Playing catch-up: day 3

These projects are from the last of a series of classes I did as part of a Big Shot club. The featured dies were the Scallop Circle and the Scallop Circle #2 bigz dies. My friend Beth, who no longer blogs, made some of these ADORABLE boxes, so I stole the idea from her, though it was not originally her own either. For the lid, we also used the Flower, Dasies #2 bigz die. I promise I will come back later and give you a link to the instructions for making these adorable things!
Then here is this too-stinkin'-cute card we made too. I had seen these all over blogland and SCS. I can't tell you who the original thinker-uper was for the idea, but I'm pretty sure I got the most help from Patty Bennett's blog.

We did one other card, I think, but I haven't got a picture of it. I made this as a gift for my one customer who subscribed to the club that month. It's a note pad.

Sweet wishes!

ps. I think this is my last day of catch-up...I'll have to find some more projects to post!

Playing catch-up: day 2

I edited my post from yesterday to include the links to the cards I CASEd. I don't actually remember when we made this card. It might have been one I demonstrated or that we made at the new catalog open house in July 2009. But I can't find the original idea for it, and I looked through all my files on both my desktop and laptop computers. I even went so far as to look in the old Stampin' Success and Idea Book & Catalog...no luck. I know I copied someone's cute creation, so if this idea was yours, thank you, and I'm sorry I can't give you proper credit.

The next two projects are from a workshop I did using the A Rose is a Rose stamp set. I simplified this card for the first project.
The second project was this darling cello' bag topper.
There was a third project, but I didn't get a picture of it, and I don't even remember what it looked like. I'm sure it was another 6x6 page/3x6 card option. Oh well.

Sweet wishes!

Playing catch-up

I think these projects were from workshops I did in summer 2009. This first picture is of the hostess gifts I made. I wanted to feature the then new In Colors, lace boarder punch, and Circle Circus stamp set. The packaging was my own idea.
I think I CASEd the idea for these cards, but it's been so long, I have NO idea who I copied. Sorry. ETA: I found the original idea. It was from "stamptilucramp" over on SCS. I took her idea and made a set of 4 cards.

I will have to look back and get the links for all these projects because I know this next one was not original either. I can't remember the name of the technique, but you punch your shape, paper pierce around it, and layer the DSP behind the "window."
ETA: the name of the technique is reverse punch applique, and here is the card I CASEd.

This *might* have been my own idea. The workshop guests had the choice of making a 6x6 scrapbook page or a 3x6 card. ETA: Nope. I actually combined a few ideas I saw, but here is the one that is closest to my final product.

This fun little pouch uses the Razzle Dazzle stamp set. It's got M&Ms inside. Yum! I stamped and punched the oval sentiments ahead of time. Wasn't that nice of me? ;-) ETA: I could not find the original idea for this project. Could it be my own? Doubtful, but possible.

Sweet wishes!

Fun Birthday wishes

This past Sunday was my little brother's birthday, and then yesterday was his wife's. I typically try to make them coordinating cards...at least using the same stamp set (click here to see their cards from two years ago). This year was no different. I used the Take A Spin stamp set that was in the Occasions Mini Catalog. I'm really hoping this set makes it into the 2011-2012 IB&C (which comes out in July).
I CASEd Brett's card from jrmccue's card here. And I think the original idea for Kelly's card came from a Stampin' Success issue, but I took my inspiration from Emily's card. I left Brett's spinner loose so that it could be spun, but the image on Kelly's card has various different holidays, and I wanted it to only be a birthday card, so in addition to stamping that part of the image in a different color, I also attached the spinner tighter so it would only point to birthday.

I used this same stamp set to make a card for the After School program coordinator at my school. I think this was an original idea. *gasp*

Sweet wishes!

The whole truth

When I mentioned the other day that I had taken a break from all things Stampin' Up! I wasn't lying. I hadn't done anything business related since October. However, I did stamp.

In the past month-and-a-half we had three showers at school. Two wedding and a baby. I stamped invitations for all three, and gave the bride/mommy-to-be a set of thank you cards as a gift. I am on the committee that coordinates the showers, so I tried to have the invitations and cards match the decor as much as possible. This is an OLD set called Terrific Tulips. Kalyn's colors are tangerine and lime, so I used Tangerine Tango and the retired Green Galore. We decorated with tangelos and limes in tall skinny vases.
Carling's colors are Monterrey blue and coral, and her bride's maids are carrying yellow flowers. "Monterrey blue" is NOT a Stampin' Up! color, so I had a really difficult time with this one! I ended up going with Pacific Point, (which the mother-of-the-bride said was almost a perfect match), Cameo Coral, and Daffodil Delight for the invitations. The only party plates and napkins that I could find that even came close were some Hawaiian luau things. So for the thank yous I went with Bermuda Bay, which matched the decor (and the cake I made) better.
The napkins I found for the baby shower had the profile of a pregnant lady from the neck to the bottom of her belly under a cute polka-dotted umbrella. So I decided to go with a polka-dot theme.
I used the same dot along with the baby rattle handle for the thank yous. The dot and handle are from the set Playful Pieces which is a current level 3 hostess set. Host a qualifying workshop before June 30 to earn this awesome set FREE!
Sweet wishes!

Confirmation gifts

Yesterday was a busy day in the life of St. James Lutheran Church. We recognized our 2011 graduates, celebrated the Affirmation of Baptism (Confirmation) for four of our youth, and had a play to commerate our 200th anniversary. There was also a Confirmation luncheon and reception after the play, so it was a very full day.

I had volunteered Michael and myself to take care of getting the gifts for the confirmands, and while Michael was calling me from the Christian book store up in Johnson City the other day, listing several ideas he saw as he walked through the isles, I told him to go out of the store, walk next door to the craft store and get me the supplies to make their gifts. I had purchased the frames previously, so all he had to buy were the wooden crosses.

I am thrilled with how they turned out.

I made a turquoise one as well, but didn't get a picture of it.

Then I had to package them accordingly, and yes, there were matching cards, but I didn't get a picture of them.

Sweet wishes!

May Hostess gifts and a few leftovers

Today, I'll share with you the two hand-made hostess gifts that my May Hostesses will receive. The first is a set of four cards. They were inspired by Bonnie Klass's card. I used Baja Breeze, Blushing Bride, Peach Parfait, and Pear Pizazz inks and CS along with Very Vanilla CS and envelopes. I pulled out my old Coluzzle cutting system to cut the ovals and used the Elegant Lines embossing folder. I may take another picture once I package them, because I made a cute butterfly accent for the bag topper.
Second is another Stampin' Success CASE. This vase is gorgeous and was fairly simple to create. However, once I was done, I thought, "Well, you can't put real flowers in here because if you get water on the outside on accident (which I inevitably would), it will ruin it." So I had to create some paper flowers. I used the 2-Step Bird extra large punch to make these too cute tulips.
Finally, here is a picture of the stamp sets I have left after the ladies came and browsed my retired stamp set inventory...and yes, they bought several! All of them are for sale, and I will be posting them on my blog and/or ebay soon, so keep an eye out for that.
If you are interested in earning the set of cards, beautiful vase, and your choice of one of these stamp sets, contact me to book a workshop to be held anytime in May.

Sweet wishes!

It's about time

...I got back to blogging. We'll see how long it lasts this time. ;-) I've taken a LONG break from all things SU! for a while now, but today I had a "Getting Back to Business" open house, so I thought I'd start by showing you the two projects we made.

Both cards were created using the Strength & Hope stamp set and digital kit. These two items are available in the Summer Mini Catalog (click on the picture of it in my side bar to download the catalog). The best part is that Stampin' Up! is donating $2 from the purchase of the Strength & Hope stamp set (wood mount or clear) and the Strength & Hope digital kit to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation®.

The first card is a simple design that I actually came up with myself. Yep, no CASEing involved. The Baja Breeze butterfly on the card and envelope are the only stamping done on this card. All the other elements--"hope" heart, polka-dotted circle, and DSP--were printed using the Strength & Hope digital kit. The kit costs $9.95 and includes a 4-piece stamp brush set, 12 DSP designs, and 10 embellishment pieces. {Truth be told, I set out to CASE Ilina's card on this blog post, but I couldn't get my printer to print the DSP she used correctly, so I went with plan B.}

The second card was totally CASEd from the May issue of Stampin' Success magazine. Stampin' Success is the publication SU! sends to its demonstrators each month. The only change I made was to use Pink Pirouette textured CS and some retired Pink Pirouette ribbon instead of Blushing Bride CS & ribbon, because I don't have the Blushing Bride stuff. I recently purchased the Basic Rhinestones and Basic Pearls Jewels. They are totally my new favorite embellishments, and at only $4.95 for 150 jewels, I don't even have a reason to horde them!
Sweet wishes!

Just another (not-so-manic) Monday

So despite how excited I've been the past two days about my desktop being back in service, today I'm blogging from my laptop. Since I featured some discontinued hostess sets in yesterday's post, I thought I'd post a few cards using a current hostess set. And since I stamped these over the summer, their pictures do not yet reside on the desktop.

The stamp set is called Playful Pieces. It is a level 3 hostess set from the 2010-2011 Idea Book & Catalog. This set is the be-all, end-all of versatile stamp sets! In the picture shown with the set in the IB&C, there are 18 completely different ideas of ways to use this set, and those don't even include some more obvious uses. It is a GREAT set! My advice is whatever you can do to host a qualifying workshop, do it; this set is worth it.

These first two cards were made for a brother and sister whose birthdays are both in July. I decided to make them similar cards using the same stamp set and layout but different stamps from the set and different colors. {Incidentally, I do the same thing for my brother and his wife, whose birthdays are just a few days apart.} I was in a bit of a rush to get the cards done, and I initially forgot to take a picture, but their mom is a friend and has stamped with me before, so she totally understood when I asked if I could have the cards back to take a picture of them. They got a little messy between their creation and the photo op, but oh well. I've got the picture, so I can remember the idea and can share it with you.
For the boy card, I stamped two of the rectangular images on scrap paper and punched them out with two different size square punches. One was wide enough, but two tall, so I trimmed off one edge with my paper snips. Then I adhered the presents to the white panel and stamped the bow at the top. Sorry, but that strip of paper across the bottom is not SU!

For the girl card, I punched my cake pieces out first using square punches and then stamped the curly-que "icing" across the top of each cake layer. {I can't remember if I've mentioned before, but Stampin' Up! now sells clear mount stamps. It was super easy to line up that "icing" in the right place using the clear mount stamp.} The cake pedestal is two separate pieces, the triangle base and the line plate; after I stamped those, I adhered the cake layers and then stamped the candles on top.

My Granny's birthday is also in July. I used the same stamp set for her card. The front is pretty simple. AJ helped make this card, and chose most of the colors.
You may know that in addition to stamping, I also decorate cakes. Granny is diabetic, and lives in another state, so with those two things in mind, I decided to decorate this cake for her:

Now, while I do love my Granny enough to stamp 81 candles with 81 little flames, I did not have to do so, because the stamp set has a stamp with three little lines and another stamp with three little flames, so I just had to stamp it 27 times.

Sweet wishes!

It's all back! (almost)

We've got Office 2007 and all our documents loaded back on the computer. One bummer--all my "favorites" from Internet Explorer are not there. I'm hoping they are there somewhere and Michael just hasn't gotten them put in the right place yet. I had TONS of great stamping blogs on there, some of which are in the sidebar here on my blog, but not all of them, and lots of other sites. Anyway, I had mentioned several times about various things I promised to post. Since this is primarily a stamping blog, I'll start with some projects from last fall.


First is an October-appropriate Halloween card. I used two hostess sets from last year's IB&C on this card. I had made up some packages of assorted tags, including the one used here, to give as prizes at my open house, and I wanted to show a completed card sample using one of the tags, so that's how this idea came about. I don't *think* I CASEd anyone! (Those moments are few and far between!)
The next two cards are ones we made at my class featuring the Just Buzzin' By stamp set. There was a third card, but I gave it to DJ's teacher, whose classroom theme is bees, for her birthday last year, and forgot to take a picture of it.
I CASEd this card from Ronda (rondag) over on SCS. You can see her original creation here. She used a neat bubble wrap technique and some added shimmer with her Dazzling Diamonds glitter. My favorite part, though, is the inside, and how it's hidden when the card is closed.

I wanted to show how this set could be used for a non-bee card, so I CASEd the basic idea from this card by Cambria. I changed the colors because I had used the bright red and blue on the third card that isn't pictured.

Well, that's all for now. I'm just so excited to have our desktop computer back! Have a great Sunday!

Sweet wishes!

I got to stamp too!

Michael and I have begun our Total Money Makeover. Dave Ramsey is our hero. If you are not familiar with Dave or his program, I highly encourage you to check out his website, radio show, and/or books. We have a completely new outlook on life thanks to the common sense he got us to listen to.

Anyway, we've been trying to pass our newly discovered good habits on to our kids, and one suggestion he makes is to put their money in a jar so that they can see it adding up as they save to buy something. So we've been meaning to get jars for them, and of course a plain old jar just would NOT do.
For DJ's this was the first time I had used my Scallop Square bigz die, my So Many Stars builder wheel, or the star stamp that coordinates with our Extra-Large Star Punch (although the stamp set is retired), so I got to play with some new toys.

For AJ's I had the Whisper White oval frame already cut out, so I added the Rich Razzleberry center. Then over on Splitcoaststampers, today's Technique Lover's Challenge was to make a flower embellishment (Paper Posies was the title). I viewed several tutorials before settling on this flower to make.

It is super simple. You take the Scallop Circle punch and punch out 8 scalloped circles. If you desire, sponge your edges [it is important to do this step NOW...ask me how I know]. Then you crumple each one up individually. If you use DSP, then your fine; however, if you're making your flower with cardstock, spritz it with water before crumpling so that it is easier to work with. Next you uncrumple your circles, and stack them all together. Use the paper piercer to punch a hole through all 8 layers and attach with a small brad. Then starting with the top flower, scrunch it together around the brad, continue scrunching each layer until they are all scrunched together in the center. Finally fluff the layers out to your desired shape. Voila! A gorgeous handmade paper flower. (If you still have questions, leave me a comment, and I'll find a video tutorial to link.)

I actually started my paper flower making today with a new daisy for AJ's headband. A red, white, and blue daisy simply would not go with her pink gingham top. I used two of each size flower for this one. More petals and a sturdier embellishment to work with.

I actually stamped a card for my grandmother's birthday too, but I'll save that for another day.

Sweet wishes!

It's Independence Day

...Let freedom ring; let the white dove sing. Let the whole world know that today is the day of reckoning. Let the weak be strong; let the right be wrong. Roll the stone away. Let the guilty pay; it's Independence Day. ~Martina Mcbride

Hope your 4th of July was a great one. Ours was. Here are my kids outside playing with sparklers.
Even my big kid.

All in their red, white and blue.

Okay, so all day I've wanted to post a holiday-appropriate project, and when we got changed out of our VBS t-shirts (we had our program during church this morning) and put a plain white headband in AJ's newly cut hair--which I cut myself!--I had to add this little flower made with the Daisies #2 bigz die and a corduroy brad. Now that was the perfect accessory for her adorable hair cut.

We finished off the night by going to see the fireworks after the Greeneville Astros' ball game. We didn't make it to the game this year, but we found the perfect place to catch the post game show.

Here's one I took with the "fireworks" setting on my camera. Go figure. Very different effect, but very cool.

When we got home we did our own "grand finale."

Sweet wishes!

I suppose it's about time

...for another Stampin' Up! post. I realize that some of you who may still happen to stop by my blog from time to time aren't all that interested in seeing pictures of my kids or hearing about our summer adventures. And I'm okay with that. So for those of you who are my stamping friends and customers, I thought you'd like to see some stamping projects.

Back in February and March I hosted a series of Stamp-A-Stack (SAS) classes. My main goal was to introduce Stampin' Up! to my co-workers at school. However, I had two other ladies (non-co-workers) attend the class when I originally scheduled it. Then I rescheduled it, and had three other non-co-workers attend and one more pay for the class who couldn't make it. Finally, I offered a day-time make-up date for one of my co-workers, and she was able to attend that alone. Plus, after those three classes I owed two other customers a class, but we couldn't coordinate our schedules, so I made up a few samples for them and gave them all the supplies so they could complete the cards at their convenience. All that to say, I don't think any of the classes had exactly the same 5 cards, but these are the ones I have pictures of.
I CASEd this first card from coriefoster. You can see her original card here. I actually used Basic Black where she had used Chocolate Chip, but this was my favorite card of all.

carole_k was the original creator of the card above. Click here to see her version.

This was my second favorite card. I CASEd Debbie's card, but I didn't have enough Pretty In Pink CS for all my classes, so half way through I switched to an Old Olive, Orchid Opulence & Rich Razzelberry combo, which was just as beautiful, but I don't have a picture of that version.

This Dusty Durango & Soft Suede card was inspired by Dawn Olchefske's card, which you can see here. Since I had ribbon on all my previous cards, I decided to use another stamp from the set instead of the Soft Suede ribbon.

The supplies used for these cards were left over from a workshop I had done in the fall. The original cards used the A Rose Is a Rose stamp set. And while I'm sure I CASEd someone, I don't have access to the file to find out exactly who; however, here is a card by ruthyoung that may have been my inspiration.

Sweet wishes!