Cosmo Cricket

Oh Canada!

As you know, I was in Canada recently teaching classes and doing this fabulous card by Debbie Olson as a make and take.

Here are some photos from the event. No one is safe when Lindsay has a camera!
Here's the Making Memories girls lovin' the Cosmo Cricket!

Let the Make and Takes begin.

Everything was going great, until this lovely gal found the sharp side of the paper trimmer. Those darn paper cutters are dangerous!

Never fear, being a mother of four, I had band aids on hand and she was back to scrappin' in no time.

I can't recall her first name, but the gal in the pink shirt, Mrs. VanRiengen-Oake, taught us how to say "doorbell ditching" Canadian style. There are two options. The most common being "Knock a door Ginger" and the one she knew as a little girl, "Nicky, Nicky, Ninedoors." Isn't that just more fun?

Meanwhile, over at the Making Memories booth, Jodi had time to get caught up on her sleep.

And, Thom with Little Yellow Bicycle was so excited just to have someone to talk to when Lindsay showed up.

Justin with Chatterbox decided to come over and help me with my make and take. It's just more fun in the Cosmo Cricket booth!

For all you out there that think this is a cut-throat industry....... well, you're probably right! But at the same time, we're all good friends.

Just a few final thoughts...... Thanks Trudy and Lynette for all your hard work! We had a great time and you and your event were awesome! Thanks to all the stores that endured our make and takes, classes and general craziness...... you Canadians rock from A to Zed! Thanks to all the other manufacturers that let us photograph them so that we could tease you on this blog! We had a great time with you all!!

Seeing Green

Valentine's Day is over, but spring isn't quite here yet. So, how many of you celebrate St. Patrick's day? Whether you are Irish, lucky or going green, we want to see your predominantly green Cosmo Cricket projects. Send us your entries by March 4th to submissions@cosmocricket.com. We'll pick our top favorites to post on the blog on March 6th, and we may feature others leading up to St. Patty's Day. Send as many as you like! Oh, and if you include your blog url, we'll link it on the site. You could become famous! :)

Here are some of my favorite Cosmo Cricket products that you might consider. Have fun! I can't wait to see what you do!!
From Flueriste:
 
From Jack's World and Hello Sunshine:

From Girl Friday:

From Get Happy:

 

Your Week in Three Words

Many of you have probably seen this video already, but Lindsay sent it to me this morning and I had a good laugh. Here is my week in three words. Thanks everyone!

Here are some pics from three of my friends because one picture is worth way more than three words!

Such a fun Girl Friday journal from Lisa Falduto. Lisa was my lifesaver and roomie at Scrapfest last year.

These super cute sewing projects were done by Emilie Ahern with our Hey Sugar fabric (you can get the pattern for the bunny here). Emilie and I became friends at a trade show last summer when we totally bonded over our sunless tanning stories. "Girls with pale skin UNITE!!!"

Design team member and friend, Leah Killian, sent me this sweet photo. Isn't it precious! Congrats Leah!!!

So, everyone, give us your week in three words!

Julie needs more friends

Good morning. Since Julie won’t be home until this evening I thought I would make another post.

Last week Julie and I were talking about Facebook and about how she still has less friends than I do on the site. She has 77 friends and I have nearly 100 friends. I like to tease her and tell her that I must be more popular. So I thought it would be fun if we could see how many friends she could gain on Facebook over the next couple of days. My goal is to see if she could reach 500 friends in the next 48 hours. I think it would be a blast to see all of those emails come pouring in and very fun to watch her have to confirm them all.

If your not familiar with Facebook you should check it out. It’s been a great place to reunite with old friends, relatives and past co-workers. (Sorry if that line just sounded like an ad for Facebook... but it is a pretty cool site.)

I should add that to find Julie on Facebook just type in her name on the search, Julie Comstock. Or you can try going here.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1051983484&ref=profile

We have our winners!

Julie is on her way to Canada so I (Eric) am filling in as the official blogger today. We have 3 new winners. But before I announce them I wanted to remind you all that we use a random online counter to come up with our winners. So with out further ado here they are:

Winner #1

My absolute favorite simple pleasure is when one of my children comes to me, takes my face in chubby little hands, and gives me a kiss. I don't think anything else makes me as happy as that does.

Posted by: Lynnette | February 18, 2009 at 09:51 AM

Winner #2

I just love to wake up with my husband next to me... in the last 15 days he has been out for work and I just missed him so much! Today we finally woke up together!
Thanks for the chance to win!!!

Posted by: eva p | February 19, 2009 at 01:15 AM

Winner #3

Hi, love the new blog. What makes me smile, looking at the lo's of other people's little ones. I love the faces they make. Every thing they feel is right on their litle faces. So I go crawling through other blogs and enjoy their artistry. Creativity makes me happy to. If I feel blue, I create!

Posted by: Jessica | February 20, 2009 at 08:31 AM

Winners please send your address’ to kristen@cosmocricket.com and we will get your prizes off to you asap.

If you would like to purchase our fabrics please check out the following sites:

Z and S Fabrics
Quiltshops.com
Fabrics.com
Equilter.com
Pennington Quilts

PS: This entry looks a little disoriented because I’m not so familiar with the blog thing. That’s Julie domain. So I hope you’ll forgive the messiness. Julie will be back on Monday to clean things up.

A Simple, Inexpensive Layout

Hi Everyone,

The contest is still open, so if you haven't entered yet, check out the previous entry!

Now, for today, we have this layout and as the title bar says, it's simple and it's inexpensive.

The thing I thought was fun when I made it, was using the negative space leftover from punching shapes out of paper. This is how I made the heart border on the bottom, and also how I made the circle at the top to put the heart inside. I often just toss scraps like these, but now I might be more inclined to keep them!

I have to tell you that the blog entry is so late today because of the child shown here. He is my only one not in school yet and can become quite demanding during the day. Is he spoiled? OH YEAH! You better believe it. I have been playing cars with him most of the morning. I am the yellow car and he is the blue car. He has a canvas floor mat that I painted for him one year for Christmas. We drive through the zoo and the yellow car (me) gets scared of the lion and alligator and the blue car (him) comes to save me. The blue car is very brave!

Celebrate Our New Blog... Come On!

Sometimes the world looks depressing. Economies crash. The number on the scale goes up. Snow and grey skies continue for months on end without even a sign of spring. It is days and times like these when we need to look for the sunnyside (I named a paper that once).

So, what is the sunnyside today you might ask. Well, for me it's this new blog. Look at the typography..... so simple and clean. Look at that header. Eric designed it and I LOVE it! Look at those large photos and clean sidebars. It's so nice, I might be able to endure three months of Februarys if I just stayed here on this blog forever!

That's my sunnyside, what's yours? Tell us your favorite, small, simple pleasure that puts a smile on your face and we might brighten your day even more. That's right, we have prizes for three lucky winners! Each prize contains two Cosmo Cricket Paper Crafting Kits, one sheet of 6x12 stickers, one Jack's World Stamp set and FABRIC!!! We are including fat quarters from our three fabric lines (one line featured with each prize).

So, forget your troubles. Focus on the positive and maybe a good, little something will fall into your lap! This drawing will stay open until Friday afternoon when we will announce the lucky winners.

Welcome to our New Blog

Hi Everyone,

Let's start with a project. Emilie Ahern sent me this beautiful layout. I wanted to show it because I read a thread the other day about people hating to use the color yellow. This isn't a strong yellow, or too much of the color, but I love yellow (even bright, loud yellows). I want to paint my whole house yellow, but Eric has different ideas!

The color is so fresh, happy and sunny. It is the opposite of the constantly grey sky outside my window! So, don't be afraid of yellow. Start with subtler tones. Pair it with a nuetral color like grey, black, white or chocolate. You might just be amazed at the results!

On another note, as far as I know there were only two problems with the new blog. Erin Glee cannot leave comments on typepad and so Erin, I will be your personal comment leaver if you wish. Leave a comment on the old blog letting me know if that's agreeable to you.

One other person commented on having to enter those funny looking numbers/letters. I will look into that. I want to have the blog as easy to use for as many people as possible. At the same time, I don't want tons of spam comments. So, I'll see what options typepad offers, but I can't make any promises that the funny letters will go away.

To celebrate the new blog, we will have a SPECTACULAR prize offering here tomorrow. I would have put it up today, but we're in the middle of a snowstorm and some of the things I want on the giveaway are only at the office.......... namely fabric!!! So, be sure to check back tomorrow. You won't want to miss it!

Valentine's Recap

Some of you asked to see the previously mentioned Valentine's Day box. Well, here it is. The girl is well on her way to becoming a scrapper!

This same child wrote me a Valentine's Day song, complete with piano accompaniment. I hope you're not too bored with all my stories about my kids, but I just have to share. It's one of my proudest moments!

My mom, she's my best friend.
My mom, until the end.
My mom, she's a queen.
My mom, she's not at all mean.
My mom, she's as cute as a cherry.
My mom, she's very merry.
My mom, I love my mom.

I read this to my mom and she said, "Julie, you never wrote me a song a like that." I told her it was because she wasn't as "cute as a cherry." We had a good laugh about that!

Now, one more thing. I made my first blinkie. Here it is. Don't you think it's cute! If you would like to use this to show your love for all things Cosmo Cricket, you are totally welcome too. In fact, I would love it if you did!!

Completely Random Thoughts

Happy Friday the 13th and almost Valentine's Day everyone!

Completely Random Thought #1.
Do you remember the candles I did last Halloween with the rub-ons? Well, I was at the local dollar store and they had some candles. I never resist a thrifty bargain, so I snatched one up that would match with a nicer candle I already owned. Then I took these two candles, dressed them up with ribbons, a rub-on and an element and ta-da, the perfect centerpiece for a bridal shower!

Completely Random Thought #2.
My daughter needed to make a Valentine box for school Wednesday evening. I got her tons of Hey Sugar and Chemistry paper, die-cuts and stickers. She was so excited about how her box was turning out as she completely plastered every inch of it and was certain that her's was going to be the best in the entire class. Well, when she got home I asked her how her friends liked the box. She said that they all liked it except for one girl (her rival) who told her it was "stupid." I asked her what she said to that...... insert here that I have THEEEEEE best kids....... she said, "I told her it couldn't be stupid, it's made with Cosmo Cricket products!"

Completely Random Thought #3.
So, I was filling out a yes/no quiz about myself for fun this morning. I came to a question that read, "Have you ever tripped over mushrooms." My answer, "No, how can you trip over a mushroom? Even I'm not that clumsy." I just want you all to know that the true meaning of tripping over mushrooms has been brought to my attention and I am now just a tiny bit less sheltered than I was before.