A Tart and Tangy CASE

This is a cute little box and card set I CASED from Elizabeth Sloman from LNS (Yep your going to keep hearing about it until you join!). I figured we all like suspense so I will show you one thing at a time (Ok, I admit it, I'm still playing catch up from my parent's visiting and now I am heading to Vicenza Italy for work for a week.) First up is the card box, no bag, no box. Oh whatever! This is what the cards go in. I used Yo-Yo Yellow, Glorious Green, Only Orange, and Real Red for this entire project. The images are all stamped on whisper white. Isn't it adorable?

LateNightStampers

Are you tired of hearing that name? Then get off your butt and go check them out. There is more talent there than anywhere else. And these ladies are super kind. They share, and compliment, and they even send really cool RAKs. Just as an example, I thought I would show you a RAK I got recently. Sandi McIver sent this cool chick to me. I had seen it on her blog and via LNS, so I sent an email telling her how much I admired her and her cute little chick. Next thing I know she showed up in my mailbox. There is nothing as thrilling as opening your mail and finding a handmade card from someone. It really made my day. I've decided to continue on the tradition, so.......keep an eye on your mailbox. One may be coming to you!

An Awesome Challenge!

Ok, by now all of you should already know what LateNightStampers is. If not, what rock have you been hiding under? :) If you don't know, or you want a little more information click on the owl picture to the right. Anyway, LateNightStampers had a challenge recently. They gave us a sketch and asked us to make something following the general idea of the sketch. This is my entry. I used Chocolate chip and Baja Breeze, another one of my all time favorite color combos, Parisian Breeze DSP, White organza ribbon, half pearls from the Pretties kit (been a while since I mentioned that hasn't it) and I finally got to ink up my Fifth Avenue Florals stamps. When this set first came out I wasn't overly excited, but it is one of those sets that you have to have after you see all the cool things everyone else is doing with it. Do you have a stamp set like that? Leave me a comment and let me know what set grew on you.

Quilt Cards

These cards are so much fun to make. I had seen them everywhere, but I didn't really understand how to make them until Shelly Smarzik posted this tutorial on her blog. I made these as samples for the Make N Take we did at a workshop and everyone there loved them. I even had two quilters in the class and they thought it was an adorable idea. Hope you like them too!

A Manly Card

One of the few "manly" cards in my stash, and I can't even take credit for it. This cute little pegboard card was made by my Upline, Sara, during one of our midnight stamp-a-thons at her house. (For a while we were doing this almost weekly and when the stupid hour hit....everything went nuts, but it was fun!) I am doing a Father's Day workshop in May and am thinking about using this card for our Make N Take. What do you think?

A Retired Pop Up Card

Don't you LOVE this paper. Don't ask me to buy it, Unfortunately it's retired! Stampin' Up! always does this to me. I find something that I absolutely love, and then they retire it to never bring it back again. I tell all my customers, "If you love it buy it, and buy lots of it!" One good thing though is there seems to be something I love in almost every catalog, so I don't seem to miss the retired ones nearly as much. This is a pretty simple little pop up card that my Upline showed a few of us how to make. We had an impromptu stamping night at my house a few weeks ago. My favorite part of making this card was being able to emboss the white flower on the front. Have I mentioned that I am addicted to heat embossing. I haven't done it for a while, but now that I'm thinking about it, I think its about time to heat up that gun once again. As always, I would love to hear your comments! Let me know what you think.

From the Recesses of my closet

Ok, here is how my blog works. Usually I stamp once or twice during the week, and then really get into it on the weekends by stamping up a storm. That way, I have at least seven projects to post on my blog through the week. I would love to be able to stamp every day, but I still have a full time family and a full time job to take care of, so Saturday's and Sunday's are my stamping time. This past weekend though, I had workshops on both Saturday and Sunday. I spent a lot of time preparing for them, as well as cleaning up after the preperation. I also now have over 100 stamp sets, and no room for them, so I am working on unmounting my retired sets. Anyway, to make a long story longer, (Have I bored you totally yet?), I didn't get much stamping done this week. In order to keep my blog going every day, I had to pull out some of my older cards. This is one that I made for a Late Night Stampers challenge a few months ago. I can't remember what the challenge was, but I liked putting the three spinners on the side. This is done with the Cheap Talk stamp set and the Goodmorning Sunshine DSP. Let me know if this is one I should have kept in the closet.

My Beautiful Butterflies

I love how springy this card is. I was going to use it for one of my cards for Sherrill Graf (if you don't know what or who I am talking about you need to check out the Late Night Stamper's group. You can join by clicking on the owl to the right of my blog) but then I realized it uses retired SAB paper. Oh well. It is still beautiful. I made this at one of my sidelines first ever workshop. I thought she did an amazing job! Way to go Emily!

My Latenightstampers Challenge 15

For those of you not on LateNightStampers, you have no idea the amount of information and sheer creativity you are missing. The women on this group are caring, sharing, and amazing. If you would like to join to see what all the fuss is about, click on the owl on the side of my blog. This past week's challenge was to make a card using a 3D flower. This is the card I came up with. The sketch was actually from my upline. We do a shoebox swap at every one of our downline meetings, and this time she gave us three challenges to choose from while putting together our swap. I chose the sketch challenge. I used Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, and Grey card stock as well as the DSP from the hostess Hand Drawn Bundle. The flower is made from the Daisy Die which I am absolutely in love with and the center is a build a brad. This was such a simple card to put together that I will be using it for a workshop later this month. I hope they enjoy making it. What do you think?

Another technique using the Texture plates

I was trying to find a way to make the impressions show up even more from the texture plates. I have read several ideas: use an extra piece of cardstock to make a tighter sandwich, spray the paper with either water or alcohol, or use ink to accent the texture. I also remembered reading somewhere that you could sand the texture. What the heck, I figured I might as well give it a try. Well, here is what happened when I did. I really like the way it looks. What do you think?

What a cute little purse and a Contest!

Isn't this adorable? Ok, it isn't the best picture I've ever taken, but it is the only one I have of this purse and I thought it was too cute to pass up. It was demonstrated at our most recent downline meeting by one of the newest(at the time, we've since added yet another one!) downline members. I thought it was super cute and decided to share. That reminds me. We are trying to come up with a name for our "group". According to SU! we cannot use any part of the corporate name or anything stamp (which means no stamping, stampers, stamped, etc.). Does anyone have any ideas? I have been racking my brain, and all I'm getting is a hollow thud! Your help would be greatly appreciated! If you come up with the name that my Upline and sideline vote on to be the best, I will send you this cute little purse as well as fill it with goodies. What do you say? Help us find a name!

What not to do with leftover Rubber

My children are creative. I've never said otherwise. They are both creative and imaginative. It's no wonder they enjoy stamping about as much as I do.

Today, my daughter was helping me mount some stamps. I had several sets that I had just sitting on the table, so we were putting them together and chatting. Then my five year old son wanted to help. No offense to him, but I don't trust him with my stamps. He whined a bit, but then left. Or so I thought........

After we had finished several sets my son appeared in the room. "Look Mom! I'm a transformer." As you can see from these pictures he had taken the outer "frame" from my stamps and plastered it to himself. He said it gave him robot parts like the transformers. In case you were curious, the purple part on his right hand side was his shooting part.



I wasn't horribly concerned. I thought he looked kinda cute. He stayed in "Robot Mode" for a little while and then came in to say that he wanted me to help him take off his "Robot parts". By now you should start to see the problem. These pieces are sticky. I mean really really sticky. Needless to say after much pulling and screaming and even using alcohol to cut the stickiness we finally got them off. As you can see from these pictures he wasn't nearly as happy after we took them off. They left little red welts all over his body. Did it phase him? Nope! "Look Mom, Now I have Robot parts for real!" He and my daughter played match the stamp to his red welts for another hour! Anyway, this is one thing you should NEVER EVER do!

My new favorite color combo

Isn't this a beautiful card? Every once in a while there is a stamp set in the catalog that you just kinda shrug at. It doesn't seem very special. Then you see a card that used that set and you think WOW!!! I made this at my upline's and had that aha "gotta have it" moment. Guess what is going on my next order...that's right.....Pocket Silouhettes. I am also in love with the old olive and eggplant color combo, so I would have to say this is one of my favorite cards this month! What about you? What one is your favorite?

Recipe Cards

Ok, I've had these laying around forever. When the fall catalog come out I decided I wanted to make the recipe box that was all the rage....well, I bought all the supplies, and then this was as far as I managed to get. I figured I would take a picture of them, because I doubt I ever actually get to the recipe box. I am thinking about using the Simply Scrappin' Kit Love Sparkles to create a chocolate lover's cookbook. Now that I'm on weight watchers, I will probably give it away, too much temptation!

100 Posts!!!

Ok, It totally surprised me! The New Technique post made it 100 posts today! That is so amazing to me! I'm trying to think of something awesome to do celebrate. Anyone have any ideas? If so leave me a comment and you may just find something special waiting for you in your mailbox! Have a great rest of the day.

New Technique

Ok, it's not new...but it was definately new to me. This is the cracked glass technique. I actually made this several weeks ago, but it is so cool. You take Glassy Glaze Enamel and and emboss the entire stamped image three times letting it cool between each layer. Then after the last layer, you put it in the freezer for a few minutes. when it comes out you crack the glaze and it looks like this. Supposedly you can brush ink over the top to make the cracks more pronounced. I just think this thing is awesome! What about you? Any other embossing techniques you want to share?

Vacation is Over!!!

Why is it, after you have a vacation you need another vacation? I'm exhausted. And only two weeks until my Mother in law gets here for her visit. We really need to figure out how to spread these visits out. I figured I have stretched out the SAS as far as i can....so here are the final 7 cards. Please remember, if you loved these cards as much as I did to thank Mary Jo Price-Williams on her blog. I know I keep reiterating this, but CASEing (copy and share everything) is an important part of the Stamping culture. The ladies I know from Latenightstampers are so giving with their talents by sharing their creations, I want to make sure they get all the credit they deserve!!!! If it weren't for them I wouldn't be able to make 99% of the creations I share here. If you ever see anything that I may have CASEd from you, and I haven't given you credit, please let me know! I will correct the oversight immediately. Ok, enough of this....here are the last of the cards!

SAS 9

Yet another Stick a stack card. Isn't it amazing everything a Simply Scrappin Kit can make. Thanks again Mary Jo for figuring all this out!

SAS 8

I'm loving my vacation...hope you are loving these cards!

How about an Easter Break

Happy Easter everyone! Right now we should be looking for eggs in the Alps. Hope you all are having a fabulous holiday. I thought you might need a bit of a break from the SAS cards by now......so here are some cute little easter baskets that I made to give away at the SAS. They aren't 100% SU!, but the only thing that isn't is the stickers. My daughter thought they were too cute to pass up. A good friend's mom, another great customer and stamper, sent them to me! Thanks Gloria!!!!!!

SAS 7

Are you enjoying the lack of comments from me? :) This is my favorite card of the bunch!

SAS 6

Remember to let Mary Jo Price Williams know how much you are enjoying these cards!

SAS 5

Today is a day off. We are actually sitting home relaxing, well not totally relaxing. We are packing for our trip to Bertchesgaden (about 12 miles from Austria). We will be there for a few days, so the next couple of days will just be card posts. We are planning on Tobagganing down a mountain, taking the Sound of Music tour, and of course having an Easter Egg hunt on Easter. I'll see you when we get back!

SAS 4

Ok, it's been a busy week so far. We have been to Playmobil Land, and yesterday we headed to Pottenstein. They have a cave you can explore and possibly the best restaurant on earth. It has a German name, but all us American's call it Steak on a Stone and it is incredible. They litterally bring out a slab of exotic meat (Kangaroo anyone?) and a hot stone and you cook it yourself. It is incredible! Today we are off to Rothesburg, a medieval walled city and the Kathy Wolfarte factory! Ok, enough about that....here's the next card.

SAS #3

Remember if you like these, they aren't my original idea! They came from Mary Jo Price-Williams. Let her know how much you like them by leaving a comment on her blog.

Stick a Stack Card 2

Well today we are in Prague. We had to leave at 0'dark thirty to get on the bus, but I know it will be amazing! Just as amazing is the Stick a Stack Card #2!

My Parent's are here!!!!!

One of the worst parts of living in Germany is being so far away from my parents. Why is it that we never realize how important they are until we have kids of our own? Anyway, we will be traveling Germany, Czech, and Austria while they are here so I won't have a whole lot of time to post. With that in mind, I've decided to share the cards I made for a Stamp-A-Stack I held the end of March.Wait until you see them, They are amazing cards! Whoever came up with the idea must be a genius! :) Ok, as usual it wasn't me! It was Mary Jo Price-Williams. She was kind enough to share this with our Latenightstamers group and gave me permission to run a SAS with them. (Ok my upline informed me it can't be a Stamp a Stack because we didn't stamp anything.......so I changed it to mean a Stick a Stack.) These are all made with 1/2 of the Best Ever Simply Scrappin Kit. If you are interested in the step by step directions, just let me know. As long as you aren't one of Mary Jo's customers I would be happy to share them. (She will be hosting her own sometime soon. )

So, for the next 16 days, while I'm galavanting around Europe you can check out these cards. Here is card #1.

Paper Dolls

Ok, I admit it. I was one of those kids that was always fascinated with dolls, even the paper kind. Anyone remember the cling on kind? What were those called? They were made out of a shiny black plastic and then all the clothes etc. were plastic too. I had Raggedy Ann and my brother had superhero ones. Ok, I'm probably dating myself. Anyway, I think I had them on my mind when I came up with this birthday idea for one of the girls in my son's Kindergarten. The only thing SU! on here are the paper for the clothes and the die cut name, but I am so hoping they start carrying the dress ups dies. I absolutely love these and keep finding myself buying more and more sets to match. I laminated these, then tried to use self stick Velcro to hold the clothes on. It didn't work too well. I think the next time I will try Aileen's tack it over and over and see if I can make it work like those cling on dolls we had way back when.

Cute Heart Pouch

Ok, I admit it. Nothing on this cute little heart pouch is Stampin' Up! It was taught my my newest sideline, and she has not received her starter kit yet. She was so excited to share at our downline meeting, she used what she had. I just think this is super precious. I can't wait to make one using SU! paper and ribbon.

Blogger is acting crazy again. Anyone know why my pictures keep getting turned sideways? Its always so random! If you can help me out I would be happy to send you something special in the mail. Just leave me a comment!

It's April!!! Time to Make Cards for Sherrill Graff!!!!!!

Yeah, its finally time. Remember way back on February 16th I told you all about wonderful Sherrill Graff and her hiring program? Well I was hired to make 50 cards for her in April. I just sent her my order for supplies, so very soon you should be seeing plenty of cards that will be winging their way (via USPS) to her soon. I used this opportunity to order items that I always wanted to have, but couldn't really figure out what to do with them. Now I have them, and I promise not to be stingy. Until they get here though, I thought I would show you a card I made for Sherrill using the Smoosh technique. Not sure what Smooshing is? Drop me a comment and I'd be happy to let you know.

Bookmark "Cheers to You"

Do you all remember me talking about how great it is to be a demo and get to attend downline meetings? If not, go back a couple days and re-read it! :) This shoebox swap was prepared by a guest. Hopefully she had such a great time she will sign up herself. Isn't it adorable? It made me want to go get a Margarita!