Frightfully Cute Shaker Card

A Frightfully Cute Shaker Card is fun to make and even more fun to shake! Use the orange shades in Sequins for Everything to fill this shaker. They are perfect for our Halloween card! Then add a touch of gold with some Gold Shimmer Ribbon to accent the sparkly sequins. For some spooky texture, die cut the spider web with Snowy White Velvet paper. Don’t forget to stamp the bats and spider too! Frightfully Cute Shaker Card Recipe Begin creating the shaker card by cutting Night of Navy cardstock for a standard card base, 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″. Score at 4-1/4″…

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Enjoy Life in your Craft Room!

Enjoy Life bicycle card using sponge daubers, Circle Tab punch, and multiple ink colors.Each year I look forward to June! School’s out, concerts, festivals and BBQ season are in full swing, and birthday season begins in our family. (Of course, we celebrate birthdays almost every month of the year, but we’re especially blessed with summer birthdays galore!) Summer means time to relax, spend more time outdoors, root for our favorite ball players and teams, wear sandals and flip flops, and sip cool, refreshing beverages! It’s a great time to enjoy life!

So, to start the summer season off, we used the Enjoy Life stamp set in the 2019-20 Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog (shown below) for our card! This set was designed by million-dollar sales achiever Connie Fitzgerald with her family in mind. It has both great sentiments and images that can be used to celebrate lots of occasions. One of my favorites is “Wake up. Kick butt. Repeat.”  As usual, my stampers are able to use any of our featured stamp set sentiments and images so that they can make cards suitable for upcoming occasions. Here are the options available in the Enjoy Life stamp set.

Images and sentiments in the Enjoy Life stamp set include a bird, butterfly and bicycle, Thank You kindly, and Wake Up. Kick butt. Repeat.

Enjoy Life stamp set

For the Enjoy Life class, I designed several cards using this set with sponge daubers and some of the gorgeous Stampin’ Up! colors! The designs vary from easy to more challenging. We often choose to do the most challenging card first, because after a long day, we’re freshest and most attentive at the beginning of the evening. However, two of the cards for this class used sponge daubers, which were new for some of the stampers, so we did the easier of the two cards first.

Wake Up. Kick Butt. Repeat. Sentiment from Enjoy Life stamp set by Stampin' Up!

Wake Up. Kick Butt. Repeat – Enjoy Life!

Colors:

  • Granny Apple Green
  • Mango Melody
  • Flirty Flamingo
  • Balmy Blue
  • Basic Gray
  • Basic Black Archival

Crafting Tips:

  • Stamp the grass from Enjoy Life at the bottom of the Whisper White piece.
  • Use the sponge daubers, beginning with Mango Melody, then Flirty Flamingo, and finally, Balmy Blue ink in a circular motion to create the sunrise.
  • Finally, with a well-inked stamp, stamp the person and sentiment in Basic Black archival ink. If you have the Stamparatus, or other similar tool, you can use it to make sure you get a good solid black stamped image.
  • Use the Hardwood stamp to create the small strip on the left, or use a piece of patterned paper. about 1/4″ wide.

Additional Enjoy Life Cards

For the other two cards use a similar technique with sponge daubers or aqua painters to create the background, then stamp images or sentiments from the Enjoy Life set in Archival Black ink on top.

Precious Privilege sentiment from Stampin' Up! Enjoy Life stamp set. This handmade encouragement card also features the Layered Leaves embossing folder.

All of the card bases are Balmy Blue, 8-1/2 x 11″, folded in half. In addition to the Whisper White layer (2″ x 4″), the card above uses the Layered Leaves embossing folder for the Basic Gray layer, which measures 3-1/2″ x 4-9/16″.

Enjoy Life bicycle card using sponge daubers, Circle Tab punch, and multiple ink colors.

For the bicycle card use an Aqua Painter and overlap the ink colors slightly. Create a background using the Hardwood stamp in Basic Gray ink on Whisper White card stock. Punch Silver Foil with the Circle Tab punch and use the Tabs for Everything (retired) or other stamp set and a 3/4″ circle punch for the “To Do” sentiment. The Hardwood layer is 3-3/4″ x 5″. The Whisper White layer is 2-1/4″ x 4″. The Basic Gray layer frame is 2-3/8″ x 4-1/8″.

Enjoy Life in your stamping space, and be sure to let me know if you have questions about any of these designs!

If you need any supplies, visit my online store. I’d love to be your crafty coach! If you’d like more stamping news and inspiration, sign up for email updates.

Gatefold Birthday Cards

A birthday gatefold card with a square die cut. Made using Stampin' Up! Berry Burst cardstock and Naturally Eclectic paper.

Easy Card Fold Alternative – a Gatefold What is a Gatefold Card? A Gatefold card is a simple alternative to a standard card fold. It is a great choice for an invitation, or anytime you want to keep the contents of the card a surprise! Your card base is cut to 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″, just like a standard card base. However, instead of scoring it on the long edge at 4-1/4″, you’ll score it at 2-1/8″ and 6-3/8″, as shown below: Then the side flaps are folded inward on the score lines, so that they meet in the center to…

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Drapery Fold Flowering Fields

Experiment with Card Folds Every once in a while, it’s good to shake up your card-making routine by using a different technique. This card features an easy fold that allows you to see both sides of your pretty Designer Series Paper. It is called a Drapery Fold or Pleat Fold, and you can find some videos on how it’s done on YouTube. Try it with your favorite paper! This sample shows the Autumn Traditions DSP, which is a retired Stampin’ Up! paper from the 2009-2010 Annual Catalog, a card base in Tip Top Taupe, and a Whisper White layer. Whichever…

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Shaker Frame Birthday Balloons

Yay – Happy Birthday! We’ve been celebrating lots of birthdays around here lately. So it’s always great to have a few cards ready ahead of time! While cleaning up my stamp room, I ran across a whole package of Stampin’ Up! shaker frames just begging to be used. If you don’t have shaker frames, you could also use some regular Stampin’ Dimensionals around the opening. Dimensional edge pieces work well for this. Start with an 8-1/2 x 5-1/2″ piece of Watermelon Wonder cardstock, folded in half for the card base. Use the Balloon Framelit and the third smallest Circles Collection…

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Glass Block Stamping

Monday CASE of a Pretty Flower Block Card Lately, my time for stamping has been quite limited with all the gardens calling to me for daily weeding and nurturing. So I find myself looking for cards to case to get my creativity jump-started quickly. Here’s the one I found today: I love the colors, flowers and graphics. My goal was to create a similar effect with glass-block stamping and some Stampin’ Up stamps and re-inkers. I had so much fun, and this is what I created. Tips and Tricks Vary the sizes and shapes of your glass blocks and stamp…

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Go Ahead and Splurge a Little Today and Save Some Money too!

The other day I was cleaning my stamping space to make sure I have room for all the items that will be available in the new Stampin’ Up! catalog that will be arriving soon (never too early to prepare for new stuff!). In the process, I ran across some sweet little note cards that have been around for a little while. (OK, maybe a little while is an understatement.)

They were begging for a little color, so I got out my ink refills and aqua painters and got to work. After painting them, the notecards seemed a bit flimsy, so I cut off the fronts and adhered them to some Bermuda Bay cardstock, along with coordinating cardstock and designer series paper. Then I added Crystal Effects to the bubbles to give them a little dimension. Here’s how they turned out:

They were so much fun to color!
When was the last time you colored or painted just for the fun of it?
If you’re like me, it’s been a while.
Right now is a great time to try it!

Until Friday, April 10, 2015, you can splurge a little on Stampin’ Up! Products because Shipping is FREE! That’s a great deal because normally shipping adds a minimum of $6.95 to your order. So now you can use those $$$ to buy the crafting products you love 🙂

Go ahead, I give you permission.

Get a couple of ink refills, an aqua painter or two and some pretty paper and give it a whirl!

Spritzing Hooray It’s Your Day

Spritz Your Cares Away! After I played with the spritzer a couple of times, I was ready for my second spritzing adventure. (If you missed my first attempt, you can see it here). So I created a birthday card with the Hooray It’s Your Day Simply Created kit and matching Hooray It’s Your Day stamp set. So much fun! Stencil It The kit comes with two stencils, and lots of other products to create 20 cards, 5 each of four designs! Here’s what’s included:   The colors in the kit are Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay and Wild Wasabi….

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