Natural Medicine Talk

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a while but wanted to share a great community I came across called Nat Med Talk. You can check out their health forum, it is a great place to find alternative/natural treatments. You will find many posts on mens and womens health. This is a friendly forum where everyone is allowed to express their opinions and ideas. Throughout their forums you will find information on allergies, cancer, chronic fatigue, heart health, diabetes and just about anything else you might be looking for information on. My favorite area of the site is the Nutrition forum. You will find a lot of great information on foods and supplements you can take to improve your health. Did you know that pumpkin seeds can halp with arthritis? Neither did I until I joined Nat Med Talk. If you are like me and looking for some natural alternatives to improve your health give this place a try. You will really enjoy it...and the best part is is is FREE!

SFYTT Penny Black Easter card

It has been a busy week and we are only halfway through it! I was hoping to have a new card to share sooner but we just had so much going on. This is the first year my husband has been self employed so we are having to get help from an accountant to get our taxes done. We have spent the week going through, organizing, and adding up receipts as well as getting all of our other tax documents together. The good news is we are pretty much done and now just need to take it to the accountant so he can file for us woohoo! It has definately been a learning process for us as we are figuring out what things we can deduct for business expenses etc and learning what receipts to save.

So anyway on to my card. I decided to enter the SFYTT over on Jen Del Muro's blog, she always has great sketches that help me to get inspired.

Here is the sketch



and here is what I came up with



I used a Penny Black stamp called Sweet Hearts. I think it is just adorbale and great for spring. The image was colored with my copics and layered several times to make it pop. I also added lots of sparkle with my copic spica clear glitter pen (love this pen)...hopefully you can see the sparkle in the picture. In person it really shines! I also heat embossed the image with black embossing powder. This is my firs card using the heat embossing and it took a lot of trial and error! You definitely need to use something to take the static away from the paper or you will have stray embossing all over your image. I did not have any dryer sheets but found that dusting the paper I was embossing with baby powder worked great (and makes it smell nice).



I also finished the inside which reads Easter Blessings and then made a matching envelope to go along with it.







I am now working on a custom card for one of my ebay clients so will share that with you by the end of the week. I am saving up to order some nesties as they have been on my wish list for a while now so hopefully I can order soon. I also plan to order some Whiff of Joy stamps as I just adore them and can not wait to create with them! I found this great site 7 kids college fund and they have nesties and Whiff of Joy stamps (plus so much more) with free shipping over $75, so I am waiting until I can spend $75 and then plan to order from them. They have great prices also!

The baby is napping so now is my time to go create! Hope everyone is enjoying their week. We are having some nice 70 degree weather today...but it is windy as usual in west Texas!

Checking into Blog land!

Well it has been a while since my last post so wanted to let you all know I am still here! I am 34 weeks preggo and tired and ready for Miss Madeline to make her debut. I do not have a new card to share yet as I have not been sleeping well so have not felt like creating much.

My Hubby is in sales and I make Thank You cards every week for his new clients. I just finished making 20 Thank You cards to send to some of his clients and that was quite the chore. I use 2 flowers on each card and had been HAND cutting each flower up until today (my poor fingers would hurt terribly by the time I was done). Today I stopped by hobby lobby and got me a nice big flower punch! Woohoo! You will not believe how quickly I got those cards done using the punch instead of hand cutting. I also picked up some embossing powder, buttons, and seed beeds as well as a little paper and a cute little embellie organizer. I can never leave HL with just one thing!

I have been practicing my heat embossing and I am now really addicted to it so my next card will incorporate that! I plan to start a new card tomorrow with some of the new paper I picked up so I should have that posted here hopefully by Sunday!

Since I have not been sleeping I have been doing a ton of reading. I am now reading the Gemma Doyle trilogy which is a young adult series but I really like it. I have been reading a lot of YA lately. I recently finished the 1st book of the trilogy called A Great and Terrible Beauty and am now reading the 2nd book titled Rebel Angels. They are pretty fast paced and keep you interested with lots of mystery...I would definitely recommend to anyone (well any female anyway...not sure a guy would really get into it). I think the covers are pretty also. I have ordered the 3rd book from Amazon (titled The Sweet Far Thing) so hopefully it will be here before I finish the 2nd.





On a good note I have still been monitoring my glucose and so far my numbers are great. I can even eat pizza which is loaded with carbs and my glucose readings stay low so I am happy about that. I still try to stick to the GD diet the dietitian gave me most of the time but since my readings have all been good I do cheat sometimes! I have another ultrasound on the 31st to check and make sure the baby isn't getting too big. She was on the small side at my last u/s a few weeks ago (24th percentile) so I am not too worried.

Another thing that has been taking up my time is FlyLady. Does anyone else FLY? If you have no idea what I am talking about I highly recommend checking out the website. It is basically a program you can follow to help keep your house clean. I can not believe how clean my house is now and I have only been doing it for 2 weeks! It also actually makes cleaning kinda fun (so weird I know). I must be in nesting mode right now as I am consumed with wanting the house to be clean and FlyLady has really helped me in that area! I know with a new baby coming I need all the help I can get so if I can build some good routines now it will definitely pay off later.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and hopefully I will have something new to share soon! I am off to read for a bit and try my best to get some sleep.

Easter card for SCS and copic colour challenge

Well I have finally finished another card. This one I did for the SCS sketch challenge #219. (I really love this sketch) and the copics colour challenge #4

The colors for the challenge were Y08 V06 and BG13

I did not have any of those colors so I used Y02 (in place of Y08) for the heart patch on the bunny and B00 (in place of BG13) for the outline around the bunny



I used the most adorable little bunny stamp from Penny Black called Patchwork Bunny. The image is colored in with my copics and I got a new Copic Atyou Spica glitter pen in the mail and I just love it! I got the clear one since it can be used for so many different things (I think I am going to have to invest in the entire set now). I used the glitter pen to color in the bunny's patches and bow and used a little in the swirl on the DP behind the bunny. I also layered the bunny several times to make it pop!







I also finished the inside of the card. The top part is actually a pocket that can be used to put photos (I added some pics of my kiddos so you can see how the pocket works) or any other little mementos (would be great for drawings the kids made etc). The bottom part has plenty of room for a handwritten note.





Hope everyone is having a great weekend. My oldest is super excited that it is Spring break and no school for a week! It is snowing here in Texas! Our weather is just crazy!

I finally finished my Mojo Monday

Well here we are late Saturday night early/Sunday morning and I finally got my Mojo Monday card finished. It has been a long and busy week for us filled with sick kids and car repairs...ugh! To top it all off we have to spring forward tonight...blah! DH and my oldest son are going to church in the morning and I plan to stay home with my youngest since he is still sick. We got new bunkbeds to go in my oldest DS's room since he and his brother will eventually be sharing (when the new baby outgrows the bassinet and moves to the nursery where my youngest is now), so we have to finish getting those all put together tomorrow. I made a quick trip to the grocery store earlier but we will need to go again tomorrow to get everything we need to be set for the week. I did manage to stop by the book store also. I just finished reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer (which I loved BTW) and needed something else to read. I decided on the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray, they are young adult novels but sound pretty good and I have been reading a lot of YA's lately that I like.

So now back to card making! Here is what I came up with for this weeks Mojo Monday 76











The stamp is Penny Black Surprise (so so cute). I stamped the image several times and colored with my copics, then cut and layered for a 3D effect. The beak and the comb (I believe that is what you call the red thing on the head) have several layers of Diamond Glaze to make them shiny. I used lots of layers of cardstock, and patterned paper, and my sewing machine to add some stitching. I also finished the inside of the card and left plenty of room for a handwritten note. My cuttlebug was used to add some nice embossing detail on the inside and outside of the card. The only thing I changed with the sketch is I rotated the front square so it is more of a diamond as that seemed to suit my card better.

Now even though it is almost 1:30 am (well I guess 2:30 since we are springing forward) I am off to relax in the bath and start my new book. I need it after my long week! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Had to share!

I had an ultrasound early this week and got some new pics of my little girl so thought I would share. I will be 32 weeks on Saturday so I am getting close...and so ready!

Isn't she just so cute! I had them confirm again that she is a GIRL since after having two boys I still have a hard time believing that I am having a girl.






Since the Dr's say I have GD...even though my sugars have been fine and baby is on the small side so far (24th percentile) they are watching the baby's growth closely so I get to have another u/s in 4 weeks woohoo! Then after that it won't be long until I am holding her!

I have had a very busy week and not much time to create. I did make a cute little gift box (envelobox) for my hedgehog card though and then added a few more details to the card itself. The envelobox took A LOT of trial and error as my cards are big (6X6) and I could not find a template for that so I ended up making my own but it took many attempts! I am please with the results. Oh and a helpful hint if you do not have a scoring tool (which I do not) a butter knife works well. I plan to make more of these as a lot of my cards are too thick for envelopes.

Here is a pic of the box and card





I am starting something for Mojo Monday tonight as I think the new sketch looks fun and then hopefully might be able to squeeze in the copic colour challenge also this week (this week they did a sketch instead of specific colors so I can't combine it with Mojo Monday)

So look for more to come in the next few days! I need to get the baby in bed and get busy crafting!

Whimsy Design Team call!

Well the Whimsy DT is looking for a new full time designer to focus on their Whimsy Animals Collection team. Let me tell you when I saw their stamps I knew I had to try because they are so cute and different! Click here to check out the adorable stamps they have available.

Take a look at the DT call here if you are interested, it actually ends today (3/1/09) so you will have to hurry up to get in on time!

Here is what I came up with as the card had to have an animal image and what better way to make use of my new Penny Black Hedgehog. I just love this image and it made for such an adorable card.

I started with Basic Grey paper since I LOVE their paper and worked the coloring of my image around that (which is why I made the ladybug pink instead of red). I stamped the image several times, colored with my copics and then layerd for a 3D effect. I also used my SU! pastel chalks to add some shading to the daisy. Crystal effects was used on the ladybug to make her shine.

I came across the cutest accordian paper flower and had to learn to make one myself. I found a tutorial here if you want to try it. I used a much smaller piece of paper than used in the tutorial so get a smaller flower but they are so easy and pretty! I added several skittles/dew drops to the center of the flower to dress it up a little.

I hope you like it, I think this is one of my favorites I have created so far!