May Card Swap

I am at clinic today getting most of this month's entries into Quickbooks. Thank godness this month is ending as production was/is really bad. I hope it picks up next month or else we have to take extra measures to cut down on the expenses.

I belong to a monthly card swap on SCS. July is our last month and I don't think I will sign up again for another 6 months as my back is killing me from all that couching. This is my take on the May card swap. I made a flap card, the tutorial is on SCS. There is actually a magnet used to help keep the card closed. I hid it under the dp. The stamp is Elyzbell. As you can see, I am in love with drawing dots lately. Every card has to have some dots. I have to use my white gel pen. I actually bought myself another white inkssential pen because it works so well and got rid off the old white pen I had. Anways, I need to make 6 more of this card and start on the June card swap as I am the hostess. I still haven't decide what my card sketch will be yet, but I have all the images, dp, and embellishments already.

Recipe:

Stamps: Elyzbell, A Muse sentiment

Ink: Memories black dye ink

Paper: red Brazzil, dp, yellow DCWV, sand cs inside

Accessories: prima flowers, diamond stickles, inkssential white pen, red copic spica pen, tombow markers

A MUSE May Bumper Card

I received this adorable May bumper card from Christine Gagnon aka ChippySue on A Muse Addict. I have this stamp also. Isn't she is just so darn cute. The stamp is Elzybell stamp which is part of the A Muse line.

Yesterday was Memorial Day and DH and I spent a quiet weekend at home. Yesterday, the cats saw a lizard outside the basement window. They were very intrigue by it, but off course to prevent the lizard from getting hurt we closed the window so he can't get in otherwise my cat will have a field day with him. I wanted to get a picture of it, but I time I went back to the basement, it was gone. DH and I have also been feed a neighborhood feral cat. We have been seen him around our house and the neighbors house for a couple of weeks now. We have been leaving can food for him and he has been eating it or something has been eating the can food. DH calls him our "outdoor cat" as we don't allow our other cats to wander outdoors by themselves.

I was trying to do my May and June monthly card swaps today, but my back is killing me while I was couching down to cut, adhere, and color. I just have to take it easy and just take extra breaks and do one or two cards per day until I get it done.

Nothing new with me

Just wanted do a short post today. Nothing new. Our Saturdays are relatively routine... we do these activities in no special order.... we donate cat food and litter to "Hope for Cats" at the local Petco as Saturday is adoption day for them, a Costco trip to get food supplies, cat food and litter, and I go to Stamp Works for my weekly fix of make n' take for $2 and buy stamps and craft supplies. The rest of the day we usually stay at home watching movies and I some times do my crafting.

I have been feeling very tired and fatigue to do anything else except rest and sleep whenever my body tells me. I don't think I will be doing much stamping and crafting right now as my pregnancy is my first priority.

Penguin Popsicle

This is a card for a 1 yr old. DH's dental assistant asked me to do a card for his nephew who is turning one. I thought the penguin with the popiscle stamp from Imaginisce would be perfect as it is really hot in AZ now and all children like popsicles. It was cute to add the yellow flock onto the pegiun's nose as kids like to feel and touch things. It feels a little velvety. I added the flock to the giraffe inside, but it doesn't look that good, but oh well, the kid is only 1 so he probably won't remember any of this.

I have to admit, I am not the cleanest person. My craft desk is so cluttered with paper, tools, stamps, and embellishments. I can barely find anything in this mess. It took me two hours to do this card as I was deciding and looking for tools and embellishments to make this card. I need to be more organized, but I never like to clean up after myself once I am done with a project.

This morning I woke up with an awfully bad cramping pain on my lower abdominal. I finally subdued after awhile of deep breathing. There was no blood from my urine, so this is good news. I am concerned I might have ectopic pregnancy where the egg is implanted outside the uterus where if the tube burst it will destroy its ability to carry fertilized eggs on their way to the uterus in future conceptions and could also threaten the mother's life.

Happy News....

I am very nervous, but happy to announce that I am pregnant again. I found out this past Sunday and I went to my OB/GYN today and its confirmed, I am pregnant again. I am very nervous this time around because of my recent miscarriage. This past Saturday, I thought my period was coming because I felt stomach cramps which hurted pretty bad in the middle of the day, so I took a vicodin to ease the pain, but I felt so dizzy afterwards. Since my period didn't come, I took a home pregnancy test on Sunday and it show two lines meaning "pregnant". I guess I am pretty emotional right now because I felt it is too soon to get pregnant again, but I'm lucky to be pregnant again. I am praying every day since I found out the new. I have been feeling fatigue, bloating and gas, dizziness and blury vision each time I get wake off the bed and/or couch, and some cramping. The nurse practitioner said that just as long as there is no period like bleeding, then just take it easy and relax as these may be just some pregnancy symptoms and it is too early to tell, so I will just have to wait. Last time, I didn't have any period like bleeding, but only a little spotting right after the OB visit, but I thought it was nature until the ultrasound confirmed that there was no heartbeat from the fetus. I pray this won't happen again otherwise I know I am the one with a genetic or chromosomal problem. For all the friends and family that reads my blog, please pray for me and my unborn.

Now, onto my hobby. I missed Gina K Designs release yesterday because I was just feeling so tired and went to sleep earlier. The new stamps are really nice..... I like, I like, but I have to save money for my maternity bills. My insurance isn't covering my pregnancy bill and we all know how much medical bills cost. There are so fun sketch challenges yesterday from the Gina K Design's new release, so I thought I will play and see if I can win a free stamp set. I will post those pictures tomorrow.

Another Dottie Card

Today I am at the clinic. Here's another card I made with my favorite tools right now which are white inkssential pen and the cuttlebug. This is also inspired by the Hero Arts Monday challenge of using "flowers". The sketch is from one of SCS Wednesday sketch challenge (I think this was from 2 weeks ago). I finally open my new prima flowers which I purchased from Michaels a couple of weeks ago with the 50% coupon. Nothing beats a good saving. The sparkling lime green cs is from Doodlebug. I got this from the "Color Me Happy" swap I participated on SCS in which we choose our favorite color or color combo and the we can shopping for our "Color Me Happy" sister. My colors were lime green and purple. I got some cool things. I better start to play with them.

Its been relatively quiet this past weekend since the boys are back in California. DH and I just stayed home because the Arizona summer is officially HERE! This weekend, it hit over 100 degrees. We have started to turn on the AC. We didn't go outside except to go to the supermarket to stock up on sodas because its on sale (5 for $12). DH consumes about 4 -5 cans a day.

Recipe:

Stamp: Hero Arts and A Muse sentiment

Ink: Brillance Graphite and Coral inks

Paper: white, lime green, pink, and red cs

Accessories: Cuttlebug and swiss dot embossing folder, white inkssential pen ,prima flowers, dew drops

Dottie Flower Day

I have been having trouble sleeping these few days. Mainly, it is because my cats are playing around our bedroom and the other thing is my stomach hasn't been feeling so well (I kept having cramps).

After a whole week of not creating, I finally found my mojo to play with my stamps again. This is inspired by The Hero Arts Club Blog, Monday's challenge. This week's challenge is to play with "flowers". I used Hero Arts stamps, "friendship writing" and "sunflower blossom". My favorite part is embossing with my cuttlebug and pulling out my white inkssential pen and made dots on the cs. This was pretty simple, but it brought back my creativity again.

Tomorrow is Gina K Designs May new stamps release and the sneak peeks so far have been awesome. Gina is such a generous person, so check out her blog as she is giving away some of the new stamps. The release party is tomorrow night at SCS. Be sure to check it out if you have time.

Recipe

Stamp: Hero Arts - friendship writing and sunflower blossom

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, Marvy yellow, brilliant yellow, and brown inks

Paper: DCVW yellow and brown cs and My Eye's Mind dp

Accessories: cuttlebug, versamark pen, sponge, sand paper, white inkssential pen, and ribbons

Where's my MOJO this week

Sorry, I haven't posted all week. I have no MOJO this week, thus no cards or project done this week except to finish my Asian ATC cards, but I didn't take any pictures of it because I forgot before it went postal. I am not up to creating this week as my crafting table is a mess and I haven't clean it. I took some time to do some leisure reading. One of my favorite author is Julie Garwood. She writes romance books and I think my SIL is the who got me started on her novels. Here is my unfinished Precious Moment cross-stitching project I talked in my previous blog. I started this almost a year ago and haven't touched it for almost 10 months now. This is suppose to be for my wedding as a guest sign-in framed photo, but didn't get to finish yet. I changed the mailbox to a "Double Happiness" wedding cake. This is it for this week. It is the mid-month already. Where did the time go, half a year is almost gone for 2008? Hopefully, I will find my MOJO soon and start to put up more things on my blog. As always, next week is Gina K Design's new stamp release on May 20th and I am excited as the sneak peeks have been awesome.

This morning, I was up early and recorded my cat Rusty's "play catch", but I was unable to upload it to my computer. I spent all morning trying to upload, but no luck, so I decided to record it using my camera, but Rusty didn't want to play catch anymore. Here is brief video of Rusty's talent. Enjoy the short video. Do you guys see my unfinish painting project for the house. I painted the hallway, but I didn't do the family room, stairways, kitchen, dining, and living room area. I don't think I will ever finish painting unless we are selling this house. Maybe if I get really tired of see white walls again, then I will nag my DH to paint again. Just another example of the unfinish projects in my life. If my Mojo doesn't come back soon, I will upload pictures of my small crafting area to show you where I do all my crafting.

Cross Stitched Cottage House

No card today, but I do have to share this with you. This is my baby and I show everybody that comes to our house. People usually think it is just a picture until I show it to them close up and their first word is "WOW!". Yes, I am being a narcissist here, but I am very proud of myself for finishing this. My DH says I am a starter and not a finisher and I am learning to finish my projects more. There are tons of ideas in my head and start on some, but never finish like painting the house or have to trash it because it didn't come out the way I wanted to.

As some of you already know, before I got into scrapbooking, stamping, and cardmarking, I love to stitch. I stitched this picture 2 years ago and don't remember the name of the picture or the illustrator. I think I started this project in Fall 2005 and didn't finish until Summer 2006. This was one of the longest project for me. Some days, I spent all day like 10 hours stitching and counting the grid and some months didn't even touch it. Sometimes with any project, I get bored and some doing it for awhile or sometimes for a LONG while and when I do get back to doing it, I am stitching vagariously. This picture isn't perfect, but nobody can see my mistakes which is why I totally love this picture. I have to frame it and off course, I didn't want to do custom framing as it costs more than the picture, but not my time of course. The matting didn't fit my picture, so some of the outside stitches are being covered up. I was going to have my uncle, who is an artist, cut the matting to fit my picture, but I din't know have to carry this on the plane, so I have to wait until he has time to come out to my place. Can you believe I haven't hung this on the wall yet? It is still on the floor. This reminds me that I have haven't finish a Precious Moment wedding stitch picture. It was suppose to be for my wedding, but my wedding has since passed. I will eventually get back to it, but not now. Now I feel guilty for neglecting my other hobbies. I start stitching back in my college days when my college roommate shown me how to stitch. When I first make cards, I did stitched cards because I didn't know how to "really" stamp yet. There is still a lot to learn on stamping as there is so many techniques to learn, but I am glad to see that I am improving and trying some new techniques once in awhile.


Have a wonderful Mother's Day to all the fabulous mothers out there! I may or may not be posting tomorrow. I am trying to do some ATC cards for a ATC swap I signed up for, but I am just being lazy these few days. I guess somethings, we have to take a break, even if it's good thing.

Magnet Bookmarks

Have you guys seen magnet bookmarks at Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon which costs quite a bit depending on the designs. Well, I have purchased a pack of three over 2 years ago for $3.00 and it isn't even as nice as those that are out now. I was looking in my crafting magazine for quick and simply inspiration and the magnet bookmark caught my eye as it was used to bookmark a page inside the magazine. I know most of us use post-it tabs to mark of our favorite page in a magazine or just fold the page, but why ruin your magazine or book, including cookbooks or favorite recipe card or page. I used my expensive magnet bookmarker to bookmark a favorite project page. How clever is that and it is re-usable as the post-it tab looses its stickiness and people usually trash it after they are done marking that page. We have to think recycle nowadays, but with $1.00 and up magnets, who can afford this. The ladybug bookmark on the left is the one I purchased from the bookstore and the one I did is the one on the right. It was like a 2 minute project. Just cut the 2 half inch magnet strips, cut a piece of cardstock and make to line folds. Stick the magnets on each end of the cardstock as shown. I stamped the ladybug on a red cs then cut it out and glued it onto the bookmark. I suggest getting the really strong bond magnet strips (don't buy the ones in the rolls as it will not bond together once the magnets are stuck to the cs that well because the rolled magnet makes a curve to the magnet). You can buy this at Michaels, Joann's, Hobby Lobby, or any craft store. I got mines from Wal-Mart, but I don't think it is as strong of a bond magnet as the one from the retailer. I will have to go to Michaels or Joann's to get the really strong bond magnets. Make sure you test the bonding of the magnets before sticking it on the cardstock. I tested the bond and once I have stuck it to the cardstock, it didn't bond together, so I have to rotate the magnet and finally it bonded together. This is probably around a $0.15 or less project as I only used small pieces of magnet and cardstock. That is a total saving and you can get really creative with this as you can do any design and size. This is just my sample to show you as I was just experimenting to see if this is going to be a fast and easy project and it is. I am sure all the crafty people out there are going to make more beautiful bookmarks then what I am showing here. Once I have time more time, I will send all the avid book/magazine readers (you know who you are) some bookmarks or just leave me a comment and I will send you some. I love to share what I made and currently I have only been sharing it with my friends and family because I don't feel confident enough to share or sell my work. There are just so much more experienced and talented artist out there and I am still a novice searching for my talent if I have any. This is just a relaxing, fun, "my time" hobby for me as I don't want to be pressured or stress out over this otherwise it will not be fun for me anymore and I will have to trash this already expensive hobby. LOL

I planned on showing you my little cat's talent, he fetches toy cats. He just loves them, but today he didn't feel like performing when I got my camcorder out to video tape him. I'll try it tomorrow, but here is a shot of Lay, "King of the House". He is really the King of this house as my DH and I spoils him. He is very smart, brave, devilish, lovable, outspoken, well-tempered, and very alert of his enviroment. He cheers me up whenever I am down or sad.

Recipe:

Stamp: unknow maker of the ladybug

Ink: Memories Black ink

Paper: American Craft and red cs

Accessories: glue and self stick magnets

Think Pink... and Summer

Just made this quick card for today. I needed to play with the new toys I just bought. Monday's challenge on the Hero Arts Blog was to do something with the color pink. I just got my new swiss dots embossing folder (this folder is just so elegant and pretty) for my cuttlebug and I just couldn't wait to play. I didn't use any Hero Arts stamp on this card, but I will on the next card. Just wanted to do something pink and off course one of my favorite color combo is pink and brown. I pull out the JudiKins's Hibiscus stamp out. Hibiscus just reminds me of Hawaii and my family's first summer vacation trip to Hawaii. Doesn't everybody need a nice relaxing vacation away from our daily busy schedule. What a nice stamp to use right now as it feels like summer over here in Arizona.

I went to Michaels because they are 50% coupons for this week. I purchased some prima flowers, the Martha Stewart bird stamps (50% off), and some circle and square piercing templates as suggested by Melanie Muenchinger (a talented and out of the box creative artist) who got the idea from Jody Morrow (TexasJodyLynn on SCS, another talented lady). Since it was only a couple of bucks, why not make the investment and try it out. She is such an enabler and I just love her work. I will have to try this new toy on my next project.

I also got some stamps to use for Father's Day. I love this stamp for a long long time, but didn't want to buy it. Finally, broke down and purchased it. I just mail out my Mother's Day cards to my Mom off course and my two sister-in-laws whom are the sisters I never had. Sorry, I didn't get to make more cards to send to my wonderful and cherished family and friends. Have a wonderful Mother's Day to all the mothers, I should be back blogging before this Sunday. Hopefully, I will be a mother to a baby by next Mother's Day. Crossing my fingers, LOL. I guess I am a partial mother, I am a mom to my 4 cats. LOL. I think I should get a Mother's Day card also.

Recipe:

Stamp: JudiKins Hibiscus and See D's Phrase

Ink: Brillance Pearlescent Coral and Versafine Onyx Black

Paper: White, brown, and pink cs

Accessories: brown satin ribbon, white inkssential pen, black pen, red pen, cuttlebug, swiss dots embossing folder, scalloped circle punch, fiskar circle template, x'mas red stickles

Cat Fight...You're Mine

I made this card Monday night, but was too tired to upload and yesterday I was just beat. The tabby woke me up before dawn and I was at the clinic all day and was so exhausted that I went to bed by 9 o'clock. This card is so representative of my cats, but DH says the black cat should be the one on top of the tree doing the teasing and the white cat on the bottom looking and the yellow/orange tabby scratching/climbing the tree. I have to agree, but mostly the tabby is the most annoying and wants to get into fights with the other cats. The white cat really detest the tabby, that each time the tabby comes near him, he hisss... at him and paws him and obviously the tabby doesn't like that so the fighting beginnings. My DH favors the 2 older cats because they have been with my DH for over 10 years, thus seniority plays a huge roll in this house. There's sibling rivarly in the house almost every day. Too much testosterone in the house as they are all male.

I colored the image with prisma color pencils and just did simple layering. Nothing extra except to add the ribbon and the paper slider for the sentiment, "Your Mine". I didn't have "Going Getta", so I improvised.

Recipe:
Stamp: Magenta, unknow clear acrylic sentiment

Paper: brown, black, white cs

Ink: Colorbox sky blue , Versafine Onyx and Sepia

Accessories: prismacolor pencils, clear copic spica pen, cuttlebug and slider die cut, ribbon, sponge.

Shadow Box

I saw Carolyn King's shadow box tutorial and wanted to try it. Carolyn is another talented artist who I visit her blog frequently. There is no stamping involved, but very time consuming to put all the little pieces together. I did a flower shop window display of flower pots. The awning is made from the corner punch. I don't have a rotary scalloped cutter and I hate using the fiskar scalloped scissors or I better start learning to use them. I hate them because I can never cut a straight line, but the fiskar website has suggested to draw a straight line on the back of the paper and then cut. I prefer the corner punch better. I punched out the flowers in various colors, flower pots and drew a line, and bamboo as flower stems. I added buttons and circles that are colored with various spica copic pens and added crystal effect on top. The card looks so plain right now, I wanted to stamp a bee and the sentiment "have a beautifu (bee-utiful) day" on top of the flower pots to fill in the empty spaces. I think that is what is missing besides having a name for the flower shop. I looked in the Stampendous website under the Bee Happy collection, but can't find it. If you know where I can get those stamps to complete this project, let me know. This was a fun project. The men in my house said this is an ok card as it is too flowery and femine for them. I take all comments, good and bad because I am still learning and developing my paper crafting skills.

I think this is it for this weekend as I need to replicate the Thomas Kinkade and shadow box cards to sell for the "Hope for Cat" cat shelter.

Thanks for looking.

Recipe:

Paper: American Craft dp, Brazzil purple, red, brown, and green cs

Accessories: small flower, flower pot, bamboo, corner, and circle punches, flower brads, mini buttons, spica copic pens, brown ink pen, crystal effect

Mother's Day Card

I finally decided on my mother's day card. This is it. I had this stamp over half a year now and finally inked it up. There were so much details on it that I thought I won't be able to color it. This stamp is from Cornish Heritage Farms, Thomas Kinkade Series called "Make a Wish Cottage". I colored this image with prismacolor pencils a few days ago. Last night I decided to just make a simple layered card, thus the focus is on the image. I don't think I did justice to the actual Thomas Kinkade painting. Have a nice weekend.

Recipe:
Stamp: Cornish Heritage Farms Thomas Kinkade Make a wish cottage, savvy stamps sentiment
Ink: Vesafine Olympia Green, Memories Black
Paper: Brazzil purple, white, and black cs
Accessories: prismacolor pencils

Another Red, White, and Black

Happy Friday. I made this combining SCS Wednesday's sketch challenge (SC174) and Thursday's ways to use it challenge (WT164, All Ruffled Up). This card looks like the 2 way card below, but can't resist the faux cross stitching (done with my magic white pen) eventhough I did not use the paper piercer (too lazy). I made a mom's day card. I don't really like the pleats I made on the side, thus I added a ribbon to make it less noticable. Another Now, I need to make a few more mother's day cards to make. SCS Friday's Limited Supplies challenge (LS166, Spotlight on Circles). I love making circles. I definite do for this challenge. I only own circle punches, I really need to buy a curvy or other circle cutting machine, so cutting circles, ovals, and other shapes will be a breeze instead of the old fashion way which is trace and cut with scissors. I am over my crafting budget; wait, do I have a crafting budget, DH doesn't impose and doesn't know what I purchase except when the credit card bill comes and I need money to pay for the bill. I really need a paying job to feed my addiction.

Have a wonderful weekend. I feel like BBQing, but we don't even have a BBQ grill and our backyard is still bare except for the 8 palm trees and the weeds (trying to get it under control). Can you believe we have been living in our house for 3 years and still no backyard landscaping done and probably won't have it done for another 2 years. We did our front yard because the HOA requires us to do it and we didn't have it done until 6 months after we move in. I accept all donations to help speed up the process of getting my backyard landscaped. LOL

Recipe:
Stamps: Hero Arts and unknown clear acrylic "Happy Mother's Day"
Ink: Memories Black dye ink and Marvy Crimson Lake ink
Paper: White, Black, and Red cs and white tissue paper
Accessories: Marvy scalloped oval punches, ribbon, inkessential white pen, black pen, ribbon, red copic spica pen

Red, Black, and White

It's May already. Where did the time go? It is feeling like summer over in Arizona already. The weather is usually in the 90's right now. It's making me feel lazy, but this is month end, so I have a lot of entries to do for the clinic. I did this card 2 nights ago, but haven't have time to share. I am currently in love with the Faith Hofrichter's (aka markie's mom on SCS) use of white pen. I frequent Faith's blog a lot, she is so creative and does magic with the white pen. Look at all my faux stitching all done by a simple white pen. I have to do faux stitching because I don't have a sewing machine and I don't know how to sew. I took home ed like 17 years ago in junior high, so I have no idea. Hmm, should I invest in a small craft sewing machine or a heavy duty sew machine and learn how to sew for real? What do you guys think? I know everybody's mom probably has a sewing machine laying around. That reminds me of yesterday when I was at the clinic and Dr. Hinh asked me where I want to go on vacation. I told him vacation for me will be at my parents house, back in California, because my mom does everything for me and I don't have to worry about a thing except to get up and enjoy the day with my nieces, Audrey and Charolette and the rest of my family. I doesn't get any better than that.

Anyways, back to the card, this card is from Monday's SCS challenge, TLC166, Two Way Open card. It is actually an easy card to do. There is very little stamping involved on mycard. You can find the pattern for this card over at SCS. I used my cuttlebug swirl folder and butterfly embosser and die cut. The flower is from "Hot Off the Press" folding template. You just trace, cut, and fold to make it into a flower. I stamped dots on my flower with VersaMark. I added bling (acrylic gems) on my butterfly and a black big brad on the flower. I add a black photo corner holder with white brad on the corner to hold the card closed. Everything else is the done with the wonderful white pen, a little black pen for contrast. Love this tool right now! There is one more layer opening to this card which I didn't take a photo of which is to flip the white cardstock up.

I am almost finish with Wednesday's SCS challenge, SC174 (long card) and saw Thursday's SCS challenge, WT164, All Ruffled Up, thus I will be combining the two challenges. I should have this posted tomorrow if not later today if I have time to play. I need to do Mother's Day cards, any suggestions or ideas?

Got to get back to my boring work of data entries. Have a wonderful day and enjoy May.