inkerdoodles

A little Halloween Inspiration

2009-09-11T05:10:00.000-04:00

WOW.... can we believe it's September already? the little ones (and not so little) are back in school, the nights are getting cooler and sleeping is ahhhhhhhh so wonderful, mums are in bloom, our summer flowers are starting to die off and in the stores..... Halloween and Christmas decorations. Yes I said it, Christmas too...... I can remember when you couldn't find Christmas decorations in stores until the day after Thanksgiving.. Not any more.... Soon they'll be in the isles right along side the 4th of July decor.......

So while I'm in my stamp room crafting away for a few upcoming events I wanted to share with you all a little Halloween inspiration...

HALLOWEEN TREAT HOLDERS W/ CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS

CLIPBOARD ADVENT CALENDARS

CARDS

Happy Stamping :)

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 5

2009-09-01T05:33:00.001-04:00

And now what many of you have been anxiously anticipating... My swaps... and a little something I made at the retreat....

Here is my swap card... I apologize that this first picture is a bit blurrrrrry... :( This was a joy fold card which I really like. You can also turn this card vertically and have it flip open from top to bottom instead of right to left.. I tried to use many different techniques and accessories on this card...

For the dies I Sizzix dies I used the beautiful butterflies die, the flower burst embossing die and the harlequin background embossing die...

Just an FYI with the flower burst, not only does it emboss but it also cuts out the flower... so you don't need to use your circle punch with it (like I thought I was going to need to do...).

The cardstock used was...... Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Not Quite Navy and Bella Bleu DS paper..

Ink... Sahara Sand, Soft Suede and Not Quite Navy..

Accessories... 1/2 pearls from the SUP pretties kit.

And finally, the stamp sets include... Friends/ 24 7, Hope Happens and Herbed Expressions.

I also made this ornament for the Christmas Party on Friday night. I really wanted to do something with Shell-a-bration.. So for this I stamped the fish on acetate in black stazon, cut out the circle and colored with permanent markers. When I tried coloring with SUP or Copic markers, the colors were very light and tended to remove the black stazon. I then added some sand and very small shells (I picked up in the craft department of Walmart). Before closing the can I cut a small hole for the twine with my crop-a-dile and added the twine for hanging. Because of the sand and the shells I did glue the can when closing it. Finally I added the bow and small shells on the twine for a little extra bling..

And finally... Friday night my roomie Nicole and I made a quick trip to Walmart. (quick.... right Nicole... LOL) ok, so it took us a couple hours to find the Walmart that was only 10 minutes away.. But it was fun anyway. And we did find the Joann Fabric store that we needed to find and a Starbucks... LOL

While pursuing Walmart we came across these large green clothes pins... Ohw awesome. I decorated these using My minds eye paper that I picked up in Michael's. The flowers were cut out using the Flower Fold Big Diezzzzzzzz, embossed with Glassy Glaze to add a little extra umph...... and then a chocolate chip corduroy brad was added to the center.. How cute are these.

That's it for now....

Happy Stamping... Come back soon.. I feel some blog candy coming your way..

Happy Stamping !!!

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 4

2009-08-31T18:26:00.009-04:00

Take 1... Swaps....

I participated in a swap at the retreat. Of the one's I received here were my favorite's.

Take 2... Secret Santa Gift...

My secret Santa gift was "Peace" blocks... I love them and can't wait to put them out for the holidays...

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 3

2009-08-31T18:18:00.010-04:00

I'm bad... Here I thought I had all of my pictures uploaded. But when I went to upload my favorite from my swaps.... Low and Behold there were the pictures I knew I had taken. WHOOOPS.... The good news is.. You all get to see more of my favorite's from the retreat... Here goes. Enjoy :)

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 2

2009-08-28T04:43:00.000-04:00

Ok so I lied....... I still need to upload a picture of my swap before I can post them..... So in the mean time I thought I would show you an awesome clear scrapbook from the retreat.... This was the 25 days of Christmas... I just love all of the different pages. What's so awesome about this scrapbook is that you don't need a book with pages, you can create your own using the clear acrylic pages as your front and back covers. The crop-a-dile is great for punching holes...

Remarkable Safari Retreat Take 1

2009-08-27T05:22:00.000-04:00

Howdy........ I'm just starting to catch my bearings after last weekend. Between mandatory ot, catching up on laundry etc. I just started unpacking my stamping supplies last night. In the mean time... here's some pictures of my favorite share projects from last weekend. I have no idea who made these but their great for ideas and looking at. Tomorrow I'll share the projects I made for the retreat.... Hugs,

Where have I been.... and what have I been doing?

2009-08-25T17:46:00.019-04:00

Hey everyone.. I'm here, You may have wondered (or you may not have... but I'll tell you anyway) why I haven't been blogging. As you all know, Gram passed away New Years morning and since then I had zero creative spirit, zero mojo, zero energy to stamp.... zero zero zero... I still had a love for stamping, still filled my stamp room with new stamps, accessories and fun do-dad's, but when I sat down to stamp I was blank.

Last weekend I attended the Remarkable Stampers Safari Retreat in southern PA for an entire weekend of stamping and comrodery. I had a blast, met some wonderful stampers, cuddled with the most adorable baby on earth and re-found my creative inner spirit. So now I'm back. Different than I was before, wiser, I think funnier and definitely skinnier. Here I was..... the fall of '07....

And this was me just last weekend.

Some days my brain still has yet to catch up with my new body. I feel wonderful and most days I feel like an entirely different person. But some days I still feel like the old me. When I walk by a mirror I usually have to do a double take because I don't recognize myself.

So what else have I been up to. Well, as most of you know I have a soft spot in my heart for animals, especially those that well, are not perfect. We have Oreo our deaf dalmatian who was beaten and abused as a puppy and had her tail broken.

Carter who was from a dalmatian rescue in PA who is Oreo's ears and mama's little buddy. AND........ WELL...... now.... I guess you'll have to see for yourself.......

Meet Isabella..... formerly Patty... But Patty isn't a Princess name.. Isabella is a 5 year old cocker spaniel who spent the first 5 years of her life in a 'puppy mill' cage in TN mak'in babies. A local cocker rescue was looking for a foster family that could spend the time with her to teach her how to be a puppy. Since I work from home and have Carter & Oreo I said, we could do it. So here she came... When we got her a few months ago she knew nothing... she didn't know what grass was, wasn't potty trained (as a matter of fact when she arrived at the rescue her paws were so encrusted with feces and urine that the vet had to soak them to get it off), didn't know how to go up and down stairs, all she knew was the inside of her small confined cage. OMG has she learned what the good life is.

This is now how Princess Isabella spends her days while mama is at the 'puter working.... lying in the cushy recliner in front of the air conditioner.

Here she is snuggling with Oreo. Puppy Mill puppies feel more comfortable being confined... so she loves to sleep under the spiral staircase next to my desk. Oreo has taken to sleeping there too.... so now the two of them snuggle up together and sleep their days away.

Now don't get me wrong, it hasn't been as 'easy' as I make it out to be. Carter had his nose bent a little and wandered around acting like no one loved him anymore and wanted nothing to do with Bella.... But now, they love each other. Carter has been teaching Bella his bold tricks.... Like they are here.... begging for da'da's popcorn....

And if this wasn't luck.. here it is actually caught on camera..... Carter kissing Bella... And he says he doesn't like her... LOL

So where do I go from here........ How will my stamping be different? Last weekend I came to realize that part of the reason why I haven't stamped is because cards just got too boring. Unless I needed a card for a special occasion what would I ever do with the 100's of cards I already have in my stamp room? I have a new 'energized' stamping focus... thanks to my roomie Nicole and Chloe.. My creative spirit will now be focused outside that stamping box. What can I do with everything I've been hording in my stamp room... All those stamps, the piles of cardstock, those sizzix dies that have been collecting dust..... and espicially those little accessory do-dad's and do-hickies that are shoved in the plastic containers on my shelves. They probably won't find themselves being made into cards, but I can guarantee to you that I'm going to find a fun, decorative way to use them.....

So stay tuned and keep watching for fun new ideas from me....

Sorry I've been gone so long

2009-01-20T14:42:00.000-05:00

Since the beginning of December life has been crazy.. Christmas was wonderful... Gram was beautiful.. She spent the day enjoying family..

New Years morning the call came... Gram had passed away. To say it was sudden, unexpected, confusing and devastating is an understatement. Gram was so healthy just a few days prior. She was a beautiful 91 YO woman who loved her family above all and left a legacy to show it. 6 children, 11 grandchildren and 15 great great grand children. The days that have followed have been a blurr of sorrow and tears. Gram, I will miss you each and every day.

When it was time to leave Christmas night I scooted in along side my Aunt to give Gram a kiss goodbye never realizing it would be the last time. Our last words were...

I LOVE YOU...

Those words will live forever in my heart until I go home and Gram is there waiting for me.

Needless to say, I've have no stamping mojo.... My BFF gave me a home work assignment last weekend that forced me into my stamp room. I had to make something that I would have sent to Gram if she were alive. I have a few thank-you's that I need to send after the funeral... So here's what I made. This card uses..

Stamps.. Damask (Lizzie Anne), Thank you (SUP)

Card stock... MME DS paper, brocade blue, close to cocoa and very vanilla (SUP)

Ink... brocade blue, river rock and close to cocoa (SUP)

Accessories... MS chocolate twill ribbon, Angel Wings shimmerz

This picture was from Christmas '07 and it's one that makes me giggle every time I think of it. This shows Gram's true spirit. My Uncle attached his deer horns to her walker and she was gonna use 'em to get through the halls at the home.

Look how beautiful Gram and Grandpa were.... This picture was taken in 1945...

Gram.... I miss you terribly and will miss you each and every day. I LOVE YOU !!!!

what a way to start off a week

2008-12-07T06:25:00.000-05:00

hey everyone...... WOW what a week we've had here....

Last Saturday was my trip to NYC... OHHH how much fun..... Sunday I slept in.. ewhhhhhhhhh if I only knew what was in store for me... I ended up working part of the day and puttered around the house and then around 7 OMG...... the pain.. ohhhhh the pain.... Around 7 ish I started getting really nauseous so I went to bed... I woke around 9:30 and I wished I had died.... I was doubled over in pain. I refused to go the to ER.. If I could just make it until 8:30 when my surgeons office opened.. Nope at 7 AM I called the on call.... Luckily my surgeon was on call and called me right back.. He told me to come right to the hospital, he was admitting me for ... RU ready.. emergency surgery.. Not how I thought I'd be spending my Monday... I ended up having emergency laproscopic surgery and and an endoscope.. Come to find out I had an internal hernia (which is not uncommon after Gastric Bypass surgery) and gastritis... I was back home around 6 PM and in bed becoming best friends with my pain killers...

Tuesday I was able to sleep all day until 6 when my DH came home from work... He came home with a horrible stomach bug ... so we spent our Wednesday in the ER all day (sent there by his PCP because he was so sick).... Needless to say.... Thursday we both... slept all day.. There went the week... LOL

The good news is.. we are both on the road to recovery.. I am able to go back to work tomorrow since I work from home.. I have some awesome NYC pictures to show you and a few fun projects.. So please check back this week... I just wanted to let you all know where I've been..

TTYS

Happy Stamping..
Hugs, Lisa

Blog Candy alert !!!

2008-11-16T11:22:00.009-05:00

Well everyone.. As I was reading over today's post (which I actually typed yesterday)... I had an ahhhh.... haaaa... moment (aka.. that little light bulb went off and I said whoops...) since today is day # 3 I really can't wait 2 more days to reveal what my blog candy is.... so I'm going to post it now..... So you're all in luck.. You'll find out 2 days early.. You'll see why in a second... (I apologize for the size of the graphics these are from the OCC website)...

Has anyone heard of Operation Christmas Child... now to be referred to as OCC ??? If not, allow me to explain just a tad but please at any time feel free to head on over to their website for all of the important deets that I may erroneously leave out.. Please note that all of the information I have here came directly from their website..

Operation Christmas Child brings joy and hope to children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and the Good News of God’s love. Since 1993, more than 61 million shoe boxes have been packed, shipped, and delivered across the globe. People of all ages can be involved in this simple, hands-on missions project while focusing on the true meaning of Christmas—Jesus Christ.

So what can you do to help spread the love of Jesus to a child this holiday season.. Well, you can do 1 of 4things...

1- you can send a shoebox of goodies to a child ages 2-14....

2- you can donate a monetary gift to OCC and they will fill a shoebox for you

2- you can serve at a collection location during national collection week 11/17-24 (that's why I'm letting the cat out of the bag now.. I want everyone to have as much time as possible to get their shoeboxes together and dropped off my Monday the 24th)... (or)

3- if you reside near Atlanta GA, Boone NC, Charlotte NC, Denver CO, Minneapolis MN, or Orange County CA you can volunteer at a processing center...

Shoeboxes... Pack a shoebox...

to pack a shoebox you would simply use a standard size shoebox or clear container, pick if you want your shoebox to be for a boy or a girl and the age range, fill it with gifts (please see website for gift ideas), include your $7 donation to assist with shipping and between 11/17 and the 24th drop it off at a collection center near you. (please see website for locations).. Or you can send your gift box directly to...

Samaritan’s Purse

Operation Christmas Child

801 Bamboo Road

Boone, NC 28607

If you think you' re running out of time and can't pack a shoebox yourself... But you would still like to send one .. OCC has made it super easy for you.. Simply go HERE and you can EZ give a shoebox donation online instead of in a shoe box. EZ Give is a simple, convenient way to make your shoe box donation online by using a credit or debit card, eliminating the need to place a check inside the box. After completing your donation, you will be able to print out special EZ Give shoe box labels included in your e-mail receipt that indicate you have made your donation online rather than placing it inside your shoe box gift.

To volunteer at a collection location or at one of their processing centers PLEASE check out their website for additional information..

So now how to I entice you to spread a little holiday cheer to OCC... Well, with a little blog candy... Here goes...

If you participate (and you'll let me know by posting a comment on this post .. and this post only) you name will go into my blog candy drawing.... So how can you be entered?

1- if you send a shoebox please post a comment with a link to a picture of your shoebox before you drop it off...

2- if you choose to ez donate... please post a comment to that effect and

3- if you choose to volunteer.. please post a comment as to the date you volunteered and where...

t's that simple...

what will you win? Using the random # generator I will randomly choose 1 lucky winner who will receive a $15 gift certificate to Roses on Paper...

Now here's 2 extra little goodies...

1- if you send a shoebox and get a child involved ... if your child adds a homemade holiday card to the box I will enter all of the children in a separate give away and send him/ her a small token as a thank you for the holidays.... When posting a link to the shoebox please let me know that the card was enclosed.. and,

2- if you post a link to this blog candy and get people involved through your blog you will be entered into a drawing for a separate candy goodie of 2 new UNmounted Stampin Up stamp sets... The world over and alphabet soup...

It's that simple..

So get filling those shoeboxes.... You only have until the 24th to get it dropped off at a collection location...

Just a note.. this post will remain on top of my blog until my drawing on the 26th. This way everyone has time to get their comments posted.... Hugs and Happy Holiday's...

Lisa

Day 5... Baby it's cold outside

2008-11-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

sorry -- I started this 2 days ago and never finished it....

I saved this for little guy for last because right now he's my all time favorite...

Well... favorite so far this season... I just keep plugging along with the holiday cards... I think I'm at the point now where I'm going to start giving them away... But I just can't help myself.. I (((HEART))) Christmas, Santa's, Snowmen... Love 'em all...

This card uses a fun snowman stamp I picked up last year from WhipperSnapper Designs.. It's Snowman Skater. And I just adore the color combo... Next only to Chocolate, blue, red and vanilla together.

For this card I used....
Stamps... Snowman skater (WSD), Out on a limb (PTI) and 2 various snowflakes 1 Basic Grey and 1 WSD

Ink.. black stazon, soft sky, brocade blue and various copic markers

Card Stock... blue bayou, brocade blue and whisper white

Accessories... Stickles, SUP stitched grosgrain,

So tell me.... Do you have any fun plans for the weekend. My plans this weekend are to work on my gifts for my secret elf.... Finally a stamping weekend... Don't forget to put together your OCC packages and get them to a drop off my Monday....

Have a fabulous weekend everyone.. Hugs,

Lisa

Day 4... Isn't Shimmerz BEE-A-UTIFUL

2008-11-16T03:01:00.000-05:00

I used to think that glitter was my favorite.. But now... I honestly think it's Shimmerz paints. They add a delicate bling (and who doesn't like a little bling bling on their cards?) to your images...

For this card I wanted to do a little something 'simple' using this adorable tree I found in Mike's dollar bin... A week ago I ran into the new Mike's in town and can you say... OMGosh... Overload... It was awesome. They had sooooooooo much... and so many new dollar stamps. I'll never go to the other 2 Mike's around here... I'm now a loyal patron of the new Michael's in Latham...

For this card I switched back to the 5 1/2" square to give myself a little extra working room... Using my SUP stamp-a-ma-jig I lined up 3 trees and then stamped 2 more on scrap whisper white card stock.. After coloring all of them to match using my copic markers... (Hey Gina is it time for another shipment yet.... I think we need 2 a month.. ah nah... that wouldn't work, I'd never be able to afford new supplies)... after giving the markers a few minutes to dry I covered the trees with ButterCream Shimmerz.. let then dry. Once they were dry I added glassy glaze to the pots and the red bows for that little extra something.. When everything was dry I cut out the two extras.. Applied pop up glue dots to the back and then added them between the other 3 trees so that they pop off the page a little. Using coordinating Basic Grey 6x6 paper, SUP card stock and the new SUP alpine grosgrain ribbon... I thought HUMMMM it still needs a little something. So I whipped out one of my PTI stamps, stamped my sentiment and covered that in the ButterCream Shimmerz. Once dry, using my SUP circle punches I cut out my sentiment and a piece of the coordinating Basic Grey paper.... added another pop up glue dot and thought... HMMM not quite yet... Where's that black marker of mine.... A little detail work around the edges and VIOLA.... What do you think?

Have you all started working on your Holiday cards yet? If so, I'd love to see them..

Happy Stamping...

Hugs,
Lisa

Day... 3... We need you to come down to the police station for a

2008-11-16T03:00:00.003-05:00

Line up... Apparently there have been some mischievous elves, snowmen and reindeer in the neighborhood and we were hoping you'd be able to identify them in a line up.... Apparently Santa's little helpers have been blowing off a little steam and whooping it up around town....

First we have our snowmen.... They have been charged with stealing carrots from the reindeer's and using them for who knows what... You can tell that some of the snowmen have ...can we say over indulged in the apple-tini's as they used the line up to salute, waive at the photographer and strangely throw 'snowballs' at each other.

Mr. Reindeer can you identify which snowman stole your carrots......

And now we have our elves..... a little over indulgence in the malt liquor (I know but that's their drink of choice).... and look what happens.... One elf pulled the beanie hat down over the eyes of another, gave him a wedgie and all heck broke loose... Now they all stand here praying Santa will be lenient on them..

Can you tell who the ring leader of the group is?

And last but not least we have our reindeer... Who after over indulging on Mike's hard lemonade were retaliating against the snowmen.. since there may be children present.... we'll just leave it as a public display of lewdness.... a few of our snowmen are now a little 'yellow'.....

Sadly one ring leader found it be very funny.... Can you tell which one that was?

So now the jail is packed full of reindeer, elves and snowmen sleeping it off.... Tomorrow we'll send them back to the North Pole to let Santa deal with them...

Until then.. Their mug shots will be posted all over the Internet

and sent out on my Christmas cards.... If this is what they do in mid-November.. Can you imagine what they do on December 26th?

Are you ready for hint #3...... November 17 - 24th.... Has anyone figured out what it is yet? The first person to guess correctly will win an New Unmounted Stamp Set... Which I will reveal on day 5.

Happy stamping everyone..

Hugs,
Lisa

Day 2... It's Snowing Outside....

2008-11-15T03:00:00.001-05:00

No not really.. But this week it will be cold enough here to snow and their actually calling for snow showers most every day next week.... Since there's hardly any frost in the ground it's not really going to stick.. It'll just be flying around making everyone with a plow (including my deranged when it comes to plowing... but I still love him DH).... crazy wishing for snow... It brings back the Dunkin' Donuts commercial of the man sitting in a lawn chair watching the first snowflake fall... Yep that's my husband... It's true and can you believe I married him... LOL

Today's card was cased from this card of Pine's.. It's so simple card and that's what I love most about it.. Just like with Pine's card I cut my card stock lengthwise.. Folded in half at 5 1/2"'s and then on the side that would be the front using my paper cutter took another inch off the front side. This gives it the asymmetrical look.

Don't you just love the new Marvy snowflake Punches.. I picked up mine from PTI only because I could not find it elsewhere not even on line... I'm sure soon it'll start showing up but I needed it NOW !!! This particular one is the Mega 2 1/2" which coordinates with the Snowfall Additions stamp set.

This card uses.....

Card stock... Close to Cocoa, Soft Sky and Whisper White cs all from SUP

Ink... Soft sky & Close to Cocoa, Canvas by Palette

Stamp sets... Snowfall Additions (PTI) and Merry Christmas was from the $1 bin at Michael's. The little squiggly was from my "Santa Baby" stamp set by Basic Gray

Accessories... Versa Mark, iridescent embossing powder, glitter glue, fine white glitter (for the snowflake.. I covered mine in glitter before punching it out), mega marvy snowflake punch, pop up glue dots and Martha Stewart twill ribbon..

Are you ready for today's clue..... Whether big or small.... shoes come in it.

Have a wonderful day everyone..

Happy Stamping :)
Lisa

5 Days of cards..... Day 1

2008-11-14T10:12:00.007-05:00

Hey everyone.. I know I've been promising you lots of project so here goes... I have 5 days worth planned for you and then a HUGE surprise at the end... the surprise is still in the planning stages but I can give you a hint... If any of you read Melondee Langworthy's Blog (if not head on over and give her a look seeeey... she's linked under "you have got to check this out"... ) you're familiar with her Drive-thru Thursdays.... So here's a quick little hint... It has to do with PIF (paying it forward).... so get those creative juices flowing.... Stop back each day to see what I've been up to and for another hint....

Today you're in luck.. I'll give you a 2nd hint... Christmas is for children.... and it's important to remember the "True meaning of Christmas"..

Even though I'm trying to get into the Christmas spirit I have 1 more quick Halloween card for you... Why am I showing you a Halloween card 2 weeks after Halloween??? I just love how this came out and it's so easy to adapt it to Fall, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Remember back a few weeks ago I did a little enabling which seems to be something I'm really good at (right Teresa????) and told you all about this set that I just had to have from TreeHouse stamps... Well, just as soon as it arrived, I knew I had to ink it up. This creepy hat was just calling for a pair of googlie eyes... LOL

Here's the full card.. I just love it... For this card I used...

Stamps... Creepy Crawly (THS)

Card Stock... SUP -- black, kiwi kiss and whisper white... Haunted Cosmo Cricket DS paper

Ink.... Black stazon, Green, Grey, Orange and Purple copic markers, Kiwi Kiss & Tangerine Tango SUP

Accessories.. Ranger glassy glaze, orange, purple, black and green stickles, SUP circle punches, misc word felt tape and pop up glue dots.

Have a fabulous day everyone... And remember to come back tomorrow for day 2 and hint #2..

Happy Stamping,
Lisa

Sheetload's Blog Candy Blowout

2008-11-10T12:23:00.000-05:00

OMGosh.... Run don't walk on over to

Sheetload of cards

to check out their November blog candy blow out... Here it is..

I've made sure entered.. Have you?

We have winnah'ssssssssssssss

2008-11-10T12:19:00.000-05:00

Congratulations... and thank you to eveyrone who entered my blog candy give aways... We have 2 winner's.. Wanna see what they won?

Our first winner... is.... DRUM ROLL PLEASE !

Dannette from Dannie's Creative Outlet

She won.. Orchid micro beads, a Flavia embellishment set, Creative Memories petal passion kit, White and Black Stampin Up Magic mesh, a package of tags, prima flowers and 2 white and 2 silver snowflakes.

And, my 2nd winner (for linking me to her blog is)..

Bumblebee Creations..

She won... primsmacolor pencils. blending stump, sharpeners, Stampin Up Art decor rubon, 2 silver and 2 white snowflakes, natural Stampin Up majic mesh, a magnetic clipboard with pen, cork alphabet letters and blue micro beads.

Congratulations ladies.. Please email me your snail mail address and I will get these shipped off to you.

and now on a personal note.. You will never believe what I fell into yesterday.. Are you ready.. Can you guess what this is? Can you say a primitive Hoosier.... And how much would you think I paid for this....

$30.... Yep you read that right.. No typo here. 30 / $1 bills.... I was shocked. I love it. I'm not quite done decorating it... But I still love it.

Happy Stamping everyone !!

Lisa

Can you see me...

2008-11-06T04:00:00.004-05:00

Jumping up and down.. I'm so excited I absolutely can't contain myself.. I realize that most of the time I'm slow to get on a band wagon.. BUT I have to say that I so adore these Magnolia's... for those of you who don't know what a Magnolia is please GO HERE and check out Magnolia-licios UK.. they do ship to the US so you don't need to worry if you just fall in love with them like I did..

Well, let me tell you.. My new BFF from SCS Tammy... Sent me an entire envelope of stamped Magnolia images. (Tammy.. YOU ROCK GIRLFRIEND.. Thank you from the bottom of my heart).. So I just had to use one for my sister's birthday on Tuesday..

This particular image is #255 Tilda with Cowberry Muffin.. And OMG is she not the cutest thing you've ever seen. After I had colored the entire image with my copic markers I added a little "Angel Wings Shimmerz" to her dress, apron, stockings, cheeks and the sentiment "Make a Wish" to give it a little shimmery glitz. My sister always loves a little bling bling.

Here's the full view of the card. I used..

Cardstock.. All from SUP kiwi kiss, pink pirouette, whisper white and the Bella Rose DS paper..

Image... Tilda stamped in black..

Ink... various copic markers

Accessories: large oval nestabilities, 1 1/4" as well as the 1" SUP circle punch, Angel Wings Shimmerz, kiwi kiss striped grosgrain ribbon, Diamond stickles (for the top of the cowberry muffin), pop up glue dots and last but not least some misc. rubons.

I'm going to need to practice my Magnolia coloring.. But not too shabby for my first try..

And oh, if you haven't already done so.. DON'T FORGET TO GO HERE to enter my blog candy give away..

Happy Thursday stamping everyone.
Hugs,
Lisa

Halloween Sweet Treats...

2008-11-05T04:01:00.000-05:00

Are these not the most cutest treat bags you have ever seen? I came across these Box-in-a-bag on SCS and just knew I had to make a few for Halloween (and I'm sure their be some for Christmas as well)..

First let me say a VERY VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to Diana Gibbs (Stampin' With Di) for this awesome tutorial.. for the complete instructions with pictures please go check out Diana's BLOG HERE !!!

These are super easy to make what you need is..

4 1/2 x 4 1/2 piece of card stock (scored at 1” on every side), and then score diagonally across the squares formed in the corners.

5 1/2 x 11 piece of designer paper

1.5 x 11 inch piece of designer paper

Red-liner tape

Round Tab Punch

Scallop Edge Scissors or punch

Ribbon and

Whatever else you may want to decorate your bag with.

First, Apply adhesive to the corners of your box and fold to form the box shape. I placed adhesive on both sides of the folds so that it would hold it well when folded. You'll see what I mean when you go to fold it.

Apply red-liner tape along one long side of your large piece of designer paper and also along one short side on the back side of the paper.

Peel the liner off and adhere the long side around the box even with the bottom (starting in the middle of one side of the box). When you get all the way around the tape on the short side with overlap and adhere the bag together with a seam down the back.

Use the scallop edge punch on the long skinny piece of designer paper and then adhere it around the bottom of the bag.

Adhere two tabs to the top of the bag - you can punch holes with the slot punch or use jumbo eyelets to run ribbon through.

Decorate as desired. (these directions were adapted from Diana's tutorial) !!
For mine I used... Cosmo Cricket Haunted paper with coordinating CC Haunted stickers and chipboard.. Black grosgrain ribbon and an orange textured paper (for the tags) that I found in my stash of scraps. These are so awesome because you are only limited by your imagination (and what embellishments you have.. LOL)

Once these were assembled I filled them with what else.. White chocolate covered pretzels with Halloween sprinkles and jimmies... YUMMO.. Ok I'll admit it. I ate 1 small broken one and OMGosh it was so delish... I found that 1 bag of the melting chocolate will cover 1 bag of the pretzel rods... So you'll need equal bags of each depending upon how many you're making.

And now for my matching card... Don't you just love these witchy legs.. I'm truly sorry. I purchased this stamp last year (Maybe from Ellen Hutson's store).. I seem to have forgotten who made this stamp.... I choose to color all of my legs in green, purple and orange copic markers. I then added purple and orange stickles... Because I just ((HEART)) glitterizing my cards..

Here's what the final card looked like.. The background card stock is SUP and then the designer paper is Cosmo Cricket Haunted. The ribbons are Maya Road. and the eyes are the coordinating stickers from the Haunted collection..

And lastly.. Don't forget to GO HERE TO ENTER MY BLOG CANDY GIVEAWAY... You have until sometime on the 8th to enter... Who knows what time I'll roll out of bed on Saturday. This day light savings time has me exxxxxxxxxxxxxhausted..

Have a safe and wonderful stamping day everyone !!!

Hugs,
Lisa

Blog Candy Update.....

2008-11-04T04:34:00.000-05:00

Happy Tuesday everyone.. Just a quick blog candy alert...

First don't forget to scroll down to this post and enter for a chance to win my blog Candy... Do not enter your comment here cause' I'll miss it.. make sure you enter it on the actual post. If you link me to your blog and others enter (and mention you sent them) you Will receive additional entries for a 2nd goodie bag....

Secondly.... Would you like to win a $15 gift certificate to Roses on Paper (a great place to pick up Magnolia stamps) as well as some other goodies.. if so, Head on over to Bumblebee Creations to enter for a chance to win !!!

Have a wonderful day... And please DON'T FORGET TO VOTE !!!!

It's a very sad day

2008-11-03T12:12:00.008-05:00

I'm not sure how many of you are aware but a week before I went to Jpeak (the sky is falling, the sky is falling... whoops sorry a little regression) my 'puter crashed and burnt. Well, a friend was able to fix it.. but in doing so, he had to basically re-load (if that's even the correct terminology) it.... So since the only thing I used it for was my pictures (from Snapfish), my I-tunes (which is what it was trying to upload the latest version of when it crashed and went to the blue screen of death) and the Internet.... there wasn't much he had to reload on it..

Now being completely computer illiterate as I am.... I was under the impression that my I-tunes was saved out in the intergalactic galaxy known as apple I-tunes so all was good. I made my mind up that as of today I was heading back to the gym. In preparation last night I thought (there I go again.. thinking) it would be a good idea to download a few more songs and charge my I-POD.....

WELL WHOLLY MOTHER OF GOD... I had no idea that your I-tunes are saved on the hard drive of your 'puter..... So when your 'puter crashes ... EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR SONGS ARE G-O-N-E GONE... so when you plug in your I-pod it freaking erases your songs..... OMG.... So here I am thinking.. well, I bought all close to 300 songs from Apple I-tunes, I must be able to get them back RIGHT !!! .. Oh no, go read the disclaimer (here I'll give you the brief jaw dropping version).. Oh no my friend, you can only download your music once. If you need to do it more than that... break out the ole' wallet yet again... But in order to save yourself from this .. hmm what was the word they used.. oh yes... 'regrettable situation'... Regrettable situation.. GIVE ME BACK MY MUSIC I PURCHASED FROM YOUR STORE!!! ... is to make regular back ups of your music and video files... A little late now apple wouldn't you say... you should have told me that before my 'puter tried to sync to my I-pod and wiped it all away.... So right now my glorious I-pod that I loved so dearly is blank and has nothing to say to me..it just sits on my desk staring at me...heartless and empty.... Now the only thing I can do is take it to my 13 YO niece and see if she can download some music to it so that once again my beloved friend will be able to sing to me.. Please learn from me.... back up your I-pod regularly.. How you do that I have no freaking clue...

Since I spent last night hyperventilating and soaking in a nice hot bath (which didn't make it any better) I didn't have a chance to download my pic's of all of my projects... Sorry :( But here's an awesome consolation recipe to share.. This is soooooo yummy. It tastes just like my grandma's pumpkin roll....

Microwave Pumpkin Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting... (Thank you OH)

¼ cup egg beaters

1/4 cup canned pumpkin

3 tbsp whole wheat flour

2 tbsp SF caramel syrup (DaVinci or Torani) .. I used SF caramel ice cream topping

2 packets Splenda

2 tbsp nuts/berries trail mix, chopped

Several good shakes of pumpkin pie spice

2 tbsp SF vanilla or butterscotch pudding mix powder

3 tbsp vanilla soy milk

1 scoop Vanilla Unjury whey protein isolate

Mix dry ingredients-- pour into wet ingredients in a glass measuring cup. Do NOT cook in plastic-- it heats too fast. Cook 4-5 minutes on HIGH. Let it cool, dump it out and slice it-- I'd slice into 3 or 4 slices. (I made 3 thicker ones)

ICING:

1 oz FF cream cheese per layer of cake (you make 2 slices of cake, double this, etc.)

drop of vanilla extract

splash of caramel DaVincia (or SF caramel topping again)

a little soy milk until spreadable

Mix with a spoon until clumps are gone and spread on a cool cake slice. Tastes better when you let it refrigerate a bit.

NUTRITION (this is a rough estimate) PER SLICE (if you make THREE slices!)

141 calories

2.25 fat

13.3 carbs

15.4 protein

TTY all tomorrow...

WHOOPS.. I almost forgot.. scroll down to my next post.. Don't forget to enter there (not here but comment on that post) for a chance to win my blog candy.. These pictures will also be posted later today/ tomorrow am..

Since I've been slacking lately

2008-10-30T10:09:00.002-04:00

I don't know why.. I just have been.. I have plenty of mojo.. just no ambition with it getting so COLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDD out... JEEZE..we've already had snow here in upstate NY and my DH was actually worried about plowing already.. Lord help us all. I so dislike bad weather....

Well, since I've been such a slacker the only thing I can do is offer up a little blog candy and send you in the direction of some other candy as well..

First... Please go check out Michelle's blog.. She's offering up a some luscious candy.. I love her (met her last year in Syracuse) and her blog... She's just awesome..

And now for me...

Please leave a comment here on this thread for a chance to win some scrumptious candy (what exactly will be determined later).. I have a whole pile of goodies in my stamproom.. I would love to know what your plans are for the fall? As you know I've been running myself ragged lately and this weekend is no exception. I'm so looking forward to the calmness starting Monday..

And since I'm feeling overly generous (oh heck.. I just feel really bad that I've been slacking so much with my blog).. If you post a link to my candy on your blog (have your reader's comment that you referred them) your name will go into a separate drawing for more goodies.. Each time your name is mentioned, you will get an additional chance to win.

My drawing will be Saturday November 8th... Good Luck... I'll post pic's of my candy sometime this weekend..

Happy Stamping :)
Lisa

Did I get a chance

2008-10-23T13:58:00.006-04:00

to get up to my craft room to get my Christmas cards for you.. Nope. Did a little retail therapy. Made dinner and then watched Fool's Gold... Sorry..

But here's a little something to keep you inspired. A little enabling. Which is something I seem to be really good at.. Check this out..

Be sure to head on over to Treehouse Stamps and check these out. I picked up this Creepy crawly set for only $15 plus shipping and handling. I love the hat and the spiders.

Happy Stamping.... :)

I'm home and boy

2008-10-22T12:18:00.000-04:00

am I exhausted. I need a weekend just to sleep..

Wow was Jiminy Peak eventful... here's a joke for you.. what do you get when you put 2 blonde's in a car.. 1 driving and 1 co-piloting? LOST !!! WHOOPS.. somehow we missed that right turn to stay on 43 East and ended up who knows where. Luckily there was a very nice man walking down the road and got us back to where we needed to be..LOL a 45 minute ride only took us just over an hour and a half... WHOOPSIES !!!!! Hey at least we asked directions..

Friday night I make a bunch of boxes in a bag as Halloween goodie bags. They are just adorable.. So now I guess you'll have to come back over the next few days to see them and to get the instructions.. :)
Saturday after working on my Christmas cards for a few hours you'll never believe what I did..

(((look to left))).. .I was here.. At the very tippy top of Jiminy Peak. We road the ski lift all the way to the top. Now trust me, that's something I never would have even considered doing last year at this time and 125+ pounds heavier. But this year, you couldn't stop me. I must say, the top of the mountain was beautiful.. But damn was it cold. As you look at the picture to the left, that brown cluster in the middle of the picture. That's the resort... Now can you imagine how high up we were. Going up was fun.. Going back down was not as much fun. The wind was blowing in our faces going down which made if very cold. I was numb by the time we got to the bottom

Here's another picture of me on the ski lift heading back down the mountain. The resort looks like an ant farm..

Hey do you like my sneakers?

And just 1 more to give you a good look going down... Wayyyyyyy down..

If that wasn't excite enough for 1 day... for the rest of the day on Saturday I finished all of my Christmas cards. It was about 9:30 or 10 and I was getting exhausted. I told my BFF Jeanine that I was going to finish up putting the glassy glaze on my cards to that they could dry overnight and then I was heading back to the room.. a few minutes later we heard this strange noise above us... We looked up and suddenly water was POURING out of the ceiling through the light fixture right onto our table.. Wholly Mother of God... I started grabbing my cards, throwing them on the table behind me.. And everyone just started grabbing supplies and buckets. It was a nightmare. I went downstairs to the front desk and they could have cared a less. Finally a maintenance man went upstairs to the restaurant above us and came back and said they spilt a little water.. WHAT .. it wasn't spilt water and it wasn't a little...

Let's just say that after a lot of fighting back and forth, Jiminy Peak has finally agreed to reimburse us for our damaged and destroyed supplies. No thanks to Renee (the Creative Memories) leader who shot her mouth off and now their not comp'ing us our room... YIPEE... we got to pay to stay in a room and have most of our supplied destroyed. Hell, I could have stayed home for free and not be out of pocket a few hundred dollars.. But as Renee said.... (keep in mind this coming from a digital scrapbooker.. sorry all you digi-scrapbookers she's making you all look bad) .. It was only paper... Yeah.. Right.. Only paper.. But that's a whole nother story I'm saving to share as a scary camp fire story.. This is a picture of the ceiling about a half hour to an hour after the leak.. you can see the bubbling in the ceiling from the water.. and the spots on the light fixture. that's still water dripping... Oh well.. live and learn..

The only advice I can give is that if you ever have the opportunity (or are part of the Creative Memories group going this weekend to Jiminy Peak) to go to Jiminy Peak scrapbooking.. ONLY keep out what you don't mind getting destroyed due to someones carelessness...

The weekend seemed to just go downhill (literally...LOL) from there. Sunday I woke up with a sinus headache that could have stopped an oncoming train.

I'm just so glad to be home and glad this weekend is behind me.. Now I can just look forward to the fun adventures I have coming up in November.. A stamping day in Syracuse on the 8th and then NYC baby on the 29th..

Come back over the next few days to check out my projects. I still repairing some of them.... But I think you'll enjoy them..

Happy Stamping everyone..

Hugs,
Lisa

Have you wondered

2008-10-14T04:31:00.000-04:00

where I've been... Here I'll give you a hint....

and another..

Have you guessed yet? I've been on a mini-vacation 'cabin'ing' in the beautiful Adirondacks. I can't say I was camping because as you can see... we had a wonderful cabin in the woods. With all of the luxuries of home.. Living room/ Dining room/ Kitchen combination.. Bathroom with indoor plumbing. 2 bed rooms, a beautiful gas fireplace in the living room to warm my cold piggies.. And most importantly electricity and HEAT.. Nope, not camping... cabin'ing.. LOL

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the 'do not feed the bear's' sign that was hanging on the tree across from our cabin. Although, Saturday night we threw caution to the wind and ended up leaving our dessert table full of goodies out all night. Nope not even 1 bear was attacked to all of the sweet goodies. Trust me.. I doubt I really wanted to see a bear up close and personal anyway. I probably would have passed out in fear if one walked by our cabin.

Even though I don't particularly consider myself a type A personality I have to say that with work, family, 2 dogs, church, friends, stamping, gardening.. I don't have much time where I find myself sitting around doing nothing and just listening. I took this past weekend to do just that. Here's a couple pictures I took from my chair on the dock. For the longest time I sat there just listening to my i-pod... Then I went up to the cabin, grabbed my book and took it down on the dock and read for what seemed like the longest time.

During the day the weather was magnificent... You can see just how blue the sky was and the reflection off the lake.. But at night.. OHHHHHHHH did it get cold.. I found myself inside by 9 each night warming my feet on the hearth of the fireplace. I think we were the only cabin with some of the windows open and the fireplace going.. Since it was gas and regulated by the thermostat that was the only way to keep it going.. LOL

I'm sorry to say that I won't be getting much stamping done this week either. Friday I'm off again for 3 days to Jiminy Peak Ski Resort in MA for a scapbooking weekend. I've never been and can't wait. Although, amongst the scrappers I'll be stamping my Christmas cards.. LOL you can take the stamper to a scraping event, but you'll never take the stamp pad out of the stamper.. LOL I'll be spending the next few days planning and packing for what I'll be doing this weekend. So stay tuned for more fun pictures of this weeks adventure.

Hugs everyone and until I return.. Happy Stamping :)

I really am still here....

2008-10-01T12:05:00.000-04:00

I apologize for not posting... Especially to Alex.. she's nominated me for a blogger award and I haven't even had time to post that... PHOOEY..... I'm sooooooo sorry...

This is a crazy week at work. I'm here most days 12 - 13 hours so by the time I get home, dinner, get my clothes ready for the next day I'm pretty well shot... The good news is.. I did just finish a batch of Halloween cards that just as soon as I remember to take a picture of them, I'll post for you. Hopefully it won't be Halloween by then.. LOL

In the mean time I send you blog surfing to pass the time away..

~ First you can start on over at Stampin' UP. Their new holiday catalog went live TODAY.. OMG.. If you'd like to order.. I'm offering $5 shipping on your entire order for orders placed between NOW & Thursday October 9th at NOON (EST). Please EMAIL me (located under view my complete profile.. over to the left right above the Stamping Top #) if you have any questions or with your order. I do accept Visa, MC, pay pal and personal checks.

After you've done your shopping...

~ Please head on over to Lim's blog.. She's offering up some awesome blog candy of magnolia and other stamped images... OMG I would love to win these.

~ After that, head on over to My Favorite Things.. they have a new release tonight that I just can't wait for. I (((HEART))) the new snowmen..

~ and finally.. why not surf the gallery at SCS.. You will get lots of idea's there... While you're there, if you're in or around NY, check out the 11/8/08 Central NY gathering thread.. there's a shoe box swap in Syracuse. I'll be there and can't wait. I already have my project planned (all the deets are right where they need to be.. in my head.. where ultimately I will forget them.. LOL)

THERE.... that should keep you busy while I'm suffering terribly here in the desolate doom called ... WORK... :(

Happy Stamping !!
Lisa

A little reorganizing

2008-09-16T12:15:00.000-04:00

does the stamping mojo good :) ... For the past few weeks I've been feeling very 'un'inspired.. My stamping mojo was in the toilet.. LOL So I thought that if I moved things around a bit, opened my space up a little more.. If I let in a little ying and let out a little yang maybe I would be more inspired.. So here's what I came up with.. Keep in mind that the other 1/2 of my stamp room is our den.. So I still needed to make room for 2 recliners and a tv.. The best thing would be that if some day I could take over the entire den.. But I really don't see that happening at this point. May be a basement redo would work though.. .Right Tilly?

This first picture is my stamping desk.. You'll see that I have a 'shoe' organizer shelf which hold my tins of ribbons and reinkers/ stickles perfectly.. On top there's even room for my white spinners.. (That's my technical term for them).. I love these. 1 holds my glues, glue dots etc. and the other holds my cuttlebug plates. This way I always know where they are when I need them..

These 2 'x' cubes are the dividers from my spinners. I was looking for something to hold my copic markers so that they were readily accessible and could be sorted by color. I'm still on the look out for smaller wooden cubes so if anyone finds some and wants to send me a RAK.. I'd LOVE IT.. LOL But for now, these work perfectly..

This is the other side of my desk.. I call it my embellishment center. Ok Ok I'll admit it, besides ribbon I have an addiction to embellishments. There I said it. I actually bought this holder in the home improvement section of walmart. My original plan was to house my copics in it. But it was about 1/2" too short so whoops.. I've filled it with my ranger dabbers, glitters, dew drops and my pretties (SUP)..

You know you really have an addiction when you need an entire shelf just for ribbon.. what can I say.. I (((HEART))) ribbon... This metal shelf is perfect for holding your punches as well. The other shelves are for paper and misc.. gotta haves.. including my bind it all..

Did you notice the wire caddy on the floor??? These are all cards, looking for a good home. :)

Tucked over in the corner under the eaves is my paper.. I've chosen to use the Cropper Hopper paper holders and the plastic drawers for my paper. The cropper hoppers hold my solid card stocks and the drawers my 12 x 12 designer papers..

Can a girl ever have enough stamps? This nice big 5 shelf book shelf holds all of my stamps and misc. Stampin Up items.. I'm doing much better. At 1 point about 6 months ago, all 5 shelves were full.. But if you notice the MM shelf next to it.. all of the clear plastic cd tins house my clear stamps.. LOL So I probably have the same amount of stamps.. Just house them a little better now than I did then..

And finally... more embellishments and more clear stamps... This is my MM embellishment center (I'm not sure if that's it's real name or my name for it.. :) ) that I picked up at Mike's the day after Christmas last year for a steal.. I love it.. The shelves are just perfect..

Well, this is where I create my magic... HAHAH.. So if you have any suggestions how I could use my space a little better or organize my must-haves to be a bit more organized.. Please pass it on.. I'm always searching for ways to be more organized..

Happy Stamping :)
Lisa

The air is getting crisp

2008-09-15T16:09:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again.. The air is starting to get crisp (that is up until yesterday when it was 90' and Hazy Hot and Humid.. as I walked down the street, every air conditioner was running.. National Grid must have been in their glory.. But that's another story.. LOL )... My all time favorite time of year is the fall.. the crisp smell of the air, apple picking, pumpkins, Halloween, Thanksgiving.. The only thing that's not fun is pulling the flowers out of the flower beds and raking the leaves.. But I guess we take the good with the bad. ..

This past week I celebrated 2 birthdays.. The first was my MIL's and the 2nd was our Pastors wife... So I made them this beautiful fall 'birthday' card using one of my new favorite stamps from Penny Black... Fantasy... The tree it's self, along with the gourds, pumpkins and acorns were all embossed using my chocolate bliss embossing powder from Gele-tins. OMGoodness... it does smell like chocolate.. How cool is that...

Fall Recipe...

Cardstock... Close to cocoa, really rust, confetti white (SUP) & spring moss PTI..

Stamps.. Fantasy (Penny Black) & Autumn Harvest (SUP)

Ink.. various copic markers

Accessories.. May Arts striped ribbon, Chocolate Bliss embossing powder, orange peel & cinnamon stickles... large slot punch (SUP)

Here's a little something I just had to share... Our fur pooch "Carter"... named after former President Jimmy Carter.. he and his litter mates were all born right around the 4th of July so they were all named after former presidents.. So when we got him the name just stuck.. LOL) .. Carter is a big baby and carries around his babies.. He has a stuffed dalmatian 'baby'.. a stuffed 'piggy' and loofa dog... A few nights ago I was in on the 'puter and looked over. Smoochy was sound asleep with his head on piggy.. The life of a fur baby.. LOL

Happy Stamping !!

Lisa

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2008-09-07T05:22:00.000-04:00

do dragonflies actually buzz...... HMM.... I simply adore dragonflies so when I found this paper in my LSS I just had to grab a piece.. And knew exactly what I'd be doing with it... A fall dragonfly.. A wonderful thing about these little critters is that like butterflies they come in a multi-tude of colors.

For this card I tried something a little different. The "Gate fold".. I have to say I just adore how it came out.

Making your butterflies, dragonflies or for that matter any flying critter jump off the page is so easy to do.. I stamp my image directly on my cardstock. I then restamp the image on a scrap piece of the same card stock... Color both images identically.. Then on my scrap image I cover with my glassy glaze (which ever brand I'm using at the moment whether it's SUP, Ranger etc). Once dried I take my cheap little mini scissors and start cutting. Once it's completely cut out, suing my bone folder I hold down the center of the dragonfly and then using another bone folder fold the wings up a bit. Add a little 3-m glue and viola' your dragonfly is on the move..

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone. Here's hoping that Hannah has moved off of the east coast and maybe today we'll have a little sunshine. Yesterday was grey skies, wind and rain so I spent the day lounging, watching tv, doing laundry... made a big'ole batch of soup and played around in my stamp room just a bit..

Happy Stamping !!

Lisa

Has it really been that long

2008-09-04T12:19:00.004-04:00

since my last post... OMGoodness. I'm sorry.. Allow me to catch you up to date a little... We were on vacation for a week. We didn't venture too far from home with the price of gas.. but it was nice just to not have to work for a few days.

My arm/ hands/ neck.. are still giving me problems. I receintly had an EMG on both arms and my neck. Can you say an hour and a half of being poked with needles and electrocuted.. Not something I would wish on my own worst enemy.. The neurologist said.. surgery.. But eeyyy'gods'... do you know how risky that is. I've made up my mind (thanks to a 2nd opinion from my orthopedist who I trust impecably, have a fabulous rapore with and who I feel would never steer me wrong).. to wait it out to see if the symptoms relieve themselves... if they don't and the pain & numbness get really bad I'll then (and only then) consider the herniated disc surgery.. My right arm/ hand though is a different subject. The neurosurgeon was doing nothing about it because he was relating 'everything' with both arms & hands back the the herniated disc.. Well buddy.. I don't have an MD after my name and I know that it's 2 different nerves.... My orthopedist agrees... it's 100% from pressure on the ulnar nerve. So yesterday I had wonderful (said with clenching teeth) cortisone shot in my elbow. Then in 3 weeks I'll have 1 in my wrist. If that doesn't help (which most of the time it does) the next step is an ulnar tunnel release (similar to a carpal tunnel release).. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the cortisone will do it's thing.. LOL .. In the mean time I've picked up the cutest little 'cush' pillows' at the dollar store last night to keep my elbow & nerve from pressing on the corner of my desk.

OMgoodness have you seen the new Stampin Up catalog.. My wish list is a mile long. My first order came Friday night and I have played a little.. So keep watching for those posts. I actually have about 5 or 6 projects to show you.. So I have been busy in my stamping room.. Just not too busy on the 'puter with the numbness in my fingers. Here's my first post. I know it's not Stampin' Up but I still love this Inkadinkado Ghouls & Goblins set that I picked up from Lindsay at Jacksonbelle Embellishments.. I am also 100% addicted to the Cosmo Cricket Haunted Papers, Blackboard shapes, and adhesive die cuts. The only thing I don't have that I need is the rub-ons.. I'll have to save them for my next shopping trip over to Lindsay's..

For both of these cards I used....

Card stock... Stampin Up Tangerine Tango, Old Olive & Whisper White card stocks, Cosmo Cricket "Haunted" DS paper.

Stamps... Inkadinkado Ghouls & Goblins

Ink... Pallette Noir ink, black Marth Stewart gel pen, misc copic markers, old olive ink

Accessories.. May Arts orange/ purple/ green grosgrain ribbon, Stampin Up large tag punch, pop up glue dots and a sponge for dabbing around the edges..

Now that's getting us into the Halloween Spirit..

Happy Stamping.. PS.. I have made huge changes to my stamp space.. Check back early next week for those pictures. I hope I can inspire someone else with my creative organizing techniques.. Or for that matter... just to change your space around a little. I find that a little change also helps the mojo flow..

Lisa

My first attempt

2008-08-16T16:26:00.003-04:00

at digi-scrapbooking... what do you think?As you all can see I just love Ali Edwards and what she does. She is enormously talented and watching her blog on a daily basis to see what she's done has inspired me to dip my toes in the digital scrapbooking pond... ok.. so it's a really big pond.. more like the OCEAN.. but whose being literal here...

I'm on the hunt for all information I can find about digital scrapbooking.. including..
what are the best programs to use
what are the best FREE websites to use
if I wanted to print them... what type of printer should I purchase, what types of supplies will I need.. etc. etc. etc.

Personally I'm on the hunt for the 'digital scrapbooking for dummies' book.. I think that would be a good place to start.. But please if you have any bits of wisdom on the subject you would care to pass on to me being a virtual 'virgin' on the subject.. PLEASE leave your comments here...

Have a faby-lous weekend.. I'm off to work on a few recipe cards for my swap.. TTYS,
Hugs,
Lisa

So true....................

2008-08-14T05:11:00.001-04:00

Doesn't it seem like some weeks there's ... Never enough thyme... to stamp? This has been a crazy week.. Monday... EMG on both arms, both hands and my neck. Oi'... an hour and a half of electrocuting me.. then sticking me with needles... I didn't know how much more I could take.. Hopefully I'll have some results when I see my PCP next week. Tuesday.. delayed planes... Got home really late Wednesday... Oh the things we do to be beautiful.. Highlights and a hair cut.. Only to get home to find out that we think our fur baby was stung by a bee on her face. Thursday.. Late day at work.. Friday.. I think I may finally be able to start relaxing.

This was the 2nd card I made the day my mother sprained her ankle.. Here's a funny story.. My Mother 'refused' to walk on the crutches. I think she just didn't know how to use them. So my step-dad went and got her a wheel chair so that she could get around the house those first few days.. Long story short, the insurance company called her yesterday to say that they were not approving the wheel chair because it was not "Medically Necessary".. Well of course not. She had crutches. So this morning when she's telling me.. I tried to explain to her that no it wasn't medically necessary.. She says to me.. Well it was medically necessary cause I wasn't going to use those crappy crutches.. HMMM... Sorry Mom.. Use the crappy crutches..

For this card I used.. Cardstock... kraft, sage shadow and K&C DS paper.. Ink.. Stazon timber & various copic markers.. Stamp sets.. Sweet Herbs (SUP) Accessories.. buttons, cocoa grosgrain ribbon... Guess What.. My hydrangea tree is blooming. Last fall I saw a hydrangea tree and I knew I needed one in my yard. It must have taken hold cause look.. It's blooming hydrangea's...

I have two swaps to finish this weekend.. so stay tuned for a few recipe swaps... :)

Happy Stamping....

We interupt our normal scheduled programing..

2008-08-11T04:19:00.001-04:00

to bring you this brief announcemnet..

HOW DO I STOP THIS THING??????????????????????????????

Having a Ruff Day ???????

2008-08-06T04:06:00.000-04:00

Have you been having a "RUFF DAY" lately? Sunday I had planned to spend a relaxing day puttzing around my stamp room, doing some laundry, a little cooking, a little cleaning. Well, we all know where our good intentions go.. LOL Around 4 PM my phone started ringing off the wall. Long story short after one of our many torrential thunderstorms lately my mother decided to take the garbage and newspapers out to the shed. Well, she never made it. She hit a patch of mossy mud and down she went. Her body in 1 direction, her ankle and foot in another. After an ambulance ride to the ER, x-rays and some heavy duty pain medication the ER PA (notice the sarcasm in my voice) who was reading the x-ray.. Nope not a radiologist or even a radiology PA, the ER PA said he couldn't see any fracture and off he sends us with her ankle wrapped in an ace bandage, air cast, pain medication and crutches... Now that's a RUFF day...

Before I jumped in the car rushed off to the ER I did manage to make a set of Ruff Day cards using the last of my new Penny Black stamps "SOO Sorry".. This little fell'a is just the cutest..

For this card I used..

Card Stock.. Real Red, Basic Black and Confetti White (SUP)

Stamps.. Soo Sorry (Penny Black) and a misc doggy stamp I picked up in Mike's..

Ink.. Noir Pallette Ink, Basic Grey (SUP_ and various Copic Markers

Accessories.. Tag punch, black & white gingham ribbon (or) white sheer ribbon, Anne Griffin Glass Effects.. I know I know I seem to be using a lot of the crystal effects, glass effects lately.. But I just love the look.

I will say though that I noticed that when using the copic markers on the confetti white card stock vs. my whisper white card stock (both SUP) the markers tend to bleed more with the confetti white.. This is just something to keep in mind when choosing your card stock for your projects..

Here's a quick shot of the inside...

Well, I hope you're all having a spectacular week.. The weekend will be here before we know it..

Happy Stamping,
Lisa

Enabler Alert... NOT

2008-08-04T19:12:00.001-04:00

Disclaimer.. what I'm about to say in this post is my own personal opinion based on my own personal experience. I do not work for nor am I paid by any of the companies below. This is just 1 stampers opinion... :)

I am often asked (since I am one of the queens of stamping supplies.. LOL) to help enable my stamping friends and pass on where and what to buy.. I am very quick to pass on the AWESOME websites and my own personal top must haves.. But occasionally (lucky it's more like in-frequently than occasionally, but I will stick with occasionally).. I come across a website that I have to say "Run like the devils chasing you".... and save yourself the headache ... sadly, that time has come again..

When Shannan posted THIS CARD using this adorable Quotopia set.. I went to the website "The Purple Turtle Shop" AKA.. Inque Boutique.. and grabbed myself a set.. I'm sorry to report, that was a bad move on my part.. I won't go into all of the specifics but I will say that their customer service is seriously lacking. After not receiving my order and multiple emails and phone calls with no response to either.. (at the time of this posting .. still no response.. I actually had a customer service rep on the phone who assured me she would call me back within a few minutes... Well, some 3 1/2 days later I still had not received that returned phone call)... I have decided to cancel my order with them and cease doing business with The Purple Turtle Shop.. I feel it's my duty that if I'm going to refer you someplace it had better be a place I will personally buy from... And this is not one...

However, on a happier note.. I will pass along a few websites that put their customers and the service they provide their customers first and foremost..

Dick at HM Stamps... He is A++ Awesome. He quickly responds to emails and orders (when I say quickly.. if someone responds that very same day, that to me is quick service).. He mails your orders quickly, and even asks you to let him know when you receive them. This is definitely someplace you need to shop for your Penny Black and House Mouse stamps...

Next is Unity Stamps.. Angela is Superb.. I have never had bad service from Angela and she will go above and beyond to ensure you're happy with your order. and

Finally.... 7kidscollegefund... Love that name. I wonder if she really has 7 kids... Her prices are comparable.. Shipping is super fast... I'm a got to have it now er.. so when I get my stamps just a few days after placing an order.. That puts them at the top of my list any day. I love the gelatins embossing powders I got from here.

So run don't walk on over to HM Stamps, Unity Stamps and 7kidscollegefund and check out what they have..

Late night out on a 'work' night

2008-08-01T04:21:00.000-04:00

anyone who knows me, knows because the alarm goes off at 4:30 AM I tend to head to bed early.. but last night I was out wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy past my bedtime. What would you ask would drive me out of my house and away from my bed... The premier of ...... drum roll please...

Me and my BFF's each won 4-packs of tickets to last nights premier showing... So we took our friends and family and off we went... OMG it was AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!! definitely well worth not getting home till 10 PM .. 2 hours after my be-witching hour.. LOL I definitely give this movie 2 thumbs up and is well worth cost of the movie, popcorn, and a drink.... Run don't walk to your nearest movie theater. I believe the release date is next Wednesday August 6th..

so being that I didn't get to bed until wayyyyyyyy past my bedtime, and I need to start thinking about getting ready for work soon (which means I probably should be sleeping right now.. LOL) today's post will be a short one. Here's a quick card I made for my BFF to celebrate that she had lost well over 100 lbs. This card is a little different in the fact that the close to cocoa background is exactly that... the background. It's the pretty in pink portion of the card that opens.. Just a little different design to spice things up a bit.

For this card I used..

Cardstock.. Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink and Very Vanilla (SUP) along with Basic Grey DS paper

Stamps.. Oh so Lovely (SUP), sentiment from PTI

Ink.. Chocolate chip & Close to Cocoa (SUP) with various copic markers

Accessories.. misc. pink ribbon, corner rounder (SUP)

Have a wonderful Friday everyone,

Happy Stamping,
Lisa

are you beehaving?

2008-07-31T05:23:00.000-04:00

I'm been dying to get up in my stamp room and play around for fun. I have a few idea's brewing in that big open space on top of my shoulders that I think will be fun... Last night I needed to make a birthday card so I used one of my fun new Penny Black stamps "BEEHAVE"..

For these cards I used...

Stamp.. Penny Black Beehave

Cardstock.. lemon tart (PTI), ?DS paper, Brocade Blue & Whisper White (SUP)

Ink.. Copic Markers... YR24, YR20, E37, B95, Y15, G40 & YG03, Noir Pallet, Brocade Blue (SUP)

Accessories.. Making Memories Brad, Blue/ White striped ribbon, Grass Dew Drops

Well folks.. .I'm going to a place where not many of us want to go right now... DO YOU REALIZE Christmas is only 5 months away.... OMG I've already ordered the Penny Black stamps I've fallen in love with for my holiday cards. And as soon as they arrive I'm going to get working on them. I promise I will not be locked away in my stamp room the first week in December trying to get them done.. LOL A couple of my holiday gifts this year will be card tins full of card... So if you've noticed lately I've been making multiples of the cards I make. It doesn't take much more time to make 4 than it does to make 1. You don't need to make many more cuts and whammo... before you know it you'll have 3 boxes of assorted cards all ready...

What are your creative plans for the holidays?

Happy Thursday everyone !!

Hugs,

Lisa

Welcome Baby Sophia

2008-07-30T03:25:00.001-04:00

Happy Wednesday everyone. This will be a short one.. It's too early and I need to get some sleep. One of my BFF's recently became a grandma for the first time. To celebrate I made her these birth announcements (4 of each color).. I completely surprised her and made her cry (that was not my intention.. but I was thrilled she loved them)..

Each onesie was made using a standard A5 card... I'll apologize up front that I can't remember all of the DS papers I used to make these. I just pulled them from my stock (LOL.. if you're anything like me you buy papers on the spur of the moment when U see them and (((HEART))) them.. LOL) . I then made a template to cut out the sides... the neck and legs were cut out using my 1 3/8" circle punch (SUP)... This was a little difficult to do, the punch did not want to cut through 2 pieces of card stock at once.. My hands were killing me... To make the bibs I used pretty in pink card stock (SUP) and cut them out with my Mega Scalloped Punch. Floral and pink ribbons were added to the sleeves for that little extra and pink dew drops were added to the bottom as buttons...

They were so absolutely precious.. Just as precious as baby Sopia.

the inside says.. a new little baby to cuddle and love... to spoil a little and think the world of... a bundle from Heaven to simply adore... who in the world could ask for more! Introducing Grandma Michelle’s Little Angel…

Name…
Date…
Weight…
Length…

I added a glue dot which is where Grandma Michelle can add a picture of baby Sophia.. The baby stroller is from the $1 spot at Michael's..

Happy Wednesday !!

Lisa

So what have I been doing

2008-07-28T10:13:00.004-04:00

for the past month.... Well, Let's see..
~ Partying with my BFF's... My Birthday.. my DH's surprise 40th Bday.. 4th of July.. dinner w/ my BFF's and their hubbies.. when does the partying end?
~ Dr appointments... See what happens when you turn 41. You start falling apart. Come to find out, My C5 & C6 are herniated (in lay mans terms... the spongy balloon between my C5 and C6 vertebrae popped like a water balloon and as a result I have pain down my left arm and tingling .. almost like it's asleep .. in my fingers). They have recommended they go in and remove the herniation... I'll know more on August 5th when I see the actual neurosurgeon. Until then I'm trying not to think about it.. That is until I have to shake my arm to wake up my fingers.. I also had my 6 month follow-up appointment with my GBP surgeon on Friday. He was thrilled that I've lost over 100 lbs in the past 6 months.. WHOOP WHOOP.. All is good there. and....
~ I've been locked away in my stamp room..

What do you get when you mix 170 pieces of white card stock, a photocopier, scissors, ink, stickles, copic markers, double sided glue, silk flowers and a whole lotta Silver Hershey Kisses?

Let me tell ya... You get 8 - 2 layer cakes for a 25th Wedding anniversary. We used the cakes as the table centerpieces and then everyone could take a slice from the top layer as their favor.
I made 2 different cake designs.. 1 using the bamboo shoot from "Embrace Life" and the other using the large round wheel "Watercolor Vine" both are from SUP. This top cake is Embrace Life and the one below is WaterColor Vine.
Here's how they were made. The template for all 3 cake layers can be found HERE (edited... if this link is not working for you.. please email me (see link off to the top left of the blog.. under about me, view my complete profile.. ).. and I will happily email you the pdf format.. i can't seem to figure out how to attach it here. sorry).. To make 8 2-layer cakes we choose to use the top layer and the middle layers only. I started by photocopying on whisper white card stock all cake pieces (the middle layer used 11 boxes to form the layer and the top was 10 so there was 21 boxes per cake).. I then proceeded to cut out each piece. I found that if I stapled 3 pieces of card stock together, I was able to cut them 3 at a time (makes cutting 170 cake boxes just that much quicker).. Next came decorating. Since it was a 25th anniversary we choose to stick with a 'grey' pallet so all images were stamped (or rolled) in basic grey ink (SUP). I found the Going Grey was just too light. Next came coloring. The bamboo images were colored in shades opf grey using my copic markers... Next.. All images were enhanced with stickles. I wanted the glitter to sparkle in the candle light. Phew finally.. all 170 pieces were cut out, stamped, colored, stickled and dried...

Next came folding. Personally I found that trying to fold each of these using my score-pal was too difficult and my bone folder was just too wide (you'll notice that each image has a dotted fold line).. so off to Wal-mart I went. Luckily they are starting to put out their school supplies and for .27 I was able to pick up a couple super skinny flat ruler (these are getting cheaper by the year. When I was in school the rulers were wooden so that when we were smacked with them it stung and left a mark.. Oh the good ole' days when teachers disciplined us students.. WHOOPS sorry.. off track). These were perfect to place across the fold line and fold each seam. While I worked on the folding Jeanine (My BFF and who was having the party) wrapped Hersey kisses in white tulle and silver ribbon to fill the boxes. So now that I have all of my pieces folded, and ready to stuff, I choose to punch a hole in the back folds of each box to tie them closed. I then folded and glued each box, stuffed them with the Hershey kisses and tied them closed.... Now came the assembly. To hold them in place for transportation I choose to use my double sided tape on paper doilies (did I spell that right?).

All 8 cakes were now assembled and I needed to add a little extra embellishment. All were decked out in cream silk flowers and the cakes using Embrace Life I added a few extra paper flowers using the lily from the same set. I must say that for all of the work.. They were BEAUTIFUL..

Here was the Happy Couple Saturday Evening.. All decked out in their silver... The cake for their head table was a single layer with extra flowers on it. I was afraid that the 2 layers would be too high..

And now for a couple fun pictures from the party.. Here's me with my DH.. Way too much dancing going on..

And here us... The Party Gal herself... Jeanine.. and in the back row (L-R) me, Estelle and Michelle...

I hope you enjoy these and they entice you to make a few cake favors of your own..
Happy Stamping :)
Lisa

I'm back

2008-07-27T18:47:00.014-04:00

and loving it... PHEW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! have I been busy the last few weeks. 8 2-layer cakes... 170 actual cake pieces.. That was one heck of a project. Please come back tomorrow to see how these cakes turned out...

In the mean time.. I ordered this dragonfly stamp from Addicted To Scrapbooking and simply adore it.

These 2 cards were used for July Birthday cards and inside is stamped simply with Happy Birthday.

For each of these cards I used... Card Stock.. Aqua Mist & Spring Moss (PTI), whisper white (SUP), Basic Grey or K&Company DS paper Ink... Noir Pallet ink with various copic markers,
Stamp sets.. Sketchbook Dragonfly (Stampendous) & Filigree Fantasy (Verve Visual) Accessories... Water Dew Drops, Ranger Glass Effect Technique.. Paper punch

To make the dragon flies pop off of the page I stamped a 2nd dragonfly image (colored identically as the first) and added the Ranger Glass effects to the wings. When they were completely dry I cut them out and glued them to my original image. When dried I used my bone folder to bend the image off the page ever so slightly. Here's what it looks like from the side image.

These final 2 cards were made with the same materials except I used.. Pewter large eyelets, Spring Moss (PTI) twill ribbon, and stamped Spring Moss around the edges of the dragon fly to distress it. The "sprinkle each day with kindness" sentiment is stamped on the inside of these 2 cards.

I have quite a few projects to show you so please stop back frequently this week. I can't wait to get them posted and for you all to see them.

I hope you all are enjoying your summer as much as I have been.
Happy Stamping :)
Lisa

edited ... I was asked what type of glue I used to adhere the wings to the card.. I perfer the Scotch Quick Dry Tacky Adhesive.. It definately dries quickly. I pick mine up in my local Wal-Mart.. :)

Crazy Crazy weekend

2008-06-28T07:52:00.003-04:00

Wowzy.... what a crazy weekend. I'm exhausted and it's only Saturday. I've spent the last 2 days celebrating with family and friends and the next 2 days will be no different.. PHEW.. I'll need to go back to work just to get some rest.. I am though working on a HHHHUUUUGGGGEEE project for a 25th that is in less than a month.. So my nose is to the ground and I'm staying focused.. I'll give you a little hint, it involves cutting 170 of something before I even start to decorate.. YIKES... :) So if you don't hear from me for a few days you know it's because I have scissors in my hands rather than the comput'ah keyes...

Right now I'm off to the gym before a family picnic today and tomorrow.. But I did quickly want to post the winn'ah of my birthday cupcake... R U READY.....

and the winn'ah is....
NANCY...

Congratulations and Thank you to everyone who played along...
Hugs,

Lisa

Enter to win... in my Birthday giveaway

2008-06-23T12:25:00.000-04:00

Don't forget to go to this blog post HERE to leave a comment....

A winner will be chosen on Thursday at NOON EST.

You have to be in it... To win it...

A few free hours on a Friday night....

2008-06-23T12:21:00.006-04:00

What would you do if you had 4 free hours on a Friday night???
Dinner.. Check
Dishes.. Check
Dogs Fed... Check
Laundry in the washer... Check
Hubby in the garage.. Double check
you go in your stamping room, hang the 'no boy's allowed' sign on the door and sneak away for a little stamping...

My niece's birthday was mother's day and for the past few years she's had an end of year birthday/ pool party for her friends. Last year I locked myself away in my stamp room for a week to make her these 'flip flop invitations'.. This year.. POPSICLES...
These were super easy and so much fun to make.. Let me just start by saying... This year she needed 40.. 40 I say and she's only 13.. Yikes, can you imagine what I'll be doing for her sweet 16 party? For these I started with a standard A5 card using.. Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, Only Orange, So Saffron (all from SUP) along with Berry Sorbet and Sweet Blush (PTI) cardstocks. I then ran the front's only through one of these 4 cuttlebug embossing templates.. Swiss dot, Happy Birthday, Bloom Dots and spots & dots... Next, using my Marvy Mega Scalloped punch I took a bite out of the top right corner.. (editor note... My punch would not go through 2 pages of cardstock at the same time. So I made another little template and marked on the front and back approximately where to make my punch. This worked much easier. ).. Now all that was left was the assembly. To the inside I printed invitations on whisper white cardstock, applied a jumbo craft stick to the bottom, covered with the invitation and then again using the scalloped punch, bit off the corner of the invitation. Next I stamped "You're invited" in my pallette black noir ink on the front.. What was left to do?
Well, wrap them in cello bags of course and tying them with coordinating ribbon. I didn't want these melting in her book bag at school and getting everything all sticky...

4 hours.. 40 invitations... DONE !!!!
I hope you all enjoyed these...
And oh... my niece's reaction when I dropped them off.... One word..

SWEET !!!!!!!!

Happy Stamping :)

I've been tagged

2008-06-23T03:10:00.000-04:00

A few years ago while cruising through the gallery on SCS I fell in love with the coloring detail of this card... So of course I sent Alex a private message asking her how she did it... Well, a wonderful friendship developed despite my lack of coloring skills.. LOL and now she's tagged me.. WHOO HOO.... thanks Alex..

Here are the rules... Each player answers questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

Ten Years Ago: Wow.. 10 years ago I was working for the same company as I am now and was getting ready to celebrate my 1 year wedding anniversary. So you could say I was still a newlywed. My DH and I were living in an apartment struggling to get used to being married.

Five Things in Today's "To Do" List.. 1- work of course.. It's a Monday... 2- get to the gym after work 3- DH has a dr's appointment 4- stop at Pet'smart to pick up some anti-itch spray for Carter.. Since his tubby yesterday he's been itching up a storm. WHOOPS guess I didn't rinse him good enough and 5- that never ending load of laundry..

I'm addicted to... why pocketbooks of course... isn't everybody?

Things I Would Do If I Were a Millionaire: That's an easy one... Sell my house and buy a house right next door to Michelle Wooderson.. How neat would it be to have her as my neighbor... Call in RICH to work... pay off my parents and my in-laws mortgages and the rest of the family would get cash to do with as they wished... although my god-daughter would get a really nice car on her 16th birthday.. And can you say mack daddy stamp room?

Places I have Lived: I'm boring.. I've never left upstate NY where we have 4 glorious seasons.. We get to see everything start fresh in the spring, the gardens grow in the summer, the nutty smell of the crisp fall and the beautiful soft blankets of snow in the winter.. What gets better than that?

So now I need to be the tagger.... Here ye' goes.. These women all have awesome blogs..
Teresa..
Sally Lynn..
Michelle..
and, Dani..

Happy Stamping :)

It's my party.. Want a little CUPCAKE !!!

2008-06-19T12:45:00.004-04:00

As I sit here eating my lunch (meatball, chicken sausage, pepper & onions with marinara sauce) in my white shirt I not only realize.. I probably should be wearing a bib because it's inevitable that I'll splatter something on my white shirt.. But... guess what next Thursday is...

It's my birthday.. It's my birthday (you can tell I don't like to celebrate at all) and what a better way to celebrate than with a little blog cupcake....

So, in honor of my birthday.. Post a comment here about your birthday. Do you (or did you) have any special plans this year.. a memorable birthday moment, your favorite birthday gift ev'ah.. or what ever you want... and

next Thursday ...

June 26th...

at NOON...

I will randomly select one winn'ah to receive a $10 gift certificate to use at one of my favorite stamping stores (I choose this one because they have my longest wish list !!! )

Unity Stamp Company

(Please send a shout out to Angela for making this available to me !!! Thank you Angela !!)

Happy Birthday everyone !!!!

Lisa

Who doesn't like FREE Fresh Cut Flowers?

2008-06-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

Wow.. has it really been so long since I last posted? I warned ya' all that I had a bad case of spring fevah.... As many of you already know.. The new Stampin Up catalog becomes available July 1st WHOOP WHOOP.... personally, I can't wait...

How about a little sneak peek..... Look what their comin out with?

Fresh Cut Flowers stamp set and laser cut notes....

http://www.stampinup.com/us/enu/10630.asp

How would you like the opportunity to win your very own Fresh Cut Flowers stamp set and laser cut notes? All you need to do is email me (to locate my email address.. please go to "view my complete profile" over on the left ..) any time between NOW and Thursday June 26th at 11:59 PM with a $50 SUP order (before tax & shipping) and you will be entered to win. It's that simple. The following payment forms are accepted... cash (of course), pay pal, MasterCard and visa... On June 27th I will randomly draw a winner from all qualifying orders.

Don't have a catalog... Well that's not a problem.. Check out the online catalog here..

http://catalogs.shoplocal.com/stampinup/index.aspx?pagename=storefinder&storeid=1038724

Please note... This post will remain on the top of my blog until the winner is drawn on the 27th.. so please scroll down for new blog posts..

Playing with new stamps

2008-06-13T04:03:00.000-04:00

OHHHH How I love to play with new stamps..... The smell of new rubbah' is just as sweet as the smell of freshly mowed grass...On Monday my package from Verve Visual arrived and it was so hot in my stamp room at the beginning of the week I couldn't bare going up there.. Well, the humidity broke and a stampin' I a-went... I have 2 fun events coming up and I wanted to make sure my cards were ready...

As many of you know, I had gastric bypass surgery on January 25th.. (98 lbs gone for good whoo hoo).. Through this adventure I've met 3 of the closet friends I will ever have. One friend officially lost 100.4 lbs this week.. So here is the card I made from us 3 to celebrate this monumental event... Were getting together on the 26th to celebrate and I can't wait for her to see it..

The nice thing about this card is that I made it a 5 1/2" square so the images fit nicely... This first card uses... Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue and Very Vanilla SUP card stock... Chocolate chip ink and blue rhinestone SUP brads.. The PTI sentiment was stamped in versa mark and then embossed in chocolate brown on sticky velum. .This is vellum I found in Mikes that comes in 8 1/2" x 11" sheets so you can cut it to what ever size you need. But the best thing is that it's reposition-able... so even though it's sticky if you don't get it in the right place, you can remove it and put it where you need it. I used this Vellum to make my nephew's first communion invites and it works awesome in the cuttlebug as well (I just adhered it to my cardstock before running it thought the cuttlebug)... And finally a wide chocolate grosgrain ribbon..

When someone is starting their weight loss journey 100 lbs seems so very far away. Michelle accomplished this feat in just about 4 months.. Congratulations Michelle !!!!

Happy Birthday to you.. Happy Birthday to you.. Happy Birthday dear Estelle.. Happy Birthday to you... This is a normal a2 sized card so I off centered the smaller filigree a bit. The differences with this card is I used Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet (PTI) and whisper white card stock, silver embossing powder Berry Sorbet grosgrain ribbon and pink dew drops... It's Estelle's birthday today and I wanted her to have a special card..

It's Father's day weekend which means busy busy busy with 3 dad's to visit... and it will also mean no stamping... So I'll be back next week with more projects..

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.. Enjoy the beautiful weather.. :)

Happy Stamping,
Lisa

PS... I forgot about a little enabling.. There are a few Friday the 13th specials you should know about..

Ellen Hutson's store ... 13% off your entire order .. be sure to use coupon code 131313V3

and

Frugalities... 49% off your entire order with coupon code noteega49

Tomorrow is not

2008-06-10T10:12:00.005-04:00

a guarantee...

until it's here....

as spoken by a wise neighbor last Wednesday...

I live in a 'relatively' quite city neighborhood where most neighbors keep to them selves but when they see you outside will stop and say hello. Last Wednesday I couldn't understand why there were flashing lights in my living room. I looked out the front door and our street was filled with cars and trucks with blue flashing lights, an ambulance, paramedics, neighbors standing outside... People crying.. What the heck was going on? I called a neighbor (who is on the fire department and would definitely know)... Sadly I was told that while cooking dinner our neighbor passed away. WOW.. Later as we were speaking to their neighbor he reminded us just how frail life is and that truly...

Tomorrow is not a guarantee... Until it's here.

I wanted to send a special heartfelt message to his wife letting her know what a kind and gentle man her husband was (I know she knew that but I wanted her to know that we knew it as well) .. Here's what I came up with..
As you can see, I used 2 different cosmo cricket DS paper...

For these cards I used...
Cardstock... Mellow Moss, River Rock and Very Vanilla (SUP) along with Cosmo Cricket DS paper...
Stamps.. 'with sympathy' (SUP) and Leaf Trellis (Memory Box)
Inks... Dark Moss and Creamy Brown (colorbox) and River Rock (SUP)
Accessories.. Chipboard (Mayaroad), Moss Grass dew drops, misc. dried flowers and the corner rounder (SUP)

Happy Stamping :)

Scooter Dog

2008-06-08T09:16:00.004-04:00

Happy Sunday... Can you say the air is thicker than peanut butter.. Where did our spring go? On day 60-70 the next day.... OPPRESSIVE HUMIDITY and 90' .... YIKES.. Needless to say, my DH put the a/c in the bedroom last night and we cranked on the rest of the house. I was only outside long enough to walk from the car to the gym and back again... We had a cookout at friends last evening and we all stayed inside around the a/c... I (((HEART))) the change of seasons here in the northeast but the humidity in the summer I could do without....

So guess what I've been doing since you can't breathe if you go outside? Well, the stamp room yeppers is all neat and tidy. But I do need a better system for all of my scraps of paper. And I've been stamping with a few adorable stamps I picked up at HM Stamps. These are from the Penny Black 2001 collection. I have BEEhave... Ever So Sorry (can't wait to give that one a try)... and drum roll please..... SCOOTER DOG... I've been taking Michelle Wooderson's advice and making multiples of cards when I need to make 1. I have a plan for the extras but I can't tell you right now... SHHHH don't want to give away the surprise.

Here's a picture of all 4...Can you tell I've been mastering the coloring with my Copic Markers?

Now for the nitty gritty... LOL For this card I started with a base of Whisper White card stock... from there I addedd a mat of Lemon Tart (It's hard to tell, but this I used my score-pal and created a criss cross pattern.. you can definitely see the pattern going from left to right.. but it's also going from right to left).. Then Scooty as I prefer to call him was matted on Spring Moss (PTI) and Whisper White (SUP) card stock. Next Scooty was stamped in my Black Noir Pallet ink and colored in Copic Markers.. I will edit this post later with the colors I used. The list is upstairs.. Next using my large and small (SUP) oval punches I stamped my happiness stamp in Black Noir Pallet ink and punched out the sentiment. Now it was time to assemble. For the ribbon I choose a wide grosgrain in Spring Moss (PTI) and then a thinner twill in Lemon Tart (also from PTI) and thin White Grosgrain (SUP) . Instead of tying one bow, I decided to give it that little extra flare and use 2... You can see in the big picture I used a criss cross of the ribbon as well (to compliment the criss cross pattern on the lemon tart). Once everything was assembled my final touch was to add the sentiment using pop-up glue dots to give it that little punch off the card.. I hope you all enjoy it...

Speaking of Lemon Tarts.. I have been dying for a delicious summer dessert lately... And finally I found one that I can tolerate... It's called Lemon Icebox Pie... I must share ....

Lemon Icebox Pie

1 box sugar-free Vanilla Instant pudding... I really wanted the lemon flavor so I choose to use sugar-free Lemon Instant pudding..
1 tub Crystal Light Lemonade... You could experiment with different flavors... or if your silly like me and buy the individual packets of sugar-free kool-aid (the ones used for the 16.9 oz smaller bottles of water).. use 4 of those...
1 cup skim milk
8 oz softened reduced fat cream cheese... I used Fat Free cream cheese and you couldn't even tell the difference
1 12oz container sugar-free Cool Whip, thawed
12 pre-made graham cracker tartlet shells... or 1 large graham cracker shell if you'd like to make it as 1 pie..
raspberries to garnish

Mix first 3 ingredients together. Gently add in the softened cream cheese. When blended well and smooth... Fold in the Cool Whip. Spoon into gram cracker shell(s) .. chill or freeze.This sets up like a mousse and is so fluffy and refreshing.
Try it topped with fresh berries or warm jam drizzled over the top.

Calories 102; total fat 6.1 g; Carbs 7.7 g; sugars 6 g; protein 4.4 g (without crust).. this calculation is using the reduced fat cream cheese their even lighter with the fat free cream cheese.

This is a definite keeper... If anyone has a fabulous sugar free dessert recipe Please share...

Happy Stamping :)

Born to Dance

2008-06-03T12:13:00.000-04:00

Hidy Ho there everyone.. Wow have I been busy the past few weeks.. My FIL has been in the hospital & rehab which has taken up quite a bit of my extra time. Thank goodness he's home and on the road to recovery... In between work, gym, hospitals & Memorial Day picnics I did get a little stamping in...

Here's 1 project in particular I made for a dear friends grand-daughter. She has her dance recital this weekend and her grandmother wanted something special for her gift basket.

This was so much fun to make... Here' the ingredients to make this fun frame...

Stamps.. time well spent (SUP) & the flower from baroque motifs (SUP)... Cardstock.. Misc pink & pink/ white polka dot DS 12x12 (grabbed these in Mike's).. Basic black and Whisper White (SUP) Ink... going gray, Palette Black Noir Hybrid Ink, light pink & dark pink copic markers .. Letters... Foam tickers (I think I picked these up at fugalities.com) & rubons ... Accessories... prima flowers, pewter brads, ranger glass effects, pink dew drops and a little litter for the centers of the flowers (before I applied the glass effects)

And finally.. sorry this picture is so late. Here was the complete gift pails from my BFF's girls day out in May.. Each pail contained the coordinating monogrammed notepad, set of coordinating note cards, a packet of protein (for us GBP'ers.. we need to get in our protein) and a coordinating bottle of water.. They all adored them..

Happy Stamping :)

PS.. Don't forget to check out the post at the top of the page to get in on your chance to win a free stamp set and coordinating laser cut notes.

more cards

2008-05-07T03:44:00.001-04:00

Happy Wednesday.. Wow what a week already. Unfortunately my FIL is back in the hospital which throws a monkey wrench into our evenings.. YIKES... oh well, he's doing ok.. barely ok.. but ok.. It makes for long nights stopping in to see him, trying to get to the gym and still do everything that needs to get done in the evening. Needless to say.. the cards I need for this weekend... are still in my head. May be tonight I can get up stairs and get a couple done.

Here's a few more cards from the assortment I made for girls day out last weekend.. (for those of you who missed yesterday's post.. I made goodie 'pails' for my friends that I was meeting.. all cards coordinated with their pails... green, yellow & blue).. I apologize for the pictures... They come out kind of dark when I take them at night.. :)

For all of the cards here today I've used..

J's... soft sky, cosmo cricket ds & very vanilla card stocks, chocolate wide satin (or) aqua mist ribbon, close to cocoa ink..

E's... spring moss, K & Co. ds & very vanilla card stocks, spring moss ribbon & brocade blue ink...

M's... lemon tart, K & Co. ds & very vanilla card stocks, lemon tart ribbon & brocade blue ink..

This particular card uses assorted brads as an embellishment & the images were stamped with 'All Holiday's from SUP and leaf tendrils from Memory box. To make the bow I actually tied 2 pieces of ribbon and then separated them after making the know.

For this next card I cut out the scalloped ovals using my nestabilities scalloped oval dies. The sentiment is Live, Laugh, Love from Daisy Buckets and this card was embellished with 3 copper brads.

And this final card for today uses.. cuttlebugs textile texture embossing folder (the image what then distressed with a little coordinating ink to pull the image off of the page..) and Daisy buckets best days stamp...

How could I not include a couple fun pictures from Saturday... Here's Estelle modeling hats... She sure can wear one..

And our very own.. Domestic Diva Jeanine.. Hugs sweetie..

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday. Happy Stamping :)

I've been soooooooo busy

2008-05-06T03:46:00.002-04:00

Wow... I can't believe it's been a week and a half since my last post. Boy has it been crazy here.. Let's see.. Big ole' audit at work last week. I was here most days till after 6 (and was here at 7 in the AM)... YACK.. that puts a damper on your stamping time. But I did have time to finish a few projects for Saturday. They say that common bonds draw people together. I have 3 very good friend that I met through having WLS.. We all decided to get together Saturday for a 'girls' day and wander the streets of Saratoga to see how my fun we could have.. And did we ever. I haven't laughed so hard in ... well I can't remember when the last time was I laughed like I did on Saturday. I wanted to put together little care packages for everyone. Over the next few days you'll see everything that went into them.. Here's a start..

I had 3 pails that I put everything into .. 1 light blue, 1 green and 1 yellow.... So every one's packages were color coordinated with their pails... Their first gift was a monogrammed note book...

For Jeanine's I used... soft sky, cosmo cricket and very vanilla card stocks

Estelle's... spring moss, K& Co. ds & very vanilla card stocks and

Michelle's... lemon tart, K & Co. ds & very vanilla card stock..

The scalloped ovals were cut out using my marvy punch. The smaller ovals were made by stamping the oval from PTI's "Wedding Day" stamp set in versa mark & then were embossed with (J's) gel-a-tins chocolate bliss scented embossing powder, (E's & M's) black embossing powder.. I then simply cut out the ovals.. Each were tied with coordinating PTI ribbon... After adhering the rubon's.. E's and M's monogram were stamped in coordinating PTI ink with my new favorite Memory Box leaf tendrils stamp. To make the sentiments I stamped my Daisy Buckets best day stamp in chocolate chip and going gray and distressed the edges with coordinating inks.

Each package also included 5 coordinating cards.. Here's just 1 to start.. Again, each card coordinated with the monogram notebooks.. These cards used...

J's... Soft sky, cosmo cricket & very vanilla card stocks, close to cocoa ink, aqua mist ribbon & the daisy buckets live, laugh, love stamp with Stampin Up's garden silhouettes stamp.. For the other two the differences are..

E's.... spring moss card stock & ribbon, K & Co. ds card stock, & brocade blue ink and for

M's ... lemon tart card stock & ribbon, K & Co. ds card stock & brocade blue ink.

I'm sure I'll be flamed for this picture but we had so much fun... This was us tearing it up in Eddie Bauer trying on hats.. Here we are from L to R... Me, Estelle, Jeanine and Michelle.. Estelle.. girlfriend, you sure can wear a hat..

And finally.. Carter just wanted to pop in and say.. HELLO everyone..

So what are the plans for this week? Cards for 2 birthday's, a communion card, 3 mother's days cards, the gym, FIL in the hospital, Mother's day, Birthday & Communion shopping HMM... I hope that's it.. stop back for more of the care packages from Saturday and the cards from this week...

Happy Stamping everyone...

I have a surprise.....

2008-04-24T12:12:00.001-04:00

As many of you know.. Harley (our rambuncious kitty... who would scream at me during the night if we didn't let him out)... passed away about 3 1/2 weeks ago.. My DH didn't take his passing very well and truly missed him. Even this past Sunday we were talking about Harley.. On Monday the strangest thing happened.. As I was perusing Craigslist I came across an ad for "Free to a good Home"... We have as good of a home as anyone..

Allow me to introduce you to our newest family member..

Daisy Dukes....

She is the cutest thing... and is so affectionate and loving.. However, I must say... she's not quite accustomed to the dogs yet. Carter & Oreo... they absolutely adore her and their tales haven't stopped wagging since I brought her home Monday afternoon.. She on the other hand had laid a B--ch stapp'in on Carter (no worries.. she's declawed... so basically he's been slapped with soft furry paws).. but that hasn't stopped him from trying to give her kisses. Slowly she's adjusting to the house and is starting to see that she's safe...

On a stamping note.. I've heard rain is in our future.. That can only mean 1 thing.. I'll be stamping.. Check back for a few cute projects I've created...

Happy Stamping :)

a huge Enabler Alert !!!!

2008-04-22T03:04:00.000-04:00

For those of you who know me well (you know who you are)... you know that a) don't like spending money alone and b) spending money isn't hard for me to do.. especially when it comes to my stamping supplies... So at least a few days a week I'm sending emails along these lines.. did you see this or you've got to see that... did you buy anything from..... hey.. what can I say.. I'm a queen at enabling.. So where have I been spending my money lately???

Let's start at the cat's pajama's.. I love their stamps but I must confess that I haven't been able to purchase any until now... I just (((HEART))) this set "It's a mod, mod world".. ... It's so Jetson's.. I know showing my age again but what can I say.. LOL There's so much that you can do with this set... I just HAD to have it... If you just have to have it to... you can get your very own right HERE..

Now can we talk about scented embossing powder.. Yep you heard me correctly.. SCENTED Embossing powder from gel-a-tin... I picked mine up from http://www.7kidscollegefund.com/ .. scented they have Chocolate Bliss (brown) .. Bubble gum (pink) .. Cherry on top (red).. Cuppa Joe (black).. Santa's candy cane (red/ white) .. and Extra foam vanilla latte (cream) just to name a few... RUN don't walk to get your very own supply of these. The awesome thing is... the scent lasts for up to 3.. count them 3 weeks... HOW AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for my all time favorite adhesive (this picture was taken directly from Taylor's store.. so please be sure to stop by an pay her a visit..).. I became familiar with this sticky tape adhesive over a year ago and love it.. I've even stopped buying the mono adhesives.. Why.. well, let me tell you... the tombow mono-adhesive is approximately $2.30 for 472" (13.11 yards).. which comes down to approximately .18 cents per yard.. How many times are we 1/2 way through the roll and boom... the tape breaks. Then the entire dispenser is done.. shot.. fine'e'toe.. in the garbage... This tape however is $7 for 55 yards which breaks down to approximately .13 cents per yard...And you get to use the entire 55 yards. Why, because you peel it off the roll yourself.. Be prepared though, this tape does take longer to use than the tom bow adhesive. You need to manually cut your piece and apply it to your project and then peel off the strip of paper.. On the other hand.. when you stick it... it's STUCK. this is very important when making cards with lots of layers or altered items. Overall.. this tape gets a 2 thumbs up.. I think this should keep you all busy for a few minutes..

Happy shopping from your favorite enabler :)

Things that make you go

2008-04-19T10:10:00.002-04:00

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Sorry.. still playing outside. It's been in the high 70's here the past 2 days (may be even venturing on 80) and ohhh it feels soo good. Yesterday my DH was off from work, so we decided it would be a good day for a little gazebo... Our deck gets the morning and early after noon sun. So mid summer we don't start to use it (that is unless were all trying to get in that limited shade from the umbrella) until later afternoon.. so me in my infinite wisdom decided.. Why not put one of these gazebo's on the deck. It'll shade the deck and also cool down the kitchen because it'll partly shade the sliding glass door. So in the past week we've put 2 coats of stain on the deck and then last night.. up went the gazebo.. OHH it looks soo good. Today I'm decorating. I can't wait to share my pic's..

Look what I found in Starbucks.. (love their frappachino's. I haven't had one since before my surgery in December.. but I hear I may be able to get a fat free... sugar free... mocha frappachino.. I need to look into that one. ... HMMM... At work I'm forever looking for a mug. So Thursday when I stopped in to pick up a few goodies for work, look what I found.. I picked up the 'inspire' mug.. It's a little visualization to keep me focused.. I'd love to be at the 100 lbs gone by my 6 month appointment with my surgeon on July 26th.. That by the way is also the day I can 'officially' have raw fruits and veggies... guess what I'm having for dinner. The best salad I've had since the beginning of December when I started Medifast.. Yep, keeping my eye on that prize again... It's strange though when your prize is a 'salad'.. LOL

Ok everyone.. off to the gym and then to decorate the deck... Be sure to check back tomorrow for a few enabler alerts.. Just because I'm gardening doesn't mean that I haven't done a little shopping too.. LOL

Have a wonderful Saturday...

Spring has Sprung

2008-04-17T03:13:00.000-04:00

and so has my sever case of 'Spring Fev'ah'... The snow has melted, grass is turning green (well all except for the huge chunk of my lawn where my DH and I use that term lightly... dug it up with the plow this winter.. Guess what he'll be doing in a few weeks... replacing my SOD.. Ohh, what a project that will be)... Crocuses, daffodils and tulips are poking through the newly warmed soil.. and most of my perennials are peeking through. I'm always curious to see what comes back each year.

I find this time of year hard to stamp... It's just too easy to be outside rather than locked up stairs in my stamp room. They'll be plenty enough rainy days for that... LOL I know, you're sending me eye daggers right now through my heart.. But this was 1 loooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggg winter. Please forgive me.

Last week I made this quick card (to go along with the frames for my very cute, yet very married with children surgeon.. LOL).. I wanted this card to be very masculine so I used..

cardstock... Very Vanilla, Basic black & cosmo cricket DS paper

ink... Versa Mark, Black embossing powder

stamps.. simple delight

accessories.. black & cream wide grosgrain, pearl bling (in center of stamp), cuttle bug with the textile texture embossing folder.

So may be.. just may be if we get a little rain in the next few days I'll venture up to my stamp room for a little stamping... if not, look for me with my hands in the dirt or at the gym... Yep you heard me correctly ... at the (gag, gasp)... gym.. My surgeon has recommended that I start adding a 30 minute cardio work out at least 3 times a week into my routine.. So I joined a gym... Last night I met with my very hunkie personal trainer for my assessment.. He's already warned me ... Monday when I see him again.. It's gonna hurt.. OUCH...

Happy stamping, Happy gardening and just Happy enjoy this beautiful weather. See you on our next rainy day..

The last 2....

2008-04-07T12:24:00.005-04:00

Frames... I promise... At least for a little while :) When so many people love these frames, how can I not make them as gifts? I missed one of my good friends birthday last weekend (my mind was elsewhere with loosing Harley) so this weekend I made her this gift...

T's favorite word is integrity.. Which may I add sums her up in a nutshell. She is one of the most 'honest' people and has a strong morale.. For the background for this frame I used vintage paper... The letters were rub-ons from Wal-mart on very vanilla paper matted on sahara sand. Baroque Motifs and Simple Delights were stamped in sahara sand and cranberry crisp. The cranberry ribbon was embellished with a piece of pewter hardware before I tied the bow..

I believe everything happens for a reason. That is exactly how me and my friend J met. She started her weight loss journey a few months ahead of me.. so she is just a few pounds away from loosing.. Are you ready... 100 pounds. How awesome is that? This final frame is for her for when she's inducted into the century club... I choose believe because choosing to change your entire life is something that you need to believe in with every ounce of your soul. Choosing to have WLS isn't something that one can wake up one morning and say.. I think I'm going to have GBP surgery.. It's something that takes a great deal of thought and it's not until you're absolutely ready can you even make that decision. This will be my special gift to J when she reaches the 100 lbs gone forever milestone. For this I used "Style" designer series paper from Crate Paper.. Textured black and Very Vanilla Carstock (SUP).. The letters are again rub-on's from Walmart. Baroque Motifs and Simple Delights (SUP) were stamped in Versa Mark and then embossed with black embossing powder. And finally I added a piece of Ivory wide grosgrain ribbon with a decorative black ribbon and pewter hardware.

So if you could pick just 1 word to describe yourself what would it be?

Happy Stamping

We have a winner

2008-04-03T12:23:00.001-04:00

Congratulations #9...
Gina Wrona

Gina said.. Hi Lisa!My great news is that I sold my last AKC black female lab, who is 16 weeks old today!YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!Thanks for the chance/opportunity to win your awesome candy!((((((((((((((hugs))))))))Gina
Fri Mar 28, 11:42:00 AM

Gina, please email me your snail mail address and I'll get your package out to you... Thank you to everyone who participated. I love giving candy away.. :)
Hugs,

If you could describe

2008-04-03T10:13:00.011-04:00

something very meaningful to you in just 1 word, what would that be? I have my 3 month post-op appointment (actually it's only 2 1/2 months but don't tell his secretary).. with my surgeon.. (I actually call him my phantom surgeon because I haven't seen him since the day of my surgery. I had my GBP on a Friday so I saw the on-call doc all weekend, when I had the infection, he was on vacation.. so the on-call doc again and then because he's in the OR every day we see the PA for our normal appointments.. If it wasn't for the pain, the scars and the progress I've made since my surgery.. I'd start to wonder if he was even there.. No, JK I know he was there. I do remember talking to him in recovery.. If the word 'lots' when he asked me how much pain I was in constitutes talking..LOL) on Wednesday and wanted to bring him a little something. So this is what I came up with..

Dr. Clarke and his entire office staff are so genuinely dedicated to each and every one of their patients. Some of the office staff actually had GBP surgery so they've walked in our shoes and know what's going on. Dr. Clarke spends each and every day in the OR performing WLSurgery. His dedication to his work, to his patients and to giving us all back our lives is a true testament of the type of doctor he is..

When you meet Dr. Clarke for the first time you are overwhelmed his genuine compassion. How often do we go dread going to the Dr's? Dread listening to the same speech over and over again? You need to loose weight, your blood pressure is too high, are you exercising. Or how often do you feel like you're standing at the deli counter in line.. Take a number, the Dr doesn't even know your name, rushes you in and out like you're on an assembly line and has ZERO idea about any of your past medical history.. Never cracks a smile, never says hello.. Doesn't make you feel like a person with feelings and emotions. Personally it wasn't on my list of favorite things to do. When you meet with Dr. Clarke he sits down.. calls you by name... is extremely informative.. answers every single one of your questions and then some.. Laughs with you.. but most importantly treats you like you're his only patient for the entire day.. and because of that... is usually running very late. But how can you be upset when he gets to you and gives you that very same care. You can't.

Each frame was made using... Stamps.. Baroque Motifs & Simple Delights (both SUP) Cardstock.. Crate paper Avenue Collection/ Glam DS paper, the reverse (solid) side of the Style DS paper and Black textured SUP card stock. Ink.. NONE... Accessories.. Rub-ons (Wal-mart), versa mark, Black embossing powder, Cream 5/8" grosgrain ribbon & pewter hardware.

Enjoy.. Happy Stamping

Everyday

2008-04-01T04:11:00.002-04:00

is a gift... And I really think I've come to appreciate that even more the past few days. Life always has a way of getting away from us. We become consumed in work, what were making for dinner, did the house get vacuumed, are the bathrooms clean, what holiday is coming up, what we have to do this weekend, what our plans are for the up coming months, omgoodness the yard needs to be rake etc. etc. etc.. .... and then in just a split second we realize we need to stop and celebrate the here and now..

Thank you all so very very much for your support through this sad time. I know we gave Harley a beautiful life filled with doing exactly what he wanted to do... basking in the warm sun, playing with his friends, roaming the neighborhood under the glow of the moon, and starring down a chipmunk or two. He spent all day Saturday warming his belly with the sunshine coming through the dining room window. He sure has left his paw print on our hearts.. :)

This was my shoebox swap for the SCS Eastern Get together.. Thank you Julie for your inspiration.. For this card I used a 4 1/2" square card made from chocolate chip, very vanilla and certainly celery card stock. Out on a limb was stamped in chocolate chip, certainly celery and ruby red. To make the tag I ran a piece of very vanilla card stock through my cuttlebug, stamped the sentiment in ruby red and then distressed the edges of the tag and the card with certainly celery. I added a piece of black hardware to the tag and tied with a piece of cocoa grosgrain ribbon. The green embellishment.. Yep it's one of my favorite dew drops. And finally.. How did I make my scallop.. It's circle punches glued to the back of the certainly celery card stock.. To ensure their in a straight line using a pencil I mark a very light straight line down the center on the back of where ever I'm adhering the circle punches. I then aline the circles up to that line. This will ensure their all even.

And finally... Please don't forget to stop by this post here... and leave a comment for your chance to get in on my latest blog candy.. You have until THURSDAY the 3rd at NOON EST... Good Luck :)

Happy Stamping :)

A very sad day....

2008-03-30T19:26:00.003-04:00

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...

A little math & a little Candy...

2008-03-27T04:59:00.000-04:00

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 :)

Swaps

2008-03-20T03:15:00.001-04:00

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..

And we had FUN FUN FUN

2008-03-19T04:40:00.001-04:00

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 #3.. Full Card, Demo Quality Only

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 :)

Sneak Peak

2008-03-13T10:04:00.006-04:00

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.. :)

With Sympathy

2008-02-29T05:03:00.000-05:00

My SIL is a 'fabulous' social worker at an area nursing home. She is awesome at what she does. Not just because she took such good care of my grandmother (so good that she was able to be moved to an assisted living floor) but that this is how she treats all of her residents. Last Friday she presented me with a favor. Would I make her a stack of sympathy cards to use when her residents pass away. How could I resist. This is just an example of the little extra she gives to her families...

By the way.. On Wednesday she was crowned EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR... whoop whoop... Congratulations Annie... :) I wanted to make 1 that was more masculine and 1 more feminine...

This card was made using.... Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate & Whisper White card stock.. Pretty Peony was stamped in Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate (thank you to my stamp-a-ma-jig).. and River Rock.. and the edges were distressed with River Rock. French Script was stamped in Groovy Guava. "With Sympathy" was stamped in Purely Pomegranate and again distressed with River Rock.. I added a strip of Purely Pomegranate double stitched ribbon for that little something extra. I (((HEART))) how this came out...

Here's my more masculine card. This I cased from my SUP catty... This card uses River Rock, Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla card stock. Simple Delights were stamped in River Rock.. I stamped the "With Sympathy" in Chocolate Chip. Added a little brown ribbon and a pewter brad.. Simple yet elegant...