Have Your Cake...

You know the saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it, too."? Well, there is one way around that...have two cakes!

This month there were two birthdays in the Copic Crafters birthday club. I waited until I was sure the birthday girls had recieved them...especially since one of them follows this blog!
(Hi Vicki! Didn't want to spoil the surprise and all.)

It wasn't until after the cards were made and I was looking up the addresses I noticed their favorite colors listed...purple!


Stamps: MFT You Take The Cake
Inks: CTMH Chocolate
Papers: CTMH Veranda Reflections Kit, Veranda Creative Basics
Ummm. Not a shade of purple in sight. Sorry about that ladies, hope you enjoyed the cards anyway!

Order

I'm usually happy to start a new year. I use January as a "practice month" to get the rest of the year organized and get everyone back on a good school schedule. I even told the boys (including Engineer) that the word for the year was ORDER. That meant this year we would focus on getting the house in order (decluttering the closets, giving things away, etc.), getting our finances in order (can see the light at the end of the debt tunnel), getting ourselves in order (each of us getting our work done so we can have more time together as a family). Doesn't that sound nice? Even the first lesson of Joy School this semester for Knock-Out was The Joy of Order!

Of course his teacher for those lessons had to call and tell me when she asked the class what order meant, Knock-Out raised his hand and said, "When you call the pizza man!"

So where was I...oh, yeah. Order. Do you all know the old adage, "Life is what happens while you're making other plans?" I would like to meet the person that coined that phrase and give him a piece of my mind. On second thought, I could use all the pieces I have left.

Our house has been upside down for the past couple of weeks and I'm just about to go crazy from it. It has been raining quite a bit over here and we found some water damage on the baseboards behind our bed. Oh joy. So we've moved our bed frames to the hall, our mattress is taking up all the floor space in the boys' toy room, the boys have been using the living room and dining table as a play room for all their Lego sets. Thank goodness the bathrooms are still the bathrooms.

All this chaos is the reason I haven't been very crafty lately. But I have swap deadlines to meet and projects that have to get started. So every once in a while I've been able to push stuff to the side and get a card made here or there.

In the Copic Crafter group (see that neat little blue button on the left side? I made that!) we have a Birthday swap for the year. All those that signed up have a month to shower the birthday girl (or boy) with cards. I was super hesitant to sign up because my resolution last year was to get my own family their birthday cards to them on time. And what happened?

That resolution died about September.

But I caved to the peer pressure and here I am trying to meet birthday deadlines again. Our group has also "adopted" a soldier through one of the members and her birthday was the first to come up. She loves purple and I dug through all my paper until I found something that would work. I kept the embellishments to a minimum...actually, I didn't use any at all now that I look at it. Hmmm. A nice simple card. Who knew I could to that? Mom?


Stamps: My Favorite Things: You Take The Cake
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black
Papers: CTMH Bella Reflections Kit


So I'm not sure when I'll get the table cleared of Lego pirates and space police to get crafty again. But it will have to be soon or I may loose that one piece of my mind that's left.

A Hot Chocolate Kind Of Day

Ah, I was doing so well with posting new art. Then it happened,

I suppose it had to happen sometime this year and I'd rather it be now than during the holidays. One good thing that has come from me being sick is I can't talk above a whisper without setting my throat on fire. Why is that good? Because the boys have subconsciously been a lot quieter the past couple of days.
If it's too loud in the house, they can't hear anything I'm saying.
Granted, they were good at not hearing much of what I said before either.

Let's move on to a card, shall we?

I was released from my calling at church a couple of weeks ago, which means no more making birthday cards for the ladies at church. Some one else is in charge of that now.


But as a last request, I made these to tide them over for a couple of months.


Stamps: My Favorite Things You Take The Cake
Papers: CTMH Jingle Reflections Kit, That's Amore Reflections Kit


We've had a snap in the weather and it is 25° cooler today. So if you'll excuse my, I think I hear some hot chocolate calling my name.