Just a quick note...

Hello Crafty Friends. So sorry I've been away. As much as I've tried the last 2 weeks to think creatively, I cannot right now. We were told 2 weeks ago that my sweet and incredible Father-in- Law might only have a few weeks left with us due to suffering from a terminal brain tumor. This week, we are on borrowed time with him and each moment is precious we can spend with him. Hospice thinks it could be any time.

I might not be crafting this week but...I can promise I have one special secret project that I will be sharing with you for Memorial Day. So check back.

As a side note...time, family and love is precious and priceless. Take the time to tell those you love special little things you may have been putting off. I am so glad I had the chance to tell my FIL while he was still aware enough to understand..."Thank you....thank you for raising your son the way that you did because he is a wonderful Husband, Father and Man and it is all because he is a reflection of the man my FIL is."
Just take that extra time this week to tell someone how they are special to you. :)

Happy Mother's Day

Hello Crafty Friends and I wanted to wish all the Mother's a Happy Day...relax...craft...enjoy the family today. That is what I will be doing and making plans on my gypsy for the Teen Scene cart I just opened from the kiddos. We will be going over to the in-laws to grill some steaks this afternoon. Everyone have a wonderful day and I WILL be back this week blogging.

Scrappin With Cricut Giveaway.

Please go check out my buddy Dusti at Scrappin With Cricut. Not only does she have a terrific blog, she is also giving away a Cricut Everyday Cart when she reaches 500 followers.

Also, go check out her Father's Day Link Party Here And her No card or Layout Monday

I'm a little out of commision...Please learn from my mistake

Hello Crafters! So I'm ttyping this one handed to tell you all this so you learn from my boo-boo. Tuesday after lunch DD and I baked some cookies. I have this beautiful Polish Pottery bowl that is huge and my fav to mix in. I was washing it in the sink and it slipped and YEP...you guessed it! It broke and sliced the palm of my hand below the thumb. {You know...that really paddy part of your hand that bends when you need to use your thumb or make a pinching motion}
Which hand you ask...my right hand, my main crafting & writing hand. LOL I KNEW deep down I really needed to go have stitches but did I go?......NOPE! Why you ask? Because I'm thinking "I gotta drag 2 kids out in 95 degree heat, & sit in an urgent care for 2 hrs probably"(My PCP doesn't do stitches) After 30 min. got the bleeding to stop, so I thought-- why bother?

Well last night, I changed the bandages and it was bleeding again. Then, I really thought
"I made a bad choice and chose convenience etc. over ME!"

Of course I go in today and the DR. tells me that on palms of hands & feet the cut off time for stitches to be done is 6 hrs. AND, I would've needed 7 stitches. So, I'm just bandaged up and on antibiotics & hoping/praying no infection & it heals quickly.

I'm kicking myself for doing a stunt like this, not putting myself...the gasoline that runs this machine called "our family" FIRST!! Moral of my story: Don't put things off that you need to run yourself/your body efficiently & effectively. Don't put off health issues, Dr.'s visits or even a little TLC for yourself.


So, I have DD putting together some projects for me. I still need to get an Anniversary card done for DH since it's on June 14th.

Made it Myself Monday Link Party

Did all of you know about this??

Made it Myself Mondays

Each Monday Alex, at You Had Me at Craft, will be having a "Linking Party." All you need to do is link something crafty that you made yourself to her blog.

Here's a quick RECAP of the PARTY RULES :

1. Link any crafty project NEW or OLD.

2. Link UP to 3 projects.

3. Place the party BUTTON on your post.

4. VISIT and comment on 2 blogs.

5. Comment HERE with contact info in case you WIN the GIVEAWAY!

Check out this blog for Campin' Critters Giveaway

Go check out this terrific blog
Julie from Little Bit of Bling is on the DT for K. Andrew of Getting Cricky (Another great blog to check out) and she is giving away an extra Campin' Critter. Go check it out.

Here are a few animals for you--Happy Sunday

Sorry I haven't been around. Ya know blogger was down and then it always seems the last 2 wks of school there are always so many events going on.

We have had a beautiful and unusual temps for OK this weekend. It wasn't even 70. So, we decided to go to the zoo and thought I'd share a few pics. I figured we'd take advantage of the cool temps to go because it will not be fun in a month when it's 100 degrees. LOL

Stacy at Love That Bug--this cute little guy is for you :)

The family

Mr. Peacock decided to show his colors

I didn't realize when I took the pic that my lovely daughter was picking the statue's nose LOL

Here kitty, kitty, kitty

Here's a smile to make your day!

Happy Wednesday!

Hello fellow crafters! I'll be back later with hopefully a project. I'm so excited, I found Lite Twinkle Toes at WM (mispriced) for $15. Of course while I'm walking away, they are immediately changing the price back to $25. Hey, my advantage if someone marked the shelf stickers AND the carts with the wrong price. This will be perfect for my dd's dance recital. Here is a quick pick of her picture day/dress rehearsal.
The costume is navy velvet, cream and accents of gold. I found the perfect paper by My Mind's Eye called "Lush" that is a damask/velvet. Then, found a pretty cream cardstock with a scalloped edge and will use accents of gold paper for the layout.

Happy Monday after Mother's Day

Hello! I hope all of you had a wonderful day on Mother's Day, whether you got to spend it with your children or your mother/grandmother/family or any special "motherly" people in your lives.

I had a relaxing day, kids and hubster made me breakfast, then went to the in-laws for M-day. I'll get to see my Mama next week for a belated day together.

My hubbie got me Birthday Bash and a promise to get me Bump in the Night and Beep beep when WM gets it. My DD got me a Magic Bullet because she thought we could make fun/cold summer treats. My son picked me out a new 2 QT sauce pot since I burned mine up on my stove mishap last month. (long story)

And, the in-laws gave me $100. HMMMM.......wonder what I could spend that on?(carts) LOL Any guesses? LOL Actually, I spent some of already because my DD said "Mom, we're going shopping to Kohl's so I can help you pick out a new bathing suit."
Should I take it that my 9 yr old was embarrassed to be seen with me at the pool???? LOL

I'm going to try to get some more My Pink Stamper Challenges done today, since I only did 4. I'll post the rest later.

Have a good day y'all!

Busy Week This Week

Hello fellow Crafters and Happy May (WOW! Already)
What a busy week some of us will have with it being Teacher Appreciation Week and Mother's Day AND...National Scrapbooking Day next week. I don't know about you, but I'm hoping that between Mother's Day and NSD, there will be some good bargains on something for all of us to find : )

Ok, is it bad that I bought part of my Mother's Day present? LOL I bought Birthday Bash on ebay for $22. I'm the ebay shopper who sniffs out good deals so that means I do my cart shopping. And, if WM would hurry up and get "Lite Bump in the Night and Beep beep, I have been promised that for M-day too.

Check out these blogs for E2 Giveaways: MPS, Everyday Cricut, Mixology Crafts

Hello All! Hope you had a wonderful Easter and time with your family. I wanted to tell you all to make sure and go by Everyday Cricut and sign up for some awesome giveaways..one of which is the new E2.

Also, go check out Robyn at My Pink Stamper for an E2 giveaway
And Mixology Crafts for an E2 giveaway
**********************************************************************************

Thanks for bearing with me while a took a bit of a needed break. I really had to hang low last week.

It was one of those weeks where I felt like nothing was going right and I just wanted to pull the covers over my head. LOL Then, yesterday remembering what the TRUE meaning of Easter is and that I could get through anything kind of snapped me out of it.

Let's see...the last week...

We've had a LOT of rain here in OK. Flooding in parts of the state, tornado watches. Easter was rainy. We did need some rain though. Still raining even today.

For some reason, everynight for the last 10 days my 3 yr old gets out of bed at all hrs--2:15 am, 4:00 am etc and knocks on his door. He keeps knocking till you get out of bed and go see him. Then, he cries if you won't sleep in his bed. So, guess who does that....ME!! (DH had to be at work at 7 am) So, no good sleep for me. (can ya say cranky mama LOL) We have no idea why he does this and have tried everything to get it to stop.

My SUV died while my DH and son were in it driving around town. I was boiling water on the stove when I got the call to come get them while they waited for AAA.
What did I do...YEP! you guessed it! I left the house WITH the water boiling on the stove. Came back and I had ruined the pan and my mirror backsplash behind the stove cracked. (Not only that I "could've" burned my house down or cracked my ceramic top stove) Dead Car sensor--$700 and without a car for 5 days, mirror backsplash replacement-$230.

On Wednesday, my son had another ear infection AND pink eye. Dr. visit and meds--$75 That was my first time ever dealing with pink eye.

I had a sinus infection (since Tuesday) , then woke up Friday morning with the most horrible/painful pinched nerve feeling in my neck down to my shoulder. Was worse on Saturday where I was just in tears. I couldn't sleep, I was cranky, I couldn't relax by scrapbooking because I was in so much pain and couldn't turn my head. Today it is a little better and I have a Dr. appt on Tuesday.

So, I actually did a couple of cards that I will be posting soon and I need to start planning
Mother's Day cards and Teacher appreciation.

Have a great week everyone!

Happy Monday!

Hello everyone and welcome to recent followers--I appreciate you!
I'm taking a few days off from blogging because I have to get caught up on some household things and I've been feeling a little punky the last few days. I just need to chill a few days and then I'll be back. Hope everyone has a great week!

Recipe-Cake Pops

Happy Friday Everyone! Wowsers! Thank you thank you everyone…I’m to 98 followers. Did all of you sign up for the $15 gift card I will probably be drawing for next week?

So, what was I doing on Thursday? Not crafting LOL I had a busy day of buying flowers, starting to do the flower beds. Yeaaaah!!

If I get my yard work done on Friday early, I’ll post a project. If not, it will be Saturday.

OK, so my new bad vice is getting the occasional “Tiramisu” cake pop at Starbucks. It has like 180 calories but I get my little fix. LOL I found this recipe and tried it today and……they are AWESOME!! Thought I’d share with you all.

Cake Pops (similar to Starbucks)

Make a cake prepared from a box mix (per directions) or from your own favorite recipe. When the cake is cool, break it into small pieces, toss it into the food processor to make crumbs of it. If you do not have a food processor, break the cake up by hand into a large bowl. Make the pieces as small as you can.

Add about 1/2 cup of homemade frosting or about half of a standard size can of prepared frosting to the crumbled cake. Mix the cake and frosting by hand, as you would meatloaf. When the mixture is well combined, use it to make small balls of the "dough," similar to meatballs. Place them on a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet.

Melt a small amount (just to coat lollipop sticks), of candy melts almond bark or flavored chips. Dip each lollipop stick into the melted coating so that about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch of the end of the stick is coated. Then, insert a stick into each cake ball. This will help secure the stick to the ball, making it easier to coat them later.

Place the cake pops in the freezer for about 15 minutes, allowing the coating on the stick to harden and the cake balls to become firm. Melt more of the candy coating and dip each cake pop into it, twisting and moving the pop so that the melted candy coats as much of the cake as possible, stand the sticks in a sheet of Styrofoam so that the cake balls retain their round shape. Otherwise, you can set them back onto the waxed paper.

To make tiramisu cake pops

like those at Starbucks, make a white cake per the box directions BUT...replace 1/4 cup of the liquid (water) called for per the box directions with strong brewed coffee PLUS add a teaspoon of instant coffee granules. Bake the cake, cool, crumble and mix frosting in as mentioned above. Continue with all the steps mentioned above.

BUT...to the melted chocolate mixture do this...

Combine a few drops of vanilla and coffee flavored liqueur to the melted chocolate candy dipping mixture. After dipping the cake pops into the coating, top each one with a chocolate covered coffee bean.

Stuff for Mother's Day

Hello Everyone!

So, Mother's Day is a month away and I'm thinking of what to create. I got to searching quotes etc for doing cards. Thought I would share what I found. Feel free to copy or use for your projects and just give credit to the author of the quote. :) Have a Good Day!

********************************************************

"God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers." -Jewish proverb

"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness." -Honore de Balzac

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child." -Sophia Loren

"Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever." -Anonymous

Story continues below

Advertisement

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." -Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Motherhood is priced; Of God, at price no man may dare/To lessen or misunderstand." -Helen Hunt Jackson

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born." -Rajneesh

"A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." -Tenneva Jordan

"No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement." -Florida Scott-Maxwell

"We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves." -Henry Ward Beecher

"Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you." -Jill Bennett

"Anyone who doesn't miss the past never had a mother." -Gregory Nunn

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother." -Lin Yutang

"As is the mother, so is her daughter." -Ezekiel 16:44

"Men are what their mothers made them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello!

So, I just got done watching Robyn at My Pink Stampers video on the new Expression 2. It is VERY cool! Repeat after me...I do not need it...I do not need it!! LOL It evidentally has some preloaded carts on it and I'm curious to get a look at those handbooks.

So, I never have entered any challenges before so I thought I would start.
Maybe some of you haven't done this before either. I'm going to try the challenge at Fantabulous Cricut, where the theme for this week is to create a project using any spring time theme. There must be a "Cricut" image the project. Challenges start on a Monday and have to be finished/posted the following Sunday evening. Then, they announce the winner on Wednesday.

Also, I noticed a common theme for requests/posts(see the posts for my blog candy) to see how to use your heat tool. I'll be honest and have only used it one time and it was used to dry some white puffy paint on a bowl I cut from FMK so it would look like whipped cream. I have embossing powders etc and just have never used it. So, you all have inspired me to try something new. I'll tackle that soon.LOL

Have a good day everyone :)

Made By Momo Blog and my Random Daily Thoughts

WOW! Thank you everyone for joining my blog. I really do want to get myself more organized to do even more projects on here! I have to get viewing all your blogs on Momo's site and joining all your blogs too!

In case you didn't know, the "Made by Momo Blog"that I follow is graciously promoting on her site that blogs with less than 200 followers can link to her blog. She's doing an awesome giveaway too! THANKS to Momo! Check out her blog by clicking on her blinkie down below and to the left.
*************************************************************************


I have been busy today shopping and organizing things for my little man's 3rd birthday tomorrow. I just got done wrapping presents, ordered the Toy Story Cake and balloons for this Saturday's family party. Figured I'd do it all know since he's in his little pre-preschool program today. Hard to wrap presents for a 3 yr old boy and hide what your doing. LOL

So, imagine my surprise when I peeled only one strip of tape off a roll, found another roll of tape and peeled only one strip off that!! Hmmmm....I think my 9 yr old dd (aka the tape queen) got ahold of both my rolls of tape I use for scrapbooking. I had to finish wrapping presents using my ATG gun LOL.....Guess it's time to buy lots of tape....and a couple of rolls JUST for her! :)

Then, I have to make his birthday card, help my daughter make one for him and then do my MIL's birthday card from the kiddos. Hopefully I can post those on Thurs and Friday.

I want to try a Window card for my MIL. I bought some of this 12x12 canvas at H/L and am going to let my little guy fingerpaint or color with oil pastels on the canvas and then try to do a window frame card and cut the canvas like it was a painting and then cut the clear plastic cart clamshell packaging like a piece of glass and assemble a window frame card.

I feel like I need 2 extra hands today. LOL

UPDATE: Well, of course J's didn't have Kates :( they special ordered it for me though ($39.99 and free shipping to the store) and I might have it next week. Tell me why they say there are 180 of those carts in their warehouse but they don't sell them online?
*******************************************************

Well, wish me some luck everybody, if all goes as I dream I will be at the grand opening of our Joann's superstore at 9 am and get my hands on Kate's ABC's.

Also, I went to the local scrapbook store and picked up some of the new stickle colors. Oh my that "glam pink" is soooooo cool!

I've been working on how to organize all my cricut cuts. I decided just to get a photobox and make dividers up by category and then put the cuts in a baggie and file alphabetically. Maybe I can actually find what I'm looking for easier LOL

My baby is back from the Utah vacation

Exactly 2 wks ago today I shipped my Gypsy to Utah and I got it back today. That was very quick turnaround. Kudos to PC for that! Now, to hopefully get it updated etc successfully.

It took an hour and 40 minutes to get things all synced and updated. I got all my carts loaded and the one cart that gave me fits and was the reason it froze in the first place--Car Decals--is successfully installed YEAH!!

Also, I never knew you could pick and choose to not download Imagine stuff updates.

Well,my G. is getting a makeover

I just called PC customer service yesterday about my frozen Gypsy. Got the emailed Fedex return label today and it is already on a fedex truck. "Hopefully" it really only takes the 2 weeks they say it will. :) I will miss it. So hard to go back to the old fashioned way of cutting out stuff. Never realized how lazy I was LOL

Hindsight is 20/20 and maybe I had a tuition thing going on because I have been using the G. a lot the last 2 weeks to cut out Easter and St Pats and Springy stuff. Glad I did because I have a small stockpile of cuts. Also glad I had a chance to back up on the computer all my gypsy files cause I put a lot of work in those.

I plan on posting a couple of St. Pats cards for tomorrow/weekend.

Gypsy Updates--don't do it!

Ii just wanted to warn all of you please do not try to do your gypsy updates. There are problems with it. Bottom line is it messed up my Gypsy (it was my Mothers Day present last yr) and it was frozen at "loading" and wouldn't hard or soft reset. So, it has to go back Darren in customer service says that I will be without it 3 weeks....we'll see how long it takes... :(

This is how it all happened. I got car decals on Jan 15th ish. I tried for weeks to get it to load on my Gypsy. I tried everything and it wouldn't load. I called customer service on the 2/11 and they thought a bad cart. So I got cart #2 fedex yesterday. It wouldn't load. Earlier Tuesday (yesterday) morning I did a cricut update. It said I was at 2:06/2:14. So after cart #2 wouldn't load I did the troubleshooting and tried to update. Nothing...then decided to reformat my gypsy (go to troubleshooting and answer the questions YES, No, No, No and Yes (to erase everthing on your G). Well my G. got stuck/frozen after 2 hrs so I shut everything down. This morning I turned on my G. to start reformatting again and my gypsy was frozen on the "loading" screen.

Had I KNOWN there were problems with cricut sync, I never would've tried to update and do all this. It/PC messed up my G. Even Darren in customer service said don't blame myself but the cricut update attempts when it wasn't working right did probably freeze up my G.