Another CASE of The Kub

I got a few minutes of stamping time this afternoon and thought I would share the card I made. Once again this card was inspired by Kurtis (Stampin' Kub). If you haven't checked out his blog and/or gallery I highly recommend it! His cards are phenomenal! I used the same card to case as I did with my monster card last week. Here is a link to his card if you missed it in my other post. Tom is always telling me that I add too much to my cards so I knew he would like this one (he did). I got the tulip stamp in a bag of stamps at a garage sale last weekend, it is from Hero Arts. I just LOVE it! It is colored with prismacolor markers with just a touch of, you guessed it, GLITTER! The background is Weathered from SU! and the sentiment is from PTI's Birthday Basics. The baubles are some of the Bella Baubles that Jen gifted to me. They are great, but the cheaper ones from Michael's work just as well (speaking of that I saw that Michael's now carries them in a sunflower yellow color, I may have to pick up a bag). The card base is SU! Sahara Sand and the layered pieces are SU! Real Red and GP white. This was a nice change from the BUSY cards I've been making lately and I really liked how it turned out. I hope you all had a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!!

Another busy day today. Both kids have preschool and I totally forgot that it was Beckett's day for snack so now we have to stop at the store before trying to get him there by 9:00.
I also promised Annabelle she could stamp today because she really wanted to last night but it just got too late, so there will be some stamping of some sort later today. The house could also use a little (or maybe a lot) of cleaning. BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!!
I made this card yesterday (when I wasn't quite as busy). I thought it was an adorable image and I tried to stick with a tropical theme with the dp, but in the end, I think I probably should have went with dp that was a little less busy. Because the stamp is so busy, the paper makes the whole card look, well...BUSY. The sentiment is from the 7 Gypsies thingys again. I used the same layout as the other Penny Black cat card I made a few days ago. The Penny Black cat images that I have are so huge that I once again had to make a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 square card. Even though it is a little too busy, the adorable cat saved it from the trash can!

Hope you all have a TERRIFIC tuesday!!! Thanks for stopping by!

Tagged again!

I've been tagged by my SBS-13 sister Debi. If you haven't already checked out her blog, please do. She makes some really neat collage stuff.

This is a 7 random (interesting?) facts tag. This is a tough one for me since I'm not all that interesting and I already shared 7 facts a few months ago. I'll give it a try though...


1. I cry every time I hear the National Anthem. EVERY single time. I actually sometimes try to hum a different song in my head so to help avoid tearing up. I also get totally choked up at events that have military jet fly overs.

2. My favorite TV show is Avatar. I absolutely LOVE it. If you have never seen it, rent the DVD's but definitely start from the begining!

3. I had 2 really fast, all natural (and not necessarily by choice) labors with my children. My labor with Annabelle was 3 hours 50 mins (6 lb. 10oz.) and less than 16 months later 1 hour and 37 minutes for 9 lb. 1 oz. Beckett.

4. I used to have 4 titanium screws in my jaw (2 on each side). 2 of them worked themselves out and had to be removed (not fun). 2 still remain...makes for interesting conversation with x-ray technicians who don't know about them.

YIKES, I still need 3 more. I'm going to have to start living on the edge before I get tagged again...

5. We haven't been on vacation since our honeymoon 6 years ago. We went to Durango, CO and Moab, UT for some mountain biking and site seeing. We visited Mesa Verde NP and Arches NP. We are currently trying to plan a trip to Florida for next month but we'll see if that actually pans out.

6. I rented the movie "The Notebook" a couple weeks ago ...not sure if I have ever cried so much watching a movie...EVER!

and finally...

7. I LOVE shopping at thrift stores and garage sales. It is amazing the treasures you can find!

It is a good thing I read Kisa's interesting facts to "help" me think of interesting things or this list could have just been a list of the cereals I eat for breakfast..Life, Rice Chex, etc. etc.
Also, like her, I am going to save my tagging of others for another day. Hope you all have a great day!

7 Gypsies stamps

These are the stamper "thingys" that I talked about in my post this morning. The 3 stampers came in one package and there are 12 different sentiments on each one. After using them on my last 3 cards, I am totally hooked. You just dial in the number for your desired sentiment, stamp it in your ink and stamp your paper...viola!

Happy Monday Morning!!

Happy Monday morning to you all. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I'm over my Sunday night blues (until next week) and am ready to take on a new week! OK, maybe not ready quite yet, my eyes are stilling trying to figure out how to focus again this morning and I definitely need to head downstairs for a nice hot cup of chai. After that I will definitely be ready to take on the new week. Spring break is over and we are back into our normal routine, which funnily (if that is a word) means a trip to the doctor (story of our life). Beckett's infected hang nail still isn't healed so we have to make a dreaded trip back to the doctor today. I need lots of prayers for this trip as I have a feeling it isn't going to be a pleasant one! Anyway, on to today's business...first of all I wanted to thank Danyelle over at Hangnailz and Papercutz for awarding me with another "You Cheer Me Up" award. I thought it was so sweet of her. If you haven't been to her blog, you should definitely check it out. She is funny and talented and her blog is a joy to read!
Now, as for a project today...months and months ago I bought this funky 3 pack of stampers (I think they were from 7 Gypsies) that I have never used, so yesterday I finally broke them in. They are groovy hand held thingys, kinda like stampers that you would mark something "paid" except they have a little twisty thing that you can change the sentiment. I think each one has like 8 or 10 sentiments on it and you just dial up which one you want. There is a guide on the front that lists the sentiments and the # you need to dial in for the correct one. Is any of this making sense? Maybe I'll take a picture of them later and post it. Anyway, I used them on the dog card that I posted yesterday ("missing you") and I used it again on today's card ("Life is Good"). I can't believe I haven't used them before now, they are so versatile. This card once again uses a wishRAK image and I believe it is from Inky Antics this time. The turtle is colored with gamsol and Prismacolor pencils (again) and the little black flowers are rub-ons (I think this is the first time I've ever used rub-ons on a card) from Heidi Grace. When I stamped the sentiment it was a little off center so I evened it out by adding a little rub-on to the end. Of coarse there is some glitter (because God forbid I make a card without glitter on it somewhere) on the flowers. The pink glitter is from Doodlebug and the black glitter on the flower centers is Martha Stewart. The paper is all SU!
Thanks for stopping by today and for all of you, I hope LIFE IS GOOD!

Sunday night blues

I'm suffering from the Sunday night blues. I can't believe the weekend is over already. I didn't get a whole lot accomplished today but I did get to visit with my friend Jen for quite a while this afternoon which is always fun (and a bit interesting with kids screaming and running in every direction). I got to play in my stamp room for a little while after dinner tonight and this is what I got done. This is another image I got from someone in wishRAK. I think it is Whipper Snapper again. I thought this card was pretty cute until I totally ruined it at the end. I had it all together and thought it needed just a little something so I added the glitter to the collar...bad choice. I hate the glitter but really like the rest of the card. At first I added navy blue glitter to keep it manly but it looked awful so I tried changing it to brown glitter so in the end it is a combo of brown and blue. Not great but there was nothing I could do to fix it and unfortunately since it was a wishRAK image I couldn't just stamp a new one. Oh well, live and learn I guess. I hope you all had a great weekend.

You Cheer Me Up Award

No new creations to post today (yet) so I thought I would share this award that was given to me by my SBS-13 sister Jo. I thought it was so sweet! Thanks Jo! Hope you get your plumbing issues cleared up ASAP!!!
We are supposed to pass this award on and I have to say that I couldn't pick just one person. Anyone and Everyone who leaves comments on my blog cheers me up on a daily basis. Funny thing is last week something malfuctioned with my comment moderation notices and when I posted my monster cards I didn't get a notification of any comments for over 24 hours. I was SO depressed! I thought maybe no one liked my monster cards. Then I realized that somehow blogger (or maybe it was me inadvertently) deleted my email address that comments get sent to so when I logged in I had a notice that I had 10 comments that needed moderation. Boy did that cheer me up! So this award goes out to ALL OF YOU who leave me comments. You all CHEER ME UP!!!!
Hopefully I will find some time today to make something (even if it is just cookies), so check back later for a possible 2nd post of the day. I hope you all have a terrific day!

Snow...not again!

Is it really Saturday? I usually love Saturdays since I have a little help with the kids, but today I'm too tired to do anything. It may be in part to the fact that we woke up to a light dusting of snow. I am SO tired of cold and winter. I need it to be sunny and 70 for the next 6 months (I know I'm dreaming). I did drag myself out to a couple garage sales this morning, including the semi-annual garage sale at our local scrapbook store. This is a great sale as long as you don't have crowd anxiety (which I have severely). I braved the crowd as long as I could stand it (I get really nervous and hyperventilate when I'm packed in like sardines) and I did get a few deals but not as great as previous sales. I think Tom and I are going to have an afternoon "date" and go to Red Lobster for a late lunch/early supper while my sister watches the kids. I'm hoping to then stamp the rest of the night but who knows if that will happen, or if I'll have the energy to actually do it. I just threw this card together using an image that I colored earlier in the week. I think the dog is from Whipper Snapper but I'm not 100% sure (I received it from someone in the wishRAK group). The sentiment is from the retired SU! set Rough Day (or maybe it's Play, I can't remember). Nothing too fancy, just a lot of layers. The glittered paper is from the DCWV glittered mat stack. I hope you are all having a great Saturday. Thanks for stopping by!

Friday's post a little early

I have another busy day of babysitting my niece and a friend of Annabelle's tomorrow so I thought I would post tomorrow's card, tonight. As I'm continuing on my journey of trying new things I decided to challenge myself with a monochromatic card tonight. I know it isn't exactly a technique but it is something that I totally suck at (just ask my old monthly swap friends about my totally dorky monochromatic card I made last year). Oh and a second challenge for the card...it is square. I never make square cards. It is huge too...5 1/2 x 5 1/2. I colored this adorable Penny Black image this afternoon using gamsol and prismacolor pencils. I just LOVE Penny Black, have I mentioned that before? Anyway, the cs colors I picked are Yoyo Yellow and Barely Banana along with some pattern paper from DCWV. It is pretty simple, but I think it turned out darn cute!
The pearls are the ones from the Target $1 bin. I am so loving them. I only bought 8 packages, I may have to pick up a few more if they have any.
Thanks again for stopping by and sharing your comments. I enjoy each and every one! Have a wonderful evening!

Trying something new!

I decided that I am going to start trying some techniques that I have never done before (or ones I haven't done in a long time). For this card I did the acetate and tissue paper technique (BTW, I have no idea if that is really the name of the technique, but that is what I'm calling it).
I stamped the butterflies with stazon on acetate and flipped it over. I added a dime size drop of crystal effects and a few drops of SU! classic reinkers. I smooshed it all over using a crumpled up piece of tissue paper. When it was covered I took a new piece of crumpled up tissue paper and covered the acetate...does that make any sense? Anyway, that is how I got the crumpled look behind the butterflies. I added some stickles to the front of the acetate and viola! It gives a neat appearance but boy were my hands messy, I would highly recommend wearing rubber gloves.
And even though I haven't made any more monster cards I did stamp a bunch of monsters on acetate and "color" them with either pearl-ex or glitter...fun, fun, fun. I can't wait to make something with these little cuties!

Hope you are all having a great day. It is cold, windy and rainy here. Another great day for stamping (except that I have 2 extra kids today, so stamping time with 4 kids running crazy is probably out of the question).
Thanks for stopping by!

I need some input...

Here are the pages I was working on at Scrap Mania on Saturday night. I tried finishing them up today but I want some honest opinions....
The entire page is glued down with the exception of the flowers (the glitter on them is still drying). What I need to know is: Does it need something else, and what? Does the left page title look ok with only the one black strip or should it have 2 narrow black strips similar to the right hand page? Should I move the flowers someplace else? Do I need more rub-ons? Where? My original title was Flower Girl but it just didn't look good so I changed it...please don't tell me I shouldn't have as I already glued my letters down. Is the right hand page too empty in its bottom left corner? What do you think?

Girly was a little harder

Girly monsters were definitely a little harder. This card didn't turn out great but I'm on a roll posting today so I thought I would share it anyway. Instead of coloring the monster with markers like I did with the other cards, I stamped on acetate with stazon and then ran it through my xyron machine. I colored it by adding pearl-ex power to the sticky side after it came out of the xyron. I then ran it through again and stuck it to the pink passion cardstock. After I had the whole thing glued together I started playing around with the cuttlebug background and a pink gel pen. Since everything was glued together when I started with the gel pen there was no going back so I just picked a few of the embossed words to highlight in pink. It is kind of a funky card. I don't like it as much as I liked all the boyish monster cards I made earlier today but the monster is still cute regardless of how the rest of the card turned out.

After a fun day of playing with monsters...I'm off to bed. Hope you all had a great day. Thanks for stopping by!

More Lil' Monsters

Here are a few more Lil' Monsters I threw together. I used the same blue and white theme because I already had a bunch of paper cut. I am going to experiment making some of them more girly looking later. These were just so much fun to play around with.
I should have been working on finishing my scrapbook page from Saturday but I got caught up in the cuteness of these little guys. I will try and work on my sb page later tonight or tomorrow. I did find some time this afternoon to be naughty and shop a little at Michael's. All Cricut cartridges are on sale at Michael's for $40 this week so I splurged and bought one. I justified buying it with the fact that I need to finish some titles are a couple sb pages...so be on the look out for a sb page with a Cricut letter title :)
Hope you are all having a great day! It is cold and rainy and all around dreary here...great day to stay in and STAMP!!

Time for some CASEing!

I had a few minutes to play this morning so I threw together this little guy. I wanted to do something fun and simple. I absolutely love the cards made by Kurtis (krabearkub on SCS). His blog is just as fantastic as his creations. A couple days ago he posted a card that I absolutely LOVED and I wanted to CASE. I finally got a chance to play around with it today. It isn't an identical CASE since I used different colors, stamps, etc. etc. but I did "steal" his overall layout. I think his card was absolutely stunning and my card... well, I think turned out pretty darn cute.
I love this Lil' Monsters set from Green Grass Stamps. I haven't actually ever made anything with this set until today, but I have a feeling I will be making several versions of this card later today using the different monsters that come in the set. The card is simple and fast to make. The little baubles are the cheapies from the Michael's floral department, but even though they cost a lot less than Dew Drops or Bella Baubles they work TERRIFIC! Stop back later and hopefully I will have more of these cute little guys posted. Hope you are all having a terrific Tuesday!!!

Change is good, right?

I like to play around with my blog options a lot. Because I don't have photo editing software, having a really cool looking blog is difficult. Let me know what you think of the newest look. Besides changing up my color combos, I also changed my blog title. After making the scrapbook pages for Delia's birthday a few weeks ago, I have been trying to look at life in a different way. This afternoon I was thinking about the ups and downs in life and I realized that I need to change my attitude about a lot of things and find "the best in life" instead of complaining about the things that I have no power over.
Wish me luck!
I hope you are all having a terrific day!

Funny Story....

Here is what happens when you leave a 3 year old unattended with the computer: Last night Annabelle and I went to bed early but because Beckett had taken a nap during the afternoon he was still a bundle of energy. He loves to do puzzles and will do them for hours so Tom left him in the office with a pile of puzzles and went downstairs to watch a movie. After Beckett was done with the puzzles, instead of telling Tom he was done, he decided to jump on the the computer and take some pictures of himself using the photo booth program that came on our mac. The kids love this feature but have only used "our" computer when either Tom or I are around. They have their own iMac down in the kitchen that is "theirs" so they are pretty knowledgeable about maneuvering their way around. Apparently he is A LOT more knowledgeable than we gave him credit for...he took 75 pictures of himself using all of the different special effect features. Tom didn't notice the pictures until after he finally put Beckett to bed, but this morning Beckett explained to us he was taking pictures and making "funny faces". The kid is a total ham. I forgot to mention that he also changed the name of the hard drive so we definitely have to keep on eye on this kid before he starts deleting our itunes or iphoto libraries. Here are a few of his masterpieces:

Pencil Sketch
Swirly Head
I think this effect is called stretch, but we call it Big Head
I can't see you, anybody there?
Beckett Warhol
X-ray
Funny face
What the heck? He thought this was hilarious. Not sure I consider this a funny face.

Hope you all have a wonderful Monday. Thanks for stopping by!

Lots of stamping time today with few results : (

I know I mentioned yesterday that hopefully I would post my project that I was going to work on last night at scrap mania today, but I didn't get it finished. Sadly, I worked for 5 hours on a 2 page layout for Annabelle's scrapbook and I didn't get it done. I wanted to finish it today but it still needs "something" so I will post it in a few days when I hopefully have it finished. Instead, I have some simple graduation cards to share. I spent A LOT of time trying to make graduation cards today and well, it just wasn't in the stars for me to accomplish much. Everything I made during my first 2.5 hours in my stamp room went into the garbage, literally. I managed to throw these together but considering I was working on graduation cards for about 5 hours I wouldn't consider this a very successful stamping day. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Check back during the next few days for a peek at my scrap mania pages. Thanks for stopping by!

Lots of HAPPY MAIL!!!

It has been a really low key day. I got up this morning, took a shower and then went back to bed. It is an absolute beautiful day and what did I do...I stayed in bed until 12:30. Tom took the kids outside to ride bikes and color with sidewalk chalk and I....stayed in bed. What a loser I am today. Thankfully I finally got out of bed when I heard the mailman come. It was definitely worth getting up for. I got TONS of happy mail today!
First envelope I got was an awesome thank you card from my friend Delia. I absolutely LOVE it! It is a cool pull card (I have never made one of these). I love the colors and stamps and everything about it! Just beutiful!!!

The next 2 envelopes I got came via Royal Mail...sounds so important :)
First one was this awesome card from my SBS-13 sister Jo (check out her blog, she makes some adorable cards!!). It is a beutiful card. Thank you SO MUCH for thinking of me! It really brightened my day!
The second Royal Mail envelope was from my other SBS-13 sister who just happens to also be name Jo (she has a great blog too, check it out). She sent me this terrific flower card/folder filled with awesome images and embellishments. I just LOVED it! Thanks Jo!
Now that I am out of bed I need to start figuring out what I am going to work on tonight at scrap mania. I need to get myself organized since it starts in 3 hours and I have no clue what I'm taking with. Wish me luck and hopefully I will have some finished projects to share tomorrow. Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday!

TGIF!

I am so glad it is finally Friday. I have had a sore back all week and today it is at its absolute worst. I can barely bend over right now. To make the day a little more challenging I babysat my 1 year old niece and one of Annabelle's friends. It actually wasn't that bad but boy is my back hurting. When my sister came to pick up my niece, my 7 year old niece was with her and she gave me this key chain that she bought for me. Yes, my 7 year old niece bought me a key chain with a picture of my "boyfriend" Zac Efron on it. It even says I *heart* Troy (for those of you who aren't crazy Zac Efron (or HSM) fans that was his character in HSM. I thought it was so cute and thoughtful of her and it is so true...I definitely *heart* Zac Efron! Thanks Raechell for the awesome gift. My keys will be on it tomorrow! Hope you all had a great Friday.
April and Jen and I are off to scrap mania at Archivers tomorrow night so hopefully I make some great projects that I can post on Sunday. Have a great weekend!