Thursday, July 24, 2008

Oy!

My back is KILLING me this week, so I'll be away from the blog for a bit. See you in a while. . .

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Fishbowl Fun!















Here's my second entry for the last Amuseapalooza challenge, to make a card for a kid. It didn't turn out like I thought it would, and it's not super-exciting or clever, but for some reason, I still really, really like it. I guess it's true what they say about A Muse: Think simple.

The green notecard is by Memory Box and cut down to a square size. (Note to self: Buy more notecards!) The patterned paper is a Pretty Little Paper by Amuse. The dirt, blue water and fishbowl papers were all punched using my blue Super Jumbo round punch. I then used my Fiskars scallop scissors backward to make waves for my fish tank. Mr. Fish was paper-pieced using an orange scrap, and the crab was stamped and colored over with red Spica. I stamped the sentiment with Brilliance Graphite Black and added a little bit of A Muse surf ribbon to hide my paper seam.

I'm looking forward to participating in the Amuse Addicts SOTW and Card challenges, so stay tuned for those!

Monday, July 21, 2008

My New Favorite Drink!

Hi, and happy Monday! I figured I'd try and beat the Monday blues by talking about my new favorite drink.

A couple of weekends ago, I discovered a great recipe for sangria. First off, I should say that I am no conoisseur of fine mixed beverages. In fact, I rarely drink at all.

But, I fell in love with the sangria served at one of those big Italian restaurant chains. It was sweet and fruity, with just enough alcohol to prove that it means business! I Googled the restaurant name and "sangria" and this recipe came up. Just like the drink I get at the restaurant, this tastes more like a fruit punch than a sangria. But, that's what I love about it!

We modified the actual recipe a bit, and it turned out great.

Sangria

1.5 liters red table wine (I tried Lambrusco)
1 cup grenadine
2 cups cranberry juice cocktail
1.25 cups sweet vermouth
.5 cup sugar and .5 cup of water mixed together
a basket of strawberries, cut into thirds
a couple of peaches, sliced

Mix it all together in a 1+ gallon container, then put it in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. Then pour it into a glass, top it with the soaked fruit, and drink up!

I hope you like it!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

A Kid-Themed Card

The Amuseapalooza challenges just keep coming! This week's challenge is kid-themed cards. To me, a kid-themed card is defined by a couple of things: bright colors, and primarily animal images. But then I got to thinking. Kids love tech stuff too! So, here is my card:















I used this super-fun and graphic patterned paper by Piggy Tales as the base. The whole line is called "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and although the name sounds innocent enough, the whole collection rocks! Literally! I first discovered Piggy Tales at a scrapbook show last year, and I think I got a sheet of every paper pattern in the collection.

Stay tuned to see if I can pull off another kid-themed card!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Mini Christmas Card














When I'm making cards, I always stamp a few images at a time. I do this for a couple of reasons. If I like how the card turned out, I can quickly make a duplicate. Or, if I get an idea in the middle of the first project, I can easily make a second.

This card is actually the result of the second situation. After I finished my first card with the tree, I was left with this one. So, I decided to try something with a smaller format. This card is actually a mini card, or a Stampin' Up Love Note. I mounted the image on a small piece of Bazzill Pear cardstock, attached the three star brads by Making Memories, and then stuck it all together. I thought it would be good for a gift tag.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Happy Birthday Geeta!

Today is the birthday of a fabulous lady--Geeta Suggs! Geeta is one of the Fab Four that runs the Amuse Addicts website, which I absolutely adore! When I heard through the grapevine that her birthday was coming up, I put down on my to do list to make her a card. Of course, then I waited until the last minute (literally!) to actually make her a card. So, this one is a quickie.














The paper is by K&Co., the stamps by A Muse. I colored the fairy with Copics and then went over her wings with a clear Spica. For a small change of scenery, I corner-rounded the outer edges. I'm pretty sure the sheer white ribbon is by May Arts. Fun and easy!

Please be sure to go to Geeta's blog and wish her a happy birthday!

Save the Date!

Oooh, how exciting! I found out this morning that they're doing another VMAA on August 2nd (VMAA stands for Virtual Meeting of Amuse Addicts).

Here's how it works: We all go online to the A Muse Addicts webpage, and every 30 minutes, they issue challenges. Last time, the challenges were things such as cards with glitter, sketch challenges, and themed challenges. Your goal is to make a card in less than 30 minutes that includes those things.

I participated in one in April, and you can see the cards I made here.

The next one is Saturday, August 2nd. I'm supposed to be camping that
weekend, but I think I might just have to come back early to play (it's 6-8pm Pacific Time).

Will I see you there?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

An Amuseapalooza CASE

Well, here is my very first card using my new stamps from Amuseapalooza. I love this little tree. It's not my typical style, but for some reason I was convinced that it would glam things up a bit, what with its swirls and all.

I've been all over the Internet (via my favorite program, Google Reader), checking out all of the designs made with the new images, and this one by Novell really caught my eye.

I was recently going through my stuff in anticipation of a garage sale, and I discovered that I have a ton of 9 dot notecards. I've never been good at coming up with ideas for them, so I thought Novell's card was the perfect solution. I changed her layout up a TINY bit, but otherwise, it's basically her card. Quick and easy!














I stamped the A Muse tree on Judi-Kins Ultra-RS (my stamping paper of choice) and colored it with a Willow Copic. I colored the tiny ornaments and the star with red and yellow Spicas, and mounted it on a scalloped rectangle of Bazzill Garnet paper and popped it up on dots. The paper is actually shimmery and really pretty. I stamped the A Muse sentiment directly on the notecard and tied on the ribbon and it was done! Easy peasy!

Monday, July 14, 2008

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. . .

Shopping is one of the few things I can do no matter how sick I am. Hacking up a storm, I drove 1.5 hours down to Sunnyvale to Stamp On Over's Amuseapalooza party on Monday, July 7.

On the way down, I was a little worried. I had only seen one day of sneaks, and they were mostly out of the A Muse Peace and Cheer kit, which I liked but didn't love. Well, I was in for a big surprise--there were TONS of cute stamps!

Here's what I got:









I know, I know, I didn't get very many. But, I dragged my mom along with me, and she got five different stamps. So, between the two of us, we've got a decent collection to work with.

My biggest dilemma was which direction I wanted to go with my Christmas cards this year. I was torn between getting the Christmas boy and girl OR the flying elf. As you can see, I went elf. He's just so cute! Somehow though, I have feeling the Christmas boy and girl will end up in my collection eventually anyway. ;)

However, my most favorite stamp from this collection has got to be Rudolph. He's just so precious! I've already inked him up, colored and punched out about a dozen images of him.

Now that I've got him ready to go though, I'm not sure what I want to do with him. An easy Christmas card layout? ATCs? I'm leaning toward ATCs. . .

Where I've Been. . .









So, over the Fourth of July weekend, I went camping with my husband's family. Every year, we go over the same weekend to the same place: Casini Family Ranch in Duncans Mills, on the shores of the Russian River.

It's great. We do NOTHING all day every day, which initially is always hard for me, but by the end I'm always wishing for more time there. This year, we went to the beach, flew kites, sat by the river, and read. In three days, I got through all of the last Harry Potter book. I was happy to have finished it (it's been on my to-do list since I got it last year!), but sad that the series is over. It was so stinkin' good!

While I was camping, I also managed to pick up a cold. It tortured me from the day we arrived until I was home and back at work, and I'm still fighting the damn thing. So, I've been pretty much mojo-less the last week. But, I think I'm coming around.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Eeeeeeeeeeek!

Oh my goodness! I won, I won! I won Geeta's pocket card challenge! You can read all the details here! Yay!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Last Three

Here are my last three cards for Geeta's pocket card challenge.













I love how this card turned out. I was thinking about Mary Engelbreit, with the cherries and all, and the card just kind of came together. I think I'll probably use this as a gift topper.












After four cards, I was starting to lose my mojo, so I thought a complete change of theme was in order. I dug into my Christmas stamps (hidden in a box under my desk except during the season), and found this reindeer cutie. His little lights are colored with Stickles, and he's colored with Copics. The paper is Memory Box and Bazzill.










And this last one was entirely emotionally driven. On Sunday, Phil and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We spent the day thinking about our wedding a year ago and talking about the highs and lows of marriage. (Luckily, my constant need to stamp wasn't mentioned!) Anyway, it reminded me of how much I love him, and this card just sort of came together after that. The hearts on the box are colored with red Stickles, and I used a row of gemstones under the sentiment to add some interest. Usually, I'd freak out about using my precious stones, but when you're in love you've gotta go all out, so I figured I should bling it up a bit. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

And last but not least, here we are on our anniversary. We splurged and had fondue for dinner. It was very romantic and very delicious. Love you honey!








This week, we'll be going on the annual family camping trip to the Russian River so it'll be quiet around here for a while. But, when I get back, it'll be time for the Amuseapalooza main event! I can't wait!!!