Doodley Friend

I know you all know that I love the Doodles. Well, I finally broke open my pack of long notes and decided to play a little. The base of this card is one of the So Saffron Long Notes. I layered some of the Polka Dots and Paisleys Designer Double Sided paper along the bottom. I stamped the word friend and the flowers in Versafine Black Onyx on Very Vanilla. I picked the colors to use from my color coach and then colored in with markers. Each flower has an Olive eyelet in the center and is popped up on a dimensional. Another quick and easy peasy card from me to you :-)

On another note, dh is gone again :-( I hate when he leaves because he leaves at oh dark thirty--his flight is at 6 am and he gets up around 4ish which means I'm pretty much sorta up then as well. By the time I fall back to sleep, it's time to get up and start the daily grind. Thursday won't be here soon enough and he's not travelling next week :-)

So, I'm gonna catch 24 and then fall in bed and sleep since I'm sooooooooo tired! Check back for Tuesday eye candy tomorrow.

I just got a RAK! Imagine my surprise to go out to the mailbox and find out that I'd been RAK'ed by non other than Simone aka SpAzzGiRL. You can check her out at her blog: Daily Dose of Spazz. It's one that I check out daily :-) Anyway, she made this and posted it and said that she didn't really love it but I think it's awesome and I'm so happy that she thought of me and sent it to me. I love these colors and this was perfect to get today.

Big Thanks Simone!!!!!

I was tagged again :-)

Ok, I'm supposed to list 7 things about myself and then tag 7 others.

Here are my random facts:

1. I'm a military brat and was born in England. I went to school in California, Texas, New Mexico, Germany, and then back to California before going to college.

2. I was a 4 sport athlete in high school--volleyball, basketball, softball, and track.

3. I went to a big college--UCLA--and never lived in a dorm.

4. I hate public locker rooms.

5. I've been an educator for 15 years now; ironically, I was only going to teach for about 3 years before going back to school but I've never left and just moved up from the classroom to administration.

6. I've got 3 wonderful kids who I love dearly when they're not driving me crazy and they all have first names that start with the letter M.

7. I ran my first marathon last October. I trained with Team in Training and completed the Nike Women's Marathon in a little over 8 hours. Ok, so I run slow!

I'm going to copy Simone and not officially tag anyone but if you do read this, tag you're it! Leave a comment here so I can go read your answers.

More Clear Stamps

I'm thinking that I can really get into some clear stamps :-) Here's something I whipped out Sunday afternoon while the kiddos were napping and dh was watching the Lakers get beat :-( The card base is SU Kraft cardstock and I used some more of my Basic Grey Phoebe paper on the bottom. I alternated the hearts and little squiggly from my Hero Arts Clear Design Friendship Messages stamp set with Versamagic Chalk ink in Pixie Dust and Sea Breeze. I stamped the sentiment from the same set in Versamagic Chalk ink in Jumbo Java and edged the card with the same color. A couple pieces of Flirty Ribbon from SU are adhered across the center and voila--done! I love the ribbon on top of the ribbon and they match the inks that I used so great!!! I wish this ribbon was still available or that I had hoarded some more of it when it was available but oh well--gives me a reason to find new toys to play and experiment with!

Thanks for visiting!

Isn't she sweet?

Is this not the most adorable 2 1/2 year old ever? She's *talking* to her pretend friend, Jamirio. . .I don't know who it is but daddy made the name up. We're enjoying the weekend with daddy home before he has to fly out again. I'll be glad when this project is over and he's got some down time but it's soooooooooo nice to have him home.

From ugh to better

I'm going to start by saying that I've come a long, long way in my stamping career and it's only been a few years since I started. In November 2003, I met a few friends for lunch and shopping. We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in San Francisco which is located at the very top of Macy's in Union Square. After lunch, we walked around a bit and went to Macy's Christmas Lane. My friend (who is a Stampin' Up! demo and my upline) looked at every card and her basic comments were "this is cute but I could totally make this at home". My other friends were also crafty and kind of went along with her. I'm the least crafty/artistic person on the face of the earth and listening to the 4 of them talk I had big thoughts in my head. I thought, and thought, and thought, and then finally thought "how hard can this be?" So, I told dh what happened and then I told him that I was going to make our Christmas cards that year. He just kinda rolled his eyes and said "cool". I thought back to my friend who made my baby shower invites while pregnant with ds #1 and I remembered her saying "it's not hard, I just stamped it and embossed it and then printed everything on the computer and put it all together" and went from there.

I went to Michael's, JoAnn's,a rubber stamping store, Michael's, JoAnn's. . .and back and forth until I'd found the right stamp, some pigment ink, embossing powder, a heat tool, markers, scalloped scissors, and cardstock----many trips later I sat down to create and 7 hours later, I finished my very first hand made card that I was totally and completely proud of! So, I started mass producing. . .about 5 hours in, I realized I'd only finished 3 cards. . .hmmmmmmm, maybe this is harder than I think. I find a few ways to streamline the process but I can tell you now that the 50ish cards that I sent out were still being finished and mailed around December 24th and I started right after Thanksgiving (with the same layout, stamps, ink, cardstock, etc).

Not to be deterred, I still continued to shop and the owner of the rubber stamping store was a kind, kind lady who loved to stamp and she sat with me and told me "honey, you don't need everything right now" but she showed me a few things and gave me a stack of magazines. I went home and flipped through them all for a few days and went back and told her--"I wanna learn about Pearlex!" She said that they didn't have Pearlex but had Perfect Pearls and showed me how to use it in a few different ways then I happily spent some more money and went home and made birthday cards for friends who had birthdays (end of Jan/beginning of Feb). These cards wowed me!!!!! White card base, black card stock, Perfect Medium and Perfect Pearls--woohoooooooo!!! I was a card maker who could make cards that you'd buy in a store that looked just as nice.

Now, it's February 2004. My friend invites me to a Stampin' Up! event and it's a 10/10/10. I'm totally stoked since she sent me the catty in November, right after our lunch thing and there's so much I want but I'm still overwhelmed. I've gotten better, but I'm still skeptical that you can really make a card in 10 minutes, let alone 10 cards that take 10 minutes or less. I was right because I spent 3 hours at her 10/10/10...if we weren't friends, I'm sure she would have sent me home.

I came to her next event in March 2004 and dh and I had spoken about it and he realized that I really and truly loved stamping so he told me to go ahead and sign up as a Stampin' Up! demo because it would save me money. I'd get a discount on stuff to use and I'd already been spending well and above the minimum quarterly quota for stuff that I had no idea how to use. I told her that I was signing up and then I became a demo.

Shortly after, I discovered SCS and I've truly learned how to stamp. I still go to my upline's events cuz I totally love stamping without having to think and cut cardstock but I strive to create and make things that take my breath away.

and I know this is a totally long, long story and if you've read this far, I love you to death. I have absolutely no artistic background. I never took art in school since my electives were focused on extra science and stuff that would get me in a good college and I just wasn't crafty growing up--I'm too impatient.

Card #1 is after 3 1/2 years of stamping and random buying. I hate it!!!!!! It's all about what I want to buy but I can't make it work. This is why I went to SU with the coordinating ink, paper, and accessories plus stamps sets that worked together.

Card #2 is much better but it's a SU image so I feel that SU saved me :-) I will not tell you how long this took to make and I'm only about 80% happy with it. I kept smudging it and aligning it wonky and stuff. . .paper piecing is cool but it takes some concentration to align things plus the time it takes to cut the images out. I definitely will be doing it again but there's a part of me that is going, hurry, hurry, hurry, while I'm stamping.

Both cards: Card base is Cool Caribbean by SU. The designer/patterned paper is Basic Grey's Phoebe collection (Looooooove their 6X6 pads but I'll buy and and not know what to do with them). Card #1 is all Versamagic/Brilliance inks along with the Celebrations stamp sent from My Sentiments exactly. Card #2 is Birthday Beauty by SU stamped onto Whisper White with Versafine Onyx Black ink (after a few smudge tries). The dress and sash are also stamped with the Versafine Onyx Black ink on some Basic Grey Phoebe scraps and then paper pieced on the girl. I used SU markers to color her in and then applied stickles in Fruit Punch to her crown, sash, flower, and shoes (along with some circles on the background paper). The card and focal image is edged in Brilliance Pearl Beige ink.

The primas also have Fruit Punch stickles in the centers (and this is my mom's favorite part of the card). The prima'd piece along the side as well as the focal image are popped up on dimensional.

For those of you who hung out this long, thanks so much and leave me some insight! My goal for the remainder of the year is to get better at stamping and card making so I welcome any and all constructive criticism.

I've been tagged. . .

Cindy of My Inky Fingers tagged me and this is sooooooooooooo hard. I'm supposed to pick my 5 favorite blogs. I'm not gonna though since I can't narrow it down to 5 and some of my faves have already been tagged.


So, 5 blogs I love to browse in no particular order are:

1 Daily Dose of Spazz. Simone is wonderfully talented and just seems like a really cool person. She's someone that I think if we met in real life, we'd totally get along.

2. Stamping for Sanity. Renee is wonderfully talented and puts lots of detail in her work. Definitely check her out.

3. The life of a smallpigpig. Peggy's pretty cool and you gotta check out the convention shirts she designed. If I were going this year, I'd definitely be getting one for myself.

4. Live, Laugh, Love, and Create. You definitely have to check out the punch cards that she's sharing. It's inspired me to do think outside the box when it comes to using the punches I collect.

5. Simply Pink. I like Melissa's style--very clean, neat, and with an attention to detail. Her images look so crisp and well stamped and it makes me think maybe I should slow down a little and be a little more detailed oriented when I stamp :-)

So, enjoy these blogs! I'm not the greatest about adding blog links but if you do read my blog and have one of your own and wanna share links, let me know by posting a comment here. I try to visit everyone who comments and will readily admit I surf the web when I do get into my office and am bummed beyond belief that I can't get to Typepad from work. Darn filters! So, if you're on Typepad, I gotta check you out when I'm at home and get a few free minutes (or have a dvd in the player or am letting them play Xbox, ya know what I mean--the babysitter!)

Jen's Challenge

Jen over at Iheart2stamp does a regular blogger challenge and this is my first submission. I'm also sending this one as as a RAK so if you belong to the SCS Blogger RAK club this may be coming your way :-) The card base is SU Chocolate Chip. I finally cut into my Basic Grey Phoebe paper for this one. Since I'm thinking of maybe giving up my demoship, I'm trying to see what I can do when I don't use SU stuff. I stamped the sentiment and images from the My Sentiments Exactly Celebration set that I got when my car just so ended up at my LSS. These are my very first acrylic stamps and they definitely aren't my last (since the magnet pulled me back there again today when my meeting in the neighborhood was cancelled at the last minute). I used Versamagic Dewdrop Chalk inks in Pink Petunia, Persimmon, Sahara Sand, and Tea Leaves. I punched out a few scraps with my Word Window punch and attached with gold brads for the tabs. The focal piece is up on dimensionals and it and the card are edged with the Sahara Sand ink. I actually like how this one turned out.


Now the second card of the night that I stamped is a disaster. I'm going to see if I can save it later tonight after the kids get to sleep. Stay tuned and I'll show you tomorrow what I'm attempting tonight!

This is hilarious!

I've been trying to post my first blogger rak and for some reason the pic is not showing so I started browsing other blogs. I ran across this and it's hilarious.



Explore South Africa

My first Blogger RAK

Lookie what I got! This super cute card is from Donna-scs id dbaker3. You can check out her blog here. I love the sets she used and the color combo and the primas are gorgeous and soft--they feel like real flowers!!!! Donna is a former Bay Area gal who managed to escape the high cost of living up here. Dh and I talk about getting out of here every once in awhile and I fantasize about the time when I can have a normal mortgage (and more money for stamps and stuff) but then reality sets in. I could never leave my oldest ds and I can't see his dad letting me move him out of the State without a fight so here I stay. It could be a lot worse--it's gorgeous here and when the weather is nice, there is not a more beautiful place to live.

So, it's still relatively early and the kids all went to sleep without a fight. I just had my goodnight conversation with dh so it's time to get some stamping done :-)

Somebody Stop Me!

So, since I've moved from one position to another in the district, I travel from school to school alot. Well, sometimes when I'm going from one place to another, my LSS calls me and it's like they've got super magnets or something that make my car go park right in front of them! Today, while I was at *lunch* I had to pop in and of course, I had to buy something. . . .I can't just browse, right? So, I'm kinda intrigued by the clear stamps and I haven't gotten any PaperTrey ones (yet) and thought I'd look for something that wouldn't cost too much so I wouldn't hate them if I didn't like them. These stamps by MSE are so cute and I especially love the "you rock" sentiment. and of course, since EVERYONE at SCS says that pigment or chalks are best with the acrylics, I just had to get a few of the Versamagic Dew Drops--it's not like I don't have all the Stampin' Up! Craft spots. . . .I swear, I have no will power or self control. This is not showing you the other little goodies I got myself last week or the other times that I've had to pop in. Sorry for the not so great pic but I'm at work and had to use my phone, not my real camera :-)

Speaking of the whole will power/self control thing. I became a Stampin' Up! Demo shortly after discovering rubber stamping since it was so overwhelming out there. I figured I'd buy from one place with a discount and learn and save money-bwwwaaaahhaaaaahaaaaaa! I think I buy more SU stuff because I'm a demo and recently, I've started to branch out more and more. I'm seriously considering giving up my demoship since it's not like I have a huge customer base or do lots of workshops and I'd actually probably save some money by not just staying with SU. I'd probably think a little more about my purchases and force myself to use what I've got rather than feeling like I *must* have the newest stamp sets and accessories. I dunno. . .I've told myself I'll hang in as long as I and my puny customer base can continue to meet the minimums but I think it might be ending soon.

Crayon Resist

These cards are heavily inspired by Marie. I haven't used my glossy cardstock in awhile and saw a really cool card while browsing her blog. It inspired me to get my glossy cardstock out and scrounge around for a white crayon. Both card bases are Cool Caribbean and I embossed the Regal Rose layer with my mesh Cuttlebug embossing folder. I used my new favorite set, Doodle This for the flowers and squigglies and after highlighting a few areas with my white crayon, I sponged on Cool Caribbean, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, and Regal Rose. Easy Peasy, just my style!

I've got a couple more kid birthday cards to make but I'm beat and don't think they're going to happen tonight. I think I want to curl up with a book prior to falling asleep. Dh comes home tomorrow night and I can't wait!!!!!!!

Thanks for visiting!

Hip Hip Hooray!

I made this card for my son for his 8th birthday. When this set came out, I knew that I had to get it just for the beaver. His last name is hyphenated and the last part is "Beavers" :-) This card is totally inspired and CASE'd from Kendra/apigonfire at SCS. You can see the original here.

The card base is Green Galore and the layout is one that I got as a sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers. I really like this layout and may have to start trying the sketch challenges more often to get out of my comfort zone since I tend to stick to the same layouts time and time again. Other colors used are Tempting Turquoise, Lovely Lilac, Only Orange, and Whisper White. I stamped the racoon and beaver onto the Whisper White with Versafine Black Onyx ink. I used markers to ink up the balloons and party hat and then stamped them as well. The little guys are colored in with markers. I wasn't quite happy and thought they might need some grass to stand on so I stippled Green Galore under their feet. The top part was too white and stark so I stamped the little confetti images with Tempting Turquoise on the top part. The Lovely Lilac layer has images stamped on it in Lovely Lilac as well. Orange eylets on the side finish it up.

I really, really love this set and I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. It definitely will be seeing more ink in the future.

Thanks for coming by!

Vegas, Baby!

As I've mentioned, dh and I went to Vegas for his birthday last weekend. We had a timeshare presentation to attend and I had frequent flyer miles that were expiring so travel and accommodations weren't that much--more money to play with over the weekend :-) Here's a pic of the 2 of us at his birthday dinner Sunday night. We went to RM Seafood at the Mandalay Bay. Overall, it was pretty good but not amazing. We waited at the bar for a friend of his for about an hour so this is the two of us after several Vodka Tonics :-) I'm really not bigger than him, it just looks like we're the the same size since he's really leaning into the seat and I've scooted way forward. He is a little over a foot taller than me and outweighs me by about a hundred pounds. He's currently on his way home from a business trip and I miss him terribly!!!!! This project he's on is going to last 10-12 weeks so he'll be gone a lot. I sleep horribly when he's gone so the good thing is if I can get my stamp area cleaned up, I'll have lots of stamping to share.

Thanks for visiting!

What does your name mean?

What Kathy Means

K is for Keen A is for Alluring T is for Terrific H is for Heavenly Y is for Yummy

What Kathrene Means

K is for Kinky A is for Athletic T is for Tender H is for Humorous R is for Radical E is for Easy N is for Naive E is for Enchanting

What Does Your Name Mean?



I saw this on another blog and wanted to give it a try. I like these little games :-) I used my name that everyone calls me and then my "real" name. Hmmmmmm, which one is more of the real me? What do you think?

So, dh is on a business trip again and I'm still recovering from our weekend away. My 4 yo was not the best listener while we were gone and had a rough day returning to preschool. Love him as I do, he is a stubborn little dude (just like his dad) and definitely has a mind of his own. We haven't figured out what consequences work on him at this point.

I've got to get some stamping done tonight or tomorrow. We're having my 8 yo's bday party this Saturday--where does time go? I cannot believe my baby boy is now 8! I've gotta make him a card for the party and figure out what I'm doing for party favors.

Thanks for stopping by!