Back to School with supplies

Jenn’s assignment for the newsletter this week was to create a card using any of the A Muse school supply images. We all seemed to pick the stack of books image as at least one of our stamps! The day I made this card, I was into trying different ways to put ribbons on your card. I also made some class samples that day and those too had different ribbon tying layouts.

Anyway, I thought this would make a nice card for the teacher or for the librarian at my son’s school.

All images, ribbon and note cards by A Muse Artstamps.

Happy Sunday!

A little lunch love…

Finally, the first week of first grade has passed. What a rough week that was. In our house, this is a MUCH harder transition than Kinder was. It’ll be alright though. So many new things for him and me. And he has to actually work now. Ah, the torture of it all!

The first day of school, both my DH and I put notes in our son’s lunch box. I had bought a book of "lunch notes" for ideas a year ago or something and I gave DH it to use. I had to make a card. I decided I need to do more of these. Um, isn’t that why I bought that little preprinted pack – for ideas??

So, I think I like the 3×3 size for lunch notes. My son likes green these days. And I’ve already done the rock star for him for a quite a few things. This time I decided to use the treasure chest… he likes TREASURE 🙂 Don’t we all? And well, hey, we have this new Pirate stamp.. and he hasn’t been inked up yet! Ah, gotta fix that!

I only inked up the "i treasure you" part of the I treasure your friendship stamp. And the jewels are sparkly courtesy of my AtYou Spica pens and the new Uniball Gold pen.

His response to the cards when he got home from school, "Those were okay. <WHAT???> Would you give me one everyday in my lunch?" I’d have to say that we scored… um, I think.

Happy Saturday!

I *think* I forgot

The past two weeks seemed to morph together. Was 2 weeks ago that I met Lexi? Oh my. I *know* I didn’t blink. Well pre-Lexi coming to town, I was working on my swap card for that gathering, my door prize, the Halloween sneaks for A Muse’s release and probably a million other things I can’t remember. One of the things I realized is that I didn’t show you my door prize. 

Well, I did 3 similar things for that night… a door prize, a birthday gift, and a thank you gift. Everyone had to bring a door prize (handmade or crafting supplies). My packaging was handmade but my insides were supplies – stickles, A Muse Ribbon, A Muse Pretty Little Papers, A Muse twinkle stickers, an A Muse stamp, and some stamped images of the retired Lifeguard chair, buoy, and you’re a lifesaver sentiment.  

Next, was Lexi’s birthday present. What do you get her? Well, she’s a longhorn fan so I had to find her something UT-ish, of course. And well, her packaging had to be orange 😉
Inside some UT stuff!

Then, I made a thank you gift for Rae Anne (aka Huera90 on SCS), who graciously coordinated everything and had it at her clubhouse in her neighborhood. Thanks Rae Anne!

So, let’s talk about this a bit… I have 20 some of these paint cans in my stash. Got them last fall. I thought then, that wouldn’t it be great to make these all up and then have them ready to go in a pinch. Um, yeah, great plan. Poor execution.

Oh wait, the Olympics were on during this time! People often ask me how do I get so much done with small children around, etc. Well, the easy answer is that I don’t sleep much. But the long answer is that I’m very efficient with my non-Mommy time, which I’m certain you other moms completely get. And I’m also one of those people that is constantly doing something. Another thing I do is I don’t keep my laptop on when in my stamp room and I don’t have a television in there, either (hence I hardly watch any tv during the day!). But back to they Olympics. I HAD to watch. But I can’t just sit and watch and do nothing. Unless it’s a chick flick, then I can. 🙂 So, what can I do while sitting downstairs (away from my stamp room) and not bring the entire room down with me. Hmm,…. I know… COVER previously mentioned stash of acrylic paint cans! I didn’t do all 20… but I did do 9 (8 shown here). I didn’t finish out the tops because I don’t know what the occassion will be for. They are SO easy to do with the A Muse 8.5×11 papers! I love the kitchen papers!

I really need to use up more of my stash of stuff. SHEESH!

Thanks for stopping by.

A Muse Pretty Little Papers Purse Tutorial

I finally got around to making another video tutorial. It’s so hard to hear yourself speak. GAK!  I’m still trying to figure out how to improve the lighting since I film after dark! (I actually did the first video during the day and my 2 year old showed up and you can hear him on the video so I had to reshoot it when he was in bed! LOL!) Anyway, I’m still learning so bear with me! 🙂

The score lines for this need to be at 1 1/4", 2 1/4" and 3 1/4". I say that in the video but I figure you won’t have to replay it just to get those measurements again ;).

Enjoy. And of course, I’d love some feedback on what you think (besides the lighting!)!

Handsewn boxes!

My dear friend, Kim makes this awesome fabric boxes. You heard me, FABRIC boxes. They would make a great gift box! But you know why I like them? 1) They hold the A Muse note cards (around 75 or so). 2) The color I got to pick is similar to the A Muse Purple Kitchen Notes! Now, Kim made a box similar to this one for our A Muse Addicts Shoebox
swap a couple of weeks ago. It was her door prize. She filled it with some goodies and boy did I want to win it! But alas, I didn’t so I talked her into making me one ;). Thanks Kim! Mine is a bit darker than this one but I haven’t had a chance to photograph it. This is the picture of one she has for sale. AND she started an etsy shop where she’s selling them. Right now she has a few items in there. I believe she’ll custom make them to your color request if she can find the fabric! Anyway, I think I’m going to put completed cards in mine and set it out on my shelf. It’s so pretty! Please check out her stuff… hand SEWN boxes
and bowls and such. AWESOME.

First Day of First Grade!

It’s here. The first day of school for first grade. I didn’t cry this year, at all. But I have been anxious. I don’t like change. At all. Not many of my son’s kinder class are in his class this year. Even though, I know he’ll make new friends, I know he has some anxiety about it all. On the first day of school, I drive and walk him in to his classroom. I’m lucky to live in the neighborhood I do and my next door takes him the other bazillion mornings! Anyway, I HAVE to take him on the first day… get the first day of school photo taken, etc. You know the drill. So, in the car, he says to me in that little voice… "Mom, I a little scared." ACK! WHAT??! OH NO!! <do not lose it now, mom!> I said, it’s okay to be scared, my son. The first day is scary for everyone because no one knows the schedule or what’s going on or anything. I told him that our neighbor that is going into the 7th grade today was scared too. He said "really?". Then we ran into a teacher he knew from last year and she told him, "You know what? The teachers are scared too". Ah, all is right in his world again. The fear of the unknown… what a powerful thing that is.

Well, it wouldn’t be me to not give gifts on the first day of school to the teacher, now would it? AND it wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t start them the night before (hush Veronica!). LOL. So, a million ideas for card sets went through my head but the execution of them would not have time to happen. Then I remembered that I had these little red pails that I ordered from Oriental Trading for a Christmas project last year (that never happened, btw!). Add some candy, a tag,
and voila instant gift, right?

I wanted to say something like "Good Luck" but not exactly Good
Luck (somehow giving a teacher a "good luck" sentiment on the first day of school seems WRONG! … like Um, good luck with those kids! LOL). So, then I thought…. teachers are Super Heroes. The things they do for our children is AMAZING. So, superwoman to the rescue it is!
On the inside of the tag, I stamped "Have a Super" from the "have a super day!" stamp and then I wrote "Year!" by hand.

I told his teacher that around 11:30 or so when she has a headache, she can reach for some chocolate 🙂 No, it doesn’t cure headaches… but it doesn’t hurt either!

Happy First Day of School!

Shrinky Dinks!

Remember the A Muse Addicts Shoebox swap a couple of weeks ago? Well, Lexi came in from New Orleans and hung out with some of us Central Texas Addicts. We had a great time making cards, chatting, and getting to know everyone better. One thing Lexi and I did was to demonstrate how to do something. As you may remember I was having a hard time coming up with my swap card, but in the end I opted for simple. But then I had to design another card or something to "teach". Then I remember one of my BFFs gave me some polyshrink (and all the stuff to go with it!) for my birthday. Seemed like a great time to learn and play!

So, my boys and I (okay, well they were in the room AND they did take some of my first samples!) played with these shrinky dinks quite a bit! And then I had to figure out what to shrink and design a card around it! I thought there might be some stampers there that had done this before so I thought I’d use the A Muse Logo stamp that no one there most likely had.

This picture on the left shows my first attempts. I smeared the A Muse one…oops. Oh then I burnt one of the longhorn ones.. oops. But then I think I got the *hang* of it. I actually love the longhorn ones. I think I gave Lexi one – Hook ’em Horns, Lexi. Lexi and I graduated from the University of Texas the same year (no, we didn’t know each other!) but how cool is that!

Now, I really liked the end result of my card. Very simple but cute, I think. What card can I make with the A Muse logo though? LOL… A Stamping card, of course! What do you think? Like it?
Have you used shrinky dinks before? They are incredibly easy (easier than I thought they would be) especially since you can shrink them with your heat gun!

Thanks for stopping by!

School starts tomorrow… and guess what I need to make tonight??? No, not lunch for tomorrow! Teacher gifts… yes, last minute Lucy reporting for duty <insert rolling eyes smiley here!>

Another gift idea…

Here’s another gift idea for you. It’s a quick candy holder.
Wouldn’t this be great to put on a teacher’s desk just for fun? Or give to people at work? It is very simple to make (and I’ll post directions if you want me to). I made them from the A Muse pretty little papers. If you don’t know about these papers, they come 28 to a pack and are 2×4 inches. There is one pattern in a package but 4 colors of that pattern.

Anyway, these hold a chocolate nugget (Hershey’s I do believe!). And I made the curve with my Marvy Giga Oval Punch and secured with a brad. Easy!

What do you think?

More teacher gift ideas

Can you believe school is going to start on Monday? (at least for us) My summer went by too fast and it wasn’t that fun. But here’s looking forward to a "cooler" Fall! Here’s hoping anyway!

As many of you know, I’m all over making gifts for teachers (click here to see more ideas)! This week for the A Muse Back-to-School feature of the newsletter, Jenn featured simple teacher gifts. Well, of course, I had to participate! I made a couple of really quick items… Here’s one of them. I’ll post the other soon.

First up, post-it note holders. I have a Rubicoil machine from days past (when that was the *thing* to have) and I used to make these a lot. It’s 2 pieces of glossy, thick chipboard type stuff (cover card stock from a local printer – bought in bulk). I covered just the front side with an A Muse note card (scrap, in fact). The finished size is 3.5×3.5. It can be easily modified to be held together with ribbons if you don’t have some kind of binding machine. Simple and Quick!

I made two and here are the individual pictures for each:

I wanted them to be everyday type gifts for the teacher to use, not just apples all the time! I used the Marvy Flower Punches on this green one on the left
.

All images and note cards by A Muse Artstamps; Memento Black Ink; Copic Original Markers; At you spica glitter pens; Copic Multiliner Pen; Marvy Giga and Mega Flower Punches; Rubicoil binding machine

Then for the one on the right, I used the A Muse flower doodles stamp. I love this stamp.

All images and note cards by A Muse Artstamps; Memento Black Ink; Copic Original
Markers; Copic Multiliner Pen; Marvy Giga Scallop Square and Mega Square Punches; Rubicoil binding machine

Really, these gifts were made in less than 15 minutes. Gotta love that, right?

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Here’s another sneak peek…

Do you like the new A Muse website? Pretty cool, eh?!

I have a sneak for you today… can you figure out what part of it is new?

It’s not the note card, the pretty little paper (cut in half!), the black or white CS, or the cupcake stamp, or the happy birthday, or the Copics that I used to color it, or the ribbon.

Figure it out?

It’s the twinkle sticker – part of a full sheet of all RED Twinkle stickers (different sizes, too!)!!!

Happy Thursday!