Blending with Friends!

Happy Tuesday!  Hope you've had a great day!  We enjoyed a bit of sunshine here today and are preparing for rain for the next few days . . . may be some good weather for getting some stamping done!  

Yesterday, I spent time with Jana and Judy, and we ended up making cards together.  We started with the intricate background design from the Two-Tone Flora dies, which Judy cut out of Basic Black Card Stock for us.  Then, we decided to do some ink blending on a layer underneath that, and we each chose different colors for that.  We used bits from our blending to create elements and the greeting pieces for our cards.  Greetings were stamped with the Something Fancy Stamp Set and die cut with the Everyday Details Dies (a new die set from the January to April Catalog).  Judy also cut butterflies for us using the Designer Tag Dies and either Gold or Silver foil paper.  Here's how our cards turned out:

Thanks so much to Judy for sharing these terrific photos she took of the cards!!!

And, thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog!

- Michelle

Merry Monday: Fun with Felt!

 Merry Monday!!!  This Christmas, I stumbled across a wonderful free felt advent calendar on Instagram by Anabella Cahwje (@whatacurlylife).  I had fun making a number of the projects from that, and then I started thinking that it would be fun to cut some felt with Stampin' Up! dies and see what I could create from there!  

I decided to start with the gingerbread men from the Sending Cheer Bundle.  I die cut the felt, and decided to try stamping on it, and was surprised to find out that stamping worked!  I used Memento, and it was a great guide for embroidering details on:

Next, I decided to cut some trees with the Merriest Trees dies, and I first tried stitching snow on the branches, but didn't like how that was coming out, so decided to try something else -- I made a simple tree with just a star on the top, then decided to make two more trees and add some pretty die cut flowers in red, pink and white on those:

The flowers are from the Sweet Citrus Dies, Sentimental Park Dies, and Thoughtful Moments dies. 

I'm actually looking forward to trying this out with some Valentine's and Spring dies as well!  Stay tuned for that . . . 

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!

- Michelle

Yum Yum!

 Happy Thursday!  While I was preparing my Ice Cream Swirl Bundle card for Sunday's open house, I happened to notice that there was some paper in the Flight and Airy Designer Series Paper (which is one of the free Sale-a-Bration choices) that works really well with the Ice Cream stamps and dies!  So, I had to make a card combining those:

This is a relatively quick and easy card.  I started with a Pecan Pie card base with the Fresh Freesia watercolor design from Flight and Airy as a background layer on top of that.  Then, the waffle-cone like pattern from Flight and Airy is die cut as the ice cream cone, and I topped it with ice cream cut from a piece of Basic White stamped with Crumb Cake ink (stamped off once).  The strawberry, cherry, and chocolate cookie were stamped and die cut from Basic White, then colored with watercolor pencils.  I stamped "Yum Yum" in Memento Tuxedo Black.  I finished the card with some Petal Pink Foiled Gems.  

Hope you like that!  

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!

- Michelle  

January to April and Sale-a-Bration Open House

 Hi!  This Sunday, Connie and I hosted our Open House for the new January to April Mini Catalog and Sale-a-Bration Brochure.  We had some wonderful help in getting everything set up and cleaned up from Connie's sister, Chris, so wanted to say another big thanks to her and Connie for that!!!!   

Connie and I had prepared 4 make and take projects for our friends who came to make.  We each designed a card with the Bee Mine Suite.  Then, Connie also created a card with the Nature's Sweetness Suite, and I made one with the Ice Cream Swirl Bundle.  

Here are Connie's cards:

Her Bee Mine card is an adorable adaption of a card we made as a make and take during the Stampin' Up! OnStage Online event we attended in November.  

Then, here is Connie's beautiful Nature's Sweetness card (which draws inspiration from a design by Jan Clothier): 

Here's the card I made with Connie and a peek at the inside:

Connie also demonstrated inking with the new brayer and the Adoring Hearts Bundle, though I didn't manage to capture any photos of that!  I will have some Adoring Hearts projects to show you as part of our SUper Friends Valentine's Swap, though . . . so stay tuned for that!

Here's my project with the Bee Mine Suite:

We used a Petal Pink Stampin' Write Marker to add the blushing cheeks, and a bit of Wink of Stella on the wings!  Here's a closer view of the little bee:

During the open house, my friend Jaya came up with an adorable alternate design for my card!  Here's the photo I snapped then, and she was gracious enough to send me a better photo after, which you can see as well:

Thanks, Jaya!!!

For my project with the Ice Cream Swirl Bundle, I CASED cards on page 37 of the January to April Catalog!  I die cut the ice cream cone card bases from Crushed Curry card stock, then everyone could add texture with one of the dies from the set, which was a bit different than the stamping done in the catalog samples.  There were 4 ice cream "flavors" to choose from:  Vanilla, Melon Mambo (strawberry), Pecan Pie (chocolate), and Lemon Lime Twist (which initially made me think of pistachio, but my friends told me they chose because it reminded them of Matcha!) :

We used Crumb Cake ink to do all the stamping on these cards.  Here are some close ups of them:

Here's the greeting inside:

As I was making up some of the leftover kits from the event, I decided to play around and make a triple scoop cone.  Here's how that turned out:

And, here are a few random photos from the event:

So much fun!!!!   Can't wait until we get together again!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!

- Michelle

SUper Friends Saturday: December Yankee Swap

 Happy Saturday!  In December, my SUper Friends group had our annual Yankee Swap.  While I shared some photos of that on my FaceBook Business Page, I realized I hadn't posted here yet.  Today seemed like a good day to do that!  

We started off with our traditional group photo (thanks to Timothy for taking that!):

So thankful for all these amazing and talented friends!!!  

After our photo, we jumped right into our swap.  We'd drawn numbers to see who would open in what order, and we have a three-steals-before-a-gift-locks-in rule.  

The first present opened was a beautiful bracelet created by Agnes (Jana opened it on Judy's behalf):

Margery went next, and she ended up opening a beautiful necklace made by Agnes:

Then, Jana opened for herself, and ended up selecting Judy's gift, which started with a cute cross-stitched ornament:

And, had a wonderful bag Judy had made with "Queen of Crafting - SUper Friends 2023" on it:

Clara went next, and she ended up choosing Jane's gift, which included a beautiful poinsettia, homemade goodies in hand stamped boxes, and a gorgeous crocheted scarf: 

 Nancy was up next, and she selected Jaya's gift, which was a succulent planter that Jaya had decorated and stamped with some fun sayings:

Jaya was up next, and she chose to open a gift that ended up being Jana's.  Inside was some delicious scone mixes, tea and a crocheted bag:

Next up was Jane.  She ended up picking my present, which contained an embroidered felt gnome and a framed cross-stitched gnome.  I had altered the frame with embossing paste for texture, painting, and then embellishing with a bunch of Stampin' Up! buttons and trinkets:

Agnes was next up, and she ended up opening Margery's gift, which was a cool light-up diorama with deer and trees and an altered easel that Margery had stamped on:

Kallien was up next, and I believe she ended up with the gift Judy had made.  I can't quite remember the details of the exchanges that happened next, but somehow the gnome artwork I'd made ended up going to Judy, and Jane picked again.  She ended up choosing a gift made by Kallien, which was some beautiful stamped tumbled coasters:

It was my turn to pick, and rather than steal, I decided to open!  That turned out to be a gift made by Nancy -- a wonderful zipper pouch made of Stampin' Up! fabric, filled with chocolates and some passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Here's a closer view of the cute pouch (love the fabric!!!):

I had also prepared some gifts for everyone.  I made some necklaces with pieces of designer paper:

And, I also made some goodie bags, using bags from the With Love and Gratitude Paper Pumpkin kit (refills still available as of the time I'm posting this!) and tags made with the Trucking Along Bundle and Cottage Wreaths stamp set and Country Wreaths dies:

Whew!  That was a lot of fun to share!  Thanks so much to the SUper Friends for another fun and laughter filled gathering with some amazing and creative gifts!!!!  

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!

- Michelle