It feels great to be back!

It's taken me four years, but I'm finally back and on track! 

I love being a Stampin' Up! demo again.  This time around I've been making a lot of cards with all the goodies I earned during SAB.  With my limited vision, card making has been the perfect way to ease myself back into crafting, and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law love receiving them as gifts.

Even though they've been around a long time, I'd never done a One Sheet Wonder before, so I started with an easy version.  All you have to do is take an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of printed paper and cut it into four rectangles that are 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 each.  The trick comes from what you do with each rectangle.  The first one is cut diagonally and makes two cards.

The second rectangle is cut in half either horizontally or vertically.  (I'm still learning how to take pictures with my new camera, and it doesn't seem to be as blog friendly as my old one.  I do love the great SAB buttons, though!)

The third rectangle is cut into two sections:  one that is 1/3 of the paper and another that is 2/3s of it.

Love that matching SAB ribbon!  The background paper was embossed with the lace embossing folder.

My mother-in-law needed cards that could be used in a variety of situations, so I used the Celebrate You stamp from one of the old birthday sets.  She can use it for birthdays, graduations, congratulations, etc.

The final rectangle is cut into 3 sections.  To change things up, I used the reverse side of the Sycamore Street DSP paper for one of the cards.  My sister-in-law liked this one best!

I had a little trouble with the last one and would definitely cut or tear the paper differently next time!

I hope you enjoy seeing my first attempt at One Sheet Wonder card making.  I look forward to sharing a different version with you next time!

 

Happy Birthday, Judy!

Judy and I have been friends since 1st grade! This card uses the new Spiced Curry and Rich Razzleberry in-colors and the Razzleberry Lemonade DSP. I really like how it turned out and love the new butterfly and modern label punches!

A Big Thanks!

A big thanks to everyone for their kind words and encouragement! After I completed three surgeries in three months for my eye--and was unable to salvage the vision in it, my husband ended up in the hospital for 19 days and had two surgeries of his own.

He was diagnosed with Grave's Disease and Myasthenia Gravis. He has been home from the hospital for several weeks and is finally able to go back to work part time. He's still being fed from a tube in his stomach, but he is also able to swallow some things, and the list of foods he can swallow is growing.

I couldn't have made it without his family's willingess to take over with his 24/7 care and give me some rest.

Now I'm back at work full time and enjoying being in my new classroom with my students. We're getting geared up to start making the items for our craft fairs, and I can't wait to post some of them here on my blog.

More Razzleberry Lemonade

This card uses two of my favorite prints from the Razzleberry Lemonade DSP. I just love purples and pinks together, and I think the addition of Crushed Curry really made the flowered pattern pop! I used Crushed Curry cardstock for my base, the strip of eyelet, and the sentiment. I really had fun with my punches on this card, too. I used the ticket corner punch on the DSP, the eyelet border punch, and our new modern label punch for the sentiment. Isn't it a cool shape? The ink for the sentiment is Melon Mambo. I'm already in love with that color!

Just a Little Thanks!

Thanks to those who sent such kind responses after my last post! My third surgery was yesterday, and at the follow-up appointment today, the surgeon told me things went "as expected." The main purpose of this surgery was to remove the cataract that had developed after the second surgery and prepare my eye for the final surgery later this month.

I'm so excited about the new catalog launching today! Don't you just love the new in-colors? Since purple is my favorite color, I was very happy for the Rich Razzleberry cardstock that I used as the base for this card. I also stamped the sentiment in Rich Razzleberry on Whisper White cardstock and matted it on the new, Crushed Curry cardstock.

The DSP on the card comes from the Razzleberry Lemonade pack and also showcases the new in-colors Melon Mambo and Dusty Durango. I love the variety of patterns in this DSP pack, so you'll definitely be seeing more of it!

Christmas Craft Fair

The Christmas Craft fair for our junior high Destination Imagination teams was December 11th and 12th. What a relief to finally have it over!

Instead of pricing everything individually, we priced them by "table" and had $1, $2, $3, $5, and $7 & $10 tables. That worked out extremely well for us.

Surprisingly enough, our most popular sellers were the $1 gift card holder ornaments pictured on this tree. I'm not sure which batch this is because each time we'd finally make enough to fill the tree again, a new person would come in and buy all of them! One customer purchased the 13 that we had in stock and special ordered 7 more!

We had tons of the little mini portfolio gift card holders in stock, but the ones that hang from the tree beat them hands down. We also sold quite a few packages of the reindeer food that's pictured on the left. It wasn't ready until the 2nd day, and I think we'd have sold a lot more if we'd had it ready the first. Several people came and bought stuff from our $1 table to give out as Christmas presents for their children's day care and elementary school class mates. We sold all of our pillow boxes filled with M & Ms for that reason--before we even had a picture of them!

Although the students really enjoyed making these Sizzix boxes, they didn't sell as well as we'd hoped. Part of the problem was that the heater in the gym foyer got too hot the first day and the adhesive in some of the boxes started "melting" and those boxes deflated like balloons! We sold the majority of the whisks we'd made and will probably offer them again next year. I'm not sure how many of them actually made it home as Christmas presents and how many were quickly emptied of their candy by hungry students!

These were the altered frames on the $7 and $10 table. We sold most of the large ones and received several special orders for the word frames. I don't have any pictures of the frames on the $5 table because we couldn't keep them in stock, either! The small frames were sized to hold 4 x 6 pictures, and some customers were snapping up two and three at a time. We'll definitely be offering them again. Instead of wearing the DI team members down, this craft fair seems to have pumped them up! They want to have another one in the spring closer to Mother's Day and Graduation. Since our DI competition is February 28th, we'll have plenty of time to get ready!

Gift Cards

This weekend I fell in love with these gift card holders that kspiv at SCS posted directions for!

We've been looking for a variety of holders to offer at our craft fair on December 11th and 12th, and these were exactly what we needed.

If you have any of the 6 x 6 DSP pads that are offered as level 1 hostess gifts, they are the perfect size. The gift card holder on the left is made out of Real Red and the one on the right is last year's in-color, Wild Wasabi.

To make the card holders, you score the paper at the 3 inch mark, turn it, and score again at the 4 inch mark.

The 2 inches at the bottom fold up to form a pocket on the inside for the gift cards. I made mine similiar to the card portfolio I posted awhile back and cut a small V at the fold to help the holder close easier. Sticky tape holds the outer edges closed, and I used my Crop-o-dile to punch holes for a ribbon tie.

The fronts of the holders were easy to decorate, and the students will have fun decorating them for the craft fair.

Hostess Gift

This is what I gave the September Simply Scrappin' Kit Club hostess today. It had one sheet each of Ridinghood Red and Kiwi Kiss 12 x 12 patterned paper and two 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of each of the new in colors.


I also included this card packet with her stuff. I learned how to make it when I attended my team meeting and fell in love with it.


When you open it, there are two birthday cards and two thank you notes inside. The Old Olive 1/4 inch ribbon that ties the packet shut also holds in the cards so they don't fall out.


The birthday cards are made out of Ridinghood Red cardstock. I used a retired jumbo dotted wheel down the right side and matted some Bella Rose DSP with Kiwi Kiss. Then I stamped the birthday greeting with Kiwi Kiss and used the Scallop Punch to cut it out.


The thank you notes are made out of Kiwi Kiss cardstock. I used a retired jumbo rough edged wheel down the right side and matted some Bella Rose DSP with Ridinghood Red. Then I stamped the greeting with Ridinghood Red, punched it with the Scallop Punch, punched a small circle out of Kiwi Kiss, and used a Stampin' Dimensional to make it pop!

Cards, Cards, & More Cards!

These are the cards my Simply Scrappin' Kit Club members will be making today with the Boho Blend kit. I usually don't post the cards we make, but since we're doing two kits today and some people will be finishing them up at home, I wanted club members to be able to see the cards, too.


These are the cards we'll be making from the Rose Cottage kit. The one in the middle is my favorite. I just love those baroque flowers!

Great day at the buffet!

We had so much fun at the Scrapbook and Card Buffet at the Community Center in Yantis!

This is another one of the cards we made. It uses Green Galore cardstock as a base and has flowers from the Stitched Exotics stamp set in Pixie Pink on Whisper White cardstock. The scalloped border was made with the Cricut, the Green Galore swirl is from a retired SU! set, and I added the pen work with black ink to tie in the Celebrate you! phrase at the bottom that comes from a set in the mini catalog. (Don't forget the deadline for ordering from the mini has been extended until the end of June!)

I still need to scan several of the cards and the rest of the scrapbook pages. I'll try to get a few more of them posted before I leave for GASC next week.

It's so exciting when a group of scrappers get together and share ideas!

A Birthday Card for the Buffet

For this card, I used Pumpkin Pie cardstock for the base and wheeled Fast Flowers over it with a Pumpkin Pie ink cartridge. The striped paper is from the Summer Picnic DSP paper from the mini-catalogue and will be available through the end of June. Whisper White cardstock was layered over it.

The birthday sentiment came in the SAB scalloped set. I stamped it in Old Olive ink and cut it out with the 1 1/4" Circle Punch. I used the 1 3/8" Circle Punch to cut a matting circle out of Bashful Blue cardstock. Then I punched a Pumpking Pie scallop with the Scallop punch and punched a tiny circle in each scallop with the 1/16" circle punch. All three pieces were layered and centered.

One of the Thank You Cards for the Buffet

This is one of the Thank You cards I designed. It uses River Rock cardstock as its base. Black ink was wheeled on the River Rock with the Baroque Border wheel, using a black ink cartridge. Thank You was also stamped on River Rock cardstock, using black ink and a retired sentiment stamp. The sentiment was matted with black cardstock and both pieces of cardstock had their corners punched with the Ticket Corner Punch.

I love how this card turned out and plan to give sets of them as Christmas presents, but I'll need to order more cardstock since the River Rock color will no longer be available when the new catalogue comes out in August.

One of the Cards for Saturday's Buffet

This is the first card I designed for the Scrapbook and Card Buffet in Yantis on May 31, 2008.

The card uses Old Olive and Whisper White cardstock, Bali Breeze Designer Series Paper, one of the new Die-Cut Blooms, and a sentiment (for you) from the SAB rub-ons.