LAST CHANCE LISTS ARE HERE!!!!!!!!

It's the time of the year we all get excited about! The last chance lists are out so sadly say good bye to some of our favorite stamps and accessories. But, on a happy note, we know that a new catalog filled with amazing new stamps, accessories, and this year - COLORS is just a month away!

I've put buttons on the side bar that will lead you to the pdf's of the Last Chance Lists. The top one is a link to my on-line store - remember that the accessories are "while supplies last", so place your order now to ensure you are able to get your favorites! The pdf for the Accessories list is updated nightly to reflect what has sold out during the day.

Happily, I have finally received all my stamping things and am getting my craft area set up. I am hoping to finally have some things to share this weekend!

Way past due....

I know I am WAY PAST DUE for posting on my blog. I just wanted to take a minute and explain what has been going on for the past 8 months. Shortly after my last blog post, I found out that the next assignment I thought I was going to for my military career was changed. I had been planning on staying in the Virginia Beach area, but instead found that I was going to be transferring overseas. This also caused my transfer date to be moved up 6 months, so I was very busy ensuring that my family was ready for this move. Last month we completed this move, and we are now getting settled in to a new life overseas.

This move is still ongoing - our house hold good aren't expected to be here for another month, but we are getting adjusted and enjoying everything this new culture has to offer. Unfortunately, as part of the rules for the military here, home businesses are not allowed, so I will not be able to hold any workshops or be an active demonstrator at my new location. Luckily, Stampin' Up! has allowed for this with its military, and military dependent, demonstrators. I am able to go on to a military status and retain my demonstratorship while acknowledging that I will not be able to reach some of my usual goals while I am here. Another great thing about Stampin' Up! :-)

But never fear, you can still place orders with me using my Stampin' Up! website. There is a link on this blog, just go there and click on "shop now". I will try to keep updating this site with projects every couple of weeks. I'm afraid with my demands from my full-time military job over here I can't promise posting more often. However, my stamping "stuff" won't get here until mid-May, so you won't see any projects until then. If you have questions or need help with a project, I'm still here and happy to help - just e-mail me or even leave a comment here if you want. Just remember that there is a 7 or 8 hour time difference from the East Coast (depending on day light savings or not).

Thank you for all your support and I look forward to showing you some great projects soon from halfway around the world!

Thinking of You card

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I hadn't heard from her in a little bit and just wanted to let her know I was thinking of her, so I came up with this card to send her. I really liked the simplicity in how it turned out.

Supplies:
Ever After and Thoughts & Prayers stamp sets
Pink Pirouette and Chocolate Chip card stock
Pink Pirouette textured card stock
Candy Lane Designer Series Paper
Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad
Pewter Build a Brad
Hidden Garden Rub Ons
Pewter Hodge Podge Hardware (retired - can substitute the new Styled Silver or Very Vanilla Hodge Podge Hardware)
Mat Pack & Paper Piercer
SNAIL, Tombrow Liquid Glue

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

I'm Back!

Hello all! I'm back from my wonderful vacation and am working on getting the last chance lists posted and updated on here. Keep your eye out - I'll have them available later today!

Couple of cute kid projects

I always love looking through Stampin' Up!'s Idea Book and Catalog(s) over and over. I have the past 7 or 8 catalogs, and I still enjoy going back to the old one's to get ideas if I'm drawing a blank on my own. There have been two projects recently in the catalogs that I have been dying to try, and this week I finally got around to making the projects myself.

The first project is in the current catalog. It is a 3-D project - a way for you to "spice up" a photo in a frame. I just bought a frame I liked at Target, then cut my own cardstock to match the size of the frame. I had to resize my photo a little bit - but that of course is the great thing about digital photos, it is so easy to resize and print a new one! Anyway, I love how this frame turned out, especially with the adorable photo of my son playing in one of the fountains at our local botanical garden's children's park. NOTE: for the placement of the letters on this one, I just took my chances of free-handing the stamps. If you want to be sure your letters are straight though (like for the next project), you can use the Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Frame Supplies:
ABC Lower and Prehistoric Pals stamp sets
Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Garden Green, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, and Riding Hood Red Classic Stampin' Pads
Whisper White card stock
Paper Snips
SNAIL and Stampin' Dimensionals
store bought frame

The second project was in two or three IB&C ago. It was on the page with the ABC alphabet sets, and was one of the main reasons I bought all the ABC sets. I've been wanting to make these flashcards for quite some time. My husband and I are going away in a couple of days for our 10 year anniversary (we're going to Paris and London!) and the grandparents are watching our kids. I thought the flashcards would be a great gift for them to have when we leave for our trip.

I used our 2008-2009 in-colors as my card stock and ink colors for the flashcards. I decided to only use the Pink Pirouette for the wheel color because it is such a light color and I thought it might get lost in the brightness of the other colors if I tried to mix it in with the letters. Also, I didn't use it as a card stock base, just an accent color, because, honestly, I need more Pink Pirouette card stock! :-) I'm also saving my Baja Breeze card stock because that is my favorite color and I know it is going to be retired next month (watch out for a post tomorrow about the retiring stamp sets and accessories). Anyway, once I got the hang of making these, they went relatively quickly. This is a great project to make with your kids too - especially if you have older kids who want to help make the flashcards for their younger siblings. NOTE: it is a good idea to use a darker ink color (like Chocolate Chip) on the imaging sheets of the Stamp-a-ma-jig, even if that isn't the color you are going to use on your actual project.

Flashcard supplies:
ABC Upper, ABC Lower, and ABC Images stamp sets
My ABCs Stampin' Around Wheel
Whisper White, Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, and Pacific Point card stock
Tangerine Tango and Pink Pirouette textured card stock
Chocolate Chip, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, and Pacific Point Classic Stampin' Pads
Kiwi Kiss 5/8" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon
Stamp-a-ma-jig
1-1/4" Square Punch
1" Circle Punch
Tag Corner Punch
Crop-a-Dial
Wheel Guide
Stampin' Around Wheel Handle
SNAIL and Stampin' Dimensionals

So Shelli Father's Day Challenge

I have to day off today for the Memorial Day Weekend, and I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my day. I decided that one of the things I would work on is some things to enter in different challenges and contests hosted by Stampin' Up! and folks in my upline/sideline. I realized it had been a little while since I had participated in one of Shelli's challenges on her web site (Shelli is the co-founder and CEO of Stampin' Up! - the link to her blog is on the left). So, this month's theme is Father's Day, and I had a perfect card that I had created for my upline's monthly meeting a couple of weeks ago. The layout may look familiar to you - it is the same layout from the card on pg. 81 of our current catalog, and the one I used for my friend's baby shower invites in yesterday's blog post. Similar to the shower invites, I used Whisper White Craft ink on Close to Cocoa for the background look on the bottom portion of the card. I've also included the inside of the card for two reasons. 1) I've started decorating the inside on some of my cards, especially if my base is a dark color card stock. I figure this both adds some interest to the inside of the card as well, but also allows you to be able to write your message easier without using a white gel pen, or silver marker, etc. 2) I wanted to show you a great technique for tying your ribbon around a card front when you want to put the ribbon in the direction that would take it over the card fold (you may have to take a second to see what I mean on the card... it is along the left side of the photo below). I found this on another demo's blog (I'm really sorry -it has been a while and I don't remember who's blog I found it on), but it is so simple. All you do is take your Horizontal Slot punch and punch a hole in the part of the card fold where you want the ribbon. The thickness of the ribbon hides the "dent" in the card fold when you are just looking from the front. I thought that was a great idea!

Supplies:
All Holidays, Full of Life and Sanded stamp sets
Creamy Caramel and Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pads
Whisper White Craft Stampin' Pad
Close to Cocoa, Kiwi Kiss, and Whisper White card stock
Close to Cocoa textured card stock
Candy Lane Designer Series Paper
Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware (star brad)
Silver Brads
Kiwi Kiss 5/8" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon
Horizontal Slot and Photo Corners punches
SNAIL, Sticky Strip and Stampin' Dimensionals