Easter is Coming!

Did you realize that Easter is now less than 2 weeks away???? Maybe it isn't sneaking up on you like it is on me. I've been working on a few Easter projects that I wanted to share with you today. First is a little Easter basket made with the Scallop Square die. I've posted one of the purses I made but this little goodie is so quick and easy! You only use 5 squares instead of 19 so it doesn't take long to sew one up. Another Stampin' Up demonstrator named Sarah Stetler Miller made one that was so cute I just had to copy the idea! I haven't shabby chic-ed this one up yet but was excited to get a picture and share it. I love that I can use my Big Shot machine for sewing projects too, it makes it seem like a much better purchace that way.

Second is a little paper basket I made using the Fancy Favors die. The little bunny is punched from circle and oval punches and the carrot is stamped with the Trendy Trees stamp set. Yes, it is two of the tree tops stamped in green and orange! I got this idea from the Stampin' Connection website, a place where Stampin' Up demonstrators can go to find ideas and new techniques to share with their customers. It is a great benefit for demonstrators.

Speaking of which, the 15% off plus a free stamp set (up to a $47.95 value) ends on March 31st. If you've been thinking of joining Stampin' Up as a business or a hobby demonstrator, it doesn't get much better than that! Contact me if you want to discuss joining my team.

Last, an Easter card using the Beautiful Wings Sizzlet die and the Perfect PolkaDots texture die. It also featrues the Well Scripted sentiment stamp set and the FREE Scallop Trim Border punch. Don't miss out on Sale-a-bration, Stampin' Up's best sale of the year. It also ends March 31st. Contact me now to place an order or book a workshop. I don't have any openings this week but do have a couple of openings next week. I'd love to be able to give you free Stampin' Up products!

If you aren't familiar with Sale-a-bration, it is a once yearly sale that features free stamp sets with each $50 order. A hostess can also get a free stamp set besides her regular hostess benefits with each $300 in sales she gets at her workshop. My last hostess earned 3 Sale-a-bration sets, a hostess stamp set and $35 in free merchandise. She is going to feel like it's Christmas again when her order comes! Email me if you are interested: wrightplace4@mindspring.com

Garden Giggles Card

I have been having fun playing with the Garden Giggles critters and made a card with one for a friend who is sick. I've got a few ideas for scrapbook pages too. These little guys are so adorable they might give my grandchildren some competition though!

Don't forget to sign up for the classes in advance so I can make sure I have a class kit for you. Remember, for the Garden Giggles class you will be making the 5 bags I posted Monday. There is still room in the Lacy Flower class and the Card Organizer class as well.

I used the Cottage Wall paper as the backdrop for this little bee. He is buzzing over an Orchid Opulence flower looking for something to help my friend get well faster. I hope just looking at the cute little bee will help.

Sweet Pea Cards

I made a couple of cards today when I went to a friend's house to crop. There were 5 of us there and we laughed and created and had a good time. I brought my new Stampin' Up goodies from the new Occassions Mini Catalog and Sale-a-bration catalog. I used the Sweet Pea paper (of course), the sheet with the big trees on it. I also got the new Pinking Hearts Border punch so I had to use it a lot too!

Both cards also use the Sale-a-bration stamp set called Vintage Labels. The set has 3 different labels (which all have a coordinating punches, quick and easy!) and 3 different sentiments. I got them in the clear mount option so it was easy to center the sentiment inside the label.

The card on the left is a square card. I mounted a square of Old Olive on the card and then a piece of Whisper White that was punched on either side with the Pinking Hearts Border punch. I mounted the smaller tree from the paper onto Chocolate Chip cardstock and added the label with a bit of ribbon under it.

The other card uses the larger tree double mounted on Taken With Teal and Old Olive cardstock. The Old Olive layer was also punched with the Pinking Hearts Border punch and I added a bird from the Two Step Bird punch. I used the Happy Birthday sentiment from the Vintage Labels set and the stamp that matches the Curly Label Punch and tied a length of the 5/8" Old Olive Satin ribbon around it.

Is it Monday yet?

I promised I would draw a name for the blog candy on Monday. I just realized it is Wednesday. The week has zipped by! My son is getting married Saturday so I've been even busier than usual trying to get things organized and getting wedding programs designed and made. OK, so I have one completely made. I still have 2 days until the wedding!

Anyway, I drew a name and Angela won the 2 stamp sets. Congratulations Angela! Thanks for being one of my most loyal blog followers. I'll get the stamps to you ASAP.

I've made 5 scrapbook pages with My Digital Studio software. They are so easy and quick! I'm loving this program. If someone as computer challenged as I am can figure it out it must be easy! I have to find out how to place some of the pages on my blog, it's telling me I can't.

I'm posting 3 of the projects I made at our Stampin' Up Team meeting today. We did 9 projects and they were all wonderful. 4 of them were Halloween projects. I love that little (actually, it's pretty big) spider. It is made from the Scalloped Circle punch, the Photo Corner punch and some small circle punches. He is a fun little guy. I stamped the speckles on the green paper with the Itty Bitty Backgrounds stamp. It makes a great background without having to use patterned paper. The Happy Halloween sentiment stamp is from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set and it was punched with the Modern Label punch.

The cute little skeleton is from the Scary Skeleton set. I don't think he is scary at all! He's adorable. We used all 4 of the stamps in this set for this card. Notice the bats on the background and the sentiment and cat on the Modern Label punched piece.

The last one is like a popper, if you pull the ends it opens up so you can put goodies inside. It was slightly difficult but not terribly hard to score and fold all the lines but it was worth it, it's such a cute little treat box. The tag was stamped with the Eat Drink and be Scary stamp set.

I was trying to write the names of the creators on the backs of each card as I made them but I forgot on all 3 of these. Maybe when I post the Christmas ones I'll have several with names so I can give credit to them. The 4th Halloween project was the one I posted the other day with the Sweet Centers stamp set. I'm going to have to do a class with some of the ideas I've found for that set and the idea of having the candy on the card. It is just too fun!

I haven't forgotten that I promised to post the tutorial for the explosion box. It has a lot of pictures so it will take a long time to load and describe all of them. I'll work on that on the way to Memphis and back this weekend (while my husband is driving silly!). I may let him drive all the way so I can do that and play with My Digital Studio some more.

Halloween Sweet Center Card

It dawned on me that you might like to see the Sweet Centers stamp set if you don't have a copy of the Holiday Mini Catalog so I took a picture of it. Not the greatest picture (like any of mine are since I don't have a great digital camera) but you can see the stamps in it.

I used the Halloween stamp for the card I did today. I stamped it in black and let it dry for a while before I used markers to color in the white areas. It looks fine with them white but I like them colored in too.

On this card I just made an X for the reciepent to pull open to get the candy. There are 2 things I figured out about this way to do it. Notice in the picture when I am cutting with the hobby blade, I only have one layer that I am cutting through. Since the adhesive is on the rim of the cup you can add that last so be sure to cut through all layers at once and then add the candy. You may have to do several passes but if you only do one layer like I did, it will be impossible to get the other layers to line up with the first one. Aren't you glad I share my goofs with you so you can save time and not do them yourself?

The second thing I thought about was that you want to make sure not to pull any of the corners back so that they lay down better. This is not the voice of experience this time, I just thought about it when I was cutting the X's.

I'm thinking that it would be nice if real life let me spend more time in my studio every day. I need to get a few extra projects ahead in the next few days because my son is getting married Saturday and my daughter is expecting a baby next Sunday so I'm going to have a busy week or 2 coming up. Like my weeks aren't busy already! I know that there is a way to do a post and have it post later, I'll have to see if I can figure it out. I'm always amazed when I figure out a new thing on the computer.

I did go and buy a new computer and I'm really enjoying it! I loaded the My Digital Studio on it and made a layout in about 15-20 minutes last night. Boy howdy, it that software great!!! I'll be sharing the layout later, I wanted to share this card with the Sweet Centers Set and I still have the tutorial I promised for the explosion box to post. I'll try to do that Monday and then I can post the digital layouts next week when I'm sure to be frantically busy.

Oh yes, I wanted to share a blog candy opportunity I saw on a blog called Scrappin' Out Loud, isn't that a great name for a blog? Head on over there and let me know if you win (although I'm cheering for myself to win)! I love the second card with the snowmen on it.

Purses Swap Card

I went to a Stampin' Up Retreat today that was sponsored by my next 2 uplines and my 3rd upline came up from Atlanta too. I wanted to join the card swap because there are always so many great ideas shared. When we got the swap information, we found out we needed to make 54 cards! This is my card above.

If you ever doubted my sanity you will be assured that I am completely crazy when you see the card I decided to make. A normal person would make one that was relatively simple and wouldn't take too long to make when they are making so many. Nope, not me! I love this card, I found it on someone's blog and cut and pasted into a file I call "Caseable Cards". There are about a dozen pages in that file now of great cards I want to copy when I have time. Unfortunately, the information for the blog I got it from is too small for me to read and when I enlarged the card it got too blurry to read so if this looks like a copy of your card, LMK so I can give credit where credit is due.
I used 4 punches to make the purses. The picture on the left shows where I cut each punch. The Round Tab punch that I used for the bottom of the purses was simply cut in half right in the middle. The Scalloped Square punch was used for 2 types of purse flaps. First I cut off the top and bottom (green) 3 scallops. Then I cut the remaining long piece into 2 other cute flaps and threw away the rectangle piece from the middle.

The handles and pink flap were made with the Large Oval punch and the Scalloped Oval punch. There was also a rectangular piece left over from this one.

I double punched these oval punches. First punch the Large Oval punch but leave enough space around it to punch the next punch.

Center the Scalloped Oval punch around the Large Oval punch carefully to punch out the handle. Since I was making so many punch pieces, I ran the paper through my Xyron machine before punching it so I could just peal and stick the purse parts onto the card and not have to keep applying adhesive. This is especially

helpful on this skinny little handle!

These are the 3 pieces for the purse on the left. The other 2 are done the same way but with a different flap. After assembling the purses, add the brads to act as closures and then add the layers of the card together. There are 2 reasons to add the brads before putting the card together. First, there will be fewer layers to punch the brad through and second, the prongs of the brad will be hidden between the layers instead of on the inside of the card where they will be seen when the card is opened. But you knew that, right??

I got some great cards in return for the swap. I'll post some more later but I think I need to post the projects we made at the retreat first. There were some great ones, I have a Mother's Day class ready to go, I just have to figure out a date for it. Mother's Day is less than a month away!

I'll post the first set of projects Monday.

RAK and I'm a Featured Artist

Have you ever gotten a RAK? If you have never heard of one, it stands for Random Act of Kindness. I got one last week, a beautiful hand-stamped card from a fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator. I have never met her but I sure enjoyed the card. Isn't it pretty? You can't tell from the picture but the background is textured with the dots texture plate. Nice touch!

If you read yesterday's post, you know I needed some random kindness!

Then I was asked to be a featured artist on Shelly Smarzik's blog. What an honor! If you want to check out her post, go to http://imstuckonstampinup.blogspot.com/2009/04/monday-featured-artist.html

I have been enjoying her blog for a while now and she has simular taste to mine so I love her projects. I hope you will enjoy them too. I asked her if I could feature her also so you will see a special post later this week. It's so fun to share!

Bird Card

I used that cute Good Morning Sunshine paper I had left over from my Feb class layout for this card as well as the Birds and Branches die and eyelet lace border punch. I cut a 1 1/2" X 5 1/4" strip of the bird paper, 1 3/4" X 5 1/4" strip of Pacific Point cardstock and 2 1/2" X 5 1/4" piece of white cardstock which I punched on both long sides with the eyelet lace border punch. After layering these I adhered them to a 4" X 5 1/4" piece of the yellow checked paper, leaving room at the top for the birds and one piece of the tree branch diecut. I stamped the "Thinking of You" sentiment from the Trendy Trees stamp set that I got from the Man in Brown yesterday. I need to find some more time to play with that set tomorrow, I love it! I trimmed the white strip down and matted it on a small scrap of Pacific Point. I adhered the branch and then added the birds using Stampin' Dimentionals. This really was a pretty quick card. That Big Shot machine is making card making and scrapbooking so fast. I'm going to start a Big Shot Club soon. I'll be posting details of that soon.

Dry Embossing Technique

Here is a card I'm making for a swap. The only thing I did at the crop Saturday was make 3 of these cards. Very productive, huh? Hey remember, I also taught a totally goofed up class!



Have you ever done dry embossing? Some dry embossing uses a brass template. The straight lines on the pink cardstock at the bottom of this card is done using my trimmer, hey cool, something we already have! You could use the scoring blade with your trimmer but I always push too hard and tear my paper so I use the bone folder and just push my blade all the way to the top out of the way. Actually, sometimes I take the blade all the way off so if I get distracted I won't accidentally grab it and cut the paper instead of score it!

The picture looks amazingly normal even though I had to hold my camera upside down to take it with my left hand. Oh, the things we do for our blogs! I had to flip the picture when I edited it.


I am making 15 of these cards for a swap so I embossed some whole sheets of cardstock and cut it into 8 strips measuring 5 1/2 X 4 1/8. I attached a strip to the bottom of a white card front and inked it. Be sure the ridges are up when you adhere it. When you ink the embossed strips it looks like bead board, I really like it. I found it easier to ink the strips after I adhered them to the larger piece.


I think I showed in a previous post how to punch using a border punch. It is so easy when you can line it up and match the design with the printed design on the punch.









I also found it easier to ink the punched eyelet border piece after I had attached it to the inked patterned paper.















When you use a stamp set with a punch you just stamp the image and then insert it into the punch holding the punch upside down. Then you can see the image and line it up so you can punch it where you want it.

An easy way to get a knot on your card is to attach the ribbon around the back and take a small strip and just tie it around the attached ribbon. I used green on this card but I also used the black gingham on some of them which you can see in the picture at the top. I can't decide which color I like best, what do you think? I wonder how pink would look - overkill or perfect??? Maybe I'll do that tomorrow when I will hopefully have time to finish the swaps.

Gotta run! I hope you enjoy this card, even with the terrible photography! I'll have to retake several of the pictures tomorrow.