Took a blog break

Whew! I didn't plan to take such a long break from my blog. I guess the holidays and the craft room project took their toll. My craft room isn't done yet but it's getting closer. My husband completed the ceiling and lights. There's still more to do but I can actually sit down and stamp now.

For those of you who asked, yes, the ham got done on Christmas. It didn't turn out to be a problem at all. As far as the Maid Rites from Christmas Eve. There isn't really a recipe. They just browned the ground beef, drained it, added salt and pepper and beef broth. They cooked the mixture until the beef broth cooked down. It took about an hour or so but they were cooking 5 pounds of ground beef. It might be shorter for a smaller amount of beef.

Now on to my latest card. I haven't sat down and stamped for almost 2 weeks. I'm feeling a little rusty. This card is for my friend Ellen who has a birthday coming up. Now I just have to get it in the mail. That's the hard part for me. I have a hard time getting it addressed, stamped and mailed.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to pop in quick to say a very Merry Christmas to all of you! For those of you who don't celebrate Christmas Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanza, or whatever it is you do celebrate! We are having a great Christmas. My husband's family was over yesterday. My sister-in-law and daughter made maid rites. They are ground beef browned and chopped up fine and cooked with beef broth, salt and pepper. They were pretty yummy. Everyone brought something to share and there was plenty of food!

This morning was just my husband and I and our 3 kids opening presents. They loved their presents and we surprised them with a WII. It seems to be the popular present this year. This afternoon my family is coming over. There will be about 40 of us. I have 2 hams cooking in the oven. Silly me didn't take them out to thaw ahead of time so I'm worried about them getting cooked in time. I ran some hot water over them and I'm cooking them about twice as long as the package says. I hope it works. I'm just basking in the Christmas glow until my family shows up. Then it will be chaos. It's good chaos though. With this large of a group it can hardly be anything else. I'm just grateful that we have a fresh layer of pretty white snow for Christmas but not enough to make traveling dangerous.

I hope your celebrations are wonderful!

I'm too tired to name this post

I made this card as a make-n-take for my demonstrator party with my downline earlier this week. This was made among the construction zone of my craft room. I used the new A Beautiful Thing stamp set. This will be in the spring/summer Stampin' Up! catalogue. The card was inspired by this one from Mary Jo Albright. I colored the sentiment in markers so I could use different colors on the words. The bottom flowers are stamped in pumpkin pie and then again on some scrap whisper white in soft sky. I punched out two of the flowers in soft sky and popped them up on stampin' dimensionals and glitterfied them. The flower on the medallion is glitterfied too. The color combo I used is chocolate chip, pumpkin pie, rose red and soft sky.

The craft room is still coming along. I can see some floor and cleared off 4 big tables in my basement so there's progress. My husband continues to build more units for my room. I am actually running out of space to put everything. I have been throwing out things by the bagload but still there's more. I'm determined to not have piles everywhere when my room is complete. While sorting through all of my stuff I finally found the photos for my Christmas cards so I can get those out now.

As for the tiredness, I suffer from insomnia. Last night was an especially bad night. I wont take drugs and I had corrected my diet for awhile but have slipped horribly in the last 6 months or so. That's one of my goals(along with everyone else) is to eat healthier and lose weight after the holidays. I let my exercising slip too. When I was living a healthier lifestyle the insomnia got better. My body's hormones are out of whack. That's perimenopause for ya.

On that cheery note I'm going to dash. I still have more sorting through for my craft room, last minute shopping to do, addressing of my Christmas cards and my son's Christmas party at school. No rest for the weary. I hope you are doing well with your holiday preparation. Happy Friday!

Snow Fun

This snow page is for my January scrapbook club. The base is 12 x 12 Kraft cardstock with the snowflakes wheeled in white craft ink. The side panels are Not Quite Navy. The images are from punch pals. The idea is that there is a half circle on one of the pages and the other half circle on the 2nd page. I got this page spread done at a crop back in November. It feels good to be ahead of the game for a change!

We are making progress on my craft room. The countertop is now in and I started putting some things in drawers and lower cabinets. That felt so good to move some things back in! We have all of the upper cabinets to rearrange so those have to be emptied out. So I still have a big ole mess on my hands but it's coming together.

What can go wrong.....

Well, the craft room has hit a few more snags. After the seam from the laminate split in the middle and a piece chipped off my dh was NOT happy! All of that hard work down the drain. He had an extra piece of laminate and wood so he went to work redoing the piece. Then he cut that piece wrong. He had to hang it up for the night. Ok. Today he has a new plan. He wrote himself up a schedule of what needs to get done and when. He left work early and picked up new materials to redo the pieces he needed to. He gets it home and starts working with it only to find the guy at Home Depot cut it an inch short. I'm not sure what's going on right now. I'm trying to stay out of the way for now. He's not a very happy camper right now.

I want to clarify my post from yesterday. I am VERY grateful for all of the hard work my hubby is doing on my craft room. I'm just getting nervous about it getting it done in time for us to entertain his family on Christmas Eve and my family on Christmas day. His family is a relatively small bunch. There will be 16 of us. My family however is rather large. There will be about 40 of us. I need to have the basement back in functioning order to hold us all. I need to have tables set up down there to feed 40 people, have 40 people unwrap gifts, play games, etc. That's a week away people. To give you an idea of what I'm up against I posted a few photos of what my basement looks like right now. It ain't pretty folks! This doesn't even begin to show you how bad it really is. I NEED that craft room finished so I can start placing things back in there in an organized fashion and soon! He's working his butt off. I can't complain about that. We're just running out of time.

My hope is that within the next few days I can post that I have started placing things in my new craft room and my basement is shaping up. I know it wont be completely done by Christmas but reasonably finished would be nice. Here's hoping!

Retiring Accessory List

Stampin' Up! came out with the retiring accessory list a few days ago. These items are while supplies last. Contact me or your local demonstrator to order these before they're gone!

Retiring Accessories List

Retired wheels and accessories are available while supplies last, so make sure you place your orders no later than January 1. To keep you informed of inventory levels, we will update this list daily no later than 7:00 PM (MT). Items listed in RED are no longer available.


Last updated 12/14/07 at 9:15 AM (MT)

Item #


Product Description
109198


Accents & Elements Borders & Blossoms
109199


Accents & Elements Little Reminders 2
109197


Accents & Elements Tagged
100700


Album Leather Post Black 8-1/2x11
105385


Album Linen Post Mellow Moss 8-1/2x11
104520


Album Linen Post Natural 8-1/2x11
104517


Album Linen Post Navy 8-1/2x11
105382


Album Linen Post Real Red 8-1/2x11
105392


Album Linen Ring Mellow Moss 8-1/2x11
104510


Album Linen Ring Natural 8-1/2x11
104513


Album Linen Ring Navy 8-1/2x11
105388


Album Linen Ring Real Red 8-1/2x11
105067


Boxes & Tags Pockets & Pieces Assortment I
105068


Boxes & Tags Pockets & Pieces Assortment II
108798


Boxes & Tags Tiny Takeout Confetti White
107246


Boxes & Tags Tiny Takeout Kraft
105747


Boxes Stamp & Supply Extra Large
105748


Boxes Stamp & Supply Extra Large Divided
105744


Boxes Stamp & Supply Extra Small
105749


Boxes Stamp & Supply Jumbo
105734


Boxes Stamp & Supply Large
105746


Boxes Stamp & Supply Medium
105745


Boxes Stamp & Supply Small
101052


Brayer Attachment Foam
107293


Cards & Envelopes Greeting Very Vanilla Medium
109149


Designer Series Paper Brocade Background
109161


Designer Series Paper Cerise
109162


Designer Series Paper Charbon
109155


Designer Series Paper Creepy Crawley
109152


Designer Series Paper Darling Doodles
109150


Designer Series Paper Dashing
108503


Designer Series Paper Petals & Paisleys
109156


Designer Series Paper Linen Prints
109147


Designer Series Paper Notations No. 2
109148


Designer Series Paper Outlaw
109158


Designer Series Paper Uptown
109157


Designer Series Paper Wintergreen
107285


Envelopes Open End Very Vanilla Large
107284


Envelopes Open End Whisper White Large
107296


Envelopes Shimmery White Medium
107287


Envelopes Square Vellum Large
107310


Envelopes Square Very Vanilla Mini
107294


Envelopes Vellum Medium
107290


Envelopes Very Vanilla Large
107291


Envelopes Whisper White Large
101016

Eyelet Tool Kit
105317


Eyelets Bold Brights II
105379

Eyelets Silver
105315


Eyelets Soft Subtles II
107282


Fancy Fibers Bella
107283

Fancy Fibers Elizabeth
103352


Stampin' Glitter Romantic Red
103349


Stampin' Glitter Silver Shine
106650

Greeting Glue
102620

Liquid Glue
103145


Page Protectors Post 8-1/2x11
104523


Page Protectors Ring 8-1/2x11
103598

Paper Vellum 12x12
105543


Pastel Refills Bold Brights
105544


Pastel Refills Earth Elements
105547


Pastel Refills Neutrals
105545


Pastel Refills Rich Regals
105546


Pastel Refills Soft Subtles
105962


Perfect Layers Tool
104184

Post Extenders
106522


Punch Spring Bouquet Flower
109722


Simply Scrappin' Creative License Hostess Level 1
109611


Simply Scrappin' Happy Me Hostess Level 3
109596


Simply Scrappin' Out & About
109626


Simply Scrappin' Primary Colors
109649


Simply Scrappin' Round Up
109635

Simply Scrappin' Secret Garden
109663


Simply Scrappin' Winter Bright
107415


Simply Sent Friendship Shapes
109230


Simply Sent Happy Day
105580


Spectrum Pad Blue Frost
101492

Spectrum Pad Celebration
105579


Spectrum Pad Cotton Candy
101336


Spectrum Pad Pumpkin Patch
100000

Spectrum Pad Un-inked
103953


Stamp-a-ma-jig Imaging Sheets Refill
104432


Stampin' Around Cartridge & Ink Refill Clear Embossing
101460


Stampin' Around Cartridge & Ink Refill Whisper White
102391


Stampin' Around Ink Refill Clear Embossing
103017


Stampin' Around Ink Refill Whisper White
103151


Stampin' Emboss Powder Hologram Highlights
105677


Stampin' Kids Pad Bear Brown
105676


Stampin' Kids Pad Beetle Black
105675


Stampin' Kids Pad Boxcar Blue
105674


Stampin' Kids Pad Gumball Green
105673


Stampin' Kids Pad Poppin' Purple
105672


Stampin' Kids Pad Princess Pink
105671


Stampin' Kids Pad Robin Red
105670


Stampin' Kids Pad Yahoo Yellow
103174


Stampin' Pastel Applicators
100852


Stampin' Pastel Erasers
100081


Stampin' Write Marker Going Gray
100945


StazOn Ink Refill Timber Brown
103088


StazOn Pad Timber Brown
107235


Tag Sheets Bold Brights
107239


Tag Sheets Confetti White & Kraft
107236


Tag Sheets Earth Elements
107240

Tag Sheets Kraft
107237


Tag Sheets Rich Regals
107238


Tag Sheets Soft Subtles
100894


Watercolor Brush Flat
101551


Watercolor Brush Medium
101331


Watercolor Brush Small
105395


Wire Works Metallic
105652


Wrapping Paper Whisper White
Stampin' Around wheels
100360

Acorns
109812


All about Birthdays*
109690


All about Christmas*
109812


All about Gratitude*
109676

Autumn Dots
104070

Bloomin'
107466

Bodacious*
105750

Bouquet*
107481


Butterflies & Blossoms
104065

Fishy
100267

Happy Jacks
107563

Ho Ho Ho
104312

Hot to Dot
104279

Leaf Prints
106062

Leaves Awash*
107479


Rough around the Edges*
101927

Snowman Fun
107465

Speckled*
105521

Spooky Skyline*
108979

Spotted*
107480

True Hearts
105033


Wings & Things
* Jumbo Stampin' Around wheels

Happy Heart

I did a little playing with my new stamp set last night. This was the stamp set in the Spring/Summer Preview brochure that really caught my eye. I opened it up and immediately fell in love! I love to color in images and these are super cute! I stamped the main image in jet black stazon on watercolor paper. I colored it in with my aquapainter and ink from the lid of my inkpads. On the greeting I used the word window punch. I wanted something to border this so I cut a piece of scrap in ballet blue and corner rounded the edges. After my main image was colored I went over the heart with my versamarker and embossed it with irridescent ice embossing powder.

Here's the full recipe:

Stamps: Happy Heart day(available to customers January 2), dotted backround stamp, All in a row(for the stitching on the card).
Ink: Jet black stazon, rose red, so saffron, basic grey, certainly celery
paper: certainly celery, watercolor paper, rose red, so saffron, ballet blue, cutie pie designer paper
Other: aquapainter, ticket corner punch, silver brads, stampin' dimensionals, versamarker, irridescent ice embossing powder, word window punch, corner rounder.

Tagged

Gabby tagged me for this one. You are supposed to list 7 weird or random things about you.

1. It hasn't hit me that it's Christmas time. I have all of the house decorated, the tree is up, I have made and received Christmas cards, there's snow on the ground.....yet it still doesn't feel like Christmas to me. I'm not sure why. It's going to be here before I know it!

2. I'm sick of all of the clothes in my closet. Do you get like this? I open my closet full of clothes and don't have a thing to wear.

3. I'm addicted to sugar. They say it's more addicting than cocaine and I believe it. I have to get off this stuff!

4. I'm a soccer wannabe. I watch my kids playing soccer, especially my son Nicholas, and I wish this would have been available to me as a kid. They don't know how good they have it.

5. I'm lazy. There, I said it! I do as little as I have to around the house and cooking and laundry and stuff.

6. I am going out for Mexican for lunch today. I LOVE Mexican food! I saw some ads for a Mexican restaurant and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. So I made a lunch date with a friend and I'll be eating Mexican in an hour!

7. I want to be my daughter. Seriously. She's 13 and has quite the social life. She always has plans for the weekend and there is always something coming up for her. She's had a pretty good junior high experience too(unlike mine).

There you go. Seven mostly random things about me. I'm not going to tag anyone cuz I know everyone's so busy at this time of year. If you want to play along feel free to be tagged by me and post on your blog.

Baby card

This is a simple card with a new stamp set from the Preview Brochure. This is a sneak peak at sets that will be in the new Spring/Summer catalogue. I hope to have more time to play and share more samples with you.

Have a great day!

Slightly used snowmobile for sale

This was the sight outside my window this morning. No, the snowmobile does not belong to me and my family. This is our neighbor's ball of fire. The son was starting up his new snowmobiles and one backfired and caught on fire. They were in the garage at the time bolted to the trailer. He got the one with the full tank of gas off the trailer but the other one was out of control by then. He pulled it out to the driveway. My husband sprayed it with our fire extinguisher but it was too far gone by then. The fire department came out and it took awhile to extinguish the fire. Just a little excitement on a Monday morning!

In other exciting news my preview order from the Spring/Summer catalogue is supposed to be delivered today. I'm hoping to get to play with my new goodies tonight and have something to show you tonight or tomorrow.

My husband continues to work on my craft room. He has installed the floor, painted, and put the cabinets in. He's finishing up the cabinets in my room. He still has to make the countertop and install it. He does everything from scratch. My basement is still taken over by all of my craftroom supplies. It's kinda hard to work down there but I can't really complain. I will have a brand new craft room soon! He still needs to install the ceiling and lighting. Then we will need to go to Ikea to get storage for the other half of my room. It's exciting to see it take shape!

Happy Birthday Michelle

My friend's birthday was a week or so ago. Per usual, I am behind. I made this card for her today using the SCS challenge of the featured stamper. The featured stamper is Rose Ann. She is a very talented and sweet stamper. She is always so nice to visit and comment on my blog. I just had to do this challenge! Anyway, I needed this birthday card so off I went to her gallery to find a card for inspiration. I settled on this one.

Michelle(the recipient of the birthday card) loves Cool Caribbean so I knew I needed to use that. Here's the rest of the recipe:

Stamps: Big Bold Birthday
Ink: Cool Caribbean(last year's in color), Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, Versamark
Cardstock: Cool Caribbean, embossed cupcake paper is Love Elsie, Whisper White, Regal Rose, Designer Paper is Stampin' Up! from last winter mini catalogue.
Other: Circle punch, circle scallop punch, stampin' dimensionals, Word Window punch, paper piercer, ribbon from last year's Stampin'Up! Winter mini, ticket corner punch, soft subtle brads, irridescent ice embossing powder.

Now I just have to get the card in the mail. I'm so bad about that!

Holiday Open House pics

My Holiday Open House went great! Thank you to all of you who stopped by. The first picture is of the tables I had set up in my family room. As mentioned in a previous post I usually set these events up in my basement but it is out of comission right now with the re-do of my craft room going on. Before my basement was finished I used to hold events on my main level so this wasn't unfamiliar territory for me. I pulled the love seat to the wall to create more space. The tables in the first photo are my retired stamp sets for sale and hand-stamped cards for sale. The other table is a bunch of hand-stamped items for show and tell, catalogues, retirement list, specials, etc.

The next photo is a table set up with hand-stamped gifts for sale. The last photo was my dining room table where everyone made the gift card holder make-n-take. Everyone seemed to really like the make-n-take!

I always enjoy having my customers stop by to see what I have been up to and to share ideas with. I hope you enjoyed the little peak into my open house. I should have taken photos with people there. I had a steady flow of people throughout the day so I didn't remember to take photos. I'm just glad I remembered to take photos of the setup before everyone showed up.

Happy stamping!

Holiday Open House

I am having a Holiday Open House at my house tomorrow. Anyone who RSVP'd by Monday is getting these little baskets filled with chocolate. I got the idea for these from Britta's blog.

My guests will be making this gift card holder. I don't know who to credit the holders to. I've seen them on several blogs. I'm going to link you to my friend Paris' blog for a tutorial on them: gift card tutorial I thought it would be fun to make a unique gift card holder for the make-n-take since everyone gives gift cards these days. It's the ONLY thing I can give my young adult nieces and nephews.

I'll try to remember to take pics of my open house set up tomorrow. Usually I do these shindigs in my spacious finished basement but right now it looks like my craft room exploded all over it! My husband installed new wood laminate flooring in my craft room so I had to empty everything out. I'm going to set up everything on my main level since my basement is "occupied".

Bye for now!

Blog Candy Winner!

I used Random.org to pick a winner for my blog candy. The winner is Crissy!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

30

Timestamp: 2007-12-03 15:08:36 UTC



Congratulations Crissy! Please send me an e-mail at krhopperstad@juno.com with your address so I can send you your goodies.

Cupcake bag

Isn't this the cutest thing? I ran across this bag and the template for it on Diane's blog, Paper Cookies.

We made the bag and the 3 x 3 card in my November stamp club. It's not difficult just a little putsy. I'm all about quick and easy but sometimes it feels good to do a putsy project. The results are worth it!

What I have been working on this week

I got together with my friends Kristina and Kathy on Thursday to start this countdown to Christmas calendar. It was a lot of fun but putzy and time consuming. I can't take credit for it. It is based off this tutorial by Beate on Splitcoast. She is so talented!

But the REAL work I have been doing this week is clearing out my craft room. Anyone who has been in my craft room knows I have outgrown my system in there. It is a big ole mess! Piles everywhere. I have pulled most everything out of it and into the rest of my basement(and I have a BIG basement). Looking at it now you would ask yourself, "How the heck did she get everything in that room? That's a lot of STUFF!" The answer is I don't KNOW how I got it all in there. And more importantly, how am I going to get it all back in there in an orderly fashion? 'Cuz that's the goal. To get an organized craft room. My husband has been working diligently for the last month and a half(okay-diligently in the last week. On and off for the month before that) on making me custom cabinets for my craft room. He does AMAZING work! He is supposed to install the floor today. I have a painted cement floor right now. He's installing a floating wood laminate floor. That's going to improve the look tons! He had to rip down some sheet rock last night due to a little moisture problem. He's sealing that up and re-sheetrocking(is that a word?) and then painting. Next will come the install of the cabinets. I can't wait! There is still the ceiling to install with new lighting. Yeah! Once it is complete I will post pictures for you all to see. I have some very messy craft room pictures to show too. I wont show those embarassing before pictures until I have some lovely after pictures to show too.

Don't forget to comment on my blog candy. You have until 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Retiring Stamps List

The new Spring-Summer Collection 2008 is just around the corner. In order to make room for new stamp sets some of the current ones are retiring. If some of these on your list it's time to get them! As of January 2, 2008 they will no longer be available.
Here's a look at the retirement list:
Retirement list alphabetical

Retirement list by page number

The retiring accessories list will be available on December 10. Check back here to view that list.

Contact me or your local Stampin' Up! demonstrator to place your order for retiring stamp sets. You can e-mail me at krhopperstad@juno.com. I take cash, check or credit card.