Distraction from stamping!

So I haven't posted on here in like FOREVER! I'm blaming it on being pregnant and having no energy to do much crafting. The time I would craft was during daycare naptime, and the last few weeks, I found myself laying down on the couch with the kiddos to rest while they were sleeping!!

But now our newest little addition is here so I won't have that as an excuse. Now I can blame it on sleepless nights!! :-) We spent this last week pretty much in our jammies all day, so the goal from here on out is to get up and get dressed in the morning. Hopefully the baby will like the little swing that is set up in the craft room and I can get a few things created while on maternity leave!!

Here's the details of our sweet little princess....

Sophie Anne
Born September 13th at 8:50 a.m.
Weighing 8 lbs 2 oz
Measuring 21 inches long

Scrapbook pages!

I have made some time to sit down and use my Cricut machine to help me get some scrapbook pages done. I must say - what a piece of cake it is to cut out letters using this machine. I LOVE it! I have started making birthday albums for my kids. I think it will be way easier at this point than trying to catch up on scrapbooking every day activities and holidays! So I started with the youngest, since hers was the easiest one to finish up - she's only three!! :-)

Time to post again!

You'd think my mother bugging me about not posting would be enough to get me going...but apparently it hasn't been. Until now! :-)

I have been busy doing a variety of things in the craft room lately. Most of them have involved moving my stuff and putting it away as we've had a home remodel project going on.

I did however, start some scrapbooking a couple weeks ago, which felt good to do! I have started by making birthday albums for the kids. I started with Carly's - which hasn't been that hard to get caught up since she's only three. It's going to be more of a chore to do the boys' who are 14 and almost 12. But, I will get it done. It helped that I have moved my photo printer down to the craft room so that it's more accessible.

I do have one card that I CASEd from somewhere - sorry don't remember where. It was super easy to make. And the nice thing is you could change the sentiment to say about anything happy you wanted it to!

Long lost neglected blog!

Oh for pete sake - I realize that it's been a month since I've posted! Bad me! We've been busy, I guess is my only excuse. I haven't made any cards since this last week. That's really sad! But oh well - such is life!!

I do have two new cards and will have some more for later postings. I'm getting back into the grind of bartering with my mom. Cards for candles is our little project. 10 cards earns me a small Barn Candle. :-) I always have a nice stock pile of candles so that when I need a quick little gift, I have one!!

Wish me luck this weekend. I will be taking my soon to be three year old to the bakery to pick out and order her cake for her birthday party which is next weekend. Let's just say, she has changed her mind about as many times as I've expected. We have gone from wanting a Tinkerbell cake, Strawberry Shortcake cake, Disney Princesses cake to now wanting a Madagascar cake. Well, once we order it, that's it!! No changing our mind!!

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is enjoy the beauty and wonder of Spring and having a wonderful and blessed Easter. We've taken a couple days off to venture north and spend some time with my DH's sister and her family. I am hoping to get some serious shopping in and just have some time to rest and relax!


This first card is a favorite of mine. It's probably because I like lady bugs so much! :-) The saying says "bug me anytime."


The second card I love the colors of and I really like the stamp set with the butterfly. I'm sure I will make many more cards with this set.





Have a wonderful weekend! See you back here next time! :-)

Chocolate Mint Cookies

Collin is in the 6th grade advanced math class right now and one of their assignments was to find a recipe that included at least 5 fractions. So he looked through the family cookbook - A Taste of Chase and decided on the recipe for Chocolate Mint Cookies. We made them this afternoon because each student in advanced math is supposed to bring a sampling of their recipe. I'm not that much of a chocolate fan - but even I thought these cookies were good. Here's the recipe....

CHOCOLATE MINT COOKIES

Ingredients:
3/4 c. butte
2 c. chocolate chips
2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 TB water
1/2 tsp. salt
1 box Andes mints candy

In medium saucepan, melt butter, brown sugar and water until melted. Add chocolate chips and cook until partially melted, remove from stove and stir until completely melted. Let cool for 10 minutes. On high speed, beat in eggs. Reduce to low speed and add remaining ingredients. Chill for one hour.

Roll into nickel sized balls and place on foil lined cookie sheet 2" apart. Bake at 350ºF for 12-13 minutes. Remove from oven, press 1/2 mint on top of each cookie. Let melt and swirl with knife. Let stand on cookie sheet for two minutes and place on cooling rack. Makes approximately 4 1/2 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

Another action packed weekend!

We're having another action packed weekend. We started out by attending the last fish fry of the Lenten season. I know my DH thinks I'm weird, but I love going to the fish fries at our church!

Baseball season has started and we have a couple of practices under our belt now. Yea! I know that I'll complain in just a few short weeks about "how many more games do we have left" and "geez I'm tired of sitting out in the heat" - but I do enjoy watching DS#2 play! :-)

Sunday is our DD's last swimming lesson. It's kind of been disappointing because since she isn't three yet, her dad has had to go in the pool with her. So she hasn't been really learning all that much, but I guess just getting acclimated to the water before we start heading out to the cabin is good. Maybe this fall we'll get her in some "solo" lessons!

I do have two cards to share this week. I've been busy working on some daycare projects as well as a project for our school advisory council - so maybe now that those are settling down and coming to a close I will actually want to get crafting! Wouldn't that be great!?!

Have a great week!

The forecast for the weekend is for kind of cruddy weather - so I'm glad that I will be sitting inside at the Infant-Toddler Symposium today. :-) I've decided that 2009 is the year I will kick my butt back into gear getting more than the minimum in-service hours for my daycare! So I'm making a concerted effort to attend more conferences and workshops! But that means no stamping again today. :-( Maybe on Sunday I will just make some "me time" and get some crafting done! I'm really in a mood to clean and organize, and goodness knows that the craft room could use some TLC.

The card I have for this week is one that I made for our church silent auction basket. The nice thing about having made 52 cards is that I have ready made blog materials!! Enjoy the card and have a great weekend!

Busy weekend, as usual!

Let me just start this posting out by asking this --- how can a sixth grader be so good at making the picks fo the NCAA mens basketball tournament? After the first and second round of play, DS#2 is 41-7. And of course, this year we didn't join any of the office pools....lol If he doesn't grow up to be a commentator or sports analyst, I don't know what he'll do!

We had a busy weekend filled with Boy Scout camping, the final two basketball games of the season and swimming lessons. And thanks to technology, even though I didn't have time to make it into the craft room (I haven't even gone down into the basement all weekend!), I do have some pictures saved of cards from my silent auction basket from our church auction at the beginning of the month. Enjoy your week and see you back here next time!

My first shaker card!

I love glitter shaker cards but had never had the gumption to make one before now. But I decided to step it up for the basket of cards I made for our parish auction. I love the SU! set with the skull! It's just "made" for turning into a shaker!! :-) The heart shape of the eyes was cut out and I used the chunky pink glitter to fill up the shaker part. Now that I have done one, I'm sure that more will be in order!!

We're nearly half through a busy week which includes a late basketball game tomorrow evening (I mean, seriously, who schedules 6th graders to play a 9pm game on a school night???) and a Boy Scout camping weekend coming up. Have a great rest of the week and see you back next time!

Wow!

Okay- I've taken enough grief from my mom that it's time to get my blog updated. Yes, it's been over a month since I've last posted. But you know what... I've been busy!!!! :-) Between the boys' school and sports activities and everything else, it seems I have hardly had a moment! And I've been super busy in the craft room. I made a basket for our church's silent auction which contained 52 cards - enough for "one card a week for a year!" :-) So now that I finally have that done, I will have more personal, fun time in the craft room! This is the third year that I've done a card basket for our auction and they always seem to go over very well. I'm slowly learning my lesson that perhaps as I'm making cards throughout the year, I should put a card here and there away for the next year's auction basket..... But what fun would that be - it would completely go against my human nature which is to do everything at the last minute!!

I also put together a cupcake-themed basket for the auction. It was fun to do. I got three fun cupcake cookbooks and gathered some other assorted cupcake related items so that the person who wins will be all ready to go home and whip up some cupcakes! Below are pictures of the baskets and one card from the card basket. I thankfully took pictures of a lot of them, so I should have some ready-to go blog material for a while!!

Thanks for looking and maybe, just maybe I will TRY to keep this updated better!! I do have some exciting news to share next week - so perhaps you should come back next week to see what that is!! :-)

Baby swap cards!

One way to force yourself into getting some cards done is to join a swap. I do this through Splitcoaststampers. :-) It's a great way to get some cards done and then get some back in return. This swap's theme was baby cards. I signed up for two spots, so I had to make two different cards. Both cards are 100% SU! :-)

Now that I have these cards done, I need to decide what I'm making for our Parish auction which is coming up the first weekend in March. The first year I made a basket of 52 cards - for
"a card a week." Last year I made two baskets of like 30 cards each that were just all general cards and a coffee themed basket. So I need to put my thinking cap on and decide how ambitious I am going to be this year! I'd like to do another theme basket- and I'm thinking about cupcakes because they seem to be sooooooo "in" right now. Stay tuned to see what I get figured out!

Have a great week!

Handprint poster

I love my new Cricut Expression!! :-) I can use it to cut out letters for projects and activities we do for daycare!! So this posting isn't so much a craft as just a project we did that used my craft supplies!! lol I used the Cricut to cut out the letters and my SU! White Craft ink pad to do the handprints. I thought it turned out very cute!

Boo hoo!!!!

I'm pouting tonight because it's too cold to go out and do anything! lol I haven't left the house since Sunday. But that is an occupational hazard when you run a daycare from your home!! :-) DH took the boys to a Creighton basketball game tonight and gave me and DD strict instructions not to even think about leaving the house because 0º F is too cold for girls to be out in. Well, you know what that means.....all I have been craving tonight has been a Starbucks mocha!!!!! lol Oh well. Instead, I have been using my time productively. I got a swap card done and DD has been playing the daycare's Sega Pico for the last hour.

I thought the swap card turned out cute. It's a coffee themed swap - which hasn't helped curb my desire for a mocha... But I thought the card turned out cute. Thanks for stopping by to look! Have a great week!!