Swirly Q's This is a new toy that I haven't had a chance to mess with yet. It stinks to be a grown up somedays when all you want to do is stay home and play, but you have to go to work! LOL!

Wish I could dedicate the time I spend at good old Wally world to something more pleasant, like scrapping and stamping!

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The template is called Swirly Q's and is from The Crafter's Workshop. Thanks to my BS#1, who picked it up for me from Grove's Office Supply in Huntingdon, PA.

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I have heard that these are really nice to trace with a Versamark Pen and then heat emboss with metallic powder. So, here I sit wishing I didn't have to go to work in the morning.

Take care, have a scrappy good week!

I have been a bad blogger! Sorry BS #1 and BS #2...

Blame it on nice summer weather, blame it on a terrible work schedule at my real job, general laziness or busy-ness in my life... just not so bloggy lately. I really haven't had any new projects going on as of later either, so that contributes as well!

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Been trying a new system for organizing my ribbons and buttons and clear unmounted stamps that are not CTMH brand. I think that I don't use them as much as I could because I don't see them when they are in boxes and baskets, sooooo I got some pint canning jars and sorted out the buttons by color. (Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue-ish, Dark Blues, Purples, Tans/Creams/Browns, White/Clear, & Black.) The jars were pretty inexpensive, less than $7 for a case of 12. I actually have some of them half full, didn't even realize how many buttons I have! I am thinking about storing some of my other lumpy embellies in jars as well.

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Ribbons are in jars now too, one gallon plastic ones made by Rubbermaid from the housewares dept at your friendly Wal-mart store ($2.61 each.) I need to get some more of them, so don't run out and buy them all up! I cleared my big ribbon basket out into the jars and put some theme ribbons in drawers with other like things. I feel much better about how the ribbon is now!

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The clear stamp storage is not my own idea. I am storing them in clear CD cases and it is working very well! I even saw a tip somewhere that you can use the outside of the case as the "block" for stamping! Love the practicality of that idea!

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Take care ladies! Hopefully I am a better blogger this week!

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By the way... I get the super wife award today! Went to Pittsburgh to the Fire and EMS Expo with my DH and DSS. Not quite my bag, but it was a good family day. We had lunch at Primanti Brothers in the Strip District, YUMMMMMM! Roast beef and cheese is my favorite. Travis had his first big old Sammich and he finished it all! We also visited Monroeville Fire and Rescue EMS Station 4, where one of our friends is on staff. We got to tour the firehouse and see all of their newer and fancier apparatus. Nothing funnier than watching a bunch of grown men act like little kids climbing in and out and off of the trucks and sliding down the pole!

Bright 60's Scrapbook Page

Another page from my CMC's last crop. This one with some really cute and bright stickers and paper choices. They would even be cute for a young girl page. The orange paper is an older one of CM, it is actually an orange with tiny white polka dots on it. The cardstock is called raspberry. I used the new petals punch on this page too. It punches out little petals and it also does fancy corners. My CMC sold completely out of her first order that evening. I am sorry it didn't photograph better. I have been having some issues with my camera the past week or so, not so sure what is going on, but is has been a really great little camera for over 5 years now. I do look at new cameras off and on, but don't consider really researching to buy, since I really don't NEED a new one. There is a little part of me that would love to splurge and get a great new camera, but I have become attached to my trusty old Kodak. (Plus I just got really good at using all of the features and would have to learn a new camera, not feeling so motivated to do that!)

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Idlewild was fun on Friday, not overly crowded, hot but not miserably so. The kids had a pretty good day and it was nice to have them spend time with cousins that they don't see very often. The pirate ship over in the soak zone is really neat.

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Take care!

Been Kinda Card-y Lately!

I have been working on lots of cards lately. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my corner rounder scallop punch and it has been getting lots of use.

Let me tell you that it took me all day today to recover from the picnic yesterday! Slept in, didn't get out of my jammies all day! Dear Lord, the food we ate... 100 pieces of my Dad's Chicken BBQ, 25 pounds of Uncle Lumps BBQ Ribs, burgers, hotdogs, baked beans, macaroni salad, potato salad, pasta salad, augratin potatoes, grilled summer veggies, keilbasa, spicy sweet and sour smokies, pizza casserole, spinach dip, buffalo chicken dip, beef cheese ball, and then there were the desserts...Frozen Oreo dessert, jello cake, cupcakes, rice krispie treats, cream puff cake, banana cream pie, Oreo whip, cheesecake..... Can you tell why I needed the whole day to recover????

Pray for nice weather for us tomorrow, we are going to Idlewild! NO RAIN!!!

Take care!

Happy Independence Day!

(My Aunt Lin's favorite holiday--the weather is nice, you cook outside, no gifts to buy and you throw away your dishes! LOL! I must say that I have to agree with most of that!)

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We will be celebrating today with our big family picnic. All the family that you don't get to see nearly often enough. Enough food to feed a small army. Little cousins playing, riding bikes around the block and swimming. A little crafty activity in the afternoon. Guys throwing horse shoes, everybody playing volleyball. Catching up on what is going on with each other, visiting, laughing and of course eating! We cap the day off with some fireworks after dark.

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I am going to take a couple of all American classics to the picnic. Knorr Spinach Dip and Rice Krispie treats with red, white and blue star sprinkles. I usually like to try something new for the picnic, but nothing new really caught my eye this summer. These two are tried and true hits with the family. I like to put double the water chestnuts in the spinach dip because I like the crunch.

This is one of the pages I made for my CMC's crop last Friday. We were celebrating the decades with goodies from the 40's and 60's. All papers and stickers are CM. The Quote stamp is the SM Star Spangled Banner(M4459) and is from Stampington & Company and it says copyright 1996, so I am not sure that it is still available. It is one of my favorite stamps. All of those delicate little star frames were cut using the Cuttlebug nested star die. I was so pleased with how this page turned out and the ladies at the crop just loved it too. It was so cool to hear them talk about the photos they were planning to use on the page... husbands in their uniforms, old army pictures of Dads from years ago, July 4th pictures that haven't even been taken yet.

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My hope for you, my friends, is that today while you are celebrating the 4th of July, you take a moment to appreciate what this day means to our nations history. It was the day we declared our freedom from the rule of another nation. We stood united and free. It is my hope that we do not take that freedom for granted. That freedom was hard fought and earned so very long ago and I think that we care less and less for it everyday. I challenge you and me to be thankful for our freedom and this great nation. Vote, thank a soldier, write your senator or representative about something important to you, be involved in local government. Pass the stories on to the next generation. FLY YOUR AMERICAN FLAG PROUDLY!

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Thanks for letting me up on my soapbox once again, these important days just bring it out of me.

Some links for your FOURTH OF JULY enjoyment

Declaration of Independence

Independence Day on the Net

Fourth of July Celebrations Database

Have a wonderful Independence Day!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

My Cute New Bag!

It is really a mini-tote, but I am using it for a purse. Too CUTE! The surprise part is that it is from Creative Memories! Free gift with purchase of their Little Boy or Little Girl album kit bundle.

Sorry about not being so bloggy this past week. It was such a busy crazy week! I worked daylight all week, which was quite the challenge for me who usually works later in the day and gets to sleep in. The alarm clock is lucky it survived a week of 6:30 AM wake up calls. From work it was straight to Vacation Bible School for 3 hours, where I am the crafty lady. We had a pretty good week there. Our theme was a Fiesta! We made shakers to use when the kids were singing, painted flower pots and planted seeds in them, made bird feeders from 1 liter bottles and wooden spoons, and of course a VBS tradition--photo magnets for on the refrigerator. We had about 20 kids, which is pretty good for our little church.

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So, I have all these pics saved for blog posts and I promise to do much better this week!

Take care!

Just a quick note to let you know I am still alive and kicking... it's been a busy week ofWomen's Healthe event, wedding showers, Bible School, work, pickiking Travis up, card club, and my CMC's crop. More on all that later! Take care!

The Aroma of Brownies Baking.... MMMMM!

It is just cool enough outside that I could fire up the oven today and bake a little bit. Brownies with chocolate chips and caramel cups. I can barely wait to get them out of the oven! Yummmmmmmmmm-O!

A page I did a while back, just getting around to sharing it with you all. I still need to journal on it, but sometimes it is hard to find the right words. It is for Melanie's graduation book. Still plugging along at it. Here is a Mel newsflash! She is now a licensed driver, the proud owner of a PA Jr Driver's License... I haven't experienced being a passenger with her yet, can't wait for the opportunity!

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Anyone watching the Starter Wife on USA network? I got hooked right off the bat from all of the cute little commercials for the show. It is funny and touching and a wee bit sarcastic, romantic and dramatic, too! Pretty good chick TV. I have been staying up late every Thursday to watch it since I am still at work during its normal time slot. Last night was the next to last episode. I am hoping to read the book that the show was based on, because they always say the book is better!

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My other new TV show is Army Wives on Lifetime. Another good chick show about 4 army wives and 1 army husband and their lives and friendship. They have covered some really good issues in just the first 3 shows.

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Last thing and then I am pulling those brownies out of the oven... Anyone thinking of Christmas yet? In a few short days we will be just 6 months from December 25th!

Take care!

How about a PURPLE LLAMA (or is it a camel?) to brighten your day?

Last week when I was having the really bad couple of days at work Kenny and Travis came to pick me up after a particularly horrible day. Kenny asked if I needed to do some shopping after work, and even though there was a ton of stuff that we needed I told him that I wasn't staying at the store one minute longer than I had to, so no shopping that night, I was going home. Travis at that point informed me that he had just the thing to cheer me up... They had gone for wings for dinner before coming for me and while they were waiting he played the claw machine until he won the above pictured just for me. He told me knew I would just love it, since it was purple....Um, Ok. Sooooo anywho, I named her Violet, and she is sitting on my scrap-desk to keep me company and remind me that a very special little guy spent more quarters than she is worth with the thought of making me happy, and you know what, every time I look at her she makes me smile! Great kid!

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A couple of things... I got a flyer about a weekend crop at Camp Harmony for September 7,8, & 9. This is a Cherish*Crop*Cure event hosted by the ladies who did the crop at the Quality Inn, Somerset earlier this year. If you would like more information let a comment and I will put you in contact with the coordinator. I am planning to attend and do a few make and takes.

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Since we no longer have a rubber stamp show in Pittsburgh, I have been checking to see if there are any ones near enough to make the trip worthwhile. There is one in Westminster, MD on Sept 22 & 23 (StampScrapArt Tour) and another one in York, PA on October 6 & 7 (Heirloom Productions) Just throwing out the idea of a road trip... any one interested?

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If you are at your local Wal-mart this Saturday be sure to pick up your FREE "Speaking of Women's Health" book. It is a neat little book of stories and recipes and health related information. Also take advantage of all the FREE health screenings that are going to be available from 10 AM to 4 PM. If you are at my Wal-mart be sure to stop back and see me at my Scrapbook demo table!

Take care!

New stamp!

Picked this new stamp up last week on our little field trip to Art Tech. I have wanted an outline stamp for a very long time, but I was looking for a rather "generic" one that I could use for anytime of the year. I would always find ones that were kind of theme-y, like Christmas or autumn. I was so happy to find this little gem and it was under $10! WOOHHHOOO!

Outlines Rubber Stamp Company is the maker of it. I just looked up their site today and wow could I spend some money there!

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I was happy to learn that it really isn't hard to make these for cards. I stamped and heat embossed it several times on a few different shades of pink cardstock. After that it was just cutting them apart and stacking them together with layers of pop up foam tape. I can't wait to make some more of them!

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Take care, have a good week!

Wedding Cake

Made this wedding cake last night/today for a good friend from work. Wishing Lois and Robert many years of happiness! They had one of the nicest wedding receptions I have been to in a long time. All delicious homemade (by family) traditional Pennsylvania wedding food... pigs in the blanket, chicken, ham, rigatoni, corn, parsley potatoes, rolls, salad, wedding cake and TONS of cookies. Lois looked so pretty and I am very happy for her and Robert! I also have to say that they were very nice to each other when they cut the cake. It is so hard to watch couples smash the cake that you worked for two days to make. I just hate to see the bride's hair and make up get all messed up. Enough rambling of the cake decorator. Thanks to them for being so nice to each other.
Wedding cake days are so busy. I am glad that we are strictly a friends and family operation because I could not do this every weekend. Thank goodness, too that it is me and Mom working together to do this, wouldn't do it alone! Fresh cake is the best, one of the things that we always tell people is that their cake is fresh, never frozen, and rarely more than 24 hours old. This was my first "beach" theme cake and I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

Random Thoughts

A graduation card, my first attempt at a tent topper card. Not bad. I love that scallops are back "in." I have several scalloped edge punches that I used for doing spirelli so I am glad to be able to use them for another purpose!

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Donna Downey designed Trendy Travel Log. Got this in my Simple Scrapbooks e-newsletter today and thought it was cute and I love it when they come with PRINTED INSTRUCTIONS! (wink, wink!)

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I love fonts and this was also in the SS newsletter today. scrapNfonts has lots of neat fonts on sale in their $1 bin.

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Sorry for not so much blog this week, crazy work hours, goats, housework... you know the drill!

Plus it has been so awful at work this past week, if you could only imagine the ways that dishonest people try to steal from Wal-mart it would boggle your mind. I always tease that I have job security because no one wants my job, this past week has really reinforced that thought. I just have to keep reminding myself that one day they will answer for all that they have done. (Hoping to have good seats for that show!)

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Have a great day, we are doing a campfire tonight and I can't wait!

City Kid or Country Boy?

Travis seems to have adjusted to country life very quickly this summer. He is having a great time with the baby goats. These are some pictures of feeding time. All of three pregnant does have given birth and the final count is 7 baby goats total. (4 bucks, 3 does.... 2 sets of twins and 1 set of triplets.)
Trav was quite proud of himself, he was the first to find one of the babies after it was born. We are bottle feeding them, which is alot of work, but they are so much tamer when you do that. Trav also got his first pair of barn boots (black rubber boots) that you wear only to the barn, and never never ever bring into the house. You take them off on the porch and they stay outside. Like most of his other boy stuff they are covered in mud and manure..how pleasant! LOL!!
So, in my humble opinion we have a genuine country boy on our hands.

New Papers!

I picked these up yesterday on our little field trip in

Greensburg. I have several pages in mind. The Winnie the Pooh is for a baby album. Spiderman is for my nephew Tyler. The pink, orange, purple CS is really nice 8.5 x 11 CS that has a faux suede finish to it. The

ladies at Art Tech recommended it for punching little

flowers. The brown is called Pizazzil, a combo of
bazzill CS and printing on it, lots of colors and patterns!

Of course, cousins, since they play together so much and are always in pictures together.

Art Tech Field Trip

Wow! What a great day I had yesterday! I spent the day with some wonderful ladies making cards, having lunch and scrapbook shopping.

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We started the day at Art Tech in Greensburg where we made the two cards in the first picture. The Dad card was made using Perfect Pearls to make a faux hammered metal look embellishment. Let me tell you, making faux metal is fun! We glued, inked, powdered, brushed, watered, and pounded the crap out of those letters! The card on the end is my friend Sharon's (AKA BS#2), she and some of the other ladies made seashells on their card fronts instead of letters and wow did they come out super nice! Although they have been around for a while, perfect pearls are a great new product/technique for me! I have wanted to learn how to use them for a long time and now I know!

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The second card in that photo is a neat paper weaving technique that is great for using up scraps! Gotta love that, who doesn't have a ton of those? It also uses the "leftovers" from a die cut as well! Bonus!! I like the cute quilty look of it as well. After I got it home here I added some glittery pen stitching to it and I think I may add a ribbon as well. It is definitely a card that I will make again.

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Thanks Luan, our teacher and Celelia, the store owner. We had a great time!

Art Tech Supplies, Inc. is located at 135 S. Pennsylvania Ave. Greensburgh, Pa

(724)-832-1770

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Deanna, Sharon, Mary Agnes, Joan and Jean and Mickey and I had a delicious lunch at a little diner two doors away from Art Tech. I can't remember the name of the place unfortunately. I had the Hawaiian Ham sammie, thin sliced grilled ham, with melted provolone and a pineapple slice on grilled sourdough with honey mustard. The food was yummy and inexpensive and the company was very good as well! After refueling or bodies and resting up a bit, we were off to do some more scrapbook shopping.

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Next on the list was the Crop Shop, a new scrapbook store in Greensburg, located near the new Sam's Club. I encourage you to check out their website. The store is brand new, beautiful and has lots of new product. I like how it is organized by theme. They have a quite impressive class/crop area with many die cutting tools and a Cricut! I will be going back to shop some more I am sure, since they have 4-H theme product and some other goodies that I am interested in!

More Baby Goats, finally some girls!

Meet Snowball and Magic!

Snowball above (obviously!) and Magic below are two baby goats born on Monday at my Dad and Mom's 4-H project farm. They were named by my nephew Tyler who is 3. Naming them is always interesting, the last two were named Bo and Luke. Go figure! We have a couple more pregnant mama goats and hopefully we will get some baby girl goats from them.
We also call Magic Tiny and Peanut since he is only half the size of Snowball.

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Fun day with the girls tomorrow, can't wait!

A Designer's Eye...

A Designer's Eye for scrapbooking with patterned paper, by Ali Edwards

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I picked this book up and have been reading it page by page for several days now. Really I have been studying it, not looking ahead or skimming over it. I have sticky notes with comments on several pages for various reasons and hope to try out some of the sketches very soon. It is a great book about how to use pattern paper (of which I own a ton!) It is part of my initiative to use of some of what I have been collecting for quite a while now. I have been trying to be super selective about new purchases because I have so much already.

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I also got the book because Ali's blog is one that I read faithfully and she has some really creative project ideas and kits and classes.

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By the way, have you noticed? Look over there on the right side of the blog, mixed in with my profile and archives are some links to some of the other blogs I read regularly and also links to some of my favorite sites! They updated how to add them and it si soooo much easier, so I added them over the weekend. Hope you enjoy them!

Take care!

I picked up some new things this weekend...

I am really loving all of the scalloped edge papers that are so popular right now and so while at Michaels I picked up this DCWV mini scalloped cardstock stack. It has some nice basic colors and it is textured with the white core. I used a sheet of it on a layout this weekend for the semi-secret project. I can tell now since it has been presented to the recipient. It was an album for the Western PA District Church of the Brethren's Associate Minister who is leaving her postition after fifteen years of dedicated service. I figured that I have logged over 5,000 bus miles on differerent youth trips with Linda and she is trully a wonderful lady and I wish her well on her new vocation. She is to be a Chaplain at the Hershey Medical Center and I know that they are going to be so blessed by her presence there. She is kind, compassionate and caring all the things you would want in a Chaplain.

Next new toy is really an old one, but for a new purpose... My corner rounder is on it's last leg, I have sharpened it, lubricated it and pretty much worn it out by punching through multiple layers of CS to the point that it is now crooked. Only I could do that I guess! I decided to get this one to replace it since I talked Chicksa into buying one at my last visit with her. It is an EK Success corner punch, but presto! take the little plastic foot off of it and you can make your own scalloped edges! It is super simple and I like the nice pretty scallop that it makes. Lining it up is a snap if you punch upside down. Punch is available at Wal-mart and is less than $5.

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I must say that I am enjoying these rainy days, even though they have kept me from planting the two flats of flowers and 3 flats of veggies that we picked up on Friday. I am looking for some inspiration for a few little projects that are in the works. I need to make some graduation cards and I also am working on a shower gift of a baby book for Kenny's cousin. Wish me luck and have a great week!

Travis, Skinned Knee