Lawn Fawn's 2013 CHA Challenge

I am repeating the last post. For some reason it won't let me link to the same place, but here is my card for the contest:

Supplies:

White Cardstock base from Coordinations
Blue, Orange, Yellow, Red and Green Cardstock, from Michael's and Hobby Lobby.
Cuttlebug folders..Swiss Dots and star (that one is actually from Sizzix)
Lawn Fawn's Quinn's ABC's
Black ribbon from Offray
Copic Markers R29, Y06, G07, YR07, and B24

Lawn Fawn's 2013 CHA Catalog Contest and a Kitty Blunder!

About three weeks ago, Lawn Fawn had posted that they were having a contest to be chosen for their catalog for CHA (Craft and Hobby Association). If you have seen my posts on Facebook, you know I am a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE, fan of Lawn Fawn's stamps. Why? Because they stamp clean, crisp, and perfect every single time I stamp. It doesn't matter what ink either...they stamp perfectly! The letters are awesome too. I've used other tiny alphabet stamps and it's hard to get them to line up with the proper spacing between the letters. http://www.lawnfawn.com/products/smittys-abcsAnyway, I picked up a set of Smitty's ABC's (here):lawnfawn.com and I fell in love with the stamps because of how awesome they stamp!

I saw on their blog a chance to win some product, so I decided to enter the contest. I made 2 cards already, and last night I decided to make 2 more before their deadline. Well, I kind of had a slight accident. As I was working on the lettering, Simba, our kitten, decided to run across my desk and accidentally stepped in my ink, and proceeded to run and step on a piece of paper and a few seconds later saw he left his "signature"  right in the middle of the card. My fault for leaving that ink open. Here is Simba, then the card:

I decided I was going to keep the card, and maybe put it in my scrapbooks.

Here is the one I redid and is for the contest:

Supplies Used:
Cardstock by Michael's (red, the black shimmer) and white.
Embossing folder by Cuttlebug..Swiss dots
Lawn Fawn's Quinn's ABC's little heart stamp over the i is from Plus One
Copic Markers...red R29
Ribbon with white hearts...Doodlebug Designs.
Black ribbon from Offray.


Here is my Second Entry:

Supplies:

White Cardstock base from Coordinations
Blue, Orange, Yellow, Red and Green Cardstock, from Michael's and Hobby Lobby.
Cuttlebug folders..Swiss Dots and star (that one is actually from Sizzix)
Lawn Fawn's Quinn's ABC's
Black ribbon from Offray
Copic Markers R29, Y06, G07, YR07, and B24

I was looking in my Cardmaking Magazine and saw some really cute cards in there, and I think a mixture of the cards became my inspiration for this card (not to mention, it was a good excuse to use my Copic Markers, and Quinn's are so much fun to use! :)

Wish me luck on the contest! :)

Lawn Fawn 2013 CHA Contest

Here is my second submission for the Lawn Fawn Contest: Baby Boy Card: I've been wanting to use Plus One for a long time, so here we go: Materials: White cardstock by Georgia Pacific. Blue cardstock and the strip of white paper in the center is from Hobby Lobby. I am not sure who's blue with diamonds ribbon as I had received it from a swap. Stamps: Plus On from Lawn Fawn (stroller). B, and Baby Boy letters from Quinn's ABC's. "is for" is from Harold's ABC. Polka Dot embossing folder from Sizzix and I used the Big Shot Express to emboss! Copic markers for coloring! :)

Lawn Fawn CHA Contest

Lawn Fawn is having a contest on their blog. They are asking for fans to submit cards using certain stamp sets and other guidelines! Here is Hello Foxy:

As you might know I sell cards at Paperika.etsy.com, and for my shop Valentine's Day is one of my busiest times of the year, so I try to get started very early on creating Valentine's Day cards for the holiday. Hello Foxy materials: White cardstock by Hobby Lobby. Light blue and deep red papers are from Bazzill papers. The fox, hello foxy, and the logs are all from Lawn Fawn's Critters in the Forest. White ribbon bow is ribbon from Offray. Copic Markers were used to color the fox. Red and white string from Target. Memento ink was used for my stamping. Lake City quilling paper for the red heart. Quilled creations for tools used!

Here is the other one, which is called Ultimate Crafter's Companion. It measures approximately 14 inches wide by 10 inches high. There are a lot of things possible to do with this tool. You can score larger envelopes for cards, you can make boxes with it, your can emboss shapes for your cards, you can make different types of cards, and you can score paper.You can also make bows. It is missing the "trimmer" and the paper creaser/bone folder. Actually, I found that the generic bone folder you can get at any craft store was better than the bone folder that came with it.

Enveloper

Here are the Enveloper items I am selling over on www.twopeasinabucket.com The smaller one has seven lines. It measures 7.5 inches by 11 3/4 inches. It is purple in color and has 6 lines to use for scoring the envelopes. There is a list of score lines on the website, will give link with purchase. This did come with a bone folder (paper creaser) but it has been misplaced.

Why You Gotta Be So Mean?

Hello there! I know it's been a long time since I have blogged. I guess you can tell that blogging does not come easy to me. Something I have just come across inspired this post.

First, before I get started I just want to say that my blog post title is named after some of Taylor Swift's lyrics from her song, Mean.

While growing up, I am one of the many children who has experienced many, many years of bullying. My classmates made fun of my clothes, what I had for lunch, what I looked like that day, or some other silly reason they would think of. Many times my mother would talk to the teachers and the principals of the school about this issue. I tried numerous approaches to solving the problem too. I ignored the kids, I flat out cried, I told them to stop, and I also tried to just explain how it made me feel. NOTHING worked. Eventually when I became a senior in high school, it still happened, but it slowed down to the point where I wasn't nervous to go to school anymore. I came out of my shy shell some too. I don't think it's a stretch to say that those experiences has made who I am today. When ever I am in an experience where there will be people I don't know well, I am incredibly quiet and reserved, as I am always afraid I'll say something stupid or I will be made fun of or something to that effect. I will fully admit that I probably don't have the biggest self-esteem either, and I think that's probably a side effect of all that bullying I suffered.

Back in the 1980's it seemed that teachers and administrators (and probably parents) thought that bullying was just a rite of passage for kids. It seemed like it was never acknowledged as wrong or hurtful and little was done. Today, I am so happy to hear that there is a movie about bullying (which I hope to see soon), and that there seems to be an epidemic of awareness rallying. I am glad that finally it's being seen as a serious problem and there are people who are trying to do something about it.

By now, you are probably wondeing what inspired this post? Of course, as I do daily, I was reading the message boards on www.twopeasinabucket.com, and opened a thread about a celebrity. Ryan O'Neal has come out saying he's been diagnosed with Stage 4 Prostate cancer. I ended up reading a few of the comments (okay like 6 pages of comments on People magazine's post about his illness. It was appalling to read the insensitive and downright RUDE comments people have made. People were saying that he deserved cancer because of his past misdeeds. Really? I am not sure how people can think that.

Ryan O'Neal isn't the only celebrity where I have read comments about the person in general. There was an incident that happened with Tori Spelling that spurred lots of rude comments. Jen Lilley, who happens to be the fill in on General Hospital also had many nasty remarks about her too. Alison Sweeney once wrote a comment about people saying nasty things about her also. I am sure there are many others but these are the most memorable.

I did post a comment on the People Website regarding the rude comments. Basically my point is that I feel that some people have forgotten that celebrities really are human beings. Sure, they may have money, and are in the public eye, but they still are human beings just like the rest of us. They do get sick, they do make mistakes, they can do horrible things and say horrible things, but at the end of the day, they are still human. (Did I mention that celebrities are human beings too?

Please remember this when you decide someone "deserves what they got". In this case it's cancer. No one deserves to "get cancer". Not even the worst bullies that I experienced (by the way, I forgot to mention that one of them wrote me a letter and apologized for her behavior).

As some of you may have read, my husband was diagnosed with Stage III Brain Cancer in 2009. You go through a lot, and looking back on that I think about all the things we went through. The most minute things are stressful. Take the word: Cancer. How do you deal with that. How is possible? Why him, or any of my family members who have suffered. When he had the surgery, I wanted to be the one to say it was cancer but how? When do I tell him? How do I remain strong for him?

Then there is healing from the surgery. How do we prevent infections? Can he be home alone? What do I do if he has a seizure? So many questions,and many of them were and still are left unanswered. Then you have treatment: radiation and chemo. What will we expect? Will he be able to eat? Will he lose his hair? How sick, how much pain will he be in? Will it cure the cancer?

Not only does the cancer, the illness itself cause a lot of stress, but it's stressful for the care takers. Me. I had a hard time knowing what to expect. I was scared, angry, and it hurt me to see him in such agony. It was painful to see my mother in law hurting and so worried, and be scared b/c her baby was so sick.I had my own health issues with walking and driving at the time, so imagine what it was like to have to get your hubby to his appointments. Thank goodness hubby's side of the family is huge and they helped us out.

So the next time you read something about a celebrity, think about what you say. Remember they are humans too. They have problems just like everybody else. Because they do have problems, they are entitled to privacy also. They also deserve to the old adage, Treat those as you want to be treated. You don't want the whole world to say that you deserve cancer or whatever "punishement" do you? Well then don't say it about a celebrity.
If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say it. Be nice.