Good Tuesday Morning!!!

Well after a full week of being up every night for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night, I finally slept soundly last night. From 8:30-6:30 and I feel completely rejuvinated. It's amazing how just that little interuption each night makes you feel simply awful, but today I am energized and ready to get some stuff done! How am I ever going to handle those nighttime feedings?!? aaaacckkk! BTW, I am feeling the baby every day now...it is so incredible and it seems so early to already be feeling it. I hope that doesn't mean a big baby! LOL!

I did find a little bit of time to create in the last few days. This is a layout that I did playing with my Stamped In Ink stamps. This is a very simple layout. It uses Scenic Route and then Stamped in Ink's sets: Elegant Pennant, Simply Put, and one of the custom stamps.
By the way, Scrap Happy KT is featuring Stamped in Ink all this weekend. They just got in a huge shipment of the gorgeous new stamps and will be featuring:
*3 Challenges
*Live chat with Sue (owner of Stamped In Ink) on Sat. at 8pm
*All orders placed that weekend will be entered in a chance to win a prize
*Layout/ Project Contest (3 winners will be selected)
1st Place- $50 Gift Certificate to Scrap Happy KT
2nd Place- 2 Stamped In Ink stamp sets of your choice
3rd Place- 1 Stamped In Ink stamp set of your choice.

Other than that, I didn't get anything accomplished over the holiday like I had hoped, but we really did have a nice family holiday with lots of movies and time together with the three of us.

Today I am creating for an article for an upcoming issue of Creative Cardmaking (UK). Then I hope to get a start on some Christmas projects that I need to get started on. I just got my DT box for the Cropper's Cottage so I am excited to get to work on that. Shannon outdid herself with the kits this month.

I am still without a camera and wondering how long I can put off that rather expensive purchase. I have put up my tree and would really like to take some pics because I have done some different things with it, but would rather spend the money on family this time of the year.

smiles,
christi

Not only am I getting fat, but now I am officially elderly!?!

LOL! I am dying here. Because I am over 35 (barely, BTW!) I qualify for special prenatal care and yesterday I received the paperwork about it all including my referral to the specialist. The reason for the referral on my paperwork...ELDERLY MULTIGRAVIDA!!! Whoa...seriously?!?! You know when you are pregnant (esp. unexpectedly so) you are certainly not feeling your most attractive as the baby bump and many other squishy lumps are starting to appear and then the hospital sends me something like this telling me that I am officially elderly. Between that and the fact that they chose to put the coffee cart directly in front of the OB clinic (that is a post for another day) have me re-thinking my choice in hospitals. LOL!

But seriously, besides a huge blow to my ego, everything is going fine here. Actually last night I was laying on the couch and I can't actually feel the baby move yet, but I could definitely tell that the baby was awake and swimming. I kept getting different pressure points on my belly where I just could feel increased pressure as the baby moved around. No little flutters yet, but enough to know that the baby is doing well.

I have been really busy this week, but I really don't have anything that I can share because it has been magazine work. I did complete another cj. This is my entry in Mitchell Kraft's cj. His theme is about all the different kinds of crafts that you do. I included a couple of examples of things that I do and then did a lot of journaling.

I have lots of plans this weekend for crafting, but probably not a whole lot that I can share as most are gifts for people that read this blog so I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.

I hope that everyone has fun plans for thanksgiving. We are doing a simple family dinner here with the 3 of us. I have to figure out our actual menu and make a final grocery run today. Think that there will be any bread crumbs left??? I am crossing my fingers!
smiles,
christi

Layouts for the Cropper's Cottage

I have been working on some layouts for the Cropper's Cottage. Everything on these layouts is available at the store.

These first couple of layouts are of my nieces from Halloween. Wasn't it nice of their mother to coordinate their costumes with my DT project for this month? LOL! This month we were sponsored by the awesome Li'l Davis. I love these products...you just put the photos down on the paper and it automatically looks awesome!




Then this is a double layout using simply a Chatterbox Memory Building Kit...nothing else added. These awesome kits have the perfect mix of embellishments and patterned paper so that is all you need and the good news is that I can easily still do another 2-5 layouts from what I still have left. The photos here are from Ely Cathedral in England.



Well, my Dr's appt. on Monday went really well. I got to not only hear the heartbeat, but got an ultrasound as well so I have baby pics. I was looking at scanning them for my blog, but I honestly don't think that you will be able to tell anything because the baby is still so small. Right now it measures at 4.3 cms. The good news is that it sounds like I will probably get an ultrasound most months because I am old and high risk so I will have lots of photos to share along the way. Our next appt. is the week before Christmas and that should be timed right so that we will know if we are having a boy or girl by Christmas. Yippee!

Happy Hump Day!!
smiles,
christi

Last Week's LSS projects

Here are the latest projects that I created for the LSS...

This line is the latest Melissa Frances Christmas line. Definitely my style and I loved working with it. All the photos on these two layouts are from our Austrian Christmas trip two years ago.




This line is using the Bo Bunny Christmas line. A bit bright for my taste which makes it harder for me to use.



smiles,
christi

FINALLY...my circle journal!

OMG, this book took me forever and I have no idea why! Usually I can knock one of these out in a day or two, but this one took me a full week and a half!?! This is for our Cropper's Cottage Design Team circle. My theme is Define Your Style.

Here is the cover:

Here is the intro page:

Here is my entry:

I mailed this off yesterday morning which finally left me some time to get to my other obligations. I did 4 layouts and 3 cards for the LSS yesterday and I will be uploading those throughout the weekend. Finally, my mojo is flowing good again.

BTW, for those of you keeping track, I am at 11 weeks now in my pregnancy and am feeling pretty good overall. I have a doctor's appt. Monday morning so I am excited to hear the baby's heartbeat again. I cannot wait til I can feel the baby move so that I have some reassurance that everything is okay in there.
smiles,
Christi

Playing Circle Journal Catch-up...

Over at the Cottage, I am involved in a couple of circle journals and this month I simply got desperately behind on them. If you have never done a circle journal before, it is simply a group of artists that gets together to form a circle. Each individual artist creates a journal and everyone has their own theme for their journal. The journals then go in a circle around the group and each artist makes an entry into the journal. It is a fun and fantastic way to create a keepsake/inspirational piece made up of other artist's/friend's work.

This is my entry in Cami's book. Her theme is The Ways you relax/de-stress... so my entry is all about escaping into a good book. The journaling says: "When it comes time for me to de-stress from my life, I like to escape within a good book. Modern chick-lit is my fave. I like novels that are happy and have a great sense of humor. It allows me to escape for a few hours and escape into someone else's life. Just that quick little escape usually gives me enough perspective on whatever is stressing me out in my life so that everything doesn't seem so bad when I come out of my book. Funnily enough, this is something that I have done my entire life. When I was a pre-teen/teenager, my favorite escape was into the pages of Pollyanna. Her "glad game" kept it all in perspective when teenage troubles got me down."

I think that the papers are foofala, but I am not sure... click on the image to get a better view of it.

I have a new circle journal starting and I almost have my book completed so I will be sharing it soon...

In other news, DH accidentally spilled his coffee on my camera on Saturday so I am shopping for a new camera. I think that I have decided on a Kodak Easyshare Z612...I know shocker, I NEVER thought that I would consider a Kodak, but everything I read about it, seems to make it the best option in my price range. Does anyone have any feedback or better ideas???

smiles,
Christi

November already?!?

Wow! Can you believe that it is already November?!? Where has the year gone and how am I ever going to be ready for Christmas??? But one thing that I am ready for is decorating. I cannot wait to put the tree up, but am not so sure that DH will like it going up before Thanksgiving. LOL! I may just have to settle with pulling out some of my Christmas cd's. Oh, and I probably should pull the cobwebs off the bushes and put away the jack-o-lanterns before I even consider pulling out the Christmas decor.

We made it through Halloween. DS was a revolutionary war soldier...he looks so cute in his costume! DH was out of town so I did the whole Halloween routine by myself (2 1/2 hours of trick or treating and we easily have 200-300 kids come through our neighborhood since we are on base and "safe"). It was crazy and I was absolutely exhausted when it ended at 8:00. I came inside and fell asleep pretty much immediately on the couch. I didn't even know that DS went to bed...luckily for me, he is very responsible!

I have a TON to do this week. I am desperately behind on the Cottage cj's so that is on my agenda today after I finish an article for Simply Cards that should have been sent yesterday. Sleeping so much is definitely taking away a lot of my creative energies!!!

I have a new layout to show. This was a layout that I did as an inspiration jolt over on the Cottage. I scraplifted Shalini's layout, http://pp.cropperscottage.com/showphoto.php?photo=23538&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1 . I loved the way that she used all the clothes labels on her layout and copied that with tags.

I love these photos of my niece, Mia, digging into her 1st birthday cake. It also gave me an opportunity to play with these new Stamped in Ink Pennant stamps. LOVE THOSE!!!
Products used:
*Stamped in Ink Pennant Stamps
*Stamped in Ink Alpha stamps
*Stamped in Ink Dove of Goodwill stamp
*Foofala tags & paper
*Making Memories gingham and ledger paper
*Karen Foster Metal embellishment
*misc. brads


I hope that you are having some time to create this week! I will be back soon with some cj's to share!
smiles,
christi