Oh, happy day!!!!!

Wow! I recently found out that a card I sent to Rubber Stamper Magazine (RSM) has been published in the September/October 2007 issue. It's the green card using TAC's Kallioppe set.

At one of the Stamp With Me Nights I offer to friends and customers, we decided to play with crayon backgrounds. We had a lot of fun creating backgrounds using various colors of crayon; and when one of the webgroups I'm part of mentioned that Rubber Stamper had a call for backgrounds made without using ink, I thought these would be perfect. So I sent 5 cards to RSM in March and promptly forgot about them. Imagine my surprise when I got a free issue in the mail letting me know I was published!

If you'd like to make your own crayon backgrounds, here are the directions (which are included in the magazine article, but are far to small to be readable in the scan):

Take a regular household iron and cover it with aluminum foil. Tape the aluminum foil to the top part of the iron. Turn the iron on and wait for it to heat up. Cover a heat resistant work surface with additional aluminum foil, newspaper or paper towels (so that you don't melt crayon onto it) and place a piece of glossy paper onto the work surface. When the iron is hot, choose two or three different coordinating colors of crayon and scribble all over the aluminum foil on the iron. Then quickly swipe or pounce the iron across the glossy paper. Several layers can be added to cover the original if you aren't happy with it, but be careful about your color choices, because too much melting and blending will muddy your color.

Princess Purse

I am getting ready to go on a Disney cruise with my husband, sister, brother-in-law and 5 year old niece. I can't wait, since she's so much fun to be with, especially when we go to the Magic Kingdom.

This time, since I have my Memory Purse, I decided to make it up using a picture of when my niece first met her favorite princess, Belle. As you can tell, she was star struck to be meeting Belle in person. We'll see if Belle will be flattered by the purse when she sees it in person.

Sneek Peek..... and my new fav. paper

I've been working on cards and scrapbook pages to display at the Tinley Park Rubber Stamp and Scrapbook Expo next weekend, and I've found my new favorite paper (for the moment). Here's a peek at some of the samples that I'll display on my board.

This paper seemed very natural to me. Every single card, scrapbook page and tag I made was something I loved. None of those "filler" creations that you sometimes use just because you need to have a certain number.

Besides turning out beautiful and coordinated projects, this paper has a masculine feel. I got some of the best cards to give to husbands, fathers, sons and other men from this paper. Cards for men are sometimes very difficult for me, but not this time around. I'm so happy!

If you're in the Chicago area and want to check out more Winchester samples I made, and meet some angels from The Angel Company, stop by the Expo and visit. For information on the show click here http://www.rubberstampexpo.com/ilinfo.html

Another find from the St. Charles Expo

Here's another thing that I had to spend my money at the St. Charles Scrapbook Expo. I picked up the pre-finished mat up from one of the vendors at the show. (If I can find my receipt, I'll let you know what vendor that was, but it's missing in action now - probably hiding from my husband).

All I needed to do was add a 5 x 7 picture of Tom and his guitar and a background I created from taking a photo of the pattern on his other guitar. I picked up a 12 x 12 scrapbook frame from Michael's and it's ready to go on the wall. I just need to get Tom to pick a spot (which probably means it will sit on the bookshelf until after Christmas. How do you motivate a man to do something again????)