Sprinkled Expressions

Hey there!


Have you gone nuts over Sale-a-bration yet?

This weekend I'm having my first workshop of the season and I can't to share and experiment with some of the stamps sets I was able to preorder as a demonstrator. I CASE'd (Copy and Share Everything) this card from a fellow demonstrator, Patrice Herrera at My Little Patch of Dirt. I saw the main design before she added that cute little shooting star or finished the inside. I love this layout so much that I made a set of these to show you. I'll be making a whole slew of these soon!

Each of these cards have Whisper White and Early Espresso for my neutrals, combined the 2011 In Colors, and I used the Square Lattice and Perfect Polka Dots embossing folders for a ribbon-like texture on some of my scraps. I used the SAB stamp set Sprinkled Expressions. It's right up my alley in terms of being a fun, bold, and graphic style!

Wisteria Wonder with Lucky Limeade.

How sweet!

 

Island Indigo with Calypso Coral.

What a great masculine card!

Lucky Limeade with Pool Party.
The color names make me think of summer in all this cold weather!

Pool Party with Island Indigo.

So refreshing!

Calypso Coral with Wisteria Wonder.

Almost a tropical feel to it!

In the past, the In Colors have been great but I always had one I loved so much more than the rest. First, it was Bermuda Bay, a feisty teal color. The 2010 In Colors not only brought a revamp on the product line by lasting two years, but they are staples when I want bright, bold, and basic colors. I loved them as a supplemental set to our regular color families. With the 2011 In Colors though... I just love using them as a set. They work so well together and are so fun and fresh!

Embossing the pieces of Early Espresso so they resembled ribbon was a fun touch. I even took my distressing tool from my Cutter Kit and roughed up the edges of one of the pieces. The main image of the card (the very back white piece) is popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals. Those little things mean business! The background of my card base was made by not only using my Versamark watermark ink pad, but adding on some Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder for that extra oomph! It feels so slick and shines at the right angle. These extra step really took the card to the next level and I'm always looking for ways to do that!

Here are some close-up in progress pictures of heating up the embossing powder. It always look like I'm performing some sort of crafting magic trick when the powder melts!

It's so awesome. Just when you start to doubt whether you'll notice the difference, it blows your mind. Maybe we're just easily amused, ha ha!

Sale-a-bration 2012!

Hello!

That special time of year has come again! It's...

January 24th, 2012 until March 31, 2012!

Hooray! (Click above to see for yourself all of the exciting things happening over the next several weeks.)

Here's the catalog, it's bigger and better than ever with a nice mixture of products to choose from. Click on the image to view a PDF that you can also save and print.

How do you earn these? For every $50 you spend, you get to choose what you want from this catalog for free! This is on top of what you may earn through regular purchasing. We loaded on up so many stamp sets last year, it was fantastic! Hosting a workshop during this event and you earn even more rewards.

Don't know how you can control all of your excitement? Why not think about joining up as a demonstrator? I'm still mostly a hobbyist and most of what keeps me active is what I typically spend on personal supplies with all the great benefits and not as big a focus on running my own business. The Starter Kit only costs $125 during SAB but you also will get a free pack of Designer Series Paper or free My Studio Digital Downloads (your choice) each month for the rest of the year.

There are so many deals and free things, I can barely stand it! I'll be coming back later this week to show you a project that I made with one of my favorite new stamp sets available now.

Mixed Bunch

Greetings!

I've received my first little batch of supplies from the Occasions Mini Catalog (Flash version of viewable catalog) in preparation for my upcoming workshop. Here is the resulting card from testing my new stuff:

 

With the neutral Very Vanilla as a base, I used Perfect Plum, Wild Wasabi, Bashful Blue, and So Saffron from the Subtles Collection. The only ink I used was my trusty watermark pad of Versamark and stamps from the new Mixed Bunch.

I used the Blossom Punch to punch out the flower, leaves, and butterfly. All I had to do was stamp the image I wanted, punch it out, and then use scissors to snip pieces of the flower to make an adorable butterfly that I finished up with a little bit of curling and wrapping of Lucky Limeade Baker's Twine. All are from the Occasions Mini Catalog.

I also used Mini Glue Dots to attach the butterfly to pop it up without having a piece of dimensional adhesive showing. I just love that little thing and was playing with it quite a bit before adhering it to my card. It's just so sweet!

I hope you're starting to feel spring in the air.

Blog Revamp

Hi there!

Isn't my new banner drool-worthy? A dear friend of mine worked tirelessly to put it together just for me! Make sure to check out her Facebook fan page at daynuh designs. That's a picture I took of Tucson during my first visit here. She also made my darling signature based off of a quick doodle I did of our beloved kitty. It was such a gift, working with her.

It inspired me to clean up my links, tags, tabs, pictures, and posts. Nothing like the new year to start up some new habits, right? Let me know what you think of the new photos as I continue to learn how to use better settings and lighting, store them more efficiently, and touch them up with a little bit of basic editing.

I have also stopped using an ingredients list of sorts at the end of my project posts and opted to describe what I used instead. I will be adding links when I feel they are relevant. Please let me know if which format you like better or if you have any questions as to what supplies I used. Oh, of course let me know if my links aren't working properly for whatever reason too.

Hope you're loving the sprucing up as much as I do,

Herringbone Holidays

Hello there!

The holidays may be over but we still have plenty of leftovers to deal with in the aftermath. Oooh, especially those treats. Evil, evil treats.

I also had plenty of Holly Berry DSP from the Holiday Mini Catalog, so I decided to use it in an experiment with the Herringbone technique. Here's the result:

I used two pieces from my Fabulous Phrases to make the sentiment thinking that it could be a thank you note for a gift from the holidays. The strips are 1/4 of an inch wide.

Here's what I learned: this paper was so overwhelming. I tried to tone it down by grabbing my Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write Marker and using the brush tip end to draw in lines that broke up the sections more. Next time, the patterns need to be much more subtle. I could have gotten away with a wider size for my sanity too. My 1 1/4 inch and 1 3/8 inch Square Punches were perfect and easy for the sentiment.

I also added a little touch inside:

I cut out one of the bunches of holly berries from a scrap pieces because I thought they were darling! That's just tucked into a corner on the inside of the card and outlined for a little touch of whimsy.

Hope that you all have recovered nicely!

Occasions Mini 2012

Hey all! Cue the trumpet fanfare!

The 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog has gone live! 

Click on the image or caption to view a PDF file that you can save to your computer for future reference.

Occasions Mini Catalog

January 4th, 2012 - April 30th, 2012

Or do you want to just start shopping right away? Click here! What are your favorites? It's so hard to narrow it down but I think my favorite aspect of this mini catalog is the fact that Stampin' Up! is delving into new ideas (as always). 

I've already shown a sneak peek at these and fell in love the moment I saw them:

 Trinket Hearts!

My jaw dropped when I saw these. It's an ingenious idea and I love the scent no matter what season:

Vanilla Scented Stampin' Emboss Powder!

I am so happy that Stampin' Up! is offering these and they are so easily stored too:

 

The new stuff is drool-worth! I cannot wait to share more projects with you.