Back again

Whew . . . whirlwind weekend is winding down . . . one more trip Tuesday/Wednesday and I AM DONE!!!! For a girl who doesn't go anywhere during the whole year, three trips in 2 weeks is just too much for me. All has gone well with all trips so far, but it's exhausting. I miss my family (and my scrapbook room).
Tonight's card is another I'm thinking about including for my stamp-a-stack. This one uses the ornament punch and coordinating stamp set, which is so fun to use! I'm hoping to get a good picture of my stamp-a-stack cards this week so stay tuned and sign up early . . . I've already got some spots taken and space is limited!!


Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Delightful decorations, Four the Holidays
Cardstock: Whisper white, Real red
Ink: Real red, Bashful blue, Wild wasabi
Other Stuff: Ornament punch, Silver cord (non SU), Basic rhinestones

Here I go again

I've been home from Denver for about 30 hours, and I'm getting ready to turn around and head back out again. This time hubby and I are heading back to our alma mater, Penn State, to watch them play against Michigan. While we're in PA we're also going to visit with both of our families, albeit briefly. Since this is going to be a whirlwind trip, I'm not going to bring my laptop, so no blog posts this weekend :-(
When I get back I'll be posting some pictures for my upcoming Holiday Stamp-a-Stack, which is scheduled for Sunday November 14.
Today's card is made with the beautiful new Stampin'Up! fabric offered in the mini catalog. I love the patterns as well as how much of it you get!!! It's quite a bit of bang for your buck.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Serene snowflakes, Fabulous phrases
Cardstock: Cherry cobbler, Very vanilla, Deck the Halls DSP
Ink: Cherry cobbler
Other Stuff: Scallop circle die, Deck the Halls fabric, Very vanilla satin ribbon, Cherry cobbler seam binding, Vintage brads, Modern label punch, Word window punch, Champagne mist shimmer paint, Big Shot multipurpose adhesive sheets

So flippin' cold

I am wondering who thought that Denver in late October was a good idea. It is flippin' freezing here AGAIN and the wind will just take your breath away, and not in a good way. I am glad for many reasons to be heading home in the morning and this cold weather is making it even easier to leave. So in honor of this freezing blustery cold, I am sharing a 'Let it Snow' card with you tonight (although it BETTER NOT SNOW tomorrow before I get on that plane to come home!!!)
This card uses lots of goodies and a cool trick I learned from my upline, Pam, using the cardstock vellum. I think this is going to be one of my stamp-a-stack cards for November, so I'll share the trick with you if you come to my SAS!

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Big on Christmas, Short & Sweet
Cardstock: Not quite navy, Garden green, Vellum cardstock
Ink: Basic black, Not quite navy
Other Stuff: Markers, Basic rhinestone, Real red grosgrain ribbon, Northern frost sizzix strip (??? don't have my mini in front of me), dimensionals

Dashing around

A cold front came through Denver today and my oh my it has been cold and windy!!!! Whew! I thought I was going to blow away walking across the street to the convention center this afternoon. Since I've been dashing around here and there in this cold windiness, I thought I'd share a 'Dasher' card with you today. This is a simple card but I really love it. I've been trying to stock up on some of the Stampin'Up! ribbons and finally committed to buying one of these big fat striped ribbons. LOVE IT!!!! It makes such an impression on the card and it's so effortless. I also decided to use the sentiment from 'Just Believe' because I think it fits.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Dasher, Just Believe
Cardstock: Crumb cake, Soft suede, Whisper white, Real red
Ink: Real red, Soft suede
Other Stuff: Circle punch, 1 1/2" striped ribbon, Scallop circle nestie

Swirly

Since it was a bit windy and swirly today in Denver, I'm going to post this card using Snow Swirled, my newest holiday stamp set. I went with traditional reds and greens with this card, but I'm thinking that non-traditional colors might look pretty darn awesome as well. I also took out my little jar of shimmer paint and a sponge and sponged some of the paint onto a stamp (I used the Serene snowflakes stamp), and stamped a shimmery gorgeous background. The paint seems to last forever so you could do this and have enough to do all your Christmas cards and have plenty left over. The only thing you need to do differently is allow it some time to dry - it's not an almost instantaneous dry like you would get with regular ink.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Snow swirled, Serene snowflakes
Cardstock: Whisper white, Real red, Garden green
Ink: Garden green, real red
Other Stuff: Platinum shimmer paint, sponge, scallop trim border punch, red & green rhinestones (not SU)

Strange night

My time in Denver has been interesting so far. I was in class all day today but this evening some colleagues and I went out for dinner. We were walking down the main drag and there were blood covered zombies everywhere. No joke. And some of them were more realistic that I cared for, to be honest. And on the way back, there were some smells in the air that weren't quite legal, if you get my drift. It was just very very strange - hundreds of (too) lifelike zombies walking the streets are just a bit much for me. I'm glad to be back in my room, working on my familiar blog, even if it's in unfamiliar territory.
I made tonight's card a few days ago (using my mom's supplies - thanks mom!). It's the Growing Green stamp set, which is on my wish list and, being in Colorado, takes on some new meaning. No offense to anyone who might be from Colorado, but this place is full of hippies, and I think that they would appreciate this card.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Growing green, Three little words
Cardstock: Crumb cake, Always artichoke, Very vanilla, Soft suede
Ink: Always artichoke
Other Stuff: Scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch

Totally Happy Birthday

Sometimes I am such a scatterbrain. Today is a dear friend's birthday and I saw her yesterday, HAD HER CARD IN MY CAR, and didn't give it to her. So now her first glimpse of her birthday card will be here on my blog. Sometimes I think the hardest part of making cards is being organized enough to give them (at least in a timely fashion). I'll put that on my New Year's Resolution list again this next year.
This card is made with Totally Tess, who reminds me of my friend whose birthday it is. (That was a horrible sentence but I'm getting kinda tired . . . travel day and all). Anyway, Tess is underutilized in my stamp room, but I always think of her when I want to make a card for Michelle. I also pulled out my long-neglected Prisma pencils, gamsol and blending stumps - some stamps are just meant to be colored. I did a bit of creative masking by putting a single cupcake in Tess's hand from the Birthday Bakery set. That's one of the most fun things about Tess - she can 'hold' so many different things!
Happy Birthday Michelle!!! Hope it was great!

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Tote-ally Tess, Birthday Bakery
Cardstock: Sahara sand, Early espresso, Whisper white, Pink pirouette, Rich razzleberry DSP
Ink: Basic Black
Other Stuff: Prisma pencils, Gamsol

Off to get some omelets

I'm heading out to Denver for a work conference tomorrow, so fair warning that my blog posts might be MIA for a few days if I have any sort of computer/internet connection problems. I'm not anticipating any issues, but I figured I'd better give fair warning just in case. I've got a crazy couple weeks coming up: Denver until next Wednesday, and then I turn around and head out to home/Penn State for the weekend just 2 days later. We're getting back in time to take the kiddos out trick-or-treating on Sunday evening but I have to drive down to Austin Tuesday night to give a lecture on Wednesday. Whew. Just thinking about all that exhausts me. I've got a bunch of cards 'stockpiled' but we'll see how far they stretch.
Without further ado, let's talk about the real reason you're all here: tonight's card. This is a simple Christmas card that would be easy to mail since it doesn't have a lot of 3D embellishments or even a lot of layers. The embossing part is what's tricky about this card. Some people cut up their embossing folders, but I'm too cheap to do that. You can just use an extra shim in your embossing 'sandwich' with the shape that you want to keep un-embossed (is that a word??) - in this card I used a wooden frame with an oval cut-out from a craft store. It's amazing how easy it is to do, and then you have a great one-layer look that doesn't look like one layer.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: A Cardinal Christmas
Cardstock: Whisper white, Real red
Ink: Basic black
Other Stuff: Markers, Petals-a-plenty embossing folder, Champagne mist shimmer spray (made with shimmer paint)

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)Stamps:Cardstock:Ink:Other Stuff:

Beautiful foliage

Tonight's card was inspired by one that I saw a while ago on splitcoast (http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1773674?&cat=20033). Cajun craze, Always artichoke, and Early espresso . . . sure, no problem. But adding in Perfect plum??? Genius!!! And something I can't take credit for. This is a beautiful stamp set that is sophisticated and so easy to use. I don't think you could make a bad card with it. We made this one at stamp club and even thought it was simple, everyone loved it.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: French foliage, Day of gratitude
Cardstock: Early espresso, perfect plum, very vanilla
Ink: Cajun craze, always artichoke, early espresso, perfect plum
Other Stuff: Linen thread, eyelets, crop-a-dile, ticket corner punch

Gobble gobble

This is a close-up of one of the cards from my stamp-a-stack last week. My upline Pam showed us how to make these cute turkeys at one of our stamp clubs (last year or the year before - who remembers???). We started the evening with this card and some of the folding/assembly was a little complicated, but everyone got through it and after this, everything else was a breeze! This card is a little bit bulky with the button and the folds, but I think still mail-able.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Wonderfully worn, Fabulous phrases
Cardstock: Chocolate chip, Very vanilla, Old Olive, Cherry cobbler, More mustard, Basic Black, Pumpkin pie
Ink: Pumpkin pie
Other Stuff: Circle punches, Scallop circle punch, Owl punch (for eyes), Modern label punch, Word window punch, Old olive 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, Pumpkin pie buttons & brads (from clearance rack), sticky strip

New Holiday Mini Bundles 20% off!!!!

Have you thought about ordering some stuff for the upcoming holidays but somehow managed to hold back??? If so, your patience can be rewarded!! Stampin'Up! is offering some great bundles on holiday items for 20% off the regular price if purchased separately! I personally can't wait to get my hands on the Tags til Christmas and Simply Adorned bundles!
Go to my Stampin'Up! website today to order (and check out the bundles in bigger type - sorry about how small they look on screen).
www.ksa.stampinup.net

Having some fun

I started rubber stamping (branching out from scrapbooking) one year in grad school when I wasn't able to go home for Thanksgiving. I was really upset about not being able to spend that time with my family until a friend of mine, who was also staying in town, asked me if I wanted to try making my own Christmas cards with her that weekend. The rest, as you can imagine, is history. So Christmas cards, more than any other, are special to me as that's how I got my start and got hooked on this hobby. I make A LOT of Christmas cards (130+) so usually they have to be relatively simple. One of the absolute fantastic things about this blog is I make a lot of cards that are just prototypes - made to try out different color combinations or a new technique or new product. In years past, my 'prototype' Christmas cards never got their moment in the spotlight because most of them were just too hard to mass produce or just didn't have quite the look I was going for. Not so anymore!!!
Tonight's card is inspired by the colored Christmas lights that my mom is so fond of. They've kind of gone out of style as most people (like myself) use all white lights now. I pulled out some of the teeny tiny colored rhinestones of unknown origin and stuck them all over this trendy tree. Fun!!

Oh my goodness I must have been tired last night when I originally posted this - forgot to put in all the 'recipe' components!

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Trendy trees, Short & sweet, Confetti
Cardstock: Crumb cake, Riding hood red DSP, Whisper white
Ink: Garden green, Chocolate chip, Riding hood red, Crumb cake
Other Stuff: Stamp-a-ma-jig, itty bitty rhinestones of unknown origin

Quick thank you notes

Tonight I didn't want to work on anything terribly involved since I'm all wrapped up in the Phillies-Giants baseball game. I decided to play with one of my new stamp sets, Perfect Punches, and make a set of Thank you cards. Since I also wanted to play with my new In-color ink pads, it worked out well. The Perfect Punches set is fun to use and helps you to put a card together quickly - stamp, punch and add to your card for some instant impact!

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Perfect punches
Cardstock: Poppy parade, Pear pizzazz, Concord crush, Peach parfait, Blushing bride, Hostess DSP paper pack in same colors
Ink: same as above
Other Stuff: Scalloped oval punch, dimensionals

Stamp A Stack

As promised, here's one of the 6 cards we made last night during the stamp-a-stack. This was one of the easier cards - we just colored the image with the new markers and used a border punch.
Looking forward to a beautiful fall weekend watching baseball and playing with the family!


Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Friends never fade
Cardstock: Concord crush, Pear pizzazz, Peach parfait, whisper white
Ink: Versamark
Other Stuff: Markers, pinking hearts border punch

Late night

We had a fun, but late, night last night with some lovely ladies who came to my stamp-a-stack. It was too late to post anything, but I'll be back tonight to share some of the cards we made.

Trying something new

Tonight was busy, with bowling and then coming home and putting the finishing touches on some things for my stamp-a-stack tomorrow night. I still wanted to make a card so I decided to just pull a color out of my stack of paper and not surprisingly, I came up with Bravo Burgandy. I NEVER use Bravo Burgandy. Ever. So there's a lot of it in my stack of paper collections. So of course it came out tonight and had to be my 10 minute card inspiration. At least it was a fall color so I could pair it with some other stuff and make it work. I gotta say, it's not too shabby an effort for being a quick card AND a color I never ever use. And not only did I use burgandy, I used it as the card base, with markers to color in the focal image, and the ink pad to stamp the sentiment.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Day of Gratitude, Word Play
Cardstock: Bravo burgandy, Crumb cake, Very vanilla
Ink: Bravo burgandy
Other Stuff: More mustard, bravo burgandy & crumb cake markers, chantilly lace trim

Modern flowers

I had to make a birthday card for a co-worker this week and decided to dust off my 5th Avenue Floral set. This set is absolutely gorgeous and I have to remind myself sometimes that you don't HAVE to make the show-stopping embossed/spritzed/aquapainter-ed/fussy-cut rose (although you certainly can if you have the time!). It's perfectly okay to make an 'easy' card with this set - it's still gorgeous!!!! No one needs to know it didn't take forever to make :-)

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: 5th Avenue Floral, Fabulous phrases
Cardstock: Whisper white, Early espresso, Wild wasabi
Ink: Marina Mist, Wild Wasabi, Early Espresso
Other Stuff: Curly label punch, 1/8" Marina Mist taffeta ribbon, stamp-a-ma-jig, glitter pen (non SU), dimensionals

Haunted Halloween

This is a simple but fun Halloween card that we made this weekend at one of my workshops. It uses the 'Haunted' jumbo roller and the new bat punch. I added some white gel pen highlights to the trick-or-treaters eyes.

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Haunted Jumbo Wheel
Cardstock: Basic Gray, Elegant Eggplant, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black
Ink: Basic black jumbo cartridge
Other Stuff: Bat punch, white gel pen, mini glue dots

Good times

Busy weekend! I had workshops on Saturday and Sunday this weekend, so not a lot of time for new creations. Since I haven't been able to make some new stuff, I'm sharing pictures from my awesome Haunted House workshop Sunday afternoon - we had a lot of fun making our spooktacular haunted houses! I got a little nervous during the workshop at one point, because it got really quiet. You start thinking that maybe you said something to get people upset, but no - turns out they were just all concentrating!!! That works for me. This workshop was interesting because even though we were all making the same house, each person put their own stamp on theirs and they all turned out just a bit different.
I don't think I'll be attempting a Christmas house class, but I'm pretty sure I'll be making one for myself - they can get addicting!

Christmas wreath

Here's another one of my Christmas cards - I actually made about a dozen of these this summer when I thought I might actually get my Christmas cards done early this year - HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Yeah, right. But at least I have somewhat of a head start! The Autumn Days stamp set can be so versatile - one of my favorites!

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps:Autumn days, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Cardstock:Whisper white, Garden Green
Ink: Garden Green, Real red
Other Stuff: gold paint pen, sheer red ribbon (non SU), Bow easy, mini glue dots

Fore!

My dad and my father-in-law, like my hubby, are both golfers. They also both recently had birthdays. And I am just now getting to sending their cards out. I know, I know. I make cards every day - how can I forget to send birthday cards to my father(s)?!?!?! It is because I am a terrible, unorganized person. I have no excuse. So to try and make amends, I made some pretty cool cards for them. The single stamp 'On the Green' was one of the first on my list to buy and I'm really liking it. This card came together so quickly that I was able to make 2 in no time. Now I just need to get them in the mail . . .

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: On the Green
Cardstock: Bashful blue, Chocolate chip, whisper white, Garden Green DSP
Ink: Wild Wasabi
Other Stuff: Square lattice EF, sentiment stickers (non SU)

October Stamp Club

I've been so excited to show this card here on my blog. I made it a few weeks ago but decided to use it for stamp club so I've kept it under wraps. Our hostess this month for stamp club is into horses and anything country. Boots, pickup truck, 5 acres in the country for her horses, the whole nine yards. So I thought that Faux Barn Board would just be perfect!! You can find the tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers, just like I did. It takes a couple steps, but it's easy and almost impossible to mess up, since it's supposed to look distressed. That's my kind of technique!

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Day of Gratitude, Fabulous Phrases
Cardstock: Whisper white, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler, More mustard
Ink: Early espresso, More mustard, cherry cobbler
Other Stuff: Modern label & word window punches, glimmer brad, paper piercer, supplies for barn board (see splitcoast tutorial - I followed it exactly)

Buried treasure

I had to do one of those big clear-everything-off-your-desk-and-weed-through-the-junk-so-you-have-room-to-work-again moments this weekend. I hated to take the time to do it, but when you get to a point where you have to clear enough space to stamp one small card front, you know you just have jump in and get things cleaned up. The good news is that after you're done, the top of your desk usually stays clean for at least 15 minutes or so. The bad news is it takes me about an hour to excavate to the desk level. In the midst of my latest dig, I found a card I must have made a while ago and I really liked it. (See above card) Note: I'm pretty sure I CASE'd this card from somewhere, so I can't claim this as my own design.

BUT, I decided that it was more of a summer card than something suitable for fall. I decided the easiest thing to do would be to change it up a bit with some different colors. So I re-made the card:



Voila!!! Same card layout + Different colors = different feel. As with most things you do, I think I improved it the second time around. I fancied it up a bit with the gold glow smooch spritz (everything for fall should have a gold glow to it, IMO), and used DSP for the circles instead of plain cardstock, and I added pearls and a sentiment this time around. If only we had time to re-do all our cards, think how great they'd all be . . .
Oh, well. As an added bonus that you may have noticed, I figured out how to put card images in different areas in my blog post. And it only took me 145 posts to figure that out. Imagine what I'll be able to do when I have a whole year of blogging under my belt!!!



Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Printed petals, Short & Sweet (2nd card only)
Cardstock: 1) Whisper white, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise 2) Whisper white, Rich Razzleberry, Pumpkin Pie, Rich Razzleberry & Old Olive DSP
Ink: 1) Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise, Daffodil Delight 2)Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie
Other Stuff: 1 1/4" and 1" circle punches, Scallop Trim Border punch, dimensionals 1)Tempting Turquoise ribbon 2)Rich Razzleberry ribbon, Basic Pearls, Gold glow smooch spritz

Fall Stamp-a-Stack

Sometimes technology gets the best of me. I don't think I posted this earlier, but somehow, my Fall Stamp-A-Stack is showing up as if I posted it in September. This confuses me. So I'm posting it again, just in case, like me, you missed it the first time around. Hopefully you'll be able to join me for a fun night of stamping!

Fall Stamp-A-Stack: Make 12 cards (2 each of 6 different designs) for only $20! All supplies except adhesive included. We'll make the 4 cards pictured as well as a Christmas/Holiday card and an any occasion card using the new Stampin'Up! In colors. Reserve your spot now because space is limited!

Northern Frost

Quick post tonight, with a card that's quick to make. This card uses some of the fun new stuff in the Holiday Mini - the Northern Frost Decorative Strip (used with the BigShot), the Little Christmas builder wheel and the fun glitter brads. I had considered using this for one of my swaps for regionals and then decided not to do it. But that doesn't mean I don't like it - it just means that after putting a couple together I decided I didn't want to try and make 50 of them!!!
Thoughts and prayers going out to all of you in the Northeast who are getting enough rain to float an ark. Be safe and keep those sump pumps going!!!!
PS. Hubby did great with his surgery but now comes the hard part - healing. He's being a real trooper but he's in a lot of pain. I keep telling him it will be all worth it in a few weeks when he's up and feeling much better, but right now that seems like a long way away for him, poor guy :-(

Card Supplies: (All supplies from Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Little Christmas builder wheel, Whimsy Jumbo Wheel
Cardstock: Bashful blue, Marina Mist, Pink Pirouette, Wild Wasabi, Perfect plum, whisper white
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Bashful blue
Other Stuff: Glitter brad, Basic Rhinestones