Deal of the Day--White Daisy Flowers

I haven't been promoting the Deal of the Days for Close To My Heart as I should have, but this deal is a fabulous one, and I wanted to share! Today, if you order any stamp set, you get a set of White Daisy Flowers FREE! You get 75 flowers in 3 different styles and varying sizes. I love the flowers because they add the perfect touch to so many projects. Plus you can color them to match your project. Below are a few projects I've made with the flowers.

To order click here and click on the "Deal of the Day"

A loyal friend will be missed

Yesterday, my uncle and his family lost their 9 year old Border Collie, Jax. It was sudden and devastating for them. It makes me sad because I know my own two Border Collie mixes are getting up there in age at 9 and 10. I wanted to send them a card and I wanted to make it personal. After much trial and error and not liking the cards, I downloaded a picture of sweet Jax to use. I hope it will bring a little smile their way.

I used CTMH Sarsaparilla papers and Legendary and Tickled Pink stamps.

Having a fun weekend here. My mom, my brother's girlfriend and I went to see The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I absolutely loved it! Cute, funny, and hey, looking at Ryan Reynolds for 2 hours isn't bad :) Betty White makes the whole movie--she's hysterical! Tonight my mom is taking the kids so Mike and I can have an evening out. We're going to one of Mike's co-worker's house for dinner. Then maybe a movie. Fun, fun! Hope you are having a great weekend.

Daydream Cards

I've been working on this set of cards for a couple days now. They are from a Wishes workshop template. They are fairly simple designs, and I thought they would come together quick and easy (and they should have). My problem is that I kept getting stuck because I have trouble with white space on my cards. These are also not my usual colors. There are two missing--I just couldn't get them to look right. I like the way the rest of them turned out. The top two in the bottom picture are my favorites :)

I used CTMH Daydream papers and lots of stamp sets: Happy Birthday, Thank You, Cupcake Sprinkles, Good Times, Friendship Word Puzzle, the Tickled Pink set, and last year's Mother's Day set (I can't remember the name). Embellishments are also all CTMH.

I'd also like to say thank you to those who have offered your thoughts and prayers for my cousin. She is hanging in there. They are trying to get her strong enough to withstand surgery, so it's a waiting game. Please continue to keep her in your prayers. Thank you!

Prayers Please

If you are the praying kind, I am asking that you please send up prayers for my cousin's daughter Ashlynn. Without going into too much detail, she is having life-threatening problems right now. The doctors can't do much for her right now because her heart isn't strong enough. If you could pray for her, our family, and the doctors working on her, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Fishin' Layout and Surf Card

A friend and fellow consultant came over yesterday for a play date--our kids and us :) I was slow to get started, but I did manage a card and a layout. The layout is from CTMH's Workshops on the Go. I knew when I saw it that it would be PERFECT for the fishing pictures I took. As soon as I find my Flip Flaps (adhesive 4x6 page protectors) I will use them to create a mini album with more pictures under the horizontal pic.

I used CTMH Back Country papers and Stickease.

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She loves the beach and these new stamps from CTMH, so I figured this would be the perfect card. I used the Surf's Up stamp set and Moon Doggie papers (can you tell I love these papers?!) I paper pieced the surfboard and the umbrella.

Still enjoying a relaxing summer. We've planning a trip to California and a trip to Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania for next month, so it looks like July will be very busy! I am getting so excited thinking about all the fabulous pictures I will have to scrapbook when we get back.

Beach Layout

I'm doing a gathering for a friend next week with a tropical/beach theme. Here's the layout I came up with. I don't like how the stamp on the green lined up, so I might re-do that part. Other than that, I'm happy with the way it turned out. The pictures are kind of old, but some of my favorite beach ones of the boys.

Papers are CTMH Moon Doggie with Rustic Alphabet, Vintage Postcard, August Word Puzzle, Extreme Happiness, and Surf's Up stamp sets.

Had a Fabulous Weekend!

We had a great visit with my dad and my grandparents! We hung out, ate WAAAAYYYY too much, and did some exploring. The highlight of the visit happened yesterday. While the girls went shopping and did our part to jump start the economy (especially me), the guys went fishing. My boys had never been fishing, so Grandpa and Great-Grandpa bought them their new gear and along with Daddy, went to a local pond. The boys were so excited and couldn't wait to show off their catch--two trout each. I can't wait to scrap these papers with the new Back Country papers (the ones I used for the cards in the previous post).

Here's a card I made earlier this week for a new customer. The paper is Let's Get Together--an older pack, but still one of my favorites :) It's hard to tell in the picture, but the flower is stamped on a transparency and embossed in white. The stamps are Thank You Word Puzzle and Delight in Everything.

With a clean house and not too much on the agenda this week, I'm hoping to get some crafting done. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Masculine Cards

I've been working on this set of cards for a couple days now, and I finally had the chance to finish them today. I used the Card Workshop in the new Wishes book. It makes 20 cards--2 each of 10 designs. I never have enough guy cards, so I decided to use CTMH's new Back Country papers and Adventure Dimensional elements (the spinner and trees). I used around 10 different stamp sets, so I won't bore you with listing all of them. You won't see all 20 here because I didn't include the ones I duplicated exactly. I liked some more than others, and I was really sad that I couldn't find my hemp because I would have loved it on some of the cards. I can't wait to try this with other papers and sets.

It's a DIRT-y Job...

We have a HUGE backyard, but unfortunately, there are a number of low spots. Yesterday, we had 10 yards of dirt delivered. Sadly, there isn't enough room on either side of our house to get any kind of front loader through. It all has to be taken back one wheelbarrow full at a time. Mike has been working tirelessly to haul it all. I've helped too, but my back can only handle a few loads at a time before I have to give it a break. We are now about 3/4 of the way done--ironically 2 hours away from when my brother can come help. Oh well.

Here's a few photos of our dirt and our little helpers. I picked up the tiny wheelbarrows yesterday so that the boys could help out. They think it's great fun :)

A few minutes ago--taken from the same spot.

We found this the other day in one of our hanging baskets. I'm hoping we'll get to see the baby birds, but I'm worried because we haven't seen Mama Bird in a few days. We were very careful to only look from a distance, so I hope she didn't abandon them.

Yesterday, our first official day of break, we headed to Krispy Kreme for National Doughnut Day.

I'm back--Hopefully for a While

School's out for summer! I am so relieved and happy that we are all (well, except Mike) officially on summer vacation. Maybe now I can get some scrapping done :) Here's a few projects I've completed in recent weeks (months).

This first one was a card for Austin's teacher, who is retiring. Love this new stamp set and the Moon Doggie papers from Close To My Heart--too fun! The card design is from Jeanette's new book, Wishes.

These were candy bars I decorated for Teacher Appreciation Week a while back. I also slipped Starbuck's cards in the back sleeve. Emporium Creative Basics papers, "t" solo set, and SU scallop punch.

I made this cupcake gift card holder for my sister's birthday. I had been wanting to try one of these ever since I first saw Tresa's. Her tutorial was fun and easy to follow, although the process is rather involved. I like how it turned out, but I would definitely change some things next time--like using the right size foam ball (mine was 4" instead of 3", and it's huge!). I used Emporium papers and lots of ribbon, flowers, and bling.

I'm hoping for lots more artwork soon. As soon as I get my house in order, I can start thinking about that. We have my dad and grandparents coming next week for a visit and some summer fun.