Oct 17, 2011 | Big Shot, D is for Dog, Stampin' Up! Events |
And another one of my bags from the Birmingham Regional.
It’s hard to see in the photo but the bag is stamped with crumb cake ink with the bone and paw images from D is for Dog stamp set. I used the Old Olive Polka Dot Scalloped ribbon to go around the bag and the Decorative Label is stamped with the dog image from the same stamp set. I punched a second Decorative Label in Old Olive – cut it in half and layered it behind the white tag.
And inside the bag there are dog bones of course. The one in the this picture has the D is for Dog tag tied around it with White Baker’s Twine. It was punched with the 1″ circle and layered on an Old Olive 1-1/4″ Circle.
I still have a few more bags to show you. I got all of the pictures taken today. But I had a lazy Sunday – I got laundry done and did some more cleaning up from the My Digital Studio Retreat that we had this weekend. We had 12 demonstrators at my house all day Saturday learning about My Digital Studio – it was so much fun! I’ll be sharing more about that later in the week along with pictures of our projects. My friend Cindy Schuster teamed up with me to hold this retreat – it was something we first talked about on our plane ride out to the Stampin’ Up! Convention this summer. And it was a huge success! Thanks to everyone that joined us we hope you had as much fun as we did.
Have a productive week!
Oct 15, 2011 | Big Shot, Stampin' Up! Events, Under the Stars |
Here is another bag from my Birmingham Regional Workshop Wow presentation.
This one is a SMORES bag. And the great thing about this one – you can use the bag to help start the fire that you need to cook the smores! How about that for some recycling – that using it three times.
So the bag is made the same as the others. I used the Under the Stars stamp set – the smores are stamped on the bag and again on Very vanilla card stock and cut out. I used a Crumb Cake Stampin’ Write Marker to color the bear and the Graham Crackers (the old Creamy Carmel would have been a good color for this). The chocolate is Chocolate Chip of course. And the Marshmallow has just a hint of Crumb Cake sponged on to make it look toasted.
And what do you suppose is inside – 
what else but a chocolate bar, marshmallow and graham crackers.
What a fun little treat for a campfire.
Enjoy!
Oct 14, 2011 | Big Shot, Birthday, Stampin' Up! Events |
Here is another bag project from the Birmingham Regional. This is my circus bag or birthday bag.
For this one I added a 1″ strip of Big Top Birthday Designer Series paper around the bag before I crimped the edges. I wanted the paper to be crimped also.
On the front is one of the scallop circle die cuts from the Perfect Pennants die. I cut it from Real Red card stock. In the center is a White piece that was stamped with the Clown image from Under the Big Top stamp set that was punched out with 1-3/4″ Circle punch. The clown is colored with Stampin’ Write Markers – Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive, Peach Parfait. I used the White Gel Pen to add dots around the scallop circle.
And can you guess what might be inside?
Peanuts! Since the are in the shell I just filled up the bag and stapled it shut at the top.
If you need directions on how to make the paper bag – I posted those yesterday – see my Snowflake bag project.
Have a nice day today! Cindy and I are making final arrangements for the first ever My Digital Studio Retreat on Saturday. We can’t wait for everyone to spend the day with us learning about My Digital Studio – we have a fun day planned.
And I’m excited today to hear from Kyle – her flew Thursday night to California and today he is interviewing for a summer internship. His first real trip by himself – the company arranged for a limo to pick him up and take him to a hotel. I am excited for him but does it have to be so far away!
Oct 13, 2011 | Big Shot, Cookie Stamps, Season of Friendship, Stampin' Up! Events |
My Workshop Wow at the Stampin’ Up! Birmingham Regional was a demonstration on how to make paper bags using the recycled paper that comes as packing material in our Stampin’ Up! orders. Every box gets filled with paper to keep the items inside safe during shipment. I always hate to throw out the brown paper. Last year I used a bunch to wrap our Christmas presents, we also use it for a fire starter in the fire pit, but not too long ago I realized I could make my own little paper treat bags. And this is how I made them.
Brown paper from the Stampin' Up! boxes
I take the brown paper out of my Stampin’ Up! boxes and I smooth it out flat and then fold it on the perforated lines like an accordion so I can store it. To make four bags tear off one of the perforated sections. Fold it in half matching up the short ends. Then fold it in half again matching up the short ends one more time.
fold in half twice
Now fold in half in the opposite direction and then place the folded stack on your Clear Scallop Square Die so that the fold is inside one edge of the die and doesn’t get cut.
fold in half in the opposite direction
position on the die so that the fold is inside the edge and doesn't get cut
Now run through the Big Shot Die Cutting machine with a cutting pad on the bottom and on the top. When you cut through you will end up with four folded bag pieces.
cut with the Big Shot
To make each bag add glue to either side – leaving the top with the scallops open and the fold is at the bottom of the bag. I also took each edge and ran it through the Crimper a little bit and then back out.
glue sides of bag
Crimp edges of bag
So that makes the little bag and then its time to decorate. I had lots of fun creating all different themed bags. The one I showed at the Birmingham Regional was this one –
For this bag I pulled the edges through a Whisper White Craft ink pad. I stamped snowflakes (from Season of Friendship stamp set) in Whisper White Craft ink. In the top corner I added the phrase from Sweet Season stamp set in Early Espresso. I pulled a piece of Bashful Blue Satin Ribbon around the bottom of the bag – tie a piece of White Baker’s Twine around the ends. I cut snowflakes from the Northern Frost Sizzlet Strip Die. I added the snowflake with Stampin’ Dimensionals and then added a pearl to the center.
And what do you think is inside? Something sweet of course….
A snowflake cookie – made with the new Sweet Pressed Cookie Stamps. I made a whole batch of cookies – actually two using two different recipes. I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put one in each bag. These were my swaps at the regional too.
Sweet Pressed Cookie Stamp cookies
The cookies on the back portion of the tray are the made using the Sugar Cookie recipe that comes with the Sweet Pressed Cookie Stamps. The cookies on the front portion are made using a Cream Cheese Sugar Cookie recipe that I found on Stampin’ Connection (a site for demonstrators). For both recipes I had to add more flour than the recipe called for – I’m not sure if that is because I live in the south and it is humid so the dough was too sticky with the regular recipe. Anyway the cookies them selves are very good. If you got a swap from me at regional you had the Cream Cheese cookie recipe.
I’ll be back later this week to show you the rest of the ideas that I came up with for these little bags. I had a whole bunch.
Thanks for stopping by!
Oct 12, 2011 | Stampin' Up! Events |
I did it! I got up on stage at the Stampin’ Up! Birmingham Regional Conference and did a Workshop Wow presentation! And I didn’t even mess up – I almost forgot to show the cookies in my little treat bag but I remembered at the end. My friends took some pictures of me and I am working on getting pictures of everything I showed so that I can post it here and on Stampin’ Connection for everyone to see all the little projects.
Setting up my presentation
Our table at the regional
Here I am on stage doing my presentation.
I had the cameraman over my shoulder so I had to remember to hold everything towards him instead of holding it up towards the audience in front of me. Shannon gave me a tip on shaking hands – she said to hold my arms against the table instead of up in the air – so that is what I tried to do the whole time. I was so glad I got through it and hopefully what I said made sense to everyone. They clapped – more than once – so I think it was good! I will be sharing all the instructions for my projects and up close pictures of each one here on my blog – so if you were at the regional and didn’t get a picture you will be able to see everything here.
at the end of the day with Shannon and Donna from Stampin' Up!
My group had a great time and I hope everyone else did too. We all received a card keeper box to decorate, an art journal and kit to decorate, and an extra mini scrapbook project plus our two make ‘n takes.
Have a great day!
Mar 24, 2011 | Big Shot, Bingo, Designer Series Paper, My Digital Studio, Occasions Mini 2011, Scrapbook Pages, Stampin' Up! Events, Tutorial |
Look at this cute mini scrapbook using the Sew Suite product line from the Stampin’ Up! Mini catalog. This was a project that the fabulous Bonnie Thurber showed on stage at the Leadership Conference. I sent Bonnie a message asking if she could give me the dimensions and she did! So I was able to recreate it and used it as a Make&Take project at my downline meeting this month. So here are the details for this little project. There are 4 pages that are glued to an accordion folded spine that creates the top where the chipboard letters are glued on to. The spine and all the pages are Early Espresso card stock. To create the spine you need a piece that is 8″ x 5-1/2″ then score it at every 1″ to create the accordion – so that is 1″, 2″, 3″, 4″, 5″, 6″, and 7″. Fold that into an accordion. I’ll come back to how to finish the spine at the end. Now I’ll show you each page from the bottom up –
So here is the back page – cut the Early Espresso to be 6″ tall by 5-1/2″ wide. Cut a piece of the Sew Suite Designer Series paper to be 5-3/4″ tall by 5-1/4″ wide and glue it to the back page. Take the back page and glue it to the back flap of the accordion fold. Here is the next page
For this page cut the Early Espresso to be 5″ tall and 3-3/4″ wide. Cut the Sew Suite Designer Series paper to be 4-3/4″ tall and 3-1/2″ wide. Attach this page to the next step on the accordion towards the left side. On this page there is a flower – it is the Flower Fusion Sizzlet cut from Tangerine Tango. The center is one of the buttons from the Button Embosslit cut from Daffodil Delight. I’ll tell you how I did the words in a minute. Ok next page –
This one cut the Early Espresso to be 4-1/4″ tall by 3-1/2″ wide. Cut the Sew Suite Designer Series Paper to be 4″ tall by 3-1/4″ wide. Attach this page on the next step of the accordion toward the right side. For this page wrap a piece of Linen Thread around it and tie on one of the Sew Suite Big Designer Buttons. Then add some of the buttons cut with the embosslit from Tangerine Tango card stock. And the next one –
This page cut the Early Espresso to 2-1/2″ tall by 4″ wide. Cut the Sew Suite Designer paper to 2-1/4″ tall by 3-3/4″ wide. Attach to the next step of the accordion centered over the other pages. Now to finish up the front of the accordion –
Cut a piece of Sew Suite Designer paper to be 5-1/2″ wide and 2-1/4″ tall – then score at 1″ from each side – leaving 1/4″ in between – this piece will wrap around the spine – glue it to the back of the spine and then to the front. Cut a 5-1/2″ piece of Tangerine Tango card stock and punch it with the border punch Dotted Scallop Ribbon. Glue this under the front flap of the scrap book. I used a piece of On Board Chipboard and cut the letters using the Big Shot and the Simple Letters die set. Cover the letters with Early Espresso Craft ink using a sponge dauber. Well I should have told you this part first – I would recommend cutting out the letters putting the ink on them and set them aside to dry while you do everything else. You can use the green bottle glue or crystal effects to glue those to the front flap.
Now the words – Bonnie used the stamp set Fabulous Phrases for her example (and she used precut chipboard letters from one of the packs in the catalog). I don’t have that stamp set so I thought – hey I can use it in My Digital Studio and print them out – well the stamp set isn’t yet available in MDS either – so instead I chose a font that I thought was similar and just add text boxes in MDS. To make sure I had the size close I added a Word Window punch in MDS to see that my words would fit. I printed out a sheet of words on Whisper White card stock. We punched them out with the Word Window punch and layered them on a Modern label punched out of Tempting Turquoise.
Now I just need to add pictures and it will be done. How cute is that?
Is today’s Bingo piece going to be the one that makes you the winner? Here it is……
images copyright Stampin' Up!
Have a great day today!
And another one of my bags from the Birmingham Regional.
