Gift Card Holder

I give a lot of gift cards! Teachers love to get them. My friends who are readers usually get Barnes and Noble cards, or Amazon cards for their Kindles. My kids always think they've been given a "credit card" and can't wait to go shopping and pick out exactly what they want.  I just think gift cards are great!

But what can make a gift card more personal? How about making the gift card holder? I LOVE this quick and easy gift card holder that I made with a few stamps, a little bit of paper, and some cute ribbon! Copic markers make the coffee cup pop with a little dimension too!

What I really love about this gift card holder is that after you untie the ribbon, you use the ribbon to pull out the gift card that is inside. It just helps it slide right out! Wouldn't this one be just perfect with a Starbucks card inside?

As soon as I receive my next A Muse order, I will be making a bunch of these with a Christmas theme! They would make a fun workshop, so let me know if you want to get some of your friends together to make a few!

Recipe: All supplies from A Muse Studio

Cardstock: French Roast, Sugar, Sky

Ink: French Roast

Stamps: The Perfect Blend set

Ribbon: Sky organdy polka dots

Have a wonderful day!

Devon

What Got Me Going?

I have always loved A Muse stamps. I wasn't crazy about stamps mounted on wood blocks because of a lack of storage, but I simply could not resist the cute images and the adorable cards I could make with their awesome rubber! One day, I could no longer buy A Muse in a brick and mortar store here in Alaska. They had changed their business model and switched to the home party concept.

I didn't know if anyone was selling A Muse in Alaska until one day I received a post card in the mail from a gal named Donna. She was the only A Muse consultant in Alaska and she would have to be my source for the crafty goodness I love so much! A few weeks ago, I attended an A-Muse-A-Palooza workshop at Donna's house and we made a few Christmas tags and an adorable Halloween treat holder and I was instantly hooked!

I looked at the catalogs, ooh'd and ahh'd over all her sample cards and decided I wasn't going to head into Anchorage every time I wanted to play with the A Muse products I love. You know what they say, if you can't beat them... JOIN them! And I did!

My super fab deluxe starter kit has finally arrived and I have been very busy organizing everything in my studio/office and I've begun to make sample cards with the supplies from the box of goodies I received. I am so happy with the new cling mounted stamps! All of the wonderfulness of the red rubber I love, combined with the ease of storage and the use of acrylic blocks that makes sense to me. 

Over the next few days I'll be sharing all of the samples I've made from the starter kit. Thankfully the amazing support you get from A Muse Studio includes ideas and templates for cards to make. (Report cards are due for my 2nd graders this week and that can suck the creativity right out of a gal!) But I have been able to take several work breaks and sit at my table cutting up pretty paper and getting inky!

I'm also planning my first workshop! On Saturday, November 5th and Sunday, November 6th from 2:00 to 4:00, swing by our place if you're in the area for Christmas Cards & Cookies! We'll do a few fun cards and some Christmas tags and munch a few of my favorite Christmas cookies. Email me at paperismypassion@gmail.com for directions!

And, because I can't wait to share at least one of the things I made on my own this weekend, here is one of the cards I made with the starter kit. It's the sweetest little 3x3 card and I'm going to make several of them. They would be so fun to slip into the boys backpacks or lunches, or to put in one of my co-workers mailboxes to let them know I'm thinking of them. We are a bucket filling school and try to do little things as often as possible to spread the bucket filling around our community. (If you haven't heard about how to fill somone's bucket, I really recommend you check it out here. Makes life quite nice!)

Have a happy week! Remember to do something to fill someone's bucket, and your own in the process!

Devon

A Muse Studio October/November Spotlight

There are some really fun projects to make using the A|S October/November spotlight products. 

See all the products and project ideas here!

From now until November 14, save 10% on the stamp sets used to make these projects.

I'm excited to get my hands on some of these stamp sets and host some workshops! Let me know if you are interested in hosting a workshop and earning some free stamps for yourself.

More cards!

Several weeks ago, I attended a quilt retreat with some friends of mine. No... I don't sew! But the owner of the store that organizes the retreat is gracious enough to let me tag along with my quilting friends. I was so jealous watching them head off together for four whole days that darling Sylvia took pity on me!

This year I took some inspiration from one of Kristina Werners Make a Card Monday videos and whipped up a few of these little cards. They are my hommage to the sewing ladies I spent the weekend with. Little quilt squares punched out of June Bug from Basic Grey! Yum!

Cardstock: Papertrey Ink - Kraft

Pattern Paper: June Bug by Basic Grey

Embellishments: Random Button (though I think they came out of a pack from Basic Grey), DMC floss, and Uniball Signo White Gel Pen

Playing with my Copic markers!

So, my youngest son turned 6 recently and we had a great birthday party. Now... I'm trying to "raise these young men up right" and in my world that includes teaching them to write thank you notes. I took out some of my unused CTMH stamps and mass produced a simple one layer card, and then had a BLAST spending the evening coloring! Each card had it's own color scheme and did I have fun! Don't look too closely at the stamping job, but let me know what you think of my coloring!

All Stamps: Close to My Heart

Cardstock: White Daisy CTMH

Medium: Copic Markers - lots of colors that I didn't make note of! Liquid Glass from CTMH

The best thing was that my little guy loved the cards so much that he didn't fight me to write the thank you notes and he was so proud to pass them out to his friends! Thanks for looking and leave a comment so I know you stopped by!

Hommage to Julie HRR!

I loves me some Amuse rubbah and the designs of Her Royal Rubberness Julie Ebersole! The ladies in the Amuse Lounge posted a challenge in March to let Julie be your inspiration. Well, with Teacher Appreciation Day coming up, I decided to go with a thank you card I could give to the boys' teachers. Hope you enjoy!

Paper and Cardstock: Amuse

Stamps: Amuse

Ribbon: Amuse

Punch: EK Success

Markers: Copic

Clip: CTMH

Love ya' Julie! You're such an awesome inspiration! (and yes... I know it's April and I'm a bit late for the challenge... but that's just me! ;o) )

Ahhhh... to have time to be crafty!

I know... most of my posts... my incredibly rare posts... begin like this! But I so rarely have time to work at my table. It doesn't help that the table is buried under a mountain of stuff and needs to be cleaned up and organized so that I can actually get in there and do something creative once in a while.

Anywho... I do keep up with what's happening in the blog world, especially Kristina Werner's blog and her Make a Card Monday and Finally Friday videos. I love to watch them when they pop up in my inbox!

Here are two cards I made that were inspired by two of the Finally Friday videos!

Paper: White Daisy cardstock from CTMH, Pattern Paper is Cherry Hill by October Afternoon

Tools: Fiskars Scallop border punch, Making Memories Corner Chomper, Cuttle Bug Swiss Dots embossing folder, Uniball Signo White Gel Pen

Cardstock: Papertrey Ink Kraft

Pattern Paper: Cherry Hill by October Afternoon

Stamp: Amuse sentiment 

Embellishments: Fabric Flower - Little Yellow Bicycle, Button from my stash and DMC embroidery floss

Boy... I just love that Cherry Hill paper! October Afternoon is becoming one of my favorite companies. Their patterns always catch my eye... kind of like Cosmo Cricket! More to come... :o) Leave me a comment to let me know you were here!

Devon

Hellooooooo!!!! I'm baaaaaaccckkkk!!!

Wow! Happy Valentine's Day everyone... or to all 2 people who might actually see this! Ha! Life has been unbearably nuts and busy and so NOT crafty for me for months now. I don't know where all my time goes, or why I never get to my table anymore. I did manage to knock out 60 handmade Christmas cards in December and actually send them out! I'll post a picture at the bottom of this post.

Today I woke up and realized it was Valentine's Day! (oops!) and I had no cards for the three men in my life. So I decided it was time to reacquaint myself with a trimmer, paper, and adhesive. I had an idea in my head from one of Kristina Werner's Make A Card Monday videos from last year and decided to get at it. Since I haven't had much mojo of my own, thank goodness for Kristina's videos. Besides the fact that I just LOVE her style, I bought the punch I used because of her and I think it's about time it punched out some pretty paper!

So... here are the Valentine's Day cards I made today... Yes... some people will be receiving this a tad bit late, but hey... I'm a busy working mommy! What can ya' do, right? :)

These cards were so much fun to make, and SOOOOOOOO easy! Make a standard card with craft cardstock from Papertrey Ink, use the scallop border punch from Fiskars, and punch patterned paper with the EK Success punch Heart to Heart. (I think this punch is only sold through Stampin' Up! because I can't find it at Two Peas.) A little detail with my Uniball Signo white ink pen and voila! I made 10 in all in about an hour. I just love that We R Memory Keepers Heart Attack pattern paper. I had so many options with the hearts, since the pattern paper is double sided. Yum! Nothing better than beautiful double sided paper!

Anyway.... A huge thanks, as always, to Kritina Werner! I love, love, LOVE her blog and videos. Never miss a one!

Oh yeah... here's the card I made for Christmas. Had to be pretty simple because I was making a bunch and it was a busy, busy, busy time of the year!

This was a fun little card to make. I think that's BoBunny paper and then I used stamps from Papertrey Ink's Holiday Button Bits collection. So much fun and so creative! Of course I just love to use buttons on everything, so these Button Bits collections incorporate all those fun buttons into stamping as well! Whoopee!!!

Quick story about the picture... it was the weekend after Thanksgiving and my mom was visiting. We decided to make a quick trip up to North Pole, Alaska to see the "real" Santa Claus. I figured this might be the last year that the boys still believe. What a road trip! Snowed like crazy on our way up and on our way home. I hope that one day they'll remember what their parents went through to make sure they have great experiences! He really was a fantastic Santa and there were reindeer and everything outside.

Since this is my first post since almost November, I'm going to throw a question out there into the blogosphere... What do you do when you just feel you've lost your mojo? How do you get it back? I do know that one of my problems in clutter. When my table is a total mess, I don't feel like I can get started on anything. But if I don't want to clean up the table, then I get nothing accomplished! Anyway... what do you do to kick start your mojo??? Let me know!

Happy Valentine's Day blog peeps!

Christmas Gift Card Holders

My friend Nancy participates in a huge holiday craft bazaar every year after Thanksgiving and has been trying to get me to make some things for her table. This year I found a pretty simple project that I'll be able do and may sell well! Once again, I was inspired by Jen del Muro at i{heart}2stamp. Check out the awesome gift card holders she made for her local coffee shop. Here are my first attempts at a much simplified version. The heat embossing takes a while, but I really enjoy doing it! If you'd like a photo tutorial on how to make this, check out this link.

Supplies:
CTMH Stamps, Ink, Embossing Powder, and white cardstock
Papertrey Ink Kraft Cardstock
Fiskars punches
Zutter Corner Rounder
Stickles

Eek! My blog has not died!!!

I know it's been forever, but this doesn't seem like a year where I'm going to get much time at my table. I did take a day a few weeks ago and assembly lined a bunch of Halloween cards for my friends at work. I got the idea from one of the blogs I regularly visit, Jen del Muro's i {heart}2 stamp. It was one of her SFYTT sketches and I did what I could with the supplies that I had! They were fun to make and fairly easy to make 10 once I got my original prototype made! Hope you like it!

Supplies:
CTMH stamps
Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink, colored cardstock from my stash
Nestabilities oval dies
Cricut Expression and Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge for spider
Stickles

Just Because ~ AMC07

I saved my absolute favorite for last! I picked up the Kokeshi doll stamp at Stamp Attic in Anchorage a few weeks ago. I'm actually taking a class on campus this summer, as opposed to online. (My very last class in my master's program happens to be my very first class on campus!) I just love her! I also picked up the Sakura flower to go with her. She's so dainty and girly (hard to come by in my house) and I had to have her!

Wow! 5 posts in one day! That's certainly a record for this blogger! Hope you'll leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Goodies I used:
A Muse stamps: Kokeshi doll and Sakura flower and just because sentiment
CTMH ink: Bubblegum
Papertrey Ink: Kraft cardstock
Random cardstock from my stash
Offray ribbon
Silver Stickles from Ranger
Copic markers

Sweet Baby ~ AMCo7

Here's the girl version of the baby card! I used a different sentiment and different papers, of course. I'm just crazy for that kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink... I have a feeling more of their products will be creeping into my stash any day now...

Goodies I used:
Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink and random paper from my stash
Offray ribbon
A Muse stamps: Baby Line and Tiny Yawns sentiment
Copic markers

Welcome Little One ~ AMC07

Well, this sweet little card I pretty much CASEd right out of the A Muse gallery. I think it's one of Julie's designs. I adore her work and am on her blog all the time! I love the red and blue and the stitching on the paper. Who knew I would be using a sewing machine while making cards.

Goodies I used:
Random paper from my stash
A Muse stamps: Baby line and Welcome, little one sentiment
A Muse Ribbon
PTI Kraft cardstock
Copic markers

Groovy! AMC07

Here's another card for Challenge #7 at the A Muse Lounge. The challenge is to ink up stamps you have never used before. That's not hard for me, since I'm new to A Muse stamps, but totally addicted and picking them up on a weekly basis. Shhhhhh.... don't tell my husband!

I just love this little bus and the "Have a groovy day" sentiment. I immediately thought of my Lime Rickey paper for some really groovy colors and patterns. So here's another cute little submission from me!

Goodies I used:
Papertrey Ink Kraft cardstock
Basic Grey Lime Rickey pattern paper
Nestabilities Labels One die
A Muse stamps
Copic Markers