Close to my Heart will donate $1 from every stamp of the month sold to the Red Cross relief effort for those affected by Hurricane Sandy

November has never been a better month to stock up on supplies from Close to my Heart. This month Close to my Heart will be donating $1 from every stamp of the month sold to the Red Cross relief effort for those affected by Hurricane Sandy and if that isn't already something to be happy about, they are also offering a great deal in which you can earn the SOTM and any stamp set for 1/2 price (all stamp sets that start with A-E and M qualify for the discount) on a qualifying order of $50 or more!

If you want to place an order or see all the great new stamps and papers that we have available just click on the shop with me widget on the right!

Two days till School starts...

It has been one crazy summer! Made even more so with extreme heat in Oklahoma and doing it all on my own, with the two boys and 3 dogs!

Which translates to, not having much time for the blog and even less time for creating! I did manage to create a little over the summer break and those posts will be soon to follow as school starts in 2 days and I will get some time back for me.

It also means that we are entering the final count down of this deployment...

So stay tuned for some new projects and updates!

From plain to cute treat jar.

Yesterday I managed to get 30 mins to myself and was able to whip up a cute little vinyl cut to add to my jar for the dog treats.

Monday Mail Goodies

A few weeks ago someone on the Cricut blog posted about a huge sale that Making Memories was having and in a moment of late night curiosity I followed the link...

A LO and a Challenge

I was in the midst of designing a LO when I was surfing through some blogs and one blog link lead to this blog, Monica's Creative Madness. Where I discovered that they do Silhouette challenges and I was intrigued. I have never before entered a challenge. But when I read that this current challenge was simply design a LO using the Silhouette, of which I was already doing I figured I might as well step out of my comfort zone and take a leap.

So here is my entry for the Cameo Creations Challenge #9.


For the left page I imported my photo into Silhouette Studio Designer and began to expand the picture.


I used Amy Chomas adjustable pen holder for the Silhouette. I used Purple and Yellow Sakura Glaze pens for the balloon's on a setting of of 3 for speed and 9 for thickness.


I used the Wispy Thin Font from Lettering Delights with a Black Glaze Pen for the title.


I added yellow and purple twine to the tails of the balloons to add a bit of dimension.


For the right page I found some awesome grunge film strips in the Silhouette Online Store, which I then re sized to fit my pictures.





A close up.



Since the theme of his party was Transformers I wanted to be able to include it some how in the LO. For this I used Tim Holtz's core'dinations cardstock and the Amy Chomas embossing stylus to create some Autobot heads. I went and found an Autobot image on the web a pulled it into the Studio to create my pattern.


A close up.




Supplies Used:
Silhouette Design Studio
Silhouette Cameo
Amy Chomas Adjustable pen holder for the Silhouette Cameo and Embossing Stylus
Tim Holtz core'dinations cardstock
Cardstock from my stash
twine

With the completion of this LO I am only 2 years behind now...sigh...lol. But I am having fun.

Thanks for stopping by.

Year End Teachers Gift

Well it has been two weeks since the last day of school and what a whirlwind of chaos it has been.

My Mom arrived a couple days after the last day of school and just left on Sunday. It was so great to have her here even it was for such a short amount of time. Not to mention Keegan totally monopolized her ever minute...which was cute!

Well the reason for this post was that I wanted to share the gift I made for Keegan's teacher. Which if you read my last post not only did I decide to attempt a brand new project that I have seen floating around on Pinterest and the blogosphere. No, I also decided to attempt it at the very last minute the night before...


It was only after I started that I realized that this craft could be a lot of fun and looks amazing. I only I wish that my first letter had been slightly less complicated. Either way I am really happy with how it turned out and plan on making some more.


A couple of close ups.





Hope you like it and if you have been thinking of making a Crayon Monogram you should totally try it.

Missing you...happy anniversary

Today is my Anniversary and for the first time in the 11 years that we have been married we will be apart!

Deployments kinda suck!

Happy Anniversary Ryan. I love you and miss you.

And just so you know...


On the lighter side of things one of our dog's photo bombed my room shoot. I guess in his defence he thought I was going to bed. :)



I used my Cameo to cut out all the letters and shapes.

Stung by a Wasp and late night last minute chaos...

Tomorrow is the last day of school and not that I did it un-purpose but I managed to leave getting my teacher gift to the last minute and with a wasp sting that has caused some serious issues in the past 24 hours my day has been utter and total chaos.
Stay tuned for what this mess is all about and send non-itchy, non-swelling thoughts my way my arm could use them.

Summer Fun LO

While I had this post almost ready last week. I came to the realization that while I love taking photo's with my Hipstmatic app for my iPhone, I might have unintentionally been doing a disservice to some of the things I was posting about.

So for this post I moved on over to my DSLR with a fixed 50mm lens. I think that the photo's while I might have to adjust from quick photos and uploads with my phone to the camera, and work a little on the setup show the pictures of my LO much better.

Congratulations on Graduating

My scrapbooking cohorts husband finished his Masters and was graduating this past Saturday. To help celebrate his achievement I made him this little card.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies out there and all the sister's that always have our best interest at heart.
Here was my breakfast that my 6 year old made for me. Blueberry Frosted Pop Tart and Ice Tea.


This year I made cards to send. While my cards will arrive late, I am going to go with the old saying "better late then never" plus they are hand made well mostly as I did have some help from my Silhouette Cameo...which is really just an extension of my hand...right? :)

Walk with Dinosaurs LO

Well, while it took a bit longer then I thought I have finished another LO and I had a lot of fun making this one.

A quick Birthday Card and embellished t-shirt.

On the weekend we were invited to a friends to help celebrate their little girl turning one. I made a quick card and embellished a t-shirt for her.

Fresh donuts, 1 month, and some before and after reveals...

Well this week has been crazy busy!

On top of all the regular everyday mundane things that go on in a household. I decided this week to rearrange some furniture, put up some things and change all the toilet seats in the house. I am not going to share those before and after's let's just say the new seats are a remarkable improvement. I really have no idea if it is from the house bing a rental or the water here in Oklahoma or a combination of both, but they were in pretty bad shape and no matter how well I cleaned them, I finally just gave up and replaced them.

Along those same lines the front Garden was looking rather sad and neglected and decided that it needed to be fixed up. However my internal dilemma debate was how much to spend on the house that we are renting. I decided, that a couple of hundred would suffice and we would be able to enjoy the house all the more if I did it.

All of which I told my husband while on Skype. I have no idea if I have gone insane with this deployment or if just keeping busy makes it go faster. Which to be honest, it feels so slow! We officially hit the 1 month mark yesterday. Yay! Only 5 more to go...sigh!
so this is how we started the morning...


After that and a trip to Lowe's it was time to start the Garden. Here are some before photo's...








Well, after weeding, cleaning, laying down a weed barrier, 20 bags of black bark mulch, several hours in 80 degree weather, and smashed and cut knuckles here is the result...










I think that it turned out great! I am going to give it a week or so to settle and decide if I need to pick up a few more bags of mulch to build up and low areas. I am still debating on some planters for the front porch to add a bit of color but with the crazy heat we get here I just don't know.

Needless to say it was an exhausting day and once I got Cayden to bed Keegan and the dogs and I curled up to watch a little tv.



Exhausted and bound to be sore in the morning, look for my next post then.

A LO, I haven't done one in so long!

Well, in the last couple of weeks I have been steadily working towards a goal of getting all my crap, err, I mean scrapbooking stuff together so that I could actually be productive.

Well the other day I reached that goal and sat down to complete my first LO, in well, let's just say it has been awhile.

3 weeks down and a long over due post!

Three weeks down...I swear April feels like it is barely moving. For my geeky friends out there all I can see is visions of SG-1 series finally "Unending" flashing in my mind.

Well enough about that. This post is way over due and I want to get it shared. I had some grandiose plans for some new decorations that I was going to make for Spring/Easter for the house and while I didn't get to all of them the ones that I didn't finish I am super happy with and all supplies for the others have been put away for next year.

So here is my first project that I made, it is a new wreath. While I had dozens of ideas floating around in my head and I'll admit that the finally creation was not the original final decision I am really glad that I changed my mind.

One week down, 27 to go!

This is what my morning looked like a week ago...bags packed and he was ready to leave for 6 months.

Now for most Military families this scene has happened many times for them. I, on the other hand have been very lucky in that my husband has not yet been deployed. Well all that changed with our current posting. Now don't get me wrong, I am proud that my husband serves, as I am proud of all others who make a this huge sacrifice, I guess I have just been living in the world of denial that this day would eventually come and that it would include me being left alone with 2 children very, very, very far from family!

Ok, self pity train moving on for at least awhile!

In the last few weeks leading up to deployment, I had spent any free moment that I had trying to put together this little deployment book for my husband while he was away. I saw the idea on Pinterest a few months ago and thought that it was a great idea and that I could make one as well.

                                                                                              Source: etsy.com via Kelly on Pinterest

Cabane à Sucre or Sugar Shack

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to a Cabane à Sucre or Sugar Shack party. I have had the pleasure of going to several in  Quebec and it is an experience one does not want to miss.

196 days and counting...

Well the start of my countdown as a single parent officially begun this morning! :(

So here is to the next 6 months, 13 days of being on the other end of a deployment and for a little fun a further break down of what 6 months and 13 days breaks down into...

• 16,934,400 seconds
• 282,240 minutes
• 4704 hours
• 28 weeks 
• 196 days 

Monday Mail

Monday mail brought lots of goodies! However in the frantic 48 hours before deployment countdown pack, some of the goodies had already been packed.


Besides this arrival of the O so yummy Aero melt in your mouth add fat to your hips box. A box of Smarties arrived for Ryan just in time take on his deployment. Ack, 48 hours till I become a single parent for the next 6 months!

So please bear with me while I make adjustments I have lots to share. :)

Cards that I made for an exchange.

I recently participated in an exchange that was being held in the Canadian Circle forum. What I liked about this exchange is not only did we have a long deadline, but we were able to choose what types of card we were going to send. In the end 14 Ladies decided to participate and we all decided to do 2 cards each.

My contribution was going to be 2 Birthday cards and I in my mind exactly what I wanted to do. I just needed to figure out how I was going to do it.

Sneak Peeks

Here are a couple of sneak peeks of the cards that I made for the exchange that happened in the Canadian Circle forum.







Enjoy.

Wine, Giggles and Cards.

So a couple of weeks ago a fellow Canadian invited myself and some other CanOkies (Canadians in Oklahoma) over for some wine and card making. Needless to say it was a great time, a lot of wine was drunk and I even managed to make some cards...lol

What I loved about the host was that she wasn't sure of everybody's "hobby" level so she had made 3 cards and more or less had all the stuff for each card in a basket and you could easily copy or stray ( I strayed) from the original template. Which I thought was a fantastic idea for large group of varying levels of ladies.

As far as I know all products supplied by the hostess are from Stampin Up. To be honest, when I first started 10 plus years ago I actually had a lot of Stamping Up products (I still have a lot), however, on the last few postings I haven't bought any of their products (lack of local consultant) and was pleasantly surprised to see the direction in which they have gone and the range/change of their product.

Sadly it seems that my original "Classic" ink pad sets are no longer available, mind you the new colors that they have and ones that they bring out for two years at a time are rather neat.

Well without further ado here are my cards that I made.















I just love this embossing folder and must get it!




When I get a chance I plan on hand tinting the image with water colors and I couldn't resist using the French sentiment on the card.










This card was a fun one. I liked how the stamp image corresponded with the punch. It totally reminded me why I bought the Art Philosophy cartridge and that I really needed to pull it out and use it for the cards I was making for a Circle exchange.

Well that is all for now. Sneak peeks of the cards tomorrow with a post to follow. So much to do and the count down is on for the start of hubby's deployment. T minus 9 sleeps until he deploys for 6 months leaving me a single Mom...ack!

Missing but not gone...

So I feel like I have dropped off the face of the Internet in the last few weeks, but I am still here. The finally count down has begun for deployment. So this past week we took off to Dallas for a little Family vacay. Lots of pics to share along with my cards from the card swap and a little project that I have been working to send with hubby as well as some Easter projects.

Hopefully, posts will be soon to follow.

Happy Pie...err Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day to all the Math nerds out there. Personally I am going with the Happy PIE Day motif! Yum Pi...err Pie!

Monday Mail Delivery

Well the Mailman has brought me another round of goodies in the mail yet again...and in case you are wondering no I don't plan for all my goodies to arrive on Monday's! Mind you "Monday Mail" does have a nice ring to a post title. Hehe



Great big olde spools of twine that I bought from Pick Your Plum and my Amy Chomas adapters for my Silhouette. Can't wait to try them out.