Nov 12, 2009 | Big Shot, Build-a-Bear, Catalogs, Contest Winner, Decor Elements |
Today is the day that the December issue of the Stampin’ Success magazine will be online and begin mailing. I can’t wait to see it – why? Because I should be in it! If you are a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator you will receive the magazine so look for me! I can only think of one other time I was in a publication and it was our Annual Report for the company that I last worked for – but my picture showed the back of my head because the photographer liked my hair – so you couldn’t even tell it was me…anyway…..
I sent in my Build-a-Bear idea for the
October contest (so I think I sent in actually in September) and it is getting published in the December issue as the winning entry for the Kidding Around contest. I took my sleeping bag idea and turne
d it into a Color Match Game for kids. I made a sleeping bag using each of the colors in the Pawsitively Prints Designer Series Paper – “Green”, “Orange”, “Pink”, “Blue”, and “Yellow”. Then I made a Build-a-Bear with matching pajamas for each sleeping bag. I decorated one of the skinny tins that Stampin’ Up! has for sale in the clearance section of the online store. The sleeping bags and bears fit inside. I used My Digital Studio to create the instruction sheet that I attached inside the lid. I don’t know what photos they will have in the magazine but here are the ones I took before I mailed it away.
I’m working on writing the instructions for the project. So I’ll post that when I have those ready. It was very exciting to win the contest and then have a phone interview. I was very nervous and I think I babbled on about who knows what. I’ll try to post the article here…
Ok I think I figured out how to get it copied out of the magazine so I can include here.
Here is the little article:
And in the same issue is a write-up on my upline Wendy Randall – a full page article! And we got our first peek at the new Occasions Mini catalog – with NEW products!! And the new Sale-A-Bration catalog – you’ll want them all! And new Decor Elements too! Oh my goodness I can’t believe they keep coming up with all these new things that I just have to have.
The dates for the Occasions Mini catalog are Jan 5, 2010 – April 30, 2010 and Sale-A-Bration will be Jan 5, 2010 – March 31, 2010.
Thanks for stopping by today – this is so exciting!
Nov 10, 2009 | Big Shot, Circle Scissor Plus, Designer Series Paper, Season of Friendship, Stamper's Club |
I didn’t forget about posting the rest of the seasonal plates (original post was on 10-17 – click here) it just took me a while to get an update picture of the change that I made during our Stamp Club meeting to the spring design. Here is the whole set:
The Fall and Winter designs were the ones I posted earlier. The Spring plate was the one I changed – in this photo the Rich Razzleberry card stock is just plain. While we were making these at the Stamp Club meeting I thought that I should have used the embossing folder on it just to give it some texture. And when the girls did theirs that way it looked great! But mine was still plain and I didn’t want to show it to you that way. So that is what took so long – I took mine apart and embossed the Rich Razzleberry card stock using the Stampin’ Up! Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder. Then I put it back together and took a photo so I could post it – here is the updated version:
We made the four circle pieces – one for each season and used Velcro to attach to the front of a glass plate. Then stand it up in a plate stand and switch it out as the seasons change. This would make a nice gift for someone.
The main Stampin’ Up! tools we used were the Big Shot with the Stampin’ Up! Top Note die and the Circle Scissor Plus to cut all the circles. The Season of Friendship stamp set was perfect for this project and I was so excited to see it in the new catalog.
The summer plate was the only one that didn’t use any Designer Series paper on it. The background is just stamped with the leaves and then there are flowers under the tree – some of the flowers are cut out and popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals and so are some of the leaves on the tree.
On each plate the little bird was stamped and cut out and added somewhere in the design.
I really love how all of these turned out.
I have also seen where some people have done the plates with the design attached to the back so you can set it down and serve off of it. But then your design has to be flat – no buttons – so it is flat against the glass. But I like mine on the top with some dimension and use it a a decorative piece and not a serving piece.
Have a productive day! I got a lot done yesterday and hope to make good progress today too.
Nov 8, 2009 | Big Shot, Christmas, Holiday Mini Catalog 2009, Punch Art, Stampin' Up! Events |
This is the cutest little reindeer swap that I got from Rhea Anderson at the Chattanooga Regional. She was a new friend that I met there – it was her first Stampin’ Up! event and she was so excited. This is a little pouch that folds over – on the inside is a slot cut with the modern label punch that she had a piece of candy stuck inside. She used some ribbon to make a handle so it is like a mini little purse.
The punch art reindeer is the cutest. He has a red shiny nose – use crystal effects to get it to shine. And the whole pouch is covered with the shimmery sparkles from the new Shimmer Paint in the Holiday mini. I don’t think it really shows in person but it does in real life. It is just covered in shimmer!
Can you guess how the antlers were created? It is one of our Big Shot Dies – it is the Stampin’ Up! Tulipe Bigz die – she just cut a piece off the die cut image and used it for the antlers – very clever and looks perfect don’t you think?
Thanks Rhea for sharing your creativity with me at the regional and joining us at our table – we enjoyed the day with you!
If you missed my Holiday Card class the other week – you are in luck, I am going to have one more class on Thursday, November 19th at 10:00 AM only (not night class – sorry). I’ll add it to my website calendar and be sending out an email to my email list. This coming Friday I’m having a Holiday BIG SHOT class! We will be making projects using the Big Shot – it should be lots of fun – an email will be coming out for that too.
I had a busy weekend – it was Wendy’s Gift Giving Extravaganza weekend – Wendy is my upline and each year she creates about a dozen projects and opens her house up for all day Friday and Saturday for everyone to come make gifts for the holidays. I hope one year to have something similar but for now I just attend hers. Everyone chooses the projects they want to make and I made three different ones this year. So Friday morning/afternoon I was stamping at Wendy’s house. Then Friday night I had my Stamper’s Club meeting – it was a lot of fun and we made some great projects there including a gift idea which I’ll be sharing later this week. Saturday morning I took Ryan to his soccer game and then went back to Wendy’s house in the afternoon. The best part about going to Wendy’s for this event is that her husband cooks for us! Home made soups and rolls, deserts and more – the food is great – I’m not sure I can get Greg to do that for me. Today I’ve been working on the school years scrapbook pages and tonight we went to dinner with Greg’s brother and mom and just got back. It feels like its after 9 but it was only 7 when we got home. The time change has it dark so early now.
Enjoy what’s left of the day!
Oh – one more thing – someone asked me a question about one of the projects I posted recently and I tried to email a reply but it came back with a bad email. So can you send me the question again with a different email. I forgot which project so if I didn’t reply to you then email me again. Thanks.
Oct 31, 2009 | Big Shot, Designer Series Paper, Punch Art, Scrapbook Pages |
Halloween is here and it is certainly a dreary day around here. Right now the rain has stopped and this little break is supposed to last until trick-or-treating is done and then rain again late tonight.
Today I’m going to share the Halloween Scrapbook page we made in my class last week.
I used the Eat, Drink & Be Scary stamp set and the little saying on the spider “happy fright night to you” was what inspired the title. The title was cut with the Big Shot and the GoGo Boots Alphabet dies.
The Designer Series Paper is the Cast-a-Spell paper. The scallop circle accents are the dies for the Big Shot.
The witch is Punch Art! My table was covered in punches for this project. The witch design came from the Holiday Punches online class that Heather Summers had a couple of months ago. She makes some very creative creations and you’ll see some more showing up in my projects from time to time. In her class she did Halloween, Fall, and Christmas punch art.
This little witch is done with Old Olive, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Basic Black, and Going Gray.
I also used the Little Boo stamp from the Under $10 section of the catalog – it is such a cute little stamp and fits perfectly in our circle punches.
Have a Happy Halloween! Be safe!
Oct 28, 2009 | Big Shot, In Colors |
Finally – I made a card for the Stamping 411 challenge. I think I participated the first 2 weeks when they started and then tried a couple more but kept missing the deadline. I think this time I made it. And I’m pleased with my card too.
I wanted to make a card to send to all the wonderful new ladies that I met this month either at events or workshops. Just a little note to says thanks and to invite them to join me for stamping. If you are one of those people and you gave me your mailing address – then you should be getting one in the mail soon. As an added bonus this little card includes a special coupon for $5 off one of my stamping classes. I have been thinking on this for a while but nothing popped into my head as being the right thing until I saw the sketch for this weeks 411 challenge.
The sketch was a square card and while the measurements given on the blog – by the way it is here – were for a 5-1/4″ square card I had an idea…….
If I make a regular size card – 4-1/4″ x 5-1/2″ but here is the neat part – I’ll trim the front of the card to be a square – so 4-1/4″ x 4-1/4″ and leave the back with the extra 1-1/4″ showing and that piece becomes my class coupon! I used the handy little perforating tool on the Cutter Kit to perforate that extra piece so that you can rip that part off to bring it back to me and still keep the little card.
I sketched it out on my grid paper last night and got to work – what stamp set and colors to use were my next decision – but that didn’t take long – I have had the “For All You Do” stamp set on my desk ready to work with and decided it would be perfect. Colors – the Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive colors have been very appealing to me and in the front of the catalog where the color families are pictured they used these colors along with So Saffron – which is what I ended up with. I created my flowers like they did on that sample.
So here is my creation…………….
I also used the Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder on the Rich Razzleberry card stock. The embossing folders are so cool – I hope Stampin’ Up! creates lots more.
The butterfly was inked with So Saffron ink and then I used the Rich Razzleberry Stampin’ Write Marker to outline the edges of the wings and color the body before I stamped it on Whisper White card stock. The Butterfly and flowers are all hand cut. That’s the part that is taking me the longest. I am in production mode so I have the different pieces of card stock cut and the images stamped and now I’m cutting all the flowers and butterflies before I put all the pieces together. They should be going out in the mail tomorrow – I hope.
The coupon information was put on a label and I added a few stamped flowers. This concept could be used for any kind of coupon – have the kids make mom or dad (or a grandparent) a personalized coupon card. Or use the tear off part to make a little bookmark – just decorate to suit your need.
So I think it fits into the Stamping 411 challenge and it is perfectly suited to what I wanted to send out. I hope everyone likes them.
Thanks for visiting today – go get creative!
Oct 27, 2009 | Big Shot, Just Soccer, Just Tennis, My Digital Studio, Scrapbook Pages, Sporting |
Well I had planned to post this yesterday but the rest of the day got away from me. Sorry about that…
I actually made these scrapbook pages last month – in September for my scrapbook class. The two-page 12×12 layout was easy to adapt to any sport. I made the Soccer layout for my class sample and then created the Tennis layout during the class. At the class the ladies did a variety including baseball/softball layouts and football/cheer layout. If you didn’t want sports at all you could have used Circle Circus or other circles or flowers. The layout itself was an old one from a magazine that has been in my stack of layouts to work with. I also created the same layout using My Digital Studio – I was able to play around with the photos in the layout before printing them. My Digital Studio has the Sporting stamp set with all the words but not the individual Just sports sets. But you could do a hybrid version and print the My Digital Studio version and then add the stamped sports images. One cool thing about the My Digital Studio that didn’t really work with the traditional scrapbook page was putting the words directly on top of the picture. In my traditional layout I cut my picture shorter and put the GO TEAM underneath it. The tennis layout doesn’t have pictures on it yet – I’ll be adding those as soon as I get them printed.
Soccer - left page
Soccer - right page
Supplies used include:
– Sporting stamp set
– Just Soccer stamp set
– My Way Punch
– Circle Punches – several sizes
– Spiral Punch
– Big Shot & GoGo Boots Alphabet die
– Night of Navy, Real Red, Summer Sun card stock and ink
The one thing I couldn’t do in My Digital Studio was the Spiral Punch – I’ll have to look at that more and see if I can find that – if may have been there and I missed it. So you see that here in my traditional layout.
The Tennis version uses the same supplies except the Just Tennis stamp set for all the accent pieces – here it is without pictures on it.
Tennis - left page
Tennis - right page
For the Tennis layout I may add some White Gel Pen lines by the tennis balls at the bottom of the page – I wanted them to look like they were bouncing and right now they look kind of out of place so I think I’ll add that when I put my pictures on.
So then the My Digital Studio version is done with the Soccer pictures – I’ll show you the Left page – it just has white circles where the soccer balls should have been. I didn’t actually print the My Digital Studio version as a 12 x 12 but I was able to export it to a jpg file so I could share it here and I printed it just on paper to take to my craft room as my sample. So the My Digital Studio software can be used for a design tool – where you can play around with elements and photos without cutting card stock or printing photos until you know what size and where you want everything.
Soccer - My Digital Studio
I didn’t finish adding all the stamped words in there but wanted to have an idea for comparison. The font is different since the Big Shot dies aren’t actually in My Digital Studio – you can add text by using the fonts that you have loaded on your computer and you can change them to any of the Stampin’ Up! colors.
So what do you think? How do they compare?
I have this month’s scrapbook pages ready to share later this week so come back again.
It’s a rainy day (again) and a good day to stay inside and stamp (no one really wants to clean house so go stamp instead).
