Jun 9, 2011 | Contest Winner, Scrapbook Pages, Valentine's Day |
Yippee! I was selected as a So Shelli Creative Challenge winner! I got the email Thursday afternoon.
Good morning, Monika!
Shelli has asked me to notify you that she has selected your Sensational Scrapbook Spreads Challenge submission as a winner this month. Congratulations!
Thank you for sharing your creativity with us! We loved seeing your ideas. . .
And I get to pick a free stamp set! That’s always a good thing!
Here is a link to Shelli’s blog post – http://www.soshelli.com/contest/2011/6/9/sensational-scrapbook-spreads-challenge-winners.html
This is the layout that I submitted –
Here is the original post for this layout – http://monikastamp.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/i-love-this-valentine-scrapbook-page/
Come back later today for the UStamp Blog Hop!
Feb 13, 2011 | Bingo, My Digital Studio, Valentine's Day |
For Valentine’s Day each year we have a special family dinner and scavenger hunt. We have been doing this for many years – for us it is more about me spoiling all the boys rather than a romantic evening for just Greg and I. Our traditional Valentine Dinner is Lobster, Crab Legs and Steak – we couldn’t afford to go out as a family of 5 and eat a surf & turf dinner so we started cooking it at home. I have the lobsters and crab legs figured out and Greg does the steak. This year we celebrated last night while Kyle was home from college.
Normally as part of our activities I do a scavenger hunt – every year they each have their own set of clues and treats hidden around the house. When they were younger the clues were easy and as they got older the clues got harder. This year I decided to use My Digital Studio and create a Valentine’s Day Bingo game. I made a Bingo card for each of the boys and an extra one that I cut apart with all the pieces. I still hid their treasures but they had to have Bingo first before they could go look.
For the markers I punched hearts from Real Red card stock using the Small Heart punch.
In My Digital Studio I created an 8-1/2″ x 11″ photo album with one page that had four Bingo Cards on it. The Bingo card is one of the digital downloads that was released in the past few months. Then I went through all the stamp sets, embellishments and digital kits and selected different elements that were Valentine related to put in the squares. I resized any that were too big so they would fit in the square and used colors that were pinks, reds, and browns. I even used buttons and brads in some of the squares.
To make it easy I took an image, sized and colored it the way I wanted it and then copied it and positioned it in a different square on each of the Bingo Cards. I used the 4th card as the one I would cut the pieces apart for me to call while we played.
When I was done I just printed it out on my printer and cut the cards apart. This is what the My Digital Studio page looks like that I printed:
I love the Bingo card – both the My Digital Studio one and the actual stamp – it is fun to create Bingo cards to go with any theme that you need them too.
So if you need a quick idea for Valentine’s Day on Monday – these are really quick to make and print out. Have fun!
Feb 12, 2011 | Big Shot, Cards, Occasions Mini 2011, Valentine's Day |
I loved the scrapbook layout I showed you yesterday so much that I decided to take the Top Note design and turn it into a Valentine card. It works both ways sometimes you see a part of a scrapbook page that you want to make into a card and other times you see a card and think that would work perfectly on a scrapbook page….
It is basically the same element as I had on the scrapbook page and I put it on a Riding Hood Red card base. I stamped the bottom edge of the card with the little heart flowers and spritzed it a little with the Color Spritzer but you can’t really see it in this picture.
For the inside I added a Very Vanilla card stock and stamped the heart flowers on it with the Cherry Cobbler ink. “Sweet Valentine” is from the Level 2 Hostess set called Something to Celebrate in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Mini catalog.
We got this set for free at the Leadership Conference – that was a surprise!
You could really make this card without having a specific Valentine stamp set. Use die cut or punched hearts. Find Love or an appropriate greeting in one of our many stamp sets. I hope you get inspired to create something this weekend for Valentine’s Day if you haven’t already done it.
Feb 11, 2011 | Big Shot, Occasions Mini 2011, Scrapbook Pages, Valentine's Day |
I love the scrapbook layout that I made for my January Scrapbook Class!! I love the colors, I love the stamp sets, I love the layout, I love the accents! Now I just need to find some pictures to put on it. Yes sometimes I just create my pages because I like the pages not because I have pictures to put on them.
But this doesn’t need to be a Valentine page. It could be for a wedding or anniversary or in loving memory of someone (I was actually thinking of my friend Lisa when I was making this and that is what she needed). And someone else used it as a Things I Love page and she plans to add all the things that she loves to it.
The layout was an idea I saw in a scrapbook magazine and I stretched it to create a 2-page spread. Often the scrapbook pages in the magazines are single pages and for my scrapbook classes I like to do 2-page layouts so the test is always to see how to take a single page and stretch it to two and also how to convert it to a 100% Stampin’ Up! page.
I used the Love Letters Designer Series paper and took my color combination from it – Riding Hood Red, Basic Black and Very Vanilla. I stamped my hearts from the Heart to Heart stamp set and they weren’t quite as bright as I wanted and I didn’t have any Riding Hood Red ribbon either. So I looked at what I did have and decided to add Cherry Cobbler to the color palette and I LOVE it! I restamped the hearts in Cherry Cobbler and the popped so much more. I had Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding ribbon which worked perfectly and I die-cut and punched all my hearts from Cherry Cobbler card stock.
The other stamp sets that I used were Valentine Defined and Word Play. The Big Shot dies that I used on this layout were the Top Note, Hearts & Brackets, the Simple Alphabet, and the Two Tags die. I also used the Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder – can use see where? The easy one to see is the tag from the Two Tags die. But look at the Top Note – what I did for this is glued the pieces of Designer Series paper to a piece of Very Vanilla card stock – then cut out the Top Note – then embossed it with the Vintage Wallpaper folder. It is easier to see in real-life but if you look closely you can see the bottom left (which is just the vanilla card stock) and the top right, the other papers are harder to see in the photo.
All the Vanilla card stock is sponged with Crumb Cake ink which gives it an antique look. I’m so glad they gave us this color ink – it is fast becoming a favorite for me for sponging.
I have to go buy paint for my new sunroom – all the sheet rock went up this week and next week they will paint – I am planning on So Saffron for the color. I showed Greg the colors on my color coach and he wanted to know what paint store the samples were from! I said these are my Stampin’ Up! colors and the paint store will just have to match it. They are working on framing the new deck and then Greg and Tyler are going to finish it – maybe this weekend – we’ll see how fast they work. Then we need to pick out tiles for the floor which Greg’ also plans to do himself. Hopefully by next week it will be basically done except for what Greg is doing himself and all these people will be gone. The rest of the day I’m finishing up Valentine’s for my boys! See you later.
Feb 10, 2011 | Cards, Occasions Mini 2011, Valentine's Day |
One of the fun things about Stampin’ Up! Events is the demonstrations that they do on stage. Some ideas I like to try and others I don’t. One of the stamp sets they showed at Leadership was the Valentine Defined stamp set. This was one of the first sets I bought from the Occasions Mini catalog. To me it was different from the other sets we have had before. And I really liked this little card they showed on stage. When one of my card clubs asked for me to do a masculine valentine I thought this one fit perfectly. I made a few minor changes but basically kept the card the way they showed it to us.
The base of the card is Early Espresso. The chain of hearts is repeatedly stamped on the base in Early Espresso ink from the bottom to about half way up the card front. Then I tied a piece of Real Red Grosgrain ribbon around with a knot on the side. I usually don’t put adhesive on my ribbon so that once I tie the knot I can adjust where it is on the card. For this one the knot needs to be all the way to the left. If you feel the need to secure the ribbon just tuck a mini glue dot underneath in a few places once you have it in position.
Don’t you love the little heart tree? I inked it with a Pear Pizzazz ink pad and then used an Early Espresso Stampin’ Write marker to color just the tree trunk before stamping it on a piece of Whisper White card stock. Below the tree I stamped “happy valentine’s day” from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set in Real Red.
The Decorative Label punch creates the decorative edge behind the stamped white piece. I did make two versions of this card – this one shows the Red Glitter paper as the edge. I also used just plain Real Red card stock on one version. Behind that is a piece of Pear Pizzazz striped Designer Series paper. On top of the tree I added the two little punched hearts. One in Real Red card stock (that’s the guy heart) and one in Red Glitter paper (that’s the girl heart). The whole thing is attached to the front of the card with Stampin’ Dimensionals.
When I use
a dark colored card stock for my card base I add a coordinating neutral on the inside so you have a place to write. For this one I stamped the heart flowers in the corner – ink it first with the Pear Pizzazz ink pad and then use a Real Red Stampin’ Write marker to add red to the hearts before stamping. Stamp Love You image in Real Red.
This is one of my favorite Valentine cards this year.
To order Stampin’ Up! Supplies to make this project click here.
Stamping Together at Monika’s Place – February 2011 Newsletter – CLICK HERE.
February 2011 Ribbon Share – CLICK HERE.
Feb 9, 2011 | Big Shot, Occasions Mini 2011, Valentine's Day |
I realized that Valentine’s Day is going to be here in the blink of an eye and I haven’t shared all my projects with you yet. So I better get busy with that….
This project was part of my Valentine class that I had in January. It uses the new Petal Cone die for the Big Shot that is in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Mini catalog. The cone is cut from Pretty In Pink card stock – you cut two pieces from the die to form the cone shape. Before assembling the cone shape each piece was embossed with the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder. For my Big Shot I ran this through with no tabs on my platform – this embossing folder embosses so deeply that it was cutting through the folds of my cone so I removed one of the tabs to take away some of the pressure.
I also cut 4 of the half scallops from some of the Real Red Patterns paper which is part of the Love Patterns Designer paper pack – it is still available through Feb. 14th. These scallops were glued on each of the four sides of the petal cone and then glued down to the outside of the box.
On the front I added Real Red satin ribbon and a Vintage brad – this is a cheater bow – you don’t really have to tie it. I learned this from another demo in my group. You start with folding your ribbon like a “cancer bow” – do you know what I’m talking about – it is just the loop with the two tails hanging down. Once you have that shape you take the center of the loop and bring it down to where the two tails cross. Then take the brad and wrap it around the whole thing at that spot and tighten it to hold the bow pieces in place. Sorry I don’t have pictures of that – but it takes two hands to hold the bow and the brad and that doesn’t leave me a hand for the camera. I then took the brad through the scallop edge which holds that front flap down.
The two side flaps have a jumbo eyelet added and then the Real Red Satin ribbon is pulled through and knotted to create the handle. These would also be cute May Day baskets – just change the colors!
Oh and then on the bottom I added some of the red Glitter paper hearts – the Full Heart punch and then the small heart punch – punch two of each and glue them back to back with the white crochet thread in between. Pull the thread through the tip of the cone – in reality this is easier to do before you assemble the cone – but sometimes you don’t think of these things until later so I used the little floss threader to pull it through the tip and then either tie a big knot or use your paper piercer to stick a glue dot down in the bottom to hold it secure.
I filled my cone with chocolate kisses but the boys have been eating them so there are only a few left inside right now. I hope you like this little valentine treat – make one for each of the kids and hang them on their doors for Valentine morning!
