Seasons and Seafood

Oooo, I just know the season of lobster rolls is coming to an end!  I LOVE LOBSTER.  On a roll, in a shell, in mac 'n cheese, as a potato skin topping, in chowder- you name it and I'll eat it. :)  Now I must brace myself to fall back on my love of shrimp.  With cocktail sauce.  The kind with TONS of horseradish sauce.  Ya know so you have that sinus reaction a few seconds after eating it.  Some folks can't get enough jalapenos, me I'll stick to horseradish sauce.  And pepto bismal tablets.  LOL!

I've seen the leaves changing already here in New England.  They are already much prettier than I had hoped given the drought this winter & summer.  I feel bad for folks on leaf peeping trips this year though.  The trees put on a much more glorious fashion show when they have had lots of water. 

I've been cleaning again- or still?- anyway, this are bits 'n pieces from my other projects.  The color combo makes me think of summer and of fall which seems very appropriate for a day like today.  Sunny, a little warm, and a crisp breeze to remind you of the changing season.  There are times when I'm sad for the change of the season, but then I think "would I enjoy them as much if they never changed?"

What do you like best about fall?  What do you like least? (I bet it is raking!)

Deets (kinda):
Stamp- Lori's Lil' Shrimp/Fred Mullet
Card Base- Kraft/Memory Box
Zigzag paper- White Bread (back side)/Basic Grey
Ink- Twinkling H2O's(applied directly to the stamp)

Happy New Year to all my friends celebrating Rosh Hashanah!  May you all have a sweet and wonderful New Year!

Ladybug, ladybug & Pictures

Well I think I probably am making the whole uploading thing a longer process than it needs to be.  For now though the steps I am taking are keeping me from having to pay to upload my pics. *sigh of relief*  Tell me again how technology is saving me time. LOL!

This little lady was colored at the last Craft In at my LSS.  She's so stinkin' cheerful I can't help but smile looking at her!  Yeah I guess that wasn't my most humble statement huh?  Seriously though- look at her!  How can you not smile?

Okay so I might be a little punchy right now.  My students took the first part of the 26 page standardized test they have to undergo this spring and I peeked at their progress.  A bunch of them ROCKED the first part!!!!  I am absolutely giddy for them.  They have worked so hard this year and they were all so nervous.  We've been practicing for 3 weeks so they wouldn't have butterflies and it looks like it has paid off.  I told them all that I can't wait to get the results to share with them and their parents.  It's so exciting to see all that hard work come to fruition for these kiddos.  They usually feel kinda down on themselves 'cause school is so hard for them.  It's going to be so wonderful for them to feel that the hard work has made a difference!  Keep your fingers crossed for the 2nd half to go as well! :)

Quick Card

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A quick check-in to let you know I am still here!  I have been swamped with a new class and school, but the good news is that I am on break this week!!!  Lots of goodies to post from my vaca day of crafting.

I pulled out two sets of Crate Paper chipboard stickers I had gathering dust and was determined to make a few things to use them up.  Along with my New Years Resolution to not get stressed about Christmas cards, I've another one to use up more of my chipboard.

 Along with about 6 cards, I made a bunch of cool stuff with the chipboard and oodles of rolled roses I got obsessed with making yesterday.  Stay tuned 'cause I promise more is coming this week! :)

Rainy Day- No Snow Yet

It seemed like a good time to post something "not Christmas".   :)  I'm going to another tag swap tonight with some pals at my LSS.  It should be an awesome night cause we haven't all gotten together since the summer.  With that thought comes this color palette...

My friend Lisa would be so proud of all the paper piecing I have done lately!  Between the car tags and the other Get Well cards I'm a paper piecing fool! LOL!  I do adore the effect, but not so much the work.

So it is Tuesday and there is a challenge/tut from the "blue team gals" over at Top Tip Tuesday!  The theme this week is snowflakes.  I still have rain- but we are due for some white stuff on Thursday.  I LOVE snow- I know not something most folks say.  Snow to me is magical.  Think about it... White crystals that fall to the ground and stick to things but melt in your hand.  It really is a cool/magical/amazing event that millions of people in certain parts of the world dream about but never see in their lifetime.  Magic!

Silver, White, and...

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It's TUESDAY and it has been quite a while since I have been able to join my teamies in sharing a Top Tip Tuesday Challenge.  Gosh I am glad November is over.  I always forget just how crazy it is with conferences and Thanksgiving- then top it off this year with the power outage from the storm U-G-H!  Can't complain too much though.  My DH's family helped deck our halls this weekend (the house looks A-Maz-Ing) and I have only one more conference (first time in 10 years that I will be done as early as Dec 7th!!!!- hope I didn't just jinx myself!)  Anywho- on to the challenge!!!

This week your challenge is a color challenge.  Silver, white, and a hint of... well you get to choose your color hint.  I dug out a wicked old kit club set (seriously I think it is from Dec 09) and it had silver paper.  Yahooey!  I made a ton of stuff yesterday, these tags fit the bill though. :)

My hint has two colors ice aqua and poinsettia red.  Luscious!!!  Makes me think of a fancy cocktail party from the 40's and 50's.  I couldn't help adding a little more bling with the silver tinsel for tag ties. :)

So you should totally head over to TTT and join the fun!  Deneen has a fabulous ornament malking tutorial and you could win a $10 GC to Inky Impressions or 3 free digis from Digital Delights.

Happy Tuesday!

Hiya Rudy

Today the family is coming over to help get the house decorated for Christmas.  No I'm not one of those crazy Christmas-in-your-face folks.  I love Halloween more than Christmas, but since family is in town, we have a wonderful long weekend, and we host DH's work peeps holiday party the first Sunday in December- we could use all the help to decorate we can get. :)

Anywho, I thought I'd share a mini book I made when we lost power a couple weeks ago.  Great thing about crafting, most things can be crafted made without power. :)  I'm on a big red, white, and kraft kick this year.

'Cause this is a mini book (4" X 4"), some of the pages have added pockets for doubled siding pictures or extra space for writing down those memories.  This one already went home with one of my coworkers. :)  She wants to put pictures in of her lil' boy's first Christmas.

I hope she brings it in with pictures so I can see what it looks like filled. :)

Making mini books are relaxing for me, but I don't often get to see what they look like with all the pictures in them. :(

Yup I really have posted shots of all the innards.  Thanks to you for looking/reading this uber long post!  I really should add some kinda "Where's Waldo" prize announcement in one of these. LOL!

Well this is an embarrassing shot.  Paper lint on the velvet paper!  Hopefully I took care of that before my coworker bought this album!!

You'd think with my recent red and white obsession I would be a huge peppermint fan. Nope, not really.  DH and DSIL are big peppermint ice cream fiends though. :)

The very last page has a fun flap.  Again, since this is a mini having flaps and tags give just a little more space for journal writing or pictures.  The "extra" space also adds a fun surprise element too. :)

Hope you enjoyed this little book and stop by tomorrow to see what/where I am guest blogging!!!!! :)

Red Tagsday

Well between Irene and the start of school the past several days really got away from me!  Teacher Day was yesterday and it was great to see folks and get the ball rolling for the year, but Irene really walloped the town I work in so they decided to call off school for today. :(   I thought I'd share a few more tags I made from this set of goodies like the tags I made here.

These tags were made using dies from PTI and Sizzix.  You can't tell much from the photo, but the red base is stamped in red with BG clear Christmas stamps.  Then I had fun with a few embellies. :)

The tag base on this little fellas was from ready-made office supply tags.  The scallop shapes were made using a punch and the image/sentiment is PTI.  The tags looked a little plain so I Stickled the hat and wing on each bird- but still they needed somethin'!  DH thought I should add some buttons like the other birdie tags.  He's so good!  The buttons are clear and the flowers 'n twine give them even more umph don'cha think?

So are you getting ready for Christmas yet?  No?  How 'bout when I tell you that there are 116 days 'til the big day?  Are you itchin' yet?  :)

Don't forget since it's Tuesday to head over to Top Tip Tuesday and join in the Shabby Chic challenge fun!  Maybe you could make a few shabby chic paper crafts to use as gifts, cards, or tags and get a head start this year! :)

Christmas Wednesday

I figured after my recent bombardment of Christmas postings I would limit the next few to Wednesday posts. :)  This yummy shot is from the peppermint cake balls that I made for last Thanksgiving/Black Friday festivities.  They are the inspiration (kinda) for these tags. :)

Here was the starting point (see my tootsies at the edge of the pic? LOL).  I gathered all my red, white, red/white punched or die cut shapes, tags, and some other whatnot that struck me.

 These were made using dies from PTI and a couple Marvy punches.  My first tags and I have already veered away from just a red/white scheme!  LOL :)

After the tags were all assembled they still looked a little plain. :(  A little Stickles to the rescue!!!  Each mini tag had snowflakes.  All the snowflake centers got a dot of sparkle to give some umph to the tag as a whole.  Whatcha think?

There are more to come, but the rains came before I could get some good pictures taken.  Hopefully the rest will have their glam shots taken soon so they can make their web debut.  :)

I've gotten my glitter on here:
It's a Very Cherry World- Rednesday 
Savvy Southern Style- Wow Us Wednesday
ABC Christmas- Q is for Quote
Totally Papercrafts- Christmas in August
Stampin for the Weekend- Holidays

 

Colorful Thanks

Since I couldn't make it to Stamp-a-Faire on the 23rd Suzanne, over at The Card Yard, picked up my goodie bag for me.  She stopped by my favorite store, Ink About It, to give it to me and all I can say is EEEK!  What a boatload of goodness!

PTI gave us 3 stamp sets!  One of the sets had this great sentiment and it was perfect using with some die-cuts I had leftover from other projects.

The various dies used come from PTI and MFT and the card base is a trimmed down Memory Box card.  A summer goal of mine is to get a bunch of thank you cards made to send to the families of my students.  A teacher can never have enough thank you cards on hand! :)

I Heart Seafood!

Happy Flag Day in the USA and it's Top Tip Tuesday Time!  We have some great new TTT Team members that we are debuting today!  If you want to skip to fun TTT stuff scroll down to 'til you see the ***.  If you'd like to see what inspired my creation, start here. :)

At the end of April I was starting to get that summertime bug.  We are fortunate to have family up in Maine and a summer seasonal property that we rent out that opens up there in May.  Luckily for me, I came across the most lovely Etsy shoppe Three Sisters Harvest and she had just the ticket to get me ready!  My package came in such sweet wrapping, my icky picture doesn't do it justice- Gigi tied each package so beautifully with shells for bows!!!

Each one of the packages had a HUGE (perfect for the beach IMHO) canvas bag with a lobster, but each one has a different color shell.  I kept one and sent the others to my DMIL and DSIL for us to all use when we get together for our family reunion up in ME this August.  I, of course, started using mine for a school bag as soon as I got it. LOL!  The best part- I convo'd Gigi on Saturday, she came up with this design (based off this bag she had made), made all of them, and I had them in my hot little hands by the following Saturday.  She's AMAZING!!!
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I used Gigi's bags as inspiration...

to create this card!

 Okay so it's a shrimp, not a full-fledged lobster, but how fun is this?!? :)

It's a Fred Mullet shrimp stamp that I "inked" with Twinkling H2O's.  It took a few tries before I had quite the consistency of H2O's that I was looking for, but this is such a fun technique to try!  The flourish stamp was meant to kinda mimic waves (I know, a bit of a stretch).  

So to celebrate our new DT members over at TTT we are hosting an Anything Goes Challenge!!!!!  You totally have to join in the fun!  You could win goodies from Robyns Fetish (they are offering our lucky winner 4 stamps of their choice) or from Stitchy Bear Stamps  (1 prize of a $10 voucher).  Come on over and show us whatcha got.  Pretty pleeeeeaaaaaassssseeeee! :)

Also, don't forget to join in the fun with my blog candy----Become a follower and leave a comment in order to win okay?!?!

Sweetness!

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So I finally got some free time this week to play in my studio!  Yippee!  I've had this stamp for a couple of weeks and it's been killing me that I've had other things I needed to finish before this little darling could get inked. :P

This card went in a COMPLETELY different direction than my original concept, and frankly I'm thrilled. :)  I had thought of going all red, green, yellow, farmy, picnicy (ala this) but the pink really ended up speaking to me so much more.

The envie wanted some ink too, so of course I obliged. LOL!  Naked envies are good sometimes, but you have to admit a decorated envelope does bring many smile. Ahhhh...

This Unity stamp set comes with this fun sentiment too and how cool is that?!?!  The papers are a mix of Basic Grey, Echo Park, and Crate Paper.  I just adore this combination!!!!  Strawberries for dessert sounds good right now. ;)

I've cut up a bowl of strawberries, pulled up a chair and posted my sweets here:


Stamp and Create- Summer
Paper Pretties- Summer
A Spoon Full of Sugar- Summer Colors
Moxie Fab World- Tuesday Trigger (the colors and the sweet factor were inspiration)