I'm getting caught up....I think!

I have to say, it's been a busy month for doing projects that have deadlines. I've met most of them, but still dwindling away to finish the last touches on others. I had to complete a baby book before the end of May for my sister's staff manager. Here is the post showing that book. It's pretty simple, but since she's not a scrapbooker by any means, she thought it was amazing. I was happy with how it turned out, considering I did 13 pages AND the cover, inside & out, in less than a week! If anyone knows me, I don't pump out the projects all that quickly, so this was a major accomplishment for me!

Below is a graduation card I made for the son of some friends of ours. I had just used a pretty simple design & added some touches of orange, since his school colors are orange & black. I haven't heard his or his mother's thoughts on the card yet, but I hope they liked it.

















Next, is a word sign that I altered by special order for a lady that frequented my booth at a spring craft show. She loved the ones I had, but none of them matched her decor & asked if I could do a special order. It took me 2 months to get it done because I was having some difficulty finding the tan, brown & sage green in patterned papers. Finally, when The Memory Zone had totally redid their inventory, they must have decided to bring out some of their old stuff & there it was! Not that old, but a bit older Making Memories papers that were perfect, oh so I had hoped....

I finished the sign in a day & showed it to her & she said she "absolutely loved it!" The colors were perfect. I hope she wasn't just saying that, but she seemed genuinely happy with the sign.

I know you might not be able to see some of the details, but the "F" & "L" are embossed with some Cuttlebug embossing folders. Maybe, if you click on the picture, it might show you a larger image. So then, I also took the same green embossed paper & put it under the leaf cutouts on the "M" for another little added interest. The lady thought there might be others that she works with that might want one of their own, so she asked me for my name & phone #. I guess we'll see!

Well, I think I will call it a day today. Been really busy with 2 Bible school sessions & swimming lessons every day. I'm kinda whooped!

God Bless & have a great day!
Beth

It is June, right?

Well, for being the 3rd day of June, you'd never know it by how the day looks & feels here in North Central Indiana. It's only supposed to be in the low 60's for a high today. Global warming? Come to Indiana my friends, you'd never believe what the scientists are telling us. We haven't really had a warm May or June for several years now.

I do have to say that this has been the most normal winter & spring we've had in ages. I think with all the reduction in driving automobiles & trying to cut back on natural gas usage, because of the ridiculously high fuel prices, it just might have helped a bit in that factor. It's just my theory...

So, I've been kinda blog hoppin' this morning, because it is so cool & gloomy outside today, that I came across this blog that is having a pretty awesome Blog give-away! You gotta go check it out & maybe even try for your own chance at winning it! The blog is by Melissa Bove & her blog is called "Creating from the Heart". She has some very creative inspiration to look at, as well. Trust me, go check her out! You won't be disappointed - even if you don't enter her give-away.

Well, some good friends of mine are in the process of having their baby boy today. Shoot, he might even be here by now! I've been working on another baby boy mini album for her too, similar to the one posted below. I've only gotten up to month 6 completed, but making good progress on months 7 & 8-need more cardstock. I most likely won't be getting the book to them until this weekend, at the earliest, so I have a few more days to work on it. I'm putting quite a bit more detail into this than the last one, that's why it's taking me longer, but it will still be 2-13 page mini albums in 2 weeks. That's an all time record for me!

And so, I'll end this for today, but be sure to check out Melissa's blog!

God Bless & have a good day!
Beth

Memorial Weekend

So, the Memorial weekend is over & it's back to the routine, except for one less day to work in the week. I don't have a job outside the home, so it's only different that my hubby will be away for work 4 days.

We didn't do anything special at all for the weekend. We picked up my sister, who has Down's Syndrome, for the weekend. We don't always have her stay with us during the Memorial weekend. Sometimes she has plans with others where she lives & wants to be there instead. It does kind of make it nice, because then we can do what we want as a family without having to figure out how to accommodate my sister's "needs" with her medications & breathing machine, etc.... She's not much trouble really, but I'm just not used to having to worry about some else's med schedule. I'm just not a very good hostess, I guess. I'm not used to it, since we rarely have visitors & we didn't when I was growing up either, so I never was taught how be with guests. I do alright, but my husband is much better at it. It's also weird for me to treat my sister as a guest. She's my sister that I lived with & helped take care of for 18 years.

Anyway, my sister's staff manager just had a baby boy on Thursday. I wanted to make her a small scrapbook of her baby's first year with a page for each month. It's not a fancy book, but I was pleased with how it turned out. She's not a scrapbooker, so she might appreciate it a little more than an avid scrapbooker might. I only had a week to work on it, plus I made a matching card to give with it & I even covered the book itself with flocked paper.

Here are the pics of it (the last photo is of the card & if you click on a pic, it will show you a larger detailed version):







































































Have a great day & God bless!!
Beth

Waaaay late, but....

I came across this poem on Cosmo Cricket's blog today & just HAD to post it here. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, but most of all, it will make you glad that you're a mom (if you are) & it will make you appreciate your own mom (hopefully).

Happy Mother's Day!

This poem was read in my church today, and I loved it and just wanted to share. Have a happy Mother's Day!!

For All Us Moms Out There

This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here."

For the mothers who walk around the house all night with their babies when they keep crying and won't stop.

This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. And for all the mothers who DON'T.

This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And for the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

This is for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at baseball games Friday night instead of watching from cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see me?" they could say, "Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who yell at their kids in the grocery store and swat them in despair when they stomp their feet like a tired 2-year old who wants ice cream before dinner.

This is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained all about making babies.

And for all the mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.

For all the mothers who read "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then read it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to tie their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home.

This is for all the mothers who sent their kids to school with stomach aches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to please pick them up......right away.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them.

For all the mothers who bite their lips sometimes until they bleed - when their 14 year olds dye their hair green.

What makes a good Mother anyway?

Is it patience?

Compassion?

Broad hips?

The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time?

Or is it heart?

Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time?

The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2 A.M. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a fire, a car accident, a child dying?

For all the mothers of the victims of all these school shootings, and the mothers of those who did the shooting.

For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school, safely.

This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their children's graves.

This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation.

And mature mothers learning to let go.

For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers.

Single mothers and married mothers.

Mothers with money, mothers without.

This is for you all.

~ Author Unknown ~

Thursday is the BIG DAY!!!

Well, one more day until we go see the Oprah show IRL!!! I am so excited!! I finally got my sitter arrangements all taken care of, thanks to the wonderful generousity of one of my daughter's preschool friend's mother (is that totally clear as mud? LOL) We leave in the morning & will have breakfast at Cracker Barrel & then head into Chicago. My step-sister got the clearance from her Dr. to go, so that's all good! She's in Indy today having some treatments for lung illness that she just got over. I hope this all works out great & we all have a wonderful time. I just hope the Oprah show isn't a sad one.

Here is a card & the coordinating envelope that I made for the mother that's watching Brooke. She sure jumped in at a moment's notice & agreed to do watch her all day & feed her with no pay. I can't NOT do something for her, I owe her so much!!

















Well, I need to get the hair color washed out before I over do it! Take care & God Bless!

Beth M.

Some projects to share

Well, with everything that's been going on, I've been quite busy with making lots of projects for the craft show. Now that that's over with, I can sort of settle back down & work on other stuff. Brooke has been sick this week with a bladder infection. It looks like she's going to be prone to those things. I wish that weren't an issue, but it is. It just seems like we're constantly evolving into new issues when it comes to the whole bathroom thing. Anywho....

I just recently picked up the latest 2 cartridges for my Cricut Expression & I gotta tell ya, I'm loving the Lyrical Letters. So much so, I haven't even put the Life is a Beach cartridge in my machine yet & it's pretty stinkin' cute!! I haven't even really been using the fonts so much as the graphics. They have several that are great for card makers. I know I've been going to town on them, just experimenting. I haven't even taken pictures of all the ones I've made. I might have to just for the heck of it.

This one is kind of messed up to begin with, since I believe the window image should be turned so that it's going up & down, but it also didn't look right with the message going sideways. I don't know, it just didn't look right to me. I think it makes for a nice little card. Not much writing room on the inside really, but a lot of impact with the image. I love the look of a sherbet color with black. It looks more orange in this shot & almost looks Halloweenish, but not so much in real life.


















This one is just so sweet & you can make it look fun or elegant, depending on the color choices. I love the look of the Fiskars Border/Corner punch that I used for the border. I then cut out the center of the frame so that the graphics would stand out better.






Below is a Garden journal that I made to sell in my craft booth. I had lots of lookers, but no buyers. Sometimes the journals sell & sometimes not. It always depends on the crowd for that day. I recently picked up some of the Cuttlebug embossing folders, because I've seen some fabulous projects made using them, and I have to admit that I now have an addiction to these little plastic wonders! I sometimes think that I get into Creative Overload with all the options & possibilities that are out there now for us scrappers. Anyway, my point is, I used one of those embossing folders for the title work of this journal & I really like the subtle impact it gives the book without looking like it doesn't fit in. I'd love to add more stuff to make the book more impressive, but then you can't sell it cheap enough for someone to want to buy it & still make a fair profit. Sometimes I'm tempted to just keep it for myself to use. =:0

I hope to get my deign team requirements done before I need to turn them in, but I'm having lots of fun with the stuff that isn't pressing at the moment. This is the time of year that I don't do well with deadlines & wish I didn't have them, but that's just not being reasonable. LOL!!

All the latest

So, just in case "someone" is actually reading this blog, here is my latest updates:

My step-sister might be coming home from the hospital today or at least this week. She was in there for a serious lung infection that put her in quarrantine for 10 days. Her service at the Indianapolis Medical Center on the 4th floor was the worst! She was treated like she was a criminal instead of patient by the nurses & staff there. She had to wait for over 2 hours just to get a drink of water & even then, her husband had to chew someone a new ass in order to get it! Thank goodness she has shown remarkable improvement & can get out that place. Luckily, they moved her to a different floor where she has since received better treatment. I sure hope she is still feeling up to going to see Oprah later this month!!

Next, not many people knew that I was working diligently on getting some projects completed for a craft show that was held through my daughter's preschool on April 4th. It was a HUGE success!! Well, it was huge for me. I didn't make a killing by any means & not by many craft show enthusiasts, but if I make over $100 at a show, I'm quite happy & I made at least $130 that day. I wasn't in the best location there either, almost the furthest from the door - for some reason, but I guess someone has to be, right? I liked that it was a small show & not a bunch of traffic. I could be more personable with people & they didn't feel like they were missing out on some great booth over on the other side because they were looking at my stuff. KWIM?

I did so well, that I even took an order for one project & a few other people might be following, as well. How exciting!!

I recently purchased the latest 2 cartridges that Cricut release called Life's a Beach & Lyrical Letters. I have managed to removed them from the packaging, but the only one I've played with so far has been Lyrical Letters. I have to say, this is a really great cartridge! It has a bit more than just different styles of letters, it has sayings that are perfect for cards or pages! I've only got to play a little bit because I was working on my craft show projects, but I got to play some today. All I can say is tooooo cute! I will have to post some shots when I get them loaded.

I heard throught he grapevine today that there is some designs that are missing on the Life's A Beach cartridge. There was an image release of what all was going to be on the cartridge, but it appears that one row of those images didn't end up on the cartridge in actuality. How disappointing, but there's still a ton of stuff to work with that you might just not realize it. LOL!

Well, that's it for me today.

God Bless & have a great day!
Beth M

Not now!

I can't believe my step-sister's luck, or should I say BAD luck! In my previous post I mentioned that I got us reservations to see the Oprah show IRL!! She was so excited when I told her, but now she's in a hospital in Indianapolis, stuck in quarantine for week. She's somehow contracted a lung infection & some other infection. One is viral & the other bacterial. Like I said before, if anyone DESERVES something super special to look forward to, it's her. I pray that she doesn't have to miss it because of this. That would just be so unfair.

On a much brighter note though & totally different topic, I just learned that my two newest Cricut cartridges (Life's a Beach & Lyrically Speaking) just arrived at The Memory Zone today!! Woo hoo!! I was supposed to have them on layaway, but I don't think I can wait that long to be able to use them!! Decisions, decisions....

Well, I have tons of projects to complete for a craft show this Saturday at Brooke's preschool. So, I will have to keep this short today & probably for the rest of this week too. I'll have to bake something too, as they're having a bake sale as well. What a perfect day that could be, you can shop for some cute hand crafted items, pick up your chicken from the chicken sale & get dessert too while you're already there! A day out, no cooking & even get a home made dessert, everyone's happy!!

God Bless & take care!
Beth M.

Can you say EXCITED??!!!

I'm so excited & I just can't hide it! I've been announcing it everywhere, so you may already know that I got reservations to see the Oprah Winfrey show IRL!!! This isn't the first time I've seen her show. In fact, the first time I seen her show, I got in on a good one that was giving away stuff to the audience!! I wouldn't say it was one of her better give away shows, but it was a total blast!!

My Oprah show events seem to have unique stories behind them, so that makes them even MORE special to me. You see, the first time I got to go, I managed to get through & get reservations for my friends Pam, Shelly & my deceased Mother-in-law's friend, MO & myself. The fun part was that my friend Shelly had been promised time & time again by one of her own friends that she would take Shelly to see the Oprah show with her the next time she went. She's been there 4 times & still had not invited Shelly to go along. As it so happened, Shelly's friend got reservations AGAIN for the SAME DAY, but chose to pick the morning taping, instead of the afternoon one that I picked. It couldn't have played out any better than if it were written in Hollywood. Shelly's friend had to sit through a double taping that morning, & of all topics, it was whether or not the U.S. should stay in Iraq fighting. So, her friend "snaked" her 5 times & she finally got "snaked" back by having to sit through a very long & BORING show while Shelly got to go home with goodies & full belly of Mac n' cheese, chocolate bon bons, books & I sure can't recall what else, but it was a SUPER FUN show too!

So, this time around, I was going to make a day of it again with my friends Pam, Shelly & my hubby. But, in the very last minute, spur of the moment change of plans, I blurted out my step-mom's name & then my step-sister's name to the audience reservation guy. In my head, I thought that 2 people that TRULY deserve to go would be them.

You see, my sister-in-law (Angie) has been battling Leukemia for at least 3 years now with lots of set backs that just keep coming, one right after another. Her husband is now unemployed, they live i the highest unemployed city in the country - Elkhart, IN and it's just been a rough road for her. Her mother had used all her vacation days when she was working to stay with her daughter when she had to go to Indianapolis. Now my step-mom is retired, but is wanting to go back to work part time to help pay for some of her daughter's prescriptions she requires. They've just never had anything to look forward to, except her next test & diagnosis.

And all that is why I wanted to take them. They deserve & NEED something wonderful & exciting to look forward to. I am hoping that the show is at least a happy one & not one that's going to be depressing for her, but I know she'll be thrilled no matter what the topic is about, which, by the way, I don't know what it is yet, but hope to find out this week. All I will be told is the title of the show, but that might be enough to go on.

So, I will keep you posted on what I find out & let you know any details of when the show will air, but we're going for the April 23rd afternoon taping & will find out then.

God Bless & have a great day!
Beth M.

Spring????

I think Spring is almost here!! My daffodils are sprouting & some plants are trying to sprout some barely there buds, but they ARE there! I can almost smell the scent of spring in the air now.

I happened to jump over to Reminisce's blog to check out the latest & greatest going on there there & they have a fun little contest going on right now! All you have to do is come up with a name for each of the 3 monkeys in their latest Monkey Business 2009 line (like the ones in my projects shown in the post below this one!) I tried (along with all the others before me) in sending an email to address given, but it's not functioning properly, so I posted mine in the messages below their posting, along with everyone else. The winners will get $50 in Reminisce prize package!!! That's a lot of bananas to scrap about!!! Some of the names already posted are pretty funny & you can tell some named them after their kids. How sweet is that or how crazy are your kids? LOL!!

OK, now for a bit of inspiration for those of you looking for some. A dear friend of mine, by the name of Kelly Crowl, from my local scrapbook store (TMZ) design team, came up with a sketch challenge with a chance to win what will most likely be a FABULOUS RAK from her!

Here is her sketch. Isn't it FABULOUS???

Here is my interpretation of the sketch - oh, and the added twist was that you could ONLY use pastel colors on your project. The two photos after the page are close-ups of the flower details & a stenciled shadow effect I created with the cut out of the butterfly above it. Now, I realize that once you get this thing in a page protector that you ain't gonna see that hidden shadow detail, but my plan is to cut out slits in the page protector for each wing so that they can be lifted up to see that little bit of interesting detail - or get the wings ripped off from all the lifting they'll be getting. LOL!! I just couldn't resist doing it, so there it is.

Well, it's been a beautiful, sunny & warm day today, but I've chosen to take the day to myself & stay inside & get caught up on some things that otherwise wouldn't have been able to get done because kids & husbands are inside & wanting my attention.

God Bless & have a great day!

Beth M.