Birthday Thank You Cards

I showed you a birthday card last week for a special 3-year old. These are the thank you cards I made for his birthday gifts.

We celebrated here at home on his birthday, but he will be having more birthday celebrations when we visit the extended family next week for the Thanksgiving holiday. My boys get to have about three different birthday parties by the time we celebrate here at home in Indiana and then with each side of the family in Pennsylvania. My youngest son gets to party at Thanksgiving in PA, and my oldest son when we visit for Christmas.

The inspiration for my card came from this card I found in the Splitcoast Stampers gallery. I put the little caboose image from the Stampin' Up! Choo Choo stamp set on the inside of the card as well. Sometimes I forget, but I try to embellish the inside of my cards with some stamping as well. Thanks for stopping by!

November 8 for $10 Workshop

Here's a sneak peek at the four cards we'll be making at the November 8 for $10 Workshop on Thursday here at my house at 7pm. Make sure you RSVP by Monday if you're planning to attend! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 3rd Birthday!

A special little boy turned three last week. He loves trains, so I made him this little card. He had a train birthday cake too and just loved it! He even got a new train for a birthday gift. Thanks for stopping by!

Oops! Last week when I wrote this post, I was in a hurry and forgot to mention that I was inspired by the card in the previous Occasions Mini Catalog by Stampin' Up! The card they published with this set was super cute!

SU! Holiday Gift-Giving Guide

Check out Stampin' Up!'s Holiday Gift-Giving Guide. You can earn some free Decor Elements with a qualifying purchase. Get all the details here.

Remember me?

Hi, Everyone. Remember me? I'm supposed to be your Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, but lately life has been so hectic that stamping has been the last thing I've been able to think about. I hope you'll all forgive me, but I am doing a major rescheduling of my Stampin' Up! events for the rest of the year.

Last week, I postponed the November 8 for $10 workshop originally scheduled for tomorrow evening until next Thursday. However, that's not going to be feasible either. So, I am rescheduling the final three events I'm planning for 2009.

• The November 8 for $10 workshop will be Thursday, November 19th.
• There will be a Stamp Camp featuring unique hand-stamped gifts on Saturday, December 5th.
• Finally, the December 8 for $10 workshop will be Monday, December 14th.

At least that's how it looks for now. You can see all these dates listed in the "Upcoming Stampin' Events" area in the sidebar on the right.

Once again, please forgive me for making all these changes to the schedule. Life just has a way of turning plans upside-down sometimes. If you're planning to attend the November 8 for $10 workshop on Thursday, November 19th, please RSVP by Monday, November 16th. Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Stamps of a Different Sort

Have you started thinking about your Christmas cards yet? If you're planning to make a bunch of handmade Christmas cards, then you probably have. If not, you better get started! My mom is on top of things this year and already has hers started. She mass produces about fifty of whatever design she chooses for the year.

I, however, have not made handmade Christmas cards for a number of years. Crazy, right? I'm a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, and I don't make handmade Christmas cards! It's like this: We live far away from all our family and friends we grew up with in Pennsylvania. We don't live near to any of our college friends, or to those friends we made while living in the Carolinas. Most of the people we send Christmas cards only see us a few times each year, if they see us at all. Now that we have children, they want to see pictures in our Christmas card.

Just so you don't think I'm a total slacker of a demonstrator, I do make up some holiday cards every year. I make them to use as thank you cards after Christmas for all the Christmas gifts we receive from family and friends. I own too many Christmas stamp sets not to at least make a few cards with them!

So why am I rambling on about all this? We went to have our family Christmas picture taken last week. My friend, Kristie Magee, who comes to my stamping workshops, is a professional photographer. You can check her out at her Magee Photography website. Our pictures turned out terrific, and I've been thinking about our Christmas cards for the past few weeks.

To get an early start on preparing them, I looked through my spreadsheet of addresses and sent off some emails to those on our list who I knew have a new address this year. I think I've already gotten responses from all of them, so no tracking down addresses at the last minute this year!


I also got to thinking about postage stamps for all our cards. (Finally, the subject of this post as indicated in the title!) The USPS has issued their holiday stamps for 2009. I bought mine about two weeks ago. There are multi-cultural ones, of course, but my choice is always between the Madonna and Child stamp offered every year and then whatever more whimsical design the USPS decides to offer. I opted for the whimsical ones, which I usually do. The postal worker who helped me mentioned that it was good to get them early becasue sometimes they run out of the holiday stamps well before Christmas.


Now that I have you thinking about your Christmas cards, don't forget your postage stamps. You can buy them now at your local post office or on the USPS website. Hey, why not spread out the expenses of the holiday season by purchasing your postage stamps right now? You'll be sure to get them that way! If you're really on the ball, you can address your cards and have them ready to send the weekend after Thanksgiving. Avoid the busy stores and malls and have your Christmas cards taken care of before the month of December even gets here! Thanks for stopping by!

One More Halloween Project

I have one more Halloween project to show you. I was scrambling last week to get everything on my "to do" list accomplished before today! Thankfully, I got this project finished in time to include it in a nice little treat bag for my oldest son's kindergarten teacher.

Last week, I went with his class on their field trip to a local farm. They had a hay ride, picked a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, learned about farming, got to get up close and personal with some farm animals... ...you get the picture. It was a fun day for the kids. However, their teacher, Miss Simmons, wasn't able to go with the kids. She was at home battling the flu.

As usual, I took hoards of pictures. In addition to the field trip, we had their Fall Party in the afternoon upon returning to the school. I took some pictures there too. I decided to burn a cd with all my pictures from the day for Miss Simmons. So of course I had to make her a special cd case for the cd. On the back of this, I wrote, "--All your little monsters!" I stuck it in a treat bag I made up for her with some of the Halloween treats I showed you last week from the October 8 for $10 workshop. This is Miss Simmons' first job teaching after graduating from college, and I know she hated to miss the field trip with her kids. Hopefully this cd full of pictures will help her feel like she was there!

We gave her the treat bag on Thursday, and she really loved her special presents. She said it was like Christmas! I told her making things like this is a hobby of mine right now while I'm a stay-at-home mom. She said she was glad to reap the benefits of my hobby! Seeing the joy and surprise from people who receive my little gifts is the reason I love making them. Thanks for stopping by!

Treats for My Guys

Happy Halloween!

Here are some simple jars of candy I made up for my guys--including my hubby. They don't care how elaborately decorated the jars are. They just want what's inside. (Yes, once again they are empty peanut butter jars. I like to recycle.)

I was anxious to use The Greeting Farm's "Spooktacular" stamp set and running out of time! Consequently, these are pretty simple. They're each filled with a different candy, something special for each of my boys.

These stamps force me to work on my coloring technique. I haven't ever outlined an image like I did on the mummy, but I'm pleased with it. Now I wish I had done it to all three. Happy Halloween! Thanks for stopping by!

October 8 for $10 - Project #4

The final project from this month's 8 for $10 workshop was a Stair Step Fold Card. I saw a card by Lorri Heiling on her blog soon after the Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini Catalog came out. She used the new Pumpkin Patch stamp set for hers. I love the Autumn Harvest stamp set, so I set out to make a card with it instead.

I was also inspired by the children's Halloween poem, "Five Little Pumpkins." You remember it, right? They were sitting on a fence. I pondered for a few moments on how to make a picket fence, and then decided that a rounded white fence using my Scallop Edge punch would be just as nice. To make distressed looking lines to indicate individual slats of wood, stand a Chocolate Chip Stampin' Up! marker so that the writing tip is up. After a few minutes, the ink runs to the other end, and it's just right for drawing sketchy lines.

This card went through many versions before I was completely settled with it. I played with different shades of oranges, rust and golds before settling on just Pumpkin Pie and Really Rust. I didn't like the jack-o-lantern face on the little pumpkins, so I decided to only put it on the large pumpkins. I added sponging to the full moon, Happy Halloween sign and toothpick signpost for extra depth and richness of color.

The last change I made was to chop off the back fold of Garden Green to make it Not Quite Navy. It looked much better and more believable as a backdrop for the big full moon. You can find a Stair Step Card Tutorial on the Splitcoast Stampers website if you'd like to try one yourself.

I'm really pleased with the final version of this card. I didn't come up with using the Stair Step Fold Card to make a pumpkin patch, but I think from there, I created something pretty special that's my own. I don't sit and do that very often. Thanks for stopping by!

Look what I got today!

I ran into my upline, Bobbie Lawrence, at our kids' school today. She gave me this adorable little Halloween treat. She had made them up for her son's preschool class, and apparently she had an extra one to give me! I love getting little surprises like this! How cute! Thanks, Bobbie!

My youngest son thought I should give him the pack of Smarties, but no way! This is a little treat just for Mommy! Thanks for stopping by!

October 8 for $10 - Project #3

October 8 for $10 Workshop Project #3 used the new Sweet Treat Cups and Sweet Centers stamp set from the Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini catalog. I originally saw the idea for making these into a lollipop style treat on Lydia Fiedler's blog.


After making these, I decided I didn't like the way the lollipop stick made the cardstock "rumple" in the back. I made up the rest of my Sweet Centers treats as little tags or ornaments to be hung somewhere cute until Halloween.


The sentiment that you punch out to make the Sweet Treat Cups fit into the stamped image is too cute to just throw away. I decided to put it on the back of my lollipop/ornament--whatever it is! Thanks for stopping by!

October 8 for $10 - Project #2

Here's the second treat we made at the October 8 for $10 workshop. These little Sour Cream Containers are filled with peanut butter taffy.

Once again, Splitcoast Stampers has a Sour Cream Container Tutorial on their site. They have a few different sizes you can try depending on what you want to use them for and fill them with.


My mom let me borrow this Batty for You stamp set for the workshop. Thanks, Mom! I think I'm going to have to buy it someday for myself.

Thanks for stopping by!