Hello everyone. It's been way too long since I've posted on my blog. As you may or may not remember. I was taking a class to "bling out my blog" and I kept promising an even better blog for you to all view my creations and read about my life. We I guess I'm more computer illiterate than I thought because I was never able to figure out how to "bling out my blog," and so it's been sitting. Have you ever started to work on a project and about halfway through it looses it's appeal and you just dread finishing it and so it is left unfinished. Well that's the case with my blog.

However, I am happy to inform you that I have found someone to help me with my blog. Her name is Michelle Laycock and she designs blogs. How cool is that! So I know she is very busy and my turn will come up any day now, but in the meantime if you are checking in once in awhile to see what's new, I apologize and hope you will hang in there with me and continue to check back.

I have been working a lot on little mini books for myself over the summer and have been making a lot of cards and selling them at work to friends who love my creations. I still haven't found a way to photograph them so they look as beautiful on my blog as they do in person. So many blogs I visit show you gorgeous photos of their creations. If anyone is reading this and has any tips, I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this.

I am heading to Minnesota for the weekend for Scrapfest - more specifically, the Mall of America - and can't wait to get some great ideas from the vendors there and the classes I've signed up for.

I hope you all had a wonderful summer. It's sad to know it's coming to an end, however, us here in Wisconsin are finally getting some beautiful summer days, so we're not complaining too much about the gorgeous weather we've had.

Until I get back from Minnesota, have a great week and check back for my new and improved blog coming soon to a location near you.

Just thought I would touch base with all of you that come back and check my blog. I don't know why I find this updating my blog so frustrating. I can read an instruction and then sit back and scratch my head and go WHAT? But give me some stamping supplies and tell me to create something and I'm all over it, but give me something to learn on my computer and I'm like a fish out of water. So bear with me, I'm still under construction and hope to be up and running with a new and improved blog real soon, and if not, then I'll just start posting some great cards I've been making lately - at least I can handle that. Thanks for checking back.

I just wanted you all to know that my blog is under construction so please don't take me off of your favs just yet. I am in the middle of a "Bling Out Your Blog" online class and hopefully it will be fabulous by the time I'm done with the class. So thanks for being patient and checking back for any new posts. I have a lot of cards I made in the past week or so but don't want to post them until my blog is done.

One more I couldn't resist - I mean who doesn't know I'm the glitter queen. This blogging stuff is so incredibly time consuming but it's so rewarding when you teach yourself something new and can add something to your blog.

For those of you that follow my calendar, I was initially going to do a mini book for Mother's Day this coming Saturday - well as life goes, that isn't going to work out and so I'll have to email you with the date. I do have a sample mini book I am putting together and it is a "peek-a-boo" album about the women in your life, but I don't know if I'll be able to have the class before mother's day because of some personal things in my life (like men making decisions I can't control), so watch my blog for an update on this. I also will NOT be selling my things at the craft sale that I thought I was going to do on May 2nd. This completely fell apart (again - men).

However, I would like to have a monthly stamp meeting in May before the weather gets too nice and no one wants to be inside making cards so I'll send an email to everyone about that. In the meantime, enjoy the animation to my blog and keep checking back.

As always thank you for looking and I'll put together some blog candy to give away before the weekend. So post a comment and I'll put your name in for a drawing.

Hi there - I just figured out how to add animation to my blog. I've got a lot of these, so watch for them.

Another Stampin' Up Clearly Thanks overlay card. This one I attached using 4 small glue dots in each corner and then I had some adhesive pearls I put over the glue dots on top so they don't show thru. Supplies: Cardstock: kiwi kiss, whisper white, riding hood red and swiss dot printed overlay. Misc.: 5/8" satin ribbon (occasions mini catalog); Bright Delights Rub-Ons. I actually rubbed these onto white cardstock and cut them out and attached them (the pear and oval). The rub on is rubbed right onto the ribbon and it is from "Chit Chat - #111804." Don't forget - you can order all of these products through me or through my website at http://stamperwithdayjob.stampinup.net. Enjoy! These were fun cards to make.

Another card made using Stampin'Up's Printed Overlays. Supplies: Cardstock: Pink Pirouette, whisper white, Walk In The Park Designer Cardstock; Miscellaneous: Summer Love Rub Ons. I even took the butterfly from the Summer Love rub-ons and rubbed it onto a piece of vellum and then cut it out so it looked like it was in flight. The flowers on the bottom are also from Summer Love rub-ons and then I lifted the overlay up and added the stems and leaves on the designer cardstock underneath. Great technique, because your marker won't work on the overlay. Of course everyone knows I like glitter and so I have some glitter on the white flowers. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Here is a card using the new Clearly Thanks overlays that Stampin'Up has out there. It's a little difficult to see from the photo because of the glare but if you click on the photo it will open up to a full view. These ae so simple to use to create a card with such little effort. All products are from Stampin'Up. Cardstock: Riding Hood Red Pink Pirouette Designer Paper Walk In the Park and Clearly Thanks overlay. Miscellaneous: Fleurettes, rhinestone brads and rub ons. No ink was used at all. These overlays are great - I would strong recommend purchasing them and you can order them on line here: http://stamperwithdayjob.stampinup.net. You get 2 sheets for $5.95 - #115122 - in a package and you cut that into 4 sections. One package makes 8 cards. Great product!

So here was our kit project from our meeting on Tuesday night. The supplies are: Cameo Coral card base; Bazzill Swiss Dot white; Papaya (for top note die cut); Making Memories Flower Patch Glitter Butterfly cardstock; Animal Crackers Ric Rac Border cs and miscellaneous ribbon.

The card gives you the illusion that it is all one piece of white cardstock, but it's really a 2-1/2" x 4" piece of white swiss dot cs on the bottom with a piece from the Animal Crackers cs. Then I took a 4"x5-1/4" piece of the swiss dot cs and attached 1/2 of the top note die cut and attached it half way down, cutting off the sides so it is even with the white. I left a small white border on the bottom, stamped my sentiment, wrapped the ribbon around it and then attached it to the card using dimensionals. We then cut a butterfly out from the Flower Patch cs and attached it to the top of the card using dimensionals. The flower patch cs is so cute and glittery- if you haven't seen it yet, you can get it at my shop. With butterflies all the rage right now I just knew I had to get some in my shop.

Let me know what you think.

Good morning everyone - it's Wednesday and I had my monthly stamp meeting last night and we made some really cute cards. Here is one that I think you'll all like that I cased from a woman named Jan Tink. She has some cute ideas. She is a Stampin Up demonstrator so most of her things are done using Stampin'Up product. The background paper I used is Delicate Dots from Sale-A-Bration. Then I cut 4 ovals using my Cricut - the Basic George cartridge - and it's cut at size 4. One white, one yellow and one green. The yellow and green are embossed using Cuttlebug embossing folders and the stamp I used is Stampin'Up's "A Good Egg." The happy Easter saying is from a stamp I had - not Stampin'Up. Anyway, the green is attached with dimensionals so that when the yellow closes it falls behind the pink border and sort of rests on the dimensionals. Enjoy. After I posted this I opened the photo and I see that it's a very blurry photo. I'll take another photo and post that one tonight.

I'm glad to see more people are signing on as followers. When you sign up to be a follower you need to make sure that you check "public" vs. private or it won't show up as a follower.

Here's another one with a leftover scrap from a card we're making on Tuesday night at our monthly stamp meeting. I love Stampin' Up's Top Note Die and I cut an extra one out to make this card. I love out it's offset and I've been dying to use this "Cheers" stamp set, so it all worked out. Of course I added glitter to the glass and a little red stickles to the cherry on top. Very quick card. Love to hear your comments so I know that someone out there is even looking at these.

So we're making a card at our monthly meeting this week using Making Memories Animal Crackers Ric Rac Border cardstock and I had this piece left so I made this card. I have to admit that I saw this saying on a card in April's Papercrafts magazine and need to use it because I thought it was so cute. They did put strawberries on the card too, so I just adapted the whole idea so I could use this scrap of Animal Crackers cardstock. I stamped the strawberry from Stampin' Up's "Tart & Tangy" stamp set - 3 times: old olive, red stazon and chocolate chip. I embossed the red stazon with glossy glaze embossing powder and then cut the red and green apart and just the bottom of the brown strawberry off to create the chocolate. Then in Microsoft Word I typed the words "is always better with chocolate" and positioned in my word document where it would fit on my pink cardstock. You have to play around with this on scratch paper. Then using chocolate chip marker, I inked the word "life" from last year's Sale-A-Bration Set "Delight In Life" and stamped it onto my pink cardstock. I thought it turned out really cute. Let me know if you try this. It seems like a lot of puttsing around, but once you get your template for your words, you could adapt this for a lot of cards and different sayings. Let me know what you think.