4am

Hi Folks,
Tis 4AM, and I've been up since 2:15. Bummer. Michael says I am in a manic phase. He's probably right.
I worked on my ArtTechniques project yesterday. Got all 130 cards cut out, and got 40 bottlecaps flattened, and got about a dozen cards stamped with background stamps. Will do 40 more bottlecaps flattened today and will try to get at least 40 more pages stamped. I might start gluing today also. Here is a pic of a finished page. I am going to get Michael to help me stamp the backgrounds, so he is involved, and helpful. I've got until Feb. 28 to get these all done and mailed out to Betsy. I should be able to be done with these in January. I've also got to make a Christmas card for my secret sister on my Alextamping group - by Dec. 15th. I'm waiting on one stamp to come in before making that. I'll post a picture of that card when I get it done. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Sophia Cards

Good afternoon!
I finished my 5 Sophia cards (PID images), and here they are. I had fun doing these - they are wintery ones, and made me feel chilly to make them. They are ready to mail out tomorrow. The next one will be of Ralph. I've never done an ATC with a guy as the main focus. So we shall see how it comes out. You'll see soon enough.

I've signed up for a FAT BOOK exchange on recycled embellishments. I'm going to use bottle caps, buttons, and colored wire. So I'll make a background for each card, and then add these embellishments. No two can be alike, and I have to make one for each person signed up. So far there are 36 people signed up.

I'm also signing up for a different fat book exchange - 4 per month, and we mail them in to the hostess and will get back four new fat book pages. I've asked the moderator how much we have to do to the cards, like is this a finished card - background, focal element and then embellishments? I haven't heard back from her yet. I hope so, because that is more fun.

My husband and I sat down the other evening, and discussed the movement of my studio out of the master bedroom space and put our bedroom back in there, and he was against it. He said all we do is go to bed and we don't need a bunch of room around us. So we are NOT going to be rearranging the studio I have now. I want an ironing space set up, so it is ready all the time. And we got some wire cubicle storage bins to put together to help me sort out my stuff. That way we can get my studio together. I think we can do that tomorrow, and bring in my fabric shelves back to the studio - we had gotten them put into Michael's office until we got everything else moved. Now it is just a matter for me to clean up the room, and get a space cleared off for working on my ATCs.

Trials

I was trying to come up with a new background for my blog, and tried to make a go of it, but it didn't work, this further reminding me of how computer-challenged I am. It said to go to Add Gadgets and follow the instructions. Well, there WERE no instructions for adding a new background, at leaat none that I could interpret. The word "backgrounds" was nowhere to be found. Or desktop or anything like that. So, I'll have to wait for my son-in-law, the computer geek to wake up and ask him how to do it. Or just leave it alone right now. I've got a nice black background, and it seems to be sufficient.

I've got MSNBC on to watch the day unfold as people line up to vote. My DH and I voted early on Friday. Here in this county you could vote early if you had a disability that prevented you from standing in lines to vote, and we both have that.

I am ready to make some more ATCs, and have ordered from Paper Imagery Designs, their collage sheets Lila, Ralph, and Abigail.

I've also decided to NOT move my studio into the other rooms. Just way too much hassle, and using the master bedroom as my studio makes so much more sense. We only use the bedroom for sleep, so we don't need all the extra room. We're going to work on that room today - getting it picked up and cleaned up. Doing laundry, etc. We figure it should take the two of us only about two hours to get it done right. We've got to vacuum thoroughly, because that is where the dogs sleep too, and we have an overhead fan that blows their fur and dander back down on us as we sleep. So we've got a large vacuuming to do. And we are going to move a television in there for sleepless nights. Usually I can pretty much go to sleep easily, but I wake up to use the bathroom. Then it is a draw for me - do I stay up for awhile, or try to go back to bed. Last night, I went back to bed, and fell right to sleep. So that worked out good for me.

After we finish our bedroom, I want to tackle the living room/dining room area, because I want to be able to put our tree up after Thanksgiving, in the living room, which is blocked off from the dogs, so that they can't get to the ornaments. I have mostly glass ornaments on the tree, so I don't want the dogs to get behind the tree and knock it down, or to get ahold of an ornament and try to bite it - baaaad idea.

While Michael and Chris work in the living room/dining room, I'm going to work in the kitchen, and declutter the counter tops, so I have room to cook. Plus load and run the dishwasher, and then unload it when the plates cool down. So it is ready for new dishes and silverware to go into it.

Emily's office had a Halloween Day on Friday and they were all supposed to come dressed as their favorite TV character. Emily came dressed as Abby on NCIS. The picture here shows her kneeling down on the right, with the white lab coat on. She did a great job with her costume.