Really quick...

Just a quick post! We went to visit Tomio's folks this weekend. He always takes them out to dinner for each of their birthdays, and his dad's birthday was this month. They never say thank you or anything, but I think they really are glad that he remembers each year. So that's what we did lol....but I do have a card to share :)

I really love stitching on cards. I think it add so much. But I don't do it very often- mostly because my machine is upstairs and faraway from my crafting space. And because sometimes my machine seems to have issues with sewing on paper... But, I decided to go ahead and try it some more, especially after seeing some especially beautiful cards with stitching lately.(Like at here. Her cards are so PRETTY) So, that is what inspired me to try some stitching on this card. It was really simple to do and I like how it turned out. I used some more of my favorite colors--celery and light purple :) I stamped the celery panel with CHF spanish script background stamp, but I don't think the photo picked it up very well.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by! Hope you had a fun weekend!

supplies: cardstock: white, green-pti, kraft-paper reflections; stamps-bird-pti, sentiment-verve, background-CHF; button-pti; ribbon-pti; ink-versamark, tsukineko: other-machine stitching

mojo time!

This week we had a choice of a circle card or a square card for Mojo Monday. Since I really never make circle cards, I was about to choose the square  version without even thinking. But, then I thought thid was the perfect chance to try out making a circle one. And I did :)

I really liked this sketch! It was super easy to work with. I love this spring rain cardstock from Papertrey, but I hadn't used it much, so that was the first thing I chose. The rest of the colors and embellies kind of just fell into place after that *smile*. I really had fun making this card, so I'm pretty sure I'll be making some more circle cards after this :)

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed my card for this week!

supplies: cardstock-white, spring rain:pti, kraft:paper reflections, brown:bazzill; stamps-flower, sentiment:verve, polka dots: cornish heritage farms, ink-white-pti, brown-tsukineko; ribbon & buttons-pti; scallop circle-spellbinders; scallop punch-fiskars; circle die-quickutz, other-twine.

a card.

Have you been checking on all the fun new CHA peeks? I think it would be really fun to actually go and see all the new stuff and visit the booths. But I definitely don't see that ever happening lol. I still have fun looking at all the manufacture sneak peeks though. I'm always the most excited about new pattern paper and new dies. My other love is stamps, but my favorite companies don't do special CHA releases but every month instead :) I'm not sure what my favorite things so far are, but I love the new Quickutz cookie cutter alphas.  I really wish they would make more--or maybe not since I always feel like I have to get all of them *grin*.

ANYWAY, here is a card made this week:

A different color combination than I would normally do, but I like it :) I stamped the lemon tart scallop strip with my striped background stamp in Berry Sorbet, but very lightly. I used my new Quickutz embossing folder on the white panel. Lately I am loving thicker ribbon! I love the look of the big bows *smile*. And though I haven't perfected my bows yet, I am definitely liking them better. I've actually watched several tutorials on how really talented card makers like Dawn McVey and Kristina Werner make their bows. I found that I kind of take different tips from them all and combine them to make the kind of bows I like (if that makes any sense lol).

Thanks for stopping by!

supplies: cardstock: papertrey ink; pattern paper: papertrey ink; stamps: sentiment-verve, lines-cornish heritage farms; ribbon:papertrey ink; embossing folder:quickutz; scallop punch:martha stewart

a boyish layout.

Typical week here...glad it's not as cold as it normally is around this time of year here. And with our new house it is alot warmer in general. The living room gets TONS of sunlight is really toasty in the afternoons :) Since my biggest complaint about our old house was how cold it was, I'm a happy girl *smile*

I'm pretty sure I haven't shared this layout yet. I used Basic Grey's Urban Prairie line on this, and I decided it is probably my all time favorite line of theirs. LOVE these colors!!

I liked how these papers worked for this layout even though I kind of thought of them as a little more "girl-y". I rolled out the Quickutz heart 4 times (I think) and glued it together. I love how you can make your own chipboard shapes this way!  This is the kind of thing I wouldn't really scrapbook before when I just kind of did events etc. But I'm so glad I do now because I really want to remember all these sweet silly things about my kids that unfortunately I'm sure I won't... but at least now I won't have to *grin*

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you're having a good week! We got some oats at Costco over the weekend, so we're supposed to make "creature cookies" aka preacher cookies, aka no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies this week. One batch usually lasts about a day here :)

supplies: cardstock: american crafts, pattern paper:basic grey, die cuts shapes, letters-quickutz, buttons and brads:basic grey

what do you do...

...with cards you don't love? I can take forever to make just one card, and I want be really happy with it when I'm done. But I'm not always. Often I make cards that I'm not very happy with. What do you do with those cards? Usually, I will wait a little bit and see if it grows on me. Sometimes it will, but usually it doesn't. In  that case, I see if I can just add something--like a gem or button to help. If that doesn't work, then I will take it apart and make another card, using at least some of the pieces from the original. I thought I would show you one of the cards I made that I didn't like and show you what it ended up looking like :)

This is what I made at first. And I just never liked it. (yes, it's ok to agree with me.) For the life of me I could not get the cherry image to look good to me, so I added it to my scraps drawer. And I made this card instead:

The only thing I used from the first card is the base, but I saved all the other parts for another card. The white label on this card was actually rejected from a card I made before. I like this one SO much better. I didn't stamp a "focal image" for this one. But did stamp both the backgrounds and the sentiment. The butterfly punch is from Ek Success. ( Everytime I see the Martha Stewarts' butterfly punch, I want to get it. But I haven't been able to justify it since I have this one...sigh...you can't have too many butterflies can you?!)

So, what do you do with your unloved cards? Do you just move on? Do you fiddle and redo like me?

Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment and let me know which version you like better :)

supplies: cardstock-papertrey ink; stamps-papertrey ink and cornish heritage farms; ribbon-papertrey ink; punch-ek succes; other-gems.

You had a bad day....

Did you ever have a bad day and manage to turn it around? I'll be honest. I'm a stay at home homeschooling mom of 4....we have our days. It's not always just roses and butterflies (in case you thought it was :)). Anyway, today was one of those days. For some reason nothing seemed to be going well. But after a morning of feeling frustrated about it, I decided to try to do something to change it. I started by cleaning the kitchen really well. And that made me feel like I COULD do something (remember, cleaning is not my strong suit *heehee*). Then I cut Rhys' hair, which is another thing that I have struggled with being able to do well. But I got it done, it looks nice and there was only minimal crying from Miss Emma too. Then after I vacuumed upstairs, I made apple butter and cinnamon rolls. And I put all 4 kids in the bath and we all enjoyed some quite delicious cinnamon rolls together. By the end of the day I felt much better. By trying to do things that normally can be hard for me, I managed to turn my day around. Nothing really changed, but I felt much better which actually DOES make the kids all happier too.

So I don't have a card to share today, but I do have some cute pictures of Miss Emma I took at the park the other day:

Thanks for stopping by!! I hope you are having a great day *grin*!

Have you ever assumed your kids know certain everyday things only to find out they didn't? Living in Japan ny kids don't experience all the same things kids their ages would in the US, and I realize that. But I was totally surprised when Nana said they were having lasagne for dinner and my kids had no idea what it was!!! I know, I was just as shocked lol. What kind of a mother am I not to give my kids lasagne in the first place?I mean, they eat squid, octopus and seaweed, but don't know what lasgane is.... I spent close to 5 minutes describing it to them. I think Leah, who loves everything was sure she would like it, while Rhys was not so quick to be sure he would like something new. ( I mean, there might be veggies chopped up and hiding somewhere in it.)So now lasagne is on my list of things to make in the next couple of weeks :) So has that ever happened to you?! Or is my family just weird...

 Here is another card I made that came together really quickly(yay!):

I absolutely LOVE this color combo. This pale lavender is SO gorgeous in person. I would love to decorate my bedroom with these colors(and maybe some celery green too...*heehee*) I wanted to be sure to use some of my older stamps too, so I got out this cute bee image from Papertrey. The sentiment is from the same set. Isn't the font cute?

Thanks for stopping by! Can you believe the week is half over already?

supplies: cardstock: white, lavender, kraft-pti, brown-bazzill; stamps-bee, sentiment-pti, background-cornish heritage farms; ribbon-pti; inks-tsukineko; scallop punch-ek success