A Ground Breaking Week! :)

After over a year of daydreaming, scheming and planning the designs for our new house, it was seriously exciting to take a big step towards it becoming a reality this week with breaking ground! Yipee! My daughter said as we pulled up and saw them digging a bit earlier than planned on Monday afternoon I had the biggest smile plastered across my face. I'll take her word for it...

We were blessed with particularly nice weather all week long and what was supposed to be a one-day excavation (although I never thought that would be possible) has turned into a 5-day excavation. These photos were taken around lunchtime on day 3. Now he has one more day of digging and then they will be ready to pour foundation (insert another happy dance by me). :)

Due to the intense slope from left to right on our lot in the backyard we have decided to bring in a couple rock walls in an effort to level it out and make the backyard more useable so they are building the wall now while they can still get their big machinery in before the foundation gets in the way...

Here is a lovely picture showing the sad reality of our new driveway. It may stink for rollerblading and riding a bike without flipping over the handlebars, but it will be awesome for winter sledding (Maybe Yoshi will finally be forced to give up and stay home on icy snow days--Yeah!)

This last picture is just an amazing cross-section of our soil. It sort of looks wet, but it's clay soil that has proven to be difficult to dig through. Sort of like a beautiful sculpture actually, but the culprit for our "one-day excavation" turning into 5 days. :)

So exciting!
God is good! :)

Craft Warehouse Design Team Assignment #3

I was so excited to learn that the design team would be working with Crate Paper's new "Farmhouse" collection this month. The colors completely were calling my name--So yummy!

For this assignment we were asked to make a layout using the collection along with American Crafts Thickers and Tim Holtz Resist Kraft Paper (see on the typewriter print leaves paired with distress inks and again using one of the backsides for the layout base)...

For our second assignment we were asked to create a sign using this wood plaque and the vinyl phrase. Unfortunately this sign is a bit busy in print and sort of an oxymoron given what it says, but I wanted to try and achieve the look of a random homemade quilt with blocks of space to house the adorable cutouts.

To create the pattern I taped two pieces of printer paper together and then traced around the oval shape of the plaque and then got my ruler out and began to trace rectangles onto the shape like a puzzle. I used the ruler so I could plan everything to the nearest 1/8" or 1/4" to make my life easier. After that I just set to work laying out the patterns so that they felt balanced. I did my best to keep the busiest patterns on the outside so that it didn't interfere with the vinyl phrase's readability.

For more detailed photos make sure to visit my gallery at Craft Warehouse's website HERE and check out the rest of the team's fabulous work HERE

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Two Peas September's Stretch Your Sketch

I'm just now getting around to sharing my take on this month's Stretch Your Sketch Challenge by Jennifer Gallacher over at 2Peas.

Here's the sketch she challenged us with...


And here's my take on it...




I searched through my photos looking for anything that might work and I came across these photos of my nephew from years ago. Then I found the doodlebug paper in the perfect shade of blue and the rest just fell into place. So happy to finally have these sweet photos finally in an album (and I actually kind of enjoyed doing a boyish page for a change). :)

Supplies:
Doodlebug Patterned Paper
Bazzill Basics Cardstock
Papertrey Ink Stamps (car)
Technique Tuesday Stamps ("sweet")
Versafine Ink
Basic Grey Label Stickers
American Crafts Thickers
Making Memories Alpha Type Stickers
Making Memories Buttons
Die-Namics Bracket Label Die
Other: Thread, Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! :)

My 2nd Craft Warehouse Design Team Assignment

I'm finally getting around to sharing my second assignment for the Craft Warehouse Design Team. You can see more of my past projects I've made for them here and more descriptions here

This month we had the pleasure of working with some of Jillibean Soup's new lines and their fun 6x6 paper pads!

We were asked to create a layout and card with Apple Cheddar Soup...

... And Christmas Cards with Christmas Eve Chowder

A Photo Card...




















A Gift Card Holder...

A Designer's Choice Card... 

And for our last card we were asked to design a simple card that would be quick and easy to mass produce for all the friends and family on your mailing list.  :)

Make sure to visit the other design team members gallery pages to see other great ideas using these fun products found at your local Craft Warehouse!

Thanks for peeking. :)