Friday, September 26, 2008

Card Club

I attended my first card club on Thursday, we had such a great time. Made 2 cards, an adorable box and a banner. We were only supposed to make 1 card but Dawn had to run upstairs to do something with her children leaving the rest of us unattended with the brand new "Stampin' Success" in front of us........... of course the ink on the magazine was barely dry and we wanted to try every project featured in it. We thought the turkey card was too cute not to try it. Of course we had to change what we saw in the magazine just a little and add googlie eyes to it, how stinking cute is he? Funny how the idea came out of "Stampin' Success" magazine yet there isn't one bit of stamping on the entire card! Everything was created with punches and the sentiment is from the holiday rub-ons.


Nothing says Halloween like Frankenstein- this card was super easy to make and again very little stamping. Only the Sentiment and the background are stamped, everything else was created with punches or the big shot- gotta love that!!!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Scrappy Stuff

Creative juices have been flowing a bit more than usual lately could be because of all of the blogs I read and get inspiration from, or it could be all of the pictures I have been taking lately just waiting to get on paper. Regardless of why, I am excited to be getting pictures out of the envelopes they were shipped in and onto paper and into albums.

Had a great time with my family in the Outer Banks of NC this summer. One of the nice things about being part of a big family is there are always little kids around- I can't think of a better subject to photograph than little kids. I had almost as much fun creating this layout as the girls did at the beach.

Like many scrappers when I started scrapping, stickers were the one and only embellishment I used. I quickly realized there was a whole other world of embellishments out there and abandoned stickers; however, I have tons of them in my stash and need to get rid of them. I saw a layout recently that used an entire sheet of Making Memories WordFetti and thought "I could do that" and I did....... Felt pretty accomplished, I finished yet another layout and I got rid of an entire sheet of stickers, go me!!!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Happy Birthday Kimberly


As I mentioned in my Friday fill-ins this past weekend was my sister's birthday party. I think she had a great time. Her birthday was actually September 14th but because of her school schedule she couldn't really celebrate so her party was the following weekend. I didn't get to see on her on her actual birthday which means her gift from me was a week late, unfortunately so were all of her other gifts. She was convinced her husband didn't get her anything and was really hurt/pissed about it. I knew differently and had fun playing her game. She asked me often if her husband got her anything and I kept saying I didn't know and various other things. At one point I even said to her "Don't you think if I knew he got you something I would tell you instead of sitting here watching you be upset?" I decided it would be fun to display the gifts I got her Friday night and not her open them until Saturday afternoon. When it was finally time to open gifts I could tell she was nervous.... what if her husband didn't get her anything, or worse what if he got her something she hated? Her husband and I decided to drag it out a little long by making her open my gift first it was hard to tell if she was excited about her camera or not because after opening it her husband handed her a box, she was very confused at to what was in it, speechless has a matter of fact, Her husband got her EXACTLY what she wanted, a sapphire ring with no diamonds that she could wear with her wedding band.

All in all, I think/hope Kimberly had a great birthday, she deserves it!!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

What color are you?

I am .................
AQUA

You enjoy life, humor, and being exuberant. Wherever you go you usually find yourself stealing the spotlight without even trying. You love to let go and have fun.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!



Anna had this on her blog, thought I would copy it.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Hooray for Friday

1. There is no need for drama.

2. Where in the heck did the the time go.

3. Get further behind is all I managed to do.

4. Prospects for gold?

5. __________ is the message. (not sure about this one.... Grease is the word?)

6. Simplicity and tranquility are ideal but not reality.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to hanging out with my sister and the boy getting ready for her birthday party, tomorrow my plans include the party, where I know she is going to be super surprised about the gifts she is getting and Sunday, I want to win my fantasy football game!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Deck the Halls

Diana Gibbs is hosting a Holiday Mini Swap, 29 demonstrators are participating. The stamp set I selected was "Deck the Halls" when I first saw it I thought it was adorable and welcomed the opportunity to work with it, then it arrived at my house and I had no clue what to do with it. Being the avid blog reader I am I found tons of samples I thought I liked and would be able to CASE, Heather Summers had this adorable card on her blog and thought for sure it would be my inspiration I sat down with my stamp set and various combinations of colored paper and just couldn't get it to look anything like what Heather created. As I was moving things around on the page, Doris said something that got my creative juices flowing (too bad I don't remember what it was- I know it has something to do with a fireplace) with Doris' mystery statement, I was off and running. I remembered reading a blog about how to create a camp fire using punches. Kathy from Texas did a great job sharing the step by step instructions. As a result of Kathy's post I came up with

Funny how I sat down at the table with one design in mind and ended up creating something totally different. I am really happy with the way the card turned out and hope everyone else in the swap will be happy with it too.

Recipe:
Stamp: Deck the Halls
Paper: Chocolate Chip (base) Real Red (fireplace) Very Vanilla (ornaments), More Mustard and Old Olive (ornament hangers)Only Orange (flames) Close to Cocoa (fire logs)
Ink: Real Red, More Mustard, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip (for the logs) and Real Red (to shade the stars)
Punches: Word Window, Large Tag, Large Star, Small Star
Accessories: Twine ribbon from the Holiday Mini, sponge daubers to ink the flames and the fire logs.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

I can never have enough chocolate chips in my life

Especially when it is 1" Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon!! D's bosses' wife had a baby about a month ago and of course we are just now getting around to sending a gift. No gift is complete without a hand stamped card, so I sat down and played around a little until I came up with something I thought was acceptable.

I have tons of stamps but none that are really baby themed so I decided to go a little generic and just do a congrats card. I never use ribbon on my cards because I don't know how to tie a nice looking bow. At least I didn't know how to until I attended convention.... tie your ribbon around anything that is at least as wide as your card, cut the ribbon off the spool and get your bow exactly the way you want it. Once you are happy with the way it looks (if you are like me you will have to tie and untie a few times)cut the back of the ribbon so the bow comes off whatever object you tied it around. Now you have a perfect bow that you can just adhere to your card, no muss, no fuss. (by no means am I saying the bow on my card is perfect, I just know it is one of the better bows I have tied)

(one of these days I will post a clear crisp scan, just not tonight, I am tired.)


Recipe:
Stamp Sets: Say it with Scallops
Paper: Pink Pirouette,Bella Rose DSP and Kiwi Kiss
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: 1" Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon, Scallop Circle Punch, Circle Punch (not sure what size)

I am almost finished with my holiday mini swaps, hope they will be going postal tomorrow which means I should be posting a pic of them soon. D said "I think that is the best thing you have ever done" Not really sure they are all that but I do know I am really happy with the way the came out and hope the other stampers in the swap will be too. Off to get some sleep so I can finish them in the AM.

Monday, September 15, 2008

What did he say now?

I absolutely love my nephew, not just because he is mine but because he is adorable, funny and a great reminder to me why I don't want to ever want to be a mother.

My sister worked all last weekend and since her husband is on location she had no one to watch the boy, of course I jumped at the opportunity because of all the reasons listed above.

I met my sister at work on Saturday, we typically just switch cars since the boy is usually sleeping. This time was not unlike other times, I got in the car and the boy was asleep. When he woke up he started talking to me about school and everything else going on in his life. There is a little girl at school who I will call "Miss N" since her first name begins with N and I want to protect all parties involved...... apparently Miss N is a little bit of a bully and picks on a lot of the kids in the class. So I asked the boy how school was going and he said "I don't want to talk about 'Miss N' anymore, EVER"

While at my house, we watched several episodes of "Little Bear" I told him as soon as the WVU football game started "Little Bear" was off, he seemed to be okay with that..... until he realized I meant he couldn't watch what he wanted to watch (not that the WVU game was worth watching, they lost to ECU for God Sake) anyway the entire time the game is on he kept pulling out DVD from his bag tell me he wants to watch this one or that one and every time a DVD game out of the bag I heard "Come on Aunt Kelly it is really fun" So I finally responded "So is watching football, no movies now" we then practiced saying "Let's Go Mountaineers" which paid off well when he and his parents when to Champs to watch the Notre Dame game and Rich Rodriguez (coach of Michigan, former coach of WVU) was on TV being the first Michigan coach to lose the first 2 games of the season in forever and the boy started yelling "Let's Go Mountaineers".... of course he had no clue of the humor in that since Rich left WVU for what he thought was a better program and is doing nothing for them!!

Anyway, moving on. At one point I see the boy sitting under my kitchen table so I say to him "BBoy what are you doing?" He comes out from under the table so he can put his hand on his hip and shake his head a little and respond to me "Can't you see I am using my imagination?" Because I wasn't sure how to respond I said to him "No I couldn't thanks for clearing that up for me."

Several times I asked him if he was hungry or wanted anything to eat and he kept telling me no, finally he says to me, again with hands on his hips "Aunt Kelly I need food" so I name all the food we have, trying to find out what he wants and he said to me "Not that food, the food in the closet" I tell him "I don't know what you are tlaking about, I have no food in the closet." I guess that is not the answer he was looking for because he shook his head at me and said "I wish you would stop being so ridiculous" ........ are you kidding me the child is not even 3, seriously where does he come up with this stuff?

Finally we were at my parents on Sunday and my father was serving corn on the cob, I didn't know if the boy was allowed to eat it or not so I said to my father "Does BBoy get any" and before my father could respond BBoy says "only one because of my poopies" I about died, the kid knows about corn poops already, I love it!!!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Do you believe?

I was at a meeting yesterday, one of the things we talked about was our holiday floor sets and the theme for holiday this year. The theme is going to be "Do you believe?" When I first heard that all I could think of was that song "Do you believe in Magic....." As an icebreaker we had to introduce ourselves and tell the group 3 things we believe in. What I believe in is nothing something I think about often, it is just kind of who I am, but when asked to list them I had a hard time at first, then I realized I believed in a lot of things and had a hard time limiting my list to just 3 things.

I Believe in...................

1. Myself
2. Family
3. True Love
4. God
5. Everything happening for a reason
6. You get out of things what you put into them
7. The Golden Rule, I treat people the way I want to be treated
8. Hard work pays off
9. Teamwork
10. Paying it forward, when someone does something good for me, I want to do something good for someone else
11. A woman's right to choose
12. Destiny
13. You are only as old as you feel
14. The power of positive thinking
15. Santa and the magic of Christmas

So what do you believe in?

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Seeing Double....

Is it me or were these two woman separated at birth?




















I can see the SNL skits now..............

A day late and a dollar short

Oh well better late than never with my Friday Fill-Ins

And...here we go!

1. I enjoy spending time with friends, just wish I got to do it more often.

2. Money is something I wonder about often lately.

3. In your heart, you knew I was making the right decision.

4. Take a lot of stuff to do without a lot of time, add a little sleep and you end up with the story of my life.

5. Life has gifted me with love from friends and family.

6. Hanging out with Kimmie is an instant vacation.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting some sleep, tomorrow my plans include working and Sunday, I want to wish my sister a very happy birthday (welcome to yuor 30's)!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Remembering and Reflecting

On my way home tonight I got to see something similar to this I couldn't help but get a little emotional thinking about how many lives were changed forever 7 years ago today. I keep the families who lost loved ones in my prayers today and everyday.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Sing, Sing a Song

This week I'm going to use rather obscure song lyrics; you can fill them in with the correct words if you know 'em...but wouldn't it be more fun to do it a bit differently?

And...here we go!

1. If I was to walk into your life, would you open the door or slam it in my face?

2. Catch a bright star and place it in your pocket.

3. And you can send me on a vacation (I so need one!!).

4. I want to move on but I'm dealing with a memory that never forgets.

5. I'm the innocent bystander / Somehow I got stuck taking all the blame.

6. What's keeping us apart isn't selfishness, it's life and all the stuff that gets in the way.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to hanging with my husband, I am off all weekend!!!!, tomorrow my plans include hanging with D, watching the boy and trying to get some scrapping done and Sunday, I want to watch football!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

I love new rubber.......

The past 2 days have been great mail days for me the UPS man came not once, not even twice but 3 times- how exciting! I got tons of goodies from the new Holiday mini I can't wait to start playing with. I am in a swap run by Diana Gibbs that should be awesome. I have heard nothing but great things about her and her swaps, I can't wait to see what everyone creates; at the same time I am a little nervous, I need to make sure I produce a card everyone wants and would be proud to demonstrate, talk about pressure!!

Every month my upline coordinates a swap with the girls in our group, this one the requirements were you had to use the new InColors and "Say it with Scallops" stamp set. Since I am a major blog hopper I have seen tons of great cards made with this set (after all about 6000 demonstrators got it free at convention) one of my favorites was created by Sherri Barron I loved her card so much I made one very similar........(again excuse the scan, one of these days I will get it right)
The base is Baja Breeze, followed by a layer of Whisper White and some new 1" Double Stitched Grosgrain ribbon in my favorite Chocolate Chip. Stamped "Hi" with Chocolate chip onto Pink Pirouette and punched it out with the 1 3/8 square then used a pop up glue dot to adhere that to a Pink Pirouette scallop square punched out with the new scallop square punch (I have no idea how we made cards without that punch, it is awesome!!!) I then added scallop squares in Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango (who thinks of these names?!?) and Chocolate Chip to complete the look. Pretty simple card yet pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Did I mention my Big Shot arrived today?!?! So exciting and well worth the 2 day shipping fees. Since I am off for the next 3 days I plan on doing nothing but scrapping and card making, looking forward to posting tons of new creations this weekend.

Monday, September 1, 2008

MSM-We're Having A Party....

So I am a total loser, I started "Make Something Monday" last week and I didn't even participate in my own challenge. I know, I know, shame on me. I have an excuse though...... I am waiting on pictures to arrive, as soon as they do I am going to scrap them and post the layout. I even thought about creating the layout without the picture and just insert it when it gets here but I am not very good at scrapping without the picture.


Okay that being said it is time for another "Make Something Monday" challenge, this week "We are having a party" the project can be anything party related: an invitation, a birthday card, or gift wrap. When I think about tributes to parties I always think about the layout I did of my nephew celebrating his first birthday..........
If you decide to partake in the challenge I would love to see what you create, please be sure to comment and leave a link.