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Friday, March 28, 2008

*Flashback Friday*

Life is getting back to a normal routine around here now that all of my family has left. I sure do miss them when they're gone though! The kids have been on Spring Break all week so life will really be back to "normal" on Monday.

The card for today is probably one of my first one layer cards. I really loved this card when I first created it. I still like it but think that it could have been done better. For example, that little flower brad in the bottom right corner looks lost among all those big bold blooms.

This is one of my cards that I made at the beginning of my Stampin' Up! Demonstrator career. It was such a challenge for me to use only SU stuff. As you can tell with the flower brad, I failed with this card. That challenge is one of the reasons I'm now only a hobby demo, in it for the discount. I love my SU products, but I love all the other products available out there too.... too much so to limit myself to only one company.

A big thanks to Allison for teaching us how to imbed our signature into our posts... maybe one day I'll scan my actual signature and use it instead of this one!

Enjoy your Friday!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

*I've Been MIA*

So sorry for being MIA the last few days. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we returned home from Vegas after midnight on Friday. We were back at the airport on Saturday morning at 9 to pick up my sister and niece who flew in from Ontario. We've been busy visiting, chatting, laughing, playing cards, shopping and just enjoying each others' company.

My house starts getting quiet today... my Mom heads home this evening and Heather and Rachael leave tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to miss them all. I hate that we're all so spread out! sniff sniff

I guess the ends of their visits also means I'll be back at work soon.... I've enjoyed being a lady of leisure! I'm back in the salt mine on Thursday... I work my regular shift until 2:30 and then am back for a 6pm class. I then have Friday off, but have agreed to work a full day on Saturday. I think I'll spend Sunday sleeping LOL!

I created the card for today using a scrap of patterned paper that I had lying around. Unfortunately, I don't have any information written down about the products I used on this card, so there is no recipe to share. Sorry about that. I can tell you that the pink is Bazzill Bling cardstock. And the flowers are Primas.

Some help, eh?

I'm off to enjoy my family... have a great day!

Saturday, March 22, 2008

*Spring Has Sprung*

At least that's what the calendar says. Spring arrived earlier this week and I am hopeful that our weather will cooperate and not put us back into winter until later in the year. Ya, right... I'm not going to hold my breath. This is Calgary afterall?

Hey, did anyone miss me while I was away?? I bet you didn't even notice I was away thanks to the fact that we can now schedule our posts in Blogger. To do it, simply go HERE into Blogger Draft and create a new post. Click on Post Options and choose the date and time you'd like your post schedule for. Then click on Publish Post. On the top of the next screen you'll see a notice that says your post has been scheduled. Voila! I tried it for a few days before we left just to make sure it would work.

At any rate... Bruce and I left Tuesday evening for Vegas and returned home after midnight Friday night (technically, I guess we returned home this morning). We went down with two other couples. The one couple was going down for a wedding so they met up with some family down there as well. We had some great weather and had a wonderful time soaking up the sun, wandering the strip, drinking a few Margaritas, gambling a little, shopping. Vegas is such a fun city, even for Bruce and I who really don't gamble.

I absolutely love the paper on this card. I got it in a grab bag of stuff a few weeks ago. SEI is truly one of my favourite paper companies... this one was just so fresh and bright.

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Certainly Celery
*Patterned Paper: SEI
*Images: Studio G from Michaels
*Ink: Stampin' Up! Certainly Celery; black Micron marker
*Tools: Cuttlebug and Nestabilities
*Embellishments: ribbon


We are running off to the airport now to pick up my sister and niece who are coming in from Toronto for the Easter Weekend. It's going to be a full house, but a wonderfully full house!!!

Friday, March 21, 2008

*Flashback Friday*

Happy Friday everyone!

So strange that it's already the Easter Weekend. Mom told me the other day that this is the earliest that Easter has been in like 200+ years.... and that none of us will ever see it this early again in our lifetime. It seems like there is just so much time to wait now until the May Long Weekend here in Calgary.

But hey, at least it is now spring and we are all looking forward to warmer and longer days.

Todays card comes from the "Older Cards" folder, which means it dates back before 2003 sometime. Probably about 2002 honestly. I stamped the image on white cardstock with black ink and had a great time playing with my Radiant Pearls (made by the company who now makes Twinkling H2Os), getting the colours to blend and shade. Took a long time, but I loved it. Can see there is room for improvement though!

I hope you all have a fantastic Friday!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

*Bright and Colourful*

Just a quickie from me today...

I created this card a few days ago. I'm not sure where I got the inspiration for the colour combination, but I love that it looks kind of easter-like as well as very springy.

If only the photograph showed off the sparkle in the medallion. Gotta love those Copic Spica markers!

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Taken With Teal, Basic Black
*Images: Outlines Rubberstamps
*Ink: Palette Black; Copic Spica Glitter Markers
*Tools: Stampin' Up! Word Window Punch
*Embellishments: self stick bling from Michaels (they come as a word)


Tuesday, March 18, 2008

*Floral Tent*

That title makes me laugh... could you imagine.... out in the wilderness... camping... with a floral tent. Maybe more women would go camping??!! Wonder if the animals would be attracted to the flowers?

Even more interesting... would any man be caught dead camping in a floral tent??

At any rate, a tent topper card for you today. I wanted to play with my new PaperTrey Ink stamps the other day and this is what I came up with.

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Lovely Lilac, Basic Black; vellum
*Images: PaperTreyInk Beautiful Blooms
*Ink: Stampin' Up Lovely Lilac, Almost Amethyst, Barely Banana
*Embellishments: stick on gems from A*Muse

Monday, March 17, 2008

*Yet Another Store Sample*

Good morning all... another Monday is upon us. Is it just me or do the weekends just fly by??!! We all look forward to the weekends, and then poof, it's Monday again and we're just looking forward to the weekend again!

And hey, Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! We are all wearing green in our house... don't wanna get pinched you know!

I created this card for the Stamping Basics class I taught at the Scrapbook Pantry in February. It was, as you can see, a pretty basic card. I wanted to show the students how to make their own backgrounds with stamps.

We used only stamps from the Basic Grey Two Scoops line on this card. There are some great images but I have a complaint about the stamps.... they stink! Seriously stink. Not a fan at all because of the smell. The smell is so strong that I got a headache the day I was working with them trying to come up with class ideas.

Items Used:
*Cardstock is all Bazzill (sorry, don't know the names)
*Images are all from Basic Grey Two Scoops
*Inks are VersaMark Dew Drops in Pixie Dust, White and Aloe Vera
*Brad: Basic Grey


*Happy Birthday Matthew*

I just wanted to take a minute to wish my wonderful boy a Happy 11th Birthday!!!

Matthew I hope that your day is spectacular!! I love you, Babe!

Sunday, March 16, 2008

*Snowy Sunday*

Good morning all... you need to know that all of our snow had melted this last week. This past Monday, I was wearing flip flops. Beautiful weather.

It started snowing yesterday evening and I don't think it's stopped at all.... we have about 6" of the white stuff covering our yard right now, and it's still coming down.

Nothing much compared to what the people in Eastern Canada have been putting up with this winter. But still.... it doesn't look pretty after a week of warmer temperatures and flip flop weather!

The good news is that the forecast calls for temperatures above freezing all this coming week so the snow probably won't last for too long. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised... this *is* Calgary after all, and we can see snow any time of the year if the conditions are right. There's probably still another big snowfall to come before we can declare it officially spring!

I created this card while playing around with my cute little Imaginisce stamps. I also wanted to try embossing with my Nestabilities and my Cuttlebug. This is the card I came up with.

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Whisper White; A*Muse decorated notecard
*Images: Imaginisce
*Ink: Palette Black; Stampin' Write Markers in Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink, Pumpkin Pie, Creamy Caramel
*Tools: Cuttlebug and Nestabilities
*Embellishments: Waterfall Stickles; Ribbon


Friday, March 14, 2008

*I Went Shopping!*

Mom and I popped by The Scrapbook Pantry this afternoon as I was told that there were a bunch of boxes in the back full of new product. I was thrilled to find that my new paper trimmer was in stock!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am on a constant search for the perfect paper cutters. I am THRILLED with my big Tonic guillotine cutter for the big cuts, but wasn't always happy with the quality of the cuts with my Fiskars paper trimmer.

When our rep from Marvy Uchida was in the store and showed us this trimmer a few weeks ago, I was thrilled. A portable rotary paper trimmer with interchangeable blades. Very cool. You can read more about it on the Marvy website.

And it works like a hot knife through buttah!! It even cuts through chipboard coasters without efford. Couldn't do that with my Fiskars little trimmer.

So I stuck around the store long enough to get these priced so that I could take mine home with me! The entire classroom area is full of boxes this afternoon... I'd recommend heading into the Pantry on Saturday or Monday to check out all of the new goodies... Creative Imaginations, Marvy (Liquid Applique, markers, punches to name a few), a whole bunch of different things from a bunch of different companies. The May Arts ribbons were put out on Wednesday and are BEAUTIFUL!!! There are some glitter covered brads, some beautiful colours of glitter, round and square coasters, the retractable tools are back in stock (distressing tool, cutting knife and piercing tool). I don't have a clue what was in most of the boxes in the back! I know there are new papers, new embellishments.... and I think we have more sports related stuff than Foot Locker!

But, with a crop night tomorrow night, all that stock needs to find a home before 6pm tomorrow!!

I definitely recommend a trip in to see what's new!!! Pardon the mess while you're there.... it seems like we're constantly rearranging as all this new product is coming in!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

*My Mom Comes Today*

I'm very excited... my Mom flies in today for a visit. She's here until after Easter. This is her first trip to our house in about a year so we are excited to have her! Matthew is especially excited as she will be here for his birthday.

I have the next couple of weeks off from work to spend time with Mom. I hope we'll do some shopping and some crafting and just enjoy each others' company.

The card I am sharing today is another card that I did for my February stamping basics class at The Scrapbook Pantry. It was, as the class title suggests, a very basic card. I felt bad as most of the ladies who were in the class had all stamped before. But they had seen the samples before they signed up, so it's not like it was a surprise.

The cardstock is all Bazzill, the paper is Creative Imaginations.

*Getting To Know Me*

I saw this on Julie's blog and since I have a little time to waste this morning, thought I would do it too...


1. If your doctor told you TODAY that you were pregnant, what would you say? I'd fall over backwards while swearing.... just not possible sugar!

2. When was the last time you flew in a plane? In January when I flew to Toronto to see my sister and niece

3. What did the last text message you sent say? "Stop at Starbucks?" ... unfortunately, the hubby was most of the way home and it didn't happen

4. What features do you find most attractive in the opposite sex? I love beautiful eyes and great arms physically.... and then I love a good sense of humour, kindness and compassion

5. What is a goal you would like to accomplish in the near future? I'd like to find some self-love... I want to be less hard on myself

6. Shoe size? I wore a size 7 until I had kids.... now my feet are an 8

7. Been to Mexico? not yet....

8. When is the last time you had a massage? Before Christmas

9. What was the last TV show you watched? Big Brother

10. What are your plans for the weekend? Mom arrives today for a 10 day visit! Bruce has to work all day Saturday so I don't have plans for that yet... Sunday we are going out to dinner to celebrate Matthew's 11th birthday a day early

11. If your significant other asked you to marry them TODAY what would you say? Yes yes yes, a million times yes

12. What is in the back seat of your car right now? probably a little garbage (thanks kids)

13. What were you doing at 8 am this morning? I was answering these questions!

14. If you could marry any celebrity today who would it be? I don't think I'd marry a celebrity... I wouldn't want the life that goes with it. I would casually date a celebrity, hang out with a celebrity, maybe even have some "fun" with a celebrity... but I wouldn't marry one.

15. Have you ever been to a strip club? No.... but I'm trying to convince the girls to go see "Thunder from Downunder" in Vegas!

16. What is the best ice cream flavor? Mint Chocolate Chip!

17. What is the last sporting event you watched? Flames game

18. Ever go camping? occasionally.... such an ordeal to pack, then set up.... would rather not... but we probably will again this summer, once

19. Last phone call? Denise! we made plans to meet for dinner with the kids last night

20. Are you allergic to anything? Penicillin, dogs, cats, dust

21. What is one thing you have learned about life recently? Live, laugh and love every day

22. What do you do at work? My biggest job is raising my two boyz... we all know what that entails.... my other job is mostly fun.... I work at a new scrapbook store (The Scrapbook Pantry in Calgary) and I get to see new stock when it arrives, help customers, tidy and dust, be creative.

23. What is your mom's name? Duh... it's Mom! LOL No, seriously, she's Bev.

24. Ever cried for no reason? not in recent memory.... I can break into tears at the drop of a hat thanks to a thought, but there's always a reason.

25. Can you do the Crank Dat dance? no idea what this is...

26. What is your favorite color to wear? lately it seems to be shades of red (pinks to burgundy and everything in between)

27. What is the longest plane ride you have ever been on? from Calgary AB to the Dominican Republic

28. What is the longest road trip you have ever taken? Last summer the four of us hopped in the car for a 13 day road trip that took us from Calgary to Victoria and back again.

29. What are your turn-offs? People who lie or cheat and think it's OK, people who treat others disrespectfully... people who stink LOL

30. What was your last alcoholic beverage? Vodka Paralyzer (vodka, kaluha coke and milk)

31. What are you craving right now? nothing really... strange but true! Ask me again around lunchtime LOL

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

*Pink and Brown and Fun*

Another warm day here in Calgary, although it was rather cloudy and windy. Trying to take the garbage to the dumpster at work was hard work in that wind!

A few new things in the store today (that The Scrapbook Pantry in Calgary)... some great glitter and sparkle brads as well as some Jellishments from Doodlebug Designs. We also have a variety of stamps for iris folding by StampNScrapN. We also put out a bunch of new sports themed papers yesterday... everything from bowling to volleyball with many stops in between!!

I created this card after stamping the image and colouring it with markers. I really wanted to play with this image but didn't know what I wanted to do with it. I actually coloured the image and it then sat for a few days. Then I cut it out and layered it onto the Bashful Blue layer, and let it sit for a while. I don't know what possessed me to add pink and brown to it, but that's what ended up working.

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink; Chocolate Chip
*Images: Stampin' Up! Time Well Spent
*Ink: Palette Black; Stampin' Up! Craft White; Stampin' Up Stampin' Write Markers in Bashful Blue, Pixie Pink, Pretty in Pink
*Tools: Cuttlebug and Rivets Embossing Folder
*Embellishments: Ribbon from a ribbon share; bling

Monday, March 10, 2008

*A Two Scoops Kind Of Day*

If I could, I'd be heading off to the ice cream shop tonight instead of going to Tae Kwon Do. We've had a spectacular weather day here with the sun shining and the temperature around 14*C (about 57*F). Not a hot day, but a great day for March in Calgary!

My card today is one of three cards I designed for the first class I taught at The Scrapbook Pantry in February. It was a basic stamping class, however all of the people who took my class had stamped before. I think it was a little beneath them. Oh well, they all liked the look of the cards which is probably why they signed up the first place.

I wanted to showcase items we have in the store.. Basic Grey Two Scoops Paper and stamps, VersaMark DewDrop ink pads, Coluzzle, acrylic alphabet stamps.

A very simple card, but I like how it turned out.

I hope you all had a great Monday!


Sunday, March 09, 2008

*I Remembered, Did You?*

Did you remember to put your clocks forward an hour Saturday night before you went to bed?

I grew up in Saskatchewan, a province in Canada that does not observe the clock changes twice a year. I moved to Ontario in 1990 and was so worked up about remembering to change my clocks. What a strange phenonenon to someone who had never done it before. I loved the extra hour of sleep in the fall, but really enjoyed that it was lighter later in the evening in the spring.

We did forget one year.... the year Matthew was born (1997). He was born March 17, 1997, and time change was only a week or two after that. We thought about changing the clocks on the Saturday, but managed to go to bed without doing it. We got up the next morning and started our day. I sat down to watch some TV later in the day but the shows I wanted to watch weren't on. I couldn't figure it out. It was late afternoon before we realized our blunder. That year the time change threw me off more than any other year because I witnessed the loss of that hour!

The card today is one I made up for a class sample at The Scrapbook Pantry, however I changed the card to something different. The class is a Twinkling H2Os class that I am teaching on April 8th.

This card uses Bazzill cardstock and a whole bunch of stuff from Imaginisce (penguin image and papers).

I'm off to the mall with son #1 to pick up the new Wii game we have pre-ordered that was released today... Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The kids have pooled their money to split the cost of the new game.

Have a good one!

Friday, March 07, 2008

*Well, I Blew It*

I got tired of my new blog layout today... I realized that text area of my blog is transparent, which means you can see those pretty flowers on the right side, but that my uploads are washed out because of it. That means that the colours of my cards aren't true... in fact, they look like I've taken really awful photos of them.

So I was playing around with a new template. I was very smart and copied the HTML of my blue layout and pasted it into a Microsoft Word Document. I changed the layout and then reverted to the blue layout again....

And wouldn't you know it??? I have lost some of my widgets, including the counter that told me how many hits I've had!!

I don't care so much about the other widgets, but it truly sucks that my counter is gone.

I will be doing the new layout just as soon as Blogger decides to let me do it instead of giving me an error message.... and I guess I'll have to try to find a way to figure out where I was in the count.

What a bummer....

*Flashback Friday*

Today feels like spring is in the air. We've had several days of warmer than average temperatures and the sun is nice and bright. I'm not in a fog... I'm sure we'll get another huge dump of snow before spring is here to pave the way for summer, but for now, I'll take this beautiful weather!

The card today is from 2005 and is one of the first cards I made when I started as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator. I guess this could be called "early colour blocking" or something.

I sure loved this Shapes and Shadows set. So much so that I used it too often and grew tired of it. Silly me.

Along the top you can see just a few beads, strung onto beading wire and put through the blue and green pieces.

You might notice that I added some glitter to the one full butterfly on the card.

Thanks for popping by!

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

*Don't Be Shocked*

I have to admit something.... as you know, I work at The Scrapbook Pantry. The name of the store tells you, it's a scrapbook store. Sure, there are some stamps (with more on order!), but our main focus is scrapbooking.

I? Do not scrapbook.

I stamp. I card.

I do not scrapbook.

So glad to have that off my chest.

Unfortunately (at least for me), the owner of the store (Hey Crystal!) thought it would be a great idea to have each of the staff members make a page of themselves to be hung in the store. The requirements were that we had to have our name and our photo on the page.

While Crystal was at CHA, I came upon this blog post and fell in love with the layout on the left side of the first post. I looked through the store, found the products that were "me" and off I went. In a matter of an hour, I had completed this....

Yes, my first real scrapbook page.

Sure, it's not totally designed by me. But I'm OK with that. I think that the page is "me"... the diamonds; the black and white with the punch of red; the big flowers; the Stickles.

I have been told I need to add some journalling... I am thinking I will use a white gel pen one of these days and add some words to describe me along the sides of the top and bottom diamonds.

The most shocking part?? I enjoyed the process. I would love to try it again but come up with my own design.

I don't think I'll ever have albums and albums full of scrapbook pages of all the important days of our lives, but I could see pulling together a page for a special occasion once in a while.

I might become a semi-scrapbooker yet....

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

*Enabler Alert*

I was at the store today (that's The Scrapbook Pantry in Calgary, in case you've forgotten) and I got the pleasure of being the first to purchase some of these great mini ribbon spools. These are a limited time only supply... once they are gone, they are gone. We will not be reordering them.

They are $1.50 each at the store.... and there were several more designs to choose from... all with a spring theme!

Monday, March 03, 2008

*Sheetload of Cards*

Have you heard of the blog SheetLoad of Cards? First, I love the name... second, some great stuff to be seen there.... take a minute and go have a peek!

Sunday, March 02, 2008

*Do You Subscribe?*

If you use Feedblitz to subscribe to my blog, please note that I will be removing this feature shortly due to some big problems with it.

I am working on adding Feedburner to my site... please subscribe through Google Reader or Feedburner instead

Thanks!

*You've Got To Be Kidding Me*

I received a handful of feedblitz notices this morning that people have unsubscribed from my blog. One said "will not disclose", two said "subscribing by another method"... and one? One said (you won't believe this) "too few updates". Didn't I just get a notice earlier this week that I update too much?

There really isn't any chance of pleasing everyone I guess!

I will admit that people unsubscribing is a little like a slap in the face.... you liked my stuff enough to subscribe, but now you don't like it? It kind of feels like getting chosen last in a schoolyard pick for a soccer game.

Oh well....

To those of you who still subscribe, who still pop by, who still enjoy.... this card is for you!

I created this card using the same template from the bird card I created a few weeks ago.

This card was made for my mother-in-law's 65th birthday.

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Whisper White, Basic Black
*Patterned Paper: Stampin' Up! in Rose Red
*Images: Hanna Stamps
*Ink: Stampin' Up! Rose Red
*Embellishments: Dew Drops; flowers; jewel brad; Gold Shimmering Mist

Saturday, March 01, 2008

*Child of the 80s*

Cindy sent me a link to this (and then I saw it on Stampings of the Shug)....

*Happy March!*

Can you believe it? March the first already! Spring is really, just around the corner!! The days of capri pants and sandals are coming!!! WOO HOO!!

I apologize for missing Flashback Friday yesterday. It was supposed to be my day off but I ended up at work from 10 until 5:30. Talk about bagged.

I know that a lot of people work a lot more hours a week than I do, but I'm struggling a little bit with the 20 hours I'm doing. It's a big jump from the 8 hours a week I was working at the school. By the end of the week I am tired.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job at The Scrapbook Pantry... I'm just tired right now while I get used to being on my feet for 5 hours a day.

I created this card using an image I got from one of the Cal-Gals back in January. It was either Allison or Shannon. I think the three girls (hi Trace!) will be surprised to see that I actually made a card using the image. The night I was taking the images I was in a pissy mood... I think I would have argued about anything. LOL At any rate, I was totally against the idea of cards with cats or birds or dogs or whatever... But I took images, just in case I decided I needed them some day.

So here she is...

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Basic Black, Whisper White, Pink Passion
*Patterned Paper: Stampin' Up!
*Image: Unknown
*Ink: Palette Black; Stampin' Write Markers in Going Grey, Pink Passion, Certainly Celery
*Tools: Cuttlebug
*Embellishments: Iridescent Gold Shimmering Mist; gold brads

What you can't see on the card is that the black layer behind the patterned paper is all shimmery... that's where I used the Iridescent Gold Shimmering Mist. SO pretty!