Cards In The Mail!

As I sit down to decide what MY swap will be, I realize I need to share the ones I've gotten with you! Let me know if you have any questions! I sure love getting these beautiful creations in the mail!

 

Paper Pumpkin Valentines!

January's Paper Pumpkin kit was a cute treat bag, perfectly designed for Valentines (but perfectly usable for any occasion!). In organizing the house, I had pulled out all of my Paper Pumpkin boxes once more, and realized I had a few options for my daughter's last year in grade school- which is the last year they exchange valentines with classmates. I showed her the options and she loved the newest kit, and that gave me pictures for a blog post! haha...

One of the nights she did the stamping and assembled the arrows...

 another night she put together the bags, added a few "Fave-Red Starbursts" to each, and was done!

Full disclosure: To make all 24, this kit definitely took more than 30 minutes. But unless you're doing it for a class, I don't know when you would need all 24 in one shot. For past treat kits I have put together a few at a time as needed.

Chase Your Dreams!

An unsettling-ly long time ago, haha, I went to Germany for five weeks, with a small exchange group at my school. The instant I saw the Chase Your Dreams stamp set in the Occasions Mini, I knew I had to have it! I actually am still in contact with the girl who stayed with my family, and then I stayed with her family. She just sent us a box of treats and a baby gift for Christmas! I also met one of my very best friends as part of this group. So for sure I could use the stamp set for them. But there are images for France, England, Australia and the United States too! And I know people who want to or have gone to visit each! :) I am excited to put this set to use.

I had an idea to watercolor the scenery around Neuschwanstein (the name of this castle). I don't love how it turned out, but here's attempt #1:

Then I tried a different angle... watercoloring around the castle!

And then I decided it really needed to be its own layer! Fussy cutting is not my favorite, but the castle really has to be white! So it was this, or masking.

But you know what? Experimenting is fun! It's been so long since I've really created- I didn't mind at all!

Supplies:
Stamps: Chase Your Dreams
Ink: Archival Basic Gray
Paper: Watercolor Paper, Dapper Denim card stock
Accessories: Dapper Denim Ruched Ribbon, Watercolor Pencils (temporarily unavailable), Aquapainter, Dimensionals

Blog Hop: Stepped Up Sale-A-Bration Birthday!

And it's February now! A new month always means a new Blog Hop and today is no different!

Today I kept it pretty simple... the last time I created something fresh was last month's blog hop, so I'm a little rusty! I also have a teething baby, which definitely limits my time.

So first up, a very basic, but still sweet, birthday card. I used one of the FREE Sale-A-Bration stamp sets, which you can earn until March 31! This set is designed to go with the cute t-shirt stamp set found in the Occasions Mini, but I thought the set would work well on its own! And I think this little birthday sentiment is pretty funny.

Then I stepped it up! I used a technique I learned at the first Stampin' Up! workshop I ever attended- to stamp the greeting repeatedly to create a quick and simple background.

Finally I added a touch of Wink of Stella to the frosting! This is super hard to photograph, but I think you can see it in the photo below...

And there's a nice little birthday card, that I am sticking in the mail this week! ha! 

Supplies:

Stamps: Designer Tee

Ink: Sweet Sugarplum, Early Espresso

Paper: Sweet Sugarplum, Whisper White card stocks

Accessories: Succulent Garden Ribbon, Wink of Stella, Glue Dots

Now click below to hop on to Cheryl's blog and see what she has to share. Then hop on thru, and leave us your thoughts! And happy February!!

Cards In The Mail!

The other day I pulled out a bunch of stamp stuff hoping to create... My baby has three teeth competing to be the first to break thru, so stamping just did not happen. Naptimes were very short. However, in looking for supplies, I discovered three Cards in the Mail swaps that I had not yet photographed. So even tho a couple of these come from the now-retired Holiday mini, I tend to think posts like this are full of inspiration, so here you go!

Just For You!

We built our new house in a brand new neighborhood, and it is filling up fast! Two new neighbors have moved in since Christmas, but our house has been cycling through a cold... We're finally over that (knock on wood!) so I made a batch of cookies and we took them to welcome the new families. We wanted to include something with our names so of course I made a card! However, my time is extremely limited with a teething baby (ha!). I actually have two retired house sets that would have been perfect, but they are in my mom's craft room...

Paper Pumpkin to the rescue once again!! I did have to spend some time going thru the various kits finding something that would work, but I'm pretty sure this never-touched-kit from last March was perfect. I didn't do the whole gift card project, just a simple card:

...with more lousy lighting, but it was 7pm and we were hurrying to deliver them! haha!

I don't think it took me a whole ten minutes to make both cards, and they are cute and sweet and just the thing to add to a plate of cookies! 

Best of all, the refill kit is still available for subscribers HERE, if you missed out or need more! And as a side note, if you signed up to get Paper Pumpkin right now, prepaying for three months or more earns you a FREE Sale-A-Bration set too!  

2016 Calendar Pages

oookay, lets get this wrapped up already! Here are the rest of the calendar pages I haven't shared! Some pages obviously took more time than others, but I like the pictures! It's a good goal to work on next years calendars each month, but at this moment I'm not committing to anything, haha...!

September

October

November

September

November

December

Paper Pumpkin Thank Yous

Hello again! Yesterday we had every kind of weather: wind, thunder, lightning, hail, snow, rain...repeats... About midnight, our neighborhood was completely iced over. By the time we needed to go this morning, snow was dumping. This is the picture I took this morning, while parked on the side of the road, waiting for my husband to bring me the 4WD while he took the all-wheel-drive minivan for me.

Here it is, well after 6 and it finally stopped snowing... just in time for a thick fog to cover the world! And so! You'll have to forgive my really bad photos. I've taken then in a variety of places hoping for decent lighting but that is not to be. But I promised ink and paper stamping today, so that's what I'm {finally} sharing! And I'll take better photos another day.
ETA: better photos. *grin

Once again, I am in need of thank you cards. This is a good problem tho! I pulled out a bunch of Paper Pumpkin kits and realized I never even opened my November kit! That isn't really too surprising...wedding, Thanksgiving and moving...it was a jam packed, crazy month! But it was a kit for 8 thank yous, which would make a good dent in my list! So I got to work!

First, I punched out all the leaves. I left this piece stacked and pushed them all out together!

Then I did all the stamping. All the squares and all the greeting pieces.
Look- three sizes of sequins! How cute is that??

This is an unfinished card, but it's a good view of how the shaker part looks.

And here are some of them, finished!

This one is not a shaker card, I just glued the leaf piece directly on the card base. It looks pretty too!

I think at this point in my life I can give a fair assessment of one of the key points of the Paper Pumpkin kits, and that is the fact that you should be able to complete the kit in a short amount of time. So, on this day, with a kit of shaker cards, I got all the stamping and punching done, and three of the eight cards in less than an hour. And when I find myself with another free hour I will be able to easily assemble the other five!

*Also, if you are a Paper Pumpkin subscriber, you can still get this entire kit HERE or just the refill of this kit HERE. (Refill kits do not include stamps or inks)

July & August Pages!

Yes, I really did plan to blog more this year, but then I got sick. My family was all wiped out with this horrible cold before Christmas, and I was sickish one day, which was clearly not enough, haha. So I made up for it the whole week after New Years.

Today we'll check out some calendar pages, but you should know I have stacks of Paper Pumpkin boxes surrounding me right now...!!!

First, July. You've seen this page already, because the January page from the other calendar uses the same sketch.

And here is the second July page.

And then, just so we're not dragging the calendar out too far, here are the August pages.

I just noticed that apparently hot yellow shades say "August" to me, haha!

Thanks for stopping in, and come back tomorrow for some paper stamping! 

Blog Hop: Step it Up Occasions Sneak Peek!

Happy New Year to you!! The first of the month always means a new Blog Hop and I'm back to play this time!
With it being a new year, I'm also looking forward to some new goals, with both my business and my crafting. But for today, we'll stick with the blog hop!

On Wednesday January 4th, Stampin' Up! will launch their new Occasions Mini and! their new Sale-A-Bration Mini! Demonstrators get to pre-order from these and I am featuring new products that will be in the Occasions Mini!

First up, I have a basic card. All the stamp images come from one new, adorable set.

Supplies:

Stamps: Moon Baby

Ink: Basic Gray, Bermuda Bay

Paper: Whisper White, Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight

Accessories: Watercolor Pencils, Aquapainter, Succulent Garden Ribbon, stapler

I stepped it up by adding a mat to the focal image, and a bit of Wink of Stella to the umbrella!

Supplies:

Stamps: Moon Baby

Ink: Basic Gray, Bermuda Bay

Paper: Whisper White, Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight

Accessories: Wink of Stella, Watercolor Pencils, Aquapainter, Succulent Garden Ribbon, stapler

Now you can hop on over to Cheryl's blog and see what she's created to share with you today! 

Or, you can stick around for a quick tip...
I haven't had a chance to watch any of the new product videos Stampin' Up! makes available. In fact, between moving and everything else going on in my life, I almost missed the pre-order for these two mini's entirely! Consequently, I got to learn something "the hard way" and I'm sharing that with you!
First, I stamped the image on regular Whisper White card stock, and on Watercolor Paper. I used the Memento black ink, which we sold specifically for an old and retired kind of watercolor look, the Blendabilities. You can see the results below...

That poor muddy baby....sheesh!
So I tried using the newest "watercolor-able" ink, the Archival Basic Gray ink pad, on the same two kinds of paper. That turned out much nicer!

I have more Whisper White so I went with that for my final project. And I gave up on coloring the hair... maybe my baby is too plain but I think it turned out pretty cute!

That's all for me today. I have enjoyed the wild journey 2016 was, and I look forward to whatever 2017 holds. I hope you do too! Happy New Year!