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!

Sunset Sails

We've been having a run of beautiful weather here; I hope I'm not jinxing things by saying that! The humidity has been down in the bearable range with mostly sunny skies, cooler evenings and absolutely gorgeous sunsets. On the flip side, the newspapers are full of back-to-school sales, which means summer is coming to an end, almost before it began! I tried to capture the feel of a beautiful summer evening on this card, which was one of three summer-themed cards that my stamp club made this week. I used the fabulous Sail Away a la carte (single) stamp from the Summer Mini catalog, which is only available to order until August 31st. The use of lighter colors, reverse masking and lots of white space gives the card an airy feel, reminiscent of sunset sails on the lake.

Recipe
Stamps: Sail Away, Sincere Salutations
Paper: Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Calypso Coral & Whisper White CS
Ink: Jet Black Staz-On, Baja Breeze, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral & Not Quite Navy stamp pads
Accessories: Scallop Oval Frame die & Big Shot, 1/2" circle punch, Silver Mini Brads, 5/16" white Jumbo Brad, Daffodil Delight 1/8" taffeta ribbon, white Baker's Twine, paper piercing tool, sponge wedges, Stampin' Dimensionals

I first stamped the sailboat image in the right lower corner of my card front using black Staz-On. I ran the Scallop Oval Frame die through the Big Shot; it die cuts both an oval and the frame surrounding it. I used the frame portion as a mask, applying some repositionable adhesive to the back and then centering the frame mask on my card front. I then applied a mask over the sails; to make the mask, I stamped the sailboat image on Post-It note paper and cut out the sails, then stuck that Post-It mask over the stamped sails on my card front. Then I used another piece of Post-It note paper to mask off the top portion of the oval, and sponged Baja Breeze inside the oval frame on the bottom third of my card to represent water. I then moved the Post-It note mask to cover the "water" I had just sponged, and sponged the "sunset" using Calypso Coral on the top and Daffodil Delight near the water. The key to successful sponging is to use a light hand; applying too much pressure gives you dark blotches, while lightly sponging allows you to achieve a more blended look. I started the Calypso at the top and sponged down, applying less pressure as I got to the middle. Then I sponged the Daffodil beginning at the water line, and worked my way up and into the Calypso, overlapping the two colors a bit in the middle to more thoroughly blend them. When I pulled all the masks off I had a beautiful "sunset on the lake" oval! I also used my scallop frame as a template for the brad holes: I punched three evenly spaced holes in the lower left portion of the frame, and used the template to make sure I pierced evenly-spaced holes in my card front. I used three of the new mini brads to add a somewhat "nautical" look, and then layered the white card front onto Calypso, and then Not Quite Navy cardstock, and stamped the greeting in NQN ink. Once I had the layers together, I punched about a three-quarter circle out of all the layers in the upper right corner using the circle punch, and then used Dimensionals to attach the layered card front to the Baja Breeze base. I used the paper piercing tool to punch a hole in the circle cutout, wrapped the taffeta ribbon around the white brad and inserted it through the Baja base. To finish it off,  I tied some Baker's Twine around the ribbon and knotted it. I can't claim total credit for this idea, as I got it from a beautiful card on splitcoaststampers by Angela Helynck, tweaking it a little to fit my needs.

Doesn't this make you want to go sailing at sunset? I'm going to go sailing, but it's sailing off to bed instead! Sweet dreams!

Sharing some Calypso love!

Sorry that it's been so long since I've been able to post...my life has been very busy lately! Had to get ready for my combination Stamp Sale/New Catalog Open House last weekend; I didn't think I had all that much discontinued stuff to get rid of, but turns out I did. Then Mother Nature decided that some of us in central Minnesota needed to experience the land-locked version of a hurricane this last Monday - what an experience that was! We didn't lose any trees, but every square foot of our 1.5 acre lawn is covered with leaves and branches. So now I've got the thankless job of picking up sticks so that we can mow the lawn before it's a foot high. I decided to approach it like a crime scene, and do a grid-by-grid search. So far it's working, but the mosquitoes have figured out my strategy and are laying in wait for me. I hope they're considered protein, because I swallowed a few tonight! Oh well, hopefully I'll have things ship-shape again by Sunday so we can fire up the mowers again!

This card is the first I've made using the new set Field Flowers. This beautiful set was the first to go on my wish list on my first pass through the new catalog. The flowers are so detailed they almost look real, especially when you do the two-step stamping with coordinating colors like I did. I also had to try out the new Lace Ribbon Border punch, and I just love it - as well as Calypso Coral, one of the new 2011-2013 In Colors!

Recipe
Stamps: Field Flowers
Paper: Calypso Coral, Basic Gray & Very Vanilla CS, Calypso Coral from the Patterns Designer Series Paper Stack In Color Assortment
Ink: Calypso Coral, Riding Hood Red, Lucky Limeade & Basic Gray stamp pads
Accessories: Stamp-a-ma-jig, Lace Ribbon Border punch, Big Shot & Ovals die, Very Vanilla 1/8" taffeta ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals, 2-Way Glue pen

I stamped the stem first on my vanilla oval. To create a "border" for my vanilla oval, I die cut an oval using Basic Gray CS, cut it in half lengthwise, and then adhered the two pieces to either side of the back of the vanilla oval. On a scrap piece of vanilla, I stamped two flowers; first the more solid flower image in Calypso, then using my Stamp-a-ma-jig I stamped the more detailed flower image in RH Red over the Calypso. What a gorgeous combination, suggested by my trusty Color Coach! I then cut the flowers out, and adhered the shorter flower right to the CS and used Dimensionals to pop up the taller flower. I threaded the ribbon through the punched border, tied a knot, and then adhered it to my card base using the glue pen. Then I popped the whole flower oval to my card front using Dimensionals, and finished it off by stamping the greeting with Basic Gray.

Now I'd better get ready for bed, so I'm all rested for my next round of branch picking tomorrow. Hope you have a sweet weekend!

For the Newlyweds

It is SO hot and humid here in west central Minnesota that I've been stuck inside most of the weekend. With the heat index up in the 100's, nobody should be outside unless they absolutely have to. Even though I have a lot of yard work to do, I haven't minded being inside as it's given me a chance to play with some of my new stuff!

I mentioned in my last post that I had been the pianist at my nephew Dan's wedding last weekend to his beautiful Sami. The newlyweds have been on their honeymoon this last week in northern Minnesota, and once they get their stuff packed up Sami will be moving out to Montana, where Dan has been living and working as an electrician for the last year. I wanted to send them something in the mail to their place in Montana as a kind of "welcome home," especially for Sami, who will be moving far from where she grew up for the first time in her life.

The colors they chose for their wedding were gray and bright yellow. When I first heard that, I thought "What kind of a color combo is that?" I have to admit it looked very nice, with the girls in their dark gray dresses carrying yellow flowers, and the guys in their gray tuxes with yellow ties. I used those colors in my newlywed card which features a new stamp set, Occasions Alphabet, that I earned for free as part of Sale-A-Bration! I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this set, as the 26 letters of the alphabet are paired with such great little sayings. I also used the oval frame from the new Designer Frames embossing folder set - love those two new mini folders!! I tried to keep it clean and simple, as that is Sami’s style.

Recipe

Stamps: Occasions Alphabet

Paper: Basic Gray textured, Daffodil Delight & Whisper White cardstock

Ink: Basic Gray

Accessories: Big Shot, Designer Frames & Elegant Bouquet embossing folders, 2"x1-3/8" XL oval punch, Basic Rhinestones, Stampin' Dimensionals

I hope this gives Sami a little lift in case she's feeling a little lonely in her new home. Gosh, I have to find out when her birthday is so I can make sure to get her on my list. Come to think of it, I don't think I even have their mailing address yet! Better go and give my sister a call so I can get this in the mail tomorrow. Good night, sleep tight, and sweet dreams!