Last Chance for a great deal on My Paper Pumpkin!

It's almost the end of the month and that means that the great offer to try the first two months of My Paper Pumpkin for just $10, before tax, is almost up. Don't forget to go and sign up before the end of the month. Remember to use code PUMPKINDEAL to get this amazing deal. Remember you can cancel at any time, you can also skip months that you don't want by going into your account by the 10th of every month. 

These kits are so much fun. So far we've been receiving one month with card kits and the following month we'll have a 3D project. You can find great ideas on Pinterest for additional ideas for how to use these kits besides the ones that are already pre-designed for you. 

Looking for an additional person to sign up for this awesome program. I have a few extra Try It kits available and I would love to send you one for signing up for this program. The catch is that you must live in the US. This special offer applies to new My Paper Pumpkin customers only. 

Have a great Friday! I am working on getting my stamp club samples photographed and labeled with my watermark using MDS. I hope to have those posted by next week. 

Happy Stamping and Creating!

Get Well gift bags

So a few years ago I was helping a friend design some toppers for some get well gift bags she was selling at a craft show. I got the idea for these based on what she was putting in her bags. I used what I had at the time and used what I thought was going to fit in the bags a little easier. since then I've modified a bit more. I love making these though they are a lot of fun. I was selling some back in April at a craft fair at the elementary school I work at. The principal loved them so much she asked me to make some for staff when they get sick throughout the school year. I just finished the last two of these up on Tuesday and took them into work yesterday. 

They're not super fancy, but it's the thought that counts. I have been using my notecards with envelopes a lot lately. Of course I have been using more of the notecards and less of the envelopes so I had a bunch leftover that I could use with this. Those cards are actually a perfect fit for this and I think I will continue to make this size from now on. 

I include a package of chicken noodle soup, a package of tissue, tea bags, cough drops and a hand sanitizer wipe. 

I had a bunch of the in color dahlia's from last years in color set and so I thought I would incorporate those into these cards I figure they're not super girly so they could be given to some of the guys in the building too if I used the Midnight Muse dahlias. 

Hopefully I will remember to post pictures of some of the simple cards I've got designed for the after school stamp club that I want to start at the elementary school next month. I hope to be able to post it for you soon. 

Have a great Thursday! Happy Stamping and Creating to you. 

Let's Celebrate!

Sorry I've been MIA for the last few days. I have had severe allergies that turned into a slight cold. Not much fun really. Finally broke down on Friday and went and bought some Nyquil. Slept like a baby and woke up mostly dried up Saturday. I have done some stamping but nothing that I can share because unfortunately I did it so late at night that I forgot to even take pictures of anything. Duh!

Today I am working on some quick and easy projects to do with the after school stamp club that I'm hoping to start at the school, I work at, in September. 

I hope to have some of those to share with you soon. Also did you notice I have my new "Shop Now" button linking you directly to my Demonstrator Business Website or DBWS if you will. It's only taken me forever and a day to get it up there. I will also be working on getting a link set up that takes you directly to my calendar but I haven't gotten that far yet. 

Today I'm going to share a card with you that I made, sometime earlier this year, as a sample. I never shared it and never even photographed it. I make a lot of cards for fun and sometimes I give them away, and other times I forget I even have them. I made this as part of a color challenge that my upline had presented to us. 

I used Embellished Events. A great stamp set because you can add any variety of our embellishments to the stamps to add to the finished look. The colors we were required to use were Baja Breeze (which is now retired), Summer Starfruit (current 2012-2014 In Color) and Elegant Eggplant. I used the retired embossing folder that came out with last years holiday catalog. I do miss this folder but I do like the fact that our embossing folders are inexpensive and they add so much detail with so little effort. 

Hope you have a great Monday. I promise to have more to share with you tomorrow. Until then Happy Stamping! 

Love is in the air

For my project share today I have another MDS card for you. I just sat down and started pulling elements that I wanted to use from what I already have downloaded and put them onto this card. I knew some of what I had as far as DSP within the program. I have been missing the Love Letter paper and using Modern Medley got me thinking about it and I wanted to use it on this card somehow. 

I remembered this paper and decided to use it as a mat for my design. Originally I was thinking of doing a graduation card because I had already seen the greeting and I loved it so much it went on the card without a second thought. Then as I was scrolling quickly through all of the awesome stamps I have, I came across these love birds and decided to use them instead. I also knew I wanted to use some pearls but they were just a little too flat on the page without any color so I decided to use some flowers instead. I grouped the flower and the pearl on the page and then copied it and made it smaller. Then I just copied that one and I had my 2 flowers. Then I took the leaf from the 2 step bird punch and copied and pasted it and then did the same thing with a resized version of it. This probably took me about 15 minutes to finish. I did it before I went to bed last night. 

Here's the list of supplies used on this project:

Background
     Color = VERY VANILLA 254,249,232

Embellishments
    Basic Pearls and Rhinestones/Basic Pearls and Rhinestones - pearl small
    Basic Pearls and Rhinestones/Basic Pearls and Rhinestones - pearl small
    Basic Pearls and Rhinestones/Basic Pearls and Rhinestones - pearl medium
    Basic Pearls and Rhinestones/Basic Pearls and Rhinestones - pearl medium
    Basic Pearls and Rhinestones/Basic Pearls and Rhinestones - pearl medium

Stamps
    _Designer Kits/Meant to Be/Meant to Be - kissing doves
    _Designer Kits/A Little of This/A Little of This - congrats, Color = 0,0,0

Punches
    Labels & Tags/Decorative Label Punch, Fill Color = VERY VANILLA 254,249,232
    Two Step Bird Branch Punch, Fill Color = OLD OLIVE 138,151,71
    Two Step Bird Branch Punch, Fill Color = OLD OLIVE 138,151,71
    Two Step Bird Branch Punch, Fill Color = OLD OLIVE 138,151,71
    Two Step Bird Branch Punch, Fill Color = OLD OLIVE 138,151,71

Photos
    Designer Series Paper/Love Letter - designer series paper/Love Letter - pattern 5

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Stamping and Creating to you. Come and visit me again soon. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

In August? Not quite yet. As I shared yesterday I am getting my mojo going again and getting ready for the holidays by designing things that get me in the mood to stamp and craft. Craft show season is quickly approaching and I have two events on my calendar that I will need to begin crafting for shortly.

I decided to play with My Digital Studio (MDS) a little more last night. Here's what I came up with.

Simple card right? I love that you can color in certain parts of your stamps using the coloring tool on MDS. See how I colored in Christmas? You can colorize just about anything in MDS, including the DSP. I didn't need to do that for this card, but just know that it can be done if you need to do it. 

I'm still enjoying playing with the drop shadow feature. I like to have an overall shadow around the entire image rather than just 2 sides of it. I like how it makes the card look more realistic of something that was being popped up using Stampin' Dimensionals but without actually using Stampin' Dimensionals. I also love how you can take a shape and fill it in with any DSP or cardstock that you like. In this case for the banner I used the punch that's shaped like a banner, stretched it out to the size I wanted and then filled it with the paper design that I liked. Easy Peasy.

Here's a list of everything used to create this project. 

Background

     Designer Series Paper/Vintage Overlays - designer series paper/Vintage Overlays - texture 6

Embellishments
    Baker's Twine/Baker's Twine - Old Olive
    Baker's Twine/Baker's Twine - Old Olive bow
    Basic Pearls and Rhinestones/Basic Pearls and Rhinestones - rhinestone small (re-colored)
    Logo/Logo - my digital studio

Stamps
    _Designer Kits/Very Merry Twenty-Five/Very Merry Twenty-Five - very merry christmas

Punches
    Extras/Flag Punch,  Filled with: Designer Series Paper/_Designer Kits/Joyful Times - designer series paper/Joyful Times - 8
    Ornament Punch,  Filled with: Card Stock/Cherry Cobbler
    Snowflake Punch, Fill Color = 225,225,224

Photos
    Designer Series Paper/Vintage Overlays - designer series paper/Vintage Overlays - texture 11

Page 4 Supply ListEmbellishments

Hope you enjoyed this little project share today and Happy Stamping and Creating. 

It's all about the candy

Good Monday morning friends. Hope you had an enjoyable weekend. We had friends over for game night yesterday. Sometimes I play, sometimes I watch or listen to them play. We play a variety of different board games. They are a ton of fun. I was able to finish up this card on Saturday, before I cleaned off my stamp table and got my stamproom game day ready.

I wanted to play with some Washi Tape. I've had my Washi Tape from the This and That collection since early May, when I could pre-order it and I haven't even used that yet. Yep I'm not only a slacker but I'm also a hoarder, although I think we already knew that one. 

I used the Halloween Hello stamp set on this one along with Witches Brew DSP and of course the Witches Brew Designer Washi Tape.

I'm blogging to you from my phone today. (Quick editing note: I don't much like the way the app formats my blog. The photos end up on the bottom of the post. :( I guess I'll keep playing with it and see if I can't do something about that.) Testing out the app to see how well I like it. Sorry I can't add in catalog pics of the product sets that I used but you can always find them through my online catalog by name if you're unsure of the product numbers.

Stop on by tomorrow. Happy Stamping!

Happy Friday!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. It was a busy day with lots of running around involved for my kiddos. 

I decided to play with My Digital Studio (MDS) a little bit last night instead. I don't play with it as often as I would like but I really should. I can come up with great projects using this awesome program. I figured out a few things while playing with it tonight. I'm kind of self taught. I remember reading something that basically says get in it and play with it. You can't break it. I figured out how to create shadow effects by just putting the x and y on 0. Can you see the shadowing on this card? It looks like I popped them up using dimensionals but this is a digital creation. I love how I can resize and color stamps, fill in shapes with paper and then resize them as well. Here's my creation. 

The stamps on this project are included in MDS when you purchase it. The only thing that isn't is this Designer Series Paper (DSP) that I used on this card. The paper came from Lemonade Stand the free disk that we offered during Sale-a-bration (SAB) earlier this year. The paper doesn't exactly match with the Coastal Cabana card stock but it's very close. Did you notice I colored the cupcake stamp in and faded it some to create a muted image of it on the card? 

I've been on a birthday kick. Can you tell? I just thought this looked like a birthday card when I was putting it together. I guess part of me designing birthday cards lately is that I am trying to come up with inspirational ideas for a stamp club that I have in the works. Hoping to have some ideas to present soon. 

Hope you have a great weekend. Depending on what my days look like I hope to be able to share at least one project with you this weekend, if not I will see you on Monday. Until then Happy Stamping and Creating. 

Happy Birthday Dad

My dad's birthday is coming up next Friday. I need to get his card out in the mail soon. Sadly enough I recently found a card from last year that I had made for my dad and for whatever reason I never mailed it out. Yep that would be me. Always making these cards and sometimes not remember to post them.

This year I promised myself that would not happen. So the card is made and it is addressed and ready to go out. I actually have a box that I need to send to my brother as well so I will put them out together on the same day. He lives in Hawai‘i. I figure if I post it by next Monday he should have it either have it by Thursday or Friday and I will either be early, or at least on time this year. :D 

I used the fish and coral stamp from By the Tide. The greeting comes from Petite Pairs

Hope you have a fabulous Tuesday! I am hoping for some more much needed rain. This is the first year in quite some time that we've had lots of rain. I'm not so happy that it has been in areas that have been recently devastated by fires that we've had in Colorado in the last 2 summers but I am hoping that with the way this weather has been during the months of July and August, so far, that it will be a good winter, full of heavy wet snow and that we'll finally be at or above normal levels for the that time of year.

Before I go, I'll leave you with a photo of my dad and I. This was taken in June, just a few days before we left. I miss the beauty that is Hawai‘i and cannot wait for the day when I will finally return to my island home. I miss my family much more and I hope to be able to return long before all of my dearest loved ones are gone. 

Come and see me again soon. Happy Stamping and Creating!

No rest for the weary

This is days 3 and 4 of my girls being back in school. It's a short week thankfully, because I have a lot of things to do this week. It's my day 4 of being back to work as well. I sure did miss working with some of the great kiddos at my school. It's a challenge this year because my schedule has changed somewhat and it's taking me some time to get used to it. Tomorrow I get up and do this all over again and then Thursday only one of my daughters has testing before they both have dental appointments that afternoon.

Today I'm sharing a quick and easy card with you. I was inspired by some butter mints that were packaged in cute plastic wrappers that we picked out for my daughter's 16th birthday party back in June. I finally got around to working on her Thank You cards. Her birthday was June 16th, Father's Day and it's taken me a month and a half to do these. Yikes! Normally Thank You cards go out the week after any party that we have except this year her birthday was spent in Hawaii visiting our family there. I was able to visit so many of my family members who I haven't seen in nearly 7 years and some even longer than that. I also got to visit my mom's grave. It's important to me that I go and visit her while I am there, she was the one who got us started with stamping even before Stampin' Up! was started. I credit my love for paper and crafting to her. 

Anyway here's the card. 

Pretty simple right? We got these green wrapped butter mints as well as these black and white polka dot wrapped butter mints. I basically combined the polka dots on the green instead. Used the Thank You stamp from Perfectly Penned. I really like this set a lot, if you haven't already noticed. :D I lightly stamped the En Francais background stamp in Basic Gray under the greeting. This is one of my favorite quick and easy background techniques. Just ink up like normal and put down on paper, Don't press though. You're not going for full coverage, you'll want the image to look flawed and like it wasn't printed all the way. It's got that faded or aged look to it. 

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday. Stop by tomorrow. I'll share a birthday card with you that I'm sending off to my dad here shortly. Happy Stamping and Creating!

Not very lucky with gardening but hopefully my stamping makes up for it. :D

Happy Monday! As usual I am a little late in getting my blog off today. It's been a crazy hectic weekend. My sixteen year old and I started some plants from seeds a few weeks ago and several of them started sprouting a little over a week ago. The strawberries finally started sprouting just the other day too. Yesterday we took all the girls to go and see Pacific Rim and I had put the plants out for the day to soak in the sun. It was beautiful at the start of the day. I forgot to bring them in before we left and when I got home the poor plants were overwatered and several of them had been pelted by the hailstorm that went through here. It looked like it had snowed that's how bad it was. The hail was probably only 1/4" in size but that was still enough to cause some damage. I am really hoping the plants will survive this. I'll take some pictures later so I can share with you just how pitiful the plants look now. :( I have never had good luck with plants. I can usually start them just fine and then for whatever reason they end up dying on me. :(

To leave you with something happy though, here is my project share for the day. I got this great idea from one of our awesome demonstrators from Australia, Tanya Bell. This treat requires no cutting, once you have your paper to it's desired size. It also requires no adhesive to keep it closed. 

I met this nice lady at a craft fair in April, that I was in charge of. She contacted me last week asking me about some cute packaging ideas and I remembered this one is customizable to just about anything small. This lady sells her own handmade soaps and she puts her own labels on them. I think she was looking for something a little more though. I think this will be a great idea for her. She also sells these cute tiny square shaped soaps and we could also do a small bag for those as well. She could easily package a few of them up in a bag already and then all she'd have to do would be to pop them into a smaller holder like this one and voila, instant gift. 

As you can see I am using some retired product. Didn't I tell you I was going to make use of what I have? Since this was just a mock up project I decided to use some retired DSP instead of current DSP. This is Floral District Retired DSP. 

I used retired Lucky Limeade bakers twine as well. Everything else is current including A Round Array stamp set and the 1 1/4" scallop circle punch. I still don't have the 7/8" punch that goes with this set, but it is on my list of punches to own. 

Hope you enjoy the rest of your Monday and I also hope that you'll come back and see me soon. Tomorrow I'll share some Thank You cards that I did for my daughter to get filled out and sent off to family in Hawaii who helped her celebrate her sixteenth birthday, which fell on Father's Day this past June. Yes I know I should have had these done back in June but she was supposed to help me get them done and help me to design them. She didn't help so I designed them based on what she picked out for her butter mint decorations for the tables. You'll see what I mean tomorrow. 

Until then, Have a great day and Happy Stamping to you!

Poppy Birthday

Good morning and Happy Friday to you! As I mentioned yesterday my youngest daughters started school yesterday. Today I sent my oldest daughter off to start the beginning of her Junior year in high school. Time sure does fly by I remember when she was just a little baby and I brought her home from the hospital. She was such a tiny little thing, of course later on she would end up being my biggest baby. 

As I promised you I would share another birthday card with you today. 

I made this card for one of my workout buddies. Last year when I started working at the elementary school I knew that just watching my diet wasn't going to be enough to help me lose weight and keep up with the kids I was going to be working with. I decided to go to the community rec center and start taking some of the fitness classes that they had to offer. I have met some amazing ladies and men while I have been going to these classes and I wanted to make her card for her birthday. Her birthday is tomorrow so I will get it to her tonight at Kettlebell class, unless she goes to cardio circuit tomorrow. 

For this card I did use some of the thin vellum. If I remember correctly we no longer carry it but we do carry the cardstock vellum which is a little bit thicker. As you've seen before I am a hoarder when it comes to Stampin' Up! products. 

The vellum and the whisper white button are the only retired products on this card. I have been trying to incorporate a lot of retired products onto my gift projects if at all possible. Above is the Pleasant Poppy Background stamp. As you can probably see, if you've been following me recently, is that I really like this stamp. I just love it, don't you? 

I also used the Fancy Fan embossing folder (127751) underneath the vellum to give it some extra added dimension. The stamped greeting comes from Label Love

This set is extremely versatile. I picked it for that reason. The fact that it has a coordinating punch made it even more desirable. 

Hope you have a great day and a great weekend. Come by and see me again on Monday. I will be working on some new projects over the weekend and hope to have them ready to share with you then. Happy Stamping and Creating!

First day of school

My girls go back to school today. In the chaos of getting ready for school I completely forgot to send my girls to school with a little Love Note. Sigh! Bad parenting today. :( Oh well tomorrow is another day and all of my girls will be in school starting tomorrow. My oldest daughter will be in 11th grade. Yikes! Where has the time gone? Do you make any special cards for your kids to let them know about your wishes for them for the school year and encourage them to have a great school year? Do you even just send random cards in their lunches to let them know you're thinking about them? 

My little ones are starting 4th and 3rd grade today. I am excited to have them back in school as they were beginning to wear me out. I got up early and woke them up and shot down into the kitchen to make them breakfast to start off their day. They'd made their lunches the night before so all they had to do was come down and pack them up to take with them this morning. I drove them to the bus stop for pick up. They were nervous to ride the bus again after having not ridden them for the past two years. I met them at the school and dropped off all of their supplies to their classes for them. I am looking forward to all the great things they will accomplish this year.

Before I leave you I will share at little quick bit of creativity. I made this card for my dear friend who I met through the school. Both of my little ones had her as a 1st grade teacher and she's such a great person, who incidentally has a birthday one month after mine so it makes it easy to remember her birthday. 

I love this new DSP and Coastal Cabana. I'm also so excited that Crushed Curry has been put back into circulation. This was one of my favorite colors and More Mustard was my go to color when they retired Crushed Curry the first time. I used Eastern Elegance Designer Series Paper and Perfectly Penned stamp set for the greeting. I love this paper and this stamp set is such a great greeting set. 

I'll have another birthday card for you tomorrow. I have several friends having birthday's coming up and I love to make them cards. 

I need to put a late card in the mail for my cousin. His birthday is today. I should have done it sooner but sometimes masculine cards can be difficult for me to do. I need to do another one for my dad too so I will get working on those tonight. They both live in Hawaii so it will probably not get there until next week and I'll have to send my dad's card out by the 10th the latest. 

Hope you have a great Thursday. Stop by and see me again soon.