Inspired by Nature

We are getting ready to head over to the Orange County Convention Center and I wanted to share one of my swap cards with you before we go.

You might recognize this card, I did one a few months ago using the same layout and image but I wanted to share this card with you as well. It features the new Candy Lane Designer Series paper!

All products from Stampin' Up!
Stamp sets: Inspired by Nature, All Holidays
Ink: Pretty In Pink, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip marker
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Close to Cocoa
Accessories: Crystal Effects, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Pink Pirouette & Riding Hood Red striped grosgrain ribbon, Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon, small oval punch, large oval punch, dimensionals

More later when we return from the convention center!!

Sweet Stems and Rasberry Tart

Here I am in Orlando at the airport waiting for my friend and roommate for the week to arrive. I wanted to share with you one of my favorite new sets out of the Spring/Summer catalog and some beautiful new Designer Series Paper, Rasberry Tart! What I really love about this paper is that you can use it with so many different colors of cardstock!

All products from Stampin' Up!:
Stamp sets: Sweet Stems
Paper: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Shimmery White, Rasberry Tart DSP, Kiwi Kiss
Ink: Basic Black
Accessories: Scallop Circle, Big Shot Pennant Die (large scallop), Regal Rose Marker, Rose Red marker, Pretty In Pink marker, Old Olive marker, 5/8 inch double striped Rose grosgrain ribbon

We'll be off to check into our hotel, have dinner with some other friends, and then to get a good night's sleep so we are ready for check in day and make and takes tomorrow! I'll report in after we check in and get the NEW catalog!!

Elegant Thank You

Hi everyone! I'm busy packing but wanted to stop in and do one last post before I leave for Leadership. This is one of my swaps I did for leadership. It features a new single image stamp Elegant Thank You and of course the ever popular, Upsy Daisy. One announcement about the new catalog there will be a selection of single image stamps available. Something new for Stampin' Up!

All products from Stampin' Up!:
Stamp sets: Elegant Thank You, Upsy Daisy
Paper: Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Basic Black, Shimery White
Ink: Versamark, Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy (not sure why but the Kiwi looks yellow on my screen)
Accessories: Black embossing powder, Ticket corner punch, Scallop Square punch, scoring blade, dimensionals
This card is done with the grid card technique.

I'll be checking in from Orlando tomorrow!

Big Ol' Hungry Bear

I apologize for posting so late today. I had a busy day working in the stamp room, having lunch with a friend, and doing some shopping before I leave for Leadership on Tuesday. I hope you'll think the wait was worth it! I LOVE this card! I made it for a Leadership dinner a few online friends and I are having on Friday night. I made ten of these and ten was enough, it took me many, many hours to make them. When I first saw the new preview set Just Buzzin' By, my first thought was now I have a honey jar to go with my bear! Just so you know the set is precious just the way it is, it features three charming bees, a very nice hive, the honey pot, a flower and two verses. But I knew I had to pair the honey pot with my bear. I had this idea in my head for weeks and finally sat down earlier this week to get it on paper. All supplies from Stampin' Up!

Stamp sets: Just Buzzin' By (available Jan. 19th), Under the Stars

Paper: More Mustard, Ruby Red, Chocolate Chip, Watercolor paper

Ink: Basic Brown, More Mustard ink and marker, Close to Cocoa ink and marker

Accessories: Earth Elements and Neautral Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aquapainter, Crystal Effects, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, dimensionals, Spritzer tool, Vintage brads, Chocolate chip double stitched grosgrain, More Mustard grograin, sponges

Here a picture of some of the detail on the card. I used Crystal Effects to make the honey have a shine to it and I used Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds to add some sparkle to the bees wings!

Rasberry Tart Squash Book

I'm hosting a mini album swap at leadership next week and wanted to share with you one of my creations for it. I've always loved these squash books, it's amazing to me what you can do with just cardstock! This one features the new Rasberry Tart designer series paper and and Sweet Stems, both will be available in the upcoming Spring/Summer Idea book and catalog! The Rasberry Tart paper is just beautiful. I've been creating with it and I just love all of the colors together in this paper! Left is the book all closed up. It measures just 4x4 inches when closed. To the left is the book when all closed up. All products from Stampin' Up!

Stamp sets: Sweet Stems, Baroque Motifs, Sweet SerendipityPaper: Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Kiwi Kiss, Pale Plum, Shimmery White, Cameo Coral, Rasberry Tart DSP

Ink: Riding Hood Red, Cameo Coral, Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Pale Plum, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black

Accessories: 1 1/4 inch circle punch, Large oval punch, Scallop Circle Punch, Ice Circle Brads, 1/8 inch handheld punch, Dimesionals, Wide Oval Punch, Scallope square punch, Baskets & Blooms Die for Big Shot (tag), Riding Hood Red taffeta

To the right is the book fully open. There are spaces for 4 photos. Below are the left and right hand sections close up.

I really enjoy making little books like these. They make great gifts for special occassions and are great for Grandma brag books!

Love You Much...still..LOL!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!


Sorry, I know I've been on a kick with this bundle this week but that's what happens when I get new toys to play with. I pick them up and can't seem to put them down! I had a lot of fun designing this card and am so pleased with the way it turned out!

All products from Stampin' Up!
Stamp sets: Love You Much, Heard from the Heart
Paper: Kraft, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla, Candy Lane DSP
Ink: Basic Brown, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Close to Cocoa
Accessories: Flower Fusion 2, Riding Hood Red taffeta, Aquapainter, Pretties Kit (rhinestone brad), Scallop #2 die for Big Shot

From the Heart

Here it is New Year's Eve and I've been busy making Valentine's cards, what's up with that?? Here's another creation I made with the Love You Much bundle. It's for a monthly swap that I do with some fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrators.

All products from Stampin' Up:

Stamp Sets: Love You Much, Holidays & Wishes

Paper: Kraft, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Candy Lane DSP

Ink: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Scallop Circle #2 die for Big Shot, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Crystal Effects, Scallop edge punch, Riding Hood Red/Very Vanilla Grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals

Here's wishing everyone a safe and Happy New Year! Take time to enjoy your loved ones.

Leadership Swaps

Next week I'm on my way to Stampin' Up! Leadership conference. No Stampin' Up! event would be complete without swaps. I joined a swap for the new Love You Much Bundle which is currently available for pre-purchase. The swap hostess made the suggestion that we use the set to show it's versatility so we didn't end up with all Valentine's cards. I LOVED this idea and so I ran with it. I knew right away that I wanted to do a card appropriate for St. Patrick's Day and make the hearts into a shamrock. I had the idea in my head for over a month and finally sat down this past weekend to get it on paper. Here's what I came up with:

All products are from Stampin' Up!
Stamp Sets: Love You Much, Classic Stripes, Sincere Salutations, Holiday Blitz

Ink: Sage Shadow, Pink Pirouette, Versamark, Riding Hood Red

Paper: Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla, Sage Shadow, Candy Lane DSP (available in Love You Much Bundle or in the Spring/Summer Catalog arriving next month)

Accessories: Riding Hood Red Taffeta Ribbon, Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware, 3 heart punch (from bundle), Scallop Punch, 1 1/4 inch circle punch, 3/4 inch circle punch, Designer Label punch, Basket and Blooms die for the Big Shot, dimensionals

I had a great time designing this card! Check back this week for more projects made with the Love You Much bundle. If you are interested in ordering this bundle while it's on sale, give me a call or email me!

Our Christmas Card and Walt Disney World

Wow, I don't know where the last week went. I guess I do I was busy preparing for Christmas day and then this weekend I spent stamping away on projects for Stampin' Up! leadership and also taking down all the Christmas stuff around the house. I thought I had posted our Christmas Card last week but I guess I dreamed it. I wanted to share it now because although simple, I really like the way it turned out. We normally spend Christmas at Walt Disney World. This year, Ron wasn't able to get Christmas week off so we went the week before. We still had a wonderful time but I have to say (and I know it sounds strange), it was weird being home on Christmas day! We've gone to WDW for Christmas 5 out of the last 7 years!

Our card reflects our family time at WDW. The picture was taken by one of the Photopass photographers. For anyone going to WDW, I highly recommend buying the Photopass CD. It's absolutely the best thing we've ever done. I used the Ski Slope DSP, Scandinavian Season stamp set, Felt Flurries (I added Dazzling Diamonds glitter to them), and the Silver cording. The card was done using Shimmery White Cardstock. Because I didn't want to "waste" the inside part of the frame, I used it to mount our greeting on inside the card! I embossed snowflakes from the Scandinavian Season stamp set on the Ski Slope paper to give it some extra dimension. Because they were fairly simple, I really enjoyed making them for my friends and family!

This year we had a really fun time and the best thing of all was getting chosen to be the First Safari Family of the day at Animal Kingdom. While I enjoy all of the Disney parks, over the last few years Animal Kingdom has become my favorite place to spend time. I think I figured it out on this trip, it's not a "typical" theme park. It's much less frantic and I enjoy the slower pace, the lush landscaping, the Broadway caliper shows, and of course the SAFARI! It's probably as close to the real thing that I'll ever do and for me, it's good enough. Being chosen to be the First Family was a dream come true! We got our own personal safari with a driver and a guide. We got a "backstage" tour which was perfect for us. We've been on the safari probably 25+ times since the park opened 10 years ago. Every visit we ride it at least 2-3 times. I love this ride because it's always different. You just never know what you'll see. When we got on the bus, we told our guide and driver that we didn't need all the pre-recorded stuff that we knew the drill and they seemed thankful for that. That's when they suggested a "backstage" tour. They talked a lot about the animals on the trip and which were their favorites and why they loved them so. The main thing I loved was seeing how much they loved their jobs! They would slow down for us to take pictures (of course this was the FIRST time I didn't have my big camera with the zoom lens) and we just had a marvelous time.

Our guide was from originally from Plano (about 45 minutes from our home) so that was kind of fun as well. After we returned back to "camp", they presented us with a little pass that said we were The Kilimanjaro Safaris Honorary Family and it entitled us to return to the safari as many times that day and use the Fast Pass line! That was way cool! People often ask me why we love taking trips to Walt Disney World so often, I guess it's because it's always magical, you get to be a kid again, and the outside world just seems to not exist while you are there. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed the safari!

Christmas Album

In my post yesterday, I showed you the gifts I made for each of my club members. Today I'm going to show you a Christmas CD Envelope Album I made for the gift exchange we do. I made a small cookbook for my other club gift exchange which I neglected to photograph but I remembered to take pictures of this one. All products used were from Stampin' Up! except the CD Envelopes which were bought from Uline. For this project I used Holiday Treasures Designer Series Paper, elements from the I Wish Simply Scrappin' Kit, Mini envelopes 3x3, cardstock in Real Red, Old Olive, and Chocolate Chip, Alpine Ribbon originals, sticky strip and lots of dimensionals.

To the left is the front of the album. It's hard to tell but some of the poinsettias have been cut out and fit around the album title.

To the right is the first two pages there is also a page that slips into the left hand side. So, you basically have three pages to add photos to on these two pages. The right hand page pulls up out of the pocket.

These two pages feature a page large enough for a full sized photo and two smaller photos. The right hand page has several poinsettias cut out and popped up using dimensionals.

These next two pages are probably my favorite pages in the book. On the left side is a page big enough for a large photo. Then there is a cool, pop out piece that has three small envelopes attached. All three of these envelopes contain mini pages for small photographs or even some journaling of memories. The right hand page is large enough for a full sized photo and pulls out from the pocket.

The two pages on the left have room for one large photo and two small photos or a photo and journaling. The last two pages have room for two larger photographs. The page on the right pulls out of the pocket.

This last view is of the album opened up so you can see what the entire book looks like opened.

I had a class on these in December and will have another class on these in January with a Valentine's theme.