Card Swap

Every month I get together with my card swap group called the "Cornflakes". This is the card I will be swapping tonight. You really can't see the shimmer from the Opalite ink but the card does have a nice shine to it. I brushed on ink from my re-inkers (I used whatever one was the right color, dye, pigment etc...) on thick glossy paper. I would spray 91% rubbing alcohol (that's all I had in the house) on the ink that I had in a dish to make it spread faster. I then topped it off with a coat of Opalite ink. The stamp is from Stamper's Anonymous "Dragonfly Legend". I have no idea where I got the charm or the fiber - just pulled those out from my stash. It's an easy card but it helps if it can dry overnight.

Zindorf coming to town!

I'm sooooo excited to post that I'm working on getting Michelle Zindorf to come out to San Jose, California to do some workshops/classes. We have the date set for the first weekend in August, so pencil that in, you won't want to miss it! She is one of my favorite rubber stamp artist and has some great tutorials on her blog - see my blog roll for the link. As we get the details worked out, I will post more information.

Creative Wall - Love it!

Once a week I got to Heather Bullard blog "Present Past" http://www.heatherbullard.typepad.com/ to check out her latest findings. One of these days I will make it to one of her barn sales. She posted this great photo of another artist's studio. All I could say was WOW! Now that I have a space in my studio, I'm kicking myself for getting rid of all the over sized frames I had. The hunt is now one to find one that will fit over my apothecary cabinets.

Purrcy and Blu Ray

I realized that my cats don't know what a T.V. is all about. For the last 15 years we have not had one in our house. I threw it out when the kids always argued about what to watch and my husband wanted to turn into a couch potato. When we remodeled the studio, we decided to install a flat screen so I could show samples of cards or how to video. Today I was playing the "Planet Earth" BluRay DVD and Purrcy all of sudden got really interested. It was an episode showing something flying around in caves. He got right up to the screen and acted like he was looking out a window. This BluRay really shows a clear picture even up close. I had to take a few pictures before I made Purrcy get down. He's really not suppose to get up on the furniture other than his chair.

Kimono Card II

This is one of the cards I will be doing for my Kimono Card Class II. I've had this stamp for a long time (JudiKins) and never really did anything with it. I went to a local quilt shop to look for some "sashiko" fabric to use in my card class. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I still managed to come home with some cool Japanese theme fabric. While at the quilt store I was inspired by the all the white and indigo patterns. They must of thought I was nuts as I was writing notes to myself on the back of old Joann's an Micheal's coupons. Hey, that was the only paper I had in my purse. The kimono die is a custom one I had made from AccuCuts. Cranberry Hill also has it available for it's "die cut" club members.

Get Well Card - Sort of

I made this card for a good friend who broke her neck in FIVE places. Yes, she really did and is still alive to talk about it. She had to wear a head brace for several weeks and was a really good sport about it. Of course, she couldn't wait to get out of it. Not only do you have this metal cage around your head (with pins sticking in your scalp to hold it in place) there is also a body harness that goes down to your waist that you can not take off. Yep, that means you have this layer of sheep skin under the body brace and it can't get wet or washed. The good news is that MJ is now out of the "cage" and doing great. I think she said the first she was going to do was stay in the shower for a week. I know she will find the humor in my "no bird cage" card. :)

Stamp and paper from Memory Box and circle is a Nestabilites

Latest Stamping Cabinet Find

This is my latest rubber stamp storage cabinet find. I told you I can't pass anything up with more than 12 narrow drawers! I found this one on Craig's list (I just love CL) from a women selling off her rubber stamp collection, along with this cabinet. She wasn't able to take of photo so she only posted "12 drawers worth of stamps". The 12 drawers got my attention. Well when I got there, she only had about 100 stamps (for us stampers that's just a babe in the woods) and half were unmounted. We finally worked out a deal and I came home with the cabinet and stamps. I will be selling off the stamps since most of them are not even close to my style or taste. It was just easier for her to sell me everything as one lot instead of having to deal with people pick through the stamps.

Lucy aka Miss Attitude

I thought this picture of Lucy was too funny this morning. I was working on getting ready for my class on Tuesday and Lucy was have one of her "Miss Attitude" days. When she is mad, she will turn her back to you and swish her tail. Well she was really mad this morning and I can only guess it was because a house across the street from us was torn down and the jack hammers were really loud. She was mad at me, like it was my fault there was all this noise in her air space. She was mad but wanted to make sure to keep an eye on me. Really, she is pretending not to look at me but she is watching me from the mirror. See, her ears are in the cat mad mode. If I walked from one end of the table I could see her eyes move in that direction. If I left the room she would curl up and go to sleep. When I walked back in the room, she would sit up again and stare in the mirror. It was too funny.

Girl Scouts - Fundraiser

My niece's girl scout troop does this great fundraiser for Mother's Day. They take orders for roses (your choice of color) or a wild flower bouquet and then deliver them on Saturday, day before Mother's Day. Yellow roses are my favorite! I think this is a great alternative to cookies and takes the pressure off my husband. :)

Eating Frogs

Last week my husband had a HUGE list of things he had to get done around the house. Anything he hates doing, he can find 1,000 reasons why he can't. If you have ever read Brian Tracy's book "Eat that Frog" you will know what I mean. To avoid eating his biggest frog, my husband ran (and I mean a full out sprint to his truck) yelling over his shoulder that he wanted to go grocery shopping before they ran out of all the good stuff. When he got back some time later, he had flowers and chocolate with him. He said "Happy Mother's Day". I told him it wasn't Mother's Day but Cinco De Mayo. He said the store had "don't forget Mother's Day" displays all over the place, so I know he didn't make the trip to the store just for me. He's not the type of man who remembers birthday or holidays. Flowers and chocolate are on my weekly shopping list and I didn't forget his long list of things he had to get done around the house either.

Nestabilities Storage

If you have fallen under the spell of the new "Nestabilities" die cuts then you will want to find a way to storage them. I found this idea on Emily's blog http://emilygiovanni.com/?p=1891 and it works well for most of the Nestabilities. The ones that stack on top of each other (scallop squares) don't work as well with this storage idea but enough so you won't lose them.
I paid $20.00 for 145 empty CD cases on Craig's list because I was in a hurry. Most of the time you can get them for free. The cheapest place to find the magnet sheets ( three 8 1/2 x 11sheets) is at Michael's with a 40% off coupon - retails for $6.49. Don't go to an office supply store for the magnet sheets, they cost $$$$. If you go into Michael's, the magnet sheets come rolled up so don't look for full sheets. Can you tell I was totally confused when I was looking for it? :) One of the employees stocking the shelves had to actually pick up the box as I was standing in front of the magnet section and point to the label. The one I got is called "Color A Mag" by ProMAG.

New A Muse Cards

Once a month I do two free card making class at the Yu Ai Kai (Japanese Senior Center) in downtown San Jose for the members. They ask all the time that I do more "Asian" theme classes. A Muse just released a new set of clear stamps "Sushi Set" and once again A Muse has come up with some pretty funny one liners. "roll with it" and "life without friends is like sushi without wasabi"

The cards I do at the Senior Center have to be on the simple side (so A Muse works out well) since I only have an hour to make four cards. I plan on using this set of a class at Cranberry Hill too, adding a little more detail to each card.

I really had fun doing the tree branch. Using the clear set, I was able to bend the wording to go along the branch. I had more problems with the gate fold kimono card, not getting the back ground colors right. I finally asked myself, what would Zindorf do? I whipped out my sponges and started added two layers of color. Made a nice fabric looking background on the kimono.

Honey Mead

The Bee Guild had a Honey Mead tasting and information demo at the meeting last night. I've been told by many people it's nasty stuff. I don't have the taste buds for alcohol so I rarely drink and when I do it's to prevent food poisoning while traveling. So in the spirit of the meeting I sampled some of the home made mead guild members brought in. I was very surprised that it didn't taste all the bad. Sort of like thin honey water with a kick. Then I samples some strawberry/honey mead and that was really good. Of course it could have been a flash back to my younger days drinking fruit wine with a screw off cap. Even a wine drinker, mead hater guild member said it was better than he thought too. I'm thinking I may try making some since the process looked interesting and by the end of summer we will have more honey than we can give away.

Bee Triva

Went to our local Bee Guild Meeting last night. It was a interesting meeting along with a mead tasting. I don't drink, well I do when I'm in third world countries to help prevent food poisoning, but that's a whole different story.
So at the beginning of the meeting they had a young man just back from the emergency room to talk about his unknown allergic reaction to bee stings and the need for all bee keepers to keep a Epi pen on hand. Another member passed on this tidbit of information that I found interesting. He quoted some stats on people who die from snake and insect bits every year. Then broke it down to the number of people who will be affected by bee stings. He went one step further (this is the good part) about the number of family members who live with bee keeper who will develop severe allergies to bee stings. - 1 in 1,000. Why was on everyone's lips. When bee keepers work with bees, their clothing will get stung. The bee sting venom once dry, will become airborne and can float around in the house. After years of breathing in low doses of dry venom you can develop a bad allergy to bees. Many big time bee keepers have a separate washer near their bee keeping operation to just wash their bee clothes. It sounded to me (and I'm guessing here) that it is women who handled the bee clothes while washing the family clothes, were the ones who developed the allergy. Isn't this interesting?

Bee Story

Ready for another bee story? Tonight my husband got a call about another bee swarm pick up. He went out and set up the collection box on top of a ladder about 12 feet high. He got the queen and most of the bees into the box. He decided to wait until sunset, giving all the bees time to get back to the swarm. Doug decided to come home instead of hanging around waiting for sunset. During that time a young teenager was walking by the ladder that was leaning up against the big bush the bees where in. The owner of the house told him not to touch the ladder, getting ready to explain why, when the kid kicked the ladder out. The whole box flip over and landed on the boy's head. He had the entire hive of angry bees on his head. We asked if he was all right, but the home owner said the kid was running so fast down the street he didn't get a chance to ask. We all agreed that it will probably be the last time that kid kicks a ladder.

Auction Madness

Strange things happen to people when they go to auctions. Normally I'm yelling at my auction partner Debbie not to buy anymore linen lots, let alone bid on something really silly like vintage hats. So, I'm at the auction house today by myself and things are going along as usual. I decide I really want those little bee hand towels (I have the pattern but I know I won't ever get around to making them) so I bid on it. The lot does have some real vintage aprons made from fabric that is now being reproduced by many of the scrapbooking companies. There are also some shabby chic pillow cases and hankies I would use if I had a guest room to gussy up. There was also a hand quilted blanket in the lot, which I didn't know about, so that was a nice surprise.

I really wanted the little green suitcase that came with all the funky little hats and I knew no one else would bid against me so I just had to get it. When I was taking the photos of the hats, I had to lock Lucy out of the room. She was very interested in all the feather! The colors are so bright I would love to see the dresses that went with them.

The top photo shows you the only things I really wanted. Now you know why auction junkies end up with so much stuff!