12of12...january...journey to the temple

  ...Pensione Place, that's the name of the street we live on
  ...Western, so peaceful on a Saturday morning
  ...Listening to Joseph Smith's Prophetic Ministery {incredible}
  ...Rock Island
  ...Me
  ...I Believe in Us {engraved on his wedding ring}
  ...A Pioneer Woman moment
  ...Richland exit
  ...Vantage
  ...Columbia River Temple
  ...Dinner
  ...Going home
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I loved photographing our trip to the temple through the windows of our car; the two and a half hour drive passed so quickly. It was an overcast, drizzly, day, peaceful. I'm so grateful to be married to such a wonderful man who blesses my life by honoring his priesthood. I'm so thankful for the blessings of the temple and the knowledge that even in death, our family will be together forever.

I'm looking forward to February's 12 of 12. The date is marked on my calendar!

my card easel

This post is for my niece Stephanie and anyone else who wants to try their hand at making the nifty little easel I use to show off cards on Project Wednesdays. Steph's brother Brent, my very talented woodworking nephew, is going to make her one of her own. These two give me hope that someday my children will be friends (wish, wish, wish - hope, hope, hope - pray, pray, pray).




Vertical legs are 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch and 11 3/4 inches in length.

Horizontal cross bar is 3/4 inch deep x 1/2 inch high  x 6 3/4 inches in length.

Upper dowel measures 5 1/2 mm wide and is positioned at the 6 inch mark between the front legs.



Rear leg measures just shy of 9 1/2 inches and is attached to the dowel between the front legs.




The cord, running between the rear leg (shown here) and horizontal cross bar, measures 3 inches in length and is located at the 2 1/2 inches mark.



Cord attachment to horizontal, front, cross bar shown here.

project wednesday - handmade cards and 5x5 handmade envelopes

Me. Take a good look at the brown hair. Next week the brown will be gone.

Jen. She's getting her hair done next week too, on Wednesday. So, next week Project Wednesday is being moved to Thursday. 

 Jen's mixing and matching.

My mixing and matching. You can probably tell, we shop together. We cleaned up when a local craft shop went out of business. Sad to see the shop close, happy to get Scrapbook Walls, double sided paper, for cheap, cheap, cheap!

Card Dimensions: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 folded in half

Top Print (stripe): 1 3/4 x 4 1/4

Bottom Print: 3 3/4 x 4 1/4

Center Strip:    1/4 x 4 1/4

Key Tag-Walmart (15/$2.88)

Ric-Rac Tie-Craft Warehouse (.39/yd)

Birthday Charm-missing.

Jen's calling her sister Amy to help us track some down. Thank you Amy!

*attach tag with mini dots

Possibilities...endless.

Card Dimensions: 5 x 5

Background Print: 5 x 5

Horizontal Print: 2 x 4 1/4

Vertical Solid: 1 3/4 x 3

Flower-Craft Warehouse

Center Jewel-Target (.99 for 16) 

*Attach both w/mini dots.

I found these cute white cardstock, "Thank You", stickers at Walmart in the stationary section for $1.99.

Next week we hope to finish these beauties, along with their envelopes.  We have all of the envelope templates cut out and ready to score, fold, and glue. If you would like a template for the 5x5 envelope leave me a post and email me your address.

We'll also be working on January's 12 of 12. We've joined Jen's sister Amy in taking 12 photos, on the 12th of every month, to document our lives. Since we didn't read about 12 of 12 until the 13th we each chose a day and hauled our cameras around with us in an effort to get caught up. I LOVED IT and can't wait to post my results. If you want to join us, it's still not to late to document your life this month. Steph, I'm talking to you!!! Stephanie is my very creative niece, that I love, you can find her blog here. She's the mother of two darling twins. She also has a blog titled Conixon Creations and she has an Etsy shop, busy, busy, busy. Which reminds me that I have an Etsy shop, with nothing in it. I really should do something about that.

next wednesday's project: laurel's handmade square card and envelope

This is what Jen and I will be making next Wednesday! I found it when I was going through some scrapbook pages that I made on a Super Saturday, years ago (yeeeeears ago), taught by Laurel Anderton. Oh, how I love Laurel! There are sooooo many things to love about this woman: her creativity, of course, but this little darling has a heart of gold and her ability to see our Saviors spiritual hand in all things has been a blessing and inspiration in my life.



This card measures 5x5.



It has a custom envelope that makes my heart sing. When I saw them I called Jen and proclaimed, "We have our template for Wednesday! Jen, you are going to be so excited, it's square and there's a template so we can make our own envelopes"!  

(Last Wednesday Jen really wanted to make a square card, but we weren't sure we could find envelopes only, without ordering on-line.)



There was also this simple beauty.



This is Laurel...or should I say Laurel's belly? There's another cute, little, baby boy in there who will say hello to the world on February 5th. And who's in the crib? 15 month old Eva! Eva's twinner, Isaac, is still sleeping so I couldn't get any shots of his cute little face to share. Her handsome, older brother, Emmit is at school. Laurel and Mark have the most beautiful babies!!!



Isn't she adorable?



I LOVE this shot! Eva's listening so intently to her mommy. This picture speaks to my soul.



I love this shot too, but when I moved my meter went crazy and I just had to click anyway. This photo is now my new pet-project in photoshop :D



Look at her go.





Do you love the "toe" shot? Every mother understands toe lingo!

This was my first outing just showing up somewhere with my camera. Laurel was such a good sport when I explained that I'm trying to get used to taking my camera with me when I go places. Thank you Laurel!!!

project wednesday: handmade cards

So I talked Jen into spending every Wednesday of the month with me, for the rest of the school year, how lucky am I? Our goal is to be productive. Today we made birthday cards from the many supplies we've bought over the years. This week I hosted our little event, which was a bonus for our family dog, Aero, because it rained most of the day and he would have been roughen it outside in his kennel. We had turkey sandwiches on the most delicious homemade bread ever, and we had soggy pickles. I ate my soggy pickle and felt sad that I had served up my friend such an atrocity. Then we had homemade peach cobbler with a jar of the peach pie filling we made a few months ago, delish! We haven't decided what we're doing next week, but we've got big plans for ourselves. I'm so fortunate to have her in my life. Love ya Jen :D



The workspace.



Not the pattern I was supposed to be making, but I like it.




This is what our 25 cards were supposed to look like. I did one.



Then I changed it up a bit...



...which led to this simple card that I couldn't resist attaching a gem to.












This is about the time Jen commented that I wasn't following the pattern anymore. Oops.











After awhile I wasn't even making birthday cards anymore. I was making baby cards,



cards that say "Hi"!



Thank you cards, love you cards, general everyday cards. Cards, cards, cards....










What a GREAT day! To top it all off I got to take a picture with my boy, Jax, before he left on a scout service project venture to clean horse stalls. "As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be"!

handmade {birthday} cards

As part of my resolve to use up my paper supplies, I'm getting together with Jen tomorrow to make birthday cards. While searching for some inspiration I found myself looking through a pile of cards I had saved, unable to let them go. I've decided I should let them go, but before I turn them into cards to give to others I couldn't help but snap a few photos.









from jen to me










from sandy to me







Jaxsen, Happy 6th Birthday!
We love you so very much, and thank Heavenly Father daily for the blessing of YOU!

Love,
Mom & Dad















Happy Birthday, Alecia!
You are one of our favorite people and so we wanted to send a little love your way on your special day. May the coming year be wonderful for you!

Love,
Sandy and Nikki S. {my visiting teachers}

my word for 2010: do

Amy always chooses a new word for the year. A few weeks ago, I remembered that Amy would be posting her word and, for fun, I started tossing around words in my head wondering to myself if having a word for the year would help me be more focused. I have come to realize that whether I'm raising children, loving my spouse, growing my testimony of the gospel, strengthening my physical body, finding my ancestors, being a good friend, daughter, etc. they in essence all work together to make me whole. When I leave an area out, or squander my time on the unimportant, I forfeit not only a part of who I am, but also what I can become.

As I mulled these thoughts over, and spent some time surfing a variety of subjects one day, it seemed no matter what topic I researched the word synergy was staring me in the face. It was never in caps, bolded, italicized, or underlined, but it might have well been because it played in my mind, pulled at my heart, and begged to be spoken. As I spoke it I realized I need to develop it in my life, not only to bring peace, harmony and balance to my life, but to bless the lives of others as well. While I love the word synergy it ultimately is not the word I chose. Synergy is the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual. To have synergy I must DO.

Main Entry:	do
Part of Speech:	verb
Definition:	carry out
Synonyms:	accomplish, achieve, act, arrange, be responsible for, bring about, to bring to pass, cause, close, complete, conclude, create, determine, do one's thing, effect, engage in, execute, finish, fulfill, get ready, get with it, go for it, make ready, move, operate, organize, perform, prepare, produce, succeed, take care of business, take on, undertake, wind up, work, wrap up
Antonyms:	defer, destroy, fail, idle, lose, miss, neglect, pass, put off, undo

So, this year, I'm going to join Amy in choosing a word for the year, to focus and concentrate my efforts around. I don't know where it will lead, but I feel strengthened as I take this step to commit myself to the process of DOing. This year I want to do those activities that will bring me closer to my God, to my spouse, to my children. I want to be a doer of good deeds. I want to do those things necessary to feed my soul, develop my talents, strengthen my body, and improve my mind. I want to stop being afraid of failure and do that which is necessary and essential to achieve and realize my potential.