Just giving you some more cards that I've done recently. The one below is for a friend of mine who just hooked me up with a ton of 4T's for Liberty; Rachel if you're there - Thanks - this is in the mail!

This next one is just waiting for a special person, not sure if it will be a birthday or thank you yet but either one would do nicely for it.

And the last one is one I did for a very good friend of mine for her birthday, love how it turned out, although it's kinda hard to see the detail, oh well!

Happy Tuesday to all, I'll post more soon, seeing as my energy is finally coming back! Yeah!!

just B....merry

How many cards can one pregnant scrapper make you ask? Well quite a few when need be. Yes from the month of April to the end of June I make quite a few cards, and this year I had graduation on top of the norm so I have made - let me think - 12 birthday, 5 mother's day, 5 father's day, 2 graduation, 2 thank you, 1 wedding, and 1 baby - being pregnant I might have forgotten a few too, so that's roughly 30 +/- a few. I'd say that's pretty good for me. As of lately I have been trying to force some energy, in order to get stuff done before baby #2 gets here, but that's still difficult; my creative drive is taking a more practical approach these days so I've been going with it or rather trying to. I have been able to accomplish some layouts and plan to work on some more tomorrow so we'll see.

As of right now I will give you an idea of some of the cards I have done recently. This one I did for my nephew's birthday - not to fancy - guys just don't seem to care so much about that which is a nice change of pace for me. The following is a birthday card I did for my best friend, she is one of those that just likes whatever I do, so I feel a bit more free to really try something new & different. This one turned out to be fun & playful so I hoped that she liked it.

This last one is the one I did for my sister-in-law, and actually I did go a bit on the artsy side with it. There is not a whole lot of product, mostly just stamps and ink. I gave it a bit of a shine and a ribbon to finish it and am really happy how it turned out. It is very simple yet elegant at the same time.

Now I almost forgot to mention the very first card, that was the one I made for Mother's Day. Now normally I will make one card only (I try to make individual cards based on the person and their personality) and not reproduce it, but in the interest of time but mostly energy, this year I found one idea that I liked (yes I scrap lifted this one) and made all 5 of them the same. It probably won't be a habbit, but I did like the ease of it a whole lot better. It can be very challenging at times to come up with one or two card ideas, much less 5 - so for Father's day I believe I will be doing the very same thing - picking one idea and making all of them the same (sorry dads).

Now as for Christmas, that is the one exception for me (the other exception). I try to do as many cards in bulk as I can stand. Normally I just get tried of making the same thing over & over, so I do change it up a bit; but for the most part I will make 20 of the same card for Christmas time - then come up with another design and make that one 20 times. This last year I made - I think if I remember correctly - 70+ cards for family & friends. No doubt it will be that many again this year, if not more. So already I am beginning to think of some card ideas that are easy but elegant. Wish me luck!

That's all I have for today, hope everyone is enjoying their summer1

just B

Daily Blessings

Happy Mother's Day!

{My older brother, Dave, and I when we were kids @ Great Grandma Bessie's farm}

For all the mother's out there, I hope you are having a wonderful day!

As for me, today has been an eye-opener. This weekend has proven to be a challenge; not only physically, but emotionally, and spiritually. My husband & I got the call last Tuesday that my Great Grandmother had passed away, so Friday evening we headed down-home (about 5 hours South/East of us) so that we could attend the funeral on Saturday. About 10:45 pm out in the middle of nowhere an hour from our motel, we hit a deer head on going about 65 mph. Thankfully my husband was able to keep control of my Escape and coast to a stop in the gravel drive of a rural business. Luckily our cell phones had service and we were able to get in touch with highway patrol, also by some miracle my older brother was able to tow us and my disabled Ford home to Kansas City, so all in all, we have a ton to be thankful for. Even more so because our 3 year old daughter wasn't with us. In the end we were unharmed, (including the little bundle of joy that will be joining our family in early November) and only my SUV was damaged.

{my Escape after the accident}

{my Escape being towed by my older brother}

Now I will tell you that this is the first accident I have ever been in and although it was minor, compared to what many others have been through, I do not wish to ever have that happen again. It is absolutely terrifying when you know that you have no control what-so-ever. You also do a lot of soul searching after something like that; there are a lot of 'what ifs' that very well could have happened and didn't, so I know for a fact that we had someone out there watching over us...maybe it was my great grandma or maybe it was God...I don't really care @ this point, all I know is that my husband & I have been blessed and that's nothing short of a miracle.


When it comes to mourning the loss of a loved one - everyone deals with the process differently, I have shed my fair share of tears, but it's in the remembering that makes me happy & sad. I am so happy that I have so many memories of Grandma Bessie - I have been blessed to have had her in my life for 35 years - that's a lot of time shared; but it is also sad to me because I know that this chapter of my life has come to a close and that there will be no new memories made. But then, I am happy again because I think of all the people that she had to say good-bye to when she was here, 99 years worth, and now they are throwing her a party because she is finally HOME. I can't bring it upon myself to be selfish (even though I will miss her), she was ready to go and all I can do is trust that one day, when my time comes - she'll be waiting for me with open arms to welcome me home.

{Grandma Bessie @ her farm}

Love you so much Grandma - peace be with you now!

Inspiration for Today

As I am sure most of you have figured out, I haven't had a whole lot of creativity lately; that's the joy of pregnancy - yes we are expecting - so the other day at work a friend of mine was telling about this lady that's been all over the internet and the news, so I checked her out.
This lady, Susan Boyle, has surprised the world over...and am I sure glad that I took the time to find her on uTube, she is simply wonderful.
She is not your typical superstar, nor does she idealize the American stereotype for stardom, but that is what makes her so refreshing. She is totally herself and such a natural that I hope she doesn't change a thing about herself.
I have watched this video about 20 times and still get goose bumps, she is just amazing; it's very rare that we get the opportunity to see & hear the real thing but she is definitely it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY&feature=related

The link above will take you to the uTube video, I encourage all of you to check her out whenever you get the chance. Hope you enjoy her as much as I have been.

More Success With Photoshop

Recently I've been playing around in the digital realm again, it makes for a nice change of pace. The layout above is my second attempt with Photoshop Elements, and so far I am liking it a lot. Eventually I would still like to do more with Photoshop, but this is a good start for me.

I'm thinking that maybe I will be doing a lot of our older vacations in digital; for one - it is a whole lot faster and two - being that the time is already spent, it's harder to get back the 'feeling' of those particular trips. I do believe I took a journal on each of them, but that still only gives a little bit of insight: things that you did, places you went, things that you saw, not quite the same as if the trip were just a few months ago. In a sense, you lose the 'high' from actually being there - so I'm thinking for those few trips, digital might be the better way to go.

The reason I say this is because I have several trips still to document: a trip to South Carolina w/my brother & his wife; Bill & I's trip to the Oregon Coast when we got married; our trip to Chicago w/a group of friends from work; then finally our trip to San Diego last November also with friends from work. My thought is to do the first two trips in digital (even though I have a couple of pages done of each that are traditional), then to do the last two maybe as a hybrid scrapbook (combining both traditional & digital). That would be a good alternative to doing all of them traditional and give a good overall flow to my albums, plus it would make for a much more manageable project, as it could be 'huge' otherwise.

Well this is all for today, hope everyone is having a good week and I hope you'll stop back in soon!

Thanks!

just B

Current Project

Well as of two weeks ago, this is what I was working on. I had bought the 'ribbon ring' system about a year ago when I saw it in Creating Keepsakes magazine and totally loved it, but when I received it in the mail, I was at a loss as to how it would be used. As you can see from the picture above the plastic pieces have a hole and that is where the book ring goes through, then it is to be hung onto something. I tried first to use magnetic hooks on my dry/erase board, but if I got to many ribbons on it they would eventually slide off from the weight; so I had to come up with something different.

I was cleaning the house one afternoon and in the nursery I have several peg holders for the fabric art, and it dawned on me that this would be the perfect solution to my problem. So I grabbed this peg board @ my local craft store and tried doing a weathered wood look, the red paint that I used as the bottom coat doesn't show through as much as I had hoped it would, but that was probably user error on my part. But being that I'm trying to adapt new philosophies to my life, instead of getting frustrated, I went with it and hung it up anyways. Surprisingly enough once I got the word 'create' on it (that being the same red as the base coat) it helped bring out the red under tone much better and now that it is up and doing it's job that I intended for it, I love it and am really happy that I went this route.

Now the hard part was sorting through all of my bags and bags of ribbon, but I love the convenience of having the majority of them out to see. I still have some sorting to do - as you can every well see, but the project has been set in motion, so that is a very good thing. Also having them out, it makes it easier to remember to use ribbon in my projects but also to match the ribbon to whatever I'm currently working on. Eventually I hope to have all my colors sorted by warm & cool, then neutrals, and then finally specialty ribbons. Now just whenever I get to feeling better (I've been down now for 3 days with severe lower back pain) hopefully I can get some more 'fun' work done to share with you.

Thanks for checking in!

Have a great day & enjoy this wonderful weather if you can!

just B

Ink Art

Ink art at it's finest, this is what I would say. My girlfriend Angji & I took this class last year @ Stamper's Ink and loved it. Stamping on dominos is not as easy as it looks, but we managed well with minimal wiping and erasing (the love of Staz-on ink and the Staz-on cleaner).

Once I got the project home, I thought that it was a bit plain so I put it away for awhile and forgot about it. It was around Christmas time that I decided I wanted to do something special for my sister-in-law, so once again I pulled out this project and set it on my desk so that I could start thinking about what to do to it.

I came up with the idea of adding some trim around the domino block set, after doing that though I still thought that it needed some more so I got I another trim and added it to the inside edge of the frame, then in each of the corners I added a faux pearl that finished off the rough corners.

All in all I think the project turned out beautifully and was totally thrilled when my sister-in-law was excited about it too. Before she even got home she already knew where it was going to go in her home. I love that others can enjoy the benefits as much as I can. I have several projects that I have done over the years that are now decor in our home, and although I don't really give it any thought now, every once in awhile one of them will jump out @ me and remind me of why I do this.

I hope everyone will take a chance and just try something totally out of the blue for you. There is no better way than to sign up @ your local craft store or a speciality store, all the tools and materials are provided for you and therefore not a waste of your money. And there is always something really cool to bring home and showcase. As for classes there are a ton of things out there waiting for you to learn about: scrapbooking, stamping, beading, soldering, knitting, quilting, etc. Class prices depend a lot upon the class, the intensity, and the location; but don't be afraid to try it @ least once, I promise it will be well worth the money.

Well thanks for checking in, hopefully I'll have something more for you tomorrow!

just B