Some stamping time for me

5:51 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
I was able to go to my upline, Jan's on Sunday to stamp for a while. It was so nice to have stuff prepped for me! Here's some of what I did using New items from the upcoming catalog. This page uses Kiwi Designer paper, Baja Breeze CS & Designer Paper, Pacific Point striped ribbon, and check out the new Sizzlit that cuts and embosses!
Here's a closeup.

Love those felt flowers and buttons too. I didn't glue them down real well yet so I can slip my pictures underneath some.
Here's another scrapbook page that I love! Can't wait to snap a pic of my kiddos to put in it. It uses the new Love You Much stamp set and 3 heart punch along with that yummy ribbon from the Holiday Mini. Oh - and the filligree brad for the flower is so cute! Riding Hood Red and Kraft look great together. I also made a card that matches.


I'll have more for you later!

Merry Christmas!

10:07 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
A Wish for Peace, Love and Joy this holiday season to all of you, and a Stampin' New Year!





(felt snowflake placed inside clear ornament ball and cut word from die and ran through Xyron to adhere to front of ball)

Teacher gifts

10:45 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Here are some monogramed stationary sets I made for teacher gifts. I made the blue ones first then discovered the adhesive strips from SS Kits went much faster. I love those kits - I find new things to do with them more and more. This one here is the retired Crew Kids Girl and the other is from an older DSP we had. The J is from the Lovely Letters Alphabet. I like the way they came out - hope they do too!


Counting Down

9:50 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
A little more than a week left til Christmas and I'm still making Christmas cards! There's just something about the set To You & Yours that makes me keep coming back to it. I had another piece of the DSP from "I Wish" SS kit that made a nice background. And I've had this idea to use the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder as a snowy look for a while now, I just embossed the Top Notes Die and sponged the edges. The sentiment is punched with the large oval but the house and red layer was done with the Coluzzle - all sponged as well. Choc. Chip polytwill ribbon finishes it. My hubby liked this one, hope you do too!

Quilted Joy

10:00 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
This is the closest I get to quilting. I saw Lee Ann Groff's card and had to case. I actually simplified it a little, but it's the main idea I really like. The four punched squares are from the I Wish SS Kit and spread out a little on White cs, then layered on Real Red. There's a red rhinestone brad in the middle to complete the quilt look. The Olive patterned paper is from the kit as well (love this kit!) and I cut just the "joy" part of the Sizzix die to put on top. The wide red grograin goes under the panel, which I popped up with dimensionals. I really like the choc. chip with red combo for holiday cards. And how appropriately named since you have to have choc. chip cookies at Christmas time. : )

Lip Balm Holders

1:33 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
I love this idea for a "little something" gift. I looked up directions on Splitcoast but wound up making modifications. Here's what I did:

Cut outer layer of DSP 5 1/2 X 4" and score at 2 3/8" from each side. Cut inner layer of cardstock 5 1/4" X 3 3/4" and score at 2 1/4" from each side. Then I cut across the score lines in the middle at 1 1/2" and 2" starting from the 2" mark down to the 3 1/4" mark on my paper cutter. That makes the opening for the tube to go into. For the tabs to stop the lip balm from sliding out, I made a little pencil mark (erase later) at the top and bottom of the tube, then took it out. With the slit punch upside down, move it in until the pencil mark is about half way down the punch and squeeze. You'll notice it doesn't punch the paper all the way down, which is why you did that. Press the tabs down and your lip balm holder should fit nicely inside. Cut a piece of ribbon about 14" long to adhere across the middle of the inside cover. Adhere the inside cardstock on top, centered. Here I stamped "Happy Holidays" from a retired hostess set, Warmest Regards in Choc. Chip. For the lip balm: take off whatever wrapper it has. Cut a piece of DSP 1 7/8" X 2 1/8" and adhere across the tube. Scotch makes a tear by hand packing tape that is 1 7/8" that wraps around your paper perfectly to protect it. (I think I got mine at Wal-mart) Now for the front: I used the retired Holiday Minis poinsettia stamp and colored it in with a blender pen and Riding Hood Red ink and Old Olive ink. Then I embossed it with clear EP and cut it out. Added some dimensionals and placed on the front. Tie the ribbon and you're done! If I left anything out, let me know.

Enjoy!

Trash to Treasure

9:04 PM Edit This 2 Comments »
As we empty containers in my house, I'm eyeing them up to see if they can be altered and reused in some way. I made some oatmeal cookies the other day and thought the container would be great to put the cookies in - or some other treat. I know it's food safe and with a little paper and ribbon it makes the perfect treat holder. I'm actually thinking of filling it with chocolate dipped pretzels for my son's teacher.

The paper is from DCWV that I got a while ago on clearance and it matches SU!'s Old Olive wide ribbon. The dangling gingerbread man is from the level 2 hostess set Deer Friends, and says "sweet treat" all around it. I markered him in with Choc. Chip, Baroque Burgundy and Old Olive, punched him out with the 1 1/4" circle punch then layered him on Burgundy 1 3/8" circle. Hung him with linen thread. I think it came out pretty cute - and I'm being "green" - right? : )



On Board Ornament Kit

2:37 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
These ornaments are so quick and easy! The hardest part is finding the coordinating paper for your shape. You just pop it out and adhere it to the chipboard. I sponged the edges too. This is a kit in the Holiday Mini that we'll be using at my next Stamp Camp. The first picture features some words and I really liked the sample in the brochure of "joy" so I copied the idea of using a star for the top of the j. I used 24 gauge wire for my "hanger". The chipboard was a lot easier to punch than I thought. I just used my regular 1/16" punch and threaded the wire through and curled. These would make great scrapbook embellishments as well as tags on a gift too. The second picture features 2 pieces layered and a silver cord.





Holiday Extravaganza

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I'm back from vacation and now it's time to get started on Holiday ideas. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. And if you're getting ready to start shopping, start here!


Today starts an incredible sale from SU! Click here to see the flyer of great bundles from 20 - 50% off! It's only while supplies last, so place your order with me soon! I'll even throw in some holiday gift tags and bag for your holiday gift giving.



And speaking of holiday gift giving, here are 2 ideas I shared with the ladies at my last stamp camp. The first is an acrylic frame that measures 4 X 12". It was perfect for our designer paper and exclusive Sizzix die. Just add a few pictures and this makes a great holiday decor item. I'm even thinking of selling some - what do you think?



The second is this cute little santa treat. I made this at my upline, Jan's last meeting. Real Red cs wrapped around a little Hershey bar and then a Santa face on top. Trio Flower punch in white for the beard and top of hat, square scallop punch cut diagonally in Real Red and a white work window punch for the hat, 1 3/8" circle punch in Blush Blossom for his face, 2 1/4" black circles for his eyes with a white gel pen highlight and draw in a mouth! This one was done quickly so the mouth is a little crooked, but you can see how easily this would come together. Cute, huh?
Enjoy!

Goin' On Vacation

9:44 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Hello! Just a note to let you know I'll be in Disney with the kids for a week. I do have some things to post, but the camera is packed so it'll have to wait til I get back. Have a great week!

Purple Medallion

12:22 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
I saw this idea and loved that there was a new use for corner punches. This one is a retired SU! one, but I've always liked it. I cut the Elegant Eggplant circle using the 2nd line in of my Coluzzle and punched, overlapping the end of the punch about half way from the first. There's a little trimming necessary to get the middle cut out. From there I punched that middle into a 2" circle. I placed 2 different flowers from the Pretties Kit and a half pearl on top with glue dots. The corners were punched on separate pieces of cs since I couldn't get into the corner of my card. They are layered onto a piece of Almost Amethyst CS stamped with the Floral Background in Craft White. At the bottom I have a strip of the Eggplant punched with the Scallop Border and added white taffeta ribbon on top. I liked the way it turned out, esp. since it could be used for a lot of different occassions. Hope it inspires you to try something like this - and make sure you let me see!




Little thank you's

10:09 PM Edit This 2 Comments »
I wanted to thank 2 friends for being so nice to me lately and helping me out. It also gave me an excuse to make something I just hadn't had to the reason to before - a Coaster Post it Note Holder. I covered a coaster with the beautiful Holiday Treasures DSP and sponged the edges in Close to Cocoa. Then I covered binder clip with a coordinating paper from the same pack. Isn't this paper so pretty? I cut a strip of Red Riding Hood cs , rolled it up and inserted it into a clear barrel pen and tied 2 widths of ribbon on the clip. Easy and so cute! Of course my selection of post it notes didn't really match so I'll have to make a stop for that. Wouldn't it be neat if I could find notes that matched my colors?





















I also needed a quick card and actually took the layers away from my original plan because it just wasn't working right when I remembered seeing some challenges being a one layer card and they looked great. So, I went for simple and think it turned out well. I markered the flowers from Live Your Dream in Ballet Blue, Apricot Appeal and Certainly Celery. Then stamped the Thanks in Apricot and added the Blue ribbon. Voila!


Dazzling Elements

4:09 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Here's that snowflake idea I mentioned before. I'm having a hard time capturing the sparkle. It is quite stunning IRL. It's just 2 of the big snowflake diecuts on top of each other and I glittered them with Dazzling Diamonds. The center is a filligree brad with a clear rhinestone brad. I'm thinking I'm going to save this for a scrapbook page.

On another sparkly note, today is my daughter's 5th birthday. Guess what she told me? She wants a princess card. I asked, didn't she want me to make her a card? No - a singing princess card instead. Ugh! Oh well. I made her a sparkly 5 for her future scrapbook page - which also isn't translating well into a picture, but you'll get the idea. It's a chipboard number covered with Bella Rose DSP and then covered in Dazzling Diamonds. Very pink and sparkly IRL and will stand out on her page.

Thanks for visiting!




Top Note Box

11:00 PM Edit This 3 Comments »
Wow - time flies. But I am getting a good head start on my Christmas stuff. Here's a box I made at my upline, Jan's meeting which was just had the Top Note Die cut in the Ski Slope DSP on top when I left. We were supposed to jazz it up, as we were inspired by Mary Jo Albright to do, at home. So I added the sponging around the edges as well as to my greeting, layered onto Baja Breeze and added brads. Those new Felt Flurries are so fun and layer great together. I put a Star Brad in the middle and that jazzed it up quite a bit. I would have liked to change the ribbon but was afraid the paper would get too messed up. Hope she likes it.

Yes, you read right. I got to meet Mary Jo Albright - 2X Artisan Award Winner for SU! She is so sweet and does such amazing work. I even got to sit at her table. Of course, as my luck would have it, I started to get a migraine headache towards the end of the meeting and felt awful. So I didn't get to chat with her as much as I'd like, but better than nothing!

GO PHILLIES!!

Meeting Swaps

8:14 AM Edit This 0 Comments »


Here are 2 different swap cards I made for my upline's meeting. They both use glitter. Here's a tip I learned too late - add the glitter last!! I started with the die cut snowflake and thought how pretty it would look in dazzling diamonds (gotta love that stuff). When you turn it over to put adhesive on it, you loose some glitter. Then when you have to press on top you loose a little more, simply due to friction. Don't get me wrong, it's still plenty sparkly, but so is my desk and my clothes. I know the cupcakes look familiar, but I couldn't resist doing something else with them. That flowered paper is from the level 1 hostess prints pack. As for the snowflake card, the ballet blue base is wheeled in Versamark with Bold Snowflakes wheel. I had another idea for those pretty snowflakes, so check back soon for that. Have a great weekend!

Sparkling Dove

10:25 AM Edit This 6 Comments »
Here's another card from the To You and Yours set. Such versatility with this set. This time I stamped the dove image on White CS with heat & stick powder than added dazzling diamonds. Then I stamped the dove again on white, embossed him in white, and rubbed a little blue pastel on him and cut him out. I popped him up on dimensions on top of the original one. The edges are sponged in Soft Sky, mounted on Soft Sky and tied a Soft Sky ribbon around the shite base and stamped the greeting in yes, Soft Sky. I know this color is retired, but the other blues weren't quite right for the look I wanted. I also sponged the edge of the back card base in Craft White.
I'm having a Christmas Card Class on Nov. 7th using this set and the Handmade Holidays Card Elements. You get to make 18 cards, and they're so pretty and easy! $27 by 10/22. Can't make it? You can get it as a Class in the Mail - just add $4.80 for priority postage!


Crazy for Cupcakes

10:44 AM Edit This 2 Comments »
OK, how cute are these cupcakes! I'm not a big "cutesie" person, but I've seen a lot of cupcake designs lately and this one is my favorite since it's not over the top "cutesie". And, it's on sale this month! This card is from my last stamp camp and I plan on making more of them, esp. with the "bakery style" window top!

Recipe: Scallop edge punch, Crazy for Cupcakes stamp set, Bella Rose DSP, Pink Piruouette, Baja Breeze & WWhite CS. Blender pen with inks plus going grey marker. White grograin ribbon was "dyed" in Riding Hood Red. Red glitter for the cherries gives it a little sparkle. Yum!

Feast or Famine

5:24 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
Well, this is the way my year seems to be going. Either nothing going on or everything at the same time. My hubby and I were supposed to go away this past weekend for our anniversary. Had it planned, babysitters set and all. Then we find out that Matthew's team is in a soccer tournament - 4 games. Then he has a cubscout campout this weekend too. Then I get sick. And, it's World Card Making Day. Ugh! Well, I guess we can't do everything. I did just manage to get a dozen cards ready to send to the troops via Gina K. And this card, well, I confess I made it before the weekend, but it's new to you, right? :)

I'm lovin' this little set From Our House to Yours. All I did was stamp it in Choc. Chip on Old Olive and add "snow" with a white gel pen. The designer paper on the bottom is from Holiday Treasures - another great collection. A quick wide organdy ribbon and it's finished. I love it. Very easily reproduced for those with a large Christmas card list. I'll be using this set with the coordinating kit, Handmade Holiday Card Elements that's on sale this week only. Contact me if interested, or if you'd like to come to the stamp camp where we make 18 cards!



10th Anniversary

7:03 PM Edit This 2 Comments »
Here's the card I made for my husband for our 10th Anniversary. I used my new Just Rite Stamper with the little letters and big numbers. I didn't quite have the right size punch for it, so guess what will be on my next order... I wound up cutting it out with my coluzzle. The Not Quite Navy circle behind it is 2". Again I used Brocade Basics and finally used the Prints Pack paper behind it. I notched out the corners with my 1/4" circle punch and added silver brads. All this on Going Grey CS. Oh - there's some sponging going on here too. To finish it, I went over the "10" with a glitter pen. It's still manly, right?


Shotglass Treat

8:22 PM Edit This 2 Comments »
I found these cute plastic skeleton bones shotglasses at the dollar store and thought they would go great with the Scary Skulls Wheel I have. Then I found little bags of candy bones so I had to put them all together. Skull is stamped (wheeled) in black and punched out with a 1 1/4" circle then layered on a black scallop, which fits perfectly on top. I used a gelly roll glitter pen to fill in the eyes, nose and teeth openings. Wrap some black and white gingham ribbon around,tie, and it's done. Isn't it cute? My club hostess this month gets 2 of these with some other goodies. I may have to go back to make more!

Alzheimer's Thank You

7:04 PM Edit This 5 Comments »
This card is for a caretaker of a person affected with Alzheimer’s. I consider myself incredibly blessed to not have first hand knowledge of this as I know how widespread this disease is. Please go to Cammie's blog here and see what an amazing thing she has done. The generosity of stampers is incredible. The blog candy simply cannot be beat, but participate just because it's a great thing to do.
I had actually started this card at my stamp camp but didn't finish it until I saw her post. You can't really tell in the photo, but the Upsy Daisy flowers are stamped in black on glossy cardstock that was smooshed in acetate with reinkers and spritzed with water. I had a smaller piece so I stamped the Thank you part of the sentiment that comes with the set on that and layered on black again. A black grograin ribbon on the Ballet Blue card base finishes it off. Thanks to those who care for Alzheimer's patients, and thanks to Cammie for organizing this!

Some Beauties

2:41 PM Edit This 1 Comment »
Isn't this an awesome card? It's great for so many things. I wish I could take credit, but I cased it from somewhere and it looks like the name on the pic I saved says Allison Ohran. I hope that's right. I love it, Allison! Not sure if I used everything exactly as hers, but here are my supplies: Kraft, Choc. Chip & Vanilla CS; Summer Sun, Old Olive and Choc. chip markers, Versamark and clear EP, Inspired by Nature set and Choc. Chip grograin ribbon.

Next is another beauty that I received in the mail. Love how my pen pal Debbie used the Cuttlebug and chalks! The distressing is great too. Gotta love stamped snail mail. Thanks!!


Quick Anniversary Card

4:33 PM Edit This 4 Comments »
My sister's Anniversary was this week and I didn't remember until the day before so I wanted to make a quick card so I wouldn't be late with it. I actually got the Brocade Basics free from this past Sell A Bration but haven't used it until now. How aweful is that!! I love how elegant it is and that it's large enough to cover most of the card front. So, it fill the bill for my purpose. I used Kiwi Kiss and Groovy Guava ink on W White CS. The edges are sponged and the sentiment is from All Holidays. The Background is the Floral Stamp. But the thing I got the most excited about was my discovery for the little clear bubbles on the top left. It needed something up there but nothing too distracting. When I went for an adhesive I saw my Sparkly Glitter Glue and thought it would be cool to adhere them with a little sparkle underneath - and it worked!

Halloween Treat Box

2:42 PM Edit This 9 Comments »

I saw these on Splitcoast and thought they were so cute. If you search there's a girl who sells the pattern but I continued on and found a kind soul that shared the one she had. I saved it so if you'd like it, let me know and I'll send it to you. Anyway, here's what I made with it. I used Basic Grey CS and Basic Black ink to sponge the edges and the bats from Halloween Backgrounds. (I stamped off twice for those.) Happy Halloween is from All Holidays. The skull is from the Scary Skulls wheel in craft white on black cs, cut out and mounted with a dimensional. The bottom opens up to fill it with candy. I'm debating on making them for my son's class...depends how much time I have. At least I'm starting early, right?