100 Years of Girl Scouts

I'm celebrating today!  Why?  Girl Scouts is celebrating their 100th Birthday!

I was a Girl Scout from Brownies, all the way up to my early adult years.  I was in Girl Scouts on both the East & West coasts, in two states, and three towns.

With my troops, I've crafted, sang more songs that I can count, hiked, participated in community and environmental service projects, learned new skills, and camped.  Camping was a blast and definitely a staple to punctuate every year of Girl Scouting. I've slept on mountains, in tents, on hills, in cabins, in more tents, and even in a big barn.

It was in my last two troops that I took on the camp name Gizmo and still respond to that name today.  Quite honestly, I think my best friend, who was also a Girl Scout, calls me Giz or Gizie more than she calls me Karen!

And I've met some of the most wonderful girls, now women, in my life through Girl Scouts, including my Four Musketeers.  In Gravity, or Instinct, I Just Knew, I shared my first meeting with Snoopy...at her first Girl Scout meeting.  And I'm grateful that thanks to emails & Facebook, I'm able to continue to keep in contact with so many of the women to this day, twenty years later!

So what are Girl Scouts up to today?  Check out http://www.togetherthere.org/ to find out!

Happy 100th Birthday,
Girl Scouts!!!

May, you were but a busy blink of an eye!

May. May is a crazy busy month. May tends to hurt my brain and my pockets both. (Anything that hurts our pockets is beyond exasperating!) But, May also brings lots of fun, smiles, and leaves us with oodles of new memories to treasure while we catch our breaths.

May brings us Mother's Day.  These are the roses that my kidlets picked for me from the backyard.  I'm soaking up the sweetness before we eventually hack them out to put in raised veggie beds.

May brought us wacky weather.  Actually, today is June 1st and apparently, wacky weather is still on the menu as it has been raining today....pouring just moments ago and now the sun is peeking in through a sucker hole as my fingers click clack across the board.

But, oh the rainbows!!  I'll take rain any day when there's a promise of a rainbow!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid has been running amuck around here.  I get that it's hilarious to a kidlet, but oh my, can that humor please stay in the books & on the pages?!  Please?!  (Oh yea and please do ignore the weeds.  When it finally stops raining and feeding them, I'll go out & pluck 'em!)

May has seen our graphed apple tree growing apples for the first time this year.  This little one is a Gala and there are five other varieties on the same tree.  Can't wait 'til fall to eat them!

May also brought us two birthdays.  No, not these gals'!  Hubs & wee girl each turned a year older, just a few days apart.  We celebrated Hubs and then had two parties, two weekends in a row with family and friends who are also family, just not blood related.

These two are two of the Four Musketeers and I love that while I wasn't raised with a sister, I've had three for over twenty years!

The Four Musketeers are Aunties to my kidlets and the one on the left above is the gal who got me started scrapbooking.  And since she's a scrapper herself, it rocks that she always takes pics of the silly bits and pieces of events that belong in a scrapbook at my kidlets' birthdays.

And no gathering with this crew is complete without a little Wii time!  Some maniacal Mario Kart driving was in order and after the kidlets went to bed, the 'grown ups' got busy playing Toy Story Mania.  We're wild, I know. {wink}

Tomorrow is the last day of this school year for us and while the weather doesn't seem to be on the same schedule, summer here we come!

What's happening this summer in your neck of the woods?

It's a Birthday Blog Hop!

It's a birthday bloghop for an uber special blogger, my in real life friend, Elise of Mamacow Creations!

She rocks the creative span, ranging from oodles of papercrafts (card making to scrapbooking to home dec to food art...you should see what she does come pumpkin time!) and on down the line, to gorgeous fine art paintings (the first one here is  my current fav).  Elise is known to tickle a funny bone, get silly in the wee hours, write and sing an ode to the creative man, Tim Holtz, and make so many of us smile with her sweet heart.

Thanks to the gals at the Just Us Girls challenge site, I'm thrilled to be able to wish her a Happy Birthday!!!

And the birthday gal needs a birthday card, right?!

Elise had been begging for spring not too long ago and when I walked by a few of my Dew Drop ink pads, they whispered to me.  (No, really, they did!)

Well, their shape awoke some slumbering inky card making mojo and so I had to run with it!  I started with the orchid and then filled in with the purple.

A birthday needs sparkle, so after adding a piece of chunky purple bling for the flower's center, spica glitter pens went to work, laying on oodles of sparkle onto the vine ribbon used for the flower's stem. (It doesn't show fabulously in the photo, but it really does sparkle!)

Happy Happy Birthday, Elise!!

I'm grateful for your friendship and
hope your day is wonderful, launching an awesome new year! :>

I hope you'll hop along, visit the partiers, and most of all, stop by Elise's Mamacow Creations blog and leave her some birthday love (even if you're not a papercrafter, we know how fantastic the community of bloggers can be and would love if you stopped by to wish her Happy Birthday! :>)!!!

Supplies:Cardstock: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Tsukineko Brilliance Dew Drops
Ribbon: May Arts
Bling: rhinestone - stash;  Spica Glitter Pens - Copic
Other:  FabriTac, foam tape, ScorPal

10 Reasons why I am Ecstatic about {Fall} - Writer's Workshop

Time to play/write along with Mama Kat and this week, I'm choosing prompt #5, "10 reasons why you’re glad it’s Fall." 

Hmmm.....I don't think that's good enough.  How about 10 reasons I'm ecstatic its Fall?!

1)  We have a kidlet birthday to celebrate!  And just as soon as I cringe that one of my babies is getting another year older, I smile & celebrate how they've grown & see the happiness across their face.

And there is happiness whether I stock the party with store bought decorations...

...or hand crafted decorations for a custom themed party.

2)  And before I blink my eyes, mini pumpkins of many hues are scattered about the house (depending on wherever whichever kidlet moves them!) and we're off to the pumpkin patch, a favorite family outing, to get the big ones.

Red wagons, chickens, a pig, sheep, half dozen old tractors to sit in, a hale bale pyramid that lets them climb to the skies, random farm kitties, and of course, oodles and oodles of pumpkins to ooo and ahhh over, pick and choose, and come home with four to six perfect for us pumpkins.

3)  And the night before Halloween, we gut, seed, and carve those plump pumpkins.  Most end up with jagged smiles or sinister faces, but at least one gets a detailed carve every year.  C-3PO and R2-D2 was mine!

4) Kidlets in costume!!  We've had The Great Carrot, a monkey, Cat in the Hat, race car driver, Mr. Incredible, Snow White, Buzz Lightyear, Aurora, Batman, and Cinderella parade these halls.  And rumor has it, we will see Harry Potter and either a scary witch or another Aurora trick or treating this year!

5)  November brings on cravings for edible pumpkin treats.  Scrumptious and savory roasted pumpkin seeds from all those carved pumpkins are enjoyed by all and since a kidlet went GF/CF (gluten & casein free, among other things that have been removed), close to three years ago, we try new holiday recipes every year.  Last year, it was delicious GF/CF Pumpkin Bread, which will make an appearance again soon enough.  And this year, I will finally make that GF/CF pumpkin pie!

6)  Cool, crisp air combined with rustic deep reds, golden yellows, and screamin' oranges make me giddy!  Then when those beautiful leaves fall, its a race to see who gets to crunch it.  In my past, I've even hobbled on crutches to get the best crunchy leaves and now, must admit, I've even cut off one of my own kidlets to get to that crunchy leaf first....but, where there is one crunchy leaf, there are many to go around. :>

7)  Thanksgiving!  We first arrived at our own perfect turkey recipe pre-kidlets for a Four Musketeer gathering here back in 2001.  And in the years since, it has been refined & made absolutely moist & scrumptious.  I'll let you in on just one of our turkey secrets......instead of butter on top of the bird, Hubby (who is ever so kind for cooking Thanksgiving dinner every year!) puts a couple of slices of bacon on top for the duration of the roast.  There are a few other perfect & moist turkey secrets, but we'll save that for another day! :> 

8)  And after turkey day, we love our family outing to pick the perfectly tall Christmas tree!  I request (demand?) a tall one every year.  And the kidlets ooo and ahhh and giggle and cannot contain their excitement, which always make us smile just as brightly.

9)  And then there's the magical twelve days in stampy, inky, creative, crafty land that make so many of us giggle with childlike giddiness that is brought to us by Tim Holtz himself...his annual 12 Tags of Christmas!  Here are a few Tim inspired & guided tags that I made to pair up with dozens of smaller ones for teachers' Christmas gifts last year.

And as if the inspiration alone that Tim provides wasn't enough, he does giveaways all twelve days....and last year, I won one of them!!  Look at all those beautiful fabby Tim products!! :>

10)  And there's another kidlet Fall favorite that is mine as well because of the great thoughtfulness behind it.  An Auntie & Uncle always kindly got my kidlets a chocolate advent calendar every year.  But, once the GF/CF diet change was made, the regular chocolate advent calendars were no longer edible for one kidlet.  After a little research, she found a GF/CF one from Peanut Free Planet!  Wooohooo!

I could probably list another fifty things I love about the Fall season.  But, I'll spare ya & stick to the ten! :>

What are your Fall favorites?

Meet Grandma meets Jerry Rice

Grandma grew up on a farm in North Dakota, taught in a one room school house in a neighboring town, before moving out west, later meeting and marrying my grandfather.

Grandpa was an avid SF Giants fan and loved listening to their games on the radio. Grandma never held any interest in sports, let alone following a specific team of a specific sport, let alone following professional athletes' careers.

However, all that changed when in the early 1990's Grandma's three daughters took her to dinner at Benihana's in Burlingame. 

Aunt C recognized Jerry Rice, the legendary San Francisco 49er, Wide Receiver, #80.  Neither my Mom or Aunt D knew who he was.  (Even if you don't follow football, its not easy to not know who Jerry Rice is, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area!)

And with a "Please, please, please its my Mom's birthday??!" from Aunt C, Jerry came over to meet Grandma!

He gave her a kiss and took a picture with Grandma.  I can't help but look at their hands & difference in size here, no wonder he didn't drop the ball!! :>

Here's Grandpa & Grandma at Grandma's 80th birthday party, wearing the Jerry Rice 49er jersey and holding the Grandma/Jerry cake that Aunt C got for her. 

Once again, Pre-Jerry, Grandma had no interest in sports, let alone football, let alone one specific football player.  Post-Jerry, she would look for him in a game and called him her boyfriend.  Too cute!

Did you know that September is  Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month?

In 1999, we lost Grandma to ovarian cancer.  Thanks to last week's Back 2 Blogging event through SITS, I learned about how Kelly Ripa has teamed up with Electrolux to support The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

Grandma meeting Jerry Rice is one of many fun stories that I keep close, even though she's no longer with us.  What fun grandma stories do you hold on to? 

I'd love for you to say hello, then come back to this page & click on the link on Kelly Ripa's name and learn more.  Hope everyone is  well into a great week today! :>

And because I love my Grandma so much & this story so much, I'm linking up in the new home for Wordful Wednesday:

And yes, Grandma & Jerry have me Tickled Pink...come to 504 Main and see some fabulous & fun!

Victorian Doll House {Part One}

Recipe for a a granddaughter's oooo's and ahhhhh's, as well as a grandmother's, wee girl's, and parents' delight begins with a grandmother's love and desire to build a sweet doll house for her granddaughter.

Add a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law sharing an online search session exploring Victorian doll houses and discovering the details we both enjoyed.

Mix in oodles and oodles of pieces to be cut, trimmed, sanded, and adhered.

Add walls, floors, and stairs.  Mix with great patience and a joyful heart.

Stir in a coating to seal the wood.

Layer on rooftops, the beginnings of a chimney, a bay window, and begin adding paint.

Add essential spices:  window frames, panes, and trim.

Coat with siding and gingerbread rooftops.

Lots of siding and gingerbread rooftops.

Let rest.

And don't forget to check on its progress! 

Come back soon to see what colors Grandma decided to surprise our Princess with, along with a few details!  My absolute favorite detail is what my MIL came up with to create the leading in the window panes.  Can you guess what she might have used??

Oh {MAY}, Oh My!!

I took this last year, about the same time, and I just looked out my rain covered window to see the hydrangeas looking just the same, almost ready to burst out with color. The color changes every year depending on the soil's pH level. I wonder what color they will be this year?

Several years ago, a friend told me that May was busier than December. I have to admit, my eyes popped wide.....because I just didn't believe that was possible. Oh my, how wrong I was. Very wrong.

May holds Mother's Day, two birthdays in our home, an anniversary, school field trips, end of the school year parties, end of the school year meetings, Open House at school, teacher's gifts to make, friends and family visiting from out of town, a kidlet reminding me daily to bring my purse the week of the Book Fair, and squeezed in appointments all meshed and mashed up with the usual day to day agenda (that included loosing two weeks to that Unwanted Houseguest!). I am in that constant, Go! Go! GO! mode right now and am attempting to keep Elise's (Mamacow Creations) space-time continuum from swallowing me whole! (She said it so well, I couldn't possibly explain it any better than that!! :>)

Thankfully, there have been some very smile worthy moments to share so far this month, with more on the calendar to come! 

Hubby's birthday started the night before, with an evening out for dinner, just the two of us and the next day, he enjoyed getting handmade cards from the kids, unwrapping a couple of presents, and watching, smelling, and then eating the birthday cake the kidlets made for him!

Our Princess had oodles of fun for her little Ariel birthday party.  We all wore our tiaras and she wore a special blinged out one that she got last year for her birthday.  Balloons and streamers decorated the house, in purple and pink, of course.  Hubby BBQ'd and while the clouds threatened all day, they did not spill a single drop! :> 

About two years ago, Princesses' grandmother started building her a Victorian doll house and brought it to her for her birthday this year.  It is absolutely darling and I know she is going to get oodles of fun playtime with it!  Her Auntie Jenn made her a precious candy quilt and two little shopping/utility bags for her to carry just like Mama's! :>  Princess got a real mini tea set, that comes in a sweet little wicker basket/purse and she's overjoyed with it.  She tells me, "I never ever got something breakable before."  And I watch her play gingerly with it and imagine away!

I want to share these treasures with you and so I'm in the process of editing pics from my mother-in-law of the doll house (almost done there) and attempting to take pics of the other treasures (with the clouds more than overspilling their rims today, its mighty dark and making it more challenging!! ....yes, I know I'm spoiled being able to take almost all pics outside! :>).  The doll house will be going up first (later tonight or tomorrow morning).  Hope you'll come back and take a look!

Happy Birthday {card} Baby Girl!

---------------------------------------------

What?! What's that??!! She made a card??!! Really??!!

REALLY!

-------------------------------------------

Our baby girl is another year older.....sigh.  I do not recall giving her permission for her next birthday to come so fast!  Really, I don't!  Though, watching her grow, learn, and thrive is such a treasure.  And I am truly blessed every day I see the world through her eyes and am amazed at her sweet perspective......thank you, Baby Girl!

A few months back, I tied off some pink ribbon with pink embroidery thread sewn through turquoise buttons and made another handful of the same bows, with the colors reversed.  I think I intended them for a challenge or two.........that I never got around to completing.  But, they have been staring at me....a lot!  And I remembered my sweet girl asking me to use them......a lot!  So, of course, they had to come out an play on a sweet & simple card for her birthday. :>

The card is uber simple.  Twill buttoned bows are adhered with a little Fabri-Tac, the bottom bubbled up with a border punch, and a sweet little bit of polka paper is adhered to the bottom of the inside of the card. 

Our Baby Girl (she might not be a baby anymore, but she'll always be my baby!) has picked out oodles of The Little Mermaid's Ariel to celebrate with this weekend and I'm looking forward to baking her cake (gluten, casein, & soy free, of course), singing to her, and watching her smile from ear to ear!

Supplies:
Paper:  Hawaiian Shores - Papertrey Ink;  Nana's Nursery - Die Cuts With A View
Ribbon:  Hibiscus Burst Twill - Papertrey Ink

Buttons:  Stash
Embroidery Thread:  Making Memories
Punch:  Martha Stewart

Look what followed me home!

This lovely, beautiful piece of crafty joy has been on my wishlist for awhile now. And when Hubby suggested that I go pick something out for myself for my birthday, I knew exactly what would be coming home with me! Now, I just need to some pretty little bits to run through her!

So, I bought her for what she can DO, right?! But, once I took her out of her packaging, I started looking at her and saw the two little bits o' bling on her front.....I got excited. And then when I noticed the larger piece on her handle, I had to share.....but, I didn't neccessarily share my joy with the right person.... Hubby was in the room with me, the kidlets were already in bed (I should have waited until I could show my wee daughter, who gets uber excited at all things pink and sparkly!), and so I bubbled on about how cool my lovely new tool is and look!, there's bling on her!! His response? To smack himself on the forehead and reply, "TOOLS are Not Supposed to have bling on them!!!" I just laughed and continued on with my own personal Happy Dance! :>

But, wait! There's more! In my birthday trip to the Walt Disney Family Museum post, I mentioned that my friend Jenn is creatively talented too (she sews, quilts, & does needle work) and that she sent me home with one of her creations.

I'd been eyeing one of her utility/shopping bags for awhile now. I have about a dozen (mostly from Trader Joe's) already. But, none are as fabulously chic, practical, and as super strong as hers are. I paid her (another) compliment on it and next thing I knew, she had taken it off the hook with her other (also fabulously chic) bags and handed it to me! She's creatively talented and plenty generous...thank you, Jenn!


The uber cool fabric she got at SCRAP, in San Francisco. I cannot wait to go with her sometime soon! What is also really cool is that the straps she's sewn onto the bag, go all the way around the bag, from the top, stitched down the sides, under the bottom of the bag, and back up again, making it extremely sturdy and able to hold a lot. And because the straps are long enough, its really easy to carry, even when loaded because it can just be slung onto your shoulder (instead of pinching your fingers to a bright pink, like many of my reusable grocery bags do).


I broke this gorgeous bag in with a trip to JoAnns with Jenn. And since I was with my great friend who sews, my bag was filled with my purchases, which were all fabric and a few patterns. I have a wonderful sewing machine, but other than some very square items with nothing more that a straight stitch involved, I haven't used it a lot. I really want to correct that and learn to sew.............MUCH better and more than I do now. But, in the meantime, the fabrics I picked up all have papercraft projects calling out to me! Maybe I'll have to use one of them for the current Everything But The Kitchen Sink challenge, calling for.....fabric! :>

Today is the last day to enter my Birthday Blog Giveaway for a Papertrey Ink gift certificate! Just as a reminder, here are the deets:

"Since the whole month of February is a celebratory month for me, I am leaving the giveaway open for the whole month for you. Every comment made on my posts in February, starting with this one, will give you an entry in the drawing for the PTI $25 gift certificate. If you like my blog, I would love for you to follow me, but it is not a requirement. And if you blog about the giveaway, you will get an additional three entries (either leave me the link in your comment or you can email me). "

I hope you all are having a fantastic weekend! The sun is back out here and Hubby is going to BBQ tonight! One kidlet is in 'imagination land' doing a Space Police mission' (aka playing with Legos) and the other is wearing her apron & chef's hat and whipping up a delish (pretend) pineapple, onion, peach, and cauliflower soup. What's shaped up this weekend for you?

{Part Two} Fantastic Friends make me Smile!

You're back.....Yay!!! :>

Now, what were those other plans that I had for last Saturday?? What would I give up a creative day with friends for?? Well, more friends, of course!!! And specifically, my Four Musketeers! Okay, okay, so there were only three of the four of us (plus one husband)......one of us lives on the other side of the country right now (we miss you Jilly and we took you with us in spirit!!).

My Hubby kindly offered to play with our kidlets and sent me packing to go play with friends! So, I followed the yellow brick road (er, um, multiple highways?!) and headed back to the land of my teen years and to my best friend's home. From there, we, Jenn, Monique, Matt (Monique's hubby), and I zipped off to San Francisco. Well, sort of zipped since it was Chinese New Year and there was a wee bit of traffic at the Bay Bridge toll plaza! That's okay.....I was with great friends!

Guess where they were taking me??? To the new Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio (San Francisco)!! Us Four Musketeers have a long history of Disneyland trips. Jill even got the four of us one of the bricks in the ground between Disneyland and California Adventures back in 2001. And yes, we're known to take pictures with each visit of our beloved Brick!

Oh I'm having a flashback now!!! Here comes some Brick love a la 2003!! (I had forgotten how long your hair was back then, Jenn!) There's our Jill! :>

Wow! Time is flashing by, zipping to 2005! I was preggo with my Princess and we decided to do a foot shot that year........with each of our feet pointing towards our names, of course! We're cheesey, I know. But, traditions with friends is a fantastic thing. :>

And back to last Saturday, 2010!!

The museum (which really is a museum and not a Disney attraction, though with a distinct Disney flavor) was really delightful and educational. We all agreed we could go through it again to read through everything more thoroughly. There is so much information about Walt's family to read and an incredible number of drawings, cartoon cells, telegrams, hand written letters, memorabilia, video footage, and even Walt's old train that he had going around his house to read, see, and take in!

Another big surprise.....parking was free!!! Affordable parking in San Francisco is a really big deal and free is pretty much unheard of! The Presidio is beautiful and we saw one of the most striking views of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge from inside the museum. I highly recommend crafting your time to visit the museum the next time you are in this great city!

A kind stranger offered to take our pic before we left............me, Jenn, Monique, and Monique's husband, Matt. Monique is the crafty little sprite who introduced me to scrapbooking back in 2000! Thanks Nique!

And as a proper scrapbooker's husband, Matt took a pic of the three out of four Four Musketeers!! A little side note here.......I just love having another scrapbooker in our group! These fab friends are usually at our kidlets' birthdays and when they are, I have a perfect assortment of photos to come back to and scrap!!! And even better, her hubby always jumps in with the camera to help make sure we have those checklist photos that you need at all events from weddings to birthdays to vacations to day trips!! Thanks Matt!

Now, Jenn is creative as well.................but, I have more to share about her craft in another post (because this one is long enough, right?!) when I show you a little something that followed me to my home from hers!

Did you make it to the end????? I know, this was a long one (aren't you glad I broke that post up into two?! :>)....but, I had so much to share about such wonderful friends!! If you're here, still reading, give yourself a pat on the back, an extra cuppa, and a thank you & smile from me!

Don't forget to check out my Birthday Blog Giveaway HERE and comment......comments on all posts from February 6th, through the end of February earn you an entry into the giveaway for a Papertrey Ink gift certificate!!

Fantastic Friends make me Smile! {Part One}

Anything that makes me smile is a great thing and I've shared a few times those little things that make me smile, but one of the big things that give me a Chesire cat like grin are fantastic friends! And fun with those fantastic friends, is even better!

Delighted and lucky I have been to get to celebrate my birthday this year with so many wonderful friends!! (Hmmm...I sounded like Yoda there...oh well, I'm gonna run with it!)

When Claire called to invite me to come scrap in her new, fun, creative & scrappy studio with friends on Saturday (last Saturday), I was bummed to have to tell her that I already had plans. (You can read all about Claire-land and the fun the gals had over at Mamacow Creations!) And then I was absolutely delighted when she arranged for us to have lunch with some more friends and celebrate my birthday!!

We......Dana (of Paper Daydream), Claire, Elise (of Mamacow Creations), my Princess, and I met up at LSS Helene's Custom Framing & Scrapbooking to do a little shopping. And happily, there were lots of hugs and smiles, chatty time, and of course, crafty delights to check out. :> I left with a couple of embossing folders, while my daughter was intent on the pretty Prima flowers, I convinced her that I had some, er, um....okay, okay!.....so I've got a whole paper & silk flower garden for her to choose from at home!!

Then these fab ladies took my daughter & I to lunch and treated me to more scrampy goodies! Ahhhhh scrampy friends know the way to a scrampy gal's heart!! Stamps, papers, chipboard, mini albums, accents, an uber cute template, crafty goodies for my kidlets, smiles, chatter, wit, hugs, and laughter, oh my!! Truly a fabulous afternoon with friends that left me grinning and mighty happy!!

Now, what were those other plans that I had for last Saturday?? What would I give up a creative day with friends for??

Please come back to find out!! I had it all written up as one post, but it quickly developed into a novel and I didn't want to tire your eyes (or heaven forbid, bore you!) and decided to split it into two posts! So, please do come back as there is more fun to share.....AND.....the more posts I share with you, the more chances you have to read, comment, and earn more entries in my Blog Birthday Giveaway for a Papertrey Ink gift certificate!!

Happy Birthday PTI {Card Two}

Holey Camole Macarole! Leave it to PTI's Nichole to help me along with a FIRST! Two posts in one night....that is a first for me! :> So, there's one more card below for this same challenge. And again, I had the same plan of attack........attack??!!.....more like fun loving, child-like playtime!

Like the previous post, I colored this fun and whimsical image from Becky Oehlers with simple Sharpies and my lovely and favorite Spica glitter pens. Like I said, it felt like that free loving and fun of a child's arts & crafts time and for that, after coloring, I found myself smiling.

And again, another flat card to add to the easy mailing, uber reasonable postage stash! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink; White - Georgia Pacific
Image: Becky Oehlers for Papertrey Ink
Pens: Sharpies; Spica glitter pens - Copic

Happy Birthday {Papertrey Ink}!

Papertrey Ink is celebrating their third birthday and we get the presents!! How cool is that?! Nichole Heady introduced the designers for PTI for 2010 and each of them designed an image for us to download.....Free! And it gets even better......you can link up a card (or seven!) with the birthday images the designers have given us and be entered for a drawing for a hot giveaway of seven PTI stamp sets! Its like a papercrafters stamping heaven with inspiration and oodles of goodies every day...definitely worth checking out (IF you are not already addicted, like so many of us are and ran there when the festivities started yesterday!).

I used the image from Beth Silaika of Freckled and Fun for a quick CAS birthday card. A little color from my trusty Sharpies, lots of sparkle from my favorite Spica glitter pens (the entire WISH is glitterfied....you may have to click on the photo to see the sparkle), and whole lotta Raspberry Fizz love make up this card. My favorite part about this card is that it is flat! Its nice to have some cards that easily go in the mail without tag board to pad it, packing tape to keep any bling from punching through, OR any increase in postage! I love my ribbon, bows, and multi dimensional bling, but I also really love having options. :>

Supplies:
Image: Beth Silaika for Papertrey Ink
Cardstock: Raspberry Fizz & Plum Pudding - Papertrey Ink; White - Georgia Pacific
DP: Bitty Dot Basics - Papertrey Ink
Pens: Sharpies; Spica glitter pens - Copic

Sparkle and Shine!!

Uh-oh........it has begun. What? What's begun? The Christmas music! The Christmas music that pops in my head throughout the whole year has started to escape from me. I found myself singing "Winter Wonderland" this morning. While I was lucky enough to experience the wonders of a white Christmas as a kidlet, snow doesn't visit these parts very often.....at all (as in decades between light dustings!). So, I enjoy the white wonders of Christmas through happy, snow filled, winter Christmas music!

So, how about a little sparkle reminiscent of Christmas? Okay, okay, so its a birthday card, but the red glitter sure does sparkle and make me want to get Christmas crafty!

In April, I made a card with the intention of giving it to Hubby for our anniversary (but, that is a whole other story.....). I really loved the simple elegance of that card and so I gave it another go and just changed up a couple of things. I kept it to two colors, like the first card, but changed the black to red. And instead of using bling/gems, I went with an all over sparkle, using a technique called burnished velvet (using glitter) that I used here for the first time and learned about from Dana at Paper Daydream, who saw a fantastic tutorial for this from Spike at Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot.

Yup, yup, it definitely has an all over sparkle! Not the greatest shot, but I really wanted to show you just how much the burnished glitter really does sparkle and shine!!

Do you have any Christmas songs singing in your head? Or are you just trying to get ready for Thanksgiving, if you are in the States? Would you believe that I have yet to start thinking about what we need for Thanksgiving dinner? Well, except for figuring out how to make a GF/CF pumpkin pie, which I am putting recipes together for, but have yet had the chance to try out....yikes!

Hope you're heading into a fantastic and relaxing weekend! I have some trips out to Mom's, lots of cleaning as we have friends coming the day after Thanksgiving, and apparently, working on that GF/CF pumpkin pie recipe! :>

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampers Select White, Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink
Stamps: Damask Designs
Ink: Real Red - Stampin' Up!
Glitter: Garnet (fine) - Martha Stewart
Other: Quickie Glue Pen - Sakura

Shake It!

Ack! I'm trying to write this post and I have an ultra chaotic '80's mixed tape playing Styx {Mr. Roboto}, the Star Wars theme song....complete with happy little R2-D2 noises, and a good ol' fashioned "Happy Birthday" song playing in my head! Send help quick!

Good thing I've got something super simple to share with you! I honestly do not think I could handle complicated with this track playing rather loudly in my head (oh yea, add in a Star Wars Leapster cartridge sound effect, the Colts @ Dolphins game playing loudly in front of me.....go Reggie Wayne {he just might save our Fantasy Football game tonight!}, and a little girl arguing football with her Daddy).

A month or so ago, I dug through the Michael's clearance bins outside the front of the store and came across a little pack of three dimensional embellishments (Michael's Recollections brand), complete with shaker robot, shaker dinosaur, and little red car, marked down to .79 and I quickly snagged it. I needed a card, and fast, for a super seven year old boy, who loves robots. Clean, crisp and a little simple "Happy Birthday" courtesy of PTI's Borders & Corners Monogram Edition completes this.

To paper crafters, I understand that this could be seen as too simple and without enough paper crafting love. But, let me assure you, this little seven year old boy loved it and immediately started shaking it for a moment.....maybe even two....before he made a beeline for the brightly wrapped present that it was sitting on top of! lol

Hope you all are having a marvelous Monday night, enjoying the game (if you watch/follow NFL), and awake to a terrific Tuesday! As we are in a heat wave here, I would love to know how your part of the world is treating you. I am anxiously awaiting fall and since we are not going to have fall weather to get excited about on the first day of fall tomorrow, might you tease, tempt, and delight me with news of your crisp air, changing colors, and crunchy leaves?

Happy Birthday to You, Elise!

Easter was a religious holiday, a bunny hopping egg finding day, and a friend's birthday! I met Elise through the wonderful world of scrapbook retreats and she became my 'friendly Stampin' Up! gal' as well. She is a sweet woman who is incredibly artistically talented. I am inspired everytime I get to watch her work! And now that she has her own blog, I do not have to wait for the next retreat to see what crafty & artsy goodness she is up to! Lately, she has been playing with Tim Holtz's fun fragments and giving me all kinds of ideas. By the way.....that workshop that Tim is talking about on his blog?? That's where Elise is right now...today!!! How Awesome is that?!! I am So looking forward to seeing what she's learning from Tim, the man, today!!



Rummaging through my stamp collection with Elise's birthday card in mind, I wanted to pull stamps that she may have not seen before. She is a stamp-addict, like most of us in this stampy blogosphere, so she's seen a lot. Then I came accross Marilyn, by Stampsmith, and thought she would be perfect! Since this card was going in the mail, I didn't want it to be too lumpy and bumpy, so I kept my design fairly flat. Something that I really liked was that the ribbon points on the card fold flat in the envelope, but pops up a bit when taken out. On the inside of the card is a piece of PTI's vintage cream cardstock with a strip of Bitty Dot paper to coordinate with the front of the card. I'm horrible about remembering to decorate the insides of the cards, so I was really glad that I did this time! :>

Here's a little mailing TIP: If you have brads, bling, or bumps that do not make your envelope thicker than the 1/4" max, put clear packing tape on the back of the envelope so that the post office machines do not get caught on your embellishment and you do not have to put additional postage on it for hand proccessing! Someone from the Stamp Shack sent me a birthday card this way and I thought it was ingenious! I even went to the post office to ask about it and they said, yup, it will keep your postage down to a single first class stamp as long as you do not exceed the size or weight limits. Too cool! (oh yea.....Elise, apologies for the lint and whatnot that was on the first piece of tape I put down....I didn't realize the packing tape had been sitting out so long!! :>)


Supplies:
Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate, Plum Pudding - PTI
Patterned Paper: Bitty Dot Basics - PTI
Stamps: Marilyn - Stampsmith
Ink: Close to Cocoa - SU
Ribbon: Sweet Blush Satin - PTI
Embellishments: Flowers - Prima; Light Pink Flower Rhinestones - KaiserCraft