Toddler Energy Solution

Did you know that the solution to one toddler with too much energy is two toddlers with two much energy! They burn it off chasing each other around, leaving the adults in peace. Brilliant!

We've had a busy few days--some friends from Texas came with their kids to visit over the weekend, and having two toddlers and two newborns for several days was interesting! It actually worked out great because Piglet and their older son got along like a house afire; Piglet was sad when they had to leave yesterday morning. He kept asking for "Dosh" all day. I met them while I was in grad school in Texas--Z and I were in the same master's program back in the day. It was fun to catch up. Maybe we'll make a trip down to East Texas one of these days for another visit.

So we showed them the sights, played a few rounds of Settlers of Catan and had a nice time together. I didn't get anything done while they were here now, and I'm trying to get caught up on stuff. This is the card I was working on last Friday to use up one little dsp scrap (the Baja Breeze one). I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, actually. Unconventional perhaps, but still pretty. :) I used an old sketch and color challenge I found.


The second card is one of a set I made last week to use up more of my Cottage Wall dsp. I saw this color combination on someone's blog (and they got it off the new Color Coach) and thought I would give it a whirl. I wouldn't have thought to put those colors together, but I like them! I was going to pass on the Color Coach, but I think now I'm going to get one--I've seen so many great color combos suggested by the coach on other blogs that I'm convinced it's a good deal. I made the variegated color on the hydrangea by coloring it first with a tempting turquoise marker and then using a sponge dauber to tap on Rich Razzleberry ink. It made the Turquoise ink a darker blue and added some purple hues for a nice subtle effect. It was a little pesky to do it 8 times for the set, but I like the result. Plus I love this layout--I keep coming back to it.


Thinking of You Card:
Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Regal Rose, Real Red cs, Certainly Celery, baja breeze dsp
Embrace Life, Thoughts and Prayers stamps
Soft Suede, Real red ink
Certainly celery button, random "baja breeze-esque" satin ribbon
dimensionals
2 3/8 scallop circle punch
circles #2 die

Because I Care Card:
Tempting Turquoise, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive cs, Cottage Wall dsp
Because I Care stamp set
Rich Razzleberry, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive ink
sponge dauber
dimensionals

You know it's hot when...

the water coming out of your cold water taps is warm. Yes, folks, it is that hot. I tried to take a cold shower this morning to cool down my sweaty self (our bedroom was about 85 degrees last night and outside it was a sweaty 95 at midnight) and found that the cold water was pretty warm. Like skin-warm. So I parked myself in my air conditioned office with the baby at 5:00 a.m. (after he woke up and refused to go back to sleep, despite nursing four times in 2 hours) and tried to think cool thoughts. We were supposed to go to a baptism this morning, but after only five hours of sleep, which were interrupted because I was so hot all night, I just didn't have it in me to drive an hour and then stand through an hour long service with a cranky baby in tow. So hubby took Piglet and they went without us. So things are quiet now, and I'm hoping that Boo will sleep a bit now that we are sitting in a cooler room.

So my weekly tally is 86 cards this week--I had wanted to make a few more, but I told myself that I couldn't play with my new stamp set until I used up some little dsp scraps that were piling up and I ended up having to put a lot of creative energy into those scraps!

Today's card is one I made last week while playing around with some Bermuda Bay dsp I had lying around. (I was trying to use up what I had, and I basically got down to scraps plus one full sheet of cardstock, but do you think I can now find what I had left over?? Nooo) I really like how this came out--Pretty in Pink and Bermuda Bay look so nice together. This card kind of came together as a happy accident. I made three of them because that was the amount of "hugs" die cuts I had left.

For the love of Cuisinart

I've been writing this post in my head for several days now, but am just now getting the time to sit down and actually type it out. When I got married, my mom bequeathed to me her old food processor, which was approximately the same vintage as me, so when it died of natural causes after a long and fruitful life, shortly after our move here three years ago, I was a bit sad, but decided not to replace it right away. After all, it wasn't like I used it every day. Last summer, however, I borrowed our neighbor's Cuisinart for a few weeks during the canning season, and man, that was nice!  My husband and I decided we should try and find a similar model on ebay for a reduced price. We went through several rounds of failed auctions and then I gave up. After all, it's not like I use it every day.


I borrowed my neighbor's Cuisinart again last week to make freezer jam and discovered The Dough Blade. Oh. My. Gosh. I used to make bread quite a bit, and the thing I DETEST about breadmaking is the initial mixing part. The kneading is fine, but that initial mix is a pain in the patootey. The Cuisinart took one look at those ingredients and thumbed its proverbial nose at it, making quick work of the initial mix, with only a button press on my part. Wowsers! All I had to do was knead the dough and let it rise. So easy and the bread actually turned out well! My breads have not always been consistent. So the bread making, combined with all the other little things I've contrived to use the Cuisinart for this week have once again made me think, we should get one of these. I'm going to start trolling the ebay aisles soon and see if I can find me a deal!


But enough about bread baking. Yesterday was my birthday, and I realized that I'm now officially a grown-up, because the day was pretty much an ordinary day, with the exception of the sushi dinner and gelato dessert at the end of it. When one has small children under foot, these are the realities. But I enjoyed my birthday dinner and dessert (although I would have liked chocolate zucchini cake; Boo doesn't tolerate chocolate very well in my diet, so blueberry gelato had to stand in) and managed to make a few cards during nap time. I also made peach freezer jam (gotta love the Cuisinart!) and zucchini bread to take to coffee hour at church on Sunday.



Now, for the eye candy. Last week, Operation Write Home's blog had a challenge to make cards for soldiers to send home to their children, so I made a variety of cards for the challenge, using up most of the Tall Tales dsp that I had lying around. I sent the chocolate chip card (below) to my sister with some coconut M&Ms (her fave), but the rest went into the box for the troops. I made 12 cards with the above designs, 3 each of the So Saffron cards, and 6 of the Old Olive card.

AWOL

We had some friends from upstate New York come to stay this weekend, and they have a daughter about 6 months older than Piglet, so the two of them had a grand old time together. We took them to the Franklin Institute on Saturday morning so that the kids could blow off some steam in the air conditioning, since it was so hot. She took Piglet's hand a few times and they walked together--it was pretty cute.

I know it seems like I've been AWOL from the blog these last few weeks--I've actually been very busy stamping, but haven't had a lot of time to edit and post the pictures of what I've been working on. I really like this top card--I used an old Mojo Monday sketch (you may remember this card) but changed up the colors and dsp. I ran out of Rich Razzleberry ribbon about half way through, so I made 7 with Rich Razzleberry ribbon as pictured, and 7 with Old Olive satin ribbon.


Suffice to say that I've made 192 cards in the last two weeks, plus another 30 this morning. My fabulous upline, Tara, loaned me her Big Shot this week for a crop I'm holding on Friday (contact me for details if you are in the area!) plus a bunch of dies and texture plates, so I'm having a blast adding die cut details to my cards today!

These are the three of the cards I made this morning--I made 14 of the first one, and 8 each of the second two. As you can tell, I'm making my way through the Cottage Wall dsp pack this week! (And the little bit of Orchid Opulence that I had lying around). Yay for using things up! This is my new stamping motto, by the way--no hoarding! When I run out, I just put it on my running list of stamping supplies I need. If it is retired, oh well! I see it as an opportunity to try out a new product instead!!

This card is actually one that I made a few weeks ago and is based on a card I saw on Carrie Gaskin's blog. I made mine standard size, and changed the bling to rhinestones. When I was doing sets last week, I decided to make a set out of this one and made a set of twelve--it was a lot of birdies to sponge, let me tell you!


Papers:
Rich Razzleberry, Orchid Opulence, Old Olive, Whisper White, retired dsp (Cottage Wall and the blue one I don't remember the name of), Basic Black
Inks:
Baja Breeze, Staz-On, Rich Razzleberry, Orchid Opulence, Old Olive
Stamps:
Sincere Salutations, Great Friend, Of The Earth, Three Little Words, Baroque Motifs
Misc:
Silver brads, rhinestone brads, two-step bird punch, trio flower punch, large oval, scallop oval, boho blossoms punch, old olive grosgrain ribbon, whisper white grosgrain ribbon, rich razzleberry grosgrain ribbon, old olive satin ribbon (not pictured), silver brads, open scallop border punch, circles #2 die, 1 3/4" circle punch, 2 3/8" scallop circle punch, elegant bouquet emboss folder

Gullywashers

I'm not from the East Coast so the weather here is a bit different than what I grew up with in the Midwest. For one thing, when it rains here, it POURS. And I mean wash your hair twice and rinse it in the shower kind of pouring. No soft drizzle for us, no sir. The last few days have been rain like that. It sounds like a thousand little feet pounding on the roof, and since we don't have an attic, it sounds like a thousand little feet in our bedroom at night. A little disconcerting. Tuesday it was raining like that on and off all morning, and I peeked out the third floor door during a diaper change to make sure that the little roof flat there was draining, but the water was just sitting there, about 4 inches worth. My husband got these gutter grates a while back to help keep leaves from building up, but the rain was coming down so fast that the grates were holding up the flow, so I ran outside in my nightgown, pulled out the grate to let the water go down the side of the house and ran back inside, thoroughly soaked. Boo just looked at me from the changing table and kicked his legs and arms, completely unconcerned by the drowned rat that had replaced his mother.

My card today is shamelessly CASEd (copy and share everything) from a card I saw on splitcoast. I didn't change much--I added a bit of green shading underneath after I realized I had accidentally left an Old Olive ink spot in the corner. Oops. Got out the aquapainter and spread it around a bit to create some shading. Works for me. My aunt's father just died after a long decline with dementia, so I sent the card to her and her family. My aunt and uncle live in Mali (W. Africa) but happened to be coming home on furlough this summer, so they were able to be with him at the end, so that was a great blessing, I'm sure. Her father was a lovely man who spent most of his life as a missionary in Africa. I know they take comfort in the fact that he is at peace in heaven.

Those pesky dsp scraps

After a two-day respite from the high temperatures (although not the humidity--that's almost as bad, really), the mercury climbed again today in the the low 90s. Not as bad as the low 100s, but still a bit hotter than I really like. But, I'm happy to report that I officially have an air conditioning window unit in my craft room now. We spent the latter part of this afternoon getting the thing installed (my husband had to get a piece of wood to go under it on the outer sill or we would have had the thing in on Friday). He's not a naturally handy guy and these kinds of projects totally frustrate him, but he got the job done and I'm so proud of him!! Plus, I'm sitting cool in front of my computer, so I'm not cranky about the heat!

I made 10 cards tonight, in between nursing sessions, and watched most of The Last Mistress, a French period film I've had in my Netflix queue for a while. I'm about 20 minutes from the end, but figured I should pack it in for the night. I'm not sure if I like it or not. It is a pretty slow film, which normally doesn't bother me much, but the main female character isn't very likeable, and so it is hard to get into the story. I have a hard time understanding what it is about her that the male lead finds so irresistable that he keeps coming back for more.

I made today's card late Friday evening using this week's Stamping 411 sketch. I had four 6x2 strips of dsp leftover after one of last week's card batches--don't you hate that? Too big to throw away and too small for a full card front. I set them aside and hoped something would inspire me. Then I saw this week's sketch. Brilliant! I also remembered a card in the new Idea Book and Catalog that used Baha Breeze, Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla, and I thought the color combo was so pretty! From there the card came together pretty quickly. I kept thinking I should put a sentiment on it, but nothing really looked right, so I just left it alone. An all-purpose card is always useful! Plus Operation Write Home recently wrote on their blog that they need more general cards like that, so I've steering toward "thinking of you" and "for you" type sentiments.

Supplies:
Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Baja Breeze, retired dsp
Baroque Motifs stamp set
Baja Breeze ink
Clear rhinestone brad
Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon
dimensionals
Crop-a-dile (for the brad hole)

Weekly Tally

My tally for this week is 102 cards. 24 of them were part of a card kit I made for a grade school friend who is pregnant with twins and on hospital bedrest at 23 1/2 weeks (she's been there 2 weeks already). 24 of them were baby thank you cards that I made as a gift for a friend who just had her first baby. The rest went into my box for the troops. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to split the total between From Our Hearts and Operation Write Home, or whether to just alternate sending them boxes.

My goal right now is to use up a bunch of the dsp I have lying around (in a moment of post-partum hormonal craziness, I bought about 6 packs on the clearance rack in May) so my cards are pretty simple at the moment, allowing the dsp to shine through. In case you were wondering, you can get 12 card fronts out of two sheets of 12x12 dsp.

So here are some highlights from this week's batch:

Operation Write Home and From Our Hearts

It is still amazingly hot here; there is supposed to be a storm today sometime that will cool things down, but in the meantime we are drowning in sweat. I haven't dressed Boo for days and days. He gets cranky when hot, so just a diaper will do for now! Besides, he does have a pretty cute manly chest. If ya got it, flaunt it, I say.


I wanted to share something I've been thinking about for a long time. I started stamping a year ago March and have thoroughly enjoyed the creative outlet that stamping gives me. I love being a demonstrator in our group--they are a great group of women (and man) and I've made some great friends there.


To be truthful, I make far more cards than I send. I do try to send as many as I can, but there are only so many cards you can send in a year to friends and family without starting to be creepy. :) A while back, I heard about From Our Hearts, a non-profit group that sends cards to the troops overseas, and I just heard about Operation Write Home, which is a similar non-profit. I've been thinking about turning my Stampin' Up business into a kind of card-making ministry for the troops, the Ronald McDonald House, and Still Someone, a non-profit that sends cards to seniors and shut-ins. I talked with my husband about my idea (since it will change the way I order supplies) and he thought it was a great one and is completely supportive. I'm still going to maintain my etsy store and will do workshops and classes by request, but for now, I'm focusing on making cards in batches and filling up medium priority mail boxes to send to the above organizations. I consider this kind of "mass stamping" to be like cardio for the creative part of the brain--keeps the muscles limber until one is ready for the weight-lifting of techniques and sketch/color challenges. I'll continue to do challenges and technique cards as I have time.

The card today is one I CASEd (Copy and Share Everything) from somewhere. I love the simplicity of the black and vanilla card. Let me know if you want details about the cards.

Summer in the City

Oh man, it is H-O-T, hot today. Supposed to hit 102 with 105 heat index and not break until Thursday night. Bummers, bummers. Did I mention we don't have AC?? I took the boys out to the mall this morning because I had errands to run, and it was an air conditioned space, so that was a plus. The downside was having to get back into the baking hot car. I have to say, the humidity is the worst. I was in Kyrgyzstan in July and August one year, and the northern part gets up to 110 during the day, but it is a very dry heat and more manageable than this wet nastiness here. But Boo did well and Piglet did tolerably well (he is very tired today after the weekend) and we got it all done, which is the important thing.

Fr. A censing the font.

The other big news is that Boo is officially baptized into the Orthodox Church! I'm also churched again as of Saturday, so we all went to church on Sunday morning again as a family and Boo had his first communion. My sister-in-law offered to photograph the baptism and she took a whopping 1000 pictures! I culled them down to 135, and then picked 45 out of that lot to work with for the baby book. The 135 will go into a Shutterfly photo book as a keepsake. She did a lovely job.

Boo's godparents

We had lots of family here over the weekend for the baptism on Saturday and then my family stayed the long weekend, so we went to New York City yesterday to spend the day, since they'd never been. It was hot, but we spent the hottest part of the day at the Met, and tried to take buses instead of walking, so all in all, very manageable. My feet still hurt today, though!

My share today is a card that I made last week using a tutorial from Sophie Landry over at Sunny Stamping Studio by Andrea Walford. The tutorial was for a Christmas card, but I thought that Bob and Larry would work better for a party invitation and adapted accordingly. I'm quite pleased with the result! This card is a great example of how something little makes big difference.

On the original (above) the Tempting Turquoise background was flat, and I kept thinking the card needed a little somethin'-somethin', but couldn't figure out what. It occurred to me that dry embossing the background would probably be the perfect thing, so when I was at Claire's one day last week, I took a Tempting Turquoise panel and ran it through her Big Shot with the Square Lattice embossing folder and voila, that was it! I've listed these in my etsy store if you are interested. :)


Supplies:
Real Red, Glorious Green, Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, Whisper White, Basic Black cs
Hugs and Wishes stamp set (retired)
Bravo Burgundy, Old Olive, Garden Green, Tempting Turquoise ink, Glorious green marker, white gel pen
1/4" circle punch, 1 3/4" circle punch, boho blossoms punch
Real Red grosgrain ribbon
modern label punch
large circle die
sponge