And only a month later. . .

. . . here I am with another card.

This is a birthday card that I made for a friend. It really is hard to get into the creative mojo when the mojo is off hibernating somewhere!

Where have I been?

In the past 5 months I have not really been crafty at all. So here is why:

1) In April we went through an in vitro cycle to try and get pregnant.

2) It worked!!! And I didn't feel like being very crafty the first trimester.

3) My husband has had health problems and spent time in the hospital on 2 occasions, having major surgery during his second stay.

4) I taught classes all summer and am still teaching this fall.

5) I am always tired.

I have been missing being crafty but just feel beat most of the time, thus killing my creative mojo.

However, I do owe some thank-you cards for some baby gifts we have already received (baby boy is due January 26th). So here I am jumping back into being creative!

how long has it been?

It has been forever since I stamped. In fact, over 2 and a half months. There was really a lot going on for me and Justin and then I just wasn't in the mood to stamp much.

But I went to a baby shower this past weekend, and wanted to make something cute as part of the baby gift. So I decided to make the mom-to-be some thank you cards that she can send out to people for presents, or she can save some and give to people who bring her meals once the baby comes.

I finally stamped!!!

Too late, but that's ok

I tried to get this done yesterday, but it didn't happen - even though it is a super simple card. Oh well!


I decided to make a pretty simple thank you card - I really need to have more thank you cards around here.

Beate's WSC #42

I wasn't sure if I was going to play in this weekend's sketch challenge. Especially once I made my card. I'm not sure about anyone else - but if I go for a couple weeks without being creative, it takes a little while to get my mojo back. In fact, this past week I even sat down at my craft table and I was stumped - I couldn't figure out what colors I would want to use, what kind of card I would like to make - I finally gave up.

Today I decided that I wanted to use some of the many, many rub-ons that I acquired during Sale-a-bration. But once I started, I realized that I think I like the idea of rub-ons more than actually using rub-ons. I have to tell you - I seriously thought about not posting this card because I felt like it was the worst thing I have made for quite a while. But then I decided - oh well, we all have bad days, right?

After I realized there was nothing else I could do for this card, I decided that I could definitely do something better and I had to make another card right away. I hadn't made a pocket card for a while and this little skunk from Pun Fun kept taunting me to use her (or him). I feel a little better about myself and my ability to use rub-ons now!

Beate's WSC #40

Believe it or not - I am still sick! I am on the up and up though and hope to kick the cough and get my voice back in the next day or so. It is hard to teach classes when you are all hoarse!

This card makes me want to have a picnic. We have been having really nice Spring weather in Texas (at least, in the Houston area). I hope it sticks around - Spring is always way to short here and Summer lasts forever!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Beate's WSC #39

I was excited to do this past weekend's sketch challenge, but it turns out that stamping isn't much fun when you are sick. :( I am now on an antibiotic and a decongestant/antihistamine so I hope to be feeling better soon. Whether I am feeling better or not doesn't change the fact that I have to teach 4 classes tomorrow so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I have a miraculous recovery overnight.

For this card I used the Garden Whimsy set and the Stem Sayings set, both of which are still new to me and I had never used before. Once I was done, I wasn't sure how I felt about the Purely Pomegranate ribbon that I used, but oh well!

Birth Announcements

I told a friend that I would make her birth announcements and I am almost done! Actually, the reason I'm not done is because I ran out of ribbon. :( I looked at Michael's to see if they had anything I could use in place of the Striped Bashful Blue ribbon that I am using, but I wasn't jazzed with my choices there, even though they were pretty cute.

Anyway - I have 20 announcements done and 6 to go when the ribbon comes in sometime next week.

Both me and Justin are sick so things are no fun at our house. It is hard to feel like stamping when you are sick!

Beate's WSC # 38

I got it done in time! I should be in bed - but check me out posting a new card to my blog. Actually tomorrow (ah, actually today) is the official first day of Spring Break and Justin and I are already in a bad habit of staying up really late and sleeping in late. I do have a few things that I have to do this week - grade 3 classes worth of exams and finish the baby announcements I am making for my friend. But past that we are lounging and spending time together.

Anyway - for this week's challenge I knew that I wanted to make an Easter card and that means that I wanted to use the Spring Fling DP and the stamp set A Good Egg. I am loving these two together.

I hope that everyone has a good week. I plan to have more stuff to post this week than normal, but we will see how the week plays out, right?

Ginormous Birthday Cards

When we lived in Tampa, I used to make birthday cards for all the people at work. As the number of people in the office grew, the size of the birthday cards grew as well. After I left, my friend Wendy took over making all the cards and now the office has grown so much that she makes cards that are a whole sheet of cardstock folded in half instead of just a half-sheet.

Her birthday is this month, so I made birthday cards for her and sent them to her to use. I waited to post them until I knew that she had gotten them. I used some of my new stuff - Big Birthday Candle and Bali Breeze DP for one card and Just B and Summer Picnic DP for the other. And the wide ribbon is so perfect for these big cards!

Spring Break starts when I get out of class tomorrow, so I hope to get some stamping done next week. But since Justin is off work too, he may distract me!

Be Inspired Challenge #1

I had a really busy weekend and missed Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge, but I made time to make something for her first ever Be Inspired Challenge.


She posted this picture on her blog and then you are supposed to let the picture inspire you.

Right away I thought of the flowers in the hostess set Time Well Spent. There were so many beautiful colors in the little handbag that I had trouble picking what to use! In the end I used Pixie Pink, Green Galore, Real Red, Wild Wasabi and just a touch of Pumpkin Pie. And for the first time ever, I used some of Stampin' Up!'s rub-ons - the sentiment comes from the Sale-a-bration Love & Happiness Rub-Ons (You have less than 2 weeks to get some of these!).

Hope everyone is having a good week! I have to get everything ready for classes today - I am so ready for Spring Break next week!

Beate's WSC #36

Another sketch challenge! Because I didn't have time to work on the challenge until today, I was glad that it was a simple one. But I knew that I wanted to use the set A Good Egg. It is so cute! I used some designer paper from last year's SAB Simply Scrappin' kit that I thought looked very springy.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Love this layout!!!

I saw this card today and loved it!!! So then I decided it was the perfect layout to use for my workshop next week. You read that right - I have a workshop next week. In the 2 and a half years I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, this will be my first actual workshop. Can you believe it? It will be small - only 4 ladies and since I really have no idea what I am doing, I decided to have each lady make a card and scrapbook page (they are not new to stamping). And I am going to be super generous because when I say scrapbook page, I mean a 12"X12" page (since the hostess told me that they all have the "big" scrapbooks).

Anyway - the theme is Spring. I have decided that the scrapbook page will be an Easter page and I will use the set A Good Egg, that Cambria used on her card with this layout. Then I decided that I wanted the card to focus on the Sale-a-bration sets and I also wanted to use the Flower Fusion felt flowers that I got last week and haven't touched yet. For my first draft, I used Bali Breeze DP.

I like how it turned out, but I think that I cut my DP too big and I decided that it wasn't "Spring"-y enough. So I tried it again with Berry Bliss DP instead.

I have decided that the one with Berry Bliss DP is the winner! With the Pretty in Pink it is more spring-like and I think it looks simpler. Now to design the scrapbook page!

Onesie card

I was doing some surfing the other day looking for cute card ideas and I stumbled across this blog with oh-so-cute cards that looked like onesies. I told a friend that I would make her birth announcement for her, so I decided that I had to try it out.

I have to admit - it was a lot more work than the tutorial made it sound like it would be. But that may be because my circle punch had a lot of trouble punching through 2 layers of cardstock at once. And I like how on the other blog, the onesies are all white, but I used Bashful Blue because I had already chosen to make the birth announcements out of Bashful Blue and Barely Banana so I have plenty of those. But since this onesie is blue, I had to stamp my image on white cardstock, then color and cut it out - which is another thing that make it a little tedious.

Don't get me wrong though - I love the result! I think that it turned out super cute - I'm just not sure how many of these I would want to make in the future.

WSC #35

I'm not sure if I really stuck to the sketch very well on this one. I had an idea in my head and this is what I ended up with. I am pretty happy with it. My brother's birthday is today so I needed something that wasn't too girly and I hope this fits the bill. :)

I got a new order in on Thursday and used a few of my new things on this card. I love the set Wonderful Favorites! And since I only have one brother I don't feel bad at all about making him a card to my "favorite" brother. :) I also used one of the Sale-a-bration sets, Birthday Whimsy, for the cake and the happy birthday greeting. The other thing on this card that I just got is the Striped Bashful Blue Ribbon - love it!

I hope that everyone has a good weekend and gets some stamping done!

Beate's WSC #34

Today I finished grading exams (I gave 3 exams this past week) and even though I need to write a statistics exam for this coming week - I knew that if I didn't do the sketch challenge today, I wouldn't be able to do it.

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting rid of some of my stamps that I don't use very much. I just need the time to go through them! I was inspired by Beate's own creation for this week's challenge to pull out my retired Petals & Paisley DP. It wasn't until just now that I realized just how inspired I was by her card - I used one of the same patterns of paper and I did the scalloped edge the same way. I am such a copy-cat sometimes! Anyway - I used a stamp on here that is also retired, from the Tag Time stamp set. I really like this set and don't use it much but I think when I am ready to start clearing some stuff out I will keep this one around for a bit longer.

This next week is the last week that I am subbing for an instructor on another campus - so I hope to have more time to be creative and clean out my space!

WSC #33

Just made it in time. And I really should be grading exams instead of stamping. :( Oh well!

Even though I no longer go to baby showers (if you haven't been able to have a baby for 2 and half years, you understand) I still believe in giving gifts. There is a baby shower tomorrow night, and I needed a card to stick a giftcard in, so I used the sketch challenge as my template for the baby card I needed to make.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

It's time to Sale-a-brate!

It is many stampers favorite time of year - time to get free stuff! Now through March 17th, for every $50 worth of merchandise you purchase from Stampin' Up!, you can choose one Sale-a-bration item for free. To download the pdf version of the Sale-a-bration catalog, follow this link. To see the current catalog for Spring Summer online, click here.

Two posts in two days!!!

I know - it is hard to believe. But yesterday I was hit with the creative bug as I kept looking at the cover my Stampin' Success (this is the magazine that SU! sends to its demos). They had a little box shape formed out of Real Red cardstock (to be a candy holder) and with the Big Deal Alphabet stamp set, stamped the "L", "V" and "E" for "love" and used a flower for the "O". I decided to use that idea on a card and I changed some stuff around. But I have to admit - I never thought about putting Real Red and Almost Amethyst together before this. I love getting inspiration!

I hope that everyone has a great weekend - who knows - maybe I will post something else in the next couple days again! Remember, I did have a goal to show my blog more attention this year!

Cute little "milk" carton

I love everything that Beate makes!!! So when she posted this tutorial on SplitCoastStampers, I knew that I wanted to try it! And I am definitely on a Valentine's theme lately. I want to make a couple more, but there are also lots of other things that I want to do - like start the curtains for our family room. I did make a valance and posted all about it on the blog I share with Justin.


This little carton is the perfect size to put some little Valentine's Day treats into and give to someone!

Two weeks worth of sketches

Now that my husband is home for the weekend, I asked him where the camera was and of course it was right next to the computers the whole time! So - I am sharing what I made for last week's sketch challenge as well as this week's :) I decided to make Valentine's cards for each since that is our next holiday. As it turns out, I really don't have many Valentine sets, but I don't see myself buying anymore anytime soon - too many other things that I want. :)

Here is the card that I made for this week's challenge.

I LOVE Boatloads of Love! And I love the jumbo eyelets that Stampin' Up! sells - I have looked for similar elsewhere and can't find any as good. I also love how the jumbo eyelets fit so well with this stamp because of the round life-preservers on the side of the boat. I am sad that the Darling Doodles DS was retired after the last catalog - I thought it would be a great carry-over to the Spring, but apparently not. I'm going to have to get myself some of that Berry Bliss paper to make up for it.

Like I said, I also made a card for last week's challenge too, but never got it posted. Here is it.

I'm not sure how I feel about the end result of it. I like purple, but I always have a hard time using it. I'm not sure why. And there was hardly any stamping that was done on this card since I used the prima flowers as the main part of the card and designer paper as well.

Hope everyone has a great weekend - it is a long weekend for me, but not for Justin who will be heading out again Monday morning for his last week in Houma (hopefully for a few months at least).

Beate's weekend sketch challenge

I did make a card for Beate's weekend sketch challenge for this week, but I haven't been able to get a picture of it to post. :( I don't know where the camera is and the scanner isn't working. I will try to have some great stuff to post this weekend!