work for scraps

First Day of Preschool

2011-07-09T19:08:00.000-04:00

It's official!! My very first blog post for the Momenta Design team went up today! As you know, I was really excited to get the box! And it didn't disappoint!

The cardstock works really really well through my Silhouette, so I cut the whole title out of cs. For the journaling, I didn't stamp it, I just ran it all through my printer, using a really subtle piece of patterned paper.

Here's the layout:

Can you believe how tiny my son is? OMgosh! He's going to be a full blown teenager in December! Oh, so cute!!

Couple close ups:

That's the journaling... yup, just used the Ali Edwards font here and there and popped some color on the font.

Ethan thought the church where he went to school, looked like Hogwarts! too cute.

And here is one of my most favorite Momenta products, these puffy stickers! Isn't this robot to die for? Had to use him!!

In other news, I was very, very, VERY bad today! LOL! I went to Joanne's on a punch mission! Thankfully, all the punches were 40% off, except the Martha Stewart one, called Cherish, but, I had to get it! Love it. I also purchased the one that makes your stuff look like it was torn from a page, the ek success edge punch... I'm sure I'm the last person on the planet not owning one! I also got a basic star shape... even tho I have the Slice, I wasn't getting the right star. I can't wait to go play.

Hope everyone had a great week, and a better weekend. The weather here is just perfect today, can't complain!!

Have a great day!!

"Owl" be back....

2011-07-04T14:42:00.000-04:00

Oh, wow, where did the time go??? I've been so busy, my blog got ignored a bit.

First off, Happy Fourth of July!! My family went to Kennywood Park. I didn't want to go, so I decided to stay home and scrapbook and get some laundry done. I kind of like the quiet right now!! It's a rare commodity these days!

I've been working on projects for the Momenta design team, but I can't share any of it with you just yet. I was so excited to finally get my box. You can find the Momenta/ATD paper pads, stickers, cardstock pads and page kit at Michaels and AC Moore... I haven't checked at JoAnns yet. I am just in love with their border stickers!! They're having a contest right now with their line of Design Your Own Stickers, so check out the blog to see if you can play to win!!

Since I can't share my Momenta layout just yet.... I have a cute little "owl" card I can share. We had a swap of paper pieces on a scrapbooking board I'm on, and I got this cute little owl, so I made this cute little Thank You card:

I'm not much of a paper piecer, but he sure is cute.

I'm also working on 2 other layouts... one of my NYC trip, Times Square was AMAZING!! The play "The Normal Heart" was amazing. It was neat to see a Broadway play, well, kind of off Broadway. Ellen Barkin was in it and she did such a fantastic job. Really.

That was quite a world-wind day! Fun, but I don't think I'll need to go back for another 10 years! LOL! I would like to take my kids. We'd do more touristy things, like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Hope you all are having a great 4th of July Weekend!! If you're not celebrating, I hope you're having a great Monday at least!!

New York, New York!!!

2011-06-24T07:52:00.000-04:00

In less than 16 hours, I will be boarding the Mega Bus in Pittsburgh to travel to the BIG APPLE with my friend Diane!! I'm so excited. I've been there before, so she wants me to show her the ropes. hee hee, I'll try. I'm sure a ton is different.

When my husband and I went, I had a crappy little 35 mm camera, and the film stuck, so I got one photo - of my friend! Then, the next frame had ALL the photos on it. The film didn't advance. :( I do not have any photos from that trip. I've been wanting to go back ever since.

We recently bought a Nikon Coolpix 1600 camera, which is really nice, but I'm so torn. Do I want the handiness of the tiny camera, or since I am a tourist, just go ahead and take my honkin' DLSR? I'm leaning toward the DSLR, I want good pictures this time!

I'm probably going with the big one.

The bus will arrive in NYC at 7 am, we figure we'll grab breakfast, sight see, maybe do yoga or tai chi in Central Park for free... that would be a hoot! At 2 PM we are going to see the off broadway show staring Ellen Barkin and Jim Parsons (of the Big Bang show) in a play called "The Normal Heart". After the play, we'll grab dinner, do some more shopping (probably all window, since I'm broke!), then we catch the bus at 11 to go home.

Busy weekend!

I have a layout to share. I found this sketch on the Sketch Support site, which I just discovered. It was sketch #8, but I flipped it.

This is newish BoBunny paper. I really haven't bought new paper in forever, but really liked this line. (sorry, not sure of the name)

Couple of close ups:

And one more close up. I cut out the little flags using my Slice.

I got my big box from Momenta, and I am working on a layout! What a bunch of great stuff. I'm really in love with their puffy stickers. Really cute stuff. They have a new product, these letter stickers that you can run through your printer and match to your layout. I wasn't familiar with them, but now that I know what they are I am going to order some for next time, they seem really cool. You can either customize them in your program, or there are free print outs on the Momenta website that you just download and print out onto the white lettering. Seems like the perfect idea for the perfect match of colors!

Have a great weekend. I hope I get some good pictures, and don't get rained on too much!

Happy Father's Day!!

2011-06-19T08:34:00.001-04:00

To all the men who read my blog, which is probably my husband and maybe 3 or 4 others! And to all your husbands and dads, too!

I made a card for both my hubby and father-in-law. I have yet to make one for my dad, but I will see him tomorrow, so I have some time! I wanted to buy my dad a TV, but it's just not in the cards this year. Maybe for Christmas.

For this card, I used all Momenta stuff, even tho my box of goodness hasn't arrived. I just downloaded some free digi files. YES!! They have FREE digi stuff. You can just download the pdf and cut it out, or do like I did, and opened the png files in photoshop and resized them, to customize. And look how cute it turned out!!

I just used the eyedrop tool to suck up the blue color to make the background, then I typed the sentiment in white.

Here's a close up:

Add some string, some buttons and bling, and you've got yourself a snazzy (and quick!) hybrid card!

I always print my hybrid stuff on STAPLES brochure paper. The actual name of it is PHOTO SUPREME DOUBLE-SIDED MATTE PAPER, 8.5 X 11. It's double sided, and thicker than copy paper, and it makes the colors really pop, and I believe it's water resistant, too.

Since yesterday was Matt's dad's birthday, and today is Father's Day, we invited him over for a cookout. He is 40 years older than me.... he turned 84, you do the math! lol!

We spent the day sprucing up our yard since Matt's dad is coming over. We lost 2 bushes over the winter from not normal salt for the side walk, but environmentally friendly salt... that statement is a bit of an oxymoron! It killed my 2 boxwoods! Luckily, they were on the ends, so we just moved a big rock that was being covered by a large stella dora (yellow lilly) and mulched around it. Looks good. The other I replaced with a small pink rose bush, that - GET THIS - I got for it for FIVE BUCKS! All the roses at Lowes looked pathetic and were broken, and just not taken care of, and it was $20... I didn't want to pay $20 for something that might die, so I asked if I could get a discount, and the girl said 10% - which is 2 bucks... I said well, that's not very much. She then asked the manager and he said, "oh, I don't care, give it to her for 5 bucks." I was so happy, I told him he made my day.

I hope you all have a great day, spent with husbands, father's and brothers! Happy Father's Day!

Anxiously Awaiting

2011-06-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

My goodie box from Momenta!! Where are you??? The UPS 'woman' stopped at my neighbors yesterday while I was outside, and I got so excited because I thought she would stop at my house next, but no, she drove right by. :(

Once I get that box, I can't wait to dive in.

Oh, and sorry about last week, that just flew by, and I could have posted this:

This layout was (again) highly influenced by Nichol Maqouirk, who is simply A-mazing!! I couldn't find the exact layout, but she's got tons of great stuff on her blog.

Here are 2 closeups:

I used my Silhouette to cut out the title, which was a bugger!! I welded it, but it kept getting stuck. I think it's time for a new computer! lol! (I wish!) I can't use the Silhouette software unless I have system 10.5... and, unfortunately, I have 10.4.5... so close, and yet so far.

Hope you all are having a great summer, we are so far. My little man is enrolled in a painting class this week. Next week I'm going to THE BIG APPLE with my friend Diane. We're going to ride the Mega Bus... I CANNOT wait! fun!

My nephew is coming to stay for 2 nights. He lives in Virginia... oh, this is a funny story (sorry Bobby!). He is 16, and his mom is coming up to help his other grandma in Erie to buy a bra. Bobby pleaded with his mom, "Please don't make me go with you!" Heck, I don't blame him. I'm a woman and even I don't want to go bra shopping! hee hee... so he'll stay with us those 2 days and get to hang with our kids, so we'll do fun stuff, and I promise, no bra shopping! ;)

Have a great week!! Thanks for stopping!!

Thanks A Latte!

2011-06-03T12:20:00.001-04:00

Here's a fun card, using my favorite drink, coffee!! YUM! I used some Fiskars stamps, then colored the images with Copic Markers. I love how this turned out. I think it's my favorite card EVER! Well, that I made!

I even stamped the envelope:

Here's a closeup:

And, the sentiment on the inside:

There ya go, my favorite card, made with my favorite drink image, coffee.

Speaking of coffee, my most awesome friend who lives in Hawaii sent me a HUGE box of goodies, which included a bag of delicious Kona Coffee... yum!

And, a cute little Pea card, Adorable. Thank you Joscie! :)

That's it for now. I ordered my box of Momenta goodies, and I can't wait to start designing for them. I'm so excited. They have such cute stuff!! You should check them out.

Have a great weekend!!

I Made the Momenta Team!

2011-06-01T06:45:00.000-04:00

I'm so thrilled and honored to be a new member of the Momenta Design Team! I can't wait to get started designing with their product. Their catalog is chockful of scrappy goodness!

Momenta Blog

I'm still on a cloud after finding out, spontaneously chair dancing! hee hee

It's going to be such fun.

I'll be back later with a scrappy post.

Have a great day!

Picnics, Fieldtrips and Concerts — Oh My!

2011-05-26T12:18:00.004-04:00

Wow, where did the week go? It's Thursday already. Summer is quickly approaching and I'm trying to figure out things for the kids to do.

There is an art club in town, aptly named "Greensburg Art Club" and I'm going to sign my son up for acrylic painting, my daughter for photography, where they'll make a pin-hole camera and they both will do the ceramics class, where they throw pots and make coil pots. Fun.

I decided to do the adult drawing class and also the adult painting class. I bought a new set of water colors the other day. I haven't painted for quite a while, so we'll see how that goes.

Our summer certainly is looking promising! I really can't wait. I wrote down on my calendar all the fun free things you can do in Pittsburgh, so many concerts and outdoor stuff to do. I can't wait.

My friend and I are also planning a trip to New York City via the MegaBus. What a great find! We'll leave Friday night at 11:55 pm, sleep on the bus, arrive in NYC at 7 am, eat, shop, then see a Broadway show, then back on the bus by 11:15 or so and sleep on the bus, wake up back home 7 on Sunday... all for $75! Seriously!! I did see some $10 and $15 bus rides, but the dates we need are $30 to go and $45 to come back, or vise versa, I can't remember, but how fun will that be???

And, drumroll please... this I am most excited about... most ExCiTeD!!

U2 baby!!! This will be their last stop of the 360° Tour. I'm SO excited!

OK, now on to some scrappy goodness!

I did this for a challenge on 2 Peas. I never have won a challenge, but it really gets me motivated to scrap.

Couple close ups, I actually stamped on a scrapbook page, haven't done that in like forever:

Some more stamping:

This was a total lift of Nichol Magouirk, I just love how she'll just use a little strip of patterned paper and it just makes the whole layout pop.

That's about it, it's been crazy busy end of year stuff, school picnics, field trips, lots of weed pulling! oi vay, good exercise for your buns. I have my front flower bed and the back one yet to tackle. Probably this weekend.

Have a happy safe Memorial Day Weekend for all the USA peeps, and everyone else have a great weekend!!

Cruisin' Right Along... and a Freebie

2011-05-19T09:56:00.002-04:00

Here's a layout that I did a few weeks ago and totally forgot to share!

I really love how this turned out. It was a challenge on 2 Peas to use a sketch. It came together so nicely. I just love this paper, too, by Bella Boulevard. I have tons left, so I think I will do more cruise photos.

My inlaws took us on a cruise in 2004. Look how little my son is and so cute in his "tuxedo". He was in love with that suit, he wanted to wear it all the time. Ethan was only 6 and Emma was 8. That's my nephew Bobby, and he was only 10! He's driving now!

Don't you wish you could shrink your kids and have them be little again... sigh... I miss so those days, and look how skinny I am! DANG! lol!

Anyway, here's the layout:

I used my Silhouette to cut out the bracket shape and my title. I did a shadow on the bracket to give it more dimension, plus I used some pop dots for even more. I cut the word cruise out, same size, in 2 different colors, then just offset it a bit to give it some pop.

In the squares, I used a word sticker and some flowers in each. Got to use up some stickers. Lord knows I have enough stickers to encircle my house 3 times!

And, because I love you guys so much and I also like to share, would you like the bracket shape?

I have 2 sizes, I used the bigger of the two:

Here's the LINK to the bracket download. I'll also put it on my freebies page to find it easier later on. The files are jpeg, png and svg for cutting.

Enjoy! Have a scrappy day!!

Rain, rain, go away....

2011-05-17T13:29:00.000-04:00

It's soggy and wet and cold. What happened to spring???

Well, the only good thing about the rain, besides the fact that my weeds are growing in my garden, is that I had a chance to scrap this past weekend! Finally.

I jump all over the place with my scrapbooking. I don't scrap chronologically. Case in point, here is a Disney layout. We went in 2008.

And a couple of closeups:

I love using vintage buttons:

And here, I made a folded flower, then attached a fabric covered brad:

Fun layout.

I'm working on a layout from last summer, titled Summertime in the City. When I opened the June 2010 folder on my computer, I only had 4 pictures from the event, which was the Arts Festival in Pittsburgh. I was so sad. I had a few on facebook from the Project 365 last year, but I knew I had gotten some really cool shots. I was just sick that I was missing a huge block of photos from June.

Well, I put my card into my husbands computer (the new iMacs have a card reader which I LOVE!) and found that the trash can was full. I crossed my fingers and opened the trash can. Yippeee!! The missing photos (all 520 of them) were in the trash can.

I made a folder on the card, and pulled the pictures out of the trash.

I remember this happening. I was getting the photos off, and my computer was being weird, so I remember thinking I'd better not empty trash. Well, that was last year and I had forgotten all about doing that.

I'm just so happy that I found my photos.

Now I need to buy a new external drive where I can keep my photos. My other external is full.

Tomorrow I have to go to the hospital at 10:30 to get a procedure. I'm a little nervous. I asked if it hurt. The nurse said it's like going to the dentist. Well, I don't think so, the dentist doesn't usually slice open my skin with a scalpel, leaving an inch long incision. UGH. I hope they put me to sleep, I don't need to here all the icky stuff surgeons do.

So, if you think of it, say a little prayer for me. Thanks.

Wishing you a creative day. :)

Smash Book Tutorial Part 2

2011-05-10T11:22:00.000-04:00

I've finally finished my tutorial. I hope you enjoy it, and are encouraged to make your own, if you are interested.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. I had a nice one, and, BONUS, it was actually warm! Great day.

Check back, I have lots of projects to share... the only problem is my camera decided to stop talking to my computer, so I have to use my husbands to get my photos off and uploaded. It's a real pain in the behind.

I didn't get much done on National Scrapbooking Day, but I have one layout almost done, and photos for another, so I plan on getting scrappy soon.

Sorry for such a short update... hopefully, it's short and sweet! I've got errands to run, food to buy, and work to do.

Hope you all have a scrappy day!!!

Blog Hop Winner!

2011-05-03T09:05:00.000-04:00

Drum roll please......

Congrats Kelly!

I wanted to also say THANKS to all of you that followed me! I'm greatly appreciative to have gained some new friends.

Have you seen the latest on artist journals from Fancy Pants and EK Success? They're both very cool, but also very pricey. The EK Success one even has a cool pen attached. It's a pen and a glue stick... very clever.

However, like I said, it's very pricy. I really can't see plopping down 20 bucks for basically a blank journal with a pen, no matter how cool.

Soooo, I decided to make my very own smash book. It was pretty easy, and I didn't need to buy a thing. I used all materials that I had on hand. I even sewed a ribbon to the back page to hold a pen. I did purchase some 8 1/2 x 11 craft paper, but I can use that for cards and layouts.

Here's a tutorial video, 1 of 2, that I made on how I put together my smash book.

In the video there is a link to download some pages that I created for use in my smash book. You are more than welcome to use any or all of the pages. It's a pdf and you can simply print them out on your printer. The size is 8 1/2 by 11.

The finished size of my smash book is 6x9, and the inside pages are 5 1/2 x 8 1/2. I borrowed a friends Cinch to bind it. If you don't have access to a Cinch or Bind-It-All, you can either use rings or go to a local print shop and see if they can bind it together for you.

I'm editing part 2. The problem with editing is, I can't do it on my computer, so I need to use my husbands... it's hard to get on his because he's always using it for work!

I hope to have part 2 up by end of week.

Hope you enjoy part 1, have a great day!

Blog Hop - Creative Charms

2011-04-29T09:21:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday!!

I can't think of a better way to start your weekend than with a fun blog hop, complete with a great prize at the end. All of the details are on the Creative Charms Blog - HERE! Start there, so you can win the main prize.

***the secret word for my blog for the grand prize is CREATIVE***

I'll also offer up a little goody prize. Just leave a comment and I'll put your name in for the goodies! Lot's of Creative Charms yumminess.

>>but wait, there's more!<<
If you follow me, I will add your name in for another chance, so you'll have 2 chances!!

I did 2 projects with Creative Charms products. Both are cards Just Saying Hello.

And a closeup:

On this I used Creative Charms Vintage Velvet Poppies in black, layered with these delicate Black Sheer Flowers with beads.

And a close up...

This card is pretty simple, but I jazzed it up with my favorite Creative Charms Gradient Sticker Gems to make the birdie look like he's tweetin'!

Here is the blog hop list:

• Kristal – http://www.kandrewdesigns.blogspot.com/
• Amber – http://www.thecountryscrapper.blogspot.com/
• Sandra – http://www.scrappinmomof1.blogspot.com/
• Jan – http://www.papercraftpleasures.blogspot.com/
• Laura – http://www.lauraachilles1.wordpress.com/
• Diane – http://www.capadiadesigns.blogspot.com/
• Jennifer H – http://www.jenniferhansenscrapgallery.blogspot.com/
• Michelle – http://www.chengunation.blogspot.com/
• Lisa – http://www.lisadorsey.blogspot.com/
• Chris(that's me!) – http://www.workforscraps.blogspot.com/
• Jamie – http://www.jamielanedesigns.blogspot.com/
• Amy – http://www.aimitup.blogspot.com/
• Jennifer Y – http://www.thepinkroom.typepad.com/
• Trudy – http://www.truesgiftsfromtheheart.blogspot.com/
• Ellen – http://www.scrapstampnmama.blogspot.com/
• Joscie – http://www.cutchens.com/
• Ilene – http://www.whatabunchofscrap.blogspot.com/
• Midori – http://www.scrapsforme.blogspot.com/

Have fun, and if you missed anyone, don't forget to start at the top with Kristal.

Go get your hop on!!!

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T10:09:00.000-04:00

to you all. Today we celebrate the day that Jesus rose from the dead in fulfillment of the scriptures. I think a lot of that gets lost in bunnies and candy. I don't talk about religion too much on my blog, because it is a crafty/scrappy/arty blog, but I do believe.

As I was watching the Ten Commandments last night, watching the waters part, I thought how could this stuff be made up? If so, they had some pretty crazy imaginations.

Easter is actually one of my favorite holidays. It's right up there with Christmas for me. Seriously. It's so deeply rooted in tradition for my family. When I was little, it started with Lent. No meat on Friday's, and to give something up, which when I was little was always candy. Now rather than give up something I try to better myself. I'll try to not be judgmental or think badly of people. (we all do it)

On Good Friday from 12 - 3, the hours that Jesus hung on the cross, as children, we weren't allowed to play or watch TV. We had to pretty much sit silently. My dad would let us play cards. I don't do that to my kids. I guess, as a kid, we were 'suffering', at least that's what it felt like to me. Nowadays, people just go about their day, shopping, cleaning, watching tv... a lot has been lost in tradition.

Easter Saturday we'd go to the church and get our baskets blessed. You put your food in a big basket and take it to church and the priest blesses it. You put in your eggs, your ham, your kielbasi, bread, even salt and pepper. We would also dye our Easter Eggs.

(paska bread photo from allrecipes.com)

On Easter Sunday is the big feast after church, and I try to keep my end up here with the traditional foods. I'm of Slovak decent. There's a lot of meat on Easter. I make 3 kinds, ham, halupki's (stuffed cabbage) and kielbasi (Polish sausage). We also have Paska Bread, which is a sweet bread, kind of like Sweet Challah Bread. Sides are mashed potatoes, veggies and macaroni salad. Dessert we have nutrolls and apricot rolls. I also made a carrot cake, because I love it! Oh you also have to eat horseradish. I kind of don't eat it, but you are supposed to eat it with the ham. Sometimes we'll have a lamb made of butter on the table, but I think that might be an Italian thing that we borrowed. My mom used to make hdruka, it's this egg thing, where you cook it until the egg starts to curdle, kind of like scrambled egg, then you put it in a cheese cloth and hang it from something and let it drip, then you put it into the fridge and it kind of makes a scrambled egg ball. You slice it and serve it with the Easter dinner. Weird. I don't make that. It's good with 2 pieces of paska bread and a slice of ham for breakfast the next day.

I love traditions. I love that they come from our heritage. I love learning about other people's traditions.

(hopefully, that hasn't bored you to tears!)

I made some Easter cards to send out this year, mainly to family. I used my Spring Slice Card, and cut out these Peeps. I sprayed them with some yellow Glimmer Mist because my yellow cardstock wasn't the right yellow. I then put diamond glitter glass all over and it looks like sugar. I was super happy with how they turned out:

And a close up of the peeps:

So, tell me, what are your Easter Traditions, if you celebrate, or if you do Passover, what do you do? I'd love to know.

Happy Easter!

"Two"gether

2011-04-12T10:24:00.001-04:00

It's tax season, so I've been busy gathering receipts, 1099s and other miscellaneous documents that you need to file your taxes with. When you own your own business, taxes take a bit longer than when you're just filing a simple 1040, and you never get money back. You usually owe. Fun times! It's not too bad since we've been paying in all year, so it will go quickly. I should totally scrap this, all the big piles of receipts, the Turbo Tax box & 1099s! Really, it's a part of life, so maybe I will.

I figured I'd take a break and update my blog real quick. I think this layout is one of my favorites to date. I didn't use any patterned paper, which is pretty unusual for me, because I love patterned paper.

I used my Silhouette for the title and the leaves. For the background, I used the actual brochure that was at the conservatory. My husband and I took a day off, and went on a date to Phipps Conservatory in Shadyside. I got some awesome shots of plants.

Here's the layout:

I got the leaf image from Keri Bradford's blog. She has some nice designs for die cut machines.

Here are a couple of close ups:

I guess I need to get back to the taxes. I only have a few more things to print out, then we can get to it.

So tell me, are you the type of person who does their taxes right away, or do you wait until the last minute? I think if I was getting money instead of paying, I'd do it a lot sooner. ;)

Grandma's Day

2011-04-04T12:49:00.000-04:00

Oh, poor 'grandma'. Her birthday was less than perfect this year. Grandma is actually my mother-in-law, not my grandma.... she is Matt's step-mother. She's really the only grandma my kids have, so we all call her grandma. She never had any kids of her own, so she really spoils us rotten. I seriously can't complain.

Matt's dad had back surgery a week before Grandma Barbara's birthday, so we just went to their house for pizza and cake. She was kind of bummed because she wanted to go out to dinner, but we tried to make it the best we could. About a month later, we did all go out to eat to celebrate her birthday... again! This family is funny, I swear we celebrate all of our birthdays at least twice, once with friends, once with family.

Here's the layout I did for Grandma Barbara:

Isn't the quote perfect on the paper? I thought it was nice, since she's the step mom, but family to us. I'm still using up old paper. {Truthfully, I haven't put a dent in my stash.} This is old Websters Pages paper.

I used my Slice to do this banner title, buttons and some Colorbok letters:

And a little cluster of flowers. Can you tell how much I love my Creative Charms velvet flowers? Love this soft brown color.

How was your weekend? We had dinner at the Hofbräuhaus in Pittsburgh's Southside. After dinner we walked around the shops and happened to go into Sur La Table... they had a sale on ice cream makers, not that we were looking for one, but we had mentioned now that we're eating cleaner and more organic it would be neat to make our own ice cream. It's a Cuisinart ice cream maker, and it wasn't super expensive.

You do need to freeze the bowl for 24 hours before you make ice cream, but, if you have a big freezer or an extra one, you can just keep the bowl in the freezer all the time so it's ready. We have a big chest freezer so we'll store it in there.

Let me tell you, if you think Ben & Jerry's ice cream is rich and delicious, you should make your own. Wow! We decided to make chocolate, it was really easy, and so yummy. We're going to try a custard ice cream next, and also a soy ice cream for my son. Soy ice cream is expensive and hard to find sometimes, but if I can make it for him, he'll have a tasty treat all the time. It makes a pretty good amount, and you just put it in a container and store it in the freezer like you would regular ice cream.

All this talk of ice cream... I think I need a little bite of some!

Have a great week!!

Up

2011-03-31T08:50:00.000-04:00

I love getting out these baby pictures and scrapbooking them. I wasn't a scrapbooker when my kids were little, so every so often I get the urge to scrap older pictures. Sometimes it's hard, they're not perfect, but that's all we have. Luckily, I did have an SLR before they were born. It was a Minolta.

Wanna know a secret? I have about 10 rolls of undeveloped film sitting on top of my shelf. I wonder what's on them? I should probably get them developed. I might be pleasantly surprised.

Here's the layout I did with some baby photos of Ethan. I seem to be doing a ton of boy layouts lately.

I'm using older paper, trying to use it up. This is Making Memories. I also have a strip of Crate Paper. The cardstock is Bazzill bling.

A close up:

I cut the shape out for my title using my Silhouette.

Flowers on a boy page? Sure why not! These are Creative Charms sequined flowers in green. Notice the little polka dotted orange star? That's a Halloween embellie! Works here, tho. I love when I can use theme stuff for a different purpose.

The close up photos are more accurate in color, the top one is blown out a bit.

I've been super busy, and haven't even checked my blog all week. I'm busy working on a smash book... not the official smash book, but I made my own! Probably saved $15-20. I even attached a pen to mine! Granted, it's not as cool as a pen and a glue stick, but hey, it was free! Can't wait to share. I even have a video tutorial. And I must say, I have a great appreciation for those girls who do video tutorials, they're hard! Especially the editing!

Back to the star embellishment, have you ever used Halloween or Christmas or other specific themed embellishment for something else? I love doing that, you can only do so many Valentine's layouts!

Weekend Gamer

2011-03-23T10:31:00.001-04:00

Do you have one of these guys in your house?

This is my 12 year old playing a video game on Xbox live.

In my journaling I wrote about how when I was his age, or a bit younger, what we looked forward to were Saturday morning cartoons. Now there are entire channels dedicated only to cartoons. The kids don't have to wait until Saturday.

At our house, during the school week, he doesn't get a chance to play many video games, so it's his weekend thing.

Here's a close-up:

I used Cosmo Cricket paper on this. The swirly thing under the title is a piece that I cut from the KI Memories scribbles word. I just wanted to use the tail part.

Did I mention that I haven't bought any new paper since November? Not one new paper line. I really have a ton of paper, and even with all these layouts that I've been cranking out... I haven't even put a dent in my stash! I wonder how long I could go without buying any patterned paper? One, two, three years? Three might be a stretch, but one for sure!

How about you? How long could you scrap if you didn't buy new paper?

Last Week Recap

2011-03-21T15:34:00.001-04:00

I had a super busy week last week. I did my normal design work, plus I had 2 photoshoots. It was fun. My shoot on Wednesday was super long, and far away. Half way through Ethan's school nurse called, he was running a high fever. I told her I was an hour and a half away and by the time I got there his bus would be there... so I called my brother and luckily he wasn't doing anything so he was able to pick him up.

I don't talk about my brother much. You probably didn't even know I had one. Yep, he's my "little" brother, but he's bigger than me. He's an artist, too, but he's a tattoo artist. He's actually very good. He's always offering to give me free tats, but I always say no. There isn't any picture that I love that much to permanently put on my body. I mean, what if I get sick of it? I can't wash it off. (I can't even decide what quote I want to put on my scrap room wall!) He, on the other had, probably has 100. He is his own canvas...and a walking advertisement, too. If anyone asks him who did his tat, he can say "I did".

Here's a layout I did for a challenge.

It has some sewing and some mists, and this new mist that I totally love and used half a bottle of already! It's Tsukineko Sheer Shimmer Spritz in Sparkle. It sprays out so well, no splats. And when it dries, it leaves the perfect sheen. I also have Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Pearl, and it looks very similar, but doesn't spray as well. The only downside to the Tsukineko is the bottle is very tiny.

The sparkle mist is on here, but it doesn't photograph well, but trust me, it's awesome!

I sprayed it on the tag, too:

You can kind of see it there.

I just have to share the baby picture that I took. I did that shoot for the hospital, it's for the maternity department, when Karen sprung it on me that I was taking shots of babies. I was totally unprepared, but the photos came out pretty good.

Here's a favorite. She's so A-dorable!

Seriously, what a doll!

So, tell me, do you have a tattoo???

Happy St. Patty's Day 2011

2011-03-17T18:51:00.000-04:00

Top o' the evening to you!

Where has this glorious day gone? It’s a sunny 61° here... I love it! Ahhh, spring. My tulips are starting to pop up. I see buds on my weeping cherry tree.

I scrapped a lot this past weekend, but here is one that I did for a challenge on Two Peas in a Bucket... funny thing is, I did it, then forgot to post it in the challenge. Oh well.

The challenge was to use a quote in your layout. The quote I used came from my daughter, Emma. She was wise at the ripe age of 4, saying such things as (when overhearing us grown-ups talking about drunk driving) "You shouldn't drink and drive, you might spill your juice."

That was a good one, but the one I used on the layout ranks right up there... once, when she tooted while we were in the car, we looked back at her and asked her if she tooted. She matter-of-factly, "No, there's a dinosaur in my bum."

I think Matt might have driven off the road, just a little bit, we were laughing so hard!

Here's the layout, it's not technically that great or anything, but I'm trying to get memories down on paper, and not stress about what embellishments I'm using.

I used one of my Slice design cards to cut out this 4" dinosaur, then I decorated it up with these felt paisley things and some Creative Charm gradient gems...

Some more of the felt

I finished off the package... it kind of felt good. (now I can get new stuff!) Actually, I haven't bought any new paper since November... can you believe it?? I have a lot.

I do buy embellishments, tho. And, my newest craze is Shimmer Spritz in glitter. Oh my, I've been spraying it on EVERYTHING!

Here is a card I did using ugly paper. On a scrapbook board I frequent, we had an ugly paper swap. I spritzed the card with the mist, it's so sparkly. It's hard to tell from the photos:

See the shimmer:

I made these "flowers" with the ugly paper, I just punched some circles, then folded the paper and alternated the 2 patterns:

There you go, 2 projects. I wanted to spread them out and post a few times this week, but I was busy. Gotta work, so I can buy scraps! ;)

Hope you have a crafty day!

Vintage Bingo Cards

2011-03-09T09:32:00.002-05:00

Remember when I re-decorated my foyer? Well, if you look in the photos in that post below, I have a wicker charger plate on the top shelf on the right. It looked really plain.

I decided it needed something. So, I made these vintagey "lucky home" bingo cards:

Here are a couple of close ups... these are really super quick and easy to make. I used some Ranger distress ink in walnut applied with a makeup sponge (or you could use Tim Holtz' fancy applicator tool) on the Jenni Bowlin bingo cards along the edges to make it look old, then I just added a few embellishments, and 20 minutes later, you have a fun home decor item to put on your shelf.

This one has a bonafide vintage button and stick pin that I got at the fleatique last summer:

Prima flower, Jenni Bowlin ticket and Creative Charms gradient gems.

On the "home" card, I used a Jenni Bowlin milk bottle cap and vintage button, jazzed up with a Creative Charms gradient gem.

Making Memories bird clip, vintage lace.

Fun, easy crafty decor project. I think it really added to the space and the wicker charger plate really makes the bingo cards pop.

Thanks for stopping by!! Hope you have a crafty day!!

I'm Back!!!

2011-03-07T09:40:00.002-05:00

My assignment working out of the house is complete. I've learned a few things about this experience:

I do not like driving long distances to go to work
I do not like working in a cube
I do not like dressing up everyday
or wearing a girdle (ha ha!!)
I do not like office politics

And, some things I will miss:

The people, they were pretty creative, it was fun being surrounded by creative people
Shopping at lunch!
The steady pay
The variety of projects, I really do enjoy being a designer
The free samples! Working for a big grocery store chain there was always plenty of free food left over from photoshoots and also taste testing.

Here is my favorite things that I designed, it's a double page ad for Table Magazine:

That was done when I was working for the Market District side of Giant Eagle. Market District is a very upscale grocery store, kinda like Wholefoods, but way bigger, and with more stuff, plus cooking classes and celebrities go there. Martha Stewart was there late last year, and a lot of the chef's from the Food Network go there. Pretty cool.

Here are a couple pieces I did for the Giant Eagle side:

This is a direct mail piece that will go out. I hope I get one, so I have a "real" sample.

This last one is a small ad for a little booklet for a Farm to Table event being held at the end of March. It was for both sides, Giant Eagle and Market District.

It was a fun couple of weeks, but I'm glad to be back working from home, in my PJs!! Plus, GE said that they'll give me a call when they get overwhelmed again, and I could work from home, which would be great, because that's really what I like to do!! I've been doing it for 10 years, so I'm kinda spoiled with the staying home part!

We had quite the exciting weekend, my son decided to stand on an exercise ball and a desk, apparently looking for something on top of the shelf... Matt sits on an exercise ball while he's working... well, Ethan lost his balance and grabbed onto an Ikea Effectiv wall cabinet, and it came right off the wall, and smashed his finger.... all the stuff on the top came crashing down on his head. We were all watching a movie in the family room when we heard the big crash. We ran in to to see what had happened...Ethan was pulling himself up and there was blood all over Matt's desk, which totally freaked me out. I ran and got a kitchen towel, and Matt wrapped his finger in it. We calmed him down and asked if he was hurt and he said his head hurt... so I put ice on it... actually, I grabbed a bag of corn... I don't know why... I sat him on the leather chair in the family room, because being a mom and practical, I didn't want blood on our light colored sofa. ;)

The bag of corn was open, and falling all over the place, which was kind comical after the fact. I switched out the corn for an ice pack. We took him to the ER. I was more concerned with his head, than the finger, but thought he might need a stitch or 2, since there was quite a bit of blood. We got to the ER around 10 (this all happened about 9:30)... Ethan got Xrayed, and patched up. The doctor said he didn't have any signs of a concussion, so he was OK, and no need for a CT. His goose eggs went down, he had 4 total. His finger is broken at the very tip, the tiny little bone on top. Not much you can do with it, so they splinted it up and put gauze on it. We need to make a follow up visit with our regular doctor.

Ethan was quite excited when he found out his finger was broken... that's 2 broken bones so far.

Seriously, he is such a boy!!

Shopping in My Basement

2011-03-02T19:17:00.000-05:00

That's right, I went shopping in my basement. And, it didn't cost me a dime! ;)

My foyer was looking very ho-hum, especially after I took all the holiday stuff down. It sat that way for 2 months after Christmas, just there... shelves and a table. I didn't want to put up my matching candlestick lamps because the one was broken. Knocked down ~I don't know how many times ~ by little kids. That's what started it, that one candlestick!

Isn't it always that one something? The next thing you know, you're painting walls or rearranging furniture!

I have a confession... prior to my scrapbooking hobby, my hobby was decorating, and I had a slight obsession with accessories. Any time I went shopping, I was always on the look out for accessories. {sidebar: I think embellishments are the accessories to a scrapbook page... that's probably why I'm so addicted to them as well.} I have quite a collection of things in my basement. My friend Theresa even joked once that she was going to go shopping down there.

It's also fun to move things around in your house once in a while, and that's what I did with this new lamp on my table. Previously, it was in the formal living room, but I bought new lamps for the family room so I moved the family room lamps into the living room, and hence, the extra lamp. It was small enough for the table, too.

OK, enough talking! Here's the picture, I'll show you that, then explain it a bit:

I'm not sure what look I'm going after, maybe eclectic? My inspiration was the Pottery Barn catalog. Not one specific page, but I kind of combined a couple of ideas from several pages. This is still a work in progress. I'm going to add some kind of decorator balls in the basket. Maybe ones covered with old book pages. And, right above the basket, it might be cool to put some kind of vinyl saying or poem or quote... might be cool.

What's new here, besides the lamp, is the deer antlers... apparently, antlers are pretty chic in the decorating world... who knew? And I just happened to have some, compliments of my husband.

Normally I just have pictures on this table and the shelves, but I put up the wicker charger plate and a small orchid. On the bottom shelf, I put our Harry Potter books...

That was new, to me... then I put the urn with paint brushes on the shelf... I was going to take out the brushes, but after I saw it with the books, I thought it looked very Pottery Barn like, so I left them in the urn.

So, there you have it, my new foyer with old stuff that I found in the basement and around the house.

After this little fun re-arranging, I started hopping around the internet to get some other ideas, and boy was I in for a surprise! There are some great ideas out there!! Check out what these ladies do with thrift store finds and other cheap tricks for decorating:

Those are a few that I found, but trust me, there are tons of blogs out there and people like me who love to do DIY projects and fix up their house...heck, I'm so inspired I might even repaint my walls or faux granite my boring beige countertops!

Sweet Boy!

2011-02-24T17:23:00.000-05:00

And, as promised, albeit a tad late - wanted to post this last week, here is the layout with my beautiful boy! Isn't he a heart breaker? Just look at those baby blues! And his super blond hair! Gosh, he was a cutie at 2... ok, he still is 10 years later, but, he's 12 now, and as many of you know, sometimes 12 isn't quite as cute as 2!

See, his face cleared up!! (if you are wondering what I'm talking about, see my last post.)

And a few close ups:

I pretty much used up all old stuff, except for the American Crafts flair, I got that this past October in Lancaster while on my retreat. I'm totally up for another scrap retreat!!

On this piece, the doggie was green. He didn't really match, so I painted him this gray blue color... and there ya go, now he matches.

Well, that's about it. I do have another crafty project to share later on. I was sprucing up my foyer this past weekend. I went "shopping" in my basement for accessories... it was kind of fun. I used a lamp that was in the front living room on the foyer table, put my husbands deer rack up... and wa-la... a totally new look, all from just shopping around the house for stuff. I had a spot on the shelf that needed something... so I whipped up a little crafty project for that space... so stay tuned.

Hope you have a great crafty day!!

Bumby Hump Day

2011-02-16T11:56:00.000-05:00

It's Wednesday, in case you weren't aware, or maybe you haven't found a decent 2011 calendar yet! ;)

Humor, R-R... remember Mork from Orc?? I was in 7th grade, and it was a huge hit. Everyone came back from Christmas vacation with Mork rainbow suspenders, including me. The "kids" at work were talking about it, and this one girl says "I wasn't even born yet"... I felt old.

Anyway, here is the bumpy part of my post. My son has allergies. 3 major ones, dairy, eggs and peanuts. He also is allergic to cats and wheat, but he can eat wheat now. (He doesn't particularly care for the taste of cats! R-R, more earth humor!!)

Prior to knowing that he had all these allergies, I was nursing him and eating everything that he shouldn't have. As a result, the poor little guy had horrible acne. I know that infants have infantile acne, but usually after the first month it goes away. Ethan was over 2 months old yet he still had it. I asked the doctors but they just brushed it off.

One evening, I decided to give him some formula. I had some free samples from the hospital. I mixed it up, and gave him one ounce. Just one. He got super hot. His belly broke out in splotches. I knew (as mothers know) that something was seriously wrong. The next day I took him to the pediatricians office. Our regular doctor wasn't in, but Dr. Maroon was there. He thought that maybe I should stop drinking milk. That maybe Ethan was allergic to dairy. Also to make an appointment with the allergist. I made an appointment, which was a week away, and during that time I tried really hard to give up milk. It was really hard. I found a formula that he could have (Nutramigen). After his test results came back, we found what he was allergic to. Thankfully, he could have soy. He went on a soy formula, and I went back on my regular diet.

I also had him tested for peas, and he wasn't allergic to them then, but, he is now. His lips will swell up like balloons. If you think about it, the pea is a legume and a peanut is a legume, and they're related. No peas or peanuts for him.

I've been wanting to document this story along with these photos of my poor baby. He looks like a teenager with severe acne.

I titled it We Did Not Know...

Here are a couple of close ups:

In this one, you can really see his poor skin.

I'm glad I documented this. Ethan hates having allergies. Thankfully at 12, he is outgrowing some of them. He can have egg if it's baked in something like a cake, but if it's mixed in Chinese noodles or soup, he gets very ill (we found out the hard way). He's OK with wheat now and milk isn't too bad any longer. He can't drink a glass of it, but he can have small amounts of cheese and he loves Rediwhip. Peanuts are usually a life long allergy that people do not grow out of, he cannot eat those, ever. They cause anaphylactic shock.

I did another layout this past weekend, I'll post that on Friday. It's a very cute photo of Ethan. I need to show you how cute he turned out after his face cleared up!! ;)

Have a great hump day!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2011-02-14T08:00:00.065-05:00

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

I finally got to get scrappy this weekend, on Sunday. I tried to get scrappy on Saturday, but I just sat there staring at my paper. Sunday I decided to just do it, stop over analyzing and just glue some photos on some cardstock, slap a couple of embellies on it and call it a day!

My warm up act was this Valentine's Day card I made for my hubby. I've been wanting to use this Dear Lizzy rosette ribbon forever... love it!!

It's pretty simple really... here's a close up:

Here you can see (sort of) the layering of the scalloped edge corrugated paper with the foam heart. I used pop dots to pop it off of the page.

This is what I'm most proud of though, it's the inside. Hardly anyone shows you the insides of their cards... if you're a card maker, please share the insides with us!!

Isn't it cool???? I wanted to write a little message, but with that puffy ribbon it was too lumpy, so I just attached this little envelope to pop in my letter!! I think it's just adorable... if I do say so myself!! hee hee

I've realized that I haven't shared anything personal lately, so I thought I'd update you. I'm working out of the house 3 days a week. It's OK. I like what I do, I just don't like driving there to do it. I much prefer my normal commute of walking down my steps in my PJs to my office right off of my kitchen... but, it's kind of cool to dress up and get out of the house.

Now, if you follow my blog, you'll remember that I was blaming wearing high heels on my knees hurting... nope, wasn't the heels... it was a pair of suede boots that I bought at Target, the heel is rather heavy and clunky and it must make my knees work extra hard, those suckers are the culprit! I noticed it after I wore them for a few hours and grocery shopped in them. Not good for grocery shopping. They look cool tho!

Then, I have this terribly itchy rash on my legs. It drives me crazy. I've been putting tons of creams of all different kinds on it, but it won't go away. Finally I decided it was time to look on the internet... I try not to do that because all kinds of scary (and gross) stuff can come up when you type in "rash".... but, it was actually helpful. I came to find I have something called runners rash. Apparently when you have been sedentary for a long period of time, as I was last year during my treatments and surgery, and you start to run again, your veins, the very teeny tiny ones can't handle all the blood rushing through them that fast, so they burst just beneath the surface of the skin causing this rash. Now, top the sedentary year I had with the vein shrinking effects of chemo and you get the rash probably worse than the "normal" sedentary person (if there is such a thing).

The only way to get rid of it is through time, so I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

Hope that's not TMI... I found it to be an interesting fact, and one that I think more oncologists might just want to tell their patients to expect after 8 rounds of draino (aka chemo). Tiny dried up veins do not play well with running.

{{sigh}}

Never a dull moment, try to get healthy, and it makes me itch... you could say I'm (literally) allergic to exercise!! bawhahahahahaha

Have a great day!! Stop back, I have layouts to share later on!!

Happy Friday!

2011-02-11T07:52:00.001-05:00

Hey, it's Friday, and one more week closer to spring.

I've had just about enough of this gray, white, black looking weather. Although yesterday we did see some blue sky, but it was only a balmy 20°.... brrrrr.

I hear we're going to have a warm up, I hope. I'm seriously considering moving to a warmer climate.

Well, on the scrappy front, all I have to share is this little birthday card that I made for my mother in law. It's pretty simple for the most part. I used my slice to make the shape, and my punch to edge the envelope, which she just gushed about!

Speaking of cards, yesterday I bought a card... yes, you read that correctly, I bought a card. I just didn't have time to make a Valentine's card for my inlaws so I thought I'd buy one. And OMG, I picked up a pretty card with a ribbon and it was $6... S-I-X bucks!! Do you know how much scrappy paper and ribbon you can get for $6?? So, next time someone thinks our hobby is expensive, point out that buying a premade card costs a heck of a lot more. (unless of course, you get the cheapo ones)

Well, I'm off to work in the salt mines! Have a great day, and I hope we can all get creative and scrappy this weekend!!

It's Friday....again... & CHA Highlights

2011-02-04T14:44:00.001-05:00

A whole darn week has flown by and I didn't do anything crafty... ok, I did one thing, it was a birthday card for my mother-in-law. I'll show you that later, because it's still on my camera.

As you know, if you're a crafter/scrapbooker, CHA was this past week... and {sigh} my trip to Cali was canceled. (sniff, sniff) But, I still enjoy looking at all the lovely goodies and videos.

What I wanted to highlight was some stuff that I found to be unique this time around. We all know that all the companies come out with new lines of paper, stamps and such... but I found some pretty unique stuff.

The first thing I want to mention is the wood products... this one is from Studio Calico, but I've seen a few other scrappy companies come out with real wood embellies... (these are Studio Calico's)

Next up, I'm really diggin' the fabric stuff that is coming out, like these fabstrips from Studio Calico

and these cool canvas tags by Maya Road... you could make some cool banners.

Prima came out with some ribbon with bling factor:

Also by Prima, these really ornate butterflies:

And last, this is by Cosmo Cricket, it's called Fashion Crafting... cool zipper flowers:

Which you could always use on an album or scrapbook page.

That's it for today. I sure hope to get some scrappy time this weekend... of course it's the Superbowl, and I only have one thing to say about that....

Go Steelers!

Finally Friday.....

2011-01-28T06:43:00.001-05:00

And I can totally relate!

This week I worked a full week, outside of my home, in an office environment... and while I enjoy the design, I hate the part where you are waiting for copy or edits or whatever, because there is nothing to do... and when this happens at home with a project, I can happily do household stuff or run errands.

AND, it's totally eating into my bloggy and scrappy time. Hurrrumpf!

LOL! However, I did get a paycheck, so I might have to go to Mike's or J's or somewhere and get something fun to play with.

I did do a layout last Friday... it was OK, then on Sunday I looked at it and thought that it definitely needed something, so I added the felt embellishments, and there ya go... looked much better.

This is about my youngest getting his first pair of contacts. Now you can see his super long eyelashes! It's always the boys who get the pretty eyelashes... keeps the mascara companies in business I guess.

When he was a baby all people ever commented on were his long eyelashes.

Here's a close up. On the tags I put down a Tim Holtz gear mask and then sprayed with Glimmer Mists. I used a green and a brown... I think the brown was called coffee... being a lover of coffee, I just had to buy that shade of brown! (too bad it didn't smell like coffee, that would be cool... hey Tattered Angels, I have an idea....)

Well, that's it for today. I'm off to the salt mines. The cool part about today is, I'm leaving at 2 to meet with a client. If she gives me enough work (hi Karen!) then I won't have to dig for salt. hee hee!

Have a great weekend, hope you can get creative!!

P.S. Dear blogger, I hate your limited choice of colors now... blech...

Oh Where, Oh Where Have I Been???

2011-01-21T13:24:00.000-05:00

At work!

I had an assignment to work on site. I prefer working out of my house, in the comfort of my pajama's... but this was too good to pass up. It was for a big supermarket chain in Pittsburgh and I was helping out with some projects. The one artist is having some health issues, so while he was out, I came in and worked.

It was kinda fun. I did a double page spread ad for Table magazine, edits on some menu boards and a fish sale campaign.

I got to dress up, and wear high heels.

On the third day, my knees were killing me!

I switched to flats after that! Hadn't been in heels (aside from meetings, weddings and church) for a while, and definitely not for 8+ hours a day!!

Here's a layout I'd like to share. I did this last Friday. (so much for my 2 layouts a week, but I am doing one a week!)

This was for a class challenge on Two Peas in a Bucket, you were to use up those sticker borders. I cut them up and stuck them down, then I added some tape. I had some cool pink tape from Joscie, and I also used some cute American Girl tape. The paper is My Minds Eye, called telephone, I believe.

Couple of close ups:

This is my new favorite layout. Maybe because it is so colorful, maybe it's the memory of the day, or maybe cause it was so fun to make!

All my work is done... time to get my scrap on!

Go on, close this window... go, get your paper & get your scrap on, too!! ;P

Zoom Zoom

2011-01-12T14:18:00.003-05:00

Technically, I did this layout last week, but I kept adding things to it. (I'm still on track for 2 layouts a week!!) The last thing was the key. I cut it out yesterday on the Silhouette then stickled it with silver stickles. It's so shiny!!

And a few close ups:

The very shiny key! The use of elastic around the zoom zoom. The rubberband/elastic was part of my challenge for an online crop we're doing.

A homemade flower, made out of fabric from an old shirt. I ripped it, twisted it and made the flower and the leaves. Then I sprayed it with TA Glimmer Mists. The beads are earring beads.

And here is the cutest little car from Creative Charms! I added 2 Creative Charms Clear Gradient Gems for the headlights.

By the way, if you sign up to follow Creative Charms blog, there is a prize involved. Check it out.

I have another layout up my sleeve. I tell you, I really think I work better with deadlines. When I have too much time, I'm such the procrastinator! Seriously!

On another note, my printer would not work... I spent most of yesterday and a few hours today reinstalling the software about 5 times... only to find out that my husbands computer was not sharing with me. We're on a network. OMGosh, what a pain. I went into his system preferences (we're both on macs) and clicked on printer sharing, and wala, it showed up in my list. Thank goodness. I really was getting frustrated!!

Now I can print my pictures for my next layout, which I am going to scraplift from Lizzy K. I love her style.

Happy Scrappin'!

In With the New

2011-01-05T10:10:00.002-05:00

A new layout, that is.

A clean scrap room is very inspiring. AND, I even cleaned up after I was done. Usually I'm too tired (or maybe too lazy!) to clean up. My old routine was to clean up before I scrapped, because I had left a mess from the previous project. Bad habit. Now I'm going to try to put stuff away after I'm done with a project.

So far so good! ;)

Here's what I did. I used Coredinations embossed cardstock, with circles on it. I sanded off the circles above the title, to make it look like bubbles... kinda sorta...

The other paper is all Bella Boulevard that I won from Two Peas in a Bucket last spring... finally getting around to using it.

Couple of close ups:

The Creative Charms velvet flower in the most yummy color of brown, it's so pretty it deserves to be called something other than brown, maybe mushroom or gravy! LOL! Everything is better with gravy.

Hard to tell in this shot, but I used blue glimmer mist on the word paper. I also painted. This little layout had a lot of little techniques.

My goal is to try to do 2 layouts per week, so I can have 200 by the end of the year. 200 sounds like a lot, but 2 a week sounds doable, don't ya think?

Happy creating!!!!

Out with the Old

2011-01-04T09:57:00.003-05:00

I decided to be ruthless in my scrap room. There was just too much stuff. Overwhelmingly so. I think it inhibited my creativity. Plus the guilt of using new stuff when I had old stuff... if you are a scrapper, you know what I'm talking about.

So, out with the old stuff!

BEST THING EVER!

As I was sorting thru my scrappy supplies, if I didn't love it, it went. I would look at things and think, well, so and so gave this to me... but it's not my style... you know, you've had those moments, your great aunt gave you that ugly candy dish, and you hate it but can't bear to give it away... you know what I said to myself?

I am not obligated to keep anything.

And so it went into the trash or this box:

I am going to take all of this and donate it to the middle school where they have a scrapbook club. At least it will get used.

Here is the before picture of my scrap room... pretty bad. I think I had everything out! eek!

This was part way thru the cleaning process.

And, a few hours later... ahhhhhh....

My desk was so clean, it just begged to be used. I made a paper layout last night. I'll share that later, once I take a picture of it.

How's your New Year going so far? Out with the old???

Thoughts on 2010 and a layout

2010-12-30T09:55:00.003-05:00

Last year, on this day, I was receiving chemo number 5. It was the new chemo, the dreaded Taxotere. It made my fingernails feel like they were slammed into a car door, my body felt like I had been stretched on a rack, my tongue 5 times bigger than normal and I couldn't stand up for more than 10 minutes at a time. What a way to start a year.... it could only get better from that, right?

And it did.

2010 wasn't all that bad, there were some good in it, as there is good in everything, but truth be told, I'm glad it's over.

Pumbaa: It's like my buddy Timon always says: you got to put your behind in your past.

Timon: No, no no. Amateur. Sit down before you hurt yourself. It's "You got to put your past behind you."

Gotta love Pumbaa! And, Disney.

Let's all put our behinds in the past and move forward, 2011, here we come!!

Here are 2 layouts I did for my last week as a Guest Digi Designer on Two Peas in a Bucket. It was great fun, and I loved every single digi kit that I got to work with.

This was fun to work on. I put all the different papers in the little dog tag and kind of made a pennant banner. The kit is by Michelle Underwood, called Dog Days.

The next layout came together really quickly. I just used the quote in the kit as my title. This is Emma on the beach at OBX.

The kit is Cloud 9, by Lauren Reid.

Do you have New Years Eve plans? I pretty much slept thru New Years last year (and a lot of the year!!).

We will probably keep our festivities to a minimum. Em is invited to a party in the neighborhood. Matt, Ethan and I will probably just chill in front of the TV... maybe have a bit of champagne.

Have a great day, and a Happy HEALTHY New Year!!

Merry Christmas & New Digi layouts!

2010-12-27T22:44:00.002-05:00

First of all:

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. If you don't celebrate, then I hope you had a great weekend!

Today we spent the day at my father in laws house. My husbands sister, her husband and son were there. They live in Virginia, so we only see them a few times a year. We all met at Church Brew Works for lunch. I had a really tasty dunkel! After lunch we went back to Matt's dad's house and we played cards and visited. Then we ordered pizza and visited some more. It was a nice day.

I had them all over for Christmas dinner, which was fun, but exhausting. On Sunday I pretty much did nothing... well, that's not entirely true... I made a ham, broccoli and cheese quiche, then I did 2 digi layouts.

Here they are:

This is for my stint as guest digi designer at Two Peas in a Bucket. The layout was done using Reindeer Games kit, by Besty Tuma. Very cute kit. I really loved the alpha that comes with it, although I didn't use it in this layout.

This second layout I used Funtastic Boy kit, by Edeline Marta. I used pictures of Ethan when he was about 5 and still had some chubby cheeks. So cute!

That's about it for me. Did you all have a nice holiday??

It's Begining to Look a Lot Like Christmas!!

2010-12-23T10:23:00.002-05:00

Christmas Conerts

My son is in the highlighted area.

Pretty packages.... (gotta love the Dollar Tree!)

And, homemade tags:

I cut those using my Slice.

And, 2 more pages of my December Daily... I know I'm a bit behind, but now that my Christmas stuff is done, I can scrap! I'm never, EVER done this early!!

I’m off to do some last minute shopping, and lunch with my friend Diane.

Happy Christmas Eve eve! LOL!!

Two Peas Designer Spotlight

2010-12-21T13:47:00.003-05:00

I have my name in lights... hee hee... well, a spotlight, anyhoo.

I'm so excited to be featured today on Two Peas in a Bucket as a Guest Designer.

Yep, I used an old photo, 'cause I don't like my short hair.

Here is the layout that I did for the feature:

(digi kit Track of My Life)

I did a screen capture on my computer of my iTunes cover flow. It's pretty easy to do, and even if you are strictly a paper scrapper, this would be a fun layout to do and look back on.

I also did 2 layouts showcasing new digi products. The first one is from a kit called Date It by Jen Martakis (love her stuff!!).

The second kit I got to work with, is called Merry Little Christmas. It was a fun digi kit to work with.

I love both digital and paper scrapping... but you know what's cool about digi? The background paper on this layout was just a tad too light for my liking, so I darkened it up and made it a darker cream color.

Now, I don't think that I could ever have done that so quickly and neatly with a piece of paper cardstock!!

There's also a challenge with my post, so read it if you get a chance, and maybe join in to win a Two Peas in a Bucket gift certificate.

I hope you all are about ready for the holidays. Try to take a day to step back and enjoy all the hard work you put into the baking, cooking, shopping!! and decorating!

As you can see by the last layout, I put up 3 trees!! I'm so blessed and happy to be here for this Christmas and to be able to enjoy it this year. Last year I was sick with chemo... I truly don't remember much.

I intend to enjoy this Christmas with as much gusto as I can muster!!

I challenge you to do the same!!

Mitten Freebie

2010-12-15T18:44:00.005-05:00

I have a little SVG cutable freebie file that I wanted to share with you today. I used it below on a card, but thought, wouldn't this just make the cutest gift tags?? I'm going to cut out a bunch for gift tags.

Here's what the file looks like:

Link to the Mitten

And, here is how I used the mitten on a card. I actually cut out two of them:

This is a card that I'm going to give to my friend Diane, who is Jewish. I used some of the Hanukkah colors in it. It's just kind of a wintery card, rather than a Christmasy one.

Enjoy the mittens!!

(wow, 2 posts in one day, who knew???)

Have a great day!!

My Dog Ate Andy Warhol

2010-12-15T08:54:00.003-05:00

Exhibit A - Andy Warhol

Emma made this special cookie in honor of her favorite pop artist... and didn't even get to eat it. (luckily her mom is a picture taking freak, so we at least have this!)

Name one of the most time consuming Christmas cookies to make???

Ahhh, yes, the sugar cookie cut outs.

You must mix the dough. Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours. Roll the dough. Cut out the cookies. Bake. Cool. Decorate.

Hours and hours of work, right?

Then in about 2 minutes, your dog eats half of the cookies while the icing is drying! GRRR.

Exhibit B - Guilty Party

Guest Digi Designer for Two Peas!

2010-12-14T09:40:00.004-05:00

I have some happy news!! I'm a digital guest designer for Two Peas in a Bucket this month! Woot! Each week I'll have 2 digital layouts designed with new digi kits from Two Peas! I'm very honored to have been chosen.

Here are the 2 layouts. This first one is from last Christmas, baking cookies with my dear friend Carol. We've known each other for (gulp) 25 years! (since I was 18, you do the math!)

JOY Kit by Michelle Underwood available @ 2 Peas.

This next kit ~Kitschen Sinque~ was just perfect for my farmer's market picture from this past summer. I had fun making this banner out of the seed packets in the kit. You could totally print these out and add them to a paper scrapbook page.

Kitschen Sinque by Polka Dot Pixels available @ 2 Peas.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I have a freebie to share, and some more pages from my December Daily. I'm trying desperately to keep up! It's very hard with all the present buying, cookie baking and decorating! Oh yes, and this other little thing that I do during the day called work! I have some client projects that I need to send off to the printer.

Have a great day!!
And if you're snowed in and the kids are home from school (like mine are!) keep warm and sane!! ;)

December Daily Days 1-4

2010-12-09T09:27:00.003-05:00

I'm having a blast with this December Daily! I'm doing the inside pages hybrid style, using last seasons Crystal Wilkerson's Christmas kit. Here is a link to the papers that I'm using. They are on sale today on the Jessica Sprague site. Dec. 09 stuff here.

I think Crystal Wilkerson's designs are phenomenal! She also designs for Echo park!!

Here is my day 1. I did this hybrid, and I made it relatively simple. I have one or 2 papers, used a punch, and then did something special with the number:

Detail:

Day 2:

I hand cut out the snowman & the letter A:

Day 3:

Detail, I used Ranger Distress Stickles on the holly leaves, which are really, really --- really old, from Making Memories!

Day 4:

Detail, another little hand cut critter from Crystal's digi kit, too cute:

Here's how I'm putting it together. I've set up an 8 1/2 x 11 template in photoshop. Each page is 8x8. I figure out where the photo goes and leave a white space there for position (also saves on ink, no need to ink what you don't see). There is a few inches left at the top, so I put the things there that I want to cut out, like the snowman or the strips of border paper. Then I cut everything out and add some stickles and I'm done. It really doesn't take that long. I've noticed a few typos, but I wanted to make this easy on myself, so I'm not stressing about it. I'm just happy to get it done!

Are you doing the December daily? Are you enjoying it? I am, but I'm spending so much time in my craft room that I haven't finished decorating! We do have the tree up, tho!

Have a great day! Hope you can get crafty/scrappy/artsy today!

December Daily & a Layout

2010-12-06T11:11:00.002-05:00

I had fun this past weekend crafting away! I had 2 cans of Krylon crackle spray paint, the crackle and the base, that I had gotten at Michaels on clearance for 99¢ a can. While having a Harry Potter fest on Saturday, I’d run down to the basement and spray another coat on.

Sunday, I decorated up the cover, here’s how it turned out:

Couple of closeups:

The crackle:

I tried to get a medium crackle, but it sort of turned out smallish. It's still cool. And was a great surface to work on.

I think I need some baubles or something to hang from the bow. I can always add stuff.

I also did this layout real quick. I used the My Minds Eye Lost & Found papers:

That’s it for today. I’m going to go work on the inside pages for the December Daily.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a wonderful day!!

Friday Freebie & December Daily

2010-12-03T13:49:00.002-05:00

Happy Friday!! Only 22 days until Christmas!

First up, a Friday Freebie. Actually, there are TWO! I have a snowflake and a reindeer for you.

Here is a reindeer. I used him on a card a few years ago. He cuts out really nicely:

Here's the reindeer link.

And, this is the snowflake. It's a very simple one:

Snowflake link.

Enjoy!!

I've hopped on the December Daily bandwagon. I had this old binder from a paper company, just sitting around, and I thought hmmm, this would be great repurposed.

Here is the before:

I'm still working on the after. I have the page of day one somewhat complete. I'm going hybrid, or digi, or traditional, or maybe all three.

At first I was very stressed about the December Daily because there are so many beautiful albums and I thought that mine just wouldn't stack up to those gorgeous ones. Then I thought what they heck, why stress over it? Just have fun with it.

That is my intention, just have fun. I'll use it as a springboard for some experimentation with products and paints and stamps... things like that. I want to make it chock full of goodies. I want to put receipts, photos, tags, stuff like that. Maybe even used up gift cards. I thought it would be neat to look back next year or the middle of summer at all the December stuff.

Well, I am off to craft for a good 2 solid hours until I have to pick my son up from school.

Hope you have a scrappy day!!

Xmas Layout Using My Freebie

2010-11-29T12:14:00.004-05:00

It feels like forever and a day since I did a paper layout. I have had this on my desk for a month, and finally over the weekend had some time to play with paper.

I used the SVG freebie cutouts that I provided in the post below on my layout. I love how it turned out.

Here's the layout:

The title really pops, since it's in green. There is some of that green in the striped paper. All the paper is My Minds Eye i Believe Christmas line. It's so adorable! The brads are MME and the cream vintage velvet flower is one of our new colors from Creative Charms. The chipboard snowflake is from 2 years ago, it's DCWV.

Couple of close ups:

This is one of the tags on the MME punch out sheets, I added a simple MME brad and some bakers twine in red & white candy cane stripes.

Close up of the Creative Charms vintage velvet flower. They come with a pearl, but I thought this big brad really popped.

And last, is the title that I designed and cut out on the Silhouette:

I love the drop shadow.

If you do happen to do the cutout, I wouldn't cut out the December much smaller than 4 inches across, my "m" fell away from the "e".

Instead of regular cardstock, I used the Quickutz sticky back stacks. Perfect for titles because they are already sticky.

Today we are (finally) going to go see Harry Potter! I think I'm more excited than my kids. First we are going to have lunch - we're going out for Sushi! Couldn't think of anything more different than the turkey we've had for the past few days.

By the way, I've reorganized my blog and I have a page just for all of my freebies. Rather than trying to scroll through all my posts, you can simply select that button, and they are there for the taking! I also added a handy dandy search feature.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the last few days of fall, because as far as I'm concerned, winter and the Christmas season begin December 1st!!

Have a great day!!

Black Friday Freebie!

2010-11-26T18:00:00.003-05:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Happy Thanksgiving. We had a really nice and delicious Thanksgiving. YUM. Love, love, love stuffing!! (or as folks from the south call it “dressing”.

Today to say thank you to my bloggy friends, I have 2 cutable files to share. You can use these on cards or layouts or even the title for your december daily.

The folder includes jpeg, svg and png files.

I’ve cut these out and I’m going to use them on a layout, which I’ll share with you later.

Here is the link to download the file. I hope you enjoy!
december 25th

-----> ETA

Maggie asked what font I used for the 25, it's Claredon. You can get a free version here. December is also Claredon.

Punches 3 Ways....

2010-11-21T13:04:00.004-05:00

It was going to be 4, but my snowflake did not turn out and you cannot punch thru folded layers... FYI!

You may have seen some of these techniques before, but I thought I'd share with you a few different ways to use border punches.

No. 1

The first one is a super easy idea. Use your border punch to make the edge of an envelope flap really cute:

No. 2

The second idea is pretty easy, too. Cut a strip about 1 3/4" wide and whatever length you need. Using a fancy lacy edge punch, punch along each side. You should end up with something like this:

Looks great wrapped around a small box, or even a gift bag. And, of course, you could use it on a layout as well.

No. 3

The third option requires a bit more work. I have 2 samples. For the first sample, I cut a 12" strip about 1 1/2 inches wide (give or take), then punched along the one edge. Do an accordion fold using the punched edge as a guide. I folded between each scallop, and then in the middle of that scallop as well.

Once you have it all folded, create a circle, then tape or glue edges together. I used a one inch punch to punch a circle which I glued in the middle of my "medallion". I added a big sparkly gem from Creative Charms to finish it off:

This would look great on a holiday bag or tag or even hanging from a Christmas tree. The thinner the paper, the easier it is to fold. I used an old holiday paper stack.

The next one is the same concept, but bigger. I used about a 2 1/2 inch wide strip by 12 inches long, and you will need 2 total. One wide strip won't make a complete circle, so you will need 2.

I scored between my punched edge for easier folding:

(this is the Martha Stewart Lattice punch)

Once both strips were folded up, glued and put together, I punched a 1 1/2" circle and topped that with another Creative Charms brad, this time using a vintage brad:

I think it might have looked prettier had I layered a larger circle under the red one. It's still pretty and would look great on a tree with some added ribbon and sparkle.

These were just my practice ones, to see if punching the edges would make for a prettier accordion folded embellie, and it does!

I'm sorry for the blog absence last week. It just kept getting pushed to the back burner.

I did work on some cool SVG images that I will share with you in upcoming posts. My gift to you for visiting my little ol' blog!

Have a happy Sunday!!

Jumping Up and Down!!

2010-11-09T08:03:00.003-05:00

Yep, I've been jumping up and down since I got the good news on Friday... I'm OK!

Well, the “dot” is still on my lung, but it is too small to “determine”... that is what the girl on the phone said. Weird word, they can’t determine what it is...

I had an appointment with my radiologist at 3:30 on Friday. The oncologists office called me about 10 minutes before I was going to leave for my appointment. While at the radiologists, I asked them to look at my scans. He said in his thick Russian accent, “I vouldn’t vorry about it.”

So, for now, I’m not. I’m tired of worrying. It’s so futile. Waste of time and energy. In 3 months, I get to have another scan, and do it all over again. Let’s hope my dot stays a dot. But, for the next 3 months, I’m FREE!! I don’t need to see a doctor, get blood work, pee in a cup or anything!! That has to be the best news in the past year for me. :D Seriously!

Now that I can concentrate, I can get back to playing with my paper. I couldn't concentrate last week, but I did play with some digi stuff. I was thinking about making this a hybrid, but I just haven’t gotten a chance... so I’ll show you the digi:

It’s all Crystal Wilkerson stuff. Isn’t she the best? By the way, she is the designer for Echo Park paper. I always knew she would look great in print!!

In other news...

I think I might paint my dining room pumpkin. Currently, it’s burgundy. I never really liked that color, and have no idea why I even chose it.
I’ve found I like the color gray... who knew?? And, it looks great with orange.
I’ve been looking for a comfortable, yet fashionable pair of boots. Currently, all my boots have no less than a 2 inch heel... and sadly, I can’t wear heels because my feet still hurt from the Xeloda chemo.
I’ll be working a giant crop this weekend, Crop Around the Clock... it should be fun.

I think that’s it. I missed last weeks photography class because I had a really bad cold last week. Today is the last class, I think I’ll go.

Have a great day!!

Happy Halloween!!

2010-10-30T09:46:00.004-04:00

What a crazy week. We’ve been going and going. (think Energizer Bunny!)

Sunday: Photoshoot for senior, my dear friend Carol’s son & his girlfriend :)
Monday: Bought a new car :)
Tuesday: MRI & Bone Scan :(
Wednesday: Caught up with work :|
Thursday: Shopped for my dad. I do this since my mom passed away. :)
Friday: Bad day, got a call and I need to get a PET scan, a call like that can really mess up your day mentally. (pray for me that it’s nothing). :(
Saturday: That’s today, and the day is still young. :)

Those were the ups and downs of my week... my PET scan is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s scary, and that’s all I’m going to say about the subject. I’m not going to dwell on it and mess up today or worry, because worry doesn’t do any good, and I can’t change what’s going to be. (sounds good anyway)

Also on Friday, I did this layout... it’s a digi. I used lots of different stuff from different places. The papers are Crystal Wilkersons so are the buttons and ribbon, the Happy Halloween is a freebie from Ali Edwards. The drips are from Laina Lamb also a freebie from 2 Peas. It’s also an SVG file so you could cut it out. I think one of the pieces of tape is from Peppermint Creative.

I got the poem here.

My kids, almost 12 & 14, are still going trick or treating. I asked Emma, my oldest, when she was going to stop, and she decided that in 4 more years she will. That puts her at 18, lol, I think she’ll stop before that. I don’t get too many 18 year old trick or treaters. They are just going to paint their faces, which makes the whole costume thing easy on me. Plus, it’s going to be only 50° that evening, so they will have coats on anyway.

We didn’t carve pumpkins yet... I should get one today. I looked thru my photos from last year, and I did not take one Halloween picture. I can’t even remember what the kids dressed up as. Last year was a blur.

Anyhoo.... my very bestest friend Carol asked me to take some pictures of her son for his casual senior shots. It was fun. Good practice for me. I don’t charge anyone when I do this. I don’t feel worthy of pay yet. I did get a lovely handmade card from Carol and she slipped a twenty in there! (bad girl)... I also got some pizza out of the deal!

It was a fun shoot. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Cute couple, eh?

Used Pioneer Woman’s 70’s action on that one.

I think this one is my favorite!!

Shot this one when they weren’t looking. Ran PW’s vintage action (I believe).

I still need to edit about half of the photos.

That’s about it. I might do a paper layout, I just might! I have an idea in my head.... and the title is “Zoom Zoom”.... that tells you the brand of car I got!

Have a boo-tiful weekend!!

Did A Digi

2010-10-20T12:04:00.002-04:00

I got an email from Crystal Wilkerson to work on a layout using a template...

This is what I came up with:

My dear friend Theresa has 6 girls (and 1 boy!)... quite a handful. Ages range from 18 - 2. Her girls are so adorable, and little clones of each other, especially when they were babies.

I randomly make digi layouts of her kids, and hope to print them out and give her a little book some day.

I used Crystal's kits that are available at Jessica Sprague.

And, check this out... full manual photos!! I even focused manually!!

This is a log cabin from probably the Revolutionary War era... it's in Historic Hannastown, about 3 miles from where I live.

I loved the texture of the logs:

And some mushrooms...

I enjoyed my photography class last night... we learned about rules of thirds, but I think most scrapbookers know that already... he touched on photoshop, but next week we get to play. I feel like taking my laptop because I don't want to work on a PC. (I'm a mac!!)

Well, that's about it today. I need to work on some Creative Charms stuff. There will be a downloadable freebie on their blog. I'll keep you posted on the deets!

Have a great day. Keep on scrappin'!

A Scrappy Page!! Finally!

2010-10-18T11:54:00.003-04:00

Here ya go! A scrappy page. It's not super blinged up or anything. I did this for my LSS, Art Tech. It's all Basic Grey. I used Cindy's EK Success big punch on the edges while at the crop last week. I had never used an EK Success punch before. I like how they lock closed.

Couple of close ups:

I really like these BG flowers:

And here is a picture of my baby... oh, how I love, love, LOVE this purse!! Seriously...

What's funny is I never thought of myself as a purple person... this is more on the magenta side, tho. I like it. Coach outlets are the best. When we went last week they had a Columbus day sale, plus if you donated $1 to Breast Cancer, you got another 5% off. Of course I donated the $1... I mean, what a bargain! What a great cause!!

Fall has really kicked in here. I took some photos yesterday. Did I mention that I've enrolled in a photography class at the local community college? The sad thing is I learned more yesterday from an online photography guide than I did these past 2 weeks of classes. I did ask the teacher after class if he had a more advanced class. This week, we're going to learn photoshop... ummm, I already know photoshop. I use it everyday for work. I thought the class was more on how to use your camera. I know how to use photoshop. Don't you think we should learn first how to take the photos before we learn how to edit the photos?

Oh well, it's kind of fun to go and the people in class are nice. And, I really like my teacher. He's an older guy, but he's cool. He has cancer right now, and is getting chemo for the third time. It's Hodgekins I think... I just can't imagine going thru chemo 3 times. That's terrible. I told him to read the book "Anticancer: A New Way of Life". They way I figure, eating that way won't hurt.

I'll share my photos with you a little later in the week. I need to make them smaller file size for the web. I was pretty excited, though, to shoot full manual!!

Have a great Monday!!

It Was a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Weekend!!

2010-10-13T18:47:00.004-04:00

But so much fun. Non-stop laughing. It is so nice to know that there are people out there in the world as goofy as me. Seriously.

The scrap retreat was held in Lancaster County, PA... in Paradise to be precise. We stayed in a cute little house. Everyone was so nice, and we all got along. I think that's just how scrappers are.

We have so many stories. We had raffles and food and goodie bags and food and personalized t-shirts and food and scrap shopping, oh did I mention food?

Jokes flying left and right about the local town names of Intercourse, Blue Ball and Bird in Hand... not to mention the Amish buggy horse poop that was everywhere... too funny.

Let me share some photos of these crazy girls... here is the Friday night crew. We were the ones who stayed in the house, except for Michelle, she lives in Lancaster:

Top L-R: Cindy, Karen, Gay,
Kyla, Jeri, Michelle,
Nicole, Carol, Chris (that's me!)

We passed the albums around on Friday. It was fun to see how differently everyone scraps. I collected a ton of ideas.

Me, Nicole and Gay... aren't we cute???

Nicole and I made these scrapbook pages of Gerard Butler (the hot Scot) for Gay. (She has a tiny crush!) Nicole's is the white one and mine is the blue.

Saturday we went shopping to different LSS. There was a Buggy thing where you got your passport stamped. Carol and I went to the outlets instead and bought purses. I got a Coach Purse!! It's my first, so excited. After lunch, Carol and I did hit the Flower & Craft Warehouse and did some damage.

When we got back to the house, I actually scrapped a page! I'll share that with you later. Can you believe I got anything done? Then we hung out, ate some food, watched some Gerry Butler movies and some naughtiness ensued.... with a giant pair of purple panties... OK, we won't go there, but these girls are K-A-Razy!!

Nicole and Michelle.

I had a great time. It was so fun to meet all these people in real life. I've met some IRL, and talked to others on the phone. Isn't it funny, though, that we all knew so much about each other from talking so much on the scrappy message boards and facebook? This internet thing is pretty cool. ;)

So, what do you think of my crazy short curly dark hair? Well, at least it's hair! LOL!

One more photo, this is all 12 girls on Saturday night. I was getting a tad tired, but still having fun:

Far Back Top: Karen, Carol, Kyla, Jeri, Michelle, Me, Cindy, Rose, Gay, Nicole, Renee and Becky.

Have a great day!

Sweet Treats!!

2010-10-07T23:03:00.005-04:00

I'm leaving in about 12.5 hours for a scrap retreat with some girls I met online. I've "known" these girls for years on the message boards - Creating Keepsakes and a few other scrap sites. It's going to be so cool to meet them all in person.

I have scrap goody bags to give them, but I also made these really cool treats. When I bought the knobs for my dresser, each one came in a plastic package. I held on to these thinking I could do something with them.

Here's what I did.

First, I made some labels on my computer and then printed them out on label paper. I had some kraft crack n' peel, so I used that.

Next, I took a really cool Martha Stewart butterfly stamp and using my brayer and some paint I "stamped" onto the plastic boxes.

While the paint dried, I cut out my labels and gave them a little notch at the folding point and a decorative edge.

Here they are:

They look cool all stacked together, making a full butterfly. Love how the fall M&Ms look in the boxes.

I guess this is upcycling??!!

I seriously love how these turned out. I picked the number 12 because there are 12 girls coming. I saw this design on a tea label and kind of "scraplifted" it.

I hope to get at least a few layouts done in between all the shopping and eating and well, someone is bringing Marg & Rita.... I hear they can cause trouble!!

Have a great weekend!!

Knobs and Knockers....

2010-09-30T19:54:00.006-04:00

yeah, you know I had to relate the title to Breast Cancer Awareness month, right? Go get your knockers checked!!

OMG, I am probably gonna get all kinds of weird hits on that title!

The last time I was in Michaels, armed with not one, but TWO gift cards from my birthday loot, I came across these adorable knobs in the dollar bin. They had one with a chandelier, the others say pull, open and discover. I bought 10 of these babies, and promptly put them on my dresser in my scraproom as soon as I came home.

I love them. Originally I wanted pink glass knobs, but at $10 per knob x 10 knobs... that wasn't gonna happen. These are cute and fun and whimsical.

Here is a a close up. I apologize for these blurry photos. I either have really bad lighting in my scraproom or really shaky hands, or both:

Last Friday, which was my last day of radiation, I hear a knock on my door. I thought it might be a neighborhood kid selling some candy... I opened the door and it was a delivery, for moi!! My dear friend Anna sent me these luscious strawberries for completing my radiation. These bad boys were delicious. Yes, they are all gone. Thank you Anna Banana!!

Today was yet another surprise. Another good friend sent me the most gorgeous card and a pack of Lizzy K ribbons with the roses on them!! Thank you Erica! I love it!!

(I've wanted these since like forever!!)

Well, that was my week... oh, I also worked, worked, and then worked some more. I had a very productive week.

Have a great weekend!!!

And then... she was done!

2010-09-24T11:38:00.002-04:00

I finished all 33 radiation treatments! Woot! Happy day!

It is very exciting to reach this milestone, but also scary, almost like now what? While doing chemo and rads, I felt like I was fighting cancer, but now what? It's like being pushed out of the main boat into the big murky water in a tiny life preserver... now I'm left to float around by myself. The sharks (cancer) are swirling around me, nipping at my oars. How do I escape them? I'm only on this tiny boat. I almost miss being on the big boat.

I plan on paddling and paddling, far away from those sharks, and if need be, I will whack that shark on the head with my oar! I will paddle until I find some stable land. I feel I will forever be looking over my shoulder for those sharks. They are scary.

There hasn't been a whole lot of creating going on lately. I did manage to do a card.... I scraplifted it from Mish Mash, you should check out her blog, simply gorgeous stuff.

Work has been busy, I've got deadlines up to here! Billboards, brochures and campaigns - oh my!

Hope you have a great weekend. Watch out for those sharks.

Finally Friday.....

2010-09-17T13:44:00.005-04:00

Has it been the longest week ever? OK, maybe not, but I am so dang tired. I think the radiation has finally and officially kicked my butt. Only 5 more left, and the last 5 are not my entire chest, just along the scar. I can't wait to be done, and healed up. Radiation wasn't a breeze for me as some people have said. I have purple peeling skin, and it ain't pretty. Of course I have to have 33 treatments. Had I only needed 20, it might be a different story, but every case is different.

Can you believe it's been a YEAR? For one very long year, I have been getting cancer treatments of some form or other. September 30, 2009 was my first chemo. And my last radiation treatment will be September 24, 2010.

I won't know what to do with myself when I don't have to go to the doctors for a month... how weird will that be?

So, now for my PSA... please, please, please, feel your boobies and get a mammogram. If, God forbid, you find anything, it would be sooner than I did and your treatments could be quicker and less invasive. Also, I recently heard that you should get a baseline mammogram at age 35, then you don't need to get another one until 40. If you have that baseline to compare - it will be of great value to you and your doctor.

Other tell tell signs are unexplained tiredness. As I look back, I recall saying things like "I am so tired, I just can't get enough rest." This was back in March, just think if I'd have gotten a mammogram then? Maybe it would have been stage zero with just a few cells to remove.

So, listen to your body. If you have an inkling that something is wrong, get it checked, waiting is the worst.

OK, now for pretty stuff... had to get the ugly stuff out of the way first.

I used this MME paper, Quite Contrary, love the fun bright colors. For the top part, I was wishing I had some of that American Crafts flower ribbon, the stuff that Elizabeth Karcher designed, but, alas I haven't been able to find any of it anywhere, so instead I grabbed some tissue paper and crumpled it up a bit and sewed it to this little piece of polka dot paper.

Here's the whole shebang.... (isn't that a funny word? Shebang... one of those words that just looks weird when typed out.)

And, of course I used my beloved Making Memories Slice for the butterflies.

I hope for my birthday I get a Michaels gift card because I want to buy a new Slice cartridge.

Take care, and have a fab weekend!!!

Mojo Layout #2

2010-09-09T22:21:00.004-04:00

Last week I met a client of mine (who happens to love scrapbooking as much as I do - hi Karen!) met for a lunch meeting and a little scrapbook shopping on the side. It's a huge scrapbook store, and 3/4 of the way through it I had nothing in my basket.... N-O-T-H-I-N-G. How sad is that?

I happened upon a display of My Minds Eye, very cute little animals on it, loved both the boy and the girl paper. I got a few sheets of that, the line is Alphabet Soup. Super duper cute.

Then I discovered more of My Minds Eye paper in their trademark paper rack... oh my heavenly gorgeousness!! This paper is just stunning in person (and I don't just throw that word around!) The line is called Lost & Found and it is so, so, soooo pretty. The paper has glitter on it and all the embellishments that go with it are super gorgeous!! The designers did a stellar job. It was hard not to buy ALL of it. Karen and I must have spent 20 minutes on that rack alone!

Here's what I got (these photos do not do it justice)....

and how cool is this? it has tinsel on it!!

purdy, huh?

Tons of schtuff on here to play with!!

And finally, here is Mr. Mojo's second layout, I used the MME Alphabet Soup on it.

I like Fridays now because it means that I don't have radiation over the weekend. I get 2 days off. Last weekend, I got 3 days off because of the Labor Day holiday. It was nice. I look very red (make that purple), and my skin is starting to peel... it ain't pretty, but all for the greater good, right? 22 treatments down, 11 to go.

Have a great weekend. I'm sending Mr. Mojo your way. ;)

Hello Mr. Mojo....

2010-09-07T16:38:00.003-04:00

it’s been a while... where have you been? I’m so glad you’re back Mr. Mojo.

Yep, got a visit (finally!) from Mr. Mojo.

Mr. Mojo and I did 3 layouts this past weekend. Here's one of them....

Some October Afternoon yumminess! Perfect for the first day of school.

And a couple of close ups:

Fun Jillibean canvas flower layered with a OA sticker, vintage button and topped off with a Creative Charms jewel.

Here I used some Martha Stewart little flag “thingies” as a base for my title.

And here I have an OA journaling sticker that I used as sort of a frame for these teeny photos.

I’m so excited to share this with you. It’s nice when Mr. Mojo comes a knockin’!

Have a great day!!

Featured x2

2010-09-01T14:45:00.003-04:00

I was featured twice in one week!! With all the yucky stuff going on right now, this is such a nice thing to look forward to.

On Monday, I was featured on Scrapbook Trends blog - Create. (I think I "might" have mentioned this on Monday.)

Today, I have a layout on Scrapbooking.com in their September issue. (big cheesy grin)

Today is also my girl's birthday. Yep, it's official she is 14. Actually, it will be official later tonight at 11:33 PM! Since she isn't big on cake, I made her a chocolate chunk cookie cake. I just hope it cools so I can write Happy Birthday on it before she walks in the door!

For her birthday dinner she picked Chipotle's. (yum!)

Yesterday I took the CK challenge and did a layout in an hour. It's digi, because there is no way I can pull this off with paper in an hour. The whole photographing and fixing it would take at least 15 minutes!

There's a couple things I'd like to do with this, but not bad for an hour.

Take care... 17 rads down, 18 to go.... almost half way through.

Little Toot....

2010-08-30T18:43:00.003-04:00

My layout was featured on Create, the Scrapbook Trends blog today. I was pretty excited.

Here's the link.

How about a photo of my zapper.... when I get my radiation for my BC, I have to lie on the bed and the top part moves all around and zaps me. It's actually 5 zaps, not 4. The people are really nice. This one guy, I think his name is Kevin, he's about my age, he brought in a new wave 80's CD for me... it really makes the time go fast. Today was Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, and Tears for Fears. Ahh, the high school years....

I told them today that I felt like I was in a scene from Aliens or 2001 a Space Odyssey. Very Sci-Fi.

15 down, 20 to go....

Hope you had a great Monday!

Finally... the printers tray!!

2010-08-26T12:00:00.003-04:00

I can't believe it's been a whole week since my last post. I was going to post something last Friday (a freebie), but then one thing after another had to get done. Duty calls! Gotta work. I'm really glad I love my job.

School starts next Monday, so this past Monday we went to orientation for Ethan to go to middle school. He had trouble with his locker, but I'm sure he'll get the hang of it. I hope he knows someone in his homeroom. Don't first days just suck? And Emma will be going to high school.... HIGH SCHOOL... did I just write that? Wow, seems like yesterday she was an itty bitty babe in my arms. I'm sure she will do fine. And since she is 5 foot 6 already, I don't think she will get kicked by anyone on freshman kick day. Yep, my daughter is officially about an inch and a half taller than me. And gorgeous (if I do say so myself). My friend Patti's husband thought Em was 17! I quickly said "oh no, she's only going to be 14!" (9th grade is HS here)

Seriously, do I look old enough to have a 17 year old? (don't answer that!) ;)

Here is the 7 Gypsies Printers Tray. I must say, I love this. I loved working on it, had fun doing it. I painted, sprayed mists, inked edges and even used a Tattered Angels mist template. I think my gianormous pink butterfly is rather gaudy, but that's OK. I figure if there is something that I don't like down the road, I can just take it off and replace it with something else.

Couple of close ups... cause, you know, I like 'em!

That's it for today. Hope you have time to play with some creative stuff!!

Pinwheels, Parties, and Puggers - Oh My!

2010-08-18T11:22:00.003-04:00

This will be my (almost!) wordless Wednesday.

Pinwheels for the party.

Birthday boy getting a kiss from mama. (this is my friend Carol's sister in law)

and a cute pugger!!

Happy Wednesday!!

Zapped!

2010-08-12T08:33:00.002-04:00

I got zapped, twice... that's what I'm calling it when I get radiation... zapped.

It doesn't really feel like anything, although I feel very tight, but, I think that's my imagination because they said that I wouldn't feel anything for 2 weeks, then it will be like a sunburn.

When I get zapped I lay in a machine with my arm above my head and I hold on to a ring. After they adjust the bed and get me into the exact position, I'm then told not to move. I get 4 zaps. The first one the machine is really close to me. I have to turn my head to the right and not look in that direction. I wait... I hear a click, then this loud alarm sound goes off. I count... 1, 2, 3...24, 25... first zap done... 25 seconds. Machine moves to left and shifts into place. Again the click then the alarm... 1, 2, 3... 23... hmm this zap was only 23 seconds. I get 2 more zaps and counted those around 17. I counted because on the first day the one zap sounded like it went off for a full minute and the alarm sound was so loud I thought my ears would burst.

It helps to count. It made it seem to go faster. Today is treatment #3 — 32 more to go.

The cancer center is a scary place. When you leave, or at least when I leave, I always feel so lucky that I have (had?) the kind of cancer that I did. I see people in wheel chairs, a lady with a shaved head and a huge scar in the back - and I just know she had brain cancer. I am blessed that I had such good care. I also feel sad, so sad that this cancer center is so busy. I was thinking yesterday wouldn't it be nice if there wasn't anyone in the waiting room instead of it being full of people waiting to receive their drano (chemo) and zappings. I hope and pray everyday that all these people will get better.

So today, I'm off to get treatment #3 at 10 am. Yesterday it was at 3:45. I like the idea of getting it done with earlier in the morning.

On a scrappy note (gotta leave you with a little cuteness!), I am working on a 7 Gypsies printer tray. I have the photos and paper cut, and everything figured out where it's going. I just need to glue it down and glitz it up.

I ordered an ATG!! In pink! It said it shipped today. I got it from Flowers to Flourishes last week. I'm so excited. I hope to get it for the weekend, then I can use it to finish my project.

Weird how some tape can really make your day!! hee hee, it's the little things, ya know.

Anyway, here's my not quite done project:

I need to put a picture in that giant pop cap {soda cap or coke cap to you Southerners ;)}. The cap is from Maya Road. The flower is from my good friend Lisa in Oregon. She sent it to me while I was getting chemo. Thanks Lisa!! She also had breast cancer, but was lucky to have caught it really early, so she didn't have to have chemo or radiation.

Have a great day, and feel your boobies for me! ;)

Are you sittin' down???

2010-08-09T17:21:00.005-04:00

I paper scrapped!! Yep, I sure did!! Wow, it's been almost 2 months since I sat down and scrapped a page.

This is a pretty simple page, but it got my mojo going (finally!!) Plus, I've slowed down a bit with work and have some time to play.

This is a project for my LSS Art Tech. It's all Reminisce. The line is called Unwritten and it's got all kinds of cool peace symbols and fun colors. As soon as I saw it I knew it'd be perfect for my daughter.

I did a photoshoot of my daughter and her friend. My daughter had a headband on, ala Elsie... very hippie-ish, perfect for this paper line:

I added a little bling to the page with a Creative Charms jewel, available at Art Tech (or A Cherry On Top). The circle strip came in a package called laser cut strips. It also had the scalloped edge and the butterflies... no need for a punch, just grab and go. I wanted to add some ribbon to this, so I threaded it through the striped laser cut circle strip. Love how it turned out!

In other scrappy news... I took the old printers tray and decided to use it for a little organizing drawer and put some schtuff in it.

It fit perfectly in the middle drawer of my desk providing easy access to buttons, trims, glitters and other miscellaneous embellishments.

In other non-scrapbook related news...
tomorrow is my first real radiation appointment. At 3:45 I will get zapped. The only bad part is that I have to put my left arm above my head and it falls asleep immediately (due to my surgery, cut nerves and such I guess). But, they say it should only take 10 minutes, so I can handle that. I keep reading bad things about radiation, but I need to put it all in perspective... first, these studies might be 3 or more years old and technology for cancer is changing daily, and second, some of the studies may be of ladies in their 60's... so I'm hoping that with new technology and the fact that I'm younger will make me able to heal up quicker and not end up with cracked ribs from radiation weakening my bones. It's all for the greater good.

Actually, knowing that I'm thisclose to being done with ALL cancer treatments — THAT makes me super happy.

And, as I've said my whole life, this too shall pass. :)

I {heart} OBX

2010-08-06T09:58:00.002-04:00

I really loved messing around with the shape collage program. You can turn off the drop shadow, you can make circles and letters. When you do a square it puts the watermark in the middle, which is harder to clone off, so I did another heart, and cloned off the watermark from the bottom.

Here's the layout. I kept it simple since there is so much going on in the collage:

You can also change the size, so I made it 300 dpi. I liked the first collage I made better than this one, but I saved that as a jpeg, so it had a white background. It gives you different options each time.

Well, we are off to do some major back to school shopping. Wish me luck!! I hope they have some deals, and since it's Friday, maybe it won't be as crazy as going on a Saturday!!!

How cool is this??

2010-08-05T15:51:00.002-04:00

My entire Outer Banks NC vacation in a heart shape!

Saaaweeeet!!

Here's a link, so you can do it too!
shapecollage.com

Vintage Findings - Jenni Bowlin Eat Your Heart Out!

2010-07-28T14:04:00.007-04:00

A few Sunday's ago I went to this "fleatique". It's located in a field across from Historic Hannastown. There are at least 50 vendors, if not more. I try to scan real quick each table and see if they have anything that I'd be interested in. It's a good way to burn some calories off, too!

Last time, I got some really cool stuff. Check it out. I got the printers tray last summer. I still need to dress it up:

The vintage stuff I found were buttons, lace, some thimbles, pins and other sewing stuff.

Mostly stuff that I can incorporate into scrappy goodness!

And, yes, Jenni Bowlin, eat your heart out! I love Jenni's stuff, her butterflies and her vintage BUTTONS...but here I've got the real deal! This is my favorite place to stop when I go to the fleatique. The lady sells vintage buttons and her mom sorts them into colors and sews them onto index cards. It really makes it easy to pick out buttons!

Check out the detail in these babies!

Well, that's about it for now. Just a brief update. I've been so busy with work, that I still haven't scrapped. :( I hope to this weekend. Crossing my fingers!

I'm actually updating this from my oncologists office. I hope this is my last appointment. I don't even have to get blood taken!! Do you know how cool that is? Ahhh, I see some light at the end of a very, very long tunnel.

Take care, have a great day!!

Zooming By....

2010-07-22T19:07:00.002-04:00

This week has just zoomed by! I blinked and it was Thursday!

Lot's of milestones this week...

I finished my chemo pills on Saturday (did I mention that before?). So glad to be done with those. I'm just very tired this week because that gunk is still in my system.

My son went to the dentist/ortho to get molds made for his expander. Next week he goes in for spacers. I kind of feel bad, I know it will hurt. :(

Here he is getting the mold. He did very well.

Those were 2 milestones... next one is that I went in for my radiation appointment. Apparently, they tattoo you so they can zap you in the exact same spot every time. I will begin radiation August 18th. Next week I will go to get my tats! LOL!

7 weeks of that, then, dare I say, good Lord willing, I hope I am done with all the cancer treatments. You must go Monday through Friday. Everyone that I know who has gone through radiation said that this is the easy part.

After all that, I will get reconstruction, but that's about a year down the road.

I had absolutely no time to sit in my scrap room and get creative this week... but, I did play with some digi stuff. I made this layout about the 4th of July... technically is was July 3rd, but we were celebrating anyway.

All the digi stuff is Crystal Wilkersons. She rocks!!

Tomorrow I will go to see my oncologist. My liver levels were up from those chemo pills. They made me get a scan. Dr. P (he's Russian and has a very long name) saw the report and didn't say anything, so I hope that means I'm "normal".

It will be nice to have a few weeks of not going to the doctor. I do have to get a mammogram next month. Can you believe that in August it will have been one year since I found the lump. So, I said to my husband, since I only have one boob to mammo, do they only charge half price??? ha!

Don't forget to feel your boobies!!

Giant Clothes Pin Recipe Holder

2010-07-16T11:35:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday! Another gorgeous summer weekend is upon us.

I was at Michaels a week or so ago, and came upon a big red wooden clothes pin, and I thought wouldn't that make a cute recipe holder? And indeed it did! I love red, and I love, love, love this paper from Cosmo Cricket, Early Bird... it's old, but it's still pretty!

Side view:

And the back side (sorry for the blurry photo):

On Tuesday, we visited the local farmer's market. The people there are so nice and charming. I loved it. I tried to buy something from everyone, but one can only eat so much zucchini! I had to pass on that.

I did get some neat stuff... purple "green" beans, cute carrots and the most awesome bread. It was tasty!!

Oh, and potatoes and some little quince pears... so cute! Everything is so colorful! YUM!

Everything is organic. I even bought some grass feed ground lamb... now I need to find a recipe for the lamb... I'm thinking something Greek, maybe Greek inspired lamb burgers.

Have a super weekend!!

New Bangs!

2010-07-13T11:47:00.006-04:00

Not for me! I barely have any hair! LOL! But, for my daughter. Her hair is getting so long. I have hair envy. My hair used to be like that! She wanted some side swept bangs cut into her hair. Right before vacation, I took her to the salon to get them trimmed up. She loves them.

Here's a layout I did using those photos. I used the new Kaiser Craft line Utopia that I got from Ally Scraps. All the instructions are on the Ally Scraps blog. I was very honored to guest design for Ally Scraps this past month. They have had quite a few "famous" people guesting for them lately, so for Dana to ask little ol' me, well, I was just thrilled! :) You'll have to check out who posted before me... Melissa Phillips and Cherry Nelson. Next month is Linda Albrecht! Pretty exciting!

Emma loves purple, so this paper was great. It's paired with blues and greens and browns.

Here's a close up of this flower that I made with my Slice. I used some stickles and a gem for the center:

That's not the best Stickle-ing in the world, but it added some sparkle.

I'm very excited about summer and all the summer food. Our garden is doing well (so are the weeds in it! LOL!). We have at least 3 farmers markets in town. I found that Sarvers Farm is totally organic, and they sell eggs for about $2 a dozen. That's cheaper than buying Egglands Best with the Omega 3's.... by the way, did you that ALL eggs have omega 3s? It's just that when you feed the chickens stuff they're not supposed to eat, they start producing Omega 6's - the bad fats. Now if you just let a chicken be a chicken, let them roam around and pick at the dirt, grass and bugs, the eggs are naturally full of Omega 3's... so the fancy eggs really aren't all that fancy, they're just EGGS! Isn't that funny? They are normal eggs, the way God intended them to be. Not the way the commercialized eggs are. I feel bad for those poor commercial chickens.

I'm learning a lot about food... there's a snippet. I don't want to overwhelm you, but next time you eat or bake with an egg, maybe you'll look at it differently. The more we buy natural foods, the less they will cost, and of course, they're much better for you.

Have a great day! Hope you can get creative, or at least stay cool! ;)

ETA: after I posted this, I did a little poking around the internet. I was using a reference from the book that I'm reading, Anti Cancer, but here I found a study on Mother Earth News. :)

We have a WINNER!!

2010-07-12T16:40:00.003-04:00

It’s Marti!! #28

Woo-hoo! I contacted you via facebook, so look for a message from me! :)

She gets the fun little goody box.

It’s nice to know that people actually read my silly ramblings!

We went “junkin’” this past Sunday. I picked up some “antique” buttons, some neat sewing stuff and some vintage lace.

While on vacation, I hit these little antique stores, all sort of connected together, and I found 2 more floral frogs to add to my collection.

They need to be cleaned up a bit. The green one has some kind of smelly putty on it. I guess the putty was used to hold the frog in the vase. It must be at least 20 years old (the putty) because it smells really bad! lol!

Oh, and I finally got scrappy. Here’s a sneak of what will soon be up on the Ally Scraps blog.

Once again, my beloved Slice comes to the rescue... I use that thing A LOT! Totally worth the money!

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great day!

My Stick Family!

2010-07-08T06:31:00.001-04:00

My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Aren't we cute?

Don't forget to comment on my "Blogiversary" post to win a nifty package!

Happy Bloggiversary!

2010-07-07T11:45:00.002-04:00

Today is my bloggiversary! 3 years!

It's funny, I barely remember why I started this blog. Now it's become a place where I can share my art, a bit of me, and throw in some digi freebies now and then.

My favorite share was being published in CK. I never thought in a million years that would happen! That was the highlight of my past year.

I think the hardest thing that I shared on my blog, was me getting breast cancer. I really just wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong, and just show you all my "happy" life. Unfortunately, life isn't always happy. I thought long and hard about sharing my cancer story, and finally I thought you know - if I only help one person, then, it was worth posting.

In the future, I will continue to blog about scrapbooking, because it's my creative outlet, where I can get my hands dirty, or well, not dirty, maybe sticky and sparkly! ;) But, I also want to share some stuff I've learned along the way about how I've changed my eating habits and how having cancer may have just saved my life. I know that sounds weird, but I've always said everything happens for a reason, and maybe having this life altering experience was to prevent my children from eating unhealthy food and going down the obese/diabetes/heart attack path. Those 3 things all run in my family. My uncle died from diabetes, I have a cousin a few years older than me that had open heart surgery. All this can be prevented. Even some cancers, by eating more the way our ancestors ate.

So, that's where I'm at. Hopefully it will be interesting, and I won't bore you to death!

Now, for the fun part!! Since it is my bloggiversary, and I've been blessed with so many things this past year (believe it or not!), I'd like to pay it forward. Just leave me a little comment, and I'll draw a random winner next Monday morning and get this box of scrappy goodies sent to you!!

Good things come in small packages!! ;)

Have a scrappy happy day!!

It's gettin' hot in here....

2010-07-05T12:19:00.003-04:00

It's the dreaded 3 h’s today... hazy, hot and humid. UGH.

Looks like I’ll be spending the day indoors. But, that’s OK because I need to finish my catalog flyer. I’m just taking a break while my camera battery charges up. (the product shots are on my camera!)

Here’s my weekend update... BBQ on Saturday, then went to my inlaws yesterday, and grandma gave the kids little fireworks and some sparklers. Thanks to a tutorial by Noel, I used my Shutter Priority setting and got awesome results. Her tutorial was here.

Saturday's BBQ:
Pearl loved how my blueberry lemon cake batter tasted:

Our drinks, don’t ya love the old fashioned coke bottles? Well, 70’s era bottles, not the 20’s. ;)

Love a little sun flare:

And our sparkler fun, with a little fireworks thrown in:

Hope you had a great weekend! Keep cool! Stay inside and get creative!

P.S. stay tuned for a bloggy giveaway coming up say around the 7th!! ;)

Happy Fourth of July!! + Eye Candy...

2010-07-03T09:25:00.004-04:00

Technically, as of this writing, the 4th is tomorrow, but I won't be here, so I'm posting today.

Phew what a week. Super busy with Creative Charms new product package design. I am sooo excited about their new stuff coming out. I am almost done designing the catalog insert sheet for the new products.

Today we're having some friends over for a cookout. My husband accused me of being "Martha Stewart". I take that as a compliment!! I've loved her for years, thru her ups and downs. I bought some Coca-Cola in old fashioned bottles. They are so cute!! But more importantly, there isn't any high fructose corn syrup in it!! DO NOT believe those commercials that it's OK to consume. It's not. Yes it has the same calories as sugar, but your body doesn't metabolize it like sugar. It's like injecting your cells with crack, they go a little crazy, your glycemic index goes up and well, you get fat.

More on that later... I've been reading the book "Anti Cancer, A New Way of Life", and I am learning a lot about what we should and should not be putting into our bodies.

I had a great vacation week. I had planned on blogging everyday this past week, with what I did last week in photos, but alas, work got in the way.

When I went to the Outer Banks, I got to meet a scrappy friend. Patti gave me a HUGE basket with all kinds of goodies. What a sweetie. Here are a few things that were in there...

Then, of course, Patti took me to her local scrapbook store, and I bought these scrappy goodies (and then some):

I seriously want to do a beach mini album, or big album, or do a digi book from Shutterfly... I haven't decided yet. So many choices!!

We had our mail put on hold for the week, so on Monday we got a big bunch of mail! AND, yes!! I got a fun scrappy package from my favorite Hawaiian Scrapper, Joscie Cutchens! What a sweetheart for her to think of me. Here's what she sent me!!

And also some TA stencils, so I can't wait to spray and play with the mist and the TA stuff I got at the OBX scrapbook store.

Now, if I only had some time to play!

Seriously, I come home from vacation, then suddenly everyone else is going on vacation, so I had to do all these projects and of course they were due pronto! Here's the tally: One mailer for SSPC, designed, logo designed for it, print management and print production, next, photography snapped for the new Creative Charms fall and winter line, Creative Charms 4 package headers, the catalog sheet, and the order sheet... also an ad for a local hospital. I had designed the ad, in bw, but she got a great deal on the back page of the news tab — so I had to redesign it in full color.

Phew... see, that's why I couldn't update my blog!

Oh, and yea!! Ally Scraps put this layout I did up on their blog. I used the Pink Paislee Starlight Collection. It's perfect for the 4th of July, or as I used it here, a Father's Day tribute.

I made these little fanned embellishments, in lieu of a flower, since it's a masculine page.

I made a banner using the fun banner stickers on the PP sticker sheet. Love banners!

I'm going to hop outside now and snap some photos of my little deck all set up for our picnic. It's not happening until 6 when the sun goes down, but I started to set it up. I need to make the 7 layer taco dip and a lemon blueberry cake.... mmmmmmm!

Have a great 4th of July to all my USA readers, and just an all around happy day to everyone else!! Peace!

Dreaming of Monday's Past....

2010-06-28T16:47:00.005-04:00

Here's what I was doing last Monday....

An early morning walk on this gorgeous beach... what could be better?

Then later in the day, a little exercise, how about 400 steps?

We climbed this, Currituck Light House in North Carolina:

Up, up, up....

are these ever gonna end???

ahhh, yes, finally at the top...

I sure did burn off that seafood buffet!

I just had to take a photo of the potty with room for 2 (how weird is that? sitting cheek to cheek by your hubby? I think not) ...

Yes, there is plexiglass covering the entrance... as if anyone would actually use it... would they???

OK, now for some scrappiness... I can't show you the dad layout just yet, because it hasn't posted on the Ally Scraps blog, but, I did make a cute card with some scraps left over from my Gigi layout.

Have to post something scrappy, because after all, it is a scrappy blog. ;)

Take care, and scrap ya later!

P.S.
The above image of the dress form was a Friday Freebie that I cut out on my Silhoutte Digital Craft Cutter. If you want the SVG files, go here.

Remote...

2010-06-24T12:41:00.003-04:00

Hello! I'm updating my blog via a remote location, that I will disclose later! ;)

I'm having a blast, aside from being homesick from my computer! This computer that I'm using is soooo old that I cannot upload my pretty pictures that I have to show you... however, I can show you a sneak peek of what I created for my guest dt for Ally Scraps...

I used Pink Paislee paper. I loved this paper. It's sort of patriotic, but I used it for a masculine layout.

Here is the sneak....

Oh, what the heck... here's another....

Well, we are off to get some lunch and buy some souvenir T-shirts!!!

Have a great day!

Fabulous Friday!!

2010-06-18T08:56:00.003-04:00

Wow, it is gorgeous here in western Pennsylvania! Perfect weather. The humidity finally subsided, and we have clear blue skies! Too bad I have sooo much work to do inside today.

I finished up my vintage package design for Creative Charms, and now I'm working on some more packaging for NEW bling products! They have some great stuff coming out for their fall and winter lines. I can't wait to get the actual products in my hand to play with!!

Speaking of products... have you seen Girls Paperie? This is the first time I have ever used their products, and wow! So gorgeous!

Everything you see below is available at the Ally Scraps store.

Here's my layout that I did. I used 1950's photos of my husband's mom. This paper was perfect for a vintage feel:

I used deco scissors on the photo, yes, the photo! I wanted the pictures to have a wavy edge like some of the photos from that time period.

A couple of close ups:

Above - I added a Maya Road envelope and a Jenni Bowlin button. Those are also available at the Ally Scraps online store.

My adventures in cutting felt... I added a cream felt cut flower under one of the Girls Paperie's flower. While experimenting with felt, I have come to find that spraying it with one of the popular mists doesn't really work... however, if you spray enough and squish it into the fibers it will eventually take the color... and you will also have blue smurf fingers!

And lastly, which just might be my favorite embellie, is this butterfly that I cut out using my Slice and the packaging from the Girls Paperie flowers. Their packaging in so cute! I also inked the edges with some pink.

If you want more details on my layout, there are step by step instructions on the Ally Scraps blog. I also used a great sketch by Debbie Gaydos and Dana Gennaro. They have tons of sketches if you are stuck. I used the sketch as a jumping off point, but made some changes... sometimes that's all you need is a good starting point.

That's about it for now. I'm off to work on some package designs for Creative Charms... shopping for my dad, and it's Father's Day this weekend, so don't forget dad. Since my mom passed away I do all his grocery shopping. My dad has never used a debit card! Can you believe it? He's so old fashioned. We usually visit awhile after shopping. My kids like to play in the creek by his house, that's where I spent all my time in the summer as a kid, catching cray fish and minnows. Beware of the water snakes though....{shiver}... hate those things!

Happy Friday!!

Buzz, buzz...

2010-06-14T10:25:00.003-04:00

I'm busy as a bee!

So many fun things going on that I haven't sat down to scrap! I have one layout I need to finish up, that I hope to post tomorrow... oh and a card.

But, I can show you some cool photos!

First up, my nieces graduation was last Monday. I still can't believe she graduated! I mean, it just seems like yesterday she was a little tot!

Here she is turning around to find us... we were in the front row! Great seats!

Here she is getting her diploma, I almost missed this shot because I was too busy whistling and shouting!

Classic - tossing of the hats!

I was so glad that it was held outside so that we could attend.

This past weekend we went to the Pittsburgh Arts Festival. Wow, so much has changed since the last time I've been there.

Here's just a cool shot of Emma's legs as we were walking to catch the subway...

I might have over processed that photo, just a touch!

And here are two shots of PPG.

First the building (one part, it's like a castle)

In the court yard of the "castle" were 3 dinosaurs. You know how cities have their little statues, Pittsburgh has dinosaurs because of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

This was my favorite dino, and so iconic of Pittsburgh, the Heinz Ketchup Triceratops!

So far, summer has been a blast!! OK, so the first "official" day of summer hasn't started yet, but that's OK, it feels like summer!

Have a great day!!

The Curious Case of the Missing “E’s”

2010-06-10T08:51:00.006-04:00

Last night we were playing Scrabble with the kids. After 2 games, we decided to see if we had all the Scrabble tiles. We have 2 Scrabble games, and after counting the tiles for both, we discovered we were missing several "E's" (and one B). While playing we did notice some canine teeth marks in several letters! (Mystery solved, apparently they've been digested by one large brown hound!)

We combined the letters to have one complete set. We just need to remember that the tiles in the velvet bag have the correct number of letters.

The letter "E" has been a stinker for me since starting to scrapbook. When you buy letter stickers, like the AC Thickers, there are never enough E's. They need to take a clue from the Scrabble tiles and have at least 10 E's!

Speaking of E's... have you seen the new paper company Echo Park? Well, I just happen to have some Echo Park paper from Ally Scraps! And it's super cute! It's design is by Crystal Wilkerson. You might recall that I do some digital scrapbooking for Crystal, so I was super excited when I found out she's designing for them.

Here's the layout I did for my guest blog spot on Ally Scraps using the Echo Park Sweet Summertime paper.

This line is so much fun! I used the sticker sheet for these pin wheels, then I just added a gem accent to add some sparkle.

Another cute element from the sticker sheet. This time I used a button for an accent.

OH, if you're interested in step by step instructions on how I put together this layout, visit this Ally Scrap blog post to see the instructions. It really came together very quickly.

Summertime is officially here at my house! The kids' last day of school was yesterday. I thought I was going to get to sleep in this morning. Instead, I was rudely awakened at 6:30 am by the sound of the toilet lid being dropped by my son.... ahhhh, summer! ;)

Have a great day!

CHA Creative Charms Sneak Peek

2010-06-07T12:09:00.004-04:00

Happy Monday!

And, indeed it is! I sure hope it doesn't rain any more! Tonight is my niece's graduation, and if it doesn't rain, it will be held outside, so I can go! I'm going to go early and take some photos of her in her cap and gown. I still can't believe she is graduating! (I'm gettin' old!)

As promised, here is the layout that I did for Creative Charms. It was one of those fun layouts to work on. I love how these flowers turned out... for instructions on creating the flower, hop on over to the Creative Charms blog, I blogged the instructions there!

This pink kit isn't available yet. It is for Breast Cancer Awareness month, in October. When they asked me to do a project for Breast Cancer Awareness, well, you know, I was all over that!

And why YES, I did use my Slice on it!! Love my Slice!!

Isn't my daughter ADORABLE?!? Gosh, she's gonna be 14... I AM gettin' old!

If you are wondering how you can get your hot little hands on some Creative Charms products, check your local scrapbook store, or online. A Cherry On Top and Scrapbook.com both have their products in stock. I also spotted them on the Life Preserves Kit club website.

Have a creative day!!

Going Topless....

2010-06-03T14:36:00.007-04:00

Yep, I've been going topless lately... and apparently, it's all the rage!

I admit it, I've flipped my wig, literally! Yep, tossed it aside and I'm letting my natural, very, very, VERY short locks see the light of day.

It has been abnormally HOT these past few days, 85°+... and girls, let me tell ya, wearing something akin to a dead cat on your head really makes you sweat. I don't like to sweat. So, off with her wig!

But, as you will see below, it's really in vogue to have a super short pixie cut... and, although I wouldn't have chosen this hairdo on purpose, I'm actually stylin'!

Just check out these celebs with fabulous pixie cuts:

Of course to pull off this look, it helps to be gorgeous and have stunning bone structure.

My hair is still shorter than all of the above... it's more like this:

If I looked like Natalie Portman and had great big doe eyes, I'd be rockin' this look, but, I don't, and I'm a bit older, and well, probably have about 40 pounds on her! I usually wear a cute pink Nike hat when I go topless!

I promise, I will show you a photo of me with my "new" hair... but, let's wait until my locks are as long as the photos in the first picture. Seriously tho, after being a skin head all winter long, any hair is great hair! LOL!

I have LOTS of assignments in the works. Here's a sneak peak of one for Creative Charms.

In honor of breast cancer awareness month in October, Creative Charms has put together a special "pink" kit. Love it! I'll have the whole thing up for you on Monday, on my blog as well as Creative Charms blog. Don't forget to stop over there, they have some fabulous layouts being posted by the new design team. Summer Fullerton (a Making Memories Master) posted a cute way to use the shimmer flowers. Check it out.

Have a great day! and don't forget to feel your boobies!

Check out Creative Charms....

2010-05-26T13:51:00.003-04:00

Oh my, are they cookin' with gas or what? Their blog is hoppin'! AND Midori has put together the most awesome design team EVER! I'm sure you will recognize some of the names.

Hop on over and check it out. We're doing Scrap Pink sneak peaks. I'm still working on mine (blush).

Debbie made a beautiful wall plaque for me and gave it to me yesterday... here's a little lookie lou at that:

Scoot on over to the Creative Charms blog to see it all! It's purdy! Thank you Debbie for thinkin' of me!!

And, CP asked about my sofa that I bought. It's a Broyhill, and the name of it is Ethan! (my son's name.) I got it from a local furniture store. Here's the link to it. I'm very happy with it.

Thanks, and have a creative day!!!

Ta Da!

2010-05-25T09:09:00.005-04:00

We got the new furniture. I like it a lot. We had to rearrange the family room, put the tv on the side wall instead of the back wall, and now we need to buy a new cable for the tv, but other than that, it worked out perfect. It's so fresh looking in there now. Before I had dark brown sofas. (you can see these in the layout below)

Here's how the room turned out. I still need to put some artwork on the bare walls. We had to take the picture down that I had up. I'm going to do some art canvases of a few of my favorite project 365 photos. You can get 12 x 12 canvases for around $12 at Arts Cow. I thought doing about 6 in black and white would look really cool.

I had to stitch 2 photos together. My wide angle lens isn't wide enough. (If you look way back past the kitchen, thru the arch is a white door... that's our office. We bought this house because of that office!

Here's just the sofa... love it! I'm going to paint the pine tables black. They are super duper old. I think we bought them in 1994. They are scratched and scuffed, crayoned and markered... just really beat up. They're do for a make over.

The pillows are growing on me. At first I didn't like them, but they're pretty cool.

Here's the other side of the room:

A comfy recliner for my hubs. I don't think it looks to terrible of a recliner. (and yes, that is one green wall and one yellow wall, we're weird like that! I'm tiring of the yellow though, I think I'll just take the green into the kitchen.)

And our fireplace... we painted it with orange suede Ralph Lauren paint. I'm sure the name isn't "orange" it's probably something fancy, but it's been 7 years and I can't remember.

See that stinkin' cord for the cable... gotta get a new one. (mmm, mmm, mmm, look at the eye candy on my tv. Hi Josh!!)

So, there's a peek at my family room. It's fun to redo a room. It's even more fun when you have money given to you from Grandma Barbara to buy new stuff. Thanks Barbara, we love ya!

And lastly, here's a digi layout I did using Crystal Wilkerson digi papers and elements available on Jessica Sprague.

This is our first home. It was little, but I loved it. We remodeled the whole thing, top to bottom. I still miss my maple kitchen cabinets. They were so much better than the ones I have now. But, we grew, and our business grew and Matt being 6' 2", and having a slanted ceiling attic office just wasn't cuttin' it for him. Plus, I wanted my kids to go to this school district.

Well, that's it for today. I'm off to the Crop Shop to meet 2 scrappy friends, Debbie and Midori! Let's see what damage we can do!!

Have a wonderful day!

The Sofa Finale!!

2010-05-20T09:15:00.002-04:00

We found a sofa! It's being delivered tomorrow (Saturday). Now I need new curtains, pillows, lamps, paint the walls....

Here's what it looks like... I'm not real crazy about the pillows.

It's really comfy, and a bit bigger than what I wanted to buy, but we can all spread out! (I hope it fits!)

Now for your viewing pleasure ;), here's a layout I did a few weeks ago (before my back went out!). I did it for Art Tech, my LSS, using the BoBunny Roughin' It line. (which I also thought was cool for a title)

I used these photos before, but then I thought, what the heck, I have 2 kids, now they each have a camping layout. :)

On the campfire, I used some orange Stickles to give it some "spark"le. ;)

Another close up, I cut out the little tear drop shapes from the patterned paper.

Well, that's it for today. I had quite the busy week, went to Gettysburg and saw my oncologist, but I'll save that for the next update.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

The Search Continues...

2010-05-18T09:32:00.004-04:00

for a new sofa. I found the perfect one online at Ikea, here, which looks a lot like the Pottery Barn sofa, here. Unfortunately, it did not feel the same. The seats were short, and when you have a 6' 2" husband with long legs, that's not gonna cut it. Maybe if we were a tiny family. Plus the Ikea cushions were hard (sorry Ikea, but they were)... and I want something cushy on my big butt! LOL!

Here's a side by side comparison on looks:

Virtually no difference. But, I've sat in the PB one, and oh my, it's heaven! But, the price is steep. I wouldn't mind paying that much if it was just Matt and I, but, I have 2 dogs and 2 kids who make messes, and I would just cry if I paid $2500 for a sofa and in 2 days it had dog hair and spills, ya know.

So, here's my other option, at Value City Furniture (weird name, sounds cheap, but they actually have nice stuff)

My husband isn't crazy about the loose back pillows, but I convinced him to sit in it and try it first.

I want a chaise because we always fight over one end of the sofa! This way, someone can stretch their legs out on that side... I could be swayed to more of a sectional, but I have a window along that wall and think it might look weird if part of it was covered up by a sofa.

So, the search continues. I hope I can find something today!! Ikea was a bust... I did get 2 outdoor rugs (oh boy!) one for the front door and one for the back.

In other news... ;) Here is what I made for my Mother in law for Mother's Day. I sooo wanted to keep these. The photos aren't great because I took them at night. (sorry)

I bought a mat stack of My Minds Eye Home line, and cut about 1/3 off and then swapped that with the coordinating paper (did that make sense?)... it fit perfectly on the cards that I bought. When I bought the cards and envelopes I thought the cards were folded, but they weren't, so I had to make some out of cream cardstock, then I used the blue that came with the envelopes on top of that.

My Slice came in handy on these... I used it for all of the flowers/birds/butterflies. I kept the cards flat for easy mailing. So, rather than using gems on the cards, I used Stickles.

Anyway... I need to get ready to go furniture shopping, but first, we're getting a rental car to drive to Gettysburg tomorrow to be with my son on his field trip. Fun day! Hope it doesn't rain. While we use the rental car, our car will be in the shop getting an oil change.

Have a great Tuesday!! It's a great TV night, LOST, GLEE and Dancing with the Stars... you know, GLEE wins! ha! But, I'll watch the others online.

Happy Hybrid!

2010-05-10T17:14:00.002-04:00

I just LOVE this new digi line Sweet Summertime from Crystal Wilkerson, available at Jessica Sprague.

When I saw it, I instantly fell in love, it is just so stinkin' cute!!

I used several papers, and some of the labels, and of course the ever popular pennant banner.

I hand cut the sun, label and cloud. I used my Martha Stewart punches to punch the edges of the paper strips.

I print my digi elements and paper on matte finish brochure paper from Staples (their brand). It's about 100# text weight, and produces beautiful bright colors.

Here are a couple close ups. I used pop dots to give the layout some dimension:

I also added some buttons.

If you're a digi chick, check out Crystal's stuff... and if you're not, check it out anyway! It's sooo cute!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. I threw my back out! OUCH. While walking, or rather hobbling into the restaurant for Mother's Day lunch, my dear husband kept telling people that I had had one too many. He's a card! I'll deal with him later. ;) I'm so glad we had a sit down lunch and not a buffet!

Here's what my dd made me. Everyone signed it and wrote me notes. I love my family, they're so sweet!! I'm a lucky girl.

Have a great week!

That's What I'm Talking About....

2010-05-06T10:08:00.003-04:00

Out of the blue, I get a package from Unity Stamp Co.

The little sticker note on it says:
“heard you we're having a hard time, hope this gift brings you a little ‘happy’ ”
Love All the Unity Peeps

Isn’t that awesome? I mean, what a nice thing to do. I’m so touched. That’s what I’m talking about.

The stamp is uber cute, too!!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see my last post (the list #8).

Have a great day!! :)

Chu-Chi Face & Happy Days...

2010-05-03T14:43:00.004-04:00

Here we go.... again with the purple! What's up with that?

OK, this purple is more on the pink side. It's new from My Minds Eye, and I just ADORE it!

I also adore these photos of my daughter when she was a baby. We called her Chu-Chi.

About 2 weeks ago, we were all sitting around watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and that song came on... Chu-Chi Face... immediately I knew I wanted to do a layout using that song and Chu-Chi as the title.

Here it is... a little on the busy side, but eh, that's OK, it's just for me.

And a couple of close ups:

Did you see her cheeks? So squeezable!

I saw a layout on 2 peas that used the 6 squares, and for the life of me I can't remember who influenced this design.

So many "good" things are happening. Finally! I'm happy again.

1. I have EYEBROWS! Yes, it's the little things. You have no idea how hard it is to pencil in eyebrows... many days I'd end up with one up and one down... which totally cracked me up. I just kept remembering the line in Toy Story, when Mrs. Potatohead was packing up Mr. Potatohead and asking him if he wanted to take his "angry" eyebrows!

2. We bought a new fridge... I know I posted this before, but I really love that thing! It makes me happy!

3. I'm doing physical therapy, and I love it. It hurts so good! LOL! My arm is recovering quickly. I went from being able to bend it 80° to 144° in a matter of 2 weeks... she said I was doing great, so I'm taking her word for it.

4. Summer is quickly approaching, and that in and of itself makes me happy. No school! Warm days, eating outside, picnics, graduations, amusement parks! The beach! Yea summer!

5. I get to be a guest designer on the Ally Scraps blog coming up here in June! That makes me happy!

6. Grandma Barbara, aka my mother in law, is giving us money to buy a new sofa! Woot! Yeah for Grandma Barbara! She's da bomb! She said it's for all the past couple of rough months we had with my chemo and all. Plus, I was complaining about our ugly furniture!

7. I lost a few pounds since being off of those stinkin' steroids, and that makes me happy. A few more (or 20) would make me even happier. ;)

8. The kindness of everyone makes me happy. Friends and strangers alike, they just amaze me. People I don't know send me cards and letters saying they are thinking of me and praying for me... it is just amazing and touching and wonderful. I appreciate every single card, letter, and kind word. It has really gotten me through these past months. Thank you all!!

9. My iPod makes me happy. I take that little thing every where. Keeps my notes, my appointments, email, music.... love, love, love it!

10. Last, but certainly not least.... my hubby and kids, who were so loving and patient and kind to me all winter while I was sick.... who doesn't make me feel ugly and tell me that they like my little bit of stubble on my head and prefer that over my wig.

Happy day to you, too!!

Purple....

2010-04-26T14:51:00.002-04:00

I don't know why I don't like the color purple... might be that whole Barney thing back when Emma was a baby, but I just don't like purple. I like purple things, like lilacs and grapes, but as far as using purple in my home decor, art or my layouts, nope, it's not gonna happen....

UNTIL now! I think I might be a convert!

I went to my LSS Art Tech on Saturday and met Debbie there. We shopped and I also got in touch with the owner who wanted me to do a few layouts. She wanted me to work with this Bobunny Jazmyne line.

I ended up just loving this layout, purple and all:

Here are a couple of close ups:

Used my Slice to cut these butterflies out of this pretty glitter paper, and also the letters below:

My sweet teen went to the Ohio State football game on Saturday with her friend. When she came home, she announced that is where she wants to go to college. I said what's wrong with Penn State or Pitt? LOL! I'd actually prefer her to go to Seton Hill College or Saint Vincent. Both have great art degrees and are within driving distance! ;)

Have a great day!

Friday Freebie!! Circle Card Cutable Files

2010-04-23T18:00:00.004-04:00

Oh my the day has gotten away from me!

I've had so much energy I have been (brace yourself) cleaning! I did a ton of laundry today, cleaned my shower, cleaned up the kitchen and dusted the dining room.

In between the cleaning, I did make some cutable files from the card posted below.

Everything is sized to cut on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. The folded card is 5" x 5".

Here is the outside:

And the inside:

All the files are in one folder. It contains SVG, PNG and Jpeg files.

Here's the link.

Enjoy!!

Have a great weekend.

Round & Round

2010-04-20T09:29:00.003-04:00

My first round card! :) Joscie totally inspired me to use my Silhouette, which has been sitting here gathering dust.

I made this pretty little circle card for my in-laws anniversary. I LOVE it! I'm so glad that I have the pattern now, I can make more. I drew everything in Adobe Illustrator, then cut it out on my Silhouette. I will have svg files later in the week for you, if you'd like to cut them out, too.

I used my Slice for the butterfly, then outlined it with some Stickles.

For the sentiment shape, you just cut out the shape, print your sentiment on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper using word or whatever program you want. Tape the shape over the word, using double sided tape. Also, tape down the top tip of the shape. It tends to bend over. Took me 3 tries before I fixed it. Just make sure your tape isn't super sticky. Stick it to your shirt first to get it fuzzy and take some of the tackiness off of it.

Pretty bow! I really like the width of this ribbon. I'd like to get some more.

Oh, I guess I should share my refrigerator story with ya... too funny.

We bought a new Samsung stainless steel fridge at Best Buy. Now, we weren't stupid about it, we measured our cabinets. We had 36 inches on the top, and about 35 1/2, due to the fact that the counter top was hanging over a bit, and there was about an inch of space to the right of our stove.

We looked and looked and found the one I fell in love with at Best Buy. You know how it is, you just MUST to have THAT one. No other would do. It had all the bells and whistles of the over 2 grand models, but for half the price. LED lights that slowly light up the longer the door is open, fancy buttons for the ice... easy access to the water filter. Nice shelves, that were closed so if you spill soy sauce in it, it doesn't drip down to all the other shelves.

We buy it on Saturday. We come home and measure. Hmmm, doesn't look like it's going to fit on the bottom. Top cabinets are OK. Matt takes the counter top off and cuts off an inch. Then he painstakingly shaves off about a half inch from the cupboard.

Tuesday the ginormous fridge arrives. The delivery guys take our old white ancient (14 year old) fridge and move it into the garage. (hello beer fridge) They bring in the new fridge, and take one look at the space and say, “That ain’t gonna fit.”

Oh no!

We tell them, just leave it where it is and we'll figure something out.

We remeasured the top, and assured ourselves that it will indeed fit. We decided to go to Lowes and get the waterline hookup and also look for a smaller base cabinet. Ours was 18 inches... we needed to go to 16. (alas, they don't make 16, we got a 15")

At Lowes I found an oak 15" cabinet that looked similar to ours. We get it home and I immediately say, "That doesn't match our cabinets at all."

Oi vay, what a fiasco!

Matt tells me that we are not taking it back. He had already opened the box. Oh well. He put the cabinet in, shaved off some more of the counter top, and we hook the waterline up... push the fridge back into the space and .... dang!! Now the WALL is in the way!! What the heck!! This space is supposedly designed for a refrigerator.

Well, we just have to have the fridge about 8 inches from the back wall in order for the freezer door to open. Can you believe this?

I was sooo upset. Crying that I had a "hillbilly" kitchen!

Sometime in the future, I will remodel the kitchen. For now, I'm stuck with the hillbilly cabinets and my shiny new fridge pulled too far from the wall. I think if I paint the cabinets, then they'll all be unified. Plus, I wanted to paint them anyway.

Here's the monster that caused all the problems:

Notice how the upper cabinets are a reddish stain, and the lower cabinet is quite a bit lighter and not reddish at all. Not to mention, a completely different style!!

I do love the shelves, and I have SO much room now!!

Look at all those healthy fruits and veggies in there. Dr. Oz would be proud!

Don't ya just love these lights??

Well, that's my fridge story. I swear, we live by Murphy's law. What can you do.

So, what's the moral of this story? I think it is you can make anything work if you try. ;)

Have a great day.

Cross Your Fingers...

2010-04-15T19:31:00.003-04:00

I applied to be on Jessica Sprague's design team. You had to submit your 3 best digi layouts, showing different techniques.

Here's one of the layouts that I submitted. I was trying to make it look like a skateboard poster. I did it 8 1/2 x 11 so that I can print it out and start a digi album. I never print out my 12 x 12 digi pages. (blush)

I was super happy with it.

I do love photoshop... I use it everyday for work... I don't know what I would do without it!

Toot, toot!

Speaking of design teams, my local scrapbook store, Art Tech Supplies, asked me to be on their design team. I'm really excited. I love shopping there, they have the best scrappy stuff, tons of stamps, and lots of art stuff, like paints and inks and markers and copics (oh my!!).... and even some old school stuff like hot press board and rapidiograph pens. I can't wait to get some new stuff to play with. Well, actually, when I was there I did practically buy the entire line of MME Quite Contrary.

But wait, there's more... check it out, I'm in Scrapstreet Magazine, page 40, here's a link. I'm the third layout down. My friend Heather is the top one. I was quite honored to be asked by Nicole to be in Scrapstreet. That was my first time.

This week has just flown by, and I was super busy. We got a new fridge... what a fiasco... I'll save that story for next time, cause like I said before, Murphy's Law baby! Yep, that's my life!

I can't believe it's Friday already! Have a great weekend.

R&R

2010-04-12T11:43:00.004-04:00

Took a little R&R last week. My left arm hurts. I have to have physical therapy so I can raise it up. I can put it to my shoulder now, and sleeping isn't as painful.

So, the dreaded pathology report came back... and in the words of the PA they were disappointing. I hate writing this... makes me want to cry... but the chemo did not work on the tumor and it grew while I was getting chemo from 4 cm to 7 cm. They also removed 15 lymph nodes, and 8 had cancer.

I was mad.

I asked them why they didn't do surgery in September back when the tumor was little... she said I would have had to have chemo anyway... I knew that, but at least it wouldn't have grown. Then she said, but had we did that, and you'd gotten chemo, then a year down the road I might have gotten cancer again, because they didn't know that that chemo didn't work. So, in a weird way, it's better that it happened this way. Now they know what doesn't work, so I can have chemo that will work.

Yes, I have to have more chemo. I don't know what kind yet, but I have an appointment with my oncologist on the 19th. She had mentioned a chemo pill that I could take.

All my doctors are women, by the way. Except my radiologist, who is a little Russian guy.

Anyway, they also can take my tumor, grow it in a lab, divide it up and try different chemos on it and see which one kills it. It's called microass.... something like that. I remember when she was saying it, I kept thinking "small butt", lol! I did look it up and saw the real name online.

Science is pretty amazing. I don't know if my oncologist will order that test or not, but I will be asking her. Why mess around and give me more draino that doesn't work. OMG, chemo is horrid.

I am just the epitome of Murphy's Law. It's always been like that for me. Can't get anything right the first time!

I feel 200% better knowing that the cancer is out of my body, tho. The chemo is to get any little cancer cell that might be floating around in my blood stream. Then I will also have radiation to kill any cells that might be around the incision area.

On a happier note... I did lots of layouts last week. I know, gimp arm and all! I did 4 digi early on in the week, since I only had to use my right arm... then on Sunday I did a paper layout.

Here's the paper one, I used super duper old Making Memories paper, that I was hording... silly woman!

Couple of close ups, I used my Slice to make these shapes:

I also made pillows, well, pillow slip covers. They're so fun and bright.... now I need a new sofa! LOL!

I'll share my digi layouts later in the week.

Hope you have a great week, and please, please feel your boobies... I don't want you to go what I have to go through. Stop putting it off, just do it!

"Bikini" in the Old...

2010-04-06T09:30:00.002-04:00

If anyone has or had a daughter in Daisy Scouts or Girl Scouts or have been a Girl Scout yourself, you might know the Girl Scout song... “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”

Well, my daughter insisted that the song was, “make new friends, bikini in the old...”

My husband and I would just laugh and laugh. 7 years later and she’s still a funny girl.

I used the Bikini in my title for this layout. How cute are these little 6 year olds? In a blink of an eye I now have a teenager! When did that happen??

I used the new Cosmo Cricket papers Material Girl. Fun stuff.

Here are a couple close ups:

I ran my pink polka dot Bo Bunny cardstock thru my printer to get the black part of the title on, then I adhered the Thickers.

The butterfly I cut out using my Slice (we are still having a hot and heavy love affair!) and my Martha Stewart loopy punch (coming in at a close second as my other fav!).

Since I can’t quite move my left arm, I’ve been working on some digi projects. Then it hit me.... why not do 8 1/2 x 11 digi? I mean, I can print that out at home. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier! I have all these digi layouts that are just stuck in my computer, but now, if I do them 8 1/2 x 11, I can print them! (Can you see the light bulb glowing above my head? It’s an energy star one, so it takes a while to light up! lol!)

BC Surgery Update....

Well, it has been 4 full days since my surgery. I feel OK. I slept A LOT over the weekend. Pain meds will do that to you. I tried to tough it out yesterday and only took 1 pill before bed, but had all these weird feelings in my arm and chest... not necessarily pain, but I guess all the nerves are cut, and I get these little zings like you hit your funny bone. Very weird. The hardest thing was taking a shower. Also getting dressed, since I can't lift my arm up, that was kinda tough. But, other than that, I'm OK. The incision feels really tight, but I'm sure it will feel more normal in time. I just hope that my pathology results come back negative. Please, please, please. Scary stuff.

Today I see a home health nurse, and tomorrow I will see the surgeon. I'm hoping she will take out this drain. Very strange little thing and quite annoying, I must say.

Other than that, I feel pretty good. I'd like to take a walk, and it's sooo pretty out. I probably won't make it far. Sometimes I feel like a 40 year old inside an 80 year old body!

This too shall pass.

Have a wonderful day. Take time to stop and smell the roses, or tulips, or heck, even the coffee!! ;)

Surgery Eve & a layout

2010-03-31T17:29:00.002-04:00

Well, my surgery is scheduled for tomorrow.... I am to be at the hospital at 10 am. I'm pretty calm about it, and in a way excited to get this thing out of me. I just talked to a friend who had a double mastectomy 2 weeks ago, and she feels great. I hope mine goes as well. I'm just doing the bad boob right now.

Anyway... I did a couple layouts last weekend, and I have another one to share with you. This one was also for a challenge on Serendipity Scrapbooks.

I was going to journal around the paper block but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Here's a couple close ups:

I put some glossy accents on the flowers to look like rain drops, just for the heck of it!

We had to use 4 rub ons for the challenge... now I know why I don't use rub ons too often! Can you say pita?? LOL!

That's about it for today. I hope to blog next week. I'm only in the hospital one night after surgery, then I get to go home... which is fine with me because it's hard to sleep in the hospital, so noisy and people waking you up and pokin' ya in the middle of the night.... geez!

Have a great Easter if you're celebrating. Enjoy your family this weekend.

Scrappy Goodness!!

2010-03-29T09:52:00.004-04:00

Happy Monday!

I know, how can I be this chipper on a Monday? Crazy, huh?

BECAUSE - - I got my scrap on this weekend! Nothing like some scrappy therapy!

This is my favorite layout that I did. It's just one of those layouts where everything worked out, the design, the colors, the elements... makes me happy.

The banner is from Martha Stewart that I picked up at Big Lots. It worked out perfect. I did this layout for a crop that was going on at Serendipity Scrapbooks. I order from them, and I love their board. The girls are so nice.

Here's the crop blinkie, all the challenges related to the Food Network, which I happen to be addicted to!

And, my layout for the menu challenge, 5 ingredient fix:

A couple of close ups:

Journaling (it's funny):

Whoa! Holy marshmallows Batman!
A little hot cocoa with the marshmallows?

Hope you have a happy Monday!! Thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it!!

Wild for Washi!

2010-03-26T09:00:00.004-04:00

The Japanese Washi tapes, that is. Have you seen them? They're very cool.

You can find them on Etsy. I really like this tape from PrettyTape on Etsy.

My friend Joscie sent me these:

And, check out what I did with the Washi tape!

First, I used some tape to decorate up a plain envelope that I made. (see last post for envelope template)

Here, I made a tag for spring. You can layer Washi tape, it's semi transparent, which can make for some cool effects. I used the MM Slice to cut out the froggies.

And lastly, I made an Easter egg. I put the Washi tape over some plain paper, then used my Making Memories Slice to cut out an egg shape (I used the Spring design card). I added some bling from Creative Charms to finish it off. I could see a bunch of these on a branch in a vase for a center piece.

Family Circle used Washi tape to decorate either hard cooked eggs or blown eggs. Here's the link. I was afraid to post the photo, didn't want to infringe on any photo rights.

Use Washi tape to decorate plain vases, as shown on To Be Charmed.

AND, check out Happy Tape, lots of ideas there. You will be hooked!!

Have a great weekend! Happy crafting!

Envelope Freebie

2010-03-22T17:15:00.005-04:00

How about an envelope freebie? Not just a template, but a file that you can use with SCAL or Design studio.

This is an A2 Envelope file. It fits on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. A2 envelopes fit cards that measure 4 1/4 x 5 1/2. The A2, once folded, measures 4 3/8 x 5 3/4.

I've got a mini tutorial on how to fold after you've cut.

Here's what it will look like once you cut it out.

Then, I just took my ruler and lined it up on the inner corners to fold. As shown:

After it's all scored:

And, the final envelope. I just used a glue stick.

What the template looks like:

If you want a jpeg file, click on the template above and you should go to photobucket where you can download it.

Here's the PNG file for download.

Here's the SVG file for download.

That's it for today. Enjoy!!

Hippity Hoppity....

2010-03-19T11:21:00.004-04:00

Easter’s on it’s way...

2 Peas is having it’s first scraplift challenge for a chance to win a $20 gift card, so I thought I’d play along.

Here’s the link.

My take on the layout... I whipped this out pretty quick this morning.

In order to qualify for the $20 GC, you must use all 2 Peas digi stuff.

Wanted to update on my situation... I'm having surgery on April 1. Kinda messes with Easter, but at this point, I just want it done, so I didn't want to delay it. I should be OK by Sunday. Matt is a great cook, and always does the ham anyway. I'll just need to prepare some stuff a bit on the early side, so I'll do that in the next 2 weeks, you know, kids baskets, clean, stuff like that. I'm having what they call a radical mastectomy. That just means that they take lymph nodes out, too.

Because of all that has happened to me, we are radically changing are diet. The kids will be the hardest to convert, so I’ll need to do it slowly. We’re going to eat way healthier. I found a list of cancer fighting foods, some that have actually been proven to reduce cancer tumors... top of the list - broccoli and all the foods in that family which include kale, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.

This morning for breakfast, I had this awesome smoothie. It was delicious. I seriously can drink this everyday, no problem. I’m not a big breakfast eater, so this is right up my alley.

Isn’t it pretty??

Raspberries & blackberries were tops on the list for fighting cancer. This is a strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and blueberry smoothie made with soy milk. I also have a banana and some honey in there. Sooo yummy. I used all frozen berries and kept them frozen, so it was like a milkshake!

Oh, I must not forget green tea. 2 cups a day, steep for 8-10 minutes. Luckily, I like all the foods on the list, except sweet potatoes.

Have a super weekend!

Hope your weather is as nice as mine. Sunny and 70°!!!

Testing, testing....

2010-03-16T10:57:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I had a bunch of tests to see how the chemo worked. It took up the whole day. I had a mammogram, (twice! they wanted better pictures!) sonogram, MRI with the contrast dye, then I had a physical, blood work up and an EKG for pre-op. I was supposed to get a chest X-ray, but I guess the doctor didn't deem it necessary. It's probably mostly for the older patients.

On Friday I met my radiologist, who was very nice, but scared the dickens out of me! I guess he just doesn't sugar coat anything. He's also used to working with the geriatric crowd, lol, and said that I'm his youngest patient.

I think my tests went well, I didn't notice any panic or concerned looks on their faces while they did the mammogram and sonogram. Scary stuff. I hope it's all OK.

Anyway... I managed to do a digi... I came across these cute pictures I took when my kiddos were only 3 and 5... {sigh} ~ I miss those days, when they were little.

I used a bunch of different digi stuff on this. I downloaded the new freebie from Peppermint Creative, but the only things I used were the dark brown background paper and the lucky bingo card. What's cool about digi is that I had one bingo card, but in about 2 seconds I could duplicate it and have 2!

Matt's dad had a pace maker put in yesterday. He did really well and we will go visit him tomorrow. We were worried, his dad is 82 years old. Matt is the baby of the family. My dad is only 67. (sorry, I'm rambling)

That's about it. I'm very busy with work (which I should be doing right now!), I got 2 new jobs and I need to finish up one from last week today.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!