dragging along as usual :)

Does it ever seem to you that you are always one day late and a dollar short all the time? This has been my life for the past summer. I had all these great plans of scrapping time, organizing my house, painting and renos and here it is August 23 and I'm hanging my head in shame. But this just means that I set my goals high :)

Our entrance renos are coming along, we are insulating as I speak and it won't be long before drywall and flooring go in. The best part? I can walk more than a foot and a half before I have to climb the stairs when I come in from getting groceries!

This past Thrusday I helped organize a scrapbooking/cardmaking night at a local place. So in going with my theme of summer, my dh wasn't able to come home to watch the kids. I was pretty ticked but then found out he had to work really late due to an accident on one of his roads. I was ashamed at myself for feeling so selfish when someone else clearly had bigger problems than mine. So I ended up having Ethan babysit his sister and his brother. I made 1/2hourly phone calls and ran home once to change a diaper and put Owen to bed. Needless to say I felt scatterbrained and generally out of sorts. I only got 2 cards done!

The first was a simple no brainer for me. I'm beyond thrilled that Stampin' Up! brought back Baja Breeze. It was a color that I had overlooked the first time around and now I'm planning on stocking up big time! I also got this cute new mushroom stamp set, which I can see me using a bunch.

This card was more of a stretch for me. I don't normall y do pretty/vintagey kind of stuff. And I know some would argue that this card really isn't vintage but for me its very much out of my comfort zone! Love love love the new brown, Early Espresso, from Stampin' Up! as well. You can't tell but I did use Versamark dazzle in champange which gave the brown flowers a very subtle shimmer.

My orignal intention was to work on the new Memory Workshop September kit. Yup you heard me right :) I was asked to Guest design again and I was thrilled to do so. When I sat down to work, I was so flustered with how the night was going that I just put it back in my tote. I ended up working on it in the comfort of my scrapbooking room. After working for most of the day and almost not feeding my kids (ha! just kidding) I completed 6 layouts including 2 double pagers which are usually the bane of my exsistance! The papers were gorgeous and so easy to work with! A big thank you to Sandra for giving me the opportuity to design again :)

restocking my card stash

Despite having a sick kid this past weekend, I was able to get some cards made. Poor little guy slept a lot and now is feeling better. Still a bit clingy but that's to be expected.

This was the only card that I used Bazzill on, it doesn't stamp very well but it was the color of grey that I wanted. Also the embossed paper was an old DCWV glitter mat stack.

For almost all the cards I made I used Stampin' Up! Cardstock and Stampin' Up! pattern paper. I got to play with my new nestabilites and my cuttlebug embossing folders.

Loving the new large size of cuttlebug folders. I almost didn't buy this one because I already have a polka dot one but I'm so glad I didn't resist. It actually embosses the whole front of the card not "most" of it.

This was one of those stamps where you need to line up the flowers with the stem. I really am not good at it so this is my second try. I made the decision to unmount my stamps and I can't wait until my ezmount foam comes in so I can begin. I'm mainly doing the unmounting for space saving purposes (in my scrapbooking room and my crop bag) and for ease of stamping.

This was just a quick and easy card made from scraps. I so love this Hero Arts acrylic set of stamps. Very clean and simple sayings for so many occasions.

If its hard to see the sentiment on this card says "Happy Anniversary" I used versamark and I'm thinking that I should have heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. Oh well, next time!

This card took me a few tries to get the butterflies just right. My markers are in serious need of refreshing and I think they will be on my next Stampin' Up! order form.

Ok I have to admit this is my favorite! I really think I'm going to do some varitions of this one, maybe different butterflies and different color schemes. I adore the simplicity of it.

This was one stamp set that I *had* to have. I have the matching embossing folder and to be honest I can't seem to use it very creatively. I stamped the green flower with old olive and then found that the water color pencils I had didn't work well with that color. So I ended up coloring in the flower with smooch. I think some water color crayons in a larger variety of colors in next on my list as well.

Party weekend!

So with the past 2 weeks being devoted to party decorations, swimming lessons and just general chaos I was quite happy for the weekend.

My sweet wonderful husband turned 40 on August 1st and I wanted to celebrate him. So I made 40 giant cupcakes and added 40 of my favorite photos of him on them. Thank goodness for my cricut because it took a while to cut those suckers out. I made copies of the photos so just in case some got ruined that the originals didn't.

I also created this sign with my cricut and one of my all time favorite photos of Ron (can we say yummy??) I really don't like the whole "40 and over the hill" mentality of it so I put my own postive spin on things.

This weekend was also the fishing derby at Beaver Lake which Ron and my dad entered leaving me to watch the kids with the help of my mom. 

So we hit the beach both days and the kids loved every minute of it!

 

 

They've never been to a real beach before (bad mommy I know!) and even though I had a hard time keeping Owen in the shade or even getting him to wear a hat he had a blast...and no sunburns thanks to some great UV suits!

The only downside to all this hoopla and traveling away from home is that Owen doesn't eat or nap so well. Making for a very tiring day for both him and I. I've since counted that since the end of May I've only had a total of 6 hours to myself. I'm starting to feel the strain and I'm starting to plan for a weekend for me soon before school and the real work routine starts.