Jodie McNally Designs Blog

No…really. I wanna go there. But *only* if James Blunt is there and only if he’ll sing to me. I already loved him and then he had to go and do something adorable like sing this:

Seriously…how cute is he?

So today was uncomfortably hot and muggy…and the air conditioning in my car is broken.  Shocking, I know…especially for those who have ever been in any car I’ve ever driven. LOL! Let’s pour one out for the old station wagon. Moment of silence.

Ok…anyway, since our fridge broke the other day we had to go and replace *everything*.  So after I cleaned up around the house, played with the dogs (Oh yeah, we got a new puppy! Details and pics coming later in this post.), did some laundry and all that jazz, Lily and I went to the store.  We had a nice lunch at the grocery store (that’s what she picked) and then spent about an hour and twenty-five minutes getting groceries.  She entertained the meat counter guys by beat-boxing and singing Hannah Montana…which they loved, of course.  She also sang “Oh…sweet po-ta-tooooooo” over and over and over again for about 5 minutes straight. That was a blast.  She thought she dropped the tiny little plastic kitten statue that Nan gave her….so she cried about losing something that Nan had given her. 

Of course, after my cart was overflowing and I had even stuffed things into the truck part on top that Lily was riding in….I picked the poor little checkout guy with carpal tunnel (sorry, dude) and three packs of turkey chops rang up wrong and Lily was getting VERY tired of shopping, and a little lady got in line behind me with like 3 things so I felt bad for making her wait so long.  The exciting part about this is that since our grocery store rocks, so I got $20.00 of turkey chops for free since they rang up wrong!

Thank goodness for drive-up grocery service because it wouldn’t all fit in one cart and I never would have been able to get 2 carts and Lily to the car in a busy parking lot.  Well, if I had packed the bags it probably would have all fit…but the people at the store don’t seem to realize that they can pack a lot more into the canvas bags than in the plastic grocery ones.  Oh well…he was a nice kid and even helped me load the bags into my car!

I can’t show puppy pics and CHA pics yet because there is still something wrong with the network drive thingy. Yep, that is the official term.  My dear, sweet hubby will surely fix that problem after dinner.

Since the Oscraps shop is down until tomorrow, the Cheery-Os have been doing some awesome challenges! The “Out of the Box Challenge” lets you get a free piece of word art and then a chance to win a $5.00 GC to my store….all for just scraping a layout that isn’t your usual style.  Pretty easy, right?

My niece is being baptized on Sunday, and I’m her godmother! I have to figure out what to make or buy her as a gift.  Maybe I’ll just make something little and get her a savings bond….oooh no….I just figured it out! I can’t say here just in case my brother or sister-in-law reads this.  I doubt if they do, but just in case.

In other news: Congrats to my CT Member, Rachel, on the birth of her new baby boy! She called me today and let me know that she and the perfect baby boy are doing well!

Ok, get ready to laugh! Lily just came in from playing outside while Shan grilled dinner and said, “Phew! I am SMA-OKIN’ HOT!” Oh Lord, help us.

So anyway…I’m off to go search the Disney Outlet  for a Halloween costume for Lily (Thanks for the hint, Laura!), chill with the family, and have some dinner.  I’ll hopefully have pics to show tomorrow or maybe I’ll even update later if I get *really* crazy! Oh, and Kara…dude, I miss you!

Until next time, I hope all your dreams are triangular!  

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Who doesn’t love a good way to help someone and get something cool in return? It’s a flippin’ win/win situation, dudes!

My friend (as seen in my people cooler than me list), Lain, is raising money for her son’s baseball team….check out her blog for more info!

His team recently was ranked as one of the top 24 teams in the nation and invited to compete in the World Series at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.They need to raise *a lot* of money quickly in order to go…soooo that’s where we come in.

Bascially, by donating $5.00, you will get a chance to win a TON (like $300+) of scrapping products and you’ll get a prize pack in the mail that is worth $5.00.  So you’re really just buying $5.00 of scrapping goodies to use for hybrid projects and getting a chance to win a TON of good stuff.

I saw the Memory Makers tote she’s talking about. Here’s a pic of a pink one…the one she is giving away is *gasp* lavender!!

TRUST ME, you want it.  Even if you don’t paper scrap….this tote is SA-WEET.  Heck, win it and give it to me if you don’t want it. You *know* how I feel about purple! Bwhahaha!

I’m going to sweeten the deal a little…when you send Lain your $5.00 via PayPal, add a note in there that I sent you.  Anyone who does that will get a $2.00 coupon to my shoppe at Oscraps as a thank you for helping out her son’s team!   So for donating your $5.00, you will get a $5.00 prize pack from Lain, something of your choice from my shoppe, and a chance to win a SA-WEEEET $300+ prize pack.  Oh, and for EACH $5.00 donation you make, you’ll get a prize pack from Lain, a chance to win the grand prize, and a $2.00 coupon from me.  So donate $10.00 and get $10.00 of product from Lain, 2 chances to win, and a $4.00 coupon from me.  Wooty McWooterson!!! Seriously….why are you still here and not donating? Seriously.

So lemme make it simple for ya:

1. Send your $5.00+  tax deductible donation to Lain via PayPal by Wednesday, July 30. The grand prize drawing will be held on Thursday, July 31. Here’s her PayPal addy: lainehmann@comcast.net

2. Make sure you include your mailing address so she can send your $5.00 prize pack.

3. Make sure you also drop her a note saying that I sent you so I can hook you up with a coupon code.

4. Get free stuff for your tax decuctible donation. Again I say…why are we still here? I’m off to PayPal Lain.

Be sure to check out her blog for the “official details” because her info is sooo much easier to make sense of when compared to my rambling. All the info on her blog is official…if anything I said her doesn’t jive with her details…you should pay attention to hers.  LOL! Shocking, I know!

Now, I realize that not everyone can donate…no worries! If you can’t donate, just send those little guys some positive thoughts!

Word.

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I know I said I would never try it….but I got crazy and gave it a whirl! Here’s a preview of it (the image is linked):

Gen, Dana, and Mari – I’ve emailed you the codes for your free paper packs!

Mari – the email came back as undeliverable, so if you see this, email me for your code!

Enjoy! I’ll be RAKing a few people today at DST, so if you missed out on the blog freebies, check there throughout the day today (Sunday, July 27th)!

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For starters…I have a fan blinkie! Yay! It’s over on the left side of my blog…so grab it if you wanna!

Now, for those of you who don’t know who Stacy Julian is…crawl out from under your rock. JUST KIDDING! She is awesomely talented and super friendly! I am excited to see that she is interested in bringing the digital side of scrapping a little closer and making it not-so-scary to those who have yet to try it! To see what I mean, check out her post here.

So, now for the story:

There I was…working at the Cloud9 Make-n-Take station at CHA.  We were making adorable luggage tags and chatting away.  A very familiar lady walks up and asks me a question that I didn’t know the answer to (shocking, I know!).  So, I go over to my cousin, Stephanie, and get the answer.  She asks me who wanted to know and I tell her it is “someone over at the Make-n-Take” and that if I needed to know anything else I’d come back. Keep in mind – while I was gone talking to Stephenie, a few people had made a big deal about seeing Stacy Julian and getting photos with her….I didn’t see all of that, though.

Sooo, I come back, tell her the information, and then the rest of the convo goes something like this:

Me: You look sooo familiar to me! What’s your name?

Stacy Julian: I’m Stacy Julian.

Me: (red-faced and laughing nervously) Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I just asked you who you were. You’re Stacy Julian. (Or something close to that – whatever I said…you betta beleive it was nervous rambling!)

Stacy Julian: Don’t worry about it! You know what’s really great? You were so nice to me *before* you knew who I was…so that says a lot about you.

Ha! I didn’t feel so bad after that…thanks to Stacy for being cool about me not being cool. LOL!

Anyway, check out her blog and her work…she is a cool person! (And I got to meet her!) Now, if only I’d been calm, cool, and collected enough to think to get a pic with her! LOL!

Oh well…maybe next time!

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That was a little song my friend’s dad sang when we were growing up…rather fitting for today, I think.  I came home last night to a very excited little girl who spent half of the evening running around screaming, “OH MY GOSH I MISSED YOU MAMA!” She spent the other half of the evening with her face buried in my leg or chest or wherever else she could snuggle.  Fine by mean, obviously…I missed her so much! We decided to let her sleep with us because we had all missed each other so much…and we did the same at nap time today! My hubby was home early today, so we all took a GOOOOOOD nap.  Ahhhh…this is the life!

I took her to Starbucks today for breakfast…she loves going through the drive-thru with me, but we’d never gone in for breakfast, so it was super exciting and fun! We even found a few bargain tumblers and I grabbed one of the insert tumblers – so I’m going to make mine tonight or tomorrow.  Sadly, it is going to be a S.O.S insert – Save Our Starbucks – because it is one of the stores on the chopping block.  Sad day.  There is a very large petition already, and I’ve offered my services to help make posters, postcards, or whatever they need.  I’m also going to make some extra copies of my insert and drop them off so they can give them out to people with the create-your-own tumblers! I know it probably won’t change anything, but it is at least worth a try, right? It hasn’t even been open a year and it is the only one for about 45 miles. What are they thinking???? Give us a chance, people.  Geesh!  My hubby wrote a great letter to the company…he is such a great writer! I’m taking a copy of it in so they can hang it up with the petition. Ok, I digress (for now)…on to the rest of the day.

I received my prize check from www.minted.com today! I’m official – my design was chosen as a runner-up in the Holiday Card Design Contest and it will be sold there this holiday season! Thanks to all who voted for me! I’m working on my next design submission for them now, so I’ll keep you posted.

Today, I bought my hubby a new grill.  He has wanted one for a long time and our old one was starting to look a little gross…LOL! He is so excited! We found a great one at Lowe’s and it was on sale.  After our great nap, we played some Elefun, dug through my goodies from CHA, and just chilled…which had to done inside because it was disgustingly hot and humid today.

I promised I’d talk a little bit about some more of the great stuff from CHA, so I’ll do a little of that now…I’m still kind of burned out and exhausted from the weekend, so I’ll make it quick.  Don’t get me wrong…I had an amazing weekend…it was just a little overwhelming!  Here are some of the awesome new things I had a chance to see:

Bo Bunny has some amazing products! I am sooo in love with their papers and they use a lot of my fave fonts for their stickers and word arty stuff.  I had the chance to talk with the owner and she was an awesome woman who was excited to hear about how we (meaning digi-scrappers) could use her products in hybrid projects.  That was pretty refreshing because I met several people at CHA didn’t really get that I didn’t have to be *just* a digi-scrapper or *just* a paper scrapper.  So, my chat with her was very encouraging! Some of my favorite Bo Bunny discoveries are: Splendor Collection, My Darling Collection, Beau Jardin Collection, and their Word Albums!

Another favorite was the My Mind’s Eye booth! The Laundry Line Collection (by Jen Wilson…is it the same one from digi-design??? IDK!) is just absolutely luscious! I simply could *not* stop touching the papers.

I also really loved some of the new Crate Paper Collections: Mia, Prudence, and Lemon Grass were my favorites! The colors were just perfect!  

The new stuff coming out from October Afternoon is sooo cool, too! The Fall and Holiday stuff is just adorable!

Ok, I’m exhausted and drooling now that I’ve revisited all of this CHA goodness….I just saw a Mojito commercial that reminded me of my new BFF, Jane Hasty (see my CHA post from July 19 for more info), so on that note, I’ll sign off for tonight. I’ll keep adding more CHA stories and goodness this week…and yes, pics will come soon!

Filed under: Life, Scrapping, Uncategorized by Jodie
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Let me start by saying how much I miss my hubby and child. *Sniff*

Let me also say that I posted this last night but accidentally set it to private, so…oopsies! Ok, moving on…

So I *am* pretty darn cool, I mean…let’s not get crazy here.  But, these people are people that are highly recognizable in a crowded room.  A *very* crowed room.  Before I start the tale of me at CHA, I’ll give you a list of the cool and famous people I have met.  My cousin, Stephenie, is rockin’ the house in her new job at Fiskars (and is also on the list of cool people from CHA)….and I am having a blast meeting all of the people she knows! I have pictures of some, but I’m way to tired to post them right now,  so I’ll add them later…like next week sometime.  The nice thing about me telling you about these people now is that you’ll know who I’m talking about when I blog the actual stories from the show. Ok, here’s the list:

Lain Ehmann is from ScrapHappy and Simple Scrapbooks. She also has a book coming out in November: Snippets: Mostly True Tales from the Lighter Side of Scrapbooking. She told me a little about it, and frankly, I can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on it…it sounds awesome! I got to hang out with her before/after dinner last night and a little today when we did a make-n-take together.

Jane Hasty is a lot of things…Katie Pertiet’s good friend is one of the things Jane is. She is also a photographer, a great scrapbooker, and really likes yarn…especially when it is free.  Another thing she is would be HIL-AR-EEEEEE-OUS and one of my new BFFs.  She doesn’t know the BFF part yet. Oh, and she owes me a drink.   

I met Stacy Julian. Yep…I sure did. I have a great “meeting Stacy” story, but it will take a while to tell, so be patient. That’s for another day.

Ta-da! I met Mark Montano, author of The Big-A** Book of Crafts.  Oh yeah, that’s right…I met him, shook his hand, took his picture, hugged him, and heard a really great story involving him, boxer shorts, and a late-night crafting incident.

I also met Angela, a new lead Fisk-a-teer, aka The One Who Knew M, aka Dick VanDyke’s boss, and absolutely LOVED her! (Side note from Donna Purl: that lady wasn’t his boss on the show, she was his co-writer.  Carl Reiner was, in fact, Dick VanDyke’s boss on that show.) Thanks for the side note action, Donna.

Rebecca Peck  is one of the new lead Fisk-a-teers and she is amazing! She is an all-around amazing artist – check out her blog or check her out on the Fisk-a-teer website! One great thing I noticed about her is that she throws her hands up in the air and says things like “Whoo-hoo!” just for fun.  My kind of people, dudes.

Ann Butler is a mixed-media artist and she taught me how to make stuff with my new favorite squishy substance, Makin’s Clay. Seriously…you *need* to get this product. It is one of my favorite things I’ve discovered at CHA so far! I also want to give a lil’ shout out to Tom Volz from Makin’s Clay – he was super nice and helpful! *Subliminal message: Tom and Ann…you *want* to send Jodie a lifetime’s supply of clay.*

Linda, from Digital Scrapbooking Magazine, totally made my day! I only talked to her for about 34.7 seconds, but I did meet her and she did tell me to stop by her booth and talk to her later.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t there, but I left her a nice note!

Ok, so there are totally some more people…but I have to sleep.  I promise I’ll come back and update with pics of these people (if I have them) and tell you about more of the awesome people I met! Fingers crossed for meeting Ali Edwards and Katie Pertiet.

Mwah! Peace out, dudes.

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Go check it out – the image is clickable!

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Woot! I have a big bundle-o-goodness in the store…and for 2 days only, I’m selling the four new releases as an Un-Grab Bag! These products will be no less than $3.00 each when released seperately on Saturday, so hurry and snag ‘em while they are CHEAP!!

Click the ad to be taken to the shoppe and to see more details!

Oh, and I’ll be looking for my August Guests soon…sooooo feel free to link me up here with a layout if you might be interested! I hope you enjoy the new stuff!

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Ok, my spotlight week at Oscraps is coming to a close, but I have a few more treats up my sleeve!

I’m going to have a chat in the Oscraps Chat Room tonight at 9 pm (CDT) – I will be giving away a few prizes and I’ll announce the winner of the following contest:

As a thank you to all of the wonderful customers and supporters, I’m doing one last contest for the week! It’s a super easy one with an awesome prize!

Post a comment here and give me an idea for a word art pack and one lucky winner will get a free 5-piece custom pack of personal use word art!  I just like to clarify all of that stuff.

Fellow designers: I have a special treat for you, too! If you post here with an idea for a word art pack (and note in the comment that you are a designer), you could win a free 3-piece custom commercial use word art!Same rules apply: feel free to put as many ideas as you’d like, but please keep them all in one post.  Each person will be entered into the drawing once – so doing more than one entry does not increase your chances of winning.

I’ll take ideas here until 8:30 pm (CDT) tonight, July 6th! Get your thinkin’ caps on!

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Happy 4th to those who celebrate it! Happy Friday to everyone! My 25% sale is still going on and I have a little freebie for you today…click on the image to download it! Please leave me a comment if you grab it – I *heart* comments. Gosh, I’m so needy.  Enjoy – have a great weekend!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering…I didn’t have many people qualify for the Four for Four deal from yesterday, so I’ve extended it…starting right this second, the next 3 people to make a purchase of $4.00 or more will get a $4.00 GC. Then, anyone who makes a purchase of $4.00 or more before 11:59 PM (CST) today will be entered to win one of four $4.00 GCs!

Woohoo – free stuff! Have a happy and safe day!

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