Paper Pumpkin Party!!!

This Sunday, it's time for my Paper Pumpkin and New Catalog party . . . if you are in the Bay Area, hope you'll stop by (please check out my upcoming classes or message me for more details!)  Anyway, thought it would be fun to show you a sneak peek of one of the projects you'll be able to make at the party:

This pinwheel is made with supplies from this month's Paper Pumpkin kit, Pinwheel Party!  So much fun, and so perfect for creating decorations and favors for 4th of July celebrations!  I've seen some fun ideas on Pinterest with this kit as well (you can see them on my Paper Pumpkin board here and on the Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin board devoted to the Pinwheel Party kit here).

Thanks for visiting!

- Michelle

P.S.  Don't know much about Paper Pumpkin yet and want to learn more?  Click here to visit my Paper Pumpkin website and get all the details!  You can subscribe by the month, or there are now 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month pre-paid subscriptions available -- you can read more about those in my online store here.  These make fabulous gifts, too!!!

June SUper Friends Swap Cards

We ended up with only a few days to prepare for our June SUper Friends swap, because we held it earlier than usual so we could have our gathering before school let out.  I think you'll agree that everyone came up with pretty amazing cards in that short time!

Here's Jana's clever card creation, using Sea Street and Maritime Designer Series Paper.  The "Oh Snap" is from the Hip Notes Stamp Set.

And, here's the inside:

Jana also gave me this beautiful bonus card:

She used the Work of Art stamp set to create the grass and sky, and the flowers are from the Flower Shop Stamp Set (punched with the Pansy Punch).


Agnes created this wonderful, masculine card for Father's Day:

She used the Honeycomb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Six Sided Sampler Stamp Set, Teeny Tiny Wishes, and a page from a book for the banner.

We were happy to have Liz join us again, and she made this elegant and eye-catching, clean and simple card:

Liz stamped her card with Perfect Pennants and Starburst Sayings (cut with the coordinating framelits).  

  

For my card, I decided to create a card using the "Happy Father's Day" stamp from May's Paper Pumpkin kit and with a dress shirt created with a cut-off onesie using the Baby's First Framelits. The tie is also cut with a die from Baby's First Framelits, and I created the collar using the Banner Punch (first I punched out the banner, then put it on top of the piece to be die cut for the shirt, and lined up the onesie die on top of that, then cut that all out in the Big Shot at once).  I created two variations of the card (main difference is the color ink used to stamp the "Happy Father's Day,"  though the direction of the designer paper and the color of Candy Dots also differs in these two).  The designer paper is Lullaby.

Which do you like best?

Thanks so much for visiting!

- Michelle

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

Hi!  Back again with some more projects from the boys' school's Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week.  The first one is a tag I made to go on a package of gum for "bring a treat" day:

 

Loved using the "You make the World a Better Place" greeting from Starburst Sayings (also available bundled with the Starburst framelits here).  That's inked up in Coastal Cabana ink, and stamped on Very Vanilla Card Stock.  It's die cut with the coordinating image from the Starburst Framelits, and layered onto a die cut piece of Champagne Glimmer Paper.  For the bottom "ribbons," I die cut a piece of Very Vanilla and a piece of Pistachio Pudding using Banner Framelits.  The Vanilla piece, I stamped with the World Map background stamp, which I had inked up with a combination of Pistachio Pudding and Coastal Cabana ink.  I hand wrote my special message on the Pistachio Pudding banner ("Thanks so much for going the EXTRA mile for our kids!"), using a Baked Brown Sugar Stampin' Write Marker.

The next project is a special gift box, which I'd actually altered a while back (the card stock covering the top of the box is Cranberry Crisp, which I think might have been one of the original In Colors for Stampin' Up!?)  Anyway, I wanted to dress up the box a bit, so added a big bloom and some dyed ribbon:

 

 

The bloom is made out of Creped Filter Paper, die cut with the Floral Frames Framelits dies, and spritzed with watered down Primrose Petals ink refill.  Flower centers are cut from Daffodil Delight Card Stock, using Fringe Scissors.  The Garden Green leaves are cut with the Blossoms Petals Punch (currently on the Clearance Rack!)  The ribbon is Whisper White Organza, also spritzed with Primrose Petals ink. 

 

I also put together some special gift bags for "Posh and Pampering Friday."  The bags were from the February 2014 Paper Pumpkin kit (still available, while supplies last, to current Paper Pumpkin subscribers -- you can see which past kits are available here, and if you haven't yet, find out more about subscribing to Paper Pumpkin here).  I added a tag, and filled the bag with a flower bouquet (you might recognize these as similar to the ones I created for Hostess Tea favors) and a paper mache bowl, in turned filled with tea, Earl Grey Tea Cookies, and a gift card:

 

 

 

Hope you don't mind, couldn't resist sharing this photo of Isabella taking time to stop and sniff the flowers:

 

Hope you are having a great day!  Thanks for visiting!

- Michelle

Teacher Appreciation Cards

The boys' school year ended just about two weeks ago, and it feels like life has been a whirlwind since then!!!  We are slowly but surely starting to settle into a more relaxing pace this week, so wanted to be sure to pop in and share some of the projects I've been creating.  I thought I'd start with some cards I made about a month ago now, for Teacher Appreciation Week at the boys' elementary school.

The boys each had pretty specific ideas about the kind of cards they wanted for their teachers.   My oldest said his teacher likes dogs, so I thought the Animal Talk (now retired) stamp set would work perfectly:

The designer paper is from Berry Blossoms (still available as a Digital Download).  I used the Labels Collection Framelits to cut out the pup and his greeting on the front, and layered that on a die cut piece of Calypso Coral, which I'd "faux stitched" using the guide from the Festive Paper Piercing pack.  The hearts and "THANK YOU!" are from the new Something to Say stamp set.  The hearts and star are punched with the coordinating Itty Bitty Accents punches.

My little guy decided he'd like to give a card with a frog on it to his teacher.  So, I pulled out one of my all-time favorite sets, Unfrogettable, for the card front, and images from Animal Talk and Something to Say, for the inside.  Here's how that turned out:

I colored the frog and flower centers on the card front using Blendabilities (available to customers very soon!!!!)  You can see a great video from Stampin' Up! about Blendabilities here.  

Here's the special greeting I added to the card backs:

The "Made for You by me" is from the stamps that come with the awesome Everyday Occasions Kit.

Hope you enjoyed these!  Thanks for visiting!!

- Michelle

P.S.  Check out the new weekly deals here (some great bargains, especially on dies, this week!!!).

End of Season for Great Sport!

We just had a great celebration for my boys' Little League Closing Day this weekend.  In preparation for that, I made some special thank you cards for the coaches.

I was sad to see the Great Sport set retire, as that is one of my favorite sets for creating sports related thank you cards, but the consolation is there is a fun new set in the new catalog (Simply Sports, if you'd like to check it out! And, I notice you can get it bundled with the framelits I used on these cards, too, for a 15% savings . . . you can see that here).  And, actually Great Sport is still available as a digital download for My Digital Studio, so that's always a great option, too!

Anyway, on to the cards!  The first cards I made for my oldest's team -- he was on the Yankees this year.  I used Midnight Muse (now-retired In Color -- fingers crossed it will reappear in the next color update! In the meantime, Night of Navy would also work well), Real Red, and Whisper White, with silver embossing.

The "thank you" is from Itty Bitty Banners, cut with the coordinating framelits. The red star is cropped with the new star punch from the Itty Bitty Accents Pack.  Stars are from another retired set, Extreme Elements . . . though now could achieve a similar look with the Be the Star stamp set (didn't get mine until after I made these cards, though!)

And, of course, had to decorate the insides of the cards as well:

The second set of cards was for the team my husband coached and my youngest son played on -- the Pirates.  I used Basic Black card stock, with gold embossing, and Daffodil Delight for the "thank you" banner.  I did two different designs, and again decorated the insides and the envelopes to match.

("Home Run" and "All Star" are from the retired Sporting stamp set).

Hope you liked these.  Thanks for visiting!

- Michelle

Bright, Happy Hello for Mojo Monday!

Hello!  I'm very excited because this week I managed to do something I haven't in a while . . . I created a card (actually even on Monday!) using this week's fabulous Mojo Monday sketch #348:

Here's my card:

And, here's a close up of the big bloom, which has Pearl Jewels in the center -- colored them with the Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities to coordinate better with my bright and happy card!

Supplies Used:

Stamps:  Blended Bloom, Work of Art, and Endless Birthday Wishes ("hello")

Ink:  Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss, Stampin' Blendabilities (available soon)

Paper:  Hello Honey, Blackberry Bliss, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White

Accessories:  Blackberry Bliss Stitched Satin Ribbon, Basic Pearl Jewelz, and Project Life Corner Rounder Punch


Hope you are having a bright, happy day!  Thanks so much for visiting!

- Michelle

SUper Friends May Swap Cards

Hi there!  Hope you are having a beautiful day!  Today, I have another set of fabulous cards from my SUper Friends to share with you.  We met a couple weeks ago, and actually are preparing to meet again this week! We didn't have a particular theme last month -- just all tried to create cards with either new products or new ideas with current products.

Agnes created this gorgeous card, using the Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper from the Occasions Mini, and I love how she fussy-cut some of the flowers from the paper and added those with Silver Glimmer brads, as 3D embellishments to the card.  She also added mini silver brads to the paper.

Jana's beautiful card brilliantly shows off both the new In Colors and the new Work of Art stamp set:

Love the luxurious Lost Lagoon Stitched Satin Ribbon, too!

Liz met with our group for the first time, and brought this awesome card, in which she puts the stencils from the Build a Banner Simply Created Kit to clever use:

The Baker's Twine, banners, and glimmer heart (using the Owl Punch) add the perfect finishing touches! You can see more of Liz's beautiful artwork on her blog http://www.stampersbliss.com/. 

My swap card used Bloom with Hope and Blendabilities (again!  Just can't seem to put these down!!!)

I also used the Blendabilities to color a Vintage Faceted Designer Button to embellish the card:

Hope you enjoyed these samples!  Thanks for visiting!

- Michelle

Whoo Hoo for the New Catalog!

Hi Everyone!  It's the big day . . . the 2014-2015 Catalog is here at last!!!  So, I thought it would be a fun time to share one of my first creations with one of the new hostess sets, Bloom with Hope:

 



I'm loving this set, and it is so fun to color with the new Blendabilities (not available quite yet to customers, but hopefully soon . . . will keep you posted!) 

 

You'll definitely be seeing more samples from me with this set!!!

 

Supplies Used:

 

Stamps:  Bloom with Hope (hostess)

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Blendabilities (Old Olive, Daffodil Delight, Coastal Cabana, Rich Razzleberry, and Pumpkin Pie Assortments -- coming soon)

Paper:  Whisper White, Rich Razzleberry, and Basic Black

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

- Michelle