Wednesday Dig it Out and Use it Up #3!

Happy Wednesday! Time for another Dig it Out and Use it Up! (I didn't post last Wednesday, so I really blew it for this challenge, ugh!) Since I worked on those desk nameplates the day before, I had lots of "scraps" and parts left out to play with...so it made this card easy!

I used the same ABCs wheel to run the lines, love this wheel and how it looks! As I mentioned yesterday, it was very liberating throwing things together and not worrying about the colors matching, which is what I did here, and I love how it turned out! The large stars are punched out of old paper...that's what I dug out to use up! So, let's see what you can dig out to use up this week! Post the link to your creation in the comments below...no one has actually done this yet, but I feel confident that someone eventually will! lol!

Thank you so much for all your sweet comments yesterday about the desk nameplates for the students! You really made my day! The students did love them...almost as much as the cool jumbo polka-dot pencils I gave them! I think the test went well, I hope so at least. They worked long and hard which makes me think they did all of their "strategies"...I guess time will tell! The principal was so nice to let us leave at 3:30 yesterday, so my fellow 3rd grade teachers Myrick and Nguyen, and I went to an early dinner at Hunky's in Oak Cliff, yummy! If you live in Dallas, you should go, they have one Uptown too. It was so nice and enjoyable, especially compared to our quick 10 minute conversations in the lunch room, trying to talk over loud eight year olds...lol!

Hope you have a great day! Try to dig something old out and use it up today!

Recipe Stamps: My ABCs wheel, So Much. Cardstock: Kraft, misc patterned paper. Ink: Handsome hunter ink cartridge, Chocolate Chip. Accessories: Large Star Punch, 5/8" Old Olive Grosgrain Ribbon, Ruby Red Brad, Dimensionals.

"You Did It!" Desk Nameplates

Well, I guess you can see what I did last night! I got the idea around 8:00 (why can my ideas never come earlier?!) to make the students special nameplates for their desks for the Math TAKs test today. In the past, I have a design I made on the computer and I usually print those out and use them, but this time I decided to make handmade "scrappy" ones. I like them to walk in on test day and have special nameplates and new pencils and erasers waiting on their desks for them.

I won't list the whole recipe, because it's a lot of odds and ends, but here are a few details: the big chipboard letters were from the Target $1 Spot, SU Typeset Lower Alphabet & My ABCs wheel, "You Did It" star stamp from Michael's $1 bin, assorted patterned paper...guess that's most of it. The wheel was in Handsome Hunter ink, the letters in Chocolate Chip, and the Star in Old Olive. It was very liberating using a lot of random things and different colors, I like the way they turned out. I definitely fight being "too matchy" with my supplies and ink so I think this really helped me.

Also, I owe a big apology to Beverly and Margaret from my Stamp Club challenge cards posted on Sunday. I left off Beverly's (it was lost in the abyss of my stamp room, ugh!) and attributed Margaret's to Beverly! Sorry again, ladies! I fixed them on the other post, but here they are to give them proper credit!

Beverly's card:

Margaret's card:


Hope you have a terrific Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Birdie Told Me...It's Your Birthday!

Happy Monday morning! If today is your birthday, you can consider this card for you! ;-) It may look familiar from here, which was my first attempt at a birthday swap card I had signed up for. I had cut all the parts, except for the polka dot strip, but wasn't crazy about it, so I tweaked it some this weekend and came up with this.

I ended up making the polka dot strip larger and cut the pumpkin pie and white pieces down smaller. I got rid of the zig-zag banner and just made one row...probably should have scrapped it totally, but it's how the card started, and I refused to give it up. Do you ever do that? You know you should abandon something that's not working, but you refuse to do it, causing yourself hours of torture and frustration?! lol!

Hope your week kicks off to a great start! We have the Math TAKs test tomorrow and the Reading TAKs retake on Wednesday...and then it will all be behind us...ahhhhhh!...at least until next year. We have some really fun things planned for our hard-working students, including a field trip, which they've never experienced before, so it should be fun ahead! Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe Stamps: A Little Birdie Told Me. Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Spring Break & Wild Wasabi Prints DSP. Ink: Not Quite Navy pad; Not Quite Navy, Pumpkin Pie & Garden Green markers. Accessories: Pumpkin Pie Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Horizontal Slot Punch, and Dimensionals.

Some Awards and Thank Yous!

Two posts in one day?! Yes, it's true! Some wonderful, sweet blogger friends had passed on some awards to me, so I wanted to say Thank You!!


First, I was recently given the Arte Y Pico award by Beate at Fresh & Fun, Jenn at Stamp Your Heart Out, Donna at Serenity in Stamping, and Sara at Desperate Stamper. Thank you ladies, such an honor coming from great artists like you, and I can't tell you how good you made me feel after some rough teaching days!

Now, this is getting a little bit older (February 2008, yikes!) but my dear friend, teaching advisor, and soldering tutor TexasGrammy at Savor the Journey gave me this E for Excellent rating. Thank you, Bev! Looking forward to having more time to stamp with you this summer! Just 5 more weeks!

Lastly, this one is going way back to last fall, my sweet friend and fellow Artisan Award winner Mary Jo at Beauty Lies Within gave me the Rockin' Girl Blogger. I'm sure you're all familiar with MJ by now, she's a true artist and destined to win the Artisan Award again this year, I have no doubt! Hugs, MJ!

Thank you so much ladies! It feels good to catch up on these things! I think it's a phase I'm going through...I won't even admit to what I did last weekend with some of my Christmas cards (not the handmade ones, of course, and I don't mean throwing them out either)...

Have a great night!

Stamp Club Challenge Cards

It's that time of month again! I just finished up my second monthly Stamp Club class today, and I received their March Stamp Club Challenge cards so I can share with you. Andretta won the random prize drawing and received a nice little bag of assorted chipboard pieces for the monthly prize! Thanks for playing ladies, great cards as always!

They started with a card of Basic Black, a strip of Soft Sky Prints DSP, Soft Sky ribbon, a white 5-petal flower, and a black flower rub-on. They're free to add anything else to the card, they just have to use some of each part given to them.

Vina's card:




Hoai's card:Margaret's card:

Andretta's card:

Michelva's card:

Lori's card:

Beverly's card:

And a few random shots from today that I took and am posting...without their permission! hee! hee! First is Eva and Robyn, the second picture is Hoai and Vina. Thanks for coming!

Hope your weekend has been great! Mine has been busy, but not as "productive" as I would have liked...and I think you know I mean "productive" in the stamping sense! lol! I sat at my stamping desk a good three hours last night trying to stamp, but too tired to pick up anything and try it. Ugh! After complaining to dh about it, here's how our conversation went:

DH: Don't worry, take the night off!

Me: But I don't have anything to put on my blog (insert whining noise here).

DH: Don't worry, just post this: "Hi stampers, Angie here! Sometimes a girl feels tired. See ya! Signed, Angie"

Yes, the guy sure is good for laughs. And yes, I did write it down so I would remember (hey, I needed material!). Have a good Sunday night!

{Life is good

Happy Thursday! We had a great Stamp Club last night, thanks for coming girls! After club, I always want to stamp so badly, even though I know should go to bed. So I stamped, but you know how it is when you're so tired you can't think of anything? But I'm stubborn and refused to give up...which resulted in me staying up way TOO late...this is what I managed to complete, finally! lol! I took this photo this morning in my dining room for a change and it turned out pretty well, considering it's still dark outside.

I started by rolling the Dotted Jumbo wheel in Pumpkin Pie on a Kraft cardstock, and it turned out PERFECT! I was stunned. I couldn't get anything I liked with it, though, but I refused to abandon the perfect wheel job, so it eventually got cut down and made into this card. I was thinking how much I enjoyed my friends and how lucky I am, so I got out the level 1 hostess set Make It Count and decided to go with the "Life is...good." I was also trying *not* to use patterned paper...it's become like ribbon, I can hardly make a card without it!

Okay, off to school now. I've been a bad blogging friend, and I'm way behind (I have 134 unread posts on my Google Reader!), but I'll be catching up tonight. Tuesday night I was entering grades in the computer until 11:30 p.m. (darn procrastinating girl!) and last night dh powered down all the computers at 9:30 because of the storm rolling through, so I couldn't even surf after stamp club (most inconvenient for me!).

Have a great Thursday!

Recipe Stamps: Make It Count, Jumbo Dotted Wheel. Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Kraft, Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Only Orange, Pumpkin Pie. Ink: Real Red, Wild Wasabi. Accessories: Real Red Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Bashful Blue Die-cut Bloom, Scallop Circle Punch, A Perfect Day rub-ons, Slit Punch, 1/2" Circle Punch, Foo-fa-La red button, Dimensionals.

Another Birthday Banner Attempt

Happy Wednesday! Thanks so much for stopping by recently and leaving your comments! I really appreciate it, you don't know! Yesterday I had entered exhausted, panic-stricken, breakdown phase and y'all really helped make me feel better, so thanks!

I started working on some birthday swap cards Sunday night and this is what I came up with so far. I'm still not completely satisfied so it may get tweaked some more. You may remember from this post, I wanted to use a party hat turned upside down to make a birthday banner. I found this party hat from the set "A Little Birdie Told Me" and I had seen a card on the Papertrey website where the banner went in rows like this (can't find it right now to link, sorry), so I tried it this time. I'm thinking of changing the "happy" circle to the bird stamp and then adding one of the sayings. I'll post the revised version when I finish it.

I hope your week is going well! I have Stamp Club tonight at 7 p.m. and can't wait. I love the laughs and times with my stamping friends, and I even baked something! So much for fitting into that bridesmaid dress, sigh. lol!

Thanks again for stopping by! Have a great Wednesday!

Recipe Stamps: A Little Birdie Told Me, It's All Good. Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Spring Break DSP. Ink: Not Quite Navy classic pad; Not Quite Navy, Pumpkin Pie & Garden Green markers. Accessories: Pumpkin Pie Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Designer Label Punch, Horizontal Slot Punch, 1 1/4" Circle Punch.

Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #44

Well, Monday came way too fast. It always does, I don't know why I'm surprised! I did manage to complete Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #44 last night, but the lighting was not great for this photo. (I still need to get one of those light tents, and TexasGrammy commented before that I need to speak to her before doing that, so I must call her!) I also made this card for a group challenge "Something Old, Something New"...the something old is the Looks Like Spring set, and the something new was my Nestabilities square scallop die-cut, which was awesome by the way, so I see *more* of those in my near future!!

Anyway, back to the card, it's fairly straightforward...Afternoon Tea DSP and even splurged on a Build-a-Brad. I used the Argyle stamp from Looks Like Spring behind the flower focal point, but you really can't see it. When I showed dh he said, "Well, it's certainly busy." So I added the paper piercing in the corners, just to show him. lol! He's actually very supportive, he just prefers the clean and simple style.

Okay, better get ready for work now. I did manage to walk a mile this morning, after a 3 day hiatus, shame on me! I *HATE* to admit it, but I do feel better when I do it. Ugh! Have a great Monday!

Recipe Stamps: Looks Like Spring. Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Groovy Guava, Soft Sky, Whisper White, Afternoon Tea & Wild Wasabi Prints DSP. Ink: Versamark, Wild Wasabi. Accessories: Heat & Stick Powder, Heat Gun, Celery Fine Cosmo Glitter, Scallop Circle Punch, Paper Piercer, Build-a-Brad, 3/4" Circle Punch, Wild Wasabi Double Stitched Ribbon, Slit Punch, Square Scallops Nestabilities.

Scrapbook Sunday #13

Well, it's been awhile since Scrapbook Sunday, but I finally have some scrapbooking to share! I made this page about a month ago actually, but I had a hard time getting a decent photo of it. I finally gave up! lol! I made this one Sunday while looking at the April issue of Creating Keepsakes. I saw a great one-photo layout on page 54 by Jennifer McGuire (LOVE her!), and I thought "I could do that!" It was very easy to take the basic layout and then make it my own, so try it!

Also, I prepared all the photos from Robyn's Bridal Shower crop on Friday night. There are a lot of photos, so I made a collage to show here and you can see them all here at Flickr. The photos did not turn out great, unfortunately, I should have taken them out of the plastic page protectors. Of course, I waited until the last minute, then I'm trying to photograph, make a 10 minute challenge card, go check out, and pack up my stuff! Argh! Typical Angie stuff!

I'm about to hit panic phase as I face the next few weeks with grades to be entered by Tuesday, stamp club preparations, upcoming bridal showers, final TAKS testing April 29 & 30, starting the last six weeks of school and packing up a classroom of stuff, argh! But did you catch that "starting the last six weeks of school" part? Oh, yeah, it's all gooooood!

Hope you have a great Sunday!

Family Recipe Stamps: Letterpress & Straight Up Mini Alphabet (retired). Cardstock: Basic Gray 12x12 textured, Going Gray, Bordering Blue, Le Jardin DSP (retired). Ink: Jet Black Staz-On, Bashful Blue marker. Accessories: Pretties Kit flower, 2-Way Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Bashful Blue Taffeta Ribbon, Black Scallop strip from a Jenni Bowlin kit, Foo-fa-La buttons, thread, stapler.

Inspiration Challenge

Happy Saturday! Hope your weekend is off to a great start! I got up early and hit the house cleaning, but faded fast and went back to bed until 12:30! How decadent! lol! I guess it's because I didn't get to bed until 1:30 after the crop, but we had a great time, and it was so worth it!

Even though we were mostly doing our 8" x 8" scrapbook pages for Robyn's wedding album (which I will show tomorrow for Scrapbook Sunday), the girls wanted their 10 minute challenge before we left, so I was scrambling to come up with something. Luckily, I saw Robyn's fabulous purse (isn't this purse killer cute?!) so we used it as an inspiration challenge and below here are our results.


Here is my card using Kraft & Chocolate Chip cardstock, Spring Break DSP & small oval punch (for the leaves), Pure Color Pencils (to color the big white flower by Heidi Swapp), and the other flower and green paper are from a Jenni Bowlin kit.

This is by Beverly Mohler:

This is by Lori Franklin (sister of the bride):

This is by Michelva Evans:

This is by Valerie Guilbert:

They are all so springy and fun! Some girls left before the challenge, but we die-hard croppers are always the last ones to leave. I think I'm pretty much the last one to pay my tab and check out every time, I'm sure they love me! lol! And what was I paying for when I checked out? What did I buy?! Well, I bought my first set of Spellbinder's Nestabilities, thanks to Beate (enabler almighty!)! They only had a couple in stock, but I bought the scallop squares and Beverly bought the scallop ovals. I'm off to unpack my stuff and give them a try now, I'll let you know how it goes! Thanks for stopping by and have a super Saturday!