A Fond Farewell to 2008

It's been a fun year but I must say I'm looking forward to 2009. I'm happy to be leaving the snow behind (yay for 40 degree temps!). My Christmas decorations have already been put away, thanks to needing the space for a Pottery Barn find for my living room on the day after Christmas. Score!

One of the new adventures I'm jumping into for 2009 is my Fun with the Slice classes at Lasting Memories in Lynnwood, WA. I'm so excited to be a part of this fabulous store that I've been shopping at since they opened at least 10 years ago. My first class will be on Friday, Jan 9th from 6-8pm. Each month we will be highlighting a cartridge from the Making Memories Slice machine. There is a pre-requisite to taking my class, however. You can contact the store directly for details. If you are local and have a new Slice machine, come join me! See my sidebar for store contact info.

No need to fret, A Muse fans, because I'm not leaving you behind! I've got my first 2009 class samples already up at Stampin-In-The-Rain. We'll be making some fun Winter Greetings on Tues, Jan 13th from 6-8pm. I'll also be holding a fun Valentine class on Sunday, Jan 18th from 2-4pm but I can't show those samples yet. Sneak peeks of the new Sweet Shop release coming soon! Here's a sample of the Winter Greetings class. Again, see my side bar for store contact info.

Lastly, I'm still having fun with some new rubber from The Greeting Farm (aka Pink Poison). I picked up some fabulous paper at Lasting Memories and knew they'd be perfect with these stamps! Marie has set up a brand new gallery so be sure to check it out!

That's it for me today! I hope you all have a safe and happy new year!

Advent Boxes

If you've been following the Advent boxes on the A Muse New blog, you'll see that today is the day the insides of the last 12 boxes is being shared. Did you notice that there's a give-away for a $50 A Muse certificate???? Wow! Can you say Merry Christmas?!

Here's the inside to my box:

You know I chose the little sushi eraser from the A Muse shop because I'm half Japanese and it best reflected me. However, I really only eat vegetarian sushi and haven't ever had one with fish eggs on it. Yuck! My mom eats sushi like this one, though.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I've been in the hustle and bustle of the last few days, preparing for Christmas to come TOMORROW!!! Last minute gifts have been purchased, a few things left to wrap, and I probably need to bake some Pizzelles today. Yumm!

I just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a very, Merry Christmas. I woke up to a beautiful snowy morning. All is quiet and serene. It's a time to reflect on Christ's birth and the wonderful gift of Salvation, freely given to us. I'm looking forward to spending the evening at church tonight. I'll probably go with my in-laws to their church but if not, I'll go to mine.

I have a couple of friends who have lost loved ones in the past few days. I can't imagine having to grieve during Christmas. My thoughts and prayers are with them as they struggle through this first holiday without their loved ones.

I've been working hard on some sneak peeks coming up right after New Years for the A Muse Valentine release. Cute, cute, stuff! Save your Christmas money!

God bless you!

Japanese Christmas

Today I thought I'd share with you the card I made for my aunt and uncles back in Japan. Hero Arts sells a small clear set that spells Merry Christmas out in a few different languages. I'd never seen Merry Christmas in Japanese before so I had to pick up the set! I also picked up this cute little birdhouse tag set because I felt it was "Japanese-y". You can't see it in the photo but I also stamped blue snowflakes from the birdhouse tag set next to the Merry Christmas and I glittered up the layers of "snow". Papers from A Muse, of course!

Well, despite the snow I'm almost done Xmas shopping. I just need to find a small gift for my sister, then wrap everything up. My house is a disaster, though, and I really need some time to clean. It's been mayhem around here.

Just a shout out to my buddy, Joyce. It's her birthday today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOYCE!!!!

Holiday Baking

I have had a tradition of baking for the holidays since I was in high school. I used to bake with my mom but she has since retired from our tradition. Most years I do it all myself but this year my sister wanted to help. I usually bake about 11 or 12 different things, then divvy it all up to give away. I like to give goodies to my close friends, co-workers, neighbors, and my mailman. Oh, and the kids' teachers.

This year I made 11 different things. I keep a 3-ring binder with my favorite holiday recipes inside. I printed them up on holiday stationery and put them in page protectors so I can wipe them off if they get dirty. I usually make the same things each year but sometimes change one or two things out. I did that this year. I took out some Chocolate Pixies and the Chocolate Truffles and substituted Candy Cane Cookies and Lemon Drop Cookies. I don't think I'll do the lemon cookies again....too soft and wet from the glaze. Tasty, though. I love getting feedback from my friends as to which goodies they like best.

Here's a favorite:

These yummy Florentines have a wonderful, buttery crust and the filling has more butter, honey, and almonds. Super yummy! Sorry, I cannot share this recipe. I am sworn to secrecy! My mother would kill me.

My kids love my sugar cookies. I used to bake them from scratch but I have to make so many that this is the one thing I don't bake from scratch any more. I buy the sugar cookie mix at Costco and make the entire 6 batches in the box. My secret is that I add 1/4 tsp nutmeg to each batch. Then I make up some Royal Icing and decorate the cookies. The trees take the longest because they are filled. I have to wait until the outline dries, the filling dries, then add the yellow garland and "ornaments". When I get done making everything, I have to package it all up right away or my kids will eat all the sugar cookies before I can give them out.

Here's a picture of all my goodies packaged up and ready to be delivered. I swear my list of recipients gets longer and longer every year. Would you believe I have people on my list that have been receiving my goodies since high school?

Notice the cute little tags I made for the goodie packages! I used the A Muse Clear baking set. The great thing about using an acrylic set is you can bend the sentiments. I bent mine to match the curve of the circle I punched out. The fabulous ribbon you see was purchased at Packaging Specialities in Overlake (Bellevue). They have the BEST packaging solutions around!

In case you are curious, here's my list of goodies I made for this year:

Cranberry bars (like Starbucks Cranberry Bliss bars)

Butterscotch Shortbread Bars

Florentines

Sugar Cookies

Candy Cane Cookies

Lemon Drop Cookies

5-Minute Fudge

New Wave Rocky Road

Caramel Balls

Sugared Date Squares

Pecan Tassies

Hope you enjoyed looking at the goodies. I have more pics I can share if you want to see them.

My little guy has been home sick with strep throat the last two days. I'm really hoping he feels well enough to go to school tomorrow, that is....if it doesn't turn to a snow day. We are supposed to get a good snowfall in the wee hours of the morning. I really need this horrible weather and ice on the roads to go away. I'm not done Christmas shopping and the weather is impeding my ability to get it done. I have never been so unprepared for Christmas before! It's making me panic!

A Muse Advent Calendar

Yay! It's finally my turn for the advent calendar today. Here's the pic posted on the blog today and a link for you to either catch up or continue to follow until we hit Christmas! The snowflake was diecut at my LSS and I've had it in my stash for a while. I used some Making Memories scrapbook paint to make it blue, then covered it in glitter. The numbers were diecut using my Slice!

Got my holiday baking done...now to divvy it up, take pics, and give it away. I think I went through about 8lbs of butter. No joke! I made 11 things, most everything as a double batch. My table is covered with storageware full of goodies. Now I'm working on the tags with my A Muse clear baking set, of course! At $14.99 retail, that set's a steal!

I have a sickie at home today. We got quite a few inches of snow over the weekend but I have no pics of my kids in it. They are weirdos and won't go play in the snow. I wouldn't have let my sick one out anyway, but the other one is just an old man in a little person's body. As a matter of fact, I went to another jewelry party the other day and a guest was asking me how I knew the hostess. I told her my oldest son is friends with the hostesses youngest son. She asked what my son's name was and said "Oh, yeah! I know him. He's like an old man!" LOL. She definitely had him pegged. Anyway...I digress. School is delayed today due to the sheets of ice on the roads but I'm keeping sickie at home with me. I think I'll take him to the doc just to make sure it isn't strep. My kids are so seldom sick that I have no idea what the symptoms of strep are. He has a wicked cough and sore throat, though.

Have a great day. I look forward to sharing my baking pics with you. Warning! You might gain a few pounds looking at them!

Laura's Blog

Okay, so sometimes you guys leave me comments and I check out your blogs when you do. I just looked at Laura's blog and oh my gosh! You guys have to go there. Lots of yummy treats and she shares a recipe for Homemade Marshmallows!!! YUMMMMM. I must warn you her blog is not fat free! LOL

Santa's Comin!

I can't stand it when I'm too busy. I've been too busy lately. My youngest son and I finally managed to get the tree decorated yesterday but I still need to get the rest of the decorations up in the house. I usually have it all done the weekend of Thanksgiving so this is really late for me. It's stressing me out! I haven't had any time to stamp ONE card. Seriously. Not one. I did get my photo Xmas cards done and stamped so those will go in the mail today but I have so many I need to stamp for my stampy friends. Also, today starts my baking frenzy weekend. I have sugar cookie dough in my fridge right now and need to find a way to bake those today (while working) and then get all the rest of my doughs ready to go for tomorrow morning. I have grocery supplies I need to buy for the weekend, too. I owe a customer a calendar (I'm working on it through this blog post!) and need to get that to Stampin In The Rain. Aaack!!!

I wanted to share more TX pictures with you but haven't had time to download them all, still. I do have these few, though. Geeta was kind enough to meet me for lunch last Sunday at the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, TX. It's a famous BBQ around those parts, I guess, and I sure can understand why. It was delicious but the portions were so big that even after I stuffed myself, it looked like I hadn't touched my plate. I desperately wanted some of their yummy looking pie but there was no way it was going to fit into my belly. Another trip, I guess. I love pecan pie!

Okay, one last thing. I know you need to see a card. That's what you come here for. So, here's another Christmas card to get your ideas spurning in your head. There's still time to get your cards made! (At least there'd better be or I'm in trouble!). Good thing I had a card in my stash to share!

Have a great weekend. I'll post pics of my holiday baked goodies after the weekend.

Don't Mess with Texas!

Over the next day or two I'd like to share pictures with you from my trip to Texas. My sister and I went to visit our dad over the weekend. It was a short trip but one filled with activity. Getting out of Seattle was a bit of a hassle, thanks to our flight out of town being delayed then cancelled but we finally did manage to leave the Emerald City to head to Longhorn territory. I wanted to share things in order that they happened but I don't have all my pictures downloaded yet so I'm going to keep this relatively brief until I do.

I really wanted to see 2 things while I was in Texas. One was a random armadillo wandering down the road and the other was a real Texas longhorn. We didn't get pictures of the first longhorn we passed but managed to get my dad to stop along the road on our way to a nearby town's craft fair when we saw this guy. He was grooming the brown cow when we pulled up. It was very sweet. He groomed her for a long time and it didn't seem to bother her one bit. I never did get to see an armadillo.

Another stop we made during our visit was to the town of Gruene. We stopped in a gift shop there and found a few interesting things.

So that's it for today. I'm still not caught up from my trip out of town. I don't have my Christmas decorations up yet and my kids are anxious for me to get started on that. I caught up on my laundry, got half my house cleaned, and went to my oldest son's Holiday Concert held by the middle school band. I'll share pics of those soon, too. I worked all day yesterday, catching up on work emails, but have lots of other work items to get caught up on. Never a dull moment around here.

Enjoy your day!

Whew! I'm back!

For those of you who didn't know, I was in Texas over the weekend visiting my dad with my sister. I got back last night. I'll be uploading some pictures in the next day or so and will share details about my quick trip. For now, I have lots to catch up on and have a busy day ahead.

Here's a winter card to tide you over. The colors came out a little funny. This is the green chiffon 4-bar notecard but it looks more lime. Sorry! I stamped the snowflake trio on the front, stamped Edward on kraft, layered that onto a scallop punched square of Swiss Red, and colored it in with my Prismacolor pencils. I layered on a Creative Candy scalloped square sticker just for good measure. We haven't had much snow in the mountains this year so I say....let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Smell the coffee.....

I don't know about you but I know I've been crazy busy since November, and probably even before that. Lately I've felt like I haven't had a chance to take a breather. I'm really excited because after this weekend, I have nothing planned for December except for my work's holiday party and my oldest son's Winter Concert. Now I know things will come up and those empty spaces will fill in, but those will be fun things I'm sure. I do have my holiday baking to do, some shopping, wrapping, and decorating to do, but I have control over when I spend the time doing that and that feels so good! Even as I sit here I remember...Oh, yeah! Vickie's jewelry party and Joyce's birthday is coming up. (Oh, hey folks, Joyce's birthday is coming up soon so send her some love! Her birthday is on the 19th and I bet the A Muse shop would accept birthday cards for her. )

So, as you struggle to get through your December, remember to take time to smell the coffee! Stop and actually enjoy the decorations you see out there. Stop and take a breather and get some fresh air. Take a brisk walk. Sit by a fire. Do something relaxing!

VMAA takes place tonight. Unfortunately, I can't participate because I'll be sitting on a plane. My sister and I headed to Texas to visit our dad. If you don't know what VMAA is, check this out. It's so much fun! Stamping challenges every 30 minutes and it's so much fun to see what everyone has created. If you aren't already a member of the A Muse Addicts, it just takes a second to join. Be sure to get registered online in plenty of time for the mods to get you in there.

Making Memories Slice Card

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, well all you Americans anyway, and got lots of Christmas shopping done. I shopped for 13hours on Black Friday! Can you believe that? Started at 5am at the local Fred Meyer, headed off to Target from there. Went home to drop some purchases off, then headed to the shopping mall. Went back home, off to Costco with the family. My friend, Amy, called me and wanted to hit the outlet mall so off I went there until 6pm. I got some shopping for my kids out of the way and managed to find some good deals for me, too. Two for them, one for me. Two for them, one for me. Yup, that's how my shopping went. LOL






Starting in January, I will be teaching classes at my LSS using the Making Memories Slice machine. Don't worry! I'll still be teaching my A Muse classes! The classes at Lasting Memories will be non-stamping and strictly teaching projects using the Slice machine. In order to get myself in gear, I've pulled my Slice out and made a few projects with it. One of those projects is this Christmas card. I used the owl from the Back to School cartridge, and the HoHoHo and Santa hat from the FaLaLa cartridge. The polka dot paper is from American Crafts while the notecard is from A Muse. You can't tell in the photo but I glittered up the white faux fur on the Santa hat so it's nice and sparkly. I'm not a huge die cut machine fan but I gotta say, I am really liking this little Slice machine. I hope they come out with lots of other cartridges for it.

Over on the A Muse News blog, they've started sharing some little Advent boxes that members of the Creative Team recently created. You've got a little while before you see my box but keep an eye on the blog daily as they'll post each day's box until Christmas.

Rockstar Anya

My BFF's daughter celebrates her birthday tomorrow. I think she turns 13 or 14 but I honestly can't remember for sure. Anyway, when I got my Rockstar Anya stamp in the mail yesterday, I had to hurry up and make a card for Taylor so I could get it in the mail right away. I know the card will arrive late but hopefully it's cuteness will make up for it! Here's another view:

I can't wait to get more Anya's and turn it into a collection! Don't worry though, as cute as Anya is I'm still in love with A Muse!

I'm going to take a blogging break over the Thanksgiving holiday. My A Muse Gift Tag class got moved to this Saturday due to product not coming in on time. I think there might still be a spot or two open if you want to come by. This will be a really fun class! I'm now running it back to back with my Vintage Christmas class and I know there are a few spots open there, too. If you're up for a day of some really fun creating, be sure to call Stampin-In-The-Rain to reserve your space. 425 408-9050

Have a really great Thanksgiving! I can't wait to have some turkey, stuffing, and candied yams! The following morning, I'm off to shop in the wee hours of the a.m.!

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!

Grand Re-Opening

Here's another inspirational card for the holidays that I wanted to share with you. I used a blue chiffon 4-bar notecard and added a strip of Kraft scrap to make the sand. I added a bit of glitter along the horizon using Art Institute Glitter in Sand. You probably can't tell but the camel in the front (closest to the middle) is popped up with dimensionals. The Bethlehem image is from the A Muse Elzybells line as is the sentiment (item#s E0060 and C0031). There's a micro Twinkle dot on the star, too.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me. I wish I could pop in at the A Muse Grand Re-Opening sale at the shop but just can't squeeze that in. Here's the details on that in case you can make it.

Sorry for the short post but I have to get Ginger to the groomer! My favorite part is picking her up at the end of the day, all clean and fluffy and smelling oh, so good.

Joyce has a blog!

Some of you know my friend Joyce from the A Muse shop. She works there sometimes. She started a new blog so head on over and give her some love!

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

Yummy!

I have had an incredibly busy week since returning from the A Muse Instructor Training Event. I haven't really had any time to create for fun. Friday, my co-workers and I headed to the Northlake Tavern & Pizza House for lunch to celebrate a birthday. I always bake something for the birthday boy or girl and this birthday boy wanted Lemon Meringue pie. Because I was so busy all week, though, he got Lemon Bars instead.

This isn't a fancy recipe. I just took it out of the Better Homes & Garden New Baking Book that's in my cookbook collection. The trick is to use real lemons for the zest and the juice from those lemons. Tastes so much fresher than using bottled lemon juice and dried up zest.

I spent Saturday at the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooking convention. My friend Lisa and I signed up for a few classes...most of which turned out to be kinda duds but we had lots of fun shopping. I found some Piggy Tales papers I was looking for and picked up the Crafty Secrets Snow bunnies set. My unplanned purchase was the Cookie Cutter Alpha 'Diesel' from Quickutz for my Revolution. I've been wanting that set for a long time and it is retired. I found it for about half price and couldn't pass it up.

I did manage to make 1 card this week that wasn't related to an assignment. I obviously didn't have much mojo to create this one.

The much anticipated A Muse Cupcake Social and Instructor Training event took place this past weekend. Many of us started the day with a Copic Certification Class with Marianne from Copic. It was a lot of fun but lunch was a bit of a disaster. Poor Geeta and Heather's lunch orders were missed so they had to take theirs to go. Afterward, we had some time to sit and eat some pizza, get to know each other a bit, then the doors opened for the Cupcake Social!


Cindy, from the A Muse shop, made the most delicious cupcakes for everyone. I don't know how she made the frosting but it was fluffy, glossy, and super yummy! There were chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with their tops a little different....just like what you can do with the new A Muse Cupcake Builder set!

The social was a great way to meet some local A Muse fans, and some not so local, too. Lovely Ingrid flew in from GA to meet us! I don't know what happened but I failed to get a picture with her. I felt like I was in lots of pictures, but I guess they weren't taken with my camera. If you have some pics, send them to me! Anyway, this is a picture of Michelle Clark, Linda, Nicole, and me. Nicole used to come to the shop once a week and would come take my classes sometimes but she moved and it's not so convenient. Her hubby was nice enough to let her get away, despite having the kids for most of the weekend on his own anyway, so she could come hang with her peeps. I met lots of new folks, too. There was a fun make-n-take, and customers went home with some fun goodies.

Saturday started our training event. We had almost all the A Muse Instructors and Designers in town for this (we missed you!!!!). What a fabulous opportunity to meet the women we've come to know online. For me, it just served to strengthen my bond with them. Every single one of these women were nice, friendly, and eager to be there with each other. I was so excited to meet all of them. We learned lots of new things. The weekend ended with a sappy Julie, who pretty much made all of us tear up. It truly is a priviledge and an honor to be associated with this fabulous company called A Muse. A big shout out to all the customers who showed up for the Social and most especially to the A Muse Crew for putting on the most spectacular weekend.

Bag-In-A-Box

I recently got myself a Slice diecut machine and was playing around with it the other day. It's a pretty cool tool. I signed up to take the Intro to the Slice class at my LSS but wanted to be familiar with the machine before going. I also had just purchased some new Holiday papers so I thought I'd try making a Bag-In-A-Box. I headed on over to Cambria's blog for her tutorial on this project.

The Slice is a really easy machine to use. I think the hardest part of the learning curve is to recognize that when your machine starts doing weird stuff (like cutting the shapes all funky), it's tired and needs to recharge. Personally, I think it's best to let your machine first charge overnight and while the instructions say it only takes an hour to charge, let it sit longer than that when it needs to recharge. Don't use it with SU paper, either, because you will hardly get any life out of the little blade.

So anyway...back to the project. I used the Fa La La cartridge to make the tag on the bag. I cut two different snowflakes, then layered them together. Then I decided they were too white so I distressed them with some Ranger Distress Inks and added a MM rhinestone brad in the middle. Then I decided it still needed something so I added some Platinum Stickles and that did the trick. I used the Slice to cut out the snowflakes, the circle tag, and the tag piece at the top. Fun, pretty, and oh, so easy!

I'm getting very excited for the A Muse Cupcake Social coming up on Friday. I'll be taking the Copic Certification class during the day, too. I have a very full, busy weekend ahead but there will be lots of pics to share afterward. I can't believe I get to meet so many of my A Muse peeps!

Sneak Peek

My day yesterday consisted of back to back football games with my kids. My youngest son plays flag football and my oldest son plays tackle. My oldest son's team was in their championship game of the survivor tournament and I think we are all still recovering from the most fabulous game....EVER!!! I have never seen these boys fight so hard, play so hard, and so many of them (including my son) had their best game of the season. It got down to the last 30 seconds of the game when the opposing team won what we thought was their winning touchdown and extra point. Well, we had 10 seconds on the clock and had to return a punt and knew it had to be a punt return for a touchdown, with the extra point to win. Our returner ran his little heart out and MADE A TOUCHDOWN!!! But, we didn't make the extra point so we tied. I had been jumping up and down on wet bleachers (did I tell you it was pouring down rain?) and went right down on my butt but popped right back up to cheer some more. Went into double overtime (which is just each team getting a chance to make a touchdown) when the refs called it a tie. Wow, what a fabulous effort! I can't stop smiling when I think about it.

So enough about that, you want to see more sneak peeks. Only one more sleep before you can get your inky little hands on your very own Cupcake Builder and Baking clear sets from A Muse. Here's one more bit of eye candy for you while you wait:

Now I don't want to mislead you by letting you think there's a left and right oven mitt. There's only one mitt. To make the other, I simply inked the mitt and stamped it onto my Big Bl rectangle stamp by A Muse (a mirror image stamp or any other flat, solid stamp will do) and then immediately stamped that onto some cardstock. I then traced the lines with my Copic multiliner to make it look nice and sharp. The cookie sheet was made with a small piece of metallic silver cardstock that I scored at one end.

I'm off to a stamp camp today and I'm gonna charge up my new Making Memories Slice while I'm gone. I wasn't going to buy that little machine but the LSS owner talked me into it. It wasn't too hard....LOL. I'm still the Master of Procurement after all!

Sneak Peek #2

Here's another Sneak Peek at the upcoming A Muse Clear Cupcake Builder set scheduled for release on Nov 3rd. Remember, if you are in the Seattle area, A Muse is selling tickets to their Cupcake Social where you can meet a huge number of the Creative Team and get this cupcake set for free! Click here to get your ticket. I've received several emails and read blog postings about some folks coming to this event...I'm so excited to see you there!

This peek pairs up the retired Party Flags image with Party Chick and a cupcake. I added a little white pom-pom to Party Chick's hat.

Sneak Peek!

Mmmmmm......don't you just love cupcakes? I don't know about you but I can never get enough cupcake images. With the new A Muse Cupcake builder set, though, you'll never run out of combinations or ideas! This set is scheduled to release on Nov. 3. Be sure to make the rounds on the blogs of the A Muse Creative Team to see more sneaky peekies!

Tilda with Lantern

I love the Tilda and Edwin stamps from Magnolia. Their 'look' just really appeals to me. They are so soft and sweet and I want to own them all. But alas, they come from Sweden and they are a little expensive. Still, I had to break down and get a couple of them. I am in an image swap, though, so I hope to have more images to color soon.

This little Tilda with Lantern image was so much fun to color. I spent a lot of time browsing over Claudia's blog to see how she colors her images and puts her cards together. It took me a long time to color this image. I don't think I can give this card away because of that. I love to color with my colored pencils, though, because it's therapeutic for me. I'm so glad I took those coloring classes from Karen Lockhart! I had a hard time fitting a sentiment in. Anything I tried covered up part of the image. I decided to just ink the sentiment from the A Muse Peace & Cheer set and emboss it with clear EP.

What do you think?

Supplies: notecard base by Rubber Soul; Patterned Paper from MME's Snowed In collection; Swiss Red from A Muse; Chocolate Chip from SU; felt ric rac from Morex; poinsettia leaves, flower, brad from Making Memories; Images: Tilda with Lantern from Magnolia, sentiment from A Muse Peace & Cheer set

Amuseapalooza ATC Swap

Recently I participated in an Amuseapalooza ATC swap. I just got my swaps back this past week and they were fabulous! Everyone did a wonderful job. I thought I'd share my ATC with you since there were multiple groups and if you weren't in mine, you have no idea what mine looked like.





I love ATCs because they are so cute and tiny. Participating in ATC swaps are great because they serve as a wonderful source of inspiration without taking up a lot of space. I was in a Halloween ATC swap as well and am waiting for those to arrive so I can share them with you, too.

Hey, if you are in the Seattle area or even if you aren't but need an excuse to come to Seattle, has A Muse got the deal for you! A Muse is hosting a Cupcake Social on Nov 7th from 7-9pm. Much of the Creative Team will be in town so take advantage of this opportunity to meet them (us) by purchasing one of a limited number of tickets to the social event of the year! Plus, you'll get a not-yet released clear Cupcake Builder set for FREE! I've been diligently working on my sneak peeks so keep an eye out toward the end of the week for some fun, yummy eye candy! Purchase your tickets here

And...as promised I dropped my A Muse 2009 Calendar off at Stampin-In-The Rain yesterday so stop on by to take a look. All of the samples for my November classes are at the store. I would love to see you.

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.

Class schedule updated!

My class schedule has been updated! There are samples up in the store (Stampin-In-The-Rain) for all but the CD Calendar class. I had to get new printer ink before I could finish that one up. I'll have it there by the weekend.

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!)

Stamp Club Projects

I'm not in a Stampin Up Stamp Club any more but I've been spending more time with my friend, Lisa (I know a lot of Lisa's!) who is in an SU Stamp Club. Last night, it was her turn to host so I attended. We had some really nice projects to work on but I always take projects home and tweak them to work for me. It can cost a lot for demos to provide materials to make cards really fancy, which I totally understand, and they have to gear them to appeal to the group as a whole. I think this particular pair of demos did an outstanding job with their designs. But I still tweaked some of them. LOL

I don't have any pictures of what the demos' cards looked like but here's what I turned them into.



For this card, I added some retired SU Apple Cider designer paper (DSP). The camera didn't pick it up but on the DSP, you'll see lines of small dots. I added some sparkle to those small dots with my Sakura Glitter Pen. On the word 'Fabulous' I also added some sparkle using the glitter pen. The center of the flower has some glitter on it so IRL (in real life), this card has just a little sparkle to it! I was lucky that they used a set I already own because the sentiment was not part of the original design.



This design was my favorite card, I think. I didn't change a thing!



This card used a technique I'm not familiar with. I don't even know what it's called. The large flower was already stamped onto the black cardstock with white craft ink. We colored over the top of the white craft ink with Prismacolor pencils, then outlined everything with a white gel pen. If anyone knows the name of this technique, would you let me know? This design, I totally tweaked. Actually, they had this mounted with the olive paper of the first card but I liked it with the Really Rust. I also used some of the flower images from the Fabulous Flower set and randomly stamped them all over the rust cardstock. I added the sentiment and flourish from Fancy Flexible Phrases (ret.) and outlined the black oval and Kiwi Kiss strip with my gold Sharpie.



This last card was another favorite of all our projects. I love the design elements and the Tangerine Tango with the Chocolate Chip. It's just so warm and yummy! I stamped the scallop square image by just inking everything but the center sentiment. I saved that for when I got home. Everything else followed the original design by the demos. The sentiment I added is from Happy Harmony (ret.) plus I added a few A Muse Micro Twinkle Dot stickers to fill some dead space. I had used my Stamp-A-Majig but still managed to leave too much space below the sentiment. A little bling fixed that right away!

So there you go! That's what I did last night. I had a lot of fun. It was nice that my friend's stamp club meets just a few blocks away from my house.

Tomorrow I'll be sharing a Saltbox card with you.

Winter Girl

I realize we are getting closer and closer to Halloween but I have been in the Christmas mood. No, not doing any shopping yet, but definitely in the mood to make Christmas cards. I just love Winter Girl so I thought I'd feature her today. I used my Marvy tag punches, which I keep putting in the 'gotta go' pile but then keep pulling out to use 'one more time.' LOL. Guess that means I'd better keep them around. The punches I have are the old button style, though, and I think that's why they drive me crazy. One of these days I'll break down and buy them in the lever style. I've been too busy buying Martha Stewart punches (you NEED the new Scallop Dot border punch, by the way).

Hope you're all having a great day. I'm busily working on my Gift Tag book for one of my classes on the next quarter's schedule at Stampin-In-The-Rain. I'll be updating my blog with my new classes soon.