Faux tearing

This week's workshop wow challenge is faux tearing. I've never tried this before, but it was a lot of fun! I'm not sure if this card is a wow, but the technique certainly is!
I started by sticking 2 long post-it notes together so they would be longer than my cardstock. Then I tore along the sticky edge, making sure the whole edge was still sticky. I used 2 more post-it notes to mask off the rest of the card. I stamped the Floral background with Old Olive ink onto my Certainly Celery base. For the next step, you are supposed to move the post-it note a little and then sponge to simulate the torn edge. Luckily for me, there was a blank area along the torn edge that did not get stamped, so all I had to do was sponge without even moving the post-it note!
Here's what it looks like after I removed all of the post-it notes. Pretty cool, huh? I wanted the rest of the card to be pretty simple, so I stamped the sentiment onto Very Vanilla cardstock with Old Olive ink and sponged it with Certainly Celery after I punched the corners. I adhered that to a layer of Pumpkin Pie and added 3 layers of Flower Fusion held in place with a brad from the Hodgepodge Hardware kit.
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Floral, Heard from the Heart; Paper: Very Vanilla, Pumpkin Pie, Certainly Celery; Ink: Certainly Celery, Old Olive; Accessories: ticket corner punch, Flower Fusion, Styled Silver HPH
Happy stamping!

My first WICKED challenge card

As I posted on Monday, we had our first WICKED challenge on SCS. Here is the card I made for the color combo. The colors are So Saffron, Perfect Plum, Tangerine Tango, and Kiwi Kiss. This is definitely out of the box for me! I did the Emerging Color technique. I think it's really cool-looking. I dyed the vanilla taffeta ribbon by putting it into a sandwich bag with a few drops of Kiwi Kiss reinker and a little water. I smooshed it all around until the ribbon was totally colored, blotted on a paper towel and then dried it with my heat tool. (Be careful with the heat tool, the ribbon crinkles up very easily!)
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Refuge & Strength; Paper: Whisper White, So Saffron, Perfect Plum, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss; Ink: VersaMark, Perfect Plum, So Saffron, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss; Accessories: clear EP, brayer, ticket corner punch, heat tool, Styled Silver HPH
Gotta run and read my new catalog!!
Happy stamping!

There's a new blog in town...

And it belongs to Shelli Gardner! Yes, the founder and CEO of Stampin' Up! has started her own blog. It's called So Shelli, and the address is http://www.soshelli.com/. Shelli has a beautiful shabby chic style; she will also have her own line of products with SU beginning with the Holiday Mini catalog! Be sure to check out her blog. She is hosting a monthly challenge; the link is on the left side of her home page. I can't wait to see what she has to show us!
Happy stamping!

Better late than never, right?

Sorry for the late post! I usually schedule them in advance, and I totally forgot! I guess posting over the weekend threw me off. That's my story, anyway! Plus there's all kinds of hubbub in stamping land with the SU convention just ending and the new catalogs shipping. The catalogs ship directly from the printer, so SU doesn't have a tracking # to give us. So every year, the first person in the US to get their catalogs goes onto SCS and posts their reference #. Then we can use the reference # and our zip code to track the packages. Well, some demos got their catalogs today, AND THERE'S NO REFERENCE #!! What?? All of the demos on SCS are just freaking out. It's scary and funny at the same time. Also, we started a new demo challenge today: the WICKED stamper challenge. (In case you are wondering, WICKED stands for Wonderfully Inspiring Challenges Keep Educating Demos. And wicked also means cool these days!) We're featuring a demo each month who will create some challenges for us. Our first WICKED stamper is JanTInk! Can you believe it?? I almost passed out when she said yes! As JulieHRR would say, SHUT UP!! AND she created a technique just for us. Check out her blog to see the technique and tutorial. She is hilarious! We had a teaser thread going, and she posted that she thought it was about a chair because she thought it said wicker. I almost fell off my chair laughing. So anyway, I had to get the new challenge thread ready to go. So it was a busy weekend, plus I even cleaned my stamp room a little bit! (Is that enough excuses for forgetting to schedule today's post?)
On to today's project! This is a double pocket bag. It's made from a sheet of 12 X 12 DSP. It's super easy, and it's really cute. I have to confess that when I first made one, I hated it! I thought it would be a little bigger, but I got over it. Here is the SCS tutorial complete with pictures and measurements. I have another confession: I didn't really measure anything when I made this. I kind of measured part of it. So if you don't like to measure, you'll like this bag! The finished size is 4 3/4" tall by 5 1/4" wide. I did measure that! And as the name implies, it has 2 pockets.
If the piece on the front of the bag looks familiar, it's because I took it off a card I had made. (When I say I took it off the card, that is literally what I did.) I made the card at Sandi's and then CASEd it for a swap. I posted the card here if you want to take a look back.
Happy stamping!

Retired/Retiring Stamp Sets for Sale!

I have finally gotten a list of my retired/retiring sets ready to go! Check it out here. Retiring sets are not available until August 11. All shipping is USPS Priority Mail; the amount depends on what size box I need to ship in. If I know you personally, I will accept your check. If I don't know you, I accept PayPal.
I'll likely be keeping this post at the top, so scroll down for newer posts.
Happy stamping!

Rickrack tutorial

Is it ric rac or rick rack? I just looked it up online, and it appears to be one word. Rickrack is preferred with ricrac secondary. Now you know!
Anyway, here is a tutorial on making rickrack using the new scallop border punch. Let me say up front that this punch is a little tricky when you are punching long strips. That's because once one end is punched, it gets a little wobbly. Look at the right end of the Baja Breeze strip, and you can see where it was a little off.
For the kraft strip, I started with a 1" strip of cardstock, and for the Baja Breeze piece, I started with a 7/8" strip.

The key to getting a good strip of rickrack is to start the first side with the edge of the cardstock lined up right where one scallop starts. In this photo, I've lined it up on the left side. (In case you are wondering, only the part that is on the top of the punch is what punches. The bottom part is a guide for lining up the scallops when punching multiple times in a row. It's hard to see in the photo, but there is a measuring guide along the bottom edge of the guide. This is great for centering your scallops on a piece of cardstock!)
Here you can see the punched scallops aligned with the scallops on the guide. I usually turn the punch over to look and make sure I didn't move the cardstock too far. I don't want to goof it up!
After I've punched the entire first side, it's time to do the other side. MAKING SURE YOU ARE USING THE EDGE THAT STARTS WITH THE FULL SCALLOP, line the edge up in the MIDDLE of one of the scallops on the guide.
Sometimes when I'm at the end of a strip, I turn the punch over and check that the scallops line up correctly in the punch. Like I said, the strip gets a little wobbly when you get to the end.

The big news from the SU convention yesterday is that SU has teamed up with Sizzix to carry the Big Shot. SU will also carry quite a few of the dies, and some of the dies will be made exclusively to match SU stamp sets. It will be available at the beginning of September.

Happy stamping!

Glitter window cards

This week's Workshop Wow challenge was a repeat of the glitter window. The traditional glitter window is where you cut a hole in cardstock, cover it with packing tape and coat the sticky side with Dazzling Diamonds. Then you put a stamped image behind it.
The two cards I've shown here use a different glitter window. See my previous post here for a tutorial.
The card above started with a 3" Barely Banana circle (it's actually slightly smaller than 3") that I cut with the Coluzzle. Then I punched the five petal flower punch twice and covered the opening with clear packing tape. I stamped the flower image from Priceless using Barely Banana and Garden Green, punched that out with the 1 1/4" circle punch and added a Rose Red brad to the center. I put it in the center of the sticky opening and poured Rose Red fine cosmo glitter over it. The glitter covers all of the sticky part, and you just pour off the excess. (For some reason, I could see through the glitter on this one, but you can't tell once you adhere it to your card.)
I adhered the circle to a 3" square of Garden Green; I'm not sure if I've ever used that cardstock before! I used a 4 1/4" square Barely Banana card base, adhered a 4" square of Bali Breeze DSP, and attached the Garden Green square on the diagonal. I decided to stop there because I like how it looks just as it is.
This color combo as well as the one for the next card came from the SU Color Coach. I used the glitter colors as the starting point.

For the second card, I started with a 3" square of Barely Banana cardstock, punched the tab punch out twice to form the circle in the center, and covered the opening with packing tape. I stamped the same Priceless flower in Perfect Plum and Not Quite Navy and punched it out with the 1 1/4" circle punch. I adhered the circle in the center of the opening and poured on the Bashful Blue fine cosmo glitter. Again, I could see through the glitter, so I adhered the whole thing to a 3 1/4" square of Bashful Blue. The card base is Whisper White with a 4" X 5 1/4" piece of Pale Plum on top with the Priceless swirls stamped in Not Quite Navy and Perfect Plum.
Try these glitter windows. They are so fun!
The Stampin' Up! convention is in full swing; those lucky demos have the catalog and some new stamp sets to play with. If you want all of the scoop, there is a convention forum on SCS where all of the details are being shared. Three things that excited me: the edge of the catalog is scalloped; new Flower Fusion in Chocolate Chip, Pink Pirouette and Baja Breeze; and a new scallop square punch. There's also a curvy label punch and new oval punch that we already had sneak peeks for. All of these punches have coordinating stamp sets! I also heard that Shelli Gardner is starting her own blog as well as a line of products that she personally loves; those will debut in the Occasions Mini. The new catalogs start shipping today. I hope to have mine by next Friday.
Happy stamping!