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

A Very Coaster Christmas

Back in November, Super-Stamper Melanie Robson taught us PhillyInkers* how to stamp on marble tiles to make coasters. I absolutely loved this project, so I decided to make a whole bunch of coasters to sell at the Circle of Hope Art Shop in early December. After much success with the coasters at the Art Shop, I decided to make coasters for people on our Christmas list. After all, I had signed the Buy Handmade pledge, saying that I would give handmade gifts this year.

If you are interested in purchasing some coasters or learning how to make your own coasters, please e-mail me at alison@shilohstamps.com.





* = The PhillyInkers are a fantabulous group of Stampin' Up demonstrators based in the Philadelphia region. We are all part of Claire Lawrence's downline. Every month we get together to share business ideas and do some stamping together. You can find links to many PhillyInkers blogs in the Favorite Stampin' Links list at the right. Let me know if you would like to sit in on one of our meetings sometime. Our next meeting is January 14th, and it will be in NJ.

Box of Gift Tags

I made this little box of gift tags for our friends Steve and Julie. They hosted a party last week, after returning from several weeks in India. They had lots of people over to look at their pictures, sample some Chai and curry, and welcome them home. It was lots of fun hearing about their travels.

These tags use the frame from Holy Triptych, sentiments from Star-Studded Season, and Holiday Harmony designer series paper. I also used Purely Pomegranate and Chocolate Chip paper as backgrounds. The tags are tied with gold elastic cord. I love how the satin ribbon gives these tags an elegant touch. Although these stamp sets are no longer available, the ribbon is for sale Buy One Get One as part of the Wrapping Up the Holidays promotion, which has been extended until December 31.

Wrapping Up the Holidays Extended!

Stampin' Up announced today that due to demand, they will be extending the Wrapping Up the Holidays promotion. That means that Purely Pomegranate Satin Ribbon I used to wrap Tiffany's gift is still Buy One, Get One free until the end of December! Here are all the products featured in this promotion.

• 112409 Holiday Tag Bundle $4.95



• 110380 Tags for All Stamp Set*(20% off) $24.76



• 110264 Designer Gift cards* (30% off) $4.55



• 109862 Chocolate Chip satin ribbon* Buy 1, get 1 free!**



• 109863 Purely Pomegranate satin ribbon* Buy 1, get 1 free!**



• 112410 Tin 3-Pack $9.95110147 Celebration wrapping paper* $17.95



• 110228 Hand Selected Accents & Elements (25% off) $8.21

Click here for the full-size flyer.

Christmas Shopping

Have you started your holiday shopping yet? Are you distributing a wish list to your friends and family? I've been collecting wish list from my family, but I have to confess that I haven't bought any presents yet! Now I took the Buy Handmade Pledge, so I plan to give everyone on my list a handmade gift this year. I plan to do some shopping at Circle of Hope Art Show this weekend.

If you have crafters on your gift list, you may want to check out Stampin' Up's 5 Fantastic Gifts Under $25. I personally would love to have Paper Trimmer they feature in this lift of suggested gifts. If you would like to receive some Stampin' Up products this year, e-mail me at alison@shilohstamps.com for a Stampin' Wish List to pass on to the Santas in your life. In order to receive Stampin' gifts in time for Christmas, be sure to order no later than December 14.

Are you planning on special gift wrap and tags this year? Stampin' Up is Wrapping Up the Holidays with a special holiday promotion. The Satin ribbon from the Holiday Mini is Buy One, Get One free throught this promotion. I ordered a roll of Purely Pomegranate and a roll of Chocolate Chip. You can also buy empty Accents and Elements tins. People are enjoying making special gift card holders by 'altering' these tins. Click here for some ideas using the products in this promotion.

Also, don't forget that I'm offering 20% off all the retiring stamp sets. Now might be a good time to make sure you get those sets before they are no longer available.

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.

Custom coffee mug for a college care package

All the cool kids are carrying travel coffee mugs these days, did you know? Perhaps you've already joined the club of coffee-on-demand, but I've just recently caught on. See, I'm making a care package for my hubby's cousin who recently began studies at Georgia Tech, 777 miles away from his TX hometown. I thought a care package would be a nice gesture. So far, I have EasyMac, coffee, green tea, and a white board. I asked a college student friend what I should add to complete the package and she said a travel coffee mug. Apparently, the Nalgene bottle of my college days has been replaced by the travel coffee mug.

So I started hunting for a cool travel coffee mug. I found the perfect one at Starbucks (conveniently located in my local grocery store) - the Create Your Very Own tumbler. I just traced the provided template (at left) onto some patterned paper, stamped an oh-so-masculine vintage car on the page, and stuffed it back into the bottom of the tumbler. Super-easy!


Now my care package is complete, and I'd like to make some more of these as gifts. I'm going to hunt around online to see if I can find them cheaper anywhere else. I'll keep you posted on my hunt for cheap mugs.

Here's what I've found thus far:

• a link to another lady who has been making custom mugs
• maybe Starbucks really does have the best price at $11 ish. I've found mugs for as much as $16 in my quick web survey
• Starbucks has some travel mug art online that you can download for free, although they don't seem to sell the mugs online
• Treasured Tumblers carries a variety of styles of create-your-own travel mugs, but the cheapest is $14.95. They also have free artwork for your mug in the "Free Stuff" section.

UPDATE:

I found these mugs called Scrapbook tumblers at Target for $7.99. They're a smaller version of this mug, and the trim is in a bright color. I think they had pink and purple. I'll buy one and post samples soon. They are not listed on the Target website, but I found them in the store with all the travel mugs.

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

Gabe flags

I made these flags for a newborn's nursery

Supplies:
Ballet blue cardstock
Night of Navy cardstock
On Board Simon lower letters (for tracing)
patterned paper
navy grosgrain ribbon
1/2 inch circle punch

I traced the On Board Simon letters with an exacto knife on a self-healing mat. I love this look!

I got this idea from a pricey item I saw in The Land of Nod catalog. I thought I could try making it on my own. Their letters are almost $3 each plus $3.50 for a shoelace to hang the letters on. That would be $21 for ALISON.