Hot! Hot! Hot!

It has been really hot here these past few days.  They are saying it should feel like 105 tomorrow.  I think I am going to stay indoors, downstairs in my basement.  It is much cooler there.  (Also, it is time for our crop.)  Tomorrow I will have some digital pictures from the new contest at Outlawz. 

Since I don't have them today, I thought I would share some items I made with my granddaughter Christina.  (While she was married in April 2011, that was a civil ceremony, not a church wedding.  Christina was going to have a church wedding on May 9 2012.  She would come over for the day and  bring our great granddaughter, Renee with  her.  Here is a picture our that cutie.  Renee just turned 2 in June.)

Here is a picture our that cutie. Renee just turned 2 in June.)

Christina worked real hard on these coasters.  She made sure there would be one for each guest.  They were ceramic tiles, with cardstock paper.  We had printed on each square, the Cricut machine wrote Christina and Jeremy Routhier and the dates of the weddings.  They really came out nice.  Also, I made a box for her that could hold her cards from the wedding.  I created each flower by hand and then glued them onto the box.  Inside I covered the entire lid with a bed of flowers.  On the outside there were 3 simple roses.  It came out nice. 

Outlawz challenge

Last week I relocated a website for digital stamps.  It is called Outlawz and you can find it at http://outlawzchallenges.ning.com/  There are several challenges on the site...at least one every day and then there are other "special" types of contests.

Here are the cards that I created:
 

Here are cards created by my friends....

Cindy made these cards....

 and Kathy made these cards....

(As you can see I am having difficulties uploading some pictures.  Bear with me please.  Thanks.)

Back in the Saddle again~

I finally have some things I can post.   I have started entering some card contests, so I am making cards again.  I am hosting a weekend getaway at my house, so I have some pictures of classes I will be teaching.  Finally, I have been taking some painting classes.  While I definitely am NOT an artist, I do like painting.  I will let you be the judge of my paintings.  
Here are the first ones....

This still needs some work.  It has leaves with flowers, trees in a forest and a dirt road running through it.

Here is a sun flower with a butterfly.  

This shows the fields near a bridge and the lake.  

More to come later.  

Catch Up Time! I am Back!

I have been busy with so many things these past few months, time once again slipped away from me.   I really need to start filling this out more frequently.  Lets see if I can catch you up on what has been going on.....

In early December, my mother was ill.  Her trigeminal neuralgia was acting up and painful.  She didn't eat or drink much.  She became dehydrated and ended up in the hospital for a few days.  We weren't sure she would be out of the hospital by Christmas, but she made it.

Christmas came, and we went on a cruise to the Western Carribbean.  It was a Christmas gift from my mother.  Both of my brothers and their wives, along with my mom, my husband, and I, went cruising down the Gulf to Cozumel and Costa Maya.  The scenery has beautiful.

My fibromyligia and arthritis were both misbehaving, and creating a lot of pain and discomfort.  I saw my rheumatologist and was told that I would have to learn to adjust.  The medication was up to the max, and the next step is the heavy duty narcotics, which I am trying to avoid. 

In the past couple of months I have been feeling much better, and I am going to get this blog running again.  I have several pictures I will upload.  There are projects I am working on, so look forward to seeing what I have in store.

Busy again

These past few months I have been working at Michaels as the scrapbook teacher/instructor.  Things got busy....I was scheduling 2 classes on Monday and 2 classes on Wednesdays for 2 hours each, then there were some other occassional classes on Thursdays with a crop once a month for 7 hours.  I didn't always teach, but I had to schedule the time to be available.  I would schedule the classes, create the sample, and create posters to advertise the classes.  It was getting to be more work and less fun.  As a retired teacher, I only wanted a little teaching with a couple of dollars pay.  In addition, my arthritis was acting up and the fibromylagia was getting worse.   Pain was with me quite often during the class times, so I backed off.  I will teach some SDU classes and help every once in a while, but and still keep active. 

I had some groups working on making Christmas cards for our service personnel with Operation Christmas Cards.  Some friends and sisters from Eastern Star worked on making Christmas cards for the past 2 months.  I took them into the store manager at Michaels today.  We made 639 Christmas cards.  I thank each of the ladies who helped make these cards.  They did a fabulous job!

There have been several classes that are coming up at Michaels, and I am so happy to see them.  They are fabulous!  I will add a list of the classes later, but I am sure you will like them as much as I do.

I posted yesterday about the Martha Stewart classes.  They are beautiful, don't you agree.  The best part is with the Punch Around the Page, you can use these techniques on so many different things....for cards, for embellishments, for scrapbook pages.  I love using these punches so many things.  They really make a difference.
The glitter techniques were unique and things I would not have thought about.  There was a lot of glitter left over from the class, and it can be used to decorate so many things.  I was able to teach each of these classes.

Up top is the banner.  In the center of each banner, you can put words, initials or sayings.  At the bottom are some of the flowers.  They are really heavy duty.   You can the invitation in the center and on the bottom right is one page of the scrapbook layout.  

Another class that as put together was called Happy Birthday America.  The design called for me to use a red, white, and blue papers, for the fourth of July, but I wanted to make something more generic for a birthday.   This kit was a complete package for a birthday.  There was an invitation, a birthday card, decorations (flowers, pinwheels, and a banner) and a scrapbook page. 

You can see pinwheels on each side of the board.  At the bottom right is the birthday card and  you can see both pages for the scrapbook layout.  I really like how this came out.

Busy, busy, busy!

MS glitter page

MS Punch Around the Page

Things have been moving quickly since I last posted in February.  I started teaching for SDU back in September, but classes have been slow. This was a partnership formed by EK Success with Michaels, AC Moore, and Joannes.  Each store offered trained instructors to teach a four week course on scrapbook basics.  I was working with Michaels.   In February, things were changing.  Instead of EK Success calling SDU (Scrapbook Design University), it became a part of the Spotted Canary (SCS).  My training for SDU was still valid, but Michaels was trying to offer more classes and techniques for paper crafters.  One of the first classes we were to teach, in addition to the SDU, was Martha Stewart glittering techniques, a beautiful class to create cards using beautiful butterflies glittered on the front of the card.  After that, we were teaching the Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page, creating beautiful punched borders for cards,  using the Martha Stewart Punches.