So I've been a little busy...

being a mama to these two little sweethearts! My life has completely and utterly been turned upside down and I'm loving every minute of it. I have had to learn to completely readjust my time and priorities and it has been quite the challenge. Gone are the days where I can spend a couple hours leisurely on the computer. I'm lucky if I get a couple minutes to myself every day and you can bet I'm not on the computer. At any rate, I'm hoping to start blogging again because I really enjoy it but I'll probably only get a chance to do it once a week.

Nora Elizabeth and Lily Kathryn were born on May 1st and are now 11 weeks old. The picture at the top is their 2 month shot. I LOVE this photo! They look so alike to me but I can definitely tell them apart. Although last night was a little rough, the girls are starting to sleep longer at night which is a blessing! Thankfully, we have had a lot of great help which has made the transition to parenthood much easier. My mom and dad are thrilled to be grandparents so they visit about once a week whereas my in-laws now live just 5 minutes away and my mother-in-law has been over just about every day to help me. It's been so wonderful to have her close by so I can shower, make bottles, do laundry, run errands, etc. Oh yeah, and eat! :) Eating any meal is quite difficult with twins!

At this point, I am a stay-at-home mom and enjoying it so much! Finances are definitely tight but we're trying to make it work. Daycare is so expensive, and I don't want to miss anything. We're making a lot of sacrifices personally but it's only so I can be with our girls. And with me being home we've found ways to save money on gas, food and entertainment. My only vice lately has been little girl clothes...holy cow, am I loving shopping for little girls! Most of our gifts were for the summer so I have started looking at 6-9 months stuff to get us through the fall and winter.

Milestone-wise, the girls are smiling as us which we LOVE! It's so fun to just sit and talk to my baby girls and watch them react to me. It's one of those things I never thought I would get to experience and I treasure those moments so much!

Well, I think that's a good update for today. We're celebrating our anniversary today (it's tomorrow) and going on a date. Harry Potter here we come!!!! (I am so pumped about this movie!) We have been married for 6 years now and it's hard to believe how fast the time has gone.

(By the way, I'm hoping to do some scrapping soon. We're trying to figure out our schedule so Glen and I each have one night a week to ourselves and I'm planning on spending my time scrapping. These little girls take the cutest pictures!)

Nesting!

No new pictures to share today but I wanted to update anyway. We had a VERY productive Easter weekend! We had our ducts cleaned out on Friday. This is something we've been meaning to do for awhile and decided to take a little tax return money and DO it! We've lived in our house 5 years and had no idea if the previous owners had ever cleaned the ducts. Our house was built in 1966. The duct company removed an 8 POUND bag of dirt and dust from our ducts! YUCK!!!! I'm so glad we got this done! Hopefully, it will help with allergies and keeping my house clean! While we were at it, we also had the carpets cleaned in every room except for my scrap room. The carpet should finally be dry so tonight when I get home from work, I'll be putting my house back together.

My mom and dad came for the weekend so we worked on a lot of little projects. I did some major purging, organizing and cleaning. I still have quite a bit to do in our basement but I feel so much better about what I did get accomplished! The babies' room is really close to being ready. I need to hang the curtains and that's about it. I don't have anything on the walls but I won't mess with that until they are here.

The b-mom is now 34 1/2 weeks! We're trying not to wait by the phone but it has me on edge every time it rings! :) We could get a call at any time although I am hoping that we'll get another weekend to work on things around the house!

I posted some new mini kits in my Etsy shop if you're looking for anything themed for family, wedding or Christmas photos! :)

Well, all for now. I better get some more done! Have a great Wednesday!

A little toot to share!

Wow! I was so surprised to learn I'll be guest designing for GCD Studios! Their paper collections are beautiful! I'm so thrilled for this opportunity!

We've accomplished quite a bit more since I last blogged. We found a great deal on a set of dressers at Homemaker's over the weekend and brought them home with us Sunday. I've been busy washing little girl clothes and putting them away. We registered at Babies "R" Us on Monday night. That was really fun! Ironically, it was my hubby who kept wanting to add clothes and toys to the registry. (I tried to stick to the basics). *wink* We're hoping to hit Target sometime soon and register there as well. Our big meeting is tonight with the birth mom and adoption agency. Last night I baked some chocolate chip cookies to go in a care package filled with some pampering fun for our birth mom. I'll put the rest of it together before we leave. I want her to know how much we care about her and are thinking about her the next few weeks. Maybe we'll get a better idea of how much longer it will be tonight too as I think she had a doctor appointment on Friday?!

Well, I best be getting busy. Much to do! I will say I am just itching for some creative time. I think it's been at least a month since I spent any time in my craft room and it's high time for me create! It's definitely a big stress reliever for me! :)

An exciting time in my life!

You're probably wondering where I went to?! Since my last post, I have been sick the majority of that time. I had a bad migraine for about 3 days and then got a bad cold. It went away for a week and I've been sick all this past week. I finally went to the doctor yesterday because I was coughing a lot, had tightness in my chest and a little shortness of breath. It's not bronchitis, thankfully, but I do have croup so I'm on steroids for the next week or so to help with the inflammation in my chest. This is definitely the worst time for me to be sick, but hopefully I will be over it by the time the babies arrive.

We had a week long visit from Glen's parents. They bought a condo in West Des Moines and will be moving up here the end of April/first part of May. We're very excited to have them just 10 minutes away and it will be wonderful to have their help with the girls.

I have decided to resign from Rusty Pickle's design team as well. It was a fun two years on the team! I really learned a lot, made some great projects and developed friendships that I will treasure forever. I will never forget my Amazing Race experience, that's for sure. The two weeks were crazy and very sleep deprived but I know I did some of my best work. Rusty Pickle has another Amazing Race planned and more information is on the RP blog.

Other than being sick, we have been focusing the majority of our time getting ready for our babies! The photo above is what we chose for bedding in the nursery. We painted the walls a light brown color and I wanted very feminine, shabby bedding to go in the room. What we found is perfect and just what I was looking for! We now have one crib all set up and are holding off on the 2nd crib for a little while. We're going to keep them in one crib until they start wiggling around more. I also have a bassinet that has been in our family for over 50 years. My mom, aunts, uncles, sisters and cousins have all slept in that bassinet. We have also bought our double stroller, car seats and a glider rocker and ottoman. I still really want to find a dresser and changing table sooner rather than later so I can get some clothes washed up and put away. We have a few other little things to buy before they arrive. We have had to buy the necessities because we're not having baby showers until after the girls are here. Our friends have been so generous by letting us borrow pack n' plays, exersaucers, bouncy seats, swings, etc. We're still working through names but won't be announcing what we have chosen until they arrive! That's all part of the fun! :)

We have several things you can be praying about over the next few weeks:
1) Please pray for the health and emotional well being of our birth mother.
2) Please pray for a safe delivery and healthy babies!
3) Please pray that we would both get/stay healthy and also for our emotions! (This is all very overwhelming!)
4) Please pray God would provide remaining finances we need to finalize the adoption.
5) Please pray that Glen and I would be able to spend some quality time together before the girls arrive.
6) Please pray for our next meeting with the birth mother and adoption agency to go over the hospital plan and openness after placement. We meet this Wednesday evening.

Thanks for your prayers! I'll try to update again soon! :)

Treasured Scrapbooking March Card Kit Reveal

Life has been so, so crazy the past few weeks that my blog has just taken a back burner to everything else going in my world. Here are my cards created with the March Card Kit at Treasured Scrapbooking. This is also my last kit as part of the team. I had to make a tough decision to resign from the team. The countdown is on for the arrival of our twins and I have much to do to prepare. I also resigned from the Cardalicious team. I would show you my last card but it was picked up for publication. I do have another card to share from a previous week that I haven't posted yet but I will do that another day.

I've been doing a lot of cleaning, organizing and purging around my house. Yep, I'm officially nesting! I've hit up a few garage sales and had some luck finding a few outfits. I have also bought a few little outfits for the girls. Target clearance is seriously awesome! We bought the bedding and curtains for the girls' room and it's all painted. We're working on putting in new outlets. I've been trying to clean my house using flylady.net and it's been wonderful! It is very, very likely that the twins will arrive in 3-4 weeks. Our birth mom had another ultrasound yesterday and things are looking good. She's only 30 weeks but measuring at 37 weeks. She did have a few contractions a couple weeks ago and stopped those with medication. The babies are still really small 3 lbs. 1 oz. and 3 lbs 2 oz. Please pray that they still in her tummy for a while longer. We're ferverntly praying that they are strong and healthy even though I'm sure they will be in the hospital for a while.

I've been really sick the past few days with some sort of cold/flu virus. I just ache from my head to my toes and spent most of the day in bed yesterday. I'm feeling a little better today but am hoping to be back to my old self soon.

Enjoy your day! :)

Etsy Special!

I have much to update you on regarding the Adoption Celebration and new projects but until my next post...I'm running a special in my etsy shop. (Thank you for the sales, by the way)! From now until all the cards are gone (there are 26 left), you can choose ANY 7 cards for just $20 (including first class shipping)!!!! That's less than $3.00 per card! To purchase your cards, just visit my etsy shop http://jillcornell.etsy.com and e-mail the names of the cards you want - cornellgj@yahoo.com. I'll send you a paypal invoice to pay for them. It's first come, first serve! And, remember all proceeds from card sales go to adoption costs!

Happy Shopping! :)

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! :)

Think warm...

I'm trying to picture a white, sandy beach and the sun hot on my face but all the snow outside my window is not helping things. :) Here's a new Rusty Pickle card using the Island Summer line. I love the bright colors and fun images on these patterned papers.

I've got a bit of a cold now but I am so happy it didn't get too bad. This week just hasn't been the best. My family received some bad news about my grandma and I've been having a really hard time dealing with it. She's very, very sick and it's so difficult to see her condition deteriorate. I love my grandma dearly and feel so blessed that I was able to grow up with her right there all the time. My grandma and grandpa have ALWAYS been there for me and my sisters. They came to all of our activities; whether it was a softball game or a Christmas concert, they were there. We probably went out to their house at least once a week when we were kids. I have so many fond memories of spending time with them. My grandma is a great cook and I learned a lot about cooking and baking from her. There are 7 girls in my family (grandma, my mom and two aunts, and me and my sisters) and we've done a lot of "girl" things together. I only get home about once a month now but I make a point to see my grandparents each time.

I better get busy today! Enjoy your weekend! :)

A few more Christmas projects...

Okay, I'm more than ready to be done creating Christmas projects for a while so I wanted to share a few that I created last month and hadn't blogged about yet. The little mitten ornament and heart wall hanging were made with Rusty Pickle's Snowflakes & Mittens line while the gift bag uses Pink Paislee that I got in a kit from A Kiss on the Chic. Speaking of kits, I'm not a regular subscriber to any kits at the moment as I found that it's better for me to shop around and buy only the ones I really want. I did have a sub to Scarlet Lime for quite a while but had to let that one go. I probably won't buy anything until the new CHA stuff starts hitting the shelves.

I'm feeling a little bit better today. I ended up staying home from work yesterday because as I was getting dressed I got sick all of a sudden. I was okay the rest of the day but just felt really out of it. It was weird how it came on so suddenly.

Well, all for today! :)

More from Upsy Daisy Designs

I decided to share two cards today that showcase the other new Upsy Daisy Designs lines called Man About Town and Unwritten. The colors in Man About Town are gorgeous and Unwritten is very elegant.

I'm feeling pretty bad today as I've had a sore throat come on as of yesterday. I'm hoping I make it through the day okay. It's pretty difficult to be on the radio with a sore throat so I've been drinking plenty of tea and hoping this won't last too long.

Well, that's all I've got to share today. Have a good one! :)

Cardalicious 11

It's time for another challenge at Cardalicious! Here's my take on the challenge to create a card with a journaling tag/label and using the colors orange and green. I love the bright, fun colors in Rusty Pickle's Candyland line and it looks great with the black and white striped ribbon from SEI.

I've had a really busy week since I last blogged. My birthday was last Thursday - thanks so much for all the birthday wishes. We did some painting on Saturday and then I had a few girlfriends over to scrap that night. I went home to see my grandparents on Sunday and then to the eye dr. on Monday. I came home Monday afternoon with a horrible headache so I spent much of the night on the couch last night. When I get headaches they are pretty debilitating. I must have been feeling pretty awful because I overslept this morning and need to get headed into work.

I have plenty of new projects to share with you - just need to stay on top of blogging! :)

Have a great day!

New from Upsy Daisy Designs

I LOVE this time of year as all the sneak peeks of new lines for winter CHA are making their way online. I'm on a bit of a spending freeze on my scrapping supplies so I'll have to choose wisely on what new collections I would like to have. I've been scrapping for over 5 years now and I think I've got my buying down to a science now so I don't buy things I'll won't use. I will admit I'm somewhat of a paper hoarder as I'll buy the most gorgeous papers and refuse to cut into them because I'm saving them for "something special". HA!

My card for today uses Upsy Daisy Designs' new line called Circle of Friends. I used my Cricut for the brackets and label and a Jenni Bowlin butterfly as a template. I really love the colors in this line! Be sure to swing by Upsy Daisy's blog for CHA giveaways all week and stop by their booth if you make it to CHA!

Glen and I are super excited for Lost to start tonight. Other than American Idol that's THE show we watch together.

Have a great day! :)

Cardalicious 10

Happy Monday to you all! Here's my take on this week's challenge at Cardalicious to use a circle, a flower and something sparkly! I used Rusty Pickle's Princess Bride collection to make this sympathy card, my Storybook Cricut cartridge to create the circle and flower and some Kaiser Craft pearls for my something sparkly.

This weekend just flew by. My sisters were here to help me paint a room in our house and then we went to see Twilight (it was my 3rd time - it just gets better every time!). I've got a lot to do today too so all for now.

:)

Treasured Scrapbooking January Card Kit Reveal!

Today is reveal day of the January card kit at Treasured Scrapbooking! Here are the 4 cards I created using the kit which is full of fun products from American Crafts, KI Memories, Jenni Bowlin, Petaloo and more. Leslie's kits are so jam packed that I had plenty of product leftover. The kits also include instructions for making these cards.

In other news, it is bitterly cold in Iowa - as in -16 and that's without the wind chill! I need to get into work but I don't even want to leave my house! :)

I'm so excited American Idol has started back up again. Glen and I were both laughing so hard last night.

Have a fabulous day - I'm trying to envision the hot sun on a white sand beach! :)

Cardalicious 9 & News

Here's my card for this week's Cardalicious challenge to make a "for you" card using letter stickers and the color green. I discovered that I deviated a bit from the challenge when I was sending my card to Janelle - mine is more of a "for baby" card. I used the new bebe line from Upsy Daisy Designs to create my card.

Our meeting with the birth mom went extremely well on Saturday. It was very, very emotional and I was so drained afterwards. We felt a lot of peace before, during and after the meeting. We were able to connect a lot with the birth mom and share how our faith is the foundation of our marriage and how it got us through our infertility. We're trusting that God is going to work this out for the best but it's so difficult not to be overly excited. Our hearts desire to be parents so badly. We learned from the adoption agency tonight that the birth mom really liked us as well and would like to meet with us again! This meeting will take place in the next few weeks. We also found out it's twin girls due in May! We would appreciate your continued prayers as we try to wait patiently! :)

All for now - I've been really busy creating and working ahead on cards and projects so I can focus on some time-consuming events coming up.

Have a fabulous night! :)

Proud owner!

My new Cricut Expression came this morning and I didn't waste anytime getting it set up and playing around with it. Besides the two cartridges it already came with, I got a Cricut bundle that included the Storybook and Christmas cartridges. LOVE them! I'm excited to start using it on my projects. Speaking of which, I'll be hitting my scrap room pretty hard this weekend as I've got projects to work on for Upsy Daisy Designs (new CHA stuff), a card for Cardalicious and I've also got the January card kit from Treasured Scrapbooking in my hands! I'll also be sharing some new Rusty Pickle projects with you soon.

Well, all for today! I'll be back soon to share my word for 2009 with you. Last year's word was discipline and I feel like I did pretty well in many areas of my life and others not so much.

Have a fabulous day! :)

I'm ba-ack!

Wow! It's been forever since I've blogged and I've been busy catching up on life the past few days.

First, I want to share this advent calendar I made using Rusty Pickle products and a tree I bought last year at Starbucks. I gave it to my mother-in-law for her birthday and she loved it. I also have a fun little toot to share. In August, I'll be guest designing for Keep in Touch kits. Kelly's kit are fabulous and jam packed - be sure to check her out! :)

Next is Christmas. I had a fairly good Christmas until I woke up at 5:30 in the morning at my mom and dad's house sooooo sick on Christmas Day. We're pretty sure I had food poisoning. I was violently ill...it was awful! I slept most of the day and finally got my full appetite back about 5 days later.

After Christmas we came home for a couple days before we turned around and drove to Lake of the Ozarks for my church's annual conference called Faithwalkers. It was a really encouraging time!

After 4 nights there we drove further south to my in-laws in northern Arkansas and spent 4 nights with them. It was a good time! They just sold their house so we were busy packing them up and moving them into their rental until they move to Iowa in the spring. While we were there, I hopped online and bought myself a Cricut Expression using my Christmas money. I am soooo excited for it to arrive and it should be here Thursday!

We got home from our travels on Sunday afternoon. I've spent the past few days catching up and trying to get my life back in order.

We do have some exciting news that we would appreciate your prayers about. We're meeting with a birth mom and possibly the birth father this Saturday. Glen and I feel really good about this situation and it seems to be a good fit for us. The best part is - the b-mom is pregnant with TWINS due in May!!!! We're trying not to get overly excited about it because this journey is such an up and down roller coaster. PLEASE keep us in your prayers this Saturday and I'll keep you posted how it goes.

Well, all for now. I'll hopefully have some projects to share soon. I want to spend some time creating this weekend.

Betty Crocker and Noel

First up today is my card from last week's Cardalicious challenge. We had to make a Christmas card using an icon from Christmas (tree, wreath, angel, etc.). I used Rusty Pickle's Snowflakes & Mittens line on this card along with some yummy Martha Stewart glitter.

I've been a busy Christmas elf around my house this past week. I baked up a storm - ginger snaps, spritz cookies, cherry mash candy, fudge, peanut butter balls, peanut brittle, cinnamon-sugared pecans, butter crunch, M & M pretzels, anise candy, and peanut clusters. Whew! I think that's it and I also think I gained 10 pounds just looking at that list. Keep in mind, a lot of what I baked was double batches. I'm usually pretty self-disciplined but my hubby is not. I have to hide some of it from him or he'll sit and eat it all! :) I always take plates of goodies to work, to our neighbors and I'm the designated candy maker in my family so it all comes with us to our Christmas get togethers.

We're all ready for Christmas at our house. The cards and letters have been sent, everything's baked, presents are wrapped...we're good to go! I'm probably going to be pretty MIA the next couple weeks. I'll try to blog another time, but after Christmas at my parent's house, we're leaving for Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri for 4 nights. Our church has a regional conference there every year and we're really excited about going. The conference ends on New Year's Eve but then we're going to Glen's mom and dad's to spend 3-4 nights with them. They live in northern Arkansas so it's just another 4 hours down to them. I'm looking forward to the visit but I know I'll be ready to come home after a week away.

In case I don't get to blog again, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :)

Treasured Scrapbooking December Card Kit Reveal!

These are the 4 cards I created with the December card kit from Treasured Scrapbooking. The kit has beautiful patterned papers from My Mind's Eye and is packed with gorgeous embellishments! The card kit includes instructions to make all of the cards pictured here. For more ideas from the rest of the finalists, check out their blogs - Eva, Ashley, Renee.

I'll be back soon to share my card this week for Cardalicious and to share what I've been up to lately.

NEW lines from Upsy Daisy Designs!

Upsy Daisy Designs has 4 NEW lines available now that they will also be showcasing at Winter CHA. The new lines are called Unwritten, bebe, Circle of Friends and Man About Town. I love them all but my absolute favorite is Man About Town. The colors in this line are just gorgeous! Be looking for some new projects from me over the next month or so using the new lines.

I had quite a bit of luck with craigslist today. I sold 5 of my lots for just over $200. I was so excited!!! I've got one more huge patterned paper lot and a couple totes to sell.

Well, better get cracking today. I'm really hoping for some craft time tonight! :)

The Magic of Winter

Holy moly...it's cold outside! Hello, winter! I don't mind the cold and snow the month of December but after that I'm ready for spring. My office is frigid today. If I could type with gloves on, I would. I'm so cold! We were supposed to get this huge blizzard yesterday but it amounted to almost nothing. I worked from home anyway which was a good thing because I had to record some audio and listen to and analyze a very important Supreme Court case in Iowa. It was all very interesting, surprisingly! I had a minor accident with the stove last night and burned my fingertip quite badly. It's really numb today but at least it doesn't hurt. It was just one of those things that was so dumb - I turned the wrong burner on! Made me feel like an idiot! :) I've been continuing on with my productivity - sold some of my books, have some good bites on the stuff I put on craigslist and I actually sold a card on etsy! I'm not really ready to start advertising my store yet because I want to get more cards put on there but I'll be sure to post here when my store's ready to go.

Today's gift bag features the Snowflakes & Mittens line from Rusty Pickle. I used a mitten pattern I had in my stash that I came across quite a few years ago.

I also have some really good news to share today! I was selected as the card kit designer at Treasured Scrapbooking! I've been looking for an opportunity to design with a card kit and am so excited to create with Leslie's kits as they are jam packed! My first set of cards will debut on December 15th. I really loved working with this kit as it was full of beautiful colors and just the right amount of shabbiness! :)

Have a fabulous Wednesday! :)

Call me Mrs. Productive!

I have been so busy the last few days! I have done some major cleaning around my house, a little baking, and a lot of organizing. I posted 8 lots of scrapbooking supplies on craigslist, a bunch of books (scrapbooking and chick lit) and my Wishblade on Amazon and started working on opening an etsy shop. We are in major need of some $$$ to finance our adoption. I'll let you know when my etsy shop is up and running.

Today, I've posted a project using the Spirit line from Upsy Daisy Designs. I've had these wooden trees in my stash for a while so it was fun to finally use them!

Have a great day! :)

Christmas gift bag

I've been working on some Christmas projects lately so I wanted to share this gift bag with you that uses Rusty Pickle's Snowflakes & Mittens line. One of my favorite projects to make is gift bags - I love creating the fronts and something fun to hang on the handles. It's such a quick project yet looks like you spent a lot of time giving it a handmade touch.

While I've been crafting, I have been watching all my favorite Christmas movies - so far, I watched The Holiday, Rudolph (was on TV last night), and I'm on the 3rd Harry Potter movie. For some reason, the HP movies make me think of Christmas. I'm hoping we'll go see Four Christmases this weekend - it looks way funny!

Enjoy your day! :)

Lots going on!

Wowza! A lot has happened since I last blogged. It's been almost two weeks and I'm excited to share some new projects with you over the next few weeks. First off, I've been to see Twilight twice so far. I ended up dragging my hubby to a midnight showing. Despite all the teenage girls laughing at parts that weren't even funny, I really enjoyed it. We went to a better theatre that Sunday afternoon and the experience was 100% better. I LOVED the movie so much more the second time. I would like to go a couple more times. I got the funniest e-mail from my mom last night. I left my copy of Twilight at my parent's house after Thanksgiving so my little sister could get it and read it. I was beyond shocked when I got an e-mail from my mom that she was over half-way into it. I don't know when the last time was my mom read a book. I didn't get a love of books from either my mom or dad - that developed on my own. I called her right away and she said she really wants to go see the movie now. She was like "What a love story!" I about died laughing...the funniest thing about it was she was like "Well, I better get back to my reading..." She wanted to get off the phone with me! :)

Since I last left you, I got my house all decorated for Christmas. It was so nice to come home from my parent's over Thanksgiving and have that all done! I didn't put up everything I normally do but the tree's up and that's the most important part. Today, I was looking over my calendar for December and it's starting to fill up already with parties and other fun stuff. I always love this time of year but I'm always ready for it to be over by the time January rolls around. I missed out on the Black Friday festivities (it's my favorite holiday of the year) but I did a little shopping yesterday. We're really cutting back on the spending this year so it should be easier to find everything I want to get.

We did have some excitement on the adoption front. A birth mom wanted to meet with us but at the last second we decided not to meet with her. There were just some things about the situation that we were not comfortable with. It was a difficult decision but I think it was the best one. We have a lot of peace about it. We would still appreciate your prayers as we continue along this process. The holidays can be a difficult time for people who have experienced infertility and loss. My husband kept saying every year "Maybe we'll have a baby by this Christmas." As the Christmases passed without a baby, it became even harder to put on a happy face around the holidays. Last year, we didn't put up a tree or decorate at all. If you have a friend or family member who might be struggling this time of year (whether that person has experienced infertility or just loss in general), please go out of your way to let them know they are in your thoughts and prayers. It will mean a lot to them.

Well, that's enough from me today. I've been listening to Christmas music ALL DAY LONG! :)