New Years Eve...

Holy cow, where did the time go? I can't believe we are about to start another year already. I remember as a kid, summer seemed to be such a long time and now it seems the kids are done school and in no time at all they are back and hitting the books again.

I hope to set some goals for 2010 and hopefully will be able to reach them.

Here is my February installment of the 3 calendars I made.

This picture is of Boris when he was still a puppy. He is such a cute dog. I think if I ever decided to get a dog I would definitely look at this breed as an option. It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but the two fire hydrants are cut out and popped up on the front of the picture. The "friend" rub on is from Stampin' Up! The hearts were punched out of various card stock and layered on the picture.

This is the February picture on Courtney's calendar. This picture is of my sister, Diana and her hubby, Jeff. I believe the picture was taken on one of their cruises. I love it, especially in black and white.

This is the February picture on my Mum's calendar. This picture was taken last year when Diana was home for a visit. We went to Markham and had supper with Courtney. It was fun. Diana and I never spent very much time all together with Courtney when she was younger, so it was very special to me to have this time with them. I love them bunches and bunches and am so proud of both of them.

Chow for now,

Jacqui

Back to the grind....

Why is it that holidays never seem to last long enough? I don't mean the celebrations and all the food and spending all the money, I mean the downtime that you get to spend with your family and friends. This was a pretty good Christmas for spending quality time with my family. With the economic state of the world and my world.. we made a choice not to spend too much on presents this year, so I made some homemade gifts for people. I made calendars for my parents, my little sister and my dear friend Rob. My next few days will posts of the calendars I made for them.........this leads into the "binding" story......

I made 3 calendars......not printed off on the computer, but hand stamped and layered and "blinged" and the whole bit....I wrapped them all up in tissue so the edges would not get banged up and off to Staples I go to get them bound. I had them all in order so all they had to do was punch the holes and put in the binding.........I drop them off and make plans to pick them up after work......THE DAY BEFORE I NEEDED TO GIVE THEM TO PEOPLE.......I finish work and off to Staples I go.....only to find out that the "binding lady" wrecked all 3 of the calendars...........I just about cried.....one of the months she put the holes on the wrong side of the page so the part that was to flip up and have one single hole to hang on the nail now had small holes all along the top, one month she could not cut properly because of some of the bling that was on the page...but she decided to cut it anyway..so it is all crooked so when it flips up the hole no longer matches with the hole to hang on the nail...and one month the holes only got cut halfway through so the binding does not stay in...needless to say I was a little stressed.

I managed to salvage them as best I could, but it's sad when you spend alot of time to make something and then it gets spoiled.

On a positive note, everyone liked them, so that is great, but I still felt bad they were not perfect.

This is January for the calendar I made for my friend Rob. This is a picture of his cutie patootie dog Boris! I used the Martha Stewart oozy blob punch and then sparkled up them up with stickles to make them look like icicles.

This is January for the calendar I made for my Mom and Dad and the one I did for Courtney and Jay. I made the icicles the same on this one. This picture was taken a few years ago when my sister Diana and her husband Jeff and son Eric came home for a visit. We all went to the nursing home to visit Granny and we took this picture of all of us. We don't have a lot of pictures of all of us together, so it's nice to have this one.

Hope you enjoy looking at my calendar.

Chow for now,

Jacqui

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post today. We had dinner last night with my Mum and Dad and my sister Courtney and her boyfriend Jay. What a great time we had. I love spending time with my family and it's always more fun when there is good food involved! We went out to Crabby Joe's for supper! We even indulged in a little bit of cheesecake for dessert. Jay and Jade shared a piece of a caramel cheesecake, Dad had the same kind, Mum had a nice little dish of vanilla ice cream and I had a piece of white chocolate cheesecake....holy crap! was it every good.
I have not posted in a while cause I have been stamping up a storm, but I could not post what I made cause the people who I were giving the presents to read my blog!
But they all got their presents yesterday, so I can start posting the pictures!
That might not happen until after Christmas though.

Please have a very safe holiday season. Treasure the time you get to spend with your families.
All the best for the remainder of 2009 and for all of 2010.

Chow for now,
Jacqui

Go West Young Man!

It's been a few days since I posted. I have been busy. People have still been ordering my little calendars! They were quite the success for me this year! My friend at work asked me to make one for her hairdresser. I wasn't sure I had anything that would work for a hairdresser, but then after looking through all my bling drawers I found some little scissors! So these are the two calendars I came up with for a hairdresser.









Have you ever watched the television show "Coach" with Craig T. Nelson and Jerry Van Dyke? I used to watch it faithfully every night while I was getting supper ready. Well they are playing episodes again on the Omni channel so I try and catch and episode of it each evening. Jerry Van Dyke who plays Luther is HILARIOUS. He makes me chuckle just to look at him!
Here is a clip from one of the Coach episodes!




When I was searching for a clip from Coach, I came across this clip when Jerry Van Dyke was on "Yes, Dear". I watched this at work and I had tears rolling down my face. It is sooooooooo funny. His facial expressions are hilarious!



Chow for now,
Jacqui

Flight Case

Well we ventured out into the cold on Saturday night to the Richmond Tavern to check out my friend Mike's new band Flight Case.

They were awesome. I was quite surprised..cause..well I am a country bumpkin and I listen to country music, but these guys were awesome. Don (lead singer) his vocals were wicked and their cover of Come Together by the Beatles was AMAZING. I was also surprised cause I thought they would be doing covers of tunes, but other than the Beatles song, it was all original which was nice for a change!

Frankie Whyte, a band from Toronto played before Flight Case and they were very good as well. It was cool to see a female lead singer, guitar player for a change!

So needless to say, I didn't get too much stampin done this weekend...I did get some done, just haven't got around to getting it ready to post yet! Hopefully tomorrow!

Happy Monday, I hope yours is good..

Chow for now

Jacqui

Athletic Calendar

I'm very excited that I am still getting orders for my little CD case calendars! I got an order yesterday for an athletic one for a female teacher. She wanted a small one which can be a bit more of a challenge because many of the images I have are too big for the small calendars. I used the Baseball Hanna image and she just fits on the paper. I think it looks okay...I wasn't sure if the sports balls were too big compared to the image of Hanna but I think it looks okay. Hopefully she will like it.

I think we are finally into winter. We have had a very cold and windy couple of days. I'm not sure I am ready for my winter commuting....but I will keep my fingers crossed we have a mild and short winter this year!

Chow for now.

Jacqui

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Today is my brother-in-law Jeff's birthday. He is a great guy and I wish that we lived closer to he and my sister so we could hang out more often. I remember a March Break when I was still in high school, I went to Arizona to visit. One of the highlights of the visit was going down to the park and playing Frisbee golf! I was not very good, but it was fun! He also took me to a Blue Jays baseball game and drove up this mountain so we could look down on the lights of Arizona. I hope to get there again soon to see their new house. I miss them all very much.

Hope your day is great Jeff!

I had a great mail day yesterday! I got another card in the mail. This one was for an "anything goes" challenge. This card was made by Ida Krause. I love it! It is so much fun!

Chow for now,

Jacqui

Holiday Challenge Card

Yesterday I had a nice treat when I came home from work. A card in the mail. I love to get cards in the mail. It is so nice to get something that is not a bill.

I participated in a challenge on one of the lists that I am a part of. The challenge was to make a holiday card. It could be any holiday we wanted. I received this beautiful card from Charlotte Brown.



We got a bit of snow today. I figured we would because the mechanic got the wrong part for the car so I didn't get my windshield washer reservoir that got damaged by the raccoon fixed on Friday like it was supposed to be....I had to wait until today. I said to my hubby......"it's gonna snow or be crappy enough that I will need windshield washer....since the car does not have any". He assured me that it was not supposed to snow......yeah well...we live in Canada and it's December. Sure enough..it snowed a bit. Not a lot.....just enough to make the highway and city streets wet enough that when a car was in front of you or when you met a transport on the highway......it sprayed dirty crap all over the windshield.....if I didn't have bad luck...I wouldn't have any luck at all!
We did get it back to the shop and they had received the part it needed, so hopefully it's good to go for a while.

I caught a little clip of these guys on tv the other night. I can't find the one that I saw on tv, but it's still comical.


Chow for now,

Jacqui

Dennis the Menace

I watched the movie Dennis the Menace while I was stamping yesterday. What a hoot. The little guy that plays Dennis in the movie is just like Dennis in real life. Check out his audition for the movie!!





As I said yesterday, I have another calendar to post for you all to see. This is another one for my boss. He asked me to make one for his girlfriend who likes dance etc.

This is the one I came up with. Hopefully it is not too plain.

This just in....I just gave my boss the two calendars I made for him....this dance one and the cheerleading one....he loved them!!! Whew!! I still have a job!!!!!!

Chow for now

Jacqui

Go Team!

I took a bunch of my calendars into work to sell and I got an order for some specific ones. My boss asked me to make one for his daughter who was into cheerleading. I looked through a bunch of my stamp sets and I didn't have any cheerleading stamps or anything I could tweak to make into a cheerleader. Thankfully my downline Laurie had a cheerleading set! So I whipped up this calendar for my boss's daughter. I struggled with the pom pom's until I went digging into my cupboard and found some white pom pom's. I put a few drops of Tempting Turquoise re-inker into a dish and then dropped in the white pom pom's and changed their colour!

Then I used Crystal Effects to attach them to the image.

I'm happy with the way it turned out. Hopefully my boss will like it too.

Check back tomorrow to see the other one I made for my boss!

Chow for now,

Jacqui

Straight No Chaser....

Nope...I wasn't drinking while I was stampin'!!!! I was watching PBS again. Man they have some good shows on there! Have you heard of the group Straight No Chaser? Well they are awesome! No instruments other than their voices. Check this out....

They had a holiday special on PBS last night. It was awesome..and comical too.
I'd love to see them in concert sometime.
So another calendar.....are you getting sick of seeing these yet? Well I couldn't forget our Goth friends when I was making calendars!!


Chow for now,
Jacqui

Librarian Calendar

I really like the way this one turned out. I stamped the books image on white, coloured them and then sponged with Creamy Caramel ink. Bookworm Hanna was stamped and coloured with the Copics.

I re-read my post from yesterday. Boy that was a downer wasn't it!!! Sorry about that! I hope I didn't get any un-subscribers from my whining!!

You've heard me talk about Celtic Thunder before, well last night PBS was showing Celtic Woman. I must say I love the haunting melody that comes from the bag pipes. The music was beautiful and the women were beautiful and their voices were beautiful. It was an outdoor show which was very cool.....but I'm sorry ladies....I enjoyed Celtic Thunder so much more. It might have something to do with the wonderful "eye candy" that Celtic Thunder provides!! I suppose if I was male...Celtic Woman might be my favourite!!! I did enjoy the show though..so if you get a chance, it's certainly worth watching. Visiting England, Ireland and Scotland is definitely on my bucket list.

Chow for now
Jacqui

Can't forget the boys....

I didn't want to leave out the male teachers when making my calendars. I'm not sure if they would put one on their desk or not, but I thought I should make one anyway.


Why is it when you are down things just keep getting worse? On my way to work yesterday I hit a raccoon. It was a big sucker and it broke my car. It put a big crack in my front bumper and it smashed the windshield washer bottle, cracked some other thing that holds on some tire guard thing. So off to the shop it has to go again....this of course is right after we just got finished paying for a new ignition and a new starter...............as the days go on and more crap happens.....it makes me want to pack up the stuff sell this place and move within walking distance of work.


Chow for now
Jacqui

Green Glitter Calendars

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase has got to be one of the funniest Christmas season movies around. It was on last night while I was messin' around on the computer!
Here is a funny clip from the movie!

Here is another calendar I have created. I was asked to make one with greens - these are the two that I came up with.

Chow for now

Jacqui

Music Calendar

I am having a lot of fun making these calendars. I keep trying to think of different things for different kinds of teachers.....music, phys. ed., librarian, science, math etc. etc. These are the two I came up with so far with a music theme.

I started out making them by stamping the background...but then...I got into my stash of designer paper and that has opened up the flood gates for so many more options! I have a music stack of paper that has some really pretty pages in it. Both the background and the paper used to cut the daisy are from the music pack.

I made a large one and a mini one.


Chow for now,
Jacqui