Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Woodland Leaflets are Lovely as a Tree


Some things are eternal. Some things never change. Some things we can depend on, like death, taxes and Betty White! Some stamp sets will never retire, and the one I'm thinking of is Lovely as a Tree! People keep buying it because it is such a useful stamp set. Spring, summer, fall and winter you have trees, so whatever the season, you can use Lovely as a Tree whenever a tree is called for!

I have been seeing the Leaflet Framelits used to create a cutaway effect on a lot of cards lately and I thought I'd give it a try here. I like the way this turned out and if you would like to know how I made this card, you can get a free photo tutorial simply by signing up to receive my free newsletter. A free tutorial is one of the features of each monthly newsletter.



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  • The background features Lovely as a Tree, Gorgeous Grunge and lots of sponging with some warm autumn colours.
  • The foreground is embossed using the Woodland Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, after die cutting the maple leaf negative space using the Leaflit Framelits.
I'll leave the rest of the details for my free tutorial! I love to send a newsletter to you so you can get all the step by step instructions and a list of supplies and measurements!

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Quick and Cute Christmas Card


How many of you are planning to make your own Christmas Cards this year? Good for you! I know many people are simply not bothering any more, but I love getting cards in the mail, and homemade ones are even better because I know that a little part of the sender came with it! However, if you are making large batches of cards, you don't want them to be too complicated, otherwise it is a daunting task. You also don't want gobs of thick embellishments on them for the sake of your postal costs. I have come up with a clean and simple, but very cute card that meets all of the criteria for a cute card to send out at Christmas time:


  • I hadn't yet used the Christmas stamp set, Lots of Joy, from the Annual catalogue. (Don't forget there are lots of Christmas sets in the Big Catty!) I was playing around with designs for my Christmas Stampers' Dozen class and the set caught my eye. There are some great festive designs among the images and you can make tags or cards with this versatile set. I stamped both the image and the sentiment in Mossy Meadow ink to go along with the green theme I had going on!
  • I originally wanted green plaid for the background Designer Series Paper, but I had brought a limited amount of DSP with me to the Crop for the Cure on Sunday, and I had forgotten to bring the Merry Moments DSP, from the Annual Catalogue as well. So I leafed through the paper I had and found this great green striped design in the Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper. I think it's perfect with its Pear Pizzazz stripes, along with some Old Olive cardstock for this monochromatic colour palette.
  • The strip of white is actually Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper, also available in the Annual Catalogue. It's a shame that the photo doesn't show the glittery stuff, because it really makes the card special.
And it's Tuesday today and time for a new set of Weekly Deals:



What would I pick from these great deals? The Envelope Punch Board or the Gift Box Punch Board for sure!  I used the Gift Box Punchboard to make this:

And these:




If you do make your own handmade Christmas cards, let me know in the comments today, and maybe this is a design that would work for you.


Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!



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Monday, September 28, 2015

You Can Do That with Washi Tape??


I was fortunate enough to attend a Crop for the Cure yesterday and it was very productive for me! I got many tasks accomplished and had fun with a great group of ladies while I was doing it. I will be sharing some of the projects this week! This card was designed for my Christmas Stamper's Dozen this Tuesday night and it uses mostly Winter Wonderland Specialty Designer Series Paper. It also includes an experiment with washi tape that I will share with you today. The layout is from Freshly Made Sketches Challenge this week:

Washi Tape is pretty amazing stuff! It has cool designs, you can tear it easily, you can pull it off and reapply it without too much difficulty, but it will stay put where you stick it and it is just a great overall design element! But yesterday, I found out something else you can do with washi tape. You can actually heat emboss on it, with some provisos!


  • I've been dying to use more of the Winter Wonderland Product Suite, especially the Winter Wonderland Designer Washi Tape, and you will see it here on the sentiment panel. I covered a piece of Whisper White with it then attempted to emboss the sentiment with Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder. There was an interesting result. I used the Embossing Buddy liberally before stamping the sentiment and then, after stamping the sentiment with Versamark Ink, I covered the panel with Gold embossing powder. I was surprised to see all the washi tape was covered in excess gold embossing powder. When I tapped the back quite forcefully, most came off again, but it took some careful dusting off.
  • I wasn't sure how the washi tape would react to the heat of the Heat Tool, but it worked quite well. I don't know if that is recommended, so heat carefully! In my case, the sentiment was embossed without incident, and it looks great against the design of the washi tape.
  • The smaller flag underneath is the new Very Vanilla Subtle Stripes Satin Ribbon. It's a very pretty ribbon and it's a shame that so much of it is covered up with this design! I also used the new Gold Cording Trim to tie a jaunty bow around the sentiment panel. I love the shape the ends take on after tying the bow.
As I said before, this is a sample of one of the cards we will make at our Christmas Stamper's Dozen tomorrow night, so if you would like to attend this class, contact me by the end of today and let me know.


Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!


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Friday, September 25, 2015

Vintage Autumn for As You See It Challenges


I'm so happy that it is Friday again! This has been a crazy week! Actually, it's going to be a crazy autumn, because I am travelling every 2 weeks, visiting kids and grandkids, short vacations with friends, crops and other things. I am also taking up the reins of the Drama Ministry at our church so that means writing, directing, and organizing skits and plays for many different occasions at church. This is all wonderful and I'm not complaining, let me just say, but it means that my business is compressed into intense intervals when I'm home!

For today's project, I wanted to go for a fall theme so I got out my Vintage Leaves stamp set and I wanted to use the sentiment you see in this card from the Trust God stamp set as a reminder to keep it simple when I can! There are so many good reminders in this sentiment!

This is my take on As You See It Challenges #105:


Great sketch by Amanda! Get on over to As You See It Challenges this week and check out the other Design Team samples. We've added 4 new DT members and you're going to love their work!

While the sketch took care of the layout of this card, I still needed a colour palette and I found a nice autumn-themed combo on Pinterest:


Put it all together and this is what you get:

I hope you'll give this challenge a try this weekend and have some fun with it. I'm going to a Crop for the Cure on Sunday, so I will hopefully have gobs of samples and projects to share with you next week!
And speaking of Crop for the Cure, don't forget that Stampin' Up! is contributing to the fight to Stamp Out Breast Cancer with Paper Pumpkin. 




It is contributing a dollar for every current subscriber and an extra dollar for every new subscriber who signs up by Oct. 10, 2015!  Pop on over to Paper Pumpkin to get yourself a Creative Escape in a Box once a month, a great deal at only $24.95 which includes shipping, worth every penny and you can help Stampin' Up! stamp out Breast Cancer!






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