The Pun Fun Stamp Set is one of my new favorites.  I haven’t had it too long, so I’m just beginning to play with it.  I’ll be offering a stamp-a-stack in August when I return from convention that uses the Pun Fun set.  More of that will follow. 

Today, I made a few changes to a small gift card holder which had posted to our yahoo demonstrator group a few days ago.   I used a corner rounder at the bottom edge of the front flap, to make the scalloped edge.  The middle scallop is actually the enclosure for the gift card holder, and slides into a small slit I made into the bottom flap with my craft knife, just before I taped it up to form the pocket.  I used the skinny sticky tape on the pocket, as well as punching 1/2 of a circle with the 1 1/4 inch circle punch.  I stamped the front background with the small flower from One of a Kind set, and the "For You" from the Fundamental Phrases set.  The bird is from Pun Fun, as is the inside sentiment, which reads, "Happy Bird-day!" I colored the bird with both pastels and markers.  There are many small images that would be a great substitute for the bird image.

Speaking of the scalloped edge, I won’t have to make it this way anymore, since TODAY my new order from Stampin’ Up! arrived with the new scallop edge punch inside!  YEAH!  I just can’t say enough about it.  My order was a sneak peak of products which will be coming your way when the new catalog comes out in August, and you’ll be able to order from August 11. 

Technorati Tags: Cards, Gift cards, Pun Fun

Tonights post is for a card I made for my upline’s upline’s (we’ve just got to come up with a better word for this) monthly competition.  I’m always too busy and forget the deadlines, and there’s only so much time in a day.  However, entering all of the team monthly contests as well as the ones that Stampin’ Up! publishes in Stampin’ Success Monthly newsletter is on my list of New Year’s Resolutions!    Yes, it’s New Years already for us Stampin’ Up! demonstrators, since the new year clock starts July 1st.  Anyway, I have a lot of goals on my list, and it would be a pretty tenacious undertaking to accomplish them all, but I’m up for it! 

The requirements were to use 2 stamp sets that will be retiring August 10th, and a 3rd if it’s a word/phrase set.  Also, could only use 3 colors and one neutral.  Everything else was game.  I just love Artfully Asian, so I used that as the main image, and the 2nd set is the Circle of Friendship set.  I did throw in the 3rd with the outside AND the inside sentiment coming from the It’s Your Birthday set.  Of course the Pretties Kit and the Hodgepodge Hardware Kits were also used.  Since tomorrow is the deadline anyway,  I’ll share this card.  Good luck to everyone!  Bring it! 

  Don’t forget these sets are going away August 10th, so email me to place an order.

Technorati Tags: Artfully Asian, Cards, Circle of Friendship, Hodgepodge Hardware, It's Your Birthday, Pretties Kit, Retired stamps

Recently I stumbled upon a new website that I thought I’d share with you.  It’s called "Sheetload of Cards".  You can get to their blog and the July issue published here.  Coincedently (no really) I was trying to fit in a theme of Christmas in July, into my calendar.  Now that I’ve finished unpacking and laundering everything from our vacation last week, there are less than 2 weeks of July left, and convention in Utah at the end of the month, so what am I thinking?  lol

I used the previous newsletter to make this card.  I used Stampin’ Up!’s Berry Bliss Designer Series Paper and some felt flowers from our Flower Fusion Accents and Elements.  The stamp set is Friendship Blooms, a retiring hostess set.

 Thanks for looking!

Technorati Tags: Accents and Elements, Cards, Flower Fusion Accents and Elements, Friendship Blooms, Sheetload of Cards, templates

Ok, so recently, I discovered that not every scrapbooker or cardmaker knows what a stamp-a-stack is, so I thought I’d use my most recent girls’ nite out to bring some samples to you.  Now that my blog is up, you’ll be able to see my upcoming stamp-a-stack examples as part of my events and calendar updates.  I hold them once a month on both Wednesday mornings and evenings to ensure that everyone has a chance to attend.

Basically, most demonstrators choose to do either 5 designs, with 4 cards of each design, or vice versa.  I like to provide 4 designs,so I have 5 cards of each.  My cost is the going rate of $25 each for the 20 cards, and I precut and prescore the cards, ribbons, and embellishments, and provide the envelopes too.  All you have to do is follow my provided example and stamp the images, and glue/tape etc it together.  This is also helpful for my customers to take the same design and apply it to the stamp sets that they have at home, using the basic design/sketch as the foundation.  Another helpful tip comes from seeing the usefulness of the "assembly line" process, where again, my customers can make larger quantities of the cards by precutting and scoring all the cardstock cards and other embellishments for time savings and efficiency.  Lastly, by being here at your demonstrator’s home, means that you can come out to play, have fun with the ladies, and you don’t have to clean your house!

If I can, I like to attend my friend Janet Casto’s monthly stamp-a-stack, because she’s loads of fun to be around, she always has an infectious positive attitude about everything, and she is extremely creative!  Besides, she has more stamp sets than I do, and as we all know, she with the most stamp sets WINS! 

So, tonight the theme of her montly class was "Clean and Simple", which is refreshing for me.  I spend quite a lot of time designing and then creating my cards.  Typically, I just spend a lot of time deliberating over the colors first, and then finally putting all the layers together.  I usually choose more layers and more time-consuming steps than I need to, especially for a stamp-a-stack or a hostess party, because there’s such a mix or levels of skill and interest.  Therefore, this theme was a good one for me.  All of the cards used Whisper White as the background, which I also rarely do.  This is why it’s a great sample to show because it appeals to all skill levels, and can be adapted to any stamp set.

Here are the cards we made with her sets, which I only had one of:

Together Forever Stamp Set

On the Fly Stamp Set

Wonderful You (2 step stamping) Stamp Set

and French Flair Background stamp with Think Happy Thoughts for circle

No matter what your experience, stamp-a-stack monthly classes provide a great benefit.  They allow you to use some sets that you don’t have, let you stock up with 20 new cards for your stash to give to friends and relatives, provide you with loads of tips from your demonstrator on just about everything, and have fun without any of the mess.

I hope to see you soon, at my next monthly stamp-a-stack class.

Technorati Tags: Cards, French Flair, On the Fly, stamp-a-stack, Think Happy Thoughts, Together Forever, Two Step Stamping, Wonderful You