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Thursday, July 12, 2007

2 Years Ago Today...WOW!

(WARNING: Shameless Lucy brag photos follow!)

I can't believe that Lucy turned two today! It's almost impossible to think that there was life before Lucy was with us, but it just doesn't seem like she's already been here for two whole years. Here are a few choice photos of my sweet little ham:

Here is the only kid in town who, apparently, wouldn't mind charcoal in her stocking. Lucy was trying to hide that she had found the charcoal & was smearing it on herself. I was laughing so hard that I just had to take a picture instead of scolding her or chasing her around in circles in the backyard! Hee hee! I think someday I may be able to properly embarass her...!


Here's my dress-up girl. She's so funny in her choices...a bunny rabbit hat, a shiny skirt, and Momma's shoes make for one gorgeous girl, huh?

Here she is today as an official two-year old! We went to McDonald's with Grace & Danny as a special treat for dinner. Grace & Lucy played for nearly two hours before we could convince them it was time to go home.

This is what happens when you want to mount your new stamps, but your child needs to be distracted...hand her some of your rubber scraps for homemade stickers! Everyone wins!


































Here's another princess shot...this time she was using the already-assembled dress-up outfit, so she looks like a princess ought to in a Disney tale. Isn't she just about the cutest princess ever?





Saturday, July 7, 2007

Free Stamping Stuff Goes to...



Jenifer & Alex! My hostess appreciation/new catalog unveiling was a great success thanks to all who attended! Jen won the booking prize of a new package of In Color assorted cardstock (8 1/2 X 11) & Alex won the scavenger hunt and $25 gift certificate! Congratulations, girls! btw...Alex tied with Gretchen, Heidi, and Aileen, but my husband was my lovely assistant & drew Alex's name from a random drawing.

I wanted to make sure everyone saw the outcome & that it didn't get lost in the HUGE list of stamps for sale below! I swear that I sat and formatted (for a looooooooong time!) columns, but Blogspot doesn't like that kind of thing in their blogs, apparently! Sorry for the smooshed list!

Retired Stampin' Up Stamp Sets That NEED New Homes

Okay, I'll admit it! I'm a hoarder! I love every single stamp set that I've ever bought...why else would I buy them, right? But as a demo, I can only demo what's current, so I have to clean things up a bit to make room for what I can demonstrate in parties & classes. Can I just blush now about how long this list is? And I'll confess that I've got a TON of other retired sets that I'm just too emotionally attached to to sell right now...hee hee! I love stamping!!! ...and I'm not telling how many are still in my stash still :)

The following is the list of stamp sets that are searching for loving homes; I will post a separate blog post with wheels & any accessories that I can bear to part with :) Happy shopping! If you live close enough to pick them up, there's no shipping. If you'd like them mailed, I can priority them to you for $4.60 for the first set & we'll work it out if you'd like to adopt more than that. I do accept Paypal as well as cash, checks, and credit cards, so shop away! (One last note: some sets have a ? in the original price category because I couldn't remember which catty they were last in, so I used consistent pricing with the other sets.)

Email or post in the comment box to reserve your stamps...it's first come, first served!



If you make it to the bottom to read this (wink! wink!) & would like a photo of anything, please drop me an email!

Friday, July 6, 2007

Love at first bite!

Or kiss? Lucy loves to kiss everyone, especially Joey, but Joey just wants to clamp down on her! He gets such a kick out of his sister in everything that she does near him.
Today the kids & I were in the backyard a lot again...the temperature today was finally normal & not sweltering. Hurray!!! Our poor yard that is showing in these photos looks like we live in a desert, but just focus on the cute kids & you won't even notice the brown, dead stuff under their tushies!
Here's a favorite activity for Miss Lucy...peek-a-boo, Joey! This form is fun for everyone since Lucy is busy using up some of her huge reserves of excess energy while entertaining Joey & anyone else who's within sight. She uses her Big Climber to peek through from the top, bottom, and middle holes and shouts, "Boo!" at Joey. He giggles & gets so excited that she just has to do it again...and again..and again.
Joey is soooooooo close to crawling. If he'd just get that other leg into position & push off a bit, he'd be *gone* in an instant! He's a pretty good sport about it, though. He's really mostly excited about cruising along the couches & tables...walking is really where it's at according to Joey!
And I just had to close with a picture of my little beauty queen up close & personal...I was lying down in the grass to take photos from a different perspective & she needed to copycat me on the ground. She's such my little helper in EVERYTHING that I do! :)

Sunday, June 24, 2007

New Stamps & accessories = Prolific Stamping!

The sample above was made with the new Three for You punchbox. I used the slot punch to make the scallops across the bottom & then punched the flowers across it. The colors I used were the new Purely Pomegranate & River Rock along with good ole Old Olive. I'm lovin' those colors as you'll soon see!
Here's a gate fold card made with the new Baroque Motifs set...ooh la la! I like this set with that little flower stamped randomly around over the swirls. Very easy & quick! Very me! The colors used were Groovy Guava, Soft Sky, and Blue Bayou with some River Rock cardstock. Notice that blingy brad? Oh yeah! Rhinestone brad assortments!!
Here starts the super quick & easy cards! This one used Throughout the Year to make a quick focal point. I layered it onto Wild Wasabi (I just like saying that name while I use it...kinda adds flavor to my project! Picture Emeril saying "kick it up a notch" but me saying "Wild Wasabi!") and then onto Purely Pomegranate.
Same set...different look...equally as easy! I really found myself liking these images since they don't require any kind of serious coloring & they're cute to boot! These used the polka dots from the new punchbox as well as Blue Bayou & Soft Sky/Groovy Guava & Purely Pomegranate for the coloring & layering.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...another easy card with *that* set? Told you I couldn't stop! Same colors as the baby card but for the recent graduates in my life. I think this set will be one of my new faves!





I hope all my simply layouts will inspire some serious creativity in your stamproom, too! I made NINE cards in 2 hours! I was so excited about the new stuff that I had gotten last night that I needed to dirty some of that pristine rubber! Last night didn't work since I sat & mounted stamps & gazed lovingly upon my new brads/papers...





I can't help but also include some super cute pictures of the kids taken recently...Joey's finally into eating. And Lucy now has enough hair to do funny things with it! Enjoy!


Looking at this sweet & oh-so-deliciously fat little face, you'd never guess he hadn't been eating heartily for a long while! What a little darling in his new booster seat!






...and here's my favorite camera ham! Lucy had pigtails for the first time in this photo from Father's Day.

Signing off for now...I'll try not to be such an absentee from my blog!!!!!

Friday, May 25, 2007

Bodacious Bodega Babies

Gene played hookie on Wednesday for the first time in two years! We took advantage of having him around & headed to the beach as a family! I hadn't been to Bodega Bay in almost 3 years & it had been even longer for Gene, so off we went...

Lucy, always the water baby, LOVED every moment of the trip! We actually set up our stuff at the mouth of Salmon Creek, so she could run into and out of the water at will as well as get sandy as she wished. It was a great spot since we didn't have any waves to speak of nor did we have the frigid water from the ocean. In fact, the water was so shallow where we were that the water was warm!

Lucy loved having her daddy to play with her all day long...they played hide and seek around the rocks!

Here's the Joey cabana that I set up to keep the poor little guy from being cooked by the noontime rays. It's amazing what you can do with beach chairs & towels!
...and it was big enough for Lucy to sneak in for a bit of a break, too!
King of the rock & his princess!

I loved watching the two of them in the water & on the beach all day...hopefully we'll be able to repeat this kind of trip a couple of times this summer! Even if we don't travel all the way to Bodega Bay, there are bunches of beaches to see!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Altered Tin Tutorial

Alright...I thought I'd try my hand at writing a tutorial to share with everyone. If this one gets a few positive comments, I may just post some more tutorials with Pearl Ex, etc. So let me know what you think!





This is the tin before I started.
It was actually a watch tin when I bought a watch long ago from Ross.













Here you can see that I cut a strip of cardstock from the hostess Simply Scrappin' kit...I love that stripy print!


Then I outlined all the edges of the backside with Sticky Strip. When I peel Sticky Strip from a bigger piece like this one, I peel a bit at a time so that the whole strip of cardstock doesn't stick to all the treasures that are sitting on my stamping desk's surface!













At this point, I added Sticky Strip around the top of the box & covered the lid with a square of Chocolate Chip cardstock (also Sticky Stripped). I overlapped two strips of Sticky Strip on the curved edge of the lid so that every bit of the pink box could be covered by...something...























Of course, my choice would be glitzy! So I dipped the edges into the earthtone bead assortment and then covered that with Dazzling Diamonds glitter so that the "bald" spots that the beads didn't stick to would be covered & not catch any dust bunnies instead. ;)

















To really finish the box, I needed to decorate the top, so I decided to do a modified Poppin' Pastels technique on the Chocolate Chip cardstock to match the colors in the stripes below it. I stamped with Whisper White craft ink using the flower image & then sponge daubered Tempting Turquoise pastel over it. The white allows the turquoise to be light even though it's on a very dark background. Tah dah! Now it just needs filling...!

Monday, May 7, 2007

Weekend fun for everyone!

Gene took Saturday night off of delivery (& switched to Sunday this weekend) to take all of us to the Oakland Zoo for the day. We had a BLAST! Lucy was in her element watching monkeys, chasing goats, and cawing at birds all day! Above you can see Gene & Lucy at the monkey exhibit.

Down below is Gene with Joey trying to catch up to Lucy (& me!) as she ran across the enclosure to get the goat who was trying to eat in peace.
...until Lucy got to him, that is! Doesn't it look like they're having a conversation about the whole thing?
In the children's section, there are these cute lilypads that are really just an excuse to fall into the water, I think. Lucy LOVED them, of course! She made Daddy go over them three times with her! ...and she only had one foot that found its way into the water!
Riding on Gene's shoulders was Lucy's favorite place if she wasn't running pel mel to the next exhibit to show us the cool animals!
The giraffes were her favorite exhibit, I think, by far because they had the strange African birds with them along with a few other animals. Lucy really didn't want to leave the fence to go on, so she was super happy when we had to double-back & stop by the giraffes again!

Here's the proof that I was there...this isn't a great shot, but it's the only one with me & the kids, so I'll be happy with what I get! :)
Not only did Gene take us through the zoo, but he also paid for us to go on the train ride! I haven't done that in years since we went to the Cleveland zoo while on our honeymoon! Lucy & Joey LOVED the choo-choo ride & the lion statue afterward!
Then, off we went to Jack London Square where Lucy proceeded to throw a fit in the middle of Barnes & Noble's because we wouldn't read every last book that they had in the children's department...geez! What were *we* thinking? Hee hee! So out to the fountain we went to lighten her mood. Lucy is a water baby, so this was great...until we needed to leave the water behind!
...and last, but not least, we stopped for dinner in Chinatown at our favorite restaurant! Below is a picture of Joey playing with his chopstick & having a ball! He almost looks like he's already eaten everything on the menu & he's ready for the next course...gotta love those chubby rolls!


Thursday, May 3, 2007

New Stamping Stuff!

I was soooooo excited to get some NEW PAPER (!) on Tuesday that I wasted no time at all in using it! I did the sample above using the hostess set Basket Full of Fun along with the Palette o'Prints promotion paper...you can buy a pack for every $35 order & I foresee myself stocking up on a few of these little stacks of yummy colored papers during May!
Here's one with one of my old friends, Mini Mates. I was sad to see it on the retiring list that was released Tuesday; even though I expected it to go this year, I still will miss demo'ing with it! So I had to break it out & use it some more before it's relegated to a shelf for special occasion usage. I used the poppin' Pearl Ex technique on a piece of chipboard & on the Whisper White cardstock behind it. It's ever so shiny in person!!
Here's another Palette o'Prints goody package! I used my fun Designer Label punch for the tag & stamped with A Greeting for All Reasons, which is also soon to go bye-bye from the catalog...
Have you had your V8 today? This card obviously missed out on the rotate feature in my photo editing program, so crane a bit & admire it! More Palette o'Prints stuff used with my All About U set...I had gotten the set last spring, but it's been just sitting neglected for some unknown reason. Poor, poor stamps! I think I'm going to be using this one a lot VERY soon! It's so cute...I have no idea how it managed to offend me so badly to be forgotten this long, but we'll just have to make up for lost time. :)
...and last but not least...admire the pre-stamped Target $ Spot clock that I found last week. I WILL NOT HANG THIS THING ON MY WALL! ...yet... However, if you keep checking back, I'll show what kind of clock this monkey can turn into that I *will* hang on my wall! :)