11.26.2008

Holiday Extravaganza Promotion!


From November 26–December 1, get up to 50% off select Stampin’ Up! products. Find the perfect present for all the stampers and paper crafters in your life—or just stock up for yourself!

Click here to order
(click on "shop now" in the upper right-hand corner)




11.25.2008

Holiday Extravaganza!


Get excited! Stampin' Up! is offering a huge Holiday Extravaganza sale this Wednesday, November 26th-Monday, December 1st. Be one of the first to check out the sale on my Stampin' Up! website on Wednesday morning! Quantities will be limited for these special sales! Don't miss out!





11.24.2008

I'll Be Back...

Just wanted to let you all know that I have been extremely busy, especially with school! I am stamping a bit--but only Ben's graduation invitations and my Christmas cards. I am mostly working on a 20-page paper that is due next week (agghhh!!). I would post it here for you to read, but I have a feeling you wouldn't enjoy it much :-) Unfortunately it's about exercise training at altitude and not stamping...so sad!

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and hopefully I'll be back posting soon! In the meantime, here are a couple pictures of the puppy Ben & I will be getting for Christmas (yay!!)






11.18.2008

Quick & Easy Christmas Gifts

Here are the projects we completed at the Christmas Gifts class tonight. The Topeka version on Thursday night will have slightly different projects.

2x2 Box (filled with Hershey's Hugs)



Click here to download the pattern for this box.


Cello Bag (with 4 covered York Peppermint Patties)







I forgot to order actual cello bags, so I improvised and we used clear envelopes instead. These actually work really well, and I liked how the project turned out!

Pillow Box (filled with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups)



This box turned out really simple, but absolutely perfect for mass-production :-)

Pop-Top Can (filled with Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses)



I simply bought the small cans of fruit from the store (they come in packs of 4) and used a can opener to open the bottom of the can. I cleaned out all of the insides, filled the can with candy and a little note from me and resealed the bottom with Crystal Effects. The person who gets the gift can then "pop the top" and find a personalized message along with some candy for a nice little gift. People are always surprised to find that you've actually filled the can!

Happy Stamping!



11.17.2008

Same design...different card!

Well, I was right! I used the design again :-) Ben is graduating this December, and we decided that instead of buying the terribly over-priced graduation announcements, that I could just make invitations instead. Ben loves silver, and I (of course) had to use purple for K-State. I really like the way this card turned out (and so does Ben!)



I'm just hoping that I'll be able to get all of these made along with all our Christmas cards...hmmm...I may just have to quit doing homework. Christmas is SO much more important! :-)

Stamp Sets: Year After Year (retired), Hugs & Wishes
Colors: Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Brushed Silver

Happy Stamping!



11.16.2008

Merry Christmas

As you all know quite well, I love Dannie's blog. I love her style and I find myself copying her cards quite often. Today was no exception! I simplified her design a little bit because I was hoping to make a card that I could use for my Christmas cards, but I'm just not sure that this is the design I want. Nevertheless, I really like this design and I'll probably use it again:



Stamp Set: Season of Joy
Colors: Old Olive, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White

Happy Stamping!



Christmas Card Stamp 'Til You Cramp

If you’d like to make your own Christmas Cards this year, but you really don’t have the time to design and create all your cards, then this class is for you! You'll make 60 - yes, 60 cards in only 3 hours while enjoying Christmas music and snacks!

Class fee is $60 ($1 per card) and includes the I Wish Simply Scrappin’ kit (p. 174), 1 package of Stampin’ Dimensionals, and 60 Whisper White envelopes. Examples of a few of the cards we'll be making are included at the end of this post.

Topeka Class Times
Sunday, November 30th, 12-6p (any 3 hour period) OR
Thursday, December 4th, 5-10p (any 3 hour period)

Manhattan Class Time
Saturday, December 6th, 9a-6p (any 3 hour period)

We must have your prepaid reservation by Tuesday, November 18th to hold your spot and have time to prepare your card kits.

We will be using the Snow Swirled stamp set (p. 32). You can add this stamp set to the class for $24.95 plus shipping and tax or you can share our set.

You must provide your own adhesive. We recommend at least 2 snails to complete all 60 cards. We’re glad to order it to have at class for you, just let us know!

A pair of scissors and a bone folder will also be helpful for you to bring.






11.13.2008

Wishing You a Happy Heart

Well, I finally had a few minutes to sit down and stamp something today! I am totally at a loss for creative ideas of my own, so I fell back on Julee's Mojo Monday sketch and Kristina's Color Inspiration and came up with this little creation:



I bought this stamp set months ago and just haven't had the chance to use it yet! I have a feeling that I'll end up using more after Christmas when I'm in full Valentine's Day mode :-)

I copied Dannie's technique of stamping an image on the inside again. I really like how it turned out:



As always, thanks for looking! Sorry again for my absence, but I can't promise better posting as the looming holidays and end-of-semester projects and tests are beginning to overwhelm me :-)

Stamp Set: A Happy Heart
Colors: Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Kraft, Whisper White

Happy Stamping!



11.12.2008

Christmas Gifts






Do you have a long list of people that you'd like to give a small gift to this Christmas season? Maybe you'd like to make a little something that is fast, easy, and cost effective?

Come on Tuesday, November 18th from 7-10p and make a eight cute and easy candy-filled Christmas gifts (2 copies each of 4 different gifts) and receive detailed instructions for each gift (including a supply list). The registration fee is only $20 and includes all the supplies (including the candy) for these 8 gifts!

Please register for this class by emailing me at cari@ksu.edu by Saturday, November 15th to reserve your spot. You won't want to miss out on this class! I'll see you there!



11.06.2008

Birthday Wishes

To share a glimpse of how busy my life has been recently, I will ashamedly confess that I received a Stampin' Up! order in the mail on WEDNESDAY and did not get around to even opening it until this evening...even despite the fact that I had received these new Filigree Designer Brads!



Thankfully, despite my delay in opening the box, everything that I ordered was still there. They had not yet disappeared due to my lack of time to get everything out and play immediately. I worried that my Stampin' Up! orders had become too accustomed to being opened the minute they hit the porch!

I was so excited to use my new brads, and I was even more excited when I visited Dannie's blog and found a super-cute card to copy!



I do not have a very good assortment of DSP, so I used the Old Olive Patterns DSP that I do have and improvised for the rest of the card. I really liked the striped DSP that Dannie used on her card, but of course I had no striped DSP to use :-( Instead I used my scoring blade to give the look of striped paper! It was so easy and fast! Here's an up close picture of my stripes (and my new brads!)



I subscribe to Dannie's blog (because she always has such great ideas!), and I've noticed that she often stamps a small image on the inside of her card. I really like that technique, so I copied it for this card as well:



I hope you have a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Stamp Sets: Eastern Blooms, Upsy Daisy
Colors: Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Old Olive

Happy Stamping!



11.05.2008

thanks

So last week on Halloween, Ben & I hung out with a guy (who Ben met in one of his classes) and his wife--we'll call them Jack and Jill. It was our first time hanging out with this couple, and we were really getting along and having fun. We had decided to carve pumpkins that night. To make a long story short, I ended up having to buy baking pumpkins instead of jack o'lantern pumpkins (because I was shopping too late). I mentioned to Jill that we should try to save some of the insides so we could bake something good later. Jill thought it would be fun to bake a pumpkin pie that night. So she ran to the store to buy a few ingredients. Unfortunately, the pie-making venture turned out to be a little more difficult than we expected... We ended up staying until 12:30a, baking 4 pumpkin pies (which all baked for 2 hours and still weren't done), and making a DISASTER of their dining room & kitchen (picture pumpkin parts everywhere!). We felt bad for having stayed so late and for making a total mess of their house, so I made this thank you card to send to them:



I hope they'll invite us over again sometime. But in the meantime I wrote that they could come over to our house and bring some glitter if they wanted :-)

Stamp Set: Baroque Motifs
Colors: Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Baja Breeze, Tangerine Tango, Old Olive
Tools: Big Shot with Leaves #2 Bigz die

Happy Stamping!



11.01.2008

Ready, Set, Snow!

Well, it's November now--time for Christmas!! Whoo-hoo! Wait...I may have missed a holiday...or a whole month. Oh well! I can barely contain my excitement! I don't know what it is about Christmas that I love so much--the crazed shoppers, family chaos, scraping icy windows in the morning, having to wear a million layers...I don't know why it's so much fun for me :-) As my mom always sings when things start to get stressful or crazy around the holidays, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..." I just can't wait!

Okay, so here's a card that was way too much fun to make:



I first cut the scallop circle with the Big Shot and then measured the size of the circle with my Coluzzle. Then I cut a partial circle from the front of the card in the same size as the scallop circle. Using my paper trimmer I just cut from the end of the semi-circle to the corner. After stamping and punching out the snowflake, I used the Crop-a-Dile to emboss little circles around the punched circle. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

I was so excited to get to use so many fun tools for this card! The basic design of the card was copied from the catalog page 54. Check it out! It's really cute too :-)

Colors: Pacific Point, Bashful Blue, Riding Hood Red, Old Olive
Stamp Set: Best Wishes & More

Happy Stamping!