Decorating Easter Egg Cards!

I can't believe Easter is less than a week away now!  That sure came up quickly!!!  I've been having fun making some Easter cards and other projects, and wanted to share with you the egg cards I've been making.  These are cut using the Big Shot and the Scallop Oval die.  Here's one of them:

For this one, I used a So Saffron base, then cut pieces from the Apricot Appeal frame to layer on the Pumpkin Pie and Apricot Appeal paper strip (from the Welcome Neighbor Designer Series Paper -- one of the free Sale-a-Bration items you can choose when you order $50 in merchandise -- only available for another day or so, though!  So, if you haven't gotten yours yet, hurry on over to my online store!)

The flower and leaves on this egg were created using Stampin' Up!'s Birds and Blooms Sizzlits Dies -- I rediscovered these after seeing them used on a beautiful project in the upcoming Summer Mini Catalog (available starting May 1st!) 

I dressed my card up a little more with some Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds glitter!

Here are some other egg cards I've created:

Hope you enjoyed these!  Thanks for stopping by!

- Michelle

Very Vogue Happy Easter

I really love the new Vintage Vogue stamp set and Very Vintage wheel!  I created this card using just the Very Vintage wheel, inked with Rich Razzleberry Classic Ink.  Then, the images were watercolored using an Aquapainter and Old Olive and Rich Razzleberry Ink (lifted from the ink pad lids). 

After the focal image was watercolored, I applied Crystal Effects on the butterfly (was a wonderful surprise to discover this on the wheel, since it is not shown in the portion of the wheel displayed in the Occasions Mini Catalog!) and on the flowers. 

I sponged Rich Razzleberry around the outside of the focal image, and around the Pretty in Pink layer (my first sample was just a card front . . . but I wanted to make it into a usable card! Have been seeing a lot of tone on tone layering like this in the blogosphere lately, so thought I'd give it a try.  Really like the effect.)  

The greeting is from the Well Scripted stamp set, which is also from the Occasions Mini.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-- Michelle

Michelle VanWiggeren

Suits Me to a Tee!

As promised, today I am going to show you how I have been making customized t-shirts with Stampin' Up! products.  Back in November, Stampin' Up! gave its demonstrators an early Christmas gift of different projects and ideas we could try -- and one of these was using Decor Elements on fabric as a stencil and then bleaching an image to create cool, customized clothes.  You might remember, I was inspired to make some tote bags using this technique (in case you didn't catch them, you can see my blog posts about the totes, here and here).   Well, recently, I've also been customizing some of my own shirts! 

Here is one of my recent creations:

And, a close up of the bird image near the shoulder:

If you have browsed Stampin' Up!'s wonderful line of Decor Elements, you might realize that this bird and flowers are not shown in that catalog.  That's because I used Decor Elements sheets, cut out with a Big Shot die (the Bird w/Leaves and Flowers die to be precise), to create the stencil. 

Here's a photo of the Decor Elements stencils when I after I applied them to the shirt, but before spritzing on the bleach:

I've found that I can even reuse my custom cut Decor Elements for multiple projects -- such a great value!

If you try this, I'd love to see what you create -- be sure to leave a comment with a link to a photo of your project.

Thanks for stopping by!

-- Michelle

Michelle VanWiggeren

Side Step into Spring Card

Hello!  I'm back!  Did you miss me?  Yearbook pages are just about done, baseball season is now underway for my 7 year old and my husband (the team's manager/coach) and we're starting to get into our new routine with practices, games, etc....  I've also had some really fun Stampin' Up! events lately -- and have some projects from those that I've been excited to share with you!  So, here's the first one of them.  This is a card I created for the wonderful ladies in my Hostess Club to make when we got together this weekend.  After seeing the adorable bunny side step card Marlene had made for me (you can see it in this post), there was a request for us to make a side step card for Mother's Day.  I wanted to make a card that would be suitable to use for other spring occasions as well.

I was going to follow Jackie Topa's excellent instructions for making these, which you can find here.  However, I realized I didn't have any 12 x 12 cardstock in the color I wanted to use . . . only 8.5 x 11, so I ended up modifying her instructions to create this 5 x 5 card.  Without further ado, here's my creation:

And, a side view:

The base for this is a 5 x 10 piece of Old Olive Cardstock, with the slit cut at 1.5" (from 2.5" to 9") and the scores for the "steps" made at 2.5", 5", 6.5", 8" and 9".  We decorated the card using Whisper White pieces cut with the Lattice Die on the Big Shot.  Melon Mambo flowers were stamped in Melon Mambo with a flower from the A Beautiful Thing stamp set, and were cut out using the Extra Large Flower Punch.  The Pumpkin Pie and Pretty in Pink flowers were cut using the Trio Flower Punch.   We inserted brads from the Earth Elements assortment in the center of the Mambo and Pumpkin Pie flowers.  The leaves were cut from Certainly Celery using the Extra Large Two-Step Bird Punch.  And, the sentiment was stamped in Chocolate Chip on Certainly Celery, then punched out using the Scallop Oval Punch.

Tomorrow, I'll be back to show you how I've been creating custom t-shirts with Stampin' Up! products!

- Michelle

Michelle VanWiggeren

Going Green with I Dream of Stamping

Hello!!!  I'm still here . . . quiet this past week and possibly again this week because I'm trying frantically to finish up pages for Daniel's school's yearbook in my "free time."  In fact, I guess I must be in digital scrapbooking mode because for the current I Dream of Stamping challenge -- to make something using green -- I decided to use My Digital Studio to make some pages using some of my favorite photos of the boys from last St. Patrick's Day. 

Here are the pages I made:

I used the new textured cardstock in Garden Green as the base for both pages, and then had great fun using the new Sweet Pea digitial download along with the new Satin Ribbon digital downloads to dress up the pages a bit more!!! 

Well, I should probably get back to work on the yearbook pages!  Hope you will make something green and join the fun over at I Dream of Stamping! 

- Michelle

Guest Designer -- Daniel

For today's post, I have a special guest designer -- my 7 year old, Daniel.  He made a card for a friend's birthday this weekend, and wanted me to share it with you.  Here's Daniel proudly displaying his creation (and he insisted Isabella be in the photo, too.  I think she's sneaking into way too many of blog posts lately, though!) :

Here's a close up of the card:

Daniel stamped the alien and greeting from the Greetings Earthling set, the rocket is from the Pun Fun set (I cut the greetings away from the images to make it easier to stamp these separately), and the stars are from the Starring You set.  

Daniel even drew a person looking out from the rocket.  Here that is:

Thanks for stopping by!

Michelle

Happy Friday!!!

First, wanted to say congratulations to the winners of our first I Dream of Stamping challenges!!!  You can see their gorgeous creations over at the I Dream of Stamping blog.

Second, had a kind of funny story to share with you . . . I'd seen photos of some fun boxes that you receive along with larger size Sale-a-Bration orders, which have a really cute saying on the outside.  So, I was very excited when my recent hostess club's order arrived that it came in one of these.  Here are some photos:

 My 7 year old Daniel saw the label and was really curious what was inside, so wanted to help me as I opened the box.  Then, when I had it open his response was -- "huh?  what's so exciting? This is just the usual stamps and stuff!"  Maybe he'd have understood if there was something in there for him!  :)

Finally, I actually do have a card to share with you today!  This is another one from the recent class I taught.  This one is an easel card based on this Vintage Vogue card that I'd made earlier for the I Dream of Stamping curling challenge.   Here's how it turned out:

The supplies for this are quite similar to the previous card, except that this one is on a Certainly Celery base (sponged to give it more of a vintage look).  Again, used the Very Vintage wheel with Rich Razzleberry ink on Kraft card stock for some background paper.  The flowers and greeting were stamped in Razzleberry on Close to Cocoa and then trimmed or punched out, respectively, and sponged with more Razzleberry.  The ribbon is the Certainly Celery Satin Ribbon, which was rubbed against an Old Olive Classic Ink Pad so it would have a more vintage look, too.

As I was taking photos of this card, our cat Isabella once again decided to supervise.  Perhaps she likes the vintage look, too?  Perhaps she was just miffed that I was paying attention to something other than her?

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

- Michelle

Monkeying Around with Happiness Always

Here's a card I created for a recent card class -- that also happens to fit the Late Night Stampers challenge this week to use designer paper.  I really liked the recent Sweet Sunday sketch with strips of designer paper, so used that layout as a starting point in coming up with this card:

The designer paper I used is from the Welcome Neighbor Paper Pack (you can earn this free with $50 purchase during Sale-a-Bration!) 

The little monkey is from Fox and Friends.  I stamped him in Soft Suede on one of the Hugs Sending Love Notes (from the Occasions Mini).  I also stamped a cloud from the Good Neighbors Sale-a-Bration set on that piece -- so fun that the stamp coordinates so well with the clouds in the designer paper!  I sponged around the edge of the Hug mini note card, first with Bermuda Bay, and then with Soft Suede ink.

Couldn't resist adding a Bermuda Bay butterfly cut with the Beautiful Wings embosslit (can you tell how much I like these butterflies?) near the little monkey.

"Happiness always" is from the Whimsical Words set -- another one of the stamp sets you can earn for free during Sale-a-Bration. 

Here's a close up of the monkey and butterfly:

For the inside of the card, I added a spiral pop up created out of a small circular piece of window sheet, and a few more butterflies!  Here's a photo of that:

Hope this brightened your day!  Thanks for stopping by!

- Michelle

Sweet Spring Butterfly Card

Here's a card I created recently -- based almost entirely on a beautiful card I first saw back in 2006!  To use stamper's lingo, I "CASED" this card.  (For those not familiar with the term, CASE means Copy and Share Everything).  The layout is from Splitcoaststamper's Sketch Challenge 95 (SC 95), and here is a link to the card that inspired mine.  And, without further ado, my card:

For this card, I used a Kraft Card Stock base, then layered on the Chocolate Chip Rectangles and Square, along with designer paper from the gorgeous Sweet Pea pack (from the Occasions Mini).  I really love this paper -- so many wonderful patterns!!!  I use 4 of them here, but there are a total of 48 in the pack.  I sponged the edges of the designer paper and the Kraft Card Stock with Chocolate Chip Classic Ink. 

The butterfly was die cut using the Big Shot and the Stampin' Up! exclusive Beautiful Butterflies Bigz Die.  Then, I ran the butterfly through the Big Shot again using the Elegant Bouquet Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.  I sponged the butterfly using first Bermuda Bay Classic Ink, and then Chocolate Chip.  Finally, I added a strip of rhinestones from the Eggcellent Egg kit for the butterfly's body.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Michelle