Sew Easy

gee what a clever title, huh?

Katrina received a Singer sewing machine for Christmas from her Aunt Amy. I guess it's easier to sew with your tongue sticking out. :P



There's my bike in the background. Erik cleaned it up for me. I can't wait to go riding again.

Donner eats his own poop

or, Santa finally made it to our house.

Due to the gigantic snowstorm somewhere, Santa was late arriving at our home. He usually arrives on Christmas Eve about 6 pm. However, this year, he didn't make it until 5 AM Christmas Day.

Santa passed out presents while the dogs sniffed and sniffed him. Katrina warned Santa that "Gigi eats her own poop."

Santa didn't seem to mind because he said, "That's ok. Donner eats his own poop, too."



I like how Liberty is looking at him out of the corner of her eye. I think she's licking her lips, too. Hmmmm....

C is for Cake

This is another layout for October Afternoon's blog. Thanks again for choosing me as your guest designer for December! :)

They're all black and white

We're having a dog slumber party. My grandfather died on Friday and my parents left to help take care of the arrangements. They have two dogs - Grady and Molly.

My sister was unable to watch the dogs tonight, so I offered to take them. I guess it's a good thing that Erik was ok with this. I made the arrangements while he was out of town over the weekend.

We're going to stay up late, watch scary dog movies and pop some popcorn.

I've noticed that there is very little difference between 3 dogs and 5 dogs. They're all still in my way and I'm always tripping over them. With 3 Border Collies in the house now, I'm always being herded towards the pantry with the treats.

Since all five of them are black and white, I can never tell at first glance who is who. If someone is misbehaving, I go through all five names before I get it right.

"Zoe!"
"Molly!"
"Gigi!"
"Grady!"
"Liberty!" Oh, it's Liberty. It's always Liberty.

Winter Woodland

I love this new cart from Cricut. The challenge this week at BBTB was to use the branch. The bunny and squirrel are from the same cart. Everthing was cut at 1 1/2 inches.



Cardstock: Prism
Patterned Paper: BasicGrey
Stamps: Technique Tuesday

Getting impatient

We took less pictures this year than we have in past years. I don't know what their problem was. We were at El Encantada at 7:45 this morning to take photos. Yes, it was a little cold but we promised them hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls if they behaved. They let me take their pictures while they stood there and tried not to look cold. I screwed up and forgot my gray card. We took about 60 pictures and I HATED every single one of them.

I was an absolute mess when I got to work. I was so worried about the pictures. We were late getting these taken and I didn't know what we were going to do. Erik promised me we would do something this afternoon after work. The kids got dressed again and I dug out the gray card and the tripod.

The first batch I hated, too. well, actually I liked them but I wasn't watching and I cut off their hands in the pics. We had to do it again.

The kids moaned and groaned and I just sat casually on the couch and told them we could do this all day. I was barking out orders; turn to the right, scoot over a little, no that's too much, Trent put your chin down, try to keep your eyes open, etc. etc.


Ok, try not to keep your eyes open that much.


Katrina had enough of this and she gave me the "Yes, Ma'am" salute.



This is not the picture we're using for Christmas cards but it sums up the experience pretty well.

We decided to use this one. It's not at our favorite outdoor mall (which is tradition in this house) but it will have to do.

I'm still grumpy about the whole thing.

Cheetos Smile

Fancy Pants Rough & Tough. Have a great weekend everyone. I have to work. grrrrrr....

JOTS ornament

Thanks for looking. :D This was made for this week's BBTB challenge. We were to use the ribbon frame from the Joys of the Season cart. I decided to turn it into an ornament. Stamps are Technique Tuesday.

That's How I Roll

Sassafras Lass Journaling Tag Stickers are on sale at Peek this week. :D

Katrina always wears her hair like this - a head band and just ONE barrette. I think it's kinda funny.

There's something wrong with Troy

I'm absolutely determined to do a December journal this year. I'll take a picture every day and maybe sometime next November I'll have time to put it all together. I've decided the album is going to be a mix of stuff like Christmas cards and envelopes, maybe a catalog page with toys circled, wrapping paper pieces, etc. It won't be acid free but it will be kinda fun. ;)

Anyway, in preparation for new Christmas toys, I started cleaning out Kat's toy box. This is when I found Troy. I had to convince Katrina that we should really throw him away. She wanted to keep him because he still sings.

This will be a great picture for my December album. I'm excited. Maybe I'll get it done by June.

October Afternoon

Thank you, October Afternoon, for choosing me to be December's Guest Designer. I am truly honored. :D I've been a fan of October Afternoon since their first release.

Here's one of the first layouts I did for them. It's using their new line, Farm Fresh:



I also used some paint and clear glaze. I LOVE the alphabet cards from the Report Card collection. I think I'm going to buy a second set when Pat gets them in.

Gingerbread Girl shaped card

This sweet gingerbread girl is a new file at The Cutting Cafe. She was so easy to make and I think she's so cute!

Madagascar themed treat/goodie bags

My daughter's birthday party was today. She really, really, really wanted a Madagascar themed party. I had no luck finding anything local with this theme. So, I made my own goodie bags.

It just so happens that the latest Bitten By The Bug challenge was to use the grass from the Walk In My Garden cart. The animals were cut out from the Animal Kingdom cart. I added vanilla and chocolate animals crackers to 5x5 inch clear envelopes and stapled the topper to the top.

Katrina wanted to help so she added the little black dots around the circle. Now of course, no project would be complete without a little bit of Stickles. I added a bit to the grass cuts.

Thanks for stopping by. :D

Catching up with some layouts

I've been so busy with work, classes and other things that I've hardly had a chance to do many layouts. Here are a couple that I've done in the last week or so.

BasicGrey Eerie

Sassafras Lass Sweet Marmalade


Thanks for stopping by. :D

Merry Christmas bird

This is another Bitten By The Bug challenge. We were asked to use the Bird cut from the Storybook cart. Isn't he cute? Patterned paper is the new Making Memories line.

Card class

Here are a couple cards for my next card class. We'll be using this cute set from Hero Arts to make five different cards.

Sweet Baby

I made this card for a friend at work. Her baby is due in January. The digital stamps are from The Cutting Cafe.

Goodbye 50 mm f1.8

I found my favorite lens in two pieces in my camera bag yesterday. It cannot be repaired. I need to have it replaced. Do you think I can convince Erik to let me buy the 50mm f1.4? Does anyone know of a better price than Amazon's? Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Wah! I'm so upset. :(

Winner

I have finally chosen the winner for the blog hop.

Congratulations to Melissa! Please send me your name and address. :D

Guess who's not having a good time...

At certain points in life, we will all get sick of having our pictures taken. Katrina has reached this point in her life. I'll give it a few weeks and I'll try again. She couldn't even be bothered to hold the lightsaber correctly.

BTW, Trenton is Captain Rex and Katrina is Padme Amidala. These are characters from the new animated Star Wars - The Clone wars, for those of you that don't know...

I know I was supposed to pick a winner for the blog hop. I'll do that tomorrow. I promise!

Prism layout for their blog

Here's just a sneak peek of another layout I made for the Prism blog. You can see the full thing here. This is my last project with them. October went by so quickly!



Thanks for everything, Prism! :D

Halloween Long Borders

Here's another use of those darling Halloween Borders from The Cutting Cafe. Also on this layout is a Halloween Label.

The border punch is one of the new Martha Stewart releases. Paper is Prism and patterned paper is Fancy Pants Trick or Treat.

Spooky card, Blog Hop & Blog Candy

Hey there! We were asked to use the pointed tag from Stretch Your Imagination. This is my contribution for this week.

I used a little Distress Ink, a little water and a whole lot of BasicGrey. The bat is from Scrapworks.

This is what I'm giving away this time. Please leave a comment to be eligible for the drawing I'll have later this week.

When you're done here, make sure you visit Donna's blog for another chance to win!

Follow up to my cake post

Well, here it is. I decided to use bits and pieces from each of their cakes to come up with this. This post is in reference to my post a few days ago.

Now, I know this doesn't look good. I don't decorate cakes, I play with paper. Please don't feel bad for laughing at my cake. I know it's bad.

I kept the large pumpkin from Katrina's sketch. I also kept the cactus that was on fire but I decided that the guy impaled on it was beyond my level of experience.

That fire around the edges was Katrina's idea, too.

Now for the elements from Trent's sketch, I used the extended graveyard part and the zombie mummies. I made gravestones from marshmallows cut in half. I had no idea how to grunge them up. I could only think of using Distress ink on them but I didn't know if that would really work and/or be safe. So instead, I just dripped red food coloring over them like it was blood. Trent didn't care that the marshmallows were white. He just couldn't get past the fact that his mother made them bloody for him. I was the coolest Mom ever for about 4.8 seconds.


Trent drew up some zombie mummies and we taped them to skewers. He used Distress ink on those. ;)


While all this paper/cutting/taping action was going on, Katrina wanted to make a ghost. Here you can see that she answered the question I had the other day:

How does one really make a word bubble for a cake, anyway?

I'm Batty For You Treat Toppers

This is the first time I've ever made anything like this. They were fun, easy and quick! The digital stamp is from The Cutting Cafe.

I used 3x3 clear envelopes and filled them with Halloween M & Ms. I colored in the bat wings by hand and used Doodlebug orange glitter on the heart. It was the first time I had used the Martha Stewart glitter glue and I have to say that I was pretty impressed with it. The drippy goo punch is used on the bottom (love that punch!). I stapled the topper on using the Tiny Attacher.

The orange and the purple cardstock is Prism and the black is Bazzill (because I ran out of Prism). There is a wee little bit of BasicGrey on there, too.

The kids handed them out to their teachers today.

I'm going to cancel cable right away

Trent has a pack meeting tomorrow night. Everyone is supposed to bring a Halloween themed dessert for a raffle. Today I picked up a box of cake mix and some powdered sugar. I had visions of making a cute jack-o-lantern cake. It would be two layers with orange icing and black eyes, etc. It would take me an hour...tops.

When I mentioned the Halloween themed cake to the kids, the first thing they did was grab a piece of paper. They started sketching their ideas. This was not quite what I was expecting:



Trent's cake is a rectangle (ok so far, right?) with a little bit of excess frosting below the cake for a graveyard scene. Well, ok, I guess could cut a larger piece of cardboard to make a graveyard scene below the cake. But, wait...there's more. There are 3-D zombies made out of paper and the pumpkins drawn on the cake are actually supposed to light up and blink.

I was given clear instructions that I was to vote for whichever cake I wanted to make. I was feeling a little intimidated by Trent's so I took a look at Kat's. Her's had to be easier, right? I means, she's only 5 years old. Almost 6.



This one is even more difficult.

Not only does it have a little extra landscaping coming over the front like Trent's but it has at least 23 different characters on it. That little guy over in the bottom left hand corner with the word bubble screaming "HELP!"is actually impaled on a cactus. Not just any cactus, either. Oh, no. It's a cactus on fire! How does one really make a word bubble for a cake, anyway?

See those swirly lines around the edge of the cake? I asked her what that was. I thought maybe it was something cute and fluffy that I could imitate with marshmallows. No, it's not. It's fire, too.

I've come to the conclusion after reviewing the cake sketches that the kids are watching too much Cake Boss. We'll go back to Spongebob right away and maybe we'll just bring cookies to the pack meeting....