Fun Friday

Hey, all. It's Friday!

Regardless of work schedules, deadlines, piles of laundry, dirty dishes, abundant garden produce that needs attending, I have decided to make it Fun Friday.

Even if I only have a small amount of space in my schedule, I choose to do something fun today.

Our paper birch trees in the front yard provide plenty of peeling paper. I've been experimenting (I shall have to change my middle name to Experimenting). The super thin - paper thin - bark is perfect for stamping! I am so excited to find a use for these sheets of beautiful white.

Sneaking in a little stamping today for my Fun Friday. How about you?

Here is a new way to dry cards if you are short on counter (and kitty-free) space. This works very well.


What to do with all those cards you make (talking to myself here, I have a stash going)?

bundle and give as gifts
send as actual greeting cards - people love real mail
give a set to your child's teacher as a welcome-back-to-school gift
donate a bunch for a charity auction
build a collection for your husband to use in his work
send to neighbors, friends, and family as notes of encouragement or invitation
trade a few with another stamping buddy to build variety
pin favorites to Pinterest (mine are all on a Rubber Stamping board under Angie Quantrell)
make new friends by swapping technique ideas and visiting stamping stores
mail cards to missionaries, family, and friends who are living overseas
display favorites as little works of art
if your coffers overflow (mine have not made it there yet - I enjoy giving them away too much I guess) rent a table at a bazaar and sell a few
sell cards at a charity event and give the proceeds towards a special project

Yes, I do love hobbies with a purpose. Happy Fun Friday!


You are welcome to share this blog post and ideas. Thanks for sharing!

Rubber Stamping Fun - Two Day Marathon = 113 Cards

I'm back from my weeklong hiatus.

Besides the dirty laundry, groceries from Trader Joe's (which we do not have in the Yakima Valley, so I stop in Issaquah whenever I can and race home with the cold stuff under the AC), business cards from new connections, piles of notes and information, and bags of stamping supplies, I also returned with a very special bag.

That bag contained 113 handmade rubber stamped cards. Two days worth of creativity, brainstorming, and tireless work (I might add that my tireless work now begins to run down about 10:00 PM, as opposed to midnight or later when I was younger) was carefully packed into a small bag.

What do we do? Eat, visit, listen to music, walk, eat, sleep a little, and stamp cards. Stamp, fold, cut, trim, glue, tape, glitter, color . . .

It makes me happy. Now I have plenty of new cards to mail to friends and family. And Kevin, compliments of Alyson, has his own box of specially made greeting cards that he can use for his own personal correspondence.

It wasn't long, but we made every minute count.

113 is a good number.

P.S. I will be posting the cards on my Pinterest page, so if you would like to see my creations and perhaps glean an idea or two, go check it out. My Pinterest handle is Angie Quantrell. Look for the Rubber Stamping board.

Creative Mess

How do you create?

For me, creativity comes with a price.

Chaos. Mess. Huge use of space. Disaster (that would be the cat diving across the table into all of the projects).

On the positive side, 99 cards, full use of brain, listening to a complete book on CD (the neighbor did it, the cats helped discover secret things), great meals and use of quinoa, Chinese soup dumplings, chocolate ice cream with hot fudge sauce (sorry Dr. P.), visiting, sharing tools and supplies, idea swapping...

I'd say the positives outweigh the sort of negatives. Not that I mind mess, chaos, used space, or the occasional disaster.

You should see my office.