I'm baaaccckkk!!

Hello there!! I am back from my 3 week trip home to England to see family and friends, and to visit a nutritionist that specialises in Endo. I had such a wonderful time, and got to catch up with so many old friends- but gotta tell ya, I think I need a holiday to recover from that holiday, wow I was busy! Here's a quick run down of my adventures:

I landed in London on the Sunday and met up with one of my old school friends who lives down there and she was kind enough to take me out to a yummy restaurant for some good English grub (steak and ale pie!!) and then give up her bed to me for the night- thanks Bec!!!

Here we are at Liverpool St station, before we said goodbye and I headed off to my next stop....

On Monday, I had my appointment with Dian Shepperson-Mills. She is a nutritionist who specialises in healing endometriosis through diet and supplements. I found out about her through her book Endometriosis: A Key to Healing through Nutrition and had been wanting to be able to see her in person so I could get a plan from her set up just for me and my symptoms. I was really happy to be able to get an appointment with her while I was back, and it was well worth it. She had endo herself, and so completely understood when I was trying to describe or explain symptoms and pains I had experienced- I have always struggled to put some of it in to words so others could understand it, and she gave me the words- it was wonderful! Anyway, without going into too much detail, we went over all my issues and developed a supplement and diet plan that  I am to follow for a month, and then I will have regular appointments with her on Skype where we'll discuss my progress and tweak the plan as needed. I have to admit to a shaky start to it though- I have to avoid wheat and cow's dairy, and well I was on holiday, in England near Christmas..... there were a lot of tempting treats I just couldn't resist. Now I'm home though, I am back on track and taking this really seriously. I really want to get off all my meds and be able to control this disease on my own, so I have to put the work in.

So, after London I got the train up to Norfolk on Monday evening and headed back to Mum and Dad's house. The next few days were filled with visiting family, shopping in Norwich, and just relaxing and catching up with my parents. Then on the Saturday, I headed up to the Midlands to stay with my best friend Dawn, and her husband and baby for a few days. Her baby, Madeleine, was christened on the Sunday, so we had lots to get done, making food for the party afterwards and getting everything set up. I was honoured to be asked to be Madeleine's Godmother, so Sunday was a very proud day for me, and I was so thankful I was able to make the trip and actually be there for her special day. Here's a pic of my little princess during the service, isn't she just adorable!

It was sooo cold in that church!!! The service was lovely though, as it was a christingle service also, and we sang Oh Little Town of Bethlehem at the end, which really got me in the Christmas spirit!! After the service we had a little reception/party at the village hall. Our other good friends, who I haven't seen since Dawn's wedding last year were there, and it was lovely to catch up with them. It's funny how I am apart from them for so long, and we really don't have that much contact when I'm at home here, but as soon as I am back with them in England, it's like no time has passed at all- we were chatting away like we'd only seen eachother yesterday!

Once the Christening was all over, I had another 2 days to spend with Dawn and Madeleine before I had to head back to Norfolk. We had a lovely time, taking Maddie to her swimming group, walking the dogs, going out for lunch, and having lots of baby play and cuddles. I fell in love with my little God Daughter so much in those 2 days, she's just such a happy little thing, but wow I did not realise how much hard work a baby is lol!!! If and when it does finally happen for us, we definately have a huge life change coming lol!!

Once I was back in Norfolk, I got to catch up with some more friends, had a lovely lunch with my friend Jo who was so sweet and had gone out to get stuff that fitted in my new meal plan and made me a lovely bacon and potato soup, using goats milk!! It was yuummmmy- and I would even go as far to say it rivalled Panera Bread's soup, it was that good!! I also got to go out for a meal with the friends in the pic above in Norwich, we went for a yuuummmmy carvery at a pub in a village just outside the city. We had so much fun there, I don't think I have laughed that much in ages!! I stayed at my friend Debbie's house that night and the next morning took her adorable puppy, Marley, out for a long walk in the woods, and then had a quick shopping trip before she took me home to Mum and Dad's.

On the Sunday, Mum put on an Early Christmas!! We had my grandparents over and had a lovely Christmas dinner, with christmas music playing in the background, followed by Christmas pudding and games! I really do miss not having christmas with family now we live out here, so it was so special to have that lovely day. On the Tuesday, I got to have a nice lunch and chat with my godmother, and then we met her husband, and Mum and Dad for a lovely meal in the evening. Then of course Mum and I had to fit in a trip to the new Hobbycraft store that just opened in Norwich!!! That night we had lots of fun drinking wine and making cards- I taught her some of the techniques I've learned the past couple of months and she loved it!!

Hard at work!!!

 A glass of White Zinfandel, and card making= heaven!!

Mum was very proud of the card I helped her make to put the Starbucks giftcard in that she is giving her friends for Christmas!!

I had such a lovely time with my family and friends, and I'm so thankful I was able to take the trip, and that hubby didn't mind being left at home working for 3 weeks while I was off playing :)

Gotta tell ya though, I was so happy when I landed back in LA and got to see my hubby and come home to my furry babies!!! California is truly home for me now, which just makes my heart smile :)

I have a busy few days ahead of me now, getting unpacked and set up for Christmas- so in case I don't get to post again before..... Merry Christmas to you all and your families xxxxx

PS- Hubby's got me the new Hero Arts catalogue as one of my pressies... can't wait to snuggle up in front of the tree on Christmas day and look at all the scrummy new stamps and inspiration from the designers, eeek!!!

A quick hello!

Phew, this has been a whirlwind trip so far! I got into London on Sunday afternoon, and haven't stopped since then with visiting with friends and family and of course a quick shopping trip in the city! I have a little alone time this afternoon as both of my parents are at work and I don't have anything arranged with anyone, so I'm recharging my batteries snuggled up in front of the fire with Mum's laptop.

I think I picked the wrong time to be out here, with all the issues the snow is causing! They are just not used to getting so much snow at once out here and the airports have been closed, trains not running and people getting stuck out on the roads- apparently they haven't heard of snow chains :-) I got here just in time though, as the day after I left London to head up to my parent's house in Norfolk was when the snow got down to London and ground everything to a halt. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it will have all cleared by this time next week or I might not be able to get my flight home back to California!!

It is beautiful here right now though, when you are not having to be outside braving the cold. I wanted to give you a little peak, so took this picture a little while ago out of my parents' bedroom window, overlooking the fields behind us.

My goodness, Mum's poor old computer just took about half an hour to upload that one photo so I think that will have to do for today lol!

Gotta run, my poor Dad is a postman (mailman) and has been out in the cold since 7am this morning trudging through the snow delivering letters, and he just got home- off to make him a nice hot cup of tea to warm him up!

Hopefully I'll be able to get online again soon. I'm going to stay with my best friend for a few days on Saturday and probably won't be able to get online, but will try to get some better photo's taken and up here next time.

Until then, hope you are all having a fab week!

Lynsey x

Leaving on a jet plane!!

...don't know when I'll be back again....lol! Well actually, I'll be back in 3 weeks as I'm almost finished packing for my trip to England tomorrow. I'm so excited to see family and friends again, and also for my appointment with the nutritionist in London who specializes in treating endometriosis. I'm sure I won't be taking her instruction on board immediately seeing as I have so many social events planned while I'm home, but I'm excited to hear what she has to say so I can get into it when I get back to the US and start taking control of my health.

My husband thinks I'm crazy as I keep adding a few more things here and there, and have a whole stash of stamping stuff in my case filling any little space I had left!! Does that mean I have an addiction?! lol! I really want to be able to teach my Mum all of the wonderful things I have been learning the past few months though, she's going to be my guinea pig at my first ever stamping class lol! I know we'll have so much fun with it as she likes cardmaking too, but just hasn't been introduced to stamping yet- I'm going to get her hooked like me!!

ha, I don't think I've ever typed lol so much in one post- can you feel my excitement ;-)

Anyway, just wanted to pop on and let you all know I won't have forgotten you, I just won't be able to get online as much. I will be taking lots of pics though, so will try to jump on from time to time and show you what I've been up to, and maybe some cards Mum and I have been creating!!

Wish me luck for my journey- once I arrive in London I have snow and Tube strikes to contend with!! Wish I could just hit the fast forward button and go straight to snuggling up in my parents living room in front of the fire with a cuppa!!

Oh, and still no final word on the house......ugh!

Have a great few weeks

Lynsey x

EIC challenge #115, and some Thanksgiving thoughts

The Etsy Inspired Challenge has some great inspiration this week over at Queen of Tarts Cakes Etsy store. The artwork on these cookies is just amazing, look at these...

Don't they just look too good to eat- though I'm sure they are delicious!

The challenge this week was to create a project inspired by this store, and using squares in honor of this week's sponsor Inchie Arts. I had so much fun with this, I ended up with 3 cards!! Once I got started with my square punch, I just couldn't stop creating lol!

The first image at Queen of Tarts that inspired me was this:

It immediately inspired me to pull out my Fern stamp and get stamping :) Here's the card I created for it below:

I heat embossed the fern stamp with shabby shutters distress embossing powder onto kraft paper, and then used my 1inch square punch to punch out three squares from the image and inked the edges in vintage photo and shabby shutters distress ink. I loved the beading look of the icing on the edges of the cookies too, so pulled out my scallop border punch and to create a white back panel, which I also inked slightly around the edges, and then adhered to the green card. I adhered the squares using foam squares, and then used my Crop-A-Dile tool to set the eyelets, adding a piece of inked kraft with the stamped sentiment. Finally I threaded the ribbon, and added ribbon tabs to the top of the card, and rounded the top corners using my Corner Chomper. I thought this will be a great card to use to write to my Grandfather, as most of my cards are quite feminine!

The next piece I used for inspiration was this beautiful plate of flower cookies:

This was the card I came up with, and with all that pretty pink I'll be entering it in the current challenge over at Wee Memories also!!

I heat embossed the flower stamp using Worn Lipstick Distress embossing powder, and then cut it into 1 inch squares, inking the edges in the same colour Distress ink. I adhered all of the squares to a piece of kraft paper, and distressed the edges of the kraft paper using scissors. I inked the back of the clear acrylic tag with pink sherbet and pearl mixitive Adirondack alcohol ink, and then stamped the sentiment using Stazon. I threaded the tag onto some twine, and then wrapped the twine around the image, tying a bow on the side where the tag sits. I adhered the panel using foam squares to a pale pink card, and then inked the edges with Worn Lipstick Distress ink, and finished the card with white gel pen stitching, and a bronze pearl in one of the flowers in each square.  

Finally, who can pass up the chance to play with gingerbread men at this time of year?! Look at these Hawaiian themed guys, aren't they fun!!

Seeing as I had just bought my first pack of kraft paper, and I hadn't used my Cricut in a while, I figured it would just be rude not to put them together and make me a gingerbread man :)

This cute card was soo easy to make! I just searched online for a gingerbread man coloring page and traced it into SCAL to create an svg to cut using my Cricut (it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is lol). I cut the shape out of kraft paper, and then used my Snow Writer to create the face and buttons. I used that 1 inch square punch again to cut out the four pieces from patterned paper for the background, lightly inking the edges with vintage photo Distress ink to stop them looking so harsh against the green card (a Jennifer McGuire tip!) I adhered the squares to the card, stuck the gingerbread man on with foam squares for dimension, and then used my white gel pen to 'stitch' around the panel. No stamping at all, except the sentiment inside the card!!

I had so much fun playing this weeks EIC!! Can't wait for next week, I'll be playing with my Mum from her living room in England- I'm so excited!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I hope you all have a lovely day with your family and friends, and take a minute from all the craziness of hosting etc to think about what you are thankful for this year. I know for me, I am so thankful to have learned this year just how much my husband loves me, and how much he truly meant those wedding vows 5 years ago. I'm thankful that he has been so strong for me this year while we have dealt with me going through numerous surgeries, doctors visits and nasty side effects from horrible medications, and that he is willing and able to support us both financially while I take time out to regain my strength and improve my health. I am thankful that our marriage is stronger than ever, and that even though this year didn't turn out at all the way we hoped, that we both have the strength and character to join together, keep our heads up and march into the next year, still feeling positive and determined that everything will all work out the way it is supposed to.

I'm thankful for my cuddly kitties, who keep me company during the day, and provide plenty of comic relief when its needed!

Lastly, I'm thankful to have discovered this wonderful world of stamping and cardmaking, and for the wonderful friendly, supportive, and inspiring community that comes with this new love of mine!

Lynsey x

Advice needed!

I have a couple more projects today inspired by the perfect pearls Holiday Inking class on Two Peas last week. I really like the colours in both, and had fun trying out new things to make accent pieces on each card- however the first has a major oops that I need your advice on, as you are all so much more experienced than me, and so very talented :)

For this card I ran a piece of acetate through my Texture Boutique with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, and adhered it to a white card. Then I covered a piece of cardstock with Dusty Concord Distress ink and pounced Blue Patina, Green Patina, and Pewter Perfect Pearls over the ink with a paintbrush, and then spritzed it with water to set the pearls. I inked the Hero Arts Flourish Pine stamp with white Color Box ink and stamped it over the pearly paper. I cut a piece the length of the card and used a Fiskars border punch to punch the top and bottom pieces. I punched a circle, using a Fiskars circle punch, ran dry adhesive all over the back and then looped silver ribbon around the circle, forming a flower design. I squirted some glossy accents here and there to make sure it stayed put and then adhered another punched circle to the back to make it easier to mount to the card.

 Do you see the big oops?! How about a close up....

Apparently I cannot use Glossy Accents to adhere acetate to a piece of cardstock that has been covered in perfect pearls lol!!! So.... what would you have done to adhere the piece, or otherwise stamp the sentiment on the circle? I tried stamping directly (using Stazon), but I think due to the perfect pearls it was very dull and did not stand out at all. My 'fix' was to stamp on acetate and stick it over- but you see how well that worked lol!! I'm thinking now in hindsight that embossing would probably have been my best move, right? But are there any tricks for adhering acetate to paper without the glue showing through?

I had some scraps of that pretty stamped metallic pearly paper left over, so I used it to make another quick card.

For this one, I ran a white card through my texture boutique using the Swiss Dots folder again, and then punched two more circles from the paper, adhering them to the card. I then took a strip of the left over paper, punched it using the border punch, and using my Martha Stewert scoring board, scored it at 1/8 inch intervals. I then formed the paper into a rosette and stuck it to another punched circle, putting a large blob on Glossy Accents in the middle to make sure it stays put! I then added the purple ribbon to the top, and tied a bow with the silver ribbon, and adhered it to the rosette with more glossy accents.

I loved how the rosette turned out, and it took me forever to get that cute little bow looking right- so I thought lets do a close up of a yey to counteract the oops above lol!!

I really liked playing with my perfect pearls finally, and love how the techniques turned out! Looking forward to hearing your tips for me on how to avoid my boo-boo in future :)

Lynsey x

Coming out of hiding...

Ok, I've been hiding because I'm scared to tempt fate and yet completely unable to keep my mouth shut when I have possible exciting news!! Here goes- our offer got accepted on the house!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yey!!! It's being sold by HUD so we had to bid online and our offer got accepted, but now we have to wait for them to actually sign the contract and send it back to us before the acceptance is official, and then of course we have all the inspections etc. Hence the not wanting to tempt fate by announcing too soon- fate please be kind to us :-)

You may have noticed I changed my blog header a little. There used to be a blurb about keeping positive while dealing with Endometriosis and Infertility, but with the direction I was heading with my posts on my blog it just didn't seem fitting. Plus, Endometriosis doesn't define who I am- there is so much more to me than the health issues I have, so why do I want that to be the first thing people learn about me when they visit my blog?! As for the infertility, well how can you be positive about that if you're labelling yourself as infertile- I'm 28 for goodness sake and with everything else going on with my health in the past 3 years we have probably actually 'tried' for a total of 3 months (TMI, sorry!!). Even 'normal' couples often take longer than that to get pregnant, so I refuse to believe that we have fertility issues yet. For now I need to focus on getting my body as healthy as I can, and then we will start trying for a baby again. I am flying out to England on Saturday (yey!!) and have an appointment with a famous (in endo circles) nutritionist called Dian Shepperson-Mills who works with women like myself who have endo and want to have a baby. I've also been looking into Acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine as an option to try too, as I'm so fed up with being on the meds I take- and I can't be on them forever as there is no way we will get pregnant if I'm on meds that put me in chemical menopause is there!!!

Anyway, enough of all that- moving on to fun stuff.........

I've still been in that distressing groove, and also have been having fun with the Holiday Thinking Inking techniques with Perfect Pearls from last week.

I really loved the combo of Aged Mahogany and Forest Moss that I had used in previous Christmas cards so I had to pull out those inks again to create this card shown above. I inked up a piece of cardstock and then sprayed the Hero Arts Flourish Pine stamp with a mixture of water and gold perfect pearls (mixed in a mini mister) and stamped it onto the inked piece. The water on the stamp created a lovely faded effect on the card, and the perfect pearls added lots of shimmer! When the image was stamped, it picked up the ink from the cardstock, so I put it to good use by stamping it directly onto a white piece of cardstock to make the piece for the sentiment. To make the card base gold, I inked a white card with aged mahogany and then pounced on gold perfect pearls with a paint brush, then sprayed it with a little water to fix the powder. You can't really see it in the picture, but the flower is a little glittery also- I just sprayed the perfect pearl/water mix onto it until it got nice and covered in gold. I finished off the card with some distressing on the edges of the inked piece, and a red gem in the middle of the flower.

 The background of this second card was created by spraying the flourish stamp again with the pp and water, and stamping it directly onto the card. There was still some ink on the stamp from the first card, so it gave the background some nice definition. I found the santa image stamp in the $1 bin at Michaels- score!!! I didn't think it would stamp well, but it was actually really nice. I stamped him onto a piece of tan cardstock using aged mahogany distress ink, and then inked the edges with frayed burlap. While the santa image was still a little wet, I smudged over it a little with the blending tool to give it a softer, more aged look. The brown mat was made by stamping Hero Arts La Lettre onto a piece of ColorCore cardstock with walnut stain distress ink, and then sanding over it liberally to give the faded look. I distressed the edges of the santa image and the mat by running the blade of my scissors up and down (I really should get one of those distressing tools!!). Finished the card off with a flower and a little twine wrapped around the mat, and a bronze pearl in the center of the flower.

 This snowflake was another $1 bin find!! I stamped it twice onto tan cardstock using pumice stone distress ink, and then cut each out to make square pieces. I distressed and inked the edges again and then adhered them to a mat, again made using ColorCore cardstock, stamped with La Lettre and sanded to distress. This time I wrapped the twine around the middle of the mat, tying a little bow in the middle and using Glossy Accents to adhere a green pearl in the middle. I used foam squares to mount the mat to the card, giving some more dimension. I love the colors in this card, I think it's one of my favourites so far!

Lastly, a couple more cards using the same techniques I talked about above. The folded piece on the bottom card was originally going to be a rosette, but it wasn't long enough lol so it became trim instead!! I had seen this on another card on Flickr (don't remember who it was, sorry) so when the rosette didn't work out, I knew exactly what to do with it!! The flowers are by K&Company, I love them!!

Phew, another long post! Can't wait til this house drama is sorted, then maybe I can get myself into a routine of daily posts so I don't take up so much of your valuable time when I post!!

Lynsey x

Nothing like a little distressing to clear your mind!

As I was saying the other day, we're in the middle of trying to buy a house at the moment and it's taking a lot longer than we anticipated to hear back from the sellers. This has left us in a prolonged state of waiting, with butterflies in our stomachs, hoping, but trying not to get our hopes up too much! You know the feeling! I sat down to do some cardmaking on Sunday evening and decided to pull out the Distress embossing powders I had bought last month but not put to the test yet. I had the faded jeans and shabby shutters colours and thought they would be good to do another take on the card I did using my paint dabbers on the flower stamp to create grass and sky in the background.

I stamped the Hero Arts Flower Medley stamp onto white cardstock and heat embossed the faded jeans and shabby shutters distress powders, rubbing over the image when it was set to remove the release crystals, creating the distress effect. I loved the distressed look it created and carried it on by distressing the edges of the piece by running the blade of my scissors up and down the edges to give them a torn look. I did the same with a piece of brown textured card stock and adhered the image to it at an angle. I wrapped twine around three times, tying a small bow on the left side. I then stamped a cream coloured card with Hero Arts La Lettre in Antique Stain distress ink several times, wiping off ink on random parts of the stamp before stamping to create an old faded look. I went back with antique linen on a blending tool to distress the edges of the card, and also frayed burlap on the very edges after distressing with my scissors as I did with the other pieces. I adhered the pieces onto the card at an angle and then stamped the sentiment which I altered from the Hero Arts Everyday Sayings by cutting the stamp in half and mounting it on my clear block in the desired position.

I loved how this card came out and once I had one done I got in the distressing groove!! Here's some more I created....

I had some samples of ColourCore cardstock that I had received which as the name suggests have a coloured core and are designed to be sanded to created a distressed look. I pulled these out and went to town on a red piece in the card above, sanding and using my newly (to me!)  discovered technique of distressing the edges using scissors. I stamped La Letter in frayed burlap and sanded over it again. I love how the piece turned out almost looking like fabric with all the texture and faded colour. I used my Hero Arts Handwritten Christmas stamp, using the masking technique to change its layout. I stamped Hero Arts Flourish Pine onto a cream card and distressed the edges using scissors and inking with antique linen. The felt poinsettias and leaves are by Making Memories and I picked them up at Target. I stuck them on with Glossy Accents and then embellished with stick on gems in the centers of the flowers.

 Next up is a really simple card I made using a seahorse stamp I had bought from a designer on Ebay and hadn't been able to work out a way to incorporate it into a card yet. I just stamped the image using Vintage Photo onto a piece of cardstock, and inked over with antique linen and frayed burlap using the blending tool, and once again pulled out those scissors to distress the edges! I used another piece of the ColourCore cardstock, this time in brown and sanded it a lot to give it a really distressed look, again with the scissor distressing too lol! I just adhered the pieces onto a matching coloured card and stamped the simple sentiment also from the Hero Arts Everyday Sayings underneath in Stazon.

 Then I moved on to this little owl stamp I got in a set of bird stamps (can't remember the manufacturer, sorry) at Joann when I went on my very first ever stamp supply shopping  trip a couple of months ago! I kept trying to use it, and really wanted to use it in a card for my grandmother who collects owl ornaments, but was never happy with the results. I finally got one I liked!! I used the same techniques and inks as in the seahorse card, just using patterned paper for the mat this time. I also stamped Hero Arts Design Block Flourish onto the card with frayed burlap and swiped the blending tool along the edges to blend. The card has a glossy finish to it so the ink didn't soak in well. I blotted over it with a paper towel to pick up some of the sxcess ink and it gave it a more soft, smudgy look that I thought really matched the feel of the card. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Birthday Messages.

The colour scheme and idea to add the beads on wire wrapped around the image was inspired by the current Etsy Inspired Challenge,  in particular this necklace from their featured Etsy store Happy Day Designs:

 I just love the look of the turquoise and browns together. They have lots of other beautiful beaded necklaces also, lots of fun 'window shopping' over there!!

Finally, one last card made using all the same techniques and supplies as the cards above, using another stamp I had bought and not found use for yet!! I just had to get this stamp from the Tim Holtz collection for Stampers Anonymous, after all it is my personal mantra... and the inspiration for the name of my blog!! This time I stamped Hero Arts Dots and Flowers on the green distressed cardstock panel, and the card, again wiping off ink in parts of the stamp before stamping to create a more distressed effect.

Oh what a fun stress relief that was, I am now hooked on distressing!!

Thanks for stopping by

Lynsey x