Halloween card candy

I have a couple of really late Halloween posts that for some reason didn't get posted when I posted them.

A few weeks ago I decided I would start doing card candy again on the SCS swappers forum. Card candy is a quick fix for those of us that at not so patient but want to create something quick and easy. I like card candy satisfies twice...once when you are creating it you get a sense of accomplishment quickly and secondly when you use the card candy to make a card.

This swap was for 2 sets of 6 pieces of candy each. Both of these sets were made using Stampin Up! card stock, stamps, and punches. I love Stickles from Ranger and tend to use it judiciously in all my card candy. There is some glitter card stock from my stash and a few Dew Drop or Skittles clear decorative beads.




Lots of fun making this card candy!

Joans Garden Challenge #11

I decided that one of the things I would like to do in my semiretired state was to play along with some of the challenges I see on line all the time. This week Joan Fricker at Joan's Garden has a challenge that runs from one Thursday till the next. This weeks challenge was to make a tag out of grunge board or something a bit heavier than card stock. Joan's Garden is one of my favorite online places to shop for scrap booking and stamping stuf. Joan has all sorts of awesome stuff in her store and she does awesome work as a crafter.

I didn't have any grunge board to make my tag out of but I did have some left over chipboard tags from a book I made last year. I covered it with Tim Holtz Paper and embellished it with Tim's film ribbon, grunge board flourish inked with the distress ink aged mahogany, distressed the card with antique linen and Victorian velvet. The stamps are from the Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous line.




Embellishments are from Tim Holtz again. The philosophy tag and memo pin come in sets with many thoughts/philosophies. The key and face plate are from Spare Parts and the flowers are from the Prima Flowers line.



I have been not feeling well recently and I feel a bit melancholy and introspective. I think that the tag acts as a cathartic for me in that it says a lot about where I am right now. I love my art and sometimes those folks I know don't really consider it art. To them I say tough!! The clock and key marks time and passage and I have an admit one ticket. If I am happy with my life then that is what counts. The stamped sentiment says it all.



This was fun!

Friends lost and friends found!!!

When Ruth told me about the Late Night Stampers being a demo only site I thought that it would probably be a little more technical than I wanted to deal with but... I keep surfing into and learning from the Late Night Stampers (LNS) site and my latest 'gift' from the site has been a reunion with a long lost friend from 25 years ago! I surfed into the LNS Bulk Buy site to look at some craft items and low and behold I saw the name of a friend that I thought was lost to me forever. Anyone that knows me knows that I am not a shrinking Violet so I emailed the 'friend' and sure enough (!!) It is her!

Billie and Ted Rice welcomed us to Colorado in December of 1982 and shared their Christmas with us. They became G'ma and G'pa to our children. Billie was my friend and confidant! We shared laughter and tears over the years we were together and it was bitter sweet when they had to move to SC to be close to Billies father who had become ill. A couple years after their move my Christmas Card came back and the link was broken. We didn't have the internet or cell phones years ago and a call across country was cost prohibitive at the time. I thought they were lost to us forever. Billie told me that Ted passed away in 1997 and that is sad. Wish we could have seen him one more time.

I know the kids will be happy to hear of my find! They ask occasionally if we have ever heard from the Rice's now I will be able to respond with an affirmative!!

I have been a Stampin Up! hobby demo for the past couple years and have met some wonderful folks in the business! This week I am going to go per diem as a nurse and I think I am going to start working my business more seriously. If I stumble into such awesome things by accident by just touching the business then think what will happen if I seriously start working it!!!

Thank you Ruth for sending me the link to LNS! It has become one of my most favorite sites!!

My Create Ink

I found a new site (for demos only) thanks to a Stampin Up! stamper/scrapper friend. Ruth turned me on to the site on Yahoo! It is called LNS (Late Night Stampers). Awesome place! Lots of things to learned and shared on the site. One thing I have learned is about the My Create Ink which is a widget that helps you create color combos. Anyone can use it but the only colors there are the Stampin Up! sells. Check it out!

Jury Duty Is Almost Done

My term as a Federal juror is over soon! July 9th marks the last day that I can be called for jury duty this term! It was a learning experience that was one of those love/hate relationships! Did you know that when you serve on a Federal jury your term is usually at least a month in length and can go longer depending on the case you are chosen for. I was chosen for a case last week that involved an international company and a company located here in OKC. The case was a civil case that revolved around a perceived fraud and the plaintiff was asking for damages. The case itself was rather boring but it only lasted two days and then the judge decided to rule on it and released the jury. Yea! Free at last. Not so! When I reported to the jury room and the clerk released us all she warned us that we could be called back until July 9th. Some heard her say we could be called back for 2 years but I didn't hear that and I think it was confused with the 2 months service.

The Honorable Judge Tim Leonard, was the judge on the case, and he grew up Beaver, OK Judge Leonard gave us some interesting history of the Oklahoma Federal Courts. Most states only have one district but OK because of its history has three. Northern, Eastern, and Western Districts. I served jury duty in the Western district. The reason we have 3 is because of political, tribal, and statehood issues that caused concerns and distention in the system and it was just easier to divide it up that to deal with it.



Me and Judge Leonard!

Jury Duty

I reported for Jury Duty on Monday morning at 07:30 as we were told to do. This is a Federal District Court that I was called to serve on and this was an experience that I felt strongly was my civic duty to participate in. At the same time I was more than a little bit pissed that I had to get up at 05:30 and drive through a deluge of rain to get to the court house yet at 10:30 we still hadn't been sworn in because none of the judges had made it in yet. Finally Judge Heaten made it in and all of us were qualified/sworn in and allowed to recess to the jurors waiting room. Which is what we did all day long! WAIT!

Now I will give it up and say that it was one of the worse rain storms in a while in OKC and there were parts of NW OKC that got greater than 7 inches of rain that brought us into the national spotlight but why was it if better than a 100 jurors that traveled from all over the Western District could make it to court why couldn't the judges that lived right in OKC? An 86 year old juror was there for his 4th term on a Federal jury that put it fairly succinctly! It was a case of the tail chasing the dog! We were expected to interrupt our lives and were being held accountable for being there, but the judges didn't seem to held to the same accountability! I was there from 07:30 until after 5:30 pm and was never seated on a jury.

I felt that it was a wasted day that I could have been doing something more productive than sitting in a jurors waiting room waiting. I don't mind doing my part but I want to be doing something! I could have been stormchasing!

Day 17 Stormchase 2010 Sunday June 13, 2010

Today is the last day that I will be able to storm chase this year and I am really sad!!! It is possible that a huge weather change will come about and it will extend the severe storm/tornado season throughout that summer and I will be able to chase again but...possible but not probable.

I woke up late this morning in Dumas, TX really dreading the arrival of the last day of chasing. We loaded up the car and hit the road around 11 am and headed northeast towards what we hoped to be a successful day of storm chasing...now come on we had already seen 5 good days of spinning storms and being a greedy being we hoped for more.

We stopped for gas and lunch in Pampa TX at the Texas Steak House and had a really nice Sunday lunch. I had the barbecue chicken dinner and it was so yummy. It was the type of place that a waitress walked around with a tray of dinner rolls hot out of the oven. I was in ecstasy and I would go back today! After lunch we headed north to Perryton, TX and before we got there towers had starting building and we broke out the ThreatNet to help guide us.



The skies were really wild with all sorts of roiling clouds but what was impressive was all the flooding and this storm was laying down even more water!



This was a really colorful storm!


We saw a tornado today. Chuck says that he was happy I got to see one cause it would have made him feel guilty if he got to see a tornado when he went chasing with Tempest Tours and I didn't get to see one this year. We literally saw the tornado in the last hour of our chase this year and I was driving trying to get ahead of the storm and Chuck only got one photo.

We headed south heading for home at about 5pm. I have to be in OKC Monday for Jury duty and it was about a 4 hour trip to get there. YUK! End of stormchase and begin the daily grind!

We stopped at the Applebee's in Moore OK for supper and while there I watched several segments of the Weather Channel. Looks like the storm just kept on going and more tornadoes were spawned by the storms. Oh well! There is always next year!