Archive for October, 2009

I think this is my favorite out of all of the images.  It was fun to color and I can so see a little mouse wanting to be a butterfly.

Happy Halloween everyone and be sure and stay safe!

Gareth (who is 4) has been very sick this month.  He has had the H1N1 flu and no sooner makes it pass that when he comes up with strep.

Since we are headed out of town I decided I would make them a little gift box for Halloween.  This is the stuff I found and most of it is $1 stuff from either Target or M’s.

Rylan is 17 months old and although she didn’t get the H1N1 she definitely got strep.

This is the stuff for her Halloween gift box and most of them were $1 from Target and M’s including that cute little stamp that says “There can only be one Queen and I’m It”!

When I went to put the boxes together I discovered I did not have the right color tissue paper nor did I have anything that look like something for Halloween.  So I decided I would design my own.   

I had white tissue paper, stamps and ink surely I could come up with something.  I pulled all my Halloween stamps and some orange and black ink.   On Rylan’s tissue paper I used her stamp but left it off of Gareth’s tissue paper.

I then started randomly stamping all over the tissue paper.  TIP:  This best way to do this is take the lighter of the inks (this case orange) and use all the stamps.  Then go back with the darker ink (this case black) and re-stamp using all the stamps.  This way you don’t have to clean the stamps in between using the two stamp ink pads.

I think this worked out perfectly.

Here they are ready to go.  I took 3 different ribbons and tied little knots around the metal handles.  I also made them little tags (not shown) that I tied onto the handles with “To” and “From” and some additional Halloween decorations like pumpkins and bats.

This year Gareth is “Tigger” and Rylan is “Piglet”.  They are so cute and for some reason it doesn’t take them long to figure out if you say “Trick or Treat” you get candy.  For some reason that doesn’t work as well for adults, you usually get the trick instead of the candy.

Hmm, I don’t know exactly what he is dressed up for but he may be morphing into a butterfly or a caterpillar before the night is through.

To get  rosey cheeks and the pink inside the ears, sometimes it is easier to take the pink pencil and color on a scrap piece of paper and then take the stump, dip it in the odorless mineral spirits and pick up the color then put it on the image.  This give a softer look.

This was a hard image to color because there is not much variation in the items you are coloring.

I decided that instead of the typical “white sheet”, I would give it a little more distinction with some color.

I think the saying is cute.  I also use a black pen to fill in areas that did not get stamp well.  The tip here is to do that after you have colored your image or be sure your ink is permanent and let it dry well.

 I’m just wondering how this little mouse got in this costume.  It looks like the lobster has already been cooked and all that was left over was the shell.

One of the tricks to MCPT is to be sure the colors you are using contrast with each other, that will make the colors pop.

I belong to a MCPT challenge on the Cricut Message Board and each month (I supplied the originator with a self addressed stamped envelope) I receive several stamped images.

One of those images will be stamped on heavy weight smooth paper.  We are suppose to color that image (and the others if we want) and make a card.  Once the card is done we take a picture and up load it on to that particular thread.

I haven’t made a card in several months but I did sit down and take time to color some of the images I received.  This week is the last few days before Halloween and although we really do not celebrate this time I have DHG’s and they like to dress up and this is also the only time you can get some of the candies that go on sale.

Over the next few days I’ll show you some of the images.  I take these images and scan them into my computer before I color them.  That way I always have a fresh clean one available when I want to color it again or make a card.

Although I have a Cricut Expression that would cut the same things as Spellbinders I still like to purchase them.  The advantages of the Spellbinders are they emboss and provide you a stencil should you want to chalk or add color.  This gives you 3 items in one element.

I use the 40% off coupon that HL puts out every other week to buy these because they can be pretty expensive.  If you keep your eyes open and check sometimes you can find the smaller ones at a bargain of a deal.

However, I needed to revamp how I stored these little gems because I forget what I have if they are not easily accessible.

I had to re-organize my growing collection of acrylic stamps and in doing so I had these jewel cases left over.  So and idea struck and since Spellbinders are metal I decided to use magnetic tape and the jewel case to house my Spellbinders.  This magnetic tape is about $4 or $5  for 10′ at M’s.

You can get various strengths of magnetic tape and sheets.  This one could have stood to be a little stronger but I found if I added and extra strip it held the Spellbinders in place. 

I recycled the old jewel case covers by flipping them over and running them back through the computer with the names of the various Spellbinders.  Lucky me, I saved the cut file and the original word file, if I needed a new one it was simple to cut.

I roughly eyeballed the length I needed for each Spellbinder.

I applied the tape to the cover.  This way when I pull the jewel case out I can flip it over and see what I’m looking for very clearly.

I also used some glue dots on the cover to hold the cardstock in place after I attached the Spellbinders.  The weight of the Spellbinders made the cover fall but with the help of the glue dot they worked perfectly.

These stack up very nicely in the CD case and now they are at arms length.  Looks like I might need to add another glue dot on the Fleur DE Lise one.

What did I do with my Acrylic Stamps?  I wanted to be able to flip through all of them at once so I bought Paper Studio Binders and fillers.  This way when I need a stamp I can quickly flip through the binder and see what I have.  I also changed over to binders for my CB embossing folders.  I’m a very visual person and need to be able to see what all I have available at one time. 

Needless to say the “Woman Cave” is constantly in a state of flux.  The major positioning of Jet Max Cubes and workspace has not changed.  It works perfectly, but how I organize the things inside that I use is always changing.  Eventually, I’ll get it just right!

I’ve recently taken up learning how to play golf.  So far I’ve only been to the driving range, because I’m not “golf ready” as my DH puts it.  I decided to do this for a couple of reasons; 1) my BFF plays and 2) I wanted to find something that my DH and I could do together, even if it was just at a driving range.

I’m wasn’t  for sure he is really excited about me going into his world, until 10/21/09.  A package arrived from UPS and in it was 4 sleeves of hot pink golf balls.

There is something about a man that will take the time to order you golf balls with a sweet message on them.

This absolutely touched my heart.  Oh, I’m not a Golf Goddess by no means I’m still learning how to swing the club right and learn all the lingo.  However, this sweet gift makes me fill like a Goddess because I know he had to get on the computer and type out the inscription and order it all the time thinking of me.

Thanks Sweetie and I can’t wait until our Hot Springs trip when I get to really play some golf.  Maybe I’ll live up to this inscription or the one on my socks in rhinestones that says “Divot Diva”.

“To have friends you must show yourself to be friendly.”

There is a couple that God has brought into my life that I can honestly say at this point I do not know what I would have done without them.  Their names are Joel and Phyllis Orr.

I’m posting about them today out of gratitude for everything they have done for me and my family but also because they are a true representation of Christ in today’s world.

As you know I have been working on re-doing my Mother’s bathroom.  It was Joel who save me thousands of dollars for a plumber and carpenter by helping me fix her floor and water closet.  Again, on October 20th Joel and Phyllis came to my rescue.  My Mother’s bath tub facets were leaking and he showed me how to put in a new washer, saving me hundreds of dollars in plumbing expenses.

How do you re-pay someone who has given up their time and provided you their knowledge without ever asking for a dime?  How do you show or even tell someone how much that touched your life and how awesome you think they are for being a servant in God’s hands to help someone in need?

I don’t know how to do it but to carry their friendship deep in my heart and be there for them when they call, the same way they are there for us when we need help.

Joel and Phyllis, I don’t know how to pay you a bigger or better compliment than to tell you how much we love you and we see Christ in you.  If we ever win the lottery…………..(hee, hee) you will be sharing in that with us!!!

My Mother wanted some Christmas papers for card making so off we went to see what we could find.

Believe it or not there was not much out there.  JoAnn’s was just putting out the Peppermint Forest pack but Mother wasn’t wanting to spend that amount of money.  She also didn’t want to pay $.99 – $1.29 a sheet for open stock but she ended up doing that at Michael’s.

On an end-cap at HL they had a bunch of their paper marked for clearance.  We would have passed it up but there was a piece of Christmas paper that caught my eye.  This may have been last year’s Christmas paper but Mother liked it and she got it for $.21.  So we took some time and started going through the various stacks and she came out with some pretty Christmas papers.

In amongst all the papers was this 8-1/2 x 11 vellum.  It was originally priced at $.69 a sheet marked down on sale for $.24 a sheet.  As you can see in the first picture there was some gold and this picture is the silver.  I can’t wait to use this on some Christmas cards.

Just keep your eyes open and spend some time to see what you can see on the end caps at HL, Michael’s and JoAnn’s.  I find a lot of bargains there, you just have to be willing to spend some time looking.