The Play Date Cafe Challenge #75

I'm sitting out this week - well ok, I'm barely sitting at all! I'm deep in the middle of house cleaning & purging & packing - we plan to have our house for sale by this time next week! Between all of that, plus a bit of medical yuckiness, I just didn't have time to play along this week. BUT, my wonderful PDCC sisters sure did - check out The Play Date Cafe post - and all of the individual blogs too...

Julie Ranae * Sarah Anderson * Savannah O'Gwynn * Ruby 2 Shoes * Andrew Ewen * Fiona Shultz * Jaclyn Miller * Jinny Newlin * Michele Gross * Tracey Kuzniak * Colleen Dietrich

The latest color story is lots of fun...


And the sponsor is FABULOUS!!!


Have you ever checked out Wplus9 Design Studio?? I wasn't familiar with them until I started hearing my PDCC teammate Jinny rave about them, so I went in for a look - LOVE their stamps!!! And for this week's prize they are letting the winner choose whichever set they'd like! NICE!!! They generously sent me this gorgeous set to play with:


I feel bad that I don't have a card made with it today, but I'll be back with a Wplus9 creation just as soon as I can, I assure you!

The owner of Wplus9, Dawn Woleslagle, is this week's guest designer! Check out her gorgeous creation at the Wplus9 Design Blog.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Project 365-ish: Week 12

I don't have a whole lot to say about this past week. Let's see... Carter started his first baseball skills class in the neighborhood.


My sister Laura and I went to see Rick Springfield live at the rodeo. We had never watched a concert in a venue quite like this before (we had to watch calf ropin', barrel racin' and bull ridin' before the show!), but it was really cool. He was my first preteen rockstar crush back in the day...


Carter also had his first soccer game with his new team, North Mexico. Colors are green and red. Go Carter!


And that's all I took photos of (and none very good!) because I was up to my eyeballs this week with this...!


We are about a week away from getting our house on the market. Next Saturday is the garage sale when hopefully a bunch of this will be sold, and what isn't will end up at Goodwill. Believe it or not, this horrible garage is actually in a state of organized chaos... there is a method to my madness... :-)

I may not be around on the blog much the next couple weeks, so I'll see ya when I see ya!

Totally overwhelmed in Austin,

Guest Designing with the EIC #132!

I'm sad to say that this is my final post as March guest designer for the Etsy Inspired Challenge! *sniff* I've had such a fun time playing along. I want to thank my sweet friend Ashley for inviting me, De for helping me figure out what's what and the rest of the team for making me feel welcome. You ladies ROCK and this challenge is so much fun!! So without further ado, let's get on to today's card...


The shop this week, Fresh Metal Jewelry, is really gorgeous - beautiful jewelry, most with fabulous fabric flowers. I chose this piece for inspiration:


I loved the pink and brown combo. I was going to use a more chocolaty-brown on my card, but the ink I had was lighter. I still like the combination, though! I pulled out one of my favorite Hero Arts backgrounds - Antique Flower - and also more of the rose ribbon that I adore. I had thought about making my own fabric flowers but I suppose I got lazy when I saw this yummy ribbon just sitting there on my shelf! I added a little light blue scallop border, which sort of mimics the stone the necklace is sitting on in the photo.

Now make sure and head on over to the Etsy Inspired Challenge blog and check out the full contest details - including the prize info!! And also visit the rest of the fabulous EIC team:

Ashley * Anji * Carole * De * Emily * Jackie * Joy * Kerry * Ruby * Savannah * Sherry * Virginia

Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: S5264 Antique Flower Background, CL497 Find Joy from Hero Arts
• Paper: Hero Arts brown & blue, GP white
• Ink: Hero Hues Latte chalk ink, Palette Noir
• Accessories: CH214 Earth Mixed Accents, American Crafts Rose Ribbon - Blush, SU slit punch

The Play Date Cafe Challenge #74

It's a fun week at the Play Date Cafe - I got to play with some Lizzie Anne Designs stamps for the first time, woohoo!! They are our fabulous sponsor this time around. I love these sweet butterflies:


I also loooooove this color story from Ruby!! Purple and turquoise?? Hello!!! Libby Heaven.


The cute little butterfly stamp is of four butterflies, so I just stamped it four times. I added yummy sparkle to all the blue butterflies. :-)


This week our guest designer is the sweet and talented Taylor Usry! Yay! I love her to pieces and I'm so happy to have her joining us!! After you check out her blog, make sure and see what my PDCC sisters were up to:

Julie Ranae * Sarah Anderson * Savannah O'Gwynn * Ruby 2 Shoes * Andrew Ewen * Fiona Shultz * Jaclyn Miller * Jinny Newlin * Michele Gross * Tracey Kuzniak * Colleen Dietrich

And play along with us over at The Cafe - you don't want to miss your chance at a prize from Lizzie Anne Designs valued at $39.95!! Wowza!


Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Lizzie Anne Designs
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft, SU turquoise, GP white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: Star Dust Stickles, The Twinery lilac twine, SU scallop edge punch

Blast from the Past Blog Hop!

It's been a while since I've been able to play along with the Taylored Expressions blog hops! They are often on Thursdays, and I have other commitments on Thursdays. So when I saw this month's hop was happening on a Wednesday, I jumped on it! The theme is spring - what does spring mean to me? Well... here's my somewhat odd card for that theme...


Are you puzzled? :-) Well here's the deal - this spring, for me, is about getting healthy. I've been trying hard to eat well, drink more water (and less diet coke!), exercise... we're moving to Atlanta soon, and if I'm going to fit in with those real housewives out there (hahahahaha) I need to get my act together. Or more seriously - if I want to keep up with my kids, I need to make some changes. :-) AND... spring is also about veggies - the farmer's markets have some delicious veggies these days, which makes me very happy. And we've planted our own little veggie patch out in the garden! So I pulled out my Weigh to Go! set and got to work. The veggies are from the set, it's not patterned paper - if you look closely you can tell because I went out of the lines about a zillion times while coloring them!


My sweet friend Sankari provided an optional sketch for us hoppers, which of course I used!





Have fun hopping around, and thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Weigh to Go! from Taylored Expressions
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft, GP white, SU Pink Pirouette, AMuse DP
• Accessories: SU scallop circle punch, Mark Richards metals, gingham ribbon, machine stitching

Project 365-ish: Week 11

We've had another fun week here in Texas! First of all, it was spring break for the kids from preschool. Daddy decided to take a couple days off from work, and we went on a little mini overnight adventure to San Antonio! There's lots more photos here if you'd like to check them out, but here's one of the highlights - a visit to a cave! Fun!


We went to a restaurant for dinner that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives on the Food Network. Joel had this bison burger and sweet potato fries - does it look Guy Fieri-worthy? :-)


We sat outside at the restaurant and the weather was wonderful - here's me and my sweet girl waiting for the food to arrive.


We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day this week with a fish & chip dinner, Guinness (for the adults!) and some shamrock-shaped cookies. As is the case for most holidays, I printed off some coloring pages for the kids... :-)


Courtney wore this funky green ensemble from Grandma, who's visiting from Arizona with Grandpa, too!


I've been pulling out a lot of the kids' baby things and putting them for sale on craigslist. I had Courtney's crib bedding laid out on the bed for a photo, and Courtney came in and decided she needed to snuggle in it one last time.


Courtney's becoming such a big girl, she decided she wanted to go for a spin on Carter's big boy bike. Guess we need to get her a big girl bike now!!


Daddy and the kids went on a picnic at the park with Grandma & Grandpa, while I stayed home and did more cleaning & purging & craigslisting. Carter found a good climbing tree at the park!


And finally, the most exciting thing this week happened just tonight - Carter lost his first tooth!!! Sigh, my baby is getting so big. There's more photos here, but this is his new toothless grin. :-)


Thanks for stopping by!

Guest Designing with Etsy Inspired #131

Once again I'm thrilled to be guest designing with the Etsy Inspired Challenge! Today I played with some owls...


I couldn't resist busting out some Hero Arts owls when I saw this adorable bag in the DollBirdies shop on Etsy!


Isn't this fabric fun? The shop is full of bags made with adorable fabrics - so much card inspiration there!!

Now make sure and head on over to the Etsy Inspired Challenge blog and check out the full contest details - including the prize info!! And also visit the rest of the fabulous EIC team:

Ashley * Anji * Carole * De * Emily * Jackie * Joy * Kerry * Ruby * Savannah * Sherry * Virginia

Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Hero Arts
• Paper: white, black, light blue cardstock
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
• Accessories: White embossing powder, Spellbinders die, Hero Arts heart pearls, SU scallop edge punch, Webster's Page Bloomers, machine stitching

The Play Date Cafe Challenge #73

This week's Play Date Cafe challenge is sponsored by DeNami Design, so once again I'm playing with my adorable little elephant! Doesn't he look smashing in this week's colors?


I stamped him on three different polka dot papers, then cut them out and popped them up. The hearts were punched out, and the little cloud around the message was just cut freehand. I went just a bit bolder with my interpretation of the colors, they are a wee bit softer in Julie's color story:


I mentioned above that DeNami Design is our sponsor this week - they are offering up a $25 gift certificate - yay!!


The wonderful & talented Paulina Nakamura from DeNami Design is our guest designer! Make sure and check out her blog, Pretty Pink Posh! The DeNami Design team is also playing along this week over at the DeNami blog, so pay them a visit too!! And of course, check out what my PDCC sister came up with this week:

Julie Ranae * Sarah Anderson * Savannah O'Gwynn * Ruby 2 Shoes * Andrew Ewen * Fiona Shultz * Jaclyn Miller * Jinny Newlin * Michele Gross * Tracey Kuzniak * Colleen Dietrich

Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: G152 Elephant and E142 Stomping By from DeNami Design
• Paper: PTI cardstock, PTI DP, Hero Arts Kraft, GP white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: SU heart punch, SU slit punch, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, American Crafts caramel twine

Project 365-ish: Week 10

The 10th week of 2011 started out on a very happy note when I saw my favorite sign that spring is here - a sweet little lone bluebonnet. Sigh. Oh how I love bluebonnets!


Mardi Gras was this week and the kids got crafty. You can read all about it here - and here's a photo of Courtney creating her Mardi Gras mask.


I explained to the kids about Mardi Gras being the party before Lent, and how some people give up things during Lent. Carter decided he would give up chocolate milk, and Courtney declared she was giving up Chuck E Cheese's. Like we go there a lot. LOL!

Carter had his first soccer practice with his new team - North Mexico! He's so excited to be on a team with his friend Rachel this spring!


We did our biweekly trip to the library, where Courtney was thrilled to find her favorite book available for checkout.


Carter was equally excited to find they have superhero books at the library!


Carter loves working on cards with me in my stamp cave. I have a desk in there just for him.


I took the kids to a free demo Music Together class. They thought the class was alright, but by far their favorite part was getting to "wash" the windows afterward!


Here's my sweet and silly girl when we went out to dinner at Rudino's.


And finally, on Sunday we went to a birthday party at the Children's Museum for one of Courtney's classmates. A private party - we had the entire museum to ourselves! Very cool! Courtney loved taking care of the animals in the "vet clinic".


And Carter enjoyed the exhibits they had set up that were all about motion (aka physics!). This big rollercoaster was his favorite, he got to drop balls from the top and watch them go.


We had a special treat when we came out of the museum - a little parade of marching bands going by! I still don't know what the parade was for, but it was funky and very Austin. A bunch of supertalented ragamuffin musicians. Good times!


Thanks for stopping by today!