Poet Society

Our youngest daughter, Addison, went to ND with our neighbors to experience life on the farm, combining soybeans and all! She keeps us hopping so while she was gone Graci and I did a little shopping, which Addi despises, so it worked out well for everyone! In addition to shopping and an overdue date night with Eric (This is Where I Leave You, so, soooooooo good, two thumbs up from us), I got to catch up on some of my kits and did a little scrapbooking. I know the 4th of July is so far gone but loved this picture of the girls and the Poet Society kit from Studio Calico was a perfect fit for it...

This layout featured on Maggie Holmes blog has been in my inspiration pile for awhile so I was excited to use it as a jumping point for my page. It was so fun to use gesso to paint the background paper I chose. It just softened the words and added a bit of texture. I used my new sewing machine to add stitched boxes that frame the centerpiece.

Love how it turned out and now I've got just 3 kits left to use up, not counting the one that will be shipping this week from the new release. Someday I will be all caught up. Not really but that's okay, it gives me lots of pictures and memories to look forward to creating...if only I could keep it up tomorrow but work returns with Monday. Hope yours is a good one!

Persistence Rather than Perfection

"Meep-meep," announced my sensor, informing me from across the room that my blood sugar had bumped above the high alert I have set at 170. Frustration crowded my mind as I reconsidered everything I'd done in the past hour since waking up at 6:30AM that would cause the spike in my otherwise fairly flat line on my trend graph.

"Coffee, check; teeny weeny bolus for the caffeine in my coffee, check; two quickly cooked eggs lazily prepared in the microwave, check; no bolus for protein, check; pause....should I reconsider the no bolus to some bolus? Hmm, no. What the heck?" This is the self talk that occurs between me. myself, and I pretty much anytime I am not in REM sleep.

All of the above happened in a matter of several seconds a few days back and while all of the above mentioned was occurring I was reading my daily devotional, literally the words of my title on today's post were the words I was reading..."...look for persistence - rather than perfection" and I thought to myself, "If that isn't the truth!" (Yes, more self talk :). I am not always perfect when it comes to my diabetes but I would confidently state in a court of law under oath with my hand on the Bible that I am beyond persistent!!!

I wanted to blog about this irony that happened on Tuesday, September 23rd and the humor of it all. Of course, today is the 26th so I searched diligently through my devotional to find the specific words on that day and couldn't. I suddenly recalled that my daughter had used my book to play school the other day and the ribbon marking the page was back a few months...sure enough I found the words on June 23rd. I couldn't imagine I hadn't read the correct day but rereading June 23rd, sure enough that is what had happened. I started this paragraph with irony but if you know me at all you know I don't believe that anything is a coincidence. I needed to see those words again, this week, on Tuesday!

So, as I was saying...be persistent, don't beat yourself up for being less than perfect, and just keep trying! It was no coincidence that after hearing the "meep-meep" of my sensor I checked with a finger stick and it was 172 but I also had that teeny weeny bolus on board that brought me down to 118, 30 minutes later with the help of my basal rate set accurately. None of that is coincidence, that is me working over time to ensure I've got this stuff  down. That is persistence!!!

Papertrey Ink Blog Challenge

It's the Papertrey ink Challenge and this month the challenge was to use the photo below as inspiration for a card...

Love this inspiration piece for autumn and I knew as soon as I saw it I wanted to use the color scheme as well as the impression plate Cane Print for that warm tone on tone with the navy as my background. Harvest Berries stamps was an obvious choice with what filled the bucket and I wanted the accent of silver to represent the pail.

Here is what I came up with for my card...

Fun challenge this month and I just barely made it in time, so much going on with work, the kids, homework help, and activities. Couldn't be more thrilled that tomorrow is Friday! Thanks for stopping by!

Studio Calico Sandlot

Beautiful weekend here and busy as usual...lots of travel lately so sorry for being MIA a bit! Taking a few minutes to upload some cards I created using a SC kit from the summer. This gum ball machine stamp from the main kit is too cute!

This was simple but fun with the pops of color and I used the angles on the background piece to guide this creation, a great card to tuck in a lunch box on a snowy day (let's be honest, we all know it's coming!:)..,

Another fun one to cheer on one of your favorite students (sorry image is odd, had to snap a picture of a picture...)

And a sweet birthday card using the gum ball machine stamp and enamel dots are my gum balls with a sweet sentiment on vellum to top it off.

Head on over to Studio Calico to check out more of my creations or to pick up one of the latest kits!

Little Tangles Challenge #44 Sketch

Another challenge going on at Little Tangles...create a card based on this sketch.

I used Tiny Triangles for the idea of my card by embossing that in white on watercolor paper. Next I spritzed it with water and used Distress Inks Broken China and  Picked Raspberry as well as Calypso Coral from SU to make the tiny triangles pop. Let that dry and wiped off with baby wipe to ensure the white was vibrant.

Used Calypso Coral for my card base and then had fun creating the sentiment strip with stamps from Photo Booth and accented with a few sequins. 

What do you think?

Go to elittletanglesblogspot.com to check them all out or play along...thanks for stopping by!

Studio Calico Sandlot

I'm a bit embarrassed that my new kit should arrive tomorrow and I haven't barely opened my kits from last month. So, I was under the assumption that the girls would be back in school and I'd suddenly have a few minutes all for me...apparently I was very wrong! Juggling way too many items at the moment so as I'm figuring that circus act out, here are a few cards I cranked out on Sunday from the last release to diminish my feelings of guilt about another kit on my doorstep tomorrow...enjoy!

Labor Day Layouts, Yellowstone

It's been an absolutely beautiful weekend here and lots of family time with Eric and the girls, which has been so fun! Just catching up and getting prepped for the week but we've got one last night to savor together and then back to it...

With all this time I finally got pictures printed from our trip to Yellowstone in June and have loved reliving the memories through scrapbooking a few pages! Lots of inspiration from some of my favorite blogs and the October Afternoon blog to create my layouts!

These pics of my silly and energetic girls just make me smile!

So many amazing sites and the wildlife was just spectacular! I used inspiration from a layout by Nichol Magouirk for the right side above.

This one was inspired by Lisa Dickinson's blog Gettin' By...

Hope to get to the Tetons and Old Faithful sometime soon to share! Thanks for stopping by and hopefully you are savoring your last little bit of this long weekend as well!