Changes Coming..............Dates to Remember

Well, it's the end of another month and heading into one of the most exciting times of the year!  National Scrapbooking Month is officially over at midnight tonight and along with it Stampin' Up's amazing 30% Off discount on a variety of scrapbook products ends too.   But don't be sad, we'll still be doing scrapbooking and Stampin' Up! will still have some amazing promotions heading your way.

In fact, tomorrow June 1st will be super exciting as the "Last Chance Item Lists of Supplies and Accessories will be posted", and so begins the count down to July 1st when the 2011/2012 Idea Book and Catalogue is launched.   Check in daily on my shop now button because the lists will be updated daily.

Masculine Cards

Yesterday I held a Men's Card Class.  Not too many came but with the Canucks Hockey game playoffs happening and the day after a long weekend what can you expect.  Here's what they missed:

Making Masculine Cards Just Got Simpler

I often hear from my customers that they really struggle when it comes to making masculine cards.  This has been a real dilemma for me too.  Usually at this time of year I'm really struggling to come up with masculine cards for upcoming birthdays and Father's Day, but not this year!  I have to tell you I'm absolutely thrilled with the Open Sea and Sail Away stamp sets featured in Stampin' Ups! Summer Mini Catalogue.  These stamp sets along with the beautiful Nautical Expedition Designer Series Paper have made it super easy for me to design masculine cards for these occasions. 

On Tuesday night I'm hosting a "Men's Card Class" which features three cards made from these sets and the wonderful designer series paper. I think you'll agree these cards would work great for Father's Day or any other masculine occasion.  I'll be posting pictures of the individual cards and details following the class so come back and visit again soon.

MDS: Kids in the Park

Recently I've been having so much fun with My Digital Studio turning my niece's and nephew's photos into scrapbook pages, and today was no exception.  Here are two more pages made with existing templates in MDS.  Hope you like them.

Monkey56: A Kid Card + Sketch Challenge and Guest Designer

Last week I posted a My Digital Studio Scrapbook layout for the A La Card Monkey54:  challenge.  My entry was a picture of my dog Murphy and I was absolutely thrilled to find out I was a runner up along with Heidi and Lucianna ........whoo hoo!!!!! The blog candy was won by Kathy the Paper Stamper for her absolutely fabulous "Serengeti" design.   Anyway one of the great things about being a runner up on this site  is you're invited to be a Guest Designer for one of the next challenges, and here it is, Monkey56: a Kid Card + Sketch. 
I have to say this challenge really had me putting on my thinking cap as I don't make a lot of kid cards and as such, don't have many kid orientated stamp sets or designer papers. While I was struggling with what's current and what kids like inspiration finally hit me. My soon to be 3 years old nephew loves all things Sesame Street so why not make him a card based on one of the Sesame Street characters.  Forgive me but not having kids and being relatively old in the what's "hip" department I couldn't remember what the characters looked like apart from Big Bird so I had to hunt for some pictures before tackling this sketch.  In the end I was able to design this card for him by using Stampin' Ups beautiful Celebrations DSP, Brights Collection cardstock, and a variety of circle punches.  And here is the card:

What do you think?  I think Ian will love it.  The outside is pretty straight-forward and follows the sketch but I've added a twist on the inside of the card.  I've repeated the character on the inside but scored across the top three scallops so that it folds back revealing a birthday message. layered underneath it.

Closeup of Embellishment on Card Front.  Since it's Ian's 3rd birthday I added some circles stacked with dimensionals and a # 3 cut out from the DSP to lend a focal point and provide interest to the card front. 

This is the inside of the card.  The face lifts up to reveal a hidden message.

This shows the label flipped up and the Happy Birthday stamp from the Punch a Bunch set in Pear Pizzazz.

Recipe:

Sketch:  A La Card Monkey  Monkey56:  Kid Card and Sketch

Cardstock:  Pacific Point, Real Red (card base), Pear Pizzazz, Whisper White, Black, Pumpkin Pie

DSP: Celebrations Designer Series Paper Pg. 173 IB&C  #117164

Ink:  Pear Pizzazz

Stamp Set:  Happy Birthday Sentiment from Punch Bunch (Occasions Mini)

Accessories:  Pear Pizzazz Satin Ribbon, Scallop Circle Punch, 3/4" 1" and 11/4" circle punches, 2" and 2  1/2" Circles die cut, 3 large gold brads (non  SU).

                  

A Visit to the Park

I thought I'd try my hand at designing some more My Digital Studio (MDS) scrapbook pages today.  These pictures feature my darling niece Laura on a recent visit to Lion's Park.  Isn't she sweet?  I wanted to see how easy it was to do two different layouts using the same photo, so I chose a predesigned template from the MDS library and just dragged and dropped the same photo in the templates.  I've changed up some of the embellishments and text and here is the result.  Let me know which is your favourite of the two. 

Love is in the Air

It's that "Love" time of year again, with lots of weddings, anniversary's and engagement parties coming up.  With that in mind I thought I better start putting some ideas together for cards so I'll have a good supply on hand, and not be doing things at the last minute.  

Usually I make a more traditional card featuring flowers or scrolls, but when I saw these two adorable birds on Laura Lipe's blog, I knew I just had to case her card.  Don't you just love punch art? 

Closeup of the love birds.  The punches used were the ornament punch for the base, the round tab punch (you could also use the Butterfly punch for this section of the body), small heart for the beak, wings are from the 2-step bird punch, and the feet and head feathers are fromthe small flower in the Boho Blossoms punch.

 My second card is based on a two-step card made from a 6 x 6 sheet of cardstock that I've attached to a 6 x 4 1/2 card base.   I used Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzazz and Poppy Parade Incolors for the DSP, cardstocks and ink.  The Flower stamp is from the Punch Bunch stamp set and the Love sentiment is from one of the recent Valentine stamp promotion sets.

Life's a Bed of Roses for Monkey Challenge #55: Flowers + a Sketch

Wow look at this bright and inviting card sketch from A La Card Monkey. It's Monkey55:  Flowers + Sketch challenge. 

The moment I saw this sketch I knew I loved it and knew I had to make it.  I think you'll agree that the simplicity of this layout  would work for many different occasions. 

For my version, I chose to add some 3-dimensional flowers made with the scallop circle and 1 1/4" circle punches insteading of stamping a flower image.  I pulled the colour combo from the beautiful Springtime Vintage Designer Series Paper (DSP) featured in the Mini Occasions catalogue (Jan-Apr 2011). TIP:  It's so easy to match up your coordinating cardstock and ink because underneath the DSP pictures in the Stampin' Up! catalogues, there's always a listing and colour swatch of the matching colours. If you haven't used this feature check it out...........no more searching.

I love the richness of Rose Red so chose it as my base cardstock and then  layered it with Crumb Cake.  For contrast I was able to incorporate both sides of the DSP for the next layer and the flower centers. Accents in Rose Red and Crumb Cake were added for the straight and scalloped edge pieces as well as the 3-D flowers. The Petal Pizzazz leaves for the flowers were cut using the small oval punch and then embossed with the Square Lattice Embossing folder and leave edges were sponged with Always Artichoke ink.  For the sentiment I used the medium jewelry tag punch and Pear Pizzazz cardstock stamped with Always Artichoke ink.  To finish off this card I used smooch spray to give it some shine.  Here's my sample.

Closeup of the Flowers.  Scallop punched in Rose Red and then scallops cut to give it some dimension.

Closeup of the tags cut using the Medium Jewelry Tag punch.

View of the inside of the card. 

I hope you like my version of this sketch both inside and out, and leave me a comment. 

Carry Over Items from the Occasions Mini Catalogue

April 30th and the end of the Occasions Mini Catalogue arrived pretty quick.  I debated about putting in a last minute order for the Tulip Frame Embossing Folder but never got around to it, and was so disappointed I missed the boat.  Today I'm wearing a big smile because I have another chance to order that folder. Stampin' Up! released a notice that they will be carrying over some of the items, including the Tulip Frame, so I'm in luck.

If you'd like to check out what's on the carry over list just click on this link. 

Monkey54 Any Animal+ Sketch Challenge

Okay so I love this "My Digital Studio" scrapbooking stuff.  I decided to play along with this weeks challenge over at Ala Card Monkey  which was to design a scrapbook page or card using the Monkey Sketch 54 and an animal of my choosing.  Well that was a no brainer, I quickly pulled together a scrapbook page of my little mutt Murphy.  Our pride and joy, and here is my sketch.

Hope you enjoyed this.  It was fun to do and so fast.  

ScrapSketch30 Challenge Using My Digital Studio

In case you haven't heard, May is National Scrapbooking Month, and this upcoming Saturday, May 7th is National Scrapbooking Day. Whoo Hoo!!  So in honour of this special month, I thought I would take advantage of what some of the very talented Stampin' Up Demonstrators who are experienced scrapbookers are doing with My Digital Studio. One of those great scrapbooking gals is Alesha Walls a certified instructor for "My Digital Studio". This month Alesha is issuing a challenge on her blog to get out there and scrapbook.  She'll be adding a new scrapbooking sketch every day.  I decided tojump right in and try my hand at her ScrapSketch30 Challenge and show you how easy it is to create a scrapbook page. Here is Alesha's sketch.

And here is my rendition of it. What do you think?  It took me less than half an hour to complete this sketch, and thanks to Alesha's great instructions on how to add a picture to a punched image, I was able to insert my pictures into the two punched hearts.  

Laura and mom Kim at their recent recital.  She looks so sweet in her little white Tutu!

If you would like to learn more about My Digital Studio just visit my Stampin' Up! web page and check out this flyer. There is so much that you can do with this product, and I would be happy to share my experiences in using it with you.  Also don't miss Stampin' Ups! National Scrapbooking Promotion to take advantage of all the great savings on products and on becoming a demonstrator during this promotion.

Welcome New Baby Boy!!!

A very good friend of mine recently became a Grandma for the first time.  She has been so excited all through her daughter's pregnancy, and now he's finally arrived. I'm over the moon excited for her and her family.   The picture she sent of her "grand son" made my heart melt.  He is just so adorable. 

So I got busy trying to design a perfect card to commemorate this happiest of occasions!  I chose a retired Stampin' Up set called "A New Little Someone", mainly because of the sentiment stamp and this adorable Bunny image.  The cardstock base, Designer Series Paper and Classic Ink are also retired, but one of my favourite colors - Soft Sky. I stamped the Bunny image in Soft Sky on Whisper White card stock.  Isn't it cute?  This layer was mounted on Soft Sky cardstock, then on Whisper White card stock.  The following layers are Soft Sky DSP and then a Whisper White layer that was texturized using the Square Lattice Embossing Folder, then another layer of DSP and finally the card base.  The bow is made from 3/8" Whisper White Taffeta ribbon.  I've adhered a row of Basic Rhinestones above and below the Bunny's picture to give it some sparkle. 

Here's a view of the inside of the card - the verse says "Bottles and booties and bibs and more, a new little someone to hug and adore". 

I love the way this card turned out and will be making one for a girl in Pink Pirouette, and another boy one, but I'll be using Baja Breeze.