Thank you IIG and the NO HOUSE WORK blog Hoppers!

This was one of most highly visited blog posts and I appreciate everyone that stopped by to say hi!

I hope to visit all of your blogs, if I have not already.

I was able to acquire a couple more followers and that is awesome!

Truly I am the kind of person who wishes that every one of you could win my prize,

but that’d be pretty expensive for me to cover.

I had 36 comments and I did the RANDOM.ORG generator for my winner:

My 10th commenter was:  The lovely KAREN!

so, BEING KAREN, has its perks today!

Karen is the winner of my CARD KIT!  Pictures of it are here:

https://polkacabana.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/1730/

Thank you again for all your visits and I do hope I can keep posting things that will inspire:)

Have a great MONDAY and a great week!

NO HOUSEWORK BLOG HOP

Welcome to the National No Housework Day Online Blog hop

! If you have arrived not knowing until now about the hop, no problem…just go back to

If It’s Groovy

http://ifitsgroovy.blogspot.com

This is where this hop starts and work your way through.

You may find games, prizes, projects and how do-you-dos along the path 🙂

We would appreciate it if you sign up to keep in touch with us by “following” and would love your comments!

Perhaps you arrived here from:

Diana (http://designbydiana.blogspot.com)

Great!  Hope you enjoyed that stop and the others so far!!!

We celebrate this national holiday by scrapping today

and into the weekend with projects that remind us of housework or getting away from it!!!

Take the day off, put up your feet and let’s hop!

For todays hop, I am celebrating my never-ending unorganized, lived in, loved, falling apart, seldom tidy house!

I am not about to show you pictures, but I did make a special plaque to capture my thoughts!

If this is your first stop to my blog, you need to know:

I am crazy about Mary Engelbreit!

I am crazy about polka dots!

I am crazy about cherries!

These are all the theme of my project.

I have taken a plain frame, removed the glass………

Why?

I am not rich enough to buy shadow boxes and this has a lot of layers.

I did not buy anything brand new for this project.  I did the phrase on PSE7, used scraps of wallpaper and just looked through my stash for things to match.

This is the kind of of project that is 100% me!

I love everything about it and now I need to find a place to hang it!

Another phrase that is great for this hop:

HOUSEWORK IS FOR THE BIRDS!!!

Keeping with that theme, I have created this nice prize pack for one lucky person.

It is a card kit.  You will get enough supplies to make (6) of these cards.

Finished Card counts as 1, plus supplies for the 5 others.

If one of the spots on the mushroom look weird, it is Photoshop’d in.

It fell off, and I did not notice till I was editing the pics!  OOPS!!

Side view of this one of a kind card, designed by ME:)

Here is a peek at the supplies (most of them) for the kit.

I hope you like it.

If you LOVE IT and would like an extra chance or chances to win this kit,

I invite you to head on over for the last couple of days of

Tally Scrapper’s

Light It Up Blue” Cyber Crop

Here are the projects I have done for this crop.

If you LOVE my card kit, head on over to TALLY, have a look around, leave some love and you get a 2nd entry for the card kit.

If you make a donation to AUTISM SPEAKS, through TALLY, you will earn a 3rd entry for the card kit.

If you decide to join Tally to have the time of your life, let them know Jeannie, aka, POLKA CABANA, referred you, you will get a 4th entry.

WHEW!!  Are you still with me?

See why we are going through the 10th for this HOP??

Thanks for your visit, please head over to see Kelly at http://kellyisascrapdiva.blogspot.com/

I hope you have enjoyed your visit.

Without further ado…put that broom, mop, dish soap DOWN and go visit KELLY!!

If it is reported back to me that  you have been doing house cleaning or have a clean house already, you will not be eligible for my prize! (JUST KIDDING)

 

Peace, Love & Rock -n- Roll!

How is that for a title?

How is that for a theme?

I have no idea why I came up with this, it just happened.

Jean Claude and Philippe Pea happily volunteered to be my models today.

Let’s go in order, shall we?

PEACE – Veggie Style

Pretty creative huh? What the world needs more of is Peas, right?

 

These guys are certainly 2 groovy little dudes!

 

LOVE – Veggie Style

I decided to do this one based on the news of Japan.

I thought about it today when I did not get some good news,

I had really hoped/wished for.

Then I felt bad, being so selfish when Japan is in such a crisis.

 

All I can do is keep them in my thoughts and prayers and that is just what I will keep on doing.

 

ROCK & ROLL – Veggie Style

 

This is just a fun card! I thought that it was a good finish.

 

Those Peas are such good sports!

 

Hopefully you can see that having a set like these, you really can make anything you can dream up!

On a personal note by me, that FABULOUS paper  for my WORLD PEAS card is from Memories Emporium on ETSY.

My World Peas card is dedicated to Groovy Deb and the gals over there, miss you all and luv you all!

My Love card is dedicated to Michelle from My Analog Life, and her and I both know why 😦

My Rock and Roll card is dedicated to the Paper Issues team, because of our 1st Blog Hop…we are going to ROCK the WORLD…

…hey, it  could happen!

Products I have used: Cheery Lynn Pennant Die, Circle Large Nesting Dies, Stitch Plate, Pierce Plates, Eccentric Circle Embossing Plate, Optimistic Font, Buttons5, Baby Giraffe Frame and Jean Claude and Phillipe Pea.

Is it Tuesday?

Yes, it is Tuesday.  For me a bittersweet Tuesday.  Last week at this time, I had no idea that today I would be telling so many of you goodbye.  Due to life circumstances, I have had to say goodbye to many of the Teams I have been designing for over the last few months.  I am especially sad to say goodbye to my lovely friends at Tuesday Trio and my Groovy Friends at If It’s Groovy.  It seems that this can be a tough job to have when the craft and the passion behind the reason we craft is not fully understood or supported by those around you. 

So, I need to step back, regroup and figure out how to be a mom, a wife and still craft and hope that someday, I can figure how to profit from this love of mine so it does not appear to be such a waste of time:)

So today, I will share first my project I have designed for one of teams I am not saying Goodbye to.  That would be, Cheery Lynn Designs.  Tuesday’s are always my post day with them so here is what I have made.  We had a theme to follow this week, that theme was using the colors, red, black and white only.  This was tough, I kept thinking of certain things and thought, “nope, that has pink, nope that’d require green.”  I wanted to be very careful not to bend the rules, I am weird like that!

Here is my card:

Here is the inside:  (hmmmm, I wonder who I could give this to?)

 

I did not use a lot of dies on this.  Actually I only used one set.  The set is called Little Stackers Scalloped Oval.  My idea to use only one set was purposeful.  I wanted to show that you can still have a core set of dies.  You do not have to have 30 sets(OH BUT THAT’D BE FUN!) to be able to have fun with your dies.  I took 2 larger dies and created this framed window that reveals the beautiful Digi Stamp by Therese Travis.  Inside when you open the card you can see the full beauty that awaits for the lucky recipient on the inside of this card.

Cheery Lynn Designs still has their BLOG CANDY giveaway going. 

 Stop by the BLOG to see the details.  So, at least for Cheery Lynn Designs, I will be back next week.

 

Now onto my sad farewell.  Tuesday Trio.  I have loved being part of this time.  It filled me with such joy to come together with women from different countries as we supported one another and created together.  I will miss the challenges and I will miss the Tuesday sketches and my Tuesday posts for them. 

Tuesday Trio’s new sketch going up today.  We are on sketch #49.  This is the last sketch I am playing along with as a designer.

 

My interpretation of the sketch went something like this:  I turned the sketch upside down…..

….and here is my project.  This is especially dedicated to not only Tuesday Trio, but all the teams I have had to say goodbye to. 

Thank you for allowing me to work with your designs, your products. 

 This is truly what I love doing in life and I will miss you all.

The most important blog post EVER!!

I really hope I have not used that Title before, because, truly this is my most important post yet.  I have been waiting awhile to post this.  Ever since September of this year.

Right around the time when I was VERY new to blogging, I was able to attend a women’s conference called Time Out for Women.  It took place in Sacramento on Friday September 10 and 11th, 2010.   It was and incredible experience.  I was able to go with my Mother and Sister in-laws and some other wonderful friends of theirs.

One of the speakers, Jill Manning, tackled a very difficult topic.  One that we all want to pretend will just go away on its own.

Her presentation was titled, “The Uncensored Truth About Pornography”   Why this topic?  Jill says, “Because women are impacted by pornography in unique and profound ways, we play an indispensable role in the fight against it.  Although the statistics are daunting, we know that pornography cannot win, in light of Who and what is on our side.”

She shared some disturbing statistics about the age at which children are first introduced to this topic, and sadly most images are seen within their own home.  Thanks to technology, our children will see images of things that we never came across when we were kids.  Moms and Dads, the internet IS NOT A SAFE PLACE.  No filter is fool-proof and even sites geared towards children still need to be monitored.  We would not let our toddler who has had one day of swimming instruction swim in the Pacific by themselves.

So, why would we let a child go on the internet unmonitored while they are still young and innocent?

Jill shared a remarkable story of elephants living in the wild.  Elephants roam in packs.  Did you know that when you see images of those packs, that all those elephants you see are females and their young?

Male elephants are solitary animals and only join a pack during mating season, and then they go back to their solitary roaming.

Now, who is considered the King of the Jungle?  Well it is the lion.  No animal would dare go up against the lion, because they are strong, and will over power any animal it targets as its prey.

There is one animal that the lion can not go up against.  That animal?  The elephant.

Here is why:

 

 

Do you notice anything here?  When there is danger, the momma elephants form a circle.  This circle in impenetrable. Inside their circle is where they keep those that are most precious to them, their young.

I have to tell you, to just look at those images, brings tears to my eyes.

At the end of Jill’s presentation she compared us to the elephants.  She reminded us that we WOMEN had the power to form an impenetrable safety shield for our children.  We are the matriarchs, it is our duty.

At the close of Jill’  presentation, I have to say, I was moved and I did feel empowered, thinking that if all the women took a stand against this, we could really make a difference.

We were all given a printed card that was a card to take home, go over with our families and children and take an oath to make good choices, while online, while watching TV, etc.

Most of you know, I have a lot of kids, 7 to be exact.  I took one look at that 5 x 7 card and thought there is not enough room for all us to sign.

So, I  made my own version and have used the exact same wording that was on the CLEAN & SAFE MEDIA PLEDGE, that was given to all 2,400 of us matriarchs there.

My design in based on the free tote bag that, again, all of us attendees were given.

 

I took one look at that bag and knew, that was a layout waiting to happen.

Being that I was so inspired to do something about this pledge, I have come up with some ideas.

I want to challenge any of you to take the PLEDGE with your families too.

I would love for you to create something beautiful to spotlight this in your homes.  Hang it on your wall, in a frame next to all your home computers.

Talk about this with your families and take this wonderful pledge.  Can you imagine if every one of my blog visitors took my challenge and then referred a friend her to take the challenge also?

I am so passionate about this that for EVERYONE that links up a project to this post, I will tally all of you up and create and send you a blank THANK YOU card based on the design I used for my CLEAN & SAFE MEDIA PLEDGE.

So, you will be rewarded by me for putting this pledge into your home.

I have many friends from all faiths, but I plead with you to look past the small differences that our religions may have.

When it comes to our children and our families, churches and religions and individual beliefs we stand UNITED.

So please join with me and share this with friends and family.

Print that pledge out and make something beautiful for your home with it!!

If anyone has any questions about the pledge, just let me know!

Thank you to GROOVY DEB at If It’s Groovy for posting this project today.

Hope you all like what I have done.

 

The PLEDGE is done on a transparency sheet.

The saying on the BLUE says:

“BE WHERE YOU ARE, WHILE YOU’RE THERE”

I thought that was perfect for this.  To me, this from means, be constantly on guard and not to let our defenses down.

The phrase is WORD ART Created by Bethany Harty, the QUEEN of Word Art!

Her Blog:

http://elegantwordart2.blogspot.com/

She has AMAZING things!!

I was able to find an awesome frame at Michael’s, for $3.00, WOW!!

All the blue birds, are done with a FISKARS punch I won from entering a FISKATEER contest.

On each bird, you will find, every one of our my family’s signatures, that we agree to take the MEDIA PLEDGE!

There are 9 birds…9 of us agree to “keep our home a happy and healthy place to be.” (Wording taken from the PLEDGE)

Now, to be eligible to receive the FREE handmade card from me, I ask a couple of things:

1) Go leave a comment at If It’s Groovy

2)  Go and get a COPY of the Pledge here: http://deseretbook.com/files/family_mediapledge.pdf

3) Create something, anything.  Even if you just print it and frame it, I will accept it.

4) Take a picture of your creation.

5) Blog about this with your creation

6) Linky up to the MR. LINKY below

7) Follow My Blog and If It’s Groovy

Now that might seem like a lot, but I AM GIVING YOU SOMETHING IN RETURN!

If I have to make 100 cards, it will be the best thing and the hardest work for something important and so worth it to me.  I will also have a Permanent Gallery here on my blog for any and all submissions I receive.  I truly hope it will be a HUGE Gallery.  This is for the best cause, your family and your children.

Refer someone here and you both give me each others name, you get an additional prize.

The MR. LINKY is open until January 15th, 2011.  Enough time to get through the holidays, refer friends and get your Pledge creation done.

I hope that all who stop by will link up with me and that we all can make a difference in this world, one family at a time.

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Do you use BIG WORDS??

Do you know someone who just talks way over your head?  That would be my husband sometimes. 🙂  Over at If It’s Groovy, we have a phenomenal challenge going on.

Maybe with this challenge, we can start talking over other people’s heads!!

The challenge is called OPEN YOUR DICTIONARY.  We are challenging you to go open that Webster’s collecting dust on your shelf.  Find a word, new to you, one you do not already know the meaning to and scrap a page on that word.  I had a blast with this one.  My word?

FLORIFEROUS

Do you know what FLORIFEROUS means? Well, head on over to If It’s Groovy and check out my page and read what I learned about the word FLORIFEROUS.

Here is a SNEAK PEAK…to see it all click here.

We now have a MR. LINKY installed so you can easily post your creation for us all to see.  I am headed over there to link up now!

Leave a comment over there for me..I would love to know what you think of my page and would love even more for you all to play along!!

Happy Sunday!

PS..I was going to try to write this post with HUGE FANTASMIC words…but it proved to be to hard for me..so you only got the word PHENOMENAL out of me!!

 

Never forget, the REALLY important things!

This is going to be a very small post today.  I have been on a Mini Vacation with the hubby and our two smaller kids…

He says, not much of a vacation for me, because I would not allow the little ones to stay at home with someone else.  When my kids are little, I have never been one, who could just leave them.  Even for a vacation.  Oh well!

My thought is that, hopefully when they are older, that is my time for quiet vacations.

Hey I allowed the other 5 to stay at home (Note, they are all older, and are staying with friends, etc.)

Tomorrow I will get back into the swing of things.

 

Today I have a lovely tribute to share with you.

Awhile ago, my Groovy Team Leader, GROOVY DEB, had asked us to all compile our PINK projects together.  As it turns out, I guess I use PINK  A LOT.

We were not able to get this put together in time to share with you in October, but that does not matter.  The message is still the same.

In Groovy Deb’s own words,

“PLEASE take the time to listen to the beautiful words of songs by Mercy Me playing as you take a look at the women we have lost, women we love still, the women who are not even grown women yet.

…Sorry we could not show this in October, but EVERY month should be October when it comes to this cause!!! We are in this together, so please fight for the cure so that WE Women stand united against the uninvited!!!”

I hope you take the time to watch this, I loved putting this together for the IF IT’S GROOVY blog.

Customize a free photo slideshow

Just how GROOVY do you think you are??

One of the design teams I am on is for the If it’s Groovy website.

They have an open Design Team Call.  If you have what it takes…if you are GROOVY enough, you have to check it out!!  Apply and we can be team mates!!  If you apply let Groovy Deb know I sent you over!

The Link is here:  IF IT’S GROOVY DESIGN TEAM CALL

I am the FEATURED artist today! (We all get a chance in the spot light)  My post today is about or October Challenge.

Our Leader, Groovy Deb, has the most amazing challenges.  The Challenge this month is called Translations.

We needed to come up with a layout that featured a different language.  Having a mom(I’m lucky enough to have 2…long story there!)  anywho..having a mom who is full Navajo..well..you do the math..that makes me half!!  This year I am glad to say that I got my self enrolled with my tribe and gave them the honor of adding all 7 of my kids to the tribe also!  WHEW!!  Yep the Navajo Nation is up by 7, at least, this year thanks to me!

For this page, all my Titles are in Navajo.  I had to consult my mom and cousins on the spelling.  I hope you enjoy the page.

 

 

The journaling on it says:

 

Tséníjíkiní

House of the Dark Cliffs People

 

I feel very honored to be Native American.  In 2004, my husband, all my children and I went to Ganado, Arizona, where my grandmother lives.  It was my first trip to the reservation and it was a humbling experience.

Do I feel sad that I was not raised on the reservation?

Maybe, but it doesn’t matter because I wouldn’t change the outcome of my life for anything.

I am blessed to have 2 families, the family that raised me and that family that is my blood, my clan.

I am Jeannie DeGruccio and I am Tséníjíkiní.

 

 

That is all for today!  But remember, if you have thought at all about being part of a fun team..check out If it’s Groovy’s Design Team call.

Special Day today!!!

Be sure to read all the way down to the last line..for my exciting news!!

It is October 2nd, 2010!

What makes that so special?  Well first, it is the “hubby’s” birthday!  Sooo Happy Birthday to him!  He is not big on birthdays, but I did make him breakfast and will make something yummy for dinner and dessert.  Whatever dessert it is, it has to be a CHOCOLATE CAKE.  SO I will have to find a good recipe!  My 3rd oldest son turned 14, 2 days ago and I still need to make his birthday dinner and dessert too!

Why can’t they just all like the same thing??

Me with the BIRTHDAY BOYS, beginning of this summer!

Today is also WORLD CARD MAKING DAY.   Click on this HERE link to get some info about this day.  So in honor of this day, I would like to honor my Mom a little bit.  I have said before what an awesome card maker she was.  She passed away in 2008, but some days it still hurts like it was yesterday.  All she wanted was to see her grandkids growing up, so I hope she has a nice front row seat up in heaved to see all the action.  We certainly put on a good show for her I am certain!

So, if she were here, I would try to be with her today and make some…..CARDS!!  Sadly, she is not, so I will do some cards today in her honor.  I have some challenges to get done, so why not today, right?

I love you mom!  You had such a talent, even though you thought you were all thumbs.  I would never have the patience to do some of the cards you made, I also don’t know how I will ever be able to part with them.  I know they are only cards and you are not IN them, so why is it still so hard to part with your worldly items?  Maybe someday for someone very special, until then, I will just hold them close.

Here she is!  The Queen Card Maker!!

Another of her with her favorite and only grandkids (because I am her only daughter!)

Happy Card Making Day everyone!!!

If you go to the IF IT’S GROOVY BLOG, there is a slide show of our team members cards to enjoy!

Last Bit of info:

I have been invited to join THE LOLLIPOP PRESS as one of their HYBRID DESIGNERS!!  Hop on over

and browse her scrapbooking items, they are very, very cute!

OK, really that is all for today!!!

What artist inspires you???

I design for a fun, fun blog called, If It’s Groovy.  We call ourselves the Groovy Chicks!

One of our most recent challenges was to find an artist inspires us, and do a layout based on one of their pieces of art.  Here is the info about my ARTIST!

This was great fun. I chose to go a little un-traditional and chose and artist that might not fall under the same category as the MASTERS.

Ever since I was a child I have loved BARBAR THE ELEPHANT. I can remember the stories even as I sit and write this. The paintings are always done in bright cheery colors. I think that must

be why I like Laurent de Brunhoff, so much.

The BARBAR paintings were originally done by Jean de Brunhoff. Laurent, his son, took over BARBAR when his dad died of tuberulosis at the age of 37.

This page is dedicated to my older son because 2 of his favorite things in the world are elephants and hot air balloons.

Here is the painting I chose:

Here is my layout based on the painting:

Close up upper page:

Close up: Lower half-

The phrase on the Layout says:

“Life affords no greater

RESPONSIBILITY,

no greater PRIVILEGE,

than the RAISING  of

the next

generation.”

I always love feed back, let me know how you liked this challenge and check out the

If it’s Groovy blog

for the other team members layouts.