25 Years with Stampin’ Up: Best of Birthdays

What a fabulous start to the 25 Years of Stampin’ Up! celebration!  This Best of Birthdays set ($14.95!!)  is a great selection of birthday images and I immediately saw the potential for favors:

Maui Stamper Best of Birthdays Anniversary Blog TourOf course, this is a Stampin’ Up! birthday, so the favors have to be Stampin’ Up! favors!  And the Sycamore Street Designer Series Paper (DSP) is such a great bundle of designs and colors that I knew it would be a perfect choice for birthday fun.

Maui Stamper Best of Birthdays Anniversary Blog TourHow about a rosette for your birthday cake – or your cupcakes – or your centerpieces – or your flowers?  This rosette was a snap with the Designer Rosette Bigz XL die.  I cut the DSP about 1 1/2 inches wide and used two 12 inch strips.  A little Tombo (the Wonder Adhesive) attached the ends into a circle, and some hot glue on our Silicon Craft sheet secured the rosette quickly and easily.

The images are embossed in White and Tangerine Tango for an extra pop, and those curly ribbons are from the Sale-a-bration Sycamore Street ribbon and button bundle.  I’ve tried curling our ribbon before with limited luck, but I had an idea this time:  I wrapped the ribbon around a skewer and taped it down (and by the way, I consider a fistful of skewers an essential tool on my craft desk).  Then I spritzed it with a little hair spray – yep! – and gave it a shot with my heat tool.  I let it cool down and success!!  I had curls 🙂

Maui Stamper Best of Birthdays Anniversary Blog TourI love the Petite Pocket die for favors.  It’s a fun size and shape for anything from pencils and crayons to Pixie Stix or even Stampin’ Spritzers!  This image is also embossed to make it easier to color with markers – I’m a messy, outside-the-lines artist.  A few quick accents and these little pockets are done – with our beautiful, two-sided DSP this is an easy project to mass produce.

Maui Stamper Best of Birthdays Anniversary Blog TourAnd here’s my current favorite favor – the Petal Cone die!  It just takes one die cut folded over on itself to make this cute ice cream cone shape, and then a pair of fun DSP scalloped half-circles (also on the die) to dress up that cone.  Our super-soft seam binding is supple enough to thread through the buttonholes, so that button is tied right onto the favor.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this stop on the tour!  There’s much much more to come – skedalddle on over to see what Robin Merriman at http://www.TrinityDesignStudio.com has created or click on the link below to send you over.  And check back next month for the Best of Love 25th Anniversary Blog tour!

Maui Stamper Best of Birthdays Anniversary Blog Tour

Sparkle and shine – and FREE INK!!!

We interrupt our previously scheduled post to shout:  FREE INK!!!

  • Who:      Stampin’ Up!
  • What:     Free Subtles, Regals or Brights Collection FFIP (Firm Foam Ink Pads)
  • When:    Now until December 16
  • Where:   My Online Store
  • Why:       DUH!!!   It’s free!

How?  There are two ways to get 10 free ink pads.  Hostess a Stampin’ Up! event with at least $450 in sales and they’re yours for free…OR take the leap and become a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator for $99!  The demonstrator kit includes plenty of business supplies PLUS $125 of whatever Stampin’ Up! product you would like from either catalog or My Digital Studio downloads – and 10 free ink pads.  Either way you win – contact me or stop by the Online Store for more information.

OK, where were we?

Ah yes.  Seriously, who doesn’t love a little bit of sparkle?  I’m not a super-sparkly, bedazzled kind of girl but I definitely love a touch of bling.  Crystal and I went all out with these tags for last weekend’s Christmas Extravaganza:

We embossed the Petite Pocket and dressed it up with a little bit of Ruffled Tulle, then filled it with a sparkly pair of tags.  It’s just the right size!  The tags are easy as can be – and pretty fabulous:

There were two classes, so there were two pockets and two sets of tags.  Here’s the second pocket without the tags in it:

And the final set of tags:

 

The Stubborn Stamper

My dad used to call me Hard-Way-Heumphreus (yeah, when I was married 31 years ago it wasn’t hard to give up all those vowels).  When I decide to learn something  new I don’t want to read the book or take the tutorial or even watch the YouTube video all the way through.  Does this create an eensy weensie bit of frustration?  YES.  Does that cause me to change my ways?  Um, no.  I guess I’m a slow learner.

All that is to offer a pitiful explanation regarding my latest absence:  I have been trying to teach myself Photoshop.  Specifically, how to create a watermark in Photoshop Elements 10.  For the Mac.  I kept finding videos that used previous generations of PSE.  I would get to a certain point and get stuck and all the click-alt-commanding in the world wasn’t getting me what I wanted.  And I got cranky…for a little while.

But I have projects to show you and  the stubborn part of me decided that tonight I Would Win.  And I did 🙂

It’s getting late and oh, did I mention I’ve been having a DISCUSSION with Photoshop?? So I’m not going to post the full details, but if you really want them leave me a comment and I’ll fill in the blanks.  This is the Petite Pocket die with the the fabulous Frightening Feline stamp (not at all frightening and only $.8.95!) embossed in Tangerine Tango.

Let me save you a little trouble, too.  The only candy bar I found that fit into the Petite Pocket is the….drumroll please…Heath Bar!!!  You guessed it?  Seriously?? I’m very impressed.  You could substitute Pixie Stix or maybe some Halloween minis or beef jerky (but UGH why would you want to do that??) – I like chocolate.

The battle is not entirely over.  Photoshop is playing with me – I’ve discovered I saved the files in the wrong format for WordPress. But I made the watermark, and I got the photo into the post, and that’s good enough for this stubborn stamper tonight.  Tomorrow’s another day, Miss Scarlet.  Let’s just hope I remember it all.

Don’t know who Eleanor is, but I like her!

I’ll tell you about Eleanor in a moment.

Yesterday morning while on my favorite walk, I spotted a new family.  It was a mother Francolin with her flock of babies, and judging by their size they are fresh out of the shell.  She was only 7 or 8 feet from the walkway that runs between the edge of the resort and the landscaping that keeps unsuspecting tourists from plunging down the rough lava rock to the coastline below, and she was making those “tsk tsk” noises that all mothers make when their assorted offspring start wandering off.

Mama Francoiin and her babies

By my count there are five, including one who doesn’t want to stay with the group.  (This isn’t the best photo I’ve ever taken as I had only my phone camera with me.)   I was a little surprised to see mom on her own with the brood, as Francolins generally travel in pairs or even trios.  However, once I resumed walking and got on the other side of the low vegetation you see here, I spotted dad watching vigilantly – and he spotted me.  He immediately gave the warning and the whole family tucked quickly into the landscaping.  I’ll be watching for them all week.

Now…on to Eleanor.  She came home from San Antonio with me.  She’s due to be released with the new catalog on June 1, but leadership attendees were given the chance to get to know her a little bit early.  Since she hasn’t been formally introduced I’m not allowed to show you a picture of her, but I am free to share projects I make using Everything Eleanor:

Everything Eleanor Vanilla Petite Pocket

SOMEONE (not me!) has been pinning a LOT of vintage projects on Pinterest lately, and you can see the results.  This is the Petite Pocket Bigz XL die, and as of this exact moment it is not in my Big Shot Stable – but I’m going to fix that.

Everything Eleanor Petite Pocket Crumb

I think I like the Crumb Cake version better, although I’m still not sure about that torn Soft Suede cardstock behind the flower image.   Eleanor is easy to please though – she doesn’t mind it either way.

The new catalog is coming a month early this year – don’t be caught by surprise.  Let me know if you’d like a copy.