YOU DID WHAT????

I know for some (those who don't know me well) it's hard to believe, but I (quiet and a little shy Desiree) rode the bull. It wasn't a dare, or a bet, just something I wanted to try. And you know what, it was really fun, I wanna try it again. Now for you die hard rodeo fans, it was not a real bull, I can be daring but not crazy. Unfortunately it cost $3 just to ride it once or I'd have tried again. Truth be told it didn't take long for me to fall off, maybe that's why I want to try it again. You know, show that bull who's boss. :) Next on my list of things I want to try is kareoke. You know with complete strangers listening and everything. And a friend's living room does not count. Here's a pic of me on the bull:

I look like I know what I'm doing huh?! Not scared a bit. That's because it hadn't started yet, that bull was just calm as can be. Here's me holding on for dear life!!!

And though I sort of slid off rather than falling off, it still hurt...ouch! Seriously that bull is goin' down!!

Happy Birthday DD1!

DD1, if you're wondering is my eldest daughter, she just celebrated her birthday. It went really, really well and she had a great time. So here is the card I made for her.



Lots of glitter and plenty of pink. Though, sadly, she's growing out of pink. The flower is actually part of a barrette that detaches from the card.

She loved it, even if it was pink. I hope to do something similar for her baptism, we'll see. Thanks for stopping by!

Home Sweet Home...Finally

We took our chances and tried to buy a short sale. Not a good idea. Thankfully, we are now settled in a new build. A bit further out than we planned, but it feels like home and we love it.

This is a picture of the front door, I love the tile medallion in the floor.


This is the kitchen, and my youngest trying to find her bellybutton. She luuuuves belly buttons. Mostly hers but if she spies yours she can't help but squeal in delight and run after it! I think it's hilarious but her sister completely disagrees.
The linen, closet. It's magnificent. I also love the doors in this house, the sort of bead board detail in them.

The study doors, aren't they pretty! My toddler likes them too, she likes to show her love by banging on them with whatever is handy, arrgh.
The end. (aren't they cute!)

A challenge

I did it, really and truly. It's been at least over a year since I've participated in a Splitcoast challenge. I hope to do more in the future but, we'll see. Here's the sketch:

As usual I made some changes, I try to stick to it, but it's so hard to stay in the lines :) I believe creating should be fun and challenging. So I did what I wanted and here's what I got:
To see the recipe for this card and others click on my Splitcoast icon at the right. What I loved most about this card was the designer paper, oh I love it!!!!! It's not SU, as usual it's from a company called scrapwithinreach. Anyway, thanks for looking, and have a great day!

A gift for ????

So I can't say who this one is for, she might see this but at least I can share it with you. Well sort of, only the packaging,...my reasoning? Well, if I open it up I can promise it won't look as good as it does now. But to make it up to you I will show you the contents of another gift for someone special.

Isn't it beautiful. The flower is from the pretties kit, have I said before how much I love the pretties kit, particularly these flowers that I can color to match any project. I'm worried SU will discontinue them before I'm ready to part with them. That's usually the case, change is something I like to take nice and slow. Anyway, the flower is popped up on a mini card that just slides through the ribbon on the box. I love it when something decorative is functional too. So here's a picture of everything inside:

After finishing this project I'm totally stuck on red, brown, and yellow together. It's such an interesting combination. This first card is so so simple, I had planned on doing more but I loved it so much just the way it was that I left it. Why mess with a good thing ya' know.

This next one is also fairly simple, no coloring anyway. Just a bunch of layering
What I like about this card is all the color in one spot. Like wearing a neutral colored dress with a fabulous handbag. Unless of course you're like me and always carrying a back breaking diaper bag, lol, so stylish! This one was just fun to color, and I liked the hardware that went so well with the focal point. This next one is the busiest of them all, but I think it works. My favorite part was the ribbon with the button attached.
And last but certainly not least:
This is actually the card that started it all, and I love everything about it. The coloring wasn't exactly fun but I'm happy with the outcome and that's important too. I hope you liked what you saw and thanks for stopping by!

For Sale

We finally did it. Our house is on the market. And talk about a roller coaster. We had about ten showings last weekend and even an offer. We thought we were well on our way to having it sold when unexpectedly the almost buyer changed his mind. BUMMER!!!!! His reason, just got cold feet. So we're gearing up for another weekend of showings. Here's some more pictures of the house, like promised.

Here is the living room, recognize the circles on the glass. They're from the Stampin' Up decor elements. My eldest daughter said the blue curtains seem sort of juvenile, like a baby boys room. I see her point but I don't care, I like it! Besides it matches the painting on the opposite wall, sorry no pic.

The kitchen, I absolutely love all the red. And the chandelier, and especially the red chairs. People probably think that's weird, having red chairs but they go so well in this kitchen. So if you couldn't tell my favorite colors are blue and red.

This is the office. Technically it's a formal dining room, but we needed an office. The artwork is mine, it was inspired by a trip to the disneyland hotel, I think it's called california grand. It has a very arts and craft feel and is very inspiring.

And lastly our bedroom. This room is so huge it actually serves as my craft room too, which is added incentive to keep it clean so I can sleep peacefully. So that's it, if you know anyone looking for a home send them our way!

Taking Steps

Wow, time flies whether you're having fun or not, kwim. It's said that no project is too big when you take it a step at a time. About a month ago we went for a hike in Arizona, Tonto national bridge to be exact. Where my oldest learned and shared this very same principle. It was so gorgeous! Too gorgeous to let just one photo tell it all so I'll err on the side of too many, I always do, you should see my scrapbooks.

It was reassuring to hear my seven year old teach this principle to me, I hope she will continue to apply it to the rest of her life.

In other news we are step by step getting closer to putting our house up for sale. The transformation has been incredible, unfortunately I don't have many pictures of that but I promise to upload some later. Here's some of the outside:


And a couple I have of my craft space being cleaned out and moved to a different corner. Before I was able to load the shelves back up my youngest decided to play hide and seek. And of course big sister couldn't resist either.


And my last bit of news, so very exciting, is that our youngest darling daughter took her first steps....I wonder were they will lead her.

Gift set

I love making gift sets. I only wish I had more time to make them. Then I could make one for each friend and family member. This particular one is for my mother-in-law. She hasn't received it yet but thankfully she doesn't know about my blog yet so I can post it here. I used some retired designer paper that my hubby recommended. It's amazing how far you can make a pack of dp last. I still have plenty of this left even after making a post-it note holder, a checkbook cover, four cards, and a box to put it all in. Plus getting a pack takes the guess work out, no scavenging for a piece of dp to match the one you have. Anyway, it turned out great, I think she'll love it!


The box turned out so elegant, to find a tutorial on the post-it note holder click here.


The quote on the check book holder says "'Joy is not in things it is in us.' -Richard Wagner". Now truthfully, would you like something like that on the front of your checkbook or would it start to annoy you? Hmmmm. Or maybe you'd be grateful for the reminder. Me? It would depend on what the check was for...if it were stamping/crafting stuff ...well in that case the statement doesn't apply, right :). Here's card number 1. The flower is from the pretties kit and colored with my watercolor wonder crayons. Pretty fantastic huh. That's what I love about the pretties kit flowers, I can color them to coordinate with any project. And it's so easy too, a little messy but so fun.

A happy birthday card. The many musical notes are due to the recipients love of music. And are a cuttlebug die.
This next card was inspired by a very talented stamper, you can see here card here.And last of all a thank you card. I really liked the look of not matting the different patterns. Normally I do to break them up and draw attention to them but this time I was going for more of a quilt look.
So that's it, hope you liked it and thanks for stopping by!

busy, busy, busy

It's been so long since I've posted. My excuse? We've been looking at houses, because we're feeling a little cramped in our current 1500 square feet. We're also trying to get our house ready to put on the market, and on top of that everybody in my home has been sick at least once in the last month, some twice! So with that I've got to get back to work but before I do here is some of what I've been doing at my stamp table:

Human...

So, I made this ages ago. Or at least it feels like it. See this was made before there were two, two adorable little girls. Back when I had hours to stamp and craft I made this gorgeous journal. Don't you love it?! I do. This is a special journal. A journal to acknowledge the things the Lord has done for me. It should be full and bursting forth,...should, should, should should! But of course I've procrastinated writing, forgotten to write, and undoubtedly never noticed some things I ought to have written about. I'm terribly human that way. Which in this particular instance, is very fortunate. You know why? Because there's absolutely no time to make another journal! And there's still plenty of room for me to write in it, thankfully. So I guess being human has its perks.

Here is a link to an article that inspired this lovely journal. I obviously need to re-read it so I will better use my journal, hee hee.

Totally me

The last few cards and such that I've uploaded have not been really with in my comfort zone. This one is, aaahhhhh, sigh of relief. Masculine stuff is a challenge. And this one is totally girly, I love it! And it fits to upload it today since it's my birthday, Yeah!!!

Isn't it gorgeous!!! Sorry for all the exclamations but I love it. Coloring was a fun learning experience on this one. Anyway I gotta go blow out some candles so ta ta for now!

DH's birthday present

DH and I recently tried something different for our birthdays. See we're trying to save a little dough so instead of buying presents we have to be super creative. And this is the kind of thing I have wanted to do for quite some time. But because of all the time shopping takes, I haven't, until now. And it turned out awesome!

Here's a picture of just the card:

And here's all four sides of the tissue box:





It was so fun making it. The hardest part was taking a plain pine wood box from michaels and prepping is for the fun part, the photos and paper. It took lots of paint, lots of modge podge, but mostly tons and tons of sanding. In the end, it was worth it. It has a smooth sleek finish that coordinates nicely with all the embellishments, exactly what I was going for. And even better, he loved it!