I have a problem...

I have a small problem.....I love taking screenshots. Perhaps just a little too much! This is a screen shot of all of my screen shots. 804 of them......

Do any of you Mac users take a lot of screen shots? I guess it's time to do some spring cleaning in this folder...

SALE

That's right! I'm having a sale over at my etsy store on all books.

That's 20% off on all of my books! I'm clearing out the old inventory and getting ready for the new. Just type in code MUFNSALE when you order and I will refund your paypal account the 20%.

Better get them before they're gone! Thanks for shopping.

scrap packs

I have a problem.... I love paper and I collect it too!

I've been doing some spring cleaning at home and have put together these scrap packs. These are papers that I have been collecting for the last 5 years or so. Each pack is color coordinated and has over 50 pieces. There are stickers, book cloth, patterned paper, solid color papers, punch outs and even vellum.





They are priced to sell. I just want to get rid of the things I don't need or even use any more. But hurry quick over to my shop and get your hands on these fun scrap packs.

a few notebooks

New designs of a few notebooks that may come available in my shop soon. What do you think? Should I put them up for sale in my shop?

a book for Tim

This is a book I made for my brother-in-law, Tim. He is currently serving a mission for my Church in St. Louis, Missiouri.

He wanted something that would lie flat, so I bound it with a Coptic stitch. I designed a collage on the front and back covers of the book. I thought it would be fun to do a collage to make it more original.

What do you think?

phone skins

Chris, my husband, and I recently got a new Blackberry Flip phone and wanted a way to tell them apart. We decided to design phone skins for them. We used a website called Unique Skins where we uploaded our images and they printed and mailed them to us. All we had to do was put them on our phones. Service was fast and the print quality immaculate! I was pleasantly surprised.

What a great idea. Do any of you have unique phone skins? Upload a picture or share a link with your pictures.

{Click on the images to view larger.}


{My phone skin}


{Chris's phone skin. Hand drawn.}

new book

I already sold this book to my cousin, Mary, because she was in dire need of a journal and something that was happy to look at it. But, let me know if you like it and I can make one very similar.

It is coptic bound with a lace rub-on on the front and a crown rub-on on the inside front cover. It also has small eyelets on the front and back cover to make it look more finished.

Do you use a journal? What does your journal look like and what size is it? Are the things you write in your journal very personal, or will you share them with a good friend or perhaps your spouse or children?

a trip to the hospital

So, I realize that it's really late and that Friday is almost over, but I just thought of an extremely funny story about my mom giving birth. So if you get the least bit nauseous about gory stories, I wouldn't read the ending of this one. But, this one isn't about me, it's about my sister.

I grew up about 40 miles from the nearest of anything. Nearest grocery store, nearest hospital, nearest Wal-Mart. Oh, and even further from the nearest mall, about an hour and a half. Which isn't the case now, because the nearest mall is only 5 minutes away. If that, in fact I could probably walk there.

Well, knowing that, I can now get into the story. My mom was in labor and in the back seat of the car. {I think it was a jeep, not positive.} My dad, was in the driver's seat going as quickly as he could, when my mom screams at my dad, "I'm going to have the baby!" He stops the car, opens the passenger side back door, and LITERALLY catches the baby. Wraps her up in towels, places her on my mom's tummy. Then he get's back in and drives the rest of the 20 minutes to the hospital. {I'm sure as quickly as he could}.

{This is the kind of gross part, so if you want to skip this paragraph and read the end, feel free, but I am giving ample warning.} When they arrived at the hospital the nurses brought out a wheel chair for my mom and baby to ride in, but when my mom stood up, all of the afterbirth just fell right out and onto the pavement. My dad was so embarrassed that every time he walked by the "place" he would just kind of ignore it and pretend that that "thing" didn't belong to him and he had no idea what happened. But all my dad could think was, "Why hasn't someone taken care of that yet?"


{This is a picture of my mom, Cathleen, and me when I was a
little baby. Aren't I cute?}

Continue reading here...
The baby was born on a bridge over the Snake River and much discussion went over which County the baby was born in and what her name should be. My dad wanted to name her "Bridget" because she was born on a bridge, but my mom said, "No Way!!!" They settled on Anna. Isn't that a lovely name?

I just think it's hilarious how now-a-days we think it's so FAR to drive 10 minutes to get to the nearest Wal-Mart... and can't even leave the house w/out our cell phones. I know I can't.

But think of what it was like to only go shopping once a MONTH. That's right, I said month! My mom made one shopping trip w/ all of us kids to Winco in Boise. There we would get two shopping carts and split up into groups. Each time we got the items mom asked us to get, we would go and find her to get more "items" from the list. There were 7 of us kids and only one Mom! I don't know how she did it.

We considered white bread a treat and called it "Boughten Bread". My mom made almost everything from scratch, including the whole wheat bread. We grew the wheat, my mom ground it in the wheat grinder and made it into bread.

Let's say we are making pizza. The dough was made from my mom. The cheese was made from the milk our cows produced {our milk went to Swiss Village Cheese-we were one of the top producers there}. The sausage and bacon were from the pigs that we raised and the vegetables grown on the farm.

You see where I'm coming from? A very self sufficient family. I learned how to work hard and I am so grateful for that now...

Sorry if this story grossed any of you out. I find it more funny than gross, but what can I say...

Do any of you have funny birthing stories? Were you born at home or in a car? Did you parents get lost on the way to the hospital?

I'd love to hear your stories!

a giveaway

oh hello friend is having a one year anniversary giveaway! There are some beautiful things for the winnings.

I would love to receive these beautiful sachets from lotta helleberg's shop or these adorable hair pins from oh hello friend.

And I especially would love to get this cute pouch from krecklo.





{images from oh hello friend}

Take your chances and go enter to win! Yeah for giveaways!

bookmaking tutorials survey

Hey Everyone!

In order to make my tutorials better, I'd like to get some information from you on the past bookmaking tutorials. It's only 8 questions long and will only take a few minutes of your time.

Please click here to take the survey.

Thanks for your help and support.

papernstitch exhibition

I'm doing it again! I've entered my shop in the papernstitch exhibition. I'd love it if you would go here and vote for me. Check it out.

mountain views

Well, I'm back from a short vacation that I took to Breckenridge Colorado. It was fabulous! Have you ever been there? It's a cute and very quaint ski town that bustles in the winter, but quiet in the Spring. We stayed in this immaculate town home that was only worth $750,000 big ones! I felt like royalty...until we drove up the hill a little and realized that we were technically in the ghetto! Those homes were only a few million dollars and sat next to a private golf course.

We had a great time though and my daughter learned how to walk while there. Here are a few pictures from one of the hikes that we took. Grandiose!