Ramblings of a night owl

Insomnia equals....

2010-11-27T11:41:00.004-07:00

A bunch of new cards today!! For once my sleeplessness actually led to productivity this time! I managed to get 16 cards and 23 gift tags made last night while I couldn't sleep. Yay, me!! It's a good thing too, cause I didn't get anything done all week long, so I was behind in how many I need to get done.

Here's some pics, alot of the cards are the same as ones already posted so I won't post pics of those, but I did make some that are a little different so here they are...

I love these little gift tags! I used the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die from Sizzix to cut out the flowers from red leather. I used 2 flowers per card and then put a yellow brad in the middle to make them look like poinsetta's.
These gift tags were pretty quick and easy too. I used Nestibilities label thirteen, stamped Merry Christmas on it and then just added them to a quick background. Love quick and easy!!

These are similar to ones I've done before, just different paper and different colors.

This was a quick wedding card cause I needed a break from Christmas cards and besides my regular stash is pretty low right now too, so I need to add any cards I can!

A quick gift tag using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die again....I love that die....it have 4 different flowers on it and I love them all!

Christmas cards & a couple more canvases...

2010-11-07T16:11:00.004-07:00

Sorry that it's been a couple weeks since my last post, but I haven't been feeling the greatest and well, I just haven't had much to say or much to post about. I have managed to be a little creative over the last week or so though, so here's some new pics...

Two more canvases...these are for my bff to give as Christmas gift's so they are made in color's to match her mom's house.
A quickie little gift tag I made using a new flower die that I got and using scraps left over from the above canvas.

Some Christmas gift tags...

Quickie Christmas cards made from a kit that I got as a rak age's ago and came in really handy when my mojo was missing, but I wanted to make something...it was great cause I only had to put these together but in doing so I found my mojo!!!

These cards are using Making Memories pattern paper and then the poinsetta stamp is colored using Copic markers, and the cardstock is embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, and everything is inked with Distress inks.

These cards are made with Imaginisce pp, inked with Distress inks, and a little sparkle from Stickles.

More Making Memories paper...

Imaginisce pp, Copics markers, Distress inks, Nestibilities die, Fiskars border punch, Cuttlebug die (corner punch), buttons...

Bo Bunny patterned paper, Colorbox ink, Hampton Arts stamp, Core'dinations cardstock

BoBunny pp, Cuttlebug snowflake die, Nestibilities die, Core'dinations cardstock, dollar store chipboard embellishment, Fiskar's border punchBo Bunny pp, Coredinations cardstock, Hampton arts stamp, unknown border punch, Nestibilites star die, Colorbox silver ink, Silver embossing powder, Nestibilities deckled rectangle die

A couple Christmas cards...

2010-10-18T08:55:00.004-06:00

Well, it seems to be that time of year again, and my dr. told me that I needed to force myself to do things I enjoy even if I'm not really in the mood...it's supposed to help with the depression, so last week I made these three Christmas cards, using some Making Memories paper that I had picked up a couple weeks ago and not even taken out of the bag yet!

The stamps are ones that I used last year, but I still love them, and the shabby chic colors and inking suited my mood so it wasn't too much of a struggle to get these done. Usually I make almost all original cards for everyone, but I think given my mental health I may be doing some mass producing, but hopefully that's ok.

So here are my three prototypes for this line of paper...what do ya think?

What I've been up to...

2010-10-09T23:43:00.005-06:00

Well, I know that one thing I haven't been doing in the last two months is blogging and for that I'm sorry! I just have not been doing much scrappin' so...as a result I haven't been blogging either. I know that is not a good excuse, but it's all I have. And I have been struggling with depression a bit again so that has contributed to my lack of scrappin & blogging as well. But enough with the excuses and onto the pics, right?

Now I know I have a fair amount of projects posted here, but this is literally EVERYTHING I have done in the last 2 months...so when I say I haven't been doing much, I wasn't kidding. I did however actually make my first 2 Christmas cards last night, but I decided to save those for my next post.

Here's a few gift tags that I made using some leftovers from the canvases that I've been making/working on (I posted 2 here and I have 2 other different ones that I'm not finished yet).

Here's just an assortment of cards done over the last couple months...

These are the canvases that I've been working on. I'm making four in total, each one different. These two are quite similar cause they have the same background paper, but the other two that I'm working on are totally different. Same composition, title, saying etc, but totally different colors. I will post them as soon as they are finished.

This blue one is for my girlfriend's MIL while the green one I made for my own mom.

And last, but definately not least here is Mercedes back to school pic. I can't believe she is in grade four already! She is enjoying school so far this year and is in choir again and is also in a theatre program that she is thoroughly enjoying and will culminate in a play that they will put on for 3 nights in the beginning of December.

I will try to post more regularly from now on and hopefully that will happen as I get in the swing of things making Christmas cards and finishing those canvases and getting other Christmas gifts/orders ready.

The Memory Box is finished....

2010-08-16T12:35:00.003-06:00

I know that I have been a terrible, terrible blogger lately, but it's summer, and we've been busy, and well you know how it goes. Plus I haven't been that creative other than a couple cards, a canvas (that I'll post later) and slowly working my way along on this memory box...and it is finally done!! Yay!! I put alot of hours into this between editing pics, looking for quotes, buying supplies, planning and then the actual work itself. But I am very happy with how it turned out and I just hope that my cousin is happy with it too!

So here it is...

Left side
Right side

Back (there will be hinges on the back for the lid I think)

And this is the front

Catching up...

2010-07-12T12:17:00.004-06:00

I know that it's been ages since I last posted, so I'll start where I left off and try to get you all caught up on what's been happening with us!

Here's Mercedes getting her medal for finishing the marathon, and yes I did walk the last mile with her!

After the marathon, Mercedes finished up school and we left for Edmonton on Monday June 28th and I stayed until July 7th and Mercedes stayed until July 10th. It was awesome and I had a great time the whole time I was there! I have been feeling really good since I've been out of the hospital and I've been on different meds and I'm really enjoying life and enjoying just feeling like a normal person. I'm so very grateful that I was able enjoy my time with my friends and especially have a good time at my girlfriends wedding and all the associated celebrations.

Here's me & Jackie just before we left for her stagette party...

Here's Jackie, Mercedes and I at Jackie's wedding...

This is my favorite picture of just Mercedes that I took before we left for the church.

So I had an awesome time every second that I was gone on vacation, but I did come home a couple days before Mercedes so that I could have a few days to myself. I was outside when I heard this buzzing sound and I followed it and to my surprise, this is what I found....

At first we thought it was a beehive, but we eventually decided it was just a big swarm since the next day it was totally gone. And all that was left was these few bees...

Now Mercedes is back home and we are enjoying our clean and organized house, and Mercedes is enjoying her many birthday presents...one of which was a new bike...

And one of the gifts I gave her was these gift certificates. She's already used 2 of them!! She loved this gift!! It ranked right up there with her new bike and her Wii!! It's nice to know that my daughter appreciates things that arent' just about big bucks! And it felt good for me to get to do something a little creative, to make these look cute.

So now we are trying to get back into the swing of regular summer life. I've got all the bags unpacked and the laundry is just about all caught up, so hopefully I can get back into the groove and get back to work on this memory box, so I can get it finished and I need to get some more cards made. And of course, I do have more projects lined up, just waiting to be worked on.

And hopefully I will be posting regularly again now too! I does feel good to be back though, and I hope to have lots of pics of projects to post soon! :)

I'm back...

2010-06-23T10:24:00.002-06:00

Finally!! It was a rough road there for awhile, but I am finally back and out of the hospital and feeling much better now.

Haven't gotten back into the swing of things creatively yet, but that's mostly just because I've been busy getting back into the swing of life, and we have a busy couple weeks ahead of us too.

Today Mercedes will be walking the last mile in a kids marathon that she has participated in and she has asked me to be her buddy and walk with her, so in an hour I will be going to meet her at the school to walk with her to the finish line. I figure I have to take advantage of this opportunity because before I know it she won't want me to be her buddy anymore, so I better enjoy it while I can!

Then she only has 2 more days of school and then it's out for summer break! Woohoo!! Then we'll be getting ready as we are going to be going to Edmonton for a week or two. One of my best friends is getting married on July 3rd and so we are going up for that and also for Mercedes to spend some time with her dad and her grandparents. I will be spending my time with my girlfriend and a couple of other friends that I have up there and hopefully I'll even get to see my older kids too, if they can find time in their busy schedules, if they are even going to be around! All and all it will be a fun trip though and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm hoping to get something creative done before I leave, but that may or may not happen, but if it doesn't be sure that I will be going hard after I get home! I still have the memory box to finish and then I already have another project ready to be started as soon as the box is finished! lol So be sure to stay tuned cause lots of new stuff is in the works.

While I was in the hospital, my mom, sister and many other people all got together and totally cleaned and organized my house, so I have a whole new craft room to store all my supplies in and I'm just dying to get in there and get it all organized my way and get to work using some of my supplies that I had forgotten that I had!

So lots of fun will be happening this summer around here, so check in often and I promise to start posting regularly again! :)

MIA...

2010-06-08T11:34:00.002-06:00

You may have been wondering where I've been. Well the last couple of days I've been in the hospital. I suffer from bipolar disorder and have been dealing with severe depression for quite some time now. It got really bad last week and on Sunday, after talking to my mom and my family dr. we thought it was best for me to spend some time in the hospital.

I'm not very happy with psychiatrist lately, so we've decided to try to get me a new one. We've also decided to do some changes with my medications and whatever else we can think of that could turn this all around for me. Unforetunately this is not an exact science so it's a lot of try this, try that...see if this will work, or that will work. The big bummer is that most meds take 3-6 weeks to start working. And before we can start me on new meds we have to get me off the old meds, and you are supposed to gradually go off those meds, so that could take a month or two....unless you do it in the hospital where they can do it alot faster since they can watch you to make sure you don't have seizures, heart problems or any other such fun stuff!

So chances are I will be spending at least a few more days in the hospital if not more. Hopefully though after all is said and done, I will finally start to feel better...for more than a week or two at a time.

So if you don't hear from me for a few days it's because I don't have internet in the hospital, but I will try to keep you all posted as much as possible, and as soon as I'm feeling better I'll be back to creating soon I hope!

Side three is done...

2010-05-28T21:43:00.003-06:00

Well, after taking a couple days off, today I got back to work on the memory box, and just as I had hoped the end did go alot faster than the sides had! So I am now done 3 sides and only have 1 side and the lid left, so I am over half done and now looking down the home stretch....WOOHOO!! And I must admit, I am really happy with how this is all turning out!!

The weather around here has been rainy, snowy and just plain yucky this week, so it has been conducive to hanging out inside and getting some scrapping/creative work done, but yesterday I had a sick little girl, so that was NOT conducive to actually getting ANYTHING done!! lol

I might see if I can get started on the other end tonight, but we'll just see how that goes. I might also take a little break from this and do a few cards. Not sure. I know I probably won't get much done tomorrow, cause I have to go into the city and do something I dread....shop for clothes...blah! :( One of my best friends is getting married this summer so I need to go get a dress to wear and tomorrow is the day, but whatever I get done in the next day or two, I definately plan on having this all completed by the end of next week for sure!!

Although it's been a totally new kind of project for me, and it has definately made me use my brain a time or two ;), I have actually really enjoyed working on this. One of the reasons is that it's a boys project and I don't get to do boy things very often, so they are always more of a challenge for me, but also the different shape, the fact that it is a 3d project and then doing 5 seperate LO's, that are different but still co-herent. All and all it's been alot of fun!

I will post more again when I have more completed. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Side Two is done...

2010-05-25T17:43:00.003-06:00

Although it took the better part of the day, I managed to get the front of the memory box finished! Woohoo....two sides done, 3 to go (well 2 sides and the lid)! I figure since the ends are smaller they should go faster than the front and back did, but you never know how creativity and inspiration will work sometimes. So anyways, here's a picture of the front...

Mercedes has already decided that as soon as I finish this project that she wants me to make her a memory box too. In fact last night she even found a box that we can use. I'm kinda hoping that she forgets about it for a little while cause I'm pretty sure that when I'm finished this I'll want a break from this kinda project for a bit, but I have a feeling that more memory boxes are definately in my future. Oh well, I do think it's a cool idea, and I am happy with how this one is turning out...of course, I wouldn't consider it finished until I was happy with it!

I'll post more later when I get more done on it. :)

Memory box - First side is done....

2010-05-24T23:22:00.002-06:00

Today was pretty productive, considering that I slept in until noon! I've had nothing but this memory box on my mind, so I started working on it almost as soon as I got up and although it looked like this, this morning...

I am proud to say that it looks like this... tonight!

It is tipped up it's side, and it's not the best picture, but you get the idea. The flowers and butterflies are all Tim Holtz grungeboard that I painted with acrylic paint in the colors that is in the Fancy Pants paper that will be used on some of the other sides. The cardstock is Core'dinations & I used Distress inks to ink the paper & photos. The brads are Recollections Antique Copper. I used Mod Podge as my mail adhesive for everything except the photos which I attached with Elmer's glue stick. I think that's about everything!

Now that I've actually gotten started I'm hoping that the rest will flow smoothly and this won't take too long. I just need the uninterupted time to be able get the work done and hopefully now that I have the house back to just me & Mercedes I will be able to get my alone time again!

Happy long weekend...

2010-05-23T20:00:00.004-06:00

It's been a busy week, so I'm sorry that I haven't been posting, but I've been trying to catch up on everything that fell behind while I was sick. And then on Thursday evening Brad came for his first visit since he's moved to Edmonton. Mercedes is thrilled that he's here and I've enjoyed a little break from single parenthood for a few days. He will be going back home tomorrow, so we've tried to pack as much into the four days that he's here as we can.

He showed up with a cooler full of a bunch of our favorite foods that we can't find down here and then spent the whole evening playing with Mercedes. Friday we went to Lethbridge and did some shopping and then we went to dinner at the Keg and still got home in time spend most of the evening with Mercedes. Yesterday we just hung around the house, and he helped me sand and seal the wooden memory box that I am starting to work on. Then last night we watched Avatar on Blu-Ray...WOW! Considering that we didn't see it in the theater, high def, was definately the way to go, and we all really enjoyed the movie. Today, I got to sleep in until noon, and then Brad and Mercedes wanted to go fishing so I tagged along and took some pics and then just hung out and watched them for a couple hours.

So I have a few pics to show off...

This is the scenery I see everytime I am coming home from the city....I just love coming home, cause I LOVE this view...I love my mountains!!!
This is a pic that I took while Brad & Mercedes were fishing. The big mountain in the middle is Chief Mountain and it looks over our town, but I loved the way it looked today with the clouds and the snow.

Here's a pic of Brad & Mercedes during the time they were fishing....it was really cold & windy so they would set up their rods and then come sit in the car to warm up, so I managed to catch this pic just as she hugged him to thank him for helping her get her rod set up. I thought it was a great pic of my little girl with her daddy.

Tnis is a wooden box that I've been hired to decorate. She wants LO's done on each side & the top and then she is giving it to her son to use as a Memory box and every year he can go through all his projects and pick his favorites to save and he can store them in this box. This is a totally new kind of project for me. I've altered boxes before, but on a much smaller scale and usually just with paper & embellishments, not usually with pictures and doing layout type things. So this is the box that Brad helped me sand & seal yesterday and I was grateful for the help, and I've pretty much finished all the pre-planning and gathered all the supplies, so now I just need to sit down and get started on the actual creating. I'm just a little stuck on which side to start with! lol

But I wanted to post the before pics and I will take pics along the way and definately post after pics since I could not find any pictures of something like this when I was looking for ideas, but I do think it was a neat idea, although I can't take credit for it, it was my cousin's idea...she just hired me to actually do it! Wish me luck!!

This is just a pic from the front. It doesn't matter that it's so scarred and beaten up since it will all be covered with paper & pics by the time I'm done!

I've decided that I'm going to be giving some of the graduates that I know this year some packages of thank you cards to use for either gifts they recieve or to give to some special teachers, so I've been working on thank you cards and congratulations cards for the actual graduates themselves. So that's what these cards are all for...

The paper is all K&Co and the stamps are all Close to My Heart. Ink is Distress Inks and the pattern for these first 2 cards is from the book Wishes from CTMH. While the pattern from the last 2 cards is one of my own patterns using Spellbinder's Nestibilities Label's Thirteen.

Gift tag I made using the scraps left over from the above two cards & a wooden heart sprayed with a couple different colors of glimmer mist.

Busy last night...

2010-05-15T13:40:00.004-06:00

I've been starting to feel better the last couple days, so last night I actually got alot accomplished. Here are the cards that I made...

Sorry that it's been so long....

2010-05-14T00:18:00.002-06:00

I know it's been over a week since my last post, but I've been busy using all my energy trying to fight this severe depression I've been dealing with. However, I'm happy to say that today, for the first time in weeks, I actually feel some hope that maybe, just maybe I am starting to feel better! Here's hoping, cause I've desperately missed feeling like a real human, and I really miss my creativity and enjoying using it!

So today I did manage to get a few cards made, which is good cause I've had some customer's come by lately and my supply is starting to need replenishing, so I need to get my butt in gear and get my selection built up. Plus I will be starting a new project within the next few days...I have a customer that has hired me to decorate a memory box for her son. This is a totally new thing for me, so it will be a bit of a challenge, but I think it will be fun to do something new and I like the idea of what she wants me to do. And don't worry I will post pics as I'm working on it!

And now here's the pics I have for today...
First a fun pic of my soapy princess in the tub tonight...she was just being silly and insisted on me taking her picture to prove that she really did scrub her WHOLE self clean! lol
I made a couple of these cards, since I'm hoping to use them for graduation cards.

A couple baby cards...don't ya just love that little elephant....I just think he is so cute!

Just a basic card using paper & stamps from Close to my Heart.

Still depressed, so here's just a few pics...

2010-05-02T12:42:00.003-06:00

Well, it's been another rough week. My brother's birthday was on Wednesday and we did get together and try to celebrate it, but it was just all too obvious that he wasn't there and will never celebrate another birthday again. And he had way too many birthday's left that he should have celebrated.

But enough about that. I did manage to get a couple things done this week, although it did feel like I was forcing myself to do it, rather than actually enjoying it, but I forced myself in the hopes that something might make me feel better.

I hope this depression lifts soon or I'm not sure what to do. I am on new medication and I do have to give it time to work, but patience is NOT one of my virtues so this is a big challenge.

I did get a little mini album made using the pics of Mercedes that I took last weekend, so here it is, although I did upload it backwards. Please just bear with me.

So this is actually the back cover

Some cards I've made over the last couple weeks and finally managed to take some pics...

Photo Shoot

2010-04-26T09:33:00.004-06:00

Depression steals my creativity...

2010-04-25T19:06:00.004-06:00

along with my energy, motivation and general desire to do anything or be anything other than a pile of useless cells, wasting skin, taking up space on my couch, watching the minutes tick by.

And that pretty much describes what I've been doing for the last couple weeks, give or take a few minutes here and there.

Were it not for my sister, my daughter would not have been fed and cared for. And were it not for my mom, I would not have been fed and cared for, since there were literally some days that I did not even have the energy to make myself something to eat.

Thankfully on Friday I felt a teeny bit better, and had Mercedes come home and over the last couple days, I've slowly felt the desire to participate in life return at least in some form.

So I'm sorry that I haven't written much lately, but I had pulled into my shell and that was where I stayed until a couple days ago, and I am just now slowly starting to poke my head out.

So, not much more to say, just a bunch of pics of the things that keep me going.

First and Foremost, my Princess...when all else fails, she will always keep me going...we did a little photo shoot yesterday with some roses that she got from her daddy. We got a bunch of pics that I love. Here's just one of them....

This was just me fooling around with my camera and I was really happy with how this pic turned out, so I wanted to share it with you! Isn't this rose gorgeous! This is my favorite color of roses!

This was just a quickie gift tag.

The card is 3 1/2x8 and I made the envelope too.

Another 3 1/2 x 8

One of the hardest things for me when I'm depressed is going out, so it was tough to make it out to Mercedes choir concert, but it was worth it when she got this look on her face when she saw me in the audience!

Here she is singing her little heart out!

Another choir pic!

Where is spring?

2010-04-13T23:40:00.004-06:00

Where is spring? That is the question of the week it seems? These pictures were taken at about 7:30 tonight and these are what "spring" is looking like around here right now.

It all started on Sunday evening with light flurries that never really even made it to the ground. Then during the night it got a little worse and by Monday morning there was a tiny bit of the white stuff sticking around...only enough that by starting my car 7 or 8 minutes before we had to leave for school, the defrost had taken care of everything and I didn't even have to pull out the snow brush.

This morning things were looking up. No snow on the ground, no snow in the air, just a frosted up windshield, but again good ol defrost took care of it. In fact at 10:00 this morning my car was totally red, no frost, no snow...just hope that the grey cloudy skies might go away.

But alas, that hope was to be dashed! The snow started again...lightly at first, but then it started to pick up steam, and this is what things looked like at 7pm. At 11pm when I watched the news they predicted another 10-20cm (4"-8") of snow overnight! WHAT!!??!?!?!? Doesn't Mother Nature know it is the middle of April?

This weather depresses me, and I was already depressed, so I didn't need this to make it worse! I'm trying to be happy for the farmer's and gardener's who can always use moisture in this area, but how about a few April shower's? This snow is just yucky and makes me want to turn right around and go back into my cave and hibernate for another month or two!

So please, if you have sunshine where you are, please, please send some our way...I am so sick of snow!!!

It's been a rough week....

2010-04-10T23:32:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I can't believe that it's only been less than 5 months since my brother passed away. It seems like it's been so much longer than that since he was last sitting on my couch offering his brotherly advice, or telling a joke or trying to tickle Mercedes. Sometimes I miss him so much that it physically hurts me...I actually get a physical pain in my chest from missing him so much. And that is how this week has been.

I miss seeing him, talking to him, teasing him, listening to him, cooking for him, calling him, asking him for favors, doing him favors, just knowing that he was a couple doors away, needing him and him being there to be needed. I just miss him. But especially I miss talking to him. He really understood me. We were more than just brother and sister, we were great friends too. And I appreciated his perspective on things...he saw things in a way that made sense to me...in a way that I didn't always see them myself, but was always glad to be made aware of that perception. He loved to play devil's advocate. He was great at making sure that I really thought about all sides of things. I miss that. I miss so many things. I especially miss being able to give him a hug and tell him that I love him and he's a great brother.

So this week I've felt especially sad and I've had a hard time just functioning. It was kinda lucky cause Mercedes was on Easter break, so she was able to spend lots of time hanging out with her cousins and do some fun things with them. I am so lucky to live close to my family and be able to rely on them for help when I am not feeling well.

But due to the way I was feeling this week, I really didn't accomplish much. Unless you count crying and sleeping as accomplishments, then I definately didn't accomplish as much as I would have liked. I did manage to do a couple things though.

Last night though, I got the urge to do a LO. The picture isn't great since the right side is curled up a bit, but I was just in a hurry to get a picture taken so it will have to do. I wanted to do a layout about how fast Mercedes seems to be growing up, but I also mentioned a few things that she still likes to be "little" about. It was just when I saw this picture of her I just was struck with how grown up she looked and I knew that I needed to do a LO about this place she is at right now where she wants to be grown up, but there is still a part of her that likes to be little.

This was just a quickie bday card I made using some scraps that I had sitting on my desk.

This card is using stamps and paper from Close to my Heart and the actual card pattern is from the CTMH book Wishes which I just ordered and LOVE!!

Another card using CTMH products, and ideas. This card is pretty much a scraplift of one in the Spring idea book. Now I just need to make one for a boy so I'll have at least something for each in my stash!

And this is what gets me through all the hard times. My little princess! Here she is giving some love to some of her many Webkinz stuffies.

I hope these aren't too dark. I just got Photoshop Elements 8 and have been playing around with some of the actions that you can get, but sometimes I may get a little carried away...sorry?!

I think this is my favorite. I just love the expression on her face...it's a typical I'm happy and content look that she gets when she is...well, happy and content. Boy, I love this little girl! And she loves her Webkinz! lol

Lots and lots of gift tags....

2010-04-07T14:56:00.003-06:00

Sometimes after making lots of cards I'm left with a big pile of scraps. Pieces that are too big to throw away, but not quite big enough to really make more cards with, so that is when the time has come to go on a gift tag making spree! And that is what I did the last couple nights.

Besides I've been feeling a little down the last couple days so gift tags are the perfect project to work on...quick and easy with little brain power needed. Plus instant gratification of accomplishing something, since I certainly have not been accomplishing anything as far as my housework duties are concerned!

I'm not sure what has brought on these last couple days of the blues, but I have been really missing my brother...it kinda started on Sunday. Easter dinner just wasn't the same without him there, and it is April now which is his birthday month, so normally at this time of year he would be starting to tell us all what he wanted for his birthday and how we should all spend lots and lots of money on him because he is so awesome! He'd also be dropping absolutely not subtle hints that we should all take him to dinner at the Keg or at the very least cook him steak and lobster for dinner...and actually I probably would have this year cause he made me steak and crab legs for my birthday last year! It's hard to believe that it's only been four and a half months since he died, and yet in other ways it's seems like it's been forever since I last talked to him. I miss him so much.

And then it's been really windy down here these last few days and that always means a bad headache for me, so that hasn't improved my mood at all. But sometime today I am supposed to be getting some new stamps and paper that I ordered from Close to My Heart, so I'm hoping that will cheer me up and renew my spirit with some creative ideas! So keep checking in cause I will be doing some totally new card styles....I'm thinking of venturing into some new sizes, and shapes so keep your eyes peeled for those over the next few days!

So now for the gift tags I went crazy with over the last couple days. These are great for using up scraps. You just need a 2 7/8"x2 7/8" piece of cardstock then one piece of 1 1/4" x 2 3/4" patterned paper and a 2" x 2 1/4" piece of co-ordinating patterned paper. The white square is either 1 1/4" square or 1 1/2" square. And then this is just mounted on a 3"x3" card. Easy, peasy. Simple and great use for scraps. I also like to add a little embellishment in the top left corner just for a little something extra, and I use anything from a flower to a gem to a brad to a shell to whatever you have that would work.

So here's the pics....

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T15:58:00.006-06:00

You would think that after making 100 boxes for my girlfriends wedding, and then 20 boxes for Mercedes' class I would be sick of making them, but I decided to make a few more for my mom & stepdad and then for my sister & her family. For these boxes I made the paper myself using glimmer mist since I was sick of plain white boxes! For the first 2 I used a Heidi Swapp mask and put it over the 2 sheets of paper and then sprayed the paper with pink, green and blue glimmer mist.

For all of these boxes I just picked 2 colors and either did stripes or dots to decorate the paper. I also added the little white paper topper with the deco edges just to jazz it up a bit, and instead of a scalloped circle this time, I used a deckled rectangle. Each box is filled with a bunch of different Easter chocolate candies. (My sister will be so thrilled that I got her kids all hopped up on sugar!) lol

This is just a simple no sentiment card with a cardstock heart on it. The patterned paper is all Martha Stewart stuff that I found in my scraps drawer.

This is one of my current favorite patterns....it was a mojo Monday sketch 126. If you're interested in actual sizes & pattern directions just post a comment and I will gladly post the measurements for any of the cards that I make.

This is a fairly quick and easy card. In fact the part that takes the longest is waiting for the glimmer mist on the flower to dry! Or actually just making the flower itself! lol

This is an old card pattern that I found as I was cleaning out a shelf in my old scrappy space. This year I'm in the process of slowly moving all my stuff from 2 rooms into one room...but the one room has to be emptied and cleaned out first, so it's all a very long and painful process. However when I can, I try to purge and re-organize and get like supplies together as much as possible. Anyways, as I was saying I found this box with card patterns that I used to use, before I started keeping them in binders and scribblers, so I decided to put all the patterns together and write all the patterns done in my scribbler. And I thought this was a great quick and easy card for those occasions when you need a card asap or when you want a card with clean lines.

This was another pattern I found in my box of patterns. This was fun too, cause I don't have any of this paper anymore so it was nice to get to work with it even if just for a few minutes!

Here is a 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" gate-fold card with matching envelope. These are so quick and easy to make if you have a scor-pal and they are a nice change from the regular 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" cards. I love the colors on this one too.

Just some quick little gift tags. These are so simple and quick to make, especially since you basically make 2 at once. You just need 2 pieces of patterned paper that go together, 2 squares of cardstock and 2 embellishments. Cut your pp 2 7/8"x 2 7/8"; Cut one of the pp squares in half diagonally. Ink all edges. Glue your backgrounds together (one diagonal on one whole square). Cut cardstock squares whatever size you need to "mat" your embellishment (usually 1 1/2"x 1 1/2" or 2 x 2 )

Another gift tag.

Now I'm off to Easter dinner at my sister's house. Have you ever noticed that food seems to taste better when you didn't have to cook it yourself? Well it does for me anyway (as long as the person who did cook it is a good cook, and my sister is!)

Not sure what we'll be doing later tonight....probably watching a movie since I have it on good authority that Mercedes got a couple movies from the Easter bunny (she hasn't been home to see her basket yet), and that means I'll be making more cards, cause I can't seem to just sit still and watch tv without doing something at the same time! lol

Hope you all have a great day and HAPPY EASTER!!

Busy, busy, busy...

2010-04-01T20:30:00.004-06:00

It's been a very busy, with very little sleep day for me, so I'll keep the chatter short and sweet and let the pictures do the talking. It was Mercedes' turn to bring a treat for her class Easter party so we made these little treat boxes and stuffed them full of chocolate, candy, stickers and a cute little pom pom chick (that was apparently a big hit!)

There were 20 boxes in total, and I've pretty well mastered them so it only took about 3 hours to make them all. I thought they looked pretty cute though.

Here's some of the cards that I've managed to get made in the last day or two...in between treat boxes, and the odd hour of sleep that I caught here and there.
A little froggie card.

Gift tag with a dictionary flower on the front.
A few wedding cards.

A couple sympathy cards....I love how these two turned out....I like the way the inking looks and I just love the papers I used. Definately two of my favs that I've made lately.

This is just a photo collage of a bunch of 3x3 gift tags that I've also made recently. Not my best work as far as the collage itself goes but I just downloaded the trial version of Photoshop elements 8.0 and Mercedes would not leave me alone long enough to even begin to really figure out what I was doing, so I just hurried out and threw this together. The next one will be better I promise!
So that's what I've been up to over the last 24-48 hours, and I'm already started on a couple other little Easter projects for some family members. But mostly I'm just looking forward to a good nights sleep and I am really looking forward to sleeping in for the next 10 days!! Woohoo!! Gotta love Easter vacation!

A productive evening...

2010-03-30T09:00:00.003-06:00

After my busy weekend, I was lucky enough to come down with a really nasty chest cold, so I haven't been feeling very well the last couple days, but somehow I was still very productive last night.

It started with me finishing the last ten wedding favor boxes...well the last for now anyways. The original 100 are finished, but it's looking like there may be more to be made in the future since my girlfriends guest list seems to keep growing! lol

After that I made a couple cards and then tried to get some sleep, since I'm fighting this nasty cold, but there was no sleep to be had, so I got up and decided to get some cleaning done.

I managed to get my scrappy table cleaned off a bit, and then I tackled my kitchen. Dishes done. Grocery list and menu's planned done. Counters and stove done. Floors swept & mopped done. Bathroom floors done. Toilet done. And by then I was about done!!

Since it was almost 3 am by then I decided to throw today's dinner in the crockpot so that it will be ready to eat when Mercedes gets home from school and finally around 3:30 I finally managed to get a couple hours sleep. I was up again at 6:20am to get Mercedes up and ready since today was choir day so she had to be at school by 7:30.

Then I came home, checked my email, and just finished taking some pics of the cards I made last night. Hopefully today's pics look better than usual since I was actually able to take the pics using natural light instead of the flash which I usually have to use since I'm usually taking pictures at night!

So now, I think I might try to get another couple cards made while I wait for the stores to open, so I can go get my errands done and then I will be coming home and *hopefully* getting a nice long nap, while Mercedes is at school.

These cards are all made using the paper from the K&Co Sue SeraFera Designer Paper pad and I just LOVE it! Everytime I look at the paper it just makes me want to make something! Gotta love paper like that eh?!

These first two are little 3"x3" gift tags and the last card is a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

Another busy weekend....

2010-03-29T00:15:00.004-06:00

No energy for long stories of my busy weekend, just trust me that it was busy, but fun. So here's some pics of some cards that got made and a couple pics of the scenery that I see as I drive around town. That's all for now, cause I'm off to bed!

Finally some cards...

2010-03-24T13:24:00.002-06:00

It's been a busy week around here it seems. The music festival is here and Mercedes has been a participant on Tuesday and today. Tuesday she sang with her school class and they did a good job and then today she sang with the school choir and they were excellent! I am always amazed at how awesome the choir program is here, especially for such a small town, and although it isn't always fun getting up early on Tuesday mornings so that she can be at school for the 7:30am practices, it does seem to be worth it, when it comes time for them to do a performance.

But I digress, this post is supposed to be about cards, so here they are...I do even have more made, just haven't gotten around to taking pics, and I don't have time now since I need to get out the door and head off to parent teacher conference, but here are some of the ones I've made in the last few days...

Gift tags...
This is the card that Mercedes helped me make for my mom's birthday. Mercedes picked all the colors for the flower and got to do all the spraying of the glimmer mist!

The flowers on these two cards are from a Stampin Up set that I have...

This is a new stamp that I found at my LSS in the discount basket...it works perfect for this card pattern...

Another birthday card using the same pattern as I used a few posts ago...

The hardest part of these cards was putting all the little gems on around the scallops! lol

This was supposed to be Friday's post...

2010-03-22T09:18:00.002-06:00

So for Christmas one of my bff's Amy had promised me a haircut as my Christmas gift, so Friday we finally managed to arrange our schedules and got together to go get our haircuts. We decided that we might as well make a day/night of it so I went into the city on Friday afternoon and stayed overnight and spent most of Saturday with her too and then came back home on Saturday evening.

We have been best friends since grade four so no matter what we do together we always have fun, and this time was no exception.

Here's the pic before the big cut...
And here is the after pic....as you can see I had alot taken off, but I really love it!

After the haircuts, we went and picked up her hubby and the three of us went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Cafe...yummy, yummy, yummmy!!! Here's a pic of her and her dh.

And a pic of me and her together. After dinner we headed over to a local pub to play name that tune and then we spent the rest of the night listening to a really good country band....not only was the music good, but the lead singer was very pleasant to look at too! Gotta love that! lol

As usual we had a blast just hanging out together, being silly, laughing lots, enjoying the eye candy and just enjoying each other's company. And even though we didn't get back to her place till after 2am we still managed to stay up until after 5am talking and just hanging out! Needless to say we slept in until noon on Saturday!

Saturday afternoon we did a little shopping...nothing too exciting, just Walmart, a couple things at the scrapbook store and then a quick stop to use my 40% off coupon at Michael's. After that it was back to her place where her sweet hubby was nice enough to help me check all the fluids in my car and make sure everything was looking good and up to snuff.

By then it was time for me to come back home to real life and being a mommy, but we will definately be making more time to do some more girl's nights again, since I had forgotten how much fun they were. Maybe we'll do it again in June when that band is back in Lethbridge again. If ya want to check out who we were listening to go to http://www.craigmoritz.com Not only did they do some great covers, but they also had some really good original stuff too, in fact I even ended up buying a cd and I've had it playing in my car ever since I bought it!

So that was my fun weekend! I'll be back a little later with some new cards that I also managed to get made during the time that I was home, since the one thing that I didn't do much of this weekend was....SLEEP! lol

This was supposed to be Thursday's post...

2010-03-21T01:34:00.002-06:00

As I have mentioned earlier this week, I had been struggling with some major depression, so on Thursday night when Mercedes suggested that we have our party night, since Friday was a day off school, I was less then enthusiastic to say the least.

But I decided that I would summon up every ounce of energy that I had and try to have some fun with my daughter, even if that meant leaving the dirty dishes on the counter to wait until morning to be done.

Being the creative little girl that she is, she decided to make up a game for us to play. First she gathered almost every blanket in the house and spread them out end to end from one end of the house to the other. Then on each blanket she put 3 Webkinz. The rules were as follows...we were each to stand on a blanket 2 blankets apart. One Webkinz was our "enemy" that we had to protect, the other two were for us to use to attack with. The idea was to try to get onto the other persons blanket without getting hit by one of their webkinz or to hit their "enemy" with one of our webkinz. How she thought up this game I do not know, but we ended up having so much fun!

We were laughing and giggling and trying to be sneaky....trying to inching forward on our blankets without the other person noticing, or trying to hide our enemy in the farthest corner of the blanket as possible. Well we played that for about an hour and we had a blast! I was so glad that I made myself get up and play with her, cause those are the memories that I want her to remember.

Much better then all the memories she will have of mom barely able to get out of bed and get dressed.

You can see in the pics the different blankets laid out and the webkinz (3 per blanket) all set out carefully selected in appropriate groupings.

After the Webkinz Blanket game, Mercedes decided that we needed some music on and she decided to play rockstar for awhile and I took advantage of it, grabbed my camera and did something I haven't done in quite awhile...took 100 pics of her just being her!

But I will save the best of those pics for the next post.

By the time we were done all that it was almost 11:30 and she had worked up quite an appetite and as a final fun treat we jumped in the car in our jammies and drove down to the local 24 hour convenience store and bought a bunch of junk food and came home and had fun junk food at midnight for our bedtime snacks!

Mercedes said it was one of our best parties ever, and I honestly had to agree with her!

I was so glad that I had made myself get off the couch and just get up and play. It had been awhile since I had just played with her and it was fun...just plain, good old fun!!

And it was good for me too! It was the beginning of me getting out of this slump that I've been in.

But you'll hear more of that later...don't want to post all the good stuff in one night! ;)

So I'll be back tomorrow with more of my fun weekend adventures, including a couple new pics of me...with a new look.

And even with all the play (and there was lots of play this weekend, both kid play and grown-up play), I even managed to get some cards made too, so there will be some of those posted as well, so make sure you check back soon...you never know what you may see! :D

Been depressed, yet somehow productive

2010-03-16T12:45:00.006-06:00

Nothing too exciting been going on around here, lately.

Been struggling with depression again, which is never fun, so I've been sleeping lots and accomplishing little.

Somehow though I have managed to get a few things done.

Here's a couple birthday cards I made one night when I couldn't sleep.

And here's another one made from the same pattern, just different papers and a flower instead of starts.
This is a side view just to see the dimension of the paper rose that I made using cardstock hearts, some glimmer mist and a lot of scrunching and playing around with the paper.

Another gate fold card with matching envelope that I made.

Forty more favor boxes done...that makes a total of 60 done only 40 to go!! Yay!

Gift tags, and more gift tags

More blog candy...

2010-03-10T21:34:00.002-07:00

I found another fun blog with some blog candy up for grabs. Check out this link http://paper-rose-petals.blogspot.com/search/label/Blog%20Candy%20Alert%203%2F25%20Drawing and while you are there check out her amazing cards! I'm in love with this ladies work...in fact I just stumble on the blog candy totally by accident, I was at the blog following a link from splitcoaststampers cause I just loved her cards and wanted to see more of her work. You can bet that I'll be checking in on her blog often just for the eye candy and inspiration. But since I was there, I figured might as well add my name to the list for a chance to win, so you might as well add your name too! Good luck! :)

Blog candy...

2010-03-08T08:42:00.002-07:00

Check out this link http://callmecraftyal.blogspot.com/2010/03/follower-blog-candy-open-thru-314.html for a chance to win some awesome blog candy and some links to some great digital and rubber stamps! This is the personal blog of the girl that used to do the Sheetload blog (I think). And I really miss the sheetload blog, but how fun to have a chance to win some fun blog candy! So check out the link and leave some comments for your chance to win!

And the links that you are lead to from the above blog have some great digital stamps that would be great for cardmaking, not to mention they each have a freebie or two that you can try out! So good luck and have fun!

It was a creative weekend...

2010-03-07T20:52:00.004-07:00

And it even included a scrapbook page!! I don't even remember the last time I made a scrapbook page, it's been that long!

Our creativity also extended to many of the games that Mercedes wanted to play this weekend...boy, does that little girl have an imagination! She sure kept me hopping trying to keep up with all the things she wanted to do. She wanted to play a game where she would "act" naughty and then have to get sent to time-out and then she would try to sneak away and I would have to catch her and bring her back. Another time she set up a store and I was required to come buy something every three minutes for over an hour! Try to accomplish anything when you have to stop every three minutes...needless to say, I didn't get much done other than just play with her during that time period! lol It was good practice for her math skills though, all that making change, except for all the times that I would just give her a nice "tip" for her good service! lol

I also managed to get a few more favor boxes done, although I didn't do any today at all, I do have 20 done now! I have been working hard on cards though cause I do have my sister's and my mom's birthday's this month and they both want card's as gifts so I like having lots for them to choose from. I am also putting together a care package for someone and I may be doing a farmer's market in the next month or so, soooo I can't have too many cards on hand. Hence the need to constantly be making cards.

I did have an extra motive for some of these cards though. I am a member of a great online scrapbooking community at http://www.scrapcentral.ca and we have monthly crops. This month I added a few card challenges, so I made some cards as examples of my own challenges. And then today I went a little crazy and actually got 17 gift tags made...I can never have too many, since I'm always selling out of those, I figured I better start making alot more of them, because everyone seems to love em! Besides they are a GREAT way to use up scraps and I love using scraps!!

So here's all the gift tags

You can't tell, but the tag above here ^ has the coolest poofy flower--definately one of my favs!

The challenge for the following 3 cards was to use spring like embellishment...i.e. flowers & butterflies.

The challenge for these 3 cards was to use spring like colors....i.e. blue, green, pink, purple and yellow

Thirteen down, Eighty seven to go...

2010-03-05T00:33:00.002-07:00

Well, I'm starting to get a little faster at making these favor boxes. The first five I made took me 2 hours, but tonight I made 3 in about 45 minutes, so I seem to be getting better at them at least! Here's what they look like...

I know all the tags and bows aren't perfect, but my girlfriend is going to have to untie them to put the glasses inside them anyways, so that's why I'm not to worried about it.

Nothing too exciting has happened over the last couple days. I've been sleeping during the day alot, but then I'm up late so it all evens out. My dr. tells me I just like to "work" the night shift. I figure whatever works right?

I get up and get Mercedes off to school, do a few things around the house for an hour or two and then go back to bed for a few hours. I'm still getting my eight or so hours of sleep, I just get some during the night and some during the day while she's at school. It just works best for me since I am most productive from about 10pm-2am, so I still get to stay up late and do my stuff at my best time of day, but I'm also still getting enough sleep so that I don't get to overtired and grumpy. And being that I'm single I can do whatever I want! Man, I love that!

No big plans for the weekend yet, so hopefully it'll just be a lazy and quiet couple days. I don't think we have to be anywhere or do anything, so I'm fine with that. I do have a dr. appt tomorrow, and I will of course be working on more boxes, and need to get some more cards done, but other than that I'm hoping to just take it easy, sleep in, have our little Mommy & Mercedes party and hopefully not have to spend any money!

I'm trying to save my money since I'm hoping to have something to celebrate in a couple weeks...can't let the cat outta the bag yet, but when it happens I will be one very happy camper! I'm happy just thinking about it!

Well that's enough for tonight. I'll be back in a day or two. :)

This makes 25...

2010-03-01T23:20:00.002-07:00

It's only March 1st and this is my twenty fifth post...one more than all of last year!! Yay for me!! My goal this year was to blog more often than last year and here we are only 3 months into the year and I've made my goal! I'm so proud of me...if I do say so, myself!

Well, it was a typical Monday, nothing too exciting...hard to get up at 7am, but I did manage to catch a nap later so I can't really complain.

Our weekend was rather uneventful as well. We just mostly hung around the house, slept in, watched a couple movies and then caught the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. Gotta love the way we Canadians can make fun of ourselves! lol

I also finished my girlfriends wedding invitations, but forgot to take more pics before I packaged them up to be mailed! Doh!!

I have a new project for her wedding to start on now though. They got shot glasses with their names & date engraved on them for favors and she couldn't find any packaging that was a reasonable price, so I told her that I would see what I could come up with. After a little experimenting I found something that will work and I can do them for $75 less than anything else she could find, so I will be working on those for the next little while since she needs 100! Part of me wishes I hadn't opened my mouth, but most of me is glad that I can help her out, and I can use the little bit of extra money too. I'll post some pics when I get a few done, cause so far I've only made the one prototype and I think the pic will look much cooler when I have a bunch done.

Here are a couple cards I did get done on Sunday though...

A little of this and that...

2010-02-27T13:29:00.006-07:00

Well, apparently the retail therapy yesterday did good for both me and Mercedes! Last night she amazed me by totally cleaning and organizing her own scrapping desk! It had been completely covered and piled up with stuff at least a foot high! And with absolutely no help or prodding from me she totally cleaned it herself! I was so proud of her! And she was certainly proud of herself!

So here she sits, behind her newly cleaned off desk!

Mercedes is also a very creative person. We are lucky to come by some of our creativity genetically, with some extremely creative mom's, aunts, uncles, grandma's, grandpa's, great grandparents, etc. and of course we also work at it and excerise our creative muscles alot too. I also encourage her to be creative as much as possible, and I firmly believe that the more creativity you use, the more you have. So here are a couple examples of projects she's done lately.

These two pictures she made a couple days ago with some 3d paints that we got at the dollar store and they are so much fun! Definatley two dollars well spent!

This is a Layout that Mercedes made a while ago. She loves dogs so much that she did a layout using pictures of dogs that she found on the internet! lol I think that is just too cute!

I was also quite productive last night. I managed to get a bunch of paper and supplies re-organized, which always feels good. I had bought a bunch of little baskets at the dollar store yesterday so I was having fun filling them up and re-grouping supplies.

At about 10:30 I was starting to get tired, so I thought that maybe I would have a relatively early night and not really work on any cards, but then of course the closer it got to midnight, the more awake I got and the more my creative mojo kicked in, so the idea of going to bed was put off and the card making supplies were pulled out and I starting creating. I don't know why, but for some reason I am most creative after midnight!

I started with a quickie gift tag just cause I wanted to use my new cuttlebug embossing folder that I had bought yesterday, and I already had these hearts cut out, so it literally took about 2 minutes to make this one. Gotta love that!

I'm still loving these folded frame cards, so I made a couple more of these, and for a little something extra I added some distress stickles around the scalloped edge.

This one took a little longer to make, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. I used some purple cardstock, unknown yellow patterned paper, the green patterned paper is from the Basic Grey Wisteria collection, and then just white cardstock. The font is Shelley Allegro for the Sentiment and the image is just a sticker from the dollar store (man, I love that place! lol) and the photo corner is a cuttlebug die cut. The scalloped edge is done with a Fiskar's punch.

After I finished doing a few things for myself it was time to buckle down and get to work. I had made wedding invitations for my girlfriend that is getting married this summer, but she called me earlier this week and asked if I could make her 10 more, so I got started on those last night.

Since I was going to leave them to dry overnight, I decided to take the opportunity to fulfill a photography challenge and try to take some pictures of an inanimate object from a bunch of different angles. I actually think the pictures turned out kinda cool, so I'm glad that I took the time to take them, even though it was almost 5 am! (Needless to say, I'm kinda tired today!)

Anyway this is only the first layer of the invitations, under the vellum is a pic of the couple, then under that is black cardstock with a pocket which contains the RSVP card and envie, and then all the layers are attached with 2 silver eyelets and tied together with a black ribbon at the top. And there are 9 rhinestones that I put on the stamping on the bottom of the vellum. So I still have quite a few steps left before these will be done!

But anyhoo, here's the pics, and I will post a pic when they are all finished.

Retail therapy Rocks!!

2010-02-26T22:48:00.002-07:00

Had a fun trip to Lethbridge today with Mercedes and so stay tuned to see what new things I may come up with to use some of my new purchases. We found a new dollar store, so I got some new things there, and there was also a stop at the scrapbook store where of course I found a few treasures, and then last but not least I hit the scrapbook section at Walmart!

So I just finished putting everything away, and I am coming upon my most creative hour, so here's hoping by tomorrow morning I will have many new creations to post! So don't forget to check back often in the next few days to see what I've been up too! :D

It's a miracle....

2010-02-26T12:22:00.004-07:00

Not only am I up and at em, functioning and productive, but I am dressed in real clothes, have makeup on and I'm smiling!! It's an early morning miracle!! This is something that definately does not happen very often!! :D So just to mark the occasion I decided I better snap a pic to prove it to my doubters (I know you're out there, and you know who you are! ;))

No big special occasion really, just a fun date day with my daughter Mercedes cause we are going to go into the city and do some shopping and have a visit with one of my bff's.

The first stop will be at the scrapbook store since I need to grab some supplies to make a few more wedding invitations for my other bff since they can't seem to quit adding people to their guest list! lol Then of course no trip to the city is complete with out a stop at Walmart where we have to look for a new backpack for my ever growing princess that is constantly complaining that her current one is too small. I also have to pick up a few other supplies while there. That will be followed by a quick stop at Office Depot to get ink for my printer, and then off to spend some time with my girlfriend when she gets off work. Last, but definately not least we are stopping at a new dollar store to see what kind of treasures we might find. And then depending on the time and our energy level we may even go out to dinner together (also depending on the lightness of my wallet) ;).

It's been quite awhile since Mercedes and I have gone to the city together so it should be fun and this will also qualify as our Friday "date/party" night!

Last night we watched the Olympics for awhile. Throughly enjoyed the women's figure skating and then I stayed up late making cards...

Just some quickie gift tags using the cuttlebug to emboss the background, nestabilities for the scalloped circles and ovals and then some cute stickers I got at the dollar store.

Another fold frame card, this one more suitable for a boy.

Fairly basic lines, but I think classy looking wedding card 6"x6" and I made an envie to match...looks much better irl

Another wedding card simple black, white and silver, with clean lines. Love the classy look of these.

Did a few of these thinking of you cards last night. Once you pick a pattern it's so easy to just make 3 or 4 at the same time just by switching out patterned papers, so these came together really quite quickly, and they are one of my favorite designs for using that I'm thinking of You die cut.

These two are basically the same card I just switched the patterned paper around and then changed out one of the cardstock colors. Quick and easy way to make two different looking cards without having to go to all the trouble of rematching papers.

I love this card for some reason. I think it's just cause it's kind loose and free feeling. The yellow background is a cuttlebug thank you embossing folder and then the addition of the dictionary flower just adds a kinda organic feel to it. Maybe I just like it cause you can never get two that will look exactly alike!!

Good morning...

2010-02-23T09:35:00.006-07:00

Well it's not very often that I post in the morning, unless of course I haven't gone to bed yet, but today I was up early because Tuesday is Mercedes choir practice so she has to be at the school by 7:30am and usually I just come back home and go back to bed, but today I decided to just stay up and try to get some stuff done just for kicks! lol

Right now I'm sitting here, watching Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall with my stereo just cranked and I'm LOVIN' it! Definately one of my favorite musicals ever!! Of course I'm sure I will cry when the song "Bring Him Home" comes on, since that was sung at my brother's funeral, but it will be a good cry. Yesterday was the 4 month anniversary since he passed away. It's hard to believe it's been that long already, and yet in other ways it seems so much longer. Time can be so weird sometimes.

Otherwise things are going pretty good around here. Every day that goes by Mercedes and I get more and more used to our new family dynamic and our new routines of it just being her and I. We are starting our own schedules and traditions and it's all starting to become "normal". She is crying less and less about wanting things to go back to how they were and she has quit asking me to let her dad come back home. She seems to have accepted that the divorce is happening. And that makes it easier on me.

I must admit I have absolutely no regrets about filing for divorce. I know that this is the right thing to do. I am so much happier and really haven't missed him and am just enjoying moving on with my life. I definately don't miss all the trouble he constantly seemed to find himself in.

Anyhoo, I have been busy making cards and have come up with a couple new styles. The first one is based on a mojo Monday sketch from a couple weeks ago, and then for the next 5 I used a folded frame tutorial that I found on splitcoaststampers.

Mojo Monday sketch http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/2010/02/mojo-monday-126.html

Folded frame tutorial http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/foldedframe/

Mommy & Mercedes Friday night is...

2010-02-20T03:02:00.003-07:00

Party Night!! Or so Mercedes tells me! ;)

Today was a fun and busy day, just me and Mercedes, hanging out around the house, then doing some errands, and finally ended off the day with a Friday evening party.

Mercedes idea of a party is when we have a special supper, a movie, some kind of snack, and she gets to stay up late.

Today's errands included getting groceries, mail, picking up prescriptions and then she got a couple things from the dollar store. After all that we went to the library and she got to pick out some movies for the weekend and some books to read. It's so cool to see her reading chapter books now and it's neat to see her reading books that I actually remembering reading when I was about her age!

The party officially started when we got Subway for supper, and then we were supposed to watch the movie "Marly & Me", but Mercedes begged to watch Lion King 1 1/2, so needless to say I *may* have dozed off during some of the movie, but Mercedes was ok with that since she was pretty wrapped up in the movie.

After the movie, we read together for awile, then we played with her new toy that she got today, and then spent some time together on the computer. By the time we had finished all our activities it was 11:30 and time for bed! All and all Mercedes had a very fun Friday night and I enjoyed our time together.

I'm trying to make more time to enjoy these things she wants to do together cause I know that before I know it she won't want to do things with me, so I want to treasure every minute with her that I have. All and all today was a great day.

Insomnia, the start of big projects, and of course a bunch of cards...

2010-02-18T02:15:00.004-07:00

This week is reading week here, so I made a goal to at least get started on this big project that I have planned for myself. Currently I have a scrapping desk & shelves set up in my living room and Mercedes has kinds taken that over, and I have pretty much completely moved into the den where I have set up another scrapping area. Now next to the den is a storage room, that could be made really nice, so the ultimate idea is to fix up the storage room and gather all the scrappin supplies and put everything together in the storage room and then just have one storage space and one scrappin area. However to do this, is going to be one very big, huge, gigantic project!!! I have lots, and lots, and lots of supplies...lots...more than you think...lots!

So tonight I couldn't sleep so I decided to tackle one shelf. Here's the before shot...

And here is the after shot...The things on the very top shelf will be coming down, they are Brad's I just need to get more boxes to pack his stuff in, and the stuff on the bottom shelf is mostly stuff that goes with my sewing machine which is on a table just underneath this shelf. Not sure yet what I'll be using this shelf for, but definately stuff that I use alot since this is very close to my workspace, so super handy space for the stuff I use daily.

This is a new card design that I just tried. This is the Mojo Monday126 sketch. If you've never tried one of there sketches, definately give them a try they are awesome and they have new ones every Monday. Check them out at http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/

These are all just some cards I've made over the past few days. I'm enjoying making these ones that use the scor-pal...you can tell that I'm still having fun playing with my latest toy! ;)

I thought this was a cute card for a boy's birthday

I'm loving this blinged out gate fold card, but it was a bit of a pain trying to get all those little gems all even around that big blue gem!

Just some gift tags I made for a local store....I was trying to match the gift bags that she sells

Another gate fold card with a bling'd butterfly on it

Another cute teddy bear gate fold

A quick Mother's Day card that was requested from one of the local stores that sell my cards. You can't tell in the picture but the patterned paper is up on foam tape so the butterfly kinda comes outta the circle...if that makes any sense?

Just more gift tags for the local store. As you can see I've been keeping busy, but enjoying it!

Hope you are all keeping busy too, and feel free to leave a link in the comment section, cause I'd love to see what you've been up too! :)

We were busy today....

2010-02-13T17:52:00.004-07:00

and the day's not over yet! Mercedes and I were both up early today even though it is Saturday and I was planning to sleep in, it didn't end up happening that way, so we got busy and made a bunch of cards to use as valentines for Mercedes to give to her Aunt & Uncle and all their kids. And Mercedes had fun showing off all the cards while I took pictures.

I also have some pictures of Mercedes modeling her flower girl dress that she will be wearing this summer for her Auntie Jackie's wedding. She is very excited and we are just hoping that the dress will still fit her by then!

So here's a few pics of what we did today...

Here's the whole bunch of them...we did 7 cards and envelopes before noon! (Anyone that knows me, knows that's amazing! lol)

My little flower girl/future model...don't ya just love the poses! lol

Normal is good...

2010-02-13T02:26:00.002-07:00

Well, I know it's been a few days since my last post, but all is well. I'm actually feeling normal...not manic, not depressed, just normal...and I must say that normal is good. In fact, I've learned to love normal! The only reason I haven't posted for a few days is because I've just been busy with day-to-day life, and I've been trying to catch up on the stuff that fell behind during the time that I wasn't doing well.

It has been about a week now that I have been feeling "normal" and it has been so nice. It is great to just feel content and dare I say happy! I've been trying to find a routine/schedule that works for us and so far the one that seems to work the best is for me to do most of my housework from 6pm-midnight so it seems that I'm not getting to bed before 1am and then I get up at 7am and get Mercedes off to school. I usually do some things in the morning for a few hours and then I try to get a nap sometime during the day while she is at school, and if I have any errands that need to be done I do those in the late afternoon. So far that seems to be working, but I'm still glad that she has the next week off of school so I get to sleep in for the next 9 days! Woohoo!! I am just such a night owl that I can't fight that, so I decided to find a way to make that work for me.

I haven't managed to do any scrappin this week though, but I am hoping to do some this weekend and next week for sure. I will at least be making Mercedes a special Valentine's card tonight or tomorrow.

The other thing I've been working on this last week is setting some boundaries for Mercedes. Since she had spent most of the week before over at my sister's she was really testing her limits a few times this week, so I was really working on being consistent and following through. It does seem to be working and hopefully it will get easier as I go along. It's not easy being a single mom, but it's still better than being in an unhappy marriage and living in an unhappy home.

I am actually enjoying being single really. I sometimes miss having someone to talk too, but that's what telephones & friends are for...right? I mean really, if that's all I miss...well I already knew I made the right decision. Anyhoo, this has turned into a long post, so I'll finish now, and hopefully have some new cards or projects to post next time. :)

Productive weekend...

2010-02-08T09:30:00.004-07:00

Starting on about Friday I really started to feel alot better, so I actually got quite a bit done this weekend. One thing I didn't get alot of though is sleep. Insomnia is one thing that I struggle with alot whether I'm feeling good or bad and I really have to watch it cause if I'm feeling good and I don't get enough sleep it can lead to me feeling bad and if I'm feeling bad it can lead to me feeling worse, but if I can find that fine line of in between I can be very productive and that's what this weekend was for me.

Mercedes came home on Friday for a few hours and we had lots of cuddles and watched some movies and then she came home for good yesterday morning and we spent the day yesterday just hanging out together playing games, watching movies and just enjoying being together. When I wasn't busy with her this weekend I managed to get groceries, do a little cleaning and organizing, make the address labels for my girlfriends wedding invitations and make bunch of cards. In fact I actually sold 5 cards before I even took pictures of them! I did crank the cards out quite quickly since they are all quite similar, but I was still happy that I got as many made as I did.

Here are some pics of the ones I made yesterday...

These ones are all basically the same using my scor-pal for the grid background and then using embossed and glittered stickers for the main images, borders and photo corners.

These are gift tags that I either made a grid background or did an embossed background with the cuttlebug, then cut ovals or circles with nestibilities with stickers that match the above cards.

These cards are 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" gate fold. I also made the matching envelopes with the scor-pal.

This is the above card opened up.

Another gate fold card.

My new toy...

2010-02-05T03:37:00.004-07:00

So yesterday I decided that I was going to get a scor-pal. I called the scrapbook store in Lethbridge and had them set one aside for me so my mom could pick it up when they were in the city today. While I was waiting for them to get home I had lots of fun surfing the web looking for ideas and tutorials for when I had it in my hot little hands. Well wouldn't you know it, when I finally got it, for some reason I couldn't pull up the main site, but luckily I was still able to find some other sites with good ideas. So here's what I came up with so far...

The grid pattern in the background is what I did with the scor-pal. This is a little gift tag...
Another gift tag
A card I made for Valentine's...another grid
This one also has a grid, but it doesn't really show up in the picture
For these ones I did the grids on the diagonals, and I used core'dinations cardstock

Made some cards...

2010-02-04T12:47:00.003-07:00

Sorry I've been absent for a couple days, but I didn't do anything, so I had nothing to blog about, so you didn't miss anything.

Yesterday was a bit of a better day and today seems a bit better too, so here's hoping that I'm back on an upswing. I did manage to get a good sleep last night so I'm sure that has helped, and I've been trying to get as much sunlight as possible...both real and artificial, which I know is helping too.

Here are a few cards I made over the last couple days, just didn't manage to get pics taken until today. I'm hoping to get some more made later today, along with some new things since I'm buying a scor-pal and should have all sorts of new ideas to try out over the next little while.

Anyhoo, here's the latest cards in my collection...

This one was fun to make...would you believe that this blue & green flower is made out of a paper towel? I used the blossom nestabilities to cut the paper towel then spritzed them with glimmer mists, let them dry, and voila! Cheap and glitzy flower and it matches my dollar store paper perfectly!!

And of course some more gift tags. I'm just lovin these little flowers...they are perfect for something to make when you want to make something but just don't have the brain power to think of something creative. Plus I love playing with the glimmer mists...I've even started experimenting with making my own...super easy to make if you have some pearl-ex or perfect pearls. The flower on the bottom 3rd from the left was sprayed with copper mist that I made myself. I used 1/3 hairspray, 1/3 water, and some copper pearl-ex...shake well. I just mixed it up in a travel sized hairspray bottle. You have to use the hairspray when using pearl-ex because it doesn't contain a binder and will just rub off otherwise, but if you are using perfect pearls you can just mix with water since it already contains a binder (according to the research I did).

At least they made me smile...

2010-02-01T20:24:00.003-07:00

I didn't manage to get anymore cards made yesterday, or accomplish anything else either, for that matter. In fact all I did do was cry, try to sleep, cry some more, try to eat, cry more, and then cry even more.

Even today, I was only awake for ten minutes before I started to cry, and I have spent the entire day crying on and off. Generally when I am in this kind of state I don't want to see anyone, but last night one of my cousins stopped by to check on me and she brought her adorable little family with her, and at least for the few minutes they were here singing I had to smile. I even managed to snap a few pics, because if you look at these adorable faces how can you not smile, no matter how depressed you are?

They were all so cute and sang at least 5 or 6 songs, then offered a very sweet prayer before they left. I was very touched by their visit, even though it was hard for me to have people see me when I'm in a depressed state. I truly am blessed to have so much family that loves and cares about me, and also understands depression.

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have my family here to help me right now. This morning my mom came over and helped get Mercedes ready for school. One of my challenges when I'm dealing with severe depression is that I don't sleep well (if at all)...to the point that I can barely function. I also can't eat, and I cry ALL the time, which leads to severe headaches.

Since today is day three or four of severe non-functioning I have scheduled a dr.'s appointment for tomorrow, so hopefully he can help me out. For tonight Mercedes got to have a sleep-over at her cousins house because tomorrow morning is choir practice so it was just easier for her to stay there and get up and go with them. I sure miss her when she's not here though, but at least she was here for a few hours after school.

My plans tonight are just to try to get some sleep and maybe if I'm up to it make a card or two, but at this point my main focus is just on making sure that I get to the dr. tomorrow. Hopefully soon my posts will be back to containing creative things and not just all this depressive stuff.

Trying to get back to our regularly scheduled programming...

2010-01-31T18:41:00.002-07:00

I know that I got a little distracted from the cards and such, what with my house seeming to fall apart around me, on top of all the other things I'm trying to deal with, but last night I forced myself to sit down and make a few cards just to try to make myself feel better.

It did help a bit, and there is a part of me that wishes I could just shut out the rest of the world and just make cards and sleep for a few days...at least until I feel a little better, but unforetunately the rest of the world doesn't want to stop and wait for me to feel better.

I'm not sure if I can put my finger on just one thing, but I am still feeling very overwhelmed with my life right now, and I guess I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and have faith that eventually I will make it through this and come out stronger on the other end, although I must admit that I am not feeling overly confident about that right now. Just feeling like my shoulders aren't quite big enough for all that life has piled on them right now and yet I have no choice but to try to keep going.

I am however grateful that I do have a hobby that does give me some pleasure and eternally grateful for my wonderful family and friends. I don't know where I would be without them.

Here's a few cards that I managed to churn out last night when I wasn't able to sleep.

Gotta love cute little butterflies and paper that you can find at the dollar store!
These are all little gift tags made with scrap paper and flowers made outta glimmer mist, and an old japanese book I got for $0.10 at the second hand store. The bling centres are from the dollar store too.

Another card made with supplies from the dollar store...

These bday cards were both made using paper that I got a great price on at Walmart and the fan flowers are really easy to make, I just don't remember where I found the instructions for them, so if anyone knows how to make them, please leave a comment with the link, so I can give proper credit.

And these cards are always favorites. I just can't seem to keep them in stock. I get the paper and the little tools at the dollar store and they are great for men or boys and are super quick and easy to make.

So that's all for now, but I'm hoping to get some more cards done tonight, cause it really is something that I can do that makes me feel better...who knew some paper, scissors and glue...temporary cure for depression!

I love my mommy...

2010-01-28T22:35:00.002-07:00

and my sister! Yesterday they came over and cleaned my living room while my BIL fixed my hot water tank. This was no quick tidy up, they did every thing....for example this closet was a complete disaster. Not only did they pack up all Brad's coats and shoes/boots, but they also went through the other 4 garbage bags full of stuff that had been shoved in there. So now the closet looks like this...

Today my mom came over and cleaned my bathroom and she put up this new shelf which makes the bathroom look great.

Here's the rest of the clean bathroom

This is the living room that my mom & sister cleaned yesterday. Lets just put it this way, Mercedes had pretty much taken over this room and there was not one flat surface that was clean. There was stuff everywhere...on the floor, table, couch, chairs. My mom even put up the new picture above the couch.

And last but definately not least today, my mom took off the blinds and washed them in the tub and then added the valances in the kitchen. And I managed to get all the laundry done so no more mildew smell yay!!!

Now maybe I can go get a couple cards made or something.

What's next?

2010-01-26T23:23:00.003-07:00

It all started yesterday...with the flu. At first I kinda thought I was lucky. I mean, I didn't feel good by any means, but it definately wasn't the worst case of the flu that I'd ever had. As long as I stayed laying down and didn't move much, I was ok, just a little nauseous and dizzy. Mercedes didn't feel well either, but hers was more of a cold like thing.

Then last night I couldn't sleep. Part of it was that Mercedes was up a few times, and I don't know why else, but I only got about an hour's sleep last night.

Today Mercedes woke up feeling like I did yesterday, and I did still feel a bit under the weather but I was better than yesterday. I had hoped to catch a nap, but Mercedes was demanding of my attention all morning, and as I wrote earlier, when I did finally go out, that's when she chose to go to sleep.

Then I got an email about my ex husband that meant Mercedes was going to be hurt & disappointed, which of course as her mother hurt me, cause I hate to see her hurting.

And that's when the crying started. Then I started realizing that this is probably just the beginning of many hurts and disappointments that she will suffer because of him and that made me even more sad (and mad). And combined with the lack of sleep and still getting over the flu, I was feeling pretty emotionally drained...oh but how little did I know...

Then a little while later as I was waiting in the drive thru at Dairy Queen, for some reason that I have not figured out, I suddenly got that punched in the stomach feeling realizing once again that my brother is really gone. I know it's been 2 months, but still there are times that it just catches me off guard and it's like I'm hearing it for the first time again. So now I'm sitting in my car, bawling, waiting in line at the drive thru at Dairy Queen...I guess I should at least be glad that I wasn't inside the restaurant. So when I come home and just after Mercedes and I finish our supper we hear a funny noise...it's kinda like a hissing sound. So we follow the sound and it leads us to....

our hot water tank, which is right next our furnace that did not work properly for the last 2 months and just started working right TWO days ago

and as we try to get close enough to investigate what is making this hissing noise we step onto this pile of SOAKING wet dirty laundy (and this is after we've already removed about 10 towels that were just dripping with dirty water).

It appeared that the pipe on my hot water tank had sprung a leak. And as I looked around my laundry room, with at least an 1" of dirty water all over, and I turned my head and looked at my dished from today that I hadn't even got to yet since I hadn't had the energy too, and I just took one more look, and literally sat down on the floor right where I was standing and started to bawl. It was more than I could take today.

Luckily for me, my mom & stepdad live next door and I made a quick phone call, and my step-dad came over and spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to shut off the hot water. Unbeknownst to me, Mercedes called my mom and said "Grandma can you please come over, I'm worried about my mom, she's just sitting in the chair and she's crying but she's not making any noise or moving, just tears, and I'm not sure how to help her". So my mom came over and honestly for the first few minutes she was here I was literally incapable of speech. I just felt like it was all too much for one day. Hell, who am I kidding I think this is all too much at one time.

I think it's just plain wrong for me to lose my brother, leave my husband, try to be a good single parent, learn how to be a homeowner all on my own, deal with seasonal affective disorder, fighting depression, trying to help my 8 year old deal with the death of her uncle and the divorce of her parents. And a house that has choosen now of all times to suddenly have a bunch of problems.

Was there not a way we could have spread those out a bit? I mean really do I HAVE to go through this all at once? It's mentally and emotionaly exhausting and I just feel drained, and in some areas, I know the fun is just beginning.

I said I'd have pics, so here they are...

2010-01-26T15:27:00.005-07:00

This is my beloved couch, my most favorite spot in my whole house, and the place where I have been glued too as much as possible over the last day or two. The quilt is one that my mom made for my brother out of old denim and I just love it cause even though it's been washed it still smells like my bro and I just love to snuggle up in it. And the big painting on the wall was my brothers also, so that has lots of meaning for me as well. So this is where I lay...

and this is what I see when I'm laying in my favorite spot...big screen tv, another large painting (this one is my sister's, she just doesn't have anywhere to hang it), and then the boring stuff like stereo, movies, speakers etc.

If I turn my head a little more to the right this is what I see...the doorway goes into my laundry room which then leads into my kitchen and then into the rest of the house. I do believe this room was an addition at some point. The blue shelves on the wall on the right have scrapbook stuff on it as does most other flat space on that side of the room.
This is really getting into the scrapping area. As you can see it is time for another major cleaning/organizing, but I'm kinda just waiting until I get the new computer hooked up, get some of Brad's stuff outta here, and get rid of the box of wedding invitations that are on top of the stack of file boxes. And just for the record, it may look messy to you, but for the most part, I can find *almost* anything I need too...*almost*.

This is the view if I lay on my stomach from my spot and look behind me. Basically everything back there is scrapbooking related in some way. The painting hanging on the back wall were painted by my grandfather and the other one by my mom, so I do come by my creativity honestly...well sorta...I can make ya a card or scrapbook page, but give me a paintbrush and I don't have a clue what to do with it! lol After being sick for 2 days and finally leaving the house today to grab a few necessities I decided that I deserved a treat for tomorrow morning so this is my treat for today. Mmmmmmm, almost makes me want to make a pot of coffee right now! Can't beat Southern Butter Pecan coffee stuff!

And this pic was just to cute to pass up. All morning long I could barely keep my eyes open but everytime I just started to doze off Mercedes would wake me up needing ginger ale, or a cool cloth, or a new movie, or something, so finally I just gave up on the idea of a nap and decided to go out and get a few groceries and when I got home this is what I saw...Little Miss Mercedes sound asleep (snoring and all), with all her stuffies on guard to protect her...and these are just the none Webkinz stuffies cause the Webkinz are all over at her cousins right now...I think if the Webkinz were here, we'd never even be able to find Mercedes in the picture! lol

Isn't is funny how amazingly cute they look when they are sleeping though? ;)

Technology...

2010-01-26T00:12:00.002-07:00

Generally I love technology, and for the most part, I have a pretty good grasp on things, but when I got my brother's laptop after he died, for the first couple months we really just used it as a glorified portable dvd player.

A couple weeks ago I decided the time had come to start using this to it's full potential...especially since my desktop computer is pretty much totally full and very slow and it's gonna be at least another week or two until I get my new desktop set up, and well, I must admit that I've come to like laying on the couch and surfing the web! lol

One of my goals this year was to be a better and more consistent blogger, so one of the things I've been doing while surfing the web is reading lots of blogs, and trying to see what I think makes up a good blog and I've come to the conclusion that it's pictures.

So today I decided to try to figure out how to hook my camera up to my laptop. Easier said than done. First of all we have about 10 USB cords...a few were easy to immediately rule out, and then I finally found a cord that fit. I installed the disk for my camera (amazed that I could even find the disk), plugged in the camera and ........................................NOTHING!!!

My dreams of filling my blog with little peeks into our daily lives were crashed it seemed and I dreaded going back to the old way of doing things, which involved...taking the memory card outta the camera, putting it into the printer, downloading the pictures from the printer to the desktop, copying the pics from the desktop to a portable USB thingie, then uploading the pics from the USB thingie to the laptop, etc. etc...big pain in the patootie.

There was a slight glimmer of hope when a friend stopped by and he is much more technologically advanced then me, and he thought he could get it to work, but alas, no such luck, so finally I just told him to take the cord and see if he could find me another one, since I was convinced it was the cord since it hadn't worked in my desktop either.

Then I had a brainwave and thought I would use Mercedes camera, at least for now so I could put some pics up on my blog. So I pulled out the 10+ USB cords again and not one of them would fit! UGHHHHHHHH! So I start digging through my camera case thinking that maybe I put her cord in my case so that we would know where it was, and sure enough at the very bottom of my case was a cord. I tried it in her camera and it fit, but when I tried it in the computer.......NOTHING!!!

But then it dawned on me...this cord was the same size as my cord, so maybe I was trying her cord in my camera and my cord in her camera, and guess what....I WAS!!!

The cord does seem to have a little short of something in it cause I have to hold it a certain way, but as long as I do that it works and I can very easily take a pic and have it on my laptop in seconds!! So prepare yourself to see some glimpses into our daily lives.

I didn't take hardly any pictures last year, so I'm hoping that this will help me to take more pics, which in turn will help me do more scrapbooking. And just because I made such a big deal about pics...here's one for tonight...just Mercedes doing a pose so we'd have some pics to play around with. :)

The simple things...

2010-01-25T16:31:00.002-07:00

Right now I'm laying on my couch trying not to move, hoping that my mom has some ginger ale for my very upset stomach, but with a smile on my face as I listen to my daughter in the other room.

What I'm hearing right now is the sound of Hot Wheels cars being sent down a Hot Wheels track and then crashing into my kitchen cupboards. But even better than that, is the sound of my daughter just singing away, enjoying every second of her hot wheels smash up.

I smile because I remember the joy that a little tiny car replica can bring to a child. I smile because I remember hours and hours of fun with my brother playing with his hot wheels.

So even though I'm still mourning my brother, even though I'm going through a divorce, and even though I have the stomach flu...right here, right now...I smile...all because of some Hot Wheels!

Snow, snow, snow

2010-01-24T02:25:00.003-07:00

that's what I woke up to today. Everything covered in the white stuff again. I was sure glad that I didn't have to go anywhere today, so Mercedes and I just huddled up in the house and had a busy day of movies, and playing, and eating and scrapping and crafting and all sorts of fun things. The crazy girl didn't even fall asleep until almost 1am!! I don't know where she gets her energy from, but I sure wish I had some of it! ;)

Just did some fun stuff today, starting with some bookmarks. Mercedes had fun finding lots of Dr. Suess quotes that will work for all sorts of different things we will be working on in the future, plus they looked good on these bookmarks too.

These are just a couple gift tags that I made using some scrap patterned paper and a couple more of those dictionary flowers. I made these ones using a smaller scalloped circle to begin with, and the green flower actually has 2 different size of circles used. They look really cute in real life.

This was just a birthday card I made for a boy since I realized that I did not have one boy card in my stash, and I had these cute foam stickers that I got at the dollar store, and the colors went perfectly with the Basic Grey Lime Rickey line. I really like how this card turned out. I definately think I'll be making a couple more cards outta those stickers before they run out.

And all the while I was entertaining Mercedes since she was in a mood of wanting 100% attention at all time. No matter what I was doing or where I was doing it she wanted to be involved or at least in the same room, so we did have a nice close Mommy-Mercedes time, it meant there wasn't much just Mommy time. But I'll have all the Mommy time I'll need when she's all grown up and I'm thinking back and wishing for all these times again. :)

Just a quick post

2010-01-21T00:00:00.002-07:00

Just a quick little post before I jump into bed. I don't get to do my usual go back to bed after getting Mercedes to school in the morning tomorrow, so I really should have gone to bed an hour ago, already, but I just keep having one more thing that I need to finish before I hit the hay, and then there is just one more, and one more...who and I kidding, I am just a night owl and no matter how I try I can't go to bed before midnight. At least I can sleep on the ride tomorrow since I don't have to drive.

The main reason for the trip into the city is an appointment that I need to go to in order to get the ball rolling on some important things in my life and a quick stop to drop off my bff's very late Christmas gift and a quick stop at Walmart to get the stuff that treat's the water for our aquarium's. And then it's right back home. All and all we probably won't be in the city for more than a couple hours, but that's fine by me, since I've been in stay at home mode lately anyways. I don't even have a stop planned for the scrapbook store, but I may take a quick peak at the scrapbook section at Walmart, but it all depends on our time si nce my mom is coming in with me, but she has to be back to work tomorrow afternoon, so depending on the time I may not get to stop even if I wanted too.

Anyhoo, here's a couple things I've done in the last day or so...

This is a 10"x10" canvas that I made for my bff for her Christmas present. The flowers are more of those dictionary flowers with frost, hydrengea and torquoise glimmer mists, patterned paper is K&Co, ribbon is some I found in my stash and the pearls I got at Walmart and the bling is Prima Say it in Crystals

Another thankyou card with the dictionary flower, but this one I made a size smaller than the other ones and I think I like it as a better size for cards. I used bright glimmer mists on this one and I think it goes really well with the patterned paper...more K&Co from Walmart.

This is just a quick card that I made using K&Co patterned paper that I got at Walmart, and then stickers from the $1 store and a Studio G stamp

Learned something new...

2010-01-19T08:17:00.003-07:00

I came across this technique on ScrapCentral, and I just love these flowers that you can make outta of paper you would otherwise throw away, so once I mastered the technique I had some fun playing with it, and then made some cards using the flowers that I had made using scrap paper...things like dictionary pages, old phone books, old music and an old encyclopedia. I'm even going to try to make some flowers that are a little smaller to see how those will look on the cards.

Here's the website to the flower technique...
http://thegirlfriendsclub.typepad.com/the_girlfriends_club/2009/10/vblog-84-donnas-layered-flowers.html

*All patterned paper in the following cards is K&Company
Here are some cards that I made using the flowers I made. This one I used the Spellbinders Peonies largest die, and some pink & orange Glimmer Mists to color the flower.

Here's another one with the Peonies die, with green and pink glimmer mist.

These last two flowers were done with the large scalloped circle with orange & blue glimmer mist

And this last one was made with map pages, tissue paper, dictionary page, and another map page which went perfect with the blue & green patterned paper.

Freebies - Whimsie Doodles

2010-01-17T02:46:00.000-07:00

Freebies - Whimsie Doodles Love this little free turtle, and he looks so cute on little 3x3 cards, plus it's good for practicing with my copics.

Just a couple cards

2010-01-14T18:06:00.003-07:00

Life around here has been so stressful lately that sometimes I think my head just may explode just from the pressure of it all, but luckily I have been able to find some peace and comfort when I am able to sit down and create a card or two here and there. I also learned a new technique today that I am hoping to use on a card sometime soon. For now here are just a few of the cards that I managed to get made this week between all the stress, tears and general life.

Happy New Year

2010-01-11T10:04:00.002-07:00

Well it's been a couple months since my last post, but alot has happened since then, and I'm hoping to be a more diligent blogger this year. I haven't been blogging lately, because I haven't been making anything lately. The reason for my lack of creativity is because at the end of November my husband and I separated and then just a few days later my brother passed away unexpectedly. The seperation from my husband was for the best, but I've been having a really hard time with my brother's death. We were very close and I really, really miss him. Add to all that the stress and busyness of the holidays and I just didn't have the time of desire to do anything creative.

Luckily for me, I had done lots of card making before all the stress and trauma happened, so when I was called and asked if I wanted a table at the Christmas Farmer's Market, I had enough stock that I was able to do it without having to make anything else. I also had a few customers that came by and literally cleaned me out of all the rest of my stock that I had on hand, so I currently only have about 5 cards, and I had over 200 at the beginning of November!

I have finally felt the desire to start creating again, so I just finished making 58 wedding invitations, a couple days ago, and I am now ready to start restocking my card inventory. I will be making lots of thank you cards first since my mom, my sister and I all need them for all the food, flowers, help and other things that we got at the time of my brother's death. I'll try to post the cards as I get them made.

Hope everyone has had a happy holiday season and a great New Year! :)

A few more new things

2009-11-08T20:39:00.008-07:00

Been keeping busy the last few days so here's a few new idea's I came up with...trying to get all ready for Christmas. Been having some fun getting to know some of my new Copics and just generally having fun playing around and coloring with my daughter!

Been keeping busy the last few days so here's a few new idea's I came up with...

The red x's are gone, YAY!!

2009-11-04T02:05:00.006-07:00

And the best part was that they just disappeared all by themselves, I didn't have to do anything!...which was a very good thing cause I had no idea what I would have had to do!

I have this dreadful feeling that I may be coming down with a cold (I refuse to use the f word unless absolutely necessary, but yesterday I was in bed all day except for maybe 6 hours, and today was much better.) No sore throat yet, but body aches & pains, cough, headache, loss of appetitie and oh how I'd like to just sleep for the next few days with no interruptions. So now I'm just playing the wait and see if it gets worst or better. Wish me luck.

I did however managed to get some cards made in the last couple days....I used them as a way to keep me awake so my dh wouldn't tell me that I needed to quit sleeping so much

The wedding invitations are coming along nicely. I have already learned some lessons....if I ever do these again, I will never give any one else "friends pricing" I have already lost money on these, but since she is my best friend and she has made a few changes, I'm kinda hoping that she will help with some of the overages.

Not sure where some of my pics went too?...

2009-11-02T01:45:00.004-07:00

I seem to have lost some of my pics somewhere and they have been replaced by some rather unattractive looking red x's. What's up with that?So I shall try to upload a few of the Christmas cards that I made in the last couple days. Here's hoping these work...

A few more cards and some Christmas ones too...

2009-10-25T03:01:00.004-06:00

Been rather productive today, especially considering that I went into the city to take advantage of a one day only 20% off sale at the scrapbook store. I had to get some of the supplies for some wedding invitations that I will be making soon, and I managed to slip a few sheets of Christmas paper into my basket as well, so I had some fun tonight and made a few cards using the new supplies.

It's been awhile...

2009-10-24T01:27:00.005-06:00

Sorry it's been awhile...I have been busy making cards lately though so here's some new eye candy...

I'm back with even more card eye candy.

2009-09-15T10:29:00.004-06:00

Just a quick post to put up some more of the cards I've made in the last month or so. I really need to get my butt in gear and get some layouts done, one of these days too!

After taking a break for a couple weeks and not making anything, I am finally starting to feel the urge to scrap again! Woohoo!! I am so lost when I can't scrapbook or make cards. Being creative is my stress relief, so it's hard when I just can't seem to get anything pulled together. Here's hoping though that the worst in over, and I'll be creating like crazy any days now.

Well that's all for now, but I wanted to mention that all cards seen on my blog are available for order. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post and I'll contact you are soon as possible. Have a great day and thanks for looking!!:)

It's been awhile....

2009-09-11T01:18:00.006-06:00

Yes, I know that it's been a crazy long while since I've been here, so I added lots of eye candy for my cardmaker friends out there!

I don't even have a really good excuse for not posting for so long, except that it was summer and there seemed to be alot of things that needed my time and the computer wasn't one of them! I did have a very fun 20 year class reunion and also a big family reunion this summer that was great to get to see family and friends. I also had a couple big card orders that had to be filled, and then before I knew it was back to school time, and then these last couple weeks I've just been having some "special" time with my depression...always needs to remind me that it can pop up whenever it wants (personally I think it waits for the most inconvenient times!:b)

Some fun news this week is that I got accepted onto a new card design team and I'm excited to work with the talented girls over there. Come check us out at http://christmascardsallyearround.blogspot.com/

And now onto the cards...These are just some of the many cards I made in July! :)

These are more of the birth announcements that I made, but these ones use the pictures that I took when I was over there one afternoon...such a cute little man!

And the card making has begun...

2009-07-16T05:07:00.004-06:00

I've actually managed to be quite productive over the last couple days...it's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't really bother to sleep...I'm sure that I'll crash at some point today and try to catch up on the sleep I missed tonight. I was just in the mood to create, and I had the house nice and quiet and all too myself, so I took advantage of every bit of creativity that I had!

It's looking like Brad may have a job for at least a few weeks, so that will also be helpful in giving me more creative time. He just doesn't seem to understand when I am in the middle of designing a card I can't be interrupted 20 times or each card takes 2 hours and becomes totally not worth making!

Well, enough with the babbling and complaining...here's what I've been up to in the last couple days.

The rose on this card is made in a paper tole type style. The rose itself is a stamp that I have and I just stamped 2 copies on the green paper and 4 copies on the yellow paper. Then I cut out the leaves and petals all seperately, curled them a bit and then reassembled the rose using foam tape to give it dimension from the back of the flower (leaves first, then outside petals, etc). It is a bit time consuming and I definately won't be making tons of these cards, but I do find it relaxing to cut out stuff, so it's kinda fun to make now and then.

I got 8 birth announcements done today and am quite happy with how they turned out. I may try to go over there and help her get a few more pics with him looking more towards the camera, but if not I'll just make do with the pics that the mom took.

I did go with some unconventional colors for baby birth announcements but I hope that they look ok. I also did some with the traditional blue, white, yellow etc. Let me know what ya think of the different cards!

This is just a quick little thank you card that I threw together yesterday. I like the colors and I think that little giraffe just looks too cute!

More birth anouncements

Another card using the paper tole type rose embellie

Isn't this the cutest pic? Just love that little wink!!

I actually used this picture 3 different times, but each time is a little different. Here he is looking to the right, in another card I just flipped it horizontal so he's looking to the left and then there is one that is black & white. Boy, do I ever love digital pictures!

That's all for now folks! I probably should head to bed now, but maybe I'll just work on some more cards since I seem to be wide awake right now...again!!

This'll keep me busy...

2009-07-13T04:21:00.002-06:00

So I finished the order for 40 cards and then my girlfriend ordered 8 bday cards, and then I got an order for 100 cards!!! Needless to say I will be a busy girl for awhile!

We spent most of this week up in Edmonton visiting family and friends, so when I got home today I quickly finished up the 8 bday cards and then started thinking about my plan of attack for the next 100 that need to be made. I posted all the bday cards at the end of this post and the other cards posted are the first 2 towards the 100.

The order is for 40 birth announcements which I'm hoping to get working on first, just waiting for the pictures to put on them. I did have a fun visit to the scrapbook store last week and stocked up on some fun little boy paper. The rest of the cards will be thank you's, sympathy, and no sentiment, and I can pretty much just make them however I want which makes it more fun when there are so many to do at one time.

I've also taken an interest in paper tole lately so I was playing around with layers and 3d with the little 3"x3" daisy card that I posted.

I will try to post regularly as I get the cards made and I hope you enjoy looking at some of the fun I'll be having!

This first card is just a blank one. The 3 flowers are all layered with foam dots and have some gems and stickles as well as the buttons to add some nice texture.

This is one of the thank you cards...I need to keep them baby boyish as she is planning to use them for the baby gifts they have received. This is some new Cosmo Cricket paper and I just think it is too cute with the little airplanes and then the stars. This is my very dimensional gift tag....lots of extra cutting, but it does look pretty cool irl!
These are the bday cards...I included 2 pics since the top row is in focus in one pic and the bottom row is in focus in the other pic.

That's all for now, but keep checking back cause there will be lots of new samples posted soon!

40 card order is finished...

2009-07-01T23:57:00.004-06:00

And a new 8 card order just came in! I also have to get a bunch ready for the country store at our family reunion. I will be donating some to help cover the costs, but I will also have some for sale as well, so I want to make sure I have nice supply ready.

Today was the day I was supposed to quit smoking, but I had a few slip ups. I've only smoked a couple cigarettes though so tomorrow will be my first totally smoke free day. I'm still feeling pretty good about this, so hopefully this will be the time I succeed. At least I have lots of cards and such to keep me busy!

Here's some of the other cards I made for the last order...

cards, cards & more cards

2009-06-25T23:20:00.004-06:00

Well it's only been a few days since I last posted and as you can see I've been very busy! There was a 2-3 day break while we had houseguests, but as soon as they were out the door I was pulling out my supplies again! Alot of these cards are ones I've never made before so it's always fun, but very time consuming figuring out all the right measurements etc. It's all worth it in the end though...I currently have 2 binders filled with pictures of the cards and then all the needed paper & measurements...makes it easy for me to just throw something together if I need too. I also keeps me from getting bored, just making the same cards all the time.

Mercedes had asked if she could give her teacher some of my cards as a thank you gift and I said that would be fine, she could pick out 10 cards to give her...well she's getting 12 regular cards and 20 gift tags cause Mercedes just knew that Mrs. V would love them ALL!! I couldn't say no either especially when she then went and spent an hour making Mrs. V a necklace all by herself. Apparently according to Mercedes Mrs. V had said that she loved the cards she got for Christmas so we just had to give her more! Oh well, good thing I had a bunch in stock!

As for the dr. and his order...a few days ago his wife called and added another 10 cards to their total! So far I have 19 made, so I'm hoping to have this finished and off my desk by next week.

Speaking of next week...July 1 is my quit smoking date! I'm a little nervous, but feeling good about the preparations that I've made. I've got Brad and Mercedes outta the house for the first 2 days at least, stocked up on sunflower seeds today, taking my medication and have the patch up in the cupboard just waiting to be put to use. Besides if I quit smoking, think of all the extra scrappy supplies I'll be able to buy!!

OK enough babbling, here's the latest work...

Another card order...

2009-06-20T21:04:00.003-06:00

The other day when at my dr.'s office he ordered 30 cards from me! Yay!! And to top it all off he gave me a great compliment too! So I have been hard at work this week working on his cards, in between trying to get the house ready for overnight guests, and trying to keep a little girl busy who just can't wait for the last day of school in 6 days! So here are some of the cards I've made so far...he wanted Condolences, Get Well and Thank you. This first picture of three cards was made to meet a challenge at ScrapCentral during our Summer crop that we had last weekend.

These are the cards that I made for my customer...

This LO is one of my favorites that I've made for awhile. Love the way the colors all came together so great and I was surprised by how fast time went by when I was making this particular page. This was also another challenge at ScrapCentral for a contest that is encouraging us to use our older supplies. Love all the different challenges and fun at ScrapCentral!!

Cards and Mercedes layout...

2009-06-06T14:35:00.002-06:00

Crazy weather here today...it snowed all night!! Why the heck is it snowing in June? The only advantage to snow in June is that it makes me want to huddle in and just do scrappy things all day...and that's a good thing cause I have quite a few things on my to-do list.

I did get some cards made last night...I found a new sketch website the other day and I got really inspired. I'll definately be checking it out every day...check it out at Mojo Monday All the cards below were made using sketches that I saw on that blog, and there are still tons more that I want to make too...and that's a good thing since my card supply is dwindling.

The layout below was made by Mercedes...my little scrapper...she really is getting quite creative and I find it fun to see her style as she now does most of the creating all by herself.

They're done!!!

2009-06-03T02:38:00.002-06:00

I finally finished the 30 birth announcements that my girlfriend ordered, and I am so happy to have them off my workspace! I'm really happy with how they turned out, but doing 15 of the same thing got a bit boring. Now I just have to figure out what to work on next!

Wow, less than a week even...

2009-05-25T01:12:00.004-06:00

and here I am posting again already!! Amazing! Maybe I'm actually starting to get better at this! lol

It's been a busy week around here the last few days. Wednesday we went into Lethbridge for a few errands and with great difficulty I managed to stay away from the scrapbook store! Friday was Mercedes track and field day so we spent the morning over at the school watching all the kids and I did my best to keep my own traumatic track and field experiences out of mind...lets just say I may be creative but I am not, nor have I ever been athletic...ever!! lol

And today, although I have a terrible cold/cough, I had a very enjoyable lunch with my mom, my sis & family, my brother, my aunt & uncle and my grandma...any time spent with my grandma is awesome and I always look forward to seeing her.

In between all the running around, visits, errands etc., I managed to finish a mini album about my best friends baby and got 4 samples made of a birth announcement/thank you card that she has hired me to make. I'm quite happy with how everything turned out and I hope she'll like it all.

Ok, enough babble, onto the artwork.... I messed up and uploaded the mini album backwards but I'm too tired to fix it, so you can always start at the bottom and then work your way up, or just look at it from end to beginning.

Front & Back cover

Pages 13 &14

Page 9&10 and 11 & 12

Page 5&6 and 7&8

Page 1&2 and 3&4

Sample birth announcements/thank you cards...leave a comment and tell me which sample is your favorite!

Lots more cards and a few layouts

2009-05-20T00:41:00.005-06:00

Even though I haven't written much lately, I have managed to keep myself busy! Of course I'm always making cards, but I've also been doing some circle journal layouts that I am finding quite fun. I think my next project is going to be a little mini album about me & my kids and family to take with me to my 20 year high school reunion! Shocking, I know!! How is it possible that it's been 20 years already? I was lucky to grow up in a small town, so I went to school with the same 15 people from kindergarten all the way up to grade 12, and I haven't seen alot of them in about...well 20 years! lol I'm excited to see everyone though and see how we all grew up. I also have a big family reunion this summer also, so it's starting to look like we will be quite busy, especially when you add in camping, swimming lessons, trip to Edmonton to see the in laws and my best friend, and hopefully a few day trips to the mountains. And of course I will be trying to keep up with being creative as often as possible since I really notice the difference when I don't make something regularly...it reminds me of a Maya Angelou quote that was something like "you can never run out of creativity...the more you use, the more you have!" A statement that I have definately found to be true for myself.

OK, enough babbling and time for some pics...a few things I've been creating in the last couple weeks...

This is a layout I made for one of my friends circle journals. Her theme is months of the year and she wanted layouts that are all ready for her to just add her pics.
Another circle journal layout. The theme for this cj is favorite books
One of the pics of my girls taken at West Edmonton Mall when they got together at Easter.
I've been having fun playing with foil, alcohol inks and the spellbinder's impressibilities to make all sorts of cards.

Wow, another post in less than a week!!! lol

2009-05-06T02:23:00.003-06:00

We have had some very weird weather around here in the last week...everything from a couple feet of snow to today when it was about +17 and Brad was out mowing the lawn! I will be so glad when Spring is finally here to stay.

I have been more productive this week also. May 2 was National Scrapbooking Day so we are having a week long crop at ScrapCentral and I've enjoyed having specific challenges to keep the creative juices flowing. Most of what I've made this week have been cards since I have really depleted my supply in the last couple weeks. That's another thing I love about the ScrapCentral crops is that there is always such variety...cards, LO, altered, games, bingo...just fun, fun fun!!

I'm hoping that my next project will be a LO since I have a bunch of great pics from Easter that I need to get scrapped and I learned about a technique I'd never even heard of before so I think I'm going to see if I can figure out how to do it and then find a way to include it on the layout.

I'll post the cards that I've made so far towards my crop challenges and I will be sure to post my new technique as soon as I get it figured out!

It's been awhile again....

2009-05-01T10:16:00.003-06:00

I can't figure out why I have such a hard time blogging more regularly...I really need to just make a much better effort!

April has been an interesting month around here. We went up to Edmonton for Easter to see the in-laws & family, my best friend and my older daughter. When we got back home we found out that the job Brad was working at is basically all finished, so he hasn't been working hardly at all this month. He has been handing out resumes all over the place, but so far, nothing. I'm desperately hoping that he finds something soon.

Then last Friday I had a seizure and it really messed with my head. Yesterday was the first time I even came on the computer or did any scrappin, since some of the side effects have finally started to go away. We have no idea what caused the seizure, but I am a little concerned because this means I've now had 2 seizures in the last year and we don't know why. I'm hoping that the neurologist will be able to give me some answers.

I did manage to get a couple LO's made for my cousin, and did a few cards and I'm hoping to get some Mother's Day cards made for sale, just so I'll have a little money to get a tiny bit of paper that I need.

Enough with the depressing news and let's jump to some recent creations!