Saturday, September 15, 2012

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Let Your Heart Have Wings

Here's a card for Anna, who will be playing in several piano competitions this summer.


Card base is the delightful Wisteria Wonder (matching ruffled ribbon),and the Top Note die-cut is Concord Crush. The butterflies are die-cut with SU!'s Butterflies die, and I added Swiss Dots with a Texturz plate. I'm liking the Rhinestones, too! No stamping on the card front, but the inside has the "Plant your feet firmly and let your heart have wings" sentiment from the Hope Happens stamp set.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Three-Panel Layout

For this week's CAS challenge over at splitcoaststampers.com, I pulled out my old favorite, Best Blossoms. To lend a more manly look to this Thank You card, I used SU!'s Well Worn dsp.


The card base is River Rock, with a Not Quite Navy mat under the panel of the circle pattern from Well Worn. I stamped images from Best Blossoms in Soft Suede, So Saffron and Cajun Craze inks--all colors from the dsp scheme. Instead of cutting the larger image into three squared-off panels, I decided to use my 1 1/4" Circle Punch to mirror the pattern in the background. The edges of the NQN mat are distressed, and both the main panel and the image circles are popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.


I went to town for the inside message panel, too. The Very Vanilla panel is embellished with more images from Best Blossoms, and it is mounted on another piece of dsp from Well Worn.

Every time I use this paper and these colors, I decide I love them all over again.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Baby Girl!

We're soooooo excited to be welcoming a baby girl into our extended family in a few months! My sisters in law are throwing a shower, so naturally I volunteered to make the invitations.



I kept this project simple with a postcard-style design. Invite information will be printed and taped to the back.

The front was simple, too. Can you believe that the dsp I used is really Christmas-themed? SU!'s Letters to Santa paper features Riding Hood Red, Old Olive, Marina Mist, Early Espresso, Blushing Bride and Whisper White. Great colors for a baby girl! I didn't have quite enough of any one pattern to make all the invites, so I switched up the colors slightly for a second variation. I like them both. For a bit of girly bling, there's just one Basic Rhinestone at the top.

The images are all from SU!'s Little Additions stamp set. I have the clear mount set, which was great for positioning the images together. Little Additions is a big set (21 images!), and I'm looking forward to finding lots more ways to use them all.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mother's Day Happiness

Stamping while away from home can be daunting, but I've found that when I take the time to plan a project or two, I really enjoy the creativity and relaxation. Last week I was on the road for two nights, so I packed up two different projects to take along. Here's one. I'll post the other soon.


This card is really pretty simple, even though it has several elements and also features a variation on the Spotlight Technique. The card base is Soft Suede, with the image panel matted on Blushing Bride. I stamped the thyme image with Wild Wasabi, and then again with Chocolate Chip for the "spotlight." (Yes, I know spotlights are round, but by making it square, I saved myself from having to pack my round punch!) I figured the Scallop Edge Punch and Basic Pearls were just the ticket to feminize this design and layout for Mother's Day.


Of course, with a dark card base, I wanted to line my card with Very Vanilla. That gave me an opportunity to repeat the thyme image on the inside of the card, too. This time, I went for subtlety and stamped in pink. Even though I didn't use a specific Mother's Day sentiment, I think the message fits perfectly. I sent one to both my mom and my mother in law.

This stamp set, Herb Expressions, has four different herb images with coordinating sentiments. I love using it! If you like it, don't miss the boat--this is one of the many sets that SU! is retiring at the end of May! Check the website www.stampinup.com or contact me if you'd like to order.

Special thanks to my friends Erin and Peggy from work who stamped with me!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

More Magic!

Here is the 6 x 6" page we made today at Technique Club. We put together a page like this at every meeting. We make an example of the technique and put it together with step-by-step instructions. I love thumbing through my own book when I'm looking for inspiration.


The page features Riding Hood Red and Night of Navy inks and card stock, in addition to the Glossy White card stock for the technique. To create the plaid design, we used 7" strips of tape that would easily cover corner-to-corner on the 5 1/4" Glossy White square.

This CAS card I saved for last. I like to have a nice, simple design for the last project of the day.


The card base is Going Gray, and we used Going Gray, Soft Suede and Crumb Cake inks to create the background. The basil image from Herb Expressions is stamped directly over the colors in Going Gray.

All of the images we used today are retiring at the end of May. Contact me to order or order online at: http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/default.aspx.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Magical Masking Tape

We'll feature this easy technique at Stamp Club this coming weekend. Yes, our fingers will get inky, but we don't mind!

Here are two samples, showing the versatility of this technique.


For this first card, I ripped thin strips of tape, and used them with Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Pretty in Pink inks to create a plaid background for the groovy cat from the C is for Cat stamp set. Both this set and the D is for Dog set will be retired May 31. Check out the whole list of retiring stamps at http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/CategoryPage.aspx


We have a new camera, and I'm at a loss as to how to rotate the picture. So, I hope you can look at this without hurting your neck! This second card uses big, wide strips of tape to create a more "natural" background. (I was going for grass and sky, can you tell?) I decided to stick with In Colors for this design: Lucky Limeade, Island Indigo and Pool Party. ETA: Thanks to dd1 for helping me rotate the picture!