Christmas Lodge will always be one of my favorite Christmas sets. Sadly, it is scheduled to be retired on June 3rd.  (You can check out the Retiring Lists at the end of this post).  If you love this set as much as I do, and if you have not ordered it yet, please don’t hesitate. Here are some of my favorite Christmas Lodge cards that I have created.  Enjoy!

Muffy Passes Her Echocardiogram!

One of the prerequisite tests that a responsible Boxer owner performs on their furbabies prior to breeding is an echocardiogram.  An echocardiogram is the best tool for diagnosing sub-aortic stenosis (SAS) and for determining the origin and significance of heart murmers.  Boxer owners are lucky because each year, at the National Specialty, the American Boxer Club arranges for low-cost echocardiograms to be conducted.  This year, the nation’s foremost expert on the Boxer heart, Dr. Kate Meurs, DVM, PhD., Board Certified Veterinary Cardiologist and her team performed the test.  

Now we all know that Muffy is a health-conscious girl.  She knows the importance of good hygiene…

She exercises regularly.

She dresses appropriately when the weather is chilly…

And she gets plenty of sleep.

The great news is that Dr. Meurs said that Muffy passed her echo, and is SAS clear.  Woo hoo!

Other Great Boxer News

And in other great news on the Boxer front, Lexi’s brother, Tyler, won his class at the National Futurity and was Reserve National Junior Futurity Winner.  Little Lexi is proud of her big brother!  And if Lexi continues to eat and gain those precious ounces, she will be giving the Boxer girls a run for their money this summer!

Thanks so much for sharing in my good news today. After a hectic weekend, things are getting caught up here at The Stampin’ Schach and I am ready to stamp…and catch up on emails.  Until next time…

It’s Sunday, and time to play with  The Paper Players.  This week, the talented Anne Marie is challenging us to make Mother’s Day cards.  I decided to pull out my Postage Due stamp and create a card I think my mother would have loved, using three new colors:  Coastal Cabana and Baked Brown Sugar (both In Colors), and the new neutral, Smoky Slate.  Enjoy!

The Stampin’ Schach Design Tips
This card measures 5-1/2″ wide by 4-1/4″ long.

• Beautiful blossoms! The Postage Due stamp was inked first in Baked Brown Sugar and stamped onto Very Vanilla card stock.  The blossom section was then inked in Calypso Coral, and snipped out.  Dazzling Diamonds Stampin’ Glitter and Pearls add glitz and glam.

• Distress! The sentiment “for everything you are to me”, from Petite Pairs, was stamped in Soft Suede.  The edges were distessed with Soft Suede ink, while the entire banner was spritzed using the retiring Color Spritzer Tool. The Waterspots image is from the retiring French Foliage set.

• Pop it up! The Coastal Cabana “number three”,  Calypso Coral flower, and Smoky Slate bicycle, were snipped out with paper snips and popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals. Popping images up on dimensionals is an easy way to add interest, especially on relatively simple cards. 

Noticed I used two retiring products on today’s card, the Waterspot image from French Foliage and the Color Spritzer Tool.  These are two of my favorites, and they will have a permanent place in my stamping arsenal.  Have you checked out the retiring lists yet?

American Boxer Club Nationals

As you read this post, Muffy and I are on our way to the National Boxer Show in Indianapolis. It’s a bittersweet trip, because little Lexi will not be showing.  At the time entries were to be made, Lexi was still too thin.  So, the room at the Wyndham was cancelled, and one of the top handlers in the nation was told that she wouldn’t be needed for Lexi’s class.  But wouldn’t you know it…in the two weeks since the deadline, Lexi has gained weight. Arghh!

Lexi (right) with littermate Tyler at 9 months of age

However, Muffy and I will be there today and Monday.  Muffy will be having an echocardiogram done. Boxers are prone to heart disease, and because of that, the American Boxer Club offers inexpensive testing at their national and regional events…inexpensive enough that it is cheaper for me to drive 5 hours and stay overnight, than to get it done here in Iowa.  Although the conformation events will not be going on yet, I will be able to at least meet some of the great Boxer breeders and handlers.  We will be cheering on Lexi’s littermate, Tyler, from back home, when he shows on Tuesday.  And, I will have been there and bought the tee-shirt…and the mug…and the tote! Until next time…

 

It’s Thursday…and time to play with the Pals at Pals Paper Arts.  This week we have a color challenge for you. Three colors that strike fear into my heart, when combined together, are Pool Party, Summer Starfruit, and Lucky Limeade.  Have you ever been so overwhelmed by a color challenge that you completely lose your mojo? That’s what happened to me with today’s Pals Paper Arts card.  It didn’t help that I waited until Monday to begin creating the card.  Design Team cards are due into our blog master by Noon EST, Tuesday before the challenge. For someone like me, who can spend hours on any card, this was cutting it a little close.

I began like I always do with any color challenge…I laid out the card stocks and a selection of Designer Series patterns in the challenge colors.  I thought I would use one of the retiring sets, Cherish Friendship, and feature the Chair stamped onto a Summer Starfruit pattern.  I was going to create little card stock flowers and feature them in the basket, which I was going to paper snip out and mount on a dimensional.  I was thinking “wow factor” all the way.  Well, it didn’t take me long to realize this looked hideous.

So I pulled out a faithful friend, French Foliage…one of my “go-to” sets.  I would once again showcase how beautiful this set is.  How you can ink those leaves in any color and they look mah-vel-ous! NOT! 

So back to the drawing board I went AGAIN.  I knew what I would do!  I would showcase the new Mosaic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. Everybody loves new product peeks! I would brayer the embossing folder with Pool Party ink, and zip it through the Big Shot.  How cool would that be! Well, it wasn’t so cool.  Some of the ink ended up in the cells of the mosaics. Ugh! So I decided to just brayer the ink onto the pattern AFTER embossing.  Double ugh! I usually have a light touch on the brayer.  What was wrong with me!

Well, on my fourth trip back to the drawing board, I decided just to stamp images from the Mosaic Madness set and use the coordinating punch.  I would add pearls…and a banner! I would distress it! Oh, yeah! I was in my element for sure this time.  Except the end product did not trip my trigger.  Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

By this time, I was really frustrated, and practically in tears.  My table was a mess, as was the kitchen island.

My fifth card, where I inked up the new Morning Meadow stamp with Stampin’ Write Markers, ended up in the trash, a Morning Meadow Mess. By this time it was nearly two in the morning, so off to bed I did head…only to find my place already occupied by three Boxers. I set my alarm for 6:00 AM and curled up at the foot of the bed to grab a couple hours of sleep.

Under the gun, I just had to be satisfied with whatever developed.  I decided to use all three colors sparingly, and make white my main color.  Less than one hour later, this is the result:

Finally, a card I could live with.   It’s not my usual style, but it makes me smile…with its Cloudy Day Textured Impressions Embossing Folder background and its pearled “rays of sunshine”, cut from Summer Starfruit paper from Birds of a Feather.  A  trio of Pool Party Butterflies, created with the Beautiful Wings Embosslit, flitter across sky.

There are no traditional Stampin’ Schach Design Tips today, because I don’t have a lot of tips to share with this card.  Essentially there is just one:  Don’t force the colors to work with each other.  If you are having problems, use them sparingly as accents against a neutral.  However, I did glean a few snippets of wisdom from my ordeal.

• Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.  
• Things usually look better in the morning.
• Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others really can’t keep it from themselves.  
• And if you want a good nights sleep, get to bed before the dogs.

I hope this little card has brought some sunshine into your lives today. Until next time…

Stamp Set:  Feel Goods; Inks:  Lucky Limeade; Designer Series Paper:  Birds of a Feather; Card Stock:  Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Whisper White; Tools:  Big Shot, Cloudy Day Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Labels Collection Framelits; Glitz and Glam: Basic Pearls