Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

It's been a crazy busy past week, but I didn't want to miss out on the Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop.  I have been in a bear mood lately, so I grabbed my Honey Bee Stamps Flakey set and colored this cute bear. The set also has a cute little coffee, so my bear wanted a pumpkin spice latte. :) The sentiment is from Unity and the leaf die cuts are from Lawn Fawn. That's a lot of white space, huh? lol

Everyone ready to welcome in Fall tomorrow?  It will probably be 90 degrees in Texas, but at least the coffee drinks change. 

School is going as I figured it would.  Two phone calls from the teacher so far, spending time with the principal...  She has made major improvements though, so I hope we can continue with the positive things.  It's just hard not to be frustrated already. Social skills playgroup might have to come back in play as it helped so much. She already got sick and missed a day, but she's on the mend with just a little cough left.

On day one of school she wouldn't color anything. One sheet she brought home had nothing colored, the second had a swipe of orange. This was towards the end of last week, so yay!

Now I gotta run and go pack her lunch and then wake her up! Have a great Thursday!

Simon Says Sing

Just checking in really quick and sharing another card with the Carol Singers set from STAMPtember at Simon Says Stamp.  I think these guys are so fun to color.  They are a bit of a challenge, but still fun. It's always relaxing to come in my room and color for a bit at night, so I stamped out a sheet of images just for that purpose. I love walking in and picking up my markers without having to decide what to color.  I started a box to keep stamped images in too, so I can just browse that when I get ready to make a card.  It doesn't always have what I want in it, but it's like wining the lottery when it does! Well, like a small $5 scratch off, not the millions. I would love to know how it feels to win millions...

 So far so good on school.  She had so much fun on Thursday and kept telling us it was AWESOME.  She was happy to go back yesterday.  I don't know if it's all kids or what, but it is like pulling teeth to find out anything about her day.  We've tried some different approaches with her, but she doesn't like to share at all.  Maybe in time that will change, but man! I'd love to know about her day.  She did share that she got upset and cried a lot at recess yesterday because she wanted to get on the seesaw.  She is not good at waiting her turn, so that will be a challenge for school and recess.

I'll share a bit about her second day on my next post. :)  Have a great weekend!

Freshly Made Sketches 304

Here I am late as always. lol Yesterday and today have not been my best mental days, so I'll blame it on that. I did actually get a card made for our new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. I'm still working on getting back in the groove over there. I thought I would once school started, but then Harvey and the delay. Maybe this week will be the week. :) Narelle has a great sketch and I used one of Simon Says Stamp new sets for STAMPtember. It's a month long celebration of fun, so be sure to check that out. I love this cute kitty singing her heart out. I'm sure she's probably fake singing and secretly plotting how to eat that bird on her head, but we'll pretend she's singing Jingle Bells.

I know there's so much you can do with the sketch, so come join us! 

Today has been an amazing day in our butterfly garden. I think the butterflies are loving the cooler weather as much as I have. They've been flying around all day and it was such a pick-me-up.  I am hoping I can get out there and work in this week while we are out of the 90 degree temperatures.

I'm off to finish getting Laila's stuff ready for tomorrow. Yikes! Wish us luck!

Freshly Made Sketches 303

I just realized that I forgot to do my blog post for Freshly Made Sketches. I worked on my card to take my mind off things Tuesday, but I guess I didn't get to the posting part.  Karren really challenged us with this sketch!  Who doesn't love a challenging challenge, right? :) You get to put on your creative thinking cap and that's what I did. I had pulled one of my card kits from Simon Says Stamp from my stash to attempt to use it up as much as possible this week, so I worked on a design using that and only that.  I think it turned out okay and I hope it's close enough to the sketch.

I know Texas is getting a lot of news coverage, but we are fine.  We were some of the lucky ones in our area who didn't flood.  All of my friends here are fine as well. School is still delayed and next Thursday is the best case first day.  Laila's principal's house flooded and was still full of water as of yesterday. I'm sure our school will be helping with that as much as we can. The school itself did not flood, so we are thankful for that. There is just so much devastation around the area that it is almost unreal right now. It will be a long time before anything is close to normal again. But, we are lucky. So lucky. If the worst thing facing you is waiting in lines for hours to enter a grocery store, that's not much you can complain about when people lost their lives and homes. Things did begin opening back up yesterday, but some will be months coming back. It is just truly heartbreaking. 

It has been amazing to see how the community, both individuals and businesses, have jumped in to help. We've gathered supplies to take to temporary shelters twice now and their needs were already met before we could get there. Restaurants are closing to focus on making food for first responders. Churches quickly opened up as shelters. People with boats and lifted trucks assisting strangers. I know on our local group a truck owner picked up a pregnant lady having contractions five minutes apart and got her to the hospital so she could give birth. Political and racial divides went out the window and it has been people helping people. We need more of that. 

I'm off to make coffee and turn on the news for a bit. Have a good week and keep sending good thoughts this way. 

Hugs. 

MFT Card Challenge 347

Howdy! I did a bit of stamping yesterday and today and wanted to share one of my projects. I loved the sketch at MFT Card Challenges this week. I didn't have the die to make the shape they used, so I made due with a boring old rectangle. You know how much I love this set, so I colored it in Laila's favorite colors, orange and green.  :) It probably makes it look a bit Halloweenish, but that's okay. Halloween is awesome and coming up soon, so I can always use it then.

Hurricane Harvey is still dropping a lot of rain on my area, so we are staying inside.  Roads are flooded and some businesses and houses are starting to as well.  We missed the direct hit and the wind, but the rain is going to do a lot of damage. :( School won't be starting tomorrow and is postponed until at least Wednesday now.  Send good thoughts to Texas in hopes that the rain moves out soon.

We did get out some yesterday during a lull and took a walk.  That hasn't happened today, so we are inside with a bit of cabin fever.  Laila wants to go splash in puddles again, but it's a bit more than puddles out there right now.  I'll share a picture of her from yesterday as well as a beautiful butterfly that came to visit.  We haven't seen any butterflies today, but the rain hasn't stopped our little hummingbird from visiting the feeder.

Off to eat lunch and maybe sneak in a nap.  I have lots of new books on my Kindle and of course there's always stamping...

Freshly Made Sketches 302

Jumping in and playing along with Freshly Made Sketches this week.  I saw the sketch and had an idea, so I tried to find time to see if that idea translated well to paper.  I am happy with how it turned out.  I had the watercolor background in my stash waiting to be used, so yay for one less thing being stored. :) I've been trying to use more vellum lately too as it's been sitting unused for a while too. I hope you like it!

Before I run off and get ready for playgroup, I thought I'd share pictures of Laila's school.  

 This is the library.  It is amazing. I wanted to just move in!

 I took this when we were walking in.  It's neat because all the grades have their own hallway.

 Her classroom.  They are still waiting on tables for the room.

She made herself at home.  She was pretty overwhelmed, but she did hug her teacher by the end of our visit.  I hope she's excited to go on Monday.  I'm a bit nervous about figuring out drop off and all that, but Jason took off all next week.  I'm happy to have backup! 

MFT Camp Create Delightful Die Cutting

I thought I'd sneak in my card for the last day of Camp Create so that I don't forget to upload it.  This one is for the Delightful Die Cutting.  I wasn't sure I could do this one, but I saw these glasses and thought they might work?  It was fun to make because I LOVE distress inks.  This was Mermaid Lagoon. Love that color!

That makes all five days for me, so yay!  There is a bonus day with an ombre theme, but I'm not sure I'll get to that one. My room is torn apart right now.  I am not even sure what to work on at this point, but I need to pick a starting point and get going again.  

Laila and I made this fancy pinhole camera to watch the eclipse yesterday.  I was skeptical, but it worked great.  One of my neighbors who had the glasses did walk over and let me borrow them for a minute to look.  So cool, huh? 

Off to clean a bit more and then shower and get ready for meet the teacher tonight.  I can't believe it's that time already.  I'm a nervous wreck.  I'm sure that's part of why I can't sleep.  I hope she does okay, but if not, I hope there's a plan to help her.  Getting kicked out of the last school type place we tried has made this so stressful.  We have one more social skills class tomorrow and play therapy on Thursday. I am sad about the social skills class as they do such much that I feel helps. 

MFT Camp Create Background Bonanza

Did you survive Monday and the eclipse?  I did, but man am I tired.  Laila and I made the viewer using a cereal box and I think she enjoyed it. :)  I wanted to share another card for the MFT Camp Create.  This one is for the Background Bonanza.  I love using stencils and this is a newer one in my stash.  I used three colors of distress inks, Candy Apple, Spiced Marmalade, and Mustard Seed.

We had three more butterflies to release today.  Laila loves them and she's always wanting to keep one.  This one stayed with her for a while today. 

I'm off to get some rest.  I have been so tired and fighting a headache all day, so early bedtime it is. I hope you have a terrific Tuesday.