One more

I couldn't resist. I found a GORGEOUS card that was a bit similar to this one & had to try it out. I love the technique, but need a little bit more practice to perfect my cards.

By the way, I LOVE my Upsy Daisy stamp set!!

As promised...

As promised, I got out my paper, ink & Upsy Daisy stamp set.

I fought with the two top cards just a little bit before getting an image I was happy with. I'm happy that paper has two sides to it! I wanted to try the Rock n' Roll technique, but I really don't think you can with this particular stamp. At least not too easily. So, I ended up coloring the whole thing in Apricot Appeal & then using a Blender Pen to take the ink off the stems (a technique I learned at Convention) & then using the Certainly Celery marker to color the stems green.

On the third card, I used my stamp-a-ma-jig (Seriously. How did I ever survive without the darn thing?? I LOVE this tool!) & did a little shadow effect using the retired Soft Sky & retired Blue Bayou. If you click on the picture, you may be able to see the shadow effect a bit better.

New post with pictures coming soon, I promise!!

Ugh!

That pretty much describes how I've been feeling the past week or so. I've been fighting some sort of sinus something-or-other. Not fun, let me tell you.

But, over the past week, I've finished up my company's Autumn Extraordinaire invitations (in the dark no less - my house lost power last Thursday & without a television to keep me occupied, I put on the headlamp & finished assembling the invites). I'm thrilled with the way they turned out. I can't wait for everyone to receive them & give feedback once they learn I made them.

I went to the Vendor Fair two Sundays ago. It was more successful than I thought it would be (these things aren't typically very successful for me as people say they already know someone who does stamps or they're not the 'crafty' type of person). But, I met some really cool people there, had a couple sales, and a few were interested in Stamp Camps. Yee!! I'm really excited to really meet with these gals & show them how they can be crafty too. So much fun!!

I'm blogging here at work (on my lunch break) & so I don't have any pictures of my own to post, but since this sinus thing is seemingly going away, I feel like I'll be doing some stamping tonight. I'm super excited about that (except I'm slightly limited because some of my products are packed for a stamp camp I'm doing this wknd... I just have to be careful to remember to put it back in the box & not away).

One thing that I want to stamp for sure tonight is a Thanksgiving Day card that I recently saw (not exactly like this one, but similar). It used punches to make a turkey & it was SO incredibly cute!! Guess what's going to be part of my November stamp camps???

Happy Halloween

Isn't it cute? It's a lil pumpkin made out of a bunch of punches. And a ribbon stem. So cute & so easy to make!! (Other) Stampin' Up! demonstrators are so darn creative!!

Sock Monkey

I needed to make a birthday card tonight to give to someone tomorrow. I'm LOVIN' my Sock Monkey stampset & accessories. I think it works really well for masculine birthday cards.

Halloween Cards

I made these two cards tonight at a Stamp Club that I belong to. Neither of them used any stamps (just cardstock, punches & ink). Aren't they super cute? They were so easy to make, too! If you book (or attend) a stamp camp before Halloween, Frankenstein & The Mummy will be on the agenda.

Snow Swirled Christmas

I want to have my Stamp-a-Stack cards ready to go by Saturday, my Vendor Fair day, so that passersby will see what's upcoming. I already knew I wanted to use my new Snow Swirled stamp set & this is what I came up with. It's simple (you don't want a complicated card when you're making so many).

For this card, I actually mixed some silver embossing powder with gold embossing powder & then threw in a little dazzling diamonds. When you look at it in certain light, you can see the 'rainbow-y-ness' of the dazzling diamonds without it being too over-glittery (I don't know that you can tell in the photo, but in real life, it's very pretty).

I also thought it needed a little something-something on the background, so I used the small snowflake from the same set & stamped it with VersaMark on the left side of the Bravo Burgundy cardstock.

Flight of the Butterfly

Here's another set that we got for FREE at Convention this year - Flight of the Butterfly. To be honest, I kinda forgot that I even had it... until I was searching online for some ideas on what to do for my next stamp camp. I saw a really cute card using this stamp set & thought to myself, "oh yeah!" So, then I went searching for other samples using this set & found a ton that I love.

You can click on the picture for a bigger view since it's kinda hard to tell, but I used some clear embossing powder on flowers on the white background piece.

I've also been using the heck out of my Stamp-a-ma-jig, which helps to line up the images. I used it to center the brown flowers against the pink wings & also to line up the words in the center of the butterfly. This tool is amazing!! I wonder how I lived so long without it...

Getting ready for Christmas already?

Leave it to me to wait til the very last minute to work on some sort of project. Next Saturday, I'm participating in a vendor fair in the Bothell/Mill Creek area with other direct sales & crafty folks (Tastefully Simple, Partylite, Southern Living at Home, hand-crafted jewelry, hand-crafted quilted items, etc).

Here is a picture (er, two) of a gift card holder that I'm making. I love the simplicity & the colors of this gift card holder. I'm just a hair sad that I used almost the end of my retired Blue Bayou cardstock. Once it's gone, it's gone for good. But, it was just too pretty not to use with the Real Red & Whisper White.

If you're interested in some custom-made gift card holders, for any occasion (birthday, anniversary, thank you, shower), send me an email & I will do all the creating. I am selling them for $2 each or 3 for $5.

If at first you don't succeed....

I came across a really pretty card recently with this image:

And then I tried to copy it:

And I was so unhappy w/how dark the middle turned out, so I tried a different method (using the pastels instead of the classic inkpad & this is the end result:

And I'm really not happy with this result either as you really can't see the scallop square in the center of the card (like you can on the first picture.

So I went back & read the tutorial on how to create the center & my problem was I am using the wrong color (I used Mellow Moss instead of Sahara Sand).

But since I don't have Sahara Sand, I sought out the next best thing - River Rock. And, I just put one flower in color vs. 3 across the whole square scalloped background.

For the most part, I'm pleased with the way it turned out. I think for my 'next time opportunity', I would use my stamp-a-ma-jig to center the colored flowers a little more evenly against the square scalloped background.

Happy Birthday

I like the new In Colors that Stampin' Up is offering for the '08-'09 catalog year, but I can't help but use the leftovers I have from the '07-'08 catalog year. I used (once again) retired Blue Bayou & Soft Sky on this birthday card for a co-worker. I also used (for the first time), my new square scallop punch, Heard from the Heart stamp set & Pocket Silhouette stamp set. You can't tell in the pictures, but the scallop squares are raised with dimensionals. Too cute!!

Jill & Justin's Wedding

Two nights ago, I was invited to a wedding which is happening tonight in Olympia. I love weddings (even if they're last minute invites) & I love my new stamp set that I got today - It's a Stretch.

I put this card together in just a few moments. It was SO incredibly easy & I love the colors - retired Soft Sky & Blue Bayou, plus retired DSP & ribbon. BUT, I also used (for the first time) my new scallop edge punch. I can't say thank you enough to Stampin' Up for creating a scallop edge punch.

Autumn Extraordinaire, part 2

A few posts back, I posted about me making my company's holiday invitations. This is the final product. Originally, when I had the idea, I showed Shannon a version of this using Real Red cardstock because I had quite a few leftovers from my Convention Swap. She thought the red screamed winter & since our holiday dinner is in the fall (not winter), she wanted more autumn-y colors. The final choice was Bravo Burgundy for the background, Baroque Motif stamped in Creamy Caramel on the Very Vanilla with the information printed on vellum. I died the organdy ribbon with the Creamy Caramel ink pad. A slightly messy process, but I LOVE the way this card turned out. Great choice in colors, Shannon!