Mia and Maryann on Mojo Monday

Say that five times fast! Today's post consists of a few cards I made over the weekend. Both for people who are a source of positivity in my life.
First is the birthday card I made for little Mia. She turned 1 this August. Although I already made her a card (you can view it here) the package with presents and card got lost in the mail. :( It was really my fault, my brother had just moved and I forgot to use the new address. Although he had a forwarding address, the package never arrived. So what can you do, little Mia MUST have a b-day present from us, so be bought another and made another card. Truthfully, I like this card better, so whatever. The layout was based on last monday's Mojo Monday Challenge. I love these bright colors, the pink flamingo is still one of my favorite sets of DSP in the Current Catalog. Everything is SU! except the image, which is from Stamping Bella.

This next card is for Maryann. She was one of the teachers and Soaps daycare. She was so kind and a very gentle in nature type of person. We'll all miss her, especially Sophie. I made this card for her from Sophie. It is a little adult in nature, but Sophie is currently obsessed with shoes, would eat lots of chocolate if we let her, likes to run around stores and touch everything when I/we shop and really did like Maryann, so it works. This stamp set is perfect for a waterfall card, so there you have it. I put a picture of Sophie on the inside and a little note from all of us. We weren't at daycare on Maryann's last day, so I hope she got it and knows she will be missed. All supplies in this one are SU!

That's about all for today and I don't have time to post all supplies. If you are curious about anything, please let me know and I will give you the list. Thanks for stopping by it means a lot to me! :)

Watercolor Class- 9/7/09

Yep, doing a watercolor class in September and there is still time to sign up! Details for this class are below. Here are a couple of samples of things we will be making:

Happy Birthday Human card (using markers as medium)

Just Beclause (using chalks as the watercolor medium)

WHAT: I will be doing a class focusing on 4 different ways to watercolor. You'll learn how you can use several of the different SU! mediums (I bet you have at least one of these at home!) to create a watercolored image. You'll also get to take home 4 different cards (with envelopes) and a blender pen to use at your disposal.

WHEN: September 7, 2009- 6:30-8:30 pm

WHERE: Edmonds, WA (address provided upon RSVP

COST: class cost is $20- If you place a $35+ dollar order the day of the class, you only pay $10 for the class! RSVP: you must rsvp with pre-payment by August 28th via cash, check or paypal (let me know and I will send you a paypal invoice), there is an 8 person limit to this class. katieannbrooks@gmail.com or 206-947-8273.

DOOR PRIZE:There will also be a door prize at this event. This will be a ticket system, with a drawing at the end. Everyone gets one ticket for coming, if you are on-time (aka not late- wink!) you get two! If you bring a dish/snack to share, you get two more tickets. Anyone who brings a friend who hasn't been to one of my events (open house, class, workshop) gets 5 extra tickets!

It is still sunny out...

...but in the card realm, my brain has moved to Fall and Winter! Each time I think of something I want to stamp with one of my new holiday related sets (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) part of my brain rebels. It is like the angel on one shoulder, "It's sunny out, you can't make things with snowflakes!" or "Halloween is still 2 mos away!" The bad guy/gal on the other shoulder, "Don't worry about it, making cards with snowflakes isn't gonna make it snow...besides, you have a good thing here, go with it!" Are you worried about my sanity now? Oh well. ;) The bad guy/gal wins, here is a holiday card with one of my new sets from the upcoming Holiday Mini- Just Beclause.
Supplies:
Stamps- Just Beclause (Holiday Mini 09), Best Wishes and More (large snowflake), Hello Again (small snowflakes)
Paper- Taken with Teal, Real Red, Whisper White, Holiday Lounge DSP
Ink: Basic Black, Versamark, Real Red, Taken with Teal, Yoyo Yellow
Other: 1 3/8" Circle Punch, Silver Elastic Cord (Holiday Mini 09')

She's my Cherry Pie...

...looks so good brings a tear to your eye... OK, had enough 80's "butt rock"?! I have!



So, it has been a while since I have had the chance to play the From Courtney's Closet Challenge on Libby's Blog, but this weekend, I was determinded. Here is the picture of Courtney from a while back in her little cherry outfit (now you are getting why the Warrant song comes in...). What a little doll, always so happy!





Now here is my response... a CHERRY PIE! Ype, I made a little yummy looking cherry pie. I had this in my head some time ago (like 6 mos or so) and then abandoned the thought, then along comes little Courtney...POW!

For the life of me, I can't get this picture to be the right direction. It is the right direction in the picture before I upload it..... Sorry. I wanted to give you a view of the crimped sides of the pie pan, I did, but you are gonna have to turn your monitor sideways to see it correctly- ha!

Here is a RIGHT SIDE UP view of the top of the pie.

This was mostly just paper, dies and punches. Pretty easy except for the putting together.

Supplies:

Stamps: Matchbox Messages

Paper: Basic Grey, Real Red & Creamy Caramel CS for pie; Tag- WW, Real Red CS & Cottage Wall DSP

Ink: Real Red and Chocolate Chip (for browning on pie)

Other: Paper Crimper, Scallop Circle #2 die (pie shape), 1/2" Circle Punch (cherries), 1 3/8" Circle Punch & Scallop Circle Punch (tag), Unibal Signo Gel Pen (white on cherries), Real Red 1/4" Grossgrain Ribbon, Sticky Strip

Thanks for stopping by!!!

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Finding my mojo

My friend was in town over the weekend- KK from MN (love you girl!)- we had a lot of fun bustling about town and doing some local activities. Anyone love muppets and/Sesame Street?! KK & I do! Well we went to the Science Fiction in Seattle to see the Jim Henson exhibit. It was crowded and hard to see much since my Soaps (my daughter) didn't want to be real agreeable and stay with us, but it was still cool. All of us really enjoyed the muppet stage where the kids got to play with the muppets and create a rock band. Soaps probably could have sat there for hours! Anyway (and I'll get to the card in a minute) here are the muppets performing and the yummy cupcakes we ate afterwards. :)

Yum, cupcakes! Isn't she cute?!

The point, other than cuteness, is that I sorta got out of the groove over the weekend and lost my mojo. I was having a hard time getting motivated to create the last few days. Last night I was determined to make something so I used a recent MojoMonday sketch to fire myself up. The funny part about that is that I didn't even realize the correlation between me loosing my mojo and using a mojo monday sketch- but it worked! Magic happened and I made card- whoo-hooo! Here's the card and sketch:

Supplies:

Stamps- Falling Leaves (set I won at convention!!!)

Paper- Real Red & Kraft CS, Autumn Traditions and Thouroughly Modern DSP

Ink- Versamark, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa & Real Red (markers for last two)

Accessories: Top note die, scallop edge punch, clear buttons, 1/2" circle punch, 1/4" real red grossgrain ribbon, linen thread, 3/4" polka dot real red grossgrain ribbon

Just a little fiddling

Last night I was waiting for my friend to get to my house and decided to fiddle. I wanted to play with the Medallion stamp and different colors in the same range. This is what I came up with.

Here is a card I made earlier in the week for my neice Mia's first birthday.

All supplies SU! except the image on the second card- Pink Cat Studio. Sorry to not list them here, pretty tired today, but feel free to email me and ask if you have questions.

Thanks for stopping by.

I'm Back...Convention Story.

Wow, where to start?! Convention is such an amazing thing! It is incredible for me to get to go to a convention for something that I like (unlike a convention related to my 9-5 gig).

Day 1- First, the arrival at SLC. Moving from the fridgid airplane to the hot 98 degrees outside- stripping off the layers and sweating with every step. Got to the hotel, but we couldn't check in yet, so we went straight to the convention center where we were going to attempt to stand in the Momento Mall line...BUT the wait was 4 hours long, can you imagine?! We decided to come back later and happily skipped off to PF Changs for lunch- spicy green beans, yum! I then attempted to get a tour of the SU! home office but got my directions mixed up and missed my van, so instead I spent my time picking up my bag and stamp sets (fun!) and looking at all the boards with cards and ideas and the artisan award winners projects- W-O-W! I am awed by what some people can create!!! Meanwhile, I saw one of my cards up on the boards and that was super exciting! Remember my shaker card tutorial? It wasn't either of these cards specifically but a version of this. (I am gonna miss Mr. Twigster!). Next into the room to find and deliver some goodies to my room mates, they weren't there yet, but it was still exciting. They gave chocolate and cards and calendars, I gave personalized luggage tags with the image of the Eiffel tower on it (Chic Botique Stamp Set). :) Then swaps with folks from the larger Seattle Group and dinner with our immediate group- there were 7 of us from the Swanky Stampers group. We had to fight the wind and dirt/sand/dust- whatever- in our eyes, but we got there! Our upline gave us some fun Melon Mambo colored scarves with our group name embroidered on it- classy looking. Back to the room and after gabbing and giggling like little girls at a slumber party we finally went to bed.

Day 2- Up with the birds! If you want a good seat in the general session you have to get up super early. I took a turn and went down at 7. Myself and a few others got some seats and waited with anticipation. There was dance music happening and lots of ladies dancing and hollering. There were even a few men too- I saw at least half a dozen different men, I swear! Finally, general session started with some gymnasts and a song:

Cool! Then, opening comments from Shelli Gardner, Co-founder and COO. Onto Brent Steele who had some exciting news to share. OK, do I tell you....or do I wait... This is something I have known was coming for a while but I got to witness how great it is going to be. It is so fun and exciting! OK, hint....scrapbooking related...something very 21st Century...something technological....Do you know?!?! OK, that is all I am going to say, so hope you can figure that out. It was so great to see what this product can do. This produced a LOT of excitement and high energy. Next we got to see a few "marches" across stage to recognize people for their acheivements- one of which was Lisa Fast- the second million dollar sales person for Stampin' Up! HOLY COW! That is pretty unbelievable and inspiring! (OK here is where I start to wonder which thing happened in which general session, but I think that was the majority of what happened day one.) Next we had lunch and a little free time. After lunch we went to our make n' take session. That was a little hectic- hard to get it all done, but we concentrated on stamping and punching- assembly can always be done later. Here are some (not all) of the fun things we made with our new stamp sets:

The above includes 3 note cards and three envelopes.

Admittedly, I didn't think I was going to like the Christmas items we made, but I was wrong, they look lovey!

There was also an assortment of Christmas tags that we made, a lovely gift box and a holiday treat bag. After make n' takes we went to some demonstrations- one including one from Lisa Fast. She was so funny and cute. As the day ended, we were all tired but excited, pumped really to go out and create and share what we love with others. For dinner, we went out to some yummy sushi at Naked Fish before awards night and entertainment. I was tired, so I snuck out of awards night and called my family. I "talked" to my daughter, I did most/all of the talking with the exception of her saying Mama or Mommy, which made me miss her even more than I already did. A few soppy tears and phone kisses later. :) I watched a little news and was suprised at the wildfires starting up all over Utah. The wind was heavy (33 MPH) and there were fires moving quickly whether started by cigarette butts or downed power lines. I snuggled into the comfort of my bed, read a little and tried to rest up for day three!

Day 3- Another semi early morning with a very loud awakening from one of my roommates (I will not name names!!- wink). It wasn't my turn to save seats though, so I got to be a little more leasurely. After getting ready for the day, I went and strolled around Temple Square. I just love religious archetechture, the buildings and statues are always unbelievable. In 2002 I spent 10 weeks in Thailand and made a trip through Malaysia to Sumatra, Indonesia, part of the reason I chose that part of the world was to see the Buhdist Temples, and as an added bonus got to see Mosques. Every trip I take, if there is a fabulous church, or even a small little one, I love to see it inside (If I can) and out and take pictures- they are all so beautiful and it says so much about differnt cultures. The Temple was no exception. Although I didn't get to go inside, the outside was beautiful and quite massive. The gardens around the perimeter were gorgeous. Here is a few of the pictures I took:

Enough about that, probably not what you wanted to read about. :) General Session included some more great talks and presentations. One of which included the new Build-a-Bear stamp set and dies... WHOOPS- you didn't know about that did you?! Well I guess that is one cat out of the bag, but I still have my other secret- hehehehe! Anyway, Stampin' Up! has paired with build-a-bear to make some excluse stamp sets and dies for the big shot and boy are they cute! Then to make it even better- the actual Bear from Build-a-Bear came out and had some fun with us and let us know that we could get our own Stampin' Up! build a bear with SU! apron and stamp- adorable! There were other presentations, from Shelli, from Bonney Thurber (this woman is hillarious!!!) and more. After lunch more classes, focused on the business aspect and some more demos. Sigh...still having fun but tired, as is everyone. Emotions are running high and all women (3000 of us) are starting to get a little cranky. That is ok though, some time to ourselves. I spent the evening eating pizza (cheap- yeah!) with a few of the girls and gabbing. Again, to bed early, I am on duty again next day.

Day 4- The last and final day. I woke up early (4 am SLC time, 3 am Seattle time!!!) and couldn't sleep. After laying with insomnia for 2 hours I got up and went down for some breakfast. Luckily (for me, not for her) Rita- my AL roomie- had also been up since 4 and was sitting in the lobby on her laptop to be quiet- so kind. We had breakfast together. What a sweet and funny lady and she emits positive energy like you wouldn't believe! Sadly, I realize I don't have a picture of her. :(. After breakfast a talk from Belinda Ellsworth- Keynote speaker- which included some great tips for business building if that is your goal. She was almost a little too much at 8 am, loud and high energy, but I admire that she can even be that way (my roommates can attest that I can't!). AND she did have some great things to say. After that a few more marches some more fun demos we had Demo Duel! It was basically a demo version of family fued- very fun and very funny! The announcer was great, here is a pic:

There was also a commercial contest that demo's participated in,, hillarious! And some SU! sponsored commercials, very funny. You can view most or all of them here- http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stampin+up+comercials&search_type=&aq=f

Finally some prize patrol... (OK, I haven't mentioned this yet, but prize patrol happens every day at convention! It is so fun! You get a wrist band, and each day that have at least two times that they announce certain colored/patterned wrist bands and those in the group win something. Pretty awesome really. Some gals won some of the new pendants- whoa-what- yep we are coming out with jewelry!!! Stay tuned for more on that- the pendants were made by Shelli and family and signed by Shelli- so cool!) and I WON! I got a fun fall stamp set- Falling Leaves- some of the 1 1/4 Striped Old Olive ribbon and some 9X9 On Board Chipboard (perfect to make a magnet board!!!). I feel like I never win, but I did, proven wrong! And Carrie (the presenter) accidentally said it before it was announced and I heard her and I knew! Other people were looking around, but I knew. I got a few jealous looks but they were followed by congratulatory smiles. A final thank you from Shelli and it was a wrap. Final goodbyes to new and old friends, sad, but I was ready to be home. I went to the airport and waited for my flight. I got home and greeted my hubby with hugs. He greeted me with hugs and coconut cake- what a sweetie! Then I woke my little bambino and we rocked and cuddled in the chair for about 10 minutes before I put her back down. Sigh- all is well to bed.

OK, I hope this has been fun for you. Maybe it inspired you to spend time with your friends and create. Maybe you want to get up and running with your business (crafting or other) or your hobby. Hopefully and most importantly you can see the fun involved and find a little time for yourself to Inspire, Create and Share. Thanks for stopping by!

It's a long hike uphill....

....but now you are on the way down! Isn't it great to be OVER THE HILL?! :)

My friend Chris just turned 40 and this is the card I made for his birthday. Kinda mean :[], but that is the kind of relationship we have, like brother and sister, always flipping eachother crap. I had to mail it late- having come back from Convention, I didn't get it to him in time- so I can't wait to hear what he has to say about it. He is soon to be a new daddy, so I feel it is my job to keep his sense of humor in check. :)

Seriously though, he is a great friend, old or not!

All Supplies (SU):

Stamps- Scary Skeleton (shown below)

Cardstock- Basic Black & Cast-a-Spell DSP

Ink- Whisper White Craft, Basic Black, Elegant Eggplant Marker

Accessories- Heat Tool, White Embossing Powder, Clips Assortment, 1/4" Pumpkin Pie Grossgrain Ribbon, Scissor Circle Plus, Lots of Letters Chipboard, Crop-a-dial (for dots)

Stay tuned for my Convention Highlights post later today.

10...9...8...7...6...5...

It's almost blast off time! I'll be leaving for convention early in the morning. I have been plenty busy working on lots of projects, but I haven't gotten time to put them up yet. I will though, at some point. Plus, I can't wait to share all the great stuff we do at Convention! See you soon!