My Mom’s birthday was last week, and I wanted to make her a more elegant looking card.  I used this Savvy background stamp to make a wallpaper themed background using Chalk Ice Blue ink.

I added my favorite A Muse birthday sentiment using McGill’s new label punch.  I love the look of this punch, but hate how hard it is to punch out.  Makes me very grateful for my EK success punches!

Enjoy!

Papers, Ribbon, Sentiment- A Muse

Background image- Savvy

My parents recently celebrated their 40th anniversary- isn’t that amazing?  I wanted to create an anniversary card for them that used fall colors and the new oak leaves stamp.  I used Chalk Yellow Ochre to stamp the oak leaves several times to create a background, and used a McGill punch to make the sentiment the focal point.

This week the A Muse blog is featuring some holiday photo card inspiration, and here’s my version- a pocket photo card.

I love sending photo cards for the holidays, but I like to come up with something creative too.  Brown and green is one of my favorite color combinations for this time of year, so I chose the new shimmer couture Grass and Damask Espresso papers which add a bit of elegance.

For this card, I used a photo that was 3 1/2″ square, and cut a flat card of cream colored cardstock measuring 4 3/4″ x 6 3/4″.  For the outside pocket, I cut a piece 10 1/4″ x 6″ and used my Scor-pal and scissors to create a pocket.  I then cut a 2″ x 11″ band out of the damask paper to make a band around the pocket.  The whole thing will fit into a 5×7″ envelope.  Sounds a bit confusing, but easy to mass produce if you do assembly line.

Here’s a close up of the card all put together…. I used some of the chocolate pearls on the holly berry to add some more texture.

Here’s a close up of the inside flat card, which slides into the pocket above.  I used the monogram frames set to make it more personal, and left some white space at the bottom for a signature or note.

Hope that inspires you with some ideas to create your own photo cards this season.  Check out the A Muse blog all week for more inspiration!

Images- Classic alpha set, monogram frames set, tiny holly, season’s greetings RM

Papers- Shimmer couture grass, damask espresso, cream cardstock

Other – Nestabilities labels 4, A Muse chocolate pearls

Ink – Memento bamboo leaves, rich cocoa

Here’s my monthly calendar page for November.  This is another one of my favorite month’s because Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite holiday.  No stress, just family and good food

Gotta love the Tom turkey – he’s just the cutest

Here’s my class schedule…

Friday December 11th - A Muse Calendar Class 6:30-8:30pm
Learn how to make a calendar book the A Muse way- Think Simple, Think A Muse! A Muse has once again released a great customizable calendar with proceeds going to charity. We will create a wire-bound 2010 calendar book (including a perpetual calendar for remembering important dates) using the Bind-it-All. The price of the class includes a $4 donation to Water1st.org.  Please bring some extra adhesive.

All classes are at The Paper Tree. Please call Michelle to sign up 603-624-8800. Hope to see you there!

Here is the card I made recently for the A Muse Addicts gathering at The Paper Tree.  We had so much fun chatting and crafting- my favorite thing to do!

It’s hard to tell, but the black background paper is glittered all over- it’s a sugar coated paper from Doodlebug Designs – one I love using for Halloween.   Tonight is my first calendar class at The Paper Tree.  If you missed this one, we’ll have a repeat in November.  See details at the top of my blog.

Have a great weekend!

Here’s a quick Halloween card I made recently.  Would you believe this was a $1 stamp I found at a big box store last year?   This was the first time I used it, and used some A Muse paper to paper piece it for a bit more interest.  I also added some Martha Stewart black glitter and diamond glaze on the eye.

A Making Memories star button from last year finished it off.  Today was SOOO fun- we had the A Muse Addicts gathering at The Paper Tree.  Of course, I forgot my camera, but much fun was had.  Heather even stopped by for a bit to visit -yay!

We finished out the day by going to an outdoor showing of It’s a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on a huge inflatable movie screen – so fun!

enjoy

It’s that time again – time for my A Muse Calendar class, where we’ll be making a 2010 calendar.  These make great gifts, and we’ll be using some of the new yummy shimmer papers (as well as a good mix of the other papers) and a couple of the new stamps!  Here’s a sneak for you….

This one uses the new woodgrain block stamp (my favorite!) and the acorn stamp.  It also has the new chocolate shimmer paper which is so much prettier than my photo shows.   Here’s another month using the pink shimmer paper:

Details on the class are at the top of my blog- hope to see you there!

This card has a surprise inside…..

a cute pop up cat that I thought went perfectly with this sentiment

I used some silver fox Smooch on the moon to make it stand out.

Have a great weekend!

Jen

Boris & Bernice are some of my favorite A Muse Halloween images.  I couldn’t resist adding them to this spinner card.  We’ll be making this card in my class tonight!