Saving a "Bundle"

Howdy Blog Hoppers-are you worn out from all your hopping so far?  Can I offer you a margarita? 

 Welcome to my post for the "Hopes" Blog Hop--

Hopefully most of you made it here from Debby's Blog or from the Club Scrap Creates Blog.  If you just happened upon my post I encourage you to go back and check out some of the highly creative work posted on the other blogs (that is so way better than my stuff-really!)

So I have a bit of a hard time with these blog hops because I have a secret...I'm a bundle-er.  I'm not even sure of the correct spelling of that word but in detail-I bundle my Club Scrap kits each month to save on shipping so I don't get the bulk of my items until AFTER the Blog Hop date has passed.  This is a wonderful option for people who might be cheapskates a little on the thrifty side.  It just means that to keep from cutting up my Senior kit papers I have to improvise a little for the Hop.  With that in mind here's what I came up with...

I have been LOVING the card cutting formulas in some of the Raps lately and this month's was a great use of 12 ea 8 1/2 x 11 papers to make 12 cards.  You can find the directions here (on pages 16 and 17.)  

So without my Hopes Stamp kit papers I decided to go back through my enormous stash of stuff and find a similar pack of paper to work with.  The Written Word Stamp paper seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  I find it easier if you pick paper with a similar composition as the paper in the directions.  For example this pack had one very dark color, one thin or text weight type paper etc.  

Since the directions mentioned that the text weight paper was a print I went ahead and made my own "prints" with the Written Word Vellum and the Hopes UM stamps.

The next step is to follow the directions and cut out all your papers.  I find it easiest to make a quick note listing which papers I used to substitute for the papers listed on the directions.  This just keeps me from getting confused and accidentally cutting the wrong paper the wrong way (because this has never happened to you right?)  So after cutting, scoring and folding you end up with all your pieces.

Next I like to lay out my pieces in the "cards" they are going to create.  This helps me visualize my finished product, make sure I use all my pieces and make sure I'm not left with a card and a matte that happen to be the same color as each other.  It helps to have someone look over your work...like AJ.

Once you have everything lined up you can get to stamping.  I think total time spent on all 12 cards was around 2 hours from paper selection to finished product.  Speaking of the finished product...

Notice how the carpet (freshly vacuumed by dbf) matches the cards so well!  Here is a close-up of a couple of the cards!

Written Word is one of my mom's favorite all time kits and she has already hinted at how much she LOVES the cards ;)  I love them too!  So grab some paper out of that stash and make up 12 cards of your own!

Thanks for stopping by-to see an entire list of bloggers participating this month please stop back by Club Scrap Creates.  Until next time...when we might discuss metal chickens, drug induced dreams or fresh vegetables...See ya!

Knock Knock-Barry Manilow calling

So I promised a great post about my new chicken rooster-and the week almost slipped away from me!  I'd like you all to meet...Barry Manilow the Rooster.

See it all started when someone forwarded me a link to this post in a blog.   (I'll warn you this blog contains some pretty ripe language.)  So for the last over year and a half I have been on the lookout for a giant metal chicken of my own.  Surprisingly they are expensive.  The larger ones are around $250+.  While my dream of chicken ownership was huge I just felt like that was too much money for a lawn/garden ornament.
Fast Forward to last Friday evening when my buddy Liz sent me this picture from HomeGoods...

2 feet of metal chicken goodness for only $39.99!!  I couldn't resist.  In fact I have since called 7 HomeGoods locations looking for one to give as a gift and they are all out.  It was chicken fate.  Luckily Liz was able to purchase this last remaining one and bring it by last weekend.

Knock Knock...

Since I'm not a huge Beyonce fan and I decided this was a boy chicken I decided to name him Barry Manilow.  Also since I don't have a garden for him to watch over this year I decided he belonged in my office, on my work table.  Everyone needs a metal chicken named Barry Manilow on their work table right?  I thought so.  You are all just jealous!

P.S. If the blog link above doesn't work you can check out my chicken inspiration here... http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/

One Month Update

No fancy title or hilarious start here but I just stopped and looked at the calendar and realized it was the 3rd of June.  Over one month since my surgery on May 1st.  (And May was a long month so we are actually looking at almost 5 weeks.)  I thought I would do a quick update (aka boring medical blog) so that later this week you would be ready for my awesomely amazing blog about my new metal rooster named Barry Manilow (see I have you intrigued don't I?)

Overall I am doing ok.  Not great but not awful.  As far as actual surgery recovery I think I have progressed nicely and I am looking forward to being able to be active again (and swim in the lake-which was slightly postponed by an infected spider bite-it's always something isn't it?)  So as far as the drug stuff goes...

I have good days and bad days as far as overall how I feel.  The biggest problem seems to be nausea and fatigue.  I just can't do everything I want to do without being completely wiped out.  I also have almost no appetite which for someone who loves to cook, menu plan, grocery shop--it's quite an adjustment.  I need to re-train myself to cook less food, my fridge is overflowing with leftovers right now.  I do a few bites at breakfast and then the same for lunch and dinner.

I was very discouraged a week or so ago when I hadn't lost any of this Cushing's weight after hardly eating for a month but then I was pointed back to a blog by another person with the same condition and surgery and she said she didn't lose anything for a month.  Well finally last week it started to drop off, I'm hoping this continues.  It's so much more encouraging in my recovery to be losing this weight but I have heard the steroids make it difficult.

I stepped down on my medication this past Saturday which means for the next few days I'll be a little extra tired, maybe a little dizzy and extra pukey.  I have blood work tomorrow and results on Thursday to see if the right sleeping adrenal gland is waking up yet.  I think for this stage I'm probably really doing as well as can be expected.  Leslie was on vacation last week and I'm SURE glad to have him back.  I can function at my job but was quickly shown that trying to do two people's jobs just wasn't working out.

So there's my boring update for now...be sure to stay tuned for upcoming pictures of the rooster...it will be way more interesting than this!