Happy World Cardmaking Day!

Since it's already the first of October here, it's now officially World Cardmaking Day :) And I'm happy to say that this year I really do think I'll at least get to spend half the day making cards. yay :) I already got my windows cleaned today, so I can even stamp guilt free :)

For now, I'll share a birthday card I made. I never really thought I liked red and light blue together, until I made a card for a challenge with them, and I was surprised at how well I liked it. Especially when yo throw in some kraft :) All supplies for this card are from Papertrey Ink :) I think the stamps in this teacup set are so cute!

Ok~that's it for me today. I have a few more things to take care of before I plant myself at my desk :) Thanks for stopping by! Do you have any plans for today?

Be Mine...

It's almost October, which means it's almost time for me to start making and sharing Christmas cards :) My absolute favorite kind of card to make. So before I start with those, I thought I would share a Valentine one. Hmmm...I guess that is even MORE out of season, isn't it? Oh well... I am the only one who just makes whatever kind of card they feel like, no matter what season it is? I just enjoy it more that way :)

I ended up making this one from several scraps left on my desk from other cards. But it turned out to be my favorite Valentine card I made this year. I love the Distressed dot paper from Papertrey. I used pop dots behind the pink layer to make even with the button and make the heart window "deeper".

Thanks SO much for stopping by today! I have several new stamp sets that I am hoping to ink up today :)

Getting things done.

I love feeling like I'm getting lots of things done. You know, being efficient :) And today I was. We did our school, went to the dentist (twice...), the dermatologist, and grocery shopping :) Leah's mouth piece was ready, so she'll be wearing it to sleep in. Glad to be getting that taken care of too. Now, if  I can get some stamping done, it will be a perfect day :)

Today's card doesn't really have very much stamping at all.  Just for the sentiment tag. I stamped a leaf in old paper for a little more interest. I really like the calm, earthy look of all these colors. And I {heart} twine :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I'm off to enjoy this beautiful weather with my kiddos!

17 years...

 We celebrated our 12th anniversary this year.  While it's been 12 years since we got married, it has been 17 years, today, since we met. Now we don't usually make a huge deal out of it or anything, we do always remember it :) Tomio got me some ice cream and we are going out to dinner to celebrate too :) heehee. Wow, 17 years... it really doesn't seem like it has been that long!!

I thought this card seemed kind of fitting for an anniversary. I liked using these kind of masculine stamps with the pink colors. I don't have the stamps that match these labels yet, so I masked off a circle and stamped the text on top. Then  I curved the sentiment on the clear block to match the circle shape. I used the cream colored twine for the first time on this card, and I really liked it :)

Thanks for stopping by today!! So happy it has finally cooled off here!

normal?

Just when you think things are back to "normal", something else happens... Among other things, Leah got the fever too. I feel like we have been to the doctor a thousand times lately. I must say though, that every time I go, I am so grateful that kids' doctor visits are free. Once they hit Leah's age they cost a little, but definitely not enough to break the bank. That is such blessing.

Speaking of blessings, here is a "blessed" card I made (ok maybe that was a bit of a stretch...)  A really different color combo for me, but I think I like how it turned out. These flourish stamps from Papertrey are gorgeous, and I really don't use them nearly enough.

Well, that's it for me today. My friend from Junior High is getting married today, and I'm invited to the wedding. All my kids seemed pretty shocked to see me dressed up when I was finding something to wear...lol. Thanks for stopping by today!

should have seen it coming.

Right? After taking care of my sickies for a days, yes, I caught it too :( Hence my absence from my blog. I have to say, though, my Rhys-ter was a huge help while I was sick. Part of the time both Tomio and Leah were gone for her golf, and he did a great job taking care of the littles enough for me to actually get some rest :) I'm also very happy to say that I am much better now. I even made a card :) And here it is:

Bright and cheery :) which is how I felt after getting better. And I really, really, love this pattern paper from Papertrey. I really don't use much pattern paper on my cards, often just like to make my own with background stamps. But this "bitty box paper" I could use on almost everything :) The pretty flowers are from Unity.

Thanks for stopping by!! Are you ready for a new week? I am :)

sickies...

Rhys had a fever on Monday, and while he is all better now, Miss Emma now has one :( Rhys is actually really good when he is sick, not whiney or anything. Miss Emma... well, not so much. But considering her normal personality :), not too bad I guess.Really praying she's better in the morning. She still is her talkative self though. We were sitting together on the couch while she watched some dvr-ed shows. The care bears she watched finished, and the normal tv show came on. It was some Japanese cartoon that my kids don't watch. Normally when  a show that is "unacceptable" comes on, my kids will say "oh, that's poop", kind of reinforces that it's not worth watching. Anyway, this time it was kind of like a witch that popped on the screen. Miss Emma looked at it and said " Oh! scary! Scary poop!" :) heehee:)

anyway...how about a layout today? This is me and Tomio back when we were dating :) let's see...I must have been16, which makes him 21. Sometimes it's fun to go back and do some older pictures too :) Pretty simple, but I thought it went well with the black and white photos.

Thanks so much stopping by today! Taking care of sickies can be pretty tiring, so I'm going to *try* to get some more sleep tonight. Hey, at least everyone slept 'till 6 today :) Hope you have a great day!!

the butterflies...

again :) Remember the other day when I posted that most of my cards I had sitting on my desk had butterflies? well, I posted one of the "fixed" ones, so I thought that I would share one of the butterfly ones that I didn't change.

And this one has LOTS of butterflies lol. Really a simple card.  I love adding some embossing to a simple card. This sentiment is from PTI's Flutterby Friend. When I got the set, I actually thought I might not use the sentiments at all, but I got it anyway. As it turns out, I *love* the sentiments in this set and I've used them quite a bit.

Ok, short and sweet for me today! It seems the kiddos have decided to wake up before 6 for the past several days, and I need tom make up for it. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

irrational.

Do you have some task that you just.don't.like. to do?  I mean nothing so awful cleaning out the diaper trash can that you keep outside so you won't have to smell it or even think about it regularly. Just a pretty mundane task that you, for whatever reason, just don't want to do. For me, it's hanging back in the closet the hangers I use to hang the laundry outside to dry. See, I told you, nothing evil lol. I just don't like doing it. They are clumsy and awkward and go in the boys' room. I  of course do it every day after I bring the laundry in. But every day I half consider leaving them out on my bed (!) just to avoid putting them away. So, is just me? Or do more normal people have things they pretty much irrationally dislike doing?

Anyway, I do have a card :) Another bright and cheery one :) I have to say, I adore that bee :) It's from PTI's Springtime Doodles. And to be honest, he is the real reason I wanted that set. heehee.  He wasn't too hard to cut out either. I used my Wild Honey distress ink to stamp on the summer sunrise cardstock (again). I just love perfectly they seem to go together.

Thanks for stopping by again today! I've been doing a little bit better about going to bed early, so I'm hoping to keep it up.

Here for you.

I have a bright, cheery card today :) Sometimes you just need a little cheer, you know?  I did some clear embossing for the polkadots. This polka dot stamp is another background stamp I looked  all over for. It's even harder to find one that is perfect AND sends to Japan without costing an arm and a leg. But I am really happy with this one from Inkadinkado.(If you are interested, I got it at 1-2-3 stitch). I decided to cut out the butterflies with a little white trim this time, really just because I thought the pop of white would be nice.

Ok, that's it for me today. Lots of studies to work on (not mine, the kids'). Thanks for stopping by!!

time for a checkup.

Well not mine, but for my kiddos. Rhys just went to the dentist last week and got one of his baby teeth {that had major issues} pulled, so he got his check up and fluoride treatment then. And I was happy to hear no cavities. I took Leah and Levi in for their check up yesterday. They both have potential for needing braces, so I was having  that checked too. Leah has to wait for some more teeth to come in to get her braces, but she is getting a mouthpiece. I'm really excited about it for her lol. Her bite is off and it bothers her and this should fix it~yay. Levi's checkup was great too, no cavities, healthy teeth :) so yay for me. heehee :) Oh, and after that we went to the doctor and got cough meds for all of them too. So now after each meal I line up all the kids and take turns giving them their medicine....

I had lots of fun making this card. I was trying out my new stamps from PTI. I think I'm really going to love these  vases. I don't paper piece all that much, but it just seemed to fitting for these little vases. And they really aren't very tricky to cut out or anything. The beautiful background stamp is from Stampabilities. I searched for a long time to find a pretty scripty background stamp, and I just *love* this one :)

Thanks for stopping by! It's our "weekend" now, so I'm hoping to recharge, and get some stamping done :)

rain.

The weather has been so crazy here lately. It will be sunny, then start pouring. Then it will clear up again before you know it. I've decided to pretty much count on rain and hang all my laundry inside for now. But hey, as long as the rain cools it off even a little bit, I'm ok with it :)

So I decided I use my butterfly punch a little bit too much. I had this stack of new cards I had made on my desk, and when I looked through them, I found that there many more with the butterfly punch than without. So I challenged myself to change some of them and use a different embellishment for them. This card is one of those. I actually really like this version better. This tea set is one that I don't use nearly enough, so I was really glad to use it. I actually made it a double challenge for myself to try to use a set that had been kind of neglected to replace the butterflies. (and don't worry, I still use the butterflies all the time, and I'll be sharing those cards too :)) But isn't that honey ball just too cute? There is only a die for the teacup, so just fussy cut the honey ball and the "honey".  Oh, and if you are stamping these with matching dies, I found it works SO much easier if you stamp the outline first and then the inside color. It might be obvious to most people, but it took me a few times to figure that out.

Well, thank you for stopping by today! Tomio is having more "early" days at work this week, so I'm off to try to get to bed early.

no promises

I can't make any promises, especially because I am not one that works well feeling "obligated", but I am really hoping to start posting more often here on the blog. I really love  sharing my cards here. So that is my goal anyway :) And in the spirit of posting more often, here I am posting 2 days in a row! yay :)

Today I have another card I tried some heat embossing on. See, more clear embossing on dark colored cardstock :)I love gray with pale yellow, and pale purple with yellow, so I really liked this combination. I used the really pretty music impression plate too. I added the sentiment on a label that I trimmed and tucked behind the gray panel.

Well, thanks so much for stopping by today!! Have a great weekend!!

Safe and sound.

We made it back from our trip to Disney Sea, all safe and sound. We all had lots of fun. Miss Emma squealed about almost everything, and liked to point to people who happened to be wearing or holding something with a Disney character on it.... yeah, there were more than a few of those there:) heehee. I'm SO glad we decided to go even though they said there would be a typhoon that day. There wasn't, and the crowds were down for Japan too.

One of the things the boys were most excited about was the Indiana Jones ride. See above. But, Levi was just a *little bit* too short. They gave him a little card that said next time he comes and is tall enough, he won't have to wait to ride. He thought that was pretty cool. And when we told him he needed to drink milk and eat lots of veggies to get taller by next time we go, he listened :) Now every time he drinks some milk he asks "do my legs look longer? Am I taller?" :)

And here is Miss Emma meeting "her", as she likes to call Elastigirl.  "Credibles" was also there, but she was too shy to actually let him get near her.

And here is Miss Emma waiting with me while the big kids rode with Daddy. She had plenty to say :)

Alright, that't it for today. We'll be back to regular cards tomorrow :) Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a great weekend!!