happy thoughts

I'm sending myself happy thoughts today as I head into a slightly CRAZY week! Someplace to go every morning this week. . .yikes!

This card is for this week's CPS sketch, number 183, sponsored by Flower Soft. Flower Soft has been so very generous with us, and I have added all sorts of beautiful colors of Flower Soft to my stash! I paired the Flower Soft with some stamps from Unity Stamp Co. To really give LOTS of depth to my tree, I applied the Flower Soft, let it dry, and then I added another blob of glue on top of each circle, and added MORE Flower Soft! The tree looks really puffy in person - I love it!

Have a SUPER week!!! I am off to pack a lunch and get the second week of school on it's merry way!

Just tree-rific!

How's your day going? Tree-rific I hope!!! (tee hee hee!) This is a really fun stamp set from Our Craft Lounge, our sponsor at Card Positioning Systems this week. They also supplied me with the super fun Sparkly Fluff, which I applied to the tree and green grassy stripe. The Sparkly Fluff is quite easy and fun to work with. It's kind of like a combination of flocking, and glitter all in one. I was impressed with how easy it was to apply, and how little (none actually) came off after the glue dried. The whole thing was basically mess-free. LOVE THAT, and love the super soft, sparkly texture it added!

Okay, confession time - although I miss my Mr. B at school, and most certainly worry about him, wonder about him, and wish I could be a fly on the wall in his classroom . . . .I gotta admit - I feel like I am getting LOTS accomplished, and I feel much more relaxed and on top of things, having just my littlest guy to wrangle for most of the day!

If only I could keep him out of my scrappy stuff, so that I could make a card or two. . .now THAT would be great!!!! One of these days he'll start taking decent naps, and then I can get some artwork done during the day!

(card goodies: cardstock - WorldWin and CTMH, sticker - Sassafras Lass, stamps and Sparkly Fluff - Our Craft Lounge, glitter glue - Stickles, ink - StazOn, brads - Bazzill)

buttercream heaven and fondant fun!

As promised, here is Little T's birthday cake (and cupcakes!) I had a TON of fun working with the fondant. I was not brave enough to attempt covering the whole cake in fondant, but the buttercream turned out PERFECTLY, so I am quite happy! It was the perfect consistency, and the flavor was great too! (If I do say so myself!)

The fondant was premade. I added color to white fondant for the yellow and green, but the red was already premixed. I will DEFINITELY try it again! The only problem now, is that I made about twice as much buttercream as I needed. . .and I've been dipping my finger into it ever since this weekend. I think its going to have to go down the drain tonight. Otherwise it will be on my thighs for years to come!

back to school, back to school!

I got this photo idea, from this AWESOME website that is new to me, but quickly has become one of my new faves! I just happened to have a little chalk board, sitting in a box, and amazingly I knew JUST where it was too! This is defnitely going to be part of our back-to-school photo tradition!!! And thankfully, Bryce was happy to ham it up for some photos this morning before school. He was AMAZING. He was totally excited, and didn't seem nervous at ALL about the whole thing! Hooray!

Be sure to stop by and check out Living Locurto!!! She has fantastic printables, menu ideas, terrific links, and lots of cute ideas!!!

a little birthday photoshop fun!

Just spent some time playing with this photo of Tanner at his birthday party yesterday. (Ahh, the important tasks achieved while nursing a baby!) We had a super fun birthday party, and I am pretty sure Tanner enjoyed his cake!!! (We did too!) I will share a picture of the actual cake, complete with fondant stars soon!

Enjoy your weekend!
XOXO

fruity fun

Springy bright greens paired with crisp clean WHITE makes me happy! I love using green in cardmaking, but in real life, it's not one of my go-to colors for clothing or decorating. Kind of funny to me. I love how the shades of green came together on this card. I shared this card on my mom's blog last week, but here it is for those of you that missed it!

We're off for one last playdate this morning, before school starts on Monday. Then it's home to finish cookies and treats for Tanner's birthday party on Saturday! It's going to be a fun, busy weekend!!! I'll be sure to post some pictures of my first attempt at fondant icing, and some cute decorations I've been working on!

(card goodies: Close To My Heart stamps, ink, cardstock. Wright's rickrac, button)

What's your deal?

Another card with the Birthday4Cookie set at The {Stamps} of Life! I paper-pieced sweet little Cookie, and the party hat too. I am happy with this card, which is shocking because purple is one of my LEAST favorite colors to play with!! It just never works. But I think I'm okay with it on this card, because of the BRIGHT pink. I just seem to work better with BRIGHT colors. It's my deal. White space, and BRIGHT BOLD colors.

What's YOUR deal? All you lurkers who never have anything to say. . .spill it! Is there something you always turn to? Or something that never works for you? I would love to know what it is!!!

Hubby and the big boy are on their way to Orlando this morning, with some assorted family members for a day at Universal Studios. So the baby-man and I are going to knock off as much as we can on the to-do list. Getting supplies for sugar cookies, birthday cake, and back-to-school. Yesterday we found out who B's Kindergarten teacher is, and I have heard GREAT things about her, and I am feeling MUCH better about him starting school, than I thought I would be!!! (Ask me next Monday morning, and I will be boo-hooing it up, but today, I feel good!)

Okay. . .back on task. back on task. I am always in a hurry when I'm here chatting with you all!!! I feel like a spinning top most days, spinning from one crisis or To-Do to the next!
Happy Monday!!!

On a roll. . .

Good morning! Happy weekend! We are on the final countdown. . .one week until Tanner's birthday party, and one week until school starts! (And one week until I can take a breath!)

Today's card is exactly the same format of the sweet pea card that I shared a few days ago. (And yes, more white cardstock!) See how versatile these TSOL background stamps can be? The last card was sweet and soft and ready for a baby shower. This one has a totally different look, even though it's the same layout - bright, cheery and fun, using the flower background from Backgrounds2Build. I added some little jewels to the corners to tie in the pink. And the present and sentiment are from the new Birthday4Cookie set.

Last night I started tackling my latest project. . .scanning all of the photos from my mom and dad's old photo albums. Right now I am working on Polaroid pictures from right after I was born. I must admit, I looked like a boy in some of them, but there are some cute cute photos!! (I will probably share some here soon, if you'll indulge me!)

Can you believe summer vacation is so quickly drawing to a close!? (And for some of you, it already has!) If only the cool weather were heading here soon. Back to school time SHOULD mean cool crisp mornings, but here - we still have about 2 more months of warm weather! Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope your weekend is simply WONDERFUL!!!
XOXO

(Oh, and I'm just about a week late, but some of my cards were featured on the October Afternoon blog . . . .and one of my cards was featured on the CARDS blog last week too!!! I was super excited! Thanks for letting me share!)

A quick recipe for. . .

Chicken Tetrazzini. My sweetie-pie pal, Sara, asked for this recipe, which I got out of our church cookbook. So I thought I would share it here, as I haven't shared a recipe in quite a while! (And Sara, even though I'm giving you this recipe, after that sweet baby arrives, I will still be bringing this to your doorstep!!!)

Chicken Tetrazzini
4 T butter
4 T flour
1 c. chicken broth
1 c. evaporated milk
2 c. cooked chicken (about 1 1/2 breasts, cubed)
1/2 box spaghetti, broken, cooked, drained
cheddar cheese, shredded
bread crumbs
butter

Melt butter; add flour and stir. Add broth and milk to make a white sauce. Sauce will be a bit thick. Stir in chicken and then stir spaghetti. Put in a dish; sprinkle with cheese then bread crumbs. Dot with butter. Cooke at 350 until bubbly, approximately 25 minutes.

I added peas into mine too, and I think broccoli would also be yummy. It is awesome leftover, and you can assemble it ahead of time, so it's the perfect make-ahead meal!

Oh dear, I fear. . .

Oh dear, I fear that all of my cards are starting to look the SAME. Is it a rut? Or is it artistic genius? (tee hee hee!) I can't get away from super simple white cards. I can't help it. Hopefully in the end, it will balance out with all of my non-white cards.

This card features TWO of the special release sets at The Stamps of Life, that are available TODAY! TODAY! TODAY! The sweet pea set is called Sweet4Baby, and that fabulous little background square (perfect for stamping on your clean and simple white cards!) is from Backgrounds2Build.

I hope you'll go check out all the super-cute cards in the gallery! There's one other cute special set that released too . . .and I'll have cards to show you in just a few days!

hi!

Today I'm just hopping in to share a quick Apron Strings card with you today! Everyone was up bright and early today, and I need to get OFF the computer! The paper and chipboard I used on this card is from Piggy Tales. And everything you see (including the white pen I used for those dots) is part of the August card kit at Apron Strings Designs!

There was more paper in this kit than I could even use up, as usual! I made NINE cards with this kit, and still have paper and goodies left over. And the chipboard is a great add-on available to go with this kit! Although I always think they look so cute and fun, sometimes I really struggle to use those GIANT brads, but I think that green brad worked PERFECTLY for the dot on my "i"!

Off to make breakfast. . .although we had breakfast for dinner last night - so does that mean I have to make dinner for breakfast???? Yuck. ;)

XOXO

"tweet" said the birdie in the tree!

This month's stamp set at The {Stamps} of Life has two really adorable tiny birds, and the tiny word "tweet" . . .they are ADORABLE. The possibilities are endless for these tree stamps. I shared a few of my trees last week, and here is an entirely different looking one. It is quite fun to just stamp the leaves and decide what exactly you want your tree to look like. (And hello, POLKA DOTTY LEAVES?! sheer perfection!!!!) The inside of this card has a birthday sentiment, and another little birdie. (I thought I had a picture of it, but apparently my computer ate it!) I am going through lots of white cardstock these days, can you tell? White white white. I LOVE it.

Today is Sunday number two of the baby man in the church nursery, and I am hoping it goes as smoothly as last week did! We are trying to get rid of the nighttime feeding that I've been doing at 10pm, and I am hoping that once we ditch that, and then we ditch the 4am one, that SOMEONE will start sleeping better (actually TWO someones. . . him AND me!)

Have a terrific rest of your weekend!!!
XOXOX

little one (apron strings!)

I had the priveledge of working with the Apron Strings card kit for the month of August, and this is one of my favorite cards that I created this month. I am soooo into clean and simple lately. (You know this already, don't you?) This card uses one of my favorite products in the kit - this sentiment is from a sheet of Cut Outs at Elle's Studio. Never used anything from Elle's Studio before, but I am hooked! These little tags, are darling, and super easy to trim apart and use! Be sure to check out the entire Apron Strings kit HERE, it has Jillibean Soup, Scenic Route, and Piggy Tales paper in it! I'll be sharing more of my cards from this kit, througout the month!

tweet tweet. . .a little birdie told me. .

Happy Monday! Three weeks left before my big man starts Kindergarten, and my little man turns ONE. Trying to figure out what else we want (and need) to do before school starts! Visiting the zoo, and buying new sneakers are definitely on the list! I have two cards to share with you today, using the NEW August stamp set at The {Stamps} of Life. You can create an infinite number of adorable trees with this set, and there are darling birds to accompany those trees! (And I LOVE the font for the sentiments!!!)

This card is based on Tami's sketch at CPS this week - sketch number 178. I paper-pieced the birdie, and used lots of yummy October Afternoon papers. (The scalloped strip is Sassafras.)

I hope you'll stop by The {Stamps} of Life to check out the whole stamp set - called trees2build, and remember you can always get it in clear stamps or digi stamps. (Or heck, why not both!?)

I hope your Monday is off to a FANTASTIC start. The past three or four nights, I have gotten 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep, rather than 2 or 3 at a time . . .so I am HOPING that we are finally on our way to having a baby who SLEEPS. (Pretty soon I'm going to have to call him a toddler, aren't I? I just HATE that!)

XOXO