Sunday, March 30, 2008

A very sad day....

Today was a very sad day for us. This morning.. our kitty "Harley Davidson Moore" was hit by a car and passed away...
Harely despite being declawed LOVED to be outside. He would be outside every spare 'warm' minute if we let him. I say warm because his nick-name was 'tender-foot'. He did not like to get his feet cold. Every night if we didn't let him outside to roam and play with his friends he would come into the bedroom as meow at us as loud as he could. But every morning he would be sitting by the sliding glass door in the kitchen ready to come in, have a little breakfast and baste in the sun for the remainder of the day.... This morning I knew something was different. When I got up to let Carter & Oreo out Harley was no where to be found.. I called for him... nothing.. So we all went back to bed. At 7:30 still no Harley. When my DH got up I told him I couldn't find Harley and that he must have gotten into someones garage over night. Well, when my neighbor moved her car, there he was lying on her side walk. He obviously had gotten hit by a car. My hope and prayer is that he didn't suffer.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Harley. It was him in his glory baking in the warm sun. All day yesterday he laid on the window seat in our dining room enjoying the warm spring sun. When my BFF stopped by to go for a walk she gave him a little pet and told him how nice and warm he was. Her husband said Harley was the only cat that when he called his name from down the street would come running to him, roll on the ground and want you to rub his belly.

Harley was a phenomenal hunter even without claws. I would always tell my DH that Harley was a part of the mouse re-location program. He would re-locate mice from every ones yards and garages to our back yard. He would let them loose in my garden so that he would play with them again. Unfortunately, he didn't get to play with them to much because they were too yummy to him.. YACK...

Harley... your purrrrrr, kisses and unconditional love warmed our hearts. Were going to miss you so very much. My heart will miss your purr every single day...

Thursday, March 27, 2008

A little math & a little Candy...

What do you get when you add...

360 pieces of card stock
540 stamped images
60 pieces of 9" ribbon
120 pieces of bling
60 envelopes and
+ 15-18 hours of labor... That is a labor of love...



You get 60 "First Communion" invitations.. This is what has kept me away from you all for the past week. I started these last week and with working mandatory OT, keeping up with the groceries, laundry, starting a little yard work, walking and Easter festivities.. I finally finished all 60 last night and delivered them over to my sister. These are for my nephew and his cousin's First Communion on May 10th. Since they need to get in the mail in a couple weeks and my sister & her family are heading out for spring break soon, I wanted to get them to her by this weekend so she had plenty enough time to get them ready to go postal..

Thank you Lauren for the inspiration.

For these I used...

Card stock.. PTI White select card set, PTI Aqua Mist & PTI Stamper's select white, adhesive Vellum
Ink... SUP going gray & soft sky
Stamp sets.. PTI Everyday Blessings
Accessories... various clear bling & PTI Aqua Mist Satin Ribbon, Cuttle Bug with their textile texture embossing folder..

To emboss the large aqua mist cardstock what I did was apply a piece of the same size (which I cut to size) adhesive vellum that I picked up at Michael's' to the aqua mist card stock.. The nice thing about these is that their re-positional, so if you mess up, you can fix it. I then ran it through my cuttlebug in the embossing folder. I tried the first one by embossing just the vellum and then adhering it to the card stock. This worked but because of the embossing made the vellum very fragile. By adhering it to the card stock first, it worked out much better..

For the insides, I printed the invitations and then stamped the corners in soft sky.. The corners add just that little extra finishing touch..

Now your probably wondering, why if I used the PTI aqua mist paper, why did I use soft sky ink? Well, let me tell ya.. The aqua ink was just a little too bright and contrasted with the gray of the sentiment. I wanted the cross to be a little more subtle, & the soft sky did exactly that.

So tell me, are there any large projects you're working on?

Tonight I start cleaning my stamp room. Between the prep work for the SCS Eastern NY get together a couple weeks ago and all of these invitations... Typhoon Lisa definitely set down up there and it's a MESS... After that I can start on a few fun projects I have up my sleeve...

Ok.. you've all been very very patient.... DRUM ROLL PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you ready for a little candy??? Since my surgery it'll have to be Sugar Free candy... LOL And, since this is my 200th post I had to find a few fun thing.. so here goes..

So what will you win.... How about 2 SUP envelope templates.. 4 packages of eyelets... 2 sets of clear stamps... a brown chalk box ink, my new favorite thing.. Gelly-tins blue my mind gelly embossing powder... and a My Favorite Things Ride'em cowgirl stamp set.

So what do you need to do to win.... Just leave me a message... about anything.. Tell me what you like about my blog or what you'd like to see more of.. what you like about spring... a happy memory... or something you did for yourself today...

I will leave this contest open until Thursday April 3rd at NOON EST.... I will draw a winner then via the random number generator.. And if your a subscriber to my blog... let me know, you'll get 2 entries..
Happy Stamping :)


Thursday, March 20, 2008

Swaps

Good Morning and Happy Thursday... The week is slowly coming to an end and Easter will soon be upon us. I'm very bold. I haven't started my Easter shopping yet. But I do have a list.. Saturday will be a shop till I drop day to get it all done.. Plants & bunnies oh my...

Since I was preparing 2 of the large projects for Saturday afternoon, I participated in only 2 of the optional swaps... Full Card/ No vendor requirements and In/ From the Garden. Both I choose to make card.

I just love how this card came out. The cardstock is Spring Moss from PTI, Soft Sky -SUP & DS paper from Cosmo Cricket.. The tag was cut out using my Cuttlebug & Nestabilities Die. The sentiment from PTI- Shapes by design was stamped in Spring Moss - PTI. I added a large pewter eyelet and some spring moss -SUP gingham ribbon...Now for the pictures.. These are actually pictures I took from my garden last year. I printed them in the Sepia tone and then used the square SUP punch to cut them out. Gardening is my 'simple pleasure'.. I've already started thinking about my garden this year.. I cant wait. The weather should be a bit warmer next week so I'm hoping to get out and do a little spring raking.
When I saw this card of Michelle's I instantly fell in love with it and knew I wanted to CASE it. For mine I used Very Vanilla, River Rock & Buckaboo Blue Card stock. Baroque Motifs was stamped in River rock... The flowers are the 'cosmo's punch from Martha Steward... I then adhered a few buttons as the centers.. The ribbon is from Maya Road.. How cute is that?
So did you happen to notice that this is post # 199.. that can only mean that my very next post will be # 200.. Yikes, 200 posts.. That means BLOG CANDY... Please stop by soon for to celebrate my 200th post with something sweet and fun, but no calories....
Happy Stamping..


Wednesday, March 19, 2008

And we had FUN FUN FUN

And our daddy didn't even have to take the T-bird away... Hey everyone.. What a fun time you missed (well most of you.. some of you were there !!) on Saturday.. We stamped and laughed and then stamped a little more... Here's a few fun pictures.. Sorry I didn't take more, I was busy making sure everyone was having a good time, putting the food together... you know, fluffing...


Krystal, Rochelle, Teresa & Donna working on their shoe box swaps..


Nancy, Michelle, Kari, Jenn and Chris working on their Shoe Box Swaps..

Jenn, Chris & Rochelle

Krystal, Kari, Donna and Michelle (it looks like Donna and Michelle are multi-tasking.. chit chatting and stamping... )

This was so much fun... There was a total of 12 of us so the group was nice and intimate, so there was lots of laughing and chatting going on... So what did you miss? Well for 1 SallyLynn and all of her expertise with Copic Markers, Ranger inks, Glimmer Mist etc... Wow Sally, you're a wealth of information and I learned sooooooooooo much... I have posted a link to Sally's blog off to the right.. Please be sure to head on over and check her out.. She's awesome.. I knew there was a reason why I let her come... LOL :) Sorry Sally, just had to squeeze that in there... LOL

We started off the day making all of the swaps. I'm still in the process of cleaning my stamp room from the past couple weeks of prep and getting all of my swaps together so by the end of the week I'll be posting all 11 swaps (I didn't manage to get one of SallyLynn's but she has her's posted on her blog.. what a cute bunny).. Then we ate.. Lunch was yummy (and included so no one had to worry about bring food with them).. After lunch we all finished up our Shoe Box Swaps and then made the 3 fun projects Teresa and I planned... These too will be posted later this week..

So what did everyone get for coming? Besides an entire day of stamping and laughing? Well, let me tell you, they all left with some awesome prizes.... Their goody bag consisted of 5 sheets of 6x6 Basic Grey paper (either Two Scoops or Stella Ruby), a packet of Dew Drops (flame & water mixed together) and a yard of the new Stampin Up Polly Twill Chocolate Chip ribbon.. Pretty cool ha?

Then they each received a raffle prize.... The following companies graciously made a donation to our wonderful day of SCS stamping... Here goes. Please go check out their websites because I highly recommend each of these companies.. Their customer services is impecable and I just love everything they have to offer..


Lindsey from Jacksonbelle Embellishments donated a packet of Daisy D paper & 2 packets of Daisy D stickers...

Kim from MFT donated a few sets of the March stamp of the Month.. Ride'em Cowgirl

Beth from Saltbox Studio donated a stamp set.. and,
Ashley from Treehouse Stamps donated a few stamp sets...
Thank you everyone for your extremely generous donations..


There were 4 optional swaps everyone could participate in.. Sorry these pictures are not clearer it's hard to up close and personal...

Swap # 1... Full Card, no vendor requirements



Swap #1... Full Card, no vendor requirements

Swap #1... Full Card, no vendor requirements

Swap #2.. Easter Theme, Anything but a card


Swap #2.. Easter Theme, Anything but a card


Swap #3.. Full Card, Demo Quality Only



Swap #4.. In/ From the Garden

Swap #4.. In/ From the Garden


Swap #4.. In/ From the Garden


We also had a name tag drawing.. Congratulations Teresa... She was out big winner with her Hanna Stamp. Please check out her blog for all of the details of her name tag.. Sorry Teresa, I swiped your picture from your blog to add here..


I hope you all enjoy the pictures :)

Mark your calendars early.. The next Easter NY SCS ShoeBox Swap will be Saturday October 4th.. Hope you all can make it.. Happy Stamping :)



Thursday, March 13, 2008

Sneak Peak

Hi there everyone.. I've been very very busy in my stamp room preparing for our Eastern NY SCS Shoebox Swap which is Saturday ... I can't wait. So far I have my shoebox swap, the In/ From the garden swap, a Full card swap, my name tag and 2 projects completed.. I'll share a little some-tin some-tin I finished up last night..
This will be the 3rd (of 3 projects) planned for Saturday afternoon.. Unfortunately I could not find enough calendars so some will be doing calendars (which was the original project) and some will do altered note pads..

Both projects use the same ingredients so it's just a matter of personal preference which project they all choose... He'ye goes.. Soft Sky, Buckaroo Blue, Afternoon Tea (SUP DS paper) and Whisper White card stock.. The stamps are a scroll (unsure of brand, picked these up on clearance at Mikes.. I can tell you their a clear stamp) & monogram (PTI).. Both images were stamped in basic black ink. The I added a little white sheer ribbon..

My personal favorite is the calendar.. :)

Come back next week for lots and lots of pictures from Saturday.. and since I'll be hitting my 200th post, that can only mean 1 thing... A LITTLE BLOG CANDY..

Have a fabulous weekend everyone.. And Happy Stamping.. I know we all will be having a lot of fun on Saturday... :) Hugs,

Whoops.. I almost forgot to add. I had a dr's appointment yesterday. My official weight loss in just 3 short months is 59.5 lbs (over 60 as of this morning's weigh in)... Since my surgery 6 weeks ago I've lost over 26 lbs. WHOO HOO... I'm almost 1/2 way to goal.. :)