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.

I just can't believe it!

I woke up yesterday morning to this...

I mean seriously, it's APRIL!! I have to admit that I can't wait to get up the mountain and hit the slopes on my snowboard. I have 3 days left on my Whistler Lift pass, so maybe this weekend...

So here we go again. I wasn't kidding. I went CRAZY over this layout. My aunt passed away a few weeks ago and I made all these cards for my cousins. I just got home from a reception for her that was a true celebration of life. It was truly an enjoyable service. She had tons of kids, and I thought they all deserved different cards. Besides, one of my cousins is a customer who LOVES cards so I thought she'd really appreciate having a different card than her siblings. This card is made from the now retired Sale-a-bration Delicate Dots DSP. The ribbon is also from the Sale-a-bration catalogue ribbon bundle. The background paper is whisper white and kraft. The stampset used was One Of A Kind. The colours in the ink are Certainly Celery, Bashfull Blue and So Saffron.

I did it again!

So get ready for it. I wasn't kidding when I said I made this card several times over in several colour schemes. This one was made with the retired Green Tea DSP. Colours used were Baja Breeze, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Old Olive and Certainly Celery. The ribbon is from Mike's. Again, thanks to Andrea Walford for the idea. This card definitely my favourite of the bunch.

A Bit Of A Frenzy

I sat down today to make a bunch of cards. I decided to use the same pattern and change up the colours. Thanks again to Andrea Walford for the pattern. This palette was from the Sweet Always DSP. I used Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Pirouette Pink and Pretty in Pink. The stamp set is One Of A Kind.

Drinks by the Pool...

This layout was created for a challenge at a local scrapbooking store. You needed to do a multi-photo layout with flowers, a 3D item and a circle element. The photos were from our recent holiday in Palm Springs. Unfortunately I did not get a good photo of Teagan looking at the camera with her sunglasses on which was what I was trying to do when I took these photos. Anyway, so I tried to pull colours from the photos for the layout. The colours in the paper are Pink Pirouette, Pretty In Pink, Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate Chip. I'm not a big Orange fan, but I felt that I needed to use orange as Teagan's sippy cup was the inspiration for the title. Orange and pink led me naturally to the Always DSP. Chocolate Chip was a natural for the photo matting. The letters were punched out with the Big Shot, as were most of the flowers. The blue embelishments and the butterflies were from Mike's and the circle embelishments I found in Palm Springs and they are from K&Co. The brads and eyelets are from my stash. I also used the top note die for the title. The journalling was printed off my computer and inked with Pumpkin Pie. It took me absolutely hours to do this project and I almost gave up, but then I pulled in the turquoise colour and it all fell into place.

One of a Kind Birthday

This is another card I CASE'd from Andrea Walford. Again, I completely changed the colour scheme and used the Hand Drawn bundle level 3 hostess set. The colours are again, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Blue Bayou, So Saffron and Chocolate Chip. The flourish is an old rub-on I had lying around. I stamped the cupcake image and then used my blender pens and ink to colour in the design. The candle was punched out with a punch and coloured with stampin' write markers. The cupcake was popped up with dimensionals.

For You

This is a card I CASE'd from Andrea Walford. I completely changed the colour scheme and used the DSP and flower stamp from the level three hostess set Hand Drawn Bundle. The colours in this card are Baja Breeze, Blue Bayou, Old Olive, Riding Hood Red, So Saffron and Whisper White. First I cut the various papers and then decided that the white cardstock at the top of the card needed 'something' so I created this DSP with the flower stamp and 3 types of ink. The stamp set is One of a Kind. The vase was punched out with the oval punch and then the bottom was cut off.

Soft Sky and Elegant Eggplant

These 2 colours are one of my favourite combinations. The basis of this card is from a set by Martha Stewart. I made these cards as thank you cards for my girlfriend who got married last year. The Thank You stamp comes from Michael's and the background image is from a local scrapbooking store.

Flower Punch Birthday

I started this card by focusing on this years In Colors. I decided to use this DSP and Kiwi Kiss cardstock as my base. Then I stamped the flowers from the Polka Dot Punches set in Chocolate Chip ink and then I punched them out with the matching punches. I used chocolate chip ribbon as well. The buttons are from the button boquet.

Baby Card

This card was made using a pre-embossed card from DCWV. I rubbed lavendar chalk over the embossing in order to bring up the images. The stamp is from Mike's and I used elegant eggplant ink on lovely lavendar paper. The blue is soft sky. I stamped the flowers in lovely lavendar, elegant eggplant, and soft sky. The flower images are from various SU sets. The ribbon comes from Mike's too.

Hoppy Memories

When the new catalogue came out in January, I fell in love with all the new Simply Scrappin' kits. I couldn't wait to get my hands on them. Above are a few layouts that I designed using the Hoppy Memories kit. I have to admit that I normally don't like the colour orange, but I think it really adds something to this kit. I am planning to use these layouts for pictures of my son and my nephews. These layouts were done with only products in the kits alone.

Baby Scrapbook

Here's a page I made for a Challenge at a Scrap Arts, a local scrapbooking store. This is for their April Challenge. The required elements are:
one baby photo, 2 patterned papers, hand-stitching, ribon, buttons, and journaling.
I started with my all-time favourite baby photo of my daughter (and I). She's a week old and almost smiling. She looks so peaceful. Next I dug out some baby girl paper from SEI that I've been saving for a while. This paper is double sided and I had 4 different styles, so I flipped and flopped it until I found the right colour combination. Then I found that my new sale-a-bration So Saffron ribbon matched perfectly. The next challenge was hand stiching. Now I am terrible at hand stitching. But I took out my Cutterbee and ran it over the paper in a wavy line, and then I used the indentations as a guide to hand stich the flower stem. I took some white flowers and dyed them with SU ink (apricot appeal and blush blossom) I stamped the leaves with mellow moss from the Itty Bitty Buds set (my new FAVOURITE set). The buttons were partially from SU and partially from my stash. The title 'magical' is a metal label from the dollar store. I used the label to inspire my journaling which I printed out from the computer. It reads "I never imagined that being a parent could be so magical. Teagan Louise at one week old." I used my nestabilities for the label.

A Direct CASE

I cased this card from Paper Vernissage. I changed up the colours to Not Quite Navy, Kiwi Kiss, Rose Red, and Apricot Appeal. I've had Itty Bitty Buds for quite a while, and once I saw the card I cased I felt totally inspired. The whisper white was run through the cuttlebug folder. The ribbon is Kiwi Kiss. I have to adkmit that I liked this card so much I made 8 copies of it. TFL

More Crimped Envelopes

OK so I admit I went a bit crazy with these cards. But they are soooooooo easy to make. I made all 6 of these in less than an hour. I tried them in the cuttlebug first, and then I crimped them. So they aren't as nice as I'd like them to be, but I now know that I need to use SU envelopes and to crimp first and then cuttlebug.

Envie gift card

So here's another crimped envelope card. I made this one for work. We are having a contest this week where we are giving away one gift card a day in a draw. So I made these little gift card holders for the crimped envelope.

More Pages...

So here are some more pages from Heather's birthday album. Again, I made the layouts on Smilebox, and then printed them out and mounted them on DSP. Most of the pictures in this post were taken when Heather and I went to Hawaii the first year I was teaching (OMG that's 17 years ago - wow does time fly)

I cannot BELIEVE this!

So just when I thought that my snow shovelling days were done for the year, I looked out my window yesterday afternoon and saw this...


Can you believe it? We got more than 3 inches of snow on the back porch. Fortunately, it started melting right away. See in Vancouver, most people don't even buy snow tires, but this year has been ridiculous.

Splitcoast Challenge

Well I finally decided I was up to the task and have attempted a Splitcoast Challenge. This weeks Technique lovers challenge was to make a crimped envelope card. It was sooooooooooo easy. Check here for the tutorial. Instead of crimping my envelope, I sent it through the cuttlebug. I also cased the idea for the inside of the card from papervernissage. I really thought that Itty Bitty Buds was a stampset I wouldn't use (seeing as I had to choose a hostess set) but now I'm totally inspired. Check here again, for other ideas as I post them.

Pages From Sakinaw Lake

So here are a few more pages from my mini scrapbook for Heather. These photos were taken about 8 years ago at her family cabin on Sakinaw Lake. The colours used in this album were Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, River Rock, and Lovely Lilac. The photo layouts were done on Smilebox.com They are sooooo easy to do. Basically you digitally insert your photos, add your own text, and voila! I printed them out in a 13x13cm or 10x10cm size. They fit on this chipboard book perfectly like this. I used tons of different coloured DSP and Tea Party DSP. The ribbons are from the new Sale-a-bration catty. The flowers are stickers from the dollar store. I also used some Nestabilities dies and my oval and corner rounder punches.

A gift for Heather

I made this album for my girlfriend Heather. It's her birthday today! Here's the cover. I used a chipboard book, and I inked the edges with Chocolate Chip Ink. I used chocolate chip and certainly celery DSP to cover the page. I used Nestabilities to cut the label, and used glitter stickers for Heather's name. The flowers are cut from Tea Party DSP. I inked the edges and curled them. Then I attached the rhinestone brad's and attached them to the cover with crystal effects. I used the jumbo eyelets and So Saffron ribbon (from SAB catalogue) to bind the book.

Retired SU sets for sale

I have some retired SU sets for sale
$10 - Seasonal Icons
$30 - In The Spotlight
$35 - Happiness Always
$20 - On the Spot
$12 - Birthday Whimsy
$20 - Fall Flair
$12 - Lots of Thoughts
Please contact me if you are interested in any of them

So I actually sat down tonight to make some cards. It's been a rough weekend. Report cards were due on Monday, and on friday my computer just stopped working. The screen went black and nothing worked to fix it. Needless to say, Saturday was spent trying to get the silly thing fixed. Thankfully the Geek Squad figured out the problem and my DH was able to fix it himself. So I didn't actually blow up the motherboard as was originally thought, and my report cards were NOT lost in the shuffle. My husband...My hero!
So I digress... the cards were made for my dear friend Heather. She has a significant birthday coming up this week. As well, about a month ago she told me she was pregnant with twins! So I finally got down to making her a congratulations card. Both cards were made with embossed cards from DCWV. I applied ink to both of them. The birthday card didn't really photograph well, but I used Pirouette Pink in the direct to paper technique and then used the Sweet Always paper to make the present. I used making memories sticky letters to put on her name and the magic number and I applied some Martha Stewart glitter to give the letters some bling! Heather is a glitter addict, so I knew that this was the right way to go. The baby card used the Big on Spring stamp set from last years' Occasions Mini, and I coloured in the letters and onesie with my SU markers, and then applied opaque glitter with my two way glue pen. I applied Lovely Lavendar ink by sponging it on to the card. I used my nesties for the scalloped rectangle and ovals. I used the "That's Funny" stamp set on the interior of the card and coloured them in with my SU markers. The photographic memory sentiment is soooo appropriate for Heather. She remembers EVERYTHING. Heather and I have known each other for 2o years and there are a few things I wish she could forget. But I have struggled with 'Baby Brain' since I first got pregnant, so maybe she will too. We'll see. Anyway, I had a lot of fun making these cards because I spent the time remembering a lot of funny things that have happened to Heather and I in the past, and I'm looking forwards to playdates in the future.

MINI FLIP ALBUM CLASS

This class allows you to make a Mini Flip Album in YOUR CHOICE of colours. You pick the Designer Series Paper you like and make a flip album from it with the coordinating cardstock.

What you get:
A 16 page mini album which holds 16 pictures.
Your choice of DSP
3 colours of coordinating cardstock
Ribbon

AND If you enjoy the class I will send you home with enough materials to make another 2 mini albums for an additional $15
That’s 3 albums for $30!!!!

For another $15.00 You can get 2 types of adhesive which you can take home with you.
Otherwise please bring your own adhesive and scoring tool with you.

Wedding Class

Would you like to get some ideas for an upcoming wedding? Are you going to make your own invitations or party favours? Then this class is for you.

$20

Cost includes
Designer Series Paper,
Coordinating cardstock
Organza Ribbon
Filigree Brad
Eyelets and Brad

Techniques you will learn
Gatefold card
Trifold card
Pocket card
Pyramid box
Use of Big Shot!

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Mar 26 Pacific