Please forgive me...

it's been five months since my last post. :) I have been busily making name frames similar to the one in my previous post since my previous post. I have been selling them for my youth group at $15 a pop to help fund our trip to England in 2012. The orders have been steadily rolling in and have kept me pretty busy. Not to mention a promotion at work and a busy extra curricular activity schedule. So...I have been working on things, I just haven't been taking the time to post them. Quite honestly, I'm sure I've lost all of the followers that I once had. I wouldn't follow someone who didn't post for five months either.

Well, it's time for a new year - a new beginning. I am once again resoluting (is that a word?) to try to keep up with my blog...you can see how well I did last year. However, last February or so, I looked at two peas in a bucket for the first time in I don't know how long and a layout caught my eye. It chronicled the week of the designer. I read a little bit about the layout and discovered that it was part of "Project 365", in which the challangees, well...you know, chronicle their lives for the week all year. What a cool idea to really showcase our real lives, which is what scrapbooking is really all about. So, I decided then (remember, back in Feb. 2011) that I wanted to do that next year. Yes, I'm one of those perfectionist type people who would never jump right in and join in February. I say perfectionist type, because I am VERY far from perfect. Anyway, hopefully, I will be able to post at least something once a week this year.

Speaking of perfection - I've been revamping the screaming green studio. It's not quite finished yet, but I will post some pictures soon.

Now - onto my latest project...a Squinkie container for my son's new obsession. For those of you who do not know what Squinkies are, they are tiny little squishy toys that come about 12-14 to a package - they are pictured in the last photo of this entry posed on top of the lid. They come housed in tiny little bubbles, similar to what comes from a gunball machine, but much easier to open. And...they are addictive. My son has proclaimed "squinkies are awesome". When he opened them up at Christmastime, my sixteen year old son even got excited about them - very funny, they both got very excited about each other's gifts. I said we should just get them half the presents next year and they can share. Anyway, as I said, they are addictive. Kai got 2 packages, one from Santa and one from Grandma. He promptly went out the day after Christmas and bought four more packages with Christmas money and is asking for more for his upcoming birthday. He's really excited about the new Spongebob ones that are coming out soon. I think they're pretty cute, too. In fact, they have some Hello Kitty ones I'd love to get and scatter around the studio, just for cutes (I've been very into Hello Kitty lately for some reason - very nostalgic). Well - since squinkies are so tiny, but we now have a ton of them, we needed a container to...contain them. So, we went to squinkies.com and found the logo and a coloring sheetoved this guy, he's cute and ornery, just like Kai. Then we went to our trusty local hobby lobby and bought a big tin with a handle. (I reminded Kai that the last tin I made for his Cars got all bent up so if we were going to get a tin, he'd have to be careful and he informed me that he is seven now. I can be so silly sometimes.) The following pictures are the result of said supplies and a bunch of Mod Podges (yes, it is MOD Podge, not modge podge, that's one of my pet peeves). The paper line is Little Boys from Echo Park. I used spellbinders for the little signs, which say "No electricity required" and "Just add imagination". The image is colored with copics and the font for the lid is Cricut B is for Boys.

Hope you enjoy and beware, as I said...squinkies can become an obsession. And, to the folks at Squinkies - if you see my post and like it, feel free to send me a package or twelve of squinkies...remember the Hello Kitty ones! I'm sure if I have any followers, they'd love to have a squinkie give away :)

Name Frames

The mermaid name frame is much cuter in real life - I used shimmery cardstock and also used glimmer spray and glitter chalk on the mermaid and the seahorse, which you can't really see in the picture. The DP is October Afternoon and the letters and images were made using the Life is a Beach Cricut Cartridge.

The superhero name frame is made with Rusty Pickle DP and using the Classic Font Cricut Cartridge.

These name frames were custom-made for one of the ladies in my church diosese. I offered to make them as a fundraiser for our youth group. We are trying to earn money to go on a trip to England next year.

No hugs allowed

These are some shots from our Christmas Card several years ago. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose posed photo sessions end in meltdowns. Now I have 3, so it's even worse. The youngest is a ham, the middle one never shuts up, so it's hard to get a decent picture and the oldest, of course never likes any of the pictures taken of her! I used background paper from My Minds Eye. Just about everything else is from Bella Rose's For the Record line. The arrow, I've had forever and I added the pearl because I had no brass brads.

My very favorite picture EVER

This is my favorite picture that I have ever taken. I used Basic Grey Jovial. Since I have started scrapbooking again - I have ordered some new supplies and will (maybe) be using something other than Basic Grey soon. However, I do LOVE BG. The border is made using SU corner punch. The "Dude that is so cool" is from Stampin up's "So cool" set. I cut the circles with my nesties. The penguin is from Doodle Factory's Arctic. I am not happy with the upper right corner and may see if I can find a more suitable embellishment later.

Hide and Seek

This is another one of my favorite pictures. The journaling reads: We used to go to my Grandpa Hedrick's every Sunday. The kids would play outside. Sometimes, they convinced Papa Gordy (my dad) to play with them. One day they played hide and seek. Papa must have been tired because the kids found him sleeping in the car! Hide and seek, my foot - more like hide and sleep!
I used Basic Grey Wander paper and stickers. The journaling page is from making memories and the words and numbers are cut with cricut cartridges Lyrical Letters and Classic Font.

Beautiful Dog

This is Suki. She died two years ago next November. She was such a sweet dog and I've been missing her lately. The ice cream truck drove through the neighborhood the other day playing "Do Your Ears Hang Low" and it reminded me of her. She was a full-size dog on short legs who thought she was a lap dog. She loved everyone - used to bed hop so that all of got a turn to snuggle with her. She didn't bay or slober (much) like most basset hounds do. And, she was so patient with Kai from the time he was baby to even when he was a terrorizing toddler. No dog will ever compare to her, so I haven't ever tried to replace her.
The layout is made using a Max and Whiskers kit from basic grey. The "beautiful" embellishment is a brad that I've had forever - no idea what brand it is. The rub-on heart is Elsie.

Ihaven't done a scrapbook page in ages. The DP is Bo Bunny. I really like it for this picture because it has the bright green of the chair the kitties were lying on, but also has the pretty blue that brings out their eyes. I made the frame and the lettering for "Siamese" with my cricut, using Lacy Labels and Lyrical Letters. The "Twins" is done with fondue alphabet soup from KI.

scrapbox giveaway

Someday I might win one of these if I keep entering their contests
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/TheOriginalScrapbox

Framed poem

My boss requested that I make a framed wall-hanging of the poem "Invictus" for her cousin. His office is green - that was my direction. This is what I ended up with. The dp is basic grey paired with cream colored paper and black. Simple, as a wall-hanging should be, in my opinion. I really liked the way it turned out.

Cupcakes and valentines

We have a family supper club at our church, Grace Episcopal in Hutchinson, KS. The host family has it either at their house, or the church usually (although we've met at the State Fair and other offsite locations before) and supply the main dish and beverages. Last night we had tacos at the Steens. I agreed to bring dessert. I had originally planned to take Margarita cupcakes in addition to these for the adults (there is tequila in the frosting), but as I suspected, the limes available at our local grocery store were not good. So - fried ice cream cupcakes it was. They are not exactly like fried ice cream - at least the kind I've had, which is Carlos O'Kelly's. The cakes are chocolate - basically a lot like the chocolate cake recipe I usually use, but with cinnamon. The frosting was supposed to be a can of white frosting with a jar of caramel ice cream topping. I don't like canned frosting and thought that sounded gross. So, I made my own caramel frosting. The fried ice cream part comes in with crushed graham crackers mixed with cornflakes. All I had was cinnamon graham crackers, so I used them. Then you top with a cinnamon tortilla chip (brush with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake until crispy). Despite being exactly like fried ice cream, they were pretty tasty and seemed to go over well. I made the cupcake liners with my cricut cupcake liners cartridge. More time consuming than I thought, but very easy and cute. Just a tip, if you've just bought your own or are considering buying your own, you can cut the liners at 8 inches with cut to length selected. However, you can only make one at a time in order to use that option.

I made these today (nothing like procrastinating) for Kai's valentine party at school. I made some green, pink and blue ones as well, but these were the most "valentiney". I used real red and black paper with sheer black ribbon. The stamps are inkadinkadoo rockstar stamps. These were originally supposed to just be pencil pouches, but my son thought valentine's day would be incomplete if he didn't help his friends rot their teeth.

Happy birthday - again!

Things have been pretty busy at our house the last week or so. My daughter had a banquet to go to since she is eligible for a big scholarship at the school she will be attending next year. So, I took a couple of days off work to take her there for two days. Since, I was gone from work, I had to hurry and play catch up before I left to get things done that had to be finished before I left.
But, we're back and I took a break from doing laundry to make a card for Kai's friend who is having his birthday party tonight.

I used a stamp from doodlefactory's The Great Outdoors, called Pogue. He's a cute little guy and I think he looks like he's singing. So, I printed the sentiment using Times New Roman and Opus. The card is made using Poppy Parade (yeah, I'm liking that color!), Night of Navy, some Bo Bunny dp I had and a little bit of green polkadot My Minds Eye paper leftover from Kai's birthday projects.

Double Birthdays

Today is my birthday. So, what did I do? Well, I snuggled on the sofa with my youngest boy, had breakfast served to me by my daughter, listened to the kids bicker (while I reminded them that it is my birthday and I'd like to have a nice day), went to lunch with my youth group (thanks for lunch, Andy!) and finished up the birthday projects for Kai's birthday, which is Thursday.
I posted the invitations and a banner earlier with the same theme. This is the treat bag the kids will each get to take home. I used buckaroo blue, poppy parade, and peach parfait paired with my minds eye dp. I used SU Beary Best Friends and a build-a-bear logo that I printed from the internet.
The bags include a mini composition notebook, box of crayons, 4 mini playdoughs, a bag of gummy bears and of course, the bear that the child will "build" (not shown).
I had such a fun time with these projects, fully aware that this is my last chance to do a "cute" party - although the bears do have karate costumes and John Deere overalls. Next year, Kai will want to do a "cool" party.
But, that's ok, I've been browsing the batman cricut cartridge anyway :)

Break

My littlest has been sick the last two days. Luckily, my daughter hasn't started classes yet, so she's been staying home with him until my son gets home from school to take over. Then I take the third shift, which means snuggling on the sofa constantly - even potty breaks are difficult. Thankfully, he's feeling better, although he still has a fever. But, I managed to get away this morning and make this journal for one of my daughter's friend's who is having a birthday today. I used my last office max journal with purely pomegranite, baha breeze, gable green and basic grey dp. The cross is cut using the Indie Cricut cartridge. I used a scallop corner punch from SU and I'm not sure where those little gems are from - I've had them forever! Hope she likes it!

Ouch!

Well - I have had good intentions to create when I get home in the evening. However, my hip has been hurting me and it's worse when I sit in my studio chair for a while. So, I sat on the sofa last night with an ice bag on my bootie and rested.
Sunday evening, I did finish the "happy birthday" part of Kai's birthday banner, so now the whole thing is done. Maybe I'll make him feel special by hanging it up early and taking a picture of it.
Hopefully, I can get a card made tonight. I found out Sunday that my vocal teacher from college slipped on ice and broke her wrist and arm, so I need to send her a card.

A Banner Day

Used the same supplies as the party invitation from a few days ago. My Minds Eye DP with Cherry Cobler - I think that's right...like I said, I don't remember the new names. I cute the flags using Cricut Lyrical Letters and cut the red freehand using pinking shears. The buttons are from Hobby Lobby. The oval shapes are nesties and the letters are cut with Cricut Classic Font. It is strung on jute. There will eventually be smaller flags to hang above it that will say "Happy birthday". But, I'm tired tonight, so we'll save that for another day.

Here's a pic with a little more detail:

Also - must share a deal I found. I was looking through the Hobby Lobby clearance stuff and found some Spellbinders for $5.39! I bought two and I'm thinking of going back and getting some more!

MOJO172

I made this for the Mojo Monday Sketch for today. The stamps are SU Birthday Bakery. I used SU Blushing Bride and Chocolate Chip with Basic Grey, a floral embelishments flower, ribbon, a dew drop and little gems.
I tried last night to work on making a chore chart with Cricut Chore Chart, but it seems that it's kind of an ambitious project that will take a while. So, no post last night.

Happy New Years!

I tried to work on the banner for Kai's party, but ran out of paper. I ran to Hobby Lobby only to find they closed early today :)

So, on to other projects. I made this journal to sketch ideas in. I've had the book for a long time - got it on clearance at office max. I used paper studio dp with black and real red SU cardstock. The Eiffel Tower is made with the cricut cartridge Summer in Paris.

Today is my last day with no children. While, I've missed the kids, I took advantage of the time by myself and did enjoy it. Today, I crafted, watched a movie and took an impromptu nap. Where did the day go? It really flew by!