new things to know

Just a quick note to let you know of two new things:
1) Expedited shipping is now available to Canadian Stampin' Up customers. For an extra shipping fee, you can receive your purchases in just 2 days or so. Wow! A great feature when you are in quick need of something such as a last minute birthday gift...

2) A new hostess promotion has been announced. Here are the details and make sure to contact me to book your workshop or join a club to take advantage of this hostess bonus!

From July 27 to August 31, Stampin' Up! hostesses can earn an EXTRA $35 to use toward Stampin' Up! products of their choice when they host a workshop totaling $450 or more!
This extra benefit is included along with the standard hostess benefits they receive when they host a workshop. The standard hostess benefits include
A free 2010-2011 Idea Book & Catalogue worth $11.95!
Free stamp sets only available to hostesses (with qualifying orders; select from the products on pages 10-16 of the Idea Book & Catalogue)!
Free Stampin' Up! products of your choice!
This extra hostess benefit is only being offered for a limited time, so contact me TODAY to schedule a workshop!

new colour video

This is a wonderful video just summarizing the new colours in the 2010-2011 idea book and catalogue. I am so happy with the new colours and I thought this video was a great resource for those of you who haven't yet seen the new colours in action. I am a big fan of the new colour coach!
Enjoy this you tube video. You might have to cut and paste into your browser.
http://www.youtube.com/user/stampinupvideo#p/a/u/2/EJaOWUbO20Y

Couldn't resist!

Of course I should be cleaning the kitchen blah blah blah...but instead I couldn't resist doing a quick scrap page on My digital studio since I'm still pumped about the great time I had at the Brad Paisley concert last night. I want to add more embellishments: like the star brads but it's bedtime now. Thought I would share what I"ve done so far. I've still got to do the journalling too. I'll probably sneak that in at the bottom of the page. Yes, Kevin and I were probably the only Asian people in the whole crowd and I was definitely the only Asian with a cowboy hat. Grin.

NSR (non stampin' related) Brad Paisley!

I went on a double date with my friend Linda to see Brad Paisley last night at the Molson Amphitheater. I have to admit that she show was AMAZING! Brad did a great job keeping everyone entertained. I knew almost all of the songs and had a blast dancing it up and screaming a lot. At one point in the show, Brad Paisley left the main stage and came back to the 300 section where we were (about 10 rows before the lawn). They had set up a makeshift little stage right near us and he sat up there and did a couple of songs. He said that he was thankful that we chose to pay our Canadian dollars to see him so he wanted to make sure we all got a good chance to see him. I thought that was so cool. Our husbands may not be as avid country music fans as we were but they were great about dancing with us and Kevin even took this picture. See how close we were!

Although I felt like an old middle age mommy before the show started (you know how it is: up at 5 am, no chance to rest with kids whining all day...) I felt great and more energetic during the show. Everyone should have to chance to do something that makes you feel young again!

colour combos

I was playing around trying to get a feel of the new colours and how they might work together. This card uses the Great Friend Stamp set is using the new colours daffodil delight and cherry cobbler. The leaves are in old olive ink. I think this is a great summery, cheery combo. The cherry cobbler is particularly striking and rich. I think it will be super for Christmas cards.

This card gave me fits from the get go. I wanted to practice my watercolouring. I used the blender pens and regal rose ink for the blooms and wild wasabi ink for the leaves. Wild wasabi is one of the returning in colours which has now found a home in the subtles color family. I love the colour by itself but was unsure how to pair it. Here's my attempt with regal rose and pretty in pink.

Christmas in July

Why am I making Christmas cards in July? Reason #1: I signed up for a Stampin' Up! demonstrator swap where we were supposed to make 20 identical cardfronts using product from the upcoming Holiday Mini catalogue. The organizer of the swap made it very clear that our work should be exceptional and she highlighted that things should be straight, even, contain at least 3 layers and have at least one embellishment. Talk about pressure! There were so many things I liked from the upcoming mini catalogue but I couldn't imagine inventing a card with a stamp set I didn't even own yet. So I cleverly choose a sentiment set so that I could start playing now with my only Christmas set (Snow Swirled) and just sub in the sentiment set when I order it Aug. 1st. Well, this was my first attempt; a card CASE'd from splitcoast, but I realized that I can't use it for the swap because the ornament strings are not straight and even. It's very hard to make it perfect with such small snips of paper. It also doesn't have an embellishment but I figured if it turned out okay I could find some ribbon or brads to put in somewhere. I love how the card turned out and will probably make more for my Christmas cards. I stamped the Christmas tree image in Rich Razzleberry and punched it out with the 1 3/8" circle punch. I then rubbed it in versamark and poured iridescent ice embossing powder and heat embossed. I used a portion of the word window punch to make the top of the ornament and cut little strips for the string. I did the dry embossing lines with my scoring tool.
Reason #2 for starting my Christmas cards: when I delivered an order to someone last week, she showed me that she had finished all 50 of her Christmas cards. I figured if she was already finished, I should at least be thinking what to do for mine!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...! Ha!

Kimono Fun

I got my catalogue stuff last week but didn't have time to crack it open until this weekend. Finally!!!! I've been dying to play with the new set I got which caught my eye right away: Kimono Kids. I thought it was soooo darn cute. I knew I wanted to try a top note die card. Did you know that if you fold your cardstock as you normally would for a card, then put it on the die slightly below the shape outline, it will cut out the shape but maintain the fold line. Ta Dah! Your card is the shape of the die. I used the blender pens and ink pads to colour in the cute image. The colours I used were wild wasabi, pretty in pink and melon mambo.

Crystal Etchings

I was playing around with my crystal effects and I used the large medallion motif from the Artistic Etchings set and heat embossed in black. Then I placed a drop or two of pink pirouette ink refill into some crystal effects (crystal effects gives a thick, shiny lacquer) and applied it onto the motif using one of the kids little paintbrushes. I punched it out using my 1 3/4" punch. The motif sat on my desk for a few days as I didn't know what to do with it. I sure loved the dyed crystal effects. Here's the card I finally came up with. Gotta love the scallop trim punch and that the pink pirouette colour is back!

embellishment opportunity

I was checking out the demonstrator idea website and I came across a card that I loved and I wanted to copy it but everything went wrong as I was trying to make it. Many of you know that my favourite saying is "there's no such thing as a mistake; only an embellishment opportunity" Can you guess which card was the one I kept making mistakes on? It has a lot more embellishment!

Lovin' Elements of Style

Have I mentioned that I am LOVING my Elements of Style set? Here is a card and matching candle. I coloured in the image with my new Stampin' Write Markers using Blushing Bride and Pear Pizzazz. It is hard to see but I then put Crystal Effects on top of the flower/leaf image then sprinkled dazzling diamond glitter on top. (FYI, Crystal Effects gives a glossy, lacquer coating). I sponged some crumb cake ink on the edges of the pear pizzazz matte to give a bit of an aged look. I loved how it turned out. If you want to make fun projects like these, sign up or ask about my upcoming Stampers Club by e-mailing me.

open house make n takes

I promised to post the pictures of the make n takes from my open house a few weeks ago. Here they are! Sorry if you missed the open house but make sure to talk to me about how I can show you and your friends your very own stampin' demonstrations and make n takes!



Here's an easy card using the new Friends Never Fade set. I love how this set co-ordinates perfectly with the greenhouse gala dsp. The new marina mist colour from the subtles family is so soothing.



This is my favourite of the bunch. A new in-colour: Concord Crush. It's a rich, deep purple. I used the lattice die for the big shot after stamping en francais background stamp on the whisper white paper.
The main image is from the new Artistic Etchings stamp set.

This was the hostess evening extra make n take. It uses the new in colour pear pizzazz for the main card base. Then the pink is called "blushing bride". It is a great colour. Not as bright as pretty in pink but not as soft as pink pirouette. I used the flight of the butterfly stamp set using blushing bride ink and regal rose ink and adhered it to the designer label hodgepodge hardware. Cool huh?



Here's a little treat cover using the new daffodil delight colour from the brights family and the greenhouse gala dsp. The sentiment is from the perfect punches set.

If you wonder how I came up with the colour combinations, I sometimes used the new colour coach which is a great tool. It is new and improved and allows you to hold different chips of colour together to see how it looks. It also gives you suggested color combos on the back.

There are so many new and wonderful things with the new catalogue release. Make sure you take a look at it.

improved!

I was so irritated by the mess I had made on my blog last night. In a short time this morning DH cleaned it up and I am now so happy. Pink! My favourite colour and I feel like it is more soothing than that crazy blue polka dot thing that was happening before. Thank you Kevin! You're the best!

programmer? Not me!

It's not unusual for me to have nights where I don't sleep well. I used to be an awesome sleeper before having kids. After all those baby night wakings, I've never slept the same since. Now my kids sleep fine at night and I"m the one awake. I can't do much in the middle of the night. Sometimes I stamp, or read or surf the net. Tonight I was surfing and came across some info about how to customize a blog. I tried my best, as you can see but I can't figure out how to make it the way I want. Reading those instructions on programming was just too complicated! Now my blog just looks really strange to me but hey, now I've got some pretty in pink on the site!
Maybe on my next insomnia night I"ll try again. In the meantime, try not to cringe with the pretty in pink and strange blue combo.

Summer Scrapping!

I'm determined to get lots of scrapbooking done this summer. We're so blessed to be able to spend lots of time with the kids doing different excursions so I want to make sure I capture the memories through photos and journalling. For privacy reasons, I changed the photos in this layout but I thought seeing the layout might still inspire you crafters out there. I did this using My Digital Studio. Yesterday I sat down to work on the kids school albums and I was surprised how long it took me to do a traditional spread. I guess I've been getting so used to digital that I found myself grumbling at the hard copy pictures and staring at them trying to make them shrink or enlarge to my whims. Ahhhh, nonetheless I've almost finished my son's grade 3 pages and am really happy how they turned out.

If you haven't seen my TV debut on the topic of scrapbooking, click here

Watercolor Because I Care

I love my new job that allows me the summer off! All the stress of learning a new job is worth it to have this down time now. Today, two kids were at camp so hubby and I just hung out with one kid. We felt like we were on vacation just only having one kid to watch. I had a 3 1/2 hour nap! I am not kidding. So, I"m up late tonight and decided to just play with the gorgeous new hostess set "Because I Care". This set is just screaming for watercolouring but since it's not my forte, I shyed away...until tonight. I am kicking myself for not following my rule of making two because I love how it turned out. I did the watercolouring by colouring the flower using marina mist and perfect plum markers then used my aquapainter to blend and water down the colours. So cool. The use of watercolour paper is a must here because the regular very vanilla paper would get all mussed up with all the water from the aquapainter. I really like this marina mist, pear pizazz and perfect plum combo. Whew, I found colours that go with perfect plum now that pale plum is retired!
A few spritzes with the colour spritzer tool and a bit of marina mist ribbon and we're done.

more swapping

With the release of the new catalogue, we had to have a team swap. (this is the first time we've had a team meeting) Here are our cards. The notecard above was created by Lyne. I love the use of the 2-step bird punch.

Here's Shannon's card. Simple is always superb. She's using the Love you Much stamp set. Check out the cute brad embellishment on the flower and the edging using the eyelet border.

Here's Clara's card using the Pick a Petal set in a unique way to make trees! Check out the polka dot dry embossing using the texturz plates for the Big Shot. Matches the dots on the trees!

Here's Esther's stunning card using the new cherry cobbler colour and the Elements of Style set. It's so rich and gorgeous. I can definitely see using this colour at Christmas. She's also using the new newsprint DSP.

Here's my card. I'm going DSP happy with the Greenhouse Gala paper. I love how the dsp lasts forever! The sentiment is from the Perfect Punches set. I have an addiction. Whenever I see a stamp set that co-ordinates with the punches, I buy it. I figure the time it's going to save me, is worth every penny spent.

sideline swap

I recently participated in a card swap with some of my Stampin' Up sidelines. (fellow demonstrators that share the same upline). Only 5 of us participated but I thought I'd share the beautiful cards I received.
Swaps are such a great way to have different samples and ideas. Enjoy!

Elements of style was a favourite!

This card showcases some beautiful dry embossing.

This card uses the watercolour trio set in the summer mini. I love the masking technique used here and the added glitter. I really have to get my glitter out more. It adds such bling!