Sew Suite Hinge Card

  Here is the final project we made at stamp club last week.  It's a super easy Fun Fold and comes together in no time at all.  I wanted to use a lot of Occasions Mini catalog items since they are only available for another month. Boo Hoo!  But the Summer Mini is just around the corner and it has some really cute stuff in it!

 

  I started out with a 9.5" x 4.25" piece of Wild Wasabi scored at 3.5" and then punched with the Scallop Trim border punch.  This piece creates the base of the card.  I embellished it with a piece of Sweet Stitches DSP and some Rose Red seam binding ribbon.

  The sewing machine from Sew Suite was stamped in Chocolate Chip and then colored with markers.  I punched it out with 2 3/8" Scallop Circle punch and sponged some Wild Wasabi ink on the edges.   For the Rose Red panel I embossed it with the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder and attached the sewing machine and some paper buttons made with the Sweet Buttons embosslit die.  Now to put the pieces together to make the hinge.

  Make sure you adhere your Whisper White insert before making the hinge, it's just easier that way.  Fold over the punched side of the Wild Wasabi and adhere it just up until the scallops.  It makes a pocket.  You want to have a little bit of room underneath the scallops so your Rose Red piece can fit right behind it when you close the card (you can see this in the first photo).  Line up the Rose Red piece so it covers the insert and is flush with the rest of the Wild Wasabi base.  Using the small handheld circle punch or your paper piercer make a hold through the Wild Wasabi & Rose Red pieces and insert your brad to hold all the layers together.  I used the cute little button shaped brad from the Vintage Trinkets.

  Now you can open and close the top part of the card and have a sweet little message inside. 

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?




Stamps: Sew Suite, Bring on the Cake

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Wild Wasabi

Paper: Wild Wasabi, Rose Red, Sweet Stitches DSP, Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise

Accessories: seam binding ribbon, Vintage Trinket brad, Scallop Trim border punch, 2 3/8" Scallop circle punch, markers, Sweet Buttons embosslit, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder

Sweet Choo Choo

  I hope everyone had a good weekend.  Our weather here was kind of crazy on Saturday, sunny, windy then got stormy with rain and hail.  Sunday was beautiful and I'm looking forward to a warm sunny week!  It might be hard to stay in the stamp room with 70 degree weather!

  Here is another project my stamp club made last week.  I have had the Choo Choo set for quite a while and have only used it on a few projects and never for a class so I thought it was high time to break it out!  That, and I had a few of my stamping ladies ask about using wheels.  I have to admit I've always been a little bit "wheel-phobic" even when I was just a customer.  So I decided to take the plunge and ordered the Stampin' Around wheel guide and some uninked cartridges (page 193 in the catalog) to use with my one wheel.  I figured I needed to practice before my stamping ladies could have a go at it.  I found that if you just follow a few simple steps the wheels are super easy to use.  1) make sure you've inked your cartridge really well.  I had to do it several times as it just kept absorbing ink but now it's nice and juicy.  2) practice with the wheel guide a few times on scrap paper before using it on your project 3) standing up was key for me getting a nice even image  4) steady pressure all the way across the project.  We wheeled along the bottom of the card front as well as on the Whisper White insert inside the card.

  Another trick that I showed my ladies was to make your own Stamp-a-ma-jig image sheet for wood mounted sets that you always want to have lined up just so.  I found that maybe I didn't use Choo Choo as often as I would have liked because I would have to dig out the Stamp-a-ma-jig and use it for every single train car (and I would always smear some ink on my hand somehow and it would end up on my project!).  I used a 4 x 4 square cut from the thick Window Sheets (page 205 in the catalog), used the black T part of the SAMJ, and black Stazon ink.  I just stamped the train cars on the window sheet like you would normally do for the SAMJ just using Stazon so it would be permanent.  I put one train car in each corner of the window sheet and it fits right into the stamp case.  Now I line everything up really quickly without having to clean the window sheet between each use!  Pretty cool huh?  Go ahead and see which sets you've been neglecting and make your own SAMJ imaging sheet.

  The rest of this card is pretty simple, used some free Sale-a-Bration rewards for the embellishments (aren't you sad SAB is over and we have to wait another year to get all those great freebies??) and some Basic Gray ink stamped 4 times without re-inking for the smoke. 

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Choo Choo, Right on Track (wheel)

Ink: Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, Basic Gray


Paper: Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White

Accessories: Ice Cream Parlor Ribbon & Button pack (SAB), wheel handle, wheel ink cartridge, glue dots, window sheets, Stamp-a-ma-jig

Hippity Hoppity Petal Cone Carrot

  So sorry I've been MIA for a week.  I just don't know where the time goes sometimes!  Just when I think I've gotten organized to be able to do everything something comes up and there go my great plans!  Oh well, I'm sure you all have days/weeks like that right?  Please say yes so I feel better!  =)  Anyway, I had a great turn out this week for my monthly stamping event.  For any of you that are in the Richmond, VA area who might be interested in attending one of my events I've now added a Tuesday morning session (9:30am-11:30am) to my schedule.  So check my calendar of events HERE to see what is coming up!

  To get ready for spring and Easter we made these adorable carrot treat holders.  It uses the Petal Cone die shown on page 15 of the Occasions mini catalog.  This is the same die that I used to make my Valentine's Day Heart Banner.  I love being able to make so many different projects with just one die!

  First we cut out our pieces with the Big Shot.  We needed 2 Pumpkin Pie pieces for the box and then 4 Old Olive half scallop circles for the finishing touches at the top.  We inked up the Sanded background stamp with Pumpkin Pie ink and stamped both pieces of the carrot.  The heart shaped pieces don't fully fit on the background stamp but you don't have to worry about getting the stamp on the flaps since those will be covered up by the Old Olive pieces anyway.

  We used Sticky Strip to put our carrot together and then punched 2 small holes on opposite sides to run our taffeta ribbon handle through.  We attached the Old Olive pieces and then held down the flaps with a dimensional.

  And of course you can't leave a treat box empty right??  We filled up a small cello bag with spring M&M's and tied the top off with some hemp twine.  Totally fun right?  Wouldn't this look cute hanging from your kitchen chairs when your kids got up on Easter morning? 

Stamps: Sanded

Ink: Pumpkin Pie

Paper: Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive

Accessories:  Petal Cone die, Sticky Strip, Old Olive taffeta ribbon, small cello bag, hemp twine, dimensionals, M&M's

Thanks for looking! Did you stamp today?

Glittery Candles

  Here's a quick, fun birthday card that you can make using all those narrow scraps of DSP that you save...come on, you know you save them too!  Us papercrafters will find a use for any size piece of paper!!  It makes me think of the line from Horton Hears a Who...."a person's a person no matter how small".  I could make a sign for my stamp room that says "paper is paper no matter how small"!  Anyway back to the task at hand...

The base of this one is Crumb Cake with a slightly smaller layer of Soft Suede.  The candles are made from leftover strips of Elegant Soiree DSP.  I cut them all at slightly different lengths just so they wouldn't be too matchy matchy.  The "flames" are made from the wing from the Bird punch.  I used So Saffron cardstock and covered it with 2 way glue and then used a healthy coating of Dazzling Diamonds.  After the flames dried I adhered them with dimensionals.

  The sentiment is from my favorite birthday set "Bring on the Cake" which is colored with my Crumb Cake and Soft Suede markers.  I used the Soft Suede marker just on the word "candles" as if someone who received this card wouldn't know what what those crazy sparkly things were and needed a bit of a hint.  Then again, with the amount of Dazzling Diamonds on those flames they might not be able to see anything at all as we all know that DD gets everywhere and it might end up in the recipients eyes.  Might have to re-think sending this one, it could be considered a weapon or something!   But anyway...I punched the sentiment out with the Decorative Label punch.

  Even though the Elegant Soiree DSP doesn't have Night of Navy in it I think in this particular pattern the Basic Gray has a blue tinge to it so I used some Night of Navy 1/8" taffeta ribbon to wrap around the candle panel.  The sentiment is popped up on dimensionals.  And to not neglect the top part of the card I added some brads.

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?


Stamps: Bring on the Cake

Ink: Crumb Cake & Soft Suede markers

Paper: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, So Saffron, Elegant Soiree DSP, Very Vanilla


Accessories: Dazzling Diamonds, 2 Way Glue Pen, XL Bird punch, Decorative Label punch, dimensionals, 1/8" taffeta ribbon, brads

Bright Bird Thanks

  I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!  I took my boys to CT for the weekend to visit my parents and in-laws.  It's always an adventure taking a 7 hour car trip with 2 preschoolers by yourself.  We managed, though my normally awesome-in-the-car kids were less than stellar this time; not surprising as they've been quite the challenge lately.  We arrived in CT on Friday to 65+ degree weather; totally warm for there this time of year.  When we left on Monday morning it was 34 degrees and snowing!  We got to experience weather of all kinds in 4 days!  Anyway, I didn't get any stamping done over the weekend so here is the other project I did with my downline last weekend at the other in-laws house.

  I saw this adorable card on Splitcoaststampers a few weeks ago and thought the way she did the scalloped rectangle layer was just genius so I wanted to try my hand at it.  But let's start at the beginning shall we?  My birthday was 2 weeks ago so I needed some thank you cards to send out so I decided to design a thank you card to show my downline and then I could just cut some extra paper and make a few more to send out.

  The base layer is Melon Mambo, then a layer of Old Olive and then a Whisper White panel that was run through the Big Shot using the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder.  To make the scalloped rectangle all I did was punch out 2 scalloped squares and just lined them up so they would fit behind the image panel.  Too cool!  You can't even tell that it's 2 separate pieces.  To adjust the size of the scallop rectangle just overlap the 2 squares and it gives you different sizes.  What a great way to get more mileage out of a punch huh?  The birdcage was then stamped in Melon Mambo and a little Old Olive bird inside the cage.  I've done a lot of bird projects lately haven't I?  Please don't think I'm obsessed or anything!

  I stamped the "thanks" from the So Happy for You set in Old Olive and then punched it out with oval punch.  To jazz it up a bit I added one of the Ice Cream Parlor Sale-A-Bration buttons with a glue dot and then used the Ice Cream Parlor Sale-A-Bration ribbon and made a knot and added that to the button with a glue dot. 

  Don't forget there are only 9 days left in Sale-A-Bration so don't wait to place your $50 order to get some of these great freebies!

 Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?


Stamps: Aviary, So Happy for You (SAB)


Ink: Melon Mambo, Old Olive


Paper: Melon Mambo, Old Olive, Whisper White


Accessories: Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, scallop square punch, oval punch, Ice Cream Parlor Ribbon & Button pack (SAB), glue dots

Easter Wishes Butterfly

  Here is a Clean and Simple card I designed for a quick one-on-one stamping session with my downline member over this past weekend.  She's also my brother-in-law's girlfriend so it's a family affair!  She's still a new stamper and we were tight on time so I wanted to show her a few projects using the Big Shot but didn't have a ton of steps.  I saw this card by LauriBColeman on Splitcoaststampers and really liked the layout and use of the Top Note die. 

 

 The base of the card is Sahara Sand.  The Top Note was cut from Whisper White.  We used the long vine stamp from Vintage Vogue and stamped it in Always Artichoke.  It fits perfectly across the Top Note.  We used the Beautiful Wings embosslit with some Baja Breeze and Pink Pirouette cardstock.  We adhered the 2 butterflies together with SNAIL and then added an adhesive pearl.  We landed our butterfly on the edge of the vine and used dimensionals to adhere it.

  Some Baja Breeze seam binding across the middle and the Easter Wishes sentiment in Sahara Sand finish this one off.  I just noticed that my seam binding knot is totally lopsided...I'll have to remember to fix that before I pop it in the mail....don't want anyone to think I was drinking & stamping!  Oh wait, I was having a glass of wine while making this card!!  You cannot get away without a drink at my in-laws....it's like a family tradition...4pm is cocktail hour!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Something to Celebrate (hostess set)

Ink: Always Artichoke, Sahara Sand

Paper: Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette

Accessories: Top Note die, Beautiful Wings embosslit, adhesive pearl, dimensionals, Baja Breeze seam binding

Shimmery Bird - March Christmas Card

  Wow!!  I'm kind of proud of myself! I finished my 10 Christmas cards early this month!!  This challenge is really getting my butt in gear and it so fun to be able to make a design that is a bit more time consuming.  I would never ever in a million years try to make 80+ of this design since there are a lot of steps but for 10 it was no problem.  I designed it one day and then I stamped all the birds (for the card front, inside and envelopes) since I had the shimmer ink mixed up and it would dry up if I didn't use it.  The next day I cut the rest of the paper that I needed for the Top Note.  Then over the course of a few days (mostly while watching TV) I did the sponging and then adhered the strips to Whisper White cardstock so I could run it through the Big Shot.

  I put the finishing touches on the cards on Sunday night.  I am pleased with how this design turned out.  I had some retired supplies that really needed to be used up and this is a perfect project for those bits of DSP that you're saving.  It would be so easy to just change the color scheme and end up with a birthday card; work with what you have!  The stamp set that I used is the retired Berry Christmas from last year's Holiday Mini but any set with a small image would work.  I didn't get to use this set nearly enough when it came out and I was hoping it would make the jump into the new Idea Book & Catalog over the summer but I was disappointed.  It's still a super cute little bird even if he is retired!  The other retired items are the red patterned DSP & the shimmery snowflake DSP which is from the Christmas Cocoa Specialty DSP as well as the ribbon.

  The base of the card is Soft Suede.  The next layer is Whisper White embossed with the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder.  I rounded the edges and sponged with Soft Suede.  I added some Soft Suede, textured Real Red cardstock that was punched with the scallop border punch and embossed Whispered White strips to the DSP for my Top Note background.  That part is easy just adhere your strips to Whisper White and run it through the Big Shot with the Top Note die like you would normally.  Ta-Dah!

  To make the shimmer ink just mix a few drops of Frost White Shimmer Paint with a few drops of Real Red re-inker.  I used the lid of an empty brad container (I knew there was a reason I save these!) and mixed with a little craft popsicle stick.  You can make any color you want and it looks awesome!  Just apply a tiny bit of the shimmer ink to your stamp using a sponge dauber and then stamp.  Easy!

  The sentiment is stamped with Soft Suede and the whole thing is punched out with the Decorative Label punch and more sponging around the edges.  I added a rhinestone to one side for extra sparkle!  I popped it up on dimensionals as well.  The Top Note end points are highlighted with silver brads.  And the finishing touch is some retired organza ribbon tied around the Top Note.

  30 Christmas cards down maybe 60 to go!!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?


Stamps: Berry Christmas (retired)

Ink: Soft Suede, Real Red reinker, Frost White Shimmer Paint

Paper: Soft Suede, Whisper White, Real Red textured, Christmas Cocoa Specialty DSP (retired)

Accessories:  Top Note die, Big Shot, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, brads, rhinestones, organza ribbon (retired), Decorative label punch, scallop border punch, dimensionals

3x3 RAK Owl

  Last week while browsing the online forums on Splitcoaststampers I came across a thread about what stamping supplies you hoard and which ones you use a lot of without any thought as to if you can buy more in the future.  One of the ladies replied that Stampin' Up Copper embossing powder was something she used sparingly since it is a retired item and she can't order anymore.  Well after re-organizing my stamping room after Christmas I came across a full jar of the Copper embossing powder that I knew I wouldn't use as I sold the last of the retired matching paper over the summer at my stamping tag sale (no idea how I missed the powder!).  I sent the lady a message asking if she would want my jar of embossing powder and if she did to send me her address and I would pop it in the mail.  She responded that she would love it!  Of course I couldn't send a little stamping gift without a card!  I got to work making a little 3x3 card to tuck into the mailing envelope.

 

  How cute is this little guy??  I used the Color Coach to get the combination of Basic Gray, Old Olive and Melon Mambo.  The base is Melon Mambo and measures 3x3...perfect size for a card to go with a gift or just a little something to tuck into a kid's lunch or husband's briefcase.  I rounded the corners of the Whisper White panel.  The 2 different patterns of Designer Series Paper are from last years Sale-A-Bration stack Welcome Neighbor and I thought the Old Olive pattern kind of looked like feathers across his tummy.  

  I perched the owl on the sentiment which I colored with my markers alternating my colors and then punched out with the Word Window punch and layered onto a small punched DSP oval.  To balance the owl I added an Old Olive button with a linen thread bow tied through it.

Stamps: So Many Sayings (retired)

Ink: Markers- Basic Gray, Melon Mambo, Old Olive

Paper: Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Basic Gray, Welcome Neighbor DSP (retired)

Accessories: corner rounder, 2 Step Owl punch, oval punch, button, linen thread, Word Window punch