, Spellbinder's Nesties to cut out the rectabgles in my Cuttlebug and a stamp from Inkadinkado. The decorative edge on the card was hand cut. I used my markers to color the stamp before I stamped it. That way I was able to use more than one color.

The stamp here is from Stampin'Up and patterned paper from Basic Grey again. Easy and simple boy card.

Patterned paper from Basic Grey again. Nesties die cut for the background for the giraffe. The giraffe is a stamp from Stampin'Up. Border punch, ribbon and ink also from Stampin'Up.

My little one had a check-up today at the hospital (neonatal check-up) and he's doing just fine, right on schedule in his development. He's 8 months old and weighs 19lbs6oz and is 28 inches tall.

One of my friends gave birth to a baby girl today so now I have to try to make an extra cute "baby girl card". They live in Ireland so I don't know when I'll get to see the baby, but I'm waiting to see some pictures ;)

TFL

Beautimus and You Rock!

2010-06-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

I've got to get back to scrapbooking, I don't give myself time to work on a layout anymore, it seems like. I did make this LO for a challenge. The challenge was to use as much white as we could.

Fortunately I had a bunch of white flowers and that's about it. I haven't bought scrapbooking stuff in a little over a year now. Other than a few pieces of patterned paper which I use mostly in my cardmaking. I took the picture of my boys about a week after baby Jesse came home from the hospital. I can't believe he's already 8 months old.

And here's a card I made, I think, back in February. I used a stampset from Stampin'Up, a bunch of Stickles, a border punch from Stampin'Up and patterned paper from BoBunny.

I wanted to try to make a girly skull card. I think it turned out ok. I had to draw and cut the decorative edge by hand.

And I'll end this post with a picture of my little cutie. You can't see it on this picture but he's got bright red hair :) He's grown so much, he no longer looks like a preemie.

I hope you're all having a nice week.

TFL

Magnolia

2010-06-16T21:35:00.000-04:00

I've been working on using up my scrap stash for months now....and the pile ain't getting any smaller :/

I really like this card. I've loved this paper since I got it and it was just pefect forthis card. I used my Nesties and my SU ink for the images.

This is a good way to use up scrap paper. I didn't have a cloud stamp so I had to make my own clouds by drawing them and cutting them out.

TFL

Wedding

2010-06-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of wedding cards I made a few of months ago.

I used stamps from Stampin'Up and paper. The hearts are covered with Iridecent Ice. The little gems are from Norway.

Hope you like my cards!

TFL

Confirmation cards

2010-06-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

Here are two samples of the confirmation cards I made this year.

All products from Stampin'Up except the metal crosses. Simple and easy. The bigger crosses are embossed with iridescent ice glitter from SU.

TFL

A few cards

2010-06-07T21:08:00.005-04:00

As some of you know I have not blogged in a few months. I've made plenty of cards and I also took a long break from making cards but mostly I'vebeen waiting for this dang computer to die :p It's been over heating for a while now and now I'm lucky if I can keep it on for more than 30 minutes. I don't get much done in 30 minutes. But I want to give it a try. (we are going to get another computer hopefully soon)

I used a Stampavie stamp on this card. The patterned paper is from my scrap stash. Used Nestabilities to cut the circle and the scallop circle. Added Crystal Effects and glitter to the fairy.

Ballerina Bella stamp from Stamping Bella (dot com). Patterned paper from SU (old).

Stamps from Inkadinkado. Cuttlebug embossing folder. SU ribbon. I actually use my brayer to put ink on my embossing folder (soft sky ink) before I embossed the paper. That made the swirls pop out even more.

I've been busy lately with my boys. The older one got a bicycle for his birthday and we try to take him somewhere he can ride it as often as we can. I'm trying to keep him busy this summer, got VBS coming up this month, summer camp and swim lessons. The little one is doing great, rolling all over the place, not crawling or sitting yet.

TFL

Happy New Year!

2010-01-10T00:11:00.003-05:00

Hope you've had a great start of the year 2010! Mine has been slow. My husband's been working a lot and we've had freezing temperatures so I haven't been able to take my boys out much. The little one stayed 11 days in NICU before coming home with us. And a couple of weeks after he came home I took a few pictures of my boys for the Christmas cards.

We were lucky and got white Christmas!!!

Of course my little preemie doesn't look like a preemie at all now. He's 12 weeks old and is doing great, 12lbs4oz (born 5lbs.). Hopefully he's changing his sleeping schedule now though....I wouldn't mind sleeping more hours between feedings. For a while there I was getting about 75 minutes between feedings.

But now I'm hoping he'll take at least one 4-5 hour "nap" at night time, he's been doing that during the day sometimes. Big brother is trying really hard to be helpful...but mostly gets in the way unfortunately. But I try to let him help me out as much as possible. He does pretty good most of the time. Big brother got in a fight with the snowman he made, that's why his face looks the way it is. He was actually trying to climb on the snowman and managed to fall off on the frozen ground.

I haven't been able to make many cards but I'm trying to find time to do a little bit each week.

I made this card the other day. The stamp is from Inkadinkado I think. I had it already stamped and colored in my stash. I also used Nestabilities and Glimmer Mist for the green-ish background. the card stock and sentiment are from SU.

Well, I better go check some of my older posts and delete spam comments that have been added there lately...some people need to find themselves a better hobby than posting spam all over the place!

TFL

A baby in October!

2009-10-20T23:39:00.003-04:00

Instead of November! Well, my baby had a mind of it's own and decided to enter the world a few weeks early (about 5 weeks). Early last Thursday morning (just before 3 am) I woke up as my water broke and we rushed to the hospital. I was supposed to have a planned c-section so we did not hang around and wait for my contractions to start. 3 hours later my baby boy was born. He's in NICU now, trying to gain weight and control his body temperature. I got out of the hospital on Sunday, could have gone home on Saturday, that's how great my recovery has been. I'm doing good as long as I take it slow. I spend about 4 hours a day at NICU with my son, even if he's just sleeping, I just want to be there, I just bring my knitting with me.

Enough of the chit chat, here are a couple of pics of my little prince, Theodor Jesse

This one was taken during the weekend, he had pulled his oxygen out and pulled his hat off.

This pic was taken on Monday. Had pulled his IV of the back of his hand and the nurse put it on his head instead. Here he's off the oxygen.

He's so tiny, he weighed 5 lbs. (2260 gr) at birth and was 19 inches long (48.5 cm).

We don't know when he gets to come home to us, it all depends on how good he eats and if he can keep himself warm.

I'll post a Christmas card here sometime in the next few days...if my brain allows me....today I started pumping for milk and forgot to attach a bottle to the pump! *lol*

TFL!

Christmas in October 1

2009-10-07T21:38:00.003-04:00

Magnolia Christmas

This card is made with Basic Grey scraps I had in my stash and Stampin'Up card stock. The image is colored with my Stampin'Up ink and the dress is paper pieced.

Again I've used my SU ink to color in the image. The pattered paper is partly from Basic Grey and partly "unknown"....something from my stash.

Here I'm using patterned paper from My Mind's Eye.
The little girl's dress is so perfect for paper piecing. The stamp is from Magnolia and I think it's so cute.
---
My pregnancy is going pretty good. I've got gestational diabetes so I get check-ups every week. The baby seems to be growing normally and I'm able to keep my blood sugar numbers pretty good so right now I don't need any medicin or insulin. Hopefully I can keep it that way until the baby's out. My biggest problem at the moment is finding pants that fit and are comfortable...I just feel like wearing my jammies all day ;)

Anyways...hope you're having a good week!

TFL

Happy World Card Making Day!

2009-10-03T12:05:00.003-04:00

And of course I've got a couple of cards to show you today.

I'm still working on using up my scrap pile. The stamp is from Stampin'Up. I used my Nestabilities to cut the circle and the scallop circle. Pretty simple, no glitter....just a simple boy card.

And I actually made a Halloween card. I never make those. I think this is the only Halloween stamp I have actually. Not that I'm against Halloween, I just didn't grow up celebrating it. All the card stock is from Stampin'Up and I used my Stampin'Up markers to color in the image....and put glitter on it of course. I got out my Cuttlebug embossing folders instead of buying Halloween patterned paper.
I hope you're having a great day. We've got some sunshine here :)

TFL

Christmas in September 4

2009-09-29T23:01:00.001-04:00

Elegant Christmas

I was trying to come up with some elegant Christmas cards. Most of my Christmas stamps would not fall in that category so I had to put on my thinking cap.
I got out my gold card stock from Stampin'Up and dry embossed it in my Cuttlebug. I then cut it into triangles to make Christmas trees. I remembered I had the designer paper with the gold swirls somewhere in my stash and dug it out. I used my Nestabilities scallop circle dies on my first card but pkept the next two cards even simpler.

This last card I actually made for a challenge over at Moxie Fab World the first week of September.

TFL

Christmas in September 3

2009-09-22T22:53:00.000-04:00

Magnolia Christmas

I had the image (Magnolia) all ready from last Christmas. Just had to look for paper in my stash to match the image. I used old Christmas paper from BoBunny. I used a border punch from Martha Stewart and the green ribbon is from Stampin'Up.

TFL

Autumn Gretel

2009-09-19T11:13:00.004-04:00

This card is made for the challenge over at "A Spoon Full of Sugar".

The challenge was to make fall inspired projects. I think the colors in this card make good fall colors. The designer paper is from My Mind's Eye and the stamp is Gretel from C.C. Designs. I paperpieced her clothes and loaded them with glitter.
I hope you're all having a good weekend!

TFL

Christmas in September 2

2009-09-15T22:43:00.000-04:00

Inkadinkado Christmas birdie.

I got this image ready around last Christmas, but didn't use it at the time (obviously). I stamped the image in Versamark and covered it with black embossing powder. I then heat embossed it. I brayered the image with Soft Sky and then sponged Night of Navy around the edges. Sanded the edges and used a white Signo gel pen to color in some of the snowflakes. I then covered the whole image with Versamark and covered it with Iridescent Ice glitter embossing powder and heat embossed it. The big chipboard snowflake is from Bazill and I just covered it with Crystal Effects and Martha Stewart glitter.

I really like how it turned out, looks pretty simple and clean.

TFL

Christmas in September 1

2009-09-08T22:28:00.003-04:00

I just love making Christmas cards and I've got so much "Christmas" designer paper I need to go through before I can even look at all the new Christmas paper.....I'm not sure I'll be able to buy any of the new stuff.

This cute little snowman is from a clear stamp set from Hampton Art. I, of course, covered it with glitter after coloring it in. the designer paper is from Scenic Route, it's a couple of years old and I still love it. Too girly to use on my Christmas layouts though.

---

I haven't posted anything on my blog for a while. The summer heat has been killing me. I'm almost 30 weeks pregnant now, expecting another boy. I'm still working a little bit and tomorrow I've gotta take the 3 hour diabetes test (I tried once but failed when my stomach couldn't take the smell (BO) from a guy in the waiting room at the lab). I hope I can keep the sugar drink in my stomach for 3 hours tomorrow, I really don't want to go through all this again.

Anyway, I'll be posting mostly Christmas cards from now until Christmas, I might add a few regular cards in between.

TFL

Magnolias and more

2009-05-02T13:52:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since my last post. I'm getting back on track, I've just been extremely tired all the time, I'm expecting our second child and am almost through the first trimester. So now I'm getting my energy back and I've been able to make a few cards this past week or so. I'm on a roll now ;) I've been playing with my Magnolia stamps a little bit and trying to use up some of my patterned paper. I need to use my paper before buying more.

Here I've matched Tilda up with Basic Grey's Cupcake collection. I used my Stampin'Up inks to color in the image and the card stock and ribbon are also from SU.

I don't think I've actually made a card with this Edwin image before. I decided to paper piece his clothes here and I used Basic Grey's Offbeat collection. I used A LOT of Crystal Effects here, I covered almost all of Edwin with is, and where I didn't use Crystal Effects I used Stickles glitter glue.

Today is the National (or International) Scrapbooking Day so I feel like I should post my latest LO. Now, if I were in the fashion business I would have been fired on the spot for mixing so many different patterns...

so lycky for me I'm just a crafter ;) The paper I used here is from Basic Grey's Wassail collection.

Can you tell I'm a BG fan???

I am planning on scrapping tonight. I've got a few pictures from our trip to Florida that I want to play with.

I've got a few more cards to show you, there's a new challenge over at SIK and I had to make something of course ;) I'll post my creations soon, I haven't put the pics on the computer yet.

Until then...

TFL

Hello Hello

2009-04-14T22:07:00.003-04:00

I'm still alive and kickin' ....just barely though. I haven't had much time to create much of anything. I did manage to squeeze in time to make a card and a page for SIK's newest challenge, I was asked to be a guest designer ;) So happy to say yes to that request!

I wanted to try to make a card using the sketch provided in the challenge. The stamp is from Sarah Kay, I colored it in with my SU ink. The sentiment is from Skrappa. The designer paper is Basic Grey and the rest is SU. The card size is 6x6 inches.

And here's the page. The scalloped square is from Bazzill, I also used designer paper from Basic Grey. the big flower is from Petaloo. It's a simple page, I like the card better.

We went to Florida for a week, my FIL had a Navy reunion and we wanted to attend it. We also managed to go to the beach once and celebrate my DS's 4th birthday (which was actually today).

I had one day off work after we got back home to relax before going back to work. And I so needed that extra day, I wasn't able to catch much sleep in the car, we drove over night for about 11 hours and I was so exhausted. But then it was back to work and I only got Easter Sunday off and then it was back to work. The store was crazy busy before Easter, I don't notice that people are holding back because of recession....and it was busy yesterday too. Today was a little bit slower.

We spent Easter Sunday with friends and had so much fun. The kids thought the egg hunging was so much fun they wanted to do it again, so the actually hunted for eggs twice. Some of the eggs didn't make it through the second hunt though.

Anyway, I hope y'all had a nice Easter! I think I'll hit the sack early tonight!

TFL

SIK#10

2009-03-24T21:34:00.005-04:00

The challenge over at SIK right now isto include circles in you creations. Pretty easy I guess. I've made a few things, they're not any masterpieces but they'll do I guess.
Here's a scrapbook page I made.

These are pictures from Christmas 2007 and I had too many to fit on one page (or they were too big) so I came up with this:

I made a hidden mini album. The designer paper is from SEI, I love their papers! The flowers are from Petaloo.

Here's a card made with a Whipper Snapper stamp and Basic Grey designer papers. Simple but I made 8 of these (6 for a swap).

These are mini cards that I made, all ingredients are from Stampin'Up except the Nestability dies that I used for the circles and scallops.

I haven't had much of a mojo in the last few days, spend the second half of last week with a stomach bug, had a few hours to myself on Sunday but couldn't come up with anything to make. I'm working on a scrapbook page right now and hope to post it before the weekend. We're going to drive to Florida on Saturday night, my FIL has a Navy reunion and the whole family is going, it'll probably be his last one. It's guys from his ship that survived when the Japanese sank their ship however many years ago. I haven't been to Florida in almost a year and a half so it's about time.
Well, I've got a Grey's Anatomy DVD to watch before I go to bed.
TFL

7 cards in 7 days

2009-03-13T09:04:00.004-04:00

Here are the cards I mader for the 7/7 card challenge at an icelandic scrapbook forum.
Card 1 Red/Pink

The first day we were supposed to use pink and red on our cards, love theme. I used a sketch from MojoMonday. Stampin'Up papers and stamps in background, Wordsworth stamp.
Card 2 Circle

The second day we used circles in our cards....my Nestabilities were perfect for that challenge ;) Basic Grey designer paper and Elzybells stamp.
Card 3 Teen girl

The third card was supposed to be for a teenage girl, I asked my DH which I shoud use, a dress stamp or a skull stamp.....he picked the skull obviously, saying it was way cooler than a dress ;) BoBunny designer paper, Nestabilities and a skull stamp from Stampin'Up. We had to use glitter on the card and I covered the skull with glitter.
Card 4 Sketch

We had to use a sketch (provided in the challenge) and I decided to make a birthday card for my 4 year old nephew. BoBunny designer Paper and a Sugar Nellie stamp.
Card 5 Pocket and tag

We had to make a card with a pocket and a tag. I cheated a little bit (I think) because Idecided to hide the tag behind the image. The sentiment is from Skrappa. The girl is a Magnolia stamp. Basic Grey designer paper.
Card 6 Manly Card

It's always hard to make a male card but I think I pulled it off. The stamp is from Stamping Bella and the designer paper is from Basic Grey.
Card 7 Flowers

The last challenge was to use flowers on our card. All supplies Stampin'Up.
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It really helped me that I keep extra images that I have already colored. So in stead of worrying about stamping and coloring I could just find papers that matched the images ;) It was so much fun to get a challenge every day.

TFL