Flutter By Wednesday #225 - Open

Today starts a new challenge from Danni on her Flutter By Wednesday blog. This week's challenge is open - you simply need to include a butterfly or fairy on your creation and link it up to the blog. While you're there, why don't you check out the design team members' blogs?

I still have very limited time for creating. I took a little while on Monday night to work on this card. It's hard to tell, but I paper-pieced the butterfly out of patterned orange paper. I adhered it to a light blue and cream paper that looked kind of like clouds to me. I have already forgotten what company made the stamps - sorry! I matted with black, mounted on foam squares and added bling to the corners. I matted the bottom layer with black, also.

My mom had her surgery yesterday. They are hopeful that they removed all the cancer. Last I talked to my sister, my mom was in her room eating ice chips. I'll update you all once I hear more. Thanks so much for all of your prayers!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Stampendous Stamp

I have been asked a couple times about the stamp I used on this card, and others. It's by Stampendous and is called Spring Sprigs. Here is a link to it at JoAnn's, but they no longer carry it. If you're interested in finding it, you might try Amazon, or just search for it by name. Hope that helps!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Brief Updates

Quick update on our house. It went on the market yesterday and tonight we signed the papers! It sold for five thousand more than what we were asking, so we are quite pleased with that:) We will close on it February 20. This is pending the inspection, which will be on Monday, but we're not worried about that. Thanks for your good wishes on it!

My mom's surgery will be on Tuesday. I would still appreciate prayers for her. Thanks again for that!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Simple Floral Birthday

This is the third card I got finished while I was playing in my stamping room on Monday night. In this photo you can see the true colors. In the second photo, you can see the dimension better.

The image stamp is from Gina K's Whimsical Spring stamp set. I stamped it on white cardstock with Memento black ink, colored it with Copic markers (G82, G94, G99, B93, B95, B97, E55, E57 and Y15) and placed it on the card front. I used the left-over/negative piece from yesterday's FBW card to put over the image as a frame. It's mounted on foam squares. The sentiment is from Papertrey's Round and Round set.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Flutter By Wednesday #224 - a Sketch

Time for your next Flutter By Wednesday challenge. Your challenge this week is this sketch by Kathy. Please make your card based on Kathy's sketch and include a butterfly or fairy. Then link it up to the Flutter By Wednesday blog. It's that simple:) Check out the cards made by the design team, too - they're fabulous!

I was sure I wasn't going to have a card for today, but I was able to get it made Monday evening while I was "playing hooky" from working on the house. LOL! I started by cutting the white oval. I sponged it with Brocade Blue and Eggplant Envy inks from Stampin' Up. I stamped the dandelions (from Gina K's Many Wishes set), embossed with a Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, sanded it down a bit, and then misted it with my homemade shimmery mist. I matted with black and Eggplant Envy and mounted it on foam squares. I stamped the butterfly (from Gina K's Whimsical Spring) and colored with a couple Copic markers and used the shimmery mist on it. The patterned paper is from Recollections. The black strip across the center was punched with a Stampin' Up punch. I embossed the eggplant strip with a Cuttlebug border folder. The sentiment is from Gina K, also - from Whimsical Wishes.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Super Simple Birthday

I "snuck" over to our new house late yesterday afternoon and spent a few hours stamping. I wasn't very productive, but I sure had fun! I SO want to get my room finished and play with my "stuff" and especially I'm eager to try out my new Silhouette. So, I'm sharing this super simple card with you, just because:)

The candles stamp is from a Recollections set. I colored with very miscellaneous markers and added Stickles to the flames. The sentiment is from a Papertrey set. I matted the image with black.

A slight update on my mom. I ended up not going down to go with them to her appointments. But, her doctor said the cancer appeared to be "contained" so that sure sounds like a good thing! Her surgery is still scheduled for next week, and your prayers are still appreciated.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Little Update and a Prayer Request

I thought since I don't have another card to share yet, I'd update you on how we're doing. :)

We have our current house almost ready to put on the market. I have just a couple more things to clean and then the inside will be ready. We got the dining room painted (It used to have a wall paper border) and all the "clutter" has been moved out. Jim has insisted on completing his project of finishing the garage. We started it many years ago and quit when we reached a more complicated stage. He could never quite figure out what he wanted to do. Now that "crunch time" had arrived, he just went for it! We were working on it til after midnight on Saturday night, but it's almost done. We still have some trim pieces to put up, and then of course, clean up the mess. So, the end is in sight! Our plan was to list the house on Thursday, but I think we'll shoot for next week instead. Wish us luck! I'll try to share some pictures soon.

The painter at our new house has been very busy. He has the main living areas finished. He needs to put a second coat on the master bedroom. He also has yet to do the master bath and the lower level. Maybe he'll finish up this week. That would be awesome! We have some things in the garage that I'm eager to get moved into the house.

And now, the prayer request. My mom was diagnosed with Merkel Cell Carcinoma last week. It's a very rare and aggressive form of skin cancer. It can be treatable if caught soon enough. Our prayer is that it can all be removed and she can be cancer-free. She will be having surgery on January 29. I will be going down to go with her and my dad to her appointments today and tomorrow. My sister and brother will be coming up from Atlanta to be with them during her surgery. Thanks in advance for your prayers!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Flutter By Wednesday - White on White

Today's Flutter By Wednesday challenge is to use white on white - always an elegant look. You are to use only white, except you may color your image. Please be sure to use a butterfly or a fairy on your creations and then link them up to the Flutter By Wednesday blog.

For my card, I started by using an embossing folder for the background. I stamped my butterfly image three times across a piece of cardstock. I mounted the butterfly panel on foam squares. I'm not sure because my stamps are in my other house, but I THINK the butterfly is from Inkadinkado.

Our houses are coming right along. We were SOOOOO fortunate to find an awesome painter. He is painting our entire new house (except for the stamping room, which is already done.) He is also working on our current home. There has never been a ceiling in the downstairs bathroom and the furnace room has been unfinished. He is remedying those situations for us, too. He is amazing, truly, and so very reasonably priced. Our house should be ready to list next week. I'm hoping so, at least.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Flutter By Wednesday #222

Today starts a new Flutter By Wednesday challenge. Thanks to all of you who joined in the fun last week! We hope you'll play along this week, too. This week's challenge is Open - just be sure to include a butterfly or fairy on your creation. We're sponsored this week by Bugaboo digital stamps and the design team members were allowed to choose an image. I chose Theodore - Flowers. You can check out their website here.

I actually created this card in my new stamping room - how fun! I printed the image and colored it with Copic markers. I rounded the corners on the image and also the black matting. The patterned paper is from Recollections and I matted that with black, also. I punched the top of it with a ladybug punch from Martha Stewart. The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set. The butterflies were punched with a Martha Stewart punch and I added black gemstones for their bodies.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

More Progress

Well, I finally got so spend a couple hours working on my new stamping room. I went over there tonight to vacuum (after getting the carpets cleaned) but it was still damp, so I worked on unpacking my boxes instead. This is the main stamping area of my room. I could fill the shelf on the left, because I know that that one will stay there. I can't fill the shelf on the right yet, because it's possible I may have to move my table forward a little bit, and the shelf, too. Behind my table will be another piece of furniture - the bottom part of our old dining room hutch. There will be lots of storage in that, and also on top of it will be my paper storage. You can see part of my paper storage on the floor behind my table. Also on top of it will be my BIGkick and paper cutter. On second thought, I don't think that will all fit! I'll have to figure it out once it gets there. Right now we're using it for the TV in our family room at our current home. (That is a pack and play for Owen on the floor in front of the shelf. That will NOT be staying in my room:) )

In the corner are three boxes with my Stampin' Up! stamps and other wooden stamps. My plan is to put them on the empty shelves to the right of my table. I have a feeling they will not all fit! Not sure what I'll do with them if they don't. I have lots of built-in shelving in our current home where they were kept. The little bit of stuff on the floor is stuff I still need to deal with.

 Another view of the table. My new Cameo Silhouette will be on the computer desk, along with a printer. It looks a little crowded, but honestly, I like things close so that I can just swivel in my chair and reach as much as possible without getting up!

Empty boxes!!!!! I'll take them back home and fill them with something else.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

My Stamping Room - Progress

We managed to get my room all painted and sort of put together today. Here it is - all painted, tape removed, outlet covers back on and all the boxes out of the room. Plus the table moved in. That was where I planned on putting the table, but we decided to move it.The color is called "Colonial Brick." I think it's kind of an ever-so-slightly pinkish terra cotta. I'm actually quite pleased with it.

Here, the major pieces of furniture are in place. I will have one more piece on the wall behind my table. It's the bottom of the hutch that went with the table that I have in here. Not sure when we'll get it here. The boxes are on my table and on the other side of the room. I'll unpack them as soon as I can.

When I'm sitting at my table, I'll be able to see outside. That will be nice.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

My Stamping Room - Before

I promised pictures of my stamping room, but I'm not impressed with the ones I've taken. I'm sharing them anyway:) This is the empty room - ready for painting. Can you figure out why I'm painting it? I'm still not sure of the color, but I'll figure it out soon. I had to move some of my boxes into the room because they were blocking a walkway.

 A close-up picture of the boxes in my room. Please note a Christmas present I received - a Cameo Silhouette! I barely tried it and only with thin paper, so I'm especially excited to get my room in order so that I can play with it.

 Here are more of my things in the family room.

Another angle.

And one last picture showing the last of the boxes and a view into the room. Those are double doors into the room.

I received this comment on Tuesday: "Just curious about your comments on choosing paint colors. Guess I'm too nosy, but I can't figure out your comment about never having this kind of house before and what kind of house it must be to make you feel your color choices might not be right. I guess I'm just looking at it from the standpoint that color choices are so personal to our tastes, I don't know that I could give that up to someone else. :)" This house has high vaulted ceilings and alcoves and nooks and is very open. We're used to having more defined rooms where the colors of one room really can't be seen from another room. Right now it's painted using several different colors that are all visible at one time. We need some advice in choosing coordinating colors and where to use darker shades of the same colors, etc. Not sure if that helps explain what we're going through, but at least I tried! Right now the living room has a couple dark red walls and a couple of very neutral off-white walls, the kitchen is grey, the entryway is a purple. I really do like dark, bold colors, but these are not my choice. We won't let someone tell us what colors to use, but want someone to listen to our tastes and make suggestions on how to implement them.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Flutter By Wednesday Challenge - "In With the New!"

After taking most of the month of December off from Flutter By Wednesday challenges, I'm back! Luckily I worked a little ahead at the beginning of December so I could participate today. The new challenge starting today is "In With the New." You can use new items or the theme of something new such as new house, new baby, etc. The challenge can be found on the Flutter By Wednesday blog. We'd love to have you join in!

My card uses new (to me) stamps and the new baby theme. All of my stamps are in boxes and I don't remember who made these! They are either Inkadinkado or Recollections. If I had to make a single guess, I'd guess Recollections. I stamped them with Memento black ink and colored them with Copics. I added sparkle to the butterflies. I matted the "BABY" with black and mounted on foam squares. The main panel is matted with black, also.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

January Calendar Page - Happy New Year!

Well, here it is - 2013 already! Happy New Year to all - hope your year is fabulous.

Time for a new calendar page. For this month, I used an old Stampin' Up! stamp from the set Snow Angels. I colored it with Copic markers - 18 of them! I added Star Dust Stickles to the hat, cuffs and the snow under the snowman. The sentiment is from Repeat Impressions.

If you are interested in using the file I have created for the calendars, please feel free. You can find it under my blog header. I'd love to hear from you, if you decide to give it a try. The pages print out 3.5 x 5 inches, after cutting. I have included cutting instructions in a file there, also.

We are moving along on our new house. We have cleaned most of it. ALL of my stamping stuff is over at the new place except for my chair. We have even prepared the room for painting - taped, removed outlet covers, etc., and washed the walls. I had chosen the color I was going to paint it, but I guess we're going to wait and have a color consultant come in and make suggestions for the house. We've never had a house like this, and we'd like to make the right paint choices. :) It will set my stamping room back a few days, though. I'll try to remember to bring my camera over there next time and take some pictures of the room and all my boxes!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

How I Spent My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. (Next year I hit the big 6 - 0!) Per tradition, I am posting a picture of my wonderful cards. I know that there are a couple more on their way, but I'm not going to wait for them. :) Such beauties I received! If one of them is from you, I thank you very much!!

On my birthday, I get to do whatever I want. I don't usually have a "plan" - just go with the flow.  This is what ended up happening. I guess first I need to talk a little bit about Thursday. We closed on our new home at 12:30. We stopped over there afterwards and dropped off some bar stools that we had purchased for the new bar. That afternoon, we took down all the Christmas decorations and boxed them up. Rather than putting them away in our current home, we brought them to the new house. Quite clever, I think! LOL! I mopped the kitchen floor and we did some miscellaneous things. So, back to yesterday. We loaded up the car with the rest of the Christmas things and lots of my stamping boxes. We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast and little bit of Words With Friends on our Kindle Fires. Then we headed over to the new house. We got everything into the house. We had to cut off the bottom of a door that was scraping on the hardwood floor, then clean up all the sawdust. Jim worked on some minor plumbing leaks and light bulbs, etc. I had a lot of birthday phone calls, but still managed to get some things done. We left the house and stopped at a city facility where we could do a little walking, then stopped at Home Depot for a few things. Got cleaned up and went to Red Lobster for dinner. Then back to our current home to load up the car again with more stamping boxes. (I have most everything over there now except for the big things - table, chairs, shelves and a couple rolling carts.) Jim did his repair work, and I vacuumed A LOT! Anyone that knows me, knows that I hate to clean! So, to spend my birthday CLEANING is totally unbelievable! I vacuumed the entire lower level (a bedroom, stamping room and a big family room) plus the bedroom on the main level. I was really tired of doing that, so I left the rest for another day. Then I cleaned in the kitchen - the interiors of the cupboards and the countertop. I didn't think I had a lot of cupboards, but I guess I do. I realized that after cleaning them! I was hoping to get the fridge done, too, but that is also waiting for me. We called it quits about 9:45 p.m. and headed home. I opened my cards, did some catching up on the computer and then went to bed. And that's pretty much how I spent my birthday:) It was a great day! (We had already celebrated on Tuesday night when our daughter and family were still here from Chicago.)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas. I hope everyone gets to spend time with loved ones. Safe travels to all, too!

We get to spend Christmas morning in our jammies with our kids and grandkids. What could be better:)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

An Apology, a Thank You, and Some Exciting News

First of all, I'm very sorry to say that I missed some comments on my Calendar Give-Away post:( I had been getting SO many spam comments and had tried "fixing" that. I played around with Word Verification, but I know what a pain that is. What I THOUGHT I had done was to turn off Word Verification and add Comment Moderation to posts older than 14 days. Evidently, I hadn't turned off Word Verification and I had added Comment Moderation to posts over 7 days. I also assumed that I would be notified if I had comments awaiting moderation. Mistake! Last night I discovered by accident that I had nine comments awaiting moderation. Some of them were from the calendar post and so they weren't entered into the drawing. Since I have already chosen the winner and sent off the calendar, there is nothing I can do about it now. Again, I'm so sorry.

I wanted to thank you for your prayers for my mother-in-law. She is still in the nursing home, but she is doing much better. She hasn't been having any "bouts" of confusion and seems to be settling into a routine. We are still hoping she could move back into her home, but if not, at least we're hoping she will be happy in her new surroundings.

I finished up the last of the packing in my stamping area yesterday. What a task, as many of you can imagine! I didn't do a lot of weeding out, but I also think there isn't much that I want to get rid of! When I unpack it and organize it in my new stamping room, there are a few items that may need to find new homes, though. We will be able to start moving some things into the new house next week - we will be closing on it on Thursday at about noon.

Now - the exciting news. We are going to be grandparents again at the end of May! Our daughter and son-in-law in Chicago will be presenting us with a new grandson or granddaughter. They will be finding out if it's a girl or boy about the middle of January. Very cool - can't wait!

I think that about catches you up with what's going on around here. Our daughter and family will be arriving from Chicago this evening. We have plans for every day for about a week, I think! It's all fun, though. That being said, I will appreciate life being "calm" again - whenever that may happen. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Flutter By Wednesday

Today starts another Flutter By Wednesday challenge. Please check out the details on this post and link up your cards!

Due to Christmas preparations, jury duty, moving, etc., I'm sorry to say that I don't have a card to share:( A couple days ago I took a LITTLE time and made a couple cards for the January challenges. Those will be my last cards for a while. I need to get my stamping stuff ALL packed up and ready to move out. We'll be closing on our new house next Thursday. I can't believe it! So much to do before then. Thank goodness we don't have to be out of our house right away. We do, however, still have lots to do to get it ready to put on the market.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Calendar Winner - and a Prayer Request

Random.org has helped me select a winner for my calendar blog candy.

Gloria - yours was the first comment and you will be receiving the calendar!

 Anonymous said...

I always look forward to seeing your beautiful cards and your calendar ideas. Thank you for your generosity of giving one of us one of your 2013 calendars!!!! Hope it's me:-)
Gloria

December 1, 2012 6:24 AM

 

Please email me your address and I'll get your calendar out soon!

Is everyone getting everything done? I can't believe Christmas is only a week away. We still have a little bit of shopping to do.

I do have a request for prayers from you, if you would consider that. My mother-in-law (who turned 95 last month and was still living alone in her home) had a few falls last week and ended up in the hospital. From there, they moved her to a nursing home on Friday. I would request prayers that she can return to her "normal" and possibly return to her home. If she isn't able to return to her home, we would love it if she could just be healthy enough to enjoy her time in her new surroundings. Thank you so much!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Miscellaneous

Whew - I'm done with my jury duty. That is really emotionally and physically draining! It was my first time ever and I hope it's my last. I know I won't be called for at least four years, anyway.

That also put everything around here on hold. We're ready to start up again, though. Hopefully we will finish shopping very soon! At least today is my husband's last day of work until the new year. And, hopefully, we'll get to start REALLY packing up and weeding out. We will be closing on our new house in less than two weeks. Amazing!

One more thing - I will be choosing the winner of my calendar after tomorrow. It may actually end up being on Sunday, since we have plans for Saturday night. Please visit this post if you are interested in having a chance to receive a calendar.

I hope all of you are doing well and getting a chance to relax and enjoy this holiday season.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!