What March?

Whoa! What happened to March?? I swear that I just blinked and the entire month was over. Things have been super busy and my schedule has really had a whole bunch of changes! Some of you know that I have just finished my third month of treatments for Lupus (SLE) and I'm doing great! I got my definitive diagnosis in January and that was kind of a bummer but really, there are a lot of people who go through much worse things. Having to take a fist full of chemicals every day is no fun but one of my pills is actually anti-malarial so hey... I am totally prepared to travel to Africa now. :) Oh I have always wanted to go!

Along with immune suppressant drugs comes a whole slew of new fun sicknesses...we've gone through the usual routine of stomach / cold / flu this spring already and I am super ready to open all the windows and decontaminate the house! I have to be super careful not to get exposed to too much crud, but a lot of it has still found me. Hopefully soon things will get lots better!

 

I also started a new job with a great schedule and the best group of people I have met in a long time. It's very enjoyable to say the least and I am learning a lot. I've also worked hard on doing other things to help my crummy joints like walking and stretching and yoga. I will not post photos or video of the "yoga" because there is usually a lot of creaking, snaping, grunting and foul language involved. :) I'm going to keep practicing though and maybe some day I will feel confident enough to take a community yoga class. That might be fun!

 

So I didn't get a whole TON of stuff done in March and I missed out on a couple of scrap groups when I was under the weather. Bummer. But....Kim at ETM has been great to me over the last few months and I am still helping to design things from her monthy kits. I have to say that the March kit has turned out to be one of my favorites so I will share a few things that I made with it.

 

 

 The colors and textures in this kit are really fun. I'm not much of a "yellow" person but I really did enjoy working with these colors.

 

The kit comes with a little bird stamp set by BasicGrey - I had fun stamping the "tail" of this peacock by daubing different shades of blue, green and brown onto the stamp with a dauber, then stamping.

 

I used Sandy's Ribbon Trick from this tutorial over at Stars & Stamps. I will surely use this technique to fasten lots of ribbons to my cards in the future! I have lots of cute brads to use up as well! What a great idea.

 

Following a Page Maps sketch... I created a 12 x 12 layout. I was intending to put photos into the two middle blue frames but didn't get around to that part yet. All of the little embellishments and babules that you see on the page come in this kit. So many tags, punches, buttons and fun things! I love the patterned papers in this kit that are by Echo Park and Authentique.

 

This embossed paper (dark grey) is really a fun thing to have in the kit. I believe that there was some in the "February" kit as well but it is such a big hit that we used it again. This is an 8x8 page for those making the 8x8 albums. Love, love, love these colors!

 

Project Life style pages... I must admit that this type of scrapbooking is not really my style but a lot of people are doing it, so hey... this kit is full of little 4x6 mats ready for your Project Life album plus tons of other fun embelishments that you can use.

 

Heyyyy... my little Hero Arts OWH Balloon snuck in on this layout. :) This stamp isn't included in the kit but I couldn't resist using some of the cute chevron paper in the kit to stamp some balloons on to. I used every last scrap of chevron paper to make more balloons for OWH cards and now there are little chevron balloons floating all over my desk top. Help! :)

 

I have challenged myself to use up ALL of each month's kit before the next month's kit comes out. This means making as many good cards as possible out of the scraps. They all go into the Operation Write Home box of course.

 

I'm sorry I have fallen so far behind with other things including all of the fun challenges and posts at OWH. I did a lot of them but just didn't find the time to take photos or blog about them. Things are really falling into place now and I think that I will start anew with April, rather than trying to catch up. I especially want to show some cards that I have been making with a fun new card group... these ladies are having so much fun and making some amazing cards! I'll share our April group for sure.

 

Thanks to my loads of friends and family who have stuck by me these last few months. Adjusting to changes isn't always easy but it's so much better with good friends and loved ones by your side. I'm looking forward to so many very good things this year! See you again soon and thanks for stopping by!