An experiment gone good!!

Okay, I know it's been forever since I've been on here. Sorry, but life gets in the way. Working full time again is kicking my hinnie. Plus keeping up with everything else. This month I've been to Champaign twice and Rachael's been up here once and is coming again next weekend. This the first free weekend all month. I have stamped or done stamp related activities, like shop. We started Christmas cards one weekend, stamped on a Friday night another, and then last Saturday went to a convention in St. Charles, IL. and spent a ton of money!

So some of that money bought this stamp set. I found a new company, at least to me, only in business a year. They're in Memphis, Tennesse and do internet orders. They have whole sheets, which are great and only $12 each. Of course I spent tons of my convention money just at this one booth and even went back a second time and bought 3 more plates. The first time was like 6-7! This company is called Artistic Outpost. http://www.artisticoutpost.com/

So that brings me to my card. I finally got time today to sit down and play for an hour and this is what I came up with. I'm not 100% crazy about the background, but love the Serenity part. It's just done on cheapo paper. Using another convention purchase, Ranger's blending foam and handle, you take your distress ink pads and smoosh some on a teflon sheet, then using the blending tool, I used Mustard Seed, you blend the ink onto the paper. I took another piece of paper and made a torn edge. Then changing foam used Marmalade Distress Ink and holding the torn edge add the Marmalade, moving the torn piece to give it some layers. Then I stamped the image in black permanent ink. Then changing blending foam again, used some vintage photo distress ink and just added a bit of color around the edges. Mounted that on black glossy after it dried. The yellowish background I used the flower from the set and first off stamped onto scratch paper then randomly stamped the flower using SU going gray. Then I used SU creamy caramel to stamp the verse, and more mustard to add just another hint of color with the swirly stamp from the set. Mounted on an orange paper (from Hobby Lobby) and then onto black. I don't know where the brads came from but they matched sort of so they went on too.

I stopped at one of these deciding to not press my luck today. I felt lucky to get into my room for even an hour. We decided to put up Halloween decorations today and what I thought was going to be a couple hour project ended up being over 5. I managed to make it through without killing or even yelling at my husband though!

Next weekend is a stampscape class at the Peddler's Den in Somanauk, so hopefully I'll finally learn how to do those and can post some success stories there.

I'm going to a stamp club!!

I got a phone message today about joinging a stamp club at the LSS. I had been on a waiting list since June! Anyway, I signed up. It's once per month and cost $5, but they provide dinner. A new technique is taught and then you make 8 cards for the next month's swap. Sounds pretty simple to me! I had to commit to 4 months worth, so I'm good to go until after the December meeting. Then I can decide if I want to continue going or not. I'm excited about it. Hopefully it'll be fun.





I also found another great find at the GoodWill store yesterday. I got a cabinet to keep my paper in for $20. I'm not sure what the original use was, but it's looking good holding my paper. I just love that store!! I was able to get rid of an old dented up filing cabinet that really couldn't handle the load of paper in it. It was a cheap thing from about 10 years ago. So it was past time to retire it.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll get some chances to stamp in the next few days. Ed and Steven are suppose to make a trip to Kansas to check on the house and relist with another agent so I'll have two nights alone!! Surely I can get into the stamp room then. I don't think the cat will want my undivided attention.

Halloween card

I haven't had much time for stamping, what with work starting up. I wish I could find someone to let me stay home and stamp all day and pay me for it! Barb have you ever gotten that "kept woman" thing figured out?

Anyway this is a card I made a couple weeks ago when my friend, Rachael, and I stamped up here. It doesn't have any stamping on it. I actually copied it from one Rachael did. It's the cuttlebug folder of the spider web, just done on white paper. I think it's pretty just like that.

September is sort of full with lots of fun things. The first Saturday we're heading to Champaign for Kayleigh's birthday party. Then next weekend I'm going to Rachael's and we're stamping all day on Saturday, starting Christmas cards. Then 3rd weekend she's coming up here and we're going to Bridgette's (Creative Escapes) for a crop/stamping evening and on Saturday we're going to St. Charles for a convention. The last weekend isn't stamping, but we're going to see Bill Engvell at the University for Steven's birthday.

But the fun doesn't stop in September. First Saturday in October I'm going to an all day Stampscapes class at Peddler's Den in Sommanauk. Third weekend in October Rachael and I are going to a retreat! That's what we're calling it anyway. It starts at 5 on Friday and ends at 3 on Sunday. A whole weekend of stamping. It's at a church camp in central Illinois. All meals provided by the camp and the entire weekend is only $125. I'm looking forward to it! So my fall is looking pretty exciting!

My stamping weekend.

Well, my friend Rachael came up a bit early, Wednesday evening instead of Thursday morning. So that gave us a whole day on Thursday!! We hit up JoAnn Fabrics and the Goodwill store in St. Charles. Bought a stamp set at JoAnn's and some different wooden things to alter at Goodwill. I found a huge wooden tray, it's about 30 inches long. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but hey it was only $3. Thursday night we took a class. It was on watercoloring with the Northwoods stamps. I was disappointed in the class. We did 3 cards, but only one had watercoloring on it. Friday I had to go into work for orientation, lucky was done early. Saturday we stamped all day. We worked on fall holidays, Thanksgiving and Halloween. This is one of the cards I did.

The images of the three little monsters and the trick or treat saying are from the Angel Company. The candy corn background is from Stampin Up. I used my bind-it-all to punch the holes on the sides of the black paper. I had saw something similar in a stamping magazine, so this is my version of it.

Look what I made!!

I got this cut out from Archivers a couple years ago for like $2. When I was unpacking stuff last month I put all of these type things together to motivate me to work on the. So I did this one today and I have 2 more that say smile. I'm working on those too.

I covered this with some light green paper and edged it with brown chalk ink. I think stamped some swirls with tan chalk ink and then used a solid butterfly with rust chalk ink, and black chalk ink with a solid dragonfly. It's hard to tell too much detail from the picture since I had to stand back far enough to get the whole thing in the picture. There is ribbon tied in various places and some dragonfly brads and a charm on there too. The dot on the i is a flower. I'm going to hang it on my living room wall next to some pictures of the kids.

Tomorrow I'm off with my friend to take a class so probably won't be back on here until Monday of next week. She's here all weekend. Bye!

No time to stamp!!

We were busy all last week with Ed on vacation. At the end of the week we went down to Springfield for the state fair. I was a bit disappointed with that. Seemed to be lots of empty spaces and what was there wasn't as good as it has been in the past. Even the political tents weren't giving away the freebie junk the way they use to. I guess the "not a recession" is hitting everyone hard.

We had my MIL's 70th birthday party on Saturday. I've been busy this week making a small scrapbook of the pictures from it. It was only a 6 x 6 book and had 20 pages, so it didn't take me long. I just got done with it! I'll mail it off to her next week when I go to the postoffice. So what little bit I "touched" a stamp was small and for the scrapbook.

Yesterday I went back to school shopping. FOR ME! I found some great clearance specials on some clothes and bought a new pair of tennis shoes. I also made a trip to the Good Will store in St. Charles. Look at the picture. I think it's meant to be a smallish towel rack of some kind, but doesn't it do great for holding my punches!? I saw somewhere on the internet someone had made something like this and when I saw the towel rack in the store I had to try it. Only cost me $2. Since I know it works, I'm going to look for another one next time I'm over there. Once we finally get our final house, I'll have Ed build one for me. I plan to have that room be huge.

My friend Rachael is coming up on Thursday. We're taking a Northwoods watercoloring class in St. Charles. I have to work on Friday so she'll probably go back to St. Charles and hit up all the hobby store and I'm sure the Good Will store. Saturday, the plan is to start on fall/Halloween cards. I know it's early, but next week school starts! Hopefully I can figure out a good schedule so I'll still have time to stamp.

New Stamps/Field Trip

Ed and I went yesterday up to Madison, WI. He wanted to go to the Henry Villa Zoo. Nice little zoo. Mostly shady and a good variety of animals. Plus it was free!

Of course if I was driving 2 hours to do something we had to find a stamp store or scrapbook store. Of course I found both. In McFarland, just south of Madison I visited Gina K designs. She has a small store there featuring her designs and a few embellishments, cuttlebug folders, and punches. I bought two sets of stamps. Hers are cleverly packaged in a tin CD holder. I like that way to store the stamps. The only thing I didn't like was I had to cut them apart. I think they're a bit pricey and thought they'd already be cut, but only took a few minutes. This card was made with one set of them. It's called "Text Message." I was thinking of my granddaughter (almost 10) and my 15 year old niece when I bought it. The other set has a couple cute crabs in it. I almost bought the Christmas set with the crab, but thought I could just add a Santa Hat to the crab in the other one and use it year round!

Anyway the saying at the bottom of this card is from an older Stampin UP set. I wanted something at the bottom, but not flowers. I send to 3 men each week in my chemoangels and soldier cards, so try not to get too girly. Sometimes it's hard!

We're off tomorrow to Springfield. We'll be going to the state fair parade tomorrow night and then Ed and I are going to the fair on Friday. Steven doesn't want to go, so that means we can stay all day! Saturday is my MIL's birthday open house.

Next week I have to actually go into work a day and a half. Both are orientation days, but I'm not looking forward to it. Seems like June and July were busy with unpacking and moving my mom, now August is here and it's almost over before it starts!

Forgot to post Sunday's cards.

DUH, I was in such a hurry to get them done and posted on the Creative Escapes challenge page, that I forgot to post them here. My sister & family and mom came over for supper, that I was in a hurry to be done stamping. Isn't that terrible?

The first one is for a challenge that was black and white. I used my new black pallette ink pad to stamp the photo stamp on glossy paper. Wow, it really makes a nice crisp image.

The second one was for a challenge using a page map again. I'm not sure I like doing those. Anyway the stamps are from the Angel Company and they were part of my new ones I just got with my starter kit. The paper was something I had in a drawer. You know how that goes. At least I'm using it up.

Congratulations to my friend Barb Foster. She's a friend from Kansas and also my new TAC upline. She just emailed that she's been asked to submit designs to the Angel Company to make stamps from. That's an honor indeed. Her blog is linked to the left, Foster House Design. Congrats again Barb.

Another challenge complete

I'm participating in an online crop/stamp and I'm done with Saturday's. These were a bit harder. I actually finished two 6x6 pages for my MIL's album. Those are hard without pictures. And I did two more cards. I'm only going to post one of the cards because I don't like the other one! I hope I have time tomorrow to get into the stamp room to complete the weekend's challenges. We'll see.

This challenge was to use two designer papers. I took the easy way out and just did half and half. The stamps are a Stampin' Up set I've had for several years. There are small rhinestones on the "o" in "meow" and the cat's collar. Don't know if you can really see them very well.

Yahoo time to stamp!!

I actually got time today to sit down and stamp. I haven't been in my room all week except to cut out all my new Angel Company stamps. I got like 14 new sets when I signed up with them. Today I've been doing an online stamp/scrap thing through Creative Escape (see the link on the left). I've made two different cards and may actually try one of the scrapbooking ones after supper. The challenges sometimes make me step outside my comfort zone. These weren't too hard. She said she was going to make the Friday ones easy since most people would be at work. I'll probably have less time tomorrow and Sunday! The first one was a summer theme and the black and gray one was a page map card. Of course mine has to be slightly different. The page map had the ribbon along the bottom with the card turned the other direction.

Hopefully more tomorrow!

I'm an Angel

An Angel company angel that is! I got my starter kit today. Wow there are alot of stamps in that box. I'll be busy cutting out stamps the rest of the week. I'm planning to be primarily a hobby demo. You know, buying for myself! Maybe if I get to know any other stampers up here in Northern Illinois I'll branch out, but for now I'll be my own best customer.

Over the weekend we got my mom moved up here from Springfield. Saturday was a long day starting at about 8am and ending about 9:30pm. That included loading the truck in Springfield, driving 3 hours up here, and then unloading. Luckily there were several of us working on it. We put my 9 year old nephew to work manning the elevator. One of the residents in the building asked him if he was the new elevator operator! I told him he should have asked for a tip! Sunday we spent trying to get things set up and unpacked enough for her to sleep in the apartment last night. Which she did. Today I called around to find storage for all the extra "junk" which I managed to get by the skin of my teeth with Northern students starting to move back into the area for the fall semester.

Ed's back at work this week, so maybe I'll find some time to stamp. I've got to find room for all my new stamps and work on getting them ready to use too. Then starting Friday he's on vacation again! So know that next week, not much will get done. Oh well!

The card above is one by my friend Rachael. It's Iris Folding done for a swap for our Rubber Inker Yahoo group. I'm thinking a year or so ago.

I'm officially in Illinois

I got my Illinois license plates this week and even managed to put them on all by myself. I've never done that before! What do you think of them?

Another driving bit of news. Steven finally went today and took the test for his Illinois learner's permit and passed on the second try. After the first attempt they said oh, they had head phones that he could wear and hear it too! Plus it blocked out all the noise in the place and he passed it the second time around. Pretty good since we've also been weaning off his ADD meds and he didn't have any today. So he goes in about 4 weeks for a driving evaluation to see what modifications we need to make to a vehicle. Hopefully not many!

No stamping going on here the rest of the week. Ed got back yesterday from his 2 week school in Oklahoma City, so I've had to pay attention to him! We're going tomorrow to help my mother move up here to DeKalb so the weekend will be busy too.

Hope the rest of you are getting some stamping done.

I'm home...

from Champaign. My friend Rachael and I spent Saturday shopping and Sunday sort of stamping and more shopping. Our stamping consisted of stamping some new images and trying out various coloring techniques. Nothing really to show for it until I get them put together into cards.

So instead of a card, I'll show yuo the storm that rolled in this morning. This is actually taken of the grain elevators in Sadorus, IL. Steven and I were on our way into Champaign to have breakfast with Rachael. I stopped at the stop sign and took the picture out of the window. Looks pretty fierce doesn't it? There was a some heavy rain and winds, but only lasted about a half hour. On our way home, we stopped at a craft mall just north of Bloomington and all their outside stuff was blown to smithereens. She said the power had been off too. So Champaign got lucky this morning.

Don't know how much stamping I'll get to this week. Ed's coming home on Wednesday from his 2 week school in Oklahoma City and then at the end of the month we move my mother up here from Springfield. So we'll be busy!

More garage sale goodies

I made out again this morning at a garage sale. It was a lady that sold SU sets. I didn't ask if they were retiring sets or not, but got some great deals. Even had to get on my cell phone and call Rachael in Champaign and describe sets to here to see if she wanted any. I think I bought 5 total-all except one hadn't even been mounted. The most expensive one was $10, catalog price of $20. I had Rachael on the phone with the catalog looking them up! She's taking 3 sets and I'm keeping 2. I also found all 6 of the current "in" colors ink pads for $1 each. Also got a roll of navy ribbon for $2 and a set of the small twinkling H2O's for $3. I just sent an order off to my SU demo, Patti, to buy reinkers before the cut off date! Yippee.

No stamping today as I'm getting ready to go down to Rachael's for the weekend. There is a big sale at Daisy Lane in Mattoon. It's a scrap/stamp huge store. It's a "the boss has gone to CHA" clearance sale. Good for us, bad for the checkbook.

Oh well see you all next week.

Christmas in July

I went to a stamp class last night at Creative Escapes in DeKalb. Bridgette's sister-in-law Cheryl lead the class. It was a Christmas card class, sort of quick cards, but not all of them were overly quick! Anyway we made 5 each of 4 different designs. I'll post a couple of them here so you can see them.

This one is using a Stampin' Up set, embossed with gold and then torn edges. The different thing about this is the paper layered under the Madonna and Child. It's a coffee filter!! She called the technique "Frosted Filters." You put several colors of reinkers randomly on a slick surface. (She used a large plastic plate, you could use your teflon sheet too) Then spritz it with water and lay 2 coffee filters over it and sort of move it around to soak up the ink/water mix. Then separate them and lay flat to dry. You can use your heat gun to assist with this, just don't do too long or too close in one spot or you'll have burnt filters!

This one is relatively simple. The stamps are by Gina K and are unmounted. The corners on the penguin are done with the ticket punch-I need one of those. You also stamp on the ribbon using craft ink and allow it to dry. Then the background is cuttlebugged. I just love the looks of this card. I like blues, snowflakes, and penguins!

I've already been to one stamp garage sale this morning and scored on some Stampin' Up sets. I found 6 sets, in great condition, for only $5 each. She had more, but I didn't want to appear too greedy. Anyway, one of the sets I know I'll keep. The others I'll offer to my mom, sister, and friend and if they don't want them all, I'll use them either at work or hopefully with a new volunteer project I'm working on. My sister is coming over after work and we're hitting up some other sales this afternoon. I couldn't believe I found 4 garage sales with stamping stuff in the paper yesterday!

Oh well off to my stamp room.

BEE HAPPY

I stamped this image with my friend Marjorie's stamp when I stamped in Pesotum a couple weeks ago. I normally stamp things and then they end up getting tossed, but I thought this was a cute stamp. I colored with markers, then added glitter on the wings, yellow flock on the bellies, and black brads on the antenas. I don't know who makes the stamp, but she said she got it at Hobby Lobby, so next time they have stamps 1/2 price I'll be looking at mine for it. The "bee happy" part was just using a $1 alphabet set from michaels.

I went to a class last night at the Cottage Stamper in St. Charles. It was making a mosaic box using paper scraps and crystal effects. I'm not done with it, but when it is I'll take a picture of it. It's given me ideas for Christmas presents. It's never to early to start thinking Christmas. Speaking of that I'm going to another class tonight here in DeKalb for making 20 Christmas cards. I'll post some of those tomorrow.

Cuttlebugged Card

This is another one I made last weekend when stamping with my friends in Champaign. It's the cuttlebug seashell folder. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I embossed it and then used chalks to highlight the shell portion. I then stamped the saying on a piece of vellum and wrapped it around. Not the most original, but something quick and easy.

Today I spent the day outside with my sister and 9 year old nephew. Steven, my son, and I went with them to a little zoo in Aurora. Can't say we were overly impressed with the zoo, very small, few animals, and very run down, but they had a nice tram ride around their lake and the park was very nice. It helped that the weather was sunny, but only about 80. Beautiful day.

We're off in a bit to my sister's for supper. My niece and the baby are here from Tennessee. My niece had gallbladder surgery on Friday and isn't suppose to do any lifting, so my BIL brought her up here for a week. I'm thinking I may get to do some babysitting for my grandniece this week. She's not quite 3 months old. Maybe I'll even get a good picture taken of here and post.

Hope you're all having a good weekend.

Lighthouse Resist

This is a card I made for our technique freak swap on the yahoo group called the RubberInker. It was very easy. All I did was ink up the lighthouse stamp with versamark ink and stamp on glossy paper. Heat set it, then brayered on the blue ink. Layered on black glossy and then layered onto the other papers after stamping the lighthouse again off to the right side. I've been checking out another blog, by Michelle Zindorf, see the link at the left, in which she uses alot of coloring with inks/brayer. Her cards are gorgeous.

I spent today at a crop/stamping day at a ladies house in Dekalb. I'll have to put her link over to the left also. She does alot os cropping days/evenings in her wonderfully large basement. I worked on an anniversary care/minibook for my friend Rachael's grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary next month. I thought that deserved something a bit more than a regular card. I'll try to get some pictures of it tonight or tomorrow and post a few of the pages.

Tomorrow is house cleaning day, so don't know if I'll make it into the stamp room tomorrow. I should, since I'm trying to get ahead before school starts in August and it's back to work. We'll see, I hope so. I'd rather do that than clean house, but have to make myself shovel it out sometimes.

Another Northwoods card

On this one I used watercolor paper. I then brayered ink on using a Kalidacolor (SP?) ink pad. Spritzed it a bit with water and then let it dry. Using the watercolor paper and then spritzing lets the ink sort of blend together. Once it was dry I gave it a quick once over with a craft iron to smooth it back flat. Then used the tree stamp (Northwoods) and black permanent ink. I thought it turned out well. Glossy card stock would have given it a more vibrant color, but wouldn't have allowed the blending that the watercolor paper did.

I spent all day at a stamping/scrapbooking garage sale in DeKalb. There were 4 of us with supplies trying to unload. I thought they were crazy doing a garage sale on a Wednesday night and Thursday, but I made almost $100, and all together there was probably $700-800 worth of stuff sold. One lady had some of her son's toys, so that was about $100 worth of the money. My stuff was priced under about $2, mostly quarters. So that gives you an indication of how much stuff I unloaded. Yeah!

I'm going tomorrow back to her house for an all day (9-3) crop/stamp. Now I need to go pack up what I'm going to work on. I haven't decided so better go hit the stamp room. I'm going to hate going back to work next month and not having the time for all this fun stamping stuff.

Northwoods stamps

This is one of my newest Northwoods stamps. I purchased it from the Cottage Stamper in St. Charles. I'm taking a class next month on watercoloring with the Northwoods stamps. This one I stamped with black permanent ink and colored using the gamsol technique. Layered on black glossy paper after using a fiskars edging punch along the bottom. I finally learned how to line that up to use it correctly.


I love the Northwoods line of stamps so have been purchasing more of those. Now if they'd only unmount them I'd be happy and buy even more!! I'm running out of room for mounted stamps.

Tomorrow I'm going to help out at a stamping garage sale that I included some of my castoffs in. I'm hoping most of it sells so I don't have to haul it back home again. I priced things very low, so keep your fingers crossed that it sells.

Birthday Invitations

I've been busy working on birthday invitations for my MIL's 70th birthday open house. It's next month and we didn't decide until the last minute to do this so have had to work quickly. I'm not keen on making 50 identical cards, so can't say it's been my favorite project. Though better than the 150 wedding invites for my son's wedding a few years ago.

I kept them pretty simple. Used Almost Ameyst paper from SU and the Paisley background stamp with Rose Romance ink for the background. (I'm trying to use up papers that I have a bunch of and didn't have to go buy new) The numbers were stamped with some big foam stamps I have and cut out, then popped up on the front. The tag is also from a SU set. All I've got left to do is address the envelopes and they're good to go.

Tomorrow I'll post some of the cards I made over the weekend stamping with my friend in Champaign. I'm going to another stamp day in DeKalb on Friday.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July. We're off to see my mom for her birthday, today, and then to our friends' house to spend the rest of the day. We'll be cooking out and maybe seeing some fireworks. Hope you all take the time to reflect on the importance of today, especially with so many of our fellow American's out of the country fighting in a war for someone else's freedom. Whether you agree with the war or not, let's be thankful for those young men and women and pause a moment to remember them in your celebrations.

All about me!

I saw this on someone else's blog and copied it to mine since it looked like fun. (http://playinwithpaper.blogspot.com/) Plus the fact that I don't have anything else to post!!


1.WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE ? A friend of my grandpa's.
2.WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Last Friday, when discussing some parenting issues with my husband
3.DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? If I write neatly
4.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Blech, but can eat deli turkey
5.DO YOU HAVE KIDS? 3.
6.IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I hope so since I have so many rubber stamps.
7.DO YOU USE SARCASM ALOT? Hardly at all...NOT
8.DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?Nope had them out as a kid.
9.WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? If I live to be about 85, I'd do that and jump out of a plane.
10.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Oatmeal if I have to.
11.DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Nope.
12.DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Not physically, but I think emotinally I am.
13.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Butter Pecan
14.WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their smiles
15.RED OR PINK? not really either, but red more than pink
16.WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF?My weight
17.WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My patients at the rehab center I worked at in Kansas.
18.WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Blue jean shorts and white tennis shoes.
19.WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? popcorn at the movies
20.WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? music from the blog I pulled this off of.
21.IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? some shade of green.
22.FAVORITE SMELLS? freshly bathed babies, laundry dried on the line, baking cookies 23.WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Some guy from a state agency we're trying to get to help Steven find a job.
24.FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Football or basketball
25.HAIR COLOR? Grey:(
26.EYE COLOR? Hazel
27.DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? NO
28.FAVORITE FOOD? Chocolate Chip Cookies
29.SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Definitely happy endings.
30.LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Just got home from seeing Hancock with Will Smith-not one of his better movies
31.WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? purple
32.SUMMER OR WINTER? Neither, I like spring or fall
33.HUGS OR KISSES? depends upon whom they're from.
34.FAVORITE DESSERT? Cookies or carrot cake
5.WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I'm still trying to get through the boxes of magazines I'm pulling pages out of.
36.WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? It's a Blues Clues notepad/mousepad I got on clearance somewhere.
37.WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V . LAST NIGHT? A few minutes of America's Got Talent
38.FAVORITE SOUND? Children giggling
39.ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles
40.WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Either Florida or TExas
41.DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Not really
.42.WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Camp Pendleton Marine Base, Oceanside, CA.

Stamp/Crop night

Last Friday night I went to a 6 hour crop, but I stamped. It's a group up here in Northern Illinois that meets at a lady's house once or twice per month. She's got a huge basement devoted solely to her hobby. She's got room for about 8 of the banquet tables, plus then has her stuff on shelving along one wall that you're free to use while you're working. She provides supper and dessert, all for $12. I meet several nice people and plan to attend again next month. These are two of the cards I did Friday night. The pansy one is colored with watercolor pencils. There is a vellum pop up on the orange and yellow pansy on the right hand side. It's hard to see on the scan. The other one I used a new background stamp that's nothing but the little butterflies. Sorry I'm terrible about knowing who the company was, but it stamped very well. I just laid it rubber up, inked it and laid the paper on top. Then used my finger to gently rub all over it and it got a great impression.

I'm stamping again on Saturday with my friend Rachael in Pesotum, IL. (Just south of Champaign, where we use to live) We'll do another one of our marathon stamping sessions. We plan to work with some of the stamps we've had for along time. I know we're playing with the Rubber Stamp Tapestry sets that we've both had forever, but seldom use. I'm also going to bring some of my plastic templates for different card shapes. That's another purchase that's seldom used. I'll try to remember to post some of our results next week.

An exciting piece of news, Steven has a job interview this week. He's applied at 3 different places, the 3rd one being the county nursing home this morning around 9. We then ran to Wal-mart and got home around 10:45 and they had already called to set up the interview!! It's for a housekeeping position. He's had some custodial experience while working in high school so keep your fingers crossed. I'm wanting him settled in to a job before I start work in August. If his hours are close to mine, then I can get him there and home again around my schedule.

Well better go put away last week's travel bag and pack one for this weekend.

I'm going stamping!!!

I found a group up here in Northern Illinois through the meet up thing. It's primarily scrapbookers, but there is at least one other stamper that I've had contact with through Splitcoast. Isn't the internet wonderful?? Anyway tonight I'm going to a crop/stamp at this ladies house. I'm hoping it'll be fun and I'll meet some others in the area.

I'll scan some more cards over the weekend if I have time. This is the first weekend in a few that we haven't had unpacking, places to go, or something else to do. We might not do much of anything. We ran errands this morning. Got new, Illinois cell phone numbers and bought Steven a new computer for his graduation gift. He's probably not going to be going to college, at least not on a full time basis, so figure this is in place of tuition.

Oh well guess I should go spend time with the husband before I leave for several hours!

More stamping going on in my house!

Another day stamping. Yeah. I'm trying to get stocked up again on cards. Especially knowing that come the middle of August I'll be back at work and have less time. Today I finished up my 4th of July cards. I made another two designs and got 10 cards out of them. I then pulled out a couple new stamps I bought over the weekend. Of course this design is totally CASED, but I liked how it turned out so thought I'd post it anyway.

The stamps are from Great Impressions. They had a sample board at the LSS in Somanauke. So this is pretty much what theirs looked like. The cat tails/reeds are done on vellum and cut out around the leaves with chalk ink, then the light house stamps and colored with water color pencils and the sky chalked around it with a light blue. My vellum tape actually worked, so that was a good thing. The little thinking of you stamp is from Hero ARts. I found a whole set of these small sentiments while I was unpacking.

We're going to be playing with our Rubber Stamp Tapestry sets next week when I stamp in Champaign, so those will come in handy for adding a small message in the center of our wreaths. I just need to remember to bring them!

I'm going to a crop/stamp on Friday night so will have to find some time tomorrow to figure out what I want to work on. Those things are hard for me to pack for. I'm usually bored with what I've brought after a couple hours.

Oh well back to the stamp room.

I've been stamping!!!!!

I finally got my stamp room put together enough to stamp. I've made three different 4th of July cards today. This is one of them. It felt so relaxing to stamp and not unpack!! I don't know who makes the stamps for this card. They were unmounted ones and of course I'm not good at writing on the backs who made them. I stamped and embossed the freedom stamp with gold on white glossy and brayered blue ink over it. The eagle is stamped and embossed on vellum and colored on the back with markers. I then used my Coluzzle to cut the circle out of the blue inked glossy and the red layering paper. Pretty easy.

I've got about 10 more 4th of July cards to make. I made twelve today, 4 of 3 designs. I'm hoping to get the rest of them done tomorrow and then on to something else. I'm going to a crop/stamp thing on Friday night with some people I don't know. It's a meet up group that scrapbooks, but one other lady stamps so Iwon't be all alone with my stamping. I'm looking forward to meeting some other people in the area.

My friend Rachael came up for the weekend and we shopping for 3 days! I found a stamp store in St. Charles, called the Cottage Stamper. It's a cute store with a good variety of stuff. We signed up to take a Northwoods class in August and I'm taking a mosiac class next month. We also spent the day Saturday at the Heirloom Convention in Rockford. We had a good time and spent way to much money. The bulk of our money went to the Paper Cut. They always have some great deals and Sarah and Ron are the nicest people. Sunday we spent shopping at Michaels and Joannes. I hadn't been to the stores in St. Charles, so it was nice to go with Rachael.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have something else to share!

Getting closer...

to being able to stamp!! I've decided that starting Monday I'm going to hit the stamp room hard. I tried a bit in there this morning, but there is so much stuff unpacked and sitting on the floor that it's hard to get everything put away. I'm going to pull out the boxes that are sitting in there and put them in the living room. Then haul in one at a time to unpack and put away. My friend Rachael, will be up on Friday so it has to look like I've done something in there!

Not much got done last week. Ed had a test at the hospital one day and I had a mammogram another afternoon. Steven had to go to the community college for placement testing another afternoon, and without him driving I'm chauffer. Plus with living closer to my sister and family, my neice and nephew both want us coming to their various games. So that seemed to eliminate alot of time last week. Today we're taking my nephew to a ball game at 6, so I'm done for the day working in there.

We did finally get a trip in to the Salvation Army to unload a bunch of stuff piled in the house. We had bought a new couch a couple weeks ago, but the old one was still sitting here. I tried to "Freecycle" it, but no takers, so we loaded it up and dropped it off yesterday. Now my living room looks much bigger:)

Rachael and I are going to the Heirloom Convention in Loves Park on Saturday. That's by Rockford. We just went to the Collinsville one, but I'm sure we'll manage to spend more money. On Friday we're going to St. Charles to a newly discovered stamp store. It's called "Cottage Stamper." According to their website they have a stamp club and classes, so I'm excited. I would imagine we'll make a run to Archivers too. I know I won't have any money left.

Hopefully next time I post I'll be able to have my more cleaned up stamp room to report.

The card shown above is one I made last year. I found a whole box of old cards while unpacking. Anyway the butterfly is made with that fantasy film. Can't tell you much about how it works since I only used it the once. That will be on my list to retry once I can stamp again.

Have a good rest of the weekend.

Still no stamping going on:(

I'm still working on my room. I spent most of yesterday unpacking and trying to organize. It's taking forever!! Today I had to go sit at the community college all afternoon while my son took placement tests. Tomorrow my husband has some medical tests that will take all morning. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I can get back to it. If not then, maybe Friday.

On a positive note, my friend Rachael and I went to the Collinsvilee, IL stamp convention last Saturday. There were about 35 vendors there. It was okay, still managed to spend just over a $100, but on stamps this time. Usually it's paper and other things. I wish the vendors would figure out we want something new. I know it's not their fault for not having new products if nothing is being available for them. BUT, come up with some different demos for pete's sake. I'm tired of seeing the same old thing. Okay I know how to stipple onto glossy cardstock and then stamp on it. I know how to stamp already. Show me something new or different. There were also very few vendors doing make and takes. The ones that I saw charged several dollars for them. Sorry, unless it's something fantastic I'm not paying more than a buck. Especially just to stamp a piece of paper with that company's stamps. Nope not happening.

We also are planning to attend the Heirloom Convention in Rockford on the 21st. I hope we see something interesting there. Not as many vendors scheduled so we'll see how that one goes.

Stamping marathon with Rachael planned for July 5th in Pesotum. I've got to get my stuff unpacked so I can actually stamp then. Next week isn't filled with appointments so plan to really hit it hard. At least enough that I can sit down and stamp. I've had to "GASP" buy a Father's Day card for Sunday.

Oh well, later.

Minimal progress

Well it's been a few days, but minimal progress on the stamp room. We spent all weekend working outside on the yard and trying to make some headway in the garage. It's pretty much as good as it's going to get. The garage is Ed's responsibility from now on!!

I spent most of yesterday working on my stamp room. I pulled boxes and totes out to to the living room to give me room to move the shelving and cabinets around in the room. I got alll of that where I wanted it, and started unpacking boxes. It's a slow process since I'm sorting and pitching as I go. I have a number of years worth of craft accumulations to go through. I FreeCycled 3 boxes of material left over from my quilting phase. I also had 2 boxes of misc. crafting things. All went to one lady who worked in a nursing home, so at least my shopping addiction benefits someone!!

Of course in all of the moving and lifting of boxes yesterday I've pulled my back out. It hurts to move, so I've taken today off. I spent a couple hours on the couch going through the various cooking magazines I've managed to acquire pulling out recipes I may use. I have a tote or two of stamping magazines too, but need to get through the cooking ones first since they're sitting in my dining room.

This is all why I HATE moving. And to think we'll do it again in 6 years. YUCK.

I'm overwhelmed

Okay this is what my stamp room is looking like. How in the world do I get anything accomplished in there? I've started unpacking boxes, but I'm just sort of putting it into piles and that's not working. I stopped and put together some of the shelves, but then don't have enough floor space to put them where I want them. My husband says to bring everything in to the living room and then start unpacking and putting away one box at a time. Well I really don't want to lug all those boxes 2 more times. I don't know. I'm ready to close the door and forget about it, except the door probably won't close because something is in front of it. Maybe later it won't look so bad. I was going pretty good and then my sister and I went to what was a stamping garage sale. Only spent $2, but then had to go have lunch and run to Michael's and now I've lost my umph!

Happy Birthday to me!!

Today is my 40 something birthday. I've spent most of the day shopping with my sister. I wanted a new couch for the new house, so we went and found that and mattresses for the guest room. We also checked out the Salvation Army and Goodwill stores. I found a wooden desk for my stamp room at one, and then a couple other great finds at the other. One is a wooden cassette holder that hangs on the wall that my ink pads will fit in to. The other is probably for VCR tapes, it's two sided with shelves on each side. It spins around. I'm thinking my Stampin UP sets will fit in it nicely. Tonight we're going out for pizza with my sister and family.

Tomorrow it will be back to work unpacking the stamp room. I'm really hoping I can make some progress in there tomorrow. I didn't get much done yesterday and sort of blew off today. So we'll see how it goes.

The card is one I did for a shoebox party in Champaign last year. Since I haven't gotten into my stamp room I had to use an old one:(
Later gator.

The journey begins

This is my very first post on my very new blog. We just moved last week from Kansas to Northern Illinois. We are originally from Champaign, IL, but have lived in Kansas for the last 6 years. We've been wanting to get back closer to home ever since we moved and it's finally happened. It was a good time for the move since Steven, my youngest, just graduated from High School.

I've been stamping for about 11 years. I was introduced to it by a co-work in the Champaign school district. I went to her house, was shown how to emboss, and millions of dollars later, here I am. I like to try different techniques, don't really have a style other than whatever works at the time! I belonged to a stamping club in Kansas, which I'm going to miss greatly. I also took almost weekly classes from a stamp store in Lees Summit, MO called the Stamp Patch. Dona is a great teacher and classes were very reasonable.

I stamp with a group of women in the Champaign area several times a year. We've called ourselfs the "Marathon Stampers." My best friend is also a stamper, so we take periodic shopping trips too. We love to go to conventions and actually have two coming up in June. One is in Collinsville (southern Illinois) and the other is in Rockford (northern Illinois).

Once my stamp room is unpacked I'll get busy making some cards and posting some of my work. It's been over a week now since my stamp room was completely packed up and I'm getting antsy. Maybe if I'd spend more time unpacking boxes than sitting at the computer it would get done quicker!

That's all for now.