Big Shot Blog Hop

Welcome! This month, I'm so excited to show off one of my very favorite tools: the Big Shot! For those who aren't familiar, the Big Shot is an epic multi-tool. Check it out.

Run dies through it to cut shapes out of all sorts of materials. Use it with Textured Impressions Embossing Folders to give dimension and texture to your projects. Also be sure to check out the Framelits, Embosslis, Bigz dies, Edgelits, and Thinlits. So many options!

If you've been waiting for the right time to purchase a Big Shot, that time is now! When you buy a Big Shot during the month of August, you'll receive your choice of one of five FREE exclusive stamp set and Framelits bundles (see bundles here)--that's up to a $60 value absolutely free! If you already own a Big Shot, we're also offering a 15-percent discount on these select bundles.

My project today showcases a few of the fun things you can do with the Big Shot. I had a friend ask me if we could make invitations for her daughter's 4th birthday. What a fun project! So we brainstormed and came up with these super-cute invitations.

The texture on top is the Mosaic Madness embossing folder, and the cute little butterflies are part of an Embosslit. We took a strip of DSP and creased it into an adorable ruffle to stick underneath the edge of the Tempting Turquoise paper.

This is just such a small sample of all the great things the Big Shot can do, so be sure to hop through to the other bloggers to see what they've showcased!

Bundle & Save Blog Hop (Or, Please excuse the moving madness)

Welcome back, stampers! This month has been insanely busy! As you saw in my last post, I'm getting ready to move, along with helping several friends move and deal with other huge life changes, and getting to go on vacation with my husband (our first road trip!). So please excuse the temporary lack of project and enjoy the quick post about the great Bundle & Save options that Stampin Up offers.

This year's catalog features several fantastic "bundle" options that pair a stamp set with matching accessories -- usually Framelits for the Big Shot -- and give you a 15% savings! You can't beat coordinating products AND great savings!

Here's a handy list of each of the Bundle & Save options included in this year's catalog:

• Chalk Talk -- pg 11 
• Label Love -- pg 14
• Four Frames -- pg 21 
• Journal Bundles -- pg 29
• Apothecary Art -- pg 57
• Something for Baby -- pg 74
• Itty Bitty Banners -- pg 79
• Simply Sports--  pg 90
• Playful Pennants -- pg 91/92
• Starburst Sayings -- pg 117 
• Honeycomb Hello -- pg 134 
• Flower Patch -- pg 156 
• Tag a Bag -- pg 201

I decided to feature the Chalk Talk bundle, which is so much fun to play with! It was one that I borrowed from Julie, actually, but it may be on my "need to buy" list now! The stamps are super fun, but the really awesome part is the Framelits! You can cut out (somewhat) customized tags out of anything! So versatile!

This card features a cute little narrow tag and a popped-up heart. As you've seen in previous posts, I really love the combination of Crumb Cake and Cherry Cobbler (maybe because they're both desserts?) It's such a simple card, but the textured background and the chalk-like font give it a lot of character.

My second card was a little more tricky to figure out. I tried and tried and tried to figure out how to put one of the big tags on this card, and it just wasn't happening. So I browsed Pinterest and got the inspiration I needed: Ditch the big tag and focus on this super-sweet sentiment instead! After that, things just fell together so much better. The oval was cut out using a punch, rather than the Chalk Talk framelits, but I think the Oval Framelits would work too.

What's your favorite Bundle & Save option? Be sure to hop through all the other blogs to see their great projects!

It's Time to "Sale-A-Brate" - We Create Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by this month's We Create Blog Hop! This month, we are super-duper excited because it's time for SALE-A-BRATION! In case you haven't heard before, Sale-a-bration is our biggest sale of the year. For every $50 you spend in Stampin Up product, you get a FREE product of your choice from the SAB catalog. You can check out the Sale-a-bration catalog here (it's also in the sidebar). This deal is available until March 31 -- so you've got plenty of time to look at all the pretty things and fill up your wish list!

For today's blog hop, we're all featuring some of the fun products you can earn for free during this great promotion! I first saw the banner stamp set & coordinating punch, and I love them! I also got the fun polka-dotted Textured Embossing Folder, which is just so festive!

I made this cute card tonight, and I intended for it to be brighter, like a birthday card. But it turned out a bit more pastel and calm, so it's more like a "Welcome Baby" card -- I guess you could still say it's a *birth*day card! (Please forgive the horrible pun -- I've been fighting bronchitis and I'm on some strong meds right now. ... Yeah, I'm gonna blame the meds, because I would never make a horrible pun like that normally..... nope....)

I intended to make a cute bag topper to go with this card, and make it a card-and-gift combo, but my creative juices ran out and it just didn't happen tonight. Oh well, maybe next time.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Blog Hop to get inspiration for all the other Sale-a-bration offerings! There are so many great products; you don't want to miss out! Contact me if you ever have any questions or want to host a party. I'm always up for a party!

Soft Vintage "Oh Hello" (and 3 more challenges)

I seem to have gotten into the habit of posting really late at night. I've been trying to get better -- I promise! -- and had every intention of posting early, but then I got distracted. Go figure. I'm working on planning a trip to Disneyland, and it seems to invade every waking minute of my thoughts lately! So here I am again, nearly 1 AM, and I'm just starting to write up this blog post.

Maybe next time I'll manage to post before midnight.  . . . Maybe.

Anyway, on to the card! Determined after my last epic fail of posting a multi-challenge card, I wanted to get this one up as soon as possible so I didn't miss ANY deadlines. Woo-hoo!

I combined the color challenge over at Create with Connie and Mary (CCMC SUM13-02) with the layout from this week's Clean and Simple challenge (FTL248). Then, my stamping buddy Julie pointed out that Friday Mashup was hosting a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge (FM117), so I was all over that -- especially since it involves butterflies and pearls! My favorite things! So combining all that, I basically had my card all set up for me; I just had to pick out two measly little stamps. How easy is that?!

A close-up of the butterfly, colored in, with some great pearl details.

Julie suggested adding a tiny seed pearl to the brad - perfect!

The tiny butterfly details were colored in with a Stampin' Up! Blender Pen in Pistachio Pudding and Crisp Cantaloupe. The tiny pearls create the "body" of the butterfly, and in that one little details I've captured all three elements of the Friday Mashup Tic-Tac-Toe challenge! I also added a pearl to the antique brad off to the left, which adds just the perfect touch of "something special" to tie it all together.



Card Details
Colors: Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla
Tools and Accessories: Lace ribbon, Antique Brads, Linen Thread, small Butterfly punch, Perfect Pennants Bigz Die (Big Shot), Basic Pearls, Blender Pens, 1 3/8" circle punch, DSP (don't remember which - sorry!)
Stamps: Oh, Hello and Butterflies

3 Challenges with Mosaic Madness (But Too Late)

This is, I think, the first card that I've made at home for weeks. This is sad, people! I have really fallen out of my stampin' groove. However, I'm really quite happy with how this one turned out. It went through at least 3 iterations before I ended up with the final product. It's a more modern look than I've been doing lately, but I think that works well with the clean gray-green-white color scheme.

I made this card based on THREE challenges - talk about getting back into the groove of things! Yeah! Go me!! Aaaaannnnddd then I completely forgot to post this early enough (I blame the holiday - Hope you had a happy 4th!) and I missed TWO of the three deadlines. FAIL. Ugh. Oh well, I still got a great card out of it.

The layout came from this week's Clean and Simple sketch challenge (FTL247), which was a great - but challenging! - layout to work with. And thankfully, I haven't missed this deadline. Hooray for only incomplete failure!

Dynamic Duos provided the color palette ... kinda. The challenge was to use Basic Gray and a choose-your-own color. (Neutrals are always allowed.) So I chose green - Lucky Limeaid in the paper and Old Olive in the stamp. It's hard to tell them apart, so I'm just counting them as the same color, okay? Okay. This deadline I did miss, so sad day.

My favorite part of this challenge combo, though, was one I was very sad to have missed: PaperPlayers issued another tic-tac-toe challenge! I LOVE these! They give you a grid, like the one below, and you have to pick one row/column/diagonal to work with.

I chose the diagonal Embossing-Bling-Birthday, and I really like the result! But again, I missed the deadline (UGH!) so I wasn't able to enter. *Sigh* Maybe next time I won't fail so badly and actually get these things posted on time!

ColourQ and Messy Deadlines

This week's ColourQ challenge gave me a gorgeous palette to work with - Lucky Limeade, Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie, Kraft (Crumb Cake), and (Whisper) White. Such fun, springy colors! I came up with two freaking adorable cards for this challenge, and it was going to be the perfect post for our upcoming May Day blog hop -- except that the challenge ends tonight (!!) and not on Wednesday when our hop is. Oops! So here's the challenge projects, and you can look forward to seeing some brand NEW (hint, hint - sneak peeks!) projects for the hop in a few days.

My favorite part of this one? The details!

My second favorite part? The adorable coordinating 3x3 card I made to go with it!

I like the torn honeycomb background in particular. Isn't it fun?


Like I said, this was for the ColourQ cQc182 Challenge, which has this fun and Spring-themed inspiration photo:

This card was CASE'd! I also want to give credit to the card that inspired these projects. I found this card by Amanda Mertz over at Did You Stamp Today, and I just LOVED it! So I decided to basically use her layout with the ColourQ color challenge.

REMINDER: Look forward to our May Day Blog Hop this Wednesday! My projects will feature some of the fun BRAND NEW, will-be-debuting-in-June's-catalog products I bought at the Salt Lake Regional event.

Two Sketches and My Favorite "New" Color

This week, I discovered that THREE of the challenge blogs I frequent had similar sketches. I took that as the universe telling me I needed to use this layout -- so here's what I came up with:

I just LOVE how this one turned out! I don't usually "do" any of the Stampin' Up! "In Colors" (since they're only around for a relatively short time) but since this gorgeous Pool Party color has been announced as part of our Color Refresh, I am definitely looking forward to using it for years to come! (Possibly my favorite SU color ... except maybe Rich Razzleberry, but that's mostly because it's got an awesome name.)

I really like how the Basic Gray background (with the Honeycomb Textured Embossing Folder) looks with the bright, springy colors from the DSP. If you want to see another GENIUS idea for customizing this particular pattern of DSP, go check out Julie Wadlinger's entry in our Just Because blog hop. Betcha won't even recognize the paper!

And then, of course, the card needed a little bling -- so I added some of our Basic Jewels rhinestones to the DSP design to jazz it up a bit. The Tangerine Tango accents under the DSP and in the sentiment really make this a happy little "anytime" card.

I've entered this card in TWO challenges! (Because I'm daring like that.) Go check them out!
(It would have also been entered into Fab Friday, but I totally missed their deadline.... again! Go figure...)

Create with Connie and Mary (CCMC 247)

Clean and Simple Stamping 235

Card Details

Paper: Pool Party, Basic Gray, Whisper White cardstock; International Bazaar DSP

Ink: Tangerine Tango

Tools and Accessories: Honeycomb Textured Embossing Folder (Big Shot), Basic Jewels, Paper Snips (for cutting banner and placing rhinestones)

"Just Because" Blog Hop!

Welcome to our Blog Hop! Our group of fabulous demonstrators get together (online) on the first of every month to share really great projects, and we finally have a name -- "Stamp. Scrap. Sew. Share. Create." This month's theme is "Just Because." It was my month to pick a theme, and I've noticed lately that I never have enough "out of the blue" cards on hand to send to friends. So that's what we're showcasing this month -- projects for those "just because" moments.

Be sure to click through to all the blogs on our hop!

On to the projects!

You may already know about my love of butterflies (I even have a motto!), so my choice for projects probably doesn't come as a surprise -- they're all centered around the Beautiful Wings Embosslit © for the Big Shot!

I started with this card, inspired by one I found
on CraftinUp.com.

Then I made a cute notebook to go with it.
(My stamping tends to be like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.)

And, inspired by Retro Sketches, I made this card!

 All three projects use the same colors and basic theme, yet they turned out different. I love how versatile these products are! Like the captions say, the first card was CASE'd from another demonstrator, the notebook was my own creation (inspired by the first card), and the last one was made for a sketch challenge. I really love the challenges over at Retro Sketches, and this one was no exception!! Isn't it a fun layout? Here's the challenge info for RS#57:

And be sure to check out all our other fabulous hops!
"Holiday Shimmer" Hop
"Love is in the Air" Hop
"Birthday Bash" Hop
"Colors of Spring" Hop

Spring Has Sprung! (Which means more butterflies)

The weather here today was GORGEOUS! I could hardly stand being inside while the sun was so bright and warm, so I called up my girlfriend and we went out. Loved it!

A week or so ago, I made a great spring-inspired card from the color challenge over at Fab Friday, and today seemed like the perfect day to share it.

I love how this card turned out! It's got so many great details. The Honeycomb Textured Embossing Folder with little hexagons of DSP in it? LOVE! I also pulled in the same DSP along the edge to give the card some cohesion. The pink butterfly is simply punched out of a different piece of DSP (from the same pack) with some Basic Pearls down the middle. The small butterfly was stamped in that lovely Island Indigo and then punched out, and then I added pearls for the body.

There's a lovely Sahara Sand floral background along the right side of the card, and I like the way it "grounds" the butterflies.

Then, of course, to tie it all together, is the fun Baker's Twine along the bottom. I just wrapped it around a few times and tied a knot (since I really suck at little tiny bows! haha). The tag below the knot was the very last thing I added to the card, and I just love how well it brings everything together. Like it's tied up in a neat little gift package or something.

And like I said earlier, this card was inspired by Fab Friday's FabFri14 color challenge, though I did "cheat" a little and use Island Indigo instead of the second pink color.  ;)

"Guest Post" (of sorts) and FM99

Around Christmas, my mother-in-law, Jolene, decided she wanted to get into stamping as a fun hobby. So I sat down with her, pored over the catalogs and seasonal offerings, and helped her create her first order. Since then, she's built up her stamping "stock" and has been really excited to create with it all. She sent me an email a few days ago with a picture of the card she made for a friend's baby shower, and it was SO stinkin' adorable that I just had to ask if I could share it here, since she doesn't have a blog of her own to show off on.

At first, she wasn't sure, since she had pulled the ideas from other cards she found online. But after explaining to her that we have a "CASE" mindset at Stampin' Up! -- "Create And Share Everything" -- and that copying or taking inspiration from other stampers' projects is what most of the SU community does all the time (I've just given away my secret!), she said I could share the card on here with you guys. 

Isn't it so cute! I love the color combination!

Here's what Jolene had to say about her card (after insisting that she's "not creative") --

I combined the "Congratulations Box" from page 41 of the 2013 catalog with a card I saw on another Stampin' Up website. I raised the duck (like the catalog pic) and cut around it so the duck would have a small white frame, and I decided using a So Saffron frame around the white backing, used the polka dot folder to made the entire background polka dotted (instead of only half like the website pic), set the framed duck towards to top right corner, put some curve in the "Congratulations" flag, and came up with my card. I had so much fun figuring it all out!

I love it! And it also happens to coincide perfectly with this week's Friday Mashup challenge (FM99)! They want "Baby" cards and/or projects using their color challenge - which includes So Saffron! Here's the challenge info:

1. Make a project for a "Baby Shower or a Baby."
2. Or Make a project using the Colors "Pool Party, Real Red, So Saffron & a Neutral."
3. Or "Mash it Up" and create a project for a "Baby/Shower using the Colors listed above."

Perfect! So, Jolene, I've entered your card in this week's challenge. Good luck! I'm sure they'll love your card!

Oh, Hello! (CCMC240 and FMS 74)

Last night, I went over to stamp with my friend Julie Wadlinger (again - this happens often, and it's so much fun!), and we both tackled some fun challenges. You can check out the gorgeous card she made on her blog here. I decided to take on a color challenge and a sketch challenge, too, and this is what I came up with:

I LOVE how this card turned out! The color combination, from Create with Connie & Mary, is just adorable. I may have to order a supply of more Basic Gray paper & ink, because it's just a gorgeous color to work with! The bold color combination made me want this to be a bold card - big greeting stamp, big flower, big rhinestones -- and so of course I had to include one of our beautiful Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons! These things really are fabulous - they look like diamonds! Here's a close-up to show just how gorgeous they are:

I inserted a small rhinestone into the center of the
Vintage Faceted  Button to give it even more "bling."

The flower was stamped with the Betsy's Blossoms set and cut out with the Floral Frames Framelits dies on the Big Shot. Then I punched a tiny circle from Melon Mambo and put the Vintage Faceted Designer button on top of it. I just LOVE how cute it turned out!

Here's the challenge info for this card.

From CCMC240:

And from Freshly Made Sketches (FMS74)

Card Details

Colors: Basic Gray, Whisper White, Melon Mambo, Daffodil Delight

Stamps: Oh, Hello; Besty's Blossoms

Tools: Top Note die (for Big Shot), Floral Frames Framelits© die (Big Shot), 1/2" Circle punch 

Accessories: Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons, Basic Jewels rhinestones

Same Colors, Same Stamps, Different Card! (CCMC239 & FabFriday12)

Hello, again! Something I've been trying to do more often is showcase how you can use the same products -- stamps, DSP, color combinations, etc. -- and create various different projects with them. So, after yesterday's masculine birthday card, I've created a more feminine card with some of the same products. Check it out:

Once again, I've used the color combination from FabFriday12 -- Baja Breeze, Wild Wasabi, and their third color, Perfect Plum (which I left out on the masculine card because, really, Plum isn't a terribly masculine color). I've also used the Curly Cute stamp set for the phrase, which I also used to stamp "Happy Birthday" on yesterday's card. This just goes to show that the same colors and the same stamps can be used in SO many different ways!

This card got its layout inspiration from the Create with Connie & Mary challenge this week: CCMC239. I always love their sketches! This time, I took their layout and turned it sideways, to better fit the "Thinking of You" sentiment. The Circle Circus stamp set gave me the rest of the inspiration I needed (with an added nudge from Julie Wadlinger, who suggested the adorable (!) scalloped border under the greeting). In the end, all of these fantastic elements combined to give me one adorable all-occasion card!

Here's the CCMC sketch to get your creative juices flowing, too!

And, again, the FabFriday color palette: 

What are some of your favorite ways to re-purpose and re-imagine Stampin' Up!'s stamps & colors?

Card Details
Colors: Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Perfect Plum, Wild Wasabi
Stamps: Curly Cute, Circle Circus
Tools & Accessories: Basic Jewels rhinestones, Large Scallop Edgelits©, Dimensionals

Seize the Birthday #6 + FabFri12 (Masculine Birthday Card)

I've mentioned before that I am terrible at making masculine cards. Part of the problem is that most of my stamps have butterflies, swirly patterns, flowers, or something adorable on them; not very masculine, huh? I've been trying to remedy that, though, mostly through buying neutral colored paper & non-frilly sayings stamps. So when I was actually able to accomplish this week's Seize the Birthday Masculine Card challenge -- and I liked my end result! -- I was pretty proud of myself. Granted, what I came up with might be more suited for a little boy than a grown man, I'm fairly certain my dad would be happy to get a card like this.

I promise that I didn't pick out my curtains to match Stampin' Up! colors.
. . . It just kinda happens that way sometimes. 

The layout came from the sketch challenge over at STB, as I mentioned above. The fantastic color combo, though? Yeah, totally wish I could claim that as my own fantastic creation. But I can't. It came from the lovely folks over at Fab Friday, who gave us a phenomenal color challenge this week. (I actually made TWO cards in that color challenge, and I'll be posting the other one tomorrow.) So here are the challenges I undertook for this card. First, the sketch:

Isn't it lovely? Now on to the color challenge! (Note: I left out the Perfect Plum in an attempt to make this as masculine as possible with the cutesy background.) This is the FabFri12 color palette:

In an amazing feat of coincidence, this card ALSO qualifies for this week's Friday Mashup! Since I used our Stampin' Write© Markers to color in the word stamp elements, it qualifies for the "Markers" section, and the Textured Impressions Embossing Folder© on the bottom qualifies it for the mash-up with "texture" -- so there ya go! Here's their info, too, so go check them out! 

Here is the "Mashup" Challenge:

1. Make a project "using your Markers (thumping,Color Spritzing,Coloring etc.)."
2. Or Make a project with "Texture."
3. Or "Mash it Up" and create a project with "Texture using your Markers."

Card Details

Paper: Soft Suede CS, Baja Breeze CS, Whisper White CS, Storytime DSP

Ink: Baja Breeze, Wild Wasabi

Tools: Perfect Polka Dots Textured Embossing Folder©, Ovals Collection Framelits©, Paper Piercing Pack & Paper Piercing Tool, Stamp-a-Ma-Jig© (to align text), Dimensionals

FMS#73 and Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit

 At a recent Demonstrator group meeting (Hello, fellow Positive Inkers!!), I won the Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit in a raffle. How exciting! I never win raffles, so I was pretty stoked. This adorable kit is featured in our Spring Catalog, which you can view by clicking here. This kit is fabulous -- and it's got so many uses! I decided to use the "tag" elements to make a card front for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge, and voila!

Isn't it adorable? I love the tiny little "baking cups" it comes with; they give the flowers such a great aspect of dimension. (Though I must admit, part of the reason I was so excited to win this particular raffle prize is that I am sorely tempted to use these paper cups to make itty-bitty cupcakes!! How freaking cute would that be? Anyway, back to the card.)

The tag base already had the lovely outline detail, so I just stamped a quick "Just for You" greeting on it (which is perfect for literally any occasion, by the way). It also fits the FMS#73 sketch so well: 

I love "re-purposing" things like this, finding new uses for stamp elements and making them work where they weren't intended. 

What are some of your favorite "non-traditional" uses for stamps, tags, or any other crafty item?

Card Details
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Soft Suede
Tools and Accessories: Pop-Up Posies Designer Kit (includes tag base, flowers, paper cup, fabric-covered brad, and "Just for You" stamp), Square Lattice Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (for the Big Shot), Summer Starfruit ribbon
Ink: Black StazOn inkpad
Colors in Kit: Calypso Coral, Summer Starfruit, Pool Party, Very Vanilla