Tag...I'm it! and another candy link at the end!

Guess I don't run very fast...I was tagged twice! Once by Jodi aka Kharmagirl over at Stamping a Latte. Check her out! I absolutely love her stuff :o) Second by Jami at Stamp Happy! She has a wonderful style as well and some interesting stuff on her blog since she is living in South Korea currently. Since I love to read these on other's blogs, I just had to play along!


Here's how it goes:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.


1. A good portion of my body is tattooed - not your typical stamper type! I have a gorgeous dragonfly on the inside of my right wrist, a lotus flower in water that my husband tattooed on me on the top of my right foot, two butterflies and some flowers covering my C section scar, the inside of my left calve from the ankle to the knee is covered in a freehand piece with flowers, smoke and skulls, a large likeness of a pet snake I had a while ago surrounding a large Celtic knot flanked by two chrysanthemums on my lower back, a filigree design behind my left ear and the beginning of a quarter sleeve on my upper left arm - the inside portion of my bicep is a butterfly on a dahlia and a monarch on the back of my shoulder flying up to a Gerbera daisy that covers my whole shoulder.

2. I used to really like spiders, you know, transport them outside so they could do their job in the circle of life and all. Not anymore! I hate them now! I freak out and make my husband kill any that I see!!

3. Before the birth of my son, one year ago, my husband and I had one room dedicated in our house to our snake *collection*. We had 36 at one point in time due to a breeding (unbeknownst to us) pair that we had adopted! I woke up one morning to get ready for work, checked in the room and found a writhing heap of gooeyness - 17 live baby boa constrictors! We've since found new homes for all the little buggers and have only one pet snake that resides in my step-daughter's room.

4. I am seriously, seriously addicted to blurfing! The introduction of the Goodle Reader into my life has been both a blessing and a curse! I think I've subscribed to 101 blogs! I didn't check anything while I was on vacation and came back to over 550 posts to look through. Mind you, I could not just skim...they had to be read and drooled over and commented on, etc. It took me this entire last week to get through everything!

5. The aforementioned addiction has been bad for my commenting skills :o( Sometimes I'm just too lazy to click on each post and comment on everything that I see and am amazed by!

6. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Johnny Depp...and I would totally leave my husband for him (my husband has said this would be fine with him...as long as I sent him alimony money!)

7. I am not a huge chocolate fan. *Gasp* *sputter* Shock! I know, crazy! The only way that I will eat chocolate is if it has something with it like caramel or nuts. If it has fruit in it, it disgusts me!


MmmmmK...enough about me! Let's hear about you! Here are the 7 ladies that don't know me, but I stalk their blogs enough, I think I should know about them! There are so many people out there that I want to know more about that this is a hard choice! I'm picking ladies that I haven't seen do this little thingy before:

1. Alex at Fairy Blossoms & Life - great style and she has a little boy too that she scraps about, so I am trying to glean all I can off of her!

2. Kimberly at For the Love of Paper - another boy scrapper...her pages are amazing and her card/project style are too!

3. Amy at Ink About Me - she is one of the SFYTT team members and has a wonderful, clean style

4. Rach at papercrafts*byrach - a Whiff of Joy DT member that blows me away with everything she does!

5. Annie at Stamping with Annie B - her great personality comes through in her blog and her work

6. Mackenzie at Midnight "Scramper" - she is amazingly clever in so many of her creations!

7. Dallas at Stamp This, Stamp That! - a very clean lined stamper who looks like a ton o' fun!

Wow! If you've made it this far, then you probably know too much about me! Ha ha! Here's one more fact - I am addicted to blog candy!! Especially of the Whiff of Joy kind! Follow the link to Donalda's blog for a chance at a cute WoJ stamp. Hope you all have a fantabulous day!! ~lyss

Heart to Heart blog candy challenge with a blog candy alert first

First, there are some really cute stamps from Alota Rubber Stamps that Michelle is giving away here. Check her out! What fantastic coloring! I am in awe of so many people out there :o)



Secondly, Cammie has a Heart to Heart blog candy open on her blog worth over $1000 in prizes!!! Check it out here for all of the details. Sadly, Cammie lost her grandmother to Alzheimer's disease this past June. She designed a set for Gina K Designs called Whimsical Autumn that she is donating all of the proceeds from the sale to the Alzheimer's Association.

Here is the card that I sent to the staff at the home where Cammie's grandmother was taken care of so well. It is a Penny Black image called Modesty colored with a blender pen and inks, markers and a metallic colored pencil. Colors are Elegant Eggplant, Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Old Olive and Kraft. I added some purple flowers, clear *Michael's* dew drops and a little purple rhinestone flower from Hero Arts (I think). Thanks for looking! Hope you all have a fantastic day! :o) lyss

It's *all* about the presents!!

Monday was my 31st, er, I mean, my 29th birthday. Hubby, son and I have been on vacation visiting the in-laws for the last week in Branson, Missouri. We had a nice time, saw lots of sights, were on the go, go, go all day long! I, of course, had to also take Monday off! Since my darling little punk stole my thunder of the birthMONTH, I, at least, should get my day! I got wonderfully spoiled for my day - DH and DS got me an iPod and I love, love, love it! I haven't even added my music collection to it and we already have almost 3500 songs! M & D got me/us a camcorder to record all those wonderful little *firsts*. I got everything before my actual day so that I could enjoy them on the trip. I'm pleasantly spoiled! I've also treated myself to a few new PTI sets and paper, and I think I'll get some Verve sets too! Why not?! I'm worth it! :) See...it really is all about the presents! Plus! I got really lucky and won two, yes, you read that right, 2, blog candy drawings the week before we left for vacation. One was from Sankari - wonderful woman and wonderful blog - check her out! And the second was from Denise - this lady is full of inspiration and talent! Make sure you hop on over to her blog too :o) I'll just call those birthday presents too! (I can't get this stupid blogger to recognize that I have changed the font 5 times!! It's all supposed to be one size. Grrrrrrumble!)

I made this little guy a from another SFYTT from a long time ago but didn't have any glitter covered brads. Once I get my mind set on something in a design, it's hard to divert my attention. Instead of spending a ton of money on different packs of glittery fun, I used a 40% coupon to Hobby Lobby and got the Doodlebug Sugar Coating Glitter assortment pack. (Whew! That is a long title.) You can get it at All that Scraps too - I spend way too much money there! This is where you can also get this cute little guy, Lucky. This image is part of the It's My Birthday set by C.C. Designs. He's watercolored with Going Gray and his eye spot is flocked with white flock also found at All that Scraps.

Oh, yeah! Back to the glittery brads! I used a glue pad and smooshed (technical term) some large brown (all I had) brads in the glue then the glitter. Thinking back, I wish I would have used white brads or heated the brads, stuck them in white EP and then the glitter. I think the colors would have showed up better. What's the saying? Hindsight is always 20/20! The sentiment is from the same set, stamped in Craft White and embossed with Iridescent Ice EP. I wish it were a bit brighter but oh well! The packages are sparkly too - they are colored with Fiskars gel pens. I love those things, but wish I could just get the sparkly ones - I'm not too into the fluorescent, weird colors. Anyhoo, the purple glitter paper is from some glitter paper pack I picked up at Michael's or Hobby Lobby - can't remember which. The inside is matted with white, sponged around the edges in Tempting Turquoise, and stamped with a Happy Birthday sentiment from the set in VersaMark, then Turquoise and embossed with Iridescent Ice EP.

Thanks for looking! Hope you all have a good day! :o) lyss

Black Eye Susan and more Blog Candy links!!

Wow! Blog candy is all over the place right now! Head on over to Nikki's blog for a chance at a super cute Xmas-y package with a couple High Hopes stamps and some Basic Gray Figgy Pudding paper.

Just a quick post today. This Penny Black image was stamped in VersaMark and colored with SU pastels and some shimmery ones too. Can't think of the brand right now and I'm not near them...sorry! Cut it out with oval nesties, matted on an Old Olive scalloped oval. The white background is PTI white and run through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder - what did we ever do without this embossing folder?!?!?!? Chocolate chip is stamped with a leaf print from SU Petal Prints (I think is the name) in VersaMark. Pretty simple card really. I wish I knew how to tie a great bow cuz a bow in that fantastic grosgrain Old Olive ribbon would have really set this card off! Thanks for looking! Hope you all have a great day! :o) lyss

Dr Frankenstein or is it Dr Fronkensteen?? (Blog Candy link at the end)

I think I've only seen that movie (Young Frankenstein) with Gene Wilder once, but every time I see a Frankenstein image, I think of him correcting the pronunciation of his last name. Ha! :)

I made this little card (4.25" square) trying to get under the deadline for Kristina's color challenge (#18 Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Rose Redand Green Galore or Summer Sun), and I also used Jen's Sketch for You to Try from 8.09.08. A long time ago and I'm just getting around to posting the card! Obviously, once I didn't make the deadline, I put it aside and didn't finish! I save all of Jen's sketches in a little folder on my computer and refer to them when my mojo is missing, which seems like all the time!

I have the set Best Fiends from SU that I think is so adorable. In fact, I love Halloween images, but never send out anything or make anything special for the holiday.
The entire image is colored with Sakura glaze pens. They are so much fun!! Tip: sign up for Hobby Lobby's weekly ad by email. They usually have a good coupon (40% off) that you can print off on the bottom. It's a good way to get the coupons without having to get a subscription to a newspaper. Same with Joanne's and Michael's btw. :) I did try to watercolor the ground with a bit of Creamy Caramel. It never turns out the way I want it too, but I can live with it I think. Ha! I used a bit of liberty with the sketch - flipped the circle up to the top because I wanted to make it a moon. The bats are a Martha Stewart punch that I'm seeing a lot of in blogland right now. The first is glued flat, second on a small dimensional, third on a taller dimensional. The only thing I don't like about that is that the bat is so small, you can see the white edges of the dimensional. In the future, I'll color the sides with a marker or something first. I also wish I would've created a little dimension and sparkle on the moon with some sponging and sparkle. Oh well! I'll probably send this to my nephew who is 6 and won't care anyway!
Hope you all are having a fantastic day! Thanks for stopping in! :o) lyss

Oh yeah! Hop on over to Suzanne's blog for some wonderful blog candy that includes a super cute Whiff of Joy stamp. Toodles! :)

ETA: Another blog candy alert! The bigger the response, the bigger the candy package!! Check out Jerri's blog - I am in absolute awe of her watercoloring skills! Her talent is amazing and gorgeous!!

New Stamps from Starving Artistamps

Starving Artistamps has some blog candy and new stamps coming out - check them out here. They're super cute as always!