AMAP Ribbon Challenge

Hope you're having a good weekend. Yesterday was the Rock n' Roll marathon here in Seattle. In conjunction with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and its Team in Training program, I was a volunteer at their water station for the marathon. It was a lot of fun, but boy am I tired. My upper body feels like jelly after toting around cartons of 6 gallons of water and keeping my arms extended holding out water for the runners for eight hours! Once I got home I felt like I'd done a marathon myself!

Anyway, you're here to see a card, so enough of my personal ramblings! I made this card for the A-Muse-A-Palooza ribbon challenge. I recently got this beautiful flower ribbon as part of a grab bag at Packaging Specialties. I thought the flower design in the ribbon resembled the A Muse gerber daisy image, so I pulled that out, and the card just fell together. I wanted to color the flower like one in the ribbon, but I'm not sure I like the finished result. Anyway, I was too tired to come up with something else, so I'm sticking with this! Thanks for looking, and hope you have a good week!

A-Muse-A-Palooza Square Challenge

Hard to believe another countdown to A-Muse-A-Palooza is upon us! I had so much fun playing along last year that I just had to make time in my crazy schedule to participate again this year (while it was no fun being home for eight months last year due to cancer, I do miss the unlimited time for my creative pursuits!). The first challenge is to make a card that is an interpretation of "SQUARE." I was very pleased with how this card turned out, just wish my photo of it was better. I had fun practicing my shading techniques with Copic markers on the tulips, and it felt good to use my recent purchase of the beloved petite green gingham paper! Thanks for looking. Can't wait for the next AMAP challenge!

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!