a new project

I have this really fun project I just started working on. For the past few months, I've been trying to make a yummy sweet thing each week. Usually something new or something I haven't made in a while. Its been really fun and the kids have loved it too. Leah will often ask "so what are we making this week?" But, I'm sad to say, after I found the recipes I wanted and printed them out off the computer, they would all end up stuffed together in a much-too-full clear folder. SO, I decided to gather up all the ones I liked and would make again sometime, and make a cute decorated recipe card for each one:) And I am decorating a cute ring binder with plastic sleeves in it to keep them in :) Doesn't that sound so cute?! I know making scrappy recipe cards is nothing new, but I have never done it before, so I'm really excited about it. I just started yesterday. I went to the store with Tomio and got the binder with the plastic sleeves. I also made the first 2 recipe cards!! They were SO fun to make! I am so glad I decided to do it. It adds another fun aspect to baking each week. Because anytime I can incorporate scrappy fun into other fun activities, I am happy :) he he :) I haven't decoarted the binder yet, so I don't have pictures of it. I will post some once it's all prettied up :)

Here are the recipe cards I have made so far:

I made this cherry cobbler for my dad on Father's Day :) It was REALLY yummy. Definitely best served warm with some vanilla ice cream...ahhh heaven:) Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any pictures of the actual cobbler :(

Here is other one I did:

Cream cheese sugar cookies...so yummy!! They don't scream "cream cheese!!"lol:) but are really good. I think I actually liked them better the second day. And you don't want to over cook them. They are best a little bit soft :)


Don't they look yummy? I can't wait to make some more recipe cards :) hehe:) I already have several from the past few months to do. And of course a new one each week :)

Thanks for stopping by!! I hope you had a fun, relaxing weekend :)

Well, we've slowly been working back into our daily routines. The kids have been getting to bed on time, which is very important! Especially with Levi--he is NOT a happy camper if he doesn't get enough sleep lol. Even Emma has been going to bed around 10.

I have been able to take some more pictures of the kids the past few days too. I always take lots ( NOT to say too many :)), but it has been a little bit cooler so we have gone out on our deck, and I like taking pictures outside so much better. Here is my current favorite of Levi:

I love this one :) But, yes he DID need a hair cut lol! And he has since gotten one. Not really sure if I like it better though...I have the hardest time with his hair!!

Here is a card I made with some of my new PTI goodies:

I love this little bee :) Isn't he so cute? I used PTI's Fresh Snow ink for the white. It really is the most solid white ink I have used. (And I've tried quite a few...) I love how it looks on the kraft. You definitely have to let it dry or heat set it though. It takes quite a while to fully dry--but worth it I think:)

supplies
stamps: papertrey ink green thumb, honey bee
ribbon: papertrey ink ocean tides
ink: papertrey ink fresh snow, Ranger distress ink walnut stain
other:martha stewart lace doilie punch, japanese cardstock and gems

Thanks for stopping by!!

berry sweet

I haven't had much time to create anything the past couple of days since school started back. But I really wanted to make something for Dawn's
Raspberry Suite Color Challenge. I especially wanted to this week because I really liked the colors :) and I wanted to use my new PTI stuff I got :)
Here are the colors this week:

Aren't they fun? I love cream, and I just got some Hibiscus burst from PTI that I wanted to use:) Here is my card:

One of the new sets I got from PTI was the Green Thumb set, which has this ADORABLE strawberry image :) I liked alot of the images in the set, but this was the main reason I wanted it :) It's pretty simple, but I wanted the focus to be on the berries :)

supplies
cardstock: papertrey ink (hibiscus burst)
stamps: papertrey ink (Green thumb, Honey Bees)
buttons: foofala
other: white gel pen, nestabilities, versamark ink

eta: I changed the photo of my card because I was feeling like it was missing something, so I added the ribbon :) Much better now :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Today was the last day of Tomio's break....sob....Of course, HE'S the one who has to go back to work lol! But it really has been nice for him to be around so much. And when Tomio goes back to work, everything else goes back to normal too, which means the kids' school starts too. And regular meals at home. And regular cleaning schedules. But structure is good, right?! Unfortunately, all of this means less time to scrap too :( I have really loved scrapping and making cards alot during the summer. I am going to try to keep making lots anyway :) I like to try to do at least something scrappy everyday. Even if I don't get to finish my project in one day, I like doing something. I love having my nice scrapping room now because its easy to leave things out if I'm in the middle of it.

Here is a layout I made a few weeks ago.

This was one of those layouts that came together really quickly :), which actually does not happen very often for me lol! I printed out my pictures, right away found some paper that I thought matched really well, and I liked the first way I put everything down. The "thank you" is Quickutz Marigold alphabet. i just LOVE it! I almost didn't get it because I generally prefer the cookie cutter alphabets and it is on the 2x2s. But I liked it so much I got it anyway, and I am SO glad that I did :)

Supplies:
cardstock: core'dinations
pattern paper: fancy pants
felt shapes: fancy pants
letters: quickutz
tab: quickutz die
brads: making memories

Thanks for stopping by!! Enjoy what is left of your weekend!

new stuff and holidays

My parents just got back from the US a couple of days ago. The kids were all thrilled of course to finally get to see Nana and Papa again :) I don't know if Nana and Papa were AS thrilled to be expected to play games all evening right after their plane ride...:) Even Miss Emma was happy to have Papa hold her again!

I always have them bring back a TON of album of stuff when they come back. (Thanks!! Bob and Dod!) And I do mean a ton :) With the shipping prices too outrageous for things like punches and especially cardstock, I just can't justify ordering them much here. So, once I year Tomio lets me splurge on a bunch of stuff I want, and they bring it back for me. I have been spending the last couple of days going through all my fun new stuff and playing with it :) Yay :) This time I got alot of

Papertrey Ink stuff. I absolutely LOVE all their stamps and cardstock and buttons and ribbon and...but I really can't pay their shipping prices for overseas. I also got lots of kraft color cs and some Verve stamps too. Anyway, I have been having fun with all my new stuff :)

Tomio's "big holiday" isn't over yet :) This is definitely the longest summer holiday he has had. It has been so much fun :) The kids have all loved having Daddy home so much. And I must say so have I :) I know he hasn't gotten done half of the things he wanted to do, but he always makes sure to do all the fun things the kids (and I :)) want to do. It will be so sad when he has to go back...sigh....

ANYWAY:), here is layout I made the other day. The journaling is a cute conversation that Levi and I had:) I was really glad to put it on paper so I wouldn't forget about it later.

I wanted to add a little dimension to my letters, so I rolled them out 3 or 4 times and just glued them together. It takes a little extra time, but I love the look:)

Supplies:
Cardstock- American Crafts
Pattern Paper- Fancy Pants
Diecuts( sun, heart and letters)- Quickutz
Buttons- Basic Grey

Thanks for stopping by!

So Miss Emma is officially no longer a "tiny baby". I don't know about everyone else, but for some reason, 3 months seems like a big milestone to me. Once she hit 3 months, she is a big baby :) 3 months is a big deal--she'll start rolling over soon, she holds her head well by herself, she stays awake happily cooing for longer periods of time--and the biggest one of all is course no longer needing to sterilize her bottles :) I realize of course that the 3 month mark is no magical number, but still for all 4 of my babies, I faithfully sterilized the nipples till they reached 3 months. Then I stopped :) I make a point of taking a picture of Miss Emma on the 14th of every month. So here are some of her official 3 month photos :

Now I realize I may be just a TINY bit biased :), but seriously, isn't she absolutely adorable?! She smiles all the time now, which of course brings joy to everyone who gets to see it. Rhys will come up to me and say "Mama, Emma did a really big smile for me!!" I love how much all three of them love Emma.

And because you always need to have something crafty:), here a couple more cards I made for the Verve challenge last week:

I don't really like how the balloon one looks in the photograph. The colors are much prettier in real life. oh well... I used a gem to hold the strings together at the bottom. Its always nice to have a little more bling, right? These papers are just some from stash that I have had for ages. The balloon stamps are Verve. The strings are made from PTI'S rustic twine.
I like how this one turned. Alot of it is how the colors go tother--I love any shade of pink or purple with brown. And there's a butterfly:) These pattern papers are from K& Co. The sentiment stamp is Verve. The butterfly is Quickutz (of course:) )
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are staying cool :)

verve fun :)

This week Verve was celebrating their 2nd anniversary and had lots of challenges and games going on. I just started using Verve stamps recently, but I really love them!! And since I have been doing their Mojo Monday challenges too, I thought I would join in on all their fun and games :) It was alot of fun, and I got 5 cards done too! Here are a couple of the cards I made based on the sketch challenges they had :

I had trouble choosing my papers and colors for this one, but I really love how it turned out. The focul image is from Verve. I decorated the inside too. I am really liking having the inside done up all fancy too. I haven't gotten as good at it as I would like yet though.




This layout is something I definitely wouldn't normally have done! But I had alot of fun making it. I did alot of sponging on the pink and blue papers. I love how sponging can add so much depth. Without it this card looked way too flat. And I did the inside of this one too :)

Anyway, thanks for stopping by! We are headed out to Tomio's parent's house for a couple of days :)

let's party!

We make a pretty big deal of birthday's at our house. It started when Tomio would spoil me on my birthdays while we were dating :) And now that we have kids, we always make a big deal of their birthdays too. We have a party at Nana's house where all the cousins are invited, I make a cake and Tomio draws a picture on it of whatever they want. Then we also always celebrate as a family on their actual birthday. Tomio takes off from work, we buy them a cake of their choice and usually go out to eat too. BUT, this year, I was in the hospital having Emma on Levi's birthday. Well, Emma was born on May 14th and Levi's birthday is the 16th, so I was still recovering from my c-section. Which means, I wasn't there to celebrate his REAL birthday as always. Of course, Tomio did get him a cheesecake so they could celebrate, but it wasn't like normal. We hadn't had a chance for him to have a party with a homemade cake yet either, since we were swamped with the move before Emma came. So, to make up for it, he got to have a "bonus" real birthday where Daddy got another cheesecake so we could celebrate as a family :) Which of course Levi loved. But we still hadn't a party yet either. And since it is already 3 months late, and there just wasn't anytime that the cousins etc could get together, we had a party at home this week. After much thought, Levi chose to have a "yellow AND chocolate cake" with "Mr. Incredibles" on it. And that is what he got :) This is the yellow AND chocolate cake, with Mr. Incredible drawn on it in chocolate pen :)

The cake was very much enjoyed by everyone :) Except Emma, as everyone pointed out lol. But they said at least she slept through it so she wouldn't notice :)

Levi was very excited to blow out his candles. I think it only took him about 3 puffs lol!

Levi didn't think he was going to get any presents since he had gotten some at his other birthday celebrations. He was SO thrilled when Daddy brought his presents in:)

Levi showing me his NEW "blue cars" along with his matching red one:) He was SO happy to finally get the "blue cars" as he calls it. Everyday now he says to me "I'm so happy I have blue cars now" :) Daddy also got him a Cars puzzle that Levi has been making at least 3 times a day:) Daddy always knows the best presents to get!

It was alot of fun. I was really glad that Levi got to have his party and cake. He was SO happy. But now he keeps talking about his NEXT birthday... which I am afraid is a rather long way off :)
And here is layout I did of Levi the other day. He was so LITTLE here! I can't believe he is 3 now!

The pattern paper is Basic Grey. The base CS is American Crafts, and the blue cs is Core'dinations. I embossed it with the Cuttlebug Spots and Dots folder (I think that is what its called!)For the white frame around my picture I first scored around the pictures to know where I wanted it to go and so I could have a groove for the pen to go in and write straighter :) Then I just wrote in the groove with my white gel pen.

Thanks for stopping by!!

finally!

I have been doing Dawn McVey's Raspberry Suite Color Challenge for the past few weeks, and each week I've struggled with it. Although I have come up with something each time, I've never loved any of them yet. But at last I have been able to make something I really liked:) I did struggle with it at first, but I like the end results :)

Here are the colors for this week:

And here is my card:
I never really use a color like raspberry fizz, or scarlet, really. I don't have PTI's Button Bits set (yet!), so I used a Fancy Pants stamp I had and then put buttons on it like flowers. I think it worked pretty well. The cs is all just random pieces I had in my stash. I used the Martha Stewart doilie punch again. You can't really tell in the photo, but I stamped tiny polka dots all over the background with the scarlet color too. I think it helped the base not look too flat.

Thanks for stopping by!!

summer

Tomio's summer holiday started yesterday. Everyone is SO excited, because Daddy's "big holiday" means going to the pool, playing with Daddy, going to the park--and no school :) I must admit I was looking forward to their break from school too. I really do love teaching them at home, but having a break is really nice. Since Miss Emma is still little, we don't have any big travel plans this time. I hope to get the boys' room organized and do lots of scrappy stuff :)

I have been working on a couple of layouts, but I haven't quite finished them so I can't post them yet:) But here are some cards I made:

I LOVE this Cupcake stamp set from Papertrey !! The images are so cute! But, I hadn't been able to make more than one or two cards that I liked with it. So I was determined to use it to its potential, and just set out and stamped a whole bunch of tops and bottoms in different colors and styles. Then I just chose some favorites and combined them. Since I LOVE pink and brown together, this was easy to choose :) I really like how it came out. I used my nestibilites for the scallop frame and a Martha Stewart doilie punch.

For this card, I started by choosing the papers I wanted to use first. Then I stamped this adorable stamp from Stamp Avie and colored it with my copics to match the salmon and aqua colors in the paper. ( This paper is from Inque Boutique). And I also wanted to try decorating the inside this time:


Not too elaborate or fancy, but I like how it matches the front. I have seen some GORGEOUS cards with wonderfully matching insides that inspired me to try it. I am not in the habit of it, but I do hope to get the hang of it and do it more often.

I hope you had a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

I can't believe

...it's August already!!! Where has the summer gone?! Miss Emma will be 3 months in just a week! She keeps growing and growing. I put her in her first dress yesterday :) She looked so cute :) But wow, she looks just like Leah did! I didn't notice it at first since she was just so tiny. Now that she has filled out a bit more, you can really tell how much they look alike. I have gotten Miss Emma's 1 month old layout done already! I was quite proud of myself :) Trying to keep up with hers and scrap some of the hundreds :) of pictures I have been taking.

Isn't she such a cutie? I was really happy with how this turned out. I used Basic Grey's Sugared collection for this. I love these papers! They have some adorable designs for baby girls. The heart, crown and alphabet are all Quickutz (This is Diesel, one of my all time favorites!). I did just a little machine stitching in some light pink too. I really like how the colors went with the kraft background.

I also did a card for this weeks Mojo Monday sketch. I really enjoy these sketches. They are really pretty, but SO different from anything I would have come up with on my own. So I like doing something new :) Here is what I made:

Once I choose these papers, it didn't take long at all. The sentiment is from PTI's cupcake set. I just mounted it on a curve on my acrylic block. I had never tried that before, but I was pleased with how simple it was :) The focal image is Fancy Pants. I used my nesties to make the circle and scallop frame :)
Thanks for stopping by!