Yearly Archives: 2009

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I managed to make all of my cards. I’ve got nothing else done, but at least I have a few satisfied customers. This year I am promising myself to get started in January. I will not put away my holiday stamps – I willl make 10 a month. It’s never too early to make New Years Resolutions.

Here’s a smattering of the cards I’ve made…

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A Muse Stamps: Tree Lot, Fetch the Tree, Big Bl. I saw a similar idea on someone’s Blog somewhere at some point… they used the car with the tree on top driving away from the Tree Lot. So my little truck had to make the trip to “fetch the tree” as well – note that there are no layers on this card, which is unusual for me.

Here’s another…

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Don’tcha just love the glossy accents on the bulbs? I’ve been going a little crazy with the faux stitching this year… on almost every card I made! Here’s a close-up of the bulbous beauty…

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 Okay, one more before I go wrap presents…

Yep, still having fun with my Little Yellow Bicycle Felt shapes. The Noel Sentiment is from the Peace & Cheer set by A Muse, and the snowflake in the center of the ornament is Hero Arts. This is one of my all-time favourite A Muse papers – along with the Vintage.
Hope you all have a wonderful holiday, Merry Merry!

Gift Card holder

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It’s been a long time since I last entered a Hero Arts Challenge, so I thought I’d give it a go with this card I made on Monday night…

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I still haven’t mastered the art of photographing my cards but someday I’ll figure it out. I am LOVING the felt shapes by Little Yellow Bicycle. I stuck this felt ornament to a white circle and stamped an Autumn Leaves image in the center with two shades of VersaColor ink, then glittered it up with my Sakura Stardust pen. The front of the card is scored at 1″ from the right side and folded back to hold a gift card in place. I secured the top and bottom with a bit of Scor-tape. The sentiment is from Hero Arts and the green shape is one of the AccuCut Antique Accent Frames.

I have 52 cards left to make and two days off to do it… send some creative vibes my way tomorrow, please!

Inspired by Julie…

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While in Seattle in October I had the privilege of taking a class from A Muse Yoda herself, Julie Ebersole. Julie taught us how to make a cute little tri-fold card with the Scor-Pal and when I got home I knew I had to adapt her idea to teach in a class of my own.

Here is the card that I made, inspired by a fall themed card that Julie taught…

A Muse Stamps: Cool Yule, Snowy Peaks, Squirrel on Skis

Unfortunately I didn’t have a Martha Stewart Winter Trees punch – that would’ve come in handy. Instead I used an AccuCut die to cut out 5 of those little trees. Then I cut out 65 more for the class. Yikes.

Hope you’re all enjoying your holidays so far – hard to believe Christmas is just 12 days away. Merry Merry!

Gingham Mittens

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Here’s a sweet little card I made featuring the Petite Red Gingham paper from A Muse with an AccuCut mitten die-cut. This card was super quick and easy to make, which is important in these last few weeks leading up to Christmas.

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I used White Liquid Applique on the tops of the mittens and heat it up before letting it dry to get a nice fluffy effect. The A Muse sentiment is one of my favourites – the mix of fonts is so cute.

If you’re in Newfoundland, check out The Paperie Blog for a Giveaway this week! I’ll reveal the stamp featured on the Card Portfolio over there on Saturday, so feel free to check back 🙂

Fast & Fabulous!

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Remember when I mentioned that I lost all my pictures from my other computer? Well this photo was one of the casualties, but luckily I was able to snag it from the A Muse Blog once it went up today – thanks Linda!

 

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A few tips to note when making multiples of this card:

1) When you’re stamping your houses on the Petite Red Gingham paper, why waste precious time stamping out 100 images if you’re making 100 cards? There’s five houses in that little row, so cut out a different house for every card – that way you only need to stamp 20 images on the gingham paper which can easily be done on one sheet of 8.5×11 paper with scraps to spare!

2) Use your white Signo Uni-ball pen (best white pen on the market!) to add a bit of snow to the eaves of the red gingham houses before applying glitter or cutting them out.

3) Use your Quickie Glue pen to add glitter to the eaves and to the snowbank below the houses, or use a wider chisel tip glue pen for the snowbank. Do this before adhering your little gingham house to avoid glitter build-up around the dimensional foam tape.

A Muse products: Winter houses, Winter wishes hand, Sky blue band 4-bar notecard, red petite gingham paper.

Retreat

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It has been really hectic since I returned from Seattle and doesn’t show any signs of letting up anytime soon. As soon as I got back from my trip I launched into prepping and planning for The Paperie’s TENTH Scrapbooking Retreat out at the Wilds and haven’t even had time to put up Christmas decorations at the store. You know you’re busy when!

This year I actually attended our Retreat with the intention of participating and making some cards but I felt so scattered and overstimulated that I seized every opportunity to help out Chris and Janna as much as possible instead. I took WAY too many stamps with  me and every time I sat down to create something I just pawed through my belongings in futility. Has that every happened to you? It happens to me more than I care to admit… I just sit down and reorganize everything, hoping inspiration will hit and instead it hits the road, Jack.

I suppose it didn’t help that I had a miserable week – that never supports the creative process. To make a long story short, my mom allowed my brother to reformat her harddrive without backing up any files, and EVERY picture I’ve taken in the last two years was wiped out. I just got my own laptop three weeks ago and I’ve been so busy that I hadn’t had a chance to transfer my files from her computer. As a Scrapbooker and a total sentimental fool, this was kinda devestating.

There’s no use crying over spilt milk, so they say… onward and upward and all that. I thought I’d share the rest of the cards I submitted to the A Muse Instructor Call back in September. Unfortunately my camera broke recently (I am having a very technologically challenged season) so I haven’t been able to photograph the cards I’ve made lately.

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A Muse: Open Zinnia, Solid Zinnia, Happiness always, Ribbon, Notecard. The flower is painted with Pool Smooch ink.

This was one of my submissions for the A Muse Instructot Team – I’ve posted two submissions which can be seen here:

http://creativelicense.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/a-muse-submission-2.jpg

https://driventoink.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/a-little-bird-told-me/

These cards were all created in the very same corner of the room where my friend wrote two award winning short stories, and his first published novel. GO BUY IT. This corner shall henceforth be known as the BIG BREAK CORNER, and I will happily rent it out to those of you seeking fortune, fame, and your next big break. 😉

Loot Alert!

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I’ve been getting a lot of questions from Paperie patrons and class participants about my trip to Seattle – guess what the most common query has been…

WHAT DID YOU BUY?!

“A lot” is the answer, but a picture is worth a thousand words so here’s a glimpse of my loot (sorry for the glare – I was too excited to take a decent picture)…

Loot

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See those awesome Monogram frames (acrylic stamps)? Julie Ebersole designed those for A Muse, along with a few other stamps from the latest release – how cool is that?

November Class!

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YES! It’s true… I am now a Certified A Muse Instructor! I attended training in Seattle last weekend and got to meet most of the FABULOUS A Muse Instructors at the A Muse Artstamps Headquarters. I’m thrilled to join the A Muse Creative Team and I hope to spread the love of stamps throughout Newfoundland & Labrador. If you live in the area and are interested in card making you should definitely sign up for some fun classes – I will be teaching classes every month at The Paperie in St. John’s, where I’ve been a store manager for over 4 years. My first “official” class as an A Muse Instructor is listed below – hope to see you there!

A Muse Christmas Card Class – Tuesday, November 10th (6:30pm)
Join me – The Paperie’s very own official A Muse Instructor, for my last Christmas Card Class leading up to the big Holiday. This class will feature three beautiful card designs that will be quick and easy to mass produce for those of you in a time crunch, PLUS one “snazzy card” inspired by a class Julie Ebersole taught in Seattle. We will stay true to the A Muse Artstamps motto: Think Simple. Think A Muse, focusing on their clean, classic style! This class is great for stampers of all levels, even those who are just starting out!

Me+Julie

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Me and Julie Ebersole at the A Muse shop.

Don’t I look like the happiest little Newfoundlander you ever did see? The whole weekend was a pretty monumental event in my life… I hadn’t been off the island since 1998 – 11 long years ago! Thanks to all the Muses for being so warm and welcoming, it was really great to meet everyone and I hope this was just the first of many travels to come…

A little bird told me…

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Baby Annoucements
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A Muse Stamps used: Elephant & Baby and Little bird told me. This was a really easy project thanks to the AccuCut Card Portfolio die-cut – I cut a few corners by using the printer to print both the inside and outside of the annoucements, as seen below. I used the A Muse Kitchen Purple and Gingham pink papers for the portfolio, as well as A Muse twinkle stickers and ribbon.

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Welcome to the world baby Sarah Emily Baird Locke! This gift was a real crowd pleaser at Ally’s shower, I did up two matching portfolios, each with 12 annoucements in them (24 total) and I decorated one annoucement in each portfolio so she would know what they were going to look like. I had to take them back so I could print the details inside when Sarah was born, but that could be avoided by leaving a line for the mom to fill in the information herself. The elephants on the cards are all hand stamped and cut out of Bo Bunny double dot cardstock. I included a pack of pink photo corners with the gift so All would be able to attach her own chosen photos before sending out the annoucements. I’ll have to remember to post a picture of the inside as well when mine arrives 🙂

Tricks & Treats

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Holy Mackrel, it’s SNOWING in St. John’s, Newfoundland today! It’s actually a combination of snow and torrential rain – eeeew. I’m tucked away in the cosy office at The Paperie waiting for my ride. I made this card for a Halloween Tricks & Treats class I’m teaching on Sunday…

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A Muse Stamps Used: Crooked House, Tiny Witch, Parade, Happy Trails. When I was doing the ordering a few weeks ago I totally messed up and forgot to order the new A Muse “Boo” sentiment. It would’ve been absolutely perfect for this card because of the nice bold font – most of the sentiments I had didn’t show up on the green Gingham paper. I ended up using an acrylic alphabet set to spell “Boo” which turned out okay, but still wasn’t quite what I had envisioned. The Happy Trails stamp worked out great with the little Parade of costumed kiddies – love that stamp so much!

Here’s another card I made for the aforementioned class….

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A Muse Stamps used: Boris, Be Scary. I always refer to interactive cards as “trick cards” – this was my first-ever attempt at a spinner card and I was surprised by how easy it was. The tutorial I watched recommended you use two pennies, but I didn’t have any and was eager to try it out so I cut out two chipboard circles that were roughly the same size and it worked perfectly (and it was 2 cents cheaper! ;))

Congratulations

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I made a quick congratulations card for my friend who just eloped – now that’s the way to do it! Part of me thinks it would be nice to tie the knot in front of all my friends and family, but the other part of me thinks… I’d rather spend that money on stamps. And maybe a honeymoon, but stamps most importantly. Maybe I will end up a crazy cat lady, with a hundred cat stamps and one cat (I’ve discovered that I am not too interested in scooping up after more than one kitty cat every day). But enough about me! Here’s that card I mentioned…

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A Muse Stamps used: Flourish frame, Bride & Groom, Congratulations MA.  I saw this Flourish frame on a sample that A Muse sent to The Paperie and I knew I had to have it. The stamp is actually half of a frame so you can make your frame as wide as you like – or use it alone as an accent. Gotta love versatility like that! The Bride & Groom is one of my go-to stamps for almost every wedding card I make.

I am a big worrier when it comes to repeating the same images on cards that are for the same people – that typically won’t happen for a wedding card, but for birthday’s and Christmas it’s nice to know who got what. For the last three years I have promised myself that I would make a book of my stamps so that a) I would know which ones I have (not that I could ever forget, each one is like a child to me) and b) I could record who has received what images.

Basically, the idea is to have an index card for every three stamps with the image/words and name of the stamp on it, then put the name of the people who have received a card using those stamps on the back. I started to make this book once using a 4×6 photo album and I hated it so I gave up. I think the only way is to make one from scratch – I should really get started on it soon because as my stamp collection grows it becomes an even bigger undertaking.

My goodness, I’m rambly today… since the theme of this blog entry is Congratulations, it seems only fitting to congratulate… MYSELF! *hehe*  My card for the A Muse “No Coloring Zone” Challenge made it to the A Muse Challenge Round-up on their Blog! YAY! I also had some projects featured over on the AccuCut blog on Thursday – pretty exciting stuff!

I can’t wait to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family tomorrow, this has been such an incredibly wonderful month and I truly do have so much to be thankful for. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

A muse Instructor Submission

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Below you will find pictures of my submissions for the A Muse 2009 Instructor Call (previously unpublished/private).

Update: These are the cards that helped me land a spot on the A Muse Instructor Team back in 2009 – sweet memories.

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Close-up of Zinnia (coloured with Smooch ink):

Close-up of Smooch Ink

Close-up of Smooch Ink

For my first card I stamped the Solid Zinnia on a Cabana Blue Square Notecard with Blue Memento Ink. I then embossed an Open Zinnia with silver embossing powder on some watercolour cardstock and coloured it in with the new Pool Smooch Ink from Clearsnap (love that stuff!). I cut out the embossed flower and popped it up on top of the centered solid flower.

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Inside of To Go card:

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For my second  card I stamped the To Go cup in the center of each circle and stamped a separate cup on a sheet of white cardstock. I then printed a real Starbucks cup off the internet and cut out the logo to adhere to my white To Go cup, which is popped up on the card front with dimensional foam tape. Inside the card is a pocket (made from the orange Gingham paper) to fit a Starbucks gift card.

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For my third (and favourite) card I used the woodgrain paper to make a tree and cut out the little Squirrel with Gift to adhere outside the circle. On the original prototype I made the squirrel was on the inside of the card but I liked it better like this. The “tree” is popped up off the Fern green notecard with dimensional foam tape. The inside of the card has a little pile of 9 masked presents but I forgot to take a photo and my batteries died! Doh!

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For my final submission, I decided to make a Portfolio of Baby Announcements featuring the Elephant & Baby stamp using the AccuCut Card Portfolio die-cut (highly recommended!). This submissions was actually based on the announcements I gave to my friend as a gift and the cards inside are her actual announcements (Baby Sarah Emily Baird Locke was born on September 17th!).

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This gift was a real crowd pleaser at my friend Ally’s shower. I did up two matching portfolios, each with 12 announcements in them (24 total) and I decorated one announcement in each portfolio so she would know what they were going to look like. The elephants on the cards are all cut out of Bo Bunny double dot cardstock and the text was actually printed on the computer. I included a pack of pink photo corners with the gift so she would be able to attach her own chosen photos before sending out the annoucements.

Thanks again for your consideration! I just realized I used foam tape on all of my cards – I guess I just love a little “pop!” – what can I say!?

-Meghan

No Colouring – the sequel!

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Here’s another card I made for the A Muse “No Coloring Zone” challenge.

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Ok, even *I* impressed myself with this idea (although I’m pretty easily impressed). I printed off a wintery Starbucks cup from the internet and stamped the “To Go” cup over it, then cut it out and popped it up with dimensional foam tape in the center card.  The sentiment is originally all one line on the actual stamp but it didn’t fit as well so I staggered the sentiment by stamping one word at a time.

Here’s another card I made with the same idea, but I cut out the logo from the cup above and adhered it to the plain white cup – unfortunately I did not have the right size circle punch for the logo, but I made do… as you can probably tell, I never use a stamp positioner so my cups aren’t all aligned perfectly. 

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 I’m kinda sad that the Mod Dots Notecards are discontinued, but the plethora of beautiful new papers coming out definitely makes up for it.

Look for more Blog postings from me in the near future – I have gratefully inherited a laptop of my very own! Watch out Internet – here I come!

No Colouring Zone

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A Muse Challenge: No Coloring Zone

I’ve been without a personal computer for the last few months which is why my online activity has been limited, at best. It has been maddening,  but now that I’m back in action I thought I would make a card for the latest A Muse challenge over in the A Muse Lounge…

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A Muse Stamps: Elephant & baby, Tiny bird, Little bird told me.

For this card I paper pieced both the Tiny bird and Elephant & baby using A Muse papers. My friend just had her second baby girl on the 17th and I used the Elephant stamp to create her Birth Announcements as well (I’ll post pictures later).

I’ve been trying to come up with a clever Header for my blog – something to match the name, but I have been thus far uninspired. Luckily my friend Marg loaned me all of her A Muse stamp today and I spied the Octopus in there so inspiration might just be an inkpad away… 

Birthday Birds

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I used a reverse masking technique for this card by punching a 1.25″ circle out of a post-it note (near the sticky side), then stuck the reverse-mask down over each dot one at a time so I could stamp each bird inside of the dot without going outside the lines. 

Birthday Birds

Birthday Birds

Supplies: Hero Arts Decorative Birds, You Hoo Owls, Birthday Messages, Bird Greetings, and Clear Smooth Gemstones (coloured with yellow Sharpie); A Muse Mod Dots Notecard; Tombow Dual Brush Pens; EK Success Circle Punch, Signo White Uni-ball pen; Onyx Black VersaFine Ink