More Fall Fun

As promised in the last post, here's another project I made using my October SEI kit I recently received. I have really been trying to focus on feeling more thankful. I would also like to instill this message in my children. Therefore I thought a nice, little wall hanging was in order. This was so fun to make. And very easy to do. Just cover some chipboard pieces with patterned paper, punch holes with the Crop-a-dile, then embellish away.

Would you like to win this?

I know I would. I adore Prima products! And the colors just make me so happy!!!!! Head on over to Prima's blog to figure out how you could win this.

Have a great rest of your weekend.

Fall Fun

Well I got into the Halloween spirit late so I am trying to make up for it by getting into the Thanksiving/Autumn spirit early. And boy have I been having fun. A while back I signed up for SEI's kit club. I have chosen to skip many months but thought I would allow the October kit to be mailed to me and I am so thankful I did. Get it? Thankful? It is full of wonderful papers - great patterns, great textures - and some nice, clean simple embellishments.

A few days ago I found these on Kim Hesson's blog. Are they not the cutest ever?! I checked her Etsy shop but she didn't seem to have these in stock so I began mulling things over in my head. I resorted to having my husband cut some pumpkin shapes out of plywood until I remembered that years ago I had purchased some wooded pumkins that were meant to be finished and have strings of Christmas lights shoved into the many small holes pre-drilled into them. (side note: this idea is really cute and I have had some in my front yard in years past).

So I busted out my wooden pumpkins and painted the edges with some cream colored acrylin paint. Then I cut some of the SEI patterned paper to eventually cover each side of the pumkin. I then cut strips of various patterned papers and overlayed them on my full paper piece. Once I liked the layout, I inked everything in Vintage Photo Distrss Ink by Ranger and then adhered the strips to my full pumkin piece. I ran the thing through my sewing machine and then adhered the piece to the wooden pumpkin. I am so pleased! They really add a nice warm touch to my home.





This last picture is the reverse side of the pumpkins.

Unfortunately I need about 25 more of these puppies to really make my home feel like Thanksgiving is on the way. Our home decor is really lacking! In the next couple of days I will post another fun project I did with the SEI October kit.

Happy Friday!

Thomas and a Cute Little Monkey

Those were the two additions to my family this Halloween. Hannah requested to be Thomas the Train. -- OK. Someday she will pick a girly girl costume. -- And Makaela was the monkey that Hannah was 3 years ago. Just three quick pictures because I am exhausted. I am hoping I can keep my Halloween spirit alive for another week or two so I can scrap these pictures now. If I don't, it will be next year that I get around to doing it.

It feels so good...

... to have my November projects for SGT complete!

Inevitably I always find myself down to the wire to complete my design team projects. I feel an anxiety come on where I am just convinced I will not finish on time; that I will be letting the store down as well as my fellow design team members. There have been times when I have just had major blocks and am not satisfied with the end result. Fortunately, this time was not one of those cases. I am pretty pleased with each layout I turned in. There were three of them this month. I am so happy to have them in the safe and secure hands of SGT.

Featuring paper by My Little Shoebox:

Featuring paper by Bo Bunny "Delilah":

Featuring paper by Dream Street Papers:

A good quick read ...

So in my blog hopping today, Donna Downey's 10/23/09 post led me to here. This gal is trying to help a friend of a friend win a competition. Apparently it's a competition put on by SAM-e for a "Good Mood Gig". Having nothing better to do (so not true), I wove my way through the links and came to Kayla Aimee's "vote for me" page. She's a funny girl. I enjoyed reading her entry. And before voting for her, I went to the leader in the voting to read her post just to be fair. Let's just say I was not as entertained. Miss Kayla has a long way to go if she wants to win the competition, but if nothing else, many people got a smile because of her sense of humor.

If you have the time, perhaps you'll enjoy it too.

Have a nice weekend.

Your Thursday Laugh

Let me just begin this post with a statement of how much I love my husband. I do. I love him to the moon and back. I am so lucky to have him and how or why he puts up with some of my sh-- ... um crap ... I will never ever know. OK, that being said, I bring you this funny.

My daughter's pre-school class required her to bring a pumpkin to school today so that they could paint them. The teacher told me "cataloupe sized". No problem. So on Tuesday night (two evenings ago) we had to do a quick run by the store for milk and I texted my husband from the car asking him to also pick up a "cataloupe sized" pumpkin. Well, his phone has issues, and he didn't get the text until he had already gotten back to the car so no pumpkin. No big deal.

So last night as I was throwing something together for dinner (have I ever told you how much I detest making dinner? NOT one of my specialties by any means. I could craft a dinner out of all my supplies better than making something edible), I remembered the cantaloupe sized pumpkin. I asked him if he wanted to take Hannah to get one or if he wanted me to do it. He easily volunteered to do it. So I told him a small, cantaloupe sized one and even used my hands to show him the size of what I wanted. Off they went. Upon their return I asked to see it. This is what they showed me ...




And I ask you this. Have cantaloupes shrunken recently and I don't know it? Is this global warming thing affecting the size of cantaloupe growth? I included the pear for reference. No, that is not the world's largest pear! It's a normal sized pear.

When I said, "That's TOO small!!!!" he said, "What? You said 'get a small pumpkin' and I did." I do find it funny that he has no recollection of the cantaloupe sized part. Not to mention the text from the night before. I'll blame it on the Dodgers because the sad pathetic game they played was on and he was constantly saying, "I think I like the torture." So perhaps he wansn't paying complete attention to me.

This is my "Seriously?!" face:


Believe it or not, I wasn't mad in the least. But I did have to run out to the store to get a cantaloupe sized pumpkin for dear sweet Hannah. My husband didn't understand in the slightest why his little one would not do. Two reasons. (1) She's barely 4 and is supposed to paint on this thing. She needs a slightly bigger canvas that your typical college art student for such a project. (2) I feel like my whole life I never had the "quite right" materials that were required of me. My mom had three other kids below me and I think this is where I paid the price. I can't remember a specific incidence that traumatized me, but I know it sucked not having exactly what I was supposed to and when I can help it, I don't want that for my kids.

So I hope you get a little chuckle out of this. I sure did.

My latest craft endeavors

I just realized that my last post was my 100th post. Crazy!

Anyways, I actually was able to get a little bit of crafting done recently. Here's two projects.

A housewarming gift for some good friends.

I just bought a wooden wreath from Michaels along with one strand of beaded garland. Tied that to the wreath with some floral wire. Then hot glued the leaves and pumkin on. Made a bow and tuped up "Live, Laugh, Love" on a scalloped tag. Nothing too difficult. Hopefully they'll like it.

Here's a 8 1/2x11 layout for Joel's grandma. She lives in Oregon and doesn't get to see the girls much. I thought she'd enjoy this picture of them.

Hope everyone has a nice week.

More from Hannah's Birthday

So I thought I would share a few more photos of the big 4 year old's birthday celebration.

Her birthday panCAKE ...

Her new bedding ...

Now to only get some things on the walls.

A few from Build-a-Bear ...







A few from Disneyland ...

A few from her party ...

SUCCESS!!!!

As promised, if I thought the cake turned out OK, I would post pictures. So here it goes ...

Ta da!

Let the singing commence!

Make a wish and blow!

Who wants cake?

When I first began frosting the cake, I thought to myself, "This is not going to be fun!" And the "why do I always do this to myself" thoughts began flooding in. But after I got the cakes themself to an acceptable point, the rest was fun. Time consuming of course, but fun. When Hannah saw it in the morning (as assembled as it was going to get before transporting it to the party site), she said, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Is that my castle cake, Mom?!" That was enough for me. But to add to my glory, another sweet almost 4 year old friend of Hannah's said to me, "That was the best cake I have ever had!" I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I am so glad to have the party behind us. It's been an exhausting birthday week for this family. We did Build-a-Bear and Disneyland on Thursday. Then the party of Saturday. Today I allowed myself to do pretty much nothing. Feels good!