An old Technique I haven't used in a while...

Since I don't have a lot of new artwork lately, I thought I'd share an oldie, but goodie. Have you ever tried stamping with your acrylic stamps using the whole sheet? You leave the stamps on their sheet, ink the whole thing up and stamp. Makes for fun background paper. It is a little messy though.

Here's a layout I did a while back (pre-Cricut, hence the computer title). Sorry about the glare. Apparently, I was too lazy to take the page out of the protector when I took the picture. I used the whole Baseball set to stamp the green.

Yes, this is what Brendan and I do all day

People always ask how I get things done--well I just find something to keep Brendan busy--LOL

Here he is sitting on my counter watching Friends. Yes, the tv show Friends. He really believes that's what's supposed to be on that DVD player. Every time he comes in my scrap room, he tells me "Want to watch Friends". Today we upgraded to Nemo and that kept him busy for a good solid stretch.

This is what he was doing while I was cleaning up from my class. Apparently the cupboard is THE place to play cars. He was in there with the doors closed until I opened them to take a picture. He's a funny little guy.

Joy--Altered letters

After getting *most* of the glitter cleaned up after my class last night (we had lots of fun, but boy were we sparkly!), I actually had a little while to sit down and create something new. I've had these letters for a couple years now. I bought them to do our Christmas picture 2 years ago. Before--in their original function

After as a fun decoration

I used CTMH's Everlasting paper, the chipboard flourishes are TLC (thanks Kim), the other embellishments are ones my friend Cyndie put together while making "paper candy" for a craft fair we did. I'm happy with hey way they turned out. I thought about adding more, but thought they might then look too busy. Now to figure out where to put them...

Sorry for the lack of artwork

I actually have been working on a lot, but they're multiples of things I've already posted for gifts (coasters, drink charms, mini albums and of course, cards). Hopefully soon I'll have some time for new fun artwork. In the meantime, I've added some of my holiday favorites to my playlist and a Christmas tree at the bottom of my page. Be sure to leave me a gift and let me know you stopped by :) Enjoy your holiday season. I'm off to finish my holiday shopping (hopefully) today.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Weird, I signed in to my blog and was visitor 2222--don't know why, but it struck me as a little eerie--LOL. Anyway, I say BEGINNING to look like Christmas because I just didn't get very far in my Christmas decorating yesterday. We got home from shopping (yes I joined Mike at 9) around 2. Wait, I should re-phrase that. I got home at 2. We were at Kohl's and the line was wrapped clear around the store, so Mike gave up and brought the boys home. I waited in line for just under an hour and a half. The really sad part? I got a couple gifts, but most of it was for me--hee hee!

Then, when I got home, I had good intentions. We set up 2 of our 3 trees (haven't figured out where the third one is going to go yet). Yes, I am a Christmas freak. We probably have over a dozen big Rubbermaid containers of Christmas decorations. They take up one whole side of our garage. Anyway, I brought in half the boxes because the rest are too high for me to reach. Unfortunately, the boxes I brought in were all the gift wrap and kitchen goodies, a few ornaments and the angels for the tree tops. The boxes still out there have the rest of the ornaments and the majority of decorations.

So what happened? Why didn't we finish? Well...yesterday while at Costco, we purchased our family CHRISTMAS GIFT--a Nintendo Wii. Mike couldn't wait to set it up, so needless to say, we spent the rest of the evening playing. Sadly, the kids bowled with us for a while then got bored. Mike said maybe we should take it back since they didn't care and buy something more responsible, like the new bed we really NEED. I said, "No way! We'll just get a few more games that are kid-oriented!" Like I'm going to give it up now--LOL!

Hopefully, we'll finish decorating today. I also want to finish up all the handmade gifts, so I don't have to stress about those closer to Christmas. It's safe to say, I should get a lot done today--my shoulder hurts too bad from playing baseball last night, that I don't think I'm going to go near the darn Wii today. Man, I must be out of shape.

I have the best husband

in the whole world! Right now, as I type, he is out hitting the Black Friday sales. We were a little disappointed in the ads, and decided not to start at 4am (nothing we wanted that bad!). Currently he is at Best Buy (no surprise for a man), but he also hit Jo-Ann's at 6 this morning. I sent him out to get a tree they had on sale, because yes we NEED 3 Christmas trees--LOL! He said the store was a little scary with so many crazed women. Next stop is Costco, but the boys and I are going to try to get ready and meet him there. Before kids, he used to join my mom and I for our crazed shopping adventures, but now it's not so much fun to wake up sleeping children and deal with their grumpiness all day.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to Knott's Berry Farm on Wednesday and then to my aunt's house yesterday. She put together such a nice meal and it was so wonderful to get to spend the day with that side of the family. I am missing my mom and sister like crazy. At least I should get to see my sis for Christmas, but not my mom. I'm sad because this is the first year of my life that I haven't spent Thanksgiving or Christmas with her. But airline tickets are just not in the budget this year. She is coming down in a couple weeks though, so we'll have to celebrate early. Well, I'd better get ready--there is shopping yet to do :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We'll be away from the computer for the next couple days, so I wanted to wish everyone a great Thanksgiving. I hope you all get to spend it with those you love.

Butterfly Wishes

I was inspired to scrapbook today after looking at Tresa Black's sketch on the VC site. I knew I had the perfect pictures from our trip to the zoo this summer. I used CTMH's Life Delights paper and am really happy with the way it turned out.

More Christmas Cards

I'm teaching a class next Wednesday on using glitter and Liquid Applique, so these are the cards I came up with. The pink and green one looks funny because it's using a double sided adhesive sheet covered in glitter. It doesn't photograph well. All except Santa use glitter, even though it doesn't show up.

Camping

Here's the layout I did at my crop Friday night. Loved these papers I found at LSS. They were so bright and fun. These are more pictures from our camping trip to Idaho this summer. I think I'm going to have at least 4 layouts--do you think that's to many?! That's what I get for taking so many pictures.

No new artwork thanks to Erin and Tracey!

Haha! Erin and Tracey talked about the Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer on their blogs and I had to read them. I finished Twilight yesterday and Mike made me promise (since I ignored everyone all day) that I wouldn't start New Moon until the weekend was over. Well, I couldn't resist, so last night I started it. I'm obssessed now. I'm not normally into stories that feature vampires (Interview with a Vampire totally freaked me out), but these books are so well-written and have a great story that you can't help but get caught up in it. Heck, Edward Cullen could make me a vampire any day. Sadly, I am still 40th on the wait list at the library for the third book, so it could be a while. I might not be able to wait. I may have to go buy it--LOL! Needless to say, I haven't gotten much done this weekend. I did do a layout at my crop Friday night (sad, yes, I cropped 5 or so hours and got one layout ALMOST done). When I add a title and journaling, I'll post it. If I can get my nose out of the book...

Christmas Cards I'm sending this Year

Yes, my Christmas cards are about finished already. No, don't hate me. The majority of the people on my list will get cards I have from workshops and samples I've done all season (now I'm loving those 15 card workshops!). However, when I saw this Becky Higgins card kit, I knew I had to make these for my immediate family. Yes, they are kind of cheater cards--I finished all 20 during Grey's Anatomy last week--but I LOVE the colors and designs. I thought they were a lot of fun. I also loved that they were inexpensive and arrived just a few days after I ordered them. What a relief to be this far ahead before Thanksgiving. Of course, I still need to figure out the picture. I'm hoping we'll get a cute one of all of us at Knott's Berry Farm next week--fingers crossed.

Speaking of Knott's Berry Farm--all four of us are going for just $12.95. Right now they are doing a promotion for Veterans and active Military where each Veteran (Mike) and one guest (me) can get in for FREE and can buy 6 more tickets for just $12.95. Brendan is already free, so we only have to pay for Austin. What an awesome way to honor those who fight (or have fought) for our country. After Thanksgiving, they are offering the same deal to our Police and Firefighters. The kids are so excited. I can't wait to see the boys go on all the Camp Snoopy rides together. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Another stab with this set

Here's another try. I think I'm going to add glitter and go for this card. I do love the embossing, but my embossing leaves a little to be desired and to get 10 perfect ones for the swap, I might have to emboss 20--LOL. Still having trouble with this stamp set, but I love the random stamped paper I made--I almost didn't want to cut it. I think it's the cupid that I don't like because the hearts and the sayings are pretty. I used CTMH's Friendship dangles hanging from the safety pin.

December SOTM Card

I'm working on this for my monthly swap. Need to tweak it a bit more, but it's a start. Not sure I'm in love with the cupid--I may change it to a heart image. ANyway, I used Life Delights papers, In My Heart stamp set, and Colonial White accents. The colors look a little off in the scan, but you get the idea.

Layouts for Friday's Crop

If you are atttending Friday's crop, you will have a choice of this layout in either Everlasting papers or Life Delights papers. I meant to do both papers as Christmas layouts because I think Life Delights is cute with the Snow Friends stamps set for November. However, as I was going through my pictures, none of my Christmas photos looked good color-wise and I knew I wouldn't have time to have them re-printed in black and white. As a result, I went with Easter pictures. For details on my crop, you can visit my CTMH website.

Here are the pictures...

Have to brag a little...

Ok, I always seem to post the terrible things my kiddos do, and I don't want everyone to think they are little monsters--LOL! Those are just the things that make interesting reading. So I thought I'd take a minute to brag a little. Austin just came home with his first report card and I am so proud of how he's doing in school. He got high marks in everything. Friday, we were invited to the awards assembly because he was getting a math achievement award. Yeah Austin! Here's a couple pics from the assembly. I know they're far away--someday I'll be able to get a super-zoom lens for my camera.

Ok, maybe not--blogger doesn't seem to be cooperating on the pics. I'll try again later

My Scrap Space...

Several people have been asking me about my scrap space and I finally have it clean enough to show off :) I have my friend Shawna to thank for this. She gave me the cute little cube you see with all my ink pads in it. It inspired me to re-organize the rest of my room. I had done my paper cabinet about a month ago. This time I did all the rest of the cabinets, cleared off the counters and Mike and I cleaned the rest of the room. It just makes me smile every time I walk in now! Next step is paint. I want something light because there is so little natural light and I think a dark color would make the room too dark. I'm leaning toward Crystal Blue right now. Mike vetoed Sweet Leaf and Breeze. Yes, he gets a say, since it is also the computer room/office.

Here's my paper cabinet.

Oh, you can't see it in the pics (I'll have to take more), but my stamps, ribbon, catalogs, etc are all stored on shelves under the counter.

And here was a before--yikes! Can't believe I'm posting this. It was definitely a "scrap mess" before--LOL! Oh hey, you can see part of my shelves underneath in this picture--yeah!

Did you hear the one about the duck in the toilet?

Ugh! For those that follow my adventures with my boys, we had quite a time today. We had my dad's side of the family here today for my grandpa's birthday. After dinner and before dessert, my dad comes out to tell us there's something wrong with the toilet. No biggie, our toilets clog a lot--definitely not the highest quality. Well 30 minutes later, Mike is still trying to fix it with no luck. He tells me Austin was the last one in the bathroom and he'd been in there a while.

That's when it hits me--earlier he'd been singing a song that went something like this "if you can't throw a ball away, flush it down the toilet". So we start asking him if he flushed a ball down the toilet--no. Did you flush anything--still no, but this time he has that look--moms, you know the one. FINALLY, he tells us that he flushed a bath toy--a rubber duck--down the toilet. I have no idea what possesses a 5 year old to think this is something you should do.

So now Mike is at Lowes trying to find an auger/snake thingy that will hopefully push the duck through. No one is going to be happy if we have to take the toilet off--or worse yet, call a plumber! I'll keep you posted. And yes both boys are in here with me--not taking my eyes off them right now.

Getting Close...

to finishing 2006 layouts. Of course, not much before that is scrapped and not much of '07, but I am happy to be almost finished with '06. The first layout is from my cousin, Jennifer's wedding last September. It uses SEI papers and embellishments (one of my other favorite companies besides CTMH). Gotta love the picture of my Grandma boogeying down :)

The second is from our infamous trip home from Idaho last Thanksgiving (and the reason we're staying put this year). We were trying to go from Boise to St. George, Utah to stay the night at my aunt and uncle's and see the family. We got stuck in a snowstorm and ended up in Filmore, Utah. It was Brendan's first time seeing snow. The papers are Pinecone Press and the stamps are CTMH's Snow Friends (November Stamp of the Month) and Cobblestone Alphabet.

Gift Cards

Gift cards are great to give and great to get, but the most fun for me is playing with the packaging :) This Saturday, I'm having a gift card holder workshop and these are the cards I came up with. The photos aren't the greatest because I merged them together to show open and closed. But hey, you get the idea!

I have the following ladies to thank for their great templates--Nanci Hatcher (the brown/blue one--I got a card like this in a swap I was in with her last year), Debi Davis (present), Kathi Carlson (snowman template and Holly random stamping), and Kelly Jo Ratcliff (Holly one). I don't know where I got the criss-cross one, but thank you to whoever first made it :)

Bee Wonderful...

Last night we took the boys to see Bee Movie and it was a blast. Mind you these are the same children we took to see Ratatoille in theater last year and Austin had spent the whole movie talking and kicking the chair in front of him, while Mike and I took turns walking Brendan around. My sister swore that she'd never go with us again, so I was a little worried going in. We usually stick to the drive in.

We had a rough start. Brendan, used to drive-ins, thought we needed to go outside to watch the movie and pitched a huge tantrum. Austin and I went to find seats. Mike got B calmed down and brought him in, only to have the tantrum start all over again (I just know everyone was silently cursing us). FINALLY got him calmed down and set up with popcorn and a drink and the movie started...

Not a peep out of the kids the entire movie. I'm not sure they even moved. other than Austin having to go potty halfway through. They LOVED it and so did Mike and I. We thought it was hilarious and I'm definitely going to have to see it again because I'm sure there's a lot I missed. It was funny for the adults and appropriate for the boys--a perfect combination. I highly recommend it to those of you with kids (or heck even those without).

Ornaments and Bags

One more for today...a client of mine is hosting a workshop next week and asked to do fun ornaments and gift bags. These are what I came up with.

Disney and Fireworks

A couple more layouts I finished. Actually used the Cricut for both. Love my Mickey Font Cartridge--sure makes doing pages for our Disney book fun.

Trick or Treat

Dirty face and all :) No theme this year. They were both going to be Spiderman, but Brendan fell in love with the James costume at the store.