Sweet Sunday Meets Merry Monday!

This card I made using last week's Sweet Sunday Sketch and the latest Merry Monday Challenge





I really had fun participating in last week's Merry Monday Challenge. I even got an honorable mention for my card! Yay! I decided to play along again with this week's TIC-TAC-TOE sketch. You can see other creations using for this challenge at the Always Playing With Paper Blog here. I chose to go straight down the middle with my card, using Designer Paper, Paper Piecing and one of my favorite vintage Stampin' Up! Santa stamps - Star Santa. I purchased this set many, many years ago from my very first Demonstrator! Thank you Janet, for introducing me to Stampin' Up! and I still have my old catalogs from way, way back then!



I stamped the main image onto Whisper White Card Stock using Stayz-On Black ink. I colored the stars with Daffodil Delight and my Aqua Painter, then went over them with a Jelly Roll pen to give them some shimmer. I also added a bit of shimmer around the star dust surrounding Santa! I painted the trim on his coat in Crumb Cake and his boots with Soft Suede. His mittens are painted with Cherry Cobbler.



I paper pieced his hat and coat using DSP from the 2011 holiday collection. I love this stuff, and I've been hoarding a few last sheets, but this pattern really called out to me to be used for Santa's coat! I even paper pieced the stars in his teeny pocket.

I finished my project by creating a coordinating envelope to go with it!



It was fun combining these challenges, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by this weekend!

Saleabration Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who ordered during Saleabration! I wanted to share this set of cards and matching gift box I created for an upcoming class, and as a Thank You to my customers who ordered during the final week of Saleabration. This project features the stamp set Bloomin' Marvelous. It was based on a card I received from one of my Stampin' Up! teammates, Susan Peters. You can see Susan's card on her blog here.



I am emailing the directions as a 12 page step by step tutorial, chock full of color pictures over every step along the way. I left a sneak peek the other day, but here is the finished sample.

You still have time to place your last minute order at my online store here.

If you choose me as your demonstrator you will get preferred pricing, your order will ship right to you, and you will receive this class from me via email.

Thanks for stopping by today!

~Katherine

Shabby Chic Meets My Snowday!

One of the things I really wanted to work on this year was my ability to create amazing Shabby Chic cards, the likes of which can be found on Melissa Phillips blog LilyBean's Paperie. I found this challenge on Always Playing with Paper and thought I would case of my favorite cards by Melissa, found here.

A standard 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 card seemed very limiting for all the elements I wanted to add to this card, and I recently found some 5x7 envelopes in my stash, so it seemed like a great idea to make a 5x7 card. I started with my color palette of Soft Suede, Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla, Old Olive and Ridinghood Red.

This card began the night before when I dyed my Cotton Ribbon with a mixture of Rubbing Alcohol and Pretty In Pink ink. I had so much ink left over that I decided to brush it onto some Silver Glimmer paper that was sitting on my desk. I dyed a few other things as well, but I'll probably use them on a future project. When I woke up I felt that the Ribbon and Glimmer paper just were not quite pink enough, so I pulled out my custom blended Melon Mambo Shimmer Spray that I made with a combination of Alcohol, Reinker, and Frost White Shimmer Paint. This worked out so well, that I even colored a second piece. Note to self: Do this first the next time!

You might notice that I used lots of things from my retired stash on this card. Some paper I just love so much - this stuff comes from a variety of retired packages. I layered them onto a 5x7 piece of very vanilla, along with some more Glimmer Paper and a piece of Pink Pirouette Card Stock cut out with my Finishing Touches Edgelit Die. I stamped my snowman onto Very Vanilla with Stayz-On Black and then cut it out using the Scallop Rectangle Clearlits Die. I used my blender pen to color him in with More Mustard, Old Olive and Ridinghood Red. Then I sponged the edges with a big of Early Espresso. I completed this little guy with a spray of Basic Jewels and teeny Basic Pearls.



I stamped the pink DSP with a snowflake inked in Riding Hood Red, and the red gingham DSP with a pair of mittens from the Jolly Bingo Bits stamp set. The Warmest Wishes stamp comes from a very old Stampin' Up! set, I believe I gave the remainder of them away but given my love for Snowmen, I couldn't part with this one! Both are inked with Early Espresso.


I used a combination of punches to create the snowflake medallion - Blossom Punch, Scallop Circle and 1 3/8" Circle. I alternated between the Pink and Silver Glimmer Paper and popped the whole thing together with Stampin' Dimensionals...then finished it off with a clear resin snowflake I found in a dollar bin somewhere.



The rest is just icing on the cake, so to speak!



You didn't think I could stay home on a day like this without stamping something, did you??

Last Chance for Saleabration with an Online Workshop

It's a GREAT time to be a stamper and a scrapbooker! We now have the ability to take online orders, have them shipped to your door, and FREE hostess benefits are attached!! I'm GIVING those hostess benefits to YOU! for each 25.00 you spend, you could earn up to $65 for FREE!! * Hostess benefits winner will need to respond back to me by 4:00 p.m. on March 22nd with her choices for free products!

This is your LAST chance to put in orders for FREE saleabration products! For each 50.00 you spend, you get a FREE choice from this flyer:

SALEABRATION

Here is how it works...

Shop right from your computer anytime between now and March 21st by going to my Online Store:

SHOP HERE

When prompted, enter this HOSTESS CODE: 3HFNPS42

As a BONUS....anyone who puts in an order will get a FREE virtual class to create an A-2 Card Box filled with coordinating cards that you can create from the comfort of your own home. The class will be emailed to you as a multi-page PDF, complete with color pictures of every step of the process. Don't forget to add a sheet of Basic Jewels and Basic Pearls to your order, if you don't already have them. You'll want them to use as you create this amazing gift set! I've attached a sneak peek for you. You won't believe how gorgeous these sprays of pearls and jewels are! I can't wait to share the whole thing with you.

Free class, FREE supplies - RIGHT from your house!!! What more could you want? Grab a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, your catalog and start shopping!!

Remember your order has to be placed by March 21st to count for this virtual workshop!

Love At First Stamp - Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Love At First Stamp Spring Holiday Blog Hop! This is our first hop as a group - and I am beyond excited to be a part of it! We are all sharing some ideas for the upcoming holidays, as well as a great Card Sketch for you to play along with!

If you picked up the hop along the way, you have arrived from Gail's Creative Chaos, where you saw the fun things she made in preparation for Father's Day. I love to visit Gail's blog regularly to see what fun things she's making. Her cards and projects are always amazing and inspiring.If you're starting at the beginning, this is the first stop on our hop - where I am featuring some projects for St. Patrick's Day, which is only a few days away!

Aside from the shades of green, nothing reminds me of the fun of St. Pat's day more than rainbows. So I made some Rainbow Treats with our 1 x 8 cello bags to take with us to this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade!



I used the a la carte stamp Lucky Day from the Spring Catalog to top these treat bags, inked in Lucky Limeade and finished off with a Basic Jewel.

Next up is my Bloomin' Marvelous card. Bloomin' Marvelous is one of the 2013 Sale-A-Bration Stamp sets. I paired this set with a technique that is featured in Stampin' Up!'s new online class to make this card:



There are some cute projects in this class that are great for beginning stampers, and anyone who is looking for quick and easy project ideas!

For my next project I used one of my all time favorites - the Mini Milk Carton! This will be forever on my list of Stampin' Up! favorites! These little darlings are great for party favors or fun gifts. They are super easy to assemble but best of all they really make a statement when given away in a fun box holder:



I paired the Lucky Day stamp along with the Got Treats Stamp Set from the 2012-2013 Catalog. This set was made especially for these milk cartons but like almost everything else in the Stampin' Up! line, can be used for cards, scrapbooking and home decor as well. The boxes are embellished with some Champagne Glimmer Paper and Lucky Limeade Baker's Twine.

Finally I would like to share a sketch with you:



This was created by Jennifer Campbell. Each of the stampers on this hop will be sharing a card created from this sketch. I can't wait to see what everyone has created with it! You are invited to play along with us, and if you send me a photo of your card, I'll happily post it to my blog in the coming days! I used the sketch to create a seasonal Thank You using Sale-A-Bration set Vintage Verses along with the following items from the Spring Catalog: Paper Doilies, Flower Trim, and Print Poetry DSP Stack.



I'll be sending this card off to one of my upcoming hostesses in appreciation for booking her upcoming party with me. You still have time to make a purchase and receive on of the SAB Stamp Sets that I've featured here for FREE! Contact your regular demonstrator for details, but if you don't have one already feel free to list me as your demonstrator for preferred pricing on the Stampin' Up! Site. This stamp set is FREE with your $50 purchase until March 22nd.

Next up on this blog hop is Buffy's Blog. Buffy is featuring some ideas that you can use for any upcoming Spring event. Just in case you get a little lost along the way, here is our blog order for this hop:

Katherine Rock- St Patrick's Day
Buffy Dowling - Happy Spring
Jennifer Campbell - Easter
Susan Peters - Mother's Day
Jennifer Gregorsky - Memorial Day
Gail Derea - Father's Day

Be sure to leave us all a little love and let us know which of these projects were your favorites! Thanks for coming by to take a peek!

Blog Hop Weekend!

Hi Stampers! I am pumped to announce that my Stampin' Up! Group Love at First Stamp will be doing a blog hop this weekend! Please stop by and leave your comments - we absolutely love those! For some of us, it'll be a first blog hop and we are super excited to share our creativity with you - see you on Friday!!

Another Easy Birthday Card for March Stamp A Stack

Hi Stampers! Today I am sharing one of the cards I made for my March Stamp A Stack which is scheduled for Thursday the 14th. Club members were asking for some quick and easy cards this month, so that's what I went with! This is another design that I cased from Stampin' Success - a Stampin' Up! magazine that is sent to demonstrators every other month. It's full of great ideas for tons of projects.

This is the best time of year to join Stampin' Up! Sale-A-Bration is happening right now, and will run through March 22nd. As this year is Stampin' Up's 25th anniversary, you will get 25% more product of your choice in your starter kit. If you love stamping and would like to share that excitement with others, or just want to get lots of great stuff at a fabulous discount here's your chance! Contact me to find out more about the great kit being offered right now!

A Little Hello

I have used Oh Hello with some bright colors to create this card with a fun fold. I was just playing around a bit with this one, and scored my 4 1/4 x 11" white card stock to make a fun fold. I've seen many cards made with the flower in this set, but flowers aren't always my favorite thing to stamp, so I wasn't immediately drawn to this one. I do love the chevrons included with it so maybe it's growing on me!

Here's a view of the card open:



Thanks for stopping by!

Quick and Easy Birthday

Here is a quick and easy birthday card I made with my punches and some retired goodies which recently came from the Clearance Rack on Stampin' Up!'s website. One of the reasons it was so quick and easy is that I totally cased it from the current copy of Stampin' Success magazine. Today I was thrilled to find out that my customers can add clearance items to my hostess' open parties. My most recent hostess Amy was very excited to realize how much she could get to build up her scrapbooking stash, and her party is going to meet her goal of getting a half price item - A Big Shot! I just love the excitement and fun of a happy hostess!

Now if you were thinking of hosting a party it's even easier with the new online party option! There's still time to have your Sale-A-Bration workshop. If you're not in the Western Mass area I can help with custom designed projects for you to complete with a group of friends, and you and your friends can take advantage of the rewards an online workshop has to offer!

Welcome March

March is a fun month for birthdays around here, and also for many of my club members so I created this cupcake card for my March Stamp A Stacks. There's a funny story about the pearl, but I'll save that for another day - this card will have a spray of pearls and jewels eventually! lol

Oh Happy Day!

I am really having fun lately with some new goodies out of the Spring Catalog, and of course - with the Sale-A-Bration stamps from Bloomin' Marvelous.

On this card I used a scrap from the Sunshine and Sprinkles DSP Pack and turned it into a banner. (Yes I love banners!) I stamped the little boots from the Spring Sampler in Mambo Melon and punched it out using the Ticket Builder Punch. I layered it on top of a ticket I punched from the Silver Glimmer Paper. Did you know that you get a pack of this paper for FREE with a qualifying workshop of $150 during Sale-A-Bration? I still have a few dates available if you would like to host a workshop before the 22nd of this month, and with Stampin' Up! giving away free stamps, paper and more it couldn't be easier to reach that qualifying amount of $150 - plus you get $25 and more in free products of your choice!

Contact me today to save one of these few dates left for yourself!

Spring Baby!

Hi stampers, my post is a short one today. I am sharing a card I made for some friends who just found out they are expecting a baby boy...how exciting! I inked up the little frog from the Spring Sampler with Gumball Green, as well as some of the images from That's The Ticket. I punched out the tickets and popped them out with Stampin' Dimensionals and tied a bit of Lucky Limeade Baker's Twine to the top of the card. Can you even get any quicker and easier than this?

I hope you're all having a great week. Thanks for stopping by!!

A New Color Challenge

My friend Jennifer Campbell posted this color challenge to her blog yesterday, so I though I would play along. Here is my card for this challenge:



I have to admit that I don't have any DSP with these colors in my collection. I'm not overly fond of any of them, except maybe that Raspberry Ripple, so I had to create my own background paper for this one. I used Crumbcake as the base, and the flower from Bloomin' Marvelous to brighten up the Summer Starfruit, but my favorite part of this card is the flower I created from doilies. The doilies were just a little too big so I punched out three middles and inked them up to change the color - this is such a fun way to change them up a little. Then adhered them to a 2 1/2" circle punch with an Antique Brad. I used the outside of one of the doilies to put an edge back onto the flower, using my 2-way glue to hold it in place.

The Raspberry Ripple piece was pre-cut and left over from another project.

I hope you like my card - thanks for stopping by!

Spring Bingo

Hi Stampers! Today I am sharing this adorable bingo game that my 9 year old helped me put together for my preschoolers. I love to share my passion for stamping with others, and of course this also includes my family! This ended up being the perfect afternoon activity to do together over our Winter Vacation week.



We picked out a variety of colors to use on this project, beginning with the Bingo Background Stamp and then filling in the squares with images from the Springtime Sampler, currently in Stampin' Up!s Spring Catalog. Once we finished filling in a few bingo cards, we stamped each image once on scrap paper and punched them out using the 1" square punch. We then layered those onto the label punch to make playing cards. Using lots of paper from our scrap drawers we punched out Itty Bitty Butterflies to be used as markers.



We packaged the game in a Clam Shell Box for easy storage and transportation to my classroom. We made one of these during the holidays and the kids loved playing it,so I'm sure they'll be excited to see a new game!

Thanks for stopping by today, and have a great weekend!

P.S. I Love You

Good morning stampers! Before we get too far away, I have a quick Valentine project to share with you today.



On Valentine's Day I left all the supplies to make these cute little treat boxes for a group of local preschool teachers to make on the lunch breaks. I supplied a variety of ink colors, the pre-cut boxes and some embellishments. They were able to go to the staff room and make a few on their lunch breaks. I wanted to take a picture of the set-up before they began, but was in a rush to get to work myself. I left out some basic instructions - I heard they were helpful - and the center supplied the candy. The teacher's appreciated having something fun to do in the middle of the day, and for me it was a rewarding way to share my love of stamping even though I couldn't be there to help.

I meant to take pictures of the set-up before they got into the goodies but in my haste to start my own day, I forgot. If you are local and know a group of people who would love to do something like this, I would love to share this again so let me know!

I'm off to celebrate 100 Days of School!

Have a fabulous day!

Freshly Made Sketch #73

Hello again stampers, I have a second post for you today, I decided at the last minute to play along with Freshly Made Sketches and here's the card I came up with! I love the bright colors in Sunshine and Sprinkles and it really pairs up nicely with springtime projects, like this card. I started by picking out the prints I wanted to use, then stamped the bunny. I used my Aqua Painter and ink pads to color in the image. I originally intended to color the bunny's dress, but as the card came together the colors reminded me of Emma's first Easter dress, so I left it white with Melon Mambo trim. I used a Stampin' Sponge to ink up my doily with Tempting Turquoise ink. This is a fun way to use those doilies and custom coordinate them to each of your projects. I punched the image out using the 2 1/2" Circle Punch and outlined the punch with my Two-Way Glue and Dazzling Diamonds. I also outlined the Happy Easter banner with the glue and glitter for extra dazzle.



I busted out my new Pinwheel Die - be careful with your platform settings - I wrecked the edge on the first run because I forgot the flip the tab - doh! I found that my paper piercer worked great to fluff up the petals after I assembled it, it was tricky to fit it all together without smooshing the bottom one getting it onto the brad. I finished off the center with a Basic Jewel. I used lots of Stampin' Dimensionals to lift the layers off my card and give it more texture.



I hope you like my creation - thanks for stopping by!