Weekend Wrapup and Prayers for Bats

Well, all good things must come to an end, and so ends my weekend with Jenn.

I was wondering if someone could answer the space/time continuum question of why time speeds up and slows down depending on who you're with? Whenever you're having fun, it zips by in a blur or disappears entirely. And then slows down at the dentist and the post office. I would appreciate a solution to this problem like an accelerator/decelerator. Thanks a bunch. *sigh*

Anyway, we saw and did some really cool things.

First - a big howdy to my buddies in the chat box on the right - Lisa & Cassie. Even though I'm shunning Lisa because of her radical stance on rain, I still love her! Cassie has not been shunned for any reason, and I love her too!

First we went and saw my friend Tisa at the Bearded Ladies show downtown. Tisa is the fabulously talented owner of Tisa's Creations, and her booth was without a doubt the best one there! We couldn't get near her for too long because it was crowded with people buying amazing things, like her "Whatever" cards, which are my favorites!

On the way there, we saw the only sad thing I will post. A little sick bat. :( If you're not from here, you might not know about our freetail bat colony that lives under the Congress Avenue bridge. We love our bats, which you can read about here.

But if you live with bats, you know you shouldn't see them in broad daylight or near the ground, because they are sick, possibly with rabies. I hope this little guy wasn't suffering. I have worried about him all weekend. I know, I'm crazy, but you should pray for my little bat.

On to happier things. We saw this crazy contraption on top of someone's car. WTH is it? It has some kind of weird foot pedal on the back and a buckety thing on top. Someone help us figure it out!Then we saw these amazing aprons while on a cupcake break at Sugar Mama's bakeshop. We LOVED that sassy ruffly red and pink one on the right. I'd love to bop around all Lucille Ball style in one of those things all day!!
Gratuitous sushi picture! (You knew it was coming!) And finally, stamping!!!

We copied that adorable chick from Inspired Designs and made some other birds. I of course, started with a bluebird...Then we cranked out the rest of the avian family. What do you think?

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

I'm going to chill with some Google Reader and my Tivo.

Back tomorrow!!

Oh - and maybe I'll even announce the winner of the momster!!

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?

Happy Caturday!!

It's Caturday!! Yay!!!

(Yay minus a growl for the rain).

Since it's Caturday, I had to share these pics that my buddy Jayne sent me of Webster reading my blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE WEBSTER!!!!!

This first one kills me - it's like "nooooo - don't throwz Maddie aweh!!"

Thanks Jayne - you made my day!!!
I hope all of you get up to the screen and paw it when I post something!!

I survived the prep for the Artisan Awards (barely - 2 hours of sleep) but I'm not allowed to show pictures until I get rejected (hee hee) but I promise I do have some other stuff to share. But Jenn & I have a fun crafty weekend plan. For those of you in Austin - anyone going to the Bearded Ladies show?

Have a great Caturday!

Oh PS - Techno Tip - For firefox users, you can switch between tabs by doing Ctrl 1, Ctrl 2, etc. I'm a ding dong and just discovered this by accident.

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?

The Interwebz

I love the Googlenet, the Interwebz, the InterGoogle - all of it.

And recently, I've seen some interesting reactions to social networking. There are two reactions...

"YESI'MONFACEBOOKAREYOUOMGBEMYFRIENDICAN'TWAIT!"

And...

"Twitter's for idiots."

I'm here to make a plea for some middle ground, and here's why.

Last night, I got a Tweet from one of my fave restaurants - the Asti/Fino partnership, for half off a pizza if you mentioned you saw it on Twitter. Now, that's just a little brilliant and a bit of a win/win, yes? I confirmed via a man named Poul in Mexico City that I was not the only one with Gmail problems. I found out my friend Sue was safe in Australia. I found out a sweet girl was losing her sweet sweet pet. I bought a necklace.

This week I found an old friend on Facebook - I won't tell you from how many years ago, because I'm vain, and I'm afraid you'll find pictures of the outfits... I got a great inspiring quote from someone else's wall. I saw a cake I brought to work on someone else's home page. I talked to a friend who lost her job, and a friend who did not.

So what makes any of that stupid? Nothing. And how could I have done all that another way? It would have been harder, if not impossible. And some of our paths would never have crossed. And had I not tried these, I wouldn't have done any of these things.

I would just say to the world that every person on earth has a different purpose for every tool they pick up. Just think about fire. BBQ, Steel, Warmth, Rockets, Tea, Jewelry, S'mores, Glass, Signals.

These things are tools in the hands of people - some like you, some not. Don't write em off. See what they're doing. Do your own thing. Make em better.

Here's the thing that gave me chills and made me cry on the interwebz today. You've probably seen it. You probably want to see it again. Click here.

Maybe I'll Facebook and Twitter it too...

And here's the thing that made me giggle. Click here.

My friend Jenn, of Just for You by Jenn is coming for a visit from Georgia today!!

Yay!

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?

Sustainable Summer!

I entered this card in the Cards Magazine cover contest - it's made from the pages of Cards Magazine - it's like a meta-card!

Alas, I did not win, however, they were kind enough to feature me on the blog today! They have incredible photography and projects over here.. It's like getting their magazine every day. Check it out by clicking the link above or the picture.

Craft magazines have such beautiful pages - use them for something fun!

PS - I twittered a special offer today... check it out!


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?

Easter Recap

Well, I thought I'd recap the day for you guys, even though you're probably all full from your own Easters! First of all, we had a Martha Stewart ham from Costco and OMG - it's amazing. Hormone & Antibiotic free, hammy yumminess. None of that plastic-y uniformity of gross regular ham. You gotta get one. The yellow caviar is my fave - it's whitefish caviar and it's so yummy. The cakes were awesome - Maida's cake, which as you can see masquerades as a chocolate cake but it's filled with fluffy whipped cream, and a lemon rosemary cake that was like a spice cake on crack - unbelievable. The easter eggs were created by my momma. Look at her cute bunnies on the table. The amaryllis are in my front yard and are hand-me-downs, as all great, beautiful bulbs are. These are real stunners in real life. You MUST click this picture for a closeup!

Then the poor neglected creatures needed a moment in the sun after all the alone time.

Maddie got super dramatic right off the bat, and well...

What a drama queen.

Then, despite the hundreds of dollars of expensive toys, the beasts choose this for their playground. A LaCroix box. Weirdos.
Then, they decide that it's time for a lie down. Regardless of how little space there is, they will find a way to smash themselves into some sort of napping position.. Tough life, these two.

Back with a card tomorrow! :) Hope you had a fun weekend!

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?

Just B Urself

Happy Easter everyone!!!

I stumbled onto this great quote the other day when I was pondering Easter, and it seemed perfect for the Easter Day bunny card...

The story of Easter is the story of God's wonderful window of divine surprise. ~Carl Knudsen

Divine surprise. Love that.

So, on that note, I give you a surprising hatch. A tiger striped egg made with A Good Egg, Only Orange Cardstock and my black marker cracks open to reveal...

A teeny tiger bunny with a tiger pom pom tail!!

How cute is that little divine surprise?

My message to this little crazy Easter bunny, who will probably get made fun of in bunny school and suffer until he finds his place in life is....

Jesus didn't exactly fit in either :) Just b yourself - I promise that will have a happy ending!


I hope you all have a very fun & safe Easter!

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?

Oh Baby!

It's Spring, and that means the DoodleFactory had babies!! Literally!!!
Irene has sassed up some cute new stuff for us.I love the retro cartoony look of these stamps - they really remind me of something I saw when I was little.. I just can't remember what it is!But I did remember that you can win all the new DF releases! But you have to hurry - the deadline is tonight! Head over to leave a comment on the Starving Artistamps blog before midnight Eastern tonight and you could win all these!

Here's what I did with my babies... I colored them with Copics, and it's hard to see but I added glitter to the milk and the diapers. I popped them up with dimensionals too.


Don't you love their pink cheeks?
They should call that copic - Baby Bottle yellow - because it's just perfect.


Anyway, head over to enter to win all these new stamps, and stay tuned for more fun with the rest of the new release!!


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?

PonderBunny

This wabbit has some very very serious ponders in his furry head. Requiring him to rest it on a soft velvety pillow. He just read a book about Mr. Batt apparently (behind him) and now he is pondering and pondering and pondering. He might have a nap later. His Pacific Point Blue fur makes him kind of an outcast in the regular bunny world. So he spends a lot of time in his library, in solitary bunnitude, reading, pondering.

He's actually gracing the back of a kraft gift card holder. Have you seen these in the catalog? Page 157 - already scored, etc with the little tabs for the gift card! The front has the new stamps from the SU! Occasions Mini - Great Friend. I stamped them on book pages that I painted with Gesso to cover up the print a bit. Then I cut that out. This stamp does not match the curly label punch, to answer your question, Jenn.On the inside and back, I sponged Pacific Point Blue to antique it a bit.. He is holding something everybunny needs - a Starbucks gift card. He particularly likes the carrot cake over there...

Happy Caturday to everyone! Tomorrow is Easter, AND the final day of Bunny Week - where does the time go?!


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?

Kissy Huggy Bunnies

These little bunnies are very affectionate. It's kissy bunny Friday. Just two more days in Bunny Week!!!

Hard to fit all the bunnies in, really.

These little guys are from the Holiday Blitz stamp set, as are the kisses and hugs. I stamped them in Basic Black and colored them with a Bashful Blue marker. Then I outlined the left side of each bunny with a silver Pentel. I colored on top of the blue with a Spica glitter pen. I love those. Then I cut the bunnies out and stuck them onto the ribbon with mini glue dots. The DSP is from Basic Grey, and then I punched with my photo corners punch out of Brocade Blue, which I decorated with the silver Pentel. I scribbled around the outside of the Riding Hood Red Card base with the spica glitter pen and made teeny dots with my white gel pen.

While I was doing this, Splotchy busied himself (herself) with eating my Sticky Strip. (s)He loves to eat tape, sticky strip - nail files. He's insane. But when you see an insane creature enjoying him/herself this much, it's really hard to get upset about your sticky strip. Sometimes, you just gotta be happy for the joyful tape eaters.


Happy Good Friday!!

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?

Thanks Volvo - But We're Not Ready Yet!!!

Srsly. No one is more ready for a car that stops itself when you forget to look in front of you than YOURS TRULY, who has been rear ended by idiots like 4011 times. And besides, a car that stops itself is going to make texting and driving sooo much easier! Clearly the world needs more of that! So again, thank you Volvo, but here's where you just need to squelch yourself and your fancy robot car. (If you don't see the video above, squelch yourself over to my blog to see it)

Things need to happen in a certain order. There is a bunch of stuff that needs to get fixed before our cars are stopping themselves. So stifle your mad Swedish car skills and get busy on this list, thank you very much. When you're done, I will buy your stoppie car. Shoot - i'll buy two!!

1. Bus brakes - Not one single freaking time have I ever seen a bus stop without hearing the horrible screeching a dementor makes when he sucks your soul out. So, let me get this straight. I can buy a robot at Target that will vacuum my floor, Apple makes a laptop that is lighter than a Triscuit, and there are phones that know which way you're holding them and flip your pictures accordingly, and we have not yet mastered the things that stop the metal things with no seat belts that are rocketing America's children around our freeways. Yes, this makes sense. If you're mentally ill or hate children.
2. Cell phones - I know we've had this conversation, but please - can they work? I saw Apollo 13. I know the reason people don't believe we landed on the moon. It's because the government would have us believe that Houston was talking to a poorly engineered tin can that required longhand math and gum to land on earth again THROUGH SOME DEVICE THAT ALLOWED COMMUNICATION ON THE MOON FREAKING MY WHOLE LIFE AGO, WHILE I CANNOT SPEAK WITH SOMEONE TWO MILES AWAY MOST OF THE TIME!!! Last night I was talking to my dear mother, and I went down a hill (not much of one) and we got cut off. If I'm understanding the technology correctly, my cell phone communication is delivered to me via satellites and towers. IF IT IS GOING TO SPACE TO CONNECT ME, WHAT THE HECK DIFFERENCE DOES A SIX FOOT HILL MAKE?? IT'S IN SPACE! This is clearly a conspiracy or terminal stupidity. Squelch yourself before you wreck yourself.
   
3. Tags in clothing. Must we make them out of shards of glass? Two observations - if this is an attempt at marketing, then shut up. No one has ever looked at the tag in their shirt and said - I'm off to buy another one of THESE! My itchy neck LOVES the HECK out of some Tommy Bahama! Thank goodness the SKU number is right here for my convenience! Next - if you need to look at the tag to know how to wash something, please contact your mother and ask for a refund. She did not train you properly for life.

There are more, but these three should keep my friends at Volvo scurrying around for solutions so that we can get to the stoppie car.

In the meantime, please enjoy Rabbit Week's Thursday rabbit. He's reanimated from the pages of Martha Stewart Magazine. I borrowed his concept from Pine is Here. However, she has a different size circle or ovals than me. Every time I tried to lay his ears flat, he looked like a roach, I'm so not even kidding! So I curled his little ears around my bone folder and shazam - WABBIT!!

He has a tigery pom pom tail and googlie eyes.

Wanna see what I did with him? Better head over to Project Reanimate to see!!! And while you're at it, check out the post before it, where I made a Russian Icon out of a Doodle Factory creature.

I'm going to schedule another of my Google Reader Webinars in the next few weeks - to sign up - click the link at the end of this post!

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?

We won!!

You and me!!! Thank you SOOO much for your votes - my little Momster is now in the hall of fame!!!

And looky - they're going to sell her on their site!! $16 of every sale goes to charity! Hopefully people will buy them for their Momsters for Momster's Day in May! They will only be on sale until May 8th!

To thank you all for your loving support of Monster Moms everywhere.. Guess what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna give one away!!

They are signed on the back by me, and I have another Blend Pendant that I adore - it's fun jewelry.

This time, instead of making you do something, I think I'll do a Random.org drawing to pick the winner. Well, I am going to make you do something though. I'm a bit of a liar.

To be entered in the drawing, you need to leave a comment on this post and do two things.

1. Put the number of your comment - follow the person before - you know the drill.
2. Put the name of your favorite children's book in the comment. If you want to include a little description of the book and why you love it so much, you will warm the hearts of Blue readers all over the world!

I will leave this contest open until April 17th - that seems like a good number :)~

Thank you so much for giving my little momster some love!!

The people at Blend agree - you are the best blog readers in the world!

LOVEYAMEANITBYE.


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?

Sassy Wabbits and Mysteries

Nothing says Sass like your paws on your hips!! It's like - HMPH - I'm a WABBIT!

This image is one I've had for a while from some shopping excursion - it's by Rubber Soul, and is the essence of sass!

I stamped and masked him in Summer Sun, Pixie Pink and Kiwi Kiss.

The greeting is from A Good Egg.

Does anyone else think it's weird when major things happen and they're not covered on the news?

Let me give you an example. One day, not long after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, a man not far from me walked out of his house and found a package on his porch. Something about the package led him to believe that if he let go of it, it would explode and he would be killed. He laid down in his yard, holding the package, and someone called the police. The police, the FBI - everyone but the President showed up. They closed down his street and all the surrounding streets, including those in our subdivision. I called a few people who lived closer and told them maybe they shouldn't spend the night there.

I waited for the resolution and the news reports. They never came. I set up a Yahoo alert for "suspicious package" & Austin, and... nothing. The story disappeared. Libby - maybe you remember this.

Anyway, I always wonder.

Like today, when driving home, I saw this ginormous fire. I stopped and took pics - I'm a blogger after all - and sent them to our local news and Fox News. No one has said a word. Will we ever know?

Have a happy Wednesday!


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?

You Can't Have Just One...

Bunny, that is.

Well, you can't!! I'm not making this up - it's a serious nature fact!!

Look - should I ever get so famous that someone from Stampin' Up! would deign to read my humble blog, I would beg them, on bended knee to please bring back this stamp set - Hello Spring.
What was wrong with it? Who were the freaks that didn't buy it? Dementors? Only a dementor could want this set retired! Have you ever seen a cuter bunny, tulips, basket or typography??
Wait - I'll answer that for you - NO, you haven't! :)

So I brought these little wabbits out of a much undeserved retirement to proliferate on my card.
They are paper pieced from retired DSP. *gasp* she's using hoarded scraps?!?! This can't really be HER! It is me. I've reached critical DSP mass and must get rid of some payload before I crash!

It's a kraft cardstock base, with the Sale-A-Bration So Saffron ribbon.

I outlined the greeting with my white Pure Color Pencil. I like reverse shadows.

For those of you not following me on Twitter yet, funny story from my walk ... I'm boppin along, fighting the wind and thinking deep thoughts about whiteboards and cupcakes, when a RIDICULOUSSSSSS dog runs out in front of me. It's like a nano-chihuahua (which, by the way, is much more fun to say ch-HOO-ah HOO-ah, which is what I do) with GIANT ears like Gizmo. He's barking a nano bark, protecting his tiny territory from me, the 5'2" intruder with the Ipod and the blackberry, but here's the best part..

Every time he barked, his back left leg shot up in the air!! I'm not even kidding! I almost had to sit down I was laughing so hard, which enraged the nano gizmo.. which turned into a horrible unbreakable cycle - gizmo rage, laugh, gizmo rage... I barely was able to break free and join you here on the blog.

Weird - unrelated note - some strange woman named Jeanne Wolf is on TV right now wearing a necktie and a suit jacket. Look - if there are items of men's clothing we need to wear, can we all agree that a necktie does not go to the top of the list? So weird.

Speaking of Twitter - I might do my convention updates from there vs. my blog - it's very quick - what are your thoughts? All the photos I upload will still be on the blog, but the live coverage from the floor - Tiwtter or Blog? Or both, which I'm totally willing to do.. ? You tell me.

If you are wondering why in the world you should care about Twitter, here are two. I'm on it. :) And one of the restaurants I'm following tweeted that you could get 40% off their brunch if you mentioned that you saw it on Twitter!! There's neat up to the minute stuff you can't get in another format.

Have a wonderful Tuesday. For me, you guys know what that means - SUSHI! :)

Loveyameanitbye.

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?

Bunny Week - Day 1 of 7

I'm gonna kick off bunny week with a little PLAY. What says bunny more than play???

This is the book I've been telling you about. It's awesome. Put it on your Amazon wish list.

And when you get sleepy, you're gonna need a bookmark.

Maybe a handmade bookmark. With a bunny. A blue bunny. A blue bunny who is telling a story about two great friends...

Well you're in luck. Cuz I know how to make one. And I'll teach you.
Yeah. Once, there really were....

To see how I made this fun bookmark, which started as my American Express bill, you're gonna need to visit Project Reanimate.

But if you want to know how the really great friends turned out - they lived happily ever after. :)

Thanks for stopping by, friends! Happy bunny week!

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?

A Week of Wabbits!

Well you know what today is???

Yes, Palm Sunday, but also the kickoff to my 7 days of bunnies for Easter!!!

Which might lead you to question why my card today has no bunnies.. :)

Well what came first, the wabbit or the Cadbury egg??

Clearly the Cadbury egg. In pink and green and white.

So beginning tomorrow, seven little bunnies will hatch and appear before you in various forms, ending with a very sassy Easter bunny!!!

These eggs are from Hoppy Easter from the Occasions Mini, which has started officially!!

Click here to see the whole thing!

Now - a little more on play. Read original post here.

My cats do something I've never seen in a cat I've had - and I've had a lot of years of cats.

When I play with them - with a ribbon or a toy or whatever - they start instantly purring, very loudly and purr during the whole play session. Has anyone else had this happen? Why do they do that? Is it "I'm just playing, and even though I could eat you with my giant fangs and slap chop you with my fierce claws, I'm not gonna cuz I love you and I'm purring so you aren't skrd?"? Because they never do that when they play with each other. Only when they play with me. Please share observations.

It's very odd and super endearing.

As are the moments when they decide they're going to cram themselves into impossibly small spaces and then begin fighting. The Big Shot on top should give you some scale so you can see how tiny that slot is!That's how they spent Caturday. Hope yours was great. Have a great Palm Sunday!

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?