Another Papertrey Blog Hop...

Here we are for another PTI Blog Hop. Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you enjoy!

This month's theme is "Floral Frenzy." Flowers I love flowers!!! If you look back at many of the projects I have on my blog, there is a VERY good chance that there is a flower of some sort on it, in it, or the project is it! I am so excited to be able to play along this month! I have missed it, and so needed something to exercise my mind - not to mention get it off of other things (see previous post!).

However, I am afraid that what I came up with wasn't anything too exciting. I just didn't sit down until this afternoon to do it, and by then there just wasn't enough time to execute all my ideas!

So here they are... The first one is a flower made of ribbon. PTI's very own Berry Sorbet ribbon to be exact!

Just keep looping the end over until you get something you like. I pinched the edges before putting a stitch or two in each "petal." The I added a button from Basic Grey (compliments of Beverly :-)!) to finish off the center of the flower. Pretty easy and I don't think I used more than 10 inches of ribbon. Not bad!

As for the second project, I used one of my favorite background stamps from SU! - Script. This is the one that has the Irish blessing on it. LOVE it! I stamped it in Versamagic Pearlescent Beige onto cream cardstock. I did not use PTI cream because it is too thick (a good thing!) to "bend," it creases more easily and I wanted it to be softer without cracking, so I used some cream from the Paper Company, much thinner, cheap paper for small projects like this.

After stamping the paper, I let it dry and then ran it through my Cuttlebug with the four sized flowers from Flower #1 set. Then I inked them with PTI's Dark Chocolate and curled the edges with between my fingertips.

Finally, I put a little glue between each flower die for stability since I knew I would mess with the petals again, and I added a copper brad to finish it off.

Wallah! Two different flowers in about an hour!

I can not wait to see what everyone creates tonight! I am so excited about all the new flowers I will undoubtedly learn! Have fun at the blog hop ladies!

Have a great evening! And as always, thanks for stopping by!


P.S. Sorry about the cutt off pics on the right side. If you click on the pics, you will get the actual picture. I am still learning about HTML. I will fix it later after I feed my kids :-)

Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails...

Well, at least that's what I think it should say. What is a snip anyway??? Anyone know?

This was a really fun and easy card that I did for my nephew who recently turned two. He is the other twin from Pennsylvania who celebrated his birthday the beginning of this month.

I sketched this layout out a while back and never made anything with it. I thought it was an unusual sketch, and it required just the right image. This little guy is a .99 stamp from Imaginisce that I picked up at Michaels a few weeks back - I am so loving our new store here...ahhhhhhh...I get lost in there.

It's all pretty self explanatory really. He is colored with Prismacolor Pencils and OMS and I added some Cinnamon Stickles to his eyes. I think he is downright cute!

I have been working on some Christmas cards for someone else, which I am almost done - YIPPEE! I haven't really started my own yet, just a few here and there that I will share in my next post. I am still trying to decide on something easy, yet elegant; after all I have about 60 to make - I need easy!

On another note, if you are a person who prays, please mention my son in your prayers. He has been having some fainting spells, which we originally attributed to Hypoglycemia when he had them about a year ago. However, his doctor has recommended that we see a Pediatric Cardiologist just to rule out anything more than that. Our appointment isn't until Dec. 1st, but a few prayers would be most appreciated.

Enjoy your weekend, and as always thanks so much for stopping by!

Before They Grow Too Old...

I love making my kid's costumes for Halloween. I hope to do it every year (well at least while they let me), because I know there will come a day when they will only wear store bought costumes, and then that dreadful day when there will be no more trick-or-treating.

So I figured I better get the pictures posted from Halloween at least before Thanksgiving rolls around :-P

Here are some photos of past years costumes...

My son as a chicken in 2004; he was almost 1 here...
My daughter as a flower in 2005, at 2 months old...
My son as a Deviled Egg in 2005, he was almost 3...

Both kids as Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat In The Hat in 2006... (I painted the pumpkin too :-)

My son wanted to be a pirate in 2007, so his sister had to follow suit (her choice, not mine!)...

And here we have this years winners - WALL-E...

And Fancy Nancy (if you have a girl you know who Fancy Nancy is :-)...
Up until three weeks before Halloween my daughter had her heart set on being Eve from WALL-E, however one trip to the library changed everything. She read Fancy Nancy and fell in love; here was no turning back!

My son and daughter won first and second prize at our community Fall Festival. One of the judges said that he had to win first prize because somebody (insert mommy here!) put a lot of work into his costume. My daughter won second because even though they didn't know who she was supposed to be, she was just "so darn cute!" Our kids can be real charmers!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!

Tagged and Yes, A Card!

Hi There!

I am so sorry that my posts have been so few and far between. My husband has been working long-long-long hours lately, and to be quite honest, many days/weeks I feel like a single mom - I really have a true appreciation for what they do, I can't even imgine throwing a full-time job on top of this! My husband is out of town this week, and of course we (the kids and I) are all sick. Bowling anyone? I'll offer you my head...

Anyway, my dear friend Beverly tagged me (three weeks ago! - eeeeeeek!) so I thought I would play along since I don't usually share much about me! So here goes:

The Rules:
1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Since it has been so long, I will just share my facts and not tag anyone at this point, as everyone has probably already been tagged :-)

So here are my little facts:

1. I have a bachelor's degree in English and a Masters in Counselor Education.

2. I hate the telephone! I would so much rather email, write a letter, or talk with someone in person than to ever pick up the phone. No I wasn't always this way, I could talk for hours with my friends and boyfriends in high school!

3. I went to Catholic school all my life until college. Now I am not sure if I should be Catholic anymore??? Hmmm...

4. I used to work for TV Guide magazine, however, I only made about $21K a year, so that job only lasted a year!

5. I do not like to swim in water that is also home to fish - it FREAKS me out! It's pool water only for me!

6. I love the outdoors, which if you really knew me would come as a shock to most because many people think I am too girly to like camping in a tent! My husband was amazed the first time we went and made sure to tell everyone how I did.

7. When I first met my husband he was casually dating another girl. He told me he believed in the "three date rule." If by the third date there were no feelings then he at least gave it adequate time to determine it wasn't meant to be. A few months later we had our first date (didn't go too well - he is a loud laugher, I am more reserved), then our second (also not great...met the friends and they were pretty over the top strange). Why this is important... If he never told me about his three date rule there never would have been one! It was on our third date that I saw him in a different light, and here we are ten years later!

Well, there you go, "fun" facts about me... Now for a card...

I made this one for my Goddaughter/neice for her 2nd birthday. I thought a "little" glitter might be in order :-) The only down side to glitter is it literally gets on everything, but boy is it pretty. I'm sure she enjoyed the sparkle though. Sadly, we did not get to the party (they live in Pennsylvania), which I just visited a few weeks ago for my Godson's 5th birthday. That 5+ hour trip is not fun with my "hates to travel" 3-yr old! But we do miss our family terribly and wish we could be there for every event.

On the up side, I really liked how this turned out. I used a lot of things that are so not usually my style: glitter, a gold paint pen, rub-ons, and lace. But it was a lot of fun to make something out of the ordinary! I also got to use my new curvy rectangle nestabilities - LOVE THEM!

Let's see, what's not obvious about this, well I made the flower base and inside flower with a corner rounder. I colored the curvy rectangle directly with a dew drop. Lastly, I outlined the white flower with a gold pen. Everything else should be pretty self-explanatory I think.

I now have to feed my sick kids lunch. I hope you enjoyed visiting and I so appreciate anyone who is still visiting my forgotten blog.

Have a fabulous day!


What I Used:
Paper: White and Plum Pudding PTI, lavender is Paper Company, Vellum
Ink: White Craft SU!, Versamagic Dew Drop Spring Pansy
Stamps: Polka Dot Basics PTI
Accessories: Corner Rounder Punch (with guard off), lace, American Crafts rub-ons, Gold paint pen, flowers all Prima, Gold Brads MM, Gem is from Michaels $ bin, Tiny Rhinestones $ Store, Mega Curved Rectangle nestabilities and Cuttlebug, Glitter Glue and Glitter Martha Stewart, Butterfly punch Martha Stewart