Toasted, roasted and Fried!

I must apologize and try harder to get something done to post. We are in the middle of a remodel that started out to be only removing the old carpet ( 25 years! I got my money out of that one!) and putting in oak flooring. Well the carpet is gone, the flooring is in the trailer . . .  small has become large. We have to jack one section of the floor, take out a cellar window and cinder block the wall , repair any sill damage. In order to do that we had to clean out my husbands collection of “stuff” to move the lathe, band saw and table saw to make room for the jack post and for us to work. I started at 9am. He joined me at 10 until 1 when he had to get ready for work. I worked until 7:30. Everything hurts! Right down to my hair! At the moment I am out back, sipping a Mike’s, burning some waste wood in the “fireplace”.

   There is a silver lining. I will loose those extra pounds I put on over the winter. At least 10 of them! Construction has a way of doing that. Maybe that is why all those guys on TV look so great! I’m sure I will feel muscles in the morning I didn’t know I had!

 

  When the embers are low I’ll go take a shower and maybe get a simple card done. I should be doing the call for Paper Crafts, too. I have 2 cards done for them. We’ll see. It will be a long weekend of work here. Really need to get the floor done before these cuties come to visit on the 9th! Do you think it will be close???

 

  We might be spending a lot of time at museums and such instead at home if that floor isn’t down! Vroom-vroom, grandma!

Have a great evening!

Daughter's Mother's Day

Now that Mother's Day is past I can share the card I made for my daughter. If I had posted it before the date it wouldn't have been a surprise! Besides, I promised to space out the cards I made with Button Boutique from Papertrey Ink. I really like this set. There are so many ways to use it and it gives me such a nice feeling  when I design with it. I have fond memories of button boxes at my mother's, both of my grandmothers, and my great grandmother, all of them accomplished seamstresses. Creativity runs in our veins, in this family. This is the perfect card for DD. She used to love to look at all the buttons in grandma's button box.

I really like the way this came out. Once finished I got a chuckle from it. I didn't realize it as I was designing this but, the ribbon and the pearls are from left over materials from her wedding in 2003. Here they are showing up 7 years later. The color is PTI Scarlet Jewel. I used the die from Button Card Collection to cut the piece of fabric. It is much easier to get a clean edge on the fabric if you cut a piece of cardstock at the same time.

Hope you liked your card, Kate.                                              

New Toy

I came home last week to find a mysterious gift on the coffee table. Wrapped nicely it had a card that read “A little something for you”. Inside, the hand written note from my husband said, “For your birthday, anniversary and early Christmas”. Now, I don’t know about you, but in this house that usually means dollar signs flying out the door. The box wasn’t THAT big… or THAT small for that matter. When I finally decided to open it . . . let’s just say it’s a good thing he was at work! I now have a lovely new camera to take my pictures with. The one I have is adequate, but the shutter delay just doesn’t work for taking photos of children. The sharpness of the images are great! Here are a few shots I took to play with it. Now I need to make some cards and see how it works on that! I’m sure it will be GREAT! By the way . . . thanks, Honey! “You dun good!”

YAHOO !!!

" Oh, Grandma . . . a little birdie told me you are on summer vacation. Does that mean it's time for me to come to Grandma camp for a week?

Get ready . . . here we come. Sleep now 'cause when we get there. . . moms got a to-do list a mile long." YAHOO!!!!!!!! School is out. All the kids are coming this week to help with some renovating. Ummmm- I think I might have stepped from the frying pan into the fire on this one. Will be taking a brief break to take care of some small elves running around the house. Will hope to survive the construction discussions. Who knows? Maybe we'll end up on one of those DIY renovation nightmares! We are trying to finish a room that was started 28 YEARS ago. About d--- time! Be back soon.

Cute or what?

Can you tell Mommy is getting anxious for the hair to come in?  Kate used the tissue from gift bags for this Pippi Longstocking look. Too cute!

Happy New Year , everyone.

Yes, Karah, there is a Santa Claus, and the beard is real!
I love this picture of my youngest grandchild and her (grandpa) Santa. He does such a good job as the big man. He even has natural padding like the real thing, much to the doctor's dismay!

He saves his yearly vacation time and takes it in December for his Santa gigs. Over the years he has become very popular and gets more and more requests each year. This year he did his company's first ever Family Holiday Party. There were 250 children at the event. He was one tired Santa.

May we all have an improved 2009!

Santa Claus

I have a very hard time getting away with being naughty.

I share the same shower with Santa!



This beautiful tree was in a florist shop in Concord, NH. This tree was suspended from the ceiling, up-side-down. Cobblestone Design, Inc. has the most incredible display of theme trees I have ever seen. The ornaments are so different. Not your ordinary department store variety. Some are expensive but most are average in price. Then the day after Christmas the whole store is half off. People come in and buy the whole tree with whatever is left on it.

It's fun to go in and see what others are walking out with.



I overheard the owner say they decorate for each season, so this year I will have to make another trip to Concord for Easter. I can't wait to see what they do for that!

I am in Concord for the week with the grandkids. See why I don't get much stamping or house work done? Every vacation I spend here or they come to me. I wouldn't trade it though! The rest of the time until summer is the all consuming school work! What ever possessed me to go back to public school I do not know. At times I wish I could do something else that could make the same income. Not going to happen. Anyway, when Kate and I are together here we usually end up stamping for a few hours. I'll have to share the beautiful scrapbook she made for Christmas.
Have a great holiday week.

Priceless!

No, he's not albino! We haven't figured if he has any pigment in that fair skin!!  I guess the Norwegian from his Dad trumped the Irish/Native American from Mom!

Typically 3 and fearless. DEFINITELY did not inherit Grandma's fear of the water. Is that a good thing? A little fear goes a long way toward building a healthy respect. Right? (Shiver!)

 Now this is more like my reaction! Aha, a girl after my own heart! The only time I ever liked being in the ocean was once in Fort Lauderdale . . . for 5 minutes, to cool off.

The best, forgotten

I finally spent some time cleaning up the computer and I stumbled upon these photos that didn't make it into the bragbook posts. How could I have forgotten some of the best ones?

Oh well, better late than never.

This first one is the detail shot of the angelface page. I received many compliments on this (TY), as well as questions on how it was done. It was really simple. I cut a small piece of vellum and placed it over the cut photo. I very lightly sketched wings and halo size with a pencil. I sketched it slightly larger than needed so I could cut inside the pencil lines. Then I used a Versamarker (handy tool!) and drew inside the pencil marks. I embossed using SU Iridescent EP. Cut away on the pencil lines and glued on. DONE.

The page on the left was fun! I used a picture of the fireworks by DH, then cut out the photos of the baby in her 4th outfit. It is hard to see here but babies are popped up. The bottom one looks like she is sitting on the ribbon.

The photo on the right is my favorite one. These two just adore each other . . . right now. She is beginning to crawl. We'll see how long it takes for big brother to protest his pesky little sister.

Recipe: SU ink, markers, papers: Navy, real red,

WW. Burgundy paper retired Christmas collection, Ribbon: from the dollar store

Stamp: Stars from PTI, Mailbox Greetings

These pages are very simple. I used Versa on the purple with the SU One of a Kind set. I used the Punch that matches the set to make the little accent flowers. The Pink page was the back of one of the other pages in the book. It is from KC& Company, in a tablet called Smitten.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get to post all the fun things I have been doing the last few days.

My best friend and I pulled one of our marathon stamp sessions. We had to quickly get this in as we will be spending our time getting our classrooms ready for the rest of August. Evenings that end at 2A.M. and mornings that begin with breakfast and coffee out are the norm. As we wind down on the last day we usually stamp with our Margaritas. :-p Anybody know of a cute stamp with a margarita glass?

Have a great evening.

Scrapbook installation 2

Well, it is taking at least one day to do each child. I'm a SLOW scrapper with lots of other chores to do in between.

Grand child 2. He is some kind of a character and that makes it so much fun to scrap him! He has the most expressive face, as you can see on the angel page. That was fun to do. I'm not sure it shows but I used vellum to make the wings and halo then embossed them using iridescent EP (SU!).  

All of the papers used for his pages are SU! papers with the exception  of the dots and the little stripes on the next page. These are little pieces I had in my stash (mountain) of scraps. 

I love the shot of him sitting in his shorts. He is SO fair. This was on his third birthday. It was very hot and we had gelled the poor kid's hair! What a sport. It was supposed to be more of a mohawk, but became a mass of curls!

 Notice the leap picture? He's playing Buzz Lightyear. Fine. . . as long as the coffee table is the only thing he is leaping off!

The book is done and delivered to the great-grandparents. I'll post the last pages of the new baby tomorrow. 

Have a wonderful evening.

Happy Fourth

I know it isn't here yet, but with a house full of grandkids I have to take advantage of nap time to post. This first photo is of a set of cards made without layers. They were inspired by a stamper on SCS called waterdhild12. I needed a gift fast so it had to be simple. Did a quick reverse mask, stamped the flowers and sponged the background. A little free hand doodle frame with an ultra thin black pen and it was done. Funny . . . the recipient liked them better than the fancy ones I had mad for her previously.

Here is my little firecracker. She is 8 now and going on 18. 

Why do they have to grow up so fast. This is one of my favorite memories of her. The page is a 6x6 size. I struggle with this size. I guess because I always want to put too much on it. 

 I'll try to post from my daughter's house. We will be  having a mini stamp camp with my youngest sister, daughter and self. I guess I should include the little ones in there too!

Have a safe and happy Fourth.

This is a far cry from the weather we have had the last 2 days! Yesterday afternoon we got 2 inches of rain in 1 hour. It hit again later in the evening and took out power for a bit. Then it came down in a torrent again this morning just before 7. DH is watching the forecast and we are under another severe storm warning with possible tornadic activity! Where's the ark! The city hasn't managed to right itself from the last major rain about 3 weeks ago. We are not used to flooding in the city! Some of the garden got beat down by the torrent this morning, but overall seems okay. Some day I will use these as  card elements. Right now the grandchildren are here. Ages 3 years (boy!) and 4 months don't allow for much stamping. Or sleeping!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Challenges and grandchildren

My daughter recently posted a beautiful card on her blog and SCS that was for one of the challenges. I saw the challenge and remembered this little book I made in February of 2003 for my granddaughter. You will see that this book is well loved. I wanted to make an educational book for her using family photos. It has pages for each letter of the alphabet and numbers to 20. She learned to recognize her letters and numbers with this little book. At the time the only materials I had to work with were stickers and my brand new Sizzix machine. (I had to drive 80 miles to a large craft store to get it! Sometimes rural living isn't all it's made out to be!)

Imagine this book now with the room full of supplies I have. I need to make one for the next two babe's using all the new stuff! Wahoo-- inspiration! Here are a few pages of the old work. You really can do fun things with very little.

These are from the number section of the book.

The sad part about this is that I can't keep her this way. She is now approaching 8 going on 18 with the beginnings of all those attitudes of a tween!

I just love to look at the pictures and remember.

I will have to try a more up dated entry for this challenge once school is out. I promise!

It can't get much better than this for a grandma who is a teacher!

"Cookie" loves to read, thank goodness, and will read to

anyone who will listen. I had just introduced her to Frog and Toad. Now she has the books and has read them all. I'm in heaven. "Peanut" loves to be read to, at the ripe ol' age of 3 months, as does her

nearly 3 year old brother. Mom and Dad are doing a great job. (Proud Grandma, a bit prejudice.)

While we were visiting, my daughter and I took a day and just

played with her stamps while the kids played with each other and

the men played a LOWES.

This little card was my attempt at the

tole technique. All the layers are cut

and reapplied on dimensionals. I used

her Stampendous sets: Changito Dos

and Beachin' Birthday.

Papers are SU. The background is

brayered ala Michelle Zindorf's

technique.

I used the same little monkey for a 1 year old's birthday card. I can't find the picture of the inside, but I inked only the bottom of the palm to just above the monkey's head. Then I free handed a flame and the top of a candle. Worked great. "Happy birthday you little monkey", went inside.

This was a workshop request. The hostess let me borrow the set to make the card. What a nice little set. It takes some good light and eyesight to color the details in this fine line image but the result is well worth it.

While I had the set I decided to prepare another project for them to do. The bird image is perfect for the Starbucks bottle. Fill it with candy or even bird seed and it makes a great gift.

This last card is so simple it hurts. Simple masking, punches, and shading is all this takes.

Michelle Zindorf was again the inspiration for this. I didn't have any oval punches with me so I ended up using circle punches and punching away the sides to form the oval shape then cut off the top and bottom to make the vases. I masked the stock with a sticky note and brushed on some Vintage Violet. I placed the vases and masked them and added a bit more shadow behind them. Stamp leaves. Punch flowers and attach with pop dots. A little bling in the centers and a sentiment. Voila! Try this it is great!

Just Busy

Good grief! It's the end of May and I haven't put anything on here in ages. I was a bit busy over the April vacation, as you can see from this photo. I spent it all with them (huge smile)!

Then, the reality of the dysfunctional public school system reared it's ugly head and with mighty jaws consumed all of my waking hours. I

just hope I can continue to do this for the years I need in order to have state insurance. I'm having serious doubts.

Soon comes vacation and, I hope, a chance to stamp again. Kate has managed to set me up nicely with a ton of great Hero Arts and Stampendous stamps. Add them to the already huge collection of SU sets and I should be able to do anything I want to. ( If I can find the right stamp!) I am really looking forward to it. 18 days and counting.

I managed to use a few images that were pre stamped and made some cards. A customer of mine had this moth(?) in an SU set. I loved it so she made me a bunch. For the life of me I can't find the set in any of my catalogs. Anyway I have set a goal to use only already stamped images and scraps until I have reduced the pile by one third!

I need to hurry! My new stamps will be here in 3 weeks!

Here are a few more of the same. I really like adding a little white to the wings to highlight. I found that using Crystal Effects, very carefully, over the top of the moth gave it a bit more interest.

I will try to get some shots of my latest cards this weekend and post them. Until then ...... stamp unstress!

Just had to share this! Yes, his eyes are really that color! And don't you know that he has his grandma wrapped around his little finger? I can't take the credit for this. My daughter did all the work. I just like to show him off.  He's such a ham for the camera and all little devil!!

Here she is!!! Karah  Patricia is as beautiful as her mom was when she was born. The resemblance is uncanny. Big brother has been so good with her, so far. Can't wait to be able to go visit again. They change so fast.