November/December Scrapbook Club Layout

I love the traditional green and red in the Season of Style designer series paper, so my club ladies will be making a scrapbook layout using that this month.

I wanted to show lots of ways to use different ornaments with this layout! The"tree" is made from the Christmas Collectibles stamp set and coordinating Ornament punch, along with ornaments punched from Old Olive cardstock and Season of Style designer series paper.  The top ornament in the "tree" is tied with some linen thread and has a rhinestone jewel in the center.

For the title piece, I stamped "Christmas" in Cherry Cobbler ink on Crumb Cake cardstock using the Notable Alphabet stamp set.  The ornaments there are from Christmas Keepsakes, stamped in Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive, and punched out with the matching framelits dies.  There are rhinestone jewels in those ones as well.

The ornaments on the right-hand page are circles of designer series paper punched with the 2 1/2" Circle punch.  I added an Old Olive Bow Clip to the top of each one to look like an ornament hanger.

Blessings to you,

November Stamp Club Cards

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  I'm always so excited to start making Christmas stuff!  Here are the cards we'll be making this month.

Our first card will be a made using the Starburst Technique that's been showing up on blogs all over the place!  I used the Winter Frost designer series paper, along with silver 1/8" ribbon and a Frosted Finishes embellishment.  The snowflakes are from Festive Flurry and are stamped in Pool Party, Smoky Slate and Island Indigo and punched out with the matching framelits.

We will also be making a matching envelope for this card using the new Envelope Board Punch.

Our next card is made using the Circle Framelits Card die.  This one uses the Season of Style designer series paper and coordinating products.  I added a strip of Champagne Glimmer paper to put some sparkle in it.  The greeting, from Christmas Messages, is stamped in Gold ink.  I tied some Cherry Cobbler baker's twine around the edge and added a glass button.

I made the cardstock 8 1/4" long and extended it through the Big Shot over top of one end of the framelit to make a longer card with sections that fold over.  I added some strips of Whisper White and Season of Style designer series paper to the sections of the card.

Our final card uses washi tape as an accent piece.  I CASEd this card by Maria Estella Cuevas.  The ornament is stamped from Christmas Collectibles in Old Olive and punched with the matching Ornament punch.  The greeting is from Sassy Salutations, stamped in Cherry Cobbler.

Blessings to you,

Holiday Catalogue Embellishment Share

I don't know about you, but I was overwhelmed with all the embellishments offered in the Holiday Catalogue.  I wanted everything!  I think many people will too, so I'm having two Holiday Catalogue Embellishment Shares so you can get a sampling of everything.  Sign up for one or both!

I have room for four people in each share (or groups of four if more people want in).  Here's what you'll get with each share:

Winter Frost Suite Share - $15 (CAD)
- Silver 1/8" ribbon - 2 yards
- Frosted Finishes Embellishments - 3
- Silver Foil - 6 x 12" sheet
- Winter Frost designer series paper - six 6 x 12" sheets (one each of 6 different double-sided designs)
- Winter Frost designer series paper stack - 12 sheets of 4 1/2 x 6 1/2" double-sided papers (6 each of 2 designs)

Season of Style Suite Share - $16 (CAD)
- Cherry Cobbler 1" stitched edge grosgrain ribbon - 2 yards
- Old Olive Simply Styled Embellishments - metal clips topped with ribbon bows - 3
- Season of Style designer series paper - six 6 x 12" sheets (one each of 6 different double-sided designs)
- Gold Foil - 6 x 12" sheet
- Season of Style designer series paper stack - 12 sheets of 4 1/2 x 6 1/2" double-sided papers (6 each of 2 designs)
- Pretty Presents designer tags - 4 (2 each of 2 different sizes)

Please contact me to take part in either or both of these shares.

*This offer is only available to Canadians.  If you live in the Edmonton area, the price includes shipping.  If you live elsewhere in Canada, a shipping charge will be added.

Some Hand-Made Christmas Cards

I wanted to share some of the lovely hand-made cards I've received this year, so here they are (in no particular order!):

This reindeer card is from Paula, the "punch art queen"!  I can't believe how much work went into this!  Isn't it amazing?

Treena made this beautiful bird card.  It's hard to see the details in the photo, but there is gold ink sponged ont eh embossing and around the edges - it is really stunning!

This beautiful, sparkly card is from Bea.  She used dazzling diamonds glitter over the image so it's shimmery like a snowfall.  Gorgeous!

This gorgeous card is from Susan.  I love this stamped image paired with gold and burgundy- just stunning!  Look at the shadow from the young Jesus. 

Martha made this card using a black and white photo of her yard, paired with Cherry Cobbler and Sahara Sand.  Isn't it lovely?

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have, and I hope your Christmas holiday is full of love and laughter.

Blessings,

December Scrapbook Club Layout

This is the layout my Scrapbook Club ladies made this week.  I CASEd the first page of the layout from my wonderful upline, Winona Semler, and added the second page to complement the first one.

The first layout has Candlelight Christmas designer series paper as a base.  We cut out some ornaments with the Big Shot and the Ornament Keepsake framelits to make stencils, then placed them on the Very Vanilla 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock.  We used the colour spritzer tool to spray Early Espresso ink around the stencils to leave ornament outlines, then we removed the stncils.  Finally, we stamped some ornaments and cut them out to add to the layout.  There is some Early Espresso baker's twine as well.

Blessings to you,

December Stamp Club Cards

Alas, it is the last month to do Christmas cards with my club ladies!  Here are the cards we'll be making this month.

This first card was designed by one of the talented ladies in my downline, Christine Burbidge-Boyd.  I tweaked it a little bit because I wanted to use the Dazzling Diamond Dust technique.  The colour scheme is Night of Navy with Whisper White.  I used the Christmas Lodge stamp set here.  The lodge image is stamped, then sponged around the edges. I then covered the whole piece with VersaMark and sprinkled Iridescent Ice embossing powder on it.  After it is heat set, the whole image sparkles!  It's really pretty in real life!

It's difficult to tell from the photo, but this card is a Fun Fold card.  When it's closed, you see the Pacific Point snowflake through the scallop square window.  When you open it up, a sentiment piece slides into the square opening so you can read "Peace on Earth".  I used Pacific Point, Bashful Blue and Perfect Plum with the Snowflake Soiree stamp set.  The scallop square piece is from the Peekaboo Frames die (the center opening square is cut out).  I also used the 1-3/8" square punch to make the openings.  Some Whisper White organdy ribbon and rhinestone jewels finish off the card.

I've shown this card before here, but I haven't done it with my club ladies yet.  It uses the Merry Minis stamp set and punches, along with the ornament paper piercing template.  I LOVE these cute little punched images!

As a bonus project/Christmas gift, my club ladies will get to make this adorable paper ornament.  If you're a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, you've seen these ornaments on the cover of the latest issue of Stampin' Success magazine.  My upline, Winona Semler, came up with this particular one.  It uses First Edition specialty paper with some Cherry Cobbler circles and Vintage Trinkets brads, along with some Early Espresso baker's twine.

Thanks for reading!

Blessings to you,

Come to Bethlehem

Has anyone else's November flown by?  I just have a quick post today as I'm in the midst of Christmas baking and prepping for a Christmas card stamp-a-stack tomorrow while my kids play with their friends whom they invited over since there's no school today.  I'm tired already!

This is one of my stamp-a-stack cards for this year.  I love this stamp set, Come to Bethlehem, and I love the simplicity of this card.  It's simply stamped in Soft Suede on Very Vanilla cardstock.  I sponged the same colour ink around the edges of the card and wrapped some linen thread around it before adhering it to the Soft Suede card base.  To finish it off, I added a bitty button over the thread.

Blessings to you,

Snow Festival Advent Calendar

My friend, Mandy, asked me to come up with a pocket advent calendar similar to one she found on Pinterest.  The idea is to put family activities in the pockets instead of treats. The one she found had 12 x 12 cardboard pieces with pockets attached.  I thought it would be easier to use a canvas as it's a bit sturdier.  I also wanted to use Stampin' Up!'s products, of course, so here's what I came up with:

I noticed that the Snow Festival designer series paper has a sheet with 3 x 3" squares on it, which would fit perfectly onto the canvas in four rows of six!  You get 16 squares from a sheet, so I just added four more squares of two different pieces of paper from the package to get 24 squares altogether. I used 3 x 3" envelopes to create the pockets for the advent cards.

Here's what you need:

• 16 x 20" canvas
• 24 small envelopes (Stampin' Up!'s 3-1/8" x 3-1/8" square envelopes)
• 24 squares of designer series paper (Snow Festival)
• Big Shot with Bigz Typeset Alphabet (or other 1 to 1 1/2" number die set)
• assorted ribbons & embellishments - I used the Ornament, Small Scallop and Large Scallop punches, rhinestone jewels, Gumball Green stitched satin ribbon, Cherry Cobbler baker's twine, felt ornament.
• Sticky Strip
• Whisper White cardstock (24 rectangles that are 3 x 3-1/2").
• Cherry Cobbler & Gumball Green cardstock.

Here are the directions:

1. Cut the flaps off of the envelopes. 
2. Adhere the designer paper squares to the back of the envelopes (not the side you would address) to cover the folds.  This now becomes the front of your pocket.
3. Glue the numbers and embellishments to the designer paper on the envelope pockets as shown in the photo (or however you'd like!).
4. Slide the Whisper White cards into the envelopes.  These cards are for you to write advent family activities or clues to where treats are hidden.
5. Once the envelope pockets are finished, arrange them on the canvas, making sure they are evenly spaced.  Attach the envelopes to the canvas using sticky strip.  It's easiest to start with the bottom row.
6. After the envelopes are all glued down, take out your Whisper White cards and write your activities or clues on them (you could also do that before you start).  There are some great ideas for family activities on the link here to Kimberly Peterson's advent calendar (the one Mandy found on Pinterest).  

Hope you enjoy this! 

Blessings to you,

November Stamp Club Cards

I was fortunate enough to participate in a swap with some very talented ladies in our large downline group, and I got some fabulous ideas for some Christmas cards, which I want to share with my club ladies.

This first card is based on the one I received from Jean Ockerman (I changed it a tiny bit to work with the stamps I have).  The bottom is a piece of Cherry Cobbler Core'dinations paper that is embossed and sanded.  The snowflake is cut out of silver glimmer paper with the new Snow Flurry Bigz die.  I stamped the snowflake from Snowflake Soiree in Cherry Cobbler and punched it out with the 1 3/4" Circle punch.  There is some Cherry Cobbler tulle ribbon gathered on the back of the snowflake image as well.

This second card is one I received from my upline, Winona Semler.  It has the lovely Natural Composition specialty paper as a background, along with the ornaments from the Ornament Keepsake bundle. 

The final card we'll be making is one I posted last week that I made based on a card by Donna Wizniuk.  You can read the details here.

I'm so excited to be making Christmas cards!  It's always difficult to narrow down the choices for my stamp club because there are so many amazing ideas out there!  I hope they will enjoy these cards.

Blessings to you,

Layered Snowflakes

I've seen lots of these layered cards, so I wanted to try my hand at it!  My Stamp Club ladies will be making this card this month.

I was inspired by a gorgeous card that my friend, Donna Wizniuk, made.  She used Crumb Cake with Whisper white, which was quite stunning.  I decided to change it up a bit, and I used Midnight Muse and Whisper White with the Snowflake Soiree stamp set.  I embossed the snowflakes in white and also stamped a few in our new Luminescent ink, which makes a shimmery watermark image.    To finish off the card, I used some Midnight Muse stitched satin ribbon and added a "Merry" tag with the Designer Label punch and a couple of pearl jewels.  The snowflakes on the tag are in Midnight Muse, stamped off a few times so they're lighter (ink the stamp, then stamp it on scrap paper a few times before stamping on the sentiment).

Here's a quick tutorial for those of you who haven't seen this type of card before:

1.  Cut three sizes of the same colour of cardstock that you will be stamping your collage image on (Midnight Muse here).  I used 4 x 5 1/4", 3 1/4 x 4 1/2" and 2 1/2 x 2 3/4".  (Often this card is done with white or a neutral colour as these pieces so you can stamp in a coloured ink - I did a reverse here).

2.  Layer the three pieces together on top of each other (you may want to adhere them with Dotto or another repositionable adhesive so they will come apart after).

3.  Stamp your images over the cardstock in a collage style.  Emboss now if you're embossing!

4.  Pull apart the three pieces and layer them onto mats (I used Whisper White).  Make sure you keep the layers in the same direction as when you stamped them so that your images will line up when you put the pieces back together. The card base is the largest mat, then 3 1/2 x 4 3/4" and 2 3/4 x 4" for this card.

5.  Embellish your card as desired.

I love how easy this card is, but it looks complicated!  Enjoy!

Blessings to you,

Merry Minis!

This card is one that I prepared as a make & take for our large group meeting last weekend.  It is a CASE of a card that was apparently shown at Convention (I wasn't there, but I was sent a photo of a similar card to make for this event). 

I LOVE the new Merry Minis stamp set with matching mini punches.  They are so cute!  This card also used the new Festive Paper Piercing Pack, which includes a whole bunch of ornaments.  A trick for this card is that for the sentiment tag, you can use the top of the mini Christmas tree punch to make the little "v's". 

Enjoy!

Blessings to you,

Card Box Instructions

I just wanted to post some instructions on how to make the card box that my Stamp and Scrapbook Club ladies made this week since a few people couldn't make it to the club, and they'll need to know how to make it with their supplies!  Hopefully many of you will also find it useful.

BOX & BOW
There is a great tutorial for this box on Erica Cerwin's blog here (scroll down a bit for the box tutorial).  Here are the supplies you'll need:

• cardstock (Cherry Cobbler here) - 7 x 11" and 6 x 7"
• designer series paper (Be of Good Cheer here) - 3-3/4 x 4-3/4" and 2-1/4 x 6-1/2" (2) for decorating the box.  Score the two longer strips diagonally from the top at zero.  Cut the diagonal line so the paper will fit on the side of the box.  You will need to flip one of the sheets of paper and score the opposite side so that the same pattern will show on each side of the box (see photo below).
• designer series paper - 1-1/2 x 12" and 1-1/2 x 6" for band (glue the strips together and wrap them around the box)
• Simply Scored tool with diagonal plate 

 To make the bow, you'll need a half-sheet (6 x 12") of designer series paper, cut into the following:

• 6 x 1" (8)
• 5 x 1" (4)
• 4 x 1" (1)

There's a tutorial here on Splitcoast Stampers, but for an easier way to get the bow pieces in loops, check here. 

CARDS
The cards are pretty straight-forward.  I wanted to keep them simple so the ladies could finish them and the box with envelopes in a couple of hours.

Here are the supplies for the cards:

• card bases (Gumball Green and Cherry Cobbler here) - standard 5-1/2" x 8-1/2", scored at 4-1/4"
• Very Vanilla - 3-1/4 x 4-1/2" (one per card)
• designer series paper (Be of Good Cheer here) - 1-1/2 x 3" (one per card)
• ribbon (Cherry Cobbler polka dot scallop, Gumball Green stitched satin and 7/8" cotton ribbon here) - about a 4" section per card
• rhinestone jewels

Adhere the Very Vanilla cardstock piece to the card base.  Adhere the designer series paper to the bottom of the Vanilla piece.  Cut the ends of the ribbon into "v's" and glue it across the top of the designer series paper. Stamp your image at the top of the Vanilla piece (any assorted Christmas stamps will work).

ENVELOPES
For the envelopes, you will need 7-3/4" squares of designer series paper (one per card).  Use the Simply Scored tool with the diagonal plate.

Score the first side at 3-1/8".  Rotate the paper 180 degrees and score the opposite side at 3-1/8".

Turn the paper 90 degrees and score at 4-1/8".  Rotate another 180 degrees and score the opposite side at 4-1/8".

Snip out the corners where the scored lines intersect.  You may need to fold the scored lines to see them clearly on the designer series paper.  You can use paper snips or a 1" square punch as shown.

Fold the flaps and snip off the top part of the front flap.  Adhere the edges of the front flap and glue the flaps together.

And that's how you make the box, bow, cards and envelopes!  Please feel free to comment or contact me if you have any questions. 

Blessings to you,

Evergreen Glimmer

I love the new Evergreen stamp set in the Holiday catalogue.  I recently saw this card by Heather Cooper, and I fell in love with it, so I had to CASE it.   

The card base is Cherry Cobbler.  I stamped the Woodgrain background on some Very Vanilla cardstock in Soft Suede ink, then swiped the ink pad over the edges of the vanilla paper.  I used the Labels Framelits with the Big Shot for the Always Artichoke, Champagne Glimmer and Very Vanilla layers.  The tree is stamped in Always Artichoke, then I embossed the words over the tree with gold embossing powder.  Finally, there are some dots of Cherry Cobbler dazzling details over the tree with a rhinestone jewel at the top.  Some Cherry Cobbler seam binding finishes off the card. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,

Fall Clubs - First Meeting Project!

I know it's been awhile since I've posted!  I've been extremely fatigued all summer, and I've been going to the doctor regularly and undergoing all kinds of testing to see what's wrong with me.  We have finally discovered that I am severely allergic to grass, which kind of sucks since grass is everywhere!  But at least we now know it's not a serious illness and something easily treatable!  Needless to say, with almost no energy, I haven't been stamping much this summer.  But now that I'm on a strong allergy medication, I've found my stamping mojo!

So I've been planning what my Stamp and Scrapbook Club ladies will be doing at our first class in the fall, and here's what I've come up with.

This based on a project that my upline, Winona Semler, showed us using the Make a Cake stamp set.  I've modified it into a Christmas card holder!  Each lady will get to make six Christmas cards with matching envelopes using the Be of Good Cheer designer series paper.  They will also make this cute card holder with a paper bow decoration!

For my first club meetings, we usually do a fancier project for a small class fee (instead of placing an order) and draw names for hostess months, which start in the following month.  I find that this gives the first hostess time to collect outside orders and plan for what she'd like as her free hostess products instead of having to scramble at the first meeting to decide.

I'm very excited to get my clubs going again this fall!  I still have room for more ladies, so if you live in my area, let me know if you'd like to join!

Blessings to you,