I'm baaa-aaack

Our server was down, so that's why I've been MIA lately. I did get a new movie kit made this weekend. I'm going to try to sell this one - wish me luck. I just posted it on craigslist to start with because I thought the shipping might be kind of a pain, what with the bottles. I have another project in the works right now, too. But, have to get back to Michael's sometime soon and get a couple of things to finish it.

Anyway - I had so much fun doing this kit. I love these new tropical images from Doodle Factory. I used this great dp called shabby princess - wierd name, because I was really looking for boyish, fun, summery paper. This soda box was SO much easier to cover than the crush 6-pack! Yeah, Jones soda does cost a little more, but it was worth it in the time I saved and how much better it looks without all the patchy piecing on the sides. The candy was much easier to do this time also, in that it didn't disappear, because I hid it from the boys! I decided against covering the popcorn containers because that way they can be washed and reused. I did reuse the ones from my last set, but it was a pain having to scrub all that goo off and I'm not sure someone who bought this would want to go to the trouble. I'm going to keep my eyes open for different colored popcorn containers so that I wouldn't HAVE to use red in every set. So, if you know where I can get some - leave me a comment!

Hump Day

Some people call me the jetski pirate (wow wow). Imagine that sung to the tune of The Joker by Steve Miller Band - you know the one I'm talking about - starts out "some people call me the space cowboy". Now, why this song is stuck in my head whenever I see this card is beyond me, but it is! I got the Doodle Factory Tropics set the other day and this is my first card with it. I colored the image and cut it out and there it sat. So, I decided I'd better slap it on a card before it got lost or messed up, so here it is, a simple little guy, but those images are so cute, they don't need a fancy card. I used the Summer Days DP, wild wasabi, only orange, real red and bashful blue. I colored the image with copics and accented the wave with liquid applique.

Rough and tumble weekend

This card is a thank you for my mom and dad. They bought Gage a new bike this weekend. His was in bad shape and was really too small for him. He's outgrown all of us now, I think. I used SC174. I really like this sketch - I've used it three times now! Gage's new bike is orange, so I knew I wanted to use orange and I knew I wanted to use the basic grey bike paper. I paired the bike paper with the stripes from the same set and since the olive was so prominent in the paper, I chose olive to go with the pumpkin. I was trying to decide on the third color and was leaning towards a yellow, but when I pulled the olive paper off of my shelf, a scrap of blue bayou, which had somehow ened up on top of the olive came tumbling down and landed with the other colors. I really liked the combo, so there was my third color, chosen by fate! The image is Riley on a bike from Hanna Stamps colored with copics and sakura glitter pens. I stamped the thank you on the bike dp punched it with a circle punch, stuck it in the hodgepodge hardware and mounted that on a pumpkin oval.

Other than my color combo literally falling into place, nothing went as planned this weekend it seems. Thursday, Kai told me he wanted to have a "boys night". We do that once in a while. I will get the boys McDonalds - or some other food that I don't like and they watch a "silly boys movie that mom's don't want to watch". I run off to eat Chinese with my friend, Christie sans kids. So, it's fun for all of us. Well, I got the boys their food and went to drop Kai off and he switched gears on me. He said he wanted to have family night instead. I told him that I had already made plans with Christie and that we'd have family night the next night - I would fix Mama's diner (hamburgers, fries and homemade milkshakes) and we would play games or something. He thought that sounded good and so I was off! Well, we ate and then went to walmart where Christi saw someone she knew and spent a long time catching up - I didn't get home until 9:30 or so. Kai hadn't gone to bed yet because he hadn't gotten to give me a hug. So, I hugged him, kissed him, gave him an eskimo and put him to bed. Saturday, mom, dad and Emma came. I was totally in a cleaning mode, but didn't get much done before they arrived. We had some big issues with Emma, so that made for a very UNfun day. Sunday, I really was going to get the house all cleaned up. Well, at a little before 5 am, I was awoken by a sweet little voice singing The Christmas Song from the Chipmunks Movie. The song was followed by "did that sound pretty, mom?". Ok, not much sounds pretty at that time of the morning when you didn't get to bed at a decent hour the night before, but I drug myself up and told Kai it sounded awesome. We got up and played for a while and then went out to breakfast, followed by a very expensive trip to the grocery store. We did get the fridge cleaned out and the groceries put away and then got a phone call saying mom was coming to town again. So, by the time she left at around 3:00, I was exhausted. I sat down with the kids and kept falling asleep. Gage woke me up and pointed out that Kai had fallen asleep on my lap as well. Now, if Kai gets even a 10 minute nap, he is a nightmare to try to get to bed at night. So, I woke him up (bribed him outside with an icepop). Then I asked Gage if he would watch him while I took a nap. I told him to wake me up in 15 minutes - he felt sorry for me and let me sleep for over an hour, but couldn't keep Kai awake, so he slept for that long, too. So, none of us got to sleep before midnight last night. Lastly, while Gage was riding his bike, the chain slipped off and he crashed. He has road rash on his leg, a bruise on his cheekbone and his other leg is scraped up, too. He was pretty sore last night, I'll bet he's worse this morning. He took his bike over to a neighbor kid and he helped him fix the chain and even adjust the breaks. This boy is such an awesome kid - I told Gage we'd make him some cookies to thank him. So, that was my weekend. I'm pretty sleepy today, and I imagine Kai is, too, which means he'll fall asleep at daycare and I'll have to fight him at bedtime again tonight. Ugh! Hope the week gets better from here on out!

Gorilla's night in set

This is my Gorilla's Night In set. I made it for an 80's/90's movie party for a couple of girls with whom I went to high school. My boys just about went nuts because they wanted that movie candy so badly! I am definitely going to have to make a family movie night set for us soon!


The soda set starts with a strawberry crush 6 pack. In hindsight, I should have picked one of those 4 packs - jones or stewarts. The six pack was harder to cover because the 12x12 doesn't wrap even halfway around the sides and I had to do some patching. This should be fine, as it will be on a table surrounded by some other goodies, but it was frustrating for me, nevertheless. I covered it with this cute paper from we are memory keepers (got it at hobby lobby). I thought the little circles on it looked like the pop tops. The stamps are from high hopes. I stamped and colored the background and sponged the sky. The gorilla is cut into 3 layers. The feet, the body, popped up with dimensionals and the head popped up just a little more with some pop dot things I got at hobby lobby, which are a bit thicker.



I got the popcorn boxes at the target dollar spot. I covered them with more we are memory keepers dp. I made a wrap for the microwave popcorn and a rose red belly band. I used marker to stamp just the gorillas head and then punched it with a circle punch and matted it on a turquoise (I got this paper at hobby lobby to match the dp) scallop circle punch.



I covered the boxes with - you guessed it- we are memory makers dp. I stamped and
matted the sentiments on a combination of rose red, turquoise and orangey yellow from hobby lobby and gable green. The gorillas are again done in 3 layers.


This is the invitation. I used gable green, chocolate chip, rose red (which for some reason looks darker on my computer) and we are memory keepers dp. I used the nesties for the circles and scallops. The leaf is traced from a sticker that came in my su summer days kit. I ran the leaf through the cuttlebug in the swiss dots folder. Then I accented the dots with a copic marker and outlined it with gable green. I balanced the leaf with the little gems on the opposite side of the scallop. This was such a fun set to do and since I picked a theme, it was really easy because I just used all the same papers and stamps over and over.

Rainy monday

Kai is allergic to mosquito bites. Friday evening his arm was swollen to twice it's size. It is still that swollen. It's been like that before, but has not usually lasted this long. So, a visit to the dr. was in order. It was pouring here and my umbrella is broken (note to self - new umbrella), so I got soaked. Sure glad I spent that time straightening my hair this morning. Anyway, he got 2 medications and a steroid cream - for a mosquito bite! Poor kid!

I made this card Friday over my lunch hour for my ex husband. I wanted to use Ballet blue, soft sky and certainly celery, but since it was my lunch hour and I couldn't find the ballet blue (I have since found it) I decided to go with Cool carriean, buckaroo blue and certainly celery. The stamps are from high hopes.

Happy birthday, sis

OK - it's not her birthday today, but since I don't post on the weekends, I'm going to say it a day early. I'm still banking on the fact that she's busy and won't have time to look at my blog. This is her birthday present. I used the afternoon tea dp that she likes with soft sky, wild wasabi, groovy guava and close to cocoa. I inked the edges of all the layers with cool carribean, wild wasabi, cameo coral and close to cocoa. I absolutely LOVE wild wasabi - I bought one pack of the paper, but I'm thinking I need to get some more! OK - back to the frame - The image is from My Favorite Things Serenity Now set and the sentiment is from MFT Twisted Sentiments. I made one of these for my mom and I plan to make one for myself, but haven't gotten to it. I still haven't made a father's day card for my ex and I'm going to see him tonight, so I guess I will try to crank on out over my lunch hour. I also bought some boxed candy and some other stuff for a project I'm going to do. Gage keeps asking me when I'm going to be done with that candy. I've just been tired lately and haven't gotten much done. I told him maybe this weekend.
On a sad note - my dad is in the hospital. He was having chest pains and his blood pressure was very high. They changed his medication and are going to let him go home today. Scary! It just scares me to even think about not having my parents around. I know it will happen someday, but my dad just seems so young!

This is the card I made for my dad for father's day. He is an awesome cook (in addition to be a great father and papa).

I used wild wasabi, chocolate chip and ruby red with this cute flair designs cooking dp. I got the apron template at Mirkwood designs. The stamps are from clear dollar stamps.

I made this card last week. I was browsing over at starvingartiststamps.com. These 3 creatures from doodlefactory are on a sheet in a row like this. Well, the alligator with a tie looks like a coporate type and the little guy on the right looks like one of those co-workers we've all had who never shuts up and this poor guy in the middle hasn't even had a chance to finish his first cuppa joe! He needs a vacation. I handwrote the "blahs" and mounted it on a lavendar card base. I showed it to one of my co-workers and she loved it!

Back to the ol' grindstone

Monday morning and back to work. I came so close to calling in sick today - I have such a bad headache, I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm really tired and it's just cloudy and gloomy out. It would be such a good day to stay home in sweats and read or watch tv and just be lazy. But, I was a good girl and came in. This card is for one of my bosses who's birthday is later this month. I used an inkadinkado image and made the "got cake?" sentiment with snap stamps. The paper is basic grey, real red and black. The ribbon, I got at walmart. I colored the image with copics and went over the cherry on the cupcake with a glaze pen to make it shiney.
This card is for my sister's birthday - I hope she's not reading this. I really doubt she is - she's VERY busy these days, but if so - don't look, Pam! My mom told me that Pam loves the afternoon tea dp, so I used it for her card with close to cocoa, groovy guava and soft sky. The image is from My Favorite Things Serenity Now. I paper pieced the background and that girls shirt. The sketch is one of Jen's SFYTT. I inked the edges with close to cocoa, cool carribean and cameo coral. The ribbon is american crafts.

Here mojo mojo mojo!

I could not do a thing last night! I had totally lost my mojo. I made one VERY simple card and quit for the night. However, Kai got me up at 5:00 this morning, then promptly went back to his room to play. So, I decided to give it another go. This is the result. It is for the crafty secrets dots challenge and this week's SCS sketch challenge. I LOVE these colors together. Real Red and Wild Wasabi just scream summer to me. I added the Regal Rose to match Ms. Grasshopper's dress. I used print pattern dp for the dot theme as well as adding dots with pens and of course, the dots on the dress and the bugs. I like it - it turned out a lot better than anything I would have done in my fog last night!

My clumsy family

Yeah - that's the reason I didn't post yesterday. Gage was showing Kai what a line jump was yesterday and Kai was the line. Well, he jumped over him and I had just opened my mouth to tell him that it wasn't a good idea and he tried to jump over him again - backwards. He didn't make it. He didn't really land on Kai - just hit him enough to lose his balance. He fell backward and fell against the ottoman with his back. This is the kid who broke his back 2 years ago and as he's asymptomatic right now, his dr. has opted not to fix it with surgery. So, we spent a good deal of time in the dr. office and having xrays yesterday. Good news though - no further injury and no shift in the previous break.

Emma, Kai and I were playing Uno on Sunday. They were messing around and Kai stepped backwards onto my ankle. I could see he was going to fall and tried to move my leg out of the way, but he fell on my ankle at a wierd angle. Well, it pulled my achilles tendon. That's 4-6 weeks to heal, dr. says. Ugh!

On a sad note - one of my old bosses died on Saturday. The funeral is today and we're closing the office to go. He was 86 and had a miriad of health problems from skin cancer to alzheimers. He was such a sweet little man. He and his wife were so cute together - two tiny, white haired people who were still crazy for each other - you could tell by looking at them. I made this card for his wife. I don't do flowers. In fact, sassy stems and doodle this are the only flower sets I have. But, what else do you put on a sympathy card?? So, I went outside my comfort zone and used flowers. Well, I wasn't comfortable - my flower cards always suck. So, I CASED a card from blondie090277 at SCS. I used different colors and a different stamp set, just cased the layout (as usual - I love to do that). I used sassy stems for the image matted with black. The scallopped circles and the circles were done with my nesties. The black rectangle is embossed with the swiss dots cuttlebug. I wished after I had it all put together (with permanent adhesive) that I had cuttlebugged the blue circles, but cest la vie. It looks pretty good for a flower card! :)

Happy Monday

I made this card Friday night. I was looking at this little pup and thought he looked awfully concerned with what was going on in his nether regions. Then I thought that the little starbursts almost looked like "youch spots". So, I drew the little dots that were supposed to be fleas. I didn't know if anyone else would get it, so I stamped the bug from A Bug's Life and put him "under" the magnifying glass (I added a little crystal laquer). I love these dps from Polar Bear Press. The green paper is from Bazzill, the dog is stamped on real red and the card base is bayou blue. I got the ribbon at hobby lobby.

Now - you all know that I am a Markie's Mom Stalker. Well, I loved the trio of cards she did for the 3 in one challenge on Friday. So, I cased the layout of one of them. I'm not sure I like this. I think maybe I should have gone with plain wild wasabi intead of a second print. But, here it is anyway. The card base is really close to pumpkin pie, but is bazzill, the other layers are cool carribean, wild wasabi print and basic grey mellow, dp. The ostrich is a new stamp from Gina K in the Jump for Joy set.