Book recs

Have a couple more book recommendations for you to share today. I just finished The Hunger Games earlier this week. Stephenie Meyer recommended this book on her website and since I love all things to do with SM, I picked it up at the library. It was a phenomenal book and I can't wait to see what happens next. It's set up to be a trilogy.

I also picked up the newest book in the Blue Bloods series by Melissa De La Cruz. This is another vampire series. It's no Twilight but the latest book Revelations was REALLY good. I also love the story line as it's set up to be somewhat biblical.

If you're looking for something new to read - check these out...they're both young adult books.

I'll hopefully share that good news on Monday. I have a busy weekend ahead...my sister is hanging out with us this weekend and our cousins are coming to stay overnight Saturday.

Have a great weekend! :)

It's a party!

Here's a new card using Rusty Pickle's Candy Land line. I'm usually more of a muted color fan myself but the bright colors in this line just make me so happy! I love how versatile it is...there's crazy, fun doodling on one side and more traditional patterns on the reverse.

Gas did get cheaper! I paid $1.94 this morning...couldn't believe it! :)

I have some fun news to share on the adoption front but I have to hold off a bit until it's official! When it happens, I want to throw a party including one on my blog...maybe in the form of a RAK???!!! :)

Stay tuned...maybe Friday?!

Costume party!

I have several things I want to share today. First of all, I found a new author that I absolutely LOVE! You have to check out Elin Hilderbrand. She's written 6 novels and I've only read two of them but have the other 4 on hold at the library. Her stories connect to your emotions and they're full of twists and turns. The Blue Bistro made me cry and the story stuck with me days after I read it. I love when books do that!

Also, here are a couple cards using Rusty Pickle's Costume Party line...very fitting for the upcoming holiday! The little spiders are actually brads by Doodlebug. Aren't they darling? :)

I knew this was going to happen eventually but today as I drove to work I saw that gas is down to $1.99. I'm going to take a picture of that! We'll see if it gets any cheaper! :)

Well, I guess that's all for now. Enjoy your day! :)

Cozy, cozy home!

This week's challenge at Cardalicious is to create a shaped card - anything other than a square or rectangle. I've been experimenting a bit with shaped cards over the past few months. I know a circle isn't necessarily the most creative of shapes BUT I turned my card into a Christmas ornament. I punched a large circle from patterned paper and then punched a circle from the center of that. I cut a small rectangle shaped piece of patterned paper, rounded the corners and adhered that to the large circle. I LOVE these new Christmas-y patterned papers from Upsy Daisy Designs. This line is called Spirit and it's brand NEW!

It's barely 40 degrees here this morning. Yesterday was unbelievably windy and cold. I was so happy to just stay in my cozy house last night. After I watched a couple shows, I sipped on a glass of wine and read a book. I would have started a fire in the fireplace but it seems a bit early to be doing that - wouldn't you know it's supposed to warm up to 70 degrees by Thursday?! I ended up staying put this weekend. We went to go see The Duchess Saturday night. I love Kiera Knightley and I love historical films and this one certainly did not disappoint. I have a busy day ahead...need to hit the gym, run some errands, do the housewife thing...it's all good!

Have a fabulous Monday! :)

Good Saturday Morning!

Here's a new card I wanted to share using Upsy Daisy Designs Pretty Petals collection. This line has great colors in it for good luck or St. Patrick's Day cards.

It's looking like it's actually going to be a sunny day today! I can't believe it...the weather has been so dreary and gloomy this week that it's put me in quite a funk. It's also been cold which I'm just not ready for. The hubby and I had a date night last night. It was more of a night where we went out for a little bit and then spent the rest of the night in. We roamed Borders for a while (I love doing that) and then got some food to bring home while we watched a movie. I'm trying to decide what I want to do today. I have to go to a conference for a little while at church and then I might go to my mom and dad's overnight so I can go to a Halloween party with my sisters. I probably shouldn't go because $$$ are really tight and I have plenty to do around here but we'll see how the day goes. Since I've been in a funk I haven't done much around the house and since it's actually a nice day I might get some stuff done. I have an author/book recommendation to share but I'll save that for another post.

Enjoy your weekend! :)

Card-A-licious 2 & Fab 5

The 2nd challenge is up over at Cardalicious and this is my take using at least two journaling spots/cards/tags to create a birthday card. I used a couple past Scarlet Lime kits on this cards. The patterned papers are by Sassafras Lass and Scarlet Lime. Be sure to check out the blog for the rest of the design team's creations.

I was pleasantly surprised to have my Rock-a-bye Baby card chosen as part of the Fab 5 over at 2 Sketches 4 You last week. Thanks Kazan and Laura! :)

We enjoyed a great trip to Kansas City last weekend. We walked around the plaza Saturday afternoon and ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. I ended up with another migraine which wasn't fun but I felt better the next day. The game was really fun even if the Chiefs lost. Our seats were three rows from the very top of the stadium. I am deathly afraid of heights and it was straight down. I can't imagine being drunk (like many people were around us) and trying to walk up and down those steps. We saw one guy get arrested and his entire row kicked out of the game. It was pretty entertaining! :) We got home around 9:30 Sunday night.

Yesterday, I played catch up. It's amazing how being gone for just a little while will throw you off. I made a big pot of Meatball Noodle soup using yummy Reame's egg noodles and took that and some other food over to a friend of mine who just had a baby.

Well, I better get moving! Have a fabulous day! :)

Make a wish

It's the weekend! :) And to celebrate here's a new card featuring Upsy Daisy Designs Flutter line. I used a Maya Road chipboard cupcake and Basic Grey ribbon.

We're heading out of town tonight as my entire family is going to a Kansas City Chiefs football game. My sisters and I surprised my dad with tickets for his birthday back in August so we're making a family weekend of it. We're driving to my parents tonight, spending the night there and then heading to KC in the morning. We'll be back home late Sunday night.

Have a fabulous weekend! I'll be back Monday with my card for the 2nd challenge at Cardalicious! :)

Kazan Sketch 11

On this card, I worked with Kazan's sketch 11 over at 2 Sketches 4 You - love their sketches as I get a lot of inspiration from them! I used Rusty Pickle's White Chocolate Bunnies line on this baby boy card - love the versatility of the line! Other supplies are from Melissa Frances, We R Memory Keepers and Martha Stewart.

I'll post another card tomorrow and then we're off for the weekend!

Misc. stuff

I just finished the final book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy last night. I took my time with this series and read it over a couple weeks. The last book was really long. I was really upset at the ending. I don't want to give too much away but I felt let down that there wasn't what I wanted for a happy ending. Nevertheless, I would recommend these books wholeheartedly. The plot was set in the Victorian era and the characters were really easy to love. The books are young adult and somewhat science ficiton. If you're looking for something new to read, give them a try!

We've been busy working on more adoption stuff. Our video is almost done and I finished all the scrapbooks last night. I felt like my hand was going to fall off from handwriting letters to the birth parents! :) We still have the web profile and the one-page profile to go but the end is so close I can taste it. As soon as our video is good to go, I'll post the youtube video.

One year ago today, I started my gym membership at 7Flags. I've had ups and downs over that year but I'm proud to say I've lost 35 pounds and dropped 4 sizes! I never thought I would have made it to this point but I feel really good about myself now. I put on most of the weight from fertility treatments and my initial goal was to get to my wedding day weight. I've surpassed that goal now by about 15 pounds! I'm at the point now where I just want to maintain. I'm trying to watch what I eat but I won't deny myself anything. I just know I need to control how much I eat. I'm trying to hit the gym 3 times a week but I don't feel too guilty if I don't make it. Monday I felt pretty yucky so I stayed home and that's okay! I just can't stop going to the gym entirely.

Well, that's enough from me today. Stayed tuned for a new card tomorrow! :)

It's Halloween at Card-A-Licious!

The first challenge has been posted at the Cardalicious blog! For this week, make a Halloween card using a symbol of Halloween (witch, bat, pumpkin, spider, etc.) Link us up with your card in the comments section. The blog will be updated on Mondays with a new challenge. On my card, I used the brand new Costume Party line from Rusty Pickle. I love that polka-dot witch that I cut out from the patterned paper.

Have a great Tuesday! :)

Good Monday morning!

Here's a new card using the Tweet line from Upsy Daisy Designs. I love the pretty blues, greens and browns in this line...so soothing!

I can't believe it's Monday again...this weekend seemed to fly by! My hubby did good and took me out Friday night. We went to a great little dive, Felix & Oscar's. They have Italian food and really good Chicago deep-dish style pizza.

I had quite the experience shopping for dress pants on Friday. I swear I tried on every single pair of black pants at the mall. I just could not find something that was flattering and it was driving me nuts that you could see the pocket line through every single pair of pants. It was almost as though I was between sizes too - the smaller of the sizes I tried on seemed a tad too tight and the bigger of the sizes I could practically push off without unzipping. It was so frustrating! I finally went into a store I've never shopped at because it's a little too expensive for what I normally spend. I ended up finding two pairs of pants at Banana Republic. I almost cried I was so happy to find something that actually looked good! I may have had to pay more than I wanted but the fabric on them should hold up really well.

Saturday I did some cleaning, worked out at the gym and had a couple girls over for a craft night. I played with the Costume Party line from Rusty Pickle and I'll be sharing those projects soon! Sunday, we ended up not going to the pumpkin patch and worked on our adoption video instead. We're almost done with it! We also took a little nap...it was a pretty relaxing day!

Well, I better keep moving today. I've already baked a couple pans of bars this morning for small group tonight - Mounds bars and Salted Nut Roll bars...yum!

Have a great day! :)

Fall = Tea!

I drink a cup of coffee every morning but I also really love to drink tea. I mostly will have a cup of tea if I'm really cold or starting to get sick. There's a type of tea called Gypsy Cold Care that is fabulous if you feel I cold coming on. That being said I just altered this silver tea tin I picked up at Emma's Paperie using Rusty Pickle's French Market line. You'd think this was my favorite RP line or something??? The colors in it actually match my kitchen to a "T" and I also really love the colors for fall - they're just so rich! These tea tins would make great gifts as well!

I've got a slightly busy weekend ahead - not as bad as last weekend - thank goodness! The hubby is taking me out on an actual date tonight - it's been 3 months since we went out (our anniversary) so we are way overdue! I'm really looking forward to it. I need to run over to the mall today and take some clothes back. I've been on the hunt for dress pants for work/church and haven't quite found what I'm looking for. I wore long pants to work the whole week so I really need to find something asap. I'm planning on scrapping Saturday night as the hubby will be gone! On Sunday, I think we're going to a pumpkin patch after church to celebrate a friend's birthday!

Oh, and before I forget make sure to check out the new full-length version of the Twilight trailer in HD at twilightthemovie.com. I've already watched it about 10 times! :)

Enjoy your weekend! The good weather will be gone before you know it! :)

Acrylic card

I decided to try something new with the acrylic flower albums that Rusty Pickle has. Instead of using it as an album, I took one page and made a card with it. I love the look of layering part of the card of the acrylic page and then the rest of the card on the back page. I traced the flower shape onto cardstock and patterned paper for extra stability and then adhered the two together. The papers, etc. are all from the White Chocolate Bunnies line from Rusty Pickle. I love the colors and versatility of this line!

I had a really bad migraine yesterday so I ended up coming home early. I haven't had a bad headache like that for a while and I forgot how debilitating they can be. Advil just wasn't doing the trick. I slept it off and used a heating pad and that seemed to help. I feel pretty good this morning so hopefully it won't come back today. I've got a lot of work to do now that I missed a few hours yesterday.

Have a great day! :)

Oh. my. word.

These new pictures from the Twilight movie just give me goosebumps! I am beyond excited for this movie to come out November 21st! I need to start saving my money because I'll probably see it 5 times! If you haven't read the series yet, you've got about 6 weeks to do it! If you love a good romance, you'll love Twilight. I'm definitely an avid reader and it's by far the best romance I've ever read!

Do you feel lucky?

I LOVED this quote from Rusty Pickle's Lucky line and have been wanting to do something with it for awhile. I also happened to have a shiny new penny to use on the card. :)

I've got plenty to do today and will probably spend most of the day doing housework. I've been neglecting my house a little bit so it's time to get it back in order...I can only stand a mess for so long. I also have a big box of apples that I need to peel and cut up so I can make an apple crisp and freeze the rest. I love this time of year! :)

Exciting news and WCD!

First off, I want to share this card made with my all-time favorite Rusty Pickle line called French Market. I used an acrylic page from the RP acrylic arrow album to build the card. Yesterday was World Cardmaking Day so I used the occasion to work on some cards for Upsy Daisy Designs which I will be sharing soon.

I think it's also fitting to use the occasion to share some amazing news I've been bursting to spill the beans about. I'm very honored and humbled to be among the new design team for a new challenge blog called Cardalicious. The rest of the team is sooo talented with people whose blogs I stalk on a regular basis and I'm really excited to be able to pursue my passion of card making through the blog. Our first challenge will be up next Monday so be sure to play along!

Well, that's all from me for now!

A labor of love!

Finally, here are photos of our long-awaited adoption album! This is just a few of the pages. I'm waiting for some rub-ons to come in so I can finish the duplicates
but I literally spent 4 days over last weekend creating 100 pages. I
had to create 6 total albums (20 pages each) so the agency can have an
album for each office. Birth moms will look through our album plus the
video and one page profile we have yet to finish. I used my beloved
Rusty Pickle French Market collection to complete the album. We had
very specific guidelines to follow for the album and we had to start
from scratch with photos. I kept the pages fairly simple but tried to
create texture with my usual stitching, ink, paper curling I do. After
I was finished Monday night, I had myself a good cry. :) We're really
close now to being on the list of waiting families!

New from Upsy Daisy Designs!

Brand new papers have just been released by Upsy Daisy Designs just in time for all your holiday crafting needs! I absolutely LOVE the colors in Hot Chocolate and I know I have not seen these colors for holiday papers anywhere yet. They are definitely unique! I should be receiving these papers soon so I'll be sure to get cracking on a few projects so you can see the papers in action. I even have my scrap room all cleaned up and ready to go on my next projects.

I can't believe it's October 1st already...where did the time go? Our crab apple tree in our backyard is just about bare! Our neighbor's tree is the most brilliant orange color right now. LOVE it!

Also I did a little rearranging on my blog for what I'm reading as my list on the right hand side was getting way too long. I'm going to update my list of books on Good Reads plus keep a list of about 5 books at a time linking to Amazon on my blog. Lately, I've been reading a bit of sci-fi in the young adult arena. After I finish a few more books, I'll be moving back to chick lit.

More from me soon! :)