May Stamp Club

I held Stamp Club this past Thursday and ended up with 7 ladies - 2 new ladies and 5 club members.  It was a little chaotic but I think everyone had a good time.  I tried to concentrate the cards on retiring products this month.

The DSP varied in colors and they had the option to use this side with the script or the other polka dotted side.  The retiring stamp set is Garden In Bloom.  I used the Scalloped Tag Punch on this card.  I will miss this stamp.

  

For this card, I used Oh So Eclectic (yay!  it's NOT retiring.)  I cut the flowers out with the matching dies to this set in Soft Sky and Peekaboo Peach (both retiring as is the seam binding I used.)

This was a fun card!  The retiring items on it are the raindrops and the sentiment - both from Sprinkles of Life.  The umbrella and girl are from Beautiful You - definitely NOT retiring!  Another choice for rain is a diagonal line stamp from the retired Gorgeous Grunge.

Instructions:

Ø  Position the long white panel onto the white layer and temporarily hold it in place with washi tape.

Ø  Stamp the image of the lady across the narrow panel with black ink so the top of the umbrella and her ankles are stamped on the larger white panel and the rest of her is on the narrow white piece.

Ø  Lightly stamp rain.

Ø  Stamp umbrella onto DSP.

Ø  Stamp sentiment at bottom right.

Ø  Color the girl with Blendabilities or Watercolor pencils.

Ø  Adhere bottom of umbrella onto narrow panel and the top of the umbrella on to the card.

Ø  Mat the narrow piece onto black cardstock carefully positioning it so umbrella & legs line up.

Ø  Adhere to white cardstock with dimensionals.

The retiring item on this card is the Color Theory DSP.  I have used this paper a lot!  The stamp set is one that was in the retiring Occasions Catalog but will be in the new Annual Catalog called A Good Day.  The Layering Circles framelits makes it a super easy card.  I used Blendabilities to color the images.

I probably won't be blogging much in the next couple of weeks.  I am taking my Mom to Hawaii to visit Ashley.  Ashley surprised Mom with a ticket to Hawaii for Christmas and Mom has been counting down the days.  She is so excited.  Wish me luck on this venture with my almost 90 year old legally blind mother!!  I borrowed a wheel chair from a friend so that should make it a little better.  Luckily, Ashley is very patient with her and will be a great help.

I have my two latest Paper Pumpkin kits that I have not opened yet.  I am planning on taking them on the plane to work on them during the long flight.  We fly from Charlotte to Phoenix (4 1/2) hours and from Phoenix to Honolulu (6 hours).

June Stamp Club

Last month in Stamp Club, I had the gals do two pretty labor intensive cards but I think they really like them.

First we did a waterfall card.  These were real popular when I first got involved with Stampin' Up.  At the spring Quarterly, we made one of these cards and I decided that my gals would love making one. I gave them 3 choices.  Surprisingly, the flower one was the most popular!  You can find instructions to make these cards on Splitcoast Stampers.

Garden In Bloom

Sprinkles of Life

This Little Piggy

Next we made a card using a window sheet.  I used the retired DSP for the background.

This is the inside of the card.

Instructions:

After creasing the vanilla card at 4 1/4", put it in the trimmer and remove a 1/2" piece, then remove an additional 1-1/4" piece. The 1-1/4' space will form the window and the 1/2" piece will adhere to the window sheet to create the full sized card.

 Add strips of Post-it-Notes to mask off an area for sponging.

Sponge the background LIGHTLY w/Soft Sky & a little Crumb Cake on the bottom.

Stamp the seaweed with Crumb Cake.

Adhere Window Sheet to card, lining up the right edge with the card.

Adhere ½” strip to the backside of the Window Sheet – again matching up the right edges.

Adhere DSP to left side of the card front (covering up the area you taped the Window Sheet onto the card front. Best adhesive for this is the green Tombow Glue so you will have wiggle room to get everything in order.

Adhere ½” strip of DSP to front of card on right side.

Stamp fish on scrap paper, cut out and adhere to card front.

Stamp fish “bubbles” on inside to match the fish

Our next card was much easier!  I used Seaside Shore to make this card.  I again used the retired By the Shore DSP.  Everyone had different strips do the finished cards were all different.

This was our calendar for July using the wonderful Colorful Seasons.

If you live in the Lake Norman area and would like to join my Stamp Club, we meet on the 3rd Tuesday and Thursday (your choice) at 1:00.  Let me know and I will set a place for you!

NC Blog Hop Favorite Occasions!

Welcome to the February 2017 NC Demos Blog Hop - whew!  That was a mouthful!  This month we are concentrating of Favorite Occasions.  We are using stamps from the Occasions Catalog with an emphasis on a Spring Holiday or event.

If you follow my blog, you might know that I am obsessed with the High Tide stamp set.  I have made several cards using the beautiful lighthouse stamp.  You can see them HERE and HERE and I still have others I haven't posted yet!  But I thought this card would be perfect for this year's anniversary card for my hubbie!  What do you think?  We will be celebrating 44 years of marriage on April 7.  (How did that happen?  Seems like we were just dating a few years ago!)

Not only do I have an anniversary card to share, but there are several birthdays coming up so I thought it would be great to catch up on some birthday cards so they will be ready to go when I need them!

This card uses the "celebrate" embossing folder from the Occasions catalog along with "you" from Hello You Framelits.  The stripes running down and the "swish" are from Gorgeous Grunge.  I stamped them in Bermuda Bay, Peekaboo Peach, Rich Razzleberry and Watermelon Wonder.  This was a really easy card to make.

Here is another stamp set that I have been having fun using.  It is in the Occasions catalog and is called Crazy Cake.  There are so many variations that you can put together using this stamp set.  It is a two-step stamp set but since it is photopolymer, it is easy to line up.  I love two-step stamps and that is what got me hooked on Stampin' Up 12 years ago.  (I just passed my 12 year demonstrator anniversary on Feb. 16!) The cute little frog popping up from the cake is from the hostess set, Love you Lots.  I don't normally get the hostess sets but I got this one right away and have used it so much! The sentiment is from Sunshine Sayings.  I stamped each cake part onto white cardstock (except the one on the bottom which is stamped onto Sweet Sugarplum cs), cut them out and popped them up with dimensionals.  That made it easy to line up the frog and the stars directly onto the card.  The colors I used are Rich Razzleberry, Sweet Sugarplum, Marina Mist, and Perfect Plum.

Here is another card using the Crazy Cake stamp set.  These cake pieces were stamped directly on the white cardstock panel using Tempting Turquoise, Cucumber Crush, Peekaboo Peach and Denim. Unfortunately, I could not find the flame for the candles in the set.  It is really teeny tiny and probably got stuck to something and will never be found again.  But I found a candle flame in the set, Sprinkles of Life that that worked.  The sprinkles on the sides of the turquoise card are also from the Sprinkles of Life set.

Here is one last card using Crazy Cake to show that you don't have to use all the parts of the cake.  I stamped you're from Watercolor Words (just mask off the "the best")  I love the color combo of Dapper Denim and Emerald Envy.   (This layout was cased from Brian King.)

I hope you enjoyed my anniversary and birthday cards and they will inspire you to make a few of your own.

Enjoy the blog hop and hop right along to the see what Laurie Meier has prepared for you.

Debra Ballance-Byrd -
Tamra Davis 
Jo Anne Hewins 
Michelle Irinyl 
Melissa Kerman 
Tracie Evans Langley -
Sharon Maranich (You are here)
Laurie Meier 
Lisa Tedder
Frances Wagner -

August Stamp Club

Busy week for me (as you can guess from the lack of posts!).  I played bridge on Monday.  Then Tuesday, learned of the death of a husband of one of the gals in our bridge group.  Pete had been in and out of hospitals and rehab for 5 years with kidney disease but still, it was a shock.  Last night we went to a party at a friend's new house in our neighborhood.  Wouldn't you know it, an hour before the party was to start, it started raining.  We need the rain but it sure ruined the plans of those who had planned to boat over to Anna's house!  Luckily, her house is huge so there was plenty of room inside for everyone and even outside in the covered areas.  It was a lot of fun.  This has also been Stamp Club week although my numbers have dwindled drastically this week.  I ended up having a total of 4 people this week.  But we had fun anyway!  Here are the cards we made this week.

This card was one I received last spring in a swap made by Melissa Kernan.  It was a different use of the stamp set, Sheltering Tree.  The only change I made was to emboss the Mossy Meadow piece with the new Woodlands embossing folder from the Holiday Catalog,

 This set uses the Paper Pumpkin set I bought at convention.  Love the gift bag, card and matching envelope!

 Another CASE from Pinterest.  I thought the upside ice cream cones fit the sentiment great!!

This is a new set that I just purchased.  It is in the annual catalog - You're Sublime.  I just love the cute images in this set!  I haven't decided which is my favorite.  I think this set will make really cute little note card sets.  I used DSP from the Subtles Stack and let each person choose which image they wanted to make.

My $200 Shopping Spree order arrived yesterday while I was gone along with a $100 order that I had placed - all from the Holiday Catalog!!  I can't wait to start playing with all the new goodies!

Joy Fold Card

I love thie new Ronald McDonald Stamp set - Sprinkles of Life.  Here I used it to create a "Joy Fold" card.  I also used another favorite - DSP from the Cherry on Top stack!

You can find this stamp set on the inside back cover of your new 2015-2016 Catalog, and the new coordinating Tree Builder Punch on Page 167.  Did you know that every time this stamp set is purchased, Stampin' Up! donates $3.00 to the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC)?  To date, over ONE MILLION DOLLARS has been donated to RMHC and their network of local RMHC chapters from Stampin' Up!!!  That means it is going back to your community to keep families together when they are receiving medical treatment far from home.  Every year a new stamp set is created by Stampin' Up! to make a difference just for the RMHC, and I think this year's set is the best (yes, I love ice cream and cupcakes!!).

Sprinkles of Life Clouds

Hope your weekend was sublime!  Ours was pretty quiet with me playing at nursemaid and Sonny (not playing) at being the patient.  The Home Health Physical Therapist came on Friday and was here about 2 hours.  She did a lot of paperwork with him and checked out the house - the shower, the bed, etc. as well as having him do some exercises.  He took one of his pain pills right before she came but then forgot (or thought he didn't need them) and it was about 6 hours before he took the next pill.  He found out real quick that he can't do that!  He was in a lot of pain and ended up going to bed about 9:30, which for him is super early!  Yesterday he was much better but today his leg is really swollen and he has already gone to bed (9:30 again).  He is just really frustrated that he has to take the pain pills every 4 hours and they make him sleepy.   Our other problem is finding a good chair for him to sit on and is easy for him to get up from.  He was sitting in a recliner but that was really straining his leg when he'd try to get up.  So last night I moved one of the dining room chairs in the den for him.  It has arm rests and made it better for him.  But tonight, he decided it was just not comfortable and is why his leg is swelling.  His patience is wearing thin with the whole process!!  I keep telling him he has to just be patient!!

I have another Sprinkles of Life card to share with you.  I am loving this stamp set!!

I also love this color combo of Watermelon Wonder, Cucumber Crush with Black.  I stamped the clouds onto Vellum with Silver ink and embossed them before punching them out with the Tree Builder Punch.  I also had to punch out 3 clouds from white card stock to put underneath the vellum ones so the black didn't show through.  (Next time, guess I could just stamp & emboss the white and not use the Vellum.)  The raindrops are also from the Tree Builder Punch - but not the bird - I hand cut him.  I can't wait to get the Triple Banner Punch so my banners will line up better.

Ashley sent us another cool picture of the ship being re-supplied.

Sprinkles Of Life Pull Up

Good things happen to those who wait.  Sonny got to come home from the hospital today a little before noon!  He was so glad.  He really dislikes hospitals - he said everytime he'd get to sleep last night, they's come in to check his vitals or take some blood, etc.  They came in every two hours according to him although I was told when I left last night that they would only have to check his vitals every four hours.  I don't know but he has been sleeping pretty much ever since he got home.  The home Physical Therapist will come tomorrow to work with him and I think she will continue to come a couple of times a week for two or three weeks.

I have another card from Sprinkles of Life to share.  This one is a pull-up card.

Here is the card closed and ....

here it is pulled up.

This was another CASE that I found on the internet and it was fun to make.  I used the new In Color Envelope Paper for this.  You can see the slit that I made to make the cupcake slide up and down.  I just realized that I forgot to put a small piece of ribbon at the top of the slider piece to pull it up and down so imagine the ribbon is there!!

Sprinkles of Life Shaker

I've been playing around with the Ronald McDonald stamp set, Sprinkles of Life.  For every stamp that is sold, Stampin' Up will donate $3 to the Ronald McDonald Charity.  This set is proving to be a very popular one this year so that makes me happy!

Yesterday I made a Shaker Card with the set.

Isn't it fun and colorful?  The DSP is from the Cherry on Top stack and I just love it!  I CASE'd this card from another demonstrator but now I don't remember who!

I thought I'd share a picture of Ashley's ship as they were leaving Hawaii.  Hers is the one in the foreground of the picture below.  The other is the Mercy, the hospital ship, which she will join in August to travel to Viet Nam.

She seems to be staying pretty busy.  They were due to land at the first island on their mission on Monday (or maybe Tuesday with the time change.)  She said they went to bed Saturday night and woke up Monday morning - lost a whole day due to the International Date Line.  There are 2 showers for 30 women but so far, she's been able to shower every day.  They were shutting the water off for a couple of days though to get the water purification system working.  She was pleasantly surprised to find that they have laundry facilities - she had been told not to expect that.

I heard today on the radio that a hospital ship had hit the dock where the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor is moored closing down the Pearl Harbor Memorial for a week.  I looked it up on the internet and, while it wasn't the ship Ashley is on, it is the Mercy, which is traveling with her ship on the mission!  Here is the news story.

New Goodies!!

I participated in a Card Swap using NEW items that we could pre-order.  I used lots of new products on this card (see below).

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Tuesday, June 2nd, is a special day!

Our retiring catalog is still good for one more day AND our new catalog will go live.  That means a few extra dollars in your pocket if you order on June 2nd and here’s why:

1. Some prices are going up on some ink pads, punches and stamps.  Some just rounded up a nickel to make all the prices even numbered, no more .95 at the end of each item.  For example, our classic ink pads will be 6.50, so that’s a .55 increase but card stock only went up a nickel.   Order on June 2nd and get the old price, even if it’s in the new catalog!

2.  The Stampin’ rewards (Hostess rewards) are changing too.  Stampin' Up opted to go with a percentage based scale, so we won’t need to jump up in $50 nuggets.  It’s lower for $150 orders but gets better as it gets higher.  If you order $150 or more on June 2nd, you still get the current rewards of $25 in free merchandise.  You can buddy up with a friend(s) and get more benefits!

3.  The last day to order from our retiring catalog is Tuesday, June 2nd.  Lots have sold out but there are some good ones left.  You can see the Retiring list HERE.  It’s also the last day to order from our Occasions catalog.  Here is a PDF for things NOT carrying over that you may want.