A RAK and Grab Bag Cards

Hi all - First I want to share this beautiful "Get Well" card I received from my friend Sandy. As a side note on my health - I have been on the treatment 48 hours now, and am doing great. A little dizzy (as always :) - some nausea and headaches. The worst thing is an awful taste in my mouth - but that's it. I even worked today. Thank you all who have prayed and emailed me - your thoughts and prayers mean the world to me. Next I want to share what I did with my grab bag purchase - I purchased the $10 set and got great stuff - part of it was this package of card elements.

So I sat down today and used the elements to create these "sneak peek" cards using two sets from the new Summer mini that goes live on Sunday. Both cards use "Flower Fest" and "Happy Greetings" -
The coloring was done by just stamping the image and then immediately using a blender pen to blend the colors from the outlines. On each I added a little bling - and then - voila!

Here's a close up of the coloring - I worked from the outside in using straight lines and it gave it this pretty slightly variegated look. I love it!!

More RAKs and Health Update

Hi all -

Today I'd like to share some lovely RAKs from my friends! First this cheery Easter card from my friend Karen - This adorable Get Well Card from my friend Kathy - and this lovely Easter card from my friend Elaine -

Thank you all for thinking of me and my crew. Your cards made my days!!!

PS - For those of you who have been following my health woes with the tick bite and relapsing fever - I started my treatment on Wed., and have experience mild side affects - nausea, dizziness, some issues with my stomach and digestion, and a headache. But none of the terrible side affects I could have had. So I have 8 days to go and hopefully this will be the end of all the symptoms I've been battling for the last several years. I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers.

2011 Easter Egg Hunt

On Easter we had a wonderful time celebrating with our gang - here are all the kiddos - Prince and Paisley -Kamili and Makai -

Papa with Zamarah -

and Zavian -

Happy Easter everyone - I am spending the day celebrating the resurrection of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I'll be back soon and share pictures of our annual Easter Egg hunt. Till then I'd like to share this cute little piece I got from several friends and family this past week. Enjoy!!

All I need to know
I learned from the Easter Bunny!

-Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
-Everyone needs a friend who is all ears.
-There's no such thing as too much candy.
-All work and no play can make you a basket case.
-A cute tail attracts a lot of attention.
-Everyone is entitled to a bad hare day.
-Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits.
-Some body parts should be floppy.
-Keep your paws off of other people's jelly beans.
-Good things come in small, sugar coated packages.
-The grass is always greener in someone else's basket.
-To show your true colors, you have to come out of the shell.
-The best things in life are still sweet and gooey.

May the joy of the season fill your heart.
AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU!
Happy Easter!

Quick little thank you-

This month we celebrated our annual Multi-cultural Day celebration at the college I work at and I had several of my international students help me with a panel discussion and manning a table where we were selling Beads for Life. I couldn't have done it without them, so came up with this quick little thank you - a stack of candy bars wrapped in discontinued DSP. Then I tied them together with twine and added a thank you note I printed from the computer. To me it was just a little thing I could do to make the thank you note more special - but it was even better when some of the students picked them up and LOVED them. You'd have thought I'd spent hours on them. Here's a bunch of them waiting for pick up.

Even though it was a small thank you - their help meant the world to me! Thanks for stopping by!!

Frame and Gift Bag Class Results

So Thursday evening seven of us had a wonderful time at Heidi's creating a beautiful vintagey frame, gift bag and gift card set. I wanted to share with you my completed project. First, here is the gift bag and card - how pretty is that. Here's a close of up some of the detail so you can see what we did -

Then, here's the matching frame -

And a close up of some of that detail -

And finally my completed project with a picture of my honey and me. I'm proudly displaying this in my offce at the College. LOVE IT!

A Much Needed Get-Away

Hi all - Hubby and I took off for three days for a much needed get-away up the coast to my all time FAVORITE spot in the world - Cambria, CA. This little artsy village is the perfect place to go and forget about all your woes. We spent the days mostly walking along the beach and boardwalk admiring the flowers - The wildlife -

and the amazing coastline -

God's beauty is so abundant there - that you can't help but be thankful. We also ate at some great restaurants, and had a wonderful time wine-tasting. Today was back to reality - but it's okay - I feel refreshed and ready to go forward. I'm so thankful for this special time with my honey and look forward to our next get-away.

Club "Bubble Background"

So our April Club featured the "Bubble Background" technique - for me this technique was soooo much fun - as I am a BUBBLE freak. I love blowing bubbles, and do so whenever I am stressed - I even have several bubble blowing machines. This technique is a lot of fun, but takes some patience to get just the look you want. The biggest thing I found is that you need to pop down all the extras each time you blow them and place the cardstock on, as the ink quickly leaves the bubbles - so last night we all had "inky" fingers :) After making our instruction card - we then made this greeting card using the same technique. For this card we used Tangerine Tango, and SU's "Just Believe" set. I love the sillouettes in this set and they look amazing against the bubble background.

Here's a close up of the bubble background.

If you try this technique send me a copy of the card you make and I will post it. I'd love to see what you can all do with this technique. See you all soon!

April Club Challenge Cards -

Each month our club does a challenge using last month's technique. Last month we did the Baby Wipe technique - http://crazystampinglady.blogspot.com/2011/03/club-baby-wipe-technique.html So we had three entries this month - this first very Eastery card by Karen used not only our baby wipe technique but also the embedded embossing technique from the month before - she also used the technique several ways - on the background - the stamped words - and on the flower. This card just shouts "Spring is here" to me - The second card was mine - I used Night of Navy and Old Olive for this richly colored Flowers Awash card - the flowers were stamped using the baby wipe technique and there is also a background layer that I loved - but most of it ended up getting covered up :( I still like the way it turned out though.

The third entry was from Lyn and was our winner. She used the baby wipe also by swiping the background and then also on the layer behind the words and the lovely flowers (which have our glitter brads in the center). If you look closely you can see she also embossed the flowers before punching them out. The picture is a little dark as I was having trouble with my flash putting a glare on the card - sorry Lyn. Thanks ladies for entering our challenge -

My Clubs are currently reorganizing for our next round - you can check out full details here http://crazystampinglady.blogspot.com/p/stampers-10-stampers-clubs.html and let me know if you'd like to join us!!

Happy Birthday Hubby!! and a Get Well wish for me!

This last week was my husband, Paul's, birthday! We'll be celebrating with a little mini-vacation soon, and we'll have his birthday cake (poppy seed family recipe) on Easter Sunday. April is a big month for birthdays for us so we'll be celebrating four of them on that day. But I wanted to share a few of the cards he got. This first card was from me - it was made during a stamp camp that my daughter and I did together using our stencils (see her website at http://www.stampinking.blogspot.com/ - she just posted some amazing carrots for Easter) - The second card was made by Heidi - my hubby is mister fix-it, so this was a perfect card for him. I just love how she layered the little tools!My daughter Jenee is not a stamper (can you believe it :) - but she gave Paul these amazing cards from their family -Paul is an amazing husband, father and "papa" and deserves all the love he can get - happy birthday Honey!!Finally - I want to share this lovely get well card from my friend Sandy B. She knows I am going through an ongoing battle with my health (from a tick bite over 3 years ago) and she sent me this beautiful card - thanks for thinking of me Sandy!

2011 - Paisley's "Gramma" Day

So yesterday was a wonderful day with my grand-daughter Paisley - when my grandkids get a "Gramma" day it's all about them. So I let them pick what they want to do for the day. Paisley wanted to start the day with breakfast at Denny's - Then we headed over to see "Gnomeo & Juliet" - Then to the mall where she rode the rides - We got soft pretzels for lunch - played on the play area - Got matching hand-sanitizers - mine for my purse, hers for her backpack - Then back to Gramma's for some creative time. Here's Paisley coloring some cute stickers I found at the $ store. We sat and talked about family, friends, school and more - Then on the way home we picked up some Frozen Yougurt for her and her siblings and took it home to share. It was a wonderful day for both of us. I am so blessed to be able to spend this special time with my "kiddos"!! Next month Prince and I get out day together.

Pre-Convention Kickoff meeting

Last Monday I met with several of my downline for a Pre-Convention Kick-off meeting. We are all sooooo excited to be heading to Salt Lake in July. We had some snacks and talked about hotels, flights, times, restaurants and budgets. Right now six of us are signed up - although there may be a couple more. Convention is always great. We also made these cute notebooks to take with us. They are made out of the SU stamp set containers- and are nice for traveling as you can pack them and throw them in your purse, and they won't get ruined. Here's the outside of mine - each lady got to choose their own DSP and colors - Here is a look at the inside of mine - the junior notebooks need to be cut down 1" from the bottom to fit - but then they work great. We added post-it notes and a small envelope to carry our business cards in. The others wanted to work more on their covers - but if they send me their pictures I'll be sure to post them. I plan to make more of these for hostess gifts for my upcoming workshops. So cute and practical!

Shower for Jen....

Hi all - My new neighbor Jen is expecting her second child and I went to her baby shower on Sunday. It was given by her Mother in law and Sister in law and it was just lovely. I wanted to share my gift for her - first here is the baby afgan I made for her. I love making these giant granny square afgan, as they are fast and I think beautiful. It's edged with a bit of a ruffle.Here is the gift bag and card I stamped for her... and the baby onsie I stamped for her (done using iron on transfer sheets for printers) - how cool is that.Here's a close up of the butterflies - hope she liked the gifts. I'm working on a gift for baby's room once she arrives - so watch for that coming soon :) See you soon ~Maureen