BBTB2/Down On The Farm

Welcome to the Monday post for Bitten By  The Bug 2. Our talented and beautiful hostess, Krista, has asked us to design with a farm animal in mind.  I love my  carts that have such darling animals but I went to Create A Critter to design this gate fold card.  I love this little cow and barn and gate fold card designs are so much fun.  Everything is cut from  CAC except for the little sun punch.  Of course the card is heavy with embossing.... and a little jewel is on the sun. 

We hope that you will join in on our challenge for the Farm Animal theme...just be sure to read our challenge rules printed at the very top of our blog.  I find now and then that someone has posted a card and they forgot to give a shout out to BBTB2 challenge, I always hope to find the mention of which cartridge is used but now and then I find  that is left out... I find and grit my teeth when I run into a blog that still has Word Verification enabled.  When I encounter that, I will try one time to get thru those wavy difficult words, and if I cannot (which is almost always the case) I usually try to email the visitor and ask them to disable WV, but I am never able to leave a comment.

Saturday, July 28th was my 75th birthday...and I spent the day at the Creative Memories All Day Scrapbooking Workshop.  This is a monthly event I have been involved in for almost 14 years.  I am the resident photographer and I have kept a scrapbook for the event all these years.  This Saturday was the last workshop.  A few of the gals will now come to my house and we will have fun scrapbooking and visiting but sadly I will not be prepared the most wonderful meal that we have enjoyed over the years by the hostess' husband.  I am good at calling for Pizza delivery..

At the end of this week we are ready to greet the month of August.  I will be creating in my brand new craft room, opening drawers and closets trying to find where I put one of my sweet tools and supplies.  It's a fun adventure and eventually I will know where everything is.

BBTB2/Christmas in July, Oh My

Happy Monday dear visitors.  Our Bitten By  The Bug2 challenge this week is from our new team member, Jayne.  She asked us to design with a Christmas In July theme...  I love making little signs to hang up so that's where I headed with this challenge.  There are many welded words "Joy" on cartridges but I decided I wanted to cut individual letters from Don Juan.  I love the letters on this cartridge.  The little Christmas stockings and star were cut from Joys Of The Season cart.  All in all, I like the way my little sign turned out.  Hope you do as well. 

Please join us on this fun challenge. The design team gals will offer you so much inspiration for their creations.  Please read our challenge rules at the top of our blog.

Craft Room Ooopsies

Sometimes delightful times get sidetracked. So it was with the set up on my long awaited new craft room.  I was excited to know that I would have a room where all things crafty would reside...I would have 4 tables.  One table would be a complete Sewing Station with all 4 of my sewing machines, a second table would be a Work Station, my wonderful TV set right there, with some of my fav tubs sitting there for me to access my most used supplies, a third table just for my 2 Cricut machines, my Cuttlebug, the Nesties and some paper cubes. and a forth table (smaller) for the telephone, printer, computer.  Plans can change so rapidly it can make you gasp.  My room constructor, Rodney took down the large 6 foot table that was in my current Studio, folded the legs down and took it to the new room ... he set it up, and we added the 4 sewing machines. All was fine.  The next morning I decided I needed to roll in the tea cart that has my thread tubs and sewing tools on it and it would sit at the end of this Sewing Station...BUT...the 6 ft. table had to come toward the door about 3 inches.  When I pulled the center part of the table at the one end, without warning it collapsed.  My sewing machines are very nice, and the embroidery machine is expensive... and suddenly they all tumbled and crashed into one another with the embroidery machine leading the way. I was horrified....and Riley the cat had reached the far end of the house in 3 leaps and bounds. 

Here is the fallen table without the 3 other machines. 

  The smaller sewing machines  were easy for me to pick up ...and later when I tested them they did sew...although one has no thread spindles.  They broke off. I fretted big time over any damage to my wonderful embroidery machine....however today Rodney came back, lifted the table...and we were surprised to find that the metal plate that hooked the two end legs on it had just yanked itself away from the underside of the heavy particle board table top and a big chunk of particle board was laying on the floor.. I tested the embroidery machine and was so relieved there is no significant damage... My workstation is a wonderful set up.... two three-drawer dressers from Walmart with a big thick door slab sitting on top, legs in the back to support, covered with a lovely handmade tablecloth and a Plexiglass cover....... Needless to say I ordered 2 more dressers so Rodney can set up a second sturdy table for my sewing station....and now I ask myself why I just didn't do this for all 3 tables.  Hindsight, as they say!!!

Moments after the shock of the table falling and my machines crashing,  I saw the blood on my foot...I hadn't felt a thing....  I don't do well with these things, but I managed to get a wet wash cloth to enhance the view of the toe area and I nearly fainted at what I saw.  I really thought I had cut my big toe off,. but it just (just?...did I say JUST?) a very deep gash almost to the bone.  I called my high school friend Bonnie and asked how she felt about blood of others.  She lives close, rushed right over and after she cleaned up my foot a little better she assured me that a butterfly bandage was not going to work, I needed stitches.  So off we went for a 4 hour adventure at a nearby emergency center.  I thought my foot was broken, but Xrays said no (although today the whole foot is in bad pain because of the overall trauma of being slammed into)... the doctor on call warned me that the shots in the toe would be painful.  HA, I snorted, I just had dental surgery and I had 9 shots of Novacane on each side and if I can endure those, well I sure can......

he shook his head and said "these are worse".  How right he was.... and I can tell you that I will never everrrrrrrrrrr forget the pain of those 3 needles going into that toe.  Today, 3 days afterward, my toe looks pretty good despite the 9 stitches, the discoloration, the pain, but my whole body hurts and I am quite sure it is because I had a TBTU (total body tense up) from those blankety-blank shots. 

Here is the toe, nicely bandaged just a few hours after I got back home.  I won't show you the toe in all its glory because it is not a pretty sight.  Still, I am thankful to have my toe.

My dear friend Pat came over yesterday and was enormously helpful in getting my many punches and other crafty goods into the drawers of the workstation, and she helped get some of the beading trays into my closet.  My current closet is fully shelved and fully loaded but all of that will not move into the new room.  I've resigned myself to allow some of the lesser used items stay in the old craft room and if I really need something, it's a hop skip and jump to get it.   Once everything is moved that I want into the new room, once that closet is rearranged nicely, then Rodney will remove the Butcher Block Counter he built for me on the two walls about 20 years back.  Then he will repair the walls from the mounts, he will paint, restore half of that closet to allow for hanging clothes and I will get a bedroom set.  This is my story of the great adventure of July 18th.  My room will be lovely and when finished I will add some photographs of it....this little toe adventure was just a little bump in the road, thankfully.

Tucson Card Camp

Annual Card Over, July 13-14-15 in Tucson, Az. 

 This year our hostess is Deb...she is second from the left.  On the left is Pat, a newbie join up, and as you can see that smile says it all.  She is so excited to become part of our Card Over Crew and we are so thrilled she is in our clan. Next to Pat is Deb, then comes Sandy in the cute white and turquoise shirt, behind her is Kris....  and then holding herself up by the table is moi'.... Carole... me...My back and leg issues are rampant so I am always holding onto something these days. We had so much fun, we always do.  We languish in the creations that each of us make,..  I am known for my slam dunk cards and this trip was no exception because I managed to slam together 98 cards. Don't be impressed by that, however, because I took down a tray of already folded cardstock for the card bases, I took down 4 packages of 100+ die cuts so I could just reach in and grab one.  I had pattern papers to build upon...and before I knew it I had 98 cards.  And that was just Saturday because on Friday I worked on 5 Memory Albums for friends out of town that could not attend the Memory Lunch I hosted for my Uncle who passed away last December.   What a fun crew, eh?

BBTB2/Fashion Show

Happy Monday dear visitors.  Our BBTB2 post this week was selected by one of our new design team sisters, Rebekah.  She asked us to design with a theme of fashion.  I went to my Forever Young cartridge for my cuts, although I did use a spare cut from French Manor for the closet. There are so many cuts to chose from.  This little gal is modeling one of her 4 new dresses.  I've added a little bling to the neckline of the model's dress, and there are some gold pearls added to the hangers for the other 3 dresses.  The word "style" is also from FY.  I embossed the background and the dresses. 

Please join us on this fun fun fun challenge.  Just please read our rules.

BBTB2/Window To My World

Happy Monday and welcome to my BBTB2 post for this week's challenge from our new design team sister, Brenda.  She asked us to design with the theme "Window to my World".... My card was designed from the French Manor cartridge which was a gift a while back from my dear friend and DT sis, Sandi.  I love this cartridge.  I chose the window cut with the pretty scroll work on page 36, keypad #9.  I added some frosted paper behind the extra cut of windows...and I added some little gold pearls for the handles and decor.  On the corners you will see some of my "card candy" which was a gift from my friend Pat. The inside of the card says "A warm hello"... 

I hope you've taken a look at the DT's offerings because their creations are always full of inspiration.  Please join us on this challenge.  Just be sure to read our rules at the top of our BBTB2 blog site...  We ask that you please disable the word verification but each week we encounter WV and some of us simply cannot leave a comment to thank you for joining our challenge. As a blog administration (you) you will not be able to see that WV is enabled unless you go to your blog settings.  There is an option to disable the WV and we encourage to please consider it.  I cannot leave a comment otherwise.
Thanks for visiting, and I hope you all  have a wonderful week.

Long Awaited Dream Room

My long awaited craft room is in the works.  Here is a photo taken a few weeks ago from the middle of my yard.  The room will be 10-x16, it has two big 4x6 windows, the entrance is from my master bedroom and there is a door on the east wall.  A great closet will provide the shelves I need, and a space for hanging quilts, and my sewing projects.  It will have 4 tables;  one will hold my 5 sewing machines, the second table will accommodate my Cricut, Cuttlebug, etc., the third will have the computer, printer and telephone and the 4th table is my workstation and  will have the TV set for my enjoyment and a nice space to create.  I will show some of the finished areas when the room is finished which should be about the middle of July.  I am so so excited.  

BBTB2/Here Comes the Sun

Welcome to our weekly BBTB2 Monday fun. ...Our new design team sister, Suzanne, is our hostess this week and she asked us to design with a Fun In The Summer theme.  We can use any cut from any Cricut cartridge that reflects this theme.  I selected all of my cuts from a delightful cartridge named Life Is A Beach.  I use this cart often because it has so many fun cuts to chose from. The umbrella, flip flops and smilin' sun creates this card for our challenge.  I drew the face on the sun.  The sentiment is from Cutting Cafe.  I've added some Stampendous Vinyl dots here and there...and I've done my usual embossing.  And you might see some yellow polka dots on the word "sun".

The background paper wasn't planned, it was just laying around and I decided it would look okay with the overall design. Hope you like it.

I know you will find oooooodles of inspiration on the design team cards, and please, ...join us for this challenge.  Just be sure to read our rules at the top of the BBTB2 blog.  Now and then we get an upload that doesn't meet the requirements and even tho the card may be just simply wonderful, it has to be deleted to be fair.  Please please disable the word verification if you have it... and I might mention, as a blog administrator, you will not see the WV on your own blog.  You will have to visit your blog preferences and under settings, it has the option to disable. . I cannot ever leave a comment when I encounter a WV on a blog I am visiting because I can't get past those difficult words.
Happy Monday...and within a few days, we all will be saying Happy July 4th...that is my daughter in law's birthday too so it is a day to celebrate.