New Home

Hi Everyone!

I hope that you had a nice Labor Day weekend.  Mine was busy and fun.  I am still in the process of unpacking and organizing 35 years of teaching materials, but finally feel as if I am making some progress.  I stopped on my way home from a training today to pick up storage containers for my cds and plastic drawers for my paper.  My goal is to finally have everything organized and put away by the time I go to bed on Thursday night.  I may be reaching for the stars, but maybe I will pull it off.  Maybe.

I mentioned in a previous blog that a friend of mine asked if I had any "new home" cards and I didn't, but said I would create some and give her first choice.  I did order one set of clear stamps to help me create them, but I just ordered them last night so it will be a while before I get them, use them, and tell you about them. 

On Sunday MaryBeth and I went to Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA.  First we had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Four 66 in Danvers.  Toni introduced me to that restaurant and then I introduced it to several of my other friends and now we all go there when visit Topsfield for a papercrafting shopping trip.

After a yummy lunch we went to Absolutely Everything and spent 3 hours there!  3 hours, Janet!  3 hours!!!

There was tons of stuff there for fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas so of course we had to stop and study ALL of it.  3 hours after we had entered the store we each left with big smiles on our faces and a heavy bag full of new things.  If you live in the area I strongly suggest that you visit that store.  In addition to carrying "absolutely everything" that you could ever want for papercrafting, they seriously have the nicest and most helpful staff I have ever met in any store.

I bought some new dies for my Cuttlebug and/or Big Kick.  One of the dies I bought  for my Big Kick is called "Caged Bird" which is from Tim Holtz's Alterations collection for Sizzix.  I love this die.  There's a bird cage, a bird on a stick, and a wing for the bird.  I have several bird "text" stamps that I can see myself using with the die, but I also thought it would be an adorable die to use for my first "new home" card. 

I used a sheet of gold glitter cardstock from the dcwv Amber Autuman small fall stack for the bird cage.  It makes the cage sparkle and reminds me of a cage my sister Jeanne once had for her parakeets.  I paper pierced some holes in the background paper and then used a back stitch to create a chain to hold the bird cage.  After I stitched it I wished I had used a chain stitch instead, but I can do that on another card one of these days.  "New home" was stamped with a Hampton Art wooden stamp.  I used scraps for the bird, stick, and tag.  I am very happy with the card. 

This turkey triangle treat holder is from

Inky Antics.  It's a very easy project and something you may want to think about creating for your Thanksgiving table.  First you use a wooden stamp to stamp out the treat holder.  You cut out your stamped image, score on some of the lines you stamped, and then fold on the scores and you have a small triangle shaped container. The stamped image shows you exactly where to punch the holes that you run the ribbon or cord through to tie the container closed.

The turkey clear stamps are sold separately in a package called Turkey and Crow.  I stamped some feathers onto red, orange, and yellow scraps; stamped the hat on green, and the wattle/beak on orange. There is a stamp for the eyes too, but I just drew mine on with a Sharpie.  Once everything is stamped you just cut it out and glue it to the triangular container.  Now the cool thing is that there are many other clear stamps that you can purchase to make containers for other occasions.  Things like a witch, a polar bear, Santa, a dog, a penguin and more!

That's it for today.  Time to do some more cleaning. 
Carol