SALE SALE OMG SALE SALE

Hello Everyone!!!  I am kind of freaking out here, I know that this will be silly for some of you to think I am freaking out about this but oh well.  What it is is that Michael's has their storage on sale this week for 40% off...that is good news all by itself.  But what other information I have to go along with this 40% off is an additional 40% off for employees for a few days this week which includes SALE ITEMS!!!

 YEA BABY!!!!

So I am thinking that I can completely get rid of my crafting aliments by having for once an organized and sweet looking room with this sale!

I just had to share this with everyone because it's Sunday at 6am and I do not think Eric would appreciate me waking him with this information.  

I will let you know what happens and what he and I decide to get and how we will put it all together.  I know this is a short post and I am sorry for that, but I will have more later on.

Take care everyone and have a CRAFTY DAY!

My students, Kristin as Katniss and a card!

Good evening crafty friends!  Hope you're having a nice night so far.  Today I created a cute gate-fold card that I think is simply adorable!

What do you think?

Strawberry Smile gate-fold card outside look

Strawberry Smile card inside look

I really like it...can you tell?

Last night was my third class of the four class series Spotted Canary School and my two students created layouts and I photoed them with their permission.

Here is Becky's double layout she did.

She still needs to add her journaling and some other elements that she didn't have time to complete at class.

Here is Michelle's layout.

I have to say that I am pretty  proud of these two!  Awesomeness!

I was floating around cyber-space some today and was on Facebook for a few stalking my daughters page to collect some new photos...lol.  This was so funny because the caption on it read "I am Katniss".  Now if you are familiar with The Hunger Games you will understand why she used that caption:

Too cute! Love my girl :)

This is her "sculpting" at school...yea I am not sure about this one.

I want to thank you all for stopping by.  If you can please answer m y Poll located on the top right of my blog.  It's literally one question. Take care and have a wonderful night!

Monday Monday

Hi friends how are you today?  It's a WINDY day here in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I am looking out the window now and seeing trees bend over ever so easily with the force of this wind.  It sounds horrible out but it is in fact a gorgeous sunny day.  Just excessively windy.  Cannot wait to go to work in this and spend time fixing the hair only to have it destroyed the moment I walk out the door.

I created 2 cards so far to share with you on here:

This first one is called 

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Extra! Extra!

Extra! Extra! {inside of card}

The next is called:

Rose Girl

On this one you may be able to see that I have raised the butterfly to be 3D
and have also added some Glaze to some petals on the roses

This is really all I have today to share.  I am in the process of creating and organizing my thoughts today.

Yesterday I had Kevin and Abby over and really got a chance to start getting to know her.  She is such a delight!  Very sweet and her sense of humor is AWESOME! We watched a movie and then took some pictures and then played a game called Loaded Questions which I've had for nearly a year now and have NEVER played until last night. It was so much fun and I recommend it highly!  Very fun game to play with group.

This is them holding my Peanut...aka Jiggles!  Such a sweet couple they are!

Take care everyone and I will be here with more tomorrow!

It's A Sweet Life on Earth Day

Happy Sunday and Earth Day everyone!

I wanted to write a quickie post and let you know that I spoke with Cheryl over at "A Sweet Life" shop here in Cincinnati and I will start to sell my items in there again.  I have not had much time to create things for there but I do have the time now. I will be starting to work on getting things there for the first of June.  So I am very excited to be working with her and her shop again.

I also am going to be working on coming up with some ideas for the Middletown Arts Center for some types of workshops and crafting ideas that will not be a full 8-10 weeks long, but rather smaller 2 hour sessions.  This may work out better and I am really excited about this news that I also found out yesterday!  SO Saturday was really a great day!

I have to get ready for Michael's now.  It is Earth Day and we are hosting a Make It Take It Earth Day tote bag.  I am doing that today.  

Take care everyone and have a great day!

Smash Books and I need your opinion on something

Good morning everyone!  Hope you had a great Friday night and that you have exciting plans for your weekend.  I have to work today and tomorrow.  Michael's is having some interesting MITI {Make it Take its} this weekend.  Today we are having body art using some type of special body paint, this should be interesting.  Tomorrows activity is to make an Earth Day Tote since Sunday is in fact Earth Day.  I was just telling Eric last night that when we get a house I want us to plant some trees.  I've never done that before and think it would be great to watch the little guys start out and grow throughout the years.

So yea, to me when I work with the kids at Michael's or if I have a class or demo or even if I am making some boards or whatever...to me; it's not "WORK".  Not in the realm of what I consider work to be.  I have to much fun there and that's not just talking about the crafty things I get to do.  Noooo the people there are great fun to work with.  I truly have lucked out with great management and fellow employees.

I have been working on my Smash Books because I want to have them ready to show off at work.  Why?  Because Michael's is going to start having Smash Book classes...YEAH!

The main one I use a lot if the "Pretty" one.  I have dubbed it my Designs etc Smash Book.  I put anything and everything that I need to know or have relating to anything crafty I do inside. The cover I started out with the word Designs and then it just escalated to this sort of word art or ... well here just look for yourself:

I am not sure if I am finished with the cover or not, I like it how it is but I know me.

Next on the inside:

Not the letter "C", but rather a pocket I made out of some patterned paper and some old packaging

This page and the one next to it list all my Cricut  cartridges I have and anything relating to the Cricut

This is just 2 of many pages that have sketches that I trimmed out of some magazines.  I have them
organized by size; both paper and layout pages

Since I have so many Copics I have them listed here 

...and here

....and here too

and finally here with some extra paper just in case someone adds some
new marker names and colors

The other book I use is for me to keep all the envelopes that arrive from all my great friends & family from all over the globe!  I love to see all the different types of stamps and customs and just everything about a package &/or card.

Appropriately titled "U GOT MAIL"

Just one of many pages already filled with information

Now my third book is more along the lines of my personal Smash book that I would rather not share to much with the world.

I have a lot of these cardstock stickers that are all  "life based" sayings and whatnot so I
thought they were perfect to cover it with.

Just some general journal prompts 

ADVICE NEEDED HERE

Now I have one more Smash album and that is the Smash Mini. Which is to cute for words I tell ya!

I have done NOTHING, nadda, no how... to this one.  I have already decided that I am going to use it for all my concert tickets that I have.  Now in saying that to you all, I would love some advice on this.  I have a few scrapbook pages already created using copies of all these tickets, well most of them anyway...have been to a few since I made those pages.  I know that you ALWAYS want to keep your original pictures and things like that safe and to use copies.  This is why I made the pages using photocopies of the tickets.  But this will be their final stop in this Smash Book, so would it be okay to actually use the originals or would you still use copies?  Let me know what your thoughts are on this.  Actually I am going to get a bigger Smash and use that and not the mini for the tickets.  I just made that decision.  I have literally a ton of concert tickets and a mini wouldn't hold them all the way I want it to.  So still let me know if you wouldn't mind as to use the originals or copies.
I created a poll for this, top right side.

Take care everyone and have a wonderful day and weekend!

Pitch Forks & Cards {also a link on a bow making technique}

Hello Friends

I do this all the time it seems...I say yea I'll be here more often and then bam! I'm gone for weeks yet again.  I am sorry for all this on and off again type of crap.  I could say that on my behalf I was kinda off some of my important medicine which does allow me to live a happier, fuller, and more enriched life.  I know I should never have stopped taking them, but I have been back on them full swing now for about 3 weeks.

I will say that I feel better, I am not nearly as moody and Eric I am sure loves that. 

This little dog above here is who Kristin thinks I laugh like at times.  Then she calls me Smedley {sp} and then it just goes downhill from there.  I do not think his name is Smedley because we looked it up one night and now I cannot remember what his name is.  Kristin and I agreed though that we liked the name Smedley for him and that is what it will forever be to us. 

Prom news from Little Miami 

Kevin and his girlfriend Abby attended her prom last week.  She was beautiful and he was handsome as ever.   

I thought after looking at the pictures that she was taller than Kevin but if you look at the third picture you will see his knee is slightly bent.  

Oh yea and these pictures were taken over at Kevin and Kristin's house on the inside. Now why do I make it a point to say on the INSIDE; well I will tell you why. You asked for it...

It was a very crappy day out this particular day, it was raining and just bleah.  So Eric and I were originally going to take pictures of Kevin and Abby outside.  Well Mother Nature said nadda...so Bob and Anna graciously allowed Eric and I to come inside and take pictures. 

I really hate that literally after 18 years of being separated and divorced Bob and I cannot get along.  I try to I really do.  We got into the house and I said hello to them and asked how they were blah blah blah, with a one word answer from each being "okay".  Not a I'm good how are you blah blah blah.  I just hate it!  But what else pisses me off is that Eric tries so hard to be nice to these two and tried starting up a conversation with Bob about what Bob was watching on the TV.  Some Steven Seagal movie which came as no surprise to me that he STILL watches crap movies. I had to chuckle when I stepped out of the tension filled house because of this though.

So here is the photo that Eric caught...I am warning you that Bob is in this picture dun dun duuuun...

I mean can you see what I  mean!!!  I married that?!

But now I have this:

Ahhhhh, much better.

I would like to show you some cards that I have made recently.  I do not know if I mentioned that I am going to be teaching some card classes at a retirement home in May or not.  It is through the Middletown Arts Center that I am doing this.  Apparently the retirement home asked the Arts Center to offer some classes to their residents.  I will be going on Mondays in May.  I have also decided that it would be easier for them to have pre-made card kits for each card we make.  So if you take into account that there are 8 students signed up 3 weeks of class and my goal is to create at least 3 per time I am there.  Possibly 4 if we are lucky.  I am making 8 kits for the students, 1 kit for the Activities Director, and one kit for me to show them how to do it all and then on top of that, I am making some extra kits because as all of us crafters know that it just takes a small "OOPS" to mess the entire card up sometimes.  I would feel terrible if that happened and nothing extra.  So yea, that is 10 cards per card + extras which equals out to over 100 card kits. Aye Carumba!

So here are some of the cards I hope to make with them, I took some samples up the other day to the Activities Director.

The bottom three I know you have seen before and these are the "layouts" of three of the cards we will be doing.  I created the bottom three differently and have taken them to the home and of course I forgot to take a picture of them.  But you get the general idea.

I also created a new card earlier tonight for a friends upcoming birthday.  I feel okay in posting it here because I do not think she reads my blog. I won't say who it is for only to say that it will be arriving soon.  I have a lot of birthdays coming up too.  I just bought a new day planner and I hope to God it's the last one.  I have a million calendars for every single thing and I just couldn't do it anymore so I consolidated them all into one yesterday.  I saw that I was neglecting birthdays and I won't have that happen any longer.

So here is the one:

I think it turned out so darn cute!  I love it.  should have taken pic on white paper and not pink.  The bow isn't so great either in the photo.  On the card it is fine, just I don't like the way it turned out on here.  Want to see what Eric made for me today for me to make this bow?  I know many of you use the "fork" method of tying making bows.  But if you are new to this or haven't a clue as to what I am talking about then follow this link to Operation Write Home tutorial page where it has several pictures and a video on how to do this.  So here is the "fork" that my Eric created for me today while he was at work...

I put the SMASH* stamper next to it for a size reference.  Hehehe, isn't this huge!!!  Eric is a welder {not sure if you knew that or not}, but when I asked him yesterday for ideas on what I could use to make bigger bows than a table fork would give me, he offered to make me one.  I love this man!  He is the best!

Oh I have just a couple more pictures to leave you with.  They are cards that I created for some secret person....again they have no idea who I am and do not read this blog so it's all good, NOT the same person who is receiving the birthday card:

These pictures were taken with the phone for time reasons only.

I really hope you all have a blessed day and a fantastic weekend coming up.  Oh and if you shop at Michael's this is for you...we are having the lowest prices of the year sale going on this week and it will end Saturday.  So go get in there and get your stuff at a GREAT price.  Most items are 50% off like all storage.  But only lasts until Saturday evening.

{okay I did my plug}

Bye Now