Wild About Flowers Thank You card

One of my favorite Stampin' Up blogs is JanB Handmade Cards. Jan is a Stampin' Up Demonstrator in the UK.  I also frequent Jan's You Tube channel quite a lot too! I get tons of inspiration from her. When I see her cards, I see my style of cardmaking. I can't quite find the word I'm looking for to describe her style except that it is uncluttered and not too busy. The stamps Jan tends to use a lot are those with flowers and today I have made a card that Jan made last week. Yes, I totally C.A.S.E.D her card!  I changed the positioning of the sentiments, that's the only 'selective editing' I did! The primary stamp set Jan used is Wild About Flowers, this includes three sets of flowers which are two-step stamping. The base of the card is Very Vanilla and I used the flourish stamp from First Sight for the background on the mat. These are beautiful stamps, there are tons of cards on Pinterest showcasing these sets. So, without further ado, here are three pictures of the card which include the inside and the envelope. If you would like to see Jan's card, please press here

Jar of Love Mother's Day card

Well, tomorrow is Mother's Day and yesterday I spent some quality time with my daughter's two youngest children, Jaden and Rorey! As 9 and 10 year olds go these days, they are the most fun loving, caring, beautiful children on this planet, states their Grandmother! As such, I was thinking how much I appreciate my daughter for raising my grandchildren to be the way they are. So, because making a card shows how much you care or love someone, I made her a card from me for Mother's Day! Her favorite color is Bermuda Bay, I used that for the card base and the small flowers and hearts. Daffodil Delight was used for the main part of the large flower (it's a two step stamp) and for the center I used Crushed Curry.

I used the 'Jar of Love' stamp set, which, by the way, will continue to be in the 2017-2018 Stampin Up catalog, yipee! It's a beautiful set with 37 stamps in total! Along with the stamps, there are framelits. The set of 'Everyday Jar of Love' framelits contains 17 dies. Enormous value for your dollar I would say! I used both on this card. One of the dies is the small strip of hearts at the bottom of the white mat, first I used the die to cut out the hearts on the white mat, then I repeated the cut on some Bermuda Bay glitter paper (which sadly has retired). I then glued those tiny blue hearts into the spaces left in the white mat! I embossed the rim of the jar using copper embossing powder, a new item in the catalog this year, and then popped it up on the jar using dimensionals. All the stamped images and die cuts are from the Jar of Love sets with the exception of the sentiment. I wanted to hang a label from the jar so I used Teeny Tiny Wishes as that stamp set is just like it states "Teeny Tiny" and this worked really well on the jar. I put dimensionals onto the jar and placed it on half of a white doily. To finish off, I die cut the label with the Stitched Shapes Framelits and tied it to the jar with Bermuda Bay bakers twine. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I will celebrate Mother's Day with my daughter, her husband and my grandchildren!  If you would like a 2017-2018 catalog, please email with your name and address and I will gladly send one out to you. If you have shopped with me in the past 6 months, you will automatically receive one. Similarly, if you would like to purchase any of the items listed here, please do not hesitate to either contact me by email or shop online from my store, both of which are listed at the top right of this blog. I wish all of you out there in blogland a very happy Mother's Day!

Stampin’ Up! The 2017 Retiring List Has Posted!!!

Stampin' Up is getting ready to retire products from both the 2016-2017 Annual and 2017 Occasions catalogs. They don’t want you to miss out! Select retiring products have discounts of up to 50% off.

Be sure to place orders before the sun sets on these items May 31!

• Promotion dates: April 10–May 31, 2017 beginning at 1:00 PM (MT).
• No minimum purchase required.
• Retiring items may be added to all orders.
• Retiring items are eligible for Stampin’ Rewards with qualifying orders.
• All retiring items will be discontinued after May 31.
• All retiring accessories and tools are available while supplies last.
• Due to high demand for retiring stamp sets, Stampin’ Up! will keep producing retiring stamp sets until May 22.  After May 22, all retiring stamp sets will be available while supplies last.
• Order Deadlines:  May 31, 2017, by 11:55 PM (MT)

You can see the Retiring List right here. There are some great deals on some of Stampin Up's fantastic products so go take a look-see, get a list together and happy shopping!  Here’s a quick link  to the Retiring Products in my Online Store.

Mark's 50th birthdayI

I haven't posted in a really really long time! I went to Minnesota in September of 2016 and when I got back it was one thing after the other! First Halloween, then Thanksgiving and then, of course, Christmas! And, like every other year, I got sick! It seems that every year, around the holidays, I come down with something! This year wasn't any different! I ended up in hospital the week of Valentines! Still not sure what's going on with that, so I won't bore you with the details! Onto something pleasant, my eldest son will be turning 50 on March 6th! I keep telling him he's catching up with me! I made this card from black and gold paper (gold shimmer) and used the Number of Years bundle, this includes the stamps and the dies! I love this set and have used it a number (no pun intended!) of times for birthdays and anniversaries. It was quite simple to make, I die cut the 50 from the center of the black mat which was then laid on top of the gold mat. I stamped and die cut the banners for the 'birthday' and 'TH' sentiments and then glued the two mats to the black card base. I then 'dressed' it up a little bit with the gold accents. Didn't want to do too much as it is, after all, a masculine card! I hope you like it, it's simple but very nice I think! If you would like to purchase any of the products I have used please visit my online site, there is a link to it at the top right of this post!

Reason for the Season triple stamping

A while back I saw a demonstration on triple stamping so I thought I'd give it a go! Of course, I had a Christmas card in mind and I wanted to use the Reason for the Season stamp set that I got towards the end of 2015. It also comes with a Festive Flower Builder punch that you can use to punch out the poinsettia in any color you like. I was concentrating more on that, I made a wreath which I will post a little later, but I must say the punch makes the most beautiful flowers! But today, I finally got the stamp set out, and here is my card

On the smallest (the top) whisper white layer, after creating a mask for the sentiment, I embossed it in Gold. After layering the three white mats (using a little bit of snail on the back of each of the top two pieces to hold them together), I covered the sentiment with the mask and embossed the poinsettias using gold embossing powder. The stamp set is a triple stamp, so I stamped the second part of the flower (the petals) in Cherry Cobbler and the leaves in Garden Green. Now, when you've finished stamping, there are white spaces left within the flower and petals themselves and I didn't particularly like the look. I wanted the flower to be totally 'red'. So I took my Real Red Stampin' Write marker and filled in those white spaces and similarly using my Garden Green marker to fill in the leaves. I also used Crushed Curry to paint the middle of each flower. I was happy with the result, so now it was time to actually 'layer' the layers so to speak! The card base is Real Red and the Whisper White layers are matted with Gold foil. And for the final touch, I used my Wink of Stella pen to brush the flowers and petals! The picture doesn't do it justice, but then pictures rarely do! In person, I think it is a beautiful card! It does take a little while to make, but I think the end result was worth it, plus I really enjoyed 'painting' the flowers!

As always, if you would like to purchase any of the products that I have used here, there is a link to my Stampin' Up online store at the top right of this post. Or, if you would prefer, you can always send me an email, link also at the top right of this post. Thank you for visiting my blog today! 

Snow Place like the woods!

Well, I can't seem to stop making Christmas cards! It's such a beautiful season of the year, it makes my heart smile! The inspiration for this card came from a card that Tina Zinck created with the Merry Mice stamp set (one which hasn't reached my mailbox just yet!), it is so cute, take a hop over to her blog The Serene Stamper and take a peek! So anyway, I thought I'd put a snowman in the woods instead! Here's my card

The base of my card is Whisper White with a Pool Party Mat. The top layer began with Whisper White, I took the Woodland embossing folder and sponged Pool Party, Island Indigo and Marina Mist onto it and then stamped the Christmas tree from Lovely as a Tree onto the embossing folder over the blue inks. Once this was done I ran it through the Big Shot. I took a little Crumb Cake ink on a sponge and lightly brushed it over the birch trees to add a small amount of color to them. I then sponged the entire mat with Versamark and sprinkled Iridescent Ice embossing powder (retired from Stampin' Up) on top and heat set it, not sure if the picture is picking that up too well but it's a beautiful sparkly winter effect. I stamped the snowman from the Snow Place set, colored him with stamp 'n write markers and then fussy cut him. I used some burlap ribbon, frayed the edges and placed it along the bottom of the mat with a little vintage wooden snowflake and a snowflake sequin on top. The sentiment is a non-stampin' up image, but it was the one that I thought went best with this card. I really enjoyed making it and loved the way the Christmas trees appear to be behind the birch trees, so many things can be achieved using this embossing folder, images and ink! I hope you like my card, should you need any of the items I have listed, you can order them from my site which is listed at the top right of this post. I would really appreciate your business. Also, if you need a holiday or annual catalog, just drop me an email and I would be glad to send them to you.

Christmas Pines 'Tis the Season

Oh Boy, do I really really love this set - Christmas Pines! I made another card today using this stamp set and the framelits. For the first time I'm going to enter into a sketch contest! Each week Freshly Made Sketches has a new sketch (this week it's number 254) for you to enter if you choose, so I figured, why not, let's give it a go! This is the sketch

and this is my card

The card base is Cherry Cobbler with a Whisper White mat that has been embossed with the Softly Falling embossing folder. I stamped the pine leaves first in Garden Green and Old Olive and then cut some out using the framelits and attached them around the stamped images. I used the framelits again to cut out the three pine cones using the copper foil and Chocolate Chip paper. Under the pine cones I wrapped some copper metallic thread around the pine leaves to give it some added interest and then finished it off with a triple bow of linen thread. The sentiment is also from the same stamp set, Christmas Pines. I had fun making this card, I hope you like it! 

All of the items I used are from Stampin' Up, so if there are any items you would like to purchase, a link to my online store is at the top right of this post. I would truly appreciate your business!