My next class is Saturday, September 15th at the A Muse Studio Retail Shop. I hope you'll be able to join us to make some really fun Halloween and Fall cards because as evidenced by my recent trip to Target, Halloween and fall are right around the corner! Eegads! I'm not ready for summer to end!





















Since the Halloween candy sections are also popping up, we'll follow up this fun card class with a Halloween Treats project class. I'll show you how to make some really cute and simple treat holders that you can easily adapt to any holiday, or even no holiday at all!

Now when I hold back to back classes, my "regulars" like to have lunch together, so if you're interested in ordering a Vietnamese sandwich for lunch, let me know! They are cheap and super tasty. Nom Nom!

Hope you can make it! I would love to see you. In October, I'll be holding a calendar class so you can get a head start on making them for all of your friends. Check my Class Schedule page for details on how to get signed up for these fabulous classes.

I'm so excited to have had the opportunity to get my hands on some of the latest products in the 2012 A Muse Studio Holiday Catalog. I set right to work designing my next few classes, starting with this one! Come join me for some Holiday Hoopla on Saturday, August 18th from 11:30am to 1:30pm at the A Muse Shop in Greenwood. We'll make 4 holiday cards and a fun mini pizza box to get your creativity started. Call the shop directly to reserve your spot. See my Class Schedule page for details.

I've also designed my next two classes, which will be held on September 15th. There will be two classes, back to back, with a short lunch break in-between. We'll be focusing on Fall and Halloween themes. Save the date!

Quick Post, Quick Card

The Fourth of July is right around the corner so I thought I'd play with Lady Liberty. A clean, simple, and definitely quick card to make. I love this Pistachio colored cardstock! It's such a soft and yummy color. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to play with some more Fourth of July stuff but it's been really busy for me in my day job and I've got some baking to do. Thanks for checking in!

It's been so busy at work for me lately, that I haven't had a chance to do any crafting. I made this card a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd share it with you. Not everyone is a cat person, including myself, but one can still appreciate the imagery because I'm sure we've all seen a cat ready to pounce on a mouse, a bird, or a butterfly at some point, even if it was on TV or in a movie.

To create this card, I stamped the flower field image from the 'Sunny side of Life' cling set using A Muse Studio's Sugar pigment ink, then stamped the butterfly from the same stamp set and the cat from the 'At Least One Cat' cling set. I embossed it all with white EP. I did use my Static Buddy prior to any of my stamping to keep the EP from getting everywhere. Heat setting from the underside can help that problem, too, but I think I was a little lazy this time. Layered the Cobalt onto some Papaya cardstock and wrapped some lovely Papaya satin ribbon around it. The button came from my button stash. I think I need A Muse to make/sell wood buttons now. A little twine keeps the button from lookin' nekkid.

Anyway, back to the rat race. My kids have 2 more days of school and then I can sleep in for one more hour every day until summer's over. Hooray! Can't wait!

Next class is this Saturday, June 23rd at the A Muse shop. If you aren't signed up already, make sure you do!

One of my nieces graduated high school this weekend. I had made a cookie bouquet for another event and had some cookie dough and royal icing left over, so I thought I'd make her a graduation cookie bouquet in her high school's colors. The first bouquet I made for the other event, I had my friend arrange for me. She's a former florist. So she's good at it. I'm not good at it. I arranged these. Most were leaning forward. When I walked into my kitchen to grab the box on the way out the door, I noticed 2 of the cookies had fallen off their sticks. Right after I presented it, fallen cookies and all, another one fell off its stick. haha! Not to worry. I've run over Christmas presents before and they've forgiven me so what's a few cookies that have fallen off their sticks?! It's the thought that counts, right?

















I also got my new Stampin Up catalog this weekend. While I rarely order anything from SU these days, I do like to have the catalog for inspiration. I found this lovely idea at the bottom of p. 38. While the catalog was for a wedding set and they used sparklers in the envelope, I thought I'd make a graduation wand. You could put some money inside the envelope, too. That said, I gave my niece a store bought card. It just happened to say exactly the words I would want to say to her, which was essentially, you'll hear lots of inspiring speeches but just be true to yourself, be yourself, and success will surely come.

I recently ordered a milk carton die made by a well known manufacturer. I love it! It's really cute, but it's pretty tiny. I wanted a bigger carton, so using the same format as the die, I just made a bigger carton with a piece of cardstock and my scoring tool. Voilà! I have my desired carton size. Since I don't have the new mustache set from A Muse, I used the old one, Foiled Again! I also die cut a scalloped circle from my Petite Dot Cherry cardstock, a plain circle from Sleepy Hollow cardstock, then stamped, embossed, and trimmed the mustache and attached it with foam tape to the circle. I then taped the circle to the fun paper party straw from my stash with some lime green washi tape. I loooove me some washi tape!

For one of the days during Teacher Appreciation week, I actually purchased some new, unused milk cartons from a shop nearby full of random goodies, and filled it with mini homemade chocolate chip cookies. Takes milk and cookies to a whole new level, don't you think?

How do you close this carton, you say? Well! I purchased some small metal binder clips from one of my favorite stores, Tarjay (Target), then wrapped some washi tape over the metal binding. Close up the top, clip on the binder clip, and off you go! You could probably glue it shut, too, but where's the cute in that?

I just love it when the sun comes out to play. It inspires me to create. I've really been leaning toward clean and simple designs with a lot of white space lately. For this card, I cut a square of Sugar cardstock, put some strips of double stick tape across it, peeled off the backing, then covered it with some yummy Bubblegum pink glitter. I took another piece of Sugar cardstock, trimmed it to my liking, die cut the largest A Muse butterfly die out of the center and stamped a pretty sentiment underneath it. I took that pretty bubblegum glittered piece of cardstock and glued it behind the opening created by the die. Layered that whole thing onto some lime cardstock and popped it into a Sugar 4-bar notecard.

Of course you could always purchase some glittered cardstock to make life easier, but it's just not as fun, is it? haha! Now go create something fun!