Mar 27, 2012 | Demonstrator, My Digital Studio, Occasions Mini 2012 |
Earlier this month I had a full Saturday filled with fun and learning and my Stampin’ Up! demonstrator friends. This first part of the day we learned about My Digital Studio and created some “Beyond the Page” projects. And that evening was our meeting where we shared ideas, learned business tips and created some fun projects. I already shared the swaps from that meeting in an earlier post but I wanted to share with you our My Digital Studio projects we made earlier in the day. Cindy Schuster and I worked together to create these projects and we love how they turned out. With the new Summer Smooches Suite of products being available as an early sneak peek in April we decided to use that as our theme for the projects – so we have bright and colorful creations.
First here is our group at our My Digital Studio Retreat –
Monika, Lisa B., Lisa S., Barbara, Sue, Leishman, Diane, Laree, Fran, Cindy
Cindy and I made bags for everyone with their project supplies and hand outs – Cindy created personalized tags using My Digital Studio and the Summer Smooches Digital Kit that will be available in April.
For each project we spent time doing the creating in My Digital Studio and going over tips and tricks on how we created the project. And then we actually made the projects – we pre-printed the My Digital Studio parts ahead of the retreat. One of our projects is this cute little bag that is made with an Iron-On Transfer – everyone can use these to carry their supplies to our meetings in the future. The centers of the flowers are the Brights Designer Buttons that you can get free during Sale-A-Bration – which ends March 31st. Cindy sewed the bags for us – like I’ve said before I have determined that I am not a seamstress. Cindy on the other hand is!
Our next project is a piece of Wall Art created in the subway art style and then embellished with stamps, fabric, card stock, ribbon and a crystal bauble. I started with the Love What You Do digital stamp image and made changes and additions to end up with the Statement of the Heart. It’s a piece of art that each demonstrator can place in her creative area or give as a gift to a new recruit or use as a display item at workshops.
The third project we created was a swatchbook project with the TOP 10 reasons to love My Digital Studio – it is a little business tool that everyone can use to show their customers what you can do with My Digital Studio – we listed 10 reasons we love it, details of bot the full CD version and the Downloadable Express version and included pictures of various projects on the back of each page. We started with the Twitterpated Swatchbook template and then made modifications to get our end result.
Top 10 - #1
I had to add a caption to that one since the right hand side is all white it blended in with the background on my blog and looked weird. Anyway here is reason #1 – we had 10 total. It’s a fun little book and hopefully everyone will find it useful, easy to carry around and cute enough to share with everyone.
Enjoy you day!
Mar 21, 2012 | Cards, Demonstrator, Easter, Masculine, Occasions Mini 2012 |
My March Demonstrator Meeting was a ton of fun. I wanted to share with you the swaps from our meeting – our theme was Easter, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
Anne's Swap
Christine's Swap
Cindy's Swap
Diane's Swap
Fran's Swap
LaRee's Swap
Leishman's Swap
Lisa's Swap
Monika's Swap - and matching envelope made with the Simply Scored and Diagonal Plate
I hope you enjoyed all these ideas.
Feb 6, 2012 | Cookie Stamps, Demonstrator, Occasions Mini 2012, Stampin' Up! Events |
Hi Stamper’s! Well it’s cookie time – at least around here I have been making cookie dough and cookies using the Stampin’ Up! Sweet Pressed Cookie Stamps. The Occasions mini added 3 new designs – a flower, clover, and a bunny – ready for the spring. I made cookie dough last weekend and everyone at my PAWS downline meeting got to stamp a cookie and make a little cookie pouch to put it in –
This idea was shared at the Leadership conference. One problem with packaging cookies is that they have they leave a greasy spot on paper because of the butter in them so I thought this idea was really great. This was from Donna Griffith’s on stage presentation – she lined the Designer Series paper with wax paper – how do you do it – well it is easy – you use the multi-purpose adhesive sheets that we sell.
I cut the piece of Designer Paper to fit inside the 4×6 cello bag. Then cut a piece of the multi-purpose adhesive sheet to the same size. Peel one side off the adhesive sheet and adhere to the top of the Designer Paper (the side that you want to see). Now cut a piece of wax paper (I cut mine bigger this time). Peel off the other side of the adhesive sheet and add the wax paper on top of the designer paper. Use a bone folder or decor elements applicator to smooth out the wrinkles and then trim off the extra edges. Now you have wax paper covered Designer Paper and you can put your cookie on top without it staining the paper.
For this pouch – insert the wax covered paper into the bag, insert the baked cookie, punch two holes with the crop-a-dile, add ribbon, then add a tag.
I made cookies again this weekend to take to an open house on Sunday. While making them I took some pictures and here are some tips on what I did. First I used the Shortbread cookie recipe that comes with the Sweet Pressed Cookie stamps. I did have to add more flour to my recipe – I think I added 1/4 cup more. I live where it is humid and I think that is probably why I need more flour – that just my logical guess since Stampin’ Up! is in Utah and they said the recipe is perfect for them but their climate is much dryer than mine.
There is my cookie dough. Then what I do is put the extra sugar on a plate and I use a cookie scoop to make balls of dough – roll them in my hand, roll them in sugar and then put them on a tray. I roll all the balls and then stick the tray in the fridge to cool.
Last weekend I made them a couple of hours ahead and this weekend I made them the night before. I had to let them sit out a little longer this weekend so they would be soft enough to press. I use the cookie press to press each ball of dough – then I use a biscuit cutter to cut them into a nice circle. You don’t want to press them too thin though. And if you get one that doesn’t turn out – just roll it back into a ball, roll it in some more sugar and then do it again. If dough gets stuck in the cookie press use a tooth pick to get it out before doing the next cookie. I hand washed the silicone pieces but it says they are dishwasher safer. And then just wipe the wooden handle clean.
The cookies were really good. Have a sweet day!
Oh one more thing – when I came home last night – Ryan had been working on a school project – he has out card stock, snail, dimensionals, cutting mat and craft knife, paper trimmer, Stampin’ Write Markers, the gel pen, and lots of tools from Greg’s workshop. He is suppose to be finishing it today to take to school tomorrow – I’ll have to take a picture once the creation is complete – and I better check my supply of card stock and dimensionals to see how much he used.
Jan 24, 2012 | Demonstrator, Sale-A-Bration 2012 |
Dec 9, 2011 | Demonstrator |
The last few days have gotten away from me. Not enough hours in the day to get what I needed to do done, which results in not enough sleep, which means I am tired. And the thing that doesn’t get done is posting to my blog (well other things too). So no post yesterday and not really one today either but I will plan to get some things out here this weekend and next week too. I have lots of things I have been working on for my classes so I do have things to share. It just takes time to photograph, edit, and write the blog posts. And today I am cold and when my hands are cold I really just want to put them in a warm place like my pockets and it’s hard to work when your hands are in your pockets, and wearing gloves doesn’t work either (really I have tried that before).
So enough of that rambling – there is no project or picture for you today – but I wanted to share a few more of the daily Christmas Activities with you from my Counting Down to Christmas project from last weekend’s blog hop.
Dec. 8th – Make Holiday Ornaments – I have ornament ideas on my blog that you can search for – did you know there is a search option on my blog – yep – it is in the right hand side-bar and just fill in a key word and it will pull up all the blog posts with that in it. Or you can look by category – those are in a drop-down box. I don’t have an ornament category but I do have a Christmas category. I have an ornament idea that I will try to get to this weekend and share with you later.
Dec. 9th – Decorate a Gingerbread House. We used to do this every year as kids. My dad was a baker – he owned a German Bakery and Gingerbread Houses were a big deal at Christmas time. Our whole house would be covered in them – my dad baked all the gingerbread and then my mom decorated them and they sold them in his bakery. He is retired for a long time now so we don’t do that any more. When my boys were little they would go make Gingerbread houses with Oma & Opa every year. Now that they are older I’m not sure they are interested so much. I wonder if Ryan and his girlfriend would make one this weekend when she comes over – I should go buy all the stuff so they can. That would be fun. I better add that to my shopping list (that’s one of those things that didn’t get done the last few days).
And I’ll go ahead and give you the next one too –
Dec. 10th – Bake Christmas Cookies – that would be fun too – for Ryan and his girlfriend to do. I think I better add to my shopping list. What kind of cookies should we make this year? Oh I know – Sweet Pressed Cookie stamp cookies – that’s what they can do. I made some of those when i got my stamps. I have wanted to try them with a snicker-doodle recipe and see how it works.
That’s it for now. And wait – one more IMPORTANT thing – have you ever wanted to be a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator? Do you want to get your Stampin’ Up! products at a discount? I have a super duper special to offer you for only TWO DAYS – so let me know right away so I can give you the details. This special offer will be available to anyone that wants to join my team only on Dec. 13 and 14 so hurry and email me that you are interested and I can tell you all about it – [email protected].
Have a great rest of the day!
Dec 1, 2011 | Big Shot, Christmas, Demonstrator, Punch Art, uStamp |
Happy December! This year just zoomed right by.
I do have to say there is a reason I live in the south – I don’t like to be cold – I know I am a wimp – but we have had three days of cold weather and I’m ready for spring and warmth again!
I wanted to share a quick treat with you. This was made by Joyce Pandolfi for my last PAWS demonstrator meeting. We all swapped little gift ideas and this is what she brought – he is super cute. Inside the box is a little mini chocolate bar that slides out the bottom so you don’t even have to mess up the box.
It looks like she used oval punches and heart punches to make this little guy. The ribbon border at the top and a snowflake that looks like it came from the Northern Frost Decorative Strip die. Joyce always has fun treat ideas for us. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Come back tomorrow for the Ustamp with Dawn & Friends Blog Hop – Up on the Roof Top Blop Hop – Holiday 2011 – you can blog hop all weekend and win prizes so be sure to come by. See you then!
For each project we spent time doing the creating in My Digital Studio and going over tips and tricks on how we created the project. And then we actually made the projects – we pre-printed the My Digital Studio parts ahead of the retreat. One of our projects is this cute little bag that is made with an Iron-On Transfer – everyone can use these to carry their supplies to our meetings in the future. The centers of the flowers are the Brights Designer Buttons that you can get free during Sale-A-Bration – which ends March 31st. Cindy sewed the bags for us – like I’ve said before I have determined that I am not a seamstress. Cindy on the other hand is!
