Gone to SFO

I hate printers. My latest all-in-one has gone belly-up. I've only had it about 8 months and it stopped working. The little rubber pulley thing that pulls the scanning mechanism across the glass won't work. Not that it was ever a good scanner in the first place! I've been having problems with it scanning 3-D objects. Blurry. Arg! I am not going to stress about the printer this weekend because I am going to San Francisco. My son, Tony, and I are flying up Friday morning and are staying with some friends. I hear it's going to be a big party weekend. The big parade is on Sunday, so we will be flying home Monday evening. See you on Tuesday.

It's Summer!

It's here, it's here! It's finally here! SUMMER!!! Hooray!

In California, the first day of summer can be hot or it can be gloomy and gray. We never know what we're going to get. I'm hoping for hot. After 20 years in San Marcos, I am finally getting used to the heat. Well, of course I am, I have air conditioning!

This little card was made using justjohanna Odd Bird Planet stamps. I used the orange for the center of the flower, the large button for the outside of the flower and I drew the stem and leaves. For the border, I used the lacy border and colored in the holes. That is my handwriting on the left edge. Paper is Baby Girl by Basic Gray. I colored the flower center and buttons with my Prismacolor watercolor pencils and used my waterbrush. I drew the stem and leaves with Prismacolor pen and drew details with Prismacolor pencils.

Hope you have a great summer. What are your plans? Any big trips? Tell me all about it. I hope you have a fantasic summer! Stay cool and wear your sunscreen!

Ice water, quick!

I went to Joann's in Escondido today on my lunch hour. As I drove on the freeway from San Marcos, I noticed that the outside temperature was rising steadily on the gauge in my car. I was in the air-conditioned car, so I didn't feel the full heat until I got out. Then I decided that I needed to take a picture to show you how freakin' hot it got out there today. Yes, it says 108F. That's 42C!

So there is the proof. Oh, and the evidence that I even have rubber stamps in my car. Oh my, I need help badly! If you don't recognize that stamp, it's one of the new ones from Impression Obsession. I got it at Cat's yesterday. You really must get some of these new images. My sister and I bought a whole bunch of them, but don't worry. Cat put an order in today for lots more.

June Special Deal

Even though June is half over doesn't mean you can't still get in on the special deal for the month.

The June deal stamps would normally sell for $35.00 if purchased separately. With the 25% discount, the deal is $26.25, a savings of $8.75. 1125H Moon with Stars 709N Hot Air Balloon 844G Fly Me to the Moon 950A Alma Big (If you already have Alma Big, you could pick an alternative owl)

Head on over to the Odd Bird Planet shopping cart and get your special deal now. It's just too cute to pass up.

Blog Candy Winner!

I told you I was playing catch-up, right? Well back on May 9, I posted some blog candy if you'd answer some questions about justjohanna rubber stamps. I got quite a few amusing answers, but the person who answered the most correctly is.... drum roll please.....

Noel Huang!

Here is the quiz with the answers:

What year did justjohanna rubber stamps make its debut? 2006

How many stamps are currently in the catalog? The closest guesser gets this one. 1532

Before the current bestselling stamp in the catalog, flora hugabundus was the #1 bestseller. What is the #1 best selling stamp right now? Eat the frosting first or Happy Birthday with sprinkles on top.

How many people are on the justjohanna design team? 26

On the justjohanna forum, in what category would you find a post entitled, "I grabbed Mabel..."? Uninked Sunday

I bet you didn't know that many of the rubber stamp critters are named after people Johanna knows. For whom was Candace the bird named? Johanna's mother

Congratulations, Noel! Your prizes will be on their way soon!

justjohanna has a new image!

I'm a bit behind in posting this, but did you know that justjohanna rubber stamps has a completely new image? It is now justjohanna's Odd Bird Planet. How fun is that new webpage?? Lots of brand new images added recently, including all the space and circus ones. Every time I see the new OBP (Odd Bird Planet) webpage, my chest swells a little bit. You know why? Because I got to color it! Johanna added the blue and the beige, but the rest is all mine. How fun is that? If you follow some of the links like to the wiki, the blog and the forum, you'll see more of the coloring and new images. OBP also has a new forum and gallery on Split Coast Stampers (SCS). Check it out. There are lots of samples in the gallery there and lots of chatting in the forum.

One step forward, two steps back

I am really trying to make headway with all the projects on my plate, but it seems like every time I get one done, two more are piled on. I won't mention any names, but her name is Kim. lol You know I'm teasing, right Kim? So yeah, I'm making progress on my design team projects and I'm working on my aprons, too. My Etsy shop is in dire need of some inventory. I got some great vintage linens at the antique store a few weekends ago and I'm definitely going to make those into aprons. Every once in awhile I find a vintage tablecloth that I just can't part with and so it sits in the closet. Not a good thing. It's very crowded in there. And if I didn't already have a gazillion things on my plate already, I added something else. My friend and co-worker, Kristie and I are going to sell our aprons at the local summer festival here in town. We are in the process of building up inventory for that, too. I'm a sewing fool these days. You shoulda seen the smoke coming from the sewing machine this weekend. Haha, not really, but I did have to oil the machine a couple of times. Speaking of smoke... Last weekend I was headed over to the justjohanna boutique, the radiator in my car blew up. Steam and water sprayed everywhere. What a pain in the patootie! So now my fun car is at the dealership getting fixed up. I got a cute little Honda Civic today as a rental. Fun! Even though it's late, I'm going to get going on a new project tonight.

Buh-lud!

I have been watching this movie over and over the past few days. It makes me laugh every time. I hope you get a chuckle from it.

Heeeeeere's ChaCha!!!

I am a firm believer in the theory that you have to take a LOT of pictures to get one good one, and I did just that with these pictures.

This is ChaCha. She is an albino gecko of some sort. Dana is taking care of her while school is out. Dana is a teacher and ChaCha is a classroom pet. She also has a tank with some fire belly toads, too, but this is about ChaCha.

ChaCha got her name because when she walks, she cha-cha's. Good thing I didn't get my name by the way I walk or my name would be Rumba-Tango-Twist-what-the-hell-is-that-dance-in-her-pants. Yeah.

ChaCha eats crickets and meal worms. After she eats, you can see the critters in her belly because she is kind of transparent. I'm talking about ChaCha, not Dana. Of course Dana is not transparent. She is kind of pale, but certainly not transparent. haha Ok, I'm gonna pay for that comment.

Dana had ChaCha out of her tank and was letting her cruise all over her arms and back and head and I just kept clicking away. These our favorite pictures.

So there you have it. Now you know ChaCha.

Deb and Kathi

Here we are!!

This is a picture of me and Kathi Rerek. When John and I were vacationing in PA, I made arrangements with Kathi and we met at Memory Lane in Quakerstown, PA. WE LOVE MEMORY LANE! Kathi reserved space in the crop room for us to make stuff. It wasn't just Kathi and I - it was my sister, Donna, her famous friend, Kim, Dana (my niece) and Lisa.

While the other ladies worked on cards or scrapbook pages, Kathi and I practiced with watercolors, pens and pencils. Kathi showed me how she uses her watercolor pencils and Twinkling H2O's and I showed her how I use my Prismacolor pencils. After we did that for oh, a couple of HOURS, we started working on a few projects. I made a couple of cards while Kathi took advantage of the die cut machines in the crop room to cut out some stuff for a book she is working on. Kathi was quite pleased with what she got done, and so was I. I learned more about how to use my watercolor pencils and to take it easy with the color. If you know me, you know I like solid, bright colors and Kathi showed me that I could use just a little bit of color to get a beautiful effect without putting on so much color. I love it!

I am so glad I got to meet Kathi. She is funny and talented. I hope we get to get together when we go to PA again. Thanks for driving to ML, Kathi!

Yankees Album

Ok, so I'm a scrapbooker. That is the first step in the program. Admit you have a problem. As promised, here is the book I made for our trip to the Yankees game in NY. This was the first book that Donna and I made. We made a book for ourselves and one for Danielle, my niece. We left PA around 7am and got to the Hiburnia Diner in Hiburnia, NJ around 9-ish. After breakfast we drove into the big city to the ballpark. We walked around and found some souvenir stands and bought some stuff. As we waited for the Yankees store to open, we walked around the stadium and took some pictures. This picture is John and I in front of the stadium near the Yankees store. This was a fun page to do. It's funny when you know you are going to do a scrapbook, you plan your pictures. I planned this one in two parts because I knew I wanted them on two facing pages.

Just a few random pictures. The picture on the right is the new stadium. It's being built right next to the current stadium. You knew that Yankee stadium was being torn down, right? Yes, this is the final year for the House that Ruth Built. Sad, but it does need updating. These taken from our seats in the bleachers. Yes, we were "bleacher creatures" for a day. The seats were hard, backless and very close together. Kind of like those high school stadium seats only closer together and not as steep. We were essentially in each other's laps. Nice. Yeah, so here is John and I looking cool as can be. Well, we weren't cool. It was HOT that day. And here is my cute sister and her husband, Mike. Before the game, we all went to a pizza place next to the stadium for lunch. I ordered a Cuban meat sandwch. It was supposed to be delicious, but it wasn't.

This is Dan and Danielle. They are getting married next September. Oh no, another trip to PA! Just kidding. We love going there. This is a picture I took from our seats in the bleachers. I used the digital zoom on the camera. I don't usually use the digital zoom because it pixellates so badly, but taking a bunch of pictures gave me something to do.

Donna and I sat in the far back seat of the Suburban and at some point, I got bored and opened up my umbrella. We all got free umbrellas at the stadium. Too bad we couldn't use them in the stadium. It would've been helpful in the hot sun. When we got back to Northampton, we stopped for gas at Turkey Hill. As the men were filling up the gas hog, Danielle turned around in the seat to chat with Donna and I. I took her picture because she looks naked in this pic.

I'm glad we went to the game, but bummed because we got bleacher seats. If you sit in the bleachers, you can't go into any other part of the baseball stadium. I didn't know that when I bought the tickets. We really wanted to walk around the stadium and see it before it gets torn down. Oh well. Sigh.

Does this make me a scrapbooker?

I've never really considered myself a scrapbooker. Honestly, the thought of making an album scares me. It's like it has no end. I mean, once you start, you just keep doing it, right? OMG, I'm starting to hyperventilate already. I need to do things that have an END!! Well, as I posted earlier, I spent a week at my sister's house in PA. We went to a couple of ballgames. After we went to the first game, she had this great idea. She had gotten some of these tag books from Oriental Trading and thought they'd make good books for the baseball games. One night we took the camera card to Wal-Mart and put it in the photo machines and printed out a bunch of pictures, took them home, cropped them, and cranked out three books. Those three books were for the Yankees game we went to on the 25th. I will post that book tomorrow. This book is for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs game we attended on May 29th. OMG, if you are ever in the Allentown, PA area during baseball season, you MUST attend an Iron Pigs game. Our seats were fantastic! We sat in the 2nd row behind the visitors dugout at first base. Yes, I know that should be the home team's dugout, but for some reason, they switched it in this park. Oh, who cares? Our seats were compliments of one of Donna's co-workers. Thanks a bunch! It was a warm day. Not too hot. Hot makes me very cranky. We drank beer, ate sausage and pulled pork sandwiches and cheered for the Pigs. I love minor league baseball. I think it is more fun than major league baseball. Ok, so on to the tag book. This tag book is 8"x6". I used some of my acrylic paints to paint around the edges and most of each page. I wasn't in the mood to put a lot of paper on the pages. I told you I'm not a scrapbooker! I found some baseball themed paper that I hadn't used up so I just went for it. The front cover is actually made with a bumper sticker. I do not know what to do with embellishments, so I use whatever I can that I buy in the baseball store. I also cut up the free programs they hand out at the gate. See the page with the pig on it? The paper behind it is just a page out of the free program. It adds a nice flair. Yeah, flair. That's what it is. Ha! It's really just cheap! As you can see by these pages, there is nothing fancy on them. I think I put one brad on a page, a few little pieces of ribbon and then the rest is just stuff we bought, acquired or from the baseball paper pack. Hey, I'm happy with it. One thing I would do more of is have more journaling space. Since this is only my second book, I don't really know what I'm doing, so I have to remember to leave room to write stuff down. To me, one of the funnest parts of doing one of these books is taking the pictures. Since I knew I'd be making a book, I took pictures that would make an interesting book. Like telling a story. Oh, that's another thing. I had to pare down the pictures I wanted to put in this book because this book has an END. It is only so many pages long and I can't add to it, so I was limited to the number of pictures. I actually like that. It's like making a card from a sketch. There are certain parameters that must be followed.

Thank you, Donna, for turning me on to these tag books. I know that I will be ordering books from OT now and having them on hand to make books. Thank you all for putting up with my rambling, as usual.

Where have I been?

Well, that's a complicated question. I've been: * On vacation. John and I went back to PA to visit my sister and her family. We were there for a week and it was so much fun, but more info (and pictures) on that later. * Work. Well, for one day since vacation. * Sick. Yes, sick. I haven't been sick in ages. Maybe I got a bug from being on that airplane, I don't know. All I know is, the stomach flu is no fun. Oh, and to top it off, I have a migraine tonight and it is not responding to my meds. I don't think tomorrow is going to be a very fun day, either.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Today is the 2nd birthday of justjohanna rubber stamps! Wow, how much you've grown in the past few years. I'm proud to be affiliated with such a fantastic company. I tried my hand at a new technique: watercoloring. Kathi Rerek gave me some help with this new technique. I like it, so you'll be seeing more of it on my cards. I know I need practice, but it sure is fun to do. For this card, I used watercolor paper and Prismacolor watercolor pencils and a water brush.