Warm Winter Wishes

Here's a "very" quick card for you this morning for Lauren's Saturday Sketch! I used the Snowfall set from PTI and my big snowflake is cut from my pazzles inspiration......oh how I love that thing! The little snowflake is from my Martha Stewart punch. It's a very simple card, but I love the layout that Lauren had for us this week.

My little girl isn't here this morning to hold my card.....she's at Grandma and Papa's with her brother. They spent the night last night, so I quickly made a card this morning and now I'm off to pick them up! Have a great weekend!

Hoppy Birthday! A Copic Color Challenge!

Little by little I've been adding to my copic marker collection......why, well, until today I would have said because everyone raves about these, but I just don't understand why. Yesterday I got the colorless blender.....I didn't have that and NOW I understand why these are all the rave! I inked up some of my Pink Cat Studio stamps and got to work. Little Billy is just the cutest. This is from a set 14 Billy Stamps called Billy Plate 1! Check them out here if you haven't seen these before. I needed a little something to get my mind off other things so off to making a card....that always seems to help.

The copics that I used for this G07 Nile Green, E00 Skin White, B24 Sky, YG06 Yellowish Green, B21 Baby Blue, Y21 Buttercup Yellow, and 0 Colorless Blender. Paper is from SU: Green Galore and Pacific Point

Ava girl is always right beside me stamping and did her usual pose! I have on red today so she had to have on red too. Note her hair bow too. This girl has more hair bows than any other little girl I know. My Mom makes these.......if your interested, just drop me a note and she'll get them all made up and ready for Christmas.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. THANKS for all the comments yesterday. Joining in on the Papertrey Blog Hog was a lot of fun.

Ethan Update: Ethan is doing well. He is 6 days post his 2nd MIBG treatment and is feeling great. His counts are holding up well and he is full of energy. It's supposed to get to 52 today so we are planning on spending most of the day outside. Gotta run and feed our horses......thanks for stopping by.

Floral Frenzy Challenge......PTI BLOG HOP

I got the chance to make a card for Papertrey's Blog Hop this month. I read the challenge just yesterday and loved the idea of using felt. I love how the flowers turned out....I just free handed them on the felt and cut them out. Not too bad for my first attempt. The buttons just made the card I think. I seem to be using this color combination a lot lately, pure poppy and dark chocolate.

For those of you that follow my blog, you'll notice that my daughter, Ava, helped out with picture taking again! She is too funny, she runs to the steps where I take all of my pictures and can't run there fast enough. I have to literally move her to take a picture of the card and then I hand it off to her to model, just like Vanna White!

Most of you that follow my blog know that my son has cancer, so you can imagine the times that my kids have seen shots (pokes to them). I was sewing the buttons on with a needle and Ava was almost in tears because she was afraid I was going to hurt myself. It was too funny. She didn't understand why I needed a poke to make a card.

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

Hello Kitty!

It's Sunday.....but I have my Saturday Sketch finished. This is Lauren's stocking template from her new line of My Timeless Templates at PTI. I decided to try and make something for Ava's room to set by her kitty Christmas tree. This is what I came up with. I used my Just Rite stamps to create Ava's name and border and the flowers were punched from an old punch of mine. I created the kitty freehand and pieced it together

I like how it turned out and it is really easy to make. I made a 4 1/2" h x 2" w box for the inside with my scor pal. I even sewed with a needle and thread for the tips of the stocking. The colors I used are pink pirouette (SU), pure poppy (PTI) and white. The ribbon is pure poppy saddle stitch from PTI. I think this would be cute with some red tissue paper.....I'll have to grab some tomorrow at Hobby Lobby! They have their wrapping paper on sale 50% off so I'm heading there to get some for my kids Christmas. They have a paisley paper that I want to get for Ethan.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

YES......we are home from Philly and loving it. Ethan is doing great and we are so thankful for that. If all goes well, we should be home until after the new year!!!

IF THE SHOE FITS, WEAR IT!!! I just went upstairs to help Ava pick out her jammies and I stepped into the bathroom for a minute and came in to her room hearing her say "It fits!" She put on the stocking!! I said "NO" and she cried because she thought she was in trouble!!! So I guess Lauren's stocking is about a size 8 in case anyone was wondering!

We're coming home Chicky!

We're coming home Chicky! Oh how we can't wait to get home tomorrow (actually today....its' just a little early and I'd really like a little more sleep. Ethan is getting to leave Philly today after finishing up his 2nd MIBG treatment. Everything has gone fairly smoothly. This is definitely a difficult therapy to deal with both as the patient and the parent.

I didn't get to participate in this week's sketch for Lauren, but she has created something sooo cute. Our task was to create something using her "free" stocking template from PTI. Lauren's stocking is adorable and I'm considering using that idea for some gifts this Christmas too. I did get to do some online shopping while out here in Philly. I got a few things from the Site to Store at Wal-Mart......what a great way to get the gifts you want and save on shipping and waiting in lines or finding things in the store.....you just go there and pick everything up when it comes in. Can't beat that.

I'm hoping to be back tomorrow with something to share. I did bring my Christmas card supplies and worked on things a little last night. I have glittered stars on my card so I sat in the Ronald McDonald House family lounge here at the hospital and added sparkles to my stars, a little to the floor too.....the room needed a little bling too! I'm anxious to get all of my cards made and in the mail.....hoping to get that accomplished this week. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks for checking in. I tried revamping the look of my website a little. It was super easy and "FREE" Just click on the link in the upper left if you want to try too. Happy Saturday everyone!

New Stamp Area (Under Construction) & Philly Update

Since we have nothing else to do at our house, I decided to try to revamp my "corner of the world". This is my stamping area and what you see is a new island that my husband just built right before we left for Philly. It's not painted yet and still needs some more stools and organization, but I love it. My island is 44" wide by 54" long.......it's huge and I love it. Idealy I have the side that has the one stool for right now set up so the kids can play and the other side is where I work. I have storage all under the other side, but it's not real organized yet as I had very little time to work on this last week. It's so nice though because this used to be a 3/4 wall and I felt like I was trapped in the corner and now I can see out. I share this space with our dining room and we actually have toys on one half too so it's a room with a lot of purposes, but it works for us! Hopefully when we return from Philly I can finish the space. I need to patch a little paint on the wall and just "put everything in its place"! One funny thing about the building of this is when my Dad came over I had everything piled high on the dining room table and underneath the island (I guess it is really a penisulla), was open, so Dad told my kiddos that this was their new playhouse. Well, when Ethan woke up from his nap and saw that I had filled up his "play house", he was in tears......thanks Dad. Papa had Ethan and Ava convinced this was for them! Too funny!!

Philly Update:

Ethan is getting ready to have his MIBG injection today. He has surgery this morning to place his catheter. A funny story about last time was that when he got back to the room, he discovered that he had a "tubie" coming out of his wiener.....in Ethan's words! Needless to say, he hated it. He's doped up on versad, a sedative, so he's not all there during this process, so that helps, but he says the darndest things. Last time he had this treatment he told the Doctors that came in that He already had his tubie in his wiener, so don't try to put one in! He's too funny. He's asleep right now and slept good all night. He's just hooked up to fluids and the "fun" will begin today. We are praying that this treatment puts him in remission again. I know some of you read my blog for the "crafty" part and others read it for both "crafty" and "family" stuff......so you get both!

Here's a picture of my husband and Ethan at the Liberty Bell on Tuesday. I think Ethan was expecting so much more......all he wanted to do after he saw it was go!

Hope to be back with some cards later in the weekend. Best case scenario is that we return sometime on Saturday......that would be so nice! Thanks for stopping by.

Ethan and Ava (Lily and Billy ) Sledding!

When I saw Lauren Meader use this new set, Lily & Billy Winter Plate, from Pink Cat Studio, I knew immediately that I wanted it. It fits my kiddos perfectly and looks just like Ethan and Ava sledding in the snow. Isn't it adorable. I used the colors pink pirouette and bashful blue from SU. The ribbon is from Papertrey Ink. My snowflakes are punched with the Martha Stewart snowflake punch. The scallop punch is from SU. I added some "bling" with my dazzling diamonds. I can't seem to get enough of these lately. I also added a little more scallop to the edge with my fiskars edge punch.

This card is for my little girl, Ava, who is just 2 1/2 with a very "vibrant" personality. She's not looking forward to her Mommy and Daddy and brother leaving for Philadelphia this week so I made her this card. She loves my cards and loves to run around holding them. Ethan has his MIBG treatment this Thursday so we will be gone all week and Ava has to stay home with grandparents. She's getting too smart in her young age and knows all too well what is going on.

Yesterday was Ethan's benefit and it was just wonderful. There were over 1000 people there and it was just a very great day. It was more than I could have ever imagined. So many thank yous to our friends and family who made all of this happen. Ethan is doing great and had a wonderful time playing all day long yesterday. Here's a picture of him at the barn setup they had to take pictures yesterday. Isn't it adorable. I have to share one of Ava too as she is always helping me take pictures of my cards!

My posts will probably be few and far between with our trip to Philly this week. Have a great week! Thanks for checking in.

Oh.....one more thing, I've had a few requests asking where my jammies came from from Saturday's post and they came from Target! Boy do I wish we had a Target where we live!

Have a Hoot of a Day!

It's Lauren's Saturday Sketch time.......and my stamp area is all torn up! Everything is sitting in piles on my dining room table, so I went searching for everything last night so I could come up with something for today. My husband is making my stamp area more open so he had me move everything out. It's a fairly cheap solution to making my area seem so much bigger. I'll have pictures once it is finished.......which could be a while!

My inspiration for this was Lauren's sketch and my daughter's pajamas.......take a look at the picture and you'll see. Thanks for looking!

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Be sure to check out the rest of the team too and don't miss my post below with my Christmas card!

Tamara Harder http://tamarastamps.blogspot.com/
Maria Levine http://riacreations.blogspot.com/
Dawn Easton http://www.TreasureOilerDesignz.blogspot.com/
Kirsten Dubosque http://www.kirstendubosque.blogspot.com/
Kristy Vernon http://www.kvernon.blogspot.com/
Kim Gasper http://stampinintherain.blogspot.com/

MacKenzie Bruckler http://midnightscramper.blogspot.com/

Christmas 2008 and My Little Vanna!

My Christmas card is finally desinged and ready to be mass produced. That's what's going in my suitcase to Philly. I have played with this design over the past couple of months and finally got it just the way I wanted it. BELIEVE.....Our Journey Continues. It's not what I wanted our Christmas cards to be about this year, but this is where we are at!

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The card is all SU cardstock, chocolate chip, very vanilla, and my favorite, riding hood red. I printed the sentiment on my computer using text boxes and I embossed the background with my cuttlebug and the paisly template. My stars are made using the SU star punches. I punched out the small star out of the riding hood red and then covered with 2-way glue and dipped into dazzling diamonds. The chocolate chip ribbon is from SU too. My picture was taken in our yard with the kids riding on our minature burrow! Isn't is adorable. I've shared it before, but it is definitely worth sharing again. The baby is "Baby Jesus". I told the kids we were going to pretend that it was baby Jesus and that name has stuck and both Ethan and Ava fight over this baby constantly. I print all of my pictures through the online one hour at Wal-Mart....I've shopped around and I like their quality the best!

Here's my little "Vanna" showcasing my card for me! She always runs to the steps when she knows I'm going to be taking a picture and she wants her picture taken too. Now if I wanted to take her picture that would be a different story!

We're gearing up for a very busy weekend and next week. Ethan's benefit is on Sunday and then we fly to Philadelphia on Tuesday and will be there until probably Saturday or Sunday. You'll have to hop over to Carole Burage's Blog "Mother's Little Helper" Check out the story of how we met at the hospital.....it is definitely a small world.

Hoping to be back tomorrow morning with Lauren's sketch. Hope all of you have a great weekend......we're supposed to get snow showers tomorrow!

I almost forgot.....I won a contest from Lisa Johnson and Marvy Punches. My Mom called and said that she saw I won.....and I didn't even know it yet! I get 5 of the Marvy scallop punches....isn't that cool. I'm very excited and want to thank Lisa and Marvy...they made my day!!!

It feels like WINTER!

I'm back. We spent the weekend in the hospital and got back on Sunday evening. What a great way to spend the weekend! It could have been worse. Ethan was feeling great by Friday afternoon, so I'm glad he didn't feel bad while we were there. He's on an antibiotic given intravenously through his port once a day over a 1/2 hour, so not too bad. It's been a crazy week, but that's life. Monday was a day full of medical stuff and by the afternoon I was just fit to be tied! I needed a break and I actually got one yesterday. I went shopping!!! Oh what shopping can do for a girl!!! I even got an early Christmas present from my Mom.....Thanks Mom! It's a craft wall oraganizer and it is going to work perfectly to house my ribbons, stamp pads, and several embellishements. I'll have to take a picture of everything once I get it all up and organized. I'm very excited!

Tonight I have stamp club so I thought I would take a quick picture of the cards we are making. They are SUPER SIMPLE and are really elegant looking too. I used Lovely as a Tree from SU! That is a very popular still, yet old SU set. I added some dazzling diamonds for some bling and tried it out in two color combinations. Always Artichoke/Mellow Moss/Very Vanilla and Bashful Blue/Night of Navy/Whisper White. Hope you enjoy! The kids are taking late naps which allowed me to get all of my stuff ready....I leave in 40 minutes, so I better wrap this up too! Papertrey is having their monthly release this Friday too!

We are off next week to Philly for another MIBG treatment for Ethan. We found out though that we don't leave until Tuesday, so that will give us a well needed day of rest on Monday after his benefit on Sunday. He's so excited about his cowboy party! I can't wait to see his face and watch him having fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Our little Donkey!

Now this is a site you don't see everyday! The other day Ethan and Ava wanted to ride the "donkey", so my Dad helped me get Ranger saddled up so the kids could take a "ride" around the yard. Donkey just wanted to eat the clover in the yard and the kids were wanting to get going. So, they got bored and wanted to swing. Well, what do you do, you can't hold on to the donkey and push the kids, so I tied him up wo the swingset and everyone was happy!

Here are my two kiddos "trying" to ride the donkey, but as you can see in both pictures, donkey's head is down eating away! Wish we were home now riding, but unfortunately we are in the hospital. Ethan woke up with a fever this morning so we ended up spending the morning at the clinic getting labs drawn and we ultimately ended up here in St. Louis. Ava is with my parents. Hopefully we'll get to come home on Sunday, but we don't know anything yet.

Needless to say, I do not have a card to share for Lauren's sketch tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to do both next week. I'm sure I'll be ready for some stamping by then! On a very good note though, we had good results from Ethan's MIBG treatments. All of the lesions are gone excpet for a spot on his leg and that didn't light up as much as last time, so this means that the treatment is working and we will most likely proceed with another MIBG treatment in Philly in another week. We are very happy with the results and are hoping and praying that this next treatment will get Ethan back in remission again.

I'll leave with a photo from the professional photographer that took pictures from Ethan's Make-A-Wish. They are wonderful and I couldn't be happier with them. She gave us all the proofs, a small little booklet and the cd with all the pictures on it. Hope all of you have a great weekend. Thanks for checking in.

Lauren's Sketch and my little "Goblins"!

It's been a crazy week.....my computer went down "AGAIN"! I lost everything from Oct 4 until now!!! I got lucky and I had printed off Lauren's sketch for today so I could actually play along, I just had to find some time. This morning I'm having stamp camp at my house and I think I have "almost" everything ready! Here is my card using Lauren's sketch. You'll have to check out Lauren's previous entries for this week too.....she made me some stationary and it is just wonderful. She is so creative and kind. I can't wait to see it in person.....it is just perfect, pink and brown, 2 of my very favorite colors!

Now for my car. I used my Mom's stamp set, 2008 Holiday Tag Collection and Snowfall from PTI. The punched snowflakes are a from a Martha Stewart punch and the patterned paper is from SU. It's a very easy card and layout and super quick to make. The ribbon is the pure poppy polka dot from PTI and the real red and pure poppy are so close in color that you can mix and match very easily.

Yesterday was Halloween and my Ethan was dressed up all day long. Ava wasn't as excited as Ethan was.....he was disappointed that his costume was in the dryer and not dry when he woke up, but he put it on as soon as it was finished. The kids had a really good time. We made 2 stops, one at my parents and then at my husbands great grandmas. Everyone came to both places so it was nice and the kids didn't get tired of riding in the van. Here's a picture of my Super Hero and my "nice" little Witch!

Update on my son.....Ethan is doing great. He has no signs or symptoms of anything so that is wonderful. He's full of energy and just a joy to have around (most days!). We have scans this week so we would appreciate all the extra prayers we can get. He looks and feels good so we are praying that the scans are clear. What a roller coaster ride. I feel like for the last few weeks we actually got to get off of the ride though and just walk around the fair, but now we're hopping back on board.....I'll let you know when we get off again!!!

Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully I'll be back this week with more creations to share!