ISSUES!!!

I'm having issues - boy am I having issues!!! My internet service is totally unreliable! OK - here is a little background information. Hubby and I moved into our house almost 2 years ago. It was a new neighborhood in an area thats just a little off the beaten path. Love my house - love the area - but there were/are some kinks.

One is cell service - there is none at my house. Now when I say were are a little of the beaten path, we are only 5 0r 6 miles off of a major road. But sure enough, just as I am about to turn into my neighborhood, my cell service goes out. No roam either!

The other kink is internet. We only have dial-up available through the local phone company. No DSL, no high speed wireless from the cable company...nothing. Here lately, my dial-up service has been touch and go. Even on its best day, it will take about 30 minutes to upload a pic!! Ugh!! Some days I can "hijack" my neighbor's unsecured wireless service...but here lately, I think he has caught on and turned down the signal strength or something! So, in order to keep the blog updated, I have 3 choices:

1) Take my laptop to the local Panera Bread Company-or another WIFI hotspot-and update my blog from there.
2) Update my blog at work
3) Sign up for HughesNet

I love Panera, but seriously - the odds of me getting in my car on a regular basis and driving 15 minutes down the road to update the blog are slim to none! I can't count on being able to work on my blog while I'm at my real job...there are "Net-Nannies" and all sorts of monitoring going on, so that's not a permanent solution. So that leaves HughesNet. Anyone out there have HughesNet??? What do you think about it?

My First Try at Spotlighting

I've seen some really pretty cards that used the Spotlighting technique, but I had never tried the technique myself. So...I pulled out "old faithful" (aka Lovely As A Tree) and figured I'd give it a shot!

First I stamped the treescape on to the Naturals Ivory cardstock with my Timber Brown StazOn pad. Then I stamped the same image on to a scrap piece of Naturals Ivory. (I love watercoloring on the Confetti/Naturals cardstocks - it gives you a great look and its more cost effective than the watercolor paper).

I watercolored a portion of the image on the scrap paper and then I punched it out with my 1 1/4" circle punch. I matted the punched image on to a punched piece of Bordering Blue cardstock. The matted and watercolored image is lined up and layered on top of the original image with a dimensional. You can't really see it in this picture, but I stamped "Warm Wishes" in the bottom right corner of the card front using my Bordering Blue craft pad and then embossed it with Clear Embossing Powder.

All in all, I really like this technique and am considering it for an upcoming Stampers 7 workshop!

Quick & Easy

I don't know what it is, but here lately I'm just drawn to polka dots! I wanna put them everywhere!

For this super-quick and super-easy card, I used one of my favorite background stamps, Polka Dot. Its inked in Regal Rose Classic ink and stamped on to the Regal Rose card front. I used my large scalloped square punch (non-SU!) for the Certainly Celery mat and colored the flower image from True Friend with my Stampin' Write Markers.

The layout was CASE'd from my friend/co-worker/downline Trish. She organized our annual company Christmas card stamp-a-thon (where the women of the company get together and hand-stamp 300+ Christmas cards for the company to send to customers, owners, and business associates). Anyway, one of the cards was laid out very similar to this one (I simplified mine a bit). I loved the little flag-like thingy and I really wanted to incorporate it into an upcoming stamp camp. Thanks Trish!!!

Boatloads of Love

Here is another pic from the January Stamp Camp. This one features one of my new fave stamp sets, Boatloads of Love. I think this set is absolutely adorable! Pair it with Cutie Pie designer patterned paper and its just too cute for words!

Sticking to the "Spots & Dots" theme for January, I used the polka dotted patterned paper from Cutie Pie. The little tug boat was colored using my Stampin' Write Markers (an AquaPainter/Blender Pen and ink pads work just as well though). Each layer is popped up with dimensionals...and of course I had to use some ribbon. My ribbon of choice on this card was Bashful Blue grosgrain!

Yes....I'm Alive

Hi everyone! Yes, its me. I know, I know....after more than a month of blogging-silence, its hard to believe. December was a crazy month - we had some family drama goin' on...then there was Christmas. Would you believe that after I finished my Christmas cards I didn't even GO in my craft room until after the first of the year! Seriously!!! My rubber and ink must have felt so neglected! :)

But I'm back now! Just in time for the January Stamp Camps. The theme for this month is Spots-n-Dots. Something came over me and I was in a polka-dotty mood, so all of the projects this month have spots or dots somewhere on them!

I CASE'd this card from Glenda, my demo friend that includes me in on her swaps. Its pretty much an exact copy - so thanks for the inspiration Glenda! I used the polka dotted petals from Pick A Petal to create the wings of the ladybug. I used my circle punches for the head and the body. I drew the antennae in with my Basic Black Journaler and added a piece of zig-zag Real Red ribbon in the corner! I love the way this little ladybug turned out!!