enjoying everyday life!

I wanted to do a quick post. It's been busy over here with life, and work! And it seems as if whenever I go to post I haven't taken a picture of the cards yet in sunlight and it's now night! Oh well. Life for me is going well. I am so blessed to be surrounded with opportunities to get out and be with people and friends! I can find highlights in even general things, driving my daughter to preschool and chatting with fellow mom's having the morning with just my son and hitting the local scrapbooking stores and getting some new stuff! And having such a great chat with the owner of one store! Volunteering at the stay and play at my church the kids get out and have a great time playing and I get to hang out with some mom's! This week I was even able to have a girls night out with a few friends seeing the Ugly Truth (at the cheap theatre even better for us stay at home mom's!) and having my favorite gelati! This morning I went to the mall since my friend was kind to send me a 25% coupon she got online for a store and picked up a snowsuit for my daughter for a great price! And having a coffee and letting the kids play in the play area of the mall with my friend. And even working wasn't that bad, I work only a few evenings and I like getting out and being around people! I did get some time to create and I have started with the Christmas cards! I think I will be making 10 of each design. Here is my first Christmas card:

Here are a few cards I made with my new cling stamp Silhouette flower. I was inspired by a girl's set of cards in the HA flickr group for these!

I will be back later after work to post supplies and techniques I used! Happy friday!

pink eye

I have been able to be quite creative this week. Maybe because the weather has cooled down, maybe because this week hasn't been all too busy, or maybe because I have had pink eye? I haven't had it for years but woke up on sunday morning with a sore eye and when I looked in the mirror I discovered that my left eye was all red! I was all shocked I thought to myself my goodness it's all red look what late nights have done to me, I am going to have a red eye forever now! On monday I spent over 2 hours waiting to see my doctor to find out what it was. My eye was watery in the mornings but no pus or anything and I really didn't think it was pink eye. He told me that yes it was, any red or pink eye is pink eye! I was all surprised telling him that I didn't have the pus and all that fun stuff, his reply was in a few days untreated you would! I have been treating it with polysporn eye drops (he gave me a prescrption but said I could use that as I haven't used it before) and breastmilk! I am still nursing my baby and I know that I have treated watery eyes, sore ears and all sorts of ailments on my children with breastmilk so I thought I should use it myself! It really healed quickly! I have to use the polysporn for a week. One of the oddest things about having pink eye is that I can't wear mascara! I never go into public without mascara and I have continued with life as usual (after 24 hrs with the drops your not contagious) so I feel as if I look quite funny! It's funny though only one friend came up to me and said why do you look so different? Here I feel that I am all werid looking and only one friend actually noticed!

Anyways onto the cards. I have been playing around with some new stamps and supplies that I bought when I went to Scrapfest. Oh and the stamp that Jennifer McGuire gave me when we went for dinner (She said Aaron the CEO of HA told her to bring gifts for us and we had a choice of two stamps! How cool is that? This stamp shall always have a special place in my heart!) (oh the stamp I choose is the Antique Brocade CG 102)

I also made this first card to send to Kate's parents for the cards for Kate drive. I hope to finish all my cards for them this weekend and send it off on monday. Looking at this card in the photo it's hard to tell but I did use the Antique Brocade with versa mark on the brown. I also used my new cling Silhouette Flower and cut it out with my new nesties Labels 8! And the thinking of you is a new stamp I finally got,from All occasions! Oh and even the buttons are new!

Products used: (not mentioned yet) Bazzill cardstock, American Crafts paper, Su scalloped punch, michaels ribbon, colorbox chalk and pigment inks.

Here is the first card I made using my new silhouette flower cling stamp. I embossed it in white on patterned paper that I recieved free with my scrapfest badge, it's Bo Bunny! I love how this turned out. And it's kinda fallish with it's colors, maybe the closest I will go!

Products used (again not mentioned yet) bazill cardstock, k and company buttons, rhinestones, white embossing powder and colorbox chestnut pigment ink.

I hope to post tommorow with all the other cards I have made this week as it's World Cardmaking day, and I must run now to put my children down for a nap, figure out supper and take a nap all before I work tonight!

Loving Buttons

Fall has officially come where I live! We had a bad summer, lots of rain and not much hot weather. And finally at the beginning of September hot weather came! Pretty much all of September was hot weather and many people around here visited the beach! Yesterday the weather finally turned towards fall, over night basically! It feels weird though that in just a few days it will be October! I have to start shopping for snowsuits and boots soon the stores will be sold out! We often have snow by Halloween which would be even weird to go from beach weather to snow in a few short weeks!

Today I have two cards to share. Just playing around. Which is basically my favorite thing to do when creating. I enjoy challenges but sometimes they take the fun out of card making for me. This week I am planning on working on the cards I have in my head! I have a lot of ideas and challenges tend to take me away from them! Even though I don't always take part in them I find myself thinking about them a lot! I made these two cards with my PaperTreyInk set Everyday Button Bits! Here they are:



Products used: PP by American Crafts, Bazzill Cardstock, PTI Everyday Button Bits, SU Scallop Punch, Random and Buttons by K and Company, Su Black Ink and Colorbox ink oh and Labels 1!

Love these cards! Hope everyone is having a fantastic start to there week!

Scrapfest09 Part 2

I had to end my last post early because I couldn't add any more photos! So here is more about my trip! Please read the post under this one first!

Saturday night Marie, Sophie, Tammy and I went for dinner at Tony Romas in MOA. I ended up organzing a dinner with fellow flickr people and a bunch of Hero Arts girls were also able to come! I don't know who was more exciting to meet! Here are some photos:

Jennifer McGuire loving on Latrice's baby! He was soo darling! Just look at those cheeks!

L to R Sophie, Marie and Lizha having good conversation!

Kelly Rasmussen, Tammy Hartley, and Sally!

Me and Jennifer McGuire! She is so awesome! I can't believe I actually met her nevermind have dinner with her!

The whole table!

L to R Lizha, Lizha's daughter (I appologize for not remembering her name!) Lucille, and Kelly

Me and Richel!!! Loved meeting her!

Celebrating Lucille's birthday! How cool to be celebrating your bday with some HA Ladies!

Shari Caroll and Me! She is even nicer than she looks!

L to R: Kelly Rasmussen, Me (anita) Tammy Hartley These sisters are not only talented but super sweet!


Dinner was so much fun! I can't believe how wonderful all the Hero Arts ladies are! At dinner from the flickr group: Lucille K; Sally (Dogwoodmnr); Lizha (lizhaworth) (and her darling daughter!) came and Latrice sat behind us with her hubby and two kids (murphy_latrice) it's her baby that we all adored! From Hero Arts: Jennifer McGuire; Shari Caroll; Kelly Rasmussen; Tammy Hartley; Richel who is new to Hero Arts (and I don't know your last name!) and Caroll (I also don't know your last name!) I sat in between Richel and Jennifer. I want to write the following here so I never forget. Everyone was really awesome. I love reading Jennifer's blog and seeing her work but what overpasses all of it is how wonderful of a person she is! I just met Richel when she was working at the HA both and I sat next to her at dinner but she was so kind and I am so happy to have met her too! Richel you rock and I hope you build and enjoy your new career at Hero Arts! Shari is so funny and is so sweet! I totally enjoyed all her stories especially the one with the floppy boobs! I loved meeting Kelly because I always enjoy seeing her cards! She was so sweet and our kids are almost the same age and same genders which was totally cool! :> Tammy well who doesn't love Tammy? She always has the right thing to say on the flickr group and is so cute and kind! I talked a bit to Carroll but my friends loved you and I enjoyed hearing more about you and wishI got to know you better! :> I know that Sophie, Marie and Tammy also enjoyed meeting you all and very much enjoyed dinner! I also want to let my flickr friendsknow that meeting all of you totally rocked! How cool was it to chat online and comment on each other's cards and finally meet? Celebrating Lucille's birthday was so much fun! Her cheesecake was soo soo good! Dinner with everyone so comfortable and conversation flowed and so did the laughter! We also got to know the HA ladies because they shared with us all sorts of stories! I can't believe it happened! I can't believe how much fun it was and I will always treasure the memory!

On sunday Sophie and I returned to Scrapfest while Marie and Tammy shopped at Target and Ikea. I did the Hero Arts make and take (they had a new card everyday plus I wanted to see Richel and Caroll!) And than I went shopping a bit more! We left Minneapolis around 1 and drove home. The drive went well. We stopped at Target in Fargo where Marie locked her keys in the Suburban! :> The trip was so much fun. Hanging out with Sophie, Marie and Tammy and having some girl time was great. I think we all traveled well! I think Richel said it perfectly to me on Sunday when she told me "You are lucky to have friends like them, there great girls!" She is right I am blessed by your friendship Sophie, Tammy and Marie. Our trip rocked!

My trip to Scrapfest09 Part 1

This past weekend I attended Scrapfest09 which is held in Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN. It was so much fun! I went with a few of my girl friends Sophie, Marie and Tammy! I had heard about scrapfest on the Hero Arts flickr wall a few months ago. I knew exactly what it was as I had been in MOA 4 years ago while it took place ( I wasn't into papercrafting than!) I knew I wanted to go as Minneapolis is a popular trip location for me and my friends and it's not too long of a car ride, 7ish hours. I have a lot of friends who are interested in scrapbooking and card making but a few have new babies (and are nursing) and some were busy with other trips, luckily Sophie, Tammy and Marie were able to come! We drvoe down thursday morning. Shopped a bit in Fargo and than hit an outlet mall on our way into the city. Not only were we going for Scrapfest but we were going to shop!

We stayed at a hotel close to the mall where lots of other Scrapfest women were staying! On friday morning we headed for MOA and due to our GPS we ended up downtown (later we figured out that our GPS was sending us to the MOA's headoffice!) Finally we arrived at MOA and got checked in at Scrapfest! I had planned a lunch at Crave to meet fellow flickr Hero Arts girls! I met with Lucille K, Linda (ScrappinBari) , Jenn (scrapperjjb) and Kari (Jenn's friend!). We had a great lunch! I really enjoyed meeting them they were all so kind! Sadly I totally forgot my camera!

After lunch I went and did a few make and takes at several company's booths. Scrapfest basically is booths of all the different companies who take part scattered thoughout the hallways of the main floor of Mall of America. Each company has a make and take, basically some sort of a project with there current products (like paper, stamps, die cutting machines new tools etc) Some have scrapbook page layouts, a lot have cards, and some have cool projects. There is usually about a 20 minute to half an hour wait for each booth, some even longer! All these make and takes are free with a Scrapfest badge which is only around $15. Scrapfest also has classes but the ones that I was interested in were sold out quickly (apparantly an hour!) But it didn't bother me I had a lot of fun! There were so many different companies there and the make and takes they had were so much fun! I learnt a few new things too! I hope to post some pics of the actual make and takes later.

Friday night Sophie, Tammy, Marie and I went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner! Yummy! Than we shopped some more! I am so happy with the shopping we did I got some really nice clothes for me and a new fossil watch! I also got my daughter some really cute outfits and two pairs of the cutest boots! Saturday morning we did a bit more shopping at a different mall and than headed over to Scrapfest after lunch. We visited several more booths and did more make and takes! A lot of booths had different make and takes everyday! Here are some photos, because of the craziness of so many people long lines and well shopping so much and not much sleep I didn't get the best photos and looking through them now I realize that I can't remember which booth I took the photo at of some! Anyways:

No clue as to where this photo was taken! But it's so pretty!

One of the lovely girls from Basic Grey!

Well it's not the best photo but here are L to R Me, Sophie and Tammy waiting in line!

Trying to get a better shot of the three of us in line!


The Sizzix Booth's make and take!

Hamby Screen Prints they had some cute stuff!

Hamby's display!

One of Spellbinders display!

I have to end this post now because it will not allow me to add any more photos!

A manly week

This week on the Hero Arts blog it was man week! They had an awesome blog with many different cards that men who work at Hero did and family and friends did! It was cool to see what the guys came up with! The challenge this week was to make a manly card. And to try to get the men in our lives to stamp with us! Sadly I wasn't able to get my darling hubby to participate as I worked 5 shifts this week and with this long weekend! I have a small part time job that I have to work 3 hours every 3 months to keep my job, and that's what I typically do (plus I am just coming back from a year off with mat leave) With back to school and my upcoming trip to Scrapfest09 I told them that if they could I would love a few shifts, and in the past 2 1/2 weeks I have worked 10! Oh well I am not complaining as it's great to be making my own money to bring on my trip! And I work in the evenings and weekends when hubby can be home with the kids. And well hubby may not have made a card but yesterday when I got home there were oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that he made and a cleanish house!

I was excited about this challenge because lately I have enjoyed making manly cards! Now that I have a lot more stamps and such that work for guys! I find that personally I give a lot of guy cards out for birthdays so I could always add to the stash. I made sort of like a collection using the Three Designer Leaves stamp set and some PP by Kauser focusing on using Kraft, Green and Brown. I also thought it would work to use a page out of a book for a manly card. I love using book pages in cards as it's so totally me as I just LOVE TO READ! Finding a book of my many to tear up is hard! It has to be a book of mostly text, not too many headers or paragraphs, it has to have close script and you have to watch what kinds of words are in the books! Everytime I picked up one of my chick lit to look through to see if it would work I realized hey I don't remember this book I can't tear it up! I think almost half the time I put into these cards was looking for a book. I had to find a wider one for the horizontal cards, I finally just used some textbook from my 1960's history class! Here are all four cards:



I started with just one card and than kept having more ideas off that one! I was inspired by others online who use thread in there cards and went for it with the brown! It was fun!

This was the first one I made and maybe my favorite. I love it! I stamped the trees in green and brown pigment ink and than clear embossed it on top! It took a few tries as if you heat it too much the ink would run! I think the book page works so great!

Than I had the idea to crumple the page and distress it and ink up the edges with the brown ink. I love how it looks!

This was the first one that I tried the crumple with I just crumpled it into a ball! I put the book paper on the brown with popups so it kept the crumple look! I also distrssed the edges of the brown and the pp!

I stamped the trees in the ink also but left no sentiment so I could use it for whatever I will need! I used a nestie in this one but not the whole nestie just parts! I like it! I also tied a clear button on the thread! I cut it out of the inside of my daughters adjustable pants that she outgrew! :>

And I made this card early in the week. I drew stitches all along with white gel pen and cut the stars out with different pp's in my big shot. I used the ALL STAR sentiment from the Graduation HA set. I love the play on the words All star!

I hope you enjoyed my manly cards!

Material used: Three Designer Leaves, Happy Birthday from Cupcakes set, All Star from Graduation set all HA. Birthday Wishes SU. Random buttons Moss Green, Chestnut ink by Colorbox, Bazzill cardstock, Nestabilities Labels 1, Random book, Kauser PP, American Crafts PP, White Gel pen!

Birthday Card and Gift Bag for Elaine

This past weekend I went to a BBQ/Bonfire for my great friend Elaine. I am so excited for Elaine as she is pregnant with her first child! I bought her a maternity shirt that I happened to find at Old Navy while shopping for my kids! I left the shirt on my half wall (going the stairs) and as the day went by looking at it I thought how it would make such a great inspiration for a card or project! The colors are so pretty and the color combinations! Also the print is very much like some stamps out there! I often would read on other blogs about color inspiration and all of a sudden as of last week I see it now too! In fact I am finding it hard to go clothes shopping as all I see are ideas! How funny is that? Maybe one day I will host color inspiration challenges or something as I gain more readers! So I decided to make Elaine a gift bag as it's so much fun to do! I had made one for my friend Lisa last month. Since I didn't have a blog than than I will share it here now:



I stamped the HA Heartwinged Butterfly on Lisa's bag. I wanted to try making a bag with diecuts instead thinking it would be easier! Well it wasn't. It was as much work if not more! I used colors from the shirt and the Blossom Party die by SU. I like how it turned out! I wanted to make a matching card but I knew for sure that I wanted to use the running girl from the CTMH stamp set Be Yourself. (Same set as yesterday's card) as when I saw that stamp I thought of Elaine! It suits her perfectly! So I used both the flowers and embossed the running girl stamp. A different combination but actually it kinda suits her also, she may love to exercise but she is fashionable and pretty!

The shirt, the bag and the card! Isn't the shirt such a great inspiration?



A close up of the bag. Funny story about the bag. A few weeks ago I was at a women's conference and they gave away tons of prizes! I sadly didn't win one but one of my friends did and was ditching her bag (a small solid pink one) When other girlfriends saw me with it they of course asked if I won a prize so I explained to them that I took it to create it with it and they remembered my bag from last month for Lisa. Well they got me this white bag from yet another friend who won a prize, love reusing things!

And of course a close up of the card:

Products used: Random white bag, Bazzill cardstock, SU cardtock and Blossom Party Die, Pearl accents, CTMH Be Yourself

It was fun making Elaine's shirt not just being the best part of the gift! I encourage you to find inspiration from your clothes, if you loved the shirt what makes you love it so? The colors, the print? Try it on paper!