Re-Start on the Blog!

Hello! It's been a very long time since I've been on the blog. A lot has happened in two years but I won't bore you with past details.
The newest detail that I will catch you up on is that Bri & Lance have a date for a wedding!! They'll be married here in Houston on July 14th!! Lance proposed in the most hilarious way on February 24th. THE ring is gorgeous!! Plans are moving at a very fast pace around here. The gown was chosen about 6 weeks ago, bridesmaids' gowns too. The venue was picked before the gown! Bri & Lance will be the first couple to marry at Mia Bella Vita in Tomball. I had already designed their invitations about a year ago. We just perfected it a smidge. Those are made & went in the mail yesterday. Woohooooo!!!

Here they all are ready to be sealed and put in the mail. I watercolored 3 butterflies per invitation. I also made the shower invitations & thank you notes for them. I'm now working on paper flower cones for the ceremony. My Cricut machine (THANKS Wanda Dodd!!) has worked double time cutting butterflies!! I cut 280 white butterflies with my machine on Sunday to create a special decoration for the ceremony.

The 280 glued together to create 140 dimensional butterflies. This pic shows about 70 of them finished.

I can't wait to be able to post pics of everything put together!! After the wedding I'll be allowed to post all I want to of the items created for the event.

For now I'm off to stamp more yellow butterflies on yellow paper for the paper cones!!
HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY EVERYONE!!

Cyndi

2010 NEW YEAR HAPPENINGS

Hello Everyone!!

It's been 3 months since I posted on here. Geez, I really need to get better at this blogging thing!! We made it through the holidays wonderfully!! We enjoyed having Bart's parents out to Texas for Thanksgiving with us. And Christmas this branch of the family stayed home to celebrate. We attended church on Christmas Eve and then Lance and Brie picked up the Trey-Man to spend the night with us. Trey was a bit overwhelmed with the Santa thing on Christmas morning!! He is 20 months old, so it was a bit strange to get all those gifts at once. It was so much fun to have a baby in the house again on Christmas morning!!

On January 3rd Kelly began playing volleyball with a club league team on their developmental 12 year old team. After 1 practice, the head Coach emailed me and said she wanted Kelly on one of her tournament teams!! Needless to say Kelly is thrilled and our life just got much crazier!! Practice 2 nights each week and tournaments about once a month at different locations around the Houston area. She played in her first tournament on January 9th after only 2 practices and played a lot in every match that day. The 12-Blue-Coach Amy team won their first two sets of matches and had to play the other 12-Blue team from Willowbrook - sister teams!!! It was a tough played match but in the end 12-Blue-Coach Amy's team came in 2nd place to their other 12 year old team from their sports complex. They had lots of fun and enjoyed the competition. They play again next weekend January 23rd and 24th.

Brie & I attended the Houston Bridal Extravaganza on January 10th and found THE DJ for the wedding and we think the photographer too. Picked out a tux for Lance and think we have the bridemaids' dresses picked out. Brie starts a new college next week and will graduate in October of this year. She's excited that she'll actually be taking medical/nursing classes now!!

Bart is thrilled that our NEW ORLEANS SAINTS are in the playoffs this year!! GEAUX SAINTS!!! He is traaveling today to his parents' in Mobile to celebrate his Mom's 70th birthday. Happy Birthday GeeGee!!!

I've been busy working on the wedding invitations for Jayme. This is the black & white wedding that I've been working on the final design for a few months. It is a very pretty invitation that matches several elements of Jayme's wedding. The patterned paper matches her table linens for the reception and the black braiding across the front is almost an exact match to the braiding on her wedding gown. The wedding will be June 19, 2010; so I have a little time to get the invitations made. Thanks goodness!!! A photo is posted of Jayme's invitation at the beginning of this post.

My next set of wedding invitations to design will be for Brie & Lance!! She has chosen fuschia and sunshine yellow for her colors and we'll be using butterflies in some of the wedding "stuff". Much excitement around the Waltman house over the next year or so!

I wish you all a wonderful weekend!! And I hope I can make time to post more often on here this year.

Prayers and grace to you all,

Cyndi

Kelly's Halloween Costume Birthday Party Invitation

Hello Everyone!

We made a quick trip to New Orleans on October 9th for the gorgeous wedding of Cassie Borden to Brent LeBlanc. Cassie & Brie have been best friends/cohorts since 1998. The wedding was beautiful in spite of the rain that hit right as they gathered us all outside for the ceremony. We moved indoors and it was perfect!

We are throwing a Halloween costume party on October 24th for Kelly's 12th birthday. I designed the invitation for the party using Close to my Heart's new stamp set Beware (item # d1381) and CTMH papers too. You can't see it in the photo, but all the bats' wings stand off the card so it has a 3D effect to it. Kelly is very excited about her party! The menu for the night is Lady Fingers (chicken tenders), Body Part Pizza (veggie pizza), Eyeballs (cherry tomatoes with boccocini mozzarella & black olive slices) and Witch's Brew punch (green Hawaiian Punch with dry ice for the fog effect). We're going to paint pumpkins, count bats, have a costume contest, and with it being 10 little girls --hear alot of screams & giggles!

Well that's my news for today. I am off to work on Christmas Cards. I'll be hosting a Christmas Card Workshop on Saturday, November 7 at 10 a.m. at Tomball United Methodist Church. If you are interested in making your Christmas cards and having fun while you do, please let me know SOON--space is limited. It's $20/25 cards, that includes lunch, soft drinks/tea/water, LOTS of door prizes and tons of FUN!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO YOU!!!!

Cyndi

The Wedding Invitation that was promised

Well, I guess it's better late than not at all. This is the invitation that I had designed and made a sample of for a bride a few weeks ago. She asked for some changes, I made those and now I've made a few more. I'm not sure if this will be the final, but this one I really like. It's simple, not too busy and will be easy to put together too. The designed paper matched her table linens, the red bow matched the roses she'll carry and the braiding down the front is almost the same as the braiding on her wedding gown. The front designed piece folds open to show the invitation and a pocket for the RSVP card, envelope and map to the wedding.

I hope you enjoy this one!! I'm working on Halloween and Christmas cards too. I'll post those soon! I promise it won't be a month and a half between posts next time!

We are getting ready for school to start on Monday. I can't wait!! I love summer but I'm ready for some normal schedules and a little structure to my day again.

We are taking one last trip before school starts. We are heading home to New Orleans on Friday to go to our church there for the 50th Anniversary celebration. AND to see my Best Friend Kathleen!!! I'm so excited to go visit the "Petty Patio"! Great friends, good wine.... nothing better than that!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Cyndi

Here's my upload #2 for today!

This is made with the upcoming August Stamp of the Month from Close to my Heart. The set is titled It's your Day.

The recipe for this one is: bamboo, topiary, breeze (retired) blush, hollyhock & colonial white cardstock; hollyhock, honey, chocolate (distressing of col. white) & ocean inks; and silver ice Stickles.

I've got one more card to upload for today but it may be later tonight when it shows up on here. The guinea pigs are out of food and Princess Fluff-N-Stuff is almost out too!! Heaven forbid that I allow Fluffy to run out of food, she's so food-deprived as it is! (please note sarcasm is dripping profusely here)

Here's one of my newest creations!! I created this one today using all Close to my Heart products to submit for a challenge issued by a friend in Ohio on her blog. Please go visit Mary's blog http://www.mbryt1.blogspot.com/ and check out her beautiful work. Mary has some awesome techniques and cards posted there!!

This card is my answer to Mary's So Sketchy Sunday challenge. I used the Surf's Up acrylix stamp set from CTMH, hollyhock, sorbet, keylime & white daisy cardstocks, sorbet, tulip, honey, chocolate, dessert sand, hollyhock & juniper inks and white & chocolate ric rac.

I hope you like this one and I will try to get some more pictures uploaded later today or tomorrow!!

Have a wonderfully colorful day today!!!!

Cyndi

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO EVERYONE!! God bless you all and a BIG THANK YOU TO ALL OUR MILITARY AND THEIR FAMILIES FOR THE SACRIFICES YOU MAKE FOR OUR FREEDOMS!!