MMMM...I love Candy!!

I love candy in both variations...the sugary kind and the blog kind! There are some great morsels floating around, ladies!! Here are a few:

Pretty Pressings is chocolatey good!

FranMade has some gummie bear goodness!!

Two Bugs is paying it forward!!

Have fun playing, ladies!! At least I hope that someone is reading this!! If not, maybe there will be more for me!

Nancy

She did it again!!

She, being Dawn, got me obsessed with yet another stamp company!! These cute Magnolia stamps from Sweden. I guess my Swedish heritage is fully taking hold!! I officially love them!! Many people who stamp with them now use Prismacolor pencils or something similar, but I don't have these in my arsenal (yet). I used my Copic markers instead with a blender marker to soften the edges. The sketch is SC201 from Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for taking the time to look!!

I Hit 300!!

I finally hit 300 in my Splitcoast Gallery...so excited about that! Now, I just have to be more diligent about my blog. However, I'm not really sure if anyone is even reading my blog, but you never know!! I'm really excited about uploading 4 cards for you, and they represent SCS sketch challenges #181, 183, 184, and 185! I'm slowly inching forward towards my goal of doing all of the challenges! Less than 10 left!

Stack of Bugs

This adorable stamp is from DRS Designs, and I fell in love with it! This is also Sketch challenge #174 from SplitcoastStampers. I used SU colors Real Red and Basic Black. In addition, the patterned paper is from A Muse!
I also used my trusty Creative Memories cutting system with the oval pattern pieces. Finally, I colored in the images with copic markers and spica glitter pens.

Yikes...where did March go?

I've got to be more diligent about my blogging!! I have been making lots of cards, but I tend to take pictures of them and post them in clumps.

Our weather has been interesting here in Charlotte...rains for a couple of days, goes down into the 30s, shoots up to the 70s, then we start the whole cycle again. Crazy is a great word for it. I'm not complaining about the rain because we definitely need it to replenish our depleted supplies. It is just crazy, that's all!

We've had many visitors it seems over the past month or so. My parents, my brother, and now my sister and niece are coming next week. Meredith is over the moon when people are here...a brand new audience.

I'm going to share a recent Easter picture...I'll get back to stamping chatter later in the week!

I have a hard time with sympathy cards...

Stamping and making cards brings a lot of joy to my life, but there is one kind of card that is difficult to make-the sympathy card. On February 12th, one of the most awesome people I know left this earth. Tom Prechtl was an awesome man, father, and teacher. I was pleased and honored to have known him all my life. Every single time I saw him, I got the best, most heartfelt hug. We're a hugging family, so this is one important quality! He and his wife Judy are such a big part of my life...they both just make you feel special. I'm really going to miss Tom, but I know the impression that he has made on not only my life but the lives of so many others. That brings a little bit of peace, and this poem reminds me of him.

Don't Weep for Me

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sun on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awake in the morning hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight,

I am the stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there, I did not die.

Tom was a man of strong faith, and I know that he is in Heaven looking down on us all, and I'm sure he is telling a joke or two and giving everyone hugs and words of encouragement. That's just the kind of man he was.

What a great stamping day!!

I was able to go to a great stamp camp yesterday. Honestly, it was my first stamp camp...I usually a stamp club kind of girl. Well, I couldn't pass this one up. It was at Firethorne Country Club, which is only about 5 minutes from my home, so it was also convenient! You can't beat that! We made 6 cards and one little box that held 3 York peppermint patties. It was fun! In usual fashion, I always had to tweak things a bit. I never like to make the card exactly the way it is pictured, so I just put my mark on it, so to speak.

Then, I went home, and Meredith was in a great mood. That is a huge bonus to the day!!!! To top it all off, we were able to go out on a date last night. We went to the Cajun Queen and had a nice dinner. We ended the evening early, but it was still nice to get out for a change. I'm still hanging on to this sickness, and it is making me a bit miserable. When will it end?

I'm still toying with taking Meredith by myself to visit my parents at the beach this week. It is a big undertaking for me that no one besides my husband seems to understand. However, I think I will simply bite the bullet and do it. Hopefully, we will be healthy by then.

Well, enough of my off-topic ramblings. Have a wonderful day!!

Nancy, don't forget to post on your blog...

Here are some of my latest cards:

The first is a Valentine's Day card. I was going for the look of redwork with the SU set Vintage Valentines. It is considered a kick stand card, and I did it for one of the Splitcoast Challenges. The second is also a sketch from one of the challenges, but it is for a Girly Girl card swap that my friend Dawn is hosting on the site. There was a lot of fussy measuring for the second card. I also used glittery pens and I actually embossed parts of it. I often forget about embossing, and I really like the look of it! It pays to rediscover some of your older tools out there!

That should be my mantra daily because I can never seem to remember to post on here! It always seems like such hard work, but it really isn't!! I haven't been stamping much in the past few days, but I've been trying to plan out cards! I have scrapbooked quite a bit lately. I actually got 6 pages done. I spent one night planning them and the next night putting them together. Planning certainly makes things much easier.

I'm also putting off starting another major project. I haven't made a quilt in quite some time, and my 3 year old is getting her big girl bed soon. Try explaining to a 3 year old that her bed takes 4-6 weeks to come. Meredith simply thinks it is coming in the mail, so every day when I go out to check the mail, she asks, "Mommy, did my big girl bed come?" She is definitely not one to easily forget things (she takes after her daddy in that regard). Anyway, I have the fabric and the pattern for the quilt...I just have to execute it! I'll need to send it away to be quilted, so that may take some doing. Either way, it won't be done before her actual bed arrives.

One little funny Meredith story before I go...

Meredith takes a dance class (half ballet/half tap) on Fridays. Well, we were running late, and she is very much a creature of habit. When she is rushed, she doesn't do well (she definitely gets that from me!). Anyway, she didn't want to participate at first, and she was getting agitated. She has a habit of saying, "I'm a mad girl" when she is upset. While at dance, she stomped her foot and said, "I'm a mad ballerina!" It was pretty funny!

A penguin, a snowman, and the stamp room that exploded!

Well, as much as I try to keep the area tidy, my craft room/guest room always seems to look like something threw up there! Meredith wanders in and gets into stuff, I dump things in there when I don't have time to put them away, and well, you know the rest. I got two new stamps that I was dying to try, and I had to make some last minute Christmas cards...so I had to tackle the beast! I cleaned it up in there!

The penguin card uses this adorable stamp from Memory Box. The little penguin is standing on an iceburg. I had to use snowflake paper...it was only fitting, and I really liked the look of the Sahara Sand in the background. I colored in the penguin's bill and feet...they probably aren't orange in real life, but I had to go with it! I then used my glue pen and Dazzling Diamonds glitter for the sparkle! The ribbon is SU's Soft Sky grosgrain.

The snowman card is from a new set of unmounted stamps that I received from Pam Clark from FireCracker Designs. He is in a set called Chin Up that is absolutely adorable...I have fallen in love with a snowman, if that is possible! Her website is http://www.firecrackerdesignsbypamela.com/

I also incorporated an SCS sketch challenge in the card!

This ebay obsession!

I don't know what has come over me of late...I can't seem to step away from the bay! I have this list in my head of older SU sets that I want, and it has become my quest to find them (at a good price of course!). Well, I won three items today, and of course I paid a little more than I wanted to on a couple. One, I didn't even remembering bidding on it. Perhaps I was in a preschooler-induced haze when I bid on that one!

Tomorrow is a new day, and I know that I will try my hardest to stay off the bay!

On to more important things...the Stampin Up retired list. Can you believe that I actually contemplated staying up until all hours of the night to view it first? What was I thinking? Well, I did check my computer the first thing this morning, but I thought that was showing a huge amount of restraint on my part. Lo and behold, I was rather underwhelmed! However, my pocketbook will thank me because there wasn't one thing on there that I have to order before the end of the year.

Enough rantings about my stamping obsession...I'm sure I'll be on to some other craziness soon!