I'm back with some altered gift ideas

Holy Cow, where has the time gone.  With holidays fast approaching here are two fun ideas.

1) K cup holder.  This pattern I bought from Lauren Meader (she is super talented) with great ideas.

I just printed pattern and then used some simply scrapping pieces to decorate.

2) I took some trident gum and copied  the box pattern to make a santa suit.

creative elements stamp set round 2

This is another card I made with Stampin Up's creative elements  stamp set.  And yes, lots more embossing.  I admit, I am a little addicted.  

For top note, I embossed in clear and them brayered over it with crumb cake ink.  I embossed the sentiment area in new pewter embossing powder and then embossed the butterflies with cherry cobbler and melon mambo embossing powders.  Love new colors of embossing powder!

card for Shelli

Shelli Gardner founder of Stampin Up, had a birthday last month so they tried to get all the demos to send her cards.  This the card I sent using stamp set creative elements and first edition speciality dsp.   I love embossing so I did it for everything almost using some new embossing powders.

this is inside of card!

Holiday Stamp-a-stack

Here is a sneak peek of cards we are doing for my upcoming Holiday Stamp-a-Stack on Sunday November 13th.

Getting ready for Craft fair

I am doing a craft fair at the Barn- Holliston Historical Society 547 Washington St from 9:30 am-3 pm.  There will be almost 20 crafters there, so get a jump on your holidays and shop!

Grab bag snowman

Back in the spring- SU had some grab bag deals- for $5 or $15.  It was some simply scrappin kits and precut cardstock, ribbon, etc...  I got this precut card stock and figured it worked well with Christmas theme.  It almost was like "chopped" for stamping- here are your ingredients come up with a card.

Luckily, the snow much fun stamp set image fit pretty close in the white.  I used this card for a recent stamp a stack.  I wanted to showcase some new Holiday mini products:
1) punched out "snowball" in silver glimmer paper
2) used dazzling details around snowman body

morning cup tea-riffic

I love the designer series paper in Stampin Up's Holiday mini catalog called "spice cake".  I used it for my inspiration for this card using stamp set called Morning cup.  I water colored the images using markers and did a little paper piercing.  Fall weather just makes you want more warm beverages.

sweet pressed cookies

I ordered these sweet pressed cookies- and so much fun- stamping and baking.  Kids would love this.

You make your favorite sugar or short bread cookie recipe from scratch or box and chill dough.  Then rolls into 1.5 inch balls and them press the the cookie press with your choice of design into the dough. (kids would love this)

So this was after I pressed them out.

This was after they were baked, they come out huge!  And in words of Rachel Ray "yumm-o".

get well soup holders

A quick share of one of the items I am making for upcoming craft fair on October 29th.  I used kidoodles stamp set and RMDH stamp set turtle and Co.


Super simple to do, directions:

Card stock measures 9.25 x 4.25
score at 3.25 and 3.75 inches
use brads to secure.

It would be great for hot cocoa packet too.

Birthday stamp a stack shares

Today some of my fellow demo friends were suppose to have a SU yard sale, but of course the weather did not cooperate with us.  We are also doing a craft fair in Holliston October 29th, so I have been busy preparing for both of those events.  I will post some of my craft fair creations for you next week.

Today, I thought I share some easy simple birthday cards I did for a recent birthday stamp a stack the local school asked me to help out with for all the teachers birthdays.  I am sure I cased more than one of them, so I apologize for not giving credit if I did.

1) using RMDH stamp set-"Turtle & Co".  The dsp is retired, I was using up a lot of my retired items, as it was for a school I only charged $1 per card to cover my supply cost.

2) crazy for cupcakes stamp set and some dsp from SAB this year- to get my color palette

3) Baroque motifs and white gel pen, bad photo though, the main cardbase is razzleberry and it looks more like burgundy.

4) Lovely as a tree- my go to stamp set for masculine cards

5) Trendy trees and big shot top note

Ruffled leaves

I just got my stamper's success magazine and had to try out the ruffled paper technique.  I use Stampin Up's designer paper for my color inspiration most of the time.  I love the idea of using it as place or instead of ribbon.

It really is just free forming it- I use some snail on back of 1/2 inch strip and just keep folding it or "ruffle it" to continue it down the cardstock.  It did take longer than a 12" strip, so I needed an extra piece of dsp to finish it off.

I also tried out another technique of emboss resist  using first edition speciality designer series paper and french foliage stamp set.  I used some retired copper and new pewter embossing powder and then sponged on more mustard, old olive and bravo burgundy inks.  I used splitcoast challenge #351 from this week.

Happy Fall!

Been out of stamping mode, call 411

I haven't been stamping as much over the summer, now that we have power and kids are back at school I needed some inspiration for stamping.  I went to a great website http://stamping411.blogspot.com and did their sketch challenge this week.

This is a new fun set from Stampin Up called "kidoodles" and the designer series paper is "let them eat cake" from Stampin Up too.  I used the designed series paper for my color choices: wild wasabi, baja breeze and peach parfait.

Hurricane updates and delays- New Holiday mini

I apologize for downtime, Hurricane Irene knocked out our power for 5 days just getting back in the swing of things and will be posting again soon.  Plus it delayed kids going to school, which cuts into my stamping time.
Happy Labor day weekend.

New Holiday mini is out and love it, check out my sidebar link to view all the fun new things!

Frog Fun

Okay, I admit I took a vacation from blogging.  We had vacations and then too much fun stuff to do with kids out of school to stamp and post.

However, with the release of new catalog new fun toys to play with.  Today I am showing off a swap I did using RMDH stamp set ($2 of each set goes to Ronald McDonald house charities) called: Turtle & Co from Stampin Up.  It has other cute images like a snail, turtle and birthday accessories.

The designer series paper I used is Stampin up's "beyond garden".

Two more weeks until school starts, so hoping to have more time to stamp and share!

I got inspiration from the catalog using a card design on page 202.  Don't forget the catalog is called idea book and catalog so always a great place to get inspiration, color schemes and sketches.

New Catalog starts today!

click on side bar to view new catalog!

teacher cards- breaking out an unused set

Okay, I got this stamp set Apple blossoms on a preorder last July 2010.  I had the best intentions to make teacher cards etc... and I never used it!  As my pre-order came for the new catalog starting on July 1st, I figured I better break out the ink.

I think I lacked some inspiration and direction on what to do with it.  So I cased  a card on stampin connection from Michelle Reynolds.  I added the owl punch but loved her design!

Now that we are down with all the end of year activities and events and a clean stamp room- I hope to be posting more often with new cattie and my back log of scrapbooking I need to accomplish!

Love embossing!

Embossing has to be my favorite technique.  So I was psyched to see new embossing powders in new summer mini catalog from Stampin Up.

Love the new bright color embossing powders in the summer mini- melon mambo, tangerine tango and wild wasabi.  I cased the one on black from stampin connection- just to play around, I apologize I don't remember who.  It is so stunning and really pops.  The embossed white one, also uses embossing dot folder for the big shot.  That is the card I came up with for card party too.

Summer mini shares

Where has the time gone, too many school events and commitments.  I finally got back in my stamp room to come up with some cards for a card party I did last Friday.  Get ready for summer and swimming!

So here is the first share using Stampin Up's summer splash and markers to color in the images, great way to get multi-colored look.  I tried to make it universal for male or female.

clean and simple

My friend Allison had a birthday this week and we are doing a girls night out for her this week.  So, I thought using Stampin Up's Cheers to you  stamp set was in order.  I also just got the matching wheel "cheers" that coordinates with stamp set.

I used clean & simple sketch this week and added a little crystal effects to glass.

here is a close up of crystal effects:

Birthday card for my son

Today is my son Quinton's 14th birthday.  I needed a card for him, so I decided to use Stamping 411, sketch challenge this week.  He has been playing guitar for over 5 years now, so I used grunge rock stamp set and embossing.

I also did a version with gold embossing and metallic gold paper.  Sorry for blurry photo:

I hope your day rocks too!

trying to get mojo back

I haven't had much motivation to go stamp lately, but having gotten my recent stampin success magazine I wanted to try double embossing technique and play with my new blossom bouquet triple layer punch.  Having lost my mojo, I decided to do a sketch challenge.  I used this weeks sketch challenge on Splitcoast Stampers- sc333.

The double embossing technique is fun.

Quick tutorial:

step one:  run your paper or card stock through embossing folder and big shot

step two:  ink up embossed or raised image with versa mark and then dump on clear embossing powder on and heat.  (note to self make sure you clean out your embossing trays better- as I have flecks of glitter and black embossing powder mixed in)

Here is what it looks like close up:

more scrapbooking with kids shares

Here are a few more, no photos in these ones.  

Okay more retired stamps used again (12 - nine year old girls, they get to use my retired stash)

This one uses Stampin Up "Vintage Vogue" stamp set.  The designer paper is retired but with some current colors.  For the kids, they will use coordinating wheel at the bottom vs. border stamp- too hard to line up.

This is a retired simply scrappin birthday kit I still had tons left over.  I can never seem to use the entire kid up, they are such a great value.  Anyways, I made this for the birthday girl to add to her album to remember her party.

Scrapbooking with kids

I am doing a scrapbooking birthday party for a 9 y.o. girl this Friday.  We choose to do 8 x 8 size and I tried to keep designs simple for the kids and for them to be able to get 4 designs done in reasonable amount of time.  Here are the first two to show with photos:

This one I used a retired stamp set from Stampin Up called "Cold Play".  I still can't pass it up making all the snowman parts.  I used dazzling diamonds on the torn piece of whisper white to look like snow.

This one uses "Medallion" stamp for background and another retired set called "Enjoy everything".  My original intention was to make it a fall page and use leaf die for big shot but kept it simple with just the photos.

Happy Mother's day

I awoke to breakfast in bed this morning and my son Dylan went into my craft room and came out with this card for me:

The best part were the thoughts written inside:

Now here is my card I made for my husband for his mom:

Too all the moms out there, I wish you Happy Mother's Day!

glittery surf's up

The new summer mini catalog started on May1st.  This is a set called Summer Splash, I actually won it at Regionals last month.  In a recent Stampin Success magazine they showed embossing with multiple layers by using a piece of paper to block out or mask different sections.  I decided to do something similar with cosmo glitter and heat and stick powder.

I used Stamping 411 sketch this week and it worked for Late night stampers challenge of using 3's.  I used 3 rhinestone brads (I cut of fastners with scissors and used glue dots) and used 3 ribbons.

It makes me want the warm weather and summer to get here soon!

first communion

It is First Communion time of year.  The kids always look so cute and angelic dressed in white.
Here are some simple cards I came up with using Crosses of Hope stamp set embossed in gold and embossing folders for the big shot.  I could really dress them up with some taffeta ribbon and pearls.

more punch art shares

I have some more swap card shares for you...  These are great versions of flowers you can make with punches!

punch card swap shares

It's spring vacation this week, so with kids home I have not had much free stamping time.  I thought I would share with you a punch swap I recently participated in.

This is my card using punches to make a mouse, I sponged with white craft for shading:

Here are two more fun ones (sorry don't have names on them, but they all did not provide names)

Love the use of heart punches for bride and groom card!

And a frog punch art!

I love designer series paper

Playing around with some more new stuff, as it the title says- I love designer series paper.  This paper called Paisley petals  is so pretty, but I cut into and let the be more of the main image.  I also used four frames a new stamp set.  The rest came out my scrap box of left over projects from stamp a stacks and workshops.

The design is this weeks sketch challenge over at splitcoast stampers, SC328.

2 challenges in one

Late night stampers challenge this week was to use flowers and I also used Stamping 411 sketch challenge this week.  It is a rainy day, so I decided to play with my new stamps that will come up in Summer mini.  The stamp set is fabulous flowers and the designer paper is called "beyond the garden".  Love the bright happy colors.

I also did one for my blue mood of the weather using same stamps and paper: