my Thanksgiving table

This year, we hosted Thanksgiving in our home. We were joined by my parents, Jon's mom and aunt, and Jon's sis and her hubby. It was truly a grand time. We had plenty of time for feasting and laughing, but we also got lots of projects done.

• Jon's mom and aunt and I made these placecards and napkin rings together. The placecards use Old Olive, Really Rust, and Chocolate Chip cardstock with the Best Friends alphabet. On the back of each placecard, we stamped the pumpkin from Year After Year, and watercolored it using the Aqua Painter. The napkin rings use the Apple Cider designer series paper for the ring (only available until Nov 30) and the Thouroughly Thankful stamp set inside the scallop punch medallion.



• My dad and Jon put together 2 new bookcases by our fireplace. They look great.


• The ladies and I had a recipe swap, and we used the What's for Dinner? stamp set to make our recipe cards.


• Yesterday, Jon made shelves for our antique pantry. He cut them using his new circular saw. Fun with power tools!
  

Graduation card

Here's the card I made to go with college care package I'm sending. Since he's going to Georgia Tech, I used a Summer Sun and Basic Black color scheme. It uses the mortarboard from the Year After Year set, gingham ribbon, congratulations from Hugs & Wishes, and a retired sentiment.

Christmas in August Stamp Camp

I hosted a Christmas in August Stamp Camp last weekend, and we had lots of fun listening to Charlie Brown Christmas music and making Christmas cards. Here's a sampling of some of the projects we made. I am considering offering the class again this weekend, since some people have been out of town and such. Let me know if you would be interested by e-mailing me at events@shilohstamps.com.

Christmas in August Stamp Camp would also be a great opportunity to take advantage of the Christmas in August special and get a head start on those Christmas cards this year. Here are some more examples of Christmas cards.

This is a pop-up tent card. The tree pops up when it's standing up. We used watercolor paper, staz-on ink, and the aquapainter to paint the tree from Year After Year. The polka-dots on the bottom are from the Dashing designer series paper.

This sparkly Merry Christmas card was inspired by a card I made at a stamp camp a few years back. On this card, we used an image from In The Spotlight as the snowflake, stamped with Encore silver metallic ink. Then we laid a stripe of Sticky Strip across the top and sprinked the whole card with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. The glitter sticks to the sticky strip and the Encore ink. We topped it off with a Merry Christmas tag from the Holidays and Wishes set and tied it with a white grosgrain ribbon. Warning - this card is messy (but fun) to make. Be sure you have a Powder Pal so you don't get glitter everywhere!

This Merry & Bright card uses a set from the new Holiday Mini catalog. It's a Love Note (3"x3") so it's super-quick to make. Stampin' Up is giving away free Love Notes this month when you order the Three for You Punch set. See this post for another Love Note example that uses the punches.

My first scrapbook page and Love Note

This picture is from my 30th birthday trip to Las Vegas with my family. Read more about our trip here. One of my goals in becoming a Stampin' Up demonstrator was to learn more about scrapbooking. A friend of mine scheduled a workshop recently. When I asked what sorts of projects she would like me to demonstrate, she said, "scrapbooking". I took this as my opportunity to try some scrapbooking, and I designed this 6"x6" scrapbook page for us to make together. It uses the Certainly Celery Designer Series paper. This comes in a package of 12 sheets of 12"x12" paper, so you can make 48 6"x6" pages with it. I love the idea of using vellum for the titles of scrapbook pages. You could print all your titles on one sheet of vellum paper, and then cut them up for your pages. Since vellum is sheer, you don't have to worry about coordinating the colors. I think Year After Year will prove to be a great stamp set for scrapbooking. It hits all the holidays and milestones, since it has a wedding cake, graduation hat, Christmas tree, baby toy (a cute elephant), and some other goodies.

This is a Love Note that we'll be making at my friend's house on Monday. It's a mini-card at 3"x3", the perfect size for enclosing with a gift or tucking in a lunchbox. This uses the Three For You punchbox, which includes 9 stamps, 3 stampin' spots, and a punch that makes 3 little flowers.

This month, Stampin' Up is offering a special promotion with this box. When you order the Three For You punchbox, you receive 30 Love Notes (10 each of Purely Pomegranate, and So Saffron) and matching envelopes. We'll also be using the Love Notes for the Christmas in August Stamp Camp this weekend. For some more ideas of how you can use the Punch box, check out the gallery at SplitcoastStampers.com.

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!

Thank you - 2 versions

So I've been very thankful lately and I've been making lots of thank-you cards. I can't decide which design I like best here. What do you think?

I'm thankful for my dear friends and family who are so good to me. I am so thankful to my husband, who gives me a comfortable stretch when needed. I am thankful for Claire, who introduced me to Stampin' Up, and offered me the opportunity to start a new business. I am thankful to my hostesses and customers, who are enjoying learning new stamping techniques and supporting me as I start my business. So if you fit one of those categories, you might be getting a thank you note in the mail soon! Who are you thankful for?

This is a really simple card to make. The two cards shown here use the same color background cardstock, regal rose. (Sorry they look so different in the pictures). I stamped the flowers in basic black with the stems coming off the edges, so it looks like you're looking down into a bouquet. I stamped the sentiment, and punched a perfect square using the 1 3/8" square punch, and then mounted it on black cardstock and wrapped some gingham ribbon around. Then on one of the cards, I colored in the flowers using stampin' write markers. I don't normally like doing so much coloring on my cards, since it takes so much time. However, since this set is kind of sketch-like, you don't need to be so careful about staying in the lines. This makes the coloring go much faster!

Some of the supplies used:

• year after year stamp set
• figures of speech stamp set
• black gingham ribbon
• stampin' write markers - regal rose, so saffron, mellow moss

You may have noticed the Google calendar in the toolbar on the right. My software developer hubby has convinced me of the virtues of Google calendar. I think it will be a good way to inform my blog readers about upcoming stamping events. You'll notice that I have a Birthday Calendar class coming up next week. I have one space left in the class, so click the date you'd like to attend for more information. I'm also having a Christmas in August stamp camp. We'll be making a variety of Christmas cards to help people get started on making their Christmas cards before the holiday season. Let me know what you think of the new addition!