Meet Hydi

Here is a picture taken of little Hydi (pronounced like Heidi) taken just a few hours after she was born. Look at all that hair.

We thought she was going to get to come out of the nursery today, but she had a little set back. The nurses were nice enough to sneak me in the nursery - only moms and dads are allowed - and I got to feed her twice today.

Brandy (her mom) and I did a little shopping today. Brandy was released yesterday evening, but they are letting her stay in a room at the hospital. Anyway, we searched for a little frilly dress for Hydi to get her picture taken in, but couldn't find any. Effingham doesn't have a lot of stores to choose from for baby clothes.

Anyway, I thank everyone for their prayers and ask you to please continue to pray for both mom and baby.

It's A Girl!

I'm sorry for not keeping everyone updated, things just happen so fast. I do thank you all for your prayers.

Brandy delivered a beautiful baby girl at 2:15pm Monday August 25th at St. Anthony's hospital. She was 6lb 11oz and 18 1/2 inches long.

Everything that could go wrong with the delivery did go wrong. It's a long story and I don't have much time. They did end up doing a c-section.

Brandy had some problems yesterday and we had some health problems with the baby. The are both doing ok right now. But Please keep praying for them both. After an episode of the baby choking and she stopped breathing, they have put her in the nursery with oxygen and have started an IV as she hasn't quite fiqured out how to eat yet. There are several other health issues as well, but again I don't have time to explain.

I will post more when things calm down.

Thanks again for all your prayers
Kim

A Quick Update

Brandy got to come home Monday afternoon. She is still taking medicine to stop her contractions, but they are few and far between now. She will be on bedrest until she delivers. She goes to her own OBGYN this afternoon, so maybe we will know more this evening.

She is 34 weeks now and since she has had the steroid shots, the doctor at Carle Hospital in Champaign was sure that they would deliver her baby at St. Anthony's if the labor started in again. Normally, St. Anthony's won't deliver a baby until you are a min. of 35 weeks.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers.

Kim

Update on Brandy...

Brandy is still in the hospital. She was feeling pretty good when I talked to her a couple of hours ago. She was just getting ready to eat supper from Fazoli's.

They have taken her off the mag drip. They started her on some oral medicine that is supposed to help stop the contractions. It didn't work real well. She started having contractions again, so the doctor ordered some kind of shot for her that caused her to have a lot of chest pain. They won't be giving her anymore of those. Tomorrow she is 34 weeks, so if she keeps having contractions, they may go ahead and let her deliver.

I thank you all for your prayers and will continue to update as I can.

Sorry - no new cards to post

I just wanted to apologize again for not posting. I had planned on posting pictures yesterday of Brandy's (my oldest daughter) baby shower. Of course that didn't happen. So just a quick update.

Brandy went into premature labor, so it's been kind of chaotic the last two days. She is 6 1/2 weeks early. She's doing ok so far, but they are still giving her medicine (magnesium) to slow down her contractions. She can't be on the medicine much longer and they will have to switch to an oral medicine tomorrow evening. If this medicine doesn't work, then they will let her go ahead and deliver early. They have given her two steroid shots (the last one about 6:30 Friday evening) that are supposed to help the baby's lungs incase she does deliver early, but the shots needs 24 hours to really take effect. So that is why she will be on the magnesium until tomorrow evening.

Please keep her in prayer.

Thank you
Kim

You Can Start Ordering Today....

The new Stampin Up catalog is now available. I just put in an order today. They have a lot of cool things in the catalog, it was hard to keep the order "reasonable". I did order the Big Shot, which is a die cut machine, and it will be available to customers starting September 1st.

I'm planning on having an open house in September if all goes well, and you can all come over and play with my new toys.

I've been trying to get my new Stampin Up site up and going, but it is a little more complicated than I thought. I did send out a newsletter tonight (at least I tried to), so some of you should be receiving it soon.

I'm sorry I don't have a card to post tonight, but I hope to have pictures of Brandy's shower up tomorrow. I want you to see the diaper cake I made and the bouquet of roses made from baby socks that my friends made. They are adorable - so check back tomorrow.

I've been busy... Again

I'm sorry I haven't posted for awhile (again). I've been busy (again). I keep hoping things will slow down. Anyway, I've been busy with my oldest daughter's baby shower. My middle daughter Jessi and I hosted a shower for Brandy. She is due September 28th.

And while trying to get ready for that, I was also trying to get ready for Vacation Bible School. If you have ever helped with VBS, you will understand what an undertaking that can be.

I will be posting more about each event later, but to hold you over, I'm going to post a card I made some time ago. It uses the set Pun Fun.

I also want to remind everyone that the new catalog is available for ordering starting tomorrow, August 11th. There is a lot of great stuff in there. Also, I just started a Stampin' Up website. I haven't had time to personalize it yet, but if you want links to the new catalog or specials, it is all right there, just go to http://www.kimjenkins.stampinup.net/ and enjoy!

Cricut Card

I finally got to use my Cricut Expression for fun. It has a lot of features that I'm still just learning about, so be patient and hopefully I will turn out some nicer cards.

This is my first attempt. It's very basic. I used the "Walk in My Garden" cartridge. I cut the hydrangea flower in card mode, then cut the overlay. So basically the machine cut out the flower part of the cardfront which is Mellow moss cardstock. Then I cut out just the top part of the flower in Lavendar lace cardstock and layered the two pieces on top of the mellow moss. I added the tiny flowers on the side, stamped the sentiment and cut it out with the two oval punches.

Tie some ribbon and there you have it. The cool thing is, I cut both colors with one cut.

The big "E" does a lot more complicated projects, and once I figure them out, I will show you.

New Scallop Punch

I recently bought a new 2" scallop punch that layers great with Stampin Up's scallop punch. I made this card using the two punches and very little stamping.

After punching the flowers in Pretty in Pink cardstock, I inked the edges a little to add some dimension. Then using my paper snips, I cut into each petal just a little bit. I layered the scallops using a Stampin Dimensional. The center is Chocolate Chip Cardstock run through the cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder.

The leaves were made by using the small oval punch with Wild Wasabi paper. I then folded the ovals in half and ran them through the crimper. The stem is a piece of Wild Wasabi ribbon. Before attaching all of this to the card, I spritzed the white cardstock with Chocolate chip ink. The "for you" was also stamped with Chocolate chip ink, and the cardbase is Chocolate chip.

This makes a very easy and quick card. The card measures 3 x 6. This is a great way to use up scraps of cardstock and ribbon.

Using Leftovers

I'm sorry it has been such a long time since the last post. Things just get so busy in the summer and time gets away from you. My last big project was the Mother-Daughter banquet at church, since then we have had 2 weeks of vacation, 4th of July Weekend, my last Stamp Club for this year and now we are gearing up for VBS. We are having Bible school August 4th-8th and I have my oldest daughter's baby shower on August 2nd.

I haven't even had much time for my new toy. My husband bought me a Cricut Expression a couple of weeks ago and I didn't even get to use it until Friday evening. And even then, I used it to make Bible school decorations. I already have the baby cricut, but the Expression is pretty cool. If you are on the fence about buying the big one or getting the little one, go ahead and get the big one, you won't be sorry.

I have had a couple of goals for this year, most of them I'm failing miserably at, but one of them is to get organized. This includes the stamp room. The other is to use up some of my papers that I have left over from workshops. I don't do a lot of workshops, but when I do, I always make sure I cut plenty of cardstock. And I always have packets left over. So, I'm tired of them sitting in the basket, and I'm going to try and use them up.

Here is my first try at it. The card on the right is a card we made at a workshop. I try to keep them fairly simple. The card on the left is made using the leftover cardstock. The owl image is from a $1 clear acrylic stamp set that I got at Joann Fabrics. I'm not a big fan of acrylics so far, but I did like the owl and the saying. I colored the owl in using Prismacolor Markers that I had purchased from Staples. When I went on vacation, I took my new markers and a few of the acrylic stamps to practice with. It does take some practice to get the hang of alcohol-based markers.

I'm not going to list the recipe, it's been so long since I made the Stampin Up card, I don't even remember the name of the set and I really don't want to dig to through all my sets to find it. I will try to do better next time.

Retirement List is Up

The Stampin Up Retirement List is now available. These stamp sets will only be available until August 10th.

To view the Retirement List, just click on the links below. One is sorted alphabetically and the other is sorted by page number


Alphabetical Order

Page Number