Happy Anniversary to Us!

Hey there Blog Readers! Today's the day, our 8 year anniversary and the day you all find out who won my yummy blog candy. But first, here's the card I made for my hubby. I used the digital image from The Greeting Farm again, only this time it's a lot bigger! I colored me and my husband (well, at least they are us on this card ;) with my copics again, only this time I took more time on the details. Notice the curly hair and the makeup on "me"? And I outlined the lips with my zig pen to make lips more defined. Also, the sentiment is from Stampin' Up!. So, I know you all want to know who won my blog candy.
Well, I put all the names in a hat and randomly choose... Pamela! Congratulations Pamela! I'll be emailing you to get your mailing address. I hope you all have a great week, and until next post, be blessed!

Happy Valentines Day!

Hey there everyone! How are you all this sunny V-Day? I hope you are feeling the love, lol! I just wanted to post a quick post here to show you all what I made for the guys in my life. For my hubby, I made him a Valentines Day card a couple months ago. Remember THIS card? It was the first card I ever sewed on. I also made him this milk carton holder for some of his favorite candies: Here's a pic of the yummy Peanut M&M's on the inside. If you are curious as to how to make one of these milk cartons, you can go to Splitcoaststampers.com and search for the milk carton tutorial. That's what I did and the directions were easy peasy.
Next up are a couple cards I made for my two boys. I used the first Sketch Challenge from Club Anya and this adorable digi image:
Both cards are the same, simple design, just used different shapes in the background.
And on the inside:
The boys loved the chocolate best of all. I knew they wouldn't care for all the details and embellishments on the cards, as long as they got their chocolate! Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day with your loved ones, and don't forget to enter into my blog candy on the previous post!
Until next post, be blessed!

Who Wants CANDY???

Yes, it is finally time for my illusive blog candy. I have been planning on this since before we received our orders, but things kept getting in the way! I have had a lot to celebrate and I wanted to celebrate it with YOU, my blog readers and friends, by giving you the opportunity to win some goodies from me. Some of the reasons for celebration include our long awaited orders to Italy, our MOVE to Italy, Christmas, New Year's, My Birthday, My 1 year Blogaversary, and now Valentines Day and Our 8 year Wedding Anniversary! So here is the candy: Here is a list of the things included in the candy:
a pack of 3 ribbon spools from K & Company
a Martha Stewart Crafts paper bead kit
a Marthe Stewart Crafts charm bracelet kit
2 packs of oval page pebbles by Making Memories
a pack of black Pop Dots
Basic Grey Metal Art embellishments
a pack of 20 Studio K Round Word Brads
A STAMP SET By Melanie Muenchinger!!! ("hip hop accessories" from GKD; I have this set and LOVE it!)
And not pictured: a pack of SU! 6x6 paper and a black ink spot

So what do you think? You want to win this? All you have to do is leave a comment here on this blog post. That's all! AND, if you want 2 chances to win, mention my blog candy on your blog with a link to this post. I will randomly choose a winner on the 16th (because it's our 8th anniversary that day) and post the winner here on the blog. I hope you all try to win, and send some friends over here as well. Since the move, my visitor counter has SLOWED down and hopefully this will help pick it back up! LOL!
On another subject, I went to my first ACES meeting last night. The ACES are the Aviano Community Enlisted Spouses group. It was fun meeting new people and we even Stamped! Yes, we made cards for Valentines day. It was right up my alley. :) Here are the cards we made:
This first one will go to one of my boys, and this second one will go to my Brother:

This "Love Bird" card was actually supposed to use a different stamp set, but since the DP says "love bird" I needed to go back to the owl table and us the winking owl. It was just too cute not to ink up.

And we also made a little tag to go on a treat bag full of M&M's. It was quite difficult to photo this tag, hence the reason it is in my dry, wrinkled hand! lol!

AND, as if that weren't enough... they gave out prizes and I got one! I happened to have the biggest heart tattoo so I won this prize:

I plan on using these goodies to make my hubby an anniversary card. And finally, I'll leave you with this picture of my view from my kitchen window.

Aren't the mountains gorgeous? God sure knew what He was doing when He designed our beautiful world.

Well, that's it for this post. I hope to hear from you all (even you who come by but never comment) when you enter for the blog candy.

Until next post, be blessed!

We're Moving in Tomorrow!

Hey there everyone! Tomorrow is the big day. We will finally be moving into our home. We're all pretty excited and ready to be in our final (FINAL) destination for the next few years. Unfortunately, that means my blog candy is on hold... I'm sorry! AND, I don't have any pictures to show you! I've been coloring with my copics, but that's all the craftiness I've had a chance to do lately. Good news is that tomorrow I get to start setting up my little stamping room! Yea! It's actually a storage room, but it's big enough for my stamping stuff and a little desk so it will work for me. On another sad note, we won't have internet at our home for a few WEEKS. Yes, I said WEEKS. I don't really know how I'll survive! Seriously, I keep track of everything through the internet. My bills, my family, my friends, my blogs... I think I'll be making daily trips to the base library to check in. I don't really know what else to do! Well, it's late here and tomorrow is our big day, so I'll leave you all with some funny pics of the kids. Ashton trying on Dad's helmet:

Angel trying on Mommy's hat and scarf:
Andrew trying on Dad's gas mask:
Grandpa Bob and Ashton saying CHEESE!!!!!! the last time we all had dinner together:

Until next post (whenever that will be) be blessed!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Hey there everyone! So, today is Groundhog day, and I was going to put my blog candy on here today, but the day got a little away from me. This morning we had parent/teacher conferences and during the second conference I got a call from the Housing office. We were offered a four-bedroom house! We immediately went to look at it, and decided to take it. It's a little further from the base than the house we originally signed a rental lease on, but the extra bedroom, bigger yard, and a few other things makes it worth the extra 5-10 minute drive. So, I'm hoping to get my blog candy together and photographed and posted tomorrow, but no promises! It will happen soon, I just can't guarantee exactly when.We'll be moving into our 4 bedroom house on Thursday so we've got a few preparations to take care of. Hopefully we'll get it all done in time! In the meantime, here's a picture of the Dolomite Mountains that we can see from our hotel room: This was taken about a week ago, on the last clear day that I was able to take pictures on. It snowed here yesterday! So we haven't had many clear days lately, but the change in weather is fun and we're enjoying the new experiences. Well, it's really late and we have an early morning tomorrow, so thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again tomorrow.
Until next post, be blessed!

Pretty Flower Cards

Happy Weekend Blog Readers! Are you all still out there? I didn't get any comments on my last post, but maybe that's just because of the time differences and I'm impatient, lol! So here are those cards I made before I left Hawaii. I used Melanie Muenchinger's A Year of Flowers stamp set for them. I CASEd some cards I had seen on her blog and these are what I came up with: This first one I made using the tulip stamp. All the pieces are seperate; the flowers, stems, leaves; so when you stamp your flowers you can make them look however you want them to. I colored the tulips with my copic markers, trying a technique I saw Melanie do on her blog HERE to make them look like the color fades to white at the tips. It worked out ok on this card, but I need more practice. Here is the inside of the card:
I thought it looked nice to have the inside finished like this since the front cover isn't a full size front. This second card did not come out how I imagined in my head:

This was actually my first attempt at making the blue fade to white, and it just didn't work out. I ended up cutting the front off the card and remounting it on a silver card base. It turned out a little better than the original...

Next is my favorite of the trio:

All three of these roses where stamped, colored with copics, and cut out then mounted on this card. I wanted the roses to come off the top of the card, like Melanie did on one of her cards, but I don't have a good hobby blade to cut them out like she did. Refer to her post HERE to understand what I'm talking about. this card actually isn't finished though. I want to put some ribbon on it to make it look like the roses are tied together, and it needs a sentiment. See how that one rose on the right has it's stem missing? I need that ribbon! LOL! But when I made this card my ribbon had already been mailed off to Italy, so now that I'm here with the ribbon, I'll finish the card. Only problem is... my ink hasn't arrived yet!!! How can I stamp a sentiment without my ink??? Yeah, I discovered that little unhappy fact today when I tried to make a card. So those are my flower cards for now. I have some more brewing in my head and since Valentines Day is just the holiday for lots of flower cards, I'll be working on them soon! Just gotta get my ink.

Thanks for stopping by and until next post, be blessed.

Fun Mail!

Hey there everyone! So, the housing situation is getting all ironed out. We have a rental contract signed and stamped, and we are going to be getting the keys on February 4th. We also worked it out so that we can stay in the temporary lodging facility until the heat gets turned on in the rental. Thank God, because for awhile there we thought we were going to have to either pay out of pocket to stay here, or buy a bunch of portable electric heaters for the house! When we get the keys, I plan on taking a bunch of pictures of the house for you all to see. There are quite a few differences with living in Italy compared to living in the U.S.!
So, I've been getting a lot of mail lately. We mailed a bunch of stuff to ourselves, but also, before I left Hawaii I bought some stamps from a friend of mine and I won a blog candy. When Shannon mailed the stamps to me that I bought, look what she threw in the box for me! This set of dish towels is perfect for us since I'll be needing those when we move into our rental. And the study books are great! I started them today and I'm already loving some of the stuff I'm learning. Thank you so much Shannon!
And here are some pictures of the blog candy I won from Diana Gibbs! (I had to take several pics to get all the stuff photographed) First up, here are the cards I got with the candy:

Aren't they all great? These five cards are all so professional looking. I plan on keeping them as samples FOREVER! LOL! I also got a ton of die cuts:

These are going to come in handy since I don't have the dies most of these were cut with. And here is the rest of my goodies:

Wow, huh?!? There are THREE stamp sets, a snail adhesive refill, brads, ribbon, a quickie glue pen, a 2009 pocket calendar, and a pack of paper! I was so overjoyed that I won, and when I got the box in the mail I practically hopped home to open it! Thanks so much for the candy Di! (she won't see this post for a bit since she got to go to CHA. LUCKY!!!)

Well, that's all for this post. I do have some pics of a couple cards I made before I left Hawaii and never got around to posting, so those will be coming up in a couple days, and I took pics of our little temporary apartment so I can always remember the trials and tribulations of this PCS. Would anyone be intersted in seeing those?

AND... I talked about some blog candy to celebrate our orders, our move, my blogaversary and my birthday. Now that I'm here in Italy, I'm getting ready for that! I'm gathering up the goodies and I'll be posting that candy soon! Keep coming back and checking though because I'm not sure when I'll actually post the candy. Possibly around a certain holiday that's coming up...

Until next post, be blessed!