The Grinch!!

Colors : Holiday Red, Citrus Leaf, Sunny Yellow, White Daisy
Paper : Carnival B&T pack ('06)
Stamps : No Peeking
Accents : Gold brads



Another set of swap pages that I just finished. I love the way they turned out :D I usually like pages with more going on, but I love the simple storybook look of the layout. This was also the first time I used the presents on the No Peeking stamp set. They went perfect with the Dr. Suess' style of drawing from the Grinch. I used a scan directly from the book for the Grinch himself, took out the color in his eyes (the only color on him since the book is mostly black and white), then colored him in with chalk. I used the old cartoon movie for a guide as to what colors to use. The quote is one of my favorites from the book.

Another Swap done!

Colors : Baby Pink, Honey, Garden Green, Col. White, Blush

Stamps : Floral Delights, Simple Stitches, Giggle Lower, Giggle Caps, Adorable

Accents : Pink Organdy, Yellow buttons, Mini flower brads (Making Memories)

Another swap that I just finished. The flowers took the longest just because I was having a hard time getting the color combos the way I wanted and stamping the stems was more complicated than I thought it would be lol. The scallops were also a learning experience but now I've got plenty of practice in :D. It's actually a little more simple than I usually do, but since this was my first 2 page swap I thought I should take it easy. My favorite part are the flowers, I just love the way they came out. Inspired by a page my upline did at the album retreat, lucky girl. Though funny, it actually didn't have any flowers, none of the colors, and used B&T. But it sparked this so I'm counting it as the inspiration piece :D.

Frosty

Colors : Crystal Blue, Holiday Red, Baby Pink, White Daisy

Stamps : Magical Season

Inks : White Daisy, Holiday Red

Accents : White organdy ribbon, chalks, white acrylic paint

I don't know why but this card seems a little country to me. It didn't turn out how I invisioned it in my head at all but that would partially be because of the paper colors. I was going to use crystal blue and amethyst with white, silver, and glitter (I still make make the one I was thinking of) but these colors were sitting out with scraps and the red scallop was already punched out, so this is what I came up with. I still think it's cute though, just not my usual style. I do like the way the snowman came out though. He looks so cheery. Mostly a bit of experimentation with this card.... what am I talking about, all my cards lol.

A closer look at frosty here. I like the chalk on the acrylic paint and despite the nontraditional colors I actually like the combo :D. My white daisy ink pad was misbehavin' so my snowflakes came out some goopy and others looking dry. I wish I could find some stazon white. The rest of the card came out how I wanted for the most part.

Sleigh Bells Ring

Colors : Crystal Blue, Holiday Red, White Daisy, Silver
Stamps : Magical Season
Accents : Silver EP, Silver organdy, rhinestone



Used the cuttlebug to emboss the Hol.Red CS then sanded. I should have cut the CS with my deco scissors before embossing, it would have been a lot straighter and I wouldn't of had to trim the parts that wouldn't really cut. Dry brushed white acrylic paint on crystal blue CS then embossed the sled in silver over the white after it was dry. I didn't have any foil or metallic paper so I used a piece of grey flannel CS and distressed the edge with versamark then covered in silver EP. It looks so wintery and fun ^_^.

Cuttlebug!!

I just got my cuttlebug this morning for $39 bucks! What a deal!! I also got six embossing folders 50% off. I can't believe how easy this is to use and how great the embossing comes out. I don't much get into die cuts but the embossing is great! I did get one die from cuttlekids, a little snake that looks just like Caitlyn's lovie snake. It was too cute to pass up on. Anyway, I haven't had that much time to play since I got but I did at least get this card done since getting home a couple hours ago.



Colors : Amethyst, Hydranea, Topiary, White Daisy
Stamps : Rustic Flowers, From me to You
Inks : Hydranea, Amethyst, embossing pad
Accents : Buttons, white EP and acetate, white waxy flax, white organdy

Flower focal piece was made by first using a scallop punch with topiary for the backing, then the coluzzle for the white circle. Flower from Rustic Flowers was stamped in Amethyst on white CS and Hydranea on Amethyst CS. Line flower was white embossed on acetate. Layer with dark flower, light flower then acetate. I used a button for the center which isn't as dark as the picture shows it. Background was embossed with the cuttlebug then sanded with 100 grit. Edge was cut with wave provo craft scissors and holes were done with a paper piercer.

Accessorize!

Colors : White Daisy, Black, Watermelon, Orchard Bouquet

Stamps : Totally Chic, Girly Girl, Curly Q Caps, Wedding, Whimsy Caps and Lowercase

Inks : Black, Watermelon, Orchard Bouquet, Bubblegum

Accents : Silver brads, rhinestones, liquid glass, black organdy

My swap page for the round 2 of our Girly Girl swap. I think it turned out really cute. I really wanted to do something with circles since I've been loving them lately and something bright and fun since all my pages lately have been distressed or muted. I almost never use the bright summer colors so this was my challenge especially since I really really have a hard time using orchard bouquet, watermelon, and bubblegum. I'm more of a blush/chocolate/hollyhock kind of gal. Now that I've done circles I'll have to move onto my next new obsession of scallops on my round 1 swap pages! I might glitter the title a little later but we'll see how I feel about it. On another note, I'm getting a Cuttlebug!! ^_^

Organizing.... Again!

My hubby actually jokes that organizing is an obsession I have. If I can't scrap, I organize my scrapbook stuff. If the house is clean, I organize the girls' bedroom or our bedroom or redo the livingroom.... but, the funny thing is I don't think my house is very organized, I still think my scrap stuff is somewhat a mess and I just looked at my labels and went Gadzooks! there are a ton of labels there how is anyone including me supposed to find stuff!! So, what I'm doing now is fixing them. I will be splitting the stamps up into the catalog's genres. Which will be along the lines of Alphas, Sentiments, Spring, Winter, etc. This way I only have so many tags for stamps and as new stamps come out I don't have this huge list that spans longer than my blog :S. Paper packs are going to reduced to Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter from when they first came out in the catty. Layouts are going to stay where they are at for the moment. Hopefully that trims down the labels a little :D.

Making more paper :D

Colors : Orchard Bouquet, Watermelon, Bubblegum, Black
Stamps : Totally Chic, Girly Girl, Curly Caps, Wedding



Last night I cut out all my colored cardstock for my next swap page. We only need one more person so I figured it was safe to make the pages. Today I random stamped the base page and I think it came out really cute! You can see the spots where I didn't RS because there will be paper there.

A close up of the paper. I love the Totally Chic stamp set, it is one of my favorites :D. The shoes, purses, and shoe script is from that set. The flowers and girly girl are from the girly girl set. Beautiful if from wedding and the word purse-onality is spelled out from the curly caps. It took a little over an hour to stamp out all 7 sheets of paper but it's finally done and I'm really happy with the outcome ^_^.

O Christmas Tree

Colors : Cranberry, Ponderosa Pine, Bamboo, Desert Sand
Papers : Creative Basics ('07), Cranberry CS, Bamboo CS
Stamps : Magical Season
Inks : Cranberry, Ponderosa Pine, Bamboo, Desert Sand
Accents : Cranberry Grossgrain ribbon, gold eyelets, gold star brad



Layout is from this weeks card sketch challenge from SCS. I colored the tree in by using qtips with the ink pads and also did a little color on the word tree. The card is very dimentional in real life and I love the traditional colors :D. This was the first time I used this stamp set too. I did a lot of soft ink distressing with bamboo. You can't tell in the picture but the swirls on the right are shaded with bamboo ink to give them more depth.

Winter Baking

Colors : Vineyard Berry, Breeze, Ocean, Desert Sand, White Daisy
Papers: Just Chillin' Lvl 1, Lvl 2, and Stickease (Winter '06)
Stamp Sets : Boutique Alpha
Inks : Desert Sand, Cocoa, Vineyard Berry, Ocean

Audrey's first time baking using the Lvl 1 kit pages that is Cherish's 'Photo Shapes' (pg 46) basic layout. Stickease used for the title and embellishing. White daisy and Vineyard Berry CS used for photo matting some of the photos.

A closer look at the pages. These were very simple and quick and the paper pack always reminds me of cocoa or winter cooking more than snow so it went perfect with the winter baking theme.

Caitlyn's pictures. Also from the lvl one kit. Desert sand and vineyard berry CS for photo and journal matting and stickease for embellies. Another set of very quick pages. ;D

Baker Girls/Sisters using Cherish (Treasure Tags pg 110). I altered the layout a bit so that I had space for the titles and moved the journalling. Stickease and stamping along with the lvl 2 PP. I really like how fast these came together and how adorable they turned out. About an hour and a half for all 6 pages :D. I used most of the rest of the paper pack to scrap Caitlyn's birthday since it's in Dec. This set seemed more party oriented than Christmas. I really love the stripe and the vineyard berry/snow B&T :D.

Organizing Again

Today I redid my labels again. This time to shorten Layouts to an abbreviated LO and to add paper packs and stamp sets to my labels. I don't know if this makes it more organized or just more crazy, lol. I'm also going to try and use a different type of format for my card and layout posts starting with naming off the color palette. After that I'm tentatively thinking of adding the paper pack, stamp sets used, and any techniques used intermittently throughout the post so that it's more informative. We'll see how that works out. As of right now I haven't finished any new layouts but I do have a few older ones in my photobucket account that I haven't posted here so I'm going to start with those.

Lil' Witch

Colors : Garden Green, Black, Autumn Terracota, Smokey Plum
Papers : Enchanted PP ('07), Garden Green CS, Autumn Terracota CS, Black CS, Pansy Purple CS, Col.White CS
Stamps : Rustic Alpha, Playful Flourishes, Believe Lowercase, Simple Stitches, Seasonal Thoughts, Floral Delights, Sans Small Lowercase
Inks : Autumn Terracota, Smokey Plum, Black, Garden Green

A close up of the main photo mat which is sanded pansy purple cardstock. I sanded it to make the spiders show up a little better.

The right page of the layout. This one took a bit more tweaking with the photos but I like the end result. A lot of pics on one page ^_^.

And a close up of the name detail. I love this technique. Audrey stamped in garden green with sans small lowercase on colonial white cardstock. Edges distressed in smokey plum ink. Design is my own with the goal to use just the last two pieces of these two B&T designs for Audrey's half of the paper pack. So far I've gotten 5 pages out of 4 sheets pattern paper and I still have big scraps for 2 of those sheets.

I'll put a Spell on you...

Colors : Smokey Plum, Pansy Purple, Black, Autumn Terracota, Garden Green
Papers : Enchanted PP ('07), Smokey Plum CS, Autumn Terracota CS, Garden Green CS, Black CS, Textured Pansy Purple CS, Col.White CS
Stamps : Delightful Alpha, Homestead Alpha, Sans small lowercase, Seasonal Thoughts, Simple Stitches
Inks : Black, Garden Green, Smokey Plum
Accents : Autumn Terracota Spiral, Garden Green buttons, clear/glitter embossing powder


After finishing my swap pages, I was really excited to get working on my regular pages. I've been trying to get together the girls' Halloween pictures since I like to scrap with a theme when I have so many. Both girls have at least a full roll of film each for halloween last year. Here was our favorite picture of Audrey with her little witchy I'm-casting-a-spell-on-you pose that was caught completely by accident.

You can't really tell here, but I glittered SPELL.

A close up look at some of the faux stitching. I A lot of edge distressing and a little ink distressing as well as sanding on the on the textured CS.

And the Finished Project!

The glitter paper and the two sheets of B&T I made were for this project. I think it turned out lovely!! I love all the sparkle and I hope the ladies I'm swapping with love their pages too :D.

Colors : Vanilla Cream, Kiwi, Lilac Mist, Col.White
Papers : Vanilla Cream CS, Kiwi CS, Lilac Mist CS, Col.White CS
Stamps : Believe Lowercase, Homestead Alpha, Fairy Dust, Flower Fairies, Playful Flourishes, Playful Petals, Winter Reflection, Floral Delights
Inks : Lilac Mist, Kiwi, Taffy
Accents : Rhinestones, clear/glitter embossing powder

A close up of part of the title. I tried to take a slanted picture to catch the shimmer of the glitter. It's really pretty in real life.

One of the fairies. Their wings were coated in liquid glass. Stamp sets were Fairy Dust, Flower Fairies, Playful Flourishes, Floral Delights, Playful Petals, Believe Lowercase, Winter Reflections, and Homestead Alpha. After nearly a week, all seven of them are done now :D. Yay! Now on to the next swap lol.

Daily breakdown was this - Day one: Design layout on graph paper, determine colors and cutting templates on graph paper; Day two: stamp kiwi B&T, cut paper to size for each layout; Day three: ink and scissor distressing, stamping varigated border; Day four: stamping and cutting out fairies; Day five: embossing background; Day six: stamping layout and putting it together, liquid glass on fairy wings and to hold small rhinestones; Day seven: stamp do you, stamp and emboss Believe, add to page, and finish with large rhinestones. It probably could have been done in just two or three days. I only worked on it from a half an hour to few hours each day after my girls went to sleep since I don't have much free time. This was really handy with the liquid glass night since I could leave the pages on our bar counter all night without having to worry about curious little fingers smearing it ^_^.

Yay!!

I just got my quantum notice from UPS saying my order should be here tomorrow!! I'm soooo excited. It's been a week and a half and I've been aching to play with my new goodies. I also finished playing with my Meez character. I have a few outfits in my album already and a ton of stuff in my closet, lol. It's a lot of fun. For those of you that don't know that little animation I have of myself with the camera and butterfly wings is from meez.com. It's free and it's a lot of fun. Anyway, just thought I'd get my jitters out! Yay! Yay yay yay!

Passing Time

My order still hasn't shipped and it's the seventh day today (working day and that's not counting the day I placed the order) so I'm a bit disappointed. With that in mind I decided I really didn't want to wait any longer to finish up the cookie swap pages. I did want to try to see if that B&T added anything to the card but after showing my hubby the layout without it he asked why it needed more. Right then I was like, well... it doesn't. And with that I put them all together. There is a ton of distressing on this and I had to make 27 of these. I love the way it turned out. The colors and distressing make it really look like yummy christmas cookies!!

Colors : Cranberry, Chocolate, Brown Bag, Cocoa, Barn Red, Desert Sand, White Daisy
Papers : Cranberry CS, Chocolate CS, Brown Bag CS, White CS
Stamps : Music of Winter
Inks : Chocolate, Cocoa, Desert Sand, Barn Red
Accents : eyelets from making memories : dark brown, taupe, and rustic copper



The background snowflakes and ink distressing on the white were done in desert sand. Punched out snowflakes are chocolate, cocoa, and barn red. Chocolate ink distressing on the brown bag cardstock. The scanner really brightened up the red, but in real life it's lighter from all the distressing. Eyelets are Making Memories. Stamp set is Music of Winter, one of my favourite winter sets :D.

More paper for the swap

While waiting for my order to be processed, I've been slowly putting together my fairy swap layouts. Here is the base page I embossed for the layout, it's much prettier in real life!

Colors : Vanilla Cream
Papers : Vanilla Cream CS
Stamps : Fairy Dust
Ink : Embossing pad
Accents : Kaliedescope embossing powder by Stampendous

You can see the two spots I left open because there will be paper and a photo mat over those areas. I didn't emboss those spots to save on embossing powder and time since I had to make seven of these.

And a close up of the detail. This was tough because the embossing pad I have is supposed to be tinted slightly, but the stamp's impressions are tiny so I couldn't see where I had stamped. But even so, they still turned out beautiful!

Candles

My favorite candle is dying. I've had it forever, or at least it seems. Usually I light it in the winter because it gives our home such a yummy smell, like I've been baking all day and I love that smell when it's chill outside like it has been lately. It makes me think of cozying up on the couch with a good book and a steamy mug of hot chocolate or orange spice. The flavor is German Struesal Cake and it smells absolutely divine. Last evening I lit it up for that comforting feeling it brings and noticed it's more than half way down the jar. I nearly burned my hand with the match trying to get it to reach down to the wick (I need one of those long stem lighters), and after having lit it Caitie started singing happy birthday and Audrey joined in. They do that anyway, but I think it was even more so this time because we just celebrated Audrey's birthday on Sunday.

Speaking of which, Audrey didn't even care about her birthday. She was more enticed by the idea of playing with her cousins toys than trying to open presents or blow out candles. So like any good big sister, lol, Caitie did all that for her. I helped Audrey open two presents and Caitlyn did the rest. She also took the liberty of blowing out the candles after we sang happy birthday. After we got home though, Audrey was ecstatic with her new pots and pan set, complete with utensils. Clothes are always needed so I was very happy with all the new outfits she got and both the girls liked the mini books. It was a good birthday and yesterday the girls had lots of fun playing with the new toys.

Today the livingroom still smells faintly of the candle's delicious scent. I want to light it again, but at the same time I want it to last as long as possible until I can find another one!! Hopefully, Salt City Candles still make that particular scent. If all else fails, I still have my homemade cookie candle :D

Pretty Paper

So I have four swaps left to complete now. My cookie recipe one could be done but I wanted to see if the B&T I ordered makes it look even better or just too busy. So that leaves the fairy swap, little girl round 1 two pager, and the little girl round 2 one pager. I want to be doing the little girl round 2. My title is 'When in doubt, Accessorize!' and I've already got the entire thing planned out. The only problem is there are still 2 spots open in that one, three in the two pager, and I don't want to start making pages until the hostess is certain we can fill the spots. Therefore I was left with doing the fairytale one. Not that I don't want to do that one. I love fairytales, love my quote and page design, it's just that one of the stamp sets I wanted to use for the title is also in my order that isn't here yet and probably won't be here until next week. In the meantime though, I made some B&T for the layout.

Colors : Kiwi
Paper : Kiwi CS
Stamps : Playful Petals
Inks : Kiwi

A close up of the detail. I think it turned out really pretty!

We're sleeping.... really!

Both Caitlyn and Audrey love it when I play stuff animals with them, or just pretend play with any of their toys. And when a toy or lovie is sleeping, I make the trademark fake snoring sound effect "ssnnaahh---chhooooo". This is really funny because the girls will imitate it every so often in their own play or will want me to pretend I'm asleep. Now for the real kicker. I'm making my usual rounds tonight through the house to tidy up after the girls have been put in bed and I hear them jabbering. Usually at this point I walk up to their door and crack it a bit more open to check on them, then tell them to go to sleep. But before I got to the door I suddenly hear Audrey fake snoring. Caitie says something in a whisper, but Audrey keeps fake snoring. I wait for a few moments, laughing to myself as I listen to Audrey attempting to not get caught staying up before leaving and the moment I start to walk away, she giggles. I couldn't help but to laugh outloud at that and could just imagine her in her own little mind thinking 'mommy didn't catch us.'

Wrapping paper = Card 2

I decided to go ahead and make Audrey's birthday card using the basic same design I had with our niece's. Initially I wanted to use my white gel pen to do the doodled circles on the B&T but unfortunately it appears I need a new gel pen as mine is dead, hence the embossing. The really good thing is it still turned out cute!!

Colors : Pink Carnation, Baby Pink, Orange, White Daisy
Papers : Baby Pink CS, Pink Carnation CS, Orange CS, White CS
Stamps : Solo T, Groovy, Confetti and Favors
Inks : Pink Carnation, Orange
Accents : Baby Pink brads, white embossing powder and acetate

I did change the colors a little. Instead of bubblegum and watermelon I just used pink carnation. So the colors are pink carnation, orange, baby pink, and white. Stamp sets are solo T (the circle), confetti and favors, and groovy which I haven't used in a really long time (like almost 2 years). Now for my embossing horror story. I had read on the some scrapping boards that you can make your own embossing buddy using baby powder or the like and putting it into a sock. You rub the sock over the paper and voila, it's supposed to keep the embossing powder from sticking to the paper so that your stamped image comes out clean when you emboss it. Well, complete backfire! I did this and my powder clung to my transparency vehemently!! I was blowing on it, flicking the back, anything to try and get it off. Needless to say I wasted a bit of powder since it went everywhere except on the paper I was using to catch it so I could put it back in the jar. The flower ended up coming out alright though, even after my powder battle.

Halloween almost here?

I know that technically Halloween is more than three weeks away but I can't help but feel it's going to be like, next weekend. Caitlyn already has a costume, Princess Aurora, that is absolutely gorgeous. Of course she has to wear it all the time ^_~ even though it's not Halloween yet which is fine by me. A twenty dollar costume should get more use than just one or two days, so wear away!! Audrey's was a bit tougher. Everywhere I looked they had scampy toddler costumes until finally I fell across one online while looking on oriental trading company for envelopes. I usually hate paying shipping for clothes but the costume is so adorable, a little patty cake chef, so I did it anyway. It comes with a chef hat, dress and apron that is so Audrey since she is my little cooking helper. The only thing is it won't get here for two weeks. I know her costume will be here before the week of Halloween but I can't help but feel this urgency to want it to get here faster just to be certain. Aside from that we finally got out our few Halloween decorations that are now dotted around the living room. A soft plushy spider (he's pretty big) that Audrey loves and Caitlyn is scared of. He has a cute little pumpkin on his head and Audrey will chase Caitlyn with him which sounds funny, and I have to admit even I laugh when she does this, but it really is frightening to Caitie. We also have a plushy bat that both the girls love so they get to play with him and the spider usually has to stay up on the piano so that Caitie doesn't freak out. Every day since I've gotten the decor and plushys out, both girls want me to play with the bat whose name has become Skeek, because he squeaks (not really, I have to make his voice for him). And with Halloween candy, costumes, and other paraphernalia out there, it's hard to not feel that Halloween is almost here.

Swap crazy

I must be nuts. Either that or just really bored, because I've signed up to do four swaps!! Two are pretty easy. They are 6x6 recipe cards and I've already finished all of them for one of the swaps and have everything done except the putting together part for the other one. But the other two (thank goodness they aren't due until Jan), are 12x12 swaps. One of them I'm in 2 rounds of it and one of those rounds is a 2 page layout. So yeah, I guess I went a little overboard when signing up last night and this morning. The good thing though is all of them are things I really want. Anyway, here's my finished one. It turned out so cute. I think my next project will be to decorate a box for all the 6x6 recipe cards I'm going to get :D. After Christmas though, I have way too many other projects to be finishing right now :S.

Colors : Sunflower, Outdoor Denim, White Daisy
Papers : School Zone ('06), Sunflower CS, Outdoor Denim CS, White CS
Stamps : Doodle Alpha
Inks : Sunflower, Outdoor Denim
Accents : Copper eyelets

Recipe is from a friend. She gave it to me a couple years ago and boy do we use it a LOT! It's one of our family favorites and I love it because it's sooooo easy to make. Colors are sunflower and outdoor denim. The B&T was from the back to school pack and stamp set was doodle alpha. I adore those little birds!! :D

They couldn't be sisters, could they?

I finally got to look at the roll of film I just had developed and let me tell you the first time I had to do a double take when flipping through the pictures as I thought both were Audrey for a second.

I didn't do this on purpose, or at least I don't think. Caitie ALWAYS wants to wear her yellow dress. The moment it's out of the dryer she puts it on. In fact the majority of her week is spent in 'The Yellow Dress'. Audrey I think just happened to be wearing her little yellow outfit and I usually do their hair like this or Audrey's hair in pigtails and Caitlyn's in a ponytail. Boy did they look so much alike!!

Here are both of them together looking at bugs if I remember correctly. They couldn't be sisters could they :D .

Acronyms or TLAs

So I was searching SCS (split coast stampers) for some ideas since there are A LOT of them there for scrappers, cardmakers, stampers, and just paper crafts in general and I fell into this thread about acronyms (or more accurately TLAs - three letter abbreviations since an acronym is something like RADAR, an abbreviation made into a word, and a TLA is like TFS, a string of words turned into a quick abbreviation). There were some TSF (Too Stinking Funny) ones like :

I have PMS constantly!! (Purchase More Stamps)

I almost PIMPed! (Peed In My Pants)

DMC - not embroidery thread (Drive Me Crazy)

CRS and CRA - (Can't Remember Stuff & Can't Remember ANYTHING!)

For reference if you don't already know TFS is Thanks For Sharing :D. My favorites were the top two because I'm inflicted with PMS all the time, lol. And PIMP was just too hilarious. For a couple serious ones for the moms out there with teens/tweens that chat, MOMS = mom over my shoulder, POS = parent over shoulder, and DIR or MIR = dad in room and mom in room. Just a couple I picked up. There were actually quite a few extraordinarily long lists, it was literally like another language :S. I really feel OOTL now! (Out Of The Loop)

Wrapping paper = Card

Colors : Baby Pink, Bubblegum, Watermelon, Orange, White Daisy
Papers : Baby Pink CS, Watermelon CS, Orange CS, White CS
Stamps : Confetti and Favors, Solo T (for the circle)
Inks : Bubblegum, Watermelon, Orange


Inspired by the wrapping paper and if I had a bit more time I probably would have taken my white gel pen and doodled the cute circles around some of the pink circles that the paper had. Baby pink, watermelon, and orange cardstock; bubblegum, watermelon and orange ink; and 'confetti and favors' and the circle from the solo T stamps were used. And for as quick as I had to do it along with having a toddler squirming on my lap, I think this turned out pretty darn cute!

My Poor Baby...

Caitlyn is playing away having a great time jumping up and down and singing "I like to move it!!" just a little bit before bedtime when WHAM! She scrapes her hand on the AC intake vent in the hallway and scratches off some skin. It hardly bled but I know those scratches can sting terribly, not to mention that it was on a very painful spot, against the side of her hand right under her pointer finger. She cried and cried and cried and cried. And all she would let me do was hold her, she wouldn't even let me look at it good. After about ten minutes of this we decided that we HAD to get a bandaide on and some neosporin before it could get infected and poor Caitie freaked out. We had quite the time trying to get the bandaide on her and for another five minutes after she just held me and cried while telling me it hurt. What could I do? I practically felt like crying myself because there wasn't anything I could do to take the pain away. After that she just whimpered and we gave her a popsicle to try and help comfort her and I read her a bunch more books than usual. A little motrin to help curb the pain and lots of snuggles for the next half an hour until it was twenty minutes past bed time. I feel so bad. She was so happy and then suddenly this happened. My poor baby. I finally had to just leave her alone to go to sleep while she was still whimpering a little because Audrey was getting mad about feeling left out. I know Caitie's had worse, far worse than this little scrape but she was so fixated on it, staring at the bandaide the entire time I was holding her and while I was reading to her. She's actually never taken an 'owie' this badly and I feel so helpless in that I can't make it better for her. Right now though, she's sleeping soundly and I can only hope that tomorrow it will feel much better.