A five year old Valentine love story

This love story is full of turmoil and Lego's. I share with you the events of this, I am sure to be, short lived romance. It is a true love story, I was there and can attest to that.
All names have been removed to protect the people involved, ... except mine of course.. because I just told you I was there.

A young girl with long flowing chestnut hair tied back in pretty barrettes spied a young boy who was the troublesome sort. Now, the young girl had never shown any interest in the young boy because he was always getting into trouble and no one really wanted to sit by the trouble maker.
But the young girl had eyes for him one day, were not sure what clicked in her pretty little head but something made a spark in her eyes.
That young girl kept raising her hand during class asking the teacher if she could say something.
The teacher shook her head no and declared
"Please tell me at the table when we go over for art time"
The young girl was displeased but kept her comments to herself.

Shortly following circle, the children went to the art tables to cut out and color their valentine hearts. The young girl sat next to her teacher happily decorating away with her school chums when suddenly she remembered she had something to say!
The young girl spoke loudly, "Mrs. BEST!!!!!!! I forgot I had something to tell you!"
The teacher listened but the young girl decided it should be a secret, standing up quickly she reached for her teacher's neck and pulled Mrs. Best close (that's me..cough.. I mean...umm..), then cupping her hands over Mrs. Best ear she whispered...
"I think I love Gordy, he's going to be my boyfriend.. he doesn't know yet. Don't tell anyone!"

The teacher smiled and gave her a hug and promised to keep her secret.
Later that day the teacher noticed the young girl sitting next to the young boy, beaming from ear to ear. The teacher knew that the young boy didn't have a clue.

Cosmo Cricket mini Notebook and Pen

I should note this is a Cosmo Cricket and Basic Gray mini notebook!

I made this for my mother-in-law's birthday (which is Sunday, and I still haven't mailed it! ). I have been wanting to make it for a year now, had the notebook for that long, but never got around to it until a few weeks ago.

I really enjoyed making this and plan on making more in the future.

I think I cracked the spine because the dumb thing doesn't stay shut. I was thinking of placing some fastener hooks on the edge but decided against it when I ran out of room!

It turned out well I think.

Susan (miL) is a very creative country/victorian/primitive decorater who has designed many living rooms, lamps and furniture for friends and family. Like me, when she goes to a store or a craft show she likes to write down ideas that she sees but sometimes she doesn't have paper.

So that's when this notebook idea came into play.

I picked up the mini pen at Walgreens and the color goes great with the notebook.

The edges were inked with Distress inks and the twill tape was added as a bookmark, which was also inked with distressed ink.

Using a Heidi Swapp distresser, I roughed up the edges of the chipboard.

The only reason I bought the distresser awhile back was because it was on sale for fifty cents! I always used my fingernails ( yah you say "eww gross" but we all know you do it too! ) but man does that thing work well!

Recipe:

Papers: Cosmo Cricket Half Way Cafe Amarillo, Basic Gray Blush Charmed

Inks: Tim Holtz Distressed Inks in Tea Dye and Tattered Rose

Rhinestone brad and chipboard flower/leaf from Making Memories

Twill tape from Stampin' Up!

red sticky tape, 3D pop dots and glue stick/ S'U! 2 way glue

Heidi Swapp Edge Distresser

My first "public" digi scrap page

EDITED to NOTE: I had to resize the picture so you'll have to click on it to see the full view.


I have been saving up free digi scrap items for some time now and even made a few pages that were pretty pathetic. I have purchased a few sets but still am not happy with my results.
So I am sticking with the free sets I have for now as I experiment.
This is a picture of Rollie I took this afternoon while taking pics of the heavy falling snow.


He looked so cute staring out the frosty window that I just had to scrap it. You may have trouble reading the text due to the fact that I had to shrink the page so it would fit on my blog.
The credits are below the page.

Thanks for looking!




Credits:
Flergs secret stuff- Silver Alpha, paper and button I recolored.
"frames by Manu" - Frame
-Franziska - Label and stitched snowflake
The Winter Wonderland ribbon came from Whimsical Wonderland collab kit,
unfortunately I am having trouble tracking down the correct designer.

Christmaas Card I never sent

Because it's all mine!!! This is another stamp club creation.

But seriously, I didn't send cards out this year because I just didn't have the time and energy...well that and my cutter defunked on me. If you are looking for a moderately priced cutter, DO NOT get the Fiskars Rotary. I have never been able to get a clean cut out of that thing from day one.Going back to the old blade is fine with me!

But I just love this card and if I can get my husband and mother to help me for the coming year, I may just make this for a few deserving folks.

The card is a "Double Pocket" card and pretty easy to make.

Paula has a tutorial to show you how to make one.

For the life of me I can't place the flower stamp, and I have looked and looked in the Stampin' Up! catalog to no avail.

But we did use the Build your own brad kit which was fun!

You may notice in the tutorial that Paula's card openings are to the right. I learned to the left and after I asked my demo Deb to make me another template, she made it to the right lol.

But for some reason, to the left feels better.

Recipe: All items Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

Sets: Perfect Presentaion, Many Merry Messages

Papers: WW, Wild Wasbi textured, Dashing designer papers

Ink: real red, wild wasabi, ww craft

Other: real red brads, irridecent ice EP, build a brad kit

OK, now I have to tell you about a few goodies I recieved for Christmas.

I am looking at this post on a giant plasama screen! It's 20 freakn' inches and I can almost see space with it!

This is a big upgrade from the 15" monitor I was using since my first computer, eight years ago.

Chris' mom gave it to us and we were both shocked.

She knew we have been wanting one for some time but I never knew she would come up with this huge monitor.

I also recieved Manacala from my mom, we play this marble game at the Lydia House when I volunter in the after school homework program. It's a fun (and cheap) game that goes quickly or slowly depending on which kid makes up his or her rules :)

I won't bore you with the rest of the present details, but I hope you all had a great Christmas too.

I am not dead

I bet you thought I died! OK, maybe not that extreme. Tomorrow I will up load some Christmas card pics, late of course, and let you in on the goodies from Christmas.
We were out of town for several days visiting Chris' mom, sister and nephew. It was nice to get away.
So I hope everyone had a good end of the year.. and I am very thankful that year is over. Let us never speak of it again!
But now we should be positive about 2008! We will have a lot of exciting things to talk about and do.
Enjoy!

Box Set

I made this a few weeks ago at a Stamp Stack using S'U! Simply Scrapin' Secret Garden kit.

Here are a few pics of the box and cards.

Also used : Pretties Kit, variouse words sets, jumbo eyelets, In Color papers, In Color textured card stock and stitched ribbon.

It was nice to use elements that were perferated and sticky so you don't have to do much except slap it all together.

Let it Snow!

Well, we received a few inches of snow Thursday night and I decided to haul Pickles out for his first snow... or at least his first snow with us.

He didn't enjoy it as much as Maddy has in the past, but I think he had a little fun exploring.

Were supposed to get more snow Sat. Sun. Mon. and Tues. along with a a mix of sleet and freezing rain.

Oh Boy!Here are just a few pics I took of Chris and Pickles. I was messing around with my Paint Shop Pro Jelly Snow flakes and decided to throw them on the pictures.

You are N E V E R going to believe this!

Happy Happy JOY JOY!
I had a rough year and I assumed I needed to be patient while God worked with me.
I am not sure how this all lays into His plans, but it sure does make me happy.
I am the Ninth winner in the Kaboodle Wish A Day!!! And I won a gift card to Overstock.com worth $500 !!!

I know!!!!!!!!! Shut Up!

I don't have it yet because I need to fill out some info and so on, but I've all ready looked through the website making my choices.
Chris wants me to get a good camera so I shut up about wanting a good camera. I've been wanting one for so long and I do love photography.
Though camera choices are difficult when your not sure what exactly all the technical stuff means.
I have read through many photography mags and websites over the years, drooling, but I still ma not sure.
You know what I want the camera to do? Take those shots where you get great detail in on a child's (or pets) face and then background is all fuzzy.
Now, I know how to achieve that with lighting, shadows and all that. Just need the cam!

Anyway, I just had to share the good news!!!
Thank You Lord! I have asked God to help me make a proper decision, I will let you know what He says.

Of course I always wanted a Kitchen Aide mixer... a good pet hair vac would be nice..hmm.. so would so thermal insulated curtains.. Oh, and a mattress topper...hmmmm

Was Black Friday today?

I must be dreaming. I swear it was Black Friday today. Did we go back in time?
The stores were packed!
OK, I should say the grocery stores were packed.

We have a massive snow/ice storm coming this way tonight.
A year ago Saturday we had a massive ice and snow storm that stopped everything.
And no, that is not the look outside my window. You can find more great snow pictures like this here.


Last year this time two of the major interstates that go through my Quad City area were closed. This hasn't happened in thirty years. It's really bad when a major government highway is closed.
Not like the government never closes ( rolls eyes ). I can say that because my father had worked for the government and they seemed to like taking off major and non-major events.

But I am getting off track.
After Chris picked me up from work, we cashed his pay check from his temp job and trotted over to one of the many packed grocery stores.
I always wonder why we have so many grocery stores around here. I think there is one for every household.

We didn't get a lot, and had to leave without Diet Coke because we were short some cash.. **gasp** I know..leave without Died Coke???
So we had to go to another store after I picked up the check book from home.
Well, Chris went in for kitty litter, pop, baby food, garlic bread. Simple things that should have taken ten minutes to get.
I think he was in there for half an hour.

When he came out and loaded the van he informed me he was not going to any more stores until March.
Now, this is a much extended time period from what he had said at the previous grocery store. He had said he wasn't going to a store until two weeks after Christmas.

You know it's going to be bad when you see a bunch of men in the store walking around looking for things they think they will need if an ice storm occurs:
cereal ( well yes that is good)
milk (need it for the cereal)
chips ( umm... yes.. we will die if we don't have chips)
beer (I suppose you'll need to do something between shoveling and salting)
more chips (umm... not planning on shoveling that walk, are yah?)
pickles (yes, when all else is lost.. at least we will have the pickle!)
five containers of salt (dear, your a man. You should know that's the wrong kind of salt)

Oddly enough, I didn't see anyone in the toilet paper isle. My mother always warns me, check the toilet paper.. we don't want to run out when were stuck in the house.
In deed mother.


Honestly, I think those gentlemen's wives told them to get some staples and they have no idea what that means.
I am surprised I didn't see any staples in grocery carts.

Can you do this?

You know those paper lanterns everyone is making?

Can you try this one?