Back from Florida!

Had a wonderful time of R and R with my sister and her friend, Sheila. We even got to the Metro Miami Zoo on a quiet Monday with no crowds. As you can see by the photos, it was picture-perfect weather!

Thankfully for all of us, especially a curious little white egret, the tigers had just been fed! The big cats are my personal favorite, and this zoo had a white tiger (shown) along with several of the orange Bengals. I also enjoyed seeing a Koala, the elephants, lions and some very delicate looking antelopes that were super slim (an inspiration???)

After a turbulent flight home, I'm looking forward to posting some Valentines--as soon as I get the house clean again!!

OFF TO FLORIDA!

Looking forward to spending some time in the warmth and sunshine of the East Coast of Florida for a few days with my sister. See you when I get back! Meanwhile, be sure to cast your vote at right...

IF IT'S WEDNESDAY, WE MUST BE STAMPING--Part 1

Mary brought the Enveloper to play with today. Here is the group of cards I made, with a few more of them highlighted in Part 2 below. Click on them for further detail.

The grape card is embellished with a flat button I've had in my stash for years. Just proves you never know when you might "need" something! It was perfect for the colors in the paper.

For the celebrate card, I chose the candles to coordinate with the stripes in the envelope paper.

MARY'S NEW TOY: THE ENVELOPER, Part 2

...WHAT FUN! Mary, Joan and Evelyn were here today for our introduction to the Enveloper which makes envelopes in a jiffy. We pulled out our stash of double-sided designer paper, and before you knew it, I had 6 envelopes with leftover pieces to use on the cards. Here are a few of my favorites.

The yellow tulips are highlighted with yellow stickles.

Since I wanted to show as much of the floral image on the brown dp, I settled for a smaller design off to the side. The circle "tag" is embellished with a pearl and mounted over sheer ribbon.

The second brown card looks similar, but is really quite different. Mounted horizontally, I pulled out the beige in the dp for my lily blossoms and the heart button on the right.

We can't wait to see what Mary brings next time!

THE GIANTS WON!

They're off to the Super Bowl after defeating Green Bay 23-20 in overtime!!

Just thought I'd mention it...

MOTHERS CLASS INVITATION

This crazy cat is purple and yellow--the purrfect??? invite to launch the Mothers Class Bible study for 2008! If you got an invitation like this one, wouldn't you want to come?

One Sheet Wonder

Yesterday, Joan, Evelyn and I worked on OSW's in the newly reorganized stamping tower (see posts below). It was such a delightfully sunny day, we worked from 10-3 on our new creations from the samples shown here. I'm so blessed to have such good friends and a cheery place to share ideas with them!

CLEVER CARD HOLDER

Here's the card holder my DH made for me, as shown originally on the Carol Duval Show and mentioned in the posts below. It's made from a yellow slinky and I use it constantly! As I make birthday and other cards, I write the date in the upper right-hand corner where the stamp will cover it later. Stored in chronological order between the Slinky spaces, they're ready to mail on time!

REORGANIZED AT LAST--Part 1!

Here's the New Look! I found white cabinets on sale, (just what I wanted!) to store everything within arm's reach of my chair in a way that made everything accessible and neat (not leaning as it appears in the photo!) If you checked out the old arrangement (see Dec. 27 post) you can see that I reversed the room so that these storage units are on the wall where the table used to be.

Behind the cabinet doors are most of my mounted stamps. Now I can keep the blinds open (or up) during the afternoon when the sun shines in without it damaging the rubber. The rest of them are stored in the 2-drawer unit under the window. The unmounteds are stored elsewhere in the room.

I enjoy having my computer handy, with the printer to the right of my desk, adjacent to the closet doors. My tiny Dell speakers have a full sound, allowing me to listen to a variety of radio stations streaming on the internet. On Sundays, I enjoy listening to classical music from Seattle; nights I often tune in to Delilah's "sappy love songs" as she calls them.

Across from my desk is a 3-drawer wooden dresser which houses my TAC unmounted stamp sets, 12x12 designer papers and a bottom drawer full of scrapbook pages and photos. On top sits my cutter and the special card holder my DH made. Above that is a shelf my husband also made and mounted for me to display my cards before I use them. The horizontal cards hang on the string beneath the shelf, with the vertical ones above. The door at left leads to the hallway.

(Continued below...)

REORGANIZED AT LAST--Part 2!

Don't you just love a rainbow of color??? I store my paper on a paper rack I bought (used) for only $25 at the Rag Shop going-out-of-business sale last Fall. By keeping it in the closet with the doors closed most of the day, the paper is protected from fading. Notice the cubbies underneath, which I purchased at Walmart awhile back and use for storing odds and ends like zip-loc bags, light bulbs, baskets of photos, etc.

My table is positioned in such a way that I can see out the windows to my right or out the door down to the foyer and a view of the driveway to my left. There's plenty of room for guests! Under the window, my DH mounted a wire grid to keep my scissors and heat gun handy. Behind me are the white cabinets and drawers I purchased last week at Target. To keep the tablecloth out of the way (it's a flannel lined plastic) I secured it underneath with velcro tabs.

The hardest part of this whole project was sorting and purging through all the "stuff" that had accumulated over the years. Thanks for looking!

REORGANIZATION ALMOST COMPLETE

I've been working hard on my stamping room redo, and it's almost complete. My plastic carts have been emptied and the contents moved into new storage units. The carts will be given to my stamping buddies to use until it's their turn to outgrow them!

Two goals have been accomplished so far: to make my limited space look neater; and to store stamps behind closed doors, safe from damaging sunlight. In the process, I've purged a lot of unused stamps and supplies to pass on to others, ridding the room of a lot of clutter. Most-often-used items will be within reach from my chair, with less-used items stored away but still easily accessible. One major challenge was the addition to the room of my desk and computer, reducing stamping space even more.

As soon as I have everything back together, I'll be posting pictures. Meanwhile, January is traditionally "hibernation month" for me when I stay home more and catch up on things. So I haven't been stamping as much lately, allowing time to recharge my creativity after the busy-ness of the holidays.

Thanks for visiting--I always enjoy all your comments. Check back here soon for the results of my reorganization efforts!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Off to a running start in 2008! Here's a super-easy card made with one stamp and one color. The balloons were punched from scraps of silver paper with embroidery floss attached on the back and popped out with mounting tape. This will be the first card mailed in the New Year.

Meanwhile, I'm still working on reorganizing my stamping space; and I'm halfway there. There's still time to leave a comment with ideas for storage and other helps. As soon as it's done, I'll post photos!

Best wishes to all of you who have visited my blog -- have a creative New Year!

HELP WANTED!

I am beginning to outgrow the space in my stamping tower and would like some suggestions on how I could make it better. For pictures of my space, use the link for Fox Mountain and open the archives for November 2005.

Thanks for the help!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wishing all of you all of the best of Christmas blessings. See you back here in the New Year!

I've Been Tagged!

Here are 7 things about me that you might not know:

1. I love chocolate (who doesn't?)

2. My favorite color is yellow, and I hate pink.

3. I love cats--we have three of them.

4. I enjoy traveling and hope to get back to Italy some day soon for a third visit.

5. I love to drive--anywhere, even in New York City.

6. I host a February Blues Bash with a different theme each year.

7. I hate to exercise, but do it anyway.

Did I mention that I also enjoy being concise? Here are the 5 people I'm tagging:

Amy G.
Rochelle
Dawn
Lauren
Dee J.

INSPIRATION CARD

A friend gave me a beautiful box of licorice, and it inspired me to make this card. Thanks Jane! Of course, being a cat lover, I used my SU Cool Cat set and dove into my stash of Basic Grey dp for the background.

(The licorice is delicious!)

Home from Prague...

...with a bad case of stamping withdrawal! Can't wait to get back to my stamps and inks, but first I need to recover from jet lag.

Stop by again soon!

OFF TO PRAGUE!

I won't be posting again for awhile; but I did mail all my Christmas cards today! Snail mail is still good for something...

HAPPY STAMPING!

One Bright Star

here's a card I made with a friend who brought her stamp to the Tower. Sorry, I can't tell you what company makes it. We stamped out several on white glossy cardstock with dark blue ink and added a Mrs. Grossman's crystal in the main star. The image was mounted on dark blue, then onto a metallic blue and then on the dark blue card. The greeting inside was stamped on white paper over a light blue gleaming star and reads, "Beneath the silent beauty of one bright star, the light of the world is born."

Thanks to Evelyn for such a wonderful design idea!

Easy Christmas Card!

Here's a quick card you can mass produce in record time! Just stamp the tree toward the right side, color the decorations, add a freehand border, tie a ribbon around the left side of the card and add a message inside. Done!

Kinkade Church

After seeing so many beautiful cards done with Kinkade stamps, I just had to try it. Unfortunately, the colors don't reproduce well on my scanner.

This card was done with an Adirondack spectrum pad (Cabin Fever) on white cs. It was cut into an oval using the Creative Memories system and was then coated with Versamark and embossed with Antiquities Frosted Crystal ep. (The only coloring was done on the windows and the reflection on the water below.) A larger oval was cut in the center of a pinkish-beige textured cs, silver twine was tied on the side and it was then mounted to a dark brown textured card with double stick tape. The four silver brads were attached at the corners, and the image was secured to the card with SU pop dots.

The hardest part of this card was deciding on the cardstock colors! (IRL, the yellow is softer and the texture more interesting. Click on the image for a better view.)

Thanks to Amy Celona...

...for this wonderful card idea--what an inspiration! (See amycelona.com.) For my version, I used the large pine tree stamp from Stamp in the Hand. My card has a top fold (Amy's fold is better, I think) and the matting is reversed. To make the trees more lifelike, I used a dark brown marker to highlight the bark and some of the branches. The sponge daubers worked fine for the white at the top, but not on the trees; so I just used a Q-tip for them. The snow was done with Dazzling Diamonds, which I added while the white pigment ink was still wet. Tearing the bottom of the paper added to the illusion of snow on the ground.

I plan to send this one-of-a-kind card to the dad of a one-of-a-kind friend!

View from the Tower

We woke up to 6" of new snow here in Northern New Jersey today--looks like good stamping weather!


(Second photo was taken from the tower window this morning.)

Snow Scene Card

Yes, I turned the snow scene photo into a lovely card for my parents. (See post below.) The only thing I added was a snowflake brad in the upper left corner after triple mounting it on black, silver and green cardstocks on a white card. Of course, I neglected to copy it, but you get the idea...

First Dusting of Snow

Brrrr...it's too soon to be thinking about winter! Wouldn't this scene from yesterday make a great card, though???

Birthday Card for Li'l "O"

Happy Birthday Owen! Unfortunately, your card will be arriving a few days late. I hope you enjoy making the lights flash on this race car. We miss you, but will be seeing you in Prague soon!

Sticker of Blessing

Lucienne, affectionately called "the Queen of France" by her friends, had to have minor surgery this week. When I found this blinking crown sticker at Michael's, I couldn't resist turning it into a GetWell card. If you look closely, you can see one of the lights lit (at the top of the crown.)

In addition, I found the "you are the queen" stamp for $1 and used it for the inside. The girls at Bible Study each added a note of cheer to enclose. We gave her the card when we picked her up from the hospital today. Needless to say, she loved it!

Notice how the card-making class members are concentrating on their cards... They have learned that a hand-made card can be used to bless someone in a special way.

Tunnel Card Revisited

Here is my Christmas version of the Autumn tunnel card shown below (see post for Oct. 25.) The front reads "How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given."

(The blue looks a lot softer IRL.)

The Rule of Thirds

When I first made this card, it was full size (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) but just didn't look right. Then I remembered the rule of thirds used in photography; so I cut off some of the bottom to make it more proportional. Notice the top third is the pink cardstock, the middle third is the dry embossing and the bottom third is the sentiment and brad. Happy with the adjustment, I then made a new envelope to fit the scaled-down size.

Sometimes, corrected mistakes make the most beautiful cards!

A Quick & Easy Christmas Card

This card was made using a leftover three-dimensional poinsettia sticker and a pre-cut card. The sticker is placed on the inside so that it shows through the opening. The ribbon was tied and fastened to the white overlay (also precut)and fastened to the card front. I added some Stickles to the center of the flower, stamped the greeting at the bottom and also stamped a verse on the inside (under the opening); and there you have it!

November 1st Already?

Where did October go? It's my favorite month, so I'm sad it's over. November brings us closer to winter and all that goes with it: bare trees, cold, northerly winds, shorter days and less time outdoors. Of course it's not all bad. There's more time for cats on my lap or stamping next to a sunny window or sitting in front of a toasty fire...and Christmas on the horizon. That reminds me--I'd better get back to making more Christmas cards!

Did I Have a Good Time in Sturgeon Bay?

As they say in Wisconsin, "You Betcha!"

Door County hospitality was first-rate, the stamping techniques were top-notch, and the Silver Stamper gathering was...well, intimate. "Bug" de Vos flew in from California, I flew in from New Jersey and Lynn and Denny Rick drove down from Minnesota. Shown is our group in front of the fireplace at the Bridgeport Resort.

The weather was unseasonably warm, which gave us a chance to explore the peninsula and enjoy some outings for meals and shopping. Saturday morning was very windy, as you can see by the white caps on the bay in the photo taken from the car. (click photo for a closer view.)

One of our activities for the weekend was a "Challenge" where we had to create something within a frame using only the stamps, papers, and embellishments provided. I'm so proud of Lynn, our Silver Stamper president, for taking FIRST PLACE with her Nostalgia Sisters design! All the entries were so well done, it truly was hard to pick one winner over all the others. Congratulations Lynn!!

I got home Sunday evening exhausted from the trip, but sooooo glad I went! The whole weekend was just filled with outstanding projects, new things to learn and wonderful people who saw to it that we all had a good time--and we did!

OFF TO WISCONSIN...

...FOR THE DOOR COUNTY RUBBER STAMPING ESCAPE WEEKEND! See you here with photos when I get back...

Ginger's Technique-Tuesday-Held-on-Wednesday Class

Evelyn, Mary and I took this class last night at Ginger's house, where Ginger "de-mystified" the techniques used to make these cards. The middle one is a slider card, and was the hardest to make; but it was well worth the effort (shown opened here.)

The red card is a shadow box card, which was easy to do once we saw how it was done. The autumn card is a tunnel card, and it was also easy to do. Could it be that it's just because Ginger is such a good instructor? (Thank you, Ginger!)

Evelyn is new at stamping--only a couple of weeks. She and Mary had stamped earlier in the day here at the Stamping Tower, and she's making fast progress. After admiring Evelyn's cards last night, Mary cracked us up when she said, "You're the only stamper I know who's gone from Beginner to Advanced in one day!"

Cuttlebug Poinsettia

It seems that no matter which Cuttlebug design you use (almost), if you use white cardstock, it looks elegant. The Poinsettia was watercolored, then coated with white twinkling H20's, with gold glitter added in the center. I cut out the middle petals and popped them out with foam tape, then glued it down over a piece of sheer white ribbon stapled underneath to the side of the oval. An appropriate verse or greeting can be stamped on a lighter cardstock, as shown here, with the embossed cardstock placed over it.

Christmas Card Surprise

The surprise is on me, since I didn't really like this stamp at first. I guess I just didn't know what to do with it. So I started with coloring it, then added stickles and a tree brad for the "A" and mounted it on metallic gold paper. I tied a gold cord around it, but then what? It was too small for the card, leaving a lot of empty dark space. Since I had a sheet of trees already stamped, I cut one out, added gold brads, popped it out below the main image and voila--I have a card!

Even though I like it now, it's going to be one of a kind since there are too many steps to mass produce it.


(Unfortunately, the scanner doesn't do the bling justice!)

SHIMMERING CHALKS

You can't see the shimmer, unfortunately, but this card was enhanced in a subtle way with Shimmering Chalks on the flowers. I ordered them over the internet from An Angel's Art in St. Paul, MN and was very impressed with the way they were packed and shipped. They arrived without so much as a hairline crack in any of the chalks!

AUTUMN THANKS

Here are two cards I recently made to use as thankyous for the birthday cards I received.

The card on the left was done with a maple leaf stamp and coordinating punch. The DP underneath has maple leaves, one of which shows through the punch. The stamped ones are colored with sponged fall-colored inks and then spritzed with a brown ink "blow gun" (as I call them.) The oak leaves were done the same way, except for the punch. Both have light green cardstock beneath, tilted on the maple leaf card. The ribbons on the left are two different Martha Stewart Halloween ribbons (plain) and the one on the right I pulled from my ribbon drawer.

These were really easy to make and will serve well for my thankyous!

(Click on the photo for a closer look...)

World Card Making Day

Today was my workshop, and it was quite a disappointment. Several of the people who said they would be here never showed. Maybe because it was such a beautiful day to be outside???

Those who did attend found the cards easy to make and were delighted to go home with so many ready to mail. They even stamped the envelopes to match!

Scroll down to the Oct. 1 post to see the cards we made.

TFL!

October: My Favorite Month

Don't you just love this time of year? Warm days, cool nights, explosion of color!

This card was made using some background paper that I found in the bottom of my drawer...must be at least 4 or 5 years since I put it there! Unfortunately, the scanner doesn't do it justice. The leaves and swirls are outlined in gold, and the gold-embossed leaf is colored with glimmering chalks. As you can see, I finally found a scalloped oval punch (and also a scalloped circle) which I found at Amazon.com, of all places.

I'm enjoying sunny days in my stamping tower with my loyal cat for company!

Tuesday Stamping Class

This week at our Ladies Bible Study "fun" elective (a card-making class) we made 3 variations of this card suitable for sympathy or encouragement. "Refuge and Strength" from Stampin' Up has some really nice sayings to stamp over the cross, and this verse is my favorite from that set. For the inside, I shared my collection of Bible verses and other sayings for the class to use. One of our members has been out sick for quite awhile, so we decided to shower her with our cards to let her know she is missed.

Stamping is more than just a hobby for me. I consider card-making in particular a way to minister to others, especially these days when letter-writing seems to be a lost art.

World Card-making Day Is Almost Here!

October 6 has been designated as World Card-Making Day. Does anyone know by whom??? Surely not Hallmark!

Anyway, it's as good an excuse as any to host a workshop. I've designed some Fall and Christmas cards for my fellow stampers to make. The Christmas ones are all done with peg stamps from Rubberstamp Tapestry. It was a challenge to vary them so they didn't all look alike.

The Thanksgiving card could also be used as a Fall birthday card by changing the wording on the front. It is a "kickstand" card using the "Give Thanks" set from SU, and we'll be using colored pencils for the apples and the pail. Stampers will be making 4 autumn cards and 2 each of the Christmas cards, for a total of 10 cards for $10.

I'm looking forward to seeing what variations they come up with!