On Line Ordering Is HERE!!

Yes, you read that right! and what does it mean? Stampin' Up! finally has set up an online ordering system. It is now easier than ever to order your stamps and stamping supplies and you can do it ANY TIME, day or Night!!! Go to your Demonstrator's Business website and click the Shop Now button. Don't forget you earn FREE merchandise when you're order totals $150 or more!!! Here is my site-visit it today! Hugs!

Quickies, That Really Weren't Quickies...

Okay, so this first one was way quicker than the next one I'll show you, BUT they were both supposed to be faster cards than they were. I really was only supposed to spend 20 minutes in my craft room. That turned into an hour! The Limited Supply Challenge over at SCS on Friday was called Orange Roasters-you were supposed to create a card with a coffee related image and use any shade of orange you desired. I pulled out my Washington Apple dsp and my Pun Fun set and this is what came of that. I actually quite like this card. I think my favorite part of it is the awesome button accent. Man, I love those new buttons in the Button Bouquet!! I paper pieced the cuppa joe with some pumpkin prints dsp. This second card, well, let's just say it had a life of it's own. I was reading my friend Becky's blog and saw the awesome card she did for the Limelight sketch challenge. I was so focused on the keep it simple part, that I wasn't able to. For some reason I kept adding layers and then I couldn't make the full sketch work for me. Literally, I think I re-did this card 4 times and I don't re-do cards often. I do like the end result, but I felt like it strayed from the sketch, oh, which is here BTW- The sketch. Again, I used the Washington Apple dsp (this is my second favorite print in the pack!) and the Pumpkin prints dsp. Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back with a scrapbook page tomorrow. Hugs,

My Class!

I finally held my New Catty Kick-off Class yesterday. I had a blast with the girls that showed up and I think they enjoyed themselves too. It is always nice to catch up with friends you haven 't seen awhile and spend extra time with those you do see on a regular basis. I had both types of friends (and family ) show up. The day didn't turn out to be nearly as hectic as I thought it would be. The boys were cooperative, and respectful all morning as I kept telling them not to make a mess of the house. Here are the projects we did. The two cards you have seen before, well if you have been following my blog you might remember them. They got to make two of each of those. We also made the cutest book mark. I got the idea from Convention. Brent Steele showed us some samples of bookmarks using the Hodge Podge Hardware pieces. My sample shows mine made with the square label holder, but the girls actually used the designer label frame. We stamped on shimmery white cs with the Owl Together Now stamp set and colored them in with blender pens. We accented them with the Flower Fusion Too felt flowers and the Baja Breeze striped grosgrain ribbon. The other quick little project we made was a Scallop mini envelope with matching note card. This gave the girls a chance to "play" with the Big Shot and one of the SU exclusive dies. We used the Urban Garden dsp and Kiwi Kiss striped grosgrain. The note card was a little 2x3 Kiwi Kiss card stamped with the Easter Blooms cherry blossom stamp in versamark. I love this hobby and it is even better when I can share my love for stamping with others. Happy Monday! Hugs,

Here's the Finished page...

If you read yesterday's post then you know what I am talking about. I felt like I was a bit wordy yesterday so I'll keep it short today. Plus, I have a FULL day today. We have church this morning, then both older boys play soccer at 1pm and then I am doing my Catty Kick-Off Class at 3pm! To top it all off, I am doing all this alone. Tim works today!! What was I thinking?...Back to the page. I used the second sketch from the Got Sketch 102 class for this page. It called for 3 4x6 pictures. I was able to cut down two photos to a 3x2 size and then I added them to one of the slots in the sketch. This is a great way to add more pictures to your page, plus make a sketch work for you that might not look to fit the number of pictures you want to use. I used the Stampin' Up! Simply Scrappin' Kit, I Wish to create this page. The sticky die cut strips and embellishments made this page come together in minutes. Oh, and see, I did end up using all 5 pictures I had sorted. I cut two of them down to smaller sizes and then cut out the Christmas tree and actually used that as an accent. Hugs,

The Process...

No one asked, but I thought I would share anyway. I hear so many times how people don't scrapbook because they don't even know how or where to get started. It can seem overwhelming (even to me) when you are staring at piles and piles of pictures! I admit it, since I went digital I don't print off my pictures very often. I also am one of those people who still print almost every picture I take. Now I don't scrap all those photos, but I like to have the hard copy of all the ones I have taken. I probably print my pictures about 4 times a year, maybe only 3. As you can see that leaves me with LOTS of photos at one time to be sorted. I thought I would walk you through my process. About a month ago I had 260 pictures printed and delivered to my door. Needless to say, it has taken me this long to actually sort them and figure out which ones I want to scrap. I do mine chronologically and by event. The next step for me is to put them into piles according those events. I usually do this while I am watching TV. I find it a great task to do while DH is actually watching sports. That way I can pretend I'm interested in what he is watching and also be productive at the same time. hehehe! Once I have all my piles, I then go ahead and pick up a pile (event) and then narrow down this pile into which pictures I want to actually scrap. So for this example, I picked up the pile of pictures I took while we were trimming our Christmas Tree last year. I think there were something like 12 photos total (picture here to your right). As I went through all 12 pictures, I was thinking about what my layout would look like. I knew I wanted to keep this even to a single page spread, so I know that 3 or 4 pictures are all I can fit on the page. I also pick the pictures that will best help tell the story of the event. After all, that is why I scrapbook-to tell the story of my family. To finish the sorting, I went from 12 pictures down to these 5. Now when I actually go to scrap this page, I still may not use all 5 pictures, but I know these are the best ones for the job. I put these 5 pictures into my memory keeper box (mine is from Creative Memories, but you can use any box with dividers to hold you pictures until you are ready to scrap them) and then move onto my next pile. I do this until all my piles are gone. I put the pictures I am not scrapping back into the photo envelope (the one they came in). I need to figure out a good way to store all of those pictures, but for now they sit in the envelopes. Check back tomorrow and see the end result of this page! Since I am doing the Got Sketch ?102 class, I already know how these pictures will go on the page. I hope this motivates some of you to pull out those stacks of photos, sort through them and at least figure out which ones you want to scrap. To me, this is the hard part-a long tedious task that I don't enjoy. I get this out of the way so I can get to the fun part-the creative process of putting it all on a scrapbook page!

Hugs,

I love Polka Dots!

Yes, I do. They are almost always the right accent to any card. I found some leftover close to cocoa dsp (retired SU pack, can't remember the name of it) and used it on two different cards this week. Thursday was the Unity Stamp Co.'s Hip Hop party so I played along with two of their challenges. The first challenge was to use the colors of Unity. If you have been to their website and have seen their logo you know it is full of dots and created with browns and you turquoise! The next challenge just called for a card with polka dots-any kind, color, and any amount! I kept mine fairly simple since I wanted to highlight the sentiment. Unity has these awesome single stamps with beautiful, motivational words of wisdom. This is one of my favorites and at some point I will create a framed piece of artwork with this quote. I used markers to color the different words. See how I off-set the image and mounted it crooked. I did that on purpose. You know why? Yep, you guessed it. I stamped this image completely crooked. I was so aggravated with myself and instead of redoing the whole thing I decided I could mount it this way and no one would know (well, except you all, since now I told you,lol!). I always tell my customers, mistakes aren't mistakes, just a reason for embellishment (and in this case, creative placement!). Hope you have a wonderful Friday! Hugs,

Procrastination at It's Best...

Well, I don't know about this being my best work, but I sure am good at procrastinating! Remember the Papertrey Ink blog hop the other week? Well, there is a random drawing for 3 lucky participants and each winner gets to pick a FREE set. Guess what? I WON!!! I was soooo excited and still can't believe it! The cool thing is I was able to get the cute Owl set that was released last month!!! I really wanted it and for once I was really good and didn't order it. Free is even better! Thanks, PTI! I got the set last week and this is the first time I've inked him up. I don't think I have ever waited so long to put ink on a new stamp. I have been busy with all my new Stampin' Up! toys and getting swaps done (that is what I am supposed to be finishing up today and why I was talking about procrastination in the first place) that this little cutie had to wait. I used the sketch challenge over at SCS for this card. It is actually a regular, go-to sketch I use all the time. I love the kiwi, tangerine and choc. chip color combo! I think it turned out great here. Hugs,