Always in my thoughts

Thank you all for the well wishes and happy thoughts over the past few days, it has really helped.   Well after spending the weekend ripping up the ruined flooring, we finally have a crew here putting in a new floor!  The nightmare is almost over.  Here is what the front part of the house has looked like for the past few days.  And hopefully tonight, otherwise midday tomorrow, we will have a completed floor.

                    

So apparently the previous owners has some sort of tile in the entry (where the black stuff on the floor is) and carpet in the dinning area and living room and some ugly linoleum in the kitchen.  The previous wood flooring had only been in for a year before we moved in, which is hard to imagine living with the UGLY orange, rust and brown linoleum for so long in the kitchen.  I wish I would have taken a close up picture of it but didn't really think about it and now of course it is covered so I cannot sneak out there to take a picture.  The good news is that it is covered!  All of the furniture in these rooms (bookcases, chairs, end tables, coffee tables etc) have been shoved into other rooms making it hard to get stuff done.  But the end is near!  I am so excited to claim my house back.

Since I cannot really do much today, I had to make sure that I could get back into the office and get some stamping done.  Oh it felt so good, but boy am I rusty, it has been almost 2 weeks since I have been able to get in some stamping time.  So my first card is super simple and took me forever to do.  I hope to get back in here tonight to get some more stamping in.

Stamps:  Always in My Thoughts

Ink: Basic Black, Garden Green Marker,  Night of Navy Marker, Summer Sun Marker, Bordering Blue Marker

Paper: Whisper White, Night of Navy, Summer Sun

Accessories: Stampin Dimensionals

Tools/ Punches:  Crafter's Tool Kit

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I am back

I am so sorry for going AWOL for the past week, I am alive and no I have not had the baby yet. My life lately has been turned upside down and thrown in a blender all at the same time. We are still dealing with the water leak problems and have been spending a lot of time researching and price shopping for our best deal as the area went from about 80 square feet that needed to be replace to 500. I still have about a month left before the baby is due but I am really feeling it this time around and I have a hard time sitting for periods of time, because right now her favorite thing to do is to kick and push my ribs. There has been a lot going on with the other kids as well and I barely seem to have the time to cook dinner and wash the laundry anymore. Anyways enough of my life I hope to be back this afternoon with some great stamped project since it has been a week since I stamped I really need it.

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Round 1 Baby Thank Yous

Well I am finally getting around to sending out some thank you notes that are only about 3 weeks late.  I usually get them made before the baby is born but with everything that happened this time around, there was not any stamping time.  It is so great to finally be stamping again.  I really like this layout that I found in my little idea book, I had noted that the layout came from Kim's Blog but I don't know which Kim or her blog address.

I know that this card is made out of a lot of retired items but I just love my two retired baby sets, I'm Here and Buggies and Booties and the Thank you sentiment just fits too perfectly to not use.  This card is so simple that it was easy to mass produce.

Stamps:  I'm Here, Much Appreciated

Ink: Lavender Lace, Elegant Eggplant

Paper:  Lavender Lace, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White

Accessories:  Retired SU! Grosgrain and Organdy Ribbons, Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware, Stampin' Dimensionals

Tools:  Spiral Punch

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Christmas Angels

Finally I have made it back to stamping!  I have finally been able to reclaim some resemblance to my former life.  I appreciate all of the kind encouraging words and thought I have received from so many of you.  For those who have been asking I had a healthy baby girl 3 weeks ago by an emergency C-section.  Emmalyn is a beautiful healthy baby and she actually sleeps pretty good at night, now if I could only get my toddler to sleep through the night..... Here is a picture of my 2 littlest girls, aren't they sweet.  I am really surprised at how well Hannah has adjusted to not being the baby anymore, and she just adores her little sister.

So as I was trying to sit down and get the inspiration to start my overdue thank you cards for baby items I just couldn't come up with anything that looked decent so I put them away and made some Christmas gift tags instead to get me started.  (I still cant believe it has been so long since I have stamped anything.)

I had bookmarked these angels from Betty's blog a while back and decided that this would be a good place to start to get my mojo back.  They are really easy a quick to whip out.  I used the Bella Rose DSP on my angels.

Now I have to make birthday party invitations and my thank you notes and today is already completely booked with no stamping time left.  It is that busy time of year but I still love it! 

Paper:  Bella Rose Designer Series Paper, Blush Blossom, Pink Pirouette

Accessories:  Elastic Silver Cord

Tools:  Scallop Circle Punch, 5 Petal Flower Punch, 3/4 inch Circle Punch

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Crazy For Cupcake Colors

I just absolutely love doing Kristina's color inspiration challenges if you cant tell.  They are great and are usually color combos that I have not worked with before.  I was looking at my new Crazy for Cupcake stamp set  trying to decide on a birthday card that I had to make.  I was drawing blanks so I had to go see if there was a new color inspiration up, and sure enough it was just what I needed.  Here is Kristina's Color Inspiration #25:

So the colors are Ballet Blue, Certainly Celery, So Saffron and Ruby Red, which is a perfect combo for a kids birthday card.  Here is what I came up with:

I used the new scallop circle die that goes with the bigshot to make the card base.  I embossed the cupcake tower image on all four colors and cut them out.  I was really struggling with the embossing powder sticking to the cardstock.  As I was cutting these little buggers out, I would end up bending the card stock the littlest bit and the embossing powder would come off.  These were the best of what was left.  It was very frustrating.  Next time I will probably just use white craft ink. 

Stamps: Crazy for Cupcakes

Ink: Versamark

Paper:  Ballet Blue, Certainly Celery, So Saffron and Ruby Red

Accessories: Brocade Blue Wide Grosgrain Ribbon, Stampin Dimensionals (of course), White Embossing Powder

Tools:  Big Shot Machine w/ Scallop Circle Die, Corner Rounder Punch, Scallop Edge Punch

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Retired Paper Case

So as I was cleaning up my stamp room in preparation for my coming order I ended up in my retired paper stash.  After seeing its size I made a quick decision and decided I needed to use some more since I ordered more of the new paper.  I knew that I had transferred an idea into my new little note book (here) that used some of the old prints paper, so I sat down and made several of these birthday cards to have on hand. 

This is a case of a card the Dannie Graves made.  And after making 6 of these I did put a small dent in my soft sky paper!  Sorry most of this card is retired (although it can all be recreated with the current in colors easily!), but my new stuff arrived about 20 mins ago so tomorrow, I wont even be thinking of touching old stuff.

Stamps:  Its Your Birthday

Ink:  Basic Black

Paper: Soft Sky Prints Designer Series Paper,  Blue Bayou

Accessories:  Blue Bayou Double Stitched Ribbon, Silver Brads

Tools/ Punches:  5 petal flower punch

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Another quickie card....

 

It is amazing how crazy life seems to get with out the use of a kitchen.  I just had to sit down for a quick minute to get out some stress and stamp something.  This is another one of those 10 minute quickie cards.  I have had this idea floating around in my head over the weekend, I don't know if I was inspired by someone's card I saw or what, I don't have much of a brain left right now.

Sorry to have this so short but I have a lot of chores to finish up tonight, I have a busy morning tomorrow and I should be getting SU! shipment in the afternoon so I want to have stuff ready to go so I can just sit down and stamp tomorrow.

Stamps: Embrace Life, Curvy Verses

Ink: Pink Pirouette, Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Pink Pirouette, Kiwi Kiss

Accessories:  Stampin' Dimensionals, Chocolate Satin Ribbon

Tools/ Punches:  Crafters Tool Kit, Scallop Edge Punch, Scallop Circle Punch

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No stamping yesterday

We spent the night unexpectedly ripping up the kitchen flooring.  On Sun we noticed some water on the floor in front of the refrigerator and with 3 kids 6 and under we just assumed that one of them spilled and didnt clean it it.  Well the water was back last night and there were dark lines where the pieces of flooring snap together.  That was our clue that something was wrong.  Sure enough the water line to the fridge had a crack in it and was leaking behind the fridge and under the floor.  So the front part of my house is a disaster zone.  Hopefully I will be able to get to some stamping today.

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Top Note Card

Recently I participated in a Christmas Card swap, since someone has already posted it on a group site, I figured it was ok to add it here now.  I had so many different designs and had a hard time trying to decide what to do. 

This card started out as so much more, but it just was too much.  It had rhinestones, and glitter and a bg stamp and it just overwhelmed the big shot die cuts which was what I was trying to show off.  So I dialed it back a little, well a lot and it turned out very simple but I loved it.

I just used a top fold card base and put it on the top note die, just below the top perforation line in the die to make a card out of it.  The sentiment is from the new hostess set Punches Three, but instead of using the square scallop punch I just cut the middle out.  It is embossed with winter white embossing powder.  The snowflakes are on shimmery white cardstock but it doesnt show in the picture. 

I loved this card but almost felt like it was too simple and since the swap was a small scale one I added in a second card.  I just made up some more of my red mitten 3x3 cards to tuck inside as well.

Snowflake card

Stamps: Punches Three

Ink: Versamark

Paper: Riding Hood Red, Shimmery White, Night of Navy

Accessories:  Dimensionals, Winter White Embossing Powder, Silver Elastic Cord

Tools:  Big Shot Machine, Top Note Bigz Die, Snowflake #2 Die, Heat Tool

Mittens Card

Stamps: Scandinavian Season

Ink: Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red

Paper: Whisper White, Baja Breeze

Accessories:  Stampin Dimensionals, Riding Hood Red Taffeta Ribbon, Natural Hemp Twine (one has linen thread though)

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Another Kristina Color Challenge

I guess I have not been doing so well on my blog lately.  I am just now recovering from an injury to where it doesn't hurt to sit so I can get back to stamping, until something else comes up too.  It seems like it has just been one thing after another as of late.

If I have not said so before, I just love Kristina's Color Inspirations.  She always finds beautiful color combinations and the items in the picture are always lovely.  Here is what she gave us for Color Inspiration #24:

Being short on time I have another super simple card.  There is a lot going on today at school, it is a short day for the kids, we have to hit up the library, somewhere in there I have to buy groceries as we are out of all fruit and just about out of veggies and milk and everything else, the car needs gas (as I got home the light came on eek!)  there is a school performance tonight and I still have to find time to get in homework and dinner.  So I had to sit down this morning and squeeze something in to try and get some stamping done today.

I whipped this card out in seriously under 10 minutes after checking for the color inspiration of the week.  The colors were so inspiring that the card made itself.  I am out of "love" cards and wanted to stick one in my husband's lunch tomorrow so that is what I had in mind.  As you can probably see from all of the shadows everything is popped up on dimensionals.  It was the only adhesive I used except for two small pieces of sticky strip for the ribbon.  I used the "Love you" image before where I cut it out and put it on top of a circle and I liked it so much I had to use it again.  Hope you enjoy!

Stamps: Dreams du Jour

Ink:  Kiwi Kiss, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip

Paper: Very Vanilla, Kiwi Kiss, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip

Accessories:  Stampin' Dimensionals, Pumpkin Striped Grosgrain

Tools:  1 3/8 inch Circle Punch

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