Cub Scouts

Here's a layout I finished up last week, but never posted. I really like the way it turned out. It started from an old Sketchy Thursdays sketch, but I veered off a little and ended up doing my own thing! So glad I did too! This is from a Cub Scout event that Mac participated in. He was presented with a "Light of Christ" medal at the Cathedral by the Archbishop. It was a pretty big deal and we were very proud of him and his accomplishment.

It's been raining here... a lot. So, stay dry!

First Race

Well, I did it. I finished my first race since the sixth grade "Turkey Trot" with flying colors! This was the Anthem 5K (3.1 miles) and the first leg of the Triple Crown and I ran it in under 10 minute miles. Please excuse this absolutely hideous photo of myself... it was early, no makeup, I only had 2 cups of coffee, ran over 3 miles and it was so cold! Next up... the Rhodes City Run (6 miles) and then the Papa John's 10 miler. I'll be following it up with the grad finale... the Louisville Mini Marathon to kick off Derby week.

The race this morning was very fun and energetic. I was a little nervous, but when I think back, it was more like excitement! My brother, Nate, and SIL, Lara ran too. We had a ball and my brother was talking and acting like a complete clown the whole run. He had all the people around us laughing or giving him a funny look. One guy thought he was doing bird calls! He was saying, "Lou-Lou!" in a high pitch voice... Lou Lou is my nickname.

Here we are after the race, and after running back to the car because it was so darn cold! My SIL has the best legs... they are so skinny, and ends with dainty ankles! You did awesome Luna!!! Thanks to Nate for running slow with us and keeping the two of us going and laughing the entire time! Run Happy!

Vintage Christmas

Thankfully, Jingle Belles extended their project deadline to today at 10 pm! I have been busier than a one-armed paper hanger with school functions, fundraisers and just daily life. Whew! It's not finding the time to make something, it's taking a picture of it, uploading and posting it that seems to throw me off! Anyway, I'm here now and showing off my cute card...
I went with a vintage cute Christmas card this week and just love the look on that little girls face! I know exactly who I'm sending this one to! ;) Supplies: The vintage card is October Afternoon, patterned paper is Basic Grey, red edge border is Bazzill, the felt poinsettia is Making Memories and the ribbon is Papertrey.

This week, Jingle Belles partnered up with Sketchy Thursdays for a "double your chance at a prize" challenge. This was the sketch to go off of for the card:If you have time, link up your card! You have until 10:00 pm EST to enter on both blogs to try and win a fantastic prize!

In the Limelight!

Limelight Papercrafts had a great sketch this week. I thought it was so great that I made two cards! Tonight, we celebrated my younger brother and one of my sister-in-law's birthdays over dinner at my mom and dad's. So, I needed two birthday cards anyway! I didn't post them until now because my SIL reads my blog! ;)
Here is the sketch, and you had to use string on your card as an added challenge. This one was for my brother. I used American Crafts paper and a bit of baker's string on the button!

This one, for my sweet SIL. It's kinda vintage and soft, but I still like it! The cupcake is a Martha Stewart punch.

So, if you haven't checked out Limelight Papercrafts, please do! A great blog and a fantastic shop to boot!

Night! ;)

8 Years Ago...

There was an ice storm. It was so cold, snow on the ground and under the snow, several inches of ice. I was 8 months pregnant and up the night before with what I thought were braxton hicks. I sent Stephen off to his usual Monday night of bowling and when he returned, he went off to bed while I was up... on the couch... in misery. Finally, at 6:30 am, it was time to wake him up and get to the hospital, I couldn't handle much more.
Once we were at the hospital, it was almost 7:00 am. We left the bags in the car because I was sure the doctor would send me home. On the contrary, the baby was breech and I was 6-7 cm dilated. I was being rushed in for an emergency c-section.
At 7:35 am, Stephen McDonald "Mac" Profumo was born exactly 4 weeks early. He was so perfect, weighing in at 6 pounds and 10 ounces, with a head kissed with blond curls. My first born baby, a boy, so sweet and precious... a day I will never forget.

Mac has grown so much in the past year. He's still into sports, soccer and basketball being his favorites. He enjoys building with his Lego's, Cub Scouts, and started taking guitar lessons. He is a star student in second grade and loves to read. We are so very proud of him and all of his outstanding accomplishments!

Here are some of my favorite layouts of Mac:

His first trip to Kings Island riding a big roller coaster...

Mac has been a wonderful big brother to Elan since the day he was born...
Soccer stud...

Playing one of the "play" guitars- you have every intention of being a rock star, or possibly a singer/songwriter...

This layout sums up exactly who you are on the inside...

Some recent photos of Mac:

At his birthday party, getting a great gift from my brother and his family...
Group shot... we celebrated with family for both Elan (2/2) and Mac's (2/18) birthday (don't you love Anna's sweater?!)...

Mac's first day of second grade...

We used this photo for our holiday card...

Mac with his best friend, Noah, and the Archbishop after he received his Light of Christ medal for Cub Scouts. This was a proud day for him... Working on a layout now of that day!

I look so forward to finding out what the next year has in store for Mac. He is such a kindhearted boy, who's smart, a good friend, brother and son. Mac is a joy and has been since the day he was born. Happy birthday, big boy! I love you!

To many, many more wonderful days filled with fun!

No RED!

The Jingle Belles challenge this week is to make a holiday card using "NO RED!" While red is one of my favorite colors, especially for the holidays, it wasn't hard putting one together without it...
I love this new ice skate stamp set from Papertrey Ink. It comes with different sock patterns and lots of darling sentiments for winter. My sentiment is a SRM sticker. ;) I embossed the snowflake pattern and added "snowball puffs" to the end of the laces and some chunky glitter to the ice skate blades. Closer:

I love the colors and had a ball making this one... since it involved glitter! The thing about Jingle Belles is that I can take my time making a super, awesome, detailed holiday card once a week and have a load of them done and ready to send by the time Christmas comes along. The only problem I'm going to run into is deciding which one to give to whom! Enjoy!

Sweet Valentine's

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! My day has been filled with play dates, cupcakes, sweet cards and maybe even some pretty bling. ;)

Just wanted to pop in quickly and share some of the Valentine's I made this year:

A pretty, pink collage of sweetness...
A simpler version, but still cute!
This one was for one of my niece's and I love how it turned out...And another for a baby niece... the colors are precious on this one...

I had so much fun making my Valentines, all 22 of them!

I hope you have a great day filled with sweets and surprises!

Photo Inspiration

A couple of weeks ago, Cath, over at Moxie Fab World, had a Tuesday Trigger using this photo. I loved it... and even made a project using it as inspiration, but as you can see, I'm just now posting it! Here's the picture: And here's my project:

I chose to make a tag. I distressed it with ink and then added bits of this and that, stamped a PTI sentiment: "as treasured keepsakes warm the home, treasured friendships warm the heart" and that was about it. An easy project inspired by a pretty picture!

Hope you are cranking out all your Valentine's today! I'll share all of mine tomorrow!

Bag Tags

Papertrey Ink is continuing with all their challenges, new releases, giveaways and more for their fourth anniversary. It has truly been such fun, waking every morning to find new inspiration in my email box! Love it!
The challenge for today was to make a tag. I made two of the same because I had *two* special people in my life receive awards from my alma mater, Sacred Heart Academy.

Inside the decorated bags was a treat... Yummy white chocolate party mix! Everybody loves this treat, it's the perfect blend of sweet and salty, and makes a ton! I plan to give some with Valentines too! Want the recipe? I thought so!

White Chocolate Party Mix
2 packages of White Chocolate Bark- melted
5 Cups of Cheerios
5 Cups Rice Chex
1 1/2 bags of peanut M&M's
1 Bag pretzels

Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and then pour melted chocolate over. Mix well. Spread onto wax paper or foil. Let cool 30 minutes and then break apart. Store in Tupperware or Ziploc bags, Will freeze up to 1 month.

It's a big hit, easy and cheep to make- perfect for mass gift giving! ;)

Card Patterns Sketch

I have never played along with Card Patterns, but it's a great challenge blog and this is the year that I'm trying new things! I saw the sketch and loved it and immediately thought of a Valentine. The sketch for this week is:

I made this card in no time flat... I already had the felt heart laying on my desk with the die cut (just waiting... begging to be used!):

The card base is Paper-Source in strawberry, the background is a scrap from my stash, I believe it's Bo-Bunny, the die cut and stamp is from Taylored Expressions, the "XOXO" sticker is SRM, and the heart and fabric were put together by moi. I added some cross stitches to the die cut and "ruffled" the fabric just slightly by running my thread through the middle and giving it a little tug.

And closer...

I love the end result of my card and hope you do too! The Card Patterns sketch was fun to play with, and I hope you get a chance to play this week! :)

Two for Tuesday!

Right on! I'm a crazy, craftin', cool mama! Okay, I'm not that cool, actually kinda nerdy- my kids will definitely say I'm not cool, but I used to be! I use to be awesome! Then, I had three little ones and my cool-o-meter dropped drastically. Enough of that! Look at this hilarious layout:

Elan gets some serious bed-head, but on this particular morning, pictures had to be taken! I have been wanting to scrap them for a while and apparently today was the day! A closer look and the wicked title: I used some Echo Park paper, KI Memories quick strips, and all the chipboard is Cosmo Cricket, from the Joy Ride collection. The sketch is brought to you by Sketchy Thursdays.

Have a great evening and try playing along over at Sketchy Thursdays!

Warm Wishes!

This week, the Jingle Belles have their challenge up and it's a prompt: "Baby It's Cold Outside!" A good time to use felt, snowflakes, mittens and scarves, and anything else that might cozy up a holiday card! It has been snowing here and the temperature is dropping... a perfect time to make some mittens!

This is probably my favorite holiday card I have ever made. I love the stitching and the woolly mittens, the bright snowflake paper (by Crape Paper) and the perfect sentiment (by Papertrey Ink). A close up of those finely crafted mittens:

Now, this is definitely not a card I would mass produce. While I enjoyed making it, it was a bit time consuming. Thanks, Jingle Belles, for the nudge to create a fun card with felt- which I LOVE!

Papertrey's Free Download

Moving right along with Papertrey's Anniversary celebration, they had a free tag download on their blog. You had until 7:00 a.m. today to upload your project... I'm a little late. Dang. Oh well, I still had fun making this card and the free download is a good one. Check it out HERE and print your own for a project or two! I chose to use Maile Belles design and then added my own windmill. I used Papertrey's Bitty Box Basics for my background paper and some ribbon and rhinestones to add a little interest.

Enjoy and stay warm!

Papertrey Ink Anniversary

Papertrey Ink is having their 4th anniversary and they are celebrating with projects, blog hops and an over the top prize! Visit the blog HERE for all the details.
Today, I am posting a card I did back in June, 2010. One of the challenges at Papertrey, was to post a favorite project from last year. Well, this is mine: I used the "Everyday Button Bits" set, a chipboard cloud and some random paper. I think my fave part of this card is the green hills below the balloons, and also the fact that it could be used for either a guy or a gal! ;)
Enjoy, and scoot on over to the Papertrey blog to participate!

Book Worm

Good morning... it's cold here, and we are apparently getting more snow. I know some of you are snowed in, but for those who aren't yet, I have a good book for you to get and read.
But first, a little project I made with scraps: My niece, Kendall loves to read. She's in first grade and she's really smart. I got her a book and made this bookmark to go with it. I sent it through the mail so she would be surprised. She loved it! I love to send stuff when people/kids aren't expecting it! :)

Now, on to the book review... The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a fantastic read. It's a memoir and tells of her life growing up with her crazy parents and 3 siblings. It's amazing the things the children endured and how they survived. It will definitely stick with you and make you appreciate what you have... like a warm bed and food in the pantry. Get it, read it, you'll love it.

I'm off to run in this cold weather. My goal is 4 miles and my reward is a hot bowl of chili tonight for dinner with a cold, dark beer to go with it. Stay warm, people.

My baby turns four

My, oh my how the time does fly. My baby is four today and it seems that yesterday he was turning two. We like to block out the first 18 months of his life because he was a terrible baby. He never slept and cried 18 hours of the day. He had colic, reflux, and just couldn't settle himself into our little family. So, today he is four. Stephen and I grew as a couple and I gained strength as a mom after Elan was born. I learned so much... God knew I needed him and he apparently needed me too. Elan is now so funny and confident. He loves life and people, and especially his mama.

The beginning was rough, but we bonded and became so close. We learned from each other. We needed each other.

Elan is one in a million. His dimples, his smile and his beautiful eyes tell so much of who he is. If you look close enough, you can get a glimpse of his soul through his eyes... they are a crisp green and look straight into his heart.

This is by far one of my favorite photos of Elan, and I just took it this past Sunday.

Some more of my favorite "Elan" photos...

This weekend when I asked Elan what he wanted for his birthday dinner, he replied, "Cake!" I said, well, if we have cake for dinner, what will we have for dessert? Without hesitation, he replied, "Brownies!" Well, duh. I am such an idiot.

The child is hilarious...

He came up from the basement this weekend and he was grabbing his arse... as he cried, he said, "Mom, I think I broke my collar bone."

All he wanted for his birthday was his own deer steak that he didn't have to share with anyone.

He sticks rocks in his nose, eats dirt, dog poop and mulch, he can negotiate himself into getting exactly what he wants. He has a smile that will make you melt and he is seldom clean. He is wild, and has the attention span of a gnat. He claims he is going to live with me forever.

I love him dearly.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy, I love you.