Creativity...

Between blogs and forums and galleries I sometimes feel like I have so much creativity that's it's coming out my ears. I haven't created a card or a scrapbook page in a couple weeks, or more, and this week I feel like I just want to make something. However life gets in the way, as usual. I was "spring cleaning" my house all last weekend and I mean ALL weekend because my Aunt and Uncle from South Dakota are in town and we invited them over. So the procrastinator in me said, "You know, you can just get it all done on Saturday."

The procrastinator in me apparently doesn't know time management because not only did it not take "Saturday" to get everything done, but all day Sunday too. The only good part about this whole thing is that everything is now clean and I can enjoy the clean until Hurricane Elijah and Tropical Storm Joe blow through it. But back to the topic...

I've seen so many wonderful things these past two weeks like this layout by GJCole at Digital Freebies(click on the picture to go to the gallery and give her some love):



I love the clear polka dotted bracket, it gave me an idea for a card. To help things along with my inspiration for this card, Joe got me some stuff from ACMoore on Sunday, for my anniversary present. This is what he got me:



Hampton Arts embossing powder in assorted colors.

Embossing ink

A heat gun... or the "PC" term - Heat tool.

And...


A wooden polka dot stamp

Plus for good measure, white StazOn ink. I was debating on this and decided to get it, but it was meant to be because when we got up to the register the girl rang it up for $1 cause she couldn't find the price (it was really $14.99)

We shall see what comes from this burst of inspiration. Hopefully I'll have a card to show everyone on Monday. :-)

Video of the Week

This is Elijah playing with his Sesame Street software program. He was having fun until Big Bird showed up... Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNrtD28ToNk

Video of the week... Happens to be on a Monday

Movie Monday is back... atleast for this week.

This time the video needs a back story or you won't get it. We've been reading to Elijah since, basically day 1. We would read before he would "go to bed for the night". Once we established a bedtime routine (when he was sleeping through the night), we would read 3-4 books to him, then it was sleepy time.

When he got older we put the books on the bookshelf or lying around, so if he wanted to look at them and "read", he could. One of his favorite books to flip through is Farm Friends. I tried to find a picture of it, but couldn't. (If I wasn't afraid that this wouldn't get posted until next month, I would go home and take a picture of it) It's a fun little book that rhymes and says what each animal says, for instance, "How does the cow say 'how do you do?' Moo moo moo". "How does the duck say 'ya'll come back?' Quack quack quack.

So last night we asked him to "read" Farm Friends to us and this is what we heard:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKymrLcKs0

Please excuse my annoying laughing and the camera shaking. I couldn't help myself... It was sooo cute. I loved how he did "da da da" for the question, then "gee gee" or whatever for the answer. :-)

So until next time... I'm out.

Movie of the month (haha) and a layout

I have been slacking... which is horrible, especially when in my last post I said I wanted to get better at updating. After that post a new lady started in Petty Cash and I have been so stressed out that I have to go out somewhere during lunch, plus it gives my nose a break since she smokes, so half the time I can hardly breathe and I sneeze all the time. Then today my nose started bleeding because it's so irritated all week. Thank God I will be out of there on the 27th, then hopefully I'll be able to start posting again during lunch, on a regular basis.

Ok, enough complaining out of me, onto the movie of the week:




Elijah was helping his Grandma vaccum her kitchen.


I also finally got a layout done today. Apparently the only way for me to get a layout done the same day that I start it is if all the following happens

1. I start with a sketch
2. Elijah sleep for 2-2.5 hours
3. Joe is not around
4. I am at my parents house doing laundry (cause my washer died)
5. I can't log onto the Internet
6. I have an assigned kit that I need to use
7. I know the pictures and subject I want to use, ahead of time.

And this was the outcome:

Everything is the Digital Freebies Mega Kit "Arizona Summer"

The journaling reads: "You certainly love your bubbles. You could play with them for a good 30 minutes, just trying to catch them and pop them. You are facinated by the fact that some hit the ground, but don't pop. Of course, when they do, they are no match for your little fingers.

I love how you take joy in the little things, like popping bubbles and swinging. I hope you continue to for the rest of your life."

I'm out. I'll try to update again soon, atleast with another video.

Cards, Cards and More Cards

These past few weeks have been packed full of cards. So much so that I have 4 cards to share with you today.

This is the birthday card I gave to my Mother-in-law for her birthday. I had to include little fat birds, of course. And this time I tried something new (I also did it with the card for my Father-in law)... I got out my big stamping block and instead of stamping the 3 things separately I put all of them on the block and arranged them how I wanted them, then stamped once and they were exactly how I wanted them. This is probably old news to stampers, but I'm just figuring this stuff out.

Paper and card - DCWV
Fiskar Clear Stamps, Tags and Words - Birds
Greetings Clear Stamps - Happy Birthday
Fiskars corner rounder punch
StazOn black ink
Cutter Bee Scizzors
Dove Blender Pen
ColorBox chalk ink

This is the card for my Father-in-law for his birthday and Father's day.

Card stock - DCWV
Studio G Series 14 Stamp - Grill
Studio G Series 30 Stamp - dad
Dove Blender Pen
ColorBox chalk ink
StazOn black ink
Cutter Bee Scizzors

Just as an FYI, I used the StazOn ink and my blender pen to color in the gray for the charcoal inside the grill. I should have realized that once you put StazOn on a clear block, it doesn't come off again. Next time I shall be using my ColorBox black ink instead...

This is the card I made from Elijah to Joe for Father's day. For cards for Joe I always go out of my comfort zone... which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. I decided to make a little letter for the front.

Orange card stock - I believe it's Papertrey Ink (not positive though)
Blue card stock - Bo Bunny (YAY)
Yellow card stock - DCWV
Studio G Series 30 Stamp - daddy
Studio G Series 26 Stamp - I *heart* you
Studio G Series 31 Stamp - You Rock and Guitar
Making Memories Epoxy Shapes Boy Primary - Baseball and Football
Can't find what brand on anything the "fun" embellishment is. It was in the dollar section at Joann Fabrics.

This... Is the card I made my dad for Father's day. It's an oragami shirt and tie card. Crafty Creations - a blog I read - posted a link to THIS video on how to do an oragami shirt and tie, so I gave it a shot and I really like how it turned out.

Paper and card - DCWV
Studio G Series 30 Stamp - Happy Father's Day

That is all for today. I'll probably post my video of the week, tomorrow and then DYL on Friday. I'm trying to be better about updating this thing, so we'll see how that goes.

I feel so accomplished

This past weekend was good and bad. But I'll only blog about the good. So you know that list of things I had to do by Tuesday... I got a chunk of it done. I made a card...

Actually I made 3 on Friday night, after Elijah went to bed, but I can't show the other two yet. This one is for our friends Steve and Brie. I made it at like 1:30am... so the next day I looked at it and didn't like how the pen marks skipped on the paper, so I found a black marker and redid the "stitching" and the names. :-D

DCWV paper
Greetings Clear Stamps - Thinking of You
Frog Punch (I'll have to go home and look at the maker, cause I can't find it online)
Black marker

We went to lunch on Saturday for my my mother-in-law and father-in-law's birthdays. It was yummy and Elijah was surprisingly well behaved. Afterward we went over their house to visit some. Marie brought out some chunky jewelry for me to look through. I picked out a pair of earrings, but couldn't find anything else I liked. I'm just gonna go to the Goodwill that's up the street from our house to get some rings and a bracelet or 3. That's another thing that's partly checked off my list.

Then Sunday a tree fell in our backyard. Well... we found out about it Sunday, turns out it actually fell on Thursday. Apparently we don't go in our backyard much. Joe was busy for most of the day chopping it up with my dad. So my mom, Elijah and I went to Kohls to look for a black dress. And I found one! I didn't know it would be that easy. There were 3 that I picked out of the like 20 to choose from. This is one that was chosen out of those:

It's fancier than it looks in this picture. It has two layers on the bottom, so the top layer flies out a little bit when I spin, then the top has gathers... I guess that's what you call them. If you go to this website you can zoom in on the top and see what I'm talking about.

So that was my weekend. Hopefully my week will be as good or better. I have dance practice tonight, tomorrow and Thursday, then dress rehearsal is Friday and the show is Saturday. I can't believe it's this close. Time to tap tap tap... I'm out.

Azalea and Movie of the Week

There are certain times when I really wonder where Azalea came from and who she lived with for the first year of her life. If you didn't know, Azalea is our dog.

Precious(Azalea) the day we first saw her

We got her from the SPCA 3 years ago. All the other dogs were barking up a storm, but there sat Precious (that was her name before we changed it) curled in a ball in the front of her cage, with the sadest eyes. I saw her and fell in love. I showed her to Joe, so then we asked if we could go out and play with her. Joe rolled a ball along the ground, she watched it like, "What do you want me to do with that?". She was potty trained and knew how to sit and heel. We talked about it and decided to get her. That is when the adventure began.

We have been through a lot with her - kennel cough, anxiety, intestinal parasites and really bad allergic reactions to flea bites... Which brings me to why I thought to blog about her. The other day she went to the bathroom on the floor(which she doesn't do hardly at all), so when I saw it I yelled "DOG!". She went to the side door and was cowering. She wouldn't come to me even when I had a treat to give her. So that got me thinking... I wonder if that's what her old owners would call her when she was in big trouble. How did they treat her? Was it an older person who raised her? She's so low key, it wouldn't surprise me. Was she an only puppy? Where did they get her from? Why did they give her up? But I guess we'll never know. I don't know why I even think about it.

So, onto another topic. The movie of the week. We have another edition of "What does a ____ say? According to Elijah" Today's edition is "The Cow".

That's all from me for now. I have to attempt to make 4 cards and a scrapbook page before next Tuesday all while looking for the perfect black dress and chunky jewelry for my costume for the dance show on the 20th (You would think I love procrastinating by how much I do it.). So you'll probably be hearing from me again pretty soon.

Cards and DYL Again

This week has been non-stop stuff. It all started last Thursday when Joe called me up and was like, "You wanna go to Ocean City Monday to Wednesday?" (cause I took Tuesday and Wednesday off from work to stay home with Elijah) We went back and forth about it. Joe called someone we knew and asked if she thought it would be crowded. She said no and then offered for us to stay in their condo for free. That was a deal breaker, we were going. So that meant we had to scramble Friday, Saturday and Sunday to buy stuff and pack.

To add to all of this Saturday morning we were playing around with a ball in the house... Which happened to knock over a vase of flowers that had water in it also, um, right on my cell phone. Which promptly died. So I went to AT&T to get a new phone and change to pay as you go. More drama ensued.

During all that I managed to find time to make two cards. One for my dad for his birthday that I didn't know we were celebrating til that day:

I'm getting smarter about this whole credit thing. I have started taking pictures of the supplies I used for reference for when I post the pictures: (Don't ask why it's sideways... I can't figure out why it's doing that when I upload it and I can't figure out how to turn it)

DCWV card base
DCWV card stock cut into triangle and into strips
Mini Glue Dots
Dementionals to make the triangle pop off the page
Greetings Clear Stamps - Happy Birthday
ColorBox Ink
Cutter Bee Scissors

I also made a Thank You card for the couple that let us use the condo, because I wanted to just be able to write inside and mail it when we got back.

I really wanted to use a chipboard frame on this, but I couldn't find any the size I wanted, anywhere. So I just made due without.

There's a bunch of stuff for this one
DCWV card base and card stock
ColorBox ink
Mini Glue Dots
Greetings Clear Stamps - Thank You
Sassafras Lass Borders Clear Stamps
G - Clear Stamps - Little flower and leaf
Fine Lines Narrow Shear Ribbon
Fiskars Adhesive
StazOn Black Ink
Cutter Bee Scissors
Cutter Bee Retractable Knife
Blender Pen
Black Pen

I'll write more about Ocean City in my next entry, so I'll leave you with DYL.

I love my Blender Pen

I had to order it from Amazon because nowhere around here had it and it took like 3 weeks to arrive, but it was well worth the wait. It's so easy to just pick it up, put ink on a clear block and color. And it's easy to clean... All you do is keep coloring on a piece of scratch paper until it's colors clear and that's it. I love it.

Let me know what you love this week.

Movie of the Week and a Card

I have decided that Movie Monday is never going to be Movie Monday again... Atleast not until the middle of June (after my dance show). So I have decided that it will be called "The movie of the week". Yes, I am copying off of the Hallmark channel, but it works.

This week's movie is one of the many things that Elijah likes to do now:





And now even though 90% of you saw this card already in person. I thought the other 10% would like a look. This is the birthday card I made for Charlotte:

It was super easy to make. I did the lettering with wordle.net, then fiddled with it in PSE until I got what I wanted. Clipped it (in PSE language) into the cupcake picture. Printed it out on regular white paper then used scrapbook adhesive to "glue" it onto some thick cardstock, then cut out the shape and used dementionals to put it on the pink cardstock, so it would pop up. Fold and done.

I'm thinking about making one like it for father's day, but with different colors and shape of course. We'll see how that goes.

Other than that, nothing interesting is going on. I'm out.

Cards and DYL

I have been planning on updating this thing for like a week but I never had the time, but now I'll just share a few things and leave the other things for another post (which hopefully won't be 2 weeks from now).

Lately I've been getting into card making. It's actually quite relaxing. I'm building up my stash so I can just go in there and pick out things instead of having to run to the store for the specific item I need... or think I need ;-). So anyway, here are the first few cards that I've made.

I gave this one to my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. She loves little fat birds, so when I saw this stamp that was a little fat bird, I just had to get it. I have no idea about a lot of products I used, except the button is Bo Bunny (aka Shabby Princess in the digital world) and the green polkadot paper is DCWV - Nana's Kids. I have a feeling I'm gonna have to get used to this whole credit thing... If you want to know any other things, I can look and let you know asap.

This was the card I gave my mom for Mother's Day. I got nothin' for the credits.

This is a card I'm going to give our friend Gulzat at her baby shower. I took the picture next to a pair of scissors so you could tell how little it is. It's BABY sized. :-) So yeah, um... I think the stiching around the outside of the yellow is a fiskars stamp. The letters for "baby" are alphabet wooden stamps (I have no idea what brand they are, but they were on clearance at JoAnn's for like $2 (down from $12.99), so I had to get them and now I'm glad I did). The paper is DCWV.

Charlotte's birthday card will be my next project. :-D

Now for Declare Your Love. I would do card making, but that's a little over the top for this entry. So...

I love Carter's clothing

Carter's clothes are so cute and I have an abundance of babies to buy them for. One of them is having a birthday party tomorrow, so tonight I'm going shopping. I'll have to see what ultra cute outfit I can get for her... And of course I'll have to get a few... I mean several outfits for my favorite little boy. I'll probably pick up something for Penelope and Samuel while I'm at it too. Fun times.