Unfrogettable Stamping!

December 2011 Demonstrator of the Month, part 2

As much as I loved Jaime's MDS pages yesterday, I think you'll agree that her traditional hand-stamped cards are fantastic, too!  This card above is her daughter's birthday card...the theme for the party was penguins.  Check out the inside of the card below.  Too cute! The layout of the card is based on Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge #105 and features the fun Polar Party stamp set found on page 37 of the Idea Book & Catalog.

The following birthday card is also based on a sketch - SSSC140 - and features the fun Create a Cupcake stamp set and matching punch.

Next is this great fall birthday card featuring the leaves from Day of Gratitude and sentiment from Curly Cute.

Need a "thinking of you" card?  How about this one?  You could easily stamp a full sheet of whisper white with the flowers and then cut and make 4 cards all at one time just as you could with the card above.  What a simple but stunning card!  These flowers are from the Greenhouse Garden stamp set and the sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes.  The color combo may not accurately reflect in the photo, but it is daffodil delight and basic black and there is dazzling diamonds glitter in the centers of all the flowers for a really bling-y card.

The last card that Jaime designed is this quick and easy thank you card.  She used the flower from Cottage Garden in melon mambo, daffodil delight and tempting turquoise to make this bright fun card.  The "thanks" is from the Thank You Kindly stamp set - my "go to" stamp set for thank you cards.

I hope you leave some nice comments for Jaime letting her know what fun projects she submitted this month.  She doesn't have her own blog, but I'm hoping she may in the future!

Thanks for stopping by today... I hope you've found some inspiration here!!  Tomorrow I'll be back with my Fabulous Friday holiday decor project for the Sisters in Stamping blog.

Week 4 of the "12 Weeks of Christmas" project tutorials from Get Creative with Rachel and Debbie

This week's project is a great "SNOW" banner perfect for hanging on your mantel.  I know you will get a lot of use out of this project, either as a gift for a loved one or holiday decoration for yourself!

You can purchase each tutorial individually for $2.95 or buy all 12 of them for only $24.95. If you choose to purchase the complete set now, I will email you the tutorials each week as they are released. Our tutorials give you complete directions along with measurements and tons of photos to help you re-create the project with ease.

To purchase the tutorial for our Week 4 Snow Banner for $2.95 click the "buy now" button below.

 

If you want to purchase all "12 Weeks of Christmas" tutorials at a discounted price of $24.95, a savings of over $10, click the "buy now" button below.  Each week as we release the projects, you will be emailed a complete tutorial with pictures and instructions.

 

Fabulous Holiday Thank You Cards

 

Welcome back to another Fabulous Friday!  This week on the Sisters in Stamping blog we are focusing on quick and easy thank you cards that you can send for all the fabulous gifts you received over the holidays. I started my card with our notecard sets - they're sized just right (3-1/2" x 5") and even come with envelopes. 

I used the scallop trim border punch to embellish the front and added a 3/4" x 5" strip from the Candy Cane DSP that I had left over to add some color.  Since the DSP has snowflakes on it, I used my snowflake punch to embellish the front.  Easy-peasy!  I added a piece of 4-3/4" x 3" blushing bride card stock for a little added color and then stamped the sentiment from Elegant Thank You in baja breeze.  The finishing touch was adding a rhinestone to the center of the snowflake and voila... done!

I bundled these in a group of 10 wrapped up with a ribbon to give to my son's teacher - I know they can always use thank you cards!  At this point my kids will not be going back to school until January - we received a snowfall here yesterday and the kids didn't go to school yesterday or today... hopefully the teachers will be happy to receive their Christmas gifts a little late!

Thanks for visiting me today - please be sure and head over to the Sisters in Stamping blog after Noon EST today to check out the other Holiday thank you card ideas.  Have a wonderful weekend!!

Products used with today's project include:

- Notecard sets, #107311 $5.95

- Blushing Bride card stock, #119796 $6.95

- Scallop Trim Border punch, #118402 $16.95

- Snowflake punch, #119852 $16.95

- Elegant Thank You stamp set, #114484 $6.95

- Baja Breeze classic ink pad, #111833 $5.95

- Basic Rhinestones jewel accents, #119246 $4.95

- Candy Cane specialty DSP (sorry, this paper is no longer available but you can certainly substitute it with any of our gorgeous DSP packs)

November 2010 scrapbook club layouts

My scrapbook club met earlier this week and the hostess, Karen, had requested Christmas and Winter themes for the pages this month.

This first layout is the Christmas one I designed based on a bunch of products found in the Holiday Mini catalog - I had really wanted to use the Vintage Lables stencil and went with my favorite Christmas color combo this year - cherry cobbler and always artichoke.  I paired them with crumb cake and naturals ivory and feel like the page really came together well - the stencil worked great with the Bells and Boughs stamp set, too.  I normally do not do an entire layout for a single photo, but I thought this would be a great cover page for a family Christmas album - drop in a 5" x 7" sepia-toned picture of your family and you're all set.

Here are some close-ups of the different elements on the page.  The cherry cobbler seam binding ribbon was great across the top of the page - you achieve this look by first putting down a piece of sticky strip across the entire lenth of the page and then slowly bunching and gathering the ribbon as you stick it down to the adhesive.  If you leave the ribbon on the spool and work from left to right it works really well - no guessing about the final length of ribbon you'll need.  I did leave a tail longer on both ends so they could be wrapped behind the page and taped down to prevent any fraying.  I added an antique brad to give it a little more character... have you seen these?  They are gorgeous!

Next we have the Winter themed layout.  I absolutely love the Northern Hearts hostess level 1 stamp set from the Holiday Mini and used it for this page.  The 3 different snowflakes are stamped randomly all over the naturals ivory card stock using marina mist, pretty in pink and crumb cake ink.  This is an unusual color combination but I really like the way it turned out! 

This page incorporated several Big Shot items - the simple alphabet letters for the title, tasteful trim bigz xl die for the pink scallop border and the scallop rectangle clearlit for the snowflake and love birds embellishments.

I wanted to use the marina mist striped grosgrain ribbon on the page and was only able to create an embellishment with it as any more would have overpowered the page.  All I did to create this was cut a length of ribbon and tape it in a loop (the ends were hidden under the birds).  It was then taped down to the page and then I popped up the birds with stampin' dimensionals on top to hide the tape.  I did have to add some rhinestones to the page - after all, snow is glittery and shimmery, right?!

Thanks for visiting - I hope you have been inspired by these pages.  I really need to get my pictures printed since I have so many layouts put together now... how about you?

Fabulous Decor Blocks

This week on the Sisters in Stamping blog we are featuring Stampin' Up's Decor Blocks found in the Definitely Decorative catalog.  I have had a very busy week getting ready for my MEGA Christmas Card stamp-a-stack tomorrow so had not had a chance to work on my project for the week before my downline meeting last night.  During that meeting I  mentioned that I still needed to create a project - Gaylyn Pantana kindly offered to create a project with them for me.  THANK YOU, Gaylyn!  She was my presenter for the meeting and had shown us fun ways to use our new waffle paper (I promise to share those pics this weekend) and she envisioned a gingerbread house using the waffle paper with one of our blocks.  I think she did a fantastic job, don't you?!

This is the way our Decor Blocks look when you open the box... pretty plain - a blank canvas.  Gaylyn wrapped a block with a large piece of brown waffle paper, adhering it with SNAIL.  She created the roof with a piece of early espresso card stock that was run through the Big Shot with the Clear Square Scallop bigz die.  The "icing" was created using the Tasteful Trim bigz xl die and whisper white card stock.

The door is a real red tag punch with a clear rhinestone brad door handle.  Isn't it cute?  She added dazzling diamonds to the icing trim to mimic snow and ice and for the candies she used the itty bitty shapes punch with the Candy Cane Christmas specialty DSP.  The windows are made using the petal card double punch.  What a fun project - thanks for helping me out this week, Gaylyn!!  You will find her blog here... go and leave her a comment asking her to start posting some of her amazing projects!  She is a busy Mom of 4 young kids but she needs to share her creativity with us... be sure and check back tomorrow when I share some photos of her waffle paper projects from last night's downline meeting.

Some of the products used with today's project include:

 

Holiday Mini catalog swap cards - Candy Cane Christmas DSP

As promised, here are a few more of the Holiday Mini catalog swap cards that I received earlier this month.  These all feature the fun and glittery Candy Cane Christmas specialty DSP (#120809, $11.95).

This first card is by Sherri Gough (a member of my team and super-talented!).  She used the DSP to pull her colors - baja breeze, real red, blushing bride and whisper white along with the really cute Merry Crittermas stamp set.  Lots of coloring... we had to make 31 of these babies for the swap!  She also used the Northern Flurry snowflake impressions folder with the Big Shot to create the background texture.  Great card, Sherri!

This next card was designed by Nikki Rueth of Loyal, Wisconsin.  It, too, features the snowflake big shot folder and Candy Cane Christmas DSP.  In addition, the snowman image from A Cute Christmas stamp set from the Holiday Mini is featured.  I really like the layout of this card because it really highlights the snowflake textured background.   Utilizing the nesting 1-1/4", 1-3/8" and scallop square punches helped pull this card together nicely.

The final card for today is this one by Emily Tull of Grand Junction, Colorado.  She used the same snowman image and colored his scarf just like the strip of DSP.  It would make a great winter card or thank you to send after Christmas, don't you think?

As you can see, I received a lot of great card samples in this swap.  I'll be sharing more Christmas cards tomorrow so please come back for another visit!

And don't forget - it's almost the deadline for leaving a comment on our Sisters in Stamping blog for a chance to win some blog candy.  Be sure and hop on over before Noon EST tomorrow to enter!  Good luck!!!