Build a Banner Cards

Hi Stampers!

I was on Stampin' Connection the other day, our demonstrator sharing web site, and came across this great idea for using the stencils from the Build a Banner Simply Created Kit in card making:

The card I saw was a Christmas card, but I wanted to make monogrammed note cards. For this card I used the colours I already had out from making my welcome banner.  Here's another colour combination:
 

This time I wanted a colour combination that was classy and looked a bit more polished.

Then I got to thinking, we could use the background stencils the same way we use Designer Series Paper or embossing folders to add a layer of interest to our cards:

Cute right?  I just love finding out that I product I bought for one purpose is more versatile than I thought it was!  What do you have in your stash that you can use in a different way than you have before?

Go stamp something!

Diane
 

Banner Love

Hi Stampers!

 

Today I'm sharing some banners I made using Stampin' Up!'s Build a Banner Simply Created Kit.   

 

It comes with 18 canvas pennants in three different styles, background stencils,  alphabet stencils, jute twine and a Stampin' Spritzer.  I have to admit, I was a little nervous getting started, I was afraid to 'ruin' it, but it was soooo easy! 

 

There are a few different ways to use the stencils with your pennants, you can add 25 drops of Ink Refill in your colour of choice to the Stampin' Spritzer, then fill with rubbing alcohol and spritz onto your canvas with one of the stencils in place.  You can also use a Sponge Dauber dipped in your Ink Refill of choice and then rub the ink into the canvas through the stencil, or if you're like me you can use a chunk of Stamping Sponge and ink your ink pads because you left your Ink Refills, Stampin' Spritzers and Sponge Daubers at your friend's house when you were stamping together (and she lives too far away to simply pick it up). 

 

All three ways worked, spritzing is the fastest, and the messiest, so cover your work space!  Sponge Daubers with Ink Refill got good coverage taking a little bit longer than spritzing, and Stamping Sponges inked with ink pads took the longest, and the resulting colours were a little less intense than when using Ink Refill.

 

Here's the banner I made with just what came in the kit, sponges and ink pads:

 

I'm planning to hang this up outside my classroom for back to school in September.  The pennants are pretty cute, but the banner as a whole could use some dressing up, so I'm going to order some 3/4" Chevron Ribbon in Marina Mist and Crushed Curry as well as some Designer Buttons and Frosted Finishes Embellishments for sparkle.

 

The next banner I have to show you uses the Halloween Banner Simply Created Accessory Kit:

No extras needed here!  As you can see, this kit comes with rosettes, ribbon, buttons, die cut accents, so many embellishments I didn't even use them all on my banner:

 

For this banner, Spritzers were used to make the background images and Sponge Daubers dipped directly in Basic Black ink were used for the letters.  LOVE this banner!!!  Can't wait to be able to hang this one up! 

Stampin' Up! also carries a Christmas Banner Simply Created Accessory Kit in a snowflake theme:
Gorgeous right!?!  I haven't made this one yet because I'm having trouble deciding what word I want for this banner.  Brrr, Noel, Joy?  I just don't know!  Stay tuned to see this one once I've finally made my choice!


New Classes!

I'm running some private classes from now until December.  The options for August and September are the banners!!  You can choose either of the styles I've shown today, but you don't have to use the same words I did.  For the Welcome style banner (with the extra embellishments I'm ordering!) you can choose any word that is 11 letters or less, like celebrate, or someone's name.  For the spooky style banner you can choose any word that is 9 letters or less, like Beware or Boooo. 

For more information you can click on the classes tab above.  Contact me today to book your class!

Go stamp something!
Diane

Friendly Friday

Hi Stampers!

My featured friend this week is a person I actually stamped with in person!  Last night I attended a demonstrator event at my friend Jenilee's in Chilliwack.  Looooong drive, but totally worth it!  Jenilee has a beautiful large stamping studio above her garage and it was such a pleasure to be in such a large space that is dedicated just to stamping.  I'd love to show you a few pictures of her space, but I didn't bring my camera...so I have none.  Bad blogger!  I apologize.  What I can show you a picture of is the card Jenilee designed for our Holiday Catalogue make and take:

Cute right!  (ignore how my ribbon got bent on the car ride home!)  It uses one of the new paper stacks, Winter Frost, and the stamp sets Calm Christmas and Festive Flurry (the smallest snowflake is stamped on top of the dove in Illuminate Glimmer ink).  Like that ribbon?  It's the new Silver 1/8" ribbon found in the Holiday Catalogue.  You have to feel it, silky and cool.  It's just shiny and nice.  Other products used for this card are Whisper White and Pool Party cardstock, Smoky Slate ink, and Versamark ink with our white embossing powder for the sentiment.  Jenilee is planning to use this card for her holiday stamp-a-stack classes, I might have to do the same.  Thanks for the great card Jenilee!

The second project we made was one I brought to show everyone, it's based on a card that Shelli showed on stage at convention.  Hers was a brightly coloured birthday card, mine uses that great Winter Frost Designer Series Paper Pack from the Holiday Catalogue again, and I added a gift card holder to her design:

There's that paper bow again, but how did it get so big?!?  On Shelli's card she used the new Gift Bow Bigz L Die and the Big Shot to make the big paper bow, but I don't have that yet.  I had to be a bit creative and used our Oval Collection Framelits with my Big Shot to cut out four ovals and used the exact same technique as we did with the large oval punch at Stamping 101 on Tuesday, only bigger.  Jenilee happened to have the Gift Bow Die, so we gave that a try too:

Both methods work, the Gift Bow Die is quicker and easier to put together (less steps) but the main bow piece is longer than the paper stack sheets.  If you're using cardstock or full sized designer paper though it's great, you can get two bows out of one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock.  With the framelits, you can get one bow of similar size out of one of the paper stack sized sheets.  It just depends which look you prefer for your project.  What?  You don't have a Big Shot yet?  It's okay, Christmas is coming.  Start dropping hints now.  Until then Stampin' Up! also has a package of printed die cut pieces called Pretty Presents Designer Bows.  They come with two different sized double-sided designs:

It was a pleasure to spend time with the demos Jenilee had gathered there, such a fun group! We'll definitely have to do it again.

Go stamp something!  (and maybe add a paper bow...)
Diane

Stamping 101

Hi Stampers,
Today I want to show you the two cards we made at Stamping 101 last night!  The first card we made was a Christmas card: 

 I know you think it's a little early, but it's good to get thinking about these things before the time crunch, when you have the time to enjoy the process.  Wondering where we got that bow?  Paper bows are all the rage right now, and we made ours with a 2" x 4" piece of DSP and an oval punch.  You simply punch out 4 ovals, fold two of them in half (but a soft fold with no crease) to be the loops, cut a notch out of the other two to make the tails of your 'ribbon', glue them all together with Tombo liquid glue or glue dots, then glue a little 1/4" strip around the centre.  Cute! 

We used the Santa image from the Ronald McDonald House Charities stamp set, Tag It. 

We also used Season of Style DSP for the bow and the strip on the left with the tiny triangles.  The card stock colours are Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive.  The Cherry Cobbler piece is run through the big shot with the Stripes textured embossing folder.  Are you also wondering how we got the Whisper White layer that shape?  This stamp set is designed to coordinate with the Chalk Talk Framelits, but I don't have those yet, so we used a framelit from the Lablels Collection and trimmed off the sides a little:



See how we just snipped that bracket shape off the sides?  Sometimes you need to find a way to work with what you have!

 

For our second card we used everyone's new favourite product, washi tape!!

We used seven different designs from the Season of Style, Witches' Brew and Epic Day collections.  We started with the centre newsprint design piece and worked out from there.  This is really fast because you just stick and rip, and because it's not supposed to look perfect, it's even more fun! 

Then we used a framelit from the Apothecary Accents Framelits and the Big Shot to cut out the window and stamped a sentiment from the Feel Goods stamp set on the front of the card base with Jet Black StazOn ink.  LOVE this stamp set!  We used the stamp-a-ma-jig to help us line up the image in the window.  A few dimensionals on the washi tape layer, two candy dots from the neutrals collection and we were done!  Quick and cute with a nice WOW factor!

Thanks to the girls who came to stamp with me last night, it was fun to catch up!  And thanks to you for stopping by the blog today.

Go stamp something!
Diane

You're Amazing!

Hi Stampers,

Yesterday we had a first birthday party to go to.  Of course the first thing I start thinking about is what kind of card I'm going to make!  I flipped though my stamp sets and settled on You're
Amazing.

I didn't think I would use this set very much when I got it, how often do I need a circus themed card or scrapbook page?  I've actually used it a lot--in a non-circus kind of way.  The You're Amazing and Happy Birthday sentiments have come in really handy when I want the words to take centre stage in my project, they're nice and bold and look great stamped in a vibrant colour.  The hot air balloon actually makes a nice soft background image when stamped in a subtle colour or used tone on tone.  The tickets have a coordinating punch, love that!  The image I haven't really used much is the elephant, until now...

He is so cute in his party hat!  Since I was making a first birthday card, I decided to go with bright colours: Pacific Point, Real Red and Pumpkin Pie.  I used four of the images from You're Amazing, and two images from That's the Ticket, and at the last minute I added the lines in the background from Gorgeous Grunge.  I just felt like the background needed something.  Since I didn't have a DSP to coordinate with my colour combination, I made my own using the hot air balloon image and the tiny ticket image and the three colours of ink on a 1 1/4" strip of Whisper White card stock.  I used one of the Apothecary Accents Framelits Dies to cut out Happy Birthday and a couple of punches for the adorable party elephant.  Two mini brads and a few dimensionals later, here we are, a cute birthday card!

 

I think since he's one he won't care what his card looks like, but I love it, and I think his mom will too.  Happy Birthday Luke!!  Think about what events you have coming up and...

 

Go stamp something!

Diane

Friendly Friday

Hi Stampers!

It's time to visit stamping friends around the web!  My friend Angela from Angela's Ink Link made the card below for a clay swap she was in at convention (and she was kind enough to swap one with me too, thanks Angela!)

 

Isn't it the cutest!?!  I just love the fresh feeling colour combination, and that you get the impact of the gorgeous DSP, but only need to have some little scraps to accomplish it.  LOVE it!  You can see Angela's post about this card by clicking on the picture, you can browse the rest of her site by clicking on her name above.  Be sure to take a look at the photo of the cards from her black and white swap, they're stunning!

 

Our second stamper today is Donna from Butternut Sage Designs.  The term paper crafting doesn't seem sufficient to describe this project.  The artistic talent displayed here really puts this card in another category all together.

 

 

Can't you just hear the surf breaking when you look at that gorgeous background?  I'd love to learn how to do that, why do you live so far away, Donna?  Your card has truly captured a happy summer.

To see Donna's blog, click on her name above, to go directly to this post click on the picture.

 

If you like these cards, please stop by the posts of these talented ladies and leave them a comment telling them so.  Feeling inspired to create something of your own now?

 

Go stamp something!

Diane



August Promotions

Hi Stampers,

There is a lot going on at Stampin' Up! this month!!  I'm going to run it down for you:

1. The Holiday Catalogue begins today!!  This thing is full of great products, and great project ideas to go with them--there's even a new interactive feature that leads you to great video tutorials, LOVE that!!  The instructions are on p.5 of the Holiday Catalogue, all you do is download the free Layar app, scan any page that has the icon on it and enjoy the video.  If you're not a smart phone or tablet person, the videos can also be viewed on the Stampin' Up! YouTube page.  If you would like a paper copy, let me know, if you'd like to view it online click here.

2. If you're the kind of person who likes to craft, but doesn't like to plan a project, pull all of your supplies out, cut cardstock and prep all of the materials, this is for you.  My Paper Pumpkin is a magic little box that arrives at your door each month with everything you need to create a project ready to go.  It includes a stamp set, an ink spot and all of the consumable materials cut and ready to go, along with an instruction sheet which includes a photo of the completed project.  It could be a mini scrapbook, or a set of cards, you never know.  You're able to manage your membership on-line, so you can skip a month, restart or cancel your membership whenever you like.  Use the promotion code PUMPKINDEAL to join Paper Pumpkin before August 31, 2013, and pay only $12.50 a month* for the first two months. *plus tax, where applicable. Shipping included!  Click here for more information.

3.  Have you ever considered joining the Stampin' Up! family as a demonstrator?  Stampin' Up! encourages us to each run our demonstratorship as we choose, whether you'd like to be a business builder and earn an income to support your family, or just buy things for yourself at a discount or something in between.  Until the end of August everyone who chooses to join gets to choose a free project kit from the Holiday Catalogue!  The starter kit is already a great deal (44% off and free shipping) and you get access to a lot of helpful resources.  If you have any questions please e-mail me or leave a comment below.  Click here for more information.

 

4.  I've posted about this before, but I think carving your own stamps is a really cool idea!

 

Item #	Description	Price
133402	Undefined Stamp Carving Kit	$25.95
134808	Undefined Refill Kit	$12.95
124236	Clear-Mount Cling Foam*	$13.50

*Add a sheet of Clear-Mount Cling Foam to create your own clear-mount stamps. Mounting your stamps on the cling foam allows you to make stamps any size you want, not just what will fit on the blocks in the kit.

Included in the Stamp Carving Kit: 2 carving tools 3" x 4" rubber 3" x 4" foam 4 wood blocks (various sizes) 1 Island Indigo Stampin' Write Marker 3 postcards Instruction sheet Stamp image templates

Included in the Refill Kit: 3" x 4" rubber 3" x 4" foam 4 wood blocks (various sizes) Instruction sheet Express your personality, thoughts, feelings, etc. with a stamp you've carved all on your own!  Click here to order undefined online.  In August use hostess code HXSANPNY. 5. I've saved the best for last...Thinlits Card Dies!!  These are amazing!!  When these were revealed at convention the crowd went absolutely wild!! They've been called flip cards, flip flop cards, swing cards, and more-but they have always been a bit tricky to create. Not anymore! Our amazing new Thinlits Card Dies cut and score to create a card that flips in just one step. Item Description Price 133479 Label Card Thinlits Die $40.95 133480 Circle Card Thinlits Die $40.95 Available August 1, 2013 There are some products you just have to see in action before you realize how much you need them, right? This is one of them! These new card dies come with extra die pieces that have versatile designs, so you can use them on other projects, not just flip cards. (The Circle Card Thinlits Die comes with 10 total pieces; the Label Card Thinlits Die comes with nine total pieces.) With the number of dies you're getting, plus the die that creates the card itself, the price is a great value-especially to create an interactive card! The main shape in the cards (circle and label) can work with a lot of our stamp images so you can create tons of different kinds of cards using many different stamp sets. Here are just a few suggestions to get you started: Label Card Thinlits Die (item 133479): Happy Day Stamp Set (item 130294 W item 130297 C) Circle Card Thinlits Die (item 133480): Worth the Wait Stamp (item 131094 W) Five-Way Flower Stamp (item 131088 W) Both card dies pair well with: Oh, Hello Stamp Set (item 131931 W item 130733 C) Yippee-Skippee! Stamp Set (item 131341 W item 131344 C) Really Good Greetings Stamp Set (item 130330 W item 130333 C) Regarding Dahlias Stamp Set (item 130324 W item 130327 C) These dies also work well with our new magnetic platform (item 130658) so you can place the dies exactly where you want them! Click here to order thinlit card dies online.  In August use hostess code HXSANPNY. Whew!  That was a lot.  If you have any questions please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Go stamp something! Diane