October all ready?

I can't believe today is the last day of September. Well, the end of the month means the end of the current promotion. Today was the last day to take advantage of the Fall Frenzy promotion. But starting tomorrow starts the Holiday Glitz promotion. You can take advantage of this promotion one of two ways.

1. Purchase one of holiday stamp sets (below) and get the Holiday Glitz card kit (110286) for the special price of $24.95 each, or
2. Purchase the Holiday Glitz card kit (110286) for $28.95 each with no additional purchase required.

Each Holiday Glitz card kit makes 15 cards and includes:

• Precut card stock and Designer Series paper (15)
• Whisper White Envelopes (15)
• Rhinestone brads (15)
• Real Red zigzag ribbon (15)
• Full-color instruction sheet (1)
  

Item	Page #	Stamp Set	Price
109234	45	Snowfall	$23.95
106786	36	The Snowflake Spot	$20.95
109266	35	Big on Christmas	$18.95
110359	5*	Love & Joy	$23.95

*Holiday Mini Collection 2007.

And Saturday Oct. 6th is World Card Making Day. Be sure to RSVP for my WCMD Stamp-a-stack. We'll be making 5 different occassion cards and one card to donate to Ronald McDonald House. To go along with WCMD, Stampin' Up! is offering 20% Simply Sent kits from Oct. 4-8.

If you'd like to take advantage of any of these offers let me know! And tomorrow I promise I will post a tutorial. I don't know which one, yet, but there will be one. So stay tuned!

Fun with Marbles

I had so much fun with these today. I bought these jumbo flat backed marbles in the floral section of the Flower Factory. They're irregular in shape, so some of them fit the 1 1/4" circle punch and some could fit the 1 3/8" punch. For the first two I used A Tree for All Seasons. I stamped my image with Jet Black StazOn and watercolored the image with my blender pens and ink pads. I think they're so cute. It was really hard to take a picture of them, though, since they just wanted to reflect the light. For the second two I used Season of Joy, which is available in the Winter Mini. After I punched my images out I adhered them to the back of the marble with Crystal Effects. I then attached a strong magnet again with Crystal Effects. These are so quick and easy to make. You should give them a try.

Fall Frenzy Promo

Just a reminder that the Fall Frenzy Promotion ends on Sunday. If you want to take advantage of this fabulous offer I need to place your order by Sunday. Once again here are the details of the promotion.

September 1-September 30, 2007

Join the frenzy this month with our Fall Frenzy promotion!
Spend $30 in regular priced merchandise and qualify to purchase one of each of the six promotional stamp sets at 30 percent off!

Item	Page #	Description	Discounted Price
105355	26	Bitty Boos Too	$12.57
109284	29	Haunting Halloween	$13.27
107383	30	Thoroughly Thankful	$16.07
109373	108	Autumn Fest	$16.77
109421	91	Elementary Essentials	$19.57
110366	17	Stem Silhouettes*	$22.37

*Holiday Mini Collection 2007

Another Simple Share

Sometimes we have to make a card for reasons that we'd rather not. Unfortunately today was one of those days for me. One of my sorority sister's husbands passed away on Sunday. I can't attend the funeral so I will be sending this card out. I think in situations like these simple is best. You don't want to lay it on thick. You don't want to use bright colors and you definitely don't want to get all fancy with glitter and ribbon and brads and eyelets, etc, etc.

I don't have the markers, so I eyeballed it with my ink pad to only ink the flower petals in Perfect Plum and the stem in Mellow Moss. I find the easiest way to do this is use the corners of your ink pad. I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig for the two step stampin' (flower outline) to make sure it lined up with the flower. I then took an oval negative and lined it up over the flower in the center of the card. I sponged the Pale Plum into the oval. I then stamped heartfelt across the bottom. Punched the corners of the white cardstock out with the ticket corner punch and mounted it on my Perfect Plum card base. Simply beautiful if I do say so myself.

Recipe
Stamps: Heartfelt Thanks
Ink: Perfect Plum, Mellow Moss, Pale Plum, Jet Black StazOn
Paper: Perfect Plum, Whisper White
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Stampin' Sponges, Stamp-a-ma-jig

Christmas in September and Blog Candy Winner

Today was my Christmas in September class. I already showed you one of the cards we were making in a previous post. Here is the other. This month's featured stamp set was A Tree for All Seasons. Because there are only 4 stamps in the set and only one winter stamp we had to use the same stamp for both cards. I did change it up a bit with the sentiment stamp. We used "sparkle" on this one since we added a little glitter to the snow. I think this snowman is so darn cute. I didn't mind using him on both cards.


Recipe:
Stamps: A Tree for All Seasons, Warm Words
Ink: Jet Black StazOn, Creamy Caramel, Tempting Turquoise
Paper: Tempting Turquoise, Real Red, Whisper White
Accessories: Black gingham ribbon, Double Circle punch, Blender pens
Technique: Watercoloring

......and now the news you've been waiting for. The winner of the blog candy of some retired Stampin' Up! Red Embossing Powder is..............Linda SS!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats for being my first blog candy winner.

Simple Cards

You don't always have to go over the top on embellishments and layers to make a great looking card. Sometimes simple is better. For example, this Joy card all I've done is stamped my snowflake and the word Joy in Versamark and heat embossed them in silver. I made this a hinge fold card and added some silver elastic cord. Beautiful, right?
And in this Silver Snowflake card I've basically done the same thing but kicked it up a knotch by using Night of Navy cardstock instead of Whisper White.
You can also see a great example of a simple card by checking out my Christmas in September reminder. We will be doing a simple card for one of our projects tomorrow. Just a little something to think about the next time you sit down to make a card.

Just a reminder, I'm going to draw for my blog candy tomorrow so get your comment in before say 5 pm EST. Stay tuned to find out who the lucky winner is.

Christmas in September Reminder

Just a reminder that Christmas in September is this Sunday. Please RSVP by tomorrow so I know how many of each project to prepare. Here is a picture of one of the cards we will be making.

Sparkle!!!

I wasn't planning on stamping tonight. Actually I'm supposed to be running (since I am training for a half marathon), but I'm just not feeling it tonight. Instead I made this card for a special girl. Victoria is a young lady in Texas who has cancer. One of her teachers is working on a campaign to get cards sent to her from every state. After reading about Victoria on Courtney's blog I felt compelled to make a card to send. I sure hope she likes pink and green and flowers and glitter!!! The inside of the card says Better Get Better.

Recipe:
Stamps: You Make Me Happy (retired)
Ink: Gable Green, Pixie Pink
Paper: Gable Green, Pixie Pink, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Frosted Lace Stickles


And if you haven't done so already check out my post from earlier today. I'm giving away my first blog candy.

My First Blog Candy

What is blog candy you ask? It's a freebie. Up for grabs is an opened, but unused jar of Really Red Stampin' Emboss Powder. All you have to do is leave a comment telling me: if you are making your Christmas cards this year, and if so, what stamp set you are using and how many you are going to make.

I will pick a winner on Sunday, September 23rd using random.


That's all for now, as much as I'd love to stay and post some more (while my puppy is snuggling at my feet) I must continue to get ready for work. Have a good day everyone!

Masking Tutorial

I promised you a masking tutorial when I uploaded my Like No Udder card. Well, here it is!

Start with your stamped image. Here I'm using the elephant from Wild About You inked in Almost Amethyst, stamped onto a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock.






I then stamped the same image on a Post-It Note. This is your mask. You should stamp it close to the sticky strip as you will use the sticky to hold it down.





Next, you will cut out the part of the image. In this case I wanted to mask everything but the ear so I only cut out the ear. If you wanted to stamp over the image like I did in my Like No Udder card you would cut out the whole image to use as your mask.





Now you need to place your mask over your stamped image. Here I lined up the negative space of the ear over the ear that I had stamped on my piece of Very Vanilla cardstock. This is were the sticky strip becomes important. It will hold your mask over your image.





The next step is to stamp over your masked image. Here I am using the polka dot stamp from Itty Bitty Backgrounds. I have inked it up with a darker color, Night of Navy.







This is what you are left with. You can see that I inked the whole image, but most of that is stamped onto the Post-It Note mask. Now you can easily remove your mask.






Here's your image. You can see that the polka dots are only on the elephant's ear.





Finish your project. Here I added some sponging around my image. I also added a strip of Night of Navy along the side of my Almost Amethyst card base as well as a Round Tab punch of Night of Navy. I stapled some Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon to my tab and added my sentiment in Night of Navy.



Try masking on your next project. It's a quick and easy way to add a interest to your image.

Recipe
Stamps: Wild About You, Everything Baby
Ink: Almost Amethyst, Night of Navy
Paper: Very Vanilla, Almost Amethyst, Night of Navy
Accessories: Round Tab Punch, Very Vanilla 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, Stamping sponges, staple
Technique: Masking, Sponging

Christmas in September

I appologize for not posting this earlier. I didn't realize I hadn't posted it until now. Christmas in September will be September 23rd at 2:00 at my house. We will be using the set A Tree for All Seasons. Please RSVP 24 hours in advance so I know how many to prepare for. Hope to see you there!

Happy Saturday

Here's a little lesson I learned this fine Saturday. I was down in my stampin' space, just plugging away on my Christmas cards (i.e. mass production stamping), while watching my Boilermakers earn their 3rd win of the season. Now, this is the first Saturday I've gotten to watch my beloved team play as the first weekend of football we were at the lake house (with no TV) although my in-laws' house wasn't too far away and they have Big 10 Network. Last weekend we were driving through West Lafayette while the game was going on. By the time we got to my mom's house the game was in rain delay and we had to get ready for a wedding. So today I got to watch my team. And since I love to multitask I had to stamp while doing so. I finally finished watercoloring all my snowmen, so I was gluing them down then I had to stamp the sentiments. After about 4 or so sentiments stamped (using the Stamp-a-ma-jig) there was a great play in the game and I stamped my sentiment upside down. Doh! About 2 or 3 cards later, I did it again. It goes to show, I cannot stamp and watch football at the same time.

OK, moving on. I also worked on some gifts today. I found these Making Memories letters on clearance at Target for $0.74. They only had the letters F, T, and X. I just so happen to have a niece and nephew with the first initial of F and T respectively. How could I pass them up. I altered them today.



For Faith's letter I used this really cute DCWV paper that I've had for quite some time and never got around to using. I love the colors of the stripes and I thought it would be fun for a 5 year old. And I know she loves penguins so she got a Tempting Turquoise one to match the striped paper. I didn't really want the penguin where I put it, but I accidentally ripped the paper there, so this was my attempt to fix my boo-boo. I also added the chocolate grosgrain ribbon, and the whisper white grosgrain ribbon to perk it up a bit.






For Taj's letter I used some retired Stampin' Up! DSP. I wasn't too thrilled with it after I glued it down, but I was kind of stuck with it. I originally was going to put a Bashful Blue elephant on it, but I didn't like the blues together. Instead he got a Chocolate Chip lion. And to make it "manly" I put some chocolate grosgrain and hemp twine.


I used the 1 3/8" circle punch and the 1 1/4" circle punch on both to cut the animals out. The animals are from the set Wild About You.

I hope you like these. And Becky if you're reading this, be expecting these items in the mail some time.

Home decor stamping

This is such a fun technique. If you haven't tried stamping on candles you really need to. I made this candle to give as a raffle prize at my sorority's alum chapter meeting. It was our first meeting of the year last night so I thought I'd throw something fun in. Who doesn't love a free gift, right? It was a hit. All the ladies loved it and one lucky lady got to take it home. Several of the ladies requested that I make a bunch of these to sell at our holiday bazaar. I guess I'll have to go stock up on candles.

I think these candles would make great gifts. You can even personalize them such as for a wedding gift.

Recipe
Stamps: Greetings Galore, Warm Wishes
Ink: Jet Black StazOn, Sharpies
Paper: Close to Cocoa, Bravo Burgundy, Whisper White, Tissue Paper
Accessories: White Grosgrain ribbon, Hemp Twine, Large Oval Punch, Crop-a-dile
Technique: Stamping on candles

Promo Updates

Just a reminder that the Fall Frenzy promo is going on.

September 1-September 30, 2007

Join the frenzy this month with our Fall Frenzy promotion!
Spend $30 in regular priced merchandise and qualify to purchase one of each of the six promotional stamp sets at 30 percent off!

Item	Page #	Description	Discounted Price
105355	26	Bitty Boos Too	$12.57
109284	29	Haunting Halloween	$13.27
107383	30	Thoroughly Thankful	$16.07
109373	108	Autumn Fest	$16.77
109421	91	Elementary Essentials	$19.57
110366	17	Stem Silhouettes*	$22.37

*Holiday Mini Collection 2007

And the Choose Your Family Promo

Between Grandma Louise (who drips with sweetness) and your oh-so-suave brother, Vic, you know that in life you can't choose your own family. But at Stampin' Up!, we've found a way to bend the rules so you can!

Purchase the Starter Kit between August 10 and September 30, and you'll get to pick the family of your choice-color family, that is-of Classic Stampin' Pads® FREE. That's a $57.95 value! And we've designed our exclusive coordinating color families (including our In Color collection) so that every color fits in. After all, it's all in the family!

Don't forget World Card Making Day!

Come on over to make 5 assorted occasion cards for $10. Make a 6th card for free to donate to Ronald McDonald House. I will also have a raffle for a brand new stamp set. RSVP on Thursday to receive your name in the raffle. Get your name in the raffle for each friend you bring. And more..... RSVP's must be received by Friday.

Functional stamping

Whenever Oscar wants to go out I'm always looking everywhere for his leash so I decided we needed a hook for it. I was at the Flower Factory the other day so I headed to the unfinished wood section and found a cute round hook. I painted it with acrylic paints. The first layer is sage green (to match the furniture) and then I did an ivory crackle layer. After I was dry I stamped on it using StazOn. There isn't an apostrophe in the stamp set, so I inked up the tail of the lower cased Y and used that as my apostrophe. It's now hanging on the wall next to the back door. I used it last night and it was nice knowing right where the leash was and not having to look everywhere in the kitchen and living room.

Recipe
Stamps: Short Order Alphabet, non-SU! paw print
Ink: Jet Black StazOn

Scalloped Circle Tutorial

I hope you enjoyed the Slit Punch Scallop tutorial. I have another one for you. This time we're making a scalloped circle with the slit punch.

Start with a circle. The circle I used was the 3" diameter circle from the Fiskar's Shape Marker Circle Template.






Then I cut out another circle in the middle. This will allow you to get your punch facing the right way. The smaller circle was a 1.5" diameter circle. I didn't want it too big because you don't want to get too close to your scallop. If you don't make a big enough circle your punch won't fit.





Then put your slit punch into the inner circle and line it up near the edge. Punch









Move over and line up your punch with the slit you've just punched. Punch again. Repeat until you end up back where you started.






This is what you'll end up with.









Finish your card. I'm going to give this one to my cousin for his wedding this weekend.








Recipe
Stamps: Greetings Galore
Ink: Jet Black StazOn, Night of Navy, Real Red, Creamy Caramel, Basic Black
Paper: Very Vanilla, Night of Navy, Brushed Copper
Accessories: Slit Punch, Fiskar's Shape Cutter and Circle Template (non-SU!)
Technique: Watercoloring, Slit Punch Scallops

Wildly Adorable

I'm sharing this with you before even showing my sister. This is the invitation for her baby shower. I started whipping these out and now she's on bed rest, so we might not be able to have a shower until after the baby is born. I was so excited to work on these because I really wanted to do something cutesy. The card doesn't open, but the details for the shower are under the flap where the giraffe is. I had to use the Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the bird as well as the word shower. I thought the swirls from Season of Joy added a little something, otherwise it was too plain. I think these are so cute and I hope my sister loves them.

Recipe
Stamps: Wild About You, Everything Baby, Season of Joy
Ink: Barely Banana, Bashful Blue, Perfect Plum
Paper: Barely Banana, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig

Quickie

Well, we enjoyed our relaxing weekend at the lake. I just wanted to check in really quick to remind you that the the Holiday Mini is now in full swing. If you don't have a copy, let me know and I'll get one to you. Also the Fall Frenzy promotion is going on. You can see all the deets on Stampin' Up!'s Website. While you're there you can check out the catalogs if you don't have one in hand and you can also get the deets on the Choose Your Family promo.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll get back to posting projects tomorrow. I have to finish unpacking and doing laundry for now.