April 6x6 Bragbook Pages

It was nice to be able to think of spring a little bit this fall; I enjoyed using pink papers and making the tree with spring "blossoms". I'm not much of a scrapbooker, but managed to come up with this all by myself! Sometimes even I am struck by inspiration! ;)

This layout is for a 6x6 bragbook class I am offering in the new year. I was in a swap with 3 of my upline, and each of us had to come up with 2-page layouts for 3 months. I had April, May and June. For this one, I knew I wanted to use some fresh spring-like colors, and the striped paper from the Petals and Paisley DSP pack was just what I was looking for. I don't own any current Easter sets (yet! Stay tuned for the new 2008 Spring/Summer Catalog!), so I couldn't do an Easter themed layout. Instead I stuck to "Spring" as my theme, and that tree from "Lovely As A Tree" was perfect for this project. To make that tree multi-colored, I first colored it with my Marvelous Markers in Mellow Moss for the leaves and Chocolate Chip for the trunk. Then I used Pretty in Pink and Cameo Coral, and "bounced" them (one at a time) on the stamp. You need to use the paintbrush side of the marker to do this technique. Then I huffed and stamped! I didn't even mind doing this technique 4 times; it takes a little bit of time, but was not at all hard to do.

With spring on my mind, I have begun to look at my 2008 classes and clubs schedule. I'm starting 2 stamp clubs in January - one that will be held on a Friday of each month, and the other that will be either a Monday, Wednesday or Thursday of each month.
I also have a marker club starting, where there are 4 members and each month you receive a color family of markers, and one member will receive the box to store them in. Also each month I will teach this club 2 techniques using their markers.
February 1st I am holding a Valentine's card class. Please see my website for more information about this class.

Well, I'm off to get back in the Christmas frame of mind! Time to finish off my Christmas cards (before it's too late!) :)

A Penguin to Cow Twist!

I had my last Christmas Bundle class last week, where we made shaker cards. One of the ladies who came to the class is in love with cows. I don't mean she likes cows, I mean she's bonkers over anything cow! SO, she asked if she could bring her cow stamp to make special cow Christmas cards! It fit nicely where the penguin was supposed to go (see the original card here); I thought it was a nice way to personalize the card! We even sponged Green Galore around the cow, to give it a little extra something. I really like how it turned out, don't you? :)

Fun Fast Stampin'!

I held a class last week where we made some small Christmas gifts. Some were more intricate than others; some took a lot of preparation time, others took almost none - like these Christmas Gift Card holders! These were SO easy to make, and I think even with just a little effort they look beautiful! I used 2 stamps from the Punch Pals set, put the little snowflake in the middle on dimensionals, and tied Stampin' Up's beautiful ribbon in an easy knot - simple as that! What a nice way to give a gift card to someone special.

Here is a picture of all of the projects we made at that gifts class:

I gave them some chocolate treats to put inside the penguin pouch, and delicious hot chocolate to put inside the snowman slider. These are all great gifts to give anyone on your list: as a stocking stuffer, for a hostess gift, a teacher gift, etc. Anyone would love to receive a hand made gift like these, and none of them took longer than 45 minutes to make!

Have some fun this season making homemade gifts; whether it's a card, a book or home decor, they are all too much fun to make! :)

Simple Sparkly Christmas

I'm still searching for just the right Christmas card to send out to all my family and friends. I've seen tonnes of beautiful cards, but I haven't seen "the one" yet. In the meantime, I'm working on other Christmas projects. I made this card for a friend's workshop. I wanted a simple project that still had that "Wow!" factor, and I think this one did the trick! I embossed each snowflake with white embossing powder, then added Dazzling Diamonds to the ends of each one. Simple as that, but I love how the white pops on the red!