Stamp Club Rewards

I am really thankful for my faithful Stamp Club members! They come at least once a month to our Technique Night classes and many of them come more often than that. They have committed to spending $20 minimum a month for 12 months and then each of them has an assigned month where they will win the Host Stampin' Rewards for the total of everyone's orders! We have become good friends and I look forward to Stamp Club night each month.

This month is our Christmas Party and, along with stamping some great projects, we also have games, prizes and more food than usual. It's a lot of fun! Each year I make my stamp club members and my down line little tokens of my appreciation for their loyalty and support. It usually involves candy and some jewelry fashioned from whatever the Christmas embellishments are for that year. This year I continued with the black, white and gold theme and came up with these designs.

My downline members get earrings and a necklace, my stamp club members get the earrings and ordinary attenders get the little reindeer paperclip along with all the candy to fill the Fry Box.

These were made with the Winter Wonderland Embellishments and the Fry Box Bigz L die and decorations made from the retired Snow Flurry Bigz die, which I am glad I kept!

The white snowflake is die cut from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper while the black on is from Basic Black card stock like the fry box (which is SOOO easy to put together - two strips of fast fuse is all it takes!) I like the Bigz dies because you can cut two or three layers at once - two is better - and for a project where I need to make multiple items, it saves a lot of time.

The gold label is a two inch strip of Gold Foil Sheet punched at both ends with the Scallop Tag Topper Punch.

I bought the jewelry findings at a local craft store and it was simple to put together the earrings and necklace ensemble. I found that because the embellishments are a little smaller this year, I needed to use the tip of my closed Paper Snips to clear and widen one of the holes on the embellishment so it would be wide enough to fit the wires or split rings through.

My 1/16" inch Circle Punch came in handy to make the little holes through which to attach the earrings to the panel.

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!


Product List

Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper [135315]	Gold Foil Sheets [132622]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]	1/16" Circle Handheld Punch [134363]	Snow Flurry Bigz Die [127813]
Big Shot [113439]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Winter Wonderland Embellishments [139621]

Lola the Brave

This is a very special card. Our As You See It Challenge this week is dedicated to a very brave girl! Our Design Team Member, Tara Angus, is Lola's auntie and has been updating us for a long time now on Lola's epic battle with Childhood Cancer. She is fighting it for the THIRD time now and she is only 9 years old. Currently she is struggling to recover after a bone marrow transplant, miraculous in the fact that a donor was found. She is very ill, but is starting to show signs of engraftment of the transplant cells, another answer to prayer.

Because she is so ill right now we wanted to do something to cheer her on. She is not able to receive actual cards because of the chance of infection, but we wanted to each create a card for Lola, with her favourite things: pink, unicorns and fairies, plus some gold for Childhood Cancer Awareness. Her mom will show Lola all the cards created for her on line, and you can participate in this challenge as well for Lola! If you want to read about her long battle, go to Team Lola, her facebook page. Then make a card for the challenge and post it on our challenge site. Lola will get to see all the cards made for her. Remember:  pink, gold, unicorns and fairies!

• Now, Stampin' Up! does not have any unicorn or fairy stamps, so I had to resort to digital stamps that I downloaded.
• Just before I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, my hubby bought me a few Copic markers. Without any alcohol markers to colour this in, now that Blendabilities are gone, I found them again and used the few I had to add some pink to this image. I only had a peach and a lilac so I had to use some Stampin' Write Markers as well, but it all turned out well.
• I actually cut off the fairy's wings from the image and used my Butterfly Thinlets to cut a wing out of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer paper, then I coloured it with a Blushing Bride Stampin' Write Marker and added it.
• The letters are die cut from Gold Glimmer Paper using the Little Letters Thinlits. I wanted to spell out Lola the Brave, but the layout wouldn't let that happen so I had to settle for this.
• The Gold 1/8" ribbon forms the ribbon symbol for Childhood Cancer Awareness, one that needs to have a whole lot more exposure to boost funds raised so that kids like Lola won't have to suffer any more.

No products listed today, this is just a tribute post to an incredibly brave young lady! I hope you will join with me in praying for Lola and her family and in participating in this week's As You See It Challenge, to make a card to encourage Lola in her recovery and spread awareness of Childhood Cancer. Thank you for helping!

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!

Product List

Lots Of Joy Wood-Mount Stamp Set [138810]	Lots Of Joy Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139468]	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper [135315]	Season Of Cheer Designer Series Paper [139590]	Old Olive 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100702]
Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad [133645]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]

Beautiful Wings with the Curvy Keepsake Box

Today I have a couple of projects to share with you for an up-coming Mom and Me Class this Saturday. The moms and kids will work together to make a very fancy Curvy Keepsake Box covered in butterflies. Some are from the Beautiful Wings Embosslit that is retiring this year after gracing the pages of Stampin' Up! Catalogues for ever! The big butterfly on top is from the Butterfly Thinlit dies! There is another Top Secret project that I can't share yet because the kids will be making for their moms for Mother's Day while the moms work on this project:

This project was cased from Diane Ouellette, who in turn cased it from Connie Babbert. Thanks for your inspiration, ladies! You can see a butterfly theme happening! Let's take a closer look at the Butterfly Box:

• It has been awhile since I last played with the Curvy Keepsake Box, but I wanted a 3D project for the kids to enjoy. It would be great for candies or snacks, but also for keeping small treasures in.
• The colours I used were Melon Mambo, Basic Gray and Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper. I think they suit each other quite well in a dramatic way. I used the Butterfly Thinlits to die cut the butterfly out of the Glimmer Paper. I tried using the Dryer Sheet Technique to get all the little bits out of the butterfly wings, but due to the type of paper, it didn't work as well as it usually does. Oh, well, poking out all those little pieces will be a great job for the kids to do! 
• The Basic Gray cardstock really shows up the embossed design from the Beautiful Wings Embosslits well. As I mentioned they are retiring and are on sale for 50% off!

• On the sides, the labels are made using the Daydream Medallions Stamp Set, also on the Retiring List. The design was stamped in VersaMark Ink on the the Basic Gray cardstock and heat embossed using Iridescent Ice Stampin' Emboss Powder. Usually, it's hard to tell when the Iridescent Ice powder is heat set on White or Vanilla. But it turned dark on the Basic Gray and it was so easy to tell when it was set. Rather dramatic actually! I die cut the backing with the Floral Frames framelits.
• The center of the frames was stamped with an image from the Hello There Stamp set which is a retiring Hostess Set from the Annual Catalogue. I stamped it in Melon Mambo Ink and punched it out with the 1 1/4" Circle punch. It created a tiny border of white around the solid Melon Mambo which helped it stand out on the Basic Gray. I love how that worked out.
• As you can see the butterfly die cut on top was snipped in half, with each half mounted on one side or the other of the little handle once the box is closed. It doesn't interfere, however, with the box opening and closing.

If you have kidlets between the ages of 5 and 12 and live in the area, please let me know if you'd like to attend this event this coming Saturday from 1 pm to 2:30 pm.

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 Stampin' Up! products used to make this card today!

Product List

*Daydream Medallions Wood Stamp Set [131976]	*Daydream Medallions Clear Stamp Set [126467]	*Hello There Clear-Mount Stamp Set [133922]	*Hello There Wood-Mount Stamp Set [133919]	Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper [135315]
Melon Mambo 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [115320]	Basic Gray 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121044]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Versamark Pad [102283]	Melon Mambo Classic Stampin' Pad [126948]
Iridescent Ice Stampin' Emboss Powder [101930]	Embossing Buddy [103083]	Heat Tool [129053]	**Beautiful Wings Embosslits Die [118138]	Butterflies Thinlits Dies [137360]
Floral Frames Framelits Die [127012]	1-1/4" Circle Punch [119861]	Fuse Fast Adhesive [129026]	Glue Dots [103683]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]

*Retiring June 2

**Retiring June 2 and on sale for 50% off.