The card Keila helped me make

My 3 year old daughter had a birthday party for a preschool classmate of hers yesterday. Ever since I let her play with my ABC Images stamps while I was making the flash cards a couple weeks ago, she has wanted to stamp with me some more. I must admit that this has been something that I've had a difficult time with since I am very, well, picky, about how clean my stamps and ink pads and such are. And we all know that 3 year olds have no concept of being gentle with the stamps and not getting the wood in the ink pad and such. But, I've determined that it is more fun seeing her have a blast with the stamps, just like I do. So, our next project was to make a birthday card for her friend Dominic. It took me a little bit to decide how to design a card that Keila could help me with, but finally I decided to let her have a grand old time with birthday themed stamps and then I would use that as the background image for the card. I think in the end, it turned out pretty well. By the way, on the Pacific Point piece on the right, I used a scor-pal to score a lattice design into the card stock. I then punched out 1/4" circles and used those to create the "quilt" look.

Supplies:

Party Hearty and Celebrate Everything stamp sets

Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point and Whisper White card stock

Riding Hood Red, Pacific Point and Basic Black Classic Stampin' Pad

On Board Lots of Letters

1/4" Circle Punch (retired)

SNAIL

Tombow Multi Purpose Adhesive

Now it's my little girl's turn...

You get two scrapbook pages today since I know I won't be posting tomorrow. I will be at the monthly meeting that my second level upline is hosting. It's one of the great perks of being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator - there are a ton of ways to get together with fellow demonstrators and share ideas. Lisa hosts a shoebox swap: some of the folks coming to the meeting volunteer to bring a project. If you are bringing a project (like I am tomorrow night) you provide all the supplies such as ink pads, stamps, card stock (already cut to the correct dimensions) and put them all in some sort of small box. Then you will have one card that is your example card that everyone can look at to see how to put the card together. At the start, we all show our project (card or 3-d project) and describe any things that might be a little tricky. Then we pass the shoeboxes around the table. By the end of the night, you have 8 or so projects to show as examples, use as ideas for future layouts, etc. It's an awesome time to talk and share and just have fun with fellow demonstrators!



Ok... so on to tonight's scrapbook layout. I did this double layout as a project for the Scrap all Day vendor fair I did in late February and my March club meeting. As with my son's birthday page, everyone made the two 6x6 layouts and I showed the way those could either be 8-1/2x11 or 12x12 pages. I admit that I used a ton of supplies for these pages, so I don't know if I'll be able to correctly identify all of them here. I'm going to try - oh, and yes, I did use the Sale-a-Bration paper and ribbon here again (sorry)...

Supplies:
It's a Loop Thing, Big Deal Numbers, and Heard from the Heart stamp sets
Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Barely Banana, Pumpkin Pie, and Chocolate Chip card stock (some of it is textured - Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette)
Delicate Dots Designer Series Paper (SAB '09 - no longer available)
Certainly Celery Poly-Twill Ribbon (SAB '09 - no longer available)
Pink Pirouette 1-1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon
Rose Red 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon
Bashful Blue 1" Double-Stitched Ribbon
Scallop Border Punch
5-Petal Flower Punch
Summer Sun Corduroy Buttons
Flower Fusion
Filigree Brads
Rich Regals Brads
Gold Brads
Metallic Eyelets
Big Shot Die-Cut Machine
Stampin' Up! Top Note bigz die
Stampin' Up! Join in the Cheer sizzlits decorative strip die
Note: I did use a different letter decorative strip die than is in our catalog - I think it was called Broadway. It is still a Sizzix die - but it is also easy to use the Bollboard die offered in the catalog.

My little boy's birthday scrapbook page

If you look down (or remember) my previous post about Sale-a-Bration, you might recognize the smaller 6x6 portion of this scrapbook page. I created this page for my February club meeting. In the club we only created the 6x6 portion of the page. I then had this set up to show them how you can take a 6x6 scrapbook page and easily turn it in to an 8-1/2x11 or 12x12 page. Just to point out exactly what I'm talking about - and since I know you can't take a tape measure to the computer screen - the Baja Breeze (blue) square portion with the main larger picture is the 6x6 layout. Then the Certainly Celery (green) portion is the 8-1/2x11 layout. This is just one way to easily start small if you are unsure about scrapbooking, and as you get more comfortable with scrapbooking, you can always go back to your inital 6x6 pages and just add a few elements to make it one of the larger sizes.

Oh - and yes, the designer series paper on this is from Sale-a-Bration this year, so unfortunately it is no longer available; and the jumbo wheel I used is retired (I actually did not do that on purpose, I realized after I made the page that the wheel was retired), but since it is National Scrapbooking Month, I wanted to put more scrapbook pages out there. You can easily use other great designer series papers and wheels with this layout.

Supplies:
Define Your Life & It's a Loop Thing Stamp Sets
Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, and Close to Cocoa Classic Stampin' Pad
Certainly Celery and Brocade Blue Craft Stampin' Pad
Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, So Saffron, and Whisper White card stock
Baja Breeze and Basic Gray Textured card stock
Delicate Dots Designer Series Paper ('09 SAB - no longer available)
Certainly Celery Poly-twill Ribbon ('09 SAB - no longer available)
Linen Thread
Silver Brads
Clear Buttons
Ice Square Rhinestone Brads
On Board Timeless Type
Leaves a la Carte Jumbo Wheel (retired)
Jumbo Wheel handle
Wide Oval Punch
Key Tag Punch
Ticket Corner Punch
Heat Tool
Mat Pack & Paper Piercer
Stampin' Sponges
SNAIL
Sticky Strip
Stampin' Dimensionals
Mini Glue Dots

Happy Birthday to my Upline!

February 12th was my upline's birthday. In case you don't know the term, an upline is the Stampin' Up! demonstrator that you sign up to become a demonstrator with. For example, if you were to join the Stampin' up! team using my web site, or through a demonstrator agreement with me, I would be your upline.

In honor of her birthday, I thought I would show you the card I made for her. I was really happy with it - unfortunately the scan does not do the card justice. For one thing, it is blurry. Any time I have a card with a lot of things that "pop out", the scanner always focuses on those things and makes the rest of the card blurry. I haven't figured out how to fix that yet, and it is so much easier for me to scan my cards than take pictures! Luckily, with this card, the blurriness doesn't matter as much since it is a watercolored image and it looks good a little blurry. Yes, I did use some retired Stampin' Up! items... but you can definitely substitute current products for the items that are retired.

Supply list:
Crazy for Cupcakes stamp set (I LOVE this set)
Very Vanilla, Bashful Blue, and So Saffron card stock
Watercolor Paper
Le Jardin DSP (sorry, this is retired)
Basic Black, Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Always Artichoke and Rose Red Classic Ink
Ivory 5/8" Organza ribbon (also retired)
Filigree Brads
Ice Circles Rhinestone Brads
Clear Rhinestone Brads
Aqua Painter

A second Sneak Peek...

**NOTE: if you had visited my site earlier this month, I accidentally posted these images prior to the catalog release date, which is against Stampin' Up! policy. I apologize!**

Here's is a sneak peek of one of the awesome hostess sets that are going to be in the Spring/Summer '09 Idea Book and Catalog. I needed to make a masculine birthday card for a good friend of ours and was looking through my stamp sets to see what I could come up with. I saw the birthday greeting in the "Goody Goody Gumdrops" Level 3 Hostess set in the new catalog and thought it would be fun to use the sundae and cherry with a window card. (Is that the correct term? I'm not really sure). So, I used the large oval punch to cut a window in the front of the card and then lined up the sundae and cherry so that you can't see the cherry on the front. I used Stampin' Write markers to have half of the greeting on the front and half on the inside. Oh - and I added the extra dimension with a "h" from one of the on-board chipboard letter sets and the Not Quite Navy patterns pack paper (a level 1 hostess item from the Fall/Winter IBC). (and yes, I need to work on my ability to stamp straight as you can see on the bottom picture which is the inside of the card!)

Supplies:
Goody Goody Gumdrops stamp set (Level 3 Hostess set available 19 January)
Party Hearty stamp set
Kraft and Night of Navy card stock
Patterns Pack (Level 1 Hostess set in F/W IBC)
VersaMark and Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, Bashful Blue, Riding Hood Red and Going Gray Classic Ink
Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write Marker
Large Oval Punch
Blender Pens
On Board Loads of Letters
Whisper White Note Cards
SNAIL, Sticky Strip and Tombow Multi Purpose Adhesive

Keila's Third Birthday

At the end of September was my daughter's third birthday. We had a little party for her at home for family and friends. I think her favorite part of the party was the bouncy house we rented for the back yard! She had a blast jumping around - it was difficult to get her to come out of there for her cake! I came up with the theme of butterflies for her birthday thanks to an awesome cake pan I found at Target. It was a butterfly, but was molded so that it came apart easily in cupcake form. So here you see the birthday invitation that I made for her party. I used the new Flight of the Butterfly set that I received for free at Convention 08. I used the brayer technique by stamping the butterfly outline in the black Staz On ink on glossy white paper. Once that dried (about 30 seconds), I stamped the butterfly solid stamp in VersaMark ink and covered it with clear embossing powder. After embossing the butterfly, I used a brayer for the color. I put two ink pads side by side (I think I used Pretty in Pink and Rose Red) and ran the brayer over them to soak up some ink. I then inked the glossy white paper moving the brayer slightly side to side in order to make the colors fade in to each other. Finally, I used a paper towl to wipe the color off of the embossed butterfly so that it would show up white. With a finishing touch of paper piercing the butterfly's flight path, I was done with that image. Also, for the ribbon, I used a technique that Shelli (the co-founder of Stampin' Up!) showed us at Convention 08. You take some of the taffetta ribbon (in this case I used the new Riding Hood Red) and get the thread that is along the side of the ribbon. Once you are able to pick that out, you just "scrunch" the ribbon up along that thread. I know that is really hard to understand using just words, but hopefully you will be able to figure it out with the help of the picture.

Supplies (Birthday Card):
Flight of the Butterfly set
Upsy Daisy set
Glossy White, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip card stock
Pretty in Pink, Rose Red, Chocolate Chip Classic Ink
Black Staz On Ink
Very Vanilla 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon
Riding Hood Red Taffetta Ribbon

Next for you to see is the Thank You card I did for her gifts. When I saw this stamp in the new catalog, I fell in love with it - I think it is adorable! I knew I wanted to use it for the kids' birthday cards. Now that I've used it once though, I really don't know how else I would use this set! I know I can make the icing different "flavors" and I suppose I can use markers to not ink the words... but let me know if any of you have other great ideas! For this card I inked the cupcake on three different colors... Creamy Caramel card stock in Chocolate Chip ink, Rose Red textured card stock in Rose Red ink, and Whisper White card stock in Chocolate Chip ink. I layered cut out the cupcake in the Creamy Caramel and that was my base. I cut out just the "icing" in the Rose Red and layered that. Finally for the cherry, I used Crystal Effects and glitter. I used the brads for the extra on the icing. (Got that idea from the catalog.) Enjoy!

Supplies (Birthday Thank You)
Simple Birthday Thanks set
Confetti White, Creamy Caramel, Rose Red textured, and Whisper White card stock
Chocolate Chip and Rose Red Classic Ink
Soft Subtles Brads
Crystal Effects
Fine Cosmo Glitter
Stampin' Dimensionals