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.