I Love You S'More

I absolutely love this little s'more stamp!  Who doesn't love s'mores, right?  I love the smiley face which is Lawn Fawn's specialty :-).  I colored in the s'more using a new technique I have been trying out.  I used colored pencils and gamsol.  I love how easy it is to do shading with this technique.
I also used Distress Ink along the outside of the card.  I kept it light in the middle to make the little s'more "pop".  I love the vintage look this gives the card.
I added twine and a bit of Stickels on the heart.  Can't wait to send this card off to a special friend!

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Anchors Away!

I am obsessed with anchors and anything nautical.  This anchor is one of my favorite stamps from Lawn Fawn.  I also love the sentiment!

I love the color combination of the gray and aqua. I used Hero Arts shadow ink to stamp the anchor and then used a gray ink to stamp the sentiment on top...love layering!   This card was super simple to make and I love how it turned out.

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Back to School

I love the new die that Lawn Fawn just released that makes these adorable little gift bags.  They are perfect for throwing in a gift card or some special treats.  I made this thinking I would give it to one of my fellow homeschool moms. This apple paper is from last fall's release...and I still love it!

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Love You a Latte

I had so much fun playing around with Lawn Fawn's new Love You a Latte stamp and die set.  It is perfectly adorable.

Does anyone else feel like the holiday season starts when Starbucks begins using their red cups?  I love these cute coffee cups that work for so many cards and are great all year round.  I used paper from the Sweater Weather and Snow Day collections.  I used the new stitched rectangle die to cut out white card stock and then stamped the sentiment on it.  The font used for the sentiments in this set are amazing.  I was imagining the cups had Spiced Pumpkin Lattes in them so I used orange lawn trimmings and a wood veneer leaf to make it feel fallish (I don't think that's a word!),

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I Heart Fall

My favorite season of all is fall.  Since moving to California 4 years ago, I have really missed seeing the leaves changing color.  Lawn Fawn's latest release has a beautiful set of stamps that got me in the fall spirit (I just had to use my imagination a bit!).

 

I started by using watercolor paper to give the card some texture and it works really well with the Distress Inks.  Then, I stamped using Argyle Backdrops with Distress ink.    I then used the Forest Border die to use as a stencil and used a foam applicator to apply Distress Inks...I really liked how it turned out.  The Sweater Weather set has a stamp for the trunk of the tree and a separate stamp for the leaves which makes it super easy to stamp the leaves any color that you want.  It also has a small leaf stamp so I used it to put some leaves on the ground.  I love the sentiment included in the set...so sweet! I finished off the card using some Lawn Trimmings to make a loopy bow and put a wood veneer leaf on top.  I colored the leaf using the same ink pad I used to stamp the leaves on the tree. 

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Moose You!

This card seems fitting in that I haven't blogged in ages!  Last week I got my hands on some Lawn Fawn goodies.  I am so in love with their new release! 

The navy wood grain note card provided the perfect backdrop for this card.  I colored the adorable moose with Copics.  The hillside with trees was created using the Forest Border die...so fun, right?  And of course, I had to use Cole's ABCs dies to create my sentiment.

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Meeting our son

We arrived in Beijing on Friday evening after  a 12 hour flight.  The next morning we headed out with 3 other families adopting and went to see some of the sights.  We enjoyed walking through the Forbidden City.  Cole just kept saying, "Cool!" to all the amazing buildings we saw.  He loved it.

Later in the afternoon we went to the Great Wall.  Daddy and Cole climbed the steep steps to a high tower...I chickened out half-way when I turned around and saw how high I was!

 

On Sunday we took an hour flight to Jinan the capital city of the Shandong Province.  We arrived at our hotel and were told Quinn  would be arriving in about 30 minutes.  As we waited to check in, we realized that he was already in the lobby!  We walked over and saw him, but the nannies from the orphanage insisted we put our luggage in our room before holding him.  We raced our bags upstairs and hurried back down as fast as we could!

We all loved Quinn instantly and Cole was so excited he was finally a big brother.  He kept saying, "Is this a dream?"
Quinn is very tiny...all the clothes we brought are too big.  He is very cute and likes to make lots of cute noises.  He makes good eye contact.  He is eating well. 

Monday was a long day spent at several government offices.  The building do not all use heat, so it was rough on Cole who got very cold at times.  Cole has done an amazing job despite the many hours spent in cars and planes and all the long boring waits.  Ray and Quinn were exhausted!

Today we drove 2 hours to Quinn's orphanage.  The orphanage was nice and they provided us with a lot of photos of Quinn.   Here is Quinn's empty bed!

Here are the boys on the drive home from the orphanage to our hotel:

We are enjoying our trip and are thankful for all the prayers.  Everything has gone smoothly.  I have not had any stomach issues, but have had a bad cold the entire time.  It actually has been a blessing in that my sense of smell doesn't work! 
We also have been so blessed to travel with a couple Derrick and Jen.  Jen and I found each other online several months ago and it has been amazing to get to meet her and share our journey together.  Their son was also at Quinn's orphanage and they are together in some of the pics the orphanage gave us!  We are so thankful for having them with us!
Here are some more pics: