Graduation Cards

So we had a few of our friends and family graduating high school this year. Wow. I graduated high school with one of the mommies. :/
I made up some graduation cards and I had to get some use out of my craft room and these adorable stamp sets.
I used Papertreys "Wise Owl" set and a few different Stampin' Up! sets for the wording.

Let's see if I remember everything...
For the Cardstock: Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, and Whisper White.
Inks: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Only Orange, Close to Cocoa, and Basic Black.
I used a scallop and circle punch from SU!
A Little Leaves SU! Sizzlets die cut for the tree branch from SU! and my Big Shot machine.
To create the bark on the tree I spritzed some Close to Cocoa with water, crumpled it, uncrumpled it, let it dry and then rubbed chocolate chip ink (direct to paper) from the ink pad.
I used my Colluzle to make my bigger circle so the word selection could change as you rotated the large white circle.
I've always wanted to make one of these rotating sayings cards and let me tell you it took a bit of time to play with it and get it just right. I went thru a few large white discs getting the words just right (upside down, wrong position, etc) but I really like the finished cards and hope you will too!

Visit To Arizona in March

My trip started with a pom pom fight. All the girls (including the dog) got into it, Grandma, Alexandra, Stacy and Me.
Then In and Out burger for a yummy dinner.











The next day was Alexandra's First Holy Communion. She really has a heart full of God's love. She was so excited to celebrate this special day!












She may have a few stuffed animals, just a few...









We took a couple of nature hikes, one up in Catalina State Park, where we saw this prickly pear cactus growing ON a tree! I've never seen something like that before. ON a tree. Nature has its ways I guess...







Then, on the last day of my trip we were able to find a geocache! It was my mom's and Alexandra's first geocache find. They were pretty happy to finally find one. We had been looking the whole weekend. One had been 'muggled' and another we were on the wrong path and running out of daylight. Another, one of the clues said to watch out for a healthy rattlesnake guarding the cache, so I decided to skip that one... We finally found this little microcache. Success! Now Alexandra and her mom and dad have been geocaching a few times and have had good success. YEAH!!

Such a fun little trip, so sad to leave though. I miss them all very much but was thrilled to spend the time with them. It went by so quickly!

WJIE Sweetheart Dinner

So I have this group of friends, and for whatever reason (something to do with Fried Green Tomatoes, the movie) we call ourselves the Bees. This is my lovely group of BeeFriends, all great women. We and our husbands went to a little dinner concert with Aaron Hurst and Sidewalk Prophets. The food was delicious, the music was great, and the company was the best!
Most of us met in church and we all meet often and share our love of Christ and our lives and faith with each other. What more could you ask for?

Moda Bake Shop Progressive Dinner

I've been a big fan of the Moda Bake Shop when it comes to getting ideas for sewing or quilting. RIght now they're having a Progressive Dinner blog hop and this is one of my favorite blogs so far. The Polka Dot Chair. Lots of great tutorials and recipes in all of these so far, very impressive. Take a peek!

My First Quilt!!

ok So I haven't made too many new 'original" designs for cards this year. I have mostly CASED. Which is the case for my Christmas cards that I made this year. (so in my opinion not worth showing)
However...I made my first ever quilt for my niece, Ainsley. I tried to keep it simple and used Moda Fabrics, "Soiree", Charm packs. I love the colors in this line of fabrics. I was inspired after seeing it used often in a lot of quilting blogs such as Crazy Mom Quilts. I truly could not have done it without the help of my friend, Maria. She really was a blessing!


It's not real pretty close up, I stitched in the ditch for my quilt top, kinda. I hope to do better on my next quilt. After trying to quilt on my old 1960 model Kenmore and then using Maria's Bernina, I was quickly convinced I need a new machine. The difference was huge!

Christmas in Chicago

We had a great trip visiting my family in Chicago this year. We got a white Christmas- my niece Alexandra couldn't have been happier about that. Multiple times a day she was ready to go out and play in the snow- her specialty- snowball fights.
Got some great cuddle time with my niece, Ainsley too! It was a great little trip but as usual, not long enough.

Thanksgiving 2010

My Dad and his wife, Linda, were able to come out for Thanksgiving this year. It was a great weekend. We went to Lynn's Paradise Cafe and to the Woodford Reserve Distillery. They have delicious bourbon balls. YUM! As you can see- we had a great time.



My friend, Guen, who I have known since high school, joined us for a bit of dinner, wine and chocolate pecan pie (yum!). It was great catching up again.