Back to work...

Ten days of not having to go to work has been wonderful, but all good things must come to an end. I'll be reporting back to work bright and early tomorrow morning. Can't wait to see all the mail and other fun stuff that'll be piled up for me...
I got in a little crafting today with YaYas Debbie and Kimberly. Here's what I came up with:

Recipe: PTI Melon berry paper, ribbon, buttons, dark chocolate DP, new leaf buttons. Stamps ??? a cute set I gave Kimberly for Christmas. The sentiment reads: "Trees teach us to stay grounded but also to never stop reaching for the sky".

A sympathy card:

Recipe: SU Soft Sky cardstock, Spring silhouettes DP, PTI New leaf cardstock and ribbon, PTI sentiment.

Here are some springy/ summery cards:

Recipe: PTI Summer sun and Pure poppy cardstock, PTI sentiment from Handwritten Notes, SU Washington Apple DP, Dress image Retro Boutique by Rupa Shevde for Gina K. Designs.

Recipe: PTI Pure poppy cardstock, Summer sun grosgrain ribbon, SU Washington Apple DP, Bikini image Amy's Boutique from Amy R. Stamps.
Hope you have a great week. Happy crafting!

More pics

When John first got to the hospital after baby Will was born, he marched into the room and asked to see his baby. He got up in Amy's lap and checked out his brother.

The looking lasted about 2.3 seconds when he decided to check out baby's face with all the adults in the room anxiously saying "gentle, be very gentle...just touch the top of his head".

Then, without prompting, John kissed his baby. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?

Here's proud Auntie Lisa:

Since brother Will made his appearace, we've had another important birthday. John turned 3 on Feb 18th. Here's the birthday boy opening presents:

And once again kissing his baby:

I babysat John and Will a few nights ago. John periodically had to stop what he was doing to check on his baby. Here he is in his dinosaur jammies:

The little angel asleep:

Whew! How many posts was that? I think I'm caught up now...back to work on Monday.
Have a great weekend!

Valentines Day

About a month before Valentine's Day, YaYas Kimberly, Debbie, and I got together to do a little crafting. Kimberly had seen this cute project on one of the blogs. It's a cupcake baking kit---a cute way to package up a cake mix, frosting, and sprinkles. Here's Debbie with her completed project.

Here are some close ups of mine:


Cute project right? If someone were to give you this, you wouldn't make comments about the giver having nothing better to do would you? I gave this to John-John so he could have a special project to do with Mom and Dad now that his only child status has been taken away. Shawn rolled his eyes about the cute packaging...oh well, what does he know.
On the day before Valentine's Day baby Will had to be admitted to the hospital because he was very jaundiced and needed to be put under bili lights to bring down his bilirubin. That was the day of John's daycare Valentine's party. Amy had planned to go to the party with John, but couldn't because she had to take the baby to the hospital. So Aunt Lisa got to go to the party. The party basically consisted of LOTS of Cheetos cheese puff and cookie eating. Then there was a little running away from "the tickle monster".




All in all, big fun.
At the hospital, baby Will got his protective eyewear and was placed on a bili blanket and under bili lights. He stayed overnight for 2 nights (one night with Aunt Lisa babysitting so Mom could get some much needed sleep).


He looks so pitiful under the lights. Will is at home now, no longer a little pumpkin. He's a good baby, only cries if he's hungry or wet.
Stay tuned, one more baby post. I just KNOW you're dying to see more pics...

Welcome Baby Will

My newest nephew was born February 10th at 0628. Weight 7lbs 2oz, Length 20 inches. Lots of dark hair---where'd that come from??? His name is William Joseph and we've been calling him Will. Amy and Shawn dubbed him "The thinker" after one of these first pics.

So then they had to show that they were just as smart by striking this pose.

John-John seems to really like him so far. He asks about "his" baby a lot, and loves to give him kisses.


This pic cracks me up...sticking his tongue out at the baby already.

Poor Will was ever-so-slightly pumpkin tinted... I think this picture is a cry for help:


Stay tuned, there's more to come...

Catch Up

It's been over two months since I've blogged, oh the shame...
In that time work has gotten crazy busy, my nephew Will was born, and I had 10 days off of work. It's been great being off work. I've gotten lots of little projects done, and I've gotten to spend some time with John-John and his new brother Will. Now here I am with less than 2 days left of my time off, and I'm finally going to play "catch up" with this blog.
Below are a couple of birthday cards that I made recently. This first one should really be rotated so that the sentiment is horizontal. I had already rotated it and it shows up as rotated in "My Pictures" on the computer, but won't cooperate when I upload it. This is my attempt at a "masculine" card.

Recipe: PTI Ripe avacado paper and ribbon, PTI black and white basics DP, SU sentiment from Wonderful Words.


Recipe: PTI Berry sorbet cardstock and ribbon, PTI black and white basics DP, SU sentiment from Upsy Daisy, Rain Dots Cloud 9 Design, Flower embellishments ?can't find the packaging.

Anyway, you should see a couple more posts in the near future. Have a great weekend and happy crafting!

Finally Done!!!!

I don't know why, but I really had a hard time making Christmas cards this year. It was partly just getting motivated to do it, but also coming up with a design. So at long last, yesterday I finally designed and made my cards. It's nothing exciting, and actually kind of basic since I was making so many of them.


Recipe: cardstock SU Kraft and blue bayou, PTI ocean tides, DP SU soft sky collection, ribbon SU cranberry crisp, PTI chocolate, spring rain, ocean tides, dark chocolate, Michael's gold, Ink PTI vintage cream. Stamps SU Star Studded Season, Cornish Herritage Farms Christmas expressions--the sentiment says "O holy night the stars are brightly shining", inside the sentiment says "may the blessings of the season shine upon you"--also from SU Star Studded Season.

As you might imagine, there were a few problems with designing and making my cards so late. For one, I kept running out of supplies (especially ribbon). I had to change colors several times because I didn't have anymore ribbon in the particular color I was using.

I'm loving the Hansel and Grendel story additions. Who knew the turns it would take?
Have a great week!

Whatever Martha!

Have any of you seen the new show hosted by Martha Stewart's daughter, Alexis, and her friend, Jennifer? It's called "Whatever Martha". The basic premise of the show is this; they watch old clips of the Martha Stewart show and joke around about how unrealistic her various crafts/ recipes are. I could totally be another of the hosts of the show because I've never been a big Martha fan. I mean seriously, when the recipe calls for the finest Madagascar cheese cloth to strain the Veuve Clicot champagne infused sheep's brain you're a little out there. So this brings us to last week when YaYa Kimberly calls me and invites me to make Christmas cookies. She was so inspired by the latest issue of MS Living and heck, it's Christmas. Time to do some baking. So YaYa Stacie and I went over to Kimberly's house for a Christmas cookie baking extravaganza.

Kimberly and Stacie had both already made some cookie dough. All we had to do was get the cookie cutters, bake, and decorate. Easy right? I mean just a few simple steps and we would have edible works of art ala Martha. Well, they are definitely edible. Works of art? I'll let you be the judge. Here are some of the cookies before baking. They look okay, right?


Here are some of the finished products...not too shabby, but not quite up to Martha standards I would guess.





Now these next cookies are straight out of the magazine, and they are absolutly precious! It's just 2 Nilla Waffers for the bun, 1 grasshopper cookie for the meat, red/ yellow icing for the ketchup and mustard, and sesame seeds on top for an even more realistic look. Aren't they too cute? Kimberly whipped out a dozen of these in no time at all.


As you might imagine, a teeny tiny bit of cookie consumption was going on through all of this decorating. I think we might have had just a bit of a sugar high going. We started having a little more fun with our creations....

To further illustrate the crazed sugar high concept, here is exhibit B. Why yes, that is me, holding a lovely little cookie. What is that cookie you ask???

Well, it's a traditional Christmas outhouse cookie of course! I'm not sure I can even remember how this whole outhouse topic came up, but I think it went something like this. Stacie brought a gazillion cookie cutters to use. Some of my favs were the little bitty stars. Stacie cut out a teeny star out of some dough, and commented that it looked like the star/ moon cut out in an outhouse door. Being in my sugar induced haze, I thought, "an outhouse, yes, that's what I'll make next". So with no cookie cutter, or pattern; nothing but my own brilliance I made this super fab outhouse cookie. Take that Martha!

Debbie, I know you're traumatized already reading this, so you'd better cover your eyes and scroll down. After I had crafted this work of art, I thought that it still needed something. I thought perhaps it needed some words above the door. When I asked what I should write up there, without missing a beat, Kimberly suggested "Sh*t happens". So, thus it came to be. My little Christmas sh*t house. My mother must be so proud of me...

By this time, the sugar was REALLY kicking in. We even made a little Christmas vignette.
We weren't sure if these guys were rejects from a Dutch boy band, or what. We named them Hansel and Grendel (no, not Gretel, he's a boy! He's named after the character in Beowulf). There was a minute there in my sugar induced state of euphoria that I was afraid they'd break out singing "Macho, macho man..." ala The Village People.



I thought perhaps my readers could create a little story. You could just add on to the story in the comments. Here, I'll start. Once upon a time, there were two young boys named Hansel and Grendel. Grendel had grown very tired of his life as a back-up clog dancer for Abba. One day, he convinced Hansel to take a trip out into the lovely Dutch country side....




So, if you've made it this far through the post, you should probably reward yourself with a fresh, homemade cookie. Just remember, friends don't let friends create on a sugar high!
Have a great week!