House dreaming...

Hi friends!

I have a confession to make. I have been doing less card-making lately.

Here is what I have been doing:

1. Cleaning

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Our house is up for sale! Keeping the house ready at all times for house tours is a full-time job. Or at least more intense than the regular routine. But on the upside, the kids are getting used to cleaning up their stuff at the end of the day and making their beds to perfection every morning. I can live with that.

Wanna hear my best tip for dusting your house in a hurry? You know how the laundry always eats a few socks, so there are the odd ones with no match? I grab one, put it on my hand like a sock-puppet and race around, wiping down window-sills and moldings every morning. In 20 minutes, I've wiped down all 3 floors worth of everything, and then I just drop the socks back into the machine. You know, in the hopes that their mates will magically show up the next time around. This works great for kids, too! They think it's hilarious and I don't have to worry about cleaning products around Maia.

2. Baking

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I'm sorry to say that I have fallen into old habits with how I deal with stress. I'm choosing to not be bothered by the fact that my pants are feeling so tight lately. Because chocolate tastes so, so good. So does caramel and maple, FYI. See? I'm already calmer just thinking about the cupcakes I have upstairs in the fridge.

3. Illustrating

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I have a few sets coming out with Mama Elephant in the next little while, and just playing around with drawing and illustrating other ideas for the future.  There is so much less clean-up involved with drawing as opposed to stamping and card-making. It's suiting me better for now...

Caveat: I didn't draw that balloon-holding-girl, but she is very cute!

4. House-dreaming

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If I thought I was wasting time on Pinterest before, whoo! I am banking some serious hours lately, dreaming of what I want to do in the new house. I am eager, but I also feel a bit of crazy coming on. Do we keep an open staircase in the dining room or close it up so I have somewhere to place a buffet? Buy new sofas or keep what we have? Try our hand at bedroom molding, or leave the walls plainer? Buy a new bed or build ourselves a headboard? What kind of hardwood flooring: something light, something mid-toned? eeep.

It's exhausting.

But so exciting.

Would you like to see what I'm dreaming of? Since this has always been a card-making and party decor kind of blog, I thought I should ask first. Would it turn you off to see pictures of beds, and bedrooms, and projects that I'd like to tackle, or would that be fun?

♥.

Sun, moon and stars shaker card {new mama elephant}

It's the last day of Mama Elephant stamp highlights - I hope you've enjoyed it so far!  Today, we're showing off "Shooting Star."

I used the set for my stampede card, where I featured the little girl holding her teddy (click!)

With today's card, I wanted to show you that the set is amazing, even without her. The sentiments are so sweet, and can stand up on their own.



I took the sentiment quite literally, and made a shaker filled with a sun, a moon, and a whole lotta stars.

I used these dies:

♥ for the sun and moon, the stitched sky dies.

♥ for the stars, the lots of stars die.

♥ for the circle cut-out, and the base panel, the sew fancy dies.

The card isn't a regular-sized card, but sometimes a more petite card is such a cute surprise.



To create the shaker, I used a foam sheet with the same circle cut-out. I hate using adhesive for my shaker cards, where everything sticks to the sides and nothing is left to shake around. The sky stuff is sandwiched between the base layer and a piece of clear acetate. Which is so new you can't even see it. ha.

How do you make your shaker cards? Do you enjoy making them? I'll admit that I don't. But I do enjoy how much people like receiving them.

And this one would make the perfect Valentine's day card, I'm thinking.

♥.