Anzo-Borrego Hike

Hey everyone, sorry I have not had anything exciting to write about lately! I am going to start telling some old stories of the girls soon; mainly because I want to get them down in writing to preserve the memory of them. We did have some fun last weekend, we went to the desert. There is a town called Anzo-Borrego about two hours from here. This time of year, especially when there have been good rains, and this year there was; the wildflowers are amazing. We missed the main bloom by about 3 weeks, but we still found lots to see. We had just started hiking when the girls started complaining though. “ I’m hungry, my feet are tired.” I was like, “that is impossible girls….we can still see the car!” After about 30 minutes we stopped for lunch and they were much better after that and enjoyed the rock climbing and hike. Then of course, we had a couple of falls and skinned knees which were very “dramatic”. On our way back, we stopped at a quaint little town in the mountains called Julian which is known for their apple pies. We all had pie with cinnamon ice cream except for Matilda who preferred a gumball…go figure! Here are some pics from our trip:

For all my stamping readers I came across this article on one of my favorite blogs and thought..man this is so true! Here’s where you can find the original article; but here is the excerpt that I related to the most!

http://stampspaperscissors.typepad.com/stamps_paper_scissors/2009/03/the-day-you-become-a-stamper.html

“The day you become a stamper...

You start to develop Stamper's Syndrome. It means that you can kiss giving commercial cards goodbye forever. And sometimes, you kiss giving cards at all goodbye as well.

I used to be much more regular about sending cards, but now that I make them, I often forget to send them all together, one of the chief symptoms of SS. Which is quite stupid, really, since I have boxes of the things downstairs just waiting to be used.

But you will also find after developing SS that when you do decide to send a card, you end up making a new one anyway. Because nothing you have is JUST RIGHT for the person you have in mind. Yes, it's a disease and it's hell. As the disease progresses, you procrastinate making that perfect card until it is entirely too late, and you send nothing at all. You are now in the final stages, but the horrible thing about this is that you don't die of it. It just spreads.

Once you have reached the final stage, you realize that giving gifts with ordinary wrapping paper (except for children, who usually don't deserve anything better anyway) is out too. How can you give anyone something simply wrapped in wrapping paper, without at least stamping your own tag or adding some kind of paper decoration crafted by your loving hands? It becomes impossible.”

This is so true, Jan! And so well put! Click on the link to see the cute project she made after this article was written......But I did make some great cards recently..I even have plans to mail one of them! They use our brand spanking new Manhattan Flower embossing folder which is the best $8 I have ever spent….just take a look at these cards. The flower is dry embossed and then I used a sanding block to sand the paper to the white core to make it stand out even more…They are gorgeous, if I must say so myself! And easy! Throw a sentiment on there and you are finished..here they are:

These all use the new textured Parisian Breeze decorator paper as well. I heart them all!

Ciao for now! Deidre

Thrift Store Junkie

Hey everyone! Happy St. Patty’s Day! Hope everyone gets to kiss the blarney stone or their favorite Irishman! I married one, so “check!” as my girls like to say. Every day when we leave the house they say Mommy, “did you brush your teeth, take a shower?” And I say “check, check” and then I ask them if they brushed their teeth, went to the potty, etc., so they can say “check, check!” They are funny!

I thought I would share a little obsession that I have today. My name is Deidre and I am a thrift store-aholic! When the girls go to preschool, I go thrifting! I haven’t bought clothes in a regular store since I can remember. Half the time at the thrift stores I find things that still have the tags on them!!! One reason I love it is that all the clothes have been shrunk and washed already (except for the new stuff obviously) and the way they fit, is the way they will stay, which I love. I also love looking through all the knick knacks from the seventies and old furniture to see what I could save and update . It is a very entertaining and cheap way to spend the afternoon! I always get the girls kids books from the stores and they are always excited to see what I have found for them after school. Matty always asks if I went to the thrift stores! You may remember the oval mirror I decorated at Christmas:

http://stampindipitybydeidre.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-in-california.html

That was a great find from the Salvation Army. Today I am heading to the Goodwill in Pacific Beach and Oceanside which are pretty ritzy areas so who knows what I will find! I think being a thrift store junkie is a genetic trait I inherited from my Mother, she is a professional at it and I am proud to carry on the tradition!

Here is a great looking cake recipe in honor of St Patty's Day from my stamping friend Kerry's blog. Doesn't it look yummy? I am definitely trying this soon! Alcohol and cake, sounds like something special!

http://threecloversdesigns.blogspot.com/2009/03/baileys-irish-cream-cake.html

On to some papercrafting…I have a couple of cards from the new Friends 24-7 set to show you today. I really love this set and the new decorator papers that SU has out. This one is called delicate dots and you can earn it free for the rest of this month by placing a $50 order. I made a couple of different versions because after I made the first one I wanted to turn down the paper and show off the other side using the great eyelet border punch!

Both cards use Sahara Sand paper and inks with So Saffron marker for the flowers. I love how soft and pretty these colors are together. A little sponging around the edges softens it all up and there you have it. Once again that eyelet punch is the main player! For some reason I find it much easier to use than the scallop edge punch. I always end up with one pointy scallop but this one, I get right every time!

Hope you are all well..go check out a thrift store today and have a green beer!!

Ciao for now! Deidre

Problems

Sorry guys, I posted a couple of days ago but you guys didn’t get an email. I am trying to figure out what happened so I wanted to send this one through as a test….Hope you receive it!

Here is a quick card I made with some sock monkey images I stamped from my sister in law’s set last August! (Hi, Amy!) I am just now getting around to making cards with them!!!

I overstamped the monkey with the canvas background stamp so it would look more like cloth....and for the banana I coated the peel with the versamarker and clear embossing powder to look shinier.

Hope you get this post everyone….let me know!

Ciao for now!….Deidre

They crack me up

Matty to Joel yesterday:  “Daddy, what is your favorite color?”

Joel:  “ I really don’t have a favorite color honey”

Matty:  “Is it blue?”

Joel :  “I like blue, but I really don’t have a favorite.”

Matty:  “Is your favorite color lavender?”

Joel:  “I am positive my favorite color is NOT lavender!”

So funny!  Lavender?  I mean really?  This is not a word we use around here…why that came to her, I have no idea!

So I haven’t scrapbooked in a while, but I have wanted to do this for my friend Stacie (who just qualified for the Boston Marathon..You rock woman!!!) since last year, when her daughter Cole had her Elmo birthday party.  The twins also had an Elmo 2nd Birthday party, so I made 6 of these pages..one for each of the girls!

I put some pics of Cole on here before I mailed it off to Stacie and hopefully they will be able to use  it!  I actually sold the stamp set that I used to make this Elmo but I sold it without this stamp because I wanted to keep it around to make Elmo’s and Cookie Monsters and Oscar the Grouch’s in the future. It is so easy you just stamp the squiggly stamp around in circles and then add punches for all the features…. The stamp set was called Sketch it if you ever want to pick it up on ebay.  Here’s the left side:

and here’s the right:

I put three pictures cut down to fit on the red strip on the bottom of this page with one large photo in the middle.

My favorite part is the “2”  It is chipboard covered in black craft ink and then crustal effects and chunky black glitter in top..very shiny!!!  Here’s a close up:

Here is a close up of the Elmos:

Circle punches were used for the eyes and mouth

a small orange oval for the nose.

Here’s Elmo 2:

 

I cut the oval in half for this one since the face was smaller, and used an oval punch cut in half for the mouth.

Hope your day is a good one!

Ciao for now!  Deidre

Confusion for a four year old

This morning I overheard on the monitor:

Matilda: "But my name starts with a M*A*T*I*L*D*A not a T*I*L*L*Y"

Matty: "and my name starts with a M*A*T*T*Y"

Matilda: “this is not right!”

Matilda: “MOMMY, my name is wrong”

SO… she is finally realizing that her bedroom wall has letters that spell TILLY on it and not Matilda. I really like calling her Tilly, but she very much prefers Matilda. One time, we went to a birthday party in Georgia for a little boy named Will, whose grandma ran the preschool we went to. She had borrowed chairs and tables from the school and Matilda about had a conniption, because she did not want to sit in a chair that had a name that started with a “C” on it! Her chair should have an “M” on it! Ah, the joys of education! Guess I will have to change those letters so she won’t be so confused in the mornings!

Joel would not be happy at me for putting a pic on here but I can’t resist showing you guys this cute one I took of the girls in the bubbles the other night:

So this was the last month for Stamp Club. I will be starting a new one in April. Our technique for this month was an oldie but a goodie; and I just had to do it when I saw the new saleabration set, Polka Dot Punches. It really reminded me of the old tin pie safes, so I had to do some Faux Metal!

It is a very easy technique but you have to work fast. Here’s the card:

To make the cardstock look like metal, you cover a piece of cardstock with versamark or a matching color of embossing ink and then coat the paper with silver embossing powder. Tap off excess and heat it up. Then do a second layer of versamark and embossing powder, heating the middle up last. Before I do this second step I already have stamped my heart punch in the versamark ink and have it at the ready. As soon as I finish heating up the middle I put down the heat gun and immediately stamp the stamp in the hot middle. Warning..hold paper by the edges or with a tweezer so you don’t burn your fingers. The stamp stamps into the hot center leaving the impression. Easy peasy! Let dry for a couple of minutes and then punch out with your heart punch. I also punched out a few hearts from the scrap pieces of paper and used them as embellishments. Here is a picture by picture tutorial at splitcoast if you want to see each step:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/faux_metal/

Here is a tutorial for how to make the red eyelet square. http://paperpleasing.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/eyelet-punch-tutorial-.html

I didn’t have enough red brads so I took some of my silver hodgepodge and put a dollop of crystal effects in the middle and some red chucky glitter to give it some red bling.

Hope your day is a great one!!!

Ciao for now! Deidre

Not Much New Here

Hey everyone!  Life has been pretty easy and simple these past few days.  We had a nice relaxing weekend and actually went to the pool on Sunday.  The pool is heated and outdoors, and although I wouldn’t say it was “warm,” it wasn’t freezing either.  It took the girls a few tries to get back into the “swim” of things.  There were a few surprised looks when they went under water the first few times, but they rose to the challenge and were swimming like pros again in about 15 minutes.  Matilda poor thing has no meat on her bones and she had to get out after about 20 minutes because she was freezing.  She tried a few more times but was pretty much done for the day.  They slept really well last night which was SO great, because this past month they have not been sleeping well and I am getting run down because of it.  I have been popping vitamin c and trying to get to bed earlier to try and fight it off, but unfortunately, I feel it starting to win!  Hopefully another good night’s sleep will get my resistance back up and in the game.  I did get some projects made last week that I thought I would share with you guys.  A good friend of mine’s nana recently passed away and she had a few of her friends that had done some really nice things like send flowers and be there to listen; so I thought she could use some thank you cards and sent her a few.  Her favorite color is orange and I really liked the way the tangerine looks with our basic gray…very striking together!  Here’s the card:

Stamps are cute and curly and eastern blooms.  I used the Curly label punch and three flower punch as well.  White craft ink, tangerine tango ink and a few well placed brads and some matching ribbon were all it needed.  And check out the embossed polka dot background…it’s SU’s new texture plates for the big shot…very cool!

I also had another baby gift to make for Joel’s boss’s new baby girl, Emily.  I always give a book that was my girl’s favorite…Moo Baa LaLaLa by Sandra Boynton.  The bedding in the nursery is mossy green with a white damask pattern and pink edging, so I was so excited to use our new Friends 24-7 stamp set that has the great damask stamp in it….Here’s the name frame:

Here’s the matching card:

and last but not least how cute is this bag that I put it all in???

That eyelet border punch makes the bag look so classy and finished!  I just love it!!  And yes I cheated a little..I got the Martha Stewart Butterfly punch.  I thought it would be the perfect size to go with the new butterfly die for the big shot and I used a 40% off coupon….it just had to be in my arsenal! I especially like punching out vellum butterflies with it.  I thought this really made a simple .50 cent bag look fantastic!

Hope you guys are having a wonderful day. 

Ciao for now!    Deidre