Those Things Could KILL You

I'm not sure if anyone is still keeping track of me or not. I haven't been very consistent about posting to my blog lately. I am hard at work creating things for Christmas but I can't share any of them just yet. I don't want to spoil the surprise, you know. I did make a soda box for my sweet little friend Shelby who has to have surgery on her knee tomorrow. She was doing squats in her high school weight class and tore up her knee. I'll have to remember that the next time I get the crazy idea to do some squats. And I'm WAY older than her so it wouldn't take me too much effort to convince myself that squats could actually KILL me. I mean, it COULD happen. As if I needed another excuse to NOT do squats. Thank you Shelby! I was working on one of my other Christmas projects and thinking about poor Shelby and had My Mind's Eye "Penny Lane" paper sitting on my desk and it reminded me of Shelby's bright, sweet personality and I knew that I had to take a break from all of my frenzied Christmas work to make a little care package to help cheer her up during her recovery.

This started out as a Stewart's Orange Cream Soda box. I removed two of the soda's and used the front to put some Skittles, Rolos, and Kisses. I also decorated two straws to look like flowers. I mean how can sipping orange soda with decorated straws make you not feel better. I'm thinking that I should make myself one just for that very purpose. It makes me happy just thinking about it.
I decorated the bottles with more paper, ribbon, and Making Memories letter stickers. I love how they turned out. Hopefully, Miss Shelby can drink her orange soda out of her cute bottle, with her fancy straw and remember that I love her very much.
Well, I'm off to my desk to get back to work on all of my Christmas projects. But I thought I would share my little diversion with you all. The only snag is that I now have leftover Rolos, Kisses, Skittles, and Orange Cream Soda sitting on my desk, but if I eat them, I will have to do squats...and those things could kill you, I tell you. Hopefully I will have a few more things to share soon. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go. I'd whistle now but I have never been able to whistle. How's that for a little known random fact about me.

Where is My Project Time?

For the life of me I can't understand where all of my project time has gone. Well, that's not exactly true, I have been crazy busy making palm trees for Cub Scouts, working on art displays for our FAME class at my daughter's school, cooking, cleaning, working the city election and fitting in Halloween somewhere in there. I also had a little glitch in my wisdom tooth extraction that I have been dealing with. I have finally finished the last of my antibiotics (again) so hopefully I am on the mend. Needless to say, not much has been going on that is post worthy here. I've been doing a few Zentangles and sketches but that's about it and I am feeling it! Need some project time! The Zentangles have been fun though, and my daughter has joined in with them. If you don't know what a Zentangle is you can find lots of examples HERE and a great little tutorial HERE . They are a relaxing way to do some mindless creativity. They look very complicated but they are so simple. Even people who think they are not creative (don't believe that, by the way) can make amazing Zentangles. Break out the paper and pen and give it a try.



A while back, creativemomma left the sweetest award for me on her blog. She is one talented girl and you should definately check out her fun challenges, so I am truly honored to get an award from her. And I have to apologize big time for taking so long to get this posted. I printed out the questions the very day she left them so I could work on them and this is the first time I have been able to get them posted. Thank you so much for the award especially since I have been such a bad blogger lately. As part of the award I needed to answer the following questions:
1. Where is your cell phone? Honestly, my cell phone is in my purse but it's pretty useless since the battery has been dead for at least a week.
2. Hair? Brown, fine and annoying
3. Mother? Idaho
4. Father? Idaho
5. Favorite food? Lemon bars
6. Dream last night? I almost never remember any of my dreams but that's pretty much how most things go for me. If I don't write it down, I won't remember it.
7. Favorite drink? Orange Sunkist but I haven't had one in a LONG time.
8. Your dream/goal? To have my kids tell me I was a good mom when they are old AND to make a living doing something I love.
9. What room are you in? My bedroom.
10. Hobby? Not sure I could choose just one. Anything creative.
11. Fear? Failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? I hope I am here, only more organized.
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something you aren't? Swimsuit model
15. Muffins? Blueberry or orange
16. Wish list item? My own studio
17. Where did you grow up? Idaho
18. Last thing you did? Made my son a peanut butter sandwich. That kid could eat his weight in peanut butter sandwiches.
19. What are you wearing? My mom uniform (jeans and t-shirt)
20. Your TV? It's on Disney.
21. Your pets? None.
22. Friends? I have many good friends and only one Jenny.
23. Your life? I have a nutty, busy, good life.
24. Your mood? Anxious, which is how I get when I haven't worked on a project in a while. Should take a hint and just forget all of my need to's and do some want to's.
25. Missing someone? Yep. My brother who is in Iraq right now. He is so much fun to have around. Even when he's not deployed he lives halfway across the country but we can talk to him more at least.
26. Vehicle? Chrysler Concorde. I love that car. I hope it lasts me at least another year.
27. Something you're not wearing? Makeup, some days are like that. Hope no one decides to come over and no, that's not a challenge!
28. Favorite store? Do I have to pick just one?!! Michaels, Roberts, Porters for project stuff. Albertson's for coupons. Always seem to be at Wal-Mart but NOT because it is my favorite.
29. Favorite color? I LOVE fuschia. I have a '68 VW Beetle that is hot pink. Hot pink makes my heart HAPPY!
30. When was the last time you laughed? Earlier today.
31. Last time you cried? It's been awhile, I'm probably due for a good cry but it sure gives me a headache.
32. Best friend? You know who you are.
33. One place you go over and over? The grocery store. ARGH!!! Has to do with what I said about forgetting anything that's not written down.
34. Facebook? Yes, but only recently. I'm still trying to get the hang of it.
35. Favorite place to eat? Carino's. I do love some good Italian.

Well, that's it. That's me in a nutshell. Thanks again creativemomma. You're so sweet. Hopefully I will be back before long with something new to show you.

It's Getting Pretty Scary Around Here

Well, I'm still looking like a chipmunk whose lost a bar brawl. So I'm a little scary looking myself. Actually kind of comical. Fortunately my face is a little less square shaped and I've been assured that I will feel much better soon. I took the opportunity this morning when I saw sunshine to finally take some pics of my haunted house project. The sun was I little too bright so some of the colors are washed out but I didn't want to miss a chance for sun. There hasn't been much of that lately around here. Hopefully you can see what it's all about.

It all started out as a couple of Huggies boxes I'd been saving from the diaper days for this project. I've been trying to get around to it since last Halloween. I formed the walls with the box pieces and then added roof tops and lengths of wooden fence. I spray painted the whole thing black and then added the details with some scrap paper I had and Mod Podge. The trees were cut from a pattern in last years Better Homes and Garden Halloween special magazine. I cut them out of chipboard and I only ruined one pair of scissors and had two giant bruises on my hands but I think that they are totally worth it. Such are the sacrifices.
The doorknob is a cool old button that I have had in my button jar for years. I knew I could find a use for it.

I hot glued the end of this wire to the back of the house and dangled a little bat from it. It kinda bobs around when you walk past it. It is a little over two feet tall and fits perfectly on my little table in the living room. When it was all done, I gave it a coat of clear glitter spray paint. I love it. The best part was that it only cost me two Huggies boxes, a can of black spray paint, hot glue sticks, scraps, wooden fence, and some glitter paint. I figure I spent about $5 for a super cute Halloween decoration for my small living room table. Wahoo! Speaking of the Better Homes and Gardens Halloween magazine, last years was awesome and I can't believe it, but they have managed to make this years just as great. You know how sometimes magazines just recycle last years ideas for the current magazine? Well, not BH&G. It is a must have. Their Halloween magazines are some of the few that I keep on my shelf because I refer to them over and over again. If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. Well, I'm off to take some more Advil and hopefully start looking less SCARY! BOO!

The Time Has Come

Well, I know that it has been awhile since I have posted anything. I haven't been just holding down the sofa, I just haven't been doing the kind of projects that I can (OK, won't) post. You see, I love art (in case you haven't noticed) and years ago before my daughter was born, I had the opportunity to take some private painting lessons with the fabulous Ruth Sauerbreit. I love watercolors but I'm still quite an amateur. But children are born and the brushes and paints get pushed to the back of the closet by the Play-Doh, pony beads, glitter glue, etc. but the love of my paints are always still in the back of my mind. Sometimes the really, really far back, but always still there. I have been working with them a little lately and practicing my sketching more but I'm still too self conscious to share. Maybe with a little more practice. Maybe. I just makes me happy.
I have been trying all week to finish a great Halloween project to share before tomorrow but the weather was awful and I couldn't spray the last coat of glitter and as much as I enjoy a little sparkle in my life, I don't think that spray painting glitter in the living room would be such a great idea. Therefore, I will have to leave you in suspense a little longer. It's turning out super cute though.
Why before tomorrow, you ask? Well, I am pretty meticulous about taking care of my teeth. I brush, I floss, I rinse. But there is one thing that I have never been able to bring myself to take care of and that is removing my wisdom teeth. They have been impacted for years but they don't bother me and I can think of approximately one million things that I would rather do, so I just haven't taken care of them. That all changed at my last cleaning. It was time for my full mouth x-ray and one look told me that one of my wisdom teeth was on the move. It is now parallel with my gums and the top of the tooth is into the roots of my other teeth. Oh, and all that moving has formed a cyst. Tomorrow morning I am going under the knife. I have been told that it will probably not be pretty. Can't hardly wait. Plus Saturday is World Card Making Day! I will be celebrating by holding bags of frozen peas to my face and watching Conference while heavily medicated. Not exactly the World Card Making Day of my dreams. So it will be a little longer before I have something new to share but my haunted house project is hopefully worth the wait. 'Til then, have a happy World Card Making Day and be sure to enjoy it for me too.

Happy Birthday Baby!

Yesterday, yes, September 11th, was my baby's third birthday. I can't believe he is 3. He has grown so fast. It amazes me. He is such a great boy. A total smart alec (which I love) and loves to tease but he's just as sweet at can be. I just love that guy. He is totally obsessed with NASCAR. He can't recognize his numbers but he can tell you what 18, 24, 17 and all of the NASCAR cars. He'll say, "Number 24, Jeff Gordon." when he sees a 24 car. His favorite ("my guy") is number 18. He is sometimes the M&M car and sometimes the Interstate Battery car (these are the things mom's learn when they have a little NASCAR fan). Therefore, I had to make a car themed cake for Jake's birthday party.
Once again, I collaborated with my dad (also a NASCAR fan) on the details of a racing tire and once again, he came up with scale measurements for me. We are a dangerous pair I tell you. He also kept me in Pepsi all day since I hadn't had much sleep.

The car crossing the finish line is Jake's guy, #18 and Jeff Gordon is coming in second. I had to make a red car (mostly because I had a bunch of red gum paste and I didn't want to color more) and since I didn't particularly want the Budweiser car represented on my 3 year olds cake, I went with the Target car. It's not necessarily Jake's favorite (he still knows the name of the driver, though) but it was red. I know that many a kid has had a Budweiser car but I guess I'm just a prude. Three seems a little young to have "Budweiser" in your vocabulary. We had a little family barbeque to celebrate and we borrowed the Hot Wheels track that our friend built (the kids love that thing). I had my daughter hide 20 Hot Wheel cars around the yard and they had fun finding the cars and racing them on the track. My kids have a "mud pit" in the corner of our yard and while yesterday it was just a dirt pit the kids usually spend most of their time digging in it. Dirt and boxes, all a kid needs. Makes me wonder why we bought Jake toys for his birthday.

Last But Not Least

Well, this is finally it...the rest of the cards I made for my mom's birthday. I'm still astounded at the fact that I was able to get all of these done it just two trips to Jenny's. I'm usually pretty slow. Something about being too detail oriented (a fact that I have already confessed to in my piano cake post). And one trip was even cut short by my son throwing up. Maybe I'm getting faster. I did invest in a new CARDS mag just for some major inspiration though. How I love that magazine. It's crazy expensive but every now and then I just have to have a CARDS fix and I break down and buy it.
OK, while Jenny was on a Sonic run, she stopped at the dollar store and found these cool little paper flowers with the corsage pins in them. She picked them up and we both worked on finding the perfect use for them. We hated the funky green colored silk ivy leaves glued to the back of them so we cut them off and I needed the pin to point a different direction so I tugged it out of the glue but the flowers are super cute. The picture doesn't even do them justice. The brown patterned paper and the circle tag are Pink Paislee. The pink paper is really old Scenic Route. The ribbon is from American Crafts and the letter stickers (both kinds) are Making Memories. The leaves are just cut from scraps of Crate Paper, ran through a paper distresser and wadded up.

Lots of Scenic Route (blue dots and "Be Happy" chipboard). The graph paper is...you guessed it...Cosmo Cricket. The flowers are my own little design cut from Doodlebug's glitter paper. A little giant ric rac and jewels, of course and voila! Makes me want to be happy for some reason.

The other day when I was at the D.I., I found an old pattern for a swing coat. It hadn't even been taken out of the package. I bought it because I loved the vintage look and I figured that I could find a home for it. I made the flower out of the pattern. The pattern was so old that there was a name and address for Meg Carter on it so you could write to her with any questions or problems you had assembling your swing coat. The entire time I was working on this card I imagined how many letters Meg Carter received every day and what her life was like (probably pretty busy) and what she's up to now (if she's still alive). If you look really closely at the flower you can see "Carter" on one of the petals. I don't know why it was so fascinating but it was. Maybe because I miss the personal approach from back in the day. Meg Carter would be crazy to put her name and address to her desk at McCall pattern company on anything these days. Kinda sad. But that's just the way it goes I guess. Wow! Off on a tangent there. Back to the card...the patterned paper and tag are Cosmo Cricket and the letter stickers are Making Memories.

This card uses lots of my favorite flowers right now...you know the ones...from my pad by K&Co. How I love those things. There are actually 8 of them all stacked together to make these 3 flowers. The grass is also from that pad. The blue dots are Scenic Route again and the "Live Out Loud" tag is Pink Paislee.

This paper is more of the Abbey Road collection by My Mind's Eye. I used up quite a bit of that stuff on this project. The pink dots are one of my favorites. There is also more graph paper from Cosmo Cricket and the flowers are once again from my K&Co. pad. The rub on is Basic Grey. That cute brad is also Abbey Road. I spent more on that one package of Abbey Road brads than I think I have spent on brads before (at least in a really long time) but I am crazy in love with them. Ridiculously cute! They just make me happy! Hope you all are finding something in your day to make you happy too!

First Day of School Blues

Well, it's official, summer is really over. Today is my daughter's first day back to school. The big 3rd grade. I hear all of the time from mom's who are so happy to have their kids back in school and I just don't get it. It makes about as much sense to me as women who say they love being pregnant. It just doesn't register with me. I LOVE having my kids at home. We just have a great time together. Granted maybe I'll feel differently when they are teenagers but for now, I miss my girl. I have one more year before my son goes off to preschool so he and I are on our own. I will try to enjoy every minute of it. And to top it all off, it is a rainy day here today and I'm on my way to get my teeth cleaned. How's that for a big WAHOO! OK. Enough whining for now. Here's a few more of my mom's cards that I have to share with you. Still on the lookout for some 6x6 envelopes though. Right there on my to do list for the day.
This uses mostly Scenic Route stuff. The graph paper is Cosmo Cricket. And the rest is from my scraps.

Well, looky here, more Cosmo Cricket graph paper. It is my new white dots. Can't seem to stop using it. The pink dot paper is My Mind's Eye, Abbey Road and the blue dots are Fancy Pants. Scraps for everything else. The large pink glitter letters are American Crafts and the small glitter letters are Making Memories.

The cute pink paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Girl Friday line. I love that line (the graph paper I'm always using is too). The turquoise dots and red strip are My Mind's Eye. The paper frill is from Bazzill and the flowers are mostly from my favorite K&Co. flower pad. The letter stickers are American Crafts. And the jewel strip are Heidi Swapp.

If this card looks familiar then you are a reader of CARDS magazine. This is a direct scraplift of the card on the cover of the September issue by Kandis Smith. I love her card and I wanted to make one too. The paper for this are from Cosmo Cricket. The round sticker is from Making Memories. The chipboard letters are Heidi Swapp. The cherries are my own design using the Cosmo Cricket ones for inspiration. I cut them out of Doodlebug glitter paper. That vintage red and white label is from Jenny's Granny. Granny was the sweetest, happiest, never have anything bad to say, woman and Jenny ended up with these little labels from Granny's things. She shared a few and they went perfect with this card. I remember Granny whey I see them. The rub-ons on the label are American Crafts. I love this card even though it's not very original to myself.

This card uses mostly Abbey Road paper from My Mind's Eye. That little brad is from that collection too. The glitter letters are American Crafts. The flower was made from the Stampin' Up scallop circle punch and other random circles cut from my scraps.

I think that there are a few more cards to share later. For now I must head out to the dentist, library, grocery store (Albertson's double coupons to burn), and a few thousand other places. Hope you all have a great day.