'EH'mazing Stampers

'EH'mazing Stampers

Bits 'n Pieces from Card Class

Well I have one more official card class to go, on Nov. 22nd, with the most recent one on Nov. 1st. I've possted three designs from classes - the wreath card, the quotation/tree card, and the blue Noel card, along with one of a set of 12 I made for a customer of mine. The idea came from my 'ehmazing upline, Kerry, who's blog is at 'ehmazingstampers.blogspot.com. Go there and check out some of her great stuff. But I digress! (as usual) The wreath card is a take on one I made last year for my own card but uses Purely Pomegranate, River Rock and confetti cream cs and stitched ribbon instead of Really Red and Mellow Moss cs and red gg ribbon; also the wreath is much smaller and the Merry Christmas sentiment is from a newer stamp set, Season of Joy. The card beside it uses the new Sidekick Sayings stamp set, Dashing DP and River Rock, Really Red and VV cs. I also used one of the stamps from Snowflake Spot for the background. A little SU gold cord finished it off along with some glue and Dazzling Diamonds. The tree was colored with markers before the glitter was added. The blue card was adapted from a design of Kerry's as well, changing the colors and layout a bit. I was getting a tad overloaded with River Rock and Purely Pomegranate so I opted for Night of Navy and silver embellishments (embies?) instead. The sentiment is from Many Merry Messages and the silver stars are courtesy of Background Basics and SU Encore silver. The tree is embossed with Detail White ep on glossy white cs, the background was sponged/daubed with Night of Navy and the spritzer tool was used with a Night of Navy marker to add some bg texture. The sentiment was also embossed with Detail White. The silver stars were embossed on glossy white with silver detail ep and cut out INDIVIDUALLY!!!! 30 of them.....thought it would never end. They were attached with dimensionals cut in half.

The burgundy/sahara sand card came from an idea Kerry used for a card wherein she masked off the edges with an oval vellum template and stamped off with the tall evergreen from Lovely As A Tree. I decided to forego the template and just stamped off, using my SMJ to make sure the trees were all in a row and properly spaced. I had made a set of 12 cards using the same plan but with Mellow Moss and River Rock cs and Happy Holidays from Many Merry Messages. I had bought ribbon from Mike's some time ago and it was the perfect olive-y shade to go with that card. So I used it. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right? But I digress again! That set of cards I sold to another customer who promptly showed them to this customer who promptly ordered a dozen for herself, but with a different color scheme. Women! Sheesh! She chose Bravo Burgundy and I chose Sahara Sand so I put 'em together and this is what I came up with. I sponged the edges and punched the corners and used another Mike's ribbon and SU gold cord to finish it off. This one's sentiment is also from Many Merry Messages. Now this same customer has ordered a set of a dozen of the blue Noel cards so she's helping my bottom line immensely.

Anyway, the card classes have gone well so far and have been a lot of fun. My ladies said the other night that they would like to try some 3D projects so my class on Nov. 22nd will be just that and in the meantime, one wants me to put on a class at her place in Aldergrove for her friends and rellys who don't want to drive to Mission. Sometimes I feel like I live in the farthest reaches of Nunavit when I tell people I live here. That's a very common reaction from those folks on the south side of the Fraser, believe me. In any event I said I would love to put on a class for the group, just pick a day/night and we'll have at 'er! I am very excited about doing it as it gets more ladies interested in SU and that's my goal. I just had to stress that I need an accurate number of people, no more than 10, and a rough idea of what they might want to do and if they're all newbies or not. Makes a big difference when you're teaching the totally uninitiated as opposed to the "oldies" in terms of what you can show them and what's just too much for them. Don't want to put anyone off right at the starting gate.

So, thanks for dropping in - we'll talk again soon.

Will October Birthdays Never End?

Just a quick note with this card, made for DH younger sister who lives in Nova Scotia. She's quite crafty herself so I always stress about cards I send her. But what the heck, I'm crafty too so I just make 'em and send 'em, hoping she likes 'em. This was done with Perfect Plum and Pale Plum cs and a stick pin from the Pretties kit. This was an attempt at coloring the flowers with an aqua painter - big mistake. Do not try this at home unless you have many flowers to waste. I was trying for a dark center getting lighter towards the edges. I guess I was having delusions of being Monet or some other famous painter! In any event it ended up looking like a dead flower but I figured with pearls and sparkly things from the kit it wouldn't look so bad. No way was I throwing it out! So I stuck it on there with some SU organdy ribbon and a key tag punch with a sentiment from Hugs and Wishes in silver encore ink. I sponged around the edge of the tag as well to set it off. Sponged around the Pale Plum with Perfect Plum and that was that. Except for the flower it didn't turn out too bad. Maybe the sister-in-law will think I planned it that way. One more friend has a birthday this week so I have to get busy with that one too. Creativity, don't fail me now.

More October Birthdays

This creation was for the husband of Joyce, one of our camping group. His birthdays is (I think) 3 days ahead of hers but I made both cards for the same day. His uses Bashful Blue and Chocolate Chip cs and a really cute stamp set called Happy Camper. The sentiment is just the words from Fast and Fun notes colored with a Chocolate Chip marker. The campfire was colored with markers also - black, choc. chip, ruby red and more mustard - in an effort to make it look like flames. The trees were stamped off with Handsome Hunter and Chocolate Chip markers and stars were added with the silver Encore ink and the star stamp from Background Basics. I lightly sponged with Bashful Blue all over the BB cs just to give it a little texture and added some Antique SU brads to the right bottom corner. Again I tried a little presentation and DH took the picture, etc., etc. Malcolm liked it a lot, especially the envie which I stamped all around two edges with the hiking boot from the Happy Camper set. On Joyce's card I stamped a Sassy Stem on the envie which looked nice, too. I really enjoyed making these cards so I must have been in the groove or something. You know what it's like when you sit there, trying your best to be creative but nothing happens? Not today; today it all worked!

Birthdays Keep on Coming

We go camping from Easter to Thanksgiving with four other couples, one of whom have birthdays just a few days apart. Perfect excuse to make cards, right? I had bought some Avon pink ribbon purse/cellphone charms that sent the proceeds to breast cancer research and so here was a reason to make a mostly pink card. I used Pretty In Pink textured and VV cs, adding two flowers from the Pretties kit that I colored with pastels and a sponge dauber. It works so great, the best way I've found to color them, and believe me, I've tried many different ways. I added a half pearl covered with DD and made a stem using Sassy Stems and a couple of markers. The sentiment is from Hugs and Wishes, the ribbon is SU pink organdy. I tried to "present" the card with an arrangement of the supplies I used and DH took the picture for me and posted it to the desktop so I could add it here (see previous post on my clueless self) so I hope you like it. Joyce loved it which was the whole point of the exercise!

Gone So Long

I really have to apologize for not posting for so long but the reason is that I am so technically challenged where computers are concerned that I cannot, for the life of me, post pictures to my blog. At least, not until today. Before, I would scan in a card and save it to what I thought was a f0lder that was actually there, with a name and everything, but when I went to add it to my blog entry I couldn't find it :( That's the truth! I would search and search and try to add photos or scanned cards that I thought were saved and I would end up with entries that had to be deleted because they were the wrong picture, or the same picture twice, or blank spaces or whatever the error du jour was for that blog entry. Anyway, to shorten this a little, DH took the picture of the treats, saved them to the desktop and bingo! there it was when I wanted to add it to my narrative. I guess now I have to move it somewhere and get it off the desktop but at least it worked and I'll let DH worry about that part of it. Yippee, I'm blogging again. Thanks for looking and I hope to be back sooner, maybe before Christmas.

Happy Halloween

One of the supervisors where I work asked if I would make some little Halloween treats for her staff and since I had just gotten a package of Creepy Crawly DP in my SU order I knew it wouldn't be difficult to come up with something. The little plastic bags were a perfect size and the card toppers went together in a snap. All supplies used are SU except for the bags which I bought at the dreaded "M" store because they were cheap like borscht and I need to make so many treats. She has quite a large staff, 30 or so give or take, and of course when other people at the place see the treats they want them for their kids, etc. So, the recipe is Only Orange cs, Creepy Crawly DP, All Year Cheer III (I know, I know, it's retired but I'm not planning to demo it anytime soon, trust me :) I also used the small oval punch, the M bags, staples and lots of snail adhesive.