Single fun!

Stampin' Up! has done it again!  They've released a new set of single stamps that will be available until January 31st, 2014.  What is so special about these single stamps?  They're holiday stamps, which is awesome because one can never have too many of those.  But even better, one of those single stamps lets everyone make a 3-D star without "doing the math".

Remember my posts back in December 2012?  I devoted three of them to making 3-D stars but, because we didn't have a stamp or die to make one, I depended on my protractor and figuring out all the angles, right up to an eight-armed star.  You might want to see the first one which shows how to make the five-armed star.  That's the one which we're going to do today, without having to do a stitch of math.

Introducing item #134813, the Christmas Star.

Pretty, isn't it?  The design is so elegant.  Because it's a solid stamp with only the flourishes and "starburst" lines left uninked, you can make the star any colour you wish.  I decided to stamp mine using Island Indigo.
After all, that's one of the colours in our beautiful Winter Frost Specialty Designer Series Paper.

Yes, you will have to cut it out using your paper snips.  I've left a tiny border of white around the star just to tie in the interior flourishes and lines.  You can see that the star is quite a significant size.  From arm point to arm point, it measures 4 3/8".  Of course it will appear slightly smaller once it is puffed up into a 3-D object, but even then it will measure 4 1/8".

The next step, after cutting the star out, is to use your scoring stylus and run it along the lines, from the point to the indent.  You can use a ruler for this step if you're afraid you'll have wonky lines otherwise.  I put my Silicone Craft Sheet underneath to allow the stylus to leave a generous indent in the paper.

Once you have the score lines, it's easy-peasy.  Just like my tutorial in December's post, you simply make mountains with the long score line from point to centre and valleys with the short score lines from indent to centre.  And there you have it:  a gorgeous 3-D Christmas Star.

If you came to my Open House then you will have made one of these stars just for fun as a "warm-up" before we got to work on the make-n-takes.

What can you do with the star?  Let your imagination be your guide.  You've seen what I did back in December, beginning with the first star.  This time I made a second identical star and then put some dimensionals in strategic spots.

Then I matched them up carefully and they adhered together to make a wonderful double-sided star.  Can't you just imagine a few of these hanging from your tree?

I'm going to play with these and see how they look dressed up with some Dazzling Details.

It's okay, you can tell your friends!

That's right, it's almost time for another Blog Hop!  Excited?  I sure am.

Less than two weeks from now we'll be having another fantastic Watercooler Blog Hop, this time featuring creations just for the holidays.  You really won't want to miss it.

Go ahead.  Tell your friends.  September 12th is coming soon!

Surprise! Surprise! Specials from Stampin' Up!

Guess what!  For those of you who haven't yet bought the Papillon Potpourri stamp set and its matching Punch, the Bitty Butterfly, you're in luck.  Waiting has paid off for you because Stampin' Up! is offering them as a bundle right now and until the 30th of September.  Yes, that's right!  Until the end of September you can buy the two for a very satisfying 15% off.  Don't you love saving money---especially when you wanted to buy the products anyway?

So what are you getting?  You will receive the beautiful Papillon Potpourri stamp set

And you will also receive the cute Bitty Butterfly punch

Of course you will have the option of getting the bundle with either clear or would-mount stamps.  The prices for each are:

Bundle Item	Page in Catalogue	Description	Retail Price	15% Savings Price	Amount Saved!
135311	90 183	Butterfly Bundle (Clear-Mount) Papillion Potpourri Clear-Mount Stamp Set Bitty Butterfly Punch	$39.90	$33.92	$5.98
135312	90 183	Butterfly Bundle (Wood-Mount) Papillion Potpourri Wood-Mount Stamp Set Bitty Butterfly Punch	$44.90	$38.17	$6.73

I had to let you know about this as soon as I found out.  Butterflies are such fun to use on cards and when you can get both the stamp set and matching punch for a great price, magic happens.

August Open House Projects---Introducing the holidays!

Two down!  That's right, I've finished with two of my three Open House days and I'm still alive to talk about it.  And they were so much fun!

Friday's Open House was the hardest because I was still getting ready and even prepping the make-n-takes right until the last moment.  If Shera-Lee hadn't gotten up on her white steed and ridden to my rescue wearing her silver armour, who knows if the Open House would even have gotten off the ground.  But she did and the rest is history.  Daughters are such wonderful creatures, but none quite so wonderful as my own Shera-Lee.

The only downer to Friday's Open House was that I was constantly looking out the window.  What was I looking for?  My small order from Stampin' Up! which included the just-introduced Envelope Punch Board as well as two of the brand new Single Stamps and the Circle Flip Card Thinlit had been scheduled for Thursday delivery.  This was Friday and I had hoped to at least show a couple of samples made with those brand new items and even by the end of the make-n-takes the UPS truck still hadn't shown up.  Fretting is a mild way to describe my state of mind.

Just as I was about to give up completely and was resigned to a Monday delivery, the doorbell rang and my parcel arrived.   The attendees of my Open House were just finishing their orders and I was able to rip open the box and show off my goodies.  As a treat, I cut out a Flip Card for each of them so that they could play with it at home.

I gave you a little sneak peek of what we did as make-n-takes and promised a how-to post.  Well, here comes number one.

The first project was the Christmas card.  The new products from the Holiday Catalogue showcased in the card were the Silver Foil paper, "Merry" from the Expressions Thinlits Dies, paper from the Winter Frost Specialty Designer Series Paper, the Silver Metallic Encore ink pad, a snowflake using the Festive Flurry Bundle, and the Pretty Print Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.  I love it when you can put a whole bunch of new products into one creation!

The card is easy enough.  We start with a base of 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" Naturals White cardstock, scored down the centre to make a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card.  Next we have a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Midnight Muse which we put through the Big Shot using the Pretty Print embossing folder.  There are two strips measuring 1 3/4" x 5 1/4" one of which is Whisper White and the other is the starburst pattern from the Winter Frost Designer Paper.  We take the strip of Whisper White and centre the Delicate Designs embossing folder on it and run it through the Big Shot.  Then we cut the edges which were not embossed using the new Rotary Addition on the Stampin' Trimmer with the small Scallop Cutting Blade installed.   I love the pretty border that the blade gives the embossed strip!

Before assembling, you can either gently sponge a bit of silver across the embossed Midnight Muse to bring out the pretty print texture or just leave it.  Either way it looks wonderful.  After adhering the Midnight Muse to the base, I adhered the Designer Paper approximately 1/2" from the bottom edge and then centred the embossed Whisper White on that.

The next step was to show off the wonderful Magnetic Platform.  We stamped a small piece of Midnight Muse using a snowflake stamp from the Festive Flurry stamp set and the Silver Encore ink pad.  Love the way the silver just pops against the deep blue cardstock!  Then we took the matching Festive Flurry framelit and cut that stamped snowflake out effortlessly.  The framelit didn't move at all.  Using the same framelit, we each also cut another snowflake from the Silver Glimmer paper.

The snowflakes were each mounted on dimensionals at the top right corner.  First the Glimmer snowflake was mounted on dimensionals and then the stamped one, also on dimensionals but turned slightly to show off the snowflake underneath.  In the centre of the stamped snowflake, we adhered a large rhinestone.

The card already looked pretty but we still needed to use the Expressions thinlit die.  That one went through the Big Shot on a strip of the Silver Foil paper.  It was easy to get the "Merry" out using the piercing tool.  We ran some Two-Way Glue along the letters and it adhered perfectly to the embossed Whisper White strip.

It took me longer to type the instructions than it did for us to make the card.  It looks absolutely gorgeous, doesn't it?  And yet it really wasn't much work.  Everyone loved it during the Friday Open House as well as my Saturday Open House.

Tomorrow I'll post the instructions for our cute Hallowe'en make-n-take box.

The Neverending Story (of a room trying to find its identity)

Did you come here to find out if I managed to get my room organized enough to hold my Open House?  It took some doing, but, yes, I managed enough.  It isn't as organized as I would like and a few things flew off my radar during the last frantic efforts to get finished.  I will find them when I get back to the final phases of the room re-hab.

The new layout made me very happy.  It definitely made a difference.  With my desk at the top of the room, against the window wall, there is finally room on both sides of the table for people to be sitting and creating.  Until now I've had to snug my long table against my desk in order to have walking and sitting room along the one side.  So that's a giant step in the right direction. 

Long table going along centre of room.

The shelving full of stamp sets and below that the organizing unit

Shera-Lee and Adam gave me.  Beside that, the two Ikea towers.

And beside those you can just see the file cabinets for my paper.

The super drawer unit from Costco which is so well-built that

it houses all my punches and dies.  I'll have to post a picture

later in the organization showing the contents of the drawers.

So the room really did look okay.  Not perfect or even approaching perfect, but at least a work-in-progress that allows me to have people come in and stamp comfortably.

Then I also had the new products set up in other rooms.  I would have loved a really professional looking set-up, but it's early times yet.  I've only been doing this for 20 months now, after all.  Give me a chance.

Products from the Holiday Catalogue and new 

catalogue-free products such as the photopolymer

 stamp sets and the Undefined.

And a few of the samples along with more new products and the catalogues.

I also managed to create the two make-n-takes for the Open Houses.  Yes, that was really going down to the wire.  A very dear friend sent me a cartoon that epitomizes my creative habits.  I really do have to share it with you.  Hope you enjoy Calvin and Hobbs as much as I do.

Yes, last minute panic saved the day---again!  Thanks to my daughter, Shera-Lee, for the prepping of all the cut materials for those make-n-takes.  It freed up some time for me to get the last bit of clean-up done.  Hmmm---could she be the Hobbs to my Calvin?  No, I'm just overtired, right.

I'm going to give you a sneak peek at the make-n-takes. 

 I'll post larger photos as well as the usual how-to in my next blog post.  But at least this gives you an idea of what my fevered brain finally came up with in its last minute panic.

The Neverending Story (of a room organization without a plan)

August 21st - Weary Wednesday

I don't know about you, but I used to make plans.

Whenever we would move into another house or if I planned to change around one of my rooms, I would haul out my graph paper, draw out the room(s) to scale, measure out all the pieces of furniture that would go into the room(s) to scale, and then arrange my room(s) on paper.  It was anal, yes.  But it did not result in a broken back or a broken spirit.  Is my back truly broken?  Probably not, although there are muscles and ligaments in it that are insisting they will never function normally again.  Is my spirit broken?  Ask me after I have another cup of coffee.

This time I'm taking it straight from the bag...

Yeah, that hit the spot.  No, this room has not yet broken my spirit.  I finished my coffee and moved everything around again.  When I didn't like the way things "felt" the way I had moved the furniture around and I knew it was disorienting, I realized it wouldn't work.  Let me just say this:  I am really, really getting tired of moving extremely heavy pieces of furniture back and forth around my room.  I'd rather be creating.

This is what I began with early this morning.

Note how each side is "stuffed" into the corner.  This is the layout I woke up to.

And after feeling totally disoriented typing on my laptop and looking around the room, I knew I wouldn't be able to live with this layout.  If I had stuck to my former graph paper ways, this would never have happened.

So, after some very strong coffee and a whole lot of ugly language and some screaming muscles, I wound up with this layout.

Note how the table and the desk are both up against the window wall.
Sad to say, the two towers from Ikea are back to being side-by-side
 which is what I began with yesterday.

Okay, after taking this layout for a spin I can honestly say it doesn't make me feel claustrophobic or disoriented.  So I can begin the chore of clearing up.

August 22nd - Clean-Up Thursday

As I was beginning this ordeal, someone told me "Small bites, Heidi, small bites."  If I could have done this over the course of a few weeks it would have been easier.  Sad to say, I could have started earlier, but my natural-born procrastination got in the way and, of course, I'm working to beat a deadline now.  Why a deadline?  Well, Friday, Saturday and Monday will be my Open Houses.  Three of them?  You know what summer is like--it's hard when dates don't work so this way I can accommodate more people on days that they can make it to my house.  In theory, this is a great idea.  With the upheaval in my Craft Room where all the Open House "magic" happens, I am definitely becoming a tad stressed out.  

Bottom line:  this is the way the layout will remain because I have to begin getting ready.  There are samples to make, make-n-takes to prepare, and countless little things left to do.

As I move into the afternoon, this is what the room looks like.  

Clutter, yes.  But I have managed to give myself more room on each side of the room by having the brown table and my desk at the end of the room, by the window.  Today's job is to tidy up, move the table that you can just see a piece of into the centre of the room, and get prepared for my first Open House.  Tomorrow is going to come quickly.  Luckily no-one will arrive before 5:00 p.m.

Stay tuned for pictures of the finished result.

P.S. Hurrah for cork floors.  All this moving around of furniture and not a mark to show for it.

The Neverending Story (of my continuing re-organization)

Optimism:  to expect the most favourable outcome.
Reality:  the way life actually happens.

I optimistically expected that I would get my room re-organized in one long, back-breaking day.  Then reality reared its ugly head, snorted at my expectations, and I had to accept the fact that, unless I was going to add another 24 or more hours to an already long day, my room would be done when it was done.

Well, day one seemed neverending.  I achieved a lot of mess, a back that insists it's broken, and had the opportunity to clean under areas that haven't seen the light of day for a while.  So far this re-organization isn't much fun.

This is the way my room looked when I had a skinny path around the table, with everything pulled towards the door, so that I could somehow manage to move one table (not seen) over to the other wall and move the long desk that was on that wall over to the empty spot you see in the corner of the room.  That hadn't been in the original plan but I didn't like the way the two towers worked beside each other with the brown table in the corner and so a new plan was born.  I should have known that an exhausted brain couldn't make perfect plans, but my optimism assured me that the new layout would be perfect.

This is the way my room looks at the start of Day 2 (which I am truly hoping and praying is the last full day I'll have to devote to this job).

Yes, I managed to get the long, skinny desk into the corner as planned.  I like the towers placed where they are.  You can't see it with all the excess "stuff" on it, but the brown table is over in the other corner across from the desk.  As I look around the room I am at a loss as to how I suddenly wound up with so many piles and no work surfaces.  That's a puzzle I'm hoping to solve today.

Stay tuned for the next episode of the "Organization from Hell".

The Neverending Story (of Organization)

Never, never, never ending!  That's what it's like when you're trying to get organized.  Little by little I'm discovering what works and what I have to replace.  Yes, replace!  Some storage solutions that worked when I was just playing around with my crafting simply are not working now that I have other people come into my space and I have rapidly increased the volume of products with which I work.  And if there is one top thing that I have learned since I began as an Independent Demonstrator for Stampin' Up!, it's that a lack of organization really cuts into my crafting time.  In other words I'm sick and tired of hunting for things!

So I bought another drawer-tower from Ikea.  The first one did wonders for my peace of mind.  You see it replaced one of those plastic-rainbow-drawers-in-a-rickety-metal-tower monsters.  Why monster?  Well, put a couple of heavy items in a drawer and it comes off its slide.  I grew very, very tired of fumbling around, battling with the skewed drawers in order to reach something I needed immediately.  I don't think it's healthy to build up so much rage against an inanimate object, even if I'm certain it was manufactured by demons.

The tower of drawers from Ikea is such a delight.  As soon as I filled the nine drawers, I knew I had to get a second one in order to finish my organization of all those little items that build up and take up room everywhere.  Today I finished assembling it and now the big job begins:  moving everything in my room in order to put it into its new home.  There are a number of items that will be making their way out of the room permanently as well.  Some furniture shifting---you get the drill.  It's going to be a long, tedious, oh-my-back-is-breaking type of day.  The gold ring for which I'm reaching is an organized room.

Shakespeare did "scary" well.

Remember when the witches on MacBeth chanted:

                                         Eye of newt, toe of frog,
                                                wool of bat, tongue of dog...
                                         For a charm of powerful trouble
                                                like a hell-broth
                                         Boil and bubble.

Only Shakespeare could write an incantation so powerful that it remains the focus of endless discussions by scholars around the world.  And now it is part of the Stampin' Up! lineup of stamps for Hallowe'en.  Changing only two of the words, hell-broth, to Witch's Brew, Stampin' Up! embellished the incantation with symbols, skulls and bats to provide a wonderful border to the famous words.

I love the stamp set.  I also love those little pillow boxes as you've surely gathered from my posts.  Well, how about combining two things that I love for a truly amazing Hallowe'en gift box?

Using the printed sheet from the Witch's Brew Designer Paper, I cut the pillow box and assembled it.  I love mixing deep purple and green together for Hallowe'en.  This incantation, especially, seemed to cry out for the colours because you can just about imagine the green froth on top of a deep purple liquid.  I stamped the incantation on Wild Wasabi using black ink and cut it out using the matching framelit from my Apothecary Accents collection.  Then I mounted that on a piece of Elegant Eggplant which I had cut with one of my Oval Framelits.

To finish the little box off, I added the Hallowe'en tag from the brand new Tags 4 You stamp set, using the co-ordinating punch to cut it out.  I love the way the black ink "pops" on the Pumpkin Pie paper, don't you?

 This whole project only took me about twenty minutes from beginning to end.  Wouldn't it make a wonderful Hallowe'en gift for the teacher?

Orchids?

I love the look of orchids.  One of my favourite orchids is the Phalaenopsis, more commonly known as the Moth Orchid.  They say it's the easiest to grow but you wouldn't have known that with the first couple that I had.  I was so worried about their well-being that I loved them to death.

I almost gave up then but there is a stubborn streak in me that refused.  So I bought another one and my daughter gave me one and this time I went to Chapter's and found a good, simple book on orchids.  The title attracted me:  Easy Orchids: The Fail-safe Guide to Growing Orchids Indoors by Liz Johnson.  "Fail-safe" sounded perfect although I did pause for a moment or two at the "Indoors".  Up here in the middle of Alberta where we're lucky if we get five months that don't have frost overnight (or, worse still, temperatures all the way down to minus 40) I wondered whether anyone could ever have tried growing an orchid anywhere but indoors.

One of the first things I read was that most people kill their orchids by over-watering.  Another no-no was putting an orchid right in a window where the direct sun could scorch the leaves.  I was getting a very strong feeling that these "orchid sins" had probably been suffered by my own poor departed plants.

Well, I read, I followed instructions, I bought another couple of orchids, I read more.  Strangely enough all my orchids were surviving.  And not only were they surviving, they were having babies, or as the Hawaiians would say "keikis".  And those keikis, once they developed sufficient air-roots were put into their own pots and they, in turn, survived.  To make a long story much shorter, I am now up to 18 orchids with 4 more keikis on their way.

That's a lot of orchids!  I'm going to have to begin to find good homes for a few because I'm running out of ideal spots for them.  There are, after all, only so many spots in a house where one can provide good but indirect light without drafts.  I don't have that large a house.

You see I don't only have orchids in my home.  I have a lot of other plants, as well.  I counted one day as I was watering them all (a chore that takes more and more time as my plant population grows) and discovered that I have a total of 53 plants.  That discovery came as quite a shock to me.  Until I knew the actual number, I hadn't really admitted to myself that I had an unusual number of plants.

But they're all so pretty, aren't they?  The colours are amazing.  And they're re-blooming for me, too, which simply delights me.

I have a long, built-in shelf in my craft room that holds more than half my orchids.  Seeing them as I'm creating frequently leads me to colour choices I might not otherwise have tried.

And so I suppose I can call them my inspiration.  Bottom line, however, they simply bring me pleasure now that I've finally figured out how not to kill them with too much care.

Doing it your way! (I've just done it my way.)

Have you ever been frustrated that you can't find the stamp that you've imagined in your head?  You know what I mean.  You're making a project.  You have a specific look and design in mind.  Everything is falling into place.  And then you hit a snag.  That's right!  You can't find the stamp that says exactly what you want---or that has exactly the image you know would be perfect.  Well, that doesn't have to be a problem any longer.  You can actually buy a kit and make that stamp yourself.  Whoa!  That doesn't work for you because you have ten thumbs and are simply not an artist?  What about all those great cards, scrapbook pages and projects you've made?  Of course you can do it.  And if you can't draw it, the internet offers all sorts of designs free of charge.

So you've heard all this before in this blog post, right?  Yes, I've told you about the kit and refill already but that was before I had a chance to play with it myself.  To recap, this is what the kit looks like once you open it:

First of all, I love those carving tools!  They fit into your hand so nicely that it feels very comfortable carving into the rubber.  At first I have to admit it is a bit daunting to have blank rubber in front of you while you're holding a carving tool.  The rubber is so perfect---not a mark on it.  I was very hesitant in putting that first mark on it.  But once I did, it began feeling quite natural and good to be carving into it.  

Did I use one of the designs that are provided?  No, I had my own little cartoon and then free-handed the script.  It's quite obvious that I'm a novice when you look at the results, but I still had fun doing it and my next stamp will be much better.  Yes, I'm already thinking in terms of "next" instead of, "well, done that and I'm over it".  Actually, I'm quite excited about doing another stamp.  Oh my goodness!  Is this going to become as addictive as buying stamps has been?

Now that I've gone through the agony of carving the stamp, I should show you what I made, right?  Always taking the more difficult route, I carved my first stamp to fit into one of the brand new Chalk Talk framelits.  Yeah, I know, why not make it harder for myself, right?

Anyway, the little guy's name is Mugsy.  He's a throwback to a mascot I designed for my high school library when I belonged to the Library Club.  I just had to resurrect him.  I used Chocolate Chip for my stamping ink, Chocolate Chip for my base cardstock, and added some Sahara Sand for his face and Blushing Bride for his ears.  His eyes are Summer Starfruit as  is the embossed cardstock behind the image.  It's a bit crude, but I love it.

It's just a little 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" card, but I love it!  Now---don't you want to make a stamp?

The Wacky Watercooler New Catalog(ue) Blog Hop

How exciting!  Our very first blog hop!  It's fun chatting around the virtual watercooler on the Stampin' Connection, but expanding into a blog hop is an incredible feeling.  By now you will have been to the very talented Terri Antoniw's blog.  She's a tough act to follow, but I'll  do my best.

This blog hop is all about the new Annual Catalogue which was released on June 1st, 2013.  It's a fantastic catalogue, full of great new products, a surprising number of discounted bundles and, of course, new colours, papers and other surprises.  I love this catalogue!

My first project is a card that showcases the Six-Sided Sampler stamp set, available in wood or clear.  Hexagons are such fun to play with and this is certainly a playful card.  I love that Stampin' Up! bundled the stamp set with the brand new Hexagon Punch.  Saving 15% by getting the two together in either wood or clear is a sweet deal.  I wanted to use primarily warm colours for this card and so I used a base of the new In-Color, Baked Brown Sugar, and found a yellow and white pattern in the Quatrefancy Specialty Designer Paper.  To those colours I added my old friend and upgraded-from-retired-In-Color-to-permanent Subtle Color, Calypso Coral.

I used the Baked Brown Sugar ink and the Calypso Coral ink to stamp several of the patterns from the Six-Sided Sampler stamp set.  Then I layered the piece of Specialty Designer Paper onto a piece of Calypso Coral cardstock and then adhered the punched out hexagons onto that.  I liked the effect but decided to give it a real quilted look by running it through my Big Shot using the Square Lattice embossing folder.  Then I adhered it to my Baked Brown Sugar base using Stampin' Dimensionals.

To finish it off, I punched a 3/4" circle out of a piece of Champagne Glimmer Paper and then centred the circle in my Hexagon Punch and punched that out.  That circle hole allowed me to arrange my banner greeting, which I stamped in Baked Brown Sugar ink onto a piece of Daffodil Delight cardstock, through the hexagon shape.  I adhered those  with Stampin' Dimensionals as well and then, just for the fun of it, added three Champagne Glimmer rings which I punched out using my 1/2" circle punch and 3/4" circle punch.

One of the products which jumped out at me when I went through the catalogue was the new Modern Medley Designer Series Paper.  The colours are very simple: Very Vanilla and Basic Black.  Simple, yes; boring, no.

My next project, therefore, is a masculine card that not only highlights the Modern Medley DSP, but also puts the spotlight on that wonderful new stamp set, Wetlands, clear or wood mount.   For this card I used the Naturals Ivory cardstock as my base and layered it with Basic Black and  the Modern Medley DSP.  I think the flying birds printed on the Designer Paper makes the perfect background for the Canada Goose and rushes.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but I've heat embossed the goose and "Thinking of You" in black.  That helps it to "pop" behind the Window Sheet onto which I stamped the rushes using Black StazOn ink.

My final project also uses the Modern Medley DSP but aside from that is completely different.  This time I made an elegant Pillow Box using a pattern from Stampin' Up!'s famous Pattern Library.  It was a hard choice with so many striking designs to choose from, but I finally settled on the baroque design with the faint stripes in the background.  By adding Vellum flowers using that wonderful bundle: the Flower Shop stamp set (wood or clear) and the matching Pansy Punch as well as some Vellum leaves cut with the Secret Garden framelit, I added a bit of whimsy to the black girdle which I adhered around the centre of the Pillow Box.  A few touches of gold heat embossing on the flower and in the sentiment, a little black Simply Pressed clay flower, and it was done.  If you want to try your hand at making one of these pillow boxes, I have provided the template here for you to print out and use.

Of course if you really like the Flower Shop stamp set and matching Pansy Punch, your best buy is to go for the bundle in wood or clear, which saves you 15%.  Just look at the flower close up---this is a wonderful bundle to own and use.

Well, that's about it.  I hope you've enjoyed my projects as much as I enjoyed making them.  Your next stop on this Blog Hop tour  is the terrific stamper, Deborah Smart.  I'm sure you'll love seeing her creations.

Terri's Blog

Deborah's Blog

Blog Hop Home Site

Small Sweet Notes---Fun to make and receive!

The majority of cards that I make are 4 1/4" x 5 1/2".  They may be conventional folds, fancy folds, or even hybrid cards, but usually I use that sizing for my cards.  Occasionally I make larger cards, especially for my WOW classes or special events.  It occurred to me that I seldom make smaller cards and yet a nice small note is just perfect to enclose in a package to someone or to slip in among the flowers in a bouquet.  And so, of course, I had to make one.

This card uses one of my new favourites from the 2013/14 Annual Catalogue, the Backyard Basics bundle (available in wood or clear).  I love that the bundled stamp set and matching framelits give you a 15% dfiscount!  For this card I used the tulip stamp from the set and stamped it using Stazon black ink on Whisper White cardstock three times.  After colouring the tulips with my Stampin' Write markers, I used the tulip framelit and my Big Shot to cut them out.   Then I used the third smallest of the Window Frames Collection framelits to cut out a piece of Whisper White cardstock and then put the window shape through the Big Shot using the brand new, beautiful Pretty Print embossing folder that will be available in the Holiday Catalogue beginning August 1st.  (I can see myself using that embossing folder a lot in the coming months!)

I cut a piece of 3 1/4" x 3 1/4" Smoky Slate cardstock (love that new colour) and embossed it using the Perfect Polka Dots folder.  Then I adhered the piece to my base cardstock of Naturals White using the SNAIL adhesive.  I also used the SNAIL to adhere the window shape, centred on the Smoky Slate.

For the tulips, first I took a 4" piece of Whisper White Stitched Grosgrain ribbon and adhered it with one Glue Dot near the bottom, inside the Whisper White window shape.  Then I adhered my first tulip directly to the window shape at an angle and the second tulip was also adhered at an angle but the head of the tulip was raised using a Dimensional.   The third tulip was centred and mounted on strips of Dimensionals all the way down from the head to its stem.  Then I tied the ribbon in a little knot to make it appear as if the bouquet was tied together.

Really, this was such a simple card, despite the lengthy directions.  It was such fun to make and I'm definitely going to make more of this size.  Sometimes small can be every bit as special as large.

Oh---just a "heads up".  I am participating in a Blog Hop which will begin Thursday, July 25th at 7 p.m. and continue until July 28th.  I hope you'll enjoy visiting my blog as well as all the other blogs that will be a part of this "hop".

Meeting the Challenge

I've never entered a card-making challenge before.  Today I joined one---it's a colour challenge and I'm excited about it.  How it works is that the person in charge presents three colours and a time limit during which those three colours become the main focus of a card.  The three colours chosen were:

The good thing is that I like the three colours.  They're fresh and happy looking and immediately reminded me of a flower garden (or in this case, flower shop).  What better way to show off the colours than to make them into beautiful flowers using the Flower Shop stamp set and the matching Pansy Punch?

You can buy the Flower Shop stamp set alone or as a bundle with the Pansy Punch.   I think it makes a lot more sense to get the bundle because that way one can save 15%, and who doesn't like to save money?

I decided to use the Coastal Cabana cardstock as my base.  Then I cut a smaller piece of Whisper White and stamped the "Love You" from the Seasonal Sayings stamp set towards the right lower part of the paper using Coastal Cabana ink.  I didn't want to leave the little heart in the stamped image that colour so I took a bit of Crisp Cantaloupe cardstock and punched out the heart using my Owl Builder punch.

After that I stamped a flower onto the Whisper White using Crisp Cantaloupe ink and then another two using Wisteria Wonder ink.  I knew I couldn't leave it like that because I wanted some dimension to the card.  So I took another piece of Whisper White cardstock and stamped another three flowers using Crisp Cantaloupe ink and another two using the Wisteria Wonder.  If you're keeping count that comes to a total of eight flowers.  Those last five that I stamped on a separate piece of the Whisper White were cut out using the handy Pansy punch.  I scattered those across the card using dimensionals.

Not bad but it still needed something.  So I used the tiny flower punch from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack and punched out eight tiny Coastal Cabana flowers.  I adhered those to the centres of the flowers using dimensionals.  To top it all off I took out my Rhinestones and went to town adding them to the centres of the flowers and the heart and then to two of the corners.

Now there's a card that's up to a challenge!  Love the colours!  Love the happiness of the whole design.  What do you think?

Convention surprises! Making the 25th extra-special!

Well, Convention is over.  The big, long-awaited 25th Stampin' Up! Convention has come with a bang and is leaving its mark on everything to do with Stampin' Up!  Yes, we just had a brand new Annual Catalogue.  Well, suddenly there are new items that no-one could have anticipated and they were all introduced at the Convention.

Beginning immediately, we are offering a new way to look at stamping.  Instead of having to find a stamp to say or show what is in your mind, now you can make your own stamp.  It's a whole new concept that we're calling the Undefined Stamp Carving Kit.  The kit contains everything that you require to make your very own wood-mount stamp.  Or, if you prefer clear-mount, there are sheets of clear-mount cling foam available for purchase (Item #124236---$13.50).  How cool is that?  There are even some sample images if your imagination has suddenly gone blank.  And it's not only about making your own gorgeous stamp!  Can't you imagine making a stamp out of your child's written name or one of his/her drawings?  There is no limit as to what you could do.  And if you just can't get enough of making your own stamps, there is a refill kit available as well (Item #134808---$12.95).

There is even a great video on You-Tube that shows you how to carve your stamp and mount it which you can access by clicking HERE.  

If you thought making an orginal hand-made card was great, just think what a terrific "look what I made!" moment you'll experience when you make your next card using your very own hand-made stamp.

There are some more surprises, too, but since they won't be available until August 1st, we'll talk about those another time.

Walk In the Wild

Those of you that know me, also know how much I love photography.  I love taking photos in the wild.  How appropriate, therefore, is this stamp set which Stampin' Up! just introduced in the new Annual Catalogue?  Don't you just love the moose in it?
Wood 130354, Clear 130357

I've always wanted to take a photo of a bull moose in full rack.  So far I've been lucky enough to have taken photos of several cow moose and some half-grown calves.  Someday---this is on my bucket list.

In the meantime it's easy to indulge myself by using this beautifully detailed stamp set for some of my masculine cards.  The one I've made today is very neutral in tone.  I wanted the main focus to be on the moose rather than the colouring or anything else in the card.  Of course I had to use the wood embossing folder after stamping my background with some of the trees from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set.  It just added the right amount of texture, didn't it?

I also got to play with some other items from the new Annual Catalogue: the Magnetic Platform and the Squares Framelits.  All I can say is that using the framelits has never been easier.  No more taping or any other fussing around.  All I do is centre the framelit, hear the metallic "snap" of the magnet grabbing the framelit, and roll it through the Big Shot.  The magnets are so strong that the framelit never moves.  This is perfect and fool-proof.  Now I'm looking for excuses to use my framelits.

The colours in the card are Whisper White, Early Espresso, Sahara Sand and Naturals White.  I love the way they work together, don't you?