live love {scrap}

On friendship... and a very special album

2011-03-07T08:04:00.006-06:00

Last post I mentioned an album that I made for a very dear friend of mine. And while I promised him there wouldn't be a lot of personal details, there are some things I want to say to help you understand the process behind making this album, and why I made it in the first place. (This will be a rather long post, but I did not want to split it up, so.. deal. :) )

When I was a kid, my father was in the Air Force. The best thing about that was being able to see a lot of the country. The worst thing? The constant moving. The longest we stayed in one place was three years. The shortest was 6 months. Doesn't make it easy to keep friends for any length of time. Add into that a divorce and moving to yet another part of the country - only this time to a place where everyone else has been together since kindergarten.. well, kids can be mean to new people. When you move around a lot as a kid, one of two things will happen - you will either learn to make friends easily, and lots of them - or you will become shyer and hold back - because you know it won't last. People won't write you back once you leave, and a lot of times the kid that moves away is easily forgotten. I think it is easier on the bases - because at least all the kids understand about the moving around. In the real world, this is not the case.

I definitely fit into the latter group. More of the shy non-popular type than the outgoing sports type, it was harder to make good friends than not. Add into that that I was very focused on what I wanted to do with my life, and I wasn't much into partying and drinking.. well. I was "different". Even now, when I have been working at the same place for 12 years... it is so hard for me to believe that I have known a couple of the people I work with for that long. With my current situation though, I work the 5 to midnight shift... which is great for my family situation, but which makes it really hard to have a good friend relationship with people that work normal hours. Lately it seems I have more friends in other countries than I do here.. because they are the ones that tend to be awake when I am.

A little over a year ago, I started playing a Facebook game called Ghost Trappers (GT for short). Have met some really nice people through the game, mostly through the GT chat services - started going in to get advice about the game.. kept going because the people I found there were (mostly) just great people. One of them was Heath, who is pretty much the best friend I have right now, and has been for the last 8 months. Because of this, I wanted to do something nice for him for Christmas, and I thought an album using the fishing pictures he had shown me would be a great idea. I have done some neat things with fishing pages before.. using little hooks and line on them.. only problem with that is he lives in Australia.. so who knows what customs will let through and what they won't. Since I would have to download his pictures, I asked if he was ok with the gift before starting it, and showed him some of the other things I had made. He thought it would be a cool gift, so I started gathering supplies.

Most of the supplies came from my stash - I think it is fun to mix things from different sources and suppliers. I started with an 8x8 acrylic tabbed album from Clear Scraps - left over from my design team days, and the perfect size for a gift. Enough room to DO something with the page, but not a full sized album. I wanted to add chipboard pages in between, and found some pre-cut 8x8 chipboard pages (both kraft and white). Wanted to experiment a little bit with some of the pictures, so they were printed on other materials besides photo papers - will go over that more with each page. The album ended up way thicker than I originally intended though, because I kept finding pictures I couldn't leave out, so I also added several 6x6 chipboard and acrylic pages as well. I eventually ended up with 3 rough divisions - family photos, fishing photos.. and fun ones. I say rough divisions because since I started with a smaller album, then added more pages after I had already scrapped some.. well you'll see. All the pictures in the album were provided by Heath, unless otherwise noted.

Papers are from My Mind's Eye (29th Street Market, and Breaking Free) and DCWV (the Immortal stack, and cardstock.) I used Zip Dry adhesive almost exclusively - I wanted to make sure nothing would fall apart in transit. The only other adhesives I used were glue dots and foam tape/pop dots. Almost all the pages are distressed, using either StazOn Black (on the acrylic pages) or Tim's Vintage Photo Distress Ink (pretty much everything else). I'm an edger too, so most of the cardstock and stickers have distressed edges. I'll try to list supplies as the pages go, if I remember them :p No promises there, since a lot of my stuff is stored out of package since I don't submit anything anymore. I tried to avoid a lot of metal (a personal difficulty), and natural materials since it would have to go through customs. And, needless to say, it did not get there in time for Christmas.. but it made a nice only-slightly-late birthday present :)

I am proud of this album for several reasons - It is the largest "mini album" project I have done.. and the first I have done after a lengthy no-mojo non-scrappy break. And judging from his response, right on with the quotes and things. (My favorite part about giving albums to people is seeing their response when they see the pages, and Heath was gracious enough to skype me so I could watch him open it up.) But I do apologize in advance, I have been having some trouble with the autofocus on my lens, so some of the pictures are not as clear as I would like them to be. As always, click on the pictures if you need to see a larger version.

The photo on the cover was printed on a very light pink piece of Bazzill cardstock. I really like the texture, and I thought it would hold up better on the front than a regular photo would. (This is also one of my favorite photos in the whole album.) I found the metal letters at Hobby Lobby in the framing shop - they are self adhesive and made by Amanda Blu (who, incidentally is who makes the 12x12 page protectors I use - they are slightly larger, and much better for the super dimensional pages I make). The friend quote was sent as a RAK from a friend, a long time ago.. and I think it's from K & Co. The green strips are also Bazzill. Fish sticker was edged and placed up on a pop dot. (Quote reads: A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.)

I tried really hard not to include flowers... LOL. But.. ah well. Letter and flourish stickers are from EK Success. Flowers and screw brad are from the Paper Studio, photo corners from 3L, and the "Live out loud" sticker is 7 gypsies. (I love their 97% Complete sticker sets - awesome for themed projects)

This is one of the photos that insisted on being in the album. Lol. Why? Just because he is being silly. The B letter sticker is from Tim's Idea-ology set and is set up on a popdot. The "9/5" is making memories rubons, and the rest of the pieces are from various ephemera packs.

Every November, Heath helps with a fundraiser to help support research and raise awareness for prostate cancer and men's depression. (If you want to learn more about Movember, check out their website HERE.) The "Movember thanks you" and "touch of class" were printed from their website. The edges of this page were inked, painted and distressed, and the rubons are from basic gray. The "touch of class" strip is on pop dots, and the metal "brads" are actually just metal dot stickers.

The note paper journal spot is actually a page from a Jenni Bowlin mini album - I left it blank for Heath to fill in the details. Had to make him do a little work on the album ;) The Relaxing sticker is from Pebble's Inc. Music tape and book plate are from Tim's Idea-ology collection. I have a love/hate relationship with Tim's tape... it does not like to stick well to textured cardstock, although to be fair (being the perfectionist I am...) I repositioned it a couple of times. But it is easy to use, and let me add musical bits to this page. The other guy in the picture is Scott, he is part of an Aussie band called Tripod - they are freakin' awesome! They are a great musical comedy group, check them out HERE and HERE and HERE. (I suppose I should say, that while Heath and I find them very funny, people that are very easily offended may not... The first link is a very funny song, the other two are information only.)

This is one of the pages that made the album late - I wasn't happy with the original and had to redo it. That will teach me to try to scrap when I'm tired and not really in a scrappy mood lol. MUCH happier with the redo.. The music paper is from the DCWV Immortal stack. Dream ticket from Tim's collection. Wish Tip sticker is 7 Gypsies and the other stickers are from.. erm.. somewhere lol. Picked them up at Hobby Lobby - They are fabulous raised metallic stickers.

LOL these pictures don't really fit here, but I couldn't leave the pups out.. The brindle one is Molly, and the little one is Rocky. They are awesome little creatures. The title spot came in a pack. Spoiled sticker from the Paper Studio.

Molly again, wearing Heath's headphones. LOL. The sticker at the top is 7 gypsies, and reads "Life is too important to be taken seriously. The "like owner" sticker is a clear one that I put on cardstock just so it could be seen better and came from the same set as the spoiled sticker on the previous page.

The other major redo page. Took FOREVER to get the paper off so I could redo it.. that is one of the things about Zip Dry.. better make sure you have stuff where you want it, otherwise it will be STUCK. Music Maker and note stickers and flower from the Paper Studio. Music paper from the Immortal stack. Gem swirls from Prima. Ticket from Tim. The rubon border is from (I think) Basic Grey.

This picture is one of the reasons we started talking about things other than just the game. One of those fluke pictures you don't realize you got until you develop the pictures - he managed to catch a shooting star (the little tiny white line in the picture lol). The quote sticker is another clear one, so I put it on paper to pop out the dark letters. It says: "Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, and to work, and to play, and to look up at the stars." The flourish and edges are were done with paint.

This is Heath with his best friend - so a "must be included" photo. A really simple page - just the photo and the sticker (from Deja Views). Edges are inked with StazOn.

Another super simple one - the rubons are from Making Memories.

Another fun picture.. I printed it out on canvas which I think made it look even cooler. The urban legend sticker is 7 Gypsies. Don't remember who made the other one. (I know, I really should keep track of these things better...) It reads: In the true man there is a child concealed who wants to play.

Stamps and key plate are from Tim's collection - the man with umbrella stamp is one of my favorites. I used Tsukineko Brilliance black ink - has just a bit of a shimmer to it. Stickers from the Paper Studio and Pebble's Inc. The corrugated strips were actually cut from some packaging from some chipboard letters. The wildlife sticker made us both laugh.

The next two pages are picture-less because he didn't get me pictures of his mom and sister. So.. in an effort to not get in trouble with his mom for not including her ;) I made the pages and told him he had to add the pictures later. The squares with the roses are really old - they look dimensional but they aren't - but it lets me get the look of dried roses without the mess.

I like the layered look, and tucking things beneath photo mats is a great way to do that. The flourished piece at the top is just a small piece cut from a frame - I like cutting them up because then I can stretch them farther, especially since I don't use frames often, and it keeps the pages from getting TOO thick. I added the black gems - they were cut from the same Prima flourish as the bits by the flower. Flower and gem from the Paper Studio.

One of the acrylic divider pages. Quote is from a vellum pack and reads "It is the sweet simple things of life which are the real ones after all." (Laura Ingalls Wilder). The flourishes are also from Tim's collection and were stamped in the Brilliance ink. Letter stickers are Thickers. The flourish behind the letter stickers was a printed acetate piece that I cut in half, and placed part on each side of the acrylic tab.

More flowers - sorry, I tried. lol. Rubon is from Basic Grey - an older one, so it didn't transfer well, but sometimes I like when that happens, I think it adds to the distressed look. The grids are another of Tim's stamps. Letter stickers from Making Memories (they say "drinky drinky"). The one in the upper corner of the photo is another 7 Gypsies one and says "It seemed like such a good idea at the time."

The stickers on this page were all from the 7 Gypsies collection. The strips say "Part of being sane is being a little crazy. Janet Long". The book page cracked me up - I found it in an ephemera pack. Just one of those great finds, it was perfect for these pictures.

A fun page - and an awesome theme for a party! The cards paper came from the ephemera pack and was originally from a Bridge pad. Another Basic Grey rubon, Deja Views "fun" sticker, 7 Gypsies "silly" sticker. The heart is made from grungeboard and covered with paper from the Immortal stack, which is where the checkered paper came from too. Letters are the Heidi rubons from Making Memories.

One of my favorite pictures :) Heath made the catepillar costume - rather clever, I think. Another piece of the flouish, a card from a RAK, a bit of mulberry paper, and more 7 Gypsies stickers. Used paint on this one as well. The quote is George Carlin (RIP) "Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music."

More Bridge paper, 7 Gypsies stickers and PLAY ticket from Tim. The hand is a chipboard sticker from a Basic Grey pack. Quote " What makes life worth living? to be born with the gift of laughter & sense that the world is mad." Fitting for a March Hare.

The "fun" tab page. Would have been earlier in the book, but it was done before more pages were added. Love the Peekaboo Effect on this one.. makes you want to turn the page and see what's next. The rubon is from Basic Grey.

The pictures on the next few pages are another reason this isn't just a fish album. Heath was lucky enough to see Metallica in Adelaide, and I couldn't leave that out. The words were cut from a transparency frame - they didn't quite set in the right place as the whole frame. But again, totally perfect for the pictures.

This page was originally supposed to show more of the background, but.. oh well. I used a large music stamp and paint to make the background page. The blank spot is for his ticket. He suggested scanning in the ticket so I could print it out instead. (chuckle) I said no, just put the ticket there. Another effort to make him scrapbook lol. I thought if he didn't want to place the ticket there, he could journal about the concert instead.

One of my favorite pages. I went to Metallica's website hoping to find a logo to print out. I not only found the Death Magnetic logo - I found the set list for the show he went to. How awesome is that? The picture of the drummer is one that Heath took - all I did was paint the edges to set it apart from the other picture. Letter stickers are Thickers, with a bit of paint over the top.

Another simple page, but the photos speak for themselves. The Metallica logo was printed from the Metallica website.

The next few pages really show why I like working with acrylic. Clock face and arrow are from Tim's Idea-ology collection. Canvas piece and the sticker from my stash. I didn't want to use a lot of ribbon in the album (too girly) but this strip is hiding a distressing technique that I tried.. and really didn't like.

Fish acrylic tab page. The compass acetate came in a pack, and the sticker is from Tim's collection. The flourish rub on is from Basic Grey. The postcard journal spot and the quote are from K & Co.

The back side of the acrylic page, another quote (Laughter is the best medicine), another journal spot, another Tim compass sticker. When I asked Heath what type of fish that was, he laughed and said "That is the world's smallest trevally!" So I had to quote him :)

Another favorite.. I use Paint.net a lot, and one of the things you can do is change pictures to either ink or pencil drawings. Depending on how it's set, it can look like anything from a barely there sketch to a very accurate almost black and white photo look. This one is about in the middle. I printed it on water color paper for a bit of texture and inked the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink. I almost didn't add the letter stickers at the top - I like that they are hidden when the acrylic page is over, but I also thought the page needed just a little embellishment.

I had fun making this page. Lots of layering. The photo at the top is a pocket, and the tags were left blank for Heath to add information/thoughts/etc. The flourish rubons are from the Bohemia collection. Letters from Making Memories. Kind of a funny story behind this one.. when I first made the page the letters were just on the paper. He had been bugging me for pictures of the album, so I sent him one of this page to see what he thought. He told me it was excellent, and he loved it, but after a bit asked what the letters were. Rubons, I said. Which made him comment that they would not be easy to change then... yeah, it was spelled wrong. HIS fault, mind you, since I copied the information directly from his facebook gallery. He told me not to worry about it, it didn't really matter, but.. yeah. Me: "I'm a perfectionist, it matters." Him: "I'm not. So no, it doesn't." (that might be a misquote lol I can't remember exactly what we said, but that was the gist of it.) But, again, being a perfectionist, and knowing he would be showing it to other people, I had to try. Luckily it was fixable, and I actually like it better this way anyway.

Gorgeous photo of the ocean.. definitely "off the beaten path"...

I love this picture of the poles from the charter trip. And as I was looking through a travel quote sticker book, I found the perfect quote "If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles." (Doug Larson) This is one of the few times that I have bought a sticker set just for one quote - usually I make sure I will use at least 50% of them.

Pretty much the same supplies on this page. I love the "How am I going to get this home?" sticker. and from the conversations we've had about fishing - "It just doesn't get any better than this" is SO appropriate.

More fish pictures :) The top one was Heath's facebook profile picture when we started talking. The bottom fish is an elephant shark. The date circle at the top is from Tim's sticker set.

Another favorite picture. Rubons are from Fancy Pants. Beach bum sticker from 7 Gypsies.

Another word I double checked the spelling on before doing - at least this one would have been easier to fix since it was on a title block and not just on the background paper. (which, naturally meant it was spelled right). Used a little magic mesh on the sides just for something different.

Another fun layered page. The blue part with the quote is a bit of chipboard which is covered with paper then sanded and inked. It fits right under the photo which I put up with foam tape. The quote was very fitting - the place they were fishing was just around the corner from his house. I hate the glare on the bottom photo.

Another photo pocket - and this is one of my favorite pictures of him - especially since it is at the beach. The quote to the side says "the only normal people are the ones you don't know very well." All the words on the background page are a rubon - I can't recall who made it, but it was one I had been saving for a while. I like how it just barely shows up on the dark paper, it's almost like a watermark. The tag was hand made from some chipboard and covered with lined Basic Grey paper - I wanted to have something more personal in the album, but I put it on the tag so he could take it out if he didn't want anyone else to read it. The "dear friend" rubon is from Deja Views. The coffee stain stamp is my favorite - I can't remember who made it, but it came in a "thanks a latte" set and I picked it up at a stamp convention in St. Louis several years ago. I put it on with paint, and actually had people ask me if that was a mistake and had I set something on the paper. (chuckle)

The back page is mainly just a protective cover - the only thing one it are the two 7 Gypsies stickers, one which says "Limited edition 1 of 1" (the 1's being Making Memories rubons) and ""Made with love by:" which I signed.

The album turned into quite an ambitious project, but one I am definitely glad I made. It took fully 2 1/2 months for me to get it done (tho keep in mind I work 40+ hours a week). Much of it was actually done at work, as I was stranded there due to bad weather and being on call - In fact the day I mailed it out, they had predicted the worst storm in the area for a long time. The album made it out of Quincy, but got stuck in Chicago for 5 days due to the snow. Still, after 10 days it got to Australia, made it through customs without any mishap, and was delivered safely to his door. He loved it, and that's all one can ask for.

A long break.. and Lamington Cake

2011-02-21T01:58:00.001-06:00

It has been a long time since I've written anything for the blog.. It has not really been a very good year.. and most of it I don't really want to go into.

There have been a couple of good things though - the kids are doing well.. the car is still running.. and I finally can play a few things on the guitar. Finally got back into scrapping a bit, making an album for a very good friend... but that will be another post..

Speaking of said very good friend.. we were talking the other day, and he was telling me about the dessert he was having that day.. which was a lamington cake. Showed it to me via webcam (did I mention he lives in Australia? No? Well, now you know..) and was telling me how awesome they are, so I thought I would make one. Not that I'm the greatest cook on the planet, but hey, it's a cake, right?

So here is what I have learned about lamington cakes...

Lamington cakes have been made in Australia for years. They were named after one of the govenors, Lord Lamington. There are a couple of stories regarding how they came about, but they quickly became a favorite. Australia declared National Lamington Day in 2006, and youth groups have Lamington drives as fund raisers.

They are made of sponge cake, dipped in chocolate, and covered in coconut. Some are made with strawberry jam between the layers, some with raspberry, some with whipped cream.

The other thing I have learned about them? They are MESSY to make lol. But very yummy, especially when made with homemade strawberry jam.

(Photo from Taste.com.au)

The recipe I found was from Taste.com.au - The recipe seemed simple enough, but again, not being of the chef-ly persuasion, I had a few other things to learn.. for one thing "caster sugar" is a super-fine baking sugar. Also, I wasn't able to find any desiccated coconut, so I used what I could find.

Preparation Time

20 minutes

Cooking Time

15 minutes

Ingredients (serves 12)

Melted butter, to grease
75g (1/2 cup) self-raising flour
40g (1/4 cup) plain flour
35g (1/4 cup) cornflour
4 eggs, at room temperature
155g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
170g (2 cups) desiccated coconut
115g (1/3 cup) strawberry jam, warmed
Chocolate icing
300g (2 cups) pure icing sugar
35g (1/3 cup) Nestle Baking Cocoa
125ml (1/2 cup) water

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush two 20cm (base measurement) cake pans with melted butter to grease. Line the bases with non-stick baking paper.
Sift the combined flour and cornflour into a bowl. Use an electric beater to beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl for 10-12 minutes or until thick, pale and creamy. Sift half the flour mixture over the egg mixture. Use a large metal spoon to fold until just combined. Repeat with remaining flour mixture.
Divide among the prepared pans and smooth the surfaces. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden and the cake springs back when lightly tapped. Set aside in the pans for 5 minutes to cool slightly before turning onto wire racks to cool completely.
To make the chocolate icing, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl. Stir in the water. Pour into a large shallow dish.
Spread the coconut over a large tray. Dip the base and side of 1 cake into the icing, allowing any excess to drip off. Place the cake, icing-side down, onto the coconut and turn to coat the base and side. Transfer to a serving plate, coconut-side down. Spread with the jam. Dip the top and side of the remaining cake in the icing, then in the coconut. Top the jam-covered cake with the remaining cake, coconut-side up. Serve.

So here is my cake... it was yummy enough that my son had to have 2 pieces right away.

And so it begins...

2010-11-28T03:35:00.000-06:00

JMC photos

2010-10-04T05:27:00.000-05:00

Not a scrappy post, and one that is several weeks overdue, but I promised some gals I would post pictures so..

Had planned to go to three JMC concerts in September, but was not able to make it to the one in Sandwich, IL. Too far away, didn't have the money to go, and working overtime made for a very tired Julie. Still, Rhi and I managed to make it to the other two that weekend.

The first concert was held 9/11/10 in Jacksonville, IL. It was the first Concert in the Cornfield, and one of the last shows for the Lost Trailers. Didn't get very good pictures of them at all.. I don't know WHO had set up their lighting, but quite honestly, I thought they needed to be fired. Most of the time, the singer was in the dark, because the lighting sucked. Did manage to get a couple halfway decent pics though, and the music was still fabulous. Rhi didn't know who they were though, and kept asking when Jason was going to get on stage. {Which had one of the guys standing near us asking her if she had seen Jason before. Which made me laugh a bit.} LT not only mentioned 9/11 during the show, they brought up the firefighters and policeman that had sponsored the show and gave them a round of applause. {which I thought was cool - since this was not a memorial concernt, it just happened to be on 9/11)

Then Jason played. He came out wearing his leather coat and a hat, luckily that didn't last long. lol. he started out with With You and Honky Tonk Friends. Of course all the girls screamed when he got to the "I love the dances they dance" part ;) And thank goodness for cameras with continuous shooting ;)

He usually jumps up onto the drummers risers for I Can Sleep When I'm Dead. This one was no exception. He can be hard to photograph when the lighting is not really good, because he moves around so much. But man, he does a great show. LOL And has a lot of fun doing it.

He also sang Patrick Davis' Numbers, which is another favorite song. The gist of the song is about all the different numbers that affect us, and how some are mean nothing.. and some mean everything. 9/11 is one of the numbers in the song, so after the song, Jason spoke for a few minutes about that day and the people that have done so much to help {firemen, police, military}, thanking and asking us to be thankful for the people that have put their lives on the line, so we can still live in a free country. {I thought it was very cool that both bands had said something in remembrance of that day.}

The guitarist tossed a pick at Rhi.. who was not expecting that. It hit her in the chest and then fell on the ground. She was stunned, and tried to look for it, but since it was dark, was not able to find it. Several people started trying to look for it, but gave up when it wasn't easily found. One of the guys in the crowd started looking for it too, using his lighter to see better. And when he found it, he gave it to Rhi. Amazing, how nice people can be. {And we passed him in the parking lot as we were leaving.. and he said "Hang onto that pick now!" as we walked by.}

This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole batch. He was signing autographs for people again. It's really amazing too, usually if there are kids in the crowd everybody will try to get them up to the stage so Jason can hold their hand. Several people made space for Rhi so she could get to the front of the stage.

Yep, that's Rhi's hand on Jason's boot. I can't say anything, she was just copying me ;)

He also sang Angel of Broken Hearts, from the first album. This is another one of my favorite pictures. Was a little frustrating trying to get it, had a couple of drunk girls in front of me that kept getting in the way.

Jason climbed up the lighting supports again, like he did at Burlington. Crazy man. I actually have a whole series from that, but this one is my favorite. Love the pout lol.

He sang Randy Travis' Nothing At All, which has been a favorite song of mine for a very long time. And Jason's version is fabulous - it's a perfect song for his voice. A very large portion of the audience sang along. Love this picture.

One of the funnier moments happened when he was singing "Hurry Home" - During the pause at the end of the song, right after the line "He walked in just in time to hear her say... " all the drunk girls hollered out "WOOOOOOOO!" Jason laughed and said "No, she didn't say WOOOOO!" before finishing the song.

He took pictures of the crowd for twitter again, including this one of the guys in the band.

Had left my little notebook in the car lol so this is how I kept track of the playlist..

And since I didn't have anything else for him to autograph... lol yep, that's my phone. It's amazing the stuff people hold up for him to sign - not just cds and photos, but purses, boots, guitars, shirts, you name it.

Sunday we drove out to Arcola, IL for another show.Took us about 4 1/2 hours to get there with the construction. Ended up being about 15 minutes late. Ah well, I'd do it again, in a heartbeat. The photos turned out much better {daytime shows are much easier}. Had only the second bad experience with audience members.. and realized later, ironically, they both involved the same people. The first one was at the Sauget show {the fight during Suzy Q}. For this one, we had gotten up as close as we could to the stage, and were actually blocked from getting any closer. Rhi wanted to try to get up to the stage because we had something we wanted him to autograph, but I told her just to wait, we could try later. Saw someone we had seen at many other shows, and I touched his shoulder just to say hi. He asked me if we wanted to go up to the stage just to take a picture or if we planned on staying up there the whole time. Well, I wasn't going to lie, and I said we would like to stay up there if we could, but really, I was just saying hello. He started getting mad and complaining about why should I expect to come late and get in front of people who waited for hours before the show started, etc etc. Which, ok, on the one hand, I can understand. HOWEVER. First of all. All I did was say HELLO. I was NOT trying to get past him or push him aside or anything like that. Secondly, this family had been to a TON of shows. They have traveled all over to see Jason sing. So he should KNOW that people are going to wind up close to the stage to touch Jason's hand and get autographs and pictures. To expect people not to move up to the stage for that is completely unreasonable, especially since Jason will spend half the show signing autographs for people. This guy not only moved his chair to block people from getting by {myself included}, but he tried to get the police involved with moving a small group {4 or 5} teenage girls who had gone up to get pictures and hadn't moved yet. The girls were standing near a part of the stage that was not even obstructing his view AT ALL. The cops basically blew him off. Not 10 minutes later, he pushed his way in front of some kids so he could be close to the stage. Jerk. Made me wonder who really started the fight at the Sauget show.

Aaaaanyway. That aside, the show was fabulous. I couldn't get through the crowd at all at that point, so I gave Rhi my sharpie and the car I wanted him to autograph {a matchbox type car, a 1969 bronze GTO - a replica of the one he drove in the video for Hurry Home}, and she slipped through the crowd and up to the stage. Held it right up for him to sign. Which, of course, he did. And took a minute to look at it before giving it back to her. {When I got home I saw that I had caught him smiling as he looked at it. One of those great shots you don't realize you got at the time you took it}

At first I thought the yellowy orange tent would be a problem, but it turned out to be a pretty good background. I ended up {eventually} getting fairly close to the stage, so the pictures turned out pretty nice. It always amazes me when I see how hard Jason works to get everybody an autograph. His concerts are the only ones I have been to where the artist signs autographs during the show. He really interacts with the crowd, answering people that holler stuff at him, and telling jokes and stories between the songs. It's no wonder he has so many fans. He didn't get to do all the dancing and jumping he usually did, since the stage was much smaller, but he still had a lot of fun.

People always ask me, since I have been to several shows, if he recognizes me. Well, of course not, he doesn't really KNOW me LOL But there have been a couple of times that he has seen me, smiled and waved, because he had seen me at other shows too. One of these days.. maybe someday we'll actually get a meet and greet.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the show. :)

The funniest part of this show, was, again, during Hurry Home. There were probably 5-6 kids in front of me holding up things for him to autograph {pictures, their hands, flip flops}. None of them had a sharpie with them, so I held out the one I had. He smiled and nodded thanks, then sat down on the speaker to sign things {yup, right in front of me, so I had a GREAT view}. Never did get the sharpie back lol.

.. still singing the whole time, of course. I like how he uses the microphone to steady what he's trying to autograph. :)

And when he got to the pause at the end of Hurry Home, they all yelled "Jason! Jason! Jason!" Jason laughed and said "For those of you in the back, that can't see, there's a bunch of kids up here, going Jason! Jason! Jason! I get that all the time at home too. I get home, and the kids are all Daddy, Daddy Daddy! It makes you want to change your name sometimes." But laughing as he said it. He also commented, as he sat there signing all those flip flops, how "later in the day, there was going to be a bunch of kids with JMC in reverse all over the bottoms of their feet".

Then he finished the song.

This was the first show that Rhi was not by my side the whole time. Normally that would make me very nervous, but I knew she wouldn't be leaving while Jason was on stage, and she was standing within a group of kids. And it was a daytime show, so I could see where she was. I think she enjoyed it, but it was also nice to see her look over at me every so often to make sure I was still there.{She's the one wearing the camo JMC hat}

We left right after the show, since we had another 4 hour drive to get home, stopped at McDonald's for something to eat, and listened to Jason singing all the way home.

Fireworks

2010-07-09T22:27:00.000-05:00

{Posting a little late.. but for what it's worth.. here are some of the fireworks photos I took this year.. }

For the last couple of years, I have been trying to get some decent fireworks pictures. Last year's were so-so, which maybe 6 or 8 decent ones.

This year is different. This year, I'm really pleased with a good number of the photos. I think they are better for a couple of reasons..

We were closer to the shoot off point this time. I didn't want the bridge in the photos this year, so we actually sat under the bridge. They shoot off the fireworks from Quinssissippi Island, near the American Flag. Which made for some great photos.

Also, I know a little more about using the camera for lowlight photos. Have gotten some really nice lowlight photos at some of the concerts, and these are no exception. I took almost 300 photos (love getting serial photos with this camera), and 75% of them are nice pictures. Which makes me very happy.

Probably still would have gotten better pictures if I had remembered to bring my tripod.. but oh well, there's always next year. And I know some of the pictures my friends have posted on face book are better... but consider this... I didn't cheat by using a fireworks setting LOL

This is one of my favorites... which is hard to admit, because I like so many of them! LOL

This is another favorite.. I love the smoke trails, and the tails on the colors.

One of the things I like best about this shot... is that you can see the boats on the river.

One of the series shots..

Another series...

Simply beautiful...

This one was a great catch!

The spider fireworks..

This one makes me think of warp speed... lol

And the finale... I so need to figure out how to do animated images.. it would look SO cool! Not posting all the ones I took, though, there are a ton. My favorites are the last ones, where again, the light is so bright, you can even see the boats on the river.

Another show (sort of), floods, and a lazy day

2010-07-05T03:41:00.000-05:00

Last week, I found out JMC's Des Moines show as a sunday, and not a saturday as I had originally though.. so.. yeah, I headed up there for another show. Des Moines is only about a 4 hour drive... normally.. LOL

Had a choice of driving up a shorter route, that was likely not going to be, due to river flooding, and a slightly longer one which were on roads that I know better... as I've driven them for years while in school. Took the better known roads. Didn't want to mess with flooding and detours.. yeah.. more on that later..

Car was being a bit finicky, going through transmission fluid kinda fast so I stopped periodically to check it and make sure everything was ok. Listened to Good Charlotte, Glen Templeton, and Adam Lambert most of the way up. LOL Have to say.. listening to Adam's songs (especially Strut!) in the middle of rural Missouri almost-towns is a weird experience. Had the urge to stop at Hasting's in Kirksville - and so glad I did! Finally found a Living End CD (an Aussie band that a really good Aussie friend introduced me to). Also picked up a couple of other things (Green Day rubon for the car window, note pad, and a Scott Cunningham book - there were several more I would have liked, but I didn't have that much money.)

One minor difference in roads was to use highway 149 in Missouri. Not a road I'm very familiar with, but it shave about 30 miles, so what the heck. Not too bad until I saw this:

{And noooo before y'all start yelling at me - and as I've said before! - I never take my eyes of the road! I point the camera in the general direction of what I want a picture of, take a couple of shots and hope for the best. LOL It's one of my favorite things about having a digital camera! Can delete all the really bad pictures, and they don't cost anything or waste film!}

So anyway, I think the sign was designed from this road. Because first it went this way

and then it went this way

And then the roller coaster fun started!

Yep, that's all the same road... LOL {and no, I wasn't crazy enough to get pictures in the middle of it LOL}

Ended up driving through some of my old stomping grounds. Made me think of Rick, who was a very good friend... and found several years ago murdered in his van {unfortunately, they never figured out who did it} Kinda made me sad to think about all those fun times we had - he was definitely a good ol' boy.. Was also very sad to see several of the places in Corydon were closed - my favorite gas station (though I would have had to boycott them, since they were bought out by BP before they closed down) and the Windmill Cafe.. nice little restaurant that made some of the best food.Drove up through Chariton.. where part of Hwy 34 was closed, and they had a detour. Well, apparently, DETOUR in Iowa means "Include part of every road in the county." Turn here, turn there, yet another road that was NOT 34.. it was crazy. Longest freakin detour I've every been on.

Got to Des Moines about a half an hour before the show was to start. Got directions from a gruff little old lady at the gas station. She said a lot of people were leaving early because of all the mud. Not a big deal for me.. I was wearing old jeans and my old ratty shoes anyway LOL Found a place to park - behind the stage incidentally.. lol nice.. and locked the doors.. headed up to get a ticket.. realized I forgot my hat, so went back to the car.. and realized that yes, the keys were sitting right there in the front seat. *facepalm*

Ended up spending most of JMC's show trying to get back into my car. Checked with security - they were very nice, but could do nothing. They called over one of the cops.. who could/would also do nothing. "Call a locksmith." (to which I replied - "great, do you know one, I don't live around here!" wandered over to Jiffy Stop - nope, no coat hangers. Got a banana, since I hadn't eaten anything all day, and nothing else appealed. Even asked a guy with an RV if he had a coat hanger. I'm sure he thought I was a lunatic. Stopped at McDonald's to get a cheeseburger.. wasn't really hungry but figured I'd better eat something. Told her I wanted a cheeseburger with no onions... "oh, and I don't suppose you have a coat hanger?" She looked at me, a little blankly, like she thought I was joking. So I told her what happened, and she asked the manager. Who not only found me a coat hanger, he actually came out to my car to try to help me get into it. Wasn't very successful, but man, talk about great customer service!

Was rather bummed. Didn't want to get a ticket til I knew I wasn't going to have to call a locksmith (since I only had about $65 on me). Then these two good looking, half dressed cowboys came over to see if I needed help. Nice. Did I get a picture? Of course not. They were cool, and luckily managed to get me into my car so I could get my keys. I was grateful. There was something to like about Iowa after all. LOL. Started walking up to the gate... singing along with Jason the whole time. He had a shorter set, since he wasn't the headliner. Sang Where I'm From, George Strait Cover Band, Hurry Home, Drinking to Drink, Meet Me in the Barn.. and a few others. By the time I got to the front gate he was singing Stray. I was a little unsure about getting a ticket - really had not planned on staying for anyone else (since I had that lovely 4 hour drive home!), so I waited a minute. And then he started talking about Brittany.. and that was that. He said he thought that Brittany was the reason for the beautiful weather, then starting singing Livin Our Love Song. I snapped a couple of quick shots (I did actually see him.. lol he was about an inch tall! and can't be seen in the pictures because I was so far away.) So I started walking back to the car. Got razzed a bit when I got there, but oh well.

Went to Target afterwards (since we don't have one around here) Picked up a couple of new books, something to eat, and a Journey CD... seemed appropriate.. Took a different way home.. ran into some flooding, but nothing bad enough to block my side of the road (at one point, the other side was closed). But several fields were simply covered with water.

I don't know if this bridge is normally used, or if it is just an old one... but it was under water. Yep, there's a road down there somewhere too.

Saw this cloud on the way home... made me think of a flying dragon.. The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. Stopped a couple of times to check the transmission fluid, but everything went well, and I got home around midnight. Long day, but worth it.

Would I do it again? Hell yeah... already have 2 shows lined up in September.. LOL

Spent one day out in the yard with Rhi.. just being lazy. Was chatting with Chris (my Aussie friend - isn't the internet great?) while we were outside.. One of the things I love about my new phone (a droid) is that I have internet outside. So I sat out there for a bit. Started out by the sandbox and the mint garden, but that wasn't very comfortable, so went to lie down on the front porch for a bit. Which was fine.. until I moved the black grass barrier thing and a skink ran out from under it. Now, I realize he was just looking for something else to hide under.. but the something he picked was me.. which startled me, and I screamed. Silly skink.

This was my view.. the first picture is the porch ceiling - the house is old, and the paint is peeling. The windchimes have been there for a couple of years, they are really beautiful when it is breezy. The second one shows how lovely the sky was.

Sat up when Rhi said she wanted to take some pictures.. so here's a pic of me messaging on the phone.. lol. Yeah, I know, the porch is a mess.. we were going to work on the flower garden.. but we didn't.

Lost the connection after a bit, so moved under the tulip tree, which Rhi kept trying to climb.

She took some more pictures.. LOL yep still messaging..

me and Rhi

lazy barefoot kind of day

Room for one more... lol

Yes, another JMC show... and look! new music!

2010-06-20T03:35:00.002-05:00

Took Wednesday off work to head up to Steamboat Days in Burlington IA for yes, another JMC show.

Was very excited, because shortly after the April concert, a gal had contacted me, saying she was a JMC fan too and was going to have extra VIP tickets for the show, and did I want them? Naturally I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately she bailed on me, but not until AFTER the VIP tickets had all been sold out. I was so mad - not because of whatever reason she had for not giving me the tickets - but for not telling me I couldn't have them. Instead of saying something, she ignored my messages and said absolutely nothing. Rotten.

Luckily I work with a very nice girl (Danielle) who had season passes and let me borrow them so I could still go to the show. So Cindy and I headed up there. The drive was relatively uneventful, though it involved driving in a bit of a circle to get a picture of The Pink, and another for a detour due to a road closing.

This motorcycle was parked outside the Pink. Thought it was cool looking :D

Looked for parking - nothing really close by. Ended up parking near the church that had been burned down a couple of years ago. Arson. Which is something I just don't understand. Good grief, nobody says you have to like every one else's religion, but geez. It's a CHURCH.

Wish I'd taken more time to get some other photos.. some of the angles were just amazing..

Got to the riverfront just in time to enter the giveaway for backstage passes. We both about passed out when they called out "Cindy.... " but the last name was different. So bummer - 7 concerts.. still no meet and greet. Ah well. There will be more ;)

Stopped at the merchandise tent to get tshirts (including one for my daughter, which she will get for a birthday present) and the latest keychain, then headed up to the stage to find a spot. We ended up right up against the barrier, about as close to the stage as we could get without being in the VIP section. The barrier turned out to be helpful for steadying the camera too, for some better low light photos. I am actually pretty pleased with most of them. And, yeah, I ended up taking a ton - good thing I had a new card LOL.

As it got closer to concert time, 2 guitar players and a drummer came on stage.. and I started to get a little confused.. I knew Jason had new band members, but I certainly hadn't heard that Sean was leaving, and I didn't recognize these guys. There hadn't been any mention of an opening band either. When the announcer came out he was talking about Jason... then said "But first - " and introduced Glen Templeton, a new singer from Nashville. LOL At least I knew I wasn't crazy.

Well, let me just tell you.. Glen is Hot. LOL. Great voice. Nice.. jeans ;) He portrayed Conway Twitty in a movie, and learned a lot of his music. At the show, he sang "Slow Hand" and oh my, even if it hadn't been 90+ degrees out the ladies would have been melting.

Musically, he is a lot like Jason - more Country Rock than anything else. Some very awesome songs. (My favorites: I Could Be the One, Fixer Upper, and I Threw It Away). He played for almost an hour, and Cindy and I both said we wanted to get his album. I think he will go far in this business. He's really fabulous. And I think he had just as much fun as we did.

Had to laugh.. one of the security ladies was having a great time listening to Glen sing.. tapping her feet, bopping to the music, singing along. This will be me eventually, I think...

After a 20 minute break, during which the bands changed out the instruments, and the sun went down... wasn't sure how the pictures would go for the rest of the night... definitely too far away from the stage for the flash, and no zoom lens..

Jason finally came onstage. Silly me didn't think to bring a pen to write down the playlist (yeah, I know, I was UNPREPARED - what was I thinking?). The first song he sang was "With You" which was different.. but a good change. And one of my favorite songs. Then I Can Sleep When I'm Dead.

Considering how far away we were, I think the pictures turned out pretty well. Most of the shots are cropped, but they are still really clear, which makes me very happy. There are a ton that didn't turn out as well.. but that is one of the reasons I love the continuous mode on my camera (that and I can get serial pictures of hip swaying ;) )

I think this is one of my favorite pictures... meow ;)

He sang Honky Tonk Friends (of course), Where I'm From, Barn Burner.. a couple of new songs - Drinking to Drink (which is actually rather funny - "I'm not drinking to forget anything.. I'm just drinking to drink") and Meet Me in the Barn (hot hot hot).

New guitarist.. who is also named Jason :)

He did an absolutely FABULOUS cover of Randy Travis' Nothing at All.. which has always been one of my favorite songs.. and hearing him sing it.. amazing. Something I wish I had a recording of. He also sang Garth's Friends in Low Places, which everybody sang along with. He always comments about that too, I think he really likes it when the audience sings along with him.

My favorite part of the whole night? He sang Stray. Not only did he sing it, he said it was going to be on the next album! (To which I replied "About damned time!!") He also sang George Strait Cover Band. (This picture will be added to the composite picture I have on my desktop - it has one photo from each concert I've been to.)

I think he made the security guys a little nervous - he climbed out onto this huge speaker that was in front of the stage. Didn't surprise me at all, but they looked very nervous. Have to wonder what they thought when he was out in the audience for Drinking to Drink! (didn't get any good pictures of that, we were too far away and the lighting was terrible.)

Oh, yeah, and you should have heard the screaming when he took his shirt off.. LOL (check out those muscles!)

Rockin' out with Jason.

It was so hot.. I can't imagine how hot it was onstage with all the lights. And it's not like Jason just stands up there and sings.. he is dancing and moving around a lot. It doesn't stop him though.

He climbed up the supports on each side of the stage. Silly man.But it definitely made the crowd roar.

Lookin at me :D

Finally caught this at the right time ;) yummy. Yep, lots of screaming.. and yep, I shot a series ;)

Looking at me again! :D During Barn Burner, I think.

"Give a hand to my band!" After Livin' Our Love Song, before which he talked about Brittany, and which was the last song of the night. It was done as the encore.. after he left the first time, and Cindy asked if he was coming back - I said of course, he hasn't done LOLS yet.

It was an absolutely fabulous concert. Oh my gosh, I was so tired when it was over.. so glad I didn't have to drive home.

After the show, we headed back to the merchandise tent, where Glen was for photos, and selling brand new copies of his album. Of course I got one! And it was autographed too, which was nice. And Oh my, he has a line in Fixer Upper that goes "I clean up real good" and yes he does. We listened to the album on the way home, and the songs are all really good. (And yes, he's really tall)

Glen's website: http://www.glentempleton.com/

Jason's website: http://www.jasonmichaelcarroll.com/

Got home and saw Jason posted this photo on Twitter after the show with this comment:
The one night I didn't take a pic of the crowd?!? I guess this will give you some idea of how fun it was...

(photo by Jason Michael Carroll)

And.. another bit of new music.. LOL though I can't really call it that yet..

Thursday I picked up a new guitar! I have been thinking about starting to play again for the last 6 months.. and actually looking at guitars for the last 4 weeks or so.. Stopped in at the music store that was selling out, and found a great Palmer beginner electric guitar, for a very reasonable price. Looking forward to learning to play it - although WOW it's already making my fingers hurt! Will have a name eventually... for now I've been calling it Blue.

A couple of scrappy things, a new bracelet, and a yummy

2010-05-10T03:11:00.001-05:00

Managed to get a couple of scrappy things done this week. They were all done for the Scrap Sisters NSD Crop last weekend.

Lilacs was done as a progressive challenge that I posted. I guess it was a litle too intimidating though, because only one person did the challenge. Oh well. I'm really happy with my layout. It's the first one I've done in a while, and I think it is really pretty. Funny thing, though, I never though Nickelback would be such a great inspiration for a frilly, girly scrapbook page. Who knew?
{This layout was chosen as the Pick of the Day on the Serendipity Scrapbooks site for 5.4.10}

The Anti mojo layout was an idea I had in my mind for a long time. The photo was originally posted on Tim Holtz's blog when he first started his FB and twitter accounts back before the christmas tags. I made it into a challenge - yet another that was barely touched. Again - too hard I guess.

This altered card was done for Karen's challenge (alter a playing card). I sanded it, inked it, and covered it with Tim's rock candy crackle paint. added the rest of the embellies and voila. {Yes. The letters mean something. No. I won't be telling} {this card was chosen as the Pick of the Day for 5.7.10 on Serendipity Scrapbooks}

This is my latest bracelet. They had charms on sale for 1/2 off again at Hobby Lobby, so I stopped to look at them. The snake charm got me to thinking about the Ghost Trappers companions.. ended up finding several more companion charms. The bracelet isn't finished yet. I found gemstomes that look like Chrono Fragments (another part of the game) though I realized the color isn't right. So I need to check back at Joann's tomorrow when I go (to order the Everyday Paperdolls Cricut cartridge for $40) and see if they have any blue-ish ones. Or aurora borealis looking ones. They will go between the companion charms.

Made these for dessert the other night.. individual strawberry shortcakes. And ooooh they were YUMMY.

Boots, Bands, and Bulls

2010-04-21T14:39:00.000-05:00

See the article:

http://www.garnercitizen.com/2010/04/garner-represents-at-boots-bands-and-bulls/

We collected and sent 13 frogs. And I had to take this picture.. cos my son's nickname as a baby was Froggy Baby (cos he looked like a little frog when he was sleeping)

Bleah

2010-04-19T02:58:00.000-05:00

No scrappy mojo lately.. things are tough around here at the moment, and tough things IRL make for very little scrappy mojo.

Will hopefully be getting tickets soon to the JMC show in June in Burlington... don't want to miss that.

Have been working on a couple of bracelets lately.. yeah, JMC related.. Finished up the concert bracelets for DD and I, then did another JMC bracelet that is a rather full charm bracelet - every link has either a charm or some beads on it. I know some people might think that is too much, but I like it that way.

I have to redo the photo charms though - tried to move them before they were completely dry, and they got stuck together {grr}. but wanted to have them in there for the photo, cos it will be a few days before I can get replacement charms. Each charm, and even the beads, stand for something related to JMC.. there were a couple of charms I wanted but couldn't find {a small house, and something from NC, probably the NC logo from the Tarheels}, so there are extra hearts.. if/when I find the other charms, the hearts will have to go!

Brown beads: for Jason's brown eyes
Blue teardrop beads: for the song, Tears
Frog: this charm is for the frogs collected and delivered to the kids at the NC children's hospital through Brittany's Buddies. {Incidentally, this year, BB collected 1100 frogs!! woohoo!}
Red Heart:Just because I liked it :)
Angel Wing: Jason's Aerosmith inspiration.
Photo charm: this picture is from the Mt. Pleasant concert {the most damaged charm, unfortunately}
Concho heart: made me think of a cowboy heart
Photo charm: from the Mason City concert. {Ended up with a bubble there has to be an easier way..}
Longhorn: Another Texas image, and for some reason it made me think of the Longbranch, where Jason has played often.
Apple: for Jason's many references to apple juice on Twitter
Pickup truck: he references trucks in several songs - Where I'm From, That's All I Know, Waitin' In the Country.. had to have one..

J alpha charm
Heart with love
M alpha charm
Texas State charm: because Jason was born in Texas
C alpha charm {a little hard to see in the picture, but it is there}
Tractor: "Where the truck's a Ford, and the tractor's green"
Phot charm: another photo from the Mt. Pleasant show

G Clef Charm: music.
Photo charm: another photo from the Mason City show
Pink heart
Palm tree: for Brittany. {I read on the Brittany's Battle website that palm trees were a favorite}
Princess crown: for the fairytale princess line from Livin' Our Love Song

My daughter wants me to make one for her.. don't know what I will make one this fancy, unless I can find a less expensive place to get charms. We did talk about other bracelets we would like to make though, including a Twilight bracelet {sparkly heart, wooden wolf, red heart, apple, chess piece, red and black beads, etc} and a My Little Pony bracelet {not just any pony bracelet.. noooo a My Little Pony bracelet}
But if I am going to continue with the bracelets, I want to get the holder that you can put the bracelets on that makes them easier to work with.

That's about all the crafty I have been lately. Need to get Mr. Mojo back, so I can finish the 24 puzzle pieces in the next couple of days {have them all started, just need to embellish them}.

JMC in Quincy IL!

2010-04-04T04:10:00.003-05:00

{I promise.. there is a bit of scrapbooking related topic in this post.... it's just near the end.. LOL}

The show was awesome.. Patrick wasn't feeling well, and he decided to stay home. so Rhi and I went by ourselves.

Before we went, we stopped at Hobby Lobby {I needed a new chain for my necklace, cos I broke it the other day}, and saw some cool silver letter charms - so Rhi and I made JMC charm bracelets. I want to add a charm for each show we go to {which means she needs 4 and I need 6}

The concert was sponsored by the fire department, as a fundraiser for several charities. The local radio station (WCOY) was there doing a live broadcast before the show - we went early and hung out with them for a bit. Everything was fine until Brian turned to me and said "You wouldn't mind if I stuck this (the microphone) in your face would you?" I said "no.... But i might stutter!" He laughed and said "no problem, Kayla does that all the time!" {Brian and Kayla do the morning show}. so I was on the radio.. LOL

After that we went back to the car to get Rhi's sweatshirt - I was on the phone telling my mom about the radio thing. Well, we had parked in the back by the bus and I looked over, and there was Jason! Told my mom "omg, I have to go, it's jason" and hung up lol. { and YES, I said "OMG" }But I wasn't quick enough to get a photo {they were got in a car and went to get something to eat before the show}. On the way in, we stopped at the merchandise booth, got new 8x10s and a new pink t-shirt for Rhi.

The opening band {the Well Hungarians} were pretty good too - they do their own songs, but also covers - and the last song they played tonight was the Devil Went Down to Georgia - it was really awesome. Dueling fiddle and electric guitar, it was great. We bought a CD and were able to meet the band and have them autograph it. {And I told the fiddle player he was awesome. he denied it LOL}

Then back in for Jason - we stayed in our seats for the first three songs - there was a pit in the front, fairly low, so we weren't going to head up to the stage.. He made some very nice comments about Quincy, even said how much it was like where he was from in NC. During one of the songs, he took his phone out to take pics to tweet {yes, while singing!}, so between songs he said "in case you were wondering.. " and said that he wasn't checking email or taking a call or anything, but he was taking pics to post on twitter and gave out the URL - then said "I'm the one writing stupid stuff all the time!" It got really quiet, and I said "Not all the time!!" LOL and he heard me! and said " ' not all the time"? What's THAT supposed to mean?" and laughed.

A little bit later, he commented a bit about his name - said that when he was little, the only time he was called Jason Michael Carroll was when he was in trouble. But when they talking about what name to go by, he though Jason Michael Carroll sounded like a great country name - but he wasn't thinking about how long it would take when signing autographs. Said that he thought he should have chosen a name like Garth. Or Bob. But then he thought about the opening of the show "Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to the stage - BOB!" Which had everybody cracking up!

After that, Rhi started asking if she could get closer to the stage because she wanted him to sign her shirt, and I wasn't going to {because several people had said the artists usually will sign things after the show} - so we went up and asked the the gal at the merchandise table if he would be doing that, and she said no, because they needed to be in NC by 7am. So I told Rhi we could go down to try to get autographs after all. LOL Of course, at the time we decided to go down there, Jason had headed up one of the aisles and was signing autographs there.. we headed in that direction, and got pretty close to him, but then he went back to the stage.. DD was a little discouraged, because she wanted him to sign her shirt, but we went back to where we were standing before.

Jason sang a couple of other songs too - he always comments about how country he makes them sound, no matter what kind of music they are originally. He always mentions Aerosmith, because they were one of his big influences, so I thought he would since Angel, but he didn't. He sang Take it on the Run, He Stopped Loving Her Today {after commenting about how religious Quincy must be, since everything had closed down early for easter!} and Friends in Low Places {commenting that he knew the original artist would have no problem with him singing that song here!}

He was singing Where I'm From while out in the audience, and he said that it was rather amazing how great the audience was singing along - he didn't know if those near the stage could hear it, but that he wanted to try something. So he started the chorus again, but then stopped singing so just the audience was singing. It was very cool. {Jason has said before that is one of his favorite things, when the audience sings his songs back to him.}

Jason made the comment again about requests and putting them on a 20 dollar bill, which made me laugh {though he didn't mention the thirsty band fund this time}. Someone sent up an envelope with a request for Jason to play a song for someone that had planned to attend the show, but who died yesterday. He asked them which song - and they asked for something he didn't know {I didn't hear the title}. Somebody suggested Purple Rain, which made him laugh. I think the person didn't know Jason's music very well, because then they said for him to just pick one. Several of us suggested Tears, but instead he sang Let It Rain. Which is not a song he does often in concert - mainly because of the falsetto part in the chorus - it's hard on his deep voice to sing that high every night.

Came close a couple of times, but thought we were going to miss out this time, because he couldn't see her. So a couple of gals in front of me {one I used to work with, one I didn't know} offered to let her sit on their shoulders so she would be tall enough to hold her shirt up to stage level. And finally, during the last song, he took it {holding her hand with the shirt and singing to her first} and signing it. She was thrilled.

I had taken my Chasin Jason layout {the three-fold one} hoping to get a meet and greet {Unsuccessfully}, and had been holding it up so he would sign it. He not only signed it - he held it up so people could see the CHASIN JASON {which made a bunch of the girls scream} then opened it up, looked at it, and held it up while he was still singing so everyone else could see it too! It was sooo awesome!! When he gave it back to me he said it was really cool. Totally made my night!

The only bummer was that I had tweeted him a couple of days ago, asking if he would play Stray (which is my favorite JMC song), and he said he probably would... but he didn't. When I tweeted about the show tonight, mentioning that, but that I was still happy, cos he signed my scrapbook page, he tweeted back and apologized, and said he forgot. I told him it was ok, i forgive him. He had sung a couple of other songs that are some of my favorites, including Let It Rain, so i wasn't completely disappointed..

The only thing I am rather disappointed with is how many of the photos didn't turn out well. I try not to use the flash for a couple of reasons - one - the flash on my camera is really bright, and two - you have to be really close for the flash to even do anything. The other shows I have been to were outside, so there was a lot of natural light at the beginning, and pretty decent lighting during the show. This show - part of the lights were set up ON the stage, instead of IN FRONT of the stage - which meant about half the time, they were performing in the dark. Not ideal for low light camera shots without a tripod {especially with how much Jason moves on the stage!}

Birthday, babies, and beer (not necessarily in that order...)

2010-03-24T03:06:00.000-05:00

Gosh I have been so bad at blogging lately. Have not felt like doing much scrappy lately - sometimes it is just easier to play mindless games on Facebook than to be creative..

So.. the babies... HAHA NOOOO I am not having another one (no way in hell that would EVER happen!) but we have been having lots of 4 legged woolly babies born in the last few week. 2 were rejected by their mommas so they are being bottle fed. One is white, and she has a couple of brown spots on her head and her butt. She is really cute. Neither one has a name yet, other than DumDum (you bring me gumgum?) The little male has figured a way through the fence, so we'll be patching holes and putting chicken wire around the bottom of the fence to keep him in. Silly thing.

My birthday was on Sunday... which just happened to be the day that Josh Thompson was going to be in Springfield for a show. Didn't really think I'd be able to go for the show, since it wasn't until late, but then he posted on FB that he would be doing a mini-acoustic show and signing cd's at Best Buy from 2-4pm. So my daughter and I decided to go. Ended up leaving a little late, so we didn't get there in time to hear him sing, but in a way that was good, because we ended up being about 5th in line for the meet and greet. I was hoping to have Josh sign "happy birthday" but as I was telling someone how to use my camera so I'd have pictures, she went right up to him and said "Hi Josh! My name is Rhiannan!" so he signed it to her instead. Not a big deal. We talked just for a few minutes - I mentioned that I had talked to him on twitter before, and he asked my twitter name, so I told him. He said "Oh yeah, I remember seeing your tweet earlier - Happy birthday!" Which was nice. Then we got a picture - have to say - that shirt he was wearing is the softest flannel I have felt in forever.. Very sweet guy! (but gosh, he looked so tired!)

We also saw Van-A-White in the parking lot! I couldn't get a better pic there though, because there was too much traffic.. Josh has a really hilarious "bus tour" type video about Van-A-White on his website.

We were bummed that we didn't get to see the songs, so we thought we would see if we could find some information on the show that night. Stopped at a walgreen, got a paper and directions to the convention center. Drove over, stopped to talk to the girl in the ticket booth. Yes, tickets were still available, cost was $25 each. Ok. Had enough money. Called home to check in. Told my mom (who was expecting us home for dinner) what had happened with the show and asked if she would be upset if we stayed for the show. She said of course not, it's your birthday, do what you want. So we got tickets.. and then had to wait for 3 hours before we could get in.

The nice thing about having time to kill in Springfield... is that there is a lot of historical stuff to see. Unfortunately it was sunday afternoon, and a lot of places were closed, but we could still see them from the outside. We saw the old state capitol building,

Lincoln's tomb,

and the three war memorials.

Korean War,

World War II

Vietnam

Visiting the war memorials made me cry, especially the Vietnam memorial - the name of somebody my mother knew is on that wall. I had not thought of him for a long time - but remembered his name easily when I went to look for it. The letters look a little funny, but it was raining out when I took the picture. Fitting, I suppose. Rest in Peace, Keith...

Went back to the convention center to wait to be let in.. have not seen so much flannel in one place in a while.. LOL. We took a few pics of ourselves to pass the time..

We did get a better picture of Van-A-White too.

Our seats were great in that we could see the whole stage, head on, but it was pretty far back. Just as well, since I had my daughter with me, and (since it was the Jagermeister tour) there was a lot of drinking going on in the standing room only section. So the concert pics aren't as great. But it was nice to be able to sit and watch the show. The first performer was Shawn Patrick McGraw (yep, related to Tim in some way). He was pretty good, and I want to get a copy of his CD. He has a song "Cow Tipping" which was just hilarious.

Then the guy that was doing the announcing played a couple of songs (did not manage to catch his name). And then it was Josh's turn. He played almost every song from the album, and a couple of extras. Thanked everyone for the albums sales (it debuted at #9) and had a great time. (the pics aren't great, because I still don't have a better zoom lens and we were pretty far back.. )

Beer on the Table, of course, was the last song he played. For part of it, he had the crowd singing the chorus, and we could hear it almost as loud as when he was singing it. It was really cool. Afterwards he said "I appreciate the hell out of you guys - thank you so much!!" and toasted the crowd.

We didn't stay for Eric Church - it was 9pm by the time Josh was done, we were both tired, and we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us. And I didn't want to be leaving at the same time all the drunk people were leaving.. Overall, a pretty good day..

Prima giveaway!!

2010-03-02T15:32:00.000-06:00

Check it out!!!

That's Right! Prima is giving away two more AMAZING prize packages in conjunction with our BIG SECRET!
We want EVERYONE to have a chance to win so we are changing the rules a bit.

Please copy this write-up and link us on your blog, Facebook, or any other site that you frequent (please follow their TOU).
Then post here with a link to your blog, Facebook or site post for your chance to win BIG with Prima!
One US and one International winner will be chosen on Thursday, March 4th, 2010.

Snow...

2010-02-21T23:18:00.000-06:00

It started snowing yesterday...

Took this photo last night, trying to catch how hard it was snowing. Turned off the autofocus, because that makes it harder to catch the falling snow.

Still snowing today... took this photo at about 3 in the afternoon. It was snowing really big fat blobs of snow, and we had hoped that meant it would stop... but no.. it's 11pm at the time of posting, and still snowing, though not as hard.

Hera, the snow dog...

Rhi and I built a snowman today.. she made both of these snowparts before I managed to get outside to help her, but had trouble getting the smaller ball on top of the base. So I helped.

Rhi and Mr. Buckethead

We used a carrot for the nose, a pinecone for the mouth, and leaves for the eyes.

My snow angel

Took this photo at about 10pm. In the middle of my driveway. Which was shoveled before this weekends snowstorms.

Since we live on a county road, at the edge of the county, and my tractor is currently not working... I have doubts about getting to work tomorrow.

Sorry

2010-02-11T02:18:00.000-06:00

Oh, gosh it has been a while since I have blogged. And it isn't because I haven't been online, just have been caught up with other things.

Have been keeping up pretty well with the P365 blog - check it out for the little snippets from the last few weeks. Have done much better this year than last year - have been able to get a photo every day so far - doesn't always get blogged that day, but at least I haven't missed a photo. Not sure I am going to actually scrap it - right now blogging is going to be about as good as it gets.

Been having major issues with my car - suffice it to say, if I had the money to buy a new car, I would jump on that in a heartbeat. Add in the snow, and the crappy job the county does with plowing our county road - I think I have spent more time at work this year than I have at home. Not cool.

Problems at home too - One of the guys we would get hay from was killed in a tree-cutting accident, and the other guy has become really unreliable. Do you know how hard it is to find hay that someone will deliver in the middle of February?? Not easy. Everyone is either sold out or too far away. I hate it when people say they are going to deliver something and then don't. At least the stove is working well, now.

Have done a few scrappy things - have some stuff I want to be working on, but hard to have any mojo in this kind of situation. Which is too bad - the Team Challenge is giving extra points for heartthrob layouts this month.

So I'll try to have something scrappy related to post soon.

LOL

2010-01-28T14:02:00.001-06:00

Jason posted this on twitter this afternoon....

April 3rd!

2010-01-25T08:52:00.000-06:00

LOL Yeah, I know that today is not April 3rd.. but man oh man I can't wait until April 3rd.

Cropped all weekend at the Serendipity crop - that was awesome. Got a lot of challenges done, really happy with that.

Didn't get to bed until after 4am. Knew I had to get up early because somebody {rolling eyes} forgot to send off the electric bill and it had to be paid by today. So I was thinking what an awful day it was going to be - just enough sleep to not be able to get back to sleep, but not enough sleep to make it through work tonight. Oh, yeah, and it's snowing. Oh, yeah, and the transmission is STILL acting up. Oh, YEAH, and the electric company is 15 miles away. Joy.

So I get the car warmed up and get started on the road - for once, don't have a CD in the player.. and the first song I hear on Kick FM is Josh Thompson's Beer on the Table. I love this song. The first time I heard it {SAW it} was on GAC when they played the video. Was really happy when I started hearing it on the radio. The song is funny, but oh so true.. Josh is a funny guy too - you can follow him on twitter @TheJoshThompson

Ok. Roads aren't quite as bad as I thought, and the next song on the radio is Blake Shelton's Hillbilly Bone - Funny song. The video is HILARIOUS. You can follow Blake on twitter too, but.. fair warning - he is a potty mouth. @blakeshelton.

Went in, paid the bill, got back out into the snow. Turn on the car. The first thing I hear is someone requesting "where I come from". The DJ says "You mean the Jason Michael Carroll song." First of all, how cool that the DJ knows who he is, but what can I say - the radio stations around here play a LOT of Jason's songs. So they play Where I'm From. And after the song was over the DJ said "And Jason will be in Quincy on April 3rd for the Firefighter's benefit show...."

WHAAAAAT?? Quincy?! Like, 24 miles from my house WHERE I WORK Quincy?!

Yeah. Big grin on my face. Totally made my day.

So now y'all know why I can't wait til April 3rd. Definitely going to ask for that day off, just as soon as I get to work this evening.

{Oh, yeah, and don't forget y'all can follow Jason on twitter too @JMCOfficial }

CHA preorders @ Serendipity!!

2010-01-23T11:02:00.000-06:00

From Kristen @ Serendipity!!

Some of the NEW CHA WINTER products are now available to pre order in our store!! BG will be loaded tomorrow or Monday- Maya Road may follow when & if image occur.

Please review info on how to order PRE ORDERED items- Some will be in upcoming kits (it is posted on the main info page for the line)

OH DONT FORGET---- 15% off these pre orders with a code: Winterchagoodies This code must be redeemed in the code box at the VERY BOTTOM of the shopping cart.

Make sure you mention the discount and code info when posting!!! P.S if there is not enough of any product or line ordered then we will cancel and refund--- Hence sharing with as many people as possible SOO exciting

Psyko and Paul

2010-01-23T03:11:00.001-06:00

This layout was done for the Punk Fashions challenge at the Project Runway Crop. I knew I had this photo - I was originally going to use it for a journaling challenge, but that didn' happen, and it was perfect for this challenge. Michelle was my best friend for junior and senior years of high school. I had transferred to a new school, and Michelle and I had some classes together. Since I was new, and she was a bit of a misfit, we because friends. Michelle's nickname was Psyko, and she gave me the nickname Jewlz. {I remember it clearly - we were in Mr. Kallenbach's Trigonometry class - and I told her Jules was too boring, and too boyish} We devised designs of interconnected letters for our nicks.. I still use mine sometimes.

We used to go out in her tan VW rabbit, and spend all night driving around {she's the only person I knew that would buy 62 cents worth of gas, because that's all she had - but it was unbelievable how far that car would go on 62 cents worth of gas!}. Sometimes we would play a chase game with other people.. mostly we just drove around and listened to music. She is the reason I got into a lot of the music I still listen to {the Cure, New Order, U2, Suicidal Tendencies, Jane's Addiction, Love and Rockets}. She is also the reason I own pink combat boots, a leather coat, have tattoos and multiple pierced ears.. She wasn't really a bad influence, because we never got into trouble.. But she certainly helped me to be more of an individual, and not such a conformist.

We double dated for homecoming (she lent me an awesome black dress), we hung out at the mall, we worked together at the movie theatre and the riding stables - we even got our first tattoos at the same time {my unicorn, hers a heart with bat wings}, . I suppose she thought I was a bit of a goody two shoes, or maybe she felt sorry for me, but we had a ton of fun anyway. LOL we're easy to find in the 500+ person senior class portrait - instead of looking at the camera, we are looking to the right. Why? Why not?

I lost touch with her many years ago, but I still think about her almost every day. She is one of the very few people from high school that I miss.

{and if you're wondering, Paul was one of a couple of boyfriends she had}

Project Runway Crop

2010-01-22T20:34:00.002-06:00

.. is in full force for the weekend!!

Come and join us, and have some fun!!

{keep in mind, you will have to join the forums, but it is free!}

Hottie challenge

2010-01-19T03:20:00.000-06:00

So... there was a crop at Scrap Sisters last weekend. While I was at work, Marilyn and Gay got into a friendly discussion about about could make the most layouts about there particular hottie.. and as a result the Rob vs. Gerard challenge was born. Not being on the boards at the time, I wasn't able to pipe up about mine {Mr. Carroll, of course}, and ended up being left out. At first I was a little depressed... even a little miffed, because I have posted more layouts about JMC there than have been posted about Mr. Butler and Mr. Pattison COMBINED. But, whatever.. not worth getting mad about - Gay's purpose for the challenge was to inspire mojo-deprived Marilyn to get scrappy for the weekend, and that worked very well.

I did, however, challenge myself to see how many JMC layouts I could get done during the crop - which started friday, with layouts to be posted by midnight PST on Wednesday. I had crop challenges for SSS, and also for the Scrap Attack Black Tie crop, and I was hoping to get a few done in between working. My car has been acting up though, and I ended up spending Thursday through Saturday night at work. Lovely. Luckily I planned ahead and had scrappy stuff with me.

I only use DCWV RockStar papers for the JMC album, and I keep the embellies I want to use {DCWV and others} stored separately, so it was easy to pack LOL.

A note on the photos: None of the photos used on the layouts were taken by me. About half of them were sent to me during the jasonmichaelcarroll.com Christmas card exchange, and most of the rest were posted by Jason on twitter. I also have a few that were posted by other Honky Tonk Friends {HTF's} on Twitter. I have tried to make a note of who sent what, but don't have that info for every photo right now, so I'll update the blogpost once I figure it out.

Here is what I managed to get done for the crops:

Scrap Sisters:

Erika's 2 page, multi-photo challenge

A Merry [JMC] Christmas

This layout uses most of the photos that had been made into Christmas cards. The black scallops have the names of the people that sent them {Jeff and Elizabeth Cockrell, Jean Walker, who is Jason's fan club president, and Cindi Tittle}{I didn't have a name on the other photo, and my daughter took them out of the envelopes and mixed them up, so I don't know who it is from.}

Chris's Bracket Sketch challenge

The sketch required the use of three bracket shapes. I had.. um.. chipboard.. LOL so I made my own. The grey piece I drew on the back, and cut freehand. The edge at the bottom was made by tracing the edge of a non-JMC paper onto the RS paper and cutting it by hand. The leather flower was part of a belt I bought on clearance for the sole purpose of taking it apart and using it on pages {yeah, I'm weird like that!} The photo on the layout was taken by Jason.

My "use your stash" challenge

Everything used had to be at least 6 months old. I chose that RS paper, because of the graffitti on the wall in the photo. Colored in the hearts and outlined the stars with Sakura gel and stardust pens. The chipboard letters are from Lil' Davis, and the acrylic pieces are from Tim. The gem heart was picked up the the LSS before they closed. Photo was posted by Jason on Twitter.

Marilyn's Christmas Goodies challenge

One of the hardest to do over the weekend LOL not because of the subject but because I left most of the Christmas goodies I had gotten at home. Luckily I found the rubon flourishes, which were sent to me by Jana from SSS. I don't know who took the photos, but they were all taken by the same person and sent for the Christmas card exchange. The bits under the title are DCWV RS self adhesive ribbon {found at Big Lots for $2 a package- I bought several!}

Abby's holiday challenge

Scrap any holiday photos that haven't been scrapped yet. We also needed to use something really old from our stash - which is the metal rim tag. I've had those forever. Jason posted these photos on Twitter right after Halloween.

Scrap Attack Challenges

#7 - Use black or white cardstock for the background

Easy enough.. LOL. Music Man - This is one of my favorite pictures that Jason has posted. The guitar and stars were cut out, added stardust strings to the guitar. and the chipboard letters were sent by a secret santa.

#1 {Pre-Crop} Menu challenge

Pick things from a menu, and receive a list of what you have to use on a layout.

Here's my choices and list.. and then my layout.

Beverages -Martini - floral print
AppetizerBacon wrapped shrimp - flowers
Main Dish -Filet Mignon - 3 photos
Side Dish -Caesar salad - ink
Dessert -New York Style Cheese Cake - handwritten journaling
***Mandatory Champagne Toast to Ring in the New Year*** - something black

The photos on this page were taken at an acoustic charity concert in PA. The microphone photo was taken by Jason onstage, at the same time my HTF Teri took the lower photo of Jason. The floral print is hard to see in the picture, because it is a very subtle print on the light green paper. But I didn't want to stray { LOL} from the RS papers

#4 - Make a layout {or 2 cards} with a party theme.

Make that a Black Tie party them.. LOL Jason posted this photo too.

A simple page.. but I was working with a deadline.. LOL.

The rest of the layouts:

No challenges used for these... they just came out of my brain.

My favorite?

Hard Rockin' Harley Man

Both photos were sent in the card exchange. The concert photo had place/date, but not a name, and the motorcycle one was in my mailbox the day I was working on the layout. I knew what I wanted, but didn't really have enough pictures.. pretty much had it planned out, but was going to do a larger title.. when in the mail comes Janine's Christmas card with the photo. Perfect. Thanks, Janine!

The bike sticker is from Jolee's, and yes, it's a Harley.

Stray

This layout contains the lyrics to my favorite song. The photo was taken by Cayce Nobles in Greenville SC, and sent in the Christmas card exchange.

Nashville Airport.

Photos were posted by Jason on Twitter.. he was excited that he and the guys ran into Chuck Wicks at the airport. Well, after seeing the pictures, some snot tweeted a comment about Jason being short. His reply was that he didn't have his boots on, and he included photo.

Fly Me Home

Another photo posted by Jason on Twitter. Jason spends a lot of time away from his family. So he goes home whenever he can.

On Tour

More twitter pics. They make me laugh though, because the guys are having so much fun travelling to shows. It's a fairly simple layout. The journaling around the photo mat is part of the lyrics to "Home".

LOL Jason has posted a couple of photos of Bojangles sweet tea, since it is his favorite.. One of the things I like about this photo, is that if you look close enough, you can see Jason's reflection in the sunglasses. Kinda cool.

self portrait

Another of my favorite JMC photos. A fairly simple layout, though I added stardust to the stars on the background paper, and then little metal stars on top of that.

Now I need to get more page protectors and album extenders for the JMC album.. LOL Otherwise, the layouts won't all fit in the album! Hopefully I'll be able to find another Rock Star album.. would really like to keep all the JMC layouts in those...

Serendipity's Project Runway Crop

2010-01-05T03:07:00.000-06:00

From Jennifer:

Happy New Year Everyone! Serendipity Scrapbooks is starting this year off right with one of our amazingly fun crops. Come join us January 22nd-24th for a crop unlike any other we have had before. The Design Team has once again worked hard to bring you some totally hip and fashion inspired challenges that will get you strutting your scrapbooking skills. Our "Fashion on a Dime" Challenges will help you use up some of that not so new but still fashionable stuff in your stash. Pre Crop Challenges will be posted Jan 14th and Crop Challenges will be posted Friday and finished projects loaded by noon your time Monday, the 24th. See you on the red carpet!

If you have never been to a crop at Serendipity, you are in for a treat. The challenges that the design team come up with are always amazing, and while some are fairly easy, most are definitely challenging. I am really hoping to have this weekend off so I can play.

Kristen generally has blue light specials in the store as well, which are only available to those participating in the crop. Lots of great goodies on sale {which I unfortunately won't be able to get this time around, but believe me, they are a great deal!}

So set aside the weekend of the 22nd, and join us for the crop!

p365

2010-01-02T23:39:00.000-06:00

First two photos are loaded onto the p365 blog - click HERE

So what is the P365? It's simple - take a photo a day of things in your life. Can be family members, things you like, things you do at work, etc.

The hard part? It sounds a little overwhelming at first, but honestly, don't most of us already take photos practically every day?

Some brave souls actually scrap that photo every day - but not this one. {firstly, I don't have time for that, and secondly, where the heck would I put all those pages??} Mostly people scrap by the week - and that is how I will likely do mine. {I had found some calendar pages that were pretty cool, but really too small to make the photos big enough to see}. I am not planning on buying anything new - my album will be made using Basic Grey papers, and embellies in my stash.

Off to a good start this year - it's day 2, and I have 2 photos done..

A not-so-happy new year so far...

2010-01-01T13:06:00.000-06:00

... which is really sad to say, because it's ONLY January 1st, but geez, I hope this won't be an indication of how things will be all year.

Didn't even spend new year's with my family - on call for the holiday, and my road is icy enough that I was worried about getting out in the middle of the night, so I ended up staying at work. Still there, actually.

Tim announced the winner and several artist choice winners on his blog today - naturally, I wasn't one of them. Rather disappointing - but I guess not surprising - he had over 300 entries for the contest.

And whoopie - today is my 10th anniversary. The last time I talked to my husband, he made me cry. He hasn't even called me today.

Today is the beginning of the new Project 365 - Going to take a photo a day for the whole year. Hopefully, anyway. Will be posting those photos on a different blog - scrappin{jewlz}365 . {No, don't check it yet - there isn't anything there.} A group of us at Scrap Sisters Studio have decided to do this project, and will have a forum for posting photos, ideas, and encouragement.

At least I have a little money in my pocket - if you believe in that kind of thing, at least I should have a little money the rest of the year.

Christmas, and my latest Tim tags

2009-12-27T02:04:00.002-06:00

Hope y'all had a merry Christmas.

This is our before picture - I took it before everyone else got up - they usually don't wait for me. Amazingly, this year they did {of course, since I took the picture the night before!!}

Kidlets with their stocking loot

Rhi was really pleased to find a new snowglobe in her stocking!

David and Jennie couldn't make it this year, so Jennie sent the gifts instead.

Rhi's gift this year was to make fudge for everyone. This was the first time she had ever made fudge. She had a little help from Grandma, but essentially made it by herself. She was really pleased with it. {And so were we, because it was really delicious!}

Wanted to get a picture of the kids with all their loot after opening it, but they weren't cooperating with that

Been working on the Tim tags.. still have 4 more to go.. hoping to get them done in time for the contest.

This tag is based on Tim's day 1 tag. I didn't have his snowman stamp, and was trying to figure out what to do, when my SSS secret santa sent me this really cool Maya Road chipboard snowman! And I thought how perfect! Tried to do a resist embossing, but didn't have fine enough clear EP, and it looked horrible, so I painted over it to start over. Stamped the snowflakes with Stazon. Added a little color with some homemade perfect pearl mist {made with Broken China blue reinker, water, and silver perfect pearls}. Also added some rock candy stickles for glitter. Cheated a little with the ribbon - I used pre-wired ribbon. Really love the icy feel to this tag though - I think it is my favorite so far. That rock candy crackle paint is really cool!

Day 5 tag - made almost like Tim's. Didn't have any of the ornament shaped fragments, but did have some old square ones with pre-punched holes {in Junkitz packaging! That tells you how long I've had them}. Stamps are from InkaDinkaDo. Colored a la Tim and stickled for glitter. Didn't have the right colors for embossing powder for the evergreen branch either, so I used colored ink and embossed with clear EP. I really like it. Used a MS border punch on the gold paper for the accent, and gold embroidery floss to attach the ornaments. And the JOY word is a laser cut sticker {from Mrs. Frossman, I think}

Day 2 tag - Another make due - didn't have the stamps or the metal pieces, so I used what I had. The frame is autumn leaves. The Christmas stamp also had a definition on it, but I just wanted the word, so I cut the rest off. Love the perfect pearls splatter technique!

Day 7 tags. Rhi wanted to make a tag with me the other night, so I helped her make one of these. The masking technique was really cool - I just used a piece of plastic {that had actually been wrapped around the blanket my mom got for Christmas!} since I don't have any of Tim's mask stuff. Used repositionable adhesive to hold it down. {knew that stuff would come in handy!} The santa stamp is one of Tim's, and is part of the set I won during last years 12 Tags. Rhi didn't want to leave the face uncolored, and we had a little trouble with her embossing on the bottom, but she was really happy with it. I did the stickles for her, and helped a little with the inking, and most of the rest she did herself.

Still have 4 more tags to go.. hoping to get at least 2 done tomorrow, maybe 3. Gotta submit them before the 31st..

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-22T13:51:00.000-06:00

Don't know if I'll get back before Christmas to say so - been really spotty with the blogging lately because it has been SO crazy around here.. so I'll say it now... MERRY CHRISTMAS! Switched the playlist to the Christmas version.. enjoy it while you can, it won't last long.. LOL

Here is a pic of my favorite Santa..

(photo originally posted by Jason Michael Carroll on twitter)

Jason visited the NC Children's hospital.. he does that a lot. It's one of the things I like most about him. He doesn't just give at Christmas time.. he gives all year round.

Tim Holtz has started announcing sneaks of his new diecutting machine, embossing folders, and dies. And from the sneaks.. it's going to be something I want. I'm going to start saving my pennies now, just in case it's not compatible with the cuttlebug {will make a good birthday present - hint hint!}

Here is one of the sneaks he posted on his blog today - click here for more!

Still working on my tags for the 12 Tags of Christmas.. need to really get it in gear to get them all done by the deadline.. that's my plan for after Christmas.

Tomorrow is my son's birthday - and I will officially be the mother of a teenager! Yikes! How did THAT happen??? Wasn't he born just a couple of years ago?? I don't have any embarrassing baby pics on the computer {going to have to remedy that!} but here are some others over the last 7 years..

On the tractor {Henry} - he was so thrilled when he got to start driving the tractor.

As Harry Potter {the first time} - My mom made the tie since we couldn't find one

Playing in the snow

Board break! This is one of my favorite pictures.. talk about luck.. {on my part, LOL not his - he was good!}

Good enough to earn his blackbelt before his 11th birthday.

Posing with Jones, the truck...

Patrick, the pumpkin eater.. grossing out his sister.. LOL

Singing along with Brad Paisley's I'm Still a Guy... man, he had us ROLLING on the floor.. it was so funny.

I also need to get a new photo of us together... he is taller than me, by several inches {boy, was that a happy day for him!}

So I hope y'all have a great holiday, get scrappy, listen to good music, have fun with your families, and make a mess on Christmas day!

Tim's Tags Days 11 and 12 and more

2009-12-13T03:30:00.000-06:00

These are the last of Tim's tags for the 12 Tags of Christmas for this year. And boy, are they awesome. The Day 11 tag was posted really late {about 4am my time} because Tim had trouble uploading it. But check it out - I love the way he did the deer, and those canvas brads are just awesome! {yep, I see another tool purchase in my future LOL} And I love the red flourish with the green background. Instructions for this tag can be found on Tim's blog.

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

And OH my goodness! Talk about saving the best for last...! Several of us have been asking Tim for a tutorial for making the grunge paper roses.. and here they are! I love love LOVE these flowers, and luckily was able to get some grunge paper before the LSS closed.. I have been saving it for just this technique. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a chance to play with it {today was spent putting up the Christmas tree - more on that later}. I spent a little time today making some pearl sprays, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. As always, instructions on Tim's Blog.

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

Here is my tag, based on the Day 10 tag. I used metal tape that I found at O'Reilly's Auto Parts store. Yep. You read that right. I went shopping for scrapbook supplies at the auto parts store. {Hey, you would be surprised the cool stuff you can find in a place like that!}

Anyway, the tape was exactly the same width as the tag, so I trimmed my tag to make it a little narrower so I could fold over the edges like Tim did on his tag. The letters, star and flourish are all grungeboard, which I attached with Zip Dry. Since I don't have any of Tim's pen {yet} I simply cut up one of the foam applicators and used that to apply the alcohol inks.

This was my big project today - putting up the Christmas tree... I gave in a couple of years ago and bought a smaller, prelit, artificial tree. Smaller because there are kids and dogs here, and it's harder to keep a regular tree looking nice the whole time. Not to mention there really isn't room for it here. This picture was taken before adding the ornaments. {Rhi, of course, had to be in the picture too}

This is the after photo.

Closeup of one of the vintage ornaments. This photo was taken using only the existing light in the room - one lamp, and the tree lights. {Yep, that's the Burl Ives snowman in the background}

Another closeup ornament shot.. really like how this one turned out too.

And speaking of Christmas, today I received a Secret Santa package! Hooray! This is some of what was in it - lots of yummy goodies, including Tim stuff! The things {I just now realized} I forgot to get in the picture were 2 distress reinkes (milled lavender and worn lipstick), some baby's breath Shimmerz, and a bag of Christmas mint m&ms! Yum! The best part? Those awesome Rock Star chipboard letters!! Thank you so much!!!

Unfortunately, my SS didn't sign their NAME... so I don't know who it is... or which board to thank them on! eek! The package came from Oregon, but it isn't an address I have written down anywhere.. so it will be fun to try to figure out who it is from!

Finished up my Christmas cards the other night at work - this is the basic design, though most of them ended up being horizontal, and with three trees on the front. Pretty simple, but I think they look cute. Now I just need to get them addressed and sent out.

Tim's Tags - Day 10

2009-12-10T13:12:00.001-06:00

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

Here's another new technique from Tim - he said he was inspired by a vintage garland on his tree, and I can totally see that. One of my friends on the Serendipity board thought this would be a great way to make gift tags for people (using just their name instead of all the other words) and I think she is right. Not sure I will get that done this year though.

As always, check out Tim's blog for more details.

Tim's Tags - Days 8 and 9

2009-12-09T02:27:00.000-06:00

Missed posting this yesterday (not a good day around here), so will end up posting two together.

Day 8:

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

On this tag, Tim shows us a really awesome technique to make vellum into parchment like paper. How cool is that?? I also lost how he makes the lamppost - Check out his blog for the how-tos!

These are the two tags I made based on the Day 3 tags:

The inspire tag was chosen as the Pick of the Day on Serendipity Scrapbooks... awesome. And I've already decided I love this technique so much that I'm going to use it as a background for snowmen atcs for Gay's Snowman ATC Swap on Scrap Sisters Studio. Very fun.

Day 9 tag:

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

Oh. My. Gosh! I love this tag. It is so vintage.. makes me think of classic movies.. Love love love the film strip ribbon... Must Get Some. I think I just need to start working for Tim, so I can get tons of product easily. LOL. Check out Tim's blog for the details

Tim's tags - Day 7

2009-12-07T02:10:00.000-06:00

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

This is the next tag in Tim's series... Not my favorite overall, but I do like the way the flourish pops off the tag, and the masking technique for the Santa. Not sure what I mean? Check it out on Tim's blog...

Really hoping I have a package tomorrow from Nona Designs. If not, I will be very unhappy.

Tim's Tags - Day 6

2009-12-06T02:13:00.001-06:00

(tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

Oh my gosh, I think this is my favorite tag yet! {or at least VERY closely tied with the Dec 1st tag!}

I love the grungeboard truck and the snow covered tree tied on with jute, the dictionary page background, and that awesome flourish stamp. Fabulous!!

As always, make sure to check out Tim's blog for all the details - he does such a great job stepping it out, and making it easy to follow his instructions.

Tim's Tags - Day 5

2009-12-05T22:12:00.001-06:00

(tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

Gosh, only a week left already!! Can't believe it! Especially since I still don't have the things I ordered as a RUSH order >:( Definitely not happy about that.

But back to the tag! And the awesomeness of Tim, who was able to finish the tag and post it 5 minutes early despite having no internet in the studio and having to find another place to upload it from! (Thanks, Michele!)

So, my favorite things about this tag... The lovely gold swirl (must...have...that...stamp...), the really cool fragment ornaments, and the embossing of the pine branch. How did he do it?? Check out Tim's blog for details.

Got a little happy mail today - Denise from Scrap Sisters Studio sent me Tim's spiced marmalade distress ink. Definitely made me smile! Thanks, Denise!

12 Tags... Day 4

2009-12-04T23:32:00.000-06:00

(Tag and photo by Tim Holtz)

Love love love this tag - especially the little house.. whch is removable and can been worn as a pin!

As usual, details are on Tim's blog

Tim's Tags - Day 3

2009-12-03T23:58:00.001-06:00

(tags and photo by Tim Holtz)

Tim posted 2 tags for day 3! And man, check out those awesome plaid backgrounds!! Those were done using alcohol inks - much more detail on his blog!

And yeah, I bought some glossy paper today! Gonna have to try this technique out!

On another note - Received notice that my order was shipped from Nona Designs - NOT within the promised 24 hour time period for Rush orders (boo!) but they did discount the shipping (yay!) I suspect they have had tons of orders, so as long as everything arrives in good condition, I will still be happy.

Also! We received our tickets in the mail today for the Acoustic Christmas Concert in Kansas City! Hooray! And I was pleasantly surprised - I was expecting 2 tickets - and Tracy sent 4 tickets! wahoo! So excited to go... I hope the weather stays clear enough! I don't mind if it is cold, and it can snow, as long as it stays off the roads LOL. I just don't want any ice!

Tim's Tags - Day 2

2009-12-03T01:10:00.004-06:00

(photo and tag by Tim Holtz)

Today's tag uses a lovely frame stamp, resist embossing, perfect pearls, stamping, and metal work. One of the neatest things about the frame is that most of the sayings stamps Tim has made will fit inside this frame. How cool it that? I love the Christmasy colors he used on this tag, and that rose! Oh my goodness! Tim made this rose from a couple of flowers from the Ideaology line, and I have to say, it is just amazing! Here is a closeup:

(photo, rose and tag by Tim Holtz)

For detailed instructions and a supply list, check out Tim's blog.

I think I'm going to order that flourish stamp.. the more I see it, the more I love it. Guess it will be my Christmas present to myself this year (only I'm not going to wait until Christmas!)

Today is the day - Tim's 12 Days of Christmas Tags - Day 1

2009-12-01T02:09:00.002-06:00

{photo and tag by Tim Holtz}

Hooray, hooray!

Today's the day!

Tags by Tim

And we're on our way!

Ok, Sorry, that's as close to Dr. Seuss as I get LOL. But I am really happy to see Tim start up the 12 Tags of Christmas again for this year! And, as always, the first tag is simply FABULOUS! My favorite things about this tag are how ICY it looks with the rock candy stickles and crackle paint, and the way the little ribbon scarf was done - it looks like a blustery day!!

And not only does Tim post directions, he posts PHOTOS showing how to make them, which makes it easier for those {ME} that need to SEE how things are done sometimes before we can actually DO them {yeah... that's why it took me almost 2 years to use the Perfect Pearls after I bought them! And now I use them. Often. A lot. Really.} AND a supply list, including links to online places to purchase them!

AND there will be tons of prizes this year - not only on the blog, but also a drawing for a big prize for those that finish all the tags {or cards or whatever Tim's tags inspire you to make before the deadline 12/19/09}, AND Mario { @mariojrossi } will be randomly picking tweeters to receive prizes on twitter!

So.. what are you waiting for??? Check out Tim's blog and get started on your own tag {or card, whatever you are inspired to make!}

Edited to add: I followed Tim's link to Scrapbook.com to order the rock candy stuff, and they were SOLD OUT. So I did a search and found a new website { Nona Designs Art Supplies } that not only has the TH stuff I need, but also tons more I want {LOL}. AND they have it all listed out by the tags {obviously just the first one at this point, but they have spots for the other tags later} I have placed an order already, and will let you know what I think about shipping/CS once it arrives.

My goodness, it has been a long time...

2009-11-24T03:56:00.000-06:00

Sorry it has been so long since I blogged. We have had company here the last several weeks (my brother and his family are staying here while they are looking for a house to rent.) and it has really been wearing me out. But that's another story.

(from Tim's blog, link below)

Had a couple of pieces of good news today - the first being that Tim is going to do the 12 Tags of Christmas again this year. He wasn't sure he would, after what happened at the stamp show, so I was really glad to see the announcement today. Check it out HERE on his blog - there are going to be lots of giveaways each day. I was lucky enough to win a stamp set last year!

(from the Wolf website, link below)

The second - Jason will be doing the Acoustic Christmas Concert in Kansas City, MO on December 9th - and Rhi and I will be going! Along with Jason, we will be able to see Jimmy Wayne, Chris Young and Love and Theft!! They will all be onstage at the same time, which will just be so exciting. And they will be helping the Salvation Army with toy donations too - One of the things I love the most about Jason is how much he wants to help others.

The third - the guys finished installing the new wood furnace today - woohoo! That means we will have better heat this year. Course, that also means we'll have to chop a lot of wood o_O but at least the house will be warmer this year!

Photo shoot at the Riverview Park

2009-11-09T21:42:00.000-06:00

Today, I took my daughter to the park for some fall photos. {Wanted to take my son too, but he wasn't interested in going. So he stayed home} I wasn't sure the pictures would turn out, because it was overcast and the light was pretty dim, but I messed around with the settings on the camera, and I think they actually turned out pretty well. {Especially considering the camera wanted to use the flash when set in automatic, and I didn't want to LOL}

The first thing she noticed about the park was all the leaves. Which made her very happy. I made her stand by a tree until I figured out the camera settings, then let her play around. She had a lot of fun kicking up the leaves, loving the way they crunched beneath her feet.

I really like this shot. She was just sitting in the leaves and tossing them up in the air. But I really like how most of the background is leaves.

This is one of the overlooks for the River. It was really pretty, a little misty in the background. I love that little stone wall. There is not much land on the other side of it before it drops away.

Closer up/cropped view

Sitting on the wall and doing the model pose.

She walked over to the end of the wall and was looking off through the trees at the River. I really like this picture. In fact, it is one of my favorites from today.

Sitting at the picnic table.

"Let's pretend we are having a picnic!"

This is another favorite, even though it is blurry. Or maybe especially because it is blurry. I love how it shows the motion. She was having fun whirling around and kicking at the leaves.

Sitting in the leaves again {I was sitting on the picnic table}

Yep, really like this one. She was having so much fun.

Walking back down the path - she kept getting too far ahead for the camera, and I had to keep calling her back. The lighting in this photo is a little more true to how the lighting was

We found these beautiful yellow maples at the park.

Walking back across the grass to the car :which can just barely be seen in the background}

Found this statue of Mark Twain by another overlook in the park.

Looking out over the river.

All in all, was a fun afternoon. I'm really pleased with the photos I took, especially considering how dim it was. And she had fun too, which always makes it worth it.

Chasin' Jason Layout, or What I Did This Weekend...

2009-11-09T03:05:00.004-06:00

Had an idea for a layout.. wanted to scrap the "I can sleep when I'm dead weekend".. using maps as part of the background of the page.. I wanted to outline the route we took that weekend, and have a few pictures from everything we did. So I picked up an atlas to have maps from IL, MO, and IA.

Funny thing about atlases.... the maps are all different sizes. So if you want to try this at home, I'd recommend getting a rolled up wall map or something instead. I ended up taking a page out of another atlas that was bigger, so MO was actually fairly close in size with IA and IL. {hopefully, we won't be needing that page from the atlas anytime soon.....}

Spent about an hour cutting out and piecing the map together. Didn't really want to leave out St. Louis... or Bowling Green.. so the LO evolved to include all the JMC concerts I've been to. There have only been 5, and they were all within 300 miles of home.. so.. how hard can it be....?

Well, incidentally.. THIS particular map was too tall to contain the layout on one 12x12 page. And not wide enough to make sense on a normal {HA!} 2 page layout. So.... what to do...

As they say in scrapbook organization - Go Vertical! Yeah! That will work! I think....

The only other problem I ran into, was not planning ahead and making smaller {2x3} photos. That would have been nice... Ah well. I am still hoping to do the weekend layout {since it involved more than just JMC}.. sooooo... So much for my route outlines... Ah well, at least the important information is on there.. The other thing I wish I had done {hindsight being 20/20...} is set the map a little higher on the page, since three of the shows were to the south.. and two of those shows are the ones from which I have the most photos...

And, needless to say.. my desk isn't really set up for a 24x12 layout... so that made matching things up a little interesting. But I managed.

What I ended up with is a tri-fold vertical layout. It actually involved making four 6x12 layouts, and one 12x12 layout. Eventually I will have to figure out how to put page protectos around it.. but I figured since I don't put my layouts in albums anyway {insert rolling eyes smiley here}, I'd worry about that later.

I didn't want to leave much room for journaling on the inside, so I put all the journling on the outside of the layout.

Here is the front of the layout (unopened).

The background paper is from the DCWV Rockstar stack {which I use on all my JMC layouts}. The very cool title letters are from Creative Imaginations. I love them, and wish I had more of them. But luckily, I found enough letters in 1 package for the title I wanted. {And NO, Chasin should not have a G on the end, that would ruin the rhyme! I do wish the set came with an apostrophe though!} I inked the edges and added some mini gems. The stars were punched from the hot pink lips paper - they were attached over the stars on the background paper. Also added gems and glittery stuff to the background pattern. One of the reasons I chose this paper and these letters.. they go Oh so well with Jason's shirts.

The journaling, for once, I actually wrote ahead of time in my notebook - usually I just wing it, but I wanted to highlight words with the MM tiny alphas, and knew I had limited space. The journaling I wrote didn't fit, so it was modified a bit, but it is pretty close. Got all the important info I wanted to put in there. Stamped the flourishes and inked the paper edges before doing the journaling, then started working on it. Took me forever, since I had to ink the edges of all the tiny alphas. But I really like the way it turned out, so it was worth it.

Closeups of the front pages:

{and yep, I know I have to add an L to Carroll... I ran out!}

{If you click on the photos, you will get a bigger one, which means you can actually read the journaling, if you want to!}

Incidentally, I actually did these pages last.. part of the reason was to cover up the brad prongs from the photo side of the layout. I also added some paper hinges to keep the pages together until I figure out how to handle the page protectors.

Here is what the inside looks like:

This time, the stars were punched from the hot pink heart paper, and the hearts from the lips paper. Each star marks a concert, except for one, which marks home. The tags attached to the stars indicate the {one-way} mileage to that concert. The flowers are from Prima. I used the tiny letters for the place and date, as well as for Tim, Richie, and Shaun. This layout includes some of my favorite photos, though not all of them {the whole resizing issue again} And as much time as I spent on the stupid map, it's hardly visible, but really, I'm ok with that. The important parts are still showing, and I think it still gives a good idea of distance.

Here are the closeups of the inner pages:

I am pretty pleased with this layout.. I like how it came together, and I really like that it has all the concerts on it. I'll be really pleased once I figure out how to put the page protectors on it so the layout can be opened and still be protected. I'm sure that tape will be involved.

Oh, and this is what my daughter came up with today.

She wanted me to take a picture with my phone to send it to Jason. I laughed and said we'd better use the regular camera, since I don't have Jason's phone number. Then we posted it on Twitter.

Here's Jason's reply:

JMCOfficial “Hey Jason, this is from my daughter! :D @JMCOfficial http://bit.ly/3Wb4AS -@jmcarrollfan <-- Awesome! I'll try darlin!

Yeah, she was about as thrilled as I was :D

Serendipity POTD, and @JMCOfficial

2009-11-04T02:21:00.001-06:00

Kristin picked my Pumpkin Eater layout for the POTD for 11/3/09 on the Serendipity Scrapbooks board.

I love this layout {and sorry for the bad photo - it's washed out from bad lighting and camera flash}

I really love the picture on this layout - we were having so much fun when I took it {and no, he didn't really eat any of them... but successfully grossed out his sister because she thought he was going to!}

Papers are from Pink Paislee and Little Yellow Bicycle {I still think that is a cool company name!} Alphas are also from Pink Paislee, and are actually a nice shade of glittery green. I used the MS Drippy Goo punch for the green drips - I love that punch! The journal box is also Pink Paislee, and the alpha stickers are Making Memories.

The black velvet flowers are from Maya Road - I wish I had more of them.. I will be sad when they are gone. Black pearls are courtesy of Jack Sparrow.. oops! I mean Prima! The purple pearls are from Queen & Co. I don't remember who the purple gems are from - tossed the package already, and I forgot to write it down {oops}.

The pumpkin is a wooden piece that came in the Halloween kit. I painted it with Tim's spiced marmalade crackle paint {which I dried with the heat tool since I was too impatient to let it dry on its own}. I inked over it with Tim's Black Soot ink, then wiped off the excess. The stem was inked with pine needles ink. The design was cut from one of the patterned papers, and I added little red gems {Basic Grey} for the eyes.

So, my other favorite thing to do lately is get on Twitter and chitchat with some of my HTFs. It's always interesting to see what some of the musicians I follow are doing as well. Jason posts quite often on Twitter, to let people know what he's doing, and will sometimes post photos. He took this photo tonight while onstage {he was performing with several others - Kellie Pickler, Phill Vasser, and Jimmy Wayne} in Scranton, PA.

{photo by Jason Michael Carroll}

And one of the HTFs, Teri { @TewiTso on Twitter } had gone to the show and took this picture at the same time Jason took the above picture!

{Photo by Teri Dimmett}

I'm tellin' ya, the man cracks me up.

{and Hell yeah, there will be a scrapbook page for the album!}

Oh, yeah, and check out his awesome Halloween costume:

{photo originally posted on Twitter by Jason Michael Carroll}

Pretty cool, huh? The family theme this year was super heroes and villains. {Robin is his son, JW}

Oh, and ironically, guess what was on TV when I took my dinner break tonight.

Yep.

Batman.

New pumpkin photos and birthday photos

2009-10-31T02:58:00.001-05:00

Had Rhi's 9th-birthday-non-bonfire-no cousins party tonight. She was a little unhappy about the bonfire and the cousins, but she managed ok. We had dinner (chili for the adults, and tomato soup for the kids). After cleaning up, got ready to watch a movie (she picked Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). Had cake and ice cream. I'm really pleased with the birthday candle photo this year - I think that's the best one yet.

(taken after dinner and before cake)

(this is her pumpkin birthday cake)

(the birthday candle cake - I kept forgetting to buy candle holders, and found these letter candles at Walgreens. Since she is nine, we only used "HAPPY BDAY!" instead of the whole word birthday. She was pretty happy with it, but the candles melted FAST. I won't be getting those again!)

Managed to remember to get new photos of the JMC pumpkin the other day too. And I am really happy with them, they are much clearer than the first one. And no, I still didn't find my tripod, but I sat on one of the kitchen chairs and propped the camera on the back of the chair. Worked pretty well.

(closeup of the carved area)

Played around with the camera settings a bit.. was able to get this photo, which I think is REALLY cool. I love how dark the background is, with just a little bit of fire color coming through.

Not sure if I will be around to post tomorrow.. so if not.. Happy Halloween everyone....

What? She's how old??

2009-10-28T04:20:00.000-05:00

Monday, my baby girl turned 9 years old. I haven't posted until now, because I have been waiting for the weather to clear to get some 9-year-old photos.. but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. So here is one of my favorite pics from this summer.. LOL {This is what I got when I told her to do something silly for the camera}

Another thing that it doesn't look like will happen is her birthday/costume/ dance-around-the-bonfire party. She was so looking forward to that, but it has been raining for the last two weeks. The ground is wet. The wood is wet. The trees are.. well, you get the idea. This bonfire was this summer, around the 4th of July. She had a lot of fun dancing around it. {Maggie wasn't too happy about it, though}

She is rather musical, and likes to drum on things... when we were carving pumpkins the other day, she liked drumming on the hollowed out pumpkins to see what they sounded like.

She told me she wanted Jason to come over for her birthday. I told her she'd have to settle for her cousins. LOL. Hopefully we'll be able to do the Traditional Cake Photo on Friday - when we went to get the candles for the cake Monday, we found an empty mouse chewed box. Darned mice. But Rhi was just as happy with a plain birthday cake and no candles.

Happy birthday, baby girl.

Pumpkin carving

2009-10-26T01:36:00.001-05:00

Today {ok, yesterday LOL} the kids and I carved pumpkins.

My daughter, though - I don't know what has gotten into her. She has become a squeamish little diva.. {insert rolling eyes here} and wouldn't even touch the pumpkin guts because they were gross. So the boy and I had to have fun with that...

LOL I love that picture.. I can't wait to scrap it!

Anyway, I ended up carving her pumpkin, while she directed the carving the whole time. The boy pretty much did his own, and it turned out awesome. Here are their pumpkins with lights on and lights off.

The cat was done using a pattern from a book that came with the pumpkin tools we bought several years ago. Which gave me the idea for my pumpkin... So I got on my computer, messed around with an image in Irfanview, and got started.

This is the before shot {which I forgot to take BEFORE drawing the line for the top}

Taped down my image and poked the holes around the outline like the directions for the cat said... {which I thought looked pretty cool in itself!}

Knew I wouldn't be able to carve all the way through, or I would lose the center pieces in the flourish.. so this is what I ended up with {minus the top}. {In case you were wondering, I mostly used a paring knife and a potato peeler}

And here it is lit up {couldn't find my tripod, so the photo is a little blurry, and I have to carve an extra air hole before trying again, but here it is anyway...}. My mom didn't think it would show very well, but it turned out better than she thought. My daughter, loving Jason almost as much as I do LOL, thought it was "Pretty darned cool, Mom!"

I think it's pretty darn cool too.

And the winner is....

2009-10-26T00:45:00.002-05:00

KIMMY! Congratulations Kimmy!

Thanks for commenting, everyone, it really helps to know that people actually read this blog, and I'm not just spouting off for nothing.. LOL

Holy cannolli

2009-10-24T00:59:00.001-05:00

How did I come to have almost 10,000 hits on my blog?! Seems like just yesterday that I started this thing up {ok, not really}, but I remember wondering what the heck I was doing, and why on earth would anyone want to read anything I wrote??

Ah well, I still think that sometimes, but anyway...

In honor of reaching 10,000 hits, I will be giving away a RAK - an envelope of goodies along with a friends ATC - an extra from the set I made for the Hero Arts ATC Swap. Goodies will include some of the lace on the ATC, Prima flowers, and other embellishments. If I reach 10,000 hits by Saturday at 12 midnight central time, I'll also include a Scrap Pink ATC, made for an AMR swap in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Here's how to enter - post a comment with the current hit count {the counter is at the bottom of the page.} and something you like about a friend.

For an extra entry - follow my blog by clicking the button in the side bar.

Keep the comments coming - I will close for the RAK SUNDAY at MIDNIGHT CST.

{SAS}sy Scrap Pink Crop, and Framed again.

2009-10-23T03:29:00.000-05:00

The {SAS}sy Scrap Pink Crop is this weekend. Lots of great challenges, and some games, have been posted already! I'm hoping to get a little time to play, but I have to work this weekend, so who knows.

And my Beautiful Girl layout was framed today on Savvy N Sassy :) Yay. I love that layout.

Crop layouts, Queen of the Crop, and @jmcofficial and...

2009-10-21T14:10:00.000-05:00

The Pimp My Bra crop is over now, and my goodness, there are SO MANY fabulous layouts that were done this weekend!! Check out the gallery HERE.

I didn't get as many challenges done as I had hoped {Thanks Jason ;)}, but I did get three regular challenges done, won 4/5 quickfire challenges {"Make a card... the first one to post their picture wins"}, played bingo, and shopped at 6 of the 7 Blue Light Specials {who can resist Basic Grey at 50% off?? I can't!}

This layout was done for the Audrey Hepburn Challenge - we were challenged to make a beautiful layout using 2 photos, lots of flowers, and either pearls or gems. I had paper that matched about as perfectly as possible, and inked it to look like rust {the Tsukineko StazOn Rusty Brown is PERFECT for that - matched Jones' rust perfectly!}. Also used a whole package of prima flowers {the cream ones} and a ton of Fancy Pants flowers {the pink ones}. Title letters are thickers, which I inked a little to make them fit a little better. Calender is from Jenni Bowlin, and journal card is from Dream Street Papers. Stamps are a Cinderella set

This layout was done for Jennifer's challenge "My Will". Her son is autistic, so her challenge was to use one of the autism pictures she posted. Many of those pictures incorporated puzzle pieces, rainbows, butterflies, hearts and angels.

I have been wanting to scrap this picture for a while - it was taken last year when we went to Hannibal to see the LST ship. There is a little shop called PuddinHeads which is a mix of antiques and handcrafted things, and very fun to visit and see what's new. I had asked them to sit on the bench outside so I could take a picture.. and they of course, got silly.

AND - *whoohoo* I won the Queen of the Crop!! They did it a little differently this time, instead of counting points, draws were given for completing certain things (a certain number of challenges, the BLSs, etc), so that more people would have a chance to win. Which I think is fabulous! And this time it was me. Woohoo! My prize for that is one of the kits from the store, so I need to check them out and see which one I want. I wish they had more of the Halloween kits! Would love to have another one of those!

So why didn't I get more layouts done this weekend? LOL well, you see, I found out Jason was on Twitter, so have been sucked into that whole thing. It was worth it though - he's tweeted me three times on there. {Yeah, I can see a layout with that too.. LOL} Anyway, he's @JMCOfficial, so if you twitter, and like country music - there ya go. OH and another exciting thing - "Where I'm From" won a songwriters award at the ASCAP awards - it was written by Joe Leathers { @joeleatheres } and Patrick Davis { @PDMusic }. Patrick sings too, and has done a few shows with JMC. He has a great voice too - hope to hear more from him!

I've been framed again!

2009-10-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

Made this layout for the Helen Keller challenge at the Pimp My Bra Crop on Serendipity. And today it was chosen for the Frame of the Day on Sassy N Savvy!

Here is the challenge, as posted by Lisa:

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart. “ Helen Keller

Helen Keller…a woman whose life was void of sight and sound from a very early age. Yet despite her physical limitations, she went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities as well as someone who campaigned for women’s suffrage, worker’s rights and socialism. A true inspiration.

Often we take things such as sight and sound for granted. It isn’t until we hear the story of someone like Helen Keller that we realize how fortunate we are to have all of our senses.

Challenge guidelines:

With this Helen Keller inspired challenge, I want you to scrap something you often take for granted. Because her world was void of light, you must use a black background. She also lived without sound so there will be no journaling allowed. Create a title that carries your message…one that is impactful. Finally, use a minimum of 3 raised elements to represent the Braille system.

Here is the layout I came up with.

My thing I take for granted - my daughter. There are times that I get so busy doing other things that it's hard to remember she needs to have play time with mom too. And that really is something I don't want to miss out on, she is growing up so fast already. And no matter what.. she loves me unconditionally.

The raised items are the flowers and the flourishes - they were hand cut from a piece of the embossed/glittered Laundry Line paper (the dotted paper is also from that set). At first I only did three, but it didn't look right one the page, so added a few more. They are attached with pop-dots.

The crop is still going until tomorrow - stop by and check it out.

MINE

2009-10-17T15:55:00.000-05:00

Maggie doesn't want to share...

Serendipty Pimp My Bra Crop

2009-10-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

Today, tomorrow, and Sunday is the Pimp My Bra Crop over at Serendipity Scrapbooks!

Come and join us - there are multiple challenges, Bingo games, and lots of inspiration and special sales for crop attendees!!

And don't forget to

JMC on Fox 4 Atlanta

2009-10-13T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here is the video from the Fox5 website of the performance this morning

JMC on Good Day Atlanta, POTD, and a trip to Ohio

2009-10-13T07:59:00.000-05:00

Being an earlier riser today {REALLY early for me.. I don't usually get to bed until 3:30 in the morning} because Jason is going to be on Good Day Atlanta this morning. Nope, I don't live anywhere near Atlanta - but they have a live streaming feed on their website, so several of us HTF's are up early so we can watch it.

{photo from www.jasonmichaelcarroll.com}

My turkey ATC was chosen for Photo of the Day on Serendipity. I made it for a paper piecing challenge for the AMR crop, and plan on using it as a prototype for a Thanksgiving ATC swap. Have to find some google eyes though.

Thursday I have to take my mom to Ohio, to pick up the new puppy, Robin. {His whole name will be Fingerlakes Robin Adair}. I'm not real happy with how the transport happened {way more notice to get off work would have been nice} but we are grateful to the lady that is bringing him that far - he is coming from King Ferry New York. The worst part of this trip? I have to work Wed night. And Friday morning. So we have just one day to get there and back again. Not really looking forward to it. But unfortunately, we don't have any other options. I'll post pictures later in the week.

Make A Wish layout

2009-10-11T19:29:00.000-05:00

Gloria's challenge at the AMR crop was to use this sketch and make a layout.

Here's my layout - I used pictures taken the same day as the photos on the layout I posted earlier - Rhi likes to make a wish every time she sees a dandelion puff in the grass.

The white letters are Doodlebug rubons, which I have had FOR-EV-ER. The backing was crumpled, several of the letters were damage, and I got tired of storing them, and thought this would be a cool way to use them up. The red paper was precut - I added stickles to it. The trees were made using QK dies in my Cuttlebug - since trees get extra points this month, I sat at work and made a bunch of them during my dinner break.

I don't think I'll get all the challenges done, but we'll see. It's a little cold here for scrapping {still waitng on my brother to finish putting the wood furnace in}. I just hope he gets the bathroom finished before I have to go to work on Monday - this is what it currently looks like! {The big glass block window was there when we bought the house, he is just redoing the walls since Rhi karate chop kicked a hole in it. I would have had him cover the window, but I didn't want to not have the natural light in the bathroom!}

Star for the Day, a new ATC and twitter

2009-10-11T13:43:00.000-05:00

I made this layout for Kristin's border circles challenge on Serendipity - we needed to use our border punches to make three circles. I actually did 4, because the one under the star is a double layer.

I think some punches line up better than others, but I think they look very cool. I used the MS doily, Fiskars threading water, and the MS picket fence punches.

The photos are a couple from the photo shoot we did a few weeks ago. The layout was chosen as the Star for the Day on Scrap Attack for 10/8/09.

Closeup of the picket fence border punch circle.

This is the atc that I made for the Swap Addict's Anonymous fruit swap. I wasn't so sure about the apple at first - it's a QK diecut, and I didn't realize when I bought it that there would be a border from the bottom piece around the top piece.. and it bugged me. A lot.. But then I inked it, and it looked better, and darn, doesn't it look like an apple core after it's been sitting on the table for a bit? LOL.

The brown PP is from the DCWV Crafty stack. The red used for the heart is MME. Love how the patterns are so similar. The background is Kraft, stamped with a script background stamp. The "i" is a thicker sticker covered with MS glitter pen, and "apples" is done with Penny Black stamps. Everything is {of course} inked and distressed. Thought it needed something more.. and since this month is extra points for stitching, I sewed on the button and added the extra stitches on the square and the heart. And I think that's one of my favorite parts. I made 10 of them.

And.. gosh.. Twitter. I have been avoiding twitter.. because I need another computer thing like I need another hole in my head.. {eyes rolling}. Then I found out Jason is on Twitter. So over I go.. I must confess I have mixed feelings about it.. it's cool to be able to see what everyone is doing.. but all the @name things.. it's like hearing half of a cell phone conversation! Kinda confusing! But we'll see... I've already found out that Trace Adkins is going to be in St Louis around my birthday next year.. that would be a cool show to go to! And found a couple of my scrappy friends there too. If you're over there, you can send me a message @jmcarrollfan

Blog award!

2009-10-06T15:06:00.000-05:00

Michelle gave me a blog award today!!

Thanks Michelle! Check out Michelle's blog here - it is a new blog, but very promising, so check it out!

Here's the info on the blog award:

* Say thank you and give a link to the presenter of the award
* Share “10 Honest Things” about myself
* Present the award to 9 other bloggers whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design or to those who have encouraged me
* Be sure to tell the 9 bloggers chosen that you are giving them the Honest Scrap award and provide the guidelines for them

Here are 10 things about me. Some you probably already know, and some not..

1. (The Given LOL) I am obsessed with Jason Michael Carroll. Nah, really? Seriously, he is a great musician, a really nice guy, and um hot. I have been to 5 concerts because they are fabulous - he is a great showman, loves to interact with his audience, and has a lot of fun doing it. I listen to his music all the time - it's my favorite driving and scrapping music, and am working on a JMC album. Actually, 2 - one is a smaller one {8x8} that I hope to be able to give to him someday.
2. I don't feel old enough to have an almost-teenager for a son. My son will be 13 in just a few months. How did that happen?! It seems like just last week he was a baby.
3. I dabble in writing stories. Yeah, I know, you'd think I'd be better at journaling.. but that's why I just dabble with writing. LOL
4. My favorite winter food is chili with noodles. And I love hot apple cobbler for dessert.
5. I still live with my mom. LOL well, technically, my mom lives with me {since it is my house!} Works out really well most of the time. I am so grateful that she is here, because without her, I would not be able to do most of the things I do {work nights, stay on the farm, homeschool the kids and still work full time, and I certainly wouldn't be able to get as much scrapping done! Plus she is a fabulous cook! Much better than I am!}
6. I like cats better than dogs. Sorry. I know I should like them all equally. But I like that cats can take care of themselves better - they don't need to be walked in the rain. They can be left alone for a couple of days with a bowl of food and a bowl of water, and I don't have to worry about them. They don't bark. And I like their little purrboxes.
7. I am terrified of flying. I have been afraid of flying most of my life, but was actually doing a decent job of getting over it until Sept 11th happened. Now, I don't even want to go to the airport. The last time I went was to pick up my husband when he came back from Iraq. That was 5 years ago. Which is too bad, because I would love to see Ireland again, but for now.. if I can't drive there.. I won't go.
8. I have had grey hair since I was 12. Yep, really. I blame my parents - that's when they got divorced. Most of the time I color it red.. have been thinking about doing a different color though but I always chicken out, and go back to red.
9. I have tattoos. Some of you may know that already. They are on my shoulders. One is a unicorn head with a star at the tip of the horn, and the other is this:

Well, without the words.. just the heart with flames. I've had it since 1989.
10. While I am glad my DH is out of the Army... I miss seeing him in his uniform. The dress one, of course, not the fatigues.

I am giving this award to the following people - They are all people that I follow, and admire, and weren't on Michelle's list LOL. {Click on the blog name to go to their blogs!}

Wendi - Scrappy Day in Paradise - I love Wendi's work. She has done some fabulous cards and layouts.
Susan - Creatively Savvy - Susan's work is amazing. I want to be Susan when I grow up. :)
Ellen - Today I am Thankful For... - Another amazing scrap artist - I love her challenges.
Lisa - Takin' Life One Day at a Time - More scrappy goodness here!
Kristin - Memories by the Pageful - Kristin has also done some great challenges. I love the layers she does on her pages.
Nadine - My Scrap'n'stuff - Nadine has some fabulous layouts!
Peggy - Peggy's Projects - Peggy is super nice and has some fun layouts too!
Pat - A Scrappin' Nana - Pat has done some very pretty pages, and some fabulous cards!
Ann - A Day in the Life Too - Ann has done some fabulous projects, and takes some gorgeous photos!

Sketch layouts, and Bra Pimping

2009-10-04T23:51:00.002-05:00

Realized I had not posted that promised sketch layout ...

I used one of Beggahuna's sketches for the Oct 1st Sketch Challenge at AMR. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Beggahuna's sketches, and I can't wait until she starts posting some new ones {she has been taking a break this summer}.

The sketch called for a 4x6 photo and 3 smaller photos. I wanted to use some of the photos from Jason's Mason City concert, because I have several series of photos, and they are from far enough away that they are pretty small. And I think I was channeling my Inner Susan for this layout, because I think the layering came out SO well! All the papers are from DCWV. Flowers are Heidi Grace and Bazzill Basics {the large pink one}. The crown pieces are actually iron-ons that I picked up at WM on cleareance. Gems, of course, are Prima. Butterflies are {I think} KI Memories - again, picked up on clearance. Alpha rubons are Making Memories. I hand stitched the stitching on the black strip - I thought more would show, but the page kept asking for more flowers. I didn't have shaped paper, so I used one of my Clear Scraps XL shapes to trace the shape on the star paper.

The other day, I did another Jason layout, with pictures from the Carlinville concert. This layout was made using Susan's sketch for the 10/1 Daily challenge on Serendipity. I really like Susan's sketches {as well as her fabulous layouts!} and I am glad to see that she is starting a Saturday sketch challenge on her blog. Check out her work here: Creatively Savvy

I chose the pictures I did, because I wanted to use the really cool alligator-ish paper I found in the specialty paper section at Hobby Lobby. I knew as soon as I saw it which pictures I would use it with. Again, I didn't have it pre-cut in the right shape, so I used an XL shape as a template. Which made it a little bigger than the sketch, but it worked out. The center circle was made by tracing around one of my mom's little apple plates.

The blue cardstock, which is a little hard to see, was crumpled and then sanded - it looks like a worn pair of jeans, and almost exactly matches Jason's jeans in the photos. The rest of the papers are all DCWV, as are the chipboard embellies {from the Rock Star line}.

I stamped the journaling on precut strips, then snipped them to fit the space I had, inked and edge distressed them. For emphasis I put several parts of the journaling up on popdots {"up front and center", "literally", "(And I did.)"}. The smaller boot picture is also up on pop dots. Title letters are thickers. Gems are Primas and some flourishes from the line at WM.

This was a fun layout to make. I loved how close we were at the concert, and these pictures were taken to show that. {plus, I kinda have a thing for cowboy boots LOL}

Have a couple of more layouts in the works - don't worry, they won't all be JMC layouts LOL. Working on one with the trio of pictures from Nicole's challenge, and will be working on the numerous old Halloween photos I have. {Halloween layouts earn bonus points this month for the Team Challenge on Serendipity} Plus I have several atc swaps I need to get done - themes include fruits, circles, Twilight, Pink (a breast cancer awareness swap}, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and a friendship swap sponsored by Hero Arts (which means I'd better go through my stamps and find one that's made by them!}

And speaking of breast cancer awareness, don't forget the Pimp My Bra crop at Serendipity Oct 16-19 and the Scrap Pink Mini Crop at Scrap Attack Oct 24-25!

Twisted Cherry has designed some fabulous albums for the Pimp My Bra crop - you can get them in the Serendipity store!

And the best part about these albums?? Kristen is going to donate 50% of the proceeds of albums sold through Oct 31st to the National Breast Cancer Association!

Hope to see you at the crops!

JMC and NRS partnership

2009-10-01T01:48:00.000-05:00

New post on the JMC website (http://www.jasonmichaelcarroll.com/):

"Hurry Home" To Address Runaway Crisis and Awareness

The National Runaway Switchboard (NRS) and Jason have formed a partnership to raise awareness about the runaway crisis in America and the help that youth and families can receive by calling 1-800-RUNAWAY.

The announcement comes after the recent release of Michael's second single, "Hurry Home". A song about a father and his runaway daughter and the struggles each faces during a challenging time, "Hurry Home" poignantly portrays the love of a parent whose overriding wish is simply for the safe return of his child.

Carroll personally experienced the effects of what a runaway episode can do to a family when his aunt ran from home when he was a young boy.

"I was so young when my aunt left home that I grew up not knowing who she was - just someone we prayed for every night," says Carroll. "For all the families who are missing someone dear to them, and for all the young people who need a hand getting home, or staying home, I hope that what we're doing can help bring attention to an important issue and to the great resources available through NRS."

To learn more about NRS, visit www.1800RUNAWAY.org.

I think this is just awesome. And there isn't a more perfect song/video to help get the word out. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is...

I've been framed!!

2009-09-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

Savvy N Sassy chooses a project to frame each day - and today's pick was my Christmas Inchies! Which surprised me a little, I didn't think inchies would be chosen for this kind of thing, but they are cute and sparkly, and who can resist an inchie?

These inchies were made out of grungeboard (gotta love precut grungeboard!) the red color is a RoseArt glitter marker. The background stamp is from an inchie set by InkaDinkaDo. Gems are MS, and I highlighted the flourishes with my Sakura Stardust pen. The tree brads were pre-glittered and from Paper Studio.

Here is a sneak from a new layout - I can't post it here yet, as it will be the next Sketch challenge at AMR

but here is a smidgen...

Cricut Gypsy

2009-09-25T03:19:00.001-05:00

Win a Cricut Gypsy

Check out the Cartridge Helper website for information on how you can win a Cricut Gypsy!
(they also have tons of information on the Cricut machines and cartridges, including previews!)

I am so glad to see there is a new Paper Doll cartridge out!
Check this out!! PREVIEW

A sad day

2009-09-23T13:33:00.000-05:00

Today was a sad day for us. Today we lost a kitty friend.

Potsy was my son's cat. A client brought me two tiny kittens on emergency one Sunday, after their mother {who was a stray} had been hit by a car. They needed bottle feeding. The black one was super noisy, and quickly acquired the name Ralph the Mouth {though we later realized she was a girl and renamed her Rachel}. So the little orange bob-tailed one became Potsy {who, if you don't remember, was Ralph's best friend on Happy Days}. They were so tiny when they came to live with us. I took this picture once they were old enough to eat kitten food - they both fit into the bowl at the same time.

He was so accomodating, even as a young kitten. All he wanted was to be held. He was a funny little fuzzy thing, and he made us laugh.

This is Potsy's first encounter with Hannah, who was a bottle lamb. He was not quite sure what to think about her. But it was so funny to watch them trying to figure each other out.

Potsy was always a little odd though. He liked to sleep in the strangest places. I caught this first picture of him and Rachel - sleeping in my shoes.

Not a strange place, but still one of my favorite pictures {sleeping on the couch with Rhi}

I don't know what he was thinking when this happened. Yep, he is sleeping on top of the food bowls. How is that comfortable?

He got along pretty well with Tabby, and they tried sharing the kitty bed. They didn't quite fit.

As I'm taking the photos, he crawls out.. but can only get so far before he falls asleep again. {Somedays, you just can't get too far from the bed...}

The egg basket? Really? Amazingly enough, he didn't break one egg.

He really liked the new couch when we got it. This was one of his favorite places to sleep.

As soon as he was big enough, he chose Patrick as his person. It never ceased to amaze me how much that cat loved that boy. They were always together, and if you wanted to find one, you looked for the other.

He slept on Patrick's bed, would seek him out whenever he wanted anything, and if Patrick was watching TV, Potsy was right there with him. He would often "help" Patrick with his school work.

Over the last week and a half, Potsy has been doing worse, having trouble breathing, and losing a lot of weight. His chest started to fill up with fluid - which is never a good thing, and usually not something that is treatable - at least not with any great success. So we made the decision to put him to sleep. We buried him next to his sister, in our little pet cemetary, so they could be together again.

{these last two pictures were taken on Memorial Day, when we had the bonfire. He was fascinated by the fire, and when the childen started dancing around it, he danced with them}

Farewell, my friend. We will miss you.

Pick/Star of the Day!

2009-09-21T01:23:00.000-05:00

I made this card the other day - It was actually a challenge for a board I refuse to mention because I am MAD MAD MAD at several very rude people from there - but I digress...

This is a Halloween card I made, and it has been chosen for the Pick of the Day for 9/20 on Serendipity, and Star for a Day for 9/21 on Scrap Attack

I started with a DCWV square 5.5x5.5 card, which I have had forever. I used my large pinking deco scissors to do the edging. Was a little bit of a challenge, because it didn't want to cut through both layers at the same time, and I wanted everything to match up. Edges were inked with Tim's Black Soot Distress Ink. The lovely web at the top, is from a roll of self adhesive flocked lace from WRMK, which I found at Hobby Lobby (and I actually paid full price for - it wasn't bad, about $3, but I don't pay for ANYTHING full price at HL anymore!). The spider is a foam glitter sticker, which I bought for inchies, and the web line is simply drawn with my Zig pen.
Happy was done with Heidi Grace rubons, and Halloween is from the Basic Grey Eerie stamp set. I was going to add tiny gems to the web lace, but I forgot, and thought it turned out pretty well anyway. So I will save that for another project.

I used the left over webbing that was trimmed off the card on these inchies. They are for a swap on Swap Addicts Anonymous. The base is made from precut grungeboard squares, which I colored with an orange glitter pen. Added the web and the spider and voila. Halloween inchies. I actually wish the spiders were a different color though LOL they would show up better!

I also finished up the ATCs for the All Moments Remembered September Crop, for which the theme was.. hmn, can you guess?? FALL. I found the fall stamp in my stash and knew I wanted to use that, the rest of is just designed itself today. The brown paper with the words is from a scrap pack - edges were inked. Actually, each of the squares and the base was inked too, and the base and orange square were edge distressed. The leaf on the orange square was colored with a crayola colored pencil - which is pretty cool - it is a blend of three different colors (red, yellow, and brown) and blends itself nicely! The yellow square was stamped with part of a tree image from an InkDinkaDo stamp. The red squares were placed into my new embossing folder from QuicKutz. I love adding gems to the places the diamonds meet up.. well this folder is called Diamonds and Dots, and has a circle at just the right place! So they were embossed, sanded, and inked, and then the little metal dots (from Joann's) were added. Everything was layered, the orange squares put up on popdots, and the leaves added under the corners. They are not what I had originally thought up for cards, but I'm pretty happy with them.

Have to get more inchies done this week - still have the rest of the holidays and seasons to do. And birthday. I think there are 13 groups - I have 3 done so far. But that's another post.

And (as I realize I have mentioned all my scrappy boards except one...) don't forget to check out Savvy N Sassy's ribbon Kits! This is the September kit - isn't it beautiful?! I love that Rhea took the picture outside, I just love the way it looks!

Blog Candy!

2009-09-18T03:16:00.000-05:00

Check out this blog giveaway on Michelleo's blog!!

http://donkeysmiles.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post.html

I can't believe how many things she has in there already.. including 11 stamp sets!!!

live love {scrap}

On friendship... and a very special album

A long break.. and Lamington Cake

Cooking Time

Ingredients (serves 12)

Chocolate icing

Method

And so it begins...

JMC photos

Fireworks

Another show (sort of), floods, and a lazy day

Yes, another JMC show... and look! new music!

A couple of scrappy things, a new bracelet, and a yummy

Boots, Bands, and Bulls

Bleah

JMC in Quincy IL!

Birthday, babies, and beer (not necessarily in that order...)

Prima giveaway!!

Snow...

Sorry

LOL

April 3rd!

CHA preorders @ Serendipity!!

Psyko and Paul

Project Runway Crop

Hottie challenge

Serendipity's Project Runway Crop

p365

A not-so-happy new year so far...

Christmas, and my latest Tim tags

Merry Christmas!

Tim's Tags Days 11 and 12 and more

Tim's Tags - Day 10

Tim's Tags - Days 8 and 9

Tim's tags - Day 7

Tim's Tags - Day 6

Tim's Tags - Day 5

12 Tags... Day 4

Tim's Tags - Day 3

Tim's Tags - Day 2

Today is the day - Tim's 12 Days of Christmas Tags - Day 1

My goodness, it has been a long time...

Photo shoot at the Riverview Park

Chasin' Jason Layout, or What I Did This Weekend...

Serendipity POTD, and @JMCOfficial

New pumpkin photos and birthday photos

What? She's how old??

Pumpkin carving

And the winner is....

Holy cannolli

{SAS}sy Scrap Pink Crop, and Framed again.

Crop layouts, Queen of the Crop, and @jmcofficial and...

I've been framed again!

MINE

Serendipty Pimp My Bra Crop

JMC on Fox 4 Atlanta

JMC on Good Day Atlanta, POTD, and a trip to Ohio

Make A Wish layout

Star for the Day, a new ATC and twitter

Blog award!

Sketch layouts, and Bra Pimping

JMC and NRS partnership

I've been framed!!

Cricut Gypsy

A sad day

Pick/Star of the Day!

Blog Candy!