Monday, March 31, 2008

Is March over yet?

Wow, March has been chaotic! Just too much was going on this month and I can't wait for it to be over. April 1st will be like starting over, it can't be as crazy as March. Or can it? Boy, I sure hope not.

Tomorrow I take the cat I've had for almost four years and turn her in to the Humane Society. Believe me, this is a last resort. She has major issues with urinating in the house. I've taken her to vets, changed litters uncountable times, put multiple boxes throughout my house including one that "cleans itself" and I spent a small fortune on, I even went and got another cat because I was told maybe she is "lonely" since she came from a shelter with lots of other cats. Nothing works. In the past week and a half she peed IN my daughters bookbag, ruining her books and homework (it was quite embarrassing to bring her to school and explain that), I left the house and kept smelling it but couldn't figure it out ... until that is I realized that my son was wearing a hat that she had peed on and it had dried up so in my haste to leave the house I never noticed (how disgusting!!!), and then to top it all off nicely I woke up Sunday morning to find a puddle of cat pee in my $100+ leather coat. I'm done, there is nothing more I can do at this point. I tried to find a farm to take her and had no luck. I tried Animal Kind but they only take strays. So back to the shelter she goes and I can only hope that they don't put her down. I have dealt with this for so long because I was told that cats with this problem get put down. I truly hope they find another solution. It is going to break my heart to hand her over tomorrow but I need to think about how unsanitary it is for my children to live in a house with this cat.

Well, now that I have vented I'll move on. It's been a little crazy this week. My furnace is going "wonky" on me and I woke up twice with no heat and once with the whole house filled with the smell of oil *yuck*. So I haven't blogged and I haven't done much scrapping either. I only got one lonely little layout done but I'll share :) You may even recognize one of the pictures.

sleepover layout shrunk

Hummies Template #17
Papers by Ditters Doodles, Gyrlie World Kit
Font is Pea Alesa

And I am kind-of excited about a tutorial I just found tonight. I keep hearing designers talk about how they photograph textures to use in their papers and kits. But I had no clue how to take my photographs and turn them into a PSP texture. Tonight I came across this site called pspmadeez.com and there was a tutorial on making your own textures! How cool is that? It is so easy too. So if you use PSP and you want to know how to make your own textures go check it out!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Easter is over!

Yup, Easter is finally over. I just wasn't feelin' it this year :( I even forgot to leave the poor Bunny a carrot for all his efforts. Oh, well ... I guess he gets 2 next year.

But what does it mean when Easter is over? Well, it means lots of leftover hard-boiled eggs, that's what. And what does that mean? Oh yeah, Egg salad sandwiches. I tried to resist the urge since it's not really diet friendly but it kept coming up over at Hummie's and the temptation was too strong. *L* So, Hummie ... this picture is for you ....

Our eggs before:













And after:

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See all those chunks I was talking about. Yummy! *L*

Anyway, enough about my sandwich :) Here is the real reason I enjoy Easter (usually). My two awesome kids. I had fun helping my daughter get dressed again this year. She picked everything out but I helped her put it all together. She wanted her "Miley Cyrus" hair (blown straighter) with sparkles. And Mommy remembered her QuickClips in time to add a few gems in there too. It looked so cute! She even got sunglasses in her Easter Basket that matched her dress. When she walked into church everyone started talking about how darn cute she was. Makes a Mommy proud :) Unfortunately boys aren't quite so much fun to dress but he looked handsome too. I even managed to get a few pictures of myself with the kids thanks to my nifty new shutter remote :) So here we all are:

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Here is one of my two little wonders.

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And finally, my little lady and her sparkly hair...

DSC_0603

Friday, March 21, 2008

Wow. What a mess I almost made!


Hee Hee. I decided to play around with my blog. BAD IDEA *LOL* Not ready for that yet I guess. I changed to a 3 column template and I lost my header. Couldn't figure out the problem so I switched back to the template I had saved...and Uh Oh..still no header. All is well now, I have my header back after reuploading it. I may even know what the problem is with the 3 column template but I am not going through all that again today. For now, go take a look at all my pretty blinkies and visit some of those great blogs if you haven't already. The Sunshine "Girls" have a new Free Collab kit up that's awesome for Easter/Spring. I love their stuff.

Speaking of stuff I love...guess what Hummie did. Remember the kit I last posted about? Remember my layout? Weeellllllll, Hummie liked it so much she recreated my element cluster and is giving it away as a Freebie. So, in an indirect way...it's sorta my freebie too *LOL* Here it is ... But hurry, it's a very limited time freebie.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Crazy birthday weekend and a great new kit from Hummie

Six? Really? My daughter is six already? Part of me feels like it was yesterday she was born and another part of me can't believe I was ever anything but a Mommy. Her birthday happened to fall on the weekend so she was able to have a party on the actual day this year. We took her and 5 of her closest friends to a local pottery place and they all got to paint a piece of pottery to keep. They are all very crafty kids so it was a big hit. This year Lynn wanted me to make her cake instead of buy it. She wanted a tall princess cake with towers. It had to be decorated pink and purple but she wanted one blue tower up on top. Oh, and the towers had to have flags of course. Too bad she has no clue what she wants, huh? *L* So here is the final result. Keep in mind it's the first big cake I decorated. I love to bake, but I usually don't go all out in the decorating department. However, it was fun making the flags since I digital scrapped them *LOL*

And here's the birthday girl with her cake ...
*sigh* It's hard to see them grow sometimes. My youngest is going to be 2 this summer and then I have no babies. And he is my last so it can be tough sometimes. But there is always something new and fun about each age (at least for now *L*).

The whole weekend was hectic, with Lynn's birthday came 2 parties, the kids pottery party and a small family gathering at my Mom's where we all got to have yummy corned beef and cabbage in honor of Saint Patrick's Day. And one of her BFF's was born on Saint Patrick's Day so there was a bowling party to attend too. I had fun but I'm glad it's over. I was so stressed the cake would come out bad, or I would forget the goodie bags, or I'd get there and realize I never brought the forks or something. I'm such a worry-wart.

As opposed to rambling on more about my crazy week I would like to show you something. Over at Hummie's World forum we had a discussion about how there was an abundance of "cartoony" St. Patrick's Day kits but nothing that was really about Irish culture and just pretty. Silly leprechaun hats and giant four leaf clovers have their place but I kept hoping for a kit to scrap pictures expressing our heritage not just about one day. I asked...and Hummie delivered. How great is that? Check out this beautiful kit she made as an add-on to her already wonderful Heritage kit. She posted a freebie Celtic cross on her blog and you can click the image to purchase the whole kit.

And here is the first layout that I have done with the kit.


I used an Andrea Gold template (#209) but took the flowers out.
Hummie's Irish Heritage Add-on Kit (link above)
The fonts are Minya Nouvelle and Lucida Handwriting

Friday, March 14, 2008

Look what I've been missing...






The hubby is the one who usually takes my daughter down to the bus stop in the morning because he leaves at that same time for work anyway. But this week he has had a few extra overnight shifts at the rescue squad and it's been my job. My daughter and I stepped out the door yesterday morning to find a beautiful scene. A gorgeous colored sunrise. So, of course, as soon as the bus picked her up I ran inside and grabbed my trusty D40. I actually missed the most spectacular part of it but I managed to get some very pretty shots anyway. Especially in contrast to the dismal wintery foreground. Even in the minute I was taking pictures it went from this pretty pink to a gorgeous deep blue. I can't wait to see some signs of Spring here but this sunrise gave me a little hope that it's coming.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Argh!


HeHe...I thought that was appropriate given all the crazy pirate nonsense going around the digital scrap community lately. I was having a bad day (broken washing machine and the repairman won't return my call!) so I took a trip over to Icanhascheezburger.com to cheer myself up. It kinda worked :) for now anyway.

I did a challenge over at Hummies again. I seem to find good inspiration over there, along with some friendly people to chat with. Here is what I did with my daughter's Christening pics from 2002. I am so glad I am getting some of the older stuff scrapped now.


Done for Template Challenge at Hummies World. (Temp #37)
Paper and elements by Fraisinette (Moka-Creme Kit)
Title Font is ChocolateBox
Journaling Font is Rage Italic

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Not sure what happened...

I have no clue why, but Blogger kept telling me my email didn't exist and I couldn't log in. I had to log in to Google and come in "the back way". Strange.

Anyhow, It was a pretty good weekend so not much computer time anyway. My daughter had her first ever slumber party at a friends house. She is only 5 (very soon to be 6) and already she has her own little Clique. She has two friends that she met in gymnastics when she was almost 3 who have totally become her BFFs. Greatest thing is, all of us parents have gotten pretty close too. The girls are VERY close in age. I mean VERY. *L* All 3 were born in the same 2 week period. The first birthday girl had her party this weekend and her parents were brave enough to take on the first ever sleepover after the main party. There were four girls all together, The 3 musketeers as we often refer to them and another little girl that my daughter and the birthday girl are friends with from school. The girls had such a blast! It's so scary to see your "baby" growing up but it makes you proud too. She made it through the night without a problem. Since my Blogger is working again I thought I would share a picture that the Mom took right before they settled in....or at least, were supposed to settle in *L* Look for scrap pages in the future since I am sure they will be coming.

I also did another challenge over at Hummies. Actually a double for me since it worked for 2 challenges. Here it is.

This was done for the Cut Out text Challenge and the Template Challenge (#36) over at Hummies World.
The papers I used were from a kit by Beanela called Dreaming.
The fonts used are Boopee and Book Antiqua.
Template is obviously by Hummie.
I also used a tutorial from 3Scrapateers to add a drop shadow to transparent images in PSP without ruining the transparent effect.