Archive for June, 2009

…and I haven’t gotten to play with them. I wanted to, but that just wasn’t in the cards today. Again, I have nothing to share with you. I am feeling like a slacker. I did finish my ATCs that must be in the mail tomorrow, but didn’t take a photo of them yet, and now I am too lazy to cross the room and take one. It has been a crazy day. A server went down at work, which is the server I need to accomplish my job. The only person who could fix it has been working for about a week straight without getting to see his wife or baby girl, so I felt very bad bugging him about when it would be finished because I wanted to go home…but I really did want to go home.
An hour and a half after normal quitting time, I jumped into my car and put in “Eat, Pray, Love”, an audiobook I picked up from the library during lunch. I also got a couple of other books. The male characters in the last couple of books I have read have been a vampire, werewolf, time traveler, and an imaginary friend. Soon I am supposed to start Harry Potter. I really need to find a love story involving human males.
Hopefully tomorrow I will have something to share with you relating to crafts and not just jabbering. I did have an ahh-ha moment today and have a design in my head, but I won’t be able to share for a while until the card is received by its intended party. Have a wonderful day and thanks for letting me ramble.
Erica

So it is 9:55pm Central time on Sunday. I should be going to bed any minute now, but probably won’t because I am too keyed up. I just finished a book today. Actually, I finished 2 books today and one yesterday. I feel like I didn’t do anything this weekend, or at least anything I should have been doing. I needed to make cards, those didn’t get done. I needed to clean, that didn’t get done, but I probably would have found any excuse to get out of that. I feel scrunched in my space because crap has exploded from all of my weekend and day trips I have taken lately. Too late now. I am not cleaning now.
I did get to go to the zoo today. It wasn’t as hot as it has been recently and it wasn’t as humid. It was a great summer day in Kansas…actually the zoo is in Missouri, but you get the idea. While I was there I took some pictures, over 200 to be exact. Through Jen, I discovered the You Capture weekly challenge for photography. This week’s challenge is summer. So I thought I would share some of the pictures I took at the zoo that are summery to me.This pond was at the zoo and I just thought that it looked interesting with the scum completely engulfing it.This bird got into the light just right. These birds were fearless. A relative of his sat on the railing next to everyone showing off like he owned the place. Well, it is his home, we were guests.This tiny, beautiful blue butterfly landed on my nail. It stayed on there for a while. When it did fly off it landed on my dad’s watch and traveled for a while with us. (Oh, and yes those are my real nails.)This turtle cracked me up. I don’t know if he is stretching, doing Ti-che or his best Pointer impression, but it just too funny.

Finally, the light worked perfectly on the water!

As I said earlier, I finished my book. I picked up a book called “Sundays at Tiffany’s” by James Patterson. Yes, that James Patterson. This is an amazing love story. Really quick read. I loved it and was not going to be happy until the book was finished today! I also finally finished “32 3rd graders and 1 class bunny,” by Phillip Done. It is a book of essays about teaching. Absolutely hysterical. It had me in tears I was laughing so hard throughout the book. Even if you aren’t a teacher, you should read it because it is so funny.

Well, I should try to get some sleep for my busy 4 day week ahead of me. Have a great day!

Erica

Tons of my friends have late June or early July birthdays so I have a lot of cards to make. I am already late on a couple and I am very sorry about that! I also have some thank you cards to make too, but I am just too tired tonight. I made one and a half cards tonight, but I just can’t focus. Plus I need to go to bed early because I am going to Country Stampede tomorrow. My work is the media sponsor, so I have to work at it and then my friend Amy and I are going to enjoy a little Eli Young Band, James Otto, Sawyer Brown, and Dierks Bentley! Dierks doesn’t even start until 10:30 and the concert is 2 hours away from where I live, so I am looking at the wee hours of Saturday. Hopefully I will be able to get some rest and make the necessary cards this weekend.
Now I am going to bed…well maybe read a little first. I am reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and have been for like a month. I am now so close to the end and really want to find out what happens.
I will be back in a couple of days with a card. If you want some eye candy, check out Twilight Tuesday because they are doing samples all week long. The DT and guest DT members rock and always have something amazing to display.

…it’s Tuesday, which means the new Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge was posted today, and they had a surprise. TT teamed up with Artful INKables because they just came up with two new sets. Can you guess what the inspiration was? They are so cute! Into the Moonlight features images that are inspired by the Twilight Saga. Fictionally Inspired are words and quotes that are Twilight related. Of course, I had to buy them. I mean, I do participate in as many of the Twilight Tuesday challenges I possibly can, plus I have gotten a lot of my friends addicted to the books and movies, so now I have stamps to make them cards. I also figured they would be great for the movie openings too. The possibilities are endless, so the purchase was completely justified!

When I think about Twilight, I think about what it has done for me and how it has changed my life. I know, it may sound silly to some, a book changed my life, but it really did. (Warning, I am going to get a little personal here…deal with it ) Many of you have heard my Twilight story, but just humor me a little.

As silly as this may sound, the books were my Jacob. I had gone through a really bad breakup the previous March and ended up having to move back home with my parents. Then I had this surgery and was worried about body image. I was in a bit of a funk in my life and the books helped me get out of this. I was able to find people who also enjoyed the books and I was able to really connect with people again, which I hadn’t really let myself do for awhile.

So, I was on SCS the other day and saw Jen’s tutorial for Mini Pizza Boxes. I thought that would be the perfect home for some gift cards that I was giving as gifts to my friends/co-workers Michelle and Kala.

Michelle’s : I chose to use my Wisteria paper for it. I love the colors. I figured Michelle would enjoy it. I monogrammed an M with my Justrite Stamper. I finished it off with some Making Memories silver brads and Paper Studio ribbon.

For Kala’s I used Urban Prairie Basic Grey paper. I used the same layout because they are really good friends and their birthday’s are a day apart. Since they were both getting them at the same time, I figured I would make them as equal as possible. The ribbon I used on Kala’s is American Crafts. I bought it months after I got the Urban Prairie paper and had no idea how the colors matched. I am usually one of those people who can’t mix patterns, so I hope it works. Hope you enjoy! ~ Erica

So, my friend Michaela asked me about 2 months ago if I was interested in making a weekend trip to Omaha, which of course, I said YES!!! Sadly, it wasn’t until about 2 weeks ago that it got pointed out that I was going to be gone most of Father’s Day. Since I wasn’t going to be with him, I wanted to make sure I made him a really great card.
The stamp is Vol. 25 found on the Stamping Bella website. I colored it in with a combo of Tombos and Bics. I didn’t want it to be traditional because the paper I got was so wacky. The paper is Basic Grey Lime Rickey. I love it. It is so bright and can be used for masculine cards.

When I first got the pack of Me & My Big Ideas paper pack, I showed my boss/friend and she specificially picked out this paper for her birthday card. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but then this card just kind of happened.

I had the coolest birthday cake. It was Twilight, so how could it really be bad. Jill, the decorator of my cake, and co-worker of my dad’s did an amazing job, and she needed to know it.

I am loving this Lime Rickey paper by Basic Grey. The stamp is The Cat’s Pajama’s, which is home to my favorite birthday sets. They are my go to set. I also just love the quality of TCP stamps. I colored it in with Tomobs and finished off the card with a little Paper Studio ribbon. I also used my new Gellyroll Stardust glitter pen to had a little bling to the cake because Jill made sure my cake sparkled (Really she did. It was one of my requirements. I mean, what is a Twilight cake without sparkles. Blasphemy I tell you!)
Hope you enjoy! ~ Erica

My Aunt Sharon’s birthday is exactly a week after mine (but several years before *smile*). I have never made her a card before, so I thought it was about time I did. I pulled out my newly purchased Wisteria 6×6 Basic Grey pad for inspiration. I decided that my “new-to-me” flower set from The Angel Company would be perfect. I had never stamped on patterned paper before, let alone embossed on it and was worried about doing it on this beautiful paper. I haven’t had the best luck with embossing before, but today must be my lucky day. I love how it turned out. The sentiment is also from TAC, Trendy Greetings, my go to sentiment set.
I do have a question for all of you out there. Am I the only one who is still marveled when her embossing powder changes? It is just cool to watch it change from one area to another like dominos. I am just in awe of it. Maybe I will have to use it as a science demonstration in my classroom.

I also received a card for my birthday by the lovely Vicki aka Giffysk8s on SCS. She is part of the Bella

birthday card exchange. Isn’t it cute. I love all the sparkles…very me. Well it is time to go to bed now. I have a….a day at work ahead of me and should get some sleep. Hope you enjoy! ~Erica