I don’t know why, but just saying this to myself and writing this actually helps me feel better about not doing it..lol weird I know, but it’s like I have to tell someone else (like all five of my blog readers…lol) that I am taking a break in order to make it official and for it to not stress me out somehow…

Anyway, I hope to be back in a couple of months in full creative force~!!

Peace, Love, & Happy Creating,
April

P.S. Since this is my last post for a good while – I wanted to share some of my favorite pics from our trip to Sea World and the Alamo earlier this June!

{Sea World}

* Castor clapped at every show!

* Me and Patty

* Memphis, Logan, Colbie, and Charlie!

* Memphis stood at the Piranha tank for like 20 minutes and told every one who stopped by everything he knew about Piranha’s!

* We were wet most of the day so you can’t say anything about my hair okay…

{The Alamo}

* This tree was amazing!!

* Memphis and Charlie doing what they do best…

* My sweet babies!

* Crystal and Colbie

* Honestly she just takes my breath away…

* I love the look on Castor’s face and his little feet!!

* Memphis was thrilled to be eating at one of the restaurants shown on Man vs. Food!

I have been working on some much overdue thank you notes and just wanted to share the technique I used to create them!

* First, I ran some pre cut Kraft cardstock cards through the cuttlebug to emboss the fronts.
* Second, I colored over the embossed area using dark colored craypas
* Third, I used light colored acrylic paints to paint over the embossed craypa area …waited about a minute – and then used a paper towel to rub off the acrylic paint. (I found it works best if you rub in a circular motion). This leaves you with sort of watercolor stone washed effect. If you rub lightly only only a little of the paint will come off – if you rub harder then more of the paint will come off and more of the craypa color will show through.)
* Fourth, I sprayed the front of each card with a mixture of water and Ranger’s perfect pearls to give it lots of shimmer! (unfortunately it’s a little hard to see the sparkle due to the scan…but I promise it’s there!)
* Last, I brushed on a light coat of Glossy Gel Medium to seal the whole thing and make it shiny!

(I also tore off a piece of metal tape – stamped a word image on it – and then colored it in using a Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze pen)

Peace, Love, & Happy Creating!
April

Seriously…it makes me so so sad seeing everything that we have found in the house and the overall condition and knowing that there were small children in there. I can’t really go into full detail of why everything is the way it is and why we are moving in there to begin with…but just trust me when I say we were out of choices and it is going to be a really cute little place once we finish cleaning it up and re-painting.

Anyway, I just spent three days up there trying to disinfect everything and although I made some progress…I really only touched the surface. I got the kitchen done anyway… I was thinking to myself I have cleaned before…but never never like this…In fact I actually came home sick yesterday because apparently using too much bleach can really mess you up. My hands are swollen…My eyes are swollen…Yes yes I know you are supposed to be careful with that stuff and I was, but I had to use lots of it in order to REALLY get stuff clean…clean enough that I would let my kids into the house that is.

I will be going back this weekend again to tackle more and I’m hoping I can finish. Scott is painting every room, ripping up the carpets and installing new floors, etc…

So it is going to take a little longer than I expected to get our little family back together under one roof, but I am looking forward to it!

* On a positive note – Scott and I found an AMAZING Thai restaurant in Harrison – like I have never had Thai this good before!!!

Love, Peace, & Happy Cleaning!! …oh I meant CREATING!! lol

* We found a house to rent this weekend and will be moving to Harrison, AR shortly. Castor got to enjoy some time with daddy in the pool so I thought I would share some of my favorite pics!

Since I have been doing a lot of driving lately, I had to put together some new tunes for travelin’ so here is a short list of some of the ones I have really been enjoying lately!

Peace, Love, & Happy Creating,
April

“Family at Christmas”

This was sort of a two part project…I actually made the background over a year ago by painting a sheet of chipboard, splattering it with more paint, adding some green felt, and then painting the felt as well. I set it aside and thought I would do something with it soon but never did.

The other day I found it and was instantly inspired to finish it and I ended up using a lot my little scraps and older scrapbook supplies to complete the layout – even though the picture was from this Christmas!

Main Supplies:
- Jaquard Lumiere Paint
- Fancy Pants Felt Shapes
- Hambly Screen Prints Overlay
- Hambly Screen Prints Christmas Decor Rub ons
- Ranger Distress Stickles
- Heidi Swapp Green Ghost Letter
- Bazzill Envelope
- Making Memories Decorative Brad (I painted it red)
- Tim Holtz mini staples and ticket
- 7gypsies metal clip
- House of Three “white” distressed rounded digital frame

* well I am off to find a new place for our little family to live so have a great week and Happy Creating!

Peace,
April