Marvels of technology!!

You know we've come a long way with technology when I can be lounging on the couch at my parents house five hours from my own home and still be posting on my blog!

I guess I've been an over-achiever this week. Not only do I have two cards to show, but I also cleaned up my craft room and took some pictures. :-) I love looking at the gallery on Splitcoaststampers of all the pictures of how people have their craft rooms set up. I know mine isn't my "dream" room - because I also share the space with a lot of my daycare storage - but it's getting darn close.

So the first picture is of my stamp storage. I have tubs where I store all my Stampin' Up! stamps. I label the outside of the box so I can glance at them and find the set I want. On the bottom shelf next to the stamps is one of my paper organizers. This one is big enough to hold all of the Bold Brights and Soft Subtles papers. Underneath the bottom shelf on the floor are two of the Iris brand carts where I have all my single stamps and stuff that I alter - baby food containers, tins, etc.

The second picture is of a spice rack that I cleaned out (okay, my DH cleaned it all up for me!!) and re-purposed. Don't you just LOVE finding things that you have in the house that you can turn into something for your crafting purposes??? In this handy little rack, I have buttons and brads. (I have all my eyelets in a different area - which I will have to show a different time because I don't pictures of them.) I love this spice rack because you can just spin it around until you see what you are looking for.

The next picture is just of the carts where I have assorted craft items stored. My SU! markers are in one drawer, other brand markers and pens in another, adhesives in one drawer, you get the idea.... One thing I would like to get out of the bigger drawers on the right hand side are all my SU! punches. I'd sure like to find a better way to store them where I can see what I have a little bit better. I'd love using the idea of a curtain rod to store them on mounted to the wall, but I have very little wall space and most of it is painted cinder block in this room.

The fourth picture is the side that has the rest of my SU! papers and all the rest of my designer papers. It's not the best picture, but it's a pretty good wide shot of that side of my craft room. I have most of them in Cropper Hopper paper storage systems, which I seem to like just fine. The paper sorters on this side came from Sam's Club and hold 12 colors each, which was perfect for the SU! color families. :-)

My favorite picture from my craft room is this final one - I love these cute little white flower pots that I found at Wal-Mart. I am now using them to store my Copic Markers, Prismacolor Markers and Colored Pencils in. I also have one for my scissors and I bought two spare pots just in case I need them in the future. (I would have taken a picture of my craft table - but it's a mess right now!!) You can see the edge of my Ott-Lite in the picture. I got this for Christmas this last year from my DH and kids - and I love love love it!! So that's a quick peek at what my craft room looks like. I have t.v. in the craft room, so I can sit in there and keep caught up on the day - or in the case of this year, keep an eye on the nasty weather we've been having in the Omaha area this summer!!

Okay - on to the cards!!!! They are quick and easy - just the way I like them. :-) Sorry that I don't have time to go into details about them - but I can hear my DD waking up from her nap. Have a great week and I will see you back here next weekend!!

Hello!!

Happy day to all of you!! :-) Wow - not much to talk about this week. I guess that's good - either that or I'm just tired from the past few days of getting DD in a big girl bed!! Overall she has done great. She was up for about half and hour last night around 2:30, but I was able to get her back to sleep in her own bed. The nice thing about summer is that kids are so tired by the end of the day that getting her to bed at night has been pretty easy. I hope things continue that way!!

I have actually had quite a bit of time this past week to stamp - so I have three different cards to show! I am hoping to spend some more time this week in the craft room. I'd like to get some cleaning/organizing done, so maybe soon I will have some pictures of my clean crafting area!!

Enjoy the cards and have a great week!

Happy Father's Day!

We've made it through another week of running here and there and everywhere!! lol Even with our sons gone this week, it seems like we still had plenty to do. The major "excitement" was on Wednesday night of this past week - we spent about an hour in our basement while the wind blew, the rain came pouring down and the tornado sirens sounded. Thankfully, the most severe weather missed us. However, it did not miss the Little Sioux Boy Scout camp site. Our prayers go out to all of the people affected by the tornado that swept through the camp site killing four boys and injuring dozens of other Boy Scouts. Both of our boys are Boy Scouts now and our middle son was actually at a different week-long Boy Scout camp. We were glad he was safe and, boy, did I give him a big hug when we went out for Parent Night.

For Father's Day today, we treated my DH to a nice breakfast after Church. I hope he enjoyed it, because not often am I going to spring $60 for breakfast!! I knew I should have never let our middle son pick where we went!! lol I guess I've instilled good taste in him, but sheesh!!! After that we came home so Dad could open his gifts. Yes, he got the much made fun of Father's Day gift ---- ties and dress shirts! But honestly, it's what he likes now that he's wearing suits to work most of the time.

This past week I've been spending quite a bit of time in the craft room working on a project that middle son and I wanted to get done. We've made 8x8 scrapbook albums for our boys' friends whose dad passed away. The two boys are the same ages as our boys and then they also have a sister who is going to be in the 3rd grade. The albums were pretty simple - mostly we just wanted to give them something that they could have to put special pictures in and a place to write down some memories. I hope they like them! I did find some time to get some cards done too. My mom has reminded me that I still owe her some cards from the trip we took this past March. We bartered cards for her paying my share of our hotel bill when we went to new York City. Not a bad deal, in my opinion!

The card I uploaded is pretty simple. Again, that's the way I like doing them. Sure - I like looking at all the cards out there on people's blogs that are all embellished up, but I just don't seem to have the time for that. Maybe one of these days I will get out my mini-sewing machine and see what I can do with that!! All the stamps and paper from this card are SU! I made it for a swap at a SU! Demo event that my upline sponsored.

Well, our baseball tournament was rained out for this afternoon - so I'm going to get busy getting some household chores done around here. DH and our middle son are probably going to down to the NCAA College World Series and hang out there for a while later. Sounds likes a good end to our nice Father's Day!

Have a great week!

The card that I had to make this week was not a happy one to do at all. Sympathy cards are my least favorite and it's even worse when it's for the family of someone you've known. This past Tuesday the funeral of a man who, though we'd only known him for a few years, he was the type of guy you'd like instantly. He was always smiling and made everyone around him feel good. He was the coach of our 10 year old's baseball team and had coached our other son in basketball previously. He will be missed by everyone who knew him. So this past week has been a long one. It's hard enough to talk about death to your kids, but when someone is lost well before they should have been, it's that much harder.

We spent most of Saturday out at the family cabin. Our darling little dear got to play in the lake for the first time this season. I can see that a life jacket is going to be mandatory for her because she will just get right in the lake. No fears there!! I'm glad that she likes the water - but holey moley - we're going to have to keep an eye on her!!!! Last summer, she was content to play in the wading pool we'd fill up on the beach, so I can see I'm going to get a good tan this summer out with her. :-)

Well, have a good week. I'm working on a project with my ten year old to make scrapbooks for his friend and siblings who lost their dad. Hopefully a nice memory book will give them someplace to put some special pictures. I'll snap some photos of them to post next weekend. They are nothing elaborate - just something simple to help them remember the good times.

See you next weekend!!

Happy Birthday Weekend!!

Wow - is the weekend over yet????? lol We're just all beat around here from the hub-bub of the weekend. The good news is that the one-two year old birthday party was a complete success! Our little nephew had a great time and boy, did he ever give new meaning to the word "smash cake"! The bad news is that I had no time to stamp or craft this weekend. However, I did find time to go to Michael's with my mom Saturday morning to buy some stamp and craft related goodies - so maybe that will give me the motivation to get something done this week!!
















I do have some pictures from the birthday bash to share. Our darling little girl who is actually turned two today had a strawberry themed birthday and as if that wasn't enough, we had one of those big blow up castles in the backyard for all the kids to jump in. :-) We live in the first house you see as you turn in to our neighborhood - so it was funny to watch all the people gawking as they drove by!!







Have a great week and come back next weekend when I promise I will have some homemade creation to show off!!!!