Hello all!  Coming to you with a sweet little Valentines inspired card today and some news.  I just wanted to let everyone know since it was a tad unclear that I will no longer be designing stamps for Papertrey Ink.  No other big news other than that, but it is time for me to move on, and I wish them continue success in everything they do.  I certainly will be showing you more inspiration using my stamps I have designed through them, and I am sure I will probably be designing stamps in my future, but as of right now no plans are in the works for anything at all.

With that being said, I hope you know how much I love you all, and want you to still gain inspiration from my posts.  They will become very varied, because I am desperate to learn new and exciting things.  This new studio has really been an inspiring space and I can’t wait until I can share more things with you.

As an homage to my little stamps, here is a card made using Wonderfully Whimsical and Fly Away.

These hearts in Wonderfully Whimsical make the best little Valentines.

A little glitter is always fun!  This heart and sentiments in the banner are from Papertrey’s Sweet Love set.

Remember when I said I have been having many other adventures as of late?  During the time my studio was being built, I was in Verdi’s opera, Otello with Opera Company of Philadelphia.  I had a blast.  Thought I would leave you with a fun pic!

I will be back on Wednesday with a card…promise!

OK…on to my project for the day. This ended up being pretty special! I knew it would be, but I really enjoyed the process of creating during this one. I will be bringing this to my family Christmas party the day after Christmas to be entered in one of those many “gift-giving-type-game-things” that you play at family parties. I wanted the gift to be special. So let me know what you think!

When using Papertrey Stamps, I love mixing and matching sets. The embossed emblem in which the sentiment sits comes from the “Sweet Love” set. The sentiment itself comes from the “Take a Bough” set. See how well it fits? PLEASE don’t just look in one of your cases when working with stamps! Look and see what would make a nice accompaniment with other sets to see how well they integrate together! This is so much more fun, and you begin to build different uses for different sets! Now for the inside:

These duck eggs were blown out and cleaned, the painted using Pearl Ex pigments 6 pack starter kit mixed in matte finish mod podge. You must wear a dust mask when using these pigments, as the dust is very fine and can easily be inhaled. Just mix the two together in a small bowl as to not waste anything, and paint as desired. I finished the egg ornament off with a nice small copper bead and some pretty cord for hanging. I got both of these items at my local bead store. I would love to know the color combo you like best, as I am having a hard time choosing which one is my favorite. Really…I would love to hear. Gold egg with copper on top, copper egg with gold on top, or copper egg with antique silver on top?  It will help me make decisions of how to paint them next time. The special paper used on the Papertrey Egg box is stunning Windsor foil paper by SEI and can be found here.

Stamps: Take a Bough, Sweet Love

Paper: SEI Windsor Foil, Dark Chocolate card stock

Ink: Versamark

Ribbon: Dark Chocolate Grosgrain

Other: Papertrey Egg Box, Gold Filigree Embossing Powder, Duck Eggs (thanks to my sister-in-law who has like 1,000 ducks), Red line Tape (seriously, this is the biggest role of tape I have ever seen, and that is good, because I go through this stuff like it’s water!) Pearl-Ex pigment

OK…so I got these really cute socks from a local store for the girls:

I wanted to think of a really fun way to give these.  I found a large spool of ribbon which had almost all been used up.  You know the kid of spools for wide Christmas ribbon etc.?  So I took the remaining ribbon off of it.  I then got out the largest circle nestabilities as well as my Spooky Sweets II set and went to town.  I thought this was really sweet and the best part?  If you needed to, these could hold more than one pair of socks.  Just wrap the socks around the spool.  I love it!  Easy Peasy!  I can’t wait for the girls to see it!  They LOVE crazy socks!

Isn’t the Spooky Spool cute?  It was so fast.  YAY for fast!  OK…I am really feeling a little loopy this morning.  So…last night I had a concert.  Well…not really a concert…it was a Salon.  You know…the sort of things they used to have back in the 19th century in people’s living rooms?  Except this salon was NOTHING like that I am sure.  It featured world- class musicicans who basically dazzled each other in their respective genres.  The program featured things like classical flute and guitar, bluegrass, jazz, Bulgarian women’s singing group, a whole orchestra (yeah!) and us…the Eakin’s Consort.  We performed three English Madrigals.  The crowd ATE IT UP!  It was fantastic.  now mind you…they were three very difficult English Madrigals, so we were really getting our groove on last night.  This was the 22nd Anniversary night of the Salon.  It is put on by an extremely famous composer in the area.  Anyway, it was good times.  We didn’t perform until 10:00pm though!  We also had to go out afterwards and get some eats, so I wasn’t home until 1am.  It will make for a rough day at work today I am sure!  So I am off to get cleaned up and go teach at Drexel today.  Making sure I stop at Dunkin Donuts for a lot of coffee!  I am just feeling really grateful for all of the inspiration last night.  I just ADORE bluegrass music.  There is just something about it which makes me so happy.  I never listened to it growing up, but within the last couple of years I have become a huge fan of it.  So the inspiration, the people, our consort of singers.  Well…it was just a really great time.  My life is blessed I tell you. 

Supplies:

STAMPS:  Spooky Sweets II

Paper: Plum Pudding {PTI}, Only Orange SU!, Stampers Select White{PTI}

Ink: Midnight Black Versa Magic

Other: An used ribbon spool.

I wanted to pop in with a text only post for a quick second.  I know most of you are enjoying your time at CHA, and some of you are vacationing with your family and making the most of this nice summer.  I wanted to let you know that I am here at home for a couple of days.  I am about to head into a recording session this week with The Crossing and Piffaro.  It will be an intense yet rewarding couple of days.  We will be recording a piece that my dear friend Kile Smith wrote.  I am very much looking forward to making music with the best of the best this week.  I will be sharing some posts with you in the coming days, including a new set of papers from Demi Design.  Unfortunately, it seems that some of my files have been corrupted somehow in my other papers that are posted on here.  I plan to go through each design and pinpoint problems.  I apologize to everyone if you have printed out these files only to be disappointed because they were not 6×6 or they got bigger or smaller somehow.  I am hoping in my next post of the new papers there will be no problems.  PLEASE feel free to e-mail me at oehlers@verizon.net if you run into a problem and they do not print out as 6×6.  I tested these upcoming ones, and they are fine for me, but who knows when you put them up on the blog…strange things may happen.  If this does happen, I will send you each file via e-mail, but HOPEFULLY this will not happen.  Look for the papers sometime tomorrow.  It is nice to sit and chat for a while.  I have a lot of music I must look over as tomorrow is our one and only rehearsal.  Thanks!

OK…so I have a LOT going on this week. First off…the Papertrey release is tonight. I will be sharing my projects with you early tomorrow! I am also busy preparing the Stamp Simply Challenge in my head…not on paper yet. Also I have three concerts this weekend. I am busy learning the music for that since I didn’t get it all that long ago. I also received a nice photo from a colleague at school of me singing the solos in the Rossini….remember…the piece I was DREADING??? I still don’t like the piece, but the photo is lovely. I also found out that next year the piece will be Bach’s Magnificat, so all of a sudden I was a lot happier about the fact that I felt up against the wall with the Rossini this year. The Bach is one of my favorite pieces. Well…for that matter…anything by Bach is my favorite! I also put up some new videos on my myspace page of the Pergolesi Stabat Mater. Here is the picture of me singing:

Have a great day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb0NLzDa2Ro

Here is a you tube clip of them as well.  This is the BEST piece written by my very good friend and colleague Kile Smith.  Kile plays percussion and sings with me in our early music ensemble Quidditas.  Kile is a well known composer in Philadelphia.  The piece was written for the Crossing Choir and Piffaro the Renaissance Wind Band.  My two loves…new music and early music coliding!!  I beg of you to go and listen.  It is worth it.  This is an Epiphany Vespers based on Lutheran hymn tunes.  If you have ANY questions about the instruments they are playing, please ask!  I will answer them in the comments section so if someone has the same question they can find the answer there!

This is a couple of pictures of rehearsal.  Sorry…none of me because I was singing and I wasn’t sure if I was even allowed to take pics, but I sneaked some anyway.

(The synthesizer is for the harpsichord sound.  It is a lot less finicky than a real one.)

The chorus members are on either side, and I am in the front pew waiting to sing a lot of solo stuff.  Blah Blah Blah….let’s get to the fun stuff!

OK…so I get an e-mail from a friend of mine who is the wife of a trombone player in the Philadelphia Orchestra.  It reads something like this:

My husband requests the presence of your husband to play tuba tomorrow at the Kimmel Center for the annual Tuba Christmas.  Come dressed merrily and festively…with your tuba dressed that way too! 

I got this e-mail at 10pm last night.  Well…I sort of MADE my husband say yes to this!  Now you know my dirty little secret.  My husband plays tuba!!   (he is a German teacher in REAL life)  He is a man of many talents my dear friends.  So…I got out my crafty supplies…and went to town.  How did I do?

So he along with 73 other tuba players played a whole concert for free today in the Kimmel Center.  OK…it REALLY sounded nice.  I walked in a little late from my rehearsal, but was so taken back by the sound as soon as I opened the door!   It was really cool.  He was a BIT intimidated though by the fact that he was sitting in between the pricipal tubist in the orchestra and our friend the trombonist.  I told him they don’t care, it was just about having fun.  Here is a picture of him with the gang there.

That is John, our trombone friend, the principal tubist of the orch. (she is around 22 years old and got that job!  WOW!) and her boyfriend who is also a trombonist.  Here is a pic of a chunk of the ensemble:

Now is this Christmas or is this Christmas!!  LOL!!!!! 

BTW: If anyone is interested in hearing me sing, you can go to my myspace music page and listen.  You don’t have to be a member of myspace to do this.  Here is the link:

www.myspace.com/krebeccaoehlers

Here is a belated birthday card for my favorite singer, Andreas Scholl.  Happy Birthday Andreas! (late) oops.  I guess I am not the best fan in the world!   

I had a great morning.  Went over to Philadelphia and sang a Caldara mass as well as Cantata 139 by Bach.  The Benedictus in the Caldara was an alto solo which I did as well as other spotty solos throughout.  It was so much fun to sing with Tempesta di Mare.  Two Baroque oboes just made my morning!  AAAHHH…I love what I do

Card recipe:  Paper: Black SU cardstock run through cuttlebug embossing folder, White glossy cardstock

Stamps: SU music backround, Papertrey Ink sentiment

Ink: Sky Blue Versamark Brilliance Pearlescent pigment ink.