Turtlely Late Birthday

 

Hi friends. Jumping in late with a card I made for this week's MFT Wednesday Sketch challenge. I had a long day, so I was very tempted to just skip. I decided not to give myself permission to do that, so here's my card. I love this cute little turtle so much. He's perfect for a belated birthday card. :)

Today I found out that I have ADHD. I started researching it after Laila was diagnosed and as I read, I saw myself as much as her. I finally decided to seek out help and got the official diagnosis today. Now I need to read up on how other people find ways to manage life with it. I am struggling so much and I know the struggle adds so much to my depression and anxiety. So, fingers crossed!

My Jack boy thinks I need to learn to craft with one arm so that I can hold him with the other. lol :)

Mixed Media Leaves

 Well, today I decided to try some mixed media. Yikes. It is wayyyyyyy out of my comfort zone. lol  I saw the blog challenge Creative Artiste Mixed Media and got inspired to try it. I used distress oxides, distress paint, fibers, dye ink, some die cuts and various stamps. I don't know what to think about it, but hey, I stamped and made a card today. :)

Do you like mixed media? It can be fun and messy to change things up and try it every now and then! It's been a long day, so I'm off to find my pajamas, quilt, and a book. See you tomorrow. 

Rita

MFT Super Girl Sketch

 Day 3! Today I played along with the MFT Wednesday Sketch challenge. I had colored this image last week but hadn't done anything with it yet. I love coloring her SO much. One of my favorites for sure. :) I needed a birthday card for a friend whose birthday is today, so I grabbed the belated sentiment. I am so bad at getting things out on time. I do have a list on my desk now, so let's hope that helps. 

I hope all my American friends have a wonderful weekend, especially those who have an extra day off on Monday. 

Edgar Nevermore

Hi!!  Remember me? lol I took a bit of a break. I've been stamping a little here and there, but not very much if I'm being honest. My shoulder hurt for so long that I got out of the habit. Jason did get me a Vagabond for Mother's Day, so now I have an electric die cutter to help. I think it's starting to feel some better, but after doing some die cutting at the library yesterday, I could definitely feel it last night.  I did have an MRI and cortisone shots, so I'm way better than I was 7 months ago. Anyway, enough about my dumb shoulder. lol

I got some of the Stamping Bella Oddballs and I love their weirdness. I used the Edgar stamp to play along with the Crafty Gals Corner. Their current challenge is One for the Boys. I made this card for my fellow book nerd cousin. He turns 31 tomorrow. I hope he likes it and doesn't mind that it will be late. Oops. 

So this happened on Sunday. My baby girl is 9!!  She is Garfield obsessed, so we got her this cute cake. :) She loved it!! 

Fab Cute Critters

Happy Sunday! It's a rainy one here, so we are inside trying to find things to occupy us. lol Laila just got a new bike, so she's bummed about not being able to ride it. She did get to some this morning at least. I colored a little this weekend and enjoyed this cute new to me set. I played along with a few challenges, the sketch at Fab Friday, Cute Card Thursday, and 2 Crafty Critter Crazies. Who doesn't love critter cards? :)

I think that's all from me. We are having chicken tacos and guacamole for dinner, so I need to go get the Instant Pot going! This recipe is delicious. :)

Cupcake Inspirations: Rainbow Unicorn

Happy Friday! (I think?) It seems difficult to know what day of the week it is now that school's out. :) We do have a lot of appointments that help keep me on track, but I depend on my phone to alert me to those. I managed to stamp a bit this week, but it's been in short sessions. I enjoyed coloring this cute image from Craftin' Desert Divas for the Cupcake Inspirations challenge. I had bought the image a while back and it seemed like the perfect time to try it.

I don't own much of gold anything, so my unicorn is rainbow. I guess I need to add in some Copics to color gold. Hmm...  

This is what happens when my phone can't help me remember things.  Ha!  Thankfully her instructors were okay with her not having her pants for a day. Oops!

We've been learning all about Italy this week. We've colored pages, made a little book, watched videos, and to finish up, we took a trip to an Italian bakery today. It was fun. Next week we are learning about Mexico! 

MFT Card Challenges 352

Happy October. It's still in the 90s here in Texas, but I'm going to pretend it is about 60 and I'm surrounded by pretty leaves. :) I did use some pretty fall paper on my card.  I used the current sketch at the MFT Card Challenges blog for the layout. I have some birthdays coming up and I don't seem to have that many birthday cards. I think I must have put some in a safe place and they are there being safe from me finding them!  That seems to happen every time I clean my room. You'd think I'd learn that cleaning is a bad idea, huh? lol

Not much going on this weekend for us. Laila and I are both sniffling and coughing, so we've been pretty lazy. I think I took a 3 hour nap yesterday.  I felt awful and I guess I needed the rest.  Those school germs paired with the pollen is too much I guess. 

We finally got in our school shirts and she was excited to wear one this week. They are both too big, but this one wasn't a dress like the other one. We had swimming twice this week and she moved up to the next level.  I love watching her at her lessons because she just loves it so much.  I found out that we can go to extra classes during the week for $10 a class if they have availability, so I'll be taking advantage of that. We've also been going to more library programs after school as well. Wednesday we went and they got to make cute bag pinatas. 

That's it for me today.  I'm hoping to make a card every day this month, so you might see more posts. I have lost the battery charger for my camera, so I'm stuck with iPhone pictures until I find that. It's also in a safe place I guess. lol 

Have a great week!

PTI Make It Monday Color Blocking

Still enjoying Fall in my stamp room. :)  I saw the PTI Make It Monday challenge to do some color blocking and thought it might be fun to use this pretty mum set.  I probably should have used some different colors to make the middle layer of color stand out better, but I like how it turned out anyway.  I do want to try it again with one of the different techniques they shared.

August is my busiest birthday card month, so I need to get some made! My best friend from grad school is my next one, so I'm working on a cute science themed card for her right now. I hope it turns out okay.

Happy Friday!  Enjoy your weekend.
Rita

Papertrey Ink Mum's the Word
Inks: PTI Terracotta Tile, Canyon Clay, Cocoa Bean
Gansai Tambi Watercolors
Canson Watercolor Paper
Stampin' Up! Early Espresso cardstock

Greeting Farm Magical Friends

Happy May! I can't believe I haven't posted at all this month.  It looks like this drought of creativity is going to last for a while.  I don't know what to do about it, so I'm just not pressuring myself and waiting see what happens.  We did have a birthday party on Saturday, so I made a card for that.  The birthday girl is a very girly girl who loves unicorns, so I hope she liked it.  :) 

We are still raising caterpillars and releasing butterflies.  We had two pretty ladies eclose today.  They were perfect and flew off to their next destination.  It always amazing to hold one and see the beauty of them in your hand.  I hate to think that they only live 6 weeks, but I hope we are helping to keep the population going.  A very small percentage of eggs (estimates are around 5%) survive outside to become butterflies, so we are giving them a better chance than they'd have out there.  Wasps are bad this year, so any caterpillars that aren't found and brought inside are killed by those.  :(  I know the circle of life and all that, but it still makes me sad.  

Anyway...  

Have a great week! 

Taylored Expressions Birthday Grumplings

I couldn't get a good picture of this one, but I thought I'd post it anyway.  I love these grumpy guys. I have a few friends who they are just perfect for. :)  I wanted to use more than one of them, so I tried to come up with a layout/plan to do that.  I think it works okay.  Too many sequins, but I wanted it to look like a party.  A grumpy critter party.

So here's one reason why I haven't been posting much lately.  I haven't been stamping much because I've been working on the garden.  I added more plants and have been babying these caterpillars!  I decided to raise them inside this year so that more could make it through the stages successfully.  Right now I have about 8 that are this size, 1 small little guy, and three eggs.  I have three containers with them and have to keep them in fresh leaves. Man do they poop a lot!  Clean, clean, clean! It's been amazing to watch though.  Tonight we sat outside and watched a lot of different butterflies, bees, and birds visit the garden.  Our weather has been perfect for it.  I'm going to be sad when summer starts and it gets hot and gross.

 My other time consuming thing is Weight Watchers.  I decided to start back almost two weeks ago.  It's been a lot of work with grocery shopping, meal planning, cooking, and walking, but I feel great.  I haven't taken any depression or anxiety meds in a few weeks.  I don't know that I won't ever need them, but it's been nice to feel okay without them for a bit.  I am glad they worked and helped me get to the point where I can try to start taking better care of myself. Five pounds down so far!

Laila and I have also been busy going plant shopping, going to parks, and just hanging out. So that's what is going on with me.  I'll be back to stamping more once I get a better routine going.  :)

Happy Green Birthday

I thought I'd do a quick share of the birthday card I made for my brother.  :)  I am not very confident in collage style cards, but I tried to do a simple version.  I think it turned out pretty fun.  I have to find more cute St. Patrick's Day stamps to use for him.  I only have one and I'm sure he'll get tired of seeing it every year,.  :)

I'm having a lazy day playing with my new Distress Oxide inks, so I'm headed back to do that.  I hope you are having a good week.

Our raining cloud experiment from yesterday.  :)  I put too much shaving cream in to start, so it took FOREVER for it to rain in our jar.  Lesson learned.

SSS Magical Birthday

Can you believe 2016 is almost over?  It seems to have been a year with a lot of negative things, so I am hoping that 2017 brings better days.  Today I started the new year organization early and worked on my craft room..  Mom helped me turn my desk so that I have better lighting and I've been working on finding a place for everything.  I am always losing things, so I figure organized with labels is going to be my best bet.   We shall see how it goes!

This week I worked on a card using this adorable stamp set from Simon Says Stamp.  It was a free one as a birthday gift from them.  :)   Isn't that unicorn awesome?!  The SSS Wednesday challenge is to make your card sparkle, so I did.  I added Wink of Stella to my stars, the rainbow, and the unicorn horn.   A little silver glitter paper finished it off.  The stars are purple, but they showed up as black on every picture I took.

Mom got to experience some crafty time with Laila to make this gingerbread train.  I don't think they'll be making one again for a while.  lol  Laila was in rare form today as well.  Mom was even out of patience by bedtime.  She told me she now understands why I have so many breakdowns.  Glad to know it just isn't me, you know?

MFT Cool Day Birthday

I'm still trying to get back in the stamping groove.  I had colored this bear the other day and the current sketch at MFT Card Challenges looked like a great place to use him.  I love these colors together so much!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  We had a lot of yummy food and were lucky to have my mom and Jason's family join us.  Laila had a blast and was so happy that Santa brought her the one thing she wanted more than anything, the Paw Patroller.  :) 

Purrfect Purple Cat

I'm still working on August birthday cards.  Today I focused on a sweet friend who loves cats. She's super girly, but I just can't do pink so I went with a good girl color, PURPLE!   I used the new sketch at MFT Card Challenges along with a cute MFT Pure Innocence stamp.  :)

Stamps: MFT Purrfect
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Ranger Dusty Concord distress ink
Paper:  (not sure of the purple, but it's retired Stampin' Up!), Neenah Solar White
Dies:  My Favorite Things Blueprints 27 and 22, Lil' Inker Stitched Rectangles
Copics:  E000, E00, E11, R20, E31, E33, E36, E37, V12, V15, V17, W0, W1, W3, W5, W7

So update on life chaos:  Bandit seems to be feeling better minus some weird breathing. I'm calling tomorrow to follow up on that since he will be finishing up his antibiotics.  We found out today that Laila was accepted at the montessori school we applied to and will start next week!  So yay!  Tomorrow we have another assessment with the public school system and go meet her teacher again at the montessori school.  Send good thoughts! :)

Maskerade of Animals

August is apparently the month for birthdays!  What happened 9 months ago?  lol   I have so many friends with birthdays this month so I'm trying to crank out some cards for them.  I saw that Online Card Classes was having a sale this week (ends today by the way!) on classes so I took a peek.  I saw the Maskerade class that I never really finished because I didn't have the supplies and thought hmm...  So this card is the results of the first lesson.  :)   I still might go sign up for a new class, but I have several that I can revisit and do again with supplies that I have now.  It will feel all new in a way!  If you've never tried a class, go look and give one a chance! I love every single one I've taken.

And this card has too many random sequins.  We won't talk about the smudges they are hiding.  Oops!

Stamps:  Avery Elle Furry Friends, Mama Elephant Carnival Toppers, Avery Elle Party Animal
Paper:  Neenah Solar white 80/110 lb
Ink:  Mememto Tuxedo Black
Dies: MFT Blueprints 20
Copics: E31, E33, E35, E42, E43, E44, W1, W3, W4, R20, BG01, BG02 BG05, V12, V15, V17
Other: Inkadinkado Masking Paper, Sequins

Happy Monday!  Enjoy your week!

Happy Birthday Bird

Well, I'm only like super late with my Freshly Made Sketches post.  lol Better late than never though, right?   Amy has such a fun sketch this week and I was excited to play along.  My brother is a St. Patrick's Day baby so I decided to get ahead and make his birthday card!   I used the fun bird stamp I got at From the Heart stamps because he cracks me up and my brother needs some laughs right now.

  

I am still struggling to create very much.  I think about it, but I just can't bring myself to go in my room and do it.  I might try to challenge myself to redo one of the Online Card Classes I've done in the past or even make a card every day in March to get myself back in the mode.  Or just color images for now and work on the card part later?  I don't know...   Laila is sick with a cold now so sleep is a bit rough.  I'm headed to take a nap now!  

Before I go, here's the newest member of our family.  His name is Pet (Laila named him).  lol  Laila LOVES him and he seems to like his new home in our 10 gallon tank.  :) 

Birthday Sunflower

It's my first card for 2016! Yay!   A special person is having a birthday this week so I wanted to make a special card for her.  I love bright, happy sunflowers and I hope it will bring some cheer to her day.   I didn't have room for a sentiment, but I added some little tags so that it wasn't totally naked.  :)

Stamps:  Stampendous Sunflower Ladybug, Stampin' Up! Tiny Tags
Paper:  Stampin' Up! Crushed Curry, Stampin' Up! Early Espresso, Neenah Solar White, Stampin' Up! Moonlight DSP
Other:  Stampin' Up! Jewelry Tag punch, Stampin' Up! Brights buttons, Early Espresso Baker's Twine, Early Espresso Stitched Ribbon

Doggy Birthday

One of the sweet ladies I met at the animal shelter is having a birthday today so I made this card for her.  I did actually mail it a few days ago, so I am crossing my fingers it makes it today.  She is the nicest person and helped us get our Sadie girl.   I used the Avery Elle Furry Friends set again; she has a dog named Charlie who she just adores so I had to make a dog card!  :)

I want to learn to watercolor on my cards so bad, but it is HARD!  I think I need some better watercolors and maybe a class to help me.  I'm so not artsy so using real art supplies scares me!  lol

Stampin' Up! Indescribable Gift

Here's another card I made over the weekend.  I was in a stamping mood and cranked out quite a few!  I made this one for a friend and it's already in the mail.  :)   It was inspired by the catalog sample for this set.   It's such a pretty flower stamp and I recommend it if you haven't purchased it yet.  I love coloring it!

Stamps:  And Many More, Indescribable Gift, Endless Birthday Wishes
Paper:  Wisteria Wonder, Neenah Solar White 80lb, Typeset DSP
Ink:  Wisteria Wonder, Memento Black, Copics
Accessories:  scrap of lace

Simon Says Birthdays

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge was all about birthdays this time, so I decided to play along using my March card kit.  I am so in love with these colors and the pretty flower stamps!  I went ahead and made a belated birthday card because I am behind and need to get a few out in the mail.   Hopefully they won't be a month late like the last ones.  Yikes!

Another picture from our day at the park.   :o)