Not for me!!!

My friend Amy and I are throwing a shower for another friend who already had her baby. Long story but she was not around before the baby was born so we had to wait. I always end up doing a diaper cake when I throw a shower. After a few (HA!) I have gotten pretty good at it. What do you think? I need to run to JoAnn's and find those cute little bees they sell made from pipecleaners. Do you know the ones I mean? With the net wings? Maybe you are asking why. All the stuff on the cake is Burt's Bees for babies!!! And a stuffed bear to go on the top.

Our theme is lots of bright blues and greens since he is already here we thought little boy style was more fun. The cake does not match but the Burt's Bees stuff was too stinkin cute! I also put in a picture of the invite with the info blurred.

Up or down, who cares!

I have a down-line meeting Thursday. What's that mean? Well, basically the woman (and good friend) I signed up under to become a SU demo has a meeting and everyone who signed up under her or under them (that is starting to get confusing) is invited. Translation: a bunch of SU demos sharing ideas, projects, swaps and talking about the latest SU gossip and our lives. A nice night out.


Here is the project I will be sharing. It uses my new background I had not even inked until today. I love the white gel pen accents. But of course, better in real life!

Sad and Happy

I learned this morning that the prophet of our church, Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last night. My first thoughts were how happy he would be to be reunited with his beloved wife. But then I was sad because I will miss him. I loved his sense of humor, his gentle nature and all he did for us.

More room pics

Now that I know some of you are out there reading it is more incentive to post. Here I thought I was just posting into thin air!


Here are more pics of my stamping area. Some of you asked how I store stamps and paper and I thought I would show you my actual desk where I create - while it was actually cleaned off!!!

Don't you think there is too much empty space? Definately could use more stamps!!! What you don't seee are all my retired ones I keep and use. The top left corder are backgrounds. I hope to have them out of their boxes and on a shelf so I can see them! The whole bottom shelf are words. I am a BIG sucker for the word stuff. More than flowers even!!! Got to have just the right sentiment for every occassion.

The container was a bargain several years ago at Staples. It has mettal side rails or I surely would have killed it many years ago!
Obviously no magic at the moment, it is WAY too clean!!!This little oragnizer makes me less stressed. I saw this in a friend's stamping room (thanks for sharing your AWESOME space Cindy!) and LOVED it. So when I found it on sale with a coupon just before Christmas I offered to buy it for Gregg to give to me. I am so helpful when it comes to his Christmas shopping. Tee Hee! I actually put my tools back in rather than loosing them on my desk! Novel. It is all at my fingertips and organized.Found this yesterday. Only one left at Michael's and the manager wanted it out since they had no more coming in and he let me have it for $5!!! They are $23 (not the price I pay!) at Target! Did the happy dance. Not sure what to do with it. I was looking for one with a glass door or some desktop ones. Still on the hunt.

As promised

The stamping room is as good as it gets for now. I will post more pics later. Everything has to be temporary while we continue to try and find the time and energy to finishe the basement. I am just grateful to have a space I can leave the mess in!

But I did get back to stamping. Here is the polka dot fat chef I promised.

This little creation is done with some "other" stamps. I have a birthday tag swap due tomorrow (sorry so last minute Lisa!) and that meant I could use ANYTHING! It was great because I have never even used my kraft ribbon.

I am off to a workshop up north as soon as the boys are out of school and then a sleepover at the Grandparents. Gregg will enjoy a quiet night!

A beautiful sight!

Here is my happy picture.

Don't get me started

I can easily be described as a morning person. Even in college I was dork going to bed most nights by 10 or 11pm and taking all the morning classes since they were easy to get into and I could have all my classes done by noon.

For me to stay up until 11pm last night meant something was up. I started putting the organizer cubes together and once I start a project, I like to finish. I was having a REALLY good time moving things around. I could have kept going but the sensible side that remembered I had to take three children to church in the morning went to bed.

Now I need to organize and put everything in its place and label it. Oh that makes me soooooooooo happy. Probably won't happen today though. The family keeps mentionig they are hungry, I have my seminary lessons to prep for the week and it is probably the best Sunday activitity. Good thing Gregg has tomorrow off!!!!

When we first got married he liked to play computer games and I would bug him becuase I was bored and wanted to do stuff with him. He repeatedly told me I needed a hobby. I remember telling him he would regret it one day when I did. He recalled that conversation yesterday when he came down in the middle of the construction project with stuff everywhere and said, yes, I was right. :) Is that good or bad?

Isn't this just so cute? It makes me soooooooo happy!

This is so organized it is almost sick. But it is so much fun!!!

Happy punches!!! Two layers is just a beautiful thing!

A place for all the big scraps and adds a little color too.

Oh! I will get to more playing tomorrow and post more pics when it is clean.

Impatient!

I wanted to bind my own catalog. I have a Bind It All and a Rubicoil. I went with the BIA because it can punch more pages at one time - always about speed with me. I may do one with the Rubicoil later. I still need to work out the kinks on the ends. It does not look professional but I am happy. I probably should have waited until tomorrow but I had a free 15 minutes and that always gets me into trouble!

Sneak Peek

I should have been prepping my workshop this morning. Instead I procrastinated for a moment by using a stamp set I had borrowed to quickly try an idea. I liked the paper peicing on the boat and wanted to try that some more but with bigger and easeir to cut parts.

The coat was stamped on Designer paper and cut out and laid on the white and I just colored the rest with blender pens. I don't like the words so I borrowed "Happy Valentine's Day" from a dear friend (who always bails me out - thanks MB!) and it will be better. I just love the coat! I will have to post a polka dot version later!

Sorry to spoil any surprisese for tonight!

I love hearts!

And pink and coloring. Guess that makes me about 6 years old. We'll just go with that.

More Valentine inspired work.

Just like a man who "thinks" he knows where he is going!

After my disapointing delivery yesterday I was in a funk about what to do for my upcoming workshops. I had this great plan in my head of what I was going to make and now that little detour left me completely lost. I started frantically creating and it was NOT a pretty thing. Finally I decided to abandon the idea of prepping for my workhsop all together and just stamp. I discovered the wonderful world of paper peicing. Not to be confused with paper peircing.

What I did is stamp the boat four different times. Once on white CS and then once on several different colors of designer paper. Then I cut out parts and put them onto the white. Can you see where they were glued on? I really liked the effect and intend to do some more but I got distracted with two other really cute projects that I loved so much that I decided to make them my workshop projects. Those pics will come later. Gotta keep my ladies in susupense!

Let me know what you think of the card. and I will post more creations in the days to come.

Snow Day!

My mom gave me this t-shirt for Christmas and it just says it all. Seems we have had several lately and I promise it is not because I have been wearing my shirt. :)

I have been waiting for my first SU order from the NEW catty to arrive and Mr. Brown was nice enough to come this morning. I thought that would fix all my stamping issues. The main one being I have all this stuff and don't know what to stamp. Well, turns out the one set I was really counting on did not come. They sent the wrong set. So now I have to rethink what to do. Add to that I ordered blue and green new striped ribbon since those are my fave colors (ok and pink) and now I am kicking myself for not thinking red with Valentine's. Always a day late and a dollar short - that is called forced creativity.

And with all the free time I have with the three kids all home and Mak not napping - there should be lots accomplished! EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

gotta love the techies!

It was another day filled with doctor visits and other time consuming activities so there was not a moment to think about stamping, let alone get down the basement stairs. But at least the house is clean and ready for a visiting 1year old today. There is a whole different standard of clean when they are so low to the ground. :)

Not too much to post because it looks like I will be changing my blog host this weekend and I am affraid to loose things. My techy husband has good intentions and wants to "simplify" things. Hmmmm, with computers I am not sure that is possible! But in general it means my blog will move to our own server, my address will shorten and it should be better he says. He really is so sweet. He is trying to help me create a watermark for my cards and taken a real interest in helping me even though this is a silly thing I do and not important in the real world. What a great guy! :)

I'll let you know when the change happens and post where to find the new and improved me, I promise. Because I know there are THOUSANDS of you out there reading this EVERYDAY and making sooooooooooooooooooooo many comments! :) ROTFLMBO!!!!!!!

Here is a great site that explains the Nestabilities - actually she has a store and that is where my cutie got them. Hope this helps, or enables. Whichever!

http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2007/12/nestabilities.html

Was spring in the air?

Felt that way today and out came pink and green. Too bad my lighting stunk! The colors on the second are pomagranate, wasabi, and apricot.

Then I did a little experimenting with my scallop punch to try and recreate something similar to the nestabilities. Not too bad.

Nestabilities

When little Mak gets sick, the whole world comes to a screaching halt! That includes anything I planned to blog. But all is well again and I have a ton to post. Actually this is reposting. I posted such a big edition with a ton of pictures, it broke my header picture - the one with the adorable sneakers. My cutie pie hubby tried very hard to fix it but I am proud to report I am the one who ultimately got it back. Don't ask how - I just push the buttons! :)

So here are the nestabilities. And as soon as I figure out how to link, I will post some other blogs that have fab tutorials. Why reinvent the wheel?

I put them in the clear CD cases with the magnetic strips.

Monday Morning Greens?

Well, a little blue. Giggle! I fell in love with this stamp and had to have the peas!!! The sentiment is separate and I have several that go with it. Others are Love you, Happy together and a few more I create with actual current SU stamps. Imagine that!

It is not even 5:30am yet. Off I go into the dark! At least that way they can not see the dark circles under my eyes. Makenna has this new idea to wake up at 2:30am and come visit me until I get so tired of her rolling around that I take her back to bed. Ummm, when does waking in the middle of the night end? And don't even start me on the potty training frustrations! UGH!

You all have a great day! :) Now go stamp something and show me!

Non-SU and Retired SU - GASP!!!

I really wanted Nestabilities for Christmas and told my sweety to pick a shape. He picked two and now I want a third for my birthday. Only 6 more months. Ha! Basically they are just the metal part from the die cutting templates. Usually there is a block and the other side has squishy foam around a metal die. These are just the metal part, not terribly sharp with "Danger"! Then they nest inside of each other and an entire set fits in a CD case. I will take a picture later this afternoon to show you. But then you use the Cuttle bug (also Christmas - seeing the non-SU theme?) to cut and emboss with them.

It was liberating and fun to stamp last night. I had no rules about what I used and it was so fun. I don't seem to have many stamps left (depends on your point of view - don't ask Gregg!) after all the retiring SU has done. Amazingly I only ordered two sets. But i have LOTS of retired stuff and some... non-SU too now. I want to just have fun with paper!

Let me know what you think of this one. Basic Gray and Celery are my new favorite combo. the white scallop part is a thin strip. It was fascinating to try and just make a frame.

Ribbon Inspiration

I decided to start with some ribbon I have not touched since I bought it. Always good to use something before it retires. I might actually like it and use it instead of hording it.

The ribbon was District from the Ribbon Originals. This particular ribbon is the Basic Gray color and although it is not very clear, I used my new Nestabilities to dry emboss a rectangular frame. Lots more cards with that to come!!!

I know, the first one was plain boring. I was just getting warmed up. But sometimes I do like really simple and elegant one layer so it looks printed instead of home made. And I thought it was masculine too. I had The Sweet Sampler stamp set out I kept going. This one got a little more colorful. The only time I ever seem to use orange is Halloween - yea, outside the box!

And finally this card was more of a piece that just evolved trying to make a background and then I added some layers. That and a lot of coloring with a gel pen. I actually started by trying to cut pieces out (where you see white) and layer white behind it until I looked up and saw my gel pens in my cute little lazy susan organizer Santa gave me. I am still trying to figure out how to add some words or if I should just leave it.

Well, cards as promised. Don't start to think there will be this much every day. I will be lucky to get one up most days. If you have any questions about full recipes for the cards such as colors or accessories, please ask but I hope they provide some inspiration. Now to go work on that watermark so my ideas do not get claimed. :)

Still learning

Ok, let's try adding pictures this time?

The Veiw

I thought for the first day we would start with the before picture. Scary as it is to put out in the cyber world. I started to clean it but there is always something else to do. Not to mention that in a half finished basement, it always looks worse - I know you must agree. :)



This other view is what I see when I sit at my stamping desk and look up. I asked the hubby to leave the holes in the wall when (if we ever) sheet rock so my kids can always sit there. I love it. And someday there will be a wonderful playroom on the other side - he told me.

Did I really do this?

I have been reading other people's blogs for a little while now and tonight I have finally ventured into the world of Blogging myself. I am anxious to see if it is easy to do and hoping it will give me the incentive I need to stamp. I am really hoping to post a newly stamped item everyday. Isn't that how a million stamping/ personal blogs have started? :)

I got the name for the blog after quite a few tries. Everyone had the same ideas I did. The name came from my favorite pair of shoes my daughter wears. I picked them up on clearance at Old Navy and they are a deep red velvet, old fashioned, Converse style shoe. Everytime she wears them, not a soul can resist telling her how cute they are. They are just different enough to be eye catching and make you smile but still comfy, functional and a bargain. That would describe my life!