Autumn Splendor

I made these cards about a month ago, and then our computer got a bad virus, so I couldn't get them posted. I kind of forgot about them after that!

I saw a card similar to this on another blog and then simplified it for a swap I was participating in. I used Crystal Effects on the leaf to get the shiny look. The Designer Series Paper I used for both cards is called Autumn Meadows. I really like all of the colors and patterns in the pack. The stamp set is called Autumn Splendor.

On this leaf, I embossed it, then colored it with a couple of different colors of Watercolor Crayons and an Aquapainter.

Out of the Box

This is a really fun new set called Out of the Box. I loved it the second I saw it. It has several items that can pop out of the box. I'm sure you'll be seeing more! This isn't a favorite card at all. Just a quick thrown together one. I had this background leftover from a past class. The greeting "Hello Baby" comes from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

Medallion

I didn't place an order from the new catalog until August! That is a record for me. This is the first stamp I HAD to have. It is called Medallion. It is one of the "big mama" stamps, as I call them. As I look at other blogs, I think it is a favorite among a lot of stampers. The greeting I've used is from Kind and Caring Thoughts. Colors are Taken with Teal and Certainly Celery.

The Designer Paper is called Kaleidoscope. As my sister and I went through the catalog over the phone, we both said that this paper wasn't "us", but we both loved it. It is a little bright for either of us, but in person I just love it and can't wait to use it more.

Grand Finale, pt 10

This is the last card from the Grand Finale class back in June. It is the same layout as this card that I showed quite a while ago. The Whisper White Organza ribbon was definitely a highlight! It is so pretty and shiny in person. Perfect for wedding invitations. Everyone liked how the Big Shot Movers & Shapers Die worked to get the piece cut out. I've explained it on the previous card, so I won't explain it again, but it is still really cool! :)

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It has been an unbelievably crazy week! Two of the boys have had birthdays, a Primary Quarterly Activity to plan and pull off, Marching Band started, plus three migraines! I'm hoping things calm down a little very soon.

Grand Finale, pt 9

Part nine of the Grand Finale was this card. It used the Parisian Breeze Specialty Paper, which has a little bit of texture to it. I really like the new papers that have this feature! There were a few different choices on the larger piece of patterned paper. The flowers in the background were stamped with the Versamark pad. The border was punched with the Eyelet Border Punch. One more class card to go!

Man Card!

"Man cards" are always a challenge! As stampers, we tend to want to pretty them up a bit, no matter what. For the most part, I think this one would qualify as a man card. I used the Big Shot to get the neat texture on the olive and navy papers. I roughed up the edges of the olive paper (which comes from an old pack of Designer Series paper called Bali Breeze) with the Cutter Kit. The stamps sets I used are Lovely Labels, On Your Birthday, and the So Swirly wheel.

Grand Finale, pt 8

On this card, I used the greeting that comes in the set we used, Fifth Avenue Floral (a favorite!). Everyone was able to choose a greeting that they liked, however. The colors I used were Almost Amethyst and Lovely Lilac. I felt like the colors blended together too much, even though they are very different. I ended up misting the vanilla card stock slightly with a spray bottle filled with water. It made a big difference and separated the colors and made them stand out from each other a lot more. After it had dried, I layered the pieces together. This ended up being one of my favorite cards from the class...probably because of the colors!

We used the Tearing Edge of the right side of the Lovely Lilac card stock. If anyone needs one of these great tools, I happen to have a new one for sale. I can't remember how I ended up with an extra, but I'd love to sell it to you!

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Also..... for those that use Blogger, have you been having problems with the Posting Options lately? Everytime I've gotten something ready to post ahead of time for the last couple of months (for a future date), it never posts. I haven't had that problem until lately.

Grand Finale, pt 6

This card was one of the easiest cards from the Grand Finale class, but definitely a favorite! Many ended up ordering the Branch Out set after seeing and using it. It includes a few other stamps than what you see here. It is a cute one, and pretty versatile for the different seasons of the year.

Grand Finale, pt 5

Card five from the Grand Finale class came from my sister's brilliant mind. I actually combined the inside and outside of two different cards of she had made to make one card. She did it in blue. I was trying to use a wide variety of colors and already had some blue planned, so I used the Tangerine Tango and Apricot Appeal.

The "spring" on the inside is the 1 3/4" circle punch cut in a spiral. It is attached with Glue Dots, and each of the flowers and the butterfly are also attached with a Glue Dot.

Thanks to Teri for taking pictures of my cards for me!

New Sets!

For the stampers who came to the last class, we'll steer clear of Grand Finale samples for a minute and show something new!

The two sets I used on this card will be in the new catalog, which begins on Wednesday. The flower design is from a set called Kind & Caring Thoughts. It is a Level 3 Hostess Set. The circles come from a very popular new set called Circle Circus. I say it is already popular because when I held my downline swap a week ago, nearly everyone signed up to use that particular set. It will be a hot one!

I've used three of the new "In Colors" here. Bermuda Bay, Soft Suede and Dusty Durango. The In Colors all have coordinating markers this year! I used the Soft Suede to color the tips of the flowers, directly on the rubber, before stamping. I also used a new punch, called Modern Label Punch.

Grand Finale, pt 4

This card was one of the more simple ones we made at last week's class. The cupcake comes from the Darling Dots hostess set. The birthday greeting is a single stamp, found on the "Under $10" page at the back of the catalog. Everyone who attended the class received a free catalog if they wanted one, so you can all look it up easily! You can also see it in the online catalog.

Grand Finale, pt 3

My Grand Finale class was held on Friday. I ended up with 22 signed up. One forgot (she wasn't a happy camper!), and one couldn't make it, so I had 20 that attended. Things went quite smoothly for such a large group.

This is one of the cards we made. I'm calling it card #3 because I've shown you two previously, here and here. I'll show the other seven in the upcoming days.

I got this card idea from Mary Fish's blog. I loved it the minute I saw it. My favorite part is the vase, which is made from the wide oval punch. The bottom of the vase is just one side of the oval, cut off! Those cute little flowers are made from the Big Shot and the Daisies die cut. We used the Big Shot a lot! I can't praise that tool enough!!!

A Fascinating Gadget...

I've owned the Movers & Shapers Curly Label Die (for the Big Shot) for months, but haven't opened it. Quite frankly, the thing scared me a little! I knew I wanted to use it for my Grand Finale class so I decided I better start playing with it. FUN! This is my first attempt with it.

Here is the inside. I used the coordinating Cute & Curly stamp set and Punch to go with it.

This is what the die looks like. The purple part is a very strong magnet. You can move it around anywhere and it will stick while you run it through the Big Shot. The instructions say to cut through only one layer on this die, but I did layer the Walk in the Park Designer Paper on the card first and then run it through. It worked fine. Next time, I would put the card face down on the die instead of face up. The stitching around the cut out looks a little nicer on the inside than it does on the outside.

This die will actually cut out your card and score it too. I find the scoring nice, but the cutting kind of annoying. I already had my card cut, and it trimmed it a little more. Not a big deal at all, but I just think it is weird that it does that. If you have the Big Shot, or are thinking of getting it, I would recommend this die. It is a really neat one!

As demonstrators, we were able to pre-order several things that will be available in the new catalog beginning July 1st. One of the items was more shapes for this die. There is a star, heart, a scallop oval and another new type of punch. The name of them is Punch Shapes, so they all coordinate with our current punches. Mine are on their way!

No One Like You

I used one of the Simply Sent Card Kits on this card. I think these kits get overlooked by die-hard stampers. I loved this particular stamp set, called No One Like You, from the minute I saw it though and just got it recently. The kits are made for newer stampers, because they come with everything you need to get started including stamps, ink, paper, envelopes, ribbon, embellishments and adhesive. I used my own paper, etc. for this card rather than what came with the kit, however. I made this card for my monthly church swap group. I really like how it turned out.

Echoes of Kindness & Oval All

For this pretty card, I stamped the flowers on watercolor paper in VersaMark ink. I applied Stampin' Pastels with a Q-tip. I think this technique is called Poppin' Pastels, but I get the many pastel techniques (and there are many) very confused! It is so neat to watch the pastels attach to the clear ink. The flowers come from the Echoes of Kindness hostess set and the greeting comes from Oval All in the Occasions Mini Catalog. This is my favorite set from that catalog. I also love the new scallop oval punch you see here.

Echoes of Kindness

I made this card with the Echoes of Kindness set. It is a Level 2 Hostess set. I stamped on the watercolor paper and colored with an Aqua Painter. The Designer Series Paper (remember the great sale this month!) I used is Walk in the Park from the Occasions Mini Catalog. This particular pattern is a little wild, but I think I calmed it down a little with the layering......I hope!

Oval All

I've been saving this card to show for quite a while! We'll be making it at the next class on June 19th (however everyone may not make the exact same color). I made this for a recent swap. It uses the new Oval All stamp set and new Oval Punch, along with the Walk in the Park Designer Series Paper. All of these items are from the new Occasions Mini Catalog.

I also used the Manhattan Flower Textured Impressions Die with the Big Shot.

Special Thank You Card

I've been working for a couple of months on a project that is consuming my every thought! The kids at our church are inviting their favorite teacher to a Teacher Appreciation Night. I seriously go to sleep thinking about it and wake up thinking about it. It is still two more weeks away!

Anyway, things are *finally* starting to come together. It has been kind of a struggle, but last Wednesday, we had the night set aside to video each of the kids that chose to participate. They gave a short explanation of why they chose the teacher they did. They did such a good job! After that night, I finally felt like things were going to work out. The kids are excited about everything, so I really hope we have some teachers come. That is my biggest concern at this point. We have a few RSVP's, but not a ton. I made reminders to send out tomorrow, along with an agenda for the evening, so that may help. Teachers are just busy too, so that makes it hard.

This card is for the man that did the videoing for us. He was visiting our ward a couple of weeks ago and volunteered to do it. We had originally planned to do a video, and then it got cancelled (NOT happy = ME!). I said we really needed to find a way to make it work and I'm not sure how it came up, but this man ended up volunteering. He was so patient with the kids. The Primary President asked me to make a card for all them to sign at church tomorrow, so I came up with this. It is a full sheet of paper folded in half so there would be room for everyone.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with this project!

God's Beauty Card

I made this card for a swap. Sometimes when I'm doing a swap, I try to get rid of paper or accessories that I know I won't be able to utilize in a class. This paper is some that I had been avoiding. I like it, but knew it wouldn't work for a class. It is from the Urban Garden Designer Series Paper. All of the Designer Series Paper comes in 12x12 sheets. This particular piece has the flowers on one end and the stems go all the way to the other end. I had opened the end of the paper packet with the stems, so I didn't realize it had the cute flowers on the other end of it. I was going to just "make do" with these odd stripes, but then saw the cute flowers and figured I could make something fun with my new butterfly from the God's Beauty set (see set below). It is a Level 1 Hostess Set in the Spring/Summer Catalog, if anyone is interested in trying to earn it.

For this card I stamped the butterfly in Black StazOn ink on card stock vellum and colored on back with an AquaPainter and Baja Breeze refill ink (since we don't have a coordinating marker). I attached the butterfly with the cute Rhinestone Brad. Super easy!

Cards for Next Class

I've got another class coming up on April 24th! For this one, we are using the Sunshine Garden Simply Scrappin' Kit to make *32* cards! Everyone who attends will make TWO of each of the cards pictured below. You can see details for the class on the right sidebar. These cards measure 4x4 when finished. The class includes a package of standard size envelopes to go with them.

I made all of these this morning. They are so fun and quick to put together! I didn't stamp any greetings on mine. You'll be able to add greetings if you'd like to, or you can take them home and add them as you need them. These colors are so nice and springy! I'm really looking forward to this class.