Before & Afters!

Happy Thursday everyone!  Hope your week has been grrrr---eat! I’ve had a pretty good week although my son did graduate from 8th grade the other night. Yeah, Yeah I know its just middle school…but he’s my baby..sniff sniff…and now both of my kids will be in High School.  Alexa will be a junior and Riley a freshman…it seems like the young-elementary years draaaaag on LOL and then they hit 7th grade and pooooof time suddenly starts flying by.  I wake up one morning and realize I have a 16 year old daughter who can drive and date and is 2 years from college.  And a 6’3 foot son who wears a size 14 shoe and has a deeeeep voice like a bear and can pick me up….its like I’m living in a parallel universe.  Do you feel me? LOL  Seriously you hear others talk about it but when the kids are young and you’re running in a thousand different directions and crazy busy it seems like they’ll never wipe their own bums or feed themselves or drive themselves to sports practices KWIM LOL!  And then the POOOOFFFF time-flies-by-quickly-thingy happens and you find yourself wondering where all the time went.  It constantly makes myself overthink…am I a good mom?  Do we spend enough quality time together? Do the kids have the right values?  Am I raising them to be good citizens and people who have compassion, kindness and empathy?  OMGosh my mind goes crazy sometimes….errrr ok….well all the time    So I told them this summer we are having “HUMAN BEINGS 101 CAMP” here at home LOL….they will learn how to run the washing machine and how to handle their clothes properly…how to cook and make basic meals and grocery shop for produce & such…basic cleaning concepts (oyyy)…and the usual life/sex/relationship/charity/friends talks that I like to fit in when I have their undivided attention hee hee (they sooo love those).  I’m hoping that at least 50% of what I say gets in their brains somewhere.  Soooo if I’m feeling this way NOW…when Alexa graduates high school in 2 years and heads to college…prepare yourselves…I will be a nutty-over-the-top-emotional-mess of a person…but it is my RIGHT as a mom yes? LOL…I’m gonna prepare my own self too cuz I may need duct tape or drugs to make it thru all of this….oyyyyy!

                   

 Me and Riley at graduation (yes I have on heels lol) and the other pic is of Riley and his friend Ethan..they've been friends since 3rd grade...can't believe how big they are..sniff sniff!

Ok so I will do a post over the weekend with stories of NY, Montreal, the OutLawz Retreat and the Zac Brown Band concert…so stay tuned for that hahahahaha!

NewsBitz:

-I’ll be at CHA teaching if you’d like to take my Copic Coloring class in Chicago with me in July…the details are up at www.cmcroad.com along with a few other locations.

-I’m on vacation June 16th thru June 28th with my family…I will be posting and checking in but it will be a bit sllllooooower as I pack in the quality time with my family and take time off to just “be”!

-For those that don’t know, Marti and I turned our magazine (Through the Craftroom Door) over to our friend Colleen Holmes..she is the new owner and doing a fab job!  So if you want to check out the NEW magazine head over to the site HERE to see what’s up…the new issue is stupendous!!

-SCACD has all the NEW Gorjuss Girl stamps in stock...they are fantastically cute & fun to color!

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Before & After

Today I’m sharing my project I made for the current June Magnolia-licious Challenge hosted by Mindy Baxter.  She’s challenged us to create projects that have some type of “water” in them so I pulled out this oldie-but-goodie Magnolia stamp called “Tilda in Spring Rain” (its out of stock currently but find the mini-version here).  This was one of my fave Tildas a few years ago and I still adore her…it was fun to pull her out again and color her up!  You can find all the challenge details on the Magnolia-licious Highlites Blog if you want to join in and see the rest of the DT’s water projects…they are fabulo-so!

**Have you seen the NEW Freedom Liberty Tilda & Accessory Stamps yet?  Go check them out, they are one-of-a-kind and I've added them to my collection!! ** 

I'm entering this into the following fab challenges:

Crafting for All Seasons (many layers) 

Fresh Brewed Designs (pop it) 

Midweek Magnolias (anything goes)

Celebrate the Occasion (thinking of u/flower) 

Make It Monday (anything goes) 

                       
 

(this one was made over 3.5 yrs ago)

So I thought it would be fun to pull out my very first card I made with this cute Tilda (the red one on the right)…I made that over 3 years ago in my fave colors of red.  It was always a favorite of mine so I have it on a shelf in my studio.  And I always think its fun to pull out older work and see how we’ve grown and progressed KWIM.  I used some scrap papers on my blue project and then PTI cardstock.  The circle elements are Spellbinders along with the leafy swirls “Bella Rose” by Heartfelt Designs for Spellbinders.  I thought it would be fun to top each of my flower elements off with buttons and the cloud is a PTI die that I inked/stickled and added a sentiment from PTI’s “Scattered Showers” stamp set.

She’s colored with Copics: B99,B97,B95,B93,B91 / E11,E00,R11 /YR23,E31,E50,E35 /C3,C1.  I added Diamond Glaze to her boots and umbrella handle.  Stickles on the rain, her pocket, around the cloud and on umbrella trim for lots of fun sparkles.

That’s all for me today…I have a bunch of random chores I want to get done and mostly involves cleaning my closet and Alexa’s dressers and Riley’s closet LOL.  I’m sure I’ll have bags of stuff ready for Goodwill and for the trashbin.  Have a great one!