Wallet GC Holder

I found these CUTE wallet gift card holders that Lauren Meader (MyTime) made on her blog and knew I wanted to eventually make some.  I had hoped to do a few for Christmas but never got around to making them.  I made this for my friend Kim for her birthday on Friday.  Such a fun way to give a GC.  Super easy to make too!  

The best part is I got to use my new Scor-Pal (one of them!!  I got 2 for Christmas!) to make this, made it a complete cinch!!  Papers are Soft Sky CS by SU and Blue Bayou Prints also by SU.  The flower is a brad by Provo Craft, I cut off the prongs and stuck it on w/a glue dot.  Also stuck the bling on with a glue dot so it would stick good.  To hold the flap down, I used my Tombo Mono Multi Glue to make a re-positionable sticky spot under the flap by putting a pool of glue down and letting it dry then it'll stick down but lift up when needed and not be completely glued to the wallet.

Thanks for stopping by today!!  Have a safe New Year's Eve!!!

Octopus Spring Card

Hi Everyone!  Happy Sunday!  I'm re-cooping from an All-Nighter with our Youth Group on Friday night!!  8pm to 8am!!  It was a ton of fun, but by 2pm I was ready for bed!  I took some No-Dose and a Full Throttle to keep me going!!  Did great until 5am and then I was just ready to go home for the next 3 hours!! :D  We had a blast but I'm completely sore from Broom Ball and Bowling!!  Here is a fun card I made the other day.  I was alerted to this card by a fellow LOSTie sister, Stacy, and decided to give the template a try.  So fun and easy.  The best part is that it folds flat and then opens up when pulled out of the envelope!!  The A Muse 4.25 x 4.25 notecards are the perfect size for this template too, no cutting down required!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful day!

A Winter Challenge card

Hello!  I made this card for a couple of challenges, one was for A Muse Addicts Yahoo Group challenge #21 to  make a Winter card, one was for Iheart2stamps Saturday Sketch here.

So I'm a little late posting this for the Yahoo group, but it was still fun to make.  I flipped the sketch upside down to accommodate the main image, hope it still counts.  Images by Elzybells NA.  I omitted the star in the Reindeer Star stamp and replaced it with Falling Snowflake.  The snowflake is a retired SU punch that was punched out then punched again with a 1 1/4" circle punch and then the glitter window technique was applied to it (put packing tape on the back, trim it down, then dip it in DD glitter.)  I got to use a new Robin's Nest glass embellie on the center of the snowflake!  My first time using them, I hope to get more creative with them since I have a whole bottle to work with!

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Teabag book and a Card

Hey everyone!! Sorry I haven't been blogging the past couple days. I know I told you I was gonna post the other Teabag Book I made but I didn't get around to it!! I guess I should stop saying I'm gonna do something if I don't know for sure!! :D I hope you'll forgive me!!

It's a bit dark, not bright and cheery colors, but it seemed earthy and cozy to me, what I think of when I think of tea. If you missed it on the Christmas Teabag Book post, here's the link to the instructions that Cookiestamper made for them.

The teacup stamp and sentiment are both from A Muse's new stamp release! So cute! CS used is retired from SU (True Thyme and Vintage Violet). Patterned Paper by Basicgrey.

Also, here's a card I made for my neighbor, she had to have her cat put down a little over a week ago, he was 17 years old!! A very sweet Siamese cat. He was super skinny, you could see all his bones under his fur. He got an absessed tooth and the Vet said he wouldn't make it through the anesthesia so it had to be done since he was in a lot of pain. He was my neighbors baby, she had him when she was in college before having her kids, so this was a tough time for her and the family.


Tissue box image by Lockhart Stamp Co, sentiment made with Karen Foster snap stamps since I didn't have a So Sorry stamp or a Thinking of You one for that matter!! I gotta fix that! Patterned Paper by Basicgrey, Notecard by A Muse. Rounded corners at the bottom a la Jennie Moczan!! :D

Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope you had a great Christmas/Holiday Season. Hugs to all of you!

Christmas Cards Returned

Oh my goodness!  I'm so sad, my DH just informed me that while picking up the mail at the post office just now, pretty much all of our Christmas cards that I sent out last week were returned!! Close to 100 cards!  Eeek, it's cuz of the jumbo eyelet and ribbon.  I thought they'd be ok being on the opposite side of where the postage goes, but no such luck.  I gotta put more postage on and resend them.  I can't believe they're all gonna be late.  I thought I was doing so good getting them out on time.

Merry Christmas!

I'm completely slacking. I'm sure you're all going through the same things as me, so much to do so little time, and at this point I just want to relax and enjoy and have quiet moments, not busy, busy, busy. It's getting there, but tomorrow will be filled with cooking (and eating of course) most of the day. I thought I'd post the Christmas card I ended up doing for our family cards this year and a picture of our tree when we first set it up a couple weeks ago.

Merry Christmas to all of you! I'm truly blessed to have a huge group of online friends that I honestly care about and love spending time with!! I never knew online friends could develop into such fun, meaningful, exciting relationships. Thanks for making my love of card making so rewarding and thanks for all the inspiration you're all giving me!! You're the best!!


I hope you enjoy the holidays and are able to relax and reflect on the year and all the blessings it brought, the ups and the downs too cuz you know, even through the down times, you've been blessed having made it through and coming out stronger and with more experience and wisdom than you had before.

Many blessings to you!
~Rhonda

Christmas Tea Bag Books

On SCS I found some directions to make these adorable teabag holders. The directions were created by Cookiestamper and can be found here. I made a few of these for stocking stuffers for my MIL, SIL and Mom. They all love tea and I thought it was a fun little project. Plus, I got to play with some of my new A Muse stamps! Woohoo! I've been so busy working on other projects, I haven't gotten to play with them yet, they're sitting on my windowsill pouting at me! These also qualify for this week's A Muse Addicts Yahoo group challenge #21 to make some Winter cards, at least I hope they qualify, they're not technically cards.   I made another one with some floral paper too that I'll post tomorrow! :D 

I'm off to do some baking! I've got Shortbread cookies, Russian Teacakes and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies to make by Tuesday. Also Geeta (Texaslonghorns) sent me some awesome Chocolate Peanut clusters that I'd love to make! They're melt in your mouth delicious and the bag was gone in a matter of minutes!

Only 3 days until Christmas!!

Gift Tags

I made a bunch of gift tags, using the Tags for All set by Stampin' Up! I gave a few little bundled up packages to some of my customers who placed orders this month then I kept a bunch of tags to have on hand to put on presents this year. I also stamped out one sheet of Avery labels using the long skinny stamps in the set, they fit perfect. Then I cut up the sheet into 6 equal pieces and put one piece in each of the gift bags.

Only 4 days left until Christmas! (and I'm not even done with my shopping or project making yet!!! Tick Tock!!) :D

Teacher Gifts Wrapped

They're wrapped up and already given. these are the teacher gift card sets and CD calendars wrapped up. I thought they were pretty all wrapped so I made sure to take pics before giving them away. I wrapped them with a few different SU DS papers, (Wintergreen, Dashing and Holiday Harmony. My friend Rachel (Hope Stamps Eternal) wrapped a Secret Sister gift for me in some patterned paper a couple weeks ago and I thought that was such a cute idea for smaller gifts. The tags are made out of A Muse notecards. The idea for these tags are totally CASEd from Sharon Johnson (Notimetostamp), she's amazing and I'm a huge fan of hers. She made these gorgeous ornament tags here. I simplified them by just using these patterned notecards and sponging the edges a little. I originally tried using my Marvy Circle punch but it wouldn't cut all the way through both layers (I thought I broke my punch!!!) So I ended up pulling out my Coluzzle circle cutter, (I have issues with the Coluzzle!!) I always forget that I have one of those awesome Creative Memories circle cutting systems! I shoulda used that! The Merry Christmas stamp is by A Muse, ribbons are all by SU. Thanks for stopping by today!! Only 5 days left until Christmas!

Card Gift Sets

Wow, what a day! I know I've mentioned that I've been procrastinating making my Christmas cards this year, well, I finally made them today, woohoo!! I'm so excited. I'm gonna wait a couple days before I post it, just so I can get them addressed and sent off first, but I thought I'd share some other projects I've been working on that have been keeping me busy! These are card sets I made for my kids' teachers and a couple others. I bought some of those clear boxes from Papertrey Ink, LOVE them!! They're not quite designed for 4.25 x 4.25 cards, but I was going for simple on these cards and it was just an easier size for me to work with. The boxes are still a great way to give a card set, even with the smaller size.

My son's class studied penguins this year so I made a penguin set for his Teacher's assistant, I'm not sure what her title is really I guess, but I think she's preparing to be a teacher and doing some sort of internship or something. I know there's a word for it, but it escapes me at the moment. She's very nice though. All stamps used on this set are by A Muse.

This snowflake set is actually for my mother in law. She loves snow and even though her birthday is in September, she prays every year that it'll snow on her birthday. Doesn't happen too often here in the Seattle area. Her BFF sends her snow related stuff as a bday gift each year. I thought she'd like these cards, not sure if you can tell, but I did the generational stamping on this (it's stamped 3 times without reinking), so it kinda looks like the snowflake is falling. I also put a little cell phone bling in the center of the main snowflake for interest. The snowflake is an Elzybells image, sentiment by A Muse.

My daughter's Kindergarten teacher last year is a HUGE sweetheart! I just adore her and she ended up becoming a friend and SU customer of mine. She loves ladybugs, so I thought I'd make her a ladybug set of cards. All images on this set are from SU.

My son's teacher this year is a pig collector and loves anything having to do with pigs!! I tried to make some boyish cards and some girly ones so she can use them as thank you's for her students. The boyish pig is by A Muse, the girly one is a retired SU image. Sentiment by SU also.

This butterfly/snail set is for my daughter's current teacher this year. I'm not really sure what she likes, but I just tried to make some boyish cards and some girly ones. Hopefully she'll like them. Images used on this set are by SU.

I made several of these Christmas cards for my DH to give out to friends and co-workers. Images by Elzybells NA. I tried to make these cards a bit more masculine since they're coming from him. I was a little worried about having the cards' focus on Jesus since he'll be giving them to employees/co-workers and I know it's not a politically correct thing to do, but he wasn't worried. Everyone at his work knows he's a Christian and he's happy to stand for what he believes in even in the workplace. Besides, it's Christmas!! That's what it's all about!! (forget the hokey pokey!!) :D

Happy Hump Day!! :D

ONLY 6 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!

Gift for my A Muse Secret Sister

This is the gift I made for my A Muse Secret Sister, Ingrid!! :D  I sent her a couple of other goodies too but this was the main gift and reveal card.  Her favorite colors are red, orange and Turquoise!  Such a great color combo to work with!  I've been wanting to try some of these blocks ever since seeing Emily Giovanni's lovely blocks on SCS.  One side says A*MUSE, one says SECRET, one says SISTER, one says INGRID, one side has various A Muse people images, the other has various A Muse buildings stamped on it.  It was so fun to make this and play with all my A Muse stamps!  I love these kind of projects where you can use a variety of stamps and help you feel better about having such a big collection!

Tag! I'm it!! :D

That little stinker Geeta tagged me!  My first game of blogger tag!

The rules of the game:

*Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

*Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.

*Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

*Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So, here goes, I'm a pretty ordinary person so this'll be tough, but here are my 7 random facts about myself:

1.  I have green/hazel eyes

2.  I'm 5' 3"

3.  99% of the time you'll see me wearing jeans

4.  I like to be silly and dance like a dork!!  My sister and I are known to do this when we get together.  

5.  My favorite 80's song to dance to (with my sister preferably) is Safety Dance by Men Without Hats!!! :D

6.  I love to eat Seaweed Paper (the seasoned kind: Teriyaki Nori)  I can eat a whole can in one sitting!!  My youngest DD inherited a liking for this too!

7.  I don't eat SUSHI!!!  No raw fish for me.  I will eat cucumber rolls or California rolls if there's no fish eggs on them though!! :D 

Ok, who to tag??  I don't know many bloggers personally that aren't already tagged!!  But it must be done!!

Tobey

Amanda

Cyndi

Trisha

Tobi

Kristina

Carole

A Muse CD Calendars

I've been making a bunch of projects this week, aren't we all?? :D  I made several of these cute A Muse calendars to give to teachers and some friends.  I shoulda just stamped the images in color rather than black and then color them in because it took awhile to make them, but I just like the look of colored in images better, so it's worth it to me.

Here are January thru April

May thru August

and September thru December.

It was fun going thru my A Muse stamp collection and deciding which stamps to use for each month.  Great to be able to use so many stamps on one project, makes me feel good about my stamp investments!! :D  

I had the toughest time with the month of July though!!!  I'm still annoyed with it!!  I thought I originally had a brilliant idea to do fireworks with the Eiffel Tower cuz I know I've seen fireworks at the Eiffel Tower on TV before.  So I stamped out all 10 of the July months with that theme, looked super cute I might add.  Then, duh, it hits me, that's New Year's, not 4th of July!!!  4th of July is a US holiday, they don't celebrate it in France!!  It was a blonde moment. So I ended up reprinting them and starting over.  Now, at first glance, the month of July looks just fine, right?  Summer, camping, fireworks, fun, at least that was my original thought.  After stamping them out and taking a closer look, it looks like the 3 of them are up to no good in that tent with the fireworks above!! :D  Yes, I know, my mind wanders often!!  But, I'm not about to redo them, so they're just gonna have to be naughty calendars!! :D

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Deck the Halls

Hi there!!  I have to say that SCS is one of the bestest places to hang out ever!  I've made so many great friends over the past year.  I feel so blessed! 

I made this card this week from some awesome goodies that I got from one of my great online friends!!  I'm fortunate to get to be a LOSTie Sister on the Sisterhood of the LOSTies thread on SCS and I participated in my first Secret Sister round that ended last month.  My awesome Secret Sister was none other than Rachel aka: Rachelhope13, who by the way has just opened up her online store Hope Stamps Eternal, check it out!!  She sent me the bestest goodies pictured down below!  The paper used on here is SU cardstock along with Basicgrey Figgy Pudding PP.  The stamp set used is Basicgrey's Santa Baby clear stamp set.  Ribbon by SU, hat pin by Creating Keepsakes.  SU inks.

Thanks so much Rachel!!  You're so sweet!! :D

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging much this week, I'm trying to catch up on some Christmas projects, then I'll post what I've been working on!!  Merry hugs to all of you!

Some Christmas Cards

I've been procrastinating making our family Christmas cards this year. Not exactly sure why, but I think because I want to incorporate a family photo on the card and since I didn't have a recent family pic taken yet, I just haven't done the cards. I get inspired by the main focal point usually, so If I don't have that, it's tough for me to come up with a card idea!! :D We took some pictures at my DH's parent's house this past weekend, so hopefully I can get a couple printed and start playing soon.

This first Elzybells card is the basic idea I have for our family Christmas cards this year, only inserting our photo instead of the cute little Elzy girl. I was thinking about stamping "Christmas Blessings" in white directly on the photo but not sure how it'll look, so I may end up adding a little embellishment on the bottom right with the sentiment. We'll see!! :D I may end up doing a completely different color combo too.

I just did this card for fun. I was inspired by Notimetostamp (Sharon) and her gorgeous cards that have the long ribbons on them. I embossed some of the snowflakes, the sentiment and the edges of the card with II EP.

This last card I made while just playing around with my new SU Christmas stamp set. The star is embossed with II EP too, tough to tell in the photo.

Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope you stay warm!!

UK~ Seattle Elzy

Happy Monday everyone!!  I hope you all had a nice weekend!  We spent ours decorating for Christmas and cleaning!  Our house is still a mess though! :D  Here's another card I made using one of the UK Elzybells images my friend Tammi gave me.  I love this girl!  Being from the Seattle area, I can so relate to her! :D  I chose to keep the card fairly simple.  I was going to add some sort of metal embellie somewhere, but couldn't figure out a good spot without making it feel like I overdid it.  Since these images are much bigger, I like to make sure the focus is kept on the image and not clutter it up too much.  I colored her in with Prismacolor Pencils and tried to blend a bit with a Copic Colorless Blender.  I think it did blend pretty well and brightened up the color, but you can still see the pencil lines a bit.  

Have a wonderful day!

Awesome A Muse Admirer!!

I have the most Awesome A Muse Admirer EVER!!! :D  I'm so excited!  I got this super fun package in the mail yesterday!!  She MADE this pillow, it's an exact replica of the cute little A Muse elf stamp!!  The pillow is so very nicely made and looks like something you'd buy at a specialty gift shop!  I got this awesome set of cards too that are SO cool, using my favorite A Muse stamp, the Rock Star!! :D  The other 2 cards are fabulous cards she has sent to me, along with a cute little bag of elf shoe brads and a delicious box of Seattle Chocolates, YUM!!!  Thank you so much A Muse Admirer!! :D  I know who you are now, but I won't reveal until the 15th so I don't ruin the surprise for anyone else!! :D  You spoiled me!

Elzybells ATC

Hey there!!  I received my swaps back the other day from Taylor's ATC swaps!!  They're all adorable, some awesome stampers to swap with!  Now I can finally show you the swap I made for the Elzybells group since I managed to lose the pictures I took of them.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I had fun stamping on the ribbon.  The original stamp says Warm Winter Wishes, but it wouldn't all fit over the little image so I only inked up Winter Wishes so it would fit better.

Have a fun weekend!! :D

UK Winter Elzy

Isn't she SO cute!!  A friend of mine, Tammi (LotRFan on SCS) sent me a few UK Elzybells images that she ordered direct from them online.  They're quite a bit bigger than the NA Elzybells, but SO fun to work with!!  I have another one to post tomorrow too!! :D  

Thanks for stopping by today!!  :D

Have Yourself....

....a Merry Little Christmas....  Is it stuck in your head yet??  I hope so!  Such a heartfelt Christmas song.  Music has always been a huge part of my life.  I think I've got a song filtering through my brain at any given point in the day!! :D  I love Christmas time cuz I've usually got good, happy songs in my head!!  I love it when stamps use song verses, so cute!!  This one is an A Muse/Elzybells stamp.

I made this card for SCS Sketch Challenge #153.  At first glance it seemed like a tough sketch for me, but so glad I tried it out.  It wasn't too tough once I got going with it.

I hope you have a wonderful day!!  Happy Hump Day!! :D  Only 20 days 'til Christmas!!

Christmas Color Challenge

Ok, I know I'm crazy, but I had to challenge myself to try the SCS Color Challenge from last night one more time and this time make it a Christmas or Winter card.  This is what I came up with.  Not the most original layout, but what do you expect at 1:00 in the morning?? :D  Both Stamps used are by A Muse Artstamps.  Most of the papers and embellishments are Stampin' Up! except for the glitter paper, that's by DCWV Glitter Mat Stack, and the Stickles glitter glue.  I used copics and Prismacolor pens to color in the ornaments.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!!  

Challenging Color Challenge!!

It's been awhile since I've had time to play and do a color challenge on SCS!  My friend Jennie got me hooked on doing them a couple months ago.  We like to have virtual stamp nights and see what we each come up with for the same challenge.  We decided to give it a try tonight and boy was it a challenge!!  Certainly Celery, Summer Sun and Old Olive!!  Not such a bad color combo, very retro 70's, but this time of year, all I have is Christmas and Winter on the brain!  These colors do not speak Winter to me at all!  So I went with what they do speak, Sunflowers or Dandelions!  I kinda cheated and used a Madeira Green A Muse notecard in place of Certainly Celery, but it's close enough!  The layout for this came from sketch challenge 63 on SCS, the slit punch at the top holds the Madeira notecard closed, it folds down.

Sorry for the out of season card, but hopefully you'll be able to look past that and pretend it's late Summer in you mind!! :D

Make sure you go check out Jennie's Blog, she did an amazingly adorable card with this color combo and even managed to make it a Winter card!!!  She's awesome!!  Oooohhh, she also has some delicious blog candy going on right now, don't miss your chance to win it!!

Polar Bear Blessings

This is a little thank you note I made for all the ladies that signed up for the A Muse ribbon share on the A Muse Addicts Yahoo group.  They're just little 3x3 cards.  Tough to see in the photo, but I used my Clear Spica glitter pen for the snow under the bear and I used my red Stardust pen to glitter up the scarf a bit.  Polar Bear and blessings stamps by A Muse, Bold Snowflakes jumbo wheel by SU!  CS, scallop punch and ribbon by SU! also.  Copic Markers used:  Cool Shadow and Carmine (red).

Thanks for stopping by!!

Ribbon, Glorious Ribbon!!

Aaaahhh, doesn't it look delicious??  I hosted a ribbon share in the A Muse Addicts Yahoo group and finally got it completed and mailed today!!  It was complete heaven being up to my elbows in this fabulous A Muse ribbon, but it was a lot of work and took much longer than I expected it to!  Doesn't help that the original tape I used to wrap up the ribbon didn't stick and they were all unraveling!!  I ended up wrapping them up with light weight cardstock and little tiny white labels.  As it turned out, that wasn't sticking so well either, but I wasn't about to redo them again!!  Hopefully the awesome ladies in the group will still be ok with how they're packaged up!!  If you love A Muse but haven't joined the A Muse Addicts Yahoo group yet, come on over and join us!  It's an amazing group of stampers that love A Muse and love having fun!  We do challenges, contests, and swaps and even give out prizes here and there.  This week's challenge is to create Thank You cards for the holidays and post pics to the group.  The winner of the random drawing from the entries submitted this week will win a prize from Yours Truly!! :D

Have a fun weekend everyone!

Yes, MORE BRAKs!!!

Can you believe the BRAKs are still pouring in over here??  Amazing!!  Here are pics of the BRAKs I've received this week!  Thanks again everyone for making my birthday so special this year!

These cards were sent to me by some of my wonderful LOSTie Sisters!!  Fall Leaves card by Amanda, Fall Pilgrim and Ha-Pea Birthday cards by Leslie, Smile card by Kris, Cupcake card by Maggie, and Balloon card by SATCy!! :D  Thanks girls!!  These are beautiful!

These gorgeous cards are from some awesome A Muse Addicts!  The top left Elzybells card is from none other than Emily (Scoopy) the Elzybells girl herself!!  The top right Elzybells card is from another A Muse celeb Lexi Daly, Chair card by Tinla Woo!  Candle card by Ericka K. Thanks girls, they're all adorable!

These adorable cards were sent to me by some very talented A Muse Addicts.  Curly girl Sunshine card by my friend Ingrid!  Adorable Ballerina Fairy card by Jennifer Robinson, and the AMAZING animal party card is from none other than the Stamping Shac her self, A Muse Designer Elena!!  What a fun surprise!!

More awesome A Muse cards!!  Fun Cafe card from my friend Nicole Miller, Cute Patch w/balloon card from Pamela F., and the beautiful BEE card by A Muse Designer Erika Hall!

Last but not least, here's some more A Muse Addicts Love!  Fairy card from Christine V. all the way from the Philippines!  Stamp shop card from Joan Allard and the Cake card and Gerber Daisy card are both from the A Muse girls themselves, Linda and Heidi and the whole gang.  I posted these the other day along with a photo of the gift they sent to me but I thought they deserved a repost!! :D  

Thanks again everyone!!