I'll be a guest designer this month on Freshly Brewed Challenges!

Tomorrow the card below will be featured on Freshly Brewed Challenges which is run by the lovely Heather who creates these awesome and adorably cute digi and rubber stamps. You can find them in her shop Fresh Brewed Designs. I had so much fun with these two digi sets that I can't wait to make my next one! Hop over to see what her design team has made and join in her monthly challenge For the Guys.

Free SVG file for 3 x 5 Spiral Notebook cover

Yesterday I created a file to cut out covers for 3 x 5 spiral notebooks on my Cricut. I know many people have purchased a special machine to do the cutting and insert the spiral binding, but I'm kind of a cheapscape when there's a way to do something without another piece of equipment to find room for in my overcrowded craft room. If these turn out to be big sellers at Farmer's Market, craft shows and Etsy then maybe I'll reconsider, but for now I'm sharing my poor-woman's file with you so you too can decorate your common little spiral notebooks. The picture I'm sharing is of the upcycled Twinkie and cereal box covers. Today I'll make some out of decorative cardstock with embellishments and will post pics after those are done. Hopefully you can dowload the file by clicking on the green picture below or using this link http://www.box.net/shared/tcycvjb2eb.  If not please holler at me and I'll send the file to you directly. Oh yeah, blogger's comments are being persnickity, but if you click on the contact me form I'll get your note. Enjoy!

I actually removed the spiral binding and replaced the front cover with what you see below. Aren't these little cowboys and waving wheat squares just the cutest things? We don't normally have Twinkies in the house, but dh "got them on sale" and I couldn't resist using those boxes! The back cover is such a nice sturdy chipboard that I left it there and will adhere the decorative cover to it. If you don't want to remove the spiral binding you can always cut slits above each hole and use your fingernail or other object to slip the cover on. Oh and you'll want to round the corners to match the existing covers and paper. I use the small Stampin Up corner rounder and it's absolutely perfect! If you're really good at manipulating files you can probably alter the file to make rounded corners, bit since my paper punch was perfect I decided not to mess with it. Here's what I made yesterday.

Vinyl Sunflower cut to cover an "oops!"

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! After working at the Farmer's Market yesterday I spent most of today cutting out decorative covers for 3 x 5 spiral notepads. I sold one yesterday that was kind of a test product and decided to cover the rest of the two packages of a dozen each that I had bought at SAMS. Tonight I'll assemble some of them while watching the traditional Memorial Day specials on TV with DH. Speaking of DH...

My wonderful husband has caught on to the way crafters think. He wants to sell an old stereo cabinet that we bought second hand a few years ago and thought it would look better if we could cover a bad spot on the lid. The lid is pressed board covered with a vinyl laminate similar to contact paper, so when he accidentally spilled some scented oil on it the chemicals ate a hole about 3 inches in diameter in the vinyl. Kinda makes a person wonder what's in those scented oil plugins, huh? I pulled out some vinyl, fired up my Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot and Voila! No more ugly hole! I forgot to take a before picture, so just use your imagination and I think you'll agree that the after picture is much better. Oh did I mention this thing has an 8-track in it??? If you're looking for one and live in the area we're participating in Berryton's city-wide garage sale (which is funny since  we don't live in the city, but they'll have maps to all of us rural folks's homes.) We're doing it the first two weekends in June. Good thing DH is done with the school year because he's got a lot of work to do to get ready!

Part of my organized craft room

This wall display is one of the areas of my craft room that stays organized no matter how the rest of the room looks. It holds all my punches, crimper and some ribbon. My makeshift clip-it-up sits below it. Isn't that plant lovely? I have several plants in this room and find them to be inspirational and calming.

Here's my reality... a perpetually messy desk with that tinsy winsy little spot for creating. Can't you just hear my desk crying, "help me I've disappeared and can't find myself!"

I have been invited to participate as a guest designer for Fresh Brewed Designs in June and also as a featured artist in July for Scrapbook News and Reviews, so the next couple of months will be very busy for me. I'll post more details about both of these exciting projects as they happen, so stay tuned. In addition to those fun projects I continue to get ready for Farmer's Market and Top City Thursdays. Now if only I didn't have to work for a living 8 hours a day and could put all my focus on creating....

Here we are at Rails to Trails in Burlingame

Here's a shot of our setup at Rails to Trails in Burlingame this morning. We had slow traffic early due to threat of rain, then things picked up a bit when the sun came out. I'm still looking for suggestions about enhancing my display to make things pop. It is really apparent when I look at pictures that I need to make changes. Any ideas?

I wish I'd had my video camera with me to show this amazing Border Collie herding the geese as part of the parade. OMG this was awesome to watch! Makes me want to train our Katie to be a real Border Collie!

We met Emily and Matt for supper tonight to celebrate her birthday early (it's on the 25th) and sat at Chipotles eating with tornado sirens going off watching the hail and rotating clouds. Toto, we really ARE in Kansas!!! Then we went next door to shop at Michaels and found the doors locked, but the manager came and opened the door, informed us that if we came in we'd have to huddle in the back hallway with them, so hey, what better place to hunker down than Michaels, right?!? We ended up getting let out right before the all clear was sounded, drove home thinking we'd find a Border Collie stroked out (she HATES storms!) and it was completely dry here. The tornadoes are hitting further northeast of here and another storm is headed up the turnpike towards us, so I'll send this on its way and think about getting some rest before the next round of thunder. Have a great weekend everyone!

CSI:Topeka in action near my home

http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Gun_Battle_Leaves_At_Least_One_Victim_Authorities_Searching_121958164.html?storySection=photo

The injured man ended up lying on my neighbor's driveway after banging on her door for help. I came home to what could have been a filming of one of my favorite CSI shows. Well on a more positive note, our new lawn mower was delivered! Yup, the Sears truck followed me all the way down Croco and I bet they were also very surprised to find all those flashing lights. The lawn mower has a very smooth ride and cuts very well, what more can I ask for?

Garage sale loot!

What a great morning of garage sailing (ok so spell check doesn't like "saleing" or "saling") with my daughter! We didn't find any jewelry that we could salvage, but did find a bunch of other needed items like t-shirts for tote bags and t-shirt yarn, genuine StampinUp stamps and brayer (much needed!), acrylic blocks for unmounted stamps, drop-dead gorgeous burgundy wire-edged ribbon, StampinUp fiber pack and journal, wire basket for card display at Farmer's Market, jeans and some Peanuts stuff for DH. Oh and the last two pictures show some tiles. I tried drilling a hole in one of the small square glass tiles and it broke both the drill bit (titanium dremel bit) and the tile (covered both sides with painter's tape). Anyone know how to drill holes in glass tiles to insert jump rings for jewelry? Here, take a looksy: