Merry Christmas!

So this is coming out a few days early, BUT I have got good excuses! I am sure of it... Actually it boils down to the fact that I want to share this with you before the day arrives so you know I am thinking of all my family and friends on Christmas. And I am praying that each of you is celebrating the birth of Christ with those that you love the most, near and far.

The card also is fulfilling a couple challenges the first is the color challenge at iCopic. I have stretched it a bit on my colors but it still has the generals. The card is also based on the card sketch over at Sassy Lil Sketches. So thank you both sites for pulling this one together for me. I have been wanting to put this stamp to use and I so love how it turned out.

I think my favorite part is the fact that the scalloped disk comes off and can be saved as an ornament on the back is written "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16"

Merry Christmas!
Blessings to all and to all a wonderful year!
Hugs!

Snowman Snowglobe

So I promised I would post this guy yesterday for a friend and did not get it done! Sorry Tiffany! Here he is better late than never. I came up with this little snowman snow-globe to be the craft at my second graders winter party next week. He is made from a 10 oz. water bottle. I added a squirt (about 1 teaspoon) glycerin, white and blue glitter and a few sequins and glued the lid on tight. Then added two pipe cleaners for arms, a felt carrot nose, two googly eyes, a fleece scarf, and two more pipe cleaners with a bell on top to finish off the hat. I am so pleased with how he turned out ans I am excited to see if the class will like them. I have the bottles ready to go with the glitter glued in tight to avoid the mess :-).

Hugs all!

Spoke too soon!

Woops I spoke a little too early! This is what greeted us this morning. We are freezing with blizzard conditions last night and the winds hanging around through today. Not much accumulation but we are frozen solid!

December Multitasking

Well I decided to tackle three jobs at once and ended up with this fun layout that is awaiting photos. The funny thing is we are happily snow-less at the moment. This little snowman is colored with Copic markers and fulfills the current challenge at iCopic. The layout is based on a sketch from Scrappy Lil Sketches. To top it off it is a little prep work for my local Club Copic!

On the home front we just celebrated our first round of Christmas. With Dad on call next weekend and hitting the road with an already loaded down vehicle the following weekend we decided today was the day! The girls watched Polar express last night all bundled up in their sleeping bags and popcorn last night then opened up new PJ's for the season. This morning they opened stuffed stockings and a few gifts under the tree. John got me a gorgeous new coat with a quilted hood. I love it and will be looking good this winter!

The rest of the day is open with a date night to finish off for John and I.

Happy ho Ho Holidays!
Hugs

December is here!

I recently completed this layout for an article written by my very good friend Tami over at Get It Scrapped. It was a fun challenge, four of us took a digital kit and did "our thing" with it. Mine is very much still a paper layout using digital elements. The flower and both patterned papers were from the digital kit. I just printed them each on photo paper and used them on my layout. The photos are from a fun, fun night at Prairie Meadows. We watched ostriches race, and laughed a lot. We will go back for sure!

Life here is well and swinging into the Christmas season. The tree is up, stockings are hung and a few gifts are making appearances. As you can imagine the girls are pretty excited! I have a few last minute things to get together and I am all ready. I love this time of year though. The busyness is happy busyness. I like all the details, memories and family time.

Hugs to all!

December is coming!

I am catching up on a few challenges! This card fills the Sassy Lil Sketches card sketch for November and the iCopic challenge as well.

The day plans are to unload the Christmas boxes and to run a few errands. Christmas, Christmas, I love this season!

Hugs!

Thanksgiving 2010

Well we are back home, unpacked and all clean! Clear! We had a most amazing week with the Houghton's in Tonto Basin, AZ. All the "expected" activities took place, a hike, a boat ride, a quad ride, turkey in the Happy Hangout and much fun and laughter. Not to mention the Houghton's new puppy Cody! he was the hit of the week for sure.

In the mean time I even got a little coloring in. This lovely image is from Michelle Perket she is another digital stamp artist. And discovered that I won the coloring contest that I entered this past month at Memory Bound with me colored snowman!


Hugs to all!

Oh I love to Scrap!

You know you forget when life gets so busy that you don't have enough time to make the list before a new list is forming and you are falling more helplessly behind, you forget how much you enjoy doing these little things for yourself. I LOVE to teach I love the fact that I am getting to share my art with the world literally. I have students on-line across the globe at the moment taking my Copic marker class and it is befuddling to me that I am doing it. But it is draining and time consuming to get the materials together. But I am on the other side, the class is written and now I am sharing the material and talking with students and I LOVE it! To top it off I have been able to do a little creating for me. I have gotten to finger through my stuff and play with my markers and I am loving that too.
The two layouts here are for a class I am teaching live here in Des Moines with an on-line store, That Scrappy Girl. It is a group of ladies that are just starting with Copics for the most part and I can already tell I am going to need to amp up the level of difficulty they are getting it and doing so amazing! Next month we are tackling a couple holiday images and then on to snow stuff.
All that being said I am in a really good place right now and wriggling in it. And besides I get all day Saturday to PLAY!!!!!


Hugs all!!!

Challenges 11/8/2010

Hi all! I am back i have caught up on life a little (HA HA) and I am having fun playing. This week I am busy hemming and taking in pants for my girls and getting ready for my parents visiting this weekend. I also am teaching my Copic tomorrow night and have an all day crop on Saturday so life is looking pretty grand right now! The layout below is from the lovely ladies at Sassy Lil Sketches. It is a little busy because of all the patterns I used but was fun and easy to just cut and slap on the page which felt good.


The little card was created for a challenge over at iCopic. This time the colors were green, gold, and silver with a tree included. I used my Copic markers on some vellum on this one. The vellum has the glitter in it and then added hand stitching with silver, hand written with silver and gold ribbon. It felt great to just create!


Girls are great, busy as ever and the weather is agreeing with us at the moment.

Hugs to all!

Happy Haloween!

Happy Halloween! From the two cutest girls out there!

This image is not from the class I just took but it is using some of the skills I learned over the weekend. This little stamped image is part of a local store's Copic challenge. Pretty sweet deal you color the image and just by entering get a marker at 1/2 price. Good deal if you are a collector. Then there will be judging by shoppers in the store and a few prizes awarded. I am not counting on a prize BUT I am thrilled how the image turned out! The major goal for this week is finishing my online class that will be going live November 8th at Get It Scrapped.

Also I have a new tutorial going up at Get It Scrapped as well. It is a simple one but fun for the season, a little pumpkin.

Knowing Debbie it will be up in a few days. Happy Halloween everyone! I'll make sure to get some shots of my Peacock and Bat up next :-)

Chicago!

Well we are back from a whirlwind weekend! The Houghton 4 visited Chicago for a few days. I am officially part of the first group to be Certified at the Intermediate level with Copic Markers. I was accepted to the class and it hit during John's vacation time so we all hopped in the car for a mini vacation.

We had the best time. We will definitely be going back to Chicago. So much to do! We stayed right down town at the hotel my class was being taught at so the girls and John could come back to home base to meet me for lunch and dinner. They toured the town and visited the "Sears" tower now the Willis tower and of course spent some quality time in the American Girl store.

I had an amazing day learning a ton about Copic Markers that I am now dying to put to use! As soon as I get my class all finished up for Get It Scrapped I hope to have some time to really play!
Saturday we all went to the Field Museum. AMAZING! Matt you would have drooled over the dinosaurs! Just amazing.

Just wanted to catch everyone up.
Hugs all!

Yep the class is going to run in November! If you want to check it out, we are running a special through the 22nd. Hope you can join me for this fun on-line look at Copic Markers!

Bats and Goblins and Witches Oh My!

Halloween is quickly approaching and as I scramble to sew costumes and complete tutorials and classes I had to throw one image together for an ICopic challenge. This is an image from a new friend/artist. Jayleen Weaver, or better known as Gurukitty in several circles is putting a new line of digital stamps out there and they are just too cute for words! She also is an amazing graphic artist and shares great info on Copic techniques on her blog.


Hugs to all! I hope to get some more scrapping in soon AND posting all the doings so we'll see if I can get a few things checked off.

Local?

So if you are a local friend and are interested in learning more about Copic markers I will be teaching Copic fun as part of Club Copic! This is a local club that will meet monthly to collect a full set of 36 Copic markers over one year and to learn all about how to use them during that year! To find out more visit That Scrappy Girl and get all the nitty gritty details! The first meeting is in only 2 weeks! I am so excited!

More challenges

This layout is from Sassy Lil Sketches it if the one from the 7th of the month. (I am a little behind) I wont finish them all this time but it is still fun to play along!


This one is the card sketch from the 14th! it is a 12x12 layout and the photo with extra buttons is on the way but not here yet. It is a group shot from my Vegas adventure.

Keep watching, more to come!
Hugs to all

Challenge for Icopic

I am quickly getting this one up to get in on the fun at Icopic! The current challenge was yellow, orange, and brown. Fall for sure! The weather here is obliging well as we cool down in Iowa. I will post more tomorrow about my fabulous weekend with friends and family and also lots of new pages to share!

A doodle, doodle, doodle

I have been busy doodling, not that that is unusual but doing art that is centered around doodling. As always time consuming but oh so rewarding! At Get It Scrapped my Oodles of Doodles has gone self paced which means you can down load all 6 lessons in one ginormous book and work at your own pace over the material.

I also have been invited to teach a Doodle class live at a Southeast Community College in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am excited for both and created all of these pieces for the advertising department there. If you are in the area and are interested i will post more details as we get closer.


Girls are crazy busy at this point with swimming, dance, diving and girl scouts all in full swing and hey lets start throwing in a trip once a month. He He it is all good but it is a lot. Dad and I are counting on some sleep in days on the weekend. And I think the girls will be ready as well. Allergy season is still going crazy here so I am going on two weeks of little to no sleep, hopefully the end is in sight but I have heard no rumors of such. Guess it is what I get for moving to a community surrounded by farms that are in the heat of harvest season!

Hugs all!

Copic Colors

The latest color challenge over at ICopic is red pink and white. I have to say the more I do this the more I love it! I am having so much fun coloring! I am also busy prepping my Copic class for the Get It Scrapped web site and doing lots of doodling for a live class in February. Life is busy and great!

Girls are busy with school, swim and dance at this point and Sara has added diving for a few weeks on top of that. Much fun is being had by all!

Hugs

September layouts on-line

I have 3 layouts in this months issue of Scrapbooking.com. If you have the chance and want to see here are links to them all. You will need to scroll down on a couple to see mine.

Layout 1

Layout 2

Layout 3

Mom and Dad are visiting this weekend and I'll post photos from that later!

Hugs all!

Last sketch for August

So I will be honest I threw this one together! BUT I do like how it turned out. Thanks Sassy Lil Sketches for the easy breezy sketch! My life has gotten crazy, with good stuff yes, but crazy! I was accepted to take the intermediate Copic Certification class (which to me is a big deal) I have been asked to teach a doodling class at a community college and Locally teach at a monthly kit club. To top it off I think I have been offered a position site unseen at two local Micheal's stores if I want it. I am VERY unsure on the Micheal's so i am not jumping in yet but it is always amazing the rain/pour effect of life!

The girls are GREAT! School is great dance started this week and that is great, life is just so good. This is where John and I always look at each other and say hope we are not being so blessed and being prepped for a big downward swing. We feel beyond loved these days.

John and I are both getting lots of riding in yesterday I rode 20 miles with him and he rode 40 more. Monday I rode 40 by myself Woo Hoo me!

Blog hop

There is a fun blog hop/treasure hunt going on over at Sassy Lil Sketches if you are looking for excuses to surf the web and play with your scrappy goodies it is a fun one! I did this card to go along with one of their two sketches. The peacock is one of my designs and is colored with Copic markers. Looks like I might get a chance to teach some classes locally on the Copics so I am excited about that!

The girls had a super duper second day and today Lori is full time! She is beyond thrilled and I think I might be too. I am looking forward to weekend fun! Oh and the Birthday was a huge success the "surprise" was a BIG surprise and Sara could not have been more pleased. I am not sure who I enjoyed watching more, Sara getting her gift or John giving her the gift, both priceless!

Hugs all!

And They're Off!

So the first day finally arrived and we dropped off our beautiful Sara right on time to her second grade teacher. She was as cute as a button and looking quite grown up.

Because Lori is going to full day Kindergarten she gets a separate drop off time for the first two days. She was more than ready to say I am good to go Mom! She towered over the little boy next to her. Don't mess with my girl! She too looked beautiful and very grown up! Yikes how did that happen?!


And finally here is a page I squeezed in late last night! Wonderful sketch from Sassy Lil Sketches again Thanks Ladies!

ICopic

So I found this great new site to feed my Copic passion. Icopic is an online supplier of all things Copic. And can I just say that with one order they have a customer for life! Spectacular service, great range of product including the latest and greatest! So they are running monthly challenges and I thought what a fun way to keep practicing and getting some projects done so here is my card from the second challenge.


The inspiration was primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and cupcakes. I think I got it (he he) had a lot of fun with this! and thanks to a new friend Heather for the way cool Hambly paper that is silk screened with the yellow cupcakes. Here you can see the actual challenge.

We are in countdown mode to skill on the family front. As well as zoning in on Sara's B-Day so lots of crazy errand running, the girls are excited!

Hugs all!

August Sketches

Here is my card sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches! Thanks ladies, and here is the August 7th layout as well. Yes I have been busy!

Day at the Fair

So what did we do at the fair? Weeeeeelllllll......





Then what would the fair be without...





Our very favorite event the sheep shearing! Got lots of good picks of the sky glider, the butterfly pavilion, and more. We had a great day!

Hugs!

New Class!

Yep I got 'er done and now you can sign up for it! My next class at Get It Scrapped is officially open for registration. Just click on the photo above and get all the information!

This has been keeping me scrambling for a few days but I think I just about have it all together. good thing considering school starts in a week and a half and I am supposed to be working on my next class Yikes! But all is good I tend to do better with a lot to keep me going anyway. Off to the zoo today!

Oh and check out my new doo dad on the right hand side woo hoo pretty cool huh?

Hugs all!

I am finally official!

Well after a few months of teaching Copic tutorials on-line I am now official! This weekend I got to attend a Copic certification class and now I am officially representing their product. I am pretty excited since I really do like the product. I am hoping to do some live classes locally and at the certification class met Nancy a wonderful lady who organized the certification class at the community classes and found out she has taken my Doodling class! What a small world! She would like me to come to Lincoln next spring to teach a day of doodling! I am thrilled and look forward to visiting with her more.

The trip over all was a huge success. We all visited the Omaha Zoo on the way to Lincoln which was AMAZING! Then the girls and Dad did the hotel pool and the Lincoln zoo while I was in class. We stopped at Cabella's on the way back through Omaha to top it all off. Quite the 2 day whirlwind event. Now we are wavering between days with heat index in the 110 plus and wild thunderstorms bringing LOTS of flooding at night.

Here are the threesome at the tail end of our trip late Saturday, they did great!


Hugs all!

August Publication

Hey I thought I would share the link to my next published layout! Scrapbooking.com picked up work for August and September as well! I will post when the September layouts go up. There will be three layouts in that edition.

Sunday

Well the weekend has come and gone and we have had much fun. The girls earned passes to the local water park through the library reading program so we got to try out the water fun for free! Much fun was had there even though Lori is still a 1/2 inch shy of riding the bigger slides. We sneaked on one anyway he he. I escaped for a couple hours to scrap with my local scrapping buddies, thanks Susan and Megan! I managed to finish my last sketch of the month from Sassy Lil' Sketches.

Today was church and lunch at Famous Dave's. It is Dave's Birthday so all those with the first or middle name get some free food so of course we were amongst the hoards. It was quite funny seeing all these grown men running around with their "Hi My Name is Dave" name tags on. Got the groceries done, picked a large bowl of tomatoes of our vines, napped and now while John hits some white balls I will attack the lawn. Good Weekend!

Hugs all!

Monkey Fun

So here is the latest Copic creation! I am adding one more tutorial over at GIS for those that are interested and stay tuned for a full class of Copic goodness in the fall. Lori in particular loves this little guy, hmm imagine that!


The girls have had their second round of swimming this week and lots of running around with Mom trying to escape the heat. Today is considerably better so hopefully we will get to make a couple loops on the bikes tonight. We saw a movie at the library with friends yesterday, can't beat Finding Nemo and free popcorn! Today we got to steal Dad from work and eat lunch together and are doing a little quiet time.

Hope all is well out there with family and friends!
Hugs

Thunder and sketches

So I am just plugging away! I am loving the sketches from Sassy Lil Sketches, and this one was so quick and easy! i didn't really make any changes and had photos that dropped right in. i love it when a page comes together lickity split. this one only took about 30 min. and that is with coloring a flower, and putting thread in all the button holes!

The girls had a good week too, be watching for a layout with them in grass hula skirts they made themselves! The weather is beyond wacky right now. flood warnings, thunder storms, on and off down pours, humidity that hits you when you walk out the door like a ton of bricks. BUT we are having a great summer. The girls each earned 2 free books one each from Barnes and Noble and Borders. Each store had summer reading challenges going on and they picked out new books to keep today. Of course Sara has already finished one, but then is that a surprise? Hmm...NO!

Hope all of the family and friends are well sending hugs your way!

New Toy

Two things to post today. The first is a card that includes Copic loveliness and is from a sketch from Sassy Lil Sketches. Thanks ladies!

The next is the results of my first round playing with my new toy! I just got a Copic Air Brush System. Way to fun! Similar to the effect you get with misting inks but a continuous spray and goes with all my markers so I have lots of colors.

Not much else to report today, hot and sticky here big surprise but we are still having fun with bikes, library and the girls are playing at Pump It Up this week for a few days and they love that as well.

Good Morning Monday

Well another week and we are off to the races, at least I am! Lots going on this week. The girls are doing a morning activity Monday, Tuesday and Thursday this week. They are going to Pump it Up for a little play/art time! Way excited. Good thing it is indoors though because we are supposed to have thunder storms here all week! It is pouring as I type. Of course it is still supposed to reach 83 today so no rest from the humidity yikes! Lots of little errands to try to tuck into the day and hopefully an activity of two at the library as well. Oh and to top it off my doodling class starts this morning with a good sized crowd again I am thrilled!

We visited the race track Saturday night and had an absolute blast! Once a year at our local track they do a camel and ostrich race! Hilarious. We knew it was popular and were warned about traffic so we went early, really we did about an hour and 15 min. before start time. It took us about 30 minutes to do the freeway which we knew would, then from exit to parking was over an hour! It is only about 2 miles!!!!!!!! Needles to say we missed the camels BUT the girls were ready with their Pollyanna attitudes and were excited for the ostriches "the ones they really wanted to see". We saw several horse races and the ostriches. Hilarious! Be watching for a layout!

Here is one more layout I managed to finish last weekend (I added a title after) Woo Hoo Thanksgiving 2009, check!

More Art

I am going to attempt to just keep adding layouts here as they come. I am enjoying "sharing" them no matter how many are stopping by.

The girls are at a park day camp from 9-12 this week and are loving it except for the bugs! The mosquitoes took their fair share on Monday! We coated them in bug goop on Tuesday and did better. The heat is so thick you can cut it but we are mixing our time inside and in the sprinklers so we are hanging in there.

I am going to have to take a mini break from scrapping to get working on writing but I am excited with a class on Copic Markers so hope it goes quickly!

Here is another layout from this past weekend.


And here is one of Brenda and I at our crop. I was too excited to use my new papers and do this layout so whipped it together. Sorry about the color I took this at night without natural lighting woops!

Weekend fun!

Well I do not know about all of you but I had a fabulous weekend! A very dear friend from Get It Scrapped came and visited me! Brenda is the first friend from my on-line home that I have been able to meet in person and boy what a treat. We spent Saturday at the CKC convention, shopping taking a couple classes, and then an evening crop. We had a wonderful time and Brenda is sweet, funny and I really had just the best time! The girls got in some golf with dad.

We all headed out on a long bike ride Sunday, about 8 miles, the girls did great and John and I are LOVING riding as a group!

Here is Brenda and I at the crop.


Here is a layout I completed at the crop. Simple and fun.



Here is one of the layouts I completed in my Misting Class, very fun and easy. I need to add some journalling yet but I love the page so far.


Coming soon more jokes! I know you have missed them! Lori earned a joke book at the Library for her reading this summer so I will share the goodness.

Hugs all!

Doodle round three and another sketch

Well the summer just keeps cruising along and the girls and I are keeping busy and out of trouble!
I will be teaching my Oodles for Doodles class over at Get It Scrapped one more time and then will be teaching two more classes this fall. If you have friends who scrap pass the info on if you will there is a special running on the class price through Monday the 12th! I am thrilled to be busy in that arena! I have a new friend coming to visit this weekend. Brenda whom I met on-line is coming to visit and attend the Creating Keepsakes Convention with me in downtown Des Moines. I am looking forward to a day of fun with my new buddy (new in person).

The girls' day camp got cancelled for the week and they are stuck going to the YMCA with me in the mornings which has not gone well as predicted but unavoidable. We are making up for it in the afternoons and having fun crafting and playing.

Last piece of big news John and I got bikes woo hoo and now we can keep up with the two girly girls. We have already done a 4 and 5 mile loop and Sara and John went on another yesterday while Lori sat on the couch feeling puny and I made beds and made lunches (not my first choice!) Hopefully we will all get out tonight even though John is on call. We are LOVING it!!!!!
To finish here is my latest layout , another from Sassy Lil Sketches. Thanks Ladies!