My Etsy Shop

I spent some time last night and this morning loading 40 of my hand crafted cards into my etsy shop. Please stop by and check it out! All of the proceeds from my cards will go towards our adoption costs. The link and a preview are on the side of my blog.

Have a great day! :)

Life is busy

I took a brief hiatus from my blog to mourn the loss of my Grandma Kathryn. I had a very, very close relationship with her and will miss her very much. Her visitation and funeral were last week so I spent a lot of time with my family. I lived just 5 minutes from my grandma and grandpa growing up so much time was spent with them on their farm. I think we saw them at least once a week and talked on the phone at least every other day while I still lived at home. Grandma and Grandpa made a point of coming to all of our school activities. For a long time, my sisters and I were the only grandchildren. I was 15 when my oldest cousin was born. He and his brothers live in Marshalltown so we were still the closest proximity to grandma and grandpa. I know what I experienced with my grandparents was very rare. It will be very important to me to have my own children spend a lot of time with their grandparents. Grandma spent the last two weeks of her life in hospice care at a nursing home. She was very, very sick with cancer and I'm so thankful she is no longer sufferring. I have many treasured memories of my last few visits with her and I was able to share with her that she was going to be a great-grandma. Our twin girls would have been her first great-grandchildren. I know I will have many difficult moments to come but now I'm busy preparing for our upcoming fundraiser this Sunday and getting ready for two baby girls to join our lives!

I'll have more projects to come soon! :)

Treasured Scrapbooking February Card Kit Reveal

It's a fun, bright card kit this month at Treasured Scrapbooking! I have so much fun creating cards from Leslie's kits and always have so much product left over from the 4 cards I make. This kit could also be used for layouts and other projects but always includes instructions for the 4 cards I create.

All for now...more to come soon! :)

Praise God! :)

This photo was taken about 10 minutes after we found out we were chosen by a birth mom to be the adoptive parents of TWIN GIRLS! To read more about our exciting news, please visit our adoption blog here: Beauty From Ashes.

Our dear friends are hosting a spaghetti dinner and silent auction fundraiser for us on Sunday, March 1st at our church. We feel incredibly blessed to have our family and friends support our adoption process as we must give our adoption agency $15,000 at the time of placement. We applied for grants and are receiving a $2,500 grant from a ministry called LifeSong for Orphans. We must fundraise at least $2,500 to match the amount given by them. More information about the fundraiser and our adoption costs are on the other blog.

Thanks for sharing in our excitement! :)

Baby gift ideas

Today I want to share a baby gift idea using Rusty Pickle's Lucky line and chipboard. I've been trying to make baby gifts for my friends for several reasons. I love to do it and it means a lot to them that I spent time on it. (I usually try to do something with the baby's name.) Also, when you're on a tight budget it just makes sense to create with what you already have and then buy a little something extra to go along with the gift.

In a few days I'm going to share a new blog that will focus solely on our adoption process and create adoption awareness. A few of our dear friends are planning an event for us and I'll share information on that too. We're so blessed to have their support as we have spent the last five years on this journey.

More soon! :)

Cardalicious 12

This week's Cardalicious challenge calls for orange letter stickers and three patterned papers. My card uses patterned papers from Basic Grey and Crate Paper while the letter stickers are chipboard stickers from Basic Grey. I had a lot of fun just playing with some supplies.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about difficult things and about my priorities. It's been really good for me to look at my life and the things in it and how I spend my time. I can see the next few months are going to be life changing and while it's scary and new, I just want to be productive and compassionate. I know I'm being vague but I don't want to share much else right now.

I have been so sick the past few days and am finally starting to feel a little better today. Thank goodness for Tylenol Cold PM! :)

Enjoy your day! :)