Hey, Hey! Long time no see. Thought I would show you a wonderful card I made for my friends little guy who is turning 2 today! Happy Birthday Christian!

I love my cricut and most of all I LOVE my Wild Card cartridge. It is truly the coolest thing in my stamp room. 

I chose this sweet monster for Christian, I thought he would love it. Considering he can be a little monster sometimes ;) I highly recommend you cut out the envelope before cutting the card, it will make your life much easier. all you have to do is measure the envelope length and you have the exact setting you need for your card. I cut out the little monster with some older scrap paper I had in my stash. I'm trying to actually use all that paper I have been hoarding. Having the cricut makes this task much easier. So I put some fun flock on his little face and stickles on his heart. I figure two year olds love to feel things. I know mine does! I inked the edges of him up to add a little depth. I really think this makes a card pop. I little sponging on the edges can add a new dimension to your image or card. Try it sometime. You will love it.

Enjoy your day!

Hey Ya'll! I wanted to give you all a little update. Time certainly flys in this life of mine! I know one day I will miss all the craziness of having three little girls running around my house. I do look forward to having TONS of grand babies to spoil completely rotten and then sending them home to their parents ;) It is my duty as a future grandma to plan for this, right?

Well my house is almost done remodeling. We have been putting all the finishing touches on, between cheer life and my husband doing his schooling. It is looking better and better each day and it is really starting to feel like ours now. I knew when we moved in that this house would be a dream come true... one day. I do see the day approaching! It is less of a pain in my butt each day!

So I know you are all wondering about this beautiful picture below..... This is my cheer squad. Aren't they pretty? These girls are The Future Firebirds 5th grade squad. We attended the Cheer for a Cure competition this past Sunday. It was waaay intense. The squads were amazing, flipping and jumping and doing all sorts of tricks that I cant even imagine in my head. We were up against FIVE other teams. The pressure was so high in the whole school. It was so hot in there I could feel the heat when I was blinking. Have you ever been that stressed? I'm sure you know what I'm talking about if you have ever been to a cheer competition! We worked on our routine for approximately two months. We completed it on the past Friday before comp. When you are a coach you go to a room with all the other coaches and have a briefing on the rules and so on of what is going to happen for the day. I talked to some other coaches that had told me they had begun their routine in October. Huh? Excuse me? Way to take my nerves to a whole new level! We have only had two months and you are telling me you have been practicing over five. Man alive! To say the least, I was stressed out. I prepared my girls that we had done our very best in the time we had. Sure I would love a few more weeks, what coach wouldn't? But we had what we had and in the end this whole competition was about supporting breast cancer! It was a win win situation. There are no losers when you are supporting a good cause. So we get ready to go on, the girls looked so nervous yet very focused. My husband made a comment that no other team looked as nice and refined as we did while waiting to go on and entering the mats. The girls went out and Rocked those mats. We had the loudest audience reply, and they perfected the routine. I had to push back my tears. It is a hard job being a coach and watch your everything you had worked for be over in less than three minutes!

On to the good stuff....

We go out to the mats with all the other teams to wait for awards. They start with fourth grade and Bam, we were at 5th grade. I think my heart was pounding through my chest. My eyes are barely coming back open, because my eyelid heat situation is starting again. They call fifth place, it isn't us. Thank you Jesus! We aren't dead last!!! Fourth place, not us. Huh? No way! We got third..... Third place called, Nope not us again. WHAT? I think I went into shock at this point. Second place.. Kettering 5th grade!! i swear, I think we all about fell over at this point. We didn't know what to do. About two seconds of an eternity passed of all of us looking at each other in complete denial. No way! We got SECOND PLACE!! OMG! We went crazy. Throwing each other around, hugs, kisses, and a few tears! It was sweet beautiful victory. Our hard worked really did pay off. Just think what could of happened if we would of had practiced since October? I have never been so proud in my life. I was so happy as a coach to know the pure joy of winning. Seeing my girls, my team, my coaches so happy was the most unbelievable feeling.

Needless to say, it has been a nice few days. I cant wait to start again next season. I have such higher confidence in my coaching now. I CAN do this. I just started coaching for those of you that don't know. I coached one season of football and then was asked to coach the select basketball team. I was more than scared, but i did it! I coach with another wonderful lady, it was her first year coaching bball too. So this was just a wonderful season for us.

Congratulations 5th Grade Future Firebirds!

You did it!!!!!!!
SECOND PLACE WINNERS, baby!

Remodeling time!

Wonder where I have been? Now you can see for yourself! I, as in my husband and I, have been very hard at work on our dining room. We put down the flooring, which is amazing. It is the biggest change from carpet. I feel like we can breathe so much better. We also painted the walls this wonderful new color. It is called baked clay. I think that is a very good choice for the name of the paint! It is very warm and adds a nice vibe to the look and feel of the room and our house. I'm happier than I thought I would be with it. I was going to do a very trendy green, but the husband persuaded me to this color. I think Ill do the kitchen in my green shade.

I am going to be recovering my chairs, one day. I need to go choose some fabric. I'm not so sure what way to go with it though. I was thinking a deep brown, but i have lots of black accents. Black might be the way to go? We will see. You never know what can happen when I get into a fabric store! HA HA!

The artwork is provided by my ten year old daughter. My dad found me a bunch of frames at a garage sale a few years back. I painted two of them black and framed my girl's art. It looks very fun and matches perfectly! Plus it is totally cheap. You all should try to frame some of your loved ones art work. You wouldn't believe how fancy a child's painting can become when placed in the right frame. I think she loves seeing her work on the wall for all who enter to admire.
I hope to be able to work on some valentines gift for the girls tomorrow. I will try to post the finished products. I hope you are all hard at work on your valentines gifts! It is my favorite holiday to make crafts. Happy preValentines day!

Wednesday evening

Hello, my friends!
So today brings me to a whole new world! We are installing hardwood flooring. I have to say I had some reservations about the whole thing. We live in a very old house, built in 1940. I absolutely love it. I wanted to keep the whole "old" charm. So putting in brand new floor isn't exactly going with my motif. But it does look very nice. I hope it will be finished tomorrow. We are also painting my beloved red room, green. Its time for a change. Red makes your rooms very dark. I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you pick a nice light red color and have lots of lighting. I suppose life is lots of trials and errors. You never know unless you take a chance! But lesson learned. Move along!
I ha vent been able to make any cards this week or browse splitcoast. It is for a good cause though. I will have lots of beauty to look at and inspire me.
Here is too a new day and a new post that is actually a little more entertaining tomorrow and hopefully will include some pictures!

Day, uhhhh Im losing count!

Hello again, my wonderful friends! I hope you all are doing well. I haven't posted in a few days, GASP! I know you have missed me, but toward the weekends it seems I get busier than usual. After that massive snowstorm, we missed a few days of school and cheerleading and had to make up lots of fun stuff. Totally fine with me, because I'm choreographing our routine for cheer and it needs lots of work.
I did get around to making a few cards AND even sewed one with my sewing machine!! I know, I know! I'm totally excited too. My machine has been breaking thread on me like crazy and I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, so I gave up on my love of sewing for about a year after my back surgery. Well I'm back in full swing again and thought I should give it another shot. Sew/so, hehehe I tried a few pieces of paper and fabric to test and low and behold it was breaking thread again. Then I said I'm going to fix this if it is the last thing I do. Guess what, my tension was set on five and needed to be on 2! Who knew? LOL!!!! I'm all good now, and I suppose that is the bright side of my little story............
I will post the pics of the card that I am more proud of than most cards I make, because it is stitched all the way up the side for you tomorrow. I cased it from the Stampin Up catty that I recently acquired. Have you all had the pleasure of seeing the catty? It has some pretty amazing samples in it. I love the catty for the cards. They are gorgeous. I have been very inspired since seeing it. I have been a downward spiral lately. But this has brought me out of my slump! How exciting!
Now I'm watching the super bowl with my hubby. Or at least pretending to as I sit here typing to you on my laptop as I sit on the couch next to him...... I do enjoy the commercials though, but didn't really enjoy Bruce Springsteen on the halftime. Of all the wonderful people is that the best they could come up with? What about a little Beyonce to spice it up a bit? Geesh, people get with the program!
Well I hope you all are enjoying my blog as much as I enjoy reading your comments about it!
Have a wonderful evening :)

Wow, TWO posts in one day! You are in for a treat now :)

I thought you would enjoy seeing a bit of the weather we are having here in Ohio. We have well over a foot of snow out there today and it is still coming down. The icicles are growing on everything today. It is about ten degrees out, so not too much snow play today :( Sorry kids.

Here is the card I made with the wild card cricut cartridge. I like the result although it was sort of tedious putting on all the little details. That is what makes it special though, right? The envelope has candles on it too which it hard to see in this picture. I also cuttlebugged the "icing" on the cupcake. I think my niece will love it though, cause her favorite Aunt made it!

This is a card I made just playing yesterday while I was talking to my mom on the phone. I think I do my best work when I'm distracted, because I don't put as much thought into it. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I can take it a little far thinking, does that really match?? Onto the details! I started by stamping the image in craft brown and embossing it in gold EP. It looks way cooler irl. Then i painted it with my watercolor crayons and blended it with a paintbrush and water. Love that technique. I also used watercolor paper which really helped. You should really try to use watercolor paper if you never have. It is a whole new world!
Punched the strip with the Martha Stewart border punch and added some embellys and Voila! I haven't made this many cards in six months. I may go back to the stamp room today too. How exciting is that? Maybe I really am getting my groove back!

Day 4- pics as promised!

This is a picture of my stamp room. It is always a work in progress as any of your with craft rooms would understand. It is always out with the old and in with the new! Which since my husband lost his job at General Motors, there hasn't been as much new as I would like. BUT, being the complete crafter that I am, I have enough supplies to last me for a little while ;)

Back to my stamp room!

The wood island in the middle is our old TV stand. We ripped all the extra junk off of it and I saw the perfect island! It is housing my cuttlebug and all kind of supplies inside. I got the ink pad holder made online a few years back, if you are interested, I could probably find you a link. It is a wonderful piece for my room. I absolutely love it. Then of course is my cricut! The gem of my room. It is an amazing tool, and I use it all the time.

A close up of my gem (aka the cricut). I made the little tray to hold my cartridges. I don't have a whole lot of carts, yet but it is enough to do what I need to do. My recent edition is wild card, and WOW! It is amazing. I also house all my pens and adhesives and such in the pampered chef turnabout. I highly recommend it also. My room would be a mess without it.

Here's a pic of my baby girl all bundled up ready to go play in the snow. This kid loves snow. She would stay out all day until every part of her was frozen solid. When she finally came in, she made a nice discovery...... hot chocolate! She was loving it :)

Make it a great day!