from my ink pad to yours

Pool Party Polka Dots

Today's Paper Player's Challenge is a Clean and Simple Challenge with Polka Dots. I used Pool Party Polka Dots with both my vase and the brad in the large flower.

The stamp set, Bright Blossoms, will be available in the new catalog, beginning in June.  The DSP is from the retiring paper collection, Domestic Goddess. The Blossom Bouquet Triple Layer Punch (the single large flower) is also on the retiring list.

You can't see them but this card once again depends on my favorite accessory, Stampin' Dimensionals.

 

Background Paper Challenges and Curvy Verses

A few months ago a stamping friend, Lynn, brought me a couple of leftover background papers she had made, had no immediate use for, but couldn't discard. I made cards with all three but still need to shoot pictures of the last two but here is the first piece I used:

This background is made with shaved chalk. I'm not sure where Lynn first saw the technique but I found some directions here.

I was playing this piece and a scrap of Tasteful Trim rick rack and came up with this as a baby card.

I couldn't come up with a good spot to stamp the greeting on the outside so I put in on the inside:

I liked the way that the "One baby, many happy hearts" works with the tied together hearts (white bakers twine) on the front. This is from the retiring set, Curvy Verses # 114948.

BTW, it was easy to line up the hearts using the Small Heart punch, lining up the edge of the punch with the edge of the previously punched heart.

More Early Parties

is the name of today's color challenge on Splitcoaststampers. That is, More Mustard, Early Espresso, and Pool Party. Those are the colors of the designer paper from last fall, Spice Cake.

I went to a old favorite simple layout to mix up a piece of DSP with Mixed Bunch. Last time I used this layout I chose the fancy Mixed Bunch flower with Early Edition DSP. Today I thought the simple dotted petal would be perfect with the Spice Cake pattern on my card. The button is a retired corduroy (Close to Cocoa) sponged with Early Espresso.

Stamps: Mixed Bunch, Curly Cute, Woodgrain

Colors: Early Espresso, More Mustard, Pool Party

Accessories: Tasteful Trim, Snow Burst, Spice Cake DSP

Hopefully this will be a temporary Goodbye

Though I really think Apothecary Art should make it into the next catalog, you never really know. This could be your last chance to get this beautiful set and the coordinating framelits. I CAN assure you that it won't be the last time you see these images on my blog.

Apothecary Art will definitely be a part of my "permanent" stamp collection. Though I've seen many beautiful cards with this set I think the simpler, more straightforward the layout, the better.  I've had the label for this card done for months spreading it out with coordinating papers, doilies and other accessories but never got a card actually made with it until I went back to one of the first layouts I tried with it. The embossed layer probably makes it look a little more complicated than it is.

Don't forget to consider Whisper White as a layer for matting.

Colors: markers: River Rock, Whisper White, Wisteria Wonder, Concord Crush

Stamps: Apothecary Art, Take it to Heart, Loving Thoughts

Acessories: Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, Sanding Block, Whisper White taffeta ribbon, Labels Framelit, In-colors 2011-13 DSP, Dazzling Details

 

 

Bright Blossoms/Summer Smooches

Just playing around with Summer Smooches and Bright Blossoms. More about these products here. The greetingis from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

What do you think of the offset layer?

Take it to Heart ala Summer Smooches

I thought that a Rich Razzleberry heart implies something about courage. That's why I chose the sentiment "you inspire me" from the hostess set, Perfect Words. The Rich Razzleberry taffeta ribbon is retired though I think that you could make this color using Whisper White and an inkpad OR you could use the Rich Razzleberry Grosgrain.

49

It's been a long time since I've had 49 sets retire in one year. This year Stampin' Up! is retiring quite a few as they transition to a new catalog and move to having most sets available in both wood and clear mount.

This card features Nature Silhouettes and the double mounted Inspired by Nature. This is a favorite card that I created while staying up at my parents' Sea Villa on Lake Superior. I tried to catch the beauty of the sunrise over the lake. This was also a favorite with my stamp club. You can check out the original post for this card if you like.

Find the whole 2012 Retired List pdf here;

You can shop the retired sets here.

Bordering Enchantment

You know, I started to keep a couple of small drawers with the different color groups of Tasteful Trim pieces. A little bit of trim from this die goes a long way! That and dimensionals.

 

Here's a quick peek at the inside:

 

 

Trimmed Balloon

Life is busy and I seem to be on a CAS kick lately. I had intentions of layering up this cute bunny and balloon in grand style but ended up with this little vanilla on vanilla gem instead:

As I look at the real card now, the Pool Party seems a little brighter than the photo.  Here's a shot of the inside:

Colors are from Everyday Enchantment DSP (Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Pool Party and Poppy Parade). Simple coloring with markers.

Hope your day is happy!

Enchanted Bluebird

Or not.

I wouldn't call the bluebird frequenting our windows of late enchanted. Demented would be more like it. If it was a larger bird it would be pretty freaky but you can't but feel a little blue guy who keeps attacking our windows. What a headache he must have!

Well, I colored my bluebird quite awhile ago, inspired by the colors in the Everyday Enchantment collection. I think this bird is better behaved since his beak is so sharp. This weekend my bird finally got a home on this card:

• Colors are Calypso Coral, Poppy Parade, Pool Party, Crumb Cake, Pear Pizazz.
• The DSP is from Everyday Enchantment. Of course. I suppose you could use one of the Poppy Parade patterns if you are having trouble cutting into your last pieces of Everyday Enchantment.
• I embossed the stripes with the Simply Scored though you could do this using the Cutter/Scorer - plus a little patience.
• The Pool Party Tasteful Trim piece is sponged with the same color ink.
• The brad in the Pool Party seam binding is from the Everyday Enchantment ribbon and brad pack but I think you could use the In Color Designer Brads if you didn't get a chance to order those during Sale-a-bration.
• Lastly, I popped up the heart with dimensionals.

Thanks for looking!

Chris

A Simple Welcome to Summer Smooches

Happy April! No April Fools Day jokes here but I hope you had a chance to pull a good one on somebody.

This simple Lucky Limeade and Whisper White card shows off the  Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper (125409),  a paper pack that will be in the new catalog in June but is also available this month as part of Stampin' Up!'s April preview offer.

The flower is made with the Blossom punch (Occasions Mini) and its center is one of the Summer Smooches Fabric Designer Brads. This set of brads, along with the Summer Smooches Decor Stencil will only be available during April and will not appear in the new catalog. I curled the petals of the flower with a pencil. The greeting "thinking of you" comes from the set Three Little Words. The green leaves are actually from a five petal punch flower. I just scored the center veins.

I've started a Bright Blossoms (stamp set)/Summer Smooches board over on Pinterest. Check it out.

 

                             

Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper                        Summer Smooches Fabric Designer Brads

#125409  $10.95                                                                        #125589  $6.95

You can see the whole Summer Smooches Collection on

my Stampin' Up! website: Products/Shop Now/Home/Shop by Collection/Summer Smooches

 

Other products in this card:

Three Little Words double mounted stamp set #113254 $13.95 IBC p.166

Blossom punch #125603 Occasions Mini Catalog p.17

Whisper White Card Stock #100730  $8.50/40 sheets IBC p.180

5 Petal Flower punch #119880 $16.95 IBC p.210

        (Check out the clearance rack if you would like to save a few dollars on the old style punch!)

 

FYI

You did order some extra Everyday Enchantment designer paper during this year's Sale-a-bration, right?

I know I haven't been posting much over the past few weeks but I did want to give you a heads up that I definitely have some unfinished business with this set of papers.  I don't intend to stop using them just because they aren't available anymore. You've been warned. I've been cleaning down in my stamp room this morning and this is some of what I need to get back and finish.

I know that my regular stampers have stocked up but I just wanted any of my blog followers to have fair warning. March 31 is your last day to place a Sale-a-bration order and make sure this stuff is in your stash! Each Sale-a-bration item is free with a $50 (US) order.

If you don't have a regular demonstrator that you can order from feel free to order through my Stampin' Up! website link at the top of my blog.  Sets featured in the photo include

• Bordering on Romance 125480 (w) from the Occasions Mini (p.11)
• Take it to Heart 125520 (w), Occasions Mini (p.14)
• Everybunny 122705 (w) from the main catalog (p.48)
• Outlined Occasions 126014 (w) which is also a free choice from the Sale-a-bration mini.
• Everyday Enchantment DSP 126154, Sale-a-bration Mini
• Everyday Enchantment Ribbon & Brad pack 127279

 

Doily, Doily, Doily

Though there are endless possibilities with the beautiful Hello Doily stamp, it's a cinch to make EASY, elegant cards with this image. In all of these cards I've embossed the image with white embossing powder.

This Wisteria Wonder beauty is backed up by an Elegant Eggplant layer and gets some pizzazz from a little rhinestone bling.  "Thank You" is from Perfectly Penned.

This is the version I've included in the Card Makers' Buffet.

Here are a couple of others that I haven't yet posted.

This was my attempt for a challenge I saw last year that suggested unusual ways to use patterned paper. I embossed the doily on striped paper from Stampin' Up!'s Big Top Birthday collection. The words are from Three Little Words. Can you see the corner on the inside? I stamped "i miss you", also from the Three Little Words set, on a scrap of striped paper and put it on the inside corner. You know, I really think that decorating the inside is my favorite part of making a card.

Here is one more with the doily embossed on So Saffron. I outlined the doily with a Versamarker to give it a shadow.

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Makers' Buffet

I've been working on a few extra cards to add to my upcoming Card Buffet:

As I've mentioned before, Everyday Enchantment is one of my all time favorite collections of paper. This simple double fold card pulls colors from this set of paper to fill in Celebrate from Outlined Occasions.

As you can see, I used Everyday Enchantment paper again to put this "donut" card together with the cute little mushrooms from Everybunny, an Easter stamp set from the main catalog (p. 48).  The card base is Crumb Cake stamped with Woodgrain in Soft Suede.

Here's a peek at the inside:

Measurements

Lisa asked about measurements on yesterday's BFF card.  The finished card is a regular A2: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches.  I cut a 8.5 x 11 sheet down to 5.5 x 11 and then scored it at 3.5 and 7.75. The main thing is that you want the middle section between the two score lines to be 4 1/4" wide. the other two sections will be your flaps or flap and pocket. You can adjust these measurements to meet your design needs.

I hope this makes sense.

BFF with a nod to formality

I didn't think I would take a quite such a break from posting as I did last week but, well, I did. I'm taking on some new responsibilities at my "day" job which have a bit of a learning curve. As a result, some of the free time that I had planned on last week dried up a bit.  Then I got to do a little preparation for a stamping slumber party I had this last Sunday and Monday. A few of my downline came down to Belle Plaine from western Minnesota for  winter stamping retreat. We stamped and talked and stamped and laughed and stamped and ate and  stamped and slept and stamped, stamped, stamped! I think we all ended up with at least 2 dozen cards etc. before they headed home yesterday afternoon. Though several of the cards have already made appearances on my little blog I do have a few new pieces to supply blog fodder for awhile.

Now I'm sitting in a Caribou,  after leaving extra early for a workshop (for the aformentioned day job) in order to avoid what was forecast as a messy morning commute (my usual commute is about 3 minutes.) and I have the luxury of time to blog a bit.

I haven't spent a whole lot of time playing with the new edgelits until the end of our afternoon yesterday.  As long as you use a little Dotto on the edgelits and the cardstock - to keep them in place - they work pretty well. I had been working on a folded/envelope style card with an edgelit flap as I had seen something similar with doilies. When I went to pull out the doily stamps, I happened upon the Best Friends Forever set I featured in my last post. Isn't the border type stamp perfect with this edge?

I don't think the evening light captured the ribbon very well. It's Basic Black Taffeta, which is a little more gray than black. After initally doubting that the gray tones would work with the crisp Jet Black Stazon image on Very Vanilla, I was surprised to see that it was perfect. Then I had to rush and whip up three more so I could send them with my visiting stampers who were already loading their stamping goodies up for thier trip back home.

This could easily be made with an inside pocket for a gift card or the inside could be printed with an invitation.

Supplies for this are simple:

Stamps: Best Friends Forever

Ink Jet Black Stazon

Paper: Very Vanilla, Basic Black

Accessories: Big Shot and Adorning Accents Edgelit (bracket edge), Basic Black Taffeta Ribbon

Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to be back soon.

 

 

Simple Card with Simple Accessories

This simple card is one that I put together during a lunch break one day last summer while I was at convention. I had just a few supplies with me but they were enough to create this card featuring the Best Friends Forever and It's Your Day, two of the convention stamp sets. It would be easy to change out the saying with one that is a little more oriented to Valentine's Day.

• The card is Crumb Cake with a Pink Pirouette heart
• The Designer Series Paper is Belle Chateau
• The taffeta ribbon is Soft Suede, as is the ink.
• Embellishments: Basic Pearls and, of course, a Stampin' Dimensional to pop the heart.

Have  a fun weekend!

Apothecary Birthday

I haven't blogged this card yet. It was part of that first page that I stamped on So Saffron. This shows the embossed edge that shows up on the piece you cut the label out of. I used the same label framelit to cut the So Saffron label as I did to cut the opening out of the Always Artichoke piece.

 

• This is colored with Bluch Blossom, Regal Rose, and Pear Pizazz.
• The sparkle comes from Dazzling Details, a carryover from the Holiday Mini catalog. (124117 is the item number.)
• I usually use a marker on the outline of the label, just to soften the look.
• The Always Arichoke piece is embossed with Elegant Bouquet.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Color Challenge - Not

I decided that I was going to participate in this week's color challenge ( Island Indigo, Basic Gray and Lucky Limeade) over on SCS and promptly chose Mixed Blossoms and the Twitterpated designer papers since both Basic Gray and Island Indigo are represented. I also decided that this card should be CAS or Clean and Simple. This certainly isn't the first time it happened but nothing I put together with these elements really worked  for me.I guess I was in more of a monochromatic mood.

Today I needed to get the stamping counter cleared off so I finished them off without getting all the colors together.  So, here they are. My color challenge inspired but not attained cards.

• I like this Basic Gray-hexagon-doily print. It lends a soft touch.I did a little white on white by layering  the Twitterpated layer on Whisper White card stock and then again on a Whisper White card.
• It seemed to me that the detail in the Mixed Bunch stamp echos the paper. The flower is embossed on vellum, punched out with the Blossom punch and layered over a Whisper White blossom. A rhinestone top off the center.
• The greeting, from Loving Thoughts is also embossed on vellum card stock and graces the lower part of my panel. 

Card #2 follows the same layout as the first without the vellum.

• This Island Indigo print is really striking on its own. So far I think I like it best this way.
• The rather bold flower center from Mixed Bunch stands up well to the print. 
• "{friend to friend}" is from the stamp set, Teeny, Tiny Wishes.
• Both cards make effective use of my favorite accessory, Stampin Dimensionals. (#104430, in case you need to add them to your next order.)

And finally, you can check out the Occasions Mini Catalog online today!. There is a link on the upper right side of my blog. If you don't already have a regular demonstrator feel free to shop with me at my online store linked at the top. You can see the new Occasions Mini products there too.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I've been doing.

Chris

 

One o' the Mix

Quick post here of a simple card with one of the flowers from Mixed Bunch, a set debuting in the Occasions Mini catalog tomorrow. The Dazzling Details on some of the images details doesn' t show up real well in this photo but I hope that you can get the idea. I keep a drawer of Tasteful Trim in various colors; so often it provides a quick finishing touch.

• Stamp sets: Mixed Bunch 125535 (w), Perfectly Penned 122890(w)
• Paper: So Saffron (105118),  Basic Black (121045) First Edition Specialty (121878)
• Ink: Black Stazon (101406)
• Accessories: Tasteful Trim Die (120893), Pumpkin Pie Marker (105115), Dazzling Details (124117) , Basic Pearls (119247), 3/4" Circle punch (119873), Blossom Punch (125603)

The 2012 Occasions Mini starts tomorrow and it. is. awesome!