No Time To Stamp?

Hi everyone!!! The week + long celebration begins RIGHT NOW!!! We are celebrating the 1 year anniversary of my Blog — I went *live* one year ago today. Gosh, that year went by quickly!!! And we have a ton of fun stuff planned — the first of which is today’s challenge — so let’s get to it — but READ BEYOND THE CHALLENGE so you’ll know all of what is up this week!!! (Today you have a chance to win a spot as a Stamp Simply Guest Designer!)

Keyword ssnotime51 -There is no time limit. You can play this challenge and upload yourproject at Splitcoastand/or your Blog, anytime at all! You (and that means anyone and everyone, blogger or not!)can play as many times as you like!!! The point is to keep it simple, quick and have fun!!! Please link back here.

Today’s challenge is Dancin’ with Dee!!! So get out your dancin’ shoes because we are going dancin’ — and that would be doing the 2-step, or 3-step, stampin’ that is!!! When I think of Dee’s work a few things instantly come to mind, the first of which is the absolutely gorgeous work she does with the 2-step or 3-step stamps, so in her honor we are going dancin’ today!!! Dancin’ with Dee!!!

The next thing that comes to mind when I think of Dee’s work is her images — so often beautiful flowers, butterflies and birds — she does wonders with them!!! And they are often adorned with wide ribbon and bows — so, so pretty!!! And not only on cards, but Dee does just fabulous work with alterable and 3-D projects — her Blog is just filled with mouth-watering samples of pretty and fun items to make for your home or for a gift!!! I definitely recommend you take a nice long and slow cruise through Dee’s Blog — you just never know what you might find that will spark your own creativity or fill a need for a gift item!!! You can see Dee’sBlog here. Dee has also uploaded several sample cards for us to see using her 2 and 3 step stamp techniques. Please view them for inspiration as you decide what to do today!!!

Here are the guidelines for today’s Dancin’ with Dee! Stamp Simply Challenge:

1) Primary Focus: Use 2-step or 3-step stampin’ techniques on your project *** (No 2 or 3 step stamps? No problem —Alternates A and B are listed below)

2) Secondary Focus: Try to incorporate either flowers, butterflies, or birds in your projects; HOWEVER,in thatwe need to use 2 or 3-step stamps, I realize what you will stamp will depend on the style/theme of the 2 or 3-step stamps you own — so, we’re good with whatever — this is just the secondary focus if you have options available to you.

3) Your project may be a cardOR ANY type of 3-D, altered, gift or home decor project — the choice is yours!

No 2 or 3 step stamp sets? Here’s some alternates to make sure you can all play along:

Alternate A: Do the shadow technique, or faux dry embossing, which was an SCS challenge a week or two ago. Instructions are here.

Alternate B: Do the KISSING technique. Instructions are here.

Cant wait to see what you do!!!

Check out Julie Koerberssample here.

Check out Dee Jacksons samplehere.

Check out Jennifer Bucks sample here.

Check out Janine Orchards sample here.

Check out Tammy Hershbergers card here.

Check out Becky Oehlers’ card here.

You can see all Gallery Submissions here.

Arent these girls justFABULOUS!!! Thank you girls!!! Much appreciated!!! And Becky is home — welcome back, Becky!

Heres my card for todays challenge:

I used a 3-step stamping set by Kitchen Sink called Holly and Mistletoe. The sprig of mistletoe is stamped onto the white cardstock and the bow was stamped onto another piece, cut and popped up. The main image is cut, embossed and scallop framed using the Classic Rectangle Nestabilites by Spellbinders. The background is Cuttlebug embossed with the snowflake folder. The main image is adhered with foam mounting strips so it appears to be floating — I like that! The leaves are accented with a bit of Dazzling Diamonds — sparkly and pretty!

• Stamps: Holly and Mistletoe by Kitchen Sink Stamps
• Paper: PTI White
• Ink: SU: Certainly Celery, Wild Wasabi, Handsome Hunter, Rose Romance, Purely Pomegranate, Bravo Burgundy.
• Accessories: Classic Rectangle Nestabilities by Spellbinders, Cuttlebug and Embossing Folder, Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Foam Mounting Tape, Dimensionals.

OK, now we can move on to talk about the celebration — the party begins!!!

FUN AND GAMES — Anyone playing this challenge and linking into the comments section below (and loading into either SCS or Blog is OK), will be put in a random drawing. The winner will have the opportunity to be a Stamp Simply Guest Designer for the month of October. If the winner declines, another name will be selected. Participants can play this challenge and link as many times as they wish, no limit, just make sure you leave a separate comment/link for each upload. Uploads will be counted until 6:00 p.m. EST Thursday, Sept. 11. The winner will be announced on Friday morning, the 12th. (I will separate regular comments from comments with links before I choose the winner.)

What’s up Next? Well, lots!!! You’ll have to check back in each morning to find out, but I will tell you there are several more *games* and tons of Blog Candy posts scheduled to come up during the week - 15 to be exact!!! The Stamp Simply Crew and other Stamp Simply friends have been very generous in their donations — do these spark your interest — stamp sets, alterables, embellishments, scor-boards, monogram stampers — you get the idea — lots of fun ahead!!!

I just posted our Blog Candy #1 — check it out here.

Check back in tomorrow morning (Saturday) to see thenext 2 Blog Candy posts! On most days I will have 2 posts up in the morning, so be sure to scroll and read BOTH posts.

Thanks so much for stopping in today and reading this way-too-long post. The rest won’t be nearly as long, I promise!!! Hope you are off to a wonderful weekend, and hope to see you all soon!!!

This evening I went down to my stamp room to create a card for the Sketch Challenge at SCS, and before I knew what happened I had this little gift set about done. Here it is:

The card I did for the Sketch Challenge is on the upper right. This set was so quick, easy and cheap to make — it truly was amazing — LOL!!! All items are from the $ Bin at Michaels. The black and white cards were in a pack of 8, with envelopes, for $1, and the journal was also $1. I made the little pouch that the gift set of cards is in, and I’ll show you how below.

Above is the card I did for the Sketch Challenge. This is the card to present to the recipient of this gift along with all the items. Can you see how the purchased card base is shorter in front and the scalloped circle main image is hanging over? I like that feature! These cards are a bit smaller than normal, at 5 x 3.75″. The circle image is stamped using the Harmony Classic Circle III Stamp Ensemble. This is the new 3.25″ round wooden stamper that will be available real soon — but it IS AVAILABLE to preoder now at the JustRite site. I stamped it in black ink. I then masked all but the center sentiment and then stamped the center sentimentin red on a scrap of paper, then cut and embossed it using the Double Ended Tag die by Spellbinders. Myimage was cut, embossed, matted in black and then framed with a red scallop, all using the Petite Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders. I wrapped the card with red ribbon before adhering the sentiment circle.

And here’s the journal to coordinate. And this just couldn’t be any simpler! The white Journal was already on it, so I wanted to use it as is. I just added a monogram above it. This monogram was made using the Damask Monogram Stamper Kitand the Times New Roman font that comes with the kit. I used the same monogram on all of the gift cards in the pouch. Now this is the original round wooden stamper that so many of you already have. And what really pleases me is that this Damask border coordinates so well with the border I used on the 3.25″ stamper above, making it very easy to incorporate both stampers on the same project. The red ribbon is actually a book mark. It runs down the length of the inside back cover of the book, where is it adhered for the entire length with red sticky strip. It can be placed anywhere in the Journal to mark your place!

I made the little pouch to hold the set of 4 monogrammed cards and 4 envelopes. Now, granted, this is not the fanciest of pouches or card holders, but it’ll do the trick in a pinch for a quick little gift. It is merely made from 2 of the cards that were in the set of 8. I’ll try to show you:

Using 2 sided tape, I securely attached 2 card together to a length I thought would be adequate. I then took red ribbon and ran it around the card covering the seam that was showing on the outside of the card. There is red sticky strip holding the ribbon on in the card inside. The seam you are seeing on the right is not on the outside, only on the inside, so it doesn’t matter. Then I adhered more red sticky strip to the ends to hold it closed and together.

This is what the pouch looks like on the outside when complete. This pouch easily holds 4 of the gift cards I made using the monogram and 4 envelopes. I forgot to photo the gift cards separately, but I think you can see them in the pouch and in the first photo.

And here we have all 4 gift cards plus the 4 envelopes in the pouch. Easy peasy as they say!!!

• Stamps: Harmony Classic Circle III Stamp Ensemble and Damask Monogram Stamper Kit, both by JustRite
• Paper: Michaels $ Bin cards and journal, PTI White, SU Black and Real Red
• Ink: VersaFine Onyx Black, SU markers in Real Red and Black
• Accessories: SU Red Grosgrain Ribbon, SU Brads, Petite Circle Nestabilities and Double Ended Tags both by Spellbinders, Red Sticky Strip.

Thank you all so much for stopping in today!!! I hope you can all come back tomorrow to join in the festivities of the week to come in celebration of my 1 yr Blog Anniversary. A bit of detail is included in the post prior to this — just scroll down!!! Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!! Thanks so much — see you soon!!!!