Water Color Trio Swap

Here's the card I made for the Summer mini swap I was in last weekend:

Continuing your stamped image off the matted layer

Have you ever wondered how they get those images to line up from the background onto the matted layer?

Colors: Whisper White, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive, Bashful Blue

Punches: Large oval, Scalloped oval, Hearts edge punch, Scalloped circle (mask for clouds)

Stamping alignment Tip: Using dotto adhesive (pg. 192) temporarily attach the white layer on the old olive background layer. Stamp your images. Remove the top layer and attach the razzleberry mat. Now re-align these layers and attach with dimensionals.

Graduation cards & Shower cards Monday Mini May 10th

It's that time of the year when you need to have cards on hand for graduations and wedding showers. Here's the cards that my stampers made for the Monday mini class, May 10th.

This first card is a very quick and easy card:

This next card, I would call a fun funky fold. When I saw the spring fold cards, they reminded me of a graduation cap. I eliminated one of the folds from that pattern and switched around a couple other folds to make the gift pocket. What do you think?

Stampin' Up!s  ribbons only unravel from one direction. Therefore if you tie a knot on the one end and unravel the other, you'll have an easy tassel. Attach it to the top of the card/cap on the other side of the knot that is not unraveled, trim any excess ribbon. When the graduate lifts up the cap, it will reveal a pocket where you can place a gift card, cash and a small note letting them know it's from you.

I'm so loving the Big Shot embossing folders. Seems like my cards are missing something when I don't use at least one of the embossing folders. Here's the punchy shower card that was made, with just a little bit of stamping.

Isn't the crunchy punch flower just adorable? It's no secret I need to work on my photography skills, there really is 3 different pinks.


Punching Tip For Layering: For perfectly centered punches when doing multiple layers, start with the smallest punch, add adhesive and attach to the next layer, then center and punch.


Tip for Punching Corners: If you are having trouble with the new corner punches, curl the tip with your fingernail. Then when you slide the paper in, the tip will catch in the corner so you don't go to far.

Mother’s Day Pansys

OMG! These pansy's are so adorable. Here is the Mother's day card that stampers made at my Monday mini class on May 3rd.

Colors: Crushed Curry, Very Vanilla, Rich Razzleberry, Glorious Green, Shimmmer White

Punches: Bird, wing & branch; Butterfly, Wide oval, Scalloped oval

Big Shot: Manhattan Floral embossing folder, Top note die

Accessories: Fire & Ice brads, Curry Polka dot ribbon

Can you believe it's made from our butterfly punch - yeah sure you betcha' - look again - see. How cool is that?

Okay I know I'm not the best photographer, but those little specks on the flowers are actually the sparkles that are in the shimmer white paper. I'm so proud I was able to capture the shimmer. These are so spectacular in real life.

The larger leaves are the wings from the bird punch. At first the leaves looked so flat and out of place, therefore to add dimension to the leaves, I used the mat pack (pg 191) and Empressor stylus (pg 188). The stylus is like a ball point pen without ink, it rolls so smoothly.

DRY EMBOSSING TIP: Hold the leaves at the base, start pressing at the tip and pull towards you. If you start at the branch and push towards the tip of the leaf, the leaves have the tendency to rip and pull off the branch.

Dawn Olchefske is the very talented demo and creator from right here in Minnesota. Check out her "How to" video tutorial and make sure you leave her a comment. Thank you Dawn for sharing!

Friends, Flowers & Faith Grow in God's Love

The first 30 flower peppermint paddy favors were fun to make. The 90 others that followed made me so very glad that I had friends helping me. The fellowship made the time and task enjoyable. I never could have done it without them.

We had several ladies taking some pictures of all our lovely decorated tables, I am trying to track down some pictures. We had about 110 guests attend our Supper Flower event on Wednesday evening April 28th with a demonstration by Karen Kreiser, owner of Wildwood Nursery.

The wonderful compliments we have received have us all energized and excited. We have already started making plans for a fall event. If you have a suggestion for a fall type favor - I'd love to see an example. Just post a link in the comments.

Easter Cards

I taught another class on Tues. afternoon (March 23rd) at "A Place to Belong". They were soooooo excited about their creations. They asked the coordinators if I could come back again so they could make Mother's Day and Father's Day cards. I'm booked for May 4th and I am planning to have alternate verses incase Mother's and Father cards are unneeded. You all know that I'm "easy challenged".  Therefore if you see some easy guy cards, I NEED to see them.

A Place to Belong is a social setting for people go to that are having mental difficulties. When demos coined the saying that Stamping is rubber therapy, I don't think this is what they had in mind, but it's right on the mark! Seeing their faces as they look with pride at their cards is priceless. The coordinator said they really look forward to me coming and it's all they talk about for days afterwards. Even though these classes result in no sales, the feeling that I've really made a difference in someone's day is so amazing and fulfilling. And that's therapy for me!

Bunny card details:
7 minutes, 35 seconds is all it took me to make my display card!!! Yeah!! I'm pretty proud of myself about that! When you say chocolate bunnies and baby chicks, it reminds everyone of Easter!

Supplies:
Crushed curry; paper & ink, Chocolate Chip ink, Gold brad, blender pen. The inside is stamped with God's Blessings in chocolate chip ink: Sharing with you the miracle of new hope and new life through the glorious gift of Christ the Lord. They also stamped the little chick and broken egg shell next to the verse. Obviously the yellow envelope is not SU, it's from my before SU stash because I only had enough white ones to give them 1 each. 

Stamping Tips: 

--- Stamp the bunny in the corner  on the whisper white layer before doing the embossing. --- Stamp the inside verse before assembling the card & if you muck it up refold the card so it becomes your front. You can cover up the mucking with your embossed whisper white bunny layer.

Supplies:

Pretty in Pink paper, retired stamp set: 1998 Easter Blessings, retired Raspberry Tart DSP 3"x4",  Mellon Mambo ink, the little flower is from Eastern Blooms, Crystal clear brad. The inside is stamped with God's Blessings in mellon mambo: Blessings brighten when we count them! THANK YOU for blessing my life in such a wonderful way!  White SU envelope. One of the things I so appreciate about doing these classes with "A Place to Belong" is they have provided me with an opportunity and have encouraged me to use retired products. 

To make the flowers: I had them put the punched pieces in the palm of their hand and then rub the petals with the bone folder to add curves. One of the members was worried about the wrinkles in the paper, and I said it made them look like the veins in real flowers. The edges of the flowers are sponged and then attached with dimensionals. My original sample didn't have sponging on the edge of the card, but a couple ladies asked if they could sponge the edges like last time. Then others asked what that meant, so I used my card to show them how it would look. Before long everyone had sponging all over - on every edge you can think of, even the envelopes and the flaps. 

I'm showing two different variations of the same card because one lady had trouble stamping on the inside of the card and smudged the verse. Tip: Stamp your inside verse before embossing the front of the card. This horizontal version of the card has the DSP in the middle to cover up the previously stamped and smudged image. I did this card to show them that there's no mistakes, just revisions in the layout. I think I may even like this one better. If I would have put the saying in the opposite corner it would have looked great vertically also.


Another tip: Never leave home without extra supplies for a couple additional cards.

Inspiration for my cards came from Lisa Reber and Debbie Currier cards on Stampin' Connection. It's an awesome website only for Stamping Up! demonstrators. I'd love to help you sign up to be a demonstrator so you can access to  all the wonderful ideas, examples, and discussions.