Boo! to You!

  Here's a quick card that I made last week with a friend who wanted to learn more about Stampin' Up!  I was inspired by several different cards that I saw in the Splitcoaststampers gallery.

  Isn't this one fun?  We used a black card base with a layer of Howlstooth & Scarringbone DSP on top.  We cut a "B" with Typeset Alphabet dies.

  The images are stamped with Stazon onto Very Vanilla cardstock and then punched with the 1 1/4" circle punch.  We layered a 1 3/8" Basic Black punched circle behind the images to make our "O's".  Of course you can't leave off the googlie eyes!  They are so easy since they already have the adhesive on them you don't need to mess with glue or anything!

  We hand cut the exclamation point with paper snips and used a Glimmer Brad to bring in some sparkle.

  I guess since I've made a few Halloween projects we should nail down what the boys want to be for Halloween.  Alex keeps flip flopping between a few different ideas and Ryan wants to be a race car....not a race car driver but a race car....that sounds like a lot of work for mommy and daddy huh?  =)  I see another cardboard box costume in our future like the Train Costume made from Stampin' Up boxes several years ago.  Aren't they cute?

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Googly Ghouls

Ink: Stazon black

Paper: Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Howlstooth & Scarringbone DSP

Accessories: Typeset Alpha dies, circle punches, googlie eyes, Glimmer Brad

Welcome Baby Cameron!

  Fall certainly seems to be in the air this morning here in the Richmond area....actually it's almost leaning more towards winter!  Rainy and 47 degrees, yuck!  But that's all the more reason to stay inside and stamp right?  Since it's Columbus day and my husband and oldest son have the day off from work and school I was given the morning off from running around.  Matt decided that he would bring Alex to school and then he and Ryan would go do guy errands (Lowe's, the woodworking store etc.).  We'll all meet up later for lunch but for now the house is quiet so I thought I would share this card that made the other day.  Sometimes it's hard to concentrate on writing with the chaos swirling around me!

  Our friends and neighbors (she's also one of my stamping ladies!) had their second child not too long ago.  We were bringing them dinner the other night and of course I couldn't show up without a card!

   I had bought the Two By Two single stamp when the new catalog came out in June but hadn't used it yet.  I inked it up with Stazon and then stamped onto watercolor paper.  I cut it out with the Windows framlelit.  Then I got to work...I used my Aquapainter and squished some ink onto the inkpad lids to watercolor with.   None of these animals are terribly colorful in real life so I think I used all the browns and yellows!  I know after having 2 boys myself I got a little tired of all the pastel boy colors on clothes and gifts.  Some of my favorite outfits the boys received when they were born had colors like these along with greens and oranges.  It was such a nice change from baby blue!

  The base of the card is Soft Suede embossed with the woodgrain e.f.  I think I'm a little obsessed with this one!  But I figured the ark was built with wood so I should carry the theme through!  The banners are made from 2 different packs; The More Mustard pattern is from Howlstooth & Scarringbone and the Island Indigo and Cajun Craze is from the Orchard Harvest pack.

  I popped the image panel on dimensionals (I can't remember the last card I made that didn't use dimensionals...talk about obsessed!) and then added a retired Sale-a-bration Pacific Point button tied with linen thread.  The button matches pretty well even if it's not the same color blue.

  My layout is the current sketch from Fab Friday.  It's not too late to play along with this challenge.  It doesn't close until Thursday morning so there's plenty of time.  Head over to see the great cards the design team came up with as well as all the entries so far!  We'd love to have you join us!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Two By Two

Ink: Black Stazon  For watercoloring: More Mustard, Daffodil Delight, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede, Chocolate Chip, Sahara Sand, Rich Razzleberry, Island Indigo, Tangerine Tango, Marina Mist

Paper: Soft Suede, Watercolor paper, Howlstooth & Scarringbone DSP, Orchard Harvest DSP

Accessories: Window Framelits, SAB Pacific Point button, linen thread, dimensionals, Woodgrain e.f.

Smackin' Acetate Silhouette

  Thanks to my customer Jill for asking about the Smackin' Acetate technique a few weeks ago.  I came up with this project for my stamping ladies to teach them this super easy and fun technique. 

  This is one of those fun techniques that give you a different look each time...there is no way to make each card look the same which I think is pretty cool....one of a kind for sure!  All you do is take a piece of acetate (or window sheet), color it with your markers (here we used More Mustard, Rich Razzleberry and Midnight Muse), spray with water (we used 2 squirts from the new Stampin' Up! misters) and then smack (hence the smackin' part of the name!) the acetate down on top of your cardstock and rub for a second.  You can see the ink and water soaking into the paper.

  While your smacked Whisper White panel is drying make the rest of the card.  Midnight Muse base with 2 corners rounded, Rich Razzleberry panel punched on one side with the scalloped edge punch, and a Midnight Muse stitched ribbon tied with a knot.

  Once your colored panel is dry ink up the Serene Silhouette stamp with Stazon and stamp right over the top of the colors.  Adhere it to the Rich Razzleberry panel, adhere the ends of the ribbon on the back and attach the whole thing to your card base. And finally a rhinestone in the the center of the tallest flower finishes this card.

  Get out your markers and a piece of acetate and see what one of a kind backgrounds you can come up with!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Serene Silhouettes

Ink: Black Stazon  Markers- More Mustard, Rich Razzleberry, Midnight Muse

Paper: Midnight Muse, Rich Razzleberry, More Mustard, Whisper White

Accessories: Stitched Satin ribbon, scallop edge punch, acetate, rhinestone

 

Woodgrain Leaves

 I've been hard at work (if you can call stamping work!) designing some cards for my upcoming stamp-a-stack.  I only need 3 designs and I have 3 made but I'm not sure if they are all keepers or not!  I guess I'll just have to keep slaving away in my stamp room....hard life huh?  But for now I'll share one of the cards my stamping ladies made last week at stamp club.

  We used a lot of new products on this card and I think they had fun with them.

 

 The base is Early Espresso with a layer of the new Early Espresso Core'dinations cardstock layered on top.  We used the new Woodgrain embossing folder on the Core'dinations cardstock.  Quick tip: if your embossing folder seem to be embossing too deep and your cardstock is tearing in places try using your multipurpose platform with no tabs.  Next the sanding block was used to bring out the cool look of the lighter core of the cardstock.  Doesn't it look like an old weathered board?

  A strip of the Orchard Harvest DSP was adhered across the card to bring in some fall color.  Next, using More Mustard and Cajun Craze cardstock the leaves were die cut using the new Autumn Accents Bigz die.  And the trick to stamping the matching Wonderfall stamp set images onto the leaves is 1) die cut first  2) ink up your stamp leaving it face up 3) lay the die cut on top of the inked stamp matching up the stems and leaf edges 4) cover with scrap paper and use a bone folder to burnish the scrap paper which transfers the ink to the cardstock die cut.  Done!  This method is MUCH easier than trying to stamp the die cut in the traditional manner.  The leaves were adhered with dimensionals.

  The final touches are the banner stamped from the Itty Bitty Banners set and hand cut (or you could use the matching framelits but I had to leave something in the catalog to buy later on and this still hasn't made it to the top of the list!).  And a small wooden button tied with baker's twine finishes this one off.

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Wonderfall, Itty Bitty Banners

Ink: More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso

Paper: Early Espresso, Early Espresso Core'dinations, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla, Orchard Harvest DSP

Accessories: Woodgrain e.f., Autumn Accents die, baker's twine, wood button, dimensionals

CAS Flower

  After a busy weekend we're ready to go into the new week full steam ahead.  I've got a very simple card to show.  I made it a while ago to go along with a new neighbor gift.  We had so many new families move into our neighborhood at the same time I was having a hard time keeping up so I needed to keep it simple!

  I think this whole card was made using pieces that were still on my desk from several other projects.  The base is Raspberry Ripple, then a strip of Orchard Harvest DSP.  I embossed a piece of Early Espresso with the Square Lattice e.f.  I stamped the flower from Reason to Smile (retired) in Early Espresso and then colored with my blender pen.  I took my flower colors right from the DSP; Lucky Limeade and Raspberry Ripple.  The final touch is the wood button tied with Lucky Limeade baker's twine.

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Reason to Smile (retired)

Ink: Early Espresso, Lucky Limeade, Raspberry Ripple

Paper: Raspberry Ripple, Orchard Harvest DSP, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla

Accessories: Square Lattice e.f., wood button, baker's twine

Blast Off With Fab Friday!

  Is everyone ready for the awesome new challenge at Fab Friday?  We had another great turnout for the last challenge and hope everyone can play again for challenge 3!  This time Mindy has given us a fun sketch to play with.  There are so many possibilities with this layout and I know you're going to knock our socks off!  To play along just follow the sketch, post it to your blog or online gallery and then link it up back at Fab Friday using the little Inlinkz tool at the bottom of the post. 

  And now for the sketch:

  For my card I did take some liberties with the placement of my main image panel but I do love how it turned out....maybe so much so that I won't be able to give it away!

   How fun is that little guy blasting off into space in his rocket ship?  While the stamping on this card isn't difficult I did take a bit of time with the details.  Check out the chevron embossed Early Espresso panel, the brads on the 3 flags, the paper piercing around both window framelits, the hand cut flames and the mini brads accenting the points on the rocket ship panel.

  But wait!  There's more!  I had myself a bit of fun with the Glimmer Paper - silver and champagne.  Using the retired (but still very handy) Crop-a-dile I punched some champagne glimmer paper circles to jazz up the rocket ship...just a little dab of Tombow Mono-Multi glue holds them down perfectly.  Next, I decided that I needed a moon on my card....who doesn't need a moon right? (No, not that kind of moon....geez people get your mind out of the gutter...this is a stamping blog! LOL!) I punched one champagne circle and one silver circle.  Then using 2 different sizes of handheld circle punches I randomly punched some circles in the silver circle.  Then I glued (again with the mono-multi) the two glimmer paper circles together so the champagne color comes through the holes. Voila!  Moon craters! I popped the moon up with a double stack of dimensionals to make sure it got the attention it deserved.

  But wait!  There's even more!  After stamping the rocket ship but before adhering all the layers together I used the 1 1/4" circle punch to punch out the window.  I used my Circles #2 die to cut a circle from a sheet of acetate.  I adhered the acetate circle to the back of the rocket ship.  Then I stamped the space dude on a scrap of Whisper White and layered the rocket ship over the top.  I love this little detail of the clear window and the space dude looking out.  You can kind of see it in this photo with a bit of glare on the window.

 

 Kind of fun huh?  Go check out the super talented design team and get inspired to play along with us at Fab Friday .  I can't wait to see what you create!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Blast Off

Ink: More Mustard, Pool Party, Pumpkin Pie, Early Espresso

Paper: Pool Party, Early Espresso, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Silver Glimmer paper, Champagne Glimmer paper, acetate

Accessories: Chevron, e.f., mini brads, piercing template, dimensionals, Circles #2 die, Windows Framelits, circle punches, Crop-a-dile, brads

Stately Pine

  All day I thought I would find time to post this card and I just couldn't squeeze it in.  The "at home" in my title of stay at home mom is a crock let me tell you.  I'm never home!  Or at least I don't feel like I'm at home for any decent length of time.  It's just enough to throw some more laundry in the wash or fold what's in the dryer or vacuum one floor or make lunch or drop off groceries before I'm out the door to do something else.  Towards the end of summer I kept daydreaming about the start of school and having large chunks of time to tackle some more involved projects around the house that have been on my mind....Nope!  I guess if my family isn't living in filth, has clean clothes, eats real food several times a day and makes it school/work on time I guess can consider myself ahead of the game and should just go back to daydreaming...

  I'm sure you're not here to listen to my (mostly in jest) bellyaching so we'll move on to the fun stuff of stamping!  I made this one last week using colors from the Splitcoaststampers color challenge from several weeks back: Basic Gray, Gumball Green and Chocolate Chip.

  I had a bit of a hard time getting the Basic Gray to play nice with the other colors but in the end we all worked out an agreement!  Basic Gray made a small appearance and Gumball Green and Chocolate Chip sucked it up and made it happen.  I used the Basic Gray for the spritzing on the pine panel and for the layer behind the pine panel.  I thought this would be a good design that with just a bit of bling and/or a pretty ribbon and change the sentiment it could easily turn into a Christmas card. 

  I used the corner rounder for several layers and added some texture by embossing some of the Gumball Green Core'dinations cardstock with the Woodgrain embossing folder.  The sentiment from Petite Pairs was stamped in Chocolate Chip and then punched out.  I added a wooden button with hemp twine knotted through the holes.  I'm not completely sure the button works but I couldn't come up with anything else that I liked better.  Sometimes you just need to leave well enough alone.

  We're coming up on the home stretch to the weekend so I hope you all have an awesome Friday and and even better Saturday!  Get yourself stamping and have some fun!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Lovely As A Tree, Petite Pairs

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Gumball Green, Basic Gray (spritzes)

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Core'dinations Gumball Green, Basic Gray, Very Vanilla

Accessories: spritzer tool, sanding block, oval punch, wooden button, hemp twine

Autumn Butterfly Birthday

  Well we made it through Monday!  On to Tuesday...We are running to and fro all this week to different commitments, appointments etc.  I'm tired just looking at my calendar for this week!  So much for more "me time" once school started! 

  My mother-in-law asked if I had a stack of birthday cards that she could use for numerous birthdays next month.  She came to the right place!  I had a few in my stash but still needed to make a few more to have enough for her.  I saw last week's Clean and Simple Challenge and the Color Challenge over on Splitcoaststampers and got to work combining them into an autumn birthday card.

 

 The CAS challenge was to use color blocking and the color challenge was Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie and Midnight Muse.  To keep with the clean and simple theme I stacked my colors up on the left and kept the right side open and white.  I unified both sides by rounding all of the corners of the topmost layer of Whisper White  and the top corner of the Cajun Craze block and the lower corner of the Midnight Muse block.  

  For my stamped image I went with the circular butterfly from Serene Silhouettes and stamped it in Midnight Muse.  The new style ink pads are perfect for these solid stamps.  The coverage is awesome and you don't get those little lighter blotches anymore....just remember to keep the ink where it's supposed to be it's "Tap, Tap, Tap" and not "Mash, Mash, Mash"!  =)

  I added a rhinestone to each of the flowers to give some nice CAS sparkle.  And believe it or not I still have some of this retired organdy ribbon left so I used bit of that around the top layer.  The circle was then adhered with dimensionals.  The top layer of Whisper White is also popped up on dimensionals because I just can't say no!  I know it's a sickness isn't it!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Serene Silhouettes

Ink: Midnight Muse

Paper: Whisper White, Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, Midnight Muse

Accessories: corner rounder, circle punch, rhinestones, organdy ribbon (retired), dimensionals