Congratulations!

One of my longest and best friends has her second son graduating from high school this year.  I wanted to make him a special, yet fun card.

For inspiration, I used the challenge idea from TGIF Challenges.  (tgifchallenges.blogspot.com)  This week was a combo challenge which fit my needs perfectly.

I used the sketch challenge and the congrats grad card challenge.

Here's might bright happy card:

I'm thinking that it looks manly enough, and his school colors are blue and white.  I'm sure he'll like it and the check inside.  

Thanks for stopping in and stay crafty!

New Catalog Preview (2)

Yay!  I got to play with another new stamp set today.  Today I opened up my Sprinkles of Life stamp set.  It's super cute and has lots of versatile stamps that can be used in a variety of ways.  There is even a matching punch!  And even better, Stampin' Up! donates $3 for each stamp set purchased to the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

I decided to play along with the Freshly Made Sketches sketch.  It is a super awesome sketch this week and I bet I'll be using it in my creating a bunch.  Here's the sketch:

And here is my sweet and simple card:

I love a simple fresh card!  This project features the new in color Mint Macaron.

Thanks for visiting!  Stay crafty!

A Wedding Gift

A good friend of mine's oldest daughter got married yesterday.  I saw a few pictures on Facebook and it looked lovely.  I've met the daughter just a couple of times, but I really wanted to send them a small gift in honor of the occasion.  Truth be told, I think I was looking for a reason to make some monogram cards with the Sophisticated Serifs stamp set from the Occasions catalog, and who else would enjoy some monogram cards more than a new bride?

Here is the card in their wedding colors.  Nigh of Navy and Blushing Bride.

As I was making the cards, I thought, "Well, I need something to put them in!"  So I decided on a pizza box!  It's made big enough to comfortably hold 8 cards and envelopes.

Isn't it the nicest little box?  It uses a pice of card stock 7 3/4 inches X 12 inches.  Here is a pic with the scoring marks.  It's basically one inch added to each side of the size you need.  I wanted my box to be 5 3/4 X 4 1/2, to hold the standard 5 1/2 X 4 1/4 card.

It all worked out well I think!  So I'm sending them out in the mail this week.  But of course, all nice gifts should come with a card!  This might be the part I am most pleased with!

I am still having fun with the stamping with the embossing folder technique.  Here I used the Lovely Lace embossing folder.  I colored it up just a bit with Night of Navy and Blushing Bride markers, spritzed it with water and used watercolor paper to "stamp" the image.  Once I dried it with my heat tool, I stamped the greeting from the For the New Two stamp set in Momento Black ink.

I hope that you have enjoyed my project today.  If you have any questions, use the comment box to let me know.  Stay crafty!

New Catalog Preview (1)

So a really cool thing about being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator is that you get to buy some of the new catalog products about one month early.  As most of you are probably a lover of the awesome Stampin' Up! products, I'm guessing that you get excited about new craft items too.  So be prepared, the new catalog goes live on June 2!

I've titled this post New Catalog Preview (1) in the hopes of posting a few more fun things in the next week.

Today I'm sharing a birthday card featuring the new Build a Birthday stamp set.  It's super cute and super easy to use.  I'm sending this card to my upline, which is a bit intimidating, as she's so crafty. But I do think she'll like it.  And I think if you craft with your heart people will appreciate it.

Isn't this so bright and cheerful?  And with a change up of background colors, I think it could be a great unisex card to keep in your stash.  I stamped the cake plate, layer, and flags on a piece of Whisper White card stock.  I used two new in colors here, Cucumber Crush and Watermelon Wonder, both so bright and wonderful.  I also used the 2014-2016 in color Tangelo Twist and the top layer is Daffodil Delight.  Next, I took a pice of vellum paper cut to the same size and stamped the words in VersaMark ink, then embossed them in silver.

Which strangely looks like gold here!  It must have been the lighting?  But you could use gold too.  Anyway, I thought embossing would help the words show up a bit brighter and they could coordinate with the 1/8" ribbon which comes in silver or gold.  I punched two holes with our 1/8" circle punch.  I think I need to practice up on my bow tying, but in general I think it came out OK.

I used the Crazy about You stamp set for the Happy and To You words.

I backed the image with a pice of fun DSP from the new Cherry on Top DSP paper stack.

All in all, a cute and pretty fun card to make and send.  Here's another look at the card.

Thanks for visiting!  Stay crafty!

Goodbyes are Hard, Remarkable Blog Hop

This month the Remarkables are saying good-bye.  (Didn't you just hear that sweet little good-bye song from The Sound of Music in your head, if not, you're hearing it or singing it now.)  Good-bye to retiring product (oh but wait until we get to say HELLO to new product, not much makes a happy stamper happier than new product!).  Plus we'll have ideas for retirement and sympathy cards.  Who knows how creative the Remarkables might get?

I have two cards for you today, the first is showcasing the retiring By the Seashore stamp set (so if you love it, I'm pretty sure you can still order it through June 2).  This card also features the Adventure Bound DSP (available till June 2 too!).  The greeting is from the Crazy about You stamp set.  Oh, and that beautiful chevron ribbon is going....

I'm super excited about this next card, I learned a new technique!  I saw a card on Pinterest that said stamp with your embossing folder.  So I thought I'd give it a try.  I colored with my markers on the embossing folder, then spritzed it with water, then I put my piece of watercolor paper on top.  I carefully closed it up and rubbed it a bit.  Once I took the paper out, I dried it with my heat tool.  Voila!  I used the sea oats stamp from the Wetlands stamp set and the greeting is from the Thoughts and Prayers set.  The colors are Island Indigo, Pool Party, and Crushed Curry.

Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of the tour!

For Maria's Blog Click Here!

Happy Mother's Day

You might not believe this, but I made my Mom's Mother's Day card back at the end of January! This is pretty rare for me, I'm often a make it real quick and get it in the mail right now person. 

The reason I made it so early is that I was in a swap with some other demonstrators and it's the card that happened when I sat down to create something to share.

And here's the funny part of the story. I did not use this card for the swap! For the swap I needed to make 27 cards! I was moving in 9 days and there was no way that I could make that many at that time, especially as this card was pretty involved.

Here is the card I came up with to swap:

Which, looking at it now is pretty funny! You could open it up and it could say "Happy Mother's Day ". Although I definitely had more of a birthday feel in mind.

So anyhow, I've been holding on to this Mother's Day card all this time and I was super happy to mail it with the Grandma's brag book (see post and video from March) this week. I'm sure my Mom will love them.

I hope you took good care of your mom or someone special to you this week. And for all the moms out there reading this, Happy Mother's Day.

Lots of Thanks

I like to put in a little thank you card with my customer orders.  I usually make 3x3 cards and I like them to be nice but relatively quick to make.

So the other day when I sat down to whip up a few thank you cards, I was inspired by the Gold Soiree DSP and that it paired with one of SU's retiring in colors, Pistachio Pudding (and Crisp Cantaloupe).  Then I noticed on the label, that it also matched with Garden Green!  I love that everything with Stampin' Up! coordinates and that they tell you what goes with what.

I got out my Another Thank You stamp set, and I just couldn't decide which stamp to use and what to use with it.  Then I thought, I'll just use them all!  This is super easy to do with the photopolymer stamps.  You can put them all on the same block.

Here's the block with all it's stamps.  I also used a few stamps from the Sew You Paper Pumpkin kit.  I lined them up using my grid paper.

And here is my cute little card:

I think it's super sweet and has a lot of impact.  And just in case you don't need a small card, I stepped it up just a bit for a regular 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card.  

I stamped the Dotty Angles stamp in Pistachio Pudding on the matching card stock and then used the Banner Framelits to die cut out my banners, then a quick notch on each side with my 1/2" circle punch, which holds a bit of white bakers twine.

Thank you for seeing what I have today!  Any questions, let me know.

A follow up on my mini book blog post from March, here are my books full of pictures!  They went out in the mail for Mother's Day!

Happy Crafting!

Time for a Baby Card

I love life events, don't you?  Weddings, Birthdays, Babies, Graduations.  I seriously love them all.  And it's fun because usually they are card giving occasions, and I like to make and give cards!

So, even though we've been out of college 20 plus years, there has been a mini burst of babies being born amongst our college friends.  I sent off a cute card about two weeks ago AND now it's time for another one!  I'll be needing a third one in August.  Some very good friends just had a sweet baby girl, so I was inspired to go soft and pink.  I'm pretty sure they are going to love this card.

Isn't it lovely?  I find I use Whisper White more than Very Vanilla, but today I felt called to the Very Vanilla.  Then I just knew that I needed to use the Fancy Foil Designer Vellum, it's so pretty!  I've used two stamp sets here, Celebrate Today and Tag Talk.  My colors are Pink Pirouette, Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzaz, and Early Espresso.

Here is the inside of the card:

I used the Big News stamp set.  I love that stamp!

And just to let you see the card a bit different, I was playing with what color to use for the card base.  I ultimately decided to stick with the Very Vanilla.

Comments are welcome!  Until next time, happy crafting!