We went to see Tomio's family yesterday. We always go and visit them for at least one day around New Year's. It was the first time for alot of them to see Miss Emma. She was of course greeted with lots of oohs and aahs :) All the other cousins on that side are alot older, so they loved seeing a little baby. We ended up just staying for the afternoon and coming home at night. It makes for a long day, but its easier than sleeping there with all 4 of our cuties :)

Anyway, here is the card I gave Tomio for his birthday:

In all honesty, its not what I had in mind....I'm not sure exactly what it is, though--lol. But I gave it to him and he liked it. I really do *love* these cupcakes from Papertrey! So stinkin' cute :) The base is Papertrey ink kraft, the brown is Bazzill and the pattern paper is Basic Grey from the
Nook and Pantry line. The felt heart is Fancy Pants and the sentiment is from Stamping Bella. The scallop border is from Fiskars.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday :)We have just a couple days left and I plan to restfully enjoy them :)

some mojo for 2010

Happy New Year! I CANNOT believe that it is already 2010!!! seriously....wow. I always like starting a new year though. Fresh beginnings are fun. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one to make lots of new resolutions to go with the new year. Too much pressure lol. But I do like to think of some things I would like work on and fun projects etc.

Anyway, even though it's REALLY late, I did manage to make a card for this week's Mojo Monday sketch. At least its not past the deadline :)

I used lots of my favorite colors on this one :) And some of my new Verve stamps. I've loved this little tree ever since it came out, and I finally had a chance to get it. Isn't it SO cute? I liked how it looked even just as a subtle image in the background. And I just got this Plain Jane too. It's kind of hard to tell in the photo, but I also used Papertrey's text background image on the aqua layer. The pink and aqua are from Papertrey. The chocolate brown is from Bazzill. I used Papertrey's Ocean tides ribbon because I liked the little bit of contrast instead of just using Aqua mist. I like the way it looked with the flower a little bit tucked behind, especially since I didn't really want to cover the tree :) The flower is Prima and the button is Autumn Leaves.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope 2010 has started out great for you :)

almost new year's...

Do you get a nice break from the busy-ness of the Holidays after Christmas? I don't really lol.... I always like to get the house back in order right away, and then we have New Year's to get ready for, and Tomio's birthday is January 1st, so I make him a cake on the 31st. (We've been together for 15 years! now, and I've never missed being with him on his birthday, or him on mine...awww :)) Anyway, THEN Leah's birthday is on January 9th. Since she has a party with all the cousins too, there is alot more prep involved too. Leah has decided that she wants a golf themed party this year. I've been plainning some games and decorations for the past couple of weeks. It's all fun stuff :), but it keeps me busy nonetheless.

I made Tomio 2 birthday cards so far. I'm not really happy with either of them, but I don't think I'll get a chance to make another one. I'll try to post some pictures of them tomorrow. (Oh, I gave him the snowman Christmas card, btw, if you were wondering :))

Here is a layout I did of me and Miss Emma. (I'm pretty sure I haven't posted it here yet!) I don't get many pictures of the two pf us together, so I wanted to document this one:) All the pattern papers are Pink Paislee, and the cardstock is American Crafts. The letters are Quickutz. I used some doodlebug glitter on the heart for some bling :).

I really like how it turned out. Rhys just informed me that it looks empty lol. I still like it though :)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great New Year's day :) We will be ringing it in at home with some of Tomio's favorite cheesecake!

I took my Christmas decorations down yesterday. The past few years I've been taking them down around the 28th or so. Usually Tomio has a couple of days of work after Christmas and I like to take them down while he is at work so he won't have to deal with it during the break. The kids (epsecially Levi) were sad though. This was the first year that Levi really got into and understood everything going on at Christmas so he had SO much fun. I've always loved Christmas ever since I was little. Our family always made a big deal out of it and I'm so glad that my kids are so into it too.

These are  few of the photos from Christmas day. Most of these are from Nana and Papa's house.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I will be spending most of the rest of the break at home :) Hopefully doing something scrappy:)

Christmas cards

Every year I make Tomio a Christmas card to put in his stocking. Well, actually I usually end up making him 3 or more trynig to make it just right....lol. I think I worry about his more than any others, even those I submit to magazines...And yes, this year was no exception. I made 3 cards, and in the end I chose the last one I made. But I thought I would go ahead and share all 3 :) (and no worries, he doesn't check my blog :))

Here is the first one I made:

Light blue and brown :) I LOVE light bue and brown. I embossed the trees from Paperrey's Merry & Bright set with some sparkly white embossing powder. All the cardstock and ribbon are from Papertrey too.

Here is the second one I made:

I had this image in my head of silver snowflakes on a red background.... and this came out pretty close to what  I was thinking of. The snowflakes are from Impression Obsession. I use them ALL the time. The sentiment is from my current favorite Christmas set, Holiday Tree from Papertrey.

And this is the last card I made:

I used Holiday Tree for this one too. I LOVE this snowman! He's actually the reason I wanted this set :).And I used rustic cream cardstock for the base. Wow. I {heart} rustic cream!!! It has just the right touch of "rusticness" lol. I *might* like it even better than kraft-gasp! I said might lol.

Now, I think this is my favorite. So I will probably give him this one. But, I am pretty sure that he will like the second one best, so there is a chance I will give him that one instead lol. What do you think? Which one is your favorite? And which one would you give?

Thanks for stopping by! We made gingerbread men today. The kids had so much fun :) Now the are getting ready to have a cookie-Christmas movie -party :) Emma's asleep, so now I am off to make dinner :)

apple butter

Our church has a Christmas party each year, usually a few days before Christmas. This was actually the first year Tomio got to make it because the last couple of years they had it on a day when he had work. Anyway, the last couple of years I had been wanting to make something nice to give out to everyone, but never actually got to do it. So this year, I was determined to actually DO something. I decided to make homemade apple butter foreveryone. Here in Japan you can't get apple butter, and most people hadn't even heard of it. After a few bumps in the road finding the jars and supplies, I was actually happy with how they turned out :) Leah was so excited about them and SO wanted to help. She put all the labels on the jars for me and was so proud of herself :) I was glad that she liked helping out.

I had alot of fun making these tags. Well, not at first. Knowing that I needed to make at least 20 of these, I thought it would easiest just to mass produce them.(Yes, I KNOW I hate mass producing...) So foolishly, I started cutting out 20 tags the same color and stamped them with the same design...only to hate the results. Then I realized I had alot more fun just doing a few at a time, kind of similar, but no 2 really alike. THEN I had fun and liked the results. I used a few different Papertrey ink sets to make these. Oh, and I used some snowflake images from My Sentiments Exactly and Hero Arts. The lables I printed out on my computer and then stamped the frame with a Hero Arts stamp.I'm SO glad I actually did something this year instead of just thinking about it lol.
Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to do at least one thing you think about doing each Christmas but don't, for whatever reason :) You will be so glad you did!

finally...

I don't know what it was, but for some reason my computer and blogger were NOT getting along for the past few days. I have been trying to post, but it wasn't really working--aargh! But, at least they seem to be getting along fine now :) I was supposed to take Miss Emma in for her second vaccine in a series of three today. It seems though, that it was too soon after she had the mumps, so it was moved to next week. Not really a big deal, but frustrating nonetheless. I've been trying to take her in for this vaccine for the past 3 weeks...anyway I was so happy to make a card for this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I haven't really made much just for fun lately, so I was glad to have this chance :) I used some of my newest goodies too. I just love the Turning a New Leaf set from Papertrey! So many uses. I don't know how well you can tell in the photo, but I stamped the largest leaf image from the set in light yellow before I stamped the sentiment. I'm not usually one for fussy-cutting, but I really like how these images look when they are cut out. Christmas cards are really my absolute favorite kind to make, but I have been making so many Christmas cards and tags lately that it was fun to make something different too.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are enjoying this last week of fun anticipation before Christmas :)

supplies: cardstock: bazzil, pattern paper: basic grey, stamps: papertrey ink and verve, scallop punch: fiskars, ribbon: paperrtey ink, ink: tsukineko