Creative Chaos

I said......"Let's pick the names for the cake"........

not, "Let's Eat the Cake!".............

There always seems to be a misunderstanding in the Chaos household...... Hmmmm.  Anyway, as I was spending the next 15 minutes printing out and meticulously cutting each entry, my name picker had other plans.........

 

Once again, I am left doing all the work while upper management sleeps on the job.   Well, I luckily had a plan B.....which was to wait for the other temp worker to get home from school and be the official name picker.   He, unlike the other employee, was very excited at the prospect of picking a winner and even suggested that we give away (and I quote) "a shiny brand new car."  I said "Although I'm sure that would make for a very happy winner, we are sticking with the cake prize."  He said "that's no fair." I then responded with "then you are more than welcome to do your own drawing of a brand new car on another day.  I suggest you start saving your money or look into sponsers.'  To which he said..."ok, let's pick the name."  You know, I have a whole other post ready to go on the attitudes of the younger generation of workers...... OK!  Without further ado.......Here is the winner of the cake!!!!!!

Tamy won the cake!!! Woo Hoo!!!! 

And here are the rest of the winners picked out by Carlos for the gift tags.    I just need to make a couple points before showing you the pictures.  The slips of paper were to small to include Carlos in because you couldn't read the name so I had to crop it.  It's cropped so close because I needed to crop his filthy hands and fingernails out of the picture.....note to self...do name picking after bathtime, not after school.  Anyway, here they are......

What a fun Blogversary Party!!!!  Thanks so much to EVERYONE that stopped by!!!  I was so glad so many of you who read my blog "silently" :) decided to say Hello! That was so great!!   I will go ahead and email everyone that won.  But if you happen to see this first, please email me with your address! Talk to you soon!! Karin

Tomorrow will be the Day for the Giveaway.......

So there is still time to sign up!!  Can't wait to see you all there!  And btw.......I got a bit of good news.....I passed all three subtests of the CSET!!!! Yay!!!!! So excited!!! Andres is so excited he's ready to jump out of the tinker toy box! 

Such Fun Times!!!

Wow!! What a day Tuesday turned out to be!  Between Natasha's "Virtual Prom" and my "Blogversary" I was glued to my computer screen. My family was getting a little worried about me thinking maybe I was a little to overly involved with my computer......."Andres....do you want to watch Bob the Builder again?"......"Carlos....you're old enought to fix your own peanut butter & jelly sandwich."........."Hi honey. You're home already? Ahhhh....pizza's on the way."......"Who are you people and why are you calling me mom?".......   Fun, fun, fun........

First off, I want to thank EVERYONE who stopped by and especially those who wrote such wonderful comments!  If you haven't gotten my personal email thanking you, rest assurred it's on it's way!! I think I got almost everyone!  All the support.....all the wonderful comments.....all the friendship.....all the creativity....is why I blog and why I feel more creativity in my soul than ever! 

I think I will have the drawing on Monday or Tuesday.  So, if you haven't already done so, head to the post below and sign up for the giveaway!

Also, here are a couple sneak peeks at my 12 days swap gifts.......

Are you still with me?  : ) 

Here a few new things on Etsy

Talked to you soon!  Karin

It's hard to believe it's been a year............

and a week to be exact since I penned my first post. 

It all started when I was emailing back and forth with a bunch of my friends from Los Angeles snarking on American Idol and Project Runway (which, by the way, is back on Thursday Nights! Woo Hoo!!)  Anyway, we were very happy emailing back and forth when our friend Joe broached the subject of a starting a blog in which to dish on the shows. 

Well, to say there was a full out mutiny on the guy was an understatement...."Change.  We don't like change.  Keep things the way they are! We're old. We don't don't adapt well!!"  we screamed in protest.  But, after poking around on the internet to see what this blogging thing was all about I was quickly smitten.  Then, I found craft blogs.  I was head over heels in love.  I was hopelessly, spellbound to these blogs in which people posted pictures of art.  And craft. And all sorts of things.  I wanted in!  But, I was apprehensive.  These blogs were inspiring, yet intimidating at the same time.  Would I have to be witty and funny, yet soulful and philosophical at the same time?  Would I have to take picture of the food I cook in beautiful dishes?  Wait a minute.........That would mean I would actually have to cook.   I didn't think anyone would be interested in Kraft macaroni & cheese for dinner.......Would anyone read my blog?  What would I have to say?  Was there a big "Blog Club" out there?  Would I have to figure out the virtual handshake to belong?...... All these things ran through my head as I contemplated this big expansive blog world.  And then I did it.  I just wrote the first post and the rest is year long history.

I can't imagine my life without my blog and all the friendships I have made with it.  My initial goal was to find my creative muse again.  I had lost it along the way while raising two children.  Through blogging, not only have I gained back my confidence (well, almost anyway) as an artist, but more importantly met some of the most incredibly talented and generous woman from around the world in which we all share the love of creating. 

So here is my Blogverary gift to you!!!  I will draw names to all that leave a comment (please cme out of hiding....I would LOVE to hear from you!!!) and the winner will win the cake shown above. And, I will draw out a bunch more names for some fun gift tags!!! 

Thank you all for coming by to read my blog!!!!!  I'm off to hunt down my picture for Natasha's Virtual Prom!  It's a circa 1983 Prom picture..........You can only imagine!!!

I'll be back!!!!

Ok...I'm back.  With a prom picture that I may end up regretting posting..... : ) 

Can you believe that hair?!?!  It seriously rivals Natasha's!  And that tux!!! We purposely matched the tux to the dress. Purposely.  His shirt is pink AND ruffled.  1983 was a bad, bad year for fashion. 

Oh....I forgot to add this picture........

Just for the record....I'd like to say that I am tired of doing all the work for the party while someone falls asleep in a Tinker Toy tub........

Yay! Tomorrow's the day for the Big Giveaway!

I was going to do this really funny post about a bunch of random things.....HOWEVER, I am under strict orders to clear off my desk. As in right now.  Something was said to me yesterday by the maker of the desk having to do with some mundane things like...... crashing to the ground....not built to support all that weight....why didn't you tell me you wanted to put all that junk on there......blah...blah...blah...... So now I have to clear it all off before he gets home like I promised.   But I do have a sneek peek at what one of the giveaways will be....

Come back tomorrow to enter!!!!  See you then!!

One Year Blogiversary Party..........

Well after sending my request in triplicate to the head of the Party Planning Committee at Creative Chaos, I FINALLY heard back. He said he was extremely busy with year-end Tinker Toy aand Bob the Builder reports.

 

It took quite a bit of back and forth of heated negotiation to finally come up with a theme. He wanted Thomas the Train.  I wanted Vintage Tea Party.  He wanted animal crackers, peanut butter & jelly and juice boxes. I wanted wine and cheese.  He insisted on a pinata.  I said he was being ridiculous.  He said he was going to fire me.  I said great! Could you please give me a two week suspension on a Carnival Cruise Line.  He said no. 

So even after all the hours of closed door meetings, we finally came up with an agreement that there will be a giveaway post next week Tuesday for my one year Blogiversary! So please come back on Tuesday for all the fun!

You can take the frame out of the girl....but you can't take the girl out of the frame....

or is it you can take the girl out of the frame......ok whatever it is, I did some picture frames again.  It was quite the stroll down memory lane for me.  Waaaaayyy back in the day I used to sell these frames wholesale through a rep (I also did baby layette) 

At first it was fun.  But then it turned into a chore.  Being that I was a one woman show, the thrill of glueing hundreds of flowers and decoupaging paper onto a big order of frames lost its luster.  This isn't even including painting, sanding and finishing.  So about two years after Carlos was born, I hung up my frames and glue gun to persue being a fulltime mom.  A couple weeks ago, I was out in out garage/once my studio and saw a stack of old frames.  So I thought "why not"  I took them in and came up with this

And this......

And this.....

It was so much fun to design something without worrying that I would need to find a supplier for the "believe" tag because I would need to make them in mass quantity.  And that's when it hit me how much I love doing what I am doing now because I can create without restraint or rules. 

I also did a couple tags after I was finally feeling better from this cold.  They still need glitter. But I think I like the way they turned out.......

 

Talk to you soon!

Ugg.......Sick at home.......

I've been sick since Wednesday night.  Yuck.  Andres started getting sick on Tuesday......so I'm blaming it all on him.  I'll be back though.....

Here are some Halloween pictures.....

Carlos in our scary graveyard......

Andres enjoying the fruits of his trick or treating labor.....

Because everyone needs a bit of excitement at 4:00 in the morning........

Look what we woke up to at 4:00 am this morning!  It isn't our house....it's our next door neighbor's.  My husband's truck was in the path of destruction though.  This guy managed to sideswipe a parked Jeep Liberty....... crash into the back of Cosme's truck, propelling it 10 feet from where it was parked.....and then careen himself into the front porch of our neighbor's house.......completely detroying her front porch pillar. 

The suspension and transmission of Cosme's truck were also wrecked along with the back end.  It's Cosme's knock-around truck. However, it can only take so much knocking around.

I know....I know.....you're asking yourself right now..."why is it that Karin gets to lead such an exciting life and I don't"   Well, it's just luck of the draw folks.....the luck of the draw.  We got to watch as the guy was led through the steps of a sobriety check and then subsequently arrested.  Then, after all the neighborly chit chat was finished and information gathered, we went home and watched tv for an hour (do you even know what's on at 5:00 am?  Well I do. And it looks like I can make $8,000 in one day by using my computer to start a website that requires absolutely nothing from me in the way of work. I'm getting started on it as soon as I finish this post....)  and then went to bed before having to get up in an hour and a half to start the day.  Yawn.

I'll be back with more later today......