Thanks So Much!!!

We're at the end of 2009, hard to believe. I am so thankful for all your kind comments that you have left throughout the year, and make sure to keep leaving them, I love hearing what you think! I love doing my blog. I believe that it's made me a better stamper and I love getting the opportunity to make something new everyday to show you. If you could see me in my stamp room giggling and being so excited after I create a project that's just perfect you would probably laugh at me, but then I get to show it here and I love that!! I love stamping and papercrafting, and I'm looking forward to sharing more with you next year!! So thanks so much for a fantastic year of blogging and I hope you join me next year for more exciting projects!!!


I want to share a little about this card before I leave. I love it!! I know that I say that about almost every project. But I genuinely do LOVE them! I love the border punch on this one and I love that sweet little flower, made out of 3 different circle punches! And most of all I think I love that pretty little brad in the center! That's one of the new epoxy brads in the mini!

To do the flower I punched 1 circle of each 1 inch, 1 1/4 and 1 3/8 circle punches. Then crumple them up, just put them in your hand and smoosh and squish and crinkle them. Gently unfold them and layer them on each other and secure with a brad. If you've done a great deal of crinkling then you'll notice your cardstock starting to separate, gently pull each layer apart and crinkle it up a little more. I found it easier to do after I put the brad in so that they all stay attached where they need to be, and just work in a circle to separate them. So now what is only 3 pieces of cardstock now looks like a 6 layer flower. Too cool!!

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Kind and Caring Thoughts

Cardstock: Sage Shadow, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, White

Ink: Close to Cocoa, White

Accessories: Pretty in Pink Epoxy Brads, Scallop Trim Border punch, 1, 1 1/4, 1 3/8 circle punches, dimensionals, sponges, Sage Shadow ribbon

PS Did you notice my cool new header on the top of my post-done with My Digital Studio!!!

Thanks for looking, see you next year!! I hope you have a safe, happy and healthy New Year!!

Milk Anyone??

I am having the MOST fun with my new Mini Milk Carton Die. It's just so cute and I love it to pieces. This one is one of the 5 super cute projects you can make if you attend my Sale-a-Bration class on January 30. Put the date on your calendar you won't want to miss this class. All 5 projects will use Sale-a-Bration products. I'm teaming up with a few of my fellow SU demos for this class so it will be even more fun!! The class is Saturday, January 30 at 10 AM. It's $15 or FREE with a $35 catalog order at the class-but bump up your order to $50 and get a Sale-a-Bration product for FREE!! You can choose between DSP, or a new border punch or one of many many stamp sets, including this one....

I love this set. I think it's my favorite Sale-a-Bration set this year!

One other thing that I'm loving about this milk carton die is putting the library clips on top of it!! I love the library clips but I never know what to do with them. Though cute they're too bulky to mail and I'm sad to say I haven't scrapbooked (with cardstock) in sooooo long. But I love putting them on top of the milk carton. I don't put adhesive on the top I just use the clip to hold it closed and you can open the whole thing or just the spout without tearing up the box, which I really love!!

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Vintage Labels

Cardstock: Old Olive, White, Chocolate Chip

Ink: Versa Mark

Accessories: Big Shot, Mini Milk Carton Die, Library Clips, White Embossing Powder, Heat Tool Dimensionals

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!!

Tutorial Tuesday-Kissing

Today I'm going to show you a really fun technique-kissing. Our stamps are going to kiss and make a beautiful card! I'm using 2 of the new stamps in the new mini catalog-that's only 1 week away!!! I'm so excited, I know you'll love this mini catalog!
To do the kissing technique you'll need a solid image stamp, I'm using the Butterfly Accent stamp from the mini. And you'll need a more detailed image. I'm using, the flowers and vines from Vintage Vogue also from the mini. You'll also need 2 ink pads light and dark shades. This one I'm using Blush Blossom and Melon Mambo. I think those 2 colors are soooo pretty together! So let's get started!!

To start you'll ink up your solid image stamp in the lighter color.

Then ink up your detailed image with the darker color (I'm not using SU blocks, still don't have mine-I only have this really big one which is not great for smaller stamps-so make sure you use the right size block if you're using clear mount sets! Mine should be here soon!). So you'll ink up your detailed image and KISS the solid image with it. Cute huh!

It's a little difficult to tell but you can see the darker Melon Mambo on there. Stamp that on your cardstock....

Isn't that amazing! You can customize your stamp any way you want now. Truth be told, the real reason I got the butterfly stamp was to do this technique! Way cool huh!!!

Here's the finished card, just needs a greeting. I didn't add one because I'm not sure what I'll use this for yet. Would make a great birthday or thank you card.

I curled the wings a little so that it wasn't so flat. Isn't it pretty! I am loving this butterfly!

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Love Helps

I hope you had a great weekend. Everything is getting back to normal here. Dan's back to work today and Logan's playing will all his new toys. Funny thing, Logan got a ton of new things and his favorite new toy is a flashlight. He got an overnight backpack with slippers, pj's, a toothbrush and flashlight in it. He loves the flashlight and has been playing with it every day since Christmas. Who knew!

Before we get to the project I wanted to share the cutest little treat! My friend and fellow demonstrator Jennifer brought treats to us last week and these were some of them, or what's left of them :) Aren't they just the cutest!!! Hershey Kiss head, almond ears and chocolate covered cherry body! I love them, and they might just be the perfect project for Logan next year! Thanks again Jennifer!!!


I've had a lot of time to finally play with some new stuff and here's on card that I'm doing for a swap. I need to make 25 of them. I love the colors together on them! Not Quite Navy, Kraft and Black. Isn't it just so pretty and elegant!

I want to get that satin ribbon in EVERY color! I just love it and can't get enough of it!!!

I also spent the weekend playing with my new border punch and corner punch and I think I finally have it figured out. I'll have samples of that soon!!

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Vintage Vogue

Cardstock: Not Quite Navy, Black, Kraft, Vanilla, Bella Bleu DSP

Ink: Not Quite Navy, Black

Accessories: Silver Brads, Black Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals, Scallop Trim Border Punch

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow for Tutorial Tuesday!

Christmas Eve and Morning

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great Christmas and Logan was a very lucky boy and received lots and lots or wonderful goodies. Here's a quick My Digital Studio page to highlight some of our favorite pictures.

The top right and left are Christmas Eve, hanging up the stocking and leaving cookies for Santa. Look at that smile in the cookie picture, is that not the sweetest look of excitment and anticipation you've ever seen! The rest are Christmas morning, and Logan opening his stocking gifts.

We're off today to see a movie, The Princess and the Frog, and maybe hit some after Christmas sales. You never know what you might find!

Thanks for looking, have a great weekend, see you Monday!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!! I have a quick card to show you that I created with My Digital Studio. I just love that program! Though somehow I'm still not caught up on scrapbooking! This card only took about 10 minutes and I LOVE IT!!

From my family to yours, we wish you a wonderful Christmas!!

Gift Giving

I'm so excited it's Christmas Eve. Logan is going to be a spider in the Christmas pageant at Church, he gets to bring Baby Jesus a Halo. In the story that they're doing (The Friendly Beasts), the spider weaves a halo above Jesus's head in the manger so Logan gets to walk down the aisle and bring the halo to him. There's also a cow bringing hay for a pillow, a sheep bringing wool for a blanket and a few more things. It should be really cute! Logan hasn't been in the pageant since he was Jesus 3 years ago. He was only 4 month's old then. He's excited too, hopefully he'll make it down the aisle with all the people there. It's easy to do in practice in an empty church, I think he'll be ok though. If we're allowed to take pictures I'll make sure and snap some to show you.

For today's project, I have the cutest purses to show you! At our demo Christmas Party last week, Amber got the purse I made and her daughters Jade and Ruby really liked it. So I came home and started working on purses for them! I made them smaller and used super girly fabric. And all together they took me 2 nap times. That's normally the only time I get to craft with a 3 year old so that's how I judge my projects. I spent one naptime, cutting the pieces with the big shot, ironing them and pinning them. Then the next day I sewed them. They each only took about 45 minutes to sew. The longest part is the cutting, ironing, and pinning. But they came out so cute!! And I dropped them off at their house yesterday, just in time for Christmas.

This one I used the Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon for the handle....

And this one I used Regal Rose ribbon.

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

UPS Calling

So are you ready for Christmas? Not much longer now. I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Logan and I are going to spend the day baking cookies for Santa! He's very excited. Last year was the first year he really understood who Santa is and we put cookies out on Christmas Eve and when he got up on Christmas morning, he didn't even look at the gifts under the tree or in his stocking, he was just more concerned about the cookies and milk being gone then gifts. After we finish baking the cookies I think we'll finally be ready for Christmas. Everything is wrapped and ready to go!


Ok are you ready for today's card. I think this is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE cards! When I saw this card on the very talented Marie's blog, I knew I had to make it!! He's just so adorable isn't he??? And as if he couldn't get better, he's made with punches!! I just love him, he looks just like my UPS guy too!!! He's kind of tall and skinny and has gray or graying hair. Looks just like him! And he's holding what is probably the best Christmas gift of all!

He's so adorable and I just love him!!! Make sure you check out Marie's blog, she also make a UPS girl and she's just as adorable as the boy one!!

I won't go into details about how I made him. You can find that all on Marie's blog.

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!!!

Tutorial Tuesday-Emerging Color

Today for Tutorial Tuesday I'm going to use some new stuff!!! Finally! I'm so glad I'm finally getting a chance to stamp with my new stuff!! Today I'm going to show you a different style of embossing resist. To do this one, you'll need clear embossing powder, versa mark, a bold image stamp set, a brayer, a darker classic ink and some DSP or cardstock that you've already stamped.

Stamp and emboss your bold image stamp. For this I'm using the Cottage Wall DSP and the new butterfly single stamp from the mini. Called Butterfly Accents. It's under $10 and so pretty and I can't wait to show you more techniques with it!

Use your brayer and ink and brayer all over your paper. The embossed areas will resist the ink. Keep going until it's your desired look.

Once you've gotten the look you want use a tissue, or swiffer cloth, or any cloth and 'buff' the embossed surfaces. Doing this will take off any ink that on them and let your DSP shine through!

Isn't is already so pretty! Attach it to your card.

That border punch is one of the Sale-a-Bration items you can earn!! Is that awesome or what? And the black satin ribbon---so pretty!!

The greeting is from one of the new stamp sets from the new mini called Vintage Vogue.

I hope you liked today's technique and have fun with it!

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!!

Gold Dasher

Well it's the beginning of another week, but this week is the last full week of the year and it's Christmas! I'm hoping to finally get to play with some of my new stuff this week! I just haven't had a chance to use it!!! It's killing me too, I want to play but I just don't have the time right now, too much to do! I think things will finally start to calm down a little this week and I'll find the time. Logan's out of school and Dan will have a few days off so that will be nice.
Anyway, I love today's card! I stamped the Dasher stamp on the brushed gold cardstock and them embossed it in gold EP.

I made 3 of these cards for Logan's teachers. I attached it to a gift bag filled with cookies and fudge for them. Isn't that satin ribbon yummy! The mini catalog has tons of satin ribbon, in so many different colors-gotta love that!! I can't wait to stock up on it!!

Supplies:

Stamp Sets: Dasher, Four the Holidays

Cardstock: Brushed Gold, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Versa Mark

Accessories: Gold EP, Versamark, Chocolate Satin ribbon, Jumbo brads, dimensionals

Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!

Christmas Party!

I'm so excited to show you all the great projects from our demonstrator Christmas party on Thursday. It's a long post but you won't want to miss any of it. Go grab some coffee, hot cocoa or tea and meet me back here for some amazing projects!!

Got it, great! We started the evening with yummy yummy food. We always do a potluck and everyone brings the yummiest food. Karen even brought a whole ham! After the food we opened our gifts. We draw numbers and open gifts in that order and you can choose to open a gift or steal someone's gift. But a gift can only be stolen 3 times then it's dead. So it's a lot of fun! Ready for some highlights?!

Here's Cathy with her grand-baby Madeline! Hi Cathy!!!! I'm so glad Cathy got a chance to come!

Ok onto the gifts!! I'm going to try to get all the names right with the gifts. I'm going completely on memory which isn't always reliable :) so let's hope I'm right! Oh and thanks to Barb for being my hand model for some for the gifts!

Here's what Karen did! Isn't it amazing! She used the decor element stencils and craft ink to do the apron! I love it!!!

This one was done by Kim 3. She's only been a demonstrator for a couple months ( I think) This is so pretty and would have looked great in my house. Those colors would match perfectly!


Corrina did this one and I just love it. The purple board (from Target) is magnetic and the letters are on magnets all cut with the big shot. It comes with a dry erase marker. So you can spell with the magnetic letters or you could use the marker! I just love it. Pam picked this one after I stole her gift (more on that later!). So she wanted to make sure no one else took hers so she 'marked' it as hers. Too funny. And she did get to keep it!

Barb made this it's a basket full of bath salts and other fun pampering things. Just what some of us need this time of year!!

Pam made this bracelet. That's our cardstock rolled into beads. How cleaver!! She was wearing a green one too. Love this!!

Mindy made this, it's a tin of candles and cookie cutters. The candles have eyelets and brads on them and the tin has our wonderful rubons! Very cute!

Michelle did this one. Poor Michelle is on crutches, hope you feel better soon Michelle!!! But she brought her daughter, home from college, to be her 'personal assistant'...hmmm wish I had one of those. I just love this idea! She used the calendar from the current mini catalog and did this. What a fantastic idea. I just may have to do this with my calender kit!

Kim did this one. It's a yummy basket with granola and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now. But also included is recipes to make everything in the basket. Great project.

This one was so cleaver, done by Carmelita! She found this thing at a hobby store, that's called make your own rubons and that's how she made the mugs with dasher on them. Isn't that just the best idea. I hope SU comes out with something like that some day. Plus she made the cool tin to keep them in!

Before I get to the project I got to keep and the project that I made here's just an example of our Decor Elements. Amber has so many around her house and they all look fantastic but I especially love this one!

Isn't it pretty and they look so great when they're up!



Ok here's the gift I got to bring home I was so excited!

Amber made this. You can use it as a jewelry hanger or display artwork on them. I went second and I opened Amber's, and I loved it instantly. Pam went a little later and stole it away from me! So I grabbed Karen's apron! Then Barb's gift was stolen, she got the apron and I stole back the board from Pam, sorry Pam! But then Pam got Corrina's awesome board so I think she was happy. Here's a close up of some of the things on the board.

Amber made the jewelry on there, with our pretties kit and filigree brads-AMAZING!!!

SU's statement of the heart.

Christmas card-lovely!

And finally I love SU!!! And I do!!!

Attached to the present was this beautiful ornament with the rubons.

I already have the board up in my stamp room just need to add some more projects to it! I'm sure that won't be too hard:)

And finally here's the gift I took. I just love this bag, it's made from the scallop square die for the big shot! Isn't it awesome!! I made one for me too, I couldn't bear to part with this and not have my own!! I actually have enough material to make a few more! I can't wait!!

I got this idea from Angie Juda. She's made a bunch of them and hers are fantastic! These are so easy to make and you can make them in just a couple hours, quick and easy!

As you can see I am blessed with the most amazing group of women for uplines, downlines and sidelines! I had the best time and I can't wait until next year. Maybe we should make this a twice a year party---Christmas in July anyone??

Thanks for looking, see you Monday!!