DEAR blog readers....

My dear, supportive blog readers...

It's time for me to move on.... TO TYPEPAD, that is! Come join me over at my new home....

www.craftyengineer.typepad.com

I hope to see you there. Don't forget to update your subscriptions, readers, etc.

I'll be sharing sneaks over on my new blog starting tomorrow (Saturday!)

Thanks blogspot... it's been fun!

Stamp Salado Elzybells Class this Sunday!

I'll be teaching an Elzybells class (Elzybells North America are distributed by A Muse Artstamps) at Stamp Salado in Salado, Texas this Sunday from 1-3pm. The class is called Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! Doesn't that sound like fun? Here is a sample of one of the cards we will be making:

Call the store at (254) 947-8848, if you are interested!

Hope to see you there!

Paper Tales!

I'm excited to tell you that my fellow A Muse Instructor, Michelle White and her friend Helle Greer, are opening up Paper Tales in San Diego, CA on May 1st!



The store will carry A Muse products and more! Be sure to check them out! I wish I could be there...looks like so much fun!

And I heard that Linda will be there on May 31st for the Grand Opening!

Be sure to check it out, if you can!

VMAA #2 - ONE WEEK from today!!!

By now, you've probably seen this news on the A Muse blog and/or the A Muse Weekly Newsletter. If you haven't, VMAA #2 (Virtual Meeting of the A Muse Addicts) will have their 2nd online stamping party next Saturday evening from 6-8pm Central.

Michelle, Jennie, Rhonda, and I will be the hostesses for the evening. We'll have challenges every 30 minutes. You won't want to miss it.

SO... go to the Addicts site, register (for free) and come read all about it.

Oh... and sssshhhhh..... I have a secret, too... it will be revealed next Saturday night ;)

Stamp Room Organization - A Muse-ified

If you haven't seen my studio, here are pictures of it from a while back.


Well, I did this back in the beginning of March and I really haven't finished but apparently, this is as good as it will get for a while. I've reorganized my studio to be more A Muse friendly. I had SU! stuff at all of my fingertips and not the A Muse stuff so much. Since I'm doing A Muse stuff more these days, I thought I should make it more accessible!



A Muse Stamps:
3 drawer organizers from Target. Perfect size for the stamps.



A Muse Ribbon:
The little holders on top of my stamp containers. They are from the Container Store and called Stack n Store, I think. I've seen them at Bed, Bath and Beyond, too.





Copic Organization: I "treated" myself and got the wire stand. I didn't think I wanted it but it's one of my favorite things. Sits right in front of my workspace.





Note card and Pretty Little Papers Organization:
3 CD black wire holders from Target. Dividers made by hand :)


Twinkle Storage:
$0.99 basket from the travel section at Target


Colorbox Cat Eye Storage:
In an empty SU! box (ok, 2 of them)




Marvy Punch Storage:
All of my Marvy Punches are in a drawer in my desk (my SU! ones are in another drawer). But I have these standing on end in a sock drawer divider from the Container Store. The Giga punches are a bit big and bend the dividers but it works well enough to not tip the punches over when I get one out.





Non A Muse Ribbon:
A ribbon holder I got off the internet two years ago for $39... holds 1 million spools... ok, not really - has 9 dowels and holds A LOT



Scraps:
I keep all of my scraps of A Muse notes in this basket right by my workspace. I reach in there first to get whatever I'm looking for. The basket seems to work well for this purpose. Most times I don't even have to go to the main stash except for the card layer!

Quick Tools:
Scissors, Quik Sticks, Handheld punches, brushes, etc. are stored within reach in a Pampered Chef's Tool Caddy thing. I love this thing.


As for stickles and glitter and such, those are on my spice racks right in front of my workspace above the Copics.

All of my SU! stuff is on my other table ... and that's the part that's not done from the reorg!

I've been working on some other organizational stuff that I'll post soon. But that's it for now...

Thanks for hanging with me on this really long post!

Another card from the It's A Girl Thing class

I'm teaching my first ever during the week class on Friday morning. It's another session of the "It's a Girl Thing" class that I taught this past Saturday. It will be at Memory Depot on Friday from 10am-12pm. Please call the store if you're interested! (326-8045)

Here is another sample from the class... it's using my new Fiskars Threading Water Punch... OOOHHHH I love that thing!

I'm so used to teaching technique classes (twice a month, every month for the past three years with Stampin' Up!) that I decided to show a couple of different techniques in this class. The ladies loved it on Saturday! Thanks ladies!

We're branching out to use some of the new clear sets from A Muse at this class too. The copies that were reserved for the Saturday classes were snatched up!

Images, Ribbon, and notecards from A Muse Artstamps; colored with Copics, Fiskars Threading Water punch, Adirondack Pitch Black

Little Boys!

This month Becky is spear-heading efforts for the A Muse weekly newsletter's new section called "Masculine Cards". For this week's cards, our assignment was to make cards for little boys! Easy Peasy! I have two of those.... boys, um, not cards! :D

I did a card similar to this one a while back for my nephew, but I really liked it so I thought I'd showcase those stamps again. I love the sentiment: "Happy birthday little dude". My oldest is almost 6... and now, he's a little dude! When did that happen? Anyone invent a "stop the clock" yet? I'll even take the "slow it down" version!

Images, notecards, pretty little papers by A Muse.
Billy the Kid, Balloon Bouquet, Little Dude

Stamp of the Week!

Every week over on the A Muse Addicts forum, my dear friend Jennie comes up with a brilliant Stamp of the Week Challenge. This week, one of the stamps is the Eiffel Tower. I made a card about a month ago using this stamp. Here's what happened though... I wasn't feeling particularly inspired or crafty... so I made myself create something just to get the ideas flowing. This was the first card of a stack of 5 or 6. The last ones I did I really liked. I'll share those sometime soon. But I wanted to play along with the SOTW (stamp of the week) because I don't always get to! So here it is...



What do you do to get your creative juices flowing? Sometimes I just clean up my studio and that all by itself makes me want to create! But sometimes, I just force myself... like here. And then sometimes, I just watch a movie instead!

Just Mom!

Oh my goodness! Have you seen this week's A Muse newsletter? Such GREAT ideas in there. I'm sure to CASE some of those! Haven't signed up yet? It's easy - sign up is free, then once a week an email comes right to your inbox with the Card of the Week, the NEW Oldies but Goodies section, the ideas for Masculine cards, the featured stamps, classes around town, and even a stamping tip! ALL FOR FREE!!! Go signup today - treat yourself... you'll be glad you did.

Well, I am so excited and honored to have two cards in the newsletter this week. The first is for the Oldies but Goodies section. This month the Oldies but Goodies section is hosted by my friend and fellow instructor, Michelle Clark. She picks out what stamp we are to use and then we go forth and make something! This week she picked SUPER WOMAN! That is certainly a must-have stamp. She's so useful! In fact, we used to at my A Muse class this morning. I'll share that card later next week! But for today, I wanted to show you my card from the newsletter.

I was trying to think of something "unique" to do with her and this popped into my head. As you know, I'm a SAHM of two smallish boys ... and my other SAHM friends and I always talk about how we get so much done in short spurts of time, etc. That alone got me thinking about how moms are SO busy all the time. It's because we do so many jobs and play so many roles... That's where the inspiration came from.... and the A Muse stamps fit in so well for this idea...

All images and notecards by A Muse Artstamps; Copics; Spicas in pink and Melon; Copic Black Multiliner; Foam tape

Just for fun I thought I'd list the images that mom can be:
Superwoman
Dr. Blackwell
Flower Girl
Shopper
Elyse
Little Girl
Runner
Kissing Couple
Rainy Day Lisa
Florence
(and then the "just because" stamp with only the "just" inked up)

I hope you like this card. It was certainly fun to make it!

Good luck, Jennifer!

My friend, Jennifer, is a civil engineer. Today, she is taking the Professional Engineer Exam! It's kinda similar to board exams that Doctors and Lawyers have to do - not really but kinda... When I graduated from college, I studied for a while to take the exam. You get a "license" and become a "professional engineer" (title) afterwards. Well, my degree is in Electrical Engineering and I wrote software for my "job". Software engineers don't really need licenses... in fact, one manager told me back then that I "didn't want" to become a PE. Really? Why not? Well, his point was that once you are licensed, you are held accountable - i.e. can get sued more easily than without it if you mess up. Well, the nature of software is to have mess ups! LOL! So, I opted not to do that and don't regret it for a moment. Jennifer, now she's a civil engineer. Those engineers, typically, do get certified. ANYWAY, I sent Jennifer a card the other day... to wish her the best of luck on a hard exam.

Good luck Jennifer. I'm thinking about you today!

GREAT NEWS for Bloggers!!

I'm so very excited about this. I just had to share. You know how those typepad people can "schedule" their posts whenever they want. For example, they can write up a whole bunch of posts and set them to "post" at a later date. Well, us blogspot bloggers can't do that.... EXCEPT now we can!!! It's in "draft" mode still... meaning it's still in the test phase. But I tried it out this morning with the Spring Chick card! YAY! It worked.

So, go here... and do it yourself. I might actually be able to post more regularly now!

Spring!!!

Here is another card from the Spring Bling class that I taught at Memory Depot a couple of weeks back. It's a pocket card and very easy to do with the A Muse notecards! The notecards are wonderful because all the cutting and scoring is done for you! Love that!

This little chick is, of course, flocked. I seem to be flocking anything around here these days. So much FUN!

Then when you pull on the ribbon, the inside comes out to reveal this:

"You're still a SPRING Chick!"

Love that saying, too. Geez, when did I become the age that that seems appropriate to give to myself or my friends. Hmmm.

VMAA #2

SAVE THE DATE: April 26th 2008 8pm CST

Lots in store for our 2nd Virtual Meeting of the A Muse Addicts! Have no idea what I'm talking about? Well, head on over to the A Muse Addicts forums at www.amuseaddicts.com... registration is free and then you'll be in the know! You won't want to miss out... tons of fun.


And sssh.... we have a secret that will be revealed that night. :D

Happy Birthday, My Friend

My friend, Michelle, had a birthday on Friday. And by now, she should have received this card. I hope. :) We had lunch sans children at California Pizza Kitchen. Yum! It was nice to not have to cut anyone's food!

She likes Pink so pink it is, um, with a splash of purple :D. This little party chick quacks me up (ok, sorry... couldn't resist!). I flocked her with the new Sunshiny Yellow Fun Flock.

Happy Birthday Michelle! I hope this year brings you lots of laughter!

All images, cardstock, pretty little papers by A Muse Artstamps;
Adirondack Pitch Black; Copics Lemon Yellow, Begonia Pink, Apricot, Cool Shadow; Spica Pink Glitter Pen; Quickie Glue Pen; Fun Flock; White Sharpie Poster Paint Pen; A Muse Sheer Ribbon Pink; Fiskars Threading Water Punch; Marvy Giga Scalloped Circle Punch; Marvy Mega Scalloped Circle Punch

A Muse Class this Saturday - It's a Girl Thing

I'll be teaching "It's a Girl Thing" this coming Saturday, April 12th at Memory Depot in Austin. We will be making cards for your girlfriends! Call the store to reserve your spot today.

Here is one of the cards we will be making.

Hope you can break away from your busy schedule and join me.

A Muse Newsletter?

Are you signed up to get it? No, why not? Oh my goodness, it's CHALK full of ideas and tips and such. Go here and sign up... it's free! And you know what else? The newsletter comes out weekly and Linda posted this on her blog the other day... did you see that? Subscribers get exclusive access to sales!! WOHOO... who doesn't love that? Go... now... sign up.

So this week's newsletter has two new features it in. I am excited to share with you one of the cards I did for the Oldies but Goodies section. My good friend and fellow instructor, Michelle Clark, picked Seattle Girl as a stamp we were to design with. Oh boy was this fun! :D

I wanted to showcase Seattle Girl doing something more than walking in the rain. So, I made her jump in the puddles. "oh what fun!"

It's hard to see in the picture but her umbrella and raincoat have diamond glaze on them to make them shiny! And the new clear twinkle stickers in the tear drop shape are perfect for the splash that I wanted to show.

I hope you get a chance to see this week's newsletter. There are lots of great ideas in there.

Sneak Peek - Day Four

Happy Saturday! Are you enjoying all of these sneaks?

All of these new images will be available from A Muse Artstamps on April 1 (or maybe March 31st if we're lucky!). Be sure to check out Linda's blog then!

My next door neighbor takes my son to school every morning. Her daughter and my son are in the same kindergarten class. Anyway, she drives him to school. And just recently she started doing yoga. I think for the end-of-the-year, I'll give her a gift certificate for more classes or something. But this card was inspired by year and might just become hers!

The weather here in Central Texas is beautiful these days. I think we must be in the middle of our 2 weeks of Spring! I've seen some bluebonnets around as well as some Indian Paintbrush. But not that much though since we didn't get much rain last Fall. So, when I was making this card I thought wouldn't it be fun to do yoga outside on such a pretty Spring Day?

Sneak Peek - Day Three

A quick post today!

Here is my sneak for today. The doodle flowers image in the corners is not new but it is "new-to-me". But I thought the Happy Mother's Day sentiment (which is new) needed to be showcased.

Hope you like it! Have you seen all of the other sneaks?

Card details: Images and cardstock by A Muse; Colored with Pink Spica Glitter Pen (doodle flowers), Marvy Heart Punches, White Sharpie; Foam Tape; Adirondack Pitch Black

Happy Friday!

Sneak Peek - Day Two

Here is my sneak peek for today. It is a very simple card. I wanted to keep it simple and clean. The image is called Tutu and will be part of the release by A Muse on Monday! I made the tutu "layered". Can you see it? It looks fun in real life. I don't know that I captured it in this picture. The overlay is actually vellum cardstock.
Pink and Purple. You have to use PINK for a tutu card, right? Isn't that a rule or something? I took ballet for about 6 weeks when I was little. Then I remember it as being "yanked out" of it and put into the predecessor to brownies. I'm sure it was like that... um, now that I'm a parent. I'm sure it was a whole lot of "I don't want to go to ballet". INSERT whiniest voice ever here. Can you imagine me "whiny" as a kid? Yes, that is a rhetorical question...

Card Details:
All images by A Muse Artstamps and Elzybells NA (sentiment)
Cardstock by A Muse
Vellum by Stampin' Up!
Colored with Copics, Spica Pink Glitter Pen
Quickie Glue Pen
Adirondack Pitch Black Ink

Sneak PEEKS!!!! Day one.

I didn't think I was going to make it in time to show you a sneak peek today! But I finished this card just now...

In case you don't know, A Muse has a release coming out soon! Many of the A Muse team have sneaks on their blogs... check 'em out. I think there is a list going on the Addicts site of who has sneaks up!

On to my card...

This card is using the new "ballerina" stamp. One of my favorite memories of my childhood was a little music box, that when you opened it, it played "Music Box Dancer" and it had a little ballerina that twirled. That was my inspiration for this card.

Card Details: All images and cardstock by A Muse artstamps; Twinkle Stickers, Colored with Copic Markers, Ovals for the spinner cut with Creative Memories Cutting System, Stampin' Up! Small Oval Punch for the sentiment; Adirondack Pitch Black ink pad, Nylon thread

And in my true geekyness spirit, I had to show you how it spins... click on it to see it spin.


Hee hee hee....

Quick! We need to make 91 Baby Shower Invites...

We need to make 91 Baby Shower Invites...
and mail them out tomorrow. Well, that was last week. And we did make 91 baby shower invitations in a little less than 2 hours. And they did get mailed out soon thereafter. My friend Michelle, the one who's sister is getting married (those are the wedding invitations from a few posts ago) was in charge of "doing" the invitations for an upcoming baby shower. And time got away from us and all of sudden, we had to get them done. Michelle almost gave in to just printing some on some paper. WHAT? No way! ;)

So, we kept it simple. And she and I are pros at the assembly line. We work well together. I do the computer stuff (get the wording printed out just so) and all the math and cutting :). She does most of the stamping while I'm doing the cutting part and then we do the assembly together. Hey, that doesn't seem quite fair does it???!!!! Actually, it's fine and it works well. And we have a great time doing it, which is all that matters to me.

The honoree is having a baby boy. We needed some kind of embellishment and we didn't want to tie 91 ribbons. Or punch eyelets. Or brads. Or... you get the idea. Then I remembered that I had the old retired Stampin' Up! Diaper Pin Punch. Yippee! Perfect.

We used all Stampin' Up stuff... the dilly dally jumbo wheel, the retired diaper pin punch, Bashful Blue and Certainly Celery. BAM! DONE! We didn't have a lot of time to make them extra detailed but they still are HAND MADE and I'll pick that any day over store bought! What do you think?

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter everyone!

We had an eventful day yesterday. In the morning, I taught the Spring Bling A Muse class. Then in the afternoon, my family and SIL, BIL, niece and nephew walked across the street (yes, across the street!) to join in our annual neighborhood Easter Festivities. There is a petting zoo with chicks, ducks, bunnies, goats, pigs, and even a horse. The Easter Bunny made his annual appearance and apparently my 2 year old is EXTREMELY scared of the Easter Bunny. Extremely freaked out... so we would go somewhere else and the Easter Bunny followed us! GOOD GRIEF Mr. Easter Bunny... Ok, so he wasn't following us but my 2 year-old sure thought he was. There was a balloon artist, 2 face painters (my oldest son got this cool dragon on his arm!), and a juggler (complete with flame batons!). The face painter asked my son if his dragon should have bubbles or fire coming out of his mouth. He said "FIRE, duh... (ok, he didn't say "duh" (thank goodness!) but he inflected like that). Seriously what dragons do you know that have bubbles coming out of their mouths? Of course, there was the Egg Hunt, too! We use most of our 'hood for this and break it down by age groups. Quite fun!


Happy Easter to all of you....

Happy SPRING!!!

Here is another card we are going to make tomorrow at Memory Depot at the Spring Bling class!


Have a super weekend! And Happy Spring!

Wedding Invitations

My friend, Michelle and I are great at the assembly line process! We can crank out a bunch of anything once we figure out what to do. Well, it seemed only natural that we would do the invitations for her sisters wedding, right? The hardest part is always figuring out what to do. But in this case, Michelle had lots of time to design what she thought would work. Rose Red was the chosen color. The hardest part of the whole thing was trying to find Rose Red ribbon. We didn't. So we made our own. Remember this post about dyeing the ribbon and then baking it in the oven to heat set it? Well, that's what we did... we took SU! Very Vanilla Wide Grosgrain and dyed it with the Rose Red reinker.

We did the invitations, RSVP cards and we even made her a stack of thank you cards (very elegant ... with their Mr & Mrs names on it).

Here is what the invitation looks like close-up. I, of course, blocked out all the personal information... 'cause you know how I am about that!




Here is a close-up of the RSVP card...






Don't they look professionally done? We did 60 of them. It's hard to see some of it because it was a WINDY day in Central Texas when I photographed them!

New classes added

We've finally worked out the details and got our schedules to mesh... I have my new classes listed at the top of my blog in the "Teaching Schedule". Please note that I'll be trying something new this quarter and teaching some Friday morning classes! I hope that you can make some of these new classes!

Spring Bling Class on Saturday

This Saturday is the day before Easter. It's also a day that I'm teaching a Spring Bling class at Memory Depot in Austin. The class is from 10-12. The other day we added a few more slots to the class and there are 3 left, I think. If you're available, I'd love to see you there. I really had fun making up the sample cards for this class.

Call MD at 326-8045 to reserve your spot. You'll be glad you did!

Here is one of the cards we will be making on Saturday. I was inspired by Jennie's layout on this card.

Another Easter Card...

Today, I'm teaching an Easter Eggstravaganza class at Memory Depot and you betcha we're going to use flock!

I found these little plastic bottles that I bought from a LSS that was closing a few years back. They are marked $2.99 each (they are just an 1.5" high!). I know that I bought a whole ziploc bag full for $2. Anyway, I decided to put the flock in there for the class today rather than using the original container. If you have ever used flock, you know how "messy" it is. I had visions of it accidentally getting knocked over and flocking everywhere. Anyway, the white flock in this little container looks awfully suspicious! "But officer, I SWEAR it's fun flock!" LOL.

Here is one of the cards we are going to do today...

Stampin' Up Hostess Club

For February's Hostess Clubs (yes, February!), I showed 3 techniques. We did 3 cards and 3 technique cards for our technique books. My technique book is getting pretty full... I've been teaching the technique clubs for almost 3 years and we do 3 each month. Here's a picture of what my book looks like ... I've shown this before but some of you might have missed it...

Anyway, for February, we did the 3 techniques. One of them was totally inspired by my A Muse co-moderator, co-instructor, and generally very talented friend, Jennie Moczan. For our first VMAA back in February, she did a card (for my challenge, in fact!) that had "Faux Suede" on it. So, I had to learn and then teach this technique. Of course, I wanted to use the A Muse recliner but instead had to find something that would work with SU! stamps. I picked the Wild About You set and decided that an elephant could be suede-y. Aren't elephants more leather-y than suede-y? Well, for a baby card, they are suede-y. You heard it here first! :) Can you see the texture on the elephant?


The next technique we did was Stained Glass. I have wanted to teach this technique for a long time... ever since the hostess set On Angels Wings was around. And then I waited patiently for the "right" stamp set to come out to get the maximum effect for this beautiful technique. Yeah, well, I didn't find exactly what I was looking for but I did like the results. We used the current Level 1 Hostess Set In the Garden. It's a beautiful flower. Love the size of it, too.



Finally, for the third card, we did the stipple technique with stipple brushes. I completely CASED this card from Leeann Greff, or flowerbugnd1 on SCS. Thanks Leeann! I really liked her card using the Voila set.

Three more to add to the book!

Spring Break, New Camera, and No Voice

It's Spring Break here in Central Texas. And it's about to kill me. Not really but it feels like it. Everyone is home for the week. DH took off so we could all be together. Everything is going really well... except 3 of 4 of us are on antibiotics for sinus infections. Can you believe that? The two boys and I are all suffering although they seem to be getting better (they've been on them for a few days longer than I have). I have that ANNOYING tickle cough. And my voice is trying to leave me again. Hopefully the meds will kick in and I can continue to be chatty Cathy soon :).

Anyway, enough whining... So, remember I got a new digital SLR camera for Christmas? Well, I did all the research for 3 or 4 months to get one that would work with my old telephoto SLR lens that I already had. It's a really good lens. In fact, they don't make a comparable zoom for digital cameras unless you want to spend $2K and up (no, mine is not that expensive!). Anyway, the more common version of my digital camera worked with the old lens but didn't auto focus, etc. So, we upgraded to the more professional version. And yesterday, I finally got to take it out for a spin. Oh my. I am in love.

We went to Sea World in San Antonio yesterday. It's just about 1 1/2 from here and well worth the trip. We try to go down there once a year or so. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip.

We had a great time. It was fun to watch the boys faces light up when they saw Shamu. And we got to feed the dolphins. I've wanted to do that for a long time. It was the perfect time to go... not hot, not cold, perfectly Sunny, and not very crowded! Yippee!