Feb 14, 2012 | Big Shot, Cards, Occasions Mini 2012, Stampin' Up! Events, Valentine's Day |
Happy Valentine’s Day to you! I hope you have a sweet day.
Each year we do Valentine’s a little different – when the kids were really young we started our family Valentine traditions – we cooked a fancy special dinner at home (I can feed the 5 of us a Lobster and Steak dinner at home for less than the 2 of us can go out). And to make it fun for the boys I had a Valentine Scavenger hunt for them. Each year is different and they have to solve riddles or decipher secret codes and search for hidden treats through out the house. Now they are older and with Kyle and Tyler in college I wasn’t sure the tradition would continue – but we managed to get us all together one more year – but we did it on Saturday night so Kyle and Tyler could be here too. We had our yummy lobsters and steak that Tyler prepared this year. Ryan made chocolate covered strawberries and I made some cute mini parfait desserts – they seem to be all the rage right now and I found some mini glasses at the store. I’ll find the picture of the desserts – it must be on my phone – since I didn’t find it on my camera.
Found it – 
I thought these little mini desserts were really good. First I baked some little brownie bites I found at the grocery store – they were Valentine Brownies with little pink and red chocolate chips. Then I layered my little glasses with first a brownie bite, then some vanilla yogurt, some fresh raspberries, and then another layer of each. They were easy to make.
Enough about that – now on to this cute card. I love this card when I saw it at Leadership. I saw it hanging on the displays and took a picture, then saw it again on the contest winners display and took another picture. And then was excited to see that I actually had it as a swap! The designer of this card was Catherine Sanders. Don’t you just love this card? I do. And we made it in my Friday class and I plan to give one to Greg today too. There are a few new products from the Occasions Mini Catalog on this card – the P.S. I Love You stamp set was used. The Adorning Accents Embossing Folders – the little hearts across the middle of the white panel. And the Fashionable Hearts Embosslit.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Feb 7, 2012 | Cards, Occasions Mini 2012, Sale-A-Bration 2012, Valentine's Day |
One of the fun parts of a Stampin’ Up! event is the swapping – there is different kinds of swapping and it starts as soon as you are on your way to a Stampin’ Up! event. At the airport you can usually spot another Stampin’ Up! demonstrator and it’s not uncommon to start swapping at the airport while waiting on the plane, in the plane – especially when you are seated near the bathroom then everyone stops by to talk to you and if the swaps are out then we start swapping. At every event I come home with swaps and I have a bunch from Leadership. I usually pick out my favorites to use in my classes or hang on my display board. The card I’m going to show you today is one of my swap cards from Leadership – I have been using it in my clubs and classes since I returned from Leadership and everyone has loved it. The swap that I received was from Linda Purvis from Texas. I made a few minor changes from her swap but not many. Here is my version:
And you could use this same concept with butterflies, flowers, stars, even balloons. Most of the hearts are punched from the Everyday Enchantment Designer Series paper using the Heart to Heart punch. You can get this paper for free during Sale-A-Bration. The ribbon on the card is from the Everyday Enchantment Ribbon and Brad pack that you can also get for free during Sale-A-Bration. Both of these are my favorite items to choose from and I have already gone through multiple packs of each. Here is a full list of supplies that I used on my card. For the big heart you can either punch it with the Full Heart punch or use the new Heart Framelits to cut it out.
Stampin’ Up! Supplies:
- Card stock: Poppy Parade, Whisper White
- Ink: Poppy Parade
- Stamp sets: P.S. I Love You, Candy Conversations (both in the Occasions Mini Catalog)
- Accessories: Heart to Heart punch, Full Heart punch, Small Heart punch, Everyday Enchantment Designer Series paper, Everyday Enchantment Ribbon and Brad pack (used the Lucky Limeade ribbon), Stampin’ Dimensionals.
To order Stampin’ Up! Supplies to make this project click here.
I have more to share about the Leadership conference and I also plan to share more Valentine ideas since it is approaching quickly. My Hands on Class this Friday is going to be themed “Love is in the Air” – we’ll be making some projects for those that you love. It should be fun!
Feb 2, 2012 | Cards, Occasions Mini 2012, Sale-A-Bration 2012, Stampin' Up! Events |
Thursday at Leadership was a busy day – the opening general session was full of information. Our afternoon was full of breakout classes and a Share Fair – this was something new and part of the My Way theme. We had lots of breakout classes to choose from and the first one that I went to was Why Women Buy and presented by Carrie Cudney. Women notice the details more than men and we examine all the available options before making a decision. Women are more people oriented than men and are more verbal – women talk about people, about the people in their lives and they are what is most important in any situation.
Next we headed to the Share Fair – there were 8 or 9 different areas set up with various speakers touching on different topics. Every 30 minutes we moved to a new area and listened to a new speaker. We all chose different things to listen too based on our interests and what we needed for our own businesses. I listened to Effective Business Tips – which had lots of good information that I shared at my downline meeting on Saturday. My second session was on Online Business – some of this I am already doing and I learned a few things to add – so on my list is to try my hand at videos – I’m not sure when but at some point I hope add videos to my blog. Another session was PR & Marketing and also Vendor Events. I am participating in one of those this Sunday before the Super Bowl – I just sent the information out in my newsletter and it is also on my events schedule on my website. I listened in on a few other sessions and then headed out to browse the Demonstrator Resource Center – Stampin’ Up! had lots of samples on display and then we had all of the demonstrator entries into the Stamping Contest. Here are a few pictures –
My Digital Studio Display
My friend Cindy Schuster was selected to create projects for the MDS display - one of her projects was a family cookbook.
Bakers Twine - how cute are these?
Valentine projects using the Heart Framelits
Sale-A-Bration - Fresh Vintage and Everyday Enchantment
After are day of classes was done we regrouped and then headed out on the Riverwalk for dinner. Except we got side tracked by a taping of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. We had heard earlier in the week that one night we might see the Christmas lights turned back on for a special taping. Well it turned out to be Thursday night and we decided to stay in the amphitheater as part of the taping. Its a special episode that will not air until December. At the end Lee Greenwood sang God Bless the USA. The show was about wounded warriors and building them new homes.
they gave everyone flags to wave - Becky, Monika, Michele, Linda
Extreme Makeover Home Edition Designers
Ty Pennington
Lee Greenwood preparing to sing
It ended up being a long night and a really late dinner – we ended up at the open 24 hours Mexican restaurant – I don’t remember the name.
A long fun day.
Feb 1, 2012 | Cards, Occasions Mini 2012, Stampin' Up! Events |
My third day in San Antonio and the official start of the Stampin’ Up! Leadership Conference. It was Thursday and we started with everyone in the Theater for the opening general session. Our theme this year is MY WAY.
Stampin’ Up! CEO and cofounder, Shelli Gardner, welcomed everyone. One of the first announcements was about a re-design of the Stampin’ Success Magazine – an exclusive magazine just for demonstrators. All of the changes that I saw look really exciting and the March issue will be the first one. There was a leadership march on stage for anyone that had a promotion during the last year. So I got to walk for my Manager promotion.
Donna Griffith made an announcement of a brand new product that will be available in March – a Diagonal Score Plate accessory for the Simply Scored Tool. It will be easy to create your own envelopes and here is a cute little card idea that she showed us –
Something everyone looks forward to at Stampin’ Up! Events is the Prize Patrol and my friend Michele was one of the lucky winners of a Diagonal Score Plate –
Michele Diagonal Score Plate Prize Patrol
This years Leadership had a large number of All-attendee prize patrol give-a ways – that meant we all got a prize – one included a brand new stamp set from the next catalog – along with a package of the large pearls from the Occasions Mini Catalog.
Monika & Linda - prize patrol
The morning was full of more announcements including changes to our Catalog program. Our current Idea Book & Catalog will be ending May 31st with a brand new annual catalog starting on June 1, 2012. That is one month early than past years. We will also be switching to two seasonal catalogs instead of the 3 mini catalogs. Each seasonal catalog will run for 5 months with the Holiday catalog starting in August. There won’t be a summer mini this year. And the seasonal catalogs will be bigger too.
Lunch at leadership is always a nice affair with service by waiters, nice linen table cloths and napkins and a fancy dessert – yummy cheese cake today.
There was so much going on that I’ll have to finish the day in another post! I’ll be back tomorrow with more.
Jan 31, 2012 | Big Shot, family, Occasions Mini 2012, Thank You |
Today is the last one. The last radiation treatment for Greg’s Mom. I’ll be going with her in just a few minutes.
We are so very grateful that the doctors caught this so early, that her surgery went so well, her recovery was quick and her radiation treatments have been quick. And now it is the last one and we can celebrate with her that all is well and she will live a long and healthy life.
Greg’s mom asked me to make some chocolate covered strawberries to take to the treatment center today. So I made them last night –
But being that I am a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator I needed to create something pretty for the packaging. I placed them in a white bakery box and then added some ribbon and a pretty label to the top.
I used my new Framelits Labels collection and the Apothecary Art stamp set both in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Mini Catalog. The label image is stamped on Very Vanilla card stock with Soft Suede ink. The flowers were colored with Pink Pirouette Stampin’ Write marker. Then I have a Pink Pirouette layer and finally Soft Suede – all the layers were sponged with Soft Suede ink.
I added the vintage button brads to hold the label onto the ribbon. And finished with pearls in the flower centers and some butterflies.
I hope everyone at the radiation center enjoys this little thank you treat. They were all so very nice and took such good care of Greg’s mom.
Jan 30, 2012 | Cards, Occasions Mini 2012, Sale-A-Bration 2012, Thank You |
One of the stamp sets that all the Leadership Attendees received was called Mixed Bunch. I used it to create this card.
I wanted to use the little butterfly brads that are in the Brad Pack that you can get free during Sale-A-Bration. There are five different brad designs in the pack and my favorite are the little Soft Suede butterflies. This card has a Soft Suede card base and then a Crumb Cake layer. On this layer I stamped the flower images from the Mixed Bunch stamp set and the small medallion. I also used the splatter from the French Foliage stamp set. everything was stamped in Soft Suede ink. The flowers were colored in with a Crumb Cake Stampin’ Write Marker. I added the butterfly brads to the center of each flower. On one flower I added a Jewelry Tag with the “thanks so much” from Tiny Tags stamp set. And finished the front panel with a piece of Very Vanilla Seam Binding that I tied in a bow.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
Happy Valentine’s Day to you! I hope you have a sweet day.
I thought these little mini desserts were really good. First I baked some little brownie bites I found at the grocery store – they were Valentine Brownies with little pink and red chocolate chips. Then I layered my little glasses with first a brownie bite, then some vanilla yogurt, some fresh raspberries, and then another layer of each. They were easy to make.
