Valentines for Ronald

Last night I met up with some other demonstrators and we facilitated stamping for some families at the Ronald McDonald House. SU! is offering a few a la carte stamps in its Occasions Mini Catalog, and "Be Mine, Valentine" is one of them. While I have other ambitions for this stamp (don't those hearts remind you of Conversation Hearts?), I like that it stamps up nicely in a single color too. That makes it easier for the stampers at RMH too.

I saw the card that inspired this one on Pinterest. Oh.My.Word. Don't get me started! I could get LOST on that site for HOURS, if I really knew how to use it! Anyway, a shout out of thanks to Lisa A. for posting this there!

While she only used her 3-Heart Punch 2 times, I used it 4! By rotating the position of the punch and what side of the card base you punch it through, you can get the heart patterns to mirror each other. It sounds much harder than it is. I offered several different kinds of Designer Series Paper scraps as backings for the heart holes, and they came out very cute! This is an excellent way to use up retired patterned paper.

I'll be back later this week--or maybe tomorrow--with another card for Valentine's Day using a new product from the Occasions Mini--Heart Framelits! Stay tuned!

A Tisket, A Tasket

It's time for an Easter basket! When I saw Carrie Gaskin's card where she explained how she took her oval punches and made an Easter basket, I looked at my Petal Cone die and the scallop edged half circle that is created, and then I pondered the half circle flaps on the cone, I thought I had the makings of my own Easter basket WITHOUT the punches!

Here's how I made this sweet basket. I used Sahara Sand card stock and ran my Petal Cone die through the Big Shot. This gave me 2 scallop edge half circles and 2 half circles that I could cut away from the cone shape. I used Carrie's tip and created a basket weave look using my Sahara Sand marker and a ruler. Then I trimmed the scallop edge horizontally and removed 2 of the scallops. I punched holes in the scallops using my Mat Pack. To make the handle, I cut a rim off the second half circle and adhered it to the back side of the basket base.

Then it came time to make the eggs. I wanted not a round shape, but an oval, because eggs are more ovals than balls. I grabbed my 3-Heart Punch and punched out hearts in almost every color from the Brights collection, using the fattest of the hearts. Then I cut the heart in half and adhered half of it to the basket, arranging them so that they looked like they were laying against each other. Some Daffodil Delight 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, and the basket was complete!

I used a frame left over from cutting out a Top Note with the Big Shot and created some grass using a strip of Certainly Celery and my Paper Snips. The sentiment is from a retired set, Well Scripted. This was stamped in Pacific Point so that every color in the Brights collection would be used!

If you'd like to make this Easter basket card, join me April 16 at my monthly Stamp Camp at my house! Just leave a comment to RSVP or to inquire about details.

Just in Time for Valentine's Day!

I know you're probably thinking, "Don't rush it, girl! I still have 2 weeks until Valentine's Day." Yes, you do, but if you're like me, you tend to wait until the last minute, and you don't communicate everything you want to because you haven't allowed enough time to let your thoughts about your loved one really solidify.

Well, this quick card will get the loving thoughts flowing! Inspired by Andrea Walford, fellow SU! demonstrator, this card is whimsical and perfect for either an adult or child recipient.

It starts with a base of Ruby Red card stock. After all the Real Red I used on the McDonald's Fry Box cards, I was ready for a different shade of the hue! I also chose to use the 3-heart stamp from Love You Much as the background on the Kraft card stock. I stamped it in White Craft Ink and embossed it with White Embossing Powder.

I liked what Andrea had done to make the hugs and kisses scalloped circle the focal point of her design, but I changed it up a bit by the placement of my ribbon. This is still some of my favorite ribbon ever--3/4" wide double-stitched Chocolate Chip--and you can see that it doesn't take much to really make a statement!

The scalloped circle is stamped in Chocolate Chip and colored with a Stampin' Write! RR Marker. I also stamped the center heart a second time and popped it up on dimensionals for some added visual interest. I punched out a 2" (non-SU!) scalloped circle in Chocolate Chip to mat the focal image with for more impact. The accompanying accentuating hearts are punched from Ruby Red with the 3-Heart Punch that coordinates with this set.

This is one of 5 cards being offered at my February Stamp-A-Stack, Feb. 5, 6, and 7. Contact me for details if you'd like to attend!

Bee Happy

A friend of mine is a preschool teacher and the theme of her classroom is bees. Long before I knew her, though, I did an exchange swap with a blogger friend for some images of these happy bees. Honestly, I can't remember who manufactures them, and I'm not supposed to mention any competing companies to SU! here anyway.

But they're too cute not to profile at all! I just love how cheery they are, and when I came across them again as I was doing a major stamp room clean sweep, I decided to not hoard them any longer, but give them to my friend.

I chose a 4.25" square size, since I didn't want to try to come up with too much to put around the main images, which were only 2" square. I used Crushed Curry and Soft Suede from this year's InColor collection because they reminded me of bees. It was so relaxing to color these little guys with my IC Markers. I added Ruby Red as an accent.

I played around with the layout for awhile, but knew I wanted to do something that would mimic bees' stripes. The striping is more obvious on the cards at the top of this post than in these last two (double click on the top one to see in larger size), and I incorporated some Whisper White on those so that I could place some sentiments from Absolutely Fabulous. This set--sorry, it's retired--is a great font(thank you Kristina Werner for lending your amazing handwriting to a set!) and a perfect size for these smaller cards.

Since I used hearts on all of them, I had a strip of RR that had hearts punched out of it. It became a background border and I am tickled by the look! I left these two with the SS base blank. It's good to have a stash of non-specific cards in hand that you can customize when the need arises.

It's snowing right now here. It's a quiet, soft snowfall--no wind to speak of, so the flakes are just gently drifting toward the ground. It's beautiful to watch, and school was let out early in anticipation of this event. It's supposed to worsen as the evening progresses, so we'll see what that means for me tomorrow morning as I attempt to get to work by 5am! Right now, though, it's a rare site to behold here in GA.