Mixing It Up With Stampin' Up!

This is a fun new stamp for birthdays isn't it? It's called Balloon Bash and will be in the new Occasions catalog. I also love my Spiral Border punch. I used it on the second card. It's also been very useful in my scrapbooking.

I adore coloring with alcohol ink markers. I use Copic because I began before Stampin' Up! started carrying Blendabilities. Which are a more affordable alternative and especially so if you are an occasional user of alcohol inks. I'm so glad that Stampin' Up! has come out with more images to color!!!

 

Project Details
Stamps	Balloon Bash
Card Stock & Papers	Mambo Melon, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Painted Blooms Designer Series Paper
Ink	Mambo Melon, Tangerine Tango, Hello Honey, Garden Green, Pacific Point
Accessories	Stampin' Dimensionals
Tools	Ticket punch (retired)

Project Details
Stamps	Traveler
Card Stock & Papers	Typeset Designer Series Paper, Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Basic Black,
Ink	Hello Honey, Bermuda Bay, Mossy Meadow,  Basic Black, Baked Brown Sugar
Accessories
Tools	Spiral Border punch

Project Details
Stamps	Blended Bloom
Card Stock & Papers	Night of Navy, Old Olive, Whisper White
Ink	Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories	alcohol ink markers, Wisteria Wonder Ruffled ribbon (retired), Pearl Basic Jewels, Stampin' Dimensionals
Tools	Apothecary Accents Framelits, Woodgrain embossing folder

Project Details
Stamps	Happy Watercolor
Card Stock & Papers	Night of Navy, Old Olive, Whisper White
Ink	Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories	Pearl Basic Jewels, Stampin' Dimensionals
Tools	Apothecary Accents Framelits, Woodgrain embossing folder, Decorative Dots embossing folder, Modern Label punch

Calendars

I bought two 8 x 8 pads of Time to Flourish by Graphic 45 and made three calendars from it;-) This one is 8 x 8 and has room to write, which should help us keep up with events and appointments. Of course I have calendars on my phone and notebook but that hasn't stopped us from missing things! Maybe the old fashioned act of writing it on a calendar will help;-)  I used my new Cinch binding machine on this one and on the smaller desk calendar I made for my BFF Barb. I made another small one to keep in my craft room just to show me what day it is. I absolutely adore this paper!!

Sneek Peak Spring Catalog

Here is stamp set that will be available soon in the Ocassions Mini catalog. It is called Painted Petals. I love it when Stampin' Up! has a stamp set, patterned paper and embossing folders that all coordinate!! The embossing folder that matches this set will arrive at my doorstep soon:)

Sneak Peek

This stamp set is called Lotus Blossom it's one of the free sets that will available in the SALE-A-BRATION catalog beginning January 6th.

•  Cut Tangerine Tango card base 5 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches
• Score at 4 1/4
• Cut 2 x 5 1/2 inch Whisper White, cut circle with Circle Framelits
• Cut Melon Mambo 5 1/2 x 2 inches and emboss with Square Lattice embossing folder
• Stamp the white circle piece with Gorgeous Grunge 
• Adhere the white and melon pieces to the short piece of tangerine on the front.
• Cut the White and tangerine pieces from the Banners Framelits, stamp and adhere to the front.
• The back layers are Melon Mambo 4 x 5 1/4 inches, and Whisper White 3 3/4 x 5 inches. This white is the layer you stamp on.

Project Details
Stamps	Gorgeous Grunge, Lotus Blossom
Card Stock & Papers	Melon Mambo, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White
Ink	Melon Mambo, Blushing Bride, Rose Red, Mossy Meadow, Wild Wasabi
Accessories
Tools	Banners Framelits, Circle Framelits, Square Lattice embossing folder

Prayer Card

Our minister, at St. John's United Methodist, taught us a couple of prayer methods earlier this fall. They have been around for quite a while, but I'd never heard of them before and was delighted! One is ACTS, which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. The other method uses the fingers on your hand to remember those you should pray for. I wanted to DO something with them. At first I was thinking of a simple watercolor painting of a cross with ACTS on each of the points of the cross, and a hand of course with the explanation inside. Well, the whole idea just kind of sat in my head and I couldn't draw the cross the way I wanted. Then I thought about how I would reproduce them to share with others. I mentioned the fuzzy idea to my friend Elaine, and she said, "why not use those pretty cross stamps you have?" That's as far as I got until one day in the shower the idea just came all in a rush BAM! Every piece, how it could be arranged and even the very old stamp containing an Irish blessing on it came flooding in my mind. There is no doubt where this idea came from, it was not me. I'd tried to work it out for weeks and got nothing. The Holy Spirit presented me with this way of sharing it with others.

We made several in Card Ministry at Church this month and gave them to our three ministers to give out and use how ever they would like. Then I made 32 more for all the ladies in my Bible Study. Several other people have said they would like them as well. I keep mine in a pocket in my Blessings Book, along with paper listing those who are on our prayer lists in Sunday School and Bible Study. Below is one the cards we've made. We made several color combinations, this is the one I have. You could do something like this with many different stamps. The descriptions for ACTS and the Hand prayer methods can easily be found on the internet. If you'd like to make something like this, I have the typed information and dimensions written out. When we make several at a time, it's really easy if I have the measurements written down, cause we get to talking and laughing and ... well you can imagine when a group of friends get together to make things right?
Dimensions and stuff
Explanation of the hand and ACTS Illustrations - Inside of card
Explanation of ACTS
Scripture associated with ACTS - on card back

Copic Craziness and Stamp Index for Greetings

I've never found the need for a stamp index. I have several hundred stamps and they are arranged in categories in Iris Carts, I have several Saturated Canary digital stamps. The stamps I use most often, are current from Stampin' Up! They are arranged in alphabetical order in two storage towers. The sets are all indexed on the spine of the cases. I am extremely visual, and for some reason the images stick in my head and I remember pretty much every image that I have. This all works perfectly for me, except for one tiny little thing.... the greetings. They do not stick in my head, the words and especially not which stamp set they are in. My mind must work in categories and the greetings aren't found in sets that way, ya know? So one day I decided to make an index just for the greetings. I simply folded a sheet of cardstock in half and printed small images of the stamp set covers from my online catalog. Works like a charm, for me anyway. When I want to make thank you cards, for instance, I just flip through the pages at any set that has thank you and select one. Of course I had to decorate the cover and a cute little fairy called Whispy from Saturated Canary served the purpose perfectly. Fairly simply right? giggles

one of the pages

blank greeting card, may end up being a get well

Still Rockin' my Copics!

I'm one of those people who find coloring relaxing and fun! I keep my cards fairly simple. The silk flowers are just not my style and I like the coloring and image to be the central focus. I do like to decorate the inside and the envelopes in the same colors to bring everything all together. It's funny, cute is SO not my style, but I really love these Saturated Canary images. I also like House Mouse. Other than that, you won't find cute in my craft room. I just find those two companies' images irresistible!  The last image has an old product on it. I wanted to make the dust and dirt pop a bit. I searched in my glitter/embossing powder/Pearl Ex etc. drawer and found this cool glitter-type stuff. I got it about ten years ago when I worked for Suze Weinberg at an Atlanta Convention. This particular jar of Beadazzles has little tiny black beads in it. How perfect is that for dirt? Some glitter mixed in just kind of makes the girl seem like she may just a bit of magic...

Close-up of Beadazzles by Suze Weinberg