Ladystamper

This week's blogger challenge theme was Labor day or baby. LOL I thought that was pretty funny. Wouldn't it be great if Labor Day really was for moms. We enjoyed the day by getting massages, pedi and manicures, having our meals served and our chores all done? In other words, No labor in honor of all the Labor we go through to get our precious little ones here? Well, that isn't whats happening at my house on Monday. I can guarantee it! Good luck to all of you tho, let me know if you have a day like that! What kind of card do you really make for Labor Day? All I could think of was Red White and Blue. So, here is my card. It would really work for a baby too I suppose, because the dots are actually Pink Piroette and not white. ;o) The dotted paper is from the Bella Rose DSP at Stampin' Up! I cut a strip approx 3 inches to go across the top of my 4-1/4 x 6-1/4 card. The card base is Pacific Point. I punched a tiny hole on the fold of the card and fed my generic white ribbon

I felt bad not posting a picture of my birthday boy on his birthday. We did take pictures, I just didn't have them ready! here is one of him blowing out the candles on his home made ice cream cake. He is a really cute guy. Not that I'm biased or anything, he really is cute! He is going through the "I won't cut my hair" stage...I don't love it, but I love him and try to pick my battles. If you know what I mean... and, don't look at me, look at his cute little smile. He is telling his brother that he is going to eat the whole cake himself. Little turkey! I learned long ago that a small cake is better than a big one. It is better if we can cut the whole thing up and eat it in one sitting than if we have leftover cake. Can you guess who eats the left over cake? Me, that's who. And I don't even like cake! But, my hips do, boy, they hoard it and save it forever...Kind of like me and patterned paper...

Today my second son turned 13. I am amazed at how fast these kids are growing up! Some days...it takes forever. But looking back, it has flown by! I have loved every minute of it. What a great blessing it is to be a mother. There is nothing I would rather do! We didn't do a big party for him, just gave him what he asked for, money, and drove him to the store. I was SO excited when he decided on a RipStik instead of something that needed electricity. He is in front of the tv or the computer WAY too much these days! Now, I just hope he doesn't hurt himself! He is a lot more coordinated than his mom, so there is hope! I made my first ever ice cream cake for him. He asked for one and we usually buy one if they ask, but....we are trying hard to stick to our budget and those things are crazily priced. I just made a regular 9x13 chocolate cake, cut it in half, layered some slices of chocolate ice cream (from the square container) in between the two halves of the cake, frosted it, and

I had a very long hard day today working the local election. We weren't overly busy, but since I was the "gal in charge" aka clerk, it was stressful and just darn long! If I didn't have Kim there to keep me laughing, I would not have made it through the day. It just made my day to find an email from another Kim at www.kjskorner.blogspot.com when I got home saying she had nominated me for the I (heart) your blog award. How very sweet! Now I get to pick seven other bloggers to pass the love along to. How fun! Thanks Kim! These are the rules for accepting the "I (Heart) Your Blog" award: 1. The winner can put the logo on their blog. 2. Link the person you received your award from (see the link above) 3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs 4. Put links of those blogs on yours 5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated. So, here is my list of 7 bloggers that I am nominating: Chris at www.forloveofpaper.com Amy at www.amycara.blogspot.com Scrapg

I had a great workshop at my friend Kim's house Saturday night. She always has a full house and good food! We had a great time! We even has some live entertainment by her daughter and her friends. ( I think my head is still ringing!! LOL) I always do a double 12 x 12 scrap page at Kim's workshops because, well, because she makes me! Just kidding, I know she loves them so I do them. This page was lots of fun to put together. I wanted to do a beach page with non typical colors so I reached for Mellow Moss and Bashful Blue. Not two colors I normally put together, but they really created the mood I was going for. Of course, when I finished the page, I couldn't find any beach pictures so...these worked great! I cut the Bashful blue cardstock to 6 x 12 and then used the new scallop border punch to scallop both sides. I layered a strip of designer paper from the Urban Garden collection along the top of the Blue and wrapped a piece of wide Celery Grosgrain ribbon across the bottom

Stampin' Up! has a bunch of brand new ribbons in the new catalog. I am so excited to get them! If you would like to get them all without forking out a big amount, join my ribbon split! For $14 + shipping(minimal) you can get 1 yard of every new ribbon in the new Fall/Winter Idea book and catalog. That is over 18 yards of ribbon! These ribbons are wonderful quality and the best part? They coordinate great with the Stampin' Up! colors!! If you are interested in joining my split, leave a comment or email me directly by August 27th. :o)

We have been having buckets of ran here in Florida. It isn't a hurricane, just a tropical storm. I actually enjoy the rain and wind. It is very cleansing. Of course, my yard doesn't look cleansed. There is tree trash everywhere. Or as my friend Katie says, it looks like all the trees barfed all over the yard. :o) We will have loads of fun cleaning it up this weekend if the rain ever stops. Until then, we are using the candles and hurricane lamps and such to see by. I have to say, this sounds pathetic, but I was SO excited when I discovered we had a gas water heater so I could wash dishes. I know, who likes washing dishes, right? Well, with six kids and no power to run the dish washer, the kitchen has been disappearing under the cups and plates and such. I broke down and decided to just wash the dishes with lots of soap and cold water (aaah!) when, hot water came out. yay! (my husband just shook his head and smiled) hey, at times, I really am easy to please! Since I don't r

My good friend sent me some stamps the other day....there isn't much I like better than getting stamps in the mail! Even tho I knew they were coming, it totally made my day! This set is one that I have wanted since it first came out, but I kept putting it off. The set is called Bronc Buster and I love the 'genuine' label that comes with it. I stamped the horse and rider with chocolate chip classic ink onto Baja Breeze cardstock and roughed up the edges using the cutter kit. I added some ink to the edges with a sponge and folded down the top corner and put a silver brad in there. The label is stamped with chocolate chip craft ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I used the Versamarker to color in the word and some details. The corners are rounded and I added more sponging here too. I tied some twill tape around the card, put the genuine label on with dimensionals, and mounted the whole thing onto a chocolate chip card base. The card measures 5-1/2" square. I a

Yesterday was the first day of school. Kind of funny....the kids were home today due to the storm. Not that WE saw any storm, there was just a bit of rain. I guess it is due to hit us tomorrow. I think we have gone so long without any really bad storms, the schools got a little excited and cancelled school. So, one day at school and the next home. I can handle that. It makes getting back on schedule a bit trickier tho. At our stamp a stack and scrap last week we made this back to school page. I scraplifted the basic layout from something I saw in one of my scrappin magazines. I changed it up a bit and used my own supplies to make it. The designer paper is Summer Picnic, using both the orange and polka dot sides. The flowers are die cuts from Stampin' Up! with build a brads in the center. I used the 3/4" circle punch to punch out a dot from the designer paper and put that under the bubble on the brad. The alphabet is the Taffy alphabet. In th e original layout, there w

This is one of the cards I made for convention swaps this year. It was hard to come up with something since we didn't have the catalog before convention this time. I'm not complaining, I much prefer the excitement of seeing the catalog first at convention. I ended up using the Priceless set. I made my card base with the new Pirouette pink and close to cocoa cardstock. The dotted strip is from the Bella Rose designer paper packet. I punched two 5-petal flowers and layered them for the focal point. "So kind" is stamped with white craft ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I did several different swaps this year, but they all seemed to have a swierl on them somewhere. I guess I am going through a 'sensitive time' for swirls. LOL Have a good weekend!

I have missed a few weeks of the Blogger's challenge due to convention and then catch up from convention. I really wanted to play today! It is the Friday before school starts, so...you can imagine all the craziness going on at my house full of kids! Lucky for me, I am too broke to buy back to school clothes so it has just been the kids, frantically squeezing in one more day of freedom ( and all that entails) that has me running around. I did manage to fit some stampin/crafting time in today. I mostly played with my new Big Shot. I love it!! I don't have any awesome samples to show you yet. Just a whole lot of mess on my two craft tables. My daughter and her friend decided they needed to make cards in the middle of my crafting, so that slowed me down a bit. I love it when my kids take an interest in what I do. I feel it justifies me a bit, you know? Anyway, I did need a birthday card for a dear friend, so I made this sweet butterfly card for her. I LOVE this new set! While I was

My daughter has once again my camera so I can't take any pictures of new projects. okay, I admit it...I gave it to her when she left for Busch Gardens. I wanted some pictures of her trip. In the mean time, I took tons of pictures at convention so, here is one of them. This awesome door was on display at the Stampin' Up! headquarters in Riverton. I just loved the simplicity of it! The 'happiness' is one of our new Decor Elements. These vinyl 'stickers' are SO easy to use! You can put them on just about anything! I have an 'extra' french door from one of my projects, so I just may try something like this. ( I know, who has an extra French door? Only me....) In other news, my dear son Ben made me laugh today. Well, he makes me laugh every day, but this one was too cute... Dillon : "Ben! Come see this raccoon!" Ben : "okay, but you know he will attack?!" I don't know why, but it sent me into giggles. It was almost as funny as when my

Summer is almost over! The kids will be back at school next week. Where did all our free time go? I always feel like I have failed the summer when it gets to this point. I had such big plans! We were going to be at the beach, the movies, the park, the library, reading, playing, creating,.....you get the idea. Instead, it seems we have had more than our share of sleep overs and less than our share of money to do all the fun things I wanted to do. sigh....oh well, I think we had a good rest and the kids are ready to go back to school and learn stuff and make some new friends. It may seem like I have been neglecting posting here, but I have been using my 'free' time wisely none the less. When a Stampin' Up! catalog ends, I usually have several (read: MANY) stamp sets that retire and I can no longer sell. A lot of times, I keep the set and use it for my own scrap books, or let my daughters have them. The ones that I don't 'need' to keep I sell at a small discount

I have been in Salt Lake City all week at the Stampin' Up! convention. What a ball we had! I love getting together with my stampin' buddies from across the country! There were tons of great swaps, great ideas, great new announcements and way too much fun! Now, if I can just get all these swaps home! One of the announcements Stampin' Up! gave us was: Stampin' Up! has teamed up with Sizzix to offer our very own Big Shot and Exclusive die cuts. I am SSOOOO excited about this! The dies are awesome, the ideas were awesome, and the price it outstanding!! I will be ordering mine after I get home and you can bet I will be having loads of fun with it! The highlight of convention had to be at the very end when we saw a faux commercial for Convention Barbie. It was the cutest thing! In the commercial, two little girls were playing with convention going Barbies when a UPS driver delivers a package of stamps to them. Cute! After that, while Shelli was talking, a loud doorbell was