Happy Halloween!

Kristina Werner, who is very famous in the blogging/stamping world, is an SU employee. She posted photos from SU's Halloween celebration here on her blog. Be sure to check out the video at the end; it's hilarious!

Look at the card I got!

Remember those swap cards I made? Now I'm going to start showing you some of the cards I got back! I can honestly say that every card I got was very high quality; Crystal does a great job of attracting great swappers.
Today's card is by Sue Begger. I love all of the Sizzix dies that she used; I'm so jealous of the folks who have one. I especially love the Top Note die. I also like the chalkboard technique combined with the Upsy Daisy stamp set, and the colors she used are so pretty!
I am leaving on Sunday for Florida to train a class for work. I will be gone for 3 weeks, and I get to come home for a weekend after 2 weeks. That means I won't be doing much stamping, but I will keep my regular posting schedule. I have a few things I've made but haven't shown you yet, and I have more swap cards too. I'll still be checking my e-mail too.
Happy stamping!

Merry and Bright

This Christmas ornament is definitely Merry and Bright! I used Beate's sketch from last weekend to create this card. For the ornament, I started with a piece of chipboard from the Country Living Holiday Collection. I covered it with VersaMark and poured on the gold EP. It didn't look smooth enough, so I repeated those steps. I cut a bigger circle out of Riding Hood Red textured cardstock with my Coluzzle and adhered the chipboard to it. Some DSP, Alpine ribbon, snowflakes and a rub-on sentiment complete the card. I adhered the ornament to the card with Dotto so it can be easily removed to hang on the tree.
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Scandinavian Season; Paper: Kraft, Junior Varsity DSP, Riding Hood Red textured; Ink: White StazOn, VersaMark; Accessories: gold EP, heat tool, gold elastic cord, 1/16" hole punch, Alpine Ribbon Originals, Chit Chat rub-ons, Country Living Holiday Collection chipboard
Happy stamping!

New comment format

Happy Tuesday! Blogger is offering a new format for comments where the comments are listed directly below the post instead of in a separate window. I decided to try it out. Please leave a comment here to let me know if you like the new format or not. If most people don't like it, I'll switch back.
Happy stamping!

A Quick Christmas Card

Last week's demonstratable card challenge was to use masking or reverse masking. We were also supposed to use scraps and a bonus was to use rub-ons. I already had an oval cut to use for reverse masking, so I think that qualifies as a scrap! I decided to make a Christmas card and take the colors from the Alpine Ribbon Originals from the Holiday Mini. The colors in the ribbon are Very Vanilla, Kraft, Real Red, Old Olive and Chocolate Chip.
I stamped the tree from Scandinavian Season in VersaMark and embossed it in gold. Then I put the cut-out oval opening over it and sponged on Old Olive. I used the scallop border punch on the bottom of the card and then used the Scandinavian wheel in Real Red across the inside of the card. I sponged Chocolate Chip around all of the card's edges and added the rub-on sentiment. The last thing to do was tie on the ribbon. I'm not totally pleased with the result, but I think it has promise. I'm going to fiddle around with it some more and see if I can come up with my card for this year. I have to decide by Saturday so I can take all of the stuff with me to Florida.
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Scandinavian Season, Scandinavian wheel; Paper: Kraft; Ink: VersaMark, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Real Red; Accessories: Chit Chat rub-ons, Alpine Ribbon Originals, Coluzzle, gold EP, scallop border punch, sponge
Happy stamping!

Fun times in Georgia

Mama has 2 friends that stamp with her. Pictured here is Beth on the left and Norma on the right. Even though I live far, far away, I am their demonstrator! They take turns being hostess, and I mail their projects to them. I have never demonstrated in person for them, so we scheduled an all-day stampathon. (It was like a Stampin' Up! Regional event except not as much talent on display from the demonstrator!)
For the workshop part of it, they made the Inspired by Nature bleach card, the Lovely as a Tree moonlighting bookmark card and Lauren Meader's tote bags. Then I demonstrated a ton of techniques for them. Here's a partial list: dry embossing, faux dry embossing, rick rack, dazzling diamond dust, folding using punches, watercolor banded brayer, emerging color, wax paper resist, baby wipe, shadow embossing, magic pastels, emboss resist. I think that's most of them; I may have missed one or two. Norma and Beth took notes, although one of Norma's notes said, "Ask Beth!" Mama decided to rely on her great memory as well as Beth and Norma's notes.

Mama didn't want to be in the picture, but Beth tricked her into coming over to look at something. Because I didn't use the flash, she didn't even know that I took the picture until we all started laughing.

Mama and Beth are wearing cute buttons I ordered from Lorien that say "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eyelet." I just love that saying, and I actually did lose an eyelet that afternoon so we all had a good laugh over that!
Here is Daniel playing ship captain at the Georgia Aquarium.

This was a HUGE tank filled with all kinds of fish and a couple of kinds of sharks. In this picture, you can see the shark at the top. Daniel and Jessica are at the bottom to give you some perspective on the shark's size.

I had a great time in Georgia, but I am happy to be back home too. I actually got to stamp yesterday! I'll post that card on Monday. Now I'm getting ready for a 3-week trip to Florida for work. I know, I know, it's a rough job! But I have to get a lot of stamping done so I'll have stuff to post for you while I'm gone!

I also had about 250 blog posts to look at on Google Reader. Yikes! I'm still not quite caught up, so if you're in my blogroll, don't give up on me. I hope to finish getting to everyone's blog today.

Happy stamping!

A short post

This is a short post because I'm at my mom's and she has dial-up internet. I wasn't able to get this one posted before I left, and I'm flying back on Wednesday when this will post.

This card was for today's Workshop Wow. The challenge is to make a card without using any punches and also to use rub-ons. I used my newest set and paper pieced the cupcake. I added some glitter for the sprinkles. I will add some details after I get back home, and on Friday I'll post a couple of photos of my mom and her friends at our all-day stampfest!

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Crazy for Cupcakes; Paper: Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Old Olive, Junior Varsity DSP; Ink: Chocolate Chip; Accessories: aquapainter, watercolor wonder crayons, Chit Chat rub-ons, Bashful Blue taffeta ribbon, fine cosmo glitter