Purses, purses, purses everywhere

Hi all or at least Hi Chris - I know that you at least look at my blog, not sure if there are any others but such is life.

My kids are almost done with Spring Break, only the weekend left and then back to school and I guess I'll have to go back into the office to work instead of working from home. It was fun while it lasted.

I met a wonderful person today, her name is Robyn. She is a fellow SCS'er and stamper. I saw her post on the Stamp Mania thread on SCS, she had mentioned that she lived in my area so I contacted her. Well, one private message led to another and we hooked up at Starbucks today. We had such a blast getting to know each other. Neither of us could believe when we both got calls from my kids and her hubby that we had been there for over two hours and then continued chatting for another 30 minutes before leaving. She is going to take Christine's spot at the Stamp Mania since Chris can't go and we are going to carpool. I can't wait. I also hooked her up with the phone numbers for my Stampin Up Demo so she can get some supplies. What a small world it is, here we meet online and find out that we live less than 10 minutes apart. I can't wait to get to know her better. Oh yeah, we're both bookkeepers too!

I ran across this great card on SCS which used punches to make a purse, very very cute. I thought I would give it a try. Here is what I came up with.............................

All of these got a Happy Mother's Day sentiment so now I should be set for when that day arrives.

I made one a little different with a Born to shop sentiment I received through a pay it forward thread on SCS.

Hope everyone has a wonderful evening and keep doing whatever it is that makes you happy, for me it's stamping, family and friends. How about you?

;-) Kim

The Happenings............

Well it's after midnight on Thursday March 20th, actually it's Friday March 21st. I decided to stay up and play tonight since the kids start spring break tomorrow and there won't be any alarms going off in the morning. I have a rep from closet factory coming at 10am, so I just need to be presentable by 10am. That's easy peasy since I'm going to bed as soon as I finish typing.

This weeks Inkling showcased the Dahlia Fold technique. It makes some beautiful flowers so I thought I would give it a try. The tutorial said to use 1 1/4" circles, do you know how tiny those circles are to try and fold all over the place? Definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. I only made two petals and the green flower base. I think maybe a bigger circle would be better or tons of more practice. I also found that it doesn't work so well with cardstock as I used Wild Wasabi to make the flower base. The cardstock is too thick, but I didn't have any solid green designer paper to use. This is the card I ended up with. The flourish is by Rhonna Farrer. I think the card ended up simple but nice.

This is a technique called Split Negative. I saw this technique, where else, on SCS and decided to give it a try. I was thinking of using this for the stamp mania event but I think my white stamp pad would get ruined with the green at the event. It's pretty hard to clean the white off the stamps and people at the event are not quite as diligent about cleaning (at least that's what I noticed last year). So instead this is just some fun. It's always fun to try a new technique. Plus I had just gotten this set, Baroque Motifs, with my Sell-a-bration order. I love the swirl in this set and finally broke down and bought it.

I think these cards turned out really neat. I didn't want to over embellish so I just added some rhinestone flowers on one and rhinestone circles ontop of stamped flowers. I had to add the ribbon on the one card because I messed up my cut line and ended up with a 1/4" gap. Nothing a little ribbon can't cover up. Like Minnie (my demo) always says, "there are no mistakes in stamping, only room for embellishment"

I am so excited, I just got this Stampin Up set "Time Well Spent". This set is not available for sale, it is a level 3 hostess set, which means you can earn it with a $500 plus workshop or order. Well I don't know anyone to invite to a workshop and even though I love stamping, placing a $500 order myself is a bit on the extreme side. So, in search I went for someone looking to trade for this set. I found a very nice lady on SCS. Her hearts desire was the "From the Kitchen of" set and mine was the "Time Well Spent" set. Luck would have it, I was just about to place my Sell-a-bration order, so I ordered her set, mailed it to her and walla I got this beautiful set.

I made the card in the picture the day the set arrived and sent it to Lisa with whom I traded as a thank you card.

I have always loved cows, they are so sweet and gentle. Well at least the dairy cows are.

Here's a tidbit I bet you didn't know about me. While I was in Jr College after high school I worked at the Dairy Unit on campus. I milked the cows twice a day, at twelve hour intervals. We milked at 3am and 3pm, yes I was at the school at 3am in the morning to milk cows. It wasn't unusual for me to be running into my 8am class with my knee high rubber boots still on. Now isn't that a pretty picture?

I made these cards to use up some cow print scraps I had. I think there will always be a soft spot in my heart for cows.

A little of this and a little of that

Hi all

- I haven't posted in a while, see I told you that this blog thing was going to wear off pretty quickly. Life has been busy as usual, I had to take Lauren to the high school for the new student orientation. Wow that was hugely scarry yet interesting. I can't believe my daughter is going to high school. She told me yesterday about a boy at school that had a seizure. I ended up speaking to his folks this morning, since the younger kids go to school together, and found out that he is doing fine, he started having seizures the summer after second grade and is now in 6th grade. Really makes you look at your kids and see how blessed we are, if the worst thing we are dealing with is a teen attitude then we truly are blessed. My heart goes out to them.

Let's try to get on a lighter note now.

I've been doing a little bit of stamping. I am going to So Cal Stamp Mania 5 on April 19th. I finished my project & door prize. I am almost done with my swap cards, now that my SU order came in I can finish them with the Wild Wasabi stamp pad I just got.

I made a large blue sign to tape on the wall to mark the location for the convention swap. Take a look, it's super simple and disposable....


The little blue scalloped in the corner is my little badge to wear showing that I am participating in the convention swap. This too will hit the trash can as soon as the swap is over.








I finished my tile coasters for the summer themed coaster swap I joined. I sent them out and ended up being the first person to get them to the hostess so I even end up winning a little sumtin-sumtin.....................not sure what yet but I'll try to remember to post it when it arrives. I assume it's coming with the swapped tiles which isn't until June so we have a tad bit to wait.




What do you think about my coasters? Leave me a little feedback if you wish.......................


The top right was the first one but I didn't like the light shirt on bella nor the them having the same color pants so I changed bellas clothes.





"T's" birthday is today, he's now 25. "T" is Tim, the son of my mom's best friend Toni. He and my sister, who will be 25 in August, grew up together.

I wanted to send him a more masculine card so this is what I came up with. I started by wanting to make a square card, so I cut an 8x8 inch piece of white and afterwards realized, duh that was stupid, obviously I wasn't thinking!!!! So I folded it in half, cut it down a tad, added a piece of black on the back and went for one that could go into a regular bill type envelope. I used my new Print Pattern background stamp that just came this weekend. I have always loved that stamp for masculine cards and finally broke down and bought it during the sell-a-bration time. I also used the Birthday Whimsy, one of the free sell-a-bration sets I got. I hope he likes his card.

That's all for now.

Ta-ta................................................................................................................Kim

A little fun

On Monday I received a wonderful package in the mail from Jeanne, she was my secret sister last year in a 6 month swap. She nominated me in a secret friendship appreciation swap. Due to some problems she didn't send her package in time so this was a total surprise. I had completely forgotten about this swap. Of course I forgot to take a picture of everything together, silly me. Let me try to recap, in my wonderful fun box there were brads and more brads, designer paper, a handmade little 3x3 album (don't recall what the name is but I do recall seeing a tutorial for it on SCS), primas large-md-small, a clear sentiment stamp, ribbon, a wooden purse to alter, a banner with the word dream on it, wood flowers to alter, a tape runner that has words on the tape, and two really cool stamps that were made from rubber tires. This card was made with one of the rubber tire stamps. They are black rubber unmounted so I mounted them on the foam EZ cling stuff and away I went. I think this cat is tooooo cute. I sent this card to Jeanne today along with some images of the cat inside for her to use, she mentioned she thought the cat was really cute too. Jeanne's in Canada so it will take a little while for her to get the card, I'm sure she'll like it. I wish I had put something on the background, I just don't like plain backgrounds, but I had Ryan in the tub so I kept running back and forth checking on him and trying to stamp.

I just joined a summer themed coaster swap on

SCS. I am one of 5 people making tile coasters and the other 20 or so are making chipboard coasters. I much prefer the tile coasters, I made about 5 sets for christmas gifts. I've had a two month break from coasters so this swap sounded like fun.

This is what I was thinking of doing for my coasters. What better way to portray summer than shorts, a smile and a drink? These should be fun to make. I'll post a picture once I get them made. They're not due to the hostess until June 1st but I usually like to get them made as soon as I sign up for a swap and mail them out. That way I know my part is done and I can sit back, relax and wait for the happy mail to arrive.

Thanks for stopping by.

Kim

Late night stamping

Hello everyone. Well on Thursday night I was surfing around SCS, I never do that (LOL), and I saw the Wednesday Weekly Inkling. The tutorial this week was for the little hangers for water bottles. I thought to myself, "Self this would be a nice little gift for the Pampered Chef consultant on Sunday". So "Self" decided to give it a try. It only took me about 10 minutes and I think it looks cute. I used the Groovy Guava designer paper that I received in a secret swap in December.

At the last stamp camp I attended at my demo's house we made this little tent shaped treat holder. The sentiment was a birthday one and she gave us little mini chocolate loaf cake to put inside. Well I ripped off, I mean gently removed the birthday sentiment, replaced it with a thank you sentiment, added a sample size of The Body Shop Mango Body Butter which I had received in my Body Shop order and last added a baggie with some Andes Mint chip cookies.

Tomorrow is the day for the Pampered Chef party I am hosting so I am giving the consultant these two items as a little thank you for doing the party for me.

The last thing I wanted to share tonight is a picture of me and my daughter, Lauren. This picture was taken on superbowl Sunday at our friends house, Jenny & Steve. They host a great superbowl party every year. I even won two quarters of the pool this year.

On superbowl Sunday Christine and I took our kids to the Jonas Brothers Concert at the Gibson Amphitheater (the Universal Amphitheater). Lauren had such a great time, it was her first concert and she just loved it. She got a shirt, pins and the light wand that she waved in the air the entire time, I don't think she sat down once the concert started. Ryan was not as impressed. He sat in his seat, got up once I believe, covered his ears and hid under his jacket. He did not like the volume at all. Since the concert Lauren has not listened to anything except Jonas Brothers songs, she is absolutely obsessed, especially with Nick Jonas. The concert was fun and at least their songs are nice, no profanity or anything like that.

So without further ado, here we are kinda tired after the concert, at the superbowl party. Doesn't Lauren just look wonderfully happy in her Jonas Brothers shirt? Next time we'll catch her for a picture without the cheek full of food.

Off to bed I go.
I am looking forward to the Pampered Chef party tomorrow. I think it'll be fun.

Love ya, Kim

Day 2 of my blog

I decided to upload some pictures today, I realize this will be two days in a row of posting but don't worry, I'm just experimenting and having fun trying to figure out this whole blog thing, I'm sure the attraction will wear off.


On Sunday I am hosting a Pampered Chef party. I haven't had one since we lived in Orlando, Florida back in 1998. They are such fun and I just love their products, their stuff is great. My wish list is well over $200 already and that's with the hostess discount already applied. I told the Pampered Chef consultant that I wanted to make little treats for everyone to take home after the party using the Twixit bag clips. She thought it was such a great idea that she gave them to me at cost. I thought that was great, especially considering I have never met her before, though free would have been even better. LOL. Last Thursday I took some stamping stuff to work with the hopes that I could find a little time to stamp since work was kinda slow (just don't tell my boss, he probably wouldn't appreciate it) and guess what, I did stamp. This past weekend the Twixit's arrived and I was able to put together the treats. I have them all in a basket to set out in the foyer. Here's what they look like.............................


The top chef with the sentiments is attached to the front of the basket and the bottom chef is the tag hanging on each of the treats inside the basket. I didn't put a sentiment on the treats just the image. You can't tell on the picture but I also paper pierced two opposing corners for a little added flare.

For Valentine's Day my forever friend Christine gave me a "Fastenator" so I had to give it a try. If you don't know what a "Fasternator" is, it's the stapler thingy that has wide decorative staples for your paper projects.


Here is a picture of Christine when we took the kids to the snow for a day trip..................





I made her a Thank You card for giving me this wonderful new toy. I cased a card from SCS using punches to make animals and here's the end result...................




Notice that I used the "Fastenator on the side of the sentiment", cute huh?



Here are two more cards that I made using the "Fastenator" and trying a technique I saw on SCS of making a ladybug out of scalloped punches...............................




Thank you Chris for giving me this super fun tool. She even gave me gobs of different staples to use with it. Isn't she great? I think so, even though she keeps trying to get me to drink and to get a tattoo. So far I'm still holding out. ;-)


On another note, yesterday I uploaded a picture of the magnetic valentine tin I made for Ryan's second grade class. I also altered a Target mailbox for his teacher, here's what I came up with...






Thanks for looking. So far it's been fun playing with the new toy, my "blog".

Love ya, Kim

My First Post

Well here we are. I am going to actually attempt to have a blog. For those of you who don't have a clue as to whose blog you are looking at, I'm also known as Mama Kim on Splitcoaststampers.com. Not quite sure what this whole blog thing is all about though I enjoy surfing through other peoples blogs looking at all their creativity.

Here is my first attempt at uploading a picture. I made these little tins for my sons second grade class for Valentine's Day. I used various images in the bottom of the tin, put magnets on the back and included a few hershey's kisses. I sure hope all the kids liked them.