A. Russ Original

Here are a few of the cards that have recently appeared in the Russ Craft Room. I seem to be going through a button phase! I’m not sure if I’ve ever shared the BACK of one of my cards. We have some very adorable kitties and this is a tribute to their help in the craft room. (and by help I mean the naps they take in the chair while I work!!) Enjoy!                                        

Here’s this years Valentine’s Day card, it was a little sparkly! I like to use the black card stocks for a little added drama.            

We have tried to get away from using plastic shopping bags… we have reusable shopping bags and I’ve even made some reusable produce bags for us to use. (I’ll write a post about them later). But every once in a while we come home with a plastic bag, which isn’t the end of the world… I use them to line the small garbage cans in the bathrooms and to clean the litter boxes out. We used to store the bags inside a larger plastic shopping bag on the bottom shelf in the pantry. Well, that was getting old… having to fish the bag out of the other bag all while trying not to knock everything off the bottom shelf was a hassle! I saw a post on pintrest about using a wet wipe container as storage for the plastic shopping bags and thought I COULD DO THAT!! So, after we had used the last of the wet wipes (It took a while and I was excited to get the project going!! The paper I chose to wrap the container with is a cute dot pattern that looks nice with our kitchen décor (that was here when we bought ...

  A few co-workers and I recently attended a glass shop a few blocks from our offices, for a holiday party sponsored by a local company that we have the need to do business with through out the year. This marks the second year we have attended and we thoroughly enjoy it each year! The sponsors rent out the glass shop for the guest, and we make a one of a kind glass ornament as a memento of the evening. I have been fascinated by the things that folks can make out of glass… While we lived in the Seattle area I was introduced to Dale Chihuly’s work and fell in love. I’ve seen several of his pieces in various settings and am amazed at what the man can make glass do! The whole process is so cool and the artisans that are there to help you out are very knowledgeable  and extremely patient folks! First they encourage you to select your colors, they have samples on the wall of the various choices, or you can mix them to get your own unique combination.  After you have made yo...

There are a group of ladies that I have become good friends with, that gather every month or so for a bible study. Our husbands all work for the same company (Well, one of the ladies works there too!) and we get together and hang out and discuss a book and how we can work on our marriages. Our current book is ‘Red Hot Monogamy’ by Bill and Pam Farrel. While I’ve been married for 17 plus years this book has some interesting suggestions on how to spice up your married love life. It has been entertaining to discuss with the group… it even has ‘homework’!! Last month during our study we talked about one of the suggestions in the book… purchasing a ‘coupon book’ for your spouse… Well, I thought, what the heck… we could very easily make them ourselves! So a CRAFT NIGHT was planned! I did a little research on the different types of coupon books we could make in a night. Two types came up, one with little ‘match sticks’ that could be ‘re-used’ over and over… and a match book style. I thought...