bluebird...

I thought this was awesome...


more animals

My Wishlist

As Christmas draws ever nearer and more and more people are asking me what I want, I thought it might be a good idea to post a list of stuff I'd like this year... In no particular order...

1. The Twilight series
2. A gift card for Aldo or Payless (so I can get some much needed winter shoes)
3. Something handmade - like a scarf or altered photo frame etc.
4. A hug from all of my siblings (in-law ones too)
5. A new purse (my mother in law has wonderful purse taste!)
6. A gift card for IKEA (to go towards getting a new desk and storage for my craft room)
7. Wii Fit
8. Some of my sister's amazing homemade shortbread cookies (they are sooooo YUMMY)
9. Health and Happiness for my family
10. A baby or two (or like my boss keeps saying, how are the quads coming?) in my tummy (I only know one person who can give that to me though)
11. A certain puppy to become house trained... no more regression into bad habits!
12. World Peace
13. End to Hunger
14. End to Terrorism

So Santa... if you could work on this list... Especially the last 3... Thanks

OUCH!!

I think I hate winter most out of all of the other seasons!! I can handle rain and heat and raking leaves, but not the freezing cold, snow and ice of winter! Not only do your feet and hands freeze - doesn't matter what shoes or gloves I wear - but so does your nose... and since I wear glasses I can't cover up my nose with my scarf without fogging up my glasses... and then I CAN'T SEE!

This morning I unlocked the car, lifted the handle and then there was a snapping noise and a jolt of pain... the door was still firmly shut and two of my nice (expensive) gel nails had snapped. My feet were freezing because I was standing in a snowdrift and my car door was FROZEN shut. I reefed (yanked) hard on the door and it finally opened... I sat down and took off my glove to survey the damages... yep two nails now look like claws because half of each nail had splintered off at an angle... I started the car - it did NOT want to start, but I got it started anyway - and I took some nail clippers to get rid of the jagged edges.

My week is busy enough without having to try and get my nails fixed too....

GRRRRRRR!!!! winter!

pumpkin soup recipe

I've been asked by several people to give them my Pumpkin Soup Recipe... so here is a link to it... http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=418927 Please note that if you are not counting calories that it does taste much creamier if you use light or regular cream instead of the milk. Also I've been told that you can use canned pumpkin instead of fresh roasted - just make sure its pure pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling... LOL

I'm in the process of trying to find my Broccoli Cheddar soup recipe too and I will post it as soon as I find it...

Christmas Cards

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to make cards and do crafty things. This year I decided that I would try selling cards at work at it has been successful... my clientele is growing, it started with my boss and co-workers and has spread into my department as well. I thought it would be a great opportunity now at Christmas to offer my handmade Christmas/Holiday cards for sale and post an ad in our company classified ads (since its free). I haven't gotten any orders yet, but its only less than 24 hours since I posted the ad, so I'll have to wait and see.

Here for your viewing pleasure are some of the Christmas cards I've made so far.

Sparkly Christmas Tree

Rudolph and Pals

Sparkly Doves

Christmas Door

November VSN Pictures

Finally as promised, here are pictures of the cards I made - hopefully they will all fit in the same post!! LOL

First off, one of my favorites... The challenge was to make a masculine card using at least 2 feminine elements... I chose to make a Fat Chef card using some girly colours and some glitter glue... i love the serving tray... look at the next image to see what is hiding...Some Cheese for Cobi!!! LOL, one of the gals I stamped with during VSN just adores cheese... i thought of her when i made this card... LOL

Ok, next we have the corset challenge... I really think this card is pretty and it was easy to make too...

This next challenge was to use an Album cover as inspiration... I found an albulm on Google Image search and it looks soooo much like this card... Another easy card to make! The link to the album cover... http://www.magicketchup.com/blog_pic/lp_softhard.jpg

This next card is not one of my favorites... the challenge was to make a Cameo image (take a look at a really pretty Cameo pendant... http://www.berezka.com/shopping/ProductImages/11/NM115ERBL.jpg)

This next card was something I'd never done before... its a paper folding technique called the Dahlia fold and it just uses circles. such a stunning flower!!

Another neat challenge, the Thumping Technique... basically you can do it two ways, one is that you use markers and tap onto the rubber stamp then you breathe on it and stamp onto paper (I used that on the stripes), the other way is to colour with markers or ink with a stamp pad in the lightest colour and then take a darker marker and tap it all over the stamp, then you breathe on it (it gives it back some moisture) and you stamp it on paper (I used that on the flowers). this was a new technique that I had meant to try before... I really like how it looks.

This next card was for a challenge that you had to have some sort of hidden element to your card.

The cupcake top pulls up to reveal HAPPY BIRTHDAY... neat eh?

This next card was so much fun to make, the challenge was to make something with falling snow but we couldn't use glitter... So I used my Cricut machine (love this machine!!) to cut out the pieces of the snowglobe... Check out the second picture to see the inside...

This card was so hard to make - so finicky and fussy... but its really cool and its something I've never tried to do before... its a shaker card... the hippo's head actually wiggles when you move the card... I wish I could figure out how to take a video with my camera...

Oooooh I loved making this card, and even though I measured it all wrong, i like how I made it come off of the card front. This is a shaker card, there are beads inside the frame (held into place with foam tape and a sheet of acetate.

This card's challenge was to use pink blossoms... I took my inspiration for this card from one of the birthday cards that was given to my sister.

this card challenge was to use the spotlighting technique - basically highlighting something in the image you're using... a neat simple technique that really adds pizazz...

And last but not least... my favourite 15 minute card. The challenge for this card was to take an image or feeling from the movie Moulin rouge and make a card to represent it. Mine was this image (http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/img/daily/595/moulin_l.jpg)