Baby Shower Fun

Yesterday was a beautiful day to celebrate a new life. My sister in-law is expecting her second child, due this April. Her shower was yesterday. I volunteered to make both the invites and the favors. Last month I shared the shower invites that I made for the special day. Today I am sharing these quick and easy candy bar covers that I made for the shower as favors and the card to go with my gift.

I used Stampin' Up!'s MDS (My Digital Studio) to create the design for the candy bar covers. It was pretty simple. I started with an 8- 1/2 X 11 inch blank sheet of paper. I then selected the square punch and elongated it to make it a long rectangle to reach across the sheet of paper. I filled it in with Daffodil Delight Designer Series paper. I then selected the square punch again and stretched it across the dsp making it thinner and thinner and centered it. I filled it in with Mellow Moss. I used the scallop edge punch and aligned it to the sides of the mellow moss elongated square. Next, I created a text box for the wording and selected white for the color. For the scallop circle on the top, I selected the scallop circle and filled in with the same dsp. Then I selected the small circle punch and centered it in the scallop circle and filled it in white. I selected the border and put it around the edge of the scallop circle and around the small circle. For the wording I selected the So Worth the Wait stamp from the Word Play stamp set and placed it in the center of my little circle resizing it to make it fit. I colored in the wording in Mellow Moss. Once, I cut out the wrapper I used my scallop edge punch to scallop the edges on the wrapper. I then used sticky tape to adhere it around a candy bar. I punched two holes in the scallop circle, pulled Daffodil Delight satin ribbon through the holes and tied it around the candy bar. It sounds like a lot, but it really wasn't and I LOVE the finished product. The Shower guests thought they were cute too!

For the card I got to play with my Textured Impressions folder and try out the Beveled Windowpanes. I used the sleeper image that I used on the invites. It is from A Slice of Life stamp set.

Hope you like them.
Thanks for stopping by...now go stamp something!

Stamping with Friends

Last weekend I got together with five friends who love to stamp as much as I do. We each designed a card, cut enough for 5 others to make it, brought the needed supplies and got together at my friend, Sam's house. I guess one might say we had a "Shoebox Swap." Usually when I get together with this set of friends I design the cards and prepare for everyone so this was a nice change of pace. It was so much easier to just get together what I needed for one card. I left my house with ONE bag. Nice.....

When I got to Sam's house we had lunch. Any meal at Sam's is always a yummy experience for my mouth. She made a tasty salad, a delicious ham and pineapple quiche. Who knew those two ingredients worked so well together. She also made dessert!!!! Super soft brownies with walnuts mixed in and covered in chocolate icing!!!! Yum, yum, yum. I think I ate more than one...I'm actually pretty sure I did.




We started the afternoon with the host. My friend Sam hosted our get together and here is her adorable card. She made this cute trifold birthday card that we fell in love with instantly.

My card was up next. I shared the owl card that I used the weekend before at a kids party that I did. The difference here is that I didn't pre-punch everything like I did the kids.


This lovely card is from Lori. We were loving this butterfly. It was so much fun to make and reminded us of Spring.



Up next is Vanessa's sparkling card. She used one of my favorite stamp sets, Crazy for Cupcakes. Each year she designs a birthday card and it becomes her card of the year. Super cute right? So if your birthday is coming up this just may be the beautiful card you'll see in the mail. We LOVED her Stickles. Who doesn't love some sparkle?


We moved right along to Marie's fun and super cute card. I LOVE green and I LOVE ribbon...especially in brown. These are two of my favorite colors. Marie used Trendy Trees for her card. She taught us how to stamp the tops of the trees perfectly by stamping center first and then slightly moving the stamp to the right, stamp it, then move slightly to the left, stamp it and whalla you get a perfect tree. Since it is hard to center the trees without a stamp a majig this is sure fire way to get perfect trees every time. Thanks so much Marie. We had lots of "Wow"s" while stamping your card.


We ended the afternoon with Karen's fancy Father's Day card. This is usually the hardest occasion for me to create a card for and Karen did the hard work for all of us for this year. We all adored the the handsome tux on the cover...how cute is that?

We had such a wonderful time together having a yummy lunch, chatting, and stamping super cute cards to add to our stash. I can't wait to get together and do it again.

A Stylish Blogger Award!

Thanks so much! What a nice surprise. I want to thank Kim Warne for this exciting award. Thanks for thinking enough of my blog to nominate me for this special treat.

Okay, so upon getting this award I am supposed to do a few things. I am suppose to share 8 things about myself....I can do that easily...I think :-)
1). I am a mom to four really smart, amazing and very busy kids ranging in age from 4 to 17. (Of course I'm not biased:-) Oh, and did I forget to mention cute too?
2). I have a wonderful husband who will do almost anything I "tell" him to do:-)
3).I am a teacher, have been for 20 years...did I just say that out loud? I've taught first and second grades for 6 years each, and now I am currently a Literacy Specialist for grades K-2 and loving it! (Most days).
4). I enjoy all sorts of music from Florence and the Machine, to Kenny Rogers, to Beyonce, Rihanna, John Legend, Katy Perry, The Black Eye Peas, Colbie Callat, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, to Jay-Z, Anna Nalick, and more.
5). I always have a book on hand to read...when the opportunity presents itself:-)
6). I LOVE watching Y&R. I DVR it to watch nightly. It's a great way to unwind from my busy day.
7). I LOVE Oprah....I am dying to go to a taping before she is off the air :-(
8). Of course I LOVE stamping and being a Stampin' Up demonstrator. Convention is my favorite time of year.

That was harder than I thought it would be...

Now, I am suppose to select 8 blogs to pass this award on to. This is the hardest part because there are soooo many wonderful blogs out there full of super duper talent. How can I judge art.....to put it simply, I can't.

So.... I nominate this award to all of the blogs out their in bloggersville. Keep stamping and keep blogging because I LOVE peeking in and being impressed EVERYDAY!!!!

From Remnants to Cards

Do you find that after a workshop or a card class you have lots of card kits left? Well, I do. I guess I over cut and then have lots of left over pieces. I'm trying to be better about creating cards from my remnants to have as a card stash for when an occasion creeps up on me, and they usually do more often than I'd like to admit. I am the last minute stamper! To combat this I sat down over the long Presidents weekend and stamped away until there weren't any remnants to be found. I think I ended up with about 16 cards to put in reserve. I am feeling good and my stamping area is looking a lot better too!

Both of the above cards are very similar to recent posts. You can scroll down to find the details.

Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something!

A Boy's World!

Here's another card using the festive Celebrations designer series paper. I am really loving this paper. It's bold, colorful, and it is great for birthday cards for kids. I teamed it up with the Extreme Skateboard stamp. I teamed these two up a couple weeks ago for a card and thought I'd do it again. I think this stamp along with the surfer one are the my two go to's for stamping boys cards. My son took this card along with a gift to his friends birthday party.

Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something.

3 Cards for A Party

Okay, so YES, I know Valentine's Day is over but I just had to share this card. This is one of the cards that we made last weekend and by we, I mean 11 little stampers ranging in age from 7-9. There was also a super cute and very attentive 3 yr. old:-) Her grandmother stayed nearby and helped her through each step. LOVED HER!!!
Last weekend I was the entertainment for a seven year old's birthday party. I enlisted the assistance of my ten year old. I am so glad I did. She was so very helpful and patient as always. The girls were all so cute and fun to stamp with. We stamped 3 easy cards. I tried to simplify everything from pre cutting the scalloped edges, to pre-tying the ribbon, pre punching the owl, the tree, and more. I used colors that were faves of the birthday girl and even added glitter to one of the cards. What little girl doesn't love glitter, right? For the Valentine's Day, card the girls got to choose from colorful candy corn or red m&m's. I didn't get a picture of a card with the m&m's and sadly, I just finished eating the ones that remained.

Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Retired (Can't Remember the name)
Card stock: Real Red, Whisper White, Glimmer Paper, Love Impressions Specialty Designer paper
Ink: Real Red
Accessories: Red Grosgrain Ribbon, Twine, and Heart Treat cups

This card was a hit. The girls ooohed when I pulled it out. I tried to stick with all wood mounted stamps for the girls. I wanted to be sure that the stamps would stay in place for them.
Card Recipe:
stamp set:Crazy for Cupcakes
Card stock:Melon Mambo, Concord Crush, Basic Black, Whisper White, and dsp
Ink: Basic Black
Accessories: Glittter

This is probably my favorite card and it is totally cased:-) This lovely card was inspired by a card by Ilina Crouse. She is such a talented and creative beauty. So, my card looks almost like, kind of, pretty close to hers but uses different paper and a different stamp set. The dimensions for this card are 4-1/4 X 5-1/2.
Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Retired Cheery Chat (One of my favorites)
Card Stock: Retired Only Orange, Current- Whisper White, Sweet Stitches Designer Series Paper
Ink: Melon Mambo
Accessories: Owl Punch, Googly eyes

Hope you like todays cards.
Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something!

For the Bride!

Here is a card I created for a colleague who is getting married this summer. Notice the Crystal Effects:-) This card uses the same layout as the baby shower invitation from my last post.I also added some pearls to this card.

Hope you like it. Thanks for stopping by...now go stamp something!