Congrats, fabulous friend!

My colleague and friend Debbie is getting married in a few weeks, so we had an office wedding shower for her yesterday. I don't have a stamp sentiment that says something specific about a wedding shower, so I used the Amazing to Zany set and stamped, "congrats fabulous friend". I think it did the trick. Since every bride and groom need thank-you notes, I made Debbie a folder full or thank-you notes in her wedding colors - pink and orange. I used Purely Pomegranate and Groovy Guava.





I also stamped the envelopes with an image from the Carte Postale set. I think it looks great on the envelope flap.








I made a folder for the cards using some Groovy Guava designer series paper. That's a trick I learned at Stampin' Down the Shore last year.












The card ingredients are:

• Baroque Motifs stamp set


• Purely Pomegranate, Groovy Guava, and Whisper White cardstock


• Groovy Guava and Purely Pomegranate classic ink


• mat pack (for paper piercing)


• rhinestone brads in fire color assortment (Did I tell you I got the rhinestone brads for free?)

The folder uses:

• Ginger Blossom Designer Series paper (thanks, Ashley Hill, for the pic! http://rubbertherapy.blogspot.com/)


• Vintage brads


• 1/4" whisper white grosgrain ribbon


• Purely Pomegranate and whisper white cardstock


• scallop punch


• rhinestone brads in fire

Happy Birthday to Mom

Today is my mom's birthday, and here's the card I mailed her today. Let's see if she sees it on the blog before it arrives in her mailbox. I mailed the same card to my my mom-in-law, whose birthday was the 21st. My mom and my mom-in-law both requested stampin' goodies for their birthdays this year, so my mom got tons of stamp sets, courtesy of my dad. My mom-in-law got some punches and some stamps and some things for her new house.

Sorry for the blurry picture of this card. I was playing with the camera on my new phone, and it looks like I don't quite have it down yet. The card uses In The Spotlight (a retired hostess set) and a new celebrate set. It's hard to tell in this picture, but I used paper piercing in the corners and there's a brad in the middle of the starburst image. There's also a piece of grosgrain ribbon going across the middle of the card.

Good for You, Gina and Christy!

I have lots of congratulating to do lately. My sister, the fabulous stage actress, recently won 2 Arizoni Awards for her role as The Sour Kangaroo in Seussical the Musical. Now she's touring the country with Tomas and the Library Lady. Check out their tour blog at http://www.talltour.org/tour/

Also, our friend Christy just got engaged. Yippee! So I sent these cards to Gina and Christy. They use designer series paper in the background, the Good for You stamp from the Figures of Speech stamp set, the scallop punch (my favorite!), the paper piercing tool, Dazzling Diamonds glitter (applied with the 2-way glue pen), and some organdy ribbon. Super-simple!

Are you a Shiloh Stamps Frequent Stamper?

Recently, those who have participated in my stamping classes received a Frequent Stamper card and a schedule of my upcoming classes. Click on this image to view a larger sample of the paper piercing and embossing techniques I used on this card.

Thank you very much + an experiment with brads

This is one of the cards that we made at my Open House last weekend. I love its simple design and crisp palette. I made a bunch of these cards, and I just changed the sentiment at the bottom to "Birthday Hugs and Wishes" on a few.


This card was inspired by a few stampin' things I've learned on the web. First, I was hoping to use up my Vintage Violet cardstock, since it's no longer available. I discovered the Color Combinations Tool, a website that helps you coordinate Stampin' Up colors. I selected Vintage Violet, and then clicked "search". It gave me all sorts of color combinations that use vintage violet. I don't think I would've put these colors together on my own. There's a link to the Color Combinations tool in the Stampin' Links list on the sidebar of my blog.


Also, I have new favorite tool, thanks to this card. I'm really enjoying the paper piercing tool and the paper piercing template. Using the guide, I can punch evenly spaced holes in my cardstock. It makes a really cool effect, and I like how it looks with this stamp set that already has dots around the edges. I can punch holes wherever I like, which means that I can punch holes to put brads in the center of these flowers.


I got this stamp set for free when I signed up to be Stampin' Up Demonstrator. It's called "In the Spotlight" and it's a hostess set from the new Fall-Winter Collection 2007 which debuted July 1st. You can get it for free when you host a Stampin' Up workshop in your home. I got it in May, though, so I got a head start on making projects with it. (My stamping friends were jealous!) I'll be posting some other samples soon.



So I learned a lesson with brads while working on this card. I haven't worked with brads very much before. I was trying to use up my stash of non-Stampin' Up brads, while I was waiting for my SU brads to arrive. (It doesn't make sense to demonstrate products that I don't sell.) I discovered that these pewter mini circle brads (pictured on the left) are really hard to open. You know how the legs on brads are usually two different lengths, so you can open them up? Not so with these brads... so you have to try and pry them open with your fingernail, and they don't come open easily, let me tell you. I chipped my nail and risked sending a brad under the fingernail trying to get these open. When the Stampin' Up brads finally arrived, I discovered that not only do the brad-legs have different lengths, but that they're already slightly open, thus saving the fingernails. Only SU brads from now-on for me!

By the way, the other thing I learned online before making this card is that the dotted line in this stamp set can actually be used as a flower stem! It wasn't until looking through the In the Spotlight gallery on Splitcoaststampers.com that I connected the dots, so to speak.

Carte Postale bookends

I found these great bookends at Circle Thrift, and I thought, "I can use these for a craft project!". I made these bookends as a belated anniversary gift for my sister and brother-in-law. "How belated?" you might ask. Well, they're anniversary was in March and I mailed the book-end/frames last week. Their house is decorated with lots of reds and purples, so I think these will fit in just fine.


Some of the supplies I used:

• carte postale stamp set
• white craft ink pad
  
• 1 3/8" square punch
• brads
  
• 1/4" grosgrain ribbon

What brown can do for you...

Over the past few days, I've gotten two UPS packages and a FedEx package. I love getting mail! The two UPS packages were from Stampin' Up, and you can see their contents in the picture here - sorry for the glare. I got 4 stamp sets, 6 packets of papers, a set of brads, 8 catalogs, a cool white gel pen, 3 markers, a roll of a black and white gingham ribbon, a coordinated scrapbook set, a paper piercing template, and the Aqua Painters. This order included my new catalog "preview" items. As a Stampin Up demonstrator, I get to order new products about a month before everyone else and I get a discount- woohoo! I'm having fun getting my new stamping business off the ground. The discount is great, and this was all a 'business expense'!

The FedEx package was tickets to a Phillies/Pirates game. We're going to a game in July with our friends Andy and Tracy. Our seats aren't bad. Should be a grand time!