I always feel like....cupcakes are WAT-CH-ing me!

Today was a special kind of day, even though there was no stamping involved.

For my "goals" at work (that determine if I will get a raise or a bonus) I had to give a presentation on Excel. Any Angels out there will know that I LOVE Excel, even though most people find it difficult, but since I'm a secretary and not a "trainer" it was a little nerve wracking to put together something that taught enough skills and felt like something usable. I came up with a chart that tracked our vacation time, that all the class participants got to do along with me. Nothing too fancy, just something that added the time accrued during the pay period and subtracted any time that you entered as having taken. Since this was my first time teaching something like this, I made a few mistakes. After about the third one I said something like "well, I guess no cupcake for me, making all these mistakes" and explained that I had planned to treat myself with a cupcake if the class went off without a hitch.

After I was done with the class, I went back to my desk to do my regular work and about 45 minutes later one of the girls from the class tracked me down and brought me a surprise. Not quite a cupcake, but the closest thing she was able to find. Isn't it the cutest thing? And it came with a note that said - It's not a cupcake, but you did good!!! I almost cried.





Now I have to go workout.

More Snow?

With all the big snow we've been experiencing nationally (and Chicago's fore casted to get more tonight), I figured snow was on every one's minds. This is a card I came up with for my Create a Bunch group for the gathering we had this past week.



Inside:



The background on the front of the card uses a Stampendous stamp "Let It Snow" that a friend gave me when she was cleaning out her craft stash, and the focal point is The Angel Company's Let It Snow set, which I find myself using quite a lot. The inside is created by using The Angel Company's Simple-Bet set to spell out the words.

We used the technique of spraying the trees panel with spray adhesive, and then coating it in glitter and brushing off the excess. The girls had a great time using the "blast cabinet" I made from a banker's box placed on top of some heavy duty craft paper I got from The Art House when I got one of my scrapbook pages framed.

This is a close-up of the trees panel with the glitter.

Cheery Birthday Card

This is another card my Create a Bunch girls did last month.



It's a very quick card that uses Kaleidoscope Boyz patterned paper as the accent with a stamp from The Angel Company's Birthday Wishes stamp set and some graduated punches. There's a little sparkle on the "B" using the Clear Glitter pen and some additional bling given by Orange Peel Stickles. I especially like the rounded top corners of this card that I further accented with an orange Souffle Pen.

Second Valentine from Photo

Since I always have some extras for the Create a Bunch girls, I had leftover supplies to make more valentines. I made a few more of yesterday's card, but then decided I wanted to see if I could do something completely different with the same basic supplies.

For this card, I used the same photo, cardstock and Trendy Greetings stamp set, but I added a ribbon, some texture using the Love Language Cuttlebug folder, and a new heart cut from my Nestabilities.

Photo Valentine for the Create a Bunch at Lunch Club

This year, I started a card-makers lunch with some girls at the office. I create two cards, and cut all the paper, and they reimburse me for the supplies and my time. We each make two of each of the designs during our lunch hour for a total of four cards. We call it the "Create a Bunch at Lunch Club" and we meet once a month. Last month we made this Valentine from a photo I took of some foil wrapped Fannie May chocolate hearts.



The paper is the scarlett cardstock from The Angel Company and some metallic gold I picked up in my travels somewhere. I used this example to show my club that photos can work as focal points for cards just as well as stamped images sometimes.

Eiffel Tower Thank You

At our anniversary party, one of Tom's cousins told us about how her son really likes the Eiffel Tower. Because of that, she got a gift bag for the bottle of champagne she gave us that had an Eiffel Tower on it. In return, I used a stamp of the Eiffel tower on the thank you card just for him.



This card uses the Eiffel Tower image from The Angel Company's Go Abroad stamp set and a sentiment from Hero Arts' Thank You Messages set.

To tie it into the theme of the party, I went with the same Pop Rockz paper that I used on the table decorations and other thank you cards.

Anniversary Cards - Variation Number 2

This card, is so much like the last card I posted, but stil feels a bit different. Perhaps it is because I turned it on its side and gave it a border with my Fiskars Threading Water border punch. Other than that, it uses the same paper and stamps as my prior post.



Out of all my cupcake thank yous, I think I like this one the best.

Anniversary Thank You Cards - Variation Number 1

As a variation on the thank you cards I posted Wednesday, I created this new batch that also uses The Angel Company's Pop Rockz paper collection. This time the cupcake comes from Hero Arts' Cupcake set. And features only Copic Marker colors RV10, RV34 and C1.

Anniversary Thank You Cards

Now that the anniversary party is over, I found that I had some thank you cards to write. Silly me, I thought that when I said no gifts please, people would actually listen, so I didn't have any on hand.

Since many of the people I would be sending to are family, I thought I should have a few different variations on my thank you cards, so that everyone didn't get the same thing. The first is this one that uses a trio of cupcakes and sentiment from the same Inkadinkado Birthday Cupcake set as the inviations. It also uses scraps of paper left from The Angel Company's Pop Rockz paper collection that was used on the original invitations and the table decorations.



The background is texutrized with the Argyle Cuttlebug Embossing Folder and the cupcakes are colored with Copic Markers RV10, RV34, V12, YG03 and C1. A little glitz was added with the Gelly Roll Clear Stardust Glitter Pen.