It's A Pity

Well, once again, I have things to show you. but I can't. I tried to upload a photo a minute ago and just can't seem to get it done. Since I blog in the daytime and my husband is at work, I really do have to wait till he comes home to help me. He's a great guy and I can call him for help now and then, but I can tell diagnosing and solving my problems over the phone might not be what he lives to do.

Seth has been begging me to bring him food at lunch time. I finally gave in to his request and was hoping he would want Taco Bell or Wendy's. No, he wanted Subway. He eats turkey sandwiches every day for lunch and then he says he is tired of them and wants me to bring him in some food. So what does he want? A turkey sandwich! I gave in and got the kid what he wanted and shared half the sandwich with him. He likes to eat a footlong all by himself, but today I made him share. I have been trying to save money and cutting back on lunches out is part of that, but my budget isn't any happier yet.

I did go to Kohl's and scored five shirts for $25.00. You gotta love it when everything you want is 80% off. One shirt cost a whopping $9.60, so that means I got four more shirts for under $15.00. At least my husband knows I try to be frugal. I am so pleased with my score, too! What I really need is a hot pink shirt to match a skirt I have. I should have bought a white shirt and dyed it pink with my tie dye dyes. Now that is thinking! If only I had thought about it when I was at the store!

Christmas Magic

I feel so guilty about posting a note telling you all about how fun Christmas was, and not posting any photographic evidence. You'll just have to believe me for me, I can't locate the camera.

The kids loved their squirt guns, marshmallow shooters and DS games, but the biggest hit might have been their flannel sheets and featherbed mattress pads. Okay, they aren't real feather beds, because I am allergic to down. I got them some kind of fake poofy mattress pad. The combination of soft, warm sheets and extra soft bedding made them actually WANT to go to bed and try out their new items. And best of all, they slept in till 9:30 this morning, which is unheard of around here.

I got some stamping stuff and Scott got some books and clothes and we had my parents visit for lunch. It was a nice day and I even snuck in a little nap. Then we went out for our traditional Chinese dinner. Mmmmm. I hope your day was as nice and quiet and soothing as mine was.

Oh, I almost forgot....I got a new phone. Yes, my 8 year old phone that does not even have camera capabilities was replaced Christmas morning with a phone that even has GPS and e mail. WooooHoooo!! Now we'll see if I can learn how to use it. I gotta learn to text, too. everyone else is doing it.

Christmas Glory

I am busy with the full swing of Christmas in all its glory. I have been shopping and wrapping and baking. Oh, and creating. The necklace and bracelet set are a new idea that I have been playing around with for a couple of weeks now. They are more organic than planned out. You pick a couple of opaque colors and nice dark ivory and swirl the colors together with the help of gravity. The set is going to Mary, who is Scott's Sunday school teaching partner. For years he has had teachers assigned to him who don't show up, don't care, don't want to do it. But Mary comes, and leads and is relieable, lovable, and happy to be there. Her husband is a full time artist (painter) so I think she will really like what I made for her. Plus, I sure don't want to teach Third Grade Sunday school, so I think Mary deserves a great present.
This Obama card and Christmas tree ornament are for my friend Stephanie. Sorry about the glare, I cut the photo out of Newsweek and they use glossy paper, so it shines a bit.

Mr. Obama looks good in real life in my ornament, even if he doesn't look clear in the photo. It's caused by the reflection and of the glue tape on the back of the clear acrylic. I made the ornament out of a clear acrylic block (think clear stamp holder) and a piece of an adhesive sheet. The gingham ribbon also frames the outside of the ornament. Seth was with me when Steph got her gifties today and he asked me "Mommy, did you see when Miss Stephanie got her gifts that she did a happy dance?" She sure does love our President Elect, as well as surprise presents.

Lastly, this ornament was a gift from my friend Rebecca in our Homemade Christmas exchange. I have never seen this done before, so you know I want to try it. She explained that she used a regular round ornament and put Sculpey clay around it. She added the face, made also from Sculpey and cooked it in the oven. I am amazed, and have been thinking of the possibilities ot ornaments I can make now. She also gave us some yummy Sugar Cookie mix, which I used before I took any photos. Whoops!

Tell me what you are making for Christmas. Or what you are giving, if you have something fun or surprising on your list for someone. I could still use ideas. I am never realy ready to stop with Christmas till Dec 26th!

Out on a Limb

SplitCoast has their Wednesday Sketch Challenge in full swing and I am offering up for your interest my entry. The stamps are all from Ppapertrey Ink. I used their Out on a Limb set as well as a bird from Birds of a Feather. The quote says " The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you." I wasn't sure when to stp adding embellishments to this card. I hope I stopped before I totally went overboard. I think the card is tasteful, not tacky.

It will likely be several days before I blog again. The kids have Fall Break from school for the next few days and we are headed out to a weekend get away with them. We decided to go to Louisville and see the Louisville Slugger factory and check out Mammoth Caves. Scott is more interested in the caves than I am, but I am a good sport. Plus the kids have never been to see them. Well, at least not that they can remember. Noah is very excited about the get away. This is definitely a trip we planned with his interests in mind.

Years ago Scott and I drove to Florida and he told me as soon as we left the house that we were driving with a destination in mind and not stopping to lollygag along the way. That lasted all of two hours until we got to Kentucky and he started to see ads for Mammoth Cave. He started to tell me how he'd always wanted to go and his parents would never stop, whine, whine, whine. So we stopped and he was very happy. My revenge came on the way home when I made him take a detour to Plains, Georgia. We liked both side trips enough that we have returned to both of those places and even have a beautiful photo of Jimmy Carter holding a baby Noah.

I don't know what is up with blogger, but I seem to have lost the ability to make paragraphs. Yes, I do know where they are needed, I just cannot seem to make them happen. It's an odd blogging quirk. Sometimes I can make paragraphs, sometimes not.

A Big Bunch Of Nothing

I am very sorry for the delay in postings, but our computer modem has not been able to stay on for any length of time. My husband finally fixed the problem and now I have access again! Man, I have missed the outside world. I did have a birthday while I was away. Seth stacked up the stamps I purchased for my present. I know, you can't really see them well, but I promise to use them and post my cards and such so you can see what I got.

Always the helpful child, here Seth poses holding my birthday present purse. It is stinkin' cute in real life. As for Noah, he does not care much about the festivities until its time for cake and ice cream. Scott surprised me with an ice cream cake from Oberweiss. Mmmmm

I have made some cards but need to spend some time cleaning up my camera photos and cleaning my desk so I can post them. Soccer season is almost over for Noah and I am so excited! He is on one of the worst teams in the league, doesn't like his coach, isn't having fun and is torturing me by his constant whining. His first tournament game is tonight and I am so hoping his team loses and he is done for the season. If they win, they play again on Saturday.

Seth and I are going to Stamp Camp tonight so we will miss the game. The only nice thing I can say about soccer is that the weather has been great for all the games.

Long Weekend

It may be Labor Day for the rest of you, but I am hard at work for your viewing pleasure! The card above was made with the new set, Cats, that is coming out from Hanna Stamps on Friday. I put the cats together in a unique way because they just called out to me that they were really naughty kitties. Let's face it, I am a dog person, so I am sure whatever these cats are up to, it's bad.

The paper is from a DCWV pack from Target and the layout is a previous sketch challenge from Jen over at SplitCoast. I colored with copics and added some ribbon.

We celebrated my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary this weekend. Noah was actually born on their 38th anniversary and as I showed their first grandchild off I challenged my brother to top that as a present! We are still waiting. However, my parents still seem to love my brother, even though I give the best presents!

We went to a little place that serves food family style and none of us had been there in years, although it was somewhere we went when we were children. They serve food family style, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, homemeade apple butter, good green beans cooked with ham and onions.....you get the idea. The kind of food you should be eating for Sunday dinner with the family. I loved it, and I love to see my neice Chelsi, who is a great little crafter.

My neighbors had a cook out yesterday and seth and I went. Scott went on a bike ride and Noah stayed home to play nintendo. Noah noticed about 8 PM that he hadn't had dinner. Well, dinner was served next door and he opted not to go!

A nice lazy weekend, I am loving this. Only my BFF Steph is in akarate Tournament and not here to play with me. The good news? She got First Place in the padded sword fighting divsion. You go, Girl!

Friends

When I was at Bev's in Dallas I inked up some of her Inky Antics Stamps. She used to be on their Design Team and I could not resist using these stamps together to make a big Texas card. I used the word welcome from an SU set, because that is how she made us feel. I like most of the cards I make, but I truly LOVE this card. I may add more paper to the sides and frame it and put it in my guest room. The stars are from the SU set Starstruck. It is the perfect Texas accessory set. (I popped up the stars on pop dots). The coloring is a little off, I took the photo outside but didn't use my flash.

Mr. Miller, the school counselor called me yesterday to explain Noah's placement. I am a little calmer and he is aware of the possible bullying situation. I also got a phone call from someone at the elementary school and another teacher has been added to Third Grade. I did feel peace like a river sweep through my soul, and thankfully, it didn't seem to take any time at all. For once I got the answer I wanted from my prayers. And quick!

Frantic Friday

Here I am, looking like woman who can't decide which craft she wants to settle on. I start today with a card made from the new Hanna Stamps set, Spring Time. The paper is from Cloud Nine and you'll find some flowers, pearl bling, velvet ribbon, corner punches and copics used here.
This is a real life story for me, whatever I plant in the yard the rabbits come to eat. I guess I should be thankful it's not the coyotes that stop by to get a bite to eat. It makes me miss my old neighborhood as I had a neighbor who had a collection of guns in his home and I always wanted him to shoot at the varmints for me. He wouldn't do it, though. Something about firearms laws in the city.....The government reguates everything fun. :) Then I took an example from noted stamper Becky Oehlers, who found some adorable Martha Stewart kitchen towels and stamped on them. I had to track down a K Mart to get these, but the price was right. I think I got 4 towels for $6.99. I'll have to check the receipt though as none of the items at K Mart had prices on them. If they took some of the mystery out of shopping, maybe they'd get more business? I used the Best Blossoms set from Stampin UP and used Certainly Celery, Ballet Blue, Real Red, and Apricot Appeal. I just love their stamp names ( almost as much fun as OPI nail polish colors).

Then I dredged out another old Stampin Up set, On Angel's Wings and stamped with Stazon Ink on a tumbled tile from Lowe's. It would look better colored in, but I don't want to ruin the water resistance that it currently has. The tile and towel are gifts, but I can't say for who, as she stops by the blog on occasion.

Happy Friday. We got more snow last night so I am just staying home and staying warm with my crafts today.

Death By Food

Well, almost. I got a case of food poisoning on Monday and it has taken me this long to recover. I have been in bed since Monday evening, it's now Thursday. I got up to run an errand with the boys yesterday and came straight home to bed again. I got up to take care of Seth this morning and realized that we were out of bread. He wanted toast for breakfast, which I made him. But then he wanted peanut butter and jelly for lunch. I had to call a neighbor and ask her to make a sandwich and take it to him at the bus stop.

I met a friend for lunch today and had some soup. I stopped at the grocery and got a rotisserie chicken for dinner. Happy Valentine's Day! I hope Scott appreciates the effort I put into making a meal. I know the children won't. I have to try to feed the little whiners, though. I think it's part of the parenting agreement.

Our Poor Dog

Noah was so proud. He gave the dog a bath! Well, a shower really. Noah was in the shower and he saw the dog, so he grabbed her and pulled her in. He told me later that she was all clean. I asked what he washed her with and he said "The Princess Shampoo." Being the tomboy mother of two sons, I was unaware that we had princess shampoo. Noah said of course we did, it was the stuff in the pink bottle for colored hair, and since Kadi is colorful, he thought it was perfect.

I don't actually know what type of shampoo it is. He is right, it is for colored hair, which mine is. But since it is the only shampoo in the house we all use it. You see, I buy a bottle of shampoo and we use it till its gone, then I buy more shampoo, whatever is cheap and available at Target or WalMart. I read somewhere that the average house has something like 7 different types of shampoo in it. What? Think of all the money you could have for crafting with!

Sleep Deprived

I did not sleep well a couple nights ago and slept a lot yesterday. I couldn't decide if I had picked up a bug that is going around or not. I think not, I am just tired. I don't know what brought on the lack of sleep, but sometimes there is a lot going on in my head, too many ideas, and they keep me up at night.

Last night I had a dream that Scott took away my driving priveldges on my new red van as I kept getting speeding tickets. I have no idea where that came from, except everyone believes that red cars get more tickets. Speedy red cars maybe, not middle aged mini van driving ladies.

Above is Riley Moose from Hanna Stamps. this is an easter Riley. I love him and his little chicken friend too. Now I need a set of cute chicken stamps, like SU used to have. Riley needs some animal friends and maybe this chicken is just a start. There are so many silly chicken sayings like "Best of Cluck" Or "Just Chickin In." Got any good Moose sayings? I sure don't. But I love my sweet Riley anyway.

It Feels Like Spring

Yes, spring. Why? Must be the grey rainy weather. Thankfully it is warmer today and the rain is just a bit of sprinkles here and there. I woke up and took some Excedrin and then I was so hopped up on caffeine that I started to clean my house. I even opened the doors to air it out a bit and get some of those yucky germs out. I mopped the kitchen floor, did several loads of laundry, including bed sheets and am looking for dinner recipes.

The Hanna Stamps card above is from the Rainy Day set, which seems perfect for today. The transparency technique might be the death of me though. I had to buy a whole box of transparency sheets, so I will be making these cards till I die, I fear. You know I cannot allow a perfectly good box to go to waste. It must be used. I couldn't get a good picture without the flash on the card, and now I can see fingerprint smudges too. Oh well, life is all about living and learning isn't it? And some lessons get learned the hard way.

As for an update on the kids, they need more supervision than they have been getting. In the beginning it was nice to know kids could play in the basement and I could shut the door and they'd all be happily getting along. Lately the kids are spending too much time on the computer. I am in and out of the basement a lot and have never seen anything inappropriate on the screen. That does not mean that they have not been looking! Yesterday one of the kids (a neighbor girl) said the boys were looking for certain images on the computer. We ran a history and they have been spending a lot of time at moron.com. (Well, they are 11-12 year old boys). They were actually watching people sink in quicksand and things like that, but they were searching for things we would find inapppropriate for them to see. Thankfully, they did not find anything. The computer is now on lock down and the neighbor kids are not allowed to use it. I gathered the guilty parties and threatened to call their parents, too.

I am thinking of making the kids sign an agreement about behavioral rules in my home and expell or suspend their household entrance based upon their behavior.

Joy and Dismay

The football season is over. I love football season. My friend Steph made an off hand comment recently about me not being a football fan. Not true. Not at all. Just not a hometown team fan. When I grew up I didn't have a hometown team. So, if you were a football fan, you found your own team to love. I am so very happy that the Giants won the Super Bowl last night. You don't want to know how much disdain I have for Bill Beliceck. I would personally find it fun to flog that fat cheater myself.
I was asked to make a little something for a charity auction. I made the matching bracelet and earrings, but can't decide on the necklace. I made a focal bead just for this necklace, but can't decide if I like it. The silver is clean in real life, not tarnished like it looks here. I use sterling silver and the swarovski crystals make this piece really stand out and shine, shine, shine. I am waiting for some silver chain I ordered to come in so I can finish this piece and deliver it to it's auction. I think the three piece set will do well for them.

Tell me if the focal bead should stay or go. I think without that bead, this piece is much more wearable on a daily basis.

I forgot to crop down the Hanna Stamps Moose at the top of this post. I love little Riley Moose in his chair, chillin' out and havin' hot chocolate. It's the kind of dayI would like to have right now. The paper is from Chatterbox and I colored him with copics.