Dad's Home!!

Gary was out of town Monday thru Thursday of this past week. I was not the only one that missed him being home. When we went upstairs to play Wii, he reclined back in the love seat to rest & watch me play.....Lily and Layla promptly decided to get as close as the possibly could to him! They obviously wanted him to know how much they love & missed him (I'm not telling them he'll be gone again this week!)

Lily loves dad - Layla loves dad and her toy!

Layla's afraid her toy is going to move when she's not looking....

so she stares at it to make sure she knows where it is at all times!

Lily is afraid that if she doesn't "hold dad down", he'll leave again.....

yes, he did fall asleep for a little while with Lily on his chest and Layla at his side.

Work Table Buddies

I have to take a break from posting projects for just one day. Not because I don't have any projects to post but because I have to share something with y'all.

While I've been working on both my projects and transferring files and information from my "old" laptop to my new one, I've constantly been interrupted. I've had to deal with begging, pleading and just down right pitiful eyes! Seriously, every time I sit down I have to watch out or my lap will be filled unexpectedly.

What is it being filled with? That cute little black face that y'all saw in my previous post......Lily! Gary was out of town for a few days last week and I guess since we were both out of town the previous week she thought she needed to keep me weighed down so that I wouldn't leave too. It got so bad that one day I stood at our kitchen counter with my laptop sitting on the counter so that she wouldn't have anywhere to sit! It didn't quiet work - she kept "pawing" at my legs!

While I ignored her and Layla for a while one day, I finally got a bright idea. What do you do with an adorable dog that wants nothing more than to be near you at every waking moment? One that wants nothing more than to be sitting in your lap as you work on your projects? Well, you do this......

Yep, that is both Layla (the nearest one) and Lily (the "camera shy" one) laying on their doggy cushions ON my work table! That seemed to do the trick for Lily - they both laid on the table all day. The only time they weren't laying down is when I told them it was time to go outside for a bathroom break and even then, they would stand up and wait for me to pick them up and put them on the floor. I may have new work table buddies when I work on my projects now.....we'll see. ;o)

Leadership & Punch Puppies

I typed up a long post last night right before heading up to bed and as I was about to hit the "Publish Post" button, everything disappeared!! I have no idea what happened but I just couldn't re-type the whole post again. :o( Here is what I was going to post last night - but most likely not the same words I used then. LOL!


This past week I was in Phoenix, AZ for Stampin' Up!'s Leadership conference. I learned LOTS of different things that I couldn't wait to get home to try! I'll be posting those things over the next few days as I try them out so be sure to check back & see what I'm doing!

When we gather together at Stampin' Up! events, there are times when they have "stadium seating". Those would be at the larger events - Convention, Leadership, etc. I love this type of seating because the chairs seem to be more comfortable & you don't have to worry about someones head being in your line of vision or yours keeping someone else from seeing what's going on. I usually go straight to the top row, plop right down and get my camera out to take pictures of the things I want to try as soon as I get home!

One of the things that goes on when you get Demonstrators together is "swapping". After you swap with other Demonstrators, everyone shows off the different swaps they got. This was happening a couple rows below me and as soon as I saw the following swap, I grabbed my camera, zoomed in & snapped a picture. I needed to make a couple Thank You cards for some pet sitters and this was PERFECT!!
The only problem with this is that I had no idea what was used to create the adorable puppy! I knew it had to be punches but when I got home, I realized that our heart punch is too small to create this dog. Unfortunately for me, when I get a project in mind I tend to get "tunnel vision" and can't see other possibilities to complete the project!

I posted a plea to a group of Demonstrators & asked if they could help. One kind Demo actually received the swap above and gave me the creator's name but that's all she could give me as none of the tools used were listed. I found the swap creator and sent her a message. She was sweet enough to reply and let me know that the heart she used to create the dogs head is an old Sizzix die. There went my project....or so I thought.

While I was running errands, I had a "light bulb moment" and realized that even though our heart punch is too small to create the puppy above - it is small enough to create two puppies! What is the significance of that? I needed to create two puppies for the front of my card! I had planned to create two cards & use one of my dogs for the front of one card and the other one for the front of the other card. When I realized that I could put both Lily and Layla on the front of the cards, I couldn't wait to get home & try to figure out the different punches to use to make my cute dogs.

After a while, I got my girls on the front of two cards and couldn't wait to give them to the girls that took care of them while Gary & I were out of town. Here's what I came up with. What do you think?


What did I use to create these cute girls?
Full Heart, Boho Flowers, Trio Heart & Double Circle Punches (the Double Circle punch is retired)
Pewter brads
Linen thread
Sponge daubers
Creamy Caramel Classic ink & Very Vanilla Craft ink
Basic Black marker

The Going Gray background is an embossing folder with "Thanks" & "Thank You" in different languages.

Here are the real-life versions of Lily (the black one) and (the cream one). What do you think - do they look like the punch puppies on the card?

I have "puppies"

Meet Lily and Layla (left to right, 2 and 5 years old)

Lily is a love pup!
She is also a total lap dog! You can't really see her because I'm wearing a black shirt but she's laying in my lap like a baby! Seriously?!

My mother called me right before Christmas to see if we wanted to get Brittany a dog. Apparently some friends of the family had taken these two in from a lady that couldn't take care of them because she started traveling more for her job. Our friends took them in but they have a dog that is very old and she was NOT having new dogs invade her turf! She went into a depression and they decided they couldn't let their dog commit suicide in order to give these two a good home. They talked to my parents to see if they could give these two a good home and my mom called me and my brother thinking that maybe we could each take one. Me and the kids visited to see how the dogs were and after we dropped my mom off at her house I called back and asked if I could pick up both dogs the following day. They joined our family on Dec. 24, 2008 at 11a. :-D Aren't they just too cute?!