Still Here

I am still around! I have been working on several projects around the house and have been so busy all week. One of the projects has been sorting through things in my craft room and my crafting table is completely covered and I have no work space at all. It's even worse than normal! I make a mess every time I sit down to do anything at the table and my work space slowly gets smaller and smaller the longer I am there at the table. Right now, I am using that surface to sort things and I really can't get that much done at all. I have also been working in one of the spare bedrooms and the kitchen too. I work on one project until I am bored with that then I move onto the next one. I am hoping to get most of the craft area finished over the weekend and might have some pictures to show you of that on Monday.

In the kitchen I am going through my pantry and trying to reorganize that too. I have been slowly phasing out a lot of processed foods and since I am making almost everything from scratch, I have found the systems I was using isn't working so much now. It has been an interesting couple of months as I have been making that switch too. This week I attempted to make tortillas, they were tasty, but I didn't roll then out thin enough. If you have a recipe you want to share, please let me know. I am pretty skilled in the kitchen and am having fun trying to make all these things instead of buying them. See you on Monday with some pictures of my craft space.

Dream of Iris

Hello! If you are here for the Oldie But Goody Blog Hop, please scroll down to the next post.

I am seriously in love with Graphic 45 papers right now. I am supposed to be on a paper buying hiatus right now, but a week or so ago I was in my LSS and as soon as I walked in the door the new papers just started calling my name. It was hard, but I did manage to walk outof the store with just a few sheets. But I mean look, it's just beautiful and since I used it right away it didn't get added to the paper pile so I think that it doesn't count against my no paper resolution. Oh, how I can justify a craft purchase! I have been playing around with some colors I don't use a lot of and thought I would use a peach/orange combo. the image is Ching Chou Kuik's Dream of Iris from Sweet Pea Stamps. I love the way this card turned out too.

Copic colors used:  Skin - R0000, R000, R01, R02,   Hair - E50, E51. E5, E55, E57,   Leaves - G21, G24, G28,   Flowers - R01, R05, R08,   Accents in the Hair - R05 and Orange Spica Pen.

Oldies But Goodies

Welcome to the Oldies but Goodies Blog Hop! Hopefully you arrived from Linda's blog. If not, you might want to start back at Sue's blog so you don't miss any goodies. The purpose of this blog hope is to finally use some of those things you bought and then never used or something that has not been used in at least 6 months. I know if you are like me, you have several things that you could use that fit that criteria! My card today uses a stamp that I just had to have. I bought it almost a year ago, then put it in a drawer and making this card the first time it has even seen ink. Not only did I use a stamp that I haven't used in forever, I also pulled out my Prismacolor Pencils! I used pencils for a long time, even after I got my Copics. I went back and forth for a long time and I think this is the first time they have been used (by me) in about 6 months too. All the papers are from DCWV's Far East paper pack. I have been hoarding that paper for a while too. I love all the paper in the pack and actually bought it in the 4 x 6, the 8 x 8 and the 12 x 12 packs and one day I found them at Big Lots and bought a couple of more of them just so I wouldn't run out. I am running low on the purple pieces though. I stamped it twice and then cut out the butterfly on one of them and added it with a foam dot.

Thanks for taking the time to visit me today. Your next stop on the Blog Hop is Mary.

Today is the last day to vote in the Amber Ink Challenge. You can vote HERE, just scroll down to the end of the post to cast a vote for your favorite project. For my project I entered my recipe book that I made a week or so ago.

Love is in the Air

I have been seeing tons of Valentine cards around blogland lately. I normally only make a couple of cards at most but I decided to play with this new stamp that I got at Hobby Lobby the other night. For some reason as soon as I saw this image, I knew I wanted it. I think it's cute with them hiding behind the umbrella. I have decided to make more Valentine friendship cards to send out next month. I used to be much better at actually sending cards to people. I have a couple of boxes of cards that I need to send. Lots of people could use some extra cheer in their mailbox, I just need to do a better job of following through. I don't think I will be sending this one out to a friend because obviously this couple is more than friends so I think I will save this one for someone special! This was another card that we made in the Copic class I taught this weekend. All the cards we made used colors from the R0 series of colors. The doily and the rhinestone heart both came from Hobby Lobby too. 

Copic Colors used:  Umbrella - E50/E53/E55,   Dress - R08/G24,   Jeans - B21/B23/B24,   Shoes E59/C5,   Shirt - G21, G24

It is time to vote on the AmberINK challenge site. You can go HERE to vote for your favorite organization project. Just scroll down to the bottom of the post to cast your vote.

He Love Me, He Loves Me Not

That is what this image reminds me of anyway! This is one of the cards that I planned for the Copic Class I taught this weekend.  The image is from The Angel Company and was of course colored with Copic markers. I usually keep my card layouts pretty simple for classes since the focus is more on coloring than anything else. The papers are from Bo Bunny.

Thanks for the kind words on my post about my cat. Losing him hit me much harder than I would have thought it would so I really enjoyed reading your messages. Thanks again.

RIP Doobie

I am very sad today. My cat died this morning. 

Get Fit Journal

I am on a composition book journal kick right now it seems! I have actually made three for myself, each for different purposes. On the Riley and Company challenge blog the challenge is to create something inspired by a New Year's resolution. I am determined to lose some weight and get healthier. I started the weight loss portion a couple of months ago and have made some pretty permanent changes to what I eat and all that. This year in addition to continuing that journey I have made some specific fitness related goals too. I made this journal to record my exercise, measurements and my progress toward my goals. I thought if I made this cute journal and kept it on my desk it could also serve as a reminder to exercise too. If you want to follow my progress in that area you can look here. 

I was so excited to wake up to snow again this morning! I don't remember the last time we have had this much snow this early. There was only about 2-3 inches of snow, but when you are used to nothing more than a dusting, that's a lot! Since every time I manage to go out in the ice or snow I fall and hurt myself, I have a new personal policy to stay home when it snows. I didn't go to work, I spent the day at home today playing in my craft room and finishing some closet organization that needed to get finished. 

Will you help Katie? All the information can be found on Jak's blog HERE. I can't imagine what this family is going through right now. Lots of stamp companies have put together some special stamps to help Katie and her family. 

Katie Emmerson Renz married to Kevin with 3 beautiful boys the twins Nate & Will aged 5 and Hunter aged 10 had some news just before Christmas that has rocked their world as they know it.

Katie has been diagnosed with stage 4 Stomach Cancer and is currently undergoing her only option which is Chemotherapy.

Dance of the Butterflies

I am finally getting back onto a normal schedule from the holidays. I am usually off work on Fridays and this is my first one that I have had in a while that I have not been packing or unpacking, trying to get caught up on laundry before heading somewhere or from getting back or trying to finish all the Christmas gifts in a mad rush. Today, I am just going to play in my craft room for a while I think! The Copics are calling my name. My card today uses Ching-Chou Kuik's image called "Dance of the Butterflies" from Sweet Pea Stamps I think this is a little different from what I normally do. I love these papers with the big bold images on them, but I am always saving them for something else. My friend Allyson gave me this American Crafts paper a while back and it has been sitting on my desk since then and I have just been admiring it, not using it. Something about the shapes in the image's arms and body made me think of this paper though, so I decided to finally put it to use. I hope you like it, I was very happy with the way it turned out. I like to color the backgrounds on these most of the time, but I left this one white because I thought it would look great with the white background of the paper. Something else I did a little different was pick the paper first and then color to match the paper. I normally color and then go to my enormous paper stash and find something to match. This time all the colors were pulled from my paper. 

Speaking of my paper stash, that is one of the things I am working on for this year. I was going to say I wasn't going to buy paper for a while, but that never lasts. As soon as I walk into my LSS, I find paper that I just have to have! But I am going to work on getting my paper stash under control. I have gone through some of it and replenished Samantha's paper keeper. What about you, any craft related goals for the New Year?

Get Organized Challenge

Ok, well if you know me, getting organized is always a challenge, but this is for an actual challenge, not a comment on anything else. I was fortunate enough to win a $10.00 shopping spree with Amber Ink from a recent Blog Hop. As soon as I saw this Hostess with the Mostess set, I had to have it. And when I saw the current Amber Ink challenge was to make something to Get Organized I knew I wanted to play along. We are saving money to redo our kitchen. I have in mind a retro, 50's style kitchen using the colors white, yellow and red. I am forever printing off new recipes, clipping recipes out of magazines and trading recipes with friends. I really needed something to organize all those pieces of paper. My organization idea was to make myself a recipe book. I have made tons of these for gifts, but this is the first one I have made for me and I decided to make it to match my new (some day) kitchen. 

I covered a composition book with red card stock and then added some yellow gingham paper. My hostess was colored with Copic markers and then cut out with my new Nestability set. I decided any 50's hostess would of course be wearing pearls as she served her friends so I pulled out my adhesive backed pearls to use as embellishments. To finish my book I added some red ric rak and added some die cut letters for my title. The alphabet is a Sizzix set called Wingo Dingo. Here is a close up of my image. 

Our anniversary was a couple of weeks ago and I showed you what I made for Kip in this post, but forgot to show what he made for me. When I first started talking about my dream kitchen and told Kip the colors I wanted he wasn't very enthused. I think he was thinking something along the line of a McDonalds, that wasn't really the look I was going for. After explaining that I want to keep the walls and everything mostly white and use red and yellow as accents he started to come around. Since the traditional gift for five years of marriage is wood, he decided to make something for me to hang in my kitchen. We had seen something similar one day and I told him I loved it and would hang it in the kitchen for aprons. I was very happy to get this one that he made and of course customized to my color preferences!

I was quite impressed since he came up with the idea, gathered all the different material and found those cute yellow drawer pulls to use as hooks. 

Christmas Recap + lots of pics

We woke up to a white Christmas. This is the first time in seventeen years that the middle Tennessee area has had snow on Christmas so it was a pretty big deal for us. Where we live it was perfect, lots of snow on the grass and trees but the roads were pretty clear. The plan was that we would travel to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with them. We were going to head out around lunch time, but got a call from my Dad and they had a lot more snow than us and everything was a mess. We weren't able to go there as planned so our celebration with them got canceled until this past weekend. I wanted to share some photos of my Christmas but wanted to wail until we were officially over Christmas! 

We started out on Christmas Eve at my in-laws. We always have dinner over there on Christmas Eve. It is always fun, we have a core menu that is planned and then mu SIL and I bring over a sampling of all the different things we have been making and baking. I think we both got carried away, we had so many sweets, but everything was just delicious. 

My niece and nephew opening presents.

I caught this sweet picture of my MIL and FIL holding hands while we were all opening presents. I love this picture and going to have to do something with it for their anniversary or something.

Then we went to my friend Judy's house. We always spend Christmas night with her and her girls. Santa's elves always bring us all new PJs to wear. Jenna and Samantha made individual bags of reindeer food for each of the reindeer, complete with labeled bags!

They were so excited before bed, but finally calmed down enough to go to sleep. The fist time the woke up and asked if it was time to open presents? 2:30 AM!

All of our stockings lined up, even the dog and cat has a stocking.

Samantha checking out Kip's new puzzle from me. He can't decide if I buy him these things because I love him and know he loves puzzles or if I do it to drive him crazy! That large wooden snake will (supposedly) fold back up to make a solid cube.

Kip opening his big gift from me. 

Jenna had asked for Prisma pencils so we got her those and a sketch pad.

Samantha got her own die cutter. I have had this for a while because I know she wanted one, but was waiting for her to get old enough that I didn't have to worry about her mashing her fingers. She was very excited! 

Then this weekend we finally go to have Christmas with my side of the family. In an earlier post, I showed the box of cards that I had decorated for my niece. She was so excited with her box of cards. It made me feel good to get such an excited reaction from her because it took me forever to decorate 50 card fronts for her! But they are ready to go, the cards and envelops are all there, all she has to do is stamp and color her image then add them to her cards. 

And this was her stamp kit. She has some stamps, some ink pads, adhesive and coloring pencils that she can use to make her cards.

Thanks for sharing part of my Christmas with me! We had a wonderful Christmas and hope you did too.