WOW I've been away! & Tuesday's Teacher

So I couldn't find my camera yesterday! YIKESSSS So I couldn't post any pictures of anything! I will have som pictures today though! I also went to my Mom's for the weekend and she has no internet at her house, so I have not been around! We had a bunch of Birthdays and Anniversaries to celebrate over the weekend! First Thursday was my mom's Birthday and our anniversary, then on Sunday was my bother-in-laws birthday and finally yesterday was our niece's birthday...so now I'm broke! LOL So are you ready for a bible verse... I know I am...we have a special very special verse because we are going to add to our birthday festivities!

"Let the children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 19:14

I just love this verse! God is just so amazing and he LOVES all of us, no matter how small, or any other factors! I am in awe of what children are capable of learnng and I feel that it is extremely important for us to sart them off with a good foundation in Christ Jesus so that the Kingdom of heaven can continue to grow!

One of the main reasons I choose this verse is because our new niece Eva was born on Thursday and I just think it is a miracle in itself. Being pregnant and giving birth is one of those things in life that just amazes me. I mean how in the world does a body do such miraculous things if it didn't come from the perfect creator, I thank God for the 3 children we have and for the 7 nieces and nephews we are blessed with as well! God is good...go kiss a little kid today...if it's yours, or related to you! LOL

So yes, that is a picture of little Eva... I just love her already..those LIPS good grief!!! Anywho I will post more pictures of what I have been up to latetly soon...Let me tell you I have been busy!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stampin'

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

Wow has it really been 9 YEARS!!! It truly is amazing how fast time flies! I love my husband so much and I seriously can not even imagine life without him! He is my best friend and an awesome (the best really IMO) Dad in the whole world! I love you honey! Gotta run...wanna spend time with my sweety before I go help my sis in law with the 10 girls she has spending the night!! YIKES! Thanks for stopping by, I will post pictures of the girls projects tomorrow or maybe tonight...depending on how tired I am! LOL

This picture was taken by our 4 year old on Daddy's new phone, then he (my hubby, not my son!) sent it to the computer! Gotta love technology!!!

For those that don't know...

I like to scrapbook! But who has time with all the cards and projects I have going on! LOL Here are some pages I made not too long ago... I really need to get back into the swing of things and lucky for me I will be teaching a class on the 20th of May over at Stamp-N-Scrap...so if you are in the area...take my class...it will be LOTS of fun!!!

Anywho here are some pages for ya!

Some Memories just need to be treasured FOREVER! in my case I want ALL moments in time to stand still in my camera lense...the kids get so sick of my picture taking! Here is one page with very little pictures, but something that I will treasure forever! When we were expecting our third child we wanted it to be a suprize...as we did with the middle child, anyways to make time go by a little faster in the delivery room everyone wanted to guess what the baby was going to be, how much it weighed and what time the little sweety was going to make it's appearance into the world...my sister-in-law and niece took notes and let me just tell you this is one piece of paper that iw ill treasure forever! Thanks Mere and Meghan!

This is a double page spread with pockets! We had gone bowling for Mother's day a couple years ago and I finally found the perfect paper to go with the pictures! I took the origional score sheet that we printed out and shrank it and printed it onto cardstock. I then hid it in a pull out pocket so that I would have room for lots of pictures!

The Journaling is also done on a pull out pocket...don't want to waist precious photo space!

I don't know about where you live, but where we are having a mohawk was all the rage! Our dear son wanted to try it out, so we though..why not! Here is a page with pictures of him getting his Hawk last summer! He's already asking for his summer do, so we will see if the Hawk shows back up this year or not!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stampin' and scrappin'!

Happy Wednesday!

Hey there,


Just wanted to share a quick card I made for today's sketch challenge on splitcoaststampers. SC173...check it out and come play along...lots of fun!

Supplies:
Stamps: Heartspeak (thanks Sissy!) and an Inkadinkado sentiment that I picked up for a quarter!
paper; basic black, certainly celery, shimmery white, certainly celery designer series paper
ink: basic black, SU! markers, soft sky ink pad
accessories: cload template, sponge, ribbon (thanks Diane!) and bling (again, thanks Diane!)

I hope the person that gets this card LOVES it...they should because they LOVE ME!!!

Tuesday's Teacher

Good day everyone! I am back...I bet you didn't think I was gonna post today! HAHAHA I have been busy working on a(what I think) is a fabulous project to share with you all today, but first a Bible verse to get you to ponder!

I can do all things through Chirst who Strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

I have really been feeling, loving and just going through each day repeating this verse in my head whenever things are going particularly hard at the moment. When the kids are arguing, when I have 4 loads of laundry and no clean under garments to wear, when it's dinner time and I have nothing unfrozen to fix, when I'm working out and I want to quit, when there is an arguement with a friend or sibling(fue and far between thank GOD!) I believe that God can strengthen me and make me a better person if only I will let him, but this verse has really helped me the most when I'm working out! I sometimes feel that I just want to give up and quit...the workout is not worth all the pain and sweat (YUCK, who wants to sweat?) ...then I remember that verse and I just keep on truckin! I told my sweet DH that I was going to stamp it on the wall of the garage so that I will NEVER give up! I am taking this verse to one of the lightest subjects and areas that you might use this verse for, but it will help you through anything, just knowing that God is there for you through thick and thin really makes things better! Can you trust Him to help you today? Do you believe that He can strengthen you? Pray to Him and ask Him into your heart so that you can do ALL things through and for Him!

Baby Book Tutorial

I made this book for a gal that is having a baby shower in a couple of weeks...Look at me NOT waiting till last minute!! LOL

Here is a quick list of supplies:

Card stock: various colors

designer paper of choise

ink

stamps

strong adhesive

paper trimmer

optional supplies

oderless mineral spirits, blending stump, water color paper, water color pencils and embelishments

In this step you ar scoring both sheets of cardstock that you cut to 4.25x11 at the 3inch 5.5 inch and 8 inch marks.

YOu will want to scire both sheets of paper so that they both make *W* shapes (the inside flaps will be shorter than the middle most and outside flaps)

So this is how I colored my image with my water color pencils... just around the edges so that I can use the mineral spirits to shade in the rest...I hope I'm doing this right!

This was my first attempt at coloring an image with colored pencils and oderless mineral spirits, I like how it turned out and I will definatly try it again! I got the mineral spirits are Micheals with a 55% off coupon so they were only a couple bucks...TOO cool! Plus i just love this stamp set!

In this picture I'm just showing you where to adhere the two pieces together. You will have the book parts of the book bound together once this step is done.

Once you have adhered the two flaps together, youw ill want to cut slits in the shorter cener pages. To do this simple align the score mark with the cutting groove in your cutter and use the ruler on the cuter to measure 1 inch from the top and 1 inch from the bottom...the little arrows in the orange blade shows where you are cutting to.

The Next thing to do is to create the pull tabs...you will want it to be a little tller on the inside so that the tabs don't pull out all the way. My whole tab is about 3.5 inches tall and then I cut about 1/4 inch from top and bottom to form the flaps...but that was just eyeballing it

YOu will now want to insert the pull flaps in through the back, it will look like this.

And this is the front...easy enough right?

Once you have added the pull out pages you will want to secure the backs closed. Add some glue to the outsides od the mountains as picutes (ONLY TO THE OUTSIDES) if you add too much glue then the pabs won't pull out! Secute them closed and you have yourself a little book!

Then you can start embelishing! I added a picture of the excited parents to the inside cover (they sent this to me with the invitation to the baby shower, but you can ask then for one or take one yourself!) I added the cardstock and designer paper to make it all look purty!

I added pull tabs to both of the pull out sections and one has a place to put all the babies info on it...name date etc. of the birth. I figured if she wants she can add the time and date of th shower to the other pull out tab or write a special message to the baby!

And here she is all complete and ready to go! I added some glitter and pearls and purty ribbon and of course some hodge podge. This is a small book so don't get too excited, but it's perfect if she wants to keep it in her purse of give it to her Mom with pictures of the baby or soemthing... I thought it was cute...so I made it...LOL

This is another view of the book. I just wanted to show you all the depth and dimention this book has...I loved making it and hope that you make one too!

Here are the stamps sets and accessories I used:

Carstock:Pretty in pink, certainly celery, chocolate chip

Ink: pretty ink pink, chocolate chip

Accessories: Hodge podge hardware, pretties kit, celery organdy ribbon, chocolate taffeta ribbon, oderless mineral spirits, blending stupm, key tag punch.

Please let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. This also fits todays challenge on splitcoast...the color challenge to use the above mentioned colors!

150 Birth announcement and 30 Shower invites!

So a super sweet gal from our old church approached me about making her birth announcements and I lept at the chance! I had helped her make her weddng invites so I knew I had to make her announcements too! Then she asked for 150...at first I was a little scared, but then she knew exactly what she wanted and it was smooth sailing from there! I also happen to be close friends with her Photograper Dana over at Race Home Photography and worked closely with her to make sure the pictures were perfect! Dana even toned down the colors some so that they would match the pretty in pink colors of the cardstock I used...isn't she awesome! If you live in the area I highly recomend her for weddings, baby or any other occasion photo sessions!





So you wanna see the announcements? Okay okay here they are!


Isn't she just the cutest little baby? Her name is Brooklyn and the name of the font that I used is called Brook...how perfect is that!




Here is a close up of the birth announcements. I used the Cutie pie
designer paper to create the cards and no stamping...the shame! LOL
In this photo I wanted to show you how they opened. The card front itself is about 1 inch shorter on the front to allow the name and scripture to show through...isn't it too cute?











Bridal Shower Invites
My sister (whom I love dearly) is hosting a bridal shower fora friend of hers in May and asked me to make her some invites...the brides colors are black, white, and silver...sissy asked me to use some pink...and since pink is my fav color I was happy to oblidge! What do you think? I like the pretty in pink wiith the silver and white...very showerey (I don't think that's a real word! LOL)




Here is a close-up of the Bridal shower invites. I used the cuttlebug to emboss the backgrounds (thanks David for helping!) and I embossed the main images with silver embossing powder. I think they turned out very pretty if I do say so
myself!

Thanks for stopping by!

An award and my very fisrt time being tagged!

YIPEEEEE I got an award!!!! Thanks Diane for nominating me for this award!It's the Arte&Pico award and I am sooo honored to be thought of as an artist! I'm an artist (that was for you Dana!) Gosh I am just flabbergasted I don't even know what to say. Thank you so much Diane for niminating me! Now it's time for me to pass on the honors!

1)First will be Martina over at Pazza Per le Pezze She does some awesome work with needle and thread!

2) Racehome Photography She takes awesome Photos...so stamping anymore, but gorgeous photos!

3) Sara Cleveland at Sara's Stamping Sanctuary Love your stuff girly!

4) Amber Hillman at Amber's Antics...gosh her stuff is super cute!

5) last but certainly NOT least! Julee Tilman over at Poetic Artistry her work is just amazing and I love the Mojo Monday's

Thanks again for the honors! And go check out these other FAB blogs!

And now for my Tag! Judy of Joy in a JAR Tagged me for a random or wierd facts so here are my 10!

1) I'm Portuguese (don't know how random or odd that is but there you have it!)

2) I have 3 kids

3) I will be married for 9 years to my awesome hubby Andrew on Thursday

4) I can speak 4 different languages

5) I only have one sister, but she is AWESOME!

6) My sister-in-law is due any day...baby girl to be named Eva

7) Hubby and I went on our fisrt date to my Dentist appointment...isn't he sweet to take me?

8) Hubby and I got married on my Mom's birthday

9) I can't do a cartwheel

10) I used to wait tables (Gosh I miss doing that!)

So now who to tag?

Sara-cuz she needs to ramble about something! LOL

Bev- Cuz her life is crazy and we want o hear more about it!

Jen- also known as Jen70...loving her coaster project!

Holly- Love her stuff..she rocks

Thanks for checking me out...now go chck out some of these awesome women!

YEAH YEAH YEAH

I'm back!!! After the post on Tuesday my blog went byebye for a while :( so I am sooo glad to be posting something...anything today!

I haven't stamped because I was sooo bummed about my little computer problem so I will share a fun activity that I did with the kids! It's a hole lot of fun and you probably have the supplies at home! I used a hunk of playdough and some spaghetti and cheerios (you can use fruit loops too anf the kids can sort the colors before threading them through the spaghetti) Once they have threaded them through you count how many they were able to get on one spaghtti! If they are a bit older you can have them guess how many cheerios or loops they can put on pre hand...great for using the brain and fine motor skills!

After we were all done learning, we had some fun and created playdough people or creatures with the broken spaghetti and cheerios...so much fun...you really should try it!

What do you think of my little guy? ISn't he cute, Kinda looks like a troll doll gone wild! I think David's is MUCH better!

Thanks for stopping by and sorry for all the trouble!

Another week!

I can not believe how quick this week is going by! It is almost the end of Tuesday and here we are again ready for a Bible verse and a fun tutorial...at least I think it's fun!

Here is today's verse... I hope it means as much to you as it does to me!

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it! - Psalm 118:24

This is one of my all time favortite verses! It started with a fabulous woman named Marjory(I hope I spelled that right!) She is my husbands grandma...a woman I have never meet but is often apoken of. Her kindness, gentle ways, big heart and this prayer. My husband remembers as a small boy going to her house on summer trips and saying this blessing every morning. This tradition continues on, our children love saying it and we just love living every moment by it!

We say this verse every morning before breakfast and this morning I was totally feeling it... I mean I feel it every morning, but something about this morning really let me know it was going to be a great day! Sure I still had my moments of insecurity, jelousy and plain down in the dumps (hubby gave me a good talking too and cheered me right up, I'm much better now! Thanks Honey!) Anyways you know how it goes (stay at home Mom or not, everyone has their moments!) But like I said today I was really feeling like the Lord was pouring down His blessings on us! I mean the kids got up super early and they started arguing as soon as the got up, but the sun was shinning, we had food on the table, warm clothes to wear, but most importantly we have our health...God is good!!! As I was putting the kids to bed and they told each other they loved each other...the world was at a stand still... I love those moments!

Thank you Lord Jesus for giving us soo many blessings today, from the tiny ants that help us play a game of pretend to the gorgeous weather that allowed us to play outside and explore your wonderful creations. I just pray that I can always have an open mind and heart to allow me to see the many things you have given me to be joyful for!

What are you rejoicing about? I pray that you are able to find one thing today that you can thank God for, no matter how small it might be, be thankful and praise Him for it!

Accordian Box Tutorial...

for lack of a better name! I made this box today because I really needed some place to store some gorgeous stamped images I recieved in the mail this past week (thanks Stacy!) I recently went to a crafting yard sale at my LSS (Local scrapbook store) and let me just tell you how super silly I am! I left my wallet at HOME! Now I don't just live right down the road from said LSS, I live about 30 mins away! Well needless to day I saw a commercial accordian holder thing and thought it was perfect formy stamped images...but since I didn't have my wallet (only $5 to my name and a car needing gas!) I decided to save my money and make my own! LUCKY YOU!!!

Supplies:

1- cardstock 6x12 (here pumpkin pie)

1- cardstock 6x7 (here pumpkin pie)

1- sheet of designer paper (here bali breeze)

2- sheets of cardstock measuring 4x8.75 (here tempting turquoise)

8- sheets of carstock measuring 6x 3 5/8 (here Sahara Sand)

strong adhesive

Stamps and embelishments

The fisrt thing you want to do is score the 6x12 piece of cardstock at 4inches and again at 8 inches...set it aside for now!

The next step is to score the shhet of cardstock that measures 6x7. You will wan to score it at the one inch marke...then more the cardstock over 1/4 of an inch...and score it at 4 inches., you can now adhere the small 1 inch section to the back of the other paper...so that it fors one long piece measuring 6x19...set aside

For this next step you will want to score your sheets that measures 4x8.75 at every half inch interval. you can now accordian fold it.

Now that you have accordial folded it, you will be adding it to the fisrt section of your 6x19 piece of carstock.

You will now be adding the particians on the inside...I started with the next valey and moved back as I went. YOu will eventually end up with no valleys left and you will adhere the last fold to the box base...make sence?

At this point you are pretty much done! Just add some pretty stuff and you are good to go!

for my closure I decided to use magnets...they aren't as clingy as the velcro so my box won't get damaged when I try to open it...plus i have a bunch of buisness card sized magnest with sticky on them and it made for simple affatchment.

So this is it! What do you think? I added a nice scalloped edge using my coluzzle cutting system and an envelope template my good friend Nikki gave me a while back, some brads and a little stamping and called it a day! I really did want it simple, I wiull be handling this little box a bunch and I don't want the enbelishmens to get in the way!

I hope you like it! And thank you sooo much to Stacy (twinshappy on SCS) for sending me those adorable Hannah and Riley Moose images and giving me a push to create this little guy!

As always,

Happy Stampin'

No stamping...but a funny story!

Okay so last week I went to the doctors for my initial getting started with a new doctor visit...but I thought I would get my moneys worth since I was already there! I hadn't bee feeling too well, unexplicable headaches, lightheadedness and dizzy, and the one symptom that really scared me was the shooting pain from my ear drum to my diaphram! Anyways I told him all the symptoms and he checked me right away!

He checked the left ear and said it was perfectly nirmal (good thing cuz that was not the one bothering me!) and then he checked the right ear and he said...and I quote! "Ohh, I can tell you have small Children!" and I said...why do you say that? and he said "well, you have a part of one of their toys in you ear!" WHAT!!!!! "yup he said...looks like a small round blue ball" Hmmm I said. So he went and got his little gadget and pulled out...are you ready...a BLUE MICRO BEAD!!!! I know I know how in the world? Then he is looking at me like what kind of mom would let their not even in school aged kids play with such tiny little beads! Then I had to confess that in fact that was not one of my kids toys...but one of my own! We had a good chuckle at that and as it turned out I also had fluid in my ear and a sinus infection! Go figure!

JUst thought you all might enjoy this little story and get a good laugh! Next time you go to the doctors be sure to have him check your ears...you never know what might be in there! LOL

Happy Stampin'

Tuesday's Teacher

Wow...two weeks in a row and I am on the ball! Can you believe it? Here is today's Bible verse:

You did awesome things for which we did not expect. Isaiah 64:3

God is good and I just love it when he does the unexpected in our lives! Our expectations are usually based on our past experiences, which are in turn seen through the prism of unanswered prayers. A part of the joy and hope of living our daily lives is in the anticipation that God is He who answers prayers. I hope that you live your life from day to day with the expectation that God will answer our prayers, a lot of times he does not answer them when or how we want them because He has a greater plan for us, one that only He knows! I hope that you take a few moments today and pray in expectant joy of the movement og His Spirit among the people of our Nation as a whole, but also our friends and family and the people we come in catact with today! May God bless you today and always!

Product Review

On Tuesday's I usually do either a tutorial or a product review...and today is the time for a product review!

We are reviewing the mono multi (item # 110755, cost $3.95) as far as price goes, it isn't one of the spendiest adhesives, and you can make a TON of cards, scrapbook pages whatever really, with it.

I love the fact that it has 2 size applicators, a pen tip on one side for precision reach, and a broad tip on the other for bigger projects.

What else do I like? I love the fact that it can be used permanent or temporary (just follow the onstructions on the bottle) But most of all I LOVE that it doesn't buckle my card...even when I use designer paper which is lighter weight than the cardstock! It is perfect for embelishments and anything else you want to adhere...except ribbon, I'm partial to ny ATG for ribbon and boxes!

I love it...so that means you should try it too!

Here Are some samples made with the adhesive...like you can tell...LOL

Both of these cards were made for todays color challenge on Splitcoast Stampers...we had to use real red, glorious green and night of navy. I used mytogether forever set and sincere Salutations an oldie but goodie! (gosh when did this set get old? It seems like I just got it yesterday!)

I love the jumbo eyelet going right through both ribbons and the scallops are my fav...big news about scallops and SU! comming soon, you will want one of these I'm telling you right now!!!

okay these colors totally made me think Christmas, so I went ahead and made some Christmas cards...cuz you know you can't have too many! I used the stamp set peaceful wishes (item# 106754) and Shimmery white cardstock (item #), real red wide grosgrain ribbon (item#109052) and hunter grosgrain ribbon (retired) used a ribbon slider from the Stylized hodgepodge kit (item# 111325) (available only unti May 31st!) The designer paper you see is the summer picnic designer series paper (item#111355) from the occasions mini and the color spritzer tool (item #107066) (hadn't used that in a while!)

What do you think? not too bulky for mailing and a great color combo!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy stampin'