It's about time....

....for me to put something new and fun up, right?

Once again, between laundry, life, and the kiddo I have been neglectful of my blog, but it was not forgotten. I have been thinking every day how I need to put something up here, so here it is.

This is the card I made for my hubby for Father's Day this year. I loved this set when I first saw it in the mini catalog, and since I don't have many "manly" type sets I knew I would be getting this one. I stamped the image using Brilliance Graphite on watercolor paper. After it dried I colored it using ink pads and an aquapainter. The base of the card is Creamy Caramel with mats done in Ballet Blue, Always Artichoke, and Real Red. I drew from those same colors when I did the watercoloring, and made sure to shade under my picture with some grey. He was very happy with his card this year, so I am happy with the outcome.

Today was a great day for me as I had a joint Escape Stamp Camp with a great demonstrator and friend, Lydia Fiedler . We had this at Wine Styles, and I cannot say enough nice things about the lady that runs this store, Julianne. She was so kind to us, and made a great mimosa to boot! The food was wonderful, the setting was terrific and the stamping was plentiful! I look forward to working there again in the future. Make sure to check out Lydia's blog...just click on her name up above, to see pictures from the event. Like the goofball I am, I forgot to bring my camera, but here are two pictures of what the girls made today:

This is a box to hold a set of 3 x 3 notecards, completely inspired by the wonderful, talented Atomic Butterfly. Her designs are really something to check out...lots of good things come from this talented stamper. We had the girls make this along with 4 love notes to go inside.

Now, most of you know that usually my girls get a ziploc baggie with their supplies in it, but last night I got Little Miss A to sleep at a relatively decent hour, and since my insomnia was in full swing I decided to go all out, hence the little bag of goodies you see here. I dug through all my old tag stamps to find the Fleur-de-Lis one, then stamped the "for you" with the new Fresh Cuts set. A little tie in with some hemp twine and there you have it.

Everyone came up with some great cards and we had fun, so it was a great day. Now I am off to work on a couple 4th of July cards and a birthday card for my sweetie of a niece who is turning 3 on July 11th. Every year her birthday is extra special because she was born the same day as my dad, so we get to remember him and see him in her precious smile!

I hope you all have a great weekend, and until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

You ever have one of those days....

...where you try to do something that is good or right or downright HEALTHY FOR YOURSELF and it just turns on you?

Let me describe my Tuesday to you. Warning...this post has absolutely nothing to do with stamping/crafting of any sort, unless you count "creative parenting" as a craft/hobby. It is also going to be long. Very, very long.

My sweet little A is taking swim lessons. I have wanted her to have them for the last year because little miss 4-going-on-14 thinks that she is invincible and can swim just fine and dandy, thank you very much. I finally convinced the dear husband that this is a good use of some of his hard-earned $$ because our sweet little daughter is just like him. She can't swim and she won't listen to a doggone thing I have to say to her. Just. Like. Him.

So, I get her all signed up for swim lessons and I start thinking to myself, "Self, you know that gas is $4 a gallon, and your Weight Watchers meetings would probably go better for you if you actually got up off of your butt and did something that could be considered exercise every now and then." Then I proceeded to convince myself that the way to go was to buy a bicycle trailer, the kind that you sit your kid in, and tow her happy little self to and from swim practice. "It would help the environment," my little inner voice said, "and then you can have that piece of Starbucks espresso chocolate at night without quite as much guilt." Enough said. The trailer was purchased.

Here is where the fun starts.

I manage to somehow decipher the directions on how to put the thing together, even though they were a combination of Chinese, Swedish, and some other indecipherable language as yet to be determined. Once I was convinced that my child's life would be relatively safe in said trailer, I decided to take it for a little test drive. You know, find my zone, get my biking legs going, all that good stuff. I mean, I have been riding a bike since I was 5, so how hard can this be?

Well, apparently, when you are 38 years old and out of shape and your main source of exercise is stamping background images onto paper it can get a little interesting. We took our first test ride down to the park that is about 6/10 of a mile from my house. By the time we got to the park, I had discovered a couple of things about myself.

1. 32 ounces of water is not enough for a 6/10 of a mile trip down the road. Apparently, my body mistook the Texas heat for the Serengeti Desert and decided that I was going to go into shock if I didn't drink at least 3 gallons of water RIGHT NOW. I now pack much more water.

2. Just because your bike seat says "Designed for Women" does not mean that it was designed for you, woman! My butt hurt in a way that I still cannot fully understand nor describe. Of course, the fact that I have extra butt probably accounts for most of that, but I'm working on it, dang it!

3. I know lots of cuss words, but when you are taking your 4 year old for a bike ride, you have to say them with your "inside" voice. The one inside your head. Oh yes, I could have given the guys on "Deadliest Catch" a run for their potty-mouthed money with the thoughts I was thinking.

4. I am overweight for a reason. In the words of my dear friend, M., back home in Alabama, "I like the taste of food and I do not like to sweat." I figure I am going to have to change one of those two things and it might as well be the sweating part because that comes pretty easily in Texas in the summertime.

So, we survived the trip and I figured that the pain would go away and we are going to bike to and from swim practice (roughly 2 1/2 miles round trip here folks). Monday goes really well. Little A and I wear our helmets (racing grey for me, pink kittens for her), she swims like a water bug for her new swim coach while I try to remember how my labor and delivery nurse turned a diaper into an ice pack for my butt when I got home, and all was well with the world. We return home and I am very pleased with myself.

Tuesday comes. We ride the bike to swim practice, but on the way I hit a pretty significant "bump", i.e.---huge crack in the sidewalk that jars my body in a way that I am pretty sure caused some kind of damage. Nevertheless, we make it to practice and all is well with the world. Until we come out, and see The Issue.

My front bike tire is completely, totally devoid of air. Flatter than the proverbial pancake. Now, knowing my dear little one's "flair for the dramatic" I decide to play it cool and try to make this fun. I tell her, "You did so great at swim practice, let's go on an adventure walk!" with as much enthusiasm as I could muster at this point in time. Off we start on our roughly 1 mile trek home.

Before we made it 100 yard LMDQ (little miss drama queen) begins to get "Melty". This is a word of her own making, and is used as a description of any situation in which she begins to sweat. Proper usage in a sentence usually goes like this: "Moooooommmm, I am getting all melty!" Now imagine that whine coming out of a 44" tall version of my husband, complete with the Scarlett O' Hara back of the hand to the forehead look. Yeah. Good Times.

Another 100 yards produced an even more pitiful whine of "I am running out of energy." This from the child who is 90 miles and hour with her hair on fire from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. every single day of her life. No naps, no breaks. All day long. Suddenly she is running out of energy? Did I get to "run out of energy" while I was in labor for 22 hours? I did not. I was not even given that option! Now, I know there are probably a thousand well thought out, correct answers for this child at this point, but what I came up with was, "Well, if you would stop whining you would have more energy to walk." Truthful, yes. Compassionate, no.

We continue on, and about the 4/10 of a mile mark she says to me, with complete sincerity, "I just can't take this anymore....we are never going to get to ride our bike again!" Now, I know this child, and she is pretty headstrong. She is about to go into full meltdown mode on me as I walk up Brodie Lane with her. We stop walking and I give her a big drink of cool water and try to rationalize. The bike will get fixed. We only have to walk a little farther, and all we have to do is take it one step at a time. "Honey, if this is the worst thing that happens to us today, we are going to have a great day." She looks at me, completely non-plussed. Just as she is about to let the alligator tears roll, I remember that there is a brand new bag of popsicles in the deep freezer in our garage.

"Hey baby," I said to her, "when we get home today, you can have two popsicles." A smile finally made it across her face and we made the rest of the walk whine-free. So, let this be a lesson to you all. Sometimes, all you have to do is put one foot in front of the other. And sometimes, a little bribery with a kiddo is not a bad thing!

If you stuck with it this far, thanks for reading! I hope everyone has a healthy, happy day, and I promise a stamping post a little later on. Until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

Some shout outs....

...to a couple of great ladies!

First of all, to Lydia of Understand Blue for the premiere of her TV show yesterday! There was just a slight audio glitch...but it was still awesome. I really want to encourage everyone to tune in every Tuesday to Channel 11 at 1 p.m. for her 30 minute stamping show...it is worth it. For those of you who do not have Time Warner Cable, I am taping the shows and can make you a DVD....you just need to let me know.

Next, a huge thank you to my friend, Kim M. She came by yesterday to place an order, and gifted me with two sheets of Elzybell images that she had stamped for me to color and play with! How incredibly sweet is that! But wait, the fun does not end there, she also gave me a great new background stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms as well. Thank you, Kim!






Now, here is a quick peek at my first time playing with the new Fresh Cuts sets from Stampin' Up! This set is going to be in the upcoming Fall/Winter Catalog, and can be purchased right now, along with then laser cut note cards. In a nod to the fact that Lydia doesn't care much for Sage Shadow I decided to use it on this card....lol! so I used the large image from the stamp set to stamp over the card with Sage Shadow ink, then inked up my Canvas background with Creamy Caramel and stamped off before I stamped over the entire thing with it. I put a piece of Sage Shadow cardstock that I had swiped with the ink behind the punched out petals, and to top it all off I stamped the small flower with Brocade Blue then cut it out and layered it on top. I'll be playing more and more with this set this weekend and will put the pics up here and on my SU! website as well.

I hope everyone as a great day! Until next time...Happy Stamping!

Kim

Give a girl some Copics....

...and she can play for a day. Teach a girl to really play with her Copics, and she'll entertain herself for quite a long time. That is exactly what Geeta Suggs did for us today at her Introduction to Copic Markers class that I had the pleasure of taking. I must admit, I was salivating just a bit at her really cool wire rack that was jam-packed full of these amazing markers. I think my heart might have stopped once or twice, and I know I felt my credit card trying to jump out of my purse, but alas, the supply was down at the Memory Depot. But all is well, as I know that they are ordering more, plus I have some new Elzybell stamps on special order coming in as well! YIPPEE!!! So, here are the four examples of cards that I made today using some really cute A Muse stamps and Copic markers. Now I feel the need to sit down and play more with my selection (and Keli's as well....thanks for letting your little guys stay with my little guys...maybe they'll make more markers in my stamping room at night!) I didn't really do much blending on my first card, just a little on the trees and grass, and some shadowing around the house. I apologize up front that I did not write down all the colors I used, because, well, I tried to use all of them. Don't judge me. You would have done the same thing if you saw that nifty wire rack filled with coloring goodness.


This one has to be my favorite...with the multi-colored flower pots and just a little shadowing to let you know that they aren't just floating through space. This is a trick that I have done for years when I watercolor, but never did with markers! It really does make a difference in the overall finish of the image. Then you can see my pretty pink ballerina all ready to spin and twirl. My little girl immediately picked this as her very favorite that I made and technically called it as "her" card, meaning that I had better not even think of sending it elsewhere. Ever.















Finally, the latte cup with the sentiment, "How ya bean?" stamped under it. A little more shading going on, but I think I liked the other cup I stamped better. Still this one made it to the final card.

Thanks again to Geeta for the fun morning, I really can't say enough good things about her. If you have the opportunity to pick up one of her classes, I do recommend them, they are almost as fun as mine...LOL!

I hope everyone has a great weekend...until next time...Happy Stamping!

Kim

Has it really....

...been 10 days since my last post? YIKES! Sorry, y'all, but getting back into the swing of things after a relaxing vacation has been a bit harder than I expected here. So let me start off by showing off some pics from our trip out to Horseshoe Bay! This is the view from the balcony of the condo that D. rented for us. We had initially planned on staying for just 2 nights...but decided to stay for 3 because we were having too much fun to leave on Thursday. Let me just say, everything out there was really nice, and if you don't want to stay in the Marriott...go for the condos! They are equipped really well and the views are incredible. Plus, ours was about a 100 yard walk to the spa, and that, well, that was about all I could manage after a day of getting pampered to death. I could definitely live that kind of lifestyle if money were no object and I had someone to do all the chores...lol!


Here you see me and the little miss out for dinner on Wednesday night. Let me tell you...that was the night that all the bad storms really kicked up and came into Austin. Well, we had the front row seat out there! The sky was absolutely black, and we were sitting by a huge picture window overlooking the lake as this monster storm just built up more and more. Little one here does not like storms one bit (just one of the phobias she picked up from me) and kept asking if everything was going to be ok. We assured her that it was just getting to be night time and that things were fine, but inside my stomach was in complete knots. I was more than happy when the storm finally went around the lake and away from us. Finally, this is just one of the amazing views at Whitewater, which is basically a profession putting golf course. Folks, this ain't yo' mama's

Putt-Putt! This course is an 18-hole, par 72 putting course that was immaculately kept. Along the course there are flamingos, big cages of macaws, and a lot of beautiful water life. And, I am proud to say, for the very first time in my life I actually broke par! Thank goodness the hubby can "read" greens because I couldn't tell which way they were going to break. We had a blast playing this one. They told us, "It will take about an hour to play", and I thought, "Man, there is no one on this course and we are going to take some pictures while we are out." Sure enough, we took about two hours and 15 minutes, but it was time very well spent. And, except for David's sunburned feet where they were exposed between the sandal straps (you think by now he would remember to put sunscreen on them) it was a great day.

Thanks for all of the great birthday wishes I got from all of you! It was probably the best birthday I have ever had. I'll be posting some cards tomorrow, and updating you all on what is going to be going on with regards to the retiring stamp list.

See you all soon!

Kim