In a Slump...

It's been a while since I have actually feel like making anything creative. I don't know what it could be. I still have my challenges with SAM but even the last few creations have been pretty lame.
I took a few days off from work and my son and I went up to Northern CA to visit my sister and parents. Every time I make a trip up north, the area seems so foreign to me even though it's where I grew up and went to school and everything. Eventually I hope to move back up there and live near my family, but I think a part of me is a SO CAL girl. I can't imagine not living at least an hour from the beaches, desert, mountains and Disneyland.

I have been wanting to visit The Paper Garden in Sacramento. My sister was kind enough to take me even though she doesn't have any interest in any stamping and scrapping stuff. The Paper Garden is the cutest store. It is jammed packed with stamps, mostly A Muse News stamps and products, but she did have lots of other cute stamps and stuff like Copics and Asian themed items. They were so nice and said I could take pics of their card samples but the battery in my camera was dying so I was only able to get a few.

Stamps Galore!

I need to make another trip up north just to go and visit this store. If you happen to be in Sacramento you should stop by and visit The Paper Garden. It's off of Fulton and Marconi next to Noah's Bagels.

The Paper Garden

I also had to go and visit the scrapbook store near my sister's house. I loved shopping there because they had lots of different patterned papers that my local scrapbook store didn't carry. So I walk up to the door and there is a sign that reads, "40% OFF EVERYTHING". I thought, it's my lucky day. They are having big sale. Big sale, yes. Lucky day, no. It was a going out of business sale. They are closing shop. And of course the sale started a week ago and I got there too late. There really wasn't much left in the store except there was a ton of patterned paper. I need more patterned paper like I need another hole in the head, but I thought eh..what's another hole in my head so I grabbed a bunch of Sassafrass Lass paper and some other cute stuff.

I have the day off so I think I'm going to sit in my room and see if any creative juices start to flow. Hopefully they won't leak out of that hole in my head.... :o)

Sunday Scoop

So it's Sunday...It's not that something exciting happened today, but I just wanted to post some thoughts.

1. I just wanted to say 'Thank You!!' to Brooke. She nominated me for this little award.
I am honored. It was a good way to start off the weekend. In order for me to accept this award, I have to nominate 5 others. I'm somewhat new to the blogging world and I really don't have any dedicated followers so I'll just nominate the same people when I got this award. Thank you again Brooke!

2. I received a phone call from SAM. She told me that Michael's had the Martha Stewart Halloween punches. I had to have them and made a trip to Michael's. Luckily, the nearest one is about 5 miles from me. Martha Stewart had 4 Halloween Border punches. I only got two, the picket fence and the dripping goo. There was also a bat and pumpkin border punches. I also got an 8 x 8 paper pad. It's stinking cute. I love Halloween!

3. So on Friday I get my usual Iced Green Tea w/ melon syrup at Starbucks and find out they have this promotion called 'Treat Receipt'. It's where you buy a drink in the morning, get your receipt stamped and bring it in after 2 pm and you can get any medium-size blended drink for $2. Needless to say I have made 6 trips to Starbucks in 3 days. With my 'Treat Receipt', I got drinks that I normally wouldn't get. I can't drink Frappucinos because the milk, coffee and all that sugar that goes in the drink upset my stomach, but for $2 I had to have one (or 3!)
The first day my stomach really paid the price from drinking that reduced-price Mint Chocolate Chip Frappucino. You would have thought that I learned a lesson, but nope...my inner cheapskate kept telling me that it was a deal to get these $2 drinks. It's not really a deal if I don't drink them all and I get sick from it. Oh well...

4. I made 7-Up pie. Soooo Yummmy...Here's the recipe if you want to make it yourself.

7-Up Pie

1 small package of lime jello
2 - 7 oz bottles of 7-up (I just measure 7 oz in a measuring cup)
1 small container of Cool Whip
1 graham cracker crust

Heat 7 oz of 7-Up.
Dissolve jello into heated 7-Up.
Add other 7 oz of 7-Up.
Refrigerate until it is the consistency of egg whites.
Fold in Cool Whip. Pour into graham cracker crust.
Refrigerate until set. Enjoy!

It's a nice, cool summer treat.

5. I'm not much of sports person, but the Olympics are fun to watch. Did you catch the opening ceremonies? Some guy was flying then running around the top of the entire stadium! Craziness!

I hope everyone has a great week. I think I'm going to work on my ATC challenge and watch the Olympics.

Mata ne!!

Color Inspiration Challenge #18

For this week's challenge, Kristina shortened the time on when to submit our creations. I only had one day! EEK! But luckily the deadline was midnight (MDT) and since I'm a night owl, I didn't have a problem staying up late.
Since I only had one day to think of an idea, I came up with a really simple card. The colors she chose were so out out of my norm. But I guess that's why it's called a challenge.

'Sup

I apologize for the really bad picture. I had such a hard time getting it right. With the embossing and glitter I got so much glare. I think the card looks much better in real life.
I'm not usually the glitter type, but when I put the plain letters against the embossed background I felt it needed some sparkle.
Anyhoo...David liked the card, but you know kids... that's how they greet each other!! (FYI - 'sup is slang for 'What's up!')

Gotta hurry and post before midnight!!

Mata ne!

ATCs Galore!

Wow...it's been a while since I've posted. I suppose time has gotten away from me. Some days I wish there were more hours in the days...especially the weekends!

A couple of Sundays ago I met Wendy at the Stamp Expo in Riverside. Though it wasn't as big as I thought it would be, we still got some fun stuff! I picked up some new stamps and I'm hoping to improve my stamping skills. One of the booths we visited had some awesome stamps. Every stamp you purchased they gave you a copy of a sample using that stamp. Also, they had this awesome technique where they embossed in black all the stamped images and then colored in this image. Wendy and I loved this technique because it makes the image pop. Wendy bought some Twinkling H2O and I now regret not getting them. She has posted a couple of cards on her blog using them with the black embossing technique and her cards are beautiful.
She bought this wishing well stamp and made this card and it turned out so much better than the sample that was on display. I'm not just saying that... it seriously was.

So before we met up at the Expo, we decided to do an ATC swap. I have never done a swap with anyone much less make an ATC. We decided to swap 10 and I was stressing because I had a really hard time coming up with ideas, but once I got the hang of it I had so much fun. I also like them because it gives me the chance to use up my scraps.

Here are a few samples of the ATCs Wendy and I made:

Wendy's ATCs

My ATCs

I showed SAM the ATCs and she loved them. She wanted to create some. She wanted to eat, live and breathe them. Ok.. maybe I'm exaggerating, but she did love them and we decided that our weekly challenges should be switched to ATCs. So last week I chose the theme which was 'Animals'. I had two ideas swirling in my head, so I was able to create them both! Woo Hoo!!

My Animal ATC

SAM's Animal ATC

Ain't that Frankenstein the cutest?? It reminds me of Peter Boyle in 'Young Frankenstein'. I love the scene where he is singing 'Putting on the Ritz' . It's not the same unless he sings it. Oh and when I eat a Ritz cracker it reminds me of that song.

For our next ATC challenge SAM chose the 'Leave it to Weaver' Border punch. I am stumped on what to create. Challenge is due on Monday. I better get my rear in gear.

Mata ne!!