A card by Rhonda

Rhonda was using her SAB paper at craft night.  She created this bright, cheery card!  I love the use of the lace ribbon border on the edges as well as the butterfly on top of the embossed frame!

Happy stamping!

Sympathy card

Unfortunately, I needed a sympathy card for a co-worker.  Her mom passed away on Valentine's Day.  (That brought back memories of my dad's death 10 1/2 years ago, and Ray's mom died 13 years ago as well.)

My go-to set for sympathy cards is Lovely as a Tree.  I colored the image with watercolor crayons (Early Espresso, Old Olive, Riding Hood Red, More Mustard and Pumpkin Pie), spritzed the stamp with water and stamped it on watercolor paper.  It didn't turn out quite right, so I spritzed a little more and stamped again.  It made a bit of a double image, but I think it turned out pretty well.   I added more Old Olive for the ground.

The cardbase is Crumb Cake stamped with images from French Foliage.  The ribbon (Riding Hood Red taffeta) and sentiment (Fundamental Phrases) are both retired.

Happy stamping!

I did it! My first MDS project!

Thanks to Stampin' Up's free 30-day trial of My Digital Studio Express, I took the plunge today and downloaded it!  MDS Express has pretty basic content: one set of DSP, one stamp set, lots of cardstock and ribbon colors, lots of punches.  The great thing about that is that you can just purchase the additional items that you want as needed.  Or if you like the idea of having lots of stuff at once (yes, that's me!), you can purchase the full My Digital Express CD.

If you've done any kind of work on computers where you deal with images, MDS will be a snap.  I found the program easy to use without having to access the help feature.  What I loved: I could resize any photo or mat.  I could drag everything to where I wanted it to go.  I could also resize the punches and stamps; if only that worked in real life!

Happy stamping!

Free-standing pop-up card

I've been thinking about old favorites lately.  A past favorite technique is definitely the free-standing pop-up card.  It's a showstopper!  I combined it with a neglected stamp set: Fifth Avenue Floral.  Using this set with the SAB items (DSP, ribbon and brads) really gives it a fresh new look.  I stamped the flowers on two of the DSP patterns, cut them out, and then added Dazzling Details to the flower centers.

Making the base of this card was a piece of cake using the Simply Scored board!  You can find a tutorial on Splitcoaststampers.

My Digital Studio for free!

Stampin' Up is now offering a 30-day free trial of My Digital Studio Express!  Go to the Stampin' Up website  and order the downloadable version for free!

Interactive valentine

Today's card combines two of the February Creative Crew challenges.  One challenge is to use Twitterpated DSP or colors.  The other is to use that stamp set you just had to have that's gathering dust on the shelf.

For me, Take a Spin definitely qualifies!  I fell in love with the set right away, but I used it a couple of times and then forgot about it.  After looking at this set, I realized this would make the perfect Valentine card for my hubby.  It describes how I feel about him plus he can play with it!

The cardbase is Baja Breeze.  The striped DSP is layered onto Basic Gray.  I used the new embosslit hearts on the bottom.  Next I added the sentiment from Filled with Love (retired) punched out with the square label punch.  Riding Hood Red pleated ribbon is layered over that.

For the spinner piece, I used markers to ink up the stamp in Island Indigo, Riding Hood Red and Basic Gray.  I punched it out with the 2 1/2" circle punch and then trimmed it down a little more.  The Pear Pizzazz layer is also punched with the 2 1/2" circle punch, and I used the Circle Scissors to cut out a 2 3/4" Island Indigo circle.

Happy stamping!