Aren't Mondays Wonderful?

No? They arent? Well, to tell you the truth, I like Mondays. Why? Because Connor spends the weekends with his Dad so come 2pm on Monday when he gets out of school I am being hugged by the cutest little bugger in the world! Yesterday Connor and his Dad stopped by for a short visit but he didnt want to leave. I was so happy that he wanted to stay with me. Normally he would pick his Dad, hands down, because they spoil him so much. He is 5 and its hard to understand that love and commitment are better then toys and chicken nuggets. Not saying that they dont treat him with love and commitment, just saying that they are more prone to showing love through objects. I am very proud of his Dad for stepping up though and really taking hold of discipling Connor and talking to him about things that are going on. I honestly think that is why Connor wanted to stay home yesterday. Daddy wasnt all fun loving this weekend. lol I feel better now. Before I felt it was always Good Guy/Bad Guy, with me being the Bad Guy. :( Connor might not like it but I sure do. They will always give him more material goods then I can but some day Connor will see that everything I do is for him.
This weekend was not as productive as I had hoped it would be. Yesterday, for some odd reason, I felt horribly ill. I am going to blame it on that NASTY Chinese food that Sean bought for supper the night before. We shall never eat there again. Yuck. However, I did complete the card for my brother. Have to mail that out today. It honestly ended up taking a lot longer then I expected it too. Thought it would be quick but I ended up spending a few hours on it. First I used an iron on tattoo, then I embroidered certain parts, then I did the inside free hand, thats why its messy. lol Then I sewed it all together with some thin batting inside. My first fabric card.

I did work more on my curtains for the kitchen. We did get the heavy duty garbage out to the curb for Wednesday. The materials that I bought for my tank top project just isnt going to cut it so I am waiting until Michael's opens on the 27th to check and see if they have something better! So all and all my weekend was okay.
I couldnt seem to scrap yesterday. No matter how long I sat at the computer, nothing was coming out of me. Today however is a different story. I completed a mini kit for charity, details another day. I also completed a layout!! WAHOO! Over at NDISB my dear friend Fran has a great new challenge running. It's your basic scraplift but every week she throws us a little twist. I did forget the twist this time though. :( Oops. Next time I will remember. My darling niece, Emma. Here is my creation, inspired by a layout by Debb Cozzi.

Credits, Playful Nature, Colorful Soul PS Action (has been tested and will work in PSE6) by my, Amy Head, Freestyle Frolic, this month's Guild kit, quote by Katie Pertiet over at DD.

It okay, you can say it!

By golly you are creative Amy. There now that we have THAT out of our systems. lol ;) You want to know why I think I am creative, dont you? Well, remember yesterday when I said I bought a $5 dollar lamp from Walmart to jazz up? I certainly did jazz it up. Not so long ago I wrote a tutorial on Digital Art after some people inquired about one for the Guild. I had originally created some artwork for a focal point for my bedroom. In creating the tutorial, I created another piece that would also tie into my room. However, I did not know what I was going to use it for. I have more then enough pictures in my room so I didnt want to just frame it. Today when I went to decorate my lamp it hit me, I should use the digital art piece because it was roughly the same size! I was so excited I jumped right to it. I printed out the design on some fabric. Cut it to fit the shade and then hot glued it on. Remember that hot glue can be your best friend AND your worst enemy so keep a bowl of cold water next to you. ;) After I glued the design on I trimmed the lamp on both the top and the bottom with some thin black satin ribbon. Voila! A unique and creative lamp that no one else on Earth has but me. :)

I also made that little bowl you see there. That was super cute and easy as well. I took some yarn, dipped it on Elmer's school glue. Took a bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, draped the yarn around it. Wait for the glue to dry, peel it off, spray it with clear coat and then you are done. I think they would be great for keeping little girl's hair bows and whatnot.
Out of my GIANT list from yesterday I have accomplished very little. Most likely because I am just sitting here at the computer blogging and creating a new kit for the store. Somewhat ambitious I suppose. I worked on the hat rack but have to wait for a drill to complete it. I have my curtains half done. I bought glue sticks!! Amazingly most of the stores I went to were out! Was there some sort of mad rush for glue sticks in my town or what?
I should get busy with some of my projects....OR may be I will read some blogs. ;)

Fantastic Friday!

THE WEEKEND IS HERE!! WAHOO!! I have never been so happy to see a week end. I am hoping all my personal drama will end now. :) I know this weekend is going to FLY by because we have a TON of work to get done. Heavy duty garbage pick up is this week so we have to make sure we clean out any unwanted items. I know we are very lucky to have this, I am sure not all towns provide help with Spring cleaning. lol I am also very excited because I thought I would release my new Photoshop Actions today instead of Monday! Get the weekend started right! :) Check them out here and here in the store!


Special thanks to my two models, my son Connor and my best friend EVER, Jennifer.

With everything that has been going on in my real life, I have been doing everything possible to avoid being idle. This means that I have started a zillion and two projects. I am hoping that I will actually complete all of them. Or at least half of them. ;) Want to hear my list?
I am going to embroider my new pillow cases.
Making a new purse for Spring/Summer days. (I have it cut out but need to sew it together)
New curtains for my kitchen, along with a possible set of pot holders. (Again cut out but not sewed)
Still need to finish the curtains for my room. (need to surger (sp) for this one)
Spicing up $5 dollar lamp I found at Walmart for my room. (the paint was chipped)
That reminds me to buy glue sticks.
Finish hat hanger that I started. (like coat hanger but for hats ;))
Paint my room and hang up my new art.
Embroider new place mats to match new kitchen items.
Finish tank top project. This one is cool and I cant wait to show you when its done.
Do something for a friend who has a special day coming up. ;)
Sand dresser drawers.
Card for brother's birthday.
Do taxes. Ick.

I have been scrapping a lot more lately as well! I had the joy of working with Debb Cozzi's new kit Stroll in the Park for this layout of my niece.

I created a new avatar for the Spring this week.


For my challenge this week I dared everyone to create a layout using a TV title! Here is what I created. My darling son had a horrible habit of wearing underwear on his head when he was smaller. I have one where he is playing the Harmonica as well but I cant seem to find it. Currently surrounded by photo albums that need to be put away.


Do you ever wonder if you really do inspire people? I wonder that. I sure hope I do. :D I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Herringbone is a Neutral!

I do not go shopping with my mother. I dont. After years of trying, I decided that is best for our relationship if we do not enter into clothing stores together. Yesterday I was feeling rather chipper and decided 'oh what the heck I will go with her.' MISTAKE PEOPLE! She said, and I quote, "Amy, will you come to *store* with me and help me pick out a new outfit. I want to get something different then I would normally pick out and I thought you could help." So we head into store and start looking. I start by showing her pieces and finally say, well why dont I just put together an outfit for you to try on. Alrighty then! I picked out a nice beige/peach/brown/olive small print floral blouse, a pair of brown herringbone dress pants and a nice taupe colored fitted blazer/jacket. She put it on and it looked FABULOUS on her. Man, my Mom's butt never looked so good. ;) I know my Dad would have LOVED those pants. However! My Mom says to me, I cant wear this. You cant mix patterns. Mix patterns? Sure you can! However, I say, herringbone is such a subtle pattern that it is considered a neutral. You only have pattern on the blouse. She calls over the MANAGER of store and says, what do you think? Manager says, Oh no, you CANNOT MIX PATTERNS! Seriously, if you WORK in fashion you should at least know that YOU CAN MIX PATTERNS BUT HERRINGBONE IS A NEUTRAL. So I say politely, ACTUALLY you CAN mix patterns under certain conditions but she only has one pattern on. Herringbone is a neutral. No, its not. Yes, it is. No, its not. YES IT IS!! Ok, I say, we will find some nice pin striped pants then since we are getting nowhere with the herringbone pants. OH NO! YOU CANNOT MIX PIN STRIPPED PANTS WITH A FLORAL BLOUSE! Quick, grab a solid shirt. Has NO ONE listened to me the entire time? I hate to say it people but pin strips are NEUTRAL as well and CAN be worn with patterns. I should Google this and email it to my Mom and the Manager. It really does frustrate me. So you know what my Mom bought? PLAIN BLACK DRESS PANTS! I spent HOURS in that store with her and she came out with ANOTHER pair of plain black dress pants. DO NOT SHOP WITH MOM!
There my rant is over. :) Today it was misty out. Connor decided that not only would be wear his new boots but he would also take his umbrella to school with him. He looks SO CUTE and horribly mismatched but I HAD to take some pictures along the way. He was so proud of himself.

He gets his fashion sense from my Mom. ;) On our way we also ran into my future SIL and my niece Emma. She looked so cute! It was a bit chilly out and she had just woken up not long before. She was waving and yelling 'Namy.' Love her!

WE HAVE WATER! At Nan's that is. Since Nan has been in the hospital the house has been without water. On the night she broke her hip the lid of the coal bin blew off and the pipes froze. Of course then they burst. The water meter was split and one pipe had a hole in it. A friend of my Dad's works for the town so he came over yesterday and installed a new meter for us. YAY! That was one less job for the plumber. It took almost THREE WEEKS to get the plumber to the house. He kept saying he was coming but he wouldnt show up. It was ridiculous. I wanted Sean to find someone else to do it but Nan is so fussy about things. She likes to make the decisions and that was her choice. Anyway, FINALLY today Sean went down to their office and complained. Someone showed up at the house less then an hour later and fixed the pipe. We now have water! Tonight I will be spending most of my time cleaning since nothing has been done without water. Nan's daughter will be home on Wednesday for three weeks and her son the week after. Then after that her nephew and his wife will be down for a few months. We are so happy that we will have lots of help once Nan gets home, which should be within two weeks. Glad things are FINALLY going to be getting back on track around here.
Want to know what made me really happy yesterday? Its silly. I went to Home Depot and purchased two Rubbermaid totes for THREE DOLLARS each! Whoot whoot! I wanted them for my Christmas decor which was in ripped cardboard boxes and driving me batty. I am really doing my best to become more organized. OH and I got new burner covers for my stove. Sean burned mine, even though he said it MUST have been me. ;) lol Men. So I bought some fabric for some new curtains to match my new covers. I am so weird. I shouldnt have said anything, now people will expect me to make the curtains!! ;) My bedroom should be complete this weekend! Finally. I hope.
Well, I am off to get some more stuff done. Hope everyone has a great Wednesday!

A Bittersweet Life

Its amazing how one day you can be on Cloud 9 and then next you are plump on your rear looking up at it! I find that with life these days there are extreme highs for me and extreme lows. I just need to sit back and breath my way through it all. On the high side of life this week, I have a new mini kit in the store at NDISB! Its called Playful Nature and for only $2.99, it can be YOURS! The kit contains 4 papers and 10 unique elements! Check it out here!
My wonderful friends and I have been playing and here are some of the layouts we created with it this past weekend.
Me

Debb

and Sayo (aka bunnynose)

All other credits can be found with their original uploads in the Guild gallery.

Oh and dont forget to stop by the Guild tonight for my Inspired By Art chat at 10pm EST! Last week's inspiration was creating layouts using brushwork, what will tonight be? Well, you will have to stop by and find out! ;) Here is one layout that was created this week!
Sayo


I am now off to feed my blog reading addiction! I hope everyone had a magical weekend!

What a week!

Thank goodness this week is almost over!! Crazy things have been happening in the last few days. Here are some of the highlights.

On Wednesday I went into the city with Sean while he worked. I spend the afternoon sitting in the restaurant embroidering. I had a nice lady come over to talk to me. I would say she was in her late 50s and she mentioned how happy she was to see what I was doing. People dont do that any more, she said, its good to see someone is. That was nice of her! Afterwards we were heading out and I said I wanted to stop and donate blood. We headed over to the clinic and that is when the weirdness started!! I dont have any issues giving blood. This time though was a different story. They had to check my iron TWICE! Then I was dumb and filled out the sheet wrong and had to do that again. Then after the RN put the needle in the blood stopped flowing. They had to jiggle the needle around to get it going and I kept moving my fingers to help the flow. None of this bothered me. What did bother me was that when they took the needle out, my blood would not STOP! It took them FIFTEEN minutes to stop the blood. They actually had to put a block of ice on my arm to stop it. My whole arm was sore and red and well...frozen! I left feeling so drained, literally. lol I will give again though.

THEN yesterday I went to a health fair at the local community college to get my blood sugar and cholesterol checked. When they stuck me with the needle NO BLOOD CAME OUT! She had to massage my hand and finger for two minutes to get the blood to come out. How freaky is all this!! I laughed and made a joke about how the blood bank took everything I had to give.

When we picked Connor up at school he told me that he had been bitten by a spider. I told him not to be lying. He said he had! I told him to show me. He took off his glove and sure enough, his hand was red and swollen. I ran back into the school, livid that my son had been bitten and I hadnt been told. He hadnt TOLD the teacher. The kids were getting ready to leave when they saw the spider. They were told not to touch it while the teacher went to get a bug jar so they could all look at it. Connor picked it up, it bit him. We spend the next 4 hours at the hospital where Connor was the talk of the town. We had the spider with us and he made his rounds with the nurses. Everyone had to see the little boy who had been bitten and his spider. We apparently dont have too many spider bite cases in this neck of the woods. lol Everything worked out fine though. Except for the spider, he died. :( Apparently being thrown around so much is a bad thing. We did have every intention on letting him go.

So those are a few of my events this week! Today I finished up a new mini kit that will be in the store on Monday. Super excited. Its so cute! I will have lots of inspiration to show you on Monday! I also have a lot to show you today!!! Its the beginning of the month which means the Guild is booming! The Artisan Notebook was released and of course the monthly Guild kit, Freestyle Frolic! Amazing deals happening this weekend with a get to know you special! Check it out!
And to help get you inspired, here are a few of the layouts made by some of the wonderful Guild ladies!
Debb

Stacey

Fran

Mary

Maggie

Me


Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!!!

April Fools Day!

Did everyone get their family and friends with a joke today? I did!!! I cant tell you what I did to Sean but I can tell you what I did to Connor!!! ;) Ok, first, an ambulance drove by my house today, I thought it was my alarm, turned off the alarm, slept in. THEREFORE, I really didnt have time to think. lol SO! While Connor was getting dressed, I prepared his breakfast for him. I finally gave in and bought him Corn Pops. The kid LOVES them. I do too though, and I will eat the whole box. Hence the reason I never want to purchase them. I really do get off track, dont I? Anyway, back to the joke, I dyed his milk blue. You should have seen the look on his face when he sat at the table. "Ummm Mom, what is that?" "Your milk." "Its blue." "No, its not." "Ummm, yes Mommy, it is!" "OH NO!! Something must be wrong with it." I burst out laughing screaming April Fool like a nut and he just looks at me. Guess he is still too young to get it, huh? lol I had fun though. He refused to drink the milk. I took a picture of him pretending too though. There is something seriously wrong with my Olympus. Yuck. Horrible grain, very dark and blurry. I have to have it fixed. :(


NEW IN THE STORE! I have THREE, count them 1, 2, 3, new products in the store today!! For all you PS Junkies out there, we have TWO new photoshop actions to enhance your photos!
First we have Grainy Day Photos! This action will convert your photos to black and white, then add a grainy look to give them a vintage appeal!

A closer peek at that photo with the action run on it.

Then we have the same idea but in a Sepia tone! Which I just think is so awesome!


I also did up some cool new graphical overlays!! Our challenge last night at the chat was to create a layout using brushes. These layouts were inspired by that! Check them out! A Graphic Touch Overlay Pack!

Just for fun, here is the layout that I created for inspiration for the chat last night. Please be gentle, I downloaded the brushes, created the layout and uploaded it in just over 15 minutes.

All brushes used were found at Brusheezy. Photo is of my friend Jen, with my Acidic Addictions PS action used on it. Title is from a Smashing Pumpkins song.
To end today's post, its the 1st of the month which means that the newest GUILD KIT is being released today! Let me tell you folks, this kit is one of a kind. Truly unique and is just going to blow your socks off!!! The Artisan Notebook is also being released with FREE GOODIES! This month's focus is on using High and Low Key photos in your layout. I created a High Key PS Action for everyone! So go check it out!!!
Tomorrow I will post some fantastic layouts created by our CT with the kit for inspiration, just in case you need that extra nudge. ;) HAVE A GREAT DAY!