How cute is this

Raven my beautiful black cat is so sweet and loving most of the time he drives me insane but some days I just love how sweet he is today is one of those days. I took a few photos of the love he gives me this was the best!

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Wow its been WAY too long!

Well this summer I was just creatively drained I guess.  Not much crafting for myself happened.  I took on a new role at my summer job that I thought was going to be easy, but proved to be a challenge.  I was the Arts and Crafts director for 3-5th graders which with my background should have been easy as pie.  I found and had great ideas but on a smaller scale.  Like I said it was a real challenge, but now with fall coming in fast.  I have the hopes of being able to craft and have some me time again in between my sub jobs and on the weekends.  I finally decided to wander into my craft room the other day and dust off my cricut and gyspy and some pictures and here is what I came up with.  Not too bad for not scrapbooking for probably about 3-6 months.  Nothing too fancy but I think it does the picture justice.  So the next adventure I have planned is a Close to my Heart Club with my bestie and some friends.  The first meeting is a couple weeks and there is a lot to do.  We are going to do one of my favorite themes Halloween (I can't believe its just around the corner).  I'm impatiently waiting for my order to get here with all my new goodies.  I'm hoping my cricut cartridge will be here.  Art Philosophy is such an amazing cartridge with 700 images which includes 3-D rosettes, two fonts, plenty of giftboxes and shapes to pair with your stamps.  I can't wait to play I will have new projects to post soon.  Probably Monday night or Tuesday.  I hope that you all enjoyed your summer and got through Irene okay.  See you soon!

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Remembering my fur friends

I started this post forever ago.  I was looking through the list and noticed this untitled, unpublished post over it lead to me looking to see what it was.  My fur friends I have lost.  I miss them everyday and I was finding myself crying at the thought of them, but lately it is less.  I still miss them terribly, but I realize that I need to live with my fur babies of the present and think of them fondly.  My dear Bandit, Sara, Stormy (not pictured) and Buster.  Though they are missed deeply I must move on.  I love you my beautiful babies, but I know your in a better place!!  

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No art :(

I just wanted to post because sadly no art has been created in my craft room lately.  I have busy cleaning the house and subbing.  On top of that now I'm sick not fun.  I'm doing what I can to feel better because I have a very busy weekend ahead and the last thing I want is to be sick.  So for now you will have to settle for pictures of my beautiful babies.  The top picture is my beautiful Penny and Patches on their grandparents bed looking adorable and the bottom one is my buddy Raven hanging out in a shopping bag.  They are the best when don't feel good.  They love to spend time with me.  Now if I could only train them to bring me a drink and clean the house that would be awesome!

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Tradition take 2

Patches enjoying her food

Penny's 2nd thanksgiving

Notice how she leaves her veggies till last

Penny mid chew she looks pretty mean doesn't she?

my dainty child

takes her dear sweet time 

Sassy was already finished when I got to her with the camera

getting the crumbs off the floor

The turkey did its magic.  Passed out. 

 Well here I am up a 4 o'clock in the morning on black friday.  Not because I'm hitting all the sales (I honestly saw nothing worth while that I knew I would get, so why bother).  No I'm up because my phone woke me up (nothing exciting I promise).  So I figure hell why not share another Thanksgiving Tradition with the world.  Its kind of a silly one.  So the family dogs are like...well like family and what does the family get on T-day... Food.  So a silly family tradition in our house is that we make the dogs plates (on the china) for them to enjoy thanksgiving dinner after we are done.  This year was Patches first Thanksgiving with us so I took pictures and again I figure I will scrapbook my silly tradition.  The tough part about it for me was it was our first thanksgiving without Buster.  Even though I had to make the same amount of plates as last year I still felt the empty space.  I am a sappy, sentimental person and Buster was by far my best friend.  I literally would talk to him when I felt I couldn't talk to anyone else and he always just sat there and listened and let my just cry on his shoulder.  Penny and Patches don't sit still let alone listen on let me cry to them.  There will never be another Buster in this world.  I'm thankful that he's not suffering anymore and that I had so many years to cry on his shoulder without judgement, but I'm sad that he's not here for me to stop and just lay with him during my day or just pat him on the head and tell him I love him.  I hope someday it will be easier, but at the moment I'm not sure it will ever be.

RIP Buster I miss you

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May 4th my best friend and I are going to a "Ladies Night Out" Vendor Fair where we are showcasing Close to my Heart products and she will be selling pre-made cards as well as some Close to my heart stamps and items that are available in the Catalog.  To help her out (in case you are wondering "her" is my friend Tabitha) I'm doing demos using the product I have in my house (which weird cause I never limit myself to "Just" Close to my heart product).  This is the My Creation Cube that is featured in the back of the catalog.  It is a 5x5 cube that you receive completely flat and it comes in white.  You just add ink, paper and your favorite photos and it becomes this beautiful home deco piece you can have sitting in any room of your house for friends and family to enjoy.  I used the "Grace" paper pack, mini medley's,  ink (Honey, Twilight, Cocoa, and Barn Red) Stamps sets ("Grown with Love", "TLC", "Extreme Caps").  It was a quick and easy project that only took me a few hours and it would make a beautiful presents for a friend or family member.  And an AWESOME mother's day present hint,hint... 

So come visit us May 4th at the Site Solutions Worldwide Office 333 Kingsley Road Burnt Hills, NY from 5:30-8pm. Pin It Now!

The Princess and the Frog

Well I was at it again today.  Little Fat Book Club isn't for a month but I thought I would get a head start on it. Can you guess the Theme... Well the theme is frogs, which at first I was thinking what am I going to do with frogs?  Then yesterday while blog hopping (cause I can) I found this gorgeous image from some variation of "The Princess and the Frog"  I cut the image out and then "painted" the gold areas of the image with gold smooch.  Then I took a nice piece of paper from a Prima Marketing mat stack (it was the Alice in Wonderland themed one) I altered the paper with swipes of gold paint from Ranger.  I then stamped a Fancy Pants stamp in Purple Pansy ink (CTMH), then I took green smooch and traced all the stems on the stamped image and colored the edges of the buds in the same color.  The last thing I did with the stamped image was color all the "buds" and centers of the flowers in white smooch.  I stamped butterflies (one from Fancy Pants and two from Tim Holtz) in embossing ink (Distress from Ranger) and embossed them one was in a red/orange color the other two in purple.  Then I stamped what I would consider a Queens Anne's lace like flower in embossing powder then embossed that in white.  I glued down my princess and then foam dotted my frog.  Lastly I embossed inked the words "The Princess and The Frog" and embossed in gold embossing powder.  I think this side came out perfect.  I'm going to use another image of some cute vintage frogs, but for now I'm done for the night it is almost time for Big Bang theory!! I can't wait.

As for life at this moment I'm good.  I passed my final certification exam!  I was extremely nervous and trying not to think about it for the past month because at the time on top of trying to study I was dealing with the death of my ferret and another one being sick.  So I didn't think I did well.  Now I can sub which will be nice.  It looks like things are starting to go my way again.  Stormy my sicky ferret is doing a little better.  She is eating hard food again, she sleeps a lot.  I'm not ready to reintroduce her to the rest of the clan cause she is no where near a hundred percent and I want still watch what she is eating.  Other wise it is hard to see what she is eating compared to three other ferrets lol.  They can be a handful as a group, but I love them. Pin It Now!

Happy to report

That this little cutie has joined my little ferret family.  This past week has been tough on me and the babies.  I have been watching them very carefully trying to decide what to do.  I started looking at babies online I entertained the idea of bring in rescues again, but its so tough not know there past health history that I didn't want to go there again.  So I dragged my dad to a couple pet stores and ended up holding this little guy and falling in love.  He is 5 months old and God he's handsome.  And I'm using the word little loosely he is HUGE!! He is like I said 5 months old and double the size of his big brother JJ (who is full size).  I just love his size I know that's dorky but I'm not sure why I do.  I guess its because I know he is able to handle himself.  I have a house full of animals as many of you know and I sometimes worry about the bigger animals hurting my ferrets, so I feel like I don't have to worry so much about him.  If I remember correctly JJ was only 6 inches or so long when he came home.  He has already changed the mood in the cage/my room.  Stormy protected him from Penny (my 2 year old beagle) she bit Penny square on the forhead.  I haven't seen Stormy move like that ever (let alone use her teeth).  Bandit my oldest ferret doesn't seem care either way.  JJ on the other I was worried about I have never had two males at the same time. And JJ wasn't been very nice.  I haven't had extremely playful ferret before my girls are kind mellow and JJ just kinda follow suit, but the baby came in he has been biting him and pinning him and talking like you wouldn't believe.  I have never heard him go on like this before.  So at first I would grab by the scruff of his neck and let the baby get away.  I woke early this morning to him doing the same thing in the cage so I spilt the cage in two sections so that the baby could sleep.  Then today I went my room to check on them cause I have been letting them have the run of my room lately and I found JJ and the baby curled up together in the base of my curtain.  Too CUTE for words!! I don't think I have a thing to worry about.  A baby boy was just what we needed.  I did question it for a minute after I got home.  I thought it would make me feel better but after a little while I felt a little empty, but after a little cuddle time with the baby I felt a lot better.  We bonded.  I have a new cuddler.  The cuddler doesn't have a name yet.  I'm leaning toward Archer...Cooper...Xavier...or Xander.  I haven't decided yet and I want it be just the right name.

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Busy Weekend

Pet Swap: My Ferrets hold the key to my heart.

Vintage Children: Sweet Girl, Little One, and Children

Alice in Wonderland: Following Down the Rabbit Hole, Queen of Hearts, The Real Alice

Well I was supposed to go to a party this weekend but the woman that was hosting had her bathroom flood her dining room, so Tabitha and her sister Elise came over to play!! We got a lot done which was awesome. I finished my Vintage Children Swap and then after they left I was inspired to create my Alice in Wonderland Cards!!! I'm so inspired and love my Queen of Hearts card, so I think I may be making myself one similar to keep in my collection of cards. Other then that I organized my old photos and I'm trying to work on a layout about my aunt, but I'm not sure where to go with it yet. Enjoy my newest cards. Sorry they did scan really nice, but I can't get them to scan completely in focus because the 3-D elements. Well back to the craft room. Pin It Now!

Little moments

As some of you know I am a ferret Mama. I have four beautiful ferrets that I love with all my heart and the other day I snapped this picture of my two newest ferrets Sara and Stormy cuddling. Sara and Stormy are sisters we rescued them from a rescue group who didn't know too much about them and were trying to feed them Lettace. Ferrets don't eat lettace. They eat hard food you can find in any pet store. It was a battle but they came home with my parents and have become a very important part of my ferret family. Ferrets can be messy and time consuming pets. They get into everything, they need baths about every week (they smell) but moments like this remind me why I love them so much and of course play time is soooo fun. Watching them hop along the floor and try to get me on the bed, so much fun.



Then today the reason for this post. I went to start cleaning and I turned the corner to see this. Buster my oldest beagel sleeping in the cage. The story is that when Buster was a puppy he was a nightmare, he chewed everything (video games, the computer mouse x4, phone books), so we had to crate train him. He came to love his cage and honestly no longer needed it, so we took it down. Well we got a new puppy about a year ago and she has been a handful. We tried the cage at first but it was more of a mess then it was worth, so I gave up on it for awhile. Well we have since moved and I decided that we need to try it again, so I set it up and it seems to be working, but now every once and awhile I find Buster cuddled up in it reliving his puppy days. He has come full circle when you think about it. Its hard to believe he is 13 or 14 years old. As he gets older things are becoming harder for him to do. He can't jump on the couch anymore and climbing stairs is near impossible. It makes me sad to think such a great family member is probably near the end of his life. I can't imagine life without him. Using him as a pillow on the couch, scratching his back, being mad that he wont ask me to go out (I'm the only one who puts him out and yet he'll ask my mom, dad, basically anyone but me). Part of me hopes that he will fall asleep and not wake up because I find putting a pet to sleep to be the hardest choice in the world. I was a bulbering idiot for when I had to put my oldest ferret done (RIP Spunky SR). Okay enough with my crying about Buster butt. I have to clean. Have a great day all. Pin It Now!

My Raven and what I have been up to

Here is my Handsome Raven who is about 1 year old. He is the best cat I have ever owned. I have had him since he was about 1 or 2 weeks old. I feed him by hand cause his mom abandoned him and his siblings. I just took this morning while he was sitting in the window watching the birds and bugs. He keeps wondering on to the deck but gets spooked and runs back in. All my animals are enjoying the new deck and door at my house. I'm not enjoying it too much because we are working on various things in the yard. Planting new plants, transforming the hill in our backyard into something we can enjoy. I wish I took before pictures but sadly I didn't but the after looks totally different. Now we just need the grass to grow so that we can enjoy green instead of sandy brown. Thankful Dad said no more projects this year. We just have a few things to finish up and we are done. YIPPEEE!! Hopefully I can get my house picked up then some crafting today. I have a couple of challenges would like to do. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Pin It Now!

Cat Crazy

Well it has been a little while since I have done actual scrapbook pages, but I say down today and did some!! Which is exciting for me cause I have been feeling scrap block for a while now. Today the pages I did were awesome!! I should introduce my newest muses while I'm at it. Meet Raven (my black cat) and Smokey (my brother's cat). They were found last spring with their two sisters in our shed last year. Their mother was a stray I had seen hanging around our yard. I was pretty sure she was pregant but I need thought she would have her litter in the shed. My brother went into the shed and heard scratching around on one of the top shelves we have found oppsums in our shed in the past so he when he found the box it was coming from he was extremely nerveous of what he might find, but he opened the box anyway and found four tiny kittens. He brought them in and claimed Smokey the only grey cat (because he was different). The rest were black. I fed them, taught them to potty and protected them from the rest of my crazy animals. Basically I bonded with them!! I kept bugging my dad trying to convince him to let me keep one. I know that I have a zoo and part of me didn't really want to take on another animal but I fell in love with Raven and I am sooo glad I kept him, because he is my best buddy. He cuddles with me all the time. When I'm in scrapbooking he sits with me sometimes he even sits on what I'm trying to do. He is mine which means when I move out he leaves with me, unlike the rest of my animals which are really my parents. So alot of my current pages are my newest buddy!!










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My Pets are my muses

Kricket

Bandit

JJ

Sara

Stormy



Buster, Penny, and Sassy Pin It Now!

Challenge two for SYS

This layout was done for a challenge on my Swappin Your Scrap message board. The concept is to use up some of the stuff you have meaning I could not go out to the store and buy anything new. The paper I bought over last summer I think I had my Dad drive me to this store in Vermont that was a total waste I found this and a little bit more paper and that was it.
This is a close up of th little frames I found in a kit from the Christmas Tree shop two months ago. The ribbion I bought probably about a year ago.
In this photo are the matching ribbon rounds and little tiny diamonds that also came in the kit. The prima flowers were bought about 6 months ago and the brads I honestly don't remember. THe cool thing about the flowers though is that they were white. I didn't have any black flowers and I just colored them with a marker.
The purse were given to me by my former boss last summer when we were packing up the scrapbook store. I just hadn't found the right place to use them until now. The stickers are what inspired the whole page they came from a pack of DCWV dog sticker i got forever ago.
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