Letterpress for Christmas

Posted on September 29, 2010 by mauistamper

Even though it’s still September, it’s time to have a little Christmas Speak Peek. After all, there are some pretty fabulous Christmas goodies in that Holiday Mini Catalog – wouldn’t you agree?? There are so many choices but there was no question in my mind regarding where to start for Christmas. Have you seen the Letterpress plates??

Big Shot and Joyful Season Letterpress Plate
Watercolor paper; Real Red and Old Olive cardstock
Real Red and Old Olive Craft Ink Spots
Frost White Shimmer Paint and the Aquapainter
Paper Piercing Tool, Template and Mat
Scallop Trim Border punch
Real Red 1/8 inch taffeta ribbon

Can I get an Ooooo and an Aaahhh?? The heart-breaker here is that my photography doesn’t begin to do this technique justice. The images aren’t just inked into the paper, they are truly pressed. If you flip the paper over you can clearly see the reverse image, and that deep impression gives this card a very luxe look when you hold it in your hand. The Frost White Shimmer paint was applied directly onto the image full strength with the Aquapainter for a little extra bling on the stockings – you can just see it at the tops of the two outside stockings, but it’s also on the stripes of the middle one. (Dang. I am going to have to spend good stamp money on a camera. Double Dang.)

By the way, the dimensions for this card are 3 1/4 by 6 1/2 inches as you see it, and yes we do have envelopes for that size (#107286, $7.50 for 20, page 171 in the IBC). This is a Christmas card that will truly turn heads!

And now for something a little different:

Northern Hearts Level I Hostess Set (Holiday Mini)
Big Shot and Northern Trim Letterpress Plate
Watercolor Paper; Melon Mambo and Tempting Turquoise Classic ink pads
Melon Mambo and Tempting Turquoise Craft ink spots
Scallop Border Trim and Ornament punches
1 and 1 1/4 inch circle punches
Basic rhinestone jewels and Linen Thread

I’ll be mailing Christmas gifts to my oldest daughter in Australia this year. It’s gonna be tough – this is the first time one of my keiki will not be home on Christmas morning. In case you haven’t checked, postage overseas is kind of expensive, so our gifts to her will be of the “Good Things Come In Small Packages” sort. This flat little box will ship very nicely, and I have a pretty good idea of what I’m putting inside. Can’t say, of course – she does check the blog, although I suspect both she and her sister check in just to see if I’ve said anything about them 🙂

I love all the bling on this package. Those Basic Rhinestone Jewels and Pearls are such fun to use, and I swear that for every two I pull off the sheet, one grows back in their place. These aren’t exactly your traditional Christmas colors, but I was inspired to go really bright with this project. Hmmm…since this will be an Aussie package, I guess they are non-traditional Christmas Colours.

Tags for your memories

Posted on September 28, 2010 by mauistamper

Welcome to Day Four of the RemARKable Holiday Madness Blog tour! I hope you’re enjoying all the fabulous creations that the RemARKables have posted for you, and I want to encourage you to leave a COMMENT. It’s quite easy, and really quite fun. Those of us who labor to bring you such fabulous and fascinating content LOVE-LOVE-LOVE to get your comments!

Do you like today’s projects? I’ve had this idea in mind for a while but as is often the case, it had to simmer away on the back burner for a bit. I’ve used the Paisley Prints stamp set as well as the Big Shot and the Originals Leaves #2 die to create the leaves, and I started by just stamping and cutting a heap of them. The tags are cut from Crumb Cake card stock and embellished with the leaves, Always Artichoke 1/2″ Seam Binding and the Big Designer Deck the Halls Buttons from the Holiday Mini catalog. One tag is stamped with a “thanks” sentiment from the Thank You Kindly stamp set and the other is rolled with the Bright Blessings Jumbo Stampin’ Around Wheel. The buttons are sewn on with our Linen Thread, one of my favorite “little touches”.

I used the same leaves and embellishments to create some autumn napkin rings. It was fun to mix and match the different leaves – they’re attached to a 1″ punched circle of cardstock with Tombo-the-wonder-adhesive.

I had a long string of wooden beads that I was given years ago when I was a scout leader, and they have been waiting for just the right project to come along. I strung them on heavy elastic cord and knotted it, then used Linen Thread to tie the leaves onto the beads. It was simple and fun and I’m thinking I’ll make a few more leaves and add them to what I have leftover to make a banner of sorts that I can hang in my dining room.

I know that somebody out there is wondering what colors I used for the ink and the card stock. There are lots of colors! I used Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Cajun Craze, Always Artichoke, More Mustard and of course Whisper White card stock. I stamped with Classic ink pads in Peach Parfait, Wild Wasabi, River Rock, Chocolate Chip, Soft Suede, Always Artichoke and Old Olive. In other words, I worked with whatever was in arm’s reach! It’s liberating to be random – I’m usually so focused on matching and detail, and I enjoyed stretching myself outside of my comfort zone with this.

The cutest little flower pot you’ll ever see

Posted on September 24, 2010 by mauistamper

I was in my local hardware store the other day and spotted the cutest little clay pot you have ever seen – all of 1 1/2 inches tall. It was $2 which almost caused me to pass it up, but I’m glad I was feeling extravagant:

Don’t you love it? I’m not a huge punch-art fan, but I love the flowers you can make with punches. These are made from the 5 petal flower (the pointed one) and the 1 inch and 3/4 inch circles. The tiny pale ones are made with the Bitty Punches, and the leaves are from the XL Two Step Bird punch. I had to put int a few butterflies from the Beautiful Wings Embosslit too. Here’s another view:

I attached the flowers with E-6000 adhesive because it’s super-goopy, and the butterflies and Bitty Punch flowers are held on with straight pins. I wish the little pot had been more reasonably priced, because these would be cute gifts. It really wasn’t fair – the big 4 inch pot sitting next to it was 79 cents! Ah well, I would have driven myself crazy making all those little flowers.

Make a little note on your calendar to check in all next week. I’m participating in my first blog hop and it promises to be full of wonderful inspiration.

Just little tags…

Posted on September 8, 2010 by mauistamper

The convention Make-and-Takes always include some sort of 3-D project… Stampin’ Up! likes to keep us well-rounded. This year was no exception. We made a charming pouch style package that was quick and easy:

Just Believe stamp set
Pear Pizazz, Peach Parfait, Daffodil Delight and Whisper White card stock
Pear Pizazz, Peach Parfait, Daffodil Delight and Early Espresso Classic ink pads
Versamark ink pad
Word Window and 1 1/4 inch circle punches
Crop-a-dile and Early Espresso striped grosgrain
Small flat cello bag and Sticky Strip adhesive

This is a simple project that would make a great gift and can be easily re-interpreted to suit any color scheme or season. When you open the pouch you can see the bag inside all ready for the little tags:

Look how cute those tags look in the cello bag – and they just jumped right in there! The bag is attached to the pouch with some Sticky Strip so you can take the tags out one at a time – the top stays open.

That ribbon is cracking me up. You can’t begin to imagine how many times I positioned and re-positioned it while I was taking the photos, and every time it made me think of a handlebar moustache. Maybe the ribbon is just too long, but more likely my brain is just too weird.

My Desk-top Make-over

Posted on September 4, 2010 by mauistamper

I’m an office supplies dork. I love nice pens and Post-it® notes and crisp pads of paper and colored push pins and highlighters and Sharpies®. You can imagine my reaction when I saw the matching file folders and envelopes in the Family Organization Suite. Those big bold flowers and that goofy owl are a great starting place for a desk-top make-over:

I’m offering a class this month to get the make-over started. We’ll make the jumbo paper clip book mark, the Post-It® note holder and the clipboard plus a coordinating card (that missed the photo) for $15. Class will be Thursday morning September 16 from 9:30 am to 11:30 am and Tuesday evening September 21 from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Take a 10% discount on any of the Family Organization suite products on pages 92 and 93 of the Idea Book and Catalog with your paid class attendance – a few of those items are pictured below. I hope you can join us!

Play Date Family Organization Suite

Simple Circles

Posted on September 3, 2010 by mauistamper

I brought home a lot of great samples from convention. They’ve been a source of inspiration for classes and workshops, and this card is a double dipper. There were two different cards that used the “circle-as-flower” technique, and I adapted it even further:

Circle Circus and Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp sets
Sahara Sand, Cherry Cobbler, Soft Suede, Pretty in Pink and Whisper White card stock
Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo and Cherry Cobbler Classic ink pads
Big Shot and Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder
XL Two Step Bird and Modern Label punches; 1 3/4, 1 1/4 and 3/4 inch circle punches

This is about as easy as it gets. Stamp 3 circles, punch 3 circles, add 3 little scraps for stems and 3 little leaves (do you recognize the wing and a leaf from the XL Two Step Bird punch?) Sahara Sand is such a neutral color that it takes what could be a very femine card and makes it relatively neutral. If you wanted it to be masculine, you’d need to pull out your Shades-of-Blue stamp pads but that wouldn’t be so difficult, would it?

Spooky things

Posted on September 1, 2010 by mauistamper

If you’re like me, a new Stampin’ Up! catalog makes your heart beat faster. One of the (many!) perks of being a demonstrator is seeing the new catalogs before they are released – and getting to order many of those products a month ahead of time.

The Holiday Mini catalog this year practically had me reaching for the oxygen. Not only are there forays into fabulous new product lines – you’ve certainly heard that we have FABRIC – but there are awesome products for cards, scrapbooking, decorating, and just about any kind of crafting you can imagine for ALL the winter holidays (ok, time to cool it on the caps, I know.) We saw a lot of great projects at convention using Holiday Mini products, but this was one of my favorites:

Don’t you love it?? This is a perfect solution to my Halloween dilemma. I know that most of you mainland folks buy your pumpkins and carve them days, maybe even a week before Halloween, and that they last beautifully out on your frosty front porches. It doesn’t quite work that way here…we usually carve our pumpkins Halloween afternoon. By the time they’ve spent a couple of hours Halloween evening on the front lanai with a tea light candle burning in them, they are already looking sort of sad. The morning after is always depressing – there have been years when my pumpkins were already growing things at 8am on November 1. If the trash man isn’t coming soon those pumpkins need to be well-wrapped before they get the heave-ho! Ugh. It grosses me out just to think about it.

Back to the fun stuff – the Home Office Genius Department had to paint orange pumpkins white – just couldn’t find white pumpkins in July – but I think these are just smashing! (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) Take some pumpkins and add a few pieces from the Spooky Things Decor Elements (120909 black, 122296 dark grey, $14.95), some Black Flourish Designer Jewels (123987, $4.95) and black ribbon (lots of choices there!) and you have instant Halloween. They may not last months and months in the tropics, but they’ll at least make it through the week.

We also saw luminarias done with the same Decor Elements:

And one last spectacular project – the Haunted House:

It was worth the entire cost of convention to see this project put together on stage. Suffice it to say that the folks that work in the Stampin’ Up! Home Office have an enormous dose of creativity and the gift of entertainment. This house is a Decor Accents Design-a-House (120911, $5.95) – it comes in white all ready for your own creative blast.

Time to put in a Holiday Mini catalog order! Click on the image and the whole glorious catalog will open in a pdf.

A Happy Birthday Lei

Posted on August 26, 2010 by mauistamper

Women of a certain age don’t tell their ages anymore, but we still celebrate our birthdays. First of all, we’re worth it, and second of all, considering the alternative we’re happy to be around to have those birthdays!!

Today is Robbie’s birthday and I made her a special lei. What you may not realize is that I don’t have the Candy Wrapper die – yep, you guessed it – it’s hers and I borrowed it. But I came up with this goofy idea all by myself (you can certainly tell, can’t you?) It was actually one of the first things I thought of when I saw the little box.

As you can imagine, lei are a very important here in Hawaii. There are many beautiful and more traditional lei made from plants and flowers, shell, or feathers, each invested with cultural significance. This is not one of those lei. This is a crazy-cousin-who-really-doesn’t-quite-belong-in-the-family-but-we-love-him-anyway lei. We have many variations on that too – some time I’ll have to do a post on some of the more creative versions. This one is made from Melon Mambo cardstock rolled with the cupcakes wheel, spritzed with Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint spray and embellished with words from the Fabulous Phrases set. The boxes are attached to one another with some retired ribbon. I know, I know…maybe next week when my schedule frees up I’ll post another Un-Tutorial.

If you look closely you’ll see a couple of slightly amusing things in this photo. The first is Owlie Eyeballs drying on the side of my desk. The second is my pathetically warped cutting pad from the Ribbon Flower episode (And yes, I’ve gotten my hands on some Sticky Pages and I intend to try again. But first I need a 2×4 to hold the ribbon securely so I don’t melt anything else in my craft room.)

Don’t tell her…I’m counting on her being too busy to look…but I had to post this photo – her outfit coordinated with the lei!! Happy 29th birthday, my friend.

Maui Stampers Brainstorming Goes Batty

Posted on August 21, 2010 by mauistamper

The Maui Stampers met Friday morning for our monthly team meeting (wouldn’t you love to be one of us? You can, you know – email me!). We mostly gab and stamp and then at the end we try to eat healthy stuff because we’re all watching our girlish figures. Crystal brought Isaac – she was only going to drop off some stuff and run home but we persuaded her to stay. I had a senior photo moment and didn’t take one picture of him, but he was very happy sitting next to Auntie Kellie.

We were playing with Halloween stuff (most of it was Robbie’s, and she had to work) and came up with a concept that we thought needed work but had great potential. I have faith in all of you and your creative abilities so take a look and then leave a comment on how to spiff this baby up:

Pumpkin Pie and Basic Black card stock
Early Espresso Classic ink pad
Big Shot and Candy Wrapper Bigz L die; small oval punch
Stampin’ Sponges, Window Sheets and Tombo the Wonder Adhesive

We punched out the bats and used the negative image as a template to sponge bats all over the cardstock. We tried adding ribbon to the ends but it didn’t work for us. To make the bat stand up, we punched a small oval from a window sheet and cut it in a spiral to make something that spproximated a spring. The oval worked best because of the shape of the bat.

We all think it needs more/another color – some white somewhere to catch your eye? Can’t wait to hear what you think.

An un-tutorial on the Matchbook Style Sticky Note holder

Posted on August 18, 2010 by mauistamper

I’ve had a couple of requests for more detail on some projects in the past few days. I have to be honest – I don’t see tutorials in my future. I don’t really have the patience to set it all up, and especially to do video. Ugh. That means a script, and lighting, and maybe editing, and — aaarrrgg! — a manicure. I don’t think so.

But when someone asks so nicely and tells me how much they love my blog, how can I say no? (PLEASE do not test me on this. Ask my kids: I am capable of saying no.) Here are a few photos and some dimensions for the matchbook style sticky note holder:

Here’s the basic folder. The cardstock is cut to 7 7/8″ x 3 1/4″ and scored at 1/2″, 1″, 4 1/4″, and 4 1/2″. That gives you room for a standard 3×3″ sticky note pad – it’s about 3/8″ thick. If you’re making these as favors or give-aways you can split the pads in halves or even thirds and adjust the scoring marks accordingly. (Sorry, I detest fractions – you’ll have to do the math yourself.)

Here you can see the way the Sticky Notes fit into the cardstock. The score marks at 1/2″ and 1″ make the base of the matchbook cover. I’ve used a 1/2″ circle – actually two of them adhered together with Tombo-the-miracle-adhesive – and attached to the center of that first 1/2″ tab with a brad. I put the brad through the circle in the bottom half to leave enough room to tuck the top flap in. I tried buttons, which I thought would be cuter, but you couldn’t cheat them to the bottom like that and they didn’t hold the top flap down.

Here’s the finished Sticky Note holder, all ready to go. I’m working on my September class and this will be part of it. Wouldn’t you like to come to Maui to go to this class? I have room for you…

I need to learn the keyboard shortcut for the “registered trade-mark” symbol – you know, the R with the circle around it. All this talk about “Sticky Notes” is really annoying.

The Maui Stamper

papercrafts, my stories, and the occasional insight

Category Archives: 3-D

Letterpress for Christmas

Tags for your memories

The cutest little flower pot you’ll ever see

Just little tags…

My Desk-top Make-over

Simple Circles

Spooky things

A Happy Birthday Lei

Maui Stampers Brainstorming Goes Batty

An un-tutorial on the Matchbook Style Sticky Note holder

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