Making A Difference

As long as I've been aware of Stampin' Up! they've done a variety of fundraisers to help make a difference in our world. Right now, you know the whole world is struggling on some level with COVID-19. So now Stampin' Up! has released this Share Sunshine PDF Download for your card making! 

This is a digital stamp set, with 15 pages of cute, sincere and funny phrases and images you can easily punch out or die cut or even just cut out and add to a card! You can also add them to your COVID-19 scrapbooks and journals-because you ARE living history right now and recording it is a very important idea!

It's only $12 for all of this, which you can reprint as many times as you want too! Since it's digital, you can purchase it by clicking HERE - no shipping cost or time!
*also please remember not to share the images, this is for personal use only.

100% of the proceeds will go toward The World Health Organization's COVID-Solidarity Response Fund and the United Way Worldwide COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund. That means I earn no commission off the purchase of these PDF's. Stampin' Up! is a global company, we're in 10 different countries now, so they chose to support these global organizations.

This is a simple way to make a difference financially to these two organizations AND make a difference by mailing out cards to those loved ones you can't be with at this time, with a perfectly appropriate note expressing how well you "get this" too! So purchase it now and get crafting!

One kit, many pages!

In searching for long retired product to work on my son's books with, I found this very old kit. I won it from a blog in 2009, so the DP and stickers on these pages are not Stampin' Up!, but accessories, like buttons, are. I've made him maybe 5 pages using this same kit already, and here are three more events, totaling four more pages using it!

First up, this page was for another virtual scrap night challenge HERE. This time the point was to use up stash, and I definitely have that!!
Challenge #3 -- #theTPisGone! Let's stop the hoarding and use our supplies! It's 9-1-1 ....
(9) Use at least (nine) items you've been hoarding/holding onto
(1) Use at least (one) square on your layout/page (it can be the photo or another item.
(1) Use at least (one) item over a year old

Supplies:
Paper: Very Vanilla, Bashful Blue (retired) card stock, 2009 scrap kit by Cosmo Cricket, I think called Snorkel?
Accessories: Stampin' up! button stash
Font: Curlz

This layout was just what I came up with for his fifteenth birthday party:

 Along with a close up of each page:

Supplies:
Stamps: Number of Years
Ink: Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango (retired)
Paper: Very Vanilla card stock, 2009 scrap kit by Cosmo Cricket, I think called Snorkel?
Accessories: Stickers from 2009 scrap kit by Cosmo Cricket, I think called Snorkel?
font Mario Kart DS

Finally (for now) I have this page of his field trip to the pool in 1st Grade! Ha!

Supplies:
Paper: Very Vanilla card stock, 2009 scrap kit by Cosmo Cricket, I think called Snorkel?
font Century Schoolbook

Dino Birthday!

Happy Monday to you! Week 7 begins here for us of this in-home school... But let's start today with a fun little birthday card for a cute little boy in my neighborhood!

For my card I used the Paper Players sketch, and the colors from Color Throwdown, AND used the die cut words so it qualifies for the TGIF Challenge! Here's your reminder that the dies are soon-to-be-retired! I need to start featuring those retiring items!

Supplies:
Stamps: Dino Days, Well Said
Ink: Granny Apple Green, Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight, Crumb Cake
Paper: Crumb Cake, Granny Apple Green, Whisper White card stock, Pacific Point
Accessories:Well Written Framelits (RETIRING), Big Shot

Anniversary CASE

My parents anniversary was this week, so I had to get a card out to them! I happened to see THIS beautiful card that I liked enough to recreate pretty closely, haha, so I went ahead and made that their anniversary card!

Supplies:
Stamps: Forever Lovely, To Have & To Hold (retired)
Ink: Flirty Flamingo, Granny Apple Green, Memento Black
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black card stocks
Accessories: Pearls, White Baker's Twine, Dimensionals

NYE 2020!

Well, we are five and half weeks in to not going to school. I already had a goal to get my son's scrapbooks "done" before he graduated. Then I realized that is 1000% totally unattainable. But with things going the way they are- school's out for the year....and graduation is still unannounced....and yearbook printing companies have furloughed their employees....and Prom was cancelled for sure....and his first and only play is cancelled....and all the things. Today I'm already emotional and I gotta say, it's really quite heartbreaking. So my new goal for now is to get the things from his senior year scrapped first, then see what else I can do. (of course that also depends on the pics I've already got printed off, haha.....)

So, for this page of his New Year's party, I used a challenge that was issued for a virtual scrap night since we're all quarantined. The challenge was:

G - Gold Accents
O - Oval -- use one on layout
A - Angles -- put something on an Angle or use (Tri)Angles
W - White Space
A - Arrows
Y - Yellow -- use the color Yellow

So, you can see most of the ways I used everything. I think I'm lacking on "white space" tho, ahem.... That's okay. I think the page feels like New Year's and is plenty bright and fun, haha. Oh, the oval? The journaling is spaced into an oval shape! But I did have to erase the names.

Supplies:
Stamps: Skinny Mini Alphabet (retired), Peachy Keen (retired)
Ink: Memento Black, Delicata Gold (retired)
Paper: Pineapple Punch & Basic Black card stocks, Merry Little Christmas DP (retired)
Accessories: Gold Thread, Metallic Sequins (retired), Pennant Punch (retired), Dimensionals, Glue Dots
and the font is "Throw My Hands Up In The Air"

And here's a close up of the gold embellishments:

The one thing I will say about all of this...I am NOT bored. I have sooo much to do! it's only a matter of focus + motivation. Along with time, because sure, we're home and have time, but I have three kids to entertain too, haha.... Keep them on task for school, come up with distractions and field trips, and keep them doing things that don't involve so much screen time...!

Scrappy Friday

What a week this has been. So today I got a little more scrapping done. Three more pages for my boy. Here's the first one of the day. I used a brand-new-to-me set from the main catalog, and some retired stamps. The brads are retired and the colors are all current. We won't even talk about how long it took to get this one done...lol.

Supplies:
Stamps: Check You Out, Number of Years (retired), ABC Alphabet Upper (retired), ABC Alphabet Lower (retired)
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Night of Navy, Seaside Spray, Crushed Curry
Paper: Very Vanilla & Cherry Cobbler

And here's a little closeup of these cute books. This was one of those sets I didn't really notice in the beginning but then I suddenly fell in love with it and had to have it!

And I hope you have a crafty weekend!

Fancy!

I have loved this camera stamp set since I saw it in the new catalog and I finally bought it!! There's a really neat sample in the catalog using pigment sprinkles, but I don't have that. I thought I'd try some watercolor droplets and see how that worked. I picked colors that I know I got as a marker/journal set when I turned 12, haha, but I didn't' do that on purpose! Then I heat embossed the camera and a few words in black, and stuck it in the mail!

Supplies:

Stamps: Capture The Good

Ink: Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, Gorgeous Grape, Versamark

Paper: Bermuda Bay, Basic Black & Whisper White card stocks

Accessories: Black embossing powder, Heat Tool

And here's how I made it:
I thought about using actual watercolor paper, but I couldn't find it and wasn't up to a long search, ha... So I used regular Whisper White card stock. I squeezed the closed ink pad to get a puddle of ink on the lid, and used the Aquapainter to pick it up and literally drop ink on to the paper. Then I let that dry.

 You can see there is some buckling because it isn't watercolor paper, but it worked alright.

And here's some of the shine from the embossing!

Have you tried anything new during this stay-at-home time? I hope you do!

Band Concerts

School has now been closed for over a month. Major events have already been missed. I don't know about your house, but I have a senior and this is hard. It's not terrible for my other kiddo- she doesn't particularly enjoy school so online school on her daily schedule is not the worst thing for her.

But here are some pages I've scrapped for my son and it's odd to think it was from this school year... It seems a lot longer ago than that.

First up, this simple page from the Homecoming Game last fall. One of the shots of the field was shared by the principal and the other two photos were shared by the band teacher. It was fun to get them printed and scrapped. I used a strip of the DP from the local scrapbook store that is specifically for my kids' school, and a sticker from the same place. That's all!

And this layout is equally simple of a Jazz band concert. The teacher holds it at a small, local theater which makes it really cool actually. I typed the journaling and used a strip of scrapbook store paper, and a strip of retired Stampin' Up! Christmas music paper, haha!

 And a close up, since I cannot get a decent picture of double pages for whatever reason.

I hope you get some creative time this week!

Birthday Weekend!

Happy Monday! How was your Easter weekend? Ours was much simpler than usual, but lovely anyway, with just the five of us.

This week/end we had FOUR birthdays in the family. That meant a lot of cards were mailed out, since we weren't able to visit anyone. I've been sending out a lot of cards lately, more than usual, trying to brighten people's days, especially people I know live alone and people who love to get out and be with people. And that meant my stash is getting depleted.
So! Paper Pumpkin to the rescue! I used a lot of supplies from an old kit I really did not like, and came up with my own variation to make myself like it better, haha!

Here's the original assembled idea:

 And the inside is either a stack of gifts or a tall, layered cake! which is fun...but a pain. And not fun for me to make.

So, I did this instead:

 Yep, I just sliced the pop-outs in half and glued them down like the mat of a card! So there! HA!

And on this day, this is how many cards I made and how I put them together, if you're looking for ideas, haha....
(click to make it bigger)

 And the insides are still plenty of fun!

And that finished off the card bases and envelopes from this kit! Yeay!

Digi Scrapping

Earlier this month I took my kids out for new portraits. My son was hoping for snow IN his picture, but we had no idea it was going to be as cold as it was! The air was 36*, there was a very strong wind, and then it started snowing on us! I did my youngest's pictures first so she could then relax in the cozy car with a movie, haha. And it was a good thing I did!
When I do my kids' portraits, I always take several dozen, and then I get stuck trying to pick one. My husband always tells me "you only need ONE good one" and I try to keep that in mind, haha. Well, when it comes to freezing little kids, I'm just glad I got ONE good one, haha! But a couple others were awfully cute too, even if they aren't quite wall-worthy, so I made a page for her. And it's kind of one of my favorites, maybe ever!

Supplies:
MDS. Colors: Rose Red, Always Artichoke & Very Vanilla

Grade 5

Here's a layout I got done for my son's books. Finally got the first day of 5th grade done, haha... It was time. I used very old DP, a very old stamp set and an old die.

Supplies:
Stamps: ABC Alphabet Upper-pencil (retired)

Ink: Memento Black, Poppy Parade marker

Paper: So Saffron & Poppy Parade card stock, Just Add Cake DP (long retired)

Accessories: Big Shot, Large Numbers Framelits Dies 

Of course a close up of each page...

The details...

When I went back thru my photo files to find the date on these pictures, I discovered I also took a snapshot of a paper his teacher had him fill out about himself. I used that for the side journaling! Hooray for actual information! 

And that one is done! 

March calendar page

So, I have been creating all month, I just haven't been blogging. For one thing, my computer keeps being used for school half the day, and by the time I get on  I have too many other things to do. So! Now that it's Spring Break, maybe I'll share a post or five...haha!

Lots of scrapbooking going on, so hooray for that. Plus I have pages I haven't posted that were done earlier in the year! I have cards too! But right now I want to share this one.

This was for THIS challenge, about overcoming challenges. Welllll.... I also had a picture of my siblings families during this time of social distancing and I decided to use some free downloaded pocket page journling cards to put together this page, which will be the March page in my family's calendar next year! HA!

I used three of the free download cards, and only the stitching is Stampin' Up! - from MDS. The stitching was to indicate an earthquake- surrounding the evidence that an earthquake shook my parents home. I also included a funny text/auto response that shows my phone doesn't know there's a pandemic, LOL. And finally I typed up a meme across the top that's been locally added to...
Anyone feel like life is being written by a 4th grader right now? "And there was this virus and everyone was so scared. And then the world ran out of toilet paper. Yeah and then there was no school for like a month. And then it snowed! And then there was a huge earthquake!"

We Create Blog Hop: Showers of Greetings

Today it is April! Has March been dragging for you? It sure has for my family... But a new month means a new blog hop, so here we are!

How are you holding up out there? Since the whole world is experiencing the weirdest time in our recent history, this month we wanted to remind you that sending cards is always kind of a big deal, and right now it really can make a huge difference to someone you love.

Today I'm hoping to brighten your day with some happy colors, a sweet image and some friendly daisy paper! I hadn't colored these two girls yet so I was excited to play with them now. I used the latest sketch from the Sketch Saturday blog for the layout. Also, I love this greeting. I'm not even certain who this card is for yet- but it is true!
"YOU are somebody's blessing!"
I don't always put a greeting on a card, but the greeting you choose to send can be pretty powerful. We have SO many fabulous sets full of any kind of greeting you could want!

Supplies:
Stamps: Beautiful Moments
Ink: Memento Black
Stampin' Blends: Dark & Light Daffodil Delight, Dark & Light Old Olive, Light Petal Pink, Bronze, Color Lifter
Paper: So Saffron & Whisper White card stocks, Perennial Essence DP 
Accessories: Metallic Pearls

I hope you are finding time to create. Stamping, coloring, playing with pretty colors... it definitely helps keep me a little more calm and a lot more sane through all of this. Maybe you could send some cards out in the mail too!
Now hop on over to Cheryl's blog and see what she's got for you today.

Then continue on to everyone's blog and let us know what you think. So many easy ways to brighten someone's day!