Mr. Roboto and Friend

Normally, I stick to buying Stampin' Up stamps, it makes better business sense to me. But once in awhile I find a set that speaks to me, like the boy's set from Sandylion and this background from Cornish Heritage Farms, it's huge!

I made this one, sorry it's blurry, just regular old stamping with black ink on patterned paper, gator and robot are coloured with Copics, stamped with Memento ink. Paper is Stampin' Up. Rub-ons are American Crafts.

This one is the oposite of the first, I stamped with Versamark, embossed with clear, inked all over with black ink and a sponge. Then I placed my paper between folded newsprint and ironed the embossing powder away. The embossing powder acts as a resist.
Here's where you can see the difference. And my little boo boo that I didn't see until I did the pictures, just under the Later arrow is another Later but it was too hard to see on the background hence the arrow to cover it up, but obviously it was so hard to see I didn't cover it all up. I fixed it now.

Have a great April Fool's Day!

Yard Maintenance

We did some major work on the yard on Sunday. Kerry finished pruning the rest of the trees. We decided that tree pruning was something we could do on our own, after having my 80 yr. old grandpa do it the first year we owned the house. We didn't want to be responsible for broken grandpa. So with some 'guidance' from me, Kerry learned how to prune. I can prune just fine, and I'm happy to do it, runs in the blood, but I'm not so happy to climb the ladder. I can climb, kind of, but I can't use my arms for anything other than holding on for dear life.

I found this, I think it's a rhododendron, but can't really remember, it was bigger, had flowers on it when I got it as a gift from my mom. But then I planted it in the ground, looked at it, and then Linus came alone. So I'm very happy to see it is trying to thrive. I'm planning some kind of blockade to protect my few remaining plants.

The back yard after the massacre. Kerry gregariously trimmed the walnut tree because it was either that or as Kelli wanted take it down. I love the sound of a chainsaw in spring! But common sense prevailed and the largest shade making tree gets to stay another year.
Our trusty, rusty, concrete mixing construction reject wheelbarrow. I think this baby cost us $25 from Bob the Builder and has been the best, heaviest wheelbarrow ever. I decided it could use some sprucing up. So ....

I photoshopped the crap out of it! Lovely!

The mailman brought this for me. When I first saw it and said "it will be mine" and now it is. Although I have no idea what to do with it. Or even how to use it, I will Google that.

I've had a busy Tuesday. I woke up, yay me! I made buscuits for Emily. I sorted my huge SU order, went grocery shopping, dropped off 6 orders, did my banking, raked yard, did dishes, unloaded groceries, vacuumed, did my Wii Fit, slaughtered some Rabbids, photoshopped some pictures, and ate lunch all before 1 pm. Now I'm finished blogging, I will google the stamp, pay some bills and watch Y&R.

Shamwhat?

Here's a mess he won't be able to clean up with the Shamwow!

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0327092sham1.html

I won't be telling the kids about this one, they think he's cool. He's the reason we had to buy the Shamwow!

Christian the lion

Get the Kleenex box!

Snakes on a Plane and Creativity

We took Emily to see Coraline today. It was good, but it's not a younger child movie, even says in the description that it may frighten young children. If you like Tim Burton, and weird is your thing, then go see it.

I'm watching half-assedly watching Snakes on a Plane and full-assedly scrapbooking. I haven't seen the movie but have a little interest in it seeing as how Bruce James, which isn't his real name, is in the movie. I grew up with him and his brother and sister, his parents still live in the same house only blocks away from here, right next to the bowling alley of last night. He looks the same as he did in school. It's weird seeing him on tv. Anyway, the movie stinks.

The on-line crop at www.artfreckles.com has motivated me. I did this layout for DYL and one of the artfreckles challenges. Picture makes me look like I'm in pain, I'm over it.

Used a photo from last night's bowling that I photoshopped the crap out of to make it useable. Made that little cupcake too.

And a spring/Easter card. Loving that Forest Friends set.

Did you know...

that the politically correct term for bowling alley is bowling centre? Alley is derogatory? Bad things happen in alleys, everyone knows that, which is kind of fitting for our local bowling alley, yes, alley. Sunday a man was stabbed in the bowling centre, in my mind turning it back into the bowling alley!

Anyway, it was my SIL's 4oth surprise birthday party last night. Not wanting to miss my chance at taking less than stellar photos in a weirdly lit alley, I took the whole kit and caboodle with me. And I'll even take the time to say, if I took your picture and it turned out half decent, I'm blogging it. You're fair game for the sake of photographical education.

All photos are SOOC, with my Canon 50mm, f1.8 lens, flash diffused and bounced of ceiling and bald heads.

f2.5

1/30 sec. (setting AV)

no flash

subject: Kerry with his don't-hate-me-because-I-only-bowl-once-a-year-and-bowl-better-than-the-league-bowlers-in-my-family look.

f4

1/60

no flash, even though it says flash used.

Kerry's neice, eating a Big City cupcake. I would not try to take it from her, that girl loved her cupcake.

f5

1/15

no flash

Kerry's brother telling his uncle that snacks have been served.

f/4

1/60

no flash?

Kerry and Emily play fighting.

f/5

1/10

flash ?

Same as above.

f/5

1/8

flash
The girls.

Kickin' It Old School {updated}

Many moons ago, I purchased and read Stacy's book, Photo Freedom (http://www.stacysbigpicture.typepad.com/). Although I didn't feel instantly freed from my photos, I did put the plan into action. I organized the We Love way...People We Love, Places We Love, Dogs We Love But Sometimes Hate, etc. And then I left well enough alone. Fast forward to January, when everyone feels the need to purge, organize, and clean their spaces. I gave Kerry a photo box and our large Rubbermaid container of emphemera and said "put the pictures you want to keep in this box, recycle the ones you don't want, don't touch my stuff" and he did just that. He sorted the photos and then for some strange reason, instead of "Place We Love" he organized in "the envelopes they came in" and then put the lid on the box.

Fast forward to today...I'm sick of seeing that darn Rubbermaid container sitting there at the end of the desk, it's in the way. Oh, wait, it's freakin' Christmas ornaments! Where the f@#$ is that container of crap? I found it, and it is still filled with 20, yes, 20 years of cards, cards from Shaun's baby shower, our wedding, every single birthday since then, Emily's baby shower, class photos for both kids and....sweet mother of pearl...33 of these babies!!! Now to find my 45 record player...I bet no one even sells the needles anymore...I can't wait to shout "Drop the needle!" Oh, Billy Idol, Cyndy Lauper, Poisen, Patrick Swayze, the Cars, those were the days. Now I have about 6 songs on my ipod.

We played this oldie lots in our childhood, it was originally my moms. She probably would have tossed it out or donated it to, or sold it at a garage sale, she can let things go. I did not get that trait from her. Although I do remember a green garbage bag full of cards in her closet that we used to play with as kids.
And I just finished cutting and binding this...It's not even close to being finished but I had to share it. I used the cards from the kwerner's kit and SU's Parisian Breeze papers. The MOM and flower aren't even adhered but you get the idea, it's a MOM book!

Finally Using It

I've had my Quickutz Silhouette for over a year. I hardly ever use it, I used it in February to cut out the word LOVE for classes, I can't remember when I used it before that. We have a love/hate relationship. It's become an expensive dust collector.

But today...I was checking my favourite blogs and found some great cutting kits on http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/ so I quickly purchased the following 2 and set to work on the above card. Love it! Love the shapes! Today I love my Silhouette! Thank you, Kristina!

Karma, she's a bitch.

Shaun was going on and on a few weeks ago about how he hadn't been sick in a long time and everyone around him had been sick. Well, guess who came home from work after 1.5 hours?
In his own words...what doesn't come out the top end, goes too far and comes out the bottom end. He's been puking since 5:30 am. The first Gravol didn't work, he puked it up and seemed pretty proud of the fact he could identify it. The second seems to have worked. He's giving me too much info, which in turn, I'm sharing here. He's so empty he doesn't even have bile left, or so he says and he says the upside of having both diarrhea and vomiting, his intestines have never been cleaner. I think he's delirious.

Kerry went mountain biking yesterday and because it's so wet and muddy, he came home with mud in his teeth or at least that was what he told me. Then he brushed his teeth and said "Hey, check it out, it's not mud! It's a bug!" Guess who isn't getting any kisses any time soon?
He needs a bug screen for his full faced helmet.

Sunday's Stuff

I am really loving the Manhattan Flower embossing folder and the Parissian Breeze designer series paper. Oh, and check out the oval and the scalloped oval punches! With matching stamp set! Love it.I had bought Copic's Spica glitter pens for Emily awhile ago, and ended never using the one that I bought myself, and I gave it to her. So recently I got another one and tried it out today. If you look closely, you can see the faint glitter on the middle of the roses.

Also loving the Glitter Ritz glitter. This is for a class that I will be doing in April.

Today was vehicle washing day. Even though there's still snow in the yard, the roads are dry and sandy. Linus was so sad that he wasn't allowed to come outside and help.

My forsythia, in the 2 foot snowbank is starting to bud, oddly enough. The poor thing will have to be moved this year, as every year the snow from the driveway gets piled on top of it.

Shaun is making rice pilaf, salmon and I'm making roasted cauliflower to go with it.

I did my Wii Fit for the day, but had to alter my routine. I love the boxing but am too intense, my forearms are so sore, the pain kept me up last night. I need to loosen up a bit. I know it's can't possibly be a real lose, but I'm down 2 lbs. from yesterday.

Saturday Stuff

We took the dogs out first thing, which for me today was after 9 am. Not 3 minutes from our house, it's full on winter. This photo was crappy, Kerry and Linus are in the shade and hard to see. I've 'improved' it with the Pioneer Woman's Heartland action. The rest of the photos are SOOC, but with my polarizing filter on my 50mm f1.8 lens, with the exception of the last one, no filter there.This is a dog, Kerry(waving) and me on the bridge across the river, which you can't see because it's covered in ice and snow.

I almost bit it just before this photo. Kerry had to use the facilities, which were surrounded by sheer ice. I was in charge of holding dogs. One of which thought Kerry went in the front of the box and disappeared so logic says he went out the back of the box which is on the edge of a cliff. Linus ran around to peek at the back side and I slid along with him, thank goodness he stopped at the edge of the cliff.

Everyone re-united with Dad. They are so happy the brown box thing let him back out.

I thought this was pretty neat, obviously so did the beavers.

I made fresh spring rolls and peanut satay stir fry for dinner. I could eat tonnes of these spring rolls. Which is a good thing, the deep fried versions sold refrigerated at Costco give me killer gas.

We finally started and finished repainting the door trim around some of the doors. We never finished them last year when we did the floors. The door frames were cream, the new trim is white. Which made us realize that the kitchen trim needs painting too, but that's another weekend.

I started trimming trees, Kerry took down the winterizing off the porch (plastic and 2x4s) so now we can see the neighbours.

And I got on the Wii Fit. I was pleasantly surprised to see that even though I feel like I have gained a bunch, it's only 5 lbs. since the last time I was on, which was over 100 days ago. Yikes. I did 30 minutes and then shot the crap out of some Rabbids on Rayman's Raving Rabbids Tv Party. Now my arms are killing me and I think I put my hip out (could be from walking cautiously on the death trap trails today.)

Cards

Sometimes you have to run with it. I realized late last night that I have a class tonight, I was not ready for it. So this morning with a fire lit under me, I set to work getting some new samples made and my class cards done and prepped. I'm holding out on one of them, I am expecting new stamps this afternoon and want to use them to make one of the cards. I got 5 cards done, and 2 cards prepped for 11 in less than 3 hours. I've used the new Manhattan flower embossing folder, even though the catalogue says it's a die, it is not a die, it's just an embossing folder, but a darn cute one at that. Here I sanded the patterned paper so you could see the flowers better.

This is right from SCS, but I can't remember whose card I copied, sorry. I embossed on the cardstock vellum.

For this one, I used the 'wrong' side of the embossed imaged and with lightening speed and a fine tipped glue pen, I filled all the ditches with glue. It didn't matter that the glue was no longer 'blue' and was starting to dry. The ultra fine glitter stuck to it anyway.
A close-up that doesn't do it justice.

The rest of the week in pictures, and lots of words.

Just in case you are wondering, I'm still a little bit sick. The Dr. said something along the lines of "with that medication, don't expect to get better after the week is up, you should have had 2 weeks worth" she did not offer me another weeks worth. I told her I still felt like crap and it's been almost 4 weeks and this is what I've been taking and she said "you could be feeling crappy for awhile still" I couldn't hear anything else she said because I was too busy having a temper tantrum on the floor. She did however tell me that she liked my Wonder woman t-shirt and that I was hot and clammy. I would have just settled for hot.

Tuesday, I made it to the last and most fun calligraphy class. We used watercolour paints as ink. and made this little accordion book to highlight something alphabetically. I decided to do ME! Alphabetically, I'm hard to describe, but with Kerry's help I got my list done 5 min. before leaving for class. Considering I missed the class on spacing my letters, I did pretty good.

I'm very thankful I have friends that still call me and worry about me, even though I haven't been up to making phone calls myself. The best news came yesterday after I was complaining about still being so burnt out, Nurse T. said "of course you feel like crap after doing so little, your body is working hard fighting an infection and if you looked at your blood (which I would never do, ever), you would see this." We had a nice conversation, I felt a bit better, and we made some tentative plans to do something soon.

Some pictures of what I can see while I'm laying on the couch watching too much tv, waiting to get better.

Sally, looking very sorry for me.

Very blurry Linus, wiping his face after he had popcorn. Check out his toy stash.

Linus, looking very sorry for himself.

Both dogs, waiting for me to pass out so they can eat me. Close your eyes, you are getting sleepy, you want to have a nap.

My most exciting mail. My Office Rewards from Office Depot. I get a card with a $16.39 credit. If you could see the left side of the flyer, you would also see the amount I have spent on ink to get that $16.39.

There's a golden retriever in this picture. Can you see him?

And yes, even sick, I have to make dinner. Good thing for 'the book' which is what we call the America's Test Kitchen Family cookbook now. Pizza Margarita, delish. Made a double batch so Kerry could share at work.

German Apple Pancake, yummy! No left-overs.

And the pan sauces for pork chops are great, I want to lick the pan. Shaun made the pasta with roasted red peppers and chorizo sausage, spicy but good. Kerry made peanut butter bars, but over baked them a couple min. which made a huge difference, still edible though. Twice baked potatoes! Emily ate 2 of them! Every single thing we have made from this book has been great!

I've got some work today, I realized after napping the evening away yesterday, that today I have a class! I'm not ready for it, not at all. I'm hoping my SU order comes today so that we can play with the new stamps I ordered.

One good thing...I think the Nasonex helps me sleep. I am usually a light sleeper, I wake up maybe 3 times a night if not more, I hardly ever have a good sleep. Dad has sleep apnea, narrow nasal passages, polyps, snores. While I don't think I have apnea, I do have the narrow passages, and polyps, I'm always stuffed up, but the last 5 days or so, I have slept well and not been stuffed up! The downside...I should be able to sleep late, no school to wake up for, no alarm, but I wake up when the phone rings, every morning this week at 8 am. EVERY morning and not the same person every day. I shouldn't complain, I'm getting 18 hours of sleep a day.