They're creepy and their kooky....

Mysterious and spooky....HAPPY HALLOWEEN fellow stampers!!! I can't believe I've been so busy at work that I haven't had time to stamp, blog or even return many emails (sorry about that, catching up this weekend I promise). We're changing to an entire new computer system and we've all been stuck in trainings or covering for those in training and my brain just goes to sleep by the time I get home from work. Although I have to say Thank You to Jess for keeping me entertained via text message....I was losing my mind there for a few days!

Luckily tomorrow is the first of the month, which means PJ PARTY so I'll get to break loose and relax!!!!! Yep, it's that time once again, the Paper Pretties girls will be Stampin in their Jammies over at the Prettie Forum so be sure to mark some time off tomorrow night (7pm CST) to come join us. There will be stamp challenges posted each hour, new stamps released AND a new Cutie Pie!!!

Here's the deets:
Simply upload one of your creations using Paper Pretties stamps on the Paper Pretties forum, and Christie will chose a winner from the entries. Besides being able to call yourself a Cutie Pie, you will also win the entire release!! You have until October 31st at 8pmCST to get your entries in!!

And don't forget to check out their RIDICULOUS sale. 75% off!!! Is that not just nuts?!?!? It's practically giving it away at that point. So get over there before it's all gone. (sale excludes Paper Pretties stamps)

Friends are hard to find...

And when you find one when you're not looking, that's the best!! Recently I've become close friends with Jessica and yesterday I got this card in the mail and I just had to show it off. We both share an addiction to PTI stamps but this is one that I don't have. I just love how these colors look together, I'm thinking I just might have to add this set to my collection! Thanks Jess!!!

So I'm gearing up for our garage sale this weekend and I went through my craft room and cleaned house. I'll be posting a list on here first so be sure to check back this week to see if there's any goodies you guys would like to get your hands on. :)

xoxo

More simple, quick & cute cards....

I completely forgot to show you the other cards from my WCMD event a few weekends ago! *bad Jill* I just adore this one because it can be used for any occasion and even for guys!!! Just switch the sentiment to happy birthday or thinking of you and you're done!

Ok, it's Wednesday and what better to get you through the mid-week slump than comedy. I was surfing the net at work *shock* and ran across this photo....

*ROTFL*

Welcome to the Winters house....

Does anyone remember what it used to look like?? The brass fixtures everywhere....nasty carpet & linoleum....beige, beige and more beige!!! We ripped it all down and started over (pics during facelift)....

The walls are now a warm custard, new carpet & baseboards have been installed, new fixtures, new tile floors....

I swear the bathroom is a soft mocha with white & chocolate accents....not sure why it's so yellow in the pic. :( We put oil-rubbed bronze fixtures and towel bars up, the bronze faucet will be going once we actually remodel the cabinets (next year, we need a break). The large vent thingy at the top of our hallway is our whole house fan, do you have any idea how flippin cool this thing is?!?!?! We didn't! But after our $300 electric bill dropped to $90, we figured it out! The house cools off in literally seconds with this thing. LOVE IT! Oh and that's the master at the end of the hall, didn't go in there for pics because it's not done yet. I haven't chosen bedroom furniture yet and the door frames haven't been primed and painted, so I have a little bit of work to do this xmas...but I'll get there. ;)

Never again will my stamp room be this clean, it took over 2 hours to clear things up in there. But it's MINE MINE MINE!!! Hubby won't let me play until after this weekend....I promised that once the house warming was over that I would go through everything and we'd have a garage sale the next weekend. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?! There are more rooms to take pics of, but this was all I took apparently. LOL Was too busy at the cupcake buffet to bother with photo taking. LOL

Still recovering...

The party was fantastic!!! The house looked perfect (well, still a few pending projects but those don't count). The food was wonderful (mini sliders, fries, shrimp & a cupcake buffet for dessert! Thank you to my amazing sister!) Drinks were flowing (especially the Margarita punch....mmmmm) and the night ended around 1am when the final guests left and Scott & I were snoring before our heads hit the pillow.

Pics will be posted soon, I took a few myself but didn't have the energy to move yesterday to download them. Now I'm at work and then running errands this evening, so hopefully tomorrow you'll be back to browse the new house. :) xoxo

Look who's turning 29.....again!!!

It's a very prettie day today because our very beloved Jessie is turning the big 30! So we're hosting a virtual bday party for her to show her how much we adore her and that turning thirty is not that bad. Heck, I kinda like it myself!!! ;)

I was in charge of bringing some presents....At first I panicked because my stamp room is currently our storage room (I about died when I had to give it up) and all my stamps & ink are in hiding. The only thing I have access to is paper & ribbon. Since I always keep things on the simple side, I chopped up a few pieces of the SU Petals & Paislies paper, stacked them up and tied it off with a bow!! HAPPY BDAY JESSIE!!! Please stop by her blog and wish her a fabulous 30th! And be sure to visit the other prettie pages to see how the party is going. :)

Christie, Jules, Jodi, Charlie, Danielle, Jackie P, Jackie R, Joni & Jess

Don't forget that October is breast cancer awareness month and Paper Pretties is having a PINK sale, everything PINK is on sale 40% off!!! So get on over to the Prettie Boutique to do some shoppin!

Our house warming is tomorrow night so I have some serious cleaning to do...I need to find my stamp room again!!! *tears welling up* I was told it was "only for a few days" but it's been over a week now and I'm going a little crazy without it.

Eeek!

Oct 14th already?!?! Where did summer go?? Well we've been buckling down at the house getting ready for our house warming this weekend. It looked so lovely just two weeks ago, a little naked but clean and livable. Then the bomb went off...clothing EVERYWHERE! Boxes, bags, pictures, candles, halloween decor. OMG! We pulled out so much stuff from the garage and the closets that I thought I was going to need to rent a hotel room just to have somewhere to live & sleep!!! I had to fill the holes in the closet walls and paint, hence why the clothing was everywhere. Over the months I had purchased all kinds of fun photo frames, candles, vases, etc and just kept putting them away.....hubby pulled them all out and my god. I wish I had taken a picture. WOW! So I might be a little absent this week because I'm "not allowed in the stamp room" at all unless my tasks are completed first (yea right).

But I do need to shout something from the rooftops

JESSICA IS A PRETTIE GIRL!!!!!

My long lost sistah (not literally, we just have tons in common, can chat for hours and we get along like sistahs) Jessica Diedrich has accepted a spot on the Prettie team, so watch out folks....together we are T-R-O-U-B-L-E. ;) Debbie Lee, aren't you just jumping out of your chair?!?!?!

So please drop by her blog and give her some high-fives on her new Prettie position! Here's a peak at some of her fabulous cards....

You light up my life...

Happy Friday folks! Did you watch Grey's last night?!?! I actually got the chance to flop in front of the tv and veg for an hour, well 45 minutes really because I didn't watch it until 10:30pm when I got home (yikes) and I zipped past the commercials with my semi-wonderful Tivo. I only love it when it's working properly. ;)

Today I want to share a card that I just adore!!! I got this fabulous embossing template from Paper Pretties and decided to pair it up with some fun new paper I've been hoarding. I first embossed the lamps on vanilla paper and then embossed the shades on various patterned paper. I lightly scuffed them up using my paper scuffers, it's easier to scuff these small images before you cut them out. I left the template on my vanilla paper and used chalk to lightly shade the lamp bases. Then I trimmed out the shade and popped them on top!!

I'm trying to make it a goal to start using all these items that I just HAD to have. I know there are fellow hoarders out there....will you pledge to start using your stuff too?? Please?? ;)

A few cards to share...

All this Gourd talk and I completely neglected to post some of the cards from WCMD last Saturday! *smacks her own hand*

We cranked out 10 cards total so they had to be simple but still eye catching. I used my Big Shot to knock out the circles & scallops (3 pieces of cardstock at once!) using my Nesties Classic Circle & Scallop Circle dies. I used textured white cardstock for the card base and layered a cute pink striped paper on the base, a small strip of lighter pink just above it and pierced double lines all the way across. I used this same layout but switched up the colors & stamps for another card (show ya tomorrow) and I just love them both!

This next one is great for anyone...guys, girls, youngsters, co-workers. It's hard sometimes to create a basic birthday card, I tend to get too foofy or girly. I used textured Chocolate Chip (I really have fallen in love with all the textured cardstock for card bases, it allows even the most simple card to look fantastic) and added this fun striped paper along the bottom. I layered that strip onto bashful blue, which now I realize I didn't even have to do since it looks like the paper! The ribbon is looped through the side of the card and knotted, but the Bday layer is popped up on dimensionals to cover the ribbon slot punch.

I'll be showing the other cards in the coming days, can't reveal EVERYTHING at once or there's not reason to come back, right? ;)

FYI for Tracy, the Gourds are from a local craft fair in California and she doesn't have a website nor sell online. You can email me privately and I'm sure we can work out a pix text while at the craft faire shopping kinda thing. That goes for everyone who's interested...but you must be able to get pix messages on your cell phone. We can do this people! Enablers Untie! errr Unite!! LOL

Gobble til you Wobble

Words to live by I tell ya!!! Here is my Turkey Gourdzook, I got him at the craft fair last fall but it was after turkey day so he's been sitting in his packaging for quite some time. But this year when I pulled out my fall box, he was the first thing to be opened. Just had to share my Gobbly gourd as I promised in the last post. ;) Can't wait to get a new one this year....last weekend in November so keep your eyes peeled for my post!!!

A very special gift

If you've been reading my blog for a while then you know my excitement over holiday Gourds. Last year I added this adorable little guy to my collection, created by Donna Massey owner of Gourdzooks.

She makes the most adorable little characters using gourds. It's the one holiday craft splurge I look forward to each year (they are PRICEY, this guy was $40!!!). Usually after a stamp day, a large group of us will hoof it down to the annual craft fair to shop, eat & browse the goodies...and my $$ always goes towards a new gourd. So my jaw hit the ground this weekend when one of the gals showed up bearing gifts (too sweet!) and when I opened up the package this is what I found....

I flipped out!!! I was so excited!!!!

1. I love these gourd characters!!! (she had no idea, my reaction was a shock to her, I was screaming)
2. I didn't have any Halloween ones yet and I had looked at them last year, but opted for a turkey (show ya that tomorrow).
3. It had a little black kitty on the pumpkin which looked like my little Mouse (our cat, our princess...yes, we don't have kids yet so therefore our pets are like our children)
4. She MADE IT!!!! OMG!!! I nearly fell over!!!

So I just HAD to share this with everyone, I'm sure you crafty Sue's are used to seeing Gourds and fun stuff but I'm new to them and I just get dumbfounded at the things people can do with them. Just wait til you see the other fun guys I got my hands on!!! Oh and I'll also post the projects we made for World Card Making Day....did anyone else spend the day stamping on Saturday????

The morning after..

Last night was the monthly SIYJ party over at Paper Pretties, I was so thrilled to finally get the chance to attend this time!! Last month I JUST had my internet installed and it wasn't functioning so I missed the party. Turned out my hard drive was frying and had to be replaced, guess I should have been a little nicer to the internet tech support, eh? LOL


So here is my Pick A Patch Cooper card that I made for the third challenge, sadly I got home from work right as the party started so I was late in starting the card challenges. I just love this spiderweb embossing folder, I can't stop using it! That and my Martha black glitter, nothing screams Halloween quite like black glitter and spider webs right?? So I bugg'd the white paper but left the bottom portion untouched so I could stamp my greeting. I used the rectangle nesties for Cooper, Copics for the coloring as always. I wanted to make a border of black glitter so I took sticky tape and taped off all the edges, dipped it in the black glitter and tah dah! Guess it doesn't show up well in this photo, click on it to enlarge it, perhaps you can see it then! :) Lastly I used my new spider die cut to finish off the card. We'll keep you posted on when this adorable little guy will be available for purchase, should be sometime next week so keep checking back!!

Also, a big round of applause for this month's Cutie Pie, my pal Jess was crowned last night at the party, her card was simply gorgeous and she won all the new stamps that were released last night! Her challenge cards were really cute too, if you get a chance head over to the Gallery and check out everyone's cards....there are a few sneak peeks for what's coming up next month!!!!