A Little Sparkle

Beautifully Detailed Laser-Cut paper and Leave a Little Sparkle greeting.

Are you the type of person who likes to add a little sparkle to each of your projects? If so, the Leave a Little Sparkle stamp set by Stampin’ Up! is perfect for you! My favorite sentiment in this set is ‘Leave a Little Sparkle Wherever You Go’. These words are appropriate for cards for so many occasions, including birthdays, weddings, and congratulations! The Leave a Little Sparkle stamp set also has two sentiments for encouragement: ‘Believe’ and ‘Make Your Dreams Come True’. The unicorn, star and flourish images are beautiful when stamped or embossed, with or without added color….

Continue reading

Crafting or Housework?

Scissors background created with the Crafting Forever stamp set by Stampin' Up!. Color the

What will you craft today? Which will it be today, crafting or housework? If you’re like me, crafting is at the top of your list! So go ahead and proudly declare it! The Crafting Forever stamp set has the perfect sentiment for this declaration, as well as several other crafty sentiments, such as We are Cut Out to Be Friends. In addition, this stamp set includes the Stampin’ Up! copyright image for compliance with their Angel Policy. Today’s card features the scissors image from this set. After all, what self-proclaimed crafter doesn’t have scissors? Here are all of the stamp…

Continue reading

Vellum for a Beautiful Day

Light Blue all occasion card with embossed leaves and vellum. It features the Love What You Do stamp set by Stampin' Up!

The 2019-2020 Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog is filled with card samples featuring Vellum. Because I haven’t used any vellum on my cards since the Good Luck card, I decided today would be the day that Vellum is the star! Supplies for the Vellum It’s a Beautiful Day card: Love What You Do stamp set Layered Leaves Embossing Folder Light Blue Card Stock, 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ Balmy Blue Card Stock, 3-1/4″ x 4-1/2″ Whisper White Card Stock scraps Vellum, 2-3/4″ x 4″ Embossing Buddy Versamark Ink Heat Tool Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder Gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder Lovely Lipstick Ink & Blends…

Continue reading

You’ve Been On My Mind

Butterfly notecard with Butterfly Gala stamp set and Butterfly Duet punch

Who would you send this little You’ve Been on My Mind note card to? Is there someone you’ve been thinking about a lot lately? Maybe a friend who is going through a rough patch, someone who has lost a loved one or perhaps somebody who is away from home for school or travel. Then let that special person know that you’ve been thinking about them with a note card like this one! Note Cards Stampin’ Up! has the perfect note cards with matching envelopes for this project. They are 3-1/2″ x 5″, just large enough to mail easily with no…

Continue reading

This Dancing Piggy Makes Me Happy!

This Little Piggy card with sentiment You Make Me Happy

Does the image of a dancing piggy carrying a flower make you happy? If it does, you’ll love the card we have for you today! It features one of the cute little pigs from the This Little Piggy stamp set by Stampin’ Up! Here are all of the adorable little piggies in the stamp set, the little clouds shown on this card, and some great sentiments! There are 9 stamps in the set, but you can cut the greetings from the images, so that you can combine them with other sets. This Dancing Piggy Makes Me Happy Card When designing…

Continue reading

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.

Wishing You Sunny Days

Wishing You Sunny Days Ahead card

Wishing You Sunny Days Ahead is one of the great sentiments in the Stampin’ Up! Sunny Days stamp set. There are several others that I love too, like Make Your Dreams Happen, and You Can Do Hard Things. All of them work well for all occasion cards, especially when combined with the cute fruit and lemonade stand images in the set. This stamp set is retiring June 3rd! It is still available, only while supply lasts. It’s a great set for summer when lemonade is often my beverage of choice on a hot muggy day! Be sure to take a…

Continue reading

Those Who Inspire Us

Using the Crafting Forever and Part of My Story stamp sets together for those who inspire us every day.

Who inspires you? Is it an artist, a decorator, or a writer? Those who inspire us need to hear from us! Whether you like their creations on Facebook and Instagram, pin their pins on Pinterest or follow their blog, they love to get your feedback! How about letting them know you appreciate them by sending a card? The card I’m sharing today will go in the mail to one of the many people who inspire me! Crafting Forever is Part of My Story! How long have you been crafting? For me, it’s as long as I can remember! So, crafting…

Continue reading

I’m Lucky to have a Friend like You

Garden Impressions Designer Series Paper and Melon Mambo cardstock make a bright cheery card! The sentiment - 'I'm lucky to have a friend like you' is from the Stampin' Up! Love What You Do stamp set.

I’m lucky to have a friend like you! Originally, this card was designed as a friendship card for a card class last fall. With the addition of a couple of shamrocks from the Stampin’ Up! Amazing Life stamp set (see it here), it’s perfect for St. Patrick’s Day as well! Send one to each of your special friends! The greeting on this card was heat-embossed to make it really stand out, but you can stamp it in black ink as well. Either way, it will be beautiful! Here’s how to create your own card: SUPPLIES Stamp Sets: Love What You…

Continue reading

Eastern Beauty: To Think of You is to Smile

A Very Vanilla note card and some paper scraps stamped with the Eastern Beauty stamp set by Stampin' Up!

Aren’t there some people in your life who always make you smile when you see them, or even when you just think about them? Using note cards and the Eastern Beauty stamp set makes it easy to create a bunch of these perfect little cards to let them know! Even better, the Stampin’ Up! Note Cards come with matching envelopes. Just fold, decorate, and mail them! Here are the supplies, dimensions and instructions to get you started with your Eastern Beauty note cards. The Note Cards and Envelopes are available in either Whisper White or Very Vanilla (used here). SUPPLIES…

Continue reading

Thankful For You This Fall

When you’re looking for great card ideas, don’t forget to look at the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog, where you’ll find samples like the Thankful For You card on page 140. Download the latest catalogs here. Change up the color scheme, add or remove stamps, and make it your own! For example, on this card, we changed the colors to Pumpkin Pie, Cajun Craze and Mango Melody for a fall color scheme, and used the Subtle embossing folder instead of the Pinewood Planks. This card works for Thanksgiving, but could also work any time of the year that you want someone…

Continue reading

Dragonflies in a Jar Light Up Your Life

Capture some dragonflies (or fireflies) in a jar for someone who lights up your life! Card Base: Cut a sheet of Tranquil Tide card stock to 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ with your Stampin’ Trimmer for your card base and fold it in half. Layer 1: Cut a piece of Delightful Daisy DSP to 5-1/4″ x 4″ and layer it on the card base to get this beautiful background. Dragonflies: Use a few sprinkles of Yellow and Prussian Blue Brusho on a piece of watercolor or Shimmery White paper. Moisten the crystals to create a wash with a Stampin’ Spritzer or Aqua…

Continue reading

Always Here For You Encouragement Card

Always Here for You encouragement card with two ladybugs

When a family goes through tough times, this Always Here for You encouragement card is the perfect card to let them know that you’re thinking of them and supporting them. This sentiment from the Stampin’ Up! Sharing Sweet Thoughts stamp set helps you create heartfelt cards, and also supports Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). How You and Stampin’ Up! Support the Ronald McDonald House Charities For each Sharing Sweet Thoughts stamp set purchased, Stampin’ Up! donates $3 to RMHC. Each year they feature a new RMHC stamp set in the annual catalog. With your help, to date they have donated…

Continue reading

Boating with Swirly Bird and Man’s Best Friend

All the Deets Do you ever sit down in your craft room and realize that you really need to clean and organize if before you can even begin your current project? That’s how this card-making adventure began – with the stuff on my desk, AND THERE WAS A LOT OF STUFF! So I created a whimsical card for you with the Stampin’ Up! Swirly Bird stamp set and Swirly Scribbles framelits. It all started with the background paper. The pack of Stampin’ Up! Naturally Eclectic paper was staring at me from the pile. As I looked at it, it seemed like…

Continue reading

Crisp and Cool – Fall is here!

This year I was beginning to wonder if Fall had been hijacked! The temperatures were in the 90’s near the end of September, and the leaves were all still green. But in the last week, the weather has returned to more normal fall temps, the leaves have changed color, and many of them are now on the ground. What a difference a week makes! Some of the leaves I colored recently have made their way onto today’s card, along with the ‘Crisp and Cool’ sentiment that just didn’t fit Wisconsin temps a week ago.   To Create This Crisp and…

Continue reading