Unfrogettable Stamping!

Elements of Style sneak peek for Fabulous Friday!!

This week on the Sisters in Stamping blog we are focusing on the Elements of Style stamp set that will be in the Summer mini catalog debuting tomorrow!!!  Can I hear a WOOO HOOOO????  All four of us on the SIS blog received this stamp set for FREE from our beloved CEO Shelli Gardner at Leadership in Phoenix back in January.  How great is that?!  I love being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator!!

Here is my card for this week - I love the Vintage look and used very soft subtle colors for my card - very vanilla, kraft, sahara sand, chocolate chip blush blossom and mellow moss.  I created a toile-ish background with the large image from this stamp set and then only stamped a partial image on the main panel to color.  I don't know if you can see it or not, but I also added the En Francais stamp set to my background panel.  I think I sponged EVERYTHING on this card, including the white organza ribbon, to age it.  And if you know me well, you know I hate cutting things out... well, I just had to cut out the hummingbird, it didn't look right if I didn't!

I hope you are as excited as I am about the new mini coming out tomorrow - please be sure and visit the Sisters in Stamping blog to see what everyone else came up with using this fabulous stamp set!!  Thanks for visiting today.

I'm off to the Southern Caribbean with Stampin' Up! so here is my Cruise Special just for you!!!

I can't believe this trip is finally here - we set sail today for the Southern Caribbean, courtesy of Stampin' Up!  Thanks to my wonderful stampers and downline I was able to earn this trip last year... I can't say it enough - THANK YOU!!!

In order to celebrate and show my appreciation, I will be running a CRUISE SPECIAL from April 25-April 30, 2010.  Anyone placing a $50+ online order will earn a FREE retiring ink pad plus its ink refill.  (I will order this for you upon my return).  Place a $100+ order and you'll earn 2 retiring colors.  Place a $150+ order and you'll earn 3 retiring colors PLUS hostess benefits (called stampin' rewards online) from Stampin' Up!  This order must be placed online via my demonstrator website during April 25-30th to qualify and the merchandise amount must be $50 or greater.  The good news is that in addition to earning these FREEBIES, you'll also earn a spot on my $50-50 board!  I have only 6 spots remaining and will be drawing a winner soon... it could be YOU!

Click here for the full list of retiring colors

To place your online order, please click here and then choose "Shop Now."  Remember, the Occasions mini catalog is ending this month and so is the Two-Step into Spring! promotion.  Your opportunity to purchase the Awash with Flowers sneak peek stamp set will also be ending on April 30th... after that you'll have to wait until July 1st.

* Don't delay... this offer is only good for a limited time!! *

I will be offline while on this trip... please come back and visit on Friday when it's time for my Fabulous Friday post for the Sisters in Stamping blog.  Have a wonderful week!!!

Happy 40th!

My brother-in-law turned 40 earlier this month and this is the card I created for him.  He loves the color purple so I decided on a color palette that was masculine - it includes elegant eggplant, old olive and chocolate chip.  The "40" was die-cut with my Big Shot using the Simple Letters bigz dies.  The "Look who's turning" sentiment is from, you guessed it, Look Who's Turning!  I punched it out with the modern label punch.  Do you see the awesome texture on the elegant eggplant piece of cardstock?  It is a brand-new texturz impression folder that will be available for purchase beginning May 1st and is found in the Summer Mini catalog.  Have you received yours in the mail yet?  Some of my stampers have reported that they have!  Want one?  Contact me and I'll be happy to get one in your hands!

As a demonstrator, we have the great perk of being able to preorder items a month before they go on sale to the general public.  I love it!!  This folder is called Square Lattice and will be priced at $7.95... what an affordable way to add this fantastic texture to your cardstock!  I ran the "40" through the folder, too. 

Does the purple corduroy button have you wondering if we're adding new colors in the Summer Mini?  Well, the answer would be no... I took a Kraft corduroy brad and added the purple color to it with my sponge daubers and elegant eggplant ink from my inkpad.  The color was just a bit dark, so to brighten it up I added a little bit of lovely lilac to the center.  I hope he liked the card... I'm just sorry that it was a little late arriving to him.  I am trying to get better at sending cards BEFORE someone's birthday instead of after... I don't always succeed.

Products used today:

Thanks for stopping by today!  If you'd like to order any of the products used today (with the exception of the texture folder which isn't available until May 1st), please use my online store here.

Fabulous Awash with Flowers for Friday!!

How did it get to be Friday already?  I love Fridays - especially because it means that I've got another Fabulous Friday project to share with you... this week our product focus on the Sisters in Stamping blog is the Awash With Flowers stamp set.

Have you had a chance to order this set that Stampin' Up! is giving us a sneak-peek chance to purchase this month?  It is part of our "Two-Step into Spring!" promotion (see above) and this set is only available during the month of April until our brand new catalog debuts in July!!  Want to earn it for FREE?  If you host a $350+ workshop during April you get to choose either the woodmount ($39.95 value) or clearmount option ($27.95) ON TOP OF the regular hostess benefits... how great is that?!?!?

This is my submission for Fabulous Friday this week... what do you think?  I was so happy with the card I came up with for my Card Club this month, CASE'ing a card shared by Selene Kempton (see that blog posting here), that I tweaked it and created a set of four cards using the layout with several In Colors (crushed curry, rich razzleberry, melon mambo and bermuda bay) along with a matching gift bag to hold them all... I had year-end teacher gifts in mind when creating this project.

Here is a photo of the contents of the gift bag.  And here is a close-up of the rich razzleberry card with matching envelope (did you know we carry Kraft envelopes to match the cardstock?).

Thanks for stopping by today... please be sure and visit the Sisters in Stamping blog after Noon EST today to check out the other projects using this fabulous stamp set!

Products used today:

Click here to place your order online!!

Spreading Sunshine!

I received this awesome Sunshine Award for my blog from my sister, Cindy Blekas - her blog is Simply Cindy Crafts.  Thanks, Sis!!  I feel the same about your blog!!

Now it is my turn to spread some sunshine... here are the rules:

1. Put the award on your blog.

2. Pass the award to other bloggers who bring you sunshine.

3. List and link to the Nominees in your post.

4. Let the Nominees know you nominated them by leaving a comment on their blog.

5. Share the love and link to the person who gave you the award!

Here are some of the blogs that inspire me and bring me sunshine...

1. Jacque Craig, Stampin With Jaque

2. Karla Anders, A Work of Heart

3. Rachel Yurkanin, Rachel's Stamping Place

4. Patty Bennett, Patty's Stamping Spot

5. LeeAnn Greff, Flowerbug's Ink Spot

6. Dawn Griffith, Dawn's Stamping Thoughts

7. Michelle Zindorf, Freedom in Creating

8. Jen Sannes, Simple & Sincere

9. Terri Mongeon, Stamping with Terri

10. Patti Lee, Creations by Patti

April Scrapbook Club projects

My Scrapbook Club met earlier this week and everyone completed two 12 x 12 individual layouts.  Each month they get together and place a minimum order and in exchange get a free scrapbooking class - a different member takes a turn each month to be the hostess and gets the benefits of the workshop order.  Sounds fun, doesn't it?!  If you'd like to join this or any other clubs that I have we'll get started again in July... give me a call or send me an email to find out more details!

This first layout is one you've seen - it was my Fabulous Friday project earlier this month.  It features retiring colors ballet blue, pixie pink and gable green and the Fancy Flowers stamp set which is on sale at a 20% savings through the end of this month.  There are a lot of scallops on this layout including the Scallop Square and Scallop Circle Big Shot dies... I also incorporated the scallop border punch to tie it all together.  The inspiration for this layout was a card designed by my downline Julia Miller. 

I also used a stamp set that when I first saw it I immediately thought of scrapbooking - Things I Love - for the journaling box.

Here is the second layout... I CASE'd myself on this one.  It is a copy of a layout I used last year with my Scrapbook club - I had to change a few of the colors (riding hood red, tangerine tango and kiwi kiss to ruby red, pumpkin pie and old olive) but kept the rest of it pretty similar. 

The flower pot was inspired by a card I received from my friend Missy Shipman at Founder's Circle in 2008 and I just changed it to a pocket on my layout... it's great for a hidden journaling tab.

And I just love the Big shot for making embellishments - see the cute daisies and flower border?  All done with the Big Shot!

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you have enjoyed viewing my pages for this month.  Please be sure and check back tomorrow for Fabulous Friday - this week on the Sisters in Stamping blog we're focusing on the Awash with Flowers sneak peek stamp set... gotta love the sneak peeks!!

Card club projects for April

I met with my Card of the Month club members last night for our April meeting.  We get together each month in my stamping studio and they get a free class to make 3 different cards in exchange for placing a minimum order.  Everyone takes a turn being the hostess for the month over the course of the club period.  It's a lot of fun and a great way to spread out your wish list purchases!!

I didn't want to share the projects until after we met so as not to spoil the surprise!  Here is card #1... it is a CASE of one I saw posted by my friend Selene Kempton on Stampin' Connection (I love this demonstrator-only site for inspiration!).  She also posted it on her blog here so you can view it, too!  I have 2 downline who are celebrating birthdays today (Happy Birthday Jen P and Candace!!) and wanted to make them a card with this set.  I liked it so much I decided to use it for my club.  I changed the colors up a bit because I am really focusing on the retiring colors between now and June so decided to go with Taken With Teal instead of Real Red.  I love how rich the whisper white craft ink looks on the kraft cardstock!  The tiny bit of color was added to the main flowers using my Taken With Teal stampin' write marker after the craft ink was dry (I hurried things along with my heat gun).  To really make it pop, I added dazzling diamonds glitter along the edges of the flowers - it is beautiful in real life!!  The birthday sentiment is from my well-loved Well Scripted stamp set and the card is finished off with a piece of organza ribbon.

This is card #2... it is a CASE of another card I saw posted on Stampin' Connection by Rochelle Gould (you'll find her blog post here).  The top photo is of the outside of the card and the bottom photo is the owl on the inside.  Isn't this card idea the cutest?  Thank you Rochelle for sharing your wonderful creation!  Again, I tweaked it just a bit, making it more to my style (I love polka dots!).  For the owl, I used brilliant blue (since it is retiring) along with only orange, another bold brights color that will be making an exit at the end of June. 

This is the final card for the night... it is a bookmark card.  I created one of these several years ago and thought I needed to pull my cutter kit out again and give it some love.  If you use the perforating blade with a steel ruler you can make these very easily... the recipient of the card can just break off the bookmark and voila - a card and small gift all in one!  I used Cheep Talk and Heard from the Heart for the card along with many retiring colors - ballet blue, summer sun, sage shadow, only orange and lovely lilac along with whisper white and chocolate chip.  Below you'll find a picture of the bookmark, bent at the perforation...

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll be back tomorrow with my scrapbook club layouts from Monday's meeting.

April stamp-a-stack cards

I had to move up my regular monthly stamp-a-stack class this month because we will be on the Stampin' Up! Southern Caribbean cruise on the 4th Tuesday this month (wooo hoooo!).  I held this class last week and these are the cards that everyone got to make - they went home with 4 each of the 4 designs for a total of 16 cards.

Card #1 - if you follow my blog, you'll know that this is a card that my new downline member Julia Miller created for her first-ever workshop earlier this month and I used it as an inspiration for my Fabulous Friday project for the Sisters in Stamping blog (see that post here), which became one of the two layouts for my Scrapbook Club this month.  Thanks, Julia, you saved me a lot of work creating this card!!!  I love CASE'ing awesome projects that I come across and do always try to give proper credit!  As almost always happens, I did tweak the card just a bit... I added dazzling diamonds to the center of the flower (just for you Carolyn, my Glitter Queen!) and a brad from the Bold Brights assortment for just a little more pop of color.  This card features three retiring colors - ballet blue, pixie pink and gable green - plus the Fancy Flowers stamp set which is 20% off this month during our 2-Step into Spring promotion (want to order it - contact me or place an online order here).

Card #2 - this card features the Awash with Flowers stamp set, a sneak peek stamp set from the upcoming catalog debuting in July that Stampin' Up! is allowing us all to purchase this month only or earn for FREE as the hostess of a $350+ workshop (how cool is that?!).  I again used retiring colors - sage shadow (ribbon), cameo coral, lavender lace and apricot appeal in addition to my favorite chocolate chip and very vanilla.  The sentiment is from the versatile Curvy Verses stamp set - I chose to make this a Get Well card... who wouldn't love to receive this cheery card when they're feeling sick?!

Card #3 - this is a CASE of my sister Cindy Blekas' swap submission this month for our spring flowers swap with my downline (see that post here).  Why reinvent the wheel - this is a beautiful card and I was able to share with my stampers how easy it is to create a scalloped card with the Big Shot and Scallop Square clear bigz die.  The DSP is from the Tea Party package and the colors include retiring almost amethyst, barely banana in addition to the certainly celery and pretty in pink.  The gorgeous satin ribbon is from the Occasions mini catalog... great news - it is being carried over to the Summer mini so will still be available for purchase after this month!!  The cute image is from A Flower for All Seasons and is stamped on a Kiss diecut from the Occasions mini catalog and colored with blender pens and my ink pads that were smooshed (picked up the color from the lid of the pad).

Card #4 - this final card may also look familiar... it was part of my Fabulous Friday project submission featuring the Hugs and Kisses earlier in the month (see that post here).  Again, I featured retiring colors:  barely banana, gable green, close to cocoa and ballet blue.  The stamp sets used for this card include Great Friend and Well-Scripted (Occasions mini).  I love the Hugs die cuts in the Occasions mini catalogs and hope that Stampin' Up! brings them back or offers us a Big Shot die (wouldn't that be FABULOUS!?!?).

Thanks for stopping by today!  I'll be back tomorrow to share with you the cards from my Card of the Month club meeting tonight.

Weekend Color Challenge

My sister, Cindy Blekas, is also a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and every Friday she scours the blogging world and finds a color challenge and sketch challenge that she likes and posts them to my team's yahoo group to help inspire us for weekend stamping.  I don't always have the time to participate, but last weekend my daughter Kelsey needed to make some thank you cards for her birthday gifts that had started coming in from family (her birthday is on Friday this week - she's turning 11!).  Since she loves stamping as much as I do, I thought it might be fun if we gave the color challenge from last weekend a try... it is an older color challenge from the Colour Q blog site found here.  I also needed a birthday card for one of my stampers so we stamped together, coming up with two completely different cards.

Here is the color pallette - these colors are really pretty together.  Bermuda Bay, Lavender Lace and Lovely Lilac are all retiring in June so it was a great opportunity to give these colors some love before they're gone forever!  Kelsey decided she wanted to use butterflies on  her cards so we pulled out the Flight of the Butterfly stamp set.

Here is her card... didn't she do a great job? She loves glitter, so all the little butterflies that were diecut from the Beautiful Wings embosslit are covered (as was she by the time she was done!).

And this is mine.  We both used a variety of punches and the Big Shot plus 5/8" certainly celery grosgrain ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you have a wonderful day!!  Why not give these colors a try?

Products used for these projects...

Medallion class projects

I held a class earlier this month that featured the beautiful Medallion stamp set.  Everyone that attended the class received this stamp set and a brayer as part of their class supplies.  While at the class they created four different cards utilizing this stamp - you'll find them below. 

Here is the first card - it is a CASE of a swap I received at Founder's Circle from Jill Olson last fall.  I know that Christmas is a long time from now, but it's never too early to get started on your Christmas cards!  Plus, this card got more attention on my tri-fold display board than any other last winter- probably due to the glitter/shine factor of the card!  In real life it sparkles like no other!!  This look was achieved by inking the Medallion stamp with real red craft ink and using heat-n-stick powder, which when heated becomes very tacky.  It is the perfect surface for attaching red glitter from the Galaxy glitter set... heat set it for a few seconds and you are good to go!

Here is card #2 - I saw this posted by user LYP here and loved the monochromatic look.  The Medallion stamp was inked with a brayer and soft suede ink, then stamped onto naturals ivory cardstock.  To add interest, the color spritzer and soft suede stampin' write marker were used to apply the splatter background.  The card was finished off with several punches - the scallop border, modern label and word window.

This next card was one I saw on Stampin' Connection - this is a social networking site created for Stampin' Up! demonstrators to share ideas and projects.  What an awesome perk to being a demonstrator!!  I love that I can CASE projects shared by others and always try to give proper credit.  This card was designed by Shannon Mifflin - I only changed it slightly.  The two-tone color was achieved by brayering crushed curry ink onto the Medallion stamp and then using a sponge dauber with dusty durango to add color to the stamp.  I pre-stamped the center of the Medallion onto scrap strips of whisper white with dusty durango and it was punched out with the 1-3/4" circle punch and adhered to the card with a fire circle rhinestone brad.

This last card is actually an original of mine!  It may look familiar because I shared it with you when I showed my Techniques Club projects for January here.  Details about the card and how to do this Emerging Color technique can be found in that post.  If you like this color combination, be sure and pick up pale plum and mellow moss before they retire in June!!

Products used in this class are below...

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you found some inspiration and find the time to create something this weekend!