Katie Bee Creative bio picture

Welcome to my Blog!

My name is Katie Watson and I live in Southern California.  I'm married to a Navy Pilot so we have traveled the country coast to coast calling many different states our home. I am a Mom to 3 children and 2 cats. I am on the Design Team for Maya Road which I Love, Love, Love!! I love vintage anything and everything...I would rather rummage then organize and am just plain happy when I'm doing some form of art! I love mini books and altered projects and would describe my style as shabby chic mixed with thrift store randomness. 

Olivia has her own place now!!

Well, not her actually…but her namesake!!

Olivia is Caroline’s daughter, who is not only a cutie pie but she is also a sweetie pie……….this is the real Olivia.

So since the Maya Road ladies already do it so well with…well, Maya Road…they are starting on a new venture.  It is called Olivia Place and it will be featuring daily “deals” on different items for your little ones (including medium and large also).  There is sure to be some fun stuff on there.  So each day they offer up an item at a deep discount and once they are gone, they are gone.    Sounds fun, sounds like a challenge, sounds like a money saver and sounds good to me!!

Here is a great Olivia Place FAQ on facebook, the actual Olivia Place website doesn’t go live until tomorrow (well, it’s there but no info yet).

Here is a bit of what their deal is……

“It is our goal at Olivia Place to find you the best products for kids (newborn – 10) and women of all ages at the best possible prices.

One deal, every day.
40% to 80% off retail.
When it’s gone, it’s gone.

So there you have it….check it out, tomorrow Tuesday, June 15, 9am CST/10am EST, Olivia Place.

Just save some bargains for me!!

~Katie

~Jenni Bowlin Goodness~

I have always loved the JBS products…..the Jenni Bowlin products are just lovely and I have loved them forever.  I  love vintage but also love bright colors so they are a good match for me.  I love that she keeps it real and doesn’t go over the top crazy with her products.  They are simple and easy to use.

My friend Danielle asked if I wanted to Guest Design for them this month, um helloooo? Yes!!  I didn’t know what line I would be working with and it didn’t really matter as I love all of the JBS stuff.  But when I opened my box and found out that I got the new line Playdate, I was super duper excited!!  The primary colors are just stunning……..and all the mini banners and butterflies that JBS has come out with are so, so fun!!!!!

Here is what I did with my products, they are also shown on the JBS Inspiration Blog, which you should totally check out for tons of other inspiring art by their DT and some other guest artists coming up soon!!

The house is the Villa by Maya Road and I used Helmar 450 to adhere everything on this project.  Works wonders!!

I also created a BLESS banner with some left over butterfly album pages. I used the Helmar acrylic Sealer to seal the paper to add a gloss.

Have a great Day!!

~Katie

A little of this and a little of that.

The Maya Road DT recently did a swap with Tombo and we were asked to create a tag using both products.  I was just itching to use the new Maya Road Milk Cap stamp (it’s been designed for a while and just sitting in my studio waiting for it’s release so I could use it!) and so fortunately the release happened right before I started creating my tag so I was able to use the stamp.  Sigh.

I of course used Maya Road, October Afternoon Thrift Shop, Jenni Bowlin and Tombo. I also used Maya Resist to create the chippy paint look and used Hydrangea Maya Mist and Microbeads on the letter K.

Short and Sweet Today.

~Katie

~Sunny Days~ is now ready!

Yayy!!  Dee from The Scrappy Gourmet has put the Sunny Days album kit up for sale!

The coolest part of this album (besides the gorgeous colors and prints from Jenni Bowlin) is the chippy paint technique!!  The Maya Resist comes with the kit and you will LOVE being able to use it to create the coolest paint techniques.

Plus the bottle will last you FOREVER so you will be able to create so many more chippy paint albums or chipboard pieces.

Here are a couple pages from the album but you can go HERE to see more.


Have a creative Day!

Katie

Hard Lessons to teach…..

I’m kinda over that now. I love you, too.

Love,

Hannnah

—–Original Message—–
From: katiebeecreative
To: Hannah
Sent: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 1:36 pm
Subject: Re: I”M SO SORRY!!!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hannah, I love you so much.  Part of being a kid is learning and part of being a parent is making sure your kids learn.  That is what is happening here.  Learn, OK?

Love you, Mom

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We are trying to teach Hannah those “more grown up” lessons right now on friendship….and gossiping and assertiveness and other big girl things.
It’s hard to teach, they kind of just have to learn it.  We try to model it the best we can and Derek and I treat each other with respect, we are old friends.
Hannah is trying to find her voice.  She is shy and unassertive.  She discovered that email is an easy way to take care of the issues that she didn’t want to discuss in person.  I guess that is the first pitfall of this communications era, less face to face dealing with of problems.
So, after a few warnings she is finally cut off from emailing with friends.  As of this afternoon, she is only allowed to email family.
Cry me a river, will ya?  She did….a lake, an ocean and and a tributary (Can you tell we are studying for the Geography Bee?)
She didn’t say anything bad, really….but you know how when words are typed out and just sit there and stare at you?  They just seem worse.  Mostly it was, “Why did you ditch me at recess?”, “Why were you playing with so and so when you said you didn’t like her” etc. etc.  But enough of the whaa whaaa that….well, it was enough.  She is a sweet, sensitive, nice girl and she needs to learn to assert herself in person.
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So, I have not been sharing my garage sale finds with you lately.  Mostly because I hardly ever go anymore…..but if we have an extra $10 on a Saturday morning, you better believe that I am out there.  :)   Here are a few from the last few months.
This is a pin cushion.  You put a thimble in the birds mouth to store it, pretty clever.
Isn’t this wooden bowl gorgeous?  It was $5.


This is a vintage laundry hamper, it has a pearlized lid.  It needs to be cleaned up a bit but for $10, I was thrilled.  It is so cute and will make a very cute nightstand or printer stand.

I have a few more things but don’t have pictures yet of them.  Later.

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I’ve been meaning to share this photo on my blog but kept forgetting to ask Derek if it was OK. I finally did and he said he thought it was fine. This is what my husband does for part of his job now.  He flies the plane behind him and flies people to meetings and events.  This was him flying John McCain to the home of the Rancher that got shot and killed in AZ because of the border issues.  Derek is on the right of McCain.  Cool Beans.

Ok, well…………………I am off to get the girls ready for school and then I get the joy of going to the Periodontist today and then swinging by the hospital to pick up the Barium that I get to drink tonight for my CT scan in the morning.  Yuck.  Joy.

Oh yeah, and not complaining or anything but we just had to go almost 5 days with NO HOT WATER in our house.  Our water heater blew up on Saturday.  Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.  Great.  We have a home warranty that we had bought but we had to go through their contractor and wait, wait, wait until Tuesday…and then they said, “Oh yeah, you’re gonna need a new water heater”….um yeah,  DO YOU SMELL ME?  Do you see my HUGE pile of dirty dishes?  So finally last night at about 7:30pm, we got our new water heater and even with the warranty it cost us $400, so I guess no garage sales for a while……..but I can take a hot shower now!!

Have a great Day

~Katie

Today, he is 19.

Today, my boy is 19.  I can’t believe it.  Seems like just yesterday that he was a toddler running around. Seems like yesterday that he carried his treasures around in his Fisher Price Little People Silo.  Seems like yesterday that he and I used to stay up late sometimes and have toast and jelly parties.  I miss him and wish we would have had the money for me to fly out and see him.  Better yet, I wish  that he wasn’t in the hospital.  Here’s a few random shots of Cory over the years.

Cory and Maddy as a newborn (got a chuckle out of Hannah’s Tinky Winky Milk bottle, that was her favorite)

Me and the kids at the Carnival in Oak Harbor.  Cory has windburn on his face.

Waiting at the bus stop with Hannah.


I sent him3 CD’s, a new pair of Vans (which have yet to arrive) and some Crystal Light Lemonade.  The girls made him a bunch of stuff.  We sent him a funny card that talked.  Seems so paltry.  I tried to order a cake to be delivered but the hospital doesn’t accept food deliveries.  They were supposed to have cake today for him.  Cory said it’s nasty, I said, it’s cake it can’t be that bad…but then somebody didn’t get the order in and he did not get a birthday cake on his 19th birthday anyway.  Welcome to adulthood, right?

I did talk to him twice.  He was bummed today.  I hope his Dad calls him today.  He is so hot and cold.  He called him for a bit and then for 2 weeks… crickets…nothing.  I hope he calls him for his birthday at least.

I am in that negative mode…..and working on switching it right now to positive.  Thinking that OK, he’s 19.  He made it this far.  He is safe right now.  He is working on getting better.

Then I think….but he’s 19.  The boys in our family don’t seem to make it past 19.  It’s a scary age for me.  My brother died at 19, my husbands little brother was killed at 19.  Spiraling….. into that anxiety mode.  Breathe…………

Ok, so Happy Birthday to Cory.  My dad is flying out there this weekend to see him.  I leave next weekend to see him.  All is well.

~Katie

Well……..Let’s see…

The days fly by and all of a sudden it’s next week…and I have so many things I want to do but it seems that time is  just a hard thing to find these days.  So I tend to do a lot of update posts.

First of all for the lady that emailed me about the Kenner Road Stamp that we used at Reflections.  I lost your email and can’t remember your name (It’s called ADD, not your name but my ditsy ways) and I found out the Kenner Road has no more.  I’m sorry.  I think you are going to have to search for another oval stamp to replace it.  Or cut an oval out of wax paper and lay it down and then just stamp a background script stamp over the cut out oval and kind of create your own stamped oval.    Not you Alessandra, I just plain haven’t emailed you back because I was going to give you my stamp today at my class but we had to change the date,a very important class supply didn’t come in…… the microbeads, and it seemed to be a bad day for a lot of people, so we caved and changed it to June 26th at 9am. So I wasn’t able to give it to you.  I’ll contact you. :)

Ok, next.  Hannah was in the Spelling Bee.  She is a really good speller.  She usually chokes on an easy word because she is so shy and gets so nervous.  Which she did this time also.  From where I was sitting you couldn’t tell that she looked sad when she got her word wrong but with my zoom lens, you could.  Her friends all got out the same round that she did so they were all in the same boat, that made her feel a little better. Poor little sweetie.  So proud of the lessons she did learn.

Here is a picture of her from her from when she made it into the 1st grade spelling bee.

Wearing her Hello Kitty Boots. Smile.

We had twin day recently at their school.  Maddy and her bestie Megan got together that morning and I got some cute photos of them together. Maddy has a very Molly Ringwald kind of style when it comes to dressing.  She puts together stuff that you wouldn’t think about doing.  These are the girls fancy dresses from a cruise 3 years ago, they are far too short but Maddy loves to wear them with leggings and cowgirl boots or Converse.  Thank goodness Megan was down with the funkiness, they sure looked cute!

This is Hannah and her friend Mackenzie.

My visit with Cory went well.  He was not allowed to go on pass with me though.  He had harmed himself again that week so he has lost a level and lost his pass.  He was very disappointed and so was I but I knew it was the right thing.  He needed to lose that privilege.  You do stuff that makes you not trustworthy, then you are not trustworthy.  It still sucked. That is a long hard flight.  The time change is hard on me and then I got such little time with him.  He gave me a huge list of stuff he needed so I took a cab around town to gather it all for him.  Shopping is not my favorite thing to do at all.  I prefer doing it all online.  But I got all but 2 things.  Slept hard.  We had a great family session.  I wish we could have gone on and on.  He is making progress, more then I have ever seen him.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.  He is talking to his Dad now.  That is good.  I don’t have to talk to his Dad anymore, thank god.  I got to tell him for the first time the other day when he called and asked me if I had been getting  his messages, I said yes.  He asked why I hadn’t been calling him back.  I said because I didn’t have to.  It felt so good.  He can’t control me through Cory anymore.  This is in Cory’s control now.  Whatever he wants is what happens.  Not my business.  I love it.

Derek has been busy with the squirrel relocating program in our back yard. They go to a empty part of town, lots of trees and open land to roam.  Little Buggers.  They are ruining our yard with tunnels.  Ground Squirrels.  Arghhh.

Baby Bunny is getting big.  He sits at his plate now when he is hungry.  He still lives in the rosemary bush.  I wonder when he will join the rabbit commune at the top of the yard.

Gotta run!

~Katie

~A Baby Shower Gift………instead of a Birthday Banner~

Well, not only do cupcakes, tulle and ballerinas speak Birthday to me….they also speak little girl to me.  So, what I wanted to do was to re-create my Cupcake Birthday Banner as a Name Banner for a Baby Nursery.

My Sister-in-law is hosting a baby shower for a work friend.  She is having a baby girl named Brooklyn (i adore that name) and so as a special sister-in-law favor, I made her this  baby shower present which also doubles as a decoration for the shower.   Could that not be more perfect?

I used the same kit and added some stash roses and some gingham pink paper (the nursery is pink) for some extra girly pink.  Instead of microbeads and Hydrangea Maya Mist, I used pink/white paint with Maya Resist and did shabby pink letters.  I added some vintage blue pearls on the letters for a little dressing up.

~Vintage Cupcake Banner Class on Etsy~

I have made this class available as a purchase on my Etsy site.  It is a 38 page PDF file that comes with instructions, photos, step photos and a bonus tutorial.  It includes both the Birthday Banner and this Baby shower banner.  I spent many, many hours writing it up and taking the step photos……….it was a labor of love.    So, if you have ever been curious how to make a banner, this is the class for you.

The kits are ready for purchase also.  They come with a ton of stuff, well worth the price.  I do not sell the kits, the LSS that I teach at sells the kits.  She does flat rate shipping and can add ANYTHING in your box for no additional shipping charge.  Once your box is full, it’s full.  This LSS carries everything in the world and she keeps her prices at retail, no major markup.  Just ask if you are looking for something, a certain paper line, a tool or anything on my supply list that you may need (supply list below- there are a couple of must haves).  I am very committed to helping our Local Scrapbook Stores continue to be here for us.  She is also offering you a 10% discount on anything that you add to your class cart (kit not eligible for discount) just type in the coupon code KATIE during checkout.

If you are interested in purchasing a class kit, DO NOT purchase the class instructions.  The instructions come with the product kit, they are included (kind of makes up for the shipping). You can purchase a class kit by going HERE.

Supply List-

pencil

thin black pen (05 or so)

white pen (I use Signo Uniball)

Tonic Scissors

Regular Scissors

Crop-a-dile

Tattered Rose Distress Ink (or a substitute rose colored ink)

Ink Dauber or Ranger Blender

Helmar 450 Glue

Scallop Scissors (I use Fiskars)

One 8 1/2 x 11 scratch piece of paper (I just use white printer paper)

Stapler

scrapbooking tweezers

black ink

Ranger Glossy Accents

If you need to add any of the supplies to your kit box, just add them to your shopping cart at the store.

So if you are interested in just buying the class directions go HERE.

If you are interested in buying the class product kit that includes the class directions go HERE.  If you need to add anything to your cart (i.e. Helmar 450, Tonic Scissors etc) you can get 10% off by using the coupon code Katie at checkout.  Just enter in my name and you will get 10% off of any additional products.  (discount does not apply to the kit)

~Katie

And the pots are full of vintage posies…the jars are full of Reed’s milkcaps, the ballerinas are in the colander…

all ready to pack….into kits with directions.

And yes, they will be ready to ship by the end of the week!


On the kit CD, there will also be a sample of the same cupcake banner being used as a name banner and being given as a baby shower present.  Hmmm…Love the possibilities.  Life is too uncertain Eat DESSERT first….I think you could make that work.  Would be cute.  My grandma loved that saying.

Thought I would share what will be coming in your kit.

~Cupcake Album + One extra page

~One 8×8 pad of Thrift Shop (34 pieces, yes..you will have LOTS of left over patterns and pages!) by October Afternoon

~8 cupcake topper ballerinas

~8 Reeds Vintage Stock Milk Cap

~1 yard red scallop polka dot MR ribbon

~1 yard pink and white stripe Trinkets MR ribbon

~1 Tin of MR Chipboard Philadelphia Uppercase Letters (comes with 60 letters in a tin)

~1 roll of aqua blue streamers

~mini cupcake liners

~Vintage Stock Tomato Red Posies

~1 Roll Light Aqua Blue Tulle (25 yards)

~1 Roll Light Pink Tulle (25 yards)

~2 12×12 papers by October Afternoon

~Enough Microbeads to cover your banner  letters

~2 pieces yard sale choir music book pages

~banner wire

~1 1/2 yards of turquoise tulle in wider width

~CD with instructions and images, closeups and step pictures.


Comes packaged in a cupcake box well, cause it’s a cupcake banner class.   And completely inspired by the packaging done by Karen and Susan at the Reflections Event for Elizabeth’s class. My supplier sells them, thank goodness.  :)

It’s a Sweet Deal.

They will be ready to ship by the end of the week.  You may purchase them through Cool Scrapbook Stuff by going HERE.  If you want to add any of the supply list items or other items just add them to your cart and then put in the coupon code Katie at checkout and you will receive 10% off your purchase excluding the kit.

My class is

Saturday, June 26

Space is still available – call today! (858) 679-9100

Vintage Cupcake Banner

With Katie Watson!

$49

9:00-1:30

call to sign up.

~Katie

~Classes and Kits~ The latest….!

I have had several people request that I make the Chalkboard School Album a download that would be available for purchase.  The class/kits sold out quite a while back and still, I get requests.  So, I figured that while I was working on my first online class that I would offer the instructions with detailed photos of the albums (You get the pictures of the one I made myself and one that I made as a gift) and techniques. One is for a girl and one is for 3 kids, so you can see how to transition to the boy/girl version of the album (as you can see below).

I now have an Etsy shop………oh my goodness.  So if you are interested in learning how to make this album, then you can go and check it out for purchase HERE.  My shop is named katiebeecreative.  Just trying to be consistent. :)   I’m excited and hope to add other stuff to it once I get rolling here.

ETA- The Scrappy Gourmet has put together some of kits of the Chalkboard School Book and they are officially for sale now.  The kit WILL INCLUDE the directions so no need to purchase those separately.  go HERE to purchase the kit.

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Next, my Vintage Cupcake Banner Class is next weekend here in San Diego, Ca.  I am teaching at Cool Scrapbook Stuff, in the new crop room.  There will be kits available.  They will be shipping next week.  I am just waiting on one more box of the Vintage Posies. :)   You can register for the class or purchase a kit by going HERE for contact info.    Just to let you know you will be getting 51 yards of tulle in this class kit.  Yep, why bother with dividing it up…I am just giving you a whole roll of pink and a whole roll of aqua.  Plus 1 yard of turquoise, that is your extra 1 yard.  Plus 2 yards of ribbon.  Plus a bonus sheet of rubons, plus, plus…………………oh bother.

Hope to see you there!

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Last but not least.  I have designed my first kit with The Scrappy Gourmet.  It’s featuring the Bayberry Collection by Pink Paislee.  Complete instructions and access to project pictures also come with the kit. You can see a TON more pictures by going HERE.


and I think that about sums it up!

Have a wonderful Thursday.

~Katie