Fun little flower

This cute little flower is made using the Sweet Centers stamp set and cups from the Holiday Mini. To give you an idea of the size, the flower center is 1 3/4" and is filled with M&M Minis. The stem is a craft spoon (like what you ate ice cream with when you were a kid). For the flower, I cut a 2 3/4" circle and punched out the center with the 1 3/4" circle punch. I adhered the cup to it using mini glue dots. I stamped 8 flower petals in Crushed Curry and cut them out. I adhered them at north, south, east and west and then filled in with the remaining 4. For the back, I cut out a whisper white 2 3/4" circle and made a big X on it with the perforating blade from the cutter kit so it would be easy to get the candy out. I filled the cup with candy and then adhered the white circle to the back. I colored the craft spoon with Certainly Celery craft ink and the "leaves" are Mistletoe Ribbon Originals, also from the Holiday Mini. I adhered the spoon to the back of the flower using Mono Multi liquid glue.
Happy stamping!

Finished my scrapbook!

Friday night was craft night, and despite my slow start, I got 3 2-page layouts and the final page done. Whoohoo! I have to say that 6X6 is great for small projects because the pages go together quickly, and the Simply Scrappin' kit made it so easy! The only extras I used were a couple of punches and a marker.
I hope to actually get some stamping done this week. We'll see how it goes. I have a couple of ideas and even started one. Now I just need to find the time to finish...
Happy stamping!

Free standing pop up card

For this week's workshop wow challenge, I made a free standing pop up card. I first made one of these a couple of years ago. They are so cool and much easier to make than you would think. Here is a link to a document with the instructions and a link to the original thread on SCS.

The base is scored in several places and then folded to make a collapsible base. There is a card that pops up through a slit cut in the center. You can see on my base here that I adhered the pop-up to one end and added sticky strip to the other end. This is a case where sticky strip is definitely good to use so the card will hold up well.

Sorry I missed posting on Wednesday! Life is pretty hectic these days. I have lots going on both at work and at home that makes stamping time hard to find. I'll do my best, so bear with me!

Happy stamping!

How did you celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day?

Even though International Talk Like a Pirate Day is always on September 19, I celebrated on Friday, September 18 so I could share it with my training class. (We'll see if they come back on Monday!)
I bought us all pirate playsets at the dollar store and made signs with our pirate names (decorated with my Pirates Beware stamp set of course!). My pirate name is Cap'n Bianca Slashface. I'm wearing the pirate hat that Alyssa made me for my birthday. I have a knife in my hair and a hook hand.

Here's my class showing off their weapons and their pirate treasure!

Mount Rushmore

To highlight these photos of Mt Rushmore, I used DSP as mats for the photos and dot stickers to add a bit of interest to the pages.
Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I'll do my best to get some pirate stamping done for you this weekend. ARRRR

Panning for gold

I used lots of stickers from the Simply Scrappin' Kit here to add some interest to the pages. These small albums are tricky to me because I can only get one photo on each page, but I think the stickers really add a lot!
Happy stamping!

Still scrappin'

I love these two photos and the way they pop off the chocolate chip background. The sticker border is pretty without detracting from the photos. I think I took about 40 pictures in the Badlands. Daniel was 14 at the time, and he got so tired of me taking pictures! I tried explaining that the light and shadow kept changing, but he didn't care! Even though he's 20 now, he still wouldn't care, LOL!
Happy stamping!

LeeAnn Greff's tri-fold flip flap card

This week's workshop wow challenge was to make LeeAnn Greff's tri-fold flip flap card. Genius, LeeAnn!
I started with wanting to use Elegant Eggplant because I just got Eggplant rickrack that I wanted to use on the card. I went to my SU Color Combo sheet and found Elegant Eggplant, Crushed Curry and Old Olive. I have to say that Crushed Curry is quickly replacing Rich Razzleberry as my favorite In Color. Shocking, isn't it?
After I stamped the flower image from Inspired by Nature, I thought the color on the petals was a bit uneven, so I used my aquapainter to smooth it out a bit. I like the way it turned out!

Here is the inside of the card. A demo who made one of these on SCS noted that the fold-down flap gives lots of room for signing the card when it's from a group. Great idea!
Supplies: Stamps: Inspired by Nature; Paper: Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant, Crushed Curry; Ink: Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant, Crushed Curry; Accessories: Clips assortment, Orchard ribbon originals, Old Olive narrow grosgrain ribbon
Happy stamping!

Card box

This project is a box to hold cards or other goodies. The pattern was created by my fellow SU demo, Susie Nelson. She got the dimensions and pattern from a box of cards from a certain humongous card retailer that shall remain nameless. :) Here's the inside of the box. For the front, I used my last little scrap of retired skull and crossbones DSP. I knew it would be perfect with the Beware Pirates stamp set. Of course, using the DSP meant I had to use my last piece of Kiwi Kiss textured cardstock. I miss that DSP and Kiwi Kiss too!

Happy stamping!

Reusable Sweet Centers card

This card uses the new Sweet Centers stamp set and Sweet Treats cups from the Holiday Mini. I found the most awesome idea here for making a card where you can refill the cup later. I took his idea and changed the card a bit. I don't really care much about Halloween but still wanted a card with a bit of a masculine look. I took my color combo from the candy. I was thinking you could also use the pull-out piece as a bookmark when you are done with the card.
Happy stamping!

More Simply Scrappin'

We had craft night last Friday, and I worked on my South Dakota scrapbook again. It's 6X6. I got 4 more 2-page layouts done! Whoohoo! It seems to take me forever to get started. First, I had to sort through the pictures again to see where I left off. Then I had to figure out whcih pictures I wanted to use and then narrow them down to fit the pages.
I'm really happy with the layouts I got done. I tried to make each set of 2 pages go together without being identical. The Tailor Made Simply Scrappin' Kit really helped with that. I'm not much of a sticker gal, but I'm trying to use the ones included to make my pages more interesting.
On this layout, look at the circle in the lower left corner of the first page. It's actually a circle sticker used as a mat for a little photo of a prairie dog. The sticker is 1 3/8", so I used the 1 1/4" circle punch to punch out the photo. Then I used a sticker with a similar look on the other page.
Happy stamping!

A gift from Karen

Look what I found on my desk Monday morning! My friend and co-worker, Karen, left me these wonderful Frango chocolates to thank me for helping her with her stamping. The boxes are empty now, of course, but being the dedicated blogger that I am, I put the package back together so you could see what it looks like. The scallop circle says Thanks on the other side. Great job, Karen!