After 15 LONG months....

Well it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks here. I have been busy busy busy. I have been making more cakes, actually got some stamping done, but most of all I was getting ready for my hubby's unit of 400+ soldiers to come home after 15 months! YAY!!!! Here are some pics from the ceremony where we welcomed the first plane which had 230+ soldiers. My hubby was one of them! *grin*

Seeing these pictures make me so proud! My hubby was way in the back and I had a lady standing in front of me with her sign so I wasn't able to get a pic until after all the soldiers were in formation.

The National Anthem was being played and snapped a quick picture before putting my hand over my heart.

This is the Brigade Commander giving his speech to the "Kodiaks" (That's hubby's battalion) his speech was simple, "Welcome Home, Welcome Home (crowd cheering), You're all awesome, you're all heroes, Stay Safe, Go meet your loved ones, Well done, Hooah!" (and the crowd goes running) I love it when they keep it short and sweet. *grin*

And my favorite picture in the bunch:

It was a LONG 15 months, but he is finally HOME!!!!! YAY!!!

I will post some projects and cakes in the next couple of days so be looking for those. I thought these wonderful pictures deserved a post of their own. *giddy grin*

Now to go get ready for my daughter to come home. Can you beleive she is going to be 13 in less then a week? Crazy!

What I have been up to recently.

I know it's been a while since I last posted anything. Sorry, life has been crazy busy. But it's for a good reason! DH and his unit are getting ready to come home from their 15 month deployment! YAY!!!!!

I have been keeping myself busy and frankly, keeping myself from going nutso with lots of projects. A couple that I have done recently are these:

For Michele's birthday. She turned 4 I think. She wanted a Little Mermaid party and her mom asked me to make her a small cake just for her and to make the kids cupcakes. I didn't take pictures of the cupcakes, sorry, forgot to. But here is the birthday girls cake. I did two different colors of blue frosting to give it the look of water. It looked really cool in person. I did some swirly vine work and some drop flowers with a drop flower tip I have and then I used a little Ariel character that my friend gave me to put on the top of the cake. All in all I was pleased with how it turned out. The cupcakes were a big hit too.

Another friend asked me to make a monkey head cake for her son's birthday. I have never done one before but she gave me a picture as reference and this is what I came up with. I was really excited about how this one turned out and I can't wait to do another monkey cake!

And just so you know that I haven't been doing nothing but cakes:

I asked the ladies on the Altered Arts design team over at ASB to alter containers. They rose to the occassion like the true artists that they are! Check out what they all did here: http://www.ashadeofblue.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=1111

I made this bank using a crystal light container for my daughter. Aren't the papers yummy! They are from A Shade Of Blue's new line of papers! Avaliable now in their digi store! Be sure to check them out!

I sometimes get Spare Parts flowers from Hobby Lobby and the last time I did I decided to see if I could use the container. So here is the container before.....

And after.....

Can I tell you how I love this one. The papers are again from ASB. The flowers and the word friend are from SU's rubons (Sell-a-brations) and the ribbon is from SU.

I made this for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day

I asked my sister-in-laws' (is that the correct term? 3 of them? I don't know, anywho....) to send me pics of their kiddos. I used a frame I had gotten a couple of months ago, for this specific purpose and placed the kids pictures in the frame. I then looked online and found a beautiful saying about grandmother's from this site: http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/

The saying was printed off my computer and then I stamped a rose from the SU set Cottage Rose (I love that set!) so that it looked like the rose was behind the sentiment. The sentiment says: "Grandmothers and Roses are much the same, Each are God's masterpeices with different names. ---Author Unknown" I thought it was perfect.

My last one that I have to share with you (although I have done more I just can't find them to show you, sorry!) is this one. I did this one tonight. The technique challenge on ASB is the kissing technique. I love this technique!

So I have a story behind what some might call my odd color choice. I was folding laundry tonight and as I was folding the 4th shirt I looked at the pile of shirts that was sitting already folded. I had in my pile, shirts that were Night of Navy, Taken With Teal, and Groovy Guava. I thought, hmmm, that would make a good card combo! So, here you have it, the results of my folded laundry. ROFL! (all items from this project are SU except the navy ribbon swirly thing)

I stamped the paisley background onto Taken With Teal CS using Night Of Navy Ink. I am not a fan of Taken With Teal but I am challengeing myself to open my mind to new colors that I wouldn't normally use. So by stamping this with Night Of Navy ink I was able to tone down the Teal. LOL Then I DTP'ed the edges. I kissed the H & B from Headline Alphabet with the Navy ink on the Paisley BG stamp. Mounted it with Navy CS. Added some ribbon and the navy charm and then I mounted it onto my Guava cardbase. I decided to punch it up a little, using as my inspiration a card that my SU demo had us do in stamp club and I peirced the card right above the teal piece. You can't see it in the photo but I stamped the Aida Cloth BG stamp using Versamark on the Guava peice. On the inside I stamped a saying about birthday's although I don't remember which one. So in case you didn't guess it, HB stands for Happy Birthday. LOL

Anywho, there you have it, my very long blog post with all my latest projects.