Busy Busy!

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks away from my blog. Between the ATC swap (which I'll blog more about later!), the goodbye party for my friend moving to Australia, my scrapbooking weekend and school, it's just been crazy around here. Plus, hubby and I have taken on a new adventure together--we joined a gym. Granted, I've only been twice, but I can tell it's going to take up a bit of my time.

Anyway, back to the cards. This weekend, I went to a scrapbooking event in Occidental, CA. It's less than an hour from my house, but it feels like it's a whole world away. We stay at a Christian conference center called Alliance Redwoods, but our group is hardly angelic. The ladies at this event are hardcore scrappers, pounding out 20-40 12x12 pages in the course of the weekend. I'm a little slow, but I was still proud to finish 17 pages AND a few quickie cards that I made using scraps from my page layouts.


















This one was made using one of the new birthday sets from the Cat's Pajamas. I love this set because I think it's pretty unisex. I took advantage of that on this card and made another boy birthday card.


















This is another card I made with the same boy-ish theme. Darn those boys and their birthdays! These stamps are from the Saltbox Studio. I love this little mouse, although next time I think I'll put a candle on his muffin to make it a little more festive.

This last card is my least favorite. I love the ways Heather and other A Muse designers are using the scalloped frame in the A Muse bracket clear set so I picked it up. I'm still learning how it looks best though. Here's my first attempt. I think next time, I'll do it in brown to soften the edges a bit.

Well, there's nothing worse than making cards and forgetting to send them, so I'm off to starting writing in a couple that are due next week.

Getting Ready. . .

to go on a scrapbooking weekend. I'd forgotten how long it takes to prep and pack for this thing. Of course, it doesn't help that I'd much rather stamp than scrap. Maybe I can do both. . .

Bon Voyage!

Well, it's a sad day in Mudville. My best friend (and maid of honor at my wedding last year), is leaving next week to go to Australia for five months. I know she'll be back before I know it, but I'm still sad. We talk and/or e-mail almost every day, so it'll get real quiet in my world for a while.

At any rate, I came up with a couple of different card designs for her, and this is one of them. I got the Sky Writer stamp a while back, but I recently remembered it when Cityscape came out as part of Amuseapalooza. What better way to send a message than to write it in the sky!

So, here's my card:

I masked off the steam trail and drew the banner in with a super-thin Copic multiliner and a thicker Micron pen. The sentiment is part of Rubber Soul's clear travel set. Of course, planes are made of metal, so I went over it with my clear Spica to give it some zing.

Supplies: Card base by A Muse, navy blue paper by Bazzill, white paper by Neenah, Cityscape and Sky Writer by A Muse, sentiment by Rubber Soul. Colored with Prismacolor Muted Turquoise, Prismacolor Orange, and Copic Powder Pink.

Falling Into Fall. . .

It's starting to look like fall around here. We had a nice hot weekend, but the early part of this week was filled with cold and good old San Francisco fog. My husband LOVES the cold weather so he's happy as a clam, but I'm hoping for a few more warm ones before I have to officially concede it's fall.

Anyway, here's a card I made to try and get excited about the season.















This past weekend I got to go up to Paper Garden for their 2nd anniversary celebration, and Linda's make-and-take featured her new leaf clear stamp. It reminded me that there's a pretty fall-ish leaf in the Simple Celebrations set that I haven't inked up in a while.

Supplies: Card and stamps by A Muse, patterned paper by DCWV, ribbon by May Arts(?).

The Other Thing I've Been Doing. . .

Watching these arrive in my mailbox!












It's been great to see how everyone used the stamps differently. Today's the day they have to be postmarked by, so I should have them all to me by the end of the week. If they're all here, they'll be sorted and back out on Monday! Yippee!

Unwanted Guests. . .

First off, my apologies for being away from the 'ole blog for so long. I had some unwelcome guests in my craft room. . .ants! They found their way through an open electrical outlet, and straight onto my desk. Ewwwww! Needless to say, as soon as I found them I had to spend some time getting rid of them. I hate ants.

Anyway, as promised last post, here in my boy birthday card. It feels like I've been depleting the birthday card section of my stash lately, so I'm on a birthday card catch-up kick.

I used up the leftover scraps from the baby card to put this one together. I forget how far one piece of paper can go if cut correctly!

Tip: When you're using patterned paper, remember that you can hide seams easily behind your focal image. For this card, I only had a small square of paper left, but once I cut it in half horizontally, I had enough to "fake" a long strip! Fabulous! I think this'll make a great in-case-of-emergency boy card.

Okay, I'm back to checking on the ant situation. Wish me luck!

Comments Fixed!

Hi there! A couple of people have e-mailed me to note that the comments were restricted to Blogger members only. Well, I finally had a chance to look at it, and I think I was able to open it up to all people. So please feel free to post me a comment!