A Little Update...

As many of you have already noticed, I have done a bit of renovation around here...actually I hired an interior decorator to do the job for me, Veronica from VK Designs. Didn't she do a fabulous job?

I know that you guys {meaning my brothers} think that it is too girly, but it is just what I wanted. I am a total technophobe and have never been able to figure out how to do it myself, but Veronica was amazing to work with and I didn't have to do a thing except tell her what I wanted. I told her I wanted it in the style of this banner HERE. She got it right on...She's amazing, isn't she?!?! I love my new girly digs...

And in tribute of all things girly, I have a girly card to share today. Splitcoast has daily challenges and today's is a sketch challenge. I created this card from that sketch.

I think that this would be a fun card to give to DH as an invite for a night out for just the two of us (in fact, I think that I am going to save it for just that purpose!) I used Unity's Cocktail Party kit. I bought this kit when it was released and have been dying to get it inky and play with it...it's just such a fun, cute, girly kit!!!

Supplies used:

*Unity Cocktail Party kit

*Heidi Swapp papers

*Ranger Archival black inkpad

*flat-backed gems

*brad

*ribbon

Inspirational Artist...

Laura (lauralooloo) is one of the other DT members on the Unity team. I have been on message boards with Laura before we were lucky enough to get to play together on the Unity team so I have been a fan of her style for a LONG time. Yesterday she proposed a CASE/scraplift swap and I jumped at the chance to lift one of her cards.

Here is the link for the card of hers that I lifted where she used Unity's Giggle Grove kit... The Simple Life Tree.

And here is the card that I created using the Birds of a Feather kit from Unity.

I love all the birds in this kit...they are just too cute and so easy to color. For this one, I simply used normal Crayola colored pencils. :o)

The fabulous thing about Laura's design is that it could easily be used for just about ANY stamped image...I love designs like that which is why I really find Laura's work so inspirational. I hope that you will go check out her blog...I think that you will definitely be inspired.

Supplies Used:

*Unity Stamp Co. Birds of a Feather kit

*Autumn Leaves Heather Bailey paper

*Colorbox Graphite Inkpad

*Making Memories flower brads

*corner rounder

*colored pencils

*ribbon

*pop-dots

smiles,

Christi

Enthusiasm!!!

"Nothing great was ever achieved without Enthusiasm."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is my motto for this week. I have this blackboard sitting on my kitchen island and wrote this on it so that everytime I walk through the kitchen, it is there to remind me. I love that!

Today is the Simply Scrapbook Challenge over on the Unity forum. You can see the specifics of the challenge here which you might want to check out because there is a prize involved this month. :o)

Here is today's sketch:

And here is my layout that I made from this sketch:


The few weeks leading up to Ben getting home, Kat was getting very restless so we got where we would go sit on a blanket out in the front yard. She loved exploring all the new sights and textures out there under our trees.


For this layout, I used one of Unity's new stamp kits, Growing In Unity. I've said it before and I am sure that I will say it again, but I am totally in love with this kit!!! Look at those little birds on the swirl. That gorgeous tree is from the kit too!



For the Sweet Delight title, I used the word stamps from the Birds of a Feather kit.

Supplies used:

*Unity Growing in Unity kit

*Unity Birds of a Feather kit

*SEI Orchid collection

*Prima flowers

*K&Co. brad and journaling piece

*Gingham brads

*Ranger Archival Black inkpad

*Marvy Uchida scallop circle punch

smiles,

Christi

129 Unread emails...

...that's currently what I have in my inbox. *eek* I promise I am going to catch back up with life this week!!! I know that I owe tons of you emails...
smiles,
Christi

New Stamping Fun!!!

I am so excited...my muse is coming back AND there is a

New Release stamp party over at the Unity forum

tonight at 8:00 CST!!

Now if you have never made it to a new release party before, well it's definitely worth your while to check it out...there are games, prizes, and usually some great specials too...AS WELL as the reveal of the

5 new kits coming out tonight!!!

I was lucky enough to receive two of the new kits to play with...one of which has become my favorite Unity kit ever!!! I love this kit...Growing in Unity...

Just wait until you see the entire kit reveal...there is not a stamp in this kit which I don't just absolutely love...they are ALL GORGEOUS!

The second kit that I received was Bitty Christmas Tags. This is such a cute kit! They are small stamps so they work wonderfully for little simple designs.

I made up this grouping of 3x6 cards. Using this size, you could use them as either gift tags or just your normal Christmas Cards...I love making cards this size!

For the images on these, I colored them using my watercolor pencils.

I hope to see you over at the Unity party tonight! I am feeling inspired so I may even go see if I can get a couple more projects done before the festivities begin tonight...

smiles,

Christi

Trying to be Productive...

We have been in the house now for 2 weeks, but I am still having issues getting my creative muse to work for me. I have my room completely unpacked, but it is definitely NOT in a functioning state yet. I still need to work on having my essentials within arm's reach and even finding some of them (like my pop-dots...I cannot figure out where the heck I put those!?!)

But life does go on, whether I am ready for creating or not, so I have been working a bit on some Unity creations. Tomorrow night at 8:00pm CST, Unity is hosting another release party over in the Splitcoast forum. This time they are releasing 5 new kits and one of them happens to be my favorite new stamp kit (which makes my creative muse's disappearance all the more frustrating!)

Tonight I have just a couple of sneak peeks for you, but you will have to check in tomorrow to see the full reveals plus a couple more...

smiles,

Christi

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

...I just got buried in boxes and packing paper for a bit there. But we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and are starting to think about doing things other than unpacking...like blogging and even a bit of sight-seeing!

But first a bit about the house...I don't know if you all remember how stressed I was back in the March/April timeframe...a lot of that was because we were trying to rent a house online (without actually seeing it in person) and doing a LOT of long-distance emails between North Carolina (where I was), Iraq (where DH was), and Illinois (where all prospective houses were.) It was a bit crazy and really harried/stressful. But it all came to fruition when we walked into our house...we LOVE it!!! It could not be a better house for us...the floorplan just fits our needs perfectly! We really love the way that it is laid out and are thinking about rebuilding it again later for our retirement. How lucky is that considering we were just working/renting from photos? We feel VERY blessed.

But unfortunately, the move did not come without a cost...my PC died so we are temporarily working with the laptop as our main computer. My gorgeous red 12-cup coffeemaker also appears to be on its last legs. If you know me, you know that these 2 items are my life-blood to my daily life so I am mourning them a bit and resisting the need to replace them right now...denial is a good thing.

This is the view into our new office (it's supposed to be a formal dining room, but we prefer another room for storing books!) And that in the corner is DH's new recliner....it's soooo comfortable. We are supposed to be finding a more feminine version for me in the other corner, but so far we haven't found anything that seems just right to complement this one so we are still looking.

And here is a quick view of one of the vignette's of my stamp room. It is finally completely unpacked and I am anxious to get in there and get stamping. It has been several weeks so I hope that my muse cooperates with me.

DH actually goes back to work Monday. He hasn't done anything but move and travel since getting back from Iraq so we took a couple of days in the last week to do a bit of the tourist/relaxing thing around the St. Louis area. Of course, we had to go see the arch.

It's so good to have him home and to be having fun with him and as a family again.

The kids were watching a group of ducks by the pond in the park at the base of the Arch.

We found some new hats this week for $1...she looks so cute in them and knows it. She will pose for you as soon as you put it on her head. LOL!

Then yesterday we took the day to go visit an old pre-Revolutionary era fort located on the Mississippi, Fort De Chartres. The architecture and stone reminded us so much of many of the buildings in England and France. It was gorgeous!

At the entry into the fort...

The guys going up the tower at the entry...

Another cute new hat.... She really started walking the first day that the packers arrived at the house. Unfortunately, from that point on, she has been held more than anything so she is just now getting back to where she was developmentally with walking a month ago now that the boxes are out of her way. She is loving the stairs in this 3-story house and scaring momma to death.

Love this teen who will still humor me and pose every once in a while....

I should be around more from here on out...

smiles,

Christi

We have made it to Illinois!

Well, after a VERY long week, we are finally in Illinois (still in a hotel, but here nonetheless.) We have seen our new house (that we rented without seeing it over the internet), but it was locked up tight so we are anxious to get the keys for it in the morning to see what it really looks like.




Surprisingly enough, we are actually supposed to be getting all of our household goods tomorrow morning too. They are supposed to arrive within an hour of us getting the keys so it is going to be another crazy week as we try to get settled and unpacked. I am hoping to have our internet up and running by Tuesday evening so hopefully within a few days here life will get a bit closer to normal and I will be around here a bit more. :o) {I miss you all!}


But the Simply Scrapbook Sketch Challenges for Unity go on so I have a new sketch to share with you tonight...









This is the layout that I created from the sketch:








This is a photo I took when I was home in Texas over Spring Break. I love it's misty look, but had no idea how to show it off on a layout. I liked the overall simplicity of the layout of this sketch to show it off.


Since I took the photo during Spring Break, I felt that the spring color pallette was a good choice and used a few of the papers from the Scenic Route Lynden paper collection as well as coordinating-colored cardstocks.


I love the variety of stamps in the Unity mini-kits and used Small Elegance for this layout. The interesting {and wonderful} thing about these stamps is that for Unity's norm, they are mini's, but compared to any other stamp companies stamps, they are still really substantial and great for scrapbooking.


Supplies used:
*Unity Stamp Small Elegance
*Scenic Route Lynden Collection
*various cardstocks
*MM metal embellishments and blossoms
*Prima flowers
*white sharpie
*Zig Writer
*Heidi Swapp bling and chipboard
*Diamond Glaze

smiles,
Christi

Checking In...

Hi, everyone! I am still here. We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Alabama and now are frantically trying to get everything ready for the packers that are coming tomorrow to pack us up for our move to Illinois. It's crazy around here, but it's a good crazy. We are having lots of fun just all being together again even in the chaos.

But I quickly wanted to share with you this week's sketch for the Unity Simply Scrapbook Challenge.

With the upcoming move, I created a whole bunch of my sketches, but did not have time to create using them to make sure that they really work so they probably will all have a few modifications on the final layout...even on my versions. :o)

I wanted to do a layout about just where Kat is and her interests at age "1" and this is what I came up with. For the stamping on this, I used 2 kits: Amazing Me (the journaling tags and the number 1) and Little Labels 2 (the detail around the edge of the large circle and the band that goes across the page). The band was colored in using colored pencils.

Supplies Used:

*Unity Little Labels 2

*Unity Amazing Me

*MM Noteworthy 2 Collection

*K&Co. Amy Butler paper

smiles,

Christi

Fun Stuff!!!

I love the first day of the month over at Unity because it always brings such fun stuff!!! First, you all have got to take a look at this, the July Kit of the Month...

Is that not just the cutest kit ever?!?! I REALLY love it!!! If you love it too, you have until the 15th of the month to order it because that is when they are mailed out. There is more info about all that HERE.

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The other big news for the 1st of the month over at Unity is that Elizebeth Neuman is our Guest Designer! I love her work and can't wait to see more of it!!! Congratulations Elizebeth!!!

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We are about to head out of town for a couple of days (if I ever manage to actually get packed...LOL!) But I promise to check back in before the packers arrive on Monday. Crazy weeks ahead!!!

smiles,

Christi

And the Chaos Ensues...

Life has been crazy for the last few months, but now the real chaos begins. After a ceremony on base this coming Wednesday (we think...the AirForce is holding true to form and keeping us on our toes as we head into another move *sigh*), we are heading out to Alabama to see DH's family for a couple of days. Two VERY LONG days driving and two quick days visiting and then it will be back here so that the packers can come in and disassemble our home on Monday. I will try to check in and am desperately trying to figure out how to get my pretty new red Palm to work as a modem for my laptop (David, I think that you are my last hope on this one...I'll be calling you SOON!) so that I will be able to stay in touch and maintain my sanity.

But for now, I need to share my latest Simply Scrapbook Challenge sketch from the Unity forum over at Splitcoast.

Here is the layout that I created from the sketch...

For this layout, I used the Small Elegance stamp kit (swirl on the edges and that darling dandelion.) I created the edge detail by simply stamping the swirl and reversing the direction every time I stamped it.



For the dandelion, I added a bit of detail work with my white sharpie and flat-backed gems in the centers. The words are all Unity stamps too. The little single words along the edges of the photos are from Birds of a Feather and the title, Simply Adorable, came out of Mix Up of Cuteness.


Supplies used:
*Unity Stamp Co. Small Elegance kit
*Unity Stamp Co. Mix Up of Cuteness kit
*Unity Stamp Co. Birds of a Feather kit
*Heidi Grace paper (dandelions and embellies)
*Scenic Route paper (grid)
*ColorBox inkpads
*MM button Brads
*flat-backed gems
*Martha Stewart border punch

smiles,
Christi