Shabby Falloween

Hello to my friends in blog land! 

Join me Saturday afternoon, Oct.22, at 1:00 for another Falloween class at China Phoenix 2.  These cards will have a bit of a shabby chic twist to them. This class will feature one Halloween card and two more fall cards that can easily be kicked up a notch to make them Halloween cards instead of autumn cards.  You get to decide! 

We will make these flowers you see using a brand new Spellbinders die. I can't get enough of these and want to pop them onto whatever is on my desk right now.  Watch out.....they may end up in my hair...or hanging from my ears.... What about on the temples of reading glasses??....hmmmmmm. That would be a great way to scare my kids this month, don't you think?

Yes, we'll make another TH tattered flower using sewing tissue and instruction paper with a spritzing of color.  We will do all sorts of things to the card stock to get just the right look for that web.  You decide when it is enough for your card!  See you Saturday at CP2!

Vintage Halloween

Do you like vintage?  I have a passions for all things vintage, and love to scout thrift stores and garage sales for little bits of unexpected treasures from the past.  So when I came upon a stamp set by Artistic Outpost called Vintage Halloween I began to swoon.  The images are sweet and soft and remind me of old storybooks from my childhood. 

Artistic Outpost's Ephemeral Backgrounds was the perfect set to use as a backdrop for this set of cards.

My dad has called me "pumpkin" as long as I can remember making this sentiment extra special to me.

Join me this Friday afternoon, October 21, at 2:00 pm at  The Hen House Paperie for a fun afternoon when I will be repeating this popular class. We will make these three cards using Distress Inks, foam applicators, finger daubers, Stickles, and other fun touches for that vintage look. 

I hope to see you there!!

Falloween is Coming!

 Fall is in the air here in Albuquerque, and we're so thankful for the break in the heat!  This week has been a delight with crisp mornings air and breezes the just feel like autumn is here. 

Friday afternoon I will be teaching my Falloween class at China Phoenix 2 at 1:00 p.m.  We will make a couple of fall cards and one Halloween card to get put in your autumn stash of cards. I hope you are better than me and actually get yours sent out!!  

We will use some Tim Holtz stamps and distressing goodness along with some great Hero Arts stamps!  Bring your vintage photo and walnut distress pads and foam applicators if you have them.  We will color the images with Copic markers.

Hoping it is cooling down wherever you are too!  See you Friday afternoon.

Cards for the Hen House Paperie Class

What a month it has been for us!!

Maggie turned 21 on the 16th!!  Tonight she is having some of her nursing student friends over for fun here at the house.  She is such a blessing and a lovely woman!!!  And in a year?......she will be one of Albuquerque's newest R.N.s.  I can promise you she will be a great one!!

John has begun grad school and work at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and David has made his move to Dallas, Texas to begin school at the University of Texas in Dallas.  He is studying International Business there.

How about some cards.............!

This Saturday afternoon I will be teaching a class where we will use one Unity stamp set to make three fun cards.  Each card will use a different technique on it.

Class will be from 3-5pm this Saturday at the Hen House Paperie.  I hope to see you there!!

Sewing Card Class

There is just something about sewing and everything sewing related that gets me excited.  So I've decided to teach a class using sewing icons as our theme next Friday afternoon at China Phoenix 2. 

Besides making beautiful cards, I will teach you how to take an old pattern and turn it into a fabulous flower using a Tim Holtz die!  I have so many old patterns that I keep hanging onto.  How can you through them away?  I made clothes for my children out of them!!  Then there are the patterns that were purchased for .99 each but never used. Well, these patterns are out of hiding and getting a new life that I can feel great about! Feel free to bring your old patterns and die cut away at class.

I wish they really did make dress forms with hips like this Tim Holtz image.  Maybe I would have bought one......

 
This sentiment is FAB!!

Here is our third and final card that we will make.

I just finished making this card.  It took forever for it to come together, but now I love it!  This pad of Cosmo Cricket's Material Girl paper has been calling to me to get pulled out and used.  We will make a pleated, paper ruffle as we construct this card!.  Something about folding and messing around with beautiful paper......felt really good.  Look out!!  I may be obsessing with this technique in days to come.

Class will be next Friday afternoon from 1-4p.m. Hope to see you there!!

What a Week!

What a week it has been at our house.  We've had siblings do a kidney transplant which went very well!

Maggie helped Olivia get her hair back in shape after a few days of bed!!  That's what sisters do!

Olivia and Ben are both out of the hospital and recovering well!!

My 7th child, Sam, turned 18 Tuesday!

Seemed like the perfect age to try blowing out his candles with his nose.......it worked.....

This morning, my 5th child, John, left for grad school in Illinois.  His brother Sam is helping him drive out.  It was bitter sweet watching them drive off this morning. 

How do you spend your last night at home??

By playing hockey together!!  Sam is taking over John's position as goalie on an adult league team.  Good thing he turned 18 and is eligible to do that! For the transition, the team let Sammy "skate out" last night while his brother goal tended for the last time here.  The best part??  Sam scored a goal!!

Sammy is on the left and John is on the right.

If you've never been around hockey much, you need to know that their gear reeks!!  no matter how much you wash it, it has a horrific smell all of its own.  Even worse??  They are proud of that smell and eager to rub it off on you if they can!  I can laugh though because John's hockey bag is making the trip to Southern Illinois University with them......in his 4Runner!!  Yes, even though I washed it all last night, they get to smell it all the way there!

Enjoy boys!!!



  

Transplant

Yesterday was a huge day for our family.  Our 29 yr. old son was diagnosed with a kidney disease right after being wounded in Iraq December 2004. It became clear within a couple of days that he would eventually need a kidney transplant and yesterday was that day.  Our oldest, Olivia insisted on donating one of her kidneys to him yesterday.  Their surgeries were long and hard.  Hers took over four hours and his almost six hours.  The good news?  Her kidney was super healthy and so far is working great for him!!  Her body is also rapidly adapting to having just one very healthy kidney. In fact, she is recovering better than the team's wildest hopes!!  Oh you go girl!!

These are photos of Ben and Olivia that I took this evening.  They are recovering just a few doors from each other at University of New Mexico Hospital. Don't they look great???  This is just a little over 24 hrs after their transplant!!

Being just a few rooms apart means the "Older Sister" can go check on her brother and make sure he is obeying orders. .....Isn't that what older sisters do...regardless of where you are at...??

We are thanking Go for watching over them and giving them successful surgeries!  Thank you for praying for them.

Hen House Class

Next Saturday afternoon I will be teaching my first card making class at the hen House Paperie!

This is the first of four cards we will be making that afternoon.  All of them will use Unity Stamps and a variety of techniques. 

More photos coming in the next few days.  You can sign up for class through the Hen House! Hope to see you there.

The Hen House is full of Chicks!!

Hello!
Did you get out and brave the crowd and heat Friday night?  It was the grand opening for Albuquerque's newest scrapbook and stamping store!!  It's amazing what we will endure just to get our hands on new goodies! 

Thank you for helping make the opening an overwhelming success. It was so much fun seeing your happy faces and getting to meet so many of you. Hopefully I'll see you in my upcoming classes at the Hen House Paperie......where chicks of a feather craft together!!  (Posts and pics coming this week.)

Yard Sale Goodies

Do you like yard sales and great finds as much as I do?  I stumbled upon a wonderful yard sale this weekend after dropping a kid off at work.  They had been selling for two and a half hours when I arrived and claimed that their good stuff was gone.  With a quick glance, I knew that wasn't entirely true as this quilt caught my eye from across the yard.

Then these hydrangeas called to me, reminding me of my favorite Hero Arts Hydrangea stamp.

Its too bad I dropped it on my kitchen floor, breaking the front plastic shortly after bringing it home.  I gathered the pieces back together, a little clear tape on the side and it works!!

As I went to pay, this sole old book, a 1917 textbook, caught my eye amongst all sorts of magazines. I felt obligated to pick it up and place it with my quilt and hydrangeas.

My vintage haul cost me less than $5!  Oh yeah, baby!!

Summer Ride

This is a card I made with scraps from my table.  The tag stamped with the Hero Arts Ledger stamp was meant for another card, but the next layer of stamping was a disaster!!  Eventually the tag got pulled from the trash and got this fun scrap of Cosmo Cricket patterned paper stiched to it.  It was the perfect scrap to cover my mistake and give new life to this tag. Stitching it down ensured that it can't be taken apart showing the mess hidden underneath ;D.  A few more scraps were stitched together and tada ...a usable

card to send a friend! 

Stamping with Mom

This afternoon, Abbie who is my youngest at 15 yrs, asked me to help her make a card. She knew what she wanted to make so we went to work. 

She did the CB embossing, stamping and clear embossing, then picked out her purple PP and button accents. 








Watch those black dots come to life with the magic of Glossy Accents!! 

And what is a teenage girl without hair to battle?! 

Thanks for the fun afternoon, Abbie!  I love you......XOXO

Thank You

Thank you to the wonderful ladies who took my class Saturday afternoon at China Phoenix2!  We managed to stay cool and had fun creating two cards inspired by the Florida Gulf Coast and all of its beauty.  These are the two cards  we made. 





Can you tell I'm still trying to figure this all out??!!  So sorry for all of the white spaces!!  Putting together a post is a love/hate task right now. It's a slippery, steeeeeep learning curve while I get it all figured out.  Thank you for your patience.  ;D