Hey Girlahs!!

So I have been neglecting my stamping. Worse yet I have been neglecting my Girlahs!! My training is going really fab but most days it is 9-7pm and I come home burnt out and after seeing the kids a little and Kevin a little, I head to bed. Also my Granny is in the hospital, long story that ends with surgery and her doing much better. But WOW have I been busy with trying to visit her every day after work. This is the Christmas card I designed for this year. When I am gonna find time to make 50 of them I dunno! LOL!! I'll try to post more soon. Miss you all!! Counting the days till January.............

MWAH!! (kisses)

Stamp Club

Once upon a time long before SU came to Winnipeg a group of stamping diehards found each other and began stamping together once a month. They are called Just Stampers. I joined about 5 years ago. Last night was the first stamp night of the 2007-2008 season and it was at my house. After a long week of grooming training I sure appreciated kicking back and stamping with some very talented stampers. We do a card exchange and some kind of technique or challenge. Since I was hosting I picked a fall card theme, either colors or stamps and a card sketch challenge. Susan suggested one sketch and the other I found on Lauren's (Mytime's) blog. I used my umbrella stamp set for the exchange and ended up not following the sketch too well for Lauren's and ended up with a pretty decent card for Susan's. Above is my fall card and below is Susan's sketch.

TGIF!!

I have had this lunch pail for at least a year. It sat patiently on my things to do shelf for all this time. Finally, I sat down and made myself this tin. I still need to modgepodge it but that requires digging out by craft bins from the depths of storage an I can't quite make myself do it yet! LOL!! You really can't go wrong with the Cutie Pie paper and Pomegranate tho! :) I LOVE ribbon so this Celery stuff is fabu!! Now I have a pretty tin to hold all my cards. But I am trying not to be a card hoarder and send more random cards to my friends! I am also hoping to finish cleaning my stamp room this morning, I got a lot accomplished last week end and my tables reflect it! LOL!! I also need to pack up cuz it's FRIDAY NIGHT -so stamping at Jenn's! I think I am going to tackle a few challenges. It has been awhile since I have done some! The best part of all?? My Favorite Things Shower Time set JUST arrived!! Wahoo!! I have been dying to ink up this set! The first card I make tonight will be with this set for sure! I just love umbrellas -go figure.

I made the Leaf Pile!!

So I get up this morning and I am having a dragging-your-butt-how-am-I-ever-gonna-get-6- kids-to-school-on-time?? kind of morning. I always peek quickly at my email before doing much of anything. More comments on my SCS gallery -YAY!! So I go and read the comment and it is a congrats on winning?? Well wouldn't ya know, but my wiper card was nominated for the Leaf Pile for the Sept VSN. I had big plans of my participation in VSN this month and had been looking forward to it since May, but with all the other projects that had been screaming to get out of my head and working on Sat, I just didn't get to participate other than this one pre-challenge. So anyway I am really excited about that. I need someone to pay me to stamp and blog all day long I think............ :)

SO not only are my gaggle of children back to school, but so am I. This past January I thought I would try something new and did a short apprenticeship to be a Pet Groomer. I thought I was doing it for fun like most of my ADD half-projects that I never finish, but low and behold I loved it. But you see being a pet store groomer just doesn't cut it for me....If I love something I have to be one of the best at something. Back to school I go!! SO now I am studying (if you can call it that) to learn fancy cuts and show cuts and stuff. I'm loving it but it is long days and it seems as tho I'll never be done (in reality hopefully I'll be done by Christmas). In addition to ADD I have a real issue with delayed gratification. This was my first week and I went Mon-Wed. Next week I'll go Mon-Fri. I like the flexibility of working at the shop, I can work as many or as few days as I want. This going everyday stuff sucks!! LOL!!

I made these this past weekend........
It's a cardstock purse and 9 matching cards done with one 12x12 designer sheet of paper. I am making them for all the kid's girl teachers for Christmas. (any boy teacher ideas out there??) I got the original template here. I love the Au Chocolate paper by SU but you can't get it wanted something a bit more mature that the usual invite so I used my quick notebook cover to anymore. Jenn says the Charbon is supposed to be nice and make cute purses. I think I am gonna try a Cutie Pie one next as soon as I get my new order of Pomegranate and DS paper. I can't bear to use all of what I have!!

I also threw together an invite for Bailey's birthday, he's gonna be 11. Boy does that ever freak me out!! I can't believe it was 11 years ago that that red-haired terror ;) entered my world!! He's thrilled with the results. When I made the notebook cover I colored it perfectly, but I realized that a less perfect coloring job is EXACTLY what a stamp like this needs! I love it!! Kevin even commented on liking the way I colored it and for him -that means something!!

So with all this free time.............

what is a girl to do?? Well stamp of course!! I found out that AmyR was doing a call for designers for ATS so I figured why not?? Maybe an expert grass drawer is what they need! ;) I also happen to have gotten my stamping mojo back so I had projects galore to share!! This Changito card is my favorite and it has been living in my head for awhile now so it is nice to finally get him into the jungle where he belongs!!

My Max also turned 6 this Summer but waited to celebrate his birthday with the boys in his Grade 1 class. A Glow in the Dark Mini Golf place opened nearby and we are going to check it out. They provided invitations but I couldn't use those!! But I did cut a piece of them off cuz I thought it made a nice Designer paper look. I wanted the invites to look like they were glowing in the dark so I went for a bright on black sort of look. I think they are really cool and better than that Max loves them!!

Tomorrow I start upgrading from pet groomer to being able to do "fancy styles" and stuff! I am all nervous in my tummy just like I used to get before school started. And freaked out that I am not going to be good enough!! I always get like this. I hate the process, but love where I am going! I can't wait till the next twelve weeks are over. It's going to be a long three months!! I'll feel better in a day or two once I get the feel of things, but right now I am like "Mellie, why do you want to do this again??" I guess I better head to bed and try to sleep (rolls eyes).

First Day Back at School

So this is it!! The first day of school. Can you hear the quiet in my house?? Nah, I guess not. We were off to a great start this morning (not) with a thunderclap being what woke my kids at 7 am. Two crying kids that didn't want to leave the house did not bode well for being on time but we did it!! I'm a bit sad cuz summer is over and my babies are off to grade one!! I like Kindergarten when they are home with me every other day. Just enough of a break to do your own thing but lots of time with the kids!! I am however really excited to focus on my grooming and stamping!! I'm just thankful that my kids go to such an awesome school that I can send them out the door with no worries!! :) Nik of course insisted on a silly picture too! He'll be thrilled to see himself on the web!!