Happy Halloween!

Fashion tips for the image-conscious witch!

Holiday Gift Certificate Special Offer at Cat's

To jumpstart your holiday shopping, Cat's Craft Cupboard is offering a special on Holiday Gift Certificates!

During the month of November, you may purchase Holiday Gift Certificates at a discounted price. Gift Certificates must be purchased by November 30, 2006. Recipients may redeem the Gift Certificate beginning January 2, 2007.

Please note this offer may not be combined with any other special or coupon.

$25.00 Gift Certificates are $20.00

$50.00 Gift Certificate are $40.00

$100.00 Gift Certificates are $75.00

Don't miss out on this fabulous offer! With a deal like this, you might just have to get one for yourself!

You may purchase Holiday Gift Certficates beginning November 1, 2006.

Merci Birdcoop

Look at this cute little card Cat & I got from our friends at Stamp On In in Chicago. They did a great job with the Expo. I can't even imagine how much work it must be to pull that all together. Thanks so much for all your hard work, guys! And thanks for including us!

Sick Again

This daycare stuff is really tough on all of us. While Scott is working a contract for a few months, we've put Jake in a regular daycare. Up till now, we've only left him with family friends or relatives.

I swear, the place is just a huge germ factory. Kids with grimy faces and snotty noses - snot in all varieties of colors and icky gooey consistencies, the likes of which I don't remember seeing ever before.

So, in the six weeks that we've had him there so far, he had an ear infection for 4 weeks (that took 2 antibiotics to cure), stomach flu for a week, and now another ear infection. I had escaped unharmed from the first illnesses, but this last cold hit me. You know, as many times as you disinfect your hands, there's just nothing that can be done about a kid that sneeze full on in your face. With snot bubbles. Ick.

So, I stayed home with Jake yesterday and took him to the doctor. I didn't get lost this time. Last week, I just could not remember how to get there, and finally had to admit defeat and call my husband. This time, we went straight there. Jake's pediatrician is very old-school. The first thing she did was lecture me about having put him in daycare in the first place. What was I thinking? Then she showed me with her little ear examiner thing what the ear infection actually looks like. Very nasty & red. Poor Jake. No wonder he screamed all night.

The day at home with Jake was mostly uneventful. He slept for a good portion of the day. We had three minor incidents:

1) When we went to the grocery store to get his prescription, there was a cage of large plastic balls strategically located, and he absolutely had to have one. Then he needed to carry it all day, sleep with it during his nap, and even slept with it last night.

2) I left 1/2 an inch of apple juice in a glass on the side board (well out of Jake's reach) and a bowl of crackers on the coffee table for him to munch on. It didn't take even five minutes for Jake to come to the baby gate and announce, "Mommy! I pour out!" And I go to see what that means exactly and discover that he has used the package the UPS guy delivered earlier as a stool to reach the cup of juice. Then he dumped out the crackers onto the table, and poured the juice into the bowl. Then he carried the bowl to the baby gate to show me. And he didn't even spill any until I said, "Jake! What are you doing???" which startled him and caused him to spill half of the juice on the floor. While I was cleaning up the spilled juice, he took the rest of the crackers and smashed them into the glass. Sigh.

3) I was reviewing some paperwork in the living room while Jake watched TV. He kept sticking his hands in his diaper. Since I'm sick too, and can't smell anything, I don't have a sense of poop arrival. So I either have to ask or check. I asked, "Jake, do you have poopy?" Nope. "Get your hands out of your pants." But both hands deeply entrenched in the diaper, but down the front, so I thought he was having some more private time and decided to let it go. But then, just moments later, he whips out one hand, sticks his finger in my face and says, "Uh oh! Hand get dirty! Mommy wipe off." Yeah. Poop.

So, Jake & I are staying home again today. This time, for me to go to the doctor, and for him to have a more relaxing environment in which to recuperate. We'll see how it goes. I intend to get some work done as well.

Congratulations, 5 Stamp Challenge Winners

Congratulations to the 5-Stamp Challenge Winners!

Jacqueline de Groot
Godelieve Tijskens
Debbie Schuenemann (x2)
Claudette Slowik

Congratulations, Card Contest Winners

Congratulations to our Thank You Card Contest Winners:

Debbie Scheunemann (x2)
Godelieve Tijskens (x2)
Sylvie Baschung

Congratulations, Claudette!

Our very own justjohanna design team member, Claudette Slowik, has a card featuring justjohanna rubber stamps in this month's issue of the online magazine Ready Set Create. Congratulations, Claudette!

2nd Saturday: Natalia Fabia, Blaine Fontana, Jarrod Eastman & Company

Saturday was Escondido's 2nd Saturday Art Walk. It's our one night out together every month. Jake usually goes to see his grandparents, while we hang out in Scott's studio at Distinction.

Distinction Gallery is really establishing itself as home for modern art, particularly the Urban Surrealism movement. This is fantastic for us, because we really love that style of art, and Scott's photography fits perfectly with the genre. If you're not familiar, but want to learn more, Juxtapose magazine is a terrific resource for what's happening in that art community.

Saturday was the opening for the new show called Channel Nine. The entire gallery was alive with fascinating and creative people. It was Jarrod's birthday, and he made the trip all the way from Montana to be there for the opening. Also, Natalia was there, with her amazing energy and fabulous Christmas tree tattoo. Blaine and his girlfriend came down from LA - they are always lovely to talk to. I'll have to post pictures later.

Still, Kelly Vivanco ranks high on my list of favorites. We bought one of her small paintings, called No Quick Moves, on Saturday. I'm thrilled with it. Can't wait until we can afford one of the larger ones.

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...

Hooray, the wood has arrived! I've had the stamps for quite a while now, but was out of a lot of the wood sizes and couldn't finish some things people really wanted, like the "I love cake" background.

When we got home, Jake walked up onto the porch while I got things out of the car, and I could hear him counting: ooone, twoooo, threee, fouuur, seven, threee, five, six, seven!

Jake's Art Project of the Day

Almost every day at daycare, they do some sort of art project. It's really fun to check his bin of stuff when I pick him up to see what little creation might be in there. He seems to especially like the gluing projects. Today was coloring, and apparently he was in a black mood. This image certainly seemed to correspond to the mood he was in all evening.

Sandy, Utah

Had a one-day trip to Sandy, Utah, on Wednesday, for my regular job (you know, the one that pays the bills). Stayed at a surprisingly nice Mariott Courtyard with an incredibly uncomfortable bed.

Good day of meetings followed by 5 hours of waiting at the airport to finally get back to San Diego.

Would have enjoyed the trip more with a little more buffer on either end to head over to Park City and reminisce about when Scott proposed...

Never a dull moment

Last weekend, Scott went to Arizona with Paul on a photo shoot for the weekend. So it was just me and the two-year-old. Kinda like a bad episode from a sitcom, where my role would normally be played by the dad that works all the time and has no clue about kids but is suddenly left alone with one. Kinda like last week when I had to take Jake to the doctor:

Doctor: How long has he been sick?
Me: Ummmm... since last time he was here?
Doctor: And he's on amoxycillin?
Me: It's definitely pink. And smells like bubblegum.
Doctor: And he's taking it twice a day?
Me: Not sure - I think so.

Anyway, Saturday morning was that kind of clueless-ness plus Jake's natural mischeviousness magnified. He kept taking his pants and diaper off and disappearing into a little tent we have for him in the living room. Having some “private time” but announcing it: “I take off diaper, mommy! Moooooooooommmmyyyyyyy, I take off diaper!” Several times, I retrieved the pants and diaper and replaced them.

A friend stopped by to drop something off and Jake went to hide in his tent again. Just as she went out the door, I heard, “Uh oh! Ow! All wet!” Darned if he didn’t pee all over the inside of the tent, then fall down in it, then run through the living room tracking pee all over the wood floors. Not kidding.

So I stuck him in the bathtub to contain the mess. Him and his pee-soaked shirt and bare from the waist down. How much trouble can he get into in the tub? I went to clean up the living room. Which, by the way, was covered almost entirely with post-it notes from earlier today when he got into my stash of post-its and covered the room and himself.

When I got back to the bathroom, he was pooring body wash on his hair and rubbing it in: “Mommy – I wash hair!” At least he wasn’t shaving his head, right? I hosed him down. Got him dressed. Usually he insists on wearing his “tractor shoes,” which are sneakers with a picture of a tractor on the sides. But he saw his black patent leather shoes and today he just had to wear his “tap shoes.” And from the moment I put on those shiny shoes, he couldn’t stop dancing. Khaki shorts, blue t-shirt, white socks, and dress shoes. Sigh.

We had something to eat, then went downtown for a couple of errands. We stopped at my friend’s scrapbook store and it was super-crowded. Of course, Jake escaped from me and ran up and down the aisles screaming at a high pitch. I quickly piled my would-be purchases behind the counter and promised to come back later. We stopped briefly at Cat’s to terrorize her customers as well.

He fell asleep on the 1.5 mile drive home (how is this possible?) and slept for 3 hours. What a relief. But woke up full of energy and ready to take on the world. The afternoon’s only disaster was that I left my coke unattended, so he dumped it on the brand new leather couch. Sigh. At least we got leather and not fabric this time. Another trip to the bathroom. Another hose-down.

justjohanna Design Team Announced

Our current Design Team is still on the throne until the end of November. But we're already ramping up the team for the following six months. And the first step of ramping up is: selecting the team. So, here they are:

* Cathy Arenzana
* Toni Armstrong
* Sylvie Baschung
* Kim Frantz
* Michelle Geller
* Emily Gunnell
* Michelle Guray
* Linda Huie
* Nancy James
* Debbie Scheunemann
* Claudette Slowik
* Godelieve Tijskens
* Cathrine St. Clair
* Jennifer Woodward

Thank you to all who submitted applications for the team. You all certainly made my job more challenging.

justjohanna Fall 2006 Mini Catalog Supplement

Thanks to Debbie, who found “Christmas” spelled as “Chirstmas” in the last Winter 2006 Catalog Supplement, we now have a Fall 2006 Mini Catalog Supplement. I figured, since I had to have a new plate made, I should go ahead and release the images that I cut from the last release.

You can download it here: fall-2006-mini-supplement.pdf

Halloween: Altered Mini Take Out Boxes

I saw a similar project in a recent magazine and decided I had to try it for myself! But I have to say - I'm a bit disappointed in the results. I think I tried to incorporate too many disparate elements without success. I would have been better off sticking with a simpler design for Frankenstein. The gravestone box I think could use some flowers along the base or around the handle, but I didn't think of that till just now. It just looks unfinished to me. BUT they were a lot of work, so I'm sharing them, darnit!

Cat's boxes turned out better than mine, and if you run into the same frustrations I did, you might consider taking the take-out box class at Cat's Craft Cupboard on October 12. Click here to see the class samples.

Self-Addressed Saturday (October 22)

I'm way behind on my blogging - there are a few of you that are very good at reminding me!

2 Saturdays ago, a few of us got together for our monthly Self-Addressed Saturday. Jill & Lora were sick. But despite our chatter, Chris, Cat, Sue & I managed to actually accomplish a few projects. Chris escaped before I could get pictures of hers - but they were really cute!

Here are my favorites from the rest of the gang:

New Twinkling H2O Colors

I used to be completely intimidated by water coloring. But one day, about 2 years ago, I was looking for the perfect color - marker, pencil, pigment powder, anything. But the color had to be right. And Cat pointed me to Twinkling H2Os. Coolest thing ever, in their pretty little lipgloss jars. 12 new colors were released October 6. Totally worth the $20 investment. I picked up my new colors yesterday at Cat's Craft Cupboard.

New colors are: Baby's Breath, Warm Pecan, Meridian Blue, Navajo Pearl, Godlen Bamboo, Fairy Plum, Hunter Gray, Mallard Green, Vanilla Bean, Purple Sage, Celestial Sun, Dragonfire.

National Cardmaking Day

I love made-up holidays. If it was a weekday, I'd be lobbying to have the day off. Happy early Halloween. This was a fun card to make. Happy National Cardmaking Day. Hope you made lots & lots of cards.

Happy Birthday, Chris!

Today is my friend Chris' birthday! I crashed a class at Cat's Craft Cupboard (that Cat was teaching) to drop off her birthday present.