Sorry I've been MIA!

Sorry I've be MIA for a couple of days.  Yesterday I left the house at 9:30 AM and didn't return until 8:30 PM.  I started out playing Mahjong and was on a winning streak.  We only play with $2 but I wiped 2-3 people out of their $2!!  After that, I had a lot of errands to run all over town - Belks, WalMart, Dollar Store, Staples, Stampers Alley ....  I picked up the collage pictures (from THIS post)  from WalMart and they turned out great.  I am so pleased.  I ended up buying some super large binder clips which I am going to decorate and clip the pictures (8x10) in them.  I'll have to support them somehow from behind so they don't flop over.  After all my errands, I met Sonny and Marianne and her family at Fusion Bowl for dinner. Yumm!! Marianne and Greg had been in Asheville for a conference.

I went to Stampers Alley to see the BEE-U-TEE-FUL Northwoods Board that had just come in.  I will be doing a class on June 19.  We will make 6 of the cards.  Then, later in July or August, we'll do the other 6 cards.  You can view the cards HERE.  The Northwood cards are always so beautiful and glittery.  Call Stampers Alley (Mooresville) to sign up!!  If we get a full class, I can add another date.

Today was my Stamp Club.  We had a small group today - one gal was sick, another out of town and the third had Book Club earlier in the a.m. and couldn't make it.  But, we had fun anyway!!  We made two great cards and a tea-bag (chocolate squares) holder. 

This card is a great one for using up your scraps.  The stamp set is Circle Circus and the colors are Chocolate Chip, Barely Banana and Brocade Blue.

This is a great cheerful card!  We made that speckled background using Itty Bitty Backgrounds stamp in Only Orange, Pink Passion, Turquoise and Old Olive.  We put Crystal Effects on the drink.  Just wish I was in Hawaii!!

This is one of the tea holders.  They had their choice of this one or another one.  This one has a belly band that slips off.

This is the inside.

This is the second tea bag holder.  It has a ribbon closure and uses the truck from Loads of Love.

inside

I got the directions for these little tea bag holders on Splitcoast. 

Little Black Sammy

We had another family night dinner at our house tonight.  Our local grocery store had a sale this week - $5.00 for a steak, baked potato and ear of corn.  So, my mom bought enough for all of us and brought them over for Sonny & I to cook it!  I made brownies so we had a feast!  On Friday my sister, Angela, who lives with my mom was given a little black kitten by their mail carrier.  She had found it while delivering the mail in their neighborhood.  I don't think the kitten could be much more than a couple of months old.  It is the cutest little thing - jet black - and is already litter box trained.  They are going to hold on to her for a week to see if anyone claims her but if not, they will take her to the vet to get her checked out.  My mom is loving little Sammy.  She wanted to name her Sambo but we encouraged her not to since we believe it is a girl kitten.  Here are some pictures I took of her tonight:

This is Harrison, Marianne's son, holding Sammy.

Marianne on the floor playing with her.

The little raincoat bear plays "Singing In The Rain."  Sammy was intrigued by it and kept trying to creep up and "paw" it.  It was so funny!

Last week I took a card class at the local stamp store taught by my friend, Deb Holland.  Deb is sooo talented and oober-organized!  The theme of the class was Pink & Orange.  Here are the cards we did:

This was colored with my Copics, but I think it would be just as cool watercolored.

This card uses a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the bottom.  I colored this one with Tombow Markers.

This one is white embossed vellum.   Marianne did hers in black and white & used it for a wedding card.

I love this effect.  We spritzed the watercolor paper with water.  Then we used Shimmer Paints for the watercolor effect.  Twinking H2Os would work as well.

This is very simple using patterned paper.

Flower Brooch and SNOW is coming

Last weekend Marianne and I went to Hancock's Fabrics and I bought a bunch of material to make some flower brooches / pins.  They are made with the Sizzix Flower Folds Die (page 201 of SU catty) and my Big Shot.  I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with them, but it was fun making them!  I'm now on the look-out for some cute buttons for the center.  Unfortunately, the SU corduroy buttons I have weren't the right colors, but if they were, they would work great.

Can you tell I like pink?????

We're expecting big weather changes here tomorrow.  It was over 60 degrees today and just beautiful, but that won't be the case for the next few days.  Sonny and I volunteer with the Red Cross and are on stand-by alert in case we are needed to help staff a shelter this weekend.  Here is the weather alert we got late this afternoon from the Red Cross and National Weather Service:

• System is slowing down meaning that precipitation should not start until late afternoon until early evening Friday  
• Rapid increase of intensity Friday evening is expected  
• Storm snow totals are showing 10+ inches in northern Iredell to around 6 inches in southern Iredell  
• NWS is issuing a WINTER STORM WARNING effective from 2 PM Friday through Saturday  
• Low Temps Friday night in the mid 20’s  
• High’s Saturday will not be above freezing  
• Winds will increase during the period to 15-20 MPH with gust to 30 MPH  
• Temps Saturday night in the teens / Sunday in mid 30’s / Sunday night possible single digits  
• There may be significant icing up to 4/10” along the I-85 corridor  
• This forecast is fairly certain however a small change in the track could bring the icing event further north  

I'm supposed to be teaching a Valentine Northwoods class at our stamp store on Saturday afternoon.  Hmmmm - don't think so!  Hopefully, it will be re-scheduled to next weekend.

Final 2 Northwoods Cards

Here are the final 2 Northwoods cards that I will be doing in my class.  Would love to have you there!!

 

 

More Northwoods Cards

Today I went to the Y.  Yes, after taking about a month (or more) off from exercising, I am hoping to make this a habit again.  I think it works best to schedule exercising.  If you just try to exercise when you get a minute or two or three, you never really work it into your day – at least, I don’t!   Something better always presents itself.  So, I took a couple of classes – fitness and stretch which I really enjoy.  At the end of the stretch class, we have a 5 minute meditation session.  So my meditation consisted of thinking about my family – my uncommunicative son, my moody husband, and my daughter’s possibilities of getting deployed.  When I finished and went out to my car, I had a missed call and voice message from my daughter.  If I’d checked further, I would have noticed that not only did I have 1 missed call from Ashley, but I had 6 missed calls from her.  So guess what she was calling to tell me???  Yep, she may be getting deployed in the next 2-3 weeks.  The good part is it would be a 6-month deployment to HAITI!  That would be so much better than Iraq or Afghanistan!!  Plus, as an Infectious Disease Pediatrician, she would be doing what she was trained for.  She wants this so bad.  I hope it happens for her although I would miss her terribly.  But six months in Haiti  is so much better than a year or more in Afghanistan.   Her boss is submitting her name to who ever is putting together the team.  She hope to find out in a few days.

Here are a couple more of the Northwoods cards I will be doing in my class.  My card is on top and the one underneath is from the Northwoods Stamp Board.

 

Northwoods Class

I will be teaching a class next weekend at my local stamp store.  It is based on a Northwoods Stamp Board.  I have modified the cards so that I can use some of the Northwoods stamps and also some of the stamps that I already have (to cut costs!).  The cards are Valentines, but I tried to leave out a lot of the Valentine sentiments so that you could use the cards for other occasions.   Here are a couple of the cards along with the Northwood cards from the board.    What do you think?  If you would be interested in taking this class, let me know or Brenda at Stampers Alley in Mooresville.

Northwood Class

I am teaching a class tomorrow at the local stamp store in Mooresville.  I will be using stamps from Northwood and doing five cards that were featured on a display board.  I just love the cards and man, are they glittery!  It took me a few tries to figure out the best method to stamp them but I finally think I got it.  I stamped most of them in Black Craft ink and embossed them with Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder.  Then I watercolored the images.  Northwood recommends watercoloring them with Tombow markers and I have to agree with them - that is the best.  BUT, I don't have any Tombow and tried using my SU markers to watercolor with.  That just didn't work.  I ended up using my watercolor crayons on some and on some just using a tad bit of reinker with my Aqua Brush.  I'll be interested to see everyone's finished product tomorrow and hopefully they will all have Tombow markers so they don't get frustrated like I did. 

Here are my samples.  My favorite one is the last one.

Today's Class

I taught another class today at my local stamp store.  It was another box and set of 4 cards.  I got the directions from Andrea Walford (you can find her blog in my sidebar).  Here is a picture of the project that we made using various stamps and papers sold at my LSS.

Here is the project that I made using Stampin' Up paper and the Fifth Avenue stamp set:

One Sheet Wonder Class

I am teaching a One Sheet Wonder class tomorrow night at my local stamp store.  I just love the card but the prep work for this class has been tremendous.  What was I thinking!!  But, it will be fun!  I have a full class tomorrow so we will be offering the class again December 1st.  Let me know if you are interested in signing up (if you live close to Mooresville).

Here are the samples:

The paper is by Bo Bunny.  We will make 2 of each card (5 different designs), 2 gift cards and a bag.  Probably in class we will only do one of each card depending on the time and you will finish the second card at home.

My Final Shape Class

I’m teaching the final “shape” class on Saturday at Stamper’s Alley so I’ve been getting ready today – cutting my paper, etc.  I always wait until the last day or two it seems like.  Although this time, I had gotten prepared a little early but didn’t get enough kits together.  Which is a good thing – more people signed up yesterday so that makes me happy!  This time we are doing a clothes theme – bikini, kimono, girlie dress and little boy’s overalls.  I like this one best of all!

A good thing happened today too!  I have been looking for my Oval Nestabilities for about a week.  I figured they were in my craft room somewhere but I was starting to panic!  I’ve been losing sleep over this, friends!  I went to Stampers Alley today and asked if maybe I’d left them there & Brenda Mott said she hadn’t seen them, but she remembered me bringing them in a couple of weeks ago to measure for my September class.  Well, then I figured they had to be in my car somewhere.  After searching my car …. twice …. no luck!  I was getting scared I had lost them for good.  After dinner, I came upstairs and was just staring at my shelves when …. voila, there they were!!  They were stuck in with my H20’s.  I’m sure what I did was pick them up with my H20’s last week & put them all on the shelf together.   Well, now they are in their rightful place and I can get a good night’s sleep!!

Tonight is my daughter’s last night in her condo.  The packers came today and packed all her stuff.  They will bring the moving van tomorrow and load her stuff up.  She is spending the next 2 nights with one of her girlfriends and will be arriving here on Sunday.  Her condo is still for sale.  She has been getting a lot of “lookers” so hopefully, one of them will make an offer SOON!  We will probably leave here on Tuesday to start our trek to Texas.  Our plans are to stop at a beach along the way (possibly Ft Walton or Destin), New Orleans, Houston and then San Antonio.  I’m really looking forward to it.  Ashley and I have such a good relationship and these trips are so much fun for both of us.