10 Years of Love

My friend Kristi and her husband celebrated their 10th Wedding Anniversary May 15th. I was one of Kristi's bridesmaids and she was our Matron of Honor when we got married 5 years later. Here they are back in 1999, isn't that a gorgeous cake?

This is the card I made for them.

I started making a copper and white card because the 10th anniversary gift is supposed to be tin or metal. I struggled and struggled with that card and in the end scrapped it and chose "ever faithful- can't go wrong pastels" because I know Kristi loves soft colors.

Lots of layering and dimensionals here. I used the Storybook Cricut cartridge for the numbers. The DSP is Tea Party from Stampin' Up!. The So Saffron scallopped and simple DSP circle were done with Sissix dies on the Big Shot. The other layers were done with Accent & Elements Cricut Cartridge. The lime green layer was done with Sugared paper. The inside was layered too but I forgot to take a picture before I sealed the envelope. Hope you are having a wonderful day, thanks for stopping by.

Watercolor Roses

Finally, I am getting around to posting this. This is the Mother's Day card I made for my Mother. I love how this turned out. I used the watercolor technique featured on Patty Bennett's tutorial (HERE). When I saw this technique, I knew I had to try it. I actually had not gotten around to purchasing this stamp set, Fifth Avenue Floral, so I borrowed it and the required Shimmery White cardstock from my sideline Michele. Thanks Michele!

The stems are from the retired Roses in Winter set by SU and the Mother's Day sentiment is a stamp I picked up a long time ago that did not even have a label. Here's a close up of the rose.
My Mom absolutely loves Roses, growing up we always had 20+ rose bushes in our yard and always had a fresh bouquet sitting in a vase under the large Virgen de Guadalupe picture in our hallway.
Try the watercolor technique, you'll get addicted like me! Hope you've had a wonderful day.

Supplies: Shimmery White, Regal Rose, So Saffron and White Card Stock. White craft ink (for roses), Regal Rose craft ink (for Mother's Day) and Clear embossing powder. Leaves were stamped with Mellow Moss classic ink directly on Shimmery card stock. Brads are from Soft Subtles collection and sheer ribbon is from JoAnn.

Many More Monkeys

A couple of weeks ago I posted some baby shower invites HERE I was doing for a dear friend's daughter. Well the shower was today. I made many more monkey things to go with the baby's room and shower theme... This was fun, but I am done with monkeys and the Chocolate Chip & Certainly Celery color combo for a while.

Remember, this was the baby's theme.
Here are a few of the other things I made.


The crib with the bedding was set up in the living room for everyone to see. I made this simple little banner using the scallop and plain circle dies with the Big Shot. The letters were done with the Alphalicious cartridge on the Cricut.


They had a cute stuffed monkey sitting inside the crib. I made this frame/sign for the monkey to hold. The letters were done with the Alphalicious cartridge and the monkey was done with the New Arrival cartridge on the Cricut.

I made another banner for the mantle, same supplies, tools and cartridges as other.


I made a few monkey things to set around. This was one of the large monkey faces I made. It's hard to tell but this is 12 inches in diameter.

I took a stab at making my first diaper cake. I received one at one of my showers and I just loved it. I followed a combination of several online tutorials. I struggled with this because I thought it was plain but since the theme for the shower was quite simple I didn't want to go overboard with stuff. The band around each layer is a 2" wide grosgrain ribbon that is scallopped like ric rac layered with some of the Certainly Celery ribbon from the Sale A Bration bundle. I looked and looked for a plain brown stuffed monkey all over town and never found one so I settled for one made with the Cricut. I mounted him on a chop stick from Pei Wei

The favors were the ones I showed in this post. I used the monkeys from the retired Monkey Business stamp set and the Box #2 die with the Big Shot to make the box. DH even helped me fill them with green easter grass and Hershey's Kisses.

Here's the happy Mom To Be with the adorable cake.

Thanks for stopping by.........

ETA: I used Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa and Creamy Caramel cardstocks for the monkies. The favor boxes were done in Gable Green and the sheer brown ribbon is from JoAnn.

Green Living Family Festival

If you are local, you might be interested in going to the Green Living Family Festival at the Heard Museum this weekend. I will be there! Click HERE for more information.

More Earth Day Books

Happy Earth Day.

I was shopping at our local Green Wal-Mart and just happened to browse through the kids books section. Found the "Why Should I" series of books. These books are cute and easy to read, perfect for preschoolers to 1st grade. Micaela is loving these because it totally relates to what Mommy talks about every day! Highly recommend these. Click on the titles to see Amazon listings.


Why Should I Recycle? Covers all the basics about recycling, even covers recycling vegetable scraps & composting.

Why Should I Save Energy? Covers all the basics of how fuel is made, energy conservation including carpooling, riding your bike instead of driving.
Why Should I Save Water? Covers all the basics of water conservation, including rain water harvesting!
Why Should I Protect Nature?

Celebrating Four

Our little girl turned four today! We'll be celebrating big later on in the month, in the meantime we had cake, popsicles and sunshine at her church school before recess.

Walgreens Earth Day Offer

Disney Store Earth Day Offer

Perfect Book for Earth Day

The other day I spent my lunch hour browsing around one of the book stores near our downtown square. I was looking for a book to buy for Micaela to celebrate Earth Day. I was pleasantly surprised to find a new Fancy Nancy book called Explorer Extraordinaire. This book was released 3-31-09 and couldn't be more perfect for the occassion.
The book profiles Fancy Nancy and her best friend Bree as they set out to explore the fascinating world of wildflowers, trees, leaves, birds and butterflies. There are recipes for making a pinecone birdfeeder and extra fancy lemonade. I can't wait to read this to Micaela, I just know she is going to love it, it's just so perfect for Earth Day!

Bluebonnets in McKinney Texas!

We stopped by a Bluebonnet Patch on our way to the square today after church. We had so much fun taking pictures.

It was incredibly windy so our hair looks like we stuck our finger in an electric socket in most of the pictures .... (see new profile picture). I got some good ones of hubby with with Micaela-- he doesn't have much hair on his head so he did not get the socket effect that I did. LOL.

Hope you are having a great Sunday with your family.

Earth Movie

The first film in the Disneynature series, EARTH, narrated by James Earl Jones, tells the remarkable story of three animal families—polar bears, elephants, and whales—as they make their amazing journeys across the planet we all call home. EARTH combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet’s wildest and most elusive creatures. Directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, the acclaimed creative team behind the Emmy Award® winning “Planet Earth,” combine forces again to bring this epic adventure to the big screen, beginning Earth Day, April 22.

See trailer HERE.

Working on Monkey Stuff

My friend's daughter is having a baby and I have volunteered to make the shower invitations and favors.

The Mom to be has selected the "Pop Monkey" collection from Babies R Us for the baby's room and wanted the shower invitations to have the same theme and the chocolate chip and celery colors.

The first stamp set that came to mind was the Monkey Business stamp set which is retired. I bought this set with grand plans but never got around to using it or event mounting it. Well, it sure came in handy for this....

Here's what I have come up with so far. I have to keep it simple because I have to make over 50 invitations in a short period of time and these days I do not have alot of spare time. We'll see which version the new Mommy picks.

I have to say that normally I am not a fan of monkey, but the more I worked with this little guy the more I grew to love him. My favorite and easiest item is the favor box. I made it using the new Box #2 die from Sissix. This box is the easiest box ever, I could literally make boxes all day.

Thanks for stopping by.......

Tons of cards for Tricia

I just sent about 60 cards to my sister in law. She likes to buy my cards to have them on hand for the people she works with. I just sent her a package with this assortment. I sent 6 to 12 of each of these cards. I have to keep them simple in order to produce so many.
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Girly Birthday using retired SU DSP, Groovy Guava & Purely Pomegranate card stock. I used a Sissix die for the flower and regular circle punches for the center.

This is from the same retired SU DSP.

Colorful "Way to Go". Paper is from DCWV Summer Stack


Thanks from Tricia in Pink Passion & Green circles. This paper is also from DCWV Summer Stack. Loved how the cirlces worked on this one. Sheer ribbon from JoAnn.




This one is straight in real life. Thanks from Tricia in chocolate chip. This is the cute & curly punch. Beige grosgrain ribbon from Michael's.

Manly Birthday. This is retired SU DSP. The Trips & Travel collection from 2007.
Thanks for stopping by.

Eggstravaganza

We had a great time today at the Eggstravaganza sponsored by the Parks, Rec & Open Space Department in our city. Micaela was excited to take a picture with the Easter Bunny.

They had a tremendous turnout. It was incredible to see 25,000 eggs spread out! The largest Egg Hunt in Texas, right here in our "back yard".

Hope your Saturday was great, thanks for stopping by...

Another Easter Card

I hope you are having a nice weekend. We did some work around the yard yesterday and today we are resting. Last night I had some alone time in my stamp room and came up with another super simple Easter card.
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For the card base I used a pre-made card (gasp!). I wasn't really planning on using these myself. I bought this box of cards by DCWV, for Micaela to embellish. They were $10 for 50 cards-- a bargain for a little girl that goes through cardstock like H2O. When I saw this pattern I thought of the Nestability card from yesterday. So, before I let her play with them, I decided I would make this one very simple easter card just like the one I did yesterday. All I did was add the stamped bunny & ribbon and the card was done.

Lately all I have time to do is these super simple cards, thanks for stopping by and Happy Palm Sunday!

If you live in this area...

First Easter Card of the Season

It's the week before Easter and this is my first Easter card of the season. I just love the sentiment "Some Bunny Loves You" because we say that to Micaela all of the time.

I used So Saffron for the card base. The striped glittery paper is from DCWV, Baby Girl Stack. Both stamps are from the Dollar Bin @ Michael's. I stamped the bunny image on glossy card stock with Basic Grey Classic Ink and colored the ears with a pink Sharpie marker. The glittery scallopped circle was cut with Nestabilities. The sentiment was stamped with Regal Rose Craft Ink and embossed with Clear Embossing Powder. IRL-- the pinks all match but somehow the flash made the pink colors look totally different in the picture. The ribbon is 1/4 inch Celery from SU.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend.

Oh what a week...

Our daughter caught a yucky stomach bug last week. Within a couple of days we all had the bug and were homebound for five long days. 20-something loads of laundry, countless bottles of Sprite and packages of crackers and four visits to the doctor we are all better. I kept trying to squeeze in a few minutes of stamping here and there but it was virtually impossible-- Slowly our home and our bodies are recovering, thank the Lord!

New Mini Catalog

The New Mini Catalog is here. If you didn't get one from me in the mail, let me know and I will get one out to you.

You can access the catalog online by clicking here.

Fun Book for Easter

I mentioned in this post the Natasha Wing book I got Micaela for Valentine's Day. Here's the Easter one, The Night Before Easter. It's cute too, but not as cute as the Valentine's one. Micaela loves it and that is all that counts!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll share a couple more Easter books soon!

Using up some retired DSP

I am trying to use up some retired Designer Series Paper so I made up some simple cards using one of my favorite stamps... the "My Dear Kind &Wonderful Friend" sentiment from the "All Holidays" stamp set by Stampin' Up!.
Nothing to these cards, just stamped the sentiment in coordinating craft ink and embossed with clear powder. Used the Scallop Circle & Plain Circle Nestabilities. The sheer ribbon is from JoAnn's.Thanks for stopping by.

B is for Baby Boy

I've been trying to make up a little inventory of cards to have on hard. We know alot of families expecting babies so I thought I would make some baby cards.



I usually struggle with Boy cards but this one came together pretty quickly. The card base is Certainly Celery. The layered B was done using the Alphalicious cartridge on the Cricut and the layered rectangles were done using Nestabilities by Spellbinders. The designer paper is retired from SU, called Cutie Pie. The grosgrain ribbon is from Hobby Lobby. Inside the card I double matted cardstock using Bashful Blue and White and added a sentiment "B is for Baby Boy".

Hope you are having a Beautiful Day, thanks for stopping by....

Diaper Fold Treat

This is Becca Davidson's swap. She used Raspberry Tart DSP and the SAB Yummy stamp set. Isn't this adorable? Thanks Becca

Raspberry Tart Mini Note Pad

This is a little mini note pad I made for a swap that my upline Denise Sullivan hosted. Inside is a small legal pad. I made the cover to match the pad, I did not have a particular pattern, just made it to size. The Scallopped Square is from the Say It with Scallops stamp set.
I covered the top of the legal pad with a small strip of Raspberry Tart DSP.

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies: Raspberry Tart DSP. Rose Red, Cameo Coral, and White card stock. Regal Rose 5/8 grosgrain ribbon.

Coming Up for Air Again...

I blink and a month goes by, what's up with that? We've been busy with so many things I can't even list. Right now our daughter is spending Spring Break with my parents in South Texas so I have a little more evening time than usual to update my blog. I have been stamping and crafting, just have not had time to take pictures. Hopefully I will get caught up and back into the swing of things this week. Thanks for hanging in there with me.