More Dinos

Can I just say that Kim over at My Favorite Things rocks? I emailed her about the broken tail on the dino and she promptly sent me out a new set. I'm beyond excited and will definitely continue to order through her. Cute stamps and great customer service--what more in life could a girl want?

This was a quick card for Cousin Brian. He is exactly one year older than Miles so we generally have a combined birthday party to make it easy on family. The card base is Buckaroo Blue and other colors used are True Thyme, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, and Whisper White. I stamped the image and sentiment with my Versamagic Dew Drop in Jumbo Java. I colored in the dino with a blender pen and the inks from my True Thyme, Buckaroo Blue, and Pumpkin Pie ink pads. Then, I used some Orange Peel stickles on the candles, hat, and some of the frosting. I colored over the dino and sentiment with my Clear Glaze pen and then dotted the outside of the image with an Orange Glaze Pen which is probably the closest I'll come to doodling.

I'm not 100% thrilled with it but it served its purpose. Sometimes I don't like giving my cards away because I know that they're not going to be saved so it's probably better that I didn't agonize over this one for hours :-)

Delta and Dawn

I'm so glad that they've made it back to the ocean. I've been following the story of the Humpback Whales who accidently came up into the Sacramento River. I vividly remember Humphrey the Humpback whale from when I was a kid and still find it amazing to this day.

So, roughly 20 years later, we've got 2 humpback whales who are far, far from sea trapped in a river. A mama whale and her baby. The first few days this was breaking my heart since they really talked about the mama wasting away since she was giving all her nutrients to her baby by nursing her. . .those of you who don't know me--I'm a DIE HARD nursing mom who totally and completely believes that breast is best and kids should nurse till they self wean (or mom helps them in a gentle way). Anyway, this has been a huge news story lately and I know it's more than local. Apparently, they made it under *my* bridge and are back out in the open sea. You can check it out and see what I've been staying up at night to watch here :-)

A Rak from Yvette

I love this RAK I just got from Yvette. Petal Prints was one of the first sets I bought as a demo and even though it's retiring, I'm definitely hanging on to it. This card is gorgeous! I love pink and brown together and since this is one of my favorite sets, can I just tell you how much I love it!!!!!!

That said, it's Wednesday and I love hump day since the week is nearing the end. There's a carnival at Mason's school in the afterschool program so I'm going to try to get out of work a little early so that I can grab Miles and Maya and take them as well.

The room is coming along slowly but surely--dh gave me a hard time that I was going to disappear in there since he was leaving Tuesday morning and wanted us to spend time together. . .his reasoning is that I can work on it at night while he's gone. . .ummmmmm, that's part of the reason it got that way. I'm too tired at night! Anyway, my goal is to have a gorgeous room to show you soon and then I'm not going to keep throwing things in there. I know if it's usable, I'll use it and won't have to keep bringing things from one room to another and then just throwing them in there.

Have a great Wednesday and send some sun my way. We're having unseasonably cool weather right now.

Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up 2006 (Live)

I'm loving this!

Happy Memorial Day

I really wish every weekend could be a 3 day weekend. We've had a great weekend here and glorious weather.

Miles turned 5 on Friday so we started by taking donut holes to preschool and ended the day with letting him pick where we had dinner :-) Saturday was his party at a park and we could not have asked for better weather. Sunday was a lazy day around the house but we finally found a Nintendo Wii!!!! I think dh and I are enjoying it much more than the kids at this point. Dh and I also managed to get out to dinner with a couple friends with no kids!!!!! We went to Equinox which is on top of the San Francisco Hyatt and revolves. We had some great views, good friend, and good conversation. I'm glad that we went since the restaurant is closing indefinitely at the end of the month. Today is going to be another lazy day at home but I do have one major project that I want to tackle.

Everyone shows their stamping spaces and they're so neat, clean, organized, perfect, etc. I thought I'd show you a little bit of my reality :-) My daughter's room aka my stamping space until we move her out of our room is a disaster! I don't really stamp in here so I take my stuff downstairs to work and then when I'm done, it's late and I'm tired so I shove it in the room with the promise to myself to put it away in the morning. Well, as you can see that's just not happening. Today, I resolve to get this space cleaned up and then I think I may start stamping in here and putting things away when I'm done. My goal is to get it neat, cleaned, organized, and perfect so I can show you an awesome after shot with a nice stamping space.

Have a great day and thanks for visiting.

Blogger RAK

I got this wonderful RAK from Heather Stevens. She wrote the sweetest note on the inside. I love getting happy mail and I love this card! The card base is Perfect Plum which was the first cardstock color that I purchased from Stampin' Up! way back when :-) The white layer is embossed with the Cuttlebug D'vine Swirls embossing folder and I'm not quite sure what she used to cut out the "thanks". I love these butterflies from PAPERTREYink and she used the diamond shaped brads from the vintage brads in the centers of the bodies--clever and I'll have to copy that idea since these are the least used brads in this assortment :-)

Go check out Heather and her creations when you get the chance. You should also consider joining the Splitcoast Bloggers club. It's a wonderful chance to get some happy mail and send out these cards we make to people you know will appreciate them. It won't be a quick, "uh huh, that's nice" and into the circular filing bin :-)

Have a good one! I hope you're all having great weather and are getting the chance to enjoy it!

Can you believe this?

So, it's costing me an arm and a leg to fill up my car these days. I haven't been driving our Tahoe lately because it's having some transmission problems but the car I am driving takes premium gas. At this rate, it's gonna hit $4/gallon before I know it!

I took this pic yesterday while participating in the Bay To Breakers. Dh, the little ones, and I were among the roughly 70,000 participants in this. We were literally in a sea of people the whole way. It was fun and definitely a San Francisco experience that we're glad we did but don't know if we'll do it again in the future. Anyway, Simone mentioned a few weeks ago that gas in Chicago is astronomical. Now, I feel for her because I live in one of the most expensive areas in the country and our gas prices top the State. I thought I'd heard that San Francisco topped the nation but doing a quick search today proved me wrong. It's still pretty darn pricey here and if you don't believe me, check this out!

The other pics are from various points along the way--see all the people? I'm only showing some of the mild pics. I will tell you that my 4, almost 5 year, was baffled by one of the nudies. . . .his only comment was "hey, that guy isn't wearing any shoes!" Dh and I chuckled since that wasn't the only thing he wasn't wearing! Fortunately, we were pretty much in the back a lot so I didn't scar my kids forever :-)

My Favorite Things

Ok, I love this stamp set by My Favorite Things My oldest ds desperately wants me to let him use this set since he's has alway LOVED Dinosaurs. I made both of these cards to give away. One of them is for Mason's birthday buddy and I'm so behind that this is about a month late. The other one is for one of dh's friend's son.

Card #1 is on a Cool Caribbean card base. The image is stamped in Versafine Black Onyx on Whisper White cardstock. It's colored in with Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise, and Real Red Markers and then highlighted with my Sakura Stardust pen. After coloring it in, the white was a little stark so I dabbed on some of my i kan dee pearlescent chalks for a light blue shimmery background. This image is matted on Tempting Turquoise and Real Red cardstock and then put on an Old Olive strip that has some silver eyelets attached to the side. The sentiment is stamped with Brilliance Lightning Black to go with the shimmery theme.

Card #2 is on a Yoyo Yellow card base. The image is stamped with Versamagic Midnight Black on Whisper White. I colored it in with various Sakura Glaze and Souffle pens and then matted it on Real Red carstock. I layered this on a piece of Only Orange cardstock cut on the diagonal. The sentiment is stamped in Versamagic Red Magic.

My only complaint is that when I pulled my stamp off the block ( the dinosaur with the prezzies on the back), it ripped. I'm soooooooooooo sad. Is this user error or is the stamp flawed? I emailed Kim about it and hope that I can get the one stamp back instead of buying the whole set again since I really, truly must have this set!

Anyway, it's late on a Friday and dh and I need to get to bed before the kiddos wake up! In case I don't make it back, have a great weekend!

Isn't she cute?

I love this stamp! This is one of the ones I got on the way up to Sacramento yesterday. I stamped a little last night before falling asleep. It's amazing how productive I can be when I'm not disturbed. I actually got 2 cards done but I'm saving the other one for tomorrow's post (unless I stamp something better tonight). This stamp is called With Flower and is a Karen Stolper stamp from American Art Stamp. There were a few others at the store that I stopped at that I almost got and when I checked out the site, there are tons that I absolutely must have!!!!!! I love these little figures!!!!!!!!!! I stamped her with my Tsukineko Dew Drop Versamagic Midnight Black ink on Very Vanilla cardstock and then colored her with my i kan dee pearlescent chalks. I matted her on Pretty in Pink cardstock. The sentiment is from Butterfly Kisses by PAPERTREYink and is stamped in Tsukineko Dew Drop Versamagic Pixie Dust ink on Vintage Violet cardstock. The card base is one of my Sahara Sand long notes and the ribbon is from a set that I got from Making Memories (I think). This is going to a teacher at Mason's school since she picked him up and took him to school today while I was gone. I love that it's cute but not too girly since she's not a girly girl.

I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of dh. His plane should be landing any minute now so that means he'll be home within the hour! We're off tomorrow for Malcolm X Day and Miles has his 5 year well child check and then I think we'll go see Shrek 3. I'm looking forward to it and you gotta love when a kid movie appeals to adults as well as kids.

Thanks for visiting!

A Make and Take

So, I'm in Sacramento all by my lonesome right now. I came up earlier today for a conference/event and honestly didn't realize the importance of this thing. My boss asked me to attend last Thursday because he couldn't and now that I'm here, I'm totally honored that he thinks highly enough of me to send me to this. This is an important political networking/shoulder rubbing/political deal :-) Everyone I've met has been super nice and is so interested in mentoring me and helping me move up the career ladder. . .and they're connected and are encouraging me to apply for new jobs like right NOW! Whew!

Anyway, on the way up here, I had to make a stop at a rubber stamping store that carries Amuse stamps since I'm still on a hunt. Well, I didn't find any Amuse stamps that I absolutely needed but I did find some other things. . . .I got some Petaloo flowers that are super cute, a Marvy Mega scalloped square, i kan' dee pearlescent chalks, the Tsukineko Essential Glue Pad, and 2 stamps--a scalloped oval by My Sentiments Exactly! and another cute little kinda stick figured girls with a flower by American Art Stamp.

But that's not all--they had a *free* make and take which I did. Super quick and super easy. I'm gonna have to remember this and whip out something like this one when I need to have a bunch of cards on hand.

Anyway, I'm going back home tomorrow after our meetings--I get to be an actual delegate and vote on important issues that affect the whole membership of the organization! Eeks, little ole me with all this responsibility! Until then, it's still relatively early and I did bring some stampin stuff with me so I'm about to play with some new toys before I hit the hay.