2/28 Team Swap Samples

Good Afternoon!

I've been cooped up in the studio making samples to share with you soon.  For today, I'd like to share with you the samples from my team meeting this month.  I hope you like them as much as I do!

This beautiful card is by Bonnie Merrill and Uses the Bloomin Marvelous stamp set and Sycamore street Designer series paper.

 Such a fun shape to stamp the word "brother", this card was created by Debbie Thomas.

 The wonderful clean and simple stamper Christine Crutcher made this cute project to share!

 This one was created by Diane Windrom

 Here's one by Regina Maginnis

And finally the headliner.  Joanne Cardone was gracious enough to present this gorgeous card that she cased from pinterest.  The girls had a ball putting them together!

 

I hope you found a little inspiration here today.  Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/26 New Online Class! Stampin' Up! Basics!

Good Afternoon! 

Two posts in one day??  Well, I just had to share this exciting new opportunity I have to share with you!  How about oodles of information at your fingertips outlining the stampin' basics?  Well, that's exactly what I have to share with you today.

This online class features so many stamping basics:

Inking stamps, stamping off, creating lighter shades, how to use markers on your stamps, omitting, two step stamping, adding dimension, how to use the stamp-a-majig, masking, heat embossing, dry embossing, using stampin up markers for watercoloring, using the bigshot and more!

There are 6 comprehensive documents and 7 videos packed with information!  Click here to get your copy now. 

Please note, when you download this product ~ download it as a zip file and all the documents will be inside the one file.  So very cool!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for shopping with me today!

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/26 Vintage Verses, Sale A Bration Wedding Card

Good Afternoon Friends!

Boy, I've been a bit of a blog slacker this week!  I had my open house on Saturday, and then I prepped 3 projects for 40 women so that we would be ready to go this morning, for this week's stamp club activities. 

I just love taking time to stamp with a few people at a time, so my stamp club runs for a whole week, in one hour sessions.  I just love to visit and spend time with folks.  Anyway, check out this pretty card I made for a friend last week.  I am so bummed I'm just getting around to post it now, isn't it a Vintage beauty?  

I'm playing around with some wedding cards for next weeks stamp a stack and think this might make the "cut" into the class. 

The base is crumb cake card stock 11 x 4 1/4" and embossed with the tulip embossing folder. 
I added a vanilla and crumb cake layer on top of that.  I also put some newsprint (1/2" strip) for my ribbon/banner/bow with the gorgeous vintage brad and pearl in the middle.  The "day as perfect as you" stamp came from a FREE sale-a-bration stamp set I got with a $50 merchandise purchase. 

The butterflies were punched out of some cherry cobbler paper and attached to my card front with glue dots.  I added 3 small pearls to each.  Do you think my customers might like to make this one at next week's class? 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I have much more to share!  I've been a busy little bee!  :)

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/18 Stampin' Up! By the Tide and Sassy Salutations with the polished stone technique

Good Morning Friends! 

Yesterday, I spent the day at the bowling ally with my stud muffin to watch him in a bowling tournament and spend some time with friends.  It was a really fun and silly laughing kind of day.  On the way home I was playing on pinterest and found some artwork that I thought would make a cool card.  The photo here is what I found. 
Kind of cool, and dark, like a sunset or I'm not sure what, but I like it!  Today, I'm hosting a chat and challenge over on the demonstrator group SUDSOL, and decided to to a challenge around my inspiration piece. 










Not too shabby!  I think you could use the sketch for all sorts of cards.  Color blocking where you put maybe a cupcake on the right, happy birthday across the top and a balloon on the slim panel on the left?

Fun times.  :) 

So I got up before everyone in the house this morning to make my card for the challenge.  Here we go:


What do you think??

I think it's kind of funky, artsy.  :)  so I'd like to talk about the process.  In person this card is so shiny and there's gold towards the top (which I saw in the art piece at the top).

I started with a piece of glossy white paper, cut to 3 7/8" x 5".  Then I started with the polished stone technique.  To do this technique, you need some reinkers, rubbing alcohol and cotton balls.

For best results you'll want to buy the 91% alcohol.  Really soak few cotton balls with the alcohol and put a few drops of the reinkers on top.  I started with baja breeze, certainly celery and gold.  I also heat set the ink with setting 1 on my stampin up heat gun. 

After adding those three colors to my glossy cardstock, this is what my paper looked like.  

 Then, I added some night of navy and baja along the bottom to lookk more like the sample. 

 At this point, I went back to the celery and baja and filled it in.  I kept blending until I got my cardstock to the desired effect. 

Then, I grabbed my stamp sets, By the Tide and Sassy Salutations and started Stamping.  I cut my cardstock, and on the bottom panel I chopped 1/8" out of the middle to make it easy to matte on my 4 x 5 1/4" Black Card Stock.

So here's the inspiration piece, and my card again.  I hope it leaves you feeling inspired to stamp something for fun today! 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!

Much Love,

Selene

My Stampin' Up! Store

2/15 Stampin' Up! Hello Kitty Punch Art Box, Oval Framlits, Heart punch, Flower punch, Valentines

Good Evening Friends!  

I made 22 of these cute little "Hello Kitty" Boxes for Alexis to bring to school yesterday on Valentines Day! 

1. The base of the box is the Fancy Favor Box by Stampin' UP!
2. I cut the largest sized oval (that's not a scallop) from the new Oval framelits.
3. Then punch two full hearts and stick them to the back of the oval to make Hello Kitty's ears.   
4. Next, I took some pretty in pink ink, and sponged it all around my kitty to add some color. 
5. Her nose is the small oval punch.  I sponged it with Summer Starfruit ink. 
6. Her eyes are the 3/4" circle punch. I added the eyelashes with a black marker, and the white lines to make her eye's sparkle with a white gel pen. 
7. The bow, is one of the petals from the flower punch, I cut the bottom of the petal off and it sort of looked like a hershey kiss.  Then I cut the tips off, connected them and added a 1/2" circle on top.  That was all made with the real red glimmer paper.  
8. The whiskers, I cut on my table top paper cutter.  First I cut strips to 4 1/4" down the middle, then cut 1/8" strips to make my whiskers.
9. I grabbed my scalloped dotted border punch to make  the handles.  I made them all out of one 12 x 12 inch piece of whisper white card stock.    
10. The tags for the boxes were so easy!  I just cut them out of the valentine paper which had these gorgeous hearts already cut!  Easy peasy!  I stuffed them with toys and candy (peanut free for one of the children to be safe).

I snapped the two photos with my phone.    Here's a photo of all the handwritten tags for the children.  Alexis wrote them out.  She also cut all the big shot stuff and helped get the packets ready for assembly.  I was up till midnight on the 13th with my big strong hubby who helps me knocking these out!  :)

Here's another view that shows the handle better.  Isn't she cute?!?

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!

Much Love,

Selene

My Stampin' Up! Store

2/13 Stampin' Up! Soda Pop Tops and A Little Bit of Spring CAS Baby Card

Good Morning Friends! 

Before I get started, I just want to do a hoot hoot and a shout out to Jeannette Gauthier who left me the most wonderful comment yesterday ~ you really made my day better Jeannette!  I followed the link to her blog here.  She's got some really cute projects there!  Thanks Jeannette for your kind words!  :) 

Today, I'm sharing another card that I'm going to make with my SANS Valentine's class attendee's tomorrow night.  It's really adorable and easy to reproduce.  I have some folks who have never stamped with me coming and I want to make sure that:

1. They LOVE stamping!!
2. They know that they can reproduce it if they wanted to make their own samples, ey?

So, I have employed the KISS method.  = Keep it simple, stamper!  What were you thinking??  :)

The base layer is Marina Mist  8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored and folded in half at 4 1/4"
Layer 2 (inside and out): whisper white 4 x 5 1/4", and embossed with the polka dot embossing folder
Layer 3: 5" piece of Marina Mist Striped Organdy Ribbon
Layer 4: Soda Pop Tops, squished in the big shot (I'll write more about that down below).
Layer 5: 1/2" punched circles, from the A little bit of spring stamp set
Layer 5a: That's the sweetest punch from Sale-A-Bration called the petite curly label punch (item number 129405 is FREE with any $50 purchase in my online store).  The punched image "cute as a bug" measures 3/4' square.  Wicked cute and wicked simple!  :) 

 So, let's talk about the Soda Pop Tops for a moment.   In the package, you get two sizes. The large one fits the 1" circle punch and the small one is 1/2" an inch. 

To smash them down make them decorative, I ran them through the big shot with no tabs.  When you run them through you still need cutting pads so I used an old one that I snapped in half due to use.  :)  Take the oldest looking one you have and put the sharper edge (in the picture above the sharp edge is up facing you) down against the old cutting plate.  then you're ready to roll so to speak.  :)

I couldn't help myself and ran one two more times and made one completely flat by re-running on tab 1, then tab 2.  They look like little wheels all flattened.  I'm going to have to make something with them.  (smiles).

So here is a close up of the "smashed" soda pop top bottle caps.  They are designed for crafters and at $3.95 for 16, they are inexpensive and fun to work with.  I'm in!  :)

 

Can I just say that it makes me so happy to use a set that's intended for a holiday like Easter and make a non-Easter card!  (breakin the law)  :)  This A little bit of spring stamp set is so useful for so many different things and for demonstrators, I just love the "bug me anytime" sentiment!  I'll be playing with this one for sure in the weeks to come!  

Thanks so much for stopping by today! 

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/12 Swallowtail & Curly Cute with the Spotlighting Technique, Singles Awareness Night ~ Girls Night Out!

Good Evening Friends!  

Tonight I have a pretty simple card share.  Have you ever tried spotlighting?  It's a technique that I don't do often enough, but I love it with my Swallowtail Stamp!  We will be making this very simple card at my SANS Valentine (Singles Awareness Night Special) class.

The idea for my class came from a few friends who are Single talking about Valentine's Day.  I've always joked that it's Singles Awareness Day because those who don't have someone to snuggle up beside someone are VERY aware when the girl in the next cube gets flowers!  just sayin' :)

Thus, an idea was born!  I wanted to keep the cards simple enough so that my non-crafty friends might want to come hang out for some laughs, stamping, and of course chocolate!  (okay, maybe a glass of wine too).  Friends can come and make the 4 projects for a $10 supply fee, which is waived with a purchase (min $25).  Sound like fun?  Well, if you're in the area, you're invited.  Just click here to register. 

This card features the new BAH-UU-TI-FULL Swallowtail background stamp and the curly cute sentiment set from Stampin' Up!  I used a few circle punches to cut out the part of the butterfly I wanted to spotlight (and cover a big black mark on my card) to emphasize the beauty of this stamp in just the right way.

I used shimmer white and raspberry Ripple Card stock and Stazon Black Ink with 3 markers, pink pirouette, raspberry ripple and so saffron for coloring and highlighting.  I also used my aqua painter to move my Raspberry highlights. 

I punched the 1 3/8 circle punch right beside the big black mark I made by accident when I stamped my image where I could safely reach with my punch, so that the raspberry ripple 1 3/4" scallop punch would cover my mistake highlight the beautifully water colored area. HA!  Then I added some dazzling diamonds glitter with a 2-way glue pen.  Make a mistake?  Add a layer of paper and keep going! 





Thanks so much for stopping by today and for those of you who place orders with me regularly, thank you so much!  I wouldn't be able to continue without every single glue dot!  For those of you who offer words of kindness, I am so very lucky.  Thank you for leaving me comments too!   I so appreciate you all.

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/10 Stampin' Up! Wishes Your Way & The Sizzlits S Pinwheel Die, Team Meeting Swap Card

Good Afternoon,

I'm taking a quick break from stamping to share a project with you today.  My team is due here in about 2 1/2 hours so I need to be brief! 

I found the cutest color challenge over on the Paper Player's Blog today and I thought I'd play along to make my swaps for the meeting tonight. I didn't get a chance to play at all last week!  Total bummer for me!

I had big plans for the blizzard we just went through!  I was going to stamp the day and night away.  When it came down to it, having my family together, I just didn't feel like it!   So I spent some time with them instead!  At the bottom, I will share some photos from the blizzard of 2013.  For more, you're gonna have to facebook friend me!  :)   Just sayin'

I knew that I wanted to bust open my new Pinwheel die this morning, and thought that I would use some of the Patio Party Designer Paper because it fit's this challenge.  I have lovingly nicknamed Summer Starfruit, Peuce. I have had a few successes with the color, but from the beginning it's not my favorite.  So, starting with a designer paper was a great place to start from!  The DUO color to Primrose Petals is Pink Pirouette.  The challenge colors can look very dark (right on top of one another), so I decided to start with a lighter shade, then sponge the Primrose petals on to bring it up to that color.  I really like the effect!  What do you think? 

 I love how 3 dimensional this card is.  Here's a close up of the pinwheel.  It's a new die from Stampin up that just came out with the new Occasions catalog.   And ya wanna know the kicker??  It's less than $5 bucks!  Serious cuteness for a really great price, I'm totally in!  :) 

 I did a lot of sponging on this card,  The white banner for the sentiment was also sponged with the Primrose Petals color.  Here's one more close up.  You really get a feel for the 3 dimensionality of it.  Did I really just **go** there??  new word?  tee hee!    Well, I'm just having some fun!

I used the VERY ADORABLE Wishes Your Way stamp set that bundles up nicely with the pinwheel die because the sentiments will blow you away!  :)

 I hope you like my card and that it inspires you to play along, or to just go stamp something fun today! 

 

Now here's a few photos from the blizzard!

 This is my sweet hubby.  We were digging a path to one another!  He is ROCKIN that hat!  Take's a big personality to pull off a hat like that. 

This is me after getting two of the cars out of the yard, I was working on getting my truck out of the yard. 

 This photo was taken this morning from my front porch.  they were clearing out the snow so my team could come stamp tonight so the children could attend school tomorrow. 

This is my hubby's car.  I had already started digging him out.  You couldnt actually see his car unless you were looking down from upstairs.  What a whopper of a storm!!  Thanks for letting me share today!  

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/4 Stampin' Up! Bloomin' Marvelous, more Chalkboarding!

Good Morning Friends!

What's the coolest way you can think to use one of the new Doily's? I decided to make a very similar card to the one I did yesterday (addicted much?)  and use the doily in a more "on purpose" way!   What do you think? 

I went over the step by steps on these techniques on yesterday's post but I'll do the quick version here:

1. Emboss the flowers in white randomly down the left hand side of the card.
2. Emboss more flowers in pool party right on top!
3. Draw the cute sketchy lines with the white watercolor pencil (the one we never use)
4. Sponge craft ink on top to get the chalk board look!  
5. Edge the sentiment with a 2 way glue pen and add dazzling details glitter. 

 This card takes a little time to make but the effect is so stunning wouldn't you say?  I love the doily banner underneath my sentiment.  All I did was cut a strip of doily out of the center. Folded it "crooked-like" down the center  and cut "V" into the bottom to make the faux banner.

The butterflies were embossed on a scrap paper and punched out  with the new bitty butterfly punch and I added some random bling!  to the front!  This card is also for my design team work over on split coast stampers.  :) 

Here is a copy of the original challenge:
CCREW0213CF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM -- Catalog focus: I had a hard time picking one this month, but in the end went with doilies. Whether you use a real doily, stamp a doily, stamp on a doily, make something with a doily, die cut a doily, or whatever else you can think of to do with a doily the catalog is full of them!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/3 Vintage Verses and Everything Eleanor with Artisan Embellishments Kit Heart

Good Morning Friends!

Have I told you lately, there's only one you?   I'm such a cornball, ey?   That's okay, those who really know me, love me anyway! HA!

Hoot's and hollers! I LOVE this chalk boarding technique! It was so much fun to do!

First, I embossed in White embossing powder, then with pool party embossing powder right on top.  This technique is double heat embossing.  The white embossed image underneath just stays in tact and the pool party on top covers it up.  This technique really POPS with bright pink or contrasting colors! 

The white lines with a white watercolor pencil and a ruler.

I put the card down on my graph paper and measured the edge with my ruler, skipping the white embossed edges.  That makes it look so artsy and sketched by hand!    I cut the sentiment out by hand on top and made the V ends on my banner.  it looks so pretty on top of the other shapes!  I love the splash of pink too!  That gorgeous element came out of the artisan embellishment kit.  :)

I sponged some white craft ink on for the chalk board effect. I also found out that if you use your embossing buddy you can add the white powder pretty easily to the dark card stock too, but I would use the craft pad if you have it.

Now do you see the itty bitty banner I made with the doily!  That was just some scissor work and I put it underneath the layers with a glue dot.

Here's the original challenges:
CCREW0213HF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM -- Holiday focus: Well now this would have to be love wouldn't it? Valentine's, anniversaries, love, amore' baby!

CCREW0213CF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM -- Catalog focus: I had a hard time picking one this month, but in the end went with doilies. Whether you use a real doily, stamp a doily, stamp on a doily, make something with a doily, die cut a doily, or whatever else you can think of to do with a doily the catalog is full of them!

here's another close up of the embossed images overlapping and the pretty heart.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I'll be showing more chalkboarding tomorrow! 

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/2 Stampin' Up! Vintage Verses and Artisan Embellishments kit Traced Embossing Color Combo Creative Crew CCREW0213DF

Good Morning Friends!  

Wouldn't this make an awesome wedding card?  

This morning I'm sharing with you a card I made for a color challenge on the split coast stamper creative crew challenges for the month of February!  I have to be honest!  I was nervous about his color set, but now that it's done, I LOVE the way it came out!  I'm really psyched about these projects I have to share!

Here's the original challenge:
CCREW0213DF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM -- DSP/Color Focus: I'm not focusing on DSP this month, instead we're going with a good old fashioned color combo, Raspberry Ripple, Primrose Petals, Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla, & Sahara Sand! (Bet that threw you off, you were probably expecting a brown weren't you?)came out!! 

I started with some vanilla embossing powder and heat embossed the image from Vintage Verses on a Primrose Petals card stock, that I cut with the top note die and my big shot. :)

I took a raspberry ripple marker and with the "pen" side I traced around my embossed image to add a drop shadow with the raspberry color.  I am so happy with the effect and I'm going to throw it out here as traced embossing.  I cant be the first person to try this!?! can I? I get excited when I feel like I came up with something all on my own.  I guess we all do!  :)

Next I added some sponging (with the raspberry ripple color) onto my primrose and pretty in pink cardstock.  I cut the top note die on the primrose layer so you could see my pretty in pink border on the layer below.  :)

 Needless to say, I'll have to hand deliver this card, because this gorgeous embellishment makes my card about 3/4" of an inch tall if it's laying on the table!  I used two elements from the Artisan Embellishments Kit and added a raspberry ripple dahlia.  I added dazzling diamonds glitter with a two way glue pen.  I ended up having to stick the vanilla flower with liquid glue due to how heavy the whole thing is when I embellished it. teehee.  I love this ribbon that comes in the kit.  I imagine that I'll be making myself a ribbon bracelet from the piece left over.  I'm going to have to hit a big box store and find a clasp, i'm on a mission!  :)

Here's another close up of my pretty card!  To see what the rest of the design team is up to and to preview my other projects (which I'll talk about here later this week).  Click here! 

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store

2/1 Catholic School Week and Teacher Appreciation Gifts with Pretty Petites from Stampin' Up!

Good Afternoon!

I'm SO excited to finally start to be able to share some of the things I've been working on!  What a busy bee I have been. 

This week was Catholic School Week and today was the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon.  It started out with a notice that came home from school asking for help at school during the lunch, so that the teachers could share a meal together.

I happened to be working today during lunch with my fabulous stamp club meeting ending today, so I couldn't help during lunch, but I called the coordinator to see if I could help donate something anyway. 

During the course of my conversation I found out that they really didn't have anything to give the teachers and I asked if I could make them a little something crafty so they know that they are appreciated.  In my daughter's school, there  are 20 regular teachers and 5 specialties, so I made 30 of these boxes to cover administrators and substitute teachers too.  What, might you ask did I give them a little box of "stuff" for?  Well, I found a few of these online and did a little shopping.  For the items I could find, I made a little poem so the teachers would feel the love and appreciation.  Really, this project took more time collecting my scavenger hunted items than it did to put the 30 boxes together!

Here's a look at the poem:

Again, these are just the items I could find.  If you search for "teacher survival kits" on pinterest you could probably find a whole bunch more items to fit what you have in your pantry already!

So, I mentioned that these 30 boxes went together pretty quickly?  Well, me and my stampin' pit crew (Brian and Alexis) were able to assemble and decorate these on Saturday in about 2 hours!  Here's what we did. 

We started with a wheel.  I know this one is retired, but I wanted stars for the school teachers.  They are so amazing and each star transforms our children into future stars.  I always chuckle when my daughter comes home from school and I can hear her "sound like" her teacher Mrs. Sech.  It's very subtle but so adorable how her phrases imitate what she hears from a mentor.    I didn't have any ink for my wheels, but it didn't matter.  I used an ink pad and it was perfectly long enough to wheel up half my box at a time.  So two zips of my wheel and I had a decoration on my box! 

Next, I added a piece of blue card stock to the bottom of the box.  I didn't want the paperclip to make it's way out of the box or fall.  Plus it made my box a little more sturdy.  I cut the paper to just a little smaller than 3.5" square.  Do you see the blue paper in the bottom of the box?  It's in there! 

These kraft colored boxes are absolutely fabulous!  You get four of them in a package for only $2.95.  How can you beat that?  It comes with directions on assembly, and you really do want to take a second to look at the sheet because they fit together perfectly that way.  It would be very easy to decorate these boxes with a strip of designer paper, or stamp on them, cover them, put them in a bag and tie them up with a bag topper! the possibilities are endless!

 

Sorry to show retired products that you can't buy again, but I found some leftover ribbon from the holiday mini to package them up with.  I love tulle because you just need to know how to tie your shoes, then fluff and you have a bow that is boutique beautiful!  

Next, I added a star punch.  I know we don't sell those anymore but I have a few if my local ladies need one.  :)  I got them on the clearance rack.  Speaking of, there are some amazing deals on the rack this week including $1 content disks for my digital studio!  Click here to check it out.   

Finishing the box, I pulled out my BRAND NEW stamp set from Sale a bration called pretty petite's (item # 129642 for clear)  It matches the SAB punch perfectly!  :)  I stamped and punched the thank you's, then added them to the stars with a dimensional.  Punch a hole in the star and tie them on with the easy fluff ribbon!  Yea Buddy! 

The BEST part of my day today was a text I got from my good friend Pam who teaches kindergarten at my daughters school thanking me for her box.  She said they didn't have to tell her who made them (my name wasn't on them).  She just knew it had to be me because of the quality of the gift.  Wow! 

I feel totally blessed to be able to share what I love and help others enjoy creativity while helping my family.  I can do all of this as a stay at home mom and be here for my daughter after school and through dance class.  I'm very grateful to Stampin' Up! for the vehicle to make a difference, even for something as small as an appreciation gift.

LOTS more to share over the coming week!  I've been a busy bee with my split coast "creative crew" design team things!  I cant wait to share more!  See you tomorrow!

Love,

Selene
My Stampin' Up! Store