Unfrogettable Stamping!

Birthday Cards for my team members

Today is not only my birthday, but also the birthday of my team members Gaylyn Pantana and Cindy Watson - how cool is that?  It is also the birthday of the husband of my downline Darlene Crockett, my sister's Aunt-in-law and several other people that I know.  Wooo hooo for May 30th - Geminis unite!

Having said all of that, I wanted to share the birthday cards I made for Cindy and Gaylyn - they should have received their cards in the mail yesterday so this won't be a spoiler.

Gaylyn loves anything vintage so I just had to use Elements of Style for her card. I CASE'd my Card of the Month club card, but changed the color to Elegant Eggplant and the cardstock to Very Vanilla.  I really love this card layout - so easy to duplicate!  The Square Lattice texturz folder adds such a nice touch, too, and who can't resist using the gorgeous satin ribbon from the Summer Mini with this elegant card?!

For Cindy's card I wanted to use the new Posy Party builder wheel in the Summer Mini.  I opted to use this one alone and just inked it up on my regal rose ink pad.  The wheel guide and grid paper really helped me keep this narrow wheel straight across my cardstock!  The fun, springy colors of this card (chosen from my color coach) just screamed spring and I realized that the flower image from Cheep Talk matched one of the flowers in the wheel - love when that happens!  I inked the birdie and branch using bashful blue, certainly celery, chocolate chip and pumpkin pie - all colors that are thankfully staying with us.  To "color" in the birdie's wing I used my 2-way glue pen and dazzling diamonds... every girl needs some bling on her birthday card!  The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Bitty Birthday and I finished off the card with certainly celery 1/4" grosgrain ribbon. 

Thanks to everyone who participated in my Debbie's Stampin' Bucks promotion earlier this month in honor of my birthday!  The redemption order has been placed and will be arriving shortly - wooo hoooo!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day tomorrow with your friends and families and thank you for stopping by today!!

May CPC project #9

This is yet another fantastic project loaded on the Craft Project Central site this month.  Sonya created this super-cute Sweet Scoops Tote and Mini Note cards project.

Sunny Day Simply Scrappin' Kits are Fabulous!

Our challenge this week on the Sisters in Stamping blog was to create a project for Fabulous Friday with a Simply Scrappin' kit.  I love these kits - they are so versatile and you can make so many projects with just one kit!!  I shared a bunch of projects that I made with just one Sunny Days kit a few months ago and you can view those here.

 

My project this week is an altered folder mini scrapbook album using the Sunny Days kit - I love the bright colors and fun images in this one!

Here's a view of it partially opened...

And how it looks when fully opened.

If you'd like to learn how to make one of these albums and are local to the Lynchburg, Virginia area I am offering this as a class on Friday, June 11th.  The class fee will include instructions and a Simply Scrappin' Kit of your choice to use on your album.  You will have plenty of supplies left over to make a second album plus elements to make some cards.  I will have to preorder the kits, so please contact me prior to June 1st!!

Thanks for stopping by today - please be sure and visit the Sisters in Stamping blog after Noon EST today to check out everyone else's project this week featuring Simply Scrappin' Kits. 

Have a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend!!

May Stamp-a-Stack cards

I held my monthly Stamp-a-Stack class on Tuesday night and everyone got to make 16 cards - 4 each of the following 4 designs.  It was a lively and fun bunch of stampers and the fellowship was quite enjoyable!  The card designs were simple, relatively flat for easy mailing and focused on Summer Mini catalog items as well as retiring colors.

Here is the first card - I wanted to focus on retiring colors and used my Color Coach to come up with this color combination:  pink passion, green galore, lavender lace and brocade blue.  The stamp sets featured on the card are Punched Posies - the hostess level 2 set found in the Summer Mini - and Great Friend (sentiment).  This card can be quickly mass-produced because you use the XL flower punch and 1" circle punch to cut out the images... love that!

This card is a CASE of one created by my downline Lori Subosits.  I simplified her card so that it didn't take too long for each person to make 4 of these.  Again, using the Boho Blossoms punch made creating the flower super-easy!  The Tropical Party stamp set works so well with the Island Oasis Designer Series Paper - these are definitely must-have products for summer projects!

I wanted to include a masculine card that could be used for Father's Day and this is what I came up with - it features the Motorcycle stamp, Teeny Tiny Wishes for the sentiment and the fabulous Square Lattice texturz folder.  Please note that the creamy caramel used on this card is retiring next month.

This last card is based on one I made about six years ago when I was still just a customer.  It featured the Tearing Edge Tool and that is an accessory that I haven't featured on a project in a while.  The Watercolor Trio stamp set is so great - this image was colored with Stampin' Write markers (mellow moss, pale plum and perfect plum) to get the variegated color.  I will miss being able to use these three colors together as mellow moss and pale plum are retiring next month.

Thanks for stopping by - next month my June 13th Kiss Them Good-Bye stamp-a-stack will feature stamps on the Last Chance List being released on June 1st.  If you're interested in attending, please contact me to reserve your spot.  Seating is limited and payment of the registration fee guarantees your spot.  Please be sure and check out my Calendar of Events to see what other classes I have coming up!

My Memories Mini Album project is on Craft Project Central!!

I'm so thrilled to be a Guest Designer on the Craft Project Central website this month and my Memories Mini Album was posted this week... yipppeee!!

You can find it and other great projects by visiting it here.

Father's Day project on Craft Project Central

Here is a great masculine project created by Michelle for Craft Project Central this month that is just in time for Father's Day!  Be sure and check it out here.

Elements of Style Class

On Friday night I held an Elements of Style card class.  Everyone who came received their own Elements of Style stamp set from the Summer Mini catalog along with the supplies needed to complete four cards.  As a bonus, they each received their choice of Designer Brads for FREE since this stamp set is one of the featured scrapbooking sets with the May Scrapbooking promotion - how cool is that?! 

As you may recall, those of us who attended the Leadership Conference in Phoenix last January were given this stamp set as a gift from our CEO Shelli Gardner.  I participated in a swap with 30 other demonstrators using this stamp set and pulled my cards for Friday's class from those swaps - gotta love that!  I received so many wonderful cards, but couldn't possibly use them all... I chose ones with a variety of colors, style and designs.  I hope you like them as much as I do!!

Here is the first card - it was designed by Lynn Wegleitner.  I love the bashful blue / chocolate chip / whisper white color combination!  The hummingbird in this stamp set really does look great when it is cut out and popped up, doesn't it?!

This next card was designed by my friend Ruth Bingle.  Isn't it just fabulous?  I love cardstock vellum as an overlay and she did a fabulous job with this card - black and white is simply elegant!

Here is the third card - it was originally designed by my good friend and fellow "Sister" Jacque Craig.  I tweaked it just a tiny bit by running the stamped very vanilla panel through the Big Shot with the Square Lattice texturz impression folder (not yet available when we made our swaps).  It looks almost like a textured fabric!  I love the look of Toile and Jacque certainly achieved that with this card.  The hardware piece is from the Styled Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware kit - don't you love it?!  And instead of using the brads to hold it in place, she used vanilla taffeta ribbon, knotted at the frame, to hold it on the card.  Great idea!

The last card was my swap - I believe I shared this one earlier as a Fabulous Friday project while I was on the cruise (how nice of the Sisters for letting me do that!).  I really do like the way this card has a vintage, sepia-toned feel.

If you'd like to purchase this stamp set please use the online ordering feature on my website or contact me and I'll be happy to take care of that for you!  Make sure you take advantage of the FREE Designer Brads promotion during the month of May only - act fast because time is running out on this promotion.

Due to the positive response I have received on the last few classes I've held, I will be offering product-based classes on a monthly basis, featuring a stamp set every other month and an accessory every other month.  In June we'll be making an altered file folder mini scrapbook album using half of a Simply Scrappin' kit (pics will be shared in an upcoming blog post).  My next card class featuring a stamp set will be in July when the Awash with Flowers stamp set will be available for purchase from the new catalog.  I'm going to duplicate the Fabulous Friday project I created last month.  Please let me know if you'd like to attend either of these classes!  Be sure and check out my calendar of events as there are preorder deadlines to consider.

Thanks for stopping by - have a wonderful day!

Card club projects for May

My Card Club met last week to turn in orders for the month and make three cards.  I wanted to share those projects with you today.  All three cards feature wonderful new stamp sets and accessories from the Summer Mini catalog.  Don't have one?  Contact me to get your copy!

This first card is a CASE of a workshop card made earlier this month - I just rotated it to a landscape orientation and added dazzling diamonds to the centers of the colored flowers.  This Elements of Style stamp set from the Summer Mini has been a huge hit with my stampers and everyone loved how easy it was to color the flowers using just an aqua painter and the image, no additional ink needed - because our classic ink pads are water-soluble dye inks, they spread when wet... using the naturals ivory cardstock added to the water-colored appearance of the flowers.  I think just about everyone in this Club ordered the Square Lattice texturz folder after making this card, too!!

This card is a CASE of one I saw on the Display Boards during the Cruise... I couldn't see the back of the card so do not know who originally designed it to give proper credit.  The original was a square card, but I turned it into a 5-1/2" x 4-1/4" card.  I am just in love with the Island Oasis DSP and Tropical Party stamp set from the Summer Mini catalog and these colors are great together!  Thank goodness none of them are retiring next month.

And the last card that my Club members made is this one featuring the Sweet Scoops stamp set along with some retiring colors (lavender lace, gable green, close to cocoa, creamy caramel and pink passion).  I wanted to have different "flavors" of ice cream for my scoops so had to come up with another creative way to achieve this look without having to clean the stamp constantly between color changes (raspberry and mint chocolate chip are two that I love!).  In my Scrapbook Club earlier this month I showed my club members how to achieve this by featuring the Poppin' Pastels technique that I used on my Fabulous Friday layout here.  Instead of using Stampin' Pastels, I opted to use Versamark and clear embossing powder for my card.  By stamping this image on several different colors of cardstock and embossing the image with clear powder, it was easy to get the various "flavors."  The mint chocolate chip was achieved by first stamping with Versamark on Gable Green cardstock and then using the sprinkles stamp with Close to Cocoa ink on top of that and then embossing with clear powder, thus locking in the chocolate chip image.  Again, there was cutting involved, but it wasn't too bad and I feel that the popped up ice cream scoops look so cute so it was worth the effort!  The background texture was achieved using the Perfect Details Texturz plate - it matches the ice cream cone pattern so well!

If you're interested in joining a club for the new catalog period beginning in July, please let me know.  I have a waiting list started and will be happy to add your name. Contact me for further details!

Fabulous Watercolor Trio

This week on the Sisters in Stamping blog we are focusing on May flowers for our Fabulous Friday projects.  I don't know about you, but this is my absolute favorite time of the year... it is my birthday month, the flowers are blooming, strawberries and asparagus are in season (2 of my favorite foods) and summer is just around the corner!

I must admit that if there is one type of stamp set that I own WAY too much of it is flowers.  I just love them!  And one of my new favorites is the Watercolor Trio found in the Summer Mini catalog - it is available in both wood-mount and clear-mount.  In honor of National Scrapbooking month, I created another scrapbook page this week for my Fabulous Friday contribution.

I really loved the Watercolor Trio card I designed for Jettie's workshop last week - rich razzleberry with old olive is a great color combination - and I used it as inspiration for my 12" x 12" scrapbook layout above.  I used all three flower images, using the largest as foliage, and created a wildflower scene along the bottom of my whisper white sheet.  We were in Cary, North Carolina this past weekend for a swim meet and there were some gorgeous wildflowers blooming along the interstate - I wanted to recreate that feel on my page.  The various colors on each stamp was achieved by using my stampin' write markers - I colored each, starting with the lightest color first and working my way down to the darkest.  Once the whole image was colored, I huffed lightly on the stamp to re-moisten the ink and stamped the images across the bottom of the page.  With the large foliage stamp, I inked this with certainly celery ink and stamped multiple times without re-inking to get the variation of color.

I normally do not create an entire layout for a single photo, but adding too many photo mats would have taken away from the page in my opinion.  I added embellishments along the side of the page using my 1-3/4" circle punch to punch out each individual flower image and then matted it with a double layer of the XL flower punch.  I'm really hoping that we get a larger scallop circle punch in the new catalog that can work as a mat with this large circle punch!!

The other stamped embellishment that I added to the page was the definition of blossom from the Bloomin' Beautiful stamp set.  I also added the word "bloom" from that same set right under my photo mat.  Finally, I used my favorite rich razzleberry polka-dotted grosgrain ribbon to finish the page.  I kind of like the way this turned out... now I'll have to take a photo of my girls wearing just the right colors to put on it!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my contribution for Fabulous Friday today.  Please be sure and visit the Sisters in Stamping blog to see what other May flowers ideas my Sisters created this week!

Don't forget - if you want to earn Debbie's Stampin' Bucks - today is the LAST DAY of my birthday promotion!  Be sure and email or call me before midnight tonight to be eligible to earn these!!

Products used today include:

Two more Craft Project Central projects for May

Have you visited Craft Project Central yet?  If not, here are two more projects featured this month to whet your appetite!

This recipe page was created by Shelby.

And this Build-a-Bear Workshop Activity Kit was created by Zeva.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I'll be back tomorrow with my Fabulous Friday project... look for some beautiful May flowers!!