I’ve been making layouts and cards every night this week while Neil is in Las Vegas – and my house looks like it.  Shhhhh!  I have to play catch-up tomorrow.  At least I got the kids’ rooms in order, laundry done and the front entrance hall has been rescued from a myriad of coats.

So tonight, rather than pulling out more stuff that would need to be put away, I pulled out my laptop and made a layout of Courtney’s 7th Birthday Party.  I used CI’s Caution Girl digi kit, which was downloaded from www.polkadotpotato.com.  I love the freedom of resizing photos on the fly – and it came together so quickly.  Better yet, no mess to pick up after tonight!  A quick cut / paste / resize / rotate and blammo – it’s done.

I also used a couple of digi embellishments from Corina’s Arsenal of Embellishments (www.scrapmuse.com).

I made a holiday layout last night also, albeit with traditional paper, chipboard and paint.  You cannot beat messy with a stick.  You just can’t leave it out all over the place and expect the kidoodles to learn about picking up after themselves. :o)

Cosmo Cricket’s Be Good line and loads of chipboard and paint later…

Alas, I am not in the picture, and ridiculously poor attempts to insert myself via Photoshop have met with disdain and a smack back into reality.  I guess I will have to drag out the tripod and familiarize myself with the timer.  Oh yes, and do it on Saturday, because that is one of the only days remaining that Neil will actually be here until the week of Christmas. 

Necessity wasn’t the mother of good photo editing technique last night.  And I guess someone was looking!

And finally, I *think* I’ve nearly figured out a card that I might actually want to make more than one of.  I hate repeating myself, whether to the kids, or at crafting.  LOL!  But I sure had fun giving myself a personal challenge of ONE STAMP – THREE WAYS with a single stamp from the Elegant Paisley set by Inque Boutique.

  I sanded over the cardstock with the stamp underneath.  Applied foiling with a glue pen and and stamped with Stazon onto the clear acrylic frame.  I had to add Pearl White Metallic Mixative alcohol ink to the backside of the clear frame however, in order to make the light blue ink *pop* against the background with the Hambly silver metallic On Edge borders.  It frames a piece of sheer wired ribbon with the snowman.

Well enough for tonight.  I’m going to make a list for tomorrow.  I need to make sure Autumn is up in the attic and Winter makes its way down and decoratively – not just in the boxes.  I think that would be a nice way to start the weekend.

Good night!