Halloween card

I haven't had much time for stamping, what with work starting up. I wish I could find someone to let me stay home and stamp all day and pay me for it! Barb have you ever gotten that "kept woman" thing figured out?

Anyway this is a card I made a couple weeks ago when my friend, Rachael, and I stamped up here. It doesn't have any stamping on it. I actually copied it from one Rachael did. It's the cuttlebug folder of the spider web, just done on white paper. I think it's pretty just like that.

September is sort of full with lots of fun things. The first Saturday we're heading to Champaign for Kayleigh's birthday party. Then next weekend I'm going to Rachael's and we're stamping all day on Saturday, starting Christmas cards. Then 3rd weekend she's coming up here and we're going to Bridgette's (Creative Escapes) for a crop/stamping evening and on Saturday we're going to St. Charles for a convention. The last weekend isn't stamping, but we're going to see Bill Engvell at the University for Steven's birthday.

But the fun doesn't stop in September. First Saturday in October I'm going to an all day Stampscapes class at Peddler's Den in Sommanauk. Third weekend in October Rachael and I are going to a retreat! That's what we're calling it anyway. It starts at 5 on Friday and ends at 3 on Sunday. A whole weekend of stamping. It's at a church camp in central Illinois. All meals provided by the camp and the entire weekend is only $125. I'm looking forward to it! So my fall is looking pretty exciting!

My stamping weekend.

Well, my friend Rachael came up a bit early, Wednesday evening instead of Thursday morning. So that gave us a whole day on Thursday!! We hit up JoAnn Fabrics and the Goodwill store in St. Charles. Bought a stamp set at JoAnn's and some different wooden things to alter at Goodwill. I found a huge wooden tray, it's about 30 inches long. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but hey it was only $3. Thursday night we took a class. It was on watercoloring with the Northwoods stamps. I was disappointed in the class. We did 3 cards, but only one had watercoloring on it. Friday I had to go into work for orientation, lucky was done early. Saturday we stamped all day. We worked on fall holidays, Thanksgiving and Halloween. This is one of the cards I did.

The images of the three little monsters and the trick or treat saying are from the Angel Company. The candy corn background is from Stampin Up. I used my bind-it-all to punch the holes on the sides of the black paper. I had saw something similar in a stamping magazine, so this is my version of it.

Look what I made!!

I got this cut out from Archivers a couple years ago for like $2. When I was unpacking stuff last month I put all of these type things together to motivate me to work on the. So I did this one today and I have 2 more that say smile. I'm working on those too.

I covered this with some light green paper and edged it with brown chalk ink. I think stamped some swirls with tan chalk ink and then used a solid butterfly with rust chalk ink, and black chalk ink with a solid dragonfly. It's hard to tell too much detail from the picture since I had to stand back far enough to get the whole thing in the picture. There is ribbon tied in various places and some dragonfly brads and a charm on there too. The dot on the i is a flower. I'm going to hang it on my living room wall next to some pictures of the kids.

Tomorrow I'm off with my friend to take a class so probably won't be back on here until Monday of next week. She's here all weekend. Bye!

No time to stamp!!

We were busy all last week with Ed on vacation. At the end of the week we went down to Springfield for the state fair. I was a bit disappointed with that. Seemed to be lots of empty spaces and what was there wasn't as good as it has been in the past. Even the political tents weren't giving away the freebie junk the way they use to. I guess the "not a recession" is hitting everyone hard.

We had my MIL's 70th birthday party on Saturday. I've been busy this week making a small scrapbook of the pictures from it. It was only a 6 x 6 book and had 20 pages, so it didn't take me long. I just got done with it! I'll mail it off to her next week when I go to the postoffice. So what little bit I "touched" a stamp was small and for the scrapbook.

Yesterday I went back to school shopping. FOR ME! I found some great clearance specials on some clothes and bought a new pair of tennis shoes. I also made a trip to the Good Will store in St. Charles. Look at the picture. I think it's meant to be a smallish towel rack of some kind, but doesn't it do great for holding my punches!? I saw somewhere on the internet someone had made something like this and when I saw the towel rack in the store I had to try it. Only cost me $2. Since I know it works, I'm going to look for another one next time I'm over there. Once we finally get our final house, I'll have Ed build one for me. I plan to have that room be huge.

My friend Rachael is coming up on Thursday. We're taking a Northwoods watercoloring class in St. Charles. I have to work on Friday so she'll probably go back to St. Charles and hit up all the hobby store and I'm sure the Good Will store. Saturday, the plan is to start on fall/Halloween cards. I know it's early, but next week school starts! Hopefully I can figure out a good schedule so I'll still have time to stamp.

New Stamps/Field Trip

Ed and I went yesterday up to Madison, WI. He wanted to go to the Henry Villa Zoo. Nice little zoo. Mostly shady and a good variety of animals. Plus it was free!

Of course if I was driving 2 hours to do something we had to find a stamp store or scrapbook store. Of course I found both. In McFarland, just south of Madison I visited Gina K designs. She has a small store there featuring her designs and a few embellishments, cuttlebug folders, and punches. I bought two sets of stamps. Hers are cleverly packaged in a tin CD holder. I like that way to store the stamps. The only thing I didn't like was I had to cut them apart. I think they're a bit pricey and thought they'd already be cut, but only took a few minutes. This card was made with one set of them. It's called "Text Message." I was thinking of my granddaughter (almost 10) and my 15 year old niece when I bought it. The other set has a couple cute crabs in it. I almost bought the Christmas set with the crab, but thought I could just add a Santa Hat to the crab in the other one and use it year round!

Anyway the saying at the bottom of this card is from an older Stampin UP set. I wanted something at the bottom, but not flowers. I send to 3 men each week in my chemoangels and soldier cards, so try not to get too girly. Sometimes it's hard!

We're off tomorrow to Springfield. We'll be going to the state fair parade tomorrow night and then Ed and I are going to the fair on Friday. Steven doesn't want to go, so that means we can stay all day! Saturday is my MIL's birthday open house.

Next week I have to actually go into work a day and a half. Both are orientation days, but I'm not looking forward to it. Seems like June and July were busy with unpacking and moving my mom, now August is here and it's almost over before it starts!

Forgot to post Sunday's cards.

DUH, I was in such a hurry to get them done and posted on the Creative Escapes challenge page, that I forgot to post them here. My sister & family and mom came over for supper, that I was in a hurry to be done stamping. Isn't that terrible?

The first one is for a challenge that was black and white. I used my new black pallette ink pad to stamp the photo stamp on glossy paper. Wow, it really makes a nice crisp image.

The second one was for a challenge using a page map again. I'm not sure I like doing those. Anyway the stamps are from the Angel Company and they were part of my new ones I just got with my starter kit. The paper was something I had in a drawer. You know how that goes. At least I'm using it up.

Congratulations to my friend Barb Foster. She's a friend from Kansas and also my new TAC upline. She just emailed that she's been asked to submit designs to the Angel Company to make stamps from. That's an honor indeed. Her blog is linked to the left, Foster House Design. Congrats again Barb.

Another challenge complete

I'm participating in an online crop/stamp and I'm done with Saturday's. These were a bit harder. I actually finished two 6x6 pages for my MIL's album. Those are hard without pictures. And I did two more cards. I'm only going to post one of the cards because I don't like the other one! I hope I have time tomorrow to get into the stamp room to complete the weekend's challenges. We'll see.

This challenge was to use two designer papers. I took the easy way out and just did half and half. The stamps are a Stampin' Up set I've had for several years. There are small rhinestones on the "o" in "meow" and the cat's collar. Don't know if you can really see them very well.

Yahoo time to stamp!!

I actually got time today to sit down and stamp. I haven't been in my room all week except to cut out all my new Angel Company stamps. I got like 14 new sets when I signed up with them. Today I've been doing an online stamp/scrap thing through Creative Escape (see the link on the left). I've made two different cards and may actually try one of the scrapbooking ones after supper. The challenges sometimes make me step outside my comfort zone. These weren't too hard. She said she was going to make the Friday ones easy since most people would be at work. I'll probably have less time tomorrow and Sunday! The first one was a summer theme and the black and gray one was a page map card. Of course mine has to be slightly different. The page map had the ribbon along the bottom with the card turned the other direction.

Hopefully more tomorrow!