Happy Valentine's Day - 2 weeks early!

As promised, here are the pics from last week's Valentine's Day workshop. First, we did a sour cream container filled with Kisses. The sour cream container was made from SU! Vellum Cardstock (not Vellum paper).

Next, we did three 3x3 notecards. We used the Love Matters set found in the Winter Mini on pretty in pink with chocolate chip and whisper white cardstock.

Those 3 note cards fit perfectly in our 3rd project.... A love notes MAILBOX! The day after Christmas, I was surfing SCS (big surprise!) and one demo. somewhere in the US had seen these cute mailboxes in the $1 spot at Target. I went to my Target everyday for, I think 6 days, in search of these. I got 3 or 4 at my Target and I called the next closest one and got them to hold all they had - 32! Then I logged back onto SCS and low and behold, almost all Targets in the US were sold out of them. I swear that SCS site is great for business... once someone finds something cool, within days, it's on backorder everywhere! Anyway, we covered these cute mailboxes with the Loves Me designer paper from the Winter Mini. I'm going to make a bunch of these for my son's preschool for Valentine's Day!

Ribbon, ribbon everywhere...

I ordered some FANTABULOUS ribbon last week from my SCS sister, Cindy at her Ebay store, Starlitstudio . Well, the ribbon came in today. It is SO pretty. I know it's not SU! but SU! doesn't sell polka dots and I wanted polka dots! Funny thing is I hated polka dots my whole life (my mom can attest to this) until maybe October of last year. Still don't need/want/like it for clothes but for ribbon is gorgeous. Anyway, Starlitstudio has all kinds of cool things... pens, ribbon, prima flowers, hardware, etc. Check her out. What do you think about my ribbon?

Workshop cards...

Well, I had two workshops back-to-back this weekend and we made the same things for both. We did 2 cards and a sour cream container. The sour cream container was the same one we did for the Valentine's Day camp last week and I'll post that later. Here are the two cards... the first one is using my all-time favorite color, Elegant Eggplant (yes, I do use it all the time!) and the Blossoms Abound stamp set from SU! I've done this card in cranberry (shocking, I know) and it is beautiful, too. It demonstrates how to do SU!'s 2-step stamping. I just think it's pretty.

I showed the second card to demonstrate Heat Embossing. I used one of my favorite backgrounds, the big Floral one with Black Staz-on and then the "love" from Wonderful Words. My upline, Jenn, says the card reminds her of lingerie! It seems like a good Valentine's Day card.

BUMPER cards - bump, bump, bump...

I'm so very happy that this is working out for so many of you. For those of you that don't know or aren't participating in it this round, let me tell you about it here. It's simple, send a card in the mail to someone on the list... someone else sends you a card in the mail. The next round will start on Feb. 1st and you will have until Feb. 28th to get it there. There were 13 of you that did this in January and I heard from some of you that you really enjoyed it. I'll send out the evite this weekend for the next round. Hope you decide to play this round. I ALWAYS like to get handmade cards in the mail! Makes me smile :)

Christmas Card Challenge - let's discuss, shall we?

Well, I've talked to some of you about this. And some of you have had questions... I'll try to explain it more here. The challenge is something you do at your home. You make 10 cards each month starting in February and ending in November... do the math, that's 100 cards that will be completed by November 30th. So, what if you don't need that many? You can still start in February and just do the months that you want (let me know which months you do). For example, you only need 50 cards, then start in February and go for 5 months, through June. Or start in July and get done in November. The idea here is not to stress and just get them done little by little. As added incentive (like getting your HANDMADE cards done early isn't enough incentive!), each month, the first person (that has told me they are doing it that month) to get done with their 10 cards will receive a small prize from me. In addition to this, every person that gets done with their 10 cards each month will get their name put into a drawing. Then at the end of November, more like Dec. 1st, I will draw one name and that person will get a basket of goodies. All prizes are unknown at this time :)... All of this works on the honor system... you tell me what months, you make the 10 cards, you tell me you did it --- that's it. So, sign up in the evite (email me if you need the evite again). Just think THIS is the year that you can make your handmade cards - everyone will be so impressed AND you won't be stressed out!

Remember that "What's in a Frame" class last fall?

I had a "What's in a Frame? A name, of course" workshop last fall and I took a picture of all the frames everyone made. I told them that I would email the pictures to them so that they could see the results. Well, I'm posting them here ... yes, finally. I think they turned out great. Everyone got to design their own. I think that was the fun part! I seem to be missing a few of the pictures... I'll have to find them but here are some of the ones that were done at that workshop. Great job ladies!

Thank goodness it's Friday!

Hey, it's Friday. I LOVE Fridays! No place we have to be by 9AM. Getting both boys (and myself) out the door is a challenge and by Friday, I'm just tired!

First, thank you so much for finding me here in cyberspace. I really do hope you like this blog. It is kind of strange to me because I feel like I'm talking to no one... So, if you do visit, come back and visit often, bookmark here too, and if you feel really happy, leave me a comment below this post. There's a little link that says "comments" - just say hi and I won't feel so lonely!

So, during the Christmas break, I started my New Years resolution of "stamp-a-card-a-day" and I have a couple of cards to share with you.

First, I needed to make some engagement cards. I LOVE the diamond ring from SU!'s "Fairy Tale Wedding" set. I used dazzling diamonds on the ring itself and inside the sentiment says "...and they lived happily ever after". Cute.

Next, I had some friends that moved into a new home and I wanted to send them a card. I bought these artsy notecards that are good for watercoloring and I thought I'd try out my watercoloring techniques. Well, I'm not thrilled with the results and I need way more practice but it's decent enough. I used the SU! set, Right at Home.

Next, I worked on some much needed birthday cards to keep in my stash. I love the Starburst technique that I learned from the Technique Junkies newsletter. I strongly encourage you to check it out and even subscribe if you really like the "art" of stamping. It can be found at "www.patstamps.com"

Hopefully, later this weekend I'll post the stuff we did at the Valentine's day camp this past week.

Joining the BLOG revolution!

It's time for me to join the BLOG revolution. I'm going to try it out and see if I can keep up with it! Why am I doing this, you ask? For several reasons actually.... the main one is that I want a place to share my work and keep a log of what I'm doing. That last part is purely for MY memory alone. It doesn't seem as sharp as it once did. I blame that on motherhood... :) But hopefully my memory loss will be helpful to you because you can see what I'm up to.

So, let's start with what I've been doing tonight...

I have a workshop tomorrow night. I had talked to the hostess (Hi Andrea!) a month ago about party favors for her daughter's upcoming birthday party. Well, she wanted some kind of purse idea. So, naturally, I searched my favorite website... www.splitcoaststampers.com. The gallery there is AWESOME. I found something called a purse bag. My intention was to find something she can do in a hurry, make lots of, and not feel bad when it gets trashed by a bunch of six year olds. I wanted to make something cute but not invest too much time or materials. Here's what I came up with... I don't have many girlie stamps (until my order comes in tomorrow!) but I do have Pretty Princess, which is what I used here. It was very simple to make... the paper bag is just a white lunch sack with the top part cut off. My dimensions on the bag, after I cut it, are 3.5" x 3.5". I used Dazzling Diamonds on the wand tip for a little extra. And the black CS actually velcros to the bottom there.

Okay, the second thing I did tonight is make some Pregnancy congratulations cards. I have seen some fun ones on SCS (splitcoast) and wanted to CASE (Copy And Share Everything) so I did. I believe it was AmyR that had the original idea. The pregnant lady stamp is a $1 stamp from Michael's. The Big News is from Think Big from the Holiday mini. I didn't think I was going to like those multi-word, large stamps (like Think Big and now the SAB set So Very) but I do like them. Very fun! I had to pull out the stamp-a-ma-jig to get this one to work. I realized that I'm quite the lazy stamper... I tried MANY things before actually getting it out. WHY? I don't know. It's so easy to use... just lazy... sad, really... Anyway, I have a few friends that have become pregnant very recently so I thought I'd send them a card!

Remember my stamping New Year's Resolutions? One of them was to actual send the cards I make. So far so good! The other was to try to make one card a day. Well, in reality (I knew this going in) I don't stamp everyday but I also never make just ONE card at a time. So, when I do sit down to make cards, I usually make 10 (5 sheets of CS). That way I'll always have one in a pinch. And I seem to be in a pinch much more than I think is healthy!

Well, that's it for this first post. I think I might like this blogging thing. I hope you enjoy reading my adventures. Thanks for stopping by.