NC Demos SAB Blog Hop

Welcome to the first NC Demos Blog Hop!  A group of NC Stampin' Up demonstrators have decided to start a monthly blog hop.  We will be publishing our blog hop on the last day of the month.  So make sure you mark your calendars and check out our blogs and our great projects each month!

For January, we have decided to focus on items from the Sale-a-Bration Catalog.  Remember - for every $50 you spend, you can choose an item from Sale-a-Bration for FREE!!  There are some great stamps and papers in the catalog.  Also, there are a few items that are only offered for a limited time (pg. 16 - 18) so if you want one of those items, you'd better grab them now!

I love making Framed Collages so that is what I have done this month showcasing the Flowering Fields stamp set (pg 12) and Perfectly Artistic Designer Series Paper.  Instead of making my collage in a 12"x12" frame like I normally do, I found this frame on my shelf and decided to use it.  The opening is 9 1/2" x 7 1/2".  I matted each DSP square with Basic Gray card stock and matted the whole thing on Smoky Slate card stock.  You can see all the other items I used by scrolling to the very bottom of this blog post.

Next I made a card using the same stamp set and a few other goodies to go along with the framed piece.

I love the Pool Party Glitter Ribbon!  (pg 9 Occassions)  I also used other Sale-a-Bration items - Perfect Pairings (Hooray!) and Botanical Gardens Designer Vellum Stack (pg 4).  I hope you enjoyed my portion of the Blog Hop and will hop on over and see what Mary has made to share with you.

Shavron Borders

Regina Campbell

Tamra Davis

Kitty Helton

Jo Anne Hewins

Amy Ingram

Michelle Irinyi
Melissa Kerman

Tracie Langley

Sharon Maranich (you are here)

Mary Robinette

Sue Root

Pam Staples
Lisa Tedder
Frances Wagner

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Sunsets and Birthday

Well - I keep saying I am going to do better about posting my blog posts but so far, I'm not doing so well!  This week was a pretty busy one for me plus I don't even want to think how many pounds I put on.  I went out to eat every day this week and am going out tonight for my sister's birthday!  Monday Sonny and I went into town to escape the snow to the movies and had dinner at an Italian restaurant. This is the sunset that we saw when we came out of the movies!

Those cars in the picture are on I-77!

The day before I took some great sunset pictures from my back deck.

And the following day, I saw another beautiful sunset as I was driving home.  I tried to snap a few photos while I was driving but they didn't turn out so good!  (I know - not a smart thing to do.)

Tonight we are taking my sister (Angela) out to eat for her birthday which is Monday.  This is the card I have made for her using some new stamps that I just got yesterday.  I think I am really going to be using this large number set a lot.

Occasion Samples from Quarterly

I've got more samples to show you from Quarterly.  These are still some pictures I took of the Display Board.  I still have lots of swap card to share with you too!

GOING GLOBAL (pg 39)

GOING GLOBAL w/World Traveler Embossing Folder

GOING GLOBAL

GRATEFUL BUNCH (pg 22)  Love this color combo!

HAPPY HOME (pg 21) coordinates w/Hearth and Home Thinlets

HAPPY HOME

HELPING ME GROW (pg 20)  Love the way they stamped the flower on DSP and "fussy cut" it.

Background Techniques

At the Charlotte Quarterly, we did a Technique Swap.  Not many people signed up for it so I didn't have to do many to swap.  I really like the Bokeh Technique and that is what I decided to do.

 

 

Here are the other techniques that I swapped for: 

 

This next one - Salt Resist - is one I haven't tried.

There was also a Background class offered Friday morning.  I didn't take it but here are the unique backgrounds they completed using hot glue!!

We have had snow, ice, thundersnow, freezing rain .... you name it - if it's cold, we've had it the past few days.  It started after midnight Thursday.  I think we got a layer of ice; then snow; then more ice.  I have just stayed nice and warm inside working on a digital scrapbook and I finished it!!  The temps got above freezing today so a little melting has started.  But, our neighborhood has not been touched so I won't be driving in it for a while.  School was canceled Friday and has already been canceled for Monday - as well as my bridge game.  I like these kind of snowy days.  I can always find something to do but Sonny gets a little stir crazy!  He went out today and cleared a path in the driveway.  Then he drove my car and his truck up the driveway and I think he drove his truck to the post office just to see how the roads were. 

In the meantime, I just finished watching the Broncos beat New England (did my heart good to see Tom Brady's sad face!) and I am pulling for the Panthers to beat Arizona.  I usually pull for Arizona .... but not against the Steelers or the Panthers!  I think Carolina can beat Denver in the Super Bowl!

January Stamp Club cards

Luckily, the sun is still shining here this morning so my friends can make it to Stamp Club today!  I'm ready and feeling better today.  Think my cold is on it's way to bother someone else - just hopefully not Sonny!!

I wanted to do cards from the Occasions Catalog as well as throw in a little bit of Sale-a-Bration stamps this month.

More Occasion samples for you!

I am fighting a cold so a short post today.  These are a few more cards that I snapped a picture of from the display board at Quarterly.  Hope these are giving you some ideas for using the stamps in the Occasions catalog.

I have stamp club this week and will be sharing our cards from it using the Occasions catalog also.

Birthday Blooms (pg 9)  If you like to color or watercolor, this is a great set!

Isn't this paper gorgeous?  It is the Birthday Bouquet DSP on pg. 9

Birthday Blooms again - this time in a color resist technique.

Time to start on your Valentines! This beautiful Bloomin' Heart Thinlit Die makes it easy!!  (pg 16-17_

This valentine uses the stamp set, Bloomin' Love (pg 17)

Love this use of the Botanical Gardens DSP (pg 27)  You can get the DSP, framelits AND stamp set as a bundle and save 15%!!  What a deal!

This beautiful card was made by JoAnne Hewlins.  She won the WOW card contest with this beauty!  I can just guess at how long it took her to put this all together.  It will have to go to someone really special!  She used the Botanical Blooms stamp set and framelits.  Also, check out the pretty ribbon - you can find it in the Annual Catalog on pg 159.

Another beauty using Botanical Blooms.  I just love that leaf framelit!!

Occasion Balloons!!

Oooh ..... it's cold outside baby!!  The high  was Monday was 37 I believe and today's high is supposed to be 32 with overnight lows in the teens  That's cold!!  For fun, I have Honolulu weather on my phone app  They had a high of 82 on Monday!!  And of all times for our gas fireplace not to be working!!!  Sonny is going to fix it as soon as he gets the part.  He had ordered the part through a local company but they ordered the wrong piece  The correct one should be here tomorrow ...  let's hope!!

This was a football watching weekend.  There were two NFL game on Saturday with Arizona (my son's team) and New England (yuck) both winning.  On Sunday Carolina won their play off game - barely.  After leading 31-0 at half time, they almost blew the lead in the second half ending up winning 31-24.  They didn't score any points in the second half!  They will be playing Arizona for the conference championship next weekend - wonder which team will show up - the first half Panthers or the second half Panthers.  And my Steelers played for the final time this season Sunday.  We almost had the win but in the last few minutes, we fumbled the ball and Denver was able to score.  I was really disappointed but truthfully, did not think we would win anyway because we had so many key players injured and unable to play.

Thought I'd share a few more cards from Quarterly.  This time they are all using balloon stamps from the Occasions Catalog.

Stamp set used:  Party with Cake

Balloon Celebration

Balloon Celebration stamp set

Balloon Celebration

Sale-a-Bration Samples

I got a lot of great cards last week-end and got samples of just about every stamp set in the Occasions and Sale-a-bration catalogs.  It is so different to see the cards made with the stamps than just having to see them in the catalog.

Here are samples from Sale-a-Bration Catalog that were on the display board:

Flowering Fields (pg 12)

Honeycomb Happiness (pg 15)

Perfect Pairings (pg 11) plus Wildflower Fiels DSP (pg 13)

Sky Is the Limit (pg 16) plus Perfectly Artistic DSP (pg 19)

What I Love (pg 7)

What I Love (pg 7)

Botanicals For You (pg 4) plus Botanical Builder Framelits (Occasions catalog pg 26)

I have been making cards with the few stamp sets that I have bought (so far) from the two new catalogs.  I am trying to be a little more frugal this time and love having all the samples for my customers to see.  I have been working hard in my craft room all week.   Except for last night when I had to get dressed to have dinner at a friends house, I have been in my pj's for 3 days!  It has been great!  Sonny went with some guys yesterday on a duck hunting trip.  He came home late last night. He said if he had this on his bucket list, he could check it off.  He won't be going duck hunting again! He never even fired his rifle!!  One of the guys with them got a duck but out of the four of them, one got a duck, one fired his rifle once and Sonny and the other guy never took a shot.  It was a 5 1/2 hour drive to the NC coast Wednesday.  They got up at 5:30 a.m. Thursday (no thank you!) and stared at the blue sky and then drove back home, another 5 1/2 hour!  Sonny was really stiff when he got home from all the sitting.  I had much more fun at home!!

Swap Cards

Marianne and I traveled to Matthews this weekend (only about 45 minute trip for us) for the NC Demos Quarterly meeting.  Before we got there, we were both hungry for lunch and spotted a restaurant right off Independence Blvd. with a banner hanging down advertising their Soul Food!  Marianne quickly changed lanes and pulled in!!  It was delicious (even if we were the only white people in the small restaurant!) I had fried chicken, black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes and cornbread - all freshly made.  Sure wish we lived closer to that restaurant .... or maybe I don't if I think I'm going to lose weight!!

We had a great time at the Quarterly and came back Saturday afternoon really tired!

These are the two cards I took for my swaps.

This card was for the Sale-a-Bration swap using Flowering Fields stamp (pg. 12).  I stamped the images in black ink and used markers to color in the flowers and butterfly.  The sentiment is from Flower Patch (from the annual catalog,)  I used the Curvy Corner Trio Punch for the top right edge and the Proj. Life Corner Rounder for the Melon Mambo layer.  The card base is Blackberry Bliss.  I also used the new Wink of Stella (clear) on the flowers but it is hard to see that in the picture.  I LOVE that Wink of Stella.  I have not tried the gold yet - only the clear.  It is easy to use and just leaves a hint of glitter.

Here are a few other ideas for using this stamp set:



Now for my next swap card.

This card was made for the Occasions Catalog swap.  I used  the stamp set, Balloon Builders to make this card.  This set is great and I can't wait to "go outside the box" with it.  The versatile shapes let you create anything you can imagine!  I also like the soft colors on this card.  I used Wisteria Wonder, Blushing Bride, Pool Party and Smoky Slate.  There is also a coordinating punch for the balloons.  (pg. 13 - 14)

My Memories Suite 7

You will start seeing more digital pages from me.  You know I was so sad when Stampin' Up! did away with My Digital Studio.  I started using My Memories! which is by the same company that MDS was but it just wasn't the same .... UNTIL a few weeks ago.  My Memories released a new update, Suite 7, and it has several great new features including some that MDS users had really missed, such as the ability to crop stamps (imprints) and embellishments.  I used the cropping feature all the time and am so happy that it has been added to MMS7.  Here is a list of other items that were added:



I love the photo used indicator.  When you have a folder with lots of photos, it makes it easy to see which photo you have already used and not duplicate one.  I look forward to trying out the blurred photo edges also.  I have seen a couple of layouts using it.

I used My Memories Suite 7 to create a calendar for Ashley for Christmas.  Not only was it easy to create, but it was cheaper than the ones I used to purchase from SU; the quality was great; and the turn-around time was really good.  I ordered it on Dec. 17 knowing that was only a week away from Christmas and chances are, it wouldn't arrive in time.  Well, it didn't, but it did arrive the following Monday which really surprised me.

I also made several sets of 6x6 calendars to go in the holders that Sonny makes.  Here is my January pages:

Picture Perfect

I love to watch the hummingbirds feeding at our feeders in the spring and summer.  This past year though we didn't have very many to visit us.  It is funny how territorial they are.  We have two feeders on our deck and when I am sitting outside they will dive bomb another bird if it comes to get a drink of the nectar.  So funny!

So, you can guess that I was excited to see the hummingbird image in one of the new stamps in the Occasions catalog!   And it's not just any old humming bird .... it is a 4 Step Stamping bird!!  This photopolymer stamp set has 4 separate stamps to complete the hummingbird, as well as 3 steps to complete the roses; for for the starfish and 3 for the leaves in the set.  The sentiments are pretty sweet too.  This was my favorite stamp set out of the catalog this time.

I will have to admit though that it is not the easiest set to use.  There is a bit of a learning curve.  I practiced with several birds, roses, and leaves before I got the ones I liked and got more adept at the technique.  The images are numbered 1-4 (or 1-3) so you know what order to stamp the images in.  Stampin' Up! recommends that you start with the stamp numbered 1 (in your lightest ink) and progress one-by-one to the fourth stamp.  I found that it was a little easier to stamp the bird backwards from 4 to 1 starting with the darkest color.  But I did them both ways with good results.  I played around with different colors and stamping off before positioning and stamping a couple of times.  Every stamp has a little tag on it that will help you line them up properly.  I also found it easier if I also used the bird's eye to line up with.

For the card above, I stamped the bird and sentiment directly on Very Vanilla cardstock.  But I stamped the flowers onto scrap Vanilla card stock, fussy cut them and popped them up with dimensionals.

 The color combos I used were:

Hummingbird - Pistachio Pudding (retired color) / Wild Wasabi / Mossy Meadow / Cherry Cobbler
Roses - #1  So Saffron - once full strength and once stamped off
#2 - Blackberry Bliss (full strength and stamped off)
#3 Rose Red  (full strength and stamped off)
Leaves - Pear Pizazz, Wild Wasabi, Mossy Meadow

Marianne and I are driving to Charlotte tomorrow for the NC Demos Quarterly meeting.  I have been busy getting my swaps ready for the event - 35 Occasions swaps; 24 Sale-a-Bration swaps; 35 Shoebox cards; and 8 Technique cards!  Whew!!  I will have lots to share.  We will return Saturday afternoon and gearing up for the Steelers play-off game Saturday night.  Got my fingers crossed!!