My New Craft Blog!

Hey Guys!

I decided to change my craft blog to Red Berry Crafts. You can find it here. I'm excited about this new blog! Here is my latest entry from it. I'll be posting all of my crafts, designs and creations there from now on. Make sure to follow it and share it with your friends :) Hope you enjoy the post!

I'm really in the Valentine's Day mood right now so I've had the song "Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat stuck in my head. My husband and I danced to this song at our wedding. I decided to make some wall art inspired by that song. So I pulled out my Silhouette SD and I started out with this:

I found a free clip art image online of outlined hearts. Cut them out with silver vinyl and added them here and then also added the next line:






And then finally I added the last line and some extra hearts:

Love it!

I linked this post up to these parties!:

Valentine's Day Mood

I don't know if it's because I've been making all of these Valentine's Day crafts or what, but I am really in the mood for Valentine's Day this year. It makes me realize how much I love Joseph. He truly is a wonderful husband.

Due to this new mood I'm in, I've been wanting to watch movies/TV shows that have really great love scenes. One of the best love scenes I think I've ever seen came from the show LOST. If you don't know much about the show, then I'm not sure if this clip will tug at your heart strings as much as those die hard LOST fans, but it is still beautifully done.

I wasn't able to embed the video into this post, so here is the link. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5u0RoTxtNs&feature=related

Glass Etching Success!

My first attempt at etching glass didn't go over so well (as I mentioned in a previous post). So I watched a few YouTube videos and read a few more blogs and decided the reason mine didn't turn out nice was because I didn't put enough of the etching cream on!

So, I took out another glass plate and decided to put one of those oh so trendy birds and a berry branch on it. I made my own bird silhouette from a bird that we saw at Animal Kingdom in WDW. So this is the original picture:

And made this image with my silhouette sd (I forgot to take a picture of the vinyl image on the plate so this is a picture from my screen):

Cut out the vinyl, removed the actual image so I just had the stencil, stuck it to my plate, and covered it with etching cream:

I washed off all of the goop, took off the vinyl and had this as my final product!:

Not too shabby, huh? I was pretty excited about it. Since this plate turned out well, I felt it was time to start my real project. I wanted to put a glass etched rose on a vase. And this is how it turned out:

I really like it! I was going to add the flowers I bought at Michael's to this vase, but they didn't look very good. So I took out the flowers Joseph gave me for Valentine's day last year (they were still drying in my closet), and placed them in the vase. At the bottom I added my red berry vines. I think it looks pretty great! Too bad the roses aren't alive ;) Then I think the vase would look perfect!

I linked this post up with Texas Monkey's Link Up Party and also Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn!

Account Hacked

Hey everyone. Just wanted to give you an FYI that my email address berman.stephanie@gmail.com and my facebook accounts were hacked last night. The person sent out an email saying I was stuck in London and to please send money. Please do not send that person money. I'm still at home in my pj's :) Sorry for the inconvenience!

Michael's Score!

My family gave me a $25 gift card to Michael's for Christmas. I wanted to stretch that as far as I could so I went in there one day and bought 2 pieces of scrapbook paper for $1.50 so I could get the 40% coupon that prints with your receipt. Except, they gave me a 50% off coupon instead! So awesome! I went back the next week to purchase my etching cream. I didn't realize this stuff was so expensive. For a 10 oz bottle it was $29. Luckily I had my 50% off coupon! So, with the remaining $23.50 on my gift card I bought glass etching cream and 2 bunches of gerbera daisies. Then, on my way out I spotted these red berry vines!

They were originially $6.99 and were marked down to $1.83! I love red berry vines so I picked up 3 bunches. I ended up paying 52 cents out of my own pocket. I thought I did a pretty good job for only $25!

So, my first attempt at glass etching was not a huge success. I think I failed because I did not put enough of the etching cream on. Here are the before and after pictures:

This is the design I chose from my silhouette which I printed out in vinyl and stuck to the glass. This is the finished project:

Pretty splotchy. It's ok though. That's why I do practice items first before I attempt my real project! (Which will be shown when it is finally done. It includes everything I purchased from Michael's on my gift card!... minus the scrapbook paper)

We're Back!

We're back from our trip and we had a great time! Disney World was SO much fun! And we had a great time in Massachusetts too, despite the blizzard and having to stay 3 extra days. Here are some pictures from our trip!

As for now, Joseph is back to work and I am still on medical leave for my jaw. It is starting to feel better though! I am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel!! I keep telling myself that this time it's different and that I'm not going to slip back into pain because I'm actually healing this time since I had the surgery. Positive thinking and LOTS of prayer :)

We spent New Year's Eve with our friends and had a great time! Good food, fun games and great company. We played the Newlywed Game, and seriously, one of the TV couples had crazy murderer eyes! Creepy and funny to watch :) (I'm a nice person on the inside :)). Hope you all had a wonderful time as well!

After the Yankee Swap

Joseph's First Time Shoveling. I let him have all of the fun with that. I've had my fair share of "fun" shoveling.

Playing Wii games

Our Snowmen

Rockin' Roller coaster. I waited a several years to ride this ride! It was awesome!

Fantasmic was Amazing!

Almost Christmas!

Sorry it has been a long time since I've blogged. My surgery went well. After it was over, the doctor told Joseph it was a good thing that I had my surgery when I did because my bones had started to fuse together and there was a lot more damage to my joint than the MRI let on. He said there was no cartilage and no tissue left in my joint so he had to take more fat from my stomach than he anticipated to cushion my joint. I can't really complain about that! LOL. There is still a little indent where he took the fat from. I think it's kind of funny.

But since my joint was so damaged and because I have fibromyalgia, my doctor told me (and these are his exact words) that "it will take forever to heal". Awesome. I went back to work a week after surgery, but I was in so much pain from talking that I went straight to the doctor. That's when he told me it would take me forever to heal. So I stayed home another week. Then I went back 3 days before Thanksgiving and then most of the next week. But by the end I was in so much pain that my doctor and I decided that I shouldn't go back to work until the beginning of next year. Now I get to stay home and the only one I can talk to is Sammy.

I order to relieve some stress and to take my mind off of my pain, I started making Christmas crafts. I was actually able to sell the majority of the crafts that I made, so I was really excited. I am trying to set up my own little business called Apple Blossom Creations. Here is the link to my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Apple-Blossom-Creations/173692049321933 Please show it to your friends. I am going to start working on some more upcoming seasonal designs as well as traditional every day designs. I am also doing custom orders. I have my own silhouette sd machine and I'm able to cut out vinyl and scrapbook paper. So if you want some vinyl letter, framed art, or original design in your home, let me know and I can give you a good price on it :)

We are gearing up for our trip to Disney World and to Boston. I'm not sure what the weather will be like in Florida, but it's going to be COLD in Boston! I'm not really used to that anymore! I was freezing in my house today because it was 69 degrees. Oh well, we can dress warm :)

Merry Christmas!