More Camping...

I just love camping.  Its a lot of work though to set everything up and make sure everything stays clean.  On top of it, we have to basically pack almost everything up each night and lock it up in the truck.  Not because people will steal it, but because of the animals getting into the food - mostly bears.  But to see some of the most amazing scenery around is worth the extra effort it takes.  The second day we were camping is really the only day we had to go out site seeing.  We decided to take a short drive to Johnston's Canyon (correction from yesterday.  I called it Johnson's canyon) - about 1/2hr outside of Banff on Hwy 1A going to Lake Louise.  There are two falls on the river that runs through the canyon.  Since neither Rob or myself are in any kind of physical condition to hike in the mountains, we decided that we would take the short 1 mile (round trip) hike to the lower falls.  It was so beautiful, but of course there were tons of people there also. We had hoped being the middle of the week there wouldn't be that many people, but of course, it being the middle of summer, there are thousands of people from all over the world visiting Banff and Lake Louise.  Rob is very uncomfortable in crowds, so that is another reason we decided that we would take the short hike.

This first picture is at the start of the trail. I took it on a small foot bridge crossing from the tourist parking lot to the parking lot for a lodge at the foot of the trail.  The water is so clear it almost looks like you could drink it (but I wouldn't).  And the next picture is just a little further up the trail.  They had a walkway with metal handrails so you can't go over the edge, unless you're an idiot and go off the trail.

(click on the pictures if you want to see them full size)

The next picture I took of Rob and Mitzy walking up the walkway.  Rob has these recurring nightmares of being on balconies or ledges with railings that give way and he is hanging there holding on for dear life.  So needless to say, this little hike was somewhat unnerving for him.  On top of all the people pushing to get by in some spots because its so narrow.  He made it through though without any melt downs.  Mitzy loved it.  So many new smells and she met a few other dogs on the walk.

The next picture is of the canyon wall.  At the point that I took the picture, it was probably about 60-70 feet to the water level.

The next picture is a mini rapids in the river and where it starts to climb up to the falls.  I can't believe the colour of the water.  Its such a beautiful turquoise colour.  I bet its darn cold though.  Its fed from the glaciers in the mountains.

Finally, we reached the lower falls.  It was just gorgeous.  The falls spilled into this large pool carved out in the rocks.  The colour of the water was amazing and the pool looked really really deep - and very dangerous if you happened to go over the railing into it.  I don't think you'd come out of there alive if that happened.

There was a foot bridge going across the stream to a little tunnel that had been carved out by the water.  It was really cool.  The tunnel is big enough to walk through and there is a little ledge on the other side where you can stand and get an amazing view of the falls.

The next picture is a picture of the falls on the other side of the tunnel.  The picture after that is a shot across the falls on the other side of the canyon wall.  There is another tunnel carved out by the water.

I got Rob to take a picture of me and Mitzy at the tunnel entrance on our way out.  I never have pictures of me when we go places because Rob just can't figure out how to work the stupid cameras.  It really annoys me sometimes cause its not rocket science.  Just point and click.  How hard can it be??  Oh well, it may be just as well, cause the shape I'm in I really don't want too many pictures....

The next picture is so cute.  The chipmunks along the trail were practically tame.  You're not suppose to feed the wildlife (against the law in the national parks), but people always give them food and they'll come right up to you looking for a hand out.  This little chipmunk was on the trail and both Mitzy and the little critter were curious about each other.  They actually touched noses checking each other out.  I couldn't get the camera in there quick enough, because of course, there were people in the way.  This picture was taken just before they touched noses.  As soon as I was able to get to were I could get a decent shot, the little chipmunk took off.  It was sooo cute though to see that.

I was just testing out my macro setting on my camera on the next shot.  There are wildflowers all over the place and these are just some wild daisies.  They're very pretty and I thought the photo might make a nice background for a scrapbook page.

The next picture is kind of blurry because I was trying to hold the camera down just above the ground to get a picture of Mitzy.  She was pooped out from the hike and she liked to sit at the edge of the campsite so she could keep an eye on everything that went by.

These next two pictures were taken toward the end of the evening.  We started a camp fire and were just winding down.  We were heading off to bed fairly early because we had to get up early to pack up.  With all the stuff we have it takes about 2 1/2 hours to tear down and load the truck and we had to check out of the camp site by 11am.  It was a really mild evening - the night before I had to put on a sweater and sit close to the fire.

(as you can see I'm not very good at removing the green glow from pet eyes in the flash.  I'll have to find a tutorial to get better results.  She looks weird with really dark eyes).

That was our camping trip.  We were so tired the next day, we didn't even stop anywhere on our way home for a little sight seeing.  Its a lot of work, but we're looking forward to going again in a couple weeks.  I think this next time we're going to go in the opposite direction and see what there is around the Drumheller area. We'll go and see some hoodoos and dinosaur bones.

I didn't get to making any cards yesterday.  I have to do some today.  I have a ton of stuff to get ready for my craft show in a couple weeks.  I'm no where near where I should be at this point.

So, that's all for today.  Talk to you later...

Cat

Camping in the Rockies & My Unmounted stamp storage...

Well, I got back from camping last night.  It was too short a break.  The weather was absolutely perfect this time.  We were at the same campground last year for the Labour day weekend and it was sooooo cold.  It snowed on the mountain the day we were leaving last year.  It did rain the first night we were there, but it stopped just before 5am.  I know what time it was because I woke up having to go pee and didn't want to walk to the bathroom in the dark and rain, so I waited half sleeping and half listening to the rain for it to stop so I could go to the bathroom.  The mosquitoes were pretty bad this time.  I've lived in Alberta for 16 years and I haven't been bitten this many times since I lived in Manitoba.  We had to go and buy bug repellent the day after we got there.  Even that didn't really keep them away.  Poor Mitzy was tortured by the bugs.  I'm going to do some research to see if there is a dog safe bug repellent so she isn't bothered by them the next time we go.  The first day we got there we didn't do too much except take our time setting up the campsite.  It was so nice and quiet.  The camp grounds are very well kept and nicely wooded.  You can see your neighbours, but not so close that you can hear them. Here are a couple pictures of the campsite after we got everything set up:

Mitzy keeping watch and guarding the truck while we set up:

Our tent.  It has more living space than our dining room and living room combined in our house!

Our screen tent.  We set up our cooking stand in here so we don't get too many bugs in the food:

This was our "back yard" at the camp site:

As I mentioned, the weather was perfect.  I had to take a picture of the sky through the trees.  The sky was such a pretty blue with a few white puffy clouds here and there.

And lastly, this little guy was checking us out the whole time we were there.  A lot of the little creatures are quite comfortable around humans and they came right into the campsite.  He wasn't really that scared of Mitzy either.  He was cautious, but didn't run away when she was checking him out.  She got about 2 feet away before he took off down his hole.

We went for a hike to Johnson's Canyon the next day, so I'll post pictures of that tomorrow.  It's a beautiful little hike up to the lower falls and only took us about an hour (with the dog.  She has to smell everything.  Probably would have only taken us alone about 40 minutes there & back).

So, I had taken a bunch of pictures of my stamp storage system, and for some odd reason I deleted the folder off my sd card without thinking and deleted all my pictures.  I took a few today so I could show you how I store all my stamps.  This first picture shows the actual binder that the stamps are stored in.  I store my stamps on acetate sheets.  If they are stamps for which I didn't have preprinted index image (ie from the stamp packaging) then I stamped the image onto acetate with stazon, then scanned the images and printed off two copies of the index images - one for the stamp binder and one for the main index binder.  I put the stamps on the back of the acetate on their stamped image, and then put one of the index sheets and the acetate sheet into a page protector.  I write the binder and page # on both the index and acetate sheet so I know where to put them back (in the top right - that particular page is B2-7 - Binder 2 page 7).  If I still had the index image from the packaging, I just taped it to a sheet of paper, scanned the sheet, then printed that onto a transparency and another one onto paper.  I then put the stamps on the back of the transparency where their corresponding image is, put that and the printed paper in the page protector.  The original with the taped on index images goes into the index binder.  Here is a picture of one of the stamp storage binders:

This next picture is from the main index binder.  It better shows the images and how they're taped to the page for the ones I had kept them from the packaging.

The next part was the hard part.  After having scanned all the index images, I then started categorizing them.  All in all, I'd say this project took about 6 weeks from unmounting all my stamps to printing all the category pages for the binders.  I had to make a few "rules" to follow when categorizing my stamps.  Since I wanted to be able to find even the smallest stamp in whatever category it fit in, I decided that I would categorize each stamp in a set and that when I printed the image for a category index sheet, I would include the entire set.  My reasoning for that is for the most part, if I'm choosing an image for a theme, then there are more likely stamps in that set that I could use as well.  If an image fit into more than one category, for example the image above, there is an image of a woman in a bathing suit, I put the image into all categories it fit into.  It could fit into the people category, subcategory women - or it could fit into the category activities, subcategory beach & swimming.  So I put a printout of that set in both those categories.  That set would also be in the category toys because there is a ball in the set, and it would also go into the shoe category because there is a pair of flip flops.  This set fits into a whole bunch of categories, so I have the image of that set in all the categories it fits into.

The next picture just shows one of the category index binders (I have 2 right now and only 1 main index image binder).  I use coloured tab dividers to mark off the different categories and just write the subcategories on the divider page.

So, this first page is for the category "Activities" and listed are my sub categories beach, games, gardening, music & dance, school, & sports.  I can add more subcategories if I feel the need.

The next pictures show subcategory pages.  I put the category on the bottom right of each page and the page #.  I don't put how many pages in that subcategory (ie 1 of 5) because I will probably add to my collections and then I'd have to renumber all those pages.  You'll notice that each image has the binder # & page # the image is stored in.  I also included the manufacturer, the set name, and in a lot of cases whether the stamp is clear, bare rubber, or rubber on foam.

The last picture here shows all my binders.  I decided that I will store all my clear/unmounted stamps in red binders.  My main index image binder is blue and is basically an inventory of all my stamps.  The category binders are black.

I have two photo boxes of foam stamps.  I've stored these ones this way because they don't fit in the binders very well since they're pretty thick, but they are included in the index binder and categories.  They're just labelled in the main index binder as stored in either box1 or box2.  This one shelf, which is about 4 feet wide, stores all of my stamps - I estimate about 1200 individual stamps.

Well, hopefully, I was able to show you without it being too confusing how I've set up my stamp storage system.  I love the way this works and how well organized all my stamps are.  I'm able to quickly find - and even more important - put my stamps away where they are suppose to be.  It allows for expansion (which I already have a few stamps to unmount and add to indicies), yet is fairy simple to maintain.  If you have any questions about this system, you can always email me at catscrapfever@shaw.ca and I will try to answer your questions.

Well, that's all I have for today.  I'm going to go get my ticket for the $50million draw tonight and take my little Mitzy for a walk.  Hopefully, I'll have some time to work on a few cards tonight.

Talk to you later...

Cat

Busy, busy...

I'm heading off to Banff tomorrow morning to go camping for a couple days.  I wanted to get a few more prototypes done of cards for the craft show next month.  I made 2, but I may have to refine the first one.  I think the focal medallion is too big for the card.  I may take it down 1/2" and I think I'll stamp the sentiment parts separately - I tried to line them up on my block.  I think the little confetti stamps on the side kinda look lame too. I do like the image though - its cute.  The stamps are a clear set from Stampendous, the patterned paper is another free download from the Fuji flim website, the red paper is a digi freebie from the June 29/09 Colour Challenge kit by Jesse Edwards from Designer Digitals, the mint green cardstock is Recollections brand , and the white cardstock is Wausau 80#.  I used Stazon black ink and coloured the image in with pencil crayons & odourless mineral spirits and then added black stickles to the body and diamond dust stickles to the wings.  I used red stickles on the confetti designs.  The medallion is attached with pop dots.  Here is the card:

The next card I made is a very simple design.  I bought a couple Studio G stamps and wanted to try them out. The base is Domtar Cougar 130# cardstock, the green patterned paper is a free digi download from Designer Digitals (designed by Andrea Victoria), the second patterned paper is also a free digi download but I can't find which one right now on my computer (I have literally thousands of digi papers downloaded over the years), and finally the orange cardstock is SU! tangerine tango.  I stamped the sentiment stamp with SU! classic green galore ink, and the butterfly image is stamped with SU! classic tangerine tango ink.  I really like the clean lines of this card and I think I could change up the patterned papers and stamps to get a whole different look.  Here's what the card looks like:

So, the last card was an experiment and I think it looks like crap.  Last year I bought a block of rubber and some carving tools to see if I could carve my own logo stamp for my cards.  Well, needless to say, my carving skills leave a lot to be desired.  But I did make this bear stamp kind of in the Haida Indian style.  I just stamped it with Momento ink on the Cougar 130# card base (single layer card).  I then made a mask, and a template to look like snow mounds and one for clouds.  I used chalks on the background, then I mixed some irredescent perfect pearls in water in a little mister spray bottle, masked off the "ground" and the bear, and sprayed the sky so that it shimmers.  I then took frosted lace stickles and outlines the hills of the ground.  For the bear, I had originally coloured it in with chalks, but the colour wasn't deep enough, so I painted over top with gold perfect pearls and Future floor wax mixed together.  Here's what the card looks like.  Like I said, it looks like crap.

So finally, as I mentioned yesterday, I found a new solution for storing my ribbon.  I've been using a couple cd/dvd spindles and a lot of shoe boxes.  The cd spindes are ok since I can see through the cover and tell what ribbons are there.  BUT, the shoe box thing doesn't work at all.  I have to pull out all the boxes to find what I want.  Well, I went grocery shopping a few days ago at the Walmart super centre.  In the bakery section they have donuts - 6 for $1.  And they come in these cute little, clear clamshell type containers.  Well, I like to re-purpose/recycle containers.  I hate throwing stuff out.  I'm a pack rat.  So I was rinsing it out (cause we ate all the donuts - yummy) to put in the recycling bin and it struck me that the container would fit spools of ribbon perfectly.  Beautiful.  Now I'm going to have to buy donuts more often (like I really needed an excuse to begin with).  The one I have now, I was able to fit 10 spools of ribbon in it.  The max size of spool you fit in the container is about 3" in diameter and about 1" wide.  Here's a couple pictures of what it looks like:

They will stack nicely and fit nicely on a shelf in my bookcase and I will be see what ribbons I have without pulling everything apart.  I am really happy that I found these containers.  Too bad I couldn't just buy the containers.  I don't think my waist really needs all the donuts I'm going to have to eat to get enough containers for all the ribbon I have.  But for $1 a container, its a pretty good deal.

Anyway, long winded post.  I'll post pictures of my camping trip in the Rockies when I get back.

Have a nice day everyone!

Cat

I'm such a bone head sometimes....

Again, yesterday I wiped out my post but I figured out what I did wrong - I used the back button and lost what I had typed. I'm such a bone head sometimes. Like the story I was trying to post. I bought some new phones for the house a while ago and finally got them all charged so we could use them. The old one I had on my computer desk had fallen off and in behind my desk. So I had to crawl under my desk to dig it out. Its like a snake's nest back there with all the wires. The wires were all tangled and I unplugged the phone base and was trying to pull it out, but it was caught up in all the wires. So I came up with the brilliant idea to just cut the cord and pull the two ends free. So I got out my trusty scissors and cut the cord. But it wouldn't pull free. I yanked, and pulled, but it wasn't budging. So I crawled under the desk again to follow one of the cut ends. Guess what. I cut the damn cord for my modem. What a friggin' BONE HEAD! So I was without internet for about 18 hours. I had to go to Shaw yesterday and get a new modem. They were really good about it though. They just gave me a new modem, put the charge on my account, and told me to bring in the old modem and they'll reimburse me for the modem. Thankfully, my stupidity isn't going to cost me anything - this time!

Well, anyway, onto something happier.  I made two cards yesterday.  The first card is made with digital papers.  I love digital papers.  You can scale the pattern if its too big, you can change the colours, and you never run out if you screw up and need another sheet at 4am.  Here's what the first card looks like:

The patterned paper is a free download from the Fuji film website, and the solid dark paper is also a freebie.  Its from the June 29/09 Colour Challenge kit by Jesse Edwards from Designer Digitals.  They are both printed on Staples brand matte finish brochure paper (I love that paper for printing digi papers - the best I've found so far).  For the light coloured panel, I took the shade of orange on the patterened paper and lightened it and printed a solid panel on 130# coated cardstock.  I cut out 3 different sizes of the flowers from the patterned paper, shaped the petals a bit with the round end of pen, put Star Dust stickles on the edges, and glued them together.  The sentiment is from the So Sweet set by CTMH and stamped with SU! Bravo Burgundy classic ink (which surprisingly matched the colours in the patterned paper and the dark solid very nicely).  I used the EK Success Fleur de Lis edge punch on the papers for both the front and inside of the card.

The second card I made is for Rob's birthday next week.  We're going camping and I wanted to get it done before we leave.  Here's his card (he doesn't read my blog - too boring for him - so he won't see it):

Front:

Inside:

For his card, I used all SU! cardstock.  I'm not sure of the specific names (and I'm too lazy to look them up) but I think they're navy, kiwi kiss, and egg plant.  The sentiments are computer printed, the border stamp is by Stampology for which I used a purple craft ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder.  The navy satin ribbon is from the dollar store.  The main image is by Inkadinkado and stamped in a bluish-purple ink (Kaiser Kraft ink) on Wausau Exact Index 110# cardstock and then I coloured it with copics.  I used a gold felt gel marker to line around the outside of the image panel.  Its mounted with pop dots on the front.  I used the Marvy Southwest corner punch on the inside kiwi kiss panel.  The eggplant corners were cut with a pair of Fiskars corner scissors.  I printed the inside sentiment on 32lb super smooth Domtar bond paper (love this paper too).  I like the simple design of this card.  My husband does't really oooh or awww over any of my cards, so he wouldn't know the difference really between a simple card or an elaborate card most of the time.  He does like my cards though.

I forgot to mention that all my card bases are either Staples brand 110# cardstock or Wausau Exact Index 110# cardstock from Office Depot. I have some Domtar Cougar smooth bright white 130# cardstock that is the best for card bases and for copics, but I want to use up the Staples and Office Depot cardstock first.  I also like the Wausau cardstock (both the 110# & 80#) for stamping on.  I like it better than the Staples cardstock - its smoother and the fibres are tighter - so its better for colouring with copics.

I have an interesting storage solution for my ribbon.  I'll get some pictures up in my next post - waiting for the batteries to charge.  I'll just say that I've re-purposed something.

So that's it for today.   Talk to you later....

Cat

Two of my favourite cards...

I was looking for a picture on one of my sd cards and came across these two pictures.  They are of two cards I made in the last little while that I really like.  This first card is a card I made for my niece's birthday this past week.  I made the card last month because she lives down east and I have to get stuff in the mail a couple weeks ahead of time.  I used one of my Pink Cat Studio stamps that I hadn't used yet (I bought it last year) and I used a new Spellbinders die set (Classic Frame) that I got an awesome deal on at Scrapbooker's Paradise (70% off with an addition 25% off that).  I also used a Sizzix die for the little present, and the Martha Stewart Floral Vine deep edge punch.  I don't know who the patterned paper is by - I think I picked it up at the dollar store - and the pink cardstock is either American Crafts or DCWV.  The card base is Wausau Exact Index 110# card stock from Office Depot.  I stamped the image on Domtar Cougar smooth white 130# cardstock (excellent cardstock to use with copics by the way) I love the colour combination of this card and how girly it turned out.  A little bit of sponging before the paper came out of the die and a little bit of glitter and some ribbon and I think it looks cute. :)  I also made this card larger than what I usually make.  I usually make A2 cards (4.25 x 5.5), but this is one is 5x7.  Do you know how hard it is to find a 5x7 envelope if you're not buying a set of cards?  I had to make my own envelope for it - good thing I recently bought the Martha Stewart score board with the envelope jig. Unfortunately, the picture isn't that great.

The second card I made was for a One on One swap at Stampin' Canada.  The theme of the swap was bling, bling and more bling.  I usually don't use a whole lot of bling, but I usually do have some on most of my cards.  Although some of the participants said they had a hard time with this card, this one was easy for me.  I saw the ribbon and the card design just popped into my head.  I used SU! cardstock for the card, the image is a Scrappy Cat stamp set I got at Michaels (on clearance for about $2.99 I think), and I also got the ribbon at Michaels.  I bought a tube of rhinestones from Walmart, and used black stickles and a blood red colour Studio G glitter glue.  I stamped the image in black craft ink and then embossed wtih black detail embossing powder. I then used my glue pen and used different coloured glitter on the body of the bird (Craft Decor ultrafine glitter).  The scallop mat as cut on my Craft Robo using a dingbat font called KutUps and I used the Fiskars threading water punch for the bottom scallop on the red cardstock.  Since the card base is black I adhered a mat of red cardstock and then white 28lb bond paper to the inside.  I cut a swirl on my CraftRobo (downloaded shape from UK Scrappers) and used a Fiskars corner punch on the red cardstock.  I was amazed how this card just materialized inside my head and that the execution ended up looking fairly close to what I had envisioned.  It doesn't happen often that my cards look like what I envision, but when it does, its sooooo great.  Here's what the card looked like with the inside as well:

Well, that's all I have today.  I'm going to work on my husband's birthday card today.  His birthday is next week, so we'll see what I can come up with.

Talk to you later...

Cat

Yay! Stampin Canada will stay open!!!

I'm so glad that Wenchie decided to keep the site up and running.  Like I said, its been kind of like my home for the last 2 years.  I'm so glad its going to stay open.  I think the site will be better and the interaction between everyone there will be even better as well.  I'm looking forward to being more involved with the site.  I offered up my services to Wenchie to help with the technical upkeep of the site.  I think it will be fun to do.  I love anything that has to do with computers and software.  I am a geek, yes I admit it.

YAY WENCHIE!!!! THANK YOU!

Sad News for Canadian Stampers

My favourite site will be closing down at the end of August.  Stampin Canada has been my "home base" for the last two years.  I have met some wonderful, and very talented Canadian stampers there and will miss the daily banter and friendship that has developed over the last couple years.  I've learned a lot from these people and I'm sure a lot of us will stay in touch and will run into each other on other boards.  There aren't a lot of members, but that was what was really nice about the group.  You were able to get to know the people that posted regularly and we, for the most part I believe, became a very close knit group.  Unfortunately, a few people made it uncomfortable for the owner of the site to continue on with it, so those few people who can't keep to their own business and stay out of the private business of others, has ruined a wonderful community.  It saddens me that something Canadian is again being lost.

Holy Crap! I have a follower!

Thanks Ruth.  Hopefully, I won't disappoint you and will get some interesting things up here.  Was just checking to do a little minor maintenance and noticed this.  Yippee!

First Digi Scrapbook page in a long time...

So, I had posted last night, but something happened and my post was wiped out.  No biggy because I didn't have that much to say anyway.  Just was posting a digi layout I did last night.  I haven't done any digital scrapbooking for probably 2 years.  I wanted to test my hand at it.  I guess once you know how to do it, and have something in mind, then it doesn't take long to make a page at all.  This page probably took under an hour to do (and that included resizing and cropping the pictures for the frames).  The kit is a freebie from A Cherry on Top (ACOT).  I know its not Christmas - and the pictures were actually taken about a month before Christmas 2 years ago, but I really like the deep bright colours.  I printed it out on Staples brand matte finish brochure paper also just to see how it looks printed and it looks great.  I really like that paper for printing digi papers for my card making.  Anyway, here is the layout I did last night.  Its of my sweet baby girl, Mitzy.  She's a Chihuahua/Rat Terrier cross and she's so cute and lovable.  She's has the sweetest nature, she so affectionate, and so so well behaved.  Rob and I didn't know we were missing something in our lives until we got her.  We just love her.  Here she is:

I'm waiting for my husband to wake up - afternoon nap - so we can go for dinner.  We like this place in the south end of town call Home Food Inn.  Its a chinese food place, but they have this awesome buffet and on Saturdays they have crab & prime rib on the buffet.  For $19 a person, we get our money out of it.  Rob can eat about 3 or 4 plates.  I can usually go about 1 1/2 and then I'm stuffed.

Well, that's it for today.  I'm working on photographing my storage system for my stamps (my 1200+ stamps).  I unmounted all the wood ones about 6 weeks ago and stamped/scanned index images of every single stamp I own.  It was a huge job.  Its done now and as long as I keep up with it as I aquire/accumulate new stamps, it will be very easy and organized.  I may post a quick tutorial on how I unmount mine.  I don't know - there are like a thousand already out on the net.  So hopefully, the next time I post I have some cards done to post.  I'm doing a craft show next month so I have about 4 weeks to get everything made.  I have almost all my supplies, but I can get the majority of what I want to make done with what I already have.

Talk to you later...

Cat

Wiggly Bum Card

Well, the Stampede is on right now, so that's why its been raining for the last couple days.  We had one heck of a hail storm yesterday.  I ran outside just before it started and got my tomato plants inside and then it really started.  The hail stones were the size of golf balls.  All I could do was watch them bounce off my car.  I was worried it might crack the sunroof and/or make dents all over my car.  My husband, Rob, had just left for work about 5 minutes before it all started and I thought that he was going to get hail damage to his truck.  But he was lucky enough to get cover under the canopy at the local gas station.  He looked at the vehicles when he got home and there was, thankfully, no damage to any of them.  Whew!
So I made a card yesterday.  I wanted to send a card about Stampede to my niece who has never been.  She lives out on the east coast.  She's only 9 so I wanted something funny.  I saw this technique a while ago on a site that sells commercially made cards, and then I saw the saying somewhere on a blog (sorry, don't know whose blog it was).  So here's a picture of the card:





















The inside says "drive me nuts!", the entire sentiment reads "Cowboy butts drive me nuts!".  I thought is was very appropriate for Stampede week.  I made a little video of it so you can see the bum wiggle. :)

So that's it for today.  Have a great day!

Cat

Back at it again....

Well, its been almost 3 years since I posted on this blog.  I've changed the focus of my crafting to card making and stamping for the most part.  I don't think I've done a scrapbook page in about 2 years, but keep buying the supplies thinking I will.  I will - someday.  I'm not working right now.  I've been off work for about 4 months.  All I can say is good riddance to bad rubbish.  That place was evil.  The wife was a bitch and I absolutely hated going to work the last 3 years I worked there.  So now I'm taking some time for myself.  Will probably let my UI run out before I take another job.  I'm going to start working on uploading my cards to this blog.  One of my goals is going to get on a design team for a stamp company.  Maybe a design team for a digital scrapbooking designer as well.  Who knows, I may even start designing again myself.  Well, lets see if I can keep this blog up to date.  I think for the time being I may post, at the most, once a week.  Maybe more if I'm really creative.  Not that anyone is reading, but you never know, but I'll "see" you next week.