Colorful Cards

I just made a bunch of these cute notecards this week for the Trinkets show. They're ultra colorful and come in cute zippered bags with a pen. I'm having fun mixing and matching the colors!

Kooky Kalendar

So, I finally tried my hand at making one of these fun cookie sheet calendars. I was inspired to do it after seeing Teresa McFayden's and Pam Garrison's version - although I think mine pales in comparison. I tried to make it usable for many months - and I'm hoping I can pop the title off to switch it in November and December.

Nesting

So, this is what I made tonight. I have always had a thing for birds and I just love these two colors mixed together - robin's egg blue and brown. I found a blue-ish green that I was happy with and just started painting everything that color! I don't know if I've gotten it out of my system - yet!

Signs!

I am fast becoming the queen of signs! I can't stop making signs for our show! Here's some recent ones for fall and Christmas.
Don't forget to check out our new weblog - just in time for our Holiday Open House at Trinkets!

TRINKETS

Setting Up Shop

So, today I moved a lot of my products downstairs to the dining room to take inventory and price things - assess what I have. It's all for our holiday sale at Trinkets, and I'm so, so excited to get it going! I keep coming up with new ideas and I need to get organized so I'm ready - this year we plan on having our sale a little earlier for those early-bird shoppers. So excited!

Pretty Little Cards

I just got my monthly kit this week from my scrap club and made these cute little cards in about an hour. It's so much fun to sit down with everything you need and make something quick and easy. All the paper coordinates beautifully and I love the little embellishments. Coming soon to a mailbox near you!

Perfect Day!

So, I met my scrapbooking idol today - Elsie Flannigan! I took a class at my LSS and got to see her, chat with her and do a super cool mini album. She's totally easy going - fun and friendly. I really had an awesome time and it didn't hurt that I got to go shopping after the class, too!

It was so good to get out and do something I enjoy - today was a great day! :)

Blown Away!

Just look what came in my mailbox today! I am doing a "Secret Pal Swap" through one of my scrap sites, and each month we are creating a new project for our "pal." This one was a "freestyle" project that could be anything we wanted to send, and this is what I got!
It's a beautiful green album filled with 12 pages of pre-designed pages, just waiting for my pictures and journaling. Whoever made this spent an awful lot of time on it. She included a sweet little note and even put more embellishments in the end pages so that I could add on to it if I wished.
It was so thoughtful - I cried when I opened it! Wow. I guess the way to my heart is through a scrapbook these days! Thank you whoever you are! !!!!!

I won something!!!

So - after such a long time of entering contests and finally taking a break after all the rejection - lo and behold I finally won a challenge! I did this layout a while ago. Luckily, someone nice emailed me to tell me I had won or else I may not have known!

I don't even know what the prize is, but that doesn't seem to matter so much! It's good to feel special once in a while!

Painting

So I've been going off in another direction - painting again on wood items. I just love to paint! It's all for our holiday sale in December and my friends and I are gearing up for it. I'm not sure still the exact products I'll be making, but it's fun trying different things on for size.

I have so much to get done! And what a great way to extend my favorite holiday - Christmas - by starting in July! :)

Check me out!

http://www.scrapbookeronline.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=89

I am a featured scrapbooker this month on "Scrapbooker Online." Whoo hoo!

Relax

Here's a layout I did of the party on Saturday. Isn't this a nice picture of Lisa? I thought so. Joey too, of course! :)

Glad she's settling in.

Summer is Here!

School's out for summer!

Need I say more? I have two very happy kids. And one fearful Mother am I! :)

Will I survive it? It's only day one tomorrow and I am dreading the fights, the demands, the imminent boredom. Ah well... I am going to try to combat that - but alas, I am only one woman! Wish me luck!

Swap-O-Rama!

So here's some pictures of swap stuff - finally! I have been a very bad blogger lately - but so much stuff has been going on, so I do have valid excuses!

The first pic is a lovely bunch of goodies that I received from a trim swap I did, and these came from Abby Powell Thompson of "Abbytrysagin" (abbytrysagain.etsy.com). They were fabulous and I haven't used them yet but I will! Thank you Abby! I especially love the little tags she made which were extra goodies she sent that she didn't have to! Love it when people throw in extras.
The other picture is a bunch of swap items I sent for a "Pretty Bird" swap, which I had so much fun gathering and sending - but alas, the package I should have received from my swap partner never came. Oh well.... My rolodex card swap also got lost in the mail. Whaaaa! If I cry like a baby will the postman bring them??? HA.
I get enough in the mail, I don't know what I'm complaining about!

Projects

Trying to get back into the swing of things - and using swaps and other goals to get me creating again after a brief lull. Here's my "Americana themed tag book" that I'm doing for one swap - it's blank without pics or journaling so that I can give it to someone else to fill, and then the other thing is my June calendar. I can't believe it's June already and so hot! I'm already wiping the condensation off of my drinks as I sit at the computer and using the fan. It seems that summer has come so quickly.

Joy!

So this is one of the things I did today while the little Queen of Sheba was napping. We bought these and I planted them. Just looking at them makes me happy! This is my first year trying Dahlias - I hope I don't kill them. They just looked so perky and cute at our local farm - I couldn't resist. Then I mowed the lawn again. Supposed to rain so I had to get it in. Here's hoping the Memorial Day weekend is not a wash. We could really use more of this sunshine since all the flooding.

Just checking in

I have been feeling a bit down lately with all the things going on. Feeling like drudgery is and will always be my life. Even though it's beautiful out - there is not much that feels fun to me right now.

I found this today though, in one of my favorite blogs, and it's uplifting.

It's from Posy - (http://rosylittlethings.typepad.com/) I hope you don't mind me borrowing it!

The chasm between thinking about doing it and doing it is huge. And small. Writing is just like making things, and making things -- making dinner, a dress, a garden, a letter, a sock, a fun afternoon -- is magic. Unmysterious magic -- you just do it. Crank the flywheel. If you want to paint, get a paintbrush. If you want to make a stuffie, get some wool felt (or, hell, some acrylic -- just get some). If you want to write, get a pen. Do something, anything new that you've always wanted to do -- even something that you don't even know you want to do yet. Who knows what you will discover? Play tennis. Get a dog. Learn to surf. Crochet one granny square. Do another one. Start a blog. When that gets boring, pick something else. Leap. No one will care if you don't.

There you go! A toe touched down on the other side. Get ready to take off again; you're flying now.

Freestyle Challenge

Here's a page I did tonight that I really like - I love this Kimberly Hodges paper and love using it anywhere I can. I'd love to paper a bedroom with it but I wouldn't want to scare anyone off!

Spring is in the air!

Spring came early this year for us and I am so glad. It's not even warm enough outside to plant these petunias but that didn't stop me from buying them today! What a beautiful sight it is to go out driving and see all the forsythia and trees in bloom! Every day I check the progress of my peonies and hydrangeas. Who knows, this year they may even flower again? I love spring and I love flowers!

Finished!

So I finally finished the inside of my little paper purse this weekend. Even though I cut the papers all wrong initially, I still like the colorful way it came out. Happy Spring!