Operation Write Home

I have been debating about what to do with some of the non-SU paper, ribbons and embellishments and the retired SU items that I have accumulated over the years. I have decided to host a party to make cards for Operation Write Home This organization provides cards through the chaplains so the men and women in the service can send them to loved ones. What a great cause!
I have set aside Friday, Sept 3 from 6 pm to ??? to make cards for this charity. Anyone wanting to help out is welcome to join me. There is no cost to attendees (unless they would like to donate a dollar or two to help pay for envelopes or to send to OWH as a donation to cover their expenses) and I will provide everything. Won't that be a fun evening!

Here are a couple cards that we may be making. You can copy my ideas or come up with your own.

Since I don't think I can make the deadline for multiple Christmas cards I thought we would focus on Valentine's Day. Wouldn't this be a great Valentine card for this cause?


I have a whole set of sentiments that can be used with this design - and lots of scraps of patterned paper!



This one will be so much fun with the masking and sponging - but so simple. And can be done with any color of card stock!


Another one that can be done with different colors to get different looks. And a fun stamp set on top of that! Plus there are a variety of sentiments that can be used with the Three Little Words


Mixing and matching colors on this card will make each one unique. One of my favorite stamp sets too!

Same card - different colors

I made one of these using my own color combos and several weeks later tried another using the color coach for the color combos. My 19 year old daughter critiqued the colors when she saw them.



This one was my color combo. I used Cajun Craze, Marina Mist and the Daffodil Yellow of the Greenhouse Gala designer series paper. My daughter said this one looked 'counrty'.



This one was using the color coach. I had Bravo Burgundy for the card and the color coach 'suggestion' was River Rock and Baja Breeze. I had some retired DSP with Baja Breeze so I went with that combo. My daughter says this is more 'modern'. It is really not a combo I would pick on my own but the color coach makes it easy to get out of my comfort zone a little. After all - not everyone has the same tastes I do and this might appeal to some of you as well. It is one of the cards I have planned for a card party in August.

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Here is a card I made from my scrap box. It uses Early Espresso, More Mustard and Cajun Craze - just some pieces left over from other cards. The sentiment is from the Thoughts and Prayers stamp set, punched with the scalloped oval and sponged with Cajun Craze. So - that got me going through some of my other boxes of leftovers and pre-cut pieces that I have stored (I'm ashamed to say I have boxes of pre-cuts that I will probably never use!)


I have about 25 of these embossed pieces from a Stamp-a-Stack night in Really Rust and Taken with Teal. So I made up some quick cards and used a variety of the Teeny Tiny Wishes on them.




I have a stack of these embossed pieces that I made up with my upline (sister)'s Big Shot before I had my own. Also had made a bunch of the butterflies so put together a couple cards with those.


This one uses a piece of Marina Mist that I embossed to show a friend how the embossing folders worked. Since I wasn't making anything at the moment I threw it in the scrap box.


This one has butterflies cut from the retired Bride paper and then inked with Early Espresso. The designer paper is the new Greenhouse Gala. All in all I think I made pretty good use of my scraps :-)

Mirror Workshops

I have been holding mirror workshops and clients have decorated the wide wooden frame mirrors using DSP and whatever I have on hand that they like. This one is Bashful Blue. She made some faux suede for under the sentiment and some 5 petal punch flowers in the opposite corner.


Here we have Greenhouse Gala with some of the 1/8 inch taffeta ribbons. The stamp set is Friends Never Fade.


Here is a masculine one. The Ruby Red DSP is retired but it pairs up well with the new Newsprint DSP. I had some of the star designer brads which were perfect for the star punches.


Another mirror workshop tonight. This time I had mother and daughter clients and they made coordinating mirrors for the daughter's soon-to-be home - she's getting married in 2011. She chose the new DSP Blueberry Crisp and the colors Sahara Sand and Not Quite Navy. The sentiment and large heart image is not Stampin Up. Those are some I had prior to becoming a demonstrator.


The ribbon in the corner is Very Vanilla 5/8 inch satin with some retired Blue Bayou layered on top of it. We used the corner scallop punch on the Not Quite Navy background for the verse. The heart to heart punch was used to make the small hearts.



We used the new ribbon punch on a piece of the DSP to cover one seam on each mirror.
For this one we stamped some of the I heart hearts in Whisper White on the Not Quite Navy card stock.


When we were done I just had to use some of the scraps to make a card :-)

Smooch Spritz for Card Party

This is one of the cards I have planned for the Card Party in August (See my Calendar on the right for dates and times) I used the Log Cabin Smooch Spritz on Crumb Cake paper.


I paired up different color combos to go with the brads I have from the old collections.
The outside cards have the Log Cabin spritzed on More Mustard.I used Old Olive, Cajun Craze and Not Quite Navy on the three cards. Not sure what my favorite is but do like the Not Quite Navy (of course those brads are no longer available - but think Night of Navy would be impressive too.)

May SU Club

These are the cards we made today at Stampin Club #1's meeting. Several were unable to make it but we had a lot of fun and introduced a new friend to stamping :-)


This was the masculine card (I try to do a masculine one at each club). This is a Tangerine Tango base with Early Espresso which is polka-dot embossed. I ran the scissors blade along the edges to 'rough it up' and put it so the 'bumpy side' is against the card base. I thought that looks more masculine. I used the Newsprint DSP, tearing on the diagonal and then sponging with Early Espresso. The sentiment is from Perfect Punches and I used Early Espresso ink on Tangerine Tango. I punched the sentiment and a piece of Cajun Craze using the wide oval and placed them like the Cajun Craze was a shadow.


For this card I used the new embossing folder, Vintage Wallpaper, on the Early Espresso. The card base is Daffodil Delight (one of my favorite colors!). I stamped the Cute by the Inch images on the Daffodil Delight also and put it on the scalloped squares of Greenhouse Gala DSP. The ribbon is 1/8 inch taffeta in Daffodil Delight (Did I say I loved this color?).


Here is another card using the Greenhouse Gala DSP. The card stock is Peach Parfait and Pear Pizzazz. I used the Baby Tees stampin' wheel (a favorite!) and Basic Gray ink then colored in the design with the Stampin Write markers. Pear Pizzazz and Peach Parfait are two of the new IN colors. The ribbon is Whisper White organza.


This was a little bonus for the club today. I got several of the new DSP papers this week and just had to play with them. I used the Big Shot to cut a scalloped envelope of Sahara Sand. The mini-card is Pacific Point with a layer of Blueberry Crisp. The Silhouette Sentiment stamp set is a perfect size for this mini card. I used Not Quite Navy ink and stamped off (stamped several times without re-inking). I punched the corners with the ticket corner.

Some new friends

One of the best things about being a Stampin' Up Demonstrator is all the friends you make. It is a great excuse for getting together with friends and family more often and through workshops and clubs you make new friends. But you also meet hundreds of other demonstrators through conventions and the demonstrator website. My sister ( which is the person who signed me up to be a demo so she is my upline) and I were fortunate to attend the Milwaukee Regional in April where 500 SU demonstrators spent the day learning new techniques and marketing skills.
There is also Stampin Connection where the demonstrators can post discussions, get advice and ideas from other demos and post some of their work to inspire others. With their permission I would like to share a few of them with you.

First is this lovely card from Julie DiMatteo. Isn't that cute and so inventive! You can see her instructions for this card and her other work at
The Paper Pixie I plan to CASE (copy in SU language) this for the next card party. You will all want to come learn how to do it.


Another of my favorite new friends is Aleisha Walls. I don't have this stamp set (YET!) but love how she used the tiny flowers to make a 'linoleum' floor on the bottom portion of the card. So clever! You can see more of Aleisha's work on her blog, A Little Scrapbook Therapy


And a third is from Mary Brown. This shows the new Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch. I plan to have a card using that for the card party too. You will have to visit Mary's blog, Stamper Camper's Corner, to see how where she got the idea.
How can you help but love these cards?
If you like making cards, scrapbooking and making new friends - and love sharing that passion with others - why not join my team? Email Me and I can help you get started.

New events and ribbon swap

Check out the Shares and Swaps page for details on the Ribbon Swap. A great way to get a variety of ribbon colors. Click HERE to view.

I am planning a Card Party (8 cards - two each of 4 designs- including envelopes) in August. Cost is $15.00. Watch my calendar blog for details. Click HERE to view.

If you have are interested in any of my shares/swaps or events -Email Me

Just couldn't resist

I was playing with the new Stampin Wheel, Baby Tees, and using some scraps of Whisper White. One of the onesies got cut off at the bottom so I decided to make some t-shirts. How cute are they?! This is using Pear Pizzazz, Peach Parfait and Basic Gray. But what to do with the bottom sections of the onesies that I had to cut off ........ I couldn't just throw them out.


I couldn't resist! What a perfect card to celebrate potty training success!


This is my attempt at the origami shadowbox. It is very easy and I am anxious to play with some of the new DSP to see how it looks. This is using Tea Party (retired).


This is a double shadow box. I think I like the single one better but it was fun to try.

My room is great!

After three trips to Michael's I have some storage cubes in my stampin' room. DH and I went the first time so we could each use a 40% off coupon. Got home and put one together with DH - went smoothly. Started the second one by myself and the side pieces were identical instead of mirror images - so the drawers sat lopsided. So took it back to exchange and picked up another cube with a drawer and shelf using my third 40% off coupon. Got the second one home and it also had mismatched sides. So.... took that one back and we tried to see if the pieces from the first would work with the pieces from the second. Nope! So grabbed another off the shelf and opened it at the store- it was correct. Finally - three trips and I had my cubes. Glad they went together rather easily.
But- I got 3 more 40% off coupons to use next week so I can play around in my room and see if there is anything else I want (yeah, right - I want it all!)
So even though I don't have all the boxes out of the basement and everything set up yet - I had to take some time to play last night before going to bed. So from 10 pm to 1:30 am I made cards. I have had the log cabin smooch spray since it came out in the summer mini and haven't used it so decided to play with it a little. I took several sheets of Crumb Cake and sprayed it with the smooch - then used one sheet to make all these cards (with a few very small scraps left over). I wasn't sure I liked the smooch spray as I kept getting blobs and not just a fine mist but I sure do like it on some of these cards.

This is the first of the cards using the smooched Crumb Cake (formerly known as Kraft). I combined it with Not Quite Navy and More Mustard. The image is from a new set called Perfect Punches.



This one uses More Mustard and Rich Razzleberry with the Vintage Vogue stamp set.

Here the Extreme Elements and some clearance hodgepodge hardware combine for a masculine lookg. Colors are More Mustard, Cajun Craze and Early Espresso.


Another More Mustard with Riding Hood Red, Garden Green and some Early Espresso taffeta ribbon.



Here Cottage Wall (oh how I will miss that!) and Rich Razzleberry team up for a winner. The inmages are Cute by the Inch.




Here is Cajun Craze and Garden Green again. The buttons are some I had and I don't think they are Garden Green but they worked. The stamp set is Thoughts and Prayers.




For the teens - a rock star- with Basic Black, Not Quite Navy and Riding Hood Red. I messed up the guitar player twice (was just using classic ink and they just weren't dark enough. I used the two bad images on the next card.



This layout reminds me of the little puzzles with the sliding parts of a larger picture. I cut the two images of the guitar player into 1 inch squares and made a mosiac. The colorsare Not Quite Navy and Riding Hood Red.

So I took one 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of smooched paper and came up with 8 cards and just a couple very small pieces left over :-) I think my work area if going to be quite productive!

Stampin' room on the way!

My older daughter got married and moved out, bittersweet! Will miss having her around but the bonus is I get her room! I am making it my Stampin' room. I found some cute baskets at Michael's on clearance that fit the bookcase perfectly (going back today to get a couple more. The stamp sets on the top shelf are just the current "in catalog" sets I have a huge box of retired and non-SU stamps that will reside in the closet. (And I have 40% coupons to buy some of their modular storage pieces next week!)

These are some racks that were in the closet. I have all my inking supplies stashed on it. (only until I get the stamp pad storage item from SU) I have a lot of organizing and putting away to do - good thing I am off on Monday. Can't wait to get to stamp in my new area and the dining room is free of the clutter (should take a picture of it too !)

Bookmark Card

I saw a card with attached bookmark by Lisa Curry and just had to try it myself. Mine does not incorporate the bookmark into the card image but for a quick card I think it looks pretty good.


The bookmark is the square in the upper right corner. I used the Medallion stamp and Melon Mambo ink. It is mounted on Rich Razzleberry - I'm so glad those IN colors are now part of the Core Color Collections. The small image is from the new Level 2 hostess set Cute by the Inch.


The card looked a little plain so I decided to do a little embellishing. I added the Rich Razzleberry grosgrain ribbon which is not available currently but there is a 5/8 inch grosgrain ribbon available in 13 colors and Rich Razzleberry is one of them. The pearls are the largest of the Jewels - Basic Pearls. I used the horizontal slit punch to make an opening for the ribbon in the fold of the card. That could be done with a hobby blade or paper cutter (the slit punch is retired).


This photo shows the card and bookmark as separate items. I'm going to have to try more of these with different stamp sets. What a thoughtful little addition for those friends and family that are avid readers!

Friends Never Fade

One of the new stamp sets in the 2010-2011 catty is Friends Never Fade. I had to play with it a little (it arrived Friday but with all the wedding activities, playing had to wait until this week)
This card uses Peach Parfait and Poppy Parade (2010 IN colors)

This one also uses the Peach Parfait and Poppy Parade - added the DSP (which coordinates perfectly with the stamp set) and a Pear Pizzazz label (another IN color) . I am always running out of anniversary cards :-)

This is another stamp from the set. This uses Poppy Parade and Pear Pizzazz - and the jumbo eyelets.

Yet another of the stamps in the set and the Newsprint DSP. I cased this card from Debbie Henderson. I never think to use the library clips but she had used one on her card and it just seems to fit in with the newsprint.