Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A last minute birthday card

Due to predictions of bad weather, the birthday party Mr. T. was supposed to go to on Friday was bumped up to Wednesday...yes, that is tomorrow. Luckily, I went present shopping yesterday at noon...the card, though, is a total last minute card. Quick and easy!



I used my stamp-a-ma-jig (perhaps that was too many hyphens???) to position the gymnasts in a pyramid, then added the happy birthday banner to the top gymnast. Coloured with copics (no shading on this one!) and it was done like dinner!

Stamps: a muse gymnasts, simple wishes
Ink: palette hybrid noir
Paper: PTI white, SU night of navy
Accessories: copics

A dirty dozen challenge card...

Geeta on the A muse Addicts board challenged members to do the Splitcoaststampers Dirty Dozen Challenges for the month using A muse stamps. You can only access the Dirty Dozen gallery and challenges if you are a fan club member...well worth it! Of all challenges, I like sketch challenges the best, so I went for that one.



I had stamped and coloured the main image while I was away camping. I thought Flower Girl looked a bit suspicious (0r pleased with herself) after walking by the Flowerpots and helping herself to a few! Love it when a big chunk of work is done already! I cut the main image and mat with my oval nesties. For the rectangle panel at the bottom, I took inspiration from Julie's card featuring 3 lines of ribbon. Lots of sponging to dirty up the vanilla paper helped to make it less bright and stark. The rest explains itself!

Stamps: A muse (flower girl, flower pots, life is good)
Ink: Palette Hybrid burnt umber
Paper: SU (barely banana, close to cocoa, very vanilla), a muse (brown kitchen)
Accessories: copics, oval nestibilities, SU hodgepodge hardware, SU large and small oval punches, brown velvet ribbon by SEI (I think), pop dots.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

brand new a muse for sale!


I have a few a muse stamps for sale. They are all brand new and have never seen ink. Due to a mix-up, I got doubles in my last order, and thought I'd sell them here, rather than try and return them. I would like to get what I paid for them as they are unused. Most of them are 1/2 price from the anniversary sale. Prices are in US Dollars. Please email me if you are interested and I can quote shipping for you. I prefer paypal for payment. Thanks!

Mushroom Trio $7.25
Mower $4.00
Simple Dress $4.00
Bridal Shop $4.00
Roses are Red MA $3.40
Baby $3.40

Or all of them for $25.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Life IS good!!

I have been thrilled with my jogging efforts lately...a few of us at work try to head out during our lunch hour. We have a 3km course through the neighbourhood near the hospital that we run...we aim to get out at least twice a week. I only started doing this in May of this year and we have been soooo sporadic, but we are making progress. Only one teeny walk in the middle of the entire 3km last time we went!!! So, to celebrate, I made this card which just happens (wink!) to fit the criteria for the September Home Page contest over at the A muse Addicts forum. The card must have at least 3 of these colors: Swiss Red, Bark (brown), Orange Crush, Palm (green).... AND add glitter to it. Here's to fresh air, exercise and feeling good about yourself!!

Stamps: A muse (simple wishes, life is good, runner).
Ink: Palette Hybrid Burnt Umber.
Paper: A muse (palm, green madeira), SU (chocolate chip, only orange, real red, very vanilla).
Accessories: SU (chunky glitter, 1 1/4" & 1 3/8" circle punches, word window punch, 2 way glue), copics.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

30th birthday x 2!

I got in a groove the other night and made 4 cards (mind you I was up till midnight ;-)
Two were for a birthday party we will be attending this weekend...DH's cousin and his wife are both turning 30.

Here is her card:


I stamped the alpha directly on the madeira paper and added a dot of liquid pearls to each polka dot. The card looks soooo elegant IRL.

Stamps: A muse polka dot alpha
Paper: SU barely banana and basic black, a muse pink madeira
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir
Accessories: PTI twill ribbon (berry blush), SU mat pack & paper piercer, Ranger liquid pearls (silver pearl)

and here is his card:

This stamp set rocks for boys...I will be getting a lot of use out of it for sure! I made double score lines on my card, leaving enough room in between for two rows of the rounded square stamps from the set. I initially tried to line them up using my SAMJ (which I love for perfect positioning), but it really didn't work out in this case. I had much better luck just eyeballing! The gear stamps were cut out, and with the two small gears, I added a 1/4" circle of the same colour under the brad (I thought there was too much white space inside the gear otherwise!). I suppose if it hadn't been midnight, I could have rigged it so the gear actually spin...that would be too cool!

Stamps: Lizzie Anne Designs Gizmos and Gears
Paper: SU Basic Black, Taken with Teal, PTI white
Ink: SU Taken with Teal, Pumpkin Pie, Green Galore
Accessories: MM brads, Scor-Pal, Dymo labeler, SU 1/4" circle punch

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Trouble with scallops...

I got a wee shipment in the mail today...a few new-to-me amuse stamps including Present bl. It so happens that we will be celebrating my mom's birthday tomorrow night, and I needed to make her a card, and those teeny tiny cute presents from the stamp were begging to be used, sooooooooo....



I got Houdini and his magical presents all done (presents stamped on vellum, coloured on the reverse side so as not to smudge the ink), the ribbon in place and the sentiment stamped when I started having second thoughts about the balance of the card. I likely should have stamped the sentiment on the madeira part of the card, but too late!!

So I decided to make a scalloped edge on the bottom to lighten up the pink. Because it was 2 layers of paper, my corner rounder punch would not co-operate. I went for my scalloped edge scissors. They promptly broke!!! It was 11:30pm and I was not re-doing this card!! I used my exacto knife to slice off the white cs under the madeira paper just enough for my corner rounder punch to work. I added a bit of vellum on the bottom to make the card stand up properly and to kind of hide the mess that was on the inside of the card and Voila!

Stamps: A muse (Houdini, Presents bl, Magical day)
Ink: Palette Hybrid Burnt Umber
Paper: PTI white, A muse madeira, vellum
Accessories: a muse clear scalloped circle sticker, SU mat pack, paper piercer, ribbon from Michaels, EK success corner rounder punch, copics

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Away in the bush

10 days of rest and relaxation, 2 dirty boys, 3 days at the beach, 400 photos taken...enjoy a few of my favourites!







Monday, August 4, 2008

After mountains of laundry...

We are back from camping! We enjoyed 10 days of nice weather...lots of hiking, biking, building sandcastles and roasting "M's"(what the boys call roasted marshmallows)! I brought a few supplies along with, but didn't get much time to
stamp. I stamped 5 or 6 images one afternoon and did some colouring...that's it!! I did take some pics with my new Iphone and attempt to post them here, but technology did not cooperate.

Our wonderful neighbour looked after watering my flowerpots and a few other things while we were away, so I used one of my coloured images to make her a thank you card and a card set to match.





Stamps: a muse (friends blossom, flower pots)
Paper: SU very vanilla, artichoke, artichoke dp)
Ink: Palette hybrid burnt umber
Accessories: copics, ribbon (May arts), dimensionals, corner rounder punch, SU colour spritzer