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.

You Rock!

Today I had to make 3 birthday cards for a party. My nieces Cassi (14) and Sabrina (9), along with my great-nephew Max (4), celebrated their birthday at the local roller skating rink. Cutie pie Max turned 4 and I found a fun little pirate Playmobil set for him and thought my little Errol stamp from The Cat's Pajamas would make a great card for him. I had some cute pirate wrapping paper that I bought at Target so I used some to make the card, having got the idea from Leigh O'Brien's blog. I kept things pretty simple because he is 4, after all, and could care less what the card looks like. I actually drew in the planks and the side of the boat with a Copic multiliner and a ruler.




Now this card, that I made for Sabrina, looks a lot better in person than I could capture in the photo. I used a combination of the blue kitchen paper from A Muse, Pink paper from Stampin Up, the butterflies and sentiment from Inkadinkado, and the flourish trail behind the small butterflies from Memory Box. Princess Sabrina loves glitter so I made sure to sparkle up the butterflies for her.

The piece-de-resistance, though, is the card I made for Cassi. I put a lot of effort into her card because she's a little older and she really enjoys stamping with me from time to time so I knew she would appreciate it. Before she opened it I told her I worked really hard on her card and she wasn't allowed to throw it away....ever. haha. She loved it just like I thought she would. For this card I used Stampin Up papers (with exception of the A Muse black kitchen). This 'Just Jawing' set is the only set I've purchased from the new catalog and I got it when a friend had a party. I love it! The awesome background stamp is from B-Line Designs. Isn't it cool?! Inside, I tucked in an iTunes card.

ETA: the scalloped punch is one of the new Martha Stewart border punches. It's called Scallop Dot.

I'm a brat and I'm proud of it!

If you follow the A Muse News blog you know A Muse has teamed up with Operation Troop Aid to put a handmade card of appreciation into the hands of as many deployed military men and women as possible. A Muse is calling their part in the effort Operation Hero Mail. I am so proud to be a part of this because I'm a brat....a Navy brat, and I'm proud of it! My father served a 20year career in the United States Navy and fought in the Korean War. Many of his brothers also served some time in various branches of the military and one of them, his oldest brother, died in World War 2.

Won't you join in the effort to support our troops by participating in Operation Hero Mail? A Muse has created several card-making kits that make it fun and easy to do so. Stay tuned and watch for details to be released on the A Muse blog sometime today and show your support by purchasing one of these kits.

Sorry about the poor lighting in the picture! It's not quite sunny yet.

Halloween

I was browsing through the Splitcoast gallery last night and was intrigued by this card. I liked that the colors were a little different and not the traditional Halloween black and orange combo. I also liked that it wasn't really juvenile and I thought to myself...."Hmmm, I bet I could adapt this to some A Muse stamps." I also had this card of Heather's in mind when I created this.

I used my Martha Stewart Bat Punch for the bats but they didn't pop off the card like I wanted them to so I put them on top of white cardstock and trimmed them out. Then I mounted the bottom one flat, the second one with 1 dimensional, and the third one with 2 dimensionals so it would appear 3-D. I also used a Quickie glue pen to draw little dots of glue for eyes and sprinkled them with some black glitter. What do you think? Does this work for a 'tween?'

I hope to get a sneak peek posted later or tomorrow for the Operation Hero Mail set so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, check the blogs of the other A Muse Creative Team members and be sure to leave some nice comments. We love to hear from you!

Classes

Just wanted to post a quick reminder of my Halloween class at Stampin-In-The-Rain this Sunday, Oct 12th from 2-4pm. I would love to see you there! Be sure to contact the store directly for details. Here's a sample of one of the cards we will be making...

Have a great day!

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

World Card Making Day

I started off spending World Card Making Day at my youngest son's flag football game. On the way home to get my oldest son dressed for his football game, we stopped at a fast food joint. Not long after, my little guy was complaining of a stomach ache and when we got home, he was getting sick. So, DH ended up taking our oldest son to his football game and I stayed home with the little guy, which is how I ended up actually making cards on WCMD!

Dawn, an A Muse Addict, is collecting cards for the troops. Her nephew is in Iraq and requested some cards to share with his fellow soldiers to send home. I wanted to get as many cards done as I could so I dug through my stash and found some designs that I thought were really easy to replicate and didn't involve a lot of coloring or detail. I ended up making 5 each of 6 different designs. Dawn, you have 30 cards on their way! If you want to participate, click here for details.

Just for fun, I played with the Hero Arts clear sets I recently picked up. Of course, I paired them with A Muse papers.

And one last note...did you know my fellow A Muse Instructor, Michelle Clark, is doing the 3-day for Breast Cancer? I know she could really use your help to reach, and hopefully surpass, her goal this year. I know times are tough but just think.....if everyone just gave her $5, how quickly that could add up! That's just one latte or even one stamp (most cost even more than $5)! If you can help Michelle, you can donate here. If you can't, then just think good thoughts for her to reach her goal.

Have a great week!

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!