Krafty Kandi Krafts

Skipping Stones Sketch #114!

2012-02-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

I took a bit of a blogging hiatus for the past few weeks as we’ve been running around like maniacs and feeling super busy. It was needed to stay ahead on our day-to-day happenings, but I really missed it! Hoping some of the craziness subsides and we see some of our time come back to us. ;)

This week we welcome some new guests for February and not only that, but you can get the first peek at a new set being released in April! In case you missed the SSD post yesterday, these talented ladies are joining us for the month of February! Kazan Clark is our Guest Sketch Artist, and we have Barb Turpin and Cyndi Bundy joining us as our Guest DT members!

First up, here’s the sketch we have to work with this week.

I choose to use Victorian Summer and some pretty floral patterned paper (Crate Paper) for a simple birthday card. You can never have too many of those in your stash!

For the large flower I stamped in Red Riding Hood ink on Neutrals White cardstock, and then used an orangeish colored pencil and a blender pen to fill it in. Funny you would think it would be more of a pink color, but the orange looked best with the ink for the desired effect I was hoping to achieve. The lace was a nice pairing for an elegant/shabby look.

Last, here’s an excellent stamping deal and a peek at a set that is sure to be one of my favorites! You can get Heartsong 2 (the follow up to the super popular Heartsong and Christmas Song) before it’s release in April for FREE today! If you buy any three Skipping Stones Designs stamp sets starting today through next Tuesday before midnight you get Heartsong 2 absolutely free and pre-release!

Make sure to stop by our guests and our Design Team to see what they’ve whipped up with this sketch!

Blog Hop Release!

2012-01-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Sketch Challenge #110 and the release of Grunge Two! I have been gone on vacation (Florida was gorgeous!) and unfortunately didn’t receive my Grunge Two set while I was away so I’m not active on the hop, but I can’t wait to get that amazing set because it looks fabulous! Have you seen the amazing inspiration from the rest of the designers?!

This month we are welcoming Candice Fields, Emily Leiphart and Julie Day to our team as Guest Designers! Pamela Young will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop!

Since I don’t have Grunge Two yet I pulled out my much loved original Grunge set to go with this weeks sketch!

I wanted to do a masculine thank you card since I never seem to have enough of either so figured this would be a good opportunity to add a fresh card to my stash. Using the diamond plate, splatter and sentiment from Grunge I put together a quick card that is simple enough for any guy.

Thanks for stopping by on the hop today! Make sure to head to the Skipping Stones Design blog for more inspiration!

The Wait

2011-12-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

Surprise, another layout! ;)

This was for another challenge on Soul Scrappers. What has been great for me on my layouts that I’ve been working on recently, is that the idea or products are already there, I just needed the push/motivation to get it done. Enter this challenge and a page I’ve had in mind for almost a year is now done!

The EIC6 challenge was to incorporate black and white with any shade of blue. Since those are the Stallion/Peak wrestling colors this worked out perfectly!

I had told Jake my idea for this page and he said it should be easy to get the info together, but for me the hardest part was getting all the stats. ;) Luckily, Brady has a wrestling profile (when you register for tournaments it logs/records all of that) so I was able to figure it out fairly quickly, yay!

Brady puts in so much effort and energy into this sport and I’m so proud of his commitment, dedication and work ethic. Honestly though, the waiting is the worst! We can wait hours between matches some days and have spent 8+ hours at some tournaments on a Saturday. For wrestling up to 6 minutes per match and for only 6ish matches at a tournament that’s a lot of down time!

I hope he looks back on this and remembers his first year wrestling with fond memories!

Beach Babe

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun playing with the sketch challenge last week at Sketchy Thursdays that I just had to join in again, especially after seeing the sketch!

This page went together super quick. I’m big on simple scrapping and the patterned papers help to lend a bit more flair to an otherwise simple page for me. This sketch is perfect for mixing and matching papers, and I loved these mixed with some pictures of Gwynie and our family at our neighbors house for a birthday party.

Here’s the sketch from Sketchy Thursdays. I did the photos a little different from the sketch to fit the photos I had on hand, but essentially the sketch and inspiration is there. This would also be really fun rotated!

For the Holidays

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Sketch Challenge #106 and a Blog Hop to feature many of the wonderful Texture Sets from Skipping Stones Design! If you just came from Katie's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today, start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers’ blogs. This month we are welcoming Tosha Leyendekker, Kendra Sand and Windy Robinson to our team as Guest Designers! Jen Del Muro will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop! The DT is also being sponsored by Canvas Corp all month long with fun products and fantastic paper!

Here’s my take on this sketch! This sketch was was a little tricky for me, but overall it has a fun whimsy to it.

The background of distressed red dots was stamped with the Blocks and Borders - Dots, and a layer of super cute Canvas Corp stockings paper provides a fun base for the trio of ribbons. The gingerbread man doesn’t actually come from a Christmas set, but is included in the humorous set Funny About Men along with the sentiment.

Here’s the sketch for this week, we’d love to have you join in with us!

Head over to Windy's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration! A full list of designers will be posted at the SSD blog!

Cookies

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

When I wanted to get back into the scrapbook groove I immediately turned to my favorite scrapbook forum, Soul Scrappers. There are great challenges posted, loads of inspiration and a lot of super sweet ladies.

One of the recent challenges I dove into was a sketch challenge (SC45) that made this page super easy to put together. I rotated the sketch and came up with this:

These were taken in 2007 when we visited my sister Laci for Thanksgiving. Her and Gwynie made cookies one night and I’m glad this is finally in her book. :)

Here’s the sketch!

Featured Friday!

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

It’s my turn today to share a card or two for SSD’s Featured Friday! All month long the DT is being sponsored by Canvas Corp, and another month long bit of fun is that all texture/background sets are on sale or $12.49!

I decided to combine those two awesome things for my Featured Friday post…check it out!

If you’re anything like me you value your precious time, and in many ways want more bang for your buck. Timeless Textures is such a versatile set! I absolutely love the musical score in this set and find that I can use it so many ways!

First up is a bright and cheery (super simple!) birthday card. I wanted to play on the music notes with words that were in a song on both cards so they each mimic this idea. I’ve also included a mini bag and clothespin (Canvas Corp) to hold a little gift card for the recipient. The sentiment is from another texture set, Pumpkin Seed Sentiments.

Not only can you do birthday cards in any color, but you can also switch the colors and sentiment out to make Christmas cards! The sentiment is found in Christmas Song and ties in so well with the music notes.

Are you inspired to whip up some super quick cards today? Happy Friday!

Some recent pubs

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

I realized the other day that I hadn’t shared some cards that I’ve had published over the past few months.

I guess looking back at all of these cards I used some of my all-time favorites stamps, ha! :) One fun thing too, is a couple cards use background stamps which are currently ON SALE all month long at Skipping Stones Design this month! Each background stamp set is on sale for $12.49!

This card was published in Paper Crafts Card Creations 9 and was my first PC pub. I have been such a slacker since then to submit, but it is a fun process. I go in submitting spurts, and when I do submit I am genuinely thankful for that acceptance email. :)

This was the first card I made with http://skippingstonesdesign.com/products-page/best-sellers-and-1s/heartsong/ and I fell in love with the set!

CARDS published this one in their Create:Stamping issue.

This combines three SSD sets - Dandelion Dreams for the flowers (this set gets a lot of use, I love it!), Grunge for the wood grain background, and Healing Wings for the sentiment.

These have all been published in CARDS magazine as well.

June

Another of my favorites, Stitched Stamps!

November

More Dandelion Dreams, I can’t get enough of the silhouettes.

The only stamping on this was the background and it’s from Timeless Textures, again another of my favorites!

Make sure to check out the background stamps at SSD, or give the gift of an SSD Gift Card this holiday season!

The Golf Cart

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Jake will probably kill me later for sharing this (I kid, I kid) but it’s too good and scrapbook worthy to not document for generations to come. ;) Actually, he will probably laugh when he sees this and will just shake his head. True story.

Like most of the layouts I’ll be sharing soon, I’ve had the paper and embellishments all ready and waiting for me to just sit down and put together the page. This was no different, and it was a breeze to whip up with the Sketch Thursdays 12-1 sketch. I kept it super simple to let the story shine through.

The journaling reads:

Jake took Brady with him to a golf tournament for work and the day started out great, or so it seemed. On the first hole Jake pushed the gas on the cart, but Brady wasn’t hanging on. When the burst of speed hit B fell out of the cart, but Jake had no idea! He thought everyone waving and yelling at him were just being super friendly! B was fine, but told everyone what his Dad had done and told Jake “Don’t let me fall out again!” Jake will never live down the “Golf Cart Incident!”

Here’s the sketch!

Timeless Victorian

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Fun title huh?

It’s another Tuesday and SSD has a great new line up of guests for December! This month we welcome Jen del Muro as our sketch artist, and Guest DT members Tosha Leyendekker, Windy Robinson and Kendra Sand! We’re also being joined each week by the Canvas Corp crew as the SSD DT is being sponsored by them so you’re sure to see some fun products on our cards!

Another fun treat this month is that all background sets are on sale for $12.49! This would be a great time to stock up on some of your favorites! :)

Here’s our first sketch from Jen!

It was so fun going through my goodies from Canvas Corp! The fabulous scripty paper is from CC and I love how it lends such an elegant feel to the card. Since the background sets are on sale I stamped Timeless Textures over the flower from Victorian Summer to add some depth to the image.

I love how simple it is and how quick it was to put together! We’d love for you to join us this week and see your take on the sketch! Make sure you stop by the SSD blog to see what the rest of the team and our guests have come up with!

Lagoon

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

December has made a sudden appearance and I’m still left wondering where this year has gone! I mentioned yesterday that I’ve been scrapbooking more this past week and have a few layouts to share today that remind me of warmer weather! :)

I used the sketch challenge from Stuck On Us Sketches which was based on a PageMaps sketch for my starting point.

The first two pages will be the beginning when I add them to Brady’s book so I wanted to keep that same order even though it’s the last page that is for the sketch challenge. ;)

The pages and embellishments are from an older MME collection Breaking Free (definitely using up some older product that I’ve been saving for these pics!) and it all worked out so well with these pics of the kids at Lagoon, our local amusement park.

For this first page the stars and the big top/coaster are rub-ons that I added to the page and then layered the other embellishments on.

Similar with this page, the circles are a rub-on with more pieces added from the collection.

This is the page that was done with the sketch (below) in mind. The journaling is about how this was the first year that Brady was finally tall enough (and brave enough!) to ride the big coasters. We actually rode his favorite coaster Colossus (in the first page) four or five times because he loved it so much.

This sketch was really fun to work with and really gave me that inspiration to get going on this group of photos!

Scrapbook Slacker

2011-12-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

True Confession Time…I have been a “scrapbooking slacker” this year.

Feel free to scroll past my long diatribe to get to the layouts ;)

A couple years ago I tallied over 80 layouts made, and this year I’ve made three. Yes, three whole pages. I even set myself a goal to work through the rest of the 52 More Scrapbooking Challenges this year and utterly bombed that because I haven’t done a single one. Recently though I’ve been giving some thought as to why I haven’t scrapbooked. It boils down to a few things.

I feel overwhelmed by how many pictures I have to get in my kids' scrapbooks. (They each have one per year.) I still have to develop so many pictures and I’ll see an even higher stack of photos to scrapbook. Crazy.
Creating a card takes less than 15-30 minutes in most cases. A layout for me is twice as long or more, and then times that by two kids. Ugh.
I am a simple scrapbooker. My layouts are purely for the family, but I feel like they should be so super good and complex and full of fun and trendy techniques and they are not. Lame.
I lost the joy in it. Sad.

So with all that, I let myself be bothered by it, but I felt unmotivated and didn’t want to make the effort. Weird though as scrapbooking was what first got me into this whole papercrafting thing and the cards came much later. The turning point for me this past week was looking through some layouts I did last year. I had the “scrapbooking bug” and did a lot of layouts, and I thought they were some of my best pages. I had a blast making them and felt that joy all over again.

That was an entirely too long lead up, but it’s been on my mind and I appreciate you even more if you stuck with me through all of that. ;)

In order to “get back to it” I went into safe territory with this group of layouts to get things started. Every year (since Gwynie was in 2nd grade) I scrapbook the kids school photo along with their class photo. This is as simple as it gets because I try to keep it fairly consistent from year to year. Nothing fancy or spectacular. I also have them write their favorite things during that year. It is so fun to see some things stay the same, but to see changes and especially in their handwriting!

Getting caught up, Gwynie’s 6th grade followed by 7th.

The close-up of her favorite things. This was a little hard as this year she’s switched her “A’s” so kept wanting to do the new A. My fault for not getting her to write this out sooner. ;) Also, she spelled “Katy” right on her practice page but added an extra “t” this time, haha.

I used the About a Girl collection by Fancy Pants for both pages and added in some vinyl thickers accents and a few odds and ends.

7th grade, and I’ll have her add the journaling as she gets more into the school year. More About a Girl, but this was a transparency that I just put over white cardstock. The chipboard accents are Basic Grey that I added bling to (lots and lots of bling) and also added to the transparency. Also, first year she won’t have the class picture since they’ll get year books! :)

Just for fun, I put together this little grouping of Gwynie’s 3rd-7th grade layouts.

I realized I was super behind for Brady though since I had only done Kindergarten, and he started 3rd grade this year. Oops. Again, that motivation was lacking. When we did his handwriting for 1st grade I asked him to write as sloppy as possible and not worry about mistakes. ;)

I had purchased some of the Boyfriend collection by Cosmo Cricket forever ago and had been saving it specifically for these pics. Glad I am finally using it. ;) The little airplanes were from an American Crafts pack, and brads are SU.

He took the “make mistakes” literally and purposely did squiggly “z’s” and a backwards “p” on pizza. He cracks me up. ;) PS – do you know how much I had to bribe these two to do this?? Before they’ve been pretty good about it, but this time they were so not about to help Mom scrapbook. ;)

Moving onto 2nd grade.

Same thing, I told Brady to be loose in his writing. I usually like to wait until the school year ends anyways so I really capture their handwriting at the time so now I’ll just wait a bit to get 3rd grade done.

The papers and embellishments were from a Crate Paper pack I bought awhile ago and the splotches were a random find in a bin at a craft store that I picked up in Florida last year.

Here is his close up of his favorite things and his handwriting. The thing that cracks me up the most is his special “S” because I remember doing those when I was in middle school, hahaha. ;)

Now for fun, here is Brady’s sequence, but I’ll have to add in his 3rd grade later once I start/get that one done. I wish I would have done this for Gwynie all the way through, but at least she is only missing Kindergarten and 1st grade.

It was really fun working on these pages and seeing them completed! :) I have a few more I’ve been working on that I share later this week!

Song of Christmas

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome back to another Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesday! I neglected to post my card last week (it’s cold season, boo…) but I can’t wait to share the simple little number I whipped up with our fabulous sketch this week!

I love the quick and easy route when making cards so this sketch was perfect for just that! Your imagination can really run rampant with this sketch so feel free to interpret it any way you like. Because I definitely did. ;)

Instead of the sentiment flanking the center like in the sketch I chose to move the sentiment down and replace one side with this gorgeous ribbon. The images and sentiment are from Chrismas Song and the ribbon and brads are from our generous sponsor this month, Creative Impressions!

Make sure to visit the rest of the DT and our guests to see their fabulous creations!

Thankful for…

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have much to be thankful for and I’d be remiss in not saying how grateful I am for several people and opportunities I have in my life. My wonderful husband, amazing kids, family, friends and my great job are all such blessings in my life and I’m truly thankful for the delight and/or challenges each one brings daily. ;) I’m also thankful that I have a fun hobby and I’m glad I was able to find one of my true passions in life.

I’ve been a bad scrapbooker this year (see a post later this week on that), but started to get the bug again to scrapbook and I made a few layouts over the weekend. This one was created with the use of a sketch from Stuck Sketches and was perfect to get me going again.

I used an older Bo Bunny collection (Beautiful Life) which included the journaling card and family circle. The leaves were in a Prima package, and the chipboard shapes/title are thickers. I also added a few mini safety pins, a corduroy button, lace and a scalloped strip of cardstock. I later journaled in the date (11/09) to the small circle.

The sketch below:

Thanks for a great sketch ladies!

Gracias

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Sketch Challenge # 102 and to showcase our Featured Stamp Set of the Month, Rustic Tiles! Rustic Tiles is a versatile set, that you are about to see from our fabulous Design Team. If you just came from Betsy's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today,start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers’ blogs. This month we are welcoming Jimmi Mayo, Betsy Veldman and Jessica Griffin to our team as Guest Designers! Chan Vuong will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop!

So let’s start off with the sketch and then I can show you the card and the photo that inspired it all!

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this sketch, but after looking at the Rustic Tiles set it clicked for me that the tile designs reminded me of the tiles we saw in our hotel and around the town on our trip to Puerto Vallarta earlier this year. A quick search on Pinterest gave me this photo below and I knew I wanted to recreate this look.

(Pinterest)

I used glossy cardstock so that when I colored in the stamps with Copics it would really help the colors pop off the page. I used the photo to help guide my color choices and to mimic some of the tiles. The sentiment “gracias” was done with shiny black Thickers and the ribbon is from our sponsor this month, Creative Impressions. The orange was the perfect pop to mix with these colors and bring out the rustic feel. The rest of the DT will be using these products all month long!

Make sure to head over to Karen's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration!

Santa

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

It’s time for another SSD Sketch Tuesday post!

Today I’ve turned the sketch into a layout, and that’s just one of the reasons why I love sketches! They are so versatile and can be used in so many ways to inspire you!

For the background I used the star from Christmas Swirls, and used a glue pen to add dazzling diamonds glitter. The ric rac trim is from Creative Impressions, a fabulous embellishment company with everything from mini paperclips and tiny clothes pins to luscious ribbon treatments. All of the team creations will be using something from Creative Impressions each week!

Here’s the sketch, isn’t is fun?! Make sure to visit the SSD blog to take a look at what our guests and DT did with this sketch!

Tips and Tricks–Joseph’s Coat

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Tips and Tricks Thursday! Today I’m going back to my “stamping roots” and pulling out a technique that I learned during my first year of stamping!

The technique I’m showing today is Joseph’s Coat (so named after Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors) and I’m using a stamp from Rustic Tiles which is our featured set for November! This set is on sale all month for $12.49!

Start off by rounding up your supplies. Normally for this technique you would use a spectrum pad and black ink, but I’m giving it a twist and instead am using two different blue inks.

Ink Pads
VersaMark
Embossing buddy (optional)
Clear embossing powder
Brayer
Your favorite SSD stamp!

The first step is to take the lighter color ink (or spectrum pad) and completely cover your cardstock with a brayer. At this point you can let it dry and use an embossing buddy to help with the next step.

Next, stamp your image onto the cardstock with the VersaMark ink pad. It is hard to see at first, but by tilting it up to the light you can see where you’ve stamped and add images as needed.

Once it’s stamped to your satisfaction, sprinkle clear embossing powder over and then shake off the excess.

After the powder is off you’ll see the images you’ve stamped.

Heat up the embossed images and then…..

Use the brayer to cover the full sheet with the darker ink. This will make the embossed images pop off the page in the lighter color!

To finish off my card I’ve added some ribbon and mounted it to a blue card base. The ribbon came from Creative Impressions, a fabulous embellishment company with everything from mini paperclips and tiny clothes pins to luscious ribbon treatments. All of the team creations will be using something from Creative Impressions each week!

Here’s a close up of the embossed images and that luscious ribbon! I think one of my favorite things to do is to look at a stamp set and to see if there are additional possibilities with a stamp set. Rustic Tiles has some great square shapes, but there is also a shape that looks like a snowflake! I left a sentiment off, but you could easily add several sentiments to this for a great winter wishes card!

SSD Sketch Tuesday!

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s another Tuesday and that means it’s time for a brand new sketch with Skipping Stones Design!

This sketch threw me for a bit but I had fun with the end result! I used one of my favorite SSD sets, Wise Men which also happens to be the October Featured set! It’s currently on sale for $12.49, so make sure to grab this gorgeous set today!

Here’s the sketch below from our Guest Sketch Artist Cristina Kowalczyk. As you can see I tried to mimic the line with the sentiment, and the round portion by the top of the stamp. I misted the top with a Tattered Angels mist Dragonfly, which pairs quite well with Tempting Turquoise! A small gem in the center of the star finishes it off.

Make sure to check out our incredible guests: Tammy Tutterow, Andrea Ewen and Karen Christensen and our lovely DT!

Jennifer Ingle
Joann Valderama
Karen Baker
Katie Gehring
Shannon Teubner
Stephanie Mino
Taylor Usry
Wendy Price
Wendy Jordan

Christmas Song Blog Hop Release!

2011-10-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Sketch Challenge #97 and the release of Christmas Song! If you just came from JoAnn's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today,start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers’ blogs. This month we are welcoming Andrea Ewen, Tammy Tutterow and Karen Christensen to our team as Guest Designers! Cristina Kowalczyk will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop!

I cannot even begin to tell you how incredibly excited I am for the release of this set! The sentiments and fonts are gorgeous, the images are divine, and it coordinates with the super popular Heart Song! Need I say more?!

I had so much fun with my first card that I just had to whip up two more to go with it and make a little Christmas Tree Trio! :) As Christmas approaches and we all think of card designs to mail we typically think of doing something flat to avoid mailing costs, but you may also consider a simple design that has a fun twist. I took those elements into my approach with this trio and loved the result!

I started off with the sketch and then alternated small things to make the set. That is one of the best things about a card set…make one card and then either repeat or make small changes to create a cohesive set.

On this first card I used monochromatic purples with a vanilla circle and vanilla dmc floss. To dress up the tree I applied some chunky glitter around the edges with a two way glue pen.

To change this one up I used greens with a touch of brown and used the “Rock ‘n Roll” technique to add some of the darker green to the edges of the tree.

For the final card in this set I embossed the entire white circle with iridescent ice embossing powder, but it doesn’t show up too much in this picture. It shimmers so much and is such a quick and easy detail to add to glitz up your card.

There are so many great cards along this hop, and more peeks at the images and sentiments so be sure to head over to Tammy'sblog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration!

Hope Happens

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s the first Tuesday in October and you know what that means! It’s a new sketch with Skipping Stones Design team, and we have all new guests to be inspired by!

Our sketch artist this month is the super talented Cristina Kowalczyk, and joining her our are incredible guests: Tammy Tutterow, Andrea Ewen and Karen Christensen!

Here is our first sketch!

So I wanted to channel my inner “Cristina” who has such a fantastic CAS style but is so elegant at the same time! I kept the color palette super simple, and used minimal layers to start. As October is Breast Cancer Awareness month I pulled out Cancer Schmancer to showcase the beautiful images and sentiments. The addition of the pink floss gives a touch of dimension to the panel and the stamped ribbon die cut was popped off the card base.

I’d love to see your take on this versatile sketch!

Be sure to visit the rest of the SSD team and our guests for their fabulous creations!

Jennifer Ingle
Joann Valderama
Karen Baker
Katie Gehring
Shannon Teubner
Stephanie Mino
Taylor Usry
Wendy Price
Wendy Jordan

Project 365– September

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

I’m still in shock that September is over and it’s already October!

September was a busy month but looking through these I don’t know if you could really tell. Just so I can remember later, the things that kept us busy were of course football and softball with practices and games. We went to Vegas, had puppy school once a week, and Jake’s been taking a prep class once a week at the U for an upcoming IT/Networking certification and that was all in between the sports stuff. Jake and I have also been working a bit more as our company is growing. This is fantastic, but means that we’ve all had to step up our game to meet goals and deadlines. :) I love it all though and I couldn’t imagine not doing the things we do every day!

9/1 – A treat for the Recruiting team! After lots of hard work and a lot of people hired we were rewarded with a trip to The Melting Pot! I loved it after going there for our anniversary dinner and was so excited to go back! Everything there is so incredible and I can’t wait to bring the kids for dessert!

9/2 – A going away gift from my boss Chris! Sweet Nikes in CLEARLINK blue! We will miss your coffee loving ways, your wit, and the way you open our office door. ;)

9/3 – Loved this shot and have loved watching Brady play. He absolutely loves football and gives it his all every practice and game.

9/4 – A camping trip with some friends over Labor Day weekend! We went to Pineview Reservoir and on Sunday the boys hit the general store. ;) Eden – Where everybody knows your name! Three things I will remember from this trip – 1. Ryker’s new nickname 2. Ed’s ticket on the jet ski 3. “Is this Nick Jonas?” “Yeah I think it is!”

9/5 – Oh these two! Out of all the other kids they could have sat by for a quick breakfast they choose to sit by each other. Reminds me of their morning breakfast routine. :)

9/6 – Poor Ryker. ;) He is so tolerant when we are playing with him and didn’t mind when Jake folded his ears back. It didn’t last very long and he shook them out after a bit but he’s such a good boy!

9/7 – Ryker loves to stick his head out the window anytime we are in the car! We do this every time we leave his puppy training class. We love this silly puppy!

9/8 – Parent teacher conference for Brady. They had to write and draw things they like.

I like music. I like rock and roll. I like sports. I like to play football, wrestling. I’m creative I like to draw semis, cars and “roller coasters”.

9/9 – I have THE best co-workers and my office mate Tracy is the sweetest! She brought cupcakes for our boss Chris’ last day and even got me a cupcake! It was a strawberry shortcake and was seriously one of the best cupcakes I’ve ever eaten. Can’t wait for the new Sweet Tooth Fairy to be built closer to my house! :)

9/10 – I didn’t realize until after taking this picture that is was MY BRADY that made that tackle, ha! I just try to get a bunch of pics of the boys (and more emphasis on Brady of course) for the end of year banquet. I was bummed someone’s shorts clipped the side, but I was still really excited to see this!

9/11 – We took Ryker to the dog park for the first time today. He had a blast and was exhausted by the time we got home! He didn’t want to play fetch, but just wanted to RUN with every other dog there. He was really well behaved and was very social with other dogs so we feel good about taking him to a bigger park.

9/12 – Congrats Troy and Jillian! Brady and Gwynie drew a picture for them in May of them getting married and they said they’ve framed it. :) We’re so excited for you two and are so happy to see you so blissfully in love!

9/13 - I had been told I was invited to Vegas, but got my “official invitation” today! CLEARLINK definitely knows how to roll in Vegas! Hotel room at the Palazzo, VIP at Lavo and tickets to the Cirque de Soliel O Show were all ahead of us!

9/14 – Graduation day! I was a little worried but Ryker passed with flying colors! I was so impressed with him and gushed and praised him for his excellent behavior and training! :)

9/15 – Softball officially started…with a phone call the day before saying she had a game and their team didn’t have a coach. Within 10 minutes of game time they had a coach and the girls all selected positions. They ended up winning 2-0 and it seems like they have some great players! Now to get her some yellow socks and new cleats since she grew like crazy over the summer.

9/16 – Delivering headphones for our incentive referral program at work! Everyone is always excited to see us! :)

9/17 – Today marked both softball and football games! Luckily they were awhile apart so I was able to go to Gwynie’s softball game and then we both made it to Brady’s football game with time to spare! Their team won 14-0!

9/18 – Poor Brady! ;) We went to Iggy’s for lunch and Jake and Gwynie kept teasing Brady by interrupting him as he was trying to tell a story. It was sad and funny all at the same time, and this was the face he pulled.

9/19 – Gwynie’s school pictures….wow. I cannot believe how grown up she looks!

9/20 – Brady really wants “liberty spikes” in his hair with his mohawk so I was able to do this and he loved it!

9/21 – New shoes and a pedicure before going to Vegas!

9/22 – Running in to score! This league they cannot steal home so every run has to be batted in. It forces them to make hits versus scoring on errors.

9/23 – First night in Vegas baby! We had a company meeting, then dinner and then VIP access at Lavo. Fabulous night!

9/24 – So I will confess to hardly taking any pictures in Vegas (shocker I know)! I did spy this and HAD to take a picture of it! It’s a giant shoe built with hangers! I was so blown away.

9/25 – I always love seeing this fountain! I’ve seen it with a summer/butterfly theme, a Christmas/snow/pinecone/poinsettia theme and now an Autumn/fall/wine/harvest theme! It was so gorgeous and took my breath away!

9/26 – I dropped Gwynie off at softball practice and headed to the mall since it’s only a few minutes down the street. I scored four tops for just under $40 on clearance. The receipt said I had saved $74, talk about a score!

9/27 – Jake and I planned a spaghetti dinner for the football players. Brady and LJ are two of the littlest guys on the team but both are crazy intense! :) These guys crack me up!

9/28 – Finalizing a presentation that I’d be doing at the University of Utah the following day on resumes, the job search and LinkedIn.

9/29 – Flat tire, ugh! Luckily I noticed it as soon as I pulled out of the garage and even luckier Jake was able to come and change it for me. ;) I’m a little spoiled but he’d rather do it than have me worry about it.

9/30 – BINGO! A new game we’ve been playing the car. Anytime you see a yellow car you shout Bingo. The object is to get five Bingo’s to be the winner, but as we’re a highly competitive family it tends to get heated and we abandon the game within minutes. We’ve gotten better though so now we can play without yelling and arguing about who saw it first. ;)

All Star

2011-09-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s our final sketch our guest sketch artist Amy Sheffer! They have been fun and a little challenging with all those layers, but it’s been a fun challenge!

Don’t forget we also have these talented ladies joining her; our guest DT members: Cristina Kowalczyk, Chan Vuong, Nicole Mullan, Vanessa Menhorn and Amber Daigre!

Here’s the sketch we’re working with this week!

I pulled out my somewhat neglected set, All Star to make this football card.

My son is in his first year of football and their colors are blue and yellow so it was super easy to create a text background with the words from this set in alternating colors! The football was heat embossed in white and some ribbon and bakers twine were some quick accents for the other layers.

Be sure to visit the rest of the SSD team and our guests for their fabulous creations!

Jennifer Ingle
Joann Valderama
Karen Baker
Katie Gehring
Shannon Teubner
Stephanie Mino
Taylor Usry
Wendy Price
Wendy Jordan

Witching you!

2011-09-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s time for another SSD sketch challenge!

Our guest sketch artist Amy Sheffer has another fabulous sketch for you to try out! Don’t forget we also have these talented ladies joining her; our guest DT members: Cristina Kowalczyk, Chan Vuong, Nicole Mullan, Vanessa Menhorn and Amber Daigre!

Here’s the sketch we’re working with this week!

Last week there were so many layers that I took a really clean and simple approach to this weeks sketch.

The DT is using Halloweenie this week and here’s my take on the sketch along with this set! To really highlight the sentiment, I stamped the witch hat in gray and colored the band in with a Copic marker. The sentiment was stamped over top to go with the theme. I love the simplicity of this card and the use of the orange color that gives it that extra pop.

Be sure to visit the rest of the SSD team and our guests for their fabulous creations!

Jennifer Ingle
Joann Valderama
Karen Baker
Katie Gehring
Shannon Teubner
Stephanie Mino
Taylor Usry
Wendy Price
Wendy Jordan

Featured Friday–Happy Halloweenie!

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s time for Featured Friday at Skipping Stones Design!

All month long Happy Halloweenie is on sale for $12.49! The DT will be showcasing this versatile set next week with our weekly sketch challenge, and I also have an opportunity to share a fun project with you today for our Featured Friday post!

Halloweenie is a great set for making kids treats or sending out Halloween cards, but did you know you can also make a fall/harvest card with this set? Combine it with Everyday Blessings and you’ve got a perfect match!

Here’s the close-up I shared on the SSD Blog.

This sketch may look familiar to you. This month SSD is sponsoring SFYTT and I used this sketch as my starting point. The little pumpkins are found in Halloweenie and both sets of leaves and the sentiment are from Everyday Blessings. Combining these two gave me the perfect fall/thankful card without going in a Halloween direction!

I love looking at my stamp sets in a whole new way and maximizing every single stamp in each set! Are there any stamps in your collection that could use a little repurposing or some extra attention? I know I’ll be looking at my stamps a little more closely!

Make sure to play along with the current SFYTT challenge if you haven’t already!

Trick or Tuna!

2011-09-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Sketch Challenge 93 and the release of Holiday Cats! If you just came from Amy's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today, start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers’ blogs. This month we are welcoming Nicole Mullan, Amber Daigre, Cristina Kowalczyk, Vanessa Menhorn and Chan Vuong to our team as Guest Designers! Amy Sheffer will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop!

Here’s the card I created for the upcoming holiday! Holiday Cats not only has some birthday and Christmas sentiments, but also has an image and sentiment just for Halloween! I combined this set with Halloweenie and loved pairing and older set with a newer one for some new fun uses!

The cat was stamped and colored in with colored pencils. The pumpkin was paper pieced, and then the witches hat (minus the spider web) was stamped from Halloweenie and paper pieced to top the kitty off. The pumpkin and spiders are also from Halloweenie, and the sentiment is from Holiday Cats. Halloweenie is a the featured set this month so is on sale for only $12.49!

This is the sketch this week and is definitely open to any interpretation you come up with! I’d love to see your take on it!

Head over to Taylor's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration!

Project 365–August

2011-09-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Once again I find myself a full month behind on posting my 365 pictures! Taking them is definitely easier than posting them all, ha!

August seemed to race by and I’m still stunned it’s September! Definitely going to set some time aside this weekend to play some catch up around here!

8/1 – Football try-outs! This would begin a long month of practices and gives me a small glimpse into the future.

8/2 – This is our fish, Fin. Or Finn, or Phineas (Phineas and Ferb anyone?) depending on which family member you ask. Fin is a beta that we received during the one year memorial service for my besties husband. Mel had these as centerpieces and she had everyone take home a fish that evening. I always think of her when I’m feeding the fish or just watching him swim around. Love that girl and I’m so proud of her for all she’s done in this year.

8/3 – This cracks me up! Brady in the red jersey (Jake’s old hs one!) is chest bumping with his best friend Taylor after they got done doing a tackle drill. These boys are too funny!

8/4 – Ryker loves hanging out with Gwynie during her summer break! He loves to wake her up in the morning and then hang out with her during the day. She wasn’t too thrilled about the wake up call this morning!

8/5 – Jake and I had a Friday afternoon lunch date to spend some time together. We went to Café Trio and had this incredible appetizer. It’s the Rosemary Flatbread with goat cheese, roasted peppers, caramelized onions and tomatoes. Delish!

8/6 – Poor Brady got a bee sting and even though we removed the stinger his hand was still swollen for a day or two. It didn’t seem to bother him and while the picture doesn’t depict the true case his hand was so puffy and fat it made us laugh. ;)

8/7 – I’d received a box of stamp goodies but in the rush of Fri/Sat I’d taken it down to my craft room and had them forgotten to open it until Sunday! I never do that, ha! Inside was two copies of a magazine I’d had a published card in, and some fun supplies!

8/8 – Oh the Legos! This is not even a third of Gwynie’s Legos! She loves to build random things and I love to see that creative spark. Dumping them all out is the only way to find that perfect piece, right?

8/9 – Just a cool shot of the moon out while watching Brady’s football practice. It has always been so fascinating to me that you can see the moon when it’s still light outside…love it!

8/10 – Ryker’s first puppy class at PetSmart! As you can see he’s still adjusting to the whole leash idea and spent the first half of class barking at every dog when he NEVER barks. I was a little surprised to say the least…We worked on sit, “watch me” and clicking and rewarding when they do something right. Really hoping the next 6 weeks go well!

8/11 – My pretty little puppy. He has the most beautiful blue eyes and I love watching him.

8/12 – Look at this kid! My sweet little baby is a tough quarterback! He feels super tough in his skull bandana!

8/13 – Hanging with my bestie Brooke for a little dinner and drinks! It was so good to catch up and just talk. I love summer nights like this! Kristoph’s is a great place for martini’s! Best drink of the night is the one pictured, the Flirtini!

8/14 – Making a little video for Jake for our 10 year wedding anniversary!

8/15 – Little Gwynie, the drama queen! She had to get four shots to go into junior high so it was a trip to the doctor’s office for us and this was the before shot. You would have thought she was having a black market kidney removed the way she acted when they brought the shots out! She bawled and cried and cracked me up…ha! I didn’t dare take a pic of her crying during the actual shots!

8/16 – Happy 10 year anniversary! Jake was so thoughtful with my flowers! I had roses, calla lilies, daisies and sweet peas in my wedding bouquet which he duplicated in this arrangement! They were so beautiful and made my office smell incredible! So thankful to have such an incredible husband! Here’s to the next 50!

8/17 – Registration day at the junior high! The day that seriously tried my patience, too! I had left my checkbook at the house and they didn’t accept debit cards so I had to run back home. They were repaving our roads so I had to park and walk a few blocks back to my house to get my checkbook to then go back to the school to finish up. Finally got her schedule and locker (after another ordeal, ahhh!) and had a happy little camper all ready to start school. She may be ready but I am so not ready to have a 7th grader!!

8/18 – Organizing and de-cluttering is like therapy for my soul. I love to get rid of things that are taking up/wasting space or aren’t necessary, etc. It just feels good to toss stuff like that! Imagine my surprise when I found some super old coloring books that I was ready to toss. I figured out I colored this page around 2004…that feels like a lifetime ago, ha!

8/19 – Jake took Gwynie to Orientation so she could get to know the school and find all her classes on the first day. They have a split A/B day schedule (this is soooo foreign to me!) and the school has 1250 kids (7th-9th) enrolled for this year so it was important that she could navigate it all. She had a great time!

8/20 – Anniversary dinner! Jake and I went to The Melting Pot for dinner, our first time ever there. It was incredible and I know we’ll be back. I could go on and on about the food, but what I loved most was a long and leisurely dinner with my cute husband. No interruptions, no distractions…just us. And a big pot of cheese, that too was really nice. ;)

8/21 – Last minute school shopping! We hit all her favorite stores…Aero, Old Navy, Rue 21…and a couple others. At the end of it all she ended up with four pairs of jeans, a pair of shorts, 8 shirts and a cute pair of black flats all for about $150. There were some great sales going on!

8/22 – FIRST DAY OF JUNIOR HIGH!!!!! Ahhh just typing that freaks me out! I can’t believe she is really in 7th grade. She was “asked out” by three different boys in three of her different classes the first day. I am scared. This girl is too cute for her own good. PS – Check out her little self…she is 12 and still wearing size 10 jeans and shirts…ahhahaha she kills me!

8/23 – Hanging out up at the U! (The University of Utah that is!) School is back in session and the Recruiting team and coaches spent today and the following day doing a tent for Welcome Week and then a job fair. This was supposed to be a funny pose, but I think we missed the mark, haha.

8/24 – During puppy class our trainer’s brother brought a little chameleon to class. He’d just purchased it at a local pet store and wanted to show it to her. It was itty bitty but super chubby! It was too cute!

8/25 – Brady got the decals for his helmet today and also a badge for me to wear to his games. It has his picture on the front, and on the back has all the kids on his team with their names and numbers so we know who to yell for on the field during the games. He was so excited, but always pulls this serious face when we’re doing any football pics.

8/26 – Ok, the ONE football pic where he’s not serious because he was ECSTATIC that they got their jerseys today! They’d been sent off to be embroidered and he was so happy to show me HIS jersey! :)

8/27 – First football game, but technically not. This was a fundraiser game for the teams. They lost but still had so much fun! This is the beginning of the game with the coaches and team captains for the coin toss. Notice Jake and Brady standing together? ;)

8/28 – When working down in my craft room the cat and dog usually decide to join me at some point during the day. Today they finally seemed to be getting along but maybe because they were just tired. ;)

8/29 – My cheater’s dinner – open can of chow mein mix, heat up and server over noodles, ha! So weird to see the noodles in a can I remember growing up when they came in a bag. It took me a few minutes at the store trying to find the noodles!

8/30 – Happy belated Father’s Day Jake! Jake finally got his Boston Red Sox B! Not only is this for Boston, but also for our B, Brady! It is really (very) large to me, but honestly he has such huge calves from all his sports so in person it does fit and look right on his leg. He loves it though so that’s all that matters to me. :)

8/31 – Jake’s badge for football (sooo serious what is up with that?!). He was just going to be a helpful parent for practices, but was asked by the league president to help coach Brady’s team and to get badged so he could be on the field. We love our busy lives, we love our busy lives, we love our busy lives…. ;)

Coffee Love

2011-09-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Oh coffee, that sweet wake up in the morning. It’s pretty common knowledge among my co-workers and FB friends that Jake occasionally brings me coffee to the office in the mornings. We work for the same company, in the same building and he usually gets in before I do. So he will stop and grab me a Starbucks latte and have it sitting on my desk as a surprise when I come in. I love those mornings. Truly I do.

So what does that have to do with anything? Well, this little card for example is all about some caffeinated love! :) I whipped this up last Friday but didn’t have a chance to post it before we went camping over the weekend.

The sketch from The Sweet Stop and the colors/stripes challenge from Embellish were all I needed to create this in no time. I had a lot of different ideas and directions I wanted to take but ended up going a simple route with some of my favorite stamps.

The base is stamped with the circular image from Garden Kiss, the coffee cup is from Coffee Vol 1 and the diamond pattern is from Pumpkin Seed Sentiments. The stripes tie in is the patterned paper on the coffee cup, and I thought the colors were perfect with coffee and little heart.

Miss You!

2011-09-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for another SSD sketch! Sure feels like a Monday after that long and relaxing weekend we had though!

This week we’re joined by an all NEW team and brand new guests for the month of September. Ok actually typing that out slightly freaks me out a little how fast this summer/whole year has flown by. ;)

This month the guest sketch artist is Amy Sheffer, and joining her is our guest DT members: Cristina Kowalczyk, Chan Vuong, Nicole Mullan, Vanessa Menhorn and Amber Daigre! Talk about a crazy talented group right?!

Here is our first sketch and I will admit to being a little stumped at first by what I wanted to do because there were so many possibilities. I finally decided on just a simple approach (my go-to thing lately) and then the idea I had just needed to be executed.

So, here is my interpretation of the sketch! Telling a little bit of a story if you will. :)

I loved these colors together and showing this little lonely balloon with the “Miss You” sentiment (although sad) made me grin that the idea worked. The balloons, sun and hills are from Uplifting and the sentiment is from Victorian Summer.

Be sure to visit the rest of the SSD team and our guests for their fabulous creations!

Jennifer Ingle
Joann Valderama
Karen Baker
Katie Gehring
Shannon Teubner
Stephanie Mino
Taylor Usry
Wendy Price
Wendy Jordan

You make my heart sing

2011-09-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

I was so excited to see the challenges posted by The Play Date Café and CAS-ual Fridays! The themes are similar (black, white and red colors) and the twist is a “splash” of red at PDC and “read” all over at CF to incorporate books and reading for National Literacy day on 9/8. (Prescheduling this as we’re still out camping!)

One thing about me, I LOVE books. I absolutely love reading. (Check out my reading lists in my top bar from the past couple years.) In first grade I got in trouble for my sloppy handwriting because I would rush though my homework so I could go to the reading square. I also got in trouble for using colored pencils on my homework. I justified it because it was a pencil and it was colorful and pretty. My brainiac nerdy self won though because my grades, yes even as a firstie, were pretty important to me and while I now have nice handwriting (thanks Mrs. Reynolds), I still retained my love of books and colors. ;)

Which brings me to my post today. I had no idea what I wanted to do for this card, ha! After mulling it over for a little while I realized that the colors are just like the Twilight book covers. It then dawned on me that I have the ultimate Twilight stamp set Fangs or Fur by SSD! I also knew that I had to have just a splash of red so I didn’t want to over power the design with too much red so that it would be fair and work for both challenges, which is pretty coincidental.

Ok, talky talk aside…here is my card!

So I would have done some things differently. I am still going back and forth on stamping the Edward/Bella stamp over the music notes. I kept thinking about doing a mask so they showed through, but then just didn’t do it for whatever reason, ha. The ribbon though was the tie in from another book cover, and the reason for the music notes is from Edward’s lullaby he wrote for Bella. Sentiment and notes are from Heartsong and sheet music is from Timeless Textures.

So here are the great inspirations from this card! I love the book idea challenge and may have to visit this one again!

May all your wishes come true…

2011-09-03T10:57:00.001-06:00

Instead of packing last night for our camping trip (which we’ll leave for after football games this afternoon) I played around in my studio for a few hours! My fellow (new!) SSD DT Member Taylor is the hostess for the SCS sketch challenge and I loved her fun sketch so I knew I had to play along! This is my second post for today so be sure to scroll down for my SFYTT post that SSD is sponsoring!

I have been doing a lot of CAS (clean and simple) stamping lately and this one is no exception. The images are from the Skipping Stones Designs Dandelion Dreams stamp set. I heat embossed in white the dandelion and then the little flurry thingies. Seriously can’t think what those should be called, ha! I asked Jake and he said “wishes” haha love that guy!

Anyway, a little ribbon and a large white grommet thing from a pack I purchased awhile ago from SU and never got around to using completed the simple details. The sentiment was stamped in Marina Mist and with the “wishes” blowing away the sentiment ties in. :)

Here’s a look at Taylor’s sketch!

I loved the colors from the SPCC color combo this week, and although I don’t have these new colors I substituted to mimic the bright colors that I loved!

Well, it’s off to football (ok to be honest I’m in the car typing this up using my air card!) and then to finish up all our camping stuff. I’m working on a few posts for next week from my card making spree last night so while the boys are warming up I can keep myself occupied. ;)

Have a great holiday weekend!

SFYTT Sponsorship!

2011-09-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

This month SSD is sponsoring SFYTT (Sketch For You To Try) at Jen del Muro’s blog! The new team is participating and I’m excited to see what everyone has come up with!

I decided to use last month’s release Everyday Blessings for a little fallish type card but with a fun color combo. This sketch is fabulous for mixing and matching colors!

Here’s my take on this sketch! I used a color combo of pumpkin pie, regal rose, pretty in pink, crumb cake and chocolate chip and had a blast picking out papers and stamps to bring this sketch to life. All the stamps (bird, leaf and sentiment) are in Everyday Blessings, and I love how they work so beautifully together!

I’d love to see your take on this fun sketch so be sure to join us all month long! I’ll be back later this month with another take on this sketch and a special SSD set!

You’re Amazing!

2011-09-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

I’m so excited to share some fun news today! I’m staying on as a DT Member for Skipping Stones Design for the next term! I have loved working with these stamps and couldn’t imagine not playing with them so I am thrilled that Heather and Wendy J. want to have me around some more!

I created a little card for the occasion, to show my appreciation for the new team and the new girls…they are amazing! The peacock flower and sentiment are from Victorian Summer and I used a rainbow affect to reinstate the “amazing” sentiment. We are all amazing in our own way and different colors make up the rainbow which is beautiful! :)

I’m so lucky to be included in this group! I have stepped down as the DT Coordinator, but I am so excited to have Wendy Jordan leading the team as the new DT Coordinator with Jennifer Ingle supporting her as the Assistant DT Coordinator! These ladies are fabulous and I know they will be incredible in these roles!

Here’s a look at the new team!

Shannon Massney Teubner

Taylor Usry

Wendy Price

Wendy Jordan

Again, so thrilled to be working with these fabulous ladies!

Happy Birthday!

2011-09-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

I found some time this weekend to play along with a few challenges and the color/flower embossing challenge from Embellish was one of them!

I really wanted to keep it clean and focus on the embossing of the flowers. I forgot to snap close-up of the embossed flowers, but I used my new Wild Wasabi embossing powder on each of flowers to make them pop off the page.

The twine was my tie in to the kraft color and I loved the simplicity I achieved with it. The stamps are from Dandelion Dreams (one of my absolute favorite sets!) and the sentiment is from Sentiment Frames.

Here’s a look at the colors and the theme for the challenge!

Feelin’ the heat….

2011-08-31T06:00:00.000-06:00

I realize it’s still August (that all changes tomorrow, crazy!) and while I am seriously not ready for winter, I wouldn’t mind to get a little cool down with some fall weather. So I must have had some cooler weather on the mind when I saw the colors for the latest CR84FN challenge!

I pulled out my Brrrthday set for the gorgeous snowflakes, and used a sentiment from a new upcoming SSD stamp set! I used Grey as my neutral, and white of course since I think that is a given. ;)

The snowflakes were stamped in the upper half and then the bottom was layered with squares of cardstock and topped with a vellum strip. I heat embossed white for the sentiment and adhered with the white brads.

Definitely think I would love to do another take on this color combo!

Happy Birthday Dad!

2011-08-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to another Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday! This is our last sketch by Teri Anderson for the month of August and we’ve had so much fun with her great sketches!

This week we have another fun graphic-type sketch! The fun thing is that you can really make these circles anything you want them to be and give it a different take.

Here’s how I interpreted this sketch. I combined Grunge with Tough Guy for this guy friendly card.

The diamond plate, wood grain and “happy birthday” are found in Grunge, and the “dad” sentiment is from Tough Guy. The background was embossed with the Distressed Sizzix embossing plate. To make the denim piece I took a bashful blue cardstock circle and swiped my Not Quite Navy ink pad vertically and then horizontally to give it that denim look.

Make sure to check out the SSD blog for the rest of the team and our guests’ cards!

I’m Always Here For You

2011-08-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

It was a good weekend for crafting and I pulled out Victorian Summer for this fun little card!

I stamped the large flower onto pink and then vanilla, crumpled and then layered the vanilla center. The peacock feather is from the same set and it was such a fun little accent to add along with the stick pins and buttons.

I embossed the vanilla cardstock after stamping the sentiment for a little extra texture. The satin ribbon and lace trim really pulled everything together!

I loved playing along with this gorgeous color combo from The Play Date Cafe!

Tomorrow is another sketch Tuesday with SSD so come back tomorrow!

Final Day of Blogs 4 Boobies & sketch 90!

2011-08-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone!

Today is the reveal of sketch 90 by our ever so talented Guest Sketch Artist, Teri Anderson, but is also the last day of Blogs 4 Boobies! Please see the bottom of this post for B4B info!

Here’s our cool sketch for this week! Isn’t this a fun one?!

It was such a fun sketch and I had a hundred thoughts going through my head with this one, but finally settled for this simple design. Still not sure how much I love the final result as the one in my head look better. ;) Anyway, I used a technique to color in the bird and branch that I hadn’t used in a while. I shaded with SU colored pencils and then smoothed over with a Blender Pen. Such a quick way to add a little color without too much work…my kind of technique!

Make sure to check out the SSD Blog for the rest of the girls’ creations!

It’s the final day of Blogs 4 Boobies, but there is still time to bid on my project and prize set! The current bid is at $35.00! The auction will end at 8:00 p.m. Mountain time TODAY.

TO PLACE A BID you may leave a comment in the section of THIS post. You must include your EMAIL ADDRESS with your $ bid. ( This way we can get in contact with the winning bidder.)

Here’s a reminder of what you are bidding on!

Now, not only are you bidding on this set of cards, but you’ll also be rewarded for your winning bid! The photo below shows the prizes I’m also donating to up the ante!

Remember 100% of what you bid will go to the Komen foundation!!! If you are the top bidder you will receive a paypal invoice for the amount that you bid.

There is also still time to shop! Through midnight on the 23rd of August Skipping Stones Design is still donating $2 (to the Komen Foundation) for every stamp set sold.

Happy bidding and shopping!

Blogs 4 Boobies–Update!

2011-08-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

There is still time to join in on the fun(draising) for Blogs 4 Boobies!

There are two ways you can help:

#1 There is still time to bid on my project and prize set! The current bid is at $35.00! The auction will end at 8:00 p.m. Mountain time August 23rd. I will be back tomorrow to remind/update you on where the bid is at and take final bids.

TO PLACE A BID you may leave a comment in the section of THIS post. You must include your EMAIL ADDRESS with your $ bid. ( This way we can get in contact with the winning bidder.)

Here’s a reminder of what you are bidding on!

Now, not only are you bidding on this set of cards, but you’ll also be rewarded for your winning bid! The photo below shows the prizes I’m also donating to up the ante!

Remember 100% of what you bid will go to the Komen foundation!!! If you are the top bidder you will receive a paypal invoice for the amount that you bid.

And #2 - There is still time to shop! Through midnight on the 23rd of August Skipping Stones Design is still donating $2 (to the Komen Foundation) for every stamp set sold.

Happy bidding and shopping!

Blogs 4 Boobies!

2011-08-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

IT'S TIME TO STAMP OUT CANCER!!!!

Welcome to the second annual Blogs 4 Boobies fundraiser!

This is day three of a three day blog bounce (hop) where EVERY CARD OR PROJECT is up for auction!

Last year with your help Skipping Stones Design raised and donated $1108.99 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. It is our goal to raise $1500 this year and WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! There are three ways you can join in on the fun(draising)! (See below!)

You should have arrived from Stephanie's blog and your next stop will be to Wendy P's blog along the blog bounce!

For my contribution this year I whipped up a set of cards for you! This card set uses Everyday Blessings, Sentiment Frames and Garden Stamp Kiss!

Now, not only are you bidding on this set of cards, but you’ll also be rewarded for your winning bid! The photo below shows the prizes I’m also donating to up the ante!

So, what do you do to bid (and win!) on this card set and the prize? Take a look below for all the info! Also, pass the word along and check out the other designers from all three days.

1. You can help by going shopping!

For every stamp set that you purchase during August 15th through the 23rd SSD will donate $2 to the Komen Foundation. Stamping and shopping that you can feel good about !

2. You can help by *Biding!

Another way you can help us raise money for the Komen Foundation is to *bid on a project or card along the blog bounce(hop). YES! EVERY single card/project along the blogs for boobies bounce is up for auction. We recommend a starting bid of $5 or more. Your *Bid not only includes the card or project but shipping to your home as well. * See how to place a bid for more detailed instructions.

If you are the highest bidder August 23rd 8:00 p.m. mountain time then you WIN the card/project that you bid on.

3. You can help by Telling Your Friends

Help us spread the word about "blogs 4 boobies" the more people that know, the more money we can raise!!!

If you have a blog feel free to copy and paste part or all of our Blogs 4 Boobies posts.

*"How to place a bid on a card/project"

Step #1

Find the comment section of the blog that shows the "Blogs 4 boobies" card or project that you want to buy. *Please note you may only bid on the card/project shown in the specific "blogs 4 boobies" post. *Any bids not placed on the correct post will be considered invalid.

Step #2

Once you are in the "blogs 4 boobies" comment section fill in the dollar and cents amount of what you are willing to pay for the card/project. We recommend a starting bid of $5 or more. Remember your bid includes shipping as well as the card/or project. 100% of the money your bid will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation

Step #3

Next to your $ bid please type in your email address. During a silent auction bidders sign their name next to their bid. Typing your email address is the electronic equivalent of signing your bid. Also, it will help the blogger contact you if you are the highest bidder.

Step #4

Watch and wait. Once you have entered your bid/comment sit back and wait. If someone out bids you then you may bid again. Bidding will continue until 8:00 p.m. Mountain time August 23rd

* Please note that the participating stampers/bloggers will probably re-post their Blogs 4 Boobies card/project on the 23rdof August. When the blogger re-post their project then the bidding will continue on the NEWEST post and that comment section.

"What do I do once I place a bid"

Watch and Wait

The "Winner of the Auction" will be the highest bid (that includes an email address) in the comment section of the MOST RECENT blogs 4 boobies post at the end of the silent auction. Please note that ALL cards/projects WILL BE REPOSTED on the 23rd of August. The silent auction will end at 8:00 p.m. Mountain Time on August 23rd .

Things to keep in mind:

Near the end of the bidding you may not see bids as they come in. Most blogs have a comment feature where the blogger must approve comments before they are published. So bid high. You might have the highest bid that is published, but someone might have outbid you in an unpublished comment/bid.

The blogger/designer will declare who has won the silent auction. Skipping Stones Design will send you an invoice for your donation/bid amount. Please pay that invoice as soon as possible, so the designer can get your card/project in the mail to you.

Remember 100% of your bid will be donated to the Susan G. Komen foundation.

Here is the list of today's participants: make sure to check out Day 1 and 2 participants for more amazing designers,cards, and projects.

Day #3:

Rae Ann Barthel: http://simplyrae.blogspot.com/

Karen Baker: http://thebalddragonfly.blogspot.com/

Pam Hornschu: http://1pamperedstamper.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Ingle: http://justjingle.blogspot.com/

Ria Johnson: http://craftyria.blogspot.com/

Mel McCarthy: http://melstampz.blogspot.com/

Stephanie Mino: http://stephaniemino.blogspot.com/

Kandi Phillips: http://kraftykandikrafts.blogspot.com/

Wendy Price: http://paperinkandsmiles.blogspot.com/

Julia Stainton: http://bellepapier.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/

Taylor Usry http://taylorusry.blogspot.com/

Be sure to check out the other amazing designers from the past two days:

Day #2:

Teri Anderson http://terisplace.wordpress.com/

Ashley Cannon Newell http://ashleynewell.com/blog/

Karen Christensen http://busybusyhoneybee.wordpress.com/

Jodi Collins http://stampingalatte.blogspot.com/

Kimberly Crawford http://kimberly-crawford.blogspot.com/

Jen Del Muro http://iheart2stamp.com/

Katie Gehring http://katiegehring.blogspot.com/

Vanessa Menhorn http://wingsofabutterfly-vanessa.blogspot.com/

Kryssi Ng http://sugar-buffet.blogspot.com/

Taylor Usry http://taylorusry.blogspot.com/

Sankari Wegman http://sunnysankari.blogspot.com/

Day #1:

PaperCrafts Connections Blog (Renae Curtz): http://www.papercraftsconnection.com/

Deb Felts: http://withastampandasong.blogspot.com/

Michelle Giraud: http://twisted-chick.blogspot.com/

Michelle Gross: http://studiomsg.blogspot.com/

Wendy Jordan: http://papertherapy-wendy.blogspot.com/

Sarah Martina Parker: http://sarahmartina.com/blog/

Becky Olsen: http://lifeasathreeleggeddog.blogspot.com/

Barb Turpin: http://barbsboys123.blogspot.com/

Taylor Usry:http://taylorusry.blogspot.com/

Brenda Weaver: http://sweetpapertreats.wordpress.com/

Have fun bouncing from blog to blog. Enjoy all the designs, and make a bid or two! This is a rare opportunity to take home a card(s)/project from your favorite designer, and fight the war against breast cancer!

Together we can make a difference!

Happy 10 Year Anniversary…

2011-08-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Today is not only a blog hop release day for Skipping Stones Design, but it also happens to be my 10 year anniversary! 10 years ago today I married my best friend and I’m so lucky to have him in my life.

Welcome to Sketch Challenge 89 and the release of Everyday Blessings! If you just came from Karen's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today, start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers’ blogs. This month we are welcoming Karen Baker, Maureen Plut, Stephanie Mino and Kryssi Ng to our team as Guest Designers! Teri Anderson will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the sketch we're using in today's hop!

I chose to interpret this sketch as if it were a polaroid and I thought adding a picture would be a great touch for my anniversary card to Jake. I cut the photo as a 3x3 and mounted it to a 3x4 piece of white cardstock. A little cork and a clip completed the look of a polaroid picture on a corkboard! I really wanted it to be simple and work for a masculine card without frills and love how this turned out!

The sentiment is from Everyday Blessings…love this versatile set!

Now, I only highlighted the sentiment with my sketch card, so I thought I would also share two other cards I made using this awesome set. You can see some of the main images like the berry wreath and the two birds along with some of the sentiments. This set is so great for those fall/gratitude cards you’ll be making in the coming months!

For your next stop on the hop, please head over to Barb's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration!

PS – Tomorrow is Day 3 of the Blogs for Boobies Bounce (hop), so come back tomorrow for my little contribution!

PPS - I put together a little video for Jake to celebrate today. It’s fun to look back on all the good times we’ve shared and the amazing memories we’ve created. Happy anniversary to my love and best friend. <3

Happy Anniversary Jake!

Music credits: Adele – Make You Feel My Love, New Found Glory – Too Good To Be, Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer – Grow Old With You

Project 365–July

2011-08-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

Time for more photos! Whew! I will be glad when I’m caught up again, haha! It is a lot more work to do it all at once vs. just once a week…I have learned my lesson. ;)

Here is July!

7/1 - 2nd annual 4th of July weekend trip to Manti, UT! We had a giant blow up screen so the kids could watch movies and we could play Dance Central! Talk about a blast!

7/2 - Yummmm....pig for dinner! Muchas gracias to Ed Cable for preparing this feast. I still dream about that pig...

7/3 - It's a rare sight, but I sort of have nails in this photo. All clean after a weekend camping and I'm somewhat impressed that I'm not "eating" my nails as Gwynie calls it.

7/4 - Lamest 4th of July photo ever, ha. We were all so beat and we'd already had our fireworks show in Manti so we just watched them from our front window.

7/5 - Gwynie's leaving on a jet plane! Ok not really, just a three day camping trip with school to Millhollow! She had a blast and loved it!

7/6 - We welcomed a new addition to the family! After much debate (and pleading by Brady) we bought Ryker, a 3 month old Siberian Husky.

7/7 - Roxy does not like Ryker. She spends the majority of her day on top of the cabinets when he is around.

7/8 - Gwynie's home from camp and is exhausted! Looks like Ryker was ready to get to know her and spend some quality snuggle time together.

7/9 - Went to my friend Sharon's for a bbq and introduced Ryker to Sadie. They will be best friends too! ;)

7/10 - Ryker lays on the floor when drinking his water. Not sure why, but it cracks us up every single time!

7/11 - My sushi making class! I was named the best roller/sushi maker in class it was so cool! Loved eating what I made after too!

7/12 - Making brownies with the kids! They love to help mix it all up and then eating it is even better!

7/13 - Was a little freaked out by this but of course had to grab my camera. Freaky little spider on my hutch...ugh.

7/14 - Brady and Jake use Axe...it gets the girls. (Just ask Brady)

7/15 - A busy and stressful week for me, but it was all better when I came home Friday to these pretty flowers!

7/16 - Happy birthday Payton! This little girl is the absolute cutest and it has been so fun watching her grow this year!

7/17 - Super hot day so a visit to the pool was in order!

7/18 - My first time wrapping an ankle! Jake said I did a good job as he walked me through the process and that it felt good while he was playing softball.

7/19 - Hmm good thing there are no evil cats in our house!

7/20 - Brady's medals from the past two years. There are a few that need to be added, but it's crazy to look at all of these!

7/21 - Some of Gwynie's favorite Sims games and her Twilight movies. She was watching New Moon so it's not in the group, ha.

7/22 - My friend Sharon took Brady to a motocross event at Rocky Mountain Raceways. He had so much fun!

7/23 - 1 year memorial for Seth McDonald. Love these two girls.

7/24 - Our first trip geocaching! We found five that day, it was a great gamily outing!

7/25 - Some of my browsing history. ;) I have been majorly sucked into Doctor Who and have been watching all the episodes on Netflix.

7/26 - Brady's first day of school!

7/27 - Cleaning out some things in Gwynie's room to send to the DI.

7/28 - Snow cones and a gift certificate for a carwash! Love my job! Thanks CLEARLINK!

7/29 - Some new sheets and comforters for the kids!

7/30 - Opening ceremonies for Corporate Games! Great day and a great start to the games!

7/31 - Jake scored some new beds for the kids and started painting Gwynie's this weekend!

Lifting you up…

2011-08-14T18:11:00.001-06:00

Felt the urge to create a simple card today and was inspired by two challenges.

I think there is something so soothing about purple and sympathy cards. This sentiment from Uplifting by Skipping Stones Design and the flowers from Poppy Bottles by Stampendous were the perfect fit combined together with this purple color scheme. A quick and easy card but I love the simplicity!

The sketch was based on the Casual Friday sketch challenge and the purple combo is from the Purple Challenge by SP & Co.

Friendships like ours…

2011-08-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

I can’t tell you how fun it was to make this card and get back into the swing of things! :)

It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve made a card…ok it almost has been ages! I felt super rusty and just stared at all my stamps and supplies (for almost 3 hours I kid you not) until I just said enough was enough and put this together. Hoping to get back into the groove soon!

We have the fabulous Teri Anderson as our Sketch Artist this month and here’s this week’s fun sketch we have to work with this week!

I took my color inspiration from this delish photo I found on Pinterest.

I used Sassy Shoes to make this fun friendship card! I haven’t used this sentiment before and thought it would be be great to send off to a fabbie friend.

Make sure you take a look at the rest of the team and our Guests!

Project 365: June

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Well….I have not updated my Project 365 since June 5th and that was up through 6/4, oops! I’m now over two months behind in sharing, wow!

I wasn’t sure the best way to share all of these since there are so many, but decided I’ll do all of June now, and July later on this week. :)

(For previous 365 posts, you can click here to view.)

6-5 – What’s better than running through the sprinklers on a hot summers day?!

6-6 – A little snack…Columbia wine and delish strawberries!

6-7 – A team lunch at The Copper Onion. They have the best burgers! I normally don’t order burgers during lunches, but this one was incredible!

6- 8 – This is what happens when your husband the IT guy at work changes your background…funny honey. I’d been on a Jem kick and was watching episodes each night that were DVR’d earlier in the day, fun times.

6-9 – Some days you just have to have two cookies, and today was one of those days. I am a sucker for Subway cookies.

6-10 – Cammie and I tried out a “new to us restaurant” called The Tin Angel. Nice way to finish off my Friday afternoon!

6-11 – CLEARLINK Cares Family Project! Our CEO challenged our CL family to step up and help out others in need. Joey was moving and needed help in this effort so Jake and I went up to help out and had a great time!

6-12 – Taken on my cell phone so not the best, but a humming bird had built it’s nest in my in-laws garage! It was so teeny but so cool looking!

6-13 – Late night softball game at 9:00 pm. Hard to believe there will be games at 10:00…

6-14 – A running joke in our family, Jake signed Gwynie’s school planner and then signed as “Hobo Jones.” I thought it as hilarious because of our joke (but hindsight not the best idea) and Gwynie was mildly chagrined.

6-15 – The building crew was washing all the blinds at work so it was strange to see my office without any blinds!

6-16 – On our way to the Summer Games in Cedar we stopped at this quaint café that had this train system built all the way through it. Brady was in heaven!

6-17 – Both Jake and Brady placed during the first day of Summer Games! Jake took 1st in Greco and Freestyle, and Brady took 1st in Freestyle (no one his age/weight for Greco). It was a great first day!

6-18 – Brady wrestling Folkstyle at the Summer Games. He ended up taking 2nd in his bracket!

6-19 – I felt the urge to be a little domestic and found an easy Peach Cobbler recipe (recipe here) to make for dessert. It was so good al a mode!

6-20 – Brady is fascinated with Tech Decks. He was looking up boards and adding his favorite board to his “collection” which reminded me of Pinterest, ha.

6-21 – Happy birthday to my amazing Gwynie girl! I did a special birthday post for her and still can’t believe she is already 12. We have a tradition that we take the kids out to dinner (or if they choose Jake will make their favorite dinner) on their actual birthday. We’ve had some random choices over the years and this year Gwynie chose a Chinese buffet. She tried sushi for the first time and seemed to like it!

6-22 – Gwynie’s first eyebrow wax. Before anyone freaks out on me (ha) she asked to do this! I will admit to getting mine done and of course she wanted to start getting hers done now too.

6-23 – This cracks me up. Gwynie’s skinny jeans are the length and circumference of my ARMS!! This girl is tiny but this just kills me.

6-24 – A little DIY project with some black spray paint. (More info later!)

6-25 – Gwynie got to invite friends over for a sleep over and we ordered this GIANT pizza! It was huge and I was pretty proud of the girls for eating almost all of it by the following morning.

6-26 – My special plans for Gwynie’s birthday “day” included a MAC make-up session, lunch and pedicures together. We also had our friends over for a party later that night. Here she is post (minimal) make-up. Cannot believe how grown-up she looks!

6-27 – Ha, these guys crack me up. Both kiddos wrapped up in their blankets eating their cereal. Both too comatose to even say a word until they’ve fully woken up.

6-28 – Gwynie asked for French Braids before bed time. It’s been ages since she’s wanted braids so I’m a little rusty. Like at least 4 years rusty…really. Surprised me she wanted them, but she liked them and requested them a few days in a row.

6-29 – Gwynie got to go to Classic Skating for an end of school trip. She got these shades there and calls them her “Lady Gaga” glasses. They are mostly see through from the little screened holes and seem a tad ridiculous but she loves them.

6-30 – Happy Birthday Great Grandma Lee! Grandma turned 74 and we were all there to celebrate!

Tips and Tricks Thursday–Shaped Cards!

2011-08-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! Today is my turn to share a few tips and tricks using Skipping Stones Design stamps! There have been some great techniques shared recently so I thought I would just share a few tips this time around featuring something I don’t often create – Shaped Cards!

Shaped cards seemed daunting to me at first. How to make it the correct size, how to perfectly cut out intricate details, how to decorate it once I’ve cut out the shape are all questions I’ve pondered. So, for anyone that is ready take that dive into shaped cards, here are a few tips for success!

1. Determine your shape and how to execute it. Electronic die cutting machines like a Cricut or Silhouette quickly and easily make that shape, or templates and even free handing can help get the shape you’re looking for.

2. Can’t get the right size? Mount a smaller card base on the back and align your shape over top. Your card will stand up, but will be prominently a shaped card.

3. Attach two shapes together with a brad in the top or sides to create a “swivel” to reveal the writing inside and add an interactive element.

4. Always practice with inexpensive cardstock before cutting so you don’t waste the good cardstock on trials.

5. Once you have a great shape, save the template and measurements! This way the guess work is all taken out and you can easily recreate that cute stroller, pumpkin or coffee cup card!

For this card I used my Gypsy to weld two cups together to create the shape. Once it was cut out it was super quick to embellish with a few of the stamps from Coffee Vol 1 and tuck a little gift card on the inside.

Here’s a peek at the inside! I know a few friends and co-workers that would love to get this!

Are you inspired to create a shaped card today?! I’d love to see it!

PS – Today is my amazing Momma’s birthday today! Happy birthday Mom! I love you!

One year….

2011-07-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

One year ago today I lost two incredible people.

One year ago today my cousin was killed in an car accident.

One year ago today my bestie lost her husband to suicide.

One year ago today I was numb.

One year ago today I didn’t know what to say.

Today I still grieve. I’m still numb and I still don’t have the right words. It hurts, but I know my pain is only a fraction of what my friend and other family members are feeling.

I wish I had this last year, The Dos and Don'ts of Support After Loss.

I’ve been busy with work and family and life and have not been papercrafting or blogging lately, but I felt it was important to post today. I’m striving for balance and hoping to find ways to make each day count. Spending time with my family and letting those close to me know how special they are has been on my mind a lot this past year. I’m incredibly proud of my friend and my Aunt, Uncle and cousins as they’ve dealt with their losses over the past 12 months.

Today I will hug and kiss my kids and husband.

Today I will remember Seth and Whitney.

Today I will shed a few tears, but I will smile and look forward to a new day and countless memories that will be created.

You’re Amazing

2011-07-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Sketch Challenge 84 and the release of Victorian Summer! If you just came from Jennifer's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today, you can start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Be sure to hop along and leave comments on all the fabulous designers blogs. This month we are welcoming Kim Kesti, Karen Baker and Karen Christensen to our team as Guest Designers! Kim will be providing all the fabulous sketch inspiration this month including the fantastic sketch we're using in today's hop!

Here’s the sketch for this week!

So I took some liberties with this sketch. ;)

Please excuse the horrible photo quality…my light tent and I are having issues, time to upgrade! ;)

I stamped the large medallion onto the card base and then used the rose and sentiment from the set for the main panel. The sentiment stamped in artichoke but doesn’t come through as well here. A little silver glitter glass gave the roses a little more pop. Lace and floss finished it off for a simple but fun card.

Head over to Wendy's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration!

Happy 4th of July!

2011-06-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s time for another Skipping Stones Design Sketch Tuesday!

It’s our final sketch from Latisha Yoast and we’ve loved having her amazing sketches all month long! This week I used Home of the Brave for my card in anticipation of the upcoming holiday.

Here’s the fun sketch we have to work with! I was a little liberal and left of the ribbon at the bottom, and instead used some twine and silver cord for the two panels in the sketch. The fireworks were glitzed up a little with dazzling diamonds.

I was definitely inspired by the colors from The Play Date Cafe!

Here’s hoping your 4th is safe and fun! Make sure to check out the SSD blog to see what the dt and other designers did with the sketch!

Hoping your birthday is as sweet as you!

2011-06-21T06:00:00.000-06:00

Today is SSD sketch challenge 81, and is also my daughter’s birthday! I cannot believe she is 12 today!

Before I get to my card, I just wanted to brag up this cute girl. Or rather, tween as she is definitely becoming with an attitude and sass to boot. ;)

Things I’m not looking forward to: boys, junior high, pre-algebra/geometry (since I’ll have to help her!), puberty, braces…the list goes on and on.

Things I’m looking forward to: ummmmm………………….she can baby-sit! ;)

In honor of her birthday I decided to make my card this week for her. Gwynie’s favorite colors are hot pink and lime green so of course I had to do something similar in color. Here’s the fantastic sketch we have to work with this week!

To create my circle card, I used a circle cutter to cut a white base and folding the top over so when it cut the top intact so it would fold over. A large green circle was cut out to completely cover the base and the folded top. (Hopefully that made sense.)

So with this card….this is what happens when the kids keep ~~disturbing me~~ trying to get my attention and want to hang out with me in my studio, ha. I wanted to mimic a strawberry, but totally flipped the colors and didn’t realize it (duh) until I was almost done making it…hello! The base was supposed to be the Melon Mambo, and the scalloped trim was supposed to be the Old Olive…geesh, kids. ;) All the stamps are from Friendly Fruit.

We’d love to have you join us for our latest sketch challenge! Pop on over to the SSD blog to see what the rest of the DT and our Guests did with this sketch!

And just to indulge myself, I’ve pulled a few pics of Gwynie for her birthday post. She’ll kill me later (it’s that tween thing going on remember?), but for it was fun looking back through these. No baby pics since those are all B/D – before digital – and I’m a little too lazy to scan any of those in right now or go digging for them. Bad mom. ;) But she was the cutest baby ever and I’m so proud of the beautiful lady she’s turning into.

Baby girl, I love you because…..

You love Dad…unconditionally. And because you’re so stinkin cute shooting your bow with your eyes closed.

You sought your own independence at the tender age of 4 and told me you were ready to have your hair cut…clear up to your shoulders!

You love to help out! Whether it’s helping at Great Grandma’s house, doing something for us around the house, or volunteering at school you always make time to help others. You are so compassionate and I hope you continue to keep that heart of gold shiny and new.

You seem to have it all figured out already. I’m concerned that in just two short years you may actually be more mature than I am and smarter than your dad. But we’d never tell you that because we’re the parents and we’re always right. But seriously, I’m worried.

You have the best smile, the funniest laugh and the most perfect little dimple. You and Brady have “twinner” dimples and I am absolutely, utterly and completely smitten when you grin. I love to hear you laugh and occasionally giggle when you’re not trying to be too serious and grown-up. Not looking forward to those braces (blame that small mouth of yours), but you’ll have an even prettier smile once it’s all said and done.

You are the worlds most amazing big sister! Even though Brady gets on your nerves, plays with your things and frustrates you to no end some days, you still make time for him and treat him like your best friend. You help him clean his room, let him hang out in your room and you would do anything for him to make him feel better when he’s sad. You get just as shaky and scared as I do when he’s wrestling and you would beat anyone up that messed with your little brother. You totally love this little dude.

You are such a bookworm! I love that you embraced reading this past year and are reading the YA books I recommend to you. I guess it might be difficult to find age appropriate books for you at your (now) 11th grade reading level, but I’m sure we’ll manage. ;)

You will never remember what it was like to not have a cell phone in the house, much less not having one of your own. You use an iPod and wonder why we ever needed CD’s when I still remember listening to tapes and waiting for the radio to play my favorite song so I could record it onto my blank tape. You are more adept at switching from the DVD player, to the Wii, to the Xbox and back to the tv faster than I can even turn everything on. I’m always asking you to “fix it” when I have no clue what I’m doing when trying to watch a movie. You’ll never know what it was like to take a whole role of film to the store to be developed and only have half of the pictures turn out. Waiting for commercials is torture to you (ok me too), and you’d rather record the episode and watch it later just to skip the commercials (ok me too).

You are such an animal and baby lover. You have known since you were two years old that you wanted to be a neonatal nurse. You couldn’t quite tell us that, but since you started talking at 7 months, and were carrying on conversations at a year, well you were really good at speaking your mind! So when you would watch the baby stories on TLC and told me you wanted to be the person to “take care of the babies but not the mommies” I knew that it meant something. And still today that is your goal. And I am so proud of you because I know that same determination and stubbornness I have in me will carry you to your goals and beyond.

My Gwynie girl….you came into my life in an unexpected way but I am forever grateful to be your Mother. I am a better person because of you, and I know my life has been so blessed because you were in it. Thank you for showing me the beautiful things in life, and for helping me remember to appreciate the little things.

xoxo - Mom

Tweet Birthday!

2011-06-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Another sneak peak! ;)

I have been feeling so inspired with these new stamps I just had to make another quick card with these gorgeous stamps! I combined this card with the Embellish challenge to create your own background with stamps and incorporate the color combo (graphic below).

All of the stamps you see above are included in this new soon to be released set…the leaf, two birds, sentiment and the little bit of swirl on the strip of rust cardstock. There are a few other images in this set as well and I can see this will quickly be one of my “go-to” sets!

Based on the swatch I used Really Rust, Garden Green, Kraft, and Tempting Turquoise. The little birds were finished off with turquoise gems and some hemp provided a little rustic flair to it.

We’re off for a little mini vaca (sort of) this weekend for the Utah Summer Games where Jake and Brady will be wrestling. Last year they were the only Father/Son team so we’ll see if they are again this year as well, hehe. Gwynie and I get to kick back, relax and read while the boys go to work! ;) Looking forward to getting some reading done and enjoying some time with the family. Have a great weekend!

Victorian Summer Sneak Peek!

2011-06-15T06:00:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone! I’m back again today (it’s like a record, right?!) with a sneak peek of an upcoming SSD set called Victorian Summer. I can see so many possibilities with this set and the card I’m sharing today showcases two stamps that are included in this set. (There was peek of a butterfly on a card I posted Sunday!)

The large flower in the center and the roses in the background are both from Victorian Summer…so swoon worthy! ;) The script stamp on the artichoke strip is from Garden Stamp Kiss. The roses were stamped in gray onto Neutrals White cardstock (my new fav lately) and the large flower was embossed in white onto Pink Pirouette cardstock and then trimmed out.

To create this card I was inspired by the card layout with the large circle and the script in the background of Jill Foster’s card as the June Muse for Case Study (but I totally missed the deadline, lol!), and the colors from CR84FN. I chose gray as the neutral color (that’s ok, it is a neutral right, lol!) like the tux in the second photo.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek of an upcoming stamp release! I can’t wait to use this set more, it has so many design possibilities! :)

Happy Birthday and Dogs release!

2011-06-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! Today is not only a release day for Skipping Stones Design, but is also Heather’s birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER!!

Heather is the owner of SSD and is the illustrator of all the many fabulous stamps we all love to create with! I have had the pleasure of working with Heather on the DT, and as the DT Coordinator this year, and I can honestly say she is one of the sweetest and most generous people I know!

Have you ever met or talked with someone, and after you finish your conversation you walk away feeling like a better person? That’s what Heather does for me! :) She is such a talented illustrator and I know all her work comes from the heart as she creates stunners that I just love stamping with! Heather has a huge heart as shown by the Hop(e) for Haiti with funds being donated to the Red Cross relief, and last Fall a “Blogs for Boobies” fundraiser for the Komen foundation with proceeds from the sales of Cancer Schmancer. Heather is such a dear and I’m sure she’s blushing as she reads this (hehe) but I would love if you could leave her some birthday love and comments on the SSD Blog!

Not only are we celebrating Heather’s birthday, but it’s release day for Dogs Vol #1 and sketch challenge 80! If you just came from Dina's blog, you are in the right place. If you just happened along my blog today, start at the beginning of the hop at Skipping Stones Design. The entire hop order is there and you can hop from blog to blog with ease.

Here’s a look at the sketch we’re working with…so fun! Make sure you link up your creations on the SSD blog!

I combined this fantastic sketch with the OTWC color combo challenge!

For my card I used the shaggy dog and thought these colors worked so well with him, and to give this card a more subdued look due to the theme of the card.

I really wanted to incorporate newspaper, since you know dogs and newspapers ;), but I didn’t have any patterned paper that resembled newspaper. Instead I used real newspaper and loved the look I achieved with it! The sentiment was offset with the little paw print in the set and a couple dog themed brads (one says best friend) helped to balance out the card, provide visual interest and reinstate the dog theme.

A little close up of the sentiment, which gives the words that may be hard to say to someone that has lost their “furever” friend. This is such a fun set for you dog lovers! You’ll definitely want to hop on over to Wendy's blog for some more Skipping Stones Design inspiration and see more images from this fantastic set!

When I Count My Blessings…

2011-06-13T06:01:00.001-06:00

This is my second post for today, be sure to scroll down for my PDC color challenge card!

I’m giving another peek at a new set that will be released in the next couple months by Skipping Stones Design. I feel a little bad “teasing” you with these sneaks, but there is nothing like new stamps to get the creative juices flowing! ;)

The colors from The Color Dare reminded me of autumn/fall colors so although that’s quite a few months away (thankfully!) I still couldn’t resist creating this blessings card.

The colors are Cajun Craze (I substituted with Really Rust), Baja Breeze and Not Quite Navy. The leaves were stamped in rust onto Naturals White cardstock. For the wreath image, I stamped in Baja, then Navy and finally used an aqua painter and Rust ink to water color in some parts of the wreath to make berries. Love this new Baja seam binding! It was also used to thread the button.

So, what do you think of this sneak peek?! I had a blast in the studio Sunday and have a few more cards to show you this week using some of these soon to be released sets. Make sure you come back tomorrow as the SSD Design Team will be showing off Dogs Vol. 1 as it’s being released tomorrow!

Have a Tweet Birthday!

2011-06-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

I’ve been having a blast playing with some new stamps that just arrived from Skipping Stones Design and will be released soon! Today you get a peek at a sentiment which may give you an idea on the rest of the set. ;)

This card was completely inspired by the second card on Maile's post of the one layer frame card. What a great concept! I couldn’t wait to try it out with my stamps and paired it up with a scrumptious color combo from The Play Date Cafe.

These colors make me think of dessert, anyone else? ;) Not sure why I think that but I am now drooling thinking of Crème Brule (ha!). Seriously gorgeous colors though right?

The frame is from Sentiment Frames #1 and was stamped in Perfect Plum, the bird is from Garden Stamp Kiss and was stamped in Pink Pirouette, and the sentiment is from the soon to be released set which was stamped in River Rock. A little pink satin ribbon finished it off! It’s such a simple layout and took me all of three minutes to create, but I think it packs such a punch!

Tomorrow SSD is releasing Dogs Vol 1 and I can’t wait to share the card I made with this funny and cute set!

Congratulations!

2011-06-12T19:23:00.001-06:00

Last week my friend Cammie took her PHR (HR certification) exam and passed after taking a 12 week class, spending many long hours studying, and then taking the 3.5 hour test! I wanted to give her a little congrats card tomorrow at work to let her know how proud of her we are!

I used the colors from the Color Throwdown this week which is a really fun and almost springy color scheme!

I don’t have Pear Pizzazz ink or paper so substituted with Celery for the ink, but used the DSP hostess level 1 paper to get a little pear in there. ;)

This was a really simple card to make with one of my all-time favorite stamp sets, Dandelion Dreams by Skipping Stones Design. The sentiment comes from Sentiment Frames #1, another great set with fabulous frames and sentiments. I also pulled out my new Baja Breeze seam binding…love the stuff!

SP Color Combo

2011-06-12T12:59:00.002-06:00

Not sure if I actually linked up my card in time, but I loved to colors for the latest SP Color Combo challenge! This card was made, photographed and uploaded within 15 minutes..I think that's a record, or at least for me! Forgive the photo as I didn't have time to do any editing to it, I linked my card with less than a minute on their inLinkz! ;)

I haven't played with one of their color combos in quite awhile so I knew I really wanted to once I saw these yummy colors!

For my card, I used some stamp sets that are being released in the coming months from Skipping Stones Design, so this is a sneak peek of sorts. :)

I was able to pull out some new goodies on this card in addition to the new stamps! The pink satin ribbon and the chocolate chip bakers twine were some recent purchases that I hadn't used yet so all the more reason to pull them out with this color combo!

I definitely need to watch their combos more often and get back into joining their talented designers with some fun cards!

SSD Sketch #79

2011-06-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Can you believe it’s June?! I’m still shocked this year has gone by so fast! Well, since it’s June and it’s Tuesday you know that means we have new guests for June for Skipping Stones Design, and we’re back with an all new sketch!

Our Sketch Artist this month is the super talented Latisha Yoast, and our Guests are Dina Kowal and Karin Akesdotter! You can get to know these ladies a little better on yesterday’s Meet and Greet post at the SSD blog!

Here’s a little peek at my card for today!

Isn’t this a great sketch?! There are so many ways you can take this sketch!

I paired up Shoes and Timeless Textures for this bright and funky little card!

Make sure you stop by the SSD blog to take a look at what our Guests and awesome DT members did with this sketch!

Project 365: 5/29–6/4

2011-06-05T16:39:00.000-06:00

With the holiday on Monday this week seemed to race by! I was also super busy at work which made everything else fly by too, but I love that busyness so it was great! The weather seems to finally be leaning more towards summer weather instead of freezing cold and rain, so that was a nice change of pace this week. :)

5/29 – Shish kabobs for dinner! We always group each veggie/meat stick together to keep everything cooked at the right temperature, etc. There were green and red peppers, pineapples, tomatoes, mushrooms and purple onions. The meat (flank steak) was already on the grill and I love the bright colors from all these beautiful and delicious veggies and fruits!

5/30 – Oh Gwynie… ;) Seriously though, I remember my walls full of teenie bopper posters taken from my tennie bopper magazines so this just cracks me up. Anyone remember Tiger Beat?! ;)

5/31 – You may have already seen this photo on my Cooking Bootcamp post, but I thought it was perfect for my 365 project because it signifies a new experience.

6/1 – I love Post-its. I really do. I use them a ton at work, but also at home and when working on craft projects. I jot down color combo ideas, sketch out cards, and on occasion, ideas for new cards or trends I want to try out. (Not working out so well lately, not enough time in the day!)

6/2 – JR’s last day and he choose to wear a “fun” outfit to work. It’s CLEARLINK, that’s how we roll. ;)

6/3 – New shoes for the kiddos.

6/4 – Now that Memorial Day has passed the drive-in is open! Love, love, love going to the drive-in during the summer! You get two movies and can bring in your own food, snacks and drinks! We watched X-Men and Pirates…both great, but long! It starts at 9:30 pm and the second movie didn’t end until 2:15 am.

Tips and Tricks Thursday–Customized flowers and buttons!

2011-06-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! I’m here today to share a fun tip using your Skipping Stones Design background stamps! You could use several different stamps for this technique, but background stamps work so well with this little tip!

To make your own customized flowers and buttons, pull out some craft or Staz-On inks so the images will be easily stamped onto the various surfaces.

I stamped this flower with white craft ink and the buttons below in black Staz-On. Both pieces were stamped with an image from Timeless Textures.

Add your flowers and button to finish off a card! The sentiment is from Always Here.

Cooking Boot Camp

2011-06-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

For anyone that’s visited or read my blog often enough you are pretty aware of the fact that I don’t cook. I was so fortunate to find a guy like Jake! Not only does he enjoy cooking, but he’s a great cook as well! For some unknown reason the universe smiled on me the day I met Jake….or it knew that I’d starve to death if there wasn’t someone to feed me so it kindly intervened on my behalf.

Now when I say I don’t cook I mean just that…I don’t cook. I probably could cook if I put my mind to it, and I have done so on rare occasions, but I really don’t enjoy it and get too distracted to focus on cooking.

So here I am, a mom of two with a husband that will all to soon begin Wrestling season again, and I keep thinking that my kids will be ~~coerced~~ begging to eat Wendy’s (or even McDonald’s) 4 nights a week instead of eating my cooking. (True story). I figured it was about time that I finally paid attention to what Jake’s doing in the kitchen. I’ve asked Jake to put me through “Cooking Boot Camp” so I can cook this Fall/Winter without worry from my kids that they’re being poisoned. (Also a true story).

So, what’s a girl to do during Cooking Boot Camp? Why take pictures and blog it so I can refer back to it later on of course! The simple things like spaghetti, tacos, etc. are things I can do (as long as I pay attention and stay in the kitchen) so I won’t bore you with those; however, anything new he tries, or some things that are a little more in-depth for me (i.e. a skill level 2, ha) I’ll share here.

Not only will it benefit me in the long run, but maybe you’ll get some new ideas for dinners too. It’s a win-win situation, right?! Plus, I’d love for you to share some of your meal ideas and recipes with me Jake so we he can cook and I can photograph! :) I realize this is totally straying from crafts and I won’t mind at all if you just bypass these posts. :)

Ok, that was a super long explanation (and you know I also talk a lot if you’ve been a reader even only for a little while – feel sorry for my family) but now I can start with my “Cooking Boot Camp” experience! :)

This first post was actually from our dinner last night! It’s a really simple and straightforward dinner, but I’ll be honest that’s what I needed to start out with. ;)

Smothered Burritos

Ingredients:

- Tortillas, shredded cheese, onions, salsa,guacamole, olives, Verde sauce, refried beans

For the sides we did chips with the guacamole and salsa, and also some Spanish rice.

Prep/cook time: Ummmm maybe 15 minutes? (see problems paying attention in the kitchen but it was really fast)

To prepare:

To begin, heat your refried beans over the stove and prepare the Spanish rice according to package directions.

Dice half a white onion and heat the Verde sauce

For this next step, Jake tossed some tortillas onto a cookie sheet and baked them in a 225 degree oven to warm them up and add a little crispness. After a minute or two flip the tortillas over and leave in for another minute or until warm.

Now you can fill your tortillas up! We layered the refried beans, cheese, onions, Verde sauce, olives and added guac on the side.

You could add salsa over top like I did with my rice on the side.

Or, you could be fancy like Jake and add the Verde sauce (which was a little spicy for me hence why it was only in my burrito) onions and cheese over top. Melt it in the microwave if needed and you’ll really get a smothered burrito!

Ok, well I hope you enjoyed that ~~overly long~~ little post about my new experience in the kitchen watching Jake cook, ha! My One Little Word for the year is experience so this is just another way I’m fulfilling it this year! ;)

To Cheer You, Sketch #78

2011-05-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! Today the SSD DT is sharing our cards created with the last sketch from our fabulous May Sketch Artist, Danielle Flanders!

Isn’t this a fun sketch?! I think there are so many variations on what you can do with this sketch! You could use patterned paper, sewing or stamps for those dashed lines!

Here’s my take on it!

For this card I used the flower image from Frills to stamp three rows across the card front. The sentiment is from Always Here, and the punched out butterflies are my pop of green inspired by The Play Date Cafe challenge!

Skipping Stones is sponsoring PDC this week so make sure you check out what they made with SSD stamps! Then, make sure to visit the other "Stamp Tramps" to see what they created, or visit the SSD Blog!

Project 365: 5/15–5/28

2011-05-30T19:52:00.000-06:00

It’s been raining for over a week now (snowing in some places of Utah) and the family is starting the catch the cough/cold I’ve had for the last couple weeks, ugh. I got it as soon as we got home from our trip and it definitely was a pain to deal with, but as you all know, you just keep “swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming!” :)

After posting an insane amount of pictures from our trip I took a little break from the blog-o to catch up on some work and home things. It was a nice break, but I’m incredible restless and wanting to get back into my krafty studio to whip up some cutie cards and scrapbook pages. You’d think the holiday weekend would have been that time, but unfortunately not as we had some other things to do. I’m really hoping now that some things have settled down (like sports!), I can get a little more time to get back in the studio.

Today very much feels like a Sunday so here are the last two weeks for Project 365!

5/15 – Delish Sunday dinner! Jake loves to try out new recipes, but he also loves to come up with his own ideas to test. I love the Nuts About Berries salad from Café Zupas and this was Jake’s spin on that. Romaine lettuce with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, topped off with a raspberry vinaigrette and slivered almonds. Zupas does a poppy seed dressing and cinnamon almonds, but Jake went with a healthier alternative that I loved!

5/16 – This woman in this commercial could seriously BE MY MOM!! It’s shocking how much they look alike! I’m tempted to have my Mom put on a blonde wig and take some photos so you could see the Doppelganger effect! ;)

For the sake of it, I just have to share a pic of her so you can see the similarities! Just imagine blonde hair, but the glasses, the nose, the lips….guh just all of it is so her! PS – this look she’s giving her husband in the commercial….such a look my Mom did to us growing up! ;)

5/17 – Awwww, thanks Halls cough drop, I really need that! ;) Having a cold is bad news, but these little messages on my cough drops have kept me grinning and looking forward to the next one, ha! Another one I loved? It said “Go get it.” Kinda like carpe diem…yeah I like you Halls cough drops (strawberry flavor) and have that one pinned up at my desk.

5/18 – My co-worker Daniel printed out this photo he took of Jake and I during our trip and brought it over to me that day. I still need to bring in a frame, but I love this little pic at my desk next to my old (slightly outdated, two year old) family photo and my little beach-in-a-box. Thanks Daniel!

5/19 – Thanks Papercrafts! It was such a cool surprise to see my name listed with the other first time designers that were accepted in Card Creations 9 on their blog! Now, to find some time and submit more! :)

5/20 – Totally unplanned event!! I was at my monthly stamp party and Debbie brought a yummo bottle of wine. A couple hours later a few of us decided it would be a good idea to go to the western bar in town, ha! I have never been there and even though I’m not a country fan, I will most likely go back just so I can ride this bull again! Thanks girls, it was super fun!

5/21 – Jake and Brady spent the day shooting archery at a tournament hosted by the league he’s in. He shot really well during the day and then we all went out for the bbq/potluck. This shot is of Jake and his Dad shooting in the “clay pigeon” rounds. They put three small clay pigeons on a target and the first team to break all three advances onto the next round. So not only is it about speed, but accuracy! It was a fun night and we all really enjoyed ourselves!

5/22 – Happy birthday to Callie! This was our present to Callie, a ton of Junie B. Jones books! Because really,what do you get a 9 year old girl these days that’s not just another toy? ;) She loved them!

5/23 – Last game of the season, sad. Gwynie got to play shortstop and helped to cover 2nd. She loved it and decided she wanted that position during Fall ball!

5/24 – A super cute note from my amazing husband on my steering wheel! I seriously don’t think I deserve this guy! He makes me want to be a better wife! The next day he left me roses in my office, what a guy! My friend Sharon commented on the picture I’d uploaded to Facebook that he should give lessons…yes, yes he should! ;) Now to work on my ten step program on how to be a better wife.

5/25 – Closing ceremonies for Softball and for once no rain, yay! The coach was saying all of their names and when he got to Gwynie he said the nickname he gave her at the beginning of the season “Smalls!” :) The girls all got their little participation trophies and her team also earned the Sportsmanship Award and got little pins.

5/26 – My yogurt on the left, and my co-worker and office mate Jenn’s yogurt on the right. Anytime Jenn is eating out of this people always comment on the size of her large yogurt. ;) Really though, it’s buying in bulk and lasts her a week and a half, but still funny. :)

5/27 – Lunch and pedis with the HR girls! Left Jenn, top Cammie, right Marki, and bottom me. On Friday we worked through lunch and left a little early to enjoy some girly time. I work for the most amazing company!

5/28 – Spent the morning weeding and cleaning out the garage before it started raining again! I planted two pots to put on my front porch and loved the final result! Now, just have to keep them from dying….

Just a note to say…

2011-05-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

It’s time for another fabulous sketch from Skipping Stones Design! We have sketches from the super talented Danielle Flanders this month and I think Sketch #77 this week is so versatile you’ll be using it over and over!

Check out this fabby sketch! See what I mean about it being so versatile?!

I pulled out Heartsong and the whole card is made up of stamps from this set!

I’ve loved seeing these little bird nests pop up all over the place so I finally had to make one of my own! I couldn’t for the life of me find my burlap so I pulled out some mesh instead. I punched out three circles and then crumpled them together to make the nest. Three pearls finished it off!

Make sure to visit the other "Stamp Tramps" to see what they created, or visit the SSD Blog!

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico–Day 5

2011-05-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

Our final day in Mexio! Our flight was leaving at 4:20 pm, and the buses were coming to get us at 1:20. We also needed to check out of our room by noon, so we planned on getting up early and hitting the beach before we got all packed and checked out.

We headed down to the beach around 8:30 and even though there was a little breeze, it was still pleasantly warm and perfect weather.

Around 9:30ish we rotated our chairs around as the sun was coming up over us.

One last long look at the palm trees!

I’m pretty sure Jake feel asleep at some point on the beach, but who can blame him. ;)

At 10:30 we headed back up to the room so we could shower and finish packing. I took a few more photos along the way of the courtyard.

This moment was funny to me so of course I had to pull out my camera! To the left of Jake is his boss Bruce, and the other guy on the end is Jason and these three are all IT guys. At one point they were all on their phones (and Jake had mine) talking about a work issue. Probably doesn’t make sense to anyone else, but I seriously was laughing inside and they probably wondered why in world I pulled my camera out. ;)

Our last pictures from Mexico…..down on the beach. PS – We’re twinners! Gray shorts, white shirts, black flip-flops…we’re cool like that. ;)

After checking out, having lunch and then waiting to board the buses, we went to the airport and waited for our flight. It ended up being delayed so we got home later than planned. I didn’t really take any other pics as we were at the airport, but I snapped a couple to finish off the trip.

My first passport stamp! They didn’t stamp them when we went through customs in Mexico (sadface) so of course I had to document the very first one back in Salt Lake!

The sunset in Utah

Weird seeing snow on the mountains back home when the mountains in PV were bare. ;)

Seeing these two made my heart melt! They had called us on Tuesday night sad and crying because they missed us. Damn near broke my heart right in two to hear them crying, but I kept telling them we would be home soon and that I missed them too. Of course I was really enjoying myself and the time for just Jake and I, but man did I miss these two like crazy!

It felt so great to be home with our little family and to sleep in our own bed, but what an amazing trip! If you’ve made it with me this far then thanks for reading (or browsing the pics) along! We jumped right back into work and kids and life and I’m so glad to have the life I have. Loving every minute of it, and definitely appreciating all that I have. Feeling truly grateful to work for such an amazing company that recognized me and took us on such an incredible experience!