crafting this and that

Hi!  Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and did lots of shopping!  I sometimes buy gifts throughout the year so I can't remember if I already bought someone something.  I have to dig out all the gifts and start wrapping so I can check them off the list already.  We bought our tree too and the kids decorated it and I have to say it looks pretty this year.  We didn't even unwrap the tree to check it before we bought it.  It looked pretty fat in the middle and so we were happy that when we brought it home, it looked pretty symmetrical and full. Anyway, it is week 19 of TGF's Heart Journaling .  The theme is Chaos.  And I almost forgot to do the assignment!  I would've kicked myself if I missed this week when it's close to the end.  Well, I guess I have too much going on in my mind.  At least I remembered to pick up all my kids today at the time I'm supposed to.  Hehehe.  I went with the "organized" chaos idea that was...

Hello again.  This is the last of my completed cards.  I think I better get hopping, I just bought gift cards for my kids' teachers but I don't know if I can make enough holiday cards to go along with the gift cards.  Anyhow, here's another Farm Fresh Challenge, Friday Spy Day card. It was technically a tag in the sample, but I used it like a sketch, loosely.  Instead of buttons, I used letters.  I couldn't think of any other holiday phrase that might fit.  Again, tried the Copics for the face, pencils for the rest.  Same pink patterned paper I used before (We R Memory Keepers).  Punched all the purple things with Doodlebug glitter paper.  Same snowflake punch, it's the only snowflake I have so I'm probably going to be using it over and over again. And the dark purple cardstock is from Papertrey ink. Bye!

Hello again.  I actually made a card for The Greeting Farm's  Monday Fun Day #8 .  The weeks are flying by, I guess it's been a while since I participated in a Greeting Farm challenge.  Anyhow, here's the sketch... And here's my card... I printed a background paper from Cosmo Cricket's Jolly Golly pack that I got from One Buck Wednesday on Jessica Sprague's site.  That was an event in itself, because the colors look different depending on if you pick PSE to manage color or printer to manage color.  I tried to match Vivi's clothes to the paper, it turned out a bit colorful.  I think all the stripes were getting me confused.  I colored her face again with copics.  I think it's hard not to leave a dark rim when adding the darker color for shadowing.  I think I just colored over everything with the lightest color and when it dried it didn't look too bad.  Added some stickles to the fur trim and jingle bell.  The sentiment is...

Hello, hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  We tried Eva's method of turkey in a bag, and it actually turned out pretty good.  Although I think the turkey breast could use some butter or something...hopefully one day if my daughter outgrows her milk allergy I can try that.  But finally I had some time to craft while Grandma kept the kids occupied. Anyhow, here is my first holiday card finally, and the month of November is practically gone.  This Sister Stamp is so cute!  Thanks Eva for getting it for me (she's my Hawaii connection!)  It took me forever to color since it was difficult to get uninterrupted craft time.  Plus I was trying to figure out how to color with Copics.  I actually took the plunge and bought 5 Copics, only in the skin tones and cheek color, although I don't think I colored cheeks in this one.  I went to Michaels practically every day with a coupon to buy one Copic at a time.  I think I'm pretty much going to st...

Hi!  It's been a while since I participated in one of PTI's blog hop challenges .  But I had to play along this month.  Not only did I place an order on release night but I also got my goodies in about a week!  So I had some time to play around with my new stamps and dies.  Hehe.  Below is the inspiration photo. I love the Christmas theme and the colors too so I went with that. When I saw the newly released penguin stamp and die, I had to get them.  So cute!!  I thought this penguin would make a cute spinner card too.  Similar to the froggy one I made HERE .  I also used PTI's In the Meadow dies.  I used the die itself and my hobby blade to cut along the curved edge to create the little cut out for the penguin to slide.  I did that twice leaving a quarter inch space between them. I layered the penguin with PTI's coasters. I added a tiny bell to his hat. He slides down.  The jingle all the way sentiment is from Ti...

Hi!  Week 18 of TGF's Heart Journaling is to create a page based on your parents, life as a parent or tribute to all parents.  I chose to journal about the difficulty we're having with our youngest child since not a day goes by that he does not tantrum at least once.  And we're talking about full on crying/screaming/writhing on the floor/kicking defiance.  I never would have thought I'd describe one of my kids as defiant especially since the older 2 are pretty well behaved.  So most people I've talked to including his pediatrician just think this is a phase.  And I hope that it ends soon.  But in the back of my head, I worry that it isn't a phase.  What if he acts this way forever?  I mean, I've worked with children with special needs and in special education and I know there is Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  Maybe I am jumping the gun but I can't help to think that this is part of his personality.  He has always been the most need...

Hi!  I was able to make another card!  This one was inspired by both TGF's Friday Spyday #7 and Moxie Fab World's Celebrating Relationships Challenge .  This card celebrates Grandparents' Day or more specifically Grandma in our family.  I used Grandma and the sentiment from TGF's Grandparents set.  The banner is from PTI. Hmmm, not much to add to this post.  I'll keep it short and simple.  Thanks for reading! 

Hi!  I've been feeling kind of in a rut these days.  Today I was so indecisive, I couldn't get anything crafty accomplished.  I literally wasted my day and I was irritated at myself for doing that.  So finally I just started doing something and thought to play along with TGF's Monday Funday #7 to use Twi-Color Combo (red, black, silver/white ).  I'd go watch the new Twilight movie too except I don't really know anyone that would watch it with me.  Guess I'll just wait til the DVD.  I decided not to use Twilight inspired stamps and thought the color combo could be xmas-y as well.  'Kay, I threw a little green in there then thought shucks, I should've colored the leaves silver or something.  I love this Holiday Anya!  She is so stinkin' cute.  I colored her hair with Copics and my black Prismacolor pencil.  Added a whole bunch of bling and the circle sentiment is from Wild Rose Studio. So basically, it took me the whole day j...

Hi!  Here's another card that I made for Moxie Fab World's Celebrating Relationships Challenge .  This one is specifically for National Dog Day.  I don't have a dog or any kind of pet.  We used to have fish but they would slowly die one at a time.  I can't remember which we had, orandas or lionhead goldfish.  But they were very pretty and the first pair we ever had started to mate just a few days after we bought them!  I was kind of shocked to see one chasing the other one super quick in the aquarium and then the tiny little eggs and a couple hatched but we just didn't really know how to take care of them.  In any case, I think that will be the closest we come to a pet.  Our kids want a bunny or some kind of guinea pig but I can't do it.  And wouldn't a puppy be so cute?  But no, too much work.    I know people love their dogs.  My sister-in-law and her husband recently lost theirs and it was sad.  Their do...

Hi!  Week 17 of TGF's Heart Journaling .  Theme this week is Soul Food and to create a page based on your favorite food.  Okay, I hate exercising.  So I'm trying to not eat too much junk food cause really I don't wanna have to exercise all the extra pounds off.  I love food but I'm really more lazy unless I have a serious craving for something.  So for this layout, I thought I'd create a page dedicated to some of my favorite guilty pleasures. I don't even think Cheryl knows the kinds of food I sometimes crave.  But pretty close to the top has to be KFC Original Recipe Chicken.  I mean, I LOVE it!  I don't eat it often but I'll have a craving for it now and then.  I love that it's salty.  I think I'm a salty and sweet kind of person.  But after I eat it, I sometimes feel sick.  Not like a guilty sick but physically nauseous sometimes cause it's pretty oily and greasy.  So then I vow not to eat it again but then I do....

Hi!  I haven't been making many cards these days so I feel a little rusty.  I have so many cute stamps that are just waiting to get inked up but I don't know quite what to make.  Anyway, I thought I'd make a card for the Celebrating Relationships Challenge in the Moxie Fab World .  I made this card for National Girlfriends Day.  There is also Grandparents Day and National Dog Day so hopefully I'll get around to those as well.  And the good thing is that there's lots of time to play cause the deadline's not until December 12.  Thank goodness cause I know I can procrastinate. I finally got to use these cuties from Paper Smooches' Chubby Chums.  I paper pieced the chick and owl and their eyes so they could look at each other.  Pretty simple and manageable for the amount of time I had. That's it for now.  Thanks for reading!

Hi!  So I wanted to share something that I made for TGF's December guest challenge.  Yes, even though I wasn't going to participate, I made a card like a couple days before the deadline.  Even though I had some more Lego stuff to do, I just quickly put something together.  I don't know, maybe I didn't learn my lesson the first time about these facebook voting challenges.  Somehow these contests are just not that nice to me. Here's my little card.  Actually it's not that little since the number one is kind of tall and I increased the size of the digital stamp.  I freehand drew and cut the one out.  I thought this was a different and fun kind of shaped card.  Sad to say, I only got 3 votes.  :(  I'll go wallow in self-pity now for a little bit before moving on.   Thanks for reading.

Hi!  So here are some of the things I made for the Lego robotics qualifiers held today.  There were 20 teams at the qualifiers we were at but there were a few other locations as well.  Our team's project was centered around milk, the over all theme was called Food Factor, trying to keep food from being contaminated or spoiled.  There are a lot of aspects to this tournament.  The kids need to think of a project, present the project in an imaginative way in front of judges, create a robot, present their robot design to the judges as well, demonstrate they can work well as a team and then finally program their robot to complete missions and to score the highest points as possible.  It ends up being an all day event.  If you're curious, you can you tube FLL or even food factor and see the neat robots kids design and run.  So creative!! Anyway, we wanted to make favors for the other teams.  It is a good time and chance to say hello to the other ...

Hi!  I'm so happy that I'm done with all the Lego favors, signs and display board.  I made a ton of stuff and I'm excited to get back into stamping!  Thought I'd better share what I made for my sons' classes for Halloween this year before it's too late. I just made simple goody bags.  I wanted to make the little treat bags from PTI but they are kind of small and can't really fit much so decided to go with the orange bags with the fun characters on top (from PTI).  I made about 40.  My older son actually has only 18 kids in his class which is just amazing since my daughter has about 27 or so. Just a short post to share the Halloween goodies.  Tomorrow is the day of our qualifiers.  It's pretty much an all day event so hopefully I'll get to bed early tonight though I really want to stamp something.  Thanks for reading!

Hi!  Gee, I can't believe the week has flown by already and here I am trying to post my entry for TGF's Heart Journaling almost at the last minute again.  I thought about quitting but I'm already more than half way there so I got myself to hurry up and make the page I wanted to.  This week is to use hearts so I thought that should be relatively easy.  But I didn't really know what to do with the hearts.  Then I remembered this tutorial by Jessica Witty (see HERE ) where she made a heart garland from crepe paper using a heart die.  So I thought I'd finally try that. But instead of crepe paper, I used tissue paper with my heart dies from MFT.  I also stamped some hearts from TGF.  The quote is one of my favorites and I love jewelry that has these little inspirational quotes.  I don't usually by them for myself though.  I think they make great presents especially for graduation. Alright, that is it.  This Saturday is our Lego Robo...

Hi!  Wow, it's week 15 of TGF's Heart Journaling !  This is the closest I've come to missing the deadline.  I don't know how the days go by so quickly but because school was done earlier and I got sick over the weekend and my daughter is sick too now, I didn't have much time to craft.  Plus it was Halloween too!  I actually had to think what I wanted to create while driving my kids around to school and other activities.  Finally, I had a few minutes to sit down and finish the page.  Good thing the theme for this week is to use a little or a lot of sticky.  So I thought of using stickers and it was quick to stick them onto the page instead of using glue. Sorry, photo may look kind of dark.  Anyway, this is my tribute to Sanrio and Morning Glory's Blue Bear.  I used my daughter's stash of cute stickers.  The border is My Melody washi tape which I have in 2 other colors as well and cost a small fortune but it's so cute!  My niho...