Harry was lacking

okay he was too plain so I free hand cut a scarf and wand for him :-)

Simple Harry Potter card

My great nephew is turning 5 and he is in love with Harry... This card is for my mom to give him. I used everyday paperdolls.. and a peachy keen face stamp.

On another note I bit the bullet and signed up for a copic marker class on September 10th in Wilmington Del... I hesitated because it is the end of the summer and money is tight as with all teachers now. Plus its after the first week of school when I will be exhausted.. With that said when will I get another opportunity for a class with Suzanne Dean. I follow her blog regularly so I just a going!!!

gift bag and matching card

My great nephew will be turning 5 on September 8th.. These are for him. He is having a Harry Potter party so I am going to attempt a Harry Potter card tomorrow for my mom to give him using Everyday paper dolls.

The bag and card base were light blue and all the other papers were printed on the Imagine using bubblegum strips so that they perfectly coordinated.. That is what I like best about the Imagine. The #5 is from sweet treats. I added some yellow stickles to the flames.

HAHAHA I haven't bought the gift yet so I better make sure it fits the bag!!!!

last halloween card

mini monster cartridge with action wobbles and wiggle eyes.

mini monster witch

mounted on action wobble with wiggle eyes. The bat paper is from an old halloween stack.

Mini monster spooky

I again used the action wobble on the ghost and wiggle eyes... the background paper is from a creative memories Halloween stack... I made like 8 different mini monster cards during Irene's visit so plan on seeing some more action wobbles and wiggle eyes! LOL I did put the cart away and move on to other things so don't worry... I'll only bore you with a few more Halloween cards before moving on to something else.

mini monster halloween card

The jack-o-lantern is on an action wobble and I used wiggle eyes.

Irene update.. My power held and my sump pump went off every 30 seconds all night long! I am so thankful for this!!! No basement flooding. The major rain is done, still very windy outside.

xmas card

Taking images I previously colored and made them into cards to file away. 8 more xmas cards ready for December. We are getting the first outer bands of rain from Irene... Going to be an interesting night since the storm to hit in the middle of the night.

Christmas Wreath

Okay I saw a Thanksgiving wreath made from florettes in the Stampin up mini holiday catalog and I thought I can do that.. I used a Christmas package of recollections paper so all the patterns shades matched exactly. Each florette is 2, 12" strips to create each one scored at 1/2" marks. The bigger florettes are 2" wide strips, medium 1 1/2 inch wide strips and the small 1" wide strips.. I hot glued everything to a foam styrofoam circle. Embellishments are recollections glitter dots, buttons, glass beads and holiday colored sequins from my stash.. I used some red glitter sheer ribbon to tie around the foam base for the hanger. I made all the florettes last night and it took about 45 minutes today to figure out the arrangement and wait for layers of hot glue to dry to complete it.

I have prepared my basement as best I can in the event of a power failure and the sump pump not working.. Nothing I can do about it but just pray that nobody is hurt in this huge hurricane. We are used to more damage here from Nor' Easters than hurricanes.

Big sigh!!

I realized last night as I was getting in bed that if we lose power my sump pump won't work so today will be spent in the basement making sure everything that could get ruined is up off the floor.. I have to tell you we have had some weather this summer in South Jersey!!!

Earth quake and now hurricane??

Wow! This weather is strange around here.. Gonna be a wild weekend. I hope I keep electric so I can stay inside and craft! LOL.. I made all the parts for a paper wreath tonight. I hope to assemble tomorrow and get a picture up..

craft room set up

Well I am back on my IMAC and the craft room is set up but not without difficulties.. I was attempting to slide a 6ft shelf packed with albums and craft supplies and it broke.... lets just say it sent me over the edge. I should have emptied the thing first. The bookshelf is toast and went out in the trash.. (ha maybe the earth quake weakened it yesterday..hahahahaha) My son had an ikea unit in storage in my garage so I took it. Lets just say it helped pay his rent for the last 14 months he has lived here.. LOL... It added hours to sorting to what I could part with so that I could get things back in the room... I have a problem with what to do with photo albums... I have faithfully kept everything in a photo album since high school and college in the 70"s.. I am afraid to put them in the basement because of dampness.. For now they are on the unit but really I should free up space for other things. I am parting with tons of cookbooks I never look at and novels that were on the other shelf.. Lets just saying seeing all my cricut carts taken off the old shelf and put in drawers of the new unit were an eye opener to how many I have... LOL!

I am really, really tired and lifted stuff way over my weight limit (from a surgery not supposed to lift more than 25 pounds) today. I just got out of the hot tub. It really stinks getting older.. I feel every day of my 55 today and I usually don't!

Gonna go enjoy a glass of wine and recalibrate my Imagine machine from having moved it.

Craft room

Finally doing it,the craft room/ everything room is emptied all over the house and te

dry spell

I have had a terrible dry spell with crafting.. Yes it was summer, yes it was my kids moving home but I have to tell you that I come in here and I stare at my supplies with no inspiration which is so not like me. I decided to analyze why today and I came up with a few...Worry that my poor son in unemployed for a year and a half now. Over educated and under experienced. It is so hard to keep him positive since he moved home.. He has an MBA for goodness sakes!!! Next my daughter graduated in a field that looked good entering college and now in my area is a no gooo She has a BSN in nursing and graduated with honors but she makes hoagies for money. Then there is the whole painting I have been planning of my craft room all summer.. Oh my there is so much stuff to move out to start. It is my craft room, my computer room, sewing room, bookshelf room, bill paying room.. You get the picture. I think that the fact that I have the painting hanging on my head is the big craft inhibitor.. so today I looked at the calendar and planned it out. Hehehe,, this I do well. I have something every day that disrupts the process this week. So tomorrow is buy the paint since I am driving past the store to take my mom to the kidney doc. Friday in empty the room and Spackle... Saturday and Sunday walls. (after church on Sunday) Tuesday trim cause my mom has a regular doc appointment on Monday. (She has had 4 in two weeks, God bless her at 90)

Anyway with all this said... I decided to use a sketch tonight to get me back in the crafting frame of mind. I have to say that I feel honored to represent my local school union for the county for the state at the national education association conference. I know today that teachers can be a dirty word but I am proud to be one and part of NJEA/NEA.

I used BoBunny paper from CKC, Plantin School book for the circles, elegant edges for the border, and Independence day for the 4th of July. Misc,. buttons from my stash. I have to say that I bought the uniball signo pen at CKC and I think it works much better on textured paper than the gelly roll.

Long post.. I am not a typist.. know as soon as I post it I will see the typos that I can't now! LOL!

Rain, rain go away!

I had hoped to get back in the craft room today but it was not to be. My town got 7.7 inches of rain in 24 hrs with 1 to 2 inches still expected tonight.. my french drains could not handle all the water during the heaviest downpours mid-afternoon and we got some water... We have been spoiled with no water for 13 years since the french drains were put it. We don't keep everything up like when we used to get water.. Sooo it was move things and wet vac the wet areas. All in all it could have been worse and it wasn't so bad when I see all the pictures on the news from my area. Its all good. My goal is to get my craft desk half completed projects done tomorrow and begin to empty the room for painting.. my time is running out to get it done this summer.

Gonna be gone for a few days..

I am off tomorrow for some training. Will not be back until late Thursday evening... Hoping to fit in walking and also enjoy the socials they plan in the evenings... :-) I got nothing done crafting wise today as my sis-in-law called and needed a day away from home so that was what was important to me.. BBQ.. hot tub conversations... Oh and I made some fab bruschetta and homemade salsa with some nice jersey fresh tomatoes... The salsa had fresh jalapenos in there. YUM I love family time.. So glad she and my brother came over. We even kidnapped my mom and brought her over.. I loved seeing my son show my mom how to play solitaire on my ipad.. She loves solitaire and took over the ipad for the rest of her visit. :-) I tired to teacher her how to boot up a computer a few years ago and work it.. An Ipad she can handle at 90.

story today

Okay still no pictures as I was glued to my nook yesterday but I have a story.. Something has been eating my tomatoes in my garden. 2 weeks ago my niece said she saw a groundhog walk across my deck!!! So I set a trap a week ago and days go by and nothing. All of a sudden the peach is gone and the trap has not sprung. I put in another juicy jersey peach and two nights nothing... This morning i let me dog out and he freaks! Not a groundhog but a opossum... Yuck are they ugly... So my good friends husband just picked him up in his truck to relocate the critter to a new home AWAY from my tomatoes.

scrappin day

Woot! Woot! I worked all afternoon and evening on my Chicago pictures and got done 7 of the 9 days. ( the lion share of the photos are from the days I went early before the conference started. Once the conference starts it really is work, dinner and bed. ) I am using the same format as I did last summer. A binder album with a full page sleeves and lots of sleeves that are slotted to hold 6 pictures on each side. I am sorry but I can not seem to eliminate enough photo's to do a traditional scrapbook when I travel some place new. I try to record in a journal everyday of my trip what I did so I can type it up as soon as I get home. Then when I get the pictures I scrap/journal day 1... then include the sheets with all the photos after. Then scrap/journal day 2 etc.... I will look at it tomorrow and see if I can take any pictures to explain... I did go with a co-worker from my town and other teachers from my county and I really don't like to post pictures of people without permission.

another all season tree

I colored this all season tree yesterday before heading out to see Harry Potter with my children (okay 20 somethings but still my kiddies). We went to Cherry Hill for the IMAX 3-D version. Made a day out of by going to Cheesecake factory and Wegmans. YUM! Any how I colored the bulbs with assorted copic colors and then put crystal lacquer on the to make them look shiny like bulbs. I drew the cord to attach the bulbs to one another free hand with a 0.03 black copic multi liner.

I am going to make my own fun today... I was going to head to gardens in Cape May Courthouse with my kiddies but it is gloomy outside. I actually had my am walk rained out for the 1st time all summer this morning. My Thursday night scrappin friends all have other summer fun going on and will not make it tonight so it will be just me scrappin at home tonight instead of church. With that in mind I am going to head to the DMV to renew the drivers license and some how accidentally (hehehe that's my line to my kids and I'm stickin to it) come home past Micheal's with the album to scrap my Chicago pictures. (I need a break from the graduation album. Not feelin it so will come back to it when I am inspired.)

More stamps by Judith from CKC

I fell in love with the all seasons tree stamp. This was stamped in brown papertey ink. The candy cane stubbie was stamped and colored in using LePlume crimson lake. The tiny leaves stick was stamped and colored using LePlume pine green. I added after I took the picture stick snowflakes stamped using LePlume cool grey and then I went over it with gelly roll clear stardust. I went over the white of the candy canes with the gelly roll also. I colored the base of the tree with a copic but I don't remember which one.

Just thinking

So many of the bloggers I follow have been posting saying, sorry I am MIA, busy with vacation, family, outdoors, etc.. Really when you think of it, that's what we are supposed to be doing in the summer. So enjoy the sunshine, family times, etc while you can because before you know it the long dark, cold evenings where we huddle inside will be here. Then you'll have tuns of time to craft!