Everything is Awesome

FWF Unity Stamps.
Well, I missed the midnight dead line by six minutes.  That is OK everything is still awesome because I can still enter it in the monthly Challenge.  I started out thinking I was going to make a layout because I need to do 12 pages before my oldest son graduates but I ended up with a card. They had a great sketch for inspiration for this months Challenge. I love the word "awesome" always have, always will.  I love to tell kids they are awesome, I like to tell adults they are awesome for that matter.  I ordered the sentiment 'awesome' right away when I started getting into Unity Stamps.  I thought it would go well with Congratulations cards and Graduation Cards.  Than yesterday my prize came from last weeks FWF for my comment.  Which had a misspelling by the way and my profile picture was blurry...hmmm, how is that for making an impression on my new Unity friends?  Anyway, in there was the stamp 'YOU ARE'.  So I knew right away I would combine it with my 'Awesome' sentiment stamp I already had.   While I was making this card tonight, I found my self sing the song "Everything is Awesome".
       "Everything is Awesome"  from the Lego Movie happens to be a very popular song on kids radio right now. That song, and "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen, seem to be played every hour.  The words are seared into my brain, and I can belt those two songs out with the best of them.  I have not seen the Lego Movie, my son was obsessed with Legos.  I have probably 2000 dollars worth of Lego's in plastic tubs in this house.  My daughters were only interested in Duplo's well past the recommended age of 5.  They still play with them for hours.  Why Duplos you may ask?  Well because you can build houses for your Pretty Ponies of course.  N, my son, saw the Lego Movie when it came out with his friends.  I am sure they all have a tub or two of Lego in their basement too.  He is a senior in high school and he said, "It was so awesome". Y and S, my seven and eleven year old girls just are not interested in them.  They have spending their not so hard earned dollars on Friends Legos(damn you Lego advertising geniuses).  I need my son to get them to that Lego movie, to get them interested in what Legos we have.  I need a return in my investment.  Kind of like the reasoning I  used when I said "I am going to making cards to save money since I already have all the supplies for scrapbooking".  That financial plan has not worked out real well for me either. Can you say Unity Stamps and Copic Marker obsession?

If you want to learn more about it just check out Unity Stamp Company Monthly Challenge.

Supplies:

Paper: MME 6x6 Away We Go

Stamps: Unity Stamp Company

Ink: VersaMagic chalk ink- cloud white

Hearts: October Afternoon Woodlands

Twine: American Crafts Ribbon

Chalk tape: Fancy Pants

Punches: Fiskars and Creative Memories Circle punch(R.I.P. CM, you will not be forgotten your legacy lives on with your awesome two circle punch).

Thanks for looking at my first attempt at chalking with stamps.  I think I need another kind of ink to make the words darker to show up more.  Have a great week.

LB

Not one for Coloring

I have been working with on trying to figure out Copic markers.  There are classes and youtube videos you say?  I know.  I think like many things in my life, it is more fun to buy things than actually use them.  Oh the hunt for the deal, the coupons, the online sites, I spend all my extra time buying something instead of actually learning how to use it.  I have used the Copics in small amounts.  I did that on this card.  I really love the blending pen to give you the shadowed look.  I learned that from the gal at my local scrapbooking store Scrapbooks Too in her 5 minute tutorial she gave me.  In my short attention span world that is my definition of a class.  My youngest one, who is quit a little artist, was also coloring  with me when I was working on this card.  She had taken one of the extra stamped papers I had done.  After she finished it she said to me what does "Heartfelt Sympathy mean"?  I explained to her it is what you say to someone when someone they love has died.  She handed me her work and said "this seems a little to happy for to make a card to send somebody...you keep it.  Then when you look at it and think of Grandpa it will make you think of happy things, not sad".   Out of the mouth of babes as they say.  I wish I could bottle up the sweetness in that kids heart and use it about 5:30 every day. Here is her work.

Here is the card I made. A little more subdued.  I had received the beautiful journaling card as a free gift from Unity Stamp Company.  You get a free gift with every order.  I also got the Heartfelt Sympathy stamp there.  I colored with my Copic hoping to match the flowers on the journaling card.  I loved the turquoise blue in the flowers.  I was on one of my trips where I had time to kill between picking up kids.  An there just happens to be a Michael's Crafts 4 blocks from my kids school.  Walking through I found colored burlap from Canvas on the clearance wall.  I was so happy that it matched so well.  Warning: Burlap is a bear to cut for the cutting challenged.  I happen to be one of those people.  Perhaps if I went by the rule "measure twice cut once" verses "don't measure and cut six times" rule.  

Card stock: recollections
Journaling card: Unity Prize
Label cutter: Spellbinder
Label: Basic Grey Basic 6x6 pad
Burlap- Canvas
Markers- Copic sketch
Gems: Recollections
Ribbon: Prize but from 3girlJam
Stamp: http://unitystampco.com/shop/sympathy-thinking/

Thanks for Looking:  Remember: do not sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff.
LB

Friends with Flare- Happy Day

Another Friday.  That means it is FWF day.

Today I am going to share with you my go to card for birthdays.  I have made this card a few times.  You can make it quickly and I think it works for men too.  I gave it to my, gulp, now 18 year old son yesterday.  The first card I made looked too babyish.  So, I went with the old dependable.  Isn't it hard to make cards for men?  Plus the men in my life do not appreciate when I make a card for them anyway.  I think my husband and son think I am nuts that I toil over making cards when you can even get them at gas stations.  That is right I live with a couple of Barbarians.  They reside in my basement and stare at the magic blue light together and repeat bad movie line from the action movies they watch and laugh at each other. Also, did I mention the smell?  I am sure none of you can related to that.  Oh yeah and they punch each other in the arm a lot...like I said, "Modern Day Barbarians".

Stamp: Unity Stamp
Paper and Sticker: Echo Park
Ink: Momento and Tim Holtz Distress ink
Twin: The Twinery
Card Stock: Recollections and Bazzill

Thanks for looking on the second day of Spring.
LBAB

Because I said I would do it.

Unity Friends with Flair #2

This is what I ended up doing in the morning to finish it up.  Funny how a little embossing and adding a heart embellishment makes it seem more complete.

My FWF I sent in with 46 sec left until the dead line.

I committed to myself that I wanted to try to be an active participant in the Unity Friends with Flare.  Here it is 11:36 pm and I am under the wire.  I am not at all in love or even like with this card.  I did get to use this awesome ribbon from 3Girls Jam that I won on Julie's blogoversay I hopped  last weekend.  So that makes me happy. Thanks so much Julie I have been eyeing your use of that ribbon.   I used one of the stamp from Lasting Thoughts.  There are 8 of them and they have great potential and they are not all sympathy related.  I made a sympathy card because unfortunately as many of know there is always a need for them. This one I made with a special person in mind though. 

I am doing this last minute because I have been busy.  I had a crazy weekend last weekend catching up with my old college roommates, learning that I am not young anymore.  Speaking of sympathy cards I thought I was may die the next morning after we sat up trying to prove we were young again.  Even my go to helper of a Hardess Chicken Fillet Sandwich could not cure my ills.  We were celebrating another great check up for my bestie who underwent treatment for a rare melanoma.  This was her second 3 month check out and it all looked good.  Hurray! One of my roommates flew in from out of state.  It was the second night that nearly did me in.  On the first night we had more common sense. We  had decided to go to a fancy seafood restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. All 3 of us had always wanted to go there.  You know it is the one you usually think of for anniversaries or really special occasions.  My husband is allergic to shell fish and another ones husband does not like seafood so we knew it was up to us to make it happen.  So we took matters in our own hands and made a reservation.  We dressed all up, the whole nine yards.  I must admit I have not been to many high end restaurants lately.  I felt like Red and Kitty in the episode of That 70's Show.  They go out to their favorite supper club they hadn't gone to in a few years.  When they get there everything had changed. That is how I felt.  Here we were in one of the nicer spots in town and some people had on jeans and a few were even was wearing a  hoodie sweatshirts with business names on the back.  Our waiter in the bar, that we sat in because they were running behind on our reservation, was crabby and rude.  But we were together and ignored him.  When we were seated at our table we had a wonderfully over the top waiter name Roberto that made our night. We gabbed and laughed for 3 hours.  But again it surprised me to be at a restaurant that you spend 85 plus dollars a person and people look like they are going out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Not that there is anything wrong with BWW, just saying the words make my mouth water, but I guess I have now I have officially become outdated and old fashioned.

Than it was off to my home state to visit as my 2 girls are on spring break.  I just had to see my newest great nephew. Of course I am outdated…I am after all a great aunt of soon to be 8 kids.  So I learned this past week that drinking wine cannot turn back the hands of time, nor would I want it to.  Because if it did, I would not have this wonderful friendships of 20 plus years with my two besties from my college days to cherish and enjoy. 

So imagine this card with embossed paper behind it(like I said I ran out of time), grab a glass of wine and call that bestie of yours.

Remember don't sweat the small stuff, and it is all small stuff!

 LBAB

My first friends with flare for Unity Stamps

I said I would never eat Tuna and now I do, I said I would never marry a man from North Dakota and I did, I said I would never scrapbook and I do, I said I would never have a blog and I do and I said absolutely would I never make cards and here we are.  Here is my first entry for Friends with Flare over at Unity Stamps.

For this card I used my favorite stamp of the minute(I have a super short attention span)My Panda Ballon, MME My Girl 6x6 pad, MME enamel dots, and a Crate Paper sticker from the Little Bo Peep Collection and Recollection card stock cards.

Obviously I have not got this web thing down yet, but for some reason I can not get thumbnail to show.  I think I figured out how to do it but can not figure out how to delete my entry.


Thanks for looking.
Do not sweat the small stuff and it is all small stuff.
LB

Northern Lights

There always has to be a first post…right?  I had written a post last week after I had sat up with one of my best life long friends solving life's problems over a bottle of wine. It was about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snap Chat and various other forms of technology that never existed when I was a kid.  My son will never know what it is like to have to ask a girl out via a landline and have the fear that her Mom or Dad my actually be the one answering the phone.  New love, make ups and break ups are all accomplished over a text.  I always say it is almost a full time job keeping your kid from making a total potentially life altering post or at least something that make them look like the idiot that their mother knows they are not.  There is always the next new thing to distract them from life.  I wish I had a dollar for every YouTube video that has been played on a computer, laptop, iPad or iPhone that we own in this house.  I would be "movin' on up" as George Jefferson would say to a deluxe house that at least had a garbage disposal.  Needless to say I did not post it.  The next morning, my 3am manifesto made no sense.

Which leads me to my first post.  The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights as I grew up calling them.  I grew up seeing the Northern Lights dance across the sky.  I thought everyone had them.  My brother and I always thought it was the sunshine reflecting off the ice of the North Pole.  Later in life I learned that is was actually the collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earths atmosphere.  The lights are seen above the northern hemisphere.  Fun Fact:They are also seen above the southern hemisphere too but than they are called 'Aurora australis' www.northernlightscentre.ca.  I kind of like my childhood vision of the magical light dancing off all that snow and ice in the far north better. Darn you scientist and your explanation for everything!


Well, here I am getting to my point.  Last week, a friend, who lives north of the 49th parallel where I grew up, posted this video on Facebook.   It brought back memories of watching these lights dance across the sky as a child and teenager.  I know that Northern lights can occur anytime of the year but my memory is of always watching them on still subzero nights outside playing in the snow or from the backseat of my parents car as we drove home late in the evening from visiting our cousins.  I have come to realize that not everyone has had the joy of watching this yellow and green soft lights spreading across the northern sky.  So here is a video for I want to share with you so you can enjoy the awe and magic I witnessed as a kid.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFtEygpGkc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFtEygpGkchttps:

If you want more information on this here are some links I found while learning more about the Aurora borealis.

http://www.northernlightscentre.ca
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/question471.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/aurora-borealis-northern-lights-michigan-upper-peninsula_n_4110982.html

What does this have to do with scrapbooking and card making, absolutely nothing.  But hey now that first post thing is done.

Remember not to sweat the small stuff…and it all small stuff.
LB