check, check, check

Made myself quite the to do list on Sunday morning of things I need to do before I leave for Oregon and many, many things that I would like to happen the rest of this year. Thankfully, my pre-Oregon list has been almost obliterated. I've been a busy girl, but seem to have still had time to do stuff for me. I like this Monday off thing. Seemed like a long weekend, since I had three cancellations on Saturday giving me almost three days off in a row. Good thing, since I had that list....So here's what I've been up to:

• got caught up with 52 Cards (see previous post)
• saw this fabulous movie with Stephanie...I totally want to see it again, it is so fun!
• started and read about 300 pages in Twilight and am officially obsessed...how did I not start this series sooner?
• made this page for the bow challenge at Studio Calico
• vacuumed
• cleaned the bathroom
  
• lots of laundry
• dealt with a huge pile of old mail (being sick for so long definitely messed with my normally organized self)
• paid bills
• made 3 birthday cards
• went to Super Target
• bought New Moon at Target
  
• started packing
• did my timesheet and half of the billing
• finished my banner from Kerry Lynn's Sisiversary class....I missed this event while I was sick, but KL generously sent me a kit anyway....I love how it turned out, will post a picture soon
• pulled out old photos for scrapping
• placed an order with Brocade with the 50% of sale items code
• baked banana bread
  
• cooked my standard two dinners a night...gotta love the new diet restrictions
• took a nap...seriously I actually slept in the middle of the day...this is new for me
• read the Sunday paper and all the ads
• finished two Sudokus
• purged old magazines
  

Tomorrow I start work late and will say good bye to 3 more kiddos. Sad, sad, sad, but necessary. Off to read...told you I was obsessed.

52 Card Madness

Creating a lot of stuff these days and figured I should try to get caught up and keep up with 52 Cards. I still have the two most recent ones to finish, but here are a few older ones. The first one was Andrea's prompt "summer fresh." I knew I wanted to use this October Afternoon paper for this one:


Here's the back where I talk about my love for fresh summertime fruit.


This card was a free card. No prompts. I decided to use this Happy sticker and remind myself that happiness is a choice.


Here's the back:


This card was for my prompt "try something new on your card." I think these cards are the perfect opportunity to try new ideas and techniques. I've been wanting to do more stitching on my pages and to try out hand stitching shapes, so here's a little hand stitched heart:


This prompt landed on July 4th, so Jessie had it easy with her "4th of July" prompt.


Back...can you tell I like the powder blue, red, white combo these days?


Andrea's next prompt was "copy cat." She wanted us to copy someone or something on our cards. I knew I wanted to copy Jen Jockish and her little flowers and patterned paper strips.


Here's the back:


Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend full of rest, relaxation and playtime!

New Toy

Look what I got today! So excited! Shawn and I have wanted a digital SLR for a long time, but haven't been able to justify spending the money when we've got other things to buy and other things to do with out money. Last night Shawn found out that Sears was put the Canon Digital Rebel XT on clearance. We got a great deal! Now I just need to learn how to use it! I'm off to play....

Ten on Tuesday

It's been awhile since I've done one of these posts. Today's ten on Tuesday will be 10 random things I've been doing this week.

1. Wearing this dumb thing. I don't really need it anymore. I haven't had symptoms in two weeks....yet I'm supposed to wear this for three weeks. Blah!

2. Made this cute bird banner for my favorite 2 month old, Amelia. It looks quite cute in her room!

3. Reading this, but getting ready to read this
4. Shopping here
5. Excited to play with my new (borrowed) sewing machine
6. Wearing this


7. Browsing at the eye candy here
8. Getting ready for the onslaught of late July and August birthdays in my life
9. Wishing I could eat these lovelies that were given to me today
10. Saying good bye to clients that I've seen for years and years. I will miss these kiddos.

Getting crafty

Before I share some crafty stuff I've been working on, I wanted to let you in a little secret...it's called knitty bitties. My friend Andrea makes the cutest bags, aprons and baby stuff you ever did see. You need to go check out her blog and etsy store. Buy something. Tell her I sent you. Oh and she's giving away a cute little tote on her blog. Go check it out. In case you are not convinced, check out my super adorable craft apron. I stole this picture from her etsy, as my stupid camera is not working right now. Hopefully I will post a picture of me wearing this someday soon.


Isn't is the cutest? You can get your own cute little apron , she'll even customize colors and fabrics for you in her etsy store . It's called the Miss Red Crafty Apron...yup, named after me! I am also carrying this adorable bag from her store and I have a cute red polka dot apron she made me as well. I'm telling you, go check her stuff out....


On to the craftiness....I've been getting back into the swing of things lately and working on a lot of quickie scrapbook pages and projects. Here's a few I've done lately. Made these little guys today with scraps that have been cluttering up my scrap table. Super easy and fun.


Here's a fun little page I did last night while scrapping with Heather and Angie. Love this Sassafras paper so much...


I did these last weekend. I'm trying to use up my stash these days. With all the new CHA stuff I've been seeing, I know I'm going to want to buy as soon as new releases start showing up, so the plan is to start using things up. Here's a few pages using a lot of American Crafts goodness.




I've got more to share, but don't want to bore you with too many pages all at once. I'm off to change the laundry, clean bathrooms and vacuum so I can get back to playing with my scrap stuff!

Sharing is Caring

So I actually started this post a couple days ago and never finished it. I kind of suck as a blogger these days, I'm sorry. I actually got done with work early today due to some canceled kids, so I am home hoping to get caught up on a few things and maybe get some scrapping done. There are lots of challenges this weekend for those of us who aren't so lucky as to be at CHA. I will be playing at Studio Calico and SIS off and on all weekend. I need to continue "project use your stuff" to clear some space in my crazy full scrapbook room. Especially since there are a lot of new CHA releases I'm going to need. Here's a couple things I made awhile ago, but never posted on the blog.

These two use the May Studio Calico kit. I love working with the Sassafras stuff. So fun!



I'm all about quick and simple these days, can you tell? Here's a few pages from a little mini I put together to house bits and pieces of cards, tags, notes and other things I have received in the mail. I had this stuff all in a pile on my scrap desk and I'm not one to put cards in a box to save for later, so I decided to punch and cut little pieces of things and put them in this little mini. I think I will be making one of these every so often to save the stuff I've piled up.






Stayed tuned for more simple pages and hopefully a few more 52 Cards. I'm hoping to get a lot done, we'll see....

More 52 Cards

I've been meaning to post more of my 52 Cards all week....but I had yet to scan them in and sometimes, that's just more work than I feel like doing. So, today I've been a scanning fool and here are the next 4 cards in project "get caught up." I still have 4 more to go...

This first card was Andrea's prompt "Birthday," in honor of her birthday.

Here's the back, just some things I like to do to celebrate birthdays:


The next prompt came from Silvia and was to take a picture of something you love in your house. This was a no brainer for me...I adore my beautiful green bathroom:


Back of the card:


This prompt was mine and because I was still not feeling well and mostly hanging out at home on the couch or in my bedroom, I chose "what do you do when you feel lazy or sick?"


A few of my go to pastimes:


This last card was Jessie's prompt "summer fun"


Some of my favorite summer things:


Ok, I'm off to do some scrapping in between loads of laundry and other household chores.
Happy Sunday!

Oh how I miss you

So I went back to the doctor this week and I have been diagnosed with GERD. I'm back on medicine and have some diet and lifestyle changes to make. Since getting sick I've stopped eating a lot of things because I've been having such bad heartburn and acid, but I'm officially limiting several things now. So goodbye caffeine, onions, fried and fatty foods...not that I eat too much of this, but um bye french fries and falafel...goodbye spicy foods and tomatoes and alcohol...oh and the big one, goodbye dairy!!! Ok so really the dairy is an experimental thing. I've been noticing diary is not sitting well, so my doctor has suggested I eliminate it for a period of time and than slowly reintroduce dairy products back into my diet to determine how I tolerate it. This hopefully means I will just need to have dairy in moderation, but we shall see. Removing dairy will be hard for me as I eat a lot of it. I love my yogurt and berry breakfast and I'm not sure how I'm going to live without cheese...oh and lets not forget milkshakes.....argh! But like a 12 year old client told me this week "It's ok Miss Erin, it's just cheese!" I'm hoping that once my body settles down I will be able to have some of these things again, I may just have to limit how often I treat myself. In the mean time I'm having to readjust my cooking routines and spend more time figuring out what I'm going to eat and how I'm going to consume enough protein. I guess if this new diet becomes a long term thing I will have to find some new recipes and figure out ways to modify some of my old favorites. Here's hoping these diet changes make a difference and I can start feeling like myself completely again!

52 Card Catch Up

Because of being sick for so long, I have been way behind with my 52 cards. We're talking almost 3 months behind.....I'm slowly catching up. I've decided to break the posting of them up, because I'm not sure how exciting it would be to scroll through 12 cards front and back. So here's the first 4 for your viewing pleasure.

This one was my prompt: "What comforts you?" This prompt was given when I was feeling my worst and really just wanted some comforting. Loving using the wood grain contact paper on the cards...you may see this again...


Here's the back and oh so true...


This card came from our guest prompter, the lovely and talented Heather. You can see her card here. The prompt was "reality check."


Here's the back....something I really need to remember.


This prompt from Andrea was "What's inspiring you creatively?"


I used some of my many magazine tear outs on the back.


The prompt for this last card came from Jessie "What will you do this week?"


Since I made this card weeks after the prompt was actually given, I did more of a generic, what I'd like to do every week, response.


What I love about these cards is that I get to use up all the scraps on my desk and rummage through my stash for bits and pieces I've forgotten about. There are two of these cards in progress on my scrap space right now. I've got several more of these to post later, so stay tuned!

Happy 4th of July

Here's wishing you and yours a very happy 4th of July!

Shawn and I are enjoying a lazy day together. Well, us and Lucy, my sister's dog, whom we're watching this weekend. The rest of my family is off enjoying beautiful beach weather in Coronado. We stayed here in the heat. We have decided to stay in for the night and not to brave the weather to go see fireworks, but we did enjoy this movie this afternoon. Quite entertaining. Not a very traditional 4th, but we're enjoying our day.

Getting back into the swing of things

So it's been a long time since I blogged. It's just not been on my priority list. I'm slowly getting back to my normal routine. Feeling much better, but still not quite myself. Headed back to the doctor next week to discuss the possibility of GI issues and food intolerances. I am thinking a new diet is in my future, but we'll see what I find out. I'm also working on addressing my too full schedule--cutting back work hours, decreasing commitments and making time to return to yoga. It's been too long since I was consistently doing yoga or pilates and it's time to get back into it. Time to take better care of me.

So what have I been up to the past couple of months besides being sick? Well, a whole lot of nothing really. I've spent a lot of time in bed or on the couch. I've seen way to much daytime TV, got hooked on a few new (or new to me) shows, including reruns of Gilmore Girls and new episodes of Army Wives. I've watched a lot of movies, both old and new. I've read a huge stack of magazines and at least 4 books. I've spent a lot of time with my laptop surfing on the internet. I've had several good cries...not feeling well for so long is a bit rough emotionally. I've scrapbooked a little, but not until recently. I finished a scarf I was knitting and worked a bit on a blanket.

I also had a visit from this girl:

She came to cheer me up and we had a lovely lazy time together chatting, scrapbooking, watching movies, sunning by the pool and getting pedicures. I'm so glad she was able to come spend a few days with me and bring me some needed cheer. Nothing quite like some girlfriend time to make you feel a little better.