Amy...You got some 'splainin to do!

Said in the best Ricky Ricardo voice I can muster. :P

I look back on my last post and seriously want to bang my head on my desk when I see the date that it was written. :P But seriously can not help but laugh at the title of the post. If only we both knew what was in store after that! LOL!

I can not even begin to explain where I have been or what I have been doing lately, and not have it be an hour long read. The pictures alone would be one of my longest posts ever! :P So, I will be explaining over the length of quite a while, but to kinda sum it up for now it goes something like this: We moved. Which took about a month to do. :P And lost internet during that whole time. Which left me in a huge panic. Finally got out of old house, and got internet set up in the new house. Found out just before the move that we are expecting baby number 2! But a few days after that extreme morning sickness and fatigue set in. Morning sickness and fatigue like I have never felt before in my life. And it has not. stopped. SINCE. And if that wasn't bad enough I for some reason now get the migraines I had quite a while ago back. So needless to say I wake every morning just really not wanting to even get out of bed! LOL! Sigh. (pity party over now! :D) Everyone else is doing great here! Creedence is almost 100% potty trained! :D We are still working on the communicating when she needs to go, and the wearing clothes part. Oh and she still wears a diaper to bed. Other than that she rarely has an accident because she gets up when she needs to go and heads to the bathroom all on her own! :D Of course I follow, but the telling me that she needs to go isn't happening so much. And she is always naked, because she confuses panties with her diaper. So those are the only hiccups. LOL! I can't tell you how proud I am of her for changing to this so quickly! And I am also super happy that she is almost 100% out of diapers, as we were going through a pack in a matter of days! :P That is how much she goes. Yeah I know. Crazy. My house is still in shambles as unpacking hasn't gone so well with me being sick, and Jed has had to work a lot more than usual lately. Which means that my scrap area is in extreme shambles too. But I get my own room now! With a door and everything! :D Which means that Cree won't be getting into any of it anymore. But I will have to have the baby crib and what not in there (which there is plenty of room for) as Cree will be getting her own room now. And I think it works fine because the baby isn't gonna need a whole lot of room anyway. And having the baby seperated from Creedence at night when Cree is learning to sleep in her own room I think will work out much better. Any advice you have on that would be awesome, as having two little ones is going to be a whole different ballgame that we are totally unfamiliar with!

Well that is about all that has been going on personally. The scrappy side of me has been a bit busy lately too! I won't share a whole lot right now as I don't want this to be a super long post but I have lots of LOs and stuff to share! I am very sorry that I haven't kept this place up to date, or even been around to share anything! I'm sure there are lots of you that think I have fallen off the face of the planet! LOL! There have been a few of my fav scrappers that have, and I still miss their blogs and scrappy work! But I am totally here! Just running at about 45% capacity. :P Second trimester is upon me so hopefully I will start feeling a whole lot better soon! :D I am busy right now finishing up CHA stuff, and am really desperately needing to answer some emails that I got months ago and just haven't responded to yet. If you are one of those people-my deepest apologies! A response email is in the works! :D I hope that is comforting.

Well until my next update: Thank you all for still supporting me and sticking around here! :D Be back soon! Take care!

~Amy

Earth to Amy.......Are you there?

Uhhhhh, Amy? Where'd you go? Yeah I kinda disappeared. Sorry bout that! :P It's crazy how fast days go by! I had planned a scheduled post to go live on the 2nd (yeah I know! that was almost 2 weeks ago!), but clearly it never posted! :P Which means that I have no clue how to schedule a post in blogger. LOL! You would think it would be easy, but I didn't really research it, and it was my first time doing it, so honestly I am really not surprised that it didn't post. Me to a T! Clumsy and, predictably, a mess it up kind of person. But I laugh about it! :D I eventually get things to work right, it just doesn't happen the first few times I try. LOL! Oh well.

Anyway, I have things to share, but first, like I said I would, I will tell you how we spent our day on May 1st. (I wrote all of this about my mom days and days ago, so know that when I wrote them I was pretty much talking aloud to my mom, and that it was all relevant at the appropriate time). (I hope that made sense there?)

That particular day is a very special one for my family, as it is the anniversary of my dear mother's passing.

The family tries to get together as much as possible at this time of the year, but this year we all just spent it quietly in our own homes. There is to be a lot of traveling by a good portion of the family towards the end of the month (as my brother comes home from Germany on leave before he ships to Afghanistan!), so spending the first part of the month without family certainly wasn't hard to do, as I know I will see them soon. :D One thing I do every year, to try and remember the happy times with my mom, is to watch all her favorite movies. :D She absolutely loved watching movies, as it was one of the only things she could do for about the last year of life. Creedence and I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (0ne 0f her dear favorites), Up (that wasn't a movie that she saw but I know she would have adored it!), and The Muppets Christmas Carol. :D (We didn't sit for the whole time these were on, they just sort of played in the background while we did other things). And the last movie I watched that day was probably one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time: Murder By Death. If you haven't seen it, SEE IT! It is classic slapstick, and has a stellar cast. It is an older movie, so if that is not your thing, well I don't know what to say! I absolutely adore it, and am so glad it is on Netflix instant! I have played it several times since last Saturday, mostly at night when I am scrapping. :D My mom loved that one too. :D

Majority of the time we would go down to The Cove (wish I had a pic to show you), which is a little spot on the beach where we spread my mom's ashes. (We know you are not legally able to do that but we did it anyway) But as of recent the cove is inaccessible. The water is just too high and too much sand has been washed out so what used to be an easy hike down some rocks and then a huge sand hill is now a rock cliff with no more sand even remotely close enough to even jump down to. :P Just sitting on the rocks though looking out at the ocean makes me feel closer to her somehow. It has been 7 years, yet somehow the pain has only gotten worse. I am so happy though that I have my family, we are all very supportive of each other and I find myself leaning on them quite often when I am particulary down.

So here is to you Mom!! We miss you and love you lots! I give my little Creedence extra hugs and kisses just for you! (well and for me too!) :D

Cathy Diane Parker-Sonoda Nov 30 1957-May 1 2003

Ok so I started writing this post, didn't include any pictures in it yet, then came back to it a couple days later and totally could not remember what things I had to share! :P LOL! I am losing my brain. I had to look at my older blog posts to see what I had last posted and then figure out what hadn't been posted. I am such a dork!

So! Awesome news! Even though it is most certainly old news now! :P Cosmo Cricket has released a new line called DeLovely!! It is bright, and cheery, and oh so cute! I created two projects with it-a little LO that was fun to do, and a card just because I couldn't resist that little chair!! :D I have another LO in the works, I just havent' finished it yet. :P I'll for sure share when I do, as it will look completely different from these two! :D At least I hope. Like I said, it is still a work in progress. Oh and I wanted to share-I got an email a little bit ago when I posted this LO on 2Peas from Francine Clouden, (who was so nice in the email!) she write this great blog called Craft Gossip!! She does a feature on her blog called Inspiration du Jour, where she features a LO/project that she thinks is inspiring and she asked if she could feature my LO!!! Of course I said YES! I was so honored that she asked! Check out the feature here! Thank you soooo much again Francine for liking my LO that much!!

Next, I wanted to share with you something that I wanted to get up on the blog when it went live on the Crate Paper blog days ago.....My first Crate Paper projects!! Wow it is so scary to see your own pic on there! Makes you scared you will screw up somewhere or something! (:P Ha! Like that would ever happen...to me. Ha ha ha. ha. ha. *total sarcasm* I am just waiting for me to do something silly and not even know it until the whole rest of the scrapbooking world does.) Anyway I am just for now going to link you to the blog as I don't want to make this a super duper picture heavy or really long post today. So I will have that all for you on Tuesday or Wednesday. *PROMISE!* :D I do. Cause I won't be depending on my prescheduling blog post skills.

And the last thing I am going to share on here today is.......I made the Noel Mignon kit club design team!!! I couldn't even believe it!!! I am so thrilled!! Noel's kits are huge, huge! and they are so fun and versatile! She makes the best kits! Hands down. :D I right now have Lemonade Stand, and can't wait to dive in!!! That link will take you to a post where Virginia will show you in a video everything in the kit! I will have more to share on this soon, I am working on my first challenge LO right now and it is going to be super fun!!! :D I'll talk more about all of this later this week.

Well that is all I have for right now, but I will be back in a couple days! Take care everyone!!!

~Amy

Happy Mother's Day!!

I will be back tomorrow with the post that was supposed to go live last Sunday. :P More about that later.....

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!

Hi! Wow! May came really fast huh?! I can't believe this year is going by as fast as it is. :P Well I have lots and lots to talk about today so prepare yourself for a long post! :D


First I am going to share some LOs with you so here we go:

About freakin time I shared my April LOs for Polka Dot Whimsy huh?! So without further ado:

This is a little hanging that I made for my daughter's room! :D That Webster's Pages paper was too cute, I couldn't resist! Although this has yet to make it up on Cree's wall, as I am soooo afraid she is gonna figure out something to stand on in order to get it down and rip it apart. She is that kind of kid. Always has been. But that means that her walls are bare until she can learn to leave things alone. :P

close up:

This next LO I absolutely adore! I love the colors. Love love love! I am going to frame this in my scrap area! :D That is how much I love this LO. The picture was the inspiration for the LO. It is a gorgeous shot by Sue FitzGerald, who is not only an amazing photographer but a stellar scrapbooker too! When I saw this picture of the daisy I couldn't resist getting her permission to use it on a LO! I love it! If she sold it in prints, I would buy one for every room in my house! :D

close up:

And this LO was so much fun to do! This is a picture of my Mom (on the left) and Aunt Patti (on the right) in 1977. When I found the photo in a box of photos I immediately knew I had to use it! And pairing the picture with the GCD packaging was perfect! The packaging has this super retro feel to it, so I cut out all the flowers and everything, and just love how it turned out. I wish my mom could see it though.

close ups:

Onto my Cosmo Cricket shares from last Saturday's post on the Cosmo blog. I made these two little LOs (yes they are 8x8s!) to try and show ways of using your little scrap papers that I know we all have lying around! :D Or at least I do! LOL! *Funny note about my post this last Saturday-I didn't get my husband to proof read it before I sent it off to be posted. And it has seriously about 40 typos in it!!! I was cringing and holding my head in my hands by the second paragraph because I was so embarrassed. LOL!


On the first LO I have used little strips of paper that were left over from trimming to create my border and a color pop! I also used the border strips -that I actually find a little hard to use (I just can't figure out the best way to get them on the LOs!)-and hand cut the little characters and shapes out to create my embellishments. :D

close up:

Supplies: Paper- Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg "Acorn" "Borders", Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg Mini Deck, Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday "Saturday", Cosmo Cricket Earth Love "Remember", Basic Grey Nook and Pantry Yellow/Cream Doily; Embies-Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday cardstock stickers, Cosmo Cricket Cream Tiny Type stickers, Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend chipboard letters, Martha Stewart ribbon, Studio Calico brown jute; Tools-Provo Craft Mini Scallop Decorative scissors

This next LO mainly uses punches to help get rid of scraps! :D This LO was a lot of fun to do. I used my Martha Stewart Starburst punch to create the circles for the border-I used a repositional glue to apply them to the large circle, then when they were in place I stitched around the whole thing. Everything else was hand cut or punched out in some way. :D Super fun!

close ups:

Supplies: Paper-Cosmo Cricket Material Girl "Measuring Up" "In Stitches" "Calico" "Tailor Made" "Inspiration" "Elements"; Embies-Cosmo Cricket Cream Tiny Type stickers, Cosmo Cricket Material Girl Ready Set Chipboard shapes, Cosmo Cricket Ready Set Chip Pink Oak, Prima Cameo Rose Mandarin, Prima Velvet Heirloom leaves Meadow; Tools-Martha Stewart Medallion punch, Martha Stewart Startburst punch, Marvy 1 1/2 in Scallop punch, Martha Stewart 3-in-1 punch, Provo Crafts Mini Scallop deocrative scissors

This LO is on the Cosmo Cricket blog today for a color combo challenge we have going on for National Scrapbooking day! I got the idea for the stitched grid from one of the LOs in Elizabeth Kartchner's 52 More Scrapbooking Challenges book. It was a LO done by Cindy Tobey. :D I loved the idea so I had to give it a try! It was tedious but I love how it looks! :D

close ups:

Supplies: Paper-Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety "Tossed Salad" "Sunshine" "Sunday Picnic" "Elements"; Embies-Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety cardstock stickers, Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety chipboard shapes, Cosmo Cricket Cream Tiny Type, Cosmo Cricket Material Girl chipboard shapes, American Crafts Nutmeg green Thickers; Tools-Martha Stewart Chrysanthemum punch, Martha Stewart 3-in-1 Butterfly punch, Marvy 1 1/2 in Scallop circle punch

So be sure to participate in the color combo challenge, because your name will be drawn for an awesome prize! It is a crafting kit for a BRAND NEW line that Cosmo is debuting on Monday! It is called Delovely and it is gorgeous! Bright, and sweet and perfect for spring! I am going to be working on projects all weekend for the reveal on Monday! :D Can't wait to show you! You'll love it!

And last but not least, I wanted to also tell you about what Crate Paper is doing for National Scrapbooking Day! They are generously giving away a "Super Pink" 16GB 5th Generation iPod Nano!!!! In order to have a chance to win it, you have to participate in the Blinkie Treasure hunt!!! :D Check out the Crate Paper blog to see who from the contributors are participating and all the official rules to be able to play! :D I really really wanted to participate in the Blinkie Treasure hunt as well, but forces were against me on getting my LO done! :P I wasn't happy about that, but there are loads and loads of projects on the blog from the other contributors to help inspire you this weekend!

Well I hope you all have had a great day! Done lots and lots of scrapping! :D I will be back tomorrow with hopefully some more LOs and to tell you all what I did today. Nothing exciting, just stayed around the house but it is a special day today for my family, so I will share tomorrow how I celebrated it. :D Take care!

~Amy