Take a look at the Spooky Spider Decor Element released in time for Halloween this year.  It is the first of what is yet to come shortly.  You may download the pdf file here, so you can see the sizes and other details.

I’ve purchased the largest image for my treat jar which hopefully will be displayed at my Open House on Saturday, October 4th and 1pm. Or you could adhere it above your door or on a nearby window to scare off the trick-or-treaters! The exclusive Spooky Spider comes in three sizes and two colors and is designed to coordinate with our Ghostly Greetings Designer Series paper and our Chills & Thrills Rub-Ons from the Fall-Winter 2008 Idea Book & Catalog.

A new phase of Decor Elements will be released soon, and a new brochure will be available to include the previously released Phase 1 and the newly released Phase 2 images.  Wow!  Wait until you see the colors that they will be manufactured in!  Almost makes me want to get pregnant to shoot for a baby girl, so I can decorate her room with these beautiful images.  Ok, NO!  Just trying to see if you were paying attention!    There are so many areas of  your home where you could easily apply these beautiful additions.  The decor elements have been designed not only to coordinate with our current stamps sets and embellishments, but also to easily be incorporated with your current decor.  Not to mention  that there are other images specifically designed with holiday decorating in mind.  You’ll see what I mean soon.  hehehhee, I just love surprises!  Check back soon because you definitely don’t want to miss seeing the soon to be released phase 2!

In the meantime, if you’d like to add this SPOOKY SPIDER to your Halloween Decor Collection, please give me a call or go online to shop!  Remember, it’s only here until October 31st!

 Well, after making this card, I realized it’s a good thing I have only one best friend!    I wouldn’t spend this time for just anybody, but then again, as one of my stamps reads, "this ain’t no stinkin’ off the rack kind of card either." 

Some people may not feel that brown belongs in any collection of Christmas colors.  Recall last year, that our Christmas wrapping paper combined iced blue with chocolate chip, which is a great color pair!  My favorite color combination pairs my favorite color, which is green, with brown,  so when you add my second favorite color, red, to the mix, it’s certainly a hit with me! The designer series collection I used to make this card is called Holiday Treasures.  Since it uses the same combinations of colors,  I realized why I have been so drawn to the Bella Rose collection of papers since their release!  Believe it or not, the entire card was built around using the very vanilla frame and brads from the Hodgepodge Hardware collection.  That was the first component, and the rest just fell into place. 

This card base starts with a 10" x 5" piece of very vanilla card stock, folded in half the long way, and scored.  I used a 2.5" x 5" piece of the striped paper adhered to the bottom of the card base, and a 2.5" x 5" piece of Riding Hood Red adhered to the top of the card base.  I used a 1.5" x 5" piece of olive green cardstock adhered over the seam between the two.  Then I even added one more pattern to the mix from the Bella Rose collection.  I adhered the .75" x 5" piece of  polka dotted piece of chocolate chip over the olive green.  I stitched the entire square perimeter of the card, as well as across the card at both margins of the olive green. 

Then I started building the layers for the for what started as my focal point, the very vanilla frame.  I made the first layer from Riding Hood Red cardstock, punched with the label punch.  I punched a circle from old olive cardstock for the second layer, which was popped up with dimensionals.    The next layer was the Merry Christmas stamp from the Curly Label Punch Bundle stamp set.  I stamped it first in chocolate chip and again in old olive.  I cut the middle part, "Christmas" from the green image, and adhered it on top of the chocolate chip image.  I cut out the oval, and adhered it with stampin’ dimensionals on top of the old olive circe.  I cut two small pieces of our beautiful new Riding Hood Red Taffeta Ribbon.  I cut the two ends inwards, like a banner.  I inserted the very vanilla brads through the card top.

I cut out flowers and leaves from the poinsettia paper, and layered them on top of each other with stampin’ dimensionals.  I used the versamark marker’s brush end to "paint" the middle section of all of the poinsettia flowers, and embossed with irridescent ice embossing powder.

To finish the card’s interior, I placed another piece of Riding Hood Red cardstock, cut 4 7/8 x 4 7/8 and adhered it over the inside of the card’s top, covering the threads and the brads.  I dislike having any messy ends or hardware showing on the inside of my cards, so it’s just a last finishing touch.

Even though I have only one best friend, I consider myself really lucky because we met in the 7th grade, spent every day together for years, got married the same year, and were pregnant at the same time.  When I moved to FL in 1996, I only saw my best friend at Christmas, when my family would make the long trip up north and visit with everyone.  Four years ago, my best friend and her husband moved to Lake St. Charles in Riverview, FL.  Wow, what a surprise!  Now, we don’t need to wait until Christmas to see each other, and it’s as though we never were apart.  I’ve known Laurie for 35 years, and the best part is that she still likes me!  lol

You can see what I made for Laurie’s new home office last year for her Christmas present at my Stampin’ Up! gallery. It took two pictures to get the entire collection of desk accessories I made her.

I hope she likes her card.

Enjoy!

"Maybe I didn’t hold you, quite as often as I should have … tell me …. oh, tell me that your sweet love hasn’t died …."  - Willie Nelson

Ok, now I planted my own song virus in my head for the day.  Couldn’t help it, because everytime I pick up this stamp set, I sing this Willie Nelson song.    I am crazy for the style of this Always  stamp set and the Bella Rose dsp.  I know we’ll see more of this to come.  This is my third catalog with Stampin’ Up!, and the company continues to make great strives forward in producing gorgeous double sides designer series papers as well as really hip and chic stamp sets.

I made this card with my Big Shot, using our largest scallop circle Bigz die as the card base, cut on Bella Rose dsp.  All you need to do is place your folded in half piece of Bella Rose 9.5 x 4.75" dsp,  placing the fold just a tiny bit lower than the top two scallops, which will produce two things.  First it produces a fold whereby the card can open/close keeping the other scallops in tact.  Second, it produces two small holes on each side of these top two scallops, whereby you can thread your Kiwi Kiss/Very Vanilla taffetta ribbon through and tie on the outside in a bow.  This ribbon is SOOOO gorgeous IRL, with a satin sort of sheen on both sides.

I stamped the small stems with dots in versamark, and covered with clear embossing powder.  You probably can’t see it in the picture which is head on, but it’s subtle and tactile.  It looks slightly gray in the picture above.  Anyway, I then stamped the bird in Pink Pirouette in color ink.  Using my stamp-a-ma-jig for placement, I stamped the bird AGAIN in Riding Hood Red, just slightly to the left of the first image in pink, thus creating a slight shadow effect.  Again, hard to see in picture.  Then I used our markers in real red, old olive, and pretty in pink to color the "A" in always. These are the closest to the in colors as I can get without using a blending pen.    

So, the small scallop was cut from our sizzlet die, Birds in Bloom, on the green paper, also from the Bella Rose dsp.  The middle of the "a" is the center circle of the small scalloped circle from the same paper, turned over.  I just happened to get really lucky when I flipped it over, that a rose bud and two leaves were perfectly centered so I punched the center out of it’s perforated smaller circle, and adhered it with glue dot.  The rest of the "a" is popped up with dimensionals on the green scallop, which is popped up with dimensionals next to the bird.

For the inside, because it was the dark red, I chose to use another Sizzix bigz die,Circles & Scallops #2, to cut the inner scallop on whisper white cardstock, and centered it on the inside of the card.

Again, using old olive and real red, i colored the sentiment stamp with my markers. 

I figured the vellum envelopes are two big for this almost 4.5 size card, and it really does fit in a standard A2 size envelope.  So to ensure ithat the scallops didn’t get crushed, I rescored the top fold of my envelope just slightly higher, raising it just a smidgen (technical scrapbooking term) over the top 2 scallops to close the envelope carefully.

I hope you enjoyed the card today!  Thanks so much for stopping by.

This is a treat bag I made using the Batty For You stamp set.  It’s called a bag in a box, cleverly designed by Ann Fitton, I just love this set, but I don’t own it, so I had to borrow it twice from some friends. This bag is really cute, and of course, could easily be adapted with other stamp sets for other holidays and seasons.

It’s made with pumpkin pie designer series paper, and olive green, pumpkin pie, and black cardstock.  You start by making the bottom into a box with 4.5" x 4.5" olive green cardstock, scored on all sides at 1". In each corner, I snipped in to the scoreline, creating tabs to fold in, and adhered with sticky strip, creating a box.  I then ran a long piece of sticky strip along the entire inside bottom edge of the pumpkin pie dsp, and wrapped this around the edge of the box. I used the scalloped edge punch on the black cardstock  1.5×11".   I also punched the black cardstock piece with the scalloped circle punch.  Frankenstein was stamped twice, first in black and punched with 1 3/8" circle punch.  I stamped him again in old olive and popped up with dimensionals.  I also used the round label punch to make two black cardstock labels.  I  cut 10" pieces of both pumpkin pie striped ribbon and 1/4" black grosgrain ribbon.  I punched holes in the center of the round label punched after it was folded in half, and applied snail adhesive to each side of the top of the bag.  I then used the crop-a-dile to adhere the antiqued brass jumbo eyelets to the center of each round label.  I tied knots in the ribbon ends, and ran it through each of the jumbo eyelets and tied in bow.