be back tomorrow

As a few of you know, Bobs work hours have been CRAZY of late, but he broke up Tuesday for a week "on call". Now usually this meant a call the day after, at the most 2 days, but so far nothing (sshhhh don't wanna jinx it!). Anyway yesterday we went to Santa Barbara for the day with our friends Chris and Alecia.


We went to the Museum of National History, primarily for the butterfly exhibit. Where you walk through the exhibit of 1000 butterflies. Just so cool, I've never been to anything like that before so it was fun. I was gonna take my big camera but I need a new camera bag to hold the camera and all the crap I needed to carry around with me, so instead ended up taking Bobs small camera. I got some good shots though!


I had a butterfly land on my hand, the one holding the camera so no pics. Bob had one land on his head!


After lunch we went on a trolley tour of the city, something we'd done before but our friends hadn't. Then called more friends Nigel and Kerry's on the way home, they live in Ventura right next to the beach, so we took a walk along the beach too. Here is their furbaby Ollie! Love him to pieces! He's so dang cute!

In all a great day, and we didn't have to drive (thanks Alicia!). Booted up the computer today to over 100 emails so bear with me over the weekend whilst I try to get caught up! Layout sketch coming tomorrow. We're off to go looking at more carpet! Catch ya tomorrow!

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Review: Miss Elizabeths tape runner

The other week I popped into Dollartree, great place to go for things to alter and well quite honestly because we're conscientious dog owners and were running low on dog poop bags, and they are the cheapest. Now Dollartree is a little like garage sales, either trash or treasure! On this day I found treasure.

I always check out the scrapbooking section, any scrapbooker has a natural gravitational pull to craft supplies. After checking out the embellishments I spied these!

Adhesive tape runners! I'm a big fan on tape runners but there are some duds out there in scrapland, I've used a few trust me on this! For a while I've been a Duck or UHU runner, but I figured at a buck I had nothing to loose so naturally I bought 3! *smile* Once home, I unpacked my shopping and then set about creating.

Now for a buck a piece I was naturally cautious, but I was pleasantly surprised. They do the job and they do it WELL! Rolls with ease and sticks VERY well! Seriously! If you put the adhesive in the wrong place the forget it, it's there forever. And if you try to remove it, it'll rip the paper! There is 6m on each runner at 5mm thick, so perfect for ribbon (my main use for these things) and thin strips of card. And don't be confused if you see a different color in your store, they had all colors of the rainbow in my local Dollartree. As far as I could tell there was no difference between them. Just colors to match your scraproom I guess? lol!

I've been using them for a week or two now and love them. I had one gunk up on me, but I put that down to user error after I tried to roll it upside down (it was a late night scrap session!). Thankfully they are easy to unclip apart and I picked out the lump of adhesive, put it back together and rolled on!

BIG THUMBS UP FOR DOLLARTREE!
(just don't use it if you want to reposition something! lol)

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Card Sketch August #5

Wednesday again! Another card sketch! This one is based on a card I made earlier this year, in fact I've used this design a lot, in many different ways. It's one of those that has lots of potential if you just take a minute to think, kwim? Anyway as always the digital template is available to download here.

Supplies: paper: Imagination Project (GinX); Tag: unknown; Rub-on: DCWV; number stickers: American crafts; brad: MM

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Card by Pearl Liu
supply list : Bazzill Bling CS , Basic Grey Infuse , Making Memories' trim , & Gypsies sticker , Foo fa la button

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Card by Wendy McGlinchey
Materials Used:- White card base, K & Co Basic Grey Patterned papers, Various colours in Bazzill card stock, Cricut Machine, Flower Brad. Versafine Sepia ink pad, Just for You sentiment by Rubbadubbadoo.

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Card by Linda Flinders

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Card by Jo Willis
Supplies: generic cardstock, KI Memories paper from the Funky Paper Pad,
Papermania ribbon, Scrapworks Alphadotz word, Scrapworks Hugz and Dotz, KI
Memories stamps from Basics Icons set, black Brilliance ink and EKSuccess
birthday multi-stamp.

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Card by Jolene Johnston
Supplies: DCWV card, MME Magnolia pp, Colorbox ink, Prima flowers, Favorite Findings button, Colorbok twill, Spunky Stamps stamp

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Card by Cheryl Meehan

Supplies : All papers are by Doodlebug, the die and embossing folder are by Cuttlebug, the punch is by Woodware and adhesive gems are by Hero Arts.

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Card by Cindy Gilchrist
Supplies: Creative Imaginations Pattern Papers and Chipboard Sentiment, Doodlebug Frills, Making Memories Stitches, Die Cuts With A View Cardstock, Making Memories Gingham Paper, Marvy Scallop Punch, Colorbox Chalk Ink.

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Card by Joanne Atkinson
Supply list: misc cardstock and papers; misc ribbon; Prima orange flower; green brad; K by Marcella Birthday celebrate stamp; StampCraft green ink.

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Don't forget to hook me up in the comments if you make a card, I love to come check them out!

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Did you see?

Mars last night? I didn't? I think it was all a scam. I've heard conflicting reports. Anyway I went out and got some moon shots. I am doing some weekly photography challenges at Treasures to Scrap, this week was "lunar". My shot for the challenge:

Panasonic Lumix Fz20;

Gotta say it's my best moon shot yet I think! I've had this camera for 2 years and I'm still learning what it can do. This is one of the shots I took with some digital zoom too, and I still think it's pretty good. The moon should still be full tonight so take the challenge yourself and go snap some photo's!

In other news I thought I'd share this:

It's a little idea card you can find at stores that sell one heart... one mind. This is one that I did for the "lovey dovey" line. It's also featured in their Summer 2007 catalogue.

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Digital Store News: The August grab bag has been chopped up and put into the store! So far I've uploaded these to the store

Scallop Edge pack:- Paper sized scallop templates. Comes as a PNG file for use in many programs @ 300 ppi. The set contains 3 large paper sized templates with varying size scallops. Comes with a bonus set of border templates. $1.99 for the set!


Scallop frame pack:- Continuing with the scallop theme, this set contains a 4" circle frame, 4" square frame and a 6" x 4" rectangle frame. Also comes with bonus heart frame. Just use the same as any template, with the patterned paper of your choice! Just $1.25


Finally is the layout template sampler set. Features templates from months past, no longer available on the blog. If you missed these now is your chance to snap these up at a greatly reduced cost! Just $1.99 for all 6! Only available in 12x12 format!


More store updates coming soon!

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Still alive!

Yep I am still alive. Saturday Bob got called into work, and I got my step by step info and screenshots done for a digital layout I got picked up for Creative Techniques. My first time with them so I wanted to make sure I got everything done and sent in. Took longer than expected but paperwork always does! Emailed some projects off, and one I worked on Saturday ended up with me breaking my sewing machine! Bob being the handyman he is, fixed it this morning! YAY! I don't sew that often on my projects but I like having the option y'know?

Bob got yesterday and today off as his weekend and we did a few things round the house, and today we got quotes for carpet in the master bedroom, and tile in the ensuite. We were going to do everything ourselves, but Bobs schedule is so screwed up right now, that it'll never get done, so now we need to decide on colors. Whichever way we go with carpet color we're done for. Having Dalmatians means white and black hairs, so the hairs are gonna show regardless of carpet color. We brought back samples of a soft gray and the standard beige color and the beige seems to work better for the dog hairs.

What else? Oh we went to Target and I got more storage drawers, been sorting out my embellishments this week. Trying to get more organized. I've been branching out into different techniques and stuff which requires some organizing of product. I did find some things I had COMPLETELY forgotten about though! Always fun to find hidden treasures like that.

We were going to go riding today but it was too hot. We missed the cloudy day yesterday, would have been perfect, but Bob had to run some checks on his bike, and other stuff. I finished the book I was reading and we watched a movie. In all a busy few days with some down time. Oh and just in case he's reading "HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY!"! Bobs brother was 40 on Saturday!!!

I think that's the (extended) weekend in a nutshell. I gotta go create with digi for a while, back tomorrow with some layouts etc hopefully!

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There's a new sketch book out!

The new sketch book Memory Mania Masterpieces is out now. If you haven't heard about this book its all sketches, all double pages and yes it's got me in it, lol! If you've seen the blueprints books its the same thing only ALL double page layouts. Now I'm not much of a double page scrapper but as you all know I love sketches! Plus with double page sketches can get a lot of one page layouts from those! Anyway if you want to order it you can order through their website here

And here is my "Happy Holidogs" layout from the book. Love this layout and totally happy to get it back and into my album. I've only briefly browsed through the book but I see a few friends in there!

Almost everything on here is by one heart... one mind. You can't see that clearly in the pic but the journaling is around the main photo. Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE one heart... one mind? I'm having serious addictions to their metal photo corners (as seen here) and the button stacks! That's two buttons and a bead stacked, so cool for dimension, and the buttons are all engraved, just DELICIOUS!

The truly inspiring thing about this book is it all started from one womans dream. Her dream to write an idea book. Which just goes to show you should always have dreams and goals, and if you work hard enough then anything is possible!


oh and if any publishers are reading... call me! I have TONS and TONS of sketches just waiting for a book! (just in case! you never know *smile*)

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Looking back....

Regular blog readers will know I'm switching rooms, literally the room next door, identical but apparently a tiny bit smaller as all my crap won't fit in! Anyway I found a box of memorabilia and started looking through and found this card.

Yes, I made it! Back in 2004 for Bobs birthday (I bought him some guitar lessons hence the music notes). I know it was 2004 cos it has his age written inside. So three years ago exactly (his birthday is August 1st). There are a few things I find hilarious about this card:

1. I don't think you can tell from the photo that well, but the wording is dry embossed, and "highlighted" with a black marker (and not very well I might add)
   
2. This was at the height of my sizzix phase. I can't remember if I bought my sizzix in 2003 or 2004, I know it wasn't long after I started scrapping. I used this music note die twice.
3. I still have some of that paper! And I still have the embossing stencil I used for the sentiment. I never throw much away. Yet I have never used the paper since, nor the embossing template!
   
4. It was before my blog days so I never took a photo or scanned it. I'm not sure when that started (or why). And it was before I found online scrapbooking sites and got into this crazy publishing/DT thing.
5. I rarely make cards with black cardstock. Or use liners in my cards anymore.
6. I hadn't even heard of photoshop at this stage of my creative journey!
7. No seven but it's a nice ending number for a list so had to go up to seven to check you were reading...
   

So I thought I'd issue a challenge! See if you can find your earliest creation (card, layout, whatever) and post it to your blog! Link me up!!! I wanna see!

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Oh and I added these to the store yesterday! Paperclips joined into a flower (like in the sandwashed summer kit). I just enjoyed making them. I think they'd be cool on back to school pages! 18 clipz in the pack, some solids, some patterns, some textured. You can find more details and buy them - here.

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Card Sketch August #4

Happy Wednesday! How are you all? Ready for some card making? I can't stop! This one is loosely based on a card I made back in January. Just added some strips to it for interest, and remember the flower is a suggestion you could use anything (like a heart on the original). The digital template is available for download here.

Ok here is my paper card this week. Nice and simple. I used cardstock for the horizontal stripes. Not sure on the button and flower manufacturers as they are OLD! Digging through my stash still! Oh and note the matching envelope! I left a greeting off mine, gonna add it as I need it to the inside of the card.

Supplies: Cardstock: DCWV; Patterned Paper: DCWV; Envelope template: one heart... one mind; Other: button, flower

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Card by Lucy Chesna
supply list: Kaleidoscope Sunny Days pp/stamp " thanks" from studio g clear stamps

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Card by Pearl Liu
supply list : Amy Butler Belle Mat Pad , Amy Butler Quilted word sticker , Prima Flowers

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Card by Linda Flinders

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Card by Cheryl Meehan
Supplies : Papers are by Sandylion and Blonde Moments. Blooms are a mix of Primas and Angel Kisses. Stamp is from one of the Studio G collections.

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Card by Jolene Johnston
Supplies: Worldwin cardstock, Basic Grey Infuse papers, Colorbox ink, Kolette Hall stamp, Pixie Press flowers, American Traditional Designs brad

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Card by Kelli Smith
products used: all paper from Piggy Tales (little red riding hood); Stampin-up word stamp

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Card by Cindy Gilchrist
Supplies: DCWV Cardstock, K&Co Pattern Papers and Flower, Bobbin Ribbon, Colorbox Chalk Ink, Provo Craft Decorative Scissors.

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Card by Wendy McGlinchey
Materials used:- Basic Grey patterned papersm white card stock, Paper Mania fabric flowers.

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Card by Jo Willis
Supplies: HOTP papers from the Cardmaker’s Creative pack (earth’s palette), ribbon from stash, flower from artificial spray bought at local garden centre, button from my Grandma’s box I inherited, Studio G stamp and Impress black ink.

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As usual hook me up in the comments or email if you do the sketch as I love to come check them out!

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My favorite... adhesive

a while back I got to take part in a sample program offered by UHU, all you had to do was send an email with your blog link, use the product and put a review on your blog, simple! I got the roller and glue pen and loved them both! (You can see my review here) Since then I've received a couple more samples. The Twist & Glue and the glue stick. I've held off reviewing them because I wanted to see how the adhesive held up over time.
Now I've never been a fan of the wet glue, I'm not the tidiest of crafters and well disaster usually ensues. I love the UHU Twist & Glue and here is why - it's Di proof! YAY! This sucker sticks and I don't get it everywhere! The top has this nifty twisty thing that changes the application nozzle so you can have a thin line of adhesive or twist for thicker application, trust me you don't need a lot of adhesive if you're using UHU! To date I've used this on paper, wood, acrylic/perspex, plastic, transparancies, fabrics and lots of other things which I forget.

Glue sticks, wll I have a love hate relationship with glue sticks. Mostly the fact that I like them cos lets face it they are cheap, and that's good. Bad news generally is you get what you pay for. I've bought the cheap 10 packs in the dollar store that dry up so fast and I've bought the other brand names but let me tell ya, UHU leaves them in the dust!!! It sticks and sticks good!

The main reason I held off posting this review is I wanted to see how well the adhesive did over time. I know one of the major factors with glue sticks is the dry up and no longer stick, and wet glues well I just had to play. I made this project back in April as part of a guest designer position at Scrappin'Trends. I used UHU exclusively on all my projects for them and waited.
It's been some months now and the altered card box is exactly the same as it was. Nothing is falling off, all the corners are still adhered (no dog eared corners), and none of the embellishments have fallen off! Perfect! And for those that worry about the archival aspects yes it's photo safe and acid free!

I've used the Twist & Glue a lot since. It's my go-to adhesive of choice for altered projects and I have projects being published next year using this adhesive. I'm a glue stick convert too! I used to waste a ton on fancy rollers for adhering paper to cards and let me tell ya this glue stick does it perfect! No clumps, no lumps and it STAYS STUCK!

And now the good news is YOU can take part too! You can find the current sample details (glue stick) here at the UHU blog. Then you can find out yourself how great UHU is!

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It's not just me then?

Thank heavens someone responded yesterday! I swear I totally thought I was defective with the attention span gene or something. My biggest problem is I get bored easily and am naturally fidgety. If something has my interest it has my attention. I don't like standing there watching pasta cook or waiting to turn things over, so I go do something else, and come back (sometimes). So yeah hoping the rice cooker is going to help somewhat with my culinary disasters. Meanwhile I'm still on the lookout for attention spans, might try ebay next as amazon had nothing, lol!

Ok so in the midst of organizing my office I made some envelopes for the Karen Foster cards I showed at the weekend. Still a few more to do for the flower cards. Used my one heart... one mind template and some old DCWV stack papers (that were WAY retro 70's acid trip) and a few of the left over stickers. Something lately about needing co-ordinating envelopes, as you'll see in the next few weeks sketches.

And so onto the organizing. Nope not finished! See the problem with doing everything is you need somewhere to store it all. The biggest problem with that is the alterable items. Tins, boxes, mini books, clocks, birdhouses, photo frames.. the list goes on. These used to live in the closet in my old room, but then I never used them so the plan was to leave them out so I could see them to use them, but look:

What a mess! Bob has a woman at work collecting tins etc for me which is GREAT cos she has some great tins that I can't wait to alter. The main problem is the Target dollar spot and the dollar store. You think "oh it's only a dollar" that'll be great for XYZ project with so-and-so paper next thing you know your closet is full of it!
So if you see a million altered projects from me in the future you know why!

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Sunday, so far...

up way to early on a Sunday 'cos my cellphone was beeping due to low battery. The dogs HATE that beep with a passion, and turn into complete quivering wimps. You'd think they'd be used to it by now but no... *sigh* So anyway I'm up, feeling rather groggy but I'm getting going. Yesterday Bob moved the rest of his things out my new room, and I almost have everything of mine out the old room and into this one. I have noticed however that I don't seem to be able to fit it all back into the same space. The rooms are almost identical (apart from new desk for the PC and slight rearrange of furniture). I'm left wondering if it's like the Making Memories foam stamps that never fit back in the package once you use them?

Ok wanna see my latest favorite thing? Nope nothing scrappy (scrappy post to follow once I get everything back in drawers and shelves). It's a rice cooker. I've only used it once so far but the rice was PERFECT. Nicely cooked and fluffy.

Now I know I have perfectly good and capable saucepans to cook rice in (Mom!) and I too was dubious when Bob said he was ordering one, but I love it. I've since found out that I can cook pasta in it too, as well as other things! Too cool! Now my thing isn't that I can't cook. I kinda can, my problem is attention span. I can do two things at once, but if one of them is cooking then forget it. Especially if it's something that needs watching/turning. I've ruined both rice and pasta before from boiling dry. Now if I could buy a bigger attention span that would be great! Does amazon.com sell those ya think?

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Review: Karen Foster

This month at Treasures to Scrap our sponsor is Karen Foster. Now I've played with Karen Foster product before so I know that the product is 'themey' which is ok, sometimes I like themey. However for me it's kind of difficult with some themes. Tracy told us to list our top 3 choices of themes from a list and well mine were garden, garden and garden. Not having kids can sometimes be tricky with themed products.

First up in my 'garden' pack was the bug stuff and I have to say I was a little puzzled as to what to do with it, but once I started thnking remembered some bug photo's I took over the years, sorted out a couple and made a layout. Not entirely happy with it. But it got me out of the creative block with the papers, sometimes you just have to work through them.

Patterned paper & stickers: Karen Foster; cardstock: DCWV; chipboard alpha: Imagination Project; brads: doodlebug

My favorite Thing to do lately is hybrid. So here are a couple of hybrid cards. First one has a printed greeting inside. I thought the papers would be great get well cards! Caught a bug? that kind of thing. So I made some of those themed cards.

Patterned paper & stickers: Karen Foster; cardstock: DCWV;

This card the red strip is printed, loving reverse printing, and really liking this card too! As you can tell I'm also in the cutting out paper designs phase again too!

**Edited: Sorry had to remove, being published! **

Patterned paper: Karen Foster; cardstock: DCWV;

Patterned paper & stickers: Karen Foster; cardstock: DCWV;

The second lot of product was the flower/gardening themed papers. Strangely I actually struggled more with these than the bugs papers. That just goes to show you NEVER KNOW which product you'll end up liking more! Here are some simple cards with the flower paper.

Patterned paper: Karen Foster; cardstock: DCWV; White Sharpie; brads: Joanns; alpha from stash (old)

Patterned paper & stickers: Karen Foster; cardstock & rub-on: DCWV; ribbon: May Arts

Patterned paper & stickers: Karen Foster; cardstock: DCWV; Stamp: Studio G; ribbon: offray; eyelets: boxer: pens

Patterned paper & stickers: Karen Foster; cardstock + rub-ons: DCWV; Conch: can't remember the manufacturer they were a RAK; stamp: Studio G

I have a few other idea's for the garden papers, just need a few more days, so look out for more Karen Foster from me! If you want to see what the rest of the TTS design team created check out the Karen Foster sponsor gallery.

Off to watch a movie with Bob then hopefully continue sorting out the room switch! Nearly done! Whoohooo!

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