Happy Halloween!! (Blog Candy Here)

I love Halloween!!! I love candy. I love giving. I love giving candy. And I love costumes! I didn't dress up, but Oscar did. He was so cute in his devil costume. I'll post a pic later as blogger isn't cooperating right now. Anywho, back to the candy. I passed out candy to the kiddos last night and to my co-workers today. This is what my co-workers got. I made these delicious chocolate pretzel candies and put them in a medium cello bag. And I made bag toppers. I used the set Batty for You and punched the images out with the 1 1/4" circle punch, mounted on a piece of cardstock cut with the 1 3/8" circle punch. I then mounted those on a piece of cardstock cut with the Scallop punch. I mounted these on a folded piece of cardstock that I adhered to the cello bag. I used an assortment of ink and cardstock (Old Olive, Only Orange, Perfect Plum, Basic Black, Whisper White). I also added Stickles to the scallops. The gals (and one guy) loved them.

Now, I have some candy for you. Post a comment here about anything stamping related. I will pick a winner on Monday, Nov. 5th around noon using a random number generator. The winner will receive a package of retired Bold Brights Magic Mesh and a Ruby Red and Bordering Blue Classic Stampin' Spot.

Peek-a-boo II

I told you I had fun with these boxes. Here's another one I made last Monday. I just love this stamp set, You Make Me Happy, and I was so sad that it didn't make it into the Fall/Winter Collection. I traced the template onto a piece of Certainly Celery cardstock and cut it out. I also scored where indicated on the template. I sponged Certainly Celery on the edges of the box (hard to see in the photo). I stamped the sentiment in the inside of the box in Rose Red. I stamped the flower in Tempting Turquoise on Whisper White and cut it out. I stamped the center of the flower in Rose Red on Whisper White and cut it out. I mounted the center on the flower with a dimensional. I stamped the leaves in Certainly Celery and placed the flower over them with a dimensional. I punched the square out of the inside and adhered a piece of acetate on the inside. I put the box together and wrapped a piece of Tempting Turquoise grosgrain ribbon around it. I love it!!!!!

Peek-a-boo Boxes

I love these boxes. They are so darn cute. I made these earlier in the week for the Technique Challenge on SCS. I had so much fun with them that I made 3 in one morning. I was all settled in my stamping studio (still in my pajamas). I was so sore from the half marathon that I couldn't move, so once I got a movie in the DVD player and I was at my stamping desk I was down for the count. This was the second box I made. I used the retired set Simply the Best. I printed the template and cut it out. I traced in onto a piece of Certainly Celery cardstock and cut it out and scored where indicated. I stamped all over the box with the leaf stamp from Simply the Best. I punched out the square using my 1 1/4" square punch and adhered an acetate sheet on the inside. I stamped the saying on the inside of the box with Certainly Celery. I stamped the For You image on Very Vanilla in Certainly Celery. I cut it out and mounted it on the box with dimensionals. I then added the Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon around the outside of the box to finish it off.

Ain't it cute????

Sketches

I have a whole file of sketches that I came up with. I've never shared these sketches with anyone until now. Here is my first sketch. It's simple, but I like it that way. I made this card for a friend of mine who recently broke her foot. I was so excited to use my new Polka Dot BG stamp. It is stamped in Bashful Blue on a piece of Bashful Blue. I stamped the elephant from Wild About You in Bashful Blue on Very Vanilla. I also stamped the flower from Wild About You in Gable Green and Pale Plum onto the Very Vanilla. I mounted that piece on Pale Plum and adhered the Bashful Blue and Pale Plum pieces on Gable Green. I stamped the sentiment in Pale Plum and Gable Green directly onto my card base. Sorry for the poor picture. I snapped it really quick before heading out the door. Feel free to make a card or scrapbook page with this sketch and post a comment with a link to your project

Loads of Love

Well, here is the last page of the baby book. I thought the Loads of Love set was the best way to end the book. I started with a Bravo Burgundy base, added a piece of Night of Navy and a Very Vanilla Photo Corner for the photo mat. I added a strip of Very Vanilla across the bottom with a bit of hemp twine. I stamped the truck on a piece of Very Vanilla and colored in the wheels using my Watercolor Pencils and blender pen. I added the hearts and colored them in with my Bravo Burgundy ink pad and blender pen. I stamped the truck again on Night of Navy and cut the body of it out as well as the window. I popped it up on dimensionals and lined it up over the truck that was stamped on Very Vanilla. I mounted the Very Vanilla piece on Night of Navy. I stamped Loads of Love! on a piece of Bravo Burgundy and punched it with the Round Tab punch.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Since the baby is going to be born at the end of October or the beginning of November I figured there would be some winter pictures.

The All Bundled Up page can hold either two square pictures or a 4x6 in the middle of the two mats. I stamped the snowflakes from The Snowflake Spot in Orchid Opulence on Very Vanilla. Some of the snowflakes are lighter as I stamped off before stamping them on my title. I stamped the title in Brilliant Blue using Short Order Alphabet. A little hint: there is no exclamation point in this set, but all you have to do is use the lower case i upside down. I adhered the title on a piece of Orchid Opulence that was larger in width, but not height. I also added a piece of Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon with a piece of pewter HPH.

On the second page I stamped Baby, It's cold outside using Rough Edges Alphabet and the mittens from Flaky Friends. I colored the mittens in with my ink pads and blender pens. The mittens were "attached" with a black pen. There are two photo mats and another piece of Very Vanilla ribbon with a piece of pewter HPH. The pieces of ribbon on each page line up.

Baby's First Christmas

Oh, I love these pages. They're so sparkly and pretty. These are for Baby's First Christmas. On the first page I used the Direct to Paper method with Versamark along the edge of the green photo mat. I then sprinkled it with Gold embossing powder and embossed. I loved the sparkly look. The Very Vanilla strip with snowflakes was also heat embossed in gold. I stamped the tree from Season of Joy in Old Olive and matted on a piece of Old Olive. I also added a little gold Stickles to the star on the tree.

For the second page I again gold embossed around the Very Vanilla photo mat. I also embossed Christmas in gold on Very Vanilla and added that to the Real Read strip across the bottom. I stamped 1st in Real Red and punched with the 1 1/4" circle punch and matted it on a piece of Real Red that had been punched with the 1 3/8" circle punch, which was also embossed in gold. Now in this picture it shows the "ornament" adhered with Basic Black grosgrain, but I changed it to gold elastic cord before giving the book to my sister (but I didn't retake the photo).

Everything Baby Pages

These two pages focused on the stamp set Everything Baby. I also liked the monotone-ish feel. I used Not Quite Navy and Sage Shadow. I was also going with a tearing theme on this two-page spread. I used the Photo Corner punch on the first page and tied a piece of hemp twine around it. The corner punch was also popped up with dimensionals. I stamped baby boy with Not Quite Navy.

The happy baby page also uses Wild About You with a Not Quite Navy penguin. I punched him out with the 1 1/4" circle punch. Again there is a little tearing on the page and I stapled some hemp twine to the photo mat.

So Very pages

It's a good thing I typed this blog earlier. I ran the Columbus Half Marathon today and I'm exhausted. But, for you, more baby book pages.

Although, as a demonstrator, I cannot use retired product for workshops, there are some sets that I can't bear to part with because they are great for scrapbooking. This is one of those sets. It is So Very, which was a Sell-a-bration set this year. I think that the words are perfect for accenting scrapbook pages, just like on the first page which says so very cute. I also love the Tempting Turquoise and Basic Black combo. Cute was punched with the 1 1/4" circle punch and mounted on a Very Vanilla circle punched from the 1 3/8" circle punch.

On the second page I used some scraps to accent the left side of my page. I added the grosgrain ribbon to the last strip just cause I though it needed a little something. Sweet was punched out with the Word Window punch.

Froggy pages

I love how these pages turned out. OK, I keep saying that about all the pages. I just love this stamp set, so I was so happy to make a two page spread with it. The first pages is a Bravo Burgundy base with Daisy Field wheeled across a strip of Very Vanilla along the bottom. I also added an Old Olive strip across the side. I stapled a piece of Very Vanilla with the saying stamped in Old Olive in the corner. I also added the frog in Jet Black StazOn and mounted on a strip of Old Olive. The frog and daisy field were watercolored with Old Olive and Bravo Burgundy.

The second page is an Old Olive base with two strips of cardstock along the side, one Bravo Burgundy and the other Old Olive. The Old Olive strip was punched with the Crop-a-dile. I added a Very Vanilla mat for the picture and slid it under the Old Olive strip to draw attention to the holes. I stamped the frog and colored the eyes with my white Signo pen. I added the saying
"you're unfrogettable" which was punched out with the large oval punch. I attached it with hemp twine.

Bath Time pages

What baby book doesn't have bath time pictures, right? So here is a two page spread for baby's naked pictures!! The first page is pretty simple with a Barely Banana base and Very Vanilla mat for the picture. I added some Brilliant Blue using the Direct to Paper method to the edges of the mat. I stamped BATH TIME using Short Order Alphabet with Brilliant Blue on Very Vanilla. I punched the letters out with the 1 1/4" punch and layered them on Brilliant Blue punched with the 1 3/8" punch.

For the second page I kept with the circle theme and on a Brilliant Blue base I added a strip of Barely Banana that had been stamped with Dotted in Brilliant Blue. I only stamped part of the strip as the vertical picture will go over it and I wanted one side to have dots and the other not to. I also cut out a circle of Very Vanilla and stamped my title with Brilliant Blue, again with Short Order Alphabet.



Do you ever find that there was a stamp or stamp set you had to have and then just couldn't seem to work with it? After I made this page I finally gave up on Dotted. I just have to have this background stamp and I've never liked anything I've done with it, well, with the exception of a card I made with the ladybug from Very Punny. After making this page I traded my Dotted BG stamp. We just weren't getting along.

Baby pages continued

Of all the pages, I think this one is my favorite. The base page is Chocolate Chip with the upper right corner folded down. I then punched the folded down piece with the double circle punch. I stamped Wild About You on a piece of Very Vanilla and punched it with the large oval punch. I punched a hole in the oval and threaded it with some hemp twine. I used a glue dot to keep the corner in place. The piece in the background is just the previous page. I stamped the giraffe in So Saffron and the flower in So Saffron and Old Olive on Very Vanilla. It was mounted on a piece of So Saffron. I also added the mat for the picture which is also So Saffron and I distressed the edges. It's a simple page, but it's just so darn cute.


I really like this page, too. It's a So Saffron base with a Very Vanilla circle. The strip of cardstock along the bottom is Very Vanilla stamped with Canvas in Chocolate Chip. I added a piece of Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon and a piece of hemp twine on top of that. The layout allows for a horizontal pictures to be placed around where the watermark is.

More Baby Pages

Here are pages 4 and 5 of the baby book. Page 4 has a Certainly Celery base with a horizontal strip of Very Vanilla where I stamped some of the cute words from Warm Words. I then added a Barely Banana strip that was stamped with one of the circles from Polka Dots & Petals (hard to see in the photo). I also added the cute little alligator from Wild About You in the corner. She can mount the photo vertically on this page.



Page 5 has a Very Vanilla base with two squares of Certainly Celery also stamped with an image from Polka Dots & Petals. She can mount the photo horizontally here. I also stamped the words "sweet little one" from Holidays & Wishes in Barely Banana on Very Vanilla (also hard to see in the photo). This was mounted on a piece of Barely Banana and accented by a piece of Pewter HodgePodge Hardware with a piece of Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon.

The pages look a little odd with no pictures, but I placed pictures on the pages before adhering them to ensure that they would look good.

Stay tuned for more pages in the coming days. 5 down, 15 to go.

Scrapbook pages!!!!!!!!!!

I can finally share these with you. I didn't want to post these pictures of the baby book I made for my sister until I gave the book to her. I didn't want her to see them until her baby shower. My sister isn't a scrapbooker, but who doesn't need a baby book, right? I think that she's not a scrapbooker because she doesn't really have anything to scrapbook. But with her first child due any day now, surely she'll have pictures to scrap. So here is page one of the baby book. It's an 8x8 book. The main page is 8x8 in Brilliant Blue. I then layered Creamy Cardstock after adding the Very Vanilla Grosgrain ribbon across the corner. I added a Brilliant Blue picture mat with a Very Vanilla Round Tab saying It's a Boy. I also added a spot for her to put the baby's details. And last but not least added the lion from Wild About You in Creamy Caramel and added the Brilliant Blue Photo Corner.

Here's page 2, Mommy & Me. The main page is Bravo Burgundy, with a Very Vanilla mat for the photo. I added a little HodgePodge Hardware. I then stamped Mommy & Me using Short Order Alphabet in Bravo Burgundy. I layered that piece on Bashful Blue and added the Photo Corners. Oh, and the cute little birdy from Wild About You.


Here's page 3. The main page is Bashful Blue with a Very Vanilla mat. I also added a piece of HodgePodge Hardware on this page. I stamped Daddy & Me in Bashful Blue along with the elephant from Wild About You. I then layered it on Bravo Burgundy and added the Photo Corners.

3 down, 17 to go. I'll save the others for another day.

Baby Shower Gift

I have a baby shower to attend on Sunday for my sister. Of course that means I had to do something creative. This is one of her gifts. I can post this now because I don't think she'll be reading my blog before then (if at all) as she will be here in a little bit. I got this clear paint can at the Flower Factory, which is a member's only wholesale craft store. I cut the strip to fit along the bottom of the can. I added the animals from Wild About You by stamping them and punching them out with my 1 1/4" circle punch and layering them on coordinating cardstock punched from the 1 3/8" circle punch. I cut the circle to fit the top using my Fiskar's Shape Cutter and circle templates. I stamped "welcome baby boy" using Everything Baby and attached the Rubber Duck. I filled the paint can with a bunch of the little items from her registry. Oh and I added 15 feet of "It's a Boy" ribbon to the handle.
And of course I had to add a paint can opener so she can get the goodies out of it. Too cute. I hope she likes it.

Wild About Birthdays

I love the animals from Wild About You. They are so stinkin' cute. I can find any occasion to use them. I usually end up making a birthday card with them, though. I love the way this one turned out. The card base is Barely Banana and the bottom half is stamped with the solid circles from Polka Dots & Petals. The giraffe is stamped in Barely Banana on Very Vanilla and layered on Basic Black. I used the ribbon saving technique to add the Basic Black grosgrain across the strip of Very Vanilla. I then added the sentiment from Hugs & Wishes.

What a cute little birthday card?

Well I'm heading out of town tomorrow so I may or may not post this weekend. I'll try to get some posts in while I'm gone, but I'll be a little busy with a 3 year old's birthday party and a baby shower. However, I can guarantee when I get back I will have some great stuff to show you and I just might have some blog candy for you, too.

Ribbon Bow Tutorial

I'm a thrifty crafter. I love to save time, money, and supplies whenever possible. So, for you I have a ribbon bow tutorial that will save you precious ribbon. There's no need to wrap your ribbon all the way around your cardstock if you follow these steps.
Start with your length of ribbon, and tie a knot around your finger wherever you want your bow to be on the length of ribbon.



When you slide your finger off the ribbon, this is what you are left with. A nice little ribbon loop.






Take your scissors and put them through the loop. Angle your scissors and cut your ribbon.





And look, you have a bow.







Attach your ribbon to your cardstock by wrapping the ends behind and adhering with a glue dot. Finish your project!




Recipe
Stamps: Wild About You, Short Order Numbers, Canvas
Ink: Old Olive, Jet Black StazOn
Paper: Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Old Olive
Accessories: Basic Black grosgrain ribbon

World Card Making Day

Just a reminder that World Card Making Day is tomorrow!!!! You must RSVP to me before I go to bed tonight. We'll be making 5 cards and a 6th to donate to charity. Check out my header for a sample of what we will be making tomorrow. I'll see you at 2:00!

How cute is this?

How cute is this? I made this for a sweet little girl's birthday. She loved it and all her friends want one. Can you blame them? It's so darn cute. Do you know what it is? A name badge protector. I cut down a piece of Rose Red Prints Designer Paper for my base. I stamped onto a piece of Whisper White and colored my images in. I added a Photo Corner Punch for a little more color. I punched a bunch of holes across the top with my Crop-a-dile and added ribbons. I put a ring on it so she can hook it to her bag. The back is blank, but because I used the Prints DSP it has a cute flower print on it. Cute or what?

Recipe
Stamps: Short Order Alphabet, Unfrogettable
Ink: Rose Red, Jet Black StazOn, Old Olive, So Saffron
Paper: Rose Red Prints Designer Series Paper, Whisper White, Old Olive
Accessories: Name badge holder, Photo Corners Punch, Whisper White Grosgrain Ribbon, Chocolate Chip Grosgrain Ribbon, Sweet Shop Ribbon Originals

Stamp-a-ma-jig Tutorial

The Stamp-a-ma-jig is a great tool. It helps you to line up your stamped image. So if you are a crooked stamper maybe it's time you invested in a Stamp-a-ma-jig (SAMJ). To start stamp your main image.





The SAMJ comes with an imaging sheet. It is a clear plastic sheet. It is really smooth on one side and slightly textured on the other. You should use the smooth side for inks such as StazOn so that it doesn't stain your imaging sheet.



Line your imaging sheet up with the inside corner of the SAMJ.
Then take your image stamp and line it up with the corner of the SAMJ and stamp onto your imaging sheet.









Next, line up the imaging sheet with your stamped image where you want it. In my example I wanted the pumpkins in the back of the truck.
Then realign your SAMJ with the imaging sheet.







Remove the imaging sheet and again line up your stamp in your SAMJ and stamp.







My pumpkins are perfectly aligned with my truck.

Finish your project.



I hope I didn't confuse you too much or scare you away from using the SAMJ. It really is an easy tool to use once you get the hang of it.