Fresh Prints Place Setting

This Fresh Prints Place Setting is a great way to brighten up your table! This place setting features a wipe-able placemat, a place card, a coordinating napkin ring and a sweet treat envelope to finish your meal! Use this place setting as a gift, for a party, or to just brighten up your morning meal!

This is a project featured over on Craft Project Central.  This was designed by Michelle Wecksler. To get the full step-by-step instructions for Michelle’s project, just subscribe to Craft Project Central for the month of May!  And if you have a minute, please leave Michelle a comment on her project!  Have a fun crafting day.  Michelle will be randomly selecting one lucky winner to receive a free subscription - IF you leave a comment!

 

Craft Project Central Card Sketch

Each month Craft Project Central hosts a monthly Card Sketch Challenge.  For every ten cards submitted, one winner is picked for a free month subscription on Craft Project Central!  The winner(s) will get to select the month of their choice!  So if they have 15 submissions this month they will randomly pick one winner from all submissions*.  If they have 40 submissions they will randomly pick four winners from all submissions, and so on! They really want to give away some free subscriptions, so please do join the challenge!!

(**If a project designer submits a card for the inspiration, they won’t be in the winner random-selection pool, but their cards will count towards the “for every 10 cards submitted winner total”.)

This month Christy Fulk is the designer and creater for the sketch challenge.

Here is the sketch:

 And here is my card using My Digital Studio and that great DSP, Kaleidescope!

Proud of My Grad

Get ready for that special graduation celebration with this display for guests to leave a special message for the graduate. The So Proud of You tasseled garland, draped along an everyday yardstick, will inspire your guests to add a message on one of the handmade note cards. The ‘Memories’ and ‘Wishes’ labeled jars will hold those messages for the grad!

 Julie Beltramo designed this project and her tutorial can be found at Craft Project Central. 

To get the instructions for Julie’s project, just subscribe to May!  And if you have a minute, please leave Julie a comment on her project!  Have a wonderful crafting day!

And if you would like to see all the designers (and me!) for May, check this out!

Long Envelope Mini Envelope and Card

This mini album, which was made with the Envelope Punch Board, has three two-page layouts.  It also has three pull-out pages that can be used for journaling or more pictures.  Along with the matching card, this would make a wonderful gift for any occasion.  It would also make a great scrapbooking class.

This beautiful project comes to you designed by Christy Fulk!  And if you have a minute, please leave Christy a comment on her project! 

If you would like to learn how to make this project, you will want to subscribe to Craft Project Central for the month of May. Each month you subscribe to will give you access to 10 projects with detailed, full-color, step-by-step instructions. Projects are easy to duplicate, are practical, and functional projects that you will have fun making and be able to use yourself or give as gifts! Not every project you get on Craft Project Central will be unique, never-before-seen projects, but what you will be getting are projects adapted to current and popular Stampin’ Up! products with easy to follow instructions.  All of this for only $10 for each month that you subscribe!  New projects will be loaded every two to three days.  Once you subscribe check back often for your new projects.  Projects once posted will stay on the site for one year.

And .... drumroll please .... I have been invited to be a Guest Designer with Craft Project Central and will have my project featured later this month!  I am thrilled!! 

Collage Art

NOTE:  New items have been added to CLEARANCE!!

Yesterday was a rough day for me!  I didn't get to bed until 2 a.m. with plans to sleep in.  But I woke up around 8:30 and the room was spinning.  Darn!  That old vertigo got me again.  I haven't had it in several years.  I didn't do anything most of the morning - felt nauseated, weak and just blah!  I didn't feel like eating but finally got a piece of toast down around noon.  I had to get to feeling better 'cause I had some gals coming over at 2:30 to make a collage art piece and I didn't want to disappoint.  I finally took a pill for motion sickness that Ashley had given me several years ago.  It did the trick!  So we got our art piece done and had fun doing it.  They loved it.  We are planning on doing one in early June for 4th of July if you are interested.

After the gals left, I took a nap and then sweet talked Sonny into going out to eat!  When I got back home, I had a message on the home phone but couldn't get our phone to work - no service.  I had forgotten my cell phone when we went out to eat and when I checked it, I had a message from Marianne to call her. Evidently my family was trying desperately to get in touch with me to let me know my cousin, Bobby, had died of an apparent heart attack.  What a shock!  He was just 49 years old and the sweetest kid you'd meet.  He has had a hard life but had gotten himself back on track after being into drugs big time in his 20's. His sisters are taking it real hard of course.  Their family has had a tough few years.  Their mother died last year and their father has died since I moved back to NC.  Now it's just the two sisters, Jane and Candy, left.  My sisters and particularly, my brother, are also taking it hard.  Jane, Candy and Bobby lived down the street from us when they were growing up and they were real close to Marianne, Angela and Lee as they were all 2-3 years apart in age.  I was 12-15 years older and gone from home when they were all growing up.  Just goes to show that you never know when your time is up so you need to live your life to the fullest while you can.

I participated in the Paper Craft Challenge this month and made this card with MDS.

New Catty Premier!

I was SO excited to attend the Stampin' Up! Catalog Premiere in Raleigh, NC last night with my stampin' friends, Allison, Belinda and Sharon! Thanks so much to Allison for driving!

Allison, Sharon, Belinda

We lucked out and didn't have any rain.  The event was canceled in Birmingham, Alabama due to bad weather.  That would suck!  Stampin' Up! did a simulcast from 40 locations around North America!  We all were able to see Shelly Gardner, Carrie Cudney, Shannon West, (newly engaged) Bonnie Thurber, Brian Pillings and Donna Griffin (LIVE in Long Beach) demonstrate some of the NEW products coming out!  I'm very excited about MANY of them…and they just were the tip of the iceberg!

Shelli on stage looking very pretty in pink

On our way out, they handed us a NEW catalog and stamp set!  I'm SO glad that I decided to go!  I can't show you any of the contents of the catalog but I can show you the cover.

Isn't it fresh looking?  Love it!

Our first reveal in the theatre

The new In Colors are:

• Blackberry Bliss (dark purple)
• Lost Lagoon (a dark blue)
• Hello Honey (honey color - maybe a little like Summer Starfruit which I hate to see go)
• Tangelo Twist (looks more like tangerine from what I can tell)
• Mossy Meadow (dark green)

I think I was expecting brighter colors since our other In Colors (that are staying) are so light.  I'm not making any judgement until I actually stamp with them so we'll see.

Here's a short list of new products and announcements from last night:

• Blendabillities: The first 6 sets of the Stampin Up Blendabilities alcohol markers will be available to demonstrators May 1, and to customers June 1!  I can't wait!!  Belinda is even going to do expediated shipping so I may get to see hers next week.
• New Fast Fuse adhesive. Think ‘sticky strip’ in an applicator like Snail adhesive. (both Snail and Sticky Strip adhesives are still available)
• Dazzling Diamonds Glitter IS NOT GONE! There was a scare on the retiring accessories list, but Dazzling Diamonds was actually only being re-configured, it is not going away!!
• Stampin' Up Leadership 2015 will be held in Orlando, FL. January 29-31, 2015. All levels of Demonstrators will be able to attend.

I didn't get home last night until a little after 1 a.m. and sat in bed poring over the catalog until 2 a.m. (when Sonny told me to turn out the light so he could sleep!!)    Today I have Vertigo and have not felt like doing anything so glad I looked it over last night!!


Thought you'd love this - Guess this would have been our husbands last night if they'd opted to go with us!!

 Can you relate?

Dazzling Butterflies

Hope your weekend was a good one.  We had beautiful weather this weekend so Sonny and I took advantage and went out on the boat Sunday.  I made the mistake of not applying sunscreen (didn't realize it was as hot as it was) and got a little sun on my arms and back.  I'll know better next time!  

I made several cards today in preparation for my upcoming All Occasions Stamp a Stack.  It is Wednesday, May 7 at 2:30 p.m.  If you live in the area, you are welcome to come.  We will be making 20 cards - two of ten designs - and you can mix and match the sentiments.   Here is one of the cards we will be making.



I think this is my favorite.  It's so much prettier in real life.  Each butterfly has Dazzling Diamond (glitter) on it and just sparkles.  Hopefully, Stampin' Up is coming out with another kind of glitter since the Dazzling Diamonds has been discontinued (and is sold out).

I'm excited for tomorrow.  I'll be going to Raleigh with some other demonstrators for the Catalog Premier.  I can't wait to see the new catalog.  Every year this is such a great surprise and we demonstrators get so excited to see what's new and what has made it to the big catalog from the year's mini catalogs.  

Retiring Pennants Parade

I hope you ordered all you needed while the shipping was free this week and before the things you wanted sold out.  I hope I did too!!  Stampin' Up has been really hustling this week in getting the packages shipped out.  I put two orders in on Monday and one on Tuesday.  I received one of the orders today and the other two will arrive on Monday!  Usually they take several days longer than that.  And I placed an order late this afternoon and it is already in "picking" so I should get it sometime next week.  

I pulled out my retiring stamps from my current collection today and went through my retiring stamps and really cleared a lot of them out.  I will be putting them in the used stamp sale Saturday, May 3 at Stampers Alley in Mooresville.  Now I just have to sit down and price them - the part I don't like to do since it is not an exact science.  I had so many retired stamps that I haven't wanted to part with but I am just running out of space and I really don't use them that much anymore.

Here are a few cards made with some retiring items.

This card uses the following retired items:

• Gumball Green card stock
• Pennants Parade stamp set
• Gumball Green Dahlias
• Itty Bitty Punch pack (I'm really going to miss it!)
• Houndstooth  embossing folder
• Ink for pennants:  Midnight Muse, Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals

Another card using Pennants Parade

The card above is one I received in a swap.  Unfortunately, I don't know whose card it is but it is a great one!  The Lattice Die is the retiring items in this one.  I'm holding on to my die because I like it so much.

This is a simple card to make but makes a big Wow!  I either got this in a swap or shoebox - can't remember!  The embossing folders - Flower Garden and Stripes - are both retiring.

I'm really struggling with my vision.  On the days I play cards - Hand and Foot, bridge, mahjongg - my eyes get sooo tired they almost hurt.  Today was Hand & Foot.  I go back and forth between using my readers and no glasses so don't know which is the best.  I am not supposed to go back to my eye doctor until June but I think I will be going sooner than that and see about getting some glasses.

Paper Craft Challenge MDS

Well, what did you think of the Retiring Stamps and Accessories?  I lost a bunch of dies, embossing folders and ribbon but didn't do too bad on my stamps.  I'm going to pull them today and make a count.  Several that I lost were ones I received free from Stampin' Up and really weren't used a lot anyway so it wasn't so bad.  I am going to start sharing some cards this week made with the retiring stamps.  There are only 5-6 stamp sets that have sold out completely so there is still time to order a retired set.  And with free shipping all week, it is a great deal!  I ended up putting 3 orders in on Monday and still missed out on getting the In-Color reinkers and card stock because they sold out so quickly.

Don't forget the weekly specials - with free shipping, they are a good deal too!

We had a very nice and quiet Easter.  We went to church with Mom and after church, we brought her back to our house for the day. Angela had to work so she didn't arrive until after 4 pm.   I spent most of the day in the kitchen getting our Easter meal ready,.  I almost forgot to make Sonny's special cherry jello salad and the deviled eggs!  Luckily, he reminded me about his salad early enough so it was mostly congealed by the time we ate!  And I remembered the eggs around 2 and got them made in time.  The weather was nice but just a bit cool.  But by the time we finished our meal, it was warm enough to sit out on the deck with our sweaters on and listen to the birds chirping.  Mom really enjoyed that.  I wish we could put our bird feeders back up but the squirrels got to be such a nuisance that we took them down a couple of years ago.  But I did see a beautiful bright blue bird in the trees yesterday.  And this morning while eating breakfast, I saw a bird bringing materials into a bird house that I have sitting on the railing of the deck.  Maybe I'll be seeing and hearing baby birds soon!

I made my card for the Paper Craft Challenge late last night and didn't get it turned in in time to be featured on the site.  But here it is anyway.  You can check out what the other members did with the sketch HERE.

Sonny and I enjoy playing trivia and we discovered a small bar in Mooresville that does a live trivia every Tuesday night.  We went last week and had a good time although we didn't do so good on the trivia questions.  But we went again last night and did terrible!  They do 4 rounds of questions and you assign points to each category.  The 3rd round we didn't get ANY questions correct.  A lot of the questions seem to be targeted to the younger generation.  Here are a few of the questions - see if you can get them right!  (answers at bottom of post)

1. Name all the members of the singing group, New Kids on the Block (5 of them)
2. What team drafted John Elway right out of college?
3. What is the name of this shot - vodka, triple sec and lime juice?
4. When a car has been "chopped" what is lowered?
5. Where did Dwaye Wade (NBA) go to college?

These are just 5 of the 20 questions we had.  Lucky for us, they give bonus points if you "like" them on Facebook, if you "check in" on Facebook.  At half time, they ask a bonus question and if you get it right you get additional points.  We thought we had this one!  Q:  What is the highest rated animated series - Lion King, Frozen, Cars - we answered Lion King BUT it was Frozen!!  Then at the end, you can bet up to 30 points for the bonus question.  Stan Lee created all but one of these comic books - Spiderman, Hulk, Wolverine, Beast - which one did he not create?  We guessed Wolverine and got it right!!  So we ended up tied for 3rd.

OK - give up on the answers????

Answers:
1.  Donny Wahlberg (only one I knew), Jonathan Knight, Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Danny Wood
2.  Baltimore Ravens
3.  Kamikaze
4.  the roof
5.  Marquette

Retiring Stamps and Accessories PLUS Free Shipping!! Woo Hoo!!

It's time to say GOOD-BYE to some of our favorites.  These stamps and accessories are available AS SUPPLIES LAST so if you see something you want, don't hesitate to order it.

Remember - FREE SHIPPING all week!!

I will be sending in an order MONDAY night around 9 PM EST.  I will be glad to include your order with mine.

But you can also order ONLINE in my store - HERE - and it will be shipped directly to you.  Please use my HOSTESS CODE FOR ON-LINE ORDERING  -  BZA7N7DP .

RETIRED STAMPS

RETIRED ACCESSORIES