I made this gift card holder for one of my daycare provider's daughter's birthday party. I made it because I didn't have any time to go shopping for a gift as we had had tons of snow! As it turns out, we didn't make it to the party because Sweet Pea was CRABBY after missing her nap due to sledding with DH!
So I followed a video tutorial that I had seen Jennifer McGuire do on the Hero Arts blog. I couldn't locate it on that blog, but did find it on her blog (here).
This second shot is what it looks like when you open it up! The gift card slips behind the circle that says "...and many more!". It was super easy. All I had to do was two score lines, three folds and one little cut with a craft knife! It was fast too, so it qualifies for the Ways to Use it Challenge # 197 on SCS!

Here are the details for this card:
Stamps: Birthday Whimsy
Paper: Pixie Pink, Whisper White, BG Urban Prairie
Ink: Pixie Pink
Accessories: 3/4", 1", 1 1/4", 1 3/8" circle punches, Scallop circle punch, thin satin ribbon (JoAnn's), stampin' dimensionals, ticket corner punch

Hip Hop Challenges!

Today was a snow day at school! So I stayed inside and Hip Hopped my way through Thursday with the crafters in the Unity forum. Each Thursday, there are a couple of challenges to work on when you are not chatting or playing for prizes. Today, I did the Unity Pie Color Challenge first! My dh loves blackberry pie, so I did this one for him. I still feel like I want to make Christmas cards, so I used my new Unity Christmas stamps. (So Girl's Night girls, don't look to close. You may end up with one of these cards!) I also used Julee Tilman's Mojo Monday sketch for the card.

Here are the details for this card:

Stamps: Stocking of Elegance (Unity), Tree of Elegance (Unity), All Year Cheer
Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Perfect Plum
Ink: Versamark, Chocolate Chip, Perfect Plum
Accessories: Clear ep, heat tool, eggplant grosgrain ribbon, Sakura Clear Star gel pen, blender pen
Techniques: Embossing

The second card uses today's sketch from Limelight Papercraft's Six Chick Challenge #11. The product that they focused on is your favorite patterned paper! I chose Basic Grey, of course! The Hip Hop challenge here was Don't Stress - Distress! So I sponged up my card stock, used my Distressed Dots stamp from Unity and roughed up my edges with my MM distressing tool!
Strangely enough, I used a similar color scheme and I altered the sketch a bit so that my card looks a bit like my last Six Chicks Challenge! Oops!

Here are the details for this card:

Stamps: Trinity Trio (Unity), Distressed Dots (Unity), Sincere Salutations (SU)
Paper: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, BG Mistletoe & Pear, BG Two Scoops
Ink: StazOn Timber Brown, Certainly Celery, Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: MM distressing tool, stampin' dimensionals, blender pen, MAMBI rhinestones, Turquoise and Olive sharpies
Techniques: distressing, masking

All products are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise posted!

Recycled Earrings!

Here is my triple challenge from yesterday! The first challenge I went after was the Limited supply challenge on SCS (LSC198). It is called Going Green and the task was to reuse and recycle. So I found some snowflake earrings that I have been given when I was a teen and bent off the part of the snowflake that suspended it from the earring. I embossed it with white craft ink and clear ep! Then I attached it to my dp with mini glue dots!

I also used this week's Unity Sketch Challenge provided by Amber and the Unity Addicts Wednesday Challengewhich was to create a monochromatic card! For whatever reason, monochromatic is hard for me to do! I tried anyway!

Here are the details for my card:

Keywords: LS198 USC17 USCSC6 unity
Stamps: Sentiments O'Simple (Unity)
Paper: Whisper White, SU print pack, SU I Wish
Ink: Craft white
Accessories: MAMBI rhinestones, Red sharpie, recycled earrings, clear ep, heat tool, White gel pen, White taffeta ribbon
Techniques: embossing

All products used are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

I love the weekends!

Plus it is snowing! We get snow every year, but generally not a lot! Yesterday, they were tiny little flakes that kept coming for about 7 hours! It only amounted to about 2 inches and I am sure that will be gone by this afternoon, but it was snow and it stuck! My dogs were going crazy playing in it and Sweet Pea was fascinated until we went outside. All she had to say then, "It's cold!". I promised hot cocoa with marshmallows and then she went outside!
So during nap time and cartoons, I got this card done! I got some new Unity and had to ink it up! I made this card for Jennifer Buck's quick card challenge for the Stamp Simply Celebration '08! Making it quick means using Julee Tilman's sketch and using some designer paper. My quick card took a little longer when I tried to incorporate some gold for the Stamp Something red, gold and green challenge. Embossing added time, but it was well worth it!
Looking back now, my scalloped edge layer needed a little something more. Oh well!
I used some new Unity here too! This one is called Trinity Trio. I used another sketch on this one! The sketch is the Six Chicks Sketch and Product Challenge #10. Mandy from Limelight Papercrafts posted it here. This card is pretty self explanatory, except for the color. I was trying to match the blue-green color in the dp, so I scribbled on some cellophane with my Tempting Turquoise and Certainly Celery. I mixed them up with a blender pen and colored my trees that way. Overall, I like it! I still need lots of work on my coloring skills. I think that is a strong deficit of mine. Any tips? Please let me know! I never took any art classes, I was always too busy with music:(
In retrospect, I should have stamped the trees with Timber Brown StazOn, but I don't think it is really noticeable.
This last card took quite a long time! I had to be upstairs anyway. Sweet Pea has a cold now and wasn't sleeping very well. She kept waking up and I had to go in and help her calm down and get back to sleep. It even happened two more times after dh and I went to bed!
I began this card for the Featured Stamper challenge #97 on SCS. I cased this card. Since it was a sketch challenge, I changed the sketch to Taylor's sketch for this week. I also changed the color scheme, the vertical crimping to horizontal scoring, and the pearls to brads. I added ribbon, paper piercing and a scalloped edge!
I realized when I was finished that this card is red, green & gold (probably because that was what was out on my desk from the stocking card). So this meets the challenge for the ladies at Stamp Something.

Here are the details for the cards (Stocking card, Snowy tree card and Poinsettia card):

Stamps: Stocking of Elegance (Unity), All Year Cheer III
Paper: Very Vanilla, Wild Wasabi, BG Urban Prairie
Ink: Versamark, Real Red, Wild Wasabi
Accessories: Gold ep, heat tool, scallop edge punch, blender pen, stampin' dimensionals
Techniques: embossing

Stamps: Trinity Trio (Unity), Short & Sweet (SU)
Paper: Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, BG Mistletoe & Pear
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: Chocolate Chip grosgrain, corner rounder, MAMBI & Michael's self adhesive rhinestones, Glistening Snow Writer, stampin' dimensionals, blender pen

Stamps: Tiny Trinity
Paper: Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red, Wild Wasabi
Ink: Versamark
Accessories: Clear ep, heat tool, corner punch, mat pack, paper piercing tool, Michael's gold ribbon, MM gold brads, glue dots, stampin' dimensionals, scallop edge punch, Join in the Cheer die cut, Big shot
Techniques: paper piercing

All products used are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

Stamp Simply Celebrates a Mass Card Production!

I took some cards to work last week and one of my co-workers liked a card I had in my basket that she asked if I could make 10 more of them. Coincidentally, Tammy Hershberger issued this challenge and used a card she had received as inspiration. (This challenge is part of Stamp Simply Celebration '08). I figured that I would make the cards for my co-worker based of the card she had seen. It probably took me 1 1/2 hours to make 10 cards. It's hard for me calculate exactly as I did it over the course of a few days when I had bits and pieces of time.

Here is the card I cased! I changed very little, but only because I thought it was adorable. I used a sentiment from a different set. I stamped my trees in green, not white. I used grosgrain ribbon, not satin. I used sage, not wasabi. I used confetti white, not white. I added a star brad on top of one of the trees. I think that the star brad really makes the card!

Here are the details for these cards:

Stamps: Loads of Love, Itty Bitty Backgrounds
Paper: Confetti White, Sage Shadow, Vellum
Ink: Garden Green, White Craft
Accessories: White grosgrain ribbon, mm star brads
Techniques: tearing

All products are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise posted.

Stamp Simply Celebration!!!

I created this little box for Janine Orchard's challenge. She is hosting a Cookie Recipe Exchange. Where does the stamping come in? You get to decorate your own bag or box. So I stamped this tiny take out box and put it together. It holds about four of my favorite Christmas time cookie: Eskimo Cookies. They are a fun no-bake cookie that my Mom made with my sister and me since the time we were old enough to count and help measure ingredients!
This is what they look like. They are powdered sugar covered ball. I cut one in half so you could see the yummy chocolate and oatmeal goodness inside!

Here is the recipe for my Eskimo Cookies (makes 3 dozen):

3/4 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 T. water
1/2 t. vanilla
3 T. cocoa
2 c. Quaker quick oats (instant oatmeal)
powdered sugar

Beat the softened butter in a large bowl. Add the sugar and beat well. Mix in water, vanilla and cocoa. Next add oatmeal and mix in. Refrigerate overnight. Shape into 36 balls and roll in powdered sugar. Keep cookies in the refrigerator.

Yum!

Here are the details for my Tiny Take Out Box:

Stamps: Paint Prints, Fresh Cuts
Paper: SU Tiny Take Out Box in Confetti White
Ink: Real Red, Old Olive, Bravo Burgundy
Accessories: Gold brads, gold cord

All products are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

Thinking outside of the box...

on a couple of levels. By no means am I suggesting that these are original ideas. What I am saying is that this is the first time that it has occurred to me!

I made this card for Sketch Challenge 205 on SCS. I turned this flower image upside down to represent Christmas ornaments. I have been on an embossing kick lately, so I embossed it in silver. I felt like I was cutting the panels a little thin, but it worked out. I was going to tie a ribbon around the whole thing, but then thought of stringing a thin ribbon through the ornaments like they were hanging from it. I used a very small hole punch and then cut my ribbon to a very thin point to thread it through. I left my ribbon on the roll because I wasn't sure how much I would need. It was a good thing because I had to re-cut the end to a thin point several times as it frayed easily.

Here are the details for this card:
Stamps: Lots of Thoughts, Humble Bloom (Unity)
Paper: Night of Navy, Whisper White
Ink: Versamark
Accessories: Silver ep, heat tool, 1/16 circle punch, Offray thin satin navy ribbon, stampin' dimensionals
Techniques: embossing

All products are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

Look out...Double Embossing!

I can't tell you how much I enjoy and learn from Sharon Johnson and her blog, No Time to Stamp? I first learned of this technique from her. She explained a couple of ways to do this, but I just stamped my whole image in Versamark and then sprinkled on the black ep and then the silver ep. It looks quite technical, but really wasn't.

I made the card for the Featured Stamper 95 on SCS. My card is based VERY loosely off of this card. I noticed that Dawn, the featured stamper, tied quite a few ribbons across the tops of her cards and that often she left quite a bit of wide open space on her cards or used large layers. (See, I told you it was loosely based!)

I made a few changes. Here are the changes I made. I only used one layer of card stock. I layered my ribbons (organdy, grosgrain, cord). I embossed instead of water coloring. I added a sentiment to my card. I used white, black and silver instead of green, red and white.

I seem to be on quite an embossing kick lately. I think that it has to do with the Holiday season. You know, everything is shiny and sparkly.

Here are the details for my card:
Stamps: Dream Tree (Unity), Sentiments O'Simple
Paper: Whisper White
Ink: Versamark, Basic Black
Accessories: Black ep, Silver Tinsel ep, heat tool, Black organdy ribbon, Black grosgrain ribbon, Silver cord
Techniques: double embossing

All products are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise posted.