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!

Easter Class this Saturday!

Can you believe Easter is less than two weeks away?

There are a few slots left in the Easter Eggstravaganza class at Memory Depot this Saturday. We'll be doing 6 cards all in time for Easter!

Here is one of the cards we'll be doing. Yes, that little chick is flocked!

I hope you can take a moment off from Spring Break and join me!

The gift.

My DH's work built a new site and moved from the SE part of town to the SW part of town in the middle of January. We're very fortunate about this. Now, his work is only 2 1/2 miles from home! So, he's talked about riding his bike to work forever. And now he can do it.

Insert idea here!

Actually, I thought of getting him a new bike for Christmas but I couldn't get the logistics worked out in my head. And since his birthday is in March (and he wouldn't ride to work in Jan or Feb anyway!), I decided to wait until now.

Oh wait. Same logistics. Hmm. Here's the dilemma... Buying a bike for my DH is not the same as buying one for a kid. The is a 99.99999% likelihood that I'd get the wrong one even if I got the right size, etc. So, then I should get a gift certificate, right? No. Gift Certificates lock him into a particular place and what if he doesn't want that place. We're talking lots of money for a new bike. And well since his money is my money (LOL), really there is "no" point to doing the "wrong thing". So, craftyengineer, that I am... decided to enlist the boys and make him a bike!

Step 1: Find a suitable box. My dear friend, Michelle, gave us a large cardboard box.






Step 2: Open up the box and freehand a bicycle on it!










Step 3: Enlist some cheap labor to paint it!









Step 4: Voila!








DH thought it was funny and exactly what he wanted! Yippee!

I lied.

Apparently.

I realized late this afternoon that I had to make a card for my DH because I had this flimsy paper gift certificate to give him and I needed something to put it in! LOL!

I just received the A Muse clear set, Birthday Builder last week (I've wanted it FOREVER but it get it until now!). What a perfect set for those times when you need to say Happy 40th or need any numbers for any reason!

My card is VERY SIMPLE because I had less than 5 minutes to make it. Seriously. I did a tall card (4.25x11). The inside has a little strip of cardstock across the bottom to form a pocket to hold the gift certificate in.

Images by A Muse
Card stock by Stampin' Up! (Glorious Green, Basic Black, Whisper White)
Ink by Stampin' Up! (Glorious Green, Gable Green)

Happy 40th Birthday Dear DH!

Today is my DH's 40th birthday. Happy, happy birthday!

I've struggled with making him a card all week. Sometimes I get bogged down with the it "has to be perfect" card and I end up making nothing. This is one of those times. I just can't figure out what I want to make besides the "happy 40th" type of card. I think I'm thinking TOO HARD.

So, in lieu of a birthday card, I'd like to share a card I made BECAUSE of my husband rather than for him. I suppose I can give it to him, too.

My DH is an awesome singer and guitar player. It's just a hobby of his but anytime he does it, it brings tears to my eyes. So, the other day as I was CONTINUING in my efforts to reorganize, I saw one of my FAVORITE A Muse sentiments... love the font, the style, and of course the wording. You know it was one of my first purchases during the A-Muse-a-palooza contest last summer... you remember AMAP, right? Where one lucky person got FREE A MUSE STAMPS FOR A YEAR!!! OH MY... I WISH! Anyway, this stamp is an oldie but definitely a "GREATIE"... (yeah, I know that's not a word, as jen pebbles says "thankyouverymuch").

Back to the card... listening to my DH play his guitar and sing and make beautiful music is one of my life's simple pleasures.

Dear Husband.... happy birthday, rock on and thank you for bringing music into my musically-challenged life.

All images and note cards by A Muse. Colored with Copics. Guitar is covered with Sakura Glaze Pen.

Party Central.

I spent my "morning off" (both boys at "school") running around trying to find a WIGGLES cake! OH MY! When my oldest son was 2 (almost 4 years ago) and when my nephew turned 2 (almost 2 years ago), the Wiggles were SO in. Ah, not so much on March 5, 2008. I had the hardest time finding a place to make a cake (oh, well, I didn't want to spend $50 on a cake by a professional bakery for a 2 year-olds birthday!) Anyway, I even thought I'd just buy the little decorations on top and then get a regular 1/4 sheet cake and put them on there. Uh no. Anyway, turns out Sam's Club does the Wiggles still. AWESOME. Wait. I'm no longer a Sam's member... you guessed it... Costco. FRICK! DOUBLE FRICK. So, in my moment of high blood pressure-ness as I was sitting in the SAM'S PARKING LOT today, contemplating running in and becoming a member all to get this blasted cake (which would have cost me more than the fancy schmancy bakery if I did get the membership!) and then speeding what-would-have-to-have-been-illegally to get to my son's preschool on time, the RATIONALE side of my brain KICKED IN. Thank goodness. Geez, it amazes me how wrapped up one (ME!!!) can get in these things. It's like "sorta-wanting" a stamping toy and then find out that it's sold out at your favorite shopping place. THEN you spend HOURS and HOURS and pay more shipping JUST to get this thing that you weren't even that gung-ho about to start with -- but it was sold out, so it must be that good. I called my SIL and she saved the day... she is a member of Sam's ....

Wow! Where did that rambling come from? Oh, right... party central. Two immediate family birthdays back-to-back. Who's flippin' idea was that? So. My DH is one of the 2 having a birthday. And well neither of us was up for a birthday party! In our eyes, when you have small children around, all we ever want to do is go chill out at a movie at our favorite movie/dinner place with our friends. So, that's exactly what we'll do. Spring Break is here next week and we'll do some day trips and such to celebrate some more. Drag it out, I say. Celebrate until you can't anymore. Isn't that a good motto?

Okay, so last night I'm in my studio trying to make a few QUICK cards. That's my *new* thing... I didn't actually go in there until 11 and by 11:30 I made 3 different cards! WOHOO. Gotta love that. So, this card... it's an invitation to our friends about the movie thing. It's kinda late to send an invitation (but they already know about it!)... the "main" reason was that I need one for my scrapbooks! OF COURSE I DO! It's a big birthday and we have to scrap it (well, someday "I" do).

I used my ticket corner punch to guess what? make tickets! HA! I colored the popcorn with my Copics and then added Lemon Spica to the popcorn to give them that "oily" :) look. I used my clear Sakura glaze pen on the bag itself to make it shiny. Add a couple of the NEW clear A Muse Twinkle Stickers and call it done!

More from party central tomorrow...

A No Coloring-Adult Masculine-Sketchilicious-Good Things Come in Threes Card

10 days later, I finally get this card done. Actually, no, I got the card done on Sunday... Just now getting to post it! :D

Remember our first A Muse VMAA 10 days ago? Well, clever Michelle had a bright idea to do all 4 challenges in one card. She is clever, that Michelle. And we offered it up as a bonus round. Then we (the Fab 4) decided at the spur of the moment (i.e. DURING the VMAA when Michelle told us about it) that we'd give the bonus round winner, our challenge combo card. GOOD IDEA. WAIT. UH... I didn't make one. Neither did Jennie or Rhonda... but those ladies are super fast and super talented, so they got theirs done right away and posted.

Well, Kim Linley won the bonus challenge and she will get our cards... mine went postal today, Kim :)

So, here's my card. Go figure. I did another coffee theme - almost identical to the card I did for Rhonda's sketch layout. I must have had it in my head because I didn't realize they were similar until I finished this one!

Do you notice something different about this picture? More about that later.

All images and card stock by A Muse.

Happy Birthday Dear Nephew!!!

My DH has a lot of nieces and nephews (6!) on his side of the family. I have one! And today is his birthday. He turned 7! He is 15 months older than my oldest and it truly is fun to see my 2 and him together playing! He lives only 20 miles away so we're lucky that we get to see him pretty often.

Do you remember 7? I have memories from before age 7 but 7 is about when they become solid. I remember A LOT of year 7... second grade.... oh yeah!

Anyway, I made up a card to mail to him even though I saw him yesterday. Little kids LOVE to get fun mail (don't we all ;)?) so I thought mailing it would make his birthday last longer! Of course, I didn't mail it until yesterday.... uh oh.... oh well, it will make his birthday last longer this way. Right?

Here's another card that makes me LOVE A Muse... think simple, think A Muse..... My life these days are pretty busy...

The first two weeks of March every year are my 2nd busiest time of the year after the week of Halloween. Yeah sure, Christmas is a busy time but it's not packed in quite like these two weeks are. Three family birthdays in 5 days, the Spring Break around here, then it's Easter... and BAM! the month is done. GOOD GOLLY!!!

Back to the card.... My nephew loves horses so I thought maybe he'd like Billy the Kid. The Balloon Bouquet fit in his hand, too. Voila! Love that! I colored in the balloons with my Copics and Spicas and then covered them with diamond glaze.

Happy Birthday dear nephew!

WHY I LOVE A Muse!!!!

So, KNOW why I love A Muse so much? I did 6 invitations from start to finish in 35 minutes last night (including printing the inside stuff). AND I am pretty happy with them!

If you ever had small children around you in the past at least 5 years, you've heard of the Wiggles! My youngest turns TWO... yes, TWO on Friday... that's 7 days from today. LUCKILY, I'm a big advocate of small, home parties. In fact, we have a "rule"... you can only have as many kids at your party as how old you are... so, in this case 2. For my older son, cousins and his brother don't count (he figured that out last summer!). But my younger one doesn't know any better yet ;)... So, he has 2 cousins in the area (young ones not adult) and his brother - makes 3 .. but well, you know how it goes with family. So, our party is next weekend and it's mainly family so it's okay that I haven't done the invites yet... right? Actually, I mailed them off this morning.

Now, my older son told me we need to do a Wiggles party for my younger one. Ok. Hmm. Wiggles are about 4 men in bright colors that sing and dance. Ok. Now what? So, when Linda did this awesome card for my VMAA Masculine challenge last week, I had to get the A Muse drum set. Ok, now I have the rockstar and the drum set. Hmm. Well, I decided to go simple. I was just going to put the drum set on the front and say "you're invited" and call it good. Then I had an a-ha moment.

Here's the final card:

The Wiggles colors are blue, yellow, red and purple. And their logo is that splat shape. Anyway, I really liked how they turned out. They get the message across, they still are kid-like and MOST IMPORTANTLY, they're done! :)

Images: A Muse drum set and you're invited; Karen Foster Snap Stamps for "the Wiggles"
Card stock: A Muse and SU!
Accessories: Copic Markers, Adirondack pitch black ink, SU! real red, SU! brilliant blue

Fruit Salad, Yummy, Yummy... Have a Wiggle-y Day!