I'm Back!

Yes, I took a break from blogging - not a good thing, I know, if I want people to keep coming back! I changed jobs so I "should" have more time for stamping and blogging. My commute is much longer so I might have to cram all my stamping into the weekends and make enough projects to post all week. We'll have to see.

Due to technical difficulties, I am unable to post the promised project - I'll try again tonight.

I DO have a special for bloggers! Check out my website at www.susanstamps.stampinup.net and the on-line order system. Send me an email at swhokanson@aol.com (this is not my normal stamping email) and I'll send you die cuts made with my Big Shot using an exclusive die from Stampin' UP! Offer ends Sunday, September 14.

Thank you for your continued interest!

Treat Container

These are great little treat containers that can hang on a bottle of wine, water, or with a larger hole, a door knob. It is a 3-d item so the background is a little blurry. The Hershey chocolate sticks fit well in these. You can make the holder a little shorter and the single drink tubes you pour into water fit in these. I love the saying on this container!

Unity Butterfly

I received a box of stamps from Unity Stamps today and had to do something with this butterfly! You can't see the glitter on the wings; this butterfly is perfect for glitter! I'll have to play some more with the glitter to see if I can make something that will show up better. The daisy and butterfly are from the Buzzin' Around set. The daisies and butterfly were colored with SU watercolor crayons.

Crimping Cards

I love to read Jan Tink's posts (see the link to Stamps, Paper, Scissors)! She is hilarious in addition to being a fantastic stamper! She recently posted crimped cards that, of course, I thought were wonderful, so I decided to pull out my crimper, dust it off and start using it. This card uses my old favorite "Watercolor Garden" using Yoyo Yellow, Garden Green, Only Orange and Basic Black. The cardstock is Whisper White, Garden Green and Kraft. I sponged Garde Green ink around the edges.

Graduation Cards

May was a pretty hectic month. I was out of town almost every weekend and worked long hours during the week. My mother had surgery on her leg again; this time they had to remove her artificial knee. They replaced it with a ceramic holder filled with antibiotics. In September, if the infection is completely gone, they'll put a new knee in. (Sounds worse than it is, she assures me!)

Fallon has not returned yet and KC was driving me crazy! She would be good for Noel all day but once I came home, she would pick up all kinds of things (mostly stamping stuff) to get my attention. I couldn't get anything done at home! Last week, we adopted a 4 month old black lab. I'll try to upload a picture of the two of them. Molly is a mini-KC who minds better! KC is doing much better with Molly here and doesn't bug me quite so much. I even took them with me to my mom's house for the weekend (Mom was released from the hospital on Saturday.) Both dogs did very well and behaved themselves. A bonus: Molly has not gone to the bathroom in the house once! I guess she follows KC outside and goes there. No potty training!

I finally figured out how to scan in pictures on our new computer. These turn out much better than when I take pictures and upload them! I made these cards for the graduating students at church. I love the background which is "Sanded". I used a discontinued graduation set for the "congratulations" and the dipoloma.

April Hostess Club Swaps

These are the cards from my Hostess Club Swap. I have one more but the picture needs to be cropped before I can add it to this blog.

This card was made by Robin Rusmiselle.
This card was made by Cathy Clauer.

This card was made by Linda Schroeder.

April Workshops - Tile & Crackle

I absolutely love, love, love this tile technique! I have seen lots of samples of it and just had to feature it, along with crackled embossing, in my April workshops. The set is from the Spring Mini Catalog. Finally, a masculine card I really like!

My hostess, Robin Rusmiselle, was kind enough to scan the cards from our workshop Friday night. Here is the card she made:

This is the second card we made at the workshop on Friday. The image was triple embossed with ultra-thick clear embossing powder, then cracked.
Robin also scanned in the cards we swapped on Friday. I'll post them tomorrow.