Tips for Better Living

Remember: Always store your black cats up high in a warm dry place.

The Fine Print: Jack was so proud of himself for getting up there. He felt very adventurous.  Why don't you try something adventurous today too?!

The Elf on a Shelf

I thought I'd jump onto the Elf on a Shelf bandwagon and get me one of those little guys to keep everyone in this household in line.  So far, he's not very intimidating.

The Fine Print: I suspect that Elf will not last until Christmas.  It is just a sneaking suspicion I have.

Catching Some Z's

The Fine Print: I got my cookies but I didn't get nap time.  How has this tragedy occurred?  I do not know but it is a sad, sad day when nap time gets left out.  Luckily Charles didn't miss it.

Motley Cruesday

This morning my husband told me it was Motley Crue Tuesday.  I'm not actually sure what that means in the grand scheme of things but I thought it sounded better as Motley Cruesday.  So rev on, rev on..... let's go Shout at the Devil.

That photo was from back in the decadent 80's.  If you want to see how rock and roll all day, party every night ages you, here ya go.  Apparently it's not all hookers and blow these days.  More like chiropractors and icy hot. 

Hmmm... they actually look more spry than I feel, with the possible exception of Mick Mars.

The Fine Print: Images stolen directly from the Interwebs. And toss back a beer for my friend who was convinced the lyrics "Rev on.... Rev on..." were really Revlon, Revlon, as a nod to their favorite eyeliner. 

Free Medical Advice

I've been sick the last two days.  Yesterday I was at the prickly, crabby, snotty stage with a mild ache.  Today I'm at the prickly, crabby, snotty stage with a deep ache.  It is all fun and games in my world.

In honor of illness I shall give you some free medical advice, worth every penny you paid.

 One of these is the cats' ear medicine.  The other is glue. Do not put glue in the cats' ears.

 One of these is eye drops.  The other is a reinker for a plum pad.  Do not put plum ink into your eyes.

One of these is an assortment of pills.  The other is an assortment of decorative brads.  Do not swallow the brads.  They have those annoying pointy ends, you know.

The Fine Print: So is there any chance that tomorrow will be the prickly, crabby, snotty stage with a NO ache stage?  Or possibly none of the above?  Yeah, I doubt it either.  Peacock card stuff by Club Scrap.

 

O.M.G.

Hobby Lobby opened today in my town.

My town!

So where am I?

At work.  

The Fine Print: They listed March 22 as their opening so I have that day off, so all is not lost as I'll be there for the festivities.  I had a card to share with you but I don't have it with me.  I knew you'd be sad if I didn't post something so now you can be sad that I'm not at Hobby Lobby instead.

It's in the Bag

Whaddya know?!  Here's another day and I failed to plan ahead to have stuff to show you.  Luckily I have my stash of things from the past.  I recently shared this paper bag book with an on-line stamp club since we're planning a paper bag book swap.  This PB book has such an inspiring history that I thought I'd share the book and the story with you.

Front Cover

I'd often heard of this stamp club that met in my town but never could pin down where or when it met.  I started suspecting that there was a secret handshake or a code word and without those, you were not worthy to enter.  Then one day while at a card class at a local store (long since closed) a lovely lady invited me to this stamp club.  I was excited.  I was finally in!

First two pages

At my first meeting, I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the ladies I already knew from the stamp stores, classes, and local crafting gigs.  One lady stood up and announced she would be teaching a free paper bag book class at the next meeting.  That really cemented it for me, I would be coming back!  She showed a sample and told us to bring a stapler, adhesive and scissors.  I was so tickled.  I'd had such a great time at this group and now I had this great project to look forward to next month!

Inserts between the pages (put in the sack opening)

Even though we were told we didn't need anything beyond scissors, glue and the stapler, I learned from that first meeting that it wasn't a bad idea to bring some other stuff along for the project.  I gathered up some ribbon, stickers, brads, and flower punches.  I was so excited! A paper bag book class!

Next two pages

The meeting came and true to her word, the lady did a PB book class.  We all got two white lunch sacks (white! we ranked WHITE bags!) and a selection of papers, ribbons, die cuts, and doo dads to put our book together with. 

Next inserts

The ladies in the group and I had so much fun!  I was asked repeatedly how I knew "what else" to bring and I said I just guessed based on the sample we had been showed. I shared my goodies with my new friends and again, great times were had by all.

Third page spread

One thing I've learned about myself is that if I don't finish a project in class I need to finish it up as soon as I get home otherwise it will never get done.  But this project got completed in class! Folks hung out and played even after the official meeting ended.  It was such an enjoyable time. I joined the club and became a faithful member, minus the time there was a confusion about what date we met.

The back cover

One thing lead to another and eventually the group leader decided to step down.  She asked someone she felt had the energy, the competence and the insanity to keep it running.  That person was me.  I was truly honored but did insist on an equally competent, energetic and insane co-captain.  The group is both a joy and a pain to me (probably like children).  I always try to remember the thrill and excitement of my first few meetings and the projects we made and hope I can give that to the members. 

Whew, all that from a couple of lunch sacks!  Who have thunk!?!

The Fine Print: Extreme kudos to Dianne D'Arriel for showing me the secret handshake and giving me the code word.  Special thanks go out to Peggy Nelson for her generosity and talent and teaching me the thrill the paper bags.  A shout out to Malana Corn and I hope you still think I'm worthy to fill your shoes. Huge, huge thanks to Cathy Gray for agreeing to be my partner in crime in this venture.  And to all the ladies and gentlemen who make up SALSA it couldn't happen without all of you!

Blasts From the Past

I just spent all day working on one card.  I guess that isn't technically true because for one, the day isn't over with yet and two, I did start the day by cleaning up my desk, table, and nearby areas too.  You know how it goes, every so often you have to stop and pick things up or else you have no place to play. 

During the cleaning session I started putting the cards I made into a plastic box that I bought just for that purpose.  That sounds like I'm on top of things, but I bought that box several weeks ago and its been lying around since, so not really. 

I found some really old cards I made and by "really old" I mean from 1998.  I was new to stamping in those days and had no idea that size mattered.  I was the princess of off-sized cards.    This also must have been before I became patterned paper addict (I do remember it was scarce in those days) but after I'd been introduced to a heat tool and embossing powder.

I remember being rather impressed at the girl card.  It was one of my first attempts at being "artsy."  Before that I built scenes with my stamps or just had one main focal point.  Those stripes with stuff stamped willy nilly were way out there for me.  And check out that mesh print stamp. I must have felt adventurous the day I bought that!

This second card I recall feeling rather smug the day I went to the office supply store and bought a packet of pastel cover stock to play with. I discovered such a thing existed because a similar pack had shown up at work.  The UFO is stamped onto a piece of iridescent wrapping paper and has an overall pinkish purple hue to it, which is why I'm sure I made the ground pink and purple.

The Fine Print: girl blowing bubbles, hand and mesh stamps by Era Graphics; Aliens by Ken Brown, UFO and ground by ImaginAir, sign post by Copper Leaf Creations, words by All Night Media (a foam set).

Workdesk Wednesday

I don't even know where to start this post since I have so much to babble about.  I guess I'll start with a True Confession (TC) because folks say once you have a blog you start sharing Too Much Information (TMI) and confessing to things you wouldn't otherwise.  I take my pictures for Workdesk Wednesday on Tuesday evening. There!  I said it.  I figure it is fair enough that way.  I take it before I go to bed and then I spend all day at work on Wednesday so it isn't like the desk is going to change any from when I took the photo.

My desk is clean again as I cleaned it off before taking the photo.  I did not, however, clean it off in anticipation of taking the photo.  I cleaned it off to play since it was heaped up too much for that, but I didn't get around to playing because...    ...see, I have the week off work between The Holiday That Shall Not Be Named and New Year's.  I didn't stay up very late during my vacation except maybe another hour on average, but what I did do is sleep later and later and later every morning.  I guess I got in touch with my inner cat.

Anyway, since I didn't get my requisite 23 hours of sleep, I was quite tired that first day back to work. I don't think blowing my nose helped either since I did so seven thousand and forty two times.  An hour.  I wanted to make a House Mouse card but like I said my desk had no room.  I sat down with the idea of cleaning it off so I could play.  So I sat there and shuffled things around, pondered about how exhausted I was, and signed deeply every ten seconds. I hate when people sign deeply every ten seconds so all that accomplished was me annoying myself.  I did get the desk clean as you see but it was time for my next project: 

Yeah, it was totally bedtime, so no House Mouse got made.  And yes, hubby and I have separate blankets.  It is the secret to a happy marriage when one person likes to roll up in the blankets (me) and the other likes them tucked in tightly (him).  And yes, I have a towel on my pillow because I drool so much that one day I'm doing to wake up drowned (that TMI we talked about).

Back to the desk, though, on the left side is the House Mouse stamp and paper ready for action and on the right side is piles of Valentine's doo-dads, also ready for action.  There are more VD (Valentine's Day) and spring papers tucked up under the overhang.  You can see my new Martha Stewart anywhere punch that a friend convinced me was the bomb.  She is right.  It punches out kind of a Celtic knot pattern and there is a guide on the punch so you can punch out a whole row or whole sheet of it into a nice pattern.  I have some new unopened Tonic cutting tools on my desk that were a gift.  My desk is poised for play!

Here is a picture of the table behind me that I did not clean off (cuz that's like work).  This is a different angle than I've taken before.  You can see my new Big Shot and my old Cuttlebug.  There are all the holiday punches that I have not got around to putting away yet.  There is that same basket o' crap that has been in the last several photos of my table (starting way back in October I think).  You can see that even my stool is piled up with stuff.  The new Stampin' Up mini is on the top of that stack. Also in that stack is new paper my hubby got me including the Black Current Stack which is AWESOME.  In the foreground is another stack of papers topped with directions to a double-dutch fold card that my friend and I were going to try.  Now, look in the upper left of that picture.  You can make out part of my Eight Foot Stack of Paper that I often talk to my friends about.  I don't think I've mentioned it here on the blog though, but there it is.  My hubby thinks I have too much paper.  As if that were possible!

I promised I would post of picture of my flower bottles, so here's that.  I took all my flowers out of their various containers and put them in big jars by color.  As you can see, I still have overflow on the next shelf in random containers.  There was a length of time when no card was complete without a flower or two or six or more on it.  I'm not anti-flower now; they just aren't the embellishment of choice these days though.  The table is sitting in front of this bookcase in case you are trying to get the layout of the land.  Lots 'o crap (TMI and TC all in one).

Gimme Gimme Gimme

Hello and Happy Black Friday to y'all!  So did anyone get up at midnight to go shopping?  How about 4 am?  Did you push and shove people?  Did you get pushed and shoved? Did anyone trample their fellow man?  Did you get trampled?  Did you spray pepper spray into anyone's face so you could buy cheap electronics?!  Fess up!  Did you?!?! 

Well, maybe you didn't, but someone did.  Sometimes I'm embarrassed by my own species.  Based on this card today I can say I had a good day.  I hope you can say so too.

And while I did have some perverse desire to show up at some big box store at some ungodly hour to buy laundry soap,  I did not partake in any retail madness. I only happened to be awake at midnight because buckets of rain, no wait, make that swimming pools-full of rain came out of the sky and it was loud.  I'm sure I was asleep and drooling on myself at 4 am.  I spent the day leisurely having a delectable lunch at a nice place downtown and then going to the art museum.  And for those of you not familiar with Tucson, downtown is not a mecca for retail shopping.

I haven't done anything crafty today (yet!). I still have the goods from my magazine to play with and the Fed Ex dude delivered me a pizza box from Club Scrap, so there could be playing soon.  Here are a couple of cards I made in the past that I thought I'd share just for the heck of it. 

The Fine Print: Striped card base by DCWV, "Good Day" saying by Inkadinkado, kid stamp by Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers.  Other two cards made from a My Mind's Eye kit, enhanced with bling and Prima flowers.

Magazines in Plain Wrappers

What else is big on the internet besides LOL Cats and spam?  Why  p o r n  of course!  So what would my blog be without some p o r n?!  My p-word arrives monthly in my mailbox in a discreet wrapping, much like Playboy, Hustler, and Debbie Does Dwarves* like so:

 Yeah, I think the postman gnawed on the packaging a little there…  My p o r n  is imported from England, because I find English p o r n  to be more thrilling than the domestic kind.  I get so excited I can hardly contain myself so I rip off the discreet wrapping to reveal the awesomeness that is inside:

 Doesn’t that just make your heart pitter patter?  I know it does mine!  This is Issue 94 Christmas 2011 from Quick Cards Made Easy.  I love the crafting mags from the UK because they have different things in them and because they come with free crafting goodies for you to try out.  As you can see in this picture the free gift is a vellum embossing pack.  It has some patterned paper, pieces of vellum, and an embossing plate.  The magazine itself has a two-page spread giving you some ideas on what you can make with your free gift.  I’m looking forward to trying this one out because the embossing plate reminds me of the rubbings we did as kids (where you put your paper on various textured things and colored over them with a crayon).  They have a contest called “First Past the Post” where you make something with your free gift and send it in.  The first one to do so gets a great crafting pack surprise.  Sometimes they give away gifts to the makers of other outstanding cards made with the freebies.  Since my magazine has to travel across the pond and any entries would have to go back across, I’ve never entered, only enjoyed seeing what folks make.

Every month the free gifts differ.  Last month it was some fab clear Christmas stamps featuring Scottie dogs.  In the past I have received excellent paper packs, a flocking kit, other clear stamps, and a DVD for “digital stamping.”  Besides the free gift enclosure, every month the magazine features patterned papers that you can use.  They also give you information and a pass code so you can go to their website and download and print more of these papers and usually they have some other ones too.  I have only done that once or twice since I have plenty of patterned paper, but I think that is a great option so that 1) you don’t have to tear your mag apart, 2) can use both sides of the paper (since they are printed back to back in the magazine), and 3) can have more papers if you want.  As you can see, the cats love my p o r n  too, or maybe they just want to help me show off the patterned papers. 

   

By the way, that one cat is really blue-eyed but the red eye autocorrect insisted he have green eyes for this photo.  I think it makes him look rather stoned.  Also, the other cat is lying on the leopard print blanket, just out of sight.  They really are quite pesky.

Another feature that Quick Cards does often is called Card School.  They walk you through step-by-step with lots of pictures on how to make technique cards.  This month features origami Christmas trees, but also has them mounted on a step-style card, so double bonus!  Oh sure, all their card measurements are done in centimeters and not inches, but you can easily learn the technique and convert it out of metric if you must.

 Another fun aspect is their multi-card feature.  They often do it as a budget challenge, as they did this month, showing how you can buy a few choice inexpensive items and make many cards with them.  Sometimes they show how you can get many cards out of one item (such as a stamp set or embellishment pack).  Not only do they show you the overview of all 10 cards like you see here, but the next several pages are detailed instructions on each card.  So you don’t have to peer at this page and try to guess how they did it.  I like that!

 I also get a chuckle at some of the British colloquialisms in the magazine.  “Sticky fixers” is by far my favorite.  I only get foam tape here in the US.  

So stay tuned and see what I make with my freebies!

* I’m assuming on that last one, I can’t say I know it for a fact.

The Fine Print: Quick Cards Made Easy is copyrighted by Origin Publishing, which is part of the Immediate Media Company Group.  I am not an official spokesperson for them, just a happy customer.  If you would like a copy of Quick Cards or any of the other fab UK craft magazines, check your local craft stores and/or Barnes & Noble.  For a subscription check out: Origin Publishing Magazines