Rockin' Pajamas

Tomorrow my husband's band, U-GODDA-WANNA, will be playing The Taste of Chicago. For those of you in the area that want to see it, U-GODDA-WANNA will be playing from Noon - 1:15 p.m. on the Illinois Lottery Taste Stage, just South of Buckingham Fountain along Lake Shore Drive. They will be doing songs from 1999 through 2009. Both of us are super excited about this big accomplishment for him. We plan to spend the day at the Taste to see some other bands that we know and then we have a hotel room booked so that we don't need to worry about when the party will end.

To memorialize the big gig, I thought it would be fun to have some pajamas that were inspired by Tom (and he'll tell you that the only stamp in my vast collection that is "his" is the Rockabella stamp). So I used Rockabella to stamp up the shorts on some new pjs. I colored her in with Fabrico markers and used the Cyclamen glitter from my Taylored Expression's Cupcake Pack to rock them out.

Here are the completed pajamas



and a close up


Now we're ready to party like rock stars!

Another Necklace/Earrings Set

In follow-up to my post yesterday, I thought I'd post the second Necklace/Earrings set I made as my prop swap for my team meeting. This set I made using Ultra Thick Embossing Powder (UTEE) from the Brights collection instead of regular embossing powder. It's a much bolder look than yesterday's post. Instead of the Fancy Curls stamp set I used in my Club MED swap, I decided to use the butterfly and flowers silhouette from the Natural Hope stamp set in Serendipity. I also reheated the UTEE and impressed the stamp into the melted surface to give some texture on the necklace.

Club MED Prop Swap

Today, I am not at home. I am at The Angel Company's yearly seminar waiting for the catalogue release. Well, by the time this posts, I will probably already have seen the new catalogue, if only briefly at the Club MED luncheon. What kind of paper collections will we have now? What will be my new favorite stamp set? Have we gotten any cool new tools or embellishments? I can't wait.

One of the things I worked really hard for in this company was my promotion to Manager last year. Being a manager allows me to attend the special lunch, get a sneak peak of the new catalogue before it is officially released, and swap trades and participate in the prop swap, where I make an item that's above and beyond your typical card/scrapbook page. All prop swaps are placed in a pile and I randomly receive something someone else created. This time for my Club MED prop swap, I created a necklace and earrings. The necklace uses the 2 x 2 Memory Glass and frame. The earrings were made using microscope slides that I cut in half with a glass cutter used for stained glass making. I put these in the melting pot, and spooned various colors of embossing powder on them until the embossing powder melted and the colors flowed together. Once they were cool, I stamped on them using the Fancy Curls stamp set and embellished with Frosted Lace Stickles. Then to attach the earring hooks, I used heavy duty glue meant for glass and metal to attach antique triangle loops (I tried drilling the microscope slides first, but couldn't do it without breaking them), and I think the loops worked better anyway.







I had originally started my Club MED swap using re-inkers and Crystal Lacquer on the glass, and it worked just fine for the necklace, but because of all the rain we've had this week, by the time I got to the earrings, I couldn't get them to dry. I started them on Wednesday afternoon, and by Monday, they still weren't even dry enough for me to apply a second coat. I had already made a necklace and earring set using the same materials in a different color for my team prop swap, and had wanted my Club MED one to be a little different, but things just didn't work out right and I had to fall back on what I already knew would work without issue.

I guess I'll actually have my own necklace and earring set once the materials straighten up their act. Kind of nice, since I don't make much that I keep.

Leaving for Seminar

Today I am getting ready to leave for The Angel Company's Seminar. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, and sharing their awesome personalities, wisdom and talent. One of the things we do at Seminar is trade card fronts, scrapbook pages and what are considered "special trades" which are usually things like pins or other small projects. We trade with each other in general, and the Managers, Executives and Directors (Club MED) have a special luncheon where they trade different items with just each other. This one will be a little bitter sweet for me because The Angel Company's new compensation plan will be launched during the next catalogue year, and Mischelle announced that this will be the last Club MED luncheon.

My general trade is a variation on the Perfect Pearls Father's Day Ship Collage card I posted earlier in the month, so no need to post that again. My Club MED trade will be a variation on the card candy we have been giving hands-on tutorials on at the Expos this past year. Mine is the magnet I created for the show we just did in Milwaukee. I made them up in three different colors, using the True Beauty stamp set from Serendipity, inking the edges with sponges and coloring with Copic markers. The layers are embellished with various colors of Stickles and the pieces are stacked using foam tape.







Can't you just see these butterflies gracing your fridge? With just a few paper punches and scraps, they're super simple to make.

Pearls for your necklace

The other night, my Mom came over to my monthly Stamp With Me night, and as often happens when you get a group of friends together, we were talking about grievances we had with some things that were going on in our lives, and balancing them against things related to that same situation that made us happy. You know how it is. You may complain about things your husband does, but you also know why you married him in the first place; or your company isn't treating you the way you'd like right now, buy you can still feel good about the review you got last year, or an accomplishment you had there. My Mom had some very good thoughts to pass along.

The first was a story about how when she was younger, someone told her that in her life, she would have one perfect day. She went on to tell us that there was one day during the Christmas season when I was about 2 that she did some Christmas decorating, put up the tree, we went to visit Santa, the house was clean and everything was peaceful, and when she went to bed, she thought "This was it. This was my perfect day!" and was happy. On the flip side, she later thought "That was it. That was the perfect day. Now I've had mine, and it's over" She said it wasn't until later, when she was talking to someone else that they told her "What? You don't just get one. You can have lots and lots of perfect days." Perfect days are entirely how you look at them, and you can have as many as you want.

We also talked about how there are some things in your life that made you feel wonderful, and nothing should ever change that. Those things are pearls in your necklace. Those pearls are your friendships, accomplishments, and events that have happened in your life that made you happy. And on those days that feel about as far from your perfect day as you can get, you can always take out that necklace and count your pearls.

Right now there are some changes that are effecting me and lots of people that I know. Company structures are changing, people are worried about their jobs, their health, their finances, their way of life, and their future. I'm sure we'll all get through it in one way or another, and hopefully in a few years we'll be able to look back and think that it was tough, but that we were able to get make it past the challenges we faced and be better off for having had some of them. And hopefully, while we're going through that tough time, we'll have lots of pearls on our necklaces that will help us remember that we are women that have had great love, great accomplishments, and great friends. For lots of people who read my blog, one or more of your pearls is your creativity and the feelings or inspiration that your creations bring to others when you share them, and I hope you know that.

Quick and Shimmery Wedding Card

This is another card I made when I was creating my Perfect Pearls display board. The white background is made from mixing Gold Perfect Pearls and water in a Mini Mister and spritzing. It doesn't show up very well in the photo, but there's just a very light gold splatter on the white paper. The blue pieces were also created with Perfect Pearls using the shimmer paper technique that I demoed at the Milwaukee Rubber Stamp and Scrapbook Expo.



The stamp is from the soon to be retired Blissfully Ever After stamp set. This is a set I turn to over and over when making wedding cards. The wedding rings from this set are the ones I used in the Same Card, Two Looks post.

If you're interested in ordering any retiring stamp sets, I will be available to place orders with until Tuesday, June 23rd. After that, I will be away at Seminar. Orders can also be placed directly on my website until June 26th.

Retiring Giraffe

When making my sample boards for the Milwaukee Rubber Stamp and Scrapbook Expo, I used this cute little giraffe stamp - African Giraffe. He's one of the stamps that will be retiring when the new catalogue comes out next week. This little guy has been around for quite some time, and I'm going to miss him.



The brown textured background was made with the Cuttlebug Mosiac embossing folder, and the colored background was made with the Autumn Leaves Kaleidacolor ink pad and the Pearly Mottled Paper Perfect Pearls technique.

Another Whimsy Blossoms Card

Once I had my Whimsy Blossoms paper out, I decided to challenge myself to make sefveral cards from the same paper collection. Here is a thank you card I made using the More Elegant Sentiments stamp set. This card was really very simple. The paper did all the work.

Whimsy Blossoms Birthday Card

This is one of my favorite new birthday cards. I used more paper from the Whimsy Blossoms collection and the Trendy Greetings stamp with a border from the Edge Designs stamp set out of the Serendipity magalogue. I punched more flowers that I used as a border on the bottom, and gave them a little bit of dimension by poking a stylus dipped in Burnt Umber Palette ink into the center of each.

Flower Card

I've been having some trouble with my camera not being able to download pictures to the computer. I've finally got all that fixed, which means I can share some pictures with you.

After getting everything I have to have done for Seminar next week finished, I had a little chance to play. Heather Scott posted a sketch a week ago Monday. Well, actually she posts a sketch challenge every Monday. I got a chance last weekend to make a card using the sketch, but since it has a little 3-D effect, I couldn't scan it. So here's my card from Heather's sketch of June 8th. With luck, I'll have a little time to try the sketch she posted this past Monday.



To see the original sketch, click here

My card uses the Angel Company's retired Whimsy Blossoms paper with Die Cuts With A View Yellow #2 paper. The stamp under the flowers comes from the Sprigs stamp set and I punched small blue flowers out and gave them dimension with a stylus and then added Liquid Pearls for the centers. The sentiment is from Stamping Sensations, and the ribbon started out white, but I colored it yellow with my Mango Madness VersaMagic ink pad.

Father's Day Inkspiration

In April and May I was up to my elbows in preparing for and participating in the Milwaukee Rubber Stamp and Scrapbook Expo. We had a wonderful time in the booth and met lots of very nice people.

One of the things that was different for me at this Expo was that I got to demonstrate. For our first time demonstrating in the booth, I chose to use one of my very favorite products, Perfect Pearls. Perfect Pearls are a resin-based mica powder and are extremely versitile. Before the show, I created a sample board of approximately 10 cards that used Perfect Pearls in different waya. Then, I spent the day showing other people how to use them, and I had a blast. Both days flew by.

One of the cards I made for the Expo was this Father's Day card using The Angel Company's Ship Collage stamp, and one of the Tim Holtz mini masks (the Compass) that came out at CHA in January. I mixed Perfect Pearls and reinkers in water, and lightly sprayed over the mask. This card has some wonderful shimmer to it in the background, that is accented by the bronze metallic paper.



This card is listed on my Shophandmade.com store.