Happy Halloween

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  Mine went way too fast.  Looking forward to the Halloween festivities today.  This is the picture of the Halloween card I sent the family last week.  I used the cute a la carte stamp out of the Holiday Mini.  Thought it was so cute.

Will have some Trick-or-Treaters come through the office.  I made some Halloween bookmarks for the kids.  I hope they like them.  Will post a pic of those tomorrow. 

Cricut Man also got very creative this weekend and seems to be prepared with his costume and bag of tricks
for whatever scheme they've got going on in the Registrar's Office.  I think this might be a first for him.  Peer pressure must work sometimes! :-)

Have a Spooktacular Day!!

Scraps Day #12 (For Smart Kids)

Mona was telling me last night about Bryton and how he's reading now and sounding out words.  That boy is one smart cookie - you could tell years ago just by looking in his eyes how bright and curious he was about his world.  It will be so much fun to watch him grow up.

So when I saw this on the Paper Crafts blog this morning I thought what another cool way for Mona to use her paper scraps - making something creative but educational and spending time with her favorite little boy.

Have a wonderful day.

Card Creations #1

Sometimes it's so much fun to go back to the very 1st cards I ever made.  This one was a copy-cat card from the very first issue of Card Creations.  I think they are now on #9.  This was obviously back when eyelets were big - remember that?  And I love the cheezy, cheap, Michaels card stock.  The flower punch was one of my one and onlys for a long time.  Used it on everything.  Hard to believe looking at my current stash that there was ever a time when I only had 1 punch.  :-) 

Short on time this morning as we've got an early appointment on campus for WellCheck.  See you tonight.

A Twist for Tomorrow

A little late getting a post out this morning.  But didn't want to skip it as I wanted to remind you I'll be bringing card kits with me tomorrow for us to make a card or two with our shared set Berry Christmas.  Here's the stamps in that set. . .

In planning for the kit, I thought it would be kind of cool to combine it with the Monday challenge on SplitCoast.  This Monday's "Try a New Technique" challenge is Stamped Borders.  Here's one of the sample cards.  Cute, huh?! 

So bring a Christmas-y border stamp with you tomorrow and we'll do a Berry Christmas card with this twist.

Have a great Monday!

Money Holders

Sifting through old craft projects and stumbled on these 2 money holders I made for my neice and nephew several years ago.  They were at that age when spending cash was all they really wanted but it just seemed to cold and impersonal to put cash or check in an envelope.  So I made these 2 money holders and used Jolee's Boutique sets to quickly embellish the fronts.  Really liked how they turned out. 

Hope you all have a great weekend.  I've declared it a "free" weekend - minimal chores, no obligations to anyone, just planning on floating whichever way the wind blows me :-)

See you Monday.

Berry Christmas

I have an idea I want to throw out to you. . . .since we're about 50 days and counting until Val retires, which means our co-owned stamp sets are going to move out our her office desk drawer. . . let's start jointly playing with them on Tuesday nights.

I'll bring the kits to make at least one card with the set and a few card sketches so we can free form others if we want.

Let's start with this cute set of gift cards that use the "Berry Christmas" set we got last year.  I love the brown and red.

Hope you might be up for this.  Have a good day today.  Only one more day until the weekend.  WhooHoo!!!

Scraps Day #11

This is another scraps post for Mona.  We missed you at the shop last night.  Hope you're feeling better.

I made this flower pot (and another just like it) for my neighbors Marilyn and Judy several years ago with scraps of Christmas papers.  Some of the scraps where already small, others I just tore so there were a similar size.  I then decoupaged them on a clay pot that I had base painted and some cute ribbon around the rim.  Lastly I planted a little plant in each.

It still tickles me to this day to walk in Marilyn's kitchen and see the pot sitting on her windowsill.  Just because I'm in a Halloween mood right now, I'm thinking it would be so cute to use scraps of Halloween papers and do the same only put candy in the pot and sit it on my desk at work.  How fun!

Autumn Leaves

This is one of Mona's cards from last yearr that I thought was just perfect for this week - well it's just perfect for anytime :-) - but especially perfect now given that our wallks through the University district on our way to and from work are so beautiful right now with all the maples in various stages of their color change.

See ya' tonight!  I'm really looking forward to getting back on schedule.

A New Week

I have a set of 3 blogs that I read every morning to try to start my day on a positive note:  GreatDay.com, Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac and The Happiness Project.  This link was in a post on the Happiness Project a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to share it with you.  Thought there was some really cool stuff in there - some funny, some insprirational, all true.

So after saying good-bye to a very busy week last week and facing the freshness of this new week ahead, I hope you'll join me and take a minute today to review a few of these pearls of wisdom.

This one is one of my favorites. . .

7. Cynicism is easy and boring. Letting your inner child out to play is way more fun. It's cool. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise

Will be looking forward to a little "play time" tomorrow night.

Until then. . . .Happy Monday!

Lovely Colors

I was walking through the University district yesterday because I had to park almost on Higgins (that will teach me to come in late!). But the good part about that was that I got to take a nice walk through all the maple trees which are the most beautiful color of red and gold right now. Just like the colors in this card.
I used the new BoBunny papers I picked up in the shop a couple of weeks ago. Loved how the leaf patterned paper made beautiful punched leaves. Trimmed it off nice and neat with the new brown ribbon from the SU Holiday Mini catalog. I really like it. I ordered it in the brown and the red (Cherry Cobbler).
I've got a busy weekend on tap but am really hoping to find a way for a little time in the craft room. It feels like it's been way too long.

Hope you all have a great weekend too.

Stitches

Here's an oldie I stumbled on while cleaning up some folders on my laptop.  It's one of my very first cards I think I made my mother many years ago.  She was quilting a lot back then and the colors and sentiment just seemed perfect. 

I printed the sentiment on my computer, paper pieced the hearts and blocks and then faux stitched with a pen around the heart.  And back then in card making everything had to have some metal on it so I finished it off with some antique brass eyelets.  Kind of a fun little stroll down my memory lane of card making. :-)

Scraps Day #10

Hope everyone had a good evening last night and didn't work too hard - either chasing numbers for the financial statements of chasing a sweet baby girl :-).  Can't wait to hear what Kody thought of the Miranda Lambert concert.

Today is scraps day.  Here's a cute card with some hearts punched from scraps but the blog post it came from has some really clever ideas and other photos of how to use scraps from a sticker sheet.  Thought that was kind of a cool twist for scraps day.

Have a good one.

Inspiration

Back in the saddle on the Gal Pal blog after a couple of days off for my Fall Yellowstone trip.  Feeling very rested and renewed and anxious to continue working on Christmas papercrafting projects.  Although we are skipping the shop tonight because I'm playing a little catch up at home, Mona is baby sitting and Val is getting financial reports done, I'm can't wait to get back into the craft room as soon as possible.

This picture is a kitchen towel my neighbor Marilyn made for me last year.  Isn't it cute?!  I love the Christmas fabrics and the blanket stitching she used.  She said it was super easy.  I'm posting the pic as I'm thinking about using this as inspiration for one of the 10 Christmas card designs I'm dong this year.  Wouldn't it be so cute to replicate that on a craft card base with some of the cute S.E.I papers we bought and then find a matching pen to do the faux stitching?

Maybe I'll have one done by next week when we all get together.  Until then. . . have a great day!

Recharging the Soul

Am heading to Yellowstone today for the weekend.  Am feeling a little battle weary these days so it will be good to get to my "holy ground" and recharge my soul. 

Have a great weekend!

Fall

This post goes out to Val who recently bought this Leaves of a Tree stamp from the new Holiday Mini Stampin Up catalog.  When I saw the stamp I thought it was so beautiful but I worried about how you could use it with multiple colors.  It seemed like it was going to be hard to quickly color some of the individual leaves so there was some variety in color when you stamped it.  But it looks like others are finding a way to get multiple colors in the image.  I thought this card was a beautiful example.  I snapped the picture from the blog and now can't find the blog to be able to give credit.  So please just send a virtual thanks out to all the card makers doing really great things, making the effort to share them and in the end inspiring us.

Have a good one today!

Scraps Day #9

Yet another really cute way to use up small scraps of coordinating paper.  Loved this one.  Here's the blog post it came from.  Had a good time at the shop last night.  Hopefully I can get those Santa Claus toppers done soon.  Have a good Wednesday/Hump Day.

Homecoming

Decisions, Decisions??!!  It was two big events on the same day last weekend. . .UM's Homecoming and World Cardmaking Day.  Unfortunately, football and homecoming won out.  I can't wait to get to the shop tonight to find out how things went on World Cardmaking Day.  There were some really cool Make-n-Takes Staci and Debbie had planned.  I guess there's always next year.  Will make sure to save the date WAY in advance so I can figure out how to do both. 

Sharing this card today - one from the 9/18 family newsletter.  We had another Griz football story to share so it only seemed appropriate.  Love the maroon checked paper which I found in my stash from a very long time ago. It was leftover from a project I made for the Systems Team - a scrapbooked CD cover with memories of our team.  I burned a mix of songs we had listened to during one of our team partyies.  I thought they turned out really cute.  Those sure were the good old days, huh Val?!