At least this wasn't my kid

This happened a few times at the daycare Christmas show the other night.

Can you see her? It is kind of dark.

Why does it have to be so hard...

to get a decent picture of the children? Can't everyone just sit still for two minutes and not make funny faces? And the husband who is supposed to be helping runs away after one picture. I like to take lots so I have a better chance of getting a decent one.

Hey Morgan! Look here!!!
Ok let's try one with out your sister... umm what the heck is that face?
No...
No...
Maddie, open your eyes.
Carter, did you get into the egg nog?
Oh brother!
Ok, I guess this is the best one.

3 in 1

Since I have been tied up lately and haven't had anything to share for awhile I decided to give you 3 things to look at all in one post. 3, 3, 3 things in one!!!




The first is the third in my "see I am stuck on this layout" series...

This card uses Zoofari and the Sanded background. Both by SU. The colors are Bashful Blue, Whisper White, and Basic Black. I used my Marvy Circle punches and did some piercing on the black scallops.
The ribbon is from the dollar store.










This next project is a stationary box filled with nuggets. I was planning to stamp on and wrap the address labels around them, but my husband said I should leave them off so you could see what kind of nugget you were getting. I agreed, but I had to stamp some where. Then it hit me. I used my white StazOn and added snowflakes from the retired SU set Merry to the clear lid. I tied it up with Navy Organdy and stamped a tag from Tag Line in Bashful Blue.

Finally here is a cello bag, also stamped with the snowflakes from Merry in white StazOn. Inside are York Peppermint Patties covered with Night Of Navy punched pieces from the SU scalloped circle. I also punched some of last years holiday designer series paper with the 1 3/8" circle and put it in the middle. For this one I also tied it up with Navy Organdy and stamped a tag from Tag Line in Bashful Blue. This organdy is curled with my heat gun.

See I told Ya!

I told ya how I got stuck on this layout. Here is a card a made and sent in for a contest at Pink Hedgehog. The striped ribbon is from there. She sent me a yard and I had to use it on a card and send it back for the contest. Winners will probably be announced sometime next week. Let me tell you I loved the ribbon. Very nice, high quality and easy to work with. I'll be ordering some from her and some of her brads. They are custom colored and I hear they go quite nicely with several SU colors. How cool is that? And she's got eyelets too!

This card uses a mishmash of SU sets. Let's see the circle background was done with a couple stamps from Polka Dots & Petals. The Elephant and sentiment are from Wild About You and the heart is from Monkey Business. I used my small oval punch, the word window punch, and my Marvy scalloped circles. And the patterned paper was from the SU spring mini catalog last year. Oh and the heart has some stickles on it. The colors are Taken with Teal, Regal Rose, Cool Caribbean, and Whisper White.

This one is for you Jana!

Cause I know you haven't seen it before!!!




This is the last card in my series of Gina K design team submissions. Now I am stuck on this layout. I've made two other cards recently with this layout. I get stuck on a layout quite often. Oh well!

Another Special Card

Sorry Crystal! I know you have seen these before. And you are probably the only one reading this.

This is another card I submitted for the Gina K design team. I think this one is my favorite of the three. I like my sparkly black sheep. She is fabulous, isn't she?

I've been PIFing...

and neglecting my blog. What is PIFing you ask? It is a Pay It Forward thread on splitcoaststampers where you switch out your used stamp sets. So one person posts a list of stamp sets they don't use anymore, then another person sees one they want and snatches it, then they post their list. It goes on like this forever!!! It is like trading, but you most likely aren't sending your stamp set to the same person who sent you theirs.

So I feel guilty and since I haven't posted in almost a week, I am going to post a really special card today.

This is one of the cards I submitted for the Gina K design team. I don't know yet if I made it or not. I don't think they announce the new rotating members until January or something. What do you think?

Stamped Candles & Tiles

These are some candles and tiles that we did at our last stamp camp. This was a simple stamped gift idea. I bought the tiles at Lowes. They are tumbled marble. Botticchino tiles I think they are called. I used stazon ink to stamp directly on the tiles and then put little felt circles on the bottom. The candles are done by stamping your images onto tissue paper and then melting the tissue paper into the wax by wrapping it around and heating it with your heat tool.

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey!!!

I took a long turkey weekend blog break.... In case you were getting used to my regular posting, I felt the need to explain my absence. I made my 1st turkey ever and it turned out wonderful, if I do say so myself. I ended up brining the turkey...Robin told me she was doing it and I had heard about it from The Pioneer Woman. She (P-Dub) did a whole Thanksgiving series on her cooking blog, but I didn't really pay attention until the day before Thanksgiving. Anyway, brining rocks! The turkey was so juicy and my in-laws were amazed. I also had to do the mashed potatoes and gravy. The rest was being brought by the guests. I really hate doing it that way, and I refuse to do it that way for our Christmas Eve dinner. I allowed it this time because I had never done Thanksgiving and it was kind of a last minute thing so I freaked out. The reasons I avoid the "bring a dish" with my in-laws is because everyone is late and the last time we did it my MIL showed up with Au Gratin potatoes, that she thought weren't safe to eat for some reason, and a bag of potatoes and told me to hurry up and make mashed potatoes. Potatoes seem to be a reoccurring issue with this family. I have other potato stories, but I won't get into them today…just the most recent one. So I was responsible for the potatoes and I like to do a mashed potato casserole type dish where I boil them, mash them and mix in a lot of sour cream, shredded cheese, some spices, butter, and milk, then I put them in a casserole dish and put it in the fridge overnight and bake it the day of the dinner. So I had used 10 lbs. of potatoes for this and had a huge pan of this stuff ready to go for our dinner. My MIL had called that morning for some reason and my husband must've mentioned the 10 lbs. of potatoes for some reason...Well she shows up late with her stuff she was supposed to bring, plus a pan of mashed potatoes. I just about lost it. I asked my SIL what this was about and that it was an insult that she doesn't think I can handle the mashed potatoes. My SIL explains that she got a call while she was at the Thanksgiving Day Parade in downtown Detroit from her mother freaking out that we wouldn't have enough potatoes. She made her go pick up more potatoes. ARGH! In the end I had more than enough potatoes with my pan and I made her take home her untouched pan of potatoes. Maybe that will teach her a lesson, but I doubt it.

So enough about potatoes… I did get a little shopping done and a little stamping. In case you were wondering I did go back and add stickles to the big flower in the Fabulous Flower card and I also went back and sponged the background on that True Friend card I posted last. I'm sure you were all loosing sleep about that.

I'm trying to carefully pick cards to show that I haven't sent to my Secret Sister. I once figured out my SS by seeing a card she had sent to me on her blog. So now I am extra careful.

I think this one is safe...

This card uses the Double Line Doodles stamp set from SU! The colors are Pixie Pink, Almost Amethyst, Basic Black, and Whisper White. I used my Marvy scalloped square punch and some ribbon from one of the retired Ribbon Originals sets.

SU meets My Mind's Eye

This is a card I made using some My Mind's Eye paper from their Tres Jolie line, I think. I also think the paper is called Cest La Vie, but I could have those two mixed up.

The colors go so nicely with SU's Soft Sky, Certainly Celery, Ruby Red and Apricot Appeal or So Saffron would probably work too. I think I am going to add some sponging or something to the cardbase... It just needs something else.

Fabulous Flowers

Happy Tuesday! Ok, well it is kind of grey (gray? I always get confused on that one) here, but maybe this card will help to brighten your day.

I used Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate, Basic Black, and Whisper White. The flowers are from Fabulous Flowers and the Linen background was used on the cardbase. I added a clear rhinestone brad to the middle of the center flower. It is popped up with a dimensional. The ribbons are the black gingham and the Purely Pomegrante stitched.

I think I will go back and add some stickles to my big flower. I want it to sparkle some more.

I hate these days. I have a hard time taking pictures in the house. I turned up all the lights in the living room and tried some with the flash and some without the flash. Nothing works like outside natural light. Oh well.

Only a couple more days until Thanksgiving. My in-laws are coming over this year. I've never cooked a turkey before and we have a 23.78 pound butterball thawing. Argh! I think we are going to have 20 people total, 7 of them kids. We live in a 1100 sq-ft house with no dining room. Good thing the living room is big and we can rearrange the furniture to fit a few banquet tables and chairs.

One Sheet Wonder Stamp Camp Projects

Here are the cards from the last stamp camp my upline and I did. For my set the participants got to choose if they wanted to use the In the Spotlight stamp set or the Snowflake Spot. The colors were Not Quite Navy, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Naturals White, and Whisper White. My upline used the same template, but different colors and a different stamp set. We found a great template on SCS that had the OSW sheet as well as the layers that you just printed out on the appropriate cardstock. It was a lot of fun.

I got quite a bit of stamping done on Friday while the kids and hubby were gone and at night at my pal Crystal's house. I just need to take pictures of that.

Here are some funny kid stories for you. First was Madison last week while we are waiting for the bus. She told me to watch for the bus and she would keep an eye out in the other direction for the neighbor girl Adriana. Then she says "Adriana's a whore". And I said WHAT!?!" and she said it again. I went on to tell her she should never say something like that and where did you hear this. She says "ya know the pirates say that" and I say "I don't care what the pirates say, you should never say that word. It is a bad word." Then she says "ya know like A whore matey!" and I said "AHOY! aHOY!!! HOY!!! HOY!!! HOY!!!" Phew!
This morning Carter and Morgan are in bed with us when I went to get in the shower. That is nothing new. They both end up there at some point during the night. After my shower I was in the kitchen making Carter's lunch and Corey comes in and brings me Morgan. He said she fell out of bed. She wasn't crying or anything. And she was walking around ok and smiling. But after Carter got up I told him that he needed to watch his sister if they are both in the bed. He said "I was watching her. I watched her fall out of the bed." Then I told him that if it happens again he should try and stop her. He said "I did try. I told her not fall out of the bed, but she didn't listen." **sigh** Ya gotta love 'em.

A Cute Treat & Drunk Sheep Revisted

So I went to the dollar store and they had the little labels I needed for my Hershey's Nuggets, but they also had these 2x4 inch labels. And I wondered if they could be used for some sort of candy wrapper. Well lookie here... They work pretty good on these Reese's PB Cups. I haven't broken into the halloween candy to see what else they fit. But I am sure they would work on some more stuff.

And here are my drunk sheep revisted. I cut apart my sentiment and added it to the side. Now I feel better about these.

Enabling

I forgot about the sale starting tomorrow at The Cat's Pajamas. Here is the email I got...

Hungry for a great deal?Fill up your shopping cart with some Cat's
Pajamas<http://thecatspajamasrs.com/> goodness and get 25% off
everythingwe've got!Come and get it while you can, 'cause at Midnight, November
18th, thisSALE <http://thecatspajamasrs.com/>will be the like the Turkey
the day after Thanksgiving, so done.Fine Print: This sale is for internet orders
only. Mail orders will bereturned. Shipping is based on order totals prior to
discount. Only one discount given per order. Discounts cannot be combined.
Salebegins 12:00 AM PST 11/16/07 and ends 12:00 AM PST 11/19/07.

Drunk Sheep

This is an ATC I did for a swap I signed up for. I actually signed up for 2 different ATC swaps that I need to use The Cat's Pajamas stamps for so I haven't decided which one to send this one in for. After I finished all of these I wished I would've moved the sheep a little more to the right. Oh well.

I'm not quite sure where I was going with this. If I had more room I would've added the "one martini, two martini, three martini, floor" sentiment. Maybe I can fit it around the side. I will look at this one again.

The papers are SU! Brocade Blue, Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White. I used some Wild Wassabi stitched ribbon and some Brocade Blue brads also from SU. The sheep and the think drink stamp are from The Cat's Pajamas and the oval is the A Muse skinny oval. It is stamped in Wild Wassabi. I colored the drink in with my Rose Red SU! marker. It is pretty close to the Pomegranate. I added a little A Muse bling to the drink and I used some liquid applique that I heated to make fluffy on the sheep.

Well, I am pretty much out of projects to share so I need to get busy stamping while I am off tomorrow. Please, please, please don't let any of the kids be sick. I want them all to go to daycare/school so I can have a day of peace to myself. Even if something happens I still get to do some stamping at Crystal's tomorrow night. But I usually do more talking than stamping when I am at Crystal's.

I'm on a roll!

Look at all these posts in a row. What has gotten into me? I've been meaning to blabber and go on about what I have been up to lately in the last few posts, but I when I went to post I forgot to blabber. So today I get to blabber before I post the card.




I have been busy lately. Not stamping, but helping to organize a SCS stamping get together in Michigan. I've been to two others of these and we were due for another so a couple gals and myself took on the planning. We have had an overwhelming response. Over 50 registrations. Too bad we can't fit more, but we are going to be tight as it is. Next time we need to get a convention center or something!





Tomorrow I will try to show you an ATC I made for a swap that uses The Cat's Pajamas stamps. I just got a message from them about an upcoming sale. I don't think it starts until the 16th so I will post the details along with my ATC tomorrow.





And now for the card. This is the last one I have a picture of so I have to get busy again or I won't have anything to post. I'm off work on Friday and plan to be stamping all day. Hopefully, the kids will all be healthy and I will be able to do that. Knock on wood.




Sorry this picture is a little out of focus. Not sure what happened. Anyways, this is the Artfully Asian set by SU! I also used the Sanded background in Vanilla craft ink on the Chocolate Chip. The other colors are Rose Red, Brocade Blue and I added some Always Artichoke.

Baby Wipe Boot

Here is a nice bright card for today. On this card I used the baby wipe technique on the boot. The stamp set is Flower Filled. I also used the Linen background on the Cool Carribean card base. The other colors are Pixie Pink and Almost Amethyst, and there is some Certainly Celery ink and ribbon on there.

A Winner and Another Card

First off, I went to one of those random number sites and the number that came up was number 11. That would be:

Crystal (SCS happy2stamp4ever) said...
ooohhhh!!! LOVE the candy!!! I
LOVE that barn stamp - DH is a dairy farmer (PERFECT!!), and I absolutely LOVE
ribbon! And the little expressions are so cute & perfect, too!!PICK ME, PICK
ME!! =)

Congratulations! Send me an email with your mailing address and I will get this out to you. stampsnmore@hotmail.com

It is Monday so I decided to share this Grumpabella card. The patterned paper is from Joann's. Not sure what the brand is. The card base is Cameo Coral. The cuttlebugged strip is Chocolate Chip. I used a Wild Wassabi mat for the main image. And grumpabella is stamped on the Sahara Sand paper. I added some stickles to her rollers, her slippers, and her coffee cup. There are three square brads from who knows where and some stitched Chocolate Chip ribbon from one of the retired ribbon origionals packs from SU!

Here Kitty, Kitty!

This is a card I made for a swap a month or two ago. We had to use Cool Cat and I think she had to be any color but black. So I decided to make her pink! Pretty in Pink and Chocolate Chip. I used my Marvy circle punches for the main image. I added some sparkle to her wiskers with my Sakura glitter pen. The background is the On the Spot background. And the pink ribbon is from the Flirty Ribbon origionals that was in the Winter Mini catalog last year.

There is still time to enter the blog candy drawing. Scroll down!

I never knew...

That I had this Microsoft Office Picture Manager on my pc. It is a quick way to crop and do an auto fix on my pictures. Wow. You learn something new everyday, right?

So here is a picture I just croped and made a little brighter. This is an old card I came across and I guess I never shared it.

This card uses the Polka Dot & Paisley stamp set from SU and the colors are Chocolate Chip, Tempting Turquoise and Certainly Celery. The ribbon was from one of the ribbon origionals packs. I think it was called flirty and was in the Winter mini last year.

Scroll down to the next post and enter the blog candy drawing if you haven't already.

Blog Candy is FINALLY Here!!!!!

Sorry it took so long. Here is a pick of the goodies. To enter the blog candy drawing leave a comment on this post. It can be anything. I don't really care. I will do the draw next Monday. Leave your comment before midnight EST on Sunday the 11th. And I actually took some pictures of some cards so you may have something to look at soon.

The winner of the blog candy contest will get a mini lunch tin to alter, some ribbon, a couple of NLA GinaK Designs stamps and some preinked baby themed word stamps. I think they are by Just Rite Stampers or something like that.

Crap! I got lost

Sorry. I kind of got lost. More sick kids and a sick me. I bleached the whole house so hopefully we can shake it and it never comes back!!! I hate this time of year.

As for the blog candy... I meant this Friday. Um yeah really I did. So check back this Friday and hopefully I can get it together by then!

I don't believe it!

It took more than a year, but my blog finally has over 5,000 hits. And I bet half of them are me! Tee-hee! Stay tuned for some blog candy in honor of that incredible, amazing, fantastic milestone.


I've got to figure out how I can show you a picture of whatever because my hubby has the camera...hmmmm. May have to wait until Friday.

Getting Some Closure

In a matter a couple of hours this morning I have gotten some closure on some of the outstanding issues I have had recently. My convention buddy had a good reason for not sending my items in a timely matter and they should be on their way now. If you are a praying person, add her and her family to your prayer list. They have a rough road ahead of them. Their son was recently diagnosed with Lukemia.

And I finally got the paypal invoice and got PaperTrey paid for my last order! Glad that is finally resolved. Now I can feel better about ordering more stuff and this time I won't use a gift card!

I did some stamping last night. Played with my GinaK stamps. My hubby took my camera up North with him so I may have to scan them in.

Got Verve?

I do. I got Verve Visual, some Amuse, some Cat's Pajamas, some Gel-a-Tins and I'm sure there are more. I just can't remember right now. What happened to me? I have become a stamp slut! I used to be true to my SU! I had SU! and SU! only. They are what got me into stamping to begin with. Then I ran into GinaK and her stuff. Had to buy all her cute farm animals. Next came a couple of Bellas. Then PaperTrey. And I stuck to those for awhile. Lately though I have been going crazy. It all started when I got this gift card from work. Free money to buy stamps. I placed another order with PaperTrey. One of the sets was on backorder. No big deal... so I thought. Well I had some money left on my gift card and went to buy a couple other things online. Ran into a problem though because the gift card had my work address as the billing address so there were a couple charges to make sure the card would work, ya know pending transactions and I had put my home address as the billing address and well the card was declined, but some money still deducted from the gift card I would soon find out. I went online to check the balance on the gift card and I see that something isn't right. The PaperTrey order wasn't billed yet and there wasn't enough money left to cover it. Argh! And I couldn't tell what all had been deducted from the balance because they only give you a number and no transaction history. Great! So I contacted PaperTrey right away and asked them to cancel the order. They were packing and shipping it as I was typing so I ended up with the order and I have been trying to pay them for it ever since. They were totally cool about the mixup and were going to send me a paypal invoice so I could pay with another method and they have been so busy they keep forgetting and I keep sending them emails reminding them I owe them money. I am beginning to think they just don't want my money because we are going on 2 weeks here that I have been trying to pay them!
So I had some money left on the gift card and saw the new Verve Visual stamps and really liked them so I spent that money. Then I ran into The Cat's Pajamas stamps and ordered a couple of those, and then I found some gorgeous snowflake Gel-A-Tins stamps and well you can never have too many snowflakes, right? Oh brother! All this stamping around is because of all the other bloggers who post their wonderful creations that make me want new stamps. Maybe I will have some creations to share with you that will make you want to buy more stamps. For right now they are all going into my stamp contraband box until I get the courgage to ink them.

What do you think?

My 6 year old took the new picture of me over there ----------------------->

What do you think? I like it. I think the 6 year old did pretty good! Now the 3.5 year old had to take a turn and he got a nice shot of my neck and then of my stomach. Not so good! Oh well maybe he isn't meant to be a photographer.

In a Funk

I'm in a funky mood today. For some reason I am thinking about the times recently that I have gotten "screwed" by other stampers and it put me in a funky mood. Getting "screwed" by another stamper doesn't happen often. Generally us stampers are nice, caring, giving, wonderful, tallented, amazing people.
Back in June I jumped into this pay it forward thread on SCS. The whole thing with pay it forward is that you do something nice not expecting anything in return. You post and the person before you is supposed to send you something and you send something to the person who posts after you. I participated twice and sent out two packages. I got one package. And at the time it didn't bother me. I even responded to a girl who was whining about not getting her package and said:

haven't gotten one of mine either. It took me awhile to mail mine. Maybe
they are just running late or it may take longer for mail into or out of
another country.

At any rate, we are playing this on game on faith and there
is nothing to do about it. I saw a sign on a church not that long ago and I
can't remember the exact words, but this is similar..."willingness to help
others (even strangers) on the expectation that it will all come back around
in the end" It may not have come back to you in this thread, but it will in another way. That is how I see it.

So now why is this on my mind lately? Probably because I have seen the person who "screwed" me has been having a lot of success lately and I wonder why it works out that way. I guess I also believe in karma and it doesn's seem to be taking effect in this case. Anyway, I am sure that this fellow stamper may have just gotten busy and forgotten about it or maybe it got lost in the mail. I need to just "drop the banana" and move on.

But this got me thinking of another person who owed me something that I haven't gotten yet. Pay attention Crystal, this impacts you too. Back in July I had a convention buddy. I sent her a decorated tin and a brand new package of ribbon originals, plus more than enough money to cover the cost of some convention trinkets, shipping back to me, and any paypal fees. She emailed me during and after convention. She was going to send me notes and was wanting to wait until the middle of August to print out whatever extras SU put on the website for the convention attendees. That sounded great. I emailed her in the beginning of August to see what the status was and she hadn't mailed it yet. She had a lot going on and was going to get them in the mail asap. I still don't have them. I sent her another message yesterday. I want my stuff and Crystal's charm or I at least want our money back. I am so disappointed. And I told her that. Hopefully, it gets resolved soon.

So that is why I am in a funky mood today.

Bad, Bad, Blogger

I've had stuff to share and just haven't gotten around to it yet. So finally today I think I have the last of my 3 simple Christmas cards. Except this one isn't quite as simple as the others. It isn't horrible and you could easily leave off the wheel to make it more simple.




BTW - If you are a demo and have customers show them the super simple Snow Burst card I did a few posts back. BIG hit! It definatley translated into some sales for myself and my upline.

This card uses the colors from the Winter Bright simply Scrappin' Kit. These are Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Real Red, Pretty in Pink, and Wild Wassabi. We used the Christmas Chatter Jumbo Wheel along the bottom of the card. I tore the So Saffron piece, but it is hard to see because the main image covers most of that up. The main image was stamped in the Basic Gray and colored in with markers.

ETA - Oops I forgot to say the main images are from the Big on Christmas stamp set.

Pink for October

I went pink for breast cancer awareness month. The first color I chose was more salmon. This is a little closer to pink. I need to learn the color codes or something. I have a hard time finding the colors that I want.

Do you want to go pink too? Just visit this site and check out the thingies you can put on your site to show support. This one was made by Lee Caglioti.

Picture of the Birthday Girl

Isn't this just the cutest picture of Morgan on her 1st birthday?

SUPER SIMPLE Christmas Card

Very, very, very simple. But elegant in my opinion. These cards are made with the Shimmery white paper. I like to use that with one layer cards because it is a little more sturdy than the SU Whisper White. Plus it is just so classy. Only trick to this card is that I had to use my Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the snowflakes from Snow Burst. The big one is stamped in Bashful Blue and the little one in Night of Navy. Then I tied some Bashful Blue Taffeta around it and viola you are done.

Oh wouldn't this be fun?

Check it out!

All of my contraband stamps are from these 3 places. Well... those and the Michael's dollar bin, but they don't count. Wouldn't this be fun?

Mmmm Coffee GOOD!

Nice and smooth. Now I am just waiting to make sure the kiddies are asleep.

Coffee anyone?

This title made me think about how at one point in my stamping life every card I made was with the Espresso Yourself set. And how Crystal pointed that out at one of our demo meetings and so I went and traded it so I wouldn't be tempted to use it again.

Anyway... That isn't what the title was supposed to be about. What I was really going to tell you was that a brand new Senseo coffee machine appeared on my porch yesterday. I had run into a post on Jody Morrow's blog HERE about filling out a survey online and if they liked your answers you would get a $70 coffee maker and accessories. All you had to do was pay the $15 for shipping. It is true. If you want one or are looking for a good gift for a coffee lover well give it a shot!

Unfortunately, I was running behind and didn't get a chance to open it and try out my coffee maker. But you can bet I will be trying it out tonight. I haven't gotten much sleep lately and I need to make 23 WOW cardfronts for the SCS dinner after regionals on Saturday and I haven't even started. I don't think I am even going to attempt to make some for the regional itself. I have too many cardfronts now.

Guess what I remembered to do? I took my camera to the stamp camp last night and got pictures of the projects. Can you believe it? Ok, here is one of the simple Christmas cards we did. I will save the others for another day. Wouldn't want to overwhelm you.

These cards use the Merry, Merry set from the SU! Fall/Winter catalog. The colors are Old Olive, Real Red and Very Vanilla. And I used the Dashing patterned paper.

What is the deal?

The last couple of weeks have been rather hectic for my family. Sick kids, starting school, then we got some bad news about my mother-in-law, and Maddie couldn't walk because she had fluid behind her knee. And a lot of blogs I read it seems they have experienced a lot of crazy stuff happening lately. Is Mercury in retrograde? Or the moon in the 7th house and Jupiter aligned with Mars? I don't know, but things have got to get better.

So far this week has been good, but it is early! Yesterday Morgan took her 1st few steps by herself without holding on to something. And there was a tax refund in my mailbox when I got home. The government kept some of the money, because we were a little late...That's what happens when my husband is in charge. I keep the house running smooth (ie - making sure we don't run out of toilet paper, or toothpaste, or laundry detergent), making sure the kids have what they need, and making sure the bills get paid. His job is to take out the garbage and meet with the accountant to do the taxes. He forgot to take out the trash for SEVERAL weeks so a couple of weeks ago the line of white trash bags stretched half way across the front of our yard. Sorry mister garbage man. And the situation with the 2005 & 2006 taxes wasn't much different. I was all paranoid and freaking out. But to him it is no big deal. I just don't get it. Men.

Crap! I did it again!!!

I took all my stamp camp projects to my upline's house and left them there without taking pictures. *sigh* Next camp is on Tuesday so if I can remember to take my camera...

But I do have one card here that I made not too long ago and don't think I ever posted....

This card was for the new catalog swap my pal Crystal hosted not too long ago. It uses the Big on Christmas set from the big Fall/Winter catalog as well as the Bold Snowflake Jumbo wheel. The papers and ribbon were all new in the catalog. The colors are Soft Sky, Purely Pomegranate, and Basic Gray, and the white is the textured white. The ribbon is the pomegranate double stitched ribbon. I used white craft ink for the jumbo wheel and to DTP on the edges of the basic gray. The main image is stamped in Basic Gray ink and I DTP'd on the white with basic gray around the edges. I colored the snowman with my markers and the letters are colored with a blender pen and soft sky ink.

Been Thinking and Not Posting

I keep thinking of funny things to post as I am reading other blogs and then I realize I haven't got anything stamped to show you, so I better not post. You, as in the people I pretend are reading my blog. There are millions of you out there. Just waiting for me to show you something I stamped, right? Oh, no?

Anyway, I was reading a post by that funny blogger lady with the 6 kids that sold her pokemon cards on ebay and she was posting quirky things about herself - cause some one told her to, ya know in a tag. That is what us bloggers do. She had mentioned how she can't stand packing peanuts. As the Pioneer Woman would say, "they make her hiney cringe." Well the thing that does that to me is wood in my mouth. Like biting down on a popsicle stick or a toothpick. Man there is nothing worse. And then she mention how she knew someone who is afraid of cotton balls. That is my husband. Not really afraid of cotton balls, but they give him that weird feeling. My mom couldn't touch those really soft silk blouses that were popular in the early 90s, I think. The sanded silk ones, or whatever they were called. She said she couldn't breathe when she touched them. I know someone who can't stand crinkling potato chip bags. What about you? What is the weird thing like that, that makes your hiney cringe just thinking about it?

Oh, and I did get to stamp in the last couple of days. I have a stamp camp tomorrow and I actually have everything ready and I am going to try and take pictures of my relatively simple Christmas cards so I can show you in the next few days.

Happy Birthday and Off to School!

Today my oldest, Maddie Lou turns 6 and heads off to 1st grade. Unfortunately, she woke up with a fever yesterday and her tonsils were swollen, but we took her into the hospital and got her started on antibiotics right away. So this morning she got up and decided she was feeling good enough to go to school and she had been on the antibiotics for more than 24 hours so hopefully she makes it the whole day and I don't get a phone call from the nurse!

My Latest Addiction

When I was younger I was obsessed with R.L Stine and Christopher Pike books. I used to read a whole book in one sitting or during the drive up north for a camping trip. I grew up, went to the local college, and got a job and didn't have time to read like that. A few years ago some of the gals at work were reading those Janet Evanovich books. I was lent a few of them and really enjoyed them. Recently, for some strage reason, I decided I wanted to read again. Maybe it was so I could grab some time for myself and not feel as guilty about it. So I decided to go back to Janet's books and start at the beginning of the series. They are hilarious let me tell you. I also thought I should try out Harry Potter since I had enjoyed some of the movies. So as of now I have read the first two books in both series and I am about to start on the thirds.

My habits in blog reading have also been changing lately. I was into checking out all the stamping blogs but now I have found some that are more about people, people who are different from me and have really enjoyed reading about them. I shared a few recenlty and now I want to share the one that has me obsessed lately. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. I just finished reading her whole blog from the beginning to the present and it is hilarious! It is amazing to see how much has happened to her in the past year and a half because of her blog. I want to move my husband to OK and turn him into a chaps wearing cattle rancher so he can make my hiney tingle the way her Marlboro Man makes her hiney tingle. I think hiney is my new favorite word. She has also inspired me to learn more about my camera and to try and take better pictures. There is nothing I hate more than looking at a site with out of focus pictures. And if you don't want to read about all the ranchin' stuff you can check out her cooking site and try out some of the yummy sounding recipes!

Have you heard about the gal that put those pokemon cards her kids snuck into the grocery cart up on Ebay? She has a blog too. Because I Said So . Now her life isn't so much different than mine, but she is funny too. It is amazing to see how much the internet has changed these peoples lives.

I'm back!

Actually been back for almost a week. But I just haven't gotten around to posting. We drove 22 hours straight to get home. Vacations are exhausting with 3 little ones and we just didn't want to drag it out another day. I shouldn't have said we in regards to the driving. I offered plenty of times, but Corey insisted on doing it all himself so he could brag about it later. Men. I did drive for a little bit on the way there. I was begging to drive so he would have to be the one to deal with the kids every two minutes. But he wasn't falling for it much. I've got lots of pictures to share, but I want to save those for another day. Last night I was playing with my camera and my settings must be off. I don't know much about my camera. I have to pull out the book. I try to keep it on the default but Corey must've switched something on it. Here are some funny pictures from last night.