Because Someone Asked

Because someone asked why in the HECK I have a hippo stamp, I am here to tell you I own it to make this card. Yep, I searched for years for a hippo stamp for the sole purpose of making a card such as this, and one day I spotted it on the Rosie's Roadshow Web site (this must have been before Angela started carrying the Rosie's line in her shop, because now I only buy my Rosie's stuff from Angela. Or maybe I knew Angela carried Rosie's and asked her to order it for me. Whatever. I own it, and that's what's important here.)

The hippo and sheep's behind images are from Rosie's; the birdie is from Inky Antics. The DS paper is SU and from The Heap. The Choc Chip and Vanilla are also scraps, and the base is virgin Very Vanilla. The bird is a really funky color because I started with yellow, and it was hideous; then I went over it with a YG (yellow-green) color to soften it and it got, well, green; then I added a blue and went over and over it until it looked blue, but it was still green; then I went over it with ANOTHER blue until I got what you see here. I could not make this up, nor could I ever recreate this particular color blue.

Since I have yet to find this sentiment anywhere in cyberspace, I have been forced to resort to writing it by hand lo these many years. This time I punched them out with the Word Window punch and shortened the pieces a bit to fit the words.

I do believe the bling on the punched slits was a misguided decision on my part, but my blue brads up and walked away somewhere, and the bling was on the table, so, well, that's why I used them. I am almost over it now.

Well, my SU Workshop order has arrived, as well as my SAB bonus set - I got Thoughts & Prayers, so I did not really buy it, you see. ;-) Now I must mount the set so I can play! I'll get to dividing up the order tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!

One Card, Two Ways

Since I am soooooo far behind in making up my projects for my May Stamp Camps, I decided to steal some ideas from other bloggers. My dream is that one day I will come up with my own ideas, and maybe someone will want to steal from me. Until then, though, this is totally a one-way street. At least I credit those from whom I have stolen, so you've gotta give me points for that!

Let's see what I stole this time.

I started with this lovely card from Stamp With Jodie. I think I like her because she makes simple cards like I do (when I am not trying new things and scaring you, that is). I did turn the design sideways (largely because I cut the pieces too long and I did not want to trim all of them), and I used a different stamp set because, well, I do not have the one she used. And I used a different piece of hardware, because I bought these forever ago and never used them, so I'm using them now. But other than that, it is a total steal.

Recipe (all SU): Stamps - Pocket Silhouettes; Card stock & paper - Very Vanilla, Taken With Teal, Tempting Turquoise, Flock Together DS paper; Ink - Tempting Turquoise, Taken With Teal; Other - Turquoise gg ribbon, Silver HPH ribbon slide.

Then I thought up something all by myself!!!! What if I stamped the blue images really lightly on the card stock and then stamped another image over them in Basic Gray. Radical! But I did it, and me likey! What do you think? Me being me, I'll probably show my customers both of these and let them decide which one to make. It's much easier on me that way, and this is all about me, right? But if you do have an opinion one way or the other, I would like to hear it. Really!

Lastly, I need to tell you that Al lost a shoe. If you recall, I brought him into the house late Saturday night when I got home, and since Sunday was STINKING hot, I never even left the house. So Monday when I left for work, I noticed a shoe lying next to my car. I just figured one of the neighbors threw it there (don't even get me started) until I got closer and noticed it was really old and beat up, and it looked remarkably similar to ... Al's shoes! So I grabbed it and it is now safely in my abode. Al is still one-shoe-off-and-one-shoe-on, but it has been recovered.

Cute socks, huh? His creator shops second-hand clothing stores for her stuffed people, and she thought to get him socks to go with his shoes. Technically, I suppose I could get him some summer duds, cuz he looks a bit warm in that sweater. Hmm ... this could be fun. :-)

Okay, time for me to get back to stampin something. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, Monday ...

What happened to Spring? Just last week it was in the 70s and maaah-velous, and this weekend it was sweltering. Today it hit 90! Yikes! And it is APRIL! 90+ degrees in the summer is pretty standard around here (remember the three H's: Hazy, Hot & Humid), but it is freakin' APRIL! I could not sleep last night it was so hot, and I had to turn on the A/C. In APRIL! Apparently the building in which I work had not enabled the A/C yet, because it was 80 degrees in there today - all day. Can you say "oppressive"?

Pop quiz! What is this:

? Anyone? This is a shot of part of the hood of my BRG (British Racing Green) Miata. BRG is a really DARK green. What's that you say? It looks yellow? That's because it is yellow, as is every other non-garaged vehicle in the area. If you live anywhere near DC, this is what tells you Spring has truly arrived. This is tree pollen. And unless you park your car in a garage, your car will look like this. This generates long lines at the car washes. Well, not me, of course, but other people get their cars washed. My cars get washed when the neighbor washes his and feels sorry for my cars and washes one of them for me. I'll get the Miata detailed here in a few more years. Hmmm ... it may actually be the year for its detailing. I'll have to go look that up.

Moving on ... tonight I finished up my "horse's behind" cards with another version. I really like the 'thinking of you' sentiment. This one comes from my recently-acquired PTI Anniversary set. Apparently I have purchased 12 sets in the past year, so I earned a free Anniversary set. I am not sure this is a good thing (having purchased 12 sets), but I sure do like the sentiments. ;-)

I also realized that not only is this coming weekend my first Market, but it is the only weekend left before my May stamp camps. OOFH! As of the end of my third session in April I had four ideas from my customers for projects, and I have since forgotten all of them. I am pretty sure I wanted to use this set, so I made this card tonight to take it for a test drive. I fell in love with this paper when I first saw it, and I just now opened the pack and cut into it.

That shape behind the layered oval punches is one of the dies in the SU Sizzlits Lots of Tags set. I saw it on another blog (I'll update this post if I can find it) and she had layered the SU Wide Oval on top of this die-cut, so I thought I'd try it with the two smaller ovals. I kinda like the look.

Ach, would you look at the time. Now that the A/C is on, I think I'll try and get some sleep tonight. Thanks for stopping by!

UHC #11

Today's Under-Appreciated Holiday Challenge is Save The Rhino Day, which is celebrated every year on May 1st. Normally, the holidays I choose are just fun, but as I researched this one I realized it was a serious holiday. Under-appreciated, but serious. Here are some serious links about the endangerd Rhino: SaveTheRhino.org, SavingRhinos.org, DesertRhino.org.

Okay, that's enough serious stuff for me ... now on to the Rhino card! The only problem is: I don't have a Rhino stamp. I KNOW, it's crazy, but I don't!!! So I made one. Well, you see, I have a Hippo stamp, but no Rhino, so I thought I'd sorta convert the Hippo into a Rhino by adding a horn. This is what happened:

Allow me to introduce the Rhino-potomus! (#2 made that up for me). There's quite a lot going on with this little card. There's the Rhino-potomus that I made by drawing the horn using my new Memento black marker. That's right - a marker. I got it in both black and brown and it is perfect for when I need to alter an image I plan to color with Copics, or to fix a poorly-stamped image I plan to color with Copics (which is more often the case).

The sentiment was stamped using my Making Memories magnetic alphabet which usually stays safely hidden away in its box because every time I use it, the sentiment comes out looking like this. I have alignment issues.

I used two of the gazillion buttons in the bag of buttons I bought, and sewed them to the ribbon with my SU Linen Thread. The ribbon is the long-ago retired (and hoarded by yours truly) SU Taupe grosgrain, and the DS paper is the flip side of some green leafy SU DS paper I've been using up. Even the base is from The Heap.

Not bad for not having a Rhino stamp, huh?

So go forth and adopt a rhino!

A Horse and a New Little Something

In April 2005, a group of us took a walk on the canal, and I, of course, took my camera along. Every once in a while, you'll see someone on horseback, and on this particular day an absolutely GORgeous horse came up behind us. He The horse's rider told us he was getting ready to gallop, so I decided to try my motion setting on my camera. This is the resulting photo:

I only got the back end of the horse. Not even his LEGS, just his butt and tail. I sighed. I showed the photo to one of my pals and asked (nay, I wailed), "What am I going to do with this?!" to which she replied, " W-e-e-l-l-l-l ......." and an idea was born.

Here is my 2005 version of the card. I am sold out of these cards, but I have the photo in a frame for comic relief, and several people have asked about it. I just never got around to printing any more of the photos. Until tonight, that is! I took some time to print off all the card images for my inventory book (next week is the start of this year's markets), and while I was there, I printed a few horse derrieres.

Here is the 2009 version of the card. Instead of printing the sentiment on the 'puter, I actually opened one of my new stamp sets and used it. Radical, I know!

So enough about horses' behinds - let's move on to that 'new little something' to which I alluded in my title. BR #2's life is riddled with blog fodder. She should write a book. I even gave her a Whine Journal last year to get started! If someone would only write down the stuff she tells me, that book would write itself. So she started a blog, and posted I think three posts, and then she gave up. She tried, but she is unable to type like she talks, so she has given me permission to post selected stuff here, even photos.

Decision time: What is a blog? A blog is a Web Log, usually by a person, with posts about themselves. I decided that as much fun as it would be to include #2's antics in my own blog, it would be way more fun to ghost-write her blog. So I made up a new blog and I called it: My Blog Writer Wrote This For Me. Hey, that's as creative as I could get at this late hour on a Sunday. My first post was tonight, so head on over there and check out her life (as seen by me and based on things she tells me). This could be fun! Go ahead and leave her a comment, too! [Edited to remove the new blog.]

Time for bed. Gotta get up in the morning and head to The Day Job. Thanks for stopping by!

Why I Will Never Run Out Of Blog Fodder

First I need to give you a little background. One of my very good friends has a squirrel problem. Well, he says he really doesn't have a squirrel problem, because he has a gun and he "takes care of the problem", which makes my stomach turn. Then he got married, and she has taken care of the gun thing, except for when she is not home. My friend and his wife hosted our Pot Luck dinner last night.

About an hour after we all arrived, I looked out back and saw a dead squirrel. Belly up and dead. I just assumed (of course) that he had shot the poor thing and left it there, so I chastised him. IS THAT A DEAD SQUIRREL IN YOUR YARD??! To which they both laughed and told one of the dogs to go get the squirrel. ACK! Out the dog goes and PICKS UP THE THING AND BRINGS IT BACK TO US! It is not a dead squirrel. It is a stuffed chipmunk that they bought at the local grocery store. Lookie:

OH.MY.GOSH but it looks real!!!!! (Isn't that a beautiful dog, too?)


Also last night I decided to bring Al home. Al is a 'stuffed people' Albert Einstein I got a looong time ago and I kept him when I got divorced, also a looong time ago. Al lived here for quite some time until the friend I mentioned above decided he needed to borrow Al to scare someone coming over to his house. It worked. He has had Al in his home ever since, so last night I decided it was time for Al to come home. Please notice two things in the photo of Al in the car. (1) He is strapped in. The last thing I need at 10:30 on a Saturday night is to be stopped by the PA or MD police for my passenger not wearing a seat belt; and (2) the copious amount of cat hair on Al's right hip. My friend's cat used to sleep in Al's lap.

I brought Al into the house last night since I knew I'd be sleeping in a bit this morning, what with the late hour of my return home plus the coming down from the sugar coma, and I did not want to scare the neighbors when they saw Al sitting in my car. So now he sits in my Kitchen, and will undoubtedly scare the bajeezus out of my customers next month.

Speaking of the sugar coma, yes, the Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding was a hit again. I brought home very little of it, so I had it for breakfast. I also brought home almost the whole Angel Food cake and a bunch of the fruit. Guess what I'll be eating for the next few days.

Oh, well, maybe I'll get dressed some time today and start preparing projects for my May stamp camps. I also need to think up something for tomorrow's UHC card. I may need to take a nap first - that whole sugar thing, you know. :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

Back to Normal (whatever that is)

I'm back to my normal self now. Nothing here will shock you into thinking you are on the wrong blog or anything crazy like that. Nope, just your average crooked stuff.

Here I used a new Outlines stamp I picked up at Angela's last weekend. Most of the time I use Outlines stamps, I stamp them a few times on different colors, cut them out, then layer and layer and layer. But after I stamped it on this flowered SU DS paper, I decided the pattern of the stamp was perfect enough to not need to cut anything. The frame is busy and the center lets the pattern show through. Just right, I'd say!

And I'm back to my boring layers. For this one I just wanted the sentiment to stand out (so she says ...). AND, it is all scraps from The Heap. :-)

More scraps, here. I am working on a birthday card for my Dad who will be 83 next week. Back when he turned 60, he said he was not going to celebrate any more birthdays, but I refuse to let him forget. Plus, I am already a Bad Demo and a Bad Mom, and I do not want to add Bad Daughter to that list.

In case you think I was clever putting that ribbon where I did, it was totally on purpose to cover up a boo-boo where I messed up my sponging, and that knot covers it nicely.

And lastly, we have images from my new Night, Night, Ellie set from My Favorite Things, which I also picked up at Angela's last weekend. Isn't she a cutie? I paper pieced her jammies, and colored her with Copics.

The sentiment is pieced together from several different word options in the set. I cut it out with my smallest Nestie in the Labels 1 set, but the next size die was too big for this layout, so I chose a die from the Labels 3 set to use as the layer. I think it looks cool!

Other than these cards, I had a pretty productive day. Next weekend is the first Farmers Market of the season, so I picked up my card rack from storage; I recycled a bazillion SU shipping boxes; and I bought the ingredients for this recipe, including 2 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, and then I made it. Mmmm, but the house smells good! No, I am NOT going to eat it all myself. I have a pot luck dinner tonight, so there will be about 10 people feeding on it. I also got fresh fruit and an Angel Food cake for anyone who might want something a little less calorie-laden. I have my money on the Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding, though. I'll report back on how that goes. ;-)

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Bit O'Nature and A Peek A Some Goodies

After work today, I took the scenic route home so I could be a good girl and take a walk on the canal. It was a glorious day, and it would have been a shame to go straight home and begin my usual slugness so early. So I got there and started to walk. So far, so good.

This is one of the first things I see when I head from the parking area to the canal. This is run-off from the lock. The canal contains a series of locks that used to be used to help boats navigate the canal, which runs from Georgetown (DC) North 187 miles to Northwestern Maryland. This particular lock is around mile 19, which is how far North of DC I live. Isn't this purty?

This is the tow path, where the mules used to walk while they towed the barges. There are two or three locks still working with mule-towed barges for the tourists. It's fun, and if you are ever in DC, you should check it out.

Anyway, this is the path that runs along the side the canal, which parallels the Potomac River. People come here to walk, bike, run (with or without dogs), or ride horses. One of my best photos ever was the rear end of a horse. I'll dig it out of the archives and show it to you this weekend. It is a hoot!

So this evening I started my usual walk, and since I am a fast walker, I broke out into a sweat at about 100 yards, I kid you not. I am soooo out of shape. Plus it was buggy, so after about 10 minutes I bagged it, turned around, and headed back.

To get back to the parking area you need to cross back over the canal, so I took the opportunity to show you this particular lock in the closed position ...

... and the other side, which is of course open.

And because it was there, this is the former Lock House, where the Lock Master lived. Some of the lock houses along the canal are open to the public and you can take tours. If you look waaaaay off in the distance, you can see the Potomac River. One of these days I'll get back out there and take some better pics.

Enough with the nature stuff already! Wanna see some goodies? I am working on collecting stuff from The Other Room to have as give-aways in May. First of all, you need to consider that I am not famous, and I do not have any sponsors, nor do I have people giving me things, so don't expect things like whole sets of Nestabilities. Okay, now that we've settled that, let's check out what I have in the stack so far.

We have:

*Three (3) packs of 12x12 papers, which shall be cut into 4 6x6 stacks each. I'll keep one of each to scratch my itch, and the other three will be given away.

* Cork letters. Yes, they are lame, but I have three of them, and maybe one of you can do something cool with them, as I cannot.

* 4-packs of stickers. These are very cool. You can use one on each of 4 cards, like I did. ;-)

* Packs of paper flowers. Lotsa potential here.

* Paper napkins. Yes, paper napkins. I have a whole pack of these. I used one to make 4 cards, and heaven knows I do not need ALL of these. If you peel apart the layers so all you have is the top colored layer, you put plastic wrap between the napkin and your card stock (with lots of scrap paper under and over all of it) and you iron the whole thing. The plastic wrap acts like the glue, and it looks VERY cool.

* Ribbon. Surprise!

* Buttons. I have a gazillion buttons, so I plan to share.

* See that pack of City Cards on the left? Yep, you'll get those, too. Now I am not dim enough to think you'd want note cards that say "Gaithersburg, MD", but each winner WILL get a pack customized with their own town's name. Or a made-up name. I really don't care, but you'll get to pick the name.

I reserve the right to add more stuff as I find it In There, but this is the stack so far. NOW, if anyone has a good idea for what kind of contests or challenges I should have to give this stuff away over a three-week period in May, please let me know. I am certainly open to suggestions. If you guys don't think of something fun, you will be at the mercy of whatever evil plan I devise, so consider yourselves warned!

Okay, I'm off to stamp! Thanks for stopping by!

A Beautiful Day In The Neigborhood

What a glorious day! The sun was out, the sky was blue, it was NOT raining, and many good things happened. Allow me to share:

First, I GOT AN AWARD! Miss June gave me this. Here's the deets: The Karma Award: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I am so honored to receive such an award, I am speechless. Okay, I am rarely speechless, but I was really touched. Thank you, June! As for the "choose eight bloggers" part? Not gonna happen. I am the end of the line; the chain-letter-breaker. I also do not know eight other bloggers that have not already received this particualr award, so I will just stop blathering now and say: Sorry.

Next up in my 'it was a good day' day, I GOT MY WAY! Ahem. You know how sometimes you see the writing on the wall, but no one listens to you and they plow right ahead? Well, at the Day Job, this was happening. I did not criticize, I just innocently asked why such-and-such was not done {some specific other way}, and I was shot down! Shot down!!!!!! Many times, too. I am nothing if not persistent. Well, today the stuff hit the fan. All the people who wanted it THEIR way, and got it THEIR way, ran into a little, um, shall we call it a 'snag'? The proposed solution was ... ready for this? ... "Well, I guess we'll do it the way Leslie suggested". Woo-hoo! Doing a little dance of joy, here. Is it so wrong of me to be happy? Well, I was happy. And I still am, too!

After work, I stopped for my every-other-week massaaaaaage, and boy did I need it! I feel so goooood right now. ;-)

Moving on. Sweet Miss Kristie, an avid player of the Magnolia Down Under Challenges, sent me an envelope full of stamped images (1) so I could practice coloring faces, and (2) because she knew I would never, ever, ever buy these stamps myself. I just made up that last part, but she did send them to me because she is so darned nice, and they arrived late last week.

Tonight, I pulled out my first image and made this card. I think I used about 28 Copics, too. I tried to pick a light source (shining down from the top right) so I could color her correctly, and I tried. Heaven knows I tried. I think I succeeded in making her jeans look like the bottoms were wet, or dirty, or both. And please ignore the fact that I am incapable of coloring every other square in her pic-i-nic basket cloth cover.

Please DO notice that I used a paper flower AND a button! WOW! Sometimes I amaze myself. The flower is from one of the three flower packs I picked up at Angela's on Saturday, and the button is from a pack of buttons I also picked up in the same shopping spree. Why is the flower in that location? Because I schmeared ink or something in the white space and it needed to be covered up. But it was a great opportunity to play with my new stuff! The paper is from the Scrap Heap (yay!) and the sentiment is an SU rub-on.

I only made one of these. I am so used to making 3 or 4 of anything, that I am not sure how I will display all of these I-only-made-one cards at my market. Hmm ... maybe they will end up in my etsy store instead! :-)

To celebrate my blog-i-versary, I am working on a stash of goodies and a plan for giving them away. Tomorrow I'll post about what's in the stash so far, and maybe I'll have a clue by then how I'll give the stuff away. I am thinking about having three different challenges, one per week for three weeks in May. So far, that's all I know. I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for stopping by.

The Earth, Some String, and a Blog-i-versary!

Happy Earth Day! This card has nothing to do with Earth Day, but Happy Earth Day anyway. :-)

This card is an example of what happens when I play with string. I cut the scallops with my Nesties, wound string around them, stuck in some bling brads, added a rub-on sentiment, and said, "Done!" No needles, no sewing, no nuthin'. Easy, peasy.

Aaaand: Happy Blog-i-versary to me!!!!!!!!!!!! Two years ago today I dipped my big toe into the Blogosphere, and who knew I'd still be here today?! Who knew I could talk this much?!?!?!

I am still formulating Da Plan for celebrating this momentous occasion, but as soon as I figure it out, you'll be the first to know!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Baaaaaaack

Thanks to the super-duper Help forum at Blogger, I found the answer to my problems with IE. I had a mis-placed font tag and IE was throwing a fit over it, but it has now been corrected. Thank you all for your emailed comments about not being able to read my blog. I think I might actually have more than 3 (maybe 4) beloved readers (lurkers). ;-)

Another Crooked Day Off

Today I had the day off from the Day Job. I try to do this each month the day after my Stamp Camps, since I am usually so far behind, I spend the whole weekend getting ready, then I have no weekend, ya know? So my Tuesday off each month is my 'catch up on life stuff' day.

After last night's thunder boomers and torrential rains, today was sunny and glorious. I stopped in at Chloe's Cafe to see if any cards sold, and they did! I sold three more. Yay! I was so happy I decided to walk over to the ponds/lakes and see what was going on. Just then the sun decided to go behind some clouds, so it was overcast, but still very pretty. Spring really is trying to happen around here!

And if you were looking for a Trip Report from my Play Day with #2, it got cancelled again. Hey, she has a life, and a new puppy who is a little sickly right about now, so he needed to go to the Vet. I know stamping and playing is important, but the little guy needed attention, so he got it. We can reschedule some other time. She did stop by and drop off her Cuttlebug, since mine went home with one of my customers last night, and I cannot be without the tool for using my Nesties, ya know!

With no Field Trip, I decided to stamp something, and I actually retrieved The Heap from the back seat of the car and opened it up again. These cards were made from The Heap mostly, except for the layer of Brushed Gold on the first one and the white base on the second one.

One of my customers asked if I thought this card could be made into a Wedding invitation. Not really (Can you imagine making 100+ of these? And where are the pockets?!), but maybe a wedding card, so I had to try it ...

... and this is what came out. I used some stamp images from my barely-used Together Forever set from Stampin' Up! It's difficult to see in the photo, but I stamped the flower in Versamark Dazzle Champagne to make the background and just heat-set it without embossing it. It came out very subtle and glittery, and is real purty. (Go ahead - click on it and squint your eyes and look reeeeeal close ... I'll wait ... ... ...) The Mr and Mrs is embossed in gold (that's one stamp ... like *I* could line it up like that ...), and the '&' is stamped in the Versamark Dazzle Champagne over it and heat-set. I used my SAMJ to line it up.

I used my Coluzzle to cut the two ovals, and my SU Eyelet Border punch on the Brushed Gold layer. I also scored a line above the punched border for a little extra je ne sais quoi. Since I did such a horrific job with the Coluzzle, I decided to tie the ribbon through the oval pieces to try and hide it, but that plan failed me. But that's what I did - I used the double-rectangle punch at the top of the ovals, then wrapped the ribbon around the card and up through the slots, and tied it on top of the ovals. The sentiment layer is Very Vanilla and the card base is a textured sheet from my stash.

Okay, now it's time for something a little less formal! This stamp was one of my many purchases on Saturday when I had my latest rampage at Angela's.

There was a sample out on the counter (how convenient) that showed the image used like this - like a stop light, so I needed to try it myself. As an added bonus, it's all scraps. :-) I stamped the images on scraps and cut them out; hey, I needed a way to get them lined up straight, and I know I could never stamp them like that!

Did you know that Glorious Green (a much mis-understood color in the SU line-up) does not match ANYthing?!?! I had a real problem trying to match any of my green ribbons to it; this one was as close as I could get. And you thought I was kidding when I refer to these as 'Every Color Green But the One I Need' ribbon boxes. Nuh-uh. It's a real challenge some days! Well, so is getting out of bed, but that's another story for another day.

I am fatigued beyond belief right now, and I am fighting the urge to go horizontal, so I expect to hit the hay early tonight. I'll try and stamp something else I can show off tomorrow. ;-) Thanks for stopping by!

Blogger Behaving Badly with IE

Phooey! My Blog cannot be opened in Internet Explorer! Rats! And I just opened it a little bit ago. Oh, well. It opened just fine in Firefox. If you use Google or some other Reader, or if you get an email feed, you should be okay to read my posts, but this will wreak havoc on my comments, which will kill me, fer sure.

The error you will get if you try is that IE cannot open the site, operation aborted. Yeah, real helpful. Some nonsense about DNS. Phooey, I say, phooey on you-y! Just switch to Firefox. That'll show those Microsloth people a thing or two, huh?

A Trip Down Memory Lane

No photo this evening ... too wiped from the last Stamp Camp following a full day at the Day Job. But something jiggled a memory at work this morning that I wanted to share.

We have the Corporate Awards thing every now and then, and one of my team-mates got himself volunteered to accept on behalf of a bunch of other people, so we went to heckle him from the back row. Actually, two of the guys were there to accept. ANYway, one of them said, looking at the other one, that every time he asked if something could be done, he just did it. He never said it could not be done, and he was grateful for the can-do attitude. blah, blah, blah

What stuck in my brain was the 'he never said it could not be done'. Flash-back to elementary school, when we were forced to memorize poems, stand in front of the class and regurgitate them. As I sat there listening to the rest of the blah, blah, blah today, I mentally recited this poem FROM MEMORY, then I looked it up when I got back to my desk, just to make sure I remembered it correctly (and I did!)

It Couldn't Be Done

by Edgar Guest

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it";

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

Amen. Funny what we remember, isn't it? What's even more interesting is the fact that I have used this (unknowingly) in my work-a-day life. One time I needed to work with a certain person on a project, and tons of people told me this guy was impossible, and I'd hate every minute of it. Bah, I said, BAH! I can work with anyone. So off I went to the meeting, and I came back smiling, much to the chagrin of all the nay-sayers. See? I decided to see for myself, and ignore all that negative input, and it was just fine.

I am off to bed, now. I'll finish cleaning up in the morning. Even though it is pouring rain and thunder-booming and lightening and everything now (I have a mud puddle where my front yard used to be), I think the Forester will make it up the driveway at #2's place tomorrow afternoon. I'll take some pics of some stuff so I can do photo Trip Report. I've gotta do a Trip Report.

G'night!

UHC # 10

Today we play with the Under-Appreciated Holiday of: Mother Goose Day (see also: The Mother Goose Society), which is observed on May 1st every year.
Since I was fatigued last night, I chose to focus on the 'goose' part of the holiday instead of using the opportunity to take advantage of many of the individual nursery rhymes that might have presented more colorful options for creation.

This card is made from Basic Grey papers from the Offbeat 6x6 pack stuck to a white card base, and all the stamp images are from Rosie's Roadshow. And yes, I know that is a duck, not a goose, but I have a ton of ducks, and they also swim and fly like geese, so I stretched the theme a bit. So shoot me. (Actually, I sent an email late last week - at work - with the subject = "Just shoot me". Yeah, rough week.) Ahem, back to the card. The sentiment says, "A good Goose is hard to Find." Take that any way you'd like to take it. ;-)

So that's it for this Under-Appreciated Holiday. Now go forth and celebrate Mother Goose!!!!!!

A Happy Sunday

Have I said lately how much I love my SU customers? Yeah, I think I learn as much each Stamp Camp as they do, and we really do have a great time. I like how this craft draws certain types of people, and they are nice people. I had five Ladies here this morning who did not know each other except from these Stamp Camps, and they were chatting away about this and that and I actually hated to interrupt them to assist with the projects! I think a few of them have even planned a Field Trip to Angela's. :-)

Before everyone arrived, the cat was resting up for the influx of Ladies (though I am sure she was not aware that's what she was doing). As soon as I take laundry from the dryer and dump it onto this chair so I can take the washer stuff out and put it into the dryer, this pile of clean stuff becomes a Cat Nest (and you thought I was kidding yesterday, huh?)

This is the bonus project I finally decided to include. I had purchased some Hershey bars to use, then I found out from Lauri that I should have purchased Kit Kat bars instead, so I went out and got those, too. (The Ladies got both candy bars in their kits, but only enough paper to cover one of them, so they had to choose which one to wrap and which one to eat.) My attempts here are miserable examples of what can be done with a 6x6 piece of patterned paper. Check out Lauri's here, here and here, as hers are much better than mine. Thankfully, I was just showing my customers what they could do, and to feel free to take anything they wanted off the supply table to beef theirs up, and they did a wonderful job of it, too!

For example, this lovely creation. She chose to do the Hershey bar sleeve, and she wrapped a piece of ribbon around the package to hold the candy bar inside. A little bling, a skewed tag, and Ta-Da! Beautiful job!

Snoooooooooore! Such an exhausting day. Actually, I took this before I kicked her off so I could fold all that stuff before people arrived. That's not even cruel, since all I did was open the back door to let in some of the lovely, fresh Spring air, and she thought she was going out (okay, that was mean), so she left her nest and I could fold.

Two Stamp Camps down, one to go tomorrow evening. Gotta keep this place looking ship-shape, so no stash diving, though I will need to create something for tomorrow's UHC. There's lotsa good holidays in May and June, so I'll probably do them weekly for a while. Tomorrow's is kinda fun, so I'll go create something worth sharing for tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!

What I Did When I Should Have Been Cleaning

I love Spring. Isn't this pretty?!

These flower boxes were outside Angela's when I arrived this morning. Sigh .. I had to take a moment to admire their beauty, then I got over it and ran in to SHOP! And it was really, really good. I got some great stuff, which alas I cannot use until next week, because I am supposed to be cleaning right now for tomorrow's stamp camps. Hmph. I shall reveal my new goodies as I fondle them and maybe even use them.

But, as I cleaned and cut up and bagged the kits, I hovered over my stamping spot and made two more cards out of the Basic Grey scraps. Warning: Avert your eyes! Avert your eyes! There's more non-standard crooked fare ahead! Okay, you can look. :-)

This one evolved as I kept stacking up pieces until I made myself stop. All the scraps are from the Basic Grey 6x6 Blush collection. The largest heart was punched with my new SU Heart punch, and the smaller two were cut with my new Nesties. I added the SU Jumbo brads, well, because I wanted to, I guess. And that ribbon? Ah, I got it on a whim when I was busy justifying some online shipping a while back, and it has never been cut into until now. It is twill and it is yummy. No sentiment ... nowhere to put it.

And this one resulted from me playing with even more scraps, and I lined up all those skinny ones to make a panel. Then what to do, what to do ... I grabbed a left-over scrap pre-cut red oval and cut a smaller one out of a Vanilla scrap. The sentiment and flutterby rub-ons were left over from my Basic Grey card kit.

That's all the cards I could eke out and still get ready for my stamp camps.

Oh, before I go, I wanted you to see The Heap. It is in boxes and stored in the back seat of my car (no where else to put it). I told you this place was tiny...

Gotta go push around the vacuum and set up the stations and fold some laundry, especially the cat's nest sheets and towels on the Living Room chair.

Thanks for stopping by!

Am I A Bad Mom?

I bought a ton of food stuff for my boys so I could send them Care Packages (it's what Moms do for kids in college). I did not send them, because I was distracted in the baking aisle at the store and made them brownies instead. I sent them the brownies with some new socks as package filler. How much more 'Mom' could I get?

So now it is the end of the school year (my eldest has finals next week), and I still have these two Flat Rate boxes full of stuff. Just now I told myself I will not send these in time, so I rummaged through one of the boxes, retrieved a box of Breakfast Bars, and consumed one (okay two).

Am I a bad Mom?

S-O-R-R-Y

I wish to apologize for the shock I dealt some of you with yesterday's post. I know, it was totally out of the ordinary from my usual fare, and I probably should have warned you.

Oh, look, I did it again tonight! Hopefully this one is a bit more 'me' than yesterday's. Hey, it's all about using up those scraps, and the Basic Grey lends itself so nicely to this sort of card, I just had to go for it again.

And the s-o-r-r-y sentiment was NOT used because I was sorry about yesterday. Nope - it was because it fit in the space. It was only AFTERwards that I thought how stinkin' convenient it was that the sentiment matched my post title.

Lessee ... all the patterned papers are from the Basic Grey 6x6 Blush pack; the card base is SU white, as is the stamped panel; A Muse stamps; Copics to color; Nestability to cut the stamped panel; and ribbon from the stash.

And do you see that punched blue piece on the left side? I used one of my new Martha punches to make that. Not as easy as it looks, since it is not a border punch and I tried to make it into one. The first (failed) attempt is cleverly hidden under the top paper layer. AND, that fancy schmancy edge was supposed to be on the right side, but I mounted the top paper layer upside down, so I had to flip it over. Darned paper with an 'up' and 'down' pattern. Hmph.

Well, The Scrap Heap is all packed away in 1 1/2 boxes, and ready for Tuesday's Field Trip. So far the plan is for me to bring my Nesties and Cuttlebug embossing folders and dies, and I get to show #2 how it all works. The really funny part of this whole thing? First, the idea that I could teach her anything she did not already know about any craft known to womankind astounds me. But what's even funnier is she got her Cuttlebug before I did. She was out of town during the initial Cuttlebug frenzy on Splitcoast, and when we spoke I asked her if she thought I should get a Cuttlebug, and she hemmed and hawed and mumbled something that ended up being how she had just bought one herself, and she had had it shipped to my house (since she was not at home to take delivery). So *I* got her Cuttlebug, opened it, played with it, then ordered one of my own. (I am weak, remember?) She took it home and never used it. I get to blow the dust off of it to show her how it works. But, I also get to take hers home with me, since I am going to loan mine to one of my customers who is making her own wedding invitations. Heaven only knows what else #2 and I will get into, except I know we will be distracted by her new puppy. Yes, a new fluff-ball. Like I'll get ANYthing else done. Sigh ...

Ah, well, since it is Clean Sweep weekend, instead of focusing on making my kits and cleaning the tables, I plan to run a few errands in the morning, then head down to Angela's to pick up some, um, stuff she has on hold for me. Angela is such an enabler, and she just laughs at me when I ask her to talk me out of anything. Foul temptress. When I get home I will have MORE stuff to put away to get ready for my Sunday and Monday stamp camps. One of my projects (a bonus project, but still ...) is largely un-finished, so I have my work cut out for me. Hopefully, I'll come up for air before Tuesday. If I don't, have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Something Completely Different

You are NOT in the wrong place. Nope. Crooked Stamper here, and I tried something a little different. Since I was still feeling the aura from that Basic Grey Card Kit experiment, I decided to take out one of my already-cut-into BG 6x6 packs to try my hand at mixing and matching.

Here we have papers from the Blush pack. We have the blue layer, a scalloped-edged brown piece (I used the SU Scallop edge punch for that) , a small piece of polka dotted paper (also scalloped), a pink flower strip, and a Nestie-cut piece of pink. Not too shabby.

That piece of lace made it onto the right edge because I tried to punch the edge, but since it has 48 layers (give or take a few), all I did was dent it, so it needed to be covered up. That lace was just laying on the table, so I used it.

About that white piece: I die cut it first and used a dauber to apply some Close to Cocoa ink before I took off the die (used it as a mask). I decided to break out my never-before-used Verve sets and see what I could use. The sentiment is from the Feeling Groovy set, and the image in the corners is from the Filigree Fantasy set. I inked them with Memento Brown, which may be my new favorite ink.

The jumbo brads are from SU, and I had not opened them until now. Lotsa firsts going on here! :-) At the last second, I stamped a little flourish image from the Filigree Fantasy set in the bottom left corner before I attached the sentiment layer on Dimensionals.

All in all, a total Stash card except for the base. This was kinda fun! I may need to make another one before the Clean Sweep this weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Card Kit: A Case Study

Can you tell I was a Marketing major in college? Case Study? Man, that was a looong time ago.... So today's post is a collection of my thoughts, pros and cons, regarding the use of a Card Kit to make cards.

I have always resisted the Card Kit. Oh, they definitely have their place, like for beginner stampers, or for someone who really likes the whole 'put this here and you'll be done' aspect of a kit. Me? Not so much. To quote #2 when I told her what I'd be doing, she replied, "THAT'S CHEATING!" Exactly how I felt, too. So when I bought the two Basic Grey kits during my last rampage at Angela's, I did so with the understanding that I'd use the kit's instructions as a starting place, but I would make each and every card 'my own' by either adding something or switching it up from what the instructions told me to do. I am a rebel, so this was a perfect plan. Let's review:

Here is a (poor) shot of the kit package. Some of the cards are obscured by the labeling, but you can see most of them.
Following are my versions of each of these.

This one I call 'the birdcage' card, and I did not change too much. My ace photography skills cut off the right part of the card, but that part matches the directions. This one was just right and I did not change it. All I did was add the sentiment. They do include a lot of extra rub-ons, so it was not a real stretch to do this.

Ah, I totally changed this one, 'the butterfly' card. The instructions had every last bit of these parts clustered in the bottom right quadrant, and it looked too heavy for me, so (being a rebel) I spread it out a bit. Since I also have the 6x6 pack of the matching papers (surprise!), I took one of the brown dotted pieces and punched out some photo corners to add to the left side of the card. I like this one spread out like I have it way better.

This is 'the chip board bird' card, and I got totally radical by moving one of the yellow flowers from under the bird's chest to under it's tail. And I snuck in some ribbon.

As an added bonus, the dashed lines are drawn on both sides of the card, largely because I messed up. The pattern on the other side of the card (the one I started on) is not centered nicely, so when I went to add the chip board piece, it looked weird. I flipped over the card base and sure enough, that chip board looked great on the other side, so I drew more dashed lines. So someone will be getting a card where I decorated the back, too. (#2 would be so proud.)

This guy was another right-quadrant-heavy card, so I added the jumbo eyelet and some ribbon to add some balance. The jumbo brad also inspired me to put that piece of paper up on dimensionals, so all the pieces stuck to it also got raised up. This was okay until I attached that long green piece, and it was flopping in the breeze, so I put a skinny piece of dimensional edging under it for support.

This 'little hello' card I totally switched up. Again, they had everything (EVERYthing) in the bottom right quadrant. YOU CANNOT MAKE ME DO IT, so I didn't. That pink strip was supposed to be on top of the brown square, with the chip board flower on top of the whole thing. Nuh-uh. Once I spread it out, it needed something, so I added the small piece of ribbon and the left-over photo corners from the other card.

I actually made this card according to the instructions, largely because I liked it. I waited until I had all of the cards done, then looked over the remaining rub-ons and decided to add the white flourish and tiny butterfly in the green space.

I liked most of this one, except they had that chip board flower covering up that cool flourish-y rub-on over the bird cage, and I wanted to see the whole thing, so I needed somewhere to put that flower. I actually contemplated leaving it off, but the card did look empty without it. (Yes, I have a White Space issue, okay?!)

Once I moved the flower, there was that balance thing again, so I added a piece of ribbon. I also punched out two 1/4" circles, stuck them to the top left corner, and put some brads through them. I broke the Rule Of Three because they only had those two chip board circles on the bottom, so I used the same number of brads on the top. (Did you notice the printed patterns on those small chip board circles are crooked? Yep! Not my fault, this time! I do understand the challenge of getting a monster machine to exactly die-cut a pre-printed piece of chip board, I do! But still ... )

And lastly we have 'the Thank U' card. The only thing I did on this one was add the ribbon. HEY, I had a few feet of the stuff on my table, and in anticipation of the impending Clean Sweep, I used it, okay?!?!? Sigh ... Apparently, I also forgot to draw the dashed lines ... oh, well.


So what have I learned? I'll summarize for you:

1. Making cards with a kit is stinkin' easy.
2. Not having to think at the end of the day is really, really nice.
3. Making 8 cards without thinking is really, really nice.
4. Using a kit makes me fell dirty.
5. Using the kit made me think about what I could do to personalize someone else's idea.
6. Using a Basic Grey kit helped me to see that you can put weird papers together and it works!
7. I really should use more of my hoarded Basic Grey papers and mix things up a bit.
8. I still feel dirty.

I have another Basic Grey kit, but I may hold off until next week for that one.

Okay, that's it. Thanks for reading this far!