Jun 9, 2009 | family, Retired List, Seeing Spots, Stamps, Uncategorized |
This is a fun stamp set called Seeing Spots that is retiring this year. It has a variety of circle images and “thank you”. It works great with our circle punches. It also has a coordinating Jumbo Stampin’ Around Wheel called Spot On. I most recently used this for the teacher gifts I made the other week – the boy version for Ryan’s male teachers. I used one of the circle images to decorate the scratch paper. Here are some of the projects that I have made with it over the last few years.
If you are interested in purchasing the Seeing Spots stamp set – you can order online at my website – www.monika.stampinup.net – click on the SHOP NOW button or send me an email to place an order for you.
Here is a view of the complete stamp set – Seeing Spots – set of 6 – $16.95:
Don’t miss this fun little set!
Last night I had a great downline meeting – we talked about some business topics and then stamped with the new In-Colors and one of the new stamp sets. I’ll be sharing more about that later this week. As a demonstrator we get to order sneak peek items from the new catalog. I would love to grow my team so if you are interested in learning more about becoming a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator please contact me and I would be glad to answer your questions. You don’t have to live near me to join my team – I will offer you support any way that I can. You can also visit my website to find out more about Stampin’ Up! – there is a link in the side bar on my blog that takes you to my website – www.monika.stampinup.net – where you can view some information videos.
Just a little family update – I guess you can say Kyle’s Senior Year of High School has officially begun – yesterday we went and had his Senior pictures made. Formals, informals, and outdoors photos were taken yesterday. And with that begins all the out pouring of money….we paid for the sitting…I don’t know how much the actual pictures are going to be. Ryan has a busy day – tennis camp, then later this afternoon a tennis match for his u-14 team, and then tonight soccer tryouts for the u-14 select team. So I will be in an out all day and driving all around town.
Have a fun day – I’m hoping to do a little bit of stamping soon – these are on my list – the 411 blog challenge, the late night stampers group challenge, Simply Punches class projects – there are 7 or 8 already and I haven’t even done one of them yet, prep for my Thoughts & Prayers class, finish up the May to Go class and get the June to Go class toghether….hmmm…that’s more than I thought I had on my list…the stamping never ends…thank goodness I love doing it so I really don’t want it to end……
May 11, 2009 | family |
Sorry I didn’t get a project out here yet today – hopefully later tonight.
Saturday evening Aspen started acting like he was hurt again (he has done this a few times before but improves after a day or so), he was not well all day Sunday and still not better this morning. He was really hurting and I wasn’t exactly sure where. He didn’t hardly eat or drink, was shaking, panting and had difficulty just trying to lay down, couldn’t go up or down the stairs, and wasn’t really using the bathroom. So this morning I called the vet before they opened – apologized for not having an appointment and told them I’d be there when they arrived.
So we were there first thing and the vet tried to check some things but Aspen wasn’t real happy so they had to put a little muzzle on him so they could do a complete exam. I left him there for a while so they could take xrays of him. The vet determined that he has bulging disks in his back – he showed me three different spots on the xray where there were spots inbetween the vertebrea. He probably over did it at some point, rested, felt better and went back to normal activity, then hurt it again. So that’s why he has been out of sorts several times over the past few months.
Anyway he is one 3 meds – pain, muscle relaxer and one more. And he has to stay calm and little acitivity for 4 weeks! so everything can really heal. I can already tell keeping him from doing too much is going to be a challenge. The meds have already made him feel better and he is up wanting to go out and run. I’m trying to keep him calm – and putting him on a leash to go outside so he can’t run. This will be a long 4 weeks. We go back for a recheck next week.
I’m glad that he saw something and it makes sense with all of his behaviours lately.
Check back later I’ll try to get a stamping project posted.
Apr 28, 2009 | family, Wildlife |
I haven’t posted in several days about my birds – I have been checking on them everyday and have taken pictures several times as well. I’ll fill you in on those in a minute. But first two other animal stories – first happened this morning –
I came back from my Jazzercise class and let the dogs outside in the back – they ran off the deck and as I walked onto the deck I saw some movement by my flower pots – hiding in the corner was a little chipmunk – he was on the high side of the deck and he may be a young chipmunk so was scared to scale down the post to get away. So I walked on out to the yard to keep the dogs occupied (and check the birds) so the chipmunk could get away by going down the stairs. After a few minutes I looked and he was gone. So I walked back on the deck and came inside. I went into the house and I saw movement under my kitchen table! It was the chipmunk! I had left the door cracked and he ran from the far corner of the deck through the door of the screened porch and into my house! Perhaps he got a snack at the dog food bowl while he was inside. I should have grabbed my camera but I didn’t want him to go any further into the house and get lost. I checked to see where the dogs where – on the far side of the yard – good. So I opened the door back up and shooed (probably isn’t spelled that way) him out to the porch. Then I shut the door to the house, check where the dogs where, and shooed him out of the screened porch back to the deck. He ran all the way back to the corner he started in. I closed the door to the screened porch. Now to get him off the deck without the dogs noticing and let him run to safety. That was the hard part – I finally got him headed toward the stairs but by this time the dogs started watching me and realized something was going on! Here I am running across the yard trying to block the dogs while the chipmunk runs for safety and in to one of his holes – Now the dogs pretty much know where all the chipmunk holes are – they keep close tabs on those. Anyway – with enough interefence from me and some running and hiding by the chipmunk he finally got away to a safe place – now he may have had a heart attack after that – and maybe he learned NOT to come visit my deck, screened porch or my kitchen again!
The second much shorter story – yesterday afternoon Tyler cut the grass in the back yard – and forgot to shut the gate – so later when he let the dogs out – guess what happened? They escaped and luckily we had neighobrs that saw them. Magnolia apparently went to visit her friend Rachel and ended up in their garage and Aspen went across the street from Rachel’s house to play with the little boy that lives there – and they picked him up and called. I missed it all because I went to pick up Ryan from tennis. It was a quick escape, a short adventure and speedy recovery by some good neighbors.
Ok bird update and a funny story too –
The Towhee – the baby must have left the nest this morning – yesterday he was still in the bush and mom and dad were nearby and I just checked and he isn’t there now. There are two eggs still in the nest that didn’t hatch.
The Chickadees – There were three babies in the nest when I checked the other day. Mom and dad are feeding them – they are fast, and small and they fly right into the hole of the birdhouse. So if you don’t watch carefully you will not see them.
The Bluebirds – Mom and Dad are busy feeding the babies. I am not opening the house anymore because I don’t want them to come out early. Maybe this weekend or early next week they should be leaving the nest.
bluebird mom bringing food
Bluebird dad at the box
I was able to get a picture of the Red-Headed Woodpecker. I saw him last week and didn’t get a picture and he came back this weekend briefly to the peanut feeder. The Red-Headed Woodpecker has the solid red head and the one that I have most often in the yard is the Red-Bellied Woodpecker which only has a stripe of red on the back of his head. Once you have seen them both they are easy to tell apart.
Red Headed Woodpecker
The Robins – they are nearly ready to go – I watched them yesterday afternoon and here is the funny story along with some pictures. One of the babies was flapping his wings – I guess he is practicing. So yesterday all of sudden he got up and flapped his wings so hard I though for sure he was going to fly right out of the nest. He didn’t. Instead he ended up sitting on top of his brother! (Ok I don’t really know if they are boys or girls but in my story they are boys). In my picture I can just hear the one saying – “Hey, get off of me!” – Sounds just like my boys when they are sitting to close together in the back of the car. Here are pictures of the robins.
robin babies waiting for food
Robin feeding babies
I can so fly!
I hope you enjoy all the pictures. I’ll update you when the next babies leave the nest – I think the robins could be any day now.
The pictures are not going where I want them to go in this post – sorry they are all over the place.
Have a wonderful day!
Stop sitting on me!
Apr 25, 2009 | family, Punch Art, Stamper's Club |
Happiness is a beautiful spring day!
This morning I spent some time outside planting flowers and watching the birds. I took some pictures but haven’t put them on the computer yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. All the babies are growing by next week some might be ready to leave the nest – the Robin babies are pretty big now and keep stretching their wings like they are ready to fly.
This afternoon I took Ryan to his tennis match he played the boys line 2 singles match for his team and won 8 games to 5. He had a good sports weekend so far – one more soccer game tomorrow afternoon. I took pictures of him playing tennis and want to work on some tennis scrapbook pages.
Tonight all of us went out to dinner as a family – we haven’t had the chance to do that in a while. It seems somebody always has something going on. And then we came home and sat outside on the porch for a little while enjoying the weather while Ryan and the dogs played in the backyard.
So a beautiful spring day reminded me of this card that we made in the Stamper’s Club back in March. The ladybug is a punch art project and the card itself is actually a slider card. The ladybug can slide around on the little track that is cut into the front of the card. We used one of the new jumbo brads to hold the ladybug in the track. It was a fun interactive card.
I worked in the craft room tonight – finishing up samples for the Blog Tour on Monday – I have all of mine completed now – my stamp set is the Sense of Time set. Come join the tour on Monday – all the links along the tour will be available from 8:00 am to Midnight. 
I hope you will take some time to stop by and join me and others on the tour – traveling around the country visiting demonstrator blogs and seeing samples using products from the Occasion Mini Catalog. All the deomstrators are very excited!
I also finished one of the scrapbook pages for my Wednesday night class. I’ll show you a sneak peek tomorrow.
Apr 24, 2009 | Blog Tour, family, Sporting, Wildlife |
We have been a soccer family for years – Kyle started playing at 5 years old, then Tyler and then Ryan – for a few 
years all three played on three different teams and Greg was coaching either one or two of their teams. Eventually Tyler and Kyle moved on to other interests. Greg coached up until this last year and now only Ryan is still playing. This last week and next
week are heavy soccer weeks – with lots of rain this season we have missed many games and as we approach the end of the season they are trying to get all of them played. Last weekend Ryan played in 3 games. They had a game tonight and the boys played a great game and won 4-0 against ones of the teams they lost to last weekend. There is another game on Sunday, and then one Tuesday night and Wednesday night too. With all this soccer it reminded me of a 6×6 scrapbook I made for Ryan a few seasons ago. I intend to scrapbook some more of his soccer pictures and also want to make some 12×12 pages too. I’m not sure I ever shared the book with anyone so I thought I would show you a few pages from it tonight.
Supplies:
- Sporting stamp set
- Just Soccer stamp set
- Night of Navy card stock
- Real Red card stock
- Summer Sun card stock
- Whisper White card stock
- Basic Black classic ink
- Real Red classic ink and marker
- Summer Sun classic ink
- Night of Navy classic ink and marker
- Round Tab punch
- 1″ Circle punch
- 1-3/8″ Circle punch
- White Gel Pen
- Silver brads
- Stampin’ Dimensionals
- Stapler/Staples
Have a great weekend! Tomorrow is a tennis match day. I need to make some scrapbook pages with the Just Tennis stamp set too. Maybe one day I’ll catch up on all the scrapbooking I want to do – but probably not.
Quick note on the birds – I finally saw the chickadee babies today – both mom and dad were out of the house and I got a quick peek at a pile of babies. The robin babies are getting bigger – they seem to know when food is on the way and stick up their heads and open their beaks until mom or dad comes by to drop in some food. Today I got to watch while they were fed a worm! The bluebirds are growing too – I can hear them now from the porch – so I know when mom or dad is there feeding them – they make quite a bit of noise when food is coming. I’m going to check my dates tomorrow because as the date approaches for them to fledge I don’t want to open the box anymore so they don’t come out early. Hopefully I’ll be able to see the day that they leave and get some pictures of them as the babies learn to fly.
Blog Tour on April 27th – Tour #4. Don’t miss the train!
Apr 21, 2009 | family, Wildlife |
I finally got a picture of the baby towhee – there is only one baby in the nest. I can still see two eggs, but I guess they aren’t going to hatch. 
The mom is usually sitting on the nest. I just happened to peek in yesterday afternoon and she was gone so I ran inside real quick to get my camera. As you can see this baby was ready for food with his mouth WIDE open!
I checked on the Blue birds and they know the difference between me and mom & dad so they were all huddled in a pile – there are 4 or 5 in there. Mom and Dad are busy bringing them bugs to eat. I see them regularly.
The chick-a-dee is still sitting in the house. I saw one fly out this morning so I went to peek real quick but there was still one inside – so they must not leave the eggs/babies alone. By now they should have hatched I just haven’t gotten a chance to look in with out a parent in there.
The Robins are busy feeding their baby – I think there must be two babies – but I still can’t tell for sure. Since the nest is up high I can’t see inside it to know for sure.
Sunday night we had heavy rain, thunder, lightening and tornado warnings – they are saying a tornado did touch down somewhere not to far from here but I didn’t hear specifically where it was. Anyway after all the rain stopped I let the dogs out before I went to bed (it was reallly late) and look who I found hanging on to my screen: 
He was gone by morning. Sometimes I find them in the yard I guess because of the fountain. They are noisy little frogs. But this one was quiet while I was outside.
After looking through my Easter pictures it turned out I didn’t even take any pictures of my tables or decorations. Most of the pictures were of the kids hunting Easter Eggs. I have one picture of almost everyone (37 of us) in the backyard gathered to say the blessing before we eat.
After lunch all the kids went inside while the teenagers hid the eggs. Our rules are the little kids (5 and under) get everything in the grass level of the yard, the bigger kids get everything else.
Afterwards everyone searches for the prize egg and of course eats candy. The little ones were sitting on the stairs while all the big kids checked out their egg collection on the trampoline. It is so much fun for all to get all of the cousins together! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter like we did and thankfully the weather was perfect!!
