February Stamp Class

I'm back home!  It was a fun trip and I was sad when it was over .... but it's always good to sleep in your own bed!!  I've been on the run ever since I returned home with doctor appointments, playing cards and stamp club.  Today was good to just do nothing but getting caught up on laundry, etc.

Here are the cards we made this month in class.  They really like them!

Stamp set & dies - Positive Thoughts.  There are a lot of nice decorative dies in this kit.  If you look closely, you can see the punched trim around the white cardstock.   And check out the decorative piece hanging just beneath the sentiment.  I used Balmy Blue and Pear Pizzazz.

DSP from a variety pack that I was able to order as a demo.  This piece is from Best Dressed (mini catalog).  I stamped the cake (Happy Birthday to You - a Sale-a-Bration stamp) with Versamark and heat embossed it in white.  We used alcohol markers and colored on the back of the vellum in various shades of pink and green.  I mounted the vellum onto a piece of white cardstock to make it stand out better.

This was a WOW card that is really simple to make.  I stamped the Dandelion in StazOn Black ink onto a piece of watercolor paper.  I used the Aqua Pen to color the little flowers in Daffodil, Melon Mambo, Pacific Point,  Gorgeous Grape and Pear Pizzazz.  On a scrap of watercolor paper, I blended the same colors and punched them out with a Circle Punch and then stamped the sentiment in StazOn.

This was the favorite - an easel card that looks so elegant!  The Highland Heather piece is embossed with Country Floral folder.  The DSP is Magnolia Lane that we colored with SU Blends.  What a difference it makes!  I really love the silver oval piece that is embossed with the Heirloom Stampin Cut and Emboss folders.

Another simple card but with the silver paper embossed with the Subtle folder, it really packs a punch.  The DSP is retired now but anything would work.

I hope you enjoyed these cards and make a few for yourself!

Fun times!

Today is my last day in Maryland.  It has been a great visit - a little sightseeing and a lot of just visiting and chilling with my sweet daughter.  We're going to try to arrange another visit in April and bringing Sonny with us then.  Ashley has several small projects for her dad around the house and it will probably be time to work out in her yard!  Right now she has daffodils just starting to bloom and a whole bed of Lenten Roses right outside her office window.  I cut some and put them in a vase but her cat keeps trying to eat them!

Here are some pictures from my visit.

Sunday at the Korea Memorial - one of my favorites.

Reflecting Pool 

Vietnam Wall

White House in background

A stop at Old Ebbitts Grill 

Monday (President's Day) - Ashley took Marianne to the airport about 6:30 (while I slept!).  That afternoon Ashley and I drove about an hour to this cider brewery in Virginia.  It was a beautiful place and we loved the cider!!  We did a tasting and then enjoyed our picnic lunch with a pint.

This is Corky!  He became my friend and kept sitting up on his hind legs begging for me to give him a piece of cheese or a cracker!

We took Courtney to the cider brewery on Saturday and she fell in love with it too!

Yesterday Ashley and I had a creative day!  After church, we went out for breakfast and then came back to her house and made cards.  I can't tell you how many Paper Pumpkin kits she has that she hasn't done more than open the box!  So we tried to remedy that!

Ashley worked on the July Picnic Paradise kit.

I worked on the April Sentimental Rose kit.

A Gang of Meerkats!

Is it snowing where you?  It's not here in Maryland but from reports I am getting from my hubbie and family in NC, they are calling for 1-3 inches today.  Poor Sonny - while I'm here in Maryland, he is not getting to play much golf due to the weather.  It hasn't been too bad here.  Saturday was bitter cold with a strong wind which is why we waited for Sunday to go to the memorials and statues outside in DC.  Saturday we took a tour of the National Cathedral. With it's neo-Gothic architecture, eerie gargoyles (112 of them!), stained glass windows and gothic spires, it is not to be missed on a trip to DC.  There are 215 stained glass windows, with one embedded with a moon rock!  We also tried to go to the Spy Museum but it was packed with people and there was a 2 hour wait!

Ashley and Marianne waiting for tour to begin

Ceiling 

Sanctuary of the church

 The cathedral was damaged by an earthquake in 2011 and needs about $19 million for repairs.  So …they are asking for the public's help to build a 1:40 scale replica of the Cathedral that will be more than 13 feet long 8 feet tall and bigger than a minivan.  It will the world' largest Cathedral to be built from LEGO bricks!  At $2 per brick, all proceeds will help fund money to fix the damage.  Current estimates place the build at 2-3 years to completion.   We bought our bricks and were able to put them on the structure.  If you want to help, go HERE to buy your bricks on-line.

A stop for lunch at a Mexican restaurant  -  yum!

 If you are afraid of heights, you might not want to get on this escalator at Bethesda.  It is the second highest escalator (behind the Wheaton Station Metro in Maryland.)  It spans 213 feet and rises 106 feet (10 stories!)  Don't be in a hurry to catch your next metro train!

Can you see Marianne and Ashley going up the metro escalator?

Selfies on the escalator!

Yes, I have a card to share with you today too!  I think this stamp set is so stinkin' cute!  But what are Meerkats???  I have to admit, I didn't know.  So I found this explanation:

The meerkat or suricate is a small carnivoran in the mongoose family. It is the only member of the genus Suricata. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan". 

 

So here are my gang of meekats!  I stamped the meerkats on Whisper White cardstock, colored them with Blends before fussy cutting them.  I used the Stitched Rectangles for the frame.  The ribbon and DSP are all retired items.  I sponged the sun and background onto white cardstock and adhered it behind the frame piece.  The Pink Pirouette and Lime Twist cardstock are also retired but I love this pink and green combo.

Hello from Maryland!

Hello!  I am blogging to you today from Ashley's house in Maryland with her cat, Bogart, sitting in my lap wanting to be right in the middle of whatever I am doing!

I have had a great visit so far and still a week to go to make memories.  My sister, Marianne, and I flew to Baltimore on Friday.  Ashley met us at the airport and we went to the Guinness Brewery nearby.  We took a tour of the brewery and had lunch before heading home to Ashley's house where we just chilled for the evening.  We've been to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland so it was fun to visit this new one.

I'll share more pictures in the next day or so.  I am going to make a few cards while Ashley is at work today but I wanted to share this cute one first!  This is the first card I've made using Special Someone stamp set but not the last.  Isn't that little raccoon adorable??  I have the matching dies for this set so it makes it easy to cut out with no fussy cutting.  The tag came from one of the Paper Pumpkin sets and worked great for this birthday card.

Happy Birthday To You!

Hope you had a nice weekend.  Mine was pretty quiet but I got a few things done that have been on my list for a while - like mopping the floor!  Ugh!  But it's got to be done.  Saturday I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.  I am trying to do a weekly meal plan so I'm not just rummaging in the fridge to find something for dinner every night.  I made a big pot of onion soup for dinner last night.  I have never made onion soup from scratch but it turned out really good.  I also made a chocolate fudge cheesecake .... well, it's really a fake cheesecake but it's good anyway.  It's really easy too.  If you want to give it a try, here's the recipe -

3 eggs
3 cups fat free plain yogurt
1 small box sugar free, fat free chocolate fudge pudding mix
1/2 Tbs vanilla
3 Tbs sugar substitute (I used Splenda)

Whisk eggs, vanilla, Spenda mixing well.  Add yogurt and pudding mix and mix all together.  Pour into lightly greased springform pan.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  (It will look jiggly but it sill set when chilled.)  Let cool for 15-20 minutes before covering it with plastic wrap and put in fridge.  Best chilled overnight.

Enjoy!

I have been binge watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  I got an Amazon Fire Stick last week so I could get movies and other things on tv.  We have cable but I wanted to watch some of the Amazon Prime movies and enjoy the music I can get now.  So far, I'm loving it.  I finished the first season of Mrs. Maisel this afternoon.  I recommend it to you.  It's really funny.

Here is the card I am sharing with you today.  You can never have too many birthday cards!  I used Happy Birthday to You from the Sale-a-Bration catalog.  With a purchase of $50, you can get this stamp set for FREE!

For this card, I used a piece of Designer Series Paper on the background from Lily Impressions.  This DSP is in the Sale-a-Bration catalog and you can get it FREE with a $50 purchase.  I colored the cake and flowers with the SU Blends.  I put rhinestones in the centers of the flowers.

For this card, I used DSP from Best Dressed.  I embossed the cake and flowers with white embossing powder and used the Stitched Rectangle Dies on the white cardstock.  The card is from Lovely Lipstick and matted onto Petal Pink cardstock.

Positive Thoughts

My Stampin' Up order (just for me!) arrived this afternoon.  I couldn't wait to play with my new "toys."  The cards I am sharing with you today are made with Positive Thoughts stamp set and the new coordination dies that are available for purchase now.  I think this stamp set is getting missed from the Mini Catalog.  I know I missed it until they released the dies and I took a look at what the dies (Natures Thoughts) matched up with.  Check it out on page 23 of the Mini Catalog.  This set reminds me a lot of a stamp set that is really old called Garden Collage.  It was one of the first stamps that I purchased from Stampin' Up and one that got me to sign up as a demonstrator on Feb. 16, 2005.  Hard to believe I have been with Stampin' Up that long - sure doesn't seem like it.

I used a dauber on the background of Pear Pizzaz right under the fern stamp.  I was able to die cut the flower, fern leaves, the frame and the little decorative piece under the Balmy Blue.  That would have been a lot of fussy cutting!  Thanks to the dies, it saved me time to do the next card!  The flowers are stamped with Seaside Spray ink (which I have hardly used but I love it.)  It is one of the In Colors.  The ferns are stamped in Pear Pizzaz.  I used Smoky Slate to mat the frame onto.

This card is going to a friend of mine who is having health issues and she and her doctors are trying to get to the bottom of it.  Hope it will cheer her up.

Another card for a friend having health issues.  She had a stroke a couple of months ago and is paralyzed on her right side.  I heard today that she is getting better and stronger.  But she still has a long way to go.

I did a wash on the Shimmery White cardstock of Smoky Slate.  (If I were to make this card again, I would do the wash in Purple Posy instead.)  The flower is stamped with Purple Posy.  I used Blends to color the butterfly.  

So my mom called me yesterday morning and sounded awful!  She said she had been coughing for two days and wasn't able to sleep at night.  I made a doctor's appointment for her for the afternoon since I was headed to a dentist appointment in the opposite way.  Luckily, my sister was able to take her when she got off work.  Mom has the flu!   She had her flu shot but the PA said what she has wasn't the same type of flu that her shot was.  My nephew had the flu back in January but he hadn't gotten a flu shot.  We all had been with mom on Saturday night when we out to dinner to celebrate my sister's birthday.  And of course, we all hugged and kissed mom that night.  I've got my fingers crossed that no one else in the family contracts it - especially my nephew's wife who is six months pregnant!

New Coordination Products Available Now!

Yay!!  I'm excited about the NEW Stampin' Up! Coordination products.  I love the dies for cutting out your images.  Not to mention the new Stampin' Up! Pleased As Punch 12x12 Designer Series Paper.  It coordinates with several of the new stamp sets and is perfect for spring projects!

These 5 coordinating dies -

• Nature's Thoughts Dies #153586 (coordinates with Positive Thoughts stamp set - page 23 of Mini Catalog)
• Special Day Dies #153587 (coordinates with Special Someone stamp set - pg 36 of Mini Catalog)
• Ladybugs Dies #153588 (coordinates with Little Ladybug Hostess stamp set - pg 17 of Sale-a-Bration Catalog)
• Sending Flowers Dies #153589 (coordinates with Sending You Thoughts on pg. 17 of Sale-a-Bration)
• Birthday Dies #153590 (coordinates with Happy Birthday To You on pg 8 of Sale-a-Bration)
• Pleased as Punch Designer Paper #153558 (coordinates with 3 of our new PUNCHES (Tulip, Umbrella and Small Bloom)

ARE AVAILABLE NOW!!

No Matter the Weather - Under My Umbrella

I'm having fun with Under My Umbrella stamp set!  We have had a lot of rain this winter but I guess that's better than having a lot of snow and ice!  Last Friday, Sonny and I drove to Troutman to try out a restaurant someone had told him about.  It was a cold and rainy day but while we were out, it turned to a beautiful snowfall.  The flakes were huge and it was so pretty.  It didn't last long - maybe an hour or so - which was fine by me.  Anyway, we got to Troutman and proceeded to try and find this restaurant.  All Sonny could remember was that it was near Food Lion.  He couldn't remember who told him about the place, what they served, or the name of the restaurant - just that the food they had sounded good to him.  Needless to say, we did not find the restaurant although there was a restaurant right in front of Food Lion called Dixie that I think was probably the one.  He wasn't sure so we drove on to Statesville to a little dive (Phifers) that we like that serves the best fried chicken!  That's when it started to snow.  

OK - on to my cards.

Aren't those rain boots the cutest?  I stamped the umbrellas onto Gingham paper (retired 6x6 pack) and fussy cut the boots.  The sentiment is punched with the Pretty Label Punch.  I stamped the flowers directly on the Whisper White cardstock and colored them with my SU Blends.  The card base is Lemon Lime Twist (retired, but one of my favorite colors - I stocked up on it when it retired.)

This card was a fun one!  I stamped the umbrellas with black Staz-On ink, masking the umbrellas as I moved up the card.  I first used Watercolor Pencils and the Aqua Pen to color the umbrellas but I didn't like it.  So, I pulled out my Watercolor Crayons that have probably been retired about 10 years but I still love them.  They worked much better and I just colored right over the pencils. 

Valentines with Meant to Be

I think I've found my mojo!  I haven't been too busy this week (except bridge on Monday) so I have gotten a lot of stamping done!  I made 4 cards yesterday which is good for me.  I used to do that all the time but lately if I get one card made without getting distracted by a good book, a game, etc I am doing good.  Tuesday I concentrated on making Valentine cards which I will put in my customers orders.  I had the Meant to Be bundle on my desk that I bought last year and used it on all these cards.

I found the dark pink colored heart in my scraps so pulled it out for this card.  It is a light metallic paper that wrinkles real easy so it was good to just use a bit of it peeking out behind the Powder Pink heart.  I used Berry Burst ribbon and card base which is retired but you could easily substitute Petal Pink and Rich Razzleberry.  I'm just not a fan of the Petal Pink.

I paired the Powder Pink with Soft Suede this time.  The pink ribbon is retired but the Crumb Cake ribbon is part of the Magnolia Lane Suite.

This time I paired Powder Pink with Basic Black.  I found a piece of retired DSP and retired ruffled ribbon to use on the card.

Now, this card about did me in!!  I die cut the long string of hearts from black cardstock.  But then I decided it would be much easier if I die cut them using the adhesive sheets first instead of using glue.  Well, I goofed and didn't put the black cardstock on the die!  I ended up having the sticky paper all over my die, my fingers, my desk, my tools ......!   It took me forever - and a lot of Goo Gone - to clean up the die.  I still think I need to soak it a bit more with Goo Gone or really hot water and a toothbrush!  I used all the little hearts that came out with the long (sticky) die to glue into the holes.  I used some retired DSP and ribbon on the card.

Under My Umbrella

I got some new stamps this week  ... and I am excited to be using them!  How do you like this card using the Under My Umbrella Bundle?  I love being able to use a punch for this instead of a die for a change.  Don't get me wrong - I love the dies but I also enjoy going back old school when punches were all we had.  This punch punches out the open and closed umbrellas as well as the umbrella handle.  Plus there is going to be a package of Designer Series Paper that will coordinate with this stamp set as well as 3 other stamp sets!  I just pre-ordered it but you can order it starting Feb. 4 (next week.)

For this card, I cut out watercolor paper with the Stitched Rectangles Die.  I used my Aqua Painter to watercolor Bermuda Bay, Highland Heather and Daffodil Delight on the side of the watercolor cardstock as well as down the side of the base card (thick Whisper White cardstock.)  I white embossed the umbrellas onto vellum and colored the back with my SU Blends (Bermuda Bay, Highland Heather and Flirty Flamingo.  I punched the handles out of Soft Suede cardstock.

Take a look at the Coordinating Product that you can purchase next week.  I put my order in yesterday and it has already shipped!!