October MCPT Challenge Card

I have been working on this card for the past few days ... off and on as time permits. I chose the House Mouse images for the Magic Colored Pencil Challenge on the Cricut Message board. This card is called a Tri-shutter card (splitcoaststampers.com has the tutorial for the cuts) I had the paper in my "stash" so I don't know which company makes it. I used my scalloped circle nestabilities to cut the front image. All the rest ... I trimmed myself. The tag is cut from the cartridge "Tags, Bags, Boxes and More". I used rain dot bats, stars and dots. The ribbon is from Hobby Lobby. The candy corn is from Michael's. I put some google eyes in some of the "O's"! I also used the drippy goo punch from Martha Stewart and I put some picket fence distress stickles on top of the drips.

Day 270, Sunday, September 27

The Peoria Art Guild, hosted the annual Fine Arts Fair on the river front this weekend. We walked along the river front viewing all of the booths from the various artists. (These are not the "starving artist") The most expensive item we saw was about $6,000 ... oh my! There were all kinds of medium...jewelry, pottery, painting (oil & acrylic), photography, textiles and glass works. It was a great afternoon to view all the works of art.

You could participate in the community art project by painting a "tile". The Interactive Mural this year was a copy of the painting "Poppies" by artist Hyacinth Manning.

Day 268 & 269, Friday, September 25 and Saturday, September 26

This is a picture of Crater Lake in New Zealand. Our nephew, Andy has been in New Zealand...."Living the life", since March. He has been working at a Ski Resort with 2 of his friends. Since their seasons are opposite of ours, their winter is almost over. They will be moving on to another piece of their "adventure". Love ya, Andy....please be safe!

I picked up our fused glass from our class last night. At the top is mine, in the middle row left...Stacie's, right is Cindy's and on the bottom is Cathy's. Not too bad for our first time and a couple of hours of work! Two of Stacie's smaller pieces will become rings. All of the rest will have silver bales glued to the back and be worn as pendants.

Day 267, Thursday, September 24

Boy did we have fun tonight! We (Cindy, Stacie, Cathy, Teacher Amy and me) took a Fused Glass class offered through the park district. Amy Psinas, who is one of the high school art teachers, taught the class. She sells jewelry at craft shows in our area. We made 10 different pieces and used 4 different techniques (which I can't remember all of the names!). The class was held in the high school art studio. I think we might take this class again, since we kinda got the hang of it!

Day 266, Wednesday, September 23

I opened the door this morning and on the screen was this bug. I don't know what kind of bug it is...don't really want to know...but I couldn't believe it was just sitting there!

Day 265, Tuesday, September 22

Tonight we went to see "Stomp!". I had seen the program before (thanks John and Stacie!), but Jim had never seen the performance. For 2 hours, we watched the cast bang on and bang with every day items...like 5 gallon water bottles, garbage cans and lids, plastic bags, inner tubes, long handled brooms, lighters and the kitchen sink. It was so much fun to interact with the cast and watch their movement!

Day 264, Monday, September 21

I have taken close up pics of these flowers before (playing with my macro!), but today, I know that this flower bed will be gone soon. Not only because of the weather....but, they have decided to eliminate this flower bed and replace it with evergreen trees! Most of the plants will be dug up and moved to another flower bed in the park. I have really enjoyed watching these flowers grow this season as I walk by them every day to ride "the wheels of death"!

Day 263, Sunday, September 20

Stacie and Toni came over today to talk about invitations for Toni's wedding. We played with some paper and searched the internet for verses. We made a couple of samples and I sent my cardstock sample books with Toni so she could pick out the color of paper she wanted. We might make two different invitations...one for the wedding/reception and one for just the reception! I hope she liked what I designed for her. (you can see the samples in Toni's lap!) I used Life's A Beach and cut the Hibiscus using the Photo Card feature. I cut the Hibiscus flower with purple and green, inked, glittered and layered them with pop dots! We used a butterfly background stamp from Stampin' Up to add some color to the edges. I will post a pic of the final design when she makes up her mind about colors.

Day 262, Saturday, September 19

We had our card swap and recipe swap this morning. We went to Jen's house and had brunch. We each made a breakfast recipe to share. This is some of the yummiest breakfast ever! Thanks to the great cooks of the Chirpin' Chicks!

Day 261, Friday, September 18

I have not printed pictures since Christmas....I waited until I got a "deal". Well, Walgreens had 1/2 price prints...so I placed my order. When I went to pick them up, they weren't done downloading them. They said they were going to call me. So, the next day, I called and the server had crashed and they had to start all over. At 8:15 a.m., the file was restarted and when I called at 4 p.m., it was only 58%. I picked the pictures up on Friday....This is 649 prints!

Day 260, Thursday, September 17

Today started with a phone call ... Jim's mom had been taken to the hospital. The doctor found a blood clot in her brain. The procedure went well and hopefully she will continue to improve. So the picture of the day is Jim, Scott and Rachel sitting in the hallway at the hosptial...they were drooling over Scott's blackberry! No Jim...you don't get one, too!

Day 259, Wednesday, September 16

Grandma and Grandpa Smith are getting the driveway replaced. The old driveway is torn up and the ground is ready to have the concrete poured. No more grass patch down the middle of the drive...just concrete. Won't that be easier to plow the snow off?

Day 258, Tuesday, September 15

The fence is up around the new tennis courts. If you look really close, you will see the green net posts sticking up in the middle of the surface. The light posts are laying on the ground waiting to be installed. It won't be long now!

Day 257, Monday, September 14

This is my ipod shuffle. I listen to music when I ride "the wheels of death"! It helps to make my bike ride go faster! I have lots of tunes on here and lots of different music....but mostly country. Rascal Flatts, Shaina Twain, Toby Keith...but I also have ZZ Top that gets me through the middle of the exercise session when I really want to quit!

Day 256, Sunday, September 13

Today Jana and I went to the Marigold Festival to view the "Art In The Park". The craft vendors set up their booths around the edge of the lagoon. We shopped at the booths and stopped and had our annual ribeye steak sandwich from the Rotary Club. It was a nice day for a walk around the park. Lots of people and no rain!

Day, 255, Saturday, September 12

Today, I attended a workshop taught by Wendy Vecchi, from Studio 490. Her blog is http://www.studio490art.blogspot.com/. She is an awesome teacher. If you ever have the chance to take a class taught by her, you will not regret it. The projects always look complicated and difficult...but she is amazing and everyone finishes their project and if you take the time to look through her blog...you will see that my project turned out just like hers!

The other items in the picture are the door prizes I won. The little green card was tucked in my supplies....so I stood up and said "I love studio 490!" And I do!

This is my card for the fall card swap. I used the coordinations black magic paper and cuttlebugged it with the haunted house folder and swiss dots. I used the drippy goo punch on the bottom of the tag which is a Stampin' Up phrase. The pumpkin is a cuttlebug die...but it was too big for my window, so I cut the outter edges off of the pumpkin and cut the leaf off and attached it to the body of the pumpkin. I cut the scallop circle with the nestablities and used my Martha Stewart fence punch. I stickled the moon with distress stickles to make it glow. I sanded the haunted house to make the green paper show through. This card is a diaroma card and you can find the directions on http://www.heartprints.net/, thanks Sue Nelson!

Day 254, Friday, September 11

This is what my desk looks like right this minute. I don't like it when I have "stuff" all over the place. I am working on my fall card swap and trying to come up with a great design....I don't think it is great just yet....maybe in a few days!

Day 253, Thursday, September 10

At 6 p.m., the book fair opened...and for the next 60 minutes or so, Cindy and I collected money from parents and students. We always volunteer at Open House and work at the book fair. Our school will profit from the book sales. It is a great way to put books in the hands of our students and new books in our library!

Day 252, Wednesday, September 9

Well, today is 09/09/09...I didn't realize it until I had written the date a few times! My pic for today is my "thinksport" bottle. Jim bought these for us from this internet site http://www.thinksportbottles.com/. These containers will hold 24 oz of liquid. They are double walled stainless steel. I can put ice in it at 7 in the morning and the same ice will still be in it at 7 at night. I can't believe how long the ice will stay in the container. It will hold hot liquid the same way....but I don't do hot liquids...only cold!

Day 251, Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Here is another shot of the tennis courts. Today they had placed the poles for the fence around the outter edge. I thought it was funny to see them sitting in the holes but not up straight. It won't be long and the courts will be ready for tennis players!

day 250, Monday, September 7

I am in a recipe swap for the month of September. We are having a brunch at a friend's house. Since I have been doing a low fat diet for a while...I looked up a recipe for a low fat coffeecake. The recipe is from the egg beaters website. I made it the other day and thought it was very good. The recipe is printed on the inside card (see picture below). I used my cricut (Fabulous Finds) for the yellow under the title, a Stampin' Up tag punch and scalloped circle nesties for the cake picture. I also crimped the left side after I put adhesive, so the card will stay inside. I used a 3/4" circle punch to make the "thumb" opening on the right side.


This picture will be my potd, since I have worked on these for several days.


Since I hadn't finished my MCPT Challenge card and for some reason, I missed counted my pockets for the recipe swap...my "leftover" pocket became my birthday card. I used the scalloped oval nesties on the front, doodled on the outter edge. The charm is from Hobby Lobby and the ribbon came from my stash. The paper is a DCWV Summer Stack from Joann's.


The inside is a Changito monkey stamp and the sentiment is from Stampin' Up. I used some Martha Stewart glitter on the frosting and glossy accents on the strawberry. I added black polka dots to her apron and some little tiny pearls for a necklace.

Day 249, Sunday, September 6

We went to the movies today. We saw "All About Steve". Sandra Bullock is one of my favorite actresses. While this movie wasn't one of her best, I enjoyed the movie, but ate too much popcorn.

Day 248, Saturday, September 5

This is a picture of my little farm in the game Farmville on Facebook. It is fun to plant crops and harvest them. I have lots of trees that I have received as gifts and animals, too! Thanks to my neighbors for helping me with my farm.

Day 247, Friday, September 4

I have been watching the U.S. Open this week. My favorite pro player is Taylor Dent. I took a picture of him during his winning match tonight! He has made it back to the professional tennis circuit after having 2 back surgeries in the past couple of years. Go Taylor!!

Day 246, Thursday, September 3

I went down to the riverfront this afternoon and took a picture of the water fountain. It is one of those that squirts water out of several openings in the ground and stops and starts again. It is fun to watch the little kids run in and out of the fountain.

Day 245, Wednesday, September 2

My picture of the day is of this old wagon full of fall mums. I saw this yesterday and thought to myself, I should stop in the morning and take a picture of it. This is at a local nursery. My car is behind the wagon, so that should give you an idea of the size.

Day 244, Tuesday, September 1

I am so proud of myself! I have completed each and every month of my 2009 calendar. This is the August layout. I record what each "picture of the day" is on the calendar. I also have birthdays listed and other activities that happen during the month. When the year has ended, my plan is to remove the wire binding and put the pages in my regular scrapbook with the other layouts that I have done for the year. (there were 12 different "Chirpin' Chicks" who created the pages...we each made 12 of the same layout and traded to have 12 different layouts for the calendar)