Countdown to Christmas Clipboard

How cute is this?! Kathryn had an awesome tutorial on her blog for these Countdown to Christmas clipboards, so I had to try one for myself.

This is my take on the clipboard, and I will be doing a class on these in November for anyone who's interested!

I started by painting a clipboard with acrylic paint, then adhering designer paper on it. I used the Wintergreen designer series paper with Bravo Burgundy, Always Artichoke and Soft Sky cardstock. For the Christmas tree, I just cut out a triangle of Artichoke, punched some circles out of the paper I used (for decorations), then stuck some buttons on with glue dots. The star is Yoyo Yellow cs punched out with the star punch, then I put VersaMark on the whole thing and embossed it with Iridescent Ice ep. The snowflakes are from the Frosty stamp set.

I made the number tags with the small and regular tag punches and the Best Friends Numbers set. The number tags have magnets on the back that stick to two washers that I've glued to the paper. That way, you can change the numbers as Christmas gets closer! There's also an envelope glued to the back of the clipboard to hold the extra numbers.

And there it is! I wouldn't say quick and simple because it took awhile, but it is a lot of fun!

Peaceful Wishes Stamp Camp Cards

These are for another class I'll be offering in the fall, called "Peaceful Wishes Stamp Camp". I won't take credit for any of these cards, since I CASEd them all from people on Splitcoast Stampers. I've put the links below for each one, so you can check out the galleries of the talented people who designed these cards. Sorry there are no originals today. I just loved all these cards so much, I had to try them for myself!

These cards are all made with the Peaceful Wishes stamp set. For this class, guests will receive the stamp set to keep and get to make ten cards (two of each) so they can get some ideas of different ways to use the set.

This card is by NCfield. It is made with Mellow Moss and Whisper White CS with Always Artichoke and Whisper White ink.







I love the non-traditional Christmas colours of this card. It's made with Soft Sky, Blue Bayou and Close to Cocoa. It was designed by crooked river.






I modified this card a bit from a card by Jessica. She used River Rock with Real Red (which looked stunning!), but I wanted to make sure I had a traditional-looking Christmas card for the class, so I used Real Red with Handsome Hunter.





The basic design of this card is by cat$dancer. I simplified it a little bit to make it more workable for a class setting. I love the earthy tones of this card.






I CASEd this from Stamp Addict, who in turn CASEd it from someone else, so I'm not sure who the original designer of this card is! It's beautiful, though. I love the Always Artichoke/Bravo Burgundy combination. I use it a lot for my Christmas cards.

So if you'd like to make all these cards and get the stamp set (and you live in my area!), give me a call or email me for more information.

Card Candy Winner!

Betty is the winner of the card candy challenge! She made a card with some beautiful card candy on it! Check it out here. Please email me your address, Betty, so I can send your prize to you! Congratulations and thanks for participating!

I also notice that I'm getting close to 5000 hits, so watch out for some blog candy coming soon to celebrate that!

Thanksgiving Cards

These cards are for a Thanksgiving Stamp-a-Stack I will be hosting in September. Guests will get to make fifteen cards (5 each of the 3 big ones) and ten note cards (5 each of 2 designs) that can be used as place cards on the table or as little pocket notes.

I love the new Apple Cider designer paper that is in SU!'s Holiday Mini Catalogue, so it's been fun to play with that!

The stamp sets I used were Give Thanks and Baroque Motifs (this set just works with any holiday - just change the colours!). Of course, I tried to keep with fall colours, so I used River Rock, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green, Groovy Guava, So Saffron, Close to Cocoa and Chocolate Chip. I coloured in the line images with blender pens using my Classic Ink Pads. The "Happy Thanksgiving" sentiment is from Holidays & Wishes, and the flourish on the note cards is from Priceless.

I Won Bingo!

I actually won Round 2 of Barb's Bingo Challenge last week! We're on Round 3 right now, but I wanted to wait until my prize arrived to announce it so I could show you what Barb sent.

First, here's the beautiful card that Barb made that came with the prize. I love the pretty spring colours and the paper piercing! So cute!

The prize was an assortment of Glitter Stacks paper. Barb sent a whole bunch of 6 x 6 sheets for me. This paper is fantastic! I haven't seen this particular brand before (as I'm a Stampin' Up! girl), but I love it! There is glitter on all the pages so it is pretty and sparkly!

Thank you so much, Barb, for this great prize and for organizing the Bingo. I'm having a blast!

Check out Barb's blog here. She's got some beautiful cards on there, as well as great stories about her life (a particular encounter with a bear comes to mind! *smile*). Isn't this paper great? I'm so excited - I've never won a blogging prize before! I'm off to go play with my new paper!

Alex has Blog Candy!

Hello all! Check out Alex's awesome blog, California Stampin'. She has some beautiful projects on there, and she's offering some fantastic blog candy up to celebrate reaching 2500 hits! Congratulations Alex! :)

Don't forget that you can win some card candy from me as well. Find out how here.

Oh So Lovely Birthday Card

I can now post the birthday card I made for my sister-in-law, Wendy! We celebrated her birthday and my father-in-law's birthday yesterday as a family (their birthdays are August 11 and 13, but different family members have all been on holidays until this week!). So now that she's seen the card, I can publish it!

I used Beate's sketch from a few weeks ago to make this card. Its base is Soft Sky textured CS, layered with Wintergreen designer paper and Sage Shadow CS. I edged these two pieces with Sage Shadow ink. For the main image, I stamped the flowers from the Oh So Lovely hostess set in Basic Black on Whisper White CS, then coloured them in with blender pens using Purely Pomegranate and Sage Shadow ink. The greeting is from Sincere Salutations, stamped in Pomegranate. This piece was then matted on Pomegranate as well.

And as luck would have it, this will qualify for Barb's Bingo Color Challenge, since I used In Color colours! So we'll get an extra number drawn on Monday! By the way, today is Barb's birthday, so Happy Birthday, Barb! Enjoy your special day! If you get a chance, drop by her blog and leave her a happy birthday wish.

Card Candy, Blog Candy and a Challenge!

I was searching around on Splitcoast Stampers, and I came across something called card candy. Most of you probably know what this is, but for those who don't, it's little stamped embellishments that you can stick on a card or scrapbook page - you don't have to do the work!

So now I've been busy making card candy to give out as door prizes at my fall workshops. These are a few of the samples I've come up with. I wanted people to be able to use them, but still package them nicely, so to package them, I put a dimensional on the back of each tag, then a glue dot onto the dimensional backing. Then I stuck the whole thing to the cardstock piece with the glue dot, so that when people go to use the "sticker", the dimensional backing is still there and the candy is usable (I hope that makes sense!).










I CASEd the first set (the Christmas ones) from ddstamps on Splitcoast. I just loved her colours (Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou) and the Perfect Presentation hostess set just lends itself so nicely to this project. Then I think I got the hang of it, so I tried designing my own. I wanted to use different colour schemes, so workshop guests can choose the card candy that they like (I will be making more - these are so much fun to do!). So for the second set I used Blush Blossom, Almost Amethyst and Sage Shadow with the Priceless set. For the third set, I used Old Olive, River Rock and Bravo Burgundy with the Baroque Motifs and In the Spotlight stamp sets. You can click on the images to get a close-up view.

After I made the candy, I cut a piece of cardstock to mount them on (it's 3 1/2 x 2 7/8"), put dimensionals on the backs, then glue dots as I described above, and stuck the candy on the cardstock. I stamped my information on the back. This piece fit perfectly into the small flat cellophane bags that Stampin' Up! carries. I then stapled a cardstock strip across the top, stamped on a strip of neutral cardstock as a label, then adhered that to the topper. On the back, I stamped the "to/from" stamp from Perfect Presentation. Here's a photo of the back of the candy package.



Now, on to the blog candy! I am offering up some card candy as blog candy, but there's a challenge involved! All you need to do is come up with your own card candy and post it on your blog or Splitcoast gallery. Then leave me a comment with a link to your card candy photo for one entry. For an extra entry, mention this challenge on your blog with a link here (let me know in your comment that you've done this). You can enter as many times as you'd like with different card candy photos. I will have random.org choose a number to determine the winner. I will leave this open until Tuesday, August 28, then choose a number on Wednesday. The winner will get five different packages of Card Candy.

Workshop Gifts

I've been busy for the past few days getting some things ready for my fall workshops (by the way, I still have some dates available if anyone wants to book - just email me or give me a call!).

These are some bookmarks I made to use as gifts for workshop guests who bring a friend or to use as door prizes.

They are really simple! The base is Blue Bayou (5 1/2" x 2"). Then I layered some Sage Shadow on that. The front is on Whisper White CS, stamped with Sage Shadow (the background) and Blue Bayou flowers, both from the Oh So Lovely hostess set. To top it off, I stapled some double-stitched Blue Bayou ribbon on top.

Then I made some thank you cards for hostesses using the same colour combination. I just got the Cutter Kit, and I've been dying to try out the perforating tool! So I made a hostess card that has a detachable bookmark. The bookmark is obviously the same as the above ones, minus the ribbon (I was going to put some on, but it made the card look lop-sided!). To get the perforations, I put the card in my paper cutter, lined up at 2 inches, and ran the perforating tool over the card through the slot where the cutting blade is.

Then on the left, I stamped some Blue Bayou flowers from Simply Said. For the sentiment, I stamped the saying from Simply Said in Blue Bayou on Whisper White CS and matted it on Sage Shadow. I also stamped the background from Oh So Lovely in Sage Shadow on top of it.

It's a fairly plain card I know, but I wanted the focal point to be the bookmark.

Peaceful Wishes Ornament Card

Here's another card that I CASEd. I saw it on the Stampin' Up! demonstrator webside in the Stamper's Showcase and I absolutely loved it, so I had to copy it! This card was designed by Cathy Millen. I did a Google search for her to see if she had a blog, but nothing came up.

I used the Peaceful Wishes set for this card. I first of all cut a circle out of a piece of scrap cardstock and laid that on top of some Whisper White CS. Then I stamped the berries in the circle (I inked the stamp with Bravo Burgundy and Always Artichoke Stampin' Write markers). After that, I sponged Brocade Blue ink inside the circle. Then I stamped some spots from Itty Bitty Backgrounds in Whisper White craft ink over the whole thing and heat embossed it with Iridescent Ice EP. (It's hard to tell that the spots are there from the photo, but I was trying to make it look like snow!)

After that I took the scrap circle off and stamped the branches in Always Artichoke using repetition (I stamped a few times before re-inking the stamp so there are some lighter branches). Then to make the top of the ornament, I inked the top of a stamp that had an ornament (the "Noel" in Big on Christmas) with VersaMark, stamped it on the ornament (I used my Stamp-a-ma-Jig to line it up), and embossed it with silver EP.

Finally, I sponged some Brocade Blue ink around the edge of the entire card, matted it on Brocade Blue CS and adhered the whole thing to the Always Artichoke card base.

I really like this card, but it would take a long time to make a stack of them, so this might end up just being a display board card for my workshops!