{ Contest is offically closed! }

The May Happiness Giveaway is now offically closed! Thank you to all who sent in your entries. I will announce the winner tomorrow morning. As for the prize?? Well, I have decided to make it a surprize! Nope....no clues. Okay maybe just a little...there will be some gorgeous ribbons and lots of other goodies ;0) Tomorrow I will be announcing June's Happiness Giveaway Challenge. I think you will like it. I am giving you lots of notice incase I need to send out some RAK's to help you out! ;0)

Ready for another contest?

**NOTE** This post will remain at the top for the duration of this contest...please scroll down for new posts


I had so much fun with this last contest that I have decided instead of doing the 'normal' blog candy giveaways, that I will be hosting a monthly contest. Instead of choosing a winner, I will just do a random drawing of all the entries...it was too stressfull choosing winners last time;0) Are you ready for May's giveaway?

I think for May's Happiness Giveaway...you like that?...we will be doing any project that showcases your favorite SU Retiring set. That's right you can do any type of project...card, scrapbooking page, altered item, whatever you like, but it MUST include a retiring set from SU. Here is the list of all retiring sets for 2007. All entries must be received by 12:00 pm MST May 31st. I will pick a winner from all entries received on June 1st...whenever I crawl out of bed that morning ;0) Please email your entries with May Happiness Giveaway in the subject line.

As for prizes?? I am gonna keep that one a secret for now...but stay tuned...

Now go stamp something!

{ I''ve been tagged! }

I was tagged by my bloggin' friend Laura. This is gonna be a hard one for me! I am suppose to give one word answers with no explanation, then take 5 people. Here it goes...

Yourself: Tired
Your Partner: Amazing
Your Hair: Crappy
Your Mother: Creative
Your Father: Blank
Your Favorite Item: Stamps
Your Dream Last Night: None
Your Favorite Drink: Water
Your Dream Car: ?
Your Dream Home: Log Cabin
The Room You Are In: Dining Room
Your Fear: Heights
Where You Want To Be In Ten Years: WDW
Who You Hung Out With Last Night: Family
You're Not: Outgoing
One of Your Wish List Items: Developed Basement
The Last Thing You Did: Snack
You Are Wearing: Shorts
Your Favorite Weather: Summer
Your Favorite Book: Davinci Code
Last Thing You Ate: Gold Fish...the crackers!
Your Life: Happy
Your Mood: Frustrated
Your Best Friend: Husband
What Are You Thinking About Right Now: Nap
Your Car: Caravan
What Are You Doing At The Moment: Typing
Relationship Status: Married
What Is On Your TV: Remote
What Is The Weather Like: Beautiful!
When Is The Last Time You Laughed: Today

That was tough! Okay now who to tag...I am sorry if you have been tagged already but here it goes...
* Julie
* Kim
* Rhonda
*Charlene
* Catherine

{ Another Flowabella Creation }

A quick post for today. Just thought I would share another Bella with you. I did two with the same layout the other night. What do you think of this one? I kinda like the wild red headed bella ;0)

I used the celery SU DP on this one and some red primas to match her hair!

Thanks for stoppin by :0)

{ Flowabella Creation }

I decided lastnight that I wanted to play with my bellas. I have a ton of colored Bella's just scream'n to be used. I used the same sketch that I used for my last bella, cause I just think it really works with the size of these bella stamps. What do ya think of my newest creation?

I really like how this bella turned out. This one was colored in with my SU markers. I got to use my new sample pack of DP from SU as well. I really like these new papers. They will be ilable in the new SU catalogue coming up in July. I love all the colors and designs. I definitely see myself using these papers quite a bit. I also used my new Cuttlebug embossing folder. I love this one!! So much fun!

Thanks for stoppin' by and don't forget you only have a few more days to get your entry in for May's Happiness Giveaway!!

{ Amy's Sunday Sketch Challenge }

I saw Amy's new sketch challenge yesterday and knew I had to try one. What do ya think?

I was able to use my new SU 'Wild Rose' set again and the matching 'Recollections' DP that matches. I also, finally, used my Cuttlebug Ribbon slider dies. I have had them for almost 2 months and have yet to actually use them!

The daughter of a lady that my hubby works with(and one of my stampers club ladies) is getting married this weekend. I thought that this card might be perfect to send them some happy wedding wishes.

Thanks for stoppin by :0)

{ Beate's Sketch Challenge Entry }

I saw Beate's new sketch challenge the other day and decided that I must try this one! I must say that I love it. I know it is a pretty simple design...why can't I come up with these on my own! I really loved working on this one. It is definitely one I can see myself using quite a lot. I really like working with square cards. What do ya think?

It is hard to tell from this photo, but I used my new SU 'Worn Words' background stamp and some new Primas that I picked up on sale at Scrapbookers this week. I could'nt find any paper that I liked for the layering piece, so I just used a few strips of ribbon. It does'nt match exactly, but I think it works. Thanks for the fun sketch Beate! You have the rest of today to get one into Beate...go for it!

Thanks for stoppin' by :0)

{ Another Bloggers RAK }

I was so happy yesterday to receive another beautiful Bloggers RAK! This one is from Rhonda at Quiltnutcreations. Be sure to check out Rhonda's blog. Not only does she have outstanding cards, but you should see her quilts! Thank you so much Rhonda, you made my day. :0)

And did ya notice? I took this pic outside today! It has been a gorgeous day here in Calgary. Quite the change from the other day, eh? I spent the afternoon under the gazebo mounting my new stampsets in the sun! Ahhhh...

Hope you are having an outstanding weekend!

{ My first One Sheet Box }

I managed to do some creating lastnight! Woohoo!! It's been a crazy week around here. Emily, our oldest daughter, fell on Tuesday evening and split her lip open. Thought she might need stitches. The doc said that medically she did not need them but he would still like to do them, but we knew there was no way were would be able to keep her still. So we all decided to go with the glue and tape. She was a good girl through it all, but it was rough on Mom and Dad. ;0) She is doing fine now...the scar should'nt be too bad. So needless to say I have not done any crafting for the past few days. But lastnight I had to finish up these House Mouse Swaps so I could get them in the mail today! Those are done now. Then I wanted to try one of those One Sheet Boxes for a Challenge that Catherine had going on. These are fun boxes to make.

Especially with my Scor-Pal!! Check out Diana's tutorial. I got a chance to really use my Scor-pal lastnight and I must say that I really do love it. Doing projects like this are just so much easier and fast with the Scor-pal. You just place your paper on the Scor-pal once and you can make all your score marks...zip, zip, zip. Love it! I would highly recommend this product to anyone who enjoys making projects with different designs and lots of scoring lines. Be sure to check out the website for more details and get in on the limited time introductory price offer. Trust me, you will not be disappointed!!
I also got a chance to use my new SU Wild Rose stampset. I love it!! I have been wanting it for a long time now and decided it was time. I am so happy I did. It is hard to tell in this photo, but I also tried doing the faux eyelet technique on the holes in my Oval Scalloped punch. I used my Sakura Gel pen on it for a little sparkle.
I received my retired sets that I was wanting yesterday too. I will be doing up a project tonight with one of my favorite retiring sets for my sample for May's Happiness Giveaway. Remember you only have one week left to email me your entries.

Thanks for stoppin' by and have a great day!

Okay Enough!!

This is what we awoke to this morning!

Luckily, most of the trees out here are still fairly new and bendable. Others in the older areas were not so lucky. There was some major tree damage done by this snow. There was one area that people could not get out of this morning due to broken tree limbs on the streets! It is melting now. At least we won't have to water the grass for awhile. ;0)

Since it is Christmas like around here, I thought I would share my final Holiday House Mouse card with you all. I don't actually have these mailed yet...hopefully I don't ruin it for anyone, but I have nothing else new to share with you right now.

You can't tell by the pic on this one, but the red panels I put through my Cuttlebug with the Snowflake embossing folder. I am quite happy with this one. And I got to try out my new Prisma Pencils too!! I am quite enjoying them.

Thanks for stoppin' by and I hope that you are enjoying a much nicer day than we are here in Snowy Calgary!!

New Look!

Decided to play around with my blog today. What do you think of the new look? I really want to know what you think...

Check it out!!

Head on over to Scor-Pal. Diana has added some great new box tutorials! I will be trying out Diana's Starbox...is that not cool or what?? And much more fun when you have a Scor-pal!! ;0)

More Holiday House Mouse

What a weekend around here! I should say what a crappy weekend around here! Lots of cloudy, windy, rainy and snowy stuff!! Oh well...it's Calgary, what can I say?

Worked a little on my Holiday House Mouse swaps again this week. I don't know why I struggled so much with this one. Here is another idea I came up with...although I did 'finally' come up with 'the' one! This is not it...I will share the final one with ya tomorrow ;0)

This one was inspired by a card sketch challenge from SCS(SplitCoast Stampers). You can find the challenge here. I really like this sketch. I am sure I will use this one again.

Well, I am off to finish my House Mouse swap and get it into the mail today!

Thanks for stoppin' by :0)

Holiday House Mouse creators block...

Just thought I would show you what I have been working on. I had this great idea in my head, but of course once I carried out the plan I was not thrilled with it. Then tried to change it up...and still not thrilled with it. Here are the two that I came up with lastnight...

I know that these are very untraditional Christmas colors, but I wanted something different. But maybe it's too different. I have one more idea that I will try tonight and make my decision on which one will be my swap card. But first! I must go down and organize my stamp room. I think part of my problem lastnight is that my table was such a mess!! When I stamp I end up taking out almost everything I own!! I need to set up my room in a more organized fashion. What I really need is a 'station' for cutting and scoring and then I would have more room on my table for working. Okay...I am off to organized...wish me luck ;0)

Another Hubby Creation!

First off I just want to thank everyone for all the wonderful comments on hubby's painting. He has actually been painting for quite sometime now...can't really remember how long exactly. He just started doing the acrylic flowers this year. He does mainly landscape oils. I am 'really' trying to get him to start up a blog of his own...any encouragement would be greatly appreciated ;0)


Here is one of his creations for you...this one he just did for his Mum for Mother's Day/Birthday. She had found a picture of a print she liked and emailed it to him and asked for it for her bday. It looks much better in real life! And on my wall!! ;0)

Thanks for stoppin' by and I hope to have something new for you soon! Everything I am working on right now is for swaps and I don't really want to spoil it for anyone...but I might anyway ;0)

Another one of Hubby's creations!

Just thought I would share my hubby's newest creation with you all. He painted the girls dressers this past week. What do ya think?

Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing everyone out there a wonderful Mother's Day! Hope you have an enjoyable day. Just thought I would share the card I made for my Mother-In-Law. I made one very similar for my mom too, but forgot to take a pic of it before I gave it to her.

Also, I just had to share my prezzie from my oldest daughter Emily. She made this at school a few weeks ago when the 'clayforkids' group came to their school. They came back on Wednesday to let the kids paint their creations. Unfortunately, Emily was sick on Thursday and did'nt get to paint hers. She was so disapointed. One of the other girls in her class ended up painting it for her. So when she went back on Friday she gave it to her. I thought she might be upset that someone else finished her project, but she was thrilled! I think she did a great job!! The roses and leaves look awesome. Oh...it's a candle holder, cause mommy loves candles so much!

Thanks for stoppin' by :0)

p.s. I totally forgot to thank Nancy for the inspiration for the Mother's Day cards I did. Here is the card Nancy did. Thanks Nancy!

* SCS RAK *

Just wanted to share the beautiful SCS Rak that I received this week. This one comes from Trina aka Beena. Thanks again Trina!

Finally some creative time!!

First off I want to apologize to everyone who checks in regularly. I just realized lastnight that it had been about a week and a half since I last did anything! Wow! How sad is that? But I did finally make it down lastnight. I have 2 swaps that I need to get done this weekend. The first being my 'invite only' Bella swap. Am I the only one who seems to struggle greatly? I had this idea and even sketched it out. When it came time to put it all together? Well frankly, it sucks! I probably spent 2 hours on this one card. It just kept looking like it needed something else, but what? I finally gave up and did another one. The second one took me all of 10 minutes to complete and it is the one I have decided to go with. Go figure...oh well. Anyway, I don't really want to spoil it for anyone that may be in this same swap. So here is the crappy one for ya...I know it's not all that bad, but I don't really like it. I think the main reason maybe that it is not symetrical. I am very anal when it comes to symetry.

Thanks for stoppin' by and promise to be more regular with the posts from now on! :0)

Exciting News!

I have had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people through this 'hobby' of mine called stamping. And with that I have made some wonderful friendships. One such friendship would be with a wonderful lady by the name of Diana Crick. I joined a OSW(One Sheet Wonder) Swap with Diana back in the Fall. We started emailing each other and since have been involved in a few more swaps together. Recently Diana, contacted me about a new business venture in her life and asked if I would join her in doing a tutorial for her website! I was so excited to be a part of it and now you all get the chance to see what Diana, myself and some other talented ladies have been up to!

I introduce you to Diana Crick and her wonderful Scor-pal!

The slightly textured scoring surface is 12" x 12", with a raised fence at the top (ruler markings) and on the left and right side. This aligns your paper for perfect scoring. No more crooked cards!
Grooves are across the board at different intervals. Besides the normal 1/2" and 1" intervals there are grooves at 2 1/8" for gate fold cards, at 4 1/4" for normal A2 cards, and at 3.666" and 7.333" for brochure folding (divides 11" paper into equal thirds)
When you place your card stock on the scoring surface, you are able to do multiple scores without moving the paper. Grid cards, accordion folds, boxes etc are scored in seconds. The score lines result in crisp, accurate folds!
At the 0 to 1" mark and 11" to 12" mark there are 1/8" markings. By proper paper placement this will allow you to score 1/8 " increments such as 1 7/8"
The included scoring tool snaps into place at the top of the unit. It is always at hand. It has been specially designed to fit the grooves so the card stock can not be torn while scoring.
Perfect tool for straight and diagonal line embossing on cards and scrapbook pages! _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The above is taken from the website. Let me tell you though from a creators point of view, this tool is simply wonderful! If you enjoy making projects with different scoring designs and love to work with Designer paper you will love the Scor-pal. I for one was getting quite frustrated in constantly cutting through my DP no matter how careful I was with my scoring blade on my cutter. I really do love working with the Scor-pal. Please go and check out the website and see all the guest designers and their creations!

Thank you again Diana for this opportunity to work with you and the Scor-pal!

Here is another card I did while we were working on the design and measurements...

And now on another note...the couch has finally arrived!!

I had to work all weekend, but lets just say hubby was a busy boy this weekend ;0) Since Friday we got the couch, new blinds for the living room, new blinds for the bedroom, new dresser for me, new dresser for our youngest daughter, new end table for the living room, new bedding for our bed, and knobs for our oldest daughters dresser! We are definitely on a roll ;0) What's left? Well, we still plan to paint the whole house, buy a new lamp and possibly a new tv stand. We had planned to possibly buy a friends tent trailer this year too...we are actually hoping that we don't like it so that we can do some more things around the house now!! But we will see. It has been fun. We have not bought anything new for quite sometime and this is the first time in the almost 17 years that we have been together that our house actually looks like 'grown ups' live here! ;0)

The plan for me tonight is to get down and clean up my stamp room now! Hopefully I will get a chance to share something new this week.

Have a great day and thanks for stoppin' by :0)

Cool!!

This is how I would be described in the dictionary...

Tracy Houghton -- [noun]: A person who has the ability to be invisible 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Is it here yet????

Okay so this is us today...patiently waiting for our new Sectional to arrive...

Sorry the pic is so dark, but it is pouring down rain here today and very gloomy :0(


On the up side, I also wanted to share some wonderful RAK's I recieved this week. This first one is from Kimberly. Go check out her blog, she has some great creations and an awesome contest right now! We had emailed each other recently and decided to swap some Bella images. She sent me some Grumpabella's and Javabellas. I would show you but I have already started coloring ;0) Anyway, I just love this card that she sent me. It is gorgeous!! Thanks again, Kimberly. :0)

This second one is from Louise Edwards who is from the SCS RAK group that I belong to. Thank you again Louise this card is so pretty. Hubby 'really' like this one too!

If you belong to SCS you can join this RAK group and then if you also have a blog you can join the SCS Bloggers RAK group. Just too much fun!! I must send out some RAK's of my own this week...in addition to completing my Bella Swaps and my new Holiday House Mouse Swaps!! Yikes...I really need to get my stamproom cleaned up in the next few days!

Thanks for stoppin' by :0)

Check this out!

Found this on Nancy's blog...apparently I belong in 1964!

You Belong in 1964

You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too.

What Year Do You Belong In?

Check this out!!

I just came home from work and was checking in on my friend Nancy's blog and she had a post about Craft Critique. Today they have a list of some great 'Altered Items' and guess what?!? They added my blog with the contest winners!! Go and check out all the other awesome ideas! This is very exciting for me and everyone that entered!! Go...go now...check it out!!

Hey there Sexy!!

I saw this card on Kelly's blog this past week and knew I had to make one for my hubby. It is our 6th wedding Anniversary tomorrow. So down to my messy room I went this afternoon to make one while he is at work. I am quite happy with it. It's not perfect, but I think he will like it ;0)

The inside says "Lucky You" ;0)

Butterflies and Bug...Cuttlebug that is.

Well unfortunately, I can not really get near my stamp room. We are in the midst of getting a new sectional this week. So we have been busy doing some spring cleaning...kind of ;0) We have a truck from *Women In Need* coming tomorrow to pick up a bunch of our stuff that we want to be rid of. So once that is gone I can go down and reorganize my stampin' space!!! Woohoo!!! Right now my stamp room is being used as a *don't know what to do with this* kind of space :0(

So needless to say I don't have anything new. But I remembered this card...I am pretty sure that I have not put this one up. If I have, just ignore me ;0)


Thanks for stoppin' by :0)

Stamps: Winged Things, Itty Bitty Backgrounds

Paper: Whisper White, Green Galore, Pixie Pink

Ink: Going Grey, Green Galore, Pixie Pink, Whisper White

Accessories: Costco Ribbon, Cuttlebug *Happy Birthday* folder, Sakura Clear Gel Glitter Pen, 3/4" circle punch

And the winners are...

Well after much deliberation...hubby took this very seriously ;0) We have decided on the winners! Again, I would like to thank everyone for playing along!

First Place goes to...Linda Durham! This one is absolutely beautiful!

Second Place goes to...Angel! I just loved the creativity with this one. Such a simple idea, yet brilliant!

Third place goes to...Kristine Breach! Love this DP! Colors are outstanding too!

Now for the rest of the entries...ready to drool some more????

If all of you ladies could please email me your full names and addresses, I would like to send a little something to everyone as a thank you for playing along!! Thank you again...this was so much fun!! Stay tuned I am sure I will be doing something again soon!!