What came in my mail yesterday

Just over a week ago I posted a Frosty card that I made. It was actually an entry into a sketch challenge that I won. :) So yesterday in the mail I got my prize - it is an set of clear, acrylic stamps. As soon as I get an acrylic block or two I will be able to use it and make a card to post. With this set was a card from Beate, here is a pic of the card:





Beate does such awesome work - I am amazed everyday when I visit her blog.

In the Spotlight

When I placed my big order I got a level 2 hostess set - In the Spotlight. When the catalog first came out, none of the hostess sets really "spoke" to me. Of course (this is really typical with me), as time passed I really grew to like this particular set. So - here is the first card that I made with it.

Notice the use of In Colors on this one - River Rock, Purely Pomegranite, and Blue Bayou. I think that I will cave and get the ink for River Rock and Groovy Guava on my next order - I said it wouldn't be long until I broke down and got them all!

Noel - version 2.0

So - I think that I fixed the Noel card. Before there was just way way too much red. And here it is:

I think it turned out rather cute. :) The bad thing is that I had decided not to order navy ribbon on my last order, so I had to make a run to Michael's and it was a pain to find just navy ribbon.

Anyway - I think I have the 5 cards for my stamp-a-stack of Christmas cards all figured out. That means that I had better start deciding what my own cards will look like. When you have around 150 to make, you need to start early.

getting ready for Halloween already

I am trying to stay on top of my game this year. Already I have been planning Christmas cards (I think that I have found a way to fix the Noel card below - I will try to post it later today) and now I think that I have planned out the invites for our Halloween party.

I wanted to throw a Halloween party ever since the first year that Justin and I were married, but we were living in an apartment and didn't really have the room to invite lots of people over. Then a year ago we moved to the Houston area and had a nice, big house. Perfect for hosting a party. We had the party last year and it was lots of fun. This year I am hoping for a big turnout since we know more people here now. :)

Here is what I have come up with for our invitations for this year. The only pic that I have of our invites from last year contains all of our info (phone # and address) so I won't be posting that, but I think they were pretty cute!

The info about the party will be underneath the folded part. You might notice that I got this from one of the sketch challenges that Beate had on her blog a few weeks ago. I loved it and knew that I wanted to use it for invites.

It has literally been like Christmas today!

It has been a while since I have put in a large stamping order. My sisters and I are wanting to sell cards at a craft fair booth and I have had some requests to do a Stamp-a-Stack of Christmas cards. So I decided that it was time to get some new Christmas stamp sets. Sure - some of them are not "new" but they are new to me. Anyway - I mounted 9 stamp sets this afternoon (thank goodness that 4 of them were the die-cut sets from the holiday mini) and then I started making some cards. Christmas cards to be exact.

I won't post my supplies that I used - I'm not sure that people are paying attention to that anyway. If you want supplies, you can post a comment asking for them.

These are my favorite two that I have made so far.



The City if David card is one that Stampin' Up! did last year and I loved. I had been dying to get the set so that I could make the card. :) The snowflake card is one that I just had to do with the a couple of our In Colors - Blue Bayou and Soft Sky. Last year I refused to buy the In Colors. Now I finally caved and bought 4 of them for this year. How long do you think I will go until I break and get the last 2?




These two both seem like they are missing something. I know what exactly I need for the Santa card - it needs just a bit of bouble-stitched Wild Wasabi ribbon in the empty blue space between the Christmas trees and the "Tis the season" sentiment. I'm still kind of struggling with what to add to the Noel card.

Overall I need to keep these relatively simple so that people can make a lot of them at a class. Any suggestions?

Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #17

I took a couple weeks off from the sketch challenges with going on vacation and then getting ready for fall semester. But here is another. Like the last one I did (can't remember which one it was now though) - I love this sketch. There are so many cute things you can do with it. :)

I decided to start in with the Christmas themes and used the old faithful Frosty set for the snowman. I love this set. But I have a feeling that since it has been a around for a few years now it will soon be leaving us (i.e., I am predicting that it will retire either this year or next). I really wanted to use some of my Cutie Pie paper and decided that the little white flowers on the Bashful Blue paper look close enough to snowflakes, although I'm not sure just how many people I am fooling with that.

I made the scalloped edge by punching out a lot of 3/4" circles in Certainly Celery and I used some Confetti White as my neutral on this one. The sentiment is from that retired set that I have been using a lot lately: Cute Converse - I can't help it - they are the perfect size to use with the punches!!!

Something old, something new ...

... nothing borrowed, but something blue.

Inspired by a friend (thanks Wendy!) and some of the new wrapping paper that Stampin' Up will be selling in the Holiday mini (Sept. 1), I decided that I needed to try to make a card that is mainly Chocolate Chip, with some Bashful Blue snowflakes (something blue). The only set I have with snowflakes is a retired set, Snowflakes. That would be my something old here. And last of all, using my light blue embossing powder is my something new.

I like how this turned out and only wish that I had some of the Taffeta Bashful Blue ribbon to finish it off. Plus, I think it will look better with one of the newer snowflake stamp sets that SU! has.

Thanks Wendy for the inspiration!

In a funk

The lack of posts means that things have been busy around here. First it was the end of my summer term and I had to get grades turned in. Then Justin and I left to go a trip to the other big cities in Texas - you can read a bit about our trip on our blog here. We got back from our little vacation about a week ago - but then I was in charge of a night all about Preparedness for the ladies at church. That was last night and after I made my syllabi for this semester (which starts on Monday) I was finally able to stamp. :)


Needless to say, you take a couple weeks off and it really kills your creativity. I got this Cutie Pie paper the day before we left and hadn't had a chance to use it yet. I have to admit - as much as I love designer paper, I have a really hard time using it. For the most part, I am afraid of making something that I don't like in the end and wasting the beautiful paper!


Anyway - once I pulled out a little Cutie Pie, I realized how well it went with Big Blooms and was sad yet again that Stampin' Up! didn't keep this from the Spring mini. Well - I will choose to use it regardless! I decided to pair it with another retired good one: Riveting was a hostess set in last year's catalog.


Here is what I came up with - I'm going to get it into tomorrow's mail for my upline's b-day which is on the 30th. Hopefully she gets it in the mail before she decides to check out my blog again!

Beate's Weekend Sketch #13

I finally have a little extra time to work on some cards (extra emphasis on "little" here). Anyway - here is my card for Beate's sketch challenge for this weekend. This was a really fun card to make. After I was done though I had wished that I hadn't used so much pink - maybe I will just have to do another one, right?


I used a lot of retired products on this one - the paper is from the Just Delightful Simply Scrappin' kit that was a SU Sell-a-bration item this past year, the flower stamp was also a sell-a-bration from the set Delight in Life. The sentiment came from the Cute Converse set I got over a year ago and never used until now (I told you before - if I get it for free it is really a toss-up when I will use it).


I have to admit that I had a little trouble with the dimensions on this one. From the sketch it says the card base is 8.5" X 5.5" and tells where to score it. When I did that though - my resulting card was a 5.5" square and I could tell from everyone's cards that were posted that they were getting rectangular cards. Hmmm. So - I started with a base that was 8.5" X 4.25" and I ended up witht a standard size card. Very interesting.

Has it really been that long?!?!

Wow - time has gotten away from me! My sister wants me to teach a card class at her house in a couple weeks. It took me while to find time to do some stamping, but I finally picked all the cards that people will make. A few are ones that I have done in the past, but here are a few new ones that I tried out this past weekend to see what I thought.

Both of the birthday cards here I CASE'd from Stampin' Up! publications. On this one I used Pale Plum, but when I do it at the class I will use Almost Amethyst - I decided the plum didn't go quite as well as I had hoped. I made this in the hopes that it would be suitable for a guy, that's why there is no ribbon or anything else frilly.


Here is the recipe:
Stamps: Big Deal Alphabet and Everyday Flexible Phrases
Paper: Brocade Blue, Certainly Celery, Pale Plum, Barely Banana and Whisper White
Ink: Brocade Blue, Certainly Celery, Pale Plum
Accessories: 1 1/4" Square Punch

This one uses one of my favorites - Eat Cake. Where I saw this they were discussing how to make scratch and sniff cards but I won't be able to get into that with the class so this is unscented. :)


Recipe:
Stamps: Eat Cake
Paper: Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose, Old Olive and Very Vanilla
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive; Markers - Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose, and Old Olive
Accessories: Brads

This next one is a boy baby card. I have been seeing these pocket cards pop up a lot lately and thought I would jump on the bandwagon. Once again, I'm not going to make it this way for the class, but this was just to get an idea. Instead I am going to make the card in Taken with Teal instead of Tuorquoise, mat the Zebra in Green Galore, use ribbon on the folded portion of the card that is Teal and Green (instead of the striped paper), punch the tag out with the same blue polka-dot paper as the rest of the card, and make the pull-out part Turquoise instead of White. I know - it sounds like a lot of changes - but I think it will be super cute!!!


Recipe:
Stamps: Zoofari, Holidays & Wishes, Hugs & Wishes
Paper: Taken with Teal, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White, Petals & Paisley DS
Ink: Basic Black and Taken with Teal
Accessories: Brads and Round Tab Punch