No Time...Sorry!

Sorry I haven't posted in over 2 weeks. Life has been soooo busy....I'm sure many of you can relate. We had our neighborhood garage sale this past week and I spent most of my waking hours getting ready for that. Now I will spend most of my waking hours taking it all down! My DH just finished his Masters Degree so I am throwing a party this week to celebrate with friends and family. I am doing an openhouse for a neighbor next weekend showcasing SU! products, so I'm hoping to get some samples done and posted here for you all to see.

Plus, my youngest is 13-months and the second I walk into my craft room, she starts to cry. I don't even have a chance to email with people because she is in here crawling up my legs or trying to type on the keyboard herself. I know it's just a stage, but I am used to having some "me" time, but life just isn't allowing it right now. By the end of the night when the girls go down, I am so tired, I'm lucky if I change out of my clothes....sad...I know.

Thanks for bearing with me as I take this short break. I'll be back next week with more to show you! I hope you are all enjoying your summer.

Check out this blog.....

Today's featured blogger is:

Impressions by Rochelle http://impressionsbyrochelle.blogspot.com/

We fly home this evening and look forward to seeing the girls again! Hope you all had a great weekend!

Check out this blog....

Today's featured blogger is.............



Jill Dunn InkGenious

Check out this blog....

Sorry, nothing to share today. Still gone out of town. I've been directing you to a couple of different blogs with my past couple of posts. Some of you may already read the blogs that I'm going to suggest to you over the next couple of days, but for those of you who haven't......check out some of their designs and projects. Their creativity will amaze you.....



Today's featured blogger is:



Julie Buhler Paper Pleasing Ideas

TV Passes

I created these TV Passes because my daughter is a TV junkie. If that's all she could do all day long, she would! I have to make her play. Once she gets started, she can play for a while by herself, but getting her to do that is sometimes a battle. She is really into this creative stage right now where she has imaginary friends and she comes up with some great parties, etc. that her and "her friends" play. She even set up a place setting for them at dinner the other day!

Anyway, I created these TV passes as a way to help her and me. Sometimes I am just so tired, that I don't have the fight in me and I give in and let her watch more TV than she should be watching. Instead of it being a battle between Mom & Emerson, I've taken Mom out of the equation. There are 4 TV Passes. She can choose to watch them all at once, or spread it out throughout the day, but once the passes are gone, she is done watching TV for the day.

Our pediatrician actually had me put the TV for her (Emerson) while she was eating lunch. She eats like a bird, but if the TV is on, she stays there long enough to eat some food and actually get some calories into her body without us having to use supplements like we used to. We'll see how lunch goes today :)

I laminated these sheets with my laminating machine that I got for my birthday from my parents. Yes, I asked for a laminating machine for my birthday....crazy, huh? My contact from my old job left the organization, so I had no way to laminate things anymore. So, now I have my very own. I just hope I don't get as crazy with it as I do my label machine!! LOL!

Stressed Out Mom

I was at the mall today, looking for outfits to wear to the many (4) weddings we have this summer. I was lucky enough to go by myself. I hire my 19-year old niece to come over and babysit the girls every other Monday so I can go to appointments or run errands or just have some time to myself. Anyway, while I was at the mall, inside a store I heard a little boy (had to have been around 3 years old) saying to his Mom that he was tired and wanted to go home. It was after 1pm, so who knows how long they had been there. The Mom said that they were not going home and the little boy threw a tantrum. We've all been there, right?? The Mom picked up the little boy and yelled and screamed at him calling him an idiot and saying "I hate you, I hate you.....I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." I could not believe my ears. I was just shaking! Do I mind my own business and not saying anything or should I say something? Well, for that little boys sake, I said something. I said to the lady, "M'am, that's not neccessary. I completely understand that you are stressed....I have two little ones at home myself, but that isn't what we should be saying to our children. That will have an effect on him for a long time." She said that she doesn't ever get to get out of the house. I told her that I understood, I was actually out on a rare occasion without my kids, but just because we are frustrated and stressed out, we should never use those words with our children. She just rolled her eyes at me and walked away.

I wasn't trying to get into a confrontation with her. I was trying to be empathetic and understanding to her situation, yet help out that poor little boy. I hope that she thinks about what she says to her child the next time she is frustrated. I've been at my wits end with my kids. I've had to call my husband at 4:30pm and say "I'm done....Your turn!!!" I think we have all had those days. Just remember....words are like nails in a fence. You can hammer nails into a fence and then take the nails out, but you will still have holes in the fence. You can say nasty words to a loved one and say I'm sorry, but you have still left emotional marks on them. I'm NOT a perfect mother by any means. I've yelled at my kids and the heat of the moment being frustrated and having lack of sleep, but have never used words like I heard today. I'm not trying to preach to you, but I just wanted to share my story with you today in hopes that if you hear someone saying/doing unacceptable things to a child, that you would step out of your comfort zone and say something....for the sake of the child.

Okay, I'm off my soap box now. I just felt that I had to say something...again, our blogs are our outlets...craft and other life things. I have been bothered by this all day and can't stop thinking about it, so now that I have said my peace, hopefully I can resume my day :) Thanks for listening.

Weather & 2 cards

I cannot believe that it is 58 degrees and sunny today and next week for my birthday we are supposed to have SNOW ACCUMULATION!!! WHAT?!?!?! That just can't be! I have enjoyed getting outside so much lately, playing with the girls, cleaning out our vehicles, etc., and now I have to get the shovels and snow brushes out again? It just doesn't seem fair!!

Okay, I'm done with my whining for now. LOL! Here are a couple of cards that I did for a friend recently. (Actually, a friend of a friend.) She recently had 3 grand mal seizures in a matter of a couple of days and they can't seem to find the cause. Once you are diagnosed with having grand mal seizures, you cannot drive for 6 months. She has 3 little kids and cannot get them around. I knew what that was like when I was on bed rest. I so empathize with her and her family. They are now going to have a find their "new normal". Anyway, I made a meal and brought it over along with a batch of "thank you" cards. I knew she would be needing these :)

These are two that I did. I did 2 to 4 of each design with slight variations. I only had 2 nights to whip up these cards, so I didn't have the time to create originals for each one. I think these ones are some of my favorite. I just love Sky Blue and Blue Bayou. I'm really going to miss these colors when they retire them. I just stocked up on the current in-colors for paper, re-inkers and ribbon. Can't wait for them to arrive!

Altered Pocket Calendars

WOW! I just checked my blog and realized that I hadn't posted in a couple days. Where does the time go?? Let's see.....Thursday I had my last day of work....well not officially. I'm not scheduled to work anymore during the month of April, told them I needed a break. I just haven't officially told them that I'm not coming back. I'll do that before they make the next schedule. Too much drama for me to deal with.....that I don't need to deal with. I took the job the daycare at the YMCA to get me (and the girls) out of the house and I thought it would be fun. It was fun, but the drama with the "younger girls" and people not doing their job, it just wasn't something that I wanted to be a part of anymore. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

Friday, Emerson and I had eye doctor appointments. Her vision is good and mine isn't changing. But I am venturing out into the contact world! After getting the braces on this past January and wearing glasses, it's just more than my 30-something self wants to deal with. So, I am going with contacts. I'm a little nervous, as I've never worn them, but at least I don't have to spend 15 minutes looking around the house to find where I've put my glasses!! Oh, about the braces. While I was pregnant with Camryn, I noticed that my bite was different. Well, you know when you are pregnant and your ligaments stretch (which is why your feet grow), well, my jaw started shifting.....my bottom jaw was moving forward. I received two opinions and they both said that it would be a matter of time before my bottom jaw knocked out my front teeth!!! WHAT!?!?!? I wanted to keep my teeth! I really didn't want dentures in my 30's! So, in order to keep my teeth, I have to have jaw surgery in June '09. So I have braces for 12-18 months, then the jaw surgery with 6-8 weeks of having my mouth rubberbanded shut (they don't wire them anymore), and then another 3-4 months of braces. They told me that my facial structure would be different and I would look different. My jaw line will be different...I will have more pronounced cheek bones, etc. So they wanted to make sure that my DH knew that all of this would happend b/c apparently that have had some husbands furious that their wives didn't look like they used to. I will lose about 10% of my body weight and won't be able to take care of the girls for at least the first 2 weeks after the surgery. I told them no worries about the body weight.......as long as I was able to get chocolate through the straw, I would be good to go!!

Okay, enough rambling on....time for some calendars. I made these for my grandmother. I made one for her last fall and she asked if I would recover some so she could give them to her friends. She also noted that she wanted "bright & fun" colors. She didn't want them to look "old-ladyish." How cute is that??

My 2 cents worth

I've been reading on a few blogs lately about the pressures of blogging and "trying to keep up with the Joneses". (Sorry if your last name is Jones....you probably get tired of people using that analogy :) Blogging means different things to different people. Some people do it just to show their crafts, other do it as a place to "be themselves" and say whatever is in their heart and for some it is a mixture of both. For me, blogging is my creative outlet, as I say in my title "my own little corner of the world". It's a chance for me to escape my everyday life of mother, wife, housekeeper, cook, chauffer, laundromat, etc. We are all human, and we can't always escape our life. It's going to "spill" over into our craft life that we have here in blog world. Whatever people's reason is for blogging, we should not be judging them or criticizing them. If you feel that people are "pulling you down" (as one person said) or if their lives are too dramatic for you, then please don't read their blog. No one is making you go to their blog and read it. But please don't go and leave nasty comments. This isn't high school anymore....it's the real world. As I learned growing up, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all".

People are feeling bad that they don't get many comments or visitors. As you can see from my blog, I have a little over 1400 hits since July of 2007 and half of them are probably me!! :) I rarely get comments and even ask questions and no one leaves comments. That's okay with me. I don't blog and share my stuff for it to be a popularity contest. I started it as a means to show my friends and family what I enjoy doing. And if I am able to inspire someone to create something from what I share, that is wonderful....an added bonus. Of course comments and RAK's always brighten someone's day, but we shouldn't validate ourselves on whether or not we get those. At the end of the day, our family (& friends) is what matters the most. Not how many visitors or comments we had on our blog. Okay, I better step off my soap-box now, or I could keep going forever. It was breaking my heart to see some of the mean things people were saying out there, so this was my way of getting it off my chest. Thank you for listening to me ramble on.

I need some ideas.....and a card

Okay all you crafty people out there....I need your help!! I have been a SU! hobby demonstrator for over 5 years and have never had a party. What does that tell you about my addiction??? Well, I am having my first party this weekend and need some ideas. I had a card all planned out using the Time Well Spent stamp set, but the hostess told me last night that she doesn't want to do a card and would rather do a papercraft. I'm totally blanking! I have no idea what to do that won't cost me a lot in supplies. Any ideas out there? Please help! The party is this Saturday (2/23).



Onto a card. This is Emerson's Valentine's Day card that I made her. I usually don't get into too much detail with her cards because she likes to carry them around with her for weeks and usually picks them apart. Like she did with this one.....she took the bee off and just carries that around with her. Crazy, I know! Of course the card is PINK, and I had to add a little sparkle with some Diamond Stickles.



Alright ladies......help me with ideas!!!!! PLEASE!!

Let Us Be Grateful

First, let me say THANK YOU to those of you who have left comments or emailed me directly about your experiences on potty training. It can be so frustrating because it is totally out of your control. Today we go to our first preschool openhouse with Emerson. When I told her we were going, she said "Yeah, and then I go pee-pee in the potty all the time." That comment got me thinking....maybe, just maybe, she'll make the connection once we are there today and actually WANT to use the potty. Incentives never really worked with her, even though I have a whole bag full of goodies, just in case! So, we are going to go to the openhouse today and then I am going to give it one more good try starting tomorrow. I've got about 15 days off of work and I'm putting the panties on her and going for it! I know it won't be easy and there will be a lot of laundry and plenty of use of my Bissell Green Machine, but I'm willing to do it one more time before I send her off to preschool in the fall with her Depends! LOL! Thanks again for your support. I so appreciate the well wishes and stories. It helps me feel like I am not so alone with this.

Okay, enough potty talk and on to some cards! I love this paper from Basic Grey. It was made to go with the SU!'s Garden Green. When I made these, you can tell I was in the mood to use my Coluzzle :) When the juices aren't flowing, the Coluzzle is an easy way to jazz up your card without having to do much, IMO. I first did the card with the flower, and didn't like it at all. It just wasn't working for me. So then I adapted the card and used my trusty ribbon. You can never go wrong with ribbon.




Not sure how much I'll be posting over the next week. I have a feeling the potty training is going to wear me right out and will have no energy to be crafty. Wish me luck!!

Please forgive me.....

for my lack of posts. I have been sick with the flu and a sinus infection since Saturday. Today is the first day out of bed since then, except for Monday, when I had to go and get my braces on. Yes, I'm 30 and have braces again. I feel like a 14 year old all over again. I'll fill you all in on that story another time. Anyway, I'm hoping to get over this thing soon and stamp, if not, someone please take me out back and shoot me!



Thanks for your patience!

Merry Christmas

Need to get into the holiday spirit?? Have I got the thing for you!
This was too hilarious not to show you all! I hope you enjoy it! Click here.

~Kelley

Food for Thought.....literally.

I know this is supposed to be my craft blog, but cooking is just another kind of craft, right? I've been busy in the kitchen the last couple of days pureeing up food for the girls. Formula and baby food prices have been rising and I am just getting sick of paying the prices. Formula cans went up almost $6 per can (depends on where you shop) to over $26 per can! I couldn't believe it! To save 50% per can, I switched to the off-brand. I talked to the pediatrician and she said that there isn't any difference. They are all approved by the FDA, so I wouldn't be doing Camryn any harm by giving her the off-brand. (Whew! Good to hear!)

So with Emerson always being a finicky eater (when she was born, she only ate every 6 hours! Scary at first and hard to get over what "normal babies do", but kinda nice. It was nice to run errands and not have to feed every 2 hours). Anyways, I saw Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah a few months back when she was talking about her cookbook Deceptively Delicious. I was hooked! I am not a good (healthy) eater myself (I have a texture problem with food), so I thought this book would be good for me and my kids. (My husband will eat anything that is edible, even the healthy stuff!) So I've been busy pureeing squash, potatoes, bananas, pears and today, broccoli. In the cookbook, there is a recipe for Chicken Nuggets using pureed broccoli. So I cut my broccoli into little florets and steamed them according to the directions. Then I tossed them into the blender to puree them. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time feeding something to my child (let alone me eating it) when it smells like fresh cut grass! I was just gagging! I put the lid back on and continued, but I just couldn't do it! I think I'll stick to the aforementioned veggies and fruits and stay away from the green stuff!

It's not always a better deal (money-wise) pureeing your own food. You are giving your kids healthier food and saving the environment (less plastic packaging, etc.), but sometimes it costs you more money. I bought 3 pears (1.69 lbs) for $2.52. Once steamed and pureed, those 3 pears filled 4 of the Stage 1 plastic rectangle food containers. When purchasing pears from the store, you get 2 rectangle containers per package which costs $0.92 each at my store. So that's $1.84 for the same amount that I paid $2.52 for, plus my time and energy to steam and puree the food.

Now, when I pureed butternut squash and a golden Yukon potato (I mixed the two together in the blender) it cost me $2.58 for the two. After steaming and pureeing them, I got about 4-4 1/2 cups of the squash/potato mixture, which equals about 8-9 rectangle baby food containers, which would have cost $3.68 for 8 containers. So in this case it WAS worth it to puree the food. I can also use this mixture to mix in with macaroni and cheese and hide the vegetables from Emerson (and me!)

No time for stamping as now I have to go and clean my kitchen! Thanks for listening!

I need your help!!

I'm stuggling here! I need your help!! I'm trying to make some birth announcements for a friend of mine (for a surprise for her) and I can't come up with a color combo. She doesn't know what she is having (this is her 3rd baby and already has a girl and a boy). I'm using the bear from the set Bundle of Joy, which I've already watercolored brown with colored pencils and gamsol. What other colors do I put with it?? I've already used the color combo thing-a-ma-jig from Scraptitude, but nothing is jumping out at me. I need another 1-2 colors to go with Chocolate Chip and Whisper White.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!

New Banner

Like my new banner? Beth Silaika over at Freckled Fun Designs does wonders with her designs. If you haven't seen her work yet, stop by Freckled Fun Designs and check out her amazing work! I haven't really played around with the colors of my blog yet to get everything to coordinate.....I'm just happy to have my banner!

Beth also created some watermarks for me so I can be legal in the blogging & copyright world when posting things. Now I just have to figure out how to use them!

Camryn has been teething big time the last few days....low-grade fever, runny nose which turns into congestion, irritability, drooling, etc. so not much has been done in the craft room. I get to "play" tomorrow night so I hope to have some goodies to share this weekend with you.

Long time no see...I mean post!

Sorry I've been MIA the past few days. We've been pretty busy.....plus I took a day and went to IKEA...again! I just love that place! I can never get enough. It's a good thing my credit card has a limit on it or I'd be in deep trouble! I had to return something by the 27th of October from my last trip there and you can never just return something....you have to peruse the store to see all the new stuff they got since the last visit and the next thing you know.....your cart is full! As my cousin and I were taking our full cart out to the van, I realized that I didn't have my keys. Yep, you guessed it, I left them in the ignition! I guess I was just so excited to have a day off from the girls and go shopping at IKEA that I just hopped right on out of the van....with the doors locked! I called a local tow truck company and they were going to charge me $50 to unlock the van. I don't think so! (I wasn't about to return any of my goodies just to get my keys out of the van!) My step-dad had a brilliant idea of calling the local Dodge dealership and have them make up another key. They did and delivered it to me in the IKEA parking lot. They didn't even charge me, so I had to at least tip the driver for bringing the key to me. I don't think I'll be living that one down for a while!

Okay, on to what I've been doing in my craft room. A couple of weeks ago, Peggy was looking through the galleries on SCS and came across the tiles that I had posted. She PM'd me and asked a few questions about the tiles. She mentioned she wanted to learn how to make the tiles because she wanted to do a charity benefit to help her young niece who has cancer. She also wanted to know if I had other craft ideas that were easy and inexpensive to make that they could sell at the benefit. So I emailed Peggy a bunch of pictures with directions, costs, etc. to help her begin her stash of goodies for the benefit. I told her that I would be happy to make some things and send them her way. Here are some things that I made for her.

Everything in this gift set coordinates together. All the paper is from DCWV. First I recovered a composition book. I purchased the book at Target for $0.12, like the one I re-did for myself. I used brown ric-rac ribbon on it to cover where the paper met. The alphabet stamps are from Hero-Arts and are stamped in Basic Brown from SU!. I added some Prima flowers and the pink brad in the middle is from the Target $1 spot.

Next I re-did a 4x6 acrylic picture frame. Again the paper is from DCWV, alphabet stamps are from the Target $1 spot, oval punches from SU!, post-it notes and medium calendar. The coaster box is covered in paper from DCWV and laced up with twine from IKEA. The pink Pentel pen just has a piece of the matching paper rolled on the inside.

I also recovered a photo album book and made two ornaments with the rolled up paper (like the ones on Trudee's blog), but I forgot to take pictures of them before I packaged up the box. Hopefully Peggy likes my goodies that I sent. It was for a good cause, I was happy to help. Thanks for looking, I'll have more tomorrow!

Potty Talk & Pumpkins

I think I am going to throw in the towel and just start to buy Depends for Emerson! I don't think she'll ever be potty trained! Strong willed child + potty training = frustrated Mommy!!! We started training Emerson over a year ago when we moved into the apartment while our new house was being built. I figured I didn't care if she peed on their carpet! Then she was sick for a couple of week, which put things on hold. Then shortly after that, I got put on bedrest which meant potty training was being put off until a later date. After Camryn arrived, we figured we would give Emerson some time to get acclaimated to all the new changes and when summer came, we'd give it a shot again. We tried everything.....putting her in panties so she could feel herself get wet, get stickers on the potty chart and get to go to a park, Potty Pennies (get a penny for going pee-pee and two pennies for going poo in the potty), bribing with candy, TV, the computer.....you name it, we tried it. Finally the pediatrician said to put the diapers back on her and enjoy what was left of the summer. Well, she's now 3 and in my mind, it's about time. She knows how to do it and CAN do it, but she just chooses not to. After 4 wet panties/pants today, I had HAD IT! The diapers were going back on. She really wants to go to school, which we could do a second semester preschool starting in January, but if she doesn't get out of those darn diapers, she's going to be home FOREVER! I'm not prepared to homeschool! AAGGHHHHH! I know it is totally a control thing and they will do it in their own time, but it's just getting old. Okay, I digress. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

On to more exciting things......we went and picked out pumpkins tonight. Emerson had a great time. She wanted one of everything they had. So with 4 of us being in the house, we of course had to get 10 pumpkins!! I'm lucky we only walked away with 10....Emerson kept putting up more and more and more on the table. Here are a couple of pictures of Emerson and the pumpkins. Thanks for looking and thanks again for letting me vent about the potty issue.

HELP!! I can't stop!!!

I'm making up for lost time from being on bedrest! I didn't get to go shopping for months and no I am making up! I was at Michael's the other day and couldn't stop myself when I walked past the $1 bins. I went there to get 1 thing and walked away with two bags full of stuff! I think I need a recovery group or something......wait! Who am I kidding? I don't want to stop!

I picked up lots of those $1 clear acryclic stamp sets and some acrylic blocks to go with them. I think I picked up one of each of their sets, which means I picked up 8-10 of the sets! I even got some duplicates, so maybe I'll be giving them away in the future for some "candy".....Maybe when I hit the 1,000 mark!

I hope to get back into the craft room soon and create with some of my Michael's goodies! Thanks for looking and enjoy this beautiful weather!

Lions, Tigers & Bears, Oh My!......and Giraffes!

We went to the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, Michigan recently.....the zoo in Grand Rapids just isn't up to par lately. Anyway, they had this huge Safari exhibit. It was absolutely beautiful. The animals were so amazing! Here are so great shots of the giraffes. They were all lined up in a row waiting to get some biscuits from people. We bought a biscuit for Emerson to feed them, but when she saw their long tongues go through the net, she said "No way!!" I just thought this picture was too cool not to share! Thanks for looking!