Hip to be Square!

I struggle coming up with creative titles for my posts! But this card has lots of little squares and I grew up in the 80s, which was synonymous with Huey Lewis and the News, for me at least. It's how my mind works.

This card was really inspired not by Huey, but by Mary Fish. I chose this card's color scheme to give some time in the spotlight to a few colors that are retiring at the end of next month: Really Rust and Sage Shadow.

The retiring colors will be available until June 30, or while supplies last. We demonstrators were informed last week that some card stock has already begun to be depleted, so textured card stock in the same color is being substituted until it runs out too. The reinkers will be restocked until May 30, and then once the stock is depleted, they will not be replenished.

I stamped images from these sets, just pulling out what I liked and what I thought went well together. All were stamped in Chocolate Chip classic ink, which is being moved from the Earth Elements family (which is being renamed the Regals Collection), into the Neutrals Collection.

These 1.25" squares were mounted on the Really Rust card stock, and accented with Sage Shadow .25" grosgrain ribbon, and a butterfly stamped in SS and mounted on top of the same image, creating a shadow of sorts.

Happy Birthday in BLUE

My dear friend and fellow blogger Lydia of Understand Blue is celebrating life today, and, to overstate the OBVIOUS, she LOVES blue. So, of course, her card had to be in shades of blue. I chose Pacific Point from last year's InColor collection because I know it's her most favoritest blue ever. I opted for a Flip Flop card, which does this seemingly magical "flip" when you open it. I"m not going to go into detail about how I made it; there's a great tutorial on SCS that I've created a link to. It includes step-by-step pics. Check it out.

Once I had the color scheme and the layout design chosen, I began hunting around for an appropriate stamp set. Along the way, I found these Eastern Blooms rub-ons, and the rest almost happened on its own! The center of the flip flop card has a double mat of Night of Navy and Bashful Blue--the more blue the merrier!--and the images are stamped in those two colors and PP. I used 2 additional sets, both retired Hostess sets Best Yet and Live Like You Mean It, to create my message for my favorite Texan.

Lydia is one of the most generous crafters I know, and she is among the wittiest too! If you don't subscribe to her blog, you should. Her approach to cardmaking is unique, and I always enjoy getting a slice of life along with the card (and cat) pictures. Girlfriend, I hope your day is fantabulous! You're the best and just getting better! Wish I was there to eat sushi at Uchi with you. Thanks for teaching me to embrace life.

Hostage Freed!

I had 2 cards to show you yesterday, but the camera was being held hostage by the Chevy Silverado's center console and couldn't be liberated until this morning! Thankfully it is fully charged, so without further ado, here are the cards you've been waiting patiently for.

This first one is a CASE of Jessie, the Featured Stamper of the week over at SCS. Here's her gallery. This is the card I chose to emulate. It's actually one she made for a Dare to Get Dirty challenge using a layout by Jenn Balcer! See--what comes around goes around in this beautiful community of stampers, so don't be afraid to Copy And Share Everything someone else has done! Just try to give credit where credit is due.

I used the new InColor Pink Pirouette as my base, paired with Chocolate Chip. This combination was one that, when it first became popular years ago, I just didn't understand. It has grown on me so much that I like it now, but initially I was not convinced! The branch is from Eastern Blooms, and I inked it entirely in PP, then used a blender pen to REMOVE the PP from the branches and inked them with my CC SU! Stampin' Write marker. I tried twice to get it just perfect, but I still managed to get a little on a few of the blooms. Oh well...I'm not going to make myself crazy over it.

The scallop edge punch helped create the detail at the bottom of the PP layer, and I used my 1/8" hole in my Cropadile to make the holes. I wanted SU!'s 5/8" wide CC grosgrain for the ribbon, but don't have enough for all the SAS gals coming on Saturday, so had to go with plan B.

This second card was inspired by one of the samples I saw in the new catalog! That book is CHOCK FULL of great color combinations and layouts to give anyone needing inspiration fuel! I tweaked the combo a little and went with Barely Banana as the base instead of Very Vanilla. The other colors are Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, and Not Quite Navy. The layout is one I saw somewhere, either on a blog or on SCS. To paraphrase the late sports broadcaster Jim MacKay, I span the WWW to bring you a constant variety of stamping! (The Olympics just aren't quite the same without him...)

The squares are 1 3/4" and stamped in the aforementioned colors with the large hibiscus (?) bloom from Eastern Blooms. The tailored white bow made with SU!'s 1/4" grosgrain is another technique I'll be teaching the SAS gals this weekend, and it makes quite a nice statement on this card. Here's a little hint: it's all held together with glue dots!

The bottom of this card is very naked. It's waiting for a new sentiment stamp set that is arriving tomorrow. We have a saying in my immediate family about someone who is waiting impatiently when we're late. We say, "So and So's probably 'standing on her left ear.'" Don't ask me what it means, but it makes sense to us! Well, that's how I feel about my order from SU! It can't arrive fast enough, and I can't make the 2 final cards for Saturday's event until it does.

So if you see me achieve the aforementioned feat, would someone call Bob Costas at NBC Sports? Perhaps it could be an exhibition Olympic event in 2012!

Eastern Blooms Gift Bag

Imagine finding THIS on your front porch! Wouldn't you feel special? This is another of the projects we were given to make at convention using new products. I didn't want another project featuring Inspired by Nature, however, so I decided to let my own creative juices flow with Eastern Blooms.

The main stamp in this set is this flowering branch, and I thought it paired very nicely with the strip of newly patterned Pattern Prints Designer Paper which comes in over 10 colors. Sort of has an Asian feel, doesn't it? That's what I felt, so I used the branch, my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, and Whisper White Craft Ink and set about creating this pattern on Tangerine Tango. You saw it used earlier this week as an ink; here is the card stock in bold review! The only other tool I needed was a heat gun to set the craft ink so that it wouldn't smear. The rest was just relaxing play, figuring out how I wanted the branches to flow across the paper.


The ribbon is SU!'s new 7/8" So Saffron poly twill. It's beautiful to work with! I just used Sticky Strip at two points on the back of the TT card stock to attach a long piece across the DP, then created the bow. This is a bow that anyone can "tie" because there's no tying! I'll show you how at the open house or our first SAS.

Gotta go make the coffee! Happy Saturday--do some stamping!