New pics!

No stamping today, but I wanted to share some cute baby pics. Come back tomorrow for some stamping! My post is already scheduled, since I'll be busy cooking!


Like his shirt? Sometimes we call him Charlie Brown, just for fun, so I had to get him this outfit for his birthday!


He's not going to let me dress him in dorky hats for very long, so I thought I'd take advantage of it while he's young...


Another one of my favorite outfits of his right now... my little cookie monster!


Daddy had an extra day off today... they really enjoyed the extra time together! :-)

I am so thankful for my beautiful family.

Come back tomorrow for a Limelight Sketch challenge and some cards!!

Owls and Oogly

Good morning! Happy Wednesday! Today the Unity Challenge for Unity Freaks or Unity Customers, or whatever it is called, was to make a masculine card. Make sure you check out all the other Unity gals' cards (links are on the sidebar.) Here's mine:


I don't know if I like the little owl face I made in the corner. I liked the idea better in my head! Does that happen to you sometimes?? We also had a "hubby challenge" going on, where our husbands/boyfriends/significant others would stamp a card. Although a little uncomfortable stamping, my lovely dh did stamp a card. Here it is:


Not bad for his first time stamping, eh? I am proud of him for giving it a try, even if just to humor me! :-) Finally, I picked up a little Target dollar spot book for the baby today, called One Oogly Eye. It is an adorable counting book with silly monsters in it! He liked it so much he got this big cheesy grin on his face!


I hope you all have a great day! See you tomorrow for Hip HOP Thursday!!

Pirates, Pirates Everywhere!

My four year old nephew has been obsessed with pirates for a couple of years now. It is one of the coolest obsessions one could have, I think. He takes it pretty far, though... he won't wear any shirts unless they are pirate-related, and he likes to wear them to bed too. He has every imaginable pirate toy there is, and yet he keeps getting new ones (so they must make more than every imaginable toy!) This is the second year he's had a pirate party for his birthday, and I helped make the cake this year. Isn't this the coolest cake ever?


I found the recipe online HERE, and it tells you exactly how to get it to look this AWESOME! He loved it, of course. It tasted great, too, but pretty much anything with frosting tastes good to me! :-) Well, maybe not broccoli or brussels sprouts or any vegetables of any kind, for that matter. I also made a pirate card, which he tossed aside, but his mom loved. I used a couple of cute little single Lizzie Anne stamps that I got several months ago just for this purpose.



Finally, a few weeks ago, my mom, a retired teacher, gave all her paper puppet making supplies to my nephews, and we made a bunch of pirate puppets to have for the kids to play with at the party. It was an evening party, and they wouldn't have time to have the kids make the puppets at the party, so about three of us adults made them ahead of time. We used gold cord for earrings, and each one had a different nose, mouth and facial hair. Aren't they cute?


Today has not been a great day. The baby had an off night last night, because we were out late at the Pirate Party! He cried for an hour and a half, and then was up at 5:30. During the day today, he only took one nap, and it was from 9am until 9:45am. DH is upstairs with him right now, even though it is only 6:15, because he is SO exhausted. He is so over tired, that he will probably cry forever tonight too. It is AWFUL!!!!!

Stampin' Up! Finally!

Here's post two, as promised. Short and sweet. I tried three of my new SU! sets last night: Crazy for Cupcakes, Four Square and Pocket Silhouettes. Here are the cards:


The cupcake card showcases several of SU!'s amazing new products: Pink Pirouette and Riding Hood Red In Colors, the WIDE (1"!!!!) Pink Pirouette ribbon, the Filigree brad, and the scalloped edge punch. I used ink from the lids of the ink pads to color in the cupcakes, then added dazzling diamonds glitter to the frosting! Yummy!


This second card is just about the easiest card I've ever made. I got this set specifically because I thought it would make great cards for MEN! I rarely make masculine cards, but paired with this Prestwick Designer paper, also new this year, this card came together in about one minute! Including the eyelet, because the cropodile sets eyelets so quickly!

The last card uses two more of the in colors: Baja Breeze and Pacific Point, both gorgeous in person! I used Pocket Silhouettes, which will be in a VERY close second to the cupcake set as my favorite new set. It is so soft and sweet, this set. I wish I could take credit for this cool card layout, but I saw it on Tuesday on a very talented gal's blog. Laura, one of Unity's cool Design Team members, did this to a couple of cards. I just sliced about an inch off of the top and side of the front of the card, then covered the inside with a piece of Urban Garden Designer Paper, which is to DIE for!!

That's all for today! Thanks for the prayers for my aunt. I got a phone call from Mom saying she made it through surgery okay, and is settling in to her room. I can't believe they send someone home from the hospital the DAY AFTER major surgery. If you are so inclined, please continue praying for her speedy recovery and her emotional health! I LOVE you Auntie, and so does Isaac.

More Happy Stamping, friends!

I Got Some More!

Sleep, that is...

Another good morning, peeps! The baby slept for almost 11 hours straight! Yes, I did say ELEVEN! He cried for about 45 minutes when I put him down, which was half what he did the night before. Then he slept until 6am, without waking up. No bottle, for the second night in a row! Wow! I think we are getting there! I, of course, woke up a couple of times, wondering if he was okay, since I hadn't heard him, but I think after a few more nights, I'll be okay too! :-)

I stamped yesterday. And guess what? I actually used Stampin' Up! stamps! I made a little "fun money" by selling some of my retired stamps, so I put in an order from the new catalog, which came yesterday. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get outside to get good pictures of what I made yet. So check back later today! Today just might be a TWO POST day! :-) It is Friday, after all.

So until then, you'll just have to enjoy a little more Unity. Why not? I Do! :-)


I don't think I posted this one yet. I will go check. If I did, I'll come back and change it out with another one. I used this week's color challenge from Splitcoast: Ruby Red, Close to Cocoa and Blush Blossom. I rarely use Blush Blossom, but I like this combo! The stamps, once again, are from Unity's August kit of the month, Remember Happiness. I love that trailer!

If any of you are the praying sort... please say a prayer for my Aunt today. She is having surgery today. Thankfully, my mom is with her. When you read this, Aunt Chris-- I LOVE YOU and hope everything went okay.

I must go shower, since baby and I are off to visit Daddy at his school for lunch. He has a final work day today before starting with his kindergarten students on Monday. He misses us, so we are taking lunch to him!

Happy stamping, Stampers!

Yay, Sleep!

I got some last night! (sleep, that is. :-) Read the title of the post, silly!) We put baby to bed without rocking him last night. He cried for an hour and a half, but then slept until 2. He has been waking up twice each night wanting a bottle. At 2, we let him cry for a while to see if he would get himself back to sleep. He didn't, and at 3, I went in and gave him his pacifier, and held him, with no rocking or singing or talking, OR bottle. He went back down to sleep in a few minutes, and slept until 6:00am. It was SO difficult to listen to him cry, but I know it will get easier, and eventually he will be going to sleep on his own and sleeping all night! I am just so thrilled that I wasn't up at 4:30 with a baby who won't go back to sleep! 6am felt like sleeping in to me!

On the stamping front--Today is Hip Hop Thursday over at Unity stamps. Check out the SCS forum HERE. If you missed it last week, we had tons of fun and Angela and Chris gave away lots of free stamps. It is basically a day long party! You can also see a newly released, very cool single stamp, and some other good deals here.

Some of us were getting anxious for Hip Hop Thursday last night, so Brooke, one of Unity's awesome design team members, offered up a challenge to keep us busy: stamp something with green. I didn't do the challenge until this morning, but here it is:


Once again, I used Unity's August kit of the month--there are so many great images! Can you tell that the butterflies are 3D? I cut them out and attached them just by the body with glue, and curled the wings out with my fingers. Then I drew their deely-boppers (what are those things really called? Oh yeah, antennae) in with markers. Hope you like!

Happy Stamping, and HIP HOP!

My Masterpiece

Good morning! Yes, it is. A good one, that is. Baby just took a long (1 hr, 15min) nap, and I got to stamp 2 cards! For those of you keeping tabs on me, YES, I did clean the kitchen yesterday before I stamped. Today I will be doing a little more baby proofing, now that my stamping is done. Both cards were done from sketch challenges on SCS. I find that having a sketch to work from is easier for me when I'm in a time crunch... I don't spend so much time trying to figure out where to put all the different elements... but because I pick the stamps, papers, and embellishments, I still feel like it is "my" card.


This first one has me going back to pink and brown, always a favorite for me. I used August's kit of the month from Unity. LOVE this kit!

This one I used colors I don't use often, but they were on my table already cut to the right size, basically, so I just went with it. It turned out okay. I don't love it, but I like it.

This last picture is my masterpiece. THE BABY! Not the highchair tray artwork. I can't take credit for that! :-)

Have a great day, and happy stamping!

Playing Catch Up

We had a fun weekend at the lake with my parents. Traveling is hard on a body, and I'm glad to be back! The baby was cute, as usual. He still has a bit of a cold, but his sleep is slowly getting better. I hope I didn't just jinx us by saying that. I'm pretty sure my parents won't love that I'm sharing this picture . . . but look what I found one morning at the lake when I went looking for the baby! How sweet!


I stamped like crazy today during one of his naps. I had to finish all the Anni-VERVE-sary sketches. I was behind from being gone all weekend. I will pick just one to share today, so I can stockpile the rest for future posts.


The layout is from a sketch. This is pretty simple as far as stamping is concerned--just the butterfly and the sentiment. I like simple! Happy Stamping!



CARD RECIPE
Stamps: Verve
Cardstock: Regal Rose, Basic Black, Whisper White, pattern (?)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Regal Rose
Accessories: Black grosgrain, corner rounder (for scalloped edge)

Still Getting Dirty

Good morning. Another early day. Sure wish baby slept better! Although, I hear from others that now that I'm a mom, I will never sleep really well again, because there's always something to worry about.

Two more Dirty challenges for you today. The first is to "embrace the white space" which is very hard to do. The inclination is always to add MORE. This is definitely less, and it has "grown" on me!! :-)


The second challenge was to use vellum. I don't know if you can really tell, but there is a vellum overlay on the dandelion image, which softens the colors. I spent forever getting this bow just right, but I like how it looks!


I doubt I will have time to stamp today, so I'm glad I have a small stockpile of stuff to share with you! :-) You stamp for me, okay? Happy Stamping!



CARD RECIPE #1
Stamps: Tiny Trinity (Unity)
Cardstock: Whisper white, Old Olive, Certainly Celery
Ink: Staz on Black
Accessories: vine ribbon, markers

CARD RECIPE #2
Stamps: Wish (Unity)
Cardstock: Whisper white, Green Galore, gingham paper, vellum
Ink: Green Galore, Yo-yo yellow
Accessories: brads, ribbon, spiral clip