Great News and a few cards too!

Imagine my surprise today when I was checking my e-mail and had an e-mail from my daughter in Iraq!!!  She is doing good - tired and ready to rest - but she arrived at Camp Buehring in Kuwait around 6 a.m. this morning.  Her major complaint is the heat.  The showers are basically in a trailer with 8 stalls which by the time they were in there at 10:00 was  a sauna and miserably hot.  She said it  made the outside air temp (which must have been in the 100s by then) feel cool when they walked outside!  Then a few hours later, I received a phone call from Ashley!  Wow!  I didn't think I'd hear from her for a couple of weeks - not the very day she arrived.   Sonny was not home at the time so she tried to call him on his cell phone.  I think she taught him a lesson though.  He didn't recognize the number on his phone so didn't answer!  

OK - now a few cards.  My Texas friend, Margaret, was here a few hours today.  She & Graham are babysitting their grandson in Charlotte.  When they took him to school, they came out to visit.  Gra went skeet shooting with Sonny and Margaret & I visited and made a few cards.  She worked on the cards from club last month and I made a couple of Christmas cards.

Here are the cards my club will be making on Thursday:

This cutie is the new Owl Punch and the Greenhouse Gala DSP.  I used the little pearls for his eyes.

This is a simple card using Funky Forest wheel and the luscious Pear In Color!  I wheeled the trees in green and used my brown marker to make the tree trunks.

This is the Halloween card they will make using Wicked Cool stamp set.  The card is Rich Razzleberry with Old Olive spider web made with the embossing folder from the Summer Mini.  I rubbed a little Glimmer Mist over the web.  The pumpkin is also a die cut.

Old and New Stampin' Friends

I had some friends - old and new - over this morning for a little stampin' fun.  I designed three cards for them to make and I believe they were a big hit.  I used some of my new goodies - stamps, paper, ribbon .... no more hoarding for me.  That is my resolution this year!  Let's see if I can do it.

This card uses the new in color, Peach Parfait.   The stamp sets used are Wildflower Trio (pg 16 of Summer Mini) and Word Play (pg 147).  I used my handy Color Coach to pick the coordinating colors for this card which are Pear Pizzaz and Not Quite Navy.

You should consider getting this color coach.  It's great for having all the colors right in front of you and on the back of each card, it lists coordinating color suggestions.

This card uses that yummy DSP, Greenhouse Gala.  It was so simple to make.  We just used the 1 1/4" Square Punch to punch out 4 squares of the DSP and mounted them on a 3" square of Whisper White.  We stamped the friends saying on a scrap of white and used the Curly Label Punch.  Then just make the little dotted lines all around the edges.  The saying is from the Friendly Words Wheel (pg 138) that I cut apart.  By cutting apart that wheel, I got about 12 small stamps .... all for $8.50!!    I am thinking about doing the same thing with the Hero Wheel.  Also the Bright Blessings Wheel would be another good one for this trick.  I used the Boho Blossoms Punch for the flower.  I just love the new twill ribbon!!

This owl punch is "da bomb"!!  I love it.  And, yes, I'm one of those people who were really "into" owls back in the 60's & 70's when they were the Thing!  Remember the macramed owl hangings?  Don't think I had one of those but I did love to macrame!   Anyway, back to the card ... I used some new DSP - Elegant Soiree which is perfect paired with the owl.  I also used the fabulous Baja Breeze, Vanilla and Crumb Cake.  The scallops on the side are made by punching out 7-8 3/4" half circles and glueing them under the DSP.  The Baja Blue large scallop is a new punch - 2 3/8" Extra Large!  The sentiment is from an old standby, Sincere Salutations (p 155).  Unfortunately, the ribbon is not available anymore.  I am really surprised that there is not any Baja Blue ribbon available in the catalog - what's up with that?

Even though these cards were great and a hit, the biggest hit of the day was this:

This is a great tool that everyone should have.  I got this several years ago in a swap.  I need to update mine - haven't included all the new punches that have come out in the past couple of years.  Each card has a punch out on it (along with a sample) so you can just hold it up to an image in the catalog to see if it will fit.

If there is enough interest, maybe I will consider making a few and offering them for sale.  Would you be interested?  Mine are enclosed in an acrylic holder.  I found these at Wal Mart a few years ago.  They are for holding baseball cards.  But I have looked the past year for them again and cannot find them anywhere.  But, it should be easy to get them laminated.