I LOVE Dies!!!!

Hi Again!

Sooo....let's talk about dies. Do you use them? Do you love them? Do you know what they are? Just in case you are new to the world of dies they are thin metal that are in a specific shape and when you run them through a die cutting machine (like a Big Kick, Cuttlebug, or Vagabond) with paper under the die the metal die cuts out the image. You will see what I am talking about in the picture of the card because the bench that I use on the card is a die that I have.

I do own a Silhouette Cameo and I like it although I am still learning how to use it so I may grow to love it but the jury is still out on that. I do know that I LOVE dies, they are beautiful, quick, and easy to use!!! My collection keeps growing and growing and growing and I look forward to growing it even more! If you haven't used dies before I implore you to give them a try I would be surprised if you don't end up loving them too. Oh and did I mention they cut through several different types of material? Cardstock, felt, vinyl and others.

For this card I used two different dies. The white bench (I wish I had taken a picture of it so you could better see the intricacy of the bench) and the grass at the bottom. I colored the sky with distress ink in Tumbled Glass and China Blue. I colored the bottom with Mowed Lawn. I went over the die cut out of grass with a Wink of Stella brush pen in light green. The sentiment stamp is from Technique Tuesday and I embossed it using white embossing powder over Versa Mark ink. I colored the image with Copic markers, used a white pen to color in the whites of her eyes and then added Glossy Accents to her eyes and lips as well to make them shiny.

As I was gathering information for the writing of this entry I came across a give away. One that will allow you a chance to enter and allow me a chance to gain extra entries as well! Click here and it will take you to the site so you can enter to win. Good luck!!!

All the items I used to create this card I purchased from Scrapping For Less. If you are in the market for the most current cardmaking, paper crafting, or scrapbooking products I promise you will have a hard time finding better prices or products anywhere else!

Thank you so much for joining me today, have a wonderful weekend!!!

Wishing you sunshine and smiles,
Kim :)

Home Again!

It is so good to be home!!! I got to hold my dog Cookie whom I have missed more than I thought it was possible to miss a fur baby (but let's face it she is my precious). I got to sleep in my own bed and have my favorite coffee from my Keurig machine. I got to to snuggle down into my couch that I find so comfortable. Then, reality set in as I looked around and realized there is so much freakin' work to do around this house!!!

Now mind you when I say work I don't mean cleaning. One of my good friends stayed in our home while we were away and left it cleaner than I did when we left for Ireland. What I mean is that as I look around my house I realize that I want to change everything!

This coming February we will have lived in our house for nine years and truth be told I did not bother to decorate. Even in my room where I keep all my card making stuff most of the decorations are more functional. Just this past year I started decorating my room. I also picked out a bedspread to attempt to decorate our bedroom but truth be told I don't have a clue as to what I am doing or how to do it.

This will be a guestroom but for now it was storing our stuff while our friend was living here. 

The reason I am going on about all of this is that I want to make this house our haven. I want to come into it and love everything I see, not just make do which is what I have been doing. Now I will not be making a run to Ikea, Target, Kohl's or any other store because I do not want to pick out a room that has been put together and slap it on a room in my house. I also struggle because I don't want a bunch of stuff clogging up the house and taking up space just to take it up. I like for things to be pretty and serve a purpose.

Most of this will be fixed once I can get in there and put things away (while packing things got far flung) but I am truly hoping to have a pulled together room in the end...someday :) 

I went onto Pinterest thinking that I could pin a bunch of pictures of rooms or things that I like and I would figure out what I want the house to look like, turns out I know that I like those pictures but I am pretty sure the rooms I like are completely different decorating styles. (I have even tried to take a "What is your decorating style?" quizzes and I STILL don't know what my style is!
I am doing all this "pre-work" because since we have spent the last six months in Ireland and traveling every chance we got we are not ready to do any type of remodeling to the house (most likely not for all of 2016). I figure that I can do some decorating with things we already have around the house and pick up a few things as the year goes on but nothing major. I am struggling with the feeling that I want to change so much NOW! I want blinds instead of curtains (which will be rather expensive because a lot of the windows are large not a typical size carried in most stores), drawers in my kitchen instead of cabinets that I have to crawl into the great beyond to pull things from the depths of darkness!

The materials I took to Ireland with us that now need to be unpacked and put back in their home...

Knowing that this is how things are for now and will not be changing in the near future I need to find a way to be satisfied with my home as it is. It is a great home and an excellent space and truly more than we need so I don't like that as I write this I feel as though I sound rather ungrateful and petty, but I acknowledge that and am looking to get over it. All I can think to do for now is to come up with a list of the things that I can change now or even improve upon and then concentrate on other things until it is time to do more.

Has anyone else out there ever felt this way and what did you do to deal with it? Thanks for listening and for any help you wish to give!

Wishing you sunshine and smiles,
Kim :)