away for a while

I hope you will all understand, but I need to take a bit of time away from my blog. My grams passed away last week and earlier today a good friend also passed away. I will be traveling for funerals and really not in the creative mood for a bit. I promise to get back on here as soon as possible. Thanks for sticking with me so far.

Dany

no posts for a bit

I wanted to take the time to let you all know that I won't be posting for a while. My Grams has taken a turn for the worse and I want to spend as much time with her as possible. I will be posting a little bit, later this week, mostly just so I can de-stress and create something with my new goodies so stay tuned for that.

Big Top

I'm still feeling a bit under the weather, so I figured I'd post some pics 'under the big top'. I love how bright and cheery this set it, every time I see this paper I smile. If you've been thinking about getting some DSP now is the time, right now when you buy 3 packs you get the 4th for free! How great is that?

aren't these popcorn bags just the cutest thing ever? I'm definitely going to be caseing this idea.
I hope you are loving these convention diplays as much as I do. I only have few more left, and then hopefully I'll be feeling well enough to start playing with my new goodies.

Nursery Nest Suite

How cute is this set? I love all the decor pieces they used as well as all the cards and scrapbooks and pages they did with this set.

clearly not just for girls, I love all the little candy wrappers, and that card is one of my favorites.

I can just picture this banner and bird cage up on a wall in a little girls room, how cute would that be.

Again this is just a quick post.... I've been sick for the past 2 days, and while I was hoping to be able to be up long enough to actually do something, this has just drained me. Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow.

farmers market

This display reminded me of a few set ups I've seen at past farmers markets. Most of this is done with the well worn suite, and I'm really starting to love this suite.



Just a quick one tonight, I'm exhausted. We went to the local amusement park and then while my amazing sister in law was looking after my crazy monkey I went to the hospital to spend some time with grams. I'll be back tomorrow with more of gifts I made Lydia for convention.

birthday at a bistro

When I saw this display I immediately thought of a little french bistro. While I've never been to France or seen a real french bistro, I imagine this is similar to what they would look like. I love the old chair and table set, then you add the amazing birthday decorations to it and WOW is all I can say. Have I mentioned how much I love going to Stampin' Up! events and seeing all the amazing displays? I'll bet you are getting sick of me saying that, but it's true.... I can't get over how cool they are, and how many little things I've taken and started to incorporate into my decor, and how many more I plan to incorporate into the decor soon.


I'm off to bed, I've got to get up early if I'm going to try and catch the doctor at the hospital after rounds.

roomie gifts for convention

I made a few gifts for my wonderful convention roommate Lydia. I wanted to wait until after convention to post these, and since you've already waited a bit for them I'm going to drag it out a little bit.

This is a journal I recovered for her. It's pretty simple to recover one of these, you just have to take the book apart, which isn't very difficult, but you do need to be careful that you don't have papers flying all over the place when you have it apart. The next hardest part is making the holes match the book. I wrapped the cardstock over the book so it would cover the holes front and back, but after I had it covering the front of the book holes I used an X-acto knife to cut the holes, then I glued it to the back and cut the holes from the front. Then I adhered a piece of whisper white cardstock to the inside, about 3/8" smaller on all sides to give it a nice finished look.




Stamps: none
Inks: none
Papers: Wisteria Wonder, Island Indigo, Pacific Point DSP
Misc: Matchbox Die (tag), Beautiful Wings Embosslits Die, 1/2" Concord Crush Poly Stitched Ribbon, X-acto Knife

One of the things I love best about Stampin' Up! is how all the colors go so well with each other. I called Lydia up and asked her what her 4 favorite Stampin' Up! Colors are and then I used them to make her projects. I think the colors look great together, so much so that I made myself some of the same things I made her.

I had so much fun at convention, and part of that was because of Lydia. We've been friends for years, but we hardly ever see each other since she lives so far away. She moved last year, and while she is closer, she's still basically on the other side of the country. Maybe one day we'll live in the same city again.

I'll post the other parts in the coming days.

Home Decor

I've been starting to get more into decorating for Easter now that I have a little on who is so interested in all things Easter, not just the Easter Bunny. When I saw this display I immediately fell in love with the 'decoupage' Easter eggs. I'm not a huge fan of doing Easter eggs the traditional kids way, I much prefer making one or two eggs every year that you keep and your display just keeps growing, so when I saw these ideas I just knew I had to recreate them at home. I'm also pretty sure that my son will love the idea of putting all those little rhinestones and pearls on eggs while I do some of the more complicated steps.



How cute are these little flower pots? I love how they used the buttons for the centers and then wrapped the pots with paper and fabric.


For anyone who doesn't want to use real eggs that have been 'blown' you can use plastic eggs, I would just suggest painting them with acrylic paint first if you are not covering them with paper but with jewels, that way none of the neon colors will show through if you don't get them super tight,

Fall convention displays

I really can't even begin to tell you how much I love Stampin' Up! events, and Convention is the best of the best. The displays that Stampin' Up! does are unbelievable! They are so detailed and so amazing I spent hours and hours looking at them and taking pictures of them. I wish I had the time and product to do even part of this one. I love fall and Halloween, and I go overboard decorating for them every year. I love the little leaves that they made using the leaves #2 die, then texturing them and finally crumpling them up.




The decorated apple baskets are so cute that I'm now looking to get some for my house, so if you live in the Calgary area and you know where to get some cheap, let me know. I'm going to be posting some more display pictures over the next couple days as well as some of my cards and projects too, so keep popping in here often so you don't miss anything,

bleach....

today really feels more like blech! My grams is back in the hospital, and we have no idea whats wrong this time, just that something is most definitely wrong. I'm hoping things get better with her soon, I really hate seeing her like this. The only upside to something like this happening is I can use my thinking of you/get well cards. Not that that is really an upside, but I'm trying to see the positive in this.

This was done using bleach to create the image and the sentiment. When using bleach you really need to be careful not to get the stamp too wet, or your image (or words) will be blurry.

Stamps: Just Believe
Inks: none
Papers: Crumb Cake, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip
Misc: Distressing Tool from Cutter Kit, Bleach

I need to keep this quick so I can get more done tonight as I'll be spending a few hours at the hospital again tomorrow.

mountains

For those of you that don't know, I live in Calgary, Alberta, and while I love living here, there are some things I wish were different. Like heat, we don't get really hot in the summer, which is kind of nice, but when it comes to gardening, esp vegetable gardening, it's not the best. Last year was unusually cold all summer, so I never did get much from my garden. When the frost killed my garden last year my zucchini's were only as big as my pointer finger. While this year has been better so far, it's not been really hot enough yet to get a good garden going. I've only had a handful of peas, bean, strawberries, and raspberries so far. The rest of the garden is growing, but I probably won't get a lot from it again this year. What does that have to do with stamping? Well it makes me think about how cool it has been, and that it's like an Arizona winter basically which inspired this snow themed card.

I love using my brayer, it never fails to create beautiful cards, super fast. I made a moon mask by punching out a 1 1/4" circle from a post it note, and to create the look of snow covered hills I ripped post it notes to the right shape and then sponged the blue slightly over the edge. To do this you will want to start on the post it note and rub in a circular pattern until you just barely rub onto your cardstock. Otherwise you can end up with too much color, or a big blob by accident.



Stamps: Extreme Snowboard, Lovely as a Tree
Inks: StazOn Black, Bashful Blue
Paper: Whisper White, Garden Green, Not Quite Navy
Misc: Platinum Shimmer Paint, Post-it Notes, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Sponges

To create all the wonderful shimmer on the card I made what I call Shimmer Mist. You take several drops of shimmer paint and add rubbing alcohol (70% works best) in a spray bottle. Then you can spray over your cards lightly. If you want a lot of shimmer like here, sometimes you will need to add the shimmer in layers so your card does not get too wet. The alcohol dries quickly, but can still warp your paper or cardstock if it gets too wet.

Hopefully the weather heats up so my garden will start growing better, and so I can be inspired to create some non winter cards and scrapbook layouts.

Extreme Stamping

I love being creative, but some days I just have no inspiration. The day I made this card was one of those days. That is one of the things I love best about stampers, we love to inspire others, and on this day JudyM from SCS totally inspired me with her card, so I cased it. The best part was after I did this card I had my mojo back and created a few other cards that night.



Stamp: Extreme Elements, Perfect Punches
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Marina Mist, Chocolate Chip
Paper: Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso
Misc: Star Punch, Hodgepodge Hardware, Wide Oval Punch, Color Spritzer Tool, Dimensionals, Champagne Shimmer Paint (in a mister)

I'm now impatiently waiting on my Holiday mini pre-order, one of the perks of being a demonstrator is getting to get new products before anyone else. I can't wait to get my hand on some of these amazing products. If you are like me and want everything now and at a discount becoming a demo is the best idea. On top of getting great discounts and getting new products early, you have access to an amazing online resource called Stampin Connection, you get wonderful magazine each month from Stampin' Up! with tons of great business ideas, and sooooo much more. If you are thinking of joining the Stampin' Up! family, email me or give me a call and we can talk about it.

rubber resist take 3

I'm not a huge fan of this one, but I wanted to show you what an opps looks like. I used to do Pysanka, which is a specific method and style of creating wax resist Ukrainian Easter eggs. I haven't done any in years, and apparently I have forgotten all about layering colors over each other. For this card I made the base and embellishments first and then decided to create the background piece using rubber resist. Sadly for me I wasn't really thinking about colors mixing when I created this. I was going for yellow and blue, but what happens when you mix yellow and blue? you get green. opps. So this is a lesson in what not to do.


Stamps: Party Hearty
Inks: Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, Wild Wasabi, Pumpkin Pie
Paper: Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Pacific Point, Real Red, Hoppy Memories DSP (retired)
Misc: 1 3/4" Scallop Circle Punch, 1 3/8" Circle Punch, Large Tag Punch, Extra Large Tag Punch, Top Note Die, Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Brights Brad

rubber resist take 2

I love simple color schemes, and black and white with a touch of red has always been one of my favorites. I wanted to see if I could make a zebra print using this technique, and I love the end result. When you are doing it this way it does take the rubber cement longer to dry since it is thicker, and if you want the black to look black instead of gray it also takes longer to dry, so please be patient with this one. I also found out by trial and error that thicker lines that wobble look more realistic than thinner straighter lines.



Stamps: Perfect Punches
Inks: Real Red, Basic Black
Paper: Whisper White
Misc: Curly Label Punch, Real Red 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon, Rubber Cement, Sponges

It's also a lot of fun to experiment with different tools to pull or drop the rubber cement with. I have used the brush that comes with it, as well as lollipop sticks, meat skewers, pencils, toothpicks and more until I found what I liked best. I sure hope you will play around with this technique and see what you can come up with.

more fun with re-inkers

I know I've said it before but I love re-inkers. You can do so much with them, so many different looks, and if you ever do get bored of trying new techniques you can always use them for what they were originally intended, to re-ink your ink pads and markers. I'm not sure this technique has a real name but I call it rubber resist. You use rubber cement to create a pattern, and after the first layer dries you rub over it with color from a sponge. I like to use yogurt lids and place a couple of drops of re-inker on it, then pick up the ink with a sponge. Always start with the lightest color fist. As soon as the ink is dry (only a minute or two) you can create a 2nd layer with the rubber cement, then let it dry (this usually takes at least 20 mins) and repeat until you have a pattern you like.

Here I used Tempting Turquoise then Pacific Point, and finally Night of Navy.

Stamps: Bugs and Kisses (retired)
Inks: Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Night of Navy
Paper: Night of Navy, Pacific Point, Whisper White
Misc: Gingham Ribbon, Dimensionals

I have a ton more projects that use re-inkers and a few more with this technique, so I'll be posting those in the coming days. I hope you aren't sick of re-inkers by then, maybe you'll even be inspired to try some of them yourself. One quick tip, if you are a messy stamper like I am normally, use a pair of vinyl gloves, your fingers will thank you.

shaving cream take 3

This is another example of what this technique can look like. For this one I used Cajun Craze, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight and Cherry Cobbler Re-inkers. When you are using more than 3 colors, and esp if they are dark colors you really need to be careful when you are swirling the colors so you do not muddy them, and also so you spread them out a bit, otherwise they can look black.


Stamps: French Foliage, Occasional Quotes
Inks: Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Cherry Cobbler re-inkers, Chocolate Chip
Paper: Cajun Craze, Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, So Saffron, Whisper White
Misc: Hodgepodge Hardware, Re-inkers, Shaving Cream, Dimensionals

I'm hoping to get creating with some new and awesome products soon, but things are still crazy around here, I've spent the entire long weekend getting caught up around here doing yard work, house work, and visiting family. On the plus side my garden is starting to come in, I have a small amount of peas, beans, and berries already and more coming and the radishes, lettuce and onions will be close behind, then hopefully the carrots, zucchini and potatoes will keep growing so I can have a decent amount of them this year. I'm thinking I might have done something to the beans by accident though. I planted pole beans which should grow up the pole, and some are growing vines and growing up the pole, but a bunch on the other end of the garden never grew vines, and are growing beans on tiny little plants near the ground. The kinda cool thing about that is the beans are curling as they grow, and they look like curly fries.

My cake business seems to be taking off as well. I'm getting orders every few days it seems which is great, but it cuts into my crafting time. I have plans to send my kid away for a day or two ( I'm hoping) next week and I plan to spend the entire time crafting.