Happy Easter and remember....

another soft summer

Here is another soft summer card using kraft, perfect plum and old olive... one of my fav combos! No time for yada yada today - gotta go to work. Hope your holiday weekend is a good and safe one with loved ones!

Soft Summer in bashful blue

Happy Tuesday Girls! Only 1 more day of school and then the kids are on break - I'm happy for them as I remember how fun breaks were when I was a kid, but I'm sad for me as I still have to work. We rarely go away on break as it's the start of baseball season and no one wants to miss the early practices. I'll just have to do some extra stampin' to stay happy I guess! Anyhoo... I wanted to do up some samples using a new MINI set called soft summer. This card uses both the solid image and the outline image of the dogwood flower as well as one of the sentiments from the set. The colors on this card are bashful blue, Night of Navy, and Old Olive. Thanks for peeking in today - hope your tuesday is good!

Very Versatile from Stampin' Up - Occasions Mini

Here is a card using a set from the Occasions Mini called Very Versatile. It has this flower image and 4 sets of double greetings (one for the inside and one for the outside). It really is very versatile. The flower was imbossed using versamark and clear EP. Can you see the embossed lines on the white piece? The were dry embossed using my scor-pal, then the piece was punched with my eyelet border punch. Inspiration for this card was from someone on SCS. I apologize as I can't find it now, but if it's yours, please let me know and I'll gladly add a link! Thanks for stopping by today - hope your weekend was a good one.

Another Big Shot top note scallop circle purse

Last night a friend came over to make some of the top note purses I showed you a couple of posts ago. She is not an independent crafter, but really likes to see my show-n-tell projects and enjoys one on one instruction. I gave her step by step instructions and she completed these 3 boxes (plus one other) in about 2 hours. Either she's a natural or I'm a really good teacher.... or both! Don't you agree? She picked out the colors and as I look at the picture, I should have moved the top one down, so that a yellow and a blue were next to each other, but oh well, they've moved on to their new home and I'm sure they will be happy there:) Thanks for stopping in today! Here is the link again to the directions for this purse. I'd love to see it if you make one of your own!

Happy Birthday Sis!

Today is my lil' sis' Birthday. How weird is this... it's also her husbands birthday! I was thinking this morning that it must have been fun while they were dating to find out that they shared a birthday and maybe went something like this:

Her: So I'm an Aries - what's your sign?

Him: I dunno

Her: Well, when is your birthday

Him: April, I think

Her: Cool, mine too! What day?

Him: "the 3rd - let me call my mom to che...."

Her: No Way - MY birthday is the 3rd too.

Him: Really?

Her: YES! We must be meant to be together!

Him: So... ya think we should make out now?

Happy Birthday Shannon (and Shane!) I Don't have a picture of the 2 of them on this computer, so I'll post this picture from last weekend when my mom and I went to visit her. (Shannon is the skinny sister on the left)

Last year to celebrate her birthday, I went and bought myself the making memories embellishment center. I can't wait to get out of work and see what surprise I get this year for her birthday:) P.S. Those tags a couple of posts down were for her

Get Connected Promotion from Stampin' Up!

Have you checked out Page 210 of the Current Catalog? I have to tell you that I hadn't really paid it much attention till a week or so ago. A customer order the cutest little note card set. It comes with stamps, an ink spot and 4 gift notes and envelopes for only $9.95! Where had THAT been hiding! Also on Page 210 are some SINGLE stamps that can be purchased. Perfect for a little gift for the stamper in your life or if you need just the right sentiment, but don't want to buy a whole set. Guess what?!? This month you can get these stamps for FREE! Remember I told you a little bit about this promotion yesterday, but mentioned that there were technical difficulties with it, so SU put it on hold? It's fixed and running as planned. Here's the scoop....

Promotion Dates: April 1 - 30, 2009
Customers Spend $40 on Occasions Mini Catalog products and choose any one item from the "Under $10" page in the Spring-Summer 2009 Idea Book & Catalog for free.

Hostesses Hold a workshop of $150 or more and choose any one item from the "Under $10" page in the Spring-Summer 2009 Idea Book & Catalog for free.

Here is a link to a flyer with more info. You will get this special offer if you order on your own through my website or by calling or emailing me to place your order.

2009 Occasions Mini is Here!

The NEW Occasions Mini from Stampin' Up! is here. Starting today, April 1st you can get these great new items. As a demo, I could order from this mini catalog starting last month. Let me tell ya a secret.... I usually don't order too many Mini items as if they don't make it into the big catalog, I can't demo them for very long, but after a look at this Mini and I ordered almost everything! It's a good one. If you see something you like and would like to order, give me a call or contact me via email! SU has announced a promo that if you order $40 from the Mini, you may pick one of the new single stamps from the back of the big catty, but there are some technical difficulties with the promo, so stay tuned for more info on that.

Also, I am holding a Oval Scallop Punch class on April 22nd. Cost is $20 and you get to take your punch home with you! Pre-registration due by April 3rd.

Hint: If you click on the catalog it will take you to a PDF version.

I made Cupcakes today

Okay, so they are not "real" cupcakes and my kids probably won't like them much, but I sure am happy with how they turned out. They will be a little gift for someone special in my life.... could it be...... you?

Again today, I used a set illustrated by my friend Diane. This one is called cupcake occasions. I knew I wanted to cover a bunch of bases and this set has something for everyone. You can see it here. I stamped all the images on 2 x 2 1/4 pieces of white and colored them all (2 of each). Then, I grabbed my scrap bucket and went to work assembling and embellishing. All the tag bases are 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 except for one. After I took this picture, I went back and added matching embrodiery floss to each tag. When I was all done, I knew I needed something to present/hold them in, so I modified the top note purse I made yesterday and left the lid off. The box that holds the tags is 5 1/2" x 6". I scored the 5 1/2" side at 1", flip it around and score at 1" on the other side. Then score the 6" side at 2 1/2" & 3 1/2". Thanks for stopping in today.

Gotta love M&M's!

My co-workers have been working on an adorable M&M scrapbook page and asked me to cut some letters with my naturally serif die for them to use as a title. I ended up with a couple of extra "m's", so I thought I'd make my own M&M project. Isn't it cute?

A purse and some ducks

I had some time to play this morning and I thought I'd make some 3-d items with my favorite dp - raspberry tart. I LOVE this stuff and I also love how it coordinates with the current in-colors. I saw this adorable purse here and wanted to try my own. Almost every day I find something that I put into my Blog Ideas to Try favorites folder and rarely do I ever actually go back and try someting. I'm glad I gave this one a shot (a big shot lol) and made my own cute little purse. The one thing that I found that is not explained on Becky's blog is where to score my scallop circle to fit over the top. Not too difficult to figure out, but figured I'd let you all know that I just counted 12 scallops and scored from left to right. If you leave 3 scallops in the center, you'll end up with 12 scallops in the front and 12 in the back - get it? Thanks for stopping in today! Look who else stopped in today -

There were 2 ducks swimming in our pool this morning. The kids were just headed out to feed them some bread when they flew away. The brown one is hard to see, but is just in front of the pretty mallard (I think it's a mallard anyway).

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today is my mom's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! This is picture of her with my niece doing what she does best - loving and playing with her grandkids:) My mom is the mother of 5 and grandmother of 14 - she doen's look it does she? What an amazing woman she is - married to a dairy farmer for almost 50 years, raising 5 kids (none of which ever spent time in jail) and still has plenty of love and energy for each of her 14 grandchildren and her garden! You rock mom - I love you!

Here is the card I made for my mom. As I said, we were a farming family and cows hold a special place in all of our hearts. I used Annabelle for this card - she's just too cute. The bashful blue mat is textured with a sizzix texture plate that was put through my big shot machine. The doodling around annabelle is part of the stamp. I doodled around the blue mat in an attempt to match the circle.

Matchbox Die treasure chest

I made time to play! The first thing I wanted to try was the new matchbox bigz xl die from the occasions mini. It makes this adorable little sliding box thing. I saw this on SCS and wanted to try to make my own. You make 3 matchboxes and stack them and then wrap with a piece of dp (cut to 2 5/8 x 10) around all three. Tip: Tape the dp to the sides of the boxes so they will pull out and their "case" stays behind. The drawer pulls are half back pearls from the pretties kit. The ribbon in the free SAB ribbon (love that stuff) and the tag is made using 3 new things...

1. The Yummy Stamp free SAB Set - stamped with certainly celery on white cardstock

2. The Brandy-New scallop oval punch (will be available in the mini) - yellow piece
3. One of the tags that is included with the matchbox die (3 tags on this die) - the blue piece

I filled mine with mini snickers, but I can see lots of different little treats in this quick project. Can't wait to show you more.....

My Occasions Mini Pre-Order is here!

While I have not had much time to stamp lately, I still had time to shop - lol! This is what was in my SU box yesterday... it's my Occasions Mini Pre-Order toys!! As a demo, I get to see the minis and catalogs a bit before they "go live" and even get to order from them ahead of time so I can make lots of samples and have product to show you when it becomes available to customers. I had time to mount all these sets yesterday (quick work now that everything is die cut!) Now to find a place to put all this new stuff and then to find time to play with it all!! Hope to have something new to show you soon! Thanks for stopping in - sorry I've been so MIA lately. I've missed you all!

tutorial - how to make a rectangle window with the tab punch

So I haven't been doing alot of stamping for my blog lately, but I have been working on some speical swaps for an upcoming gathering in Buffalo. Well, it's not until April, but it's HUGE, so I figured I'd better get a jump on things. This is a little sneak peek at one of my projects, and a tutorial borne of necessity to go along with it! I needed a "window" in a rectangle, but didn't have a square punch big enough, so I improvised with my large tab punch and it worked like a charm!! Here's what I did:

1. I started with a 3.5 x 3 rectangle

2. Centered my tag punch all the way in and and punched out a tag

3. Then I turned the paper around and lined up the edges to complete the rectangle. Easy Peasy, huh?!?

Hope you enjoy and find some reason to use a "window" in your projects! Wonder if anyone can identify this when we get to Buffalo?!?

SCS Gathering in Maine, NY - Shoebox Project

This was my contribution for the shoebox swap (see previous post) at the recent SCS CNY gathering in Maine, NY. I was unwrapping (no, not eating, just unwrapping...lol) hershey kisses one day and had a lightbulb moment - The wrapper could be a saw blade! So I stamped the saw onto the wrapper and then stamped the saw again onto the kraft piece of cardstock. I cut out the metallic saw blade and glued it to the kraft piece. Everything else on this card is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions, feel free to post them and I'll answer ya!! THanks for stopping in!

CNY SCS Gatheirng in Maine, NY - Demo Quality Swap

I recently attended a gathering of Central and Southern Tier NY'ers in Maine, NY. We routinely gather to swap cards, atc's (Artist Trading Cards), Recipie Swaps and stamp together making shoebox projects. A shoebox project is where everyone brings enough pre-cut supplies for the other people at their table to make their project. I participated in the Demo Quality Swap. In this swap, your whole cardfront had to be completely current SU supplies. I called my offering Quilted Tarts. I started by cutting a piece of creamy carmel paper to 4 x 5 and then adhering coordinating 1" pieces to it. I chose Raspberry Tart Designer paper as it's my new favorite and because I knew it would all match and I wouldn't have to worry about that part. After the 4 x 5 piece was covered with 1" square of DP, I ran it through my top note die, then through the big shot again using the new SU texture plate called damask. I adhered the top note piece to a mat of pink pirouette which I had pierced with my pokey poke and the mat pack. Then I stamped thank you using a stamp from the cute and curly set and punched it out with the curly label punch and attached a "button" I had previously die cut using the Buttons #5 sizlet and covered with crystal effects and let dry. The whole card was then attached to a kiwi kiss base. I repeated this 12 times and viola a Demo Quality swap!

what do I do with those watercolor wonder crayons?

That's what this month's DIVA hostess wanted to know.... so I ordered some (yes, I don't have EVERYTHING) and got to work. I'll be honest, I had a bit of a hard time achieving a look that I really liked. This card doesn't show very well, but the flowers are pretty IRL. To get these flowers, I first spritzed my inspired by nature stamp with water, then colored directly onto the stamp with the crayons, spritzed again a couple of times and stamped onto very vanilla cardstock. I'd seen a card much like this on SCS and decided to try it to see if it would work for my DIVA's. I hope they like it, as it's the card we will be doing friday night. We will also color with the crayons directly onto the paper and pick up color from the end of the crayon with an aqua brush. The card is called a tent topper and the base is cut to 4 1/4 x 8 1/2, then folded to make a 4 1/4 inch square. Then you make your focal image any size and shape you want and use a finished card or an envelope to determine placement onto your card base.... KWIM? Thanks for stopping by my rubber room today!

A happy Heart birthday card

Man! Has it really been 10 days since my last post? I'm sorry I'm not a better blogger :( Today I wanted to share a picture of the 2nd card we did at last week's workshop. The girls liked it and it was a nice workshop card as it is not difficult at all. The card base is pink pirouette and also used is chocolate chip (punched with the new eyelet scalloped border), riding hood red and whisper white. The dandelions are stamped with pink pirouette and riding hood red progressively. Progressive stamping is when you ink the stamp and stamp it full strength, then stamp again without reinking. You get varying shades of matching color this way.... very easy! Well, anyway, hope you like today's card. I'm working on a video tour of the rubber room, but first I need to clean it! Happy Valentines Day - hug someone!

happy heart day!

Hi there! I can't believe it's February already - seriously, where does the time go? I love valentines day since being married - no pressure to find a valentine or feeling like a loser without one, but instead just a nice opportunity to tell (and show... if you're not to tired) your valentine how much you love him. I'm very lucky to have such a great valentine - those who know him, know he's great and he is. There, the telling part is done :)

Anyhoo... here's a card I made tonight. This may be a make and take project for an upcoming workshop. It uses lots of new products including the SU exclusive texturz plate (on the pink pirouette piece), the new 3 heart and eyelet border punches and the A Happy Heart set that made it into the big catty from the mini (yeah!). Thanks for stopping in today and Happy Heart Day - hugs!