A Muse Challenge

Even though I now see I missed the deadline, I still decided to post my entry for the "Hit the Books" challenge over at the A Muse Lounge, which is to create a card inspired by a book. I recently purchased The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz. It's a delightful accounting of this pastry chef and cookbook author's adventures in Paris. So, this card is my interpretation of the book. All paper and stamp images by A Muse. Cupcake brad by Doodlebug.

I'm Back!

Long time, no post. Shortly after my last post in January, my personal computer crashed. I had every intention of getting it fixed or buying a new one in a timely fashion, but life got in the way! I finally have the computer up and running again. My digital camera is connected, I loaded the copy of Photoshop Elements that I got as a Christmas gift two years ago, and I set up my light tent so I could attempt to take better photographs!

The "Life's a Breeze" card reflects my first efforts at taking a photo using my light tent and editing the picture in Photoshop. I think it turned out pretty good. The sail boat and sentiments are from the new A Muse summer release. I lucked out and a local shop here in Seattle had the entire release in stock when I dropped in yesterday.

The next two cards feature photographs from a very talented photographer here in the Pacific Northwest, Kathy Fox. For several years now she has been selling her photographs that are the perfect size for card making. Once I find a background paper and card base that complement the photograph, the card comes together easily. Both of these cards are for a couple of people at work. One retired a few weeks ago, and the other one is moving on to a new position.

It's good to be back in blogger land. I'll try not to stay away so long again!

Hope you're having a great holiday weekend.

Have an Ice Day

Rhonda came over last Friday for a stamp date. We tackled the A Muse Addicts SOTW challenge first, which was to make a card with the A Muse polar bear image. I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, but that polar bear reminds me of that holiday Coca Cola TV commercial from a few years back. Anyway, I seem to be on this blue and red card combination kick lately, so I decided to do that for this card. Rhonda had the "have an ice day" sentiment in her stash, so I thought that would be a fun pairing for the bear.

I had the other blue circle scrap left over from the polar bear card, so thought I'd use that up. I hadn't made an A Muse iPod card yet, so this card just sort of fell into place. I'll probably end up using this card as a thank you note to my sister since she is addicted to her iPod. I cringe to admit I earned a free iPod as a sales bonus at work a couple of years ago, and I've barely used it! I actually need my sister to give me a tutorial on it...she's always been the more tech savvy of the two of us!

I used some Christmas money to place an order from PaperTrey Ink. Aside from A Muse, it is one of my favorite stamp companies. This next card uses the Warm Happiness set from PaperTrey. I like this set because it is very versatile. The sentiment actually has a blank space in it so you can insert coffee, tea, or cocoa, depending on your preference. The red ink is PaperTrey's Pure Poppy. The brown ink is Memento Rich Cocoa. The note card and sheer red ribbon are from A Muse.

Finally, I also got the Heart Prints Sentiments set from PaperTrey Ink. This card shows one of the neat sentiments featured in that set, which I stamped and then punched out with the Marvy Giga heart punch. I also used the new Love Birds image from the upcoming A Muse valentine release. The tiny polka dot brown paper is from Stampin Up! and the pink rhinestone accents are from Me and My Big Ideas. The brown polka dot note card is from A Muse.

Have a great week!

Calendar Installment Part 3

This is the final calendar post for January. I'm sharing the last two January pages from the remaining calendars. This first one is the calendar I made for the majority of my family and friends. The snowflake accent is a chipboard element from Maya Road. I painted it with Making Memories spotlight white paint, and then went over it a second time with Making Memories glitter lacquer. Finally, I applied a layer of Crafter's Pick glue and sprinkled some vintage glass glitter over the top.

The second page is from the calendar I made at the Impress class last fall. The colors of a few of the snowflakes are a bit unusual (olive green) , and my photo doesn't make them look a whole lot better! Still, I love that giant EK Success snowflake punch, and it was one of several items we used in the class that made its way into my shopping basket and came home with me!

Thanks for looking! I'll be back in a few with another post of my cards I made when Rhonda came over a few days ago.

Calendar Installment Part 2

As promised, I'm back with a couple of photos of my January calendar pages. This first one is from the one I did for Calista, my hair stylist. I carried the black and white theme throughout the entire year--each of the pages I used are black and white, but the designs may include other colors.

The second one is of the A Muse book I made for my coworker Deb. I apologize for the blurry photo. I was in a hurry when I was taking the photos, so some of them turned out a bit hazy.

All of my calendars I took to either Office Depot or Staples and had them custom bound. I prefer the look of this binding to the metal binding used with the Bind-It-All system. The pricing at both of the office supply stores was fairly comparable, about $2.79 per calendar, though when I took in a group of 12 calendars, Office Depot gave me a thirty cent discount per book!

New Year...New Calendar(s)

Happy New Year! I wish you all a very healthy, happy 2009! Today is also my birthday, so January 1st brings me not only a fresh start to a new year, but also marks another year I've been alive on this planet. I saw my oncologist earlier this week for my three-month check up, and I was pleased to get a clean bill of health. So, I definitely got my Christmas and birthday wishes this year--my life! I'm looking forward to a cancer-free, far-fewer-doctor-visits year!

Many of my friends and family refer to me as the Calendar Queen. I've been making calendars for gifts now for about 12 years. The most I'd ever done in the past was 17, and there were three different versions. This year I matched my record of making 17, but I counted six different versions I made. Unfortunately two I gave away before I was able to snap pictures (though you can see one on the A Muse site on this post), but this is a picture of the other four I made. The orange and black one in the middle I made at a class at Impress in October; the one on the left with the four seasons images I made as a thank you for my hair stylist, who gave me free hair care during my cancer treatments; the one on the left with the pink and green paper is my standard calendar I gave to my family and friends; the small black and white polka dot book at the bottom I made for a coworker, who was very supportive throughout my illness last year and also contributed to the A Muse calendar project.

I will post individual pictures of each of the January calendar pages for the different versions over the next few days. Thanks for looking!

Holiday Thanks

When I was housebound during our big snow storm earlier this month, I spent one entire day making cards to have on hand for various holidays, birthdays, and thank yous. My final count that day was fifteen!

My friend JoAnne gave me a Starbucks gift card for Christmas. She was my high school French teacher, so every time I send her something, I try to incorporate something French into it, thus the "Merci" sentiment for her thank you note. I was inspired by Julie's card here, and decided to do something similar with the A Muse To Go cup image. I colored it in with a red Copic marker, then stamped the tiny snowflake from Memory Box in Brilliance Moonlight White, then cut it out and mounted it on top of the tiny blue oval stamped with Memento Summer Sky ink. I think it turned out pretty good! I created my own background on the A Muse note card by randomly stamping the Memory Box snowflake images (you get two separate images on one wood block!) on the paper with the Moonlight White ink. The blue scallop frame was cut out with a scalloped Nestabilities rectangle.

Thanks for looking! I'll be back again soon with pictures of the various calendars I worked on this year!