Such a Simple Card

This is another card created from my "Winners" pack of cards and envelopes. I took the DSP and cut it into 2/3 and 1/3 pieces. Then I placed them on the turquoise cardstock and added another stip of turquoise and layered it with ribbon. Stamps: Birthdays Count. Ink: Chocolate Chip. Paper: Tempting Turquoise and DSP from Winners. Accessories: 1/4 inch Whisper White Grosgrain Ribbon

More Mojo #84

I was really inspired when I saw this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I decided to try my hand at another Mother's Day card. I made the pink card first and decided that it would make a beautiful mother's day card. I love, love, love my new stamp set Soft Summer (which I got at Seattle Regionals) You'll probably see lots of it in the near future.

This is a 2 step stamping set. The image was stamped on watercolour paper with brown staz-on. I like using Staz-On because I'm impatient and if you don't let the image dry properly it will run when you start watercolouring. So then I inked up the "colour fill" (for lack of a better word) side of the stamp (it's double mounted). I used my Stampin' Write markders to colour directly on the rubber. I pulled all the colours out of the DSP and started with So Saffron in the centre, Pretty In Pink next, and Almost Amethyst on the outside. After I lined it up with my Stamp-a-ma-jig, I stamped on the colour and then quickly got out my Aqua painter and used it on parts of the stamp. I like how it blended together some of the colours, especially on the petals of the flowers. Stamps: Soft Summer. Paper: Tea Party DSP, Whisper White, Watercolour Paper, Chocolate Chip. Ink (as above) Accessories: Pink ribbon and brads from my stash, Large Oval punch, Scallop Oval punch and Small Oval punch.

I wanted to make another card and I had this Bashful Blue DSP sitting on my desk so I thought what about incorporating it in a card? Of course I used Soft Summer once again with the same technique as on the last card. I tipped the image on it's side because I thought that would work better with the oval sentiment. This was stamped and cut out on the inside oval and then layered on choc. chip punched out with the small oval punch. I also moved the brads as the empty space in the top right corner just didn't sit right with me. Stamps: Soft Summer, Oval All. Paper: Bashful Blue DSP, Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Watercolour paper. Ink: same as paper. Accessories: Small Oval punch, Scallop Oval punch, Certainly Celery Ribbon from sale-a-bration. Rhinestone brads from my stash.

Mother's Day Sunshine Garden

These are a selection of Mother's Day cards I made from the Sunshine Garden Simply Scrappin' Kit. I cased a selection of cards made by Andrea Walford and then I added embelishments and sentiments to create Mother's Day Cards. Paper: Blue Bayou, Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Old Olive, Whisper White. Accessories: Sunshine Garden Simply Scrappin', Rhinestone Brads Scallop Oval Punch, Small Oval Punch Ink: Old Olive.

Summer Lovin'

This card is one of my favourite using the Summer Love rub-ons and the Walk in the Park DSP. It's probably because Baja Breeze is one of my absolute fave's. The base of the card is Going Grey, the next layer is Baja Breeze and the final layer is some DSP. The ribbon is white satin from the Occasions Mini. The 'create' sentiment is a rub on placed on whisper white DSP and cut out. The scallop square is punched out of the Walk in the park DSP. The Best Wishes sentiment is from Sincere Salutations and the scalloped rectangle is from Nestabilities. The coloured flowers are from the rub ons.

Memories Always

This card was a real kinda comedy of errors. I was at Winners' (like a Canadian TJ Max) looking through their scrapbooking stuff when I came upon this box of 100 cards and envelopes of $6.95. Its' not Stampin' Up! product (I thought to myself) but what a good deal. I got home, only to realize that the "cards" were actually postcards. So I took the "postcards" and decided to turn them into interesting cards. The polka dot DSP is the postcard. The ribbon is from Mike's. Stamps: Too Terrific Tags. Ink: Pixie Pink. Paper: Pixie Pink, Tempting Turquoise. Accesories: Small Tag punch

Inspired by Regionals

We made several make'n takes at regionals this weekend. This card was one of them. It uses the Soft Summer stampset from the Occasions Mini. This is one of the sets that I got to take home. I sat down tonight to redo my shadow boxes and decided to use this picture below of my whole family from Palm Springs last month. My sister-in-law's dress reminded me of the card above, so that's how this layout came to be.
These are my parents, my brother and his family, and my family. My brother and I are standing to the left of the picture and my hubby and my sister-in-law are to the right of the picture. The image was stamped with brown staz-on and then on the insert, I used markers to colour the inside stamp and then stamped the image using my stamp-a-ma-jig. Then I used my aqua painter to draw out the ink a bit and add texture. Stamps: Soft Summer, Ink: Riding Hood Red, Old Olive. Paper, Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, watercolour paper.

Tool Time

Have I told you that Blue Bayou is one of my favourite colours? My upline Ange loves it so much that her hubby painted her scrap room this colour as a surprise when she was out of town. Here's another masculine card. I think I'll give this to my Dad for Father's Day. Colours: Blue Bayou, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Bordering Blue. Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Rectangle Nestabilities, Silver Brads

So Shelli Creative Challenge

If this card looks suspiciously familiar, it's because it is! Check out the previous post. I changed a few things to make this an only SU card and it's for the So Shelli Creative Challenge. I apologize for the big shadow in the middle of the card, but this was the best image I have because I felt it shows off the colours the best. Stamps: Soft Summer, Live Your Dream, Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, More Mustard Paper: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Watercolour Paper, Walk in the Park DSP, and DSP from Summer Home Simply Scrappin'

Got your mojo?

This card was made for Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge #83. The colours are completely out of my comfort zone, but I was inspired by a butterly sticker that I had in my stash, and I eventually didn't wind up using it after all. I turned the image 90 degrees. Then I took out my Kiwi Kiss DSP . I then played with different colours and combinations and was getting very frustrated when I came upon this flower image that I had stamped and coloured with an Aqua Painter a few days ago. The butterfly was from a set of black and white stickers I have, and I coloured it in with ink and my blender pen. The sentiment was punched out with my curly label punch and then I adhered it to chocolate chip cardstock and carefully cut it out to make a border. Stamps: Soft Summer Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, More Mustard Paper: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Watercolour Paper, Walk in the Park DSP, and DSP from Summer Home Simply Scrappin'

Swaps for Regionals 2

This was another of my swaps for Regionals in Seattle last week. I used my new favourite stamp set itty bitty buds, sincere salutations, and the top note die to create this one. The colours are Kiwi Kiss, Pink Pirouette, Rose Red, and Bashful Blue (oh and of course Chocolate Chip for the sentiment. I took 60 swaps with me. 30 of each kind and I came home with 60 wonderful new cards and 3D items. I'll probably try to post a few of my favourites in the futue.

More photos from Regionals in Seattle

One of the perks of being a demo is the fabulous events that you get to attend. At this particular one-day event, we made 6 different make-n-take projects. You definitely get your money's worth. We got the stamp set Best Wishes and More for free as this was a set used in many of the make-n-takes. I know that it isn't really free when you pay approximately $95 for the day, but it definitely makes the cost worthwhile. We also received the chipboard letters, some metal edge tags and all of the cardstock necessary for the projects. I will show my make'n takes in future posts. The following pictures are of Heather, and then Angela doing their make'n takes.

It was a bit of a comedy of errors on the way down. We left the North Shore by 5:20am and made fabulous time heading for the border. We were just about to take the highway exit to the Aldergrove crossing when Angela realized that the Aldergrove Crossing doesn't open until 8am and it was only 6am. So, we headed back for Surrey to the truck crossing. Unfortunately by the time that we got there at about 6:20am there was already a line up and only one gate open. It took us an hour to get across the border! The Conference started at 9am and we didn't arrive until 9:25am. There was a silver lining however as Stampin' Up had a problem getting enough of the stamp set we were all supposed to receive, Best Wishes and More. As an apology, they gave us another stamp set and will be sending our Best Wishes and More sets this week. So, Heather, Angela, and I all ended up receiving two sets!

Some pictures above. Check out all the Big Shots for the make'n takes. A view of the conference hall and Shelli and her daughter Sara on the big screen.

The above pictures were taken by actually taking pictures of the large video screens that they used to show the demonstrations on. These ones above were taken from the demonstration about inspirations. You can see the second photo the wedding cake photo inspired the card beside it.

These photos were from a demonstration on using the Big Shot and Vinyl Sheets to make etched glass projects. This was just a taste of what will happen at Convention.

Swaps for Regionals 1

This was one of my swaps for Regionals last weekend. This card is a very altered CASE of a card in the Sale-a-bration mini catty. Click here to see my direct copy of the card. I spent a long time trying to come up with a colour combination that I liked. (a few hours) and then I started looking through old catalogues for ideas. After coming up with this combination, I found almost the same combination in an older catalogue (without the Baja Breeze of course). Arggghh, if only I'd done that earlier. But anyway, I am very happy with this colour combo, and the card was well-received at Regionals. I got some amazing swaps in return which I hope to showcase here over the next little while. I ran out of some of the materials, and so I came up with this one below to finish the last few off. I reallylike this one too. Stamps: Petal Pizzaz, A Beautiful Thing. Colours: Certainly Celery, Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, Perfect Plum, Chocolate Chip. Accessories: Scallop circle punch, 5-petal flower punch, scallop edge punch, top note die, silver brads, Stampin' dimensionals

Sooo Corny

This sentiment cracks me up. It's soooo corny. I know my hubby will groan when he reads it. I think this will become his Father's Day card from me. Colours: Blue Bayou, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Bordering Blue. Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Rectangle Nestabilities, Silver Brads

And the winner is...

So as I sat and watched the Canucks game this afternoon, I realized that I needed to draw a winner of my blog candy. So I wrote all the names down, put them in a bowl and had my son draw out a name. I can't believe how adorable this picture is as he had just finished eating pizza and was making funny 'cheese' faces a second before I took this picture. It's so cute because he pulled out the name 'GoCanucksGo'. It's also a bit of a coincidence that he loves hockey and especially the Canucks. So congratulations to 'GoCanucksGo' and can you please email me with your information so I can get your blog candy to you!

Regionals in Seattle!!!

I just had the most fabulous day today. I went to Stampin' Up! Regionals in Seattle. Seattle is 3 hours South of North Vancouver, where I live. I went with my wonderful upline, Angela, and Heather who is another of Angela's Downline. We left my house at 5:15am. (gasp!) For me this was a real struggle as we (hubby and I) went to the Stanley Cup Playoffs last night (Vancouver Canucks, vs, St Louis) That's Hockey for those of you who aren't Canadian. It was crazy busy and really fun. We got into the arena which seats over 16,000 and one row away from us was my brother and his wife. That was a nice surprise. The Canucks were really helpful and not only won the game, but it didn't go into overtime, so the game didn't last all night. Anyway, in all the craziness and crowds afterwards, it took a long time to get home. So my point is that I didn't get to bed until 1am. So basically I had less than 4 hours of sleep.

Anyway, I'll fill you in on more of the details later, I just wanted to share my picture above. Yup that's me and the godess herself Shelli Gardner. I feel like I just met a rock star. As my friend Angela says, 'it's like meeting Brad Pitt' I felt totally starstruck.

Dream

Another card using the Walk in the Park DSP and the Summer love Rub ons. The base of this card is Kiwi Kiss. Then I layered Going Grey Cardstock and the So Saffron paper from the DSP. I used the Kiwi Kiss Satin Ribbon as an accent. I put the "dream" rub-on on Whisper White and then cut it out. Next I punched out some Kiwi Kiss cardstock with the curly label punch and layered it all up. I haven't put any other sentiments on this card yet. I'll save it for an appropriate occasion and stamp it then.

Blog Candy Update!

Sorry Ladies, but I will have to announce the winner of the Blog Candy on Sunday. Not only do I have to work today, but it's my son's 3rd birthday, and we have playoff tickets to the Canucks game (go canucks go!!) And of course, Saturday is regionals in Seattle which is a 3 hour drive each way, so Sunday the name will be drawn.

Mojo Monday Challenge #82

I've been following the mojo monday sketch challenge for a while now. The cards that people come up with are absolutely stunning. This week's sketch really stood out for me. (It's at the bottom of this post.) Although it seems very simple, this sketch really stumped me. Then the light went on and I thought it would be perfect for a scrapbook page. So I made an 8 x 8 page for my shadowbox collection.

I started with this picture of my daughter. It's from our holiday last year and these glasses lasted about 10 seconds on her face. But I think that her expression, plus the glasses makes her look like a wannabe movie star. The colours in this layout were inspired by the colours in the 2 Sweet Simply Scrappin' Kit from Stampin' Up! I decided to use darker tones though. The colour of her glasses was identical to Lavender Lace so I started with textured Lavender Lace Cardstock. The colours in this layout are Lavender Lace, Elegant Eggplant, and Kiwi Kiss. The DSP is Walk in the Park from the new Occasions Mini. The title is from the Greatest Moments Rub Ons. The Kiwi flower is from the 2 Sweet simply scrappin' kit. The lavender flower was made with the big shot and the cherry blossom embosslit. The layered flower was stamped from Petal Pizazz and then layered over 2 scallop circles.

Walk in the Park

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the Walk in the Park DSP in the new Occassions Mini? I also love the Summer Love Rub On's . Now I'm going to have to get the Scallop Oval punch and the Oval All stampset. I sat down today and made a ton of cards. This card was very simple to make. The Cameo Coral cardstock is the basis of the card. I layered it on Going Grey and then attached a piece of the DSP. I used the rubbons on a strip of coral cardstock for an accent and then used the birthday sentiment from Sincere Salutations. I stamped the birthday sentiment on some So Saffron DSP and punched it out with the large oval punch. I used nestabilities to punch the scallop oval.

Shiver Me Timbers

This card started as a CASE of this card here. I have only used this stamp set with my students at school when we were studying Pirates so I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to present itself. But I digress... My son's 3rd birthday is coming up and I really wanted to make Pirate invites. I have to admit that I had a lot of fun making this card. It took a long time to come up with this design because I started by going through all my options on splitcoast. This is a retired set so I had a lot of cards to choose from. The second picture above shows the whole inside flap and the bottom photo shows the inside of the card. My husband and I tried to come up with a pirate sounding announcement inside. I stamped the images with Versamark ink on the inside for more interest. If you click on the photo you can see them in more detail. I used Aqua painters on Watercolour paper for the top image - 10 invitations took HOURS to colour in but I'm pretty happy with the result. I see some nephew birthday cards in the future. Stamps: Ahoy Matey. Colours: Riding Hood Red, Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky, So Saffron, Bordering Blue, Gable Green, and my white signo pen.

Elegant Thank You

This card was made for a client. She's giving these as a gift for a wedding shower. She requested Lavender. This DSP is from a stack from Costco and I knew that it would be perfect for wedding thank you's. This card is really simple to make - I did 24 in 2 hours from scratch. Once I was done, I played around a bit with my leftovers and mistakes. A few of them I glued upside down and so decided to keep for myself. Here's what I came up with for the 'mistakes'

Colours: Lavendar Lace, Whisper White, Going Grey. Accessories: Top Note Die, Curly Label Punch. Stamps: Cute & Curly

Taken with Tools?

This card started out as a direct CASE of this card. But about half way through I decided that the many colours were a great excuse to break out the new stampset . I've been furiously watercolouring some birthday invitations (check back tomorrow for those) and so I decided that once I had stamped out the tools, that watercolouring would work the best. Once I finished, however, I pulled out the blender pens and darkened in the areas that were too light. And then I decided to turn over the blue polka dot cardstock and use the chocolate chip side. I'm going to add a sentiment later. I think this tool stampset will serve me well in the future with so many tradesmen, and hobby trademen in my family. Colours: Blue Bayou, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Bordering Blue. Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Rectangle Nestabilities, Silver Brads

Embosslit Fun!

This card was made from leftovers from another project I'm making. I had all these embosslit flowers lying around and the orange one was pretty challenging to make, so I decided to try and make a card using them up. To make the orange flower, I stamped the orange image first, and then added the chocolate chip detail by using my Stamp-a-ma-jig. Finally I put it in the embosslit and by pressing with my thumb, I managed to line up the centre image with the centre dot in the embosslit. There was a bit of trial and error with this one, but I really like how this turned out. Stamps: A Beatuful Thing. Colours: Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White. Accessories: Cheery Blossom Embosslit, Top note die, clear pearl dots, brown ribbon, Sweet Always DSP

Shower Invites

This is a baby shower invite I have recently made for a customer and I love it so much I thought I'd have to put it up here. The client wanted purple, so I immediately went to my favourite of all purples - Elegant Eggplant. I love the top note die, so I put it through the Big Shot with the die first, and then the cuttlebug dotted folder second. (yes I get it now - see previous posts if you don't understand :) When I'm doing an order of invitations, I like to use punches a lot. They are easy and quick and the final product always looks great! So I dug through my stash of stamps and got out Big On Spring from last years' Occasions Mini. I inked up the onesie from the CUTE sentiment and stamped it on some shiny paper from sei, and then cut it out. I then stamped the image on Very Vanilla CS. I punched out the picture with the 3/8 inch circle punch and then glued on the purple onesie. I used my signo pen to colour the heart white. I then punched out the same sei paper with the scallop circle punch. The sentiment is from the Sincere Salutations stamp set. I stamped it on some lavender CS I had lying around and then punched it out with the small oval punch. Next I punched out Very vanilla with the large oval punch and then inked the edges. Both images are popped up with dimensionals. The cream ribbon is from my stash. and the whole thing is attached to Very Vanilla CS.

It's time for BLOG CANDY!!!!

I am thrilled to announce that my humble little blog is nearing 5,000 hits!!!! I have to say that when I started this blog I thought to myself 'I wonder if anyone will even look at it' and I have to say that obviously someone did. To thank all of you who follow my blog, I am offering just a little Stampin' Up! blog candy. To get a chance at this candy, here's what you need to do. If you link my blog to yours or link just this post to yours, I will put one entry in the pot. So post a comment that includes your blog address. If you don't have a blog, leave me a comment, tell at least one friend and send me an email that lets me know you told someone. If you post a link to this on your blog, AND sign up to follow my blog, you will get 3 entries in the pot. Good luck! I will close entries at 11pm on Thursday, April 16, 2009.

Happy Birthday Scraps

These cards were made during my card making frenzy the other night. The paper is mostly from Cricut. I used more of that orange ribbon from Michael's and the stamp is done in Pink Passion with the Four Square Stamp set. I cut out the image and the used the scallop square punch to make a background to mount it on . The scallop squares are all different colours as I went through my scrap pile to find coordinating colours.

I can't decide

I can't decide if I like this card or not. I was playing around with my cuttlebug and big shot and really liked the purple embossed paper. First I ran it through the Big Shot and cut out the top note shape, then I ran it through the cuttlebug to emboss the image on it. I have discovered that if you reverse this process the embossed image gets flattened out by the Big Shot ('duh' I said to myself after I did that). The die cut shape was then adhered to a piece of Whisper white. I sponged the edges with Elegant Eggplant. I had already made a ton of thank you cards with pumpkin pie and the curly label punch, so I had this sentiment lying around - so I thought I'd try the orange with the purple. Now the ribbon and the paper are kind of peach in their colour. The paper is really sparkly. It's from Bazzil Paper. The ribbon is some old stuff I had lying around. Anyway, purple and orange are both secondary colours which means they should go together, but I'm not sure if it's my taste or not.

Thank You

I love this thank you stamp and the coordinating label punch. It goes so nicely with the top note die. So I used the Sweet Always DSP and ran it through the big shot with the top note die. I stamped the flower image from Always, in pumpkin pie and then cut it out. The flower's centre is punched out of another piece of the Sweet Always DSP. The sentiment is stamped in Chocolate Chip and the whole thing is on Pumpkin Pie cardstock. Oh yeah, and the ribbon is some old stuff from Michael's.

Sale-a-bration cards

I was feeling uninspired today and so I sat down and looked through the sale-a-bration catty. I found this cute card on the first page. It uses Bashful Blue, Kraft and Certainly Celery cardstock. It uses So Saffron DSP from Sale-a-bration, and the matching ribbon. I used the top note die on the Kraft paper. The flower was stamped on whisper white with bashful blue and then cut out. I then punched out another flower from bashful blue and layered them together. The brad is from the dollar store. The sentiment is from sincere salutations and it's stamped in chocolate chip ink. I made the leaves by punching out a flower in c celery and then trimming it into a leaf shape.

Birthday Card

This cad was made using paper from my Cricut stash. I used the top note die to cut out the background. I punched out the presents with my square punches and then tapered the sides for more interest. The ribbons were attached with crystal effects.

So I Went Crazy Again!

So I'm in the process of making a scrapbook layout for a challenge, and last night I hit a roadblock. So I took a break. Of course I still needed a creative outlet, so I decided to make a bunch of cards. For some reason lately I'm very drawn to the colour orange. I had all this paper from cricut (cardstock and matching DSP) so I decided to dig out the Big Shot and see what I could make. It took me about 2 hours to make all these cards. I'll get into more detail about these cards in later posts.