Thankful: November 26

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!


Today I am thankful for future Thanksgivings that will be free of family I don't like.

Thankful: November 25

Since the holidays are not looking too "merry and bright" for me right now and my lack of food that I can eat, today I am thankful for the fact that I don't have to drive today and tomorrow. I am sad that I won't get to see my Oregon family and be there for my Aunt Molly on our first Thanksgiving without Adam, but I'm kind of relieved to be at home this year.

Thankful: November 24

Today I am thankful for getting a glimpse of another gall bladder attack last night. There is no way I'm going to have another one, I don't care if I starve, I don't want to feel that pain again.

Thankful: November 23

Today I am thankful for my loving 'daddy'. He has been in my life since I was 2. He loves me as if I was his own flesh and blood. There are so many personality traits I learned from him. After hearing that I was in the hospital, he made a point to come down and see me today. He brought me applesauce and bananas.. :D so sweet.

Thankful: November 22

Today I am thankful for the fact that I have Health Insurance unlike a lot of Americans. Last night I suffered what I now know to be a gall bladder attack. After 15 hours of not being able to keep even water down, my mom and I rushed to the hospital where I was put in a LDR (Labor & Delivery Room). I received two bags of salt water as fast as the IV could put them into my system, because I was severely dehydrated. This worried the nurses because (little known fact: even while pregnant, your body does not see your uterus as a vital organ) as I got more and more dehydrated, the fluids they were giving me would go to my vital organs, before anything else. And since the uterus is a muscle, if it got dehydrated, it would start to contract, which would cause me to go into labor at 31.5 weeks. After blood tests, and an ultrasound, it was confirmed that I have gall stones. My doctor advised the nurses to send me home on what is called the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast). I meet with her next Tuesday, but I doubt she'll have me go in for surgery before Kennedy's born.. The next 9 weeks should be fun... NOT.

Thankful: November 21

Today I am thankful that I sold one of my bracelets at Shannon's little shopping day. Not to mention Shannon offered to buy one if I would be willing to make her one (but of course).

Thankful: November 20

Today I am thankful for my mom's support of my business goals and dreams. After churning out bracelet after bracelet this week, we headed to Target tonight to get cute tissue paper to wrap them in, little snowflake stickers as a closure, and a cute little star stand to have them on at the sale tomorrow. When we got home, she helped me photoshop up a business card (which is uber adorable) and we took photos of my different bracelets. Now I just need to post them to Etsy and hope for a sale.

Thankful: November 19

Today I am thankful for beads, beading, and the escape from boredom I get when I bead. I'm working on putting together some bracelets for Shannon's little shopping extravaganza on Saturday, as well as gathering my wits about me and starting my etsy shop. After the bracelets, I'm going to try to find a cute necklace to make because, I'd love to tell people I made it when they compliment my necklaces.

Thankful: November 18

Today I am thankful for my little cousin Lucian. It is his FIRST birthday today. I can't believe how fast time flew with him. He seems to be healthy and more or less happy, which is all one could ask for.

Thankful: November 17

Today I am thankful for the fact that my son's father wants nothing to do with us. Though rearing Kennedy on my own will be hard, I know that it will be better than having the constant drama and negativity from his father. I love Kennedy more than anything, I can't wait to meet him.

Thankful: November 16

Today I am thankful for the fact that I don't have to work right now. Pile by pile I am making my way through the chaos that is my room. Nesting, and cleaning, preparing for my soon-to-be exhausting days of motherhood. Every day I hope that whatever guiding forces watch over me, help me to be the productive person I hope to be after Kennedy joins me. Being bogged down by all of the negativity and doubt people around me target towards me makes me want to fight even harder to prove them wrong. That I will be a better mom than them, AND get everything I want accomplished. The more they doubt, the more they laugh and attribute my goals to naiveté, the more motivated I become to be the person I want to be and to laugh in THEIR faces.

Holidays in Hand: Day 1

Assignment 1: Write values and goals::

What are your holiday values? Those things we treasure most, and the hopes we have for ourselves and our families during the holiday season?

My Values:
To make the holidays about family instead of material possessions.
To focus on those that are less fortunate.
To put thought and love into gifts instead of the swipe of a card.
To keep some traditions from my childhood, while making new traditions with my child.
To be organized.
To make the holiday season less stressful.
To record memories more frequently.
To enjoy the magic of Christmas again.
To make holiday celebrations more meaningful.
To slow down and savor more.
To be more grateful.

Assignment 2: Commit::

Find a way to include at least 20 minutes of recording/writing/photographing/savoring/printing/gluing/scrapbooking/remembering/slowing down EVERY DAY in December.

Assignment 3: Organize::

Organized Christmas

Thankful: November 15

Today I am thankful for the rare occasions when my mom, step-dad, and I work as a team to get something accomplished. Our upstairs landing is now almost completely junk free. Our living room and our entryway are less cluttered. Thanks to teamwork and communication, we have those things checked off our to do list before the holiday season is officially upon us.

Thankful: November 14

Today I am thankful for the love my mother has for my child. We purchased Kennedy's crib today as well as supplies to prepare for the baby shower celebrating him. I'm so lucky to have a mom that is so excepting of my decision when she knows how hard my life is going to get in nine and a half weeks.

Thankful: November 13

Today I am thankful for Tollhouse pre-cut cookie dough. Perfectly delicious cookies, perfect size every time. Yum..

Thankful: November 12

I am thankful that we have an amazing furnace. I took it for granted until it broke last night and I froze today until the repair man came..

Thankful: November 11

Today I am thankful for having my mom as a fellow "snobby crafty bitch". I can't wait to get started on December Dailies.

Card Challenge #5

I'm posting this a day late because I didn't make my card yesterday.

My Challenge - to use this color scheme.. [thanks to Stampin' up for giving me an ugly palette..]


I decided I would try to use this layout:


My Card:

I'm Jack's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"..

Mumsy took today off work so we could get some craft on. :D I woke up early, went to the store to pick up a bagel, a get well soon card, some milk, and warm French bread. After the store, I hit up Starbucks to get Mumsy some hot cocoa, and then 7-11 in case she wanted some Dew.. When I came home I woke her up, and then we got started. It took us awhile to get going because we were having a hard time figuring out how to construct my Halloween costume. We headed out to the craft room to find some material to use for our December Daily albums. When we came back in, it was time to make cards.

Mom's Card:


My Card:

Card Challenge #3

My challenge today was:

Basic Grey paper and a tree.

I was having a hard time with the papers my paper-holic mom had for me to choose from, not to mention trying to match that with one of two tree stamps I knew of in the house. So I decided I could make a tree.. heh..

Card Challenge #2

Since Timby is working from home Tuesday, I'll be lucky if I actually get my challenge met.

My challenge:


Piece finished so far (Monday night):



My finished card:

I am Jack's Poetry and a Pattern Cake.

Last night Mumsy and I decided on a challenge to get us out of our creative ruts. Since I got into the card movement this weekend, while waiting to take a trip to Shipwreck Beads, and she's in desperate need to write some poems, the challenge is as follows: I will provide her with a prompt that she will use to write a poem, and she will find a design/paper/stamp set/etc for me to create a card. Hopefully this will last more than a day or two, and actually have good things come of it. My first challenge is to create a card similar to this, but closer to our style/color scheme/stamp sets.



My Card:



The pink that the owl is on doesn't quite match, but right now I don't have the pink that does. Until I get the other pink, it'll just have to be a little off.

I am Jack's Costumed Animals.

So while I was cleaning up the craft table today I found some scraps from the card I made yesterday and decided another Halloween card needed to be made. I used the same papers, same concept to an extent, and my other Halloween stamp set.

I feel like it still needs something but I don't know what..

I am Jack's Glittery Mess.

Today I embarked on a journey to make a card. I thought about making Thank You cards in advance for the two baby showers I'm having. But, I needed Mumsy for help to bounce ideas off of for that venture.

After organizing Mumsy's craft blocks, with emphasis on the punch drawer I raided our clear stamp drawer and chose a few sets that I could brainstorm with. Two Halloween, one Christmas, and one with a really cute owl.

I decided on my favorite little Skull Girl. Then I went with the new "in" Halloween colors. Black, olive green, orange, and a bold but light purple. Earlier in the day I was crusing some crafty sites looking for some inspiration and I found a card layout I really liked at KWerner Design Blog. So I decided to use that for my card layout.

Once I assembled the layers, and cut my circles, I decided the front needed something more. So I drew some spiderwebs by hand using my Martha Stewart glue pen, and added some glitter. After the glitter was applied and my layers were glued together, I was happy with the final product.



This was a little spidy friend I came up with after the card was finished. I decided not to add him to this card because I didn't want TOO much going on. But he might make his way onto another card..

I am Jack's Baby Shower.

This post is going to be about all of the preparations and craftiness for my baby shower.

It was extremely difficult to figure out a theme for the baby shower. Should we do something centered around the fact I'm having a boy? Should we do something catered toward my wants? Not to mention, I'm really picky when it comes to stuff like this and I don't want to settle for just whatever boy stuff we can find.

I was planning on doing jungle themed invites from PaperCrafts Magazine, but the overwhelming amount of cutting that had to be done, cut that from the list. Then there was the simple fact that we didn't have a theme picked out. It's extremely hard to think of a cute card when there is no theme.

One day Mumsy and I went up to Party City to look at the baby shower supplies they have there, hoping for inspiration. We were getting ready to leave full of disappointment, when Mumsy saw these cute little pea pod favors. Then and there we had out theme. Pea pods and Poppies! Light greens, orange accents, and of course light blues. My favorite color scheme of them all.

Now that we had a theme, it was time to brainstorm baby shower invites. We found some really cute clear stamps at Michaels. Finished product:


Cupcake Pins I made:


Peapod Favors, finished:

I am Jack's Fall Resolutions..

I decided today that I want to do something crafty everyday and blog about it until little Kennedy joins the party.. so for today, I figure I'll post my list as of right now.. and post as I work and/or finish the projects listed.

Baby Shower Invites - finished
Baby Blanket/Quilt
Family Scrapbook for Kennedy
Poppy Decorations for Baby Shower (by 12/6)
Nursery Decorative Blocks
Halloween Costume (by 10/30)
Lucian's Birthday Present (by 11/15)
Sock Animals for Twins
'Pretty' Bracelet (by 11/20)
'Zebra' Bracelet (by 11/20)
'Fringe' Bracelet (by 11/20)