Notice anything new????

Yup! I treated myself to a new blog banner. I've been eyeing the Anya images over at Pink Poison so I emailed Marie to see if she'd create me a new blog banner. Her Anya images are so me!!!! I spent a lot of my early childhood years in Japan so the art I love is that kitschy Asian cuteness that Marie does so well. Thanks so much, Marie!!! I love it!!!!

Okay, so here's another Spiritual/Inspirational Saltbox card that I wanted to share with you.

For this one I used the Church Mice clear set from Saltbox Studio along with a chiffon blue notecard and some Vintage Brown (notecard chopped up). I just love the little church mice set! Why is it that mice stamps are so cute but real mice...hmmm...not so much? LOL

Anyway, I'm super rushed for time today but just had to get my new banner up for you all to see. When I ordered up my blog banner, I also ordered myself the Rockstar Anya so now I have to go make a birthday card for a 13 (or is she 14 now?) that I know this would be perfect for. Plus my kids have a short school week due to the Thanksgiving holiday and they have lots of homework/projects to get done. See ya!

More Saltbox

I had a really hard time getting a good picture of this card. It looks like the white 'snow' at the top doesn't blend in but it looks okay in real life. You know, Christmas really is my favorite holiday. I love all the beautiful decorations, pretty trees, Christmas music, but most of all I love that it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. I thought this card really captured that for me. A pretty little church in the snow with the lights on.... I can picture people inside singing Christmas carols or with their heads bowed in prayer. I've got a couple more cards to show you over the next few days that also celebrate a spiritual Christmas. I hope you'll like them.

I think I have 1 or 2 spots left in my next class. We'll be making an altered 3x3 book filled with 10 gift tags. The class is this Sunday from 2-4. Be sure to call Stampin-In-The-Rain if you're interested in signing up. Please bring your own scissors and adhesive; a liquid adhesive or sticky red tape would be good to make sure your book cover stays down. You'll want a regular adhesive to make the tags.

Vintage Saltbox

My husband is sick with the flu so I took advantage of his extra sleeping to find my creative mojo. When I get really busy, my mojo tends to leave me because my brain can't focus on stamping but last night I just fought with myself and focused. I blog hopped and gallery hopped to get inspired to do some creating. I also sat and stared at my stamps for a while, willing them to pop into my head. I think it worked because I was able to create several cards.

One of the things I love about The Saltbox Studio images is how well they lend themselves to a vintage style. Using Kraft paper can also help to accomplish this so I cut some old SU Confetti Tan into a 4-bar notecard. I also took some A Muse black kitchen paper and cut it to layer on the 4-bar, sanding the edges for a shabby look. I knew I wanted to stamp the snowman onto the Kraft paper so I could use my colored pencils. White colored pencil on Kraft just instantly brings that shabby shic look, too. After I was done coloring my image, I layered it onto a piece of A Muse Hawthorne notecard and sanded the edges of that. Once I had everything together, I added the snow by making white dots with a Signo white gel pen all around the image. I put the sentiment 'You warm my heart' on the inside of the card.

Supplies: SU Retired Confetti Tan cardstock, A Muse black kitchen paper, A Muse Hawthorne; Images: Saltbox Studio Winter Wonder set; Ribbon: A Muse olive stitched; Accessories: Signo white gel pen, A Muse heart Twinkle Stickers

Warm Mittens

Here's another Saltbox Winter card I wanted to share with you. I started with the light blue chiffon 4-bar notecard and stamped the tiny snowflakes from the Winter Wonders set using Colorbox Chalk Ice Blue ink. I layered a red polka dot PLP (pretty little paper) onto some Swiss Red and adhered it to the left side of the notecard. I stamped the mittens onto a rectangle of white cardstock, and again on some scrap. I colored both layers, then cut out the mittens from the scrap so I could pop them up with dimensionals. The snowflake is a chipboard die cut from my LSS that I layered with a white snowflake from the same die. I used a primitive heart punch and random button. The mittens are from the small Saltbox set called "Brrrr."



I've been working on my A Muse 2009 calendar class and I'm thinking this is going to be a Bind-It-All project, not a CD calendar. Look for me to update that in the next day or two.

Pumpkin Carving Party

Lexi over at The Saltbox Studio, invited me to her Pumpkin Carving Party. I kept it simple because it's late and I'm tired and I have a busy day ahead of me on Tuesday. My brain was not feeling particularly creative. Would you believe that I actually don't carve pumpkins with my kids? I used to do it but they never wanted to help and it was just a job I did myself. I started to wonder why I was doing it if they weren't interested so I stopped. They never even noticed. My oldest son actually has never liked Halloween. He stopped trick-or-treating when he was about 8 (he's 12 now). My youngest likes to trick-or-treat but never for very long. He doesn't even make it around the block...tells me he has enough and is ready to go home. I have strange kids!

Alpine Winter Mouse

Thinking of winter just makes me want to grab my blankie, a mug of hot cocoa, and sit by a nice, warm fire but I know some folks love to be in the wintery outdoors. I know this cute little winter mouse wanted to be outside ice skating. I used the tree from the new Saltbox Pumpkin Oak set and just omitted the leaves (except for one). When I stamped the mouse, I omitted the gift and drew in some little hands, then I used my Copic marker to draw in ice skate blades. I used the largest A Muse wood mounted oval to create the ice pond and a white gel pen to draw in some blade tracks. The picture doesn't show this well but I also used the little snowflakes from last year's Winter Wonders release and added the red cardinal from the same set. As you can see by the second picture, I also mounted a 2nd wing using dimensionals. A little liquid applique and glitter completes the picture with some snow.





Oh, and I punched some mittens using a Punch Bunch mitten punch and a bit of twine from May Arts. I popped those up with dimensionals, too.

supplies: brown notecard base: Rubber Soul; patterned papers: KI Memories Alpine line; other solid papers: Stampin Up Burgundy, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky; brown kitchen paper: A Muse; Ribbon: blue (unknown source) and white edged sheer ribbon (A Muse); Liquid Applique; Glitter; Twine: May Arts; Brad: Making Memories; Stamps: Winter Wonders and Brrrr from Saltbox Studio

Kraft Pilgrims

Just a super quick, short post today. I know I've said it before but these pilgrims are really my favorite image of the entire latest Saltbox release. For this card I cut some Kraft cardstock to make a 4-bar sized card. I stamped and colored the pilgrims, mounted them onto some Orange, then onto some French Roast A Muse notecards. I mounted them over the ribbon after attaching some little frond like punches and some buttons from my stash (Foo Fa La, I'm sure). For the sentiment, I stamped the acorns w/leaf first in a caramel colored ink, then stamped the sentiment itself in black and embossed it. Without the embossing, it sorta fades away.

Hope you have a great day. (See, told you it would be short!)

Give Thanks

Wow! Beth, over the The Saltbox Studio, has really outdone herself with this latest release that debuted yesterday. I made sure I got my sets right away so I could start playing. How adorable is this cute little mouse from the Kid's Table set?! I stamped him first, then masked him and stamped the large pumpkin from the Pumpkin Oak set. I colored everything in, outlined it with my Copic W2, then went over the outlines with my Sakura Glitter Pen. In person, this card really sparkles!.

To give some added dimension, but not thickness, I re-stamped the mouse image on a separate piece of cardstock, colored him, cut him out, and mounted him over the original image. The picture didn't really pick up that I also distressed the white cardstock with some Antique Linen from my Ranger Distress Ink pad. It helps to make the white be not such a stark white.

I used my Stampin Up Designer Label punch to set my ribbon through and stamped the corn from the Kid's Table set onto some white cardstock, also distressed, and after coloring in the image, went over the outlines with the Sakura Glitter Pen. I mounted this layered circle with dimensionals. You'll notice the leafy pattern in the background. I did that with the flowing acorn/leaves from the Pumpkin Oak set by stamping it in Versamark over Stampin Up Old Olive cardstock. The sentiment is from the Give Thanks set. See, the awesome thing about this release is that so many of the sets can be combined together!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Stampin Up Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, GP White
Stamps: The Saltbox Studio (Kid's Table, Pumpkin Oak, Give Thanks sets)
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Versamark
Accessories: Copic markers, Sakura Glitter Pen, Ribbon (source unknown), Stampin Up Designer Label Punch

Stuff

Wow, it's been busy around here. Last week my kids had a half day, then a day off from school (already!). My oldest son's birthday was on Friday so we took advantage of the time off and celebrated both my kids' birthdays all at once. My other son's birthday is during the summer and lots of people are gone so he wanted to wait until school was back in session before having a party. We celebrated at a bouncy house place with about 17 kids or so, including mine. The younger kids went home afterwards but the older kids stayed at our house for a sleepover. Needless to say, I was exhausted and it took me a few days to recover from the mayhem.

My son had football practice on Friday night and injured his back but after a little TLC and begging from the coach, was able to play in his game on Saturday. After the game, I headed down to A Muse to see if they needed some help with the move. Well, I guess they did cuz my car was soon loaded up with all of this!!! I had time for 2 loads, then off to dinner for my son's birthday. Let me just say that Annabelle and Mack are GREAT helpers!!!

The new retail shop is not quite ready for business yet but I know the ladies are all working hard. Ross has done a fabulous job with the building! A Muse has resumed shipping orders so if you placed one, I'm sure it'll be in your mailbox soon!

I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to seeing some sneak peeks of the new Saltbox Studio sets. I'm not sure what day they release but Beth does a fabulous job with her images and I would really like to encourage all of you to check out her stuff. I need to start pulling out my SBS winter sets again and get playing but for now I'll share this one with you. I love the vintage feel of this.

Lastly (long post, sorry!), I have a Halloween card class at Stampin-In-The-Rain tomorrow night and again on Sunday, Oct 12th. I would love to see you at either or both classes so be sure to contact the store to sign up!

Think Good Thoughts Today

If you could all think good thoughts for my SIL today, I'd really appreciate it. She is having surgery today for a mastectomy.

Today is also the first half day for my kids so think good thoughts for me, too. LOL. Seriously, though. My oldest son's birthday is tomorrow so he is having some activity with his friends after school today with some sleeping overnight. I just plan on taking Ibuprofen as needed throughout the day!

Short post today. I have lots to do. Here's my card, which is what you're really here for....

There hasn't been a lot of sunshine around here. I'm hoping this card brings out the sun again. Pig and sentiment from The Saltbox Studio, Doodle flower from A Muse as is all the cardstock. I hand drew the mud on the pig.

Clear Set Sneak Peeks

A Muse has 2 new clear sets releasing very soon. There should be some sneak peeks today from various members of the Creative Team. I haven't had much chance to play with these new clear sets yet so I don't have one to share with you today but be sure to check the blogs of the fabulous design team members to find some.





I picked up some great deals at Eclectic Paperie recently when they were clearing out a bunch of stuff. I got this great 8x8 Honey Pie pack by Cosmo Cricket and thought it would look great with my Saltbox Studio sets. You'll see I used my favorite Martha Stewart Lace Doily punch along the edge of the red patterned paper. The candle image was colored with my Copics. It's all mounted on a yellow chiffon 4-bar notecard from A Muse. A bit of the cream and brown sheer edged ribbon completed the picture. I wanted to keep this an all-occasion card so just added the 'hello' sentiment. Fun, cute, easy-peasy!


Have you purchased your calendar download yet? Remember that your purchase/donation of this download goes to help a very worthy organization: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Best of all, if you make your donation by the end of the day Sept 21, 2008 A Muse will match all the donations, dollar for dollar! 100% of the proceeds from this calendar goes to LLS. I made my calendar yesterday. I just have to take pics and get them loaded for you to see. Click here for details on how you can participate.

Saltbox Studio

Today the A Muse News blog is featuring Saltbox Studio stamps so I will feature one, too. I'd better get to some stamping soon, though, or I will run out of things to blog! The weather here has not been so great and my kids are going back to school next week. I've been kind of busy, too. It's prevented me from getting much stamping time in.

This was one of the cards I made a week or two ago but couldn't share until the latest A Muse release was released due to the black kitchen notecard. It's really hard to photograph cards when they aren't even at the bottom; this is the best I could do.

Enjoy your day! I have a class this Sunday if you're interested in signing up. Yucky weather makes for a great stamping day! See my schedule in the sidebar to the right for details.

Sneak Peek

Updates: Well, I managed to have an uneventful workout yesterday. We found out that there were charges made on the business credit card that were in my husband's wallet but so far, none on our personal account. Let's hope it stays that way. My SIL, unfortunately, was moved from Stage 1 to between Stage 2/3 in her diagnosis and the doctors are leaning toward a mastectomy. Thankfully, I have my friend Joyce (Jay Dub on SCS and some of you might know her from the A Muse shop) who had a very similar diagnosis and is a 2yr breast cancer survivor. I am taking her over to my SIL's so she has someone to talk to who has lived through this.

How are you enjoying the sneak peeks so far? The new release will be available for purchase in just one more sleep! Have you been making a wishlist? Does it keep growing? haha. Well, I am going to disappoint you today, unfortunately. It will just be for a little while, though. I thought I had some more of my cards stores on my memory stick but I don't! Now I have to charge my camera battery before I can take some so this is what you get for now. At least I am using the new black Kitchen notecard. The image is from the latest release from Saltbox Studio. Man, I love these sunflowers! Make sure to add this set to your shopping cart when you order your new A Muse releases.

Farm Country

I received this awesome birthday card from Rhonda and just loved the Green Madeira used as the grass with the Green Kitchen on the Cabana blue-ish cardstock. Well, on Monday I had to drive to Orondo, which is out near Wenatchee, WA otherwise known as 'apple country.' It was a gorgeous drive up through Stevens Pass, Leavenworth (a cute little Bavarian style village) and then through so many apple orchards. Rhonda's card totally inspired me with this creation.

Now I totally could have used the farm house from Saltbox Studio, but it is facing the opposite direction and quite frankly, I didn't pull the sentiment from the Saltbox mini banner set until after I had created the rest of the card. I stamped the A Muse farmhouse onto the Cabana Blue notecard, then again on a separate piece of white cardstock, colored it, cut it out, then mounted over the first stamped image. The pinking along the grass is from the A Muse Fancy Borders clear set using Memento Bamboo Leaves ink. You can probably figure out the rest.

I would love to see any cards you have created that were inspired by a fellow A Muse fan. Feel free to share a link by posting a comment in the comment section.

Whew!

I survived a busy birthday weekend. Friday night our youngest son had a sleepover with a friend at our house. The poor little guy woke me up at 3:30am telling me he couldn't sleep and wanted to go home. I had to wake his poor mother to come get him. Bet he was tired the next day! Saturday was a great day. We decided to hit Toys R Us to buy our youngest son something for his birthday present (he wanted Rock Band). While in the video section my son says to my husband, "We should buy mom a Wii Fit. She wants that." They actually had one in stock! So, I got a Wii Fit from my kids. Saturday night we were childless. My plans were to go to the Taste of Edmonds but the weather did not cooperate so DH and I decided to go see Stepbrothers. When we were exiting off the freeway, my friend called and said they had just finished seeing Mamma Mia and were going out to dinner and invited us along. So, that's what we did...and I'm glad. I had so much fun catching up. Here is a horrible picture of us. She always looks beautiful...me, not so much. The camera was waay too close. Anyway, she turns 40 right behind me in just a couple of weeks.

Sunday, my mom and sister came over for dinner. My mom cooked up some sukiyaki, which is one of my favorite things to eat. I made a pig out of myself. It's all good, though, cuz I start Booty Camp this week with my oldest son's former PE teacher.

No time to stamp this weekend so sharing something out of the archives for ya. I hope you all have a great day. Thanks to everyone who sent me a birthday card. They were all so wonderful!

Images by Saltbox Studio

Birthday Countdown

I had a fabulous day today. My husband and I celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary this Wednesday and my 40th birthday is this coming Saturday so he bought me a new Nikon camera. I put it to good use today taking pictures of my kids, nieces and nephews, friends and good food. My friends RT and Joyce took me to see Mamma Mia and then to dinner at P.F. Chang's. Mmmm, good! And I loved Mamma Mia. It was so funny!


I didn't get a chance to participate in VMAA but I'm still going to make some cards from the challenges and get them posted this week, using my new camera, of course. I did, however, get my new Saltbox sets and got right to work on them. Then, I realized I used some items that I cannot show yet so I will have to wait a little while before I can show you some of the cards. Boo Hoo. Here's one I can share:




I found this fabulous patterned paper by Heidi Grace at Jo-Ann's the other day and knew it would be perfect for the sunflowers from the latest Saltbox release. I cut a 4" square out of it and mounted it to an A Muse Notecard. The rest just kind of came together from there. Can't wait to share more with you!


I also got a great picture of my sister-in-law, Lori's adorable Yorkie today. She brought 2 of her cute little dogs to my MIL's house today and the dogs were dressed up in little outfits. Lori has also been known to paint her dogs toenails pink. Lori didn't want to end up in the picture so she held the dog out for me to catch a picture of. Isn't she just the cutest little thing?!

Yucky Weather

Well, the weather has not been very nice lately and it sure makes me feel like being a big lump on a log. It's affecting my kids, too, which just means daily bickering. Yuck! I'm gonna try to perk myself up with some stamping! The VMAA (Virtual Meeting of the A Muse Addicts) is this weekend! I'm not sure if I can participate but I'm sure gonna try. Had lots of fun last month. You should join in on the fun. Click here for details! Don't know what VMAA is? Click here.


Did you notice the new look to the A Muse News blog? I love the new look! Don't forget to check out the new card idea albums, too. Lots of fabulous inspiration there! Since today's post features The Saltbox Studio new release, I'm going to share another Saltbox Christmas card with you. Hopefully I'll have my hands on the new release soon.

Welcome, Baby!

I've been postponing a blog post, waiting to get a picture of my nephew and his wife's new baby. She's a big girl, coming into the world at 9lbs 12.8oz! My son, who is seen in this picture holding her, said she's very heavy. She's a cutie pie. Big sister was at the zoo with her maternal grandpa so I didn't get to see how she was with her or get a picture of them together. Maybe next time. Everyone is doing well and we are thankful for a healthy baby and safe delivery.







I'm eager to get my hands on the new Saltbox Studio release. You can get yours here. Since I don't have the new sets yet, I've been playing a bit with some older ones. After needing to create Christmas and Holiday cards for Amuseapalooza, I've still been in the mood for Christmas. So, it's Christmas in July with this one:





For this card I used some SU Confetti Tan cardstock and cut it to make a 4.25" notecard. The patterned paper is from a Basic Grey Figgy 6x6 pack. I added some red berries to the wreath with my red Sakura glaze pen. The rest was colored with Copics and the distress ink is by Ranger (Walnut). I have a few more Saltbox cards to share this week. My Saltbox sets have been a little neglected with DT assignments so I'm trying to make up for lost time.

New blogger in town

It's seriously been a week since my last post? Where did the time go? I've been busy working on some Design Team commitments and outside of those, just haven't had the time or the energy to do much other stamping. Since I don't really have a whole lot to blog about myself, let me introduce you a new blogger in town....Tracy Falco! Tracy has been an A Muse Instructor for years and also does some design team stuff for The Cats Pajamas. She's been pretty apprehensive about starting a blog so be sure to head on over and give her some blog love!


The Saltbox Studio is getting ready for a new release very soon. Keep your eye on the blog for some 'sure to be fabulous' sneak peeks from the FAB-O design team. I hear there might be a contest....just sayin'! And with that, I'm off! Here's a Saltbox card for ya' to chew on 'til my next post.

Thank you for serving!

It's been a busy week. I'm looking forward to Amuse-A-Palooza next week....be sure to get yourself signed up for a class! I've got a class scheduled for Tues eve, Thurs eve, and then both classes repeated on Saturday morning/afternoon.






I wanted to be sure to post a patriotic card for the Fourth of July. I come from a family that has spent many years serving in the military. My father had a 20year career with the Navy and many of his brothers served in various branches of the military as well. Military families sacrifice a lot for our country, especially in these times of war. I thank each and every one of them for serving our country, for defending our freedom, for giving so much of themselves. The young man at my church that was recently shot in Afghanistan has taken a turn for the worse...he is having issues with blod clots. I don't know this soldier personally but I feel like he took a bullet for me. How does one repay that? A simple thank you just isn't enough.

I hope you all have a safe and happy 4th.