Botanical Blooms

Botanical Blooms is another one of the FREE stamp sets available through the end of March with a $50 order. This card uses that set. As usual, the color is very odd compared to the original! Those of you who will be receiving this card in the swap can testify! ;) I've used Cameo Coral and Rose Red ink. The brad is from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware kit. I keep forgetting about that kit, but it has so many fun pieces in it!

I made this card out of a 6x6 piece of card stock. I like the size because you can get four out of a 12x12 sheet. Our Small Open-End Envelopes are just a little bit big for this size of card, but they are what I like to use for them.

Sorry I've been so absent from blog world. Things have just been busy, busy, busy!

Big SU Announcements

Stampin' Up! just made two big announcements. First, one that many of you have been waiting for....

Beginning July 1st, they'll be going back to one catalog a year! I know many of you have complained about two since it began. I have mixed feelings about this, but I'll be happy either way. They'll change to three mini-catalogs a year and they'll each contain a few different options for hostess sets to keep things

exciting for those that like to host throughout the year.

Next, in order to keep some of the bigger stamp sets at a lower price, they've opted to double mount some of them. This hasn't been popular with many (INCLUDING ME!), so they will discontinue doing that. The sets that are currently produced that way will remain the same until they are no longer in the catalog. Some alphabets will also remain that way, and some that are part of a kit. No new sets will be double mounted, with the exception of one that will be coming out in the Occasions Mini Catalog. It was already in production at the time this decision was made.

I know these announcements will make a lot of stampers very happy! :)

Polka Dot Punches - Hearts

I meant to post this card on Valentine's Day! I had been saving it for weeks, just for that day. I've been just a little bit busy the last while, trying to catch up on things I haven't had time for the last few years. Yes - I said years! (I won't get into why....) My blogs have fallen to the wayside. I'm making myself a little crazy, but once I get caught up, life will be good! ;)

For this card, I made a pocket out of the Raspberry Tart Designer Series Paper, punched a couple of holes and tied it together with a ribbon. The new Full Heart Punch fits perfectly with the heart stamp in the FREE Polka Dot Punches stamp set, so the card comes together very quickly!

SALE-A-BRATION CLASS

Don't forget the class coming up on March 13! We'll be making 10 cards using the FREE items from the Sale-A-Bration catalog. Sign up by March 3. Details on the right sidebar.

Polka Dot Punches

Finally - the last card from our class! I ended up taking a picture, because the Texturz Plate detail wasn't showing up on the card when I scanned it. I added the actual plate in the picture so you could see what they look like. During class, we used a Build-A-Brad on the center of the flower, but I ran out for this card, so I altered this one a little bit. Still cute though!

Warning: you are going to want to use the Texturz Plates on EVERYTHING! I had to give the lesson in church yesterday and I passed out some scripture references so everyone wouldn't have to hear me read the whole time. I wanted to run them through my Big Shot! I settled for stamping them though. :)

(I know I'm a dork!)

Petal Pizzazz & Raspberry Tart

This is the fourth item we made at last week's class with the Petal Pizzazz stamp set. LOVE the Raspberry Tart Designer Paper! It is a little more wild that I usually go with, but depending on how you use it, it comes out pretty nice! :) These Filigree Brads are so cute! We used pink brads for the center instead of the matching silver ones that come with them. Love the look! Lots of pieces to this card, but pretty easy when you break it down.

Big Shot Boxes

At last Friday's class, we made some Valentine Boxes with the Big Shot. Everyone made two of each box and was able to choose whatever Designer Series Paper and ribbon they wanted to use.

These two are made with the Pillow Box Die (or the ear plug box as Richard calls it). They are quite small, as you can see, but sooo cute! Supposedly you can fit a "fun size" candy bar inside, but I couldn't find any. These three little candies you see fit just right, but it is a snug fit.

Stampers chose from the Rock Star stamp in one of the new Level 2 Hostess sets called A Little Somethin', or the Hugs & Kisses stamp from the Love You Much set. There were also a few other stamps to choose from, but these were the most popular.

This box is "Box #2" in the catalog. (FYI: it can work with 8 1/2 x 11 paper.) It is also small, but holds *12* of these Hershey's Nuggets. That is about half a bag. It isn't a treat you'd want to send for the whole class, that's for sure! Normally you can cut out at least two boxes at a time, but we found with this particular die, it was cutting where it should've been scoring. Since the class, another demonstrator told me that if you use the Premium Crease Pad when cutting, you won't have this problem. I have that pad, but had no idea what it was for! ;)

The stamp I used here is the Lovey Dovey stamp from A Little Somethin'.

Love You Much

This is one of the cards we made at Friday's class. It uses the Love You Much set that was on sale last month. I saw this cute way to use the scallop punch and ribbon on our demonstrator site and knew everyone would love it. (They did!)

We embossed the Love stamp by stamping first in the Versamark ink and then directly in the Riding Hood Red ink, stamped it on the paper, and then quickly poured clear embossing powder and heated it. Using the Versamark in this way makes every color of Classic ink pad into an embossing pad. Very cool! Many hadn't seen this technique before, although I feel like I've shown it a zillion times. :)

It was a great class, and I'll be showing the other things we made in the next few days.