Survival

Well how many of you ate too much food on Thanksgiving? I know I did! Too much good food & a wonderful time spent with family. This might be one of the last holidays that I'll get to spend with my grandma, as she's planning on moving to Tennessee. I really wish she wouldn't, but she had made up her mind.

I took my son to the early morning shopping at Walmart in hopes of getting him a laptop, but as my typical luck would have it, we came up short by 2. We could have made it, but we didn't know where they were lining up for the laptops & walked by the line twice! By the time we found out where they were, we were too late, but we weren't giving up our spot, since we were so close. I did not leave there without a couple of good deals though. I managed to pick up the Cricut From the Kitchen cartridge I wanted. I know I could have gotten it cheaper at Michael's, but not after I spent the gas to get there & back. I had forgotten to bring my Michael's ad with me to do a price match at Walmart, but that was not that big of a deal & I was good with that. It was only a $2 savings I think. I also picked up a few pairs of pajamas for Brooke that was $3 & a pair of fleece pj's for me for $7. I should have picked up more for myself, but some women were blocking every side of the display & they weren't even looking at the stuff, they were just talking to each other & laughing. I really think that some people do that stuff just to be rude on purpose. I had to reach over the one woman's cart just to get the pair I got.

Then, DH & I made the 1 hour drive to the Lowes in Merrillville because we had seen they had some hard wood flooring on clearance the other day. We would have gotten it then, but we didn't know how much we needed. We should have just bought it all & returned what we didn't need. But nooooo, we go back & they still have the display that shows it's on clearance for $1.17/sq. ft. but there's none left in stock. They look on their computer & see that there's still some at the store in Portage & they have them hold it for us. I tried to get the lady to see if they had it on clearance too, but she didn't ask. So, we drive another 30 minutes to Portage & they have it on hold for us. There is none on display & they tell us that it's not clearanced, but it's not in regular stock status either. We try to get them to honor the clearance price, but they want to call the Merrillville store where we came from. Someone at the Merrillville store tells them that it's the regular price & they have none in stock. WHAT???? I was NOT happy about how that was all handled & needless to say, my husband ripped the paper, with our name, off the box & we left the cart full sitting there at the CS counter for them to deal with. I told the lady at the CS desk that I wished I would have taken a picture of the display with the REAL price to show them who was telling the truth. I'd like to take one of their stupid surveys now but since we didn't make a purchase, I didn't get one. Maybe I was just tired from getting up at 3 am, but even after getting a good night's sleep, I still think it was wrong. I guess I should look at it as they just saved us over $200 to go spend somewhere else!

I wonder how many people had some Black Friday bad luck stories? That's usually why I don't go out on BF, I'm not that lucky. I waste of a lot time & sleep for disappointment. I hardly think that's what Christmas is all about, don't you?

I'm really not that disgruntled about the day, but it feels good just to sit & complain about it, ya know? LOL!!

God Bless & hope you have a safe & happy day!

Some Pebbles Inc, projects

Below are a few projects I did back in August using the darling Lil' Miss line from Pebbles Inc. I absolutely adore the color palette from this line! The card didn't turn out quite as nice as I was hoping, Having a bit of trouble with the spacing of the lines & the adhesive was being a challenge too. I finally gave up trying to fix it at that point & called it done enough. I recreated another one for my friend, but didn't get a photo of that one & it turned out much nicer. Go figure!
















Inside of card.
















Layout using a sketch that a friend made for a crop challenge. These colors work great with a sepia photo! The paper I used for the mat is actually the 8x8 Travel paper from Making Memories. I thought it went perfectly with the Pebbles Inc. stuff.




















A cute little card I made with the leftovers from the layout. I got tons of compliments at the crop over this.











That is all I have today. I have to finish getting my house in order for the big Feast on Thursday. It's my hope to complete little table decorations, but I seriously doubt that's going to happen.

God Bless & have a great day!

2nd Craft show Update

Sorry, there's no pic sharing today, just a lot of blabbing. So just be warned in case you're looking for some inspiration - it's not happening today, unless you're looking for craft show advice. ;)

I made it through the 2nd craft show for 2 weekends in a row. I did pretty good for the first day by making just a little over $200, but the 2nd day was pretty much a bust. I only made $14.50. My partner made much more than that the 2nd day, but she was marking her stuff so cheap, that I could not/would not compete. I marked several things down, but it didn't help too much. Many of the vendors were not selling well on Sunday anyway. We really did not expect to do well anyway. It's a Sunday, if people are going to spend their money, they're going to hit the new sales that just came out in the paper that day. Most are trying to start their Christmas shopping & the box stores are going to get the business on Sunday, not crafters. The show went too long on both days & we're hoping that the people hosting the show got the message that 5:00 is too late to stay & Sunday doesn't work at all. I don't regret doing the show, I just could have done something more with my Sunday than drive 30 minutes for $14.50 & lost 5 hours of my weekend, that's all I'm saying.

I did manage to sell the Red charger plate that I added the vinyl Christmas trees on to make the star and the plate stand to go along with it! I wasn't going to sell the plate holder, but I thought, what the heck? I can probably get more if I need any.

I did end up getting sick not too long after I got there with a sore throat & then my stomach wasn't feeling too great by the end of the evening. That's probably why I'm feeling kinda cranky about the whole thing. My throat was feeling really nasty this morning, but it's easing up now. Now I need to start on getting things put away & the house cleaned for Thanksgiving. I really can't afford to be sick right now, so I'm plugging along at the cleaning thing, slowly but surely!

I did receive my prize package from Crop Addict on Sat.! They always send out great stacks of paper in their prizes! I got some of the AWESOME Little Yellow Bicycle Halloween papers that I never was able to get my hands on, so I was totally THRILLED to see those among all the other cute everyday papers. I love the everyday papers, they work so well with making cards & I am starting to get more & more into cards these days. Oh dear, that reminds me....I had a card swap meeting tomorrow night & I need to get my 16 cards done! I have them started, but a long way to go for getting 16 done! I thought that was a lot of card to have to make for one group, but I was in the minority in that thinking, since everyone else liked the idea of getting 16 cards! Call me lazy then. LOL! It's not really being lazy, it's from not having enough supplies to complete 16 cards in the same style. You don't usually get a whole lot of ribbon on a spool, so I ran out the last time just trying to complete 14 cards. I do have to admit tho, I loved the different styles of cards I received from all the girls in the group, so maybe when I'm feeling better, I'll be a little more into it.

So, with that being said...I suppose I should get off here & get to work on my Winter cards for the swap. I'll share them after the swap & you might even get a sneak peak before then.

God Bless & have a great day!

The craft show was a HUGE success!

As some of you may know, I had a craft show on Nov. 7 & was totally stressing out in trying to prepare for it. Yes, I procrastinate the whole year in getting stuff made, but it's not like I'm not crafting anything! I did have a craft show in the Spring too & did quite well with that one, so much so that I even got a few orders. I have a couple of new orders still outstanding that I need to get my butt in gear on too!

These ladies probably think I fell off the face of the earth! They work where I bank at, but I have not seen them at any time that I've gone in there, & the last I knew, they weren't in any hurry for them, Thank Goodness! I think that time is running out for me though, since one wants something made with snowmen.

Anywho, back to the craft show...I didn't sell as many of my own crafts as I would have liked, but I'm not complaining, I came home with half of what I actually made. The rest of my sales were from purchased items that I bought wholesale. I made well over $300 in sales! Woo hoo!! That's about 3x more than I've ever made at any craft show I've ever done & I've been doing them for 10 yrs or more.

I made up a few Hand Sanitizer bottles with characters on them & sold 3, which I didn't have that many to begin with. I sold the Cars picture frame that I altered. Those are usually a big hit & I make no 2 alike, so they all have original designs.

Here are just a few of the things that I made with vinyl & my Cricut machine to sell. Of these 3 items, only the Tinkerbell bottle sold. There was another lady at the show selling chargers & tiles with vinyl designs on them, so it's a good thing I didn't go that route & I didn't simply because I figured someone would be doing just that (plus she has SCAL-her designs were gorgeous!). So I only made one charger simply because I had this design in my head for quite some time & was dying to try it out! I love the result, but it might have been a little easier if I could have welded it in Design Studio or the new Cricut Gypsy, which I don't have either.

Here is the Charger that I used the swirly tree cut from the Christmas Noel cart (I think?) Ihave been wanting to try to make a star image using this tree, but my original plan was to make it a 5 pointed star, but I cut them too small & I was NOT about to start all over!



This is the TinkerBell Hand Sanitizer bottle I made & used Stickles to sparkle it up a bit, but the stickles doesn't want to stay on the vinyl. It flakes off pretty easy, but it's a good thing this is a pump dispenser & won't get much handling on the image (hopefully).

















This is a small jar candle that I thought would look really cute with the evergreen tree cut around it. This is one that I wish I had DS for, because it sucked getting all those tiny green parts onto the beige background for a cut-out look.

















Well, like the fool that I am, I have a 2 DAY craft show again this weekend in the same town! So, me thinks I need to go make some new stuff so if the same people return, they'll have something different to look at. It ain't like I don't have enough supplies to make more either! DOH!!

So, that's my cue to get off here & go do something!

God Bless & have a great day!

Remembering Halloween

My husband, Alan really enjoys doing up Halloween. He hasn't been able to celebrate it the way he would like to, because our daughter has been hysterically afraid of many creatures in costumes. Even some of the cute ones, like Pooh or Mickey Mouse. She could tolerate them, but would totally avoid any house that had a scary person even remotely close to it. She has gotten much better this year, so Alan thought he could decorate up our golf cart & even get to dress up scary to drive her around the neighborhood for trick or treat. She wasn't too thrilled about his costume, but managed to get over it & loved the golf cart, since she was able to help decorate it. Unfortunately, it was much colder & windier than was tolerable, so we didn't get too far with the golf cart before having to head back for home to get the van. We stayed in our costumes though & enjoyed getting the looks & smiles from the other families. We go to a nearby neighborhood to do the trick or treating, so most people don't know us anyway, but we were totally unknown in costume. Brooke ran into a few kids from her class & bus route, but they didn't even pay any attention to us. LOL!!

So, here are a few shots of our 2009 Halloween, just in case you need a chuckle or two, or to even laugh out loud hysterically!


















































































Well, I don't know how much I'll get to be on here as I've got a ton of stuff to do to get ready for a couple of craft shows I have for the next couple of weekends. And then, I get to have Thanksgiving at my house this year with a big family get together that I haven't ever gotten to do. I just hope I don't break under pressure! I'm only used to the small gatherings.

God bless & have a great day!