Another goal from my long list of business goals I wrote at convention, was to read blogs less often, and make paper creations more!    With that said, today I particpated in two of the weekly challenges for the members on the Splitcoast Stampers’ Website.  I started with the Tuesday Color challenge 186, using Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, and Baja Breeze.  Well, if I actually owned the Designer Series Paper that incorporated these 3 colors, it sure would have been easier, wouldn’t it have?  Well, there wasn’t any "easy" button on this, and it didn’t come quickly as to which color should be the dominant, the compliment, or the coordinating color.  You know, the color wheel thing?  This is what I finally opted for.

I started the second challenge too, which was to go back to yesterday and try the Monday Technique challenge.  It was a batik technique (hey, say that 10 times fast!)  So I did the technique entirely, but didn’t use the background which I had created.  I stamped and embossed many snowflakes with clear embossing powder on watercolor paper.  Then I took 3 colors of our Stampin” Up! re-inkers and put a drop or two into a water mister spray bottle.  You then spritz each color separately and dab off any blobs, and go on to the next color, until you’re satisfied with the results.  When you get the colors the way you like, you fold a piece of copy paper in half, enveloping your watercolor paper inside, embossing face up.  Heat your iron without steam, and iron on top of the copy paper, which removes the embossing, and leaves the natural color of the paper showing from underneath.  Basically, it forms a resist between the color spritzed paper, and the original stamped images.  This used to be achieved with wax on silk; don’t know how long ago I did that.  lol  Take my word for it, this is a lot easier!  Anyway, I used baja breeze, pacific point, and kiwi kiss.  The colors are pastel around my snowflakes, which I was trying to achieve with the less is more principle.  We’ll see what a fresh set of eyes can do for me tomorrow!  Til then, I hope you enjoyed seeing my card.

Technorati Tags: color challenge, Happiness Always stamp set, Priceless stamp set, techniques, Urban Garden dsp

 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!

Technorati Tags: Bella Rose dsp, circle punch, Curly Label Punch Bundle, Holiday Treasures dsp, label punch, Riding Hood Red Taffeta Ribbon, sewing on cards, Very Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware

"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.

Technorati Tags: Always stamp set, Bella Rose dsp, Big Shot, bigz dies, Birds in Bloom Sizzlet die, Kiwi Kiss Very Vanilla Taffetta Ribbon, scalloped circles die cuts, Sizzix Bigz Dies

Some great demonstrator friends and I got together today to share some ideas and projects.   The first project, was my contribution which was a special delivery, loaded pizza pie!  The mini pizza box tutorial, by Jen Muro, can be found here on Scor-Pal’s website. 

This is my adaptation, using theVoila Stamp Set.  I stamped the main image in stazon ink, and highlighted with going gray ink and a blender pen, and real red marker for the scarf.  I created the box with Kraft cardstock, because it was the most like a pizza box.

I used our two original oval punches, but trimmed the larger one down to make the crust more anatomically correct.  lol.  I used a sponge dauber in creamy caramel on both edges of both ovals, which were punched in more mustard cs.  I used our 1/4" circle punch for the pepperonis and slivers of the GLORIOUS GREEN cardstock, from the Brights collection!  WOW! I can’t believe I used the Brights!  I used the same colors real red in 3 3/4" x 3 3/4" and green in 3.5 x 3.5 for mats.  Since these are the colors found in the Italian flag, I figured I would pay tribute.   I used 4" wide strips of both green and red, but used the scalloped edge punch on the red.  Ok, so here’s how the box looks from the side:

And the BEST part is what is inside the box:

It’s a 5-slice piece of fruit gummi pizza, and it got two thumbs up from my 11 year old son! 

Ok, so now the 2nd project, presented by my friend Susan, was this cute little box made with Stampin’ Up!’s exclusive die cut,  the scalloped edge envelope.   You cut four dies at a time in the new in-color, kiwi kiss, cardstock.  You use red sticky tape to tape all of the side flaps to the next envelope’s side flap, all the way around.  The bottom is already scored by the die, and folds in on all four envelopes, which you can adhere two opposite sides and then two more opposite or you can fold one on top of the next, until you tuck the last corner in (like all boxes with a temporary close).  Anyway, then you can decorate the side with a piece of red, pink and white Bella Rose designer series paper.  We stamped the larger image from the Dreams du Jour  stamp set in chocolate chip and used blender pens in kiwi kiss, riding hood red, and pink piroutte to color it in.  We popped up this image with stampin dimensionals onto a die cut flower cut from the brown pattern of Bella Rose,made from the Pennants exclusive die.

Ok, last but not least, we have the cutest little snowman card, made another friend and team member, Robin Satterwhite.  We used the Window Dressing, Level 3 FREE Hostess set with qualifying party.

We started with a piece of Baja Breeze for the card base.  We used Kiwi Kiss for the larger mat, Pacific Point for the 2nd mat, and then we stamped the snowman image and sentiment on Whisper White.  Before we stamped the image and sentiment, we actually sponged Pacific Point ink all over the mat, using a 2" circle punch as a mask.  Once the background was sponged, we removed the mask, and stamped the snowman and sentiment. As you can see from my example, this is a good set to use your Stamp-a-ma-jig tool.  I thought the circle was from "Seeing Spots" but it’s not, and I know I don’t have this set, so I would have substituted the circle with the one in Priceless.  We used the 1/4" circle punch at the edge (centered) of each left and right sides of the whisper white cardstock mat that we sponged, and  inserted a brad into the Pacific Point cardstock in that space.  We used the 1/16" punch for that. 

WHEW!  I haven’t posted for a week I think, because I’ve been working on creating classes for the next couple of months, as well as combining all my contacts’ lists into one major list with I-Contact which is Constant Contact’s competitor.  It’s a marketing/communication/newsletter tool, so you can be expecting better quality newsletters, and more customizable by me, so I can actually provide a lot more information and pictures that you’ll like to see of projects, classes, and things you can make, on a monthly or semi-monthly basis.  Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hoped you liked the projects we made as much as we liked making them.

Technorati Tags: Bella Rose Designer Series Paper, Big Shot, Dreams du Jour stamp set, exclusive Stamin' Up! dies, mini pizza box, Pennants Exclusive die, Punches, scalloped edge punch, Scalloped Envelope Exclusive die, scor-pal, Voila stamp set, Window Dressing