back to normal...?

First off, let me apologize for being so absent here. My July has been insane: lots of back and forth between here and Houston, lots of interviews, lots of house hunting, lots of changes, and then not so many changes (I'll try to explain, I promise, but it's still so confusing for me...), and sadly, not lots of card making! The cards here are some that I had made previously but didn't get a chance to share...they are pretty straight-forward. If you have any questions about them, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email!

I am happy to report though that the last two days have been the most normal days we've had around here in a while! We've been at home and have had a chance to do "regular" things. WHY? We've decided to postpone our move to Houston. We were trying get there so that the girls could start their Montessori school on time, but their start date can be flexible and since Sach is still working from home and I'm about 98% sure that I'll still be working from home doing freelance writing (YAY!!), we have some extra time to get things sorted out properly....AHHHHH.

I promise I'll be back soon with new cards to share! I have a whole box full of new goodies that I haven't even touched yet. That will be remedied, be assured...

Thanks for stopping by!

trying to get all caught up...

Tonight is all about trying to get all caught up with stuff around here. Catching up on blogging (posting here and reading my faves), catching up on laundry (which I discovered I actually can't do because we ran out of fabric softener....), and catching up on DVRed shows (The Bachelorette tonight...yes, I admit that I watch!)...... Anyways, we've actually been back from Houston since Wednesday night, but it takes me a while to really get back into my groove again. And plus yesterday was all funky for us. I'm thinking the stress of our situation is starting to catch up with our bodies. Sach slept in and didn't check email almost all day long (which for him, being a work-at-home-aholic is huge!), I went to lay down for a nap at 1:00 when Jaya went down and didn't wake up until past 5:30 (!) - seriously, that hasn't happened around here for a long, long time. Then I woke up to find that Savi had quietly come downstairs and colored red crayon all over the carpet in our bedroom! She's had the hardest time since we've been back home. I think that all the back and forth, not to mention all this change, is very hard for her and when we're in Houston, she's pretty well-behaved (for Savi) and when we're here, she just has to get all of her naughty out. So, by the time I got the red crayon halfway out of the carpet, we had already missed most of the Fourth of July party we were supposed to go to. At that point, I just called it a day. Sach and I were in bed, ready to sleep at 8:00. What are we, preschoolers??

On to the cards: these are a few that I made before our trip to Houston for some friends we were seeing. Above is a get well card that I made with Splitcoast's color challenge 172 in mind. I really like how the taken with teal, wild wasabi, and whisper white all look together. Definitely a color combo that I will use again...especially since I have a great deal of that awesome polka-dotted Making Memories paper still!

Next are two baby cards. This first one is for Splitcoast's color challenge 171 (kraft, basic black, and soft sky). I have to say I wasn't sure about how this card was going to turn out, but I'm really happy with the end result. It's not your typical baby shower card colors and I like how it worked. The second baby card is more traditional as far as color goes. I had some cute Making Memories paper that I wanted to use that matched well with lavendar lace and pretty in pink. I used Nursery Necessities images for both cards as well as the scallop punch. I actually cut the star out, but just ordered the large star punch so no more crooked lines on stars for me!

Back to personal stuff: we found a house that we like that we can build in a neighborhood that we like in Houston. Now, I just need to find a job!! I've been writing for an educational publisher and it would be my dream to continue to work for them, but they have no grant money to continue right now. Any super-rich people out there with money to invest in some pretty cool educational math and science tools for students?? Email me! Also, I've applied to at least a dozen different schools for teaching jobs, but haven't heard anything yet... I'm hoping principals are just on vacation and that my resume doesn't stink. Then, I just read a whole bunch of inspiring articles in On Stage about demonstrators who make a living and support their families off of sales from Stampin' Up!, but I don't know if I'm cut out for that. Again, anyone out there just want to hire me to make cards for them? I can, and I'd love to! Anyways, sorry! I guess I also needed to catch up on my venting...

As always, thanks for looking! Hope you're having a good long weekend...

better late than never...

Here's what I made for Kristina Werner's 13th color challenge. I'm a few minutes late in posting and am holding a naked baby so I'll share details later...


So, now it's later and due to technical difficulties I had with blogger, I wasn't able to post before. Then, add in parenting-related difficulties such as naked Jaya running around the house and Savi climbing up the outside of the banister and here it is, almost 10:00pm...

On to the card: we were to use purely pomegranate, regal rose, river rock, wild wasabi, and whisper white. I opted to make a 3"x3" sized card because I really wanted to focus on the square that I made in an attempt to replicate one of the pillows in the bedding. Let me pause here to say that I didn't get the greatest picture of this card...the colors look weird here, but actually look very pretty in real life. I used two stamps from Baroque Motifs, one of the greatest sets ever! I stamped the little flower stamp in Versamark for the background on river rock. I stamped the medallion stamp on wild wasabi with regal rose. Then I applied dazzling diamonds glitter using a 2-way glue pen. Like I said, the picture is all funky! My real card is very cute...I promise!

Now for some exciting news: after 20-some days of waiting and not knowing about our situation, we finally have a clue!! Man, it feels so good to have direction again. Basically, Sach is keeping his current job, which allows him to work from home and we are moving to Houston, but not for about a month. That gives me plenty of time to organize and pack, I think. We're not sure when we're going to place our house on the as-it-were brutal market, but hopefully we'll be able to figure some things out after another round of house-hunting in Sugar Land/Missouri City this weekend. Wish us luck!!

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be posting again soon with another Ann Taylor-inspired card...

ann taylor, part 1

Neesha and I went to the Hill Country Galleria on Sunday. First, I have to say that if you live in Central Texas, you must go check it out! I'm not a big shopper, but it's very nicely done. I mentioned in my last post that I was really inspired by a lot of the color combinations that I saw in Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor LOFT. To let you know just how dorky I am, I was jotting down color combinations and making sketches while Neesha shopped. Of course, it didn't dawn on me then that I could find the things I was finding inspiring on the Ann Taylor website and be a dork in the privacy of my own house...

Anyways, when I sat down today to make a card, I was armed with ideas. This skirt is so beautiful in person, the picture does not do it justice. The one part I really liked is covered by the bag in this picture, but the design is a pattern of diagonal lines in shades of teal with black and white. I wanted to mimic that diagonal pattern in my card. I am happy with how the card turned out, mainly because it's so different from what I normally make. I cut a piece of white cardstock to 3"x4" and arranged .5" strips of whisper white, basic black, taken with teal, and cool carribbean. I trimmed the strips and then mounted my patterned design on whisper white. I made the "tailored bow" by following the tutorial in this month's Stampin' Success magazine. Seriously, it's SO easy to do!! Don't be surprised if I'm sticking tailored bows on all my cards from now on...

Here is the inspiration for the next card I'll be making...stay tuned!

One last note: if anyone out there is keeping score, it's Day 19 of the "we-don't-know-if-we're-moving-or-not" saga. I could use all the positive thoughts any of you can spare! Thanks...

father's day, one week removed

OK, so I realize that Father's Day was last Sunday, but I didn't get a chance to share the cards that I had made for Sach and my daddy as we were in Houston. I shared the card I made for my father-in-law in my "call me a slacker" post below.

The card above is the one I made for Sach. He's usually "Papa" to the girls, so that's how I made the card, but lately, Savi's been calling him "Daddy" and Jaya's been calling him "Papi." I really need to get their little voices on tape saying these things because they sound sooooo sweet. The girls and I actually celebrated with Sach a little early since I knew Sunday was going to be crazy in Houston (and it was!). True story: the girls and I were in Costco two weekends ago and I asked: "Hey girlies, what should we get Papa for Father's Day?" They BOTH replied loudly, "BEER!" Seriously, those are my kids. I'm not one to argue with a good idea and the girls know their papa quite well, so that's exactly what we got for him. I think it all worked out well. And it's a really good thing that I took a picture of this card. About 10 minutes after giving it to Sach, Jaya ripped it to shreds...two-year-olds, what can you do?

This is the card that I made for my daddy. Yes, I am a grown woman with two children of my own, and I call my father "Daddy." All that said, I really wanted to spell out "Daddy" on his card, but I didn't have the 3 d's I needed to do that. These letters and the ones I used for Sach's card came from the dollar spot at Target a while back. There were only two of each letter in each color. The patterned paper on both cards is from the Magnolia pack by My Mind's Eye. Sach's card is on very vanilla paper with a strip of pumpkin pie designer prints paper and chocolate chip ribbon and paper scalloped with the corner rounder. I tied a bow and stuck it to the longer piece of ribbon with a glue dot. Actually, this month's Stampin' Success magazine has a great how-to article on making bows. I'm all over that this week! On my Daddy's card, I used river rock as the base and accented with old olive and chocolate chip.

Neesha and I went to the Hill Country Galleria this afternoon while the girls rested at home with Sach and Jeff. We spent most of our time in Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft. I saw so many great color combinations there that I'll be playing around with this week as well. So exciting!

Hope all of you had a great weekend. Thanks for visiting!

kristina werner color inspiration 12

Here's what I made for Kristina Werner's 12th color inspiration. I'm in a big fat rush to meet her deadline so I'll add more later...

OK, so I'm back to add details about my card and give you all a few updates about what's been going on around here. Let me first say that I didn't need to rush my original post. Turns out mountain time is one hour behind central time, not one hour ahead like I thought. Duh. I'm gonna go ahead and play the sleep deprivation card for that one. Why am I sleep deprived? Well, let's see: we don't know if we're moving yet, Sach doesn't know which job he has, I don't know about my job situation either, the housing market in Austin stinks right now so we're getting low listing prices for our house, the market in SugarLand is booming so we're looking at houses that cost an arm and a leg more than what we wanted to pay, the girls are confused by all this moving talk...the list goes on and on and on. I seriously hope that we know what's going on this week. I just have to keep believing that whatever happens is going to happen for the best.

About my card: I really wanted to do the color inspiration because I missed the last one. So I feel like I rushed. I'm not sure that I like what I made. I copied a layout that I used for a thank you card that I have yet to share here. The colors chosen for the inspiration were sahara sand, whisper white, so saffron, and wild wasabi. I have been using a lot of sahara sand lately. It is a great neutral. I found ribbon that's from Making Memories that is the exact same shade as wild wasabi. I actually wanted to reverse the colors and use so saffron ribbon, but I don't have any or anything that matches. Anyways, I used the polka dot stamp from Boho Backgrounds to make the pattern on the whisper white in so saffron ink. I stapled the ribbon onto the card. I have been using staples alot lately too. I used the ABC lower alphabet stamps to spell out "friend" in wild wasabi. It looked much cuter on my grid paper when I did my practice run, but that's life. I wrote "my" above "friend" with the so saffron marker. It's a little hard to see here. Let me know what you think!

I've missed blogging. I'm going to try to keep up as best as I can given what's going on in my life. For now, I'm off to give the girls a bath and then watch "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" on the fuse channel. Seriously, I LOVE that movie. Makes me happy every time. And happy is what I need right now. As always, thanks for stopping by! Hope everyone has a fun-filled Saturday night...

call me a slacker

Go ahead. Call me a slacker. It's true. I am a blogging slacker these days. Please let me explain. Things in my neck of the woods are a little helter skelter right about now. We may be moving to Houston. We may not be. I'm really not sure. That one decision, which is influenced by about a million variables, has got our world around here turned upside down. It's honestly a long story and that's pretty much all I can say about that without getting overly emotional or ranting... I'm just hoping that I will have some definite news to report on SOON.

Anyways, my lack of posting here is in no way a lack of creating things on my end. I did have my class on Saturday and these are the projects that we made:

First up, a little 3"x3" gift card on regal rose with a wild wasabi mat. The elephant from Wild About You is stamped in Basic Gray with a dimensionaled ear detail added. Seriously so easy to do, but makes a big difference to me.

Here is my take on the one sheet box tutorial over at Splitcoast. I actually used a half sheet of paper (8.5"x5.5") scored at 1.5" from either end on the short side and 3.5" from either end on the long side. I used chocolate chip paper for the box. The background is the large scroll stamp from the Baroque Motifs set stamped in Versamark. I corner rounded the corners with the 3/16" corner rounder. The "Enjoy" sentiment is from Lovely Labels and is stamped in soft sky on whisper white. I rounded two opposite corners.

We also made a simple father's day card that I had designed for my father-in-law. The base is sahara sand. (I honestly think this is my new favorite neutral. More on that later...) The designer paper is from Fall Flowers, paired with a strip of 5/8" old olive gosgrain ribbon and a strip of soft sky. These three layers are stapled together. I thought that added a rugged touch. I've been meaning to use staples on my projects and this seemed like a good place to start. The sentiment actually says, "Happy Father's Day, Father" and is from a retired set, All-Around Argyle, that I inherited from Lydia at one of her events. I colored in the part that I wanted in old olive marker and positioned it using the stamp-a-ma-jig. I cannot say enough about that stamp-a-ma-jig...

Last up from class is this monochromatic number in pumpkin pie, sans stamping. I used pumpkin pie prints and the pumpkin pie striped ribbon. The flower is made from the 5-petal punch and the felt flower is from the Flower Fusion Accents & Elements tin. The two flowers are held together by a Making Memories rhinestone brad.

I have also made a few thank you cards, gift cards, father's day cards and a baby card, all of which I will post soon enough. We have a trip to Houston planned for this weekend, wherein which we hope to find a place to live, say that's the direction we're taking...don't get me started on the drama! Definitely more on this to come...

Thanks for stopping by and sorry if you were left waiting for me to post. Let me know if you missed me by leaving a comment... ;)