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!

When a good card goes bad...

This card started out pretty cute this morning. I colored the baby bella image (thanks for letting me borrow your stamps Jen). I liked how it turned out colorwise but it is a pretty tall stamp and I had a hard time coming up with a layout. I started out with a glittery striped pastel colored background but I couldn't figure out anything to do with it. I tried adding photo corners with brads and I tried adding a cuttlebugged half circle behind the image...nope. Nothing seemed to work. It had started off on such a good note with the adorable image and the coloring but it was on the fast track to my trash bin. I left it alone for a few hours and took the kids out for lunch. When I got back I decided to give it one last chance. I swapped out the striped background and cuttlebugged a shimmery piece of vellum instead. It looked ok but then I got a little crazy and sponged it with blue ink and then added a some glitter to the already shimmery vellum using the essential glue pad (probably didn't need to do this but for me you can never have too much glitter). I couldn't figure out a sentiment to stamp or even where to put it so I decided to use some rub-ons and my tiny star punch. Overall, not a super card but at least it took a detour away from the trash can. It started as a good idea and ended as a so-so card. Hope you are all enjoying your Thursday! We are headed off to the doctor to have them take a look at an infected hang-nail on Beckett's thumb. Wish the kids understood when I say "don't pick at it or it will get infected", that I actually mean it. Oh well...wish us luck!

Check out this awesome blog candy!

My dear friend Kisa has some absolutely FABULOUS blog candy right now. Check out her terrific blog here!
Hopefully I can find some time today to make something worthy of posting; if not, I hope you all have a terrific day!

Ribbon Blossoms

Do you have tons of ribbon just sitting around waiting to be used?
Then you have to check out this blog: Indigo Studio

Happy hump day!

Well, we made it through half the week and we all sorta seem healthy. Annabelle got a HUGE spot (hive? - it was the size of a half dollar) on her forehead last night that may have been cause from the antibiotic but today was her last dose so hopefully everything is ok. For those of you who know me well know that I have a lot of up and down days. I've been depressed a lot lately which is why I have been trying my best to make bright happy cards. I tried yesterday and couldn't do a single thing. I colored a couple Elyzabells images and then couldn't do a thing with them to save my life. Today I decided to try a Whipper Snapper image that I got from someone in the wishRAK group (sorry, I can't remember who sent it to me). Once again things are pretty basic but for the first time in a while I actually used some ribbon out of my stash instead of just adding glitter (my absolute fav embellishment). Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by.

The secret to dieting...

is not to eat cookies for breakfast. I've been experimenting with this type of dieting for the past couple weeks and my desired weight loss seems unattainable; in fact, I think the scales are tipping in + direction rather than the -. I think I may have to look at other breakfast options in hopes of diet success!
Anyway....it is cold and rainy and just all around gloomy here today. My motivation level is pretty much zero (except for my cookie dieting motivation - that seems to have peaked during this gloom). I didn't even want to take Annabelle to preschool today but in the end I managed to drag my tired butt out of the house. I even managed a little grocery shopping with Beckett after I dropped her off.
After grocery shopping, I decided that gloomy days and cleaning the house are an awful combination so I put a movie in the DVD player for Beckett and headed to my stash of colored images (no coloring motivation today). Once again the Penny Black frogs were calling (or maybe they were croaking) out to me. I am still using scraps from my stamp table so the color combos I have been using lately might not be the greatest but they are using up my scraps so that I don't have to put them away. Creating less work for later is always a good idea for me. Nothing too fancy here again today, just some glitter, brads and a few layers of paper. Seems I have been using a lot of bold bright colors lately, not sure why since I typically shy away from brights. Maybe all this gloom and cold is getting to me...what am I saying, maybe, should have said DEFINITELY getting to me. I can't wait for 70 degree weather! Hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Sunday already?

I can't believe it is already Sunday night. Where did the weekend go? We are still the household of the sick but I'm trying to keep a good attitude about it...the kids are building up a great immune system. I didn't get much accomplished today except for a long afternoon nap and a couple birthday cards that I should have had done last week. When I'm in stamping rut I tend to stamp and color a lot of images for future use. Today I wanted to throw together 2 cards in less than 30 minutes (the amount of time the crab cake mix has to sit in the fridge before I could make dinner). I dug through my colored image box and found these cute Penny Black chickens. Have I mentioned that I just love Penny Black? So I glittered, added the balloon, stamped the sentiment and threw these (I made 2) together in 36 minutes. Not too bad, especially since I just used scraps of paper that were already laying all over my craft table. I like how it turned out so much I decided to post it before I finished making supper...now I'm off to fry some crab cakes. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Just not my day!

I had a huge day planned for today and due to circumstances beyond my control nothing went as planned. First of all I had a hair cut/highlight appointment this morning. I left early because I finally had some Joann's coupons and the other day when I was there they had some of the new cuttlebug folders. I drive right by Joann's to get my hair done so it was going to work out just perfect...wrong! When I got to Joann's they were completely out of all of the new folders. Just my luck. Instead of using my coupons on CB folders I bought a pad of watercolor paper and some decorative candy flowers that go on cakes. Not what I went there to get but I was making a cake this afternoon anyway so at least the coupon didn't go to waste. Tonight Tom and I were supposed to go to a movie/pizza party at a friends home but Tom woke up not feeling well this morning so I was going to go alone tonight. I had my sister help make a really cool pink and purple checkerboard cake for me to take along tonight. I frosted it and decorated it with the cute candy flowers I got at Joann's. A couple hours later when I should have been getting ready for the party...I started feeling like total crap. I think I should have just stayed in bed this morning. I called my friend and had her pick up the cake so at least someone would still appreciate our totally cool spring colored checkerboard cake. So instead of partying with friends I hung out in my stamp room and experimented with the watercolor paper that I bought earlier today. The verdict...I TOTALLY SUCK AT WATERCOLORING. I tried and tried to figure out how people make such beautiful things on watercolor paper but the more I tried the uglier things got. In an effort to "fix" my image I had to resort back to touching it up with prismacolor pencils and gamsol. I was determined to make something with this and in the end it turned out ok despite the fact that I colored and recolored and recolored again. I'd love to hear how you all watercolor, maybe I'm doing something wrong.
Hope you all had a better day than we did. I think I am heading off to bed, early. I just have to remember that tomorrow is a new day!

The tough week doesn't end with yesterday's post

After I posted yesterday Tom came home early so that I could run to Target and to the post office. In the 45 minutes that I was gone Annabelle went from a fairly normal 4 year old to a 4 year old with the WORST ear infection EVER! When I got home Tom loaded her up in the van for yet another Friday night trip to the urgent care. She has had several ear infections (and when I say several I mean A LOT) in the past but usually once we get to the doctor and get her some meds she calms down. Last night was a totally different story. Her ear hurt....BAD. Tom dropped her off after the doctor appointment so he could run pick up her script at Walgreens. She cried and screamed and cried some more because her ear was hurting her so bad. I did everything I could for her and in the end she cried herself to sleep. I just don't understand how she can play and act normal all day and then out of the blue is in this awful pain. I felt terrible, but honestly she didn't give me any indication anything was wrong during the day, not the slightest bit.
So on that note, I needed something to make me smile today so I pulled out a picture of a card that I made last summer. No fancy embellishments or techniques...just plain and simple. Penny Black animals always make me smile! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!