Before and After

I have been trying to re-organize my stamp room. I wish I could clean my room like I clean my closets. I take everything out, sort through it, then put almost all of it right back. But it always looks roomier after you organize it. I just have to much heavy stuff to do that with my stamp room. So I'm taking small sections at a time.


The first thing I have tackled is my computer desk where I do almost all my stamping. As you can see from the before picture, it was a mess. The ladies in my stamp club think I'm so neat. I try to tell them I only clean my room once a month before they come. The rest of the time it looks like this.


I tried to place things so that they were handier. I moved my inks from on top of a filing cabinet to the top of my desk, so now I just have to stand up to reach them. I set my printer docks on the filing cabinet. I'm hoping with them setting out all the time, I will be more likely to print pictures. I may even scrapbook a few of them. I also threw away some scraps and some 1/2 finished projects that I had started.

On the left middle shelf I have my markers, tape, blender pens and stapler. On the bottom left I have a caddy that holds my aquapainters, scissors, glue pens, mini dots, sponge daubers, stamping mist and lots of other small items. I got this at hobby lobby, it was less than $10.

On the right at the very top you see my inks. To the left of those is wooden holder for cd's or movies. I use it to hold the most current stamp sets that I use. To the right on the 1st shelf, I have my tins: Accents & Elements, Fusion Flowers, Pretties Kit, Crop-a-dile and Dazzling Diamonds glitter. The second shelf has my caddy for the buttons, elelets and brads. In the back are my prismacolor pencils. On the bottom shelf, I have my background stamps and a couple of sets that have my favorite sentiments in them.

I still have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do, but at least I have started. I'm hoping this will help me to do more stamping. My goal is to make at least one card a night. Even if it is a super simple card or even a duplicate of one I have already made. So far I have managed to make one card the last three evenings. I will post them tomorrow.

My Nephew's Wedding

One of the things we did this weekend was to go to my nephew's wedding. His dad (my brother) was the one who married them.

It was a pretty wedding. And wouldn't you know it I forgot my camera.

Here is a picture of the card I made for them. It really shimmers in real life. It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to make the card, but the card itself is pretty simple.

I used my cuttlebug to emboss each end of the card, I used my Score-pal to add the lines. Throw on some flowers and pearls from Stampin Up's Pretties Kit, tie on some black ribbon add a charm (it says love) and there you have it.

I think the feature that really makes the card is the Shimmer White cardstock. When you open the card, there is an embossed pocket (like the front) that we stuck their money in.

Blessings

May Stamp Club Projects

I seem to have a hard time posting on a regular basis these days. It's partly because we have been busy and partly because I haven't been feeling well. Hopefully things will calm down soon.

Here are the projects from this months stamp camp. I apologize for the dark pictures, I've taken them at night and they don't turn out as well as when you have natural light.

This first card was made using the "black magic" technique. You simply stamp an image in Whisper White craft ink, dry the ink, and color the image in with Stampin Up Pure Color Pencils. The lines on the background was made using the Zig Painty Pen. I'm not going to post all the details as it's late and I'm tired, but if anyone wants directions, just email me and I will send you a copy. I have them saved on a word document.

This second card is a gate fold card.

The last project pictured is a card holder. You could put 4-5 cards plus envelopes in this box. I think they would make neat gift items, a complete set of cards and matching box holder.

Well those are the projects for this month. I'm sorry for the lack of details, but again if you are interested, just email me and I will send you the instructions.

Blessings

I've been busy...

I haven't posted in a while because I have been busy. First, I helped my daughter make some table decorations for a baby shower she was hosting for her friend. And I've also been working on items for our Mother-Daughter Banquet at church.

We held our banquet last night, and I think everything went ok. I'm going to show you some of the items I made for the banquet.

First of all, our theme was "A Recipe for Friendship" and the color scheme was red, black and white. I played off the baking theme to come up with our decorations and favors.

The first thing I made was mini-recipe books. I had the ladies in the church give me some of their favorite recipes and I then typed them up and bound them into little books. Each lady received one as a party favor. Here's a picture -

I used the chipboard coasters for the covers and my bind-it-all machine to bind them all together. I used the "fat chef" from the Voila Stamp set throughout my decorations. I even put him on the invitation postcards I had made. It took me, with the help of my husband, daughter and mother-in-law about 4 hours to put these all together.

For the program, I made fans. The "fat chef" is again on the front and the program itself is typed on the back.

To decorate the tables, I ordered bud vases of red and white flowers with a black ribbon. I wished I had thought to take a picture of the table after they were all done. Anyway, I set the flowers in the center of the table and on one end of the table, I had small mixing bowls (red and black of course) filled with candy. On the other end of each table, I had either salt and pepper shakers filled with M&M's and a recipe holder or I put a small carton of plastic eggs. Here's a picture of the recipe holder.

As part of the program, we had a scavenger hunt. The ladies had a list of items they had to scavenge in their purses for. The winner of the scavenger hunt received a prize. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture what it is - I used the same kind of bowl as I used on the tables for decorations, and I put in the bowl a dish towel (with the fat chef on it), I made more recipe books (only these had blank recipe cards in them), a wisk, and covered peppermint patties. I put it all in a cellophane bag and tied it up with ribbon.

And last but not least, I had to have a favor for all the girls that came. So I made these little tote bags and filled them with candy and a bracelet.

So now you see why I haven't posted in a while. Tomorrow night I have to go back to church to help get some things ready for our last night of Seekers (our kids program) which is Wednesday night. Then Thursday I have stamp club - that really sneaked up on me. So maybe this weekend I will have some time to catch up things.

Blessings

Friendship Blooms

Here is a card that I cased from the Stamperiffic blog (there is a link to this blog on the side). I just changed the colors and added a bow. This set uses the Friendship Blooms set from Sale-a-bration this year. You do need a good pair if paper snips (the scissors with a real sharp pointed end) to make this card.

RECIPE:

Paper - Whisper White, Bali Breeze designer paper

Ink - Pumpkin Pie, Purely Pomegranate

Accessories - Purely Pomegranate double stitched ribbon

Techniques - Masking



Blessings

April Stamp Club Projects

Here are the projects we did at our stamp club this past Thursday. The pictures still aren't the greatest, so I apologize for that. I do have written instructions for these in a word document, so if you are interested in that, just send me an email.



The first card uses the stamp set Year After Year and the matching wheel, which is part of the wheel special offered this month. If you buy certain stamps sets, you get the matching wheel for free. Check out the link at the side under specials for more details. I used Elegant Eggplant and Summer Sun for this card as purple and gold are our school colors. We used the Watercolor Crayons to color in the graduation cap. We also used the distressor tool on one of the layers. To help fill in the bottom corner, I used circles punched out with the 1/4" punch. This would have been a good spot to put the graduation year "08", but I didn't have a current number set small enough.
This matchbook style card opens up to reveal a package of Lemonade and the saying "make lemonade". I used the computer to print out the sayings. The new Tart n Tangy set from the mini catalog was perfect for this. The colors used were YoYo yellow and Green Galore.


This last card is a 3x3 Scratch n Sniff card. I used a mixture of 1 part KoolAid and 2 parts clear embossing powder. If you can find the clear KoolAid, I would definitely suggest using it. We used markers to color in the strawberry, the Designer Paper is from the hostess paper pack. To get the embossing mixture just on the strawberry part, we used the Versamarker. The colors used were Wild Wasabi and Real Red. I think most of these cards are pretty straight forward, but if you like instructions, again just send me an email.
Blessings

This is it...

OK, this is my new look for now. I was getting really tired of the pinks, so now we are off to blue and brown. I'm sure this will get old after a while too, but for now it's a keeper.

Do you recognize the stamp in the header? It's from the retired set Long Time Friend. I really like this set, but unfortunately, it's borrowed, and I really need to return it soon. If anyone has the set and would be interested in doing a trade or selling it at a reasonable price, drop me an email.

Thanks for looking

Another Card From My Stash

We had our stamp club Thursday night, Terri had a good party. We had a guest - Hi Lisa - who was a first time stamper, but she stamped like an old pro. I was going to post the cards we made, but my pictures didn't turn out very well so I'm going to wait and try to retake them in the morning, if we have some sunshine instead of rain.

So to hold you over, here is a card I made several weeks ago. I had considered submitting it for a contest, then decided not to. I used the Bud Basics set on this card. I stamped it on watercolor paper and colored it with markers. I used my new fine point quickie glue pen to outline the flowers then added Dazzling Diamonds. This card is very sparkly in real life.

RECIPE:

Paper - Watercolor paper, pretty in pink, mellow moss
Ink - Stampin Up Markers: pretty in pink, mellow moss, regal rose, always artichoke, so saffron
Accessories - Dazzling diamonds, Mellow moss taffeta ribbon, SU rub-ons


Blessings

Sassy Suzie

Things didn't go as planned today, so I haven't had any time to stamp at all. So I'm going to post a card I did several weeks back. This card was made with the Sassy Suzie stamp set that is in the current mini catalog. I love the sayings that come with her. They sound like something I would say myself (she has a little bit of a smart mouth).

Anyway here are the details:

RECIPE:

Paper - Watercolor paper, Regal Rose, Chocolate Chip, Berry Bliss DS paper

Ink - Stampin' Up markers, Chocolate Chip

Accessories - Chocolate Chip twill ribbon, Cuttlebug, Large Oval Punch

Ohio Trip (part 3)

By the time we had finished at Target it was getting late so we drove on to Heath Oh and found a motel room and went and ate at Red Lobster. The next morning while my husband was at his meeting, I got up and went across the street from the motel to another Joann Fabrics. This wasn't one of the super stores, it was a smaller store like they have in Terre Haute and since I get there pretty often, I wasn't overly excited. But I did find these ribbons and embellishments in the dollar bin and the embelllishment were 1/2 off.

I also went to a Cord Camera store that was by the motel, but they didn't have a Scrapbooking or a Stamping section.


After my husband picked me back up, we had to drive to Lima Oh to look at a job site, then we headed for Dayton Oh. We drove around for a while until we finally found Marco's Paper. I had first heard of them when I went to the Heirloom show in Indy two years ago. They are also on the internet and they have a ton of stuff. But, again I showed self control and this was all I bought.

When I got back in the truck (my husband stayed in the truck and waited on me this time), he said "all that for one bag?" Even though I didn't buy much, it was a neat store with a little bit of everything. Well that was pretty much my trip, we then headed for home. Now I have to go get all my stuff put up.

My Ohio Trip (part 2)

I couldn't fit all the pictures in one post so I'm splitting them up. After we left Michaels we spotted a Target. Again, no Target close by me and I am always hearing about what people find in the dollar bin, so I had to stop in and look. I got really excited here because I found some coordinating paper, stamps, embellishments and ribbons. I bought one of everything they had.

This picture shows the wedding paper, stamp set, pearls and embellishments that all match. The heart shaped box has buttons, ribbon and little tags in it that matches the paper.

This picture also shows albums that match the paper and embellishments. The little bottle has a lot of cute embellishments. They were sold out of the pink bottles that matched the little girl's paper and album.

This last picture is some more odds-n-ends that I found in the dollar bin. The recipe cards will make great recipe books using the Fat Chef from Voila for the covers.