Happy Birthday to Me! (a little bit late)

Here are some of the birthday cards I received this year. Aren't they lovely? My MIL Linda made this card using lots of punches. Can you guess which punches she used?

Celebrate! (with a cupcake)

I made a whole bunch of birthday cards tonight - some belated and some in advance. These are 3"x6" cards, so you can make 4 from a sheet of 12"x12" paper. They also fit nicely in Stampin' Up's long skinny envelopes.

Here are the card ingredients:

• Cause for Celebration - hostess stamp set


• Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate, So Saffron, and Whisper White Cardstock


• Basic Brown classic ink (doesn't run, so it's great for coloring)


• So Saffron and Pink stampin' write markers


• Chunky Essentials Glitter (adhered with 2-way glue pen)


• Purely Pomegranate double-stitched ribbon
  
  

Did you know that time is running out for Purely Pomegranate and the other products in the In Color series? Stampin' Up introduced the In Color line as a collection of trendy colors, to be changed every 12 months. This year's collection includes: Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi, River Rock, Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, and Blue Bayou. These colors will be available in limited quantities after June 15, and will no longer be available after August 10. That means all card stock, ink pads, refills, ribbon (like the double-stitched ribbon above) will no longer be available in the 6 In Color options. The good news is that on August 11, Stampin' Up will introduce a new group of In Color selections. Stay tuned to http://www.shilohstamps.com/ for more details about the new In Color collection.

(Thanks, http://rubbermoonlighters.com/ for the cool image!)

amazing to zany card

Today, a young friend came over and made a birthday card for her cousin. Look at how she used lots of words from the Amazing to Zany set!

Here are the card ingredients:

• A Little Birdie Told Me stamp set


• Amazing to Zany stamp set


• Old Olive, Bashful Blue, and Whisper White cardstock


• Summer Picnic Designer Series Paper (from the Occasions mini)


• Real Red 1/4" grosgrain ribbon


• Scallop punch


• 1 3/8" circle punch

So Many Scallops - So Many Possibilities

I love this new stamp set, So Many Scallops! I have been enjoying learning new ways to use the scallop punch, and this stamp set makes creating unique cards super-simple. These four looks use the same supplies:

• So Many Scallops Stamp Set
• Canvas background stamp
• Print Pattern background stamp
• Night of Navy cardstock
• Mellow Moss Cardstock
• Ultrasmooth Vanilla Cardstock
• Mellow Moss classic ink
• Whisper White craft ink
• Night of Navy classic ink
• Night of Navy grosgrain ribbon
• scallop punch
• brayer

The So Many Scallops stamp set is part of the Sale-a-Bration promotion, and so this stamp set is only available until March 17. During the Sale-a-Bration promotion, customers receive a free stamp set for every $50 order, so this stamp set is actually free! Contact me today at alison@shilohstamps.com to place an order.

Next week's Spring Stamp a Stack will feature products from the Sale-a-Bration catalog and the new Occasions mini catalog. Click http://gtownstampastack.eventbrite.com/ for details and registration information.

I made these 4 cardfronts using my supplies from the Feb. 23 PhillyInkers Stamp and Scrap University. Each participant received a 6x6 scrapbook, and then filled it with 24 technique pages. These samples show the double background technique. We used a brayer to ink the print pattern background stamp with mellow moss ink and then used a brayer to ink the Canvas background background stamp. Voila! Double backgrounds. That picture over on the right is a brayer, and it makes using background stamps even easier. I like the way the finished card looks like a screened door. For some great pictures of the Stamp and Scrap University, check out Tiffany's recent TLKreations blog post.

Hostess Gift for Susanne

This weekend, we visited our friends Jason and Susanne in Lancaster. They were having a House Concert/CD Release party for Jay's band Living Fables. You can download their CD through Musicblaster here.

Since we were staying overnight (and we flaked on Susanne's birthday earlier in the summer), I made her a set homemade notecards and a matching folder.

I used some double-sided Designer Series paper to make the folder and the coordinating cards.

The Much Appreciated card features Paper Piercing in the corners, and the Birthday hugs and wishes card features dry embossing. These are 2 techniques I'll be teaching at my upcoming class on October 19 + 20. Click those dates on my Google calendar to the right for more info.

Jason and Susanne have 2 precious little girls who are very creative, so I brought along the Stampin' Kids Tattoo Kit for them to play with. It was a big hit! They were covered head to toe in tattoos by the end of the evening.

More In the Spotlight with the scallop punch

I love experimenting with different color combinations and layouts. Which of these is your favorite?This one is for my cousin Alisa's birthday. It's all part of my goal of staying on top of my birthdays! I now have my Birthday Calendar posted on the wall of my stamping room, so there's no excuse for missing birthdays. This was a thank-you for a birthday gift. I have so many generous friends!

This was a thank-you for a super-stamper friend who loaned me her Powder Pal for Christmas in August Stamp Camp. It made the Dazzling Diamonds glitter a lot less messy!

This was a thank-you for my latest workshop hostess. I'll be sending her a $5 gift certificate, too!

I'm off to Cape Cod today for a few days of vacation, so I won't be posting until after Labor Day. I'll be bringing some stamping supplies with me so that I can make swaps for the Philadelphia Regional convention. I will post some samples when I return.

Hope you enjoy the long weekend, too!

Birthday Fun

So today is my 30th birthday. I know, I know, it's hard to believe.

Well, just the other day I had a bunch of stampers over to make birthday calendars. See, one of my goals is to be better about sending birthday cards and gifts on time. So I made this birthday calendar to help me remember. I'm going to hang it on the wall in my craft room so that I will have cards on the ready when needed. My mom and my grandma are both really great about sending birthday cards. They send out all their birthday cards for the month on the 1st day of the month. So if your b-day is the 20th, you're getting a card early. If it's on the 1st, it may be a bit late. What a novel idea, though. I have lots of friends with August birthdays, so this month is a good time to start the new habit.

These are some samples of birthday cards we made together (and matching envelopes).

There's also some samples of pages from the birthday calendar we made together. If you'd like a birthday calendar of your own, let me know. I would be glad to show you how I decorated mine, or I could decorate one for you (for a small fee, of course). Sorry for the white boxes in the photos. I didn't think to take photos before I started writing everyone's birthdays on my calendar!

June - with watercolor mortarboards. The AquaPainter works well in the calendar since it has thicker paper. Otherwise, the moisture makes thinner paper curl. Watercolor paper is on my wishlist!



July - Jon was excited to see me doing a patriotic theme. I think these stars almost look like denim - very Americana.













May - I love these flowers in Year After Year. They're so versatile, and they're easy to color in with markers.









October - These pumpkins are watercolored in Really Rust with the AquaPainter. These colors are so vivid!

Waterfall cards from an in-home workshop

When I do an in-home workshop, I try to demonstrate projects that the hostess is interested in trying out. For a recent in-home workshop, the hostess requested the waterfall card. It's what's called a "movement card". When you pull the tag on the right, it waterfalls open revealing a message inside. I demonstrated the waterfall card at a workshop last week. The hostess really liked the sage shadow/chocolate chip color combination that she saw on a sample at my Open House, so I chose a waterfall card design that incorporated those colors. I love the Baroque Motifs set looks with this color

combination. I think this would be a very elegant card for a wedding, since it says "cherish" inside. You could certainly change the sentiment inside to make it a thank-you or birthday card, too.

Here are a couple other examples of waterfall cards. I learned how to make waterfall cards when I participated in Stampin' Down the Shore with Claire and Kristin. (You can see pictures of the weekend if you click those links.) We spent the weekend at the Jersey Shore making all sorts of crafty projects.

Adding a layer of neutral cardstock on each layer of the waterfall can make for a more polished design, but it's a bit more complicated. Both these cards use hostess sets that I got for free when I signed up to be an SU demonstrator.

If you would like a template for making the waterfall card, e-mail me at alison@shilohstamps.com. PLEASE INCLUDE "WATERFALL CARD" IN THE SUBJECT LINE, SO I KNOW THAT IT ISN'T SPAM. I would be glad to mail you a sample if you will send me your address. There's also a tutorial about making waterfall cards on Splitcoast Stampers. They have an amazing gallery of waterfall cards, too. There is also a sample of a waterfall card on Claire's blog here.

b-day card - fun with pastels

I made this card for my sis, who wanted some birthday cards. (She was my first paying customer!) I had lots of fun playing with my new stampin' pastels. So you stamp a pretty image with a versamark ink. It's a clear sticky ink that you can use for lots of things. Then you take a Q-tip and dab some stampin' pastel color on top of the versamark ink. It looks lovely!

Supplies:

• Heartfelt Thanks stamp set
• Itty Bitty backgrounds stamp set
• God's Blessings stamp set
• versamark ink pad
• stampin' pastels
• barely banana cardstock
• old olive cardstock
• whisper white ultrasmooth cardstock
  

Did you know that you can click on pictures to get a closer look?

secret to happiness - b-day card

This one works well as a gender-neutral/masculine birthday card. No embellishments or fussiness make it a simple card to make, too!

Supplies:

• Simple Shapes stamp set
• Edgy Eloquence stamp set (from the Winter Mini, so it might be in the new catalog!)
• buckaroo blue cardstock (retiring June 30!)
• chocolate chip cardstock
• very vanilla cardstock
• chocolate chip classic ink pad
• buckaroo blue classic ink pad (retiring June 30!)

Snappy Birthday

I made this cute card at Stampin' Down the Shore with fellow demonstrators Claire and Kristen.

Supplies:
Crab and Company Stamp Set - from the Spring Mini catalog
Sandy Shells wheel
chocolate chip cardstock
chocolate chip classic stamp pad
tempting turquoise cardstock
turquoise 1/4 inch grosgrain ribbon
chocolate 1/4 inch grosgrain ribbon
tempting turquoise marker
blender pen
confetti cream cardstock