Category Archives: Stampin Up

Gettin’ in a Groove

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I must say, I have enjoyed stamping the past few days! It is definitely nice to be back at it. There are so many wonderful challenge creators out there and I want to thank them! I definitely think I stamp my best when I have a purpose (either a specific person in mind or a challenge to do).

Today’s card is a combo challenge. The colors came from Color Throwdown (CT74). The layout is the latest Mojo sketch (mojo120).

Does anyone else find things to alter on a card after they’ve put it all together? I don’t know why I don’t notice these things before, but it never seems to fail – I always see something when I’m working with the photo. On this card I added the holes in the brown circle mat after the fact (thankfully I had adhered it with dimensionals so I could easily protect the card).

Thinking of You
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Knobbly Gnomes;
Ink: Burnt Umber (Palette); Dusty Durango, Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive;
Paper: Dusty Durango, Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip; Stella Ruby (Basic Grey);
Other: Love & Happiness Rubons, Dusty Durango ribbon, scallop punch, dimensionals; gold brads; scallop circle (Spellbinders);

Trio of Thanks

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Here are a few of my Christmas thank you cards.

The first card was created based on a sketch at Caardvarks. When I first looked at the sketch, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, so I passed it over and did the cards you’ll find below. But when I went back and checked out the challenge again, I realized the lines could easily be snowflake trails (snowflakes being my theme for the evening, lol). I don’t have my sewing machine with me, so I hand stitched (which probably resulted in a better finish anyway). I kept the rest of the card pretty simple, though I did have to pull out the eyelet border instead of the plain scallop. One day I’ll get me one of those larger scallop border punches.

Next up is another challenge card. This sketch can be found at Stamping 411 (SSC132). This is another challenge blog that I discovered recently. This was a fun sketch! I’m not really sure how I got here, but I think it just jumped out when I was browsing my stamp index. I don’t normally like to have stuff hanging off a card (though I do like the look of it) because I worry about how to mail it. Thankfully this one will be accompanied by other stuff, so I’ll just use a slightly larger envelope.

Finally I have a CAS card, for a challenge over at Our Creative Corner (OCCC). I tried to do dry embossed lines above and below my snowflake border, but they didn’t come out very well. You can see them IRL, but barely in the photo. I’ve been wanting a scoring tool, maybe it is time I looked into one.

All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Thank You
Stamps: Short & Sweet;
Ink: Tempting Turquoise;
Paper: White, Tempting Turquoise, Tempting Turquoise Prints;
Other: felt snowflakes, eyelet border punch;
Thanks
Stamps: Serene Snowflakes, Whimsy jumbo wheel, Much Appreciated;
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence;
Paper: White, Tempting Turquoise;
Other: scallop border punch; circle cutter (Coluzzle); rhinestones (HeroArts);
Thank You CAS
Stamps: Serene Snowflakes, Teeny Tiny Wishes;
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence;
Paper: White;
Other: dimensional; rhinestone (HeroArts);

Conversations in Chocolate

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I love the new Stampin’Up! Chocolate Bunny stamp! My mommy gave it to me for Christmas (she’s the bestest). The funny thing is I’m not really into chocolate bunnies (unless they are Reese’s and filled with peanut butter 😀 ), but I always think of them when I think Easter – and the stamp is adorable.

kth_chocolatebunnies

Mom wanted to see what i would do with it and this was the first thing that came to mind. It isn’t original – I remember seeing this “conversation” either on a t-shirt or a card at the store years ago.

I really wish someone could invent a way to do mirror images that doesn’t degrade the mirrored image. Although it might be user error as I know I have seen other folks do the mirror thing with near perfect results. If you have any hints, I’d love to hear them! (I did huff on it before stamping.)

My Butt Hurts!
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Chocolate Bunny (Occasions 2010 mini); Crazy Cool;
Ink: Chocolate Chip;
Paper: Bermuda Bay, Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, White;
Other: ribbon (from nonSU stash); Chocolate pen; handwriting;

Christmas Cards

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kth_elegantdasher

Not much “new or unusual” in this post. I didn’t get around to making enough Christmas cards (which is completely normal for me, sadly). But I did make a few.

The first card I will share uses Dasher – a single stamp sold by StampinUp that is wildly popular, and completely wonderful. A simple color scheme and layout. I am not a big traditional red/green person, so when SU came out with Razzleberry, I was very happy at how elegantly it looks with Hunter. Now, if I could just stamp straight 😉

kth_bermudasnowflakes

Next up is a wintery card. Again, not a traditional color scheme – but a fabulous one. Which is why I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it! I know when I was looking to make this card I did lots of scouting, so the color scheme was probably found as was the stacked torn edge border. Sorry, I didn’t save links for credit (well, I may have, but my computer crashed and who knows where anything is now!).

kth_trendytrimmings_inkup

I don’t have many “current” Stampin’Up! sets, so when I do work for mom I tend to pull my hair out 😉 This is a siple layout – I’ve seen it a hundred times, but for this set it works well. Also the color is a trendy pairing of Bermuda and Red that I’ve seen before, but I like it.

kth_bluetrimmings_cased

Finally, a card I cased from the Crafty Girl blog. I loved her card, but this card was for my mom and brown was not gonna cut it! I knew I wanted to change the colors to blue. I kept everything else pretty much the same except instead of paper I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I wanted to keep it completely SU so mom could show it off, but no such luck (though I doubt that will keep her from showing it off, lol).

I hope to get a New Years card made that I can send to my other relatives and friends. Fingers crossed that I get in the mood some day soon!

Thanks for visiting!

Halloween Cards

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I know, I know – it is December, why in the world would I post my Halloween cards?! Well, I kinda like these cards, and seeing as I lost some of my photos when my computer crashed, my blog has become my repository…so if I don’t post, I may lose them!

witchycat

My first card is my favorite. I love the images – and I got to color! I really don’t want to invest in markers, but I must admit I would love to see this card done with Copics to get the bright vibrant look I would prefer.

The layout is a Jen del Muro SFYTT from back in September. I knew as soon as I saw the sketch what I wanted to do – it just took a month or so to get it done!

trickortreatspots

My second card is also based on a sketch, but I can’t remember whose! I love using this grid technique for those small stamps.

skeletalgreetings

Next up is a fun one. I *love* the new Scary Skeleton – though I don’t think he’s all that scary! While cutting him out is a pain, it always seems worth it! I plopped him down on the layer to make it look like he was sitting and waving. The rhinestone eyes were my finishing touch.

The Razzleberry layer has a border punched on the bottom. I don’t own any of those fancy Martha Stewart punches (yet), so I had to make mine by using the SU Curly Label punch. I didn’t get it quite straight and even, but I think it works okay.

monstermash

I really really really want a “Monster Mash” sentiment. I love this song – it is so fun! I thought about finding the perfect font, but as I still needed to make quite a few more card, I opted for hand writing something.

This one was a little harder to color because so much of it should be non-colors. But figuring out the masking was fun – to keep out the mummy’s sign and the ghost’s pumpkin.

sweethalloween

I love Halloween – but to me Halloween is about the scary not so much the sweet. However, many of my recipients are the opposite, so I needed a few sweet cards too. I dislike making more than 1 of any design, but for this card, I made 3. Thankfully it is a very simple design – and I got to use up some of my ancient paper stash!

Halloween Cards
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Haunting Halloween, Bitty Boos, Scary Skeleton, Booglie Eyes; Sentiment on final card from TAC sets;
Ink: all SU colors
Paper: all SU colors, all DSP is from SU Halloween Night
Other: PTI Plum dotted ribbon, SU Orange ribbon, SU Curly Label punch, PTI black satin ribbon, SU Celery ribbon, CB Ribbon Slider die cut

Dia de los Muertos

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kth_halloween_diadelosmuertos

I started this card a few weeks ago – in response to Nicole’s blog challenge on World Card Making day (wcmd2). The challenge was to be inspired by Mexico. In thinking of Mexico, I think bright colors, mosaic tiles, and the Day of the Dead. I have no idea why I think about that holiday…but I do.

Anywho. I started the card, but there was no way I was going to finish on time for the challenge so I set it aside. Making the mosaic took FOREVER – though, in all fairness, it was probably because I chose the wrong movies to watch while I worked – I ended up spending more time watching than cutting/gluing!

And then, once I had the focal part done I decided to make a mosaic border too, ugh! {more time passes}

I finally got it all finished today. I really love how it turned out!

Oh, and here is a frugal tip 🙂 The “thread” I used is really the elastic string that ties kids shoes together in the store. I’ve been saving it to use as, well, elastic, but the texture of it worked so much better than embroidery thread, so I used it here too.

Halloween
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Scary Skeleton;
Ink: black;
Paper: Basic Black, Basic Grey, White, Bold Brights scraps;
Other: elastic thread;

Birthday Butterfly

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kth_bday_butterflyspots

I made this card for a challenge posted n Stacey’s blog. She had a color challenge that I just loved! The inspiration photo had a lot of white with the pops of color, so that got me to my card. Since she is an SU demo, I wanted my card to be an SU-only card (not a requirement, especially as I am doing this for my own fun, but hey, its a challenge 😉 ).

I don’t own a lot of current SU sets – so I opted for spots of color and I used my new Butterfly die. I cut scrap paper the right size and used it as a template to draw my box. I stamped the greeting. The final touch was black rhinestones.

Birthday Wishes
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Sincere Salutations;
Ink: Black;
Paper: White, Patterns: Turquoise, Saffron, Pumpkin, Lilac;
Other: black rhinestones (Kaiser);

Haunting Fun

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kth_haunting_skeleton

This card was created for the Clean & Simple Blog Challenge (FTL#59). Their sketch was square, but I don’t I have square envelopes. Normally I just use a regular envelope and make my card 4 1/4 sq, but I thought that might be too small for this one.

I love this skeleton image – he is so fun. As I was playing with my unmounted images I saw that the words fit right up under his raised foot. I’m sure someone else has figured that out, but I’m not sure I would have noticed if I wood-mounted.

After embossing the background I lightly dragged a grey-inked sponge across the embossing to help bring it out. The final touch were the orange bling eyes 😀

happy haunting!
Stamps: Scary Skeleton (SU);
Ink: Noir (Palette), Basic Grey (SU);
Paper: Black, White, Eggplant Envy (retired SU), textured Pumpkin Pie (SU);
Other: ribbon (old & unknown), web CB embossing folder, rhinestones (Hero Arts);

Monogrammed Anniversary

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kth_anniversary_monogramThis week’s Clean & Simple challenge on SCS (CAS32) is to create a wedding card. I don’t normally need wedding cards, but my brother’s anniversary is coming in October, so I decided to make a card for them.

I bought the SU set Together Forever as soon as it came out a year ago but it doesn’t get a lot of ink time. I just bought Lovely Letters alpha – that has been on my wish list forever! I thought the alphabet would go nicely with the stamp set. My opinion of the finished product is still undecided.

mr. & mrs.
All supplies Stampin’Up! unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Together Forever, Lovely Letters
Ink: Basic Grey, Dusty Durango, Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive;
Paper: white
Other: grey taffeta, rhinestones (Hero Arts);

Um, yeah

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kth_notecard_blacklily

I really love the color combo in Dawn’s latest challenge (#9). And I immediately knew I wanted to emboss cream paper. I’m not sure what happened after that, but this certainly isn’t what I had in my head, lol. There is no sentiment because I’m not even sure what I could possibly say with a black lily on it! Oh well. It is pretty 🙂

Black Lily
Stamps: Fifth Avenue (SU);
Ink: Brilliance Black (Tsukineko), Black crayon (SU);
Paper: Black, Cream, Old Olive (SU);
Other: Black satin ribbon (PTI);