Time to Celebrate!

I have great news to share. I finished radiation earlier this week, which means all of my treatments for Hodgkin's Lymphoma are done! My last CT scan came back negative for cancer, so I am officially in remission! Wooo Hooo!

I have much to be grateful for as we enter the season of giving thanks. Most importantly my health, and the support of my family, friends, coworkers and the incredible stamping community of A Muse Addicts. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I know having this HUGE group of cheerleaders behind me is the reason I did so well and it played a tremendous part in my recovery. Thank you all!

I was so honored to be able to select the charity to receive the proceeds for the A Muse calendar this year. Thank you to all who have purchased the calendar. I don't have a current figure for how much has been raised for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, but I know based on the last update from Linda that the amount is impressive! Thank you so much for your support!

After being off for eight months, I'll be returning to work on November 3rd. Of course I will miss having the free time, but I am committed to making sure I do take time for me to do the things I love most, like spending time with loved ones, traveling, and of course, stamping! Before I return to the daily grind, I intend to do some celebrating!

I invite you A Muse Addicts to celebrate with me one more time! Make a celebration card of any kind, and post it to your blog or online gallery with a link to this post here on my blog. I will randomly draw a number from all who participate to receive two of my favorite A Muse products--the Eiffel Tower stamp and a package of blueberry kitchen note cards (I love Paris, and my favorite color is blue). You have until 6 pm DST on November 1st to play along. Bonne Chance (Good Luck)!

Brewing Up Some Fun

Happy Friday! I've had a pretty crafty week between creating gift containers, taking a Boxes & Bags class at Impress, and then playing along with this week's Stamp of the Week challenge on the A Muse Addicts site. The cup and saucer stamp was one of the featured images, and since I was in the Halloween mood, I decided to follow the same theme with my card.

I stamped the image onto Memory Box orange card stock and trimmed it out, then colored in the "tea" with a fluorescent green Copic marker (making it some bilious green witch's brew!), then went over that with a green glitter Spica marker. I think it achieved the right effect! Then I mounted the cup and saucer on to a square scrap of A Muse black kitchen polka dot paper and then onto an orange piece of cardstock I cut with my scalloped square Nestabilties die. To tie the green in a bit further on the card, I used a scrap of green stitched ribbon that came on a jar of Making Memories fall die cut embellishments (I love being able to recycle packaging elements). I used my Basic Grey slit punch to put a slit in the middle of the card to anchor the ribbon. Then, mounted the stamped image over the top of that. The orange band card is from A Muse. Finally I stamped the Memory Box sentiment in the bottom right hand corner. It actually took me longer to type out the description of this card than it did to make it!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Contain Yourself

It's Wednesday--Happy Hump Day! I'm having so much fun playing along with this month's "Contain Yourself" Step It Up challenge over at the A Muse Addicts site. The challenge is to create any type of container, box or gift bag. In the 16+ years I've been crafting, I haven't done much to create my own gift packaging. Boy, I've been missing out! This is a lot of fun!

Two of the containers pictured here are recycled items. One is a plain brown craft bag I received when I made my last purchase at a local stamp store. The other item is a soup can that I washed out and then removed the original label. The last item is the small black polka dot bag that was made from just one piece of 8 1/2 x 11" decorative cardstock.

The large gift bag I made as a Halloween goodie bag for my boyfriend's five-year-old son. Inside is a coloring book, Halloween maze activity book. a small Halloween puzzle, a package of spider hankies, and of course some Halloween treats. The bag was super easy to make. I used decorative papers from this year's Halloween paper release from K & Company. All of the papers are double-sided, so you actually get 24 different patterns! I cut the 12 x 12" papers down to various size pieces to fit the front and back of the bag, then glued them down. The tag is also made from the same papers, which I die cut with my plain and scalloped circle Nestabilities. The "T" is from A Muse's large polka dot alphabet set. I set an eyelet at the top of the tag with my Crop-A-Dile and threaded the green ribbon from My Favorite Things through and tied it to the bag handle.

The soup can treat container is for my boyfriend. The hardest part of this project was punching the holes in the can with my Crop-A-Dile and making sure they were equidistant from each other! The can was also decorated with the K & Company Halloween papers. I die cut the spider web label from the papers with my plain and scalloped circle Nestabilities. The 3-D spider sticker is from last year's K & Company release. The handle is green rick-rack felt, I think it's from Making Memories. The orange metallic wire is from my stash, I'm not sure of the brand. I cut the tag from a sheet from Memory Box's mixed cardstock Spooky collection. "TJ" is spelled out with black glitter alphabet stickers from Making Memories.



Finally, the little polka dot treat bag was inspired by Rhonda's creation here. I used the same 2,5,7,10 box template as she did to create the bag. The black polka dot paper, orange rick-rack pretty little paper, orange sheer ribbon, and the two stamps are from A Muse. (Extra special thanks to Rhonda for getting the "Sweet Treats" stamp for me--you're the best, girl!)

Have a great rest of the week!

Happy Friday!

Yesterday I met up with Rhonda for some stamping fun! Despite not really feeling in the mood to stamp, I still managed to crank out three cards. I played along with the A Muse Addicts challenges, as well as made a card for a friend's birthday on Monday.

This first card applies to both the stamp of the week (A Muse clear leaf set) and the weekly challenge to use orange as the predominate color. I don't do one layer cards very often, but I had fun with this one, and for such a simple card, it did turn out pretty well. Both the note card and the "happy fall" sentiment are from A Muse as well. I colored the images in with Koh-I-Noor pencils, which was very therapeutic. I did dab on some clear Spica glitter pen to the stems of the images, but it doesn't really show up in the picture.

The second card also applies to the stamp of the week challenge, which is the wine and cheese stamp, and the wine glass stamp. I used the wine and cheese stamp image not that long ago for an ATC swap so I wasn't that enthused to use it again, but I decided to stretch myself and try to do something a bit different with it. Note card, ribbon and "cheers to you" sentiment also by A Muse.


Finally this last card features three cupcake images from the Hero Arts Cupcakes clear design set. I love this super versatile set. It features six different cupcake images along with some fun add-ons for the cupcakes (a flower, a cherry and a candle) and some cute sayings: yum, delicious, you deserve a day sprinkled with fun, happy birthday, and seize the cupcake. Great for making birthday cards (which is what I did in this case) or for just fun greetings. The images are colored with Copics and accented with clear Spica glitter pen. The note card, pink stitched ribbon, pink paper and pink polka dot pretty little paper are from A Muse. The white polka dot ribbon is from May Arts. I also used the Stampin' Up scallop border punch.

Have a great weekend!

October Greetings

I really wanted to play along with last week's A Muse Addicts challenges, and I'm just making the deadline for the Stamp of the Week challenge, which is to use any of A Muse's pumpkin images. The challenge of the week is to create a card using mainly orange, so I created this card which covers both challenges! I don't think I've ever used the pumpkin stand stamp before, so decided to ink that up, along with the tiny pumpkin image. I also used the winter tree. The dark background was created by spongeing Memento Paris Dusk ink onto the paper (I still need to work on blending a bit more!). I drew in the ground with a Prismacolor sepia brown pencil. The pumpkins and stand were colored in with Copics. The "Happy Pumpkin Day" stamp is by American Art Stamp. Orange kitchen note card by A Muse.

Thanks for your support!

The response to the A Muse calendar project has been phenomenal. I have a very good working relationship with my manager at UPS. When I contacted him last week and told him about this special project with which I was involved (but specifically said I was not soliciting a donation from him), he surprised me by emailing me back telling me he had sent Linda a direct message wanting to make a special donation. I also came to find out through a friend at work that my manager had sent an email with the link to the A Muse blog post about the calendar project to our entire department!

So, I made this card for my manager to thank him for his support. Several months back I made a stack of thank you notes using purple, the color for Hodgkin's awareness, to thank people for supporting me. I can't bring myself to use those cards for my guy friends--they're too girly! I think this card with the orange and brown colors works well for male recipients, whether they work for UPS or not! I was inspired by cards Julie and Geeta made, so tried my hand at blending several different inks on a solid block stamp. I like the effect, but I definitely need to practice some more so I don't have any white splotches where I missed inking! This card also features the birch tree stamp from the new A Muse Trees 1 clear set. Hopefully this card qualifies, as I think I am just making the deadline for this week's challenge on the A Muse Addicts site to make a "Just Because" card! I couldn't do the Stamp of the Week challenge because I didn't have any of those stamps!

I have been hard at work doing more A Muse calendars, this time the 4 bar type. I have them nearly complete, and just need to take them to Office Depot for binding. Once they're all done, I will post pictures! Too many projects in my queue and I know this next and final month before I have to return to work will fly by. I still have to make my Halloween cards. A friend is getting married early next year and I am making the invitations (75). Plus, I decided I would make a few perpetual calendar books for Christmas gifts. My parents recently asked me what was on my Christmas list for this year. I know what I want, but it's priceless and can't be bought anywhere--More Time!!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! Is it just me, or did this week creep by? (And I'm not even back to work yet!) Anyway, yesterday I met up with Rhonda and her youngest DD at Impress, then we went to lunch and made a brief stop at Target before coming back to my place for a whirlwind craft session. We joked that we had our own VMAA going because we had only 30 minutes to make a card before she had to leave! We both started our cards together, and then finished them on our own. I chose to use the pumpkin tent stamp, which is one of the stamps of the week on the A Muse Addicts site. This was a super simple card to make, and really puts me in the mood for fall (not to mention the cool, gray weather we're having today!). Stamps, note card and ribbon by A Muse; Memento ink and Koh-I-Noor pencils.
I thought I was finished with my calendars for next year, but since I got involved with the A Muse calendar project, I can't seem to stop making them! I have two more I'm working on now using A Muse's 4bar template, but thought I'd post the cover of the ones I finished several months ago. I made twelve of these 6 x 6 versions. The paper is from Basic Grey, the Urban Couture collection. The sentiment is a stamp I had custom made for me through Impress. 2009 is stamped out using A Muse's Birthday Builder set.

Have a great weekend! Don't forget to purchase your A Muse calendar if you haven't done so already. Remember, A Muse will match your contribution dollar for dollar until Sunday! :-)