Fall Card Swap

Wow, September has been a busy month! Comic Con, birthdays, traveling with family, and school starting up again (for my husband -- I'm done, thank goodness). September also involved my first ever "Cards in the Mail" swap with some fellow stampers. I'm SO excited to show you all the fun cards I've gotten, so here we go!

 

Aren't they fantastic?! I love seeing all the great projects that my fellow stamp addicts come up with. Check back on Tuesday for our "Fall Fun Blog Hop" to see the card I made for the swap (and, of course, the other awesome projects by the ladies in the swap).

ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm holding a Halloween Banner class on Saturday, October 12. We'll be making an adorable "BOO" banner that's perfect for decorating this Fall season. Class is $15 per person; deadline to sign up is Friday October 4. Contact me to sign up today!

What fun fall projects are you planning? 

PS: Sorry for the short, image-heavy post today. Next week should have more posts from me, including one about my costume-making experience for Salt Lake Comic Con (yup, I'm that much of a nerd).

"CASE That Pin" Blog Hop

Hello! And welcome to this month's We Create blog hop! This month, our projects have all been CASE'd from projects that inspired us on Pinterest. If you're new around here (or if you need a refresher), "CASE" stands for "Copy and Share Everything" and it's our motto when it comes to sharing ideas among friends. We love being inspired by other peoples' projects! So this month, you get to see what inspires us, and hopefully it will inspire you to create, too!

The cards I chose (from my over 400 Stampin Up pins!) all focused on a fun technique that I haven't really played with before: Negative Space. Stampin' Up! has tons of fun punches, and I've done plenty of projects with them, but these cards use the punches kinda in reverse - instead of looking at the punched out shape, you're looking at what's hiding behind it. It's super-duper easy, and it gives a really fun look to your cards. Try it out!

Here's the original, from Kay Kalthoff:

And here's my CASE'd version.

This is just such a cute and simple card. The background is a piece of the Quatrefancy DSP, and the center of the Blossom punch is popped up with the 1/2-inch circle punch. I added a few little rhinestones in the upper corner to help balance out my rather bottom-heavy version of this card. Such a bright, happy hello to send to a friend!

The second project I did was a lovely little butterfly card. Here's the original (which I just love!) from Karla Dick. Unfortunately, this one was only posted on Stampin Connection, so not everyone will be able to see the original source page - sorry! I tried to find it on a blog or something and just couldn't. :(

And here's my (larger) version.

I realized as I sat down to make this butterfly card that I don't have any white ink -- a major feature of the original. Oops! So I improvised and used the silver metallic ink that's available in the Holiday Catalog. This card is very elegant. The background flowers are stamped in the silver ink on Not Quite Navy cardstock, then the butterflies are punched out of the Crumb Cake overlay layer. The Crumb Cake layer is popped up on a few dimensionals, so the background pattern is a bit removed from the butterfly outline. It gives a lovely pattern to the butterflies, don't you think? I added some pearls and a quick sentiment, and that was that!

I hope you've enjoyed the "Pinspiration" this hop has shared so far! Be sure to check out the rest of the hop, and as always we welcome comments and Pins! Click on through to the next blog, and Happy Stamping!

Quick Apology: Somehow, the month of August just completely flew right by! I started prepping for this Hop and realized that I haven't blogged at all since last month's hop - yikes! Sorry, guys! I promise to do better this coming month. Now that summer is winding down, maybe my schedule will start to be a tad bit less crazy.

"The Great Outdoors" Blog Hop featuring Stamp Camp Creations

Hello, and welcome to this month's We Create Blog Hop! Tanya from Tanya's Stamps & Things chose the theme for August: "The Great Outdoors!" So this month we're showcasing our nature-themed projects, whether it be flowers or birds or camping - anything you'd find outside is fair game!

For the hop, I've decided to show y'all the projects I made for my first-ever Stamp Camp that I held a little while ago. (For an explanation of how a Stamp Camp works, see yesterday's post.) The set I featured for this Camp was "Regarding Daliahs" - a cute set that's perfect for a beginner; it has ONE image and four great "any occasion" greetings.

I made 4 projects for this camp. Most of them are very straightforward projects, as this was a camp for beginners. The last one (my favorite!) involved heat embossing (one of my favorite techniques) but was still a very simple card. All of these cards were CASE'd, but I don't have the originals handy right this moment. As I find them, I'll link to them in the picture descriptions.

Enough words. On to the pictures!

Thanks for checking out my Stamp Camp! I'll be holding more of these in the coming months; my goal is to do one EVERY SINGLE MONTH! Early next week I'll reveal August's stamp camp, so be sure to check back!

Now go enjoy the rest of the hop! If I was your last hopping stop, thanks for joining us! Hope you've felt inspired to go CREATE!

Regarding Daliahs

Last week, I had my first-ever Stamp Camp! For those of you who might not know what a Stamp Camp is, let me explain. I plan out 5 projects for you (cards, notebooks, gifts, etc.), all centered around 1 stamp set. You pre-order the stamp set and pay the usual class fee, then on the day of the Camp you come and learn how to make the projects. At the end of the day, you go home with 5 fantastic projects AND your own stamp set! It's a great way for beginning stampers to start building their own collection of products.

You'll get to see the fun Stamp Camp projects tomorrow during our We Create Blog Hop, so be sure to check back!

The card I'm sharing today is one that I made after the camp as kind of a bonus project. It's full of sparkle and, of course, my favorite color: Pool Party.

I'm quite proud of how this card turned out! This is the first time in a long time that I haven't relied on a challenge to come up with a card idea. I also realized that, for as often as I used to use them, I haven't used banners in a while. I created a "waving" effect with this banner by carefully bending and rolling the paper and then attaching one end higher than the other (the flower is popped up on Dimensionals for a bit more ... well, dimension!). 

The ribbon in the back is some of our retired 1" Satin ribbon in Whisper White, but you could easily substitute a current ribbon or even a strip of cardstock, perhaps with a decorative edge.

Here's a close-up of the detailed parts so you can see what's going on a little better.

Remember to check back tomorrow to see my Stamp Camp projects and the rest of the We Create Blog Hop!


Card Details
Colors: Whisper White, Pool Party
Paper: Silver Glimmer Paper, Quatrafancy Specialty DSP, Whisper White Cardstock
Supplies: Pool Party ink, Stampin' Sponge, Basic Rhinestones, Paper Trimmer, Dimensionals, 3-Way Glue, 1" Satin Ribbon in White (retired)

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