Mar 3, 2010 | Cards, Occasion Mini 2010, Sale-A-Bration 2010, Thank You, Wildlife |
This card was created by Wendy Randall for some swaps. I got one at our group meeting in January but I don’t think I ever shared this card here on my blog.
Now that most of our snow is gone from yesterday it is time to focus on Spring – come on Spring – I am ready!!
I love the little bird cage stamp in the Happy Moments stamp set – this is one you can get for Free during Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration.
Wendy created a pole for the bird cage to hang on and the bird is singing “thank you, thank you, thank you”. The pole is two pieces – the curved piece comes from one of the die cut alphabets and then she cut a straight piece the same width. The little piece of ribbon hides the spot where they are joined.
The faux wood background is something Wendy uses a lot – to create this look pull your ink pad across your card stock – this is called the direct-to-paper technique. Then using a Stampin’ Write marker add little nail heads here and there to create the illusion of wood planks.
A cute card!
Here is a quick peek at what the Bluebirds were doing this morning – 
I found Mr. Bluebird inside House #2. I checked later on to see if they had started a nest in there, but not yet. Maybe he was just taking a closer look. This was the house they used last year so maybe it is the one they are leaning towards. Hopefully they will decide soon and start to build. Last year it was around the middle of March.
I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks for stopping by today!
Mar 1, 2010 | Big Shot, Cards, Demonstrator, Designer Series Paper, Occasion Mini 2010, Ribbon Flower, Sale-A-Bration 2010, SU Ribbon |
On Sunday afternoon I had a group meeting with the Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators in my PAWS group. Not everyone was able to come but the ones that did had a great time. I would love to have more people join Stampin’ Up! and be part of my group and this is a great time to do it. During Sale-A-Bration (thru the end of March) there is a special on the Starter Kit – 15% off plus you get an extra FREE stamp set. I joined during Sale-A-Bration the year that I signed up so I could get the extra stamp set – I was able to pick the most expensive one in the catalog at that time – I don’t think the kit was discounted that year though.
Anyway at our meetings we talk a little business, share ideas with each other – Lisa brought a bunch of cute decorate milk cartons using the new Big Shot die from the Occasions Mini catalog. And of course we do some stamping. One of the cards we made was what I guess you would consider a fancy fold card – it is called a Tri-Shutter card. I designed this one using several products from the Occasions Mini catalog and the Sale-A-Bration brochure. This was a fun card and not nearly as hard as it looks. I’m thinking about using this as a Stamper’s Club project for our March meeting – not this exact design but this style of card.
Here is the card when it is folded closed. It has lots of different panels and you could decorate each one with various things.
For the whole card the base is Old Olive card stock, each layer is Taken with Teal card stock and on each panel I used various pieces from the Sweet Pea Designer Series Paper Pack.
On the front panel I added a ribbon flower. This was easy to make using our Double-Stitched Grosgrain ribbon. You cut a length of ribbon (short piece creates a smaller flower), then pull the white stitching on one side to gather the ribbon in the center – I pulled from both ends until it was tight and then tied the white thread into a knot and trimmed the excess. I just overlapped the two ends – since the flower is gathered you can’t really see where the cut ends are unless you look for them. I used a Jumbo Glue dot to attach the flower to the front of the card. Then used another Jumbo Glue dot to add one of the little circle from the Sweet Pea Stitched Felt Flowers. A stitched felt leaf was added under the flower.
I also cut some butterflies using the Beautiful Wings Embosslit for the Big Shot – these are in Pumpkin Pie. The tiniest one is glued to the ribbon flower. Two of the others are glued on the panel next to the flower.
When you pull the card open you can see some more of the panels. The far right one matches the front minus the ribbon flower. For the bottom panel I added a piece of Chocolate Chip Satin Ribbon.
One view shows all the “front” facing panels.
And the other view also shows you the “back” facing panels including the large one in the center. Here I added a bird punched with the new XL Two-Step Bird Punch. And then stamped with the Whimsical Words stamp set from the Sale-A-Bration brochure – I used “you’re to Kind” for my card. This would also be fun for Mother’s Day, a birthday or Thank you. You could do more decorating on each panel and stamp some more too. My top panels that look really plain in these photos actually have the paper with the clouds on them so it is supposed to be the sky part of my card.
I also used the Scallop Trim Border punch from the Sale-A-Bration brochure. I didn’t realize just how many products I used from that were SAB and from the Mini – 2 Sale-A-Bration items and 5 from the Occasions Mini.
Have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by – if you have time leave me a comment – I love reading them!
Feb 27, 2010 | Big Shot, Cards, Create with Connie & Julie, Designer Series Paper, Occasion Mini 2010, Sale-A-Bration 2010, Stem Sayings, Thank You, Watercoloring |
Boy the week just flies by – its Saturday again and challenge day at Create with Connie & Julie!
Congratulations to last weeks winners of the Easter Card challenge – 1st place was Lisa, 2nd place was Robin and Honorable mention to Cynthia. Thanks to everyone that played along the entries were all great. I hope you will play this week too.
This week our challenge was a COLOR challenge – So Saffron, Certainly Celery and Orchid Opulence. And it was definitely a challenge for me! Why? Because my least favorite color out of all the Stampin’ Up! colors is Orchid Opulence – so I don’t have an ink pad and only a couple of pieces of card stock – luckily I did have my Stampin’ Write Marker! One of the big reasons that the Stampin’ Write Markers are so great – if you buy the whole set like I did then you will have ink in every color so when you need one and don’t have an ink pad – pull out the marker and you are set! It saved me with this color challenge!
The featured items this week are from the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Mini Catalog and the Sale-A-Bration Brochure – Abundant Hope stamp set, Stampin’ Up! Beautiful Wings Embosslit, Butterfly Accent stamp and Decor Stencils – Paisley Patterns and Folk Flowers. My choice was to use the Beautiful Wings Embosslit – because I love it and because it was the only one of the featured items that I had this week. And here is what I created….
Are you wondering where the background is from, the flowers under the butterflies? It is a piece from the Storybook Designer Series Specialty paper. If you haven’t taken a look at this pack of paper on one side of each is what looks like a coloring sheet. It is textured card stock so it was similar to watercolor paper. I picked a piece of one of the patterns that had flowers on it so the butterflies could be flittering around the flowers. And with no color on the design I could watercolor it with any colors that I wanted. I used my Aquapainter and the classic ink pads. But since I didn’t have the Orchid Opulence ink pad what I did for those was scribble on one of the plastic stamp cases to make a puddle of ink to use for watercoloring. I always loved to color in coloring books when I was little so I had a lot of fun with this and now that I got the pack out I think I need to play some more.
I used the Beautiful Wings Embosslit in the Big Shot to cut the Butterflies in So Saffron and Orchid Opulence. I edged the butterflies with a Soft Suede marker to make them stand out a little bit more. I used some white crochet thread around the centers to make the antennas. The butterflies are on Stampin’ Dimensionals.
Here is a full list of Stampin’ Up! supplies for this card:
- So Saffron card stock and ink
- Certainly Celery card stock and ink
- Orchid Opulence card stock and Stampin’ Write marker
- Storybook Designer Series Specialty paper
- Soft Suede ink and Stampin’ Write marker
- Sahara Sand ink
- Stampin’ Up! Beautiful Wings Embosslit
- Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
- Stem Sayings stamp set
- Scallop Trim Border Punch (SAB)
- Aqua Painter
- White Crochet Thread (not SU)
- Stampin’ Dimensionals
Check out what the rest of the Create team did with this challenge:
Connie
Julie
Mary
Kerin
If you haven’t checked out the Create with Connie and Julie site yet it isn’t too late to do it! We feature new Occasions Mini product every week. 
I counted today and there are at least 27 tutorials out there already. We like to have lots of fun so we have challenges and prizes for our subscribers. Our sites stay up long after the session is done so you will always have access to the site and the tutorials. For more information and to see our Preview Week projects please visit the Create with Connie and Julie site.
Thanks for stopping by today! Happy Stampin’!
Feb 25, 2010 | Big Shot, class, Create with Connie & Julie, Easter, Occasion Mini 2010, Sale-A-Bration 2010, SU Ribbon |
At last weeks class we made three Easter projects – a pocket card/invitation, a place card/candy holder, and a candy treat bag. Sometimes I’m just not sure what to call things. These were made using the Eggscellant Eggs Kit in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Mini Catalog and the Chocolate Bunny stamp. My class photo shows the projects made with all Pretty in Pink accents. Ok – to me these pictures don’t look as good as the other ones that I took – I was trying to use the white back drop that many people use but the lighting wasn’t so good. I’ll have to keep working on that.
Everyone had different colors because the kit came with different colors so I decided to take photos of some of the projects finished in the other colors:
Bashful Blue w/Certainly Celery
Pale Plum w/Whisper White
Pretty in Pink w/Certainly Celery
So Saffron w/Certainly Celery
These were fun! I’ll be making more in all the colors for our family Easter gathering.
These three projects along with 3 more were part of a collection I created for Create with Connie & Julie. We are in the last couple of weeks of adding new projects but everything will be available for a long time so you can still join. So far there are 27 tutorials available along with many more projects – everything includes a full supply list and some basic instructions – so you are getting a ton of ideas for the price of the subscription.
Thanks for stopping by today.
Feb 23, 2010 | Big Shot, Designer Series Paper, Occasion Mini 2010, Scrapbook Pages, Upsy Daisy, Wildlife |
She is the shelter from the storm…
As you can tell if you have been reading my blog I spend some of my time observing the birds and animals in nature around me. It is actually very fascinating and you can learn a lot. Last year in May my friend and upline Wendy had a group retreat at her home. It turned out to be a rainy weekend. The back of Wendy’s house faces into the woods and the back porch is high off the ground and I was surprised to see on her porch a nest built on the floor next to the grill. I kept my eye on the nest – it had four beautiful blue eggs and belonged to a Robin.
I had never really thought about it but the mama robin sat in that nest during the rain to protect her eggs. She sat on top and spread her wings to create a shelter from the storm. When the rain stopped she flew away to do what she needed to do. I found it to be quite amazing the protection that she offered those eggs.
Because she was close I was able to get some great pictures of her on the nest and of the eggs. I pulled them out and decided to put them on a scrapbook page.
This is my week 5 page for the 52 weeks of scrapbooking challenge. (I also finished week 6 and I’ll show you that tomorrow).
I used Taken with Teal as my background to match the color of the Robin’s eggs. I added strips of designer paper from the Sweet Pea Designer Series paper pack. I used the Big Shot to create some accent pieces – the scalloped circle, and the flower daisies in the corner.
The new xl Two-Step Bird punch added an accent on my circle and the stems on my flowers. The stamp set I used is Upsy Daisy. And then a piece of black satin ribbon at the top.
The Designer Paper, the bird punch and the satin ribbon are all from the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Mini Catalog. If you haven’t tried out the ribbon you really should – I have used most of what I bought and I’m on my second roll of most of the colors. I hope it is in our next catalog and I wish they would add So Saffron – this week for some reason I have wanted to use So Saffron ribbon more than once.
Sadly, I found out a few weeks later that while the mom did a wonderful job protecting her eggs during the storm she did not make a wise decision on the location of the nest. Because it was on the floor of the deck it was easy for other animals to reach. I hope she tried again in a better location.
I’ll be back tomorrow with my week 6 page.
Feb 22, 2010 | Big Shot, Cards, class, Designer Series Paper, Occasion Mini 2010, Punch Art |
Valentine’s day has passed and while I’m mostly thinking about Easter – I created a St. Patrick’s Day card for last weeks class. There are about 24 days left before St. Patrick’s Day. And don’t think that you can’t create a St. Patrick’s Day card when you don’t have anything with leprechaun’s or shamrocks. The easiest way to create a shamrock is with a heart punch!
Punch 4 hearts and put the points together – look what you get!
For my card the base is Old Olive and it is embossed on the front only with the Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder and the Big Shot. The hearts are put on with Stampin’ Dimensionals and then I added the Jumbo Brad to the center. The stem is actually the branch from the XL Two-Step Bird punch in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions mini catalog. I just trimmed off the leaves and tucked it under my hearts.
The “happy st. patrick’s day” is from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set. I’m using this stamp set a lot more than I thought. It has something for every holiday and they all fit in the Modern Label Punch.
This is really a quick card. I didn’t have a picture but on the inside I have 4 of the small hearts for a little shamrock in the corner.
Stampin’ Up! Supplies:
- Old Olive card stock and ink
- More Mustard card stock
- Chocolate Chip card stock and Stampin’ Write Marker
- Whisper White card stock
- Old Olive Patterns Designer Series paper
- Big Shot Die Cut machine
- Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder
- Movers & Shapers Die and the Modern Label Die
- Full Heart Punch
- Modern Label Punch
- Small heart Punch
- XL Two-Step Bird Punch
- Paper Piercer
- Jumbo Chocolate Chip Brad
- Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set
- Stampin’ Dimensionals
Thanks for checking in with me today – leave a comment – I love to read them. Everybody is back at school today – Tyler and Ryan were off for winter break last week so today we can get back to a regular schedule.
I decided to make a “Snow Day” scrapbook layout for my scrapbook class this week. It turned out great – I’m really happy with it. I’ll share it later this week. If you plan to come to my class please let me know right away.
Happy Stampin’!
This card was created by Wendy Randall for some swaps. I got one at our group meeting in January but I don’t think I ever shared this card here on my blog.
