Frying Pan Cover

This was a very different project for me! First a quick backstory on our Christmas traditions: I met Jenna, Samantha and their mom, Judy when Jenna was three and Samantha was about eighteen months old. Judy's job situation changed and the new job required some travel so I became the girls' nanny. The first Christmas, she asked if I wanted to spend Christmas with them and I took her up on it. It was probably the best Christmas ever, other than the ones when I was a little kid. So spending the night with them became my new tradition. Kip and I got married the week before Christmas and it was late Christmas Eve when we returned from our honeymoon so we stayed in our home our first Christmas but after that, spending Christmas with the girls became our tradition. After being married a while, I gave up being the nanny, and so the new nanny is Ms. Faye. The newest tradition is that we all now spend Christmas with Judy and the girls! Ms. Faye wanted to give Judy a new frying pan (which is something she wanted) but because of the shape of them they aren't the easiest things to wrap. Even in a large gift bag, its awkward. She was watching something on TV one day and seen someone dress up the packaging on the pan to look like a Santa face. Ms. Faye is a quilter and does beautiful things but she doesn't work with paper, so she asked if I could pull something together for her. 

Since I didn't see the program she had seen, I just went on her description and this is what I came up with. The packaging had a large circle on the back with all the information about the pan. I traced that circle onto white paper to get my face. After that, I punched out a pink circle and two black ones. The Santa hat is covering the handle and after I glued down the eyes and mouth, I put down some tacky glue and then crumpled up some tissue paper for the beard and hair. I added some pink chalk around the cheek area too. I think it turned out pretty cute and Ms. Faye was happy with the wrapping. 

It's been interesting making these new traditions. I will be forever grateful for Judy for sharing her Christmas mornings with me,  and now my husband. As a single adult with no children, Christmas had lost a lot of it's magic. They gave me that back, and even as the girls are getting older, the magic is still there. The girls are old enough now that they can plan Christmas morning surprises and that brings another level of joy for all of us. I have learned that family can be the people that you choose to love, not just the people you are biologically linked to. 

Card for a Soldier

Hello! Today I have a card to show you that I made for the son of a friend that is serving in Afghanistan. I am putting together a card package for him and wanted to be sure to include a card for him letting him know that he is being thought of and prayed for and to thank him for what he is doing. I pulled out this image from S2G and colored it with Copic markers. I love this image and think it is perfect for lots of occasions to mark something important for a military person. I have had the paper and those jumbo eyelets for a while and don't remember where I picked them up at.

I am back from my mini vacation, rested and ready to play in my craft room. We were in Indiana last week and of course you know I had to stop by my favorite store in the world, Papertrix. That is one store that when I go in I just want one of everything! If you are ever close to Nashville, Indiana you have to stop by there. Great selection and great people.

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Thanks for all the encouraging remarks about my weight loss and the changes I have been making to become a healthier person. I feel great!! I don't really make New Year's resolutions but I do try and set a couple of goals of things that I would like to accomplish before the end of the year. One of the things that I have on my list is to participate in a 5K this year. My first 5K of the year (well, to be honest, of my life) is coming up this Saturday! This one was listed as a walk/run so I thought it would be a great one to start with. I am not quite able to run the full distance but since it is also a walk I know I can complete it. I don't have a time goal or anything, this time I just want to complete it. I know some of you read my other blog about my journey to getting healthy so you know the struggle concerning my back issues so you know what a big deal this is for me. I will post race day pictures!!

Mermaid Card

Hello! I have a mermaid card to show you today. Isn't she so sweet looking? This is an Elaine Cox image from Sweet Pea Stamps. Everything was colored with Copics and a white gel pen, papers, ribbon and pearl accents are from Hobby Lobby. The pearls came out of the bridal section. I have been very good staying out of the craft stores for the past couple of months. I had Jenna and Samantha over here the other day. Jenna was working on a summer reading project so we stopped by Hobby Lobby to see if we could find anything for her project. For once I couldn't think of anything that I had that would really work. The project was to make a travel brochure for a fictional cruise line that featured locations mentioned in The Odyssey. Yeah, I was fresh out of the stuff! Well anyway, since we were in Hobby Lobby we had to look at the entire store and I was surprised to find lots of new goodies, especially the jewels in the bridal section. I have to get one of everything! And since paper was on sale I had to get some of that too.

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I know it has been a while since I have posted. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I spent a little over a week with my parents in my home town during the last part of June/first part of July. Since I was going to be gone for so long, I didn't really want to broadcast that on here. I scheduled some posts while I was gone and for some reason the pictures showed up but no text. I never did figure that one out. I went to help my Mom work on some things around the house and wasn't online very much at all during that time.

When I came back, my creative inspiration was evidently still on vacation. I sat and colored a few things that I wasn't happy with and couldn't get a project to pull together at all. So I decided to take a week long break of no crafting. For an entire week I did not sit at the craft table, look at my craft supplies or even touch my Copics. I felt refreshed after that week was over and ready to craft again.

After that we have been having intermittent internet issues. It would work, then I would sit down to do something online and it wouldn't be working. It got pretty frustrating. Kip finally narrowed down the problem to a faulty splitter and after he replaced that the internet has been working just fine.

Also during this time I joined my local YMCA. I had been working out at home with the few weights I have and then walking on the treadmill. I knew it was time to add something extra to push my weight loss to the next level and I decided that the Y would be the best fit for me. I didn't know what to really do either so I worked with a trainer to get a routine in place. It took me a couple of weeks to build my endurance, but then I decided that I could really do this! Exercising has been taking up a big chunk of time lately. (that feels weird to even type that!). I am happy with the results--as of Friday's weigh in, I have lost 40 pounds. But it has taken me a little while to work that into the rest of my day without giving up something.

I will probably be posting about every other day until school starts back, but after that I will go back to my regular posting. Thanks for your patience! I'm off to visit the blogs of all my friends that I have been missing!

15 Minute Challenge

Last night I participated in Michelle Perkett's Digi Day on SNR. What a fun evening. In addition to playing a Halloween Trivia game for a chance to win free images, she also issued a 15 minute challenge. That's right, 15 minutes to see the image, print it out, color it and then fashion it into some type of card or project, take a picture, download it from the camera and then upload it to the discussion area. Yikes! I didn't think it could be done. It helps that I am not the neatest crafter in the world, I still had a stack of paper on the desk from my last several projects. Everything on here was left on my desk from another project, except the BOO and I had just bought it yesterday. I did get it finished though and it was kind of fun to do a challenge that way. So here is my 15 minute challenge card. Just don't zoom in too close or you will see the mistakes in my coloring!

Another fun thing I did today was go shopping with my friend Angela. We've been friends for over five years now and while we do craft together on occasion and we see each other at work every day we have never gone on a marathon shopping spree before! I think that was long over due, I mean how long can you be best friends and crafting buddies and not go on shopping sprees every once in a while? I am not much of a shopper, there are really only three types of stores I like to spend tons of time in: craft stores, book stores or stores that sell kitchen gadgets. We hit a LSS, Michael's and Hobby Lobby. Angela is a bad influence, and I blame her for all my expensive hobbies. She won at both stores, she spent more than me in both of them! We had a great time though and both of us managed to find a few things that we will be turning into Christmas gifts. I even bought them early enough that they have a chance of getting finished! I am off work today and am going to start the first one today. Have a great day!

(and I know that Angela will still zoom in on that photo!)

I love Mushrooms...and some rambling

Especially on Pizza! But for some reason I love images of mushrooms. While I was coloring this image, I think I finally remembered why. Obviously, I decided to color this one green but I kept thinking it wasn't right, I kept wanting to grab red, I was wanting it to look like a Smurf home! I loved the Smurfs when I was younger and still have a few of them in the house. That was even my nickname for quite awhile, not because of my affinity for the cartoon, but it was because I dyed my hair blue and wore it that way for several years. I still have friends that call me that from back home. On to the card: another thing I am doing with my self challenge is trying to work with colors I don't use that often and different color combos, and trying new things. The images are from Simon Says Stamp. there are several little woodland creatures in the set alone with another mushroom or two. The mushroom was colored with Copic Markers and the hi-lights drawn in with a white gel pen and the dragonflies were colored with a Spica marker. The acrylic drops are clear but I used some Stickles behind them to make them shimmer. Katy did a tutorial on the ClearlyiStamp blog the other day talking about adhesives that Clear Dollar Stamps carries and I picked up that little tip. That is a great blog for tutorials by the way. 

A couple of weeks ago on Splitcoast there was a discussion about shipping times from various companies and how sudden growth had caused some companies to experience some delays. Since the discussion was talking about business growing pains I added a comment about understanding how that happens because I have had friends that have had the same thing happen with their businesses. Anyway to make a long story short Heidi from Simon Says Stamp contacted me and asked if she could send me some stamps to try. Of course I said sure! That was the end of the conversation, she didn't ask me what I like or styles I prefer or anything. So about a week later I have this package in the mail with five stamp sets in it. The selection she sent me was so funny, I think if I had gone to their site and picked them myself, I would have ended up with the same sets! Not only do they carry their own line of stamps they have lots of other stuff, including all the Hero Arts stuff I can never find in stores around here.

My SIL and I went shopping for paint last night. Kip and I are redoing the downstairs and I have been given kinda free reign to pick out the colors. Well, as long as they aren't weird combinations and the colors don't scream at you or sear your brain. Right now every room in the house is off white. I can live with that, and like the white space, but would much prefer the white to be paired with bursts of color.  Since part of this new space is going to be my creative area, I want something stimulating, not boring. So she is helping me pick out colors and asked what colors I like and since I love yellow that was one of the choices I gave her, but she kept showing me muted golds or varying shades. I finally had to show her YELLOW and RED! I did manage to find some samples that I think we might both be able to live with so stay posted to see what we end up with!

Doing the Happy Dance

I am so doing the happy dance right now, I'm like a six year old or something, and it's almost borderline obnoxious! I can't help it though and couldn't contain my excitement. Why, you might ask? Well, my birthday is next month and I came up with the perfect gift for myself. I have planned a Girl's Weekend with me, my mom, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law to go the Nashville, Indiana for the weekend of my birthday. If you have been reading my blog for very long, you know that Kip and I and his parents went there on vacation last year. That is where I discovered Papertrix, which is the coolest stamp store that I have ever been in. It was there I first learned about Twinkling H20s, Spica markers and many new stamp companies. So not only do I get to go to Papertrix, while on a Girl's weekend, but I get to take a beginner Copic class with Candice! I am amazed with the talent that that girl has, especially coloring with Copics. I am so excited and still dancing and singing around the living room. I actually called and paid for the class before I even asked if anyone would go on my weekend with me. 

So I did make a card today. I am not sure who made this stamp. My mom is the queen of the yard sale. She goes every weened without fail. She finds me cool stuff all the time and this stamp was in a box that she got for me a while back but the label is not legible. It looks like there was at one time a sticker on the area where the manufacture was but it is gone now. The image was colored with Peerless Watercolors. Have you tried those yet? I need some practice with them, I think I diluted mine a little too much. If you are not familiar with these, they are watercolors that come on a sheet of paper and you simply cut off a small piece of the color you want to use and then add water. I got mine at MFT, I think they have three different color selections. The Bible verse is from one of the Tiny Scripture sets from Clear Dollar Stamps, the paper is DCWV and the ribbon came from Target.

Wow this has gotten to be a long post (I am still doing the happy dance though)! I just wanted to show Samantha's back. Jenna had a swim meet yesterday so she stays with me. The parents have to work at the most of the swim meets so it is hard to keep a non-swimmer occupied. If I am in town then she will come and hang out here all day. She saw the treat box I made yesterday and I explained the challenge to her so she decided to create her own thing. This is her bank to use to save up for things she needs. Everything you see was hers, the only thing I did was apply the paper to the container. I love the way she colored Hanna, look at the shading in her hair! This was also her first experience coloring with my Copics/Prismas, normally we all color with our own markers but she needed a skin color and a lighter pink then what she has in her collection. Thanks for stopping by!

Daffodil

I hope all is well with everyone. We have been having some severe weather pass through the area this afternoon, including reports of a tornado not too far from here.  Right now, it is just raining so all is well. My card tonight uses the March Flower of the month from Clear Dollar Stamps. The patterned paper is from Making Memories and the card stock is DCWV. Image was stamped with Memento ink and colored with Prismacolor pencils. I used some little decorative accents from Mike's to finish off the card,

Clear Dollar Stamps released two flower of the month sets with the March release. March's flower is the daffodil and April's flower is the daisy. Daisies are my favorite flower, but I also love daffodils, in part, because they are my favorite color. More importantly though, they remind me of my Grandmother. She always had these planted along her sidewalk. I remember walking up to her house passing daffodils they whole way, I remember finding Easter eggs hidden in them when I was a little girl and hiding eggs in them as I got older. Every time I see one of these flowers, I smile because they remind me of an amazing woman. I learned so much from her; compassion, gentleness, faith, acceptance and so many other qualities, like patience, that I am still working on! She gave me a love of words, of writing, of peppermint and holidays. I miss her most this time of year. Easter and spring were her favorite times of the year. And daffodils make me smile. Thanks for listening to my memories.

Thanks a Latte

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We certainly did. I was off from both jobs on Friday and Kip was off on Saturday and only had to work a couple of hours on Sunday. It was so nice. Our schedules haven't been lining up too well over the past couple of months so this weekend was a very welcome surprise. On Saturday we slept in, very late (until the phone rang!!) and then met my in-laws for an early lunch. I wish everyone that I know had in-laws as great as mine are. My mother-in-law was on a trip recently and brought me back a pretty bracelet that she gave me at lunch. After lunch, we went to Hobby Lobby and looked around for a bit and then rejoined the in-laws and our niece and nephew for a movie. Against my will, we went and saw Race to Witch Mountain, which was a remake of a movie that I remember seeing and enjoying as a child. I was really shocked that I enjoyed this movie as much as I did, it was pretty good. The only reason I didn't want to see it was that it was a remake. But since I think it was the only PG movie, I agreed to give it a try. The theatre is in front of Jo-Anns, and I got Kip to agree that I could go shopping if the movie was bad! We got to spend a lot of much needed time together so I ignored the computer most of the weekend. I did manage to get in some crafting time, but the computer stayed off for the most part. 

My card tonight used the MFT set Hot Stuff. I picked this background paper from DCWV and decided to use the colors of the dots for my accent colors rather than trying to match the pink. I think I like the way it turned out. The image was stamped with the black Memento ink and then the sentiment and the coffee beans were stamped with the Memento brown ink. I colored the woman with Copics and Prisma markers. My ribbon is from Hobby Lobby.

Mom update: She is home for the hospital and there is someone coming to the house to help with her physical therapy. She is still in a lot of pain but when I talked with her today she said the thought she was going to live. I asked if Dad was taking good care of her and she said he was waiting on her and then she said that she thought it make take a very long time to recover! Thanks for your well wishes.

Orange Flower

For some reason, I am in an orange mood today. When I sat down to create something today, I kept reaching for papers that had orange in them. There is a site called Card Sketch A Day that I sometimes use for inspiration when I want to try something new. Sketch challenges really are my favorite ones to do because that is where I seem to run out of ideas first. The sketch here is loosely based on their sketch for today. I flipped my shorter and longer pieces and I added a ribbon instead of a sentiment. My stamp here is from Stampabilities. I stamped the image using Palette ink and then colored it using Prismacolor pencils and OMS. The paper is DCWV and there is a decorative accent (pretend dew drop) in the center of the flower. I colored the dew drop yellow to match what I had colored. That ribbon is from Target from the wedding section. Have you seen that ribbon? There are several colors and I think two widths available. Each roll has a ton of ribbon and is only $2.99.

Did you watch all the festivities today? I wasn't able to see much of it as it was happening since I was at work. I have seen some of the hilights of the and am sure I will catch more of it tonight. I love the history and the traditions that are associated with these things. It has been interesting hearing how some of the traditions got started and how certain things connect the office of President from year to year. Thanks for stopping in tonight!

Card Box

One of the things I am really going to try to do in the new year is to gt my cards to people on time! I have gotten better about making the cards and having a "stash" of ready made cards, but they often arrive just a little late. To help with my organization problems, I decided to put together this box. I started with the photo storage boxes from Hobby Lobby, just the plain black boxes. I wanted to decorate them with my own paper since I wasn't crazy about the colors they had to choose from. (Enabler alert: these boxes are on sale half price this week). I just used some paper that I believe is from My Mind's Eye to decorate my box. Since my box is black, I used black construction paper and the Sizzix Twang alphabet to punch out the letters to label the box. I didn't take a picture of the inside, but the boxes come with index cards and I used the Card Categories from Clear Dollar Stamps to make my index labels. That is a really great set, it comes with 33 different categories for you to use. This is also the project that we will be making for craft night at church on Friday night.

Since I mentioned my marathon cooking session, several people have asked me to let them know how it went. I actually had four freezer, cook one day eat for a month type of cookbooks already. I decided to go with the 2 week plan to start since it is normally only the two of us eating dinner, but we still wanted to have leftovers to use for lunches. I decided to use the Frozen Assets Cook for a Day Eat for a Month book by Deborah Taylor-Hough. There were a couple of reasons that I decided to start with this one. The first one being that a friend had given me a couple of recipes to try and I enjoyed them and they tasted good when they were thawed and served. Another was that the recipes seemed to be a little more economical than the other books I have. Here is a picture of my fully stocked freezer:

So we are set for a while! It was a long day of cooking but hopefully I will be able to really notice a difference during the week when our schedules are more than a little crazy. That's pretty much everything I made, except the soup that is in the refrigerator. I do have a couple of suggestions if you want to try this:

1. See if your library has some books for you to look through so you can get an idea of the recipes, but the one I mentioned above is my favorite. There is also a Lite and Easy book with the same name that has different recipes.

2. Start with the two week plan.

3. Buy aluminum foil even if you think you have plenty!

4. Read all the information before attempting to cook. I am a fairly experienced cook and have made Thanksgiving lunches to feed 200+ and dinners to feed 40-50, but cooking like this was a little different and it helps to do everything in the order that it is laid out in the book.

5. If you have a small family separate your meals before you freeze them to keep from eating the same thing for three or four days.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

No Crafts Tonight

I don't have anything to show you tonight. Hopefully, I will get some crafting time in tomorrow. I have decided that I am going to try the cooking once a month way of cooking. Anyone done this before? I have tried a couple of recipes, but haven't done the whole bulk cooking thing. Basically, you spend most of one entire day cooking meals and then freezing them. During the month all you do for dinners is make your sides and then bake or defrost your main dish. I did all of my shopping and prep work today and will do the cooking tomorrow. Right now our schedules are a little crazy and we are eating out way too much. Bad for the wallet and the waistline! Hopefully this will work for us. I am starting with the two week plan since it is normally only the two of us eating dinners. Some things I am planning to freeze the full portion and some I am planning to make individual portions that I can grab and take to work or whatever. I will keep you posted as to how it goes and if you have any great recipes that freeze well, please pass them along. Have a great night!

Teacher Gifts

This is what I ended up making for Jenna and Samantha's teachers for Christmas. This particular set belongs to Jenna's teacher and Samantha's teacher got the pink and black ones that I posted earlier. Each teacher got a composition book, 2 RSVP pens, a coaster box, a paperclip bookmark with their monogram and an altered binder clip. Can you see it behind the composition book? I took a 4x6 piece of white card stock and edged it with a silver paint pen and then had them write their teacher a note. Then I took (2) 41/2 x 6/12 sheets of the patterned paper and adhered them together and then mounted the note onto the patterned paper. I let the girls pick out the colors and then they gave me suggestions on what they wanted to give their teacher. Oh yeah, each teacher also got a jar of lotion because I made a little bit more than I needed. Okay, way more than I needed!

This is my cooking and baking weekend. Judy still needed to take the girls shopping to get their gifts for each other so she brought each one over here for an hour or so today so that she could take the other one by herself. While Samantha was here we made marshmallows. She has always enjoyed being in the kitchen and trying new things. I told her what we were making and she was very excited, until she found out that they have to sit until the next day! I have never made them before, but our spoon taste test was impressive! Have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas in ASL

I have had a busy weekend! We had our first Christmas Showcase at church yesterday. Several people brought in items that they had made to display and then we also had crafting space available for anyone that wanted to stay. I was there from 9:00 a.m. until almost 10:30 p.m. It was a very long day but also very productive and a lot of fun. Our church has a regular group, a Hispanic group with a Spanish speaking preacher and a Deaf group with a Deaf minister. Kip and I attend then Deaf service. We have been a part of that ministry since before we were married. Actually we met through this group. This was the card that I made for our group. I don't normally make one design for my Christmas cards, but since I found this stamp that spelled out Merry Christmas using the ASL alphabet, I made a lot of these. Not all of them were exactly the same, but they were all similar. I stamped the image (which is from Lost Angeles Rubberworks) and colored the wreath and hands with Prisma markers. The little holly berries are drops of Christmas Red Stickles. We have boxes for Christmas cards in the lobby (to help us save on postage) and not only did I get all the cards done for this group, but I also got them signed, in the envelopes and sorted in the boxes!

Speaking of our Deaf group at church, there was a small awards ceremony today, to thank some people for their years of service. We also planned to surprise the preacher with one for celebrating his 10th year with us. My husband was so excited helping plan this, because Mike had no idea. Imagine Kip's surprise to find out that we were also presented one! I had gone to church with Judy and the girl's for Samantha's musical so he had to accept for both of us. I did make it to the luncheon, just after the awards though. Since I am a little on the shy side, they were all teasing me a little. I hope you had a great weekend and had plenty of time to relax.

The Morning Buzz

I am so very excited! I stopped by Wal-Mart on the way home tonight (NOT the exciting part) because we were out of coffee. That just cannot happen in my house. I am not a nice person without coffee. Anyway, I went to the coffee aisle and they had my favorite coffee in stock!!! Peppermint coffee by Millstone. I love that stuff and I can only get it in November-December. I try and buy extra to stockpile it, but often they run out of it. So in honor of finding my favorite brew, I made a coffee inspired card. This is a hostess set from The Angel Company called "The Morning Buzz". I stamped the coffee beans onto kraft paper with Versamark and the other images were stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. The mug is colored with Prisma markers. I used some Liquid Applique on the inside of the mug as foam and went over the mug with Glossy Accents to give it a shiny look. I thought the circles looked a little plain stacked on top of each other so I decided to add the brads to mirror the smaller circle. The photo corners were punched with a SU punch and then pierced. Life is good with peppermint coffee!

So this blog is called "Makings and Musings". I am going to muse for a while now standing up on my little soapbox. I won't be offended if you leave now and we can still be friends, even if we disagree. Tomorrow is election day. I would not even begin to try and talk you into voting for the candidates I support because that is a personal decision. I would like to talk about voting in general. I hope everyone has been paying attention to all the elections, local and national and that you are planning to vote. As women, we have not had the privilege of voting for the entire history of our nation. We have only had this privilege for 88 years. There are women in my life that were born in a time when women could not vote. Beautiful, smart, caring and strong women. That amazes me. Susan B. Anthony introduced a proposal in 1878 that among other things, would give women the right to vote. However the 19th Amendment was not signed until 1920, several years after she died. There are many woman who fought valiantly for this cause. They were ridiculed, patronized, were fined and sent to jail. For saying that our opinions mattered. Their lives made interesting history if you want to read about them. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Eliza Church Terrell are just a few. I for one, cannot let their work be for nothing by throwing my vote away. I want to leave you with a couple of quotes to think about:

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves--and the only way that they do this is by not voting.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Now more than ever the people are responsible for the characters of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption.

James Garfield (written in 1877)

Bad Politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.

William E. Simon

Voting is the foundation of political action.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Thank you so much if you read all the way to the end of this post! Thanks for stopping by.

Bit off more than I can chew...

Ever have one of those ideas that sound so great in your head, but end up not being so great? We are in the middle of one of my ideas like that. I don't have any stamping projects to show you tonight. I decided to organize and re-organize the house this weekend, including my stamps. For those of you that do not know Kip and all that well, I will start with this story. We met in January of 2005, started hanging out as friends after a short while (I found out he liked Sushi). Our first "real date" was on July 9th. He asked me to marry him on October 9th and we got married on December 17, 2005. Hey, when you know it is the right thing, you know it. Well, we were both in our 30s and getting married for the first time. That means I had an entire house full of stuff and so did he. After the wedding we went on out honeymoon to Lake Tahoe and returned on Christmas Eve, celebrated the holiday and then started the wonderful process of moving me into his house. I planned the wedding of my dreams in nine weeks so I didn't have time to slowly pack and sort through things! That is my excuse anyway. Really I am a terrible packer and have been every time I have moved not matter how much time I have. Anyway, to make this long story a little shorter, we ended up turning one bedroom into nothing but a storage area. And most of the downstairs. We keep saying we are going to move into a larger house one day, so I was hanging on to a lot of my stuff, even the junk.

I decided this was the weekend to declutter since we had three days. We re-did the guest bedroom, including the closet. It looks a lot better and I think we made better use of the space of that tiny room. We also tackled that back room that became a storage area. So far we are getting there. My goal is to have it as a bedroom by tomorrow. We have already taken two large loads to Goodwill and thrown away a ton of stuff. Junk stuff that wasn't good enough to do anything else with. Of course we are both exhausted at this point! I found some pieces of kitchen things that were missing. We also cleaned out the closets in both of those bedrooms and put shelves in to help with the organization.

After we finish the bedroom tomorrow, we are going to work in our own spaces a little, he will be working in his office and I am working in my craft space. I decided to find a new way to store all my stamps. I have stamps from several different manufacturers. I love the plastic envelopes that my CTMH stamps come in, but I have also put a lot into CD cases. I have decided to go with the CD cases. I bought a tall CD rack at a garage sale for $2.00 and it will hold 200 CD cases. It is tall and skinny and will fit in a corner. So now I am in the process of moving all my clear stamps into CD cases. I used my label maker to make labels with the company name and the stamp set name. I am not going to unmount my wooden ones though. So far most of them are fitting into the CD case, a couple of the D series stamps from CTMH aren't going to work though. My smaller TAC stamps sets also work in the cases. But it is not going very fast! Thanks for reading all the way to the end of this very long post. I am planning to take some time tomorrow to stamp so I will have some pictures to post then.

Too sick to stamp

How sick am I today? I feel too bad to stamp :(. I have a really bad sinus infection and for some reason my left eye is swollen enough that I am not able to wear my contacts and am stuck with my glasses. Hope everyone else is doing great, I hope to be back tomorrow or Saturday.

Hello and welcome to my little world. I will be posting things that I have made hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoy making them. Check back often!