Found my new home!

We were up in Tehachapi on Friday getting the inspection done on our new house (which went well, no major issues, yey!) and after it was all done we went into the town centre to wander around. I had seen online that there was a local scrapbooking and stamping store there, so of course I had to check it out!! The store is mostly scrapbook focused, but does carry stamping stuff including a few Hero Arts stamps and Ranger products like my distress inks and alcohol inks etc. But best of all, at the back of the store is their Centre d'Art, a room FULL of supplies available for use for an hourly fee. You can go there with a friend, and spend an afternoon using any of their tools, books etc and they also have classes etc of course. But best of all, you can rent stamps for just $1 a day- and they have thousands!!! The lady who runs the store, Kathy, was so nice and so passionate about her store and crafting. She is off to CHA this weekend and we had so much fun chatting about that and how much fun she would have! I can't wait to hear all about it when she gets back, and to see the new products when she gets them in :)

While there I of course had to pick up a few things!! I hadn't tried any spray mists yet, and had seen that the Create blog's challenge this week was to use spray mists- so when I saw the shelf full of glimmer mists I had to get one! Also, with it coming up to Valentine's Day I had to add a heart to my stamp collection, so the Hero Arts Heart Lace came home with me too!!

I had been itching to get playing with my new finds and finally got time last night. Here's what I came up with...

It's quite different to the cards I usually make, but I quite like it! I sprayed the glimmer mist onto white cardstock and then blotted it with a paper towel to give a glimmery marble effect.

I then embossed the Heart Lace in gold and used a Fiskars border punch to punch the top and bottom. I then gold embossed La Lettre onto the card, wiping the ink off in places each time I stamped so that it looks 'patchy'. I adhered the panel to the card at an angle (using my new Glue Glider Pro that I received from De over at EIC, thanks De!!) and then tied the brown ribbon, using a little Glossy accents to stick the bow in place.

I really can't wait to move up to Tehachapi now, and get to spend more time at Picture Perfect and Stamps of Approval! I know I will make some great new crafty friends there and have lots of fun :) Just keep your fingers crossed for us that escrow continues to go smoothly so we can be in our house by March!!



Love, love, love!!!

Just had to share my excitement with others I know are probably jumping up and down just like me!! I let out a little eeeeekkkk and scared the life out of my cat Silvester who was snoozing next to me, and received a rather worried look from hubby who was minding his own business watching TV!! Soooo, what am I so excited about?

Look at this....

I think Ranger and Core'dinations were thinking specifically of me when they came up with this collaboration lol!! Ok, maybe not- but there seriously could not have been a better new product for me- just take a look back over many of my recent cards like these Christmas cards or these distressed cards. It's quite obvious if you spend any amount of time on my blog that I have a little Distress Ink addiction- I have all 36 of them (got them off ebay when I first started stamping), and use them for every single card I make. Then when I bought my Texture Boutique starter kit, it came with a sample pack of Core'dinations cardstock and once I got sanding and distressing that card I was hooked on that too. Now I can get that yummy sandable card in the distress ink colours.... I am in heaven!!!

Oh, and just to amp up the excitement even more- they are giving away 40 sets of this wonderful new product (I sound like I work for them don't I, hehe). Just head over to the Ranger blog and get your name down for the contest. They are bringing out one in the Adirondack pallet too, so even more srumminess to play with. I just can't wait til these are available to buy and I can get my hands on them.

Oh, also my kittie Silvester was a little jealous when he saw that I had posted a pic of the other 2 the other day, so he insisted I snap a pic of him to put on here while I was in the middle of taking card pics ;-)

Here's my beautiful boy- he just loves the camera! I wish you could feel how soft his fur is too, I could just snuggle and pet him all day.

The challenge motivation worked :)

Remember how I was saying yesterday how I had been really struggling with getting motivation to sit down and get out my stamping supplies and get creating again with all the other distractions I have going on in life right now......

Well my plan to peruse my favourite challenge sites worked, and after a quick (well ok about 2 hour long lol) read on my fave blogs I ran off to my craft room and happily pulled out my new Hero Arts stamps and got stamping!!

My first card was inspired by the current Hero Arts challenge to create a card inspired by the 2011 Catalogue and to use the masking technique in a project. I was also inspired to use the butterfly stamp by the current Create challenge to use butterflies, and to use the silver embossing by the current Etsy Inspired challenge featuring the Etsy store Modern Bird where you can find some really lovely handcrafted silver jewelry.

The card was inspired by one of the cards on page 17 of the HA catalogue, using the Dictionary Greeting friend stamp and the large canvas stripes design block. I stamped the friend definition onto the card using Aged Mahogany Distress ink, and then masked it before inking the whole card front with Victorian Velvet and then stamping over it with the design block in Aged Mahogany. I made sure the ink was fully dry before embossing the butterfly, from a Martha Stewert set, using silver detail embossing powder. The card was actually a pinkish coloured card which I flipped inside out so there is the nice surprise of the colour pop inside.

My second card was also inspired by the Hero Arts Challenge. I loved the Large Blossom cling stamp the minute I saw it, and the card pictured on page 39 of the catalogue just sealed the deal!

I created another one layer card here (for some reason I thought that was part of the HA challenge lol, maybe that was last month and I missed it!!). First I embossed the Large Blossom onto the card with white poweder and then masked it before inking the entire card front with Scattered Straw. I then stamped the Large Canvas Stripe design block  using Wild Honey, off-centering it a little to put it at an angle on the card. I then coloured the flowers using peeled paint, scattered straw, wild honey and a little aged mahogany, applying the ink with Fantastix. The sentiment was stamped with black Stazon, and then finally I used my Crop-A-Dile to attach the brads at the corners of the Canvas Stripe block to make it look like a separate piece attached to the card.

Ok, I'm off to catch up on all my fave blogs and get commenting on the beautiful creations in the galleries :) Hope you have had a great day....!

Where'd my mojo go?!

 It's January 19th already, can you believe it?! I haven't posted since before Christmas, wow time is going fast! Sorry for going MIA again, but with no excuse of a trip home this time lol! Honestly, my head has just not been in the right place for stamping and card making. I was really excited when I got my Hero Arts Catalogue for Christmas and ordered some a few weeks ago but when they arrived in the mail they have just been sitting on my desk. I love them, but just can't get into the mood to start playing. I have plenty of ideas, and have loved seeing all the beautiful creations on the Hero Arts blog and Flickr pool- but just can't get myself into the craft room to make beautiful creations of my own!

I think it's because of everything we have going on in our life right now. When I went on my trip back to England, I got out of my routine of reading my favourite blogs and playing in the challenges and since I got back we had Christmas and have been dealing with still trying to buy our first home. The first house we were getting fell through a couple of weeks ago. It was so disappointing and stressful to deal with and to make the final decision to walk away and stop fighting for the house we had set our hearts on was really hard. I won't bore you with all the details, but basically it was just one thing after another coming up with that house and in the end we just had to accept that it wasn't the house for us. Honestly though, the minute we made that decision to walk away and move on it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and now I'm really glad we did it. We were lucky to find another house we love right away, and put an offer in on it on Tuesday last week and by Thursday we were already in escrow!!! We have our home inspection on Friday morning so you have to wish us luck :-) Of course, now the stress and disappointment has been replaced by anticipation and excitement- we've been looking at furniture and appliances we'll need, and I've picked up quite a little addiction to Marshalls, Ross and TJ Maxx, looking for cute home decor items for my new home!! Its all so much fun, but again eating into my brain space and time I need for my card making!!

I was thinking earlier today that maybe the motivation I need to get going again is to stop by one of my favourite challenge blogs and try to play along. So I'll be heading over to the Etsy Inspired Blog and to the Hero Arts Blog to see what they have going on and hopefully get into that craft room.

Do you ever lose your crafting mojo? How do you get it back?

I do have a few cards to share for you though that I did a few weeks ago. The pics aren't great as I had already put them in cello bags before I remembered to photograph them (see I'm all out of sorts lol). I am a big supporter of a local charity called Forgotten Angels who are a cat rescue and focus on adopting out homeless kitties, but also on running a trap-neuter/spay- release program in the community to try to reduce the feral cat population on the streets. I used to work at the local PetSmart and became friendly with Cathy, the lovely lady who runs the rescue. We actually got one of our babies, Odie from them a couple of years ago. Here he is on the right with one of our other boys Taz.

I got talking to Cathy when we were down at PetSmart during one of their adoption afternoons a few Saturdays ago. They have a table at the front of the store where they sell cat and dog goodies like car magnets, and mugs etc and she was saying how she needed to find some new products to sell as people wanted new things. I suggested I could make some cards in a cat or dog theme and if they sold I would be happy to make some for her every week to sell on the stall so she has something new and different. I love the work that they do, so it's the least I can do to donate these cards and hopefully help get them some money for food for the kitties etc. So, here are the cards I've made so far- I'll  be taking them down on Saturday so I'll let you know if any of them sell!!

I found one of the kittie sets, used in the first card in a craft store when I was home in England, and then got another cat set and a dog set by Inkadinkado, but I've got to be honest and say I'm not loving any of the sets- they're really not inspiring me that much!

Do you have any recommendations for cat and dog stamps I could get to make some cuter cards. I really want to help Forgotten Angels make some money, so I want to make the best cards I can!!

Oh, and as this is my first time posting this year- Happy New Year!!! 

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