Fosters

Remember that beer commercial? "FOSTERS... it's Austrialian for beer, mate."

In our house fosters doesn't mean beer. It means four footed animals who have come to stay with us for a while. These are our two current fosters:

Our shelter is currently up to its ears in dogs, thanks to several breeder intakes. They had 13 arrive the day I picked up our foster pets. They were expecting 30 more the next day and another 40 within a few days. Yikes!

I haven't had a lot of time to help out the shelter lately, so I've been trying to be more involved. I've also donated eight handmade cards to the shelter this week. (They sell them to help raise money to run the shelter.) And I brought home two HUGE bags of laundry. (Lots of towels from washing the latest intake of less than well groomed dogs.) I've done 3 loads and still have another load to go! Here are some of my cards that I donated:

Tomorrow the girls and I will go volunteer at the "Yappy Hour" adoption event. For details, go to http://www.cmhspets.org.

Happy Friday!

Snow and stamps

Well, thanks to Mother Nature, we had 2 snow days Thursday & Friday, which meant I had 2 STAMP days. ;-) My Eclectic Paperie order came Friday. What perfect timing!

I made two cards as well as a set of gift tags. (The gift tag idea came from Rita Kegg's site.)

I also made this card for Split Coast Stampers' Weekly Sketch Challenge:

I hope to make some cards with the Kewpie images I received from Eclectic Paperie. (Kewpies are the mascot of the schoool where I work, so I think I'll get a lot of use from the set.)

Sistahs!

What is a sistah? Well, if you're a fan of Stamping Bella, a sistah is your fellow Bellaholic... i.e., someone who is addicted to collecting and creating with Bella stamps. I was so excited to receive my recent order of Bellas on Saturday! Here's a card I made with Daintybella, using Beate's Weekend Sketch. I was really happy with how it turned out. (I just love pink. Give me any excuse to use it!)

This was definitely a girl-related weekend! On Saturday, we watched Jessica play her French horn in the NEMO Honor Band. It was amazing. These kids were selected by their band teachers and then met only TWICE (for several hours each time) to practice before performing 4 songs in their concert. They sounded great! Here's Jess playing (it's hard to take a flattering picture of someone playing a brass instrument!):Sunday was Ali's last Pee Wee Hoops game. She had a great coach and really enjoys playing basketball. She's a pretty good little player, too!

CMHS had asked me if I could re-foster one of our foster dogs, Tessa. We were surprised she still hadn't been adopted since she was such a sweet dog with a long list of plusses (good with kids, housebroken, etc.). I was worried for her and emailed some friends and co-workers, hoping someone was looking for just such a dog. I'm happy to say that Tessa got a great new home with my friend and fellow midMOmom, Beth. Doesn't a face that cute deserve a family to love?Enjoy your wonderful new life, Tessa!

Ooh, and best of all, I got to see my friend Janet, who moved away last summer. We met up with two of our fellow midMOmoms, Jill & Courtney. (That's me on the far right.) It was so nice to get together and chat!

Have a good week!

Happy Valentines Day!

Well, who knew Jessica, my 13 year old, (who only just decided she was even giving Valentines) would decide she was giving Valentines to the world? When Jess set aside lollipops for Alison to include with her Valentines, she forgot to allow one for Ms. Dunn, Alison's teacher whom she adores. (And, considering the changes we've seen in Ali in school, we pretty much adore her, too! lol)

So I needed a quick little Valentine gift and this is what I made:

If you spend much time checking out stampers' blogs or shopping online, you probably know that little silver candy tins with clear lids (sometimes called "nugget tins") are very hot right now. Luckily, I had bought a package of the tins that debuted in the new Angel Company catalog. I gathered up some supplies and some M&Ms and put this little gift together in no time flat.
TAC supplies: square tin, tag punch (I *love* that punch!), heart stamp from Mini-Sampler, Moulin Rouge and Noir Palette inks, Prismacolor pencils. Other: Valentines paper from Target, ribbon from Hobby Lobby and greeting stamp by Hero Arts. (Yeah, I know it's not an Angel Company stamp, but it's so darn cute.;-) )

I used redline (super tacky) tape to adhere the bottom strip of paper (15/16" wide) to the bottom of the tin. I used my beloved 3M Tacky glue to adhere the thin (3/16") inch wide strip around the lid. I would say both worked well. I used M&Ms in my tin, but you could fill it with paper clips, mints, coins or whatever else suits your fancy (and your recipient).

Here are two other views of the tin:

Happy Valentines' Day!

Weekend Wrapup

Charleyhorse... Kind of a fun sounding word, right? Definitely not a fun thing to have! Ugh. I got a horrible charleyhorse in the middle of the night Friday and I was still hobbling around Saturday. Charleyhorse is definitely a misnomer!

Other than that, it was a fun weekend. We had a surprise baby shower for one of the members of my book club. (We still managed to discuss the book - Devil in the White City.) Here's the card and a sample paperclip bookmark shower favor that I made for the shower:












I spent Sunday with my scrapping & stamping buddies at my local CM crop, where I'm now a vendor, representing The Angel Company. I didn't get much scrapping done but I had fun, met someone new (Amanda from my Moms' list) and made some sales.

I also participated in Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge again. I didn't actually make the card until Monday night. One of these days I'll do the Weekend Challenge actually ON a weekend! Here's my card:

The round "baubles" (which threw off a weird light in my photo - sorry) are a very economical version of some popular embellishments. I learned about this great deal over at Lauren Meader's blog. Check it out!

Sketches & Cards

I've really been trying to crank out those card samples and swaps! Here are my latest efforts, I hope that you like them!

This card was made with the Juliette paper from The Angel Company. It's beautiful and I love it! (I love the vintage look.)

The card is based on this sketch, which I created for my stamping list:

If you'd like to get these sketches for yourself, look for the link on the right to join my yahoogroups mailing list, midmoStampAngels.

I made this card for this week's Sketch Challenge over on Splitcoaststampers:

Here are a few more samples, including a Fluffles ATC for a swap I'm in.

SCS cards

I've been making some cards for various SCS related challenges, so I thought I'd share them here. I just finished this card tonight for Beate's latest Weekend Sketch challenge.


I used Retro Rovers from The Angel Company, along with TAC's Rustic Chic designer paper and Pink 3 and Brown cardstock. The images are colored in with a combination of watercolor pencils with blender pen and markers.

These are two cards I made for the Stamping Bella PJ Party challenges. I just love those Bella stamps - they're just too darn cute.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my cards. :)