A. Russ Original

I’ve been busy with life lately and haven’t posted any card updates… I’ve made a few birthday cards, a father’s day card, even a congratulations card for a friend who recently got a ‘two star’ promotion… I’ve got this years Russ Christmas card designed… making the finial paper selections soon and hope to have them all made by the end of next month… but for now enjoy these beauties!                                                                                                                                                       ...

I have been keeping my birthday list on a sheet of graph paper for years. Yes, I know while it’s not flashy or trendy… it was functional. And if I am anything, I am functional! But with this in mind… I wanted to have a system that was re-usable, something that I wouldn’t have to re-write each year, something that I could add other projects to it and keep up with everything in a single calendar format.         So one rainy afternoon, I sat down at the craft table and put together this cute little ‘Celebration’ calendar.                It was shortly after I had made the scrap box , so I had lots of large scraps, so I used them as the monthly sheets. I had printed out the months with the dates on a half of an 8 1/2” x 11” sheet. using the corner slot punch I made slots to place the calendar sheets. The back of the previous months sheet will be used to leave sticky notes about non-birthday card projects, like the ...

  In most of the circles I move in, I am known as a crafty person… for some reason…Some of my friends call me ‘Martha’ …   they all think I’ve gotten some talent for all things crafty! Recently I had a friend send me a note with a picture of a wreath and said that I was the only person she knew that could pull it off, very flattering for me… but I had never made a wreath before! So, I headed out to the Hobby Lobby to see what I could get into… I found a book there on wreaths… so I stood there in the store and read through it. It didn’t seem too difficult… so I loaded up on supplies and headed home…  I goggled a few how-to videos and then hit pintrest for even more ideas. I have to admit that it was a little frustrating at first… but it soon clicked and I was off to the races! I only took one ‘in progress’ picture, but it shows the process I used, pipe cleaners. Or as they are now called, ‘chenille stems’ really folks… since when… they’ve ALWAYS been pipe cleaners...

Have you seen the the pin on Pintrest for the ‘welcome” or “hello” door vinyl? No, then here… go check it out and then come back … we’ll wait for you… OK, when I first saw that, I wanted to put it on my door that afternoon! I loved it… but I wasn’t sure my husband would love it as much… so I waited a little while to let my excitement for it die down (just a bit) and I randomly asked if he’d be opposed to me giving the front door a fresh coat of paint and adding a little personalization to it after the paint cured… he said sure go ahead! Well, that was all I needed to hit the ground running! I got to work on the cricut to locate the font I liked… then, I was like,”‘why stop at ‘welcome’” … I have a cute set of kitty cut files for the cricut… I found the purrfect one for the door… after all, we are kitty folks why not share with (or warn) visitors our furry friends that occupied the house too! After a trip to the hardware store to locate the paint for the door, I ordered the right sh...