A little man in your life (but don't forget the girl)

Today I was working on some more manly cards.  It worked for me for some time and then I just had to make some girl cards.  I wanted to make some manly cards so that I could prepare myself to make this shower curtain for a friend.  She wants a patchwork curtain from super hero fabric.  I have high expectations for this curtain. I will feature it probably next week.

The first two cards were made using this weeks Mojo Monday formula.  What a great way to showcase my new gears die cut...love it!!!  Materials used:

Gears die cut by Sizzix

Paper by The Paper Company

Patterned paper by K&Co (Wild Saffron)

Lines embossing folder by The Paper Company

Script stamp by Technique Tuesday

Umbrella man embossing folder by Tim Holtz

All inks are Distress inks by Tim Holtz (Peeled Paint, Wild Honey, Mustard Seed, Walnut Stain)

Paper for gears is from my scrapbin

For my next man card, I used the Tim Holtz car embossing folder, the large gear from my Sizzix set, Stickles in Gold, and ribbon from my ribbon jar (and I have no idea who made it).  The rest of the supplies are the same from the previous two.

Time for some girly cards....This one uses my new Sizzix circle die, a stamp by Hot off the Press (that I painted with watercolors), the girl image was stamped using StazOn, all other papers and inks same as above.

And lastly, Marilyn.  I cut the Marilyn stencil from a plastic icee cup from Hucks.  It took me a very long time, but it was worth it completely.  The music stamp is by Close to My Heart, the flower by K&Co, the embossing folder by The Paper Company, ink from music by StazOn, all other ink by Tim Holtz (Peeled Paint, Evergreen Bough, Spun Sugar).  Paint is raven by Americana. 

My final project was attendance taking awards for the people I work with, let's hope they work.  I have not pictured them because I want them to be a surprise.

The Aquas have it

A couple of weeks ago, my mother-in-law complained to me that her great-grandkids played in the freezer and then it made a puddle of water under the door.  She cleaned it up and that was the last I had heard of it........UNTIL Sunday!!!!!

It's Sunday around noon and I get a phone call.....my mother in law was taking a nap and a boom happened.  She then heard the carbon monoxide detector going off, but she could not get out of bed.  She said it took her a few minutes to get up and when she did she unplugged the detector.  She had her smarts to call the neighbor (but not to get out of the house). And they called the fire department.  Turns out the freezer (that was about 40 years old) decided it was time for it to die.

John and I head that way with trash bags and coolers in tow.  Our goal to save some of the food.  We get there and the house smells like an electrical fire smoke.  Pretty strong and pretty terrible, I am surprised my Mom-in-law could stand it.  I open the freezer and there is water everywhere.  I start looking at things NOTHING is frozen....this thing has not worked for a while.  Meat has started turning brown, things are starting to smell.  I am throwing things in trash bags while my mom in law is not liking that and she is trying to save things by putting them in the fridge.  John gives her a Popsicle that was completely melted and she puts it in the fridge!!!!

After 6 trash bags and one cooler, the freezer is empty and still a big smelly!!!

We decide she does not need another freezer because nothing in there was touched for probably 5 months, so we clean up the floor while John removes the freezer from the home.  There is evidence of a fire under the freezer, a nice burned area.  Well, we know why the house smelled like an electrical fire.

What a complete mess and waste of money (all that food)!

I came home and made a couple of cards to destress from the conversations that were going on while all the above was happening.  And there is NO way you want to know what was said.


The beach card was made with:
Balmy stamp set by Stampin UP
Buttons from my stash
String by DMC
Grungeboard sign frame by Tim Holtz
beads and star from my cross stitch bin
string paper and torn papers from my scrapbin
inks
Evergreen Bough, Mustard Seed, Iced Spruce, Old Paper, and Crushed Olive by Distress/Tim Holtz
Black ink by Ranger/Archival

brads by Making Memories



A thing of beauty:
Photo of Theda Bara from the internet
Doily from my stash
script paper from a Prima package
Font is bleeding cowboy (inside font Calli)

inks
Evergreen Bough by Distress/Tim Holtz
Black by Ranger/Archival

First week of school

Here we are after the first two days of school.  It has been an extremely busy week, but I have found time to do some of the things I love....such as shop at Michael's, Kohls and Hobby Lobby.  I ate a meal at Chili's.  Went to the Goodwill store.  And watched some of the Olympics!!!!

Today I spent a little time helping Trevor make some notebooks for school and while his glue was drying I wiped up these cards.

For the flower card I drew a spiral onto a sheet of cardstock.  I cut little petal shapes around the edges as I was cutting.  I then inked the shape with distress inks (Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint and Chipped Sapphire).  I wet the flowers thoroughly and did some shaping. I bended them, folded them, curled them...whatever suited me and dried with a heat gun.  Then I hot glued them together. I used all scraps on this project.  The edge was cut using a Tim Holtz Alterations Die.  The Happy Bday stamp is by Fiskars.

This card was somewhat of a departure for me.  I have never made a halloween card.  I decided to "write" boo with wire and adhere it with wire to the card.  I then fashioned a spider from velco leftovers and I wove ribbon onto wire for the legs.  All paper is scrap paper and the edges are cut from the same Tim Holtz Alterations Die, I just used the other side of the die.  I used Dusty Concord and Chipped Sapphire only on this card.  This was a fun card!!!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Today I read Tim Holtz's new blog post...he had posted this months tag.  Tim used a silhouette of a Victorianish age lady...I thought, "wow that would look good with a little steampunk".  Inspired I was....here is what I made...

I started with a cardboard base.

 I don't have a book plate embossing folder so I made a template from cardstock so that I could have a void in the middle of the embossing folder and therefore leaving the middle blank.  My cardstock template was 4 sheets thick and I used tab 2 on my multipurpose platform.

Then I took the embossed cardboard and painted it with Distress paint dabber in Picket Fence (Distress inks will resist this and it will help in the color process later).

Tim used a pretty frame stamp, but again I did not have this stamp (or anything like it) so I used a tab stamp.  I inked part of it with embossing ink, stamped onto the paper...poured on Midnight Black powder by Stampdenous...then reinked half the stamp and repeated the process.  The next step was to heat all the powder with the heat gun. 

I then found a clip art of Mary Poppins on the internet.  I glued to the center of my frame. 

The next step was to use Seedless Preserves and Evergreen Bough Distress ink and ink the tag all over.  I let that sit for a minute or so then I wet a paper towel. I took this and dabbed at portions of the tag where the paint was.  Then I took Misting Spray in Sterling Silver (by Michelles Musings) and sprayed the whole tag.  Tim's next embellishment was roses made from his tattered pinecone die.  I do not have this either so I drew my own.  I drew the design onto a piece of white paper. 

I used this for a pattern to cut two spirals from cardstock.  I inked the cardstock with the Seedless Preserves and the Evergreen Bough. I then wet the paper with a misting bottle. I got it pretty wet.  I took a toothpick and put some Alene's quick dry glue onto one end.  The next step was to wind the flower onto the toothpick starting with the wide end first.  I really tried to get the center nice and tight.  It was difficult with wet gluey paper. I set the flowers aside to dry.

While the flowers were drying I took a sheet of green scrappaper and hand cut a leaf.  After that I inked the entire thing with Evergreen Bough.  I wadded it up like it was trash, opened it and then used Vintage Photo Distress Stain. 

It was now time to put it all together!!!I used a metal tag saying "altered" and painted it with the Distress Picket Fence paint.  While that was drying I wired a silver shoe (from an old necklace), two kinds of purple ribbon (scrap) and a #17 for the street where the Banks family lived (#17 Cherry Tree Lane).  I stamped gears onto 3 different spots on the tag using Archival Black ink by Ranger.  I added a camera by K&Co, rhinestones by Recolletions and a butterfly stamp.  The butterfly stamp and the gears are by Hampton Arts.  

This was fun Tim, thanks.

Marilyn Monroe

It's been 50 years since Marilyn Monroe walked upon this earth.  Marilyn was never the greatest actress or the most beautiful woman, but there was something about her.  Maybe her vulnerability....her undying need to be loved that stemmed from a childhood of abandonment. Or maybe it was her ability to make us desire to watch her by the way she could get the camera to love her.  I have never been able to figure it out....never able to understand why a 9-year-old kid would watch Some Like it Hot one time and then she just could not get enough.

As a 9-year-old kid got her first poster of Marilyn from her friend Kelly.  Then this 9-year-old kid grew older all the while collecting Marilyn items. I would babysit just so she could make money to buy more Marilyn things. In 1987, the 25th anniversary of her death, many items were released commemorating Marilyn including her movies; this little girl bought all of them and even got the coveted Marilyn coffee mug.  Movies, paper dolls, books, pictures, magazines, newspapers... I had a little bit of everything.  In high school, my photo would be featured in a yearbook page showcasing the amount of Marilyn items she had.

Through the years, kids take over the tv and there is not time to watch the Marilyn movies.  Then the VCR is gone and no way to watch the VHS tapes.  It was time to sell them and go to the DVD.    All the VHS tapes were sold and I began to buy the DVDs...now only Bus Stop and There's no business like show business are all that is missing.  I am still reading Marilyn books over the years and is excited to see if maybe more books are published for the 50th.

 I never met her or saw a movie first run (or even on the big screen for that matter), but she has always been important to me.  Every year I remember her death on August 5 and think of what might have been.  What maybe Marilyn could have accomplished. Her career was really only active for about 10 years, so yes should have done so much more.  Her drug usage ruined all of that.  So if there is one thing we can learn from Marilyn it is for sure, DON'T DO DRUGS. 

 



 

It was 25 years ago today....

It is hard to believe that 25 years ago, my mom took me to Paducah to buy an album. Yes, I said ALBUM!  I was getting the long-awaited vinyl from the band Def Leppard. I had started listening to DL in 1980, but in 1982, I was hit HARD!  I saw "Foolin' " on Friday Night Videos and that was all she wrote. I was a MASSIVE fan.  I bought Pyromania on vinyl, on cassette and 8 TRACK!  It was pretty much an everyday occurrence to listen to the tunes from PYRO.  I knew all the guitar parts, drums, bass line, vocals and loved every single song.  The only other album that I listened to during this period was Thriller.  Which I must say was equally as good.

I kept hearing they were going to release another album, but it never came.  Then in early 1985, I heard that Rick Allen (the drummer) had died.  That turned to be false, but he had lost his arm on New Year's Eve in a car wreck. Seemed like I was never going to get new music.  It was going to be like the Beatles, I was going to listen to this music forever with no hopes of anything new :(.

Nope, Rick turned into a miracle drummer and learned to drum with one arm and in 1986 I heard they were working on an album.  I thought the day would never come but on August 3, 1987, it was here!

I purchased my album with babysitting money and had enough left for earphones. I plugged my earphones into my dads GINORMOUS stereo that he let me keep in my room.  It looked pretty much like this one pictured here.





I put on my album and headphones and listened.  The first track was "Women".  I had heard this song because it was the first single.  I had made an antenna that went from my stereo across the ceiling and down the wall.  This antenna allowed me to get WKDF in Nashville TN.  This station used to play my kind of music in the day.  They had played the song "women" just a few days before.  I loved it!!!

"Rocket", "Animal", "Love Bites", "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (henceforth shortened to PSSOM), "Armageddon It" and then side 2.  WOW! Another power punch "Gods of War", "Don't shoot shotgun" (which was my favorite upon the first listening) "Run Riot" "Hysteria", "Excitable" and "Love and Affection".  I pretty much killed the LP because it was all I listened too.  I finally got a cassette and carried that and my jam box EVERYWHERE!!!!


As the band was releasing singles I noticed that not only were the B sides not on the album, but the sleeves made a puzzle.  So, of course, I had to buy the singles too.  I never could get all of them.  Living in Mayfield, KY and have little to NO money while being in high school...there was just no way.  Here are some of the 45s

the finished puzzle

Over the course of time, I would have 2 LPs, and 6 cassettes.  I have never bought it on CD.  We put my vinyl copy on CD and I still listen to that.  WHY?  Because the pops and cracks take me back when I was a child and this album was the HOTTEST thing.

I got to see them for the first time live in 1988 during the heyday of Hysteria.  WOW, what a show that was!!!!!

Happy Birthday to one of the greatest albums EVER!!!!!

A lazy weekend

I have accomplished much this weekend.

read a book, white girl problems (NOT GOOD)
made 14 cards
made 2 scrapbook pages
date with the hubby
4 loads of laundry, washed, dried and put away
watched 3 Marilyn Monroe movies and 1 Gene Kelly movie
read most of the Client
joined an online book club

Here are some of the cards that I made: