Birthday Bracelets

My daughters birthday is this weekend and she wants to have a few friends over to celebrate. Well I thought it would be fun to find some kind of craft to do to keep them busy for a while. She wanted to do tie dyes tshirts, I said no way! Too messy and takes too long to do. So as I was looking through some fun crafty websites, I came across something using Fish Swivels and thought that would make a really cute bracelet.

Well working at a sporting goods store I have access to these things. And one of the girls I work with is celebrating a birthday today. So I sat down this morning and made one up to see how hard it would be and this is what I came up with:

I looped some small beads on to the hooks and the small Jingle Bells from the Holiday Mini catalog, which fit just perfect. I think the girls will have a lot of fun making these and I hope my friend from work thinks it's fun.

Last 2 pages for now

My daughter's valentine's party at school. I found the design for these pages on Mydigitalstudio.net. They were 8 1/2 x 11 pages and I converted them into 12 x 12 pages and changed the color and added a few things of my own. Have I told you how much a LOVE this program.

now my daughters page

On this page I used a lot of circles to make the snow piles and the snowman. If you have MDS and would like to see a whole lot more things done with it, you may join a My Digital Studio forum by clicking www.mydigitalstudio.net. The sign up is free!

and yet more scrapbooking

After our blizzard here in Michigan, my kids and their cousins went over to my in-laws house to sled. The snow was up to my nieces waist in some spots, and she's about 5' 9"! It was very cold, but boy did we have a hard time getting the kids inside for supper! They did not want to quit!

Another scrapbook page...or 2

Here is a couple more pages that I just made 1 of then copied and changed pictures. Easy peasy!!

My Digital Studio pages

I was able to go scrapbooking again this past weekend with my sister-in-law and completed a few more pages I would like to share with you. All of the pages I will be sharing over the next dew days were done on My Digital Studio.



As you can see with these 2 pages, they are pretty much alike. When I created the first page, I just copied it and changed the pictures and the journaling. So easy and so quick!

My daughter's 'tween' room!

With my dad moving into assisted living, he couldn't take his queen size bed with him so he gave it to my daughter. You should have heard the squeals when we told her!

Well she informed us that because she was getting a bigger bed she needed a more grown up room. Mind you she is 8! She had a princess room - you know pink and more pink! So we went through the JcPenney catalog just to get some ideas of what was out there and she found exactly what she wanted. She didn't want to look any more!

So on to the computer I went to order it. She couldn't wait to get it. She asked the next day if it was here or not. Well once we received it, she insisted on buying paint right away. So on a day that everyone was home for a snow day, my husband and I got it painted. More squeals!!

Well we got it all put together, but it still needed something. So back on to the computer I went to order the curtains that matched the comforter. I had tried to find some in-expensive curtains to match at a local store, but they just didn't match and by the time I had purchased enough pieces to fill both windows, the cost was about the same.

So once I got the curtains and got those up, I had some of the Stampin'Up! decor elements butterflies waiting to put up in her room before, so up they went. Here is some pictures of the end results. She just LOVES it. The pictures don't do it justice. The paint is very very bright!


Here's a close up of the butterflies:


Decor elements add so much to a room and wall. I have them all over the place in my house. If you ever want to remove them (unfortunately they cannot be used over) they come off the paint without pulling paint off the walls. They can adhered to any flat surface. I also have them on the back window of my car on the outside and they don't come off in the car wash! Go check out the catalog in the left column of my blog and you can order these right online on my online store here.

If you would like to host a workshop, you can also earn these for FREE and there are a few you can get as hostess gifts. Place a $50 order and you can get a FREE sale-a-bration item also. This promotion will be ending at the end of March so jump on it quick! Contact me today!

Valentine's 2011

As promised, I am showing you my daughters valentine's for this year. I saw these out on the Stampin' Connections forum, which is a place for Stampin'Up! demonstrators to connect with one another and share ideas. The ones I saw were actually made for Halloween, but I thought the idea was so cute, that it could be used for any occasion.

I used mostly scrap designer series papers for these. The piece of brushed silver paper that I crimped to look like the metal piece that holds the eraser on is still current. The tip of the pencil is a Hershey's Kiss, the eraser is a Rolo, and the base of the pencil is a roll of fruit flavored Mentos.

The tag was made with the 2 3/8" scallop circle punch, the 1 3/4" circle punch and the Owl punch. The owl is stamped using the FREE sale-a-bration stamp set called Punch Bunch. The heart on the owl is punched from the wonderful new paper in the Occasions mini catalog called Glimmer paper. LOVE that paper. Imagine, a paper full of glitter that doesn't rub off all over the place! The heart is punched using the owl punch also.

I really had fun making these and my daughter can't wait to pass them out tomorrow.

Personalized Scrapbook Albums

I have been wanting to do this for quite some time now, and just haven't. I've had the raw vinyl for over a year. So when I received my printed scrapbook pages that I had ordered through Stampin'Up!s professional printing service for my kid's scrapbooks and put those all away, I decided to get my bigshot out and try it. Here is the results:

These are two older albums I had purchased at a scrapbook store a long time ago.

These are Stampin'Up!s 3-ring albums. Love these!! I can fit so much more into these. I used the Go-Go boots dies and cut out my letters and numbers on the bigshot. Because the albums are linen, I wasn't sure if the vinyl would stick good or not, but it seems to be staying pretty good. Love how this turned out. Now my kids can just grab the books and know what order they go in. And I know which book I'm working on without having to pull each of them out.

I used white and chocolate vinyl on these albums, but there are a host of other colors available. Go to my online store here to see them all.

On a side note, as I mentioned earlier in my post, I had a bunch of single pages printed through Stampin'Up!s professional printing service, all I can say is FABULOUS!!! They turned out wonderful. The pictures look great and the embellishments look so real. There were no white edges on any of the pages and I ordered 41 of them!! The colors are very good also.

If you haven't tried My Digital Studio yet, you have got to try it!!! Go to my online store and order it today!!

Digital scrapbook pages

My goal before I leave on my cruise was to get caught up with my kids' scrapbooks. So I got all my pictures organized for each kid and sat down with My Digital Studio and just started playing. This is play, because it is so much fun to work on.

My son had karate one night so I took my laptop with me and sat and scrapbooked. That's the nice thing about My Digital Studio, you don't need the internet to work on it.

So needless to say, 3 days later I completed 41 pages all together. I plan on getting the individual pages printed with the professional printer Stampin'Up! works with and just slip them into each book.

Here a couple of pages:

Meet Gunner

My husband called me yesterday morning and said he saw an ad at the gas station where he usually stops to get gas in the morning. He said I HAD to call because these puppies looked soooo cute!

I asked him what kind of dogs are they and he said - bulldog, retriever, lab mix. I'm thinking way too big. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt and called and they said they had all of them yet.

So last night we went and looked. Well of course we are going to fall in love with them, they're puppies for pete sake. They had 11 of them to choose from. The mother was there and very calm and actually not that big of a dog either.

So then we decide we want one, but which one to choose. Well the two we really liked were the most different in color, but they were females and after having our Rat Terrier, who was a female, we decided this time we wanted a male.

So we decided on Gunner. We really liked his coloring, and he just seemed so calm.

So now onto the training of a puppy again. The first night was loud, but we know he'll get better. So if you like our new addition, let me know.

It's a sad sad day!!

It's a very sad day at our house today. Last night our family dog, Molly, a rat terrier, was hit by a car and didn't make it. We have had her for 4 years, since she was a puppy. She slept with my son every night, so it was very hard on him to go to bed last night. I think he cried himself to sleep.

My husband didn't show too much emotion, but I could tell that it hit him hard also. He went out and buried her. I know I kept waking up and thinking about her all night and it was hard getting up this morning and her not being here. She loved to go for car rides. You just had to mention to her about going for a ride, and she couldn't contain herself, she got so excited. And the front seat was hers and she didn't care who was sitting there, she sat there too.

We would say bedtime to the kids and that would mean play time for her and she would get all hyper. I have never seen a dog move so fast. She would start barking and run from room to room until someone, mostly my husband, would play with her.

She loved laying in the sun. If she was cooped up in her kennel and the sun was coming through the slider in the livingroom, she would whine until you let her out and she couldn't make it to the sunny spot fast enough. She would stop and flop over and there she would lay for hours.

Or on cold mornings, right after I would turn the heat on, she would head into the bathroom and lay right under the register until the heat kicked off. If you couldn't find her, this was the first place to look.

You say something to her, and she would cock her head ever so slightly like she was trying to understand you. It was the cutest thing. OK now I'm starting to cry while I'm writing this.

The picture below is my daughter reading to her while she lays there and just listens. Of course she was laying in the sun. She was a great lap dog.


Here are some more pictures:

The day we brought her home. How could you resist that face.

The way she cocked her head when talking to her.

After having her litter of puppies.


In a quiet moment.

I think getting another dog right away is probably the best thing, maybe we will go to the kennel and see what there is there, I just don't know yet. I'm not sure I want to train another puppy just yet either. She was very easy to train. We do have another dog, Linus, but he's a big dog and not a very good lap dog, all though he would love to try. I let him in the house last night to help get the kids' minds off Molly for a while at least. But it's just not the same.

Anyway, thank you for letting me tell you a little about my family.

Extreme Skateboarder card

My nephews birthday is coming up soon, so I needed a card and it gave me an excuse to stamp, but who needs an excuse to stamp anyway :-)!

Anywho, he is turning sixteen and this was the only stamp I could think of to use. I like how it turned out and I hope he likes it also. The skateboarder is embossed in black, cut out an popped up with little tiny pieces of dimensionals. I like how the Extreme elements set looks for the background also. By the way, the Extreme Elements set is one of the stamp sets you will get when you purchase My Digital Studio. It makes great layouts for scrapbook pages!!

And if you like MDS, and you need a little extra income, there is a great sign up special to become a Stampin'Up! demonstrator. The My Digital Studio package is normally $185, but it is now 15% off and is only $157!!!!

But if MDS is not your thing and you like the feel of the stamp beneath you fingers, the original sign up package is on sale also. Normally $199, it is now $169!! And you get extra stuff when you sign up during Sale-a-bration!! Why wouldn't you want to sign up? What are you waiting for. Sign up with me by the end of January, and I have an extra stamp set for you!!!!

Sorry about not posting...

...but my dad has come to live with us for a while, so getting into a new routine has come slowly. But I promise I will get there. Be patient and hopefully in the next few days I will have something to share with you.

My Digital Studio Crab Dip page

Happy Labor Day!!

Well I'm figuring out how to use things on My Digital Studio, including punches, in out of the box ways. Here is a recipe page that I am putting together for my kids' teachers or just for gifts this year for Christmas.

Isn't this cool!! I made the crab and the sand castle out of punches and the eyes are brads!! I love how this turned out. I can't seem to get away from this program either, so nothing in the house is getting done :)



I love your comments, so let me know what you think of this!

Well I better keep this short, we are off to a BBQ with my family at a park near the nursing home where my mom is and it looks like it's going to be a beautiful day!

Country Living Summer Kit & an update on my mom

Here is a great kit promotion just in time for your 4th of July celebrations:



The exclusive Country Living Summer Cookout Kit includes the following products:

8 die-cut table tents (2 each of 4 colours)
Die-cut components, bamboo skewers, and envelopes to create 8 shish kabob invitations
12 die-cut coasters (3 each of 4 colours)
16 die-cut tags (4 each of 4 colours)
24 12" x 12" printed food wrapper sheets (12 each of 2 colours)
4 printed recipe cards
5 yards linen thread
Ruby Red Classic Stampin’ Spot
Night of Navy Classic Stampin’ Spot
Dig In stamp set (item number 116700)

Note: the kit does not include tablecloths, plates, or flatware.

Order your kit today here

Now on the good news with my mom. They took the breathing tube out and she is doing great. She is breathing good and even trying to talk a little. You know all those questions why she is at the hospital and such. Now to keep her from talking too much. Not an easy job for my mom.

Animal Stories and a prayer request

I have one card that I can share with you using the new set Animal Stories:



Of course this card uses the new In Colors plus new Designer Series paper.

Sorry I haven't been taking the time to detail much on my posts. I have been wanting to stamp more too but just haven't found the time.

Last Thursday my mom suffered a stroke and went into a coma for 2 days. On Saturday morning she woke up but has been on life support ever since. They do have the ventilator turned down so she is doing a lot of the breathing on her own, but because her throat and vocal chords are so swelled up, she is not able to take a normal breath without the tube.

She is however able to move all her extremities, she just can't seem to open up her right eye all the way. Her left eye is good. They think she may have paralysis to her vocal chords and she may never talk again, but are thinking of doing a tracheotomy today and she would eventually be able to talk with that and a device and would help her breath.

She answers yes or no questions and can mouth things even though that tube is in. She seems to understand what is going on and why she is in the hospital.

Please say lots of prayers for us during this time with her healing and for some of the decisions we need to make about her long term care.

Spring Break vacation and a Not Quite Navy wedding card

Sorry I've been missing in action for the last week or so. With the kids being on spring break, I tried to devote as much time to them as I could which was pretty much all of it.

We did however surprise the kids on Thursday and took them to an indoor waterpark for 3 days and 2 nights south of us in Indiana. They never realized what was going on until we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel! Here's a picture of my husband and son coming out of one of the big slides together:



I know it's hard to see them with all the water, but oh did my son get soaked!

Any way, on to some stamping. Here is a wedding card I did using some of the polka dot vellum card stock from the Taste of Textiles pack, Whisper White card stock and the Pretties Kit.



I also used the Whisper White Organza ribbon and the Elegant Cheer stamp set. I colored the flower from the pretties kit using the Stampin' Write marker in Not Quite Navy.

When you open it up you can see I used the new Pop-Up cake die for the Sizzix Bigshot. I am really loving this die. I did the cake in Whisper White along with the bride and groom (which by the way is part of the die). Before I put the cake together I cut strips from the vellum to wrap around the cake pieces and border punched them with the Eyelet Border punch. I colored some of the small flowers from the pretties kit using the Stampin' Write marker and adhered them using mini glue dots to the cake.



Here is a close up of the bride and groom. As you can see I went back and cut a piece of Not Quite Navy card stock for the grooms tux. I cut a little slit at the neck and folded it back to reveal his crisp white shirt. I also added Dazzling Diamonds glitter to the brides veil.



I hope I gave you some inspiration. With the wedding season approaching, wouldn't you love to make a card like this. If you would like to order this die or others, please visit my website and order online at any time.

Thanks for stopping today!

Pop up Birthday

Well it was my nephews birthday yesterday and we are celebrating Saturday, so I thought I better get a card made for him before then.

I was down in my stamp room creating a bunch of cards, (which I can't show you right now because they are for a seminar on the 17th & 18th of this month), and decided to use the pop-up cake die for his card.

Here's the front of the card. He will be eight years old, so I put 4 candles on the front:


and 4 candles on the cake:

It was a great way to use up some left over sale-a-bration paper.

So I hope he likes it and gets a big surprise when he opens it. Of course it will have some money tucked into the cake also!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas today! Hope you have safe travel and lots of fun with family and friends. Also remember to keep Christ in your Christmas!