Christmas Blizzard- Blizzard #2

Here are some pictures of the Christmas Blizzard, our second major snowstorm of the season. We had 21 inches of snow, and high winds, resulting in some huge drifts. We weathered the storm at my in-laws house, and we were stuck from Thursday morning to Saturday morning. The roads were impassible--even coming home was a little hairy on the highway. We got to the gravel road north of our house at about 1:00 Saturday afternoon only to find that it hadn't been plowed. We did go around (howie, our neighbor, had scooped a path from the other mile to our driveways), but we almost got stuck. We parked the van in front of the driveway and Myron walked up the driveway, scooped the drift with his hands in front of the shop doors to get the tractor out, and began scooping.


Here are his footprints--the first sign of life in our driveway! That's a lot of snow!

Here comes the tractor---he's pushing quite a pile!

Scooped! The banks got higher and higher every pass he made.

Here's a shot up by the house. Once I could get in the driveway, I promptly got stuck, so Myron had to push me out with the tractor. I got up to the yard, and then had to wait so he could clear the drifts and snow in front of the house.

We had another blizzard last week, which accumulated in about 8 inches of snow and pretty high winds the next day. I was stuck for 2 days then as well. Howie scooped me out a couple times, but with the snow and wind and temps (w/o the wind) of -20, it was pretty debilitating for our area. No pictures though---we're expecting another storm next week though, which is supposed to dump another 20 inches on us, so be prepared!!

Blizzard #1

Finally, here are some pictures of the blizzard at the beginning of December (our first major snow storm). My husband was gone trucking, and I was stuck in the house for 2 days.


This is out our front door (facing south) the night it started snowing. It had been snowing all day, and then the wind picked up. It literally HOWLED through the house. We didn't have plastic on yet. Yeah, oops.



This is out our front door the next morning. The drift was literally 4 feet high, right in front of our door.

This is in my bedroom (on the north west side of the house). Obviously, there is a little gap somewhere, because the snow is piled between the glass and the BLIND. Inside the house. It was 52 degrees in our bedroom that morning.

This is right outside our front door. The shovel was set against the swing, and you can see how big the drift is. I literally had to DIG the shovel out to try to scoop the walk (I didn't suceed with the walk).

Soon to come--Blizzard #2.

Christmas Signs

Good morning. I have a couple blog posts of different stuff today (hopefully, if my kids can play nice for more than 2 seconds at a time!). First off, here's some cool stuff I made for Christmas gifts.

This is for my brother and his wife. I thought it turned out really cool- I cut the barbed wire with my cricut. I also found the font online (I think dafont.com)
This was for my niece Hannah...it's super super sparkly! After some experimenting, I used a two way glue pen to put glue on the butterflies (cut on my cricut), and then sprinkled loose glitter on. It's awesome---so girly!
This was for my nephew--again, the font was online, the barbed wire was cut with the cricut, and I finally used this denim paper. It's a hard paper to use--it doesn't just go with anything! I like how this turned out, as well.

This was for my youngest sister's boyfriend. He's really into hunting, and he got the pheasant for me so I could have some feathers. I love how this turned out, and so does he. Crystal said he hung it up right away!

Look for some more stuff after a bit!

Mojo116- Welcome, Baby

Good evening from snowy Iowa! We are just coming out of one heck of a blizzard. We were pretty much snowed in for two days, so I have gotten ALOT done! I finished an order of 15 cards (started on Monday) because we couldn't go anywhere! This is one of the last ones, and it also follows the sketch for this week's Mojo Monday (#116).

There is absolutely no stamping on this card, it's all paper from the same stack. It's called Nana's Nursery Baby Boy Matstack. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. It's glittery, it can be boy or girl, it's darling!
I drew some faux stitching around each of the circles for interest, and then cut the giraffe out by hand and popped him up on dimensionals. The "welcome, baby" is my own handwriting. Thanks for stopping! We actually get to leave the house tomorrow, so things will start picking up again!

**supplies**
Paper: Nana's Nursery Baby Boy matstack (from Hobby Lobby), unknown dark blue
Other: ribbon, blue pen, dimensionals
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Kayla

My first crocheted blanket!

Hey, everyone! Just popping in quick this morning to show you the blanket that I finally got done! My friend Becky asked me to crochet around some fabric for her daughter's (1) "comforter" for her crib bed. I chose to use some dark brown thread. I kind of made up the pattern because I didn't know what I was doing, and close up, it looks a lot more like scallops than in this picture, but you get the idea!
Pattern:
Rnd 1: Foundation stitch
Rnd 2: Dc in every sc
Rnd 3 (scallop): (3 dc, ch 3, 3 dc) in first sp, sk 4 dc, * (3 dc, ch 3, 3 dc) in next sp, sk 4 dc*, repeat from * around.
**in corners: ch 1, 4-5 dc, ch 3, 4-5 dc, sk 4 dc, resume Rnd 3

Happy Friday!

Verve Release Party Challenge

Happy Monday! Here's a card I made yesterday for Verve's November release party challenge. The challenge was to use their sketch, and make it a thankful card. I embossed the snowflakes on the background with sparkly ep, and added stickles everywhere (kind of hard to see--hopefully getting a new camera for Christmas, right mom?! :) ) I cut out the snowflake and popped it out on dimensionals (the big snowflake is on dimensionals, too). Thanks for looking!

Kayla

**supplies**
Paper: dark blue, SU! bashful blue, SU! Lavender Lace
Ink: versamark
Stamps: Serene Snowflakes
Other: sparkly ep, stickles, dark blue cm pen, pastels
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Cards and Kids

Good evening, everyone! I've come with some cards that I made today, and also a few pictures...
First, the cards. These are going to my mom--the first one is for my grandma's birthday.

I love how this turned out. It's for Viva La Verve, November Week 1. The twist was to use a 1,2, 3 challenge (1 embellishment, 2 colors, 3 stamps). I think I hit the mark. I embossed the flowers and the flower spray...it's really pretty IRL (as always! :) )
**Supplies**
Paper: Unknown dark pink, light pink, red
Stamps: Verve Because of You
Ink: positively pink, versamark
Other: pearls, clear ep, scallop circles from cricut, sponges
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This one is for an anniversary that's coming up (I won't say who in case they read it!). Its also for Viva La Verve, November Week 2. The twist this week was to use the cracked glass technique (really fun, you can find it on SCS). The flowers are done with this technique...it takes time, but it turns out really neat. I just hope they don't think I wish them a broken marriage! :) LOL I forgot I had this paper; it was hidden on a bottom rack on my paper holder. It's SU!...I don't even remember the name. Parisian Breeze? ha
**Supplies**
Paper: Parisian Breeze
Stamps: Happy Harmony
Ink: Positively Pink
Other: pearls, clear ep for cracked glass

And now for some fun family pictures...

Here's Micah! He's walking EVERYWHERE now---all over the house practically!

Michelle got these fun glasses from a friend of mine because she went potty at Becky's house. This was taken right after she took a bath...I thought it turned out darling.

Have a nice night!

Kayla

Potty Training

This is going to be a mostly family post, no cards today. Although, I have about five million cards to show you...but, as I am taking care of five children today AND I am preparing for a stamp a stack party at my house tonight, I don't have any time.

Michelle is doing so well learning to go potty! We started last Thursday (I just set my mind to it because I believed she was ready, just lazy). She went in her panties about 7 times, each time more agitating than the last. She did pee in the potty a few times that day. On Friday, she went in her panties only twice, and on Saturday, Sunday, and yesterday, she didn't pee in her panties at all; she only pooped (we're still working on that...where to start?!). Now, today, she has gone potty immediately after I put her on (we've had to read books and "relax" so she could go...we could easily sit there for five minutes before she did anything)...big improvement! She's been wearing a panty all day, and hasn't wet through! Plus, she is willingly going when I ask. Now, to get her to tell me! I'm sure that will come, though.

I was just so excited that she is actually being potty trained that I had to post! I've waited and waited for this...plus she is getting harder to change (saying she doesn't like to be wiped because it hurts), so I knew it was time.

Keep up the good work, Michelle!

Welcome Back!

Hey, everyone. Sorry it's been so long...I had a long, long, messy October! But, I'm busy getting ready for the Alcester craft fair on Saturday...here's some stuff I've done...

Love, love, love this quote and how this sign turned out! Very basic--black paint, red flourish, white letters. Simple, yet powerful.

Love this, too. Perfect for a child's room. Again, yellow paint (over underlaiment), with white and black letters and stars.

A little more complicated--this one took awhile!

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the outer blue layer and the outer matting of each snowflake is cut with a glittery blue paper. It's gorgeous in real life! Gotta go--kids are crying!

Kayla

Long Time No See

Hey. Sorry it's been forever. We've had a busy few weeks!

The craft fair was a few weeks ago, but I didn't do so well. Sold a few things, but nothing really awesome. Somewhat depressing, but trying to keep my chin up. Going to try again at the Alcester fair in November and the Beresford fair in December. No sense dwelling, though...

The week of the craft fair Micah was very, very sick. I took him to the dr. after he ran a 102/103 fever for a couple days, and he was diagnosed (but not tested for) with strep. He continued to run a high fever, hitting 105 several times during the next three days. When I left him on Saturday morning for the craft fair, his temp was 104.6 and climbing. I felt so guilty. It was so scary to watch his temp just keep climbing while he was always dosed with Tylenol and Motrin continuously. I called the ER once in the middle of the night when it was 105 and once in the evening when it was 104.6. They said there was nothing much they could do for him, just give him a cool bath and make sure he drinks. He never got dehydrated, which was a blessing. My husband was gone that entire week, and I was so scared by myself. On the night I called the ER, I told myself if his temp gets to 106, I was just going in, whether they said to or not. And on Saturday, I told my sister-in-law to call me by noon if his temp was still above 103, and I would come back and go to the ER. At that point (Sat. morning), he had been on medicine for 2 1/2 days. He didn't sleep during the day, he certainly didn't sleep at night---the only person not exhausted was Michelle. Thankfully, his fever broke about 10 am on Saturday, and he slept for about 4 hours. My sister-in-law (a practicing nurse) spoke with a dr. at her hospital, and they both agreed that he probably had the H1N1 flu....we stayed home from church with him the next day. Thankfully, no one else in the family got it. That was so scary.

Here's a card for you...I'm slowly getting some inspiration and motivation back. My sister-in-law (on my side) ordered some cards, and this is the first one. It's a wedding card.

I love how this turned out. It's even better in real life. I used the sketch from Viva la Verve September Week 5. The twist this week was to use specialty paper. I found this loves me/loves me not vellum in my stash, and ran with it. I love how it looks silvery gray in front of the purple. Alot of stamping and cutting involved here, but it was kind of fun and very enjoyable!

Alright, I have to go get started on a blanket I'm crocheting an edge for. Bye!

***Ingredients***

Stamps: SU! Wild Rose, Verve Beautiful You

Paper: PTI Plum Pudding, SU! Certainly Celery, metallic silver, loves me by over the moon press

Ink: Lovely Lilac and Certainly Celery (SU!)

Other: rhinestone brads, sponges

Bookmarks and Card Sets

Well, surprise. Five minutes later I have another post! Here are a few things I made last week that I'm super excited about!

I remembered that I had a whole package of these jumbo bookmarks. I decorated them (they are the same on both sides), and adhered them to the clip with hot glue. They aren't ever going anywhere!

I found the animal set (SU! Zoofari) off a rummage in Hull for $4.00. What a steal! I thought they turned out so cute! The other animal didn't really fit in the circle, so I just used some patterened paper. I'm going to sell these for $.50 each.
***ingredients***
Paper: BG Lollipop Shoppe
Stamps: Zoofari
Ink: varied, all SU!
Other: jumbo clips, scallop circle punch, circle punch, colored pencils, hot glue
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Here's another little card set I created. These are thank yous for teachers to give out. They are 3x3 cards, and I made six identical ones. The apple pattern does vary, though.
I found the card box in the Resources section of SCS- super simple to make! I used my last sheet :( of PTI Pure Poppy and decorated it almost the same as the cards. I think it is just darling! It's hard to tell, but I made the handle a little more decorative by using my CM wavy trimmer and attached it with brads on each side. I also cut a notch in the top of the bo with my circle punch to allow the cards to peek through. I cut the envelopes by hand; I found that template on SCS as well a long time ago.
This is also my entry for last week's Viva La Verve. The twist was to go tiny!
***ingredients***
Paper: PTI Pure Poppy, white, unknown green, wal-mart dsp
Stamps: PTI Teacher's Apple, unknown "thank you"
Ink: real red, certainly celery
Other: top note die shape from cricut, scallop from corner rounder, 3x3 card box from SCS, 3x3 envelope from SCS
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Thanks for stopping (again!). Have a great Monday!

Some gifts...

Good morning! I made a few things over the weekend to share with you. The first are some blocks for my niece and nephew's birthday. They turned 5 (boy), and 3 (girl). Happy birthday, kids!!

I used a girly, butterfly theme for Hannah's. She loves butterflies, and I thought "Sweet Dreams" was appropriate!

***ingredients***
Paper:SEI Chocolat
Stamps: n/a
Ink:n/a
Other:cricut; free font (pavane),

mod podge, wood blocks

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I used some western paper and embellishments for Cole's. He's a true cowboy (in the making!). I got these blocks from my husband after they finished building something; he sawed them down for me and I sanded them. Cheap!

***ingredients***
Paper:Carolee Adornit!
Stamps:n/a
Ink:n/a
Other:cricut, free font (Boyzrgross),

start sticker embellishments, mod podge

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Can you guess who this is for? I thought it would be cute to have a mailman appreciation gift for the upcoming holiday season. My dad is a letter carrier, and his job is HARD! During the hot summer months and the freezing cold winter months, and the rainy spring months, I'm not sure I would look forward to being outside in the elements all day long! He works hard to get mail to all the postal patrons, and I know I appreciate his job. Where else can you mail a letter to anywhere in the world and have it arrive safe and sound in (most of the time) under a week? They deserve more credit than we give them.

So, in light of that, I created this gift. It would be perfect to put in the mailbox during Christmastime to say "thanks" to your mail carrier.

My mom bought these stamps off a rummage for me in Sioux Falls (it's a set of three; the other stamp is a post office). I cut the top notes from my cricut, and colored the pictures with colored pencils. I used a total of 8 dimensionals to adhere the top note to the blue paper.

***ingredients***
Paper: Cloud 9 Designs; Pure Poppy (PTI), white
Stamps: Simply Stamped mail set, PTI Teacher's Apple (sentiment)
Ink: Basic Black
Other: cricut, free top note die shape from internet,

1 1/4" and 1 1/2" circle punches, dimensionals, red marker, colored pencils

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Well, thanks for stopping! I do really have lots to post, but the craft fair in Akron is on Saturday, and I'm not sure I'm going to have any free time this week to blog. I'll try to chip away at it, though. I have some cute stuff to share!

Our Little Family

Just wanted to share our family picture that we just had taken for our church directory. It turned out really well, and it gives you a chance to see the people I talk about all the time. Have a great night!

Kayla

A Sad Sunday

The kids are keeping busy, so I wanted to use a few minutes to share some sad news.
Yesterday, our (almost) brand new puppy, Tajar, got hit. He was chasing the van, and we hit him in our own driveway. He died shortly after that.

I was pretty sad yesterday...the first dog we had that I really, really loved and he's dead after only a month. I'm beginning to wonder if we are supposed to actually have a dog. This was our third- the first two ran away. Tajar was just such a good dog; he had so much potential. I really thought he was going to be the dog that stayed with us....well, forever. Hopefully, this means something is going to happen soon that will make us unable to have a dog.

Michelle is struggling to understand what "death" means. She's not really sad, but she is a little confused as to where Tajar is. She watched us bury him this morning (I told Myron I didn't think I could handle it if he fed him to the sheep :) ), and now tells people (when they ask about Taj) that "Tajar's dead," "sleeping very tight," or "Daddy covered him up." See what I mean about a little confused. When we were going home, she said, "Tajar's going to chase," and she just wanted to go outside and play with him a little while. Bums me out.

Just a dark spot in our week, I guess. It's lonely around here now without him.

Kayla

MOJO Monday 103

Happy Monday, and Happy Labor Day (for those of you lucky enough to get the day off!). My husband is gone golfing, and I am home waiting for the kids to wake up (okay, I'm cherishing every second they are asleep!).

My task for today was complete this week's Mojo Monday challenge because it's a contest week! They choose 7 winners, and those winners get to choose a Verve set of their choice!

Hard sketch this week: go to http://mojomonday.blogspot.com to see the sketch. I wanted to make a few accordian books for the craft fair, so I wanted to incorporate that into my sketch. This is what I came up with:

Beautiful, no? I LOVE LOVE LOVE this SEI paper. So gorgeous. This panel is 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 (the book base is 6 1/2 square). I like how this turned out. I was going to make a baby girl book (hence, the pink), but I just left it up to the buyer's imagination!

The butterfly is stamped first onto the white c/s in pixie pink, and then also stamped onto some patterened paper from the collection and cut out. I added a few tiny, tiny pearls to the antenae.

Here's a view of the inside-front. I used lots of different paper from the SEI Chocolat collection and just varied where I put them. I was going to cover every single square, but then I decided that was overkill.

Here's the inside- back. Again, different paper. The two papers on the full squares are my favorite papers from this collection- glittery pinks and browns...yum!

Thanks for stopping. I hopefully will be able to post what I've been up to in the next few days!

***ingredients***
Paper: SEI Chocolat, white c/s
Stamps: Verve- Fluttering by, Beautiful You
Ink: Ranger Distress Walnut Stain, Pixie Pink
Other: pearls, heavy heavy cardboard from who knows where, mod podge

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Teacher Candy Jar

Happy Tuesday! The kids are still sleeping, and I've got my flu-sick husband off for the day. He woke up puking, but his parents are gone on vacation, so he must go help do chores with his brother. Plus, he has to go pick up 16 new calves this morning--he'll be busy. Poor guy. I told him to rest, rest, rest today! I also sent him off with a mug full of warm coke (it helps!) and $4 for a bottle of Pepto. Hopefully he'll survive.

I finished a project I've been wanting to do for awhile. I went rummaging a few weekends ago in a town close to where we live. I found four clean, empty Yankee Candle jars in a Free box at the last rummage I stopped it. What a treasure! I thought, "Surely I can make these into something!"

I created a Teacher Candy Jar with the first one (and probably the other two big ones).

Here it is from the front. I made an apple svg file in Inkscape for my cricut, and then used the Blackout feature to get rid of the lines before cutting it in red. To cut the mat, I just used the Shadow Blackout feature and cut it in green. I "stitched" around both layers with a white gel pen. I added a button with some ribbon (a last minute adjustment), and stamped the sentiment from PTI's Teacher's Apple. I embossed the TEACHERS in black ep. I used pop dots to adhere it to the jar.

Too close! Oh well, you get the idea. This was mainly to cover up the ugly sticker on the bottom...just some stamping and sponging. The circle was cut with the George cartridge (it's 2 1/2").

And some yummy treats to go inside! If you know who my daughter is, it won't surprise you to know that we have a whole 5 lb. bag of peppermints in our house, so the candy didn't cost me a dime!

I'll post the rest of the jars once I get them made. Thanks for stopping!

***ingredients***
Paper: red, Old Olive
Stamps: PTI Teacher's Apple
Ink: versamark, basic black, real red
Other: black ep, heating gun, cricut, inkscape, George cart, free apple clipart, white gel pen, button from stash, ribbon, pop dots, sponges, empty Yankee Candle jar

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Choo Choo!

Good morning! I stole a few minutes this morning to finish a card I started on Saturday morning. I spent the day yesterday sick with the flu (Michelle was sick the night before), so I didn't even feel like making cards! But, everyone is feeling much better today (in fact, the kids have now been sleeping for 12 hours), and I'm on the papercrafting scene once again!

One of my friends from high school that I have reconnected with through Facebook is having her fourth baby this week via cesarean. I wanted to make her a gift (more coming later once I know the baby's name), and knowing that she's having a boy made it easy to make a card!

I used the recent sketch from the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge (it's #16), which you can find here on Priscilla's blog. I saw someone's entry on SCS, and loved the sketch.

I turned it on its side to better fit my card theme. I struggled with the flourishes in the corners, so instead, I omitted them and stuck a few trains at the bottom.

It's really hard to tell (I don't know if my Versamark is drying up or what), but I used the print pattern background stamp on the blue layer, and used crosshatch on the yellow and red layers. All very hard to tell. Thanks for stopping, and Happy Monday!

***ingredients***
Paper: CM paper stack-blue, yellow, red, generic white, generic black
Stamps: Gina K-Wee Tees, SU! Crosshatch, SU! Print pattern
Ink: real red, only orange, brilliant blue, versamark
Other: ribbon (offray), sponges, colored pencils

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