Unfrogettable Stamping!

Happy Mother's Day~

   Happy Mother's Day to all of you Moms out there!  This is the card I made for my own Mother - she loved this center step card that I made last month, but since she won't wear the fabric flower pin, I made her one with card stock instead.  If you don't recognize the stamp set I used for my background paper it is because I used a brand new set called Everything Eleanor that will be in our new catalog that debuts next month.  Those of us who attended the Stampin' Up! Leadership Conference in San Antonio last January received this set from Shelli Gardner as a surprise.  I love it!  I used several elements from the set with Island Indigo ink on whisper white card stock - so pretty!

   Here is a close-up of the center part of the card - the sentiment is from Delightful Dozen and was cut out with the modern label punch.  The flower was cut using the Fun Flowers Bigz L die with my Big Shot.  I also added texture to each of the layers with various embossing folders (retiring elegant bouquet, square lattice, perfect polka dots) and added some bling with a basic rhinestone jewel accent. 

   My sister Cindy and her husband Dimitrios came into town and we all had a wonderful Mother's Day brunch at Benjamin's restaurant - it was so yummy!

  My sister bought me these beautiful flowers at the Farmer's Market yesterday - I love them!  Wasn't that sweet of her?!

  Here is what I got from my family - I love Vera Bradley and I was in need of a new laptop case.  Yipppeee!  But best of all were the hand-stamped cards they made...

from hubby Joe - he likes to take a minimalist approach!

from my daughter Amanda

from my daughter Kelsey

 
and from my son Brandon

Thanks for stopping by today - I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Mother's Day!!

 

 

 

Last hurrah for the Occasions Mini catalog

   I hope you have enjoyed the products offered in the Occasions Mini catalog as much as I have!  Isn't this Big Shot Elegant Bird die great?  If there is anything left on your wish list, please be sure and order it TODAY since the catalog will be ending at midnight.  Some of these products will appear in our new catalog that will be debuting on June 1^st, but we are not told which ones… why take a chance?  Get those items now while you still can!!  The best way to order is through my online store here.  While you are there, be sure and check out the retiring products and the Clearance Rack for even more savings!  Your combined order will ship directly to you and if you spend $50 or more you will earn a free single tutorial from me (choose one here) as a thank you.  If you reach $150 in product you will get to choose an additional $25 in Stampin’ Rewards merchandise for FREE from Stampin’ Up!

Here are some samples featuring Occasions Mini catalog items to inspire you…

Mixed Bunch stamp set and coordinating Blossom punch

 
Apothecary Art and Loving Thoughts stamp sets with Big Shot Labels Collection Framelits

 
Sweet Cake stamp set and Sweet Shop Specialty Designer paper

Paper Doily Die and Candy Conversations stamp set

Blossom Builders designer flower kit and blushing bride pleated satin ribbon (card by Jennifer Rawlings)

You're My Type stamp set (CASE of card by Rachel Yurkanin)

Don't delay... order these today!

April 2012 Kiss Them Good-Bye stamp-a-stack

  I held a "Kiss them Good-Bye" stamp-a-stack class tonight and all five card designs featured items that are on the retiring lists.  If you like anything that you see here that is retiring, please be sure and order it from my online store because they are going F-A-S-T and you don't want something to sell out before you can order it!!  This card above is a wedding card that is based on a scrapbook layout I CASE'd a few months ago (check it out here for more details)... I really loved it and am so sad to see the Best Friends Forever stamp set retiring.  The Bordering On Romance stamp set is from the Occasions Mini catalog which is ending on April 30th...  it may or may not make it into the new catalog so get it while you can!   Isn't this a gorgeous color combination of very vanilla, crumb cake, soft suede and blushing bride (this is an In Color that is retiring!)?  And who can't resist having fun with the color spritzer tool... the splashes of color are from the soft suede stampin' write marker - it is one that will no longer be sold individually so if you want it be sure and purchase it now.

  This masculine birthday card is a CASE of one by Terri Chadwick and features the retiring Uncharted Territory and On Your Birthday stamp sets.  The retiring accessories featured are the Moonlight Smooch accent (for the moon of course), the silver brads (sorry, sold out already) and the 1/4" basic black grosgrain ribbon.  I am so happy that the DSP Stacks are sticking around - this black DSP is from the Neutrals stack.

   This card features the Summer Smooches DSP that is part of a Sneak Peek promotion this month... I had every intention of using my Bright Blossoms stamp set that coordinates with it for my card but misplaced it in my stamping studio (does this ever happen to anyone else?!).  So I went with Plan B and used the retiring Charming and Thank You Kindly stamp sets along with the eyelet border punch and 1/4" real red grosgrain ribbon that are also going away.  This card is a CASE of one by Michelle Reynolds.

  I wanted to include a Mother's Day card in my selection since it is coming up - I chose to use the Flower Fest and Curvy Verses stamp sets along with the Berry Blossoms DSP.  I love this paper because if features the newer In Colors of calypso coral, wisteria wonder and lucky limeade.  The flower looks blurred, but that is a technique that I learned from my friend Karla where you bounce the stamp several times to give it a more 3D effect, and then it was colored with a blender pen.  I love that so many of the flowers in the Flower Fest stamp set can be cut out with a coordinating punch. I will miss this set!!

   And last but not least I had to include a Christmas card... you can never start too early and I will dearly miss these snowflakes!  I knew I wanted to do a card with the Serene Snowflakes so I CASE'd this card because I loved the simplicity of it.  The colors I used are naturals white, baja breeze and not quite navy... the sentiment is from the retiring Short & Sweet stamp set and on the inside I used the Christmas Greetings stamp set.  I will surely miss all three of these sets!!  To finish off the card I added some dazzling diamonds for bling using a 2-way glue pen.

  Thanks for visiting!  I will be sharing my Fabulous Friday project tomorrow featuring yet another one of my favorite retiring stamp sets... Inspired by Nature.  Be sure and check back!

Retiring stamp set inspiration

I wanted to share more of my past favorites (some made by me, others received in swaps and stamped by my downline or received at SU! events) with you over the next few weeks featuring stamp sets on the retiring list... I think you'll agree that these sets will be missed!  Order yours before it's too late... you only have until May 31st to place your orders!!  In case you missed it yesterday, click here to view the retiring list (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Friends Never Fade stamp set

Messages for Mom stamp set (card by Sherri Gough)

Vintage Vogue stamp set

Flores Suaves stamp set (found in the Celebrando Creatividad catalog)

Awash With Flowers and Curvy Verses stamp sets

Look Who's Turning stamp set

Crazy for Cupcakes stamp set

To purchase any of these stamp sets you can place your orders online here or contact me and I will be happy to take care of that for you!  Don't forget that you get a Stampin' Rewards punch for every $50 you spend (receive a $25 gift certificate when you complete 10 punches) and ALL online orders over $50 get to choose a single tutorial from my Get Creative with Rachel and Debbie series for FREE as a thank you from me.

Mothers are Fabulous!

 

Happy Friday the 13th!  I apologize for being MIA this week but it is Spring Break for my kids and I have been working hard to get my taxes done!  However, it's Friday and I wanted to share my Fabulous Friday project with you - this week on the Sisters in Stamping blog Jacque chose Mother's Day cards as our theme.  I created this fun Center Step card using the awesome Summer Smooches sneak peek product line with a great tutorial I found on Splitcoast because I wanted to have a base for my fabric flower pin and I thought this type of card would showcase it nicely.  This is a project I designed that will be part of my Gifts Class on April 20th along with a fun dry erase board.  Contact me for more details or to register!!

Here is a side view of this card - the Summer Smooches DSP and fabric coordinate beautifully and these colors just scream summer.

Here is the flower pin all by itself and the card minus the pin... not only do you get a card, but the gift is attached!

For those of you unable to attend my class next week, I will be offering it as a tutorial for purchase so stay tuned!  In the meantime, for even more Mother's Day card inspiration, don't forget to hop on over to the Sisters in Stamping blog after Noon EST today to check out what my fellow design team members created for you.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

March 2012 monthly downline meeting and swap, pt. 2

I always like to prepare a make-n-take at my monthly meetings that teaches a technique and this month I decided to create a fun punch art card.  Thursday was gorgeous here in Central Virginia - beautiful blue skies and a warm, sunny 70 degrees... it inspired me to create a spring card with a cute blue bird.  I have seen punch art birds like this on various blogs and Stampin' Connection and thought it was so cute.  I created mine with pacific point and whisper white card stock along with so saffron and lucky limeade.  The key for the bird is below...

    body - 1-3/4" circle punch

    beak - small heart punch

    feet and "hair" - snowflake punch

    wings - modern label punch

    branch - 2-step bird punch

I also used the Woodgrain and Pursuit of Happiness stamp sets to finish off the card.  The key to great punch art is sponging - the so saffron pieces were all sponged with more mustard ink.  This card is 4-1/4" x 4-1/4" square and fits perfectly inside a medium envelope, so no extra postage!  Gotta love that!

And as promised here are the remaining Mother's Day swap cards for this month...

Carolyn North

Heather Palm

Jaime Penney

Kathy Kennedy

Kris Burdeaux

Thanks for stopping by!

Finding inspiration all around...

The theme for my downline swap this month is "Mother's Day cards" and this is the card I designed for it.  I just love iris flowers and the one in our Love and Sympathy stamp set is just beautiful.  I used melon mambo, rich razzleberry and lucky limeade for the color combination and pulled out my Big Shot for a little bit of texture from the Finial Press impressions folder.  The 1/2" scallop dots ribbon adds a nice touch, too.

The color combination for this card was pulled from a napkin that I saw at a recent workshop - my hostess Jettie was kind enough to give me one to take home for inspiration.  Isn't it gorgeous?!  It looks stamped, doesn't it?  Don't forget that when you're creating there are so many sources of inspiration all around... be sure and look around you when you're stumped for color options because you never know what you might find!!

Thanks for stopping by... I'll be sharing my Fabulous Friday project with you tomorrow and then the rest of the swaps this weekend.  Have a wonderful day!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you fabulous Moms and Grandmas out there!  As a Mother of three wonderful children, I know that it is truly a blessing to be a Mom and know the feeling of bringing a child into this world and loving them forever!!

 

This is the card I made for *my* Mother this year - she hardly ever looks at my blog so I think I'm okay to post it before giving it to her later today.  My Mom is like me, she loves flowers, so I had to use the new Fabulous Florets and Beyond the Garden DSP for her card!  These are two of my favorite new products from the new Summer Mini... can you tell?!

 

I decided to make a gatefold card and use the larger scallop square from the Scallop Square Duo Bigz die in the Summer Mini for my mat.  I only glued half of it so that the card would open... but to keep it held shut I created a belly band with melon mambo card stock and wrapped a piece of organza ribbon around it.  For my main panel I stamped the foliage image with wild wasabi ink first.  Next, I stamped the flower image with Versamark and heat embossed it with the melon mambo embossing powder on a piece of scrap whisper white card stock and cut it out and popped it up with a stampin' dimensional.

On the inside of the card I stamped the sentiment from All  Holidays and stamped another flower image from the set. 

In order to keep from having to cut out the flower, I first stamped it with Versamark and then added Tangerine Tango embossing powder and heat embossed the image.  I next stamped the foliage image over top of it with wild wasabi classic ink.  Because the flower is embossed, it resisted the ink... easy-peasey!

And this is the card I made for my Aunt Eileen, who is like a second Mom to me.  We're all getting together for yummy fried chicken and fixin's later today... it's a tradition that was started years ago when we would all pick up food and take it over to my Grandmother's house.  We figured since it is Mother's Day none of us needed to cook!

I hope that if you're a Mother you are treated like the Queen you are today!

Products featured in today's projects include:

April 2011 stamp-a-stack cards

Phew!  Another busy week...

 

I held my monthly stamp-a-stack for April last week and wanted to share the cards with you.  This card features designer paper from the Springtime Vintage DSP pack that was in the Occasions Mini catalog along with the Upsy Daisy and Sanded stamp sets.  The color combination is very vanilla, pear pizzazz, crumb cake and rose red.  Do you see the cute fork bow in the corner?  That is made with the crumb cake seam binding ribbon.. no worries, you are still able to purchase the seam binding ribbon from the Occasions mini catalog as they are carryover items!

Here is card #2 - it features the Paisley Petals DSP and Four Frames stamp set that were part of our sneak peek "Spring is Blossoming" special during April.  I CASE'd this card layout idea from Julie Davison and tweaked it just a tiny bit... using the scallop border and decorative label punches for my card.  The color combination is not quite navy, whisper white and river rock.  If you weren't able to purchase these items last month you'll only have a few months to wait before you can get your hands on them... they'll be back in the new Idea Book & Catalog that debuts on July 1st!

Card #3 is a graduation card - I left the colors neutral because I wanted those who didn't need four graduation cards to be able to change the stamp and make this a wedding or anniversary card.  The stamp set Word Play that was used for this card is part of our May scrapbooking promotion and is on sale for 30% off this month.. be sure and get it while it is on sale because it is a fantastic set!!  The texture on the whisper white piece was added with the Vintage Wallpaper impressions folder for the Big Shot (I love this one!!).

The last card of the night was a CASE of one I created last year featuring the Flores Suaves stamp set from our Spanish catalog.  I absolutely love this stamp set!  The color combination is one that I have used over and over and found it in our Color Coach - pretty in pink, rich razzleberry and early espresso.  The pretty in pink card stock is stamped with the Teahouse background stamp and the script that is on the panel behind the flower is actually from the Flores Suaves stamp set and is just stamped twice.  It looks very similar to our retired FrenchScript stamp set that I loved!!

Thanks for visiting.. I'll be back tomorrow for Fabulous Friday with a project featuring products from our Summer Mini catlog.

Robbin's workshop projects

Robbin and her daughter Shannon invited their friends and family over for a fun evening of stamping on Tuesday and everyone got to make two hand-stamped cards.  Robbin had requested a Mother's Day card for one of the make-n-takes and I wanted to feature the Four Frames stamp set that is part of our sneak peek "Spring is Blossoming" promotion this month.  Using the "Happy Mother's Day" stamp from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set I chose the polka dotted frame stamp and even had enough room to put a little 2-step stamped rose from the Baby Blossoms set from the Occasions Mini on there.

I came up with several other samples for those who didn't want to make a Mother's Day card and had that available for inspiration.  Several of the ladies had never used blender pens for coloring and were excited about how easy they are to use with our ink pads, smooshing them to deposit ink on the lid.  I had rose red, pretty in pink, pear pizzazz and old olive ink pads along with a Jet Black StazOn ink pad in the box of supplies.  This card layout idea featuring the Elegant Lines impressions folder was one I CASEd that was originally created by Amy Fitzgerald.

For the birthday card, I used a card that I had created for Jodi's workshop back in February.  Robbin had recently purchased the Brights Collection ink pads and card stock at her daughter Margo's workshop last month and I wanted to have a card that she could duplicate.  I love the bright and fun colors on this card, featuring the Create a Cupcake stamp set and matching Build a Cupcake punch.  Both of these products are in our Occasions Mini catalog - if you want them, be sure and purchase them before the end of April when the Mini ends!!

If you are interested in hosting a fun stamping session with your friends and family, give me a call and we can book a date for you!