Why Yes, I Did Eat That!

SUCH an interesting day Thursday!

It started at 4 AM. I got up and prepped for a little live TV - crafting on YNN with the beautiful and talented Bonnie Padron on the morning show!

Click here to watch all the projects we made!

We were making fun and affordable Valentine crafts, and it was just a blast. Especially the outtakes at the end :).

We made these projects.. First - a candy heart topiary! As a person who has never liked the taste of these hearts, (disclaimer - I don't eat much candy) I thought this was an excellent use of an extraordinarily cute candy. I saw this when Lyssa linked it from Tiny Prints. I had a bunch of TEENY terra cotta pots that my sister and I had gotten somewhere - they came out to .15 apiece! Of course I bought them years ago and finally felt all smirky about how smart I was today when I got to use them. I used Apple Barrel acrylic paint to paint the pots blue, and I also painted a bamboo food skewer blue. I used a styrofoam ball to hot glue the hearts to, and also to put down into the pot. SO easy and cute!

Next up - the tried & true Hershey Bar treat slider! I LOVE this project - it's one of my favorite ways to package candy because the slide mechanism is sort of magical! Well, I guess I'm easily magicked. this slider uses some retired Ribbon Originals from Stampin' Up! along with some current lace trim, trinket crowns, and DSP. For a tutorial on these sliders, click here. 

Then, Bonnie had a GREAT idea to do a project that men could make for women. So I thought - okay - even a man can craft with a sharp knife and matches, right? I had seen this on Pinterest (again, thank you Lyssa!) and it inspired me. So I cut out matchboxes and covers from Crumb Cake cardstock using our Sizzix Matchbox die - perhaps my most beloved die. Then I just cut a heart with the Sizzix framelit to trace a heart on the backside of this pretty DSP. Then, you just cut half of the heart and fold it back like this....

 On the inside, I took some of the same paper and printed "you light up my life" on it and added two matches. Now what man wouldn't win Valentine gifter of the year if he gave this handmade gift with a candle?

I did have to say to the cameraman that this would be an AWESOME gift for a girl pyromaniac, but I couldn't really say that on the air. Tee hee....

But the real main event today was a dare from my friend Val.

I kind of have to let this video - Bamboo Charcoal Nut Experiment - speak for itself. Enjoy. I hope I'm still here tomorrow!

In Summary - Human Pretzels and Lee Greenwood

I finally downloaded my pics from my camera today from Leadership. A lot of my live coverage pics were with my Iphone, so I know they won't be hitting National Geographic any time soon. I thought I'd share a few you haven't seen yet that are a little better quality.

First, Manager's reception. This is only the second time I've been, and it was wonderful. Don't worry if you didn't come to Leadership or qualify for this or anything else. I've been having fun for ten years - this is just a bonus, really. So keep having fun - it pays off :).

We got to see some incredible acrobats from China. I held my breath nearly the whole time because I truly couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here are some of the crazy antics. (I'm translating from Chinese.)

Oh hi - please bring me a chair - this tower I built out of chairs isn't tall enough to scare these demonstrators!

 I am not scary enough standing on a wobbly tower of chairs, I must do a handstand.

WAIT - BRING ME MORE CHAIRS. THERE IS ONE PERSON WHO HASN'T FAINTED.

 

 Please, bend yourself into a pretzel so that I may balance teacups on your feet and chin. 

Next, we really had an adventure, thanks to our friend Sue Farrant. She happened to get us tickets to the filming of the Extreme Home Makeover Christmas Special honoring the military. It was an incredible experience. We got to meet the veterans on the show, many of whom had terrible injuries. Very humbling. To begin the event, we had the privilege of having Lee Greenwood sing God Bless the USA 15 feet from us.  I can't even really describe how amazing that was.

He was very kind and gracious, too. What an amazing moment.

Then we got an absolutely unbelievable performance from these Australian tenors and got to see Paige and Ty.

 Here we are teaching them how to say y'all.

 Roger Clements spoke and signed a few baseballs for the auction benefiting Helping a Hero.

 If you want to do something charitable, this is a great organization, so be sure and check out their site. These brave young men and women deserve a roof over their heads.

Then we were off to stamp and be stamped! Here are some of the cute projects from main stage. I think most of the ones I picked are from Shelli's demo.

I didn't even want this set until I saw this cutie.

 Um. Adorable. I love zig zags. I love this paper. I love these colors together. I love this. Is that clear?

 CUTE feathers made from leaves.

 Thank goodness the edgelits are on their way to me as we speak. I need to make exactly this card!

 Love the rhinestone on the typewriter key.

 Framelits make the 3D hearts on this CAS number - LOVE it.

I will be posting from CHA in a few days and then I'll finally get to come home and STAMP!! I miss it! :)

Loveyameanitbye.

A Trip Back to Second Grade

This glorious six day weekend, which sadly ends today, has made me revert to several really fun crafts from my days in elementary school, mostly thanks to Pinterest.

I've been doing crazy things with marbles, pipe cleaners and tissue paper. It sort of looks like a Martha Stewart bomb went off in here. Cleaning was NOT on my list of things I'd like to do on a holiday mini vacation. So I didn't.

Oh but speaking of Martha Stewart, I FINALLY ordered a pair of her fringe scissors. They have been out of stock FOREVER, and I have been dying to fringe some paper and fabric and felt for MONTHS. I wish they were here today.

Oh - did I ever tell you I TALKED to Martha on the PHONE? I called into her radio show before Thanksgiving and got right on to ask her my question! Seriously! And she was so gracious and nice to talk to. So if you are ever around to catch her show on XM - call in!

Now today while I was attempting to glue different shades of blue tissue paper onto Shimmery White cardstock with gel medium, I ran into the following problem:

Yes, that is my back, and that is a little Splotchy monkey on it. This makes everything a bit harder, if sweeter and funnier.

Anyway, you'd be amazed what you can accomplish walking around bent over at the waist with little 7 pound hot weight on your neck. Here's what I did.

Cool eh? I just cut up tissue (hope you're not getting a gift bag from me any time soon, because now all my tissue is raggedy) and covered a sheet of shimmery white cardstock with it. Then I hand cut the trees and added rhinestones. The greeting is from Forest Festivities.

I was inspired by this lovely pin via a Splitcoast member, RiverIsis:

As the sun goes down, I see that there are a few creatures that are taking this whole vacation thing even more seriously than I am...

Maybe I should take a nap.

Loveyameanitbye.

She Ain't Scary, She's My Witchie...

You know.

Like "he ain't heavy, he's my brother."

 Did words have totally different meanings in the 70's? Because when I think about lyrics like that or "it's the dawning of the age of Aquarius" or "I'd like to be, under the sea, in an Octopus' garden, in the shade" I really have to wonder.

It's probably what the people of the future will say about LOLcats and The Real Housewives of (fill in the blank). I mean, really - are we implying there are fake housewives somewhere?

You can really confuse yourself if you think about these things long enough.

What I'm NOT confused about is being SO completely stoked to be the Featured Fan on the CPS blog today!! I'd really like to be Tami Mayberry when I grow up. She is a bottomless well of inspiration!

The second I saw this week's sketch I knew who was going in that little circle too!!!

Ooooh, hoooo witchy woman, see how high she fli - i - ies... Sorry - I slipped back into the 70s lyrics. This sketch was CRYING out for my sweet little witchie, don't you think??

Stamps: Greeting Card Kids, Fabulous Phrases Ink: Memento Paper: Whisper White, Silver Glimmer, Prints Pack DSP Accessories: Black Scalloped Dotted Ribbon, Jewelry Tag Punch, 

ShinHan Touch Twin markers: PB75, PB73, YR33, YR23, GY47, GY48, Y45, BR97, CG0, CG2

Seriously - how cute is she??? And since I think there's nothing on EARTH more encouraging than a smile, I  used Cindy's sweet Hope You Can Cling To challenge for a little extra inspiration.

And I'm so excited that I've figured out how to capture the little glimmers on the glimmer paper in my pictures!! I hope there's glimmer paper in heaven.

What are your plans for the weekend? Have you seen our prize list for Hope You Can Cling To? If not, you may want to change your plans so they include a little stamping... :)


 

Handmade Careers

If I asked each of you crafty peeps what your dream job would be, I'm pretty sure you would all say something that involved your art, yes?

Me too. But anyone who has ever looked for a job knows how difficult this process is - the spam, the identity thieves masquerading as recruiters, the recruiters, for that matter. Forget about trying to find your "dream job" on Monster.com. Seriously. It's a needle in a haystack.

Nobody wants to be a needle in a haystack.
So I just decided that the best thing to do about all those people with dreams was to create a place where people could find those jobs and those companies they dreamed about. And nothing else. Period.

So I did.

It's a little place called Handmade Careers, and I kinda like it. Arty, crafty jobs in arty, crafty companies. And nothing else. Check it out. (Note - It's optimized for Firefox - you will not see everything in other browsers for a few days)
Oh, and after that, head on over to Project Reanimate for a video tutorial on a recycled mystery!


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The REAL Scott Baio

As you know, Monday was President's Day.

I graduated from high school in.. well, that doesn't really matter, now does it, you nosy beasts! :D

But, um, the 80s were a great time in my life. The music was lighthearted and sweet, MTV was still music and not all p-o-r-n and politics (hey - that would make a great band name) and I just remember that decade fondly.

Ronald Reagan was larger than life to all us children of the 80s. A lifeguard, a man who looked a would be assassin in the eye, the guy who stared down the Russians our parents terrified us with when we were little, and oh yeah, the guy who knocked the Berlin Wall down. I actually thought Ronald Reagan was my grandfather on my mom's side, because they reminded me of each other in their mythic-ness.

So on President's day, my friend Kim was giving our American presidents props on Twitter and we started tagging our posts #teamreagan. At one point, we all wished out loud that Scott Baio - another 80's icon (for all you youngsters), would join #teamreagan for President's Day. We could reunite Journey, Charles in Charge, the version 1.0 of Madonna who actually used to eat and not scare us. It would be great. A couple of 80s girls can dream, right?

Over the course of the evening, we repeatedly asked Scott to join our team before midnight, and in a President's Day Miracle - HE DID.
Look at that second tweet! EEEEEEEEEEEKKK!!! We feel complete, the Twitter #teamreagan.

I went and looked at his profile, and found out that he and his wife have done an incredible thing, born from a difficult situation they faced with their beautiful daughter. Please go look at their foundation's site, and share it. What a nice guy.

After I came down from my 80's buzz, I saw this week's tutorial on Splitcoast for Scherenschnitte, or German scissor cutting. The card samples were beautiful! The tutorial gives you two options for creating silhouettes, cutting, or stamping and filling in.

I chose the coloring method, and since I had just completed a product review on the Creative Stamping kit of the month - I used the beautiful little bird stamp that was included to get this...

Stamps: Nature's Beauty(Creative Stamping) Paper: Kraft, Basic Black Ink: Basic Black
Accessories: Scallop Border Punch, Satin Ribbon, Basic Black Marker
All supplies Stampin' Up! except where noted

Now I feel like busting out some shoulder pads, poofing my hair and watching Charles in Charge. Click here and then tell me - who's with me?

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I Think I can Retire now...

Because a crazy wild dream has come true. I really truly can't believe it.

I'm a Dirty Girl!!

(This has nothing to do with Tiger Woods, I assure you...)

Today begins a six month stint on the Dirty Dozen Design Team for Splitcoaststampers! I've been screaming inside my head since I found out. I thought the Dirty Girls were born with a secret mark that could only be seen with the help of Beate's lightbox and a special ceremony..

This is a huge honor, and I hope I can live up to it. All the DD designers, past and present, are my artistic idols and women I admire greatly.

The December Fan Club Gallery, is now open, and you do have to be an SCS Fan club member to see it, so join right now if you're not! I had fun with the theme of "Home for the Holidays" and put my usual strange twist on a few of them. :) Head over with the link above and check out the work of these amazing women!

So, if I had to retire from stamping tomorrow (God forbid) I could do it happily, and though I'd make a card to celebrate. This is a litte 3x3 kraft notecard with the new Pinking Hearts border punch, new Sending Love Epoxy Brads, (all from the upcoming Occasions Mini Catalog) and new unmounted stamps - Good Neighbors from the Upcoming Sale-a-Bration Catalog.

I wonder what I'll do now that I'm retired. Mmm... STAMP. :)

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Yes, That's Me on the Discovery Channel

Not too long ago, I met the owner of Love Me Do, a brilliantly conceived DIY Wedding company. She saves brides money by pulling together artists of various sorts to help her and her wedding party make their own invitations, favors, floral arrangements, jewelry, etc. for a less expensive and more beautiful and unique wedding day. Nobel Prize worthy, in my opinion. :)

Anyway, we've been chatting about various projects, and the other day on Twitter, she recommended to someone who needed an Etsy seller for an interview that they interview me.

The somebody was Amber Mac of Webnation on the Discovery Channel!

She is so sweet and fun and it was a great experience. Check out the rest of the episodes after you watch this!

Click here to see my interview...

The interview is on the Discovery Site now and will be on TV next week! :)


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I Wrote a Book

It's weird how things converge sometimes. My sister is a member of the Pastel Society Of Austin, and she forwarded me an invitation for one of their meetings, where the guest speaker was a book designer. She was going to talk about self-publishing. I was interested. I went.

Her presentation was mostly about Blurb.com - her chosen self publishing site. I filed it away under someday.

However, I also subscribe to ModernCat, which is where I learned of a book contest, sponsored by Blurb. One of the three categories was pets. Put your hands together.

To enter the contest, you had to design, upload, publish and purchase a book. It was a great learning experience. Now I am in the contest.

I decided that the book should not really be about Maddie and Splotchy. It should be about why any of you even know about them. The sad truth is, you know them because some unknown person was unspeakably cruel. A difference of ten seconds and they might have been two out of millions of kitties and puppies who are dumped, neglected, abused and never seen by any of us. Thank God a sweet, sweet woman (thank you Amanda) did see them, didn't miss the window, and they are part of me now. But it can't remain unsaid that our culture needs to value and protect vulnerable things, because I believe the heart and soul of America does. And I'm certain that culture gets built one person at a time. So I decided just to say a little something about it.

So yes, it's a contest, and yes, you can vote for me and make me happy, but the message is this:

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man" -Mahatma Gandhi

The preview shows you just a few pages of the book, because unfortunately, each preview page shows up in search engines, including my photos, which are unprotected by watermark.

However, if anyone wants to purchase the book for a Christmas gift, I will donate $1 from each book sold on Blurb from now until December 31 to A Place to Bark, because you guys know how much I love my dear friend Bernie who, as much as anyone on this earth, understands compassion and kindness to the furries. And I know the book is really expensive, but that is because this is on-demand publishing - so they make each book when it's ordered instead of printing tons.

So you wanna see? If you like what you see, please cast a vote and leave a comment!! If you love it, buy one!

She's Mine Now

A Tale of Two Rescues

By Lydia B. Fiedler

Book Preview

Now, art.

I heard a joke on Twitter the other day and I'm dedicating this post to it. "I went to the doctor today and I'm senile but hey - at least I'm not senile."

Yeah, what he said.

Anyway, I totally forgot to post the projects I entered for the Artisan Awards at convention. Or maybe I did and I just forgot. There's really no way to know for sure, so I'm going to try to find them and post them. Where did I leave those things??? Oh, here's one..

Remember my technique of stamping a silhouette image and then coloring it with pencils?

Well that's what I did here. I stamped on kraft cardstock with Sahara Sand ink, and then colored with white, aqua and charcoal pencils. I also took micron pens and outlined the petals because you do lose some detail when you add pencil.



I know you are all very happy it is Friday, as am I. :)

Loveyameanitbye



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Have you signed up for the UBlue Cyber Club? Attended one of my Webinars?? Come on - get your geek on! :)

Want to see my other blog?

Are Angels Made of Chicken?

I don't know!!! I don't think we're supposed to find out till we see em.

But my angel today is made out of chicken!!

Stamps: Chicken Up on You by Firecracker Designs
All other supplies: Stampin' up! - Autumn Harvest DSP, Heart to Heart Punch, Linen Thread, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Two way Glue, Final Press Embossing Folder, Big Shot, Rub On

A chicken wing, to be exact. After I looked at Pamela's chicken tail for a while I decided it looked like a foofy angel wing and thought I'd do a little out of the box chicken arranging...

I made this card for the Embellish Magazine December challenge. We had to use brown, kraft, red, turquoise and twine. I really like the combo!

You can't really see it in the pic but she's all glittery!

I used the chicken legs for her dress, and the tail for her wing.

Mmm - buffalo angel wings... :D - Just kidding!

TGIF! :) My class is Saturday - are you coming?

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Maddie is Published!

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Girls on Film!

My beloved darlings at Splitcoast were nice enough to upload a video for my written gesso resist tutorial this week!

Take a gander & see if you like it! :)



If you don't see a video player than click here to view.

Have a goodie!

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Flight

This is my paper quilt that will be hanging in the airport. It's about 16 x 20. The squares are made from pages from Communication Arts Magazine, and also Inside Santa Fe, an art exhibit magazine I pick up in Santa Fe every year. The birds are cut with my Stampin' Up! exclusive bird die.

The images I chose are meant to evoke feelings of both flight and destinations.

When Navajo weavers make blankets or rugs, they weave a deliberate mistake into them, because only God is perfect. It would offend the gods and give you some seriously bad mojo if you produced a "perfect" weaving. Since this project is emulating a blanket, I included a little Navajo tribute, turning one bird opposite the way he "should" be facing.

I figured if it was going to go in the airport, the last thing I needed was bad mojo! :)


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It's Hotter Than a Pregnant Mouse in a Wool Sock Down Here

It IS.

Good Lord - 105+ for like 6 days in a row down here. It's so hot people can't think. I'm one of the people.

I can't think. If you've seen Shaun of the Dead, you know what it's like here.

Send help.

In the meantime, the show must go on! After all, it's....

And before my card and my good news, I must share a Caturday goodie with you.

Just For Pets, which is a wonderful pet store here in Austin specializing in natural, American and raw food for pets, had turned me on to Bonito Flakes for the kitties. Strange that they are eating something that comes on very expensive sushi, but I love those little beasts, so, whatever. Maddie loves them. Splotch can't figure out how to eat them because they're so wispy, but he wants to.

One thing you learn about kittens that were taken from their moms too early is that there are things they never learn cuz their mom couldn't teach them. Eating and drinking are learned behaviors apparently, and these two can't quite manage like normal kitties.

Anyway, I went into the shop to drop off a gift to thank the owners for sending out a recall notice on some cat food and I found Grandma Lucy's Freeze Dried Mahi Mahi. MMM - the kitties LOVE it!! I highly recommend it! It's American, all natural, dried fish.

Next - speaking of good things - Bernie Berlin, of A Place to Bark - is in the running for a TV show about her amazing animal rescue. She's been in California this week trying to seal the deal, and protesting puppy mills. This woman has a heart as big as Texas. If you want to FEEL the impact of all the little souls she's saved, then please watch this video. I dare you not to cry, and/or fall in love with this sweet girl. And then,

if you haven't already, please buy one of our stamps to help her with her kitty shelter. 100% of the proceeds go to her efforts.

Here's my latest creation with my own stamp design - the sassy Maddie stamp, which is one of the ones that benefits A Place to Bark. I thought of this design on my walk, during a pause. There's a Darden Smith song that brought it to mind. But that's a story for another day... The Maddie's are the new Soft Suede ink from SU - and the pink is the new Melon Mambo. I just got my catalogs for my customers - yay!! The circle was cut with my Stampin' Up! Sizzix clear die. The dots are a rubon, as is the greeting. I used the brown ones that com in some of the SU! sets. The ribbon is the new Melon Mambo polka dot ribbon and the paper is Razzleberry Lemonade DSP from the new catty. The card base is Soft Suede.

And finally, I got a nice surprise yesterday when I stopped at the mailbox - I was published in the most recent Just Cards magazine!!

I'm on Page 54, and I'm really excited that it was one of the cards that I did on my TV show. It's Stampin' Up! supplies with a Martha Stewart punch.

Really fun card.
I hope you guys are having a great Caturday!

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Make me SLEEP Monday!

That's right! It's 9:40, but it's MMLM!!

So since it's so late, I'll give you through Tuesday to make me laugh!!

This weekend was crazy. We competed in the 48 hour film festival, which goes on all over the country. You show up Friday night and draw a genre from a hat. We got horror which was perfect. You then have to script, film and edit a movie that's between 4 minutes and 7 minutes long and turn it in at the 48 hour mark. It was exhausting, but turned out really cool. Forget about my brother driving up 5 minutes before it was do and flinging a flash drive out of the car at my niece.. Or us breaking my sister's house by getting a huge piece of furniture stuck in a hallway so we had to walk outside to go to the other side of the house. Forget all that - it was cool.

They are showing our movie tomorrow night and Thursday night in a theater. Winners are chosen from each city and some of the winners get to go to the Cannes Film festival!!

I can post it after we've done a few things in the rules.

In the meantime, I do have a video you can watch. It's my instructional video on how to use Twitter, related applications - everything you need to know to tweet!

CLICK HERE TO SEE IT.

Tomorrow, we're going to the screening and getting interviewed for a documentary. THEN I can get back to stamping.

For now, I need sleep.

LOVEYAMEANITBYE.


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WILLIAM SHATNER STOLE MY HEART

He did!!

First of all, let me tell you that my brother, who is 7 years older than me, adored original Star Trek. Not so much that he didn't stick a fork in our television during Frosty the Snowman (insert eye twitch and psychotherapy here) when I was a toddler, rendering me television-less from Nixon to Reagan, which you already know, but a lot.

William Shatner was just part of my life. Like the Beatles, and Wolfman Jack, who I thought was two inches tall and lived in my radio. But that's a story for another day, me and my radio.

But I didn't LOVE William Shatner until, I believe, the 90s. One day, I saw an interview with him, during which he described how he felt about women. A wickedly funny man, he is, but also very tender hearted, very loving, prone to tear up under the right circumstances. At that moment, he stole my heart. Changed forever was my opinion that in real life he was a Captain Kirk type, which aside from the fuzzy tribbles episode, was not all that loveable. Captain Kirk was a Night at the Roxbury - William Shatner is a sweet, funny, charming and romantic person.

So I heard the other day that he was on Twitter. So I followed him. At which point the DH declared emphatically that no way was WS (whom he loves) on Twitter.

So tonight, waiting for instructions about the 48 hour film rendezvous point, I see a tweet from my beloved WS. I think - wth? I'll tweet him.

And smack me and call me Edna if four minutes later I don't get a response from him!!!

I love you William Shatner. And I don't care who knows it.

Surely this is a good omen for the movie we're making this weekend.

LOVEYAMEANITBYE.

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