Stampin' With Di

Sometimes...

...I will watch a commercial and wonder, who the heck is the market they are trying to reach.  Right now in AZ they have some dental commercials on and the two I have seen are so stupid.  The one shows 2 teenage girls rushing up to the two 30 something Mum's lounging by the pool, and the one wants braces like her friend...please oh please. The Mum says she will think about it or something like that...then she turns to her bathing suit clad friend and talks how she can't afford it, and the other one explains how easy it is blah! blah! blah!  Ok that is fine and dandy...BUT don't have the Mum's lounging by this gorgeous resort like pool with their drinks, cause if you are trying to reach the market that really can't afford braces, I doubt this is how they are living...am I right?  Maybe they were snorting the dental laughing gas in the meeting to come up with these commercial duds.  The other one is a man and his wife, and its like they can't stand each other. 

...I wonder what is up with all the accents...now some people say I have one, and I guess maybe I do a little...I mean I love to listen to accents, and maybe that makes people listen better, I mean heck almost every show with some sort of judge panel has at least one person with an accent.  There is an aquafresh commercial on now, and the man has an accent, and he pronounces Aquafresh like Akwafresh...now that is hard to type what I am saying...but I have always thought Aqua...was pronounced awwwwkwa.....not akwa....maybe I am wrong.

...I wonder if we will ever get another cable/internet company out here in the Queen Creek, oh wait my town name is now "San Tan Valley" area.  Cause my cable company can treat us as crappy as they want, and we can't do anything about it, cause we have no one else to turn to.  I am still having issues, they came out this week, replaced my modem...didn't boost my line strength with an amplifier, left the splitter on it.  Today, same problems, I have to run the cable straight to the modem to make it work...no TV in the studio...I know this is not a big deal, but it ticks me off, they don't care, and I call, and it will be a week before anyone can come out.

...I will look at a stamp set and wonder what is that expression all about?  Remember the reindeer card I did last year?  If not here is the post - well this little guy in the new stamp set Greetings Earthling has a funny little expression on his face.  So my warped artistic mind thought I would whip up a quick card with this little guy tonight.  I am cutting for my upcoming classes, so it's definitely a quickie card time.

Little Martin the Martian was eating too many beans for his 4th of July festivities, and has a case of the gasiness...maybe no one will notice.

Stamp Set: Greetings Earthling, Birthday Banter (for the oops!)
Paper: Basic Black, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black Classic
Misc: Nestabilities Circles, Cuttlebug folder (to give it a moon texture look in the back), black brads, sansodor, watercolor pencils and stumps

Elaine, I got one of those pump dealie's for my sansodor, I will honestly say I don't like it.  When I push it down I will be as gentle as I can, and it still splatters as it comes out.  I loved the idea though.

Here is the rest of the set:
Maybe they do smell little Marty...what do you think? The girl put on a big glass helmet around her face, the little hamburger with legs looks like he could throw up.  I think the center one eyed Barny lookin' dude looks like he is ready to high tail it out of there.  I am still undecided about the long eyed guy...but isn't this a cute set, all kidding aside?

Well I hope you have enjoyed this post, as I sit here and type I can hear the fireworks at Schnepf Farms...I think unless it is thunder..ha!

Have a blessed Sunday and thanks for stopping in!

Happy 4th and RAK's

As I sit here, at my computer as it sits on my desk.  Toby sits behind me on the chair wearing his diaper...we have company...so the only way he can enjoy the festivities is he has to wear one, so he does not pee on people in excitement. Yeah party at the Gibbs' house!!! The girls were running around chasing him a while ago with their cell phones trying to get his picture. Poor guy...I'd pee too!

Toby and I are inside cause, it is starting to storm, and well my hubby and his brother bought some firecrackers, and they are setting them off in the yard.  I do not approve...yeah I can be a capital "B" at times.  I don't like them, they are dangerous, but that fell on deaf ears when I said no fireworks to my hubby.  When he gets around "the fella's" its like having a teenager...so I wash my hands of it.  If the cops come, well this weekend will be awful quiet around here won't it?  I can take off Toby's diaper, and we will have a hay day, just the two of us.  Oh I'd bail the old man out eventually, at least by Monday night, he has to go to work on Tuesday morning...but that'd teach him wouldn't it?

So today I got the cutest card from Ellie and it reminded me I had some other RAK's to share too.  Some of the cards I got when girls send money for class, or to pay for their catalog, or some just send 'em from the goodness of their heart.  So I am gonna share them with ya.

Card by Ellie Wilkins...and she sent a recipe....oh and remind me I have a recipe for you too.

Stamp Set: Terrific Tulips, Petal Prints, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, God Bless America
Ink: Rose Red, Brocade Blue, Certainly Celery, Night of Navy
Paper: Rose Red, Brocade Blue, Whisper White

Cool eh? How she made these sets turn into a 4th of July card.

The next 2 cards are from Ruth Fox - I taught the ladies at the Trilogy Scrapbook club how to do the quilt card, and they have run with it and have done it in every color imaginable, but Ruth took it one step stitch further and actually sewed the card instead of the faux stitching like I taught them...pretty smart eh?

The final card is from Jen Carpenter, she is one talented girl too.  I am not sure what she used paper and stuff,  but I am loving the green embossing on the leaves, and the stitched ribbon on the side...cute! She also used her bone folder and cutter and added some score lines along the edges of the stamped part with the leaf.

OK so I still hear the whistling of the fireworks, oh and Eric just come in to say one hit my truck...breath Diana, don't blow your stack! Calm down....think happy thoughts...so here's that recipe I said I would give you.

One of my friends/neighbor Jayne (Hi girl!) she has the best recipes and this is one of my favorite, Eric made it the other day. I forgot to take a picture of it...sorry...we were so excited to eat it, we just dived in.

Cookie Salad
small package of instant vanilla pudding, make it like the box instructions.
add 1 cup buttermilk, add 8oz of cool whip, 2 small cans of mandarin oranges (drained)

1 pkg fudge striped cookies (put these in a ziplock bag and crush them up with a rolling pin).  Put a bit aside for the topping, but the rest you want to stir into the pudding/buttermilk/orange mixture.

Put in the fridge and let it set up a bit.  Take out and eat till you are sick...ha! Only kidding.  But you might as well eat it, it does not last super long as the mandarin oranges turn it a little soupy if it sits, so you have to stir it good the next day.  I usually try to eat it all in one day or the next.  Let me know if you like it.  Yum!

Well that's it for me folks. I think I hear the cops...ha! Nah I only called them 5 minutes ago they wouldn't be here that fast....Just Kidding!!!!

Have a great 4th of July!

Thinking Outside of the...

...box canvas.

At one of my recent classes my friend Sheri, and her two peeps Elizabeth and Meg came.  I had seen these stinking adorable pieces of "art" that Sheri had on her blog...check these out!  So I was asking her what size they were etc.  So she said she would bring them to class.  They are even cuter in person.  So she was such a doll and gave me 3 of them to play with.  So the other day I did, and this is what I came up with.  Inspired by Sheri...thanks girlfriend!

Canvas frame (Sheri got these at Micheals in the $1.00 area), acrylic paint, stipple brushes, foam brush

I was not sure what I wanted to do with it when I started, I just knew it was too cute of an idea not to do something, and I had this paint already.

So I painted the frame with the foam brush first with the blue (#23645 Robin's Egg Blue), it took a couple coats, letting it dry in between to cover up the soccer ball.
I let it sit over night, this was hard, I am the worst person for waiting, I want to do it all at once.

The next day I used the stipple brush and added the white (#23606) White to the edges, kinda making a frame-ish look to it.  Let dry. Rinse out stipple brush, and let it dry too.

Then once the canvas and stipple brush were dry, I inked up the stipple brush with the brown (#23628 Brown) paint and flicked it on with my finger (I did this outside) and it made it have brown flecks.  I saw this done on my friend Wendy's blog, she is one of my fellow Paper Craft Planet DT girls...you can see her beautiful frame here. I am so excited cause there is a beautiful new Stampin' Up! set with a gorgeous nest in it, and I am so getting it, should be here next week! Anyway I lost my train of thought, back to the canvas...

...then guess what I did?  Yep, you guessed it...I got out my favorite Die....Daisies #2, and punched out a whole bunch of flowers with the Sweet Slumber paper (so sad, I miss it already...that was awesome paper), and layered, and glued and layered and glued...I found an old thick button in my button jar, put some black gingham in it.  And hot glued the button to the flower, and the flower to the canvas...I think it turned out adorable.

What do you think?  Are you sick of the Daisies #2 die?  I didn't think so.

I was not sure if it needed more...should I put buttons in the corner? nope.  Should I put a greeting? nope....sometimes less is more ya know?

Here is a side view so you can so all the Daisies #2 in their dimensionalized glory.

Right now it is on the shelf in my studio propped up on a plate propper-upper thing, I think eventually I will put it in the guest room.

I want to thank Sheri and Wendy for inspiring me.

Well I am off for this evening, and will be back tomorrow.

Thanks so much for stopping in!

Are you kidding me?

Nope...I thought instead of watching the minutes, and seconds tick down on the clock till I could place my first order out of the new Stampin' Up! catalog I would upload a video to YouTube and show you how I did the Sansodor with Watercolor Pencils Technique.  A few of you have asked me to show you how it was done, and since you live far far away and can't come to class, I thought hey why not. I have taken videos before, but never uploaded them anywhere, I don't think I can upload them directly to Typepad (nope I tried) so I am using YouTube, so here goes nothing.

Now let me apologize before you even watch it.  I literally had the camera on a tripod right in front of me.  A little tip from my friend Linda Hansen.  I wanted it to be close enough so you could see what I was doing, and for ME to see what I was doing, and that I was in the camera view thing.  Plus you had to be able to hear me. So I am sure it is not the best quality, but I hope to get better. Also who woulda thunk it...you can hear my dang computer fan in the background, and it is like 8 feet away.  I will have to turn that off from now on.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to do more in the future. It was way easier then taking the pictures using the timer on the tripod and then uploading them, and then adding them here, and typing what was going on, but now you have to listen to my voice..sorry! And it took some time to load up in YouTube and all that stuff, oh and then I realized my user name made no sense at all to anyone but me, so I deleted the video and my account, and added a new account and re-added the video...ha!  So it might not be faster in that regards...this time... but it was fun. Here is the original post with the completed card.

Here goes, fingers crossed:

Let me know what you think! Hugs, Di

On Your Mark...Get Set...

...Go!

Well just wait till noon Utah time.  That is when we can order out of the new catalog, I can hardly wait.
How about you? Have you started your wish list? Eenie Meenie Miney Mo...what to order right away, and what to put on the wish list. I can imagine the website being a tad bit slow, so if you are online trying to place your order, just be patient, we have a whole year with this catalog.

When my BFF Tracy was here we hung out at MAMMa's one day and we did a special class, and well I visited and chatted, and did not get all my cards done, I got it all stamped and stuff but never finished the cards.  Today I was working on finishing up my organizing for a new year, and also working on some fun UStamp stuff, and I thought what will I post? 

So I saw my little pile of "To Do" stuff on my desk and thought hey I never finished Mr. Duck.  So it was fun and sad at the same time, cause we can't get most of this stuff anymore, how bad am I? But look how cute he is. I am not sure if these are the original colors that MAMMa used but he is still cute.

Stamp Set:  Wagon Full of Fun
Paper: So Saffron, Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss, Watercolor Paper, Walk in the Park DSP
Ink: Jetblack Stazon, So Saffron, Going Gray, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red
Misc: Lace punch, So Saffron wide ribbon, white gel pen, glue dots.

The ribbon around the duck's neck, and the wing are cut out and adhered with a glue dot, so they pop out. I love doing this.  It makes hand stamped cards the best when you can do stuff like that.

I hope you like it, I know I'm gonna keep it and use the layout over again.

Have a great Wednesday and thanks for stopping in!

House Cleaning...

...or should I say Studio Cleaning.  So today after I got back from the PO to mail the swaps, and the new catalogs, (don't forget today is the LAST day to order out of the current catalog.  The new one starts tomorrow, the 1st, at noon)  I thought I really need to do some cleaning, purging and dusting.  I think it is also called procrastinating, as I had some other stuff to get done, but hey, there's always tomorrow right.

So this morning pest control came to sprinkle stuff in the house.  I wrangled my first scorpion of the season the other morning, so wanted them to come and sprinkle stuff to hopefully get them.  We always toss the pillows off the bed when we go to sleep and then when I make it in the morning, I pick em up and bang em together just in case before I put them on the bed.  So the other morning sure enough I picked up the pillow...well hello Mr. Scorpion, of course I had just taken off my flip flops, not that they would kill him on the carpet, they are pretty hard buggers to squish.  Luckily I had thrown Toby up on the bed, since I had been headed to the shower.  So he ran under the dresser, so I went off to get the fly swatter, and I was dragging it back and forth under the dresser trying to get it to come out, it did just a bit and ran back under. So I went to get the flashlight, took two different ones till I found the one that the batteries worked, cause no way was I not killing this sucker.  Toby is too small and I am afraid a scorpion bite would be lethal to him.  So I laid down on the floor with my flashlight and my danged old tri-focals, it's kinda hard to wiggle your head up and down next to the carpet so I could find just the right dang spot I can see out of, but there he was up against the back wall.  So I got the yard stick, and squished him and cut his tail off and killed him.

So tonight I was walking from the living room and I passed the front door and saw something down by the threshold and up the door a bit, and I thought crap, a scorpion, so I took my foot and tried to hit it but it hopped down, thank goodness I missed, look what it was...

...aint he sweet? So Jeff and my BFF Tracy both said, oh is it one of the babies from under the treadmill?  I sure hope not.  Jeff said he saw a little one up front the other day, so I am sure he just scooched in tonight when the door was open.







Here he is on the tip of my finger, I so wanted to keep him, he got pretty tame after a while, when I let him go, I really had to coax him OFF my hand.  But outside is better as he would die inside, cause what would I feed him?

I am glad that American Idol is replaying the Micheal Jackson songs they sang during the contest.  I watched The Jackson 5 movie on tv this weekend, and boy their Dad was a real creep. At least the movie made it appear so, he was so mean to those kids, no wonder Micheal had issues as an adult, he was never allowed to be a kid.  Such a sad story, cause he was truly talented in his days.

Well I am off, I still got some more tidying up to do.  Have a great Tuesday, and thanks for stopping in!

TLC Class - Faux Wood Grain

I'll be floored! Ha! Okay it's late, and that is as good as I could do.  Today was a lazy kinda day, I slept in a little, and was actually still in my nightie (note to self: buy a new nightie) when Betty (hey Betty!!!) came by.  I did venture out and get groceries (note to self: you are your own boss Di, don't shop on Sunday) it was busy.  I got my swaps all sorted and packaged up and I will head to the PO in the morning and get everything, including the brand new catalogs mailed. I wanted to get them out on Friday, but I was stuck at home with no vehicle since Jeff's truck was in the shop. 

They say the monsoons should be starting this week, we really need the rain, so hopefully we will get some, it seems like all the people in town get the rain, us country folk with all the dirt just get our dirt blown all over the place.  Jeff needs to replace the vent cover on the top of the camper trailer so I am hoping the rain holds off a day or two till he gets that done. (note to Jeff: hint! hint!) Gotta love me! Well he does...right?

Well just a quick card to show you all tonight, this is the second technique everyone will be learning at my TLC class in July. I love this technique and it can be done in any color really, I am just going for the standard wood grain, but imagine it in blues and stuff...yum.

Stamp Set: Totally Tool
Paper: Basic Black, More Mustard, Very Vanilla
Ink: Basic Black, Vanilla Craft, Close to Cocoa Craft
Misc: Sponge, sansodor, stumps, watercolor pencils, art pen

I popped the saw up a couple times on glue dots. Cool eh? My Poppa ( I love you Poppa, and miss you) was a carpenter and an electrician, and oh my gosh he could play music by ear, I would come home with my violin and practice and he would listen to me and figure it out on his own violin.  When Poppa died, he left me his violin, I treasure it, and want to take lessons again one day.  I don't know if I would remember how to even read music, and I know the violin needs tuning, but I can't part with it long enough to leave it anywhere for someone to do it...weird I know....anyway,  when we grew up, my Mum, and my sister Jax and I lived with my Poppa and Granny (hey Mum, tell Granny I got some light green TicTacs for her), and Poppa always said it was better to learn to do things on your own, we weren't rich so that is how it was.  Poppa taught Jeff how to do electric stuff when we lived in our old house, so I like this set, cause I know Poppa would love these cards, and I love the greetings that go with them.

Well I am gonna clean up my studio so I can start fresh in the morning...to make a mess again!

Have a great Monday, and thanks so much for stopping in, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate it!

The Bots & The Bees...

When we moved to Queen Creek (which might be called San Tan Valley some day...who knows....grrr), 11 or 12 years ago there was nothing out here where we built our house, the real estate guy just drove us basically out in the desert and said "do you like this property?" and we really did, the borders were just marked with a little stake in each corner.  So we made our bid, and bought the property, and then eventually the house started to get built.  One day we came out on the weekend (we came out every weekend to check on things), we were like hey we had neighbors, there was a house being built not too far away, so we walked over there to say hi and danged if the guy didn't work at the same place as Jeff, cause they recognized each other.  So anyway, when my Dad came to visit one time shortly after we moved in he was walking around, and he found a little cactus, just a flat little thing in the back yard.  So after all these years, it is getting taller and taller and it blooms every year.  We love it, cause it was just here all on it's own. We didn't plant it, Mother Nature did.

Here are the flowers on it.  They are not all open yet, and they open and close throughout the day. Eventually I think when they die Jeff picks them off and throws them on the ground for the critters to eat.

But look how funny this little guy was, there were a few bees flying around and he was right in there and digging and digging I mean eventually...

...all you saw was his little butt sticking out, it reminded me off the Bee Movie, remember that one?

You can see all the pollen they are getting on the flower.

They must not have been killer bees cause they never messed with me or anything, they just buzzed around content to be in the flower, of course I didn't mess with them either.  I did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

So today I was working on my swap, yeah I saved it till the last day, but hey it was not like I had to deliver it...to myself...I will get them sorted and put in the mail on Monday.  Wanna see it?
I did the Lots of Bots set again.  Hopefully you aren't sick of it yet.  We only had limited amount of things that we could pre-order, so come July 1st at noon, look out, the catalog will be live, so all of us, you included can be ordering brand new stuff...tick...tock...tick...tock!!!

Stamp Set: Lots of Bots
Paper: Melon Mambo, Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Razzleberry Lemonade
Ink: Basic Black
Misc: Melon Mambo Polka Dotted ribbon, Clip Assortment, Scallop punch, Watercolor Pencils, Sansodor, stumps

So while I was playing around with the SU! watercolor pencils, I realized a few of them kinda match the new In Colors, so that is cool. Cause you know how I am addicted to the sansodor and stumps now. Copics Schmopics!

So I installed Firefox so that I don't have those stupid error messages all the time from Windows Internet Explorer. I just have to get use to Firefox, the fonts look way weird, and instead of favorites I have bookmarks.  I don't like the way the fonts look on my blog, it was nicer with the IE, so I hope it is just me, and that it looks nice for all of you. I would hate that all this time, it looked like a yucky font.

Well I am calling it a night, my buddy Rhonda just left, she dropped off her swap, we chatted for about an hour, but if her hubby asks, it was 5 minutes...ha!

Have a great Sunday everyone, and thanks so much for stopping in!

TLC Class - Magic Pop-up Card...

...well it seems kinda magical, cause it tricks your eye a little bit.

I wanted to show one of the cards that the girls will be doing in my TLC (Technique Lover's Club) Class 2.  This is a technique that I showed a card for a while back with the Easter chick and I made it into a baby card.  I learned how to do this at a class that MAMMa taught, (added: MAMMa learned it from Elizabeth) now of course I can't find the post.  I hope it shows up in the little Linkwithin thing on the bottom and if it does, I will fix my post and add it.  added later: thanks to my BFF Tracy, she found it, AND corrected my spelling too...must have been tired last night...so here is the chick card and the other post. I wanted to use the set Under the Stars cause I have kind of abandoned the dear old bear for quite a while, so this card shows that he is trying to show off so that I won't let him collect dust in my stamp cupboard any more.  He is juggling the skeeter spray when he should be using it on the skeeters, look at poor old racoon trying to hide by the bear so he doesn't get all eated up by the skeeters.

Now this is the front of the card...nothing fancy here, nothing magical...the magic happens inside.

I left the front kind of plain cause I am thinking you would probably, maybe give this card to a guy.

I did use a saying from "On your birthday" on the front.

It will make more sense once we open the card.

Ready?

Stamp Set: Under the Stars

Paper: Garden Green, Whisper White, Flock Together DSP

Ink: Basic Black, Creamy Caramel, Really Rust, Bashful Blue

Misc: Window sheets, scallop circle punch for cloud stencil, watercolor pencils, stumps, and sansodor, word window punch

Now the magic is hard to see, the bear, racoon and sleeping bags pop up when you open the card, and the skeeter spray cans are actually floating in the air as the bear juggles them...cool eh?

So I got a nice call today from a fellow Demonstrator, and I am gonna send out a "Hey there girlfriend to Memphis Robin" - there now you have to comment. Ha!  See you at Convention!!!

A bunch of people tell me to switch from Internet Explorer over to Firefox, and that will stop that stupid abort operation error message, and I am so tempted to do it, I just hate changing my computer, I am a worry wart when it comes to that. So we will see if I get the guts to do it or not.  My sister Jax (the computer guru) says to do it.

Oh and any of you that use the RED antifreeze in your vehicles..ask your mechanic if you should be using it!  Or maybe it is just an AZ thing I don't know.  About 2 months ago Jeff put the red stuff in, it is better for the environment or something...well the other day his truck overheated and he had to take it to the shop.  The red stuff was sludge, and totally ruined his radiator, so he had to get a new one.  $425.00 later...I think the red stuff company owes me some moolah!! It's back to the old green stuff.

Well that's it for me folks, got a busy day tomorrow. We were gonna go to a movie, but with the truck expense, we are thinking staying home might be better. Ha!

Have a great Saturday and thanks for stopping in!

Punch Book & Artisan Award Invite...

...I think the one question that I get emailed me most is, where is...? like where is the faux wood grain tutorial, where is the paper piecing card, and where is the punch book etc.?  So off to the right are categories, and under that list what I will categorize things in my blog post.  Now when I first started blogging I had no idea what I was doing and all these nifty little things, so you may find that things are missing...then holler at me and I will find it and categorize it.

So in 2007 I did a punch book class, this class was very popular, here is my original post, and what I did was put the class pages on my blog so everyone could see them and get ideas, and well copy them, I mean if we didn't want to be copied we wouldn't post right?  What I usually think is blogger etiquette, is if you post something on your blog you really need to give credit, and I do that, and if I ever miss anyone, I want to be told so I can fix it.  I did that recently when I had no idea what the technique was called that Patty Bennett had a tutorial on her blog for, later I found out the proper name and I fixed it, heck we are all human.

So I took this punch book with me on cruise to share and everyone enjoyed seeing it.  So to make a long story short, I have added a Photo Album on the right where you can see the pages a lot easier.  It is labeled of course Punch Book.  A few of you have asked why I don't do more punch critters etc., well I just might have to and add them to my book as I go. There are some talented girls out there thinking outside of the box punch.

So a couple weeks ago I got my hand stamped card inviting me to the Artisan Award dinner while we are in Salt Lake City during Convention. It does not say who stamped it so I am gonna pretend Shelli made it.

Stamp Set: Razzle Dazzle

Paper: Old Olive, Pale Plum, Whisper White, Razzleberry Lemondade DSP

Ink: Perfect Plum

Misc: Scallop punch, clip assortment, satin ribbon

Pretty eh?

Oh and look what came today. My boxes of new catalogs...or should I say, YOUR boxes of new catalogs. 

Aren't they beautiful?  Well I can't show you the actual catalog...but the boxes sure are pretty!

Have a great Friday, and thanks for stopping in!