Unknown stamps rock.

I got the octopus and fish at a stamp show a few years ago. I love them. After making the Joan Bardee inspired card the other day I wanted to make another version where the woodgrain represented water and the octopus and fish just hung out on it. Victory is mine!

OLW 76 Color in Winter

I am trying to start doing the One Layer Wednesday challenges. Last week was a masculine card. I find those very difficult and also had an absolutely horrible week last week, so I skipped that. This week is Color in Winter. The idea being that winter is all gray and white with occasional spots of color. I live in Beautiful Sunny Florida. We have a high of 81 today. The world is greens and blues and fluffy white clouds with flowers and oranges on trees all over... But I love, love love me some white/gray/color cards so I gave it a try.

Today on Joan Bardee's (I think I'm spelling that right, sorry if not!) blog she posted the most jaw dropping card. I'm referring to the middle one. (I tell you this because all 3 are pretty amazing)

So combining the OLW challenge and my Joan inspiration this is what I came up with. And I was happy with it until I just got you that link to Joan's card and can see now with it in front of me that mine is a poor imitation! LOL. But that's ok, I had fun.

Actually I had so much fun I made another card with an idea I got while making this one. I'll show you that card tomorrow.

Stamps are Designer Woodgrain by Hero Arts and that leafy thing is Papertrey. I can never remember my Papertrey names when I'm sitting her typing for you.

Lunch Box Notes *another publication reject*

Here is another project that I didn't get published with. It is lunchbox notes. :)

They could not be any easier. White folded cards, my favorite decorative tape on the edge, stamp, color and cut out images, stamped greeting. I also rounded the top corner.

Then you pop them in a lunchbox in the morning to let kids know you are thinking of them. For some reason lunchtime is a huge source of stress for my kids. My oldest has a horrible peanut allergy. Last year there were incidents with kids teasing him with peanut sandwiches. This year a new principal wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. She made the peanut table. Sounds cool right? Stephen is the only peanut allergy in his grade. So it's the Stephen sits alone table. *sigh* Apparently halfway through lunch they fill up and random kids do end up sitting with him. Random kids with peanut sandwiches. Which is fine, Stephen is pretty mature and can handle it. The thing is that he's STILL sitting in a peanut area, but not with anyone from his class. So all the fun of being segregated with none of the safety. Stephen doesn't want me to talk to anyone about it though. He says it is fine. Well sometimes. Sometimes he says it's is horrible. I think it has to do with how much fun his classmates seem to be having over at the normal table.

I AM the map girl

I make a ton of stuff with my vintage atlas collection. Home dec, craft, whatever.

I recently submitted this card to a magazine but it didn't get picked:
I'm not sure how the most perfect photo on EARTH didn't get picked but that's fine. :) But it is also perfect for the Moxie Fab World challange! Map to Your Heart.

You HAVE to click that link, even if you have no interest in doing the challange, Cathy rounded up some STELLAR map projects. STELLAR. There are even map tights! *swoon*

Case of Alicia Thelin

In the recent Card Creations Get Inspired special issue by Paper Crafts magazine I fell deeply in love with a card called, "Chic Thinking of You" by Alicia Thelin. Stunning! I made one of my closest CASEs ever:Love it. :)

Time to go help my son find a book to do a book report on.

ETA: I think this is Alicia's blog: scrappybetties I mean that blog definitely belongs to a girl names Alicia Thelin, how many crazy talented card makers with that name can there be? So I think that is the girl, although this card I don't see on her blog. :) She ROCKS check her out.

Cute Food

I have forever been impressed by artistic bento lunches for kids. Shaping my kid's lunch into a kitten has great appeal for me. I have put it off because of time, expense and a suspicion that such adorable foods produced an undo amount of waste.

My kids think bento is cute, but what they really always want are those stupid Lunchables. I cannot figure out why. I mean it's crackers and meat and cheese. Maybe a candy or fruit. And I spoil my kids with a small candy in their lunch almost every day anyhow... What is the appeal?

Then I decided to combine the two! I would do my own stile of bento lunches with meats and cheese, veggies, fruits. Here is one I did that isn't really bento at all as it's just sitting on a plate. But it was dinner time and why waste all my lunch box supplies when plate will do:

I especially like the heart bananas. :) So of course this created waste. What to do?

Oh yes! Give it to Calvin! He doesn't notice his cheese is not a star!

So this is what my kids have in their lunch boxes today:

There is some dressing for the broccoli in the heart container. :) They also have a yogurt and waters. :) Oh and a small candy. ;)

Paper Smooches SPARKS challange

The Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge right now is to make a card inspired by this photo:What I want to make is a bedroom inspired by this photo! Love the wall!
I made this super fun card. It is for a friend of mine who... well, she has great taste.
I also made this heart one. Punched the heart and foam mounted it over the pink.
And I had to make a chicken card! Love this little guy. Now turn your head slightly to the right, tilt I mean... that chicken could be a muffin. Ethan pointed that out. :)

All these stamps are Paper Smooches. :) LOVE THEM.

OLW74 is really hard

This week I gave the One Layer Wednesday challenge a try this week. Could I have picked a harder week? Well harder for me anyhow. The theme was "use pink and red... ONLY". That means no black. It turns out black is critical to my card design process.

I made several lame trash can cards. Well actually they were "flip that cardstock over and make something on the reverse side to preserve paper" cards. Man were they horrid.

Finally I made a card that was acceptable.
The car and sentiment are by A Muse and the little pink dots that you can barely see are by Alley Way Stamps.

I'm happy!

Speaking of being happy... Watch for ME in the July/August issue of Papercrafts Magazine! I'm so excited! I have tried a few times to get in there, it's a hard nut to crack. I'm so honored!

Not Crafts: Pimps

I'm not going to keep two blogs anymore. It has been over a year on the family blog. I'm going to preface not crafty posts with "Not Crafts" Then my craft only readers will know they can skip those. :)

So last night me and the boys wanted a bit of TV time. Because we have a DVR my kids think I can just play any show at anytime. I offered Dirty Jobs, they countered with Infested (which comes on tonight so I didn't have any taped yet). We settled on Pimp My Ride.

First of all Pimp My Ride sounds like a great show to watch with boys who love cars, but it's not really kid appropriate. I should have gotten a clue from the name.

Or from this question:

Stephen: Mommy, what's pimp mean?

So it goes like this:

Me: Well in this case it means to fix up a car, but more than just make it nice, add all sorts of extras onto it.

S: OK... What does it mean in another case.

Me: Well... It's an adult thing, kids don't need to know

S: *HATES THAT ANSWER* Mommy tell me! I can take it.

Me: No

S: *thinks for a bit* Mommy I wanna see your pimp! *trying the new word out without knowing what it means*

Me: Nope, doesn't work in that sentence *because I'm stupid and am leading this nonsense on*

S: Ok... Mommy I wanna pimp you!

Me: FINE! A pimp is a job that adults can have, but it's not a good job, it's an illegal job where a person does bad things. These people like to wear silly fancy clothes and drive silly fancy cars, hence a show about fixing up cars and adding silly stuff is called Pimp My Ride.

S: Oh, ok. You could have just told me that.

Me: *think I dodged a bullet AND had a funny conversation*

S: I like fancy silly things... I'm gonna be a pimp when I grow up.

Me: *parenting fail*

Thanks

Today I have a fun thank you card. These adorable stamps are by Gina K Designs. I colored with copics. I LOVE this super fat green stripe ribbon. I keep forgetting to tell you! I got ALL my cool orders a few days ago. They all came SUPER fast and on the same day. And I love my new stamps from Paper Smooches and Alley Way Stamps. I really think they have a similar look and work well together. I can't wait to share some stuff I make with them. And the ribbon/twine order from Etsy was great too. :)

In other news: Last night I started an episode of Tabitha Takes Over while folding laundry. Got 7 minutes into it and decided to cut my own hair. And it turned out great. So now my hair is shoulder length. It needed it, I still had some split ends, I assume from all the color I did last year.

The worst science

My boys collect rocks and shells and "sea glass" and those "sea beans". The collections were getting all over so I had a BRILLIANT idea. I emptied two of those huge pretzle containers from the warehouse stores, cleaned them all up and put the collections in. Then I filled them with water, because rocks and shells look nice with water. Then put a few drops of bleach to help them from getting algae in them. Shut them tight and put them up on shelves to enjoy.

That was fine, I loved it, rocks were no longer all over, they were in one place. I congratulated myself on my brilliance, I almost wrote a super mom blog post about it.

See we love science here, anything remotely resembling a science experiment is something you can expect to be going on here. We do NOT love unintentional science experiments.

Some reaction occured. I don't know what. Maybe the bleach and the sea beans? Could it have been water and sea beans? I mean we found the things IN THE OCEAN, how can they not be waterproof.

Our cat snuck in and slept in the kid's room a few nights. Sometimes she has accidents. Also the kid has pet rats in there. So I assumed the stink was pet related. Cleaned the room, cleaned the rat cage, so on. Stink still there. Changed sheets, cleaned the kid, asked about gas... Still stinky. So I took my nose on a hunt.

OHMYHECK PEOPLE. Do NOT do the sea crap in a plastic jug thing. Pretty please do NOT. I thought the water had gotten skunky. I wondered why I could smell it still shut, but ok. Take them to the sink to dump them out. HORROR. I mean HORROR PEOPLE. Something happened to the sea beans. They split open. But that's not all. The insides of them turned (or always was?) into a white goo. The white goo is the most horrible smelling smell EVER. We had a snail die on us once, that is supposed to be one of the worst smells on earth. I promise you whatever the white goo is that leaks out of a seabean after a few months in water is worse. A million times worse. You will want to die if you smell it. I'm thinking about moving. (not really)

Of course the boys instantly know what I'm thinking, "Throw it ALL away!" And they start begging me to save the collections some way. You know, some way that involves me further handling the horror.
So I dumped the collections on the patio. Had the boys shoo the chickens away and sprayed them. A LOT. Of course I discarded the sea beans. Then more spraying. Tonight after the chickens go to bed I am thinking about throwing bleach all over them. Then more water.

When they are dry they can come back inside and live in plastic jars again. But with no water.

I need 5 hot showers.

whaaaaa?

This giraffe (By Starvingartstamps) looks a little confused doesn't he? I colored him with copics. I think he's sweet. My bow is really strange on this one. I must have put an extra twist at some point. Weird. Stephen is staying home from school sick today. My poor Stephen gets sick pretty often. :( I do enjoy the super cuddle time though.

Calvin walks and almost runs now. He is trouble on two feet! It is a bundle of fun.

Ethan is in perfect health and doing great at school and happy and fun.

I have the best kids.

Sick Farm Animals

This poor cow just looks like she needs a perking up. All these images are by Gina K and I don't think I need to tell you I love me some farm stuff. :) Colored with Copics. Speaking of sick farm animals, my chickens appear to have pox. :( So I guess that's Chicken Pox. lol. I did a ton of reading, there is a vaccine, which I was SURE they had. I'm a little (not a little, a lot) miffed about that. Anyhow there is not really any treatment. You have to just wait it out. They should recover in 3-5 weeks. If it doesn't get involved in blocking any respiratory areas. Then it can be more serious. After they are healthy again I can buy and administer the vaccine, which I will, of course, do. In the future I'm going to vaccinate all my birds myself. It is spread by mosquitoes. You would think we wouldn't have any now, but I guess we do. It cannot spread to humans, but every time I touch them now I get all itchy like I think I'm getting it. It looks terribly painful. I'm sad for them.

Happy Glittery Birthday

About two years ago I made the most fantastic glittery flower card on clear cardstock. And it was lovely. Before I sent it to anyone it fell apart. But I spent too much time making the sucker to throw it out.

So finally, two years later I pulled the awesome glitter layered flower off and put it on a simple card:

The End

how special you are

LOVE this set by Papertrey. I think what I like best is the phrase. No, the leaf image. I dunno, just love it. I added some berry dots from another set. I don't think these leaves ever have berries. They are ginkgo right? Anyhow, whatever I like the added color. I used my number one all time favorite stamp on the background. Designer Wood grain by Hero Arts. SWOON.

I'm going to a crop tonight! I actually leave in a few minutes here. I have a HUGE stack of stuff to work on, but I'm going to submit most of it to Papercrafts mag. I then have to wait a bit to hear if anything gets in before I can show you the "rejects". Wish me luck! I've never gotten into Papercrafts.

I am, however, in the current issue of Just Cards magazine! :)

Scrapbooking tip.

ETA: Thanks Paige for the tip on making my title thingie fit right! It is perfect now. Everyone I hope you know who Paige Evans is, she's terribly famous and has the second cutest baby ever, and is a great scrapbooker and designer for American Crafts. :)

Today was Costco day. Actually yesterday was too which is stupid but it's a long story. Anyhow today is the day I brought a disk of photos.

So here is the scrapbook page I made today. I used the collage feature on the print kiosk. I picked the 11x14 collage, landscape, black borders. Then I picked 12 photos from my trip that I love. I had it auto fill the collage. You can move stuff but I didn't bother. I put a centered title and made sure it was short enough to fit on the center section. When I got home I sliced the whole thing into three long tall collages. One collage I cut again into two pieces. And WHAM my photos were all nicely arranged and matted, one of them with a page title on it! I simply added a journaling block and some accents and done.
And I also made plenty of prints to frame for my frame wall. Have I shown you that? I'll take a pic soon. Here are new pics I have to add to it.
I have more scrapbooking to do too. :)

Today was a good day. OH! I ordered a pile of new stamps and a pile of ribbon. Links!

All These Things Etsy shop. GREAT ribbon and bakers twine in a bunch of colors.

Alley Way Stamps is a new stamp company with stinking adorable clear stamps.

And Paper Smooches is Kim Hughes shop. I have not ordered but I used to be ADDICTED to her line at Cornish Heritage Farms, so I'm excited to get some of her new stuff.

All These Things has really reasonable shipping in case anyone wanted a medium or small order of ribbon and didn't want to spend a ton of shipping.

Both Alley Way and Paper Smooches have free shipping on orders of $40 so that's not bad. It works out to 3 stamp sets at about a total of $45.

I love Kim and expect that order to go smoothly, the other two are new to me so I'll let you know. I have been convo-ing with the Etsy shop owner Ryann and she is totally nice and cool so I expect that will go well too. I'll keep you posted.

Let's Talk

I love these cute mice from There She Goes! I just made an ultra simple card with them. I drew the lines using a ruler and a pen. The phrase is by Hero Arts. I'm not sure what the one mouse has to say to all those other mice, but it looks important. I hope they are listening well with their giant ears.

So I think I updated my title bar thingie. I'm not sure I love it. I made it out of actual paper and stickers, then edited it in photoshop. I don't know why it stays so small. I increased the size a ton and it still came out small. I've decided to just like it small. I think I'd LOVE it if it filled the space better. Honestly I'm not very excited by the idea of working on it anymore. I read all blogs in google reader so I don't think too much about what the blog itself looks like. I just wanted something a little new.

thank you CASE and lighting

I have seen this idea a few times on the net. I'm not sure where I saw it most recently, but I decided it was time to give it a go. Basically it is just almost cutting the leaves out, but leaving them attached some. Then I put tiny bits of foam tape under them near where they are still attached. Mounted that whole piece on another piece of white cardstock. You get a nice 3D thing going on. Subtle, but nice.

I know I'm always looking for new ways to photograph my cards well so I'm going to share mine. The first pic is how the whole setup looks on my desk:

Here is the butterfly clip from that setup. Not too bad for at night with no natural light available.The white background thing is a mini science fair project board I found at Hobby Lobby. It was $3.99, then on some percentage off deal. I like it because it stays up nicely. I used to do the two sheets of cardstock sort of leaned to an L shape but they would always fall and stuff and drive me crazy. I put a sheet of print paper that I think goes fine under the front of the project board to finish the look. I use the two lamps I happen to own and use at my desk. They are totally different. I tell myself the ott light's white light offsets the incandescent light's yellow tones nicely.

Love You

I love cards like this where I get to go through all my scraps. I just punch a ton of hearts in any papers I like. I knew I wanted white so I didn't do too much cream based stuff. Then I picked out the hearts I wanted to actually use. I dumped the rest in a little jar I have for such an event. They are all on foam tape. Easy peasy!

Today I'm going to tell you a silly thing I do. When I feel like some retail therapy I pick an online store I like. Last night it was twopeasinabucket.com. I go through all the categories that ever interest me and fill a cart. I had like $250 in my cart. Then I walk away for a bit. Then I come back and edit the cart. I usually get rid of the expensive splurge things first. I then try to decide how much enjoyment I will REALLY get from each thing. Get rid of the things I don't think are then worth it. At this point my cart was about $60. Then I figure out what the shipping and such would be. And how long it would take to arrive. I love online shopping, but I don't like to wait more than about a week for stuff. Then I usually just empty the cart and that's the whole exercise. No actual stuff purchased. It is so super weird. This morning I did sneak away from the fam to hit a sale at Hobby Lobby. I bought two paper packs and two single sheets of paper. I like them. I'm happy. It was $11. Two of the packs I had in my online cart they did have there, part of the 50% off sale, but guess what? I didn't like them in real life! Weird.

No lesson to that story, just random sharing.

One layout three cards

I recently bought a roll of black washi tape with white polkadots on it. It goes with the Smashbooks line. I don't have a Smashbook, just the tape.

I cannot stop using this tape! I'm totally addicted to it. It is sort of freaking me out. I've not been showing all the PILES of Christmas cards I've been making with it, but believe me... tons.

Here are three super simple cards with it.
I love this chicken stamp! I picked it up the other day at Big Lots. I think it originated in either the Joannes or Michaels Dollar Bins. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set. Colored with pencil and OMS.
Here we have an adorable Gina K duckie. I have a whole set with these cute ducks. Pencil and OMS again.
And this one. These boys are colored to be reminiscent of my two oldest boys. They are from an awesome set by There She Goes. I love that store for painfully adorable stamps.

Well it is the new year in 9 minutes. So good luck with that and all. I'm not that into resolutions and such.