Gift Card & Basket

My new SU! Basket & Blooms Sizzix Die arrived last Thurs. & I was leaving Fri. for my H.S. reunion so I had to act fast! I saw a cute beach basket on Colleen Laux's blog & decided to do the same thing to hold the gift certificate for our reunion's organizer. I loved how it went along with her deserving to relax now! The basket wouldn't fit the envelope that came with the gift card so I made a smaller one that just fits the card & then stamped it with some beachy images from "Life's a Breeze" & a sentiment from last year's SAB set "Lots of Thoughts."

I tried using both Sticky Strip & Tombow Mono Multi around the bottom of the basket (on the one my daughter insisted on making for herself) & both worked fine. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it really was to put together. Next time I think I'll stamp it after I run it through the machine, rather than before (you can see the line where the Canvas background stamp overlapped a little). The basket filling is just strips of cardstock that I ran through the crimper before cutting.

I can also report that the basket lasted traveling all day in my purse--it's a hearty cardstock :). I used Kraft by the way (you'll need a strip of 12" x 6" to fit the XL die if you want everything cut out at once.)

& my reunion? A surreally good time :) I was telling one of my good friends (with whom I'd lost touch) that I was doing this now & she asked rather surprised "You're crafty now?" Yeah, I'm still pretty amused by it myself! Of course, we agreed that the scrapbooking part actually does make a little sense because I did always love to take pics & organize them & write captions even before scrapbooking became the commercial behemoth it now is.

Gift Card & Basket

Welcome Baby!

I had the pleasure this past weekend of giving a workshop to a group of ladies who either had just had babies or who are pregnant. Between the mom (God bless her!) who needed to rush home to a colicky baby & the fire alarm going off on the floor of their apt. building, it was tres exciting :-) Thank goodness the elevator started working again cuz I did not want to schlep my big ol' cart down four flights of stairs. I'm just very impressed they all had the energy to go out! & I should mention that the hostess found me through the Divine Mercy Care Gala's program so Stamp 4 Life donated a portion of the earnings to DMC--yea! (If you want to host a workshop, just ask & I'll do the same for your workshop too!)



Anyway, I thought I'd share the baby projects we did. I first showed them how to make this baby onesie card with our punches. My great-upline Jeannette told me about them & then I got the directions from Lauren Meader's blog except I used a key tag punch to make the indentation below the sleeves instead of cutting with a hobby knife. Now that we have the scallop edge punch, we can scallop the sleeves too!



Next, everyone got to make this gender neutral Happy New Baby card. I used the new In-colors, scallop edge punch & showed how sponging the edges really gives cards a little extra sumpin' sumpin'. For both cards, I used "Wild About You"--one of my favorite kid themed sets.

My new catalog goodies (including the Big Shot) are coming this week! Yea!

Welcome Baby!

Stampin' Up!'s Generosity!!

As mentioned in a previous post, I've been helping my fav. non-profit, Divine Mercy Care, in various ways for the past few years. Last year I wrote to SU! to see if they'd donate to DMC's Annual Gala Fundraiser & they sent a huge amount of retired products. Well, I did the same thing this year & they sent even more. All the product in this basket adds up to $442 in retail value! Isn't that awesome? Some of the items (markers, craft spots) are current too--just in old packaging.

I looked up some of the stuff on ebay to see how it's selling--the "Knobbly Gnomes" set went for $40 (it retailed for $22.95!) So, anyone who wins this basket in the silent auction is sure to get a great deal! The DMC Gala is Nov. 15 in Herndon, VA if you're interested in attending and/or bidding (or if you trust me--I'll bid for you--I can send a list of everything in there too :) )

Alrighty---just three more hours before the new catty goes live & then you won't hear from me for awhile (LOL).

Stampin' Up!'s Generosity!!

Beaded Pens

I know it's only August, but I've started getting ready for the holiday craft fair season by making various projects to sell. (I'm trying to get a bunch done before the new catalog & school craziness starts. Plus, I'm going to try to hold more events at my house this fall, which'll keep me busy!--Go to the "Classes" link above for more details or email me!!)

Anyway, I decided to try my hand at "beaded pens"--a lot of crafty ladies say they sell well, so that's good enough for me. I think they should be popular with tween girls who seem to love little things like this--my 4 yr. old daughter certainly tried to abscond with a few!

I stamped on Avery labels (cut to fit) using the "Always" stamp set. You need smaller images for this. Then you wrap sticky tape (I used a 1" width & then added a 1/4" width cuz I'm too cheap to buy the full sheets). Roll in clear microbeads. I finished it off with coordinating 1/4" grosgrain or twill ribbon. These are Pentel RSVP pens by the way.

I tried silver microbeads with these. I'd found some Scotch tape that's meant to hold up posters & small frames super cheap; they were thicker & cushiony, so I thought I'd try a different tack. First I put on the rhinestones, then rolled in the beads. For some of them, I filled in the gaps with glitter too. They're pretty darn sparkly in person.

Here's another variation--with these, I used Designer Paper (the retired "Cerise"), then covered composition books to match so I have a set to sell. The designer paper is trickier than the labels because you have to put the sticky tape on both sides to make sure it adheres to the pen. At first I tried running the paper through a Xyron Sticker Maker but that wasn't sticky enough. I figured that out when I saw them "splayed" open the next day---Horrors!! Anyway, that's why I'm not making as many of these :) Covering the notebooks is super-easy (shhh!). You just cut the paper a tidge bigger, glue stick the back (the SU! glue sticks rock for this!), stick it on the notebook & then gently sand the edges so it looks perfect. Then embellish. I used ribbon to hide the "seams" where different papers meet.

Finally, here's my favorite--made from the now retired Designer Paper "Enchante" I believe. Of course, it was my daughter's fav too, so well, you pick your battles, right? Besides, after I gave it to her, I saw that I'd put stuff on upside down! Too funny. I stamped the flowers using my markers on the stamp (from "Carte Postale"--now retired--I tend to use up retired stuff for craft fairs & the retired sets I keep are my favs anyway). The purple pen was my very first attempt--I used all purple glitter on it (sticks pretty well, actually). That is also now in my daughter's possession.

Okay, so the new Catalog is coming out on Monday, August 11!! There are tons of promotions going on with it too ($99 starter kits! 15% off a bunch of new sets!) Be sure to visit my SU! website for more details!!

Beaded Pens

SU! to Partner with Sizzix!

So, this week is Stampin' Up!'s 20th annual Convention in Salt Lake City so I've been spending sick amounts of time online reading attendees' blogs to get the latest scoop. Today SU! announced they will be partnering with Sizzix to sell the Big Shot & EXCLUSIVE SU! dies!

These are just a couple of projects we'll be able to make with the dies. What do I think about all this? Well, it's pretty cool to have dies that coordinate with SU! images. I'm a punch-a-holic so I think I'll love being able to easily punch out more stuff, so why not? Most of the dies will also work in many other die-cutting machines too; so if you already have a different brand, you can still use most of the dies. Stay tuned for the official launch in September--then even more dies will be introduced in the future.

SU! to Partner with Sizzix!