Happy Halloween!!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!! So as I guessed earlier this month, I am late on my halloween cards and what I really wanted to make is still in my mind and it hasn't been put together, maybe later this month, you'll have to forgive me I had a busy week with school. Here are some quick cards that I whipped up last night while watching my online class, look familiar, yup I made these witches earlier this month but I changed their outfits up a bit. Enjoy and be safe later tonight with all those ghosts and goblins creep'n around!







Thanks for stopping by.

Shimmerz Paints Giveaway

Shimmerz Paints is launching a new line of products on November 1st. Click Here to sign up for this AWESOME giveaway, and to get you some shimmerz if you haven't yet.

Sorry about not posting any cards lately, I'm watching class online right now and this week I was studying for a test that was Wednesday and today I turned in a paper on the abuse of DXM, cough meds. Maybe I will post something later this weekend. Possibly some late halloween cards since I didn't get time to make any and the ones that I was supposed to send out aren't even made yet, Oh no I new it was going to happen!!

Donna's Blog Candy!!!!

Donna at Serenity in Stamping is giving away Blog Candy, check it out.


There's a brand new unmounted SU! set Along the Same Lines, a brand new See-D's Inque Boutique set, Falling For You Sophia by Paper Pretties, a 2x stamper by JustRite, assortment of ribbons, some felt snowflakes, ribbon, embellishments & dp from the current holiday mini.

How can you win? Leave a comment on this post by Tuesday, Nov. 4

1. Tell Donna one thing you're looking forward to on Halloween this year for one entry
2. Spread the news of Donna's blog candy on your blog for a 2nd entry (but please be sure to post the link in the comments section with a link to your blog entry)
Donna will shoot for announcing a winner Friday Nov. 7-once she get back from vacation & checks all the entries. Good Luck!

In the Labratory, hehe

Lol, In the lab making some creations, just for a few minutes while I take a break from an essay and studying for a test for tomorrow, that's why I have been away, but since Halloween is approaching faster than I expected I decided I needed to take a break and make some more cards. I knew I was going to run out of time. So here are some creations, simple with lots of glitter and glue.

Warning: Glitter gets everywhere and glue is hard to erase!!!

For this first card I used A Muse "Hanging Spider" and A Muse "Happy Halloween" Sentiment and I made the spider web after visiting Tobi Crawford tutorial on making glitter spider webs. I added some red stickles glitter to the spider butt so that they are a little more creepier, hate spider, yuk!!!



For this second card I made my own web and spider and I noticed a challenge on Amy Sheffer's blog that was issued by Emily Gunnell (aka WaterPixie) from Dirty Dozen on SCS. It goes like this:

Challenge Focus: Create a Halloween card or treat holder.

Required Element: Googlie Eyes! We want to see those eyes jiggle!

Restricted Element: No pumpkins! You'll have to use a different image associated with Halloween!



Hope you like it, and thanks for stopping by!

California Portuguese Style Bloodless Bullfight

Last night I met up with my brother in Thornton, California which is 30 minutes from Sacramento, California to watch a Portuguese Bloodless Bullfight. Yup there are bullfights in California. It was a good one!! There was a female cavaleira, horse[wo]man, by the name of Sonia Matias and cavaleiro, horseman, Rui Ferando both from Portugal and matador Jose Ignacio Ramos. It was supposed to be Anna Baptista but she hurt her wrist somehow and was unable to make it.

Here is a photo of Anna Baptista in Gustine, California in 2004 when I first saw her.

I couldn't help taking a picture of the beautiful cape that the matadors were wearing in the opening ceremony, this one caught my eye as it laid on the edge of the arena. It's worn by the matador on the far right side of the photo below.


The opening ceremony or presentation, with horseman, matadors, and the men in the back in white help remove the bulls from the arena when its time to change bulls. For each bullfight there are usually six bulls.

The horses outside the arena waiting for their turn to go into the arena. The horses are usually the Lusitano breed.

Sonia Matias smiling to the crowd after a job well done.

Sonia running from the bull after stabbing several bandeirilhas, which are small javelins that attach to a patch of Velcro on the bulls back and don’t cause any harm to the bull.

Cavaleiro, horseman, Rui Fernandes from Portugal as he also places bandeirilhas on the bull velcro patch.


Rui Fernandes on a new horse



Forcados Amadores, or suicide squad, from Turlock, California. The forcados consist of a group of eight men, who challenge the bull directly without any weapons or protection. They perform the traditional pega (the grab) where they stand in the middle of the arena and the first man provokes the bull, the bull charges him and he grabs the bulls face and the rest of the men surround and secure the animal until he is restrained. If they succeed and catch the bull like in the third picture, they win if they don't and they get thrown around like in the second picture they have the chance to do it two more times.



Matador,Jose Ignacio Ramos from Spain placing bandeirilhas on the bull.


And this is one of the helper matadors who just goes out to distract the bull.

There are three bulls and then there is a break and then the other three bulls. During the break they passed out little posters of the metador and the cavaleiro/a so I was able to grab two different poster of Jose Ignacio Ramos and later I found one of Rui and while I was sitting the people in front of me go a poster of Sonia so when Sonia was watching the bullfight herself I went and asked her for her poster and she had just passed out her last three to some little kids, and it had her signature, I was a bit jealous. I wanted to get Jose's signature but he did the last bull and then he left the arena I could have chased him down but I was more interested in taking a bandeirilha home, because my friend Luis was putting the bulls in and taking of the Velcro patches but he couldn't give it to me cause they recycle them and they are owned by someone specific, or the owner of the bull. So as I was heading out of the arena I bumped into my friend Mr. Martines who owns bulls and is also in the Forcados and he told me that next time I see him he will bring me one that he brought back from a Portugal bullfight, isn't that exciting, I think that is really cool!!!

Here are the posters:


(I have two copies of the top two, I was thoughtful and had someone in mind but I'm not sure I will get the chance to get it to them)

Birthday Cake

This week's All That Scraps Design Team Challenge was to make a card/item totally inspired by ribbon.

I used American Craft Premium Ribbon and the Large Whimsical Outline Cake by Savvy stamps. I have a lot of birthdays coming up so I had to start getting them done, so this was a good inspiration and I specifically used birthday ribbon and used the colors on the ribbon and matched it with my paper.

I made two cards they are exactly the same except for the paper piercing on the corners. I thought it needed a little something else but it looks the same to me. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!!







Don't forget to check out what the DT members came up with here on the ATS blog a little later today. And don't forget to keep your eye on the Challenge Forum for when it's posted there so you can play too! :)

2 birds with 1 stone

I put a sketch challenge from Julee's Mojo Monday Sketch and a color challenge from TCP Tuesday all in one card.



I'm so excited for myself, lol. This is the first time I've done either of these. It was definitely a challenge, although it shouldn't have been because I had a template and I had the colors, but picking colors is always hard for me. Maybe if I would have just gone with solid colored paper it would have been simpler but I found this cute paper and thought it would work perfectly. I will have to make another card using the color challenge and just solid colors. It might be a lot easier.

I used Full Fluffy by Stampendous, he is so cute but with the comment I'm not sure that it is appropriate for some people. Say if I were to give the card to an older relative, do you think they would take it offensively, I'm not sure, I'll just make sure not to give it to any older people celebrating their birthday or anyone who doesn't have a sense of humor, I think that's really what it's all about. Anyways I put Diamond Glaze on the balloon to make it look and feel like its popping out at ya and I put some Stickles glitter on the cake as frosting and I also put a little on Fluffles face.


Enjoy!! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.


Pssst....I just thought of something, the colors for the color challenge were the initial colors that I wanted my blog to be, they still are but now that I added the background it looks a lil different, but I really wanted a background with that color scheme and this one was the closest I found. How ironic, huh, and I had that scheme way before the challenge.

Best Witches

Hurray for making a Halloween card. I was a little scared that I wouldn't get any done, but here is my first sample. I used Stampendous Witch Shoes and Doodle Witches. They're so fun. I made it a simple one layer card but it wasn't that simple because I glittered it up and I flocked it up too, so there is fuzzy and sparkle, you can't really see with the pictures but it came out nicely. Enjoy and have a great day as I'm off to school and thanks for stopping by.

The Family Dairy

So yesterday I went and visited the Paper Garden in Sacramento where they had a free make and take between 11:30 and 1:30, it happens every first Tuesday, second Saturday and Last Friday of the month at the same time, check out Stephanie's newsletter for more info. Also look at her class schedule she offers some great classes and she has the best stamps and ideas in her store. The Paper Garden was the first stamp store that I ever stepped foot in, it was sooo exciting yet overwhelming at the same time there was soooo much and I just wanted to make thank you cards for my birthday, but lol that's not all I came home with, i got a bunch of other ideas and started buying more stamps and soon I was addicted, Thanks Stephanie it's a good addiction lol. Anyways so when I was in there yesterday talking to Stephanie she commented on the fact that she had looked at my blog that morning and liked my craft space and how organized it was, lol, it was organized for the picture, lol I had just set it all up and I hadn't really used the area to craft on, so I'll later have to show you a picture of a messy craft space, one that's been used and not yet picked up.

She also commented on the picture behind my blog header, the one of the farm. Now that is an actual picture of my parents dairy, before we bought it and started remodeling it, so I thought I would share some picture of the old dairy and the new remodels. I hope you guys enjoy. The idea behind the pictures was that I was going to make a remodeling scrapbook, and I made like the first 3 pages and then the pictures became overwhelming because there were so many, I couldn't help snapping away at every step in the remodel process and then I just didn't know how to organize my scrapbook without using all the pictures that I had taken. Any suggestions??? Another thing is that I've lived on this dairy and this same land since I was little, I only have one memory of the dairy that we lived on that was literally down the street like 500 feet, so I've lived in the same general area since I was born.

This is a photo taken in the 90's when my parents first started the dairy.
This is also a photo in the 90's when my parents first put the milking tank (where all the milk is kept before going to the factory) into the milking barn.
Before the new construction, it was just open land with an area for eating and an old barn.
The land was cleared.
The new barn was built.
The old barn fell down and the new barn was done and ready for the cows to move in.

These are in individual free stalls or beds that each cow rests in within the barn.
This is the pressure washer system that cleans the allyes within the barn.
This is how well the pressure washer system cleans the barn alleys.
Another before of the other side of the dairy where the younger cows are.
This is where the cows were pasturing temporarily as their new home was being built.
The land was cleared and made level so that the new pens could be built.
The new pens were built and the cows were moved back in.


And that's pretty much it. And as we go things are continuously built and fixed. Just last month we got another smaller barn put in and we will probably build another big barn where the younger cows are, it was all built so that in the future a barn could just be built over it without needing to do anything else.

I hope you guys enjoyed my lil life history lesson and the picture of my family's dairy which I'm sure most have never seen a dairy before. Thanks for visiting and I'll leave you with a picture of my dairy kitty cat and the sunset from my back yard.