I Got a Fever and Ant Video

Ok, so I KNOW you all think I am crazy so in order not to disappoint any of you, I have attached a little video so you can see the gals at work! My sister says my nephew enjoys looking at the ant pics so Camden-buddy, this is for you:



Aren't they the neatest things? They just keep working and doing their job (whatever that is!) Sadly, since we do not feed them (since the gel is their food and water) I don't think they really know what to do with themselves. Maybe we will do a "dirt" ant farm in the future...hey what can I say, these are the first animals that are literally NO MAINTENANCE!

This has been a pretty busy week at work so by the time I get home, after a 10 hour day I have been looking forward to a nice dinner and cuddle time with DH and movie. I have been enjoying the plethora of choices from Netflix and here are some recommendations (or not):

The Women -OK, while DH always wonders what he has done to deserve a chick flick, I must say I was wondering the same thing with this one!) It had some funny moments but the story didn't hold me and I spent my time just staring at Meg Ryan's bad plastic surgery. Thumbs down.

Rambo - Did you know Sylvester Stallone is in his mid 60's? You wouldn't know by watching him go in this one. Very bloody but the subject matter (burma) is too. I will say that I was riveted by this one which I think by far is the best one since the original. DH & I gave it a thumbs up. My favorite is watching the special features and the making of...very sad state the world is in!

Henry Poole is Here - I'm not sure why I put this on my queue but this was a very sweet story about a man who has been told he doesn't have long and how while he tries to give up the people around him and life just don't let it happen. Touching and Spiritual and not too sappy...again both DH and I gave it a thumbs up. Note while the plot line says he leaves a fiance, she apparently hit the cutting room floor lol!

We have a couple to watch this weekend: A Man Apart (Vin Diesel as a DEA agent) and Apaloosa (western with Jeremy Irons and Viggo Mortenson) so DH will be happy as they are not chicky in the least LOL!

Finally, just want to share my latest file. I just sent it to the store for uploading so it should be there soon. It was inspired by the SNL skit with one of my favorite actors Christopher Walken....where he played a record producer working with Blue Oyster Cult....you know the one...where he has a fever...a fever whose only prescription is: MORE COWBELL!!! If you haven't seen it, here is a link...makes me laugh every time!

You have to understand, I grew up with a brother who could basically play any instrument he picked up and a sister who was great on the flute...me...well while my dream was to play drums, that dream was quickly squashed! Inside of me however is a pecussionist just waiting to come out...I keep joking that the cowbell is the perfect instrument....imagine going to a school band recital and listening to an orchestra a cowbells instead of violins...woo hoo I'm there LOL!

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend...have a couple more files to finish up.

Take care!
Eddita :)

Ant update and new files!

Well, I know you have all been wondering how the ants are doing and I'm here to say we had our first casualty. Not sure what happened to her but we found her little body curled up into a ball with a lot of other ants scurrying to and fro in a worried state. We finally figured out how to extract her without allowing the others to escape so everything seems right again in the colony.

Here is the latest picture and you can see they have been very busy enlarging and connecting tunnels. Check out the large one going down the right side!

I did finally finish the All Occasion Accents file and have just finished sending off to be uploaded to the store. The neat thing is that you can use them for any purpose, card fronts, scrapbook layouts, altered books, tins etc! I used them to make sure really fast and cute notecards since I was running low.






Don't you think they came out cute? I am going to be cutting them out of chipboard as well and adding them to the covers of some notebooks I want to make, so time permitting I will be sharing those here soon too.

I'm trying to look ahead a little and since the next big holiday is valentines, I started thinking what that holiday means to me and the answer was simple. LOVE.

With that in mind, I just finished a new file that I can't even begin to tell you how long it took, from concept to final piece. I'm looking at my desk top at all of the failed attempts but in the end, it was worth it.

This cute file is called "L-O-V-E Spinner"!



The idea came to me a while ago during the summer while watching my Mom's favorite shopping channel (Q...) when the hot item were these metal spinners. I thought what a neat idea and I started with my sketchbook trying to figure out how to translate into paper and what I could make in the end.

The neat thing about this file is that is is comprised of 4 seperate spinner sections which are joined with thread or floss and then hung from the ceiling or doorway. I currently have this hanging near the front door so whenever anyone goes in or out the air causes them to spin independantly of each other. If you look close you will see that the letter "V" is actually a cute stylized heart. Not only would this look great as a Valentine's Day decoration but imagine how sweet it would be at a bridal or baby shower! I can think of other great times this file would be perfect and am sure you can too!

Anyway, I need to go finish some laundry and take care of a couple of more things!

Take care and be safe!
Eddita

Missing Dad

I have a 30% sale on all of my files today and tomorrow in memory of my Dad's birthday. If he were still alive, he would have been 73 today. As it is, I always call my mom just to let her know that I remember and to talk with her a little.

He's been gone from us since just before Christmas 1992...he was almost 57 years old. I mentioned that to my DH and he said my Dad was really young, and I agree. I still feel however that he is with me and still helping when needed...like this last weekend.

What happened is that since my mom had the basement flooding issue last year and ended up having to replace a sump pump, while DH had purchased and installed a water alarm system (to alert future flooding issues) he still wasn't satisfied. He still had it in his head that he really wanted to check out her other 2 pumps to make sure they were in working order. So we went down and with the help of my middle son Nick, they got to work and found that 1 of the pumps was perfect and the other was covered in mud and not working. That one was removed, cleaned, mud removed with trowl and then reinstalled (correcting the float position since it was getting stuck). All the sumps were then tested and everything seemed perfect.

DH also wanted to test the water heater since we had had issues with ours and while there was debris and sediment that came out it seemed to be in good shape. The only thing that DH and my son noticed is that when the hot water was let out, the plastic spigot (yes I said plastic) was getting hot so they closed everything up tight and ensured no leaks etc. While DH went home I stayed the weekend to enjoy a visit with Mom.

My son cooked a couple of quiche, we watched tv and then went to bed. Next day I went downstairs and everything still looked good. DH called to check in and to ask if we had time that it would be a good idea to go to the Home Depot and pick up some new stainless hoses for the washer since the rubber ones were looking and feeling old. We had a pleasant day and decided we would go to the movies and saw "Doubt" . I can see why it has received so many nominations...very well acted and intense dramatic scenes. I was truly impressed and while I almost NEVER go to full price theatres (instead opting to wait for DVD rental), this one was worth the ticket price.

Afterwards we did pick up the hoses and when we got home installed them so we were good. After relaxing a bit we decided we were getting a little hungry. Since my mom and I got up early that morning and gone over to "little Mexico" and purchased tamales earlier that day, I asked my son to put the leftover quiche in the oven and we would have that with tamales for dinner.

The next thing my mom and I knew is that my son came running and said "tissues, tissues"....I said mom do you have tissues and I guess that since we didn't really seem that concerned son came back and stuck his head in the room and said a little clearer "ISSUES ISSUES!" and ran out...at that point I followed right out to the basement where the water heater valve (remember the plastic one) had failed and the basement was flooding!!! Turns out that the alarm that DH had installed worked and my son had heard it when he went to the kitchen and thinking it was the new hoses was shocked when it turned out to be the water heater! Thank goodness for the alarm (which actually would have called the house and then my mom's cell phone to alert of the problem if Nick hadn't run down and turned it off after hearing it.)

I ran to my Dad's tool room and got the wet/dry vac while my son turned off the water to the tank and the gas. We sucked up the water with the vac right away and ended up attaching one of the rubber hoses we had removed from the washer to the spigot and draining it. Of course it was now getting late so we ran back to Home Depot to see what we needed to do (if we could) to fix the water heater. Of course we got in 5 minutes before the store is closing announcements and after explaining what happened, we purchased a new spigot (brass!) as well as some teflon tape. Armed with this we went back.

DH walked us through what we needed to do but warned us that the plastic might break off when we tried to remove it...which of course it did. The cross section looked like a rotten tooth and we had a hardened piece of plastic stuck which we couldn't get out...we tried to chisel out, bang out and curse out but nothing worked. We went back into my Dad's toolroom and searched but couldn't find exactly what we needed.


Okay, so remember at the top of the rambling post where I said I knew my Dad is still with us?? At that moment my son and I stopped looking and I said outloud "Dad, we really need your help. You can see that plastic is a problem and I need to be able to get it out of there...and as I said that my hand went straight down on the bench and lifted up a box and there was a small saw that would fit inside the 3/4" tube perfectly! Son and I went back and after a couple of trys, he was able to cut a little piece out and then using a plier rotate and pull the rest of it out. After cleaning it out well, he attached teflon tape to the brass spigot and...it wouldn't fit. No matter what he did, it wouldn't thread! ARGH!! He was starting to get frustrated and I told him to take a breath. I then said outloud "Dad, please guide Nick's hand, he needs a little help getting that started" and no sooner did I say it, can you believe it went right on?!!! We got it on perfectly and made sure it was tightened correctly and tested it...woo hoo! Last thing to do was to turn on the gas.

Now while I had watched DH do ours, I had never done it and neither had my son. I said a silent prayer (no need to freak my son out too much) and we read the instructions on the label and followed step by step...it worked!

So...while still an emotional time, I know that Dad still helps out when he can and loves and cares for us.

Enjoy your day and love your family!
Eddita :)

PS: we did finally get to eat the quiche and tamales...can anyone say YUMMY!

Winner of Chipboard Question....

Well I got a lot of great answers and the person who got it right is....no one!

Once I tell you the answer you will all groan and say....I should have known that one! It's personal cutter issue No. 1 I think and something we have all done one time or another but I think more likely when we first start learning to cut something out....keep thinking it will come to you.

I do however want to thank everyone who tried so I put everyones name into the "Randomizer" and the name it picked is....Millie...woo hoo! Millie, let me know what version you need (along with your email address) and I will send to you as soon as I finish it up. Okay...so I have given you all time to think....have you gotten it yet? No...Ok...I'll just keep typing LOL!


Well the ants are really being pretty industrious! After the second night they have done quite a lot of tunneling and have connected tubes and are enlarging areas off to the side where I suppose they would store food (if they were actually going to be receiving any). You see, with the space gel, that not only serves as their tunneling medium but also their food and water....Ants just do what thye do however so we are seeing some pretty cool stuff going on! I kind of liken it to watching fish in a bowl but the ants have a sense of purpose.

I took 2 pictures so you can see what is going on in the little habitat...the top one is regular light (easier to see the ants that way) and the bottom one is at night with the really cool X-Files like glow! See all of those little clear balls at the top? That's the gel they have been removing as they have been tunneling. They have attached them very neatly up the sides of the wall (nothing haphazard). It also appears that they work in shifts because sometimes I will look in and a few are working and the others are all together not moving. I know....I'm a little nuts...but REALLY...they are really neat!

Speaking of neat....I want to share another file I finished and uploaded to the store. This one is called Coffee & Friends. I was going through some photos and came across a group of us sitting around the table after a fun dinner enjoying some laughs and some brew. It made me think that so many of us have times we meet with our pals and it would be a great accent to a page with a pic and journaling. I have another one in the works but for "Family" and will share one I finish test cutting and take a picture.

Ok...well, I guess I better log out and get myself up to bed. Hope you are all enjoying the ants as much as I am!

Eddita

PS: Oh yes....I almost forgot....the correct answer? I had my blade out too far!!! For goodness sakes! I told you it was a beginner error. I thought that as the chipboard was thicker I would have to extend the blade way further out but what ended up happening is that it kept cutting through and then dragging on my mat and therefore getting caught up in the chipboard and not cutting....TOTAL user error...dear KNK I'm sorry I ever blamed you! ROFLOL!!!

We Got Ants!

Ok, so it's not like it unexpected or anything...after all I did mail order them LOL! You see, I saw this really cool ant habitat a couple of years ago and wanted to get it for my DH only to be talked out of it. When I told him about it after Christmas, he was actually disappointed as he thought it would have been a really neat gift. Since we were trying to be mindful of our spending this year, I thought this would be the perfect time to get it for him.

Now this in not the Ant Farm of yore....nooooooooooo....... the ants are no longer living in dirt but in a "space age gel"! I even ordered a video so that we could learn a little more on the subject.

In any case, I received an email from the company last week advising the little guys were going to be shipped out and so everyday I have been checking the mail. Well...today was the day! Woo Hoo!

The instructions tell you that the ants (harvester variety) will bite and warn you to be careful when putting them in their new habitat. I would be cross too if I were stuck in a tube and transported through the US Mail! In any case...the instructions continue by telling you to place the ants in the fridge for about 5 mintutes (in order to slow them down) and definately to NOT put them in the freezer....um...can anyone say dead ants?

Well instructions were followed and then we put them in the container. I did splurge and purchase the lighting so when you walk into the room you get this really cool blue light shooting up through the gel. I keep going and checking the ants out and they are actually starting to tunnel! I'll post pics as time goes on so you can see their progress! LOL!



I took a look at all of the guesses to my chipboard problem yesterday and while good choices, no one has gotten it right yet...keep the guesses coming as I do want to give away the file!

And speaking of files, I was able to get a number uploaded to the store and one is called simply "Keys and Locks". In looking around, it seems that they are going to be a popular trend this year and there are so many great uses for them. A card saying "You hold the key to my heart", "Only you can open my heart", etc. There are different shapes and you can enlarge and reduce as needed. I'm really happy about the way it turned out.

Well, that's about all for tonight...hope you are all well!

Eddita :)

A Quiet Day....

...I got up late this morning (6:15 am!) and while DH was "gently" snoring, I sat down at my computer and enjoyed the company of the dogs and my KNK machine. Have I ever mentioned how much I love this machine?!

The other day I was complaining that I was having trouble cutting chipboard with it and I remembered my good pal Shirley saying that she always was successful using cereal boxes. I figured what the heck and looked at my options on the top of the fridge and found a Rice Krispies box just begging to be cut up!

I laid everything out and using part a file I am finishing up I test cut using the "Sliver" blade and came up with this little accent. As you can see, it looks great! I can't tell you how excited I was...even DH said he was very impressed. I set my pressure for 500 and used the multicut function so that it did a total of 3 passes. Michelle said that she was able to cut chipboard thicker than cereal boxes successfully as well which reminded me of some that I had picked up at a local scrapbooking store. Feeling adventurous, I decided I would try that and it worked too!


Now the chipboard is twice the thickness of the cereal box, but still flexible. I did discover however why I was unable to cut the same material before...can any of you figure out what I did wrong??? The first person to write me or post here on the blog and tell me what I did will win the file I am currently working on, from which the chipboard was cut.

So after doing my happy dance, I sat down and started to finish up one of the files that I had been working on. I'm really happy about the way it turned out. Here is a quick peek:



It's called "Howdy Pardner" when in reality it should be called Shirley's File as she was the inspiration for it....for her love of Texas and Birds! She is one of a kind and I'm so happy to be able to call her my friend.

Sigh....it's getting late so I best get to bed. I'm looking forward to tomorrow....DH has a "project" he needs help with.

Night All!
Eddita :)

I'm on a big Kaiser Roll!

Another file finished and will soon be hitting the store! While DH and I were anything but the big party animals on New Years, I was going through some boxes and came across some pics of us "actually" going out to celebrate with friends...see Virginia, Eddita wasn't always a stick in the mud ROFLOL!

In any case, I worked up a cute title with a double mat that says is all, short and sweet....drumroll please:

Ta Dah!



Isn't it cute? Not sure if you can tell, but I was able to pull out my most favorite crafting product at this moment and use it for the little pom pom on the top of the hat....yea Stickles!

Tonight the plan is to relax a bit and watch a movie...not sure what is in the Netflix envelopes on the table...pot luck though I'm sure that DH REALLY hopes it's not a chick flick (hehehe).

Well take care everyone....I'm hoping that I will be able to finish up a bunch of files that are all in the halfway stages and be able to share soon.

Until next time!
Eddita :)

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe New Years Eve! For the first time in a long time, DH and I actually stayed awake long enough to ring in the New Year before passing out LOL!

We ended up doing a "Hallmark Channel" movie marathon and before we knew it, it was time to quickly change the channel to watch the Ball drop from Times Square. It looked pretty cold out there so we were very happy to be snuggled up on our couch with dogs loving life on the ottoman.

We then tried to get to sleep but for some reason I just couldn't so I ended up filipping channels until I saw Ricky Martin on the Spanish station available to us here (Univision) and watching what appeared to be a rebroadcast of "ALAS" a humanitarian concert to aid children in Latin America. Ok...so now you know my weakness...I love to watch him sing and dance...what a cutie patootie. After him were a couple of groups I didn't know and then I watched Shakira. By then I was starting to drift off so it was easy to turn off the tv (I think it was around 2am eek!)

I was able to work on a couple of new files today and I just finished sending one to be uploaded to the store. I was thinking about celebrations and as birthdays came to mind, I came up with the cutest little Shaker Box Card with a little birdie having fun. The neat thing is that even though I designed it as a card, you can just make the shaker box and use it as a gift tag on a present or even add it to a Celebration Layout.

Anyway, I just wanted to post quickly and wish everyone out there a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous 2009!

Hugs,
Eddita