Stamping to take my mind off things

We discovered a bit of a crisis this morning. The heat was down too low in part of the house last night and some part of the pipes froze. That whole side of the house was cold so which part, we don't know. We are worried that the pipes could burst and damage or destroy our not-so-long-ago-fully-finished basement (otherwise known as Todd's Sherlock Holmes study). We have space heaters running and I hope and pray that the ice is melting as we speak.

So in the meantime I'm working on cards - always a great escape from real life! I decided to do today's color challenge on SCS, which was to use real red, blue bayou and soft sky. This card is all SU products, and it's a CASE of a beautiful card on p. 37 of the spring-summer '08 catalog. I first stamped the 2-step flowers from the A Beautiful Thing set in soft sky and blue bayou, then cut them out and mounted to a blue bayou panel. (Almost all the panels have edges distressed with my fingernail.) Under that I layered red, vanilla, and soft sky panels, then added the ribbon. The card is a top fold in soft sky with the canvas background stamped and the edges inked up. For the sentiment I did another vanilla panel with the sentiment in red and affixed it to the bottom of the card before adding the center panel. The flowers are mounted with dimensionals, and I used two layers on the center flower so it would pop up over the other two. This was a pretty quick and easy one to do!

Hope you'll stop by for my inspiration challenge tomorrow - happy stamping!

Monday family news bulletin

I know I've been posting lots of cards lately, which is fun for me but not as interesting to those of you out there who want to know how we're doing. So let me see if I can catch you up. Actually not a whole lot is going on. Todd is busy working on his proposals and I'm doing my best to keep the kids entertained and myself from going over the deep end! So far we're hanging in there. Unfortunately snowy and/or cold days have kept us indoors a lot. I'm ready for spring!

No news on the TMJ front. My doctor's office has not been successful thus far in getting ahold of the Botox people. Of course, it's hard to believe they are coming down on the other doctor for not returning their calls when my doctor's office hasn't been returning mine. Grr. I hope this will be resolved sometime during my lifetime, sigh. They are going to try calling again tomorrow - today, apparently, the Botox guy is not working.

As if jaw pain wasn't enough, I've also developed tennis elbow from carrying Sarah too much. I guess I should call it toddler elbow. It's really painful and so far my efforts to carry her less and take Advil as needed aren't really doing anything. Looks like another doctor visit is probably in my future. I doubt I'll make it in this week, though. This weekend I'll be taking the kids to visit my Indianapolis family so there will be a lot going on before then!

Featured Stamper day!

When I first started doing SCS challenges the Featured Stamper wasn't one I really liked - but as I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone I really started to enjoy them. I've found that it gets me doing things I never would have thought of, and I've made some of my favorite cards for the FS challenges.

Today's featured stamper is KathyC - I don't know if I'd ever seen her gallery before, but she does beautiful work! I chose this card to CASE and turn into a Valentine's card. (It would have been so tempting to stick with snowflakes... maybe I'll come back to that idea in a few months!) I used pretty in pink instead of soft sky but kept the other cardstock colors the same (purely pomegranate, white, basic gray) and since I used the same fold as Kathy, I put some of that gorgeous basic gray taffeta ribbon between the crease and the scored line (1/2" from the crease) and secured with sticky strip.

I had trouble choosing what heart stamps to use. The Denami Designs sentiment jumped out at me right away because it resembled the swirly "Joy" stamp that Kathy used. In the end I chose this heart border stamp by Stampendous. I did generation stamping in pomegranate around the sentiment, and stamped in Versamark on the top and bottom of the base. Finally, using a Marvy heart punch, I punched two hearts from pretty in pink and pomegranate, accented them with glitter pen, and added three Primas with a Making Memories crystal brad. They're attached to the stamped panel with dimensionals.

I'm not sure what I think of this card so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

VSN, day 2

Today was pretty busy - not as much time to stamp as yesterday. But I still got three cards done - only two for VSN, though. It's just too tough with having the kids on my own most of the day.

Enough whining... here's the first card. The challenge was to use bling - do you think I got enough on there? This was a tough one to photograph and I think it's better in person, but ah well. I started the whole thing with the papers from DCWV's Luxury Stack - I've had this in my stash for ages but haven't touched it till today. It's metallic pearlized paper and just so elegant. I figured embossing was the only way to get stamping to work on this paper, and that let me add some more sparkle with the Ranger embossing tinsel (over Versamark). It's fabulous stuff. The "love" stamp is by Rubber Stampede. Something else new to me was the SU photo corner punch - I pulled it out and realized I had no idea what to do with it! After browsing some blogs and galleries I decided to layer the stamping on silver cardstock and repeat one of the papers on the photo corners. Of course I had to use my fun Making Memories crystal brads again! The embossed swirl background on vanilla (Art Impressions) and silver organdy ribbon were last-minute additions that really made the center panel just pop out. I had a few false starts and lots of interruptions doing this card, so I'm not sure I really made the 45-minute time limit, but I *think* I would have been OK!

My next VSN card was for the next-to-last challenge, which was a follow the list challenge that you can find here. It seemed pretty challenging based on the list, but I made life easier by going to some SU coordinating stuff - my adored Carte Postale set, the matching paper Le Jardin, and - initially - the French Flair background stamp. In the end I thought the swirly background was too busy so I swapped it out for the Linen stamp instead. It always looks so classy. I picked artichoke, river rock and vanilla cardstock to go with my two prints, and for embellishments used gold brads, river rock ribbon, and for bling my clear gel pen. I wanted to keep it subtle. The flower stamp is all I ended up using from Carte Postale, with a sentiment from Warm Words. To make the flowers soft I stamped the artichoke and river rock off once before going around the sentiment. I did use the paper piercer to make the brad holes, but the punched ovals (Marvy) are the only visible sign of the required tools. I really enjoyed Frances's challenge and I think I ended up with a lovely wedding card out of it.

The third card from today was for the inspiration challenge - couldn't miss that one, of course. I love how it turned out, and for once I will direct you to my SCS gallery here for the details instead of the other way around!

My VSN cards so far

Well, I am having a great time playing some of tonight's VSN challenges on SCS. There have been some really creative challenges so far and lots more to come!

My first card was for this challenge - I always love an inspiration challenge and this one was fabulous. I was looking at the shoes and saw that one had a ricrac kind of trim - and thought, don't I have some pink and brown ricrac in my stash? And once I pulled those out, I thought immediately of a baby card, knowing that I had some cute ones I'd gotten recently. These papers by Pebbles seemed perfect, especially since the floral has brown in it! I picked the bear stamp from Bundle of Joy (SU) because he would good look brown, and he's so darn cute. I stamped him in basic brown on watercolor paper and colored in with a cocoa watercolor crayon. I used the pretty in pink crayon to shade in the background (kinda hard to see in the photo). The sentiment is from the coordinating set Bundled in Love and was inked with a Tombow marker. I matted everything with cocoa cardstock, added the ricrac (from JoAnn's) and mounted the bear on dimensionals. You may recall that I did this card a while back and so I did a CASE of myself - and if I do say so, I think I stepped it up a notch!

And now for something completely different - the next challenge, "Little Black Dress," was to stamp on black cardstock (see here). All supplies are SU - except the brad in the center. I had some old winter white embossing powder gifted from a friend, and got out my retired Good Things Grow set. The squares were punched with the 1 1/4" square punch. I used pomegranate as an accent color, mounting the squares so they made this nifty pattern. And then I broke the rules a bit, because the embellishments were also supposed to be black, but the challenge also said something special that we were saving, which these Making Memories crystal brads definitely are, and you know, my favorite little black dresses always have a bit of bling! The stamped panel is mounted on dimensionals.

I stamped the canvas background in black on vanilla cardstock - note to self, you will have to rinse your Stampin' Scrub after stamping a black background! I cut a larger pomegranate panel and tied the black grosgrain around, then punched ovals from vanilla and black and added the sentiment (from Short & Sweet) in pomegranate, and mounted that with dimensionals. It all went on a vanilla card. I really love how this turned out, and maybe I'll do another one with teal instead of pomegranate, since I had a hard time choosing!

I may do one more challenge before bed tonight (OK, maybe two if I get cracking) but this is the last you'll hear from me for today. Night!

My first Beate challenge card

It seems that everyone in the stamping world knows Beate Johns and her wonderful blog, which you can find here. Beate writes great tutorials that have really helped me grow as a stamper. She also does a sketch challenge every weekend, and this is the first time I've played along.

I think I'm about ready to take a couple days off from making Valentine's cards, but here is one more. Everything on the card is Stampin' Up!Last night I colored this mouse from the Happy Heart Day set with watercolor crayons - rose red and (I thought) pretty in pink, with creamy caramel for the mouse. I love playing around with these crayons since blending them makes lots of subtlety possible. I decided to use this image when I saw Beate's sketch. (Of course I didn't remember that the sketch called for the sentiment to be in the lower right corner, and I'd already planned my circles to go all the way down, so I messed the sketch up on my first try! Oh well...) It was when I went to color the flowers that I realized I'd actually used the regal rose crayon for the mouse and not pretty in pink, so I used all three colors for the flowers and made sure to add cardstock in all three. The large scallop square was made with my corner rounder punch - I only had to trim one edge a tiny bit to make it meet up on all sides. I couldn't believe it! I punched the circles with my 1" circle punch from regal rose and mounted the flowers with dimensionals, then taped them with sticky strip over pretty in pink grosgrain ribbon. The stamped panel is also mounted with dimensionals. The background is from the rose red designer paper pack and is cut to fit on a white card.

So the next couple days if you read my blog I hope you will NOT see: anything made with rose red, or anything that's a valentine. I need to step away and get some fresh ideas! This weekend is VSN on SCS so if I get to play, I will try to do something different. Woohoo! If you don't know about it, come read here and play along with us - it's always a blast!

My favorite way to start the day...

By making a card, of course! (In the interest of full disclosure, I did the tree image last night so that the Stickles would dry, not knowing what I'd do with it, but when I saw today's SCS limited supplies challenge I decided to make my card around it.) Sorry for the lousy photo - at 7:15 on an icy morning, conditions for taking pictures are far from optimal!

The challenge was to use background stamps, and no designer paper. For my background I used a Hero Arts dotted heart stamped randomly on SU real red cardstock in real red ink. The tree (Savvy Stamps) is stamped on vanilla cardstock in close to cocoa, with Xmas red Stickles over the hearts. I used some ivory wide organdy and gorgeous red velvet ribbon as an accent, and rounded the corners with a Marvy punch. Everything is mounted on dimensionals because the velvet ribbon is quite thick. Finally I put it all on a top-folded vanilla card and added the Savvy Stamps sentiment in real red at the bottom. Since the main part of the work was done ahead, this came together really quickly!

CASEing my way through blogland

I gotta say, I am loving that my freelance work is caught up, the kids are happily playing with the babysitter, and I am happily playing in my stamping room! I haven't had enough time for creativity lately so it's much needed solace for my soul.

I found this card of Andria Werner's that I was dying to CASE. Of course, I didn't read her description until I was almost done, so I ended up changing some things, but I guess that's what it's all about, right? My card is all Stampin' Up! stuff this time. I started with vanilla cardstock and took out my Artfully Asian stamps - Todd got me this one for Christmas, and it was my first time using it. Love it! I stamped the leaf branches in artichoke and the flower branches in celery, then used my blender pen and the celery and guava ink pads to color. This is one of my favorite combos for a nice, soft card. I tried to have less ink on the blender pen with the leaves on the flower stem so they'd be lighter - I liked the contrasting outline on Andria's card.

I took another vanilla panel and stamped with the linen background in guava, then added the sentiment in artichoke at the bottom. I decided to use the narrow grosgrain (in celery) since the wider one seemed overwhelming to the images. Once the panels were mounted on artichoke, I added the vintage brads and put it all on a celery card base, using dimensionals to pop up the stamped panel. And that's it!

Inspiration Challenge #6: Flower Market

I think I found a really fun challenge for this week - at least I had a blast with it! It's a series of decographs found here - I had to take a picture of the catalog page again this week so my apologies.


For my card I decided to try my hand at the emboss resist technique. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to do something new to me. I also broke out my new SU Baroque Motifs set, and what a fun one to play with! I liked the first of the prints the best. First I stamped the flowers, sentiment (My Sentiments Exactly), and scroll in Versamark and So Saffron craft ink on white cardstock, then embossed with clear embossing powder. When it was cool I sponged on a heavy layer of Taken with Teal ink and then buffed it off with a paper towel. It was amazing to see the images just pop out! I tied the ribbon around and thought that maybe I was done, but it really seemed to need something more so I added the pin. I don't have the Pretties Kit so I just used a corsage pin and beads that I had hanging around. It's what Todd would call a dangerous card - no safety end on the pin - I keep meaning to check at Michael's if I can buy them separately. Anyway, to finish it off I mounted the stamped panel with dimensionals onto a saffron panel and then onto a white card. I'll definitely be playing with the resist techniques more - this was so much fun!

The card that took all day to make

You know how sometimes you get on a mission and you just can't stop till you've finished? That's how I was with the SCS color combo challenge today. I tried several different things - and you may see them again because I still think they were good ideas - but they didn't end up working. Finally, at 9:30 tonight, I decided to go back to CASEing and chose this beautiful card by Jen del Muro that I'd seen a few days ago - I've recently been touring a lot more blogs, and boy, it is addicting - check Jen's out because she does gorgeous stuff.


I started with the flowers, which are from SU's Delight in Life. I stamped the flowers several times in sage shadow to make the leaves, then colored in with the pad ink using my blender pen. The background of the flowers is apricot appeal and the outline is rose red. I cut everything out and laid out the pattern on a piece of apricot cardstock, then cut out the panel around the flowers like the out of the box technique. The background paper is SU's rose red designer paper, which I've had for ages now but hadn't even opened the package yet! I layered it on top of a barely larger apricot panel, then made a sage scallop border for the top. The white organdy is a scrap that I think was in a $1 ribbon bag from Michael's - I liked that it was wide but not too wide. By the time I put all of this together, I realized I had very little room left for the sentiment, but thanks to SU's Short & Sweet set and my little Marvy scalloped oval punches, I think I made it work. Whew, I'm tired. I guess I can go to bed now!

I want glittery cards, gosh darn it!

I am determined to make some Valentine's cards with lots of sparkle to them. But so far everything I'm trying is not working like I want. I'm sure you will see more of my efforts if you read my blog often - this is the first one that I'm willing to publicly share. And it's nowhere near glittery enough, hrmph, but I like it despite that!

This card was the first in a while that I've created without at least in part CASEing something I'd seen elsewhere. I've been doing lots of CASEs lately because it's a lot faster for me, but it felt good to really start from scratch. I started with the Hero Arts flower and heart stamp, which is part of a set I picked up yesterday. In my quest for bling I stamped it several times in SU pink passion and pixie pink craft ink, then embossed with Ranger polysparkle powder. I ended up with a row of 5 flowers that looked good enough to use, so that determined the size of the rest of the panels. I made a background panel in pixie pink with pink passion dots from the SU Itty Bitty Backgrounds set. Next I cut a strip of pink passion and used my corner rounder punch to make the scalloped edges. What a cool trick - it was my first time trying it and I love it! I tied on the organdy ribbon and layered the panels together. For the sentiment, which is by Stampabilities, I stamped in pink passion on pixie pink and embossed as before. It fit perfect in my pink Marvy scallop circle punch, so I layered it on a larger pink passion circle and added the dots with white gel pen. It's mounted with dimensionals. Voila!

News from the week

Always busy here at our house and this week was no exception! Todd is frantically working on two huge proposals due at the end of the month that will hopefully ensure funding for his work for the next fiscal year. And I'm frantically working on an editing project that came in kinda last-minute with a 2-week turnaround - not normally a challenge but for a busy mom, that's pretty quick.

Anyway, here's the news that's worth telling... I had a TMJ checkup today. The doctor is having me go ahead with Botox injections. Not really something I'm looking forward to, but he says for most patients it only takes once. I am going to beat down those pessimistic thoughts that say I am not most patients, and hope wholeheartedly that it will work. I can eat a few more things than I was at first, and I can manage to sing a hymn in church with only some pain... but not good enough. I want my life back, and I hope this is the way to get it.

Ben and Sarah had a good week. Ben started his new enrichment class, "African Safari," on Tuesday and got to be the superstar (the one who does the weather and calendar each day) on Thursday. It is wonderful to see how much he loves school. Sarah's new session of Music Together started on Thursday. They changed to a new location, a room in a gymnastics place, and it's much bigger with bouncy floors and mirrors and Sarah was like a different kid. (The old room was a church Sunday school classroom.) She was exploring everything, running around in circles, and just generally doing her own thing! Several people commented on how different she was, since she used to mostly sit quietly on my lap. She'll be dancing in no time! I wondered whether we'd have time to add a Gymboree class to our week - I'm thinking no, but I bet she would love it. Maybe during the summer.

I have a possibility of doing a fair at a local company around Valentine's Day - waiting to get confirmation that I'll actually be selected to do it. In the meantime I don't want to make a boatload of stuff, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I'd like to make. Lots of cards, of course! I'd love to hear ideas if anyone has suggestions. I also had a neighbor order some cards, which was a nice surprise, so I worked on those a bit, but mostly I've been editing today. Maybe tomorrow there will be time for more stamping... one can always hope!

Inspiration Challenge #5: Library wallet

First of all, I know that I said I'd do this on Thursday. But I made the card already and I couldn't wait! Plus I realized that I have more time to blog on Wednesdays than on Thursdays, so here it is. I'll be posting my challenges on Wednesday from now on.


I apologize that the photo is not great - I don't have a scanner and Anthropologie (where this wallet is sold) wouldn't let me borrow their photo, but you can see the original here. (Select the red one to see the one I used - feel free to pick another if you like them better - it's all good!)


Here is my card. This seemed like the perfect chance to break out my new Embrace Life set from SU. The red flowers are stamped with SU real red, but the teal and olive are done with Tombow markers. All cardstock is from SU. I did the white rub-on stitching (DCWV) around the outer edge to mimic the wallet's stitching. Gold brads seemed called for, and I used my SU ticket corner punch to make space for them in the corners. And I liked the oval placement as well so used my Marvy punches for the sentiment, which I stamped by inking the words separately so it would fit inside the smallest oval. I had to use two different thicknesses of dimensionals to get the oval to lay flat over the two bigger layers.

Please leave me a comment if you play along this week - I'd love to see your ideas!

Just because I was gone doesn't mean I wasn't stamping

I discovered the real upside of driving instead of flying when we travel: I can bring lots of stamping stuff! I had some new stamp sets Todd gave me for Christmas, lots of fun new paper (not even counting the huge stack I acquired over the course of our trip), and as many coordinating colors of cardstock, ribbon and ink as I could stuff into my boxes and bags. I envisioned myself stamping away at our overnight stops along the road, not to mention while we were visiting all those grandparents.

So, you ask, what did I actually accomplish? Well... I have yet to break out most of those new stamps, and I just didn't have time or energy to do nearly as much stamping as I wanted. My mom had even cleared off an L-shaped area for me to spread out my stuff - she's the best! - but it was just so busy. Now I know next time to pack a lot less, since I didn't stamp at all in the hotels and I didn't even get that much stamping time otherwise.

I did get some cards done, though. Some friends have requested sets of assorted kid birthday cards, so I've been working on those. It's a fun project - my challenge is making boy-appropriate cards since I tend to want to girl everything up! I'm trying to meet the challenge, though. Here's a cute boy card, using holiday paper from DCWV I found on sale at JoAnn's - I love how those dots pop! The sentiment is from Hero Arts - I found cute clear birthday stamps from them on my first visit to Indy's Archivers store. The cupcake is from Stampin' Up!'s Little Layers Plus. The DCWV paper matched SU brilliant blue really well, and the green ink is Color Box lime with Bazzill cardstock.




















This one could work for a boy or a girl, right? I had fun with these coordinating papers from American Crafts. The sketch was from a challenge posted by Gina K on her blog. The cake comes from SU's Eat Cake set, stamped in real red and tempting turquoise. I also used SU red and turquoise CS, but the orange is from Bazzill. The cake panel is mounted with dimensionals. The sentiment is another from the Hero Arts set.

I guess this last one has to be for a girl, but I have to use pink sometimes! The cake paper is from Heidi Grace and the pink is from Stemma - I thought they looked great together. This card is a CASE of one in the Quick & Easy Cards magazine that came out recently. The stamps are from Doodlebug - another clear set I found at Archivers. I used VersaColor orchid ink on Bazzill CS for the "happy," stamped multiple times and circle punched. The "Birthday" is stamped in SU's certainly celery on bashful blue CS and mounted with dimensionals, as is the blue cake at the top, which was cut from the same paper as the bottom panel. I finished it off with SU bashful blue ribbon.

We're home, we're home!

Our big holiday road trip finally came to an end on Saturday afternoon. Despite several challenges - the nasty stomach virus, the death of my grandmother, the horrible snowstorm that hit northern Indiana the day we were supposed to drive up there, and just the many hours of driving we logged with two munchkins in tow - it really was a good trip. I thought I'd focus on the highlights rather than the lowlights, including some photos.

First stop: Arkansas. Although we really were quite sick for a good part of our visit, I managed to get the kids out to the farm with Grandpa Jerry. The kids had a fabulous time. Sarah loved seeing the horses and didn't seem afraid of them at all. They both got a kick out of sitting on Grandpa's tractors, especially his new John Deere, and Ben even got to make the moving parts go!





Next we were off to Indianapolis for Christmas. We got to stay there for a week and a half, so the kids had lots of time to play with Grandma Emilie and Grandpa Bob. Sarah kept us in stitches with all of her antics. Her favorite things were a funky knit hat and a pair of pink rain boots that cousin Mary likes to play with. The boots were big enough that Sarah could get them on by herself, and she loved stomping around the house in them. When she paired the hats and boots with her PJs one morning, it was especially hilarious!


















She also got in a bit of trouble with her cousins' cat Sadie. Sarah really wanted to make friends with Sadie, and it started out OK...

but later on Sarah got a bit too close for Sadie's comfort and Sarah got a little swat in the face - luckily, no claws! But it still really scared Sarah and after that she left Sadie alone.

One of the most important memories I will take from this trip is of my beautiful niece Hannah, who was still in the hospital when we arrived but came home on December 30. Because of being sick and my grandmother's funeral, I didn't get to visit the hospital until the 28th. Hannah was in a good mood that day - very calm and just taking everything in. I got to hold her a little bit, for the first time, and it was so wonderful.


Hannah's homecoming on the 30th came a few hours earlier than expected, so on the morning of the 31st they felt ready for us to bring Ben and Sarah for a visit. Hannah had just woken up and had a bottle and so again, she was in a peaceful mood. I held her for as long as she would let me, and it was amazing to see her just staring into my face as I held her on my lap. She has the biggest, darkest eyes, and she always looks like she is studying the world around her so carefully.


Our family has really been blessed by this baby - thanks to all who have prayed for her and will continue to do so as the second surgery comes up in April or May.

News from the last week

I can't believe we're only a week away from heading home. This trip has just been flying by.

I returned late last night from attending my grandma's funeral. I wasn't going to go, with all the traveling around we've been doing, but it worked out for my brother and me to drive out with our dad and fly home together last night, so that's what we did. I'm so glad that I went. The funeral was a lovely testament to my grandmother's life and witness, and it was also a welcome chance to catch up with extended family. I couldn't tell you the last time all nine of us grandkids were all together, and my aunt and uncle who are currently on a mission term in Beirut were able to come, and I hadn't seen them in several years. I just kept looking around at the huge family that resulted from my grandparents' 70-year marriage, and thought that she couldn't have left a more wonderful legacy.

Today I had my first chance to go see my beautiful niece Hannah in the hospital. What a sweetie pie she is! I wish I could get the photos off my camera - she's so beautiful. I took Ben with me, and when we first got there she was awake and pretty calm, so I got to hold her for a bit - bliss. Ben was more interested in riding the "people mover" train that moves between the hospitals in the Riley complex, but he did seem to think Hannah is cute. She is going to be able to come home Sunday after her 5 pm meds, if all goes as scheduled and if she shows herself to be gaining weight over the next two days. Everyone is really ready to have her at home, even though there are sure to be adjustments, so my fingers and toes are crossed that all goes according to plan!

Next stop: Indianapolis

We're leaving Arkansas today and heading north to Indy - we should arrive by lunchtime tomorrow. It's been a good visit, even though all four of us were sick with a stomach bug that Ben picked up somewhere. We're all mostly recovered, though, so we're going to hit the road.

I think the highlight of our time here was taking the kids to Grandpa Jerry's farm. They both loved seeing the horses (two are Jerry's, one boards there) and his two tractors. They both got to sit up on them and help move the various parts up and down. At one point Sarah walked back over to one tractor and said, "Tractor! FUN!!" I took some cute photos but those will have to wait until we're home.

On a sad note, my grandma passed away yesterday afternoon. She was 92. She had a long and full life, and I will always remember how much she loved us all. I'm so grateful to God that I was able to say good-bye to her last Sunday morning. As my dad pointed out, she lives on in her namesake great-granddaughter, Hannah Grace. Their lives intersected on this earth for such a short time, and they never got to know each other, but the tie that binds us and our whole family is greater than we can know.

Road trip!

Greetings from Arkansas! We have spent the past three days driving to Little Rock to see my father-in-law. We'll be going from here (on Friday morning) to Indiana to see my family for the rest of 2007 and the first of 2008. I was pretty worried about how the kids would do with three days in the car - watching DVDs definitely helped, but they did get pretty stir crazy by the end. Overall they did really well, though. We were able to drive 3-4 hours at a time with little trouble. Today we ended up having less driving than we thought, so we spent a couple hours in Memphis having lunch and visiting a great store called Eclectica - mostly scrapbooking, but they did have some stamps. I only ended up with one stamp, since most of what they had didn't interest me or I could get at home, but oh the paper they had... beautiful stuff. I tried not to go *too* crazy since I already have such a stash of non-Stampin' Up! paper but I couldn't resist some new stuff to play with - maybe even on our trip, if I brought other supplies that happen to match!

Yesterday started off in a very emotional way for me. On Friday I'd talked to my dad while we were on the road, and he told me that my grandmother is dying and not expected to live more than a few days. The great irony here is that we were driving right through their town yesterday morning. We hadn't planned on stopping since we figured everyone would be busy with church, but when I got this news, and realized that it'd be impossible to get to the funeral, I knew we had to stop. I don't think it was a coincidence that we found out about her condition just in time - I'm grateful to God that he got that message through to me. My grandpa was so grateful that we wanted to stop in. He loved seeing the children since he hadn't seen Ben in 3 years and had never met Sarah.

When we got there my grandpa took us to my grandma's room... it was so sad seeing her like she was. Her eyes were closed and she just hardly looked real. In my memories of her she was always running around making food for the family (they have 6 kids, 9 grandkids and 15 great-grandkids) and just taking care of all of us. She had a stroke a few years ago and really hasn't been the same since. But my grandpa showed me a picture from just a couple weeks ago, where he was looking at a photo album with her and talking about family stories. I couldn't believe how quickly she had been transformed.

She did seem to know I was there, and to know who I was - my grandpa leaned in close to tell her that I was there and asked if she remembered me, and she said yes. When I said hello to her myself, she said something back that sounded like "hi." Other than that, she didn't show any sign of awareness but I was glad that she did seem to know we were there on some level.

It was so hard to say good-bye... Todd and I both cried. And I think I hugged my grandpa four or five times. I am so glad I had the opportunity to see my grandma one last time, to hold her hand and wish her peace on her next journey. Thank you, Grandma, for being such a wonderful woman, mom, and grandmother. We love you.

Trying to catch up

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted here! I'm hoping that after the holidays I can get back to more regular blogging. But we'll be leaving for an extended family visit on Dec. 15 and I won't be able to post any pictures, so I'm not sure how much posting I'll do while we're away.

In the meantime, let's see if I can catch you all up on everything that's been going on. Maybe it would be best to go by family member, so I'll start with Ben. Most recently he turned 4 on Monday! I just can't believe it. We celebrated on Saturday with a small party (mostly family) on an M&M theme. That was the request of the birthday boy. I made cupcakes, with some last-minute assistance from Aunt Karen:


The two with M&M's are for Ben, who doesn't like frosting on cake. Unfortunately the only way to make the M&M's stick was to use a teeny little bit of frosting, and here was Ben's face when he discovered what we had done:


I also have to share two new things that Ben did recently: he had his first dentist visit, at which they gave him 4+ (out of 4) for being cooperative, and he has started going to school all day on Tuesdays. He has done this twice now. He has regular school till 11:30, then lunch and rest time, and from 1 to 3 he has an enrichment class. Right now the theme is Polar Express (the Christmas train story) and he is loving it. In January it will be African Safari. He stays for an extra hour afterward and plays while Sarah finishes her nap. It is really working out well so far - the afternoons are more challenging for me now that Ben doesn't really nap much. So this is one way we're handling it and we'll just play the other days by ear for now!

Sarah is doing just fine - 19 months now. She has learned how to count to 5 (although her favorite number is 4) and she is fascinated with the alphabet song right now. She likes to listen to me sing it while looking at the ABC quilt hanging in Ben's room, which we got from Aunt Christine when he was a baby. (Ben did the same thing!) Actually anytime she hears music she will say "song" and she also dances by standing in one spot and turning around in a circle. It's all just so cute! Here's a lovely photo that Grandpa Jerry took the day of Ben's party.


Todd is hard at work but eagerly looking forward to our holiday travel and a nice break from the lab. I'm just looking forward to seeing family, especially baby Hannah, who as of Sunday was off the ventilator and starting to improve at last. I think they are hoping she'll be moved to the cardiac center any day now, where she'll finish her recovery and then finally go home. I think it seems likely that she will be home in time for Christmas, which I know is going to make everyone rejoice.

As for me, I'm completely overcommitted and busy but having a great time, since most of the busy-ness comes from stamping. I had my second craft fair last weekend and cleared $85, so at least that was an improvement over the first one. I made a lot of projects that weren't cards, since I hardly sold cards at the first fair, and that seemed to be successful. I'm hoping to put up some tutorials for some of the projects where I tweaked something else I found online - if I have time before the holidays, I'll do my best. The most successful thing has actually been since the craft fair - I've sold nearly $200 worth of stuff to some of the moms in my online group, and Todd has also generated some interest by taking a few things to work. I have the possibility of a fair at a large company around Valentine's Day, and got another lead for something similar through the fair last Saturday. It seems as if this venture might actually take off, and I'm hopeful! The TMJ situation continues about the same. This week I'll be getting impressions made for a new night guard, and I'll get it next week before we leave town. I hope that will help. My singing voice hasn't really recovered from the horrible bout with laryngitis I had a few weeks ago, so I think I may have to investigate that if I'm still struggling with it after the holidays. It would be nice to know that if the TMJ situation permits, I'd actually be able to sing!

I think that's the update for now. Check back for those tutorials if you're interested, and otherwise, I'll try to post any other news that we have before the holidays!

Practicing my ABC's - the Tutorial series

In the stamping world ABC means "anything but a card." This was my challenge to myself for my second craft fair, to come up with some cute and easy non-card projects. It's been fun playing around with different ideas. I thought others might like some tutorials for some of my new projects so I'll see how many I can get done before the holidays.


First, here are some gift bags I made. They are a take-off on the genie bag tutorial from SCS. I think they are really cute, and they're pretty easy to do. I'm using plain white lunch bags that I got here, the large size (7 x 13 3/4 inches).



Supplies:
white lunch bag (7" x 13 3/4" here)
two sheets 12x12 patterned paper (note: I recommend a heavyweight paper, like Basic Gray or Stampin' Up!, because the lunch bags are thinner than commercial gift bags would be)
coordinating 5/8" and 1/4" grosgrain ribbon (I use two different colors)
sticky tape (I like 1/2")
paper trimmer
1/8" hole punch
stapler
supplies to make a coordinating 3x3 card (cardstock, matching papers, punches, etc.)
tissue paper, if desired

1. With the bag folded flat, trim the bag to the desired height. For the 7" width I use a 10" height.













2. Cut each sheet of paper to a 7.25" x 10" panel. If desired, you can keep the scraps and use them on your 3x3 card.

3. Cut two 12" lengths of the wider grosgrain ribbon and staple to make a handle. I use the inner side crease as a sight line - I like to place each end of ribbon about 2" in from the edge. Position the stapler so that the front of the staple shows on the inside of the bag, since the paper will cover the back of the staple that way.













4. Place sticky tape all around the outer edge on both sides of the bag.













5. Remove tape backing from one side and VERY CAREFULLY line up the top edges of the paper panel and bag, then smooth it down from top to bottom. The paper will extend just slightly past the side edges of the bag; if it protrudes too much you can trim it down. Make sure you have it where you want before you press down on the tape!

















6. Make your 3x3 card as desired.

7. In the upper left corner of your card, punch a 1/8" hole and tie around the handle with the narrow ribbon.

8. I like to sell these with a couple sheets of tissue paper stuck in so that it's a complete package. Here are the rest of my finished bags: