Happy New Year

Hello all! Happy New Year! I have been down for the count since Saturday with a wicked case of the flu. I am sitting in the police department in Sabinal checking e-mail and posting some blog comments. Have my dear hubby tapping his fingers and toes wanting me to hurry so that we can go home and go back to bed. This stuff has been hard to kick. Anyway, I wanted to post this to let everyone know that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Am just recovering from the flu and have no internet at home yet.

Hope you all have a great New Year's!

Day After Christmas Blahs!

Well, my travel/move luck has held out! My husband (who is now a night owl for real) left to head back home at 1 AM this morning. He has to be at work at 6 PM to work a 12 hour shift, so he wanted to get home so that he could sleep at his normal time and try to get back on schedule. He took my car because one of his headlights went out on our trip here and we didn't get a chance to get it replaced before today. I was going to leave around 9 AM this morning and be there well before dark so headlight out would not be an issue for me.

Well, I got up this morning and got into the car to turn it around so that I could put my load in the car. When I got out and walked around the car to go inside, guess what???? Flat, I mean totally flat, tire! Tires are fairly new. Especially considering that this is the car that I have been keepin here with me while he drove my car back and forth from Sabinal!

Luckily Eric's uncle lives nearby and rescued me with a jack and tire iron! I then ran the tire over to the shop where we bought it. They are going to repair or replace at no charge, but they are VERY backed up today... I am still sitting at my house at 2:30 PM waiting on the call that the tire is ready and I can come and let them install it on the car... At this rate, I won't be in Sabinal until 10 PM... And will have driven as long without a headlight as Eric would have had to if he had driven the car this morning!

What a way to end the Christmas holiday!

Hope your day after is going better than mine!

Winter Break

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and got to spend the day exactly as they wanted to.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be taking a break from blogging for a while... Longer than I would like... :(

We are moving the computer today. That doesn't pose a problem except that we do not have internet in Sabinal yet. Don't know when it will be installed either. I will call Monday and then decide if I need to just buy an aircard.

Besides that, my last minute packing has come back to bite me "you know where"... :( I am just putting stuff in any old box that it will fit. So much for organizing as I packed and keeping everything neat and ready to unpack and go to work... Now it will take me twice as long to unpack... Yuck! :(

So, I feel certain it will be some time after the first of the year before I will get to start creating. That makes me sad. What makes me sadder is that I probably won't start creating again until after SU's Leadership!!! :( At least I don't have to worry about swaps... I have the perfect excuse for not having anything... "It's packed!" LOL

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year! I will "see" you again in 2009!

Merry Christmas!

No images to send today... We remembered to get the camera in Sabinal and bring it to Beaumont, but forgot to bring it to family Christmas last night. So, I will be at the mercy of my Dad and sisters to provide me with images from last night! We had a good time, but it was bittersweet... We won't get to have nearly as many family get togethers like that with us so far away. :(

My sister has started the most wonderful tradition. Her and her girls bake a birthday cake for Jesus. Then, at our family Christmas on Christmas Eve, we all sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and cut Santa a piece of birthday cake! I thought that was such a great way to keep the little ones plugged into what Christmas is all about!

I did get a wonderful card and letter from an old friend that I met while "we" were in the Navy in Virginia. I haven't heard from her in 7 1/2 years! Renewed friendships... What a GREAT Christmas gift!

I hope that Santa brings you all exactly what you wanted. But I also hope that during this time with your friends and family that you take the time to stop and reflect what we are really celebrating: The gift of Christ our Lord.

Merry Christmas!!!

Candy Jars

My sisters and I do not exchange gifts anymore. We just all get together and eat and play games on Christmas Eve. Works great for us because we don't have the stress of buying gifts. We just take that one evening during the holidays to relax and enjoy each other. After all, that's what it is all about! Big sis (me) can't follow that to the letter! Never has been able to! I always do stockings for everyone (even my dad!)... Since I don't have children and doing for my nieces is my only way to get to do all that fun stuff, my sisters tolerate my breaking the rules! :) This year my stockings are all packed and I don't even want to think about trying to find them in the maze of boxes at our house in Sabinal... So, I am giving gift bags and baskets for Christmas this year. Will contain all the same fun stuff. I made these jars today to put in my sisters baskets. I was finishing up packing my stamp room when I found these two empty Starbuck's Frappacino bottles that I had already washed and cleaned to make some of my ribbon holders. I decided that I could make a couple of candy jars instead to put in their baskets this year!

I just put a leftover rub on on the front of each jar (actually more than one on the front of each jar!). Then I tied a red and white striped ribbon around the neck of the jar. To cover up the logo on the cap, I put white rub ons on red cardstock and punched out using the 1 3/8" circle punch. Then I punched out a white 1 3/4" circle punch and attached the red circles to these. I adhered the circles to the caps with gold brads. Since the bottles were already prepped, this was quick and easy!

Hope you all have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Snow Swirled Tree

This is the third of my Christmas cards. Unfortunately, I won't be posting 4th and 5th because they went in the mail before I thought about taking a picture... I was rushing to get all of the ones that are going out of state out the door and just plain ole' forgot... I really like SU's Snow Swirled stamp set. It's simple, but so easy to make versatile! The only thing I wish I had done differently is added some gold embossed small snoflakes on the tree... However, after all the cutting and embossing that I did on the ornament card... We'll see!
This card is using Bravo Burgundy, Always Artichoke and Brushed Gold cardstock. I used Always Artichoke and Bravo Burgundy stamp pads. Rounded the whole card off with Bravo Burgundy 5/8" grosgrain ribbon.

What Was I Thinking??????

Here is another of my cards for this year. The picture does not do this card justice. I just couldn't get anything that I was satisfied with. Each of the ornaments is several layers of embossed snowflakes... I used SU's Snow Swirled set. I stamped and embossed several of each of 2 of the snowflakes on Kiwi Kiss and Brushed Gold cardstock. Then I cut out the snowflakes. I cut away different parts of each one so that as I layered them, you could see parts of the snowflake underneath... Do you know how many snowflakes I have stamped, embossed and cut??? Let's see, 5 snowflakes for each card and I am making 20 of them... Oh, and I am putting 2 inside the card... Ok, have to stop thinking about it or I am gonna stress out!
But my friends and family are definitely worth it!!!!

Penguins, Penguins, Penguins

Here is one of my Christmas cards that I am making. I get too bored making 85 of the absolutely same card, so I usually divide things up and make 4 or 5 different cards. I always make 20 or 25 of each. That means that I have some leftovers. But am I ever glad for those extras when I get that unexpected card... Just address it and drop it in the mail! That is going to be especially handy this year since so much of my supplies are in flux between two houses! And then, if I have some left over, I just stick them back and I am ahead of the game next year... I am constantly adding new friends to my card list, so they will typically get last years card... If there were any left!
To get the 3-D effect, I adhered the furtherest layer of snow and the left penguin with snail. The closest layer of snow and the snowman were adhered with a single layer of dimensionals. The middle penguin was adhered with two layers of dimensionals. The stamp set I used was SU's Punch Pals. I used Bashful Blue and Whisper White cardstock. Black Stazon, SU's markers and dazzling diamonds glitter round it out!

Blog Candy

Hello all! Chrissy is celebrating 60,000 hits to her blog with BLOG CANDY! Go here to see more. She has the cutest tin with all kinds of goodies in it! She is so creative! You really should go see!

CBCC #19 & Belli #46

Hey all! I have done both of these cards for blog challenges. I made them for the Created by Courtney Challenge #19. Go here to see more about this challenge. The other challenge that I had in mind while designing was the Belli Challenge #46. Go here to see more about this challenge.

For this card, I used a piece of birthday paper that has presents all over it. I cut out some of my favorite presents on the paper and created a cascade of gifts done the middle of the card. I used Basic Black and Whisper White cardstock. The Green Galore DS paper is from SU, but I don't remember which group (sorry)! The stamp is from SU's Upsy Daisy and stamped in Basic Black. A piece of Certainly Celery 5/8" grosgrain ribbon from SU finishes it off. This was definitely my favorite of the two.


For this card, I used a piece of wrapping paper that had those great glittery flowers all over it. You can see a small sample of the paper on the card! I used Rose Red, Pirouette Pink and Regal Rose card stock. The stamp is from SU's Wow Flowers and stamped in Rose Red. A piece of Rose Red Stitched Ribbon from SU finishes is off.
I am coming down with a cold, so I wasn't feeling all that creative today. But I wanted to make sure and get this posted today! I won't have any posts over the weekend. I am about to shut the crazy computer down (not really!) and get busy. I have to have all the last of the "stuff" packed before I go to bed tonight... :( More to come on Monday!

DS Paper Ornament

I went to my niece's Christmas program at school yesterday. They had the halls decorated with the coolest ornaments made out of construction paper. I really looked them over and came straight home and made one! So this is courtesy of Kountze Intermediate School!

Believe it or not, this is made from a 6" x 6" piece of DS paper! It is cool enough to be stand alone...

However, it is only 1/6th of the star! Isn't this the coolest? And it only took 1 1/2 sheets of DS paper. This one is made with Riding Hood Red and Kiwi Kiss DS Prints.

When I get a few minutes, I will post a tutorial... However, it will be after this weekend. Gotta get this stuff packed!

Side note: When I made this, I used snail... Don't recommend you do that. Especially not in areas of high humidity like down here in Southeast Texas! My star was pretty sad looking this morning!

More Monkeys

With all the packing that has been going on, I haven't had much time to do any stamping or scrapping! :( The fact that a LOT of my stamp room is already packed doesn't help either! While I was going through my samples to decide what to give away and what to keep, I found this and decided to post. It was so EASY, but I think it turned out adorable.
This is just a white SU bag. I scalloped one end of the cardstock and then folded it in 1/2. I used riding hood red and chocolate chip cardstock. The piece of checkered paper is from SU's Bella Rose DS paper. I added a piece of chocolate chip 5/8" grosgrain ribbon and the little frame from the styled silver hodgepodge hardware... And Voila'... A cute little gift bag with little effort at all!

Almost Homemade Christmas Ornaments

For the Stampin' Up! Christmas party Sunday night, we were supposed to bring an ornament to exchange. Most everyone brought homemade ornaments last year. As usual, I waited until the last second and then just couldn't manage to think of anything... So off to the store I went to purchase an ornament...
I found these cool ornaments at Joann's. I thought their turquoise blue, brown, off white and gold stripes were just funky enough for me. Then on the way home, I remembered that I had some leftover Christmas rub-ons. I then rubbed on some images in the middle brown stripe and Voila'... Almost homemade!

New Stampin' Up! Sneak Peek

For our Stampin' Up! Christmas party tonight, we are doing a card swap using the new SU products that will be out in the sneak peek...
This is my card. I used some of our new DS paper. I just love Kiwi Kiss with all these pinks! On this card I used Kiwi Kiss, Pink Pirouette and Regal Rose. It is also using one of the new embosslits that coordinates with one of the new stamp sets!

Big Shot Card

I actually made this card to satisfy two challenges! One was Courtney's sketch challenge a few weeks ago. I wasn't able to get a picture of it until now, so I actually didn't get to enter the sketch challenge. However, it also satisfied my swap challenge for our Stampin' Up! group. We had to design a card using the Big Shot and medium other than paper or card stock.

If you can't tell, the two printed scallop circles are both fabric. I actually got out the needle and thread to gather the green scallop circle! I thought I had forgotten how!

It was fun meeting designing a card that would meet both needs!

Christmas Tin

We are having our Stampin' Up! Christmas party tonight. We are doing an ornament exchange. Have to bring the ornaments wrapped.... so, I decided to kill two birds with one stone!

Courtney's challenge for this week is polka dots. I know this is not a card, but I managed to make a Christmas tin to wrap my ornament in and use polka dots... Lots of polka dots! There are even brown polka dots on the red trim on the little ornaments. Camera just didn't capture that very well!

Hope you all enjoy!

SNOW!!!

Hey all! We had snow on Thursday. Eric and I spent a huge chunk of time Wednesday evening loading the U-Haul getting ready to hit the road on Thursday. We stopped short of completing because it was getting late and much too cold! :) However, on Thursday morning we were regretting that decision! We had to finish loading in the SNOW!!! News said that it was 5"!!!

Hard to believe that this is a picture of a Southeast Texas town that NEVER sees snow and definitely not before Christmas!


Of course, we had to stop our loading for a little while to have a snowball fight and play a little bit!

Blog Candy Winner

Hey guys! Sorry that I didn't post yesterday. My DH (Eric) came home Monday night and we hit the floor yesterday getting ready to take a HUGE load of our stuff to Sabinal. And time just got away from me.

For those of you that don't know it, I am moving to Sabinal, Texas. That is one of the reasons that I really kicked my blog up a notch. I wanted to have a way to stay in touch with all my friends and customers from here!

So, drum roll please.... My first ever winner of blog candy is..... DONNA.

I am using post names because I am still too new to this and am not sure how to go and find out anything else!

Donna please contact me privately with your snail mail address so that I can get this candy on its way to you! (I have now put my e-mail contact on my profile page... Have patience, I am a newbie at this!) If you can get it to me today, I will get it mailed before I leave town today. Otherwise, I may have to mail it on Saturday. :(

Ok, so now the bad news... I will not be posting again until this weekend. We are leaving for Sabinal at zero dark thirty tomorrow morning and I won't be back until Friday night. And we don't have internet in Sabinal yet!

So, have a great rest of the week!

Way To Go Scrapbook Page

This scrapbook page also uses the supplies from the card and tin. I thought it would be perfect for scrapbooking that picture of the touchdown, the soccer goal, the homerun, etc.

All three of the projects that featured the Rock Star Card Elements Kits were made from the same kit! And I still have lots left. I added some brads and some Bashful Blue Grosgrain Ribbon to the kit to change it up a bit. These projects are the projects that will be featured in the accessory club class on December 12, 2008 at my home. If you are interested in coming, please contact me separately for more details!

Rock Star Card

This card was also created with all the supplies that I listed on the tin yesterday. The card elements kits from Stampin' Up! are awesome.

How cute to give that tin with a couple of Hot Wheels cars in it along with this card?

Another Teacher Gift

Hey guys! Forgive for the late post. Just been a crazy couple of days. I went with 4 of my girlfriends to eat and see a movie at lunchtime! For someone that has worked almost every day of her life since high school (and, believe me, that is a lo-o-o-o-ong time!), I felt so decadent. It was fabulous!

Anyway, here is another great idea for a teacher or classmate gift.

I found these tins at a local dollar store. They had incense in them. I found them over a year ago. I bought all they had. Gave away the incense, washed them and left them open to air. I decorated using my star die for the Sizzix Big Shot, Stampin' Up!'s star punches and the Rock Star Card Elements Kit.

So, you never know where you will find the perfect little container to decorate and use!

Bagalope Tutorial

Here is the bagalope tutorial. These are so-o-o-o easy to make and too stinkin' cute!

Here's what you need:

1. Plain envelope. I used the standard small mailing envelope. Not sure what size that is called.
2. Background stamp. Wheels are awesome for these.
3. Embellishment.
4. Ribbon.

Step 1: Seal envelope... Yes, seal envelope!

Step 2: Stamp your background image on both sides of the envelope.

Step 3: Cut off the top of the envelope. (If you use a #10 envelope, cut it in half and make 2 bagalopes!)

Step 4: Score 1/2" on the 3 uncut sides. (To change the dimensions of your bagalope, score at 3/4")

Step 5: Fold your scored edges and run a bone folder over them to make sure they have a good sharp fold.

Step 6: Insert your hand into the bag to pop it open.

Step 7: Push the bottom up. You will end up with two triangular shaped tabs on the bottom. Fold under like you would on a present. Adhere to the bottom.

Step 8: Punch two round tabs out using the Round Tab punch from Stampin' Up!

Step 9: Fold the round tabs over and adhere one to each side at the top of the bag.

Step 10: Punch holes in the top of the round tabs.

Step 11: Tie ribbon through the two holes in the round tabs to close bag. (of course, wait until you put your item in there!)

Step 12: Add your embellishment.

If you don't have the round tab punch, you can just fold over the top of the bag (like a lunch bag), punch two holes side by side in the fold over and run your ribbon through there and tie.

Hope you have fun experimenting with these adorable bagalopes!