simply caffeinated

more awesome braks!

happy fourth of july!! i hope you are enjoying a wonderful day with your family and friends! we went to our community's annual 4th of july parade this morning with some friends and now we are just relaxing at home, swimming, eating and looking forward to fireworks tonight! :)

here are some more of the amazing braks that i received! each one is just fabulous and i feel so lucky to have received so many wonderful cards! as i said on my last post, you guys made my birthday so special! thank you!! :) click on each picture to see them bigger. i will post the rest of them tomorrow. 

these first 2 are from linda and the girls at a muse, and from my girl rhonda! i just love them! i love the layout and the colors of the card from linda and the a muse girls, so festive! and rhonda's card is so sweet! she used 2 of my favorite a muse stamps and the card is absolutely perfect!! thank you ladies!! :)

these next 2 are from fellow caffeine addict michelle and anthonette vicencio. i love the colors and coffee theme on both of these!! so fun and right up my alley! lol! thanks ladies!! :)

i love these next 2 from kat green and connie matteo. i love the browns of kat's card and i love all the fun polka dots on connie's! thanks ladies! :)

these 2 are from connie heitner and victoria. i love the brown and blue color combo and coffee theme on both of these! how sweet is connie's three cups card? i love it! and how fun is victoria's card with the cake and coffee in the window? i will caseing that for sure! thanks ladies! :)

the next 2 are from tracy clemente and ingrid ott! the colors and the coloring and the details on tracy's purple card are just fantastic! this picture does *not* do it justice at all, it is absolutely stunning!! and i love this card from ingrid, the coloring is also amazing and the whole card is so fun! thanks ladies!! :)

these next 2 are from lori barnett and geeta the rock star! how cute is lori's card with the little crab carrying the to go cup? i freaked out when i saw it, it is just adorable!! and the sentiment is just perfect too! and geeta's is so pretty and fun, i love the colors and i love the pocket! thanks ladies! :)

these last 2 are from kathy and tinla woo! kathy's coffee card is so fun, the cup is popped up and the beans are on the inside of the card, and the edge of the card is scalloped so you can see them! super cute! and i *love* the elzybell card from tinla! what a cool layout and the coloring and details are just amazing, plus the polka dots on the front are embossed! wow! thanks ladies!! :)

i will be back tomorrow with the last of the braks to show you! they are all so beautiful and they make me so happy! :) thank you again for them! i hope you are having a wonderful 4th! thanks for visiting! :)

wow!!

i've been brak'd!! :) i am absolutely blown away by the amazing cards that i have gotten from so many addicts!!!!!! a *huge* thank you to all of the ladies that have sent me birthday cards, you have absolutely made my day, heck, you made my month!! :) i am so loving all of these cards, i thought i would share them so that you can see how beautiful they are!! click on each picture to see them bigger! these first 2 beauties are from dawn stein and kim linley. i love the fun embellishments on dawn's coffee card and the fun layout on kim's card. 

thank you both!!

these next 2 are from donna gotsch and mary anne wood. i love the colors of donna's flip flop card and all of the fun layers of mary anne's! thanks so much!!

this one is from amy shinabarger, so sparkly and pretty! thank you!

how fun are these 2? these are from beth ann and jen daloisio. beth ann's convertible is rolling on a super cool textured road and i *love* the new england dunkin' donuts coffee from jen! made me lol jen, thanks! :) thank you both for these amazing cards!

these next 2 are so awesome! these are from mary rose kulczak and nancy pope. i love the colors and layout of mary rose's card! and how much fun is this card from nancy? i was blown away by this *cup* and i will be caseing it for sure! thanks girls!! :)

these last 2 are so sweet and pretty! they are from janice spry and sharon holden. i love the bling on the happy day card from janice and i love the softness of sharon's splendiferous card! thanks so much!!

i have a *lot* more cards to share, so i will be back tomorrow with more!!! thank you again for making my special day so special!! thanks for visiting! :)

i like penguins

hey there! happy weekend and happy summer! friday was officially the first day of summer, woo hoo! :) i love just love the lazy days of summer!! :) here are some cards i made with the little penguins from imaginisce, they are so darn cute! i had stamped a bunch of them, and then when i was sitting outside one day watching the kids swim i colored them in, and later i made them into a bunch of cards in different layouts. here are 2 of them. can i tell you that i *love* the new 8.5x11 paper from a muse? i just love it! and this new kitchen orange one is awesome! i hope you are enjoying your weekend! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: penguins from imaginisce, kitchen notecard and sentiments from a muse, copics, stickles, cardstock, distresser and brads from su

ten years ago today...

i last posted on my blog!! just kidding! 10 years ago today i married the love of my life!! :) here we are on our wedding day, on a boat in the san francisco bay! 10 years, 3 kids, and a million laughs later, here we are! i am such a lucky girl! i was back then and i am even more so now!! :)

so anyway, it has been a while since i posted huh? not 10 years but it feels like it! :) how have you been? i hope you have been well! we are doing great over here, but we have had so much going on that stamping and blogging had to be put aside for a while. that is the way it goes sometimes i guess! i know it wasn't just us either, i talked to so many people that said that this was the busiest spring of their life!! lol! :) now that summer has started and things are slowing down, i am *so* looking forward to getting back to stamping and blog surfing and blogging!! i sure have missed it! i will give you a quick recap of what has been going on over here and then we will be all caught up!

*we finished school and sports so we are free for the summer, yay!! :)

*we are in the middle of birthday season over here! we have all of our family bdays (dh, all 3 kids and mine) between the end of may and the end of june, as well as our anniversary and father's day! we call it birthday season and it is filled with lots of cards, cupcakes, parties and fun! :)

*my younger son turned 6 on the same day that a muse turned 7, may 21st! happy birthday a muse!

*the a*muse*a*palooza countdown has started! check out the challenges and all the fun stuff on the amap blog!

i can't think of anything else so i think that is it! life is finally slowing down to lazy summer speed and we are loving it! sleeping in, swimming, hanging out with friends and relaxing! yay! :)

so speaking of amap, i actually made a card for a challenge!! woo hoo!! :) this is for elena's thinking out of the box challenge. i thought the surfer could have some birthday goodies on his board! :) my younger son saw this and informed me that the cake was getting wet in the waves, lol!! :) his comment made me think of this week's a muse addict challenge, to make a card with something liquid on it! :) it can be a drink, or a lake or ocean, anything you want, but to have something on your card having to do with liquid is the challenge! this is a super simple one layer card, but after not stamping for a while, i am just easing my way slowly back into it, lol! :) thanks for checking in today and i *will* be back to posting now! i have missed you! if you stop by, please leave me a comment and say hi! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: stamps and notecard from a muse, copic markers, stickles, circle and colored pads from su

teacher gift day three and four!

well, i meant to post yesterday but never got to it, oops! and now today is flying by too! here are yesterday and today's teacher gifts. the first picture shows some blank notes that i made for them. most of the teachers say that they really like cards so i try to give them as many card sets as i can. this was a design i saw a long time ago on scs and i don't remember who originally made it, but credit goes to them! i colored the stamp with markers, then sprayed it quickly with a water bottle and stamped it on the cardstock for a watercolored look. i used su's confetti white cardstock as the base for a textured, heavier cardstock, and i used one of my favorite su sets ever (it is retired), petal prints. and yesterday was notepad day, i showed you the other ones i made, and these are the other two. you can look here to see the inside and more details. they were a hit! i will be back tomorrow (i promise!) with the last gift and the weekly a muse addict challenge! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: on card set - petal prints, markers, confetti white cardstock from su

on notepads - stamps and notecards from a muse, marvy punch, stickles, copics, notepad from office max

teacher gift day two!

it's a great day over here! my favorite artist gavin degraw's new cd came out today!! woo hoo! soooo excited about it and it is already blasting on my stereo, lol!! besides that, it is the second day of teacher appreciation week so here are the gifts we gave the teachers today. they are little personalized notecards that say *from the desk of mrs.* and their name. you can click on the pictures to see close ups. i used the little apple stamp from a muse, stamped their names with karen foster snap stamps, and then used a cool new punch on the bottom edge of the notecard. linda is selling the punch on her blog, it is awesome! i colored the apple in with copics and added stickles for some sparkle. super simple and easy, i hope they like them! i took the second picture as we were rushing out of the house so it isn't the best, but it shows them all bundled up with organdy ribbon and a tag, and ready to go! i hope you have a fabulous tuesday! i will be back tomorrow with our next teacher gift! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: apple stamp from a muse, karen foster snap stamps, stickles, copics, cardstock from su, scallop border punch, organdy ribbon, marvy punches, pallette noir

teacher gift day one!

happy monday! and happy cinco de mayo! :) and happy teacher appreciation week! here is my first teacher appreciation gift for the week. i will be giving my sons' teachers a little gift each day this week to say thanks for all of the wonderful things that they do. i plan to keep them pretty simple since i will be making 4 of each thing! so if you are interested, check back each day this week and i will be sharing the gifts we give! today we decided to go with a coffee theme, all of them like coffee so i made these simple pocket cards and we attached a starbucks gift card to the tag on the inside. the to go cup is from a muse's new release and the thanks a latte is from the coffee break clear set. i had the kids each write their message on the back of the tag and we slipped it inside. i hope the teachers like them! also, in my older son's class, one of the moms asked each kid to bring in a flower for the teacher (picked, bought or made) and attach a note to the stem telling the teacher what they liked about them. we did that today too but i forgot to take a picture of it. of course, my younger son wanted to do that too so we ended up getting some pretty tulips and they brought those in. if you are making teacher gifts too, please feel free to link your blog or gallery here, i'd love to see what you are making! have a great day! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: stamps, notecards and ribbon from a muse, circle punch, cardstock and old olive ink from su

wheely fun

happy weekend! yay! saturday was national scrapbook day so i hope you got to do something crafty! here is a masculine card i created for a muse's weekly newsletter (are you signed up for that yet?). i just *love* this jeep! this was one of the first a muse stamps i bought and i still love it so much. there is a fun weekly a muse addict challenge this week...it's a girl thing! the challenge is to make feminine cards, in honor of mother's day next week. i hope you can play along! besides mother's day, this week is also teacher appreciation week so i am making lots of teacher gifts. i plan to post the gifts each day starting monday, so check back if you want to see them! have a great weekend! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: stamps, notecard and ribbon from a muse, sun and summer sun ink from su, copics

sneak peek notepads

happy wednesday! here is another sneak peek for you! next week is teacher appreciation week and i need to get cracking on some little gifts for them. i like to give my sons' teachers each one little thing a day for the week to say thanks and let them know that we think they are awesome! each of my sons has 2 teachers so i need to keep them pretty simple. here are some little notepads that i will be giving them one day, i saw them on heather nichol's blog a while ago and i just fell in love with them. they are really simple to make, you get junior size legal pads and have them cut in half so they are long and skinny. then you cover them with cardstock and you've got a cute little notepad! my son's kindergarten teacher just hatched little chicks in the classroom so i decided to use the egg nest from a muse's new release for hers. there is another sneak peek on that one too...see the little music note? that is from the celebration kids clear set that i sneak peeked yesterday. there are actually 2 notes but i masked off one. and the other notepad is for my son's other teacher who loves coffee like me!! :) that to go cup is also a new stamp being released tomorrow from a muse but i already sneak peeked it here so you might have already seen it! i tell you, i will be using this stamp a *lot*!! :) and it was just a matter of time until this cup met my favorite sentiment from the coffee break clear set, lol!! in the other pictures, i showed you the inside of one of the notepads. i used the coordinating a muse notecards on the inside and covered the top of the notepad to make it all match! i also have a close up of the images so you can see them a little better! tomorrow is the big day so don't forget to head here to see all the new stamps and goodies! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: stamps and notecards from a muse, marvy punches, copics, stickles, notepads from office max, kraft cardstock and old olive ink from su

celebration sneak peek!

happy tuesday!! i hope you are having a great day! here is a sneak peek for you of a new clear set from a muse being released on may 1st called celebration kids. it is really cute and versatile. there are lots of fun sentiments that come with it, and since it is a clear set, you can bend them to fit in the banner! i chose this one so that i could give it to my dd for being potty trained, yay!! :) i thought after we gave it to her, i could save it and add it to a scrapbook page about her big accomplishment!! :) i love paper piecing so i paper pieced the banner with the notecard, and then added some twinkle stickers and stickles to the crown! and did you know today is free cone day from ben and jerrys? we have one right by our house and we will be walking over there tonight to get ours after dinner!! yay! if you go get one, try the coconut seven layer bar flavor..it is soooo good!! :) i will be back tomorrow with another sneak peek! thanks for visiting! :)

supplies: stamps, notecard, twinkle stickers and ribbon from a muse, copics, scallop scissors, stickles