Sunday, August 31, 2008
New...
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Step on a Crack...
Believe me, I'm much better today than yesterday. Yesterday I couldn't even wear the boot. Today, my loving and sweet Mom came over and took care of me. She made me lunch, got Caleb off the bus, watered my plants, even got me iced coffee from DD. Thanks, MOM! I appreciate all your help! The doc told me to stay off it for a day and take my 800 milligrams of Motrin 3 times a day and that I would be fine. And no more flip flops for me this season. I'm gonna need the arch support. And this right after I painted my toe nails. Oh, well. It could've been worse.
Being off my feet gave me a chance to
- get some much needed rest
- Get some computer work done, check out the newest Scrapbook Cupboard Newsletter. Let me know if you are liking the Riddles. I wanna know if you gals are reading them!
- Visit with my Mom
- Do no housework
- Have a yummy fresh-from-the-garden eggplant parm cooked for me by my Hubby!
I'll be back up on my feet in no time. Until then, here's an inspirational quote for everyone...
You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. ~Jim Rohn
Stay positive and positive ideas will come to you. No sprain is gonna keep me down!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Having good times....
I need to take a few pointers from my friend, Bernadette about photography. None of these pictures would be up to par. But I believe they fall under the 'emotion' post she wrote about. And I'm happy with that.
Tomorrow, look for an early post. I need to send pictures of him going off to school for the grandparents. They love that stuff! And I love that they look here for it!!
I hope your day is a great one!!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Fleur de Lis
A while back I promised that I would post Bryce and his Fleur de Lis. Ten Seconds Studio makes these Small Convertibles. A Convertible is made from masonite and they make 4 different small convertibles which are sold in sets and 4 different large convertibles that they sell seperately.
Check out what Bryce did. All on his own. He's super smart and extremely artistic. I hope he holds onto this talent and it continues to grow. Keep your eye on him now, you never know where he'll be 20 years from now!!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Come and get 'em! It's a Freebie!!
But worse. It was really shabby. If you look close you can see a vine running through the phlox. Well I was convinced it was poison ivy but so far, either I was real careful or it wasn't as I'm having no ill effects.
I replanted all of the irises that I need and I still have this many left...
It doesn't even look like I dented it, does it! But I did, I made them slightly further apart than necessary so I wouldn't have to divide again for another 5 years. And I'd like to put some daffodils and tulips in between in a month. See...
OK, so. Here's the freebie! I have a bunch that I'm looking to give away. You must be able to come pick them up. I won't ship and I won't deliver (well, maybe I will but only if you live real close!) So, if you want some bearded irises, post a comment, give me a call, or send me an email. I'll be happy to share! I don't have any idea what colors they are, I have all kinds. Maroon, purple, yellow, red, black and more. So, it's a grab bag! There's also a few siberian irises and verigated irises as well!! Please contact me by Wednesday AM. I don't want them to die so if I have no takers I'll find some place else to plant them.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Saturday and it's a party alright!
After waking and enjoying some coffee, making a deposit at the bank, cleaning the kitchen I was off to my friend Bernadette's house for a Tastefully Simple party. Man, that stuff is good! I ALWAYS buy more food from them, yet I have unopened packages right here in my house. As a matter of fact when I came home I was looking for something easy to bring tonight to work when I realized that I had already bought the Farmers Market Veggie Dip. Oops. It's unopened too! I guess we'll be eating lots of veggie dip here in the Parkinson household soon! So that was party number one.
Then I was off to work and party number two ensued! We had a great time. There was only a few of us there, Summer has always been a tough time for the CJ girls to get together and today, while only 5 of us, we had a blast! While I tried and tried to upload a little webcam video we did, again I'm having trouble uploading webcam videos. Hmmm... Something I will HAVE to look at now. Instead, I'll just tell you that we had a great time and missed all the other gals!
Oh, and since there were 5 of us... I thought it was funny that when I opened my home page tonight, I was greeted with this quote...
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." - Jim Rohn
Girls???? What do you think???
Fun in the Sun!
He sure looks like he's having fun, huh! I'm not a fan of the beach but this is a great photo and I'm glad my Mom shared it. I can't wait to talk to the kids tomorrow.
Patrick has to work tomorrow but the kids and I have a play date at 2 and then I'm back the the Cupboard for the Circle Journal crop. I'm looking forward to Monday, it should be a slow day!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Working, working, working...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
My Nutcracker is starving!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Busy Week Ahead...
There's still a few techniques I've read about since creating this class. There just might have to be a third installment.
And while Patrick might be back late Friday night, he has to go into work on Saturday. It's his Saturday to work. So the Cherubs and I will be heading to this gals house for a Tastefully Simple Party. Good thing her kids are about the same ages as mine, hopefully my boys will play nice. And Saturday night, I get to pass the cherubs off to Patrick while I host the Circle Journal Crop at the Scrapbook Cupboard. I LOVE this class. It's hands down my favorite. The girls that attend are so creative and inspiring. We all have a blast cropping and filling each others journals with entries. Almost all of them will be done soon. How exciting!On Sunday, I'll be traveling to The Stamp Act to teach my beautiful Metal Fairy. I just love her. She's been at the store since July and I can't wait to be reunited. The class is sure to be fun. If you haven't signed up yet, why not? You better hurry! Here's a peek of her again...
I hope to see you sometime this week!
Oh, and be on the look out. The My Creative Classroom class will be posted this week too!
Monday, August 18, 2008
She's up to something...
They are having this BIG Kickoff event starting on September 8th. I'll be sure to tell you more information as it's posted but why not sign up for the newsletter HERE. If you visit My Creative Classroom site, check out my name on the lower left corner. There I am, ready to rock and roll this Fall! As soon as I have my class posted there, I'll update this blog and let you all know! It'll probably be another day.
And do you know what today is? Today I've been blogging for 1 month. Yup and I only missed two days. Yah, I know but two's better than twenty-two, right?
I hope to see you online!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Look for something special...
Also, I told you I tell you when we were going to be having a Silhouette class. Here's the details:
Thursday, September 18th from 7-9PM at the Scrapbook Cupboard. Price is $20 but class is limited to only 6 people. This is to ensure everyone gets on hands time with the Silhouette and PC. If you own a laptop where the Silhouette resides, feel free to bring it so that you can work on your own more. It's a lecture based class with hand outs but we will be using the stores computer to get some hands on learning in. You can call the store anytime to sign up. 508-378-0008.
I've got a busy day tomorrow. I'll be rearranging my studio so I can work again. I haven't been getting much done since we moved everything around last week. It's crazy in there.!
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Fett Legacy has arrived...
On Tuesday, Caleb was asking... when is my Fett Legacy coming? And me, next week.
On Wednesday, Caleb was asking... when is my Fett Legacy coming? And me, I'll look it up and see. Amazon's good at posting that information as soon as it's available. Well, when I looked it wasn't even due to ship until next Monday and then arrive somewhere between August 26 -29. WHAT! He wasn't happy. He was miserable. So, I offered to pony up the shipping to get it sooner. So $12.46 worth of shipping was spent so my son could have his Fett Legacy within the week.
On Friday, Caleb was asking... do you think my Fett Legacy is here yet? And me, No Honey, it's only 6:45 AM, the UPS guy doesn't leave the lot that early. And so the day began. Caleb waited by the window, by the door, in the driveway...
And some more...
And some more. Even when it started to get dark and rainy...But around 4:30 he started to become frustrated. He was definitely upset that the UPS guy had not been here yet. We had seen the truck while out on errands so he knew he was around, he just hadn't made it to our house. And he was afraid he wasn't going to.
At 5PM, Patrick called to say he was almost home and Caleb was beyond speaking to, nearly in tears. He had waited all day and now, this thing he wanted, that he paid for by himself wasn't coming. It was hard to see Caleb this upset; although I still held out hope that the UPS guy would pull through. Patrick tried talking to him but Caleb didn't want to listen. He finally gave up and went in to watch TV. A few minutes after, I saw the truck go around the corner. I now knew he was still in the area and we would be next. Well... as it ended up not next but about 20 minutes later. Caleb finally got it!
Look at that smiling face!
He tore into that package...
Only to find...
WHAT!!!
A mini donut maker??? Mom! It didn't come, he cried. Nearly in tears!! I told him to dig deeper.
And he found what he was looking for...
Now that's one happy boy!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
My Brother Reads My Blog!!!!
So, she tells me about a conversation she had with him. It went a little like this...
Mom says... Did you know your sister got new carpets?
Mike says... Yup, I knew that.
Mom says... Did you talk to her?
and Mike said... No, Ma! I read her blog!!!
I love it!! Hehehe! You know you've made it in the world when your Brother takes time out of his busy day to read your blog! Thanks, Mike. I Love you!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Oops... I missed it and a tutorial!
To make it up to you, I've decided to give you a tutorial. I have a class next Friday night at the Scrapbook Cupboard. It's 8 new and exciting techniques using metal. Here's a sneak of one of the techniques. If you are interested in some more, give the store a call to sign up!
What do you need for this technique?
- An Acrylic Mat Set
- Paper Stump
- Small Round Eraser
- Large Mold
- Art Metal Copper
- Sanding Block
- Quickutz Die
- Revolution Tool (although I used the Cuttlebug)
For the first step, put down the acrylic mat, then the thin mat, put down the large mold and then the art metal on top of that. Use the paper stump to rub the metal until you've come out with the design. Really get in there with the paper stump. If you need to, go back over it with the small round eraser...
Remove the mold and then take the sanding block to the metal. Make sure you hold the sanding block horizontally to the metal so you just sand off the top color of the metal. The copper remains in the 'cracks' but the aluminum shows through on the top. Pretty cool, huh?
Once you've completed the basic steps, put your piece of metal on your die and run through your die cut machine. I used a Quickutz border die but I used my Cuttlebug. I did have to run it through the machine twice but then I realized I didn't have a shim on the die and think that might be why I had to. Try it out. Test your dies. You may have to run it through twice or you may just need a shim. Either way, this will work with anything that will cut through paper. The metal is actually easier to cut through sometimes, it's pretty thin.
When you're done, you'll have beautiful metal die cuts perfect for cards, scrapbook pages, alterable items or anything else you'd like. I hope you enjoy!
And again, if you're interested in learning more. Call the store to sign up. Here's a look at the others...
Monday, August 11, 2008
Nothing like that NEW carpet smell...
I have no crafting news to share again today. I spent all day in my kitchen. I couldn't move beyond about 3 feet in one direction and 4 feet in another. It was kinda a stressful day, but a great day! We contacted Empire Today to get new carpets last week and scheduled an install for TODAY! I'm so happy. Our old carpet was well lived in. It was a Plush tan carpet that had seen a lot of stuff. The kids both were infants and toddlers on that old carpet, a sick dog layed on the carpet, the cats had hairballs on that carpet, kids spilled juice, adults spilled food, juice, beer, soda and ... well, the cats peed on it while we were in Maine. YUCK! GROSS! I know. I've had to live with it for over a week! And it's been humid and rainy. Enough said.
So the Empire guy came last Thursday, I picked out a new carpet, a frieze this time. It's kinda scratchy and tickly on your feet all at the same time. Much different than the plush. It's a color called Ashwood so it's still a tan but a little lighter. Which really is fine since our dog is a blue merle and it just seems that most of her white hair falls out rather than the gray and black. The carpet has some flex of green and brown in it, so if spills happen - ok, scratch that, when spills happen it'll be more forgiving. Anyhow, I picked out the carpet, he gave me a price, I gave him some money and he went home.
Yesterday Patrick and I started the daunting task of emptying the room of everything. We did pay for them to remove the old carpet but didn't pay for furniture removal. Since Patrick's got a bad back, I did most of the grunt work. Boy, oh boy, I was tired. The TV weighs about 1000 pounds and the entertainment center weighs about 5000! My scrapbook cupboard (yes, I actually own a scrapbook cupboard) weighed about 25000 pounds and has yet to find a new home, since I'm not putting it back into the living room. It really belongs in my studio, I just need to find a spot for it now. But you know what I thought was the killer... the fish tank. Who knew fish weighed that much!!! By golly, miss molly! I think it's the thought that you have to carry it, you can't spill it and if you drop it, two little boys will cry because you killed their fish!!! That thing was the worst.
Back to Empire... they told me that the guys would call on Monday AM with a time frame they'd be here. They did. They called at 7:45 AM and said they'd be there between 9-10. They were at my door at 9:05AM and they were gone by 12:15PM!! They were fast, efficient and personable too! One of the guys made little hearts for me out of the left over carpet...
OK, Ok, not very practical, but really where am I going to put the left over pieces of carpeting anyhow. I've got a ton of it! They did my entire living room and the stairs. The stairs carpet was old, worn out maroon carpet that showed every ounce of cat hair, dog hair and dirt there was to be had. Now the stairs are not only bright and cheerful but inviting and nice to look at...
Ignore the whole in the wall. We assume it used to be the fireplace in the house but has been long ago dismantled. We now put the 5000 pound entertainment center over it. It works out nicely because you have a large space to fuss with the cables and wires that come with an entertainment center.
I keep getting off the subject here. Again, I'm happy with Empire Today. The carpet is beautiful, it was installed in a rain and thunderstorm and the guys never complained. They took off their shoes once in the house so they would get dirt on my new carpet, they swept, cleaned up after themselves and did the work in short order. I have no complaints. This is the 3rd time I've used Empire. They did the carpet in my studio, they did my bathrooms tub and tile and now this carpet. I'll use them again if I need to. ...Hmmmm... the kitchen floor could use....
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Living on the Edge...
Not much going on today. We cleared on the living room completely. Our new carpet will be here tomorrow. No crafting today, no room. It's always a sad day when you don't craft. I'll wallow in Ice Road Truckers and the Sherbert my husband just went to get me....
**Edited - I guess I'll have to continue to watch for the 'big break' through the ice. Nothing happened that was caught on the camera. Oh, well...
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Surprise Party ...and a Course Completed!
Mimi's daughter put together this fabulous celebration and some of her closest friends were invited to come and join in on the festivities. I was honored to be one of those people. A few of us that were invited got together and created an album for her. She loved it (or, I think she did. You decide...)
There was excellent food, drinks and cute little thank you gifts. Fran and Alex danced in their seats! Susan did what she does best... took fabulous photos! (Those you see here are the ones I took before my camera batteries went dead.) Kristin told funny stories, she's a barrel of laughs that girl! And we even met Heidi there too!
I had a wonderful time and was so happy that this event was put together for Mimi. She deserves it!
BUT... Mimi's birthday celebrations didn't end last night, we're off to Fran's house on Tuesday (Mimi's actual birthdate) to continue our celebration and then Mimi is traveling to LA to celebrate out there with other friends. What a great way to spend a 60th birthday! I hope I'm as lucky when I get there!!
__________________________________________________________________
And for more exciting news to share!! I am now officially a Certified Quickutz Silhouette teacher for the Scrapbook Cupboard!!
I'm happy to have completed this course and can boast to be the first certified teacher in Massachusetts! (according to the QK website)
Another great course completed. I learned a lot taking this class and I'm happy I did. I feel much more confident in my Silhouette and I really think that I can do so much more with it now.
I'll let you know if any Silhouette classes will be scheduled.
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