Post Vacation Blues

As you may well remember I was very excited to go visit my sister and her family in their new home in Vancouver, Washington.  It's not been my favorite not being able to go see them whenever I want. However their new home is beautiful!  Truman and I also brought along with us the sunshine.  It rained the day before we got in and then decided to be sunny until the day after we left!  It made for a wonderful time since we wanted to go see some of the waterfalls in Portland as well as visit some breweries downtown.  We also had the chance to check out some great farmer's markets and the scenery was gorgeous!  Really sad our Roxy dog had to miss out.  Since returning home I've done nothing useful at all...hey I was already missing my family what can I say?!  However I did get a whole lot of cool stuff at an adorable antique shop in a little Washington town and at a craft store there too.  Guess I better get to using all the cool new stuff!

We spent three hours here

Truman at the Bridge of the Gods

Halen enjoying herself

Family picnic

One of the falls

Beer sampler at The Kells Irish Pub in Portland

Excitement!

My haul from the craft store, antique store, and farmer's market

A great old suitcase I got at the antique shop!  So excited to fill it with albums

Completed!

It seems I've had a lot going on in the last few weeks with baby showers, memorials, and projects for friends.  I've finally finished those and can now focus on this weeks fun...VISITING MY SISTER!!!!!!!!!  Can you tell I'm excited?!  Still a lot to do in the last day or so but I'm so happy to get to see her so soon!  So since I will be gone I thought I would do a post to show you some pictures of the most recent projects including a picture of the art journal project I've been trying to do.  I just finished Week 5 (yes I'm aware of how far behind I am but I'm hoping to start on Week 6 tonight, if I can get somewhat packed that is ).  I also hope I will have some great pictures from my trip to share next time.  Have a great week everyone and see you on the other side!

Taking time out for wine tasting with friends

I am Irish after all

Not sure if I posted this but if not this is the diaper cake I made

The Wishes For Baby jar

The only picture I got of the final product

The items I got from my first swaps

The shadow box I did for my friend of her dog

Week Five: Building Character

Finally Listed!

Today is the day!  I finally posted some projects on my Etsy shop!  Now it's only a few items but it's better than nothing, right?!  If you want to check them out there's a link off to the right side.  Bear with me as I've never done this before so it's a new adventure.  Here's hoping everything works as it should. Enjoy!

Mini envelope and tags

Grab bags!

Contents of grab bags

Busy Times

At least it feels like busy times however I have a sneaking suspicion I don't know how to manage my time.  I've been working on items for my cousins upcoming baby shower and I just finished those last night.  I was up later than expected because of course tax season is here and there is inevitably some form I forget (or I forget to remind Truman we need).  So that being done I plan on moving on to a shadowbox project a friend of mine was wanting me to do for her dog.  I'm excited to start and the goal is to get it done before I go visit my sister in April.  It's good to have goals, right?  As far as the items for my Etsy shop are concerned I hope to get them posted shortly.  I need to make sure the Paypal account works first but I will let you all know when I have posted them in case you're interested in any of them. Then maybe I can get back to the art journal project which has been sitting in the corner taunting me for weeks.  I hope everyone had a fun St. Patrick's Day too.  Until next time...

The diaper cake 

A jar and tags for wishes for baby

Hanging handmade raindrops from paper parasols

Three small handmade notebooks for the Etsy shop

My love and I enjoying lunch and green beer on St. Patrick's Day

The lovely meal a friend made us, corned beef, roasted cabbage and potatos. So good!!!

Swap Confidence

Hope the past weekend was lovely for everyone. I had an absolute blast at the wedding this past weekend and it was so nice to have a little break. I did not however finish the items for the swap the day my friend came over, did you really think I would ;-) I did however finish them when I got home Sunday night because I had to mail out baby shower invites and saw no need to go to the post office twice. The hostess received the package and was kind enough to rave about them even going to far as to say it inspired her to go add to her swap project! So exciting! So much so that I signed up for another swap (thanks Melanie for the encouragement) even before I received anything from this swap. I think it's fair to say that I'm addicted. It's also got me making a few projects for my Etsy shop that I have neglected for a year or so...I'm horrible I know. Sometimes all you need is a little encouragement from a stranger and support from your friends of which I have so many good ones! I was even asked to do another project for a friend whom I had done something for previously...a repeat customer! Now to stick to a schedule to get all these projects started. I'm so inspired I just hope I can get everything in my head out in a project quick enough.  Maybe after that I'll get back to that art journal page...

Altered puzzle piece

My favorite, could have something to do with the colors...

Altered envelope.  I did four different ones but this was my favorite.  Super simple.

My love and I at the latest wedding in yet another borrowed dress

The adorable couple

One of my three accomplices with the decorated bedroom of the newlyweds!

Life sometimes gets in the way...

I am well aware that living life is what makes creating art about it possible.  But sometimes I really wish the world would disappear for a week and all I had to do was create while someone periodically brought me food and coffee drinks.  Alas that is not the case so I'm trying to create things in between other obligations, like laundry, or weddings, or baby things (no not mine).  Of course me being me, I keep signing up for more projects on a particular swap because it just sounds fun so there!  Well here is a preview of a few of the projects I've done for said swap and here's hoping the rest will be completed tonight when a friend of mine is coming over to scrap.  We will see, I'm not very productive when others are here :-)  After that maybe I can finish up week 3 of the art journal challenge (seriously 4 weeks behind, or is it 5) then start packing for the next wedding and oh yeah take care of that baby I said I would...
And PS, thanks to my sister and her family for the pack of Valentines goodies!

Altered key

Made the labels with cardstock and a stamp

Punched a circle from pretty paper to make a charm

First try at a stuffed heart, think I like paper better

Yes, I like paper better

Sorry I forgot to take a picture pre-package

My favorite

My love and I at the wedding this past weekend

New York Love

So I'm back from glorious, snowy New York!  I was very sad to leave since my cousin and I had a great time finding Irish pubs and seeing the sights.  The hotel room had a beautiful view of Times Square and Central Park covered in snow is so beautiful.  It hasn't been the best of return weeks either, although I did miss my pets, husband and warm weather.  I'm recovering from a horrid stomach bug and sadly we just lost my grandmother yesterday, a day after her 84th birthday.  She was a wonderful woman and we will all really miss her.  I'm horridly behind on all the art journal prompts from the Journal 52 project as well as laundry.  I am now prepping some pieces and parts for a swap I'm doing so I'll hopefully have something new to show you with those soon.
In the meantime here are the photos as promised of the gifts I made for my cousin.  I made her a photo album for her to put pictures from our trip in.  I used a photo I took a little over a year ago when Truman and I went to New York on the cover.  There were 20 pages!  I couldn't load all the pictures so I just chose a few of my favorites.  I also made her a wine cork keychain (inspired by my sisters gift to me).  She likes navy blue, wine, and football so I tried to incorporate it all.  Lastly I'm including a few photos from the trip just so you can have a peek ;-)  Enjoy this Valentines Day and your weekend!

Birthday keychain

8X8 Photo Album

A close up on one of the pages

We had pizza and beer under the Brooklyn Bridge

Fish and Chips at an Irish Pub off Broadway

Our favorite pub off of Wall Street