Peach Take a Spin

Isn't the occasions mini catalogue full of beautiful and wonderful things? I can't help but be happy when I look at it. I couldn't wait to play with my Take a Spin set from the Occasions mini since I thought the idea of having a spinner on a card was super neat. The spinner is a pewter colour. I replaced the standard pewter brad with a glimmer brad. (I couldn't resist adding some bling!)

I thought this might be a good card for my son when he goes to birthday parties but he informed me that the card was too "cute" looking!

I thought the monochromatic look with the peach parfait colour was quite masculine-ish. Oh well, I like the card!

Sweet Summer Watercolour

At club last night we had fun playing with the watercolour crayons. They come in the different colour families. I love how you can colour with the crayons but then blend the colour with the blender pens to achieve a softer look.

Can you see some spot glimmer? That is using the smooch pearlized top coat. The applicator is just like nail polish tip so you can get a precision application. Another way to add bling! Yea!

Stampin' for me

Do you ever have the experience when you see a card and you just have to CASE it? I saw this on splitcoast and I had to copy it. Immediately. There was no reason to make this card. I just wanted to make a card. Isn't that a good reason? I had a wonderful, lovely time just stamping and colouring and cutting. I was so happy. Go ahead. Stamp for yourself. Just for fun. I give you absolute permission.
The card base is baja breeze, the matte is early espresso and the dsp is the playdate dsp.
I stamped in black staz on and coloured in with markers. I used different shades. For example on blue flower it was pacific point, then marina mist, then baja breeze and outlined in bashful blue. The leaves were old olive in the middle, outlined with pear pizzazz. Of course I couldn't resist using the co-ordinating baja breeze seam binding. I created a gathered look by pulling a thread.
The stamp set is the beautiful sweet summer, a sale-a-bration exclusive. The sentiment is from hello again. Another sale-a-bration freebie option. Want to take advantage of sale-a-bration? Go to my online store on my website and shop from the comfort of your home.

Back to the land of the living

I'm happy to say that I am feeling much better. I can go on with my daily routine without feeling like I"m dying. I"m very happy about that. However, I have a very croaky voice and a lingering cough. No complaints though...I"ll take that over the achy, can't move feeling anytime.

Last night we had a Team S.T.I.C meeting. We had a fun card swap and here are everyone's creations. Please take your time looking at the photos. Each card is so unique and there are so many cute embellishments. I'm so glad that Team S.T.I.C exists because I love stamping and swapping at our team meetings. I also love the relationships and conversation. Want to join in on the team fun while earning money and buying stamping supplies at a discount? Now is the time to sign up for the demonstrator starter kit so you can take advantage of the 15% sale-a-bration discount plus the $60 bonus bundle.

Becoming a demonstrator for the business, the hobby, the fun was a great decision for me and can be a great decision for you. Check out some of the benefits of being a demonstrator right HERE

The more the merrier on my team. All are welcome.

Energy Conservation

Not the kind of energy for electricity. My physical energy was the topic of the day today. I started out well so I thought it would be a good day but I think there was still motrin left in my system. Once the older kids were at school I started feeling gross again. I resigned myself to just sitting in one spot and stamping and trying to keep child #3 occupied. I really wanted to participate in our team card swap and here is the card I think I've decided to make. It uses the clearly for you stamp set and the sentiment is from friends 24-7. The ink colours are cherry cobbler and crumb cake. I don't know if you can see but I've sprayed it with my shimmer paint/rubbing alcohol mixture to give it a subtle shine.

Normally when I have only one child with me, I'm out running errands, going shopping etc. Today we just sat at home. I realized that we have very funny conversations. Here's a sample (just to give you a feel of my day today)

setting: mom and Nathaniel sitting at table crafting

mom: "I love you"

child: "medium"

mom: "medium? What does that mean?"

child: "I love you medium"

mom: "oh. Well, I love you lots"

child: "I just love you medium"

setting: oldest child is home for lunch and sees the pathetic state of his ill mother. Before going back to school he says to his little brother:

Ethan: "do not be bad for mommy. be good for mommy. she's sick"

Nathaniel: "I will"

Ethan: "if you are not good for mommy, I won't play beyblades with you when I get home from school"

Nathaniel: (exasperated) "I will be good"

Ethan: "don't bother mommy, be good for her and let her sleep"

Nathaniel: (more exasperated) "I'm always good!"

I managed to sneak in a short nap and when I woke up this is what I saw:

My very good child #3 fell asleep on the landing on the stairs! I did briefly worry that perhaps he feel down the stairs and was unconcious with a concussion but since he looked so comfortable and had his favourite blankie, I figured he probably just fell asleep. Boy, was he grumpy when he was woken up by his siblings coming home from school.
Anyway, that's my day today.

feeling ill

I can't believe it but I'm sick. I haven't felt this ill in a long time. You know, the kind of sick like the whole body aches and one movement is just too much. I was starting to feel a bit under the weather yesterday afternoon. I thought I would share the scrapbook page I did yesterday before my body completely crashed. I used the funky four set (free during sale-a-bration) and the playdate dsp. The sentiment on the left is from the Full of Life set. It says: LIFE is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Yeah, I had big plans to do more scrapbook pages but life got in the way and I spent today in bed instead. My hubby pointed out that the stamped flowers were not straight. I'm going to blame that on the flu. That's my story and I"m sticking to it.

Owl love you forever

Here's the valentine's card I gave to Kevin, my husband. I pretty much show him everything I stamp to get his input. Today I realized I had nothing original to give to him for Valentine's day. Here's the card I made CASE'd from Kristine Burns (a fellow demo I met at Leadership). I wish I had the proper heart punch for this card but instead I had to use my large heart punch and trim it down to size. (Yes, that's why the heart looks warped...I cut it freehand...well, it just adds to the charm)

There's that fabulous glitter red paper again. The owl is using wild wasabi coloured paper with daffodil delight on his chest. The wings are cut out parts of scallop circle punch and the clouds are the scallop oval punch.

Just for the record, my husband is a great friend, support and life partner.

I am super blessed to have him in my life.

Amour

Just thought I would share another card we made at my most recent club meeting. I thought it would be nice to do a valentine card but maybe not in the traditional red, white and pink colours. This card uses an emboss resist watercolouring technique with the watercolour paper and aquapainter. One of the club girls said she felt like such an artist making this card and it almost felt like she should sign her name in the corner. The stamp set used here is called Artistic Etchings. It's very vintage and romantic. I think this card would still be appropriate for other occasions besides valentines.

As usual I made two cards. I couldn't decide which I liked better but the club girls all preferred the one with torn edges and the antique brad. (LOVING my antique brads!!!!!--check out 5 of them on the front cover of the idea book and catalogue alone)

The designer series paper that I used as a mat is the new First Edition paper found in the occasions mini. I think this paper is so versatile. Happy Valentines Day everyone.

NSR: Missions Trip

Many thanks to those of you who participated in my fundraiser at the beginning of this year for the needs in Nicaragua. My husband will be going on a humanitarian missions trip to help with some practical needs. Many of you have asked what he will be doing. Please click on this link to find out more.

So Suite Purse

I have to share this darling card I got from swapping at Leadership. I loved it and knew that I would do it with my club girls when I got back. It uses a faux leather technique that was so easy but gives such a cool effect. Doesn't the pom pom trim just add to the cute-ness? The designer series paper is called "sweet stitches" and is found in the occasions mini in the "Oh Sew Suite" section starting on page 32

Our club meeting last night was so nice. Leslie brought the food and I had to take a picture of the cute tuxedo strawberries as well as how proud everyone looked of their card creation. If you are interested in joining a card club. Please let me know. I'd love to have you join in on the learning and fun.

Springtime Vintage

I finally sat down today and placed a sale-a-bration order for myself. As a demonstrator, I get to order as a special order type that allows me to save some tax since these are supplies for my "business" Of course I started out with a few things, then added a few more, then before I knew it I was so close to the $200 needed for hostess benefits that I figured I may as well bump my order up. Hmmm,what to get, what to get...then I remembered that I wanted to get some additional downloads for my digital studio. I really wanted the owl punch (digital version) because I thought it would be really fun to manipulate all the little pieces and make funny owls. I'm imagining doing my family of five in little owl versions. Well, the owl punch alone didn't push me up to $200 since it was a mere $1.75 or something. I ended up getting the springtime vintage paper and some pearls and rhinestones. (digital versions). Yes, time to jazz up my digital downloads since all this time I've been pretty much using only what came with the software. Now with my new purchases and my digital sale-a-bration freebie, I'll have a lot to play with. Whenever I get something new, I play with it right away. Digital is no exception. I decided to try to make a new banner for my blog using the springtime vintage paper. Do you like it? The problem is I don't know how to stretch it out to the shape of the banner heading. Oh well. I'll turn it into a scrapbook page later.

birthday bakery

I felt so blah this past weekend. One highlight was my "girls night out" evening where we made this cute card. I also did this card with my club girls last week. It's actually not as hard as it looks. The scallop edge punch and the word window punch are essential. The hostess set "birthday bakery" is perfect for this type of awning card but I've seen this card done with the sweet scoops ice creams as well. If you want to learn to make this card, just get a few girlfriends together and I'll be happy to show you all.

I don't know why I felt so tired. I didn't even want to stamp. Now that's sad. I figure I must be fighting a bug because my daughter is sick today. (she suddenly felt unwell and threw up when we were at the grocery store.) I actually took a two hour nap on Saturday and slept 9 hours at night on Saturday and Sunday. I feel a bit better today and the itch to stamp as returned. I hope you all stay healthy with all those winter bugs floating around.

Valentine Inspiration

Today I dropped by Oxana's house and she showed me what she made for her daughter's class for valentine's day. She used the simple lollipop holder concept that I have demonstrated at workshops but instead of putting a lollipop, she put a heart shaped balloon. Brilliant.

I'm so glad I'm a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. First of all it allowed me to meet Oxana who is a very nice person and our kids have had fun playdates AND I get to be inspired by her creativity.

Find out more about the fun of being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator by coming to my family night on March 5th. Please RSVP if you can make it!

funky cobbler

Here's a really simple card and card design using the funky four stamp set (which by the way is a sale-a-bration freebie this year). This card came about because I thought it would be fun to make "assemble your own card" kits as a part of my daughter's loot bag. Yeah, maybe I just wanted an excuse to stamp something because I don't know if I'll get around to making these kits. Nonetheless, I like how clean and easy this card was to put together. The colours were cherry cobbler, pear pizzazz, soft suede. The sentiment (from flight of the butterfly)was stamped in crumb cake. Some extra texture and dimension was added by using stampin' dimensionals behind the very vanilla cardstock and some retired soft suede polka dot ribbon was added with a glue dot for a finishing touch.