Apparently, OLIVE green!

Not sure why I'm going green all the sudden, but January 13th's card is olive too! This is a modification of a cute little sheep I saw on the boards at Leadership. Isn't he sweet? This is from Pun Fun, which is truly adorable. I stamped him in basic black, then colored his face and legs in VersaMarker. The heart is colored with a blender pen and my pink Stampin' Pastels. Wanna hear a confession? (come closer...) *whisper* I HAVE BEEN A DEMONSTRATOR SINCE 2001 AND HAVE NEVER USED A BLENDER PEN WITH PASTELS AAHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It's true. And now my shame is on the internet for everyone to see! It's one of the first things I ever saw demonstrated and I've never done it. It's so cute here and you can see how cool it is to get those light pastel colors on dark cardstock. Really - you need to try it. Don't end up like me. Save yourselves! I did his "wool" with my fabby white gel pen. The little dots at the bottom are just punched out with the 3/4" circle punch.

Happy Wednesday! I will post a few more today, so stay tuned.

@ Home in the Stamp Room

Hello!! All my orders arrived while I was gone so I will be cutting out a lot of stamps!

I cut out a few images I just couldn't wait for and here's a little ditty that we saw demonstrated at Leadership.

The star is created with the two punches, and my picture doesn't show the colors well but that is mounted on soft sky, then Real Red and Old Olive CS. AND COULD THAT CANDY STRIPED RIBBON BE ANY FREAKING BETTER????

So this will be my January 12th card. Stay tuned for catch up. Several of them will have to wait until Sunday because I'm making them for my club projects this Saturday and I don't want to spoil the surprise(s).

I wish I could make 80 club projects with all the cute stuff I saw, but I will pace myself!

Don't forget - every card for my 365 card project that I post here this year will go to someone on my mailing list. Are you on my mailing list? If not, email me your address and I will add you and send you a card! :)

Happy Monday!

The 3.5 Hour Palm Springs Airport Update

Well I don't really have anything else to do this morning, so I thought I'd hit Starbucks and come to the airport. It's so teeny and cute. Since it's open to the outside there are lots of birds in here. This one is bathing in the water fountain at my gate!! I know that I shouldn't have taken a picture of him in the bathtub, but I'm not sure birds really have a right to privacy, do they? :) They are public figures!

Okay - some questions I got asked yesterday that I will try to answer. The bulk buying program for demonstrators is kind of a test program - it got a great response from the crowd when they told us, so I think it will be a success. They will bulk package some items for us to purchase - for example, there is this super sassy new silver hodgepodge hardware kit that has these cute flower shaped ribbon sliders in it. They will take larger quantities of SOME items in this kit and let us buy them in bulk. Same with certain rub on images, and some chipboard or die cuts (we were talking about this last night and can't remember if it was chipboard, die cuts or both). We will all know soon. But it's a great idea because if you want to use the ribbon sliders in a camp, or rub ons, etc., you won't have to buy multiple sets of hardware to get X number of sliders to show to your customers. So it makes camp and workshop projects a lot more economical for us and lets customers try the fun new stuff before they buy it - always a good thing.

Question #2 - the new Occasions mini is available to demonstrators on Feb 1, and that's when we can pre-order EVERYTHING ;) in it. Customers can order from it on March 1st and it runs from March to June. You're really going to freak when you see this thing. No doubt the best one ever. Unbelievable.

Okay - so last night, for some reason which I began to question the second the ride started, we took a crazy scary tram ride 8500 feet up the San Jacinto mountain. OMG. What the heck was I thinking?? The whole tram rotated 360 degrees while we were ascending STRAIGHT UP the mountain, like two inches from these steep vertical faces. There were towers we had to pass over on the way and each time we did the tram would swing in a really terrifying way. Looking back down the mountain, you could see hundreds of miles, with the lights of beautiful Palm Springs and towns far far beyond spread out. It was beautiful, but we were shaking and in dire need of a beer when we got to the top. We walked a little ways down a winding icy sidewalk, me, of course, in open toed heels (Jane took a pic of my shoe while I was attmpting to climb up for a picture), and it was insanely, frost bitey cold. I'm pretty sure there was a bear trying to eat us. Quite possibly that blue bear from Denver. There were these beautiful tall sugar pines, giant boulders, and brave souls walking up from the bottom where they had been boogie boarding. We stopped when the path out-iced our footwear, but we did get some really fun pictures in the snow. I have some great ones of the hind ends of Melissa and Jane, scrambling up on a big rock for a pic, but unlike my little bathing birdie, they are NOT public figures, so I'll spare them. However, trust me - I'm hanging onto them for the day that I really need some cardstock!!

We were very nervous about the trip down. With good reason. The trip up the mountain - a slow and terrifying 18 minutes. The trip down WAS LIKE A FREAKING ZIP LINE!!! They just barreled our butts down in like 5 minutes, with everyone screaming roller coaster style when we went over the towers!! It was a very party atmosphere - they played music on the way down and it was just insane. You really are quite wobbly after you get off the tram car. Crazy fun. I'm really glad we went - I would say definitely do it if you're in Palm Springs, but it's not for the faint of heart. Jane had to bear hug me every time we went over a tower on the way back down. Thanks Jane! Love ya!

I'll see if inserting this video clip works. It's kind of long, but at the beginning right after you hear me say "hold me" you will hear everyone on the tram screaming as we go over the first tower. You will also hear crazy Jane saying "I LOVE IT" several times. You can hear a good scream at the end too. It's pitch black, but it's fun to listen to.

The CFO of Stampin' Up! is Scott Nielsen, who you may know as a pitcher for the Yankees back in the 80's! Like every other employee of SU! he is a warm and sweet man. Where do they get all these tall people? Maybe they look out at all of us and say - where did we get all these short people?

Hey - take a look at your Stampin' Up! paper trimmer. They told us something I didn't know. Between your blade and the edge of the clear ruler is exactly 3/4" inch! Cool - for people like me that like to do things fast (possibly because I've procrastinated, YES, so what??) this is great to know. Of course between the cutting blade and the left edge of the trimmer that is exactly 1" - that's one I use all the time and so I'm stoked about the 3/4" thing. If you're laughing at me because you already knew it, please stifle out of respect for the naked bird!!

I packed my notes or I'd put more stampin' details in, but tomorrow after I get a little sleep I'll catch up on cards and fun stuff. Leadership 09 is going to be in Orlando! Whoopee!!! (99% sure, Shelli said).

As I wrap this up, an Alaska airlines flight arrived, passengers debarked from the rear of the plane, came through the gate with three barking dogs just on leashes - what the heck?

More from home sweet home... :) Happy Sunday.

A prize!

I forgot to mention I won a prize!!!!! I never win anything! It's a stamp set and four containers of the new Chunky glitter from the upcoming Occasions catalog, the best mini cat ever!!



The samples they showed with this were amazing. My friend Melissa won one too!

I'm off to see what today holds. I will update later tonight or from my blackberry if there's something crazy exciting.

Oh, and PS - I was watching TV last night and there was an ad for Celebrex, which I guess is an arthritis drug. I'm not making this up - it says on the ad "may cause death."

REALLY??? IS THAT BETTER THAN ARTHRITIS? What the heck?? Remember when we used to take our restless legs and worse to the doctor and leave the TV watching public out of all the discussion of side effects? Can we go back to that? Anybody with me?

Also, you ladies are getting your 365 cards I see! Don't forget to sign up for my mailing list if you want me to mail you one of the 365 cards I'm posting nthis year. TTFN! :)

OMGOMGOMG

SERIOUSLY!! I'M GOING TO NEED YOU ALL TO STAND UP WHEN YOU READ THIS!! THIS IS THE OFFICIAL UNDERSTANDBLUE LEADERSHIP UPDATE AND IT... IS... EXCITING!!!!

So, to taunt you, a few details first. First, the January 9th, 10th and 11th cards! They are the make & takes I made while I was here with the free stamp set I got! WOW. I will be demo'ing some of these in my class next Saturday - the 19th - as well as sharing the million other exciting things I saw. Contact me by leaving a comment if you want to join us.

I apologize in advance for the lack of photoshop - I'M MOBILE PEOPLE - I'M DOING THE BEST I CAN. :)

The white stripes and dots are from the rub ons. I love these and there was a demonstration booth where they put them on all sorts of things! I will elaborate later.

Okay - so January 9th contains a secret - this is made from a CIRCLE, not a square! A giant circle, made with an unexpected accessory! It's all I can say because I'm afraid you're going to stop reading soon and you won't get my updates. Oh my gosh they are good!!

January 10th was the card we made for the Ronald McDonald House. It's so sweet and simple, and if you don't love that arrow punch, well, you're probably not reading a stamping blog.

This picture is terrible but the dimension from this tag on the project is really fun. We used the tag to do all sorts of things behind the scenes! and I love the layering possibilities this set + the punches brings.

Wow.

Okay - saving the best for last. Check out this striped ribbon!! it's so danged cute. The little asterisk on the heart plus the line of dots is from the rub on set they gave us. THEY GAVE US SO MUCH STUFF!!

Anyway, this is very simple, very cute with a great simple color scheme. We will be making this at camp.

OKAY ARE YOU READY FOR THE UPDATES?????

For demos -

• WE ARE GOING TO BE ABLE TO TAKE CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS - NO FEE NOTHING - THROUGH OEX OMG OMG.... No date for this yet

RETITLEMENT NO LONGER DEPENDS ON DOWNLINE LEADERSHIP - YOUR TITLE DEPENDS ONLY ON YOUR ROLLING 12 MONTH SALES AND YOUR FIRST LEVEL ACTIVE DOWNLINE!!

THERE IS GOING TO BE A NEW DEMONSTRATOR BULK BUYING PROGRAM - COOL STUFF BUNDLED AT A LOWER COST - WE GOT TO PURCHASE SOME AT LEADERSHIP!! WOW. FULLY COMMISSIONALBE SALES!!

THE CATALOGS WILL BE REVEALED AGAIN AT CONVENTION AND LEADERSHIP FOR THE FIRST TIME - THE EXCITEMENT AND SUSPENSE ARE BAAAACK AT CONVENTION! YAY!!

And they gave us the occasions catalog today, and I can honestly say, it's the best mini-cat ever, and if you don't love every item in it with your whole heart, I will totally eat something gross like margarine or artificial sweetener! :)

I will stop yelling for a sec to recreate a Starbucks experience from this morning. Jenn - are you listening?

I'm behind a guy in line. He's placing an order. It's taking an incredibly long time, and I'm late, so I start listening. Turns out he's taking an order via Nextel. Here's the transcript:

"beep beep - hey - what do you want? Tea? Okay"

(to cashier) - "I need a tea".

Barista - "we have a lot of tea - what kind?"

"Beep beep - what kind of tea? (listening) Okay - I need a tall cold tea"

Barista "huh?"

"Beep beep - okay, here's the kind of tea they have (insert long list of tazo teas, pronounced with a twang, super slow) okay, okay - I'll have a tall CALM tea)"

Barista - "you want honey with that?"

me - LOUDSCREAMINGINSIDEMYHEADOMGREALLYAREYOUDOINGTHISLIVEVIANEXTELORAMIHAVINGANIGHTMARE???"

"Yes - two honeys please".

Okay - I'm assuming that the recipient of the calm tea (who in the heck drinks calming tea at 7 AM on a Friday??? seriously????) is a very difficult woman with a nextel. However, in mid "honey" in walks the other nextel - a man, a coworker, who also wants a breakfast sandwich!!!

370000 minutes later I get to order my drink. Wow.

More stories but I'm pooped, confused about the time zone, etc.

Lots of stories. And to my sweet reader in Arkansas - thank you so much. You touched me. Praying for your family who are brave enough to be in harm's way on our behalf.

God Bless America.

Aaaahhhh Palm Springs

Okay - life has improved markedly. Palm Springs is stunning. But let me back up a bit. So I hobble onto the plane - an MD80, which has the 2/3 seat configuration. I of course had the aisle seat on the two side. There is a young man in the window seat with short hair. At first I think he's like any other Eminem knockoff (so completely stoked that buzz cuts are coming back, btw) until I sit at down and he gives me his first observation of the trip. Several people are paralyzed in the aisles by the logistics of where to put their gargantual luggage, most of which is balanced above my head, with the hind end of the paralyzed person right in my face area. God, I love to fly. So the stewardesses get super testy and make the obligatory - "Hey you dumb ****'s, how bout you put your stuff up and sit the (*& down so that maybe ONE OR TWO more people who want to go to Palm Springs can get on the plane" announcement. At which point my four square foot roommate says "You know, they tell you before you get on, they tell you as you're getting on, and they tell you after you get on, and STILL NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO DO!" I instantly like this boy. On a hunch, I ask him where he's headed, and he tells me the answer I already know. 29 Palms. He's a Marine. His name is Will and he's from Alexandria, LA. Deploying to 29 Palms, then Baghdad. God bless these men. He's hungry and misses his girlfriend. Later in the flight I buy him some potato chips (American a tad stingy with the snacks). He thanks me like it's a 3 carat diamond. Can we all agree that the airlines could toss in a $300 plane ticket for deploying troops? He gets a $100 travel allowance from the marines, and American gave him a 10% discount. Really? Come on, isn't this man worth $200? If I had an airline, he would be. More than that, for sure. We say goodbye in the aisle, where we spot one of his green duffel bags on the conveyer coming out of the plane. I hope you stay safe Will!!

So Palm Springs is gorgeous and friendly. I'm at the pool right now (cell phone pic - sorry) before dinner and hopefully an early rest. It's been a long day already. It's 5 at home now so I will clearly be up past my biorhythm bedtime...

you arent going to believe any of this

Seriously. First of all, I'm posting this from my phone at the airport. Secondly, I didn't get my normal body cavity search. Miraculous. However, my shoe exploded upon arrival!!! Its ridiculous!!!! I am going to be all Britney Spearsing it up walking through DFW barefoot! Wth? So I limp to the waiting area, where I discover I HAVE LEFT MY CAMERA AT HOME! Omg. This is not starting well... More L8R!

Last post before Palm Springs

I'm off to Palm Springs for Stampin' Up! Leadership in the morning. I need the break, and I've never been to events better than these Leadership events. I am always inspired and energized. Now who doesn't need that? So I am posting the January 8th card. Hopefully I will make some pretty things in CA and I will of course post if I remember all my peripherals! You know how it can be with peripherals... Such a geek.

Anyway, here you go. Blue & rubons!

January 7th Card

Yes - it's blue. Saving the best for last. :) The card base is Brilliant Blue textured, stamped with craft white image from Carte Postale (greeting is from the same set). Blue taffeta ribbon, Brilliant Blue DSP, and blue DPS butterflies, punched courtesy of Martha, goddess of wonderful things I've put on a credit card ;)

I really love the textured cardstock. Why don't I use it more?

January 6th and answers to your ???'s

First of all, I'd like to say thank you for all the comments! I love hearing from you. To Misti, BRAVO ON THE FRITO PIE - God's gift to all of us who make chili!!! :) And to Jenn, I made 3.5 pounds of chili on Friday night for some dear friends who came to visit us from Houston and are huge fans of the Fiedler chili. Well then my sweet friend Lulu heard there was chili and that she didn't get any, so I made chili Saturday to give a batch to her and have a batch for dinner & republican debates last night with my sis. I've kind of eaten too much lately!! So much for the "little behind" tee hee.... Hats off to my friend "Y" who suggested that stamps + (insert your favorite adult beverage) = either a brilliant creative effort or extreme fun trying!!

Can we all ponder the McDonald's "barista" concept for a bit tonight? I have opinions, as you can imagine, knowing what you know about me and my relationship with Starbucks. Love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

But enough of my rambling. Here's the card for January 6th. I used the embrace life set, stamped the background on Shimmery White with Basic Grey. Then I used the celery wide grosgrain ribbon and cut out a watercolored image on shimmery white (Real Red + blender pen). Now for the "happy" I did something fun. I stamped the image from the retired set Quick Thinking, and just played with my punches until I found that the 3/4 punch perfectly framed the word "happy" in the "I'm happy for you" image. Use this idea on some other greetings and see if you can't isolate some fun things.

For those of you who emailed me - your cards are in the mail! :) Really - they are! :)

PS - stickles all over the whole card - photo doesn't do it justice!

It was chili, I swear

I made like 64,000 pounds of chili yesterday so I got interrupted in my quest!! But here is Jan. 5th's edition.

It's Cameo Coral, with a reinker and a blender pen for watercoloring. Anyone else have problems with their basic black smudging? Grr...

Then the word window punch. The stamp set is Embrace Life.

( From the new catty...)

January 4th Card

Well on the way to caught-upedness, I am!!

I promise in real life the Martha Stewart glittery is sparkly and worthy of my craft idol!

The photo hides the pink "Your Day" underneath Celebrate.

The glittery accent is from Stampin' Up!'s on board accents, glittered with Martha's glitter. The cupcake is from SU - ABC Images, colored with Copic grey and Stampin' Up! Pretty in Pink Markers. Ribbon is SU Taffeta pink. The greeting is from Celebrate Everything from the new catalog!

January 3rd Card

Love this little guy. The main image (His name is Zot, btw) is from Starving Artistamps (Doodle Factory) and he seriously could not be cuter and more endearing in all of his jittery caffeinatedness. The coffee beans and the greeting are from the What's Brewin' set from Stampin' Up! (retired). This was one of the very first sets I bought as an SU! customer and I love it so much. I would love a grassroots campaign to get them to bring it out of retirement! I used to love stamping the coffee cup in Kaleidacolor mochas... aaah. Crystal effects on the beans. It was all so good!!

Jan 2 card

Saw the neutral/white combo on Stampin' Kubs blog and really liked what it did for the set.

I used Doodle This, Time Well Spent, Basic Black Classic Ink, Kraft CS, Basic Black CS,white taffeta ribbon, my beloved white gel pen.

Yeah, I'm a little behind

I don't have a little behind, I AM a little behind. :) I have the same big behind battle we all have! But where was I?

I'm behind on my card a day, but not by much. I've had a very busy couple of days. Insanely busy. So I have all my cards started, but not finished.

I do want to share with you my proudest accomplishment though - OMG - is that SPACE ON MY DESK???

HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??? Well, aliens come down sometimes, abduct me, clean my room and plop me back down to make cards for their ruthless leader. That happened today, thank God!

Wow. Really. I hardly want to stamp on it it's so nice & tidy & spacious.

Anyway, I need to because I owe you five cards. So the next post will contain all five, and my offer is still good to mail all 365 cards this year to readers of this blog. I've had a few takers already. Email me privately with your mailing address if you'd like some of this year's samples.

I have some crazy ideas for the fab five today, so stay tuned!!

It's a whole day of stamping!

Not 24, Hopefully 7, Certainly 365

I think that's what I'll do. I will make it my goal to make and post a card for every day of 2008. So since it's already the 3rd, I need to do three today. Here is the first one. The stamp set is Spiral Bouquet from PaperTrey Ink and the patterned paper is from Basic Grey. I made a loop with the wide grosgrain ribbon from Stampin' Up! and ran the stitched river rock ribbon through that. Not even a HINT of Christmas in the red and green..

Now I'm going to go work on two more for you.

However, the other thing I'm going to do is send all these cards out. If you would like to get on my mailing list and get some of my 365 cards in your mailbox, just email me privately with your snail mail address! :)

Also, I love your resolutions! And I have to answer a comment about the crackle background stamp - it's actually called "Weathered" and it's from Stampin' Up! Sorry about that! :) It's cool, isn't it?

See you two cards from now.

Wild, Sweet ... Orange

Have you had this tea at Starbucks? It's incredible. It's the most intensely flavored tea they have I think. I finally bought myself some.

I wasn't feeling so hot today so I made myself some and forgot that I had the box in my hand when I went to sit on the couch for a while. It is a beautiful box - vanilla with bright sunny orange accents and copper type. In the copper type is some philosophy, some practical things, like contact info, and some beautiful little details like a symmetrical cross, some filigree, a signature and some things that look like tax stamps. In black on the copper top is just the word "symbol". They put a lot of art into a box of orange tea. On the back it says "Did you know? If you were to invert the first letter of this tea's name, you would change the description of it entirely." From Wild to Mild in one letter.

That's how things are too. A little tilt and everything is completely different. I, personally, am glad that it's wild, not mild. Go get some.

Anyway, after I felt like moving around again, I gave myself my own inspiration challenge with the box. All I wanted were the vanilla, the copper, the orange and the words to come through. Hope you like it.

I used the little chipboard diamonds from the on board blossoms and basics with Encore Copper and Copper EP for the accents. I pulled the paper out of a copper metal edged tag to frame the stamp from the Simply Sent and used a rhinestone brad in the center. The orange background paper is from Basic Grey. It has a lot of texture built in that you can't really see in my photo.

The top 2/3 of the card is stamped with the crackle background stamp in Creamy Caramel. Other colors are Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black and Chocolate Chip (all Classic Ink).

I hope you all have a happy New Year's & a safe one. Feel free to post a New Year's resolution or two.

2008 is the year of blog candy on Understand Blue, and you just never know when I might start. I just got over 1000 visits, so I'm feeling generous! Plus one of my resolutions is to re-org the stamp room and that means my downsizing is your gain!!

Wacked Out

Okay - I know this is a little wacky, but I just loved the colors in this Basic Grey paper, and I'm trying hard to bond with this set from Stampin' Up! (see Stampin' Kub's blog for a beautiful card with it) so I put my hands together for this crazy bright fun card. I cuttlebugged the whole card front with the floral embossing folder.

Jenn said I should share my favorite gift. Tough one. My husband got me a Garmin Nuvi, which I love. I'm a complete map freak (among other things I'm freaky about) so it will be the gift I will just wear right out. I'm actually kind of hacked that I have known everywhere I've been going lately so I haven't gotten to truly navigate. I can't wait until the first time I get lost. Truly. I will be stoked. I kind of enjoy getting lost anyway.

The most beautiful things I got were a stunning cameo from my mom and a book from my dad. My mother had given me a cameo a few years ago that was just stunning. Blue, white, perfect. On a really delicate chain. One day at lunch at Central Market, it slipped off never to be seen again. It just made me sick. I hope whoever found it loved it as much as I did. So she replaced it this year with this beautiful cameo that is also on a delicate chain, but has a pin on the back!

The book is called the Art of the Snowflake, and it has these stunning photographs of snowflakes that are just indescribable. You should buy this for everyone you know! He gave it to me because I sent out a Christmas card a year or two ago with an anatomically incorrect snowflake! It's true - mine had 8 legs, and he was terminally scarred by this as a scientist. So this book proves once and for all that snowflakes have a geometry based on 6, not 8. ALLRIGHTY I GET IT. And now you all do too. :)

The funniest gift I got was from my sister in law. It's a t-shirt that says "English Major - You do the Math." LOVE IT!!!

Then I got tons of other gifts from incredibly special people. There are things that people give you that just define treasure, you know?

I know you do.

I kind of feel a bunch of posts coming on, so bear with me.

Senility - It Comes sooner than you think

It really does. Like, uh, around my age. No, I'm not going to tell you. Shh.

Okay - so I forgot to post my Christmas card!

I have excuses I promise, which I also won't go into. Anyway, here she is. This angel is colored with copic markers, and then painted with interference ink refill for the Opalite Ink pad. You can't see how pretty that makes the blue. You also can't see the stickles on her wings. I stamped Joy in the Opalite Ink, and the snowflakes are just white (stamped off a few times for some) on a Basic Grey base, with the Sanded background in Basic Grey.

And speaking of Basic Grey - I had gotten these little 6x6 pads of Basic Grey background paper that I made this little birdie from. He's paper pieced from a piece of red with a nice chocolate chip texture on it, and that's where I punched the red circles from. The other background paper was actually from a different non-coordinating pad but they look cute together. I thought a greeting would just clutter him up.

What did everybody get for Christmas? I'd love to hear, if you haven't given up on me for being a bad blogger.

A Gift

I made a set of these from the Simple Delights Simply Sent Kit.

The designs they include are simple (on purpose for beginning or busy stampers) so I like to change them, but I loved this stamp set. Card base is Soft Sky, with US Vanilla, Chocolate Chip and River Rock cardstock. So, (hard to see) I stamped the main element in Chocolate Chip craft ink and embossed with Iridescent ice EP and added the brad. Pattern at the bottom is stamped in Soft Sky, and the greeting is in Chocolate Chip classic ink. It's so nice to have all the stock pre-cut. I think the whole set of 5 took 15 minutes all the way to boxed. These are for Grayson... Hope everyone is having a great Christmas.

O Holy Night

Merry Christmas...

To answer your questions..

Okay - someone asked me where I got the burnishers. I got mine at a local store called Memory Depot, and the only thing that is on the package is a weird picture that says "Estiletes Lujo" (or maybe Luja) Desde 1987.

Perhaps Thomas Pynchon or Umberto Eco are embedding clues in teflon burnishers, because this means absolutlely nothing to me, but may help you in your quest! :)

Speaking of the burnishers, here are a few little gifts I made with Papertrey Ink tins & Hershey nuggets.. And I'm such a complete ding dong. I have been using the Stampin' Up! rubons this whole time and never saw that there's a sheet of white ones in the package too! I was wondering how they did that in the catalog!! DUHHHHHH!!

Deep Breaths...

I'm trying. Tonight I can look at the catalog. Actually, I already have and I LOVE IT!! For starters, it's PINK !! How fun is that? And I don't know where to start on all the things I want. All the rub-ons, all the paper, the "Always" stamp set, "Kind Thoughts" a couple hostess sets. Man. *sigh* And speaking of rub-ons, I've been using them a lot, and I have some tips. 1> throw away that insulting popsicle stick that comes with them. That is completely retarded. Get yourself a teflon tipped burnisher like these.

Then carefully set your sheet of rub-ons on your work surface. If it sticks to things (The Stampin' Up! ones are very sticky) then watch out. These might need TLC. The SU! ones are also very close together on the sheet, so this makes accidental burnishing likely and you might get parts of images you don't want. So learn from my mistakes and cut out your images before you transfer them. Then you will be happy. Keep the protective sheet for as long as you have the set also, you will need to store them together so that the images aren't damaged. These are lovely and detailed, so they are worth the extra effort.

A lot of you are asking what would possess a woman to make 180 cookies. Many years ago, when I was in HR, I started a tradition at our corporate office of baking treats for all of our branches at Christmas to show them our gratitude. We have grown a lot since we started, so the number of cookies has grown! This year we made 18 packages of 10 cookies each. For me, it was all about the package, of course. So I used the tea tins from PaperTrey Ink, covered them with DSP and filled them with a roll of 10 sugar cookies with matching sprinkles!!!

Finally, I want to show all you UB readers who do not live in Central Texas what lives in our trees. We have these "creatures" made from ball moss that clump all over our oak trees. Sometimes they drop into the street or your driveway and you can see this little scary tumbleweedy looking thing up close. Some people perpetuate the complete and total wicked lie that these don't hurt our trees, but they will kill an oak tree. Do you see this one clutching a branch of MY OAK TREE???? So stop lying. And to those of you who are not lying, stop believing the liars. Ball moss = badness. They even sound the same if you say em fast. I am pretty sure I saw beady little eyes on this one... ;)

More soon..

*&#%^@%

NOOOOOOO - not tonight!!! I have to bake 180 cookies tonight and I see in my mailbox - the NEW STAMPIN' UP! CATALOG?!?!!?

RU SERIOUS?

REALLY?

AHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Zeal

My normal state. I know my last post was five seconds ago, but you gotta see this. Cuz it's zany. The cute little creature is a DoodleFactory image from Starving Artistamps and he's just the TIP of the cute iceberg, believe me.

I posted sets of this little cutie in my shop - how could people not want him?

I think I will put crystal effects on his little buggy eyeballs, what do you think?

Winter White

Hola amigas! (& amigos, if u r out there)

I am finally done with my Christmas cards!! In a few days after everyone receives them, I will post them here. They were a labor of love. Originally, they were very simple, no layers, on white cardstock. I was uneasy. So I added a glittery embossed snowflake for dimension. I still tossed and turned each night at all that white. Something wasn't right. One day at lunch, I zipped over to Memory Depot and discovered something that changed the design for good - it was the Opalite pigment interference ink in Glacier Blue. You must buy yourself some immediately. First, I stamped the "Joy" on basic grey and it was beautiful, Then I stamped some snowflakes in it - also beautiful, but not stunning. The cards still looked a little flat, despite profuse Copic Marker watercoloring, Twinkling H2O's and stickles. Something was missing. Late on Thursday night, with the house all to myself, I discovered that if you paint with an aqua painter and the refill to the Opalite ink all over your blue angel, you have an AHA moment of bliss! So, sad that I had already sent a few out, I cut apart all the boring white cards, careful to save my custom greeting on the inside, layered my card, and finally finished them all today. The last of them are drying in the kitchen.

So then I was left with 150 embossed snowflakes that I could not bring myself to throw away. So I carefully punched them each out and decided to turn my enemy - white, into my friend. Here is the result. I think I will use these for Thank You cards after Christmas. See what you think.

The rest of today will be spent crafting. Check out my newly added Etsy Shop - link at right. Last night my sister and I had a blast etching wine glasses and it was so fun!! So I decided I would open a little store just for the heck of it. I'll add cards very soon.

I'm SO not even a little dead!!!

In case you were wondering!! I'm just now sitting back down at my computer, so be patient on my email answer rate. As usual, there are other things I should be doing, like finishing my Christmas cards, but I wanted to give you a little preview, because I am in the process of learning some hard life lessons, and it was only after I started cropping these photos, that I thought just maybe there is a little metaphor in here. See if you like the message. First of all, sometimes, joy is hard to find. It might be upside down, backwards, or buried under something.

Surely you've been here. I am by nature a happy person, so these times are hard for me to adjust to. They are unnatural. But you just gotta go on, yes? And how does a person do it? Thank the dear Lord, with a little help from your friends, right? (to quote the boys from across the pond..) But also, you do have to find a way to believe that things will get better. Because, really, they always do.

Think about those shepherds seeing that angel - what was their reaction? Fear!!!! No matter what version you like, you will read about fear. It must have been a fearsome sight.

But angels (pictured here as blue, but of course...) never make for an unhappy ending. When you start with an angel, you always end with joy.

Right side up, all shimmery and blue... right?

You will see. I hope you like it. And if you want to start getting Christmas cards (or other goodies from me), all you gotta do is send me a card. Your girl loves the old USPS, and I'll add you to my mailing list if you just add me to yours.

I hope your December is going well. If you want to see a woman who has my complete and total admiration this month, I'm going to need you to check out Jenn's site and see what she has been up to. Those gifts she's made ARE SPECTACULAR!! And she is extremely busy. So, please add hope to joy. We can look at what she's done and hope to be half that good!!!!!

Me.

Some Christmas Ditties 4U

I am so excited that Martha's show is on Fine Living!!! It comes on every night and I love listening to Martha and stamping! I'm watching one with Russell Crowe on it right now - that's not bad either! She has great guests!

Uno Mas!

Sorry - one more. I had fun with this. The accents on top of the ribbon are actually from the scraps cut off my cross card, below this post. I thought they were pretty together. Dig the red & basic grey. the images are from Starving Artistamps - Equestrian 1.

Grab a Snack - Uber Post!

Okay- lots to tell you, so get comfy. I have a crazy week coming, so after Wednesday, you won't hear from me for a week. So I have lots to show you. First of all, another Starving Artistamps Creation - from the Southwestern Ornamentals. I love this little cross! I tried to emboss it and then use my metal tape on top of it, because this and the heart I think would look great with a punched tin look, but the embossing powder wasn't thick enough to show through the tape. Too faint to photograph. So I pulled out the colors of tin and went to work!

I used basic Grey ink and cardstock, white embossing powder, a vellum metal edged tag and the pretties kit for bling!

Then a project from my camp this weekend - a little ornament with the scallop punch. You just punch out 8 scallops out of DSP, fold each of them in half, and put adhesive on them (just one half) and stick it to the folded half of the next scallop. Before you attach the last one, put a loop of silver cord with one of the beads from the pretties kit on the bottom through the middle and then attach the last scallop. **TIP** stack up all 8 scallops after you punch them, and gently crease them in half. Use this as a guide to crease them in half. This is important because if they are not all folded the exact same way, the edges will not line up on the finished ornament. How did I learn this? The hard way, for your viewing pleasure, of course. Look closely at the photo - on the left you can see those scallops aren't lined up. On the right, they are.

Then, for my Christmas card club I did a Kristina Werner card which I think is just beautiful in its simplicity. The colors are blush blossom and sage shadow - two colors I truly never use but I think they are stunning together. To get the debossed square, you just Hermafix a piece of cardstock slightly larger than the vanilla layer, stick it to the front of your card, and then flip it over on your light table and go around the edges with your Impressor. It's a fabulous, simple and elegant technique, with none of the detail required for regular em/debossing with a template. Yes, indeedy-do - your girl is a lazy embosser! :-) The square is just drawn in chocolate chip with a Stampin' Write Marker. After that I did a brown (Love the non-traditional Christmas colors) snowflake card and a cute wreath card that you make with the scallop punch, the 3/4" round punch and the three for you punch. Then I did a punch/DSP card for the regular club and a very simple "best wishes" card based on one Spamela gave me at the SSSSS. I hope you're having a relaxing weekend. I plan to do Christmas cards and general stamping all day.