Sometimes life just sucks

Yesterday was a sad day in the Tampa area. Two Tampa police officers lost their lives in a traffic stop. The guy who shot them is still on the loose. They were both only 31 years old. Officer David Curtis leaves a wife and 4 boys, ranging in age from 9 years to 8 months old. Officer Jeffery Kocab leaves a wife who is nine months pregnant with their first child.

I guess this hits really close to home for me because my dad was a cop. Brother-in-law John is a cop who survived a shooting 24 years ago. I just do not understand the mentality of someone who feels he has to shoot two officers because he has a warrant out on him. Man up, do the time for the warrant and get it over with. Now he'll spend the rest of his life in prison (at least, unless he gets the death penalty) and for what? It's just so senseless. And so very, very sad.

Two more names will be etched into the granite memorial in front of Police headquarters in downtown Tampa.

Miracle cards

Miracle was our CTMH promotion paper pack for May. I decided I'd make cards with the second kit I got. The first I used to do the 9 x 9 acordion album for my nail girls daughter. These will be used as a Christmas gift for someone. I have 5 or 6 people I make cards for, so who knows who will get them! In addition to the Miracle kit and the Impressabilities and My StickEase that came with it, I used Happy Birthday, Thank You, Party Blocks, Summer Wishes and Boutique Borders stamp sets. I also random stamped the Bamboo cardstock that was included with the kit. I used the cutting guide from the Everyday Celebrations card kit that was a promotion last year.

Not Again!

So they (whoever "they" are!) say things come in threes. The Tampa Bay Rays are the latest to prove this is true. They lost last night. In another no-hitter. This is the THIRD time in less than a year. This time to the Arizona Dimondbacks and former Rays pitcher Edwin Jackson. It took him 149 pitches and eight walks, but he still got the job done. This gives the Rays the destinction of being the first team since 1906 to be no-hit three times in 12 months. Hey, at least we're making records!! Hopefully now this jinx is over and we can just move on!

Holy Dolomates Batman!

Or Stuffed Grape Leaves for the uninitiated! I don't know if I've ever mentioned how much my 1/2 Japanese husband LOVES Dolomates. Being raised in Tarpon Springs, which has the second largest Greek population in the United States after Chicago, he had a lot of Greek foods at his friends houses as he was growing up. And Dolomates are a favorite. They are a MAJOR PIA to make, so I don't do them very often. And I make him help roll them once I've got the leaves rinsed and the hamburger/rice mixture made. This is three, yes, THREE jars of grape leaves. Oh, and lest we forget, my two green peppers! He does not like the tomato sauce on his grape leaves, so it's just on my two peppers. I'll eat 3 or 4 of the grape leaves. The rest? All John's. It will probably take him three days to eat both pans. Start to finish, it took almost 3 1/2 hours to make this. Oy!!

Celebrate

Tami's got a great sketch this week at http://www.cardpositioningsystems.blogspot.com/

I pulled out CTMH Zippidee paper pack along with A Twinkle stamp set to do this card. I double stamped the star in Honey and Cranberry ink and pop-dotted both on a CTMH A-Door-Able chipboard piece covered in B&T paper. I stamped the sentiment and a few of the stars from this stamp set inside the door. Then I used a bit of Yellow Stickles for bling on the stars!

Beautiful Day

Michelle's got her quilt groove on this week at CardPatterns!

I pulled out CTMH Splendor paper pack, along with Embrace Life stamp set. I used one of CTMH's new A-Door-Ables, which are chipboard accents in various shapes with a cut-out that you can dress up or down. I kept this simple and covered it with Goldrush cs because I wanted the butterfly to pop. I stamped it in Moonstruck, cut it out, then covered it in Diamond Stickles. The flowers are all CTMH White Daisy Just Blooms that I sponged Moonstruck. Heavenly Blue and Goldrush ink on. Buttons, CTMH Bitty Sparkles, Waxy Flax and Martha Stewart Bakers twine complete the flowers.

Scraps

I had some scraps left when I finished my Convention album and I'd gotten my new issue of PaperCrafts the other day. I was inspired by a couple of the cards to make my version of them using up those scraps. With the paper pack being Passages and the colors being more masculine, I made "manly" cards. These will go into the box that I will send to Debbie next year for her Save-R-Sight walk. She always makes up a basket for raffle with them with the proceeds going to the walk.

Wii have a new toy!

John wanted some sort of reward for quitting smoking. And he's been wanting a Wii (even though he's got an X Box!) so yesterday wii went out and bought one. How fun is it? I will unashamedly brag about the fact that I kicked his @ss at bowling and golf. However, I got mine kicked at cycling, archery AND frisbee! Wii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little Things

Tami's got a fun sketch this week at http://www.cardpositioningsystems.blogspot.com/.

I chose to make my diamonds a bit bigger than the sketch.. Using CTMH Laid Back pp along with Little Things Matter stamp set, this was a fast and easy card for me. The "brads" are punched out of Sunflower cs, then I added a bit of Ranger Yellow Stickles for a bit o' bling!

Hi Ho Cherry-O!

Anybody else remember that game? We had it when I was a kid. I remember the name, but don't remember anything else about it. I think board games had just been invented then! It was shortly after they discovered dirt!

Anyway!

Cute sketch this week at CardPatterns. I decided to use one of the new CTMH clear acrylic cards and the Cherry-O paper pack. The light blue stripe paper is on the inside of the card. The cherry bling at the bottom is one of the new Opaques that match this paper pack. So cute and summer-y!

Something for me!

After making Susan's and my nail girl's albums, I decided I need to make me one! That way, once I get home from Convention, the album is done and all I have to do is slap pictures in it. And hopefully it won't take me almost 2 years to do that!! (that's my thought anyway!) I used the Passages paper pack and too dad-gummed many embellies to count! There's also some t!m Holtz schtuff on there. Since it's for me, gotta have me some t!m in there too! He's got some wonderful new embossing folders that were designed to be used in his new exclusive Sizzix machine, but they work juuuuust fine in your Cuttlebug! Course I used GrungeBoard to make the embossed piece, then inked it up and diagonal cut it to be able to slip a picture into.

This one WAS a winner!

This is one of the cards that I designed for Susan's team swap. And it was a winner! I won third place and got to pick three stamp sets for my winnings! First set is called Flower Pot and has images of flowers and pots and even a window box, with different sentiments. Second is called Treasures and is Dandilions with stems and sentiments. Last (but but not least!) is A Twinkle which has stars and the "celebrate" sentiment. How cool is that?!

Convention gift

I've shared some pics with a few people, but had not posted any here because this was supposed to be a gift for my 3rd Upline Susan at Convention next month. We found out last week that due to a family obligation, Susan and Joe won't be able to make it after all. So I sent her this CTMH My Creations album I made for her. Her 2 grandson's are one of the lights in her life, so I did the book with thoughts of her using it as a Mimi's brag book.

Buzzing by...

With a little thanks! Yet another great sketch at CardPatterns this week. Still working on building my Thank You card stash.

This one uses scraps of cardstock, along with CTMH A Little Buzz stamp set. The dragonfly is double-stamped, cut out and pop-dotted, then Stickles applied for a bit of bling. Sentiment is from CTMH Thank You stamp set. Flowers, buttons, ribbon and Waxy Flax are all CTMH.

Guaranteed NOT to be a winner!

So I've been working on this one silly layout all morning. Inking, Stickles-ing (and waiting for it to dry), cutting, gluing, covering chipboard with paper and waiting for IT to dry so I could cut it out, making my own I-Top brad. All of this to enter it into this month's Imaginesce layout challenge for a fabulous prize. Only to go back and read the rules and find that they've changed them. You now must use 75% Imagenisce products if you plan to enter it for consideration. I don't think my ONE I-Top brad qualifies as 75%!! So I'm just gonna share it here. Guaranteed NOT to be a winner!

Feelin' Sunny

I have to admit, when I saw this weeks sketch at http://www.cardpositioningsystems.blogspot.com/ I was stumped! I had NO idea what I was gonna do with it! And it kept eating at me. So I finally got to looking in my stash and I saw the colored corregated paper that I've had For.Ever and my first thought was "sun." Then I found my CTMH ric rac and I still have some yellow left, so that would be great for the sun's rays. And then I found some CTMH Dimensional Elements and it had the "Here Comes the Sun" sentiment. Perfect! A couple of unknown pieces of scrap outta my stash and voila! After it eating at me for 3 days, this card came together in less than 10 minutes!