Things Adults Don't Know

I recently read an article about things people had to tell other adults that was surprising. Some of them were real doozies, like once you cross the equator in an airplane you plane is not upside down and if you are standing on an island in the Pacific Ocean all the water you see is the Pacific Ocean. That body of water in the direction that the sun rises out of is not magically the Atlantic Ocean.

Others weren't so earth-shattering like people who didn't understand why once you added up the amounts of their payments it was more than the car sold for (interest, people!). The one I encounter isn't so earth shattering but is kind of perplexing. Then again I didn't grow up in the cell phone age.

I work at a reception desk for our department. We have an extra phone there for when people need to borrow a phone. Much like any phone in a rather public area it doesn't call long distance. So when people ask to borrow the phone we always tell them it doesn't call long distance and most of them respond that it is local. (The few who don't we send off to another place where there is a phone that dials long distance.)

The person using the phone will dial and hang up and dial and hung up and look perplexed and finally ask us why their call won't go through. When we ask what number they are dialing they invariably tell us a 10-digit number and we remind them you can't make long distance calls from. At that point a few people get that they need to drop the area code of their number and try again but most just look at you blankly like a deer in headlights.

Usually they get it when you further explain you drop the 520 (our area's area code). I had one person who asked what that meant so I explained that 520 meant the phone number was based out of Southern Arizona and that on a landline if you were calling it, you just ignored it. That just made it worse for her because then how does she get calls on her 520 number when she is out of state. *sigh*

The Fine Print: Stamps, dies and things by Stampin Up except the greeting by A Muse Studio.

Proof Positive

The other day my husband and his coworkers were discussing salsas. Salsa is a serious business here in the Southwest. They got on the subject of pumpkin salsa ('tis the season). My husband made a face and talked about how much he hated pumpkin salsa and how it was an abomination to man and oh my heck, his wife loved that stuff and it was the worst, most vile thing ever on the whole planet.

This caused one of his coworkers to say, "I'm sure Judy doesn't appreciate you making fun of her taste." To which my husband replied, "Oh, she knows I make fun of her taste all the time. It's pretty obvious that she has lousy taste. I mean, she married me."

Case closed, Your Honor.

The Fine Print: Stamps 'n dies by Stampin' Up. CASED from Susan Itell. 

That Murphy Guy

Yesterday: tons of time and ideas to do a blog post. No internet connect.

Today: Internet connect but no time or ideas.

Bluster off, already, Murphy.

The Fine Print: Thanks by Eat Cake Graphics, other supplies from SU and PP or my stash. PP is Paper Pumpkin you silly. 

September 2

So today is the second day of September but I still don't really have any words for you. I do have this card that is similar to yesterday's card.

The Fine Print: Yep, Stampin' Up again.

September 1

Today is the first day of September. That's really about all the words I have for you or anyone.

The Fine Print: All products by Stampin' Up. Oops, no calendar today. I didn't think that through. Or photograph the September calendar. Or even make it yet.  One of these days, hopefully within the next 30 of 'em.

Fall Has Not Fallen Lately

I found some autumn colored papers tucked neatly away in a stash 'o stuff and suddenly had the urge to use them, which I did even though fall is currently nowhere in sight.

The Fine Print: Fall really is the best season in Southern Arizona--all two weeks of it. Mouse by Great Impressions. 

So Clueless

True Confessions Time:

I have no idea what I'm doing.

That's pretty much always. I just keep muddling away doing a little of this and a little bit of that (and not enough stamping) but I never know if what I'm doing is the right thing or worth the effort. Since I'm at work I'm probably okay on the first part but not so much on the second. And to top this all off, here's a fall card even though it is spring. Because I really liked the colors.

So there.

The Fine Print: All the stuffs by Stampin' Up. Probably. The white under the card is a matching envelope because sometimes I do that, but not often. Mostly because I don't have many A2 envelopes. I have oodles of A6 ones though because I have no pride and when work throws them away every May, I dig 'em out of the trash. It's like a birthday present to myself. 

Time's Slipping Away

An artistically inclined friend of mine brought some items together so we could all make cards. I must have gotten distracted by a shiny thing along the way because I ended up losing the hands to the clock she provided.

I decided to go ahead and call the card done because time has always been a slippery concept for me anyway. I'm one of those people who can't wear watches because they quit working in short order (both my brothers were the same way; it must be our alien blood) and I've never been good about estimating time.

I thought the card was rather cool but I felt that maybe it was trying to make an artistic statement, except I don't know what that statement is. What do you think?

The Fine Print: Clock die by Cheery Lynn, everything else.... who knows, but that bit inside the clock is fabric so it probably came from a fabric store!

Fall Gatefold

I saw a tutorial for a double fold gate card not too long ago and had to try it out. That worked out quite nice. So I thought I'd make another one.

I started out by thinking myself insanely clever by not looking up the directions and making it from wonderful steel-trap memory.  Yeah, that didn't go so well... but I did come up with an interesting card base that I'm sure you'll see at some point.

I scratched that one, pulled out the directions and made this one. Once you have the directions, the hardest part of this card is finding double sided cardstock that will work nicely for this style. You know, it has to be thick enough to make a decent cardbase and the patterns different enough to tell apart but not jarring.

The Fine Print: Double sided CS from my stash, card topper by unknown, greeting by Stampendous, squirrel and nuts by Taylored Expressions, leaf stickers from my stash. 

Old Parts Make New

I stamped up this panel several years ago and then it languished in my drawer of fall goodies. I bought the fern green gingham ribbon a couple years ago and never broke the seal for it. I stamped the leaf last year and didn't use it.

Finally this year I put all those old pars together and said, "Oh look, it's a card!" and it was. I added some dabs of glitter glue for a current touch.

The Fine Print: Small stamps by Rubber Stamp Tapestry, greeting by Hero Arts, leaf by Creative Impressions.

Another Day Another Dollar

So every year I break out this same delightful stamp set and every year I made a card that basically looks like this:

In case you don't believe here are the previous incantations of this same stamp set:

So I decided to break out of the mold and do something completely wild and crazy. Check this out:

I sure showed them, huh? Purple! How do like that?!

The Fine Print: Stamp by Taylored Expressions "Sunflower Bouquet."

Just Saying Hello

I made this fall tag card the other day. I did a CASE of a tag I had received to come up with this idea since I am rather tag impaired (but I keep trying).

The Fine Print: Stamps by A Muse Studio (going, going, gone--remember they close November 27), designer papers by DCWV and distress Stickles by Sir Tim. 

Shake, Shake, Shake It

So I made a shaker card the other day since I am an uber awesome shaker card making kind of person. Oh wait, no I'm not. I seem to encounter every type of problem available when I attempt to make one. My most common problem is that all my shaker card material sticks the edges of the foam tape and stops shaking. I have that with this card along with scarecrow failure (the original stamped one did work out so I substituted this dimension sticker one). I also couldn't find the original batch of shaker material I planned to use. It is what it is. Now I can say I made a shaker card this year.

The Fine Print: Harvest Hello from Stampin' Up, leaf die by Impression Obsession, scarecrow sticker by Recollections. Shake your groove thing!

Posies and Paisleys

I think pretty much unless you live under a rock you are aware of a new stamp set called Posies and Paisleys from Stampin' Up. It has a coordinating die set, designer papers and ribbon. While I truly liked the colors and patterns of the papers the paisley stamp set didn't really do it for me.

I think some of that is I've spent the last 26 years of my life listening to my husband diss paisleys. "Paisleys don't exist in nature!" he would say. Yeah, well, neither do twinkies and you like those!

However, more and more people were using it and showing it off. I kept thinking that maybe this set wasn't as awful as I first thought. Finally I got a chance to play with it when I made this card. I can say I like it better and I totally love the papers. I'm not sure I'm ready to run out and buy it just yet, give me a couple more hours. *wink*

Look at all those fun little bits and pieces, including the die cuts done on copper foil sheets. It's cool. And this card design isn't as hard as it looks. It's called a double concertina card. Mine is being persnickety about standing up completely straight. It's a bit wonky, like me.

The Fine Print: Weren't you paying attention? Everything by Stampin' Up Petals, Paisleys, Posies and Pish Tosh or something like that. Check the holiday mini catalog. 

Scarecrows, Crows, and Dead People

I have a thing about scarecrows. I think they are really cool. I can't say I've seen one in action in person. Sure I've seen scarecrows at the craft stores this time of year but they certainly aren't scaring any crows or probably any other bird.

In fact if you want to scare, or at least annoy, birds then what you need is realistic looking fake bird. One year I bought myself one of those scarecrows from the craft store along with some metal yard decorations that looked like corn stalks. Then I also bought a big black fake crow to go with them.

I put them out in my yard and admired them. Less than an hour later I went outside and brought that stupid crow back into my house. All the neighborhood birds took exception to this big black intruder and hopped all around making loud angry bird sounds and got other birds in the neighborhood to join in the melee. No matter how much ruckus the real birds made that crow just sat there without a care in the world. I took him down just so I could get some peace.

This is the altar we put together at work for Dia de los Muertos, which is today. It honors our dead relatives, or in my case it honors my dead bottle of scotch. On the lower left corner is a photo in memory of Jerry Bob, who was that mouse that was trapped in our office. May they all rest in peace.

The Fine Print: Large scarecrow stamp by unknown (it was a self-mount from my friend), designer papers by DCWV, and leaves from my fall stash.

Nuts!

I joined a swap where the theme was nuts. Then I immediately panicked because I couldn't think of anything I had with nuts (ridiculous, I have plenty of stamps with acorns, peanuts and even some mixed nuts).

Then I found these acorn brads and knew I had to use one of them. After lots of trial and error I came with up combining the nut with some of these fake leaves that are the rage every fall. I kind of like how this turned out.

The Fine Print: Autumn greeting by A Muse Studio, designer paper by Club Scrap, faux leaves from Michaels and acorn brad from the Eyelet Outlet (who are all about brads these days, don't look.... now don't blame me for the hit on your pocketbook, I warned you).

The winner of the Nine Lives cat set from the Cat Lovers Hop was MandySea from Australia.

Autumn Leaf

I'm pretty sure that I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's okay. Somewhere along the line I made this autumn leaf card using up some left overs I had lying around, which means I can go visit the Snippet Playground and get into trouble with all the other cool kids.

But before we run off and play I want to talk about that leaf. It's from an old Marvy punch I have and its large and rounded and sits off by itself on shelf (because of its awkward size) so I never remember I have it. I pulled it out this year and discovered that I have to step on it to make it punch. That right explains the popularity of die cuts! I used a Wink of Stella pen (yes, I'm finally coming around to liking that thing) to trace over the veins in the leaf.

The Fine Print: Greeting stamp by A Muse Artstamps, leaf punch by Marvy, designer paper, card topper and ribbon by Club Scrap. 

Mouse with Pumpkin

I was going to enter this mouse into that newish challenge over at Perfectly Created Chaos but it closed already. I kept getting distracted by other things (oh look! shiny!). I can still share this card with you and share the story of how I couldn't get this mouse colored nicely. I tried lighter creams and it didn't work, so I did some light tans that looked stupid, and moved onto light browns. I finally stopped there because I don't know how much color this one piece of cardstock could take.

I guess I can also share this card over at the Snippet Playground #249 since I cut the leaves out of a snippet of patterned cardstock and the bit of seam binding was just laying around being a bum.

The Fine Print: Mouse by Great Impressions, leaf cutouts from DCWV, designer paper and seam binding from my stash.

Fall Fell

So I made a Fall themed tag the other day...

Let's try that again. So I made a Fall themed tag the other day...

Dio, you aren't helping any. Okay, take three. This one will be a winner.  So I made a Fall themed tag the other day with some...

Dio! Put that down. So I made a Fall themed tag the other day with some die cut leaves, one was orange and the other wa...

Wait a minute! It wasn't gold sparkle. What's up with this thing???!

Oh, nevermind.

The Fine Print: Leaf die by Spellbinders, foliage die by Tattered Lace, greeting by A Muse Artstamps, flower chipboard by We R Memory Keepers, burlap ribbon by SU, other stuff from my stash. 

Taco-less Tuesday

I think I broke myself making those couple dozen similar cards last weekend. This past weekend I couldn't remember how to craft. Well, first I did manage to make 10 of these fall themed ATCs. They were fun since I wasn't quite sure what the final product should look like and just fuddled along with this and that until they were done.

After that, I couldn't cut straight or accurately, my ability to match colors was out the window, I put adhesive on every surface except the one that needed it... Basically everything I touched turned to crap.

That's when I decided to pull out one of those kits where all you have to do is assemble the pieces. Surely I could do that?! I got the spacing a little off but it all works out anyway. I even did a bit of sponging and doodling too.

That was it though. The one card took it right out of me. Ever have one of those nothing-goes-right weekends?

The Fine Print: Scarecrow die by Cheery Lynn, Fence die by Taylored Expressions, pumpkin die by Impression Obsession, Sunflower punches by Marvy, dotted stencil and distress Stickles by Tim, stamped greenery by Hero Arts and Stampin' Up. Hello card parts from Basic Gray "Lime Rickey."