Be Back Soon!!!

April 28, 2018 Happy Ink Designs6 Comments

Hello crafty friends!! I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend. I just wanted to pop on here real quick and let you know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, I’m still here. I’m just taking a wee little craft break. A much needed crafty break. I’ve been neglecting other areas of my life and well, it’s coming back to bite me. I’m speaking mainly of my health. I just haven’t been taking care of myself like I should be and now I’m paying the price. Nothing major, just a little infection that doesn’t seem to want to go away. My goodness abscesses are painful!! I was in bed for a week!! A lovely side effect of having so many abdominal surgeries…

Anyway, before the pain took over, we did get to take the boys to a MLB baseball game in Oakland. A’s against Redsox. We had fun! Here are a few pix. My whole family went (all 22 of us), but we were all spread out throughout this one section, which was kind of a bummer, but we still had fun. The only thing that would have made this better was if we had all been able to sit together. Next time…

We had 4th row seats!! We could see the sweat on the players brow, we were so close.

Besides my health, I really just need a break. Does that ever happen to you? Where you just need a break from doing what you love most?? When it starts to feel more like a chore than it does a hobby, that’s when I know it’s time to take a break. But before too long, I’ll be itching to make another card and before you know, I’ll be back at it.

Thank you ladies for all of your wonderful support on here and on my YouTube channel and Instagram. Your encouraging comments and making new friends and seeing your lovely creations are a huge part of why I love doing this so much.

I’ll talk to you guys soon!!

Misty

Elf on the Shelf

December 18, 2017December 18, 2017 Happy Ink Designs2 Comments

Ok, if you haven’t heard of Elf on the Shelf yet, you MUST be living under a rock. Just kidding, surprisingly a lot of people haven’t heard of it. Our lives revolve around it this time of year and has for the past 4 or 5 years which is why we know ALL about it. If you already know about these elves, you can just skip down to the pictures.

Elf on the Shelf is an Elf that is sent here from the North Pole to watch over your child and make sure he/she is on their best behavior until Christmas. Our’s comes Thanksgiving night and leaves every year on Christmas Eve. He/she reports back to Santa each night and lets the big jolly man in red know if your child has been good or bad. Our elf’s name is Eddy. Eddy comes back each morning and is hiding in a different spot every time. Sometimes he’s just hiding in the tree or hanging on a picture. Other times he gets into mischief.

This is our first year that we have TWO elves!! Bubby (my son’s best friend that is living with us) asked for an elf of his own last year and thanks to the magic of Christmas, we now have welcomed Milo into our family!! It’s pretty awesome to have two now. They get into all kinds of trouble together!!

Sometimes they leave little gifts for the boys or little messages, like telling them to do 3 good deeds for the day, other times it’s just a delight to watch them search around the house in the morning for their little elf friends.

There are a few rules, however. They cannot touch their elf or else the elf will lose his/her magic. We have a little emergency kit of red and green glitter that we can sprinkle over our elf, in case of accidental contact. My kid reads my blog so please keep that in mind. But do you guys love Pinterest as much as I do?? It’s amazing all the great ideas you can find on there!!

Each year on Christmas Eve, our elf leaves a little gift and a note letting Jayden know that for a very short time, Santa has lifted the no touch rule and your child is allowed to touch and hold and hug their elf to say goodbye and then he/she places the elf on or near your Christmas tree before they go to bed. When they awake, the elf is gone until the next year, but Santa has been there so the sadness of the elf being gone is usually replaced by the excitement of presents!!

Anyway, there’s all kinds of info. on these guys on the internet so if you have little ones or just want to see how creative some of these elves are, just head to the interweb or better yet, Pinterest.

I’ll leave you with some fun pix from this year and years past.

Cardmaking · Handmade Greeting Cards · Haul Goodies · Life

Simon Says Stamp Haul Video

November 4, 2017November 4, 2017 Happy Ink Designs7 Comments

Hi guys!! It has been 10 months since I’ve done a haul video!! Can you believe that?!? Wow.. I’ve been a good girl for quite a while now. But it was my Birthday on October 2nd and I decided to treat myself a little. Actually, I needed to restock a few things after a fairly large card order that I recently did so that’s my excuse for placing this order. At least that’s what I’m telling myself (and my hubs) anyways.

I also wanted to let you guys know that I won’t be blogging or posting videos for a couple of weeks. I’m going in for yet another major surgery on November 13th and I’m planning on spending a week in the hospital down in San Francisco. I hate being so far away from home when I have these surgeries. That’s one of the hardest parts.

I think this will be my 21st abdominal surgery that I’ve had in the last 10 + years. Hopefully it will be my last. But I’ve said that many times before too… Just to give you a little background on me, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was 25 and a year later, I had to have my large intestine removed. I was so sick at the time, what should have been a 3-5 day hospital stay (because it was a laparoscopic surgery), turned into a 3 week hospital stay. Every complication that I could’ve had, I did. This was before I met my hubby and had Jayden though. I had a few medical errors made on me that led to many more complications. They really snowballed after I had Jayden though. When he was 6 months old, I ended up with a perforated bowel and came pretty darn close to leaving Jayden without his Mama. My local hospital wouldn’t fly me out because they didn’t think I would survive the flight to S.F. so one of my surgeries were performed locally. All the rest have been in San Francisco. Over the years, it’s been one thing or another. I was flown out once because I had adhesions wrapped around my small intestine and my ovaries and basically cutting off circulation. Another surgery I had to have because my small intestine kept kinking in one area, causing me to have one small bowel obstruction after another until they finally operated and put a stint in. Now because of all these surgeries, I have a 6 inch cyst on one ovary and another 6 inch cyst on the other… They don’t think it’s cancer, but they’re so big, they are now causing me to have small bowel obstructions so it’s time for them to go. That’s why I was in the hospital back in May, it was another bowel obstruction. Nobody wants to operate on me though!! It’s crazy!! They will try to save my ovaries, but I’m preparing to have them both removed.

So I have to head down for a few more tests before surgery and I’m still having iron infusions once a week so between that and trying to wrap up our football season, I’ve decided to just take a little break from card making and blogging. I’m trying to tie up a few loose ends before I go in and spend as much time as I can with my boys. But as soon as I’m feeling up to it, I’ll be back on here, sharing my weekly projects!!

I’ll leave you with this oh so fun haul video and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks!!

Life

Still in Costa Rica. Be back soon!!

October 13, 2016October 18, 2016 Happy Ink DesignsLeave a comment

Hi there!! I just wanted to check in and let you know that we are still in Costa Rica but as soon as we get home, I’ll be back to blogging and making cards and posting YouTube videos and all that other fun stuff that I love to do. So stick around and I’ll be back very soon!! Here’s a few pix to show you what we’re up to..