I haven't made it to stamping yet today. I'm afraid the house cleaning that has been neglected for some time will need to be done first. I decided to just grab a card off my card display and post it. Some of you may have made this card with me at some point, but it doesn't hurt to bring back some of those good cards you've made before. I sent this picture to Jennie because it uses two of the embossing folders (found on pgs. 218-219 in the catalog) and the Big Shot. I used vanilla card stock for this card. You could stamp your words in the upper right hand corner before using the 119976 Square Lattice embossing folder on the base of the card. With another piece of vanilla card stock, I ran it through the Big Shot using the 114517 Manhattan Flower embossing folder. I cut around the flower images and adhered to the base card. Using a two-way glue, I went around the flower images on the embossed edge and added Dazzling Diamonds glitter. The picture doesn't really give it justice. It's a stunning card.

 It's almost the weekend! If you hadn't heard the girls cross country team (Go Paige!) is going to state! The girls as a team placed 3rd at Districts which qualifies the whole team getting to go to Kearney on Friday and run at the State meet. It's pretty exciting for everyone.

I am looking forward to the weekend and getting to stay home on Saturday (hope to get some stamping done). I should be going to the last marching contest in Lincoln, but I'm leaving the spectator position to Tyler, my son. He lives in Lincoln so he will go and watch his sister march. I will get to stay home and clean house and hopefully get to do some stamping! I haven't had a chance to even put my things away since stamping club on Tuesday so I'll get to that too. If any of you are starting on your Christmas gift giving ideas, here is a poem that I used last year for Christmas. I don't remember where I got it, but it makes for a cute gift item, of course, with some m & m's.

The M & M's Christmas Story

As you hold these candies in your hand,

and turn them, you will see...

The M becomes a W, an E, and then a 3.

They tell the Christmas story.

It's one I'm sure you know.

It took place in a stable a long, long, time ago.

The E is for the East, where the star shone so bright.

The M is for the Manger, where Baby Jesus slept that night.

The 3 is for the wise men, who came bearing gifts.

W is for Worship. Hallelujah, praise His name!

So as you eat these candies,

or share them with your friends,

remember the meaning of Christmas.

It's a love story that never ends.

--Pam Ridenour

I'll try to get some stamping done soon and share what I make. Keep stamping and send those cards out to others.

October stamp club was a lot of fun this afternoon. I hope the ladies enjoyed making the mummy card. I think this is one of my favorite fun cards. This card used a great deal of the tearing and sponging techniques. You can use these techniques on any cards, it just doesn't have to be making a mummy. The other card using the Field Flowers stamp set that we made today was meant to be simple, but also show you how adding a pen line around the card can add so much to a card. The aqua painters were used to fill in the color on the flowers by blending the ink from the stamped image. Of course, the glitter (Dazzling Details) in the center of the flowers adds just a little extra to a card.

I'll send out an email with the directions that were on the tables at the stamp club, if you want to keep the step-by-step instructions. Keep stamping, ladies.

What a busy weekend! I came down with a bad cold so spent most of Sunday sleeping. I did manage to decide what we will be making for stamp club this Tuesday. Here is one of the cards and I'll share the other project tomorrow. See you at stamp club tomorrow afternoon, ladies.

I still have a few shoebox cards to share from last weekend, but I don't have pictures of them yet. Here is a card that I thought about taking as my shoebox to Burwell last Saturday, but ended up taking the owl nugget (shown in an earlier post). I used the french foliage stamp set with More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke, and Soft Suede ink pads to stamp the various leaves and words. I just love the fall colors, don't you? 

This shoebox card was provided by Loretta. I tend to forget to do some of the little things that make a card pop. The extra dimension on this card really adds to it. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the large, fancy 'T' in Three and the flower are raised off the card. You stamp the image normally (the flower was stamped in green) on the card. Then just stamp an extra time on a separate sheet of card stock (stamped the flower image in purple), cut out the flower part, and adhere with a dimensional.  This is how you can get the stem green and the flower is purple. I did the same with the 'T'.  I stamped the words in purple on the card and then on a separate piece of card stock stamped the image again in green. I cut out the fancy 'T' in green and placed it over the existing letter. Pretty cool! Thanks, Loretta.

Here's another shoebox card that I made in Burwell. This card was nicely designed by Kirsten.

The base card has the polka-dot embossing pattern and she must have used her cricut to cut out the silhouette. All I had to do was glue together. Very elegant! Thanks, Kirsten.