A Stamp A Day...

7 Quick Takes: Health Edition

2012-01-27T14:23:00.001-05:00

--1--

I know I keep going on about the sickness at our house (it has gotten past the point of ridiculous, really), so I thought I might just devote a whole post to it, particularly as we've had some illuminating moments lately in that department.

--2--

Piglet and Birdie saw an ENT last week while my mom was here (her being here was why I didn't post last week). Turns out that the reason Piglet has had a croupy chronic cough Every.Day for the last three plus years is that his adenoids are blocking his airway 70%. Oh, and he needs ear tubes, and can't hear very well as a result of poor drainage. To add insult to injury, he developed a nasty sinus infection this week and is, as our pediatrician put it, pus to the eyeballs. He started an antibiotic yesterday, and hopefully will be well enough to have his adenoids out and ear tubes put in on February 7. I'm hoping that the surgery will fix a whole host of related problems, now that we actually know what is going on with him. Oh, and pulmonology at CHOP completely missed the boat on this one three years ago, blowing us off with a bogus diagnosis of reflux. Never mind that he didn't fit the profile of a reflux-baby or toddler, had none of the other symptoms, didn't respond to reflux meds, or any other asthma/allergy meds we tried. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

--3--

Birdie has larynomalacia, which is floppy larynx syndrome. She just has to outgrow it, which means she is going to sound like Darth Vader for some time yet. It also has lovely side effect of pretty severe reflux, which we suspected, but since she didn't respond to the first two meds we tried, we thought we must have been mistaken. Guess not. She is back on two different reflux meds, and her night sleep has improved, although she is still prone to random fits of inconsolable crying during the day.

--4--

I have a stress fracture in my right foot, probably from all the double baby wearing and carrying around Boo, who is getting close to 30 pounds. So my half-hearted plan to maybe start working out again in February in on indefinite hold until it heals. Since it has been a month or so already, I'm not extremely hopeful. On the upside, I did get a pair of roller skates for my namesday, so at least I'll have something fun to do when my foot is better!

--5--

Boo continues to torture us nightly with random wakings for no reason. He was such a good sleeper until he turned a year, and now sleeps more like a newborn. It is extremely annoying, especially since his naps are also hit and miss. ~~Other than garden-variety colds, however, he is fine.~~

Update: hours after I wrote this post, Boo got a stomach virus and spent much of the night throwing up.
According to our pediatrician, it lasts three days, has diarrhea to boot, and will probably go around to the whole family. Oh yay.

--6--

My husband and I have been trading a sore-throat-sinus-infection-cold thing for the last several months. He has it, I have it, he has it, one of the kids gets it, you get the idea. We're both exhausted and beginning to wonder if this is all some kind of twisted penance for transgressions.

--7--

Okay, so not health related, but I wanted to share something pretty anyway. I made this two weeks ago just to make something easy. I like how it turned out. It is CASEd from another stamper, but I made paper buttons instead of using real ones so it would mail more cheaply.

7 Quick Takes

2012-01-13T14:35:00.002-05:00

--1--

We've been enjoying the 12 days of Christmas with lots of desserts and meat and dairy. Piglet especially has loved the chocolate milk and has frequently requested an extra glass as his dessert instead of my mom's special fudge. Weird child. More for us!

--2--

And while we on the topic of dessert, as a special treat one day this week, I put a mini Reese's peanut butter cup into Piglet's lunch box (he normally has an apple and carrots with whatever is the main thing that day). He came home that day and informed me very seriously that he didn't want any more muffins in his lunch. I was a little confused until he pointed to the other three Reese's sitting on the table (and I looked in his lunch box to see the Reese's still in there). "No more muffins in my lunch box, Mama." Alrighty, then.

--3--

We continue to battle illness in this household. All three kids are sick with colds/respiratory illness. Birdie is still down for the count with ~~the bronchiolitis~~ whatever this weird thing is and sounds pretty bad at night. She has been spending 2 hours or more every night coughing and crying and coughing and crying until she can fall back asleep. One night this week all three kids were up from 1:30 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. Shoot me now.

--4--

And just to keep things interesting, my husband and I both traded stomach viruses this week, on top of all the respiratory junk we are sharing around. Fun times.

--5--

I'm writing today at my other blog about rethinking my closet, in keeping with one of my goals for this year, which is to get my closet under control. My conclusions may be somewhat unusual, but I think they will suit me to a T.

--6--

I didn't quite make my goal of three cards this week because of the whole stomach flu thing, but I did get two made, one of which was this little beauty. It didn't photograph very well, but I just love those little birds! I can't take credit at all for the general idea, as Linda Fisher came up with the original, but I did change up the color scheme--I've been wanting to do a card in these colors for a few weeks now and I love how it turned out!

--7--

And because I just have to share, I read this great article this week about how time and motherhood intersect. For those who don't know, I wrote my master's thesis on time and space in the Orthodox Church, and how that plays out in the physical space of the church. So the author's thoughts on Kairos and Chronos really resonated with me, in addition to being timely to my stage of mothering. My favorite line? "Parenting is hard. Just like lots of important jobs are hard. Why is it that the second a mother admits that it’s hard, people feel the need to suggest that maybe she’s not doing it right? Or that she certainly shouldn’t add more to her load. Maybe the fact that it’s so hard means she IS doing it right…in her own way…and she happens to be honest."

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

7 Quick Takes, Birthday Edition

2012-01-06T14:27:00.002-05:00

Today is Piglet's 4th birthday (where did the time go??), and I'm dedicating this post to him. I'm writing about Birthday Traditions over at my other blog today, so if you have a minute, hop on over and take a peek.

--1--

Piglet is named for his paternal grandfather, in my husband's Greek tradition of naming the firstborn after the father's father, but his nickname is after my dear (Dutch) grandpa.

--2--

Piglet has one of the biggest heads evah. He crowned on the first push, but I pushed for an hour and a half before he finally made his appearance. I refer once again to the "Head" in So I Married An Axe Murderer.

Big head, big brain, I guess. He is smart and funny and incredibly perceptive. All part and parcel of being one of those "sense-a-tional" kids.

--3--

I know all kids say funny things, and most parents think their kid is the funniest thing since a whoopie cushion, but really, my kid is funny.

Recent Pigletisms include:

"I want my teachers and my friends to come to my home because I haven't seen them in a couple whiles."

P: "Mama, do we have any lollipops at home?"

Me: "Why do you think you need a lollipop?"

P: "Because I've been a good boy."

"Mama, will you buy me a red shirt with a number four on it?" (this said at random whilst riding in a cab home from school)

"I don't like this--it makes me spicy."

"Mama, I'm having a hard time. Can you hold me?"

"Can I drink decaf coffee when I'm a man?"

--4--

Because what is a censor without toast on a lamb?

Piglet continues to be obsessed with all things liturgical, and has gotten creative in coming up with pretend liturgical items. For a while, a stuffed sheep with a piece of fabric toast stuck to its foot that hung on the end of a string of plastic rings was a censor; a therapy band has become a deacon's orarion, and he has decided that he has to have the Greek-English prayer book in order to pray for anyone. He walks around singing various chants and portions of the liturgy often.

--5--

I love the innocence of his faith. Whenever he hurts himself, he asks for St. John's oil, and he talks to and about the saints like he does his friends. His prayers are simple and sweet, and remind me of what should be.

--6--

My son notices everything. Whether it be my earrings, or a pen on the table that wasn't there when he left in the morning, he sees it all, and has to tell me about it. While this trait is sometimes annoying, it also reminds me to be careful about what I do and say, because little eyes are watching and little ears are listening.

I hear myself echoed in the way he sometimes talks to Boo and cringe and remind myself to speak more softly. But I also love the way that he imitates my pet name for Birdie, and how he can be sweet with Boo at times.

--7--

He is silly beyond belief, especially when he crosses that fine line from tired into manic. It cracks me up when he starts laughing, that high-pitched machine gun rattle that comes from his whole being. He loves being tickled, tackled, danced around, and generally rough-housed with. His answer to being tickled within an inch of his life? "Again!"

So to my lovely, funny, intense, sweet and sour boy, Happy Birthday! Our lives haven't been same since!

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

Ring around the Rosy

2012-01-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

As a general rule, I don't make New Year's resolutions because I inevitably fall short and then feel like a failure. But this year, I decided to make a few guidelines for myself, and implement one thing at a time. One is not to try not to sweat the postpartum weight loss until I'm closer to weaning, and to try not to expect too much of myself until everyone in this household is healthy. (We're nowhere near that yet).

Another is to make 3 cards every week, and to make all the cards in my idea files by the end of the year. Obviously, there are a lot of factors that will probably thwart me in this resolution, but I'd like to have it as a goal to start so I have some structure to my week instead of being glued to my office chair nursing a baby, or waiting to nurse a baby. There's a lot of crafting I can do over a nursing or sleeping baby, and I've got to get myself out of this rut. Plus, Birdie seems to be on the verge of getting something like a schedule during the day, so maybe I'll start feeling more sane soon.

Today represents a start to the cards anyway. I'm pretty happy with this card--I've been wanting to try paper roses for a long time but just never got around to it. They are surprisingly easy! A bit time consuming at first, but I could see getting faster as I go. Some of it was learning curve, and some of it was that I decided to suede some of the petals, so that took longer than if I had just made them straight. But I think the extra texture was worth it.

There were many different places of inspiration for this card, but I will say that if you google "fancy flower punch roses, stampin' up" you'll get a ton of great tutorials on how to make them. The little white flowers I recreated from a card I saw on Ann Schach's blog. For the background, I saw someone do that on a card and thought it looked like a pressed tin ceiling. I thought the finial press would be the perfect background for this card.

Supplies:

Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Old Olive, Crumb Cake cardstock

Elements of Style stamp set (for the sentiment)

Fancy Flower punch, Five petal flower punch, large oval punch

Finial embossing folder

Crumb Cake, Always Artichoke, Pretty in Pink ink, Rose red marker

Color Spritzer tool

sponges

pearls

paper snips

glue dots

paper piercing tool (for shaping and curling)

bone folder (for shaping, sueding and curling)

Scotch quick dry glue (you could also use tombow mono adhesive or a glue gun)

7 Quick Takes, Late Edition

2011-12-30T20:30:00.001-05:00

--1--

I spent today in New York City at the Mt Sinai allergy practice. I'm sort of at the end of what my allergist here in Philly can do for me (I'm pretty extreme when it comes to allergies), and I started seeing someone up there. Now that I'm not pregnant anymore, we can move forward on a management plan. Today's visit was to redo all the original testing to establish a baseline and go from there. I feel more hopeful about the whole thing than I have in a long time.

--2--

Piglet has been off school all this week and while it hasn't been easy, it hasn't been terrible either. I have had a lot of extra help from my regular babysitter, as Birdie is still cranky and sick, and I'm terribly tired (see #3). But even so, the week has gone better than expected, and I'm starting to be able to appreciate who he is as a person rather than this unruly being that has to be constantly disciplined and monitored for acting out. He is getting very close to four, so maybe what everyone says is true, that four is a bit easier. On the other hand, he did fall in the toilet and banged his forehead on the procelain this week. I'm still laughing.

--3--

We actually had two nights that lasted past 1 a.m. this week! We've had several weeks of whatever sleep I get before 1 a.m. is what I get, and I was getting seriously giddy from the lack of sleep. So while I'm still very seriously sleep deprived, I no longer feel like I am a danger to myself and others from the lack of sleep.

--4--

Okay, I know this is sort of dumb, but I discovered by accident this week that my novel has a Barnes and Noble listing. So neat! Kind of makes me feel official. Or something.

--5--

Boo graduated out of services this week, so now I only have one child receiving therapy--woot woot! Boo is walking pretty well, gaining about a word a day (or more sometimes) and is fond of multi-syllabic words like broccoli or chocolate. He's started asking to use the potty. Sometimes I forget he is only 19 (almost 20) months--he seems more like a 2.5 year old to me. Oh, and I forgot to mention in #2 that Piglet is finally cough-free for the first time in three years!! YAY!! Turns out it was sinusitis and that an extra long course of antibiotics did the trick. Now we just have to wean him down from all the other meds he's been on to manage the cough.

--6--

Birdie still sounds awful, but our pediatrician said we just have to wait for her lungs to heal. In other news, her head is HUGE! (All my kids have big heads). I always think of Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer when I think of their HUGE heads. (If you haven't seen this film, run, do not walk, to the nearest Netflix streamer and watch it. You'll thank me).

--7--

Nothing new to share, because I have zero creative energy right now for anything except MDS (working on Birdie's baby book...), but I CASEd this from Nance Leedy a few months back. I just love that pop of red on the flowers--I forget how nice this set is.

Quick Takes, Hospital Edition

2011-12-23T08:36:00.000-05:00

--1--

This week brought a bit of excitement as Birdie's sickness escalated to the point that we ended up in the hospital for overnight observation on Wednesday. We thought she might need oxygen or IV fluids, but ended up needing neither. On the one hand, that is good--she is pretty little to be needing such serious interventions--but on the other hand, it means that the diagnosis the doctors are going with (bronchiolitis) means we can't do anything for her medically speaking. We just have to wait it out and listen to her wheezing and coughing and generally sounding awful. She is doing better today and isn't fighting for breath as much as she was before we went to the hospital, but it is still hard.

--2--

I'm running on fumes after so many interrupted nights, first with Boo (who still has a cold and is congested), and then with Birdie. I'm beginning to think I will never sleep again.

--3--

Did I mention that I'm sick and tired of all the sick in our house? Please someone make it go away.

--4--

My post on Christmas traditions is over at Conservamom's blog. Because we are on the Julian calendar, we are still mid-Advent, as Christmas falls on January 7 for us.

--5--

We had a nice St. Nicholas Day celebration on Monday, complete with coins in the shoes and a small gift for each of the boys. I had wanted to give the gifts at breakfast, but due to a shipping screw up by amazon (when you pay extra for overnight shipping, it means OVERNIGHT, not Saturday delivery), I didn't get one of the gifts until Monday. But it all worked out in the end. Piglet loved his purple shirt and Boo is learning how to work the big knobs of the farm puzzle. We did have a small kerfluffle over the puzzle, as Piglet couldn't understand that the gift was for Boo and it was not, in fact, all for him, but as the days have gone by, the boys seem to have worked it out.

--6--

When he is ready to get up in the morning (on those rare mornings that we don't have to wake him up before he's really ready), Piglet has a habit of shouting at the top of his lungs, "Papa! I'm all done with bedtime!" He repeats this shout until one of us (usually my husband) goes and gets him. Since Boo is attaining vocabulary at an astonishing rate just now, it was only a matter of time until we heard it in chorus. Today was the day. "Papa! All done bedtime!" At least we don't have to worry about not hearing them in the morning.

--7--

We have a great pediatrician. I mean, great. She is extremely available by phone and e-mail. She does all her scheduling online so if you have a sick kid at 3 a.m., you can make a same-day appointment right then rather than waiting for business hours and praying you are the first in line to call for a sick appointment. She keeps up on the latest research, and is open to alternative methods of treatment. She has a school-age daughter, so she still remembers how tough the toddler years are and is able to offer moral support. She makes house calls for the first postpartum baby check. She calls to check up on kids who are or who've been sick, and, the best thing, she is three blocks away. We are so grateful for her, especially after the drama of this week. I initially debated whether to include her in our list of people outside the family that we gift, but after this week, I decided she definitely goes on the list. I decided to squeeze time out of a rock and make a set of thank you cards for her, packaged in a nice box. I'm still working on the box (as boxes require math, and I tend to screw them up the first few times I try, especially when I'm beyond tired, as I am now), but here's what the card looks like. I adapted the design from two other cards I saw around the blogosphere. I'm loving that Triple Treat Flower--it is so easy to use, and with the three punches, really packs a wow-factor when you start layering. (Oh, and you can get it for free during Sale-A-Bration, which starts January 24).

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes.

7 Quick Takes, Mid-December Edition

2011-12-16T08:42:00.005-05:00

Update: I figured out that the Orwellians over at Google want everyone to update to the new blogger interface, and so made the old one unworkable. The new one is nice, but I'm always leary of tech changes, so didn't change until now. I've updated this post to include photos and links. Thanks for stopping by!

--1--

Got my Christmas cards out this week (finally). We have good friends in Chicago who send an annual laughfest of a Christmas letter every year, and I kept waiting for their letter to arrive so I could have some inspiration for my own attempt at wittiness, but time was drawing close, so I figured I better just get at it. So my letter this year is only sort of funny.

--2--

Can I just say enough with the sickness already? We haven't had one sick-free day in this household since Birdie was born and I'm just weary of it. And it being only mid-December, we probably have several more months of this mess to go. Right now all three kids have terrible colds, and I think I'm coming down with something too. My husband thought he was maybe getting sick last night, but he seems fine this morning.

--3--

We had our first parent-teacher conference this week for Piglet. It went well--he is doing well in preschool, able to keep up with the work and so forth. Which is good, given all his issues, but he is also in a class with kids who are around age 2.5 and he is almost four, so that is somewhat discouraging too. He does pick up on things quickly and is doing well with the routines, so that is something too.

--4--

I was asked to guest post over at Conservamom this coming week, so I guess I'd better get cracking on that post. It is about our Christmas traditions, so I won't bore you with the details here. Just check her blog this coming week.

--5--

Peapod/ meal planning update: We are still enjoying our Peapod grocery delivery service. It has made things somewhat easier in the food department. I'm still doing okay in the meal planning, but I couldn't keep up with cooking a week's worth of meals every Saturday. It was nice while it lasted, but Birdie cries too much, and my husband is in the throes of another Supreme Court case and doesn't have time to take care of the kids while I cook. So I'm doing the daily scramble to get dinner on the table every night by 5:30. Usually two of the three children are screaming, and I have to wear Boo on my back while I cook or he is just a monster, but that's life for now. I keep hoping it will get better. sigh.

--6--

Nope, I got nothin'.

--7--

Wanted to show you a card, but Blogger's toolbar totally disappeared and I don't have the time or mental energy to try and make it work (which is why there are no links on this post either. (Sorry Jen).

So here's the card:

I made it a while back, but never got around to posting it. I didn't come up with the original idea, but tweaked a few details. I like gatefolds but never remember to make them.

Quick Takes, Random Meme Edition

2011-12-09T05:49:00.003-05:00

--1--

Saw this meme on Facebook and had to share. I'm still laughing. (So is my husband, who usually doesn't find that sort of thing funny).

--2--

Our dear housemate, and Boo's godmother, left last Friday. She lived with us for about four and half months, and while we knew at the outset that it would be temporary, the end came sooner than we thought. (It is a long story, but she rejoined her husband in Vienna and now awaits the birth of their daughter in early February). We miss her a lot and the house seems different without her in it. (I can't say it is quieter because she is so quiet, but it is different).

--3--

One of the threads of my ancestry is Irish, and I noticed last week that there is a group of Orthodox Celts that sing traditional Irish songs. Go Irish!

--4--

I think omphalos might possibly be the funniest word I've ever heard. (For the non-Greek speakers out there, it means belly button). So let's all sing it together now! "Ompha-omphalos, you're oh, so fine. Ompha, omphalos, I'm so happy that you're mine." (Thanks Sandra Boynton).

--5--

I was going to write this thing about cab drivers in the city, specifically African cab drivers, but then I had the wildest cab experience of my Philly life this week (I can't say of my life, since I had some seriously wild cab rides in Moscow and Bishkek) I got a driver who was Turkish, I think, and while he was perfectly polite, he drove like a maniac, played his traditional music (not loudly, but was enthusiastic about singing and dancing along), and generally seemed like he was making the most of his cab driving experience. More power to you, Mr. Cab Driver.

--6--

I'm writing this post at 6 a.m., after having been up most of the night following my colonoscopy prep. Suffice to say, the last 24 hours have been miserable, what with me running to the bathroom every five minutes because of having to drink clear fluids only during the day, nursing a baby, starving and feeling nauseated at the same time, and then being up all night running to the bathroom because of the Miralax prep. I slept on the couch in my office just to be closer to the bathroom. I have to report in at 7 a.m., so I thought since I was up nursing the baby anyway, I'd get my Quick Takes done and posted, since I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in rough shape this afternoon.

--7--

I have been working a bit this week, but mostly it has been prepping for my class at The Expressive Hand on Sunday afternoon. I'm teaching a class on holiday cards, so if you live in the Philadelphia area, I believe there is still time to sign up. You can find more information HERE.

I realize the card above has nothing to do with the holidays, but I've not photographed the cards for the class yet, and I made this one a few weeks ago and think it is pretty. It is a composite of several cards I saw around the blogosphere and liked.

Bonus:

Saw this one on FB and had to smile. It doesn't jive with my memories of Russian babushkas, but I love it, nonetheless. Babushkas of the world, UNITE!

Go see Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes.

Another Reely Qwel Post

2011-12-05T13:43:00.005-05:00

Okay, so I said I had made a couple more boxes of cards? This is the other version I made. I used the (retired) Autumn Spice designer paper, and the coordinating Day of Gratitude stamp set. I didn't actually buy this paper last year when it was current, but bought it earlier this fall on the clearance rack for the Big Scrapbook Project. I used a few sheets out of it, but then had so much leftover, I thought I better make a good dent in it!! The paper is heavier weight than our normal dsp, and it was great for this project. The Day of Gratitude stamp set gives a different look from the more vintage-y Spice Cake versions, but I like it very much! I love this format--the box with six coordinating but unique cards inside. It keeps me from getting bored. I have to figure out a slightly larger format to accommodate a few more cards--it would be nice to have a set of 10, for example.

I made two of these--one for a neighbor as a thank you gift for helping out with preschool pick up and drop off a lot this fall (her daughter goes to school with my son and they've been such a help this fall, filling in the gaps when we needed a little extra help here and there), and one for my goddaughter as a belated birthday/namesday gift. (Hi, Karen! Your gift is in the mail!!)

I do have to apologize for the lighting on the photos--I was experimenting with a new lighting set up on my light box, and I'm not really happy with it. It's okay in a pinch, I suppose, for those weeks of gray weather when I can't get decent light from the outside to come in through the window to back light my box, but I think I'll try to stick to photographing on nice days in the future. I know I should just bite the bullet and get some decent photo lights, but I don't have room for a permanent set up, and the idea of having to store one.more.thing in this house just drives me batty. You can read a bit more about my storage adventures at my other blog.

My lovely husband spent several hours last night reorganizing and cleaning out the basement, and I'm so happy with the results. It wasn't really that we had so much stuff down there, but the space is small, and we were using it somewhat inefficiently. Now it is better. I've spent the last few days going through our few closets, trying to weed out things and reorganize upstairs a bit. I'm hoping to make a big Goodwill run this coming weekend after my procedures are all finished.

This card I CASEd (copy and share everything) from Ilina Crouse. I changed the sentiment and simplified the card a tad, but otherwise, it is her basic design. The other cards were tweaked from other designs I saw around the web.

7 Quick Takes

2011-12-02T12:25:00.007-05:00

--1--

Next Friday I'm having an endoscopy and colonoscopy. I have to get an endo about every two years for a chronic GI condition I have, but this is my first colonoscopy. I'm not worried about the procedure, but I am dreading the prep. I did a colonoscopy-type prep a few years ago before a minor surgery and it was Not.Fun.At.All. But I need to get to the bottom of the chronic stomachaches I have, and this is one of the ways to figure it out. (The gold standard for my sort of complaint is a stomach emptying study, which I've been trying to get done for about 2 years, but since it involves nuclear medicine, I need to be a) not pregnant, b) not nursing, and c) not picking up little children for up to 48 hours after the procedure. Since I've been pregnant or nursing the last two years, and I have little children that need picking up All.The.Time, that test ain't happenin' any time soon. le sigh.

--2--

I was going to write a whole rant about skinny jeans because until two days ago, I had yet to find a skinny jean that wasn't low- or mid-rise, and frankly, either of those rises is terrible on my figure. Can you say "instant muffin top?" Awful. Plus I'm pulling my pants up all the livelong day, which is terribly annoying. I got the Loft order I wrote about last week and everything was All. Wrong. The shirt was too tight in the arms, the sweater was too scratchy and frankly unflattering on me, and the jeans, well the rise was too low. (I returned everything to the store). I was ready to rant about the whole fashion industry's skewed sense of real women's proportions. And by real women, I mean women who are above age 17, not shaped like coat hangers, and have possibly had a few children with the hips to prove it. But then. I found myself returning something to Old Navy this week, and while I've generally sworn off Old Navy for a variety of reasons not worth going into here, after I returned what I needed to return, I found myself gazing at the jeans wall. And finding the Platonic ideal of a skinny jean. Enter the Sweetheart skinny in gray. They are possibly the most comfortable jeans evah. And for $25, not a huge investment. The fabric is insanely soft, waist lies flat in the front, the rise is high enough that the jeans aren't constantly falling down, and while they gap a bit in the back (all jeans do on me), I simply put my dapper snapper on the back and fixed that problem. So yay for great skinnies!

--3--

We are less than a week into the Nativity Fast and I'm already fatigued by the limited food choices available to me for meal planning. (For those who don't know, we observe the fasting rules of the Orthodox Church, which mean eating vegan about 2/3 of the year. While I'm exempt because of nursing and my extensive food allergies, I still cook vegan dinners on fasting days, but our repertoire is pretty limited because of said allergies). I even considered eating the stir fry I made for everyone else yesterday because I love Chinese food and miss tofu with soy sauce and sesame oil so much. The wonderful smell about drove me mad. But I tried to content myself with Bird's Nests from Trader Joe's with a token amount of soy dipping sauce. I still got a roaring intestinal upset that hit at about 3 a.m., so probably not going to try tofu yet. My lovely goddaughter sent me a whole bunch of new recipes to try for the fast, but I'm stressed out enough about life in general that I can't quite tackle the pile yet, even though I'm very grateful for her thoughtfulness and care. I keep trying to come up with a meal rotation schedule for the fast, but I just don't have enough flexibility with the handful of recipes that work right now for fasting days to do so. So our meal routine for the next forty days is going to be pretty monotonous. But I suppose that is as it should be. I wish I could stop feeling so overwhelmed by it, though.

--4--

I'm reading Simplicity Parenting right now and I really appreciate so much of what he has to say. A lot of it is stuff we already do, like keeping our toy collection very small, and not having a television in the house, and keeping computers away from where the children are, severely limiting processed foods in their diets, keeping sugar to a minimum, etc., but I can tell by how my children behave that they are stressed much of the time (they are all high needs, high intensity, high energy kids), and I wish I figure out the magic button that would make our home life less stressful for everyone. I'm to the point that I keep looking around and wondering when the real grown ups are going to show up and start picking up the pieces. And then I remember, oh wait, I am the grown up now. This is real life.

--5--

On the eve of the fast, I made Loaded Baked Potato Soup and it was awesome. We had leftover stuffing from Thanksgiving and the soup was strangely good as gravy with the stuffing. Starch on starch, that's my kind of meal!!

--6--

I've made several of these gift boxes of cards in the last few weeks for clients and as gifts for friends, and I've really enjoyed that. I used different papers and stamp sets for a few of them; I'm hoping to post that in a few days. I have another project in mind using the Domestic Goddess suite that I'm super excited to make, but might need to wait until January, depending on how the rest of the month shakes out. Stay tuned. Need a nice gift for a friend or colleague? Contact me through my etsy shop and I'll set up a custom listing for you. Please order by December 15 for on time Christmas delivery.

--7--

My arms are tired and my hips ache. Between the demands of Birdie and Boo to be held all.the.time, I can't keep up. My poor introverted internal self is starting to have convulsions. But a friend gave me her ERGO today, so I'm now the proud owner of not one but two ERGOs, so now I can double baby wear in (relative) comfort. My double wearing system before now was to use our Belle Baby Carrier in the front, put our ERGO on for back carry, strap Birdie on the front, then tuck Boo onto my back, but the Belle isn't the most comfortable thing out there, and Birdie doesn't really care to have her legs dangling out and fusses more when she's in it. I'm kind of tired of baby wearing in general at this point, but don't see a way around it short of putting up with even more crying than I already do (which is considerable, let me tell you). It is easiest way to get out about with the two little ones right now since we limit our city driving and use the bus a lot.

--8--

Bonus quick take, because I thought it was funny (and apropos of the season), the five best toys ever. You're welcome.

Go see Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

7 Quick Takes, Fashion Edition

2011-11-25T12:45:00.006-05:00

I could say this was a Thanksgiving edition, but it really has more to do with fashion/home decor, so there you have it.

--1--

(Ignore my horribly puffy face; I just finished a round of prednisone for food allergy issues)

After seeing Liz Stanley's post on what she was wearing to Thanksgiving, I immediately wanted her outfit. This is our first year to have Thanksgiving at our house, and I wanted something easy to nurse in, easy to cook in, and easy to eat in! As Loft was having a 40% off sale, I did order it, but it didn't arrive in time for the big day. Oh well. I'll save it for another day. However. I did end up wearing this super comfortable nursing dress I got earlier in the fall but haven't worn yet. Easy.

--2--

The back of the "Schroeder"

Let the post partum hair loss begin! I have started losing my hair now that Birdie is almost three months old. I find that my hair falls out at alarming rates until I think I will be bald and then it suddenly stops. Hopefully that will be the case this time, because the hair loss is truly amazing. That said, I still have long curly hair and three children under age four, so I'm always looking for interesting (and easy) ways to wear my hair up. I saw this hair style on Stylish White Female's blog last week and I had to try it. I think the Schroeder is going to be one of my go-to styles. (I'm also a recent fan of the double cinnabun).

--3--

I have decorating issues. My mom has this knack for decorating that I didn't quite inherit. I know what I like, and I do decorate, but I find there is a little something lacking in the details usually. It doesn't help that my children basically contrive to take apart my house on a daily basis. So when it came to decorating our Thanksgiving table, well, I did the best I could. And since I thought of it at about 2 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, I had to make do with the selection at Kmart since I could get there and back quickly on the bus. But I did find a nice fall-ish tablecloth, and I had gotten the placemats at IKEA a few weeks ago. I got the flowers earlier in the day at Whole Foods, but ended up putting them on the dish cabinet behind the table for the meal to make room and allow for conversation. But we had a nice meal nonetheless.

--4--

During food prep

The other thing I did this year was to order a few key food items from Whole Foods just to relieve some of the cooking burden on me. We didn't have a bunch of people coming (just my mother-in-law and our housemate's sister), but I know with three little children under foot and a mother-in-law who tires easily, I would need all the help I could get in the kitchen. As it happened, the whole time I was getting everything together, Birdie was screaming (at least utnil I put her in the carrier, but then I had to cook over the carrier). But everything was delicious and we had enough food for two complete meals, with a small amount of leftovers, so it all worked out well.

--5--

I eat my pumpkin pie with cool whip, because that is the only meet and right way to eat pumpkin pie, in my opinion. All else is OUTRAGE! (to quote Fr. Vasiliy Vasilievich at The Onion Dome). So it was a nearly unforgiveable offense when my husband stuck the cool whip back into the freezer after the noon meal so that it was frozen when I wanted it for my pie after dinner in the evening. Luckily cool whip defrosts quickly and I was able to have my pie and whip by the time the dishes were done.

--6--

My target.com woes continue. We don't really have enough chairs for our table, and have been slowly adding two at a time as we go along. None of the chairs match, which is fine, given the vintage of our table and my own ecletic sense of order. The most recent set we ordered a few months ago from Target, but they haven't restocked since then, so I thought I would just order something similar to have it for the holiday. The chair set I picked was a bit more money than the original bargain we got, but I thought we should just finish with the chair buying already. The box arrived on Wednesday (perfect timing!), so I opened it up to put it together, and discovered that a) the chair is a barstool height (which was not indicated in the online description) and b) there was only one (despite reviews and pictures to the contrary). I went through the online return process (again) and it didn't work (again), so I called customer service (again) and was put on hold a long time (again) and made a big stink about it being their problem to fix it, and there was no way I was going to return this sucker to the store. So they did something on their end and after several hours, a bona fide shipping label showed up in my inbox, and now everything is fine (I hope).

--7--

In keeping with the fashion theme, this is a card I made a few months ago and sent to my sister as a "break a leg" card for a play she was in. She is so fashionable and into vintage, that I knew she'd love this card. I CASEd it from Nance Leedy.

Go see Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Reelly Qwel Post

2011-11-21T10:42:00.007-05:00

Remember that old SNL skit with the "reelly qwel" line? I keep thinking about posting this project with Steve Martin saying that line in my head. Anyway, here's my reelly qwel project!

Lookie:

I've been wanting to make one of these for a while, and I had all this Spice Cake dp begging to be used, so I pulled it out and got to work! I used Ilina Crouse's basic idea, and subbed in a few different stamp sets since I don't have Gently Falling or the sentiment stamp set she used. (Thanks for the great inspiration, Ilina!)

Here's the inside when you open it up:

My husband was traveling for work a few weeks ago (and left me alone with the three children--yikes!), and during the course of his travels, stayed with an old colleague from his days at the Supreme Court. They both clerked for Justice Kennedy the same year, and he is now a federal judge on the 9th circuit in Michigan. He asked me to make up some kind of thank you gift for them since they were lovely hosts, so I decided to make a thank you note box (with 6 thank you notes, of course!).

Here are the six thank you notes that were inside:

My "live and learn and then get Luvs" moment on this project was in the box flaps--I meant to have the outer part of the box overlap a bit on the edges rather than having the enclosure flap be flush to the edges, but I miscalculated by 1/8" and it ended up flush. Oh well. It still looked nice, but now I know what to do differently next time. I am definitely going to make this type of project again--it was a lot of fun!

And because you can't send a thank you gift without a thank you note, I made a coordinating thank you card to accompany the box. I love these little quilt cards that are so popular right now--they are fast and easy to make, and look so nice! (As an aside, the texture on the blue circle behind the leaf on this card could easily be accomplished with the Color Spritzer tool--I didn't have mine yet when I made this project or I would have used that instead. The Textured jumbo wheel stood in nicely, though).

Supplies:

Soft Suede, Pool Party, More Mustard, Very Vanilla cs, Spice Cake dp

AfterThoughts (retired), Lovely as a Tree, Occasional Quotes (retired), Autumn Splender stamp sets

Textured wheel

Pool Party, More Mustard, Soft Suede inks

Paper snips

Circle cutter

Big Shot

Circles #2 die

Square lattice folder

Finial press folder

Scallop border punch

top note die

linen thread

sponge

Paper piercing tool/mat pack

corner rounder punch

Pool party ruffled ribbon

sticky strip

bone folder

7 Quick Takes, Breaking Dawn Edition

2011-11-18T13:11:00.005-05:00

--1--

Just got back from a 10 a.m. showing of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I, and all I can say is, wow. wowowowowowowow. It ended precisely as I thought it would, covered all the details of that part of the book very well, and despite a slight scene of cheesiness with the wolves talking to one another, it was great!! I took Birdie with me, and a friend stayed home with Boo (my sitter is away for three weeks, sniff, sniff). I know it seems frivilous to go see a movie, but it made me feel kinda normal again, if only for 2 hours.

--2--

The bad news is that Birdie started running a fever yesterday, which broke early this morning, and then started up again in the middle of the movie. Luckily, she stayed sleeping most of the time, and I just let her nurse the whole movie, so it worked out. It's low-grade, and not at all concerning, but I can tell she doesn't feel very good right now.

--3--

I lose at least one good pair of shoes and several food items to every pregnancy. With Philip, it was my old generic clogs (before I disovered Danskos and never went back). With Piglet, it was my black riding boots. With Boo, it was a pair of red ballet flats and a pair of coral heels. And now, the latest victims, from Birdie, are my Dexflex cognac peep-toe pumps, and my favorite pair of flats, a pewter ruffled flat I got from Target. Best.flats.evah. But sadly, they are too short now. I have bone spurs on my heels, so I have a hard time finding comfortable flats; I'm pretty bummed about these. I did get a pair two sizes larger in a different color while pregnant (love me my mustard flats), but now they are too big, and the others are too small. Boo hoo. At least my Converse sneaks are still good.

--4--

I ran a couple of errands before going to the movie this morning, and I have to say, I'm so glad I shop online. It bugs me that retailers feel this need to start the Christmas season in October. Makes me want to exclusively shop at Nordstrom, as they have made a decision not to decorate for Christmas (or play Christmas music) until Black Friday. Go Nordstrom! I wish I could afford to shop there. le sigh.

--5--

My regular babysitter is gone for three weeks and I'm in mourning. Luckily, her daughter (who works for the same agency) agreed to come in her place, but it isn't the same. Come home soon!

--6--

The great scrapbook project is finished! For regular readers, you'll know that I took on a client (who happens to be an old college chum) about a year ago and agreed to scrap her 2010 photos. She is a professional photographer and her photos are Ah-mazing! So you can imagine the scope of this project. I tried to break it down into bits and pieces to keep it manageable, and I'm pleased to report that the project is finished!! I just hope she's happy with it.

--7--

Okay, I have a really cool project to share with you, but there are too many photos to clog up this post, so check back in a day or so, k? In the meantime, this is my creative burst for today:

I modified it from a card that Kristin Kortonick made at Fall Fest. I used French Foliage instead of Gently Falling, but I really love this card (and that set!!). I also just got a color spritzer, which I'm enjoying (it makes those speckles on the background). My youngest sister had surgery on her wrist last week (her sixth surgery on her arms/shoulders/wrists) and she is such a trooper, so I wanted to make her a special card. So from me to you, Gimpy, love ya!

7 Quick Takes: Sickness, Pumpkin Bars, and Sewing debaucles

2011-11-11T13:50:00.011-05:00

--1--

My husband has been felled by the mighty respiratory virus still making the rounds of our house. Piglet seems to be gearing up for another go and has been coughing a lot at night, and Boo is generally cranky when awake. Birdie is still wheezy (she sounds like a purring cat most of the day), but seems to be on the mend. I was starting to feel better, but then all the junk in my head dropped to my chest and I started coughing. So here we go again. This doesn't bode well for winter, it being mid-November and all.

--2--

My husband was gone for two days this week. We survived. Barely. That's about all I can say about it.

--3--

But wait, I made pumpkin bars! With cream cheese frosting. That kinda made up for it. (I used the Better Homes and Gardens recipe, for anyone who cares).

--4--

Boo is a bit accident prone at the moment, being the Frankenstein walker that he is. He showed up at the dinner table two nights ago with quite a shiner. It looks like he swiped purple eye shadow across one lid. I tried to get a photo, but it doesn't show very well, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

--5--

I hauled my Bernina out of the basement this week to attempt the man's shirt-to-skirt upcycle. And spent about four hours trying to fix what I messed up in the first 15 minutes. I finished it, but it wasn't wearable for a number of reasons, so I cut it down into a dress for Birdie. Unfortunately, I forgot about a little thing called seam allowances, so the dress is too snug. I sausaged her into it for a photo, but she won't be wearing it. Oh well. I learned a lot in the process, and then spent a bunch of time browsing sewing blogs. There are so many more talented sewers out there than me. (Including my uber-crafty mother who made my wedding dress, among other things).

--6--

Because some people (ahem, my mother) need a Birdie fix now and again.

--7--

My cusin had twins a few weeks ago (they were at 35 weeks gestation, but seem to be doing pretty well), and for a baby gift, I made her some baby thank you cards using My Digital Studio. I think I'm getting pretty good with the digital punch art! It took a while to make the card, but the professional print job turned out beautifully.

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!

7 Quick Takes, Sick Edition

2011-11-04T11:23:00.004-04:00

  
--- 1 ---
Since Piglet started preschool this fall, we've been a revolving door germ factory.  The latest victim is Birdie, who came down sick on Tuesday evening and was diagnosed yesterday with bronchiolitis and prescribed albuterol.  Did I mention she is two months old??  In other news, I'm still sick after a visit to MinuteClinic last Saturday and a diagnosis of a double ear infection.  I seem to be getting worse instead of better, one week on.  Piglet seems to be over the worst of it, and Boo is getting there.  Now we're just waiting for my husband to come down with something.
--- 2 ---
I'm a pretty extreme introvert, in the technical sense of the word (rather the popular notion that introverted = shy), and being sick and having sick kids is seriously difficult for me.  When I'm sick, I want to be left alone in a dark room to wallow.  Unfortunately, having very small children, a nursing newborn, and a husband who still wants dinner on the table every night preclude that sort of behavior.  So unless I'm dying (and I'm not. yet.), life goes on. It also proves that God has a sense of humor--my children are all extreme extroverts, and when sick, want to hang themselves all over me.  All.day.long.  
--- 3 ---

  I read a great meme on Facebook a few weeks ago about a woman in Poland who saved 2500 children and babies during the Holocaust.  She was up for a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize last year, but didn't get it (probably because the committee was falling all over itself awarding Obama the award for not being W).  But I digress.  

Here's her story: 
"During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive'. She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German). Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted. In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER." 
--- 4 ---
 I've gotten back into Pinterest this week a bit, and found the coolest idea to transform a man's flannel shirt into a functional A-line skirt.  Of course, I had to go right out and find a man's flannel shirt to try it!  (I found one on ebay).  Why not raid my husband's closet, you ask?  Because my skinny husband's shirts would never work on these multigravitas hips!  Now to find the time...
--- 5 ---
  Piglet has his first dentist appointment on Monday, and anyone who knows my SPD son well, this could have been a complete disaster.  But Dr. George made it fun and worked with my son so it wasn't scary at all! Piglet even asked to go back the next day to have his teeth cleaned again!  
--- 6 ---
  I made our first beef stew of the season this week, complete with pumpkin bread as an accompaniment.  It was delish.  My sons just wanted to eat the broccoli on the side.  Go figure.
--- 7 ---
On Sunday, we went to a birthday party for my upline's son, and since the party was Thomas-themed, I bought some Thomas board books for him, but I couldn't give the gift without a card!  I made this in August before Birdie was born, and was waiting for the perfect recipient.  Happy 3, E!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes

2011-10-28T12:58:00.006-04:00

  
--- 1 ---
So it turns out that three kids is really the tipping point for everything--groceries, laundry, family finances, general chaos and disorder, the whole works.  Before Birdie was born, I did laundry once a week, a dark and light load, with an occasional extra load for towels or sheets.  Now I am doing laundry about every other day!  
And I now believe in the Sock Monster.  I didn't believe in him before now, but he most certainly exists in my basement, I'm sure of it.  I never understood why people had such trouble keeping track of socks--how hard can it be to take laundry from the basket to the washer, and back up again to fold and put away?  Turns out, it is plenty hard!  I suddenly have two little boys who take off their socks where ever they happen to get hot feet and leave them there, my husband aims for the laundry basket with his socks and frequently misses, so socks end up under the bin, well, you get the idea.  My socks tend to stay together.  Every several days, I have 4 AWOL socks from Piglet's sock bin.  They usually turn up in the next load or two, but right now I've got a green-and-gray-striped sock that has been AWOL for a few weeks.  
Come home, sock!  We need you!
--- 2 ---
I met the reason why parking in the city is such a pain.  I pulled into a spot at the end of a block, but was hanging over the line just a bit.  The car in front of me had also just pulled in, so I poked my head out to ask the gentleman if he could move his car up about 6 inches or so. (He had at least half a car's length in front of his car).  He told me that if he did that, he wouldn't be able to get out, and I should just park my car right up against his.  I barely fit doing that.  But I have to say, if you need half a spot to get out of a parallel parking place, YOU SHOULDN'T BE DRIVING IN THE CITY!
--- 3 ---
 Have you seen Once Upon a Time?  So.Good.  I watched it on abc.com on Monday afternoon, and I think this may be my new go-to show!  I've gotten sick of all the other shows I used to keep up with on the internet, so I'm due for a new one.  I'm curious to see how the show is going to arc, because it seems to me that it doesn't have enough fuel in the story for a typical series.  Has more of a mini series feel, because you know the whole thing has to resolve itself at some point given the source material.  But.  An intriguing start, nonetheless.
--- 4 ---
I'm still struggling to keep my head above water with the chaos of three.  I read several mommy blogs, and in one of the comments this week, someone wrote that the day can be considered a success if you don't see BLOOD or FLAMES.  Ha!
--- 5 ---
Postpartum fashion drama continues.  I carried very differently this pregnancy, so the weight is sitting differently on me postpartum, and I'm having trouble adjusting to my new shape.  I keep thinking that I'm going to find the perfect garment that will make me feel like a million bucks, and I can wear it every day, but alas, I've only found a few accessories here and there that are great, but get puked on regularly, so the whole price-per-wear thing is really not that great for me.  Although I did recently purchase this great top from Kohl's, and with a navy cardigan and this great navy floral scarf I got at Target, I do feel pretty put together.  I paired it with the grey cargo skirt I wrote about several weeks ago.  It really is the Best. Cargo. Skirt. Ever.

--- 6 ---

I saw this on Facebook and had to laugh. Because it is so true.

--- 7 ---

Birdie turned 2 months this week, and I've been working on her baby book with My Digital Studio (since I can do that while nursing).  I think these two pages are my favorites so far. 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes Friday

2011-10-21T13:50:00.008-04:00

*Anyone here for card candy, it is under #7.

--- 1 ---

  
We have an old family recipe from my great-aunt Fannie (yes, that really was her name) called Hamburger Pie.  The original recipe card written in her spidery writing lists the total cost of the dish as $5 (she probably came up with some version of it during the Depression when she was newly wed).  My family really likes this dish, but I've been tweaking it for some years as I'm now allergic to one of the ingredients (green beans) and the foundation is difficult to locate in the city (crescent roll dough).  I think I've finally hit upon the Platonic ideal of this dish. I made it for my parents when they were here last weekend and it was quite a hit!  My recipe is as follows:

1# ground beef

1 onion, diced

1 green pepper, diced

8 oz. tomato sauce

8 oz. sweet potato baby food (I used two 4 oz jars)

2 tsp. garlic powder

1.5 tsp. salt

1 large handful shredded carrots (matchstick style)

1 package puff pastry, thawed (Pepperidge Farm is good for this)

about 12 oz shredded cheddar cheese (I used a montery jack/colby/cheddar mix)

2 eggs, slightly beaten

parchment paper (do not use wax paper!)

Preheat oven to 400. Brown ground beef, onion and green pepper in a skillet. Add carrots and saute until slightly limp. Add tomato sauce, sweet potatoes, garlic and salt, stir until well mixed. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and unfold puff pastries. Brush both with beaten egg, and spread about half the cheese over the pastry, leaving about 1/2" around the edges. Divide hamburger mixture in half and spread on top of each pastry, and roll up the edges of the pastry slightly. Top with remaining cheese and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until pastry is puffed and nicely browned. Blot excess oil around edge of pie before serving. This dish is better if it sits for 10-15 minutes before serving, but can be eaten directly from the oven as well.

--- 2 ---

Our Birdie is newly baptized and illumined. We had a lovely baptism last Saturday, with about 40 friends and family in attendance. The weather was beautiful, turnout was good, and it was a great day. I was hoping the exorcisms would help to cure her colic, but alas, we had several tough days this week.

--- 3 ---

Tuesday was one of those tough days. My parents went home in the early afternoon, and Birdie screamed from noon until midnight.  Without stopping except while nursing.  It was not a good day.  I called the pediatrician around 8:30 p.m., and we decided to change her reflux medication to Prilosec from Zantac, which clearly wasn't working.  We got the new medicine on Wednesday evening, and things seem to be settling down a bit now.  
--- 4 ---
I just discovered a way cool band: Straight No Chaser.  I love acapella groups (including the wonderful Christian group called Acapella), and these guys are good!  (And from Cherry Hill, NJ, which is practically in our back yard!)

Here are two I like a lot:

--- 5 ---

BOO IS WALKING!!  Of course, he started doing it right after he qualified for special services for developmental delays and physical therapy, but at least he's getting there!  He's still unsteady enough that I can't just let him walk to the bus stop with me yet, but I'm hoping that in the next 6 weeks he'll get good enough that we can perhaps dispense with the stroller for preschool pick up in the afternoons.
--- 6 ---
I'm happy to report that Piglet passed his food challenge on eggs on Thursday.  I'm tolerating eggs pretty well again, so I'm so excited about this development!  Meal planning just got a lot easier--egg night here we come! Bring on the frittatas!
--- 7 ---

Our dear friend Patrick is getting married this weekend in Oregon, and while we couldn't all make it, given the age of our children and a cross-country flight, my husband is flying out tomorrow morning for the wedding on Sunday.  He even managed to get a speaking gig in Portland on Monday morning so his plane ticket and part of his hotel is paid for!  I made this card for Patrick and his bride.  It is based on another card I saw earlier this year.  I modified it a bit and added a few extra details, but the basic idea is from Patti MacLeith.

Supplies: Very Vanilla cs, Framed Tulips, Perfect Polka Dots EF, Vanilla Rosettes, Pearls, Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set, Cherry Cobbler Ink, dimensionals, square punch (to make flag edges)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Quick Takes Friday

2011-10-14T14:02:00.005-04:00

  
*Stamping project under #7 if you are just here for the creative mojo. 
--- 1 ---
 Seven weeks postpartum and my wedding ring fits again!  This is the the soonest it has fit of all my babes.  (I actually have a cheapie wedding ring that is a size bigger that I wear while pregnant/postpartum; it is nice to get my own back on after all this time!)
--- 2 ---
In an attempt to keep Boo occupied the other day while I was doing something in the kitchen, I gave him a tupperware bowl with some dry kidney beans and a spoon, thinking he might do some his usual "fill and spill" action.  Nope.  The kid ate them.  I'm still waiting for the diaper fall out.--- 3 ---
Miss Birdie is getting baptized/christmated tomorrow, so the parental units are descending this afternoon.  So. Excited.  They are staying the whole weekend plus Monday and part of Tuesday as well.  Yippie for grandparents!!
--- 4 ---

I pulled my 35mm Nikon N-64 out of the closet this week and have had so much fun taking pictures of the kids and experimenting with settings.  I've not developed the rolls yet, so maybe everything will be a blurry disaster, but it is a good camera, and I only stopped using it because it is bulky and hard to tote around.  (Plus the whole film developing thing was getting tricky)
--- 5 ---

Target.com is driving me crazy. I ordered something from the site, and it didn't work, so I wanted to send it back by prepaid postage since we don't drive much in the city and the nearest Target isn't, well, near, and it is hard to get out with the two littles right now. So I follow all the prompts, and get to the label, and the image doesn't work for printing. I call Target, spend 30 minutes on hold (what is up with that?), only to be told I really should just return it to the store. When I explain that I don't drive much and it would be a burden to me, she puts me on hold for the "second tier customer service," where I wait on hold another 20 minutes before giving up. This must be the corporate strategy--tell people they can return online items for free, and then make it impossible to do so, forcing them to do what you wanted in the first place, which is, return to the store, using up valuable oil/gas resources. Brilliant. I think I'll be shopping online elsewhere in the future. (But not really; sometimes you just can't beat Target's prices/selection, especially on kid's clothing)

--- 6 ---
  We all got flu shots this week (except Birdie, who is too little), and against my better judgement, I got one too.  And got the flu, just like I always do when I get the shot.  That turned into a breast infection.  Yay for flu shots.
--- 7 ---
My son's namesday was on Tuesday.  He was super excited about it, so to celebrate, I made from-scratch brownies for his preschool class, only to be told they will only serve commercially prepared prepackaged items.  Gah.  But I did make him a really cool gift!  I had this in mind the moment I saw the I Dig You! stamp set in the big catalog and just now got around to making it.

A magnet digger puzzle! Cool, eh? Just the thing for a construction-vehicle obsessed 3 year old. I stamped the images on Whisper White, added the brads, and then adhered to one of our magnet sheets. I used paper snips to cut everything out, and then sanded the edges a bit to make them look better. If I do this again, I think I might use an exacto knife to cut out because the edges weren't quite as clean as I'd wanted. But he's three, and doesn't notice that sort of thing.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Quick Takes Friday

2011-10-07T12:47:00.005-04:00

For those who are here for a card, it is at the bottom under #7.

--- 1 ---

Steve Jobs is dead. I'm pretty sure everyone and their dog knows this by now, but I have to say I'm saddened by his loss. I'm not a particular Apple aficionado, and arrived very late to the whole iPod phenom, but the loss of someone so intelligent, creative, and innovative is a blow for everyone. He improved on all the things we never knew we needed and then made them an indispensable part of daily life. Or in the words of one FB poster, he took tools and gave us toys. Thank you, Steve, and rest in peace.

--- 2 ---

Sleep continues to elude us around here as Boo's waking habits at night have grown worse instead of better. In other news, his lower right molar erupted earlier this week, and none of the other four show signs of being even close, so I'm hoping this is part of the whole "it gets worse before it gets better" deal. Right now I think we are averaging 2-3 hours of decent sleep per night.

--- 3 ---

I think anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows my feelings for the Twilight series. I'm excited and happy to report that I bought my ticket for Breaking Dawn, Part I! I actually found a mid-morning showing at a theater in Cherry Hill so I can see it when I have a babysitter available. Send me an engraved invitation, Alice! I'm coming to see you!

--- 4 ---

Speaking of Twilight, I just posted the second of a three part series on Twilight and post modern motherhood over at my other blog. You can read the first two parts HERE and HERE.

--- 5 ---

I'm drowning in a sea of pink baby clothes. Seriously. Birdie is our first girl, and I guess there are a lot of people out there who like to dress up their little girls. A friend came to see me on Wednesday and brought a gigantic bag of second-hand baby clothes from a variety of people who have had girls in the last few years. It is a nice boon, as I've had all boys up to now, and we want our little girl to dress like a little girl! I will say it is kind of fun to dress up a girl, especially since she is too little to have any opinions about clothing yet.

--- 6 ---

When we lived in Chicago, Peapod grocery delivery service was all the rage. We didn't try it then because it seemed unnecessary, especially since we didn't yet have children to hamper our grocery shopping trips, but with the arrival of Birdie, and Boo still not walking, I've found it increasingly difficult to get the grocery shopping done (as well as basic neighborhood errands). It is such an ordeal to get out of the house with two non-walkers that I've been limiting my trips to preschool pick up in the afternoon and the odd corner store run while my babysitter is here. (I wrote about grcoery shopping in the city HERE).

Imagine my delight when I spotted the big green Peapod truck in our neighborhood the other day! There was a promotional code to get $15 off the first order, and I can get 60 days free delivery just to try them out. So we decided to take the plunge and see how it worked for us. My first delivery arrived today, and I gotta say, I kinda like it! My grocery bill was lower than it would have been at Whole Paycheck, oops, Whole Foods, and I didn't have to worry about how much of my load was liquid because I didn't have to walk it home! So I ordered 12 two liter bottles of seltzer with impunity!! And a gallon of milk. What a wonderful service! Now I can do my big cooking day tomorrow and not be worn out before I begin from the process of getting the food from store to home.

--- 7 ---

And the card candy for today. Today's card is one I CASEd (Copy and Share Everything) a while back from Nance Leedy--I love the little scalloped ruffle on the bottom edge. You can see the dimension better on the second picture. I know this stamp set is retired, but I just love it!

Supplies:

Blushing Bride dp and cs, Early Espresso, Baja Breeze cs, Easter Wishes & Sincere Salutations stamp sets, Early Espresso ink, Baja Breeze seam binding, scallop border punch, sticky strip, bone folder (for distressing and ruffling), pearls

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

PPA Color Challenge 114

2011-10-06T12:44:00.003-04:00

Quick post today; I have nothing interesting to report, and afternoons are the beginning of Birdie's 12 hour scream fest (gotta love the first forty days...) , so my brain is fried. I saw the PPA Celebrity Color Challenge today and realized I had made a card in August that fit the challenge perfectly! I just haven't posted it yet. I do confess that the general idea came from somewhere else, but I added a few layers, a few embellishments, and made it mine. I taught this card at a Moms Night Out event in August, and gave them a choice of card base colors (Rich Razzleberry, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive/Lucky Limeade). Everyone's card turned out quite differently and it was a fun evening.

7 Quick Takes

2011-09-30T13:59:00.010-04:00

--- 1 ---

I posted this week about meal planning on my other blog, and since I'm going to be busy stamping all day tomorrow at the Philly Inker's Fall Fest, I made today my cooking day and spent all morning in the kitchen while a baby proofer installed window gates on all our windows after Piglet fell out the living room window five feet to the sidewalk below.

--- 2 ---

Yes, you read that right. Piglet fell out the living room window FIVE FEET to the sidewalk below. And walked away with only scrapes and bruises. We've had our entire house childproofed for years now, and somehow neglected this apparently crucial piece of the puzzle. What happened was this: my husband came home from work and was putting locking up his bike and the trailer in front of the house as usual, and Piglet and Boo were standing at the window watching him. The windows were open to let in a breeze, but our screens are somewhat flimsy due to historical commission regulations (another reason to hate the HC). We have 10" deep window sills and I noticed Piglet had perched on one and was leaning against the screen to get a better view. I had just read in The Week about how many kids fall out of windows every year and sustain serious injury, so I said to him, "please get out of the window or you are going to fall." Famous last words. I went into the kitchen to check dinner and out he went! Luckily my husband was right there when he fell and saw how he landed (not on his head, thank God!) and was able to get to him right away. Apparently he sort of belly flopped on the sidewalk. His side and hip were pretty red, and he had a scrapes on his hip and the palms of his hands, but it could have been far, far worse. I am still having nightmares about the kids falling out the window. And since we have three floors of windows with those crappy screens, my heart flip flops every time I think about what *could* have happened.

--- 3 ---

We had another 5:15 a.m. wake up call again this morning, I'm running on sugar-and-caffeine fueled fumes at this point. I'm seriously considering drugging the children. Or me. Or both. The melatonin isn't working quite as well for Boo as I'd hoped.

--- 4 ---

Did I mention that on the same day that Piglet fell out the living room window, Boo fell off a chair at a playgroup and hit his eye on the corner of a wooden table? Put a big gouge in his eyelid that took an HOUR to stop bleeding. It wasn't gushing all down his face, but kept up a slow ooze. It quit by the time we got home, so I decided he didn't need stitches, but he got a nice shiner out of the deal too.

--- 5 ---

Birdie is fine. That is all.

--- 6 ---

I've been rewatching the TV series Felicity on Netflix during marathon nursing sessions with Birdie, and I fell in love with Keri Russell's wardrobe during the first season. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I went right out and ordered a pair of classic Converse sneaks in navy blue and this great cargo skirt. I blame the splurge on post partum hormones. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

--- 7 ---

Speaking of Fall Fest, can I show you one of my swaps? Yes? Okay. Here you go! I adapted this from a card from Carrie Gaskin (aka The Artistic Avenger) and ran with it! I didn't have enough Spice Cake dp (boo!) to make all my swaps the same, so I made 6 of these, and then adapted a few other Spice Cake cards I'd seen around the blogosphere to use some of the other papers in that delicious pack.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

In which I rant about non-sleeping children and the weather...

2011-09-29T14:56:00.005-04:00

These are the kinds of days that make me extremely twitchy. E was up until after midnight last night, and then again around 3:00 a.m. to nurse, and M woke up around 5:00 screaming and was then up for the day. His screaming (and our attempts to keep him quiet) woke up H at 5:30, so everyone was up at 5:30 a.m. For the day. My husband took pity on me and took the boys downstairs so that I could at least lie in bed in the quiet and nurse the baby (again) and doze a little, but I still had to get up by 7:15 so that he could take H to preschool. M has been pretty cranky ever since. I put him down for a nap around noon and he has been screaming his head off for the last hour. I've gone in to lay him back down, rub his head, etc. and he just keeps screaming. I'm ready to lose my mind. I'm crabby because I'm tired and hot. Is this heat and humidity ever going to break? It is nearly October for Pete's sake. Supposed to cool down tonight and tomorrow and be in the 50s (YES, THE 50s!!!) through the weekend. I can't wait. It is still 81 degrees in the house and I've had it with this summer. Sorry to be a grump.

Today's card is another one I CASEd from Vicki Burdick in August. I just love this set--those little kids are easy to color and the images are sized nicely for focal points. And as much as I like pretty florals, it is nice to have something else for a change!! I originally watercolored the image on watercolor paper, but I didn't like how yellow the water color paper was against the white of the background, so I swapped it out for Whisper White and marker coloring. Perfect!

Supplies:

Just Eat Cake dp, Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight and Whisper White cs

Lean on Me stamp set

Early Espresso ink, Baja Breeze, Blush Blossom, Daffodil Delight and Sahara Sand markers

DD satin ribbon

scallop border punch

silver brads

dimensionals

Four Weeks Old!

2011-09-27T14:15:00.006-04:00

Birdie is four weeks old now, and I'm chipping away at her baby book on My Digital Studio. I think I'm caught up for the moment. I really like the software for these kinds of projects--I always do a baby scrapbook for our children's first year of life, but I try to keep the number of pages manageable. After the first month (when one naturally takes an obscene amount of photos), I try to stick to 1-2 pages per month after that. This way I have a nice record of each child's first year, and I have a good shot of keeping up with it for each child!

I did decide I'm going to make a hybrid digital scrapbook for Birdie. It is too hard to find the time to do all the physical scrapping right now. I also know that if I let the pictures get out of control now, I'll never finish her book, so I'm doing all the pages in MDS, and then adding some physical embellishments, such as the hospital bracelets after I get them professionally printed. I still have the big scrapbook project that I'm working on for my client and I need to keep working on that.

If a tree falls in the forest...

2011-09-26T21:36:00.004-04:00

If I make a card and I don't post it to my blog, does anyone every really see it?? I have this pressure in my head to post all the cards I make. Silly, really. I have the photographs for my own reference, and the person receiving the card sees it, but somehow, I think, I MUST share.

This card makes me think cool crisp autumn days, sweaters and boots, and the lovely smell that comes with the change in seasons. There was a smell in the air today that reminded me of Moscow, so perhaps we will finally get some fall weather for a change. :)

This was my swap for the September Philly Inkers' meeting. I LOVE this card. It is inspired by a card on Vicki Burdick's blog, but I tweaked it here and there and used a different stamp set, so mine looks quite different from hers. A good launch pad, to be sure! Did I mention how much I love Spice Cake??

Domestic Goddess

2011-09-23T10:29:00.006-04:00

Erm, not so much these days. I have a newborn who doesn't sleep and nurses all the time, an older baby who is still getting up at night (and today greeted us with a cribful of vomit) and all I can say is THANK GOD for preschool or my toddler would be wrecking havoc all day on top of everything else. I think I've entered the cranky fourth trimester phase, which is not to be confused with the irate third trimester phase (My favorite line from this article? "All you can really be sure about is whether or not your water has broken yet. Not yet? Okay, then you gotta make supper again, darn it.") The cranky fourth trimester phase is characterized by extreme sleep deprivation, irritability, the tendency to eat cookies for breakfast, depression over wardrobe choices, the intense desire to burn every item of maternity clothing in your possession, and obsess over clothing that doesn't yet fit or look good. Oh, and spend way too much money on clothing or shoes in an attempt to find something that fits and makes you feel good about yourself in the morning. And is nursing friendly. And not frumpy. And...okay, I'm shutting up now.

But wait! Don't leave yet! I do have a card!! My card today features the Domestic Goddess dsp that I love so much. I made this card during my fit of creative nesting before E arrived. It is a riff on a card I saw on Vicki Burdick's blog (I love everything she is posting lately and want to CASE it all!)

Supplies:

Pool Party, Whisper White, Calypso Coral, Domestic Goddess dp

Day of Gratitude stamp set, Occasional Quotes stamp set

Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade markers, Early Espresso ink

Calypso coral ruffled ribbon

scallop border punch

piercing tool/mat pack

Welcome Birdie

2011-09-02T20:25:00.004-04:00

I'm pleased to announce the safe and healthy arrival of our daughter, Elizabeth Laurel, on Saturday, August 27, at 12:34 a.m., just before Hurricane Irene hit. She arrived after a longish labor, but a speedy transition and even faster delivery weighing 6 pounds 11 oz, and 19 3/4 inches long. I've got to say, it was a bit of a shock to have a girl after three boys, but she is a beautiful delicate little thing and we love her. (My toddler especially is quite infatuated!)

I wasn't sure what cards to show today because in addition to naming our daughter today (we do it on the 8th day), my dad had his birthday today. So you're going to get an eyeful of card candy for your viewing pleasure!

The first card is CASEd from splitcoast stamper Tessa Wise, and I love the color combination! I admit I wasn't so in love with Peach Parfait last year, but with the pop of Pool Party, I think I'm a convert! I love it so much that I used it to make these baby thank you cards! I just love that little sleeper. The basic layout is from a thank you card I received from my upline Claire. I love the simplicity of it and how easy it is to make a bunch at once (because when you have a baby, there are always lots of people to thank in the process!)

The last card is also CASEd from the talented Connie Babbert, and I love all the little masculine details. I decided to give it to my dad for his birthday. I'm not sure if he reads my blog, but happy birthday, Dad! He hasn't actually received the card yet, so I hope I've not spoiled the surprise, but it is still fun to open the actual card, even if he's seen a picture of it. (At least I think so!)

I hope you'll forgive me not posting all the supplies for each card; if you want the deets, just contact me and I'll send them. We are slightly busy at the moment. :)

"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

2011-08-24T10:41:00.011-04:00

...and just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed, nothin' seems to fit, those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'..."

Okay, so it isn't really raining (it is actually a gorgeous day again today!), but the song fits my card quite nicely! I admit, this is another 'woke-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night' cards. I was fiddling around on My Digital Studio last night, trying out this week's great ColorQ challenge, made something that I liked but didn't love, and then went to bed hoping to fix it in the morning. I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea for a physical card using the same Mojo Monday layout I'd been working with in MDS, as well as the great color challenge (love me some Island Indigo!).

I'm quite happy with the way this all came out, with one caveat. I wish I had the Perfect Pennants die because it would have been a better size scallop circle behind the little girl. I ended up using two 2 3/8" punched scallops and layering them to make the size right, but the die would have been perfect. (sigh) I guess I'll have to put it on my next order! I will say that I had a hard time photographing this card, and that it is prettier in person than in the photo, but I think you get the idea. I also had to substitute Daffodil Delight for Crushed Curry since I didn't have any of that color left. Close enough, I say!

Did I mention how much I love this set? It is called Lean on Me, and when I first saw it in the catalog, I blew right by it because I don't tend to gravitate toward line image stamps. Then I saw a bunch of samples that my upline Claire made, and made a card at a shoebox swap that featured the set, and I was hooked! I love that the bold lines made for easy marker coloring--no watercoloring involved! And the images are small so the coloring goes very quickly. And yes, I did hand-stitch the sides again. I really should just bite the bullet and pull my Bernina up from the basement, but the stitching by hand went pretty quickly and it just seems like a lot of time and trouble to set up the machine in my little crafting space.

38 weeks

In other news, I had an appointment with the midwives today. I got my favorite nurse and she said, "is it just me, or does it seem like you've been pregnant forever?" I won't say that was the best thing I heard all day, but I did chuckle and agree that it did seem like it had been forever. I also had my favorite midwife and asked nicely for a cervical check and got one. So right now, I'm sitting between 1-2 cm and have a "rim" (whatever that means); the midwife asked me if I wanted her to "wiggle it", and I said, sure whatever it takes to get this baby moving! So she did that (ouch!) and now we wait! I usually have my babies between 38-39 weeks, which is right where we are right now, so hopefully things will get a move on in a few days. I've had some encouraging prelabor signs, plus a few real contractions every day since Sunday, so perhaps it won't be too much longer.

Supplies:

Island Indigo, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, smooth and textured Old Olive cs, Pumpkin pie dsp (retired),

Lean on Me, Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp sets

Island Indigo ink, Early Espresso, Island Indigo, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Pool Party markers

Baker's twine (white)

needle, white embroidery floss, mat pack, piercing tool

5/8" old olive grosgrain ribbon (retired)

Daffodil Delight designer button

Scallop border punch, scallop ribbon punch

Stripes emboss folder

Designer label punch

2 3/8" scallop circle punch

circle cutter (non-SU!)

dimensionals

Watercoloring

2011-08-23T11:42:00.004-04:00

Thank the Lord, the heat has really broken! Last night it got down to 61 degrees and I even slept with covers on me for the first time since I don't remember when! The house is a lovely cool 72 degrees, and it is only supposed to get up to 81, so I'm leaving the windows open today. I did yesterday too and it was wonderful! Last night we made a family outing to Trader Joe's after dinner and walked all the way down and back (2 miles round trip). I have to say, after that walk, this 9 months pregnant mama felt like a total rock star! My hips are killing me today, but it was totally worth it. Besides, maybe that walk will get things a movin'!

One of the numerous cards I made last week was this simple card using Greeting Card Kids. I don't always take the time for watercoloring (even though I like the process) and was looking for something simple yet stepped up to make. I really like how this came out! It was different from how I envisioned in my head, but the end result is rather cute, I think! Love those in colors!! I seem to be gravitating to Crumb Cake a lot for card bases lately; better make sure I have a good supply stocked! I also went back to watercoloring with a blender pen and markers after receiving a good lesson from "Aunt" Karen Barber a while back. I still like my aqua painter, but for fast watercoloring, a blender pen, some watercolor paper and our marvelous markers are great! I'm actually thinking I might just stamp a bunch of line images and bring my marker box with me to the hospital to have something to keep me occupied. Well, occupied in between the nursing and night wakings. :)

Supplies:

Island Indigo, Calpyso Coral, Crumb Cake cs, watercolor paper, Island Indigo dsp

Greeting Card kids, Friendly Phrases stamp set

Staz-on ink

Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, Real Red, Crumb Cake Soft Suede, Daffodil Delight, So Saffron, Blush Blossom markers

blender pen

dimensionals

calypso coral ruffled ribbon

circles #2 die

circle cutter (non-SU!)

Creative Nesting

2011-08-19T13:06:00.007-04:00

I think I must be going through some kind of creative nesting instinct--this is the second morning in a row that I've woken up in the middle of the night with a card idea in my head that I just had to make first thing in the morning! I decided to use Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday sketch for the main layout, and had the idea of trying to make paper poppies out of the butterfly punch. I looked up a photo of a poppy and thought it would work fine, and it did! I'm pretty pleased with how the card came out--it is pretty close to the vision I had in my head. I even used Poppy Parade for my cardstock color--perfect!!

In other news, today is Transfiguration on our calendar, so we spent this morning in church. My boys were up at 5:00 a.m. this morning, so our sleep is all kinds of messed up today. My toddler fell asleep on the way home, and then climbed onto the couch first thing and went right back to sleep when we got home (a never-before occurance with him). I'm hoping M will take another nap as his 40 minutes in the car isn't going to cut it until bedtime. I keep hoping that their sleep schedules will get better; since we put them together in a room, sleep has been a rare and precious commodity around here and I dread adding the night time wakings of a newborn into that mess. On the other hand, today would be an excellent day to have a baby! We are going into the weekend, my husband is creating work for himself to stay busy, we are a few weeks out from preschool starting, which would give us time to make some of the transitions before school starts, but these things happen on their own schedule, I know. I'm just impatient. And huge. And achy. Mostly just ready to have my body back and meet this new little one.

Supplies:

Crumb Cake, Basic Black, So Saffron, Very Vanilla cs, first edition dp, poppy parade dp hostess pack (retired)

Friendly Phrases stamp set

Poppy parade ink

Circle punches (1", 1 1/4", 1 3/8", smallest itty bitty circle punch)

Butterfly and boho blossoms punch

Scallop border punch

black brads

sticky strip

corner rounder

water spritzer

handheld 1/16" punch

square lattice emboss folder

Fruit Challenge

2011-08-18T11:07:00.004-04:00

I know, second post of the day, but I can't help myself! Click HERE to see the first post of the day. I noticed that this week Our Creative Corner is hosting a fruit challenge, and since one of those 25 cards I mentioned features fruit, I just had to post it before the challenge ends! It is a CASE of a card I saw around the blogosphere, so if it looks like yours, drop me a line and I'll give credit where credit is due. I did tweak the design quite a bit, and I may have overdone it on the vines (my husband said it was "too busy" when I got done with it), but I still like the overall effect!

Supplies:

Real Red, So Saffron, Whisper White, Wild Wasabi cs, Washington Apple dp (retired)

Just Believe stamp set

Real Red, So Saffron ink

sponges

Open Scallop border, Boho Blossoms, Ornament, 5 petal flower and 2 step bird punches, 1/4" circle punch

Swiss dot emboss folder

dimensionals

Nesting...just a little

2011-08-18T10:28:00.006-04:00

The heat has broken at last, I think I can say, although the humidity is still pretty high. But at least we can cool the house down to reasonable levels during the day after weeks of not even being able to open up the house for some relief. I went to Whole Foods this morning and thoroughly enjoyed the cool breeze on my walk down; I even thought (fleetingly) that I could stand to be pregnant a while longer if the weather was going to stay like this!

I do feel a sense of watchful waiting in the last day or so; I've had a few nesting urges strike me, and while I'm having no more than my usual Braxton-Hicks contractions, it just seems like we are all waiting with baited breath. My husband even remarked that he has run out of things to do at work and is restless, waiting for the baby to make an appearance! Until last night I was completely ready to have this baby. And then, just for a moment, I panicked. I worried about how this new addition would affect my other two children; I wondered how the dynamic of our family would change; I started to be a little afraid of the labor itself. I have good natural births, as a rule, but there is grace in the moment, and I confess that I feel a little apprehensive about the coming pain. I know once things get rolling, I'll be fine, but it is hard to wait. In the meantime, I've been incredibly productive on the card making front this week! I've made about 25 cards this week, mostly working from my "idea file", so not a lot of original work, but satisfying nonetheless. (It's probably some odd creative nesting urge coming out, rather than the traditional cooking-cleaning type...)

I do have an original (gasp!) card to share this morning. I woke up in the middle of the night (no shock there) to go to the bathroom and started thinking about this week's Color Q challenge, and suddenly a card idea popped in my head. I know, I'm weird; I think about cards in the middle of the night when one should be sleeping. :) I got up this morning and pulled out my colors and went to work! The final result isn't quite like what I had in my head, but I think I like it just the same. I added a Pool Party layer to the card because it was on the flowers in the picture for the challenge and I thought the card needed a lighter color to balance the darks. I love all these green-blues this year! And I even had a few scraps of Bermuda Bay lying around just waiting to be used up. I will say that the layout definitely owes a little something something to a card I made recently at a shoebox swap, but I changed a bit here and there and tweaked to make it mine.

I will say that I think I'm officially over Taken with Teal--Island Indigo is a wonderful replacement, and I'm really digging all the in colors this year! They all work wonderfully together and I'm finding new ways to pair them with our core colors all the time! I'm so happy we get two years to play with them. So look for more Island Indigo from me in the future! (I expect I'll come back to this whole color combo again too. It is so bright and fresh and makes me think of cool weather.

Supplies:

Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Pool Party, Bermuda Bay, Soft Suede, Whisper White cardstock

Soft Suede ink, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Blush Blossom, Soft Suede markers

Lean on me stamp set

Soft suede polka dot grosgrain ribbon (retired)

Scallop circles #2 die

Circles #2 die

circle cutter (non-SU!)

Stripes, Square lattice emboss folders

In which I complain for no good reason...

2011-08-14T19:47:00.005-04:00

I'm absolutely not going to apologize for my sporadic blogging these last months--I can't even claim to be too busy to post. I actually have quite a back log of (edited) photos of cards, and so forth. Mostly I just haven't made time for blogging, or haven't had the energy at the end of the day. I keep holding out hope that I'll be in a better place once this baby is born, but I also know that I'll be more tired from the night feedings, the birth and everything that attends having a newborn. Or perhaps not. Pregnancy and me don't particularly get along, and I always feel better after the baby is born, even though the nursing, crying, night wakings and such are very disruptive. Mostly I'm looking forward to being able to walk more than 3 blocks without pain and holding my older children on my lap without discomfort. (I'm looking forward to having a lap again, for that matter!)

In case you are wondering, I'm at 36.5 weeks, and am officially ready to have this baby. Not that anything seems to be happening right now, other than increasingly painful Braxton-Hicks contractions and a pelvis that seems to want to split in two. I (illogically) think I just might be pregnant FOREVER and I'm tired of sleeping only on my side and generally feeling like a beached whale. This is the point in pregnancy that I always feel like burning all my maternity clothes, and start looking longingly at my pre-baby wardrobe.

I shouldn't complain--I've had a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy, and until the heat wave hit in July, was feeling pretty good all the time. The extreme bladder problems that plagued me in earlier pregnancies have been largely absent this time around, and my weight gain and water retention has been reasonable. The baby is active and growing on track, and I have every reason to be grateful. Except for the fact that I'm just so uncomfortable and soporific! I just want to be able to take care of my family again without feeling like I need to lay down every five minutes, or put my feet up all the time so my left leg doesn't swell up like a balloon.

Well, okay, I'll stop griping now and show you a card or two. I've actually been pretty productive the last week, but not so original. I know that my low energy is making for low creativity, so I'm just trying to focus on recreating other people's great ideas. Sometimes you have to do the creative cardio in order to keep the muscles limber for the creative weight lifting later on.

Today's cards are actually my originals--this stamp set was one of the sets in the new catalog that went straight to the top of my wish list. I've gotta say, I love this set for little boys! And since I have two little boys, plus two nephews, I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of it! I've got a great project in mind for this set that I'm hoping to finish before babette arrives, but if not, a good thing to make in September. The first card I made for my nephew's 3rd birthday on Monday, and the second was for one of H's little friends.

We were invited to his friend's birthday party on Saturday and I thought I better make a card to go with the gift. The new mini brads are the perfect accompaniment to this set--they are just the right size for the screws on the trucks and diggers in this set. Oh, and while I wasn't going to get the Houndstooth embossing folder for a while, I saw a card that used it and it reminded me of tire tread and suddenly I knew that this emboss folder was made for this stamp set! I think the brushed silver cardstock makes for a nice accent, although tinfoil would work well too.

Congrats

2011-08-01T20:42:00.003-04:00

One of the highlights of the Stampin' Up! year is the annual Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was unable to attend this year, but hope to go sometime in the future! It is a big event with about 3,000 demonstrators attending. There are tons of samples, swaps, make-n-takes, great ideas, and awards! Every year, Stampin' Up! announces the top 100 demonstrators in the whole company, and this year, my upline, Claire, and my sideline, Kristin, both made the top 100! Claire was number 58 and Kristin was number 20! Wow!! I'm so proud of both of them and grateful for the support and leadership they provide, so naturally, I wanted to congratulate them with special cards. These are the ones I made for them. The first one I CASEd from Krista Fenton and the other one is all me!

I love the colors on the pennant card--the original used Lucky Limeade and Island Indigo, but I haven't got any of the new incolors yet, so I swapped them out for Old Olive and Not Quite Navy, which worked fine. I'm looking forward to playing with the new colors though!!

Digging Out from Under

2011-07-29T14:28:00.005-04:00

I caught a summer cold this week (those suckers are just terrible, in my opinion--not only are you hot and miserable with the heat and humidity, but also unable to sleep with congestion, stuffy nose, tight sinuses, and everything else!) I am feeling a bit better today, but washed out and tired after several nights of poor sleep due to congestion and sinus pressure. I felt like my face was going to explode! I still have watery eyes because of some lingering pressure on the bridge of my nose, but at least I can see through them today. Better now than later, I guess, when there is a new baby to worry about.

I finally mustered enough energy today to get to the grocery store and also get some work done on the big scrapbook project which made me feel much better about an otherwise unproductive week. I'm really happy with how the pages I made today came out, so that is something at least!!

Today's card is the one I made for the July swap at our Philly Inker downline meeting. I completely CASEd it from Bonnie Klass at splitcoast, but I love the clean simple lines of it. I've been playing a lot with this stamp set, so I've got a nice stash of masculine cards going. (Or rather, I did have, before I sent a bunch of them off to From Our Hearts--they are running low on cards for the troops, so send some Martie's way if you have a few lying around!) I also made one full card to put in my box and decorated the inside a bit (I usually don't do this, but Bonnie had decorated hers, and I thought it looked nice).

Happy Birthday to Me...

2011-07-22T12:34:00.009-04:00

It's my birthday today, and the heat index is supposed to top 115. My heat-positive thoughts for the day are a) I'm glad I'm not in labor, because I wouldn't want to be laboring at home (or trying to get to the hospital) in this wet hot mess! and b) I'm VERY grateful not only for the little window unit in my office, but also that the rest our house seems to be holding steady at 85-86 degrees. We had one summer where the third floor was routinely topping 90 and not cooling down at night, so we'll take it! (Besides, M and my husband are still sleeping up there at night, and M doesn't do so well in the heat--he's definitely my son, what can I say??)

My sweaty boy (his face was actually a lot redder than it looks like in the photo)

We actually did the birthday dinner part last night because I wanted non-fasting food for my celebration, and also because at a mere 106 heat index, it was relatively cooler yesterday. That said, I still made everything on Wednesday and just had to heat it up in the toaster oven, so it wasn't too bad. I made a chocolate zucchini cake for our dessert and it was yum-O. That cake is one of my favorites! Both my kids gobbled it up, and Stephanos (the resident foodie in our household) really liked it too!

Me and my lovely birthday cake! (just ignore the stellar prego arms and less than flattering tank top! Oh yeah, and I didn't put make up on yesterday because if you're just going to sweat it all off, what is the point, really?)

On to today's card. Remember I told you my mom wanted to learn a bit more about brayering while we were visiting a few weeks ago? I taught her the easel card with the ship, and then she said she wanted to have another go the following day, so as to cement it all in her brain, so we made a version of this card, using Michelle Zindorf's tutorial, and then spent some time playing around with the stamps and inks that were already out. My mom's card came out quite differently from mine, even though we started with the same basic idea, but it was fun to watch our designs diverge. I came up with the card below, which I admit owes a bit of debt to another design of Michelle's, but honestly, when I was putting it together, her card wasn't in my head at all. I just kept fiddling and adding things, and that's what came out. Goes to show how few original ideas there are out there! I once read that Billy Joel doesn't listen to any music but his own so as to avoid outside musical influence. With the stamping world being what it is, I don't know how to avoid that particular pitfall, so I'll just say a big thanks to Michelle's creative inspiration and get on with it!

Thankful Thursday

2011-07-21T12:43:00.005-04:00

Quick post today--heat index is supposed to be 105, and the temp in the house is 85 degrees, so I'm having a bit of trouble focusing on anything for very long. I took the kids out this morning to run an errand and the humidity about did me in. I think it is 95 degrees with about 85-90% humidity. Thailand has nothing on Philly this week. But, I promised some positive thoughts about the heat, so my positive thought for today is that the lovely peaches we've been enjoying the last two weeks love this type of heat, and wouldn't be as delicious without it.

A few more baby thank you cards to show today--love that little tricycle! I got the basic idea for the card from a splitcoast stamper--cmstamps--and modified a few things to turn it into a baby thank you card. I made four of these. I really like the bright colors and the funky mod circles. Also my new favorite embellishment is that little Itty Bitty Shape punch with a rhinestone or pearl in the middle. Takes the place of a button very nicely and is much flatter in a card when you have to mail it! Love that extra little pop!

This card was a one-off. I saw it on the From Our Hearts blog and wanted to CASE it, but it had so many pieces I didn't want to make more than one! I love the card though. One thing I wish I had changed was to make the matted circles different colors--so Baja Breeze on the turtle, Peach Parfait on the whale and Pear pizzazz on the lion, or something like that. I think it would have been a little more interesting.

Tricycle Card Supplies
Whisper White, Wild Wasabi, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, Tangerine Tango cs
Textured jumbo wheel, Pedaling past tricyle, Short and Sweet stamps
Wild Wasabi, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, Tangerine Tango ink
Itty Bitty Shapes punch
rhinestones
Scallop border punch
dimensionals

Fox and Friends card Supplies
Early Espresso, Baja Breeze (textured), Whisper White cs, Greenhouse Gala dp (retired)
Pumpkin pie (stamped off once), Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzazz inks
Fox and Friends, Short and Sweet
Small scallop circle, 1 3/8" circle, 1 1/4" circle, decorative label punches
So Saffron grograin ribbon (retired)
dimensionals

Sweating with Dignity

2011-07-20T21:18:00.006-04:00

I'm trying to think positive thoughts about this heat, so my positive thought for today is that I'm grateful that all the rooms in our house have ceiling fans. My other positive thought is that I'm starting to learn how to (as one of my sidelines put it) "sweat with dignity." She is from Houston originally and finds the weather around here to be a definite step up from that soggy mess! I've also given up on wearing shirts with sleeves; I made a pact with myself to try to get away from sleeveless shirts/dresses because a) my upper arms aren't so pretty (esp. when pregnant) and b) because I do try to dress modestly. But this summer has cracked that one right out of me! So I'm sweating with dignity in tank tops and spaghetti strap dresses. I can get back to my ideals when it is cooler and I'm not 8 months pregnant. :)

I was so energized to work today--I made a ton of cards. (My craft area is a total disaster at the moment, which has to be evidence of creative genius, right???) I recently rediscovered Nancy Leedy's blog, and was seriously inspired by her work. I CASEd a bunch of her cards, and then found I had generated enough creative energy to try an original sketch! I pulled out this week's Mojo Monday sketch, some dsp scraps, and had a go. I'm loving these 3D flowers! They are so easy to make and look so cool on a card. (I'm still trying to work out how to mail it, but maybe it will have to be one of those special delivery-type cards...) I had enough dsp scraps to make five of them! The top card is my Mojo Monday entry, and the card below is one I CASEd from Nancy that gave me the flower inspiration.

Some of the distressing and details didn't come through on the photo, but I inked all the scallop circles for the flowers with the Vintage Vogue jumbo wheel in Early Espresso before I spritzed them with water and scrunched them to make the flower. Gave it extra dimension (Nancy used a color spritzer on hers, which works just as well) and I like the extra texture it adds. I also sponged the leaves on the edges with Crumb Cake, as well as around the oval at the top. Looking at it now, I should have punched one more hole in the scallop border, but oh well. Sometimes it is hard to know where to stop on those borders...

Mojo Monday Card Supplies:

Marina Mist, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Whisper White cs, Paisley Prints dsp
Occasional Quotes (hostess level three set, retired)
Old Olive ink
mini brads
2 3/8 scallop circle punch, water mister bottle, 1/16th handheld punch
Bird punch
dimensionals
Chocolate chip satin ribbon (retired), Marina Mist 3/8" satin ribbon

CASEd Vintage Card Supplies:

Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Marina Mist, Very Vanilla cs
Because I Care (hostess level one, retired), Charming stamp sets, En Francais background stamp, Vintage Vogue jumbo wheel
Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Early Espresso inks
Victoria crochet trim
Pearls
Scallop edge punch
pewter brad
Victorian wallpaper emboss folder
Extra large oval, small scallop circle, bird punch, decorative label punch, handheld punch
sponge wedge

Gearing up for Baby...

2011-07-19T14:37:00.005-04:00

This morning I had a bit of extra time and wanted to start making some baby thank you cards (we are, after all, in the home stretch here!). I have some very simple designs in mind that are easy to mass produce, but are a bit gender-specific on the color scheme, so I'm waiting to make those designs. Instead, I made these two cards. They are both pretty simple, and I love that little tricycle! I used the Just Add Cake dsp for the background, and my color scheme came together from there. I am also quite fond of that particular layout--so easy! I made six of them, and might make another six in a few days, depending on time and energy. The heat this week is supposed to be pretty nasty (it was 85 degrees at 7 a.m. this morning) and doesn't look to break any time soon. I mind the middle of the day heat plenty, but I really dislike it when it doesn't even cool down at night--we have a hard time keeping the house reasonable during the day when it doesn't cool off at night. So for now, I'm sleeping on the couch in my office with the one window unit so that I'm not awake all night.

The rattle is from the new Button Buddies stamp set (love it!); I decided to keep it clean and simple and just use the clearlit rectangle to off set the image a bit. I like the monochromatic color scheme, and like the brightness of the Wild Wasabi against the white, but really, you could substitute any color to make it subtle or funky.

Calm Waters on the Open Sea

2011-07-13T19:13:00.005-04:00

I know I spend a lot of time discussing the weather on this blog, but seriously, when it is close to 100 degrees for nearly a week (and doesn't cool off at night), there really isn't much else to occupy the mind except how hot you are. My husband seems impervious to heat. (Personally, I'll take cold over heat--you can always put on a sweater, but you can only get so naked...) The man sleeps under the quilts when it is 85 degrees in our bedroom at night! I'm drowning in salt and sweat and he's blissfully asleep under the covers. Go figure.

(click on it to embiggen)

A newly renovated playground just reopened in our neighborhood--less than 2 blocks from our house! It has a great play area that has something for little kids and big kids, and has a wonderful splash ground, all courtesy of the city. The splash ground sprinklers come on at 11 a.m., which is a little late in the morning for us, but I took the boys to play there on Tuesday and had a lot of fun. Our sitter took them this morning and they had a great time again. It might just be our new go-to place, since it is close, has some shade, and water for splashing. I'm quite excited about the whole thing as the other two playgrounds in our neighborhood aren't as nice (and don't accommodate a range of ages as well) and are a bit of a pain to get to when the heat is high (and one is very pregnant!)

Today's card is one that I showed my mom how to make last week while we were visiting. She wanted to learn a bit more about brayering, and had suggested learning one of the Open Sea cards I've been teaching to my brayer classes, but given the limitations of luggage and traveling with two small children, I had to limit my supplies. I designed this card knowing what ink pads and papers she had and went from there. Plus it needed to be a card that would take less than a hour to demonstrate. I really like how it came out, actually! I tweaked the final design a little and added the score lines around the edge to create a frame and I like it better, I think.

A pocketful of posies

2011-07-11T13:48:00.005-04:00

I spent last week at my parents' house in the Midwest with my boys; my last big trip before the baby comes. It was lovely to spend a whole week in central air conditioning, have access to good public pools, and generally relax a bit. The boys had a blast with my parents, playing with all the toys at their house, swimming, and generally running around like crazy people, and while the flights were a bit crazy (M is still a lap child, and, at 31 weeks, I don't have much of a lap anymore...), it was worth the trip home. My mom is also a stamper, and wanted me to show her a few tricks, so I'll post those cards a bit later this week (hopefully). I'm expecting a box from Mr. Brown tomorrow, so I'll have some new schtuff to play with this week as well.

I'm so stinkin' excited about today's card that I had to post it right away--you know how that is, right? I will be honest and say that I can take no credit whatsoever for the original idea, but when I saw the original card by Joanna featured over at the PPA a few weeks ago, I saved a copy of the post to make one for myself. I loved all the little details--the stitching, the hand-pieced 3D flowers, the pearls, everything! I love all the 3D flowers I've seen on cards lately, but other than my Pansy Cart (click HERE to purchase the tutorial), I haven't really had the moxie to try one yet. I had all the supplies except for the Build-A-Blossom builder punch. I debated whether to purchase the punch or to cut the petals by hand and hope for the best; in the end, I decided on what I think is a brilliant compromise--MDS!

I bought the digital version of the punch, downloaded it to My Digital Studio, made a few copies of the petals I needed, and then printed them on Baja Breeze, Cherry Cobbler, and Pear Pizzazz cardstock. It was a little pesky to cut them all out by hand, but as I'm not a huge 3D flower maker, it was a more economical way to make this card (plus I'm starting to have storage issues with my punches, and am trying to be selective about which ones I buy now). I'm thrilled that it worked so well! The back side of each petal has a bit of gray shading from the printer, but no one sees that part anyway. I crumpled each piece to give some texture, and then sponged each petal and leaf with the same color as the cardstock, although I think I should have gone a little heavier on the crumpling and sponging, or used darker ink on the sponging, but live and learn (and get Luvs...) If I were to do it over again, I'd use Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi, and Bravo Burgundy on the flowers.

Oh, and on that stitching. I admit that I'm not much of a sewer. I used to be--I went through a phase where I sewed a lot of clothes for myself, but at the time, I had a very temperamental (read: cheap) sewing machine that was prone to fits of tension and bobbin issues and projects that should have taken an hour took five. It sort of took the wind out of my sewing sails. By the time I inherited my grandmother's excellent Bernina, I didn't have much motivation left in me to sew. The machine has largely languished in storage these last few years. I really wanted to replicate the stitching on the card, but didn't want to haul out the machine, so I hand-stitched the whole thing. Yes, I'm really that afraid of my sewing machine that I will paper pierce an entire edge and stitch by hand rather than pull out a sewing machine. I would only do it on one card, though.

Supplies:
Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Pear Pizzazz, Baja Breeze, Cherry Cobbler cs, Nature walk dp (retired)
Nature Walk, Fabulous phrases stamp sets
Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzazz ink
Pearls
Off white embroidery thread
Antique brads
Digital Build a Blossom punch
3/4" circle punch (to mount each flower)
Paper snips
sponges
Victoria crochet lace trim
Ribbon rosette (dirtied up with crumb cake ink)
dimensionals
mat pack and paper piercing tool

Super start

2011-07-01T09:37:00.005-04:00

This morning is off to a stellar start (not really.) H has been screaming with a tantrum for the last 30 or 40 minutes, and it doesn't look to end any time soon. Fortunately I have my sitter here this morning so she is handling it, although I still have to listen to it. I can feel my blood pressure rising with each minute. Hopefully things improve soon.

I have two masculine cards to share today. The first is my husband's Father's Day card (that I also used as my swap for the June Philly Inkers Meeting) and the second is my husband's birthday card (for tomorrow!) He loves to sail, and while he hasn't had the time or opportunity to indulge his hobby since we moved out east, I knew that the Sail Away stamp would be perfect for him. If you only buy one stamp out of the summer mini catalog, this is the one to buy! It is so versatile and lovely and I can't wait to play with it some more. You probably recognize the layout of the birthday card from last week; I just changed the colors to Early Espresso, Bashful Blue and River Rock after I saw a similar card from splitcoaststamper Andrea61.

I really like the layout of the second card--I'll probably be using it again. Oh, and did you notice what date it is?? July 1st!! D-day for the 2011-12 Stampin' Up! catalog!! I love it. The new in colors are great (the first year I've really loved almost all of them), lots of fabulous new sets, embellishments and other wonderful goodies. Can't wait to place my order for new schtuff! I'm helping my upline Claire with an event this month and am designing a few of the cards for her, so most of my order is dedicated to the stamp sets for those cards, but that is fine!

Card 1 Supplies:
Not Quite Navy, Cherry Cobber, Whisper White cs, Nautical Expedition dp
Sail Away, Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp sets
Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso inks
Cherry Cobbler baker's twine
Silver brads
Modern Label and Large oval punches
dimensionals
sponges

Card 2 Supplies:
Early Espresso, Bashful Blue, Whisper White cs
Sail Away, Occasional Quotes stamp sets
Early Espresso, Bashful Blue, River rock, Crumb Cake inks
1 3/4" circle punch, decorative label punch
Early Espresso baker's twine
Square lattice embossing folder
dimensionals

Mount Washmore

2011-06-29T13:18:00.006-04:00

I'm digging out from under today--we had an eventful 24 hours with M and now things are settling back to normal, but I'm tired and just need to cool my jets today. He is fine, we are fine, but it has been pretty chaotic around here since yesterday afternoon. On the upside, H seems to be getting the hang of the potty (I never thought I'd say that!) and I'm starting to feel better about the whole process. I'm finishing the laundry and trying to figure out how much energy I have to tackle a project this afternoon, so a short post.

I have two baby cards to share today. I made them on Monday in a fit of needing to create something easy. I saved the ideas for these cards from Diana Gibbs' blog a long time ago, but just now got around to recreating them. I tweaked the second one quite a bit, but it definitely owes inspiration to her original card. The first one is pretty much a straight copy of her card, with a few minor changes here and there. I love the dp on these cards--it is the same piece, but one side is gingham and the other is floral. I'm sad that it is retiring. But there is much to look forward to in the new catalog, so I'll be alright. I'm really glad we get another year of Poppy Parade!

Is it September yet?

2011-06-22T18:39:00.009-04:00

Oh man, it is humid and hot today. The kind of weather that makes you wonder why you bothered with a shower in the first place. I realized with some dismay this week that I'm as big right now as I was when I delivered M; as I have 9 or 10 weeks to go yet, I'm a little frightened by how much bigger I might get. (And how much summer we still have to endure).

My sitter was with the boys this morning, so I had a good block of time to work in my nicely air-conditioned office (the only room in the house with AC), and so I holed up in there for most of the day. Unfortunately, I had to turn the AC off this afternoon because when it is running, I can't hear the doorbell, and we often receive packages from UPS and FedEx in the afternoons.

I've been working the last few days on the ongoing scrapbook project, and I'm so pleased with how the last few layouts have turned out that I wanted to share a few with you. For those just tuning in, a college friend who lives in New Jersey asked me to scrap her 2010 photos for her. We agreed on a price and she gave me a year's worth of photos (did I mention she is a professional photographer??), and I started work in January. I can't do a ton of scrapbooking all at one go or my layouts start to look all the same, but my goal each month is to complete one month's worth of photos. I'm hoping to get ahead this summer so that I'm not caught out when the new baby arrives. Right now I'm in the middle of her summer photos.

My apologies for the quality of the photos--I don't have a very good set up to photograph 12x12 pages (my light box is very small) and had to photograph the pages in the protectors while the book was sitting on my desk. But you get the idea anyway. The photos on the pages are stunning in real life! You can check out my friend's photography site at emilybwilson.com if you want to see more of her amazing work.

How do you like my bubbles? I came up with that idea all by myself! The photos were of blowing bubbles, and after I laid out the photos, I thought the page still needed something, thought of my vellum cardstock and circle punches and got to work! I mostly just stuck the "bubbles" down where they fell when they came out of the punch, which worked great!

The other little gem I happened across in the last day is Jen Peel's blog, which has tons of great scrapbooking layouts. I usually find preset layouts overwhelming and hard to adapt to the photos I'm using, but for some reason, I found her layouts very easy to work with. She has several mini books for Kindle that have even more layouts. You can download the Kindle program for your PC from Amazon.com and look at the book that way.

I also had the brilliant idea to start creating my own embellishments using MDS! I'm really getting into this program (ask me more if you want to purchase your own copy!)--there are so many different uses for it! The brilliant thing about using MDS for embellishments is that you can size the stamp for the area you need it on the page--many of the stamps would be too small for the space in real life (or are long retired), but it is easy to size them up or down on the computer, print it out, and then punch or cut with a circle cutter for additional interest. I think I may need to get some of our bigger scallop circle dies for more versatility with matting.

The potty monster

2011-06-21T13:55:00.006-04:00

We are in full potty training mode this week after a whole year of chipping away at the monster. Honestly, I can't believe it has taken this long! We have made some progress over the past year, but not nearly as much as one would hope, given the time that has passed and H's relative age (nearly three and a half). I think boys just don't care that much, and given that H is a classic spirited child, this process was never going to be an easy one. The three day boot camp method never worked for us, and it has been a slow slow march to the potty. I spent this morning running around after H, emptying the small potty every 10-15 minutes, and cleaning up floors when he forgot or missed the potty entirely. This wouldn't be as big of a deal except that I have to go up a flight of stairs every time I have to empty/clean a small potty, so it was a lot of stair climbing for this pregnant momma. Oh, and M is teething like crazy right now, so is crying over every little thing, refusing to eat, and sleeping poorly. (And has a rather unhealthy fascination with the small potties around the house so we have to keep him and H separated for the moment, a challenge with our house layout). Did I mention that the humidity is about 80% right now? At least it is in the upper 70s and not in the high 90s. I'm hoping it will rain and break some of the mugginess soon. So a long morning after a long day yesterday. H is also in the process of giving up his nap, so we are transitioning to quiet time in the afternoon instead, but I don't think he quite gets the concept yet. le sigh.

My nephew has his 6th birthday on Saturday, and I almost always end up sending his card late because the end of the month catches me unawares, but this year, I was determined to get it out on time! I made this card last night for him, and I love it! I CASEd it from splitcoaststamper Eileen LeFevre. Just changed the sentiment to Happy Birthday from Happy Father's Day. Did I mention that I love this stamp? If I were to get only one stamp from the Summer Mini catalog, I think it would be this one. And at $9.95, you can't beat the price!

Supplies:
Pacific Point, Early Espresso, Whisper White cs
Sail Away, Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp sets
Early Espresso, Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango inks
Sponges
1 3/4" circle punch (for mask), Curly label punch
dimensionals
Square lattice embossing folder
paper snips (for cutting out sails)

Invitations everywhere...

2011-06-20T13:07:00.009-04:00

Happy Monday! I spent this morning grocery shopping, going to the post office and working on a project for a client. I am hoping to get caught up this week after last week's inefficiency. Luckily my to-do list isn't too bad, and I don't have much going on this week (at least not yet!). I directed our church choir this weekend (Saturday night and Sunday morning), which meant a long time on my feet, so I'm a bit tired and swollen today, but at least it isn't so hot as it was. Last night, we celebrated Father's Day with M's godparents at Zahav, our favorite restaurant in Philly. They are very good about accommodating all my allergies, so it is nice to go there for special occasions.

My project this morning was to make birthday party invitations using the (retiring, sniff) Choo-Choo set. I think this is one set I'm going to hang on to--it is so handy for little boy cards and projects. Unfortunately, it was difficult to photograph this project--the Pacific Point looks way darker than in real life and all the colors seemed dark. I did my best editing the photo, but there you have it. You get the idea anyway. The invites turned out very well, I must say. They are postcard style and have spaces on the back for the time, place, etc. I made a version of this invite a LONG time ago, and perhaps posted it on the blog, so if it seems familiar, it probably is. I made a few tweaks to this version and like it much better than the original.

I probably should have spent the afternoon working on projects with deadlines, but sometimes you have to play to be creative. I actually spent this afternoon playing around with My Digital Studio. I've been wanting to recreate my Sesame Street Punch Pals invitations using MDS, but the last time I tried, I got frustrated and gave up. Since then, I've learned a few tricks about layering with punches and wanted to try them out. I think it is a reasonably good copy of the original! And a lot less time consuming to create. Like them? I'm putting them in my etsy store, along with the Choo Choo Train invitations.

Supplies for Train Invite:

Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise cs
Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Real Red inks
Choo Choo stamp set (plus Hugs and Wishes digital brush set for MDS), All aboard standard wheel
White 3/8" taffeta ribbon
glue dots

Eventful Week

2011-06-17T18:44:00.004-04:00

I meant to make time to write a post almost every day this week, but was thwarted every day by some new disaster. So now it is Friday evening and I'm getting in my post for the week. This week was crazy busy! Monday morning, my husband asked me to make some kind of photo gift for my father-in-law for Father's Day. I ended up spending most of the day on it, using MDS (pics to come...), which was not on the schedule! (At least I only had to design one photo book, and then have three copies printed--I figured one for my father-in-law, one for my dad, and one for my husband) I had my monthly Philly Inkers' meeting on Monday night out in the suburbs; Tuesday, I taught a class in Newark, Delaware; Wednesday, I hosted my book club at my house; Thursday, my husband went to Washington DC all day for a reception for Justice Kennedy; and today, I spent the entire morning at my midwives' office for a three-hour-long blood test. I did manage to bake cookies for the class, and had enough left over to serve the book club the next night, but the baking was wedged in between crises on Tuesday afternoon.

Just to keep things interesting, on Tuesday afternoon, H stuck two small rubber tires from one of his little cars up each nostril, necessitating an ER trip, a return visit the next day to an ENT, lots of crying and traumatic procedures to get it out, interrupted sleep because of nightmares due to said trauma, missed naps, etc. but at least the wheels are out! Thursday, I took the boys grocery shopping at Wegman's in Cherry Hill, and while I was doing the self-check out, somehow a bottle of Soft Scrub opened up all over my cart, my toddler, and half the groceries in the cart. It has been sort of nuts around here.

I entered both of today's cards into the monthly art contest that Stampin' Up! holds for its demonstrators. The contest was to showcase products from the Summer Mini, and I love this set! I'm always interested in new masculine sets, and this one fit the bill. I also like nautical stuff, so this is a great set for me. I didn't win anything this time, but perhaps I'll try again in a few months.

The first one uses heat embossing to create wave crests, and I have to say, I redid this card two or three times (including all the brayering and embossing) before I got a version I liked. I had seen a painting I wanted to recreate, and it proved quite a bit more difficult than I had thought (plus I made a bunch of dumb mistakes on the first go-round). I'm reasonably happy with this version. The second card is one I've been teaching at my brayer classes (contact me if you live in southern Jersey and want to make this and another card in July). I love how it came out. I know it is sort of similar to the first card, but isn't it amazing how a change of color scheme can change the whole feel of a card? I'm a bit too tired to type up a supply list, so if you want particulars, just send me an e-mail.

Back to reality

2011-06-06T15:17:00.005-04:00

We spent this past week visiting family and friends in the Midwest, starting in Nebraska and ending in Minnesota with a stop in Iowa along the way. We had a lovely time catching up with old friends and seeing my family for a day at an indoor water park in Omaha. The boys did very well with all the toing and froing, but they missed a lot of naps, got to bed late quite a few nights, and so are quite tired today. (So am I, for that matter!)

I spent this morning doing a lot of the administrative catching up that one needs to do after a week away (returning phone calls, checking e-mail, ordering stuff, calling the pharmacy, buying groceries, and so on), and have putzed around this afternoon not really getting anything done. I did laundry while we were traveling, but somehow have two loads worth to do in spite of it. Oh well. I'll probably get to it later today.

Today's card is one I made two weeks ago whilst cleaning out dsp scraps and making cards for the troops. I had a 3" scrap of dp left from several years ago that I liked but couldn't think how to use, and remembered a layout I've been playing and with thought it would work well. I think it is a nice masculine card for any occasion. I'm not sure whether stamping the sentiment directly on the dp was a mistake or not, but I'm leaving it for now. I sponged the background of the tree with Baja Breeze, and then around the edges with Chocolate Chip to take down the brightness of the Whisper White some.

Supplies:
Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White cs, retired dsp
Plant hope, Sincere Salutations stamp sets
Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze classic ink
Baja Breeze seam binding ribbon
sponge wedge
Framed tulips emboss folder/Big Shot

MDS Birth Announcements

2011-05-26T21:04:00.005-04:00

Boy, you'd think I have babies on the brain or something! I've spent some time in the last few weeks designing some birth announcement samples for my etsy store, and wanted to share a few with you. You can check out the listings by following the link to my store. There are four girl announcements and three boy announcements. This boy announcement is my favorite, I think. I love the modern feel of it. I got the color scheme from another birth announcement I saw on the web somewhere, and it kind of grew from there.

Did you know that when you purchase certain downloads for My Digital Studio (click to purchase), they come with a scrapbook page template? Pretty nifty! The Friends Never Fade stamp brush set (click to purchase and download) comes with a 12x12 scrapbook page template. I had also downloaded the matching Greenhouse Gala paper(click to purchase and download) so I could play around with the elements individually. I liked the layout a lot, but don't do 12x12 scrapping, so I started to modify it into a smaller scrapbook page, and then suddenly thought it would make a nice layout for a card, and then thought of another birth announcement sample. (So now you know how my creative stream of consciousness works...) So anyway, here is the announcement I came up with:

By the way, if you are PhotoShop savvy, or have another image manipulation program that you like (such as MS Publisher) you can purchase downloads for My Digital Studio without purchasing the MDS software. After you check out and go to download, there is a non-MDS download option. I will say, however, that the MDS software is a great buy, easy to use, and lots of fun to work with! I'm learning all kinds of new tricks (I just learned how to ruche my ribbon digitally, for example) and am starting to understand how to manipulate certain aspects of the program beyond the beginner stage. This could be addictive!

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

2011-05-23T22:15:00.005-04:00

One thing I decided when I started having babies was to make a scrapbook of each child's first year. I don't care for traditional baby books, but I do like having a record of each month in pictures, plus other mementos. I figured I could keep up with a project like that for each child if it was only a year and each month only had a page or two. I finished H's book easily, and have had a bit more trouble keeping up with M's (in part because of my own inertia, not so much because of time). I decided this next baby is going to get a hybrid scrapbook--part MDS, part traditional scrapbook. I was going to do all MDS, but realized that there are always a few 3D items from the hospital that I like to put in the book, so I'll have individual pages printed from MDS, plus some pages I physically scrap myself. A good solution if I do say so.

I decided to start on the new baby's scrapbook tonight. I needed a project to work on, but was too lazy to pull out my crafting supplies, so off to MDS I went! I made these two pages of the ultrasound pictures I've had so far (I have to have a lot of early ultrasounds because I tend to have challenging first trimesters). I like how they turned out. I may change up the color scheme, depending on whether it is a girl or a boy, and depending on what the overall theme of the book ends up being, but I may leave it too. Both H and M's books are a wild modge podge of colors and styles.

The DSP problem

2011-05-20T12:23:00.003-04:00

I admit, I have a problem with designer series paper (DSP). I love it, and buy way too much of it! Since I'm not a huge scrapbooker, it takes me a long time to get through one pack of paper. Multiply that by several packs, plus paper shares, and you start to understand my issue. I'm sure many of you have the same problem! I used to struggle with hoarding particular paper that I loved, but I came to a realization last summer that life is just too short to hang on to everything. There is always more beautiful paper that is coming out, and after a while, even the paper that I loved can start to seem tired and dated to me. So my resolution is to use up that paper!

I have been seeing this card making the blog rounds lately and I was quite enamoured of it because it uses up a whole pack of dsp without breaking a sweat! Unfortunately, I don't have the scallop square die, and I don't have a ton of 12x12 cardstock lying around to make the most efficient card bases. So I adapted the original card to standard size, and then adapted Julie Davison's wonderful design to use up the scraps leftover from those, and voila, a stack of beautiful easy cards all ready to go! 1 sheet of 12x12 dsp makes a total of 9 cards (6 of one design and three of the other). I'm sending most of mine to From Our Hearts, but I kept a few thank you and thinking of you cards because my personal stash was pretty depleted.

So for those of you who have a lot of dsp lying around that you'd like to use up (especially with the new catalog coming out in July with lots of lovely new paper, I'm sure!), here's how you cut it. Take the 12x12 sheet and cut it into three 4" strips. Cut each strip into 5 1/4" pieces, so you now have two 4"x5 1/4" pieces, plus a 4"x 1 1/2" strip left over. Repeat with the other two strips so you end up with 6 large pieces and three little strips. Add ribbon, punched sentiment and adhere to card base! Easy. You can see on the card above how the little strips are added. I just cut a bunch of Whisper White or Very Vanilla (depending on the dp) card fronts, add a torn strip of cardstock in a coordinating color, put the strip on top and stamp a largish sentiment in the corner. You can also use the Fabulous Frames set and stamp a small sentiment in the middle, as with this card (a total CASE of Julie's card):

Toddlers, Tantrums and Quilts

2011-05-14T21:07:00.005-04:00

This week was a frustrating one for me. My three year old is going through a pretty challenging phase and it seems like every day is a new opportunity for him to get into trouble, pick on his brother, throw things, destroy his toys or other objects around the house, defy me or my husband, and generally be a pain about everything. He does all these things at some point in every day, throws tantrums that I can't always physically contain, and pushes all my buttons, and by the end of the week, I'm mentally and physically exhausted from it all. I don't know what I'd do without the relief of my regular babysitter! This week was particularly challenging because in addition to all of the above, H refused to nap all week as well, which meant that by 4:30 in the afternoon, he was beyond tired, and unable to be reasonable At. All. It wasn't that I don't make him go into his bed and lie down for several hours, but he just didn't sleep! Mostly he used the time to fill up his pull up, as we are having major bowel training issues these days.

So when I got up this morning, I mentally geared myself for another awful day. And then I remembered. Oh wait. It is Saturday, and my husband is done with his Supreme Court cases! He doesn't have to work today for the first time in months!! Yippie! He had decided to take H to the zoo, and I would keep M with me, but M is so easy to have around at this stage that it was no big deal! M and I walked to Whole Foods to make a big grocery run, and then he puttered around in the living room playing with toys while I cooked almost a week's worth of meals. I don't usually do that, but I was feeling so mentally light and free from the burden of dealing with H for several hours that I was energized to do so. Plus it means I'm going to have more free time around dinner times this week, which is generally when my children misbehave the worst. (The witching hour, as anyone with small children knows...) I made beef vegetable soup, raspberry muffins, turkey noodle soup, the meat base for a taco pie, and cooked up a bunch of turkey for a turkey salad with peppercorn ranch dressing that I'm going to have for lunches this week (I'm allergic to chicken, for those who don't know). It felt great to get all that made today, even though I was pretty tired by the time I finished! We ate the beef soup with the muffins for lunch and dinner today (my husband was thrilled to have two hot meals in one day!) and there was still enough left over to freeze for a rainy day.

Now that we are past Mother's Day a bit, and my mom has received her card, I can show it to you. It took a lot of restraint not to show it the night I made it, but I stayed strong and held back. I used a great tutorial from splitcoast, but this card took a LONG time. Not because it is difficult to make (it isn't) but because I made some stupid mistakes on the first couple of tries and had to start over. Plus I lacked a 3/4" square punch and cutting all those bitty squares with my paper cutter was a bit pesky. But I'm very pleased with the final result and would like to try my hand at another quilted card soon! I have in mind to try the wedding ring design somehow.

Supplies:
Rose Red, Pear Pizzazz cs, Springtime Vintage dp
Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set
Rose Red Ink
Decorative label punch
pearls
rosettes
pear pizzazz seam binding
petals a plenty EF
sanding block

Putting one foot in front of the other

2011-05-03T16:10:00.005-04:00

I must confess, I'm so unmotivated lately. Not just about stamping and creative work, but about everything. I'm having a hard time catching up on lost sleep from Holy Week and Pascha, and all my boys (husband included) seem to be passing a cold back and forth amongst themselves. Kind of draining. On the upside, I got to see Water for Elephants in the theatre all by myself last night and thoroughly enjoyed the movie and the night out. Love Robert Pattinson, can't wait for Breaking Dawn in November!!

The card I wanted to show you today isn't photographed yet because it took me 3 hours to make! I had this vision in my head, but it took three tries to get it (and I'm still not certain I like the result), and by the time I was done with it, the good light was gone. So hopefully I can photograph it later in the week and get it posted for you. Maybe by then it will have grown on me.The card I'm showing instead is one that I'm quite pleased with! I made it a few weeks ago when I was coming up with original designs for the brayer classes that I'm teaching this month and next. This one took a few tries to get right, but I based the design on a very cool photograph I found, and went from there. I'm trying to focus on more original designs, especially for technique-type cards. I sent this card in the mail to my mail swap buddy for April, Nikki, a fellow Philly Inker. So that was the wind up, here is the pitch. Want to learn how to make two cards like this one and get on speaking terms with your brayer? Come and join me for a class on Monday, May 16 in the northeast Philadelphia suburbs, or, if you live closer to New Jersey or Delaware, on Thursday, June 9 in Newark, Delaware. E-mail me if you want to attend; cost is $20 and includes two original designs with envelopes. I'll send the details about location and such by e-mail.

Playin' around with crayons

2011-04-25T15:02:00.004-04:00

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! Greetings on this Bright Monday. The sun is shining, the day promises to be summer-like, and it is a great start to the Paschal season. We spent the latter half of Holy Week and Pascha (Easter) in Princeton as we usually do, to celebrate with our parish there. Our boys stayed up through the midnight service and through the early morning celebrations! (Well, the baby took a brief nap in the middle of the liturgy around 1 a.m., but he was up the rest of the time!) We got back to our hotel around 5:00 a.m. and I've never been so grateful for black out curtains in my life! We all slept about four hours, and then headed off to a friend's house for a Paschal brunch, and then home. All in all, a lovely weekend and a great Pascha celebration with our church family.

Waiting for the Pascha service to start (11:30 p.m.!)

I had an unexpectedly eventful morning today. I had my routine monthly midwifery appointment at 9:30, and ended up waiting in the room for more than an hour before the midwife got there. I had woken up with another blistering headache (they've been plaguing me almost daily for the last month and Tylenol doesn't even take the edge off), and while I was sitting there, I could just feel myself feeling sicker and sicker. I couldn't get enough air in my lungs because my nose was so congested with hormones and such, and my head was pounding enough to make me dizzy and seeing spots. So I mentioned these things, along with the rather extreme fatigue I've been experiencing the last week or so, and, after she listened to the baby's heartbeat on the doppler (a strong 154 beats per minute!), she said, "Get thee to prenatal triage at the hospital!" Luckily the hospital is only a few blocks away on foot, but after waiting an hour at the office, and needing to run several errands this morning, going to the prenatal triage unit at the hospital at 11 a.m. was no on my agenda. But I went, they gave me some stronger meds for the headache, which helped quite a bit (still there, but much more a background noise than the main concert at this point). She didn't want to do anything about the short breathing, but at least an unexpected side effect of the medication was to ease some of the congestion in my face. So while the breathing isn't great, it is better. I was able to run my errands in double quick time on my way home, and got home by 2 p.m. My lovely long suffering babysitter was gracious to stay late, so everything worked out well.

Today's card is one I made in March while playing around with the crayon resist technique. It didn't quite turn out like what I had envisioned in my head, but I think I know what I will fix in the future if I make it again. What I should have done was put the white crayon in the middle areas and left the rims and edges dark, as if it was a rusty old truck. Oh well. That's what experiments are for, right? It is a rather nice masculine card. I'm saving it for Father's Day.

I also just had to share this photo from Spring Fling--it comes from my upline, Claire's, blog, but I think April Boyea, one of our fellow Philly Inkers, took the photo. I'm demonstrating how to make my cowboy lightening card.

(Yes, that is a cheap-o gas station French Vanilla cappuccino--I don't want to hear anything about it! :)

Baby Gift Sets in the shop!

2011-04-15T14:09:00.003-04:00

I finally got my act together and edited all the photos from the baby gift sets I've been developing. I've listed a bunch of them in my etsy shop, so if you are looking for a great baby gift, check it out! Each set includes 10 baby thank you cards, coordinating customized onesie and coordinating welcome baby card. Sets are also available with three onesies.

Here is one of the sets that is available:

Stinkin' cute, eh? Click HERE to see other available sets. If you are looking for something specific, just let me know! I have a large catalog of images to work with.

Too tired to tango...

2011-04-12T18:39:00.005-04:00

Ever have one of those days when it just seems like too much energy to put one foot in front of the other? The last few days have felt like that to me. My husband has been gone 4 of the last 5 days, and I'm starting to feel it. I don't want to change one more diaper, feed one more jar of baby food, clean up one more mess of toys on the floor, wash one more load of laundry, or carry a 20+ pound child up 3 flights of stairs anymore. le sigh. M is getting up at 4:30 most mornings right now and is awake and talking (loudly) in his crib from then, and is also waking up around 10:30-11:00 p.m. with night terrors, so I'm sort of getting it at both ends right now. To say I'm in a creative slump would be to insult creative slumps. I'm hopeful that once my husband's next Supreme Court case is over, and all the attendant chaos, that things will settle and I'll get my brain back. Or maybe not. All my brain cells seem to have done the pregnancy migration south to the placenta. But enough crabbing about all that.

I'm so excited to share these two cards with you today! I finally forced myself to get out my brayer and inks and get creating! I've had a file of photographs that I thought would make good brayer-type cards for a while, and even though I look at the file from time to time, it has just seemed so overwhelming to me to actually get out the ink and brayer and make something. But I was determined to create something original today. I had one spectacular fail that went straight into the recycling bin, but the other two I'm quite pleased with. I was so excited to show them, I had to photograph and post them right away--I'm sure some of you who read this blog will understand that impulse!

Lost a week there...

2011-04-07T14:29:00.007-04:00

I looked at my little baby ticker yesterday and realized (to my surprise!) I was at 18 weeks already! Somehow I lost a week in there. I kept thinking I was going on 17 weeks. Such is life with two small (and very active) children. I'm carrying quite differently this time--I'm all belly, which I find strange and interesting. I do feel quite breathless the last week or so, and find I'm running out of room below the ribcage, so I guess the only place to go from here is OUT! Stretchmarks, schmetchmarks. :)

18 week old baby in utero

Today's card is the other swap I brought to Spring Fling. I wanted to have two designs in part because I dislike making the same card 25 times unless it is for a paying project, and in part because I wanted to showcase some of the new preview products! This card uses the new Paisley Prints dsp that was available in March to demonstrators and is available to customers this month as part of a special promotion called Spring is Blossoming. The label is from a set of four labels that is also part of the Spring is Blossoming promotion. Basically, the deal is this: if you purchase $20 worth of products from me, you can buy this stamp set and paper ahead of everyone else; if you purchase $350 worth of products (or host a party with that amount) you get the set and paper for free! Both the stamp set and dsp will be available in the new Idea Book and Catalog coming out in July. Can't wait for all that lovely scrumptiousness.

This paper is seriously gorgeous. I'm hoping to do a little project with it in May to really showcase all the different patterns. I will say that I futzed with the label on this card for a long time--should it be white, or crumb cake, should it be Night of Navy or Cherry Cobbler? Or More Mustard? Should it be one layer or two? Which label design should I use? And so on. I had the basic layout and design in my head, but that last little piece of the puzzle took a bit to come together. I like the clean look of the finished product though.

Supplies: Night of Navy, Crumb Cake, More Mustard, Pear Pizzazz, Cherry Cobbler cs, Paisley Prints dp Four Frames stamp set, Teeny Tiny Wishes Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy inks Designer label punch Night of navy satin ribbon Vintage wallpaper EF

Lightening Cowboy

2011-04-06T20:56:00.005-04:00

Back on the couch the last few days. I've had a headache that just won't quit and Tylenol is just taking the edge off. So I haven't been terribly productive so far this week. It's probably to do with the spring weather--all those budding trees wreak havoc with my system. At least I'm getting my Spooks fix. :)

I made this card for my display board at Spring Fling. I saw a card on splitcoast that used crayon resist to make a lightening card, did a little searching around, saw this card, and I thought, that streak of lightening needs a cowboy in front of it! The card kind of grew from there.

Supplies:
White crayon
Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Rich Razzleberry, Elegant Eggplant, Basic Black inks
Out West stamp set
Pink Pirouette, Basic Black, Elegant Eggplant cardstock
sponges

More baby gifts

2011-04-04T10:30:00.005-04:00

Good morning! It is supposed to be 75 degrees today, but it is still in the upper 50s at 10:30 a.m. and I'm a little doubtful about that particular prediction. The weather forecasters haven't really been on target much lately.

Today's post features the other baby gift set I made for my friend and upline Claire, who had her second baby boy on Monday! I brought her a meal on Friday, along with the gifts, and got to meet the baby. Ezra is such a cutie with his dark hair and eyes. I'm curious to see who he will look like as he gets older.

I made this set before the other one, so I only had a 3 month short sleeve onesie on hand, but I figured it would do for the early summer months. I started with the onesie and the project kind of grew from there. I printed the frog from MDS, then decided on the thank you card design, and finally, on the baby card design.

The thank you cards I kept very simple, to reflect Claire's style. I made 10 of these. The color is a little off in the photo, but the base is Old Olive and it was a nice rich contrast to that pop of Pumpkin Pie.

I printed an panel of dsp from the MDS set Hoppy Memories and then started futzing with the layout. You know how sometimes you have an idea in your head and it just doesn't quite come out that way in the final product? This card was like that. I still like the final result, though. The basic problem was that I made the frog too small for the layout I wanted, so I kept adding layers to the medallion to make it bigger, but then it didn't quite look right against the dp, so I added the scallop square, and so on. You get the idea. Still cute, and it matches everything!

I've decided I'm going to sell a few sets like this in my etsy store, so if you are looking for a unique baby gift, be sure to check out The Paper Chef at etsy.com I have a lot of different images to work with, so if you want something specific, just let me know! I'll post them in the shop sometime early next week. If you need something sooner, contact me through the shop or leave a comment on this post with a valid e-mail address and your people can talk to my people and we'll do lunch. ;)

Three posts in one week

2011-04-01T19:30:00.006-04:00

I know, you are dying of heart failure! Truth is, I've been a busy bee this week, making baby gifts, getting caught up on the big scrapbook project for a client, and generally digging out. I do find myself getting tired pretty quickly because I think I'm still getting over this bug, but as long as I manage my time and energy appropriately, I'm okay.

Two of my friends had babies this week, one on Sunday and one on Monday, and I wanted to do something special for each of them. I generally make baby thank you cards as my baby gift, but I remembered an idea on Mary Jo Price's blog from a long time ago, and wanted to give it a whirl, now that I have MDS! She had taken some MDS images, printed them on transfer paper and made custom onesies that were so stinkin' cute! I had some onesies, some transfer paper and away I went! I think the onesies plus the thank you cards are going to become my go-to baby gift. They are unique, customizable and so cute! I still need to come up with cute packaging, but a basic gift bag will do for now, I think.

This set is for my friend who had a baby girl on Sunday. It is their first baby, and I'm so happy for them! I made the thank you cards first. I remembered a great scrapbook page make-n-take from our Spring Fling three weeks ago, and adapted the layout and colors to the card. Thanks, Melissa, for the great idea! I made about 10 of these, I think.

I wanted the whole set to coordinate, so I downloaded the Baby Steps stamp brush set for My Digital Studio, created a jpg with the mama elephant in Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz and Daffodil Delight, and printed them on the transfer paper. I ironed them onto 6 month long sleeve cotton onesies, because in my experience, most people get tons of 3 month size clothing and then have nothing in the bigger sizes. And long sleeve onesies are always a plus, in my book. They are great as undershirts, or as shirts by themselves with a sweater over top, or whatever. Babies need layers in cooler weather and long sleeve onesies are the perfect solution!

Finally, I wanted to make a welcome baby card to match everything else. I had in mind to use the Baby Steps stamp again, but those paper daisies were just calling to me, and I saw this week's Stampin' 411 sketch and couldn't resist. Besides, it is meant to coordinate, not match exactly, right? I'm not totally thrilled with this card, because I fiddled with it for so long (you know how that goes sometimes), but I think it is cute and goes well with the rest of it.

Supplies:
Whisper White, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz, Daffodil Delight cs, Pear Pizzazz, Pumpkin pie dp
Baby Steps stamp/digi
Poppy Parade ink
Paper daisies
Pumpkin pie cord buttons
Button sizzlit
dimensionals
pearls
daffodil delight satin ribbon

Tall Dark Handsome and British...

2011-03-29T20:05:00.008-04:00

This post is completely frivolous, so if you come here for serious stuff, better skip this one. If you're all in, read on!

I'm happy to report that I'm starting to feel better for the first time in almost a week. I guess that 12 hours of sleep last night did some good. I'm still a bit wobbly and woozy (I took a short walk this morning that did me in!) but I can feel my energy returning, and I'm grateful. I even got some work done this afternoon (including the sympathy card I mentioned in the earlier post from today) instead of swooning over Richard Armitage in Sparkhouse all afternoon in a sickness-induced stupor. (ha!)

I became acquainted with his work in the BBC series Robin Hood, and loved him in it, and have spent some time scrounging up all the other things he has been in, which is difficult given many have British-only releases! I was so glad when he was cast in series seven of Spooks, which I love. I admit it, I'm a sucker for British television series. And tall dark handsome British blokes. :) Oh, and if you are tempted to try out Spooks (also known as MI:5), start with series one, which stars Matthew MacFadyen of Pride and Prejudice fame. The later series have Rupert Penry-Jones (also lovely) and a wonderful cast of supporting actors and actresses. You can stream it on Netflix.

So, on to the card stuff. I haven't participated in a blog challenge in ages, and when I noticed Mary Jo's challenge this week was to use Nature's Walk, and realized I had several cards in the hopper that used that fabulous set, I had to post them right away! I also realized while in the process of trying to find and edit said cards, I didn't photograph a few of the cards I've made with this set. In my own defense, one of them was a swap that I was literally finishing as I ran out the door and I didn't have any left when I got home! I'll try to recreate it as a full card sometime soon and share it with you.

The first card is CASEd from a splitcoast stamper, and I can't find the original card on splitcoast to provide a link, so if this looks like your card, please leave a comment with a link to your card so I can give proper credit! I've been through the Nature Walk gallery twice looking for it and just can't find it now! I made it as one of my swaps for Spring Fling. Sadly, it didn't win any of the swap contest awards. (sniff, sniff) I really like this card, though. I did have to simplify the ribbon treatment, however, since I had to make 12 of these! The sponging and coloring was quite enough, thank you. :)

The second card is adapted from a swap I received from Sue Astheimer, another Philly Inker, a few months ago. The original idea came from a Stampin' Success article last fall. First, ink up your clear block with Crumb Cake or something light, and stamp it directly on your cardstock to create a background, then stamp over it with another stamp. I rather like the effect! I think Sue's card used masking and sponging instead of the clear block stamping, but I thought that would make for a nice adaptation of her design. I made 10 of these for a silent auction that I was asked to donate to.

In Sympathy

2011-03-29T10:33:00.005-04:00

One of our friends from Iowa just lost her dad to cancer. I have followed my friend's journey on her blog, and ached for her as she watched her father die by inches. At the end, it was peaceful and fast, and he is now at rest, but my friend and her family are now grieving the huge void in their lives. It is times like these that I dislike being so far away from friends and family, for I wish we could be there to support them.

This sympathy card was part of a pack of cards I gave to my husband's grandmother as a Christmas gift. I used a design from Jen Sannes--I loved the oval and the basic layout with the pops of Marina Mist against the green. While this is not the card I am going to send my friend, it is on my to-do list for this week to make her a nice sympathy card. I'm a bit under the weather with some kind of respiratory bug, but I need to do this for my friend. Please keep the Johnson family in your prayers.

Supplies:
Old Olive cs/dp, Whisper white cs
Thoughts and Prayers stamp set
Old Olive, Marina Mist markers
Marina mist taffeta ribbon
pearls
ovals die

One down...

2011-03-23T19:33:00.006-04:00

Today, my husband argued his first case before the Supreme Court, Turner v. Rogers. He asked me to be there, so my mother-in-law and I took a very early train to Washington DC this morning and went to the Supreme Court to sit in on the session. After hearing so much about the case after all these months, it was fun to watch both sides argue their case, and to see the whole process up close. (Plus, since my husband clerked for Justice Kennedy many years ago, I knew a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff about the Court and some of the Justices). I will say, in my totally unbiased opinion, that my husband did better than lawyer for the Turner side. But that is just me. Now they have to wait a few months to see what the Justices actually decide as a verdict in the case. And my husband can focus his attention on the next case he is due to argue in less than a month. Suffice to say that it has been a busy few months in our household, with my husband working 70 hours a week since the beginning of January. But the end is in sight! I was very proud of him today. I wanted to point and say to the room, "That one, he's mine!" Ha!

The Justices (I couldn't find a current photo that included newly-appointed Justice Kagan)

Our return train was VERY late (we were stopping every 15 minutes or so for some sort of engine trouble) and limped back into Philadelphia two hours late, which wasn't ideal, but at least we made it home! I deemed it a good night for (Middle Eastern) take out to celebrate the day, and my husband and I went out to a local coffee shop after dinner for a nice celebratory (vegan) dessert.

Today's card is another one I made for my display board on Saturday using another of Michelle Zindorf's tutorials. (She's the real talent in the room, I just pretend...) She made her original card with non-SU! stamps and a few retired colors, so I modified the card to use the palm tree from Plant Hope and current blues. I like the line of palm trees in the different blues--I think it quite striking. I wish I had a little bird stamp like her original card used; it would have made a nice accent in the foreground. So many stamps, so little money! le sigh. :) I also substituted rhinestones for the brads because quite frankly, I'm slightly lazy when it comes to putting in brads. So now you know one of my dirty stamping secrets!

Supplies:

Baja Breeze, Marina Mist, Not Quite Navy, Basic Black inks
Plant Hope stamp set
sponges
Whisper White, Marina Mist, Not Quite Navy cardstock
white gel pen, basic black marker
rhinestones

Demonstrating for Renoir

2011-03-19T19:45:00.004-04:00

Today was our big Philly Inker Spring Fling--what a blast! We spent the day socializing, eating, hearing a great two-part presentation from Stampin' Up! employee and demonstrator, Maxine Conrad, and, of course, stamping! I demonstrated some brayer and direct to paper projects at the beginning of the day, which was a lot of fun. But, as I said to several people throughout the day, since Michelle Zindorf was actually there, it was a little like demonstrating Impressionism with Renoir looking over your shoulder. Ha!

I had a lot of favorites from the day, and I'll show you more of what I did for my demonstration in the coming days/weeks, depending on how often I'm able to get a post together, but will leave you with one of the cards I made for the display board. I used Michelle's excellent tutorial, but changed it from a direct to paper card to a sponged card, which I think is just as striking. This card is also a good "think outside the box" kind of card, because the cowboy stamp is actually a line-image that is meant to be watercolored. Michelle had the idea to turn him into a silhouette stamp and I think it worked great! I am going to have lots of fun with this little guy now. :)

Supplies:

Ink: Not Quite Navy, Marina Mist, Rich Razzleberry, Early Espresso, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black ink and marker
Stamps: Out West
Paper: More Mustard (grunged up with Early Espresso); Basic Black, Whisper White
Accessories: small star punch (retired); hemp twine (recycled from some packaging), antique brass brads, dimensionals, paper piercer, sponges

So it Begins...

2011-03-06T21:02:00.005-05:00

Today is Forgiveness Sunday, the last day before the start of Great Lent. This is the last day to eat dairy until Pascha (Easter) on April 24, the day to put one's house in order before the trials of the Fast. We participate in a service called Forgiveness Vespers, where we ask one another's forgiveness not only for past wrongs, to start the work of the soul with a fresh start. In our family, we ask forgiveness of one another every evening as part of our evening prayers.

I always find it is a day to take a breath and wait with anticipation for the weeks ahead. Lent is a struggle, to be sure, but it is one I anticipate and look forward to every year. There is something about the excesses of the winter holiday season that makes one long for the privations and soul- searching of Lent. It is a quiet time of year for us, with many extra services, penitential melodies and texts, prostrations, and the realization that one must cling to the grace of God to get through this life. It is a time to work out one's salvation with fear and trembling always keeping the coming joy of the Resurrection in the background.

I wish you all a blessed Lent and beg your forgiveness for all wherein I have offended in thought, word, deed, and in all my feelings.

(Today's card is CASEd from my fellow Philly Inker, Kristin Kortonick, who in turn modified a card from Ilina Crouse. I loved it so much I had to make it right away. Thanks for all the inspiration, ladies!)

Supplies:
Baja Breeze, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Springtime Vintage dp
Easter Blossoms stamp set
Vanilla rosettes (colored with a marker)
Pretty in Pink, Marina Mist, Early Espresso markers, Crumb Cake, Pear Pizazz ink pads
Pear Pizazz seam binding ribbon
sticky strip
glue dot
large and scallop oval punches
dimensionals

Rainy Day Mondays

2011-02-28T15:27:00.004-05:00

I know, I bet you thought I fell in, right? My mom was here for a week, and she just flew home today (boo-hoo!) so I was just too busy to post anything! We had a great time this week--she played with the boys, read lots of stories, kept them entertained so I could make dinner in peace every night (what a change!), helped put them to bed and down for naps, and was generally good company all day. (Plus a good movie buddy for the evenings when this pregnant lady collapsed in a puddle on the floor...)

After my mom left today, I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the house, dusting, swiffering the floors and laundering dirty sheets and towels. So by the time it was nap time for the boys, it was naptime for Mama too! Unfortunately, the baby never sleeps much during the day, so I didn't get as much of a nap as I wanted, but that is what Fig Newtons are for, right?
Today's card is a complete CASE of one by my fellow Philly Inker, Ilina Crouse. I wasn't that into the lace ribbon until I saw this card--now I kind of like it (I admit it, I actually bought a roll just to make this card...) I changed the sentiment and used Not Quite Navy paper at the bottom instead of Marina Mist as she did. Just ignore my little stamping flub with the sentiment--that's how you know it is hand-made, right? In any case, I LOVE this card. I already sent it to someone and might just have to make another for me!

I've been beavering away on those display cards for our Spring Fling in just a few weeks, and have new stamps to play with as of today, so I'm hoping to get some more cards made later this week.

Supplies:
Very Vanilla, Not Quite Navy, Springtime vintage dp
Baja Breeze, Always Artichoke markers
Holidays and Wishes, Nature's Walk stamps
Victoria crochet lace
scallop edge punch

MDS Announcement

2011-02-16T09:36:00.003-05:00

I think it is safe to say that this cat is out of the bag now. I'm happy to announce that we are expecting another baby in late August/early September! My official due date is September 7, but my babies seem to want to come about a week early, so I'm sort of expecting the baby to make an appearance in late August or around the first of September. My dad is rooting for September 2, which is his birthday, so we'll have to see what happens!

I had an early ultrasound yesterday and the baby's heartbeat was fast and strong and everything appears to be developing on schedule; we are very grateful for the good news.

The card above is how we told our families the big news. I designed it using My Digital Studio, had it professionally printed as a 5x7 postcard, and then mailed it off! Luckily, the cards came with envelopes, because I'm not sure what the postmen would have thought about delivering such a card. I got the Save the Date idea from somewhere on the web; the suggestion was to make birthday party invitations, but I realized when I was in the middle of designing them that some people might take it literally and show up at the hospital. Not ideal, in my opinion. So I tweaked it to be a Save the Date card, which I think works even better! And I love this color combination--nicely gender neutral. We like to wait until the baby is born to find out the gender and while I have my suspicions about the gender based on our dates, we'll be happy with whoever God sends us.

The windup...and....the pitch!

2011-02-14T13:38:00.004-05:00

You know how sometimes you make a New Year's resolution in late December, but by the first week in January, you know you'll never do it? I usually have that happen to me. I find the last week of December is a great week for making promises to myself about the new year, and first week of January is a great week for breaking them all. Except this year, one of my resolutions was to CASE a Zindorf card once a week. Well, my resolution lasted about as long as any of my resolutions until I got an e-mail from my upline, Claire, asking me to do a display board and demonstration for our upcoming Philly Inker's Spring Fling. Which meant my back was now to the wall and now I HAD to keep my resolution. 15 cards by March 19 means a card a week (or more).

So far, I'm doing pretty well. I've made six cards in the last week, am waiting on supplies for another 3, and will try to keep soldiering on with the rest. I should be fine, barring disaster. I am nervous because la Zindorf herself will be there, but I've met her before, and she is just the nicest, sweetest person. So I should just climb out of my tree and get over myself.

And with that windup, I'm sure you are now expecting a Zindorf pitch. Sorry to disappoint! I want to save them until after Spring Fling, so I'll share them with you in late March. Today's cards are two simple valentines I made for my last From Our Hearts box in late December. (Don't worry, I saved a valentine for my hubby!)

Bond, James Bond...

2011-02-09T15:11:00.004-05:00

My dad had surgery on his shoulder last week to repair a torn rotator cuff and remove some bone spurs. My parents live in the Midwest, so they got hit with the blizzard and 18" of snow that everyone else west of the Mississippi did, so his surgery was delayed a day, but he did have it, and everything went well, thank God! The tears were less than 50% tears, which meant they could be repaired laproscopically instead of by opening up his whole shoulder, which has a recovery time of days rather than the months of the latter option. I talked to him the day after and he sounded very chipper and upbeat, and said he felt hardly any pain. But the following day, the nerve block had worn off and he was feeling pretty stiff and sore. But my dad is nothing if not a trooper, so I expect he'll soldier through this just like every other physical difficulty in his life. He's my hero. :)

I wanted to make him a card and a little care package to have after the surgery, so I made this card, and sent him my three favorite Sean Connery James Bond movies (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger--since you asked!). I did a 30 page paper on the Connery Bond movies for my master's degree some years back and had to watch them all multiple times, so I was well acquainted with my faves. (The paper was about how the current trends in politics, society and even fashion were reflected in the Bond movies over time, but really it was just a good excuse to drool over a young Connery and get a good grade for doing so...) :)

The card uses a Stamping 411 sketch from a few weeks ago, and the rest of the card kind of evolved from there. I had a white Plenty of Petals embossed panel lying around from something else, and decided it made a good background for my tree. A scrap of Daffodil delight ribbon waiting for use was the perfect pop of color against all that green and brown. All in all, a nice masculine get-well card. Well, in my opinion at least!

Well, it is cold here today (11 degrees!) so stay warm if you are cold like me!

No Mojo

2011-02-02T21:43:00.006-05:00

I had my last Pilates session today, and boy do I feel it tonight. I'm taking a break from Pilates for a while. I'm kind of glad, actually, because I'm feeling a bit burned out on the gym right now. My trainer made an offhand comment last week during our session that really had nothing to do with me personally, but made me feel bad about my body anyway; now I've completely lost my motivation to work out.

I did get a box of goodies from UPS yesterday, but only had the energy to unpack the box and put everything away. I mounted the stamps this morning and CASEd some cards I had saved for future reference. I just don't seem to have a lot of original creativity in my brain right now. Hopefully it will pass. I made two cards this morning, and then made another one tonight. I've got an order for wedding favors waiting on my to-do list (and I'm waiting for the supplies to arrive), so that will keep me busy for the next few days anyway. After that, I'm on to brayering using some Zindorf tutorials! My upline, Claire, asked me to do a display board for the Philly Inker's Spring Fling, and I'm so flattered she asked me! I have to make 12-15 cards for the board, plus a few little things like those shrinky dink magnets and tags, so I've got my work cut out for me for the next month or so. I guess I shouldn't stress about not having original creativity since I have so much other stuff lined up. (I also just found out that la Zindorf herself will be there, so I'm trying not to stress about that either...)

And on to today's cards. The first one is CASEd from Kerin Sylvester--I loved the watercoloring job she did and the distressed look (I don't always think that look comes off well, but on this card, I loved it!) and saved it for a rainy day. My only le sigh moment on this card is that my white gel pen died shortly before I made it, and my new one arrived only yesterday, so I had to make do with a silver gel pen, which didn't really have the same pop as the white. Oh well.

The second one is CASEd from Gretchen Barron--I loved the color combination and I really haven't used that gorgeous medallion as much as I wanted to, so it was a great excuse to get that stamp inky! I'm hoping it ends up in the next big catalog, because it really is a great set! Max's godmother asked me to make her a few birthday cards for her inlaws, so these were what I came up with!