Birthday Celebration

I had a nice birthday dinner celebration with my family at Firebirds.  And I received some beautiful birthday cards.  Here are a few of the beautiful hand made cards I received:

from Marianne - love this stamp set!

from Margaret - another flower favorite!

from Judy - These die cuts are so pretty!

Don't you love this sentiment (from Judy's card)

Joyce did a great job making this origami dress.

This is funny.  The first card I received from the NC Demos, made by my downline, Deb Michael.  Then on my birthday I received the second card in the mail from Deb!!  Love it!

from my upline, Carol Bartle

from Tina Lesson, one of my NC Demo friends.  I have this stamp and haven't used it - need to get it out and stamp.

Angela, Mom, me and Marianne at dinner

MDS Monday Challenge

A little late posting today but give me a break .... it's my Birthday!  (Not that I'm counting the years any more!)  I am going out to eat tonight at Firebirds with the family but other than that, nothing special planned.  Just doing what I feel like doing today and not doing anything I don't want to do!

I played around with My Digital Studio today creating a page for the MDS Monday challenge.  Another tricky one this week.  The first challenge was to change the size of patterned DSP when you fill a punch with patterned paper (DSP).  The way to do this is fill a punch (or photo box) with DSP; then double click on the shape and you can zoom in or out on the patterned paper by clicking on the "plus" and "minus."  The next challenge was to insert a picture in a group of photo boxes.  To do this you select the photo boxes you want to fill; group them together; then drag your photo in.

I can't tell you how many times I aligned these boxes!  Every time I thought I had them all lined up, I'd look again and see a "boo-boo."  Just don't look too hard or you might see one but I think I got them mostly aligned!!

So what do you think?  I love this picture of the peacock strutting and showing his beautiful feathers.  I took this several years ago at Fort Sam Houston while Marianne and I were visiting Ashley.

Suspended Festival of Trees

Whew!  Just finished pulling the Steelers through to a Monday Night win against Houston Texans.  We didn't look so good at the beginning of the game and let Houston score on us twice right off the bat with a touchdown and a field goal.  Even the fans at Heinz Field were booing their team!  But then the Steelers woke up and got three touchdowns and a field goal in less than three minutes at the end of the second quarter to turn a poor start and a 13-0 deficit into a 24-13 halftime lead.  I was whooping and hollering with Sammie trying to sleep on my lap.  She didn't know what was going on!!  We ended up winning with a score of 30-23.

Here is another "suspended" card using the Festival of Trees this time.  You can get the directions for the basics to making the card from yesterday's post.

Don't let my husband tell you he doesn't like cats!  Check this out:

Suspended Stars

Happy Monday!  I had a nice relaxing weekend.  Sonny and I went to the movies on Friday and saw The Judge.  It was very good - I would recommend it.  Saturday night we went to some friends house and played cards.  And Sunday, I got a lot of Christmas cards made.  I still have a lot to go but at least it is a start.

This is a fun card.  I guess you could call it Suspended Stars.  The starts are suspended between the top and bottom pieces of cardstock (which is covered with DSP). This card uses the stamp set, Bright and Beautiful.

Suspended Star Card

Inside of card

You cut your card base at the normal 5.5" x 8.5"; then trim it down to 5.5" x 5.75" and score at 4.75".  From the piece that is left over, cut a strip at 1.5" x 5.5" for the bottom.  Stamp your star and adhere it at the top to the top piece of cardstock and to the strip that you cut for the bottom.  The star holds the top and bottom together.

I have made a similar card to this one using Festival of Trees which I will share with you later.

MDS Monday Challenge - Herringbone Background

I missed the MDS Monday challenge last week since I was out of town so I wanted to try and do this week's challenge.  Well, what a challenge it was!!  We were to create a Herringbone Background . This was a new one for me and it took quite a bit of time to create.  I tried it first with different DSP's in autumn colors but it was just too busy.  Then I tried in-colors - not the look I was going for.  Then I decided to keep it simple (stupid!) and just do black and white patterns - that did the trick!  I got most of the papers from the Night and Day DSP.  To do the herringbone technique, you create a square punch and elongate it making it into a skinny strip.  Then you insert your paper.  There is a step-by-step tutorial by Juanita Golson on mydigitalstudio.net  if you are interested in trying it.  I did a lot of cut and pasting and when I got it the way I wanted, I "grouped" the items and saved them.  Here is what the page looks like with out the embellishments.

Here is the page after I added embellishments:

This picture was taken last week at the hockey game in Pittsburgh. Looks real, huh?   I posted the picture a few days ago and had a friend ask me how we were able to get in the box with the players!  Well, sorry to spoil it but this was actually a cardboard cut out.  Just wish we had the pull to sit down there with the players!!

I used a lot of elements from the Game Day Kit and I recolored the burlap ribbon to Crushed Curry. Check out the other pages using this technique here.

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I love Fall!

One of the things I missed when I lived in Texas was the changing of the seasons.  The season I missed the most was FALL.  I love the fall colors when the trees start changing and the crisp, cool air.  We have had our A/C off for about a week now with the windows open and it is great!  It is driving Bogart crazy but that's ok - he's kinda crazy anyway!!  When we were on our trip last week, I think we were just a tad early to see much fall foliage but we did see a bit.  My favorite was this tree that I snapped as we drove through the Pittsburgh country side.

Aren't the mix of colors gorgeous?

This picture below was taken from the front seat of the truck showing the trees lining the road- not too bad.

We took a tour of Heinz Field - where the Steelers and the Pitt Panthers play football.  This picture shows some beautiful trees in the players parking lot.

The foliage is just starting at the top of these trees.  This is a view from the stadium of one of the many bridges across one of the rivers (Monongahela, Ohio or Allegheny???)  It was a drizzly, foggy morning.

Tomorrow is Stamp Club and we will be doing several cards and projects.  Keeping on the same topic as fall, here is one of the cards we will be making:

I used Cajun Craze and Very Vanilla card stock and the News Print DSP.  I stamped on the DSP using Gorgeous Grunge and the acorns from For All Things with Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze and Soft Suede inks.  The leaves were made with a retired die from Stampin' Up.  After die cutting them in Cherry Cobbler, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry and Tangelo Tango, I spritzed them with water, wadded them up and then smoothed them out and dried them with the Heat Gun.  I used one of the Autumn Wooden Elements (Holiday Catalog) that I sponged with Soft Suede.  The sentiment is from For All Things and the ribbon is Tangelo Tango.

New Photopolymer Christmas Stamp

We had a great trip but as always, it's good to be back home and sleep in my own bed!  We left home Wednesday morning and drove to Ft. Belvoir to pick up Ashley for our drive to Pittsburgh on Thursday.  Thursday started out a little rough - Ashley was supposed to meet up with her classmates to go to the State Department.  She thought they were meeting at 6:30 but turns out, they were meeting at 5:30 a.m.!  Sonny got up and took her to the Metro and as it turns out, she arrived before anyone else!  After she finished up for the day, we hit the road for Pittsburgh arriving there about 6:30 - just in time to find a parking spot downtown and a short walk to the Consol Energy Center to watch the Penguins for the first hockey have of the season.  It was a great one - high scoring.  The final score was 6-4 with the Pens winning.

I didn't get the message that we were supposed to be looking to our right!

Final score - 6-4 PENS!

This was a cool mosaic of Mario Lemieux (former player and now owner of Penguins) of a collections of photographs that have been pieced together.

The Pittsburgh PENGUINS!

No Neck Sharon!!

Stampin' Up has released a beautiful Christmas stamp - as seen below.  Gentle Peace Photopolymer stamp was designed to work with the Blendabilties to create the stained glass look.  Just when I thought I didn't need any more Christmas stamps!  This image is just gorgeous!

Here is a LINK to the flier with details.





Here are the Tuesday specials for this week.  They will be available through next Monday.

Darling Doily Thinlits Die [133736] $24.95 $18.71	Decorative Window Gift Box [132146] $4.95 $3.71	Floral Frames Framelits Dies [127012] $26.95 $20.21	Mustache Framelits Die [133741] $7.95 $5.96
Perfect Print Numbers Bigz Die [133726] $24.95 $18.71	Spooky Treats Designer Template - Digital Download [127588] $12.95 $7.77	Tiny Triangles Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [133740] $7.95 $5.96	Truly Grateful Wood-Mount Stamp Set [131730] $27.95 $20.96

Christmas Stars

We are still in Pittsburgh but packing up and will be leaving soon.  It has been a great trip and I will share pictures when I return.  It has started raining here this morning so we will probably have a rainy ride back this afternoon.  We are dropping Ashley off at the airport around noon and then hitting the highway.

In the meantime, here is a Christmas card that I made a few weeks ago using the Bright and Beautiful stamp set and doing a lot of embossing.  I put a piece of vellum over the News Print DSP.

Fall Collage

Marianne and I went to Ikea last night in search of more frames.  We are both working on making more collages to frame for gifts.  I will be offering kits for sale of several designs when I return from my trip.  Here is one of them .... to wet your appetite!!  The kits will have everything stamped and cut out.  You will just have to put it all together - the fun part!!

After Ikea, we headed over to Concord Mills to the new Vera Bradley Outlet store!  We are both so excited that we finally have a Vera store near us.  Whenever I visit Ashley, I always go up to San Marcos to the outlets there and make a very expensive stop at Vera Bradley!  I am on their mailing list and had received a birthday discount coupon in the mail.  So I really got a deal.  I bought a purse and a wallet which were both marked 50% off already.  With my 20% birthday coupon, I ended up basically getting 70% off each item!  Darn - I should have bought more!  But, if truth be told, I really didn't need what I bought.  But who NEEDS a new purse???

We are headed out in the morning for D.C.  We will spend the night at Ashley's and then the three of us will head up to Pittsburgh Thursday when she gets out of class.  We have tickets to the first game of the season for the Pittsburgh Penguins Thursday night.  No major plans the rest of the week-end except visiting some of our favorite eating places in the area - Danny's Hoagies, The "O" for hot dogs, any one of several Italian restaurants in the area, and maybe we'll even discover some new hot spots!  Hopefully, the menagerie here at my house will behave themselves.  Marianne and Angela are going to be coming over to check on them while I'm away.

I have not had much luck with blogging with my Kindle but I will try.  No promises!  If not, you will hear from me next week.

Christmas Fun Fold

Brrr was what we were saying this morning!  A cold front moved into our area Friday night.  Yesterday was a beautiful fall day - crisp and cool!  Loved it!  We opened all our windows and about 5:00 pm, we were shutting all of them because we were both really cold!!  This morning I think it was in the 40s when we got up and the temps were in the 50s all day.  But I think it is going to be short lived.  The rest of the week I think it will be in the 70s which is ok with me.  We are going to Pittsburgh later this week and I'm sure it will be pretty cool there too.

Saturday was National Cardmaking Day.  I tried to get Sonny to come up and make a card with me but I wasn't successful!!  But I made several cards.  I found this fun fold card on Sandy Hancock's blog.  It was made by Cheryl LeFore.  She used All Is Calm DSP and I changed it up and used the Trim the Tree DSP stack.

Here are the instructions if you want to make one:
Cut base cardstock (Real Red for mine) 8"x 8".  Use the Simply Scored Diagonal Plate and score all four sides at 3".  Cut out the small triangles where the score lines criss-cross.  Flip the cardstock over.  Use the regular Score Board and score at 1" on all four sides to the triangle.  Fold the large flaps in toward the center and fold the small flaps in the opposite direction.  Decorate with DSP.  Trim one end of DSP diagonally and adhere to the small flap.  Close the card clockwise and place the fourth flap under the first flap.  (Note:  I may have done mine backwards because I had to close the card counter clockwise to get it to work.  Just try it and see what works for you.)

Belly Band:  3/4" x 9 3/8" cardstock.  Score at 1/2", 5/8" and 5-1/8".  Decorate.  (since the DSP stack is not long enough to go around the belly band, I cut two pieces and put one on top and one on bottom.)


I found out today that the vintage scrapbook page I made this week for MDS Monday was selected as a challenge winner.  I loved that page with the picture of my mom.  Check out the nice comments and the other challenge winner HERE.

Our house guest is still entertaining us!  Sammie loves my Stampin' Up boxes and I always keep one in the family room for her to curl up in.  Well, of course now Bogart wants the box and I know if I put another one out, they wouldn't have anything to do with it.  So they just have to take turns!

Whose turn is it?

Where are you Sammie?  Lookie - I'm in your box!

I'll show that white cat whose box this is!

 Today I caught them exchanging cat kisses!!

Just hanging out!  Bogie thinks he's king of the mountain on the scratching post!

I really goofed up this week though!  When I cleaned out the litter box on Thursday, I mistakenly put the lid on backwards .... the lid with the hole that they go in to do their business.  Sonny noticed it Friday I think and fixed it.  He told me about it and we checked around but didn't find any surprises UNTIL I was folding the laundry on Saturday.  The laundry basket had been in the laundry room and I carried it up to our room to fold the clothes.  Normally, I just dump it out on our bed.  Well, glad I didn't this time!  Guess where they did their business?   As I was reaching in to pull some clothes out, my fingers touched something squishy .... ugh!  I couldn't blame them but I did wonder why they were both sniffing around the laundry basket when I brought it upstairs!  So, yesterday I got to do the laundry all over again!  Never a dull moment with these cats!