Doctor's Orders

I've got to take some time off, which means almost total bedrest. They're calling my tummy ailment "acute pancreatitis," which means that my pancreas is eating at itself. I can't have any food for 3-7 days, so I'm gonna be pretty weak when this is all over. Nothing but water, then hopefully by Sunday I can start on jello and chicken broth. They also found a spot on my liver and will do a hepatic MRI on Friday morning to determine if it needs a biopsy. They also think the spot on the liver MIGHT be what's causing my pancreas to act out. I'll try to come in on the weekend for a quick post, but if I can't make it, I hope you all understand. See you soon. Miss you all like crazy!

Bring on the Bling - Cuttlebug Spot Challenge #18

This is my second challenge. I'm thinking that they're FUN! I admit that the Copics challenge was one that really made me stretch outside of my comfort zone. That's a GOOD THING, tho, right?!? The one I'm doing today for The Cuttlebug Spot was a lot of fun, too. I guess they're working off of letters & the next three weeks is the letter B, with this week being "BLING." We're supposed to submit the shiniest, most thparkly card we possibly can. Here's mine:Not too hard to figure out my theme, huh? *LOL* As the ending to a fairly crummy week, I decided to give myself a tiny bit of "superstar" treatment - an extra large Cherry Pepsi, feet propped up, sitting in my leather banker's chair, crafting on challenge cards and eating CHOCOLATE! How could I go wrong?!? So whaddya think? Too much? Not enough?

Well, now I'm off to tell Nilda that I'm in the game. Cross your fingers for me!! Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

Recipe:
5x7 pre-made black card base
4x6 gray pearlized cardstock, embossed with CB A2 folder "With Gratitude"
strip of HVAC foil tape, embossed with CB A2 folder "Textile Texture"
line work from Kate Honarvar's "Lady Ladybugs"
Colored with Copic Sketch #s - 100 (black), E31 (brick beige), C1 (cool gray no.1), E37 (sepia), E00 (skin white), & YR00 (powder pink)
Pearl colored Sakura Glaze pen (on the lady's jewelry)
Largest classic oval Spellbinder Nestabilitie
stars out of my stash (I THINK from the $1 section of JoAnn's)
White "Roller Rink" Thickers

My very first challenge!

Holy cow, did I pick a tough one for my first ever challenge, or what?!? The gals over at the new blog Copics Colour Challenge gave us THREE colors to work with: B28 (royal blue), YR07 (cadmium orange), & V06 (lavendar). I didn't have the exact colors, but I came pretty doggone close. Here's what I ended up with:It's called "Didja ever have one of THOSE days?" I named it that, because last week when I first pondered taking on this challenge, I was having one of THOSE WEEKS! *LOL* I mounted this on a 5x7 black pre-made base; some orange/purple diagonal stripe paper; used my Fiskars "raindrops" texture plate on a smoke blue cardstock; a Glaze pen to highlight the raindrops; black glitter "thickers"; Lineart from PC Crafter (Marie Cole's "Fontmania"); chalks for the sky & Copics for subject and the puddle;largest of the classic oval Nestabilities to cut out image. Here are the colors I used:Tomorrow's post (hopefully) ~ my challenge for The Cuttlebug Spot. '"B" is for Bling' ~ stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

If you're in need of a good chuckle or two

...or if you just want to spend your DAY laughing, then you need to head over to Kim's place. Her blog is the beginning of a fantastic Blog Hop, called "Twisted Too!" Every woman participating on this stamping blog hop has the best sense of humor & you'll probably end up seeing a few of them in my Inspiration blogroll. The store they all design for is My Favorite Things & they have some of the funniest & most whimsical stamps that I've seen around. Be sure to follow it to the end for a fantastic surprise...

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

No new ideas on fixing this...

The blog layout, that is. BUT I did manage to accomplish something today! (do a lil dork dance with me) I came up with a solution to store my Nestabilities AND I figured out how to make my Fiskars Texture Plates work successfully in my Cuttlebug. I'm a happy camper!

Here's my solution for storing my Nestabilities:

A "half sheet" binder (holds 5.5x8.5 pages) - $7 usd at Staples (gotta come up with something pretty to slide into the cover)

The Spellbinder tan mats fit in the front pocket. As you can see, I can get two sets per page, or spread each set out a bit, so my fingers can have some room to move.
The tricky part was the flimsy magnet sheets. A 3 sheet pack of 8.5x11 magnetic inkjet sheets from Hobby Lobby ($7 usd), cut in half. Just by themselves they were so flexible that the dies didn't want to stay on. So I took a manilla folder, glued shut with adhesive spray & stuck it to the "inkjet side" of the sheet for stability. Then I ran the whole setup through my Xyron900 and glued scrapbooking papers to the "non-working side" of the pages. End result - a book that works AND looks good.

Now, for the Fiskars Texture Plates - these things are difficult to say the least. Well, they WERE while I was trying fun foam, wetting the cardstock (lightly), using mouse pads, using chipboard shims...*sigh*...you can see where this is going, right? Well, two weeks ago I had a 40%off coupon for Hobby Lobby and grabbed the Spellbinders tan mat package to give them a try. They were the only thing off the Cuttlebug Sandwich recipe list that I hadn't tried. I'd never been able to get them in a local store till now, so I figured "what the heck!" Today was the first day that I'd been able to actually TEST the recipe and IT WORKED!!! I didn't even mist the cardstock with water and they are perfect!
This is the basketweave (sorry for the blurry pic). This one is a little soft on the impression, but still so much better than I'd hoped for.
This is the "lace" texture...
This one is a "floral ground"
I really love how the raindrops turned out.

This one is a filigree

The music notes. Look at the one below for how DEEP it embossed.

This one tilted on the side remined me of a waffle cone. I think it would be nice with some ice cream graphics, or Laurie Furnell's "Soda Shop" clip art...then you put it upright again, flip it over to the backside and you get this (below).

How cool is that?!? And finally, this one is called "grass" but most likely it won't be used as a grass texture. I just like the randomness of it. I think it should have been named "splintered" or "shattered." Either way, it's cool.
I'm really impressed with the results. For the Cuttlebug "sandwich" I used: "A" plate, fiskars plate, cardstock, one tan Spellbinders embossing mat, then "C" plate. That's it! Nice and simple with amazing results! Like I said, I'm a happy camper. Now to color up some line art, cut them out with my large classic oval Nesties and make up some cute cards...perfect way to end my evening, coloring with my Copics and listening to that wind howl as it blows in the next snowstorm.

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

I'm giving up for the day

As you can see I'm trying on a new look for my blog. And I'm designing it MYSELF. I've got the HTML coding thing down, but I can't get the .jpg layout wide enough. I'm using a custom web page in my PrintShop program, set at 1200 pixels (as wide as it will let me go). Finally got the height right (after a dozen attempts) but this width...
Oh, well, there's always tomorrow!
G'night!

Wanna see what I'm making?

DH called me earlier this morning. Said he wanted some of my chili. No problem! Out comes the big 6 quart slow cooker & in goes 1 small can of Spicy V8, 2 cups of chopped onions, 1 can each of low sodium black beans, pinto beans, white northern beans, and kidney beans (drained & rinsed), 1 can of R0Tel... Toss in 2 pounds of browned fresh-ground buffalo with some chili powder...

Pour in 23 ounces of Low Sodium V8 juice. Let it sit in the cooker for the next 3 hours, and...supper!OMGosh, it's smells SO GOOD! I can't even begin to describe this, but I can guarantee that if you ever have the chance to have a bowl of my buffalo chili, you won't want regular chili ever again!!

C'ya!

I've GOT to get better about this!

Especially now that I have followers! Sorry folks, but I've been in a bit of a funk this last week. I've also been a single parent all this weekend, whilst DH has been about 6hrs away in sunny St. George goofing around with his biker buddies. I did squeeze in some time to make a siggy tag for a new forum that I joined. Whacha think?*LOL* I confess that I have a very BIG weak spot for the yummy David Tennant! Everyone over on the forum really liked it, but the "powers that be" have set a regulation for maximum siggy size to be 250 pixels tall by 700 pixels wide, so now I get to redo the layout horizontally and try to get my PixResizer to do it justice. Back to the ole drawing board!

I'm also working on some storage pages for my newly begun collection of Nestabilities. I'll show ya soon what I've come up with...

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

Well, I got SOMETHING finished!

Not my laundry tho, it's incessant! *LOL* Ahhhh, the joys of washing clothes for five people! Gotta love it!! My magic laundry hamper has not only spewed forth more clothes for me to wash, but in the last couple of weeks, it's learned how to REPRODUCE! If I'm lying, I'm dying -- I went to bed one night with a near-empty hamper, woke up the next morning to not one but THREE hampers in my upstairs bathroom, literally overflowing with laundry needing to be washed. There has GOT to be a way to harness this technology & hook it up to my empty wallet!!! (is this technology alien? could be - I'm the only female in this house & men, as we all know, ARE the most alien creatures on this planet...) *LOL* C'mon, ya gotta admit that having a wallet that could fill back up with spendable dough would be really nice. Think "endless craft shopping spree!" *ROFL* I'm SO there!! I put that right up at the top of the priority wish list with dishes that clean & put away themselves!

*sigh* Allright, allright...back to the "real world." I did get a bit of craft shopping in today - that was nice. Money's been a bit tight lately, so I haven't really done anything other than the necessities in quite some time. I stopped first at Hobby Lobby & picked up my very first set of Spellbinders Nestabilities in the Classic Oval at 40%off (dork dance with me!), along with a Script Cuttlebug A2 folder, and a pad of Memento black ink. Then I went up the road to Michaels (had a 50%off coupon burning a hole in my pocket) - couldn't locate my lacy heart MS border punch that I had so badly wanted, but instead picked up a MS lattice/gothic-type border & a regular MS punch that makes 3 smaller Classic Butterflies to go with my bigger single. Walked out with 2 punches for what I would have spent on one! Not bad for an hour and a half of crafty power shopping! *LOL* I also managed to make a card today. Used bits and pieces that I had laying about & I think it turned out nicely:

I started out with some lovely soft, smoky blue textured cardstock that my BFF, Sharron, sent to me. She said it made her think of me (Awwwwww!). Thank you, Sweets, it really is lovely!

I had a piece of white paper that I had used with my Cuttlebug A2 die - took my Copic BG72 (ice ocean) & colored it. Single layer of color on the ampersand; 4 layers of color on the words. Then used my Sakura Stardust glitter gel pen on the ampersand for some "thparkle."

This little square is a bit of chipboard that Sharron sent me a while back. It was meant to cushion some CDs, but I just LOVED the robin's egg blue color & wasted no time in putting it to use! I took the Copic BG72 around the edges, along with a little 0 (colorless blender) to "fuzzy" it up some. Then put a cute rhinestone heart on with some MS "frond" punches and some Jesse James sugar coated flower buttons. I used the Stardust glitter pen to make some veins on the leaves.

Also had this lovely thparkly sheer ribbon & a couple more Jesse James button flowers. Not bad eh? This is going to be a Valentine card to my gramma in Oklahoma - my sister and eldest aunt located her yesterday. My mother & youngest aunt had led us all to believe that she was somewhere in Texas, near Houston, and had kept her from contacting us for the last TWO YEARS. Can you believe it?!? My sister went off of a gut feeling that she had, made a couple of well-placed phone calls and...BINGO! One happy reunion...that is, until Mother finds out about it. My nose isn't itching just yet & my sister hasn't called to tell me that she's had a really bad confrontation, so for now, all is well.

Well, I'm off to play with my new toys. Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

Just popping in for a sec...

It's crazy week here - two early out days, parent/teacher conferences (known as SEPs), and no school tomorrow. Aack! I've got a few projects in the works that hopefully I can share soon, but while I had a couple of seconds I wanted to let you know about a little blog candy giveaway. For you cupcake lovers out there (DEB!!!), you should stop by Janette's blog HERE & leave her some love. She's celebrating her daughter's birthday (4February) and by happenstance, it was my sister's birthday yesterday, as well. Take some time to look around - she has great projects for inspiration - which is why I'm now an official stalker & putting her link in my Inspiration section.

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!