Withdrawal

I'm seriously going through withdrawal. I have had NO time to do anything crafty in about a month. Other than putting together a box of craft things for my DDSS on Splitcoast...which I couldn't even post a picture of in case she visits my blog...I have nothing new to show!

I'm currently doing my Christmas cards, and I can't even show them because I decided to send the "prototype" to my DDSS for this month's first challenge, which is to create a Christmas card without red or green. Well, considering I don't typically use those colors anyway, the card creation was an easy thing to do. I loved it so much that I decided to use it for my Christmas card this year. So now I'm doing the wonderful 'mass production' part of card making. The card is really cool...but you know how you never really take into consideration just how many layers and different types of embossing you actually include on a card? This one is going to take awhile to finish. It's pretty intricate. :-)

Other than that, I have nothing new to post. I'm going through withdrawal. I hope to actually have time this month to do some scrapbooking and stamping just for fun...but who knows if that will actually happen.

On a non-stamping note, I've recently decided to take my home business to the next level. Yep, now I'm a Stampin' Up demonstrator AND a PartyLite consultant! I just couldn't pass up the free kit if you have a show that has over $350 in sales, which mine did. I might as well enjoy the freebies, and I love having home shows anyway, so I'm looking forward to it! Yippeeee!!!

Enjoy the beginning of December, everyone! :-)

New card!

Yes, I finally had time to stamp! I may have had time a few weeks ago, but since the little hellions I work with find it amusing to see me sick, I've been almost catatonic for the past week and virtually a zombie before that. Almost every time I *thought* I was getting better, some new ailment would present itself. Friday brought Strep Throat (called Tonsilitis in England)...and I don't think I've had that since I was in high school 12 years ago!!!

In any case, I had to stamp this weekend because my monthly Stampin' Up group meeting is Tuesday night and we have two swaps. The first one is a Christmas themed swap, and I'm in love with this card. I absolutely love it, and it'll probably be my Christmas card this year (or at least one of them).

**Card removed for submission**

So, I used some of the new Stampin' Up wrapping paper and Chocolate Chip Satin ribbon, both available in the Holiday Mini Catalog. The snowflakes are from the Snowburst set, which is also from the Holiday Mini Catalog. The sentiment is from Wondrous Gift, which is in the Fall/Winter 2007 Collection. I used Soft Sky and Chocolate Chip inks for the smaller snowflakes, and then used Versamark on the bigger snowflake and embossed with Iridescent Ice EP. Almost everything is on dimensionals...although you totally can't tell from the picture!

In any case, I LOVE this card. The new wrapping paper is really nice and thick, and you get a ton of it on the roll (the roll itself isn't that wide, but the length of the paper adds up!!). I think it's definitely worth the price, because you get one roll each of two designs. The paper above is from the Blizzard paper...and what is great about this is that the blue paper could essentially be used for other holidays or special occasions (such as a baby boy's birth or birthday card). I think I'll definitely be purchasing the Celebration paper to have on hand for other things...it is sooooo nice!!

I hope to post the other card of my swap in the next day or two...once I figure out what I'm doing. :-) Haven't I mentioned before that my middle name is procrastination??

Stampin' Supplies (All Stampin' Up):
Stamp sets: Snowburst, Wondrous Gift
Paper: Soft Sky, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Blizzard wrapping paper
Ink: Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, Versamark
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Iridescent Ice EP, Heat Tool, Chocolate Chip Satin Ribbon

Oops

I've been so busy the last 20 days that I barely remember to look at other blogs, let alone post new things on my own. Thank goodness for Google Reader, or I wouldn't even be able to meander through anything at all!

So I've done no stamping in September, except for creating the following card for my friend Christine. Her husband deployed to Iraq two weeks ago, so we made this card for him to send from her so he'd have something nice/thoughtful/creative to display in his barracks. I'm not even sure if she mailed it yet...but we made it a week ago. :-)

So Christine basically chose what she wanted to do (with a little prodding from me, the "expert"...hee hee). She knew she wanted the card to be blue, so I chose Blue Bayou and Soft Sky, two of the current In Color colors from Stampin' Up. She wanted the sentiment to be something about love, and it turned out that this saying worked perfectly for her. She and her hubby have this "thing" they do where they will ask each other, "Do you love me more today than yesterday? Will you love me more tomorrow than today?" So it was as if this stamp was made specifically for her! She then used all of the other sentiments featured in this stamp set on the inside and wrote her own message for Tylor. I love how it turned out, and I sure hope Tylor enjoys it as well. Christine even made me sign the back saying that I made the card...even though I wanted her to take full credit with Tylor. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

Stampin' Supplies:
Stamps: Love Matters
Cardstock: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Very Vanilla
Ink: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Night of Navy (sentiments on the inside...I really should have taken a pic of these as well, cuz they turned out too cute!!)
Accessories: Blue Bayou stitched ribbon, eyelets, ticket corner punch, Cuttlebug and hearts embossing folder

On a non-stamping note, I've been extremely busy with work, Master's classes and various other events. My friends and I are going through a pro-Party Lite mentality right now, so it seems like every week or two one of us is having a party. Add to that little get-togethers, moving house, having babies (you know how us military wives are...we just pop 'em out all the time!!)...September has been exhausting!! It looks like October will be even busier, as I'm now in the full swing of teaching at school, and have added Literacy and Math to my Gifted & Talented classes, plus I'm running a Conservation Club with another colleague two times a week after school.

It's hard to believe it's autumn and Thanksgiving and the Holiday season are right around the corner! Fortunately I'm already getting into the spirit because it has cooled down dramatically in England, with temperatures not rising out of the 50's much for the past week. We've even had to turn on our heat...and in my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio it's been 90 degrees all week! I absolutely love the weather here, if you can believe that. The air has that crisp feeling, the leaves are turning, and I just can't wait to bundle up and drink hot chocolate in the evenings. Christmas will be here before we know it, and then Jason and I should have less than a year before we will hopefully move back to the States. We desperately miss home and hope to move back to Colorado, where we were stationed last. Here's to hoping the military sends us where we want to go. Wishful thinking!!

My first coaster box!

Yep, it's taken me awhile to jump on the coaster craze. I've had a bunch sitting here that I got from my neighbor, just never done anything with them. Now I'm hooked, and am waiting for a large bulk order I went in on at Emily's blog.

So here's what I did:

I wanted to make my own patterned paper using the new PaperTrey set Beautiful Blooms, and I basically decided to use everything new I had received recently. You have to love that mentality! My table looked like a garden (albeit a fake craft garden, but you get the drift!) had just thrown up everywhere. After seeing all of this, you can kind of understand why. :-)

Soo....I used the Beautiful Blooms set and any kind of Stampin' Up ink that I had, including craft ink (note to self: don't attempt embossing with versamark over not-quite-dry craft ink on white paper) and I threw in some Versamagic inks and Pallete Inks as well, just for kicks. The ribbon is May Arts ribbon from a share with Jody (I think I have an addiction problem with craft shares coming from individuals who reside in the state of Texas).

To add to my insanity, I also purchased the Flower cuttlebug dies, which are randomly adhered to the coaster box, as well as the Maya Road flowers (both velvet and clear), which I made into individual bags complete with primas and brads holding the bags together. Then I about broke my doggone crimper because it took so long to crimp this paper....am I crazy or what???

I will say that I attempted to add a little sheer shine to this project after all the stamping was done by taking my PaperTrey Borders & Corners Circles set in various sizes and embossing with Iridescent Ice EP and Versamark. While it shows up slightly in real life, it doesn't show up at all in this picture. Oh well, I attempted it!!

Stampin' Supplies:

Stamps: Beautiful Blooms and Borders & Corners Circles by PaperTrey, Much Appreciated by Stampin' Up

Paper: Whisper White and Rose Red by Stampin' Up

Ink: any ink by Stampin' Up, Versamagic and Pallete. Seriously, just whatever. I couldn't list them again if I tried to match 'em up!!

Accessories: Cuttlebug flowers die, large silver brads, Maya Road velvet and clear flowers, May Arts shimmery ribbon, Prima Sprites and Prima something-or-other (check the PaperTrey website for what they sell...I'm beginning to lose my mind with this post and I seriously can't remember the name of this flower!!), coasters, Crop-A-Dile, Crimper, Crystal Effects (to glue the bottom coaster to the top four...that stuff is like super glue!!), Iridescent Ice EP, Versamark, Heating Tool...my sanity...my time...my table...etc etc.

Where has the time gone?

SERIOUSLY!!!!!


Do you want to know what I think of a 6-week summer holiday? IT SUCKS! Where did it go? What happened to my wonderful sleepy mornings and days in my jammies? How did 6 weeks go that quickly? And you wanna know what I did over my 6-week holiday? Nothing. I have no good stories to show for it, no vacations, no wonderful day trips anywhere.


Here's what I did on my summer vacation:

• Get my sleep schedule so completely screwed up that I was sleeping from 6AM to 2 PM almost every day, give or take a rude awakening of a dog kiss or lawnmower. How dare people mow their lawn at noon! Don't they know there are weirdo's like me who are still sleeping?
• Accomplish virtually nothing around the house. Oh, I did the odd cleaning jobs, but no deep clean/organization/etc. I kept thinking, "I will do that tomorrow."
• Watch almost every DVD in my collection. Twice. This does include full sets of The O.C., Friends, Sex and the City, and various other single DVD collections.
• Make about 100 cards that are too big to fit in my envelopes...thus making them obselete. I only did 2 scrapbook pages the entire summer. I've been working on two more for the last week. Sad.
• Get in an accident. Drive a zippy rental car and not want to give it back...until I almost got in a horrible accident on the way to return the rental car that would have injured me severely. I returned the rental car with glee!
• Experiment an arachnaphobic nightmare with giant spiders (see posts below with wonderful pictures included!!)
• And be generally irritating toward the dog, cat, and my ever-loving husband.
• So, for the finale of my sixth week of vacation, I decided to let my hair down and hang out at a friend's house where we played wonderful card games (why are card games named such horrible things? Bullshit, Asshole, Spoons, etc.?). Guess what? I got completely drunk!! And, for the first time in my entire life, I had a hangover yesterday. Seeing as how I'm 30, I think that is pretty impressive that yesterday was my first hangover. That is seriously not bad at all!!

So Wednesday morning looms bright and early. Too early, in fact. My day starts at 6AM, I'm out the door by 7, and I get to school at 8. Yep, I have an hour commute. 42 miles, to be precise. From 8-8:45 I run a "Breakfast Club", which is for at-risk children who suffer from behavioral/emotional/social challenges. Let me explain how fun that is. I'm sure everyone has read the wonderful blog Because I Said So at http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com (sorry, for some reason my computer won't allow me to open any popups right now, I need to fiddle with my blocker and see what is going on. The computer also isn't allowing the CD-RW or DVD-RW to work, the video card is completely screwed up, the speakers are screwed up because part of the motherboard is broken....my husband may have thought in 2004 that we'd "save" money by building our own computer, but I guarantee you this thing is a piece of CRAP and I just want to order a Dell with a warranty and be done with it already!!!) So back to my original comment about that blog....imagine her 6 children and add 20 children ranging in age from 5 to 12. Add adult drama to that (hello!! It's like 9th grade lunch again..."Did you hear what she said about me? She's such a cow! I so don't like her....he favors her over me...they took away this from my job..." UGHHHH!!!) and I'm ready for a nap at 8:45. I start my G&T (Gifted & Talented ) groups at 9...but my boss hasn't even told me what I'm teaching yet. Might be Science, might be Math...who knows?!?!



I seriously cannot wait to move back to the States. I do enjoy working with the kids, who keep each day intriguing and unique. But these adults are doing my head in!!!! I hope that the rest of the school staff had a nice and relaxing 6-week holiday and come back with a better outlook on things. Because if I hear one more time...."Oh, I heard the American girl is starting drama..." even though I'M NOT, I'm going to scream!!!!


Okay, I'm off my soapbox.


Before I head to bed to enjoy my last 8 hours of education-free thought, I'd like to post a message to my mother, who will undoubtedly be really angry at this post:


No, Mom, I do not hate my job.
Yes, Mom, I'm going into the new year with a bright outlook.
Yes, Mom, I'll be sure to be nice to everyone and give them a good impression of Americans.
No, Mom, I do not believe I've paid this much towards degrees in Education when I don't want to be a teacher.
Yes, Mom, I'll give Jason a hug. :-)



I will attempt to post something craft related this week. I made my first coaster box last week, which was fun. I highly suggest purchasing a Crop-A-Dile if you are even going to attempt this...I can't imagine trying to just slam into the chipboard with a hammer!! hee hee


Have a great week, everyone!

My first brush with fame!

For the next three days, the film The Other Boyelyn Girl is currently filming some extra scenes at the Ely Cathedral, which is only about a mile or two from my house. My neighbor and I decided to go down to the Cathedral to see if we could see anyone famous. We ended up making friends with two gentlemen who I deemed as paparazzi...although they both said they were just "professional photographers". That is like saying, "I'm not fat, I'm pleasantly plump." Regardless, they take photos of people who don't necessarily pose for them, then sell them to magazines. One guy told me that if he could get a picture of an actor out drinking with someone other than his wife, he could sell the photo to the highest bidder for an undisclosed amount. He said if he could get a picture of Scarlett Johanssen, who is starring in the movie, coming at the camera in her costume and looking into the camera lens, he could get $20,000 for it!! Just for her in costume looking into the lens...that is just ridiculous!

So, I learned something interesting. We started talking up the security guy, figuring he could give us valuable information. He was talking about different movies he's worked security on, so I asked him, "Who is the meanest celebrity you've ever worked with?" He immediately responded, "Cameron Diaz. She's horrible!! We were told that, throughout the movie production, we could not look her in the eye. She would freak out if we looked at her. She also turned the place upside down because she had lost her hairbrush!!" Not that I doubt it: she looks like she would really just beat the crap out of anyone who didn't do what she wanted.

Something else I learned: Natalie Portman is high maintenance!!! She has her own security team that travels with her and "protects" her while on set. She has someone carry around an umbrella so noone can see her in costume. It's ridiculous. It was also crazy because she had extra tents set up in places so people couldn't see her, including an extra tent attached to her trailer, and another one attached to the door leading into the Cathedral. Seriously, that's just obscene!!

So needless to say, I didn't get any good pictures. Ironically, the paparazzi, my friend, and the others roaming about missed a celebrity that I actually had to point out. Kristen Scott Thomas is also in the film, and she was just kind of standing next to a car. I finally had to say, "Hey, that's Kristen Scott Thomas!" On photographer said, "who?" And my neighbor didn't know who she was or what she had been in. (For those who don't know, she was in The Horse Whisperer with Robert Redford, Mission Impossible, and, taking it waaaaaaay back, she was in Four Weddings and a Funeral with Hugh Grant...you know, she was the friend who totally wanted Hugh Grant??? She's also been in tons more, was nominated for an Oscar for The English Patient, and was also in Random Hearts with Harrison Ford.). So I'm attaching two pictures that I got with my crappy camera. Well, let me state this: my camera is quite nice. But it's not good for scoping out celebrities. The second picture I actually took of my friend and a paparazzi. He was teaching her things about taking pictures, so she had a nice lesson (and he's totally posing...he said he doesn't like his own photo taken, but was trying to be nice and appease me. He isn't really pointing at anything!). And look at those cameras?!?!?! "Is that a camera in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" hee hee

Yep, this is Kristen Scott Thomas. She wasn't exactly happy to see photographers...and tried to appear "deep in thought" as she drove off set. Apparently none of the stars were staying at hotels in Ely, and drove as far as 35-40 minutes away to stay in Newmarket, Cambridge, and other towns/villages nearby.

Paparazzo Jason with my friend Jen

We're going back tomorrow to try again...our two paparazzi friends and the security guy will all be there, so maybe we'll get lucky and bring home some good shots of Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannsen, Eric Bana (hottie!!!), or Kristen Scott Thomas when she isn't glaring at her own hand. :-)

Goodies for me!!!!

This is certainly a nice post office time for me. I've been getting tons of cool things (don't yell at me, mom!!). My PaperTrey order came last week with the new floral set, as well as two jars of the new Primas, and the velvet flowers and plastic flowers from Maya Road. Because the floral set was designed by Nichole to go with a cuttlebug die set, I just HAD to get that. Well, it's not like you can go to eclectic Paperie and just buy one thing, so I got another jar of the Primas, plus this too cute zoo cuttlebug set, the snowflakes embossing folder, a 2-pack of Sakura jelly pens...and then they included the diecuts from a set of paper I purchased last month that weren't included in my previous order. As a special thank you, they also included a small baggie of images for me to use. How nice of the girls at eclectic Paperie!!!

So then the other big thing you see in the pic is two bundles of b-e-a-utiful May Arts ribbon that I got from a share with Jody. Yep, this stuff actually got here in a normal period of time...my prima share took over a month to get here earlier this year. So I'm just staring wistfully at this ribbon...and I realize I have absolutely no storage capabilities for this stuff. So I guess I'll have to do a little more shopping to get some ribbon storage for it. Gee, I'm sure heartbroken about that. :-)

Needless to say, my post office joys are long from over. I'm still waiting on the preorder of Spellbinders Nestability Dies to get to PaperTrey and then on to me. I also broke down and ordered from Ellen Hutson, who released some really cute limited addition stamps, as well as some wonderful holiday stamps that look like ribbon or wheels...they will be great for adding to the bottom of cards as a border. I also had to order HP ink online, because my wonderful Bx and Bxtras on the bases over here has miraculously run out of one color ink, and both are not recarrying it. So, my state-of-the-art (a.k.a: piece of crap) printer will only print in black because one ink cartridge is empty. It doesn't matter that the other 5 are fine, but since I'm missing yellow, I don't get any!!! Sheesh! So that is coming, my mom sent me a package from Colorado, I'm waiting on a new lesson planner for the new school year (which starts next Wednesday...boo hoo!!! I don't want summer to be over!!!!). Plus I'm having a Party Lite and Pampered Chef shows next month...this is such a crazy time of year!!! But the busier I get, the faster things go.......and I want it to be December 2008 so I can go HOME!!!