Floral Blossoms and Zig Zag Take 2

Hello!  Yay the weekend is here!  :>  And it's the start to our spring break!  :>  I think this is the first year in a long time that the weather is actually springish during spring break!  :>  Hope your having a great weekend!  Last night I went out with a few friends for pizza and some girl time, it was much appreciated!  :>  It was also last minute and gotta thank my hubby for changing his plans and stayed home with the kids so I could go out!  Today I am working a wreath order, wait till you see it the colors are lovely!  Ariel went to a birthday party for a friend and other than that I think we will lay low today!

Today I have another card to share using the Floral Blossoms and Zig Zag set.  I made this one after my last one you can see it here if you missed it!  I loved my last card but I love this one too!  Can't get enough of this flower stamp I have another two card ideas still!

I am entering this card into the current Lily Pad challenge of Flowers!  And this month's Hero Arts contest one of which is fabulous flowers:

I stamped the zig zag background by Hero Arts with pumice stone distress ink by ranger onto white cardstock but inked the stamp with versamark first to give the ink a more crisp impression.  Stamped the floral blossom also by HA in moss green pigment ink by colorbox, and in a new ink color I picked up Turquoise gem by versamagic.  Cut them out and adhered them, the blue flowers with foam squares.  Made a banner out of grey cardstock and white embossed the sentiment from the set Good Friend by HA.  Added some bling, I am loving bling right now by the way it adds so much!  I was going to do these flowers in pink again but I am so glad I went with the blue!

I wanted to share that one o fmy cards was featured on the Aussie Scrap Source blog!  You can see it here

Happy to share that Ariel is feeling better!  She did go to school on Wednesday but when Chad picked her up the teacher said she wasn't even 50% there!  Oppps!  She spent that evening laying on the couch and we watch Tangled as a family.  She stayed home again on Thursday.  She did go to school on Friday because they were having a garage sale!  Kids bring in toys, candy and such and have a garage sale to practice using money!  Everything has to 25 cents or less!  I made chocolate covered marshmallow pops for her to sell!  I stayed and volunteered too, what a blast!  Ariel bought some really great stuff and I picked up a bunch of cars and books for Carter, he was soo happy!  I took her home after lunch since it was early dismissal and they had gym after lunch and she was starting to crash!  What a sickness pretty much a whole week!  She is usually so healthy so I really can't complain.  But I am so happy that is over!  I think with being home so much this week we may have to be out and about a lot over spring break!  :>

I did want to share something so cute Carter's new way of calling us when he is in distress is "A little help please?"  Sooooo sweet to hear his little voice staying it!  He's also singing randomly and I looooove it! :>

Well I am off gotta get dinner in the slowcooker tonight I am trying a new recipe, Teriyaki chicken!  And I gotta get busy making some felt flowers!

Dot Flower and Tea Flower Card

Hello Happy Wednesday!  :>  We spent the morning at Stay and Play at my church, I enjoyed chatting with my fellow mommy friends and Carter enjoyed playing!  :>  I really enjoy stay and play and seeing my friends and I try to find a baby to love on and get my baby fix!

I also got a great email that one of my wreaths have been picked up for publication in Create:  For the Home!  I have only been making these wreaths since Christmas so you can imagine how exciting this is!  And thanks to my mother in law for suggesting I try to get a wreath published!  I don't know if I would have thought of it!

Today I have a card to share that I made using new stamps by Hero Arts.  I just got the background last week and the tea rose is still newer!  :>

 I am entering this card into this month's Hero Arts contest:

A little bit back when I was sorta not feeling the mojo I embossed this tea flower in chestnut and colored them by using inks and water to paint them!  I did a whole bunch and very much enjoyed it!  Besides making one bridal shower card I put them aside!  The other day I knew I wanted to pair up the dot flower background with the classic tea flower!  And here you go!  It's been a bit since I've added a card with ribbon so at first I had a bit of difficulty tying this!  

My mojo has returned full force!  I think it's all the new stamps.  I have so been enjoying crafting again!  I've also been trying to avoid baking.  I've been trying to make cards instead of cookies and other things!  With spring here and warm weather and spring clothes I can't eat too much baking!  :>  And if I bake it I will eat it!  So instead I have been stamping!  :>

Today is Ariel's first day back at school and after stay and play I checked up on her and I wanted to take her home but she would have nonc of it!  She stayed home Monday and Tuesday and her teacher said that both days 8 kids were sick, and lots today too!  She has just been doing review with the kids as too many missing!  Even though she was sick Carter was so happy to have her home.  And I got so much done!  I think last year I got more creative time with two kids at home verses now with just one!  I think tonight Ariel will be taking it easy and missing ballet and hip hop, hopefully tomorrow she will be back to herself.  :>

Oh I also have to share that Carter has really started to love coloring as of lately.  Little girls always love to color but not always the case with boys.  I try to encourage it because it's good for them to color so that when they go to school they have a better time with writing.  Yesterday he started to draw faces with eyes and a smiley mouth!  So cute!  And today he added bodies!  Drew a whole bunch of people!  He's so excited and so cute about it!

Well I am off Carter is napping and I am looking forward to some quiet time for me too!  :>

Floral Blossoms Card

Hello!  Happy Monday!  We are starting this week with gorgeous temperatures straight from a beautiful weekend!  I just can't get over how hot it is!  I've been contemplating turning on the a/c how hot it is!  When I looked at the forecast for this week I changed my mind as it's cooling down so I better enjoy it while I can!

Today I have a card to share with you using some new stamps from Hero Arts Basic Grey Konnichiwa line.  When I saw this set I had to have it, love the flowers!

I am entering this card into this month's Hero Arts contest:

I used the gorgeous flowers from the Floral Blossom set by Hero Arts.  I love it!  I also used one of my favorite backgrounds the zig zag by HA.  I stamped the background in raspberry pigment ink by colorbox.  Stamped the flowers in moss green pigment ink and cut with my cutter a square and than hand cut the flowers that hang off.  Than I stamped the flowers again in the raspberry and cut them out and mounted them with foam dots.  Stamped the sentiment from the set Good Friends by HA too.   Love this sentiment!  Put the whole card together and realized it needed something so I mounted it with some dark chocolate cardstock by PTI.  I so enjoyed making this card and love it!  I can't wait to play with this stamp again!

Ariel is still sick and is home today.  She still has a slight fever but I am hoping she will be well enough for school tomorrow.  She seemed to be doing a lot better this am so Carter really enjoyed having her home with him!  They were sitting coloring and I realized what am I doing cleaning I should craft too!  So I got a card made today!  :>  I kinda feel like I am on a roll and loving card making again!  :>

Well I am off to get dinner ready as the kids have there last skating lesson today!  (Even though Ariel isn't feeling all that well she is begging to go!)  Looking forward to being done but happy with how well the kids did with it!  :>  See you soon! 

Watch Gears Birthday!

Hello!  Yay it's the weekend!  :>  And it's beyond beautiful here!  It's supposed to get to plus 26 Celsius here today!  Absolutely crazy here in March!  :>  But we are enjoying it!  Last night Chad went out with some guys for a guys night so I invited my girlfriend over with her three girls!  We had a nice relaxing evening and the kids had a lot of fun!  

Today I have a card to share using a new stamp Watch Gears by Hero Arts!  I really love this stamp for making masculine cards. This is a card I made for my Father's in laws birthday!

I embossed with chestnut zing powder the watch gears onto a white card.  Than I embossed it again onto some patterned paper by Authentique and paper pieced some of the gears and popped it up with foam squares.  Distressed with antique linen ink by ranger and tied some twine and there you go a masculine card!  :>

Happy St Patricks Day!  My card isn't a St Patricks day card but it does have green on it!  :>  Do you celebrate?  Us not so much.  I had thought to make the kids green pancakes but Ariel is feeling a bit under the weather so it doesn't seem like the greatest idea!  My kids have not been sick very much this school year, when they do it's very slight and not that bad and they get better so fast!  :>  Yay to healthy kids!  :>   Although she did want to cuddle this morning and I very much enjoyed it!  :>

I hope that you have a great weekend!  I've gotten lots of new stamps lately and am happy that I feel like my mojo has returned.  It went on strike for a bit and I was frustrated, I really enjoy creating!  Yesterday I made a card that I love and felt so happy!  I will share it later this week. :>  I love the feeling creating something that you love brings, you really realize that when you've lost your creativity for a bit!  :>

Well I am off to go get mud off the kids rain boots!  :>  It's that time of year!

Your The Best Tag!

Hello!  Happy Tuesday!  Hope your day is going great!  The weather warmed up this weekend and I thinking Spring may be here!  Early for us! You never know last year it snowed on May 1st and no I am not kidding (It did melt the next day though!)  On Sunday I had to run out and get Ariel a new spring coat and splash pants!  And rain boots for Carter!  I didn't mind, I got Ariel the cutest coat and Carter frog rain boots!  Ariel still fits last year's boots but I would have bought the lady bug ones if they fit, they just about did, they were so cute I considered getting them anyways but I guess I wouldn't be the best mom if I had her squeeze her feet in them no matter how cute they are!  :>  The forecast for this week is unbelievable!  I don't remember the last time we had a spring like this in March and I am holding my breath that it's here to stay!

Yesterday was parent teacher conferences!  Ariel brought home a great report card, subjects she had some difficulty in went up, everything was great marks!  We are really proud of her!  We love her school and her teacher.  I made some chocolate chip cookies and packaged a few up for her!  Parent teacher conferences are long and can be tiresome so I thought a treat would be appreciated!I made a tag to go with it:

Why don't my cookies look as good in these photos as they do in real life?  Hmmm oh well they tasted delicious!  Mrs J loved them!  She told me that now it's just her and her husband so she doesn't bake.  And she said that no one has ever brought her anything before!  I am really glad I did!  At her classroom in the hallway the roof is leaking and there are lots of huge garbage bins to collect the water!  And the power went out 10 minutes before the end of the school day!  :>  

I stamped the alphabet background by Hero Arts in frost white ink by colorbox onto kraft cardstock and made a tag from it, stamped the sentiment from Sending Smiles by Hero Arts onto the red cardstock strip.  Isn't this sentiment perfect for a teacher?  Added the punched strip to the bottom.  :>  I whipped this up pretty quickly but am happy with how it turned out!

Well I am off!  I am hoping to be a better blogger I have lots to share!  And I really want to stop by your blogs and leave some love!  :>

100 Bridal Shower Invites!

Hello my dear crafty friends! Happy Thursday!  :>  I want to start this post off by saying a heartfelt thanks for all your kind comments on my last post!!!! Every comment you took time out of your lives made me smile and feel special!  Thank you for visiting and leaving me love!

Today I want to share with you the bridal shower invites that we made for my brother's fiancee! In total there were 6 of us working on these invites. I invited a few friends and my two friends Sophie and Kate came over to help! (Any of my crafty friend's I've met up with at Scrapfest would know these two girls!) My brother's fiancee Oksana came too and two of her bridesmaids!  So thankful for all the help!  :>  We made 100 invites!  It's going to be a big shower that my mom and Oksana's mom is throwing.  I realize it's not typical for the mother's to throw the shower but here the Croatian (my side) and Ukrainian (her side) it's quite common.  We started around 3:30 and worked on them until about 9:00 I would say, with a dinner break!

Oksana and I came up with the design heavily influenced by this card.  It was easier to look at cards online and agree on something together.  We did simplify it as we had to make 100!!!  We went to my LSS together and picked out cardstock together.  And picked out the flower stamp together!  Chad was able to print the details of the invitation right inside the cardstock which saved a lot of time!  We all worked in an assembly line sort of card making!

Please ignore the not so great photos, I took them late at night:

We embossed the cachina (teal) bazzill cardstock with the damask plate by Papertrey Ink and adhered it with the embossing in.   The flower is from Blossom Art by Hero Arts. I heat embossed most of the flowers beforehand in white and we all cut them out, so much faster with 6 hands!  The sentiment is from Scattered Showers by Papertrey Ink.  We stamped them with a matching ink, I stamped the bottom and Sophie stamped the top!  Everyone worked on assembly and we got it all done! Towards the end of the night I had the idea to stamp the flower inside the card with the lilac posie by memento ink over the text!  :>

By the way I have two good tips for faster stamping when your stamping 100 flowers like I did!  When I was stamping the flowers with versamark I inked the stamp well and stamped the flower and than restamped it without inking it again just with more force and they both "caught" the white embossing powder fine.  I basically inked once and twice stamped.  Than when I stamped the flower inside the card with lilac posie ink I inked up the flower stamped it and on the next card I huffed on the stamp and stamped it again.  Sure it was slightly lighter but it still looked great!  Both methods saved a lot of time!

My lovely husband Chad made us chilli for dinner and I made oreo cupcakes for dessert!  By the time I remembered to take a photo Kate had gone home as she brought her daughter with her to play with Ariel.  So here is a photo of us minus Kate:

As you can see Ariel and Carter enjoyed being around us.  When Kate's daughter was there they weren't around, and another guy friend popped over to watch some of the game (I think the oreo cupcakes called his name) and brought his 1 year old son who kept Carter busy.  But when they were gone Ariel sat there quietly that it took me a while to notice in my stamping pursuit!  Carter not so much he was even crawling under the table!  :>  

What a fun night!  So excited for the shower and for the upcoming wedding!  Ariel is finally going to be a flower girl!  Oh how I have waited for this day!  And Carter will be the ring bearer, we just won't trust him with the actual rings...

Well I am off to work on dinner!!!

February Publications!

Hello!  Happy Thursday!  I am quite excited as tonight I will be going to my first Jets game!  Well this season you see the Jets are a NHL Hockey Team!  15 sad years ago the Jets left our city!  :<  And after a long awaited time our city has an NHL team!  I personally think that every bigger city in Canada should have an NHL team as we love hockey here!  Hubby and his friends were beyond lucky to get season tickets, I think they sold out in just minutes!  He has gone to a few games already this season and it's the first time I am going!  I am so excited!  When they sing the national anthem the whole arena shouts out True North when those words are sung, as the team is owned by a company called True North!  So cool!  Apparently even if you don't like hockey you will have a great time with the energy and excitement of the arena!  Chad's parents are babysitting the kids and since Ariel doesn't have school tomorrow they are sleeping over!

I am here with two cards that I had published in February!!!  They are both in Create Stamping Idea Book.   I love this magazine always have so I am beyond thrilled to have two cards in it!  They are both in the heat embossing section, what a surprise with how much heat embossing I do!  :>  Here they are:

And my second card:

When I saw the cards in the issue I was amazed by how great they looked in print!  I love it!  Seeing the props they pick how they stage the card is so cool!  And it always looks so much better how they photograph it than me!  I took a picture of this card in the issue to show you:

If I could find those ceramic aqua books to buy for my home I would!  I received a kind email from a stranger about this card!  How neat?  And special thanks to my LSS Scrapbook Cottage for calling me and letting me know they put an issue aside so I could see it!  :>

Well I am off!  I have a busy weekend ahead of me, on Sunday I will be working on bridal shower invites for my brother's fiance 100 of them!  I've invited friends to help out and so far I think there will be 5 of us.  Too bad I couldn't invite you over to help!  :>