Happy César Chávez Day!

Thanks to César Chávez, I have the day off! Woo!

Read about César and why we celebrate him.

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I have seasonal allergies and this season has been espically bad for me. One of the many things I am allergic to is eucalyptus. It just so happens that there are about 10 zillion eucalyptus trees at work. In fact, there is a gove of them on campus. So it's not been a fun time. Even when I'm in the office, I sneeze and my eyes itch horribly. The shuttle just happens to let us off at the eucalyptus grove, so I end up having to walk thru it, and of course, I step all over the leaves, so then it's on the bottom of my shoes. I tried to wash the bottom of my shoes one day and that was a big mistake. It was like eucalyptus vapor all over the place. It also got on my hands. The floral hand soap in the ladies room didn't help matters. Oh, that was an awful day.

But today I'm at home. No eucalyptus here. However, an hour ago the gardener for the people next door showed up and cut their grass and then used the leaf blower to clean up. So the smell of cut grass sent me over the edge. I finally had to take a Clarition. I'm not supposed to take them, but I just can't take another day of this. Hopefully it will kick in soon.

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Have a good weekend!

Tiny Glitch

I knew the second I saw these alphabet stamps that I'd love them. I'm starting a new card for the contest and I'm using them. The category is creative use of alphabet stamps.



I've been holding off on this card because I wasn't sure what the heck I'd do that was creative outside "happy birthday" or "thinking of you". Then it came to me. A poem! I thought about it long and hard and finally came up with doing a winter themed card with a snowflake or general winter poem on the front. Imagine the length of time it took searching for the perfect poem. It could not be too long....in fact, the shorter the better, and it had to fit the winter or snowflake theme. I finally found a poem....it's just what I was looking for.

Tiny glitch tho.

At the bottom of the site where I found it, there is a notice that says "all contents and graphics located on this site should not be removed. This is NOT a public domain". It's on some elementry school site. They posted some of the kids poems and it came up in my Google search. So, question is, if I use this poem and someone happens to see it....like the mother of the kid that wrote the poem, you think they will get mad? I don't think the notice is as good as a copyright....I don't think. And it's not like I'm trying to pass the poem off as mine or anything, so I think I'll be fine. I'll even note that on the back of the card, that the poem isn't written by me. That should be sufficient, wouldn't you think? I think so....

Are you sick of hearing about the contest yet? Don't worry...it will be over soon.

Today it's cool and overcast. My perfect day. It looks like it could almost rain, tho it isn't in the forcast.

This reminds me of a ritual I had when it rained. This was long ago....like when I was 13 or 14.

My Mom had, well, still has, a cement laundry tub in the garage that was pretty deep and wide. When it rained and was really cold, I'd find a rock and put it in the bottom of the sink and let hot water trickle out and hit the rock causing the hot water to splater all over the inside of the sink. I'd put my hands and arms in the sink so they would get little splatters of hot water....man, I'd get goosebumps and chills! I don't know what it is about that, but I will always remember doing it. I just loved that chilling experience. The reverse of that did the same thing. I'd put the garge door up and let the cold rain sprinkle on my bare feet. It's the hot vs. cold is what I like. Hot water, cold hands......warm feet, cold rain. I need to do that again the next time it rains.

Teenagers!

Abby in going thru her teenager stage. Oh joy.

Nothing I do is right. I try to feed her something and she turns her nose up at it. I can almost hear her saying. "Yuck! I don't eat that!". I pick her up to kiss her and she squirms and wants me to put her down. I can remember back when she was a baby and she'd lay across my neck and sleep while I watched TV. Now it's not cool to bond with the parents. Or parent, I should say. She's just as lovey dovey with Greg as she always has been. But with me....little miss attitude with her back turned and arms crossed.

*sighs*

Enough of that.

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Awhile ago I reported that I have the new Cricut paper cutter. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Time would tell and the verdict is in. I LOVE it! Love, lOvE, LoVe it! Pretty happy Greg convinced me to order it. I have been thinking up new cards to make with it everyday. So cool. It was expensive and the font cartridges for it are expensive, but I'm still happy. So far I have 3 cartridges (two came with it) and that's plenty. There are other ones I want, but I can ask for those for my birthday and Christmas.

Want to see what't I've been making with it?

Thought you'd never ask.

Here are the cards I've made so far for that card contest.

All my cards so far

This one is creative use of a background stamp. All the layers are stamped with the same background stamp, but with different methods. The card (bottom layer) is stamped with a watermark ink, the vellum sheet is stamped and embossed with rainbow glitter powder, the white layer is stamped with regular pink ink, and the top layer is stamped with clear ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. Flower and ribbon added for interest. Not the most spectacular card, but you have to remember the category is creative use of a background stamp, so I think I've done that in this case.
Pink Card

This one is creative use of a sentiment stamp....."sweet dreams grow in my garden". Again, not spectacular, but it fits the bill. Black card with natural color paper. Sunflowr image stamped first in orange and yellows and then the second image stamped on top with black ink and embossed (that's why it's shiney). Stamped sentiment and added back ribbon.
Sunflower Card


This one is creative use of a foam stamp. The big lady bugs on left were made with a foam stamp. Man, pain in the butt! The foam stamps will not take ink very well, so I used paint. Course, then they get slippery and the paint does not leave a finely stamped edge. But whatever, I made six of these cards and finally stopped trying to make them turn out perfect. The nature of the foam stamp does not allow for perfection and they know that. I cut lady bug paper, added a velum sheet over that and added the ribbons. NOW.....now is where it got fun! The word "thanks" is cut with my Cricut machine! Weee!! I cut the word out of two different colors of red paper and them made like a shadow effect and glued them together. Isn't that cool? It's my favorite part of the card!!
Lady Bug Card

So that's my one and only project that I have a picture of using the paper cutter. Since the contest is mostly about stamping, the use of the cutter does not come into play very much. But my everyday cards get the paper cutter treatment :)

Ok, enough of this, too. I'm sure most of you stopped reading when you got to the thrilling description of the sunflower card anyway! Happy weekend to those of you who finished reading this! ;-)

Sunday Greg and I went to Sea World. It was very overcast and dark, but that's actually good. I really hate going to theme parks when it's hot. It was not crowded at all, so that was nice, too. I took about 100 flower pictures and about 4 fish pictures.

*laughs*

What can I say....I like flowers better than sealife.

This reminds me of when we were at the zoo last year and we were looking at the zebras and there was one right at the fence....but I'm taking pictures of the tree that was just outside their enclosure. Greg was just shaking his head at me. There is a zerba 10 feet from you and you are taking pictures of a tree?

*shrugs*

The fence was ugly so it would have been a bad picture in my eyes. See, I look at everything in a photo. If there is a great sunset but there are power lines in the photo, it ruins it for me....not a good photo no matter how good the sunset is. So I could have taken a dozen shots of the zebra, but I would have deleted them all because of that ugly fence.

So anyway, you can check out my flower pictures :)

“Patience cures many an old complaint” - Irish Proverb

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY!

Laura Jr. turns 21 today :) Cheers!

Abby turns ONE today!

Here are photos of her month to month since she became ours. She was five weeks in the first photo. That's the very first photo of her. When I took it, I didn't think we were going to keep her. I took it just so I could remember what she looked like :)

So happy birthday to my precious Abby! =^..^=

April '06


May '06


June '06


July '06


August '06


September '06


October '06


November '06


December '06


January '07


February '07


March '07


To see *a lot* more pictures of her, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/photokitten/sets/155567/

Made You Laugh!

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5

The time change has done me in. I don't think it has ever affected me like this before, but I just am so tired all day long! Last night I could hardly stay awake while watching TV. Hopefully I'll start to adjust soon.

Cool links for the day:

Baby panda sneezes

Cool Mixers

Creative photo

That's it for today!

*Update to this post*

Here are links to the two cards I have made:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/420050777_8093dd0645_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/420050775_aeb2a67795_b.jpg

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On the brown one, that is the one I had to use the "rock & roll" technique on. What you do is stamp an image, then stamp the same image on top of it in a contrasting color. You have to roll only the edge of the stamp over the top of the first stamped image. If you look close, you'll see the center of the face is green and the outer edges are brown. I stamped about a hundred of those green and brown faces and finally I got one that worked. It's soooo hard to get the second stamped image to line up exactly. Right now, I never want to see that face stamp again. So glad I'm done with that one.

So what do you guys think so far? I need feedback on this.

A few posts ago I talked about the card contest I want to take part in. Well, I'm really not too sure about it now. Time is getting away from me and I only have the cat card made. I forgot to take a picture of it, so I can't post it. It turned out ok, but not mind blowing. I've started reading some paper crafting blogs, and I tell you what, there are so really talented people out there. I look at their card projects and just think there is no way I will win if people like them are sending things in. I've got about 5 more cards to make and I'm thinking about just saying forget it. Why put the time in if I feel like nothing will come of it?

But then.....then I remember Better Homes & Gardens 1996. I took first place in their recipe contest and won $400 bucks. First place! So what the heck....if the little scone recipe I conjured up can win, then maybe my little cat card can, too.

Sometimes it's just hard to stay positive....but I'll try.

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In other news, Abby is turning 1 on Friday! I know most people will roll their eyes at this, but I'm having a mini birthday party for her. I'm going to make a tuna cupcake with pink salmon icing for her. Spoiled, I know. But hey, she's just a cat so if I can spoil her, then why not? And I love her and she brings joy to me so a little tuna cupcake isn't that big of a deal :)

Estate Sales & Picture Takin'

Yesterday Laura and I went estate sailing today. I bought about 10 things and she bought nothing. I got some mini baking tins, a stuffed animal (sheep), some old sheet music to use for making cards, Easter decorations...and, I think that's it. The sheep is really cute, but I may come to reget that...it might be in the Goodwill bag by the end of the year. Everything else will be put to good use.

Then we went to lunch and came back to my house where we set up to take pictures of our hands. Yes....hands. I saw a book cover I really liked, bought her the book for Christmas, then got the idea to take a photo like that book cover. So we set up my tripod and I got my handy dandy remote to snap pictures and we posed. Seemed like we changed sweaters 20 times, but it was really only 5 times. The first day it was really warm and we are in turtleneck sweaters. Each time we changed, we hard to get back into position, smooth out our sleeves and make sure we were centered. Took about an hour or so to get all the pitcures taken. I had wanted to keep us in the same colors, but the very last shot she put on purple and I put on green just for the heck of it. It ended up being my favorite of all of them. My second favorite is the pink, then the brown then the white and the black. We just blend in too much in the black.

Here you can see all of them. Which one do you like best?

Winter

Contest Junkie

I like to enter contests. I've never considered myself a competive person, but I do like contests.

So there is a card making contest in a magazine I subscribe to. I mean, how can I pass up a card making contest, right?

There are about 5 categories and I thought I'd better enter one card in each catagory to make my chances of winning better. Well, easier said than done. One catagory is called "rock & roll" tequinique. Oy! What a pain in the ass this one is. At this moment, I'm thinking a card for that catagory isn't going to happen. It's hard.

Another catagory is "stamped chipboard". Chipbord, by the way, is the cardboard stuff they make puzzles pieces out of. So far this is what I have:



Notice the chipbord is unpaited and not stamped on. The word MEOW has to have a stamped image on the letters....but as you can see, the letters are pretty narrow and my paw print stamp and the fish bones are a little too big. AND, thing is, these stamps are not even that big! So I have to find something pretty dang small to stamp on them that is cat worthy! I picked the cat theme because I don't want my card to be a baby card or a birthday card....that's toooo common. I'm trying to come up with stuff they might not get a lot of. And it has to be good because I am going up against people who make way better cards than I do....so being unique will be key....I think. So I have to figure something out. And I have to get some black photo corners to anchor the picture. *Sighs* Maybe I should just do a baby card...

Ugh....I tell you, being a contest junkie is brutal.