Tasteful Trim

I just got my most recent order from Stampin' Up this week and I just have to share this fabulous die!  Ladies, if you don't have a Big Shot you are missing out on some fun.  My last post showed the wonderful  snowflakes I'm making with aluminum cans and now I just have to share some examples of this newest die "Tasteful Trim".  This is a Bigz XL  Die and so the cut out items are big!  All four designs are 12 inches long, but you can make them shorter if you wish or you could double your paper or fabric not going all the way to the end and make them even longer, but now for the samples!

I just took about a four inch piece of felt and ran it through the machine so I could see the actual size and shapes.  I love them!  Whether you are using paper or fabric these are perfect pieces for embellishing your work. 

Variety is the Spice of Life

Hello everyone!  If you wonder where I've been I've been playing with my Big Shot and attending the quilt show.  Wow, have I been having fun with the Big Shot and instead of using paper, I've been trying out felt, fabric and aluminum cans!  I've also been learning how to make silk paper (this will be showing up in a post soon) and organizing my craft room to make room for my new "embellisher" machine that should arrive before Thanksgiving! 

Today I'm going to show you some fun pictures of the aluminum can pieces.  First I cut the top and bottom off of an aluminum can and cut it down the middle to make a sheet of thin aluminum.  In fact, I was shocked at how thin it is - seems so strong when we're holding a can!  But I regress, on to the fun stuff.  Using the Snowflake #2 die I  ran my aluminum through the Big Shot and look at what I got!  I love them, I've now cut out about 20 and am looking for cans so I can make more.  I think I'll have fun hanging them outside from a tree this year, but they would be beautiful inside too!  Much depends on how many more cans I can find, donations are welcome.




Intrigued, I also tried running an embossing folder through the Big Shot with a piece of aluminum in it and got a wonderful snowflake impression.  I cut this out with the craft and rubber scissors and colored with alcohol ink.  The printed side of the aluminum can is shown on the right. 

This made me want to try even more so I tried two punches - a leaf and the Stampin' Up ornament and yes they both punched the aluminum like it was paper!  I colored both of these with alcohol inks too, just to see how the inks worked on the aluminum!   I love how you can use multiple colors and they float into each other.  Moving on, next I ran a piece of aluminum through the Big Shot with a texturz plate and then used the flower folds die to punch it out.  Wow did I have fun!   These are just samples so I haven't colored them carefully or figured out exactly what to do with them, but the possibilities are endless. 

Now it's your turn - try something new, you might be surprised  by the results.







News Update

Can you believe another month has nearly gone by since I last posted!  Busy is an understatement, not just for me but I'm sure for you too. 

I would like to update you on a couple of changes.  As most of you know I've moved out into the country and am no longer holding my regular monthly stamp clubs and, of course, as you absolutely know I'm not posting like I used to either.  So, with all my changes, I've decided to give up my Stampin' Up Website and so you will no longer be able to go directly to my page to place orders.  I AM NOT quitting Stampin' Up, but I am making some financial decisions that will hopefully work best for me and  will work for my customers.

Most of you who order from me do it directly on a monthly basis and so I hope you will continue to do so in the coming days and months.  You can use the sidebars to go look at the customer page, you can look at the catalog on line and see the SU specials, but you will need to email or call me directly to place an order.  Hopefully this will not be an inconvenience to any of you, my fabulous customers!

There is a link on the upper right sidebar to email me!

This isn't a recent card, but one of my favorites.  The stamp set is Quilt Quips (retired this summer) but it's one of my favorties and I made this card for a very favorite quilter.  Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by - until my next post - happy stamping, scrapping or whatever make you happy!

Welcome to Fall

I don't know about you, but I love fall!  It is my favorite season - I love the cooler weather, the colorful leaves, pumpkins, (on porches and in pies), grasses going to seed and sending their plumes high into the air and the smell.  Growing up as the leaves began their beautiful change in color it also meant that we would soon be jumping into piles of them, scattering the work of our fathers!  And soon the air would  be filled with the smell of burning leaves.   Of course, I live in south Texas now and have for 35 years, so the first day of fall doesn't mean cooler weather and I've noticed that many of our trees don't change color until November or even December, but my memories are so great that I can still smell the fall air and picture those beautiful trees.

In the excitement of fall I made this card out of some scraps that were laying on my work table.  I will be doing a class next week on embossing, so I added that to my leaves and acorn and we'll probably make this or a similar card as one of our make and takes.  I used one of my favorite stamp sets - Autumn Splendor and Of the Earth, a recently retired Hostess set.  Remember, if you want to make this card any small greeting will work nicely, if you don't have this one.

Card base is Poppy Parade, a new in color for 2010-2012.  The picture doesn't do this color justice!  It is beautiful.  I also used  Kraft, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla.  I came up with this color combo because the papers were on my table.  I'm not sure I would have pulled them out of my paper racks and used them.together -  I think I needed this random matching!

I sponged the edges of all of the top pieces with Soft Suede and distressed the edges on the Crumb Cake (kraft) and the Soft Suede.  I stamped the leaf stamp as a background on the Soft Suede piece, stamping off before I stamped some of them to have the overlapping leaves in different shades.  Then I stamped the leaf into the soft suede and then on my Versamark pad and stamped it on the background paper I had just made.  I used clear embossing powder.  I heated it and then added a little more powder.  Next I went over part of the embossed area with a Versamark pen and added more powder.  So some parts of the leaves would be darker and stand up more than others.  I took the second shot so you can see how the embossing is different on the leaves - not just one smooth coat, but has some dimension.  For the adorable acorns, I used the Versamark pad and  embossed them.  I then used my Versamark pen and filled in the bottom, leaving a small edge so it gave depth and embossed.  I did this about three times to give it a thick embossing.   I cut them out with my little snips and glued them to paper with snail.  I stamped the wonderful quote, darkened the edges of the paper, again with soft suede and my sponge.   I did place the layer of crumb cake on with dimensionals, but I used snail for all of the other layers.

Now this card is heading to my cousin in Canada.  She's probably not as excited about fall as I am, it's already dropping into the 30's there, but hopefully she will enjoy the card and warm wishes.

See you again soon!

Special Birthday Card

My granddaughter just turned 19 and is in her first year at Ball State.  I love to make her cards and wanted this to be a special one.  As I sat and looked through ideas I had set aside, I remembered a card I had seen at regional a couple of years ago and decided that would be it.  After all, what could be better than a pair of blue jean shorts and money in the pocket at her age! 

Just an interesting tidbit that she turned 19 and was born in 1991 - made the numbers on the pockets fun!  Needless to say money was attached to the PULL card in the pocket.

I wish I knew who to thank for the pattern, but I don't.  This is a perfect example of CASE (copy and selectively edit) - Now it's your turn - have fun.

Way to go Macy!

I'm thrilled to announce that Macy Wong, my downline won a stamp set at Stampin' Up regionals in Ft. Worth last Saturday.  I haven't seen all of the wonderful things she got for attending and can only imagine the amazing new ideas and techniques she'll have up her sleve now.  I'm sure that she will share so watch for some pix here soon.

Again, CONGRATULATIONS Macy!

I'm back!

Wow, it was February the last time I posted to this blog!  Now you know it's not like me to be so quiet, but so many things have taken place in my life.

As many of you know, since my last post my mom passed away 26 days shy of her 100th birthday. We held an amazing celebration back in our hometown in Missouri.  We had bought a new home in December and began to move in January, but as mom became less able to move about, we put the move on hold until April after she passed. We thought we were getting a new home that would make her life easier with the bedrooms downstairs, but as she told me right before she died - God, has given you and Bill a fresh start. Mom had lived with us for 9 years and filled every spot of our home with a memory, so the move has been good, however, it hasn't stopped me from missing her.  She spent Easter and her birthday with my dad, a granddaughter, her six sisters and one brother, her mom and dad and all those who had gone on before her and most exciting of all with her Lord and Savior Jesus. 

The void she left  is huge, but she was right God has given us a new home and although there are memories of her here, we have been given a fresh start.  She was the best mom ever and I miss her encouragement and love, but I know I'll be with her again some day.

 

We are now all moved, our house in Bellaire is for sale and we are getting settled in to a whole new lifestyle. We moved about 40 miles out into the country - 2 1/2 acres (lots of mowing) and unfortunately far from most of my stamping group. On the bright side I actually moved closer to one of my first stamping buddies, Crystal, and I hope so we will have a chance to reconnect and stamp together again. 

So during this time of mourning and moving my stamping was left to those times of immediacy: thank you cards, birthday cards, weddings - you know those things that must have a handmade card.

Today's post includes a picture of the thank you card I sent out to those who gave flowers or gifts in mom's name. Mom was my best critic as I learned to make cards and I think she would have loved this one.

I will be back soon with some of the other cards I have made during the past few months and I look forward to getting back into the groove of creating and posting.  Until then happy stampin'.

Valentine Easel Card

I just held my January clubs and we made Valentine cards. I love Valentine cards because they're happy cards full of love. We made three, but the first one I want to feature is actually the fanciest, an easel card and the one I really love the most. It may be the most layers ever for me and for a club card, but everyone left with a great card and covered from head to toe with glitter! Now that's a good thing - so here's the card.

Items used from the new mini occasions catalog are:

Specialty DSP - Sending Love

Scalloped Heart of Hearts embosslit

Stamp from I {Heart} Hearts (polka dot heart)

Stamp from Well Scripted (love you much)

Small Heart Punch

Pinking Hearts Border Punch

Other items used are:

Paper: Real Red and Pretty in Pink

Full Heart Punch

Fine Cosmo Glitter - Red

Real Red Classic Ink

Stampin' Dimensionals

Sticky Strip

Snail

Now it's your turn!

Christmas Cards

I'm curious - did you make your own cards this year? I did and I didn't just choose one style, I chose many! We had a group of six of us that met every month to make cards with the goal of at least 10 cards each month. With that plan we would have 110 cards by November, ready to address the envelope and mail. FYI, I didn't make 10 of each of these - a few were singles and some were more, but ended up with about 115 cards!

A couple of us needed closer to 180 cards and had to work at home between meetings, some made just one or two different cards, but made some each month and then there were some like me who made different cards every month. I wish I had pictures of everyone's cards, but I only have mine - hope you enjoy!

Blog Update

I'm sure you've noticed that there was a huge gap in posts from December 6 until today - so I would like to give you a quick update. We bought a new house, closed on December 21! Traveled to North Carolina to do a half marathon raising money and awareness for Victory Junction Camp, and my mother who will be 100 the end of April has been ill since we returned from NC on December 14. Mom has been the healthiest, most active woman I've ever known, so for things to change and change suddenly has taken it's toll not only on her but me. We are learning new routines and adjusting to a different lifestyle, but she's doing ok and we're taking one day at a time.

Please know that I love stamping and am still very involved, just don't have as much time to post as I did a few months ago. I will try to keep up - but there will be gaps.

On the very exciting side of all this - the new house that we're moving into very slowly (will take several months) has a 14x25 foot craft room with built in cabinets, walk in closet and great lighting!

That's it for now - new posts will be appearing - Happy New Year to everyone and Happy Stamping.