Spooky Spider

Have you seen the Decor Elements yet? I don't think I have mentioned them on my blog before this. I have the Small Lollipop Flower on the mirror in the playroom and have a couple of others but we (well Joe) have to finish painting before I can put them up.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that the Spooky Spider Decore Elements is available for purchase until October 31st. If you are thinking about having it up in time for Halloween now is a good time to order. I have an order going in by the end of this month or you can order directly from my site.


To view the flyer click here

A Layout and our visitor

I did this LO last weekend and have been planning on posting it all week. The sketch is from www.pencillines.

I thougth the sentiment Enjoy Every Moment would be a perfect sentiment for this picture I took when Joe and I went to Digby for our anniversary in July. I used last years In Colors (Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and River Rock) for my ink and CS.

Enjoy was stamped in Blue Bayou and I wanted to cover the dotted "o" with a grommet but of course I have just about every color but black. My solution was to make a faux grommet using Tracey's faux epoxy brad tutorial on CompuPro.

To make the faux grommet I punched a 1/2" circle out of a piece of scrap black CS and then punched out the ring using a 3/4" circle punch. I then placed the ring or "o" on a piece of waxed paper and put crystal effects all over it. I didn't play around with it too much and it stayed raised and if you try to smooth the CE you will end up with bubbles. Once it was dried I used a little tombo mono multi glue to adhere it.

Here is a close up of the faux grommet. Remember you can click on the image to see it bigger.









We have deer in our yard quite often but in the 4 years we have been here I have only seen 1 buck. The last one, I think I got a really bad picture of it running away but this guy (and a doe) stuck around our yard for quite a while. I have a feeling he might be back because he seemed pretty comfortable here :)

Pussywillows

er, I mean cattails :)

Sorry, I couldn't help it Donna..............but at least Joy will be happy you are taking the focus off her. LOL!

This was a card we made at out stamper's group party last weekend and there was some confusion as to what these were. Either way I am really happy with how this card turned out.

The cattails are made using the grass from Inspired by Nature and the horizontal slot punch. Unfortunately it turned out a little dark when I took the picture.

We have class tonight and Joe is away so I have to finish getting things ready for the babysitter. Have a great day!

Photography course

I don't think I told you I was starting a photography course yesterday, did I? LOL! Someday maybe my memory will be better :)

It is an on-line course with Kathy Thompson Laffoley!!!! Whoohooo! So exciting! We got our first assignment yesterday (to take pics at different angels) and this morning when I took Ian out to the bus I took my camera and got some pictures of a little sunflower that is coming up in the garden and some of Ian. I set up a photobucket account for the course and you can see this week's assignment pics HERE.

This is one I took a few days ago of our first sunflower. When I went out this morning the petals were all off of it so I'm glad I got some before the wind and rain we had the last few days :)

P.S. You can see Kathy's blog HERE.

Can you see the difference?

I probably had a little too much time on my hands last night (well I didn't really-there were lots of other things I should have been doing) when I decided to alter this picture of little Cowgirl Emma ready for an "Old MacDonald" Birthday party on Saturday(which is a funny story I'll tell later).



Anyway, last night I decided to play around with this picture because there were some things in the background that were "bugging me".




First was the pole right above her hat, the little bit of yellow sign on the left and the wood pile. To get rid of the sign I just cropped the picture a little bit then I started removing/replacing the wood pile and pole. Once I had those fixed I took out the little bit of another pole at the right of her hat (it is barely noticable but I figured I was on a role, why not?) and I decided the house at the tip of her right brim might as well go too :)




Of course, I could have just moved her in front of the big tree in front of our house but what would be the fun in that? Hehehe. Actually I just had only about 2 seconds to take the picture (this happens frequently with this 3 year old, her brother will pose just about anytime I want) so I just went with what I could get.




So what do you think? Can you see the difference?


I have another picture to show you later, I just need to edit the size and I'll try to post it either later today or tomorrow. Oh, and I have a card I need to take a picture of and a scrapbook page to try to get a better picture of. It looks like I will have lots to share this week :)

Sweet Girl Sierra

I probably won't have a chance to post anything over the weekend as Joe has been away this week and is coming home, for a whole day and a half (LOL), tonight then leaving again Sunday at lunch time for the week again. I was kind of minding it at the beginning of the week but once we get into our routines here it is fine. The kids have been handling it really well, over the last 6 months or so he has been away about a week a month.

This is a page I did earlier last weekend that I wanted to share. The flowers are punched with the 5-petal flower from SU, I shaped them with my bone folder and added the Build a Brad centers with a 1/2" circle of PP punched out. I also stitched on another LO! Did I show you the one of Emma with the cheese? I can't remember now...........if I didn't I will next week.

Hope everyone has a great weekend :)

From owl of us

I finally got to play with my new rubber the other night and I thought some of the stampers (that don't scrapbook) might be getting tired of seeing LO's on here. I made a couple of other cards too but they are for a party tomorrow night so I can't show you.............sorry!

This one was inspired by some pattern paper that I had on my desk from a page I had just done but once I had the owls stamped and colored I realized I should have used vanilla instead. I guess I was just too excited to ink them up and use my copics that haven't been touched in too long that I wasn't thinking. Anyway, I went through my scrap paper stash and found this piece that went with my image and finished putting it together.

The owl in the left hand corner is cut out and pop-dotted (or stampin' dimensionaled, right Donna? LOL!). I kept it pretty simple because I wanted it more on the macsuline side so I refrained from adding ribbon. I may add some brads in the 2 corners on the left though because I am finding it kind of plain............hmmm.

On-line ordering!

You know that you can now order Stampin' Up! products on-line! Whaa hooo!

If you go to my Stampin' Up! Website in the top right hand corner there is a "Shop Now button". If you click on that it will take you to the on-line catalogue. Orders over $200 qualify for "hostess benefits" (I can't remember what they are called on-line) as if you were placing the order through me.

This is a quote from the FAQ's that might help when ordering:

Q: How do I buy products online?
A: As with many other online ordering systems, adding the items you would like to purchase is accomplished
through a virtual shopping bag. Click the Add to Bag button on any item or project page, and we will keep
track of those items for the shopping session. When you are ready to make your purchase, simply click the
Checkout button from your shopping bag and follow the information prompts through the checkout process.
The last screen in the checkout process is a printable receipt. Following a short processing time, your order
will be shipped to your specified address.


I also up-dated the calendar for September (only a week and a half into September, not bad eh? LOL!) and will get October up asap.



Here is the link to My Demonstrator Website.



Let me know if you have any questions :)

Bestest Boy

I was working on this layout last night but had to call Mom this morning to make sure I had the nickname right (didn't want to confuse Ian with Tommy. LOL). Anyway, I was right about the name so I finished it this afternoon and had to share here asap :)

The chipboard letters are ones that I bought a long time ago and now I wish I had bought more.........they are soooo cool! They are fuzzy and so soft. I love them!

I have a headache today so I think I am going to go lay down for a while and hopefully get rid of this :( It is really nice outside but the bugs still seem to be bad so I guess it isn't too bad that we are staying inside.

Love you

This LO was for a challenge Hollee posted last weekend on the CompuPro forum. It was a sketch clallenge and the other 2 rules were to stamp your title and do some stitching (I kind of forgot that part though).

I used one of the simply scrappin kits from SU ( retired). I don't use stickers very often any more but I am really happy with this one!

I'm heading upstairs in a few minutes to finish the page I started a few days ago. I needed some white letter stickers and didn't have any so I popped in to see Nicole this morning and picked some up, along with a couple of other things ;-)



Oh! P.S.............Hi Joy! Hehehe!

I'm so excited!

I installed my new Photoshop Elements tonight and have been playing with what I think is probably my all time favorite picture of Emma and I just had to share it here as soon as possible!



I knew I wanted to attempt a black and white photo with just the flowers in color as soon as I saw this. I pretty much figured it out on my own with a little help from a book that my good friend Joy (I just have to say it again............JOY, sorry inside joke. LOL) gave me for my birthday.



Oh my land, I am soooo happy with how it turned out! I know if a professional looked at it they would find mistakes but for me it is perfect!



Ok, wanna see?




Here it is.................

























Of course, remember you can click on the picture to make it bigger.

I think I am going to enlarge this and frame it...........sigh.



Edited: I forgot to add............Joy, Joy Joy.............hehehe. Just making sure Joy gets her name on the blog :)

Oaklawn

This is the layout (LO) I was talking about the other day where I used scraps from a ScrapGala class from last year. I had pulled out the kid a few days before and it was sitting amongst the mess on my desk when I was looking at these pictures. I picked up a couple other patterned papers and then realized this one was perfect!

The scan kind of cut off the bottom of the page but you can see most of it, just the monkey's feet and the bottom of the file are missing. I stamped the animals on scraps of the pattern paper and cut them out (I think I am a sucker for punishment, I cut all of the flowers for the last LO after this one). Behind 2 of the pictures I added hidden jouralling by leaving adhesive off one side of the picture and tucking a file sticker that I adhered to a piece of white cardstock. For the other file folder I folded a piece of white cardstock in half and put the sticker on it with the bottom of the file at the fold and then cut around it. The letters are chipboard letters are more that I picked up a few months ago at Co-op.

Ian's first day of school was today and it started out rough but he came around (after a lot of crying, screaming running away from the bus and holding the front step/trying to be pryed off by Daddy. LOL!). I ended up driving him to school (I had to go over anyway to take his school supplies) and as soon as he was there he ran to the playground and never looked back (whew). I met his teacher and she is very nice and I think he is going to really like her. I'm sure tomorrow will be better.........wish me luck!

Bloom

I have been scrapbooking LOTS so over the next few days I will share some of the layouts with you.

This first one is something that I have been planning on doing ever since I saw the cover of the CTMH catalogue a couple of months ago. I fell in love with the papers and the layout and knew I wanted to do a page about Emma similar to it.

I cut the flowers out of the patterned paper and used glue dots and pop up glue dots to add them to the page. The ric rac is from a pack I got at the barn the last time I was there (it was actually from a boy-ish theme but the green worked perfectly for the stems). The chipboard letters are ones I picked up at Co-op for only $1.89!!! and they are Chatterbox!!! They are glittered on one side and have a different pattern on the other. Of course, the rub-on is another one from Melissa Frances. It says "Every flower that ever bloomed had t go through a whole lotta dirt to get there".

*Remember- you can click on the image to get a larger picture.

We had a sad morning here earlier. Ian's hamster Nemo died last night and we had to tell him this morning. He took it pretty hard at first but we all went out to bury Nemo in the back yard and it seemed that once he had something to do he took it much better. We made a little sign that says "Nemo" so that he can go visit her whenever he wants and tomorrow we are going after school to get a new hamster. I'm not sure he is really looking forward to the first day of school so hopefully this will be something to look forward to. I'm sure once he gets there with his friends he'll be fine but right now I think he is pretty happy staying home. (Although Mommy is looking forward to having it a little quieter here with no fights till at least 2:15. LOL)