Work Really Gets In The Way...

of blogging! The first week back after break is always so busy! I had so much to do I am just getting a chance to blog finally.


Ayesha, Deb, Ben, Jim and I all did find time to hang out at Santisi's on Friday night which was a nice end to the week.


I received two SASE in the mail on Monday. The first unmarked envelope I'm sure was from my dad due to the contents. It was a set of Harley Owners Group Patches. This is funny not so much because of the Harley part but because we always joked when we were on bowling leagues about the patches that could be won.


The second envelope was from Deb and it contained a picture of Rod Stewart, her all time favorite musician. Deb is seriously in LOVE with Rod and even took me to his concert when he was in Glendale. Rod Stewart could easily be Debs dad and somehow she still thinks he's "hot". Anyway, I digress..the envelope also contained a red feather, on green and one plaid bow, and some snowflake stickers.


On Wednesday I found an envelope sitting on my desk from Jim that had a note that said "Some pics that say it all" and a zip drive. The pictures on the zip drive were all the pictures of our road trip last summer. It was a really fabulous trip with all kinds of memories. (Isn't he cute!)


Finally, on Friday I got an envelope from Amber that had a note and a hospital bracelet. The note says, "This is the bracelet they put on me when I got my hip pinned. Kind of sums up my last 5 weeks." and the bracelet says fall risk. Amber is a trooper! She is pregnant, on crutches, had a hip fracture that needed to be pinned, and is having fun with it.


Also today Jim and I went out to Gilbert to Celebrate, my nephew, Alex's 8th birthday. We went to the Brunswick XL bowling center. A gigantic bowling center with like 40 lanes a full size arcade, bar, and sit down eating area. We had a lot of fun and I can't believe Alex is already 8! Time flies.

Speaking of time flying, while I was out on Saturday I ran into a couple who's son I had in the three year old room at Children's World in high school. They told me it was his 18th birthday. Wow! I might be getting old.

The SASE Project

So I was reading 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity when a project caught my eye. I drafted up a letter asking my family and friends to put something, anything into a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope and mail it back to me. I thought it would be fun to see what would come back in the mail and make for a few interesting blog posts.

Well, round one came in on Saturday. (I forgot to check the mail until Sunday) The first was from my mom. She sealed her envelope with pink cat packing tape and sent a crafty little doodad that I'm sure she whipped up just for this occasion.



The second was from Morgana & Co. Each member of her family sent me something plus they included something to represent me as well. Chocolate meal bars to represent Morgana, hot peppers to represent Todd, Spiderman to represent Dustin, Milk Bones to represent Rocky , the dog, and a sparkly butterfly to represent me!

I sent out 10 of these envelopes and left one on Jim's desk so stay tuned and we'll hope we see a few more.

Bunny Kakes

How could you not love this bunny? Kakes managed to be this cute when she wasn't even feeling well! Poor little Kakes had just been to Urgent Care with a temp of 104. I love this girl!

Ravid, I Mean Rabbit Dog

Bently the cute little puppy...



Bently now. I wish you could hear Jim's laughter for this picture!


Harley wanted nothing to do with the dog ears.

Happy Easter

Okay, this post really has nothing to do with Easter. Before I meet with Mom, Buff, and Baby Kakes to deal with things like Peeps, chocolate bunnies, and babies in rabbit ears (I'm just wishing for this one.) I wanted to post about yesterdays events.


I started off the morning by working in my newest round robin book. The topic was birds and I thought the owner preferred more unusual birds to your standard crows and pigeons. I chose to go with a peacocks. I Incorporated a few of my scraps from my clear book in to this project which always makes the art a little difficult to photograph. I can't get enough of the transparencies in my work lately.


The art start to the morning was important because Jim and I had both a funeral and a wedding to go to. Since both of the events were for Jim's friends from discover, Mar also joined us. The three of us voted and you should never have to go to a funeral and a wedding in the same day it should just be a rule.

Kelly Bell's funeral was first. As you walked in the family had made pins and magnets with pictures of her being wild and crazy and the display of her life was probably the best one I've ever seen. Her families strength was truly remarkable.

After taking Jim and Mar for a drink we were off to the wedding. The bride of this wedding was amazing! Literally nothing fazed her. While she probably never knew that the keg blew up, or that the bartender broke the corkscrew, and had no way to open other types of alcohol until a guest went to CVS to help out. She was not fazed when all of the lit candles had to be blown out due to the risk of fire damage, or when their was a risk of the kitchen being shut down. And most impressively when her asymmetrical cake actually toppled to the ground before the reception started she gave directions to get a picture of it and call for cupcakes. At least the guests had seen the cake and it was the most artistic wedding cake I had ever seen.

The bride's great attitude is probably what made this wedding so fun. She actually told us she was just worried that people would be disappointed that they didn't get any of the cake. The groom said he thought the cake was just an illusion but apparently he was wrong. The food at the wedding was great and in the end everything worked out. You can tell Jim was having fun! Just for the record I was the DD I just got caught with my eyes closed but this is still my favorite picture from the evening.

Setting The Record Straingt

Who ever thought roasted Peeps could cause family controversy? Apparently Buffy is the one who discovered the joy that is warm roasted Peeps. I stand corrected. Secondly, walla! is apparently something a muppet would say and I should have used Voila! instead. Can you hear me laughing out loud at myself?

Transparent Book

Yesterday I worked on a transparent book. I started with a cute little tabbed, transparent book that I got from Frenzy Stamper. I'm not sure who makes this book but Debbie would know and after you see this you might need go shopping at her store anyway! I used sheets of Hambly transparencies, rub-ons, and clear stickers. I also used Heidi Swaps Bling-adhesive rhinestones and various other rhinestones and clear stickers that I had been collecting. When I made each of the five sections in the book I picked three types of Hambly transparency that looked nice together and went from there. I added some layers of clear transparency when needed for the design.


This book is hard to fully appreciate in a photo as I am sure you can imagine. I took one picture of each of sections but also took a picture of each layer of my favorite section. The best part of this book, for me, is watching how a section changes as you turn each layer.