Oh .. to be Queen for a day ...

I'm never very organized, no matter how much I am determined to be!! Stamp club is only two nights away and I am only partly prepared. It seems that I have been in a creative funk and have become lazy to the point where I'm cruising the blogs looking for projects to case. Time to put my thinking cap on and come up with my own creations! In addition to having to prepare for club, I have several birthdays coming up that required special cards. Here is the one I created for my co-worker, Donna: (spoiler alert for my club ladies - we are doing this card on Wednesday!)

Donna is a wonderful lady and very much deserving of being a Queen for the day, if not all year round. This card uses basic black card stock for the base and Pacific Point for the layer. The PP is run through the Big Shot using the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder. The Vintage Wallpaper folder is one of my absolute favourites and I use it quite often. Of course, the Queen deserves some bling so I spritzed the Pacific Point layer with a shimmer mist made from the frost white shimmer paint and rubbing alcohol. Just love that shimmer! The flower was punched from strips of First Edition DSP that had been crumbled, distressed with the tea stain and azure blue inks in the distressing kit and then punched out with the scallop circle punch. A clear rhinestone in the centre of the flower added another little touch of bling. The stamp used was from the You're a Gem set on page 25 of the Occasions Mini. This was punched out with the small oval punch and layered on basic black punched out using the Decorative Label punch. I'm so sad that this punch has been temporarily back ordered. Hopefully that will be rectified soon. A little more bling with the basic rhinestones and then finally, a trinket crown from the set of three Trinket Crowns found on page 24 of the Occasions mini. What a nice touch the crown is for the Queen. haha

Hopefully my club ladies won't mind a sneak peek of one of our projects. The remaining projects will be posted after club. Until then, take care.

Pat

Totally CASE'd Fancy Fold Valentine card

I told you how much I love Valentine's Day projects right? So now I need to show you what card made me fall in love with the Valentine Defined stamp set in the Occasions Mini.

This was CASE'd from Emma Fewkes and I changed my version just a little bit. Check out Emma's version on her great blog: http://ladynthestamp.blogspot.com. Thank you Emma for sharing such a great project. To tell you a little bit about the card, the base is whisper white, ink is real red and the hearts are punched out of the red glitter paper with the large and small heart punches. Love that glitter paper!! The Valentine Defined stamp set can be found on Page 9 of the Occasions Mini. The bendy folds are made using tabs and slits in the card. Really cool!

Thank you for looking.

Pat

I love Valentine's Day projects!!

There is something about all of the great product that Stampin' Up! has that makes Valentine's Day projects a whole lot of fun. I had told myself that I didn't need anything new for making projects for the upcoming occasion but one look at the new Occasions mini and I was a goner. There are so many beautiful projects using Valentine Defined (page 9 of the mini) and I fell in love and had to have it. And, for those of you who know me, you know my love of luminaires. What would Valentine's be without the soft glow of a battery operated tea light shining from a pretty Valentine luminaire?? Unfortunately, I had a terrible time getting a good picture of this project so this is the best I could come up with. (time for a new camera!!)

I was excited to make this project as it uses the Fancy Favour box die which I finally got around to ordering. Why, oh why did I wait so long?? This is going to be my new favourite go to die and I can see using it a lot. The heart stems stamp is from the Valentine Defined stamp set and the heart is punched out of the lovely red glitter paper with the large heart punch. Vellum on these luminaires adds such a nice, soft, romantic look. The trim on the top of the box is cut from the Love Patterns DSP using just the top portion of the die. Cool effect!! Once again, I am sorry for the poor picture quality.

Off to get some housework done and then I can work on some more projects. Take care.

Pat

A new year of blogging ...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Now that the holiday season is over, it's time to get back into the swing of things in my craft room. I was seriously lacking motivation and enthusiasm after taking a small break so it is a good thing I have a commitment to my lovely club ladies to provide projects for our monthly club. If it wasn't for having to prep for club, I would probably still be in a funk!! These pictures are the projects we did this month. I had to expand my comfort zone and do a scrap page. I will freely admit that I am intimidated by scrapping so this club will benefit me in a big way as it will force me to overcome my fears!!! hehe Sounds like scrapping is sooo scary but for some reason having more space to fill seems too much for me. Thankfully I was able to CASE this layout from SU's November Stampin' Success. A scrap page is definitely a personal thing so it was nice to see how everyone tweaked their pages to suite their own tastes. We also made a gate fold card using the stamp set and paper from the Loads of Love promo. We also used the beautiful red glitter paper which was punched out with the small heart punch. The third card was made using the Build a Blossom stamp set and Blossom Petals punch from the Occasions mini which just came into effect on January 4th. This mini is incredible and there are so many wonderful new products and, of course, I have to have everything. Keep checking in to see samples of projects made with these new products. I am anxiously awaiting my next order so that I can show you more!!! Okay, I'm an addict!! Take care.

Pat

December Blog (late!)

Well, I'm even late with my once a month blog. But December 27th still qualifies for a December entry!! Needless to say, things were busier than usual in the month of December between attending craft sales and preparing for Christmas. I didn't get much done in the way of baking this year but my shopping was started in November and finally completed the week before Christmas, or so I thought. Turns out I should not let myself go in the stores once I think I'm done shopping as I still tend to shop. Let's just say a little boy in our house did get somewhat spoiled this year. Can't help myself, I love him!! In addition to Christmas shopping and craft sales, there was some Christmas crafting as well. The pictures show some of the projects that we did in stamp club. The wine glass luminaire is so easy and so very pretty. The shade was cut out of vellum using a template and stamped in olive stazon. Add the pretty pearls, a wineglass and a battery operated tea light and you have a lovely luminaire. The Christmas tree luminaire was one that I put together and decided not to use in class as it takes a little while to get all the steps done. Cute project though. The cards were all made using stamps from the holiday mini and some of my favourite color combinations. The tag is made from my favourite Christmas stamp - Dasher and my new favourite bling - glass glitter. These tags were used on my gifts to my club ladies and my coworkers. All of these projects have been CASED from other sources and I cannot take any credit for creating anything original here. I thank the various sources for their inspiration.

There are some exciting events coming up soon. The new Occasions mini comes into effect January 4th and Sale-A-Bration starts towards the end of January. Check out my Stampin' Up! website for additional information. My next posts will include samples from these new catalogues; maybe even something pertaining to Valentine's Day!

I hope Santa was good to everyone and that you had a very merry Christmas.

Pat

November blog

I have accepted the fact that this is going to be a monthly blog!! I have been keeping busy completing projects for upcoming craft sales. The picture frames were purchased at Michaels and altered using Stampin' Up! Deck the Halls Designer Series Paper, Deck the Halls big buttons and the Big Shot and Tasteful Trim die. The wine boxes were purchased at Dollarama, painted with acrylic paint and decorated with flowers cut by the Big Shot using the flower fusion die.

That's it until next month!!!

Pat

This is turning into a once a month blog!!

Are you starting to see a pattern?? Bad, bad blogger again. It's been incredibly busy, yada, yada, yada. Guess this is the way it's always going to be so I just have to learn to enjoy it!! I really am enjoying it actually. Our monthly stamp club officially kicked off on October 13th and I think we have a great group of ladies. Saturday was the Mommy & Me Trick or Treat Class. I was quite excited about the Build-a-bear luminaire. We used a brown lunch bag with the top ripped using the tearing edge. Our BAB was dressed in a pumpkin made from three 1 3/4" punched circles, the bats were punched from the new bat punch and the ghost is the owl from the owl punch turned upside down and minus his feet. I liked this project so much, I had my club ladies make it too. They didn't seem to mind so I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. The kids also made a cute Halloween card from the Beary Best Friends stamp set and the coordinating Season of Hugs stamp set. The other project was a spider using the sweet treat cups with legs punched with the photo corner punch. I don't have a picture of this to post as my version was quite sad. Needless to say, the kids projects turned out much better!

I hope you are all looking forward to Halloween and have all of your decorations up!! Take care.

Pat