To The Showers!

The Kidz have suddenly discovered the shower.

Not sure why they're almost three years old, and it's taken them this long to find it!

Velvet comes in to the shower when I'm done each time, and licks my legs dry for me. She's done that since she was a tiny kitten.

But Melie and Mudge... Well, either Velvet's more of an Alpha cat than I thought and has decreed the shower off limits for them, or they are much slower than I thought!

So, here they are, chasing something in the shower pan. Don't know if either of them caught it before it escaped down the drain (eeewww!) or what. I didn't stick around to keep tabs.

I also caught all three of them munching out on their breakfast the other day. It's really HARD to get the three of them in the same photo, let me tell you!


From top to bottom: Velvet, Mudge, Melie...

Looks like Mudge is eyeballing Velvet's food, but trust me, she won't go near the dish until Velvet leaves! Cause if she does, Velvet will more than likely turn around and bat her. She knows this from experience! Hee hee

And I FINALLY got a decent photo of Smedley (Melie) sitting up in his domain - the rafters in the garage...


He lounges up there even when I've got people sitting at the tables below, stamping. And every once in a while, he decides to come down while people are at those tables and manages to startle at least one of them!

He's a little shy of others, but lately, he's been letting people pet him, as long as they don't move too quickly.

He's NOT shy with me - he's a whiner! He constantly wants petted and brushed. He actually stalks me around the tables in the Stampin' Garage. Too funny!

I'm not trying to stalk you, but have you given me your order for Sale-A-Bration so that you can get your FREE PRODUCT? This is the BEST DEAL Stampin' Up! offers all year. Spend $50 and get a $15 item FREE!

Call, email, place your order on my website - just don't miss out on Sale-A-Bration this year - it all ends on March 31st... HURRY!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

Nixie's Fotos

I have a virtual friend (hey, girlfriend) I've met thru Farm Town. We chat for hours (and harvest each other's farms while doing that) and we know a lot about each other - but we've never met in person.

I hope we can remedy that one of these days!

A while back, I asked her to send me some of her favorite photos, and I proceeded to turn them into a litte scrap book for her.

It's made with -- are you ready? -- toilet tissue rolls!

I've made these and posted photos before, but it's been probably a year since I last did any.

Nixie loved it! And, as I'd hoped, it's small enough for her to carry it in her purse...

Wanna see?


Here's the outside of it.

It has 4 t.p. rolls total. I print my photos out 2" x 3" and they fit perfectly in this project.

And when it was done, I tied a zillion pieces of ribbon to the ring that binds it all together. You know - all those tails you have left over after you make a bow or decorate a card.

I also put front and back covers made from card stock, to protect the photos a little more - plus it gives me two more surfaces to decorate!

Here are a few more photos of her scrapbook...

Here's Nixie with her grandson.



And here's another of her grandson by himself. He was definitely looking up at something, so I added a bee to the page for him to look at.





And these are the fronts of the four inserts for the "pages". There are four additional photos on the other sides, as well.




It's a fun little scrapbook to make and fill.

Would YOU like to make one? Give me a call and let's set up a private lesson for you! It takes about 2 hours to make, without the photos...

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Hey, don't forget about Sale-A-Bration (SAB) ! It lasts a little longer this year, but before we can blink an eye, the end of March will be here and SAB will be gone for another year!

So, let me know what you'd like to order! I generally have an order to input each week, and would be happy to add yours. And, if you live in San Diego county, I even deliver!

Or, you can go to my website and place the order yourself and have it shipped directly to your home.

Whichever way you choose, be sure to get your catalog out and get that $50 order together so you can get FREE STAMPS!

Thanks for stopping by...

The Kidz

I can tell "the kittens" (which they'll ALWAYS be called, no matter how old they are) are cats now.

They're much less active, much less fun to photograph. Or if they are tearing around, they're much too fast for MY camera!

When they were younger, I did take movies of them on my camera, but I never figured out how to upload them. One of these days, I'll need to learn it, and I'll try to remember post them.

In the meantime, though, here are The Kidz from recent photos...

Here's Smedley, checking out a recent sunset. We've been having some gorgeous ones lately.

Smedley stills spends his days sleeping in the rafters out in the garage. He deigns to come down about an hour before sunset each day, to enjoy a romp with Smudge.

And then, of course, doesn't want to come in when it gets dark...







And here's Smudge - it's about the only angle I can get a shot that's not blurry.

Girl moves fast!

She's got a gorgeous thick coat this year and looks more regal as she ages. Sometimes called "the princess"...





And here's Velvet, sitting on one of her favorite patio chairs.

She's not as active as she'd like to be. She wants The Kidz to chase her, but they haven't caught on to the game yet. Maybe they're a lot slower than I thought!!





They had some traumas this year when we had that solid week of rain, and the backyard turned into a pond. They'd go to the end of the patio and have no where to go that they wouldn't get their paws wet!

So, they stayed in the house, and by the end of the week Smudge was antsy to get outside. She's just not much of a house cat during the day - might miss something outside, you know!

Hope you have a happy day! And keep on stampin'!

OH! Almost forgot to remind you! Sale-A-Bration (SAB) started TODAY! For each $50 you purchase (before shipping and taxes) you may choose a FREE ITEM from the SAB catalog! Awesome things in there - call me to place an order - or go to my website, if you'd rather. Either way, you get to choose something FREE - and who doesn't like FREE!

PEEP!

How are you???

Yes, I'm back - FINALLY!

Life takes us on journeys sometimes and occasionally we lose our way back.

If you've followed me for a while (and it's been QUITE a while since my last post) you may remember that I was having my kitchen remodeled.

I think my last post showed the "sorta" finished kitchen - well, Dr. Destructo's part of the remodel was finished, but mine wasn't. So, I got off on that tangent, finished putting up my cherry and rooster items and then decided it was time to get more active in the garage remodeling.

I was fortunate enough to have several friends (Hi Bern & Anne) volunteer to help me - and I needed it!

I can get on "overwhelm" very easily - too much to do - where DO you start?

So, Bernadette and Anne came down several times and helped just by clearing some of the clutter. I still have the POD in the driveway, so we started stashing the retired stamps and accessories out there so we could get a handle on the things I needed to re-arrange in order to find them and organize them better.

The garage is NOT finished yet, but it HAS been painted - a lovely shade of peach. That was due to the grandson of my friend Susan (thanks Jacob!). He was awesome - he painted the whole thing in three days - moved all the heavy stuff into the middle of the room and then re-taped plaster board and painted. It took two coats of primer and two coats of peach to cover the turquoise that I've been looking at for the past 20 years.

And in moving that stuff into the center and then moving it back to the walls not ONE THING got broken - and he didn't take the time to move much off the benches etc. before moving them!

Wanna see?

This is the color I've been looking at for over 20 years. I'm sure it was lovely when it was first painted. The husband of the couple who owned the house before me used to work on cars in this garage and Jake had his work cut out for him to paint ANYTHING over the greasy handprints that had been left on the walls over time (probably some of mine, as well!).

And here is the color it is today:

MUCH better, wouldn't you say? I really like it. The old paint was flat. This is semi-gloss. I don't think I'd ever paint with flat paint - I like the semi-gloss because it throws more light - and in a two-car garage with very little lighting, you NEED more light!




If you look closely, you can see Jake standing back in the doorway.

Great kid! Good worker, very conscientious - he did a great job for me.

That's my workbench over to the left. That thing weighs a TON and isn't all "glued" together, so it took some doing to move it out from the wall and then back again, without any mishaps.

Here's another view while everything was moved into the middle of the room.

I've gotten some of the Definitely Decorative wall decorations to put up out there, but I haven't finished moving things around enough yet to feel comfortable to put them up.

I got the "Create", "Inspire" and "Share" definitions from the Definitely Decorative catalog, along with the Manhattan flowers collection.

I had the "Create" and Manhattan flowers on the walls before. Since they're vinyl, I debated whether they could be painted over (and maybe resist the paint), but in the end, we decided we'd better remove them, and THEN paint.

They were very easily removed! The flowers came off in about a minute each. The "Create" is made up of quite a few words and had to be removed a letter at a time - that probably took us about 15 minutes.

So, if you've been holding back getting some of these awesome designs because you were afraid you might have trouble getting them off, have no fear - go ahead - put them on your walls, mirrors, doors - whatever! When you're ready to change them out, they can be very easily removed!

Don't have one of the Definitely Decorative catalogs? Leave me a comment or email me and I'll be happy to get one to you!

Well, I'm going to sign off for tonight - don't want to tell you EVERYTHING that's been going on in the past 6 months all at once, you know!

Come back! Next time I promise to show you something that I've stamped while I wasn't posting to my blog.

In the meantime - don't forget Sell-A-Bration (SAB) starts January 25th! For each $50 in product you purchase you can select something from the SAB catalog FOR FREE!

And this year, for the first time, you can select items other than stamps! There's a bundle that has ribbon and buttons in it, another that has die-cut adhesives and Designer paper in it. There's even a Definitely Decorative item that you can get this year!

Thanks for stopping by!

More Fabric Flowers

Last time I posted, I showed you the fabric flowers that I'd adhered to quilt batting before running it through Mr. Big.

Tonight I want to show you other flowers I made, without the batting.

These were made using cotton fabrics - I've been on the search for coordinating fabrics to make these from.

My first stab at it wasn't the best - I bought about 8 1/4 yards of fabrics, with Spring in mind. But what I didn't take into consideration, until I'd "built" my first flower was that the fabrics needed to coordinate better.

Here is my first attempt:


Yeh, coulda done better at coordinating the fabrics, although this flower DOES go with a lot of colors! LOL

I took one of the Kraft corduroy buttons and dyed it using the gold shimmer paint and Rich Razzleberry re-inker mixed together.

I used the Flower Folds die for this one - I selected the third smallest flower.

The shimmer paint gives a nice little touch to the button, don't you think?

Here are a few others I made the first night:


I used left over fabrics from some scallop cones I made a year or so ago. I can't locate the photos I took of them but will, and will post one of these days.

The fabrics are great choices for Fall colors, or if you wear a lot of browns, gold, yellows and/or oranges.

I used a button in the center of this one as well.

I used the Scallop Circle #2 die for this flower - used the smaller of the two flowers on the die.

I've just hot-glued all the layers together for these flowers. I punched out a circle of CS, then glued layers, then the button. After everything cooled down, I adhered a pin back to it.

And here's the third flower made during my first attempt:



Again, I was using any fabrics I could find laying around here. And it's been a very long time since I've worked with fabric, so you KNOW I had to dig to find stuff - especially if you've ever been IN my Stampin' Garage!

This flower was made using the Flower Folds die again. Third smallest flower on the die...

I used a corduroy button for this one as well - it's the discontinued color Pacific Point. Always one of my favorite colors - I'm sorry it's no longer available. Sigh...

The next time I post, I'll show you some I made after I started getting my act together re: color coordination.

In the meantime, don't forget - it's Sale-A-Bration (SAB) time! For each $50 you purchase in product from the Idea Book and Catalog (IDBC), the Occasions mini-catalog or either of the Decor Elements catalogs, you've earned FREE item from the SAB catalog!

And this year, not only can you get FREE STAMPS, you may also choose to receive a 6x6 paper pad or a NEW PUNCH!

Specifically, the corner Scallop punch.

And it's a doozy! I've shown you samples using that in the past two - three weeks, so dig back in my blog a little and you'll find them. Probably late Januaryish...

AND, as if THAT'S not enough - should you purchase so much product that you actually get one of everything in the SAB catalog and run out of options, this year there is a list of additional stamp sets from the IDBC that you may choose as well! AWESOME!

What would YOU like for your SAB freeby? Look thru the catalogs along my side bar and give me a call and let me know!

Thanks for stopping by...