No Time To Stamp?

I was going to add this to the bottom of my Stamp Simply Challenge post, but that got waaayyyy too long this week, so I’ll give this it’s own post — because I want to make sure you all see it — a huge sale at Flourishes, today only, 2/29!!! They have tons on sale, and my most favorite — VELVET RIBBON!!!!! Here’s the flyer I copied from the Flourishes Blog!!!

Have fun shopping!!!!

Challenge #24- Keyword ssnotime24-There is no time limit. You can play this challenge and upload yourproject at Splitcoastand/or your Blog, anytime at all! You can play as many times as you like!!! The point is to keep it simple, quick and have fun!!! Please link back here.

The challenge this week is to either make a purse or use purse images on your project. Yes, a 3-D purse fits the bill perfectly here, but if you aren’t inclined to do a 3-D project then just make a card or any flat project that either contains purse images, which could be stamped, stickers, rub-ons, cut-outs, chipboard, anything at all — as long as there is some purse related feature to your project. And a purse can also be construed as a tote bag, book bag, shopping bag, etc — anything you would carry with you to hold your belongings. Doesn’t this sound like fun!!!! I LOVE purses!!!

Now, if you do a 3-D project – PLEASE — if you can — share your instructions with us. We would all love to try these things out! If you took a template from somewhere on the net, please link it for us in your upload. If you did a super simple project and can talk us through it, that would be great. If you are a Blogger and can show us a photo of your home-made template, that would be great, too. HOWEVER, I don’t want to scare anyone off by making them feel they have to get involved in producing some huge tutorial - that is NOT the point — OK? If you can’t share instructions, that’s OK — please play anyway — but I just KNOW when everyone starts seeing cute purses, questions will arise — as, generally speaking, we are all a very curious bunch! LOL!!!

Andremember Julie Koerber from last week known as outtoimpress at SCS and Out to Impress by Julie in Blogland — well, she’s still with us!!! And that’s a good thing!!! Here is Julie’s SCS uploadand here is her Blog post, and oh my goodness!!! It is drop dead gorgeous, you have GOT to go and see it!!!

There are just a ton of purses out there to make, and I could be linking here forever to give you ideas, but what I’ve done is create a link to a search in the SCS galleries for Purse — there are tons!!! Some have instructions, some have links to Blog tutorials, some have links to instructions on the net — if you are stumped, just browse and see what inspires you!!!!

Remember when you upload to use the keyword above, followed by a comma.Please come back here to post (as a comment) that youve played, and provide a linkso I can check out your card right away. You can find all cards uploaded for this challenge by clicking Gallery Submissions Here.

Some wanting to play said they have never uploaded before. If thats you and you need help uploading, just go to my Challenge No. 1 here.

OK, here’s my sample — I made a 3-D purse, super simple (tutorial at the end of this post), with 3 coordinating cards to put inside of it — super easy too!!! It holds 4 1/4″ square cards. This truly was very little work. I used the luscious Crush Collection by Crate Paper (and that’s the only paper in this project) and it’s coordinating chipboard letters. My stamped sentiments are from Many Sentiments by Flourishes. They worked perfectly for this fun project!

Here’s the purse front. The green bands were all cut 1″ wide and then pulled through the Key Tag Punch to round the ends. If you don’t know how to do that, you can see my instructions here on this graduation upload. You could also just use a corner rounder. Either works. Measurements are listed below on the photo of the template/tutorial. There are no sides to this purse — it is just an 11 x 4.5″ piece of cardstock, scored and folded. The little straps on the side *make* the sides and hold it in shape– easy!!! The buttons/trim are the Crate chipboard pieces adhered with Zots. The S is also Crate and is attached to a punch-out from the paper pack. The key is vintage and the chain was in my collection of *things I just might need*!!!! The handle is the 5/8″ wide grosgrain ribbon, attached inside with red sticky tape and knotted on top.

Here’s a view of the back.

Here’s a view of the side so you can see what I mean. Can you see the self-adhesive Velcro dot that holds it shut? There are 3 cards inside.

These are the 3 cards inside — can’t get much easier. I used the same Crate paper for these 4 1/4″ square cards and merely stamped my sentiments, from Many Sentiments by Flourishes, but I masked off (taped over) the first letter of each sentiment as I wanted to use these chipboard letters. I like the look!!! I’d like to add that I REALLY like the quality of these Crate chipboard letters — so much better than many others I’ve had!!! Just love them!!!

Here’s the template. Cut the purse 11 x 4.5″ and score as indicated above. If you can’t read my writing, here they are:

• The front bottom flap is 2 1/2″
• The purse bottom is 3/4″
• The purse back is 4 1/2″
• The purse top is 1/2″
• The front top flap is 2 3/4″

Cut all the strap pieces 1″ wide. The centerstrapcan be 6 1/2 or 7 inches. The side straps should be cut 4″ if you are going to run them through the Key Tag Punch. But they can be cut 3 1/2″ if you are just going to corner round them.

Ithink that should about do it!!! I couldn’t believe I did not have 1 single purse stamp anywhere in this house!!! Must have been in the batch I sold — LOL!!! Anyway, hope you all can get adventurous and try a purse of some sort, or at least a card!!! Hope we see some fun and funky purses!!! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a great weekend!!! Continue Reading »

This is a card I made for a workshop next week — just can’t wait to demo all these fun new sets in the Occasions Mini — it’s truly a great mini if you haven’t seen it!!! Plus all the sets are pre-cut — YES!!!! This card uses a set called Live your Dream and new paper called Afternoon Tea, which coordinates with this set so perfectly!!! I love that — it’s that matchy, matchy thing going on in my head all the time — LOL!!! Here it is:

Love this new paper and these colors!!! And LOVE that tall, long stemmed flower!!! I stamped the flowers right into my Groovy Guava pad and, of course, some Groovy Guava got on my stems, so I cleaned my stems with a baby wipe, then colored them with a Garden Green marker, and I also did the flower centers with a Chocolate Chip marker, just right over the Groovy Guava. Such a pretty image! The rest is pretty self-explanatory — stamped on the sentiment, stamped that delicate little butterfly on white, punched and adhered to a small square that has the corners clipped with the ticket corner punch. A few ribbons, some mounting tape behind the main image and a nice fat Pop Dot behind the butterfly to elevate it above the main image, and we are done!!! Fun card!!!

• Stamps: Live Your Dream, Sincere Salutation
• Paper: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Afternoon Tea Designer Paper
• Ink: Chocolate Chip, Groovy Guava. Markers in Chocolate Chip and Garden Green.
• Accessories: Ribbons, 1″ Circle Punch, Ticket Corner Punch, Mini Glue Dots, Pop Dots, Mounting Tape.

Hope you all had a great day!!! Busy here, so I was glad to get this one card done! Not sure what tomorrow brings, but I have such a fun Stamp Simply Challenge planned for Friday — can’t wait!!! Thanks much for stopping in!!!!

Well, I didn’t get to any projects during the evening, so I’ll take this opportunity to post an Oldie, but first I’d like to provide a couple links, just in case you’ve missed these:

• My friend, Susan Roberts (rainy at SCS), recently started blogging! What a treat for all of us — I have always loved her work — and she is offering some Blog Candy — so pop on over to Rainy DayCreations to sign up!
• More Blog Candy is being offered by Leslie Miller (leslierich at SCS)at Running with Scissors. Gosh, I can’t believe what she is giving away — so if you haven’t signed up yet, you still have time!!!

Hope you win something!!!

OK, now on to my Oldie. This is a very large piece of chipboard that I made into a nostalgic/vintage/Victorian type wall hanging, along with a card and envelope to coordinate. Here it is:

I love doing this type of thing!!!! I did this last April and this was actually donated to some SCS function somewhere, so someone won it as a door prize or in a drawing. I do want to point out that what appear to be vintage photos are actually rubber stamped images — don’t they look realistic? All details and thelist of supplies can be seen on my SCS upload.

Well, I’m off and running — I have a daytime and an evening class today — we’re doing the seashell Cuttlebug set I posted a few days back. And I’ll try to squeeze a little project in between classes!!! Thanks so much for stopping in!!! Have a great day!!!

Today I am holding true to my name — No Time To Stamp — I shouldn’t have even done this, but I just could NOT resist the fabulous colors in today’s Color Challenge at SCS — Black, White and River Rock — three neutrals, but so striking when used together. They create a lot of drama and contrast, which is what I so often strive for! And this truly was a 10 minute card, now lets hope I can post this in the next 10 minutes and get back to the required tasks at hand — LOL!!! Here it is:

I wanted to use a new stamp set from the Occasions Mini to have a sample on hand, and I know I did use the retired organdy, but gee, it just really needed it. My loyalties always lie towards making the end product the best it can be, rather than trying to stick with the currently available product. And this needed organdy, so I used it. I stamped those pretty flowers (I’ve heard some call them weeds — LOL!) in black on a scrap, I thought the piece would work well for a long and low format, which I am really loving more and more all the time, so I went with it. This card is 9 x 4 and fits a business envelope. Added the black layer for contrast, the organdy and pearls for something pretty, and the butterfly embossed in Iridescent Ice for some glitz — done!!! I like this stamp set, I like this card, I LOVE these colors, and I like this layout. I’ll do more with it sometime when I have more time. And I do want to add, the photo appears a bit washed out — the blacks, both ink and paper, are VERY black IRL — they look faded here, but no time to fuss with photos today — sorry.

• Stamps: Essence of Love
• Paper: Basic Black, Whisper White, River Rock
• Ink: Versa Fine Onyx Black, Versa Mark
• Accessories: Organdy, Pretties Kit, Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder, 1 1/4″ and 1 3/8″ Punches, Mini Glue Dots.

OK, back to cleaning and prepping for a class tomorrow!!! Thanks much for stopping in!!! I hope to have a little something to post tonight.

The Technique Lover’s Challenge yesterday at SCS was to combine and mix patterns — oh, how I love to do that! It was actually on my list to use as one of my Stamp Simply Challenges, but the girls at SCS beat me to the punch!!! I was involved in other things and couldn’t participate when the challenge was posted, so I’m a day late, but that’s OK. I had fun!!! I have 2 samples to show you — one is an SU sample where I get my pattern from DP, and the second in a Flourishes sample where I created my own pattern. I’ll start with the SU sample:

Here I combined 3 different paper patterns from a new paper pack in the Occasions Mini, called Summer Picnic — fun paper! It’s a pretty simple card that doesn’t need a lot of explaining. Check out my orange slice — can you see the *juicy-ness* of it? I got that by applying Crystal Effects to the slices. The set is also in the Occasions Mini, called Tart and Tangy — fun little set. The colors here are Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie and Bashful Blue.

I mixed flourishes and stripes on this card, but here I made my pattern rather than using patterned paper. The stamped image is Damask Positive by Flourishesand the sentiment is from Many Sentiments, also by Flourishes. My stripes are simply made with paper. I cut strips of black 1/4″ wide. Then, working on my gridded surface, and using a pencil and ruler, drew on the stripe locations. Then I applied red stick tape over each penciled stripe line. Now, I can just very easily lay down my 1/4″ stripe of black — how quick and easy can that get!!! The orange paper is Desert Coral Medium by Prism and the black scalloped satin is by May Arts, also availalbe at Flourishes. The sentiment is punched with the large oval by SU, and the background label is the Designer Label Punch by SU. I love the drama to this card, but I did intend to do another, exactly the same, only in soft pastel colors, just to show you how drastically different two identical cards can be — color can change so much!!! And I LOVE to play with color!! LOL!!! But, I didn’t get it done — need to get a bit of sleep — maybe tomorrow.

Also, I did a SU swap today and I can’t wait to share that project with you, but I can’t until they are mailed out and received by all. But I will tell you it makes an adorable little card with just a little something special added, and it needs a mini tutorial — so that’ll be fun. Look for that the 1st week of March!!!

That’s it for tonight — again, thanks so much for stopping in to check!!!! Truly appreciate it –more than you know!

Well, this isn’t complete, but it will be a Gift Set when done! I only have 1 card to show you, and there will eventually be 6, all with the same layout, just very slight variations. AndI madea small desk top box to store/display them in. This box is wider than the last box I did in a similar design. At 1.5″ wide this box will easily hold 6 cards and envelopes.

I’ve had this gift set idea in my head for a few weeks, and when I spotted Beate’s Weekend Sketch Challenge this week, I instantly KNEW it was the layout that would work for thisproject. So, my card is for Beate’s WSC36. This is also the project I will use for a Cuttlebug class I will teach later this week. Girls sure love their Bugs!!!!

I used the new folder called Shell Collage for the Cuttlebug and another small folder in a set of 4 called Collage. I think this one is a sand dollar — how perfect. The stamp set is a new SU set called Seaside. That interesting open weave fiber is something I’ve had for many years. When our local Hallmark store went out of business, this was on clearance, so I picked up what they had. I don’t use it often, but I think it’s just great for the seaside theme!!!

And here’s a closer view of the box — no top, just holds the cards on a desk or table for convenience and display. The starfish is stamped on Vanilla, colored, cut out, mounted to Chocolate Chip and cut out again with anarrow frame. It is adhered to the box with mounting tape.

To make this box start with a sheet of cardstock cut 7 x 7.5. With the 7″ side pushed up against the rail of your Scor-It, score 2 3/4″ from each edge. Turn the paper so the 7.5″ side is pushed up against the rail and score 1.5″ from each edge. Cut on the lines as shown in the photo of my template below. Again, I like to slightly angle cut those center pieces so they tuck up inside nicely when the box is folded.

Hope showing the template helps — it’s a quick and simple little box! Fun!!! I am totally addicted to simple, little boxes!!!

• Stamps: Seaside and Season by Season (might be retired?)
• Paper: River Rock, Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla
• Ink: Timber Brown Stazon, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky
• Accessories: Aquapainter, Mesh Ribbon, Hemp, Eyelet, Cropadile, 1.5″ Round Punch, Cuttlebug and Shell Collage and Collage Embossing Folders, Mounting Tape, Pop Dot.

Guess that’s it on this one! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!! My next upload should be a sample from the Occasions Mini, if all goes as planned — LOL — and we know that never happens!!! But that’s my goal!!! As always, thanks so much for stopping in!!!

Celebrate Who: Jan Marie — the original Flourish!

Celebrate What: Her birthday!

Celebrate When: All day Monday, February 25, 2008

Celebrate Where: In the Flourishes Forum at SCS

How to Play: On Monday, February 25, upload any card or item made with ANY stamp by Flourishes. Use the keyword: fllcjanmariesbirthday Then post a link to your project in the Flourishes Forum at SCS. This is especially important if you are posting to your Blog only and not SCS. Without linking in the Flourishes Forum at SCS, no one will find you.

What You Can Win: Throughout the day on Monday, Jan Marie will be doing random drawings for small prizes, and there will be a lot!!! Then on Tuesday, she will make selections for the big prizes. The big prizes are:

1 Xyron 900
1 Nestabilities-Standard Classic Circles
1 Nestabilities-Classic Scallop Circles-LG
A pair of Fiskar scissors engraved with Flourishes,LLC
Various Flourishes,llc stamp sets

Now are these great prizes, or what!!! Gosh, wish I was eligible to enter!!! But I made a cake anyway to wish Jan Marie a Happy Birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAN!!! HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT ONE!!!

This card was made with Cake Decorating 101. I paper pieced the cake on Two Scoops paper and the plate and stand on Prism paper. The white base card is Cuttlebug embossed with the new Swiss Dots folder, as is the upper portion of the main image base, which was cut and embossd on a Rectangle Nesabilities Die by Spellbinders. The main image panel is then framed with a Scallop Nestabilites Die. I just added a sentiment panel, some pretty organdy ribbon and I was done!!!! A simple, but pretty, birthday cake!! Oops! Almost forgot — all the swirlies on the cake itself were gone over with a variety of Spica Glitter Pens — it is sooooo pretty IRL!

This card was also made for the Featured Stamper Challenge posted for Sunday, and this week the Feaured Stamper is Mary Jo Albright — love her work. Here is here little ATC. I used her basic layout with a few minor changes. It was the perfect layout for my cake!!! Thanks so much, Mary Jo!!!

• Stamps: Cake Decorating 101 by Flourishes
• Paper: PTI White, Prism Prismatics Perfect Baby Pink, Basic Grey Two Scoops DP
• Ink: Versa Mark and Versa Fine Onyx Black, Spica Glitter Pens
• Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Flower, Brad, Organdy, Ticket Corner Punch, Rectangle Nestability Dies by Spellbinders, Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Mini Glue Dots, Dimensionals, Pop Dot, Mounting Tape

Thanks much for looking — now go and break out your Flourishes stamps and enter to win — there are a LOT of prizes!!! You just might be one of the lucky ones!!! I’m working on a fun Cuttlebug gift pack of cards in a box using the new seashell embossing folder, a little folder with a sand dollar and SU’s new Seaside (shell) set. Fun!!! They should be up tomorrow, if all goes well!!!

Challenge #23- Keyword ssnotime23-There is no time limit. You can play this challenge and upload yourproject at Splitcoastand/or your Blog, anytime at all! You can play as many times as you like!!! The point is to keep it simple, quick and have fun!!! Please link back here.

Todays challenge is to use flourishes on your card. And I don’t mean you have to use stamps by the company Flourishes, but just use a flourishy something-or-other on your card. You can stamp your flourish, or it could be a sticker or rub-on, or chipboard, or it could be flourishes on your DP — anything at all — you could even doodle your flourishes if you have nothing else!!! So this is an easy one - everyone can play!!! And try to remember the overall theme of stamping simply. But, as always, no hard and fast rules — just have fun, create and enjoy the process!

I love flourishes and I find it interesting how these pretty, swirlies can present themselves in such a variety of ways. When I think flourishes, I naturally think beautiful and elegant. But then you have the Boho West type flourishes — very manly — or the cutsie, girly type flourishes — very adorable!!! I can’t wait to see what everyone does with this challenge — we should get a fun variety!!!

And I have a FUN NEW FEATURE to introduce to you today! I have a sample maker, so you can see someone else’s work other than mine to get your creative juices flowing — and boy oh boy, will she get your creative juices flowing!!! She is a good Blogging friend whom I am sure many of you mayknow — please meet and greet Julie Koerber — known as outtoimpress at SCS and Out to Impress by Julie in Blogland. Check out her work — you WILL be impressed!!! As soon as she uploads her sample, it will be linked right here. OK, Julie’s SCS upload is hereand her Blog upload is here. Gorgeous sample, Julie!!! Thank you!! Has somewhat of an Asian feel to me — see what I mean about flourishes — so versatile!!!

Remember when you upload to use the keyword above, followed by a comma.Please come back here to post (as a comment) that youve played, and provide a linkso I can check out your card right away. You can find all cards uploaded for this challenge by clicking Gallery Submissions Here.

Some wanting to play said they have never uploaded before. If thats you and you need help uploading, just go to my Challenge No. 1 here.

This is my first sample — super simple, using one large flourish. If I had to pick just one flourish stamp as my all time favorite, it would have to be this large corner flourish which is ina set called Flourished Elements by Flourishes. I absolutely love this set! Here I have just one stamped image, organdy and velvet ribbon on top, adorned with a corsage pin and some pretties from the Pretties Kit. The sentiment is from Many Sentiments, also by Flourishes, and it is punched with the large oval punch, mounted on a Designer Lablel punched piece. The color on this card is Elegant Eggplant — I know it’s looking rather dark on the monitor.

Editing to add: About the pin — the one above is just a corsage pin from Michaels. They are in the bridal section (Wal-Mart would probably have them as well), they come in bags of 50 or 100 — very inexpensive. It has a pearl on the top — that’s how it is made. I added theteardrop crystal and other pearl from the SUPretties Kit. I also took the end cap from the SU Pretties Kit. I did not use the SU Pretties pin itself as it isquite a bitlonger and heavier than these more delicatecorsage pins. Though Ido prefer the quality of the SU Pretties pins, sometimes a project just calls for a smaller pin, and so this is how I hande it!!! Hope this answers the confusion on my pins!!!

Ok, so here’s my 2nd sample:

Please note that this sample is nothing more than a feminine version of the card in this post. This card is a bit fancier, but still very simple to make. Again, it’s Elegant Eggplant and this one also has Almost Amethyst. The base white is stamped with Damask Negative (reverse) with Almost Amethyst ink on white paper, the large flourish used above from Flourished Elements is stamped over the negative Damask in Elegant Eggplant ink, and the edges of the panel are then heavily sponged in Elegant Eggplant as well.It is framed with an Almost Amethyst panel, decorated with velvet ribbon, a flower and pearls from the Pretties Kit and a rhinestone ice brad before being mounted with mounting tape onto the Elegant Eggplant card.

A note to those who may be using flourishy images by Flourishes: If you are using an image for this challenge by Flourishes, please also use the Flourishes common keyword when you upload so your project will show up with the Flourishes uploads — it is FLLC. Thank you!

TO ANSWER A FEW QUESTIONS: This has nothing to do with the challenge, but I am getting 2 questions asked repeatedly in emails, so thought I’d address them here –

1) Where canyou get the Spring Issue of TakeTen — Well, it won’t be out until March 1, but it should then be on the stands in the bookstores and most major craft stores. It can also be ordered online here.

2) Where can you get the tassels for the graduation check holder card I did — Well, they are the 1.5″ tassels. I’ve gotten them in small bags of 6 or 8 at stamping/scrapping stores, or you can also get them in the sewing section of Wal-Mart, but our local store just had them on clearance, so don’t know if they are not going to be stocked any more or not — sure hope they keep them. You could also use the tassels made for bookmarks, they are just a tad bigger, but their cords are usually very heavy in comparison, which may create a problem.

Hope these answers help — thanks so much for being interested!!! And thank you for stopping in again — I truly do appreciate it!!! Now, I should switch gears again and do a couple SU samples from the Occasions Mini — great stuff in there!!! Hope you all get a chance to play this weekend!

Is that really possible? Well, I don’t know about with real men IRL, but I think it’s possible in a card — LOL!!! This was a really quick and simple masculine card, and I like so many elements about it — I love using large stamps, and I used 2 background stamps here, so that gets the job done real quick — just my style!!! Here it is:

So, how’s that for masculine elegance — LOL!!! All stamps used are by Flourishes. The Basic Gray card base is stamped in the same ink color with Flourish’s new release, Damask (positive), and then the edges are lightly sponged to soften them a bit. The main image panel is the Harlequin design, stamped in black onto Office Max gray (a very light gray). Love this stamp as it has so many options. See the dots I have in the cross sections of the grid — well, there are all sorts of little designs included in the set that can be stamped there, changing the overall look/feel of the design — very cool!!! And they are easy to stamp. And if you count, you’ll see there are 17 of those little dots — but did I have to stamp them 17 times — NO!!! They come on a strip, 4 dots per strip, so you stamp the dots by rows, not individually — also very cool!!! Anyway, the Harlequin panel is narrowly matted in black, a tassel is attached on the back side and draped over, and the Fleur de Lis is punched and adhered to a matted circle, which is pop dotted up.The entirepanel in then attached to the card base with mounting tape. The Thank You on top is one of the many versatile sentiments in Many Sentiments, also by Flourishes.

Love this card — plus it’s quick and simple!!! I am seeing this same layout done in many different colors to convey different moods for different occasions!!!!

• Stamps: Harlequin, Damask Positive, Many Sentiments, all by Flourishes
• Paper: SU Basic Black, Basic Gray and Going Gray. Office Max Gray.
• Ink: Versa Fine Onyx Black. SU Going Gray.
• Accessories: Tassel, Fleur de Lis Punch, 1 1/4″ and 1 3/8″ Round Punches, Sponge, Mounting Tape, Pop Dots, Dimensionals.

That’s it for this one. Now off to do my sample for tomorrow’s Stamp Simply Challenge. Thanks so much for stopping in!!!