21 Signs that you are addicted to paper crafting

1. You have numerous bottles of Stickles and backups for your favorites (Stardust!).
2. You have looked at quilted toilet paper and thought "Hmm...that would be a cool embossing folder pattern".
3. You save buttons from all old clothes you are throwing out.
4. You have some paper you will never use because "it is just too pretty".
5. You have your favorite local craft store phone number saved in your contacts list.
6. You have no idea what Tim Holtz looks like but you imagine him as George Clooney with distress ink in one hand and kraft paper in the other.
7. You start making Christmas cards in February.
8. You hope you never have to move because your crafting room would take way too long to pack.
9. On Sunday mornings you have woken to a "crafting hangover".
10. You have not walked into a Hallmark store in years.
11. Although you are sad that Desperate Housewives is ending, you are looking forward to that extra hour of craft time each week.
12. You have jokingly used the phrase "You can never have too much glitter" but question whether that isn't really true.
13. You always carry a 40% off coupon from Michaels in your purse.
14. You have three paper trimmers: a large and a small trimmer for your craft room and then a folding one for your MCU.
15. You refer to your mobile crafting unit as an MCU.
16. Martha Stewart punches: you have ten different lace sets in your craft room and three on your wish list.
17. Sometimes you just take an hour to run different paper through all of your embossing folders.
18. You pass on going out for lunch because you are saving for "that new Spellbinders Nestabilities".
19. You wish you had a pair of carpenter pants so that you can holster your tape gun.
20. You refer to the excitement of finding Cosmo Cricket paper in clearance as having a "craft-gasm".
21. You need to have a membership at the local sewing supply store in order to keep your ribbon costs down.

Mom/Thank You card

This week my mom sent a "craft care package" containing stamps, embossing folders and a new Cuttlebug C plate (yeah!).  I am sending her this card to thank her for the sweet care package. 

For the card front I cut and embossed two Spellbinders Scalloped Circles (S4-250) and one Ironwork Motif (S5-059).  The black flower ribbon is from The Cutting Garden.  Inside each flower I placed a pearl (Dollarama).  The inside of the card contains more Scalloped Circles and another Ironwork Motif.  Tim Holtz Black Soot was used on the edge of the card and Stickles was used at will!

What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it is all about?

Some photos of a new card I just finished today.  Peanuts stamps are sweet and this card was fun to make.  The inside rectangles are made from my new Spellbinders Wonky Rectangles.

Could not rotate this one but my head rotates the 90º!

A little challenge

It has been awhile but I needed time to determine what to do with this blog.  People who know me may not be shocked by that statement since I am not one to just jump into things without truly thinking about it.  So, without much further ado...Welcome to my blog!

Money is on my mind today.  I am in a money group and we have made several challenges for the group this month.  What is a money group?  Well, it is a small group of ladies (we call ourselves the Cha-Ching Chicks) who meet every month to discuss money: ways to save more money, make more money, find answers to our money questions and how to be smarter with our money.  We are also a support group to help each other meet our monetary goals.  We have been meeting since September and I must admit the group has been very helpful.  If you want to learn more now, I suggest you visit the website www.smartcookies.com.  We do not follow the Smart Cookies exact format and agendas but we do refer to their pdf on money groups from time to time.

Back to the challenge:
One of our challenges this month is to calculate our yearly home heating costs and determine how much money we should put aside every pay day to pay for those high winter heating bills.  This is a good thing for everyone to do so if you are reading this now, give it a shot.  Saving a little every pay will help take the financial burden off during the winter. 

Have fun with the challenge and until next time...

Spider-man VS He-Man

Last week a friend of mine brought back a great memory: He-Man.  What a great cartoon!  I would race home every day after school to watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe...would He-Man defend Castle Grey Skull?  Fight off mean, ol' Skeletor?  Would I be able to find Orko hiding in the background?  Oh...what a fun half hour! 
Admittedly, I had a "cartoon crush" on He-Man.  And why wouldn't I?  He was hot.  He was tough.  He was nice.  He was a prince when he was not He-Man.  He was the ultimate chick magnet.  However...on Saturdays I would wake up early to watch my other cartoon crush: Spider-man.  He was smart, fought off bad people and was a web-slinger...also attractive traits.  I thought it would be cool for either hero to be my boyfriend. I had no idea what it meant to have a boyfriend at the time but I was just a kid, right?

Flash forward to the present...

I am now older and I would say wiser.  I think it is time to finally choose: who do I want?  Spider-man or He-Man?  But perhaps I will approach this in a more "grown up" way: Who would I have a one night stand with?  Who would I marry?  Let's look at the pros and cons for each hero in each scenario.

ONE NIGHT STAND:
Spider-man Pros:

• He could use his web slinging to help get into those difficult to get into positions.  That is all I can think of for pros and quite frankly I don't even think that is too much of a pro.

He-Man Pros: 

• He has that killer muscular bod.
• He has "The Power", if you know what I mean
• His little fur shorts are hotttttt
• Deep bedroom voice
• There is no way he is a boxers or tightie-whitey guy

Spider-man Cons:

• Wimpy body
• Leotards over the wimpy body = not sexy
• Sissy bedroom voice

He-Man Cons:
I thought about this for a while...can't think of any...
He-Man wins!

MARRY:
Spider-man Pros:

• His web slinging can be helpful when I want to get stuff off a top shelf, a cat out of a tree, etc.
• He can clean my ceiling fans and gutters without a ladder.  Very convenient.

He-Man Pros:

• Did I mention he has a hot bod?
• He is a prince which means we would have a Royal Wedding with people wearing big hats and other cool royal stuff.
• He is rich = means no required job for me = more craft time + shopping time + baseball watching time + ultimate frisbee time +...

Spider-man Cons:

• Dual personalities
• Out all night supposedly fighting crime. Yep can see fights stemming from the all night crime fighting.
• How in the hell do you wash his body suit/leotards?
• Poor house potential: he is constantly losing a job so I would need to work two jobs.  Grrr.
• If I ever killed a spider in the house would he be pissed?
• He was bit by a radioactive spider.  What if we had kids and the kids also had some of the radioactivity?  Think about raising a child, potty training the child and also teaching him how to use the web slinging abilities properly.  What if he gets mad at a kid in school and webs him onto the monkey bars?  Imagine talking to a principal about that one.  No way.  Not what I want to do.
• Two words: Mary Jane.  Seriously?  Could I ever compete with her?  What if we ran into her somewhere?  Talk about awwwwkward.  And how would that drive home be?  Would he be humming the tune to Garth Brooks' "Unanswered Prayers"?  (Which would be sweet.) Or Sir Mixalots' "Baby Got Back"?  Which means I would have no idea what to think.  Does that mean he thinks MJ has got back?  Would he be thinking of the beginning of the song for himself?: "Oh...my...god, Becky.  Look at that butt...she looks like one of those Web guys' girlfriends."  Worse yet, would he be thinking of me and thinking that my back has gotten too big?!  Ughhhhh!!!

OK.  I am getting stressed just thinking of marrying Peter Parker.  He is so a no!

He-Man Cons:

• He wears leotards during the day.
• Also dual personality dude
• How in the hell do you wash fur shorts?
• Would Skeletor try to ruin our Royal Wedding.  Probably.  He is a bad guy, after all.
• Cringer/Battle cat.  Biggest.  Cat.  Ever.  You know, I clean four litter boxes every morning.  Just thinking about the size of Cringer's litter box and the size of the scoopables inside of it bothers me.  Yuk.
• She-Ra is his sister.  That's right.  She-freakin-Ra would be my sister-in-law.  Talk about pressure.  I can just see our phone conversations:  "Hi K-Jo.  What did you do today?" "Oh, not too much.  Watched the Cubs game.  Took the dog for a walk.  Made a really sweet birthday card for Man-at-Arms.  How about you?" "Oh.  Me?  Not too much. <in a sarcastic tone> Just saved the universe from the evil Skeletor."  Too much pressure. I would never be good enough for He-Man/Adam the Prince of Eternia.  Can't take it...

It is official.  I would marry neither guy.  I am very happy with my real hubby.  My hero.  My sweetheart.

<break into Garth Brooks' song "Unanswered Prayers">

First Blog: One small step for man...one giant leap for K-Jo

My first blog!  <insert loud applause here> 
Thank you for your kind applause.  <please continue with applause and slowly recede to quiet> 
I am finally in the 21st century and it feels de-lightful.  De-licious.  De-lovely. 
I am now a Modern Woman. 
I will be a lean, mean blogging machine.  I intend to bore you with the dailitudes of my life, antecdotes only I will understand and photos that will be blurry, contain a finger blocking someone's face or are just plain uninteresting. 
Welcome to my blog.
<insert another applause...feel free to provide standing ovation if emotion overcomes you>