A Peek Into Winter

You are probably saying "What!  Summer just ended!"  While this is definitely true, it is never too early to start thinking about holiday cards.  I got this set over the summer and have just started playing with it.  I am getting into the Holiday mood as I prepare for my Christmas Stamp-A-Stack this coming Friday, September 27 at 7pm.  While this card will not be featured, it was fun and supper easy to make.  That is my Golden Rule for Christmas cards, keep it simple!  When you are mass producing anything, you want to go simple.

For this card, I used last week's Fab Friday sketch, always a great place to go for inspiration!

Here are the ingredients for today's card:
Stamps: Snow Day
Paper: Whisper White, Island Indigo, Crumb Cake, Winter Frost DSP Stack
Ink: Island Indigo, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie, Pool Party
Accessories: 1-1/4" Square Punch, 1-3/8" Square Punch

Don't forget to join me on the Late Night Stamper Fall Treasure Hunt!  See my two posts from 8/24 for details how you can win a Stampin' Up! shopping spree.  New blogs to visit are being added weekly!

Experimenting With Starburst

So, I am doing a little better this week!  I never posted it here (maybe I did not want you to hold me accountable :) ), but after Convention, I set a goal for myself to post three times a week.  I knew once the school year started, this would become more of a challenge since I am a major overcommitter!  Between kids activities, my role as a Cub Scout Den Leader and PTO secretary, life gets a little hairy!  Yesterday, my hubby and I took a little break to go up to Newport for the day which was nice with all the crazy September stuff going on.  So this week, I am a little later than planned, but getting my second post in for the week.

Today's card uses the Starburst technique.  I have been playing with this for my stamp club next week.  While this is not one of the cards we will be making, it is a great example of the technique.  I also got a chance to use another set I won at Convention!

Here are the ingredients of this card:
Stamps: Oh Goodie!
Paper: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Season of Style DSP Pack
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Cherry Cobbler 1/2" Seam Binding

Don't forget to join me on the Late Night Stamper Fall Treasure Hunt!  See my two posts from 8/24 for details how you can win a Stampin' Up! shopping spree.  New blogs to visit are being added weekly!

A Little Clean Out for the Fab Friday 26 Challenge

I must first apologize for my absence at the latter part of last week.  I was under the delusion, with my kids back in school, I would have all this free time that I would not know what to do.  Boy have I been wrong!  I found myself volunteering at their school, cleaning up the house, running errands and finally getting to work on cleaning my bonus room.  I kept waiting for free time to stamp and it never came.

In my bonus room clean up, I decided to reorganize my color family scraps that I had been putting off since this summer's color renovation.  You don't want to know how much scrap paper I have!  Let's just say it took several hours to reorganize colors (due to some color family changes) and pull out all the retired colors.   I will say that today's card is a result of this paper clean out.  I found I have so many thin strips of paper that end up at the bottom of my scrap bins and never used.  I decided to pull out all these small strips for easier access.  A great way to use these is as I did in this card as banners.

Today's card is another Fab Friday challenge.  This week's challenge was to use the following color combination:

I swapped out Early Espresso for the Chocolate Chip, only because I was going from memory when I created the card.  Never trust my memory in September!  I seem to have large memory lapses in June and September.  I think it is due to severe schedule changes during those months that throw me all off!

So without further adieu, here are the card details:
Stamps: Hello Lovely, Happy Day
Ink: Early Espresso, Tangerine Tango
Paper: Sweater Weather DSP, Soft Sky, Sahara Sand, Tangerine Tango, Crushed Curry, Early Espresso
Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals

Don't forget to join me on the Late Night Stamper Fall Treasure Hunt!  See my two posts from 8/24 for details how you can win a Stampin' Up! shopping spree.  New blogs to visit are being added weekly!

Clean and Simple FTL256 Birthday Card

Last week, we worked with our Simply Pressed Clay during stamp club.  We had extra colored clay so I made a bunch of extra flowers.  I used them on the card my kids gave to their great-grandmother this weekend for her birthday.  This card was inspired by the sketch on Clean and Simple Stamping.

When I saw this sketch, I knew immediately that I needed to take out my bubble wrap for a "bubbly" background.  If you have never tried it, all you need is a piece of bubble wrap and a stamp pad.  Use your bubble wrap as a stamp for an interesting background.  To create the sparkly strip on the side, I covered a piece of Cool Caribbean cardstock with Versamark ink and Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder and heated it to create my own shimmery specialty paper!  In the end, I had a super fun birthday card!

Here are all the ingredients:
Stamps: Bring on the Cake
Paper: Cool Caribbean, Whisper White
Ink: Cool Caribbean, Daffodil Delight, Versamark
Accessories: Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder, Simply Pressed Clay, Buttons and Blossoms Clay Molds, Melon Mambo Reinker, Bubble Wrap

New Envelope Punch Board is Finally Here!!

 Envelope Punch Board (#133774) $19.95

I am so excited to announce the arrival of our new Envelope Punch Board!  We got to see this item in action at Convention and everyone went crazy!  Now you can make your own envelopes in 66 different sizes!

Check out this video to see it in action!

September is Full of Butterflies

Have you noticed all the great bundles in the Annual Catalog?  Well, Stampin' Up! is at it again and offering a sweet bundle!  You receive a 15% discount when you order this Papillion Potpourri stamp set and Bitty Butterfly punch bundled from now until September 30.

Bundle Item	Description	Retail Price	Sale Price
135311	Butterfly Bundle (Clear-Mount)	$30.90	$26.27
135312	Butterfly Bundle (Wood-Mount)	$34.90	$29.67

Papillion Stamp Set

Bitty Butterfly Punch

Don't forget to join us in the LNS Treasurer Hunt!  Open to anyone!  Details can be found in my posts from 8/24/13.

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone!  I am so sorry I have been a little off the radar this week!  The kids went back to school and life has been a bit chaotic getting the house back in order from three trips this summer.  In fact after this post, I am going to tackle some much needed cleaning.  I was not sure what I was going to do with myself with my youngest starting all day kindergarten this year, but I am finding it is not hard to find things to keep me busy!  Yesterday, I felt like I got nothing done!

Tonight, I am hosting my "So Long to Summer" Stamp-A-Stack, which seems rather appropriately named for my week.  This card is one of the cards that we will be making.  This card was designed using the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.  Here is the sketch for this week:

I used my product for the Late Night Stampers Fall Treasure Hunt in this card.  Can you guess what it is?  Visit my posts from August 24 to pick up my clue and join us in the Treasure Hunt.  You can win a Stampin' Up! shopping spree!

Here are the ingredients for my card:
Stamps: Settin' Sail PHOTOPOLYMER
Paper: Whisper White, Sahara Sand, Cherry Cobbler, Baked Brown Sugar, Polka Dot Parade DSP, 2013-2015 In-color DSP
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Baked Brown Sugar, Marina Mist
Accessories: Hexagon Punch, 1-3/8" Circle Punch, Stampin' Dimensionals

Don't forget to join us in the LNS Treasurer Hunt!  Open to anyone!  Details can be found in my posts from 8/24/13.

Paper Pumpkin Monday: An Alternative with August's Kit

Here is a quick and easy Paper Pumpkin card to jump start your work week.  Today's card uses the August kit.  I was so excited to receive mine last week before I headed up to the Cape.  I just popped it into my bag when it arrived.  You can imagine my disappointment when I broke it open and realized I forgot my Clear Block!  I was so bummed that I could not enjoy a few moments of stamping when my sister took my kids for a jog!  So lesson to all: DON'T FORGET YOUR BLOCK!!

This card is an alternative to the one offered in the kit this month.  The only additional supply you need is Whisper White cardstock and Stampin' Dimensionals.  I stamped the sentiment and bike on the Whisper White.  I hand trimmed the sentiment and mounted it with the dimensionals.  The Crushed Curry sticker strips were trimmed to fit along the top and bottom of the piece with the bike.  I love this bike stamp!  Once I am done with the kit, I will be using the bike on some of my scrapbooking pages.  My Cub Scout den (one of my activities in all my spare time :) ) had a Bike Rodeo this past spring.  I am quite sure I can incorporate this stamp into those pages!

You only have a few more days to take advantage of Paper Pumpkin for $10+tx.  This offer is ending on 8/31/13.  You can sign up by clicking on my link to the left.

Don't forget to join me on the Late Night Stamper Fall Treasure Hunt!  See my two posts from 8/24 for details how you can win a Stampin' Up! shopping spree.

Fab Friday 25

This week my stamp club meets and we will be focusing on using Simply Pressed Clay, one of my new favorite products in the 2013-14 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalog.  With my stamp clubs, I try to focus on a specific technique each month.  My new club will be starting in January.  It is never too early to sign up for those of you in Connecticut!  For those of you already in my club, this will be one of the cards you will get to make this week!

For this card, I used the following sketch that I found on Fab Friday Challenge Blog.

I originally was going to use the opposite side of the Designer Series Paper, but was drawn to the fans on this side.  Here are the ingredients for this card:

Stamps: Feel Goods
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Eastern Elegance DSP, Whisper White, Old Olive
Ink: Crushed Curry
Accessories: Simply Pressed Clay, Buttons and Blossoms Clay Molds, Little Leaves Sizzlit, Crushed Curry Reinker, Costal Cabana Reinker, Rich Razzleberry Reinker

Don't forget to join me on the Late Night Stamper Fall Treasure Hunt!  See my two posts from 8/24 for details how you can win a Stampin' Up! shopping spree.

LNS Treasure Hunt- Participating Blogs

Here is  a list of participating blogs where you can find clues for the treasure hunt:

First Name Last Name Blog Address Tammy Baldwin www.creativeapplescrampers.blogspot.com Carolyn Bennett www.carolynstamps.com Jody Brechbill www.jodybrechbillstampinqueen.com Brenda Cook http://www.cardscraps.com Carolee Crabb Care2stampwithcarolee.blogspot.com Tina Davis http://www.tinadavisstamps.blogspot.com/ Beverly Farmer www.createwithbev.blogspot.com Sherrill Graff http://yourhiredscrapbooksupplies.blogspot.com/ Penny Hanuszak http://pennytokensstampinspot.blogspot.com Lori Helvick createwithlori2.blogspot.com/ Diane Ison http://teachtostamp.blogspot.ca/ Suzanne Johnson www.gottastampwithsuzanne.com Nancy Legate www.stampnnuggets.com Carolyn Lindenmayer http://carolynscardcreations.blogspot.com.au/ Rhonda Macnally http://rhondalovesstamping.wordpress.com Serena Marsh www.reenybeanies.blogspot.ca Robin Messenheimer http://robinscraftroom.com Joni Metras www.joniinthespotlightstamping.com Cynthia Millan http://www.StampWithCynthia.blogspot.com Kimberley Morris http://procrastistamper.blogspot.com Ruth Pearson http://pearsonifiedcrafting.blogspot.co.uk/ Ginger Rabesa http://www.stampingginger.com Brenda Riehle www.stampandscrapwithbrenda.blogspot.com Linda Rodenberg www.prettyinky.blogspot.com Heather Sewczak heatherscutecards.com/blog Cynthia Simpson http://cynthiastampinhappening.wordpress.com/ Dee Slater http://createwithdee.typepad.com Deborah Smart www.stampandcreate.net B Jayne Stenstrom http://www.jaynestamps.com/ Tanya Stottlemire www.scramptastic.blogspot.com Charlene Tackvic www.AlwaysStamping.com Jackie Watson jackielwatson.blogspot.com Lesley Lendon http://lellyjellys.blogspot.com/ Amanda  Frankel www.OurCraftyPlaydate.com Vanessa Terrell www.stampwithvanessa.com Kris Sobolik  www.maddiebugdesigns.blogspot.com  Misty Shell http://snellmisty.wordpress.com Rhonda Price www.stampbyrhonda.blogspot.com  Jaime Barnett http://kankiepopscards.blogspot.co.uk Janet Yates www.stampinnerd.blogspot.com Avery Murphy http://alongcamestamping.blogspot.ca Jennifer King http://stampingcontact.com Erika Trowell www.idigstamps.com Mary K. Wessling http://maryscraftroom.blogspot.com Jean Piersanti www.Beautyandthestamper.blogspot.com Karina  Chin www.karinaskreation.com  Samantha Joyce www.crafty-sammy.blogspot.co.uk Jennifer Kay (Wren) www.txjennywren.blogspot.com Susan Timchack http://susan-stampinsue.blogspot.com Cindy Mitchell-Clark www.cindysstampingcorner.wordpress.com Cindy Fodor  www.stampthelove.blogspot.com Amber Meulenbelt www.stampwithamber.com Anastasia Radloff www.stampinblondie.blogspot.com Robin Boyer www.robinscreativecorner.com Amy Hoffman www.stampandscrapwithamy.blogspot.com   Louise Radies www.creationsbylouise.blogspot.com Holly Stene http://hollyshobbs.blogspot.com  Melissa Banbury www.porchswingcreations.com Laura Leuenberger www.stamplaura.blogspot.com Denise Willerton http://chezmoicreations.blogspot.com Raissa Spatola www.raissastamps.com Sandy Risi http://thecrewquarters.blogspot.com Rachel Bateman http://rachelscraft.blogspot.com/ Nicole Mahler www.creationsbynikki.blogspot.com Cathy Parlitsis http://www.stampsandscrapbooks.com Laurie Reaume www.stampwithlaur.blogspot.com Jacqueline Dorer-Russell http://sugarssmilinpapercrafts.blogspot.com Kay Marini www.stampingforsanity.blogspot.com Carey Payette http://stampingbandit.blogspot.com Cindy Techlin http://www.stampinaninktrail.blogspot.com