Sea Street Treat

Confession: I can NOT stop using the Sea Street stamp set and coordinating Maritime DSP!! They both make me so happy! :) So consider yourself warned... you can expect to see a lot of red, white, and blue and sea creatures around the old blog-o!

I needed to make some swaps for our monthly Stampin' Up! team meeting recently. There was no theme, so I could make whatever I wanted, and I just felt like doing something different, you know? I had been tossing around the idea of making some sort of nautical treat packaging for a while, so I decided to give it a go!

These little treats came out so cute and were SO easy to put together! You can easily change out the sentiment, too, and make them perfect party favors for a 4th of July picnic or a child's summer birthday party. 

For the treat itself I just threw some Swedish Fish into a cello bag, trimmed a little bit off the top, and folded it over. The topper is a piece of DSP that measures 4x4 inches, folded in half and stapled onto the top of the bag. (I used the embellishments to hide the staples, but you can see them from the back. If you don't like that, you could use Sticky Strip to adhere the paper to the front and the back of the bag.)

I stamped the octopus from Sea Street in Night of Navy on Whisper White cardstock. I used the Circle Framelits to cut it out, and to cut out a layer of Real Red cardstock. The sentiment is from A Dozen Thoughts (another set I can't stop using!), stamped in Real Red. Then I just added a thin strip of another pattern from the DSP collection, and... Done! :) A whole bunch of festive treats is no time flat!

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you're having a great weekend!

Happy Stampin'! :) 

One Stamp, Four Ways: Bright Birthday Card

I'm back today with card 2 of 4 using the Flower Patch stamp set! If you missed the first card in my challenge to make 4 different cards with one stamp set, make sure you check it out here: http://bit.ly/1rvqc1Z So you've seen me make a sympathy card with this set... The next card I needed was a birthday card for a friend.

This particular friend is a very bubbly and vivacious gal, so I chose a bright color palette of Strawberry Slush, Pear Pizzazz, Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, and Tangerine Tango. I stamped the flowers randomly on a Whisper White panel, starting with the largest flower (in Strawberry Slush) first, and working my way down to the smallest (in Bermuda Bay). I love stamping my own backgrounds like this - I can make a stunning card in no time at all!

This card is similar to my first card in that there's a lot of stamping, and very minimal embellishment. I added some Dazzling Diamonds to the centers of the Strawberry Slush flowers, but otherwise let the graphic black and white sentiment serve as an embellishment. I love this sentiment, which is also from the Flower Patch set. And it's absolutely perfect for this birthday girl! :) I embossed it on Basic Black cardstock with white embossing powder.

I also decided to mimic some of the stamping on a panel inside the card for a little extra color and flair. Super simple!

Well, we're halfway through my little challenge here. I've got two more cards up my sleeve, and one of them is really different! :) So stay tuned!

Happy Stampin'! :)

One Stamp, Four Ways: Sweet and Simple Sympathy Card

I have a terrible habit of making tons of cards at random and never actually doing anything with them. When I found myself needing 4 cards to be in the mail and delivered by Thursday, ironically I didn't have any on hand that worked! So I decided to challenge myself. The Flower Patch stamp set had just arrived in my mailbox, and I was dying to bust into it. It's one of the photopolymer sets in the new catalog - and it is huge! The combinations of flowers you can stamp are endless! I thought it would be fun to see if I could make 4 different cards - for completely different occasions - using that one stamp set. Fun!

So here's the first card I have to share with you. There's a really sweet woman who is a patient at the medical office where I work, and she always asks for me when she calls. Her husband had been very sick, and passed away a few days ago. We live in an area with a lot of older people, and sadly, we have patients passing almost every day. I certainly don't often send cards, but with this kind woman, I just felt called to reach out and let her know I was thinking of her.

Sympathy cards can be very difficult to make, so I decided to keep this one very simple. The pastel color palette is bright, but appropriate. I kept my stamping simple too - I didn't do much of the two-step stamp layering that this set is designed for. And you can see that I still achieved beautiful flowers just by stamping one layer!

The colors I chose for this card are Crisp Cantaloupe (which is way more of a peach color than shows in this photo), Pool Party, So Saffron, and Pistachio Pudding. I used a layer of Sahara Sand to create a small border accent, but this could very easily be a stunning one layer card. The sentiment I chose is from A Dozen Thoughts, stamped in black ink.

So that's it for today. Stay tuned for my second card, coming soon!

Happy Stampin'! :)

Flag Day

Today is Flag Day in the US. So I just wanted to pop in and share an awesome card I CASE'd from Sandi MacIver.

*squee* So cute! I've seen a lot of other demonstrators stamping flags with the Work of Art set, and in my opinion, this is the best execution of that concept. I love how the stamped-off red stripes elongates the rectangular shape (so the shape is more like a real flag) and makes it look like it's waving. So clever!

I also think this would be a cool card to make for a service man or woman, or a charity like Operation Write Home, using one of the sentiments from the new set called For Your Country stamped over the flag.

Anyway, Happy Flag Day and I hope you have a great weekend! :)


Flag Day Card Supplies:
Work of Art stamp set (wood or clear)
Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack
Real Red ink
Night of Navy ink
Real Red cardstock
Night of Navy cardstock
Dazzling Diamonds (hard to see, but it's on the stars)
2-Way Glue Pen

CCC#034: June 2014 Monthly Challenge - Pack Your Bags!

June is bustin' out all over! (Hubby and I recently saw Carousel at our favorite community theater last weekend, and I have had that song, and the clambake song stuck in my head since then!) But seriously, it sure doesn't feel like June around here... it's been so cold! I'm talking temps in the low 50s every day! It's a struggle for me not to turn the heat on in the evening. But we've had some sunny days, and the lawn's needed mowing once, so we know summer will be here eventually.

This month's challenge from Catherine and Cathy Create is "Pack Your Bags" - any project inspired by travel! I'll admit, I struggled with this one a little. I got stuck on 'but I don't have any planes, trains, or automobiles stamps!' for a while. But that's what these challenges are all about... getting us to flex our creative muscles and think outside the box! So here's what I came up with...

I was inspired by a few things for this project. My little brother is moving to Wisconsin next month - OK, so it's not exactly a voyage, but it definitely put the banner idea into my head. :) I thought the nautical color scheme spoke to the old-fashioned cross-Atlantic ocean liner idea. Plus, I really wanted to use this amazing new DSP from the new catalog that has adorable nautical motifs... I adore it and totally want to wallpaper my entire house with it! Take a closer look!

Look at the anchors and knots! LOVE! The collection is called Maritime. It's got some cutesy images like happy octopi, but then there are a lot of really sophisticated preppy patterns, like the stripes, anchors, and knots that I used in this project.

I used the stencils from the Build a Banner Kit on banners that I cut from Coastal Cabana, Real Red, and Night of Navy cardstock. Remember the Build a Banner Kit from the Holiday Catalog? It'll be back in the new catalog - TOMORROW! :) - plus a couple other awesome banner kits! I used the stencils to sponge on tone-on-tone polka dots and white emboss the letters. It all came together super easily and quickly! With the stencils, you can make it say anything you need. Plus, pick any color combination and DSP that works with your occasion. Cheap and cheerful, just the way I like it! :)

Now go check out Catherine and Cathy Create to see what the rest of the Design Team made. You're gonna love it! Plus, link up your travel-inspired project, and you might win a prize!

Happy Travels... er, um, I mean Stampin'! :)