Bad Wife, Bad Blogger!

Wow, it has been awhile. This Christmas was the first time Eddie and I hosted Christmas dinner. I have been so busy getting things ready -like getting a dining room table 2 days before Christmas- that my poor little blog has been severely neglected! I am thoroughly exhausted ~but everything turned out perfectly, well except for the roasted pears that never made to the dinner table because there was just too much food (a gourmet salad would have been complete overkill).

I will post pictures soon, but I just wanted to say HEY and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Oh, and the bad wife in the title relates to me finishing my first scrapbook ever last week (yay me!) -except while I was working on it in my stampin room, my husband had food poisoning (which I was unaware of). I guess he was calling me for over 3 hours, but I was croppin, stampin, and singin along to some Christmas tunes and turned an unkowingly deaf ear. Poor thing was shivering and puking and all that not-fun stuff, while I was really having a good time and making a beautiful mini-scrapbook of our Paris vacation. He is doing fine now, but a little concerned in case there is ever a real emergency happening when I happen to be stampin. The world could come to an end, but if I'm stampin, I really won't notice -but in the aftermath of the world's end, a little embellishment and glitter will be necessary!

Angel Ornament

Another Bride's Tree ornament! This is the angel for "God's guidance in the home". It has been a while since my last post -I have been so busy getting ready for Christmas! This will be the first time that Eddie and I host Christmas Dinner; we are still trying to find a dining room table/chairs that will match our dining area motif, meets our budget, and fits into the itty bitty space we have alotted for it. Yikes!

Happy Birthday!

It is my friend's birthday tomorrow and I had to use the new "happy heart day" set from SU. I love this elephant and his little heart flowers (which are 3D glittered using crystal effects). I am surprized I got it finished as Mia has been 'helping' me!

Bad Kitty

This weekend Eddie and I went out to get a Douglas Fir tree for Christmas. I am so happy! Our house now smells like Christmas and the tree is just beautiful.

Every year, it was a family tradition to get a special ornament from my Mom so that when my sister and I moved out, we would have ornaments for our tree. We not only had ornaments, but a tree full of happy memories. My Mom even gave us a couple ornaments from the 1970s that she made for her first tree with my Dad.

So our tree is quite an eclectic collection of ornaments -my favorites are my Miss Piggy angel that was my '2-year old' ornament and the Mexican snowman I got last year.

Okay, so why is this post under the lable "Bad Kitty"? Well, I am sure you can guess, little Miss Mia is no longer allowed unsupervised in our living room. We were careful to avoid breakables at the bottom, but this cat is expert at getting glass ornaments! She is now banished to the stampin room to 'play' with me. By play, I mean she knocks off all my 'loose' stamps from my workspace while I try and type this post!!! She also crawled into my photo-tent while I was trying to take pictures of cards. Above she is almost angelic -looking into the light- but below, she found my hand, one of her favorite toys ~second only to my feet!

Bride's Tree -Rabbit Loves Fruit

Here are several more ornaments for the Bride's Tree.

The rabbit stands for Faith and Hope

The heart is for true love.

The fruit basket (my personal favorite!!!) is for good wishes.

Stampaholics Anonymous

My name is Michelle and I am a stampaholic.

I can't stop buying stampstuff. I am also an enabler and a really bad sponsor.

It was my responsibility to stop my friend from buying anymore stamp stuff until after the holidays. She just spent $90 at JoAnn's.

My response: "Ooooooooh! What did ya buy?????"

Bride's Tree -Santa

Santa is the symbol for unselfishness and goodwill

(the line out of santa's head is the hanger for the tree).

Bride's Tree Ornaments

My dear friend got married this year, and for Christmas, I made her a "Bride's Tree". I believe it is a German tradition that a new bride should have these 12 ornaments on her first Christmas tree.

So -as a former potter- I picked up some white Sculpey clay and began quite a tiresome clay-making escapade. I am really happy with the ornaments and almost don't want to give them away. :)

After the ornaments were baked, I painted them with watercolors and sealed them with clear nail polish. I won't post all of the ornaments at once, but I will be posting them this week -and no worries, she does not know I have a blog ;)

Christmas kiss

Yesterday was a frenzy of Christmas card making. My friend came over and we had a great time stampin away. My DH stepped in (only for about 30 sec) -I think he was awestruck by all the sparkling glitter that somehow made its way everywhere. Glitter is kind of like that. He has a 1 minute tolerance of all that glitters in stamp central -he tends to wind up with it all over him somehow (is he a closet stamper?). I will only mention the kiss of glitter on his cheek if I catch it before he goes out on a shoot. If I catch it when he gets home , I think it's best he doesn't know (let him think it's his flash that's making all his photos dazzle...)

Hmmmm....you think this toad will turn into a prince? I have seriously gone crazy over silver embossing powder, it works great for a background and for the 'center stage' stamp. I have been using it on almost every card lately!

Snowmen Falling from the Sky

I love this little snowman, he is just too cute. In this card he is catching a ride on a giant snowflake ;)

Winter Wonderland

It is actually raining here in So.Cal -so it is almost a winter wonderland or as much as it gets here! I used this snowflake background stamp with craft white, and after embossing it, it was just too pretty to cover with another image. I found this snowflake punchout -embossed it (of course) and added the gemmed SU brad.

Miss Twidbitts Strikes Again

I made the image small because I cannot believe I am putting her on my blog. There has just been a crazy doll craze and it needs to stop! Marie O.'s creepy doll dance performance (dancin with the stars) and Miss Priss's hedda-bedda spinning face doll have brought up some bad memories!

Okay, this puppet used to follow and harrass me when I was working up in Barrow, Alaska. Now you may wonder why I have her picture? I did not take the picture! It just appeared on my film!

Anyhow, I was bloggin about it to Miss Priss (see above link) and thought a visual may paint the picture.

Gaga for Glitter

So today I went on a little stampin spree. I found some great $1 Michael's stamps (santa) and this cute amuse ' candy cane a day' saying. I also got the giga square scallop which I love! It is great because it has the lever so it is easy to punch. I am thinking about going back and picking up the oval scallop -although that is outta my budget and I have no space ~but when has that ever stopped me?!?

Another for the Challenge

Here is another card design for the shimmery silver snow capped challenge. I just came back from Michaels and was disappointed to find no $1 Christmas stamps!!! I did find these cute Christmas stickers (the word saying) that are slightly 3D (think crystal effect from SU) -and of course I had to have them!

Happy Thanksgiving -love Chili!

This is my puppy Chili. Okay -he isn't really a puppy anymore, but he'll always be a little puppy to me (except when he whaps me with his tail...). Isn't he a cutie? This is Chili dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween, but I felt this costume seemed more appropriate for Thanksgiving. And I am sure that he would have preferred to be something more like 'super dog' or a fireman instead of a pumpkin. I really think this dog was born to be a doggie model -and I am not just biased. I think my hubby's dog Mila may have been whapped with an ugly stick -but just once cuz she is still a cutie.

okay, and just to be fair, I will post a picture of both the pups on Halloween -yes, fair Mila was not a princess, but the wise jedi Yoda. I am sure the pups cannot wait to dress up for their X-mas photoshoot!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So last Thursday was a fantastic Thanksgiving over at my Mom's house -included in the meal was great food, great company and some fantastic margaritas! My mom used a super yummy cranberry-margarita recipe. Notice the cute touch of a california fan palm (Washingtonia filifera in case anyone was interested in the species name of the palm tree acting as a toothpick) toothpick stuffed with cranberries. I think I will be using this one for Christmas -it is just too fitting for a southern california holiday!

The place settings were also just lovely with gold chargers and candlelight. I made nametags for each place setting which turned out to be a hit. They are very simple but have just enough sparkle! I hope everyone had a really great Thanksgiving. It was really great having my sister and her husband in town from Washington, D.C. and having both my family and my husband's family together. There was just so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, I think I could use another turkey dinner ;)

Miss Priss Color Challenge

Finally an image for the challenge! I finished this card last week but was too distracted with the holidays and holiday shopping to get a picture taken! -and this picture does not do this card justice! I love this card layout and how sparkely it is IRL!

Yippeee!

My lecture in photosynthesis went really well today (interview for a teaching position). I will be teaching biology part-time at a community college next semester! I am reallly excited. It is exactly what I was looking for -I can teach bio and still have stampin time (now I don't have to feel guilty about buying stamps...)!

This card I made a little while ago, but it really shows how I am feeling :) The stamp is the A Muse 'gymnasts' stamp. I cut the two gymnasts in half and used the legs from one gymanst and the top from the other one.

Comin up rosey!

This is one of my last roses. I am hoping to get another bloom before Christmas, but it isn't looking so good! I love roses when they start losing their petals -you can start to see all the good stuff (anthers, stamen, ect.). I thought it appropriate to put up a green picture as I should be working on my photosynthesis lecture for monday...

Wild Animals

These are some Wild Animal Park inspired thank yous. I really love accenting things with the ric rac ribbon. I can never get enough ribbon!!! -but I have restricted myself from buying anything else until I at least START some of my many projects. I am overwhelmed by my own hoarding!

Martini Anyone???

I thought a little martini may help edge Friday closer to Happy Hour!!!

More of Mia

See, there she is stalking my feet. 10 seconds later she attacked. I guess she doesn't realize that I can see her (?) but I think that's part of the fun for her.

Here is a close-up. I love these kinds of pictures -up close and personal : )

My Cutie

I was out taking pictures of flowers in the backyard when this little cutie caught my eye. Of course, she did attack me a few times as I am her favorite prey other than lizards.

A Bug's Life

I love the "cute as a bug" set from SU! I used the SU circle/flower punchin combo and a little added sparkely for the ladybug spots with crystal effects and glitter.

A Handmade Binkie for NY, NY

This is the baby blankie that I quilted for my "almost born" niece. Unfortunately for us out here on the West Coast, this little one will be born and livin in NY city. So I found this adorable NY Shopping fabric and thought it would be perfect for a future NYer. I loved the cheetah pattern and had to pair it with NY -as it is a jungle out there:)

Here is a close up view of the front -I love this quilt pattern with the fringe on top, it makes the blanket so cozy! I also love how I could still add an extra touch of pink in the fringe by using pink squares on the back.

Another close-up. This baby was just too much work for just one photo :)

This is the pattern on the top part of the blanket.

This is the bottom of the blanket

Holy Pink Elephants, Batman!

This is one of my favorite SU stamps. It's just so cute! This card was for the baby shower as Celeste loves elephants too. The colors are a little bright for me (I am more of a soft subtles kind of girl), but lately I have been all bright and bold ~it must be the new found freedom after quitting my job!!!! ;)

Oh Baby!

My sister-n-law is about a month away from giving birth to a bouncing baby girl. I am so excited!!! In late September I threw her a baby shower with her mom. It was a lot of fun. Above is the shower invitation.

This was the shower party favor. The gold candles were from Target -they are so pretty in person, although I have no idea how they burn. I am hoping they don't make a mess when they melt, at least if they do it will be a pretty mess... The stamp is SU punched with my favorite punchin combo -also SU.

Thanks to Miss Priss!

I wanted to send out a shout out to Miss Priss for such a warm welcome to the blogging world!!! I will say she is really a fantastic friend and an oustanding enabler -not always a good thing ;). She introduced me to the stampin' world a year ago and really got me hooked on a wonderful hobby -which I hope to share with you all!

Trick or Treat...my little helper

This is me on Halloween dressed as a 1950's Mousekateer (sp?). With me is my little helper, Mia, dressed as herself for Halloween -she is not one for costumes; however, she is quite the actress, she plays a great little devil!

Trick or Treat...a little late!

The following are my Halloween cards. They are a mixture of SU, A Muse, and Michael's $1 stamps.