New Cards - Card Patterns sketch 164

A long overdue post, but not much today. I need to get back into the rythym of blogging. So... here are some new cards.

I used silver thread for the fishing line here and got it to stay with the glue gun.

I used a pattern from Card Patterns for this one. This blog posts new card sketches (or patterns) every week. It's a great source for card ideas.

 These three are all the same pattern, as you can see (also from Card Patterns). The flowers were lots of fun to make and my daughter loved helping put the jewels in the center.

Card Update

Here is a new card for my very beautiful new little neice:

I had fun with this one using my new sparkly paper! My daughter absoluletly loved how the carriage sparkled and shined.

A New Car

We bought a new car!!! (well... technically a crossover)

Our 13 year old car was on the fritz and we decided we needed something bigger and newer (with no problems) and finally decided on a Buick Enclave.

All that my 5 year old daughter "E" really cared about was that there was a DVD player in our new vehicle, and she got her wish (along with a pair of wireless headphones - that was her parents wish).

And now I truly feel grown up. My husband is out of school and in the professional workforce, we have 2 kids, we own a house, and we have a brand new family vehicle. I am all grown up.

Catch Up

Wow, I sure have been gone from blogging for a while. It was unintentional, but once into the habit of not blogging, it was hard to get back into it.

A lot has happened. My husband and I bought our first house! Hooray! No more renting! I can't even describe the great feeling it is to be free of renting and acutally living in my own house. The kids have a lot more room to run around and play, and I have my own space too - a nice craft and sewing room all to myself! We have an ensuite, a garage, a covered deck, a nice yard, and a new washer and dryer. I love it, I love it, I love it!

Also, "E" has started grade 1. She was a little worried at first that none of her friends would be in her class and that she would have no one to play with, but luckily her good friend is in the same class and "E" doesn't feel too lonely. She can be shy around new people, but I think she is starting to make some new friends. She loves school and was so mad Thursday when I made her stay home because she was sick.

We also had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was a little nervous because it was the first Thanksgiving that I felt in charge. I bought the groceries, planned the menu, and all that jazz. Thankfully my sister-in-law was here to hepl me out and everything came out great!

Now that I've played a little catch up, I'm hoping to get back into more consistent blogging.

Card Patterns Sketch 136

One of my new favourite blogs is called Card Patterns . It has great ideas and designs for cards, and I love it! Every week they post a new sketch and invite anyone to submit their own take on the design. I've decided to try it out this week, so here it is:

Even Little Boys Love Cars

It's fun to watch how my kids become attached to certain toys. My two year old son "G" has really started to love cars, trucks, airplanes and trains and wants to take one of them with him everywhere. We will be ready to go out the door and "G" will say, "Take train Mommy?" When we are out, he points out different kids of vehicles (trucks especially) and yells out, "Semi truck!" or "cement truck!" or "choo-choo train!" It's so cute.

When we are outside he points out airplanes and helicopters that are flying overhead and won't stop shouting about it until I acknowlede that I see it too.

Recently he has started sleeping with his little cars and insists that he has two or three of them with him before he goes to sleep. My daughter loves to have stuffies (see this post) in her bed, at least they are soft, but "G" requires a hard little car or plane in his hand. It usually ends up underneath him. I can't imagine that would be too comfortable... but he loves it!

Darcy's Voyage book review

Darcy's Voyage by Kara Louise


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Darcy's Voyage (previously published as Pemberley's Promise) is a twist on Pride and Prejudice exploring what if Elizabeth and Darcy met before the traditional beginning of Austen's novel. What if they developed a relationship and had to keep it from everyone?


I love Pride and Prejudice and it's fun to read Austen fan fiction. This was a fun easy read (I finished in two days) that really explored the romance between Darcy and Elizabeth. She kept true to Austen's characters and added a few of her own. Although some of the obstacles were too easily overcome by the characters, it was still fun to read. Anybody who loves Elizabeth and Darcy will enjoy this book. I think I'll check out some of Kara Louise's other Austen fan fiction.

A Few New Cards

Here are a few fun cards I've made with the design help of my five year old daughter:

Harry Potter

I just spent a few days thouroughly ignoring my kids while I finished (yet again) the last installment of the Harry Potter books, The Deathly Hallows. I love these books. I wanted to read the series again before the last movie came out, so a while ago, I started with the first book and made my way through until the end. Last night I finished the last one and now I'm so excited for the final movie to come out.

Here's a sneak peak at the excitement:

I hope it stays true to the book and ends the right way!

Hiatus

I'm taking a short holdiay hiatus. Will be back soon!

Last Day Of Kindergarten

Today is my daughter "E"s last day of kindergarten. I can't believe she's finished already! In a couple months she'll be onto grade one and have school every day. That will be different for sure. She doesn't want to have summer holidays though. She said to me, "Why can't I just start grade one tomorrow?" "E" loves school and enjoys her time there, especially playing with her friends.

She has one little friend in her class that she absolutely loves. She informed me the other week that they weren't allowed to sit together at all anymore. They get too distracted and just want to chat and play with eachother, so they don't do their work. I don't think they will be put in the same class in the fall. I'll have to schedule lots of play dates.


"E" loves to do art and crafts and sometimes makes cards as well. She wanted to make a card for her teacher to say thank you.

This is the front of her card. It's her teacher. I loved how she cut out pieces of paper in different colours for all the pieces of her person.

On the inside she created a forest scene using some fun stickers, markers, and paper cutting. I love that each ray of her sun is a different piece of paper. She is so creative! I didn't help her with this at all.

This is a birthday card she made last week for her friend. She drew him, and I just thought it was super cute.

Graduation Card

Here's a cute graduation card: 

This was created using the Every Day Paper Dolls cartridge from Cricut.

This is th inside (those are pencils and books, by the way).

Flooding Update

The rain has finally stopped, and so has the waterfall in my basement (see this post). There is still a pool of water in the storage room and I'm still waiting on the landlord to come by and use the wet-vac to clean it up. Luckily nothing was damaged but a few empty boxes.

They found where the leak was coming from and brought in a back-ho to dig a huge hole in the driveway. Sometime soon (hopefully) the landlord will come and pour some cement and seal up the leak for good.

And to top it all off, while all this junk and stuff was going on, this happened:

Not at all my best weekend.
But, compared to a lot of other people in town, we didn't get it bad. There has been lots of flooding and at least ours wasn't sewer backup! At least the sun is out today.

I Have A Waterfall In My Basement!

It has been storming and raining pretty hard here for a few days. We live in an old house, and lots of rain causes problems. We recently had some plumbing problems (you can read about it in this post) and now we have flooding problems.

It started a few days ago with a bit of water in the storage room in the basement. Nothing new. We have to run a de-humidifier down there 24/7.

Yesterday a big storm rolled in.

This is from my back door. It was around 3 or 4 in the afternoon and so dark outside. It normally doesn't get that dark until 10pm up here. Just a minute or so after I took this picture it started hailing. It was hailing hard and fast and the average hail was aound the size of a pea. After about 15 minutes of that, the rain came. I went downstairs to get something and heard the sound of running water. I found water streaming from the wall in the little furnace room. (I had a video, but for some reason can't upload it. I'll try again later.)

There is a waterfall in my basement!
Now today, there is a pool too.
The landlord is here trying to take care of it and hopefully he can fix the leak and drainage problems.

I guess the good thing about storms is, that when the let up, these show up:

It's hard to catch a rainbow nicely on camera, and this picture doesn't do the rainbow justice. This rainbow reached all the way across the sky and was so beautiful!

Thank You Card

A thank you card I whipped up today.

Fruit Sushi

My daughter and I had a fun time making fruit sushi the other day. We got the recipe from the Friend magazine here. We tried the banana sushi:

Banana Sushi

1 banana, 1 piece of fruit leather, sprinkles

1. Peel the banana.
2. Unwrap the fruit leather and wrap it around the banana.
3. Have an adult cut the wrapped banana into 1-inch (2.5-cm) slices.
4. Add a few sprinkles to the middle of each “sushi” slice.

"E" chose the dinosaur sprinkles :)

Toddler Bed

It's official. My 2 year old son "G" is not a baby anymore.

Last night my husband took down the crib and set up the toddler bed. My little baby is big enough to sleep in a real bed! I feel like it's the next stage - no more baby. Also he has been growing so fast. He's getting tall and growing out of clothes, his vocabulary is exploding, he's slowly weaning himself off naps (boo-hoo), and not wanting to sit in his booster seat at the table anymore - he wants a big chair like daddy. It's exciting and sad at the same time. Exciting to see him grow and learn and become a real little person. Sad that he doesn't need my help so much anymore and that that baby is gone.

Switching "G" to the toddler bed went all right. He was very excited at first and loved that he could climb on and off his bed without any help. When we put him to bed he laid down and stayed in his room for a good 15 minutes before venturing out. After trying to return him to his bed, he had a pretty good tantrum. After reading some books and cuddling, he went back to bed and stayed there all night. Almost all night - he fell off the bed once, but was fine and went back to sleep after my husband tucked him back in.

Overall, the switch went all right. I guess I'll have to wait and see how he does tonight.

Mermaid Craft for Kids

My 5 year old daughter "E" loves to paint, colour, make crafts and create. The walls in her room are plastered with her art and creations. Yesterday she came home with a craft book from the library, Things For Girls To Make and Do by Usborne Books.

It's a fantastic book full of fun princess, mermaid, and other girly crafts. "E" wanted to do a craft right away and chose a mermaid craft.

Here is her result:

I helped her draw the mermaid, she did the rest.

Aluminum foil and glitter glue make a shiny and sparkly tail.

She can't wait to do another tomorrow.

Bugs and Flowers

Here are some flowers and bugs I did today for a few scrapbooking pages:

Caterpillar.

Grasshopper

Layered flowers

Some more.

Leaves

Sunflower

More sunflowers

The caterpillar, grasshopper, leaves, and sunflowers were all made using the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge for the Cricut.
The other flowers (black and blue-gray) were cut with the Accent Essentials cartridge.

Diamond Willow Bed

My husband just finished making the most beautiful bed for our daughter. He used Diamond Willow wood, cut the tree down himself, peeled the bark, carved, sanded, etc. He did an absolutely wonderful job and "E" loves her new bed!

Now my husband is going to make a queen sized bed for us, and I can't wait! It will be wonderful!