Happy Birthday Tangii

I have a good friend that I have never actually met. I guess you could call her a "virtual friend". She is a fellow scrapper and stamper and one very talented lady. In celebration of her Birthday Tangii is giving away some pretty awesome blog candy.

Take a look

Click here to enter to win it. Happy Birthday Tangii. Thanks for sharing your prezzies!

Fresh as a daisy

I redid my living room this summer. With Ashleigh's help we picked out new furniture, painted and hung new artwork. I really like how it came out. We did not do anything to the bathroom except paint a swatch of the new living room color over the old green. I like the new color much better that the old seafoamy green. For months I have lived with one spot of new paint on the wall but never taken the time to do much more.

This week as I was getting my house ready to host my first stamping party that splotch of paint really started to bug me. The unfinished state was fine for me but I didn't want to invite friends over to see it so on top of everything else I had going on this week I decided it was time to re-do the bathroom...with very little time and budget.

Now you must realize that my main floor bathroom is tiny. It is classified as a 1/2 bath but I am not sure it's not really more like a 1/3. It contains only the necessities..a toilet and a vanity. You must carefully maneuver around the door to close it and access the toilet. Leaving the door open while doing your business is not even an option.

The first step is to paint the whole room and not just that one little spot. Painting this tiny room is NOT fun. It requires some creative maneuvering and a few contortionist poses. Once the paint is done it already looks better but now I need to spruce it up with some decoration (again on very little budget).

I found this frame on clearance at Target for $6. I wasn't sure what to put in it but I knew I wanted to add some color to the room. I love gerbera daisies so I searched online for some good pics and then just printed them out on photo paper and arranged them in the frame. I love how it came out and it cost me almost nothing!

I found some long stem "silk" gerbera daisies at Dollar Tree so another $8 and I have a vase, some rock filler and a bunch of daisies for the counter. The soap dispenser and towels are from Target and I love the bright colors with the brown.

The glass shelf is something I bought for the other house and never got a chance to use. I found it in my storage unit. I bought the medicine cabinet at the Young Women's garage sale this summer for this bathroom and I really like how it looks.

So for about $25 and a few hours time I have a new bathroom...fresh as a daisy!

Creative Juices

It's been a while since my creative juices have been flowing like they were this weekend. When I quit Archiver's at the end of May I thought it would give me more creative time but until now that hasn't been the case.

I NEED my creative time, it's my therapy, it's my sanity and it's fun!

I recently decided that I could get more creative time and make a few extra $ at the same time by becoming a demonstrator for

I have used and loved their products for a long time and I know it's a great company so the decision was easy. Check out the newest catalog see all the great stuff CTMH has to offer on my website. This weekend I was invited to do to an overnight retreat with my upline and other members of our group along with some of their friends / guests. It was a great group of fun ladies and I had a wonderful time. I was even pretty productive, here's the proof.

Recipe~ Stamp- "Ashley" from Paper Makeup Stamps, Paper- Twitterpated by CTMH. Colored with Copic Markers.

Recipe~ Moody in the pumpkin patch by Paper Makeup Stamps. DP- Eerie by Basic Grey. Solid papers and ribbon by CTMH. Colored with Copic Markers.

This one is all CTMH. Stamp Set is Flourished Blessings.

Paper and Ink in Creme Brule, Tulip and Chocolate.


I love this Halloween Set by CTMH. It is called Beware. I embossed the images in black and used the Eerie line of paper by Basic Grey. Solid papers by CTMH in Creme Brule and Sweet Leaf. Ribbon is Autumn Terra Cotta by CTMH.

A great little Christmas card. All supplies by CTMH. Stamp set is Holiday Trinkets. Designer Paper is Jingle. Ink and papers in Tulip and Creme Brule.

I love the classic look of white and blue for Christmas. This card uses the Stamp of the Month set by CTMH for October- "Holiday Warmth" along with the Snow Flurries set. I embossed using Versamark ink and white embossing powder on Juniper paper. The dove and the snowflakes are embossed in silver on white daisy. Background snowflake paper is from CTMH's Jingle line. Simple holiday elegance!

This one is one of my favorites because it hold a little secret inside. It has a special place inside for a gift card! What a perfect card for your favorite shopaholic! All supplies are CTMH. Stamp set is Ms. Holiday Cheer (l love this set!). DP are from the Jingle line. Ms. Holiday Cheer's coat is paper pieced and embelished with stickles. Jingle Glitter brads finish it off.

I have no idea why this one uploaded sideways but I couldn't get it to turn. I love this card so tilt your head if needed :). This image is another one from the Ms. Holiday Cheer set. The tree and her dress are embossed. Ornaments are Jingle glitter brads. DP is more of the Jingle line. Circles are cut with nestabilities.

Pretty Productive wouldn't you say.

You Gotta Have It!

Attention all my crafty stampin' and scrappin' friends...





Do you have one of these?

Do you hate paying up to $80 for a new cartridge every time you want a new font, and then finding that the look you REALLY are going for isn't even available. I mean where is that Harry Potter cartridge I so desperately need???

I found the greatest software that works with the Cricut and allows you to...

Cut any TrueType font with your Cricut

So, I am sharing the info with all of my crafty friends. I bought, I have used it and I love it! It just opens up so may new possibilites, and yes I found a Harry Potter font and a great Disney one too. If you already have the Design Studio it works very similarly...only better! You can weld words into one piece..amazing! It will even cut SVG images so you can create your own artwork and cut it on your Cricut.

The Software is called Sure Cuts Alot, just click on the name to get it, and let me know what you think.

Here are some of my favorite fonts and where to find them.

dafont

Girls are weird - great curly girly font

Bell Bottom Laser -groovy 60's fun

Harry P - the one I was lookin' for :)

Waltograph - My fave Disney Font

1001freefonts.com

Loki Cola - the Coke font

Antsy Pants - Fun fat font

Calamity Jane

Chocolate Box

Just to name a few...there are so many fun free fonts out there!

But my very favorite thing is that you can create a True Type font from your

very own handwriting

at Fontifier and then cut it on your Cricut... How COOL is that???

You know you want it...huh!

Of ice and women...

Ok, I said that this story deserves it's own post, so here goes.

In April I went to Texas with my very dear friend Angie. I miss Angie SOOO much. She moved away to Utah right around the same time Ashleigh went to away to school in Utah and I was MAD. Who was I supposed to have game nights with, share "I've got this..." colaborative Sunday dinners with and enjoy spontaneous movie nights with.

Me and Angie...somewhere in Teaxs

It was Angie who originated the Texas girl's weekend idea. She invited Becca, Michelle and even arranged for Elizabeth to drive down to meet us too. It was supposed to be a girl's weekend anyway until Summer had to go and get married...such a need for attention, that Summer.

We all had a wonderful time staying up most of the night of Summer's wedding laughing and having crazy conversations until the wee hours. On Sunday we all headed back to our respective homes. Angie and I shared a flight from San Antonio to Denver, and then Angie would head on to Salt Lake City. For this flight our asssigned seats were not together. We asked the flight attendant if we could switch to two seats together. We were told that the flight was pretty full but there were two seats in the very back row of the plane so we took them. When we boarded there was another young woman already seated in the window seat. Angie sat in the middle seat and I was on the isle. When the drink cart came around the young woman in the window seat was sleeping. Angie (being Angie) asked for a cup of water and a seperate cup of ice.

I don't even remember what I ordered, but it doesn't really matter. We were just having a normal conversation and Angie was chewing her ice when suddenly the unthinkable happened! A large piece of ice slipped out of Angie's hands and flew right into the

CROTCH!!!!!

of the sleeping girl in the window seat. Angie made an honest attempt to catch the offending ice cube before it reached it's final destination but pulled her hand back quickly when she realized where it was headed. I saw the ice cube fly but thought she had just dropped it...until she started bouncing in her seat. She was trying to be quiet but was laughing so hard she could hardly speak. I call them the "church giggles" and as she tried to tell me what had happened I immediately started bouncing too.

Then came the moral dilema. Angie asked me, "Should I wake her up? or just let her sleep?" We decided on the latter (possibly not the best decision).

Soon,our late night talk fest and big breakfast started to take their toll and Angie and I both started to doze. We were awakened by a soft rustling of the now awake girl in the window seat. She was lifting herself off the seat to gently pat her nether regions with a napkin. I can only imagine what she must have been thinking.

How did this happen???

Did I wet myself???

Did those bouncing ladies sitting next to me have anything to do with it???

We faked sleep and pretended we had no idea what was going on until the plane landed.

Certainly a memorable end to a fantastic girl's weekend. Thanks Angie! Love ya!

It's been a while....

Wow, it's hard to believe that my last post was so long ago. Where has time gone? What has been happening and where have I been? It will probably take several posts to catch up comletely but here is the readers digest condensed version...

April- April is always a fun month. After all TAX DAY is in April ...and TAX DAY just so happens to be my Birthday! This April was an extra fun month.

I went to my parent's house for Easter. Ashleigh met me there and we had a lovely weekend with the family complete with Easter "baskets" from my mom.

Ashleigh and I on Easter morning

I even took and extra day off so I could enjoy a leisurely drive home on Monday and not fight the holiday weekend traffic. Then I went back to work for just two days (who doesn't love two day work weeks) before hopping a plane for a fun weekend in San Antonio with a bunch of girlfriends for Summer and Tony's wedding. My friend Becca wrote about our trip, you can check out her version here, she told it well so I won't bore you with more (except for a certain ice cube story which deserves it's own post). It was a ton of fun and we have decided it should be an annual event (except Summer and Tony may have ruined our plans for New Orleans next year).

Angie, Summer, Me, Becca, Michelle, Elizabeth

May brought Ashleigh home from school for the summer.

It also brought on a hard decision for me. For the past two and a half years I have worked part time here.

I love Archivers. I love seeing all of the new stuff, the smell of paper, the rows of sparkly bling, the creative inspiration. I love teaching classes and getting other people hooked. I love showing someone something and watching their eyes sparkle as the creative juices start flowin'. I don't love the aching feet, the 16 hours days, and the lack of weekends.

As most of those reading this will know summer is a crazy time for me. Summer brings Hogwarts (if you dont know watch for a later post). This year I finally decided that I can't do it all. I am getting too old to be

Wonder Woman.

I decided that the second job at Archivers had to go. It was a hard decision. I really miss the people I worked with, the customers and all of the fun stuff, but something had to give.

For those of you that started reading my blog for the creative stuff, I am still creating and will post here from time to time, but just as I am evolving and things are changing so will this blog.

More blog candy

Check out this link to some amazing blog candy!

http://passionforcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/04/blogoversary-candy.html

The return of real posts of my adventures and crafty creations coming soon!