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.

Stampin-In-The-Rain

I teach classes at a fun little shop called Stampin-In-The-Rain. Actually, the shop isn't so little any more. The shop has moved to a larger location, still within Bothell Country Village in Bothell, WA. Kim, the owner of Stampin-In-The-Rain, has a well stocked array of all your stamping needs and is more than happy to order anything she doesn't have if she can get her hands on it for you. Her shop is well known for great customer service.


Bothell Country Village is a fabulous destination site if you are visiting the Seattle area. It's full of quaint specialty shops, some catering to a country decor. Don't mistake that for dowdy, though. These shops are more shabby chic. There are some great little eateries like the Country Cafe, Stella Mia, and my favorite Susan's Sweets, which is occupies the old space that Stampin-In-The-Rain had.

















This picture is of what is to the left of Stampin-In-The-Rain. I wanted to show you how beautiful the walking areas are. This leads to the courtyard area where there is a little pond where you can feed the ducks. There's also an open area where they frequently hold special events. This quaint little shopping village even has train rides for your kids! So much fun!

I have two classes scheduled in October at Stampin-In-The-Rain. One is on Thurs, Oct 2 and the other on Sunday, Oct 12. Both are for Halloween themed cards. My samples are up in the shop if you want to take a look but here is one of the cards we will be making in the class on the 19th. I would love to have you join us. Contact the store directly for details...the number is under my class schedule on the right side bar.

Trees!!!

Have you been enjoying the sneak peeks over on the A Muse News blog of the new Trees I and Trees II sets? I'm telling you, you have got to get these! They are so much more fun than I'd ever imagined them to be. Look at how quickly and simply I created this holiday card?! Just a moss notecard, the topiary tree image plus the circles (two separate stamps and they are clear so you can get them positioned just right!), the solid bird, and a sentiment. Top it all off with a little bling from the Twinkle Dots and there you go! This card would be so easy to mass produce, too.

Head over here to get your own set of trees. Happy Stamping!

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Did you know today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day? It all started with two guys from Oregon. I found some background on Wikipedia about it. Well, Tisha thought it would be great if us A Muse gals had a little fun with it so head on over to the A Muse New Blog to see what we came up with!

Here's my contribution:

This little project was so fun and easy! I bought a $1 frame at Michaels and painted it with a sponge brush and some black paint. Once that dried I stamped the 'skull & crossbones' stamp using embossable white ink. Then I sprinkled some embossing powder on it and heat set it. I did the same thing with the 'beware!' sentiment. My kids don't actually like dressing up on Halloween so I don't have any pictures of little ones in pirate costumes. My youngest son suggested I put some cardstock in the center so I did. Too cute! Oops, I mean scary! LOL

My '09 Calendar and a Sneak Peek

I finally got my '09 calendar done and thought I'd share a few pages with you, along with a sneak peek of the new Trees sets on the front cover. I cut some heavy chipboard into 4.5" squares but if I did this over again, I'd probably make them 5" and the inner pages 4.5". I then covered the cover pages with some pretty paper from October Afternoon, both inside and out. The inside pages are all from the same line. I pulled out my seldom used Bind-It-All and put it all together.





I added red circles on important dates using the line of circles from the Personal Stationery set. It's an easy way to add a visual reminder that there's an important day ahead.



If you turn the calendar around, there is a perpetual calendar for each month where I noted holidays, birthdays, and special days.




So what do you think of the new trees set(s)? These are much more fun to use than I ever imagined.

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.

Break's over!

I took myself a little blog break for a couple of reasons. One, I didn't really have anything to blog about. Two, I got swamped at work. Three, I just have been really distracted. But....my blog break's over! I have been busy stamping but it's mostly been stuff I can't share yet. You'll see one of them later this week over on the A Muse blog.

So today I'm sharing a Halloween card using my newest Crafty Secrets clear stamps. I only have 2 Crafty Secrets sets with a huge wishlist for more. I love the vintage images!!! I hope they come to CK-Bellevue again this November so I can pick up some fun stuff. Anyway, I got this fun little Halloween set from Anna Wight (aka SweetMissDaisy).

Now, today A Muse has released the new 2008-2009 Calendar. The fantastic thing about this is that through your purchase of the calendar download, 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this calendar goes to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Leukemia is very near and dear to my heart as I lost a very favorite cousin to it in 2002. Please click here to get all the scoop on how you can help by making your purchase. I hope to offer a Calendar class in the very near future.

I've updated my class schedule as well so be sure to take a look. I have some fun Halloween classes coming up. Samples for the Oct 2 class are already up at Stampin-In-The-Rain.

It's been 7 years

My post today is to honor those whose lives were lost on this day, 7 years ago. My thoughts and prayers are with those who were left behind and for those whose lives were so deeply affected by this horrific event in history.

My friend, Joanne (aka SleepyinSeattle) made this card 2 years ago. I think it speaks volumes.

God Bless America.

More ATCs

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday. I was very busy. I had an ADT representative over and signed a contract for some security service. I'm very excited for this. We have had a slew of break-ins in our neighborhood and it just leaves me feeling very unsafe. My friend down the street got broken into while she was on vacation and a I really don't want to go through that. My SIL also had her lumpectomy yesterday. Our days have been filled with a lot of worry and concern for her as she struggles through this chapter in her life but we know she is in God's hands and He is the Great Healer. Cancer was found in her sentinel lymph node so more have been removed and will be tested. What they find will determine her course of treatment. So, keep thinking happy thoughts for her!






Today I'm sharing another ATC. Again, this is not one of my swaps but is a prototype that I made just for fun. I'm going to get myself a 7 Gypsies ATC revolving holder one of these days since I participated in 2 ATC swaps before and am in 2 now. Can't wait til my LSS gets more in stock so I can use my coupon! Man, I love the new spider web from A Muse!

Fun ATCs

So I signed up for two ATC groups with Lee Anne but I can't stop making them! This week I'm going to share some fun ATCs I created. Some of them I like more than others but I'm going to share them all anyway. Keep in mind, these are my prototypes. This means I put them together, often using scraps so you might see lines where two scraps of the same color meet. I won't share the ATCs I created for my swaps until everyone in the swap has received their stuff.

For this fun little ATC I used a base of black notecard sized 3.5" x 2.5." On that I layered some lime peel notecard sized 3.25 x 2.25. Then I cut a strip of black cardstock using my grass decorative scissors by Paper Shapers to mimic the hairline of Frankie. I stamped the Costume shop directly onto the lime peel, then stamped Frankie on a separate piece of white cardstock and trimmed it to a tag. I layered that onto some gray cardstock, colored in the image, added the sentiment (just used the eek! part of the eeeeek! sentiment), and added some ribbon.

Now go make some ATCs. Better yet, make sure you are signed up for the ATC swap!

Halloween ATC swap

I had a busy weekend that didn't include much stamping time. What time I had I used to make some Halloween ATCs for a swap being hosted by Lee Anne. If you're interested in participating, sign up over here . She's already up to the 4th group!

My kids go back to school tomorrow. One goes off to orientation today, the other has a meet-n-greet with this teacher. I imagine I'll be quite busy for the next day or two making sure everyone has everything in order. I'll get back here when I can.

In the meantime, check out that ATC swap and get yerself signed up!