This is HUGE!

I'm sorry to be getting this information out to you a little late, but I've been busy (see my previous post), and as they always say, "Better late than never!"

STAMPIN' UP! IS HAVING ITS BIGGEST SALE EVER!!!
Now through Monday, December 1st, you can save up to 50% off of certain bundled items. The bundles are available while supplies last. You can email me your order, or place your own order online by clicking the new "Shop Online 24-7!" link in the left margin of my blog. Click on the flyer below to view the various bundles and choose the bundle that's perfect for you or those on your holiday gift-giving list.

Sweet wishes!

ETA: The All in the Family Bundle is sold out as of close of business on Saturday, Nov. 29.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone!

I've been busy cooking, eating, shopping, and having LOTS of fun with my family. I wanted to fill you in on some events of the past few days. The pilgrims themselves came to have Thanksgiving Dinner with us.

This was our first Thanksgiving that it was just us. Last year I had a friend from High School and her mother come join us for a late dinner. My friend is vegan, so she doesn't eat any animal products. It was quite an experience to have Thanksgiving dinner sans animal products, but we did it, complete with stuffing, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I even made an acorn squash risotto that was different, but delicious.

This year was all about a "normal" Thanksgiving dinner. Michael took care of the turkey, and I made stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, gravy, apple pie, and individual pumpkin cheese cakes. We also had store bought rolls and jellied cranberry sauce. Here's the spread.

We had a wishbone left over from LAST Thanskgiving that a friend gave us (since we didn't have our own turkey). The kiddos broke it. AJ's wish will come true. The next day, while in Gatlinburg, DJ needed extra pennies to throw into a wishing well since AJ won the wishbone-break.

Some people don't believe me, but Michael and I both love to go shopping on Black Friday! I got up at 6:15 and got breakfest ready for everyone to eat while running out the door or once in the car, we woke the kids up at 7, and we were on our way by 7:30. We made stops at Staples, K-mart, Goodys, and Wal-mart. We returned home for a lunch feast of leftovers, and then headed down to Gatlinburg for the rest of the day.

We went to the Star Cars Museum. Here is Bumblebee from Transformers. They had the car from Dukes of Hazard, the wagon from the Beverly Hillbillies, the Flintstones vehicle, the Delorian from Back To The Future, and Michael Keaton's Batmobile to name a few.

We ate dinner at the Smoky Mountain Brewery and then slowly made our way back out of Gatlinburg, stopping several times to check out the awesome light displays.

I hope your weekend has been full of opportunities to give thanks for all the blessings in your life.

Sweet wishes!

What do I do with THIS??? - punches

When I uploaded my pictures from my rub-ons class last week, I realized that I had never posted pictures from my punch art class back in October. (Boy, we really did miss a lot that month.) Anyway, here they are.

First of all, I had a scrapbooking workshop the night before my punches class. When I was coming up with ideas for the punch class there were, of course, WAY too many to feature in one class, so I used a few of them at my workshop (which also allowed me to have more samples for my class the next day).

Even though the workshop was a scrapbooking themed one, the mother of the hostess is a card maker, so all of the make-n-takes featured a card or scrapbook version. This ice cream cone was made using the scallop circle punch, the tag punch for the cone with some edges cut away, and the 1/2" circle punch for the cherry on top. And the guests could choose to make a scrapbook element or a card with the pieces provided.

The hostess had specifically asked for a Halloween project, and there were SO MANY cute punch art ideas out there, I decided to offer as many as I could. I made both of the following samples prior to the workshop and just helped the guests figure out how to make the designs they chose.
They were given a 12" strip, and could put 7 images in a row, or we cut the strip into 2-5" lengths and 1-2" length to be used on a card front.

Now on to the projects we made at the class. First was this adorable card by Diane Tritz. Diane is a dear stamping buddy of mine, and she came up with this card for a shoebox swap she participated in at Convention. Since I was lucky enough to be her roommate, she let me make my own (after I finished helping her prepare for the swap, of course). ;)

I cannot believe I've been hoarding all these ideas since convention! The hula girl and over all layout for the card below were also ideas I got from convention. There was a lady in the lobby of our hotel who had a card with this adorable hula girl hanging from the side of her swap carrier. I took three different pictures of the thing and they all turned out blurry. So, I went over to Splitcoaststampers to try and find a clearer picture of the hula girl, and guess where she originated from? Another stamping buddy of mine, Amanda Coughlin, via yet another buddy, Sam Parisi. And now that I've just revisited their blogs to get the links to provide to you, I've found even more punch art ideas to share in the future! These ladies have earned the title The Queens of Punch Art in my book!!! But I couldn't stop with just the hula girl, so I found some samples of castles made with the spiral punch (which everyone at my class received as a part of the class fee). And I included Sam's too-cute-for-words mermaid on my sample sheet below.

Our final project was these envelop pouches featuring a retired wheel (but that was all I had, and I got my students permission to use it first), and the cutest-ever spider using the scallop circle, 1/4" & 1/8" circle, and photo corner punches to create the spider, and the tag punch to create the pouch.

Because I just couldn't include every idea out there, and there were some I HAD to share right away, I made this punch art sample sheet. Some of the ideas came from memory_lane on SCS. Click on her name to go to her gallery, and then click on Punch Display Sheets for TONS of ideas (she's a Queen of Punch Art too). And the Lego idea came from this page by taratravis.

Sweet wishes!

More Rub-on creations

Hey! We had a blast at my rub-ons class this morning, and I wanted to share the other projects we made with those of you who couldn't be here. I CASEd the idea for the card below from "Petal Pusher" on SCS. You can see her original card here.

Ever since I got my Fall-Winter 2008 Idea Book & Catalog, I have wanted to make these ornaments using the Word Flurries rub-ons. I crimped the paper for one and curled it for the other. Everyone's turned out a little different, and they were all beautiful.

Sweet wishes!

I just can't wait!

Okay, I mentioned in my post from this morning that I am having a class featuring rub-ons tomorrow. I usually like to keep all the projects I have planned a secret until my guests arrive. But in searching for inspiration for the projects, I happened upon Beate's blog where she had posted her weekend sketch. It was just the inspiration I was hoping for!

Here is a link to her sketch. And below you will find my intrepretation. Yes, it is very "glittering" IRL.Thank you, Beate, for some great inspiration!

Sweet wishes!

Embrace Life!

At my open house for the current SU! IB&C back in August, several of my customers asked to do a preorder class featuring Embrace Life. They actually requested several stamp sets for preorder classes, and I had some ideas of my own, so we finally got around to the Embrace Life class this month.

I also was recently inspired to try to create a watermark for my SU! photos that I post here and on SCS. So here was my first attempt. I made a "cooler" one, but it didn't look right once I added it to the cards, so I've asked my SIL to try and make me a watermark for Christmas. ;) She's created several for her blog, but has recently outsourced and paid a professional to make a very sophisticated one for her. What I want (at least for now) is a simple one, so I hope she'll be able to figure it out for me. She said she knows how to make them for herself, but she's not sure if she can save it as a separate file that she could email me. We'll see. In the meantime, let me know what you think about this one.

This first card, I call it the "tile card," was CASEd from a card by Sharon Dudek that I found in the Stampers' Showcase, which is on the demonstrator side of the SU! website. Aren't the colors and layout clean and classic? We stamped in Basic Brown and used the VersaMarker to add the tone on tone shading. The base is Mellow Moss, the mat, Chocolate Chip, and the tiles, Always Artichoke, Mellow Moss, More Mustard, and Ruby Red.

The inspiration for this card came from a creation by Colleen Laux, also on Stampers' Showcase. I ordered a couple sets of the bulk buy Stylized Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware frames when they became available, so I'm sure you'll be seeing those around for a while. I am usually so bad about hoarding things that I am forcing myself to use these frames on at least one project in each class or workshop.

And the layout for the card above was borrowed from this card by SuzanneBrown over on SCS. I love the colors she used, but unfortunately they are retired, so I went with Elegant Eggplant, Lavender Lace, and Handsome Hunter for my green accent. The sentiment comes from the Best Yet level 1 hostess set. We used the faux silk technique for our focal point. It doesn't show up so well in the picture, but you can find the tutorial from the resources page on SCS by clicking here.

Sweet wishes!

ps. I'm having my 3rd installment of the "What do I do with THIS???" class tomorrow morning featuring rub-ons. Just wanted to whet your appetite for the projects we will be creating. ;)

More of what you missed

Here are some more of my pictures from October. After this installment, I think all that's left will be Halloween pics. I'm not sure where those got downloaded, so who knows when you'll see them. Though I may have stumbled across them while playing around with that Picasa program last night. I'll go look when I'm done with this post.

What good is fall without some fun in the leaves?!? And what better way to clear away the leaves than with a blower? And why wouldn't you use a blower like this?:

Of course, Michael taught DJ that trick, and I had a video of him too, but it isn't uploading for me. So you will just have to go on living life without the experience of having seen "Michael vs. the blower." And yes, that is an inflatable pool on the ground, which is actually what we were blowing off because it had been sitting in the garage for months and had accumulated many leaves.

Sweet wishes!

Birthday card for a boy

Hey everybody! I'm playing around with a new picture program-Picasa. My hopes are that it will make uploading pics to my blog easier. Of course, I first have to figure out how it works. So this is kind of a test post. If you see it and then it's gone, you'll know why.

DJ had a bowling birthday party over the weekend, and this was the card I made for his friend.

Sweet wishes!

ETA: Still working out the kinks of this Picasa program. The first time I uploaded the pic, it was HUGE when you clicked on it. I've resized it and it should be fine now. Off to learn some more...

Fall Fun

I'm still playing catch up with my pictures from last month. Here are some ridiculously cute pics of our kids!
I'd love to say that they always get along this well. Not so.

They do *almost* always love to pose for pictures.

Lately they're really lovin' the silly poses!

Sweet wishes!

Mrs. Tallie's b'day card

Today is my step-dad's 50th birthday! Happy Birthday, Randy!

So after we called and sang "Happy Birthday" (both the traditional and the "you live in a zoo" versions), DJ told me that tomorrow is his teacher's birthday. Hopefully he's right because I made this card for her.
One thing you may have unfortunately missed last month if you didn't check my Stampin' Up! website, was the 20% discount Stampin' Up! offered on most of their birthday themed stamp sets to celebrate their 20th birthday. This adorable new set, Crazy for Cupcakes, was included in the sale. I just got my order yesterday, so I had to play with at least one of my new sets. The layout for this card was taken from last week's sketch challenge on Splitcoast. I have a slightly modified (non-SUO) version in my gallery over there. I used my retired Zig Painty pen to color the tray. The flash from the camera makes it look weird, but it actually looks really good IRL. I also used some retired Soft Sky paper for my bottom panel and my paper pieced cupcake cups. Although this card wasn't difficult, it was time consuming, so I really hope DJ is right about his teacher's birthday. ;)

I did make a card for my step-dad too, but I forgot to take a picture before I sealed the envelope. Plus he reads my blog, and I would hate to ruin the surprise. I'll ask my mom to take a pic once he receives it. (Yes, in true Kelly fashion, it will be late.)

Sweet wishes!

At the Pumpkin Patch

DJ's class took a field trip to the pumpkin patch. I was one of SEVERAL chaperones. They learned a little about how bees make honey (and got to taste some), gourds (and got to find one in a hay stack), Indian corn, and different varieties of pumpkins. Here's my little man with the pumpkin he picked. Then two days later, when Michael's family came in town we went back.
We took turns on the Hillbilly Scoot. A big tarp going down the side of a hill that you "sled" down. Michael & AJ:

DJ:

Hunting in the hay stack again:

They also have a corn maze. Three actually. Last year we chose the medium one, and then once we were finished took the easy one back to the starting point. This year we chose the hard one, but made better time (possibly because there were fewer of us; possibly because there weren't other people around telling us the wrong way to go). DJ led us most of the way, so we let AJ lead us back through the easy one. She only took one wrong turn. ;)

We ended the day by roasting marshmallows outside the gift shop. FUN TIMES!

Sweet wishes!

What do I do with THAT???

In the stamping portion of yesterday's blog update I mentioned that I held a class the morning of WCMD. Well, it was the first in a series of classes called, "What do I do with THAT???" and that session focused on chipboard.
In the card above, we turned an arrow into a house by covering it with DSP. Simply coat the chipboard or the wrong-side of the DSP with a glue stick and adhere them together. You can sand the edges smooth with our sanding blocks. The paper used here was the Georgia Peach DSP (HAD to get it since I'm a GA peach myself!). ;)

Another great way to alter chipboard is with our craft pads. It can be a little messy, but you just press the chipboard piece into the pad until you get the coverage you like. You must let it dry thoroughly before handling it and especially before adhering two pieces together. This card was super simple and quick (minus the drying time), and it can be used for so many different occasions.

The main image is a little difficult to see in this picture, but in person it looks perfectly subtle. We took the negative image from the flower we used on the previous card and stippled Riding Hood Red and Pink Pirouette for the center and petals. One of the gals in my class added two more flowers going off the edges of the Very Vanilla CS, and it looked amazing. I felt like we just had to use the Vanilla Stylized Hodgepodge Hardware frame, and the greetings on the first and third cards came from Best Yet, which is a level 1 hostess set.

Sweet wishes!

T-ball comes to an end

DJ had his final T-ball game in the middle of October, and his team had a party to celebrate their season. And what would an end of the season party be without a bobblehead trophy?!?

Sweet wishes!

We missed WCMD!

Saturday, October 4, was the third annual World Card Making Day. I am ashamed to admit that I had a Stampin' Up! class that morning and forgot to wish the ladies a Happy WCMD. But I had already decided to spend the day stamping, and when I went over to Splitcoaststampers I was reminded of the day's celebration and treated to some extra challenges. You can see three of my creations from that day in my SCS gallery. Here's an SUO version of one card. The inspiration for this card came from the cover of a Coldwater Creek catalog.

Sweet wishes!

Here's some of what you missed.

Since I failed to blog the entire month of October, I have some catching up to do. It'll take me a few days, but hopefully you'll think it was worth it. Towards the beginning of the month we went to two circuses. The first one was a one-ring circus at the Greeneville fair grounds.

Then we got free tickets to the Shriners circus in Knoxville.

What is a circus without cotton candy? AJ & Mommy's favorite!

Yes, we wasted our money and bought a ridiculously expensive sword that broke the next day. Here's one of DJ's Jedi moves.

Tada!

Sweet wishes!

Oops! I fell!

Off the blogging bandwagon, that is.

I owe a HUGE apology to that handfull of you who check my blog regularly (or used to). You know, I jumped on the bandwagon very reluctantly, but I still got off to a great start. I blogged for 27 days straight, intentionally skipped June 25 for Stampin' Up!'s "eScape" from the internet day, and then for another 22 days straight before missing my first day. Over the summer I blogged from Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Utah, and of course, Tennessee.

Our computer problems, which started back in mid-September, are still not resolved. I have been relying heavily on "my" laptop (which I am currently using), but the PC is much easier and quicker for me to use. So that is just one of my excuses. The main thing that has kept me from blogging, though is life in general. Hey, it happens.

the broken computer-------->

We are grateful to have had lots of family to visit over the past several weeks. We mourn the loss of some members of our church family, including two teenage brothers who were killed in a car accident. Back in late August I began watching Christopher again after a two month break during the summer. Christopher is 2 years old, and potty training both him and AJ has taken it's toll on me. I only keep him two days a week, but it still keeps me away from the computer on a regular basis. Choir practice has started back, the glorious fall days have beckoned me outdoors to spend more time with my family, the kids and I have rediscovered card and board games, and I've been attempting to exercise more. So those are a number of other things that have kept me at bay.

And so, while I'd love to promise that I will do better and be back to updating my blog every day, oddly enough, life keeps on happening. Therefore, I will blog when I can, and exercise when I can, and play with my children when I can, and hold Stampin' Up! events when I can, and stamp and scrapbook when I can, and, in general, keep on keeping on.

Sweet wishes!

FYI, my September "Thinkin' Pink" card is still up for grabs. No one has posted a comment that they did their monthly BSE. If you'd like that blank-on-the-inside card, and a coordinating envelope so that you can send it to a friend or loved one, please post a comment to the blog entry found here, or to this entry that you are currently reading, and let me know that you did your BSE in September or October. If it gets claimed within the next few days, I'll put up another one for October, since I missed that entire month of blogging! ~HUGS!!!