Happy Labor Day Weekend!!

Wow! What a last week and a half. I am sorry that I didn't post last weekend - but, boy - was I under the weather! That and we traveled about five hours to my parents' house for my dad's 60th birthday celebration. The way out there was one of the longest car rides EVER!! lol I think everyone around here is glad I'm feeling better because when I'm not feeling well, I'm a grouch to be around. See, I can admit it!! :-)

This weekend is Labor Day weekend in the States so we are enjoying some rest and relaxation at the family cabin with all of DHs immediate family. Monday, we are doing nothing and I might very well stay in bed until noon and my jammies all day!! lol Okay, we all know that's not going to happen. With a two year old who is up at the crack of dawn, I'm sure I'll be up doing something. Plus Monday is my DH's birthday!! Happy birthday, dear! He claims he reads my blog - so we'll see if I get any comments from him. His birthday present has been hiding in my dresser drawer for about three weeks now. :-) I hope he likes it!

I'm excited to report that I registered for the SU! regional event in Kansas City on September 27th. I can't wait to go!!!!! As long as I've been a demo, I haven't made it to a convention and this will be my first regional event. With Kansas City so close to Omaha and family to stay with down there - there was no way I wasn't going!! I've been trying to come up with some ideas for swap cards - but so far, I'm not having much luck. I'd LIKE to come up with an original design of my own, but I may settle for just CASEing something out of the catalog. My problem is - I want the cards to be something simple enough to make 100 of, but not so plain that people are like "those cards stink - I don't want to swap with you." That is like my biggest fear - being THAT swapper that everyone thinks stunk!! lol Oh well - I'm sure I will come up with something before then. And because it's just my nature, I'm sure I will be frantically working on them the week before we head down to Kansas City!!

The cards I posted today I can't decide if I really like them or not. That's terrible, isn't it?? I'm trying to come up with swap cards that I like, but the mojo just isn't flowing. Maybe spending the weekend at the family cabin, lounging with my catalog will inspire me!! Who knows - but thanks for looking!!

Yea! It's the weekend!

It's been a long week and I am sure ready for some down time!! The boys are having their Scout camping weekend this weekend, so they are gone. And we don't have anything else until 1:00 on Sunday when DS#2 has his parent/player meeting for fall baseball. I very well may stay in my pj's until noon!! I am thinking about taking DD to get a hair cut while the boys are all gone. That ought to be fun!! She won't let me put it in pig tails any more, so it might as well get chopped!

I have two little creations that I've whipped out this week during naptime. :-) The first is a 2-5-7-10 Box. The tutorial can be found on Splitcoaststampers. They are really pretty easy. This one is full of Hershey's kisses.



The second thing(s) are some treat containers. Honestly, please tell me if they are dumb or not because I am planning on donating them to a church group who is putting on a craft fair in October. So do you think people would buy them? Some are filled with Halloween candy, some with those Hershey's chocolate sticks and some I am going to fill with pencils and markers. The are juice concentrate containers decorated with designer paper and embellished with ribbons and tags.

Last weekend before school starts!!

I'm having a hard time figuring out where our summer went!!! Can you believe that this is our last weekend before the boys start school??? They go back on Friday. We have our open house on Tuesday night where we'll find out who they will have for teachers. The boys are both eager to see friends and though they will never admit it - I think they look forward to going back to school and getting in a routine again! We're going to be busy with Jr. Cougar football, fall baseball at the Strike Zone, Boy Scouts and band, let alone all the homework 6th and 8th grade will bring!!!

This past week at SCS the tutorial was for diaper fold pouches. Though this wasn't new to me, it had been a while since I had made any. They are VERY easy and super cute and can be customized to whatever theme or event you might need them for. I plan on making some up for Halloween! Here are the two that I made on Wednesday....
The only thing that I would "recommend" is that if you are any kind of perfectionist - don't use polka dot paper!! It drove me crazy looking and the red one. All I could do was think about how the dots weren't straight!!

I also got a few more cards done this week that will be heading to my mom's eventually. I only owe her 40 more cards from our trip this past spring to NYC. We're going out there in two weeks for my dad's 60th birthday celebration - so do you think I can get 40 cards knocked out by then? We shall see!! :-)




I was glad to see the SU! Designer Series Paper used in the thinking of you card made the new catalog. I stocked up on it just in case, so I won't need to buy any for a while - but it's just good to know that it's there! I have enjoyed drooling over the new catalog this weekend! I'm going to try an control myself when tomorrow morning rolls around and we can order out of it!!

Have a great week!

Yes, I'm bad....

Okay - I'm a bad blogger... I didn't post last weekend. :-( So to the few of you who actually check out my blog, I'm sorry! I KNEW I'd never be able to keep up on a daily blog - so it's amazing that last weekend was the first one I have missed posting!

The last two weeks have just been super busy. The week before last, DH and DS#1 were gone on a Boy Scout High Adventure trip all week. When DH is out of town, my goal is always to get DD to bed a little earlier than normal so that I have a couple hours to come down to the craft room - but I was just so tired at the end of the day, I just had no energy! Then this most recent week, we've been working on getting our rental house ready to go. (Okay, I've been doing very little to help - even marginal on the emotional support...) But our new renters are moving in this week - so the stress will have been worth it. And how familiar is this - our new renters are a lady moving from Lincoln to get married to a guy living in Papillion. How could we not rent to them??? That's only cute if you know us --- I was the lady who moved from Lincoln three years ago to get married. :-) In fact, our 3rd wedding anniversary is this Wednesday! :-)

So, I do have some cards this week. The first one is a very simple Halloween card using all Stampin' Up! materials. The second one is a baby announcement for a swap I'm doing on Splitcoaststampers. It's actually the announcement I made for DD's birth and I happened to have enough extras that I decided to "get rid of them" through this swap. :-) The annoucement card also is 100% Stampin' Up!. Which, speaking of SU!, I will be stalking my mailbox this week in anticipation of the new SU! catalog which should be on it's way!!! Yea!! I won't mind sitting at football practice waiting for it to get over if I have the new catty to look through!!

Have a great week!

Hot July Sunday!

It's hot and humid here today and so it's a great day to be stamping!! I've been working on a project for a football fundraiser. DS#1 is playing football through a local high school program this fall and each family is asked to donate something of $20 or more for the BBQ fundraiser coming up in a couple of weeks. So, I'm making a basket of goodies that are themed around football and the team colors - orange and blue. So far, I have four birthday cards done, two of the binder clip photo holders and some of those cute little peppermint patties with punches stuck to them. I don't know what else I will add. I picked up a cheap photo frame that maybe I will alter.



My next little organizational project was taking a cleaned out plastic juice concentrate container into a pencil holder. I covered it with my favorite SU! designer paper and topped it off with some ribbon. It now is the proud holder of all my Koh-i-noor pencils. I love it! :-)

Enjoy your week and see you back here next weekend!!

What a week!! :-)

Let me start out this week's blog post by saying wooooo hoooo!! My Stampin' Up! pre-order came last night!! That means we are that much closer to the new catalog coming out. I can't wait! So I spent last night and this morning playing with my new toys, uh, I mean supplies for making cards!! lol Plus it's been quiet around this house this morning. DH took the boys to help work on our neighbor boy's Eagle Scout project. And DD is quite content to play on the floor beside me in the craft room - how nice is that!!?! She and I would have started our morning out by walking up to Starbucks so I could have had a mocha to sip on while admiring my new stuff - but it was sprinkling this morning. (And let me say - thank goodness our new neighborhood Starbucks was not one of the 600 stores that is closing!!!)

I LOVE the new scallop edge punch! Now I can put my corner rounder punch back together!! :-) The new In Colors are lovely. I think I like them more than the last two years worth of colors. So, the card that I whipped out this morning is from a new set called Sock Monkey. I must say, I wasn't a big sock monkey fan, in general, but after putting this set together, I can see that I am going to enjoy using it. I don't know why, but the sock monkey screams out to me "paper piece me"! So that's what I did this morning. Next time I will dig a little harder to find cooler paper to piece together, but for now, this will have to do. I also used my primsacolor pencils and baby oil to color him and to be honest, I think he looks like a hobo monkey. So I will work on the coloring and blending!!

While I was downloading the card picture off my camera this morning, I also had these pictures of the kids. DD is now the proud owner of a cat and dog. These are as real as we will ever get around here. (Thank heavens for pet allergies!!) DS#2 got new golf clubs last Sunday and it is all he can talk about. He's "lucky" to be the only left-hander in the house, so he doesn't have the option of getting hand-me-down clubs from anyone - so these had better last him for a while. The picture of DS#1 is a nice one of him. It's hard to believe that he's 13!! He's doing his favorite thing - sitting on the couch watching tv....

Have a great week and see you back here next weekend!!

Happy 4th of July weekend!!

I hope that you all have had a Happy 4th of July weekend! We spent Friday and Saturday at the cabin enjoying the nice weather and family. The boys probably spent four hours shooting off fireworks, then we enjoyed another hour or so just watching the fireworks all around us! Today DH and DS #1 are out shopping for their upcoming Boy Scout High Adventure trip. I will be anxious to see what all they have bought when they get home!! :-)

The card this week is what I made for our niece's birthday. It was my first attempt using the prismacolor pencils and baby oil. While I still need some practice blending and coloring - I thought for the first time it was okay. I got the cupcake stamp for my birthday from my SIL. It came in a set with three others and I'm excited to use them!!

Enjoy the card and have a great week! I hope to get some cards done this week, as my DH will be on a work trip for three days. So I will have some time in the evenings to make some cards! My mom is also going to be here before she jets out to London and Paris, so I'm going to show her how to use the colored pencils and baby oil!!