Another Valentiney!

Usually I dont make this many Valentines, but this year I am having SOOO much fun with them! Especially with this fantastic paper that my dear friend Janet gave me. I picked up these heart shaped buttons the other day while at Hobby Lobby. I think the paper threaded through them gives em a little bit of a different look. TOO FUN!!!

New Poll

Hey guys, I made a poll over there. Check it out on the sidebar!

Its Friday, Its Friday, Im so glad its Friday!

ITS FRIDAY! Isnt everyone else as excited as I am?? My inlaws are coming to visit this weekend, so I am excited for that too. I miss having them close by.


No real spectacular news to share with you today. I am sitting here real close to my little space heater. As our gas is out for the day. We ran out of fuel yesterday *gasp*--I didnt know this til it was late in the day. Since our fuel comes from Crossville, which is like an hour away--they couldnt get to us til today. They came, but now I have another guy coming to clean the units and get them running properly as they have had a slight propane smell....sooooo---but by tonight we will be all cozy again! And yes, I could take my lazy self in there and build a fire in the fireplace but well...now why would I want to do something logical like that??

I hope you have big plans for the weekend! ((HUGS))

Boy! Do I have a lot of catching up to do!

Well how is everyone? Have you missed me? I have missed me too. I have been suffering from a sinus issue, so its left me a little less than amiable. BUT--I am starting to feel pretty good again and I am getting a LOT of those mundane things that one HATES doing crossed off of my TO-DO list! THIS is always a good feeling isn't it?

Anyways...so now onto the things Ive gotta post. First, of course I like to participate in the challenge over at

This week's challenge is for paper piercing. I looove this technique, its not hard, but so often I forget to use it. This is a new mouse I got this past week. SOOOO CUTE!

Hard to tell it but theres three layers of flowers here. 2 plastic ones and then a pretties one. FUN!

Another thing I am trying to do more is finish the INSIDE of my cards. Most everyone knows that I am a LETTER writer and that has always been my excuse for not puting anything INSIDE, but as of lately I have been sending out more and more quick notes, it sure would be nice to have a little extra somethin somethin in there.

So, this one I printed the saying I HOPE EVERYTHING IS COOL WITH YOU on the inside. And pierced the corners again.

The next one is just a fun card I did with a happy hopper. I wanted to make a LONG card. Another thing that I dont do often.

I hand wrote on the outside of this one and then again on the inside.

I also particpated in the MOJO Monday Sketch. I LOVED this sketch today! SOOO FUN!


I had to switch up the ribbon a little bit, cause of the background paper. The coloring on it just didnt look right with the bow right over the top of it. This is another digital image from CC Designs. I sooooo love these images!!! (I think I have said that before havent I?)



Look at those little Twinkles! They are soooo cute! I got em in Taylored Expressions sale last week. LOVE THEM!

Theres an icecream cone in this set, but I was too lazy to print it off so I just hand drew one real fast on the inside.

These are ALSO my submissions for a recent Design Team call for:

I soooooo want to be invited to be a designer for this team because 1)My love for the mouses & bunnies is huge! 2) I looooove this site and the challenge it puts on me to sometimes break out of my box and 3) Cause I kinda think my work is GOOD ENOUGH to inspire others, tho no other design team has ever thought so before. *sniff *sniff* ROFLOL, no, seriously...I strongly believe that my work is pleasureable to look at!

So what are YOU doing with yourself? Are YOU challenging YOURSELF to try something new? How bout cross off some of YOUR to-do things??

Have a great afternoon!

TGIF!! (wasnt it just Monday tho??)

I participated in another challenge this week too.

Want this badge?

So heres the sketch.




And here is my submission!!! I sooooo love this new stamp I got from Bellas. SOOO much fun!!!

Its Friday! I hope you have big plans for the weekend. Enjoy yourselves!

SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

Punkin has enlightened me with how to fight my SAD issues.

1). Climb upon your desk.
2) Put your entire body underneath the daylight lamp
3) Sit here for hours, paying no attention to whom else MIGHT need the light coming from said lamp.
4) Repeat steps 1-3 several times per day!

The Holiday is over! (FINALLY!)

The kids have sure enjoyed their time off from school. Monday was a holiday and then we got a freak storm that brought in snow and ice. Everyone is back to school today and all is well. Its a beautiful 47° degrees out and the sky is bright blue! I loooove Tennessee! The snow leaves almost as fast as it came AND its back up to normal temperatures!! Tho I think the kids might argue that this is NOT a good thing.






And once again, this week I have participated in the

Dont forget to click on the logo and go check out the other submissions and stuff for the design team. THEY ARE SOOO COOL!

So what are YOU doing today? Its been so long since I have actually TALKED to you. I am doing well, just trying to get back into my groove. Funny how easily I seem to be able to fall out of it.

I hope you are blessing someone today!

CONGRATULATIONS AMY!!

We have a WINNER!!!!! → AMY WILSON ← is our grand BINGO winner! She is the proud new ownder of a $25 gift certificate to SimonSaysStamp.com courtesy of Heidi over there! I KNOW that you all will love that store as much as me, so go check it out!!! CONGRATS again AMY!

Tuesday! IT IS!

Sorry gang, about yesterday...by the time I got to post last night, my husband had put a whammie on our internet. Its still not 100% but at least I can get on to post this for you all.


Today's technique is Stamp Coloring. I love this, as it gives you the freedom to stamp without everything. Like this stamp says VIOLETS at the bottom, but I chose not to add it to my image. And then I could also add just a single flower on the inside. I think I am just too lazy. Maybe THATS why I dont do it more? *shrug*

I also used, string, hole punch, colored pencils, decorative metal & glitter.

Hope that you are doing well. We got hit with some freak snow and ice yesterday and today its not doing too well at going away either. But we are all warm and inside!

Smore for YOU!

So heres some more BINGO words for you!! I gotta admit its getting tricky to USE these things!!!

A darling friend of mine sent me this old calendar because she knows how much I loves me some mice, so today I FINALLY cut it into envelopes!!

Cute huh? So its happy mail before you even get to the MAIL part!!

Then the next one. I was trying to get away from my cutesy style a little bit. It was a humongous stretch for me. Some people can make elegant cards left and right. For me...it takes every ounce of mojo I can muster and then some.

OK...so I used my sewing machine, prima flowers, silk flowers, pearls, long push pin, beads, lace, ribbon....

AND, I added a little charm with two little heart jump rings (thru a hole punched with a hole punch). Arent they sweet!

OK...so its the weekend. Sunday is my day off as you know! See you all on Monday!

OK, so if you are a polarbear...

If you are a polarbear, today's temperatures do not effect you. But if you are a weenie like me you are freezing yer tail off!! GEESH! Is it cold out there or what? We woke up to a balmy 1 degree temperature this morning. Since I am such a nice mom I went ahead and drove the kids to school today. Yeah yeah I know...I will accept my award later.

So are you ready to cross off some BINGO words today? Thanks sooo much for playing along with me. Though, I have to admit this has been the LONGEST darn bingo game I have ever played!!

I promise, I WILL get over these digi images soon. But they are just sooooo cute and soooo perfect for Valentines Day! I used this cool paper that I got at the Dollar Spot at Target...its all sparkly and everything. SOOO COOL! Lets see...so anyways. He is colored with Copics, his wings and halo have glitter pens and he is mounted on metalic paper (of course both cut out with Nestabilities). Then I used tags, tied up with string to the safety pin and did a little inking around the edges. I then used my Sizzix letters to cut out the X & O.

I looooove these two colors together. Nothing screams happy like these colors!! Here, I have a large button that I hand stitched on top of the felt flower. I colored him with Copics, and glitter pens, I used rickrack and photo corners all up on 3-D tape.

And mouses!!! I am not doing the Monday challenge of House Mouse this week cause it is ATC's and I am just not a big fan of those. So heres my card for my makebelieve challenge. *SMILE* The only thing spectacular on here is that I used Stickles as added dimensional dots and to the frosting.

So anyways. I havent heard too much bingo chatter out there. Is anyone getting CLOSE? Please tell me how far along you are!!!!

I hope that SOMEday I will be back to creating again

For now, I am so hit or miss, that I have to force myself to sit down and create stuff for you all. No, its not cause I am bored with you or dont care. Its just that I am so wrapped up in this organization gig that I hardly come up for air.


So anyways. Here is this weeks Mojo Sketch. Its a fun one!!

And here is my submission! But dont forget to go http://www.mojomonday.blogspot.com/ and check out everyone elses submissions too!




I once again, used a digi image. Nothing really special about this card, yet anyways. If I can ever find my dang Magic Scraps Confetti I will be puting it on the snow. So I am gonna go ahead and give you credit for this cause as soon as I FIND it I am going to add it. The image is colored with copics, I used the snowflake shaped punch and adhered them with brads and also put some ribbon in there. Oh yeah...used my CM cutting system to cut the circles too.

Heres Hannah's Valentine card.



Hard to tell but I used diamond glaze on the letters of the kitties shirt. The pink terrycloth paper is punched out with the large scalloped punch. I used decorative scissors for the white strip and hand drew the hearts and swags on it and I guess the decorative lettering would count for when I finished her name in my own handwriting. The H is a glittered chipboard letter. The little flower is a rhinestone and of course I added some ribbon.

Here I was stretching for something. Then honestly just wanted to get it DONE so I could post it.






You can mark off colored embossing powders, ribbon, felt flowers, decorative brads & colored glitter.

Hope your day is blessed. ((HUGS))

Stamp Storage

So, many of you are wondering where the sam elliott I have been right?? Well, HELP! I have fallen into a basket of stamps and cant get out. I have been working dillegently on this dang project! But I am happy to report, that my basket is MORE THAN halfway done!!! So, many of you have asked TONS of questions about how to go from THIS:








To THIS:








So I thought I would walk ya through it. OK, maybe I will skip the first step of getting a huge mess of neglected stamps and pile them into a LARGE laundry basket and go on to the next steps.








First of all, I HIGHLY recommend investing in EZ Mount. It usually comes in 8x10 sheets. This is what I mount my rubber to after I have peeled it off of the blocks. SOOOOO awesome stuff. Its not messy, its easy to handle and it works like magic! Just trim down your rubber, trace around it on the paper of the EZ Mount, then cut the shape from the EZ Mount and peel the papers off of your cut shape. One side of the foam is going to be super sticky. This is the side that you will STICK to your rubber. The other side will be smooth but not sticky. And like magic your stamp will now have a good foam backing AND will stick to your acrylic blocks.








Once my foams are mounted, I then stamp them onto an A2 (invitation size) envelope. I also lable where the envelope goes up in the corner. This is also to let me know that everything in that envelope has been cataloged.




After stamping it on the envelope I also stamp it into my book.







I am in the process of making a catalog of all of my stamps. But heres the catch. If, for instance I have a Teddybear holding a heart that says I love you. I stamp the bear in the animals section, but also in the hearts/love and in the words. Making a notation underneath them of where the stamp is filed. This stamp would probably be filed in Hearts/Love. I only file a couple of stamps by their makers....like for instance, House Mouse, Bellas and recently I have done Stamping Up. If I have a stamp set from Stamping Up, it might contain things that can fit into 12 different categories, so yes, I DO stamp the image in all of the categories. Again, making a notation of where the stamp is actually filed. I do it this way, because if I am shopping for a Love stamp, I will of course turn to LOVE, not to animals or to Flowers...but yet, I might have a gorgeous flower stamp that says I LOVE YOU that would work perfectly for what I am using. You can make the files however works for you. You might prefer to stamp them into Brands all the way around. Or maybe you dont give a flying flip WHAT order they are in....its whatever works.



Then after stamping them in my book, I clean the stamps and place them on a piece of acetate that I have cut to 4x5 size. This fits perfectly into the envelope even with the bulk of the stamps and it keeps the envelopes from losing their shapes. The stamps magnetically stick to the acetate so pulling them out is a breeze. And all of those Clear ones work with this too!

Once they are in the envelope I file them in boxes behind tabs the corrdinate with my book tabs. These are ornament boxes that I got a couple of years back. Tho I think only 3 come to a package, you can add more. I just simply took out the cardboard dividers inside and it fits 2 rows of A2 envelopes PERFECTLY. When I want to travel, I simply snap them all together and snap the lid on and I am off!!

Many people asked me lots of questions about unmounted stamps. So I thought Id share a few of those questions and answers with you as a whole.

WHY did you unmount all of them? How could you ruin all of your stamps like that?

The WHY is very simple. STORAGE! I litterally have thousands of stamps and I found that I wasnt using more than half of them because I couldnt GET to them. Also we were moving a lot and I know that my husband said hed rather burn all those __________ boxes of blocks as to move them ONE more time. I personally dont think I have ruined anything. In fact if anything I have made them better, because now I use them!

Do you recommend unmounting to everyone?

I would love to say yes, but I cant. Unmounting is a beast. I had very sore fingers after making my decision to switch. Its a LOT of work. Also, you do lose a few advantages (besides fingertips)....like having a GO BY picture on the block to help with coloring. And I know far too many people that LOOOOVE their blocks. So when I say NO, I cant recommend it, I only mean, that it is a PERSONAL decision that YOU have to make. I know that it works for me.

Would you have done it any differently? Do you have any tips?

The major thing that I would have done differently would be to make note of the makers of the stamps. I love ALL stamp companies and buy what I like. When I first started stamping nobody gave a rats hiney who made what. Now, everyone is so wrapped up in who designs which stamp that I am often at a loss for answers. Make a book of your images from the beginning. I am just now starting mine and its a PAIN to go back over them all again. When I first did this, I stored my stamps in binders. I stuck them down in baseball card holders. DONT DO THIS unless you have a very small amount of stamps. They are extremely bulky and heavy---too heavy for the binder rings, and if you are ANYTHING like me, they will NEVER get put back into the book. AND, they will fall out all over the place.

Invest in EZ Mount. Yes, its expensive, but its not messy and can be used over and over and over again. No more sticky tape stuck all over your blocks. And you get perfect images each and every time. ( TAC sells it and I also got a bulk order from ebay)

Do you seriously unmount ALL of your stamps?

Yes and no. Tho I do have SOME that are unmounted, I do leave my House Mouse stamps mounted, only because I collect these, I have them displayed on a glass shelf and their pictures really DO help with coloring. But all others, yes.

How do you do it? Especially with SU! stamps that are now diecut?

Peel the rubber off of the foam just as you would from a block with the su! images. Get your fingernail in between the rubber and the sticky on the foam. Should just peel right off, though for more stubborn ones, a short zap into the microwave helps to soften the glue.

What do you do with the blocks?

For a long while a friend of mine ran a daycare and I donated all of the unused and nonmarked up blocks to her for play stuff for the kids. If they were damaged -- I have to admit, I just threw them away.

So anyways. For me: Its cheaper cause now I can opt for unmounted stamps from companies...saving money on shipping. Its now confined into a small space, and VERY portable...even if I wanted to take them ALL to a play date its VERY simple to tote along. And cleaning the stamps is simple!! If I get ink way down into the crevices just simply run it under warm water and brush with a toothbrush. I wouldnt go back for ANYTHING!

I hope you will forgive me for missing a post. I promise to have a card up later this afternoon. I know your BINGO cards are burning with anticipation! I hope that I have given some good advice to those of you who are considering this or have been t-totally against it. Again, it works for me. But I understand if it doesnt for you.

AND THANK YOU JESUS---my angel Jeanine is coming to help me on Friday! HAHAHAH! *sucker* Might I add, she is one of those peoples that likes her blocks. *ROFLOL*

Love to all!