I'm back.....

Hubby and I got back yesterday around noon. I was glad that we got back so early because it gave me an opportunity to get started on the laundry and then chill for a bit before starting in on a new work week. We had a very much needed rest and are very thankful that we had the opportunity to go. We have some pictures and I'll share some later, but first I wanted to share the finished notebooks that I made for a friend before I left for vacation. There were six notebooks total.

Hope you likey and your week is off to a great start!!

Guest Blogger - Christiana Reuling

Hello, everybody!

The sun is shining, glinting off the piles of snow,

and it's a beautiful day!

I hope it is as well in your neck of the woods.

Today I'm so happy to be guest blogging

at my cousin Ashley's blog, Roja In Virginia.

Ashley is several years younger than me,

and growing up, I always had a special place

in my heart for her. She's a gem.

And now she's all grown up, married,

and has a blog of her own! Lol.

Love you, Ash!

So while Ashley and her hubby Jason

are away on a much-needed vacation,

she asked me to pop in over here and do a guest blog

so her readers still have something (hopefully)

pretty to look at while she's gone.

I tried my best to give you just that!

Here's my card:

I used one of my new Elzybells stamps that

are no longer being made, but you can still find at

Jay Gee's Nook in Australia for a very reasonable price.

I, of course, had to make her a redhead,

since Ashley is a redhead. :o)

I also tried out a brand new technique called "stippling"

or "dotted background" with my Copic markers.

For the first try, I think the effect came out quite nicely!

Here's another look.

I hope you enjoyed that!

I also wanted to mention quickly that I'm doing another

"happy mail" post here.

For those who don't know, "happy mail" is something

I just started on my blog, where I go through my scraps

and make up an envelope for one random commenter.

It's a chance for you to try new product

and make a card or two simply by adding cardstock

and a stamped image.

Today's pile is big enough for two,

so I'll be sending out TWO envelopes of happy mail

to TWO random commenters.

Just mention the happy mail somewhere in your comment

so I know you're interested. :o)

Here's the pile to be divided:

From the DCWV All About Girls stack.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Stick around and leave Ashely some comment love.

And come visit me at my own blog,

 Christy Gets Crafty, anytime!

Have a great day everybody!

Bon Voyage

So tomorrow, or rather, later today, hubby and I are headed for a cruise for a week.  It is a much needed rest that we are very much looking forward. I'll be off the PC for the week, which will also be a much needed break.


While I'm gone, my cousin Christy at Christy Gets Crafty will be doing a guest blog. Not sure which day, but hope you all enjoy!!  She's super talented and I'm sure whatever her project is will be spectacular :)


Also, a prayer request... a dear friend's dad is having some health problems. Please pray for him and his family.


Alrightie, I'm going to try to head back to bed and get some sleep.


Have a great week all!

Some more sneak peeks....

I have the base done for 5 of the 6 notebooks I have been working on for a friend. I'm not going to put up pictures of the whole notebook until I give them to her this weekend, but here are some more sneak peeks. When I get back from my vacation next week, I'll post all of the finished notebooks. :)

I'm not at home at the moment so I don't remember the brand names of the supplies I used... I'll post the list when I post the finished products. :)

Hope you are all having a great week.... I'm so glad it's half over!!!

Baby Girl Cards...

My hubby has two coworkers that are having babies soon. Finally some baby girls!!!! I stopped by Michaels last week to see if they had anything on sale, sticker-wise, that I could use because I didn't have any baby girl digital images, stickers, or anything.... I ended up buying a stamp set because it was on sale for 4.99 and it would have been like 3 dollars at least to buy the stickers. This way I have something I can use again in the future! Some of the stamps can be used for other cards too, so that is nice...

This is the stamp set I bought. Isn't it cute???

I whipped these cards out on Saturday before I went to a wedding shower and my husband went to a birthday party. (It is so hard for people to plan things on weekends that don't overlap with something else because there are always things going on, even on the weekends!!! So hubby and I went the divide and conquer route :) ) I showed the shower card in the last post and I forgot to take a picture of the birthday card before I sealed the envelope. The birthday card was for a 1 year old boy, so it was bright colors and robots. :)

I made a purple card and a pink card. I actually tried paper piecing on these cards and I think it turned out rather well.

Supplies:
Paper: K & CO and standard color cardstock paper
Stamps: Recollections Sweet Baby Girl
Ink: Uchida Stamping Markers
Embellishments: Pearl from acmoore, ribbon from a friend

Wedding Shower Card

Good Morning all... Hope everyone's week is off to a good start. This Monday isn't quite as painful as most are because I know that in 6 days I am off to a bahamas cruise and I am  sooooooo looking forward to it. Hubby and I are in desperate need of a vacation....

Anyhoo, here is a card that I made a couple of weeks ago. Originally it was for the upcoming wedding of a couple in our church, but I used it for their wedding shower instead because I didn't end up having enough time to make a shower card. I had a birthday card and two baby girl cards to make and I had a stomach bug all weekend...

P.S. I think it's really lame how people go to craft stores and buy out their clearance stock and then price them at triple what they payed for it on ebay.

New organizers for my crafting supplies

Over the weekend we had to go to Office Depot to get some stuff for our church's office. While we were there and my hubby was trying to show the printer girl how to properly print out a large scale calendar (she still got the dimensions wrong and when I tried to piece the two calendar halves together and tape them up because they didn't have a big enough printer to put it all on one page the two sides didn't match up).... but I digress... While hubby was doing that I was getting the other stuff we needed and even after I got everything we needed the girl still was having trouble so I wandered over to the clearance aisle and found some organizing cubes on sale. I got two boxes with two stackable cubes in each, a total of 4 cubes for 10 dollars with 4 drawers for a total of 1 dollar... All in all we spent 11 dollars. The nice thing about these is, in the event that I find something I like better, these can be used in the hall closet to organize our linens better :)

Now that our TV is back downstairs I am also moving my crafting supplies downstairs (I think I mentioned that in yesterday's post) so, I put these directly into the spare room last night.

Some Crafting Goodies from a Friend

Good morning all. I just thought I would share some awesome goodies a dear friend just sent along for me with her husband when he came down to teach at our Bible Institute. She was so sweet to think of me and I can't wait to start experimenting!!!

I also thought I'd share a couple of snippets of what I am working on for this friend...but since I haven't finished the notebooks and given them back to her, I am only showing pieces :)

Such bright cheerful colors aren't they???

Hope you are all having a spectacular week!

So I've been a bit behind on my Christmas goals....

Here is one I finished a couple of weeks ago. I haven't kept up to the one a week, but I hope to at least finish a couple a months so that I have some stocked up by Christmas. This one took me forever to finish, because I started it just as my mojo went bye-bye for two weeks... and that's about how long it took me to finish the card!!!

I'm really excited. This weekend my friend is sending me a few notebooks to cover for her and I'm looking forward to it. I really enjoy making notebooks.

Boss Birthday

Okay, so I was a little ahead of the game on this one. My supervisor sent out the team's birthdays a couple of weeks ago, but then she sent out a meeting invite for everyone's birthday and all I read was "his birthday is on a Saturday" - and in my head all that stuck was that his birthday was "THIS" Saturday. So I made a card...got to work... and his birthday is in March... LOL... so it's sitting in my desk waiting for March... hey at least I know I won't forget to make it now!

This week I am linking up to Sneak Peak Friday at the In the Studio blog that my friend Anita suggested that I link up with.

Happy Friday everyone!

You never realize how spoiled you are with technology....

Until it doesn't work properly. As I have temporarily lost my ability to edit pictures in Fireworks, I finally sat down and made do with Microsoft Paint :) Hey, whatever works, right??

Anyhoo, here is a birthday card I made my dad a couple of weeks ago. This was the third attempt (I'd trashed the previous two attempts as my mojo had taken an unexpected vacation) and by golly this one was going to work! I wasn't 100% pleased with it, but it works.