Shockers of the Day

What?
Never seen a pink monkey before?
This little guy just makes me laugh.
He is actually the only animal I have used from the entire Zoofari set!
Made this for another challenge over at the Dirty Dares.
Coloring this little guy pink made me chuckle.

I like making myself laugh.
Pretty easy with a pink marker and a monkey stamp.

Today is a big day for me.
It is the final day I need to decide about being a Stampin' Up! demo.
Went into pending this month because I am just not working it like I used to.
I've been a demo over two years and in the beginning it was good, but never great. And now I feel like I am at a crossroad and trying to decide whether to put up with the stuff that has ticked me off for the past 6 months any longer, or just throw in the towel?

Hard decisions.
I know many people who have had to make it.
The only thing is my poor downline, don't want to desert those girls.
Really that's probably the only thing that is even making me consider it for a second.

So today may be my official last day with SU.
Could be.

Let's Talk About Brads Baby

Let's talk about brads baby
Let's talk about you and me

Who sang that song originally?
Was that Color Me Badd??
Always loved the double dd in Badd.

Can we seriously talk about the new rhinestone brads from Stampin' Up!©?
Made this card for one of the Dare To Get Dirty Challenges over at Splitcoast and I swear, hand to the bible, I punched the holes for the mini brads first to make sure they would be aligned and I got this!

Those wonky brads all over the place do not make me happy!

And what is even worse is that when I opened my brand new package, I got some with missing gems and some with gems falling out! Like these.
And the reason that I cannot get the damn things to lie straight is because their "stems" are all crooked and crazy, so when you bend them out, they make your brads lay where ever they feel like it.
Called SU! because this was just not right and there was no way I would be selling these to anyone in good conscious.
I was told they are working on improving the brads, they have gotten other complaints.
And they are sending me new ones and I am sending back my defective ones.
But there is no guarantee on the new ones coming that they will be any better.
So in the meantime, I am not selling these to anyone.
I just can't in good faith.

Had this problem when I worked at Archiver's too, told people what not to buy...they don't really appreciate that in retail.
But, I figure, if I am selling it or recommending it, then I better believe in it otherwise I look like either I am a liar or I don't know what I am talking about.
Neither is true.
Don't buy the brads!
Wait til they are new and improved.

RAK Winners!

What giving away my CHA goods has taught me:

1. People really like free stuff.

2. Some people are like me and LOVE Halloween.

3. There are some great blogs out there that I didn't even know about.

4. If I ever start a craft business I should make organizational things, people really like them.

So, people seem to be amazed that I am giving away all the things that I spent over 12 hours collecting on my CHA whirlwind tour.
For me, it is an easy way to send out the good vibes and hope that karma will flow my way real soon. I am on a huge karma kick this year and keep trying to throw out good in hopes that it will flow this way big time.
And I visited all your wonderful blogs to check out what you have all been up to lately, seems you were kind enough to visit me, thought I would do the same.
Seems only right.

So, there ya have it.

Had fun picking the names.
The kid was way excited.
Probably most about throwing tiny slips of paper all over the living room and not having to clean it up.
Picked one name...
Then, had to do it again because he didn't grab two names like his mother asked, he only had one, so up in the air all your names flew again...
This second time, may have been on purpose, I think he was having too much fun with thisAnd we had our second winner
Oh...you wanted to know who..

Sara Paschal, you girl are the big winner of the grand prize!
And A Webb of Creations, you have won the not-so-shabby second prize!

So email me your address, spazzgirl555atyahoodotcom, and I will get those prizes out to ya!

Thanks to CraftCritique for adding me to the carnival, so that more people had a chance to win. Check out their recent carnival for more great coverage of CHA.

Back to regular programing tomorrow!! I've got tons of dares to share.

CHA RAK!!

What's that ya say?
You didn't get to go to CHA?
YOU wanted some freebies too?

Well, here's your chance to get your hands on my CHA freebies!
That's right folks, I am re-gifting all my CHA goodies and you could be the luck recipient.

What do you have to do?
Well, just comment on THIS post, which new product you are most excited about seeing/getting that was released at CHA.
You can go back to my bazillion pictures and look, or maybe something you saw on another blog or website, your choice.
Then post your pick HERE on this post.
If you post a link on your blog to this CHA giveaway, you get 2 entries! But you MUST make sure that your comment let's me know you linked!
ONLY ONE POST PER PERSON, more than one post will be deleted.

What shouldn't I do?
Comment on another of my CHA posts and think you are entered, because you are not!
Forget to tell me you linked to me, you won't get your extra entry.
Send me an email to enter, only comments on this post are official entries.

What will I win?

Big Prize:
* Simple Scrapbooks, Aug 2007
* Cardmaker Magazine
* Stamp from Hero Arts
* Stamps from Inkadinkadoo
* Maya Road Chipboard Pieces
* Diecuts and strips from Paper House
* Creative Cafe Project recipes
* Big Flower from Imaginescence
* Journaling blocks from Fontwerks
* Heidi Swapp Big Flowers
* Heidi Swapp Lipshine lipgloss
* Lickety splits sticker strips
* Photo gems and stickers from Paperhouse
* Catalogs from Gelatins and Inkadinkadoo
* Pencils and Pens from various booths
* Eyelets and brads from the Eyelet Outlet
* Karen Foster Scraparatus bag

2nd prize (thought I would split it up just a little)
* Gelatins catalog
* Gelatin mini tin keychain (stamps inside!)
* Maya Road Chipboard pieces
* Lollipop from the CK booth
* Tin from the Gelatin booth with Gelatin mints inside
* Journaling blocks from Fontwerks
* Lickety Splits stickers
* Karen Foster Scraparatus bag

You have until Monday, July 30th at noon cst to enter!!
I will pick randomly Monday night

CHA part 8..The Final Stuff

Okay, ready for the final lap?
Here's a cool new company from Springfield Illinois!
dude.
Great bright paper, but not obnoxious.
Reasonably priced too, which in this day and age is really the coolest.
These are their embellishments, which are small enough for a mini book and large enough for pages. And their thoughtfulls work with their kits to make super cute mini books.
Here are the kits you embellish yourself and customize.
To make this, if you combine it with the Thoughtfulls.
Or you can make a neat idea book for all your nifty ideas and inspirations.

And you can make one of these.

Seriously, check them out HERE.

And last but certainly not least...Martha.
I love Martha and don't care what anyone else thinks, her things are cute.
I haven't bought a single Martha product yet, but the Halloween stuff has got me wanting.
Martha loves skulls, just like me!

These cool severed finger invitations make me want to have a party!
For your windows.
Glow in the dark rubons. This will probably be the first Martha product I buy!
Cool party favors...test tubes with candies.Stamps!
And cool tapes to decorate your place.

So that was it.
Phew.
That was a lot of work.
Probably not as many pictures next year.

Recap:

Owls and mushrooms are hot.

Everybody sells clear stamps now, but not all clear stamps are good.

Not all rubons are created the same!

Crochet flowers will be everywhere this fall.

Skulls are still cool, even Martha thinks so.

This fall will be filled with tons of new great stuff.

TOMORROW: CHA Product Give away.....Don't miss it!!

CHA part 7 of 8 (yep, the end is near)

Yes, I am almost at the end of my CHA re-cap. Can you believe I saw all this in only 2 days!

At the end of a VERY long first day at CHA, I was standing in the Hambly booth, staring at woodgrain paper and I looked down and saw this amazing little clear album.
It was acrylic and completely clear, so cool.
I quickly spun around in the booth to see if I could spot where they sold it, but alas it was nowhere, because they bought it from Pageframes.
We quickly, and I mean quickly, referenced our handy dandy CHA map and found they were on the other side of the convention center.
Bad news after 7 hours on your feet, but we trekked it and man, was I happy we did.

Man, were their samples cool.
And the lady that took our order right at 5pm, was so nice, she even shared a little secret about their acrylic and the cuttelbug.
I totally want to try it, but I would need a cuttlebug first.

Here are a few samples to feast your eyes on, and you can get more info about their albums and shapes on their website. Scrapbookframe.com
The second day at CHA was so much more relaxed, we had seen many of the places we wanted to and mapped out which ones we still needed to visit, so we wouldn't get sidetracked and have to return on Sunday.

We went over to the Sassafrass booth and man, they have some ca-ute stuff.
Can you say NON-YELLOWING clear stamps!
That's right, they were the only ones we saw that had these stamps that wouldn't yellow on us.
Totally cool and they had many, many style and super cheap (love that too!)
And their samples were wonderful.
And these were two of their new lines, but we liked their winter releases so much more.And awesome Rubons! I tried them myself and even if you "connect" two pieces of paper with their rubons...They did not tear! They were like industrial strength.And they had owls everywhere!Really it was these little guys that called to me and made me want everything in that booth.
You want Sassafrass, You love us owls, You will buy....

And I went over to the Fontwerks Booth and Kah Mei and I were both rocking the red streaks in our hair!
She said "Great minds think alike"...Can you imagine...Me and Kah Mei, both great minds!! I was giddy after that one.
They had some great samples and Laura Kurz was super nice, showing us around and telling us all about Fontwerks.
This page totally inspired my Unpubbed page, totally. Been running around my brain since I saw it.
They had new rubons, that went on with just a fingernail!These ribbon rubons were really nice.
Oh and I saw the new Cricut Expressions
If it could wash dishes, I would sooooo buy one!
This bad boy can cut a 12 x 24 diecut! Wowza.
We were really given the scoop on this one and it was really impressive.
My tight pocketbook won't let me buy one of these anytime soon, but it was cool.

With the birth of the Cuttlebug, I didn't know anyone dry embossed by hand anymore, but apparently they do!
Spotted this at the Lasting Impressions booth and their booth was packed.
Their samples were really nice, made me want to pull out my stylus!
My Mind's Eye had the new Bohemia Line
Look at those embossed Chipboard letters, those were neat and way fresh. And they had a Daily Dose line which made me think....Damn, shoulda trademarked that first...Damn!


One of the last places we ordered was Savvy Stamps, love their new Halloween Stamps.

Ok, hold on to your hats, because the new Lil Davis made me giggle with glee.
If you like Mushrooms, this whole line is gonna make you very very happy!