Monday, December 25, 2006

BIG Kisses to Santa Baby!

This Christmas was wonderful. It is so much FUN with little ones! Our girls are 7, 4 and 2 and they were so excited about Christmas! Our oldest is so sweet and polite and would love just about anything for Christmas. This year she asked for a Bible of her very own. Isn't that sweet. The 4 year old just kept saying, "Can't you get that out? I want to play with it!" She doesn't understand how long it takes to unwrap those 102 wire twisty ties! (I HATE THOSE THINGS!) Here is a photo of her on one of the things she asked for. A simple pony head on a stick to ride around the house on! So simple - and NO WIRE TWISTY TIES! The 2 year old kept saying, "More presents me mommy?" In a way it made me sad to hear that. Did we miss explaining to her that Christmas is all about a tiny baby born long ago in Bethlehem? Probably not, we did attend a Jesus walk a couple weeks ago, they have been talking about Jesus' birth for several weeks at church in class-I had to cut her some slack and remind myself she is just 2! I guess I was surprised at how excited she was. I don't remember the other two getting so excited at such an early age.
Anyway, can I tell you how good Santa was to me? My sweet Santa hasn't really been a great romantic type Santa. My dh and I have been married for almost 10 years and together as a couple for 14. He has never been real romantic and to be honest tends to buy me things I NEED rather than fun stuff I want. Last year I got plastic mixing bowls from Big Lots and flannel pjs. This year he brought me to tears twice!
I really wanted a Vera Bradley purse but was sure my guy was not going to be caught dead picking out a purse! But, Santa brought it. A beautiful Mesa Red On The Go bag! I love it. But honestly more than anything, love that he really listened and he was so excited to give it to me!
But the best gift---a trip tomorrow -- just him and I -- to the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit to see Irving Berlin's A White Christmas!!!! He plans on taking me to Greek Town for lunch, on the People Mover and to the Casino to look around. I don't know if I am most excited for the fact we will be without kids, he arranged the sitter or the fact he came up with this whole trip on his own. Even as I write I am about in tears.
This has been a hard year for us and he has really scored some points this Christmas!!! In the next couple days I hope to show you some stampin goodies this same Santa got for me-like a Marvy Square Scallop Punch, how about the pink and brown striped bag from Scrap, Paper, Scissors....I must have been very good this year.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

UHU Review

A couple week's ago I discovered that UHU was giving away free samples of its adhesives to any crafter with a Blog as long as you would use the product and post a review of the product on your blog. SO, without hesitation I sent them an e-mail requesting mine. It arrived rather quickly and in my package was the UHU Glue Roller and the UHU Scrapbookers Pen. UHU GLUE ROLLER
The glue roller is a lot like the Stampin' Up! SNAIL, or Tombow's Mono Adhesive. The mono is my adhesive of choice at the moment. I was excited to try something similar but different in hopes it would be better. The Glue Roller is not refillable (at least the one they sent me is not). Rather than being a gluey tape thing like Mono, it is small adhesive dots. I will say that I like the dots better than the tape because there is no clogging. Also, I noticed that if you work slowly and precisely, the entire strip of dots is released onto your cardstock. Often with Mono half the glue remains on the applicator or clogs the applicator so you have glue boogers to remove. The UHU is also very smooth when applying it. The adhesive quality is about the same as Mono. It holds if you use it on all the outer lines. BUT, if you are looking for some super holding power, this is not for you.
Scrapbookers Pen
The Scrapbookers Pen is just liquid glue. There is no pen like applicator at all. I am not a huge glue fan when papercrafting. Its just too messy. I hate when I use it and it oozes out the sides. This glue is no exception. It is actually messier than any glue I have used with paper crafting (again, keep in mind I have only used about 3 types). When you take the lid off there are glue strands already so I knew it was going to be messy. I actually used this to try to glue a button onto my cardstock. It worked great for that! It held. The only problem was that it oozed out the sides and the holes in the middle of the button. I will probably continue to use my Crystal Effects for buttons as I like how easy it is to control it. But, if you like using glue, you might want to give this a try.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Merry Christmas to Me!

Yet another reason I love being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator---all demonstrators were told that Shelli (the co-founder of Stampin' Up!) was sending each of us a Christmas gift, but they didn't tell us what it would be. A few years ago when Stampin' Up! moved to a new facility we experienced terribly long shipping times, at Christmas they rewarded us for the trouble by sending us all a NEW stamp set as a gift!
When they announced we would be getting a gift I was just dreaming for free rubber! And, my package came yesterday! FREE STAMPS IT WAS! The set is called Polka Dots & Paisley and will be released in the Spring Mini Catalog. Here is the first card I have done using my new present. I'll try to play with it some more and post more samples soon!

Monday, December 18, 2006

I Bought Another Company's Stamps?!?!?

As everyone knows, Stampin' Up! is not the only rubber stamp producer. As you may or may not know, Stampin' Up! is not the only home based sales of rubber stamp sets. There are 2 other companies that I am familiar with - TAC (The Angel Company) and CTMH (Close to My Heart).
The main difference that I have heard about our companies is that SU! sells wood mounted stamp sets whereas the former companies sets are acrylic mount. What does that mean? Well, our rubber images are permanently adhered to wood blocks. The other companies images are removable and adhere to acrylic (plastic clear blocks). People who use acrylic blocks rave that your storage space is increased immensely because your sets are only as thick as a CD case and you store them in those to save shelf space. You have an acrylic block which your rubber images are stuck on to and them removed when you don't need it. This way you may have say 4 blocks that you use for all your images. I had heard it said too that the rubber images are clear so that you can see exactly where you are stamping an image. I was curious....
A friend had a book party with TAC and I found one set that I really liked so I ordered. It got the stamp set today and this is what I noticed:
1) The images are not the same size as the catalog. I know it says somewhere in the book that the images are only a certain % of the size shown, but I hate being expected to visualize the size of an image!
2) The images are not perforated at all on the rubber-it is literally a sheet that you just have to cut around the separate images, maybe not a big deal, but just different.
3) NO DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO MOUNT THESE THINGS! The rubber is separate from the foam! I assume that I mount the really sticky side of the rubber to the rubber image itself and not so sure about the other side. It is hardly sticky at all. This must be the side that attaches to the acrylic block. I wonder how long this thing will stick to the block if I change images frequently.
4) No sticker for the outside of the plastic container to label your box.
5) The rubber is not clear. It is blue...I always thought that the great thing about acrylic mount stamps is that the images are clear and you could see right through the block and rubber image to see exactly where you are putting the image. NOT so with TAC.
Once I buy an acrylic block (I neglected to get one when I placed this initial order), I will let you know about how they stamp. Let me just end by saying that I am so happy I found Stampin' Up!!! I love the images on the stamp set I purchased and TAC definately has a different style than Stampin' Up! I'll have to wait and see if I feel the desire to purchase any more.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Giving Up on Christmas Cards!

Not forever, just this year. I have lost count of how many I have sent out. Near 70 I am sure. I just can't keep doing it! The cost in postage alone is crazy! If you haven't gotten one from me, be sure that I am wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year but our postage fund has gone bankrupt!

Winter Mini Friend

This was made with Friendship Matters, a set from the new Winter Mini catalog. This mini catalog is incredible and everytime I look at it, there seems to be yet another set that moves up my WANT list!!! This is the only one I have purchased as of yet because I know that in January I can earn Sell-a-bration sets with the other goodies I am eye-balling! I made this card this morning for the Splicoaststampers color challenge for the week. CC#92 is Cool Caribbean, Whisper White and Real Red. Ever since Cool Caribbean was released I have been pairing it with Red and have LOVED those colors together...so bright! Anyway, I'm sending this one to a dear friend who needs a pick me up! Lisa is not a stamper so she won't see this to know she is getting it. Hopefully she will consider it a "fun" mail day when she gets the mail this week.
To do the scallop I used the scalloped decorative edge scissors which are no longer in the catalog! What a shame. I used the itty bitty circle hole punch to make the holes on the scallops and then using my white gel pen stuck the tip inside the circle and spun it around. I think it is rather cute!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Got to Get Busy.

I am still not done with my Christmas cards! Some people have received them from me but still others aren't even in an envie! I picked up stamps to send the last of the ones that are done, but I still have a few to finish-my stamp clubbers, some SCSer's that I wanted to send them to, and I still have a couple ornaments to make for Christmas gifts. Maybe tomorrow I can get some time to finish! At that time I will try to make something to post on here too! Don't give up on me!