Sale-a-Bration and Occasions Mini 2010 are here!

Stampin' Up!'s biggest promotion, Sale-a-Bration is here! Why is it such an awesome promotion? Because for every $65 in product purchased you get to choose a FREE stamp set or accessory. But even better, this year you can also choose from a selection of Idea Book & Catalog stamp sets under $20.95! That's right, more choices than ever for your Sale-a-Bration rewards!

Sale-a-Bration is also a wonderful time to join Stampin' Up! Not only do you get 15% off the Starter Kit, but you also can select any stamp set out of the Idea Book & Catalog FREE! Contact me today to find out more about joining Stampin' Up! During Sale-a-Bration it is especially easy to make sales and get new customers because of the wonderful incentives!

In addition to Sale-a-Bration, a new mini catalog and wonderful new products are available. Especially exciting are Stampin' Up!'s new clear mount stamps. Stampin' Up! has been working on offering clear mounted stamps for many years. However, the acrylic stamps just did not make a crisp enough image for their liking. So the have come up with this exciting, innovative alternative. The stamps are still made of Stampin' Up!'s high quality rubber and foam so as to not lose any crispness or quality of image. Like traditional acrylic stamps, they are temporarily mounted to clear acrylic blocks. Stampin' Up!'s stamp come with stickers to adhere to the backside of the foam to provide more accuracy during stamping. Best of all, these stamps come in cases similar to DVD cases making storage easy! Book a workshop with me today to check out these innovative new stamps!

This Mini is also chock full of great accessories including Satin Ribbon and Designer Series Paper with glitter! And did you see the new punch design? Sleek and easier to handle, this new design provides more leverage for easier punching. It also folds flat for easier storage!

Check out this card made with the new Vintage Vogue set from the Occasions Mini. I purchased this set in the Clear Mount Version (all stamp sets in the Mini are available as Clear Mount or Wood Mount) and although it took me a bit of time to get used to using the acrylic blocks (I'm not good with change and have only ever used wood mounted sets) I have grown to LOVE them! I thought that mounting and remounting would drive me nuts because I'm pretty picky about how my stamps are mounted. But since I can see through the acrylic blocks, stamping straight is a snap, no matter how they're mounted! So how do I decide whether to buy my stamps wood or clear mounted?!?!?! Decisions, decisions, lol!

The card recipe for my Vintage Vogue card is

Stamp Set: Vintage Vogue
Card Stock: Soft Suede, Bordering Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Bordering Blue, Soft Suede
Accessories: Stampin' Sponges, 1/4" Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon

And BTW, this card is a little sneak peak of what will be offered at my All Occasions Cards Stamp-a-Stack - book one with me for you and your friends today! I'll also be offering some workshops at my home - Stay tuned!

That's it for today... hope you enjoyed looking at the new products and keep letting stamps bring out your creativity!

The delinquent blogger... a late Christmas Card...

Well Happy New Year! It's January 4th and of course I didn't get around to posting my second Stamper's Group card 'til now :p Christmas was busy busy busy and I didn't get all that much time on the computer! But I'm back. Tomorrow we're starting Sale-a-Bration 2010 and a whole new AWESOME Mini Catalog but 'til then I'll post our second group card!

We did emboss resist and layered brayer techniques. We also used my very special "Happy Christmas, Mate!" stamp set which my sister in law sent me from Australia. It's a Stampin' Up! set, but only available over there. I fell in love with it when I looked through their cattie and luckily I have an Aussie connection ;)

For my Surfin' Santa card, we embossed in white on Whisper White cardstock. Then we brayered over him in four colors: Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise and Brilliant Blue. To do the layers, we used a mask which was simply paper torn into a wavy pattern. We then brayered the light colors in layers and layered over top of the lighter color in darker coordinating color. For more information on layered brayering, see Michelle Zindorf's Blog, she's the brayer queen! I won't even attempt to explain it since she can do a much better job of it ;)

The card recipe for this card is:

Stamp Set: Happy Christmas, Mate!
Card Stock: Kraft, Night of Navy, Whisper White
Ink: Versamark, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun, Tempting Turquose, Brilliant Blue
Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, White Taffeta Ribbon, Horizontal Slot Punch

I'll be back tomorrow (promise!) with info on our new Occasions Mini Catalog and Sale-a-Bration.

Keep letting stamps bring out your creativity!

Some Different Christmas Cards...

Well, isn't this embarrassing. It's been over two months since I last updated my blog. TWO! And it's not because I haven't been stamping. Just the opposite. I've been stamping like crazy, running many Christmas workshops and getting my own things ready for the holiday season! I'd like to share one card I did with my Stamper's Group at the end of November. We did two cards, but at this rate it won't get posted 'til February, so I'll post this one for the time being :p

One card we did is a tri-fold card. Looks really fancy, but ultimately simple to make. I used my favorite DSP ever, Christmas Cocoa, as well as my favorite new Christmas stamp set, Delightful Decorations and the coordinating Ornament Punch. The steps for this card are pretty simple:
*Cut a piece of 5-1/2" x 12" cardstock.
*Score horizontally at 2", 4", 8" and 10".
*Cut slots with paper cutter at 1-1/2" and 4" vertically, from 2" to 10" horizontally. Fold on scores as shown in card below.
*I left 1/8" mats behind my DSP.

You can follow my card as a guide, though if you google 'Trifold card' you'll find some more examples.


The recipe for this card includes

Stamp Set: Delightful Decorations
Card stock: Real Red, Real Red Textured, Soft Suede, Christmas Cocoa DSP, Whisper White
Ink: VersaMark
Accessories: Ornament Punch, Fire Rhinestone Brads, Gold Elastic Cord, Stampin' Dimensionals, Big Shot, Join in the Cheer Decorative Strip, Heat and Stick Powder, Dazzling Diamonds Stampin' Glitter, Gold Embossing Powder, Tape

We also did a layered brayer card... stay tuned for that - hopefully soon! And keep letting stamps bring out your creativity!

Shimmer Paint, Spiral Butterflies and Cracked Glass

At our last Stamper's Group, we did two very different projects. But two very fun projects with very unique techniques. The first technique was the Cracked Glass technique. A detailed tutorial is available here. We applied the Glassy Glaze Enamel EB 3 times. Although we did not sponge the dark ink in the cracks we did sponge it around the edges of the card stock of both the image and greeting. But other than that, this tutorial was followed to a tee. This technique is a bit involved but worth the time spent! We inked the image in the waterproof basic black ink to prevent it from bleeding when the image is embossed. On this card, we also used SU! Jumbo Grommets in Whisper White (these are SO easy to use and add so much!) as well as the new Perfect Details Texturz for the Big Shot.

The card recipe for this card includes:

Stamp Set: Asian Artistry (Level II Hostess Set)
Card stock: Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, Confetti White
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Basic Black, VersaMark
Accessories: Old Olive, Close to Cocoa, and Ruby Red Stampin' Write Markers, Big Shot, Perfect Details Texturz, 1-1/4" Striped Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon, Jumbo Grommets, 5/8" Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon, Heat Tool, Glassy Glaze Embossing Powder

We also did a Spiral Pop-Up Card. I absolutely loved this card when I first saw it and made it right away. It's so easy to make and decided my Stamper's Group would love to try it out too. This is how the inside of the card turned out

I also decided to show my group how to die pretties, the satiny flowers that come in the Pretties Kit. It's very easy, just mix some ink refill with water in a small plastic container or ziploc bag, pop your flower into it for a few minutes and voila, a perfectly dyed flower in SU! colors! You can also dye the Whisper White Taffeta Ribbon this way. To add a little 'je ne sais quoi' to the card we painted some of the Frost White Shimmer Paint, found in the Holiday Mini, on the flower. I love love love the Shimmer Paint. It so easy to use (just apply with a sponge or sponge dauber) and has so many different uses. You can apply directly to your cardstock, you can apply directly to your stamp and stamp with it, apply to embellishments... and I'm sure you can find many other uses :) I know I will!



The card recipe for this card includes:

Stamp Set: Flighty of the Butterfly
Card stock: Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Cottage Wall DSP
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Pale Plum, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Butterfly Punch, 1-3/4" Circle Punch, Pretties Kit, Rich Razzleberry Refill, Sticky Strip, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Frost White Shimmer Paint

Keep letting stamps bring out your creativity!

My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up!

It's here! My Digital Studio, the new digital scrapbooking software from Stampin' Up! Stamps, Designer Series Papers, embellishments, Stampin' Up! exclusive 48 colors, In Colors and much much more all in on easy to use digital scrapbooking program.

I've had this program for almost a month now (one big advantage of being a demo - you get to preorder these goodies :) ) and LOVE IT! LOVE LOVE LOVE it! It's so easy to use - I have yet to read any instructions. Much to busy digitally crafting :) Here is my first creation, took me 20 minutes!


That's my favorite thing about this software. It's completely intuitive. Using it just makes sense!

My next project was an album of our apple picking adventures. I've always liked the idea of scrapbooking but I just don't have the attention span ;) Luckily I can do this while watching tv or just hanging out in the family room after the kids have gone to bed. I made 8 pages in 1-1/2 hours - with the premade templates included in the software you just select your photos, drag them to the designated boxes on the page and voila - you have a perfectly crafted scrapbook page!




I know some people love the three-dimensional feel and that's the beauty of working with this software. After printing out your pages you can add your own embellishments and create a hybrid page!

More information on this great program is available on my Stampin' Up! Website. Have you been thinking of joining Stampin' Up! ? We now have a new Starter Kit available for those who want to focus on Digital! Get My Digital Studio as well as some traditional stamps, ink, cardstock and other accessories, as well as business supplies in your starter kit for only $239! See the Promotions section of my website for more information.

I'll be back soon with some more info on my upcoming Christmas classes, my last stampers group project and more My Digital Studio info.

Keep letting stamps (and digital stamps) bring out your creativity!