random stuff

Last weekend I was looking through old photos...you know, the ones that were taken with something called "film". You remember, right? Anyway I came across this picture of me and my dog and the date on the back of the picture is January 2, 1999. That day was the biggest one-day snowfall in Chicago history. We got 18.5" in one calendar day! I believe it fell on a weekend, thank God cause our cars were literally trapped in our parking lot of our apartment complex.

You can see Ozan and the neighborhood guys back there shoveling parking spots out. Even though there are plows, they can't even get to you until later. The guys would shovel out one spot, move a car there then shovel another one out, etc. So during this a guy drives in the complex and sees them shoveling out the spot and took it...bad idea. If you were in downtown Chicago, people might hurt your car if you take their shoveled spot. Our "men" were mad so they just shoveled a bunch of snow on this guys car...he won't do that again...LOL.

But what I really love about this picture is seeing how happy Chloe was running through the snow. She LOVED the snow and she is only 2 years old here, so she is full of energy. She always came back inside the house with her face full of snow from digging her face in it. You can really see how deep the snow is, up to my knees-and it was still snowing all day after that. And my bulky LL Bean coat, yeah made me look fat but it kept me warm. Got rid of it this year so now I'm thinking how I need to get another one before winter comes our way :(

And something creepy about this pic...our neighbor that lived on the third floor, the older man who lived by himself took this picture of me from inside the building and I didn't see him take it. But he did give me copies and he always would call my pup up to his apartment for some treats so it wasn't too creepy...although we would hear electric saws up there and make jokes that he was cutting up bodies. I guess you get a little weird living in an apartment. Your imagination goes a bit crazy and we have fun joking around about things like that...

And to change the subject...my Kendall, such an artist lately. She literally has a piece of paper and her markers (no, actually she steals mine) with her all the time. She'll draw a crown or a butterfly and cut it out very carefully then she colors every square inch until its filled up. I love how the sun is coming from behind her in this picture. It was taken around 6:00 PM, so its perfect for some sunset pics. And those are my brand new Bic permanent markers, a huge package...I couldn't just say no. I really like to share with her.

And today I went to the grocery store after work and saw some yummy green taffy apples. My favorite autumn product! Kendall has been asking me for months now to make these with her. I don't know why I gave it to her AFTER bath...doesn't make sense since they're so sticky!

And this is a card I made this weekend. I think it took at least 2 hours to make...literally lifted it right off one of Kendall's shirts. The shirt is just so cute. I hand cut the tree and put it in my Cuttlebug (argyle plate), added clear embossing powder, shaded in some of the lines with my white signo pen and then added some Tim Holtz distressing ink to darken up the white a bit. The book paper is Jenni Bowlin, which I aged with the distressing ink as well (Old Paper color). I stitched the leaves and around the tree by hand. The curved diecut was cut out from a template and also ran through the "bug". The owl stamp is by Hero Arts and I used some Prismacolored Pencils and took some odorless mineral spirits to it. I had so much fun...lots of fun scrapbooking techniques here! Oh and the letter stamps were from the $1 section at Jo-Anns. What a steal!

New Organization

I've been reorganizing some of my areas of my scrap room over the last month or so. I still have a lot to do, hopefully this winter I can paint and add some cabinets or an Ikea Expedit. So for now, I'm just trying to make it easier to find my SB embellishments, etc. Nothing really matches...I'm so eclectic in my style that I tend to mix a little of my favorite things.

This is my most recent change...I had most of my ribbon and trim on doll pins stuffed in a jar. Then I decided that I wanted them open in a basket so I could move them around. I found this fabric one at Michael's and its cute. OK, it was a good idea but still, I had to dig...

Then I was walking through Hobby Lobby and saw some Cropper Hopper ribbon cards but they only had one package left. I purchased those and started wrapping my ribbon around them. Took me a week to do here and there...this is the result:

If you trim the ends of the cards just a bit, they'll fit in perfectly. Since I ran out of the ribbon cards, I made my own from white cardboard that I got from work. They come in our xray film packaging and they are much sturdier than the CH ones. This took a lot of time but now I can see all my pretty ribbon together. I tried to keep the colors together...and since I like to know the name brands of the ribbons, I wrote on the card under each one what brand it was. There are 33 ribbon cards in there and each one has about 8-10 ribbons or trims. I love the look and ease of this.

This is how I used to story my "premium" trims (candy jar on left). The really nice ones that you can get by the yard at the scrap store. I put those on the cards as well.

My card supplies such as premade cards, envelopes and card embellishments were in this skinny sterilite drawer. I took those out and hi-jacked a basket from Kendall's room. It takes up space on this table but I don't use this table to work on, it usually has a bunch of stuff on it anyway.

Recently I went to Menards to get some more of these pantry storage racks. I have them in my basement pantry and one day I was wondering if my Making Memory jars would fit. They fit perfectly front and back and side to side. The two racks together can hold 24 MM jars, I decided to use one row to hold my American Crafts embellies. I don't have a lot of wall space in my small room so I decided to put it under my embellishment center. My American Crafts ribbon were taken off their spools last year and put on office rings. I just punched a hole at one end and fed it through. They have a home hanging on the side of embellishment center.

And here is a full view...

How I store my chipboard products that come in a flat package. They used to all be in the larger box, but I was losing the smaller items. I decided to put those in the smaller box. Both of those boxes are from Michaels.

OK, hope you enjoyed the tour. Have a great weekend.

Happy Anniversary Ozan

Happy 10th Wedding Anniversary to my husband Ozan!

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: Stampin Up and Archivers (scalloped card)

Journaling page, metal tag, and Ribbon: Making Memories

Transperancy paper: Hero Arts

Rub On and Vinyl Stickers: American Crafts

Scallop Trim: KI Memories

Stamp: Stampin Up

Ink: Versamark

Flock: Stampendous

Stickles: Ranger

have a great weekend!

Color Inspiration 20

Another inspiration challenge from Kristina Werner's website. I don't have the in colors yet so I substituted those with some other. Everything here is Stampin Up except the ribbon, scalloped trim, staples, and metal gems. Used staples to make the stem of the flower and used pop dots on every other one. Also used some heat embossing on the dotted background stamp. This card was inspired by my 5 year old daughter. She drew a cute picture with little circle flowers across the page and I loved it! And I couldn't find any light pink cardstock (what is wrong with me?) so the pink "paper" is taken from a package of scrapbook tag sheets from KI Memories. Isn't that crazy?

Due to our terrible rainy weather I had to take this picture in my scraproom so the pic isn't perfect but it'll do. TFL!

Happy Birthday Ozan

Tomorrow, September 4th is Ozan's birthday. Happy birthday honey! And then Friday is even a bigger day-our ten year anniversary! Our plans? Going out for pizza after work...but we are going to the place where we had our dinner rehearsal and right down the road is where we had our outdoor wedding. May take some pics with the kids as well. Made this card using lots of stamps and embossing. I was going to make a small card...then changed my mind. Then I cut the paper wrong, so I went back to small. Make sense???

I also made this card for one of my co-workers who is going down to Florida in a few weeks to get married. We are throwing a surprise shower for her at work. I used my Stampin Up spritzer and a chocolate chip marker to make the spattering on the background.

Supplies used:

Birthday Card

Cardstock, Wheel Stamp, and Ink: Stampin Up

Stamps: Sassafras Lass and Fontwerks

Ribbon: American Crafts

Metal Tag: Lasting Impressions (these are old school!)

Love Card

Cardstock, Ink, Ribbon, Slit Punch, Spritzer, Chocolate Chip Marker: Stampin Up

Scalloped Card: Archivers

Stamps: Stampin Up (sentiment) and Hero Arts (heart)

Pearl Gems: Hero Arts

Blue Marker: Copic

Glitter glue (Stickles): Ranger

Stick Pin: Michaels

Sweet 2 Sour

I've had these pics laying around for awhile now and I finally got around to them. I posted this sequence of pics a few weeks ago of my kiddies from our recent trip to Southern California. Kendall will hug Aydan and then not let go, but then she knows he's upset so she'll hold on tighter...knows how to really get him. I knew I wanted to use this laser cut MM paper but then I got stuck. Once I came across the green circle scalloped paper, the rest came fairly easy...except for the right side. At first I had some acetate tags that I was going to journal on, but it didn't feel right. Then I was going to use something else...blah, blah, blah, and then I found my Autumn Leaves Chipboard Journaling piece, and it all came together. If you look closely, the pics are cut on the top and bottom to fit the wave of the edge of the paper. I used a flexible ruler to do that.

The "S" in Sweet was made by using the negative space of the chipboard sheet. Even though I had enough of them, I wanted it to stand out more (plus it was my last one!).

Everything here is MM except:

Acetate butterfly: Heidi Swapp

Small brads (flowered): Target

Large Brad: Bazzill

Trim Sticker: KI

Stick Pin: Heidi Grace

Date Journaling Sticker: American Crafts

White Pen: Signo

Blue Stickles Glitter Glue: Ranger

TFL, have a great holiday!

Kindergarten Layout

Stayed up late last night to do this page and even left work a little early to finish it. I was so excited to do this page and I was too busy with Aydan's birthday party to start it last weekend. I came up with a sketch and pretty much stuck to it. I was going to add some large chipboard parenthesis with crackle paint, but it was a bit of an overload. The black paper was stamped with MM foam stamps and versamark and then i added some clear embossing powder. The paper was thin so it warped a bit...next time I'll use some nice, thick Bazzill. And once again I apologize for the bad scan. I tried taking pics too, but it just wasn't working.

The folder opens on the right to show pics of each of us with Kendall. I wanted the main page to feature pics of her. I had Kendall write her name on the name tag stamp, which I think adds a nice personal touch.


Supplies Used:
Cardstock: Stampin Up Kraft and Archivers Black (cause I don't own Bazzill black...LOL)
Patterned Papers: Scenic Route and Creative Imaginations
Cork Paper: Karen Foster
Star Border, Staples, Letter Stickers, clip, foam stamps, and chipboard corner: Making Memories
File Folder: Autumn Leaves
Stamp (my name is): Maya Road
Stickers Jenni Bowlin and Ki Memories
Ink: Stampin Up (pink) and Versamark
Rub Ons: American Crafts
Jewels: Mark Richards
Stamps:

Happy Birthday Aydan!!

Today is my bubby's third birthday!!! Happy Birthday Aydan!

I love you!

Anyway, we had a sucessful birthday party. It was cute cause we had it at 4:00 (that's usually when he wakes up from his 3 hour nap) and when he woke up, everyone was waiting for him downstairs...kinda like a surprise party. I made a bunch of food and we will be eating leftovers for a few days here...but that's OK. Aydan dragged his balloon centerpiece around the house during the party...so cute! Our town had a fireworks display (always happens on the day of his b-day) around 8:30 and everyone stayed around for that. We could see them clearly from our backyard.

Lightening McQueen got a ride down the slide...not too long after Aydan's opened this present. Its a remote contol car...really cute. Its plastic so we'll see how long it lasts!

And my nephew Nathan. Kendall and her cousin are amazingly connected. They are super close and just love each other to death. They walk around holding hands. Super cute.

And a great display of fireworks seen from our backyard.

and if things weren't crazy enough around here, Kendall had her first soccer game that morning. It was a hot day...almost 90 degrees at 8:30 in the morning. Usually its not that hot around that time. And yes, I'm going to buy her some black shoes. She's the only one there in girly shoes.

I made a little mini book her for a co-worker and good friend of mine. She was saying how she always has to rewrite in her calendar everyone's birthdays, so I made something that she could use to keep track of everyone's birthdays and anniversaries. Each page is stamped with a journaling stamp and there is one page for each month. This measures about 4" square. She is always doing nice things for me so I wanted to give something to her. She is also appreciate of the cards and other things I make so I think she'll really like it. Its really basic...I didn't want to bulk it up and I also wanted something easy.

I made both of these cards in the car on the way up to Wisconsin last week. They were inspired by a sale flyer from Stampin Up. I just love these colors! And forgive the quality of some of these pics taken indoors...just don't feel like editing them. The one below was for a co-woker who found another job. She was so sweet. I'm gonna miss her!

Well I have a long week ahead of me. My students return from their summer break tomorrow and my new ones start on Tuesday for their orientation...I get to talk all day. Yeah...just kidding. I have 8 new ones starting. I'm going to be busy!!!

Supplies Used

(Mini Book) A lot of this is ol' school stuff!

Album, Chipboard, letter stickers: Making Memories

Patterned Paper: Chatterbox

Silk Ribbon: American Crafts

"Time" sticker and metal plate: Lil Davis

(Hello Card)

CS: Bazzill (blues) and Stampin Up (wild wasabi)

Stamps: Hero Arts (bird and hello) and Stampin Up (be happy)

Chalk Ink: Tsukineko

Silk Ribbon: American Crafts

Paper Piercer Template: Stampin Up

(Tree Card)

CS: Bazzill (blues) and Stampin Up (wild wasabi)
Stamps: Hero Arts (tree) and Stampin Up (best wishes)

Chalk Ink: Tsukineko
Ribbon: American Crafts
Punch and Paper Piercer Template: Stampin Up

Kindergarten

So today was Kendall's first day of Kindergarten. I helped get her dressed this morning...her hair never looks this smooth in the morning. Usually Daddy's gets the kids off to school. So we did the usual pics on the front porch, etc. She was really excited...I can't believe I am the mother of a school aged child...crazy!


So she posed cute for the first few...


then she started to squint..
so I tell her to open her eyes and relax...and this is what I got.
She goes to the same school as pre-school so no big changes for her. This is her entering the school. I just loved how she looked at the camera here. That backpack isn't as big as it looks. She has this tiny one that is perfect for her size but I would have to fold up her homework to put it inside and most of their homework involves artwork and crayons. So I had to use this one.

Her cubby...


Proud Daddy!

Now I have to start planning Aydan's b-day party this Saturday. Oy!

soccer

So I'm officially a soccer mom, literally...2 kids, house in the burbs, van...but a cool soccer mom. LOL!

Anyway Kendall had her first soccer practice ever last night and she really enjoyed it. Here are a few pics. The coach told me that she must be my oldest...guess cause I was shooting away. I told him yes and I'm also a scrapper and he said, "Oh, that's the chance to get out with the girls". I told him not really, I have my own room. And he's like, "You're one of those..."...but in a nice way! Gosh, she looks so grown up in these pics!We're heading out for a 3 day getaway. Gotta pack!

Red Car, Blue Car, Green Car

So Aydan doesn't just ask for his cars, he asks for all of them..."Red car, Blue car, Green car". Just like that...all the time. He sleeps with them, eats with them, and baths with them. They literally took the place of "Thomas the Train". He still loves Thomas, but not as much as these guys. BTW, these are from the movie "Cars". I had to take off work today cause Kendall had a fever, but she's much better now. So during Aydan's nap, we crafted. On the tags I put Doodlebug letters, painted over them, and peeled off the sticker when it was half dry. You have to use a very dry brush or sponge brush to do this right. I was going to put buttons but I stopped myself, I tend to over-embellish and I need to stop before I think I'm finished. LOL! Hope you're all having a great week.

supplies used:

CS: Hobby Lobby

PP: Basic Grey

Tags: 7 Gypsies

Stickers: Heidi Swapp (black) and Doodlebug (to make letter masks)

Journaling Sticker, Slick Marker, Ribbon, and Chipboard Quotations: American Crafts

Punch: Stampin Up

Stamp: Hero Arts

Paint and Chipboard Photo Corners: Making Memories.

Black Jewels: Michaels

My Messy, Creative Aydan

Well, this little guy loves to play with chalk, stamps, paints, playdough...anything messy...and will make a big mess by getting it all over his face hands, whatever. Doesn't bother him in the least...the messier, the better. I think I've done a few pages about how messy he gets!

Me, I have to watch him closely so he doesn't get it all over the house. I took these pics this morning while we were hanging outside. He was drawing letters and numbers...yes, he can do that at the age of 2. He's obsessed with them!! Seriously. So I snapped a few pics and couldn't just choose a few, so here's several. Yes, we were wearing jackets...its was cold out until lunch time, then it got really hot, then it poured rain. That's how it is around here!

Right now this little guy, who turns 3 in two weeks, is sleeping in his new big boy bed for the first time...I just want to baby him forever. It was kinda sad taking out the crib, we've been using it for 5.5 years now.

This is a card I did using a lot of leftovers. I have a cute little bin in my scraproom that holds little pieces of paper I can't bear to throw out or stamped images I cut out and didn't use, etc. So most of this card is made with items from that bin. The only thing that isn't is the "happy birthday" wheel stamp. The leaf is a leftover negative image I saved from a Sizzix diecut and just trimmed around...I saved that cause I love the green paper I used! Have a great weekend!

Tornado

So Monday night, our town got hit by a tornado...no one was injured. I didn't see it but I know it went right through or next to our house. There is this path of destruction that started a mile from us and the path continued through our subdivision. We have some minor damage...nothing too bad. It was crazy cause it we had some thunderstorms earlier in the day. It cleared up by the evening and then it was looking quite dark out, but it was almost 8PM so I didn't think anything of it. I was getting Kendall ready for bed upstairs and Ozan was on our first floor. I felt something in our house...couldn't describe it. Like the house was vibrating. I yelled to Ozan, "What was that?" He shouted, "Get in the basement right now". I scooped up Kendall, all 42 lbs of her, and carried her like a football down 2 flights of stairs. As I was running I could feel the windows shaking and I really felt like I was running for my life cause I had no idea what was really going on. It came so fast that there weren't any sirens going off or any tornado warnings or watches! It lasted about a minute, but I really didn't know if it was a tornado or not until I saw the news the next day. It was confirmed and the wind speed measured 106 mph. I've been close to them, like in the next town and I certainly have spent a lot of time in our basement during warnings. But this was a first for me. I'm glad that it wasn't too serious!

So on to another subject, something happy. I just finished this LO for a challenge on two peas. Jennifer McGuire is teaching a class on how to stamp on transperancy. I love the look! I stamped some white Staz On on a Hero Arts clear card, punched them out, and put them in a Making Memories tag rim. I also got a chance to use the Stampin Up scalloped border punch that just came out.

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: Bazzill

Patterned Paper: Making Memories, Deja Views, and Me and my Big Ideas

Stamps: Sassafrass Lass

Flowers: Fancy Pants, Queen and Co, Doodlebug

Bird Mirror and Jumbo Jeweled Brad: Heidi Swapp

Stick Pin: Heidi Grace

Punches: EK Success and Stampin Up

Ink: Staz On White

Die Cut Machine: Cuttlebug