wowza!

This is my first card in a couple of months…

I have a girlfriend from work that is getting married soon and so I made this card for our whole company to sign and give with her gift card. I decided that I was tired of always having to cram everyone’s impersonal signatures onto one card. Is it just me, or is it super annoying when cards come with tons of images that you end up having to write over just to fit the whole group on one card!? So I slipped a second card base in the center of the first base and adhered the backsides to one another — creating a three flap card. On the inside I decided to do a some light stamping with baby pink ink just to tie it all together…

Stamps used are Papertrey Ink and the card base is 8 x 4.” Hope you like it! Challenges Used:

• A Spoonful of Sugar: Best Wishes (and Good Luck)
• Bee Crafty: Pink n Girly
• The Secret Crafter: Wedding/Anniversary

That is where I have been this last month (literally, my last post was on April 28th!)… learning to live simply.

So here are a few snapshots of my month along with some projects/moments/recipes/happy times. Enjoy.

Do you ever wish that you could have less stuff, less to do and more time to enjoy life? Well, I do and I recently realized something…. in order to be content you need to live simply. God has blessed us with so many things in our lives and if you think about each thing that blesses you immensely every time it is a part of your life, it is most likely something very simple.

• Family
• Love
• Creation
• Romance
• Sunshine
• Photos
• Laughter
• Friends
• Spending time with God
• Doing things that you enjoy
• Yummy food

There are so many things that could be on that list… but most of those things are free and quite easily obtained. So that is where my focus has been. My prayer is that I would spend more time with God in His Word and in prayer, spend more time with my family, friends and those in need, keep my activities simple instead of trying to over do things, and get outside!

So in a nutshell the month of May was filled with LOTS of new recipes: Ginger Steak Salad (A+++), Lemon Sugar Cookies (A+) using my new Message in a Cookie cutters from William Sonoma!, No Yeast Pizza Crust (A), Thai Chicken Coconut Soup (A+++) — and that is just 1/4 of the new recipes that I tried out (should be posting some more soon). OH, OH! And I also am happy to announce my brand new baby!!!! My KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer — get ready for some more recipes from scratch, my friends!

May was NOT filled with very much scrapbooking… I have been trying to get things done in our Wedding Book at Tiny Prints| My Canvas so that we can have it printed up by our 4 year anniversary coming up in August. However, I do plan on working on a few Card Sets to get up in my Etsy Shop soon! We shared some special times with our mamas for Mother’s day… Santa Barbara was a beautiful time and I look forward to many visits this summer! Also, our favorite show, LOST, concluded with a lovely series finale — hence the photo above of our “Dharma” soda pops and fruit salad in a pineapple bowl during the show. Let me tell you, it was a beautiful finale… I cried, laughed, screamed (no joke!) and even Garrett admits that he shed a tear! The Thai Chicken Coconut Soup was our dinner during LOST and it was absolutely amazing! Both Gare and I love Thai and this  recipe is definitely going into the recipe box for the future (though that may be awhile considering that the sun decided to come out today and probably wont be leaving any time soon :)

Oh and we cant forget my precious nephew, Levi, who is now 4 months old! I had a chance to have him over for about an hour and just spend some quality time with the cutie until he was worn out and passed out in my arms (yes, I was in heaven…). And that is the sweet image I will leave you all with today… come back soon!

Here is a quick cutie that I created for my Mother In Law’s birthday, using the Embellish Magazine color inspiration and the Sweet Sunday Sketch! Enjoy!

The Embellish color challenge this week is so perfect for Springy or Easter cards! These colors totally make me think of Mother’s because they are such bright, loving people in our lives — so I couldnt resist using it for my Mother in Laws birthday card! Along with the challenge, you also had to use a border or borders on your project. I simply used my new scalloped edge border punch at the bottom of the card and added a green strip of cardstock on the inside of the card so that it would add to the border. I also included the challenge from Cute Card Tuesday – Ribbon-Tastic. I’m sure you can guess what that means! I simply crossed two ribbons at the same length in an X and adhered to the card. Easy peasy!

I have two wonderful pieces of news to share with you all…

First and foremost, my precious new nephew was born yesterday afternoon– Levi Jett Plaster. He is SO adorable! That makes four handsome nephews for Garrett and I, and we love them dearly. Not to mention the fact that they are great birth control for the time being :) After watching our 2 year old nephew for the last two days (while mom had the baby), we both are very grateful for our free time!

And next, I made the If The Shoe Fits… Scrap It! Design Team! I really applied for this position on a whim because I had just finished my time with Pile It On. I had very few expectations on this one but I am so stoked to have made the team! Looking forward to sharing all of my creations with you all! This week’s challenge was to use the following ad as inspiration in some way. I bet you would have never guessed where my imagination went after first reviewing the ad! I knew exactly what I wanted to go for — Fashion! I have also been wanting to play with hearts lately, so I figured this was my chance (See other challenges used below)! Check out the results!

Other challenges used:

• Papertake Weekly: Pink
• Belli Challenge: Hearts
• Your Next Stamp: Anything that Sparkles
• Crazy 4 Challenges: Pretty in Pink

Rainy Day + Babysitting + Valentine Cookies + Frosting = One Great Day!

Today, I got to watch my little nephew, Seth. I had about two hours with him and decided to bake some sugar cookies with him. He absolutely loves cookies (not to mention frosting and sprinkles!), so it was the perfect activity. I couldn’t resist snapping some photos of our little surprise for mom and dad so naturally I needed to share them here too. Enjoy the slideshow! (And check back soon to see them scrapped!)