more cards to show

For Christmas MY friend Janine sent me a stamp set called Far Out from My Favorite things. The set is so cute. I happen to have the Tye Dye stack by DCWV which I got in Big Lots a while back. It was cut in 6x6. (Check out my youtube video to see what the package looks like) It was too perfect to use for this stamp set. The card bases is a sheet of 8x11 Kraft cardstock by Recollections. I Folded it half then cut it to 4 inch wide. Folded its 4 x 5 1/2.

Then a couple days later I got a Christmas card from Diane. It felt more than a card was in there, as it was heavy. I opened it and there was a couple Die-namics sets from my favorite things. One was a peace sign set. I went downstairs and grabbed my big shot to bring up my room to cut a couple them out with my scraps of the paper. i did make another card after I got the dies. :)

Items used:

Kraft cardstock

White cardstock

Far out stamp set from MFT

Peace sign Die-namics from MFT

watercolors by Artist Loft

Tye dye pattern paper by DCWV

Dot Glue Runner by Ad tech

Glossy accents

1/2 and 1/4 corner chomper by We R Memory Keepers

Christmas cards

Happy New Year's Eve Eve!

 Last month I made about 25 to 30 Christmas cards.They are all pretty simple cards. I sent most of them out, without take pictures of them, but they were mostly all the same. I used the Julie Nutting doll stamps from Prima (I can't wait for the new stuff Prima is coming out with by Julie at CHA). 

Then I made a couple using the Greeting Farm stamps.

Items used in these 2 cards above:

Julie Nutting girl stamp by Prima

Dictonary paper

Rock star Anya by The Greeting Farm

White cardbase by Recollections

Patter paper Winter Whimsy by Recollections (It was from Last year that I got after Christmas sale)

Black Memento ink pad

Artist Loft water colors

Tim Holtzs Holiday Chit chat stickers

dot glue runner by Ad tech

This one is the first one I did using a dig stamp from Whimsy stamps.

Card base is Kraft card stock by Recollections

Pattern paper is unknown (from Rose)

image is by Whimsy stamps

Artist loft pearlesent watercolor and regular Artist loft water colors

Tim Holtz Holiday Chit chat stickers

Dot Glue runner by Ad tech

Pearls is from Wild Orchid Crafts

ARC December

Well its December and I made it through the ARC challenge! YAY!

If you remember last month I said I was going to read Buttercream Bump Off by Jenn McKinlay. But I had gotten the Jim Henson Biography for my kindle from the library at the time I wrote my November blog post. So I decided to read that as my Dec. book instead. Well...I read both books so you will get a 2fer with me. :)

The first book I'll be reviewing is the  Jim Henson: The Biography  by Brian Jay Jones.

The book is of course about Jim Henson. I have been a muppets fan forever. I kept my eye out for the book on the Media on demand website so I could borrow the book. When I showed up I put a hold on it the wait was not that long. I was 3rd on the list. :) It took me about 3-4 days reading the book. The book itself is about 600 pages from what I saw on Amazon.

The book was great. When TV first came out Jim was fascinated with it and begged his parents to get one. When they did and he was watching it. He knew he wanted to work do something on Television. He just didn't know that puppet would be how he do it. From the start of commercials with coffee maker Wilkens coffee to other coffee makers to Alpo, and skits on the nightly talk shows. The book mentions how he got each of the puppetters to work with him and his wife Jane. Much from the Puppetters conventions. He wanted Frank Oz to work with him, but Fran was too young, only 17 or so so After he graduated High school Frank went to work with Jim. When Sesame Street came to be popular, Jim kept trying to make sure to let people know that the Muppets weren't just a kid thing. 

It was interesting how somethings that Jim did way back when turned out later to be a different character for either Muppet show or Sesame Street. Like Cookie Monster was just a monster for a commercial, then later he was used for Sesame Street. Or seeds were planted for something later in his career (Fraggle Rock). After he did the TV thing he wanted to branch out into movies. 

What I didn't know was In the 90's Jim was trying to make a deal with Disney, for them to buy the Muppets(Not Sesame Street characters. That he wanted to belong to CTW.) but the deal failed. So Negotiations stopped. And that Jim Stopped the Muppet show at Season 5(even though it was popular). I thought it was cancelled(P.S. Disney can you please release seasons 4 and 5 of the show please. I want to complete my collection). lol

The book was great. Definitely for someone who is a Muppets fan. To me the Muppet show, and the first 3 Muppet movies were the best (Along with Sesame Street from back in the day).  The Muppet movies and specials now are not the same.

Here is my Journal page for the book

Now for my next book 

The book Buttercream Bump Off (Cupcake Bakery Mystery) by Jenn McKinlay. It is 2nd in the Cupcake Bakery Murder. Mel and Angie run Fairy Tale cupcakes bakery.In this book Valentine's day is coming up and the bakery is gearing up for the holiday with cupcakes and baking lessons with couples. Along with a contest to help strum up business against a rival cupcake bakery near by. Mel's mother has a date. Unfortunately the date ends up dead by the hot tub. Mel tries to figure out who did it as her mom is lead suspect. The B storyline is that Angie who has had a crush on Tate(their friend and business partner) since they were in high school, is dating the son of the guy who died. and Tate,  is jealous, but took a long time to figure out why he was jealous.

This was a fun book to read. It was also a quick read. Read it in a day. And like other cozy mysteries, there are recipes at the end of the book.

Here is my art for this book

Well thats it for me. I'm going to pick another 12 books to read for next year. I dout I will be doing art about the book like this year though. This was a great challenge. it helped me go through my TBR pile.(though I have plenty in the drawer to read. and in my Kindle.) I have read 29 books(as of Dec.7. the day I'm writing this blog post ) this year. Not bad.(but I use to have read a lot more than that. It was a mixed of hard copy books and ebooks on my kindle. Currently I am reading Death by the Dozen by Jenn McKinlay the 3rd book in the cupcake series. 

Quick Holiday gifts

Happy Holidays! By now all my packages have been mailed and I can show you what I have made. Well one thing I made I forgot to send. and another I forgot to take a picture of!

This Canvas is something I found on pintrest. Thought i was easy enough to do. The canvas is 5x7 flat board. I painted 2 coats of green paint. Then used some stencils with yellow, pink and purple craft paints. I used some of my alpha stickers and spelled out the quote by John Lennon. I then painted everything with black craft paint. Once everything was dry, I peeled off the stickers. Some of the black paint did see under the stickers and it wasn't...whats the word....crisp edges. I took my uniball white pen and outlined the letters. I did do another one of these canvases using a Dr. Suess quote but I forgot to take a picture of it. 

These are some more melted crayon coasters I did. Stamps I used were from The Greeting Farm Tickled Pink. The sentiments are from Viva Las VegaStamps! These I for got to send. Which is probably just as well as they don't lay completely flat.

Jolly Vox Box

Recently I joined another word of mouth type of site, called Influenster. A couple weeks ago I did a survey to see if I qualified to get a box of goodies to try and talk about. I did and the box came last week. And since it is the holidays the box is called the JollyVoxBox.

In the box I got a roll of paint splatter duckling ducktape, New York Color HD Color Tio Eye Shadow, Rimmel Lodon New Show off Lip Lacquer, Skinny Cow Candy in peanut butter cream and Puffs Ultra Soft and Strong to go Tissue pack.

So in the comming days and weeks you ll probably see blog posts of my thoughts on the products. Please note that I received these products for free for testing purposes from Influenster.

books to read in 2014

As you can see in my Shlefira widget I added more books to the to be read shelf. My Challenge to myself is to read them next year. Darcy is not going to be doing a challenge next year, but the FB ARC will still open for us who took part of it this year.

This year I picked out 10 books. Even though you see 12 on my shelf. I'm hoping to read the 2 books by Jenn McKinlay before the new year starts. The reason for 10 books is the 2 of the books I picked hare HUGE and will probably take me 2 months to read them. :P

In no order here are the books I plan to read next year:

Who Died In Here? by Pat Dennis

Life, Love, Lox: Real-World Advice for the Modern Jewish Girl by Carin Davis

Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification By  Vince Russo

Chris & Nancy: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling's Cocktail of Death by Irvine Muchnick

Countdown to Lockdown: A Hardcore Journal by Mick Foley

The Bite Before Christmas by Lynsay Sands and Jeaniene Frost

Blood Oath (Nathaniel Cade)  by Christopher Farnsworth

The President's Vampire (A Nathaniel Cade Novel) by Christopher Farnsworth

The Lost Symbol: Special Illustrated Edition: A Novel (Robert Langdon) by Dan Brown

Shoulda Been There by Jude Southland Kessler

Anything but a card Challenge 31-Anything goes Holiday edition

Its the holiday season and that mean making gifts for family and friends. Challenge 31 at ABAC challenge blog is anything goes, but we like to see what your going to making for gifts.

My project are 2 altered mouse traps. You can get the traps cheap. I got mine at Dollar Tree. They come in a package of 4.

I did a couple of coats of craft paint, As I did not gesso them. After the paint dried I added some shimmer to them with Artist Loft pearlesent water colors. I stamped all the images on white card with Black Memento ink pad. colored them with the pearlesnt waterclors.

This guy is by Inky Antics. I glued him on with Helmar 350 quick dry. A glued iridescent trim that I got from Hobby Lobby around the trap. There was a little extra left haning so i sniped them off and made them as snowballs. the "Merry Christmas" is by Rubberstampede. I just edged it with some red and slid it in the trap.

Santa and crew are by Stamp Rosa. Used the same trim around the mouse trap. Used a light green around the "Merry Christmas"

Some come play along and also see what other DT members are doing.

Happy Holidays!!

Stream-a-thon 2013/14

So, What are you doing for New Years eve? If you don't have any plans come join us for the 2nd annual  streamathon welcoming 2014. 24 hours of streams from all over the world! Starting in Australia and ending in the USA. We did this last year to welcome in 2013. It was so much fun we are doing it again. All the info you need can be found here. With links to everything you need to know.

The fun begins at 6:30 am Eastern time (that's 5:30 am central ACK!) in the land down under! And it ends in 4am Eastern (3am Central) in the USA on the west coast! (drink lots of coffee!! LOL) There is all kinds of awesome projects planned. You can play along with the streamers in making the projects or do them later if you want to. All the supply list and instructions will be available.

Did I mention there are prizes?! No! Well there are. Not only will there be prizes given away at everyone's streams there is also main prizes that have been donated from very generous people and stores. (I have my eye on a couple of them...just sayin. LOL) To add your name go here to add your name to the linky. to see the prizes that were donated go here and click prize details.

Now I have to say for when the prizes are given away on someone's stream...please remember there is a lag of some sort on Ustream. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE wait til the streamer types the word "go" in the chat and ONE NUMBER ONLY! This will most likely be said over and over again through out the day and night. I know it was last year. lol

Think that is about it. Oh! don't forget to join the Facebook group to get the latest info.

NaNoJouMo days 27-30

Here are the rest of the pages. :)

Day 27 Stop this Train

 Day 28 America 

 DAy 29 Butterfly

 Day 30 Daughter

NaNoJouMo days 20-26

NaNoJouMo has been over for a while now. Again I haven't been posting everyday. I took pictures, of days 20-26. Then The Thanksgiving came, and Then I got sick with a stomach bug (so did 6 other family members) Then I took pictures of the rest. So here are days 20-26. so its not too picture heavy. :)

Day 20 Are we there yet

Day 21 Secerts

 Day 22 Never let me go

 Day 23

Day 24 Walk on

 DAy 25 Running on Faith

 Day 26

ARC November book

This month I read The TeaBerry Strangler by Laura Childs. Its the 11th book in the Tea Shop Mysteries. Laura  also writes two other series, a scrapbooking series, and the Cracklebery club mysteries. The last one I have not read.

Theodsia Browning owns Indigo Tea shop. Drayton who is the expert of teas and makes the blends for the store. and Haley the chef who makes the food for teas and catered events. The tea shop is in Charleston, SC.

In this book The shop owners in town hosted an event. The owners dressed in clocks of yore and opened their back doors of their shops to visitors to take part in sales. It was after this event that Theodisa(Theo) went out back and saw The owner of the map store, Daria dead in the alley. Theo tries to find out who did it at the urging of her Aunt Libby who is friends with Daria's relative.

the book was okay. It wasn't the best in the books I read in the series. I do enjoy the series so I will be reading the ones after this one. There is about 16 books in the series. So I have some catch up to do.

Here is my journal page I did. And yes, I wrote murder instead of strangler. I didn't have the book infront of me when I did the page. I did a mental slap when I saw my mistake.

So for my final book on this reading challenge, I WAS going to read Butercream Bump off by Jenn McKinlay but I just got from the library for my Kindle Jim Henson: the Biography by Brian Jay Jones. That I will be reading instead. (Edit: Since the writing of this blog post,I'm almost done with the book) Who knows I might do both next month. :)

NanoJouMo days 13-19

Okay so I've been lagging in the posting department. I do most of these pages at night. So its too dark to take a picture of them when I'm done. Then I forget to do it. So then I have a whole bunch of them to take pictures of. The I have to edit them so they don't eat up too much space on here.

So here are pages days 13-19.

day 13 "why am I here" by Dave Matthews band

Day 14 "Nobody told me" the prompt is bay Vintage Table but I thought of the John Lennon song when I saw the title.

day 15 "Come Home" by One Repblic

Day 16 "Me" by Paula Cole

Day17 Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" by Counting Crows

Day 18 "Always" by Switchfoot (one of my favorite pages)

Day 19 "Learning to Fly" by Pink Flpyd