Holy Cow!

Well, Peeps. Looks like I took an extended vacation from this blog. I assure you, it was totally unintentional. I was trying to get my kiddos through the last weeks of school. We are done and have been for a few days. Whew. Now I am hoping to get a lot of projects finished and more started and completed this summer. So, rest assured, there will be more photos to come.

This photo is a window card and in the window, I adhered an ATC transparency from Prickley Pear Stamps. They have some fantastic NEW transparencies!! You really need to check them out. They are very versatile. I did some spot color on mine. I used Twinkling H2O's. Then after stamping the front of the card with Prickley Pear Rubber stamps, I adhered the transparency in the window!

The transparencies would be beautiful colored with Copics, Alcohol inks or Shimmerz. Hummm...maybe that is another project all together!

Anywho....hope you check back for more projects. I am tellin' ya'...my creative flow must have flown somewhere else, because I sure have had trouble finding it!!! Hopefully, it will come back soon, because I could sure use it. If you see my creativity around...could ya' send it back?

Hope you have a great start to your week! Thanks for stopping by.

hurry, hurry.....

Oh, my. Is Christmas almost here? We have been invaded by sickness at our house. The kids have snuffly noses, I still have traces of a cough and my voice isn't back to full strength, and my husband has an all out congestion/cough problem. I wish it would all go away. However, we will just get to deal with it while it is here!

I can't believe Christmas is so close to being here! Do you all have your shopping done?? I am close to being done, but still have several gifts on the table to make. One more week of schooling the kiddos and then we will be on Christmas break. I am so much more ready than they are for this to happen! It's a long time from Labor Day to Thanksgiving without a break from school. (If you hadn't thought about that...I ASSURE you it is true!)

This is the last of the Christmas themed cards I will be posting. I have a bunch of photos taken, but just not any uploaded to my computer. (I don't have time to do that right now...I am too busy making the projects and photographing them.) I am in survival mode...

The wreath image is from Prickley Pear. The patterned paper is Basic Grey. It is actually NOT a christmas paper, but goes so well with the card that I couldn't resist. Speaking of Basic Grey, have you checked out their new Wassail line for Christmas?? Oh, it's luscious. It has paper that is very "christmasey", but it has some that could be used all year long. It's very versatile and quite lovely. My DD and I did some little gifts with that line of paper and they turned out fabulous! Oh, and I digress... The image here is simple and straightforward. Therefore, I have no more deets to add.

Hope all your holiday preparations are going well. I am off to work to teach a class this p.m. It's snowing here in Idaho today. You probably just think that is normal. However, we don't live in the mountains. We live in the the valley. In the middle of the desert. We really don't get a lot of rain and snow here in southern Idaho. My kids are outside with their "snow gear" on. They love this!!! I am trying to imagine what our life would be like if they lived in a place that REALLY got snow!?

Hope you have a great week! Thanks for stopping by.

Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen...

Well Peeps. I am looking forward to my weekend off. Yep. One whole weekend. Well deserved, since I worked four out of five Saturdays in November, including Thanksgiving. (cue violins here...) Anyway...I am also working on a chest cold with laryngitis. (My husband LOVES when I get laryngitis...just one more reason to tease me.) The only house cleaning chore on the list is to clean the bathrooms. A job I really, really detest. However, I am glad that no one else sees the condition of the bathrooms...because I would truly be embarassed!!!

Then, other than that little chore, I am going to scrapbook. And scrapbook and scrapbook. Oh, I might throw in some cards too. I do have to do some tags and cards to go along with the gifts I have been slaving away on. (I had better get busy. I think I will scrapbook for a while and then clean the bathrooms....hee-hee.) If you want to see some festive and beautiful christmas tags, you ought to hop on over to Tim Holtz's blog and check out his "12 tags of Christmas". They are fabulous.

As for my card, well, the reindeer and believe stamps are from Prickley Pear. The reindeer is stamped in Versamark, the "Believe" is stamped and then I used white embossing powder on it. The patterned paper is from Chatterbox. I love the simplicity of this card. I don't do my own Christmas cards. I used to, but it got to be such a chore that it wasn't something that as enhancing my holiday season...so I just quit. It takes a lot of time to put together 60 or 70 Christmas cards. I love them, but after the kids were born, it was just too much. However, I did this card for the Prickley Pear design team. Since it is the Christmas season, after all!

Okay, Peeps! Have an excellent weekend. I am off to scrapbook, make cards and then photograph them so I can share them with you later!

Believe....

that I will finally post a project again!! And here it is! Okay...this is just ONE of the many projects I have had going on, and now am finally getting posted!

This is a card I did for my design team project over at Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. Nicole has some lovely Christmas stamps. You ought to head on over and check it out! She also has asked another lovely lady to be part of the design team there, so you will want to watch out for Sally Lynn MacDonald.

On this card, the "believe" was stamped with white ink on a dark blue cs background. Then I used a totally "un-Christmas" background. It is a shimmery paper from the Luxurious Line from DCWV. On that icy looking paper, I used Versamark and stamped those little snowflake/twinkles using another PPRS stamp. I used a tinsel embossing powder on the Versamark. My embossing poweder had some silver glitter in it, but was mostly clear. It worked perfectly for the look I was trying to acheive. (See close-up below.)

Those are pretty much the details. I did add some bling to make it a bit more sparkly.

I must tell you that here at the Gem house, things are wild and crazy. With two young children, how can Christmas be anything but crazy??! This Gem mommy is close to losing her mind today, in fact. (That started LOOONNNGGGG before the kiddos arrived, however.) Lots of working at my part-time job, doing school with the kiddos, extra projects and just added stress seems to be taking it's toll. It might end up being one of those "Calgon, take me away!" weeks. (Okay...I am showing my age. How many of you out there remember those Calgon commercials.)

I will be back soon to post more projects. I have several already dumped to my hard drive now, so life will be easier for a while. Or not.

Have a great week, Cyber-Friends!!

Thankful.

Well, Peeps...I know it is a bit early for Thanksgiving...but I am not into Halloween. Yeah...we do the "cutting of the pumpkins" for the kiddos and they dress up and go out trick-or-treating. However, I am not into the Halloween decorations and definitely NOT into Halloween cards. Nothing wrong with all that...I just don't do it. So while I skipped Halloween, I did do this Thanksgiving card. The details? Well, the paper is Bo-Bunny, the stamps are Prickley Pear, and the coloring? Prismacolor pencils. The image is stamped in brown ink and then colored in.

Life is still zooming me by here at the Gem House. Since we school at home, trying to decide about school pictures for our kiddos is always a chore. In the last several years, our Virtual Academy does have a nationwide studio (LifeTouch) take photos of our kids. However, the COST is significant! So me being frugal, (translate that to "CHEAP"!!!!) I decided that we could take our own. Well, 150 shots later....we have done that. We have been experiencing some awesome fall days and on Monday afternoon (since DH doesn't work on Mondays) went and shot a few photos. We also set up the tripod and got a couple of family shots. Most turned out okay. However, that is mostly speculation, since they are still all on the memory card! We also shot a few photos of the pumpkin carving experience at the Gem House. That happened last night. So when I do get them off the memory card...I will be back to post a couple of them. Just what kind of exciting life do we lead?! hee-hee.

What a Hoot!

Well, it's time for me to be posting my Prickley Pear design team projects. I have them done, but just have been dragging my feet about getting them photographed and posted. But CyberPals, you are seeing it here first! Right after I am done here, I will get it posted to where it needs to go in cyberspace for the design team.

We are busy here at the Gem house finishing up our last two days of summer. Wednesday starts another year of the madness of schooling at home. I wish I could say that I am enthusiastic...but I am not. Yet. I will come. However, I am still lamenting the passing of summer. Where exactly did it go?? While most parents are whooping it up because their little cherubs are off to school...I am one of the stay-at-home moms who is dragging her feet into the next school year. After we get started, things will pick up speed and we will be flying along. My little cherubs brains will grow and this Mommy will be happy to see them flourish. However, we are trying to gear up and enjoy our last summer day tomorrow. What will we be doing? Nothing. Relaxing for one more day. I will be trying to cram all the things that need to be done (laundry, posting pics, scrapbook projects, cleaning the bathrooms...) into one day. And life goes on.

On to the project. The tree is a design from the Quickutz library. It is cut by the Silhouette. The leaves that come with the design were microscopic after we reduced the tree, so I substituted buttons. The patterned paper is from Basic Gray and the images (that cute owl and simplistic sentiment) are from Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. Nicole has such good stuff over there. Sneak on over to Prickley Pear and take a peek!!

Anyhoot....I am off to put the kiddos to bed and fold laundry. Fun night at the Gem house! Have a super week!

So Many babies...

Well Peeps...hope you are having a great weekend! Most of the Gem family is off camping in the wilds of Idaho! (with A/C and electricity...none-the-less! My in-laws have a rockin' camping trailer.) So I am left all by my lonesome here at the Gem home. Thursday was a great day and I got a bunch of projects done. However, I am now left to photograph them all. So that is on the agenda today. I will post a few photos of what I have been up to when I get those taken.

However, I found this card in my archives and thought I would post it. As I think I posted before, quite a lot (okay....THREE) friends/family had babies this summer. So while I was in "gift making mode" I whipped up this card also. The card base is from Archiver's Yours Truly line. The paper is from DCWV Stack III and the images??? All Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. One thing I would like to point out is on the sun figure, I got those gold, shimmery highlights on the lips and "rays" by using a clear Gelly Roll Stardust pen. It's a ballpoint pen, but the ink is so shimmery. It's to die for!!! It allows me to highlight small areas and add some sparkle and bling! I love my Gelly Roll pen by Sakura.

Well, now I am going to rush out to work on some more projects. I am having lunch and a movie with some friends from work. (matinee= cheaper. I am all for CHEAP!) However, I have a project I want to start before I go. (and it is NOT taking those photos I need to take of my projects!) I must say it is playing with some goodies I got as free blog candy over at Vicki's blog. (http://www.stampedsmiles.com/) Maybe I will have some projects from those goodies to take photos of too.

Have a great day, Peeps! Enjoy the last days before school starts!