Ugh...update...

Hope everyone has been having a wonderful week!!! I thought I'd pop in this morning and let everyone know that I am alive - LOL!! I was out of town over the weekend (my niece and I went to Louisville, KY to see the musical "Spring Awakening" - OMG - what an AMAZING AMAZING show!!!) and then I've been battling a pretty severe toothache since late last week and really haven't felt much like stamping. :( I finally made it in to see the dentist yesterday afternoon - it was one of my wisdom teeth that was hurting and the pain had gone all the way into my jaw - yikes! The tooth that was hurting had only partially erupted and had gotten infected which was what is causing all that pain. I'm on antibiotics - but my wisdom teeth have to be removed - ICK!! I only have 3 (one never formed) and 2 of them are fully in - so I don't think it's as invasive as a procedure as actually having them cut out - but I am still not looking forward to it. I am having the procedure done next Tuesday and am hoping that the antibiotic will kick in soon and I can get some relief before then. I am gonna try to get some stamping done this afternoon and hoping to be back to posting cards on here tomorrow. In the meantime - if any of you have had your wisdom teeth out and have any words of advice - that would be wonderful - foods I should stock for next week, things to avoid, etc. Have a great Wed. and I'll be back tomorrow!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day!! I hope you all are having a wonderful day - whether you are the mother of little ones, big ones, fur babies and to all the grandmothers out there - I wish you all very special Mother's Day!! I don't have anything craft-y to share today - so I thought I'd share the 2 most wonderful blessings a mother could ask for - my Andrew and my Calvin - I lost my own mother 8 years ago and I honestly didn't think I'd ever enjoy Mother's Day again - these 2 sure make this day special again for me. For Mother's Day - my hubby took the boys over to Portrait Innovations and had their pictures taken (he even bought them adorable new outfits!!) - and then he gave me a HUGE packages of prints and the photo CD of their session as a gift for Mother's Day - the best present ever!! I picked some of my faves off the CD and thought I would share them with you all in honor of Mother's Day - enjoy!! Here's a cute one - my husband said the photographer was just awesome with them - she made them laugh the whole time...

Ahhh...gotta love these tender moments - makes me forget all the fights I've been breaking up recently - LOL!!
This one was Andrew's favorite - he's got the best laugh!!

Here are my baseball boys - Joel took them over before their opening day ceremonies at the baseball fields so he had some taken in their jerseys and hats - LOVE this one - these are their "game faces" - hee hee...

My baseball boys again...

And I thought this one was just adorable!!

Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope you all have a WONDERFUL Mother's Day and are doing something for YOU today - whether it's an afternoon nap, a day off from cooking or maybe a nice looooooooong bubble bath - HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Earth Day!!

Happy Earth Day!!! Are we all remembering to reduce, reuse and recycle??? ;) I don't have anything crafty to share with you today - I haven't been feeling too hot these past couple of days - coughing, feverish - the dr. says it's some virus going around - so I'm hanging out waiting for it to pass so I can get back to stamping!! I thought that maybe I had some adorable pic of my boys recycling - but I can't seem to find one - I do have to tell you though that at the ages of 4 and 7 - they are AWESOME recyclers!! Their daddy has trained them well - LOL - of course - he may have trained them a little TOO well - they about pitch a fit if we are out and about and see someone throwing a can in a garbage pail rather than the recycle bin - hee hee...I did want to remind you too to pop on over to this thread over on SCS and vote for your favorite MFT Idol(s) - you have until 10 PM EST tonight to do so - our top six have done some AMAZING one layer cards for you to ogle - so go - hurry over and VOTE!!!! Thanks for stopping by - I am hoping to be back tomorrow with an actual creation (pending a good night's sleep)!!

Catching Up...

Hello, hello!!! Eek - I've been quiet this week! I thought I would pop in and do some catching up and let you guys know what I've been up to this week - it's been quite a week really - my oldest son is gearing up for his big debut tonight - LOL!! He's got a speaking part in his school's Spring musical (he is in the first grade and is reciting a poem) - he's SO excited and really not nervous at all - I think Mommy and Daddy might be more nervous - hee hee...I did get a bit of stamping done - the card I did with the adorable MFT "Hooga Booga" bunch was for the What's Up Wednesday challenge over on the MFT forum - go check it out - Amy did an AWESOME paper pleating tutorial yesterday for HTDT?- so I had to try it out. I think it turned out cute - like a pretty little dust ruffle for your card! :) I did a bit of masking on these little monsters to create the scene as well. Here's some more cards I did using an MFT set - this is from the "You Take the Cake" set - I did these for a card swap I am in here locally - I wanted something fun - but that could be mass produced fairly easily - so I did these little cake cards...

The candles on these cards were die cut using a Sizzix die - but the rest of the "cake" was just pieced together using strips of cardstock. For the top layer of the "frosting" - I first did the decorative edge on it with the Martha Stewart Lace Doily punch and then embossed the top with the Swirls Cuttlebug folder to make it look more like textured frosting. The white base of the card is 4.25 in. X 4.25 in. - I hung the candles over the top a bit (like a tent card) - so the card is just as tall as an A2 size card and fits in an A2 envelope perfectly!!

So I've been chatting a bit about American Idol recently on here - and had a couple of people who have asked me about my pick for this year's Idol - so if you aren't an Idol fan - you can skip this part and go right to the end of this post - LOL! But if you are an Idol fan - I would love for you to post and let me know who your faves are too! Let's see - after this first week of the Top 13 (yeah - not sure about the whole 13 thing) - I am sticking with my gut instinct and that's Adam Lambert - he's just downright in a league of his own - which makes me think that maybe NOT winning Idol would be to his benefit - but that's a whole other debate that I will save for another day. ;) I thought Kris Allen was absolutely ADORABLE and loved his version of the MJ's "Remember the Time" - so I'll probably be keeping an eye on him too. And I know there are a lot of Danny-lovers out there too - I am guessing he's definitely around for the long haul - but something about him rubs me the wrong way. I TOTALLY sympathize with him in the passing of his wife - but geesh - he was more likable this week when they weren't harping on his back story, kwim? Biggest disappointment for the 1st week??? Well for me - it would have to be Megan - all those Michael Jackson songs and she picks "Rockin' Robin"?????? Yeah - STILL scratching my head about that one. I REALLY like her - she really is a relevant artist (think Duffy or KT Tunstall) - she just needs a bit of fine tuning - so I hope she does well and maybe that was just some first week jitters. I wish I would have posted yesterday because I could have made my predictions for who was going home last night and then you would have all been amazed because I was totally right - LMBO!! You'll just have to take my word for it - but I suppose I can't brag too much - it's always easier to predict those things in the early rounds. So anywho - that's my bit of Idol rambling - I bet no one will ever post asking for my opinions about anything again - ROTFL!!! But again - I would love to hear your favorites - so if you are an Idol fan - who is YOUR pick???

And speaking of Idol - have you been over to the MFT forum on SCS to see the FABULOUS finalists of the first ever MFT Idol contest??? Here's a link - check them out and give them a shout-out - I cannot wait to see what they'll create - it's gonna be a FUN contest!! Thanks so much for stopping by and listening to my incessantly babbling - and if you skipped some of it - well - I can't say I blame you - hee hee....have an awesome Thursday - check back tomorrow - there's gonna be tons of fun going on around here!!! ;)

Merry Christmas...

...from our house to yours! Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday!! Here's to a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! Hope all your wildest Christmas wishes come true!!!!!!!

A Scarf For Three

So did you vote?? Calvin and I just got back from voting - I hate to say this - because I know there are many of you out there waiting hours in line to vote - but I literally just walked in my polling place and voted with no wait! WOO HOO!! We live in a small district - it's sort of a growing district - it will get bigger as they continue to develop the area - but it sure was nice to be in a small voting district today. I felt SO bad for the voters in the larger district who vote at the same polling place - the line was all the way out the church doors - but it's worth it, right?? So I was playing around with another one of the MFT Stephanie Fizer images over the weekend and wanted to share the card I made with the "Scarf for Three" image with you. I just love this adorable image and it was SO much fun to color!! I colored my image in with Copics and then used a white gel pen to add a snow-y background. I'm a big fan of scarves and that pink and green color combo - so I would LOVE to have a scarf like theirs, wouldn't you? LOL!! I tried to keep the "3" theme going throughout the card - I remember from my advertising class in college that groupings in "3's" and other odd numbers are more pleasing to the eye - I think it has something to do with there being a middle object to focus your eye on in groups of odd numbers. Anywho - I embossed my 3 light blue panels with the Cuttlebug Snow Dots embossing folder and added a group of 3 snowflakes to the bottom of my card - I put a Hero Arts pink gemstone in the center of each snowflake brad. I used the new Martha Stewart Checkerboard edge punch to do the border under my snowman image. The ribbon is from Hobby Lobby and the sentiment came with the MFT snowman image. Speaking of MFT - they are having a release week as well with some AWESOME new releases this month - the MFT release party is this Wednesday from 9-11 PM EST over on SCS.
One more pic I wanted to share with you today - this is my Calvin standing outside our polling place today - check out his sticker - LOL!! I've been taking my kids to vote with me since they were babies - I think it's wonderful to be able to include them and show them the wonderful right that waits for them when they turn 18 - they are the future of our country after all and I want to make sure my kiddos know how important it is to get out there and vote!! ;) Thanks so much for stopping by - be sure to stop back by tomorrow - I've got a SUPER SWEET treat for you!!!!

Happy Halloween!!

Just wanted to wish all my blogging friends a very Happy Halloween!! If you are looking for some stamping fun today - check out Amanda's challenge over on the Hanna Stamps forum at SCS - it's a really cool sketch challenge - check it out here. I don't have anything new to share with you today - but did stay up late last night getting my cards for my Copic class ready for tomorrow - so I'll post those tomorrow afternoon so you can see what we did. Also - be sure to stop back by my blog first thing Monday morning - the Hanna Stamps sneak peeks start on Monday and let me tell you - they are AWESOME!!!! I'll show you my all time new favorite Hanna on Monday morning - she is to die for!!! Hope you all have a wonderful and SAFE Halloween!!!!

Wish me luck!!

Hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend!! I wanted to pop in and post really quick and apologize for my lack of projects lately - between vacation and CHA - I haven't had a lot of time to stamp. Plus - I have been preparing all week for my first Copic class that I am teaching tomorrow at Papertrix - I am going to be teaching basic coloring and shading with Copics (with a few little tricks thrown in) and we will be creating 3 finished cards in the class - so I promise to come back tomorrow and post pics of the cards from my class and let you all know how it went. Please wish me luck though - I haven't taught a class since my days at Gymboree - and well - that was to toddlers and their parents - LOL!! I am a smidgen nervous - but excited too! Oh - and I'll have sneak peeks for the August Hanna Stamps releases starting on Monday - so check back for those too - it's gonna be an exciting release! Have a great weekend and I will be back tomorrow afternoon with pics from my class!! Thanks for stopping by!

Adventures at CHA!

Happy Wednesday!! OK, OK, so I know this post is a little late - but better late then never, right? LOL!! I was going to post this over the weekend - but the weekend got crazy - then I decided to post it yesterday and well...yadda, yadda, yadda - it's just been crazy getting caught up around the house from being gone for so long - which included a trip to the grocery store with my 2 boys yeseterday - thank God for TV Carts is all I can say!! ;) So anywho - I am glad to be able to get some time this afternoon to blog about my wonderful and AMAZING experience at CHA! After spending last Wednesday in the Copic Certification class - I was so lucky to get to spend Thursday afternoon and all day Friday with some of the awesome Hanna Stamps ladies - here is a pic of Kristi Ferro (our fearless leader), Vicki Garrett (our design team coordinator), and I in front of the Hanna Stamps booth - isn't the booth amazing?? It was so exciting to see all the stamps and cards from the design team displayed like that - it reminded me how lucky I am to be able to work around such inspiration on this team!! I can't say enough about Kristi and Vicki - they are both AMAZING - I loved working for Kristi already - but after I met her - OMG - I love working for her even more - she is the real thing - I just love her SO much!! And Vicki - not only is she incredibly sweet - but she is an absolute riot - I SO want to go to Canada and hang out with Vicki - she is the bomb!!! I had SO much fun hanging out with these gals - I was so sad to have to leave on Friday!! :(
I also got to meet Bev Gerard (TexasGrammy on SCS) - OMG - Bev is the best - she has got to have the biggest heart on the planet and is incredibly talented to boot - if you are reading this Bev - I am so honored to have gotten to meet you and hang out with you - I can't wait until we can all get together again!!! I got to hang out and meet Sherry Cheever (AKA BadSherry) and Jeanne Streiff too - WOW - I was so honored - not only are these two SO uber-talented - but they are a hoot!! I can't even tell you how excited I was to be able to meet all these gals from the Hanna Stamps team - it was really the best part of CHA!!

Oh - and yes - of course it was exciting to see all the new products!! As some of you may know - I am a huge fan of my Cricut machine - it's my #1 all-time scrapbooking tool - so you can imagine my excitement getting to spend some time at the Provocraft booth at CHA checking out all the new cartridges and accessories coming out for the Cricut! I LOVE the Disney cartridges - they are my favorite cartridges - I am probably a glutton for punishment but I love piecing the characters together -so I was so excited to see more Disney cartridges coming out this Fall! Even though I have two boys - I was thrilled to see the new Hello Kitty and Tinkerbell carts! I was even more thrilled when I saw the Sesame Street cart coming out - these cuts are adorable!! And then if it was possible - I was even MORE excited to see that they are coming out with a Disney Pixar Cars cartridge - OMG - YAY!! This is one of our all-time favorite movies - the boys love the cars and I love the scenery in this movie - the recreation of the Route 66 feel was just amazing - this is definitely the first new cartridge I will be buying when they are released this fall! Here is a pic at the Provocraft booth - Vicki and I posed with Cricut and Cuttlebug - aren't they adorable?? They were so nice and posed for a couple of pics with us - and boy those costumes looked hot! These guys wearing these were real troopers!!

Here is a pic of the Friday make-n-take from the Provocraft booth - what a make-n-take, huh? I actually had to come home and finish it - there was such a long line for this project and I wanted to give someone else a turn - so I decided to take mine home and finish. Just look at those Sesame Street cuts - I am SO buying this cartridge!!
I just had a ball walking the floor on Friday and seeing all the new product coming out - it gave me a better idea just how broke I was gonna be this Fall - LOL!! I stopped by the Ranger Booth and got a chance to see the new Designer Stickles coming out - the Distressed Stickles look awesome! One of the gals at the booth described them as having a more matte glittered look - sort of like the look of antiqued glitter that has been aging for awhile - sounds cool, doesn't it? Die Cuts with a View has a new Sweet Stack coming out which is so pretty - it's done in browns and pastels with cupcakes and other sweets printed on it - VERY cute! I stopped by the Stampendous booth to see the new Changitos and other stamps coming out - the Christmas Changitos are to die for and there is a new clear Pirate Changito set coming out that I will be stalking Archiver's for - LOL!! The Imaginesce booth was very cool - the new Halloween and Christmas stamps and papers are so cute! Rusty Pickle was a cool booth - not only lots of great new product - but they had a chocolate fountain at their booth - how cool! Penny Black has some beautiful new Christmas stamps coming out that I am excited about. The Spellbinders booth was directly across from the Hanna Stamps booth - which was very cool - I love their products and the new Nestibilitie shapes look very neat! The Copic booth was just awesome - Marianne Walker and Debbie Olsen were giving demos when I stopped by and the Copic eye candy was just to die for - OMG - all those Copics in that booth - I was like a kid in a candy store - LOL!! I literally could just go on and on - it was just an amazing experience - thanks to Kristi, Vicki, and all the Hanna Stamps ladies for such a wonderful time!!

CHA or Bust!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!! I thought that since I don't have any cards to share today - I would share some pics from our vacation this past weekend to Frankenmuth, Michigan - these are my cutie-patooties posing for some pics around town - we had such a wonderful time - it was so incredible to spend such an amazing weekend together as a family!! Here is a pic of my two boys posing in front of the Cass River - we had a great view of the river from our room at the Bavarian Inn - you could walk out onto our patio and watch the birds and the riverboat go up and down the river - it was really neat!!Here's another pic with the giant Santa outside of Bronner's...

And one more pic of the boys on the Bavarian Belle Riverboat - they LOVE this boat ride!

I probably won't have any cards to share with you for the rest of the week either because I am CHA bound this afternoon!! WOO HOO!! This is my very first trip to CHA and I am just busting at the seams with excitement! The kids and I are leaving later this afternoon and heading to South Bend, Indiana - where they are gonna spend a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's while Mommy has some CHA fun - LOL!! I am getting up first thing in the morning and heading into Chicago for the Copic Certification class being held tomorrow - then I am gonna stay Thursday and Friday to take in a little CHA - so check back this week - hopefully I will have some fun pics to share with you all from CHA!

A Blog Award!

Check it out - the oh so sweet and incredibly talented Deb - gave me this blog award...




Check out all of Deb's wonderful creations on her site - IttyBitty InkSpots - here's the link..http://ittybittyinkspots.blogspot.com/ Now the rules state that I have to nominate 7 other blogs for this award - ohmigosh - I am not sure I could pick just 7 blogs to nominate - there is just SO much inspiration out there - so in the spirit of the award - I am gonna bend the rules a bit and nominate all of my fellow Hanna Stamp Design Team members!! The reason for this is that before I was a member of this extraordinary team - I was a Hanna Stamps customer who would stalk these ladies blogs like you wouldn't believe - counting down the days until their sneak peeks of the new releases - these ladies are not only inspirations - but enablers as well - LOL!! I am truly blessed to be part of this amazing team - I love working with all of them - big "MWAH's" to all of you!!

Oh - and I am going to go ahead and give an Honorary Blog Award to my dear friend - Jennifer - who does not have a blog - but should - she is an extraordinarily gifted and talented scrapbooker and cardmaker whose blog would most definitely be award-worthy!! ;)

Thanks for stopping by - and big thanks to Deb for the blog award!!

Blog Candy Winner!!

Hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend!! I wanted to thank everyone who posted comments for my blog candy - thanks SO much for all the great suggestions ladies - some of the most suggested sets to be featured in a Copic Class were "But I Need It", "Fun In the Sun", and "Bookworm Hanna" - all EXCELLENT choices!! So without further ado - here is the winner of my Hanna Stamps blog candy...

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:31
Timestamp: 2008-06-21 14:41:40 UTC

Your comment:

deb said...
Well since your going to be visiting and its summer, how about the Cafe' set? What a great way to end your day with a cup of java at some nice little cafe.Sounds like a fun time! Wish I lived closer!! And I LOVE THE SET! hugz
June 19, 2008 10:01 AM

Congrats Deb!! Please e-mail me your address to candicelighty@sbcglobal.net and I will get your prize out to you - thanks again to everyone for playing!!

I also just realized that I have been tagged - so I promise to get right on that, Qweendavia!! ;) Be sure to check out the new Rileys now available at www.hannastamps.com - there are peeks in my previous post - they are OH SO CUTE!!!!

Chicago Fun and a PJ Party!!

"Hold on to your hats!" - hee hee - that's what I am calling this pics of my youngest son, Calvin - these pics were taken during our ride on the Seadog - the speedboat ride in Lake Michigan at Navy Pier here in Chicago. Hope everyone has been having a wonderful week!! Thanks to all of you who have left comments for my Blog Candy - there is still time to enter to win if you haven't done that yet - just check out my previous post! ;) We are winding down our few days of Chicago fun and I was browsing thru my pics this evening and thought I would share some...here are some pics at the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millenium Park...

Here are a couple from two of our favorite stores along Michigan Avenue - my oldest, Andrew became a Hershey factory worker for the day (Calvin was a little leery of the giant candy machine) and in case you couldn't tell - they are both BIG Lego Star Wars fans!!And one more - we went to the Field Museum today so that the boys could see Sue - the T.Rex - Andrew has become a big dinosaur fan ever since he studied them in Kindergarten...

It's been a great few days up here in Chi-Town - but all good things must come to an end - and I am gearing up to head home so I can be there in time for the Hanna Stamps PJ Party tomorrow night!!! I hope you will join us - it's gonna be SO much fun - challenges, prizes, and a big surprise from Kristi as well!! The "Stamping in Your Jammies" night starts tomorrow night - June 20th - at 7 PM EST over on the Hanna Stamps forum at SplitCoast Stampers - so grab your ink and slip into your most comfy PJ's and come join the fun!!!! Hope to see you there!!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

And So the Fun Begins...

Hello and welcome to my brand new blog - "Rubbah Soul" - all things stamping, scrapping, and papercrafting! I hope you will visit often and maybe even get inspired while you are here! I have lots of exciting plans for my blog - I will be posting all of my stamped creations here as well as the occasional anecdote or musing about being a stay at home mom of 2 rambunctious boys - life sure can get crazy around here - but that's why we love it, right? LOL!! Check back often as I plan on posting projects soon - I wanted to have something to post today but I spent the better part of the day getting this blog up and running! ;) In the meantime - check out the slideshow of some of my recent work at the bottom of my blog as well as the beautiful blogs of my fellow Hanna Stamps Design Team members!! Thanks for visiting - talk soon!!

Candice