Kathy's Stamping Niche

One Of A Kind

Don't have much time today as I need to put 4 cards together for a class on Saturday.  Geez, you'd think I would plan my time better!

Here's a card made by Lori Robinson, a fellow SU demonstrator.  This was her swap card last month and I was saving it to share.

After receiving this card, I brought the One Of A Kind stamp set.  Lori used the Berry Bliss Designer Series Paper, Purely Pomegranate, Pretty In Pink and Whisper White Card Stock.  The Boho Blossom Punch and the Scallop Punch were also used.  The unique way she tied the ribbon was shared on someone's blog.  If you know where that is, please let me know.  I really don't want to tear apart this beautiful card to learn how. 

Thanks for sharing Lori!  Everyone have a great weekend!  Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments.  You may not see them here, but people I don't know have been sending me e-mails and it just makes my day to know that my little blog is being seen and liked.  Again, thank you!

Glittery Card Tote

One of the last things presented at the Oakland Regional was this really cute card tote.  Shannon West was the presenter and she gave us measurements and walked us though the making of it.

The tote actually has two compartments and A2 cards will fit inside.  Shannon used Friendly Flowers stamp set to decorate the front.

Shannon actually made some great glittery embellishments from the Friendly Flower stamp set and put those in one compartment.  I don't own this stamp set so I had to do something different.

In the back compartment she placed a cello bag filled with blank A2 cards so the receiver of the gift tote could make their own cards.

Here are pictures and instructions on how to make this tote.  You will need a 12" x 12" Designer Series Paper, 2 pieces of 5/8" wide grosgrain ribbon that measures 10" long, 4 Silver Brads, 15" of either 1/4" wide or 5/8" wide grosgrain to wrap around the front of the bag, a slot punch, bone folder, double sided tape, and something to measure and score with.  I don't own a Scor-Pal so I used my Fiskars Paper Cutter with the score blade.

Score opposite ends of the paper at 1".

Fold and secure the 1" flaps.

Turn the paper and score opposite ends of the paper at 3 1/2".

Fold one end up.

Fold the other end over.  Secure these 2 flaps together, making sure that it now becomes a flat tube.  In other words, put the tape on the folded pieces where they overlap only.

Fold the piece in half, with the seam on the outside.

Open up the piece and score 3/4" from the fold line on either side.  OR you leave the piece folded and score on both sides at 3/4".

Fold your scored lines so the seam is now on the inside.

It will actually look like this, with the seam on the inside.  Place about 2" strip of double sided tape in the center of one piece.  Now place the 2 pieces together to seal.  You don't want the piece of tape going all the way down.  You need to let the pockets have a little ease.

I marked the open side of the pockets 1/2" from the opening and a 1/2" from the sides for the handles.  You want a little more than 5/8" wide slot.

Place the slot punch at the end of your mark and punch.

Move your slot over so you can punch the rest of your line out.

Thread one end of your ribbon through the slot and secure with a brad.  I just pushed the brad through both pieces of ribbon.  Now all you have to do is decorate the front of the tote!

Here's my card tote.  I used the flower from the On Board Blossoms & Basics Chipboard, covered it with Craft Brilliant Blue Ink and then used Heat N Stick Powder to adhere the Chunky Glitter.  Next I punched a scallop from Certainly Celery card stock and layered a 1 3/8" Brilliant Blue circle.  To adhere the scallop piece to the Chunky Glitter, use Mini Glue Dots.  Stamped the Happy Thoughts circle from Think Happy Thoughts in Brilliant Blue and punched it out with the 1 1/4" circle punch.  The flower is from One of a Kind stamp set.  Stamped the image in Brilliant Blue onto Certainly Celery card stock and punched it out using the Boho Blossom Punch.

I put my Chunky Glitter Card inside the tote.  This is a project that my adopted group and my downline will be doing, along with the Chunky Glitter Card.

It looks harder than it is to make.  Try it for yourself and let me know how you did.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  I would love to see hundreds of these totes and especially how you decorated the front.

 

She's Sassy Suzie....Part 2

What can I say, I'm on a roll.  I will be needing another swap card next week for my downline meeting and of course, I HAD to use Sassy Suzie again.

This Sassy Suzie card uses Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, Pretty In Pink, and Whisper White Card Stocks.  Also used is the Berry Bliss Designer Series Paper and the Chocolate Chip Poly-Twill Ribbon.  Love working with this poly-twill ribbon.  Sure hope it makes it into the Fall Winter Catalog.  This time I colored Susie with Creamy Caramel for her hair, Blush Blossom for her skin, Pretty In Pink for her shirt, Close to Cocoa with a blender pen for her pants, Purely Pomegranate with a blender pen for her cup and lips, Going Grey with a blender pen for her chair and table.  Pretty In Pink with a blender pen for her cheeks and eyeshadow.  It was missing something so I underscored the last saying by using the Crafters Tool Kit and punching a line underneath.  I think it makes it stand out better.  I also popped Suzie out with Stampin' Dimensionals.

I'm not sure if you've seen the last of Suzie yet.  She's so much fun to work with.  But I also have In The Stars, Tart & Tangy, and Essence of Love Stamp Sets to play with, not to mention some of the accessories in the Occasions Mini to play with still.  Which one would you like to see next?  Leave me a message on the blog.  Thanks!

She's Sassy Suzie!

I just love, love, love the Occasions Mini.  I promised myself that I wouldn't go crazy buying stamp sets out of this Mini, but holy smokes, that's not a promise I'm going to be able to keep.  The Sassy Suzie stamp set is just too much fun and she says the things I would like to say if I was quick witted!

Here's my first card with her.  This is my swap card for the Inkertoy's meeting on Thursday.  I used Old Olive, Soft Sky and River Rock Card Stocks.  The Designer Series Paper is Fall Flowers and that is used on the card and for the photo corners.  Actually, the photo corners are made with the scallop punch.  Punch a circle scallop out and then cut it in half.  Fold it over the corner and you have a cool photo corner.  Also used on this card is the Old Olive Poly-Twill Ribbon and the Silver Slide from the Silver Hodge Podge Hardware kit.  Stamp Suzie in Basic Black and color her in with Creamy Caramel for her hair, Blush Blossom for her skin, Pretty In Pink for her blush, Soft Sky for her shirt, cup and eye shadow, Regal Rose for her lips, Old Olive for her pants and River Rock for the table and chair.  I used a blender pen to add most of the color, otherwise it got to dark.  She is also popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

I have a wonderful friend who has a birthday in March, so be surprised when you see this card, okay?

ROFL!

Chunky Glitter Everywhere!

I am NOT a glitter lover, but I might become a convert.  At Leadership, they showed us ways to use the Chunky Glitter from the Occasions Mini and I had to try it!  So I ordered the Sticky Letters and the Chunky Glitter and this is what I came up with.

I used Brilliant Blue, Certain Celery, and Whisper White Card Stocks.  I used the Brilliant Blue and Certainly Celery Designer Series Print Paper too.  Added the flower that I made by punching the Boho Blossom punch from the Designer Series Print Papers and used a Circle Ice Rhinestone Brad for the center.  To attach the flower, the Pop-Up Glue Dot works great.  The "Hello" stamp is from the Sweet Shapes stamp set.

Inkertoy's, the demo group that adopted me, will be meeting Thursday and this will be one of the hands on projects we will be doing.  I also meet with my downline next week and they will get to make this card too.  Hope they like it!

Shadow Box Card

Who doesn't like a dimensional card?  My favorite cards are ones that do something.  When I saw A Good Egg stamp set, I knew it had a ton of possibilities.

I like the way this turned out, having a border on the side tabs.  In order to get that border, the Tempting Turquoise piece has to be 6" x 4 1/4" and then scored at 3/4" and 1 1/4" from each end.  The Certainly Celery piece has to be 5 3/4" x 4 1/4" and then scored at 5/8" and 1 1/8" from each end.  I used the coluzzle to cut the ovals out.

Many moons ago, Stampin' Up! sold companion templates for the circle and oval.  They are marked with a C on the template and are 1/8" larger than the regular templates.  I used this companion template to cut out the oval from the Certainly Celery (oval number 4 counting from the inside out).  I also used oval number 4 and 5 to cut out the Tempting Turquoise frame.  The Whisper White piece was cut after you stamp your image and I used the regular oval template number 3.  The piece that you cut from the Certainly Celery piece is attached to the stamped image one and taped to the Tempting Turquoise card stock.

The Flowers For You Designer Series Paper was used for the egg.  I really like this set and will be sharing at least one more card made with it in the near future.  If you have any questions on how to make this card, just ask.  Thanks for looking! 

Shoe Box Swap at Leadership - last one

I'm sorry it took so long to get the last three cards posted from the Shoe Box Swap I participated in at Leadership.  I didn't finish the last 5 projects in Palm Springs and silly me; I didn't own either of the star punches until last week. 

Rene' Clive is the designer of this card.  I like the way she offsets the vellum.  The vellum is attached by punching 2 sets of holes and tying ribbons through them.

I really like this card.  Pam Bert did an excellent job.  She had already stamped and embossed the letters for us, but we had to punch and glitter the stars.  Not hard, but when you didn't do it at the meeting and come home and remember that you don't OWN either of the star punches, it's pretty hard to do!  LOL.  This is a great card for the Define Your Life and Defining Alphabet stamp sets.  Pam was also a hoot!  She is originally from the town I live in so Pam, next time you come visit your folks, call me!  You can come over and we can play!!!

Every time someone got this project, you could hear them catch their breathe!  Terri Mongeson designed this card and it sure has that WOW factor to it!  The card is made using Ruby Red, River Rock, Groovy Guava and Whisper White card stock.  Throw in the Ginger Blossom Designer Paper, River Rock Double Stitched Ribbon, Gold Brads and Dazzling Diamonds for effect and you just can't go wrong.  The stamp sets used were Priceless and Holidays & Wishes.  Inks used were River Rock, Ruby Red and Basic Black.

There were a couple of projects that we did, but I never heard back from the designers so I won't be sharing them.  I do want to give all the Participants of the Shoe Box Swap a big THANKS for all the wonderful cards and projects you shared and a big, big THANKS to the one's that let me showcase them on my blog.  Stampers really are the best!

One Stamping Wizard - Gina Taylor!

Gina Taylor and I met at the Las Vegas Convention in 2003.  I was swapping a little shoe pin and Gina still has it!

Here we are at the Oakland Regional on Friday, February 15th.  See that little pink thing on her sweater?  That's the little shoe pin that started our friendship.  Gina is extremely nice AND giving.  She brought 6 different things to swap at Regionals.

Now how cool are these?  The little Cameo Coral box holds a small Hershey's Candy Bar, then the tiny milk carton, then the full size Bunny card, next is the cello bag with York Peppermint Sandwiches, then a rolling card featuring A Good Egg and finally the microscope slide.  Here's close ups.

Here's the microscope slide.  Gina used the set Simply Said.  She told me that she didn't make very many of them because wrapping the copper foil around the slides was cutting her hands up.  I would have stopped after one!

Here's the tiniest milk carton I've seen.  So very cute.  Not sure what Gina put inside, but I'm sure it's something good!  The stamp set used is Polka Dots and Petals.

I just love her cello bag.  The chick from A Good Egg stamp set is perfect for this.  Gina sandwiched York Peppermint Patties between 2 pieces of scallop punched paper, decorated the top with the chick and put them inside a cello bag with a cute topper.  The butterfly is from A Happy Heart stamp set.

This is one of my favorites.  Gina used a love note and made a rolling card with the chick from A Good Egg stamp set.  I plan on using this to make a full size card and will post it after I do.

Here's my other favorite.  This is one of those snack or smaller Hershey's chocolate bars and Gina made a container for it.  It is just too cute!  I just love, love, love 3D items.

Last, but certainly not lease is her bunny card front.  Ginny used SU's Large Oval, Small Oval, 1 3/8" circle, 1/2" circle, 1/4" circle punches and black brads to make the Bunny.  Way cute! 

Gina, thank you so much for sharing everything you brought to swap at Regional's with me.  I so appreciate your generosity but mostly your friendship!

Jaron's Embrace Life

At the Oakland Regional, Jaron Winder did a beautiful card using Embrace Life and watercoloring.  He told us how bad he was at watercoloring and how Linda Hansen tried to teach him, but still couldn't get it.  Well, I'm worst than Jaron!  Honest.  He told us how we should leave white space, white space is good; but for the life of me, I just couldn't do it!  Jaron's card was probably a 5x5 card, but I made mine a regular A2 size.

I changed the orientation of the white square and ribbon and also added one more flower to balance it out.  Rub Ons from Eastern Elegance were used for the words.  Since you only get one of each, I used several different ones for the cards.

Here's a close up of the flowers.  They were watercolored with So Saffron first, then Groovy Guava and then More Mustard for the stamens.  I actually stamped the flower on watercolor paper in Black Staz On.  After the flowers were dry, punched a hole in the center to place the Old Olive brads.  The little Whisper White paper is 2" squared, crumpled up.  Attached to the back is a 2 1/2" long, folded over Old Olive 5/8" wide grosgrain ribbon.  I used mini glue dots for that job.

Jaron's watercoloring was MUCH better than mine, but I still like the card.  I just need alot of practice watercoloring!

Unique Way to Use Rub Ons!

I saw a blog a couple of weeks ago and Julie Buhler used her rub ons as nail art!  I love that idea so after my manicure last week, I decided to try it too.

I have pretty small hands and nails so I used Rub Ons from A Perfect Day.  I waited a full day to make sure the polish had totally harden and then cut each flower out and rubbed them with my fingernail to get them off the backing sheet.  Then I put a clear coat of nail polish over them.  This was so much fun.

Saturday, I did a workshop and had fun comments about them!  Someone else has used the Rub Ons on plastic eggs and I will try that soon and share.

I had a wonderful time at the Oakland Regional on Friday and will start to share some of the wonderful things I learned in the next few days.

You all have a wonderful week!