Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to my dear crafty friends and your families! I wish you all a beautiful holiday and a happy, healthy, crafty New Year!!

Personally, I have already received the best gift I could EVER want... my beautiful Ava! :-)

Announcement customized with Smilebox

Introducing Ava Mary, my angel!!!

If someone had told me last Thanksgiving that by this Thanksgiving, I'd have a newborn baby, I'd call you lots of names and laugh at you. But guess what........ I have a newborn! LOL! It just seems like last week that I posted about our pregnancy and suddenly, it's almost December! My original due date was December 1st (which is tomorrow), but baby girl is already here!!! Due to some complications, my OB decided to induce me at 37 weeks on November 9th and baby was here shortly after!

(a few minutes after her arrival)

Ava Mary arrived at 8:08pm on Thursday, November 10. She weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and was 21 inches long. Healthy as can be and sooooo beautiful!!!

(getting ready to go home!)

The labor was not quite what I had expected and was a bit rough, but she is here and healthy and I am fine and healthy (though still recovering, so taking it easy), so it was worth it! She will be 3 weeks old tomorrow already (oh my goodness!!) and is growing so fast. I am still trying to figure out life with a newborn in my house. I was blessed to have my mother make it here to Florida from PA in time for her grand arrival, so I had some help for the first week that we were home. Then the rest of my family from PA (father, sister, uncle, stepdad) came down to meet her and to spend Thanksgiving with us all. Sadly, they all went back to PA on Saturday so it's just me and baby now. Someday I'll figure out how to organize my time with her, but for now, I'm just enjoying her!!!!!

Sooooooooooo, hopefully sometime soon, I'll get back to crafting and posting on a more regular basis. The past 9 months have been so hectic and crazy, so for that, I deeply apologize! I managed to get out on Black Friday to get some new supplies to encourage me to get back in my crafting room and I know that for Christmas, I will be getting some more neat crafting/scrapping stuff, so I just have to get to it, eh? :-)

I do want to thank you all for sticking with me through the past 9 months; for understanding why I've been MIA and for all of the sweet comments on my blog and on my FB! It really makes me smile to know that I'm surrounded (even if only virtually) by lots of love and support of all of you that I now consider friends!!!!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are preparing for a beautiful holiday season and I can't wait to catch up with you all soon!!!

An Event for my northeast Florida/Jacksonville followers!

Hey everyone! I know I need to get back on here to do a real update soon, but I wanted to get on quick to share a really neat event that's going on in the northeast Florida/Jacksonville area for anyone who follows me and is from here or is around the area!

My great friend Shirley (follow her on Facebook!) (or her blog!)planned an event called "Community Card Making Event for Our Soldiers" that'll be this Friday, October 21 all day long!! Here is the info from her Facebook event page:

Time	Friday, October 21 · 10:00am - 11:00pm
Location	Journey Church 6225-2 Lake Gray Blvd Jacksonville, FL
Created By	Shirley Wright
More Info	Operation Write Home supports our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them. PLEASE SHARE AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!!!!!! I ask you RSVP by calling me at home: 904-771-9744. Please call by Tuesday Oct 18 so the snack boxes can be ordered and the space set up. Bring what you would like to work on, crop space is available for $15 or Drop off what you've made. Don't forget your extension cords!! Drop off at Journey Church on the day of the event or contact Shirley Wright to make arrangements. Cards will NOT be accepted after the event date. There are strict shipping guidelines to make sure our Heroes get the cards on time. Cards must be handmade, cannot have glitter, and be 4.25 x 5.5. No store bought or hand written sentiments. Click this link for more guideline information: http://operationwritehome.org/guidelines.html IF IN DOUBT PLEASE ASK. I would hate for you to spend time making cards and they can't be sent. Letters written to heroes are also accepted at the same location! The small fee charged at the door is to cover the costs of the church resources we consume and shipping involved for sending the cards to the distributor. All proceeds will be donated directly back to the church. The fee includes a Subway Sandwich, cookie and chips. Beverages are available onsite.

I think this is an AWESOME event and while I know that I cannot attend personally, I will be working on some cards to at least drop off on Friday!

If you are in the area, please try to go to this! And if you're not, but you know you have followers in the NE Florida area, please share this on your blogs or your FB pages! It's a great event for a great cause being organized by a great person, so why not!!! :-)

Never Forget

Hello! :-) I'm baaaaack!

First, my apologies. I've been MIA... again... for far too long. I still do read everyone's blogs and follow you all on Facebook, but the energy to type much more than a quick status update has been escaping me. Except on the days that I DO have the energy, I focus that on doing things around my home that need to get done in preparation for Baby Girl's arrival!!

Speaking of, I am FINALLY in the 3rd trimester! :-) Have had SO many ups and downs with this, my first pregnancy, but I am still so excited for her arrival. We have some new things that we are dealing with, but I am doing well and baby girl is growing well! We had an ultrasound yesterday and she is SUPER active and beautiful already! In less than 3 months (I suspect), she'll be here!!!!

So here's my update on crafting and on life in general since it's been almost 2 months AGAIN since my last update.

LIFE/BABY:

We are getting the house ready for Ava's arrival. This meant packing up my scrapbooking room/spare bedroom and moving the scrapbooking to the dining room.

This was my craft room (kinda before... the table and the storage units were already moved).

This is the dining room after the move, before the set up.

The new set up in the dining room...

Then, a couple of weekends ago, hubby and his dad painted the now-known-as nursery pink and set up all the furniture. I did a pseudo set up of the linens in the room to see how it looks (of course it's not done), but here are the results.

(I had some random character's made up from my niece's visit last fall, so I hung those on the door.)

I still have A LOT to do in her room, but I feel much better knowing that she has a room of her own!

Other than that, it's just been trying to keep up with the regular household stuff and trying to take it easy (since I've been threatened with bedrest... EEK!).

CRAFTING

Now, on to what I started this for... my crafting life!

Well, there really isn't one lately. Besides moving my room and setting back up (and getting organized), I haven't done much. I did a visit with a friend and made some cards back in July, but that's it.

But, in trying to get re-motivated, I did attend the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention that is here in my city of Jacksonville this weekend today with a great friend of mine! We didn't do any of the classes (we missed the deadline) so we just attended the vendor show, but it was still a great time! Got a lot of inspiration, found a lot of stuff that I wanted to buy (but refrained from.... I've got bigger things to spend my money on for right now and her name is Ava. LOL!), and seemed to have gotten the bug again. Not necessarily like I had it before, but definitely enough to want to get back in there and play some more. Especially with my favorite season and holidays coming up soon, Ava's arrival (and all that will come with that .... thank you cards, memory books for her, etc.), I think it's my season for scrapbooking/crafting!

I did purchase a few things that I haven't seen in any of my local scrapbooking stores or big box stores (clear acrylic albums, some awesome embossing powder, etc), so perhaps this weekend I may get to those.

I do hope to get back into this again soon to be posting videos and projects and photos for all of you beautiful people who have continued to follow me, despite me being so absent lately!! I appreciate each of you and I promise that I will be back VERY soon with something awesome to show my thanks!!!!! :-) So stay tuned!

Until then, my friends....

Update... mostly on Baby!

I am amazed at how quickly the time is flying by since I've been pregnant, but suddenly, it's been almost two months since I last updated! I check in to read up when I can, but never get around to writing much, so here I am.....

Since my last update, we have gone on a vacation to Pennsylvania to see my family, had many baby doctor appointments and some milestones, some low points, and some high points, so here we go! This will mostly be baby-related, as I still haven't had the energy to get in my craft room....

Last week, after returning from PA, we had our almost-20 week ultrasound to check on the baby and all is perfect! Two hands, two feet, saw the heartbeat and the spine and the belly and all that cute stuff!

Here's a photo of baby, looks like sucking its thumb!

And then, here's our acrobat! Feet up in the air, butt wiggling around, and head at the bottom. :-)

And here's what I was waiting for...................

IT'S A GIRL!

We have already picked out her name: Ava Mary. :-)

This was such a huge day for us. Jon could hardly keep his excitement in. He started calling people to tell them as soon as we got out of the doctor's office!

So, seeing her has definately made pregnancy so much more fun and exciting. We started our registries and started picking up little things here and there. It's so real now!!!

To make it even more real:: I started to feel her move! I was worried because I hadn't felt her but suddenly, last week, I did! SOOOOO AMAZING!

I still struggle with some morning sickness (still on meds for it) and now am dealing with elevated blood pressure and a horrible cough (not sure if it's a cold or a by-product of acid reflux), but honestly, it's all worth it! Once we got to see baby girl, I realized that it is all worth it!!!

~~~~~~

In the excitement (and exhaustion) of everything that my body is going through for the past 20 weeks, I still have not spent more than 10-15 minutes in my craft room. I think I'm in mourning because I know that in the next few months, it will no longer be my craft room as that will become the nursery and my craft room will be moved to the dining room until I find a more permanent solution. I go in and just look around and imagine what it'll look like very soon and it's soooooo weird to think that it'll be Ava's room soon!!!

In trying to get me back in the spirit of crafting, Jon let me order some new cartridges from CricutMachine.com when they were having their 4th of July sale ($17.76 on most carts), and they arrived today, so I THINK I may actually go play tonight.

(sorry it's sideways; I can't turn it)

I got My Community, Car Decals, and Sesame Street Font. (Can ya tell I'm getting in kid mode? LOL!)

We'll see what I come up with. :-)

I hope you are all well!

Could it be? A real update?? YES IT IS! A long one, too!

*deep breath*

First, I must apologize for my longer-than-anticipated absence from my blog. Needless to say, LIFE IS CRAAAAZY and sadly, the first thing to fall off the wagon was my hobby and all that comes with it.... including the blog. But, hopefully, this update will help everyone understand where I've been! :-) Let me go back to March.

In the beginning of March, I got a jury duty notice. I'd never had jury duty before, so I wasn't quite sure what to think about it, but it's my civic duty, so... on March 21st, I reported to the courthouse for jury selection. In my county, they only do selection on Monday's for the week's trials. This meant, 400+ people in one room getting selected to go to the court rooms for questioning. Luckily, I was in the second group to get called. We walk to the courtroom and selection begins. Fast forward about 2 hours and it was "Hi, my name is Carol and I'm juror #7 on a civil trial." So, for the next three days, I was sitting on a jury for a very heated, difficult, and exhausting trial. I can actually say though, that I really enjoyed it!! I'm not saying I'd volunteer for this duty, but it was such a learning experience and I really have a greater respect for our country's judicial system!

On March 24th, my first day after jury duty, I realized that something was missing from my life....... ladies, you understand. So that morning, I got up really early and this is what I found.

So.... that began a whole new world for me. Doctor's appointments and a few freak outs, but yes, hubby and I are expecting! After a few ultrasounds, it has been determined that we are due on December 1st. I am so ecstatic and afraid and happy and nervous... all at the same time!

What's the first thing hubby wanted to do after we found out? Of all things...........

Yes, that's right. He wanted us to buy a van! He's wanted a van since we first got married, but I firmly rebelled.... until now. We wouldn't have enough room in my little car for all of us (gotta count the dog), so I caved in and bought my very first brand new car! It's a Kia Sedona and as much as I hate to say it, I LOVE IT! Oh what have I become?

After we found out, I needed to plan a trip back to PA to tell my family. I went there for a week and my family is out of this world happy!!! I got to spend some great time with my beautiful niece! Aunt Carol even introduced this cute little almost-three year old to PLAY-DOH (which she calls her "colors"). Mommy wasn't too excited about this, but isn't that what aunts are for??

I also gave the little angel her birthday present a little early. It's a pen that reads books out loud for her and there's games and music on it. It comes in a little backpack that she never wanted to take off!!

My father's birthday was the week after I was to come back to FL, so we had a family celebration for him while I was home so I could actually be there for it! It was nice to be home for his party!!

I returned to FL in time for my first OB appointment and got my second ultrasound done. We got to see the little peanut AND we got to hear his/her heartbeat! What an AMAZING experience!! Both Jon and I were in tears! It's so incredible to think that there's a little tiny person with a heartbeat inside of me!

So that's the big reason I've been MIA so much lately..... this baby is kicking my butt! I've had horrible horrible morning sickness for the past few weeks to the point that there are often days that I am afraid to move because I know it's going to make me sick. I think I have finally found a few things that settle my stomach, so I'm going to try to work these into a routine so I can start getting back to normal.... at least until I get past this part of the pregnancy. :-)

LOL! When I think I found something that actually stayed down, my hubby went nuts and bought lots of it! Yes, that's ginger ale, saltines, sprite, and salt and vinegar chips!!!

When I finally had a day that I felt somewhat human and had some energy, I got into my scrap room as soon as I could! I wanted to make my Mother's Day cards before Mother's Day passed. I was so happy to get back in there. You don't realize how much you can miss a hobby until you're away from it for a month or more and finally get back to it!

Here is one of the cards that I made. I am so happy with how it turned out!

So, to finish up this looooooooooooong, but needed update, I will hopefully have LOTS to share with you after this weekend. For part of my Mother's Day gift, my hubby is sending me to a weekend long scrapbooking event at a camp near my city that's being hosted by a local scrapbook supply store! It starts at noon on Friday and it goes until 4pm on Sunday! I'm going with a new friend of mine and we are staying on-site. There is no internet access (even from my phone), so I won't be updating over the weekend, but as soon as I get home, get unpacked and get photos done, I'll share what I make!! I've never been to a scrapbooking event before, so I'm very excited. I have no idea what to take with me, but I'm still excited!!!

I hope this update helps you understand why I've been missing.... It's not that I don't still love my hobby, but baby and mommy's health comes first. :-)

I promise to try to stop in at least a bit more to post, but please know that I appreciate all of my followers and I still read all of your blogs as often as I can, even if I'm not posting or commenting!

Happy Crafting, everyone!

An E2 Giveaway!

The wonderful ladies over at Everyday Cricut are doing a giveaway for the cool new E2!

They will be giving away a new Cricut Anniversary Expression 2 on Monday night, during their live Ustream event, starting at 8:05 pm (central time)! There's also some other fantastic giveaway items that they'll be giving away during the UStream, so its worth entering and joining in on Monday night!

Take an Easter HOP over to their blog to enter to win!! :-)

To all of my crafting friends...

Mini Vacay!

Wanted to leave a little post on here to let you all know that I'm going to be MIA for a little while, friends! I know that I have slacked on my life AND craft updates and I PROMISE it'll come soon!! I have SO much to share with you all! But, I am going to be out of town for the next week or so to go visit my family back in Pennsylvania and there is pretty much NO cell service and very limited internet (which is kinda nice every now and then!).

If I have a chance on a down family day, I may try to hop on to do a quick update, but no guarantees!!

Until my return, HAPPY CRAFTING!!!!

Wow! WELCOME to all of my new friends and followers!

I haven't been able to get on my blog for the past week or so because life got in the way (jury duty and some family stuff), and I hopped on today to see what's going on and I suddenly have a TON of new follower (THANK YOU, MOMO!!) So I wanted to do a quick post to say WELCOME to my crazy little crafting world!

I will try to do a more substantial update on my life and my crafts this evening at some point because there's a lot to write about (find me on Facebook if you want to know now! ;-))!

Thank you all for finding, friending, and following me!!

Busy Bee Book

Happy Friday!!!

I wanted to hop on here quickly to share a cute little project with you all that I made the night before last for my dearest husband. :-) I have been working on some spring cleaning and re-organizing my craft room (the never ending task, I think!) and realized that I have several tools that I purchased but haven't used yet, so I wanted to create something to try out these tools....

So, to give a bit of background on this book and why I giggle when I look at it: I often tell my husband that I want more help around the house. He, on the other hand, is always saying that he wants to help, but often can't "see" the little things that I would like to get done, so to help him, I am often leaving little notes or lists around the house, but those are often ignored overlooked. Soooo... here's what I made!

I'm calling it my hubby's "Busy Bee Book"

I made it using the YourStory (for the first time!), Martha Stewart hot glue gun (for the first time!), the Crop-A-Dile Big Bite, Inkadinkadoo chalks, and the Create A Critter cartridge.

I printed out the mini-lists on the computer and cut them to size. Then, I created the book cover using a heavy cardstock. I then put a line of hot glue in the seam of the book and let it cool. Once it was hardened and cool, I dropped it into the YourStory on "bind" mode and pushed the papers gently into the glue. Once it was done and had time to cool, I decorated it with the Create a Critter bee and phrase and finished those off with some chalks!

With this, unless hubby throws away loses the book, his little to-do list will always be easy to find! :-)

So, for a quick review of the two items that I used for the first time:

1. The YourStory ROCKS! I had played around with some laminating earlier in the day and love it!! This was the first binding that I had done and it did a great job. Even with it being a very unprofessional spine and cover, the paper is really in there and doesn't seem like it's coming out any time soon!

2. The MS hot glue gun is amazing! I'm used to the glue guns that kind of sputter and the glue is all webby and sticks to everything. NOT WITH THIS ONE! The gun heated up quite quickly, the glue came out very smooth and there was no webbing pulling away from the product!

With that said, this is the first time I used either of these, so I might have just been on a new-product high, but they really do seem like great products. :-)

Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a beautiful weekend!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May your blessings outnumber

The shamrocks that grow,

And may trouble avoid you

Wherever you go.

~Irish Blessing

My first Spinner Card and some layouts

In reading through my fellow crafter's blogs tonight, I came across Michelle's tutorial at Scrappin with My Bug on how to make Spinner Card.... so I had to try it! :-)

Not too shabby for my first one!! It was actually very easy to make, thanks to Michelle's instructional video!!!! I need to work on my measurements a bit (my spinner pops off every now and then), but I love it!

I also wanted to share two quick layouts that I'm super-proud of!

The first is one of last Easter when I was in PA with my family there. We held a little family Easter egg hunt for my cute niece, so this is my layout for that event.

This second one is my favorite one that I've done so far! The photos are from Christmas 2009 in PA when my niece was only one and a half.... and my husband started dipping her pacifier in the icing that we were using to decorate the gingerbread houses. Needless to say, he quickly became her favorite person of the day!! :-)

I hope y'all are having a happy, crafting evening! Thanks for stopping by!

An FYI Video about Using BIA wires with a Cinch

I didn't know if the wires made especially for the Bind-It-All would line up correctly with my Cinch binding tool.... so I tried it and made a video for whoever may have the same question I did. :-)

Haul Video

Here's a video to share some of my recent finds!! :-) Sorry about the wacky volume and the low volume on my voice. I dunno why that happened because I was standing right next to the mic. :-(

Awards, Awards, Everywhere!

Good afternoon, friends!! :-)

I logged on to my FB and my blog this afternoon and was greeted with lots of LOVE!!! I received three, yes, THREE awards from some dear blogging friends!

First, Gina over at Gina's Crafting Spot gave me the

Thank you, Gina!!!! You have to go check out her super-cute blog!

The requirements for this award are post three things about you that people don't know and then pass the blog award on to 5 people, so here I go!

1. I moved to Florida all by myself when I was 24. This was 1,000 miles away from where I grew up and I had never even visited or vacationed in Florida before!

2. I met my husband online in 2006! *GASP*

3. I have been collecting pens since before college. I have quite a few boxes of them. It's not that I don't want to use them.... but they are so awesome that I'm afraid I'll never find them again!

Now, my 5 recipients:

1. Mari (aka Momo) at Made By Momo

2. Christel at One Scrappin Sista

3. Debbie at DD's Crafts

4. Ruthie at September Ninth

5. Melissa at Disney Dreamer Designs

~~~~~~~~~

Then Tanya at Scrappin KY Momma gave me two more awards!

and

For this one, I'm supposed to share 8 [more] things about myself and then pay it forward to 8 recipients, so here we go:

1. I only started scrapbooking and paper crafting because I didn't know what else to do with the thousands of photos that I have.

2. I am a gadget geek. I love gadgets and electronics!

3. My sister is my best friend.

4. I have visited every state on the east coast of the USA, but never been further west than West Virginia.

5. If I don't get at least 9 hours of sleep a night, I'm quite a grump.

6. I am totally hooked on watching "Cops" and all the other Cop-like shows!

7. Most of my favorite movies are kids movies or cartoons.

8. I am scared to death of all bugs.

How are those for random facts about me?? :-)

Now to share with 8 blogger friends:

1. Joy at JoysLife.com

2. Michelle at Queen of my Craftroom

3. Kassidy at Inking It Up Crazy

4. Laurie at Hiding in My Craft Room

5. Julie at Cricut Chick

6. Tangee & Tammy at Kricut Krazy

7. Tina & Wendy at Two Chics and a Cricut

8. Alex at You Had Me At Craft

~~~~~

Thank you for thinking of me with these awards, Tanya and Gina!!!

Pop on by all of these great blogs and check them out!! And if you're one of my recipients, please pay it forward!

Great Giveaway at Keepsakes by Melissa

Melissa over at Creating from the Heart: Keepsakes by Melissa is doing a fantastic giveaway!! The prize candy of her giveaway is:

Brother CP-7500 Computerized Sewing Machine

1 Sew Easy Tool

Sew Easy Mat

Sew Easy Thread in Pinks and Blues

How great is that prize package? So head on over and enter to win this great prize!