Lovely Basket of Wishes

basket-of-wishes-2-0816Do you like to watercolor?  If you do, the new Basket of Wishes stamp set is for you!  The stamp set comes with three different basket images, four different images to “put in” your baskets and four lovely sentiments.  It’s quite versatile, not just for fall.  Besides the basket you see on this card there is a berry basket and a produce basket.  It’s a very nice stamp set.

I really like the Petals & Posies Designer Paper too.  It contains lots of fall colors without just sticking to fall images.  Very nice for this time of year.

I used both an Aqua Painter and a Blender Pen when color my basket of flowers.  Some of the images were just a little too small for to use an Aqua Painter on.  I like to use both tools when coloring.  Which one is your favorite?

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Halloween Scares

halloween-scares-1-0816Here’s a fun and spooky Halloween card for you!  Don’t you love this cute little haunted house?  This was definitely the stamp that called out to me “Buy me!  Buy me!”.  Ha!

Do you ever come across stamp sets where you fall in love with one of the images and have to have the whole set?  Unfortunately that happens to me way too often!

I designed this card for a swap and am using it in my Halloween/Fall class this week.  Do you remember me telling you the other day how I was doing something a little different for my class?  I gave people choices on halloween-scares-treat-0916what type of projects they wanted to make.  I had the first two classes yesterday and they went really well.  I was a little concerned about getting backed up on the two fall cards but it all worked our pretty smoothly and people seemed to like that they had a choice.  Of course they had to let me know what they wanted to do before I started cutting.  It just took a little organization on my part.  Another success for the books!

I definitely like this design better as a card.  I think it pops more on the black background.  The little skeleton dude from the other day looks much better on the treat bag than this one does.  What do you think?  I’d love to know what you think.  Leave a comment and let me know.

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

A Beautiful Day in the Mountains

14440805_10207577866627505_8563262435070739868_nIt’s so nice to be (kind of) caught up on things and to play hooky with your hubby for a drive up in the mountains.  That’s what we did yesterday.  We drove up and over one of the passes in the mountains and checked out the fall foliage.

Fall here in the Colorado Rockies is gold.  No reds or oranges, just the gold of the Aspen trees.  I do miss the other colors this time of year but the golden Aspen are stunning.

Fall is definitely my favorite time of the year.  I love the cooler weather, the fall colors and being able to wear jeans and sweatshirts.  Looking at these pictures relaxes 14485125_10207577868987564_581656653320053502_nme.  What’s your favorite season of the year?

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

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Cookie Cutter Halloween

cookie-cutter-halloween-1-0916This little skeleton guy is just too darn cute!  I know.  I know.  I didn’t want this stamp set because it was too cutesie.  I should have know better!

This card is almost an exact copy of one I saw on Pinterest.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love Pinterest?  I’m not sure I could create without it!  OK…that may be a slight exaggeration but I’d have a much harder time creating without it.

This week is my Halloween and Fall class.  I’m actually trying something a little different.  I had designed three Halloween cards and two fall cards for the class.  When I sent out an email for people to sign up someone cookie-cutter-halloween-2-0916asked me if they could just make fall cards since they didn’t really get into Halloween.  It got me thinking…why not?  So I decided to give my customers some choices with the five projects.  They could make the five cards as I designed, they could make the Halloween cards into treat bags if they wanted or they could make 5 fall cards (3 of one design, 2 of the other).  In the second picture you can see how I altered the card so the focal point would fit on the treat bag.   I’m anxious to see how it all works out.    It might be something to offer again in the future.  #6monthstampingoals

The light colored background piece is watercolor paper which I gave a watercolor wash to with Smoky Slate although it is hard to see in the picture.

I was a little sneaky with  my Halloween Night Enamel Dots….I colored them with a black Sharpie so they’d match the card a little better.  What do you think of my random threads?  I used both silver and black.  I don’t think they turned out too bad.  One of these days I’ll get the hang of randomness!  Ha!

It’s almost October and time to really get into Halloween.  I’ll have to try and play a little more with all of my Halloween products!

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Halloween Scenes Spooky Fun!

img_8783Cute and easy for a Sunday morning!

Don’t you just love this spooky tree from the Halloween Scenes Edgelits? Too fun.  One of my sister Stampin’ Demos, Carn Meagher, here in Colorado made this spooky card.  Thank you Carn!

I never would have thought about layering a second die under the black tree for a shadow effect but it works perfectly!  Thanks for the tip Carn!

It looks like Carn die cut a square and sponged in the opening for her background before stamping a few spooky bats from the Spooky Fun stamp set.    The banner looks like it was punched using the Duet Banner Punch.  Then, and here’s your tip for the day…..Carn bent her sentiment to fit onto banner!  Yep!  You can do that with Photopolymer stamps.  Pretty cool, huh?  🙂

Thanks again Carn for a fun and easy card!

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Glamper Greetings Halloween!

img_8805How can you not fall in love with this stamp set?  It’s SO stinkin’ cute!  I actually don’t have this stamp set yet…..I just ordered it yesterday.  Ha!

Not only is the camper cute but there are tons of adorable little stamps to help you decorate your camper and the area surrounding it.

Ok…let’s be honest here.   The main reason I fell in love with this stamp set is the little yard ornament flamingo.  Yep….the flamingo.  Call me crazy but I have a thing for flamingos!  True story….I met someone yesterday who likes flamingos as much as I do.  It was pretty funny.

I’m looking forward to playing with my Glamper and all of it’s accessories.  I need to thank Diana Ball for this cute card that I received in a swap.  There are good things about swaps and bad things about swaps.  I like swaps because I get all sorts of samples that use techniques that I don’t often use or that use stamp sets that I don’t have.  The bad thing about swaps is that some of the cards use stamp sets that I don’t have, I fall in love with the card and then I have to buy the stamp set.  This could be the reason I’m not rich….oh, well…I can think of worse problems than having too many fun, adorable stamp sets!  Ha!

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Happy First Day of Fall!

img_8821It’s finally Fall!  Although you’d never know it here in Colorado.  The temperature is still getting up to at least 80 degrees!  Yuk!  I want cool weather so I can wear jeans and sweatshirts!  I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much.  One of the first years we lived here in Denver we actually had a snow storm in September and lost power.

Let’s celebrate fall even though it’s really warm outside….ok…the mornings here are pretty chilly but it warms up fast once the sun comes out.   Let’s celebrate with the adorable little scarecrow from the Cookie Cutter Halloween stamp set.

You guessed it….I wasn’t going to get this stamp set or the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp set because the images were too cutsie for me.  Well….I have them both.  Those darn talented stampers that post such great cards with all of those stamp sets I’m not going to buy.  Sheesh!

Anyway, I received this card in a swap that I participated in.  Thank you Julie Sperman!  I love participating in swaps with other demos because I get some great ideas.

The little images in both the Cookie Cutter Halloween and the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp sets are easy to color.  And guess what?  There’s a punch that COORDINATES with them.  Yep!  The Cookie Cutter Builder Punch!  Woo Hoo!  COORDINATION…..my favorite word!  🙂

Have a wonderful first day of Fall!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Technique Tuesday: Angled Z-Fold

spookyfunanglezfold-1So…it’s actually Wednesday today.  I had this post all ready to go for yesterday and managed to not actually schedule it to post.  Sheesh!  Well, now you can enjoy Technique Tuesday on Wednesday!  🙂

Isn’t this card fun?  I received in a swap.  Thank you Jennifer Pukah!

This card is so cute and so easy to make!  You do need to start with a 12″ x 12″ piece of card stock.  Cut it to 5″ x 12″.  Mark one short end at 2 1/2″.  Now draw a line from the corner of the 5″ end down to the mark you just made.  Trim along line to make the angle of the card.

Score card stock at 4″ and 8″.   Make a valley fold at the 4″ mark and a mountain fold at the 8″ mark.  Your Z-fold card is done!  Now you just need to decorate!

spookyfunanglezfold-2Notice in the other pictures I’ve included that on one side of the card you decorate the first and third panels and on the opposite side you decorate the middle panel.

I’m definitely going to have to design my own Z-fold card.  They’re so fun!

Have you checked out the Halloween Night Designer Series Paper yet?  There are so spookyfunangledzfold-3many cute patterns I can’t even choose which one is my favorite.  How about you?

Have a wonderful day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

 

 

 

A Birthday Shaker Card!

birthday-fiesta-shaker-0816Are you in love with this little llama?  I sure am!  It always makes me think of the children’s book “Is Your Mama a Llama?” from when my kids were little.  (Once again I’m probably dating myself….)

The Birthday Fiesta stamp set is so much fun.    Other than this adorable llama I love the sentiment “Fiesta like there’s no tomorrow.”

Shaker cards are pretty easy to make now that Stampin’ Up! has such fabulous tools for us to use.  Everything used on this card is in the catalog!  The shaker portion of the card is made using the Layering Circles Framelits, Window Sheets, Foam Adhesive Strips and the Sprinkles Punch for the confetti!

TIP:  If you want to make sure that the confetti doesn’t stick to the sides of the foam strips rub your Embossing Buddy along the sides of the foam strips.  🙂

Do you have a special someone to send this birthday card to?  Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Places You’ll Go

places-youll-go-0816Can you say Dr. Seuss? That’s what I think of when I hear/read the name of this stamp set, Places You’ll Go.  How about you?

This card would have been perfect for my friend Sallie from church. She just left for a river cruise in Europe.  Of course, with everything going on around here I forgot.  Some day I will remember to send some of the millions of cards I make.  Ha!

This is another card that I CASEd (copy and share everything) but tweaked just a tiny bit.  Thank you Brian King.  I used a different sentiment and put the airplane on the globe instead of a punched out heart.

To give the globe a little dimension I first stamped the Watercolor Wash background on the Soft Sky card stock with Soft Sky ink then stamped the globe.  I like the way it turned out.  I popped up the globe too on the card.  Other than that the card is pretty simple, just some stamping and layering.  Simple is good.  🙂

Have a great day and I hope that adventure awaits you!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Happy Anniversary!

jar-of-love-0716Last week, on Labor Day, my husband and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. Yes, that does mean we’re getting old.  We don’t usually do a lot to celebrate.  We’ll go out to dinner but we don’t buy gifts and we’re lucky if we remember to give each other a card.   I’ve been looking forward to our anniversary for over a month now just so I could give Mark this card.

No.  He doesn’t have a thing for fireflies.  Back in college when we were dating “our song” was “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone.  Do any of you remember that song?  It was a long time ago!  Ha!  Anyway, I couldn’t resist giving this card to my hubby.  We both got a chuckle out of it.  🙂

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This picture is one of my favorites of us.  It was taken almost three years ago at our oldest son’s wedding.  I take a lot of pictures but I’m usually never in them so it was nice to have this one of the two of us.

I designed this card (OK…I probably copied the basic idea for it) using the Jar of Love stamp set.  These little fireflies are so dang cute!  I sponged some Crushed Curry ink inside of the jar and I colored the bodies of the little critters with my Gold Wink of Stella Glitter Brush.  It worked perfectly to give my little fireflies a bit of sparkly shine!

I hope you all have a sparkly day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Spooky Fun!

spooky-fun-2-0816Are you ready for Halloween?  I’m not!  It’s still over 6 weeks away!  I do have to admit I’ve been hitting the Halloween candy aisle at the grocery store.  No, I’m not trying to gain weight….I’m creating Halloween treat projects and for that I need Halloween candy.  It is a no-win situation though because I don’t necessarily use all of the candy in a project and then there’s left overs that are calling my name.  Can you feel my pain?  I am a little disappointed though…I’ve been searching for Halloween colored M & M’s and I can’t find them.  Crazy!

I love the tree die in the Halloween Scenes Edgelits set.  Too fun.  There’s also a fun fence that I could have/should have added to the card.  Hmmm….maybe I’ll have to remake this.  The witch die and the grave stones are also in the set.  This set of dies COORDINATES with the Spooky Fun stamp set.  You know me and COORDINATION!  🙂

Do you like the little grave stone that I made for the sentiment?  I thought I was pretty clever with that one.  I used a die from the Tags & Labels Framelits!  After I die cut the image and stamped my sentiment I distressed the label with some stamping and sponging.  I cut it down a bit and then used my Project Life Corner Punch to round the corners.

I need to sit down and play with more of my Halloween toys from the Holiday Catalog.  So many fun items!

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!

Back Again!

mnfair2016I know!  I need to stop traveling so I can post to my blog more.  Ha!  That’s not going to happen but I will try to be more diligent about posting.

We just returned from another trip to the MN Homeland.  I was able to visit the Minnesota State Fair with my family one day (first picture) and over the Labor Day Weekend my sisters and I hosted a party to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday.  Her birthday really isn’t memomuntil November but it’s so much easier for people to travel in September in that part of the country.  The second picture is of me with my mom.

The fun wasn’t over yet.  The day after the party my husband, son and daughter-in-law headed up to Canada to my husband’s family cabin for about 5 days of fun, fishing and relaxation.  We caught plenty of fish, played games and were actually able to watch our Denver Broncos on Thursday Night beat the Carolina Panthers!  Woo Hoo!

markfish16The fishing was really good.  We all caught plenty and everyone caught some nice big ones that were fun to reel in.  My husband caught the biggest fish of the week.  A beautiful walleye.  We didn’t have time to weigh or measure it because we wanted to get it back in the water right after the photo-op.

Now it’s time to get back to stamping.  Woo Hoo!

Take care and Happy Stamping!

Simple Saturday: A Sneak Peek

Halloween.1.0816It’s Simple Saturday AND a sneak peek!  How great is that?!!!  🙂

Stampin’ Up! has fabulous designer paper and what better way to make a simple card than to use it as the focal point or background of your card.

I couldn’t resist making these little fun and easy 3″ x 3″ cards.  They are both made with the Halloween Nights Designer Series Paper that you will find in the upcoming Holiday Catalog.  The little haunted house scene is printed in strips over and over again on the 12″ x 12″ sheet.  I simply trimmed out one little tiny scene, mounted it on a slightly larger piece of Basic Black card stock and then popped that up on my card.

The spider web card is only slight my involved.  The little spider web, spiders and words are from the Spooky Fun stamp set.  They fit perfectly on my little 3″ x 3″ card.  I added some layers and now I have a fun little spooky card!

The Halloween Nights Designer Paper pack is full of fun and spooky designs.  I know you’re going to love it.  If you don’t have a copy of the upcoming Holiday Catalog you can request one from me (cindy@stampbystampcreations.com) or check online on September 1st.  I know you’re going to love it!

Have a fun and Simple Saturday!  Enjoy!

Holiday Catalog Sneak Peek!

Halloween Scares.2.0816Who’s ready for Halloween, Thanksgiving and/or Christmas?!!!  It’s time to start creating for these upcoming holidays and Stampin’ Up! is here to help!

Their 2016 Holiday Catalog is going live on Thursday, September 1st!  Woo Hoo!  Luckily, as a demonstrator, I was able to start purchasing from this amazing catalog during August.  🙂

I love being a demonstrator and receiving little perks like that.  It’s great to be able to get a head start on planning classes and such.  This week I was able to take advantage of another perk….I got to register for Stampin’ Up!’s OnStage Local Event taking place in November.  It’s a mini one day convention held in 6 different locations across the country here in the US while the main OnStage event is taking place in Australia.  I went to my first OnStage Local event last fall and really enjoyed it.  I love to get a sneak peek of the new upcoming catalog!  Wouldn’t you love to receive these perks as well as a discount on all your Stampin’ Up! products?  Yes, all of them!  You can receive at least a 20% discount as a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator!  Think about it!  I’d love to have you join my team!

But back to this fun card made with the new Halloween Scares stamp set!  Isn’t this little haunted house fun?  There are quite a few fun little images in this stamp set:   house, cat, bat, tree, moon, pumpkin.  You can make so many fun projects with it.  The spider web design on the background of the card is a piece of the Halloween Night Specialty Designer Series Paper.  This is actually one of the “specialty” pieces.  The web itself is silver foil so it shimmers and shines!  Too fun!

There are a lot of fun Halloween items to choose from in the 2016 Holiday Catalog so check them out.  If you’d like a copy of the catalog just send me an email and I’ll pop a copy in the mail.  cindy@stampbystampcreations.com.  I know you’ll enjoy it!

Have a great day!  Take care and Happy Stamping!