A Muse News

Sprinkle a little fairydust...

...with a beautiful DIY wand!

Bella and Makenna had fun making fairy wands last weekend.  With a wee bit of supervision and help from me, they were able to complete this project mostly by themselves.  This would be a great activity for a birthday party!

Ingredients:

• Assortment of  A Muse ribbon (sheer and polka dot will give the tightest curls)
• 3" wide tulle ribbon
• 7 to 10 - 1/4" wood dowels (12" long) - we carry these in our store if you are not able to find them locally... give us a call.
• wooden clothespins
• baking sheet
• 1/4" scor-tape
• glitter
• hot glue gun

Directions:

Hold ribbon end in place on wooden dowel with a clothespin.  Wrap ribbon around the dowel until you reach the end.  Hold ribbon in place with another clothespin. {If you run out of clothespins, as we did, an adult can pin the ribbons in place with straight pins.)

 

Place dowels on baking sheet. When you have 7 to 10 dowels with ribbon for each wand, you are ready to bake your ribbons! Have an adult place the baking sheet in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for 20 minutes at 250F.  Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes to cool.

Unroll ribbon from wooden dowl.  They should be very curly!

Align ribbon strands to cut them into shorter pieces (approx. 4" of curled ribbon - you should get THREE pieces from each strand).

Cut tulle into 6" strips. Cut 1- 12" strip of A Muse ribbon. 

Combine curly ribbon and tulle.  Use the 12" strip of ribbon to tie up the curls and tulle, pull tight.

{note: we forgot to put in the tulle in this photo and didn't get a photo with the tulle - sorry! So, remember to add the tulle!!}

Wand:

Wrap scor-tape around a wooden dowel in an upwards spiral.  Remove liner tape.  Hold dowel on an angle and pour glitter over exposed adhesive. Be sure to place a piece of paper under your work to catch the excess glitter.

Assembly:

An adult should do this part.  Heat glue gun.  Apply liberal amount of glue to one end of wand.  Place the ribbon bouquet into the hot glue.  {We used the knotted side so the longer ribbons would hang down the wand}.

Voila!

 

You could also make fun hair clips and ties with curly ribbon or use it on a card. 

SUPER fun, right?

Inspiring Ideas 10/07

Blow me down, I could not resist--I have 3 super-fab card designs to share with ya' today!  AND, I found my Pumpkin Dip recipe!  I'm just full o' crafty goodness, eh?! *chuckle*

Well, ready or not, here it comes!  *chinkle*

MISS YOU
By Becky

So, how many folks have ever considered turning the scarecrow into a GIRLY scarecrow?  Isn’t Becky’s unique take just darling?   Clever girl!  I love how she trimmed a scrap of Madeira Green paper with deckle scissors to make the “grass”, and the little frame from the Rectangle Frames Set was perfect to make this “Miss you” sign!  So soft and sweet!

[Stamps:  Scarecrow, Miss You, Tiny Bird, Frame (from Rectangle Frame Set); Paper:  Kitchen Brown Note Card, and Vintage Brown Paper; Ribbon:  Popsicle Pink Stitched Grosgrain]

I’D RATHER BE STAMPING!
By Elena

Genius, doncha’ think?  This just cracked me!  Elena masked off the teacup that normally sits atop the books, and stamped them a mile high, one stack on top of the next.  Then, she masked off the bottom of the stack to stamp Boris—yes, that’s BORIS behind that stack! I can’t stop giggling over this one!

[Stamps:  Boris, Stack of Books, Mini Oval, “I’d rather be Stamping”; Paper:  Kitchen Blueberry Note Card]

HAPPY FALL
By Emily

This design is positively PERFECT for mass producing—I think we all sometimes forget that you don’t always have to color something in to get a great look, and this demonstrates that point wonderfully!

[Stamps:  Wheat, Tiny Pumpkin, “Happy fall”; Paper:  Vintage Orange Note Card]

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Aren't these terrific?  The Muses always get my creative juices flowin', I tell ya'!

And, now, as promised, that pumpkin dip recipe:

PUMPKIN DIP (Beware, this makes a LOT of dip; you can always halve the recipe if need be!)

2 bricks of cream cheese, softened
1 large can pumpkin
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. pumpkin pie spice
1 lb. powdered sugar (yes, an entire pound; I never said this was gonna be low-cal, peeps!)

Mix all the above with a mixer in a big bowl.  Serve with some crispy apple slices.  Or gingersnaps.  Or both. *chuckle* 

I bring this to potlucks in the Fall, make it at Christmas time, and give to friends/family in pretty little ceramic serving bowls.  It's always a big hit, and disappears fast!  Enjoy!

Carved crayons

This is amazing!

A 'Nutty' cake

A few friends have asked me to post a pic of Hailey's 10th birthday cake.  I thought it would be fun to have a nutcracker cake since she was a red infantry soldier in PNBs Nutcracker.  I was in a rush to get Hailey to a performance the day of her birthday and didn't have time to finish the icing.  Luckily my mom was able to do it, with Nina's help for the face.  We never did eat the hat... the black icing would have been very messy! 

Here's Hailey & her Red Infantry castmates - aren't they adorable?!!  Hailey is second from the right.

One of my kids' favourite things is to have a *money* cake.  To do this, we wrap coins in waxed paper and throw then in the batter when baking the cake.  It's always fun to find *M-O-N-E-Y* in your piece (especially Canadian money because there are $1 & $2 coins!!)  If you try this, please be sure to warn everyone that there is money in the cake to avoid any accidental swallowings!!

I have found that small children are disappointed when they don't get money in their piece.  So if you don't want any glum faces, you can add the money to the cake once it is baked.  Simply cut a slit into the cake and put the coins (wrapped in waxed paper) along the edges so when you cut the cake, you have a pretty good idea where the money is.  Shhh - don't tell my kids I do this!!

Another idea that I have seen is to put a small ceramic figurine (1" high) in the cake batter as a special prize.  If you want to keep the figurine to re-use later, you can give the recipient a little 'prize' in exchange for the figurine.  Our local antique shop has a bunch of these figurines ($5 each).

For more fabulous cake ideas be sure to check out Lexi's blog.  She is the Queen of cakes!

Weekend plans...

This weekend, I am looking forward to making something with this:

and I'm going to help my mom make a few of these:

We are also planning to do some skiing... provided they got the power back at our ski hill (the chair lifts are as old as the ark and are not very reliable). If not, it may be a good time to break out our cross-country & skate-skiing gear.

Edited to add:  I will also be working behind the scenes on something NEW that you will hear about next week.  You won't want to miss it because it involves a fantastic NEW line of stamps. Nope - they are not from A Muse, but we will be the exclusive distributor for them.  Wahoo!  More stamping goodness is on the way!

Enjoy your weekend.

Party curls

I'm sure every little girl wished to be a hair-stylist at some point.  I sure did!

Look what I got to do this weekend.

Hailey and her friend Mary were asked to dress as Party Girls to work in the Press Room at a matinee Nutcracker performance last weekend. 

Here they are before at the Santa Claus breakfast in their curls.  Aren't they adorable?

These curls are definitely a work of art.  You need hot rollers, a can of Freeze it! (24-hour hold) and some good clips.  First you soak each strand of hair with Freeze it!, roll the hair and secure with a clip.  The curlers need to stay in for an hour but we helped speed up the process by using a hair dryer.  The curls are crunchy when you take them out but they lasted almost all day!  A fun hairdo for the holidays.

Calendar fun for the WHOLE family!

Last week, my girls had some friends over after school.  I thought they might enjoy making calendars so I had them printed and waiting for them. 

The girls had a *marvelous* time!!  They carefully cut out each month with scissors, glued them to some A Muse notecards (I let them pick the colors - that was a big hit!), assembled the pages with A Muse ribbons (holes were made with my handy-dandy Bind-All) and decorated with stickers.  They were busy for over 90 minutes and didn't want to go home until they finished their calendars so we had to invite them for dinner! LOL!

Here is a collage of the calendars made by my girls (ages 5, 7 & 9).  If you click on the photo it should open in a separate window and show you more detail.  Aren't they fun?

 

My girls *loved* this project so much, they are begging me to make more!  I'm sure boys would have fun with this activity too.   It only costs $3 to purchase the A Muse 2008 Calendar file.  100% of the proceeds will benefit Scleroderma Research, an often fatal disease that affects mostly women during their child-bearing years.  Your support is greatly appreciated!

For more information on Scleroderma, please visit:

Scleroderma.org
Scleroderma Research Foundation

Thank you!

How fun is this?!

Make your own money or playing cards here.  Makenna is going to *love* this! 

What do to with plastic bags?

You gotta check out some of these ideas!!  Hmmm... maybe I could knit dh some socks made from plastic bags for Christmas.

Experimenting

I have been playing around with a plastic light switch "thingy".  I'm sure my husband could tell me what they are actually called but he's not here.

Really, I'm just experimenting with a bunch of different things.  So far I have:

• colored the thingy with my New Leaf Copic marker
• gone over the New Leaf with the Copic colorless blender
• painted two layers of Gesso over top
• Stamped with Stazon
• Colored a wee bit more with Copics

Now I'm thinking about adding a layer (or two) of Mod podge.

DH saw it the other day and asked what it was.  I told him I was just experimenting with stuff.  He replied "YOU?!!! - I thought it was Annabelle's".  I guess it is safe to say that this would not be a welcome addition to any of the light switches in our house.  Maybe I'll make him one for Christmas! <grin>

A quick book

After her ballet lesson on Wednesday, Hailey told me she needed a notebook for her next lesson on Thursday. I just love <heavy sarcasm here> when my girls say things like... "I need cupcakes for school tomorrow" or "I need a halo for tomorrow" (at catholic school, apparently this is a common one!) 

I'm sure you've all been there too.

This time it was no problem.  I had just purchased a bunch of composition books on sale earlier in the week ($0.50 each).  I used some of my lovely Collage Press paper and covered each side with a different print, added coordinating chipboard alphas to spell her name and added some bling.  The only thing it needed was a pen holder.  For this, I used a piece of plastic from the recycle bin.  I wanted something that would be stiff enough to hold the pen and last a while.  I covered it with cardstock and used brads to secure it to the back cover.  The only problem... it's kind of a big pen holder! LOL!

Total project time: 10 minutes.

Here's a picture of Hailey holding her new book.

I *heart* these composition books. They make fast and easy gifts and can easily be personalized for the recipient.  AND, they are likely still on sale today where you purchase your school supplies. 

My husband asked if I'd make him one with *cool* patterned paper.  Maybe for Christmas...

<just kidding!>

Martha... really?

First let me say that I am a huge Martha fan and one day when I grow up, I'd like to be her. I'm afraid, however, that is not likely. 

I have been receiving emails from Martha for many years now (see, we are on a first name basis).  I usually give them a quick glance.  Once in a while I will delve in a little further.

The most recent email from Martha caught my eye.  It is entitled "Tour Martha's Dream Craft Room."  My curiosity was piqued and I simply had to take a look.  I like to consider myself a crafty person.  However, my crafting spaces bear little ressemblance to  the ones featured in this web article.

Here is Martha is at her craft table... it looks a little small to me. The counter in my studio is 13' wide and I still run out of space!

Do your drawers look like this?  Wow!  I try to always put my supplies away after I use them but my drawers have *never* been this organized. 

What does your craft space look like? 

Do you think anyone has ever really crafted in this space?

Really?

Fun giveaway...

Over at Jenn's blog.  You just need to post a comment to win.  Good luck!

Do you scrap?

I have not done much "classic" scrapbooking in the past 10 years.  {"Classic" = with paper & actual printed photos vs. digital where everything is done electronically and you just print the finished page). 

Why not?  I love photos (have gazillions of them) and used to make fun photo albums (prior to the whole scrapbookin craze!)  Since the birth of my eldest daughter (9 years ago) I have made 5 "classic" scrapbook pages.  Can you believe it?!!!

Recently, I have discovered lots of fun mini-album options and I have been very motivated to play with my papers & photos & stamps.  I think the main reason why I didn't catch the scrapbook fever ('cause I'm the perfect demographic target) is because I find working with a large canvas too intimidating. 

It all makes sense to me now...  A Muse stamps are tiny.  Our notecards are smaller than average.  I love thin ribbon and tiny embellishments.  Small is very BIG with me. 

Last night I whipped up these fun little pages to make a winter mini book for my girls.  The girls were thrilled when they saw them at breakfast this morning. I might get hooked on this... nothing like a little positive feedback to keep 'ya going.

 

Don't forget to post your comments on the post below to enter your name to my blog giveaway.  One lucky winner will be chosen on Thursday night.

Have a bee-utiful day!

the POWER of Vi!

My mom is *the* craftiest person I know!  She has tried almost every craft and is skilled at everything! 

In addition to mass producing thousands of sample cards for A Muse each year, she somehow finds time to:

• knit - ponchos, hats & mitts for my 3 girls
• sew - umpteen dresses for all of girls & 27 yards of curtain panels for the shop (stay tuned for the scoop on how we'll be using these!)
• construct - wood birdhouses
• create - projects with stained glass
• manage - the extensive gardens at her home
• cut --over an acre of grass each week (2x/week in the summer)

Today she reupholstered two stools in my office that were threadbare and it only took her about 20 minutes!

Here's the before picture:

... and the after picture:

We went shopping for fabric yesterday... look what we found!  Lots of Tracy Porter fabrics on sale at Js ($2/yard!!)  The top 3 will be summer dresses for the girls, the pink polka dots are for the shop and the bottom one I just couldn't resist! LOL!

We had a planning meeting last week and we all agreed that "the power of Vi" is our secret weapon!!   

Here she is putting the one of my stools back together.  Makenna wanted everyone to know she helped too!

Love you, mom!

staying warm

"Baby it's cold outside!"  We found a fun way to stay warm today.  My girls and I made these lovely "winter warm-ups". Just pop one in the microwave and it will chase away the cold (aches & pains too!)

A friend gave me one of those microwavable heating things (do they have a name?) 5 years ago while I was pregnant.  You see, I was x-country skiing with her when I was 7 months pregnant and she accidentally fell on me as we were getting off the chair.  Baby was fine but I tore the cartilage around my tailbone which was rather painful (especially when you are pregnant and cannot take any anti-inflammatory drugs!)  My friend is a Massage Therapist and she knew this would help tremendously.  My "heater thing" became everyone's best friend... until last week when it tore apart making a HUGE mess. We cried for days over the loss!!

Being  crafty gals, we decided to make some - one for everyone in the family! Before Christmas, I found some wool sweaters at the Goodwill.  These sweaters had been cast off due to laundry mishaps - obviously washed in hot water or put in the dryer.  We put them to good use!  Our two sweaters have so far yielded:

• 2 Christmas stockings
• 1 headband
• 2 draftstoppers
• 5 "winter-warm ups"
• 1 doll blankie

To make your very own "winter warm-up" , simply sew up a shape with and fill with rice (or buckwheat).  We added some lavender to make them smell good.  For the larger shapes, we put them in the microwave for 2 minutes total.  For the smallest size 30 seconds is perfect!

This is a fun project.  It was my 4-year old's first attempt at sewing and she did great!  Hers is the little green one on top with the pink flower (I added the flower for her!)

If you are going to try this, be sure to use items that are 100% pure wool.  Wash  in very HOT water.  Your garment should shrink a lot and the weave will become so tight (this process is called "felting") that when you cut into it you won't have to worry about the stitches unravelling. 

Have fun!

A treat for you!

**ETA** - we'll pick a winner tonight so you can add your name to the list through 8:00 p.m. PST. ***

Last February I attended the Craft Hobby & Stitch show in Birmingham, England.   One of the highlights of the show for me was to meet Anna Davenport, publisher of three Card-making magazines at Origin Publishing. 

I am lucky enough to receive these publications by Royal Post (I get a kick out of that!) each month.  My mom and I have both read the most recent issues and would like to share these magazines with one lucky blog reader.

If you would like to win these three gorgeous magazines, just post a quick comment here and we'll draw for a winner on Monday.  Have a great weekend!

A crafty party

I am so lucky to have 3 very crafty girls.  They can sit for hours and quietly make stuff and they are pretty good about cleaning up too!

We had to postpone Hailey's birthday party with her school friends because of my broken thumb.  I just didn't see how we could have a crafty party if I only had one good hand to use.  I knew my mom would be here in January so that's when we decided we would have the party.  She is the queen of crafts!

The party was yesterday after school at the A Muse shop.  The main activity was making paper dolls and the girls LOVED it!  I was a little worried that they would be finished too quickly and we'd have to find other things to do.  I had a few other activities planned just in case. 

The girls spent over 2 hours working on their dolls!  First they cut them out and assembled them - I stamped them all in advance using the paper doll stamp that I picked up in MA.  Then they made clothes, hair and accessories for their dolls.  One of the highlights for the girls was to use my dymo punch labeller... you know, the old kind that uses that plastic tape. 

I was amazed by the thought and effort the girls put into their dolls.  Unfortunately I did not get a picture of all the dolls.  Many of the parents came early because of a little snowstorm we had last night.  I did take a few pictures of some of the dolls.  Makenna (my 4yo) made quite a few of these ones - the ones made by the girls at the party were quite a bit more sophisticated! LOL!

Look at the hair on this gal!

Here is a picture of the party invite.  It was super fast & easy to make.  I used our ribbon stamp (7-2413D) and It's a party (9-8013C). The invite "tag" was done on the computer. 

 

I borrowed Heather & Emily's cupcake topper idea.  Aren't they sweet?

Here they are on the cupcakes (expertly frosted by my husband, Ross).

One more party thing to share... To get things ready for the party, I stamped all of the paper doll body parts onto file folders.  These are stiff enough to make good dolls but easier for the girls to cut out than chipboard.  I stamped two complete bodies for each girl so that they could each have one to make at home - brads included too!  Everything was then put into a file folder stamped with the girls' names using our polka dot letters lowercase alph set (7-PDLSM).  This was a great way to keep everything organized and the girls LOVED their folders. 

OK - one last photo to share.  Here is a birthday card that I made for Hailey.  I love our Paisley alpha set.  This card uses the number nine from our Paisley number set. 

Thanks for reading all the way down!

Digital Scrapbook pages

I love paper!  I love stamps!  and I love my Canon 20-D digital camera! 

I have tried "traditional" scrapbooking over the years but never made much progress.  5 pages in 8 years is not so a good record! 

About a year and a half ago I "discovered" digital scrapbooking and it just clicked for me.  Digital scrapbooking is fast & easy.  I now have not one but 5 albums filled with memories.   Not only is this fun for my immediate family but it is a great way to share what is going on with loved ones that are miles away.  I post my pages online and then send the link to family & friends to see what we've been up to. 

I must admit, I'm a little behind on my scrapbooking at the moment.  I quickly scrapped some photos from Hailey's Circus Polka debut.  My digi-style is simple - just like my card style!  I don't have time to fuss with a lot of detail. LOL!  If you've been reading my blog, you've seen these pictures before.  Here's a two-page layout I created with them.

'

These pages are 8" x 8".  Aaron Brothers has simple black 12 x 12 frames that have an inner mat cut to an 8" x 8" size.  I'm going to frame the top one.

Here's one more layout I did for Hailey's soccer team.  The school colors are purple & gold, hence the shocking purple background!  I made a page for each girl on her team plus coaches so the layout needed to be super simple.  This layout took me no longer than 5 minutes!

Note: There are many resources online on how to do digital scrapbooking.  I'm no expert, that's for sure.  I use Microsoft Publisher because it makes sense to me.  It is a page layout program that easily handles photos, text and more.  I do use PhotoShop to edit some of my photos but I simply cannot understand how people use it for digi-scrapping. 

Do you scrapbook?

Happy Hallowe'en!

We decided to make Halloween treats for Hailey, Annabelle & Makenna's classmates.  The girls really liked the ones that Greta made but wanted to give a "bigger" treat.  So, we borrowed Paige's idea and used Kit Kats instead.  We had to modify the design somewhat.  This was easy to do and a much more manageable size for the girls to work with.  We used the Marvy Mega Scallop circle punch.

For Annabelle's treats (she's 6), I did the stamping and the coloring.  She helped with the assembly. Hailey pretty much did hers by herself (she's 8).  She had fun sponging ink around the edges to give them some color.  This was her idea.  Makenna helped by opening the bags of chocolate (I think she was sneaking  a few when I wasn't looking!), and gluing the chocolate bars in place (she's 4 and LOVES glue!)

Here's a few photos I took this morning.  These are Annabelle's treats:

These are Hailey's treats:

Makenna did not want her treats photographed. LOL!

This is a fun photo from our trip to the corn maze last weekend...

Have a fun Hallowe'en!

Yummy!

I made these and they were really yummy.  They disappeared too fast to take a photo!

Knit happens

Last week I met a new customer at the shop.  She is working on her holiday gifts.  This year she is making hand-made soaps and hand-knit washcloths.  How fun is that?!  She showed me the washcloths and I couldn't resist taking a photo with our new knitting stamps.

These washcloths are super easy for even the most novice knitter.  They are made from 100% cotton yarn.  Begin with two rows of garter stitch and then create  a pattern of 4 knit & four pearl for four rows.  Then do 4 pearl/4 knit.  Continue until you've got a square and voila!  I may have to try this... when my finger heals, of course!

Are you making any hand-made gifts this year?  Post here and let us know!

I'm in love!

I have been lusting after hand-crank pinking machines on Ebay for over a year now.  I'd place a bid every so often but the prices were OUTRAGEOUS!  Sometimes over $150!!

Well, a few weeks ago I managed to snag one for quite a reasonable price! ($36)  It arrived in the mail a few days ago and the girls and I have been pinking everything in sight!

It works great on both fabric & paper.  I am busy making some flags for the store and it works like a charm.  Just look at this beautiful edge!

I tell ya, I'm in love! xoxoxo

Chocolate Heaven recipe

I have had many requests for my "chocolate heaven" (as dubbed by Juliehrr!) recipe.  This recipe came from a cookbook and so due to copyright laws, I am unable to post it here. 

The real name of the recipe is Chocolate Ganache Cake and it hails from the book Barefoot Contessa Parties. (Unfortunatley this recipe is not posted there but there are LOTS of other yummy recipes to try.  Next up are lemon bars!) The book is available at Amazon for purchase.

I'm sure you can find similar recipes at www.epicurious.com or elsewhere online.  The recipe includes butter, sugar, eggs, Hershey's chocolate syrup, vanilla & flour. 

I added the fresh raspberries for decoration and because I LOVE chocolate & raspberries together!

Yummmm!

Piece of cake!

Here's something you may not know about me... I *love* to bake!  I think the baking gene was passed down to me from my grandmother and mother - both terrific bakers!  My girls also love to bake so I think it runs in the family.

I've been wanting to bake this yummy cake that we feasted on during our visit to Quebec.  My friend mailed me the recipe and I was shocked at how simple it was.  Yummy & easy - what more could you ask for?!

I decided to make it to serve at our our annual block party last night.  When I read the recipe and saw that it called for an 8" round pan I didn't think it would suffice for the block party - we usually get a really great turnout.  So, I made two.  Turns out that we ate only one cake.  Luckily I found a good home for the cake and at this very moment it is on its way to Eastern Washington to a stamping get together with Miss Julie!! 

No time for stamping the past few days... busy baking and working on new stamp designs! 

Have a great weekend!

Linda