Wish Big

Trying to sneak one more post in for January!  I had a stamp camp last night and thought I would post one of the cards we made.

This card uses the new Botanical Gardens Suite from the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions Catalog.  The Botanical Builder framelits are beautiful!  The color palette is Watermelon Wonder, Mint Macaroon and Early Espresso.  I love the It's My Party enamel dots in the Occasions catalog; they add a great pop of color to the flower!

Have a great one!

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Stampin' Birthday Celebration

Welcome to the Stampin' Celebration January Sketch Challenge (SC121).  A fun sketch with so many options!

I did consider getting a head start on Valentine's day and use hearts for the four circles.  And then I saw the new Botanical Blooms bundle from the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions catalog and new I wanted to try this set out!

I love these new framelits!  The flowers that have the 3-dimensional effect are just beautiful and add some great dimension to any project!  Look how fun these flowers as they overlap the sentiment banner. So cool!!

For this project I used Watermelon Wonder for the flowers and Mint Macaron for the leaves.  Early Espresso helps add some depth.  And enamel dots in Mint Macaron help pull the colors together! The greeting is from the Stampin' Up! 2015-16 Annual Catalog, Remembering Your Birthday.  I used some scotch tape to cover the part part of the stamp I did not want to include in the greeting and then removed the tape after inking the stamp.  Worked perfectly!

I hope this sketch inspires you and I can't wait to see what you create!

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Balloon Celebration!

It was a chilly day weekend, the perfect weekend to stay inside and papercraft!  I got a lot done so I am happy I am able to post some new projects.

My niece's birthday is coming up and I wanted to try to be early (or at least on time) with sending her card.  Step one is done, now just to make sure it gets in the mail on time!

I wanted to use the new Balloon Celebration bundle from the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions catalog. It is a fun set with so many options!  I love the fact that there is a punch for the balloons.  A little secret (confession) though.  I forgot where I put the punch so I fussy cut the balloons for this card. Afterwards, I spent some time hunting for the punch and found it!  So, next time it will be a little easier to use this stamp set.

For this card I started with Whisper White and mixed a drop of Island Indigo ink with alcohol and brushed the ink mixture on the cardstock.  The balloons are Melon Mambo and More Mustard (retired color from Stampin' Up!).  Another confession, I still haven't cleared out my scraps since the last color refresh from SU and so I thought I pulled out Crushed Curry.  Alas, I did not.  I wanted to use Crushed Curry because it is a brighter color and would look really great with the Melon Mambo.  The More Mustard looks good too ;0).

Apart from fussy cutting the balloons, this card was pretty easy to put together.  For the bow I used the new thick baker's twice (basic black and melon mambo) and pulled apart the colors to get only the melon mambo.  I made a fork bow using only two tines to make a smaller bow.

A fun card that I hope my niece will enjoy!

Stay warm everyone!

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Little Lamb

What a better way to celebrate than with a new baby in the family!  My husband's cousin had a baby last week and so I had to make a card to welcome the new bundle to the family!

To help spark the inspiration I checked out the new retrosketches challenge #198 and loved the sketch! The outlined frame is so fun to play with, I just knew I had to use this sketch!

For this card I used the Barnyard Babies stamp set from the 2015-16 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalog.  I stamped the lamb using the Archival Basic Black ink and then fussy cut it.  I die cut the star using Lost Lagoon cardstock and the Star Framelits.

The new Wink of Stella glimmer pen is a new favorite and always helps to add some bling to a project!  I love how easy this pen is to use, and it doesn't make a mess!  I also used the Wink to Stella pen to add some sparkle to the Hello Honey confetti stars.  You can see the sparkle in the close-up photo.

Now I have to get the gift!  Can't wait to meet the new little guy!

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Coasting along!

Wow, I think I have posted more in January than I did in the past 3 months. Partly because I had time to play over the holidays.  Of course, I still have the Christmas Tree up so guess I need to prioritize other things for a little while ;0). This is way more fun though!

Anyway, my neighbor loves the idea of personalized coasters and she has asked me to make a few for her as gifts for her to give.  Her birthday is this month so I decided to make her a set of her own!

I use ceramic tile and have stamped on them in the past using the craft stamp pads Stampin' Up used to sell.  Unfortunately, they only have white and vanilla now so I have had to try several options.

I decided to try to mix Whisper White craft ink with regular ink (Soft Suede) to see if that would work.  It worked okay except the ink did spread on the tile a little.  However, for this particular stamp, I LOVED the effect!

For the background I used the Hardwood stamp set.  The ink spread a little during the heat setting and made the image more like a birch tree.  I love the effect!!

Once the background dried I used the Basic Black Archival stamp pad to stamp the leaves (Summer Silhouettes Wood Mount Stamp set from the Stampin' Up! 2015-16 Annual Catalog).  The monogram is from an older (retired) alphabet stamp set.

I can't wait to give her these coasters!  I am sure she will love them.  

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What do I do with the Christmas Cards I Receive??

I love receiving Christmas Cards in the mail!  Honestly, I do!!  I am filled with anticipation every time I go to the mailbox during December.  I don't receive hundreds, but I treasure the ones I do receive.

When my niece was little (about 20 years ago), photo cards started gaining popularity.  I had just started scrapbooking so I decided to make this a yearly tradition and put the photos in a special holiday book.  Since then I have continued that tradition.  Well, I have tried to continue that tradition. I was a few years behind (only 2 years really) so this year I made it a goal to catch up!! Now that most people send a photo card, I can fill 4-5 pages a year.  I have almost filled my second book!

I typically sort the cards and have a page dedicated to Family, Friends, Work Friends and Neighbors.  It's fun to see the changes over time, especially for those who we don't get together with anymore.  Here is the layout I decided upon for 2015.  I don't use the whole card and try to use a picture which shows the whole family.





I wanted to use non-traditional holiday colors and when I saw the trees on the Sweet Lil' Things DSP I knew that's what I had to use.  I liked how the Peaceful Pines photopolymer stamp set and coordinating framelits coordinated with the pine trees on this paper.  I decided to use the color scheme from the paper for the embellishments.

I was really happy to have caught up (almost) on this task.  It was something that has nagged at me.  I actually completely forgot where I put the 2014 cards. I spent days looking for them and finally found them in a drawer in my stamp room.  So, guess I will finish those pages (soon)!

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Retro Engagement!

Wow, my sister texted and asked if I could make a card.  Her niece got engaged this weekend and she wanted to send her a card along with the gift.  I was excited for the news and more than happy to make a card for the happy event!

I had just looked at the new sketch challenge from retrosketches #196 and I started putting this card together in my head!  I love it when things just fall together!

 

I did not go along with the square design and used the traditional A4 dimensions.  Other than that, the sketch is pretty clear in my card!

I decided on a monochroomatic background with Whisper White and a Whisper White Striped Scallop die cut.  The tag was die cut from Lost Lagoon cardstock using the Tags and Labels Framelits.  I punched flowers from Hello Honey cardstock using the 7/8" scalloped punch.  I used two per flower and cut in between the scallops.  Then I used the bone folder to loosen the fibers of the scallops and then scrunched them around the candy dots brad base.  I used the white accents on the brad instead of the candy dots.

The greeting is adorable and is new from the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions Catalog called Greatest Greetings.  I love handwritten greetings and since I am not a fan of my handwriting, I love when there are great options available!

Hope you like the card!  I am so excited about the end product!  Everything just came together so nicely and easily today.

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Stampin' Celebration SC120 Silvery Glam

Happy 2016 and welcome to the new look for Stampin' Celebration!  I am happy to have something to work on again!  The three week break was nice, don't get me wrong.  It was a busy year, more than usual, and I needed that time to decompress.  It was nice!

Here is the new inspiration (SC120):

We didn't get much snow in Chicago (which is okay now that I have to drive to work every day) so I was drawn to the bright neutral colors from this inspiration.

A good friend has a birthday coming up and she favors white and silver so this was a great color combination for her birthday card.

For this card I wanted to use the new Sunburst Thinlits die from the Stampin' Up! 2016 Occasions catalog.  This catalog just went on sale last week and I am really looking forward to all the fun new products!  I liked the idea of layering two different colors of sunbursts so I die cut one in the silver foil paper and one in whisper white.  Colored in between the rays with the Clear Wink of Stella Glitter brush.

The star was cut using the star framelits and I added some silver thread behind it.  The greeting is from the Butterfly Basics photopolymer stamp set (Stampin' Up! 2015-2016 Annual Catalog) and stamped with VersaMark and heat embossed with silver embossing powder.  A few basic rhinestones add a little more glam to the card.

I think she will adore this card!

Can't wait to see what inspires you from this challenge!

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Bookmark Fun

Wow, it seems as if the holidays were ages ago already!  I had 2 weeks off of work.  It was nice to decompress and little.  I did a little of everything, caught up on a few things that I will post later ;0), and spent some time binge watching NCIS.  Sadly, I am only up to season 7.  Guess my kids binge watching rubbed off on me, although they are MUCH better at it than I am.

Anyway, I didn't craft too much, unfortunately, although what I did do I was happy to have off of my to do list!

One thing that came up is a request from a neighbor and dear friend for some book marks for her book club.  

I took the opportunity to use one of the new Saleabration stamp sets from Stampin' Up! called What I Love.  I love this set so I was so happy to be able to use it!  I used two of the flower images and stamped the background image with Blushing Bride and the outline image with Watermelon Wonder ink into Whisper White cardstock.  I fussy cut the two flowers and glued them on top of the leaves. The leaves are from the Choose Happiness stamp set (Stampin' Up! 2015-16 Annual Catalog) and were stamped  using Garden Green.  The greeting was stamped using Watermelon Wonder.  

I created a second design using the Awesomely Artistic stamp set (leaves stamped with Mint Macaron) and Papillon Potpourri (stamped with Delightful Dijon and punched with the butterfly punch).

Hope you enjoyed the book marks!  Now, back to my NCIS!  I think I can get another episode in tonight ;0).

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