Craft it Forward

My friends at BHG Scrapbooks Etc. came up with a really cool idea a few months back- you might have seen it in one of the recent issues- "Craft it Forward" (CiF) where they challenge readers to "make a difference through papercrafting!" Every month they have a fun challenge to make a project for a charity. You can go to craftforward.com and learn about each of the monthly craft it forward challenges and even enter your craft it forward projects to win $500 for you and a charity of your choice! How cool is that.

With Memorial Day this past weekend and the 4th of July just around the corner it is the perfect time to say THANKS to our troops. The theme for this Craft it Forward is Patriotic Thank You Cards. The BHG gang put together a blog hop of all kinds of CiF projects to inspire you to say Thanks to our troops! Find out more about the blog hop at the BHG Scrapbooks Etc. Blog. I made this quick and easy card that will be sent off to a special someone who I want to thank for all they give to protect our country! Hopefully you will be inspired to do the same.

Supplies: Stamp- Heidi Swapp; Card Base, Colored Stamp Ink, Zing! Embossing Powder- American Crafts; Blue Patterned Paper- Making Memories; Red Patterned Paper- Jillibean Soup; Grey Patterned Paper- Little Yellow Bicycle

I am not much of a stamper and certainly not much of an embosser, but I found that embossing is pretty darn easy, so I just stamped with some ink and then tossed 3 colors of zing on the paper, tapped off the excessive and hit it real quick with my heat gun... super super easy!

There's lots more to see, so continue on in the blog hop by hopping over to ... Ranger Ink's Blog (speaking of inking and stamping!)

Have fun hopping around!

Weather Man

Eli is our little weather fanatic- he loves to watch the weather channel, and is contstantly updating us on the status of the weather- "Mom it is raining" has been uttered more times than any of us care to have heard this spring! He actually loves thunderstorms and to sit and watch the lightning and listen for the thunder!

Today is the anniversary of when we boarded the plane headed for the Ukraine- 5/22/2007 - to adopt this precious little boy. I ask him if he liked thunderstorms when he was in the doma (Ukrainian for orphanage) and he tells me he liked to sit by the window there too! I think maybe it was a little calm in his world at the time!

If you want to read about our adventure in the Ukraine you can visit the blog we kept from that time HERE. Can't believe it has already been 4 years... CA- RAZY! As I often say- I am so glad I never decided "not to adopt" because I never really decided to- my husband did- I just never decided not to! Best decision I never made!

all good things...

For the last 2 years I was apart of the amazing design team at Jillibean Soup. Jill has created such an amazing company and I admire her so much. When it came time to re-apply I made the difficult decision not to (although to be fair- with all the great talent out there and the amazing new DT she has put together who knows if I would have even been asked back!) My 2 years working with JBS was simply fun and easy--- just what scrapbooking should be! Here are my last 2 layouts done for the JBS blog!



Oh... and the saying this week around here---- Happy Derby!