I'm inspired

There is a very inspiring, and creative blog out there that I love to read. It's by Tim Holtz, the rubber stamping guru. Every year in December he creates the 12 tags of Christmas. This year I'm trying to follow along and use his tags as a jumping off point for making some fun projects of my own.
I just wanted to post what I had created and spread the fun around. I need to type a disclaimer. The photos loaded in backwards order. I meant for the first to be last, and the last to be first. I'm sure you will get the idea.
Here is a closeup of some of the glimmer I added. It's hard to see in this photo. We have no natural light today. The sun is hidden and the world is covered in snow here. I used Tattered Angels, glimmer mist, pearl mixitive alcohol ink, and prisim glitter.

I loved using the crackel Glossy Accents on the snowflakes. It is SO cool how it cracks as it dries. I just seem to go with the snowflake I stamped on the acetate.

Click on the link below and follow along with Tim ,each day, as he creates his tags. I will. I'll also be trying to remain inspired, and use his tags as a jumping off point to create my own.

Peace be with all of you.

www.timholtz.typepad.com

Anniversary Album

Hey everyone! I know it's been awhile since I blogged. I just wanted to post a few pics of the album that I made in honor of our 15th wedding anniversary. It's a gift for Duane when he returns home from a trip.
I found a really nice Kolo album on clearance for $9.00 at Barnes and Noble a few months ago. I hid it away thinking it would be perfect for photos of us. You just can't beat that price for a super nice album. I kept the colors on the cover and the first page in the album the same as the cloth cover. You can't tell in the picture, but the letter stickers are glittery silver. They look so nice with all of the gems I used.

The first page inside is the lyrics to our song. It's "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. I found the lyrics on www.lyrics.com and just printed them out. The stamped image you see on each page is a new stamp I got from Stampin Up. It's one of their background stamps, called Medallion. I am in love with it. I stamped it with clear Versa Mark ink and then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. That was the trickiest part. Taking apart the album and heat embossing both sides of those large pieces of paper. I made a little bit of a mess with the powder because of how big the pages are.

The flowers are all by Prima and Hero Arts. The gems are by Mark Richards.

Here are just a few of the pages inside. I kept them almost all the same. I turned all the photos black and white and printed them all out at 4 X 6". Of course it's hard to see, but the paper that I used for the photo mats was a white Bazzil Bling. It is all shimmery and shiny on each page.

I kept it simple because I wanted the focus on the photos. I think it turned out perfect. I even left some blank pages at the end. We can fill them in years to come.

I apologize for the poor photography. I think you get the idea though.

I need to credit Jennifer McGuire for the inspiration on the gems and flowers. She always seems to place them just right. Check her out at www.jennifermcguireink.com

I hope that Duane will love it. I'm off to make a matching card for him.

Thanks for looking everyone.

Sorry I didn't blog sooner

Well everyone, I'm sorry I didn't blog sooner. Our computer's mother board went south and completely died. One morning it was working fine, that evening it was dead. We fortunately have a seperate hard drive that we had been backing things up on. I will try to blog the pics of the painted house and the first day of school.

Things have been super busy around here for the last couple of weeks. The girls are in seperate classes this year. It is working out just fine so far. They have a break from each other throughout the day and are so happy to be back together in the afternoon. The amount of fighting has decreased. We are thankful. We also embarked on another home impovement project. We pulled out the old shelving in our master bedroom closet and we put in custom Closet Maid shelving. Of course we painted as well. I promise that pictures will follow.

Duane was featured in the Sunday issue of our local city newspaper. Here is a link to the article:

http://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/ci_13272626?source=most_viewed

I know most of you won't be suprised, but here is what is going on in my living room as I'm typing this.

A new Lego set, fresh out of the box, is too much fun to resist around here. Daddy has more help than he could ever want. More than he can handle, for sure.

I hope all of you are having a relaxing Labor Day weekend.

They have grow up so much

Allrighty. Please allow me a moment of mamma sadness. These little people have grow up so much this summer. They are going to start first grade next week on Wednesday. I hope you will all be as stunned as I am that they are allready old enough for that. It feels like I just brought them home from the hospital last month.
Then all of a sudden they stood up and started running and jumping and reading. Here is a picture of Sarah at swimming lessons last month. It was her first time on the rope swing. Was she scared you ask? Oh no, that child grabbed hold and went for it.

Her sister was a little nervous behind her. When it was her turn she took a big breath and squealed. Frankly as I was taking the picture I squealed too.

They learned a lot and got to have the same instructor during both sessions of lessons they took. She was fabulous. She felt bad that she was able to advance Sarah to the next level, but not Theresa. It is funny how people assume that they need to be together. They may look the same, but they are not the same kid. It's OK for one to be faster or braver at something than the other one.

We find out tomorrow if they are in the same class this comming school year or if they will have different teachers. Either way it will all be OK. They will both learn and grow. They will both keep on becoming the person they are meant to be.

More updates and a card

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th. We had a relaxing evening. The morning was spent painting again. Hopefully that job will be done this week before we head up to Wyoming for some fun.

In the evening we had a cook out with my parents and went to watch the fireworks. It was freezing, but we tried to enjoy it anyway.

Earlier in the day Duane noticed one of our cats acting strangly. He had discovered this mouse. Instead of killing it, he was playing with it. They both kept waving paws at each other and jumping around. It was funny. I'm impressed by this great picture that Duane got.

Now for the card. I have been watching the "Thinking Inking" videos being posted on the Two Peas in a Bucket website. I purchased some of the Tim Holtz masks from work and thought that I would give Jennifer's technique a try. They are small and self adhesive, perfect for a card. You stick the mask down, ink or paint on top of it and then peel it up again when you are done. It doesn't shift around on you so you get a really crisp image.

First I stamped the image that looks like wrought iron squares in brown. Then I laid down my mask in the corner. I then took my inking tool and inked on top of the whole thing with 3 colors of distress inks. I love the depth that all the inking gives. I really love the mask. It peeled right up and left a great crisp image.

Here is a close up of the portion that had the mask on it. I added the gems and layered the papers to the green piece. I stamped the sentiment and tied a piece of fiber on. I layered all of it onto the front of the card.

I am going to try the other two masks soon. They were a great deal for only $1.99, because they re-stick over and over. It was really easy to clean it off too.

One of the pics I took of the card won't load up for some reason. It showed that I decorated the envelope to match with some of the left over inked up paper. I hope you will all watch some of the classes on www.twopeasinabucket.com I'm getting a ton of great ideas on ways to use my stamps that I either forgot about, or haven't thought of before.

It's been another month?

What the heck people? Time is flying this summer allready. We have been having fun and keeping busy around here. The picture below is Sarah at a local park. We love going there to burn off the energy.
There has been a little bit of crafting going on too. Here is one of the father's day cards I made. I kept them simple, because I made them in a hurry. I did use some new stamps and a new ink pad that I got. I love the Tim Holtz distress inks. They soak into the paper and create a smooth look thta is hard to see here.

The cards were made in a hurry because we were getting ready to go to Montana when I made time to make them. We spent 5 days and 4 nights in Montana. We went to celebrate Duane's granmother's 90th birthday. We all enjoyed having time together away from work. The picture below is all the great grandkids singing happy birthday to Grandma GG. It was SO cute and she really enjoyed it.

Here is a pic of Duane and his cousin Trent standing with the cakes and Grandma.

The first weekend after we got back we started to paint our house. It was looking pretty faded and shabby. You can see below an "in progress" photo. The peak above the kids' bedroom windows is unfinished. The body of the house used to be more of an ivory color. I know it's hard to see in the pictures, but it's becomming a frappachino/pale mocha color. We can't wait for it to be done. It's tons of hard work, but worth it.

We are excited for the 4th and Duane having Friday off of work. We hope you all have a wonderful and safe Independence Day.

What have we been up to?

Hello everyone out there in cyberspace. It looks like it's been about a month since I have blogged. I really do want to do this more often. It's just been so busy.

The kids had their last day of school last month. It was a great school year for them. They learned tons of new things. They grew a lot. They also made lots of new friends. They throughly enjoyed every day. They can't wait to be first graders in the fall.
This is a picture of them with their Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Robinson. They loved her. She made the year so special for them.

Here they are with the teacher's aide Mrs. Luko. She was sweet and wonderful too. If I had 25 5 year olds to take care of all day I would need an aide just like her.

Our big project this summer is to paint the outside of our house. We have begun to prep the house and repair what needs to be fixed before the paint goes on. Here I am above pressure washing the house. We did this the first weekend of June. It was a quick and easy way to get the house clean and, skip the scraping process.

The front porch post needed to be replaced. Here are the kids at Home Depot the next day. Daddy was looking for a new p 4X4 to use as the post. Sarah and Theresa were dancing. (In case you were wondering, Theresa is being Cinderella and Sarah is being the prince.)

We will be taking a trip to Montana this week. We will be leaving Thursday to attend a birthday party for Duane's grandma Hess. Grandma GG is turning 90 on Saturday. Hooray! We hope to visit with everyone up there and have a fun time.

I will try to do more updates soon. I hope everyone is having a nice summer. In spite of the hail and tornados here, we are.