Rub On Product Review

Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend after Christmas. I cleaned my scrapbook room last night. Man it feels so good to get everything dusted and clear the cobwebs out! I even had a chance to pull out a few page layouts I set aside months ago. I am working on the finishing touches on them and will share them with you later. But first I thought I would share another product review with you. I purchased these rubons at a store here in town and I just loved the whimsical look of them...BEWARE they are quite possibly the worst rubons I have EVER used. I couldn't get the design to rub off on my page! That is so frustrating! So anyway I thought I would save you the money, don't buy these Sandylion rubons.

If I don't post again before New Year's Eve be safe and have a wonderful holiday!

Happy New Year!

Ho Ho Ho Card

Here are the Christmas cards that I started working on before I got sick. I had everything cut out I just needed to put them together. Needless to say I only got a few of them put together so I am just going to send them out next year. I have this issue with limits. I can't set them, especially when it comes to getting things done around here or offering to do things for others. It is almost like no isn't part of my vocabulary. So I decided that I just wasn't going to push it. I didn't feel good enough to put them together so I didn't. Besides all of you know how I feel about you and that I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Next year we will probably have pictures to send out any way...we are going to be grandparents. Yep...that's right, Whitney is going to have a baby. She is due in June. It isn't exactly what we would have wished for her right now as she isn't married but it will all be okay. God has always given us strength and he will be there for us through this.

Thanks for peekin' in!

Gift Card Holder

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas...we sure did. It is so nice to spend time with family.
I thought I would share this little mitten gift card holder with you. The mittens (I cut two out) were cut using the Cricut Cartridge Joy of the Season (thanks for letting me borrow this Nikki!) I set the dial on 5". Then after I cut them out I ran them through the Cuttlebug with the snow embossing folder. Next I glued them together using my favorite cardstock adhesive, Zip Dry (around the edges only leaving the top open so I could place the gift card inside). They just needed one little thing...a little bling! So I used a little bit of red stickles to give it that fun glittery effect. All in all I thought they turned out pretty neat!
Enabler alert!! I just happened to be in Hobby Lobby today and they are now carrying stickles...they come in a three pack and with a 40% off coupon they are pretty darn reasonable! Just thought you might like to know that, you know I do what I can to pass this sickness along to you all.
Well thanks for stoppin' in. Have a great weekend!

Santa Baby

Here is a fun little card that I made for our son Thomas. The red cardstock is embossed using the Cuttle Bug and the snow embossing folder. I hadn't used this little Santa stamp yet so I felt good about breaking it open and inking it up for the first time!

Thomas lives in Seattle so we sent his package off last week. We sure do miss him. I wanted to fly him home for Christmas but he said that he couldn't take the time off. They had some lay offs where he works so he thought he better wait til later to come home. The other night I got to talk to his girlfriend for the first time. She seems like a very nice chick. I talked her socks off though! I am not really sure how long they have been dating but I think it has been close to a year.

This flu stuff has hit me again. Last week I was sick for a while and this weekend it hit me with a vengeance! I could feel it coming back on Saturday evening and then BAM! Sunday morning I thought my head was going to pop off. We had 2 pills left over from a prescription decongestant this year so I took that and it helped but I still felt awful so I went to the doctor today. Good thing too because he said I have a bacterial infection in my sinuses. Get this he looked in my nose and said "Yep...there's puss up there" how gross is that? My head feels like some one hit me with a baseball bat. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow. Bad thing is I didn't get anything done yesterday. I haven't wrapped any presents and I was working on my Christmas cards. They are in pieces but I think I will just save them for next year. Welp...thanks for checkin' in on me! Hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

Merry Wishes

Here are a few cards that I made up for a customer. I didn't have a whole lot of notice to put these together so I tried to choose a simple design. I cased the Merry Wishes from a gal but I can't remember her name. I changed up the patterned paper and the colors so they are not exactly the same. I the sentiment is from the Lots of Thoughts SU stamp set. I used 2 circle punches to mat the sentiment on and finally used the SU scalloped circle punch to finish it off. The little Mary & Joseph stamp is one I used on my own Christmas cards last year...isn't it cute? It is by Stampendous. I used a little bit of stickles to accent the star and Baby Jesus blanket. Simple but cute...and so easy to mass produce!

I took the day off from work to day as I have gotten this crud that has been going around. It hit me Monday night, I could feel it in my throat. Then Tuesday afternoon it hit me hard and I went to bed when I got home. I felt so lousy that I didn't even get out of bed today until about 6pm. I feel a little bit better now but still a little weak and achy. I hope this stuff doesn't hit anyone else in my family.
Well thanks for peekin in on me. Hope you are all well at your house!

Holiday Baking

Merry Christmas Everyone. Well this weekend we put our tree up and we had our Godson over to make sugar cookies. What a blast! He was covered from head to toe in flour! Here are a few pics to enjoy. I am working on Christmas cards so I will post those later. Thanks for peeking in! Hope you have a great week!

Aunt T

OK so I wanted to show you this latest project I have been working on. I started it a long time ago and just now finished it up. My sister is an amazing photographer. I asked her one day this summer if she would take some photos of the girls out and about downtown. We ended up at Bum Park. For those of you that don't know it is a sweet little park in the middle of the downtown area and the bums like to hang out down there...hence the name. Anyway there are a lot of people that think this place is picturesque too because the same day we were down there a professional photographer was shooting a wedding in the park also. Pretty cool. Anyway my sis took her time and got a ton of great photos and I really appreciate her doing that. So I decided to make her a little memento of the photo shoot. I took my camera too and tried to get some pictures of her taking pictures. That was so much fun. Man she is not afraid to do anything and it was so cool to see the creativity oozing out when she was telling the girls how to stand and such. Anyway the only way my blog template would allow me to show you all of the photos for this book was to put them in a slide show. If there is a photo that you want to examine closer then just hoover over the photo with your mouse and the rotation of photos will stop.

Now to explain the book to you a bit. This is a small rectangle board book, very similar to a picture book you might purchase for a child. The book is actually made by Creative Cafe. I used background stamps to give the pages some pizazz and I inked the edges with Catseye chalk ink (by Colorbox), purchased at Hobby Lobby. (If you haven't tried these little Catseye chalk inks you definitely need too!) The patterned paper that I used is by Cosmo Cricut (also purchased it Hobby Lobby at a 50% off sale) and I picked several SU colored ink pads to coordinate. Most of the embellishments are stamps. (You would be amazed at what you can save by making your own embellishments with stamps) That about sums this little project up in a nut shell!

Thanks for peaking in! Hope you have a great weekend!

Reindeer Run & Parade

School Photo Album

Hi friends! Hope all is well with you.
Here are a few school albums that a customer ordered. These are so fun I just love the concept. Every year we order school photos and there are always a ton of wallets left over. I was trying to come up with a way that you could put each school year photo in a small album. And that it be easy enough for someone who wasn't a scrapbooker. So I found these cute little spiral albums at Hobby Lobby for a song. I tore the pages out that I didn't need so I would have Kindergarten through 12th Grade. Each little insert card with the ribbon attached is a library card so you can put the school picture on the front and journal a little bit about the child that school year on the back.
Tomorrow should be an interesting day. Sidney is in band this year and the band is preforming in an evening Christmas parade tomorrow. But before the parade the school kids (and parents) are running in a 2 mile charity run. For some of you this may be a piece of cake. Me, well I am not the most athletic so I am doing this totally for the kids. Plus it is probably going to be pretty cold tomorrow. But we shall see. I will try to get some good pictures to post for you to see.
Thanks for stoppin' in today! Take care!

Happy Holidays!

Hi friends! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I have officially stuffed myself! All of our family lives here in town so we had two Thanksgiving dinners!

I had the craft fair at the bank a few weeks ago and it didn't go well. There were a lot of people there looking everything over but no one really in the mood to buy anything. So I didn't do near as well as last year. But at least I didn't have to pay any booth rent so I wasn't out anything for that. So guess what some people will be getting for Christmas? Yep...my crafty goods!

It has been pretty busy at work these days. We had a birthday party for this gal in my office, she just turned 40 and you know I couldn't miss the opportunity to wish her well on her milestone birthday right? But we weren't too mean to her. We sort of did a princess theme. We hung all sorts of 40's all over her office (some from the ceiling) and our main color theme was pink and black. Here is a picture of us (she is wearing the black boa) we thought we should all wear black in honor of her special day and of coarse boa's! We also got her this fun little light up crown that was furry and said 29 forever! We had confetti all over the office...I am sure the cleaning crew just loved our department that night! Her mom sent me a cute little school picture of her when she was about 6 years old and I enlarged it to 15x17. We made about 8 copies and put them up all over the office! So much fun! Needless to say she was a good sport and loved it!

I will have some projects to post soon. I am trying to clean up my scrapbook room after all of the craft fair stuff. You just get on a roll when you know you are working towards a deadline. Sheesh...I have paper scraps and glue everywhere! Thanks for stoppin' in!

Hugs! Toni

Clothes Pins

Hi friends! Here are some fun little clothes pins I altered this week. I purchased these at Hobby Lobby. All of the paper for this project was scraps! YES! I love being able to say that! Anyway they don't take too long to make and they turn out so cute. I plan on selling them for about $5. Thanks for checkin' in on me.

In case you are interested I am now half way through season 6 of Gilmore Girls. Good show. Funny how when you watch a show you really get into it and all of a sudden you are thinking about it like the characters in the show are friends of yours. Like right now, in Gilmore Girls I totally don't want Lorelai to marry Luke because I think he is so wrong for her and besides that they don't communicate at all. Sorry...that was a little side note...if you watched this show you could call me and we could dish about it! I went to lunch with a couple of friends this week and asked if they had ever gotten into a show like this...seriously they answered yes and totally cracked up! Good to know I am not warped!
Anyway...hope you are having a great weekend!

Crazy for Clipboards

I just love clipboards! They are such a fun way to display photos. I made one a while back that was 12x12 and I just love it. I don't know how well it would go over at the craft fair this year though because of the economy and folks being laid off I thought if I stuck with cheaper items it might be better. So I found these 9x9 clipboards from Stampin Up for around $8. All of the paper on these boards were scraps left over from other projects! Go Toni...Go Toni!! Sorry...had to do the happy dance there. The cardstock in the center of each board is 5x7. I used photo corners so that one could easily switch out the photo. Add a few little embellishments and BAM! beautiful!
Well thanks for stoppin' in today! Hugs...Toni

Fiskars Adhesive Dots

Introducing Toni's product reviews. I think we should tell each other when we purchase a new product and if it is a good purchase or not. So here we go! I was shopping at Walmart the other day and thought I would browse through their scrapbooking section. I found some gluedots by Fiskars brand. I have used their double sided square adhesive tabs and have been happy with them so I thought I would give their glue dots a try. I am very disappointed with this product. They are so super sticky that they don't want to come off of the roll. They ended up tearing some of my flowers and chipboard items. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being the worst and 10 being the best) I give this product a 1!

Well thanks for tuning in tonight. I have been working away on stuff for the craft fair...it is a week from this Thursday. I am not stressing myself out about it like I usually do though. What I get done I get done. I have a really bad habit of over buying...anyone else have this problem? Well this year, since I don't work at SBG anymore I haven't been tempted to "over buy". I looked around my scrapbook room and found a lot of things that I had purchased in the past for craft fairs and didn't get around to making. So I have been a very good girl. It is a good feeling to use up some of this stuff too.

Hope you all have had a great weekend! Talk to you soon!

Craft Fair

Happy Halloween! It's hard to believe that today is the last day of October! I can't believe how quickly time is passing by!
I am participating in a craft fair at work next month and this is one of the items I will have at my booth. I picked the book up at Target in the dollar bins and covered it to match the little band aid tin. Inside the band aid tin are little glitter pens that I also found in the dollar bins at Target. Gotta love those bargain huh?
I usually try to carry a variety of items at my booth and only about 3 or 4 of the same item, just decorated up differently. This way I am not stuck with a huge amount after it is all said and done. It is difficult to get ready for one one of these shin digs because you never know what's gonna sell. Sometimes you sell the heck out of one item and so you think hum...maybe I should make a lot more of those for the next show and so you do and no one buys them the next time. Weird. Oh well...variety is the spice of life right?
Well have a safe night tonight! Hugs...Toni

New Cardstock

Hi friends. I have been searching for new places to get my scrapbook supplies. I am no longer shopping at Scrapbook Garden because of the way that they treated the East store employees. Hey, I know sometimes business have their hard times and they can't afford to stay open or loose their lease whatever the case may be. We can all sympathize with that right? I understand that we are living in hard economic times right now, but the thing that gets me is the way everything was done. The way people were treated that worked for a small company. I just felt that there could have been a little more consideration for the people that helped make your store what it was. That being said I have decided that I just simply can not shop at Scrapbook Garden anymore. I really enjoyed being able to match cardstock to my projects, it was so easy to walk into the store with your stuff and just match away. So I started thinking about what I did before I worked at Scrapbook Garden. I used to order from this great little company called Memory Works. They are based out of Utah (what scrapbook company isn't) and are a Direct Sell company only there are no up or down lines or minimum quotas to meet (which is great because I don't want the hassle of selling stuff at parties). You pay $50to become a consultant and you have to purchase $75 a year in products. So I signed up for the discount (20% off the regular price). They used to carry Bazzil cardstock but had some issues with having what they needed in stock so they switched to another cardstock line called Prism. It is a nice quality cardstock as well. Not as many choices on color but they sell them in monochromatic packs and you can get 3 shades of any color you want, 12 total sheets for $5.25. Here is a picture of the Prismatics swatch book...which I picked up for $6! That is such a great deal compared to Bazzil's swatch book for $30!

On another note, here is another one of the projects that I am working on for the craft fair. I actually found this idea in a scrapbook magazine and when I saw it thought...why didn't I think of that? These are little plastic ID Badge holders that you can purchase at any office store. There are 6 plastic sleeves in each of these little books. I used all scrap paper to put them together. How fun is this? I mean isn't this great to just carry around in your purse? So tell me what you think of this idea okay?

And of naturally I have keep you updated on where we are on my favorite show right? Yep, the girls and I have made it to season 5 of the Gilmore Girls. If you haven't ever watched this show you are seriously missing out on some good stuff. I mean really. Just do it. Sign up for Netflix and start renting the series. You won't be sorry!

Well friends, that is all for now. Tune in next week for more from your creative little friend in Kansas!

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday afternoon we took our godson to the pumpkin patch. He cracks me up! He reminds me of pictures of Thomas (my stepson) when he was little. He makes these funny little faces that make you laugh. Right now he is in this phase where you ask him questions and everything is answered with "yeah". I asked him if he always answers questions with yeah and he said yeah. I said oh, well did you know that Veronica (his little sister) told me that you were her friend? He said NO! I am not! LOL! Too funny! He is named after Mike and I...Michael Anthony. Sweet huh? Yes...Toni is a derivative of Anthony. Yes it is, don't argue with me. Thanks for stoppin in tonight!

What kind of Latte are You?

This is way too much fun...I found this little quiz through Whimsey's blog...

I am a Cinnamon Latte

Deep down, you are a sensitive soul. You just want to be loved and appreciated. You may have a spicy attitude, but you're all sweetness on the inside. You are dependable and loyal. You have you life together, and you're able to be there for other people. You like nothing more than a warm, cozy house filled with friends and loved ones.

What Flavor Latte Are You?

She's a survivor

Recently my friend JoEtta did the race for the cure with her family. Her sister in law is a breast cancer survivor. I wanted to do something for her as a memory of this day. JoEtta is a fabulous photographer and I knew that she would be taking pictures of the day and so I asked her to email me the pics and I would make up a little memory book for her sister in law. The main color here was pink, naturally, but I wanted to accent it with other colors too. The chipboard album was from Basic Grey and the paper was from various Basic Grey lines. This is just a little sampling of the album...it had a few more pages to it. Thanks for peekin' in.

We are headed to Coxfarms to the pumpkin patch this afternoon! Hope you're having a great weekend so far!

I'm still kickin!

Yep I am still around. You guys probably thought that I fell off the planet huh? Nope. Just thought I would take some time away from the computer for a while. Since being dismissed at Scrapbook Garden I have found myself really enjoying being home with my kids. I loved working with the gang at SBG but secretly there were times that I would think to myself that I wished that I didn't have to work on Saturday's. Weekends are precious time when you work full time and on the weekend that I worked at SBG I felt like I really didn't have a weekend. So needless to say I am enjoying not having to go to a 2nd job. I have also noticed that since I am not in the store drooling over all the new items that come in I have not spent very much money on scrapbook supplies not to mention saving money on gas!

So this weekend was Gilmore Girl marathon! Haley and I watched the rest of season 1 and all of season 2. I am working on finishing up season 3. I did read a few spoilers and I am not sure that I really like the way the show ended. But we shall see.

Tomorrow we are taking our girls and our little godson to the pumpkin patch so I will have some pictures to share with you.

Tonight we are going to see the the 9:30 flick...Fireproof. I actually twisted my mom and dad's arm and they are going to see the movie with us. What a treat! The girls are so excited!

A few weeks ago I was reading the Catholic Advance (the local Catholic paper that comes out every week with Catholic events and goings on in the area) and there was an article about a priest that used to be at our parish a long time ago. He is now serving as the Chaplin in the army and he is stationed in Iraq. I emailed him to tell him I had read the article and that I would like to send him a care package. So that's what I did. I sent him a box full of stuff. I was amazed at how much stuff I got and how I fit it all in this little box. I sent it on Thursday and they said it will probably take about 2 weeks for it to get to him. I recently found this great web page where you can adopt a soldier that has no family back home. There are certain requirements, like you have to write one letter a week and send one care package a month. It is a pretty big commitment but can you imagine how nice it would be to receive a letter or a package once in a while? Might just make your day to receive something. We gotta support our troops!

Well anyway...thanks for peekin' in tonight!

I am officially addicted!

I LOVE this show! We signed up for Netflix earlier this year because I was getting tired of all the darn late fees to the local movie places. So I thought this was a perfect way for us to watch movies. Well first I got hooked on CSI Miami so I made sure to catch up on all of the episodes from beginning to current on that and I was blog hoppin and noticed that Emily over at Three Peas In A Pod Designs seems to really enjoy this show so I thought what the heck I will try one season. OMG! I love it! So naturally I put all of the shows episodes into my queue on Netflix. I am pretty sure that this is going to be a Gilmore Girl weekend!

Tonight we watched a movie called The Scarlet and the Black. It is based on the true-life story of Vatican priest Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, played by Gregory Peck, who helped allied POW's escape from Nazi-occupied Rome. The girls watched this one with us, Haley had actually seen it a few years ago in school. I found myself thinking of how scary it must have been to live in that time. Not knowing when the bad guys might break into your home and send you off to jail. Very interesting.

Well thanks for peekin' in!

Sistas!

Since I am on a sister kick I thought I would post this picture that I just put up in my scrapbook room. Haley took this picture of Teri and I back around Christmas time last year (didn't she do a great job). I was out shopping not to long ago and found this frame and thought this was perfect for this picture. I am so glad that I have a sister, sometimes we have our disagreements but we are always there for each other.

Thanks for peekin in tonight! I will have some work to post soon. I am working on a special project for a friend of mine and I hope to finish it up tonight. I can't post pictures of it until I give it to her first...so stay tuned! Have a wonderful evening!

Kansas City Photos...continued

Ok so here we go with the pictures that go with my KC story below...read my story posted below first then look at these pictures so you get the idea of what they are...I know...I am backwards!