Shoebox Swaps

My Monday post is a little early-Sunday night actually :) Before we get to the cards from the shoebox swap last week, I want to invite you all to come out and see me this Saturday at the

16th Annual Holly Days Craft Fair

Saturday November 5, 2011

From 9am to 3pm

Grace Church

At 6901 San Antonio NE

(NW corner of Louisiana & San Antonio)

I would love for you to stop by!!! 

Now as promised here are the rest of the swaps from last weeks meetings.  I ended up with some really great cards. 

 This one was Nichole's.  I didn't think I liked this background set too much, but after making this card I just might have to get that set!

 This was Michelle C's card.  I think it's my favorite!  I just love this card.  The pleated skirt and the tag on the dress.  SO CUTE!!!

 This one was Carmelita's swap.  So pretty! 

 This one was Mindy's swap.  She used My Digital Studio for the tree.  Isn't it cool!?!

 This one was Michelle G's card.  I really didn't care for that circus set when it came out but I think it's starting to grow on me :)

 This one is Corrina's, I just love this set, I really need to use it more.

 This one was Liz K's card.  So so so pretty!!!!  And not as complicated as it looks!

Kim S did this one.  The star is embossed in gold.  So pretty!

This one was Phyliss's.  Candy corn feather's cute idea!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

Shoebox Swappin'

Last night was our monthly demo meeting.  This month we did a shoebox swap.  These are always fun.  We start with a potluck dinner then spend the next few hours stamping.  Instead of bringing finished cards we stamp them there.  It's so much fun, just to be with other demo's and stamp, stamp, stamp!!!!  This was my card.  I LOVE THIS CARD!!!  So pretty!!!  There's lots of subtle details on it that really make it pretty.  The first is the floral image that's lightly stamped on the DSP on top.  It's hard to see it in the picture.  I used the flowers from Elements of Style in Pink Pirouette. 

The next little subtle accessory on this card is the scallop ribbon.  I love this ribbon and I've often just used it for the little scallops on the edge.  It's so pretty!!  YOU MUST get it!!!  :)  Then to top it all off there's sponging around the whole card.  So sweet and pretty.  Of course the button and linen thread just make it super cute!!!! And it's easy to make!!  I'll have the rest of the cards from our swap on Monday. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Wrapping Up Regionals

Today will be my last post regarding SU regionals.  Once again I had a great time and I think it was one of the best regionals that I've ever been too (not just because I was part of it).  SU went out of their way this time and we got lots of free stuff, and the tips and techniques were all fabulous!!!  I can't wait to try them!!!!  Here's an MDS page I made to remember the fantastic time I had.  The pictures are all me with Amber (my upline), Carrie Cudney from SU, Bonnie Thurber from SU and Donna Griffith from SU.  Carrie, Bonnie and Donna were all sooooo nice.  Hopefully I'll get to see them again at Leadership in January. 

Finally after presenting, Bonnie gave me this card.  Oh my goodness it's so pretty!!!!!  Inside was a thank you note from SU and Carrie.  Plus it said I get to pick a free stamp set for presenting!  WOW!!!  More free stuff!  Have I mentioned that I love being a SU demonstrator???  YOU can join in all the fun too, and get a free Big Shot or $100 product bonus, JUST FOR JOINING!!!!  It's that simple!  You still have a couple days.  Contact me or sign up today!! 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Cards: Round Two

Did you enjoy 'round one' of the cards?  I hope so and the feedback has been great.  I've received lots of emails and comments.  Thanks!!!  Here's round two!  The bird is my favorite of all of them. He's just so cute and you could make him in a million different colors to make any kind of bird in the world!  Remember to check out yesterday's post and Monday's post for more info on the cards and the box for the cards. 

So the bird is my favorite and he's super easy.  For his head I used the 1 3/8 circle punch.  His Neck is the word window.  His fluffy feathers on top of his head is the largest flower from the boho blossom punch.  His eye is the small oval.  For his beak I used the 5 petal flower punch, punch one petal then punch your 1 inch circle punch over it so that you have an 'opened' beak.  Too cute! 

The elephant is another one of my favorites.  He's so cute!!!  Make sure you sponge around the trunk in a darker color.  It makes the trunk more noticeable, otherwise the colors just blend together.  Isn't the little girl elephant so cute.  She looks so happy! 

The elephant is super duper easy, it's going to blow you mind!  His ears are the butterfly punch-I know-so simple!  His head is the 1 3/8 circle punch.  The neck is the word window.  The trunk is extra large oval punch.  To get the trunk shape, punch the oval punch once, get rid of that piece or save it for another project.  Then punch again around the oval you just punched, making sure to tilt your punch so that it's larger on one end and gets skinner on the other end.  You may have to play with it a couple times to make sure your trunk looks right.  I can't tell you how many trunks I punched preparing for regionals :) 

The monkey is next.  The whole time I was creating the monkey, I just kept thinking about my fellow stamper Carmelita.  She loves monkeys and I think her daughters bedroom has monkeys in it.  So I hope she liked my monkey!

He looks complicated but he's not, none of these are :)  For his ears I used the 1/2 inch circle and the small circle from the itty bitty punch pack.  For his neck, say it with me, the word window punch.  You'll never use a word window punch again without thinking about animal necks :) His head is the 1 3/8 inch circle punch in both colors, just offset them a little and make the bottoms flat.  His nose is the small oval punch. 

Now for our final animal.  We've done 8 and it's the perfect amount to stick in the box from Monday.  The last one is the giraffe.  This one really is my favorite, favorite, favorite one!  I love this little giraffe, he's so stinkin' cute!!!!!!

For the giraffe, you'll need to trim a few of the pieces, you can see how and which ones in the picture.  His nose is the small oval.  The spots are the 1/2 inch circle.  His head is the 1 1/4 inch circle punch.  For his horns I used the modern label punch.  Just the little ends of it.  His ears and neck are also with the modern label punch.  The word window was too skinny for the giraffe's neck but the modern label is perfect!! 

So that's my animals, that's what I presented.  I hope you enjoyed them either here on my blog or at regionals.  I was able to go into more detail here so I hope that if you were at regionals you got a chance to check them out here too.  But my highlights from regionals isn't over yet.  I still have a couple more things to show you tomorrow. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

Cards: Round One

Yesterday I showed you the box that the cards went in and today and tomorrow I'll be showing you the cards that go in that box.  So first up is the zebra.  I love all the animals. But I do have my favorites and the zebra is one of them.  In all the pictures you'll see both the girl and the boy card then I showed how to do them all.  All the bows on the girl cars were made with the white bakers twine that I dyed with Regal Rose Ink Refil and some water.  I put googlie eyes on all of them.  I love googlie eyes for little animals like this, it adds to their character!  

Here's how I did the zebra.  You'll be surprised how easy all of these animals are.  For his head and nose, I used the large oval punch, cut the top off.  His hair is the modern label punch, just part of it, you don't need all of it.  His ears and neck are also the modern label punch, trimmed-see picture.  The stripes are word window punch also trimmed.  Super duper easy.  All of the necks and bodies got trimmed after attaching them to the Crumb Cake 1 3/4 inch circle.   

Up next is the lion.  This one was one of the first ones I created and he was so simple to make!  Make sure you sponge around the edges of the scallop circles.  By sponging it you'll really make those scallops 'pop' and give it more dimension. 

The lions head is the 1 1/4 inch circle punch.  Ears and nose are the 1/2 inch circle punch.  For his nose, after I punched it I stuck it to the sticky part of a post it note then put it back through the 1/2 inch circle punch to get the oval shape.  You can trim it by hand too.  His mane is 3 scallop circles.   

The turtle is next.  I think the turtle was the most challenging animal.  His head didn't look right being round or oval so I had to kind of create my own shape for his head.  I also ran his shell through the big shot with the square lattice embossing folder to give it some texture. 

For his spots on his shell I used the 1/2 inch circle punch.  For his shell I used the 1 3/4 inch circle punch.  For his neck I used the word window.  I trimmed mine a little just so that it got thinner closer to his head, but that step isn't necessary.  For his head, I used the 1 3/8 inch circle punch then I put it back in through the large oval punch to round out his chin.  Then I curved the corners so they weren't so pointy. 

And finally for today, the cheetah.  He's so cute!  I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but I got the inspiration for all of the animals from a baby quilt from a baby store. I saw it and used my cell phone camera to take pictures off all the animals.  So look everywhere for inspiration.  You never know when it will strike!

The picture makes the Daffodil Delight look green, but it's really yellow :)  For his head I used the 1 3/8 inch circle punch.  Ears 1/2 inch circle punch.  His nose is the small oval and the 1/2 inch circle punch.  His body is the large oval punch.  His spots are the large oval punch as well but I just used the tips of them.  I didn't want to use circles for his spots, so I thought the tips of the ovals would work great!  So that's it for round one.  Check back tomorrow for the rest of the animals :)



Thanks for looking, see you tomorrow!!

Regionals in Albuquerque!!

Stampin' Up! held their Regional Seminar in Albuquerque on Saturday.  I was honored to be a presenter!  I had the BEST time.  I did go last which was a little nerve wracking but once I got up on stage and I saw all my friends out there, I was fine and I think, or at least I hope that everyone enjoyed my little punched friends :)  There will be more pictures later this week highlighting regionals.  But for the next few days I'll show what I presented.  This picture has the camera guy, Ryan, I think that was his name.  To be honest when we were introduced to him I was quite nervous and missed his name, but I think it was Ryan.  He was so nice!!!  If someone knows his name and Ryan is not it, will you please correct me :)

My stuff was displayed on the boards after I demoed it, so here's a sneak peak to what you can expect the next few days on my blog :)  Today though I thought we'd start with the box.  I only talked briefly about the box, so I wanted to start with that in case anyone out there wants to make it. 

The box to store the cards in looks much harder than it actually is.  I promise!  You will need 2 pieces of paper, we'll get to that in a minute.  You can embellish your box any way you want.  This one I made to match my cards.  Of course you can adapt this box to fill with Christmas cards or thank you cards.  Whatever you want, it makes a wonderful hostess gift, or just a gift in general! 

First you'll need 1 sheet of paper that's 9 1/2 x 7.  This one you'll score on the 7 inch side at 4 1/2 and 6 1/2.  On the 9 1/2 inch side you'll score at 2 and 7 3/4.  You will need to do a bunch of trimming once you get it scored, the picture shows where you need to trim.  I cut all my tabs at angles.  It really makes a difference when you assembling your box.  You're second piece of cardstock is 10 1/2 x 7.  Score on the 7 inch side at 4 1/2 and 6 1/2, and the 10 1/2 inch side at 1, 3 and 8 3/4.  You'll attach sticky strip to the 1/2 tab on each piece, then it just gets assembled together.  Pretty simple after that.  Cute huh!!  Want to see a different box made from the same pattern?  Well who wouldn't?!

This box I made for my downline who's expecting a baby.  In the box I made a set of the cards that I demoed but in a girl theme, and not so much browns and greens.  I tied the bow across the top, just to add a little more frill to it.  I love the embossed polka dots!!!! 

This one instead of a belly band, I used Velcro, which I think I actually prefer.  I just love this little box.  This box will hold 8 cards and envelopes easily.  If your cards have lots of embellishments or are 'thicker' than the normal card, it might hold less.  Have fun making these.  I'll be back tomorrow with round 1 of my cards :)



Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

Such Sweet Gifts!

Tomorrow is the Stampin' Up! Regional Conference.  I'm so stinkin' excited and also a little nervous.  I'll be presenting some punch art at the conference.  While I'm super excited,  you can understand why I'd be a little nervous.  But I've been practicing and I hope it all goes well.  But if you see me tomorrow at the conference make sure to stop by and say HI to me!  I'd love to meet you!  Just let me know that you follow my blog and I'll have a special gift for you!  If you are attending don't worry too much about taking notes during my presentation on stage, next week I'll have lots of posts detailing everything I show, and a couple of things I won't show :)

If you won't be at the conference, I hope you'll still check out my blog next week for highlights of Saturday.  This has been such a huge month with my small paragraph in Stampin' Success and now presenting tomorrow.  I am so honored to be asked and I hope I do a great job.  If I haven't said it before I LOVE being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  I truly feel that SU treats it's demonstrators like family and I've made some of the best friends through Stampin' Up!  I would LOVE to have you join Stampin' Up! to experience all that SU has to offer.  Remember if you sign up this month you can get a FREE Big Shot or FREE $100 bonus!  I can't stress enough what a fantastic deal this is!!!  If you don't already have a demonstrator and you're interested in joining please contact me, I'd love to share SU with you!!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

I'm a Domestic Goddess!

Well, not in this lifetime anyway :)  I am not a domestic goddess, there's too much stamping to do, no time to clean or cook (that and I'm not great at either chore)!  But I do LOVE the Domestic Goddess DSP.  I think it's slowly becoming my favorite!  Especially after this card.  I love it, and it's so simple and there's really noting for me to explain to you.  I've seen this layout done on dozens of cards all over the blog land and I just love it!  So here's my take on it.  It's so easy to do too.  The circle at the bottom are just half of the 1 1/4 inch circle punch that was glued on under the coordinating DSP.  The ribbon hides that seam so that you'd never know :)  I made a stack of these yesterday for those that were so generous for Megan's birthday. 

So that's it, short and sweet today!!! 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Birthday Owls

You may have saw on my blog that yesterday was Megan's 1st birthday.  We began the day with her 1 year well check and 6 shots-OUCH! Plus a flu shot for Dan and myself.  I do want to mention that I didn't purposefully schedule her well check up ON her birthday.  I had it scheduled for this Friday but the office called and said the Dr would be gone and it had to be rescheduled, well this was the only day that worked.  So I did try not to have all those shots given to her on her actual birthday.  We did finish the day with some cake so it all works out, right?  But anyway this is the card I made for Megan for her birthday.  So cute! 

I saw this card, weeks ago, on Darlene's blog and I thought it was too cute not to make!  Mine not as complex as hers.  My tree is lacking the leaves and my eyes are just googlie eyes instead of the eyes that come with the punch.  But it's still cute!  I really *NEED* that wood grain background stamp too.  I used my color spritzer to add some depth to my tree but that wood grain stamp would have been perfect!!  Make sure you check out Darlene's blog, her card is just amazing!   

I do still love this card, it's still so cute!  When I make window cards like this I like to add a smaller 'card' in the card.  This way if you have a long message to write it doesn't show through the front.  This is also a good tip when you have multiple people signing a card, like at an office or school.  It just gives more room to write. 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Sweet Pouch

Today is Megan's 1st birthday.  If you were following my blog last year, you know what a horrible pregnancy I had and now it's hard to believe it's already been a year since I had her.  Happy Birthday Megan!!!  But you came to see something stamped right?  This pouch is so sweet, (especially when you fill it with candy)!  I love sharing great ideas and this great idea came from Catherine Pooler.  I'm not going to go into the details too much on this card, she lists everything on her blog, plus she has a great video if you need further instruction.  Or if you're like me and could watch stamping videos all day :)  Someday I hope to do videos on my blog....someday.  But anyway, this is so easy and we made a version of this at my workshop on Sunday.  I had some candy left so I thought I'd make one for me too :)  So cute!!!  I love it!!!

These are great for co workers, kids, neighbors, strangers, ANYONE!  I used the Stocking Accents die from the mini for my holly leaves.  Though if you don't have that die you can make holly leaves from an oval punch and a small circle punch.  Just punch the tip of the circle all around the oval.  I'm really addicted to adding banner greetings on my card and projects.  Everything lately seems to have a greeting like that.  It makes me happy!  I added Crystal Effects to the berries to make them glossy.  I can't wait to make more of these!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Fun Tip!

I had a great weekend, on Saturday Dan and I took the kids to get 'lost' in the Dino corn maze here.  Fortunately we found our way out :) Sunday I had a workshop that went great!  My hostess got lots of free stuff!!!  Host your own workshop to earn free products too!!!  I don't have a project for you today, but wait don't leave!  I have a super fun tip to show you.  If you're anything like me you like to sponge, a lot!  Well my last sponging method wasn't going well.  I had a little box of sponges and just tried to find the closest color and use that sponge.  I'd wash them every now and then, but it was a bad system and I don't recommend it.  I've been wanting to do this for a long time but just never did it.  So last Friday I was determined to do it!  I assigned each sponge a color.  If you follow my blog you know I did that a couple years ago, BUT the problem was, those sponges were stored in a drawer in the closet, that never got opened.  It was just more convenient for me to look through my 'box of sponges', then dig through the drawer.  So this time, I stored each color next to it's coordinating ink pad.  Now it's convenient AND I won't be mixing colors or ruining ink pads which was always a fear.  Doesn't it look good? 

For each sponge I punched a Designer Label Punch and wrote the color on it and stapled it to my sponge.  This way if I have 4 greens sitting out, there's no guessing on which one is Certainly Celery and Which one is Pear Pizazz.  This was not my original idea, I've seen this done, I'm not sure who had this fantastic idea, but I LOVE it and it's going to make my stamping, sponging and life just a little easier :) I promise I will have new projects this week, I'm gearing up for a fantastic week on my blog next week, you'll want to check every single day!!!  As for me this week, Megan's 1st birthday is tomorrow, I have a workshop on Thursday (YAY) AND Albuquerque regionals is this weekend on Saturday, I couldn't be more excited!  But there's so much to do, so I'm going to go, but I'll be back tomorrow! :)

Megan

As we get ready to celebrate Megan's 1st birthday next week, yes she's already 1 year old!!!!  I thought I'd do an MDS page on her.  So I went to my 2012 calendar, which is in major progress, and made up this page for one of the months.  These pictures were all take a couple weeks ago at the Balloon Fiesta.  They're so cute.  Megan was overwhelmed by everything that day and was asleep before it was even over.  So cute!  I love this page, there's really not much to it.  The scallop punch was used for all the borders and I color matched all the colors to her jacket.  You'll notice there's a lot of empty space  on the bottom and some on the top, that's there on purpose.  When your creating in MDS, make sure to check all your bleed areas, or the areas that might get cut off during printing.  For the calendar, you loose some of the page on the bottom or top for the spiral to go.  So I always create with my guides on, that way there's no surprises when it gets printed and nothing gets cut off.  Other than that there's really not much too it, the pictures really say it all. 

Have a fantastic weekend.  I have so much to get done, I'll see you Monday!!!

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!

Finally!!!!!

Finally!!!  I can share with you some amazing exciting news that I've know for over a month now.  As demonstrators we get a magazine, Stampin' Success, it's a fantastic magazine and probably the only magazine I read cover to cover when I receive it.  Every month they hold monthly art contests.  I entered one of them and I won!!!  I couldn't believe it when I got the email!  I was sooo excited and really surprised I never thought I'd win.  In addition to being published in the magazine I also got to pick 3 free stamp sets, so that was just icing on the cake.  But today is all about the card I won with.  I love it!  I had to send it in a padded envelope so it wouldn't get smooshed. 

The flowers are just made with circles.  I was working on a different project and meant to cut the circles out of Crumb Cake, I'm not sure how or why I thought I needed Not Quite Navy, but there I was with 9 circles I couldn't use (I didn't use them all on this card).  I had to use them, no sense in wasting perfectly good circles.  So this card was made.  I do love it and wish I had made 2 to keep on for myself, but I'll always have the magazine to remember it :)

Here's the actual article from the magazine.  I'm so honored to be in it!  I'm always in awe of some of the projects that win so to be one of them myself is a little surreal for me :)  But just another reason why I LOVE what I do soooo much.  YOU can do what I do too, sign up this month and get a Free Big Shot!!!!!  You really won't find a better deal than that!!!!  If there was one tool I couldn't live without in my stamp room it's my big shot, if you own one, you know what I'm talking about :) 

Thanks for looking, see you soon!!!!

Leafy

I'm back, I still have sooooo much to get done.  It occurred to me that I don't have a free weekend until the second week in December.  WOW!!!  I'm a busy bee!!!  I think I need to get organized make a plan and stick to it!  But in the mean time I've created a little card today.  It's very simple and the colors didn't photograph well but in real life it looks so cool.  I used the baby wipe technique for the leaves.  If you've never done the baby wipe technique it's so super easy.  Take a small stack of baby wipes and drop a few drops of reinker on them, I just used small dots all over the baby wipe, then you have your own custom, temporary, ink pad.  Stamp as you normally would.  I love this technique for the Gently Falling set, the leaves are sooo pretty!!!

For my leaves the reinker colors that I used were, Baja Breeze, More Mustard and Old Olive.  An unusual color combo but it works!  For the rest of the card, I sponged the outside with Soft Suede and used my color spritzer tool with Soft Suede too.  So pretty!!!  This would be a great make and take or class card, it's simple but pretty, and you could do a ton in a short amount of time, which the way the rest of my year looks is a good thing!!!