chocolate projects

I had a great time at my Chicks n Chocolate class. My classes are a great way to make projects and get creatively inspired. Here's a couple of the projects that were a part of the class. Part of what I wanted participants to experience is the versatility of the chocolate chip and early espresso colour. Here's a card we made using crumb cake for the card base and cardstock of blushing bride, peach parfait, cajun craze and chocolate chip. Someone exclaimed that they would never consider putting those colours together but they look great. Surprise!

Here's a little treat holder. I was so excited when I learned how to make this flower using the eyelet border punch. So easy and I've noticed that every flower comes out unique. Baja Breeze and Early Espresso look so elegant together. A square ice brad, a few stamps of the small medalliion from the Artistic Etchings set and some early espresso grosgrain ribbon finish off this project.

We all had fun eating chcolate chip cookies, chocolate timbits, chocolate dipped stawberries and drinking chocolate milk. What a pleasant evening!

Good enough to eat?

I'm looking forward to the chicks n chocolate class tommorrow. Since I had chocolate on the brain, I made this cute little craft using a styrofoam ball and the boho blossoms punch and some straight pins. I do not recommend eating pins but it's a fun little decorative piece.

sneak peek

Hi everyone! I'm back from Disney and had an exhausting but awesome time! In fact, we can't wait to go again...one day. I have to catch up on rest first! When I have more time, I am dying to start scrapbooking the many pictures we took and will post some more specific details of the trip. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a card using one of the new sets that will be available in the holiday mini catalogue starting September 1st. I love this combo of colours: cherry cobbler, chocolate chip and crumb cake. This is a beautiful, autumn set called French Foliage.

marina cajun cake circus

So how long does the new catalogue have to be out before the new colours aren't new anymore? I'll still probably be calling the new colours new for the whole year!

I had to make a thank you gift card holder for a male friend. (you know how hard it is for me to make masculine looking projects...) I unwrapped the shrink wrap from my cajun craze ink pad and went crazy with the stamps from the circle circus set. The other colours I used were the marina mist and crumb cake. I like this easy gift card holder. All you need is Stampin' Up's open ended envelope.

punch layout

I'm still trying to scrapbook all the pictures we took this summer. One of our outings was to the Stouffville Stawberry Festival. Here's what I've created so far using my digital studio. The central motif was created using punches: scallop circle, circle and tag punches. I love how I can so easily manipulate the size and colour. My plan is to put the title at the top under the stitching and drop some pictures into the little tags at the bottom.

Disney!

We're finally going to Disney world! I've wanted to go with all three kids for a while but I finally convinced hubby this year. How? Well, I think a major factor was that I told him I would finance the whole deal with all the Stampin' Up earnings I had saved up over the years. Not a penny would have to come from the family funds.
Yes, incredible as it seems, since I have become a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I have been able to buy crafting supplies to my hearts content and save up enough money for a trip for a family of five. I have a hobby I love and it pays. Don't get me wrong. Very few demonstrators make a full time income/career from Stampin' Up! but a great many demos earn a little extra to supplement the family income. What would you do with a little extra money each month? Get a cleaning lady once a month? Pay for your child's piano lessons? Treat yourself to a luxury pedicure? If you are interested in learning more about the demonstrator opportunity, please talk to me. If you sign up as a demonstrator with me this month, we will both receive free expedited shipping for the entire month of September! (this means we'll get stuff in 1-2 days instead of 12!)
Speaking of Disney, the incentive trip that Stampin' Up! is giving away to qualifiying demonstrators this year is to Disney World. Imagine the excitement of a whole resort full of stampers in Disney World?! My heart jumps just thinking about it!

A HUGE thank you to all of you, my friends and customers because I wouldn't be a Stampin' Up! demonstrator without you.

Concord Favourite Thoughts with Style

I used the colour coach to come up with this neat colour combo with perfect plum and

concord crush. That flourish from elements of style is so versatile

An example of why the embossing buddy is important

So, I've finally finalized my cardfront for the holiday swap that I am participating in. Here is the card.

This gives you a sneak peek of some of the new items that will be coming out in the holiday mini. I don't know how Stampin' Up! keeps bringing out new mini catalogues with so many new, beautiful things. (check out the new big shot snowflake and the glimmer brad!).

As I was making my 21 cards for the swap, I became even more aware of how essential the embossing buddy is when doing heat embossing. It's a small but essential step to rub the embossing buddy over your paper before stamping and pouring embossing powder. Check out the difference in the "clean-ness" (sorry, I know it's not a word...) of the final silver embossed image. See the sample below without embossing buddy...
And here below is with the embossing buddy.

Yes. I am a fast learner when my mistakes have consequences. Out of the 21 cards, I forgot the embossing buddy only once.

Spinning!

I got this great card in the mail and I loved it so much! It is a spinner card. See how the image slides and spins? I think it is so cute and the Just Buzzin' By set is perfect for this card. Of course, as soon as I received it I was thinking that I NEED to try making my own spinner card. My son's birthday is coming up and I wanted to make him a special card. PERFECT! thanks Freida for the inspiration!

Check out below for the card that I made. I CASE'd this from something I saw on the demonstrator website but I changed up the colours so they would co-ordinate with the greenhouse gala dsp. The card base is daffodil delight. The ice cream scoop colours are marina mist, daffodil delight, pear pizzazz, and peach parfait.

If you want to learn how to make the spinner card, make sure you ask me to demonstrate it for you when you book a workshop with me. (For those of you who want to try it on your own...hint...stampin' dimensionals and word window punch are helpful tools!)

Again?! Elements of Style

Got a new punch: the eyelet border so I had to try it out with the Elements of style set. This artwork on this set looks great no matter what you do with it. I'm so glad it made it into the main catalogue this year. It's a keeper for sure! The colours I used are soft suede, pear pizazz and blushing bride.

A great day!

I had a great day yesterday. Hubby took the three kids out all morning so that I could stay home and scrapbook. As most of you already know, I am happiest when I am papercrafting and it was extra special that a friend joined me and brought wonderful chocolate cupcakes. As an extra treat, when the gang arrived home, everyone was happy and they even brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. How lovely! It's not even my birthday!

I got several scrapbook pages done. Here's a couple that I finished.

I have school albums for each child. I like to keep a sampling of their work from the year. I couldn't throw out this short story written by my eldest along with a couple of other loose things. So, I created a little pocket using a strip of dsp and adhered it using sticky strip. At the bottom, I stamped a sentiment from the Full of Life stamp set: "If at FIRST you do succeed, try not to look ASTONISHED" The page isn't pretty but it's functional which is what counts in this case!Here's another simple page using old olive dsp and pumpkin pie cardstock for the top and bottom borders. (I am finally used to having these colours in the brights family) Fun and straightforward to make. Scrapbooking is easy and it's so rewarding to be able to look back at the albums years later and remember all kinds of memories.

More Christmas Cards!

I'm still trying to design a card that I feel is suitable for the upcoming holiday card swap that I am participating in. I quite like the one below. I am waiting for the items that I pre-ordered from the holiday mini catalogue to arrive so that I can substitute the central motif with some of the new products.

The finished card front size is 5 1/4" X 5 1/4". (fits nicely into SU!'s square envelopes). The card base is night of navy cardstock but the front is cut off on a diagonal and bashful blue paper with vellum ontop is added. Silver heat embossing is used for the snowflake and the sentiment. The scallop circle punch is used to punch out a piece of that gorgeous Stampin' Up brushed silver paper and a silver brad added in the centre of the snowflake.
This card uses old olive cardstock as the base with dry embossed very vanilla cardstock on top. Notice how the dry embossing only covers 3/4 of the cardfront so that I have a clear, smooth section to stamp and heat emboss the sentiment in gold. I used the jolly holiday designer series paper to add some colour and the snowflake was stamped in cherry cobbler with a gold brad in the centre. ( I am loving the cherry cobbler, old olive colour combo!) So, which one do you like better?