Merry

Happy Friday! This week was over in a blink of an eye - crazy fast! I seriously cannot believe it's already Friday... wow.

Tonight is my downline meeting, and I thought I'd do a Christmas card. I love the bearing gifts stamp in the mini catalogue (item 116531), and I have a ton of the snowflake paper from the Christmas Cocoa designer paper (item 116770), so I played with both, and here is what I came up with.

Colors are Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Bravo Burgundy, Mellow Moss, More Mustard, Creamy Caramel and Sahara Sand. I used the Sahara Sand marker to outline the entire image after I colored it.

The embossing is done with a cuttlebug embossing folder and the Big Shot.

Thanks for looking - those of you in my downline, I'll see you later tonight! Happy stampin'!

Wonderful Watercolors

Well, I've been very busy with planning the free event that took place last Saturday, getting Willow to her very first day of school, dance class and gymnastics (Brighton is doing gymnastics, too!) and then I wound up getting a sinus cold, which has hit me hard the last couple of days. So needless to say, I've been a bad blogger! But now you know why.

Today's project is for a class I'm having this fall - on October 24th. I'll show the full set of cards with the box in another week or so.

The colors are Kraft, Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, and Regal Rose. The designer paper is from Thoroughly Modern.

The stamp set is Wonderful Watercolors - it has replaced my Greenhouse Garden class on October 24th.

The ribbons are Pretty in Pink grosgrain (I used 2 lengths to make it appear to be wide grosgrain). And the ribbon is from the Holiday Mini Catalogue - it's the Olive taffeta from the Mistletoe ribbon bundle (item 116792).

Registration for my fall classes is open until September 30th.

I still have room in my card club - if you're interested in meeting each month to make 4 cards, and getting a case full of leftover goodies to take home, send me an email today! The club meets on the last Thursday of each month and I'm leaving registration open until Saturday (the 19th).

Thanks for looking & happy stampin'!

Free Event - Register Today!!

I'm starting to gear up for fall, and I wanted to remind you all of my FREE CARD CLASS on Saturday, September 12th. It's at 1pm and the location is still TBA.

Why you want to come:

• 3 make & take projects - absolutely free! And today's project to the right is one of them!
  
  
• gift for EVERYONE who brings a friend (someone who has never come to my classes before)
  
  
• a BIG prize for the person who brings the most friends
  
  
• door prizes a plenty - lots of great swag that you can win
  
  
• SEE the projects for all the fall classes (this is new!!)
  
  
• REGISTER for fall classes (see my fall schedule here)
  
  
• GET YOUR COPY of the mini catalogue (and the main catalogue if you haven't already gotten a copy yet)

You must register (yourself and your friends) so I know how many make & takes to cut. To register, simply email me! Registration deadline is September 3rd.

In case you want more info about today's card, it is the Berry Christmas stamp set from the Holiday Mini Catalogue. The designer paper is gorgeous flocked paper from the Christmas Cocoa collection.

I've used a Real Red card base with Soft Suede as the matte for the designer paper as well as for the ribbon. The corner rounder punch for the top right corner is a nice detail I've been enjoying lately. And I used some Dazzling Diamonds on the berries and leaves to add a little more interest.

Thanks for looking & happy stampin'!

Willow's 4th Birthday

Phew - what a weekend! It was Willow's 4th Birthday yesterday!! Her party was on Sunday (a fact that we had to keep explaining to her all day yesterday when she wanted people to come over for her real birthday... ("No, hunny, everyone came yesterday for your party and they have to work today!!")

So this year was the first year that Willow helped with everything. She helped buy her own decorations, she helped pick out the toys for the favor bags (which I forgot to take pictures of). She even helped me make the favor centerpiece! And that's what today's project is...

In the mini catalogue coming Sep 1st, Stampin' Up! is introducing Sweet Treat cups. These cute little cups are a perfect fit for the 1-3/4" Circle Punch. When you punch a circle with the punch, the treat cup fits perfectly inside! The base of the cup is self-adhesive, and you can stick the cup onto your project in a snap!

So for our favor centerpiece, we put mini m&m's into the Sweet Treat Cups and then adhered them to Heidi Swapp flowers - I've been hoarding these for ages! To cover the front of the Sweet Treat adhesive ring, I took Tangerine Tango card stock and punched the 1-3/4" Circle and then the 2" Marvy Scallop Circle. I adhered it to the Sweet Treat cup using mini glue dots.

Then, we used Sticky Strip to adhere some Pixie Stix behind the flower and then covered it up with another Marvy Scallop Circle and a white tag - the tag was simply a Whisper White circle punched with the 1-3/8" Circle punch and the word "thanks" hand stamped in Pixie Pink ink. I tried to get Willow to write her name on all the tags, but after two, she decided it was too stressful (she hasn't yet mastered the art of writing tiny letters). So rather than have her quit, I convinced her to write "W" on each tag.

She was really pleased to be helping - she stuck the flowers on, she glued the layers together, she added dimensionals and then put the whole thing together... Willow's first mass production project -- we made 22 of these flowers!!

Here's a close-up of the bouquet so you can see the Sweet Treat cups a little better. Here's a tip: I didn't realize the adhesive would have a hard time sticking to the flowers - if you do something similar, I recommend adding Sticky Strip to the cups - the self-adhesive was not strong enough, and a number of these flowers spontaneously exploded during the party. The kids sure loved chasing the flying m&m's!

And just because I'm a proud momma, here's a picture of the birthday girl in her party dress with her cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLOW!

Thanks for looking & happy stampin'!

Frame It!

We recently had family photos done and now it's time to send out the pictures. I've had some picture frames for wallet sized photos for YEARS now, and have never done anything with them. And the kids each had 2 pictures that turned out really well, so this allows us go give 4 photos away without breaking the bank.

I decorated the top left frame and the bottom right frame with colored card stock and stickers from the Sunny Days Simply Scrappin' Kit. I also used rubons from SAB 2 years ago and a googly eye for the bird (which Willow is proud to tell everyone that she glued on all by herself).

Close-up pictures of the decorated panes are shown below.



Colors here are Melon Mambo and Whisper White.

I used a strip of the floral border sticker and then I mounted the pink flower stickers on top of them using Dimensionals.

All these stickers are mounted to the glass on the top. So are the rubons...



Brighton's corner frame uses Creamy Caramel and Old Olive. I love these cute bird stickers - so fun!

I cut the cloud sticker and mounted it on the glass. And the bird is mounted on Dimensionals on top of the cloud. The googly eye is glued on using Tombow liquid glue.



Of course, I have to show a close-up of my beautiful children, too. I think the pictures turned out very well and really show their character - Willow with her enormous smile, and Brighton with his "what the heck are you talking about" look.

Remember, you can click on any of the images to get a larger view.

Thanks for looking & happy stampin'!

Mass Production Tips

This past weekend I was busy creating Willow's birthday party invitations. I know that many of you work on mass production - for birthdays, thank yous and especially, for Christmas. So today I thought I'd share some of my best timesaving tips for bulk card-making.

The first thing I do is make my sample card - I need to make sure I like it before I go to all the trouble. Or in this case, I need to make sure Willow likes it. I made up her invitation on Friday night. On Saturday, she told me "ohhhh, mommy, it's so beautiful!" and "how did you know I like orange?". So that was the green light to start turning out the invites.



Step 1
I HATE cutting and gluing a million little pieces. And this card front has 6 pieces per card front! So rather than gluing 78 pieces together, I kept the pieces in 12" strips - this is probably my #1 timesaver!!

This little trick speeds things up SO nicely - give it a try! 11" strips would work, too - depending on what size papers you have and what measurements you need.



These papers are retired SU papers - from the Fall/Winter Collection 2008 (Can't remember what it's called at the moment)...

Colors are Tangerine Tango, Apricot Appeal, and Old Olive.


Step #2
After everything is glued, I cut my strips into the right sizes. So from each length, I got 3 card fronts.


Step #3
Next, I do all the stamping. These stamps are from Papertreyink.com - called Two for Tea. Willow's having a tea party theme...

By the way, I didn't cut out all the white pieces for the tea pots. I used up some of my scrap pieces. If I didn't have any scraps, I would have just stamped them all up on the same sheet of card stock...


Step #4
Now it's time to do all the fussy business. I ran the Nestabilities through the Big Shot (circle and scalloped circle) and then glued the circles together. I cut out the teapots. I mounted the teapots onto the circles with dimensionals. Then, I made all my little bows with the adorable buttons. The ribbon is Whisper White Taffeta and the buttons are from Papertreyink.com in their moss color. Oh yes, and I adhered some ribbon to the card fronts as well - right above the punched strip (by the way - that punch is Martha Stewart Doily Lace edge punch).

Step #5
Time to cut & score all your cards!


Step #6
Final assembly! Glue your finished card fronts onto the cards. Mount anything else that needs mounting. In my case, I used dimensionals to put the teapot circles onto the card front and then I used mini glue dots to adhere the bows.

That is it - mass production is finished!

Keep in mind that you might need to leave the project in progress. I finished half of step 4 on Saturday night when I finally decided to go to bed. I had to wait until Sunday night to resume.

I hope these pics and tips help you with your future mass production projects!

Thanks for looking & happy stampin!

Congrats

Happy Friday! Where has this week gone?? We've been enjoying a family holiday this week, just deciding what to do each morning. It's so easy to keep our little ones entertained - such a great age! Brighton is right in there like a dirty shirt as long as his sister seems interested.

Today I'm sharing a simple card that could be used for any occasion by simply changing the sentiment. The flower is from Fifth Avenue Floral, and the sentiment is from the new set called Wedding Sweet.

Colors are Melon Mambo, Basic Black & Whisper White. You can't really tell in this image, but I scored the textured card stock in vertical lines to add some more detail. The new wide Grosgrain in black is so lovely. I added a punched flower and a pearl on top of the ribbon for a final detail.

I did make one mistake when I was marking my outline (done with a black Stampin' Write marker and a ruler). I started on the left and did the bottom and left sides first. But then when I tried to make my line on the right side, I realized that I had stamped the sentiment too far over to the right to use the same margin. So my margins on the top and right are smaller.... Oops! I wish I would have just started on the right instead - then I would have avoided the lopsided-ness!!

Thanks for looking & happy stampin'!

These are a few of my favorite things!!

This summer is going to be organization time for me. I have SO much to get ready for this fall!! More on that later...

This week, I've been working on cutting all the paper and all the ribbon for the shares. Phew! It looks so pretty when it's all ready to go that I thought I'd share some pictures. These are some of my favorite things - so nice!!

Papers Shown here is the NEW Designer Paper Share - all the new papers only. I just love fanning the papers out and having a look at all the designs. Click on the picture to have a larger view!

This is the 6" x 12" share shown here. 6" x 6" is also available.

You can also choose the COMPLETE pack of papers, which includes papers from the last catalogue, too, like Bella Bleu, Pink Flamingo, Tea Party, etc...




Ribbon I just love how gorgeous the ribbon looks when it's arranged just like in the catalogue. Beautiful.

This picture shows the COMPLETE ribbon bundle. 1 yard of each of the ribbons from the catalogue.

If you want even more ribbon, you can select the Double Share - that's 2 yards of each ribbon!



Already got lots of ribbon? You can opt for just the NEW ribbon bundle, which includes only ribbons that were not in the last Idea Book & Catalogue. The NEW collection is shown here on the right...

Note that the ribbon bundles do not include linen thread, hemp twine or twill tape.



Embellishments And finally, the NEW embellishment bundle. Wait until you see the Playground and Sherbet buttons in person. They are so awesome that I think I'll just hoard them for a little while... :)

Missing from this picture is the Basic Gray Corduroy Buttons - they haven't shown up yet (they were missing from my box, so a replacement is on its way).



OK, you know you want this awesome stuff!! These product bundles are all still available. For pricing information, see this post here. I didn't assemble extra kits at this time, so please allow a week or two for me to get your bundles together.



Finally on to today's project. It's a CAS card (Cute and Simple). This bear is from the Cute & Cuddly stamp set.

I stamped him on the Vanilla oval and traced around him with a Sahara Sand marker. Then, I stamped him again on Apricot Appeal to cut him out. Then, I stamped him again on Vanilla so I could cut out his ears, muzzle and tummy. I glued all these bitty pieces with Tombow Liquid Adhesive.

The Old Olive scalloped oval (and the Vanilla oval) were cut using the Big Shot and my Nestabilities dies. The designer paper is retired - Good Morning Sunshine paper... The ribbon is the 5/8" Old Olive Grosgrain. And finally, the "you, you, you" sentiment is from the Three Little Words stamp set.

Other than cutting out the bear, this card is very quick. I'm a slow cutter, so that's where I spent the most time on this card. But the results are so stinkin' cute that it's definitely time well spent.

Thanks for looking & happy stampin'!

Devotion

Did you know Lavender symbolizes Devotion? Huh. Me neither. Not until I saw the Herb Expressions stamp set (p 55) in the new catalogue.

Today I'm sharing another card that we'll be making this Friday.

The colors are Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White and Garden Green.

The paper is from the Cottage Wall collection. The embellishment at the top of the focal point is the mini paper clip from the Clip Assortment with a lavendar brad from the Ice Circle Rhinestone Brads assortment.

I love the ribbon's effect - I cut into the middle of the designer paper and white card stock to create a slit, then I tied the ribbon through it. I think it's a very different look to have the ribbon end there rather than wrapping all the way through. Try it sometime! The ribbon, of course, is the gorgeous white satin - love it!

Thanks very much for looking & happy stampin'!

A Big Thank You!

Good afternoon - sorry for the big delay between PROJECT posts, I've been very busy with my downline!

Back in May, I offered free classes to everyone who joined my team - This Friday is the last of the free classes. We've had a lot of fun, and I've tried my best to have some fabulous bi-weekly classes! I'll be posting all the projects on my blog in the next week or so, so you'll get to see everything we've made. :)

I'm actually going to miss NOT getting together every other Friday. We've had little pot-luck snacks & drinks and had great conversations and fun stamping. But I'll be sharing a similar offer with those who sign up in August, so you can still partake in all the fun - stay tuned!!

I'm sure you're just skipping right ahead to the photo, so here it is. Today I'm sharing one of the cards we're making on Friday. This is one of 10 different designs we'll be doing.

The colors are Apricot Appeal, Certainly Celery and Melen Mambo. The designer paper is from Pink Flamingo - one of my favorite packs of papers ever!

The stamped "flower" is a frame from the Gallery stamp set. The small flowers stamped in Celery and the sentiment are from the Bella's Bloom stamp set. The button is from the new designer buttons pack - Sherbet. Love the new button colors!!

So that's the card for today. Thanks for looking & happy stampin'! Like I said, I'll have a lot to share with you over the next week to 10 days, so keep checkin' back!