Round 1 of A Muse ATC swaps!

This is the first batch of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) I did for the A Muse swap that Taylor is hosting. This was my first time doing ATCs - it was fun! They are really little (2.5x3.5") so they are quick and cute (except when you procrastinate too long on making them, then they aren't as quick as you'd like!). I picked up this cute little cow at Stamp Salado, a fun little stamp store in Salado, TX. They carry quite a few A Muse stamps - only problem is there's no "A Muse Section" of the store, so I had to go around looking for ones that looked A Muse-ish and checking the labels. :-) But it turns out I'm fairly good at recognizing A Muse stamps! They have a certain look to them, and the wood isn't shiny. FYI in case you ever find yourself hunting specifically for A Muse stamps...! :-) I picked this little cow in particular because I love cows! I love cows because I love CHEESE! What would this world be like without CHEESE??? :-) I also liked this silly little A Muse saying - I have a thing for pun sentiments lately! When I was making this card I thought, now wouldn't this cow be fun with some turquoise Stickles?? Who wants a plain holstein - my holstein wanted some BLING! (you can see the bling a little better if you click on the image to enlarge) The cardstock is SU Real Red, Basic Black & Whisper White, and the gingham ribbon is SU as well. The polka dot paper is from a very cool slab of My Mind's Eye paper that my AWESOME friend Diane found for me at Costco! (I saw it on another blog and sent her on a mission to find it, since I don't have a membership - she "enabled" me, herself and two other friends! Yeah Diane!!) The slab is HUGE, so you'll be seeing lots and lots of My Mind's Eye paper on future projects!

And by the way... if you're interested in joining an A Muse ATC swap yourself, Taylor is hosting another one and last I looked there were still spots available...

Flower Friday!

I haven't been stamping anything other than swap-fodder, and none of that has been flower themed, so you're getting a photo from my yard today! My purple coneflower (aka echinacea) is blooming like mad right now. Perhaps you've heard about all the rain we've had in central Texas lately? Thankfully I haven't been impacted by any flooding, but my garden doesn't know what to make of all this moisture! I try to plant all Texas native, low water type of plants. They've never had this much to drink in June before!! The weeds are happy too - my garden is a complete weedy disaster right now, and I haven't had any time to get out there and work on it! We're having people over for a July 4th cookout next week, so my goal is have a slightly less embarrassing yard by then...! The bees are happy too - these coneflowers are absolutely covered with bees! Somewhere there's a hive with some nice echinacea scented honey!

Well I finished my ATC swaps, finally!! I'll post them later this weekend. I had to overnight them so they'll be there by Monday. I am feeling a bit sick about how much this darn swap has cost me - all that money I paid on postage that I would much rather have spent in the new SU catalog!! But I didn't want to break my commitment. Hopefully it will teach me a lesson about not procrastinating!! So I got home from FedEx feeling really bummed (it was also a VERY difficult day with my son, who didn't want to eat lunch, nap or do much of anything other than have mommy hold him!), checked my email and found that I had won a category in the demonstrator swap I joined!!! The Zoofari card I posted a couple days ago won "workshop wow"!!! WOW is right! I am so excited, I've never won anything based on my stamping before!!!! And my wonderful upline Kathy Rocco (my upline's upline's upline's upline, actually!) is giving me a $30 SU gift certificate!!!! So that makes up for my shipping fiasco. :-)

I am completely exhausted - I plan to curl up with my catalog for a bit (still haven't REALLY looked through it!) and go to sleep early tonight! I am still horrifically behind on reading all my favorite blogs, and it's completely bumming me out! I really hope to get back in the swing of things this weekend, I miss being up to date on what all of you in blogland are up to! :-) I also have received some AWESOME raks & blog candy in the mail recently - I need to get my act together and give shout-outs on those too!! And hopefully I'll even be able to stamp a little this weekend...without any deadlines looming! And I hope you can too!! Have a nice weekend! :-)

It's here! It's here! It's here!!!!!

Ok I'm being a VERY bad girl right now - my son is napping and I *really* should be taking advantage of this time to finish my ATC swaps! And that's what I *was* doing, until I heard a noise outside that sounded very much like the UPS truck pulling away...!! I let out a squeal, RAN to the front door, and was thrilled to find a catalog-shaped box sitting there! Can you believe I paused long enough to take this photo before tearing into it??? But tear into it I did - I've only taken a quick spin through the catalog, because I *REALLY* need to go back in my stamp room and crank out those ATCs... but from my quick peek I can truly say I LOVE IT!!!!! Ok I'm going to post some SPOILERS - don't read any further if you don't want to know anything until you open your own! Some of my favorite mini catalog items made it in - Carte Postale, French Flair, Doodle This (of course!!), Bundle of Joy - more than I expected, honestly! There's some great new baby sets, masculine sets, animal sets - for my fellow Texans, a wheel with LONGHORNS! And the thing I'm most excited about at the moment - I was totally bummed when they retired By Definition a couple years back and didn't give a good substitute, and now this year they got rid of French Script! Well there are great new "Friend By Definition" and "En Francais" backgrounds!! So I am happy! Those will probably end up on my first order! Yeah!!!! I'm so excited. Usually when I get the new catalog, I spend hours devouring it - first pass as is, next pass with my post-its to mark things I love, third pass actually filling in a wish list... *sigh* This time I actually have to set it aside *gasp* and go back to work on those ATCs!!!! (but I did take a few minutes to post about it... I'm such a blog-addict!) :-)

One down, two to go...!

Recognize this card?? I posted it a little while back - I designed it for a Preview Brochure demonstrator swap I'm participating in. In the end I simplified it just a bit to make it more mass-producable! (although they did take forever to color!!) I had *hoped* to get these done before our trip to Michigan, but when I started feeling rotten, that didn't happen! They were due at 8pm last night, so of course I was finishing them yesterday afternoon during my son's nap! But, luckily it was a local swap so I delivered them with a few hours to spare! But now I'm in a bit of trouble - I have two more A Muse ATC swaps due next Monday, and these have to be shipped to California!! Looks like I'll be stamping them tonight and probably paying to overnight them on Thursday or Friday! Darn it, this is turning into an expensive swap!! But, I'll end up with some ATCs made by one of my stamping idols, Taylor, plus some other very talented ladies - so hopefully it's all worth it. :-) I'll share my ATCs on here once I make them!

On a non-papercrafting note, you may have noticed the photo of my current book club book over to the left, The Historian. I finished it last night - I have to say I really loved it! It's actually about vampires, Dracula to be exact, so it's probably not for everyone. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I've had a thing for vampire stories for quite a while now, ever since Anne Rice mesmerized me with her Vampire Chronicles back in college. :-) I also love history (although I'm really bad about taking as fact too much of the "history" when I'm reading fiction!!) and traveling, and this book visits places I've been in western Europe as well as Eastern European countries I hope to visit someday - Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey. This was definitely a page-turner for me! :-)

Oops...

I meant to also add - I am feeling better! Thanks for your super sweet comments before I left, I really appreciated that! I'm so thankful for the blogger friends I've made over the past couple of months! It's interesting how some of us are really getting to "know" each other from reading each others' posts. Such a cool little stamping community!!! Thanks again!

The break is over!!!

Well I'm back!! We've been in Michigan for the past week, enjoying the WONDERFUL weather and visiting our family who lives way too far away. It had been too long since Carter last saw his grandparents and aunts and uncles!! We spent some time with my family in Clio, Joel's sister in Lake Orion, and also rented a cottage for a few days in Au Gres, right on beautiful Lake Huron! My parents & Gramma came to the cottage with us, so we could enjoy the lake while still getting in as much time with family as possible! Carter was in absolute heaven - such a huge sandbox to play in! :-) And even though he's wearing his floatie vest in this photo, he didn't especially love going in the water - it was way too cold! (I don't blame him, I didn't venture in there either!) Most of the time was spent just relaxing, reading, enjoying the view and listening to the waves hitting the shore, but we also got to take in a few sites - Iargo Springs with a gorgeous overlook of the Au Sable river, the Lumberman's Monument, and the Tawas Lighthouse pictured in the photo below. We also had to do a couple of "traditional" Michigan things - stopping for cheese in Pinconning, and buying some saltwater taffy made on Mackinac Island! (although I thought it should be freshwater taffy, not saltwater?!?) All in all, a very nice little vacation! It's going to take me a few days to get back in the blog groove - I have to get things made for 3 different swaps that are due this week (eek!) as well as clean my filthy house, so not sure when I'll have time to stamp for blog fodder! :-) Plus I am sooooo behind on all the blogs I read, it's going to take me forever to catch up! Ok, I better go & get some things done so I'm one step closer to STAMPING!!! Hope to share something with you soon.........! :-)

Taking a break...

Hi my sweet blogging friends! Just wanted to let you know that I won't be posting for a little while! *GASP*!!! I haven't been feeling great the past couple days, and then starting on Saturday I won't have access to my computer for a week. I will surely go through withdrawal - I'll miss the nice comments you leave here, and I'll especially miss all the many blogs I check daily. Already today I haven't had time to check but a few, and my Reader is already up the 61 unread posts!!! Oh my! I can't imagine what it will be like after next week! So... please forgive me for not commenting on your blogs for the next little while, but I'll be back in full force shortly!!! Take care & happy stampin'!!

Card (& gift!) idea for your guy...

Do you have as much trouble coming up with masculine cards as I do?? A large portion of my stamp supply is focused on flowers or babies, so that makes it difficult! I came up with this idea for my friend Dean's birthday a little while back. Dean has some excellent internet businesses if you're ever looking for fun gifts, especially for the men in your life: pewter, beer steins, pub glasses, dominoes, washers!! So many awesome gift ideas, most of which can be personalized as well - check them out! (and I keep saying "gift" ideas, but obviously the gift can be for yourself too!!! LOL!) So of course I had to make a beer-related card for Dean! And I was rather proud of myself for creating a beer mug out of the Treat Yourself set! (a set that is, of course, retiring - as are nearly ALL of my favorite SU sets!!) This week I recreated the card using the gorgeous new In Color Wild Wasabi as the card base! I thought Purely Pomegranate would be my favorite of the new colors, and while I do love it - I have to say that I am just WILD about Wild Wasabi! :-) The other cardstock colors are Brocade Blue and So Saffron. The DP is SU's Sarah. I absolutely love the foam I created using Liquid Applique! Doesn't it just make your mouth water?? (assuming you enjoy a cold one...!) The "shadow" beneath the glass is the super cool Skinny Oval stamp from A Muse, and the sentiment is stamped, of course, with my beloved Karen Foster snap stamps (see I told you being in demo mode and using SU-only wouldn't last long!)! Ok I'm thirsty, gotta go! Thanks for looking!

Goin' on a Zoofari!

Poor little Zoofari, it's not getting very much love! Some think the snake looks like it's smokin' weed, others think the birds look constipated... whatever! I think this set is adorable! (but I also happen to think those two previous observations are hilarious!) Maybe I love it because I'm still in baby mode - yes my "baby" is almost a year and a half and hardly a baby anymore, but he's still my baby! And my friends can't seem to stop having babies... So anyway, I love this sweet little Zoofari set, and if you are one of the many that hates it, you may not be liking a lot of stuff on my blog in the next month!! LOL! Tonight I was trying to figure out a card to do for a demonstrator swap I've signed up for. My upline's upline's upline's upline is hosting - the fabulous and talented Kathy Rocco, if you happen to know her. :-) I will probably end up doing something like this, but not this exactly - for one thing, I don't have enough brads! :-) In addition to Zoofari, I also played with the Hugs & Wishes sentiment set, and also the new In Color papers!!!! I AM LOVING THEM!! This card has Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and Wild Wasabi, and also the Soft Sky Prints DP. I colored in the little rhino using the squished lid ink from the Blue Bayou pad and my aquapainter, and then sponged on a little Wild Wasabi. The faux stitching is done with the paper piercing template & a white gel pen, and the ribbons are all SU. This is the first time in ages I've used all SU products on a card!! I'm trying to get back into Demonstrator Mode! Ok, right... don't count on that lasting! But it's required for this swap... :-) Have a great Monday everyone, thanks for looking!

Flower Friday!

Oh how I love orchids!! I've tried to grow them in pots, but I always end up killing them. I have two gorgeous orchid pots in my livingroom right now, but they are both FAKE! That's the only way I can have an orchid! But back in the summer of 2002, I spent 10 weeks over in Malaysia for work. From the orchid perspective, it was pure HEAVEN! Orchids LOVE the high humidity climate of Malaysia. These photos were taken at the Orchid Gardens in Kuala Lumpur. Yes, orchid GARDENS!! So many different colorful orchids to look at. I LOVED it! They had a little market there where you could buy orchids for next to nothing (in US dollars!) so since I was stuck there for so long, I bought a few to brighten up my hotel room! I gave them to one of my friends at the factory when my assignment was over and it was time to come home. I sure wish I knew how to grow an orchid here! And by the way, has anyone ever seen an orchid stamp? I would love to have one - if you know of one, let me know what company makes it so maybe I can track one down for myself! :-)

And if you're thinking "wow she has been to a lot of places" - it's very true, I have. I feel very fortunate to have done all the traveling I've done, both for work & pleasure - all before having my son. I think our world traveling days are over for a while! But now I want to spend family vacation time seeing more of the US and Canada, there are MANY wonderful places we've never been on this continent! Thanks for stopping by & have a great weekend!

More Hot Stuff!

I had fun playing with my new My Favorite Things set Hot Stuff tonight! This set really makes me crave coffee - but something about drinking it in Texas in the summer when it's a zillion degrees out... I just can't do it! I need to go get myself some ice coffee (or better yet, a Frappucino! Yummm!). Anyway... tonight I colored in my girl but then was stumped on a layout, so I turned to this week's SCS Featured Stamper, Tosha (aka stamps4funinCA). Her gallery is AMAZING, so many GORGEOUS cards! I picked this beauty - I didn't even come close to replicating what she did, but it did inspire my layout. I also finally used some of my yummy new Martha ribbon from Michaels - love it! The polka dot DP on this card is the Loves Me paper from SU's winter mini this past year. Cardstock colors are Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, and I used Chocolate Chip to mat. I used my Creative Memories wavey cutter thingie that I bought ages ago to cut out that side element. The Hot Stuff girl is colored in with my Prismacolors & blended with odorless mineral spirits (aka gamsol) and a stump. One thing that I need to make a note for myself so I'll remember to do it in the future is to stamp my image in BROWN when I'm focusing on brown on my card! I NEVER remember to do that - major mental block on that. It bugged me when I realized what I had done, but not enough to redo it! :-)

And I know I said I'd do a card with photo corners next, but that just hasn't happened yet! I'm still excited about them though... :-)

Thanks for checking out my new card today!!!

New In Colors - in case ya missed it...

People are starting to post creations with the new SU stamp sets & In Color inks and papers... I'm getting really jealous!! I pre-ordered a bunch of stuff, but I didn't pay for expedited shipping so mine won't arrive until Friday - the anticipation is killing me! Well to help hold me (& you) over, here are some cool things I've found! Both Sharon at Paper Fections and Jeanne at Inky Paws posted excellent color comparisons for the new In Colors! And so far Baroque Motifs seems to be the most popular new stamp set - Jeanne posted some beautiful cards in the same link as the In Colors, Sherry made a gorgeous card using Blue Bayou and River Rock, Sharon posted a beauty here, Lori paired it up expertly with Au Chocolat paper, and Beate posted this absolutely stunning card today! I can't wait to play!!!

A Very Veggie color challenge!

This week's SCS color challenge was to use Elegant Eggplant, Certainly Celery & Ruby Red. The combination turned out to be tougher than I originally thought it would be! In the end I found this Daisy D paper which I thought complimented the colors pretty well. I used a VERY old stamp set, which I *think* is called Very Veggie, but I'm not entirely sure because I bought it a couple years back when my upline was moving to a new house and had a sale to downsize her (massive) stamp collection, and it didn't have a label! It's from SU, 1998! I wasn't sure about cutting out the veggies and putting them directly on the DP like that, usually I'd put them in a little "home" of their own, but I like how this turned out. The stitching is K&Co rub-on, I'm still not brave enough to pull out my Singer. :-) The hardware is from the Aged Copper Hodgepodge set. I made this card to send to a friend who had us over for dinner a few weeks back (and who is probably reading this blog - I need to stop posting before I actually mail things!! I can't help it, I'm an addict! It's truly a sickness.) :-) Have a great Wednesday!!

Four things about me!

I got this in a forwarded email, but thought it might be fun to post on the blog, since we are all still getting to know each other. :-)

Four Things About Me, that you may not have known.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Product Engineer at Motorola/Freescale Semiconductor
2. Biochemistry Lab Assistant at Michigan State University (GO SPARTANS!) :-)
3. Cashier at Wegman's grocery store
4. Cucumber-sorter at a pickle factory

Four movies I have watched over and over
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
3. Four Weddings and a Funeral
4. Mystic Pizza

Four Places I have Lived
1. Austin, TX
2. Rochester, NY
3. Manassas, VA
4. Clio, MI

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Lost
2. Survivor
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. CSI

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Italy
2. France & Belgium
3. Switzerland & Austria
4. Germany

Four favorite foods
1. Cheese in any and every form
2. Grilled veggie sandwich
3. Dumplings in China
4. Gelato in Italy (ok, gelato anywhere!!)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Europe
2. In my stamp room (oops, my studio!)
3. Camping in the woods in Michigan
4. At the Alamo Drafthouse for dinner & a movie

Well that was fun! Thanks for reading if you've made it this far. :-)

Ridiculously easy photo corners!!

Do you ever see something and have a major "NOW WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!!??" moment? I had one of those tonight! I was at Archivers (yes, Diane, yes, Leigh - at Archivers yet AGAIN!!) and one of the wonderful employees there showed me how to make quick and EASY photo corners using square punches! I thought it was just BRILLIANT so I wanted to share it with you all! Maybe I'm just behind the times, who knows, but here goes....

1) Using a scrap piece of paper, punch a square with a small punch (I used 1/2").

















2) Using a larger square punch, center around your original smaller punched out square and punch. (I used SU's 1 3/8").
















3) Take your handy dandy scissors and cut at the corners into two pieces. I just eyeballed it, if you like to be more precise I imagine you could use a ruler & hobby blade, or try to line it up in your trimmer or something.














4) TA-DAAAA!! Easy peasey photo corners!!


I've tried other techniques for making these myself, and they usually come out cockeyed or uneven. This totally worked for me! And if you happen to have a large collection of square punches (*ahem*), the sizes of your photo corners are nearly limitless. :-) So a great big thanks to Jackie at the Archivers in north Austin, she made my night! I'll make a card tomorrow night using photo corners - tonight I actually need to hit the hay early - all of this late-night stamping is starting to catch up with me, I need my beauty sleep. :-) Hope you enjoyed my first-ever blog tutorial, and if you create something cool with these nifty photo corners please link it in the comments so I can take a peek! Happy stampin' ya'll! :-)

Edited to Add: ACK!! Don't know what's up with this awful formatting, it doesn't look like this in my preview & I can't seem to make those big white spaces go away. Sorry about that!

Beate's Challenge is Hot Stuff!

Tonight I tried to do Beate's Weekend Challenge #4, but I didn't completely succeed - Beate had the image stamped on a circle, and I went rectangular. Ah well! I wanted to play with my brand new, hot off the presses Hot Stuff set from My Favorite Things (MFT). Isn't she cute?? Something about this set makes me want to visit Seattle... (or at least head down to my favorite coffee shop in Austin, Mozart's - anyone want to join me??) :-) I've also wanted to try paper piecing for a while now, so I gave it a try. Hmmm. I need to practice that technique, I didn't do a spectacular job with my cutting! Actually to tell the truth, this entire card frustrated me to no end tonight!! I don't know why, I guess maybe my stamping mojo was elsewhere, as they say. I fiddled with this card for a longgg time! But in the end I think it turned out acceptably cute. :-) Cardstock colors are Real Red & Tempting Turquoise, and that brown flowered paper is from a little scrap pack I picked up today in the Target dollar spot. There is paper pieRcing along the patterned paper, but it doesn't show up in this photo! The part of the image not paper pieced was colored with my good ol' SU markers (trying to remember I love these markers, they are perfectly wonderful, I do not need Copic markers I do not need Copic markers I do not need Copic markers...! LOL!). Actually I stamped the image on watercolor paper - I had never colored with my markers on watercolor paper - I liked it!!

So I was looking at my blog earlier and realized a couple things: First, I hadn't posted a new card since Wednesday night! Eek! Hope you all haven't given up on me. :-) And second, I have been completely CRAZY for blue lately!! This card has a lot of red & brown to downplay the blue, but as usual some shade of blue was the first color I reached for. I'm going to make a little goal for myself to try to give all the OTHER colors some love this week....! :-) But I do want to keep playing with this Hot Stuff set, so you'll probably see more cards using this same stamp! And btw, speaking of these stamps, I went to the SCS gallery & searched for it earlier for inspiration. Check out this SUPER DUPER cute card by cwilliams! That mug rack is so clever & cute! And I also love this card that Sherry did. Hopefully the inspiration they've given me will shine through a little more on a future card. :-)

Flower (and Butterfly!) Friday

Back in the spring we took an afternoon drive out to Wildseed Farms, just outside of Fredericksburg, TX. They grow & sell wildflower seeds, so the spring is filled with gorgeous fields of blooming color! We had hoped to see a field of bluebonnets, but we were a little too early for them - instead we were awed by the butterflies! Since our last visit they had built a Butterfly Haus which was just filled with these beauties! These are a few of my favorite photos from our visit. It's kind of easy to get nice butterfly photos when they can't fly too far...! Enjoy!

Tagged Again!

Oops, as soon as I posted I noticed that Susan Liles (Susiestampalot) tagged me as well! Susan is an awesome stamper - I first found out about her work when I stumbled upon this amazing anniversary card she posted on SCS (which some of you have subsequently made at my workshops because it is so striking & I just love it!!). Since then I've been stalking her blog and loving everything I see! So thanks for tagging me Susan - my response is below. :-)

Tag!

Julee over at Poetic Artistry tagged me! Check out Julee's blog, her work is amazing - and she is always making me long for those super cute kitties!! So for this round of tag, I'm supposed to answer these questions about myself with only one word answers - no explanation allowed! So here we go...

Yourself: Creative
Your Partner: Dependable
Your Hair: Disaster
Your Mother: Multitalented
Your Father: Gardener
Your Favorite Item: Stickles
Your Dream Last Night: Huh?
Your Favorite Drink: Margarita
Your Dream Car: Hybrid
Dream Home: Villa
The Room You Are In: Messy
Your Fear: Sharks
Where You Want to be in Ten Years: Published :-)
Who You Hung Out With Last Night: Family
You’re Not: Loud
One of Your Wish List Items: Scallop
The Last Thing You Did: Ribbon
You Are Wearing: Jammies
Your Favorite Weather: Crisp (<-- Julee's answer! But my favorite too!)
Your Favorite Book: Potter
Last Thing You Ate: Berries
Your Life: Good
Your Mood: Sleepy
Your Best Friend: Joel
What Are You Thinking About Right Now: This
Your Car: Outback
What Are You Doing At The Moment: Blogging
Relationship Status: Married
What Is On Your TV: Nothing
What Is The Weather Like: Hot
When Is The Last Time You Laughed: Earlier

Now I'm supposed to tag more people. I've seen a lot of people already playing along with this, so hmmm... how about Sophia, Michelle, Rachel, Mimi and Melissa. Some super sweet supporters of my blog, and very talented stampers as well!! (Rose Ann you would have certainly been on that list but I know you've already been tagged, and my sweetest supporter Leslie I'm sure you'll be tagged a zillion times if you haven't been already!) :-)

My friend Leigh was over tonight and we sat & cut ribbon for several hours - we're hosting a Martha Stewart ribbon share so we can all sample the various varieties without having to buy all of the individual spools! Fun idea, but boy was that a lot of ribbon to cut!! But we were oohing and aahing as we did it, it's soooo pretty! So those of you reading this who are participating in the share, I've been a big slacker about sending out the final details & totals, but fyi it's nearly complete, just a little more cutting & bagging to do!! :-) But because we worked on the ribbon so long (and now my "quick" tag post is taking me longer than I thought it would!) I'm too tired to actually stamp something tonight, boo hoo!! But I'm so excited to play with these new ribbons, you'll surely see something using them soon!!