For My Mother In Law

Whew, has it ever been awhile! I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to post again; I found out in the middle of January that I am pregnant, and it has sure been a busy (and sick) time since then! I am now 17 weeks along, and while I'm still not back to my old self, I am trying my best to get back into some kind of groove. My head is so full of stamping ideas; I just need to find the time (and energy!) to let them out!



















In the mean time, here are a few cards I made for my Mother-in-law, as a gift. She loves hand-stamped cards, and it's always nice to have a few different ones on hand, so every year I make her a stack to give for birthdays, thank you's, etc. I fully admit that these were CASED by some very talented ladies at Splitcoaststampers.com! They are a bunch of very talented ladies, and when I saw these cards, I knew I had to make them! In some cases, I don't have the same colors, or stamps or accessories, so have changed a couple of details here and there, but mostly they are totally CASED (copy and share everything!). I loved making all three of these cards; the dragonfly is so very creative; the "ever greatful" card is so bright and cheery, and I always love using the color combo on the "thinking of you" card. Enjoy! Here are the links to the original card makers (click on each): Dragonfly, Ever Greatful, Thinking of You.

Shoebox Swap - Part 2

Here are the other 4 cards from the shoebox swap at my upline Terri's Christmas party. We had so much fun doing this, that we're talking about meeting throughout the year for a swap! That would be so much fun! :)
This is my 1st upline Bonnie's swap card. Every time I see this "Fabulous" flower I think of how much work it must be to cut out. Well, while I wouldn't want to make a large number of these cards (over 30), it was a lot easier and less time-consuming than I had thought. I really like this flower and now that I have the stamp set, I'm sure I'll be cutting it out frequently. The rest of this card is gorgeous too; I loved how we did Direct to Paper on the bottom half, and doesn't it look like designer paper? The top half IS designer paper; the bottom was stamped by moi. Love the jumbo eyelet too!
















This card was so fast and easy to make, but what a "wow" card it is! I haven't used the brushed gold cs before, and I really liked how it looked. This color combo isn't one I would have thought of either, but I really like it; very fresh looking!
















This was my card for the swap. I was very busy this Christmas season and wanted something fast. I haven't used the Simply Said set in awhile, so I dug it out. I like the color combo, but I definitely could have done a lot better with coloring the stems! Actually I made quite a few of these cards, as gifts for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law; those ones had much nicer stems... Why I didn't take a picture of THOSE ones, is beyond me!
















This was another simple one, and the lady (I'm sorry I can't remember her name!) was even nice (and organized) enough to pre-stamp the "C" and the background for each of us! All we had to do was assemble! I love the Pomegranite and Chocolate Chip together! And ohhh, that ribbon!

Upline Christmas Party

I know I promised no more Christmas cards for the next long while, and I'll live up to that promise - honestly! I will talk a bit about the fantastic time I had a my upline Terri's Christmas party and am only sorry I haven't posted about it earlier!

I always wait for Terri's Christmas party every year; I've been twice now, and every time has been so much fun! This year (well I guess last year already!) we did a Secret Santa gift exchange, a Chinese gift exchange, a shoebox swap, and enjoyed so many great treats while we talked about stamping and other fun things that we're all up to. I received some amazing gifts from my Secret Santa Kerri; I need to take some pictures to post for you! In the meantime, I DID take pictures of the shoebox swap cards we made and I'll share those with you. We wanted to make non-Christmas cards, since most of us had been in full Christmas mode since July and we wanted a break! Here are 3 of the cards we made; I'll post more next time! :)












This first card is made with the brand new set Embrace Life and the new papers Bali Breeze. I loved the sponging we did with this card!














This next card was designed by my up line Terri (you can visit her blog here). I loved using the 5/8 ribbon and that Flowers For You designer paper is really pretty. I thought this card was perfect for getting me in a "Springy" mood! We also got to use a build-a-brad for the centre of the flower - long awaited and long coveted! I think they're a great way to finish off a project.














The last card uses papers from the Cutie Pie designer paper set, as well as the 5 petal flower punch (I HAVE to have it now!) and the Three for You punch. This was an easy but fun card to make - so many pretty colors, you can't help but be happy when you look at this one!

Stay tuned for more cards from the Christmas party! :)

Faux Postage Technique

These are the last Christmas cards I'm posting again until much later in the year, I promise! I had so many different Christmas cards to show you this year, and not enough time to get on the computer and post them before the big Dec 25! These were the other cards from my last stamp club meeting in November. Again, I couldn't decide which card for them to do, so I cut everything the same, showed them both cards and let them choose which one they wanted to attempt. The snoman card was a little more difficult to do, because you had to mask the area around each rectangle so you didn't get the rest of that stamp (snowman from the now retired Holiday Tag Team) anywhere you didn't want it. This was a great technique I always wanted to try; if you visit www.Splitcoaststampers.com they have a great tutorial for this technique, along with a link to a file so you can print out the "stamps". If you haven't tried this one yet and have a little extra time to play, I would definitely try it. I've so many beautiful examples with it! I have to say, I had a fun experience trying to get acetate though. You need window sheets for this technique, and have to cut out rectangles (or just one) to mask the other stamps. Well, since I didn't have enough acetate to go around, I was on the hunt. I went to Michael's and asked for sheets of acetate. I had to explain what I was using it for, that it was clear pieces of plastic to make windows on cards, etc. The lady had no idea what I was talking about, so asked someone else to help us. Well, the next lady pointed me in the direction of Staples Office Depot, because she said it was an office item, not a craft item. Doesn't she know ANYTHING can be a craft item? ;) At least she knew what I was talking about! So off I went to Staples, where I proceded to explain to this 16 year old boy what I was looking for. Eventually he said "do you mean transparency films for overheads?" And I figured that would work, so he showed me the way. Well, I had no idea there was such a selection! And what a price range too! In the end I found, tucked behind a bunch of others, a small pack of transparency sheets for the cheapest price. Whew! What an ordeal! All this with my then 2 year old tagging along; poor girl! So, if you want to do this Faux Postage technique, now you know where to get those window sheets and what they are called to those "non-crafting" people!

Just a quick note, because I'm such a proud mommy - my baby turned 3 today! I have been on the verge of tears for half of the day, first last night thinking about the experience of having her, and then today thinking about my first hours with her in my arms. Even typing this, my chest is getting heavy and my eyes are tearing up! She was so cute this morning, waking up asking "is my birthday starting yet?" What a girl; she's amazing and makes me feel like the luckiest mom in the world! *sniff*

Happy New Year! - And Some Cards

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic holiday. My brother and sister-in-law came over to spend Christmas day with us, and New Year's Eve was spent with some friends; a very relaxing but fun time. Now that January 1st has come and gone, I am gearing up for all my classes, clubs and other stamping fun coming up this year! I'm starting a new stamp club this January (the 18th), and have 2 spots left! Let me know if you'd like to join (and are in the Edmonton area). I also have 2 Marker Clubs starting this January, and both are full. I'll have so many projects to show you each month from all of these clubs! I have a tonne of fun classes planned as well; including a Valentine's bundle class, a 6x6 bragbook class (create an entire 26 page scrapbook in one day!), a recipe box class, calendar class, etc. etc... I will be a busy year! I am also attending the Stampin' Up Convention in Salt Lake City this July - it's the 20th anniversary, and it is guaranteed to be an AMAZING time! Anyone who signs up to be a demonstrator before Convention is eligible to come; ask me for more details! I also plan to be at Scrapfest again this year; the last 2 years have been great, and I have every reason to think this year will be just as great! What a year this is going to be!















Well, to get on to the cards I've posted... These 2 were from my last Club meeting in November, where members learned the shadow technique. This was such a funny class (at least to me) because while making the cards (the other technique will be posted later) I couldn't for the life of me decide what I wanted to do! For this card, I knew everything about the card except for the layout I wanted, and couldn't for some reason decide between using a brad or a button for the centre of the scallop piece. I just couldn't decide! So, I made sure all the pieces were the same size, showed my club both cards, and let them decide which they liked better and wanted to make. Whew! These cards were made using the Wanted set, and C. Chip, Bordering Blue, R. Rock and V. Vanilla were the card stock colors I used. All you do is stamp your image on the V.Vanilla CS, then again on a piece of acetate; then you place the acetate with the image where you want it to go (this case, under the original horse for a reflection effect) and rub it on! The image will transfer from the acetate onto your CS! Then I just drew a line to look like grass, and sponged and aqua painted the sky and water. Not a difficult technique at all!

I hope you all have a great year ahead with lots of time to do the things that make you most happy!

So Many Occasions!

I made this card for a friend's birthday this December. I love the Baroque Motifs stamp set, and use those Rhinestone Circle Brads whenever I can! I made a similar card for Christmas, using the Soft Sky/Blue Bayou combination, with "Warm Wishes" for the sentiment. I also decided it would look nice with Real Red and Whisper White for Christmas! So many ways to use this card! It is done with the Crayon Resist technique on glossy paper. For instructions on this technique, see my other Crayon Resist card here! This looks like a very fast card, but it is deceiving.... Adding crayon to all those little lines and loops is a lot of work - especially if you're making more than one (or ten! My fingers were cramping by the end of it!) ;) If you're going to make this card, take your time doing it, or you may find yourself with a stamping injury!

Wintergreen - Beautiful!

Awhile back I posted a card that I had made for a special class I did at a customer's church "Super Saturday" (see that card here). Well, I forgot to post the other projects! We actually did 2 different cards, as well as these cute tags and holder! I forgot to take a picture of the other card before I sent it as one of my own Christmas cards, but it was CASED from this card by girl3boys0 at Splitcoaststampers.com. Such a beautiful card, I couldn't resist! I actually made a bunch of them for my Christmas cards, with the only change being that I added some Dazzling Diamonds to the little snowflakes in the background (on the white card), and on some of them added Irredescent Ice to some White EP for the trees and saying.
These tags were gorgeous when I saw them on Splitcoast; I love that Wintergreen paper, and as soon as I saw this project on SCS, I knew it was just what I wanted for my class. Simple tags, but SO beautiful, and I love the holder. My friend asked what anyone would do with that holder after they'd used their tags, and I realized you could very easily turn it into a pocket card by slipping a piece of cardstock inside the pouch! I made a few of these and gave them away as prizes at my Hostess Christmas Appreciation Party and also included one in a Secret Santa gift exchange I was in at my upline Terri's Christmas party.
I'm a little sad they've retired this paper, but I anticipated it and bought a whole bunch! I love every project I see it on, and am looking forward to some stamping time this holiday to make a few more things with it.