Happy Birthday Miss Daisy!!!

September was a big month for birthday's at work. This card was for "Miss Daisy", our head secretary. It is my first attempt with the Brayered Sky technique. I love how it turned out, and will be using it a lot in the future! I'd love to show you and your friends how to do it, let me know when you are interested and we'll get together for a workshop!

Stampin' Up may need another punch for the oval series. "Birthday Celebrations" wouldn't fit in any of the smaller ovals, so I punched both the words and the black matting with the Wide Oval Punch, then used the edges of the black oval to mark the curve to trim the white oval.

Here is the recipe: Cardstock: Whisper White, Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie and Dusty Durango. Ink: Basic Black Craft Ink; Barely Banana, Pumkin Pie and Dusty Durango Classic Inks. Stamps: Upsy Daisy. Accessories: Brayer, Wide Oval Punch, Dusty Durango Dotted Grosgrain, Black Embossing Powder, Black Stampin' Write Marker and a Flower Designer Brad.

Tonight I'm going to make 20 cards to display at Christmas and Pizza. Does that sound a bit over ambitious? I think I can do it! I'll let you know tomorrow. And, I hope to see you at Round Table on October 15th!

Introducing Snow Bear

This sweet little girl is named Snow Bear. My granddaughter Leah (even sweeter than Snow Bear) made her in a few minutes this morning out of scraps. If you haven't seen the Holiday Mini yet, Stampin' Up has partnered with Build a Bear Workshop and is carrying Build a Bear licensed stamps and Big Shot dies. We made this using Stampin' Up Bear and Beary Essentials Bigz dies, with some Bravo Burgundy cardstock and a few scraps of retired designer series paper. These bears are so much fun to make, for kids and adults, both, and there are many things you can do with them. I'll be displaying magnet bear paper dolls at my Christmas and Pizza event (October 15th, mark your calendars). Hope to see you there!

If you haven't seen the Holiday Mini yet let me know and I'll get one to you. If you'd like, you can pick one up at the Mostly Mystery Hostess Workshop on Thursday the 24th of September. It will be the last Mystery Hostess Workshop of the year, so you won't want to miss it. I have several samples of cards from the new mini to show you, as well as some cute projects planned. See you soon!

Did you ever have on of THOSE weeks?

Well, I've been having one and I'm hoping it's almost over. I'm working on a demonstrator Christmas Card swap so I will have many beautiful cards to display at my Christmas and Pizza event next month. It needs to be mailed no later than tomorrow. I had Saturday set aside to work on it, a little time on Sunday and Monday. So, I got started Saturday, designed the card (and like it!), cut out the cardstock and started doing the die cuts. Half way through my Big Shot tipped off the surface I was using and my acrylic sheets and sizzlet slipped away. The acrylic sheets were right there, the sizzlet was no where to be found. I dumped my purse. I moved boxes and furniture. My daughter looked under my bed for fifteen minutes. We looked the same places all over again, and again. I even dug through my yarn bag. No sizzlet. After several hours I started to try to redesign the card in my bed and went to bed sad. Woke up in the morning to the thought that maybe I digging through my yarn bag wasn't enough and I should dump it. And there was my sizzlet. Big sigh of relief and my world is good again. So now I have all the dies cut out, did the stamping and stuff last night and all I have to do is rush through the assembly of all forty cards with their 10 die cuts a piece tonight. I may not get much sleep, but the swap may be done. Now, though, I'm running low on adhesives. I have enough to finish the swap, but we may be using Stampin' Up Anywhere Glue sticks at this month's Monstly Monthly Mystery Hostess Workshop on the 24th. They are great glue sticks, though, so don't worry.

Not only have I been working on the swap, I have two coworkers with birthdays this week, one Monday and one tomorrow. Here is the first card. It was supposed to be black and silver, but have you noticed that Classic Black ink has a purple tint to it? When you apply it to silver cardstock, purple is all you see. It's actually a perfect match for Elegant Eggplant cardstock, so that's what I used. I made the background by brayering the diamonds from Stampin' Up Backgrounds 1 Texturz Plates with Classic Black ink, then ran it through the Big Shot on silver cardstock. (The ink rinses off the brayer and Texturz plate in seconds with just water.) The greeting is from Teeny Tiny Wishes, stamped with black ink and punched out with the Word Window Punch. That is mounted on a piece of Elegant Eggplant punched with the new Modern Label punch and accented with Silver Brads. I hand wrote Ozzy on a piece of Whisper White, punched with the Small Tag Punch and mounted it on an Elegant Eggplant Tag. I used the silver elastic cord from the Holiday Mini to make it look like a gift, and there it is.

It's a Pink Elephant!

Animal Story is one of the irresistably cute new stamp sets in this year's Idea Book and Catalog. It consists of an owl, a whale, a giraffe and this adorable elephant. I don't use a lot of solid stamps, so it took some practice to get good images, but I did find a very helpful suggestion - before using the stamp lightly sand it with a sanding block. It worked very well! I've also found that cleaning it with Stampin' Mist and Stampin' Scrub just before using it helps. Stampin' Mist not only cleans your stamps, it conditions them as well.

Have I mentioned how much I like this year's In Colors? I used three of them here, the card base and two of the elephants are Melon Mambo, the third elephant, mat and ribbon are Soft Suede, and the saying (from the Smarty Pants stamp set) is matted on Crushed Curry and Melon Mambo. I embossed the large Soft Suede mat with my Big Shot and the Stampin' Up Perfect Detail Texturz Plate. It is also new in this catalog, and is going to be one of my favorites.

You are invited...

to see Hannah's wedding invitation. I'd invite you to the actual wedding, but it was ten days ago. The bride was a beautiful as could be, the groom was incredibly handsome, the sun was shining, and the ring bearer (their two year old son) stole the show. He wanted to throw the ring pillow into the river. Is it any wonder we call him Dennis the Menace?

The invitation is one of the simples and easiest cards I've ever made, but it certainly garnered a lot of oohs and ahs. The main part of the card is Shimmery White cardstock, stamped with To Have and To Hold (retired) in Bashful Blue and embossed with the Big Shot and the Stampin' Up Manhattan Flower Embossing Folder. That is mounted on Bashful Blue cardstock and then on a Whisper White cardstock base. I entered the invitation information in Excel and laser printed it on the cardstock before cutting and folding it. I used my Stamp A Ma Jig to line up the words and the frame. That must be one of my favorite tools!

When you do a project like this, it's a good idea to stamp the image before embossing. It helps to position the embossing on the cardstock, and it's really difficult to line the Stamp a Ma Jig and stamps up over an embossed image. (Yes, I tried.)

If you haven't seen one of our embossing folders in use yet, I'll have my Big Shot set up so you can try your hand at it at the Mostly Monthly Mystery Hostess Workshop on the 24th. Hope to see you there! If you can't make it, how about having a workshop of your own? Stampin' Up has an amazing hostess special right now! Host a $250 workshop and in addition to the regular hostess benefits you can buy any one item from the Holiday Mini for just $10. Let me know if you need more information!

I'm Back!!!

Summer has been hectic to say the least. And just when it started to calm down my computer equipment decided not to cooperate. First my printer refused to turn on. I can live without a printer, but my printer is also my scanner and card reader, so without it I can't post pictures. I really wanted to stomp my feet and scream like a two year old, but instead I spent this weekend reorganizing and decluttering my desk area so the power strip everything is plugged into could be on the top of the desk. (It was under the desk in a very awkward corner that was totally inaccessible to me and my knees.) Fortunately, the printer is fine, the problem was one outlet in the power strip. Whew! So I can scan, and I can read pictures I took. Can't take any new ones until I get camera batteries though. Did you ever feel like the world was out to get you? The camera batteries died at Hannah's wedding. I'm glad mine was not the only camera!

My baby sister's birthday was this weekend. She's starting to catch up to me, I think we both may be "plenty-nine". She loved the birthday cake cards I made my grandchildren and requested a pretty card too. Her birthday was Sunday, this will go in the mail tomorrow ... not bad for me! It comes complete with a popup birthday cake just for her, with a question mark for the candle. She's several years younger than I am, but still a grandmother.

The background is embossed with the Stampin' Up Perfect Details Texturz Plate. I brayered the texturz plate with Pretty in Pink classic ink then ran it through the Big Shot with whisper white cardstock. I love the way it makes the embossing stand out with out being overpowering. The embossed piece is mounted on Pretty in Pink cardstock. The image uses the Upsy Daisy stamp set inked with Pretty in Pink and Certainly Celery Stampin' Write Markers. It's stamped on a piece of Whisper White cut with the Top Note Die with the border cut off, and mounted on a Certainly Celery Top Note piece. It's finished off with Pretty in Pink Taffeta ribbon, and a little glitter on the edges and tips of the flowers to make it special (I used our 2 Way Glue Pen). It was a lot of fun to make.

Mark your calendar for the Mostly Monthly Mystery Hostess Workshop on the 24th. (Date changed due to a scheduling conflict.) This will be the last one of the year, as October will be Pizza and Christmas and November and December we will all be busy with holiday preparations. I hpe to see you there!