Spice Takes the Cake!

Have I mentioned yet how much I LOVE the Holiday Mini Catalog? There are so many neat products in there that I had an awfully hard time trying to be frugal and practical when placing my first order! The first thing that went on my order was the gorgeous Spice Cake Designer Series Paper. I just love the color combinations in the paper (Soft Suede, More Mustard, Pool Party, Pear Pizazz, River Rock, Very Vanilla), and the patterns are generic enough that the paper can be used all through the year.

For that reason, the theme of this week's Stamp Club was "It's All About the Paper!" We did three projects with a fall theme that used Designer Series Paper as the main focus: two cards and a Halloween treat box. The card I'm posting tonight uses four different patterns of paper and showcases how you can use patterned paper in ingenious ways! It's also a great layout for using the new Peekaboo Frames die, also in the mini catalog.

Recipe

Stamps: Day of Gratitude

Paper: Spice Cake Designer Series paper; Very Vanilla, Pool Party & Soft Suede CS

Ink: Soft Suede, More Mustard & Pear Pizzazz

Accessories: Peekaboo Frames Bigz L Die & Big Shot, Modern Label punch, Basic Pearls, Stampin' Dimensionals, 2-Way Glue Pen

Hey, you don't need ribbon when you've got this fabulous patterned paper! I just cut a strip to use as a ribbon-like accent across the middle of my card. To decorate the Peekaboo Frame, I simply cut along the dotted lines of the pattern in another of the papers and adhered to the front. I added the tiny pearls as some bling - they were the perfect size to fit in the flowers. I then cut a rectangle of vanilla CS and stamped a Thanksgiving greeting, and glued it to the back of the Peekaboo Frame before adhering it to my card front with Dimensionals. This would also make a nice birthday card, and I'm going to be using this layout for some Christmas cards as well!

The Peekaboo Frames die is designed to coordinate with the 25 & Counting stamp set to create a personalized Advent calendar, but it works so well on this type of card, too! It has five different size/style frames on one die, and would be a great addition to your crafting supplies! To see what other fabulous products are in the Holiday Mini Catalog, just click on the link on the right side of this page.

Have a sweet time stamping!

Happy Fall!

The first day of fall...hard to believe that summer has come and gone already; although here in Minnesota it seems we had about six months of spring and only a few weeks of summer! We are supposed to get some Indian Summer next week, and I hope the forecasters are right, as I'd really like a few more warm days before we have to start getting ready for what is projected to be a cold and snowy winter. Again.

So I mentioned that I've not been feeling the greatest for the past week or so. I don't know about you, but when I'm feeling under the weather, my brain just doesn't work the same. I've had no mojo, and any creativity floating around upstairs got lost in the flood of sinus congestion and eventually ended up in my Kleenex, I swear. But, since I have a hard time just laying around, I did spend a lot of time in my craft room trying to keep myself occupied. I spent some time playing around with one of the sets in the Holiday Mini Catalog, Always Thankful, and here is one of the cards I came up with. I just LOVE the color combinations in the Spice Cake Designer Series paper; you can expect to see more projects using that gorgeous paper soon!

Recipe
Stamps: Always Thankful
Paper: Spice Cake Designer Series paper; More Mustard, Soft Suede & Vanilla CS
Ink: Soft Suede, Pear Pizzazz & More Mustard markers, Pear Pizzazz & Pool Party pads
Accessories: Top Note die & Big Shot, Large Oval punch, Pool Party ruffled ribbon, Ice Circle rhinestone brads, sponge wedge, Stampin' Dimensionals

Simply Worn Out...

is a description that fits me perfectly right now! For the last couple weeks I've been coming home from my day job, changing clothes and going outside to work on finishing my big landscaping project. By last Wednesday I only had a few blocks left to stack...a great feeling! Since we hadn't gotten a vacation in this summer, I had taken Friday and Monday off work, planning on getting a last camping mini-vacation in over the weekend. Then on Thursday morning I woke up with a very sore throat. By Friday I was coughing, and by Saturday I was running a temp and seriously worried about coughing one of my lungs out. Needless to say, the camping weekend got scrapped. Yesterday, when I was finally able to get in to see a doctor, she took one look at my throat and put me on antibiotics. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in almost a week, and I'm just plain worn out.

So, I'm posting two simple cards using the fabulous Well Worn Designer Series paper paired with the Designer Frames embossing folders. These will work great for "manly" birthday cards, which I always have the hardest time designing.

Recipe

Stamps: Occasions Alphabet, Simple Salutations

Paper: Crumb Cake CS, Early Espresso textured CS, Well Worn DS paper

Ink: Early Espresso

Accessories: Regals brads (the Not Quite Navy ones are from my stash of retired brads)

The first card uses my new favorite "go-to" layout for a quick card, which uses the oh-so-versatile Occasions Alphabet. By changing up the patterned paper and color schemes, you can create a large variety of cards for different occasions in a very short period of time. Remember my newlywed card? Same layout!

For the second card, I just turned the layout around a bit to fit a vertical orientation.

The Well Worn patterned papers feature Not Quite Navy, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso, River Rock, Soft Suede & So Saffron...great colors for your upcoming fall card making!

I HAVE been able to play with some of my new stuff from the Holiday Mini, and hope to be able to share some of that later this week. For now, I'm off to bed, and sincerely hoping for some sweet dreams tonight!

Playing Catch Up!

I've been awfully busy the last few weeks, as is very evident by my lack of posts lately. So tonight I'm playing catch-up! I'm lucky in that I have a TV in my craft room, not far from my laptop, so I'm multi-tasking tonight by doing my blogging while I watch the Minnesota Vikings in their last preseason game. I am a huge Vikings fan, so I'll apologize in advance to those of you who don't care for football, as I will probably be expressing my love of them many times during the upcoming football season!


Tonight I'm sharing the other two cards that our stamp club made last month. It's a great coincidence that the first card is purple, my favorite color during football season! ; ) It's the lovely Field Flowers stamp set paired with Wisteria Wonder. The second card is a fun summertime sampling of creative ways to use your punches (CASE'd from a card by Lisa Young). Enjoy!

Recipe #1

Stamps: Field Flowers, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant & Whisper White CS, 2011-2013 Patterns Designer Series Paper Pack

Ink: Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant, Lucky Limeade

Accessories: Oval Scallop Frame die, Stripes embossing folder & Big Shot; Lace Ribbon Border, Modern Label & Word Window punches, Rhinestone Brad, Basic Pearls, White Taffeta ribbon, paper piercing tool, Stampin' Dimensionals

Recipe #2

Stamps: On Your Birthday, Woodgrain

Paper: Crumb Cake, Wild Wasabi, Peach Parfait, Blushing Bride, Early Espresso & Whisper White CS, Just Add Cake Designer Series paper

Ink: Crumb Cake

Accessories: Cupcake Builder, Petite Pennants Builder, Large Oval, XL Oval, 1/2" Circle & 3/16" Corner punches; Square Lattice embossing folder & Big Shot; Basic Rhinestones; Stampin' Dimensionals

Well, that was good timing: the game is over, the Vikings won 28-0, and I got my posting done. Oooops! I almost forgot to mention that the Holiday Mini Catalog went live today! I'm so excited, as this is the first mini catalog in many years where I've wanted to order just about everything inside! You can view it by clicking on the link on the right side of this page. If you would like to schedule a workshop and earn some of the mini catalog items for FREE, just send me an email at sweetp563@hotmail.com. Sweet dreams!