One of my favorite gifts

I thought I would share one of my prized possessions. Years ago my sister made me this church out of a birdhouse. I have moved about eight times since she gave me this church. It always gets a prominent place in my home. It currently sits in my scrapbook room on a bookshelf. It is one of the inspiration pieces of my decor in my scrap area. Every Monday, for the next few weeks, I'll either share an inspiration piece or how I incorporated it in my room. Thanks for stopping by.

Expressions, Yudu and Your Story...OH MY!!!

I just had to share about this great give away from 225 Cards & Gifts. Ok, here is how you play. It is a blog hop. Click on the magazine above and it on will take you to the starting point. Answer their question on their blog and then hop over to the other 11 blogs and answer their questions. When you are done, you will have visited 12 great blogs and enter 12 times for a chance to win either a Cricut Expression, a Yudu or Your Story. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! So hop over to the first blog and get to it. YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT (MST) ON SUNDAY APRIL 26TH. They will draw the winner on April 28th. Good luck!!

Keychain

We bought a new car last month and I have been in search of the perfect keychain. I decided that I am going to try to make my own. This is the first attempt. I didn't realize there were so many details to beading. I originally thought of making some kind of picture charm jewelry from Lea Sanders. You have to check out her blog because she has some amazing work on her site. have watched hours of youtube videos about beading. I have been to several stores to look a their beads and key chains. I still have two more picture frame charms to add but I think I am going rethink the design of this one.

I have to add an addendum to my blog entry today. I want to thank Nancy W. for helping me with my blog couture. Check out her blog...she is dripping with creative juices. And her scraproom is to die for. Maybe I can get her to come to my place and help me get my scraproom in order.

Sure Cuts Alot

I have received some questions regarding Sure Cuts Alot (SCAL) but I don't know how to respond individually so I thought I would respond here in a post. SCAL is a third party software (very similar to Design Studio from Provo Craft) but it allows you to cut any TTF (most fonts are TTF) that you have on your PC or Mac. Yes, unlike Design Studio, SCAL can be used on a Mac.

You can get it here. Craft Edge is the original company that created SCAL but I understand you can get it cheaper from other people. Just google SCAL and I am sure you will find some good deals on it.

But even more exciting is that you can also cut shapes with SCAL. It comes with some basic shapes but you can cut SVG files with it also. If you google SVG and scrapbooking you will see there are many people out there that are gracious enough to create SVG files and share them for free. THere is also a yahoo group for SCAL that gives you more information and file sharing. But be warned the yahoo group is very active and will fill your inbox very quickly.

So to recap:

SCAL is a third party software that allows you to cut any TTF font on your computer and any SVG file. SVG files can be found online by googling for them and you can download more fonts by going to www.dafont.com .

My 15 Seconds!

I can't believe it!!! I was looking through my May/June Scrapbooks etc. magazine when my name just popped off the page. What the?!?!??!!? And then I realized why. They quoted one of my forum posts at the Scrapbooks etc. site. Eeee gads!!! I am such a dork but this made my day. Heck, it made my week!!

Tax Time

Happy Tax Day! Kinda funny actually. Sunday we celebrated the day Jesus paid all our debts, then the government asks us to pay them. I guess even our government is too big for Him. I'm kidding. This is what happens when you let me go wild with sugar. Yes...Lent is over and on Sunday morning at 12:01 AM, I attempted to eat some banana cream pie. I say attempted because when I got it home from Krogers, that is a grocery store, it was completely frozen. I knew I had to be up early for church because I was greeting this weekend, so I just went to bed.

By the time I got around to having my sugar rush, a piece of a rabbit shaped coconut cake, I was tired and disappointed. I would upload a picture of my failed attempt of a cute Easter Bunny cake but it looked like a mad crazed evil rabbit. Okay, maybe black frosting should not be used for the eyes, the nose, the whiskers and the crooked smile. He looked more like Heath Ledger as the Joker, than a cute Easter Bunny. I tried to save a step by adding the coconut to the frosting before frosting the cake, so he looked like he had the mumps. Are you getting a visual? Okay, whatever you are seeing in your head, it was scarier.

Sunday is Coming

I am kinda going off on a personal note here. For the past two years I have been absent from my faith. Don't get me wrong, I knew I was saved, I picked up my Bible every once and a while. I did some Bible studies, but I felt dry. I felt empty and honestly, I didn't center my life around Him. But about four months ago, we began attending church again and did a great study, Starting Point. It was perfect for me and my husband. I needed to renew or rekindle my faith and my husband wanted to understand more. In those short ten weeks, we both grew.

Which is why I am going off topic today. I am reminded about what Good Friday is all about. It isn't about all the great sales or the day off of work. It is about my Saviour being judged, ridiculed, beaten and abandoned by almost everyone who knew Him and loved Him. Only three stayed near. Peter denied Him three times and wasn't there for his final breath. It was this day, over two thousand years ago, that my Saviour was abandoned by everyone, including his Father. In Matthew 27:46 "Jesus cried out "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Can you imagine being a believer back then? All the doubt, all the confusion about what was going on around you? You have seen this man perform miracles. You have heard him speak about love and forgiveness and you watched as he did nothing to save himself. I get an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach as I think about what was going through their minds. What now?

So Good Friday is a somber day for me. It is a day of reflection and prayer. It is a day when I review my faith. Were there times in my walk that I felt I had been forsaken and ran? Were there times that I denied him as I turned my head to things said that were unjust or when I heard others judging. Are their times that I past judgement...because I should never past judgement but love with His love.

The good news for me, unlike the disciples on that Friday, I know the rest of the story. I know what happens next. I know that Sunday is Coming!!!

NOT Enjoying the Process

So I spent money on a background that won't even work on my blog. I have tried emailing, commenting on blog of House of 3 and no one has responded. My advice, don't buy it unless you know HTML and know how to tweak it for your blog.

I might as well been asked to dance naked in public

So, I am laying in bed at home about 7ish last night thinking I should log into 2peas online crop. It was a chance for me to crop with others in a virtual world which meant no packing or unpacking on my part. As I lie there, my phone rings with a loud obnoxious ring, of my choosing, that says, "I've gotta woman as big as house, yes sir,.." from the movie Igor. I totally love that movie and that song, but when you are in public...well, people just look at you weird. So, I answer the call and it is my best friend in the whole world, hounding me to go out a Wine Bar with her. OK, I envision this place with snobby uppity people talking about things that I nothing about and paying outrageous prices for something that I could get from a box and feel just as drunk. And the idea of going to a yuppie place was just as uncomfortable as someone asking me to dance naked in public. After a few minutes of trying to argue my way out of going, I gave in. You see, she is smarter than me and I am just never going to be able to win a debate against her.

So I get up and get dressed up and we head out to Sonoma, an uppity wine bar off of Kirby and Richmond. It felt so old world, because the lighting was so poor that I could not even read the menu. And well, we happen to choose a seat next to a rowdy bunch. Who knew uppity people could get rowdy?!?!?! But we ordered to flights. If you have never ordered a flight or you don't know much about wine, flights are a good place to start. You get 3 or 4 miniature glasses of wine from a certain family. For example, you can get a flight of reds, ice wines, whites, bubbly...you get the point. You get a small sample of each. I have to say I really enjoyed it. And I found that I do have a place in the wine world....ice wines. Apparently they are made from frozen grapes and they are really sweet. And yes, at first I felt naked but as the night wore on, I felt the wine warm me up and naked wasn't so bad after all.

Updating my look and cupcakes

OK, call me crazy but I gave up sweets for Lent. Now, I must admit, I am not Catholic but I thought I would join the fast. I think that is why I have become obsessed with paper cupcakes. Don't they look yummy? I made them using my Cricut, Design Studio, Glitter paper and DCWV pattern paper from the Sweet collection. Oh yeah and Robins Nest pebbles. I used my Cuddle Bug to make the swirls on the glitter paper to make it look like frosting. I made some into cupcake shaped cards and others I just made into cupcakes that I could place on a card. Ok, I have a confession, I forgot to hit the "weld" button on design studio so my first ones did not come out like cards, so I just made individual ones with those. They still look great on the front of cards. But you know what I thought about? What if they made scratch and sniff pattern paper? I would so use those on cards. Scratch and sniff chocolate paper or wedding cake flavor...yummy!! Ok, I can't wait for Easter, as Queen Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake!!"

On a side note, this may be difficult to read but I am working on my changing up my blog. I bought some Blog Couture from House of 3 but I can't seem to get it right. I have emailed them and they are going to help me. I can't wait. So again, I apologize, but it will change soon.