Lifting Off!

Happy Monday to all of my friends out there!  I am in beautiful and sunny South Carolina, my favorite place on earth it is!  The weather has been fabulous and we spent the day on the beach yesterday which was nice—I like to just sit and read and I’ve got my Ipad Kindle loaded up with a bunch of great books for this summer.  Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan, some books by Barbara Freethy, Beach Lane by Sherryl Woods (love this Chesapeake series), One Summer by David Balducci and a new one by one of my fave SC authors Kathryn Wall (I’m going to meet her Tuesday night, yay) in the Bay Tanner Series “Jericho Cay”!  I’m sure I’ll read more than this but this is a great start, LOL!  Last year I read 13 books at the beach, hee hee, and yes I am a fast reader and I read very LATE into the night!

If you follow my blog you know I read A LOT---the 2 questions I get asked the most?  When do you have time to read?  Very late at night, I read before I go to bed every night no matter how tired I am as it helps me relax a bit and sometimes I’ll read until 4 am if the book is really, really good.  And then sometimes during the day on the weekends if our schedule allows it.  How do I get everything I do done? (that’s the 2nd question)  Welllllll, I’m not really sure and I have no easy answer for it really.  I work a lot, I’m a bit Type A and I like to be busy and moving until bedtime, LOL.  I have no magic answers or magic schedule and there are days that I want to pull my hair out and yes I do get stressed.  But I always remind myself that I’m happy to be alive, happy to work in such a great community and doing something I love and happy that I have the supportive family I have.  And oh yeah----I DO RUN ON BATTERIES LMBO

And of course I can’t EVER travel without a few fun things happening right?  I mean I have a curse me thinks that allows weird, strange and crazy things that follow me around for sure!  So we left for SC on Friday and took a pit stop at my parent’s to drop my dogs off and then ventured onwards to Florence, SC where we stopped for the night.  But at a NC rest stop I was in the potty and washing my hands when a woman came out with her pants at her ankles (no she was NOT special needs or older, she was around 30ish).  Best part?  She had NO underwear on---OMG!!  I was so stunned I just stood there and then I bust out laughing and ran out of the bathroom.  My friend Andi on FB suggested that maybe she was “air drying” LMBO but I’m not really sure what the heck she was up to---but I do know that I like toilet paper wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much, hee hee!  Then last night Riley and I were eating Alaskan King Crab legs for dinner (yum) and Riley put his shells in the basket BUT decided that there was a BUMP in the basket that he just haaaad to push down, LOL.  Why you ask---cuz that’s what crazy boys do I guess!  Yep he pushed it and the crab legs flew up thru the air and landed on the table beside us which surprised the heck outta the people sitting there of course—LMBO—omgoodness.  This is why you want to AVOID being near us when we eat or pretty much anywhere the Dean family goes, hee hee----strangeness FOLLOWS us.  But its all good and always fun

Here are a few pics for ya to giggle at (if you get this by email, pics are only viewable at website)



NewsBitz: 


-7 Kids College Fund has the new and super fabulous Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps in stock HERE!


-Check out the NEW CMC Challenge that just started this past weekend HERE!  Its a fun one and our sponsor is Tiddly Inks.  I love Christy Croll who is the artist and her digi images are so much fun to use and color!  Everyone is welcome to join in the fun--the more the merrier!

-And oh yeah, guess what I got CHIBI'd!!  LOL---that's right and she's below for you! If you want to get one visit Kristy's site HERE!  She does an awesome job and I just adore mine--too cute!  Red is my fave color and she included that in my shirt---kinda looks like me in cartoon form 'eh?  LOL!  Thanks Kristy!

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Flying Dreams!!

Today I’m sharing a project with you that I did while I was on the Splitcoast Stampers Dirty Dozen team in early 2010.  I’m thankful that I have a stock pile of projects from that time to share with you every now & again, lol.  These projects were not allowed to be shown at my blog until 6 mos after my term ended.  Helps me out when I’m on vacation since I only was able to get a few projects done before I left home!  This was one of my faves and features stamps by Paper Trey Ink.



The stamp set from Paper Trey Ink is called “Up, Up, & Away” along with the matching PTI dies to cut the balloons and clouds out.  The theme that particular month for the Dirty Dozen was “Invitations” and I created different invites using only tutorials/templates from the SCS site.  This one is called “Free Standing Pop Up Card”—a really fun & easy project to make and so many variations too.  I decided to make a Graduation Invitation with this stamp set---the air balloons remind me of dreaming, aiming high and heading off to new adventures.  The papers are by GCD Studios called “Homespun Chic” and I loved the yellow and aqua color combos. I stamped the hot air balloons right onto the patterned paper.  I die cut the clouds and then softly inked the edges with my Inkssentials Blending tool and then added Stickles to them for sparkle.



I made my card so that the insert pulls fully out, so you can flip the front around to reveal the invitation part.  I used another PTI set called “ for the “For the Graduate” sentiment and then used my computer to print off the invitation details.  I added a few more hot air balloon and cloud die cuts to match the front.  Don’t you think this would be such a FUN invite to receive?  I’d love to get something like this myself, LOL!



And then the insert slides down in the box part and it all folds flat so you can mail it easily!  A fun and creative way to make some invites for a summer party perhaps?

Ok I hope you enjoy your week!  I will have another post on Wed for you but if you want to keep up with me and my CRAZY family on vacation (lol ) you can follow me on FB. I regularly update it with pictures and such while I’m away and traveling (yes my family is used to this)!