For All Things with a Technique

Well, I guess you know what I was doing today (besides cleaning bathrooms - ugh!)  I decided I needed a new blog header and since it is approaching fall, decided on a fall theme.  Although the weather is not quite fall-like yet!  Just heard the weather forecast and it is to be in the 90s for the next few days with a few afternoon thundershowers thrown in.  That will make Ashley happy.  Last week when we were having wonderful lower temps, she was hoping by the time she arrived, we would be hot again.  Well, it will be so she will be happy.  Although you would think someone coming here from Texas where it's over 100 every day, would be hoping for the cooler weather.  Not my girl - she thrives on the heat!

I did have time today to work on my final shoebox card for this weekend.  I can't share it with you until next week but I do have a fall card to share.  I bought the For All Things stamp set at convention.  I love the watercolor look to the stamps.  I think fall is my favorite time of the year - maybe because my birthday is in the fall (although I don't think I am going to have any more birthdays unless I can count backwards!)

I used a technique that we learned at convention on this card.  I tapped my Soft Suede ink pad all over the raised portion of the Honeycomb Embossing Folder.  Next I put my Very Vanilla card stock inside the folder and closed it.  Then just using my hand, I rubbed over the folder, transferring the ink to my card. Make sure to use caution closing and opening the folder so you do not smear the ink.  It makes a faint pattern - some areas darker than others.

I stamped everything directly on the card using Soft Suede, Tangelo Twist, Hello Honey and Soft Suede.  I scattered a few sequins on (using glue dots) and tied a Mellow Moss ribbon.

To see other cards using thiis technique, check out the Stampin' Up Blog HERE.

Keep This Memory

Shh .... I'm supposed to be cleaning!  But MDS was calling me and I wanted to put a page together of a happy time in our lives.  We were so proud when Ashley graduated from medical school and officially joined the Army.  And what made us even prouder was the fact that our son, Jeff, was there for the occasion and was the one who pinned her bars on.  The ceremony was held at The Alamo in San Antonio and was quite impressive.  Hopefully, Ashley will have time to see this today and it will cheer her up a bit.  She is in Cleveland for work and will be returning home on Thursday .... and flying here on Friday.  Yesterday she found out that one of her interns from the Transitional Program (she is the program director) hung himself.   She was really upset and feeling a little guilty that she was not there and the guy who is taking her place while she will be gone is having to deal with it on his first day.

Life is so short.  We need to keep the good memories and do away with the bad ones!  I am in hopes that Robin Williams' death will awaken people up to depression and they will get help in their lives when they suffer from that disease.

OK - enough depression - on to happy!!

I have done another MDS Monday Challenge.  The challenge on MDS Monday this week is to use Overlays.  I love using overlays and do it quite often on my scrapbook pages.  On the page above, I used the Texture Overlay in white over my background paper and set the opacity at 60%.  I used two overlays over the large square punch - a checked overlay from Tickets and Tags that I recolored to match the uniforms and the Hexagon Overlay from Keep In Touch in white. In keeping with the hexagon theme, I added a few hexagons (paper filled from Keep This Memory) and tucked them under the pictures.  The "memory" text is from Keep This Memory.  I even played around with the top picture where Ashley is being sworn in and blurred the guy next to her so she would stand out.

Background
   Designer Kits\Keep in Touch - designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 10

Embellishments
     embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)
    embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)
    embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)
    embellishments\Keep This Memory - hexagon frame (re-colored)

Stamps
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Be Awesome Today - texture overlay,
    _OVERLAY STAMPS\Tickets & Tags - overlay,
    _Designer Kits\Days to Remember\Days to Remember - picture perfect memory,
    _Designer Kits\Keep This Memory\Keep This Memory - arrow,
    _Designer Kits\Keep This Memory\Keep This Memory - keep this memory

Punches
    Basics\1.25 Square Punch, Fill Color
    Basics\Hexagon Punch,  Filled with: designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 4
    Basics\Hexagon Punch,  Filled with: designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 8
    Basics\Hexagon Punch,  Filled with: designer series paper\Keep in Touch - 2

Convention Pics

Thought I'd share a few more pictures from Inspire, Create, Excite Convention 2014.

This was a HUGE flower that was made from Designer Series Paper.  There was a display of all the DSPs with a flower made from the paper on each one.  I don't think these petals would have fit in my Big Shot!!  But I loved the paper flowers!

This was a swap that I admired but didn't receive.  A gal had it in the bus that was taking us over to the Home Office so I snapped a photo of it.  I love my Star Framelits and will be CASEing this card in the future.

This uses Kinda Eclectic stamp and has a small note pad inside.

I just love this Snowman "Lollie"!!  If you have the Designer Rosette Bigz Die (pg 232), this would be easier to make.  I think I will also be CASEing this one too!

Sitting on the Dock Birthday

Whew!  So much for a relaxing weekend or a weekend to be crafty.  I spent the whole weekend cleaning out my craft room and the attic which is a walk in attic connected to my craft room.  It was getting too hard to find anything!  I cleaned out stuff I have had for years - can you say 4 bags of trash????  Yep, that's right. I know now that I do not need any more kits.  I have a box full of finished mini scrapbooks that I made at CKC in the past few years.  Guess I'll have a good supply for gifts!!  Plus, I have a whole huge Rubbermaid container with kits and projects that I haven't done yet!!  None of them are Stampin' Up which is probably why they are still sitting in the container.  They were "must have" items when I saw them at CKC or wherever or are partially done because I didn't have enough class time to finish them.  I have a few of them sitting out on my desk now that only need a couple of things to finish them off so I am going to do that.  Plus I found a bag full of card kits that I bought from QVC about ten years ago!!  So I am going to finish them off tonight while watching tv and give them to my mom to use.

We had plans on going on the boat one day this weekend but the weather foiled us which was probably a good thing because it let me get my job finished.  (Well, almost - I still need to clean off my desk but tomorrow is another day!

I made this card earlier in the summer.  I used the Hardwood stamp to create a pier for this bird (made using the bird punch).  Thought it would make a nice birthday card for a man.  In fact, think I'll send it to Austin to my brother since his birthday is Wednesday.

MDS Monday Ireland Scrapbook Page

The challenge sketch this week from MDS Monday was one that used lots of photos!  That's the best thing for me.  I have a hard time weeding through my photographs after a trip to just pick out a select few.  I see other people's scrapbook pages where they have just used one or two pictures.  Not me!  I tend to want to share them all!!  So that is one of the reasons I liked the sketch this week.  I decided to use some of my pictures from our Ireland trip.  That was the most awesome trip.  And I got to relive a few of the moments while putting together this page!  Hope you like it!  The main focus of the challenge was to include a map on our page. I had downloaded this map after our trip so it was easy to use it for the background and circle some of the places we visited.  The focal picture is Sonny and I walking through St. Stephens Park early one morning.  What a gorgeous place!  I used several elements from Project Life for this page.

Stamp Club Cards

I had Stamp Club this week and we made these cards:

Our first Christmas card!

This was such an easy card to make!  The sentiment is from Everyday Wishes which will be available to order from the Holiday Catalog in about a week.  It was offered last year and I purchased it then so I was happy to see that it was carried over to the Holiday Catalog.  The strips of DSP and the yarn are retired.  The Cherry Cobbler Sweater Trim has been on the Clearance Rack for a long time.  But I just checked and this color is gone but Gumball Green is still available for $3.59.  First I used the Mosaic Punch to punch the ornament shape into a piece of Silver Glimmer paper and then used the 1 3/4" Circle Punch to punch out the circle shape.  The pretty Cherry Cobbler 1" Sheer Linen Ribbon is also from the Holiday Catalog.  It ties like a dream!

Flower Frenzy Die

 I won this Flower Frenzy Bigz Die at the Late Night Stampers event in Salt Lake City.  It makes a really cute flower.  The dots are stamped in white ink with a stamp from Kinda Eclectic.  The "happy birthday" sentiment is from another photopolymer stamp - Endless Birthday Wishes.  It is not in the catalog but is available for sale for $13.95.  It is a very versatile stamp for birthdays.

Endless Birthday Wishes - #137553

Kinda Eclectic

I was given this stamp set at Convention - Kinda Eclectic.  I have seen a lot of cards made using this stamp.  I used all the new In Colors on this card!  And the inside .....is a detachable bookmark!

Kinda Eclectic card - opened to reveal a bookmark

I cut the Mossy Meadow card stock 5.5" x 10.5".  Score it at 4.5".  Perforate a score line at 8.5".  Click HERE to watch a video showing you how to make a similar card:

I had a Card in a Box planned for us to make but one of the gals who wanted to do that card was unable to attend so we will do it next month.  Instead I substituted the next card.

The final card we made uses a darling hostess stamp set Hello Love.  You can only get this set by being a hostess at one of my clubs or by hostessing your own workshop.  (I would love to do a workshop for you!)  I try not to purchase many of the hostess sets each year for my own use but this year, I will be breaking that rule for sure!  I already have two of them and have my eye on a couple of more!  They are so cute.  Another feature of this card is the DSP.  I used Back to Black  (pg 187) and used my Blendabilities to color the DSP.  It is so cool and you can coordinate your DSP to your card!

This is the front of the card with a 1 3/4" circle punched so you can see the bird.

I used the lightest Melon Mambo Blendabilities to color the DSP.

This is the inside of the card.  This is a small 4" x 4" card with Melon Mambo as the backing for the white card.

Here are two strips of Back to Black DSP - one is colored with the dark Melon Mambo Blendability and the other with the light Calypso Coral.

I Love Texas and MDS

One of the things I love about My Digital Studio is how versatile it is.  I like Chalkboard Art or Subway Art and I am always snapping pictures of great sayings on plaques when I am out shopping.  I don't know how many I have saved in my file just waiting for me to transport them into a digital file and make a print.  Here are a few that I will be working on one of these days!

Well Ashley saw a plaque at Target that she liked and instead of paying for it, she recreated it in MDS and is going to get it frames and hang it in her house.  

More Convention Display Boards

Here are a few more of the display boards from Convention.  You should easily find inspiration here!!

Inspire, Create, Share Convention Display Board

I spent several hours Saturday finally going through my Inspire, Create, Share Convention 2014 pictures and trying to organize them and label them.  Whew - what a job!  But now I can share a few of them since I know what they are.  One of my favorite things is to look at all the cards on the many Display Boards.  This year several demonstrators did their own display boards displaying various cards from their team.  Here are a few of them.  You can click on them to make them larger and see the display cards better.  There are a lot of great ideas on these boards!

MDS Monday - The World of Coca Cola

The MDS Monday design team posts a sketch each Monday and anyone can play along with it.  My sketch was chosen last week and shared on their blog HERE.  I was honored.  I have applied to be on their Design Team and am keeping my fingers crossed!

Here is this week's sketch:



Here is my page based on the sketch above:

Talk about colorful?!!  This page sure qualifies (although that was not a criteria!)  These pictures are from our visit to the World of Coca Cola a couple of years ago.  I matched all the paper and background to the colors in the middle picture.  I used overlays on the two solid papers and the background paper (Hip & Handson and Kaleidescope).  I love using Overlays - it changes up a solid paper and gives it pizazz!!  For my title, I used a text box (font - Bernard MT Condensed in size 64) for "the world of" and did the text in black; then I copied and pasted it in place, changing the color to white.  I put the black on top and just moved it over and up with my arrow keys a couple of times to give the shadow effect.  I also did the same thing with "Coca Cola" except I used the Smitten Alphabet Punch and filled it with Real Red.  This is a skinny alphabet so by copying and pasting and moving it over a little bit, it gives the appearance of being "fatter."  The swirls in the corners are from "For the Grad."  This was a fun page to make.

Paper Craft Crew Challenge 105

Here is my MDS card for this week's Paper Craft Crew Challenge.

This was our sketch:



I decided to make a baby card.  I don't know why - no babies in my future but I thought the stars would work good for a baby.  Most of the elements on the card are from the Nursery Essentials kit.

Speaking of babies, my grandson is definitely not a baby any longer.  He turns 8 today.  It is hard for me to believe that he is already that old!!  We've gone from this:



to this in a blink of an eye:

Happy Birthday dear Jayce!

New Weekly Deals

NEW WEEKLY DEALS: - prices good until August 18.

Rosette Bigz Die $32.21

Naturals Cotton Ribbon $5.96 (I love this ribbon - you can stamp on it!)

Envelope Liners Framelits - $20.21

       

Wildflowers Embossing Folder $5.96

Fancy Fan Embossing Folder $5.96

Petite Purse Die $24.71

Label Petite Curly Punch $9.71

                   














We also have a new Photopolymer Stamp that is great for the cowboys and cowgirls in your life!!


Click HERE to order on-line.