Tsukinecko metallic StazOn

Could possibly be my new favourite thing....so far!! New metallic StazOn ink. It's so cool! We did a little make & take at the Crafter's Home Show last night and we used this metallic ink to stamp onto acrylic sheets - WOW - so vibrant! The silver is by FAR my favourite but maybe that's because here in Canada with snow 10 months of the year, I'll have lots of opportunity to mix silver with Mica flakes and Stickles for all my snow/winter projects! Another cool thing? The ink pads come dry and you re-ink them as you use it. This is to prevent the ink from drying out and the pads are designed to hold the ink at the top (instead of letting it soak in like their other ink pads). Such a cool product.

Anyway...the booth is set up at Clear Scraps (#1707 if you happen to be in Chicago for CHA!).
I'd love to see you.

Proud Football Mama!

Yes, this is 3-4 guys taking down my baby :)

Egan's playing in his first football tournament this weekend. I took some pictures of him to show those of you who can't be there :) If you would like to see him play sometime - email me for a game schedule. This morning I'm on my way to Chicago for CHA so I'm uploading this from the Minneapolis airport where I've been sitting for about 2 hours b/c Delta rescheduled my flights. Yay.

He's such a leader. He's not even the QB here but he's the one gathering everyone for the huddle, encouraging them, showing them where to stand...and on Sunday's game, scoring all the points :) I'm so proud.

When I say he's the youngest and smallest on the team, I am not kidding....shrimpy...but smart and fast!!

Off to CHA!!

Getting up at 5am tomorrow to get to the airport. Fortunately I still have young kids who think driving Mom to the airport that early is a hoot so they're all good...plus the youngest has a football game in the city at 8am as well so we wouldn't have been getting up much later than that anyway.

I'll be blogging from there and hopefully showing pictures of some of my favourites (assuming of course, I have time to peek!!). If you're coming - look me up in the Clear Scraps booth. Here's a few more peeks of stuff I've done for the booth:

The beads you saw in the last post are these...hanging from another wall hanging. This time, a Christmas theme from the house of the new Gingerbread banner that Clear Scraps is debuting.

These little cupcakes come in a set of 6, a cute little keychain mini-album. I, of course, took them apart and made cards with them. With help from Viva Decor, SRM Press, Cosmo Cricket, Glossy Accents and Tattered Angels :)


And a layout - I know....they're rare these days for me but I did one!! On this 12x12 acrylic sheet I sewed with my sewing machine....all over it. Every photo is sewn on and all the leaves too. Stop by the booth to see - it's probably one of my favourite things to do with the acrylic!


When i get home from CHA...I intend to have a prize box to give away....some new stuff hopefully...and some Clear Scraps for sure...and a whole bunch of other goodies that I've been playing with getting ready for CHA! Keep an eye out for a giveaway after CHA!

Out of the box (out of the mini-album)

Here it is - one of my first sneak peeks.
I told you in yesterday's post that I put my whole acrylic page from one of the new Brag Bags through the Xyron 5" Creative Station. It worked like a charm!! Here's my proof LOL.

I called this post out of the box because *(shhh...don't tell too many people) but I'm running out of ideas for mini-albums. I've been on Clear Scraps for a few years now and several kit clubs before this that had mini-album requirements and I LOVE mini-albums but sometimes I just want to tear the album apart and make something completely different with it - is that bad? This purse-shaped acrylic album I took the covers off them and made a 3-D purse for Winter 2010 CHA binding the pages together with my Bind-it-all.


So now...I had the interior pages of this album lying around not in a project. Here's what I did with one page. Like I said, I ran it through my Xyron, adhered a Hambly overlay to it completely, embellished the overlay a little with a Zig Painty Pen and some Viva Decor Pearl Pen. Then I used Cosmo Cricket chipboard and Tiny Type letters to spell out a quote I found about shopping.


To finish it off, I punched holes in the top with my Crop-a-Dile (the original mini-album holes were in the bottom where it would have attached to the other pages but they're covered up with PP and letters). I strung some old chandelier jewels that I got at my thrift store, through the holes to act as a purse handle (or to hang this up as a wall hanging). Cute eh?

I'm really getting my money's worth out of this big bag of old chandelier beads I found at my MCC store too - here's a sneak peek of another place I used them on a CHA project. I'll come back with more of this project soon - it's another "out of the box" project, originally intended to be one thing....didn't turn out that way on my watch.

Thanks for stopping by!
Cathy

Multitude Monday July 19, 2010

Back again....back on the Gratitude train. I began this awhile ago as a challenge from a friend to find things to be thankful for in my life. Not just find them randomly, but to actively look for them and record my search. Originally this is the heart-child of a lady I've never met - Ann Voskamp. You can check out her blog here and all she's written about her Gratitude community and her plan to find 1000 gifts from God and record them. I've never really linked up with that community but instead kept this kinda private - just me, and whoever out there knows my blog exists :) ie: you.

#61. I'm thankful for my first little red tomato, and the promise of many more to come if they green fruit and lingering blossoms on the plants have anything to say about it. Egan got to eat this one, Mica had one this morning and I had a third one this afternoon....delicious.

#62. I'm thankful for food in general. I know I take food for granted in this country where we have WAY more than our share. And I'm learning (especially over the last few months) to be more careful with food - quantity and quality both. I don't LOVE to cook or experiement - that is definitely my husband's forte, but I do love to play sometimes especially if there's a big reward - like this from yesterday...making our own Sushi at home. Oh...so good! If you're a chef, or this is something you do on a regular basis...don't judge me, and don't look too closely. Just know that it's driven higher my respect for many people in the food industry and a culture I already loved!

#63. I'm thankful for creative genes. I'm not particularly feeling creative these days and mostly that's because of stress and fatigue but when I need it, it's there. The creativity, I mean. Sometimes I know I need to get something done for a Design Team or a project coming up and I feel like I don't have any idea what to do...but it comes. I thankful that I can count on being made in the image of a Creative God and that his genes are visible in me.

#64. I'm thankful for football. Never thought I'd say that....but here I am, wife to a football lover/coach; mom to 2 football players and I honestly love the game. I love to watch and cheer. I love that it's such a disciplined, mental game. I love the experience my boys are getting - whether or not they follow this through to higher levels.

#65. I'm thankful for learning a little better through the years how to manage money. I wasn't always very good at it and I feel like I didn't learn well as a kid. But this week I got the chance to help my kids open bank accounts (not that they have much to put in there...) and help my daughter figure out tithing and saving and spending $$ since she's starting to babysit a little....it felt good to be able to help her understand some money things before too much of it slips through her hands. I hope this means she's off to a better start than I was.

#66. I'm thankful for summer. I LOVE the heat!

#67. I'm thankful for neighbours that we love to hang out with - sometimes supper, sometimes games, sometimes swimming, sometimes just sitting and talking. Not sure at all what I'd do in a neighbourhood full of people I didn't know/love/trust.

#68. I'm thankful for a husband who loves to cook. Despite his long-standing aversion to seafood, he grilled me salmon for lunch after church and made some yummy corn broth risotto.

#69. I'm thankful for my MCC. I know I've posted about stuff like this before but I find the coolest treasures there and today I used a few on some projects I was working on. I kept thinking....if I'd had to buy these new in a store...or worse yet, in a scrapbooking store where everything gets packaged in pink and sold for double what it is elsewhere (no offense to the LSS's...it's just the way of the industry)....I'd be broke. I found a bag of old chandelier jewels awhile ago. I used a couple on cards, gave a huge portion to a friend for a project she did for her school's grad and then used a bunch on some CHA projects for Clear Scraps today - this wall hanging for one:
#70. I thankful for my bed. I sleep so well in it - almost 99% of the time (and the other 1% is NOT the bed's fault). I'm writing this post late Sunday night and my whole body is craving crawling into bed...so good night - hope your bed treats you as well as mine treats me :)

Frantic but loving every minute of it

One more week until CHA....I have projects all over the place but I'm feeling really good about all of them so far.

Tomorrow when there's light I'll take a few pictures to show you
but for now, just let me say, I am loving this thing:

Xyron 5" Creative Station
Did you know I can shove whole pages from my Clear Scraps Acrylic album pages (under 5" wide) through this thing and the whole page is then adhesived (is that a word?) Sticky? Anyway...whatever the case....no little sticky squares showing, no gaps in the adhesive - my paper sticks all over perfectly!! In fact I'm adhering Hambly overlays to my acrylic and it's So Easy! Pictures tomorrow - promise.

First attempt at Sushi

Look what Mica & I made for lunch today!!
For the past year, I've supervised lunch in a grade 3 class at my school and I sit at the back of the class behind this adorable Korean boy who always has the most delicious looking lunches...including, quite often, homemade sushi. I kept thinking to myself - seriously, millions of people make it, how hard can it be?? Well...hard as in labour-intensive (at least for our first try because we had to keep running back to read the recipes - thank goodness for the internet) but not hard as in something horrible can go wrong and you'd ruin it. I think our first attempt turned out pretty good. Next time around I'd do a thinner layer of rice - the ratio of rice to other stuff was a little off....and we really needed some wasabi but we're going to do it again soon. In fact, Mica's requested a sushi-making birthday party this year....that'll be fun. Apparently 2 of her best friends love Sushi as much as she does :)

Side note for those of you who know our family: I bribed the boys with Juicy Fruit gum and they both tried the crab meat but they both ended up eating leftover mac & cheese or lasagne for lunch instead of sushi. Oh well...more for me :)

Multitude Monday - July 12

I started this Multitude Monday journey a long time ago and although I really do have a ton of things in my life I'm thankful for, I stopped blogging specifically about them. I could claim life or distractions as my reasons for not posting, and that would be right, but busy or not, this was (and will be) an important thing in my life, so...here we go: Back on the Multitude Monday train...and starting where I left off.

First a re-post of the last time I did this:

March 22.
I have missed at least the last 2 Mondays. Not because I'm not thankful for anything obviously. But partly because sometimes what I'm thankful for is obscured by what I'm NOT thankful for.

So, today I'm starting again.
I'm choosing to be thankful again.
For everything.
Even the things that seem like they're not worthy.
Even the things that seem like they're hurtful and not helpful.
Even the things that are painful.
Because somewhere I read that God makes all things work together for good.
And somewhere I read that God has a plan for my life - to prosper me and not to harm me.
And somewhere I read that God loves me.

#51. God loves me.


Thanks God.
I love you too.

And now, TODAY:

#52-55. I'm thankful for (#52) my lawn, and (#53) the smell of freshly mowed grass, and (#54) that it got done before the next rainstorm, and (#55) that I did it myself. I really love mowing lawn - it's peaceful, all distractions are drowned out and I can walk for an hour and then not feel guilty that my treadmill has a layer of dust on it.

#56. In a similar vein....I'm thankful that my lawn mower, which is currently being held together by bungee cords and crossed fingers, just keeps chugging along. I can't afford a new one right now so this one will have to do.

#57. I'm thankful for our neighbours who are letting us use their pool again this summer. They are just the nicest people in the world...I'm seriously humbled to know them.

#58. I'm thankful for my crazy, crazy boys. I love how different they are and how they're growing into amazing young men :) My youngest is the bravest, silliest kid. He'll try anything. He's been diving for several years now and today, at only 8 years old, he decided it was time to learn how to back-dive and back flip off the diving board. Of course. 2-3 practice runs with Daddy's strong arms guiding him and he was off and diving on his own.



And my middle one - slightly less brave and a little more cautious - decided that today he'd learn to dive. We've been pestering him to try diving for years....really....maybe 3 years. "No. No. No. Don't want to. No." In fact, we've had tears a few times because he's not wanted to dive. It's not really a serious fear - he just really needs to decide for himself. We see it in all areas of his life so this isn't new for us. Anyway, today was the day. He said no at first, and then all of a sudden he got up on the board and dove in. No fanfare, no "hey-look-at-me." Just dove. Perfectly, the first time, I might add...as is usually the case with something he's refused to try for any length of time.

#59. I'm thankful for the beautiful weather we've been having. We've had so much rain around here that having several hot, dry days in a row has been lovely!!

#60. I'm thankful for devotions. The past week I've been getting up early. Sometimes as early as 5:30. Sometimes I just can't sleep. Sometimes I'm up with DH's alarm. But every morning I've put on a pot of coffee (enough for a cup for me, and some extra for DH for the 3 min. drive to work) and then I've curled up on my patio couch and snuggled into a quilt out there with fresh coffee, the birds singing, no mosquitoes, and my Bible. It's been so, so good. Most mornings last week I was out there for an hour or an hour & 1/2. I'm not sure why I don't do that every single day (except the whole winter things slows me down) but I'm certainly going to give it a whirl! Oh, and occasionally, if all that wasn't good enough, the neighbour's cat comes and curls up on my lap for awhile. Bliss...pure bliss.

And as I sit there just breathing in the morning air and the peace, this is the verse that keeps circulating round and round my head:

Psalm 143:8
"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you."

I almost can't wait for tomorrow morning :)
and next Monday!