More coffee love!

I am really enjoying the new clear A Muse set Coffee Break!! It is just such a fun set!! And these notecards ... I just love them!! Ever since I got them, I have been thinking that they are the perfect size and shape for a pocket card! This came together so nicely ... a bit of punching with a corner rounder for the scallop edge, a little sponging, two brads and voila!! - a great pocket card! There's quite a bit of sparkle on the steam - love the Quickie Glue Pen!

By the way ... do you know that you can buy the A Muse Clear stamp sets AND the awesome 4-bar notecards right on the A Muse News Blog?? Girls, warm up your paypal accounts!!

More fun cards!

This card was made for a very, very special woman for her birthday ... of course, I screwed around with it, then ended up casing myself, then wasn't sure if it was good enough ... now it is embarrassingly late, but oh well, what are you going to do?? She'll forgive me! All stamps, paper and ribbon by A Muse!

This cutie is also for a very special chickie who recently suffered a loss! I was trying for the so sorry, yet upbeat card! The dino's little heart is covered with A Muse twinkle stickers! Bling, bling! The sentiment is from SU (a retired set called something sayings), ribbon by A Muse, punches by SU and Marvy.

Blog Bonanza!!

Still here??? Contrary to what you have seen here, I really have been stamping some! I have just been battling with my picture-taking skills, so I have refused to post anything until I felt like I had some decent pictures to show!! I still don't think they are perfect, but they are better!! So, sit back and prepare yourselves for multiple posts today!!

First of all ... Happy Halloween everyone!! I hope your day is spooky, scary and FUN!! We are heading to a friend's house this afternoon for a little party, then trick or treating in the neighborhood! We have had lots of fun in the past few days visiting the pumpkin patch and carving our pumpkins last night! I'll post pictures of all that soon!! Okay, on to the cards! I'm not going to go into a ton of details, so if anyone has any questions, please post a comment and I will answer them!! Thanks for hanging in there with me!! Have a great day!!

I was playing with my rocket boy, and I decided that he needed a rocket ship! Do you recognize it?? That's a tag from the new A Muse Clear Tag set! How awesome is that?? Stamped it on white, matted it on orange and trimmed around it with my mini pinking scissors! I love these new clear sets!! And the A Muse ribbon ... I just keep reaching for it!

I made a few of these coaster post-it note holders for my aunts and cousins who were in town last week for a family reunion! They come together so quickly - a bit of modge-podge to hold the paper down, some sponging on the edges and the big clips from Wally World! I punched matching circles with a 1 3/8 inch punch, then stamped the "notes" from the A Muse personal stationary set, and covered the whole thing with a circle A Muse Creative Candy!! Easy-smeazy!! The girls were quite impressed! Most of them live in RV's for about half the year, so they were so excited to have something magnetic to keep close!

Stay tuned ...more cards to come!

It's a boy!

My husband's best friend from high school had a baby last week - his third, and it's a boy ... George the Fourth!! George the Third is the youngest of 7!!! - his dad wasn't stopping until he got a boy, and George felt much the same with his 2 girls! We are so happy for them and their new little boy!! As we say around here - "Yeah, boy parts!!" I made this card for them because it is so awesome that they have a boy, and they live in Texas! I forgot to take a pic of the inside, but I altered the A Muse "bundle of joy" stamp by omitting the "j" of joy and hand lettered a "b" so it says "bundle of boy"!! Don't worry, I won't break my arm patting myself on the back - I'm sure I have seen others do that before!!

Details: Stamps by A Muse, CS by A Muse and SU!, ribbon & hemp twine by SU!, punches by Marvy, eyelets by Making Memories.

I {heart} Boris!

I have been trying to get in the Halloween Spirit! We are homeschooling this year for the first time, and it's kind of strange to not be thinking about teacher gifts and classroom treats! I think I will use some of my extra energy to put together a Boo Basket like this (Lexi is so incredibly talented!)! My neighbors would appreciate it! Sarah thinks I should use my extra energy to make a bunch of teacher treats and classroom treats and sell them to my non-crafty co-workers at the hospital! I may do that for Christmas, if I start now! My mom makes this killer chex mix that everyone at work always buys anyway, so I could come up with some cute packaging and sell them as ready-made teacher gifts! So, all that rambling to say here is my first Halloween card of the year! I played with this layout for-ever and finally got it to work!
There is really a lot more sparkle going on than shows up in the picture ... there are stickles on the blue jars, stardust jelly pen on the spider jars and Boris has some sparkly silver on his buttons and his test tubes! I am loving the new A Muse ribbon - this orange is just AWESOME!! Did you notice the Rick Rack line under the jars? It's from one of the new amazing A Muse Clear Sets - Fancy Borders - you can get your very own set HERE! Happy Sunday!
Details: Stamps, Notecard, Ribbon, white CS by A Muse, purple CS from my stash, Diamond Stickles, Twinkle dot by A Muse.
P.S. Disregard my last post - for some reason it is working now!! Arrghh Blogger!!

Arrgghh Blogger!

I've been trying all day to post some pictures of some neat cards ... alas, Blogger will not let me! AARRGGHHH - I guess it's time to stamp instead!! Have a good Sunday evening ... by the way ... Anyone see my Chiefs win today?? Yeah Chiefs!!

Henry's Creation!

My 10 year old son, Henry, wanted to do some stamping last week, so he made a card for my mother, his "Gaga"! He has so much fun putting things together, and I have to say his color combo of Ruby Red and So Saffron turned out great!

Stamps & CS by Stampin' Up!

It's official!!

Check out the A Muse News Blog for the big announcement! Do you see all those wonderful women that I get the pleasure to work with!! I am honored and humbled to be in such amazing company! I can't wait to see what comes next from this team!

For the one that I love! (Warning: long, personal post!)

My baby sitting on his race car - he's so cute!!

On this day, 5 years ago, I married the love of my life! I feel so incredibly blessed to have such an amazing husband! He is an excellent father - very hands on! - and my best friend! When I was a single mom, living with my mother, I never thought that I would have this! Thank you, God, for bringing Ben into our lives!

There is a funny story of how we met ... you can stop reading if you don't want to delve into my personal life! My mother and I had been taking our cars to this independent shop for a lot of years. My mom is an awesome baker, so she had made carrot cakes and such for the guys at the shop to say thanks for a job well done. So, one day about 6 years ago, I took my car in for an oil change and to check out a noise I was hearing in the back. They decided that one of the guys should ride with me to hear the noise. So, Ben gets in the car with me and we drive around for like 3 minutes. Ben swears that I was flirting with him that morning - I don't remember that - I think I was just being my normal, friendly self! I leave my car, not really thinking anything of Ben. I had seen him at the shop for years - he had started working there in high school, and I just remember him looking so YOUNG! Later that day, they call me and say that my car needs ALL this work - like $650 more! I was a bit in shock! I go back in to pick it up and it's not quite done ... so I'm sitting in the lobby. The owner is talking to me, and says that they would love to have another carrot cake. I said that I brought my car in for an oil change, and I am leaving $650 later - if anyone deserves some dessert it was me! Paul, the owner, picks up the phone and pages into the shop on the loudspeaker that I want dessert! Ben yells - I could hear him through the wall - OKAY, WHEN! So, then I say, well, if he's that aggreeable, how about dinner and a movie - so Paul does the whole loudspeaker thing again, and Ben says Yes. I just laughed, thinking that we were just joking! By this time, I am incredibly late to pick up my son, who had a therapy appointment, so when Ben finally brought my car around, I just threw my stuff in and was ready to run. Ben stops me and asks - What about our date - and I'm like, Oh, were we serious? He says yes, and I literally was pulling out of the parking lot yelling at him to get my number off my info at the shop and give me a call!

Well, he called, we went out, were engaged 3 months later and married less than a year after that! I never really believed in the whole "happily ever after" thing, but I am so glad that it came true! These are the cards that I made for Ben (I am horrible about actually making cards for people in my family, so I was pretty proud of myself for getting these done on WCMD!) They aren't anything over the top, but he'll like them!

P.S. Sometime I'll tell you all about the wedding, and how Sarah was a bridesmaid but had to run out in the middle of the ceremony puking!! Poor Sarah!

A quick card - I used the stars from the new clear Sports set by A Muse to make the background on the Cabana Blue band. You can but it HERE.

I made this card for Ben because we are going to Mexico next month for our Anniversary. We spent our Honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta and had a blast! This time we are going to Cancun!

Thanks for sticking with me on this long post! I hope you have a great day! Hug the ones you love!

Two of my favorite things!

I made this card using two of my new favorite things (the A Muse Madeira 4-bar notecards - buy them here!! - and the new Coffee Break Clear Stamp Set - it will be back in stock next week!) to celebrate two of my other favorite things - coffee, particularly with Coffee Mate Fat Free French Vanilla Creamer, and pink and brown together!! There is a lot of bling going on here ... clear rhinestone stickers on the polka dots on the mug, quickie glue pen (love that thing!) and clear ultra-fine glitter on the steam, and the sentiment (much easier to read IRL!) is embossed with sparkly EP! The ribbon is May Arts, I believe - picked up at the A Muse shop in Seattle on my first visit last March!

Details: Stamps, Notecard by A Muse, Ribbon by May Arts, Punches by Marvy and SU!, brads by SU!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

I am a day late in getting this posted ... but Happy Birthday to Sarah! I made her this card using the MFT set Say Charge because we all went together and got her a Gift Card to the County Club Plaza (a shopping area here in KC) and we are planning a girls' night out for Thursday evening so we can take her shopping for some new duds! Yeah Girls' Night!!

I also covered a can of her favorite cookies! The plate stand and goodies are from one of the new A Muse clear sets - check them out here! This patterned paper came from Paper Source a while ago! I needed something bigger than 12x12 and this worked perfectly! The "S" on the top is from the A Muse Large Polka Dot Alphabet with a bit of Sakura Stardust Clear Gel Pen and a Circle Scallop Creative Candy on top! Thanks for checking in! I'm off for 12 hours of fun, fun, fun at the hospital! Have a great Monday!

Pink Super Hero

This card was made for a certain Royal Stamp Queen (i.e. JulieHRR)! When I was looking at it today, I realized that it could be perfect for someone battling breast cancer! I may have to make some more of this card!

Details: Stamps, notecard by A Muse, Photo Corners made with Marvy Mega Scallop Square, brads and CS from my stash, A Muse twinkle on her belt!

More goodies in the mail!

Lookie at all this great stuff from my friend Aura (sister to the great Sarah of Suki's Blog)! Aura - that's her in the picture with me and Sarah - keeps saying that she is starting a blog so everyone can see her cool stuff - she is an absolutely amazing party planner - I can't wait!! These are a birthday card for me, a sympathy card and some Halloween goodies that she sent to me! She is such a sweetheart!!
I am so incredibly blessed to have such an amazing friend!

Hee, hee, hee - Did you see!!

Did you see my amazing news?? Check it out here!!!!

I am now a member of the A Muse Clear Stamp Design Team!! I feel so very honored to be involved with such an amazing company - not to mention the fact that they are the absolute coolest stamps ever!! Stay tuned - new clear stamp sets will be revealed on Saturday October 6th - which is also World Card Making Day and the A Muse Anniversary Sale!! Oh, how I wish I could be in Seattle to party with Linda and the girls!!

Big, big hugs to Linda and Julie for giving me this amazing opportunity!! The whole team should be announced soon - it's amazing!!

Almost 1000!!

Stay posted, friends! My bog has almost reached 1000 hits!! I have always maintained that I really don't care about the "numbers", I am just in this for the fun, but when I was changing up my blog today, I noticed the counter! 1000 hits and World Card Making Day - what a great excuse for some BLOG CANDY!! Keep checking - there may even be a sneek peak coming soon!!

Going Pink!!

I am going pink for October! Join me in supporting our sisters who have battled or will battle this crazy disease! Cancer sucks ... 'nuff said!