August & September Workshop Projects

Hello again. Meant to post this last night but didn't get around to it. I did get a new card made last night, but it's one I can't share till it is received. So for now, I'm going to share the projects that my club members made this past Sunday, and the other half of the group made back in August.



We made this Scallop Cupcake card. I kind of followed the layout of a card from the new catalog. I wanted to show how to use punched circles to create a scalloped border along a curve or circle. I also showed how to cut a slit in the middle of the card front to tie the ribbon through. Stamps used were from the Big Bold Birthday set. Colors are Riding Hood Red, So Saffron, Baja Breeze, Tangerine Tango (cupcake frosting), Chocolate Chip (cupcake base and greeting).
This was a fun card to make.


And then we made this "Box in a Bag" There are samples of this all over Splitcoast, but I found my directions here by Stampin' With Di. You basically make a small, square box bottome and then tape the paper of the bag around the box base, and then tape a scalloped border (which is now so very easy with the new SU Scallop Edge punch) around the bottom. You are supposed to use the Round Tab punch to make the tabs to tie the bag together, but since I don't have that punch, I substituded a scallop circle punch-out folded in half. Typically these are made using the double-sided designer paper, but I can't use that for my groups because of the large quantity needed, so I improvised and we made out own designer paper using whisper white card stock and a stampin' wheel. The wheel we used was Forever Flowers, and the "wreath" stamp is from the Together Forever set, and the initial is from the Lovely Letters set.



And our third project was this card, using the "ghosting technique". I CASED this entire layout from a sample in the Stampin' Success magazine that I receive as a Stampin' Up Demonstrator. I loved everything about it and new I had to do it. The ghosting technique is where you brayer ink on vellum cardstock, then use a clean, dry stamp and stamp on th wet ink which will take ink OFF the vellum, leaving a sort of "negative" image. I thought it almost looked like a pressed leaf used with ink, like we did as kids in school. I had just received this stamp set, Wonderful You, and the matching jumbo wheel, so it worked out perfect. All of my club members seemed to really love it, and I made several of these cards as thank you cards for my personal use. I think its one of my favorite cards I've ever made.

I used Bashful Blue for the card base, Chocolate Chip and Old Olive cardstock and ink, and cardstock vellum, as well as whisper white to adhere the three pieces to so there would be white behind the inked vellum, made the color pop much nicer than against the blue. That also allowed me to pop it up on dimensionals. The ribbon is the Chocolate Chip taffeta.

If by chance you are reading my blog and are not one of my customers, and have any questions about any of the creations I share, please feel free to contact me and I'll answer your question as best I can. I know I don't always explain things as well as I should or could.


Thanks again for visiting, and hope you have a blessed and safe week!

Birthday Cards

My family had a couple of birthdays this past week. And they were both men. Masculine cards are not my strong point. But I recently purchased a new Stampin' Up set called Nature Silhouettes and got to use it for the very first time to make my husband this birthday card. I was pretty happy with how it turned out and he loved it (and had to show it off to everyone), so that made me really happy.

I got the inspiration from a post on the Splitcoast website. Here is the card that inspired me - by member cmc2stamp. I didn't use quite the same color blues and didn't get my background as dark, and my moon was smaller but what a great idea to do with this set. I also used the new Curvy Label punch and one of the stamps that come inthe bundle with the punch. I am disappointed that there isn't another size of this punch to allow for layering, but I compromised by punching out two additional black labels and layering them behind the stamped label to give a layered look.
Then I used one of the oval label holders from the Stylized Silver Hodgepodge Hardware set. The background I used - Weathered - is unfortunately retired. I also used the Photo Corners punch and in each one I used a star brad, also from the Stylized Silver Hodgepodge Hardware set. The cardstock is an old In-Color - Buckaroo Blue. There are so many blue shades in the In-Colors but I do love this one, and I thought I had ordered an extra package of it before it retired, but I could only find a few sheets of it, so I guess I won't be using it much more!
Oh, and I used glossy white card stock, embossed the tree and grass stamp with black, also embossed the wolf, then cut him out and popped him up on dimensionals. The photo corners are also popped up with foam tape.

And there is the card I made for my stepson Ben, who turned 18 on Sunday. I struggle with knowing how to make cards for men, but teenagers are even harder.
There's an old SU set called Pocket Fun, which I've never owned, but my awesome sister (and fellow stamping addict) Kathy had let me stamp a bunch of pockets from her set onto some demin patterned paper - a LONG time ago, and I pulled that out to make this card.
I used the new Riding Hood Red card stock, and used the Linen background stamp (which I'm also very sad to say is now retired). I also used the Photo Corners punch once again, but this time added some star eyelets. Wow, has it been a long time since I've used eyelets, but it was fun to get them out again. I used a Sale-A-Bration stamp set (I think it's called Lots of Notes, but not totally sure on the name - sorry) for the greeting and used markers to ink it up in different colors.
If you look close you might notice that it's only a one dollar bill in the pocket, that is because I had to send this card in the mail and didn't want to send cash, so I wrote a check and then wrapped a dollar around it so it would like a pocket full of cash. I used foam tape around the edges of the pocket to make an actual pocket out of it, and silver brads in the corners to mimic rivets on jeans. That's it!
And the best part - I actually got both cards to the birthday boys on time. Made my husband's the night before so I could give it to him before he went to work on his birthday, and my stepson's I actually got to him two days early. That's unheard of for me, I'm always late. Like with my stepdaugther Heather and her husband Brandon's wedding anniversary, which is tomorrow, and I *thought* was Saturday (ughh 40 is hitting me hard I tell ya!) and still haven't gotten a card made to mail. I'm so bad, but she understands, since her dad is the same way, well no he's actually worse, in regard to procrastination. But I will make a *fabulous* card for them and get it in the mail, it will just be a few days late. Sigh.

Ok, now I'll leave you with a picture of my husband, Joe, and I before I took him out for dinner on his birthday, which was this past Friday. We actually got a bit dressed up and that doesn't happen very often so I had to document the occassion. Besides, I will, someday, get back to scrapbooking. I will. Someday.

I have so many things to post, I had a great workshop for one of my hostess groups yesterday so I can post about those projects, and a few to catch up from my non-blogging time, but I can barely sneak time to get the current stuff posted. So much going on right now, and this is the busiest time of year for me at work. I've been working late and trying to get in early this week. I should be in bed by now, I'll be dragging in the morning, but this always takes longer to do than I expect. Hope you all enjoy it, I was feeling like I was doing this for nothing, but then I got so many comments from my club members yesterday (Hi gals!), saying how glad they were that I was blogging again, so that made me feel like I should continue. Even if they are the only ones that look, at least I know someone is.
Ok, that's it for now - take care everyone!

New Stampin' Stuff!

Hi everyone! Hope your week is going well. Mine has been busy. I did get my SU order yesterday. I took some pictures of all my wonderful new "stuff"! I love to just look at it all! I did get a card made, but I spent way too much time just sitting at everything and trying to decide which stamps to use first, and trying to make myself actually use some of the new embellishments. I don't really consider myself to have a hoarding problem, but I'm just afraid that if I use things up I will have a better use for them later on and be disappointed that I don't have anymore. C'mon, I know I'm not the only one that faces this problem! ;-)

Anyway, here are my new stamps, punches, ribbon, and embellishments.

And here are my new Designer Series double sided papers. I limited myself to two sets for now, because I don't use them up before they "retire", and because I was hoping to get more holiday papers from the Holiday Mini Catalog. I love this paper, but again, I'm afraid to use it for fear I may want/need it more later on.

I really love the Green Tea paper (the blues/greens one), but I realize now that it coordinates with a couple stamp sets which I don't have. I know it can be used with others, but you all know how I am about "matching".

I also love the Curvy Label punch. But it's very very small. A lot smaller than I thought it would be from how it looked in the catalog. I also wish they would have two sizes of it for layering. I feel the same way about the scallop circle and scallop square punches. I didn't get the scallop square yet, but am now wishing I'd have gotten that one first and waited on the curvy label punch. Oh well. Hopefully I'll prove myself wrong and find lots of uses for it.

I really love the Button Bouquet buttons and the Filligree and Flower Designer Brads. Ohhh, and the Flower Fusion felt flowers, which now are also available in Chocolate Chip (yum), Pink Pirouette, and Baja Breeze. Gorgeous!

So anyway, this is the card I ended up making. Hardly any stamping. The only stamp I used is from the hostess set I earned, Best Yet, which has great greetings and sentiments. I just loved the colors in that patterned paper from the Green Tea series and wanted to use the felt flowers, and the Old Olive ones from the first Flower Fusion set matched perfectly. I really wanted to use Baja Breeze ribbon, but for some reason I didn't order any in that color. So I used Celery grosgrain. I also used a Flower Designer Brad and a Kiwi Kiss button from the Button Bouquet.

Not a bad card, I just really am itching to get back down and use some of my new stamp sets, but unfortunately that didn't happen tonight. I've been working all evening on balancing my checkbook, paying bills, working on my budget, and working on some SU "business" duties. Such fun! ;-) And now it's getting time to call it a night. Arghhh, I really wish there were more hours in the day!!

Well, thanks for stopping by and please take time to say Hi and let me know you were here. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to show tomorrow. Have a great day!