Stamping with Victoria

Hello! Happy Friday! Yay!! This week went by fast.

Victoria came over yesterday and we got to stamp and chat again. I love getting together with her, she's so funny and we have a blast together. The funnest part was coming up with a bunch of naughty card ideas!! LOL!! Although we didn't make them yesterday, maybe sometime we will and share!!

We did work on the Stamp of the Week and Weekly challenge for the A*Muse Addicts site this past week.

Here's what I made:

This card qualifies for the Stamp of the Week Challenge (Stack of Books) and the Weekly Challenge (using office supplies on a card.) The pin on the ribbon is actually a T Pin from Staples. I put some clear glaze on the mug and some Spica Glitter pen on the steam and coffee to give it a little something extra too.

This card is also a Stamp of the Week challenge card (Superhero). So, maybe it qualifies for being a naughty card too?? Now you can see where mine and Victoria's head was yesterday??? :D This could be one of two things in my mind, either, Role Playing or A Costume Party gone wild??? Still fun, maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's funny though??? LOL!

And last but not least, I played with Bernice for the first time. She and Boris are quite the pair!! Victoria and I were trying to think of fun sentiments to go with them and we were thinking something like "We have chemistry," or "Instant Chemistry," or "Weird Science," or "She blinded me with science." Too many fun ideas!!! I did the Bouncing Brayer technique on this card, using 2 shades of orange ink, but you can hardly tell on this yellow notecard. I also used clear glaze pen on their glasses and the beaker and test tube.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!!! Thanks for peaking in on my blog today!!

Hugs and blessings,

Girlie Birthday cards

Hi! Happy Monday! It's a cool rainy day here and I'm definitely feeling Summer coming to an end. My kids go back to school next week and I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not. I love the freedom of no schedules!!

I thought I'd share a couple birthday cards I made a week or so ago. My friend has 2 little girls with birthdays only a couple weeks apart, so she has joint birthday parties. I made these for her girls.

All stamps, papers, ribbon, twinkle stickers are from A Muse (other than black and white CS.) Memento Tuxedo black ink, chalk inks, Copic Markers, Marvy oval punches, and Stardust Stickles also used.

Hugs and blessings,

Madeira Challenge

Jennie's Stamp of the Week challenge on the A Muse Addicts site this week is to either use the new Madeira stamp from the latest A Muse release or the School Bus. I played around a bit last night and came up with a card using the Madeira stamp. Here it is:

This also qualifies for her weekly challenge, Advanced Planning, to make a card for an upcoming occcasion or holiday. With Fall and Thanksgiving around the corner, I was looking to do a Thank You card using Fall colors. I got this Martha Stewart lace border punch last week and have been itching to play with it. I'm lovin it, much more than the other one I have.

Stamps, papers, twinkle sticker and ribbon by A Muse, inks are Palette Hybrid Burnt Umber and SU! Apricot Appeal.

I hope you're enjoying your week!
Hugs!

Happy Birthday Michelle!!

It's Michelle Clark's birthday today!!!!! (aka: crazystampchick!!) If you're so inclined, pop on over to her blog and wish her a happy day, I know she'd be tickled!!! :D

She loves Vespa Girl, it's her absolute fave, so Geeta, Jennie and I all decided to send her something similar using Vespa Girl or Nadia (the scooter) or the Eiffel Tower and the "have the funnest birthday ever" sentiment so they all tied in together. Geeta came up with the color combo, to use Kitchen Orange and Kitchen Grass Green notecards since Michelle also loves those, well, I couldn't bring myself to put those 2 colors together for this (too 70's-ish for me, although, this turned out 70's-ish anyway), so I chose to tone it down a little with the lighter green Kitchen notecard. I'll admit that I went out and bought Vespa Girl just for this special occasion, cuz I didn't have her!! Life's tough, huh?? :D I love how Michelle covered the scooter with red glitter on this card, so I decided to give it a try too! So fun!

Stamps: all A*muse, (Vespa Girl, Eiffel Tower, Bridge, Funnest Birthday, Mini Oval)
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics, Going Gray (SU!), Clear Spica Glitter pen
Papers: A*Muse Kitchen Orange and Kitchen Green, white
Accessories: A*Muse red sheer ribbon and Stitched Orange ribbon, Michael's black polka dot, Xmas red Stickles, SU! Keytag punch, dimensionals

I hope you have a wonderful day!! Blessings to you!

Sa-weet 16

It's my nephew's birthday today! Happy Birthday Peter!! :D (I seriously doubt he reads this blog, but just in case, I needed to shout it out!)

He's a tough one to make a card for cuz I just have a tough time with guy cards in general. He loves many things like skateboarding, reading, drawing, and video games, so I tried to think of something cool I could stamp for him. This is what I came up with:

I love the sweet 16 saying, but since he's a guy, I knew I needed to make it cool somehow or not use it at all cuz it seems too girly. Not sure if teens still say "sa-weet" any more or if I'm just aging myself, but I thought this was pretty fun!

On the inside I stamped the snowboarder stamp by A Muse and added wheels to make it a skateboard. I originally wanted to stamp it on the front of the card along the words (to make it look like he's skating down them) but I thought it might throw it off balance and look too cluttered so I added the arrows punch from SU instead.

The "16" is stamped with the A Muse birthday builder clear set and the "sa-weet" uses the lower-case small polka dot letters clear set from A Muse, (I just filled in the polka dots with a black Staedtler Triplus Fineliner pen so you can't see them). I outlined the punched arrows with a Signo white gel pen to add interest and balance the white from the popped up circle. The notecard base is A Muse and the ribbon is from Michaels.

I hope you're having a fabulous week!

Hugs and Blessings,

SIU Teacher Gifts

Hey! A couple days ago I posted this month's Step It Up challenge on the A Muse Addicts site. The challenge is to make gifts for our kids' teachers or for that special teacher friend in our life. Very useful challenge, only thing is, I didn't have any samples ready!! Eeekkk!! I promised to work on them this week and post them ASAP and here they are:

I used a variety of A Muse Kitchen Cardstocks to make the gift colorful. The picture frame isn't complete, I need to pick up the Polka Dot Numbers clear set from A Muse so I can stamp the year on the bottom of it. The can has no goodies in it yet, but as soon as I figure out what I want to put in there, I'll fill it up and complete it. I used the Martha Stewart Scallop border punch on most items to keep them looking like a set, along with the little Elzybells emblems and gingham ribbon.

Here's a close up of the clipboard, it says, "you've got CLASS." (I'm so punny, I know!!) :D

I got the idea for this binder clip note/picture holder from the A Muse shop, we have one sitting on the counter with a business card in it, so cute!! They make adorable gifts and they're super easy to make!! (BONUS!!)

Here are a couple close ups of the Elzybells emblems. Just colored in with Copics, matted and added an A Muse clear sticker over the top to finish it off. They're popped up on dimensionals (except the one on the clipboard).







If I finish up the other teacher gifts to complete the set, I'll be sure to post them for you.

Blessings!

Brilliante Award

Awards are going around for sure!! :D I got nominated by Kim, Jennie and Victoria for the Brilliante Award:

The rules for the "Brilliante Weblog" award are:

The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.

Link to the person you received your award from.

Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

Put links to those blogs on yours.

Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated.

So of course I think the women that nominated me have Brilliante blogs as well, so consider them nominated, and they nominated others that I think are Brilliante so consider them nominated too, but here are my nominees for blogs that I think are Brilliante as well:

1. Lori
2. Lexi
3. Katie
4. Mo
5. Amanda
6. Linda
7. Kim
8. Rachel
9. Stacy
10. Novell

Although I could keep going and nominate many more, I'm gonna stop at 10.

Thanks so much girl for the sweet award! Please stop by and show some love to the Brilliante bloggers I listed above, I know they'll appreciate it!! :D

~Rhonda :D

Weekly Challenges

Happy Hump Day!!! :D (giggle) What a fun week it's been so far, it's goin by way too fast for me though. Sunday we went boating on Lake Washington for SeaFair and got to see the Blue Angels put on their air show!!! Too fun!! Here are a couple pics:

It was so cool to be right in the action, seeing and hearing them LIVE!!! I don't think I've ever done Seafair before and I'm so happy I finally got to experience it. It's such a huge rush to watch them and hear how loud they are!! I can't imagine being inside the cockpit with all the flips and tricks and crazy things they do. I know I'd lose my cookies!! LOL!! The lake was PACKED with boats!! So fun, everyone was having water fights, shooting water guns and throwing water balloons at anyone close to them!! We were hoping to get a glimpse of the hydroplanes too, but we were on the other side of the lake when it was happening. Maybe another year!! :D

I got together and stamped with my friend Mo yesterday too!! We worked on a couple A Muse Addict weekly challenges. She's a blast to hang out with. She brings out the goofy side of me for sure. Reminds me of hanging out with my sister or something, I can just be myself, silly side and all!! :D She cracks me up!! I love stamping with friends, it's the best!

I don't know about you, but there are times when I get an idea in my head and it just doesn't translate onto paper the way I had hoped. It's great to have another set of eyes to bounce ideas off of. On this first card that I did for Jennie's Stamp of the Week challenge (tireswing) I was originally gonna stamp a sunshine in place of the Tiny Bird, but she suggested the bird and I'm so glad she did!! We decided to leave off the legs and make a wing!! :D My favorite part about this card is that I made the tiny bird RED!! I don't know why I'd never thought to do that before, but it's such a fun little punch of color and I think Tiny bird likes being red!! :D

Stamps: Tireswing, Tiny Bird, Life is Good
Papers: Soft Sky, black, white, Madeira green, Grass Green Kitchen notecard
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Garden Green, Copics, Signo white gel pen, Sakura black glaze pen, Clear Spica glitter pen, Staedtler fine liner black pen
Accessories: A Muse ribbons, Marvy punches, scallop scissors

This next card is for the weekly challenge to use (one of) your newest A Muse stamp(s). I picked up several last Saturday and decided to use the new Party Silhouette one. I've been thinking about this card since I first saw that image, to pair it up with the Hostess. Well, it didn't quite translate how I hoped, I wanted it to be simple and just a one layer card (on the pink), but I ended up adding too much and couldn't get the ribbon to work right and then ended up cutting it down and mounting it on a different base card. It's popped up on dimensionals to give it a little umph. I hand drew the Martini glass to scale it down since the one in the Party Time clear set was a bit too big for this card. It's tough to see, but I colored the Martini Blue to give it an extra punch of color.


Stamps: Hostess, Party Silhouette, Cheers to you
Papers: Popsicle Pink, black and white striped A Muse notecard
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics, Clear Glaze pen, Spica Clear glitter pen
Accessories: A Muse twinkle stickers, Stardust Stickles, dimensionals

Sorry for the LONG post!! Thanks so much for stopping by today!!

Blessing,

VMAA BONUS - Friends

Woohoo!!! Our last challenge is a bonus challenge posted by none other than the Queen of A Muse herself, JULIE!!!

Her challenge is to make a humorous friendship card.

Here's what I came up with:

My mom let me borrow her old Garth Brookes CD (yes, I'm a closet Garth fan) and I had this song stuck in my head all day while stamping away. I wasn't quite sure what to do for this challenge and as I was looking through my drawers of A Muse stamps, the dog house popped out at me and screamed "use me!!" There isn't much lower of a place for a friend to be than in the dog house, right?? :D

Thanks so much to everyone who played along with us and I hope you enjoyed the challenges even if you weren't able to play this time.

Thanks for stopping by!! Hugs and blessings to you!!

VMAA - One Tree Hill

Can you guess who's challenge is OTH??? :D If you know anything about Jennie, you know she's a HUGE OTH fan!! :D

Her challenge tonight is a super easy one, use one stamp on your card!!!

Here's my sample:

This is the new Madeira stamp from A Muse and their new Vintage blue notecard!! :D This card is inspired by a mug I saw at Starbucks the other day (the blue one on the top shelf of the picture):

I hope you're all enjoying the challenges!!

VMAA - LOST

Surprise, surprise!! A LOST challenge from me!! :D

Imagine your plane crashes on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. You survive and all you have with you is your carry on filled with your absolute favorite stamping essentials.........

The challenge:
Make a card using one of your favorite A Muse stamps, your favorite ribbon, your favorite color or A muse notecard, your favorite layout, your favorite accessory, your favorite punch, etc. Use as many of your favorites as you can!!

Here's what I did:

It's tough to pick a favorite A Muse stamp, there are so many favorites, but this Tire Swing is definitely at the top of the list. My favorite A Muse colors are French Roast, Cabana Blue and Madeira green. My favorite layout (large square on square notecard), my favorite ribbon (May Arts sheer polka dot), my favorite decorative scissors (tiny scallop), favorite ink (Palette Hybrid), Favorite coloring medium (Copics).

VMAA - Grey's Anatomy

Challenge #2 tonight is hosted by Geeta!! Her favorite show is Grey's Anatomy and her challenge is to make a card that has something to do with LOVE!! She says she's a hopeless romantic (I think she has a crush on McDreamy!!)

Here's my card:

Stamps: Elyse, Love Monster, Heart Sings, Ice Cream Truck
Papers: Kitchen yellow, Cabana Blue, white, SU Pretty In Pink
Inks: Palette Hybrid Noir, SU Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Copics
Accessories: Marvy punches, A Muse ribbon, SU mini brad, SU paper piercer, dimensionals

VMAA: Passport to Europe

Let's get this party started, shall we??? It's VMAA time (Virtual Meeting of the A*Muse Addicts)!!! Our theme this round is TV time, all the challenges will be based on our favorite TV shows. The first challenge is hosted by Michelle and is based on the travel show Passport to Europe.
Michelle has given us a beautiful photograph from her trip to Europe as our inspiration piece. All we need to do is make a card inspired by this picture:




Here's my challenge card:

All stamps, papers and ribbon are by A Muse, Marvy Oval punches, SU Slit Punch and rectangle punch, Palette Hybrid Noir ink, Soft Sky ink and Copic Markers also used.

I hope you're able to play along with us!!!