Sydney stamps

Oh the nerdiness!

2009-10-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

This past week was BlueHat at Microsoft. This is a huge hacking conference for Jason and he was very busy. He also has a week of dinners and parties after work to schmooze with other nerds. A couple of these are 'plus one' events and I got to go along. This year we went to a little restaurant off of Post Alley near the Market. Honestly, it was a little dull- And that's saying a lot since Barry and I can entertain ourselves at the expensive of others quite easily. But there were only a few people there and it was really dark. Barry and I went around and harassed some upper level management and this guy who wears Utility Kilts all the time. *I am buying Jason one- just so I can see his legs 24/7. And maybe to torment Dan and Andy...* Adam has promised to let me straighten his hair is I raise money for his alma mater and he gave me a lap dance. I got to hug and squeeze Gorgeous Steve which did something for me but nothing for Barry. So we gave up and went and got ice cream after a little while and waited it out outside.

Then we were led to an after party in the Alibi Room. This is a very tiny restaurant near the famous Gum Wall. Except that once we got into the restaurant (which is already below street level), we were led down two more sets of stairs into a small room. BUT before we could go into the room we had to fill out a bizarre quiz and put on a name tag. Here's a little tip for whoever organized this event-
1. Hackers tend to be suspicious people. Very suspicious. Asking them to fill out a quiz with their full name and favorite things is an exercise in futility, even when the request is made from a woman in a low cut, black, latex outfit and 99% of the hackers at this party are men (true story). This soon became a contest to see who could write the funniest bit of BS.

**We found out that this quiz was for a murder/mystery game. And this brings me to the second point.**

2. Hackers don't think like normal people. They think all around a problem to find the each and every weak point in any situation. Our host 'Scully' told us that every 30 minutes, we would need to stop our conversations, eating and drinking to listen for new clues to figure out who the murderer was. Well, about 5 minutes after her first set of clues, Jason and I had figured out who the murderer would be and went back to chatting with our drunken friends. Everyone else in the room had figured it out too. So they scrapped the game and turned the music up to a deafening level. At that point we decided to call it a night and head home.

I say this with all the love in my heart but no matter how you slice it, nerds and parties don't mix. I'd hang out with Barry any time and I may need to make Mike my new BFF (he has a lovely accent and makes anything sound heavenly) but I can do that stuff anytime. I love you Jason but no more parties with the promise of some hard partying if only nerdiness is going to happen!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN

2009-10-10T22:41:00.001-07:00

Lauren is 8!!! I can't believe it! She is getting baptized today too and is super excited.

This is a pic of her and Herbie. :) She is a great daughter and I love her very much! I hope you have a great birthday Lauren!

My mind is always in the gutter

2009-10-06T22:46:00.001-07:00

The name of this street has brought me so much joy in the past few months. We were just driving along and there it was. This was the best part of the trip for me. :D
Childish? Maybe
Frickin' hilarious? Oh yeah...

World Card Making DAY!

2009-10-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

What did you do to celebrate today?

I went to A Muse and took 2 classes from HRR Julie!!! It was super fun. Sparkle came with me for the first class where we made 4 cards with awesome folds. VERY FUN! I have some fresh, new ideas now for all the birthdays cards I will need for family. :)

The second class was Halloween cards. Julie has a super sense of humor and these cards just cracked me up. There is a MS spider punch that I just have to have because of this class. :D

THEN, as if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, A Muse was having their anniversary sale! Linda had a whole room of clearance product! AND A TABLE FULL OF $2 STAMPS! Of course I went hog wild and got a lot of older, retired stamps that I have always loved but couldn't find. I also drew a card for 25% of my order which was a super happy for me. I added the new fiskars upper crest border punch to my order after I drew that. I've been wanting it since I saw a prototype in a survey on Fiskateers! I've already been punching away and will have some cards showing it's coolness soon.

Oh! And congrats to Joy who won The Cat's Pajama stamps giveaway from my Splitcoast entry. Those went out in the mail a few days ago and should be at their new home soon. Enjoy!

Cake Wrecks!

2009-09-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

Jason and I went to the Cake Wrecks book signing last night. It was so much fun! A friend of ours made one of the fun cakes there. It was really yummy. :D

Jen is a very funny and nice person INL. It was fun to meet her.

If you haven't checked out her blog before, you really should. She said there are more than 9,000 pics of cakes that she hasn't uploaded yet so there's lots more fun to come!

How do you like Survivor so far?

2009-09-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

I'm hating it. :( There's just so much garbage going on and it seems like they found some seriously nasty people for this season. I'm so disappointed.

On the other hand, Glee and Modern Family are absolutely hilarious. You should watch them if you haven't already.

What are you watching?

TCPTUES77 Color challenge

2009-09-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

*** I'm doing a little giveaway here and on Splitcoast. I bought some acrylic sets from the Cat's Pajamas and now I have duplicates in rubber. I have pirates and a chicken soup stamp to give away. If you'd like to win them, just post here or on my Splitcoast post with the pink, black and orange card. I'll draw in a couple of days and send them to you. :)***

The TCP challenge this week was to use melon pink, pumpkin orange and black. I thought it would be tough but it was actually a lot of fun!

And this is a card I made for last week's challenge but didn't get around to uploading it on time. Grrr...
The challenge for last week was to use 3 circles, emboss (either heat or dry) and to add some bling. I added a little silver smooches to the grommets on the port holes for my bling.

DoodleFactory Trick or Treat!

2009-09-23T17:27:00.001-07:00

I am so pleased with how this card came out! :) These are a couple of the newest Halloween stamps from the latest DoodleFactory release. There are several different characters in the new set, perfect for trick or treating cards. Can you imagine how cute this guy would be stamped onto a trick or treating bag? And he's a great size for treats for the classroom.

The haunted house is from last year (I think). I love coloring it. There's lots of detail and the little ghost in the sky just makes me smile. I believe the sentiment is from last year too. I stamped my own B&T paper using a candy stamp from last year and a candy bar from this year. I love making my own paper.

So proud

2009-09-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

Jason got promoted! Yeah!
I wanted to make him a nerd card to slip into his backpack. This computer and saying from A Muse were perfect. This is a great acrylic set if you need to make guy cards. I use it quite a bit. :)

It was a freaking pain in the butt to make the Microsoft thing for the background but I think it turned out okay. Definitely not my normal color scheme but I think it works well for the card.

Dino

2009-09-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

This dino and the sentiment is from Doodle Factory. Isn't he cute?! I touched up his scales and eyes with a white Glaze pen and Crystal Effects. I also traced the letters with Crystal Effects. I love this product because it doesn't distort the color of the ink or warp the paper.

The most recent Doodle Factory release is also terrific. It's a Halloween. :) I LOVE Halloween. I'm going to stamp with them tonight and I'll post later this week. Check them out for yourself at Starving Artistamps because they are must haves in my opinion.

Check the side effects!!!

2009-09-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

So I went to a new doctor about two weeks ago and she mentioned that taking birth control might help my migraines. It is a progesterone birth control so I can take it and not have to worry about blood clots from my factor 5 leiden. Great!
Well, I started taking it on a Thursday. By Saturday I was exhausted. We went out to lunch on Saturday and I couldn't even stay awake at the table. I thought I might be coming down with something and thought I would just try to sleep it off.
On Monday, I was still very tired and my stomach started to really hurt but the pain was very low. So on Tuesday, we called the Microsoft nurse line and they sent a doctor to our house. I was kind of freaking out at this point. He said if I got any worse, I needed to call back.
On Wednesday, things definitely started to get worse and I was throwing up. So I called and we went into the ER. I had a bunch of test that I would love to forget ever happened and nothing showed up. I wasn't getting better either.
The ER doctor called on Friday and said that some other tests had also come back normal and I should come back to the ER because they would run more tests and could get the results immediately. *Throughout all this, I wasn't given any antibiotics or stuff like that because they said that if I had something in my intestines, that type of medication could make it considerably worse. :(
I really hate the ER so I decided to try to figure out what was going on. I thought about what I'd eaten in the last week, was I near anyone sick and what else could be going on. The medicine came to mind so I thought I would look it up.
Well sure enough, there is a rare side effect of abdominal pain and unusual tiredness. S.O.B.!
Lesson learned. Read up on any new medication you get, as much as you can BEFORE you start taking it. I have had a miserable last week and this stupid medicine wasn't worth all this. I have stopped taking it and hopefully it will get out of my system soon. I am 99.9% sure this is what was giving me problems and that I should be feeling great again soon.

TCPTUES74- Halloween!

2009-09-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

This week's challenge was to use Halloween stamps. I've had this card on my mind for a long time but it didn't turn out quite like I expected. :(
I love this Halloween set though. It has a lot of fun images and great sentiments. :)

Time for a change

2009-08-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

I just love how that pic of Mad Eye Moody came out! He's so sneaky. :)

Mad Eye is a veiled chameleon. They can move each eye independently hence the name Mad Eye Moody. If you still don't get it, you've got to read Harry Potter!

Now for a gift card holder. If you open it up, the gift card sticks out from a fold in the center. I should have taken a pic of the inside or done a tutorial. :( Sorry!
Some friends of ours got married last Saturday. They are a great couple and I'm so happy for them. The 'happily ever after' just seemed to fit them perfectly. The stamp came from Green Grass stamps and they are one of my favorite companies. They have some very nice, original art that is fun and easy to work with. Not much has been happening on their site lately and I'm not sure if they are out of business or not. They were going to come out with some new images in March but it never happened. I'm pretty bummed. :( I think they still have some older stamps available (for 50% off) on their site. Get em' while you can! :)

The paper is from Stella Ruby from Basic Grey. I added some TAC flowers that I just had to have but haven't used too much. I like them so much that I keep "saving" them but I've got to get over that. :)

Enjoy and have a good weekend! I've to my TCP challenge card to upload tomorrow and then something special that I made from Jason. :)

Shopping birthday

2009-08-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

One of my old students recently had a birthday. She loves shopping so I made her this card. :) Hope she likes it.

The paper is Basic Grey and the stamps are from Kim Hughes. This is a CTMH sketch. There are new card books available from CTMH. They are amazing. If you need some inspiration every now and then, I would highly recommend them.

2009-08-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

What a fun cupcake! I love it's swirly frosting. Both the cupcake and sentiment are from The DoodleFactory. If you have never seen their stamps, you really should check them out at www.starvingartistamps.com. They are wonderfully wacky.

I don't often play along with Taylored Expressions challenges (no reason, I just get busy) but this one caught my eye. I needed an adult birthday card and this sketch seemed perfect. You can't really tell from the pic but the bottom of the cupcake has a little glitter on the stripes and the outline of the cupcake was traced in Crystal Lacquer.

Cookies for Santa

2009-08-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this sketch from Hero Arts quite a while ago. It was sweet and simple. I like sketches that allow the main image to really stand out without a lot of other stuff cluttering it up. I also liked the idea of a little tag sticking out of the side for the sentiment. :)

The image and the sentiment are from acrylic sets from The Cat's Pajamas. It's hard to see but the right hand side of the brown and blue spotted paper is punched using a tiny scallop punch that is new from EK Success. It is one of the new punches that lock to be super flat. Love it!

The paper is Basic Grey. Hope you're not getting tired of that paper. I really want to use it up to make room for Eskimo Kisses and Indian Summer that were released at CHA.

Sweetie Pie

2009-08-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite stamp from My Cute Stamps' Sweet Kawaii set. Isn't it sweet looking? It's such a cute little slice of pie. When I first saw this, I immediately thought of pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving. I have a couple of relatives that I wish I could see on Thanksgiving but it just doesn't work out. So I think I'll make a few of these and send them out.

The paper is Basic Grey's Stella. I haven't used this in a long time but it is one of my favorites. Most of the paper has a pattern (like a dress pattern) print on it. It's just a neat little detail that I really like.

How can you not love lizards?

2009-08-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Mad Eye Moody comes to the door of his cage when he wants out. This mood doesn't strike him very often so when he wants out, I try to make the most of it. I brought him outside for some sun and put him in a little pear tree we have so he could catch some rays.

He kept turning to hide his body but kept an eye on me the whole time. He is so cute. :)

Snowman Christmas card

2009-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Another one of my Christmas cards for what was supposed to be my weekly card making project. I like doing Christmas cards in untraditional colors. This DP came from Basic Grey's Porceline. The snowman and saying are from a Christmas Kim Hughes set. The heart on his chest is paper pieced and then I put on a little Crystal Effects for some shine.

Dropping you a line

2009-08-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

My finally visiting teaching card. :) My bigger fishes are on pop dots. I colored their fins or bodies with my copics. I stamped them on JuneBug patterned paper.

The smaller fish are DTP and colored with my copics. I added 2 scalloped boarders for fun. There's a little liquid glass on the bobber. :)

Not much stampin'

2009-08-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

I love the new JuneBug paper but it is a little busy for my taste. I was looking at this paper and wondering how I could make it work. So I used my Crystal Effects to highlight swirls and petals on the flowers. There are only a couple of places where you can see it but quite a lot of the card has this decoration.

I stamped 'dropping you a line' on the red dot paper and added some scallops on the end. This is another card for my visiting teachers. :)

Gnome friend

2009-08-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

I am a BAD visiting teacher. I used to be better but when we moved to WA, things just got rougher. I decided to make my visiting teachers some cards and send them in the mail. Hopefully the good mail will make up for at least some of the missed visits. :P

All these cards use Junebug paper from Basic Grey and stamps from Kim Hughes line at Cornish Heritage Farms. :)

TCPTUES71- a sketch challenge

2009-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

This week's challenge came from Carole and was a fairly simple sketch. I love that part of the challenge was to round the corners of the card and the parts within it. I have bought several corner rounders but don't use them super often. They were one of those things that EVERYONE was using so I HAD to have one. ;) But I am grateful for the chance to get them out and dust them off.

Here's my card-

The little caldron is from last year's Halloween set but the sentiment is an older stamp (maybe retired?) from The Cat's Pajamas.

The paper and ribbon are from Close To My Heart. I colored the fire with my copics and embossed the caldron.

Getting a jump on Christmas

2009-08-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

My friend Sparkle told me about and idea she had back in January. Every week she has made 2 Christmas cards so that by December she has all her cards done. And she doesn't get bored with making the same thing over and over. I thought this was a GREAT idea and decided to try it.

Guess how many cards I've made? Maybe 5. :P

But I have renewed my commitment to get this done and get caught up. :)

Leigh O'Brien made a card identical to this (I just change the paper) last year and I loved it. I put it in my file of things to copy and here's my version.

I used Basic Grey's Wisteria. This isn't my favorite paper packet but I want to challenge myself. I think it works well for a Christmas card.

I shaded the gingerbread man (stamp and sentiment from the DoodleFactory) with a copic and made his frosting face and buttons white with a gel pen. He's popped up on pop dots for dimension (I love those things. I think I use them on every project.) Super simple but I love how it turned out.

My Cute Stamps- a half dozen

2009-08-13T14:03:00.002-07:00

How stinkin' cute is this donut? I love the little grin and eyelashes. :)

This is from My Cute Stamps and the set is called Sweet Kawaii. It is only $7.99 and has 7 images. The other images are a slice of pie (my favorite image in the whole set), the donut, a popsicle, a piece of candy, a soft serve cone, cherries and the sentiment 'You're Sweet'. And this is an acrylic set, which I prefer.

I stamped the donut six times on a standard A2 card and colored them with my copics. But wanted to jazz it up a bit. So I stamped the donut two more times on some scrap card stock, colored them and ran them through my Xyron upside down so the sticky was covering my image. Then I added some clear microbeads. However, they picked up a bit of the color from my stamp pad ink and turned a few of the beads rainbow colored. Totally unintentionally but a nice touch. :) I love it when that happens.

I wanted this to look like a box of donuts so I made a simple frame with some Blush textured card stock and added some transparent film. That is mounted to the card stock with pop dots for dimension.

Very easy but also very fun.