Results of the Blog Hop

Sorry. I've been out of commission for over a week. I first came down with a sinus infection and then threw out my back last Sunday 2 hours before we had 34 people over for Paige's 6th birthday party. I can't believe she is 6 already. Anyway, once the back injury started getting better, the sinus/bronchitis thing got worse and I re-injured my back coughing in the middle of the night. But--in fun news, I ended up in 6th place out of 21 entries in the PaperTrey Ink blog hop. The first 3 places won prizes, but I didn't think I'd win. All 3 winners had great projects--I voted for the gal who came in third, Ally from Canada--she made fantastic cards. I was happy with my 6th place finish since it was my first contest entry ever. This Friday night I had a friend over for my monthly "Happy Scrappy" night. I finished a mini-album for Mother's Day for my mother-in-law and mailed it to her yesterday. I'm working on one for my mom now. Then I went to Michael's, Hobby Lobby and Archiver's yesterday. M's and HL are in town but the nearest A's is in Gurnee, IL, about 35 minutes from here. I did need to go to A's because it was the only place that had refills for my mom's album (rationalizing, I know). I guess those coupons were burning a hole in my pocket. But I was actually proud of myself. At HL, I bought some Zots (50% off) and my first Copic marker (Burnt Sienna) with my 40% coupon--total of $6. At M's, I used my 50% off coupon on an adhesive refill for $2 as I didn't see anything else I "needed" to have. At A's, I only spent $30 (and at least a third was on album refills). That's probably an all-time low for me there! I did buy some paper and rubons from a new Imaginescence line with little penguins eating Popsicles in hula skirts. Usually, I don't go for any of the "cutesy" papers, but these are just adorable and I have some photos of the girls eating Popsicles last summer that will match perfectly...