Making your Cricut mat sticky again

I personally use a wide tip Zig Two Way Glue pen to make my mats sticky again.  I got the idea from My Pink Stamper - Robyn.  But here is a link to Laurie's blog  and she uses Aileen's Tack It Again mixed with water.  http://www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2010/08/making-cricut-mats-sticky-again.html
<^..^>Lori

chance to win blog candy from Amy

Amy at A thousand sheets of paper has a fabulous blog candy offer going until 9/3/10.  She is celebrating a blog anniversary with some a super give-away.  I am going to take a chance to see if I can win so why don't you?  Check out her post here then look at some of the great tutorials she has posted.

<^..^> Lori

August card using a mailing tag

I made a card tonight.  I am always inspired by Michelle Wooderson's blog.  She either follows the trends closely or she is a trend setter.  Perhaps she is both!  She has been using mailing tags and wrinkled ribbon to make the cutest cards.  Here is my take on her idea.

I made my own wrinkled ribbon from some 1/2" off white seam binding.  I got it from EBay.  I died it with SU! silver smooch and Glimmer Mist Artic Blue.  Turned out really cute and not too hard to do.  I watched a video tutorial HERE.  The paper is from Cosmo Cricket mini deck Wanted, SU!, Bazzill, and some K& Co paper.  The key is a Tim Holtz embellishment.  The HI is from K&Co Kology Chipboard letters.  The bow was made from the string that came with the mailing label, tied off with bakers twin.  The ribbon on the side was from a $1.00 grab bag of lace and ribbon I got from Hobby Lobby.  I have been wanting to use that lace somewhere.  I like the look.  I used CTMH chocolate ink to age the edges.  I used the SU! round tab punch to make the hole reinforcement and the brackets next to the HI.   

I liked it so much that I made a second similar card but it was not as cute as the first one.  The papers just make this card work out.  My DD said it was her favorite card.  She is not one to hand out compliments on my cards so she must really like it. 

<^..^> Lori

Inkadinkado Fall Fields stamp set

My darling Hubby and I took a vacation day Thursday sans children.  Yes, without the kiddos.  H is working at camp this summer.  Her very first job!  J is a camper at the same camp this week.  Can you say..."Boy, this house is really quiet!"? 

We went to a dinner theatre matinee at the Beef House.  Good food and quality local entertainment.  Although is retrospect, it was a pretty irreverent musical for my Christian tastes.  In the genre of valdeville entertainment they used innuendo unlike modern stuff which leaves nothing, nada, zippo to the imagination.  My SIL met us there.  What a good time to get to visit with her.  Then out of the blue...in walked my aunt and uncle that I had not seen in a long while.  Aunt was celebrating her 79th birthday.  Happy BDay! 

DH and I stopped at my oldest sisters house on the way home.  She had asked for help with her new PC.  We caught up on some news then DH fixed her PC issue.  Turns out she needed to activate her MS Office software.  It was set up to work for 50 times then go to restricted mode until you call a number and get an activation code.  Simple to do but was a pain...MS shame on you for adding this unnecessary step. 

We left her house and stopped at Papa Del's Pizza on the way home.  DH bought a frozen pizza that we will enjoy with the kids this weekend.  Papa Del's pizza is the very best deep dish pizza in our book.  We miss living close enough to enjoy it more often. 

Then my DH said we could stop at a scrapbooking store in Bloomington on the next leg of our journey home.  We got to Scrapbook Friendz at 7:05 pm and they closed at 7 pm.  Boohoo...then I consoled myself by going into JoAnn Fabric next door.  I found a super cute fall stamp set on sale.  The cat figure was so unusual.  The set was $9.99 but JoAnn's had it on sale 30% off.  I bought it of course!  Sorry Scrapbook Friendz but a girl has to shop when her husband gives her the green light!  I do suggest if you can get to them when they are open, Scrapbook Friendz carries a good variety of products. 

So cute!  They had some other cute sets but the cat stamp really made the choice easy for me.  I also picked up a couple of K & Co paper pads on sale for $9.99.  They were not double sided but they had 60 sheets in the pad.  The most I had seen in a pad was 48 sheets.  They had lots of pads I liked but I limited myself to 2 pads because I am trying not to feed my paper hoarding tendencies.  KWIM?!

Well, the day ended with one more leg in our journey...we stopped at Noodles & Company for dinner.  So good...I had bankok curry with chicken.  We shared some pot stickers as well. 

The kids will be home Saturday.  In truth, we both miss them but it was a nice week for us and for them.

<^..^> Lori

Bakers string is really trendy right now

I have seen bakers string on my favorite craft supply spots.  I knew that I wanted to buy some so I Googled it and I found a really good deal at http://www.etsy.com/shop/paperandparcel?page=1.  I got a package with 5 colors.  Good price, shipped quickly...what more could I ask from an etsy order?

<^..^>Lori

Blogging is harder than it looks

I had a goal to post once per month but that is harder than I thought it would be.  I do lots of fun crafts but getting them photographed, loading them on my PC, then loading them up to the blog...is really time consuming.  I missed June altogether.  I will keep trying to post once per month but I am going to have to try harder.

<^..^> Lori

dirt and stones

Tonight was the last regular meeting of the Awana Clubs at church.  I help with the Cubbies age 3-5.  They are a joyful handful!  LOL!  We talked about David as a young boy tonight.  He was the youngest son of Jesse.  Trained as a shepherd David learned to be skillful with a sling shot.  He killed a bear and a lion to protect his sheep.  David often played the harp/lyre to calm the sheep.  Later the prophet Samuel annointed David because God had picked David to be king over Israel.  We talked of the 5 stones that David took when he battled Goliath for the honor of the Lord.  Remember the song...
Only a boy named David
Only a little sling
Only a boy named David but he could play and sing.
Only a boy named David
Only a rippling brook
Only a boy named David and 5 smooth stones he took
And one little stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round
And one little stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round
And round and round and round and round and round and round(the kids love
this part)
And one little stone went up in the air and the giant came tumbling down.

In honor of the last night and David's stones I brought a treat for the kids.  We ate dirt with stones in it.  Don't belive me...take a look.

Doesn't it look so real?  The dirt is actually Oreo cookies that I crushed with my blender.  The rocks are really milk chocolate.  They look so real!  I got them at this really cool candy store called Holland's Mercantile in Washington, IL.  If you ever get over that way, they have lots of fun candy from the Swedish fish to the modern Air Heads.  Jars and jars of candy in this store. 

<^..^> Lori