It's Been A Long Time!

It really has been awhile...Sorry. Life has been busy at work and home. With the expectation of our new arrival in January, my crafting took a backseat for awhile. The "Shack" was a complete disaster since my last workshop at the end of June. I just hauled everything in from the car and left it where it was. Any new additions got piled on the heap, and the stuff that was already marked for getting rid of that was in the spare room, now soon to be nursery, had to be moved back in here too. Since this picture was taken a few days ago, I have removed all of my Stampin' Up! supplies from the cupboard and have decided not to keep them separate anymore. My reason for this is simple...I no longer need to keep my current SU stuff up to date. I've decided that I've had enough being a demo. My close friends know why. I will still continue to be a loyal SU customer and continue to post my creations, but now I can be more flexible. I'm making some progress on the re-organization, but it's a slow process. I really need some shelves installed to get everything up off the floor. So creation is still on hold for awhile, but today here is a little eye candy from my stash of samples...This project I did a while back for a creativity challenge that my up line gives our group. The challenge was to use the "Emboss Impress" technique. I used the Soft Subtles embossing powders (no longer available) instead of the metallics just to change it up a little. I also used my new favorite brads. (They look better IRL.) You can't buy these anywhere, that's right I made them myself. I started by squirting out a dollop of Crystal Effects onto some scratch paper and then dipped the brad heads into it, for the second step I placed the brads upside down into my container of Dazzling Diamonds glitter. I did leave them to set overnight. I'm not sure that it was necessary to leave them for that long, but better safe than sorry, right? If you try to use them too soon the nice "bubble" effect that you get by drying them upside down gets squished and they don't look as nice. Have some fun making some of your own "bling." Sue, this post was for you! I'll try to keep up with it more often. Take care all. Happy crafting!

New Pictures

Well I'm finally getting around to loading some new pictures. I tell you my computer is slower that molasses in winter! This 6 x 6 page is the one that I swapped at Regionals. I used the Petals and Paisleys designer series paper with Certainly Celery and Apricot Appeal card stock. The dress actually has glitter on it and looks better IRL. I'm so loving the flower punch, and I'm getting as much use out of it as I can before I have to give it back. I also used clear EP on the word "Cherish" just to make it stand out a little.

The masculine card is one that I did for my Dad for his birthday. His birthday was on the 6th and I still haven't sent it. I'm such a bad daughter. I used the new Palette O'Prints paper that will be appearing in the new 2007-2008 SU catalogue, along with my new "It's your Birthday" stamp set. Love that set. I only ordered it this late in the year as I figured that it was a new set this year and couldn't possibly be retired. I was right (for once). I can't wait for the new catty. I'm sure all of us are anticipating all of the new STUFF! A sneak preview from my upline, who went on Cruise '07, reveals new rhinestone brads, thicker grosgrain ribbon and lots of new paper! Yay! I love paper! I am a paper hoarder. I have 2 cropper hopper accordian totes absolutely stuffed with 12 x 12 paper!

Today I'm anticipating the arrival of my new Watercolour Wonder Crayons. I can't wait to get my hands on those babies! Oh, Mr. Brown...when will you get here? I was even a good girl yesterday and got all of my chores done and I can play all day if I want to! Happy crafting!

Craft Overload!

April was a very busy month for me! I had 2 workshops (one with 20 guests!), I signed up my first recruit, had my biggest month in sales yet, and attended Stampin' Up Regionals. What a blast that was! I swapped 45 card fronts, 10 6x6 scrapbook pages and 18 3-D items. I was disappointed that no one was really swapping the scrapbook pages, but I did get some extra card fronts out of the deal. I came home with 50 card fronts and a load of cute 3-D's. I did however forget to take pics of all of my swaps before I gave them all away. :( Oops! I do have a scrapbook page that I can still upload...but I just took 2 1/2 hours unloading all of the pics that I took at Regionals and my computer is soooo slow, I just don't want to deal with it anymore today! Next time. I learned some great new techniques and I can't wait for my Watercolour Crayons and Aquapainters to get here. I will do some creating then and upload some of those images. I have been steadily working on swaps for an upcoming demo meeting, and an assortment of cards for a good friend of mine. As usual it looks like a craft bomb went off in the Stamp and Scrap Shack, but really it's organized chaos. LOL! I finally tried my new Gel-a-tins Chocolate Bliss stamps and scented embossing powder last night. Mmm, mmm good! Will post picks of that next time too.

The SU retirement list came out on May 1st...I will be losing 8 sets and of course the 3 hostess sets that I have as well. Not too bad really, but that is half of my collection. I have really held myself back when it came to ordering stamp sets this year. I mostly ordered paper, ink and embellishments. Some of my fellow demos are in much rougher shape, losing 50+ sets. OUCH! I went through all of my Regional swaps this morning and due to the retirement list I will only be able to use 14 out of my 50 swaps for my display board once the new Catty comes out. I can't feel too bad though. All of the swaps that I did used either the DS paper from the Spring mini, or sets that will now be retiring. Sorry ladies...but what can you do?

I'm so looking forward to May Long weekend. We'll be headed to Vancouver Island to meet up with friends for camping and some much needed R&R.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Flowers, flowers and more flowers. A fellow stamper lent me her Spring Bouquet flower punch and I have been punching up a storm. I wanted to have a little of each of the 48 colors that SU! has to offer (excluding the in-colors, and neutrals), to play with in the future. I will eventually get this punch, but for now I'll make due with the thousands of flowers that I punched to have on hand. LOL! I've made little hostess gift bags too, with a small sampling of each color, divided into color families. So...doing this project had prompted me to use a few of the SU! colors that I have yet to try. I punched all of my flowers from scraps you see, and found that I didn't have any scraps of Apricot Appeal and about six others from the Rich Regals family. I'm not a huge fan of the Apricot so I cruised on over to Splitcoast and checked out the color challenges and came up with this card using Apricot Appeal, Certainly Celery and Elegant Eggplant. I tell you that little section on SCS is great. I designed 2 other cards to make some "scraps." This thank-you card was extremely time consuming with all of the SAMJ work for the background, but well worth the effort. I love the way it turned out. I've given it away already, but I take pics of all my work now and have a "portfolio" of sorts saved on my computer. I did a Christmas card too using Old Olive and a Bravo Burgundy, but I'll save that one for uploading at Christmastime.

Easter Egg Basket

I found the template on the SU demo website for this great little basket. It's perfect for Easter. I used the Itty Bitty Backgrounds set and random stamped with Pretty in Pink, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery and Barely Banana to create the "speckled egg" look. This would be fun to do with the new Color Spritzer tool, but I don't have one of those (yet! LOL). I colored the egg juggling bunny from Tags So Much with blender pens and the Stampin' Pastels for a soft look. The sentiment is from the Loads of Love Accessories set. I layered the tags and popped them up with Dimensionals. I love my tag punch and was thrilled when they came out with the small one to match. Let's hope it sticks around. I'm really excited to try my new spiral punch. It will be here on Monday (gotta love the UPS tracking site). I did demo this basket as a make n' take at my workshop this past Sunday, and it was a hit with the participants, but it was pretty time consuming with all the cutting involved. If you're pressed for time...I'd pre-cut the template.

Mmmm, Chocolate!

I love this new Au Chocolate paper in the Spring Mini from SU! It's so rich and creamy, just like the real thing. I am a paper hoarder and it was really hard to cut into that first piece, but once I did I was off and running. {I've still only used the one piece, and have 11 more left... ;) }The card I designed for my workshop this past Sunday was a hit and the paper got a few aahhs. I was never a big fan of the Cameo Coral, but it works nicely with the Chocolate Chip cardstock and the Au Chocolate paper. Add a little Very Vanilla and you've got a project almost good enough to eat! I had to try the tri-fold tutorial from Splitcoast last week and waited until this paper order came in to do it. On the first one I used darker colors, Regal Rose and Tempting Turquoise. I like it better than the lighter one, but I decided to do the Certainly Celery and the Pretty in Pink one too. If I demo this project, I'll have all that I need to do the second one. I used my last scraps of Regal Rose on the first one :( I do like the stamped image better on the light one with the way that the flowers are positioned and the background from this set stamped in Pretty in Pink. It adds a little more interest. I'm still having an issue tieing bows, but I will not give up! I will learn one of these days. I usually stick to knots on projects, but you need to be able to open this one up. On the inside, I've just layered the same colors from the the outside and stamped a single flower on the right hand side. Thanks for looking!

Nana's Brag Box

This is the mini album that I made for my Mom for her birthday. It contains pictures of my new nephew (her first grandbaby), my sister and her fiance, Mr. Man and I, our house and our cat...with a notation at the end that reads "space saved for future pics...no, I'm not pregnant! It pulls out of the box farther, but I couldn't get it all in one shot. We had a pharmaceutical rep come in the office one day and the eye medication that she left samples of came in this great little box. I called dibs on it as soon as I saw it for this very project (instant brain-wave as soon as I saw it!). The last page is glued in with sticky strip, so it's not going anywhere. No room for error getting that thing in, that stuff is crazy sticky! I used the Petal Patch designer series papers from one of last years mini's...man I hope it comes out in the new Catty for Spring/Summer 2007...and the co-ordinating Certainly Celery and Bashful Blue solid cardstock. I didn't do much stamping on this project, there wasn't much room for embellishments. The "It's a Boy!" stamp came in a set of clear stamps that I got at the dollar store. Not very high quality, but I always say you get what you pay for, and it did the trick. On the front cover page I used the Alphadots alphabet, punched with the 1/2" circle punch, and popped up with dimensionals. I love to use this alphabet this way. I hope my mom loves it. She'll be able to carry her "Brag Box" around in her purse and not worry about the photos getting scrunched! I have another one of these tins that I want to do the same thing with...just not sure what I want to put inside. I think I might actually keep it for myself though!

Scrapbook Pages

Well since this is the Stamp and "Scrap" Shack blog...I thought it was about time I loaded some scrapbook pages. These are two layouts that I demo'd at my last two events. The "Welcome Baby" layout was done for my Open House. I used Baby Firsts (I love that set!), Around & About, and the Alphadots set. The title letters were punched with the 1/2" circle and then popped up with dimensionals. The paper is all from the Soft Subtles family, perfect for baby layouts. And of course what baby project would be complete without a little pink and blue gingham ribbon? Blender pens and Stampin' Pastels are a great way to color an image and get the soft look you want on a page like this.

I started the "Celebrate Love" page with a 6 x 6 layout and then created the 12 x 12 layout around it to show how easy it is to step it up to the size you like to scrap. The papers and inks are from the Soft Subtles family as well for this layout. Just a bit on the darker side. Since the large canvas background stamp wasn't quite large enough to cover the whole 6 x 6 page I used a little organdy ribbon and the direct to paper technique to hide the imperfections. I love the Poppin' Pastels technique with the Heartfelt Thanks flowers. I love Versamark! I was using it the other night on swaps for Vancouver Regionals (can't wait for that!), and Mr. Man commented "What are you stamping?" It's funny because he's color blind and could not see the watermark images that were coming up. Poor guy, thought I was loosing it!

Finally!

I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator since June of 2006, I finally had my first workshop on Sunday. It was small and intimate with only 5 guests including the hostess, but a success nontheless. I had a great time, and the guests seemed to as well. I of course have some tweaking to do...but there is a learning curve to these things, and I'm sure with practice I'll feel more confident. My hostess was great and in the end was comfortable enough with me to give me pointers for my next event. Of the four invited guests, two wanted to book workshops. I have one booked for the 25th of this month and I'm meeting for coffee with the other woman tomorrow, to talk stampin'. I'm excited for my business...I was nearing the end of my rope, and didn't think I would get anywhere...I think I might finally be on my way. :) This card is the one that I demo'd this weekend. I would like to thank everyone in my life who has supported me and my hopes of becoming a successful demonstrator. Rubber hugs, and glitter kisses.

Oooh Acetate!

Well, it's official...I'm in love. With this new technique! I've seen examples of these cards on Splitcoast and just had to try it myself. I of course bought a giant box of transperancy sheets for the Shaker cards that I did this past Christmas, and used only 3 or 4 of them. They are a little more flimsy than the "Window Sheets" that you can get from SU, but they are way more cost effective. To create the window in the centre of the background stamp I simply stuck on a sticky note...no messing with "temporary" glue. StazOn is a must for this project, and it comes off your stamps very easily with the StazOn cleaner. I did run it under water after I cleaned it, as I do with all of my background stamps, just to get the ink and leftover cleaner out of all the nooks and cranny's. It's so hard to clean them properly on the Stampin' Scrub, there's just not enough room to rub it. KWIM? I'm not sure how I feel about using markers vs. the blender pens and pastels technique that I've used in the past with the Blooming with Happiness stamps. The blender pens and chalk gave it a softer edge and the markers kind of make it look like the flowers are floating in a Jell-O mold. There is glitter in the centers of each of the flowers, but it didn't show up in the photo at all. I hope my Mom likes it...I'm sending it to her for her Birthday. :)

Domino Magnets

My first attempt at making domino magnets. I think they turned out pretty good. This project came out of necessity. I opened my big mouth...and offered to do a demo of these things at an upcoming demo meeting that my up line holds on a bi-monthly basis. They are a fun idea, but the original image (Pile of hearts), doesn't use a lot of SU products. Only Staz-On, and Sharpies. So I was a little stumped. I only have one re-inker and that limited my options as it is Garden Green, and I don't have a lot of stamps that I figure will work with this color. So after a little play time in the "Shack," I came up with the "JOY" domino. After sanding the shine off the domino, I used a direct to domino technique, the background is Jet Black Staz-On...I tried tapping, and sliding the domino across the pad, but I found that it worked best when I lightly dragged the pad across the domino. It gave it the most even look. At this point you need to heat set the Staz-On, or the embossing powder will stick all over! :( Trust me! So the next step was stamping my images on with Versamark, and embossing them with Winter White embossing powder. To finish it off I used Sticky Strip all the way around the edge of the domino before I added the ribbon. I thought it would be an easy way to hold it in place while I tied a bow at the top. It worked, but I just can't tie bows. So, instead I used a few Glue Dots and tacked the ribbon in place to create a "faux-bow." I colored that back of the domino, and the "holes" with a sharpie. I was going to cover it with paper, but my corner rounder is not quite the right shape, and the paper looked a little dull against the gloss of the Staz-On. (Yes, I know it's the back and you can't see it!) The last step is of course the magnet on the back. Voila! I know the images are a little out of season...but all the crafty people out there will be able to adapt the images to suit their needs. I should add that to use a few more SU products for the other sample, it is covered with Crystal Effects and Glitter. Now, I must be off to work...got some bills to pay and more crafting "mad money" to earn!

Snow!?!

Well, March 1st and we woke up to nearly a foot of snow! What is up with that? It is a beautiful sunny day with the fresh snowfall but, I thought the groundhog DIDN'T see his shadow and we were supposed to have an EARLY spring. These little boxes are my new favorite project. They are so easy to make. You can find the video tutorial on the Creating Keepsakes website at: http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/videos/index.ihtml?idx=82. I have demo'd these at a demonstrator meeting and got a lot of ooh's and aah's, I'm hoping that when I demo this project at my upcoming workshop, they will be a workshop WOW and the ladies will love them.