Grandma's Birthday Lunch

A few weeks ago when it was my Grandma's birthday, a bunch of the girls got together to have lunch at Olive Garden. Lunch was good, service was great, company was awesome.

My BFF emailed some pictures awhile back so I thought I would share...

My blue eyed Grandma.

The grand-daughters in attendance. Believe me there are many many more of us. I'm in orange, Lindsay is the other one on the back row. My BFF is in the center. And I have no idea what made Grandma look so freaked out.

Me, Lindsay and an aunt at the table.

Deciding what to order, Mom's in plaid.

Grandma with some of her daughters in law.

We're a rowdy group. And we like to gesture with our hands...

My BFF and Grandma

Grandma wanted to celebrate her birthday by buying us all a lottery scratchoff!

I wish we could do this every week!

Who called the cops?

This morning we got a visit from our friendly city po-po. {That would be police for you not in the know.}

"Mr. Sutton?" The officer asked my husband.

"No. It's not." D replied. Then he got all irate with the police trying to arrest him in his own home and so he called the cop a racist and I had to go pick him up downtown...

No wait that's not what happened. D got his ID. Officer Friendly checked it. They had received an alarm call from our home security system. Turns out the previous owner, Mr. Sutton, has not updated his address and apparently is still paying for alarm monitoring. If not here, somewhere. Likely it's somewhere and likely where ever that is had an alarm go off this morning. We got it all cleared up with the alarm company. Our alarm works. And we have had it go off a couple of times in the last eight years, so I know they do have our stuff all correct.

Mr. Sutton, where ever he is, hopefully has his stuff straightened out now too. ADT was supposed to call him and clear that up too.

Meanwhile, I asked D why the cop didn't want to come in and check things out after seeing the state of our living room. Clothes scattered everywhere, footstool overturned...I guess the cop has two wild monkeys at his house too so nothing looked out of place here. Nothing to see here folks, keep on moving, nothing to see...

A new blog (to me) and blog candy...

While surfing I stumbled across someone's post of Little Princess Cards' blog candy. Even if you don't want to sign on for the blog candy, you should check by and see her unique creations! She really has a beautiful style.

And she is offering some yummilicious blog candy!

Here color challenge...where are you color challenge?

Okay. One of three things have happened...


(1) I have officially lost my mind.
(2) I dreamed there was a color challenge featuring brown turquoise and neutral.
(3) There is a color challenge out there featuring those colors AND it's hiding from me.


I think choice one is ahead in the polls, but what do polls show you anyway?


Good thing I combined TWO challenges for this card. Ha! Other than my apparently fictitious color challenge, I used Mojo Monday's #99 Sketch.

I also needed a card for my parents who are celebrating their wedding anniversary on the 13th. They actually got married on Friday the 13th, isn't that cool? They got married in 1971, you do the math on how long they've been married.

While we're on the subject of me being loony. I don't know if it's from living in Texas and hearing Spanish pronunciations alot or what, but every time I see "Mojo" I think in my head Moho. {I hope that's not a bad word in Spanish.} It's just the "j" is pronounced "h" in Spanish right? Like Julio is pronounced Hoo-lio. Okay enough carrying on by me. You all have a great day!

ETA: I found it!! I found it!! It's the Pink Elephant Challenge! I've never played along before so that's why I had trouble finding it again. Ahhh. Good to know I'm not completely bonkers!!

Details: all CTMH unless noted

Paper: stripe, dot, and pattern from Perfect Day Level II, brown print (K&Co.) cream and dk brown from stash

Ink: Juniper

Stamps: Say It In Style

Other: ribbon (HL) pewter designer brad, nestabilities (Spellbinder)

Traveler's Inspiration Challenge # 6

What a beautiful picture this week at Traveling Mama! (Okay they are all beautiful I admit it.) This picture was taken in Ireland.

Guess what? I have a bridge story. There is a certain bridge on the road from POC to here, where if you look to the right you see a huge tree growing over the water with some large stones cascading down to the water's edge. I can't help but look at that view every time I take that road. I don't know why that relates to this picture, except it is a pretty view and, you know, it's a bridge scene.

Anyway. From this photo inspiration, I was drawn to the colors and the "scallops" of the bridge. Here's my card...

I sponged the ink onto the stamp to give it a softer look. I had to play with it on several scratch pieces of paper before I came up with this particular variation. I am so happy with how it finally turned out that I think I may base a workshop item on this technique in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Details: all CTMH unless noted

Paper: grey flannel cs, white cs and blue pattern from stash

Ink: olive, hollyhock

Stamp: Treasure Life

Other: scallop punch (SU!), sponge daubers, white ribbon (Hobby Lobby)

Jake bites the dust...or in this case, water.

Our other goldfish, Jake, passed away this morning. He didn't play dead as long as Brenda Hannah.

He is survived by algae, fake plastic plants and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.

Rest in peace Jake.

Also I finished cutting paper for my workshop today, so tomorrow I can play along with some challenges during naptime! Yeah!!

Also too, there are no immediate (or even not so immediate) plans to replace Jake.

I dare you...

to listen to this song and not end up with a smile on your face...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYhrYHmUPn0&feature=related

"I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted..." Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Nighty-night.

Lazy Day

I really don't have anything of great worth or humor to share today. Unlike every other day. But I realized as my lazy self was surfing through my long long long long long long long list of blogs that I have stopped checking some of them very often. The reason? They don't update every day. So this got me thinking...

Oh my goodness this post is so boring already...switching gears. Thinking thinking...ooooh! Got it! I totally went garage sale-ing this morning! Let me tell you what we saw.

First you are not going to believe this. A package of tampons!!! Already opened and in a ziploc with some pads!! Stop!! I am not making that up!!

What else? Oh yeah, about 40 little deodorants. ALL at one place. Why would anyone have that many deodorants (mostly of the same variety) and why would they sell them at a garage sale? That just seems totally weird to me. I didn't check to see if they were previously (ewww) used.

I did get Little d some little girl formal dresses for her to play dress up with. They can be washed, so they fit my garage sale criteria. I got a couple of scrapbooking things...stickers for Little d and some wooden leaf stamps for 50 cents.

I also bought a ribbon curtain for a dollar, so that's lots a yards o ribbon for a buck! Cool huh?

Okay that's all the interesting things I can think of on this lazy day. I may be a little scarce this week as I am preparing for a big workshop.

Talk to you soon!

Christmas Card Challenge #35

Sparkle's challenge this week is to use some element from her card (which is fantastic) to create a Christmas card. I chose to incorporate snowflakes into my card. Well I didn't so much "incorporate" it as make it the entire focus!

This card reminds me of my wedding. We had a little bit of a snowflake theme and my colors were victorian lavender and deep red with touches of silver. Well really the only deep red was in the bridesmaid's bouquets. Anyway, here's the card:

The silver snowflake sticker is left over from my wedding. We would buy them everytime HL would put stickers on sale (the entire stock). I used the small ones in the set for the wedding invitation envelopes, and I used some on the programs and different things like that. I just realized they are nine years old and still sticky--not too bad!

Okay now I'm all nostalgic for wedding pictures. I'm going to dig mine out and see about doing some posting...

Details:

Paper: dark and light purple from stash

Other: sticker (Class A'Peals, a division of Stampendous) white ribbon (HL)

Sunset paper

I bought a DCWV Safari Chic stack the other day when Hobby Lobby had their paper on sale because clearly, I need more paper. Also my four year old wants a 'Cheetah Girls' birthday party next month and we are all about the cheetah prints right now.

When I pried the stack out of her hand long enough to peruse it, I saw a gradient colored paper that looked just like a sunset. Or sunrise I guess. Anyhoo, I searched high and low to find something to stamp a silhouette with and well what do you know? Treasure life? Sure why not?

I used black embossing powder to make the images stand out. Doesn't it almost look like I actually had the skills to brayer that background? Not! Here's a detail of the ep. The only drawback is that the paper was textured so there's some paper showing through the silhouettes.

Details: all CTMH unless noted

Paper: as mentioned above

Ink: Versamark

Stamps: Treasure Life

Other: black ep, black ribbon

A baby girl card

A customer and co-worker of D's recently found out she's having a girl. So last night I sat down to relax and had baby girl on the brain. That's where this card came from:

I really love these Nana's paper stacks. The glitter and patterns are just too cute! The little baby rattle I covered in Prisma glitter, so in real life the image is softer than this picture shows. Okay off to look at my new catalogs that got here a day early! Are you kidding me!?!

Details: all CTMH unless noted

Paper: Blush cs, Colonial White cs, pattern (DCWV Nana's Nursery) light green cs from stash

Ink: Blush

Stamps: Baby Steps, Adorable for sentiment

Other: scallop punch (SU!), Spellbinders, cream ribbon (Hobby Lobby)

I have decided I hate my husband a little bit.

Well I went my whole dairy-intolerant-IBS life not knowing what chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream tasted like. Until.

Until my husband brought a half gallon of Blue Bell Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream into our house. Oh he says it was for Little d, but I think it was just an evil plot to destroy what sanity I have left.

I mean here's the deal. I like ice cream as much as the next person. But because of my issues I can avoid it pretty easily. I'll occasionally take a bite or maybe two of some. We have a little spot here in town called Dairy Treat and they make the incredible real old fashioned milkshakes that are to die for, and I have been known to actually die for some.

Whenever I'm preggo (no I am not right now) I really crave dairy. But other than that I can avoid this little indulgence. I mean it's just not worth the pain.

Sigh. But then two nights ago I was dishing out the kids' cookie dough ice cream and took a little and I mean teeny bite of Little m's.

Stupid *%$#$% dairy farmers and their stupid $%&*)#% dairy products. I think about this ice cream randomly through the day. Is that weird? I steal the dough out of Little m's ice cream before I give it to her. Is that weird?

I told my husband I hate him a little bit for bringing this...thing...into our marriage. Is that weird?

Okay now y'all go dish out a big bowl of whatever frozen goodness you have in your freezer right now and eat it guilt free in honor of me! Good night!

Traveler's Inspiration Challenge #6

This picture from Traveling Mama reminded me a little of the Matagorda Island of my childhood. Well specifically the fence in the water. I will have to devote an entire post to the whole Matagorda Island history and how that likely shaped my political views today, but for now, I will just speak of this challenge.

I can't imagine that there are any man-made colors that come close to that shade of ocean, but I wanted to give a valiant attempt at recreating the teal blue and deep blue in the water. I also thought I would try something a little different and do an abstract card. I can safely say this is far far from any card I would normally do.

But overall I like the look. I really wish I could have blended the "ocean" a little better, but I didn't want the paper to start disintegrating. When choosing the sentiment I almost stamped 'relax', but then I saw 'Love is spoken here' and I realized it needed to go on this card. I think I could use this for a wedding card for a contemporary couple. What do you think?

Details: all CTMH unless noted

Paper: crystal blue cs, textured bamboo cs, garden green cs, medium green (stash) dark green (stash)

Ink: Desert Sand

Stamps: Treasure Life

Other: coluzzle circles, Ocean and Star Spangled Blue water pencils, waterbrush, sanding block, stipple tool.

Curtain Call ACT II

This week at Stacey's Stamping Stage the colors were as warm as the weather around here in South Texas.




This card came together really fast once I had the colors assembled. This stamp set is one of my all time favorites from Close to My Heart called Treasure Life. It was a stamp of the month last year and they are bringing it back in the new Fall/Winter catty. SHHH! Don't tell anyone, that's some insider info for you!

Thanks for stopping by! I did this card last night, so I'm hoping to have another one ready to post today at nap time...we'll see.

Details: all CTMH unless noted

Paper: white daisy cs, garden green cs, and vineyard berry look alike from stash

Ink: Creme Brulee and Vineyard Berry

Stamps: Treasure Life, Thank You

Other: that's it!

August CTMH Workshop Project

I have been stressing and working over this project. I am charging $13 which is more than I have before, but I am adding more embellishments, plus I had to purchase the accordion album. Ahem, so here it is...

This is the complete front of it.

This is a closeup of the front cover.

Page one. I made the scallop lace by punching holes in the my SU! scallop punch.

Page two.

Page three.

Page four. I love this picture of the girls. I used third generation stamp on the journaling area so the ink from the marker would show well.

Full picture of the back. You may not be able to tell, but the first inside page says LOVE and the second has a carousel and the quote "Laughter makes the world go round."

This is the back cover, I made that beaded pin myself. This is the, like, I don't know, 50th try!

Details: All CTMH unless noted

Paper: Desert Sand cs, Grey Wool cs, Colonial White cs

Ink: Desert Sand, Grey Wool (pads and markers)

Stamps: You've Got Flair, Solo "F", Solo "B", Annotations, Baroque Alphabet, Laughter, Adorning Corners

Other: Foundry Bookplates, Pewter brads, Pewter Designer brad, Colonial White edge anchors, (beads, pin and ribbon from Hobby Lobby)