A Birthday and Our Baseball Life...

At this time right now, the DH and I are probably already sweating our bum's off loading up all of our worldly possessions into the U-Haul truck. No, I'm not taking a break from packing to post on the ole' blog; this post was scheduled last week remember? Eh - who cares if you do or don't. Anyways, I'm sure we're having a blast by now and hopefully we haven't had any arguments yet!!

Here's a fresh birthday card I created back in April for a good friend and mom from the DH's little league baseball team. More on that later. I feel sure I used some old sketch challenge for this one, but I can't for the life of me remember which one it was now. My image and sentiment stamps are both from my favorite birthday stamp set - 'You take the Cake' from My Favorite Things. I did a little paper piecing with my stacked presents, which wasn't really easy. One of these days I'll invest in a few Copic markers so my images can really shine!

So a few years ago a friend of ours approached my DH and asked if he'd like to help out at his son's baseball practice. Marshall played baseball for a good number of years as a child, and we're definitely a baseball family so I knew this would be fun for him. Marshall must have really enjoyed that first practice he helped out with, because he's been an assistant coach ever since! Shortly after the first season, our friend asked if I'd be willing to help out by scoring the games now that the kids were getting a little older and he wanted to track how they were doing. Timid at first? Yes I was. This was a big responsibility. I've never scored a baseball game, in fact, I didn't know baseball games had such a thing as an 'official score keeper'! I didn't even know all of the rules (we grew up playing soccer and swimming so baseball was pretty much a brand new sport for me)!! Needless to say I had no idea how this responsibility was going to go. To make a long story short I've now become the official team score keeper for spring and fall baseball season. For some reason I've also become the go-to person for the parents on the team when it comes to the rules of the league. I have to say I certainly don't hate it - I really do enjoy watching my DH interact with the kids teaching them how to be a better baseball player. And we've made a few friends along the way. It certainly will be sad when our friend's son get's too old to play in the rec league...I have no idea what we'll do with our spring and fall nights when that time comes!

Belated Mother's Day card...

Yes I know, Mother's day was a few weeks ago. But things just got too crazy that I didn't have time to share all of the cards I made. I think I hit a new personal record - 7 cards in one week. Yikes! Here's the card that I gave to my wonderful mother on Mother's Day!


This Mother's Day my sister and I took my mom out for lunch, then spent a few hours doing something we haven't done in years. We drove on down the road a bit to a local farm to pick strawberries!!! I think the last time my mom and I went to pick strawberries was when I was in high school which seems like a lifetime ago! The weather was perfect, the company was perfect; all in all it was a great start to Mother's Day! After my mom and I parted ways for the day, the DH and I had a few hours to relax some before dinner with his family at Bonefish.

Enough about the day, how about the card!! I used an old Mojo Monday sketch for this card, Mojo Monday Week #137.
Well, the sketch wasn't old when I created the card - I just never had time to submit my card for the challenge. Either way I had fun creating it! If the paper looks familiar to you, it's because it should. I swear I own more paper than my DCWV Citrus Stack I just can't seem to tear myself away from it lately.

And did anyone notice - no stamps!! I certainly didn't do this on purpose, but I can't bring myself to buying any mother's day stamps when I know I'll only use them once a year. So I did a little throw-back to a year ago when I first started making cards - I bought some dimensional stickers from Michaels that included at least three sentiments I could use for the three Mother's Day cards I needed to make. Back in the day when I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy/continue to make cards I would just buy a few dimensional stickers only for the current card I was making. My how times have changed. Now I like to think my stamp stash is sufficient for pretty much most occasions with birthday and thank you stamps in the overflowing category.

Happy Pregnancy!!

I made this card a few weeks back to give to an out of town friend who is expecting her second child. Well, she's actually the sister of one of my best friends if you want to get all technical about it!
I L-O-V-E this card! It was my first time using buttons, so I learned a few things as I went along. The tiny button attached to the image was just stuck on with double sided tape; the larger button I somehow figured out how to tie it to the orange/white ribbon. Next time I'll pull out the glue gun when I get all daring and use a few buttons again - but at the time of this card's creation the glue gun was packed away already.

And - get a load of that cute stamp I used!! It's probably my favorite baby themed stamp I currently own. Gotta love the cute baby bump! I did some paper-piecing with the image to match one of the patterned papers I used. All of the patterned paper came from my DCWV Citrus Stack (I'm obsessed). I also decorated the inside again, but I always seem to forget to take pictures of the inside. Oh well.

House news - This weekend is our official packing weekend and next weekend is our official move date (yay!). Because the next few weeks will be so busy I don't anticipate that I'll find much time for the dear old blog. I certainly don't want my blog to start collecting dust and cobwebs so I've scheduled a few posts for next week sharing some cards I created before all of my supplies were packed up. Hopefully once we're all settled into the house I'll be able to share some pictures of the moving adventure. I also anticipate you'll be reading some different types of posts in the near future. I have a few projects planned already that I can't wait to share!!

A Nurses Week Thank You

Man - I'm on a card making roll this week!! Check this one out I made using the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #67 over on The Sweetest Thing blog!
I l.o.v.e. this sketch! It's so simple and clean, just my style! And I LOVE the paper I used for this card - can you tell lately I've been a little obsessed with it? Both of the patterned papers came from my DCWV Citrus Stack, and the sentiment is out of the Essential Sentiments stamp pack from My Favorite Things. Probably one of the best stamp purchases I've made since it includes so many different sentiments you can use for so many different occasions! Did you notice I stamped my sentiment on top of a pattered paper instead of white cardstock? I was feeling a bit wild and wanted to break the rules a little - I loved every minute of it! I also added three Prima Flowers I've been hording (I bought one canister of Prima Flowers a year ago and still have a few left!!!).

Anyways - no this Thank You card isn't part of my thank you card parade, but rather for Nurses Week! For those of you that don't know, I run all of the Clinical Trials at UNC for the Gynecologic Oncology department. I really love my job - finally!! Because I enroll cancer patients onto clinical trials that best suit their treatment needs, I work very closely with 4 wonderful nurses who I couldn't do my job without! This is the second year I've made cards for them as part of a thank you gift. Unfortunately, I only found out yesterday that Nurses Week starts today - Yikes!! As soon as I got home from work yesterday I immediately started making thank you cards. I only had time to finish one and start a second since I had to greet my little sister at the airport yesterday afternoon, so expect a few more posts from me before the week is up sharing the last three. (I also have two more Mother's Day cards to make before Sunday....maybe I'll just do one super post sharing all 5!)

Happy Anniversary!!!

Ssshhhh....please no one tell my DH I posted his anniversary card on my blog today...wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!!! I'm not to worried since I told him once that I had started a blog but never sent him the link!!! Oh well...

Here's the anniversary card I created for the hubs that I've linked up to the CardPatterns blog today. I once again modified their weekly sketch, this time using Sketch #62. I guess I was a little afraid of making a card in the shape of a circle, so I scaled it down a bit. I am however digging this card b/c it's nice, and clean, and simple, plus it uses our wedding colors and some left over wedding ribbon!!! I forgot to take a picture of the inside of the card, but it's decorated too with lavender card stock and another stamp I found in my favorite bin at Michael's! It's hard to tell here, but my sentiment is popped up above the polka-dot circle and the hearts are popped up above the sentiment. It would have looked too plain if I had left it all one dimension. I also considered adding some bling to the card, but after making my first Mother's Day card of the season I decided to stay away from sparkle for a little while.

So I know I told you in this post that we weren't going to be able to celebrate our anniversary this year due to moving day, but what do you know, things once again are moving in our favor with the house!!! We got an e-mail from the old owners (current renters) over the weekend letting us know that they'll be out of the house 3 days early and that we'd be able to move in over the weekend!! Yippie!!! Hopefully we'll be mostly unpacked before 6/2 and I will have located my card making supplies by then!! Oh man I can't wait!

In other news - my baby sister returns from 8 months in France tomorrow! This week keeps getting better and better!

SFYTT

I was so happy to be able to get some card's made this weekend - although I do still have a few more I didn't get to before the big move! Here is one of my Mother's Day cards I made using
Jen's Sketch for you to try! Man does she come up with some fun sketches!
I fell in love with this ribbon the moment I spotted it across the room. It's so bright and vibrant that I knew I'd have to design a card around it! So - what do you think? I have to admit, I haven't quite perfected my use of glitter just yet. I started using glitter when I made my sister-in-law's baby shower invites last year. I also used a little bit of glitter on some of my x-mas cards this past season, but I'm still a little afraid of it. I think the main issue I have with glitter is that I just can't quite get it to stay in place. For this card after I stamped my image and sprinkled on the glitter I actually sprayed the whole thing with hair spray thinking that might keep the glitter from falling off when you touch it. All the hair spray managed to do was to warp my card stock. Since I'm still a card making novice, I really need some advice on what product I should be using with glitter. It's probably too late to save this card, but since I just bought a bunch of blue glitter I'd like to be able to correctly use it sometime in the near future!!!