Reason for the Season for As You See It Challenges

Happy Friday to you all! I'm here in my youngest daughter's home, having a great visit with her and her family! My little grandsons are keeping me busy, but the days are full of laughter and fun!

Of course, Friday means another As You See It Challenge! Today is Challenge #106 and it is a sketch:

Great work, Amanda! They just keep on getting better all the time. Give this one a try!

For my version, I got out the new Reason for the Season stamp set, which has a 4 step stamp sequence in it for the poinsettia. I also used some new Designer Series Paper - Season of Cheer!

• Look at the richness of that Designer Series paper! The Season of Cheer collection reminds me so much of my Christmases as a child with the hand-painted images and the rich reds and greens and light blues.
• The Holidays Fancy Foil Designer Vellum is quite easy to work with and really complements the paper. The foiled areas are perfect for adding the adhesive to without having it show on the outside, always the tricky part about working with vellum.
• I love how Stampin' Up! has added little arrow indicators on the stamps to help you line up the images for the 4 step stamping.
• The sentiment is also from the Reason for the Season stamp set and look at that font! Gorgeous!

That's a wrap for this week! Have a great weekend! We'll see you Monday with a design using the adorable Snow Place stamp set images!

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

Reason For The Season Photopolymer Stamp Set [139730]	Reason For The Season Photopolymer Bundle [140847]	Season Of Cheer Designer Series Paper [139590]	Holidays Fancy Foil Designer Vellum [139597]	Red Foil Sheets [139607]
Mossy Meadow 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [133676]	Cherry Cobbler 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [119685]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Soft Sky 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131203]	Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin' Pad [126966]
Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad [133645]	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad [131173]	Pearl Basic Jewels Embellishments [119247]	Real Red & Garden Green 1/8" (3.2 Mm) Striped Ribbon [139615]	Lots Of Labels Framelits Dies [138281]
Big Shot [113439]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]	Glue Dots [103683]

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]

Your Presents and A Little Something New

We came back from Inspire Create Share 2015 with some loot! Most of it was Christmas and fall stuff, but Stampin' Up! has really made an effort this year to make their seasonal stamp sets and Designer Series Paper more versatile so that it can be used for other occasions and give you a little more bang for your buck. Today I am showcasing 3 new products, all seasonal, but showing you how they can be used all year long. The two stamp sets used here are Your Presents*and A Little Something*. The Designer Series Paper is called Season of Cheer* and features hand painted Christmas designs along with more generic water-coloured patterns.

• The stamp set, Your Presents*, is designed to be used with the "kissing technique" and you can see two instances of that here. For the Lost Lagoon present, I inked up the present stamp with Lost Lagoon and stamped off once. I then pressed the clean tree patterned stamp onto it and it removed ink where the trees were to give this negative pattern.
• The Hello Honey plaid present was made the opposite way. The solid square stamp was clean and I inked up the striped stamp with Hello Honey ink and pressed onto the solid stamp to leave a striped pattern in one direction.  I inked up the stripes again in Hello Honey and pressed it onto the solid square in the opposite direction and stamped it on some Whisper White cardstock to give this plaid design.
• This technique was shown to us at Convention by Genevieve Ko, one of Canada's top demonstrators.
• I added some Venetian Crochet Trim, which I actually won as part of a Prize Patrol (shock of my life) to a piece of the Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper* which all attendees scored! It features water-coloured stripes in Soft Sky for this card.

Here are a few more of my favourite Swap Cards from Convention:

I love, love, love this card from Leslie Irvin of Albuquerque, NM using the You're Sublime stamp set. The color scheme is so striking as well as the animal prints and the silver paper piecing on that adorable trailer!

My up-up-line, Desirée Spenst, created this beauty using the Heartfelt Sympathy stamp set along with the Brick Wall Embossing Folder. I love the sponging and the touches of gold everywhere.

One of my Stampin' Up! friends from Michigan, Tara Angus, created this funky design! Don't you love the Cucumber Crush with gold accents! I also like that she took the woodgrain design from the In Colour Envelope paper and cut it so that it looks like zebra stripes! She used the stamp set, That Thing You Did!

Finally, this card by Cindy Castleman is epic! The stamp sets she used are Words of Truth and Gorgeous Grunge, but I can't believe how the whole card somehow looks like a toasted grilled cheese sandwich! So awesome!

So these are the kind of perks you get from attending Stampin' Up! events! I'd love to take you with me next year! Why not join my team?!

And it's Tuesday and time for new Weekly Deals! Remember during the month of July, there are more and better deals, but they are time sensitive! You have to act fast. Contact me if there is something you'd like to order, or go to my On-Line Store and order 24/7!

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

You're Sublime Wood-Mount Stamp Set [138732]	You're Sublime Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139309]	Heartfelt Sympathy Photopolymer Stamp Set [138764]	That Thing You Did Photopolymer Stamp Set [138730]	Words Of Truth Wood-Mount Stamp Set [138758]
Words Of Truth Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139397]	Gorgeous Grunge Wood Stamp Set [130514]	Gorgeous Grunge Clear Stamp Set [130517]	Lost Lagoon 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [133679]	Hello Honey 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [133678]
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Lost Lagoon Classic Stampin' Pad [133644]	Hello Honey Classic Stampin' Pad [133643]	Venetian Crochet Trim [134581]	Silver 1/8" Ribbon [132137]
Paper Snips Scissors [103579]	Fuse Fast Adhesive [129026]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]	Glue Dots [103683]

*Products from the new 2015 Holiday Catalogue, available for sale September 1, 2015: Your Presents Stamp Set*, A Little Something Stamp Set*, Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper*