Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

Last Call!

Today is the very last day of Sale-A-Bration. With every $70 purchase, you may choose an item out of the Sale-A-Bration brochure. I am placing an order today - please have your orders to me by 5 pm EST if you don't want to miss out.

Rub On fun

Just having more fun decorating items with the rub-ons.

These ones are from the Sale-A-Bration brochure, which means they are free with a $70 order. There are 4 sheets in this package, not 2 as in the catalogue. The sheets vary in colour, Chocolate, Olive, White and Black.

I used the Chocolate ones on this candle set that has been sitting around for awhile. The tags are also incorporating rub-ons. The funky ribbon actually came with the candle jar but it matches the chocolate perfectly.

Remember this is the last week of Sale-A-Bration, so if you haven't taken advantage of this offer yet, you still have time. If you don't have a demonstrator of your own, and you are in Canada, I would be happy to help you out.

Happy stampin' and blessings! - Ann

I'm Back with more from last night

Are you just shocked that I've done TWO entries in one day. It's kind of astounding!

OK - I want to show you the rest of the stamping we did at last night's party. By the way, for those of you wondering, I do a few different kinds of parties. There's the total hands-on party, which was what last night was, where I talked the guests through the cards. Guests made 5 projects for just $10 each and they had time to place an order so the hostess got some nice goodies. I do a party that is more of a demonstration style where I demonstrate step by step the cards and then the guests make 2 cards (3 if it's in my studio) and then we have time for ordering and snacks so the hostess gets to tackle her wish list. I also will do a stamp set included party where guests all pre-order the same stamp set and I bring 5 - 6 cards for them to make with their new set. There usually aren't a lot of orders for the hostess, but it is a great night of stamping fun aand guests go home with a lot of ideas.

OK, back to the last 3 cards from last night.

This card was sort of inspired by the one I did with the Stamp Club last week.

I wanted to show last night's group the rub-ons so we used the rounded edged ones from the Perfect day set in the Occasions MIni. These fit the scallop punch perfectly. We rubbed onto the Blue Bayou scrap and then punched it out. I stamped the butterfly from Priceless once on the blue piece to get the antennae, and once on a Whisper White scrap using Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou and the rock and roll technique. The designer paper is from the Porcelain Prints pack and layered onto the Wild Wasabi. A touch of dazzling diamonds glitter adds a little sparkle to the wings of the butterfly.

The idea for this card came from the gallery at SplitCoast where there are several cards done up in a similar way. I chose this card for a few reasons - one to showcase a Sale-A-Bration set, Birthday Whimsy. Also, because although most of last night's guests were experienced stampers, I knew had 2 newbies so I wanted to do something fairly simple for them. Lastly, I think these colours work for giving the card to a guy or girl. The stamped presents are done using the masking technique, the other "presents" are punched out of the Prints papers and the wide grosgrain is a cheater bow. Fun and easy card to make. Some of last night's guests changed up the design a little to make it a portrait rather than landscape design and that looked great too.

This final card is the first card I made with the Live Your Dream set from the Occasions mini. I cased Sharon at notimetostamp for this one - I adore her classic, elegant style. The card uses Groovey Guava, Garden Green and Chocolate Chip colours. The paper is from the new Afternoon Tea pack also in the Occasions Mini, as is the Chocolate Chip poly twill ribbon. I love the soft feel and flexibility of this ribbon, but you MUST cut it with sharp scissors to avoid fraying. One of the (many) great things I loved about Sharon's card is the focal point on the focal point that she created with the small image. I used the bird stamp in the set and punched it out with the 1 1/4 inch circle punch, layered it onto a 1 3/8 square punch out that has had the corners nicked off with the tag corner punch. Thanks Sharon for your beautiful ideas!

Some of the guests last night flipped the paper and the card looks gorgeous using the reverse sides as well.

Well, that's all for now folks. I may have more for you tomorrow, as we are expecting MORE snow and LOTS of it - the joys of a Canadian winter... it never ends until it's summer! I hope these spring-y cards give you reason for hope.

Happy stampin' and blessings - Ann

More cards from last night's party

You saw the Embrace Life card - the ladies last night loved it!

Here's another card they stamped:

Does it look familiar? If you were visiting here last week, you'll have seen the card the Stamp Club made. If you missed it, you can check it out here.

This card is a 4 1/4 x 4 1/4, so it will fit in a regular sized envelope.

This is a layer of Sahara Sand, Pretty in Pink and Very Vanilla. I love how the Sahara Sand looks green with green colours - try it with Always Artichoke to see what I mean, and it can take on hues of gray with other pairings, like this one.

I last minute changed my mind and let them play with the rhinestone brads for this card - really looked great!

I'll be back soon with more of last night's cards to show you. You can ask for a card kit if you'd like to make these yourself, or if you are in an area that neighbours Elmira (under 1 hour to drive from Elmira), I'd be happy to do this class in your home - just gather up 6 or so friends and get ready for a great night of stampin' fun!

Happy stampin' and blessings,

Ann

Sale-A-Bration Fusion

As promised, here are more cards from Stamp Club.

There actually isn't any stamping on this card, but what a wow it is.

These are the Sale-A-Bration rub-ons, Love and Happiness. After we applied the rub-ons, and we all either used the green or the white sheet, so each card is a little different as we each clipped a piece of flourish, we attached the felt fusion flowers and the rhinetone brads. Fast and funky - gotta love it!

This card was inspired by several on SCS.

The third card didn't use rub-ons; instead we played with the set that co-ordinates with the rub-ons, Friendship Blooms.

  This card was inspired by one made by Glenda Mollet, who was inspired by Josee Smuck. Both of those cards were a 6 x 6 piece of cardstock folded in half to make a 3 x 6 card.

This card is 5.25 x 5.25, so it started with a 10.5 x 5.25 piece of Sahara Sand cardstock onto which I layered the Soft Sky. The top half of the vanilla piece is stamped with the leaf stamp from the Friendship Blooms set. The lower right uses a greeting from All Holidays.

The focal point is done by stamping the flower once onto vanilla and once onto Soft Sky with celery ink and then trimming each flower out. They are attached each other with a "sugar-coated" brad. That means I put a glue dot on the brad and then dipped it into glitter. The girls had a tough time deciding whether to use the cleery or the light blue glitter from the Fine Cosmo collection. The green looked really green on top of a gold brad and the blue looked more blue when it was applied to a silver brad. The leaves are totally inspired by Patty Bennet. Alll you do is fold a scrap of cardstock in half, run it through the paper crimper, hand cut a leaf shape and open it up again.

I love both of these cards, though they are very different - what do you think?

Are you wishing you could have been part of the fun? You can - I'd be happy to get another club going!

Porcelain Rub-ons

OK - weird title, I know. Sometimes that 's the hardest part - coming up with a title for each post!

So tonight our Stamp Club meets and this month we are playing with Rub-Ons, so here is one of the cards we're making. The original inspiration comes from lsasseville, but I've changed it up to incorporate the rub-ons.

You, and our Stamp Club members, are getting a sneak peek at some product from the Occasions mini that starts on Saturday.

The ribbon slide is from the new Stylized Hodgepodge Hardware kit - silver and very pretty!

The rub-on is from the A Perfect Day collection of rub-ons and it co-ordinates perfectly with the 5 Petal Flower punch, doesn't it?

The patterned paper is from the Porcelain Prints designer series paper. The other colours used are Blue Bayou and Wasabi Green. I used white craft ink to stamp the greeting and the white gel pen to add a pen-stitched edge. The flower centre is a punch out from the Three For You punch. I'll show you the rest of our Stamp Club projects tomorrow, so come on back!

Let me know what you think! Comments make my day!

Ready, Set, Stamp!

You all know that the Sale-A-Bration stamp sets are die cut, right? Here's your reminder, if you forgot. It is so easy to just get to stamping with these! The rubber is already perforated, so you just punch out the stamps and mount them on the rubber. Add the stickers and you are ready to stamp! Gotta like that - AND the sets in the minis are like that too!

So you can see in the photo that I am mounting the Sale-A-Bration set called Friendship Blooms. I used this set already - if you missed it, here's a card I did for a swap, using craft ink to stamp on darker colours and to emboss.

Here's the card I made with the set today:

  This card is totally a copy of one I saw on Stamper's Showcase by Twila Mooneyham, except she used the Airart tool to spritz the card with ink and I used a background stamp to create a similar effect.

I loved the card - it's simple and pretty - so it  is going in the Occasions class next weekend.

Here is another card for next weekend's class. This one uses the Lots of Sayings set, along with a Hostess set. Isn't the monochromatic feel to this card kind of dreamy? The flower centre is accented with some of the new Lilac cosmo glitter.

Just a reminder: At the class we'll stamp 10 cards altogether, 5 each of 2 designs. Sounds like a lot, but the designs are simple, and you are production line stamping when you start doing more than 1. Believe me, you can stamp 2 of the same card almost as quickly as 1. The class starts at 1 pm on Saturday, February 23rd. If you can't join us in person, but would like to participate, you can:

1. Get the kit version -all pieces are pre-cut and pre-stamped, all embellishments are supplied, along with a photo and instructions. You put it together at home.

2. Round up 4 or 5 friends and I'll bring the class to your diningroom table.

Click here to see the other cards. Happy stampin' and blessings, Ann

Sale-A-Bration Class Cards

Aren't these great cards?

These are 3 of the 5 cards that we'll be making later this month at the Sale-A-Bration Occasions cards class. We'll be stamping 2 each of 5 designs to get a bit restocked on those cards that you always need on hand - birthday, baby, friendship, thank you. Because we're making 10 cards, these are going to remain somewhat simple and quick.

The cards pictured use Lots of Thoughts or So Many Scallops. We'll also be using Friendship Blooms for some of the other cards. Our cards will incorporate ribbons, glitter, designer paper and punches. 

Hope you can join us on Saturday, February 23rd! If you can't, the class is available in a to-go version (same price as the class - plus postage) where you receive photos of the finished cards, instructions, pre-cut and pre-stamped supplies, and you just assemble when you have time. For more information on the class, see my class schedule.

Guest Artist - Friendship Blooms

This whimsical beauty is created by Lisa Jewer. Lisa's a long-standing member of my team of SU! demonstrators, in fact, she was the first to sign up under me, just a couple of weeks after I signed on. And she is a wonderful friend!

Lisa made this card for a swap featuring Sale-A-Bration sets. Demonstrators will often organize swaps so that we have LOTS of ideas and samples to show our customers.

The card starts with a Soft Sky cardfront background stamped with the flourish from Friendship Blooms set in Blue Bayou. She stamped on the vellum with Groovy Guava ink before cutting it out - it adds a lovely lightness to the card, don't you think? The vellum flower floats over a similar flower stamped on Whisper White. The jumbo brad keeps the vellum flower there without the use of adhesives that usually show through vellum.

Lisa LOVES punches and used her small circle punches to punch out the guava flowers. Double stitched ribbon and patterned paper in Blue Bayou contrast the orange tones of the Groovy Guava.

Thanks, Lisa, for allowing me to share your cheery card.

Stay tuned later this week for another guest artist.

Remember that you can get the set featured in this card FREE through SU!'s Sale-A-Bration promotion, which starts on FRIDAY!

Customers: With every $70 you spend, you may choose a free set from the SAB brochure. Call or email me anytime to place your order.

Hostesses: For every $400 spent at your party, you may choose a free set from the SAB brochure. I still have a few openings left during SAB, so let's look at a calendar together.

Potential Recruits: If you've ever thought about being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, NOW is the time to do it. I'd love to talk to you about the possibilities of owning your own SU! business. Starting your business during SAB means that you get to add a set of your choice from the main catalogue to your custom starter kit. Let me tell you more - just email me for info!