Headline

…on temporary hiatus…

Will return when my sanity does!

Hello Crafty World…

…it’s ME! CATHERINE!

You love me! You REALLY looooove me! *SCREECH* 

I’m getting PUBLISHED! *pants*

Okay…so, I can see now that I handled that in the mostly completely UNCOOL-est way imaginable, but who cares!  *happy dance* YAAAAAAAY!

I got the E-Mail from a rep at CardMaker Magazine at work and one of my co-workers almost dropped their pile of files after I screeched so loud!  Even my boss came out to see what all the hub-bub was about!

*breathes* Okay…I got excited all over again.  I almost deleted the E-Mail too because I hadn’t sent anything out for publication in a really long time so I was just thinking it was another rejection letter.  Whew!

This was EXACTLY the thing that I needed to really get my mojo jump-started!  I am just itching to get back in my craft room and clean the living daylights out of it and get some magic happening again!  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll get published enough that they’ll want to interview me and come and take pictures of me at work in my craft room…can’t have it being all messy, now can I?! *LOL*  See how carried away I get?  A girl can dream though, right? 

Speaking of exciting news…lookie what I’ve got for you!

STUDIO G CHRISTMAS!  Hey don’t be shocked…you’re all tanning and sippin’ on ice cold drinks, but before you know it, you’ll be all nice and bundled up in scarves and boots and sippin’ on hot chocolate! The times they are zoomin’ by – I can’t believe it’s already JULY!

No matter how many series come out, Studio G can always hook, line and sinker me!  I’m such a sucker for them!  They’re so cute and AWESOME!  Granted I have more still in their packages than I’ve actually used, but Marti is slowly changing that in many a Studio G collector!  Once I get back up on my crafty little feet and get the mojo roarin’ I definitely want to dive back into those Studio G projects (don’t forget that contests being sponsored by Studio G is still ongoing over at PaperCraft Planet! So if you’re more of a collector than a user and are looking to change that around, get on those SG challenges and win something while you’re at it!)

That’s it from me today!  Thanks so much for dropping by to visit!  Don’t forget to check out the new things going on over at Pezadoodle.com and Marti’s blog for all her latest and greatest projects!  Have a wonderful Thursday and if I don’t get around to it before then, all you Americans out there, have a FABULOUS 4th of July!

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Oh Happy Day…

Happy Birthday, Canada and HAPPY PDD Wednesday to YOU!

So crappy thing?  The Canada Day holiday is right smack in the middle of the week and I had to go in to work Monday and Tuesday, I got today off and I have to be back at work for Thursday and Friday!  *wrinkles nose* Eeeew, who thinks of things like that?!?!

So needless to say, not the greatest holiday since you can’t really go anywhere when you’re expected to be back at work (and sober) the very next day.  Plus, Bart’s work was way better and decided to make them work today and gave them Friday off instead – for a REAL long weekend.  None of this middle of the week day off silliness!  Being that I was home all day with just the pooch for company, I decided to brave it and went inside my craft room.  *winces*

O.M.G.

Being a sloth-like person, messy rooms don’t really bother me, but holy crow this is bad:

I have come to the conclusion that I have a LOT of stuff.  Is it bad though that when I start sorting through them, I still feel like I need MORE?  I mean…I don’t have ALL the colours and sizes and types of Skittles yet, do I?  Definitely need those.  After the wedding and all its shenanigans, I find that my craft fund is a tiny bit depleted, so I’ll have to put in some good, quality work-time in to get a little extra cash to buy more fun things that I’m hoping will inspire me out of this ridiculously, stinky, mojo-less craft rut that I’ve been in.  And when I say good, quality work, I really mean it.  Our department was without a boss for almost two years and we just got one a few weeks ago.  I am sooo not used to having a boss…one who actually like…expects us to work and stuff.  Who doesn’t count alt+tabbing between work screens and craft blogs to be all that productive *LOL* Not that he knows I actually do that, but I get the feeling that that’s what he’s like and I’m not about to find out 100% if he is.  He’s really young and we put up a GIANT hissy fit when we found out he was in the running to be our boss (young as in two years older than me) and I’m going to stop right there about anything else I have on my mind about that because I always frown down upon people who write work stuff on the world wide web.  I’d like to keep my job, thank you very much!  But before I stop, the WORST thing?  His office and his window facing out into the department is RIGHT. BEHIND. ME.  Every day I always have the case of heebie jeebies because I feel like I’m being watched! *LOL* I’m probably not, but guilty minds, you know…

ANYWHO!

While I was TRYING to spend the day cleaning, I kept getting distracted.  I decided to use some bits of pieces of scraps and such that I was finding and instead of throwing them away, I used them to pull this together:

There’s nothing really different about the second picture, but I did just want to show off my super cool GIANT clothespin that I got at the dollar store that I’m TOTALLY going to embellish with PDD stuff (ie. Pez-a-Blings!) 

Ever since forever, I’ve been a sucker for any kind of bath stuff, so I thought I’d finally use this cow picture.  It is sucking that I am proving how out of the craft loop I am since I can’t even remember where I got that cow from….it’ll come to me.  I’m just going to try not to think of it right now…it’ll come….HA!  Squigglefly.  I knew it would come if I didn’t bother it!

Not the most fabulous work of art in the whole history of cardmaking, but YAY, after a bajillion years of dropping off the face of the earth, at least I’ve got a project up on an actual PDD day!  Baby steps back in the game, my friends. 

In other PDD news, new products and pre-orders are up and more new things are coming every day!!!  Besides the YUMMA-LICIOUS glittered Skittles pictured below, what’s Marti’s Pezadoodle store without some Studio G goodness?!  Ready?

How cool is that?!  And there’s MORE!  Definitely make sure to check out Marti’s blog and the store website to see what other crazy shenanigans that super woman is getting into – and I guarantee, she’ll have come up with more stuff to keep her busy! *LOL* Good news for us is that they are always AWESOME!  Once I get the desktop back up and going and connected to the printer, I’ll definitely be trying out her awesome digital Nestability-inspired stamps as they look freakin’ FABULOUS!  *sighs* There’s just so much going on and not enough time in the day!  *LOL*  I vote to add an 8th day that should ONLY be devoted to hobbies and fun things!

Anywho, Bart would like to borrow the laptop to try to see if he can find any last minute vacations because he REALLY wants to get the heck outta here for a bit so we can avoid people asking us to do stuff and getting us to commit to going places and taking other people places and hosting stuff and planning stuff and blah blah blah and we’re slowly going crazy with a million things going on, so who am I to say no if he wants to get away from it all and he’s willing to take me with him? *LOL*

Happy PDD Wednesday to you and if you’re Canadian…go grab a Tim Horton’s and wish Canada a big ol’ Happy Birthday!

MATERIALS
All hyperlinked products and materials are from Pez-a-Doodle Designs (http://www.pezadoodle.com)

Stamp: Squigglefly
Medium: Watercolor pencils
Paper: Mimosa by SEI
Other: White Opal Liquid Pearls, Frosted Lace Stickles, Crystal Ice Stickles, Chipboard embellishments

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An award for ME!

…for being the crappiest DT Leader EVAH!

*hides face* Eeek!

Okay, catching up a little…my best friend got married last Saturday and I was the Matron (ugh, I hate that word, sounds older and less attractive than being called a maid!) of Honour.  You can probably get an idea of the amount of work a matron of  honour has in relation with wedding planning…on top of that, my mom and I were also doing the flowers for the wedding!  So as if that wasn’t enough work, the dresses were being made using a dress pattern that the bride fell in love with and GUESS FREAKIN’ WHAT?!  The pattern was TOO SMALL for me!

So besides doing the flowers and helping out with other wedding-ish duties, I had to make sure that chubster me FIT IN THAT DRESS!  I threw myself into that whole lifestyle change and was able to drop 10 pounds and lots of inches – enough to get me into the dress! *LOL*  It was probably the hardest I’d ever worked at dropping any kind of weight…from waking up at 6 am to either go out for a run or workout using DVD’s (I have TONS now!) and then coming home from work, changing into my workout clothes and then heading to the gym to take a cardio class EVERY DAY! Ugh.  Needless to say, with that much stuff going on, my craft room and my WONDERFUL PDD Design Team (and the fearless leader of it all, Marti!) got way, way neglected!

The only thing that I can say is SORRY for being so craptastically MIA and that hopefully you will all forgive me because I looked pretty freakin’ fabulous in the dress! *LOL*

Here’s me feeling pretty famous with my own umbrella holder and the paparazzi after me! *LOL*  Doing a little dress adjusting, but otherwise ready to strut my 10 pounds lighter self down that aisle!

Anywho, enough about all that silliness!  The very next day after the wedding, while The Mister was completely hungover and sleeping it off, I ordered a medium pizza from Pizza Hut and ATE IT ALL!  I also went ahead and chopped off all my hair that I’d been keeping long for the wedding!  Feels SO good, lemme tell ya!

On other crafty news, I’m trying to catch up with what I’ve missed – but when you’ve got Marti for a boss, can you REALLY ever catch up with her?!  That woman comes up with brilliant ideas even while she SLEEPS for crying out loud!  But while I was gone, the world of crafty-ness kept revolving and Marti cranked out THESE babies:

Baby Blue

Crystal Ice

Chocolate Drops

Grass Green

Orange Burst

Princess Pink

Rose Red

Soft Lilac

Sunshine Yellow

*whimpers* OMG, how drool-worthy are these!?  I WANT THEM ALL!  They’re so sparkly and glittery and PREEEETTY!  Wanna see moooooore?

Picnic Ant's Daffodil

Picnic Lady Bug's Icecream Cone

Princess Cleo's Palm Leaf

 These little baubles are custom made to MATCH the exclusive PDD stamp sets!  How cool is that?!  Waaaay cool?  More like ICE COLD!  THAT’S how cool it is!

I definitely have to get back up to speed and lock myself in my craft room so that I can get some posts up here!!!  I know I keep saying that I’m back and then I go and disappear again, but I just turned down a flower request because there will be NO MORE WEDDINGS for us this year!!!  For my sanity, this year is DONE!  I mean it this time!!!

Now what’re you sitting around there reading me blather on and on? GO CHECK OUT THOSE SKITTLES!!!

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Muggin’ for the camera…

Hellooooooo crafty peeps!  I’m HERE and guess what I found?!?  My MOJO!  It came back in little spurts here and there, but I think I’ve got a good hold on it now! YAY!

…and just in time for my favourite part of the week, Pez-a-Doodle Wednesday!  I’ve got a few projects to post actually over the next couple of days because although my mojo was MIA, I was still trying to create some things and I’ll post them up even though I’m totally not in love with them.

First off, I just wanted to give a big, huge *wave* to my wonderful DT members!  The first official term of the PDD Playgroup came to an end last week and I was very sad to let my first team go.  I’ve never been part of a DT with actual members before (for a while, it was just me hangin’ out with Marti and her insomnia and crazy – but BRILLIANT – ideas!) but I’ve got to say that as first-times go, my DT was AWESOME!  I have never been part of such a talented and caring group!  It was so enjoyable, at times I kind of forgot we were DT members.  We would just chit-chat and send messages back and forth, etc. and it was definitely cool.  So with that, I would like to send out a big THANK YOU! to our outgoing DT members, but now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m not all that sad anymore because I’ve gained more FRIENDS instead!  Plus, another term is starting with the next set of DT members rarin’ to go!  Today will be their first official PDD post, so if you’ve got some time, please do have a look at what they’ve got to show you because I know they’ve been very excited to show us their stuff!

And for me…their long-time mojo-less DT leader (*blushes*) am slowly getting back into the groove – at an AWESOME time.  Wanna know what the new DT members are REALLY excited about?  NEW RELEASES!  Yup!  Marti’s got NEW RELEASES coming up for you and if you haven’t had a chance to look at the sneak-peeks, you NEED to!  If you looooved the picnic bee, there’s more in store for you and if you loooooved our first international princess, then you are going to go ga-ga for the next release!  Here’s a little hint for you (plus I’ve had the song in my head since last night!): 

I’m so EXCITED!  Definitely check out Marti’s blog to see what else she’s got in store for you!

Okay, on with the project!  I’ll have to apologize up front, I was running late for work this morning, so I didn’t have time to upload the matching card for this project, but I will have that for you tonight!  Here is my “masterpiece” of the day:

I had tons of glossy sheets left from my alcohol ink project, so I thought I would put it to some good use!  That’s using THREE of the new colours from the lights and brights line of alcohol inks and also the GOLD metallic mixative. 

Here’s a closer look.  So after I cut it down to size to fit in my customizable mug,  and I embellished it with the ever so wonderful Pez-a-Blings (from the Mimosa set that Marti’s already put together, so there’s pinks and oranges in there) and I used a Studio G stamp to stamp the bottom border of my mug.  Once that was done, I just folded up my glossy paper and inserted it into the customizable part of the mug.  Then I added Crystal Stickles to the outside of the mug for a 3D kinda look.

I’ve got a matching Stamping Bella card to go with this little gift set (inside of the mug there’s a tea packet and one little Cardbury Moments chocolate bar).  It’ll be something nice (and inexpensive!) to give to a friend in need of a little break, I think!

That’s it from me for now!  I’ll have my card and the set out for you tonight, otherwise, have a wooonderful PDD Wednesday!  Don’t forget to visit the new, incoming DT members and say hello!

MATERIALS
All hyperlinked products and materials are from Pez-a-Doodle Designs

Stamp(s): Studio G
Ink: Kaleidacolor Desert Heat Ink Pad, Sunset Orange Alcohol Ink, Raspberry Alcohol Ink, Citrus Alcohol Ink, Gold Metallic Mixative
Embellishments: Pez-a-Blings, Stickles – Crystal

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