It’s Week 7 already of my 12 Weeks of Christmas! Today I have a fun little Poinsettia Tin to share with you. Have you seen the tins in Stampin’ Up!’s Aug-Dec Mini Catalog? There are rectangular tins like the one I’m showing you today on page 55 and there are round tins with a clear lid on page 68. Be sure to check them out!

I was pretty excited with the way this tin turned out. Actually, I shouldn’t have been surprised because I copied the design from one of the cards I made for my Stamp Club this month. 🙂

As you can see, the elements are exactly the same on the card and the tin! On the card, I overlaid the Plush Poinsettia Paper on to a Silver Foil sheet and on the card I made a belly band and wrapped it around the silver tin.

The poinsettia on both projects was made using the fun Red Velvet Paper which coordinates perfectly with the Plush Poinsettia Paper! Both of these specialty papers are fun to use and give your projects great texture.

When making a belly band that wraps around something, you want to be sure not to get it too tight. It’s a fine line because you don’t want it too tight that you can’t get it off but you don’t want it too loose so that it falls off the project. When I make a belly band I like to to pull it nice and snug when I wrap it but then before I adhere the ends together I loosen it just a little bit. You can have the seam of the belly band either on the bottom of the tin or the top. If you have the seam on the top, you’ll want to make sure that you cover it with the poinsettia so that you can’t see it.

You can find out how to make this lovely little project right here along with a little tip on using foil sheets with dies that are a little smaller and detailed.

We’re already up to Week 6 of my Twelve Weeks of Christmas! That’s half way and it means there’s only 6 weeks left until Christmas. Yikes! Oh, well. It’ll come whether I’m ready or not and it’s sure to be a bit different this year. Let’s just roll with it!

For Week 6 I have another project that gets credited to my talented friend Jan. I’m so grateful that she doesn’t mind me sharing her projects with you. Today’s project is a pretty easy one but definitely a WOW!

Isn’t this project adorable? Look at those little Santas! You can use any designer paper that you’d like for the background along with coordinating cardstock. The Real Red 3/8″ Sheer Ribbon works really well because you can still see the Santas underneath it.

The Pine Tree Punch is the perfect size for the little tree decoration. Jan stamped the trees with the Perfectly Plaid stamp set before punching them out but you could use plain trees if you really wanted to. The Perfectly Plaid stamp set and the coordinating Tree Punch are a couple of my favorite items from last year’s Holiday Mini Catalog that you can now find in this year’s Annual Catalog.

The little “believe” stamp is absolutely perfect for this project and is from the Itty Bitty Christmas stamp set. This stamp set has 18 different holiday sentiments for you to choose from!

You can find the directions for this fun and easy project here. Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

I am in love with this row of little trees in the all new Curvy Christmas stamp set! They are so stinkin’ cute! What about the coordinating Classic Christmas designer paper? Both of these fun items are only available through January 4th.

It’s Make It Mine Monday and that means I got my inspiration for this card from someone else. The idea for this card came from Susie Wood and her card which you can see below.

I love how Susie combined the row of trees with the message underneath and included the designer paper too. I decided not to use any die cuts on my card so I colored a piece of Whisper White Crinkled Seam Binding with my Shaded Spruce Stampin’ Blends Marker and added that to my card. I also colored my trees in.

On this Make It Mine card I strayed pretty far from the original card but you can see that I copied a few of the elements. That’s the beauty of copying someone else’s project. It can simply be a source of inspiration like I did on today’s project or you can copy an idea exactly or almost exactly.

Where do you get your inspiration from? I get most of my inspiration on a Demonstrator only Facebook group or from Pinterest.

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Apparently I’m all about the snowflakes this year. This is only Week 5 of my Twelve Weeks of Christmas and this is the third time I’ve used Stampin’ Up!’s Snowflake Splendor Suite on my project. I’m guessing it won’t be the last time either. I promise I’ll work on giving you a little more variety, but the snowflakes are so gorgeous!

Isn’t this card gorgeous? I have my friend Jan to thank for it. She had originally made this card for a swap we both participated in and I fell in love. I knew I had to share it with you. I did remake it for myself but the only thing I changed was the layering of the snowflakes.

The focal point of the card is the ornament. The circle with the large snowflake on it with the ribbon loop is the ornament. It is made from two large, stitched circles that are held together with a Foam Adhesive Strip which runs vertically from top to bottom. If you notice, the front two sections of the card don’t meet up. That’s because you slip the foam adhesive strip along this gap. The back part of the ornament goes on the inside of the card and the front part of the ornament is on the outside of the card.

The small snowflake on the front of the card acts as a stop so that the ornament can’t slide all the way through the gap. Quite clever! I think if I sent this card to someone I might include directions with it so the recipient would know how to open the card. I’ll admit that I didn’t realize that the ornament focal point slid up until Jan showed me.

This is definitely a WOW project but it really wasn’t difficult to make. You can find instructions complete with photos here if you’d like to recreate it. Let me know if you have any questions on it.

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

A few weeks ago I shared with you the Ornamental Envelopes Bundle. I really had a fun time playing with this bundle. The card below is actually the first card I made using this bundle. It’s a fun fold card where just the middle section with the ornaments on it opens.

I stayed pretty true to the original card when CASEing (copy and share everything) it. Many times I change a lot on a card but this time I only changed a few things. I didn’t use a die on the Whisper White piece on the card front and I added a little more color and some jewels to my ornaments. The sentiment is also on the inside of my card instead of the front of the card.

Getting inspiration from fellow stampers is definitely easier than coming up with a totally original card. Thank you Jan Musselman for the inspiration I got from your card here. Don’t you love the way Jan added some of the designer paper to the flap of the envelope? Remember: No Naked Envelopes! 😀

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

It’s time to throw in some 3D projects during our 12 Weeks of Christmas. This week I have a fun and easy Wine Bottle Cover for you.

This project is pretty easy to make and just by changing out the designer paper you can make it for any time of the year! You will need the following items to make this project:

•  a 12″ x 12″ piece of cardstock

• a 12″ x 12″ piece of designer paper

• Simply Scored, Stampin’ Trimmer or any other device that will score your 12″ x 12″ cardstock.

• a ruler

• a pencil

• scissors

• ribbon (1/8″ or 1/4″)

• a hole punch that will punch the same size hole as your ribbon’s width

• strong adhesive such as Stampin’ Seal + or Tear & Tape

• a wine bottle (you will need this as you are making the cover)

You can find the detailed instructions for this project here. The directions are long but I’ve included a lot of photos to help you out. Be sure to contact me if you have any questions on making this Scored Wine Bottle Cover.

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

In this post I have Week 1 and Week 2 of my 12 Weeks of Christmas. I apologize for the delay in sharing these with you. I hope you enjoy them.

The 12 Weeks of Christmas Week 1 is all about Designer Series Paper. You can find the directions for this project as well as all dimensions and items used here.

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas Week 2 is all about snowflakes and is made with the Snowflake Splendor Suite. This is a fun fold card. View the directions, dimensions and products used on this card here.

I hope you’re enjoying my 12 weeks of Christmas and I promise to stay up to date from now on. Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

A couple of days ago I introduced you to the concept of No Naked Envelopes using the Envelopes Dies from Stampin’ Up!’s August-December Mini Catalog. In that post I shared the envelope liners with you. Today I want to share with you the other things you can do to your envelopes with these dies. They all will decorate the flap of your envelopes.

The first way you can decorate your flap is to simply scallop the edge of the flap. The die itself makes it easy to line up the die properly. There are little notches in the die itself that you can line up with the edges of the envelope.

There are also three other dies that will put a decoration in the flap. Check out the designs in the photos below. Which one is your favorite?

The Envelope Dies give you so many ways to help you stay away from naked envelopes. Choose your favorite and start creating! Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

If you’re looking for great projects for the holidays you’ve come to the right place! My Twelve Weeks of Christmas will bring you a project every Wednesday. I know, you’re thinking “What happened to Week 1 and Week 2?”. You didn’t miss them. I’ve created the projects but was a little delayed in posting them. Check back on Friday for Week 1 and Week 2.

Now, let’s get back to Week 3! I love plaid and I can’t pass up a red and black color combination. I saw a similar card online and knew I wanted to make it may own and this was it. In my first attempt, all of the ornaments were simply stamped on the Whisper White cardstock. On this, my second attempt, I popped up three of the ornaments with Stampin’ Dimensionals. It’s amazing what a difference it made to the look of the card. If I was going to take this card up one more level I would heat emboss the stamped ornaments with Clear Embossing Powder.

The die-cut scalloped rectangle gives the card a bit of class but if you don’t have the Stitched So Sweetly Dies you could easily just use a cut piece of Whisper White cardstock.

This card is really easy to recreate in any color combination just by choosing a different piece of designer series paper. Just choose your colors from the designer paper and go! Below you can see how this card looks in traditional Christmas colors.

In the above card I used the Heartwarming Hugs Designer Series Paper. This is the exact same card as above with only two changes: designer paper and ink color. So easy!

One of my favorite parts of the original project is the matching envelope liner. The envelope liner is what actually sold me on the Ornamental Envelopes Bundle! An envelope liner finishes off the project perfectly. Remember yesterday’s motto….”No Naked Envelopes”!

You can find the directions for this fun project here. Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for more tips on the Envelopes Dies and on Friday for Weeks 1 and 2 of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas!

No Naked Envelopes!  Why would you want a naked envelope when you can decorate it with stamps, ink and of course designer paper?  If you’ve gone to all of the trouble to create a gorgeous card you may as well create a fancy envelope to go with it!

It makes sense to use the same stamps and inks that you used on your cards on your envelope but how do you fancy up your envelope with designer paper?  Think envelope liner.  We’ve all received those fancy cards with the foil-lined envelope.  So how do you do that yourself?  Try Stampin’ Up!’s Envelope Dies.

Oh, my gosh!  There are 12 dies in this die set.  You can easily make envelope liners for four different size envelopes!  That’s not all.  There are other decorative dies for your envelopes as well as dies that coordinate with the Ornamental Envelopes Stamp set.

Envelope liners really can make your envelope special.  As you can see in the above photo, the dies for the liners only cut the top portion.  How do you figure out what size piece of designer paper to use?

The first thing you need to decide is whether or not you want the liner to cover the entire inside of the envelope.  At a minimum you want your designer paper to be about an inch below the lowest portion of the back of the envelope.  You also need to decide how wide you want your liner to be.  You can have the width of the liner just slightly narrower than the width of the envelope or you can make the liner the width of the die.  Below you can see a little chart to help you decide what size liner you want.

	Envelope Size	Maximum Liner Size	Minimum Liner SIze
Small	3-1/8” x 3-1/8”	3” x 4”	2 ½” x 2 ½”
Medium (Notecard)	5-1/16”x 3-5/8”	5” x 4-7/8”	4 ¾” x 2-5/8”
Regular (A2)	5 ¾” x 4 3/8”	5-5/8” x 6”	5 ¼” x 3 ¼”
Large	6 ½” x 4 ½”	6-3/8” x 6-1/8”	5-7/8” x 3-1/8”

To make sure that I have my die centered, I’ve marked the center of my die and I lightly mark the center of the top edge of the paper with a pencil. 

If you are using my dimensions for the maximum liner size you will want to note that you will have to do a little trimming with your scissors after you die cut the liner.  I just make a small angle cut to where the die ends.

Once you’ve die cut your envelope liner you want to slip it into the envelope to make sure it fits as you want it to.  Leaving your liner in the envelope, only place adhesive on the flap of the envelope in the area under the envelope glue and the fold of the flap.  Line up the scalloped edge of the liner with the lower edge of the envelope glue on the flap and center the liner with the sides of the envelope. 

Now you need to make a crease in the liner where the fold of the envelope flap is.  One method of doing this is to carefully fold the flap of the envelope down to a closed position and crease well.  The second way would be to line of the fold of the envelope in the cutting/scoring track of your Stampin’ Trimmer and score carefully then fold along score line.  Both methods work well.  If you are using the Stampin’ Trimmer method just be sure to use the scoring blade, not the cutting blade.  Ha!

Creating envelope liners isn’t the only thing the Envelopes Dies does.  Check back on Thursday for some other fun ideas that you can do with these dies.  Remember….No Naked Envelopes!

Stampin’ Up! is having a stamp sale and it starts tomorrow! Woo Hoo! Wednesday, September 23rd you are going to want to go shopping! There are over 50 stamp sets from the Annual Catalog that will be 15% off!

Get that shopping list made. You can see all of the stamps that will be on sale here. Starting at 12 am MT on Wednesday you can head on over to my online store and shop away!

This type of sale doesn’t happen often so don’t miss out! The sale ends at 11:59 pm tomorrow! Happy Shopping!

Well….someone apparently forgot to actually publish this blog post yesterday…..so even thought it’s Tuesday, here you go. Sorry about that!

I do love fall and colored leaves. This card was made with the Love of Leaves stamp set (which coordinates with the fabulous Stitched Leaves Dies!). Instead of using the stamped leaves as the focal point of my card I used them as the background. I used four of the five leaves from the stamp set and chose four colors of ink. The inks I used were Pumpkin Pie, Terracotta Tile, Bumblebee and Pear Pizzazz. I tried using the Old Olive ink but it was just a little dark.

It’s Make It Mine Monday so that means that my inspiration came from someone else. This week I CASEd Brian King. I love Brian’s clean and simple style.

As you can see, I kept fairly close to Brian’s original design. You may know that I have trouble with random stamping but I think I did okay with this card. The nice thing was that I could stamp over the other images and it didn’t matter. The sentiment for the card came from the Country Home stamp set which can be found in the Annual Catalog (page 89). I used one of the dies from the Tasteful Labels die set. This set of dies is great as it has 10 dies of different shapes and sizes. I love versatility!

Have you tried any Make It Mine projects? I challenge you to find a card that you like and make it your own. I’d love to see what you come up with. Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

As soon as September hits I’m ready for the leaves to change color. Of course, it’s in the upper 90’s still here in Colorado. Yikes! I can still dream of those days later this month though when the leaves finally do change color.

Have you seen any of my Make It Mine Monday posts? This is when I share a card that I’ve copied from someone else and put my own twist on it. The card above is the one I created. It was one of the cards that I created to possibly be used in my Stitched Leaves Card Class (To Go!). It didn’t make the cut. If you click on the link you can find out all about my newest Card Class (To Go!) and see the other projects I made using the Stitched Leaves Dies.

Above you can see the card that I got my inspiration from. Ok….I basically copied it. I tried making my card using the Pretty Peacock leaf that I die cut but I just didn’t like the look so I die cut a white leaf. I also had white decorative dots on the card but again, I didn’t like the way they looked so I took my Dark Cajun Craze Stampin’ Blend Marker and colored them. I love that you can do that!

Now that I’m scrutinizing my card as I’m writing this post I think I should have at least tried to see how coloring my Braided Linen Trim with the Dark Cajun Craze Stampin’ Blend Marker would have looked. I bet it would have looked really nice. Hmmm….

Here are my words of wisdom for the day…..don’t be afraid to second guess yourself. Once I started wondering about the colored Braided Linen Trim I had to get up and and try it. Below you can see how the card just “came together” once I added the colored trim. I liked the card before but now it’s “complete”. The natural colored trim on my original card just looked washed out. Thanks for giving me the idea to color it. 😀

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

The days can still get pretty warm here in Colorado but the nights are wonderful and they feel like fall! Last night in got down into the lower 50’s! Great sleeping weather for sure! Fall is my favorite season and I’ve been having a blast creating cards with the Stitched Leaves Dies.

I’ve been having so much fun because I’ve been creating a new Card Class (To Go!)! The Stitched Leaves Card Class (To Go!) is here and I think you’re going to love it! Check out the details below.

Stitched Leaves Card Class (To Go!)
$20

4 cards

No stamping involved.

You will receive everything you need to make the cards except for adhesive, scissors and bonefolder.

All pieces for the cards will be cut, scored, die-cut and embossed for you.

You will receive step-by-step instructions with photos.

Supplies you will want to have on hand to complete the cards:

Stampin’ Dimensionals
Mini Glue Dots

The cost for the Stitched Leaves Card Class (To Go!) is $20. The deadline to register for this class is Thursday, September 10th. Kits will be ready for pickup/delivery/mailing no later than September 17th (mailing fee is extra).

To purchase your class please email me and let me know that you’d like to purchase the Stitched Leaves Card Class (To Go!). I will also need to know how you’d you prefer to pay and if you need your kit mailed. I can accept payment through Paypal, Venmo or cash/check. If there is interest, I will schedule a Zoom class where we can make our cards together.

Have a great day! Take care and Happy Stamping!

Creating a project (of any sort) is a process. Let’s face it, you don’t always get it right the first time. I know this for a fact. It happened to me while I was designing cards for my Sunflower Card Class (To Go!). Check out the card below…

This card is very nice and I’m sure someone would be pleased to receive it (if I ever remembered to send out a card…). The flower coordinates with the designer paper as does the ribbon and the card stock. It just wasn’t quite what I had envisioned in my mind.

The next step was to figure out what I could change on the card. Hmmm….. I liked the idea of using the designer paper as the base of both the flower and the leaves so that wasn’t it. Looking at the flower itself though, I figured out that I didn’t like the center of it. I felt that the center was too small. Ok…that was the first thing I could change in the next step of my creative process.

What else could I change though? Cinnamon Cider is a pretty brown and Stampin’ Up! definitely needed a lighter brown in their color spectrum but I just wasn’t feeling it on this card. That was the second thing I could change. The Cinnamon Cider had to go and I needed to come up with something to replace it with. Just Jade was definitely the answer.

I think those few small changes took my card from nice to really nice. Adding texture and another layer to center of the card really helped and changing the Cinnamon Cider cardstock and ribbon to Just Jade took the card to the next level.

Don’t be afraid to make that first attempt in the creative process. If it’s not quite what you were envisioning try, try again. Have a great day. Take care and Happy Stamping!

P.S. Today is the last day to purchase my Sunflower Card Class (To Go!). Don’t miss out on making some fun cards. No stamping involved!