What should I post today?

Hello. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I sat at my craft table today with a completely gigantic creative block. No creative juices flowing what-so-ever. Then, I glanced down and saw my new calender for 2008. It is one of those ones with the beautiful landscapes, and inspirational quotes that either make you smile, or put you deep in thought. Then, I was telling a friend that I have been neglecting my scrapbooking, because I am always card making. Then......I remembered a thick spiral notebook that we altered at an upline meeting for Stampin Up. The three thoughts put together made me decide to show you this altered book and tell you what I decided to use it for. I decided to use it for scrapbooking notes, quotes, and memories that I want to remember for scrapbook pages. Some of these quotes came from the calender that I mentioned earlier. I have to share one of them, that I am trying to burn in my brain. All of us go through struggles of different kinds in our lives, I am certainly not immune to this. In fact, I have been unemployed for quite a long time and have had many moments of frustration and stress to say the least. So, I found this quote to be very useful to my inner strength. I hope it helps any of you who are struggling with something in your life.


"The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings"
By Ralph Blum..............whoever he is.......

Ok, now to show you the altered notebook.

Supplies used: All Stampin Up Products
Scallop Circle Punch, 1-3/8" Circle Punch, 1-1/4" Circle Punch, Swirly Sizzix Die used in Big Shot Machine, Designer Brads-Circle Assortment, Designer Series Paper-Haiku, Pumpkin Pie 1/2" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Other assorted SU ribbon current and retired.

We used the super tacky double sided tape that SU sells to adhere all of the paper to the book, except for the swirly die cut. Notice the negative leftovers from the swirly die cut that was used at the bottom.


Paper crafters No. 1 rule, if your leftovers or scraps look useful, use them or save them for later. ~ Lisa Atha


Blessings to all!

A Card Made from Leftovers

Hello. Ok, not all the pieces of this card are leftovers.

The Royal Blue (SU Brilliant Blue) piece is leftover from another card. Keep scrolling down, and clicking on older posts at the bottom to find it. The little butterflies are left over from another project (Martha Stewart Trio Butterfly Punch). The Brilliant Blue and the Center pieces are popped up with foam dimensionals. The white piece below was run through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder, and the base of the card and the center piece are SU Bashful Blue card stock. It is hard to tell in the photo, but the stamped image is heat embossed with SU Clear embossing powder. I first stamped the images onto my Versamark pad, then stamped the images onto the SU Classic Ink colors that I wanted, then stamped the images onto the card stock so that I could add some clear embossing powder and heat emboss. Heat embossing is kind of an obsession with me these days. The bow was simply adhered in the middle with a foam dimensional, and snail adhesive on the back of the white section. Oh, there is Stickles covering the butterflies too even though you probably can't see it in the photo. I will add a close up and see if that helps.

Supplies:

Stamps: Stampin Up Retired Wee Watercolors Ink: SU Classic Brilliant Blue, Always Artichoke, Versamark Card Stock: SU Whisper White, Brilliant Blue, Bashful Blue. Accessories: Spellbinder's Nestibilities Large Scalloped Ovals Die Cuts, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, SU Clear EP, MS Trio Butterfly Punch, Foam Dimensionals, Unknown Organdy Ribbon.

Playing Around with my MS Sea Horse Punch

Hello. My fabulous husband, knowing of my love for seahorses, bought me a Martha Stewart Sea horse punch. So, I felt the need to play with it a little. In case you have never seen it, there are two sizes of seahorses that this particular punch makes each time. So, I punched a few out with some Stampin Up Creamy Caramel card stock, and brushed their backs with some Versa Color - Bark ink and a black dot for their eye. Next, I free-hand cut some seaweed out of some iridescent green vellum paper that I had in my stash. Next I cut a rectangle out of SU Bordering Blue, and matted it onto Night Quite Navy. Then I just pieced my items together where I liked them with some dotto re positionable adhesive (just in case I wanted to change my mind). Then, I had a verse stamp that I wanted to use, but it was kind of large, and I only wanted to use part of it. So, I typed on Microsoft Word, and printed it out onto SU Bordering Blue Card stock, and cut it out in a rectangle shape. Then I secured down my easy ribbon loop (quicker than tieing a bow). Next I popped up the saying over the ribbon with some foam dimensionals, and decided I was done. Until.........I saw a bottle of Stickles (diamonds) sitting on my shelf. What a fiasco adding the stickles was.

You are going to think I am a big Ding Bat when I tell you what happened. I have never used Stickles before, but thought I might give them a try since practically everyone else in the card making world uses them. I squeezed that little bottle really hard hoping to place a little line of sparkle along the sea horse's backs. Not one drop nor sparkle would come out. So, I gave the bottle a look over, and found nothing wrong. So, "What Gives" I am asking myself and the bottle. After all, I probably paid a whole $1.99 for this .5fl.oz. bottle of sparkle, darn it I want it to work! So I thought maybe if I snip off a little bit of the tip to make it a tiny bit wider; it will work for me. OOPS! I cut too much off! A big blob came out of my stickles bottle, drowning my poor seahorse! So, I decided to keep things consistent, I drowned all of the seahorses, and carefully smeared the stickles around covering their whole body. It turns out that I liked the final result of this blunder, and I hope you do too!

Sleeping Kitty

Hello. I had a comment over on Splitcoast Stampers about my avatar photo. The avatar is the photo that appears next to your name averytime you place a comment, or upload a photo of a card or other creation. I put a photo of my cat, Mittens while she is sleeping, and someone left me a private message about how cute my cat is. So, I thought that I would just go ahead and post some more photos of Mittens, just for the heck of it. Oh, if you thought my cat is cute, pop on over to Lydia Fiedler's blog. She often puts photos of her two kittens that she adopted, Maddie and Splotchy. Lydia, somehow manages to get the funniest shots of those two captured on her camera.









"Please hold off on kisses until naptime is over!"

"I think I had a little too much catnip"

"Go away, I have a headache"

"Go ahead, bask in my cuteness"

"Can I stamp too?"

"HA! My people will never find me here"

Splitcoast Card Sketch

Hello. This is the card sketch over on Splitcoaststampers.com this week. I decided to go with it, as I thought it would make a really quick card. For most people it would, for "picky" little me it did not. I seem to have this terrible stumbling block with colors this week, or at least deciding on which colors. I have seen a lot of people online using kraft card stock lately, and the idea has kind of grown with me. However, I knew that I didn't have any SU Kraft card stock; but possibly some other misc. brand might be in my stash. I searched for 30 minutes, and only found 1 piece of Kraft card stock. Guess what is going on my next SU order? Have any of you ever noticed that no matter how much

card stock, paper, designer paper, etc that you accumulate......You can never seem to have what you want while you are paper crafting? I have the same problem with ribbon. I guess it depends on what the obsession is with. Anyways, the card below is my version of the card sketch above. I hope you like it. The SU Real Red card stock was run through my cuttlebug with my Swiss Dots embossing folder. The cute little stamps are from Hero Arts Stamps; are they cute little critters or what? The three circles are SU Whisper White card stock. The thin green panel is a Bazzill shimmer card stock. The red rhinestones are from Hero Arts, and the ink used was SU Basic Black, and SU Real Red Marker. The circles and red panel are popped up with foam dimensionals. That about sums it up. I probably won't be posting tomorrow (Thursday), I need a day to organize my craft area, and take care of some important matters. Have a great Thursday.

Ornament on a Card

Hello. Well, I don't mean to sound like a "grinch", but I am just about all out of Christmas card ideas for one year. However, I have been wanting to try something that I saw on Splitcoast Stampers Website a few times. Which is, a paper christmas ornament on a card. I have to say, its not as wonderful as I had hoped it would be. I decided to run some miscellaneous red card stock through my cuttlebug machine with the swirls embossing folder, and then heat emboss the raised surfaces. I saw this technique on Jennifer McGuire's blog. However, Jennifer's sure looks cleaner. Maybe because she used clear embossing powder. Anyways, I heat embossed with silver EP, then cut into a circle, then punched half of an SU Round Tab Punch with SU silver card stock. Next I added the SU retired silver cord, and red satin bow. The red satin ribbon was a gift from a friend, I believe it is Anna Griffin ribbon. Then I heat embossed the sentiment (SU - from retired set "Warmest Regards").

Next, I punched a border with my Martha Stewart Gingerbread Border Punch, and added the red card stock behind the border to show it off a bit more. The ornament itself is just adheared with some snail adhesive. That about sums it up.

Something other than a Christmas Card

It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but I used the dryer sheet technique on this card. Stampin Ups Tart & Tangy stamp set just seemed appropriate for this card that I made last summer for a workshop. It made me think of all kinds of summer sweet beverages, with the oranges, lemons and limes covered with the dryer sheet and dazzling diamonds glitter. The glitter makes it look like it is covered with sugar.

I stamped the different Stampin Up colors randomly all over a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" SU Whisper White card stock, so I could cut it into sections for more than one card if I wanted to. Then I applied some adhesive to the entire stamped section that I cut, laid down my dryer sheet, smoothing it out with my finger on top of the stamped images. Then I trimmed off the excess dryer sheet, and sprinkled the glitter all of the top of the dryer sheet, and rubbed in the glitter with my finger and tapped off the excess. Then finished the card as you can see in the photo. The green scallop piece was made using the SU 3/16" corner rounder punch with its removable base removed. That about sums it up. I am going out of town for the weekend, so I won't be blogging again until Monday. Have a blessed weekend.

Lisa

A Hero Arts Christmas Card!

A few months ago, I won a free Hero Arts Stamp set on a blog of a very nice and talented crafter named Jana Millen. Click on her name to visit her blog. She was hosting a Hero Arts Stamp set giveaway, and I actually got lucky and won one of the sets. So, I wanted to post a card that I made with that stamp set as another thank you for the very nice prize she gave me. Here is a photo of the stamp set.


Is this too cute or what? I am completely in love with it.



So, the next photo is a card that I came up with; made with a few of the stamps from this awesomely adorable set.













The base of the card is some unknown red card stock, the blue rectangle is Stampin Up's Bashful Blue, and was run through my Cuttlebug with a Spellbinder's Nestibilities Die-cut Rectangle. The piece of card stock behind the blue rectangle is SU Vellum Card Stock (not vellum paper). I ran it through my Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder. Have I ever mentioned that you can use the Cuttlebug die-cuts and embossing folders in the Stampin Up Big-Shot Machine? Yep! Totally possible! You can also use the Big Shot Die-cuts in the Cuttlebug Machine! So, contact me when you you want to order some Big Shot Die-cuts and/or the Big Shot Machine itself. It is a very wonderful tool to have. Ok, back to the card. The little penguin and saying were stamped on SU Whisper White card Stock and then cut out before adhering. The penguin's scarf was then colored with SU marker-Real Red. The snowflake embellishment was made with a Martha Stewart Paper Punch, and the Rhinestone on it is from Michael's, along with the red ribbon on the card. Oh, please excuse my pitiful bow, I am still trying to improve my bow tying technique. I have watched the video tutorial on bow tying on Becca Feeken's blog several times, but I think I need to watch it a few more times. Oh well, I hope you like the card, it came to me after a two day creative block! I hate it when that happens, don't you? Anyways, I am going out of town for the weekend to visit family, so I won't be posting for a few days. Have a blessed weekend.

Lisa

Stampin Up Announcement!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello. Sorry, no new creation tonight. I do however have a desperate plea for some assistance!

As you can see on the side bar of my blog, I am a Stampin Up demonstrator. I absolutely love being one too! I am totally obsessed with paper crafting in general. I am having the most difficult sales quarter in my history of being a demo. I have not even come close to meeting my minimum sales required to remain a demonstrator.

I usually have a good portion of that minimum covered from my own personal purchases, however that is not the case this time. I have been unemployed for quite awhile, and therefore I have not been able to make any purchases.

If any of you could possibly help me out, even if it is only this one time to get me through this quarter, I would greatly appreciate it. I will try to sweeten the pot a little! How about one free pack of 8 1/2" x 11" solid color SU card stock of your choice to the first 4 people who place an order! I will use my commissions from the orders to do this.

The quarter ends on December 31st, so I am in a mad rush. You can send your order via email to me (see sidebar), or you can click on the SU website link on my sidebar, place your order online (choosing my name), and I will get the credit.

Thanks so much, Lisa Atha

Fun with Border Punches

Hello. Well, I haven't gotten the Stampin Up Scallop Border punch yet, but I have seen those too cute Scallop Border Punch Medallions that everyone is making over on Split Coast Stampers web site. I know that I am behind the game on this, but I decided to play around with my other border punches and the medallion thingy and see what happened. In the rare case that you don't know, the medallion is first started with a piece of card stock that is 2-3/4" square. Since the SU scallop border punch is manufactured by EK Success, I thought why not try other EK Success border punches, such as their own, or the ones that they manufacture for Martha Stewart Crafts. So, the first one is my EK snowflake border punch.


I love that little snowman from SU's "Merry & Bright" stamp set. I couldn't resist putting him on there.












This one is from the Martha Stewart Doily Lace border punch. I completely fell in love with it. Wouldn't it be adorable on a heritage scrapbook page border with an embellishment in the center? It would also be cute on an elegant card, especially wedding or shower.









This one is my absolute favorite so far, it is the "Double Arch Lattice" (I think) punch from MS.














Here is the one made with the MS Gingerbread border punch. I am not sure about this one, because the gingerbread people on the top will always have to be upside down. It is kind of cute, maybe you feel differently.




Next, I decided to get really adventurous, and try this with my Fiskers border punches. Not quite the same result. The Fiskers border punches are a bit larger, so the center fell out. This can be fixed by increasing the square card stock piece to be 3" square. I would like to say that I had a more difficult time getting the Fiskers punches through the SU card stock than I did the MS punches. The MS punches went through the SU card stock pretty smoothly.

Last, but not least, I wanted to show you the results of using the Fiskers leaf swirl punch. It makes a cute frame, but not exactly a punch medallion. Well, that is as far as I have gotten with this. I will try to put one on a card or a scrapbook page in the near future. If you have any other border punches besides the one I have shown, and experiment with them, send me an email and a photo, I am curious what others will come up with. Until later, hang loose, and be happy.

Lisa

Cards Made at My Tuesday Workshop

Hello. Whew, my Tuesday evening workshop ran pretty late, and I was very busy on Wednesday and today, so here I am posting at midnight. Oh well, that's life. I prepared simple cards for the ladies to put together, because their purpose was to make more than one of each design so that they would have enough Christmas cards to finish their stock and get them in the mail. I don't blame them, I am still making mine, much less get any of them mailed.


Don't you just love the one or two people who every single year get their cards to your mailbox by the 1st of December? I am talking about handmade cards! HOW IN THE WORLD DO THEY DO THAT? I always say that I am going to start making Christmas cards in July, and never do it. Too busy enjoying the hot beautiful Ohio weather I guess. Ok, onward.....

The first card has a stampin Up Elegant Eggplant card stock base. Yes, if some of us can use pink as a Christmas color, why not Purple. Speaking of pink Christmas cards, my friend Lydia has an awesome bright pink Christmas card on her blog, click on her name and go see it. You will probably have to scroll down a bit though. Anyways, it is very cute; you have got to see it. It is hard to tell in the photos, but the snowflakes were heat embossed with SU Iridescent Ice EP.


Stamps: SU The Snowflake Spot



This card was made with one of the sets from Stampin Up's Holiday Mini catalog, called Season of Simple Grace. First we heat embossed two of the images with silver embossing powder, then punched out the images with SU Scallop Circle punch. Before adhering it to the card base, we punched out two scalloped circles from SU Shimmer Silver card stock to layer under the stamped image. The saying at the top was also heat embossed by first placing the stamp onto a versamark pad, then onto SU Classic ink - Bravo Burgundy, then stamped onto the base of the card stock (Very Vanilla). Then, sprinkled some SU Clear embossing powder onto it and heat embossed it. So, it looks like it was embossed with burgundy EP, even though SU doesn't carry any burgundy EP anymore. That is a little tip that I picked up on Michelle Zindorf's blog. Michelle can be found here: http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/





Now, remember from a previous post I put together a punched tree, and a punched Snow globe. We also made cards with those punched images. I kept them very simple on purpose since we had to spend time putting together the tree and snow globe. Instructions for the tree and snow globe themselves were on my previous post, so I won't waste time on that again. I think the rest is pretty self explanatory. The little gold dots on each corner around the tree are those faux sticky gold pearl thingies from Michael's. Sorry I couldn't be anymore scientific than calling them "thingies". Yes, believe it or not I have a college degree. Giving birth to my daughter 9 years ago sucked almost every intelligent brain cell right out of my head. Or, maybe it has been raising her that is deteriorating my brain cells. Well, whichever one sounds more likely is the one you can accept today! Ok, I am getting very sleepy. Please tune in sometime on Friday, because I did some really fun experimenting with my border punches that I am going to post.

Workshop Tonight!

Hello. I may not post anything tonight, I have a handful of people coming over to make some Christmas cards. I will post the cards that I have prepared for them to make later tonight, or tomorrow!

Oh my gosh, you will not believe what just happened! While I was on blogger typing this post, I got an email from Kim Jackson of Stampin Ups'! Stampin' Success Magazine. For you non-Demos, this is our Demonstrator Monthly Magazine that we receive that gives us info, inspiration, congratulations, etc. We Demos consider it an honor to be mentioned in it. Well, I had sent an email thanking SU for their contributions to The Ronald McDonald House Charities with the exclusive stamp set each year in the main catalog. RMHC is a favorite charity in our household. My husband works for McDonald's, and I used to work for them while I was in college. We both volunteered at our local house in Cincinnati, as have many other McDonald's employees, and Franchise owners. It is a great place and a comfort to families who come here from other towns and states so that their children get top notch treatment for their illnesses at the Children's hospital across the street from the Ronald House. The families from out of town get to stay at the Ronald House for free while their child is receiving treatment. This is a huge financial savings for them during a very difficult emotional and financial time. Anyways, when I know which issue I will be in, I will let you know. Of course I will scan it and post the article on my blog as well. I am so excited! For all of you who haven't purchased this year's RHMC stamp set..............DO IT! What a great cause you are helping when you do!

Lisa

My Version of the Snow Globe

Hello. A lot of stampers out there are creating snow globes with their Stampin Up cutting tools, and stamps. I am going to show you my version. Unfortunately, my version involves a discontinued Stampin Up Paper Punch, and a non-Stampin Up cutting tool. Oh No! What a bad SU demo I am. Oh well. Life goes on. Here is a photo of my snow globe:

The base of my snow globe was made by piecing 3 halves of the SU round tab punch together, and giving it a little dimension by drawing the lines with my SU basic Black marker. Now, the main part of the globe, was made with a tool that I purchased from Creative Memories before I was a Stampin Up Demonstrator. I saw no reason to also purchase the coluzzle that SU sells, when I already had circles and ovals from CM. The next photo is of the CM Cutting circle that I used. I hope I am forgiven. Its not like I haven't used non SU products on this blog before. Can you tell I have the guilts? Oh well, they always go away. haha.

Well, I drew a squiggly line with my SU white gel pen to set the boundary for the snow pile in the globe, then used a sponge dauber and SU's white craft ink to make the bed of snow that the snowman is sitting on. Then I placed my snowman (who was punched with SU's retired Snowman punch) into the globe, and colored him with my basic black marker. I then drew some falling snow with my SU white gel pen, and it was done. All that is left is to place it onto a card. However, I have a workshop here at my house Tuesday evening that I need to finish getting ready for, so I will post the finished card another day. Thanks for visiting, and if anyone wants to share their version of a snow globe, send me a photo of it via email with your name, and I will post it on my blog giving you full credit. We could do a compare and contrast. Well, gotta run, lots of card stock to cut. Lisa