My award

Hey yall. Just wanted to share an award Sharon gave me back on February 8.

I'm supposed to pass this on to my favorite number of bloggers. Maybe I'll pass it on later, but for now I just wanted to send out a special thanks to Sharon for thinking of me. Be sure to check out her awesome blog. I can't believe such an awesome card maker takes time to read my blog!

Big Sis Cards

Hey yall. I've been swamped this week with Heart 2 Home, Pokeno, and other stuff so I haven't had a chance to blog. Here are a few cards my Big Sis sent me this week.

The tulips are sparkly with fine glitter.

I just love this little leprecaun!

I've got a scrapbooking get-together tomorrow evening, so I'm trying to get some pictures printed to work on. I'll go straight from work, so I have to have my van ready tonight. I hope yall have had a great week!

Yes, I've started on them

Hey yall. Just a quick update to let yall know I have been working on the 180 fleur-de-lis glasses that have been ordered. I've got 35 of them now. Sometimes it's easier to look at it in terms of dozens. I have 15 dozen to do and I've got almost 3 dozen finished. To complicate matters, we were only able to find about 13 dozen matching glasses last weekend, so in the mean time I need to be looking for another 2 dozen of these glasses. The lady ended up picking out some regular drinking glasses. I'll have to show yall a picture later. I think I'm gonna go try to do another 2 dozen before bedtime. I would love to be 1/3 of the way finished. Hope yall are having a great weekend.

My trip to Michaels

Hey yall. After work today I went to the new Michael's that opened a few weeks ago. Wow, is it beautiful. I don't like that I have to start from scratch not konwing where anything is, but I'll eventually figure it out. I bought a few $1 items, including a chandelier stamp. Why? Who knows. The bright lights were obviously getting to me because I can actually picture myself using this new stamp. I bought several things for my SCS Lil Sis. I'm kinda tired so I don't think I'm gonna make anything tonight. The boys are all at church. I'm watching Knight Rider. It is totally not like the old one. The music starts out the same, but it's all downhill from there. This show is extremely cheesy. Of course, there's nothing else on tv. I'm probably fixina go to bed. I'm feeling better, but I'm still really tired. Thanks for checking out all my sick-leave cards. Yall have a great evening!

Last batch of cards

Here's the last group of cards I made while I was sick.

This image is made by Stampin' Bella and is called "Attitude-y cats." The brownish layer of cardstock kinda looks like leather. It's a scrap someone was going to throw out at a crop I went to a few years ago (yes, I hoard).

This is an image I received in a random image swap. The paper it is stamped on doesn't really like Prismacolors & Gamsol.

Another group of cards

Hey yall. Here's another group of cards I made during my time at home while I was sick.

I'm not sure who makes this stamp. I received it in a random image swap. I do think she is just too cute.

Here's another Bella I received recently from Canada. I don't know what I was thinking with the gaudy paper I put with it.

I'm scheduling this from home on Tuesday night, so hopefully I'm sitting at my desk at work playing catch-up right now.

Sickness

This flu-like viral thing I've had since Friday night almost did me in tonight. I've stayed in the bed or on the couch for so long that I almost went crazy. I had to get out, so I went to Walgreen's. How sad is that? I was really hoping for some Reese's peanut butter hearts on clearance, but instead bought some Reese's peanut butter eggs. I don't really want any right now and haven't eaten any yet, but I can guarantee that when I feel better, I'll thank myself for buying those. I am going back to work tomorrow. I can't quarantine myself in this house any longer and I think I'm better. I did try to work on a few cards on and off this weekend to distract myself from feeling sick. Anthony helped me take pictures tonight, then I had to re-take pictures so you could actually see the cards. I'll share them over the next several days, starting now. Of course I'm gonna post the Anthony version and the official version.

I received this Bella from a recent swap I did. The flowered layer is vellum. I originally colored this one to make a Valentine, but changed my mind.

Isn't he precious! He loves to help me take pictures.

As I'm sure you can tell, I wasn't feel great when I made this one. I think the polka-dotted ribbon is the worst part of this card, but oh well, they can't all be great.

I hope yall are having a great evening. I'm going to bed so I can rest up for the real world tomorrow.

Happy Mail days

Hey yall! Just wanted yall to know what a happy mail weekend I had. Friday night when I got home I found these 2 cards in the mail from my Big Sis.

This first one is a sympathy card from our recent losses.

This second one is just a happy spring card. I LOVE cats, so this is probably my favorite card ever. It has little pieces of bling on the cat's collar and on the flower centers.

This one isn't really mail, but I was in the bed sick all day Valentine's Day. I got up to eat lunch and when I went to get back in the bed, Jason had put these flowers, this card, and a bag of Rolos on my pillow! This is our 10th Valentine's Day and for every single card-giving occasion Jason gets me a very wordy card that is so personalized sounding that it makes me think he knows someone at Hallmark. I noticed this card wasn't very much on words, but didn't think about it again until he brought it up. He bought this one because it looked handmade like the ones I make. Seriously, could he get any better? I picked him up some M&M cookies at a bake sale at work Friday and made him a card. He liked the card because it had John 3:16 with VALENTINE spelled with some of the letters. It's the one I made at my Heart 2 Home meeting at the end of January.


On Saturday, I got my package in from the Random Surprises swap I was in on Swap-Bot, the Pink Cat Studio images from a swap I did with someone in Australia, and the pin number to my new debit card (finally!). I really should send more happy mail because I know how much I love to receive it. I hope yall are having a great evening!

Wedding part 2

Here's the pictures that wouldn't fit in the last post.

I have no idea what he's trying to do in this picture.

I asked Jason if this was a special kids' dance. He said no, that the kids just stayed on the dance floor dancing the whole time.

Once again, who knows what was going on in this picture.

While they were gone to the wedding I watched the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I know it came out in 2005, but I haven't watched it until now. It was pretty good. I laughed out loud when the little squirrel pushed Baruca's daddy into the garbage chute. When I woke up from my Nyquil induced coma this morning at 10:15 I felt much better. I may actually stay out of the bed today! I was afraid (like Andrea) that I was getting the flu because of how terrible and achy I felt, but once my fever went away yesterday evening, I wasn't achy anymore. I think the Z-Pak is taking care of what seems to be a sinus infection. I've got lots to do around here now because it looks like a sick person has been here--I haven't picked up after myself all weekend. I hope yall have a wonderful Sunday!

Crystal & Trey's Wedding

This post could also be named "Anthony's Got the Moves" as he seemed to have quite a good time at the wedding reception, which is all I have pictures of. There are a few pictures of Joey playing his Nintendo DS, a few of him dancing (Jason said he ran around more than dance), and the rest are pretty much of Anthony giving it all he had on the dance floor. This boy's gonna be trouble. Well, he's already trouble, but you know what I mean.

Looks like Will brought his DS too.

Anthony dancing with Macy. She is great with kids and Anthony just loves her.

How cute is he???

I think he's trying to dance with Grace and Macy.

I know this picture is blurry, but how cute is he? Is that the Macarena?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope yall are all having a great love day. I've been running fever since last night so I doubt I'll get any crafting done this weekend. I'm really disappointed that I'm missing Joey's first soccer game and the beautiful wedding we were going to tonight. I'm going to hop back in bed now. Have a wonderful weekend!

Swap items

Hey yall. Here's some of the stuff I put in the swap package I sent out yesterday. The first two pictures are of a matchbook style notepad I made (with your Alphalicious cartridge Tess). The second picture is of 2 bookmarks I made.




I hope yall are having a great Friday!

It's almost Friday!!!

Hey yall. It's been a busy week here. On Tuesday evening the boys and I made Valentines for their classes. Here's a picture of Anthony and one of his Valentines.

On Wednesday I had several orders to take care of. One of the guys in our mailroom at work asked me to make a card for his wife's birthday. The next day another mailroom guy asked me to make Valentines for his wife, 21 month old daughter, and 6 & 9 year old sons. I also had some glassware to make plus I had to finish making stuff for the Swap-Bot "Random Surprises" swap I joined. Here are the cards I made.

Tonight I had more glass pieces to make plus lots of Amish friendship bread. Tomorrow I'll post some of the stuff I made for the swap. Yall have a good evening!

Monday's recap

Good evening! I wanted to share a little of our Monday with you. Yesterday evening we had some friends’ little boy come play for a little while so his parents and older brother could go out to dinner. The place they were going was like Harryhausen’s on Monsters, Inc—a Japanese type place where they prepare and cook the food in front of you. My boys were thrilled to have him over to play! They were practically fighting over his attention. All he wanted was to play with the balls. Obviously he takes better pics than my crazies. Here are Joey, Gabe, and Anthony.

Our other major event last night was Joey’s tooth. His lower front tooth has been loose for a while now, but he won’t even let us touch it. Last night I noticed that whenever he opened his mouth, the tooth would lay forward onto his lip. I could see the bottom of the tooth. I decided it had to come out. We told him if we didn’t get it out we’d have to go to the hospital and get a shot to get it out. We told him it had to come out before he went to sleep or he would choke and die. (Yes, we were getting a bit dramatic.) He said he was ok with dying, that since he had Jesus in his heart he could go to heaven and see all his great-grandparents, so it would be alright. After many attempts of me trying to just wiggle his tooth, he let me touch it with a washcloth. It stuck to the cloth and came out. Of course at that point he started acting like it was no big deal. Then it came time to lay down. He was almost crying when he asked if he could leave the tooth somewhere besides under his pillow because he didn’t want to accidentally wake up and see the tooth fairy. Yep, he’s a fraidy cat like his momma. We left it on the counter instead. Then he started telling me about how his teacher asks every morning who lost a tooth the night before. So far, October is the record month with 13. January had 11. For February his tooth will only be #2 so far. I love being an accountant more every day. Can you imagine??? It's kinda hard to tell in the picture because the grown up tooth is so big, but the missing tooth is on the right.

Monday was also a great mail day. I've been doing Stampin' Up surveys for the past 3 months and yesterday I got my box of free goodies in the mail. I got the Eastern Blooms stamp set, Eastern Elegance rub-ons, and Certainly Celery stamp pad.

Finally, I'd like to share a Valentine I made last week using my Cuttlebug. The middle one is just an embellishment I've had for a while. The red squares on each side were made with the Cuttlebug die and embossing folder that came with it.

Have a great week!

Great news!!!

Hey yall. I'm fixina load the kids up for church but wanted to let yall know about the phone call I just got--I got the order for spring event I had mentioned. The only change is instead of 100 they need 180 fleur de lis parfait glasses! I'm so excited! I hope yall are having a good evening.

The boys at play

Hi everyone. I have a little sad news today. First of all, Mamaw passed away on Friday. I know it was for the best given the situation, but it is still very hard. I've only known her for 10 years and I know it's hard for me to take, so I can only imagine how everyone else is doing. Please keep our family in your prayers. Also, one of our young men at church found is father dead at his house yesterday evening. This young man is quite a leader at the age of 19 and from what I've heard handled the situation with a faith that seemed beyond his years. Be in prayer for him and his 14 year old sister. Their dad was one of those always there behind the scenes kind of guy who I think was only in his 50's, so this situation is very difficult.

Now, to try to brighten the mood a little, I have some pictures of the boys playing yesterday. Joey built a Lincoln Log house all by himself while Anthony played in the toybox, occasionally trying to see Space Chimps on the tv.

I hope yall have a great afternoon. Maybe I'll be back later with some pictures of some of my projects from this weekend. Oh yeah, the tags I made back on this post, I won the award in that swap for most creative!

WINNER!

Good morning yall. My wonderful assistant Joey picked a name for the fleur-de-lis wine glass. He really wanted Kathy W to win because we have a Kathy in our family, but I made him close his eyes while I mixed them up. Here's our winner!

It's Meredith, who left a comment last night with only minutes to spare. Congratulations!

Funky clothesline card

Hey yall. Just wanted to share a card I made last night. It uses Stampin' Bella's Funky Clothesline stamp. I swapped images with someone in Canada who sent me this one.

Isn't it cute! I wrote the sentiment, "just thought i'd drop you a line..." since I didn't have a stamp that said anything clever about a clothesline. I love the colors on this. I might try making a few more very similar to this one.

I have a few things to share with yall tonight. Feel free to skip this part if you want.

Happy Things

1 - I got orders for 4 glasses and a canister today.

2 - I might possibly get the chance to make around 100 fleur-de-lis glasses for an event this spring.

3 - My grandmother had surgery on her corroded artery in her neck today and is doing fine.

4 - We have a girl coming to clean our house each week in return for her daughter riding the bus home with Joey in the afternoons. She is the best house cleaner EVER!

5 - Jason is thrilled with the house cleaner so I think we'll get to keep her forever.

Not So Happy Things

1 - Crazy Family Member #1 stressing me out (sorry, can't talk about it)

2 - Crazy Family Member #2 stressing me out (can't talk about this one either, but it's stressing me out more than #1

3 - Mamaw is still very ill

4 - Only 6 comments on my blog candy--where is everybody???

5 - I have a headache (probably where all this complaining is coming from)

Now that I've gotten all that out of the way, I hope yall have a great evening. I'm gonna eat some dinner and price garage sale stuff. Oh yeah, item #6, I HATE garage sales, especially getting ready for one, and we're having one Saturday. I'm very tempted to write random amounts on the stickers and let the kids just stick one on each item...

I {heart} the Jasmine cartridge!

I have really been enjoying Tess's Cricut cartridges! Here's a glass I etched using the Jasmine cartridge. It's hard to get the whole phrase in one pic, so I took two.



I also love the new glassware I found last week. I'm not sure the official name for this glass, but I'm calling it a parfait glass. I think it would look great as a gift filled with Valentine M&M's and later filled with a hot fudge sundae. I really wish I could open my Etsy store sooner because I think these would be a good seller right before Valentine's Day. If anyone is interested in ordering one, contact me by email [email protected] or leave me a comment and I'll get back to you. If you haven't registered for my blog candy (Post 100) yet, do it soon! I wouldn't want you to forget and not get a chance to win. Although I'm sure Tess doesn't want all of yall to leave comments, because she wants to win :) Have a great evening!

Monday Monday Monday

Hey yall. This evening I thought I'd share a card I made for another SCS card swap. This one is a swap to use your SU wheels that so many of us have but never use. I used the Spring Things wheel from a few years back.

This is definitely a bright and colorful card. I love how all of them are a little bit different because of the wheel. To the right of the watering can the wheel has a pot with a little shovel in it and then a bee hive with some cute little bees. I was a little tired of coloring by the time I got all 6 of these done, but I'm really glad I finally got this wheel out. The cards are not due until March 1 so I might do another set with a different wheel before the end of the month. I hope yall are having a great Monday evening! DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR MY BLOG CANDY ON POST 100!

Super Bowl Sunday!

Ok, so I don't really care for the Super Bowl or the NFL, but it helped for a title! Today I want to share with you the card I made for the SplitCoastStampers Inspirational Bible Verse card swap.

The name of the main image is Destiny, which I think is quite an appropriate title. In case you can't really see what's going on in the picture, Joseph is building something in his carpentry shop and baby Jesus is playing with some large nails. His shadow is a cross. I love this image, but it can be quite tricky to stamp because of all the detail. I don't think it will ever stamp as nicely as the sticker shows, but with SU's whisper white paper it does pretty good. The sentiment is actually from the SU Christmas set called Peace & Love and says, "Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13." I only had to make 5 of these for the swap and they went pretty easy once I figured out what I wanted to do. I hope yall are having a great Sunday. I went to Tess's house this evening and borrowed her Cricut cartridges so I've been having a blast playing. She has 4 cartridges and I don't have any of them! Anyway, I've got a few posts to schedule now. This is the first of the month so work is gonna be busy and I won't have time to blog much. DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR MY BLOG CANDY ON POST 100!

ETA: I forgot to tell yall--Joey made a 98 on his handwriting test last week! Just goes to show how much you can get out of a kid by grounding him from his best friends Mario, Luigi, & Sonic...