What am I doing?

Well, I don't even know if I'll tell my mom I'm starting a blog. She thinks they're crazy, but she also still doesn't know how to do much more than turn a computer on - not much love for technology on her part :) I still love ya though Mom, and you can keep calling me when you need help with making your computer cooperate!

I guess the blog bug bit me, and I thought it would be fun to post things and see what my friends think. It will be an easy way to let people know what I'm up to, without having to spend a lot of time doing it.

Perhaps no one will even look at this, but if they do they will find that it's full of updates on my girls, but also updates on my newest passion - stamping. Yes, that's right. I clearly remember making fun of my scrapbooking friends while I attended the Air Force Academy, but now I do it too! I do it better though - I use STAMPS!!

I love my new hobby - so much so that I signed up to be an Independent Stampin' UP! (SU!) demonstrator. So, not only do I love doing the stuff but I love sharing how I do it with others. I have always been fond of giving people gifts, or surprising them with little things that remind me of them, or let them know I'm thinking about them. Well, this is the perfect way for me to really put some thought into their gift, along with making it really personal.

But - enough about that. I'm not the most open book out there - so you won't get a lot of mush out of me, but hopefully what I say here will interest at least someone - even if that's only me! :)

Here's a picture of my very first card that I submitted to SU! for a contest. I submitted it under the "Ho Ho Holidays" category that they had for the month of October. I'll find out about the middle of November who won. It's a very simple card, but it's the first one that I've EVER made that didn't involve at least two layers on the card. It was fun keeping it to one layer and "clean" looking. I hope that you like it. I do love those arctic animals - especially penguins! Did you know that seals eat penguins?!?!? I didn't. Anyway, here's my card:

This card was more complicated to make than it looks. First, I had to create a stencil for the "windows" that the penguins are peeking out of. I used my 1 3/4" square punch to do this. After the stencil was done, I used a sponge dauber to fill in the windows with a pastel in the color Tempting Turquoise. Next, I used post-it notes to mask the edges of the windows and I stamped the penguins. I used my pastel eraser to erase the color out of the penguin's white parts. Lastly I used my fun new stamp set Happy Everything to create the holidy greeting at the bottom of the card. Well, I should go now. I'll write some about my little cutie pies in my next post. We'll see how often I can get on here to blog/blab. Take care!