feeling kinda down

I'm not sure what's up with me, but I've been feeling pretty down lately. Maybe it's a combo of a bunch of different things from lack of sunlight to lack of adult contact but I'm in a funk that I just can't seem to shake. Sometimes I feel ok, like last night at stamp club. Buying craft supplies, eating snacks, making cards and chatting with my friends was wonderful. I so needed that. But then again today I'm back to the feeling down in the dumps. I have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning no matter how much sleep I get. I do alright for sleep despite ds waking up in the night cos he always goes back to sleep pretty quickly and even after his morning bottle he goes back to bed. Dd sleeps through the night and sleeps in and then she plays happily and quietly in her bed for a while so even though I'm up 3 times (sometimes only twice, sometimes 4 or 5) I generally get to sleep until at LEAST 9. Usually more like 10. Sometimes even 11. Even though today was one of those sleep in late days I still could barely get out of bed. I just feel so drained and exhausted. Getting to go grocery shopping is the highlight of my week cos I get out of the house (unless of course dd throws a tantrum. Then it sucks). I rarely get to hang out with other adults, and usually if I do the kids are along with us and I'm the one who ends up looking after them the most, and it's also pretty distracting from the whole adult conversation and contact when you are constantly keeping 2 kids happy and out of trouble. The only adult time I get is with my hubby and even that feels like barely at all. He's at work all day and lots of times comes home quite a bit after he is done work cos as a teacher he has lots to do with lesson planning, marking, coaching, etc. Then we are busy all evening with dinner and the kids and by the time both of them are in bed DH is long asleep most of the time. I love my kids, but I need some adult conversation. I need some grown up fun. I'm feeling so lonely and sad.

Valentine's Challenge

Happily Ever Crafter has a challenge for Valentine's day. The task is to make a Valentine's Day project that uses the colours of an NFL team and NOT traditional Valentine colours. So teams with red are out! You may also add black or white. I don't really follow football, so I chose the St. Louis Rams solely on the blue and gold in their logo. Here it is:

And here is my card:

I embossed a dark blue sheet of paper with one of my cuttlebug folders and then rubbed versamark ink on it. I was hoping to get only the raised part covered with the gold powder but it didn't work out that way. Since the paper and powder was used anyways I decided to heat it and see how it turned out and I liked it! Then for extra shine I used my versamark ink pad to cover the entire piece of paper and put white pearls embossing powder on it. It heats up to leave a translucent pearly sheen that is very pretty. Here is a close up of the detail:

Then I used my newest SU! stamp set (the squirrel is so cute and the whole reason I bought it), my SU markers, some gold card stock and the nestabilities labels one dies to finish it up.

The prize for this challenge is a 10$ gift certificate to Papertrey Ink. And although that will only cover half of the shipping to Canada it will give me an excuse to shop there again, lol! They really have the cutest stamps!

Anyone else going to play along with this challenge? I'd love to see what you create!

recent creations

Over the break I got lots of great pictures to scrap. My second batch is printed and ready for pickup and I've completed pages for the first batch. You may want to click on the pictures to see them in more detail.

dd's 2nd birthday celebrations

I used extra number stickers and cut them out in the shape of 2. The idea was from Creating Keepsakes

fun button balloons. I love Papertrey Ink stamps@

the ugly sweater contest

the Fontaine gathering

Christmas with dh's family

more fun PTI button bits stamps. LOVE 'em!

Christmas day at our house

Completed December Daily

Days 1-3

Days 4-10

might list gifts received, might toss looseleaf page. Still undecided.

forgot there was an envelope so I need to print these pictures again in a larger size...

Scramble Wraps

Aiming Low is a wonderfully hilarious website and I thought I'd participate in their recipe contest. I usually cook from a cookbook but I do have one single "recipe" that I've come up with on my own that is all about aiming low. I call them Scramble Wraps.

Scramble Wraps

Take 2 eggs per person and whatever leftover crap you can find in the fridge that would taste ok scrambled up. Leftover sandwich meat is good, olives, canned mushrooms. Check that veggie crisper drawer and take whatever veggies haven't spoiled from that healthy recipe that you were totally gonna make but then were up half the night with your wide awake baby and then chased after a grumpy terrible 2 year old all day thus making it into frozen pizza night. Broccoli, red and green peppers, onions etc. The bonus of using these up is that you won't have to clean them up next time you go into your crisper drawer and they have turned into bags of strange goo. Salsa is great to dump in too cos it's tomatoes and onions and other veggies and seasoning minus the chopping. Then crack the eggs and dump the stuff right into your frying pan (no use in getting a bowl dirty. We are aiming low after all) and turn on the burner. Scramble away and then dump the contents into a wrap and voila! Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner is served! Cheese is also a nice touch and if you don't feel like grating there are always cheese slices. They get all melty and yummy better than real cheese anyways. And you can totally brag that you're a great housewife for using what was leftover in the fridge and saving so much money that you totally justify the online shopping you did that day.

On another Aiming Low note, I made the ugliest cake for my dd's bday. I can't believe she turned two! I aimed high with this one - I made 2 different Martha Stewart cake recipes in a shaped pan and made cupcakes with the leftover batter, but my icing was too lumpy and runny (despite using a whole bag of icing sugar) and so I ended up with this lopsided runny "cupcake". It tasted good and she liked it so it ended up all right. Just goes to show you that I shouldn't try too hard when it comes to decorating cakes cos the harder I try the bigger the fail...