Totally TURTLES

I have to say a BIG thank you to Michelle and Carla! Without you ladies I wouldn't have even started my Christmas cards much less have them almost done. :) I can't reveal what the cards look like until I mail them. LOL. So I'm sorry to keep you hanging. But let me tell you that my two girls absolutely HATE them. LOL. Do I have you interested in seeing them yet??? Hopefully you aren't on my naughtly list and will receive a card in the mail. LOL. This month is busy, busy, busy. Decorating the house, going to parades, leading little girls in girl scout stuff. It's been fun and hectic at the same time. My girls love this time of year just like me. We've been baking cookies too. But I have to remind myself not to bake when it's raining. Just too much moisture in the dough. they didn't hold their shape at all and it was almost a total waste except we could eat more cookie dough. Yum! I hope my post is making sense and not sounding like I'm rambling.

It's not too late! Go to my website and order it all! Bundles of stamps, ribbon, accessories, glitter and more! You need this wonderful crafting stuff! Really! How else can you save money except by spending some. LOL. So tell your hubby that you saved him $$$$ by buying Stampin' Up! products on sale up to 50% off. He may be so grateful that he'll say order something extra just from him. ;) Enjoy the holidays!!!

Wow! I can't believe how long it's been since I posted. I guess I've been a little busy. But I do have some fun projects to show you. These three cards were done at my Punch club class. We enjoyed making these cute little kids and the tree and give thanks card. I can't take too much credit for these cards. I saw very similar cards on Splitcoast. But we all share what we love and my ladies loved these cards. If you would like to visit a blog I love and get inspiration from please go to: Jackie Topa I also started a Daisy Girl Scout troop for my youngest daughter to be in. I think it will be a lot of fun since I'll be able to show the girls the wonderful world of stamping. Plus the girls will let me be a girl scout with them, something I never got to do before. I've also been busy with classes, craft fairs, MOMs groups, workshops and vendor fairs. It's been a very good month for me. That's it for now. I'll post more in a couple days.

Here's a few new pages I've created using My Digital Studio. I need to play with this software more because it is different than using actual paper, ink, brads and ribbon. There are so many things I can do with it and I'll never run out of paper. LOL. It even matches colors from photos. Lookie: These are very different pages but it was so fun to play with all the embellishments and color. I hope you are enjoying seeing what all I can do with My Digital Studio. I even did a Halloween page since it's October. What do you think? Hopefully I'll download a few pics of cards I've made. LOL. Busy, busy, busy. Happy Stampin'!

Can you believe it's October already??? Where has the time gone? My girls are busy with so many things. Amanda just started doing Girl Scouts and loves it. She's really coming out of her shell and being less shy. She's making new friends and enjoying learning the songs, promise and Girls Scout Laws. Plus she's really into selling nuts. It's all about the patches and she's trying to earn the one for selling 35 cans of nuts. I hope she does it. Every night we go out and knock on doors. Both girls are doing dance. They love to dress up and go to dance and learn new moves. Amanda is working on the splits. Jessica likes to spin around. They are so amazing to me. School is going great. The book fair is this week and they are enjoying buying  books on their own. Jessica only had $3 that I sent to school with her this week to buy a book. I didn't know she'd be such a great shopper. She ended up with a great book that was on sale for only $2.50. Woo Hoo! Sp

I've been busy pulling heads off of shrimp today. My hubby bought 50 lbs this weekend and brought them home in a cooler. It didn't take too long actually and we ate some boiled shrimp for lunch. YUM! He couldn't pass up the deal on these shrimp though. $2/lb. Most of them are monster size too. Another fun adventure I had with animals was last night. I was coming home from the workshop I did at Michelle's house and a couple bucks wanted to cross the road in front of my car. Luckily I was able to slam my brakes on and not kill any of the deer. The only evidence of them hitting my car was some fur stuck to the decal. I should make a card and post it with my deer friends stamp set. LOL. Here is the card we did at Michelle's workshop. I used the set Charming from the catalog. It's very cute and easy to make this card. I used the Rock N Roll technique. True to form I forgot some important things for the workshop. Ribbon. Luckily Michelle let me use some of her

Here's a card that we are making tonight. I love the easy way you can make great cards with our punches. Use our large oval to make the pumpkin. The Boho Blossom punch to make the top of the pumpkin. I did sponge the egdes to give it a more shaded look. Today I'm taking care of a friends little boy. I'm so not used to boys. He loves tractors. I keep trying to get him to color or play dolls. LOL. Also I'm not used to 3 year olds. They are much more active. But he's doing good and we're having fun. I'll write more later. Gotta go see what the little man is up to.

I just had to try out these new Sweet Treat cups we sell. They can be used with candy, buttons, glitter, liquid (although I don't know how they do that), and many more ideas that I haven't thought of yet. So here's a Halloween card I made with the stamp set Sweet Centers. I filled the cup with candy corn. I think this would be perfect to give to kids at school in Jessica's or Amanda's class. I love how it says EEK you're sweet. To punch out the center you need the 1 3/4" circle punch. I really like it but might try embossing the images with some black embossing powder. Make the black stand out more. I had to reink my black ink pad for the first time. I think it's because I usually leave it out and forget to close it. LOL. But still I had it for over two years. Since I had the Sweet Centers stamp set out I thought I would make another card with it but not use the cup. I still used the punch though. Lookie: Isn't it so cute? I thought I'd used

Well I've been trying really hard to set some goals for my business. I think I'm getting there too. Usually I just hope that I earn the incentive trip but don't feel it's really possible. Especially since I wasn't really growing my business and my friends can only buy so many stamps before their husbands bann them from seeing me again. So this year I'm doing someting different. I'm holding workshops. LOL. That may seem too simple for some but it's actually a great way to meet new people and have fun stamping. I've always been afraid to stand up in front a crowd and talk. I usually stumble over my words and forget to mention important things. I thought this was the way it would be forever but then I talked with some other fabulous direct selling ladies and they told me they felt the same way at first too. It's all a matter of practice. If I don't hold workshops I can't practice so I've booked 4 workshops this month. The most importan

Well I've been stampin and pampering. LOL. My good friend Vanessa was nice enough to come over Friday and demo Pampered Chef to my friends. We made some great Mexican food. My favorite was the Gingertinis. Yummy! I tried to make them again the next night for my hubby and I. I forgot I needed frozen lemonade but luckily I had frozen pineapple and it seemed to work fine. Still was yummy. I also was blessed with some friends coming over to my house on Thursday to stamp. Our technique club meets once every other month and we learn a new technique each time. This month we learned the soot technique. I thought I was being cleaver using a tea light for each guest to do their card. Well tea lights don't have big flames so it was taking way to long for everyone to "burn" their glossy white paper. So we ended up using the big candle and taking turns. I did have a near smoke alarm hazard but luckily blew out the flames before the house burned down. Here's a pic of the card.

Hey everyone. By now you'll have been by my house to see my swaps from convention, my cute teddy bear, new Stampin' Up! tools and more. I loved convention. I met up with my up, upline Mandy and her two downline, Lisa and Amanda. My Amanda got a kick out of the fact that someone had her name that I was rooming with. Going to convention is going to be my goal every year. I was so excited to be back in Utah, spending time with other ladies just as crazy about Stampin' Up! as I am. Plus getting to see the talented demos and home office people make fantastic cards, projects, scrapbook pages and more. Shelli really did so many cute boxes using our Big Shot she couldn't show us all of them. But she did promise to put some of those on her blog. A really cool thing that happened was that Shelli came through the lobby of our hotel while we were hanging out making more swaps. Lisa and I were brave enough to go up to her and introduce ourselves. My upline Mandy took pictures. Chec

Here's the deal of the week: Heart to Heart Punch for only $10.99! I made these cute bookmarks for the crop in Mobile to give out. I used the Heart to Heart punch to make the little hearts on it. The punch does 3 hearts that also lines up with a stamp in the Love You Much stamp set on page 44 of our catalog. I used this punch for many different Valentine's Day cards last year but you can use it for Anniversary cards, scrapbook pages, baby cards and more. I need to post more pictures of cards but I've been busy cleaning and going to birthday parties. Today is stay home and do laundry day. LOL. Happy Stampin'!

Just to let you all know that I'm working on swaps for Convention. Hopefully I'll get them done in time. I only have a week and a half. Plus I need to get busy with other things like painting. The laundry is piling up and not putting itself away. On top of all this I am getting quotes for a pool to be put in. I really have wanted a pool for so long. I want to make my backyard an oasis. Someplace to go to relax and unwind. Maybe I'll make a fun "oasis" type card to cheer me up. LOL. I'll post pictures soon. Don't forget the deal of the week is the Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware. It's on sale for only $18.99! I'll make something with it and show you how cute it is. :) Happy Stampin!

I have to say a BIG Thank You to Melissa for hosting the crop in Mobile yesterday. She organized a wonderful day for scrapbookers. I enjoyed getting to know so many talented ladies. Plus there were so many great door prizes, food, vendors, demonstrations and more. I am glad that Melissa had me come out and show off some of Stampin' Up!s products. Melissa's walk for the cure will be in October. If you haven't donated yet you can go to http://mobilecrop.blogspot.com . There's a link on the right showing how to donate. At the crop I got to know a few ladies and some who had overcome breast cancer. It's amazing how much early detection helps in the fight. If you find a lump or are concered about something always contact your doctor and insist on further tests if anything looks inconclusive. If I can post some pics I will. Until next time...

Yesterday was so much fun. I had 6 ladies come make a card with me and I also got to show off the decor elements. People don't know that this is not a rub on. It's actual vinyl and goes on many surfaces. I love them! I love them so much that I cry when something bad happens to them. While making a project yesterday morning I asked for help from my hubby. He was happy to help but with each step there was a challenge to overcome. Let's just say we lost the war. The piece of glass with the decor element ended up cracking and I ended up crying. But not all is lost. I still have the frame and I can still buy a new decor element and get a new piece of glass. So what if it takes a week or more to get everything I need together again. I will win! Okay for cards and other fun stuff. I made this cute card: Well actually Margo made it I helped her design it and we used the wrinkle free distressing techinque. I thought it came out good. I need to make some things and do laundry so I

This is a little late but thought you might want to see the cards I made for Steve and his dad. I got them tickets to see the BayBears play in Mobile. So I thought the baseball theme to the cards would be a great idea. The girls wanted to put glitter. LOL. Here are the girls at the game with their dad and grandpa. They had a lot of fun! It was their first baseball game and we stayed til the end and watched the fireworks. It was a late night but they did really good. As for stamping...I've been busy making invitations for parties. If you need some for a birthday or retirement party or any occassion let me know. I'm able to make them for $2 a card. Here's one I made for my friend's daughter's birthday. I also made this card for a dear friend of mine. She had me paint some paintings for her and I wanted to make something special to thank her for it. I haven't sent it to her yet but I'm sure she won't mind seeing it here first. Isn't it great!? I love ho

Here's a cute card using retiring colors, stamps and accessories. I used Pink Pirouette and Riding Hood Red cardstock and ink. The stamp set is Heartfelt Thanks and it's retiring. I've had this stamp set since I joined Stampin' Up! I'll miss it. I also used the Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon and the Fleurettes. Our Fleurettes are 50% off while supplies last. I attached them using a silver brad. What do you think? Hope you enjoy my creations. Happy Stampin'!

The Big Shot Starter Kit retails for $195.95. This kit is only available until the end of June. After that Stampin' Up! sells everything separately. What does this mean??? If you want to have everything that the kit has in it for $10 less then act now. Plus you qualify for the hostess benefits ($25 free stuff) and a level 1 hostess stamp set. What are you waiting for??? Click on my Stampin' Up! website to place an order online. Or email me to let me know you want to get the screaming deal on this kit. Kit includes: Big Shot Die Cutting Machine Multipurpose Platform Standard Cutting Pads Stampin' Up! Exclusive Scallop Envelope Bigz Die Stampin' Up! Exclusive Top Note Bigs Die Stampin' Up! Exclusive Sizzix Birds & Bluooms Four Pack Stampin' Up! Exclusive Decorative Strip Billboard Decorative Strip Cutting Pads Decorative Strip Extended Spacer Platform You can also earn extra hostess benefits by bumping the order up to $250.00 Do this by having a catalog party

Hello again! I'm so excited because I got my Stampin' Up! order yesterday and I have a new stamp set to play with and new In Colors to play with. I decided to start with Bermuda Bay. It's a beautiful teal color and I think it's perfect for Summer! I thought I would make this elegant wedding card using our textured Manhattan Flower plate. It's simple but I think it's lovely. The white taffeta ribbon adds the perfect touch. The ink and cardstock are the new Bermuda Bay color. Here's another card using a level 2 hostess set from our current catalog. I have wanted to play with this set for a while but didn't earn it until just recently. What do you think? I love that you can use our punches for this set and that you can pop the image up with dimensionals. I think the Just Jawing set complements it well. I use the new In Color marker to fill in the eyes and then sprinkled Dazzaling Diamonds on them. I'm really liking the white taffeta ribbon too. I seem

Yes I feel the days passing too quickly. Here it is the middle of June (almost) and I've not yet relaxed on a vacation of any sort. I did get to enjoy spending time yesterday with my friend and downline Linda. She has a fantastic pool in her yard and we enjoyed playing, splashing and relaxing in it. I wish I had a pool. So jealous. But anyway...My girls and the neighbors kids were here at the house today and they played really well together but ended up making a mess of the house. I did get them all to clean up the toys and put away things they were done playing with. But during all this my lovely daughter got gum on her ballet outfit. That made me upset enough to take away the gum from everyone. I did use peanut butter to get the gum out of the outfit so I shouldn't be too mad. I also figured out that my sweet girl, Jessica, can be paid in M & Ms to do things. So I had her unload the dish washer and she helped get the laundry out of the dryer and moved things from the wash

Well I meant to post these cards sooner. Here's what we did last month for Marker Club. Aren't they great!? I really liked showing how to color the tree with the markers and then spritzing the rubber with some water. It makes the tree look more like a water color then a stamped image. You can tell your friends that you are a true artist. LOL. June is the last month for our Marker Club. If you or anyone you know is interested in receiving all the markers, paper and hostess benefits for the new catalog please contact me. I'll start a new Marker Club when we get 4 people to join. Sneak Peak!! The new In Colors for our Fall/Winter Catalog will have markers. Yes we'll have even more options for coloring, stamping and creating with the new In Colors. I really like the new colors and I'll be getting them in about a week. So if anyone wants to come "play" let me know. LOL. Summertime is turning out to be a busy time for my girls and I. We went to the movies at the

It's Here! Retired List Here's the link for the retired list for stamp sets. A lot of my favorites are on there. There's also an accessory list I'm trying to post but having a hard time doing so. There's no link on the website for it either. SO I will email anyone that wants the list. Just let me know. Club meeting was great! We celebrated Michelle's birthday. I made a cute banner for her and I also made dinner. I know. Amazing. LOL. We learned how to make the wonderful Watercolor Roses using Fifth Avenue Floral. See the cards below. I love how they turned out. I actually sent a card to my niece for her birthday. She probably didn't get it yet but I hope she loves it. She's like a sister to me and I really miss her. She's in California and we don't get to see each other unless I go there. I made it for this last Christmas which was so nice. Another thing we learned at club was not to say anything negative about Canada around Carla. LOL. A new st

Sorry to be away so long but I've been very busy lately. My two girls are now on summer break and I'll be able to do more stamping, painting and blogging. LOL. Here's the tote I made Amanda for her graduation. I think it's great that she loves what I make her so much. She kept asking me, "How did you make this???" She loved the rainbow. I did have to use one of her stamps to make it since SU! doesn't have a rainbow stamp. The theme of her graduation was rainbows. For her teacher I made a cute card that had a road trip theme. I was glad we had a stamp set for this one. I used the Just Beachy stamp set from the mini catalog. She's actually leaving on a road trip with her family for three weeks. She has 5 kids so I think she's going to go a little crazy. LOL. Here's the tote I made her. The class chipped in and gave her some spending money for her trip and I filled the tote with fun travel size things like bandaides, sewing kit, facial wipes, cou

My sweet husband cooked me breakfast, made coffee for me and brought it to me in bed this morning. He also cleaned up after cooking and made French Onion Soup for lunch. I'm so being spoiled! But to top it all off he even stamped me a card and I LOVE IT!!! Lookie! Isn't he so talented? Maybe I should try to sign him up as a demo. LOL. I'd probably get really jealous though because he'd be stealing my customers. (Who wouldn't want to stamp with a handsome man???) I'm so lucky to be blessed with my family. I wish that my mommy was still here but I know that I was blessed to be raised by my wonderful mom and that I felt so loved and cared for by her. I just hope I can be as loving and caring to my own two girls. I love them so much and today I realize how special I am to them. Amanda came home last week from school and took her book bag to her room and told me not to follow her. She had a gift for me that she made and was waiting to give it to me until today. So t