Bonus Round _Weekend

This is the most stamping I've done in eight months or so. By the time I got to the bonus card my brain was mush, hence a super plain card. The challenge was to create a card that was inspired by 'weekends'. I choose the theme of this card because I regularly drag my husband to craft/stamping places. I wish there was a sentiment that said 'One more stop' I think that would have captured what I was going for. Then I thought about colors and I thought I would embrace the black and white theme of the previous challenge. It works for me!

This was a lot of fun I hope this will set me on the path back to the creative side of my brain!

Images: Amuse. Ink: Colorbox

Saturday Night Fever

This challenge was about using black and white only on the card. I had a sentiment (Save the Date) to use but ran out of space on the card. It's hard to edit myself sometimes but I think it worked in my favor this time.

Images & Card: Amuse. Ink: Colorbox. Brads: Making Memories

Do the Hustle

This was a sketch challenge which I've done before. It was nice to not think about a layout and focus on the colors. I kept it pretty simple with the blue and yellow...can't go wrong there. I also masked the 'Super Dad' stamp to put the focus on the 'super' part.

Images: Amuse. Punches: Marvy. Ink: Colorbox.

Disco Ball

So this one went a bit better for me I got to use some sparkle! I went to use my punches and I found I had two plain rectangle Marvy punches, not a scalloped one like I had thought. So I used two squares and made a quick scalloped rectangle.

Images: Amuse. Glitter: Making Memories. Puches: Marvy. Ink: Colorbox.

Let it Be

Here was the first challenge of the night, create a card with no embellishments. Let the images stand for the themselves. This was hard because I always try to add a little sparkle somewhere, so it's seems to be missing something.

Images & Paper: Amuse Art Stamps. Ink: Colorbox

Back?

It's been a while, a long while. I took a hiatus due to moving, job change and losing my creativity in the process. It's funny the moment I was able to organize all my stamping stuff into a room I could call my own is the moment I couldn't come up with anything. I've been lurking on other stamping blogs but it never seemed to come around for me. I thought I would use the Amuse Addicts stamping night as an excuse to get back into the swing of things so we'll see how it goes...

Is the glass half full or half empty?

So last week I mentioned we were stuck on two houses and we finally made a decision. We went for the great house with a smaller yard. After looking at the big yard house it just need too much work. So we are anxiously awaiting to see if our bid was accepted, we are so nervous! So that means moving time, which I am totally dreading! I will also not be blogging about cards for a while because I have to pack up my craft window in my kitchen so that people are not turned off by the massive amounts of stamping products. We outgrew our house right after we had our son so the place is packed to the gills. We've decided that we are going to rent a storage unit for a couple months and unclutter before we start showing our house to sell. Hopefully my four readers while stick around while I'm in transition because I just won't be able to make anything until we move to our new house. (I'm being very optimistic!) The cool part about moving is that there is a small study that I am going to use as a craft room for a few months or until we are able to add to our family. Once that happens the study will go back to a spare bedroom and I will have to find a new craft window to perch on.

In addition to moving our little family also received some great news...my husband got a promotion! This leads into the title of post, here's a some background and then you can decide. My husband and I met at work a few years back then got married. We were both in the same area but not in the same team. We've worked this way over the last five years and have managed to keep our private life separate from our work life. I love the expression on a person's face when they realize we are married, it takes people a while to even figure it out. So fast forward to the present, today we manage two teams and report to the same person. Insert fabulous news about hubby's promotion...my hubby will be managing the managers who manage the teams in the area. Does that sound weird? Basically my husband will become my boss and that's a no-no in our company. To be fair I think it's this way for most companies out there. So I need to find a new job, which is scary in itself. Don't get me wrong I'm not being shoved out the door. The people we work with are very understanding and are really trying to help me find a place to go. I've worked in this area for 8 years so it's hard to say that this...but this is all I know how to do and starting over is a daunting task. I'm so proud of my husband but I'm super freaked out for myself. Wow, I guess I needed to get that out. In the end I think the glass is half full, we are in a partnership and what ever happens wonderful happens for him is wonderful for me as well. Congratulations, Honey!

Party In My Tummy

Nick Jr has a new show called 'Yo Gabba, Gabba!' they have been running the promo for a month or so and it debuted this week. Every time the promo would come on my little one would stop and run back to the TV to see the little things dance. I say things because I'm not exactly sure what these things are supposed to be. Anyway I've seen the premiere no less than 10 times and I cannot get this song out of my head. I sing it in the shower, while I load the dishes, when I try to sleep at night!! So I thought I'd post a link and hope to pass on this crazy song. The show is pretty freaky but I really like the music so does the little one!

So Yummy!

Stress

I'm not sure why I came up with the genius idea of moving but I did. We've spent the last two weeks looking for the perfect place for our little family. I think at this point I'm really overwhelmed and want to be done with it now. From what I understand we've done things backwards, we went looking before we put our house on the market. We're stuck between two houses so I hope we can come to decision soon. The first house is amazing but the yard stinks, the second house is not so great but the yard is amazing. Choices?!

Pull Out Card

This is my first attempt at the pull out card and I really liked how it came out. First off the color note card I used is a beautiful lime green but somehow my kitchen lights turned it a nice pukey green. Better yet baby food green...yuck! I did not take a picture of the inside because it's blank. I went to use my 'birth announcement' stamp and the rubber was all warped so I couldn't get a clean image of what I wanted. Looks like I'm taking a trip to the closest stamp joint in town. Finally I added the clear Stickles to the stork last. I originally had it just plain white but everything looks better with a hint of sparkle!

Images, Paper, Ribbon: Amuse Art Stamps. Ink: Colorbox

Rock Star

So let me start off by saying this is not my personal design. I CASE'd it from another talented stamper named, Stilwater. Real names were not used to protect the innocent. :-)

I first saw this card during the Amuse challenges this summer and I knew I had to have the Rock Star stamp. So here is my version of Stilwater's super cool Green Rock Star...hope I did it justice! Here's a link to the original.

Green you Rock

Nice Matters!

I was tagged earlier this week but it took me a while to figure out how to get this on my blog so my apologies for my lateness. I was super excited when I got this from Simone, it was my very first tag in the blogosphere! So here are my tags, please check them out!

1. Daily Dose of Spazz
2. ascrapaddictsblog.blogspot.com
3. Stampindamour.blogspot.com
4. cardsnstuff
5. ManyBlessings from Splitcoast Stampers (She doesn't have a blog but I didn't think it was fair to exclude.)

Ghostly Greetings!

It's Friday already and I have created nothing since Monday so I thought I better get busy. No matter how hard I try I cannot get to stamping during the week. I think it's my job that just leaves my brain mush after 5. I guess that's why everyone loves Friday a chance to relax for a few days before the craziness starts all over again on Monday.

Here's a quick card to get ready for Halloween. I love the color of this paper because of the addition of non traditional Halloween colors!

Images: Paper Salon, Hero Arts. Paper: American Crafts. Ink: VersaMark.

Sums it up...

I bought this stamp not really knowing what I wanted to do with it. I finally got a chance to play with it and I think this card really describes the way I feel about my new favorite hobby. I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to everyone who has stopped by the last two months and left their comments. Your kind words, your presence really keeps me going. It's really wonderful to be part of such an amazing community of ladies....THANK YOU!

Images: Amuse. Ink: Colorbox & TomBow. Misc: Marvy Punches

Ohhhh..sparkly

I made this quick card last night because I could not get any sleep. It's like my stamps were calling me...'Stamp Me'. 'I'm lonely...must have ink!' I finally got to sleep around 2 am, 6 o'clock came around real fast.

So I'm waiting on my stamp-a-ma-jig to get here because I cannot stamp a straight sentiment to save my life. Other than that I used some stickles to brighten up the ring on the card.

Images: Stampin Up. Sentiment, Paper, Ribbon: Amuse. Ink: Colorbox. Misc: Marvy Punches

Pencils N Things

Yesterday I had the chance to attend a class at my local LSS, Stamp Antonio. I learned about blending and coloring with Prismacolor pencils. I didn't think it was going to be my style but I really liked the look of the pencils on the stamped images. So of course I cruised them on ebay and I picked up a set of 72 pencils for $20! Wooooohoooooo! Happy Monday!

No Layers

One last card for the Amuse challenge, no layers. I kept it simple, I kept it Amuse!

Image & Ribbon: Amuse. Ink: Memories Direct.

Over the rainbow

This is another quick for card for the Amuse challenge. It took four tries before I got the rainbow right on this one. First I tried Colorbox cateye chalk inks and I didn't like the coverage. Second I tried my tombows, too streaky. Third was my prismacolor markers, the purple markers busted while I working on it and purple ink was everywhere. Besides that I still didn't the intensity of the colors. So finally I went for my Pebbles chalks....WINNER, WINNER, WINNER!!! The chalks gave it the haze of a fresh rainbow. I really wanted to do this card because it reminded of my son, he saw his first rainbow a few weeks ago.

The second lesson for this card was using the embossing buddy if I use any other powder than the clear. You can see a slight residue of the gold powder around the sentiment but after the rainbow experiment I wasn't willing to start over.

Images: Amuse. Cloud: Rubber Soul Ink: Pebbles & Colorbox. Ribbon: Amuse. Extras: Stickles

Relax

Ahhh....back to the world of stamping. I made this card for the Amuse lover group over at SCS. So far it sounds like a lot of fun and sometimes it's easier for me create when I have a jumping off point. Pop on over if you can...

Images: Amuse. Ink: Colorbox, Prismacolor & Tombow markers. Paper: Amuse

Birthday Bella

I wanted to work with a Bella today because the Stamping Bella announced a new product that I'm really excited about. It's little baubles that add sparkle and dimension to your card creations. I hope they get here soon!

Main Image: Stamping Bella. Sentiment: Amuse. Outline: Stampin Up. Punch: Marvy Uchida. Ink: Colorbox, Prismacolor. Flowers: Prima. Paper: HL