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

Stamping and Eating :)

Last week got away from me, but I had to share our Club group finishing up our projects and eating a wonderful dessert provided by our hostess Lyn. It is a low calorie, low point dessert from HungryGirl.com - This is a lo-cal ice cream, frozen in a ball shape, rolled in crushed Fiber One caramel cereal, and served with lite whip cream and sugar free caramel syrup. It was Amazing - so delish. And I love the way Lyn served it in a beautiful Martini Glass - made it that much more special. Such a great group to stamp with.

I'm currently taking sign-ups for the next round of clubs - you can check out more information by going to - http://crazystampinglady.blogspot.com/p/stampers-10-stampers-clubs.html

See you soon! ~Maureen

April Downline Challenge -

Yesterday was our downline meeting and I want to thank Maria for the wonderful goodies we got to eat - yummy!! Our challenge this month was to make your best card with a FRAME (any type of frame) that was it. So we had THREE amazing entries - the first was from Lisa - I LOVE this card - it is so elegant and beautiful. She pulled the black from the image and added some gray for the beautiful shading around the flower.The winner was Julie and this is her vibrant card - it is also so beautiful. Look at that great watercoloring and what is hard to see is the shimmer and glitter on this card- it was amazing. Just shouts that Spring is here and Summer right around the corner! There was one more entry - that I can't share right now due to a contest rule - but I'm sure I'll get to share it in the future. My downline is amazingly talented. Our meeting yesterday was great with an abundance of encouragement and sharing. I had my fifth downline member in my First Downline level reach their $25,000 in Career to Date sales - how great is that. If you'd like to join my team of Crazy Stamping Ladies let me know. I have a coffee and pie information night coming up and I'd LOVE to have you join us. Till next time ~Maureen