Inspiration Challenge #34: Crate & Barrel prints

Ah, fall... it's definitely here! The leaves here in Massachusetts are really turning, and I hear by the end of this week it'll be quite chilly. So for today's challenge, here are some fall colors for you! I thought these Medley Prints from Crate & Barrel were really cool. Sorry that my photo here is so awful. Click here to see a better image - if anyone can tell me how to capture an html image of a dynamic photo, please do!


The colors in this artwork made me think of the Season of Friendship set and the Autumn Vine papers, both from the holiday mini catalog. ETA: I just realized I used the same set for last week's challenge... oops! At least this card looks totally different, LOL.

I stamped the tree image a couple times on very vanilla cardstock with chocolate chip ink, then added leaves in more mustard and really rust. I cut 1 5/8" squares from the branches and layered onto 1 3/4" chocolate chip squares.

The bird in the center is stamped in rust, with chocolate chip leaves, on one of the Autumn Vine prints. I used the same paper for the sentiment (from Thank You Kindly), which I punched out with the designer label punch and layered onto a wide oval chocolate chip punch. I added a couple vintage brads and some chocolate chip taffeta ribbon.

For mounting I used another print from the Autumn Vine collection for the background, on another layer of chocolate chip and a vanilla card. The branch squares are mounted flat, with the bird up on dimensionals, as is the sentiment. This is a pretty quick layout that I've used a couple times now, and I think it works really well here!

Come play the challenge - and yes, I'm posting early because I'll be out all morning tomorrow. This week's keyword for SCS is DSIC34. I'd love to see your creations!

What a doozy of a cold

This cold I caught... it was rough! I'm starting to feel better, so I guess it wasn't that many days of being really sick, but it felt awful while I was suffering with it. Maybe just because it was the first cold of the season?

I finally felt well enough to do a challenge card for the featured stamper challenge today. Our stamper is Terry (Terrore3) and wow, she has a huge and amazing gallery! I picked this card to CASE - although it might not look much like it! I hadn't intended to stray this much from Terry's lovely card, but things kept happening. You know how that goes...

OK, anyway. Since Terry's card has a bird, I decided to break out my new set from the mini called A Cardinal Christmas. This is a little different style of stamp for me and it's really lovely. I stamped the cardinal with riding hood red on very vanilla cardstock, then using a blender pen and kiwi kiss and chocolate chip ink, I colored in the stems and leaves to add a little more color.

I wanted to try Terry's mixed background so I took the Bella Toile stamp and inked it with chocolate chip really well, then stamped off once before stamping onto a sheet of vanilla cardstock that I partially masked off. I trimmed it down and added a strip of riding hood red taffeta ribbon to hide the edge of the toile.

The sentiment is from the same set, stamped in chocolate chip on vanilla. I used rectangle Nestabilities (regular and long) for all three panels.

The card base is riding hood red with the silhouette stamp from the same set embossed with Versamark and clear EP. Before glueing everything down I added two Making Memories copper brads. I think this ended up being a very elegant Christmas card, and congrats to Terry for being the featured stamper and providing the inspiration!

File this under "Better late than never"

I realized that I never got around to posting photos from our trip. You know, the one back in August? Yikes. I think I always felt overwhelmed because there are 193 of them and I didn't know how I would possibly choose. So I guess I'll just try to hit the highlights, with minimal explanation!

We were first in northern Indiana with my dad and stepmom. One day Grandma Chris and I took the kids to their neighborhood pool and the kids had a fabulous time.





Next we headed down to Indianapolis to spend some time with my mom and stepdad, and my brother and his family. The kids got their first boat ride, we went to the Indiana state fair, and had lots of fun hanging out together. Ben and Sarah had a great time playing with cousins Jacob, Mary, and Hannah - Hannah, who has had two heart surgeries, is doing great, as you can see!






Our next stop was Jackson, MS, where my father-in-law got married on August 16 to Joyce Hinton. We arrived on the 15th, when we met Joyce and her family. Joyce's condo complex had a pool so we got to do some more swimming.



The wedding was small but very lovely - the kids especially enjoyed the reception, which was at the home of the couple that introduced Jerry and Joyce. The husband is another carriage enthusiast like Jerry so we got to take a ride. Joyce is wonderful and we wish them every happiness!

Inspiration Challenge #33: DwellStudio baby pillows

I happened across Velocity, a site with a wealth of inspiration, and had lots of fun browsing their items. I chose these baby pillows for the challenge this week.

I zeroed in on this pillow in particular - I wanted to do something different from the blues and browns I keep coming back to! I used pink pirouette, kiwi kiss, always artichoke, and whisper white for my colors and thought the new Season of Friendship set in the holiday mini would be perfect. I also tried to emulate the clean lines and pretty feel of the pillow in my card.


I first stamped the tree with artichoke ink on white cardstock, then added kiwi leaves. I used an EK Success flower punch and pink pirouette cardstock for the flowers, which were attached with two-way glue and embellished with a dot of Frosted Lace stickles. Tip of the day: I forgot how long stickles take to dry. I should have gotten a head start last night! I also should have been more careful not to smudge, but oh well. Also, this image is huge! But I think it looks okay with the edges trimmed off, which I had to do to stay with the sketch.

The background uses retired artichoke paper for the large layer, and for the smaller panels, kiwi paper from Hawaii Papaya and one of the pink pirouette patterned sheets. I put the artichoke panel onto a pink panel and then onto a white card and layered all my smaller panels onto artichoke cardstock for definition.

The sentiment is by Hero Arts and was stamped in artichoke on pink cardstock then circle punched and layered onto kiwi and artichoke. I mounted it on dimensionals and I ended up placing it differently than in the sketch so I wouldn't cover up my tree. The final touch was some kiwi striped ribbon tied through a slot punched in the pink panel. It just needed something up there!

I kept it pretty simple today... as usual, not much time, plus I have my first cold of the season and I'm not feeling so hot. But seeing your creations for my challenge would cheer me up! :) This week's keyword for SCS is DSIC33, and don't forget to link with a comment here so everyone can go look. Have a great day!

Peaceful Christmas colors

OK, yes, here is another card with baja breeze on it. The color challenge made me do it, LOL! Today's colors are baja breeze, kiwi kiss, and very vanilla. I think I actually used this combo on another of my Christmas cards, but I was happy to use it again - it's so pretty. I feel like I wasn't able to capture a very good photo of this card, so use your imagination - IRL it really sparkles!

I wanted to use Jen del Muro's latest sketch so to go with it I pulled the set To You & Yours from the holiday mini catalog. This is a lovely set, and I always make lots of Christmas cards with doves and peace sentiments - must be my Mennonite heritage! I also went digging through my stash and found some Fancy Pants papers that match the colors - they are not Christmas papers but I just cut around the flowers.

I did a lot of embossing with iridescent ice EP on this card. For the background I wheeled the So Swirly jumbo wheel in Versamark over the blue paper and then embossed. The dove was stamped first in Versamark and then baja breeze, and I did the same for the sentiment with kiwi kiss. It says "Sending you holiday peace" in case you find it hard to read in the photo. I cut both images out with Nestabilities.

To finish I used some ivory swirl organdy ribbon - is this stuff by A Muse? I can't remember. Then that upper right corner just looked so bare, so I went back to my stash. I used some of the ivory flowers from Michael's and layered them so that they would (I hope!) look like poinsettias. Do you buy it? :) I held them together with some DCWV brads - they're from a Christmas kit I got last year and they really look good with the baja breeze. I just wish I could get more of them!

Ah, I'm feeling good now that I did the color challenge, Jen's challenge, and my Christmas card challenge for the week. Come back tomorrow for the inspiration challenge - guess I better figure out what it's going to be!

My husband, always

Todd's and my 8th anniversary is coming up on Tuesday so I decided to use the featured stamper challenge for today to make his card. Today's stamper is Shannon (E3stamper) who is another amazing artist. There are so many talented people out there! Congrats, Shannon!!

This is the card I chose to CASE. I kept the color scheme and used the same stamp set (but a different image) and I changed a lot of the rest. Since this was a Julee Tillman sketch, I flipped it and modified a couple elements to make it more my own. I also added a background stamp, used DP for the bottom panel, and left off the ribbon since this is for my hubby. If you know Todd you know he's not the typical man, LOL, so he will appreciate the somewhat girly heart, I think - but I decided not to go overboard on the feminine stuff!

I first stamped the "Husband" panel (one of those great Paper Inspirations stamps) in chocolate chip craft ink on very vanilla cardstock, then embossed with clear EP. I did the same with the heart from the Always set, but on sage shadow cardstock. I cut the heart out and used the long rectangle Nestabilities for the sentiment. Here's my only gripe about the Nestabilities... you can't layer the long rectangles very well other than using one plain and one scalloped rectangle. I wanted to emboss my large chocolate chip panel but it just wasn't the right size. Otherwise, I really love these things.

OK, enough of that. I finished the card with a vanilla panel stamped with the Linen background (stamped off once first). I added a panel of paper from the Autumn Vine collection in the new SU mini. Love it! The last touch was three dark brown DCWV brads. I mounted the heart on dimensionals and that was it. I really like how this turned out and hope that Todd does, too.

Thanks for the inspiration!

I had to get in a card for today's SCS inspiration challenge. Stephanie picked a very cool set of dishes from Rosanna. I combined my card with Beate's weekend sketch challenge - having a layout to work from always helps me along when I'm pressed for time, and this was a great sketch.

When I looked at the dishes the brown and white plate reminded me of the pretty pattern backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms. I stamped it with white craft ink on chocolate chip cardstock. The other background panel is baja breeze cardstock stamped with the Stitched background in baja breeze. That color came from the gorgeous medallion plate.

The third plate I chose to emulate was the large green leaf. I inked one of the swirl stamps from Stitched Exotics with old olive ink and made it into a border using the Stamp-a-ma-jig. I added a sentiment from Wonderful Words in chocolate chip ink. As I assembled the elements together I added a strip of 5/8" olive grosgrain ribbon to cover the seam between the two background panels.

Finally, I decorated my panels with baja breeze flowers stamped from Stitched Exotics and punched with the five-petal punch. The centers seemed to need something so I added some pewter brads that I've had forever - doing my best to pare down my stash! I think they are by Making Memories. These brads are super big so I mounted the flowers with pop-up glue dots. I cut out a couple olive leaves to put with the flowers and glued them with two-way glue.

Thanks for two fabulous challenges, Stephanie and Beate!

When you need to be quick...

CASEing does the trick! I'd seen this card a while back and thought how great it was, and it was the perfect card to CASE for today. I didn't have much time but I needed a card for a friend and also wanted to play the SCS limited supply challenge, which was to stamp cleanly on a white background. I hope I followed all the rules! :)

For this card I used my new Upsy Daisy set. (Nothing old on this card, really!) I inked the flowers in riding hood red on and then did just a little rock & roll with basic gray. This was harder than I expected! I cut the stamped image out with the Top Note Bigz die. It looks so great with this image. The sentiment was from the hostess set Best Yet.

To finish I added two strips of basic gray taffeta ribbon to a black panel and then mounted my die cut with dimensionals. It all went on a riding hood red card. Truly (not counting trial and error) this was a 10-minute card - and that's all I really had! Editing work is calling my name. I love the idea of this challenge, though, so maybe I'll get to come back and make another later.

Inspiration Challenge #32: Butterfly print

I had an oops moment - it's time for another challenge already and I hadn't really thought about it at all! After last Saturday's fabulous IC on SCS, I had kinda had my fill of room challenges and fall colors... and that's what I was finding in a lot of the pieces I've gathered recently. So I went back to some images I had saved since I started these challenges and chose one of those.

This butterfly print apparently came from the Plow & Hearth catalog, although it doesn't appear on their site now. I remember that it caught my eye right away - I loved the colors, of course, and the gorgeous baroque scrollwork. I hope you'll forgive me for not using butterflies on my card - I'm not much into them as a stamper, but I know lots of you out there are, so pull 'em out! :)

I was going to reach for my baja breeze again, but then I thought, why not go back and use some soft sky? I didn't hoard a whole lot of last year's colors but I do have a fair amount of that one and I still love it. For something new I went with the Beautiful Borders set and the Bella Toile background. Today's SCS sketch challenge was perfect for the layout since the blocks look a lot like the inspiration piece.

I first stamped the border for the bottom panel in blue bayou on soft sky cardstock.
Next I stamped the toile background in chocolate chip on very vanilla cardstock. I cut these to size to fit on a chocolate chip card base so that I could allow the card to serve as the "layer" for the panels. To finish off the background I cut a 1 3/4" square of striped soft sky paper and wheeled the Baroque Border onto close to cocoa with chocolate chip ink. Once these were all done I sponged all the edges with chocolate chip.

For my focal panel, which is a little shorter and wider than the sketch, I first stamped the swirl from Baroque Motifs with soft sky ink on soft sky cardstock. Then I stamped the silhouette image (from Stampers Anonymous) in chocolate chip over the swirl. I layered this onto a blue bayou panel, and both have the edges sponged as before.

Finally, I added some retired copper Hodgepodge Hardware: three brads and the tag hanger (is that what they're called?) with a bit of chocolate chip taffeta ribbon. I made my own sentiment from a Judy Melvin clear alphabet set, stamped in blue bayou, and oval punched, then layered over a punched chocolate chip designer label. Of course I sponged those edges, too.

This was a really fun card to make - I am loving these new stamps and I enjoyed revisiting some retired colors. Come play along in the challenge and don't forget to leave a comment here with a link to your card. SCS keyword this week is DSIC32. Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

I just don't know...

Does this card work? I feel like something's not right about it but I'm not sure what.

I wanted to play the color challenge today, which was basic gray, riding hood red, and always artichoke, and I wanted to use Julee's Mojo Monday sketch from this week. Well, if you look at the sketch you'll see very little resemblance - it just wasn't working. So I tried to flip some things around and salvage what I could for the color challenge - no time to start over. I'll have to try Julee's sketch again on another day!

Well, anyway. For this card my something new is the Snow Swirled set. It's so gorgeous (and still 15% off!). My something old is the retired artichoke designer paper. I had so many of the old prints that I really need to use those up before I buy more of the new prints.

I stamped the tree in artichoke craft ink on very vanilla cardstock and embossed with clear EP. For the gray snowflake I inked the stamp first in Versamark and then in basic gray so that I could emboss it as well. The bottom panel is basic gray cardstock embossed with the two smaller snowflakes and a sentiment from Many Merry Messages.

To finish the card I cut the two embossed images and the riding hood red layers with Nestabilities. I mounted both on dimensionals and added some of the riding hood red taffeta ribbon.

I still think this was a good idea... it just didn't quite end up how I pictured. Better luck next time!

Out with the old, in with the new

That's going to be my blog theme for as long as I can make it work - we'll see how it goes! I'm going to challenge myself to ink up my new stamps and use my new punches - so many of them haven't been used much, if at all. I'm also going to try to dig through my (way too large) stash of DP and find some unloved papers. I've done this on a few cards recently and realized that it would be a great thing to keep up.

Today's card is for the featured stamper challenge on SCS. Today's stamper is Liz (aka lazylizard) and she has an amazing - and enormous! - gallery. I chose this card because I really liked the elegant look and the layout with the vertical oval. That's something that I haven't done often.

When I went to my stamps I had a bit of a "duh" moment - this Thanks stamp from the Only Ovals set was perfect. I hadn't even mounted this set yet! I wanted some elegant paper to go with it and chose a couple prints from the Autumn Leaves Manhattan collection. That dictated my color combo of baja breeze, certainly celery and chocolate chip. Love, love, love this combo!

I first colored the flowers of the stamp with baja breeze reinker and a blender pen, and the rest with a celery marker. I decided to pop up the word so I could stamp separately with chocolate chip. Well, the stamp really is made for that because when you punch, it will cut off those outer edges of the frame around the word. It really looks amazing popped up like this so I'm not disappointed. This stamp is really gorgeous. I mounted it on baja breeze and chocolate chip scalloped ovals cut out with Nestabilities.

Finishing touches: my EK Success scalloped corner rounder punch and some retired chocolate chip satin ribbon. This card was really quick, but I think it has quite an impact. What do you think?

CASE this card - stat!

One of the fun things about hosting a challenge on SCS is you get to look at all the amazing cards that people make. I know that on a daily basis, I hardly ever get to look at the other cards made for the challenges because I'm just too busy, but today I'm commenting on every card and it's really been great seeing all the wonderful inspired work out there!

One card from the gallery really caught my eye, and that was the one by Silke Ledlow (aka sparklegirl). Her work is always stunning, but this card became my inspiration for the third masculine birthday card I needed for my friend's set.

I first chose the printed paper, which is from the Comstock collection of We R Memory Keepers. I paired it with some rust and dark green Bazzill cardstock. I adhered the DP and rust panels to a vanilla card and then, using Adirondack pesto ink, stamped the stitching (Hero Arts) around the outside. I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to get the stitches placed just where I wanted, masking as needed.

For the stamped panel I took a Tombow marker (to match the rust color) and colored on an acrylic block, then picked up the ink with a wet paintbrush and flicked it onto a vanilla panel. (You can do the same with SU ink and an Aqua Painter.) I stamped the leaf from Wonderful You three times in the pesto ink, layered it onto a green panel, and added three dark brown brads, which I believe are DCWV. The sentiment from Bitty Birthday was stamped with the rust Tombow marker, oval punched, and mounted with dimensionals.

I hope my friend likes this card - these are very much her colors so I think it'll be a winner. Thanks Silke for the inspiration!

Inspired by Pier 1

I'm excited to be hosting the SCS inspiration challenge this weekend! I had such a hard time choosing what to use, but ended up with this Pier 1 living room. I loved all the colors, textures, and shapes in the room. Here is a link to their online catalog - the room is on pages 4-5. There you can zoom in to look more closely at all the details.

For my card, my main sources of inspiration were the curtains and the grid on the window. I spent the majority of my time making the stamped floral panel, which I did in several steps: First I took very vanilla cardstock and scored a diagonal grid of lines 1" apart with my Scor-Pal. Then I inked the Linen background stamp with chocolate chip, stamped off twice, and stamped onto the grid to get just the faintest texture. I stamped the two sizes of flowers and leaves with tangerine tango and chocolate chip, using my Stamp-a-ma-jig for placement. I set it aside for the time being, not wanting to cut into it until I had a better idea what I was going to do with it.

I wanted to use a rectangle of the stamped panel and considered using Nestabilities, but in the end decided to make the scalloped layer with my scallop edge punch. It took some trial and error, but if you line up where you want your corner to be so that it's over top of the punch guideline, your corners will come out evenly. I trimmed my stamped panel to size as I was going along, since I wasn't sure what size I would need until I was doing it. And of course I didn't think to measure anything as I was going along, so I can only tell you that the finished stamped panel is 3 1/4" by 4 3/8". Before mounting the two together I sponged the edges of both with chocolate chip.

I tried a lot of different things for finishing off the card and in the end kept it pretty simple. I cut a tangerine panel and stamped the Linen background in tangerine, then stamped the background again (second generation) in tangerine on a vanilla card base. That gave it just a little texture but didn't distract from the main panel. The sentiment from Lots of Thoughts was stamped with chocolate chip on vanilla, then punched out with the large oval and placed in a copper Hodgepodge Hardware frame. Instead of using brads, I took wide grosgrain chocolate chip ribbon, threaded it through the holes, and attached the ribbon ends to the ribbon band with glue dots. I adhered the frame with two pop-up glue dots. Tip of the day: This ribbon is pretty tough to get through the hardware holes, I found. It tends to fray and wrinkle. So pull it through very carefully, and leave yourself some extra length in case you have to trim down.

I had a lot of fun planning this challenge and I hope everyone will play along this weekend!

Another masculine birthday card

The house is quiet... Ben is out with Todd and Sarah is sleeping... bliss! It's been a tough week.

I did a pretty quick masculine birthday card for my friend's set. At least I hope this is masculine! Sometimes I'm just not sure, LOL. I think I need one more masculine card - I haven't gotten an inspiration yet for another idea. So this is it for today!

This card started with the stripe from the Hawaii Papaya designer paper. That dictated the colors: tangerine tango, kiwi kiss, and chocolate chip. The tangerine is still a little tough for me... but I think this combo looks nice. I put a strip on the paper on top of two paper-pierced strips of chocolate chip cardstock, then mounted to a white card. The stamps are from Pocket Silhouettes in kiwi and chocolate chip, then layered onto tangerine cardstock. I did more piercing on the layer there.

The sentiment uses the Curvy Verses striped frame and the Bitty Birthday sentiment. I layered the punched image onto chocolate chip cardstock using Dannie Graves's technique here. I added just a bit of kiwi ribbon and mounted both stamped parts on dimensionals. Done!

Now I gotta go work on something for this weekend. Check back Saturday morning (well, probably late Friday!) for more!

I feel better now

I found time to do a quick card for today's SCS sketch challenge, and it made me feel like I've redeemed myself for this morning's inspiration challenge card, LOL.

I've been working on some card orders and one request was for masculine birthday cards. Always a challenge, right? Today's sketch seemed like a perfect opportunity to give it a try. I pulled some things I'd never used - Basic Grey Archaic papers and this palm tree image from Inkadinkado. I chose three different prints from the paper collection for the various sketch elements and sponged the edges with chocolate chip ink. I added a layer of close to cocoa cardstock (also sponged) and a baja breeze card base.

The palm tree was stamped in chocolate chip on very vanilla cardstock. I gave the edges lots of sponging. The sentiment from Sincere Salutations was stamped in chocolate chip on baja breeze and cut out with oval Nestabilities. I used a close to cocoa sponged scalloped oval for the layer. Some copper Making Memories brads and dimensionals for the sentiment - that's it!

Inspiration Challenge #31: Allison shirt

If you could only see the huge pile of inspiration ideas I have going right now... so much great stuff out there! That being said, today's piece doesn't even come from that pile. I was online looking for something at Nordstrom and randomly came across this shirt. I normally choose inspiration pieces with a little more going on, but I just couldn't get this one out of my head. If you click the link you can see it larger - the print is very cool.

I decided to make a Christmas card for my sample - and it features something else that stayed with me for days. A few days ago I needed to go to my nearby stamp shop and I happened to see this gorgeous Hero Arts Christmas background stamp. I mean, it was one of those times when I gasped. I was trying to be good and it didn't come home with me. But three days later I was still thinking about it. I took that as a sign that I should just go get it, and it seemed perfect for this challenge piece.

I first took a piece of basic gray cardstock and stamped the image in Versamark, then embossed with Ranger black super fine detail EP. The felt poinsettias are also from Hero Arts, and the combination of these with the stamp is a flat-out CASE from the sample the stamp store had out. I just loved it. The pack comes with poinsettias and leaves, including this shade of dark red. I matched it up with a random dark red cardstock from my stash and attached the poinsettias with Making Memories crystal brads.

I loosely used Beate's most recent sketch challenge - I think that was where I took a wrong turn. I didn't have much time, I tried to make the sketch work for my card but it didn't really, and then I had already attached everything and couldn't start over... I guess I'm just disappointed that this card I thought about for so many days didn't turn out better. And then I couldn't even get a decent photo of it!

Well, anyway, the finishing touches were the embossed Hero Arts sentiment, on a 1 1/4" circle punch and a black scalloped square punch with pierced corners, and strips of black and gray cardstock with red velvet ribbon. I had some gray textured cardstock handy from yesterday's flip album so I used that for the card base.

I hope you'll forgive me for an off week. ;) Sometimes good ideas just need more time than I have to give! Come and play along anyway - the SCS keyword this week is DSIC31. I'd love to see what you create!

Urban Garden flip album

Ahhhhhhh.... that is the sound of me finally getting my stamps out again! I managed to find some time last night and this morning to make another flip album. A friend requested one for photos of her kids, and this is what I came up with. I hope she likes it! :)

My friend liked the colors of the Urban Garden paper collection, so I put the papers with textured cardstock in some of the same colors (basic grey, baja breeze, and not quite navy) and the Roof Garden Accents & Elements. It was a little tricky since these stickers are card-sized, but I think I made it work! I pretty much mirrored what I did on my Tie the Knot flip album pictured here - it just made the process go much more quickly!

For the cover I used a combination of stickers and paper borders, with the "cherish" stamp from Baroque Motifs.

Here are the various inside pages. I added some white cardstock for journaling space and used the vine stamp from Fresh Cuts for a couple accents, since that is one of the images that appears in the paper collection.





Sorry the pictures aren't great - it's a rainy day and I'm pressed for time! If you have any questions about the album, materials, etc., ask away.

I *hope* to have a challenge for you tomorrow if I can get started tonight. Sarah's sitter has a back injury so I'll still be on mommy duty tomorrow morning - fingers crossed for Friday...

It's not my day

I think my theme word for the past few days has been... argh!!! I finally finished my proofreading job on Saturday. So I was thinking, great! On Sunday I'll have time to stamp at long last. But then I remembered the huge pile of eBay listings I've been needing to do, so I figured I'd better work on that instead.

The fun all started at around 11 pm when I tried to start uploading my 70 auctions from Turbo Lister and had some technical difficulties. I eventually figured it out, and I still think Turbo Lister is totally the way to go... but it was very frustrating! I crawled into bed at 12:30, thinking how grateful I was that Ben would have school and Sarah would be at her sitter's. I could either start stamping or catch up on my sleep!

I got up to get the kids ready - phone rang at 7 a.m. I figured it was either my mom or the sitter. Unfortunately the sitter couldn't take Sarah today. From there it's just been one thing after another... I'll spare you the gory details but suffice it to say it doesn't look like I'll be doing any stamping today. Maybe tonight...?

I do want to quick share this cute photo of Sarah we got yesterday. She found some of my shoes in the closet, and was still wearing her dress from church, and then she started talking on a play phone... I thought I was getting a peek at my future teenager!

Here's where I've been...

It's been craaaaazy around here! I got to spend all day Saturday with my dear friends from Illinois Trudy (and family) and Kalia celebrating Trudy's 40th birthday at her lovely house in Newton MA. I still can't believe she actually lives here! It was a great day - the five kids had lots of fun playing together and I stayed up way too late catching up with two of my most favorite people in the world.

Sunday we had decided that we were going to bite the bullet and get Ben potty-trained before school starts. He did really well - he went right to wearing underwear, and he's only had a couple accidents. He, um, still needs to figure out that he shouldn't be holding it in all day long like he did yesterday... we'll see how today goes. But I'm so proud of him for staying dry and knowing when he needs to go!

The busy-ness is not quite over yet. Ben starts school on Wednesday, and on Friday Sarah will start spending MWF mornings at a great in-home daycare I found. I am trying to make progress on a proofreading job that needs to be done by the 15th - the lack of time put in so far is catching up with me so I'll be busy working on that the next few days. All that is to say... my stamping posts may be few and far between till this project is done - sorry! Unfortunately the IC is going to have to take this week off since I have very little time without the kids. I am really missing my stamps and hope to get back to them soon! I also still need to post photos from our trip - I'll try to do that soon. So much to do, so little time...