So not my forté...

Friends of mine are getting married and they've asked me to do their wedding invitations. The problem? They want an asian feel to them. This is my first whack at it. Hopefully they like it because I'm at a loss for another idea. The first pic is the actual invitation which is 5x5 (picture them with the names on them...). The second pic is the place markers (3x3) and table markers (4 1/4 x 4 1/4). Let me know what you think 'cause I'm really not sure about these. At first I loved them but now I'm getting...uhh...cold feet? Bwa-hahahahaha! Ske-doosh.

She strikes again...

Another sweet project that I made from a Becky Roberts tute. I gave this mini booklet to a friend that just had a sweet baby boy. I used to carry a mini album around in the boys diaper bag and I'd add new photos to it all the time. Y'know, back in the day where I still took photos of my kids? Yeah. So, I thought this would be a nice little gift to welcome the little dude to the world.

Hey, guess what?! I won the SoShelli Creative Contest this month!! I'm so happy! She's the bee's knees, that Shell Gardner. So,I get some free rubbah! I'm thinkin' Jayne's Type Alphabet but I haven't decided fo' sho'. What would you get?

Ske-doosh.

ETA: You can locate the Mini Pocket Book Tutorial in the right hand column on Becky's blog. I can't find a direct link to it...I'm technologically inept.

Becky Roberts saved my behind...

I'm not too sure where my mojo has gone. I really hope that it's having a good time where it is. I'm going to kick it's ass when it gets back.

I had a bad cold last week and was having trouble coming up with something for my clubs. I promised them that we'd make something special for Christmas as a way of saying thanks for all the love and support they show me in my business. Try as I might, I couldn't come up with THE project that they would ooh and ahh about. In walks Becky Roberts. Well...not, like, in my craft room but, you get what I'm sayin'. I looked around her tutorials and immediately bought a couple. I've seen these milk containers all over the web and it has always been on my ever growing list of projects to try. Becky has put together a very easy tutorial for them. Check, aaaaaand CHECK. Only 3 miliion things left to do. ;)

So, thank-you, Becky, for being such an inspiration! Ske-doosh.

Control Freaks Christmas card swap...

I hang my head in shame at my photography lately. This was my Control Freaks Christmas card swap and i gotta tell ya, the samples I got back were stunners. I don't own this particular set so I borrowed it from one of my cutomers and great friends, Valérie. (Salut Val!) You'll notice the smudge of white in the upper left hand corner...ya, I muffed it with my thumb before the pen dried. Sigh. I'll send it to my mechanic as a back-handed Christmas thanks for ripping me off on my brakes. LOL! Ske-doosh.

A wee tree...

This wee tree was inspired by a wonderful lady named Patti Miracle. I met and swapped with her at convention this summer. (Hi Patty!!) She made a card with a folded tree on it that resembles this one. She was kind enough to include a template in the swap but it was a little too tall to suit my card so I changed it a bit to make it using a half a circle instead of the not-quite-circle included with the card. Gotta show off the Circle Scissors somehow, right? Patti doesn't have a blog but I really wish she did because she makes the most beautiful stuff! If you know Patti, harrass her into starting a blog, okay? LOL! Ske-doosh.

ETA: Sorry, Jenn!! LOL! I used a 5 inch circle cut in half and then guess-timated the folds...as you can see by the accidental fold in the tree on this card that I just noticed because I should've taken a picture of the SECOND card that I made. Silly Brandi and her run on sentences. ;)

Photography at it's worst...

I have to give this card to a friend this week so I had to quickly take a photo this morning before the sun was up. It's been awhile since I've made a card with Riding Hood Red and I gotta say, I miss it SO much. There's no red that I like better. I was inspired by my own blog header for this card! Imagine that. Ske-doosh.

I'm a rockstar.

Took me long enough, eh??? I've been so crazy busy lately. Whenever I finally do get a free minute to myself, I can only find the energy to play the most addictive game on the planet...Bejewewled Blitz 2 on Facebook. (I shake my fist at you in the name of consistency, Tink!!!)

So, about 3 weeks ago, I went to the Stampin' Up! Regionals down in Québec City. I was so very kindly asked by the lovely Carrie Cudney if I would do a presentation on a Workshop. It was super fun and I felt like a rockstar! I ended up losing my  voice because I practiced it so many times. The whole thing was in French which is SO not my mother tongue! I had this plan in my head of being so well organized and professional. Ya...I forgot half of what I was going to say and ended up winging it with humor. When all else fails...LOL! Everyone was very supportive and made me feel great. I told Carrie and Shannon that they should feel free to call me to do a presentation at Convention next summer... . Hey, a girl's gotta work it, right? LOL!

This is one of the cards that I demonstrated. I wish I could buy 10 sheets of that velvety paper...

Here's the second one...I must confess that I love this card.

ETA: I'm not a big poster of "recipes" for my projects but I've had a couple of people ask how the sky was made on the polar bear card. It's Night of Navy cardstock, completely stamped in Versamark ink and then covered in Iridescent Ice embossing powder. Heat emboss and voilà!

It was a wicked awesome weekend with my lovely and talented downline and friend, Julie Charbonneau. We chatted about everything under the sun and ate donuts at 11 p.m. What could be better? I got to meet a bunch of awesome women that love this crazy hobby as much as me. All around great weekend! I hope to be able to find some time to post more frequently soon. Don't give up on me, ladies! Ske-doosh.

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

There's an expression in French that goes like this: Je suis dans le jus.

Translation: I'm in the juice.

It means to be so busy that you can't find your butt even if you're looking with both hands. Well...sorta. It means busy, anyway. That's me. In the juice. I'll be back! I swear!

Ske-doosh.

Festivals des Crocs

I'm having one of those weeks where you can't seem to get out in front of it. I had intentions of posting some pics from regionals and the projects I presented but I haven't even got around to photographing the projects OR editing the pics. Sigh. Next week, next week.

This weekend, we're headed to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. It's one of my fave weekends because we go apple picking, pumpkin hunting, and we make my MIL's most awesome homemade relish. Lots of opportunities for great scrapbooking photos!

In the meantime, here's yet another MDS page. Ske-doosh.

Smackdown #2 and I'm off to Regionals!!

I haven't had near enough time to play around with MDS. When I get back from regionals this weekend, I'll have a bit more time. In the meantime, here's a page that I made en hommage of The Boss Lady. Angie is the other evil genius behind Stampin' Addicts. She's one of the greatest people and I'm proud to count her among my friends.

I gotta say, between you, me, and the fencepost...I'm REALLY nervous about my presentation on Saturday! I hope I don't accidently burp into the microphone or something equally as embarassing....

Wish me luck! Ske-doosh.

My smackdown with digital..

So, I'm a scrapbooker at heart. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that. I've always been a skeptic when it comes to digital scrapbooking. I've always felt that it was like a form of...erm...(said with a pained expression), cheating? But then I saw the MDS software at convention this summer. Exciting, exciting stuff! Sadly, no matter how excited I got about it, it's not available to demo's in Québec. So I went home from convention feeling happy for my friends but bummed for me.

Until...

Pammy. My friend Pammy sent me a wee box in the mail with a magnificent gift in it.

My...digital...studio. (contented sigh)

Is that a good friend or WHAT? So, I've played with it and fallen in love with digiscrap! I haven't made any hybrid pages yet but that is my ultimate goal. It will be strictly a fun thing for me until Stampin' Up! and the Québec government battle it out in a duel to the death so I can sell it to my awesome customers!!!  (pant pant gasp) Or maybe they won't and I'll still have fun with it. LOL!

This page is in homor of Mr. Head Smarty Pants over at Stampin' Addicts. James and his wife Angie are the reason my friends and I have a place to hang out and commiserate about our stamping addictions together. He rocks and I'm in his debt. You rock, Big J.

I'm off to plan my presentation for regionals. So excited! Ske-doosh.

Happy Birthday, Maurice!

It's my father-in-laws birthday today. He's is one of the most wonderful men that I know. I'm proud to be a part of his family. Ya think he'll notice the crooked sentiment on the card? LOL! Even if he did, he'd never say. Ske-doosh.

70 000 Hits?!...and some *very* cool news...

Holy schlamoly, homeslice! I can't believe that there are people out there that come to visit me on my blog as much as they do. Seriously? When I think that I started out doing this on a whim... . Very cool. Thanks so much to all that take the time to visit me. I really appreciate it. Really.

I had one of the coolest phone calls EVER today at lunch. Carrie Cudney from Stampin' Up! called me on my lunch hour to ask me if I would like to be a presenter at the Québec City Regionals on October 3rd. Ahem...WOULD I??? Does a bear poop in the woods?! Of course I would! I'm excited beyond belief. Aaaaaand incredibly nervous because I have to to the presentation in French. Eeep! LOL! Naw, I kid. I'll be fine. I talked to my upline, Cindy Major this evening and she told me to be myself and all would be well. She has presented before at the Montrèal Regionals a couple of years ago and she said it was a great experience. Breathe, Wiggins, breathe. You'll be fiiiine. LOL!

So here's a card I made last night using the Stampin Addicts sketch from last week. It's a super simple sketch that automatically made me envision this card. It's a great way to use up all the little scraps of ribbon that I can't bear to throw away. Nifty, n'est pas? ;)

Ske-doosh.

Close up on the punkin'!

So I had a pretty overwhelming response to the wee punkin'! Thanks for all the love, ladies! I'm swamped for time right now as I just started a new job today, so I won't have the time to do a tutorial with photos and such on how to make it. I did, however, take some close-up shots of it and will give a quick explaination on how I put it together.

This is the close up from the bottom:

This is the close up from the top:

So, here's what I did.

1. Roll up a piece of chocolate chip cardstock rather tightly. I made it a bit longer than I needed so I had a "handle" to hold while I glued on the ovals.

2. I punched out quite a few large ovals from pumpkin pie CS. You'll see how many you need depending on how full or how sparse you want your pumpkin to be. Fold then in half.

3. I used the En Français BG stamp on pumpkin pie CS and then punched out a bunch of scalloped ovals. Fold them in half.

4. I used tombow liquid glue on the "spine" of an large oval and stuck it onto the CS "stem". It takes a little bit for it to dry so be patient. It needs to be very dry to continue on to the next oval. I continued to do this step until I had a "half punkin'".

5. Using the same glue, I added the scallop ovals in the center of each large oval.

6. Trim the "stem" to the length you want. Slice it down the middle with an exacto.

7. Punch a small oval out of old olive CS and fold it in half lengthwisge. Run it through a paper crimper to give it a leafy look. Punch a hole in the end of the leaf.

8. Take a piece of old olive ribbon and tie it in a knot.

9. Place the leaf onto the stem by passing it through the hole you punched. Stuff the knot into the slot you cut in the stem.

10. Trim the stem and add some curly cue vines made from old olive CS.

11. Glue that bad boy to whatever project you want to embellish!!

That's it, that's all, mes amies!

Now for the blog candy winnah! Winnah winnah, chicken dinnah:

The blog candy goes to:

Priscilla said...

I love all your projects! TFS!

~*Priscilla Aguilar*~

Congratulations Priscilla! E-mail me your mailing address and start stalkin' the postie, dude! LOL!

I'd really like to thank everyone that took the time to leave a comment! It made me feel like a rockstar for a day! LOL! Well, the sun is mega shining today so I'm going OUTSIDE! Ske-doosh.

Bienvenue au Tour de Freaks!

Excitement is in the air! Welcome to the September edition of the Tour de Freaks brought to you by the lovely and talented Control Freak Swappers. If you've been following along on the tour, you should have arrived here via Wendy Weixler's blog. (You know Wendy... the one with the AMAZING scraproom featured in the May 2009 issue of Stampin' Success; the demonstrator only publication from Stampin' Up!)

If not, never fear! You can follow the link from my blog and visit all 15 Freaks on the tour! Our theme this month is Halloween, Fall and Thanksgiving.

ETA: Blog candy draw is now closed! Thanks for playing!

I'll be giving away a tasty morsel of blog candy in a desperate plea for validation...sigh. Sad, right? LOL! Leave a comment (one comment per person please) and you will be entered in a random draw to win a Stampin' Up! Country Living Summer Cookout Kit! Huzzah!

Enough of the babble, Wiggins! Here's my schtuff:

I was inspired to make this after seeing the sweet frame on page 11 of the Holiday Mini Catalogue. I'll post close-ups of it after the tour is wrapped up. It's nice and shiny because I embossed it to death with 3 layers of clear embossing powder. *TING*

I'm loving the way this candle turned out! I stamped the images onto tissue paper and then colored them. Next, I roughly cut them out and used my heat tool to fix them onto the candle. For the sky, I sponged around a scallop oval with Bashful Blue on a large piece of tissue paper and melted it to my candle using the same heat tool. The "grass" is Old Olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon attached to a strip of Chocolate Chip cardstock. I snipped the Old Olive ribbon in 3 or 4 cuts and just "fluffed" it up with my finger. Nifty, huh? After I added the Choc. Chip 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, I attached the strip to the candle using 2 corduroy Choc. Chip brads. Niiiiice.

So, I'm a scrapbooker at heart. As much as I love cardmaking, nothing gets me quite as jazzed as a nice scrapbooking page. After being a huge skeptic of SUO scrapbooking, I've come to learn that I can make just as beautiful pages with Stampin' Up! products as I can with anything else. I lurves Stampin' Up! I really do. Feel free to click on any of the photos to get a closer view!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have fun on the rest of the tour!! Next stop is my wicked awesome upline, Cindy Major!! She rocks on so many levels that I can't even begin to tell you! Have fun! Ske-doosh.

Click here for the next stop on the tour!

A clean and simple card and a countdown to the Tour de Freaks!

Only 4 more sleeps until the Tour de Freaks!!! This is how my son gages every exciting event in his life...LOL!

This card is a clean and simple one that I made for general swaps at convention. I had forgotten to photograph it and was pleased to find it in one of my swap packages! It says Happy Earth Day and I thought it was a pretty clever way to make the grass and ground. But then I'm a pretty clever chick so I'm sure you guys expected as much. ; ) Ske-doosh.

3D challenge on Stampin' Addicts & BOLO for the Freaks Tour!

Holly over at Stampin' Addicts has been doing just a fantastic job with the Monday 3D Challenges. She makes great videos for the challenge and I encourage you guys to go check it out! I mad this sweet little scallop circle box for todays challenge. Thanks for the kick in the bum to make it, Hooly Rae!

AND, there's an awesome Tour De Freaks coming up on the 20th of September! And guess what? I'm in it! I'm so excited. I've been in the Freaks for awhile now but never signed up for the blog hops because of...well...life getting in the way! LOL! The talent in this hop is wicked so I'd love for you guys to come and check it out next Sunday. Ske-doosh.

I post, I run. Dem's da breaks.

Serious post and dash. Spinner cards are fun, eh? i saw the cute little punch pumpkin from a few people in the SCS gallery. I lub dem. Gotta run. Ske-doosh.

Another swap mini album...

'Sup, ladies? I've been really lazy about posting, I know. I have, however, been walking 3 times a week so I know that you'll all forgive me. There's only so many hours in a day and I've chosen to use some of these hours to get myself healthy. Huzzah for me!!!

I had an eye opening moment with my oldest son, Logan a few days again. We were in the tub together (he loves baths with his mama) and he put his hand on my belly. He thought it was funny that it was so jiggly. He said, "Maman, your belly is so jello-y. Is it because you eat too much stuff?" (paraphrased from French, mind you)

It really took me aback. I just said, "Ya, Logan. But Maman is going to do something about it, ok?" Now, I wasn't going to get into it with a 4 year old about how two pregnancies can change a womans body because the reality is, it's not just my belly that is jello-y. LOL! My Stamper's Butt has taken on a life of it's own and I'm trying my darnedest to reign it back in. I dream of a day that it will not take a mere 4 cups of water to fill up the tub when Logan and I are in it. ;)

So, my friends, my posts will be erratic. Well...even more so than...ummm...they already...ahem...are.

On to the project!!! This mini album was inspired by a class that I took on a scrapbooking weekend in April. Lyne Lebel gave the class and is an AMAZING scrapbooker! I also made this album from a more complex version of the idea. I altered it quite a bit for the swap but the idea is still there. I especially like that it closes with a magnet. Magnets are gooood, right Amy? LOL!

Oh, and on a side note, for anyone that reads my blog that may be having a hard time with the new IDA that SU! requires us to sign, have a look at my friend Janine Tinklenbergs blog post about it. Very clear, concise and HILARIOUS!! Tomato cages......SO funny. Ske-doosh.

Roomie & Buddy gifts...

This here's one of the 5 albums I made for friends and roomies at Convention. It's the same album as seen here. I love making this album with the Simply Scrappin' kits from SU. Like i said, I made 5 of them from ONE KIT! Huzzah!

I felt like quite the tool just giving one of these (coupled with some maple treats) as roomie gifts after the HAUL I received from Lisa and Sara. Next year i shall shower them with many, many gifts. LOL!

I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is grocery/ cleaning/ Bejeweled day. Once again, I curse you, Tink.

Ske-doosh.