And the Winner is....

About a week ago I posted about the Etsy Greetings Team June card challenge. Well all the votes have been casted, and the winner of the challenge was from Berkeley Bloom's shop; card #34 on the Etsy Greetings Blog. All of the cards were beautiful and it was so hard to make a decision! I have to say that my personal favorite was from Justyn Leigh's shop. Justyn's card included a commemorative photo of her beloved kitty, Kiki, who recently passed away. Since Monkay Business all started with a cat, I thought it only appropriate to commemorate Kiki here as well. Love that little white chin! So check out Justyn's shop and have a look-see at all of her great items! Cheers Justyn and Kiki!

Dr. Seuss Quilt

I finally finished a custom quilt order I had from my shop after a sewing machine crash and a longer work week than I'm used to! I ordered this great Dr. Seuss fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop and so far I've made (and sold!) two large baby/toddler quilts and even have enough fabric for another large or small one! Of course I forgot to take a picture of the full quilt before I got it prettied up to mail, so the "full" picture is the first quilt I made, the "packaged" picture is the one I just finished. I really like the red ric rac and minky!

Today was my last day of work until.... well.... until the state of California can get its budget act together! I have lots of projects lined up though, so it will be nice to have a few days off. I just hope it's ONLY a few days! I still have to make my team gifts for CTMH's Convention, which is only 13 days away! Plus Hannah and I will be making little 4th of July gifts for her daycare buddies. I hope to be posting several finished projects over the next few days!

AMAZING Work Everyone!

Posting two days in a row is setting a new record for me, but I just couldn't resist! Thanks to a tip from my sister-in-law Carrie, at L7 Designs, I figured out where you can see all of the beautiful cards submitted to the June challenge by the Etsy Greetings Team! Just go on over to their blog and check out all of the beautiful designs! While you're there, be sure to vote for your favorite card! It was nearly impossible to decide, there were so many amazing submissions! I'm currently waiting for shop-owner approval to share one of my personal favorites! Until then, check out Etsy Greetings and pick your own personal favorite!

I Almost Forgot...

While the husband was out of town last week, Hannah and I got busy on a few "pohjets" (projects) for Father's Day gifts! We did Mod Podge picture frames for Daddy and Grandpapa! You might know that I forgot to take pictures of the finished products before I gave them away! We'll have to visit Dad's office to get a snapshot of his finished frame and hope that Grandpapa sends us a picture of his (hintity hint hint). You'll have to excuse the blurriness of the top photo - someONE smeared little girl goobers all over the camera lens!

Another thing I forgot.... CAT FOOD! At one point I thought it would be a good idea to switch the cats over to a wet-food only diet like the vet suggested. The two boys would have no problem with this, as they tend to prefer the wet food. Monkay on the other hand... yeah... that diet's not gonna work out so well! That cat is a kibble fiend! I actually overheard the vet tech telling the vet that Lil was a "fatty" and a "food bully" at our appointment last month! Poor Lil... she sort of eats the wet food - it has to be some sort of "shred" or "chunk" and then she licks the gravy off. She's a gravy gal, what can I say! So until I make it to Petsmart, she will continue to make her dissatisfaction known every morning at 4:30 by pawing at my face and purring (AKA "mouth breathing" according to the husband) VERY loudly.

Holy crap - when did it get to be almost 10:00?! Looks like I'd better call it a day!

Exciting New Opportunity

I'm so excited to say that I've been invited to become a member of the Etsy Greetings Team! This great group promotes hand made greeting cards. It seems they have regular "challenges" for team members, and June's team challenge was to create a card out of this fabulous digital pack over at Katies Wish's Shop. Check out some of her great designs! I've only recently started dabbling with the digital scrapping kits with Close to my Heart's June Studio J freebie this month. I didn't even consider the fact that you could download these kits to use on cards! I wish there was a place you could see all of the submissions with this kit together - there are some fabulous cards posted! The submission deadline was yesterday (unfortunately I joined the group too late to get in on this great project), so perhaps there will be some sort of posting on the Greeting Team's blog in the next few days. I'm also excited to get to know some fellow Etsyers and the great products they have to offer! In the meantime, don't forget to check out my shop over at Monkay Business! I'm running low on items and need to add more, but the sewing machine went kaput over the weekend and I'm working every day this week due to the fiscal year ending next week. Not sure I'll have a [paying] job after Thursday - gotta love the great state of California!

Sneak Peek!

Well it's been over a week since I've had a chance to do anything crafty or post any updates. My parents were visiting from Idaho, so we've all been very busy! We had a great visit, but as always, the time flies and it's never long enough. Everyone took off this morning, so I'm itching to create! Right now I'm trying to get myself organized and figure out what I'm doing for "swap" items and team gifts for CTMH Convention, which is fast-approaching in only 31 days! I have lots of ideas swimming around in my head, but here's a sneak peak of what I'm working on:

I won't be able to post pics of the finished projects until after Convention so as not to COMPLETELY spoil the surprise for some of the gals who are blog followers! I also got another order for a custom quilt, so I'll be working on that over the next few days as well. I CAN post pics of that one once it's finished. Let the crafting begin!

Studio J

This month's special from Close to my Heart is giving everybody a FREE Studio J JPG file! Now if you know me at all, you already know that I'm not terribly computer friendly. I'll use them and can manage basic tasks without much trouble (most days anyway), but I don't particularly enjoy them. In the past few years, digital scrapbooking has become a trend that I've stayed away from... until today! I figured that since I'm now a CTMH consultant AND they're offering a FREE trial of Studio J, I've got nothing to lose! So this morning I logged on and whipped up this layout. I was absolutely amazed at how quick and easy it was; it was even kind of fun! You just upload your photos to the program, pick your "paper pack" (the papers you're going to use for your layout), pick your layout, and then drag and drop everything! And believe me, this program has EVERYTHING!! You can add ribbon, metal embellishments, buttons, distressing.... the possibilities are endless! Some of the layouts even give you "hints" as to where to place embellishments (the program refers to these hints as "toggles"). Or you can turn the "toggle" function off and add your own "real" embellishments after you've printed the page. How great is that! I cheated a little and had my layouts printed at Costco this afternoon, since I need them for a gathering I'm having tomorrow night. Normally I'd have them printed through CTMH and have them shipped to me. It's always good to know that you can upload and print the images locally though if you need them in a pinch! So if I can manage to do this, I'm sure you can! So I challenge you to give it a whirl - you've got nothing to lose since you get one free file this month! I've even added a nifty Studio J button to my blog so you can just click on it and go directly to the Studio J site to get started. Happy scrapping!