Pink and brown butterflies.....

Edit: Thanks for the nice comments, ladies. The little pink stick on sequins were from Archivers. I don't have the packaging still so I can't off you the manufacturer's name, sorry about that.

Hey everyone, it sure feels weird posting something other than Christmas cards or holiday gifts. But I'm definitely ready for some fresh new designs.

Today I'm using Karen Lockhart's Checkered Butterfly stamp that I paper pieced along with some punched polka dot hearts. I popped all three items up on pop dots for a really dimensional look. I added a Papertrey sentiment and some pink sequins for the finishing touches. The patterned paper for my card front is from October Afternoon.

To color my image, I used my handy dandy Copic Sketch markers, pictured below. I still have to brag about the wonderful Copic markers. They are a tried and true tool that I reach for so often. If you're looking for a way to rev up your cards and projects, Copics might just be what you're looking for...especially if you like to color images like Karen Lockhart's.

Hope you're having a great day today. We're just relaxing and enjoying our time off from school and work.

Friendly mushrooms..

Hello everyone. I hope you had a joyous holiday with your family and friends. The weather was quite treacherous around our neck of the woods. We had a full blown blizzard Christmas Eve. Our poor neighbor lady was coming home from a family celebration and got her truck high centered on the drifting snow on our country road. She had no cell phone and had to walk more than a half a mile to reach my mom and dad's house. My dad got dressed, got the tractor and pulled her out, nearly getting the tractor stuck. I'm thankful our neighbor was okay.

We had two wonderful Christmas celebrations with my folks and Eric's folks. Good times, just visiting and eating wonderful food. The girls were blessed with many gifts and their sweet smiles warmed our hearts.

I am very excited to use some new holiday papers to scrapbook our Christmas memories......but after that's done I'm putting away all my Christmas goodies. I'm ready to move on to Valentine's Day and flowers and more spring like creations.

So here we go. I've been wanting to ink up this cute Hero Arts set called Sending Happy Thoughts for some time. It's got the cutest little images, including the friendly mushrooms that I chose for my card. The new 2010 Hero Arts catalog is now out and it's fabulous.

I used some of my favorite October Afternoon paper as my color inspiration, then reached for my handy dandy Copic Sketch markers color the mushrooms. If you zoom in close on the photo below, you can see that my mushrooms have spots. After coloring the images, I took some of the markers and made dots all over the mushrooms, using the pointy brush tips. Such a cute effect. I finished off the main image with some glitter and green sequins.

You can see the Copic colors I used below:
Well, I hope you're having a great day. It's a perfect day to stay snuggled inside and play with all the new Christmas goodies. I got a home spa kit, complete with a bubbling foot spa and warm paraffin hand treatment. The girls and I are going to try it out today. Don't hate us because we're beautiful. Ha.

Winter Time

Winter is on it's way folks! The wind is howling outside and the first signs of snow are starting to fall. Oh my, is it ever freezing here......brrrr. I've had two cups of coffee, 3 sugar cookies and about a dozen raspberry peanut M & M's. I think my body is going into hibernation mode.

As we prepare for Santa's visit tonight, we're doing a little last minute cleaning....and making sure we have all the cell phones charged and something to eat just in case the electricity goes out. (Oh, here comes more snow...big time!)

I thought I would show you some more of my holiday decorations. You all have seen this tiered wire stand that I use often for holiday decorations. This year, I filled it full of my aqua blue-ish ornaments. I had planned to make this giant wreath using the ornaments, but never got around to it. So I just nestled all the little pieces into my stand. There's rustic snowmen, snowmen ornaments, jeweled greenery, vintage ornaments that I picked up at an auction............

.....and little bird nests and eggs.......

I also added a few things to my hanging bird cage.

I love the birds and flowers so much that I couldn't take them down for winter. They remind of spring time and how much I love that time of year. So I just added some holiday stuff.....glittery silver snowflakes hang from the framed botanical prints......

Little snowmen ornaments are tucked into bird nests...........

And knitted stockings are hung with clothespins........

A small crystal wreath and a glittery *jolly* word is hung from my fern wreath..........

And Jordan arranged the snowman people......complete with a few new additions that she bought for me this summer.........

Wherever you are tonight.......whether it be snowy and blowing......or hot and breezy.........I hope your hearts are warm and filled with the holiday spirit.

Christmas funny for the day: We made the rounds last night and delivered Christmas goody trays to all the country neighbors. I prepared decorated sacks of sweet and savory party mixes....my homemade jellies.......and banana bread and sugar cookies. Our neighbors gave us gifts of peanuts and candies and breakfast burritos for this morning. My folks were our last stop of the night. As we were leaving, my dad followed us out into the garage and reached into a box. He said he's been giving out some Christmas goodies too. I thought I spied big round oranges. Nope. He handed Eric two giant Vidalia onions. Snort!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, don't knock it...onions are always a practical gift to give and receive. :)

Well, I'm outta here for today. Eric's gonna start a fire here soon so we don't freeze to death this Christmas Eve....the girls are calling each other butt heads on their walky talkies......and I'm going to start a new book: The Friday Night Knitting Club. Ho Ho Ho everyone!

Happy Birthday Cupcake

Hi everyone, thank you for the nice holiday wishes. You guys are the best! Today is all about preparing for the big winter storm that is to pass through tonight and tomorrow. It's already wet and rainy so we're staying inside, all snuggly and warm by the fire. Jordan and I mixed up a loaf of banana bread and have some sinful sugar cookies waiting to be baked too. Hopefully we'll be able to get out tonight and deliver our goodies to our country neighbors.

On a crafty note, I have a birthday card to share with you today. I used Karen Lockhart's Violet Cupcake stamp and happy birthday sentiment for my main image. (While at Karen's site, be sure to check out the homepage for some fun new stamps being released!)I colored the image in with Copic markers, using my patterned paper as a color guide. As I've said before, Copic Sketch markers are perfect for coloring in Lockhart images because the pointy tips allow for very fine detail. Love my Copics!
I embellished the finished, colored image with ribbon snippets stapled with my new tiny Tim Holtz stapler.....I've lovingly named mine Tiny Tim. I found my stapler at my local scrapbook store. I also finished off the image with a hand drawn line using a fine tip marker and some pink sequins. The eclectic mix of pretty papers are from October Afternoon. I hope you're on the downhill slide with your Christmas preparations. I have a few more recipes to make for Christmas day festivities and some fun snacky stuff for us to munch on while watching Christmas movies and playing games. The girls are hoping for LOTS of snow so they can go sledding.

Coming soon: I have LOTS of new things planned for my blog and Etsy shop for the new year. Think Valentine's Day......and a new way to approach some of those New Year's resolutions........more fun kits, notepads, cards, embellishments, etc. Ohhhhh, it's going to be fun!

Well, the rain is pouring down now.....hoping it turns to snow instead of the freezing rain we usually get. Later kiddos.

Home for the holidays..

Our tree is all decorated........ With pretty lights and ornaments...........

The wreath is hung over the fireplace..........

A fire is roaring in the fireplace. I am all cozy and nestled in my big green chair.

Eric and the girls are in town Christmas shopping....and we're waiting for the weather to change this week to something like this:

My hopes are that you are nestled all warm in your home tonight....with those you love surrounding you........lots of hot chocolate with gooey marshmallows......a big game of Nertz.....lots of presents under the tree......children waiting for Santa to come. All is good in our neck of the woods. Happy Holidays my friends.

Laugh with someone...

JustRite is releasing another handy dandy set January 1st called Loving Thoughts. You'll be able to see the set later on today at the JustRite blog HERE.


I've been enjoying the new Valentine papers from Fancy Pants. I found the collection at Scrapbooks, Etc in Topeka, Kansas.
I started my card off by using a journaling block that has some pre-printed hearts and rectangle label on it. To this, I added my main sentiment from the Loving Thoughts set. I love this sentiment, it's so true! I paired it up with polka dot border stamp from the JustRite Just A Note set. I punched out my circle and inked it with Fresh Snow ink. I adhered this to my card front using pop dots. I then added a bunch of punched hearts and tied buttons to my card front. I love all the tiny, dimensional elements. The first of many Valentine creations you'll be seeing on the blogaroonie.

I've been showing you this but thought I would list it again.... JustRite has compiled a Punch and Die Compatibility Chart HERE. Great reference to print and keep near your stamping area.

This morning, the girls have basketball practice and then we'll be taking the Trailblazer into the shop for 3-4 days to fix the damage from the deer. Not the best timing right around Christmas but it means I just get to camp out at home....and that is just fine with me. Have a great week everyone!!

My Little Sunshines

Hello everyone. It's a lazy Sunday morning around here. I've got laundry and cleaning to do today so of course I am procrastinating. The girls are officially on Christmas break, woohoo! We had a fun time with family and friends last night at Eric's parents.

Today I thought I'd show you something I did for the girls last week. We didn't do an official advent countdown this year but I've been hiding little gifts in the tree for the girls here and there. So here's my lineup to start my project...I purchased some of those miniature candy mints that the girls love so much. I then gathered up some goodies to make some treat sacks for ballgame day. The candies are so colorful and cheery.....I thought the sunshine sentiment from JustRite's Romantic Sentiments would be just perfect for some tags to attach to the goody bags. This set will be released January 1st. I stamped the sentiment using Papertrey Smokey Shadow ink to match the lighter grey tone in the October Afternoon polka dot patterned paper I'm using. I then stamped a star circle border from JustRite's Just A Note Borders and Corners set in Papertrey's Summer Sunrise ink. I punched out both images with layered circle punches. I then adhered them to the tags I created that were stamped with a flourish stamp from Papertrey. I stamped the girls' names using Smokey Shadow ink and a Hero Arts alphabet stamp. Glitter and Papertrey Lemon Tart Vintage Buttons finish off the fun tags.

I tied the tags to some opaque gift sacks I had in my stash. A fun little gift filled with sweetness!

You'll notice that the tags say *Thank you for being my sunshine every day*. After I gave the girls their little gifts that morning, we headed up the bus. As usual my little sunshines had to bicker. This time is was about who would hand out teacher treats to their favorite teachers. Josey finally decided that she just wouldn't hand out any treats, Jordan could do it all. It was also freezing but she decided that Jordan and I weren't worthy of her presence in the blazer and that she would just walk to the bus. The girls were arguing back and forth so much that the bus was here before we could even get in the vehicle. Needless to say, Josey did indeed hop in the car and ride to the bus with us. Ahhhhhhh, gotta love my little rays of sunshine. :) They keep life sassy for sure!

Did you check this out? For your convenience JustRite has compiled a Punch and Die Compatibility Chart HERE. You can check out the JustRite blog to see all the images from Romantic sentiments, being released January 1st.....and you'll notice that JR is moving to Typepad.

Hope you're having a great day! I think I am officially done using Christmas themed stamps. I need to take a day to clean up my stamp room and rearrange my stamps. It's always fun to move on to a new theme and holiday! Now......back to the laundry and cleaning.

A little Christmas note...

Hello friends. Today started bright and early at 5am. I woke up from a hilarious dream and was giggling out loud. I shared my dream with Eric and he busted out laughing too. We giggled together under the covers for about 30 minutes, trying not to wake the girls up.

Once the girls woke up, Chef Woody(Eric) fixed us a batch of whole wheat pancakes with honey pecan syrup that his secretary made for all the employees at this work. Ohhhhhhh, we were in sticky sweet heaven!

The girls then headed to their rooms to clean up for when Santa comes. I needed a few more Christmas cards so I headed to my stamp room. We had to be in town early though for Jordan's guitar lesson and family get together so I needed something quick and easy. I reached for Dawn's Signature Christmas set and some punches.
I stamped the Christmas sentiment and then paired it up with a punched circle of polka dot patterned paper and a punched Sweet Blush cardstock snowflake. My base card and envelope is from Kraft cardstock and the top layer of the card is Vintage Cream. My patterned paper I used is from October Afternoon. I also added a little sentiment from Signature Christmas to the envelopes. Easy peasy!

Well, I've got a mean game of Nertz calling my name.......so I'll see you guys next time!