Creative Post Due

Yesterday I showed you the picture below and said it was a "tease" so today I will show you the rest of the project! 

I couldn't believe I forgot to post this project as we made it at our Happy Stampers Club in August! In August the Happy Stampers made projects suitable for gifts.

Getting a good picture of the whole project was a challenge with my little point and shoot camera. I am still trying to talk hubby into buying a new camera for work and giving me his old one. I think I am making progress:)

For this project, I totally CASEd one I found on Pinterest done by Melissa Davies at Rubberfunatics. 

I love the flower in the corner. This project uses two of my favorite stamp sets...Creative Elements and Postage Due.

For this project I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies:

• Paper: Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand, Early Espresso and Crumb Cake cardstock
• Stamps: Creative Elements, Postage Due and Loving Thoughts
• Ink: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake and Sahara Sand
• Other: Modern Mosaic Embossing Folder, Scallop Squares Duo Bigz Die (retired), Postage Stamp Punch, Early Espresso Bakers Twine, Basic Pearl, Dimensionals and Glue Dots.

This was a fun project! I am looking forward to doing more framed projects. 

I will be back a little later today with Happy Homemaker Monday! 

Kat

From Shabby Chic ATC to Shabby Chic Card

I was looking through my pictures trying to see what I hadn't posted yet and this little lovely popped up! I haven't posted it because I was sending it to one of my very special downline ladies--well, they are all special but you know what I mean:) Her husband is stationed in Japan so of course she is living in Japan. Why, I don't know! We tried to tell her he could get along without her for a couple of years so she could stay here with us but she didn't buy it:( Anyway, I am hoping she has received this card by the time she sees this post. If not, sorry for spoiling the surprise, Margarita! 

Do you remember the ATC (Artist Trading Card) Swap I participated in last summer? Of course you do! But for those who are new to my blog you can see my ATC here. The swaps that were supposed to come to me never arrived but it was fun just to participate by doing something I had never done before. An Artist Trading Card is 2 1/2" X 3 1/2". Some people just collect and display them like you would baseball cards; others incorporate them onto cards or scrapbooking pages. I decided to turn mine into a card.

I had the card all finished but decided it needed something; a little more color. So, I consulted my Color Coach! WOW! If you don't have one you need to get one! It is invaluable when you are stuck on what color to use. I looked up the card for Pink Pirouette (the main color used on this card) and it steered me to Pool Party. I NEVER would have thought to use Pool Party but it was the perfect color!

For this card I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies:

• Paper: Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla, Baked Brown Suger and Whisper White
• Stamps: Creative Elements, En Francais, Papillon Potpourri, That's the Ticket
• Ink: Baked Brown Sugar, Crumb Cake, Pool Party
• Punches: Ticket Punch (retired) for corners and Bitty Butterfly
• Other: Chantilly Crocheted Trim (retired), Antique Brad, Linen Thread, Basic Pearls, Tea Lace Doily, Glue Dots and lots of Dimensionals

This is definitely my favorite of all the cards I've made! While I love this style, I am waayyy too slow to make very many of this type of card! 

Have a great day!

Kat

Artist Trading Cards

I am still trying to play catch-up from last Sunday when we got home so late! Monday and Tuesday I couldn't get enough sleep then last night I think I only slept about two hours:( It will all straighten out soon.

I signed up for another swap via VC Rocks! This one is an Artist Trading Card Swap. First I had to find out what an Artist Trading Card is! Well, between the hostess of the swap and some Googling, I found out that an Artist Trading Card is a 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" one sided card that you embellish either with your own artwork or stamping or whatever then trade much as you would trade baseball cards. So, I tried my hand at one today...

I need to tweek the Create flag but other than that, I am pretty happy with it! Last night when I couldn't sleep I was thinking about how I wanted to put this card together! You can use these little bits of art on a bigger card or a scrapbook page or just save them. There are even shadow box type frames to put them in to display. Who knew?!!!

For my Artist Trading Card I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies:

• Card Stock: Baked Brown Sugar, Pink Pirouette and Very Vanilla
• Stamp Sets: Creative Elements; That's the Ticket and En Francais
• Classic Stampin' Pads: Baked Brown Sugar and Crumb Cake
• Ticket Punch for corners
• Other: Chantilly Crocheted Trim (retired), Antique Brad, Linen Thread, Basic Pearls, Glue Dots and Dimensionals

I need to do something with the end of the Create Flag but will work on it. Honestly, I think I could get addicted to these! I'm not sure yet if this is the one I will be making for the swap but wanted to try it out. The deadline for me to get it in the mail is July 7. Creative Elements is one of my favorite stamps sets and I really like the Shabby Chic look this card has.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kat

Creative Elements Birthday

My card today is the one I did as my design team project for The Cupboard Trilogy Challenge for June. I had a hard time getting it to photograph well but this is pretty close to "real life"! I love the colors pink and gray together and this card did not disappoint! Usually I try to do something a little bit fancy for my design team project but this month I went with Clean and Simple! There's a lot of elegance in Clean and Simple:)

I used the background image in the Creative Elements stamp set to stamp on the Basic Gray card stock in Basic Gray ink. I also used the same image in Pink Pirouette to stamp on the white but used the stamp-off technique to make it very light. Pink Pirouette is a very light pink and I wanted to flowers to show up so had to make the background image even lighter by stamping-off. If you're not familiar with stamping-off, it is when you ink up your stamp, stamp once (lightly) on a scrap piece of paper and then on your card stock. 

For this project I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies:

• Card Stock: Whisper White, Pink Pirouette and Basic Gray
• Stamp Sets: Creative Elements, Papillon Potpourri and On Your Birthday (retired)
• Classic Stampin' Pads: Pink Pirouette and Basic Gray
• Other: Sponge Dauber (to color in butterfly); Elegant Butterfly Punch; Basic Rhinestone

The new Stampin' Up! Catalog started last Friday! If you would like to browse, click the button on my side-bar for a pdf version of this fabulous new catalog! If you would like to order, click the "email me" button on the side bar or go to the Stampin' Up! website, order and choose me, Kathy Skinner, as your demonstrator (if you don't already have one.

I will be back this afternoon with my Happy Homemaker Monday!

Kat

September Thank You Cards

I am not accomplishing near what I hoped to while my hubby is out of town BUT I did make my Cupboard Trilogy Design Team card (shhh...can't show it to you till October 1) plus 12 thank you cards for my September customers. I only made one like the one pictured--simplified it just a bit for the rest. Today I am making 8 more for my husband's solar clients plus two birthday cards and two sympathy cards.

I have France Martin from Stamp & Scrap with Frenchie to thank for this very fun card technique. She calls it the Fall Rainbow. The link will take you to her video tutorial. I gotta tell ya, this is one talented lady...and funny too! I love her videos! I figured if she made 120 of these cards, I could make 20:)

For this card I used the following Stampin' Up! products:

• Very Vanilla and Cajun Craze cardstock
• Creative Elements stamp set
• Classic Stampin' Pads: Old Olive, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, Cajun Craze and Early Espresso
• Labels Collection Framelits; Square Lattice Embossing Folder; Big Shot
• Other: Dimensionals (of course); Mini Glue Dots; Pear Pizzazz Seam Binding (retired); Basic Rhinestones; Stamping Sponges

The picture on the right is more what the cards looked like for my customers except I used the Create stamp instead of Thank You. The card pictured on the right is what my hubby's solar clients' card look like. I used the sentiment from the Day of Gratitude stamp set and changed the seam binding to Always Artichoke after running out of Pear Pizzazz. I think I like the Always Artichoke better, don't you?

One more picture to show you what I did on the inside. I simply took a strip of the torn card stock I used to make the card front, placed it at an angle, sponged two colors then stamped with the flower image. 

This was a really fun card to make. I hope you will give it a try. I will be back tomorrow with another card or two but until then, Happy Stamping!

Kat

Creative Elements Shutter Card

This morning I gave you the picture on the left as a tease for this post. Last month I posted a Shutter Card very much like this one HERE but made a few changes that I really liked so wanted to show them to you. In this picture you can see that I layered the flowers--the center one has three layers and the one on the right has two layers. The third flower is just a single layer. This Shutter Card and the one in July were inspired by Dawn Griffith of Dawn's Stamping Thoughts.

To make this card I used the following Stampin' Up! products:

• Paper: Midnight Muse and Very Vanilla card stock; Comfort Cafe Designer Series Paper
• Stamp sets: Creative Elements, Occasions Alphabet and Messages for Mom (retired--for sentiment)
• Classic Stampin' Pads: Midnight Muse, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede and Summer Starfruit
• Other: Dimensionals, Glue Dots, Soft Suede Taffeta Ribbon, Basic Pearls

On the right hand piece where the sentiment is, I used the flower stamp with Soft Suede ink to create a watermark effect by stamping off the image before stamping it on the card stock. The next picture shows a closeup of what I'm talking about.

I am so enjoying this style of card AND the Creative Elements stamp set! I hope you don't get tired of them. 

Tomorrow I will have my new swap card ready to show! I need to get them in the mail tomorrow!!!! 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Kat

Creative Elements Tease

I don't have time this morning for a long post so thought I would give you a little tease. The card is one I did last month I think. Anyway, I stepped it up a bit and want to show you what I did. So I will be back later today to show you the whole card and give you the details:) 

Have a great day!!!

Kat

Triple Time Creative Elements

I figured out what was wrong with the camera. It was charged but...the battery was in backwards! Now, the SD card can only go in one way so why couldn't they make it so the battery could only go in one way??!!! Oh well, camera is charged, battery is in correctly and I was able to take pictures of my recent projects:) 


I have two lovely ladies to credit for this card today. I first saw the card on Dawn Olchefske's blog DO Stamping with Dawn and I used her video tutorial to make this card. However, what inspired me to make this card was the one made by Kim Score at Paper Punch Addiction. This is a simple and fun way to make a super elegant card. Dawn's video tutorial is excellent!


For this card I used the following Stampin' Up! supplies:

• Card stock: Basic Black, Whisper White, Real Red
• Stamp set: Creative Elements
• Classic Stampin' Pad: Basic Gray
• 3/8" red ribbon from "who knows where" (not Stampin' Up!)
• Dimensionals (how can you make a card without them??!!!)

Thanks for stopping by today! It is always so nice when you stop by to visit:) I am off to run errands and visit friends today but will be back again tomorrow with another card project that I CASed from Dawn Olchefske! What a talented lady!!! 

Kat

Comfort Cafe` Shutter Card

Our second project for our Happy Stampers Club meeting on Wednesday was this shutter card. It looks REALLY hard but is more labor intensive than difficult. You will see why another photo. When I finished the card I wasn't very happy with it. I thought it needed something but wasn't sure what. See what I mean? Kinda blah! So I asked a couple of my stamping ladies what I should do and this next photo is the result...

All I can say is WOW! made a huge difference. It looks even better in person! I guess this would qualify as another Step-it Up project. It doesn't take much to go from blah to WOW!


A big Thank You to Dawn Griffith for a great video tutorial for making this card at Dawn's Stamping Thoughts. 


I am so struggling with getting the right lighting for my photos right now. I had a chance to purchase a photography light box with 4 backgrounds, lights and tripod for $30 (regular price was $100) and I didn't do it! I am still kicking myself. I will keep looking but if you see something let me know.


For this project I used the following Stampin' Up! products:

1. Card stock: Summer Starfruit and Very Vanilla
2. Comfort Cafe` Designer Series Paper
3. Stamp Sets: Creative Elements and Sassy Salutations
4. Classic Stampin' Pads: Cajun Craze, Soft Suede and Summer Starfruit
5. Other: Basic Rhinestones, Soft Suede 3/8" Taffeta Ribbon, Dimensionals

This is what the inside of the card looks like. I will probably add a few birthday sentiments to the card before sending it off but didn't have time to do that before Stamping Club. This project took more time than our club projects usually do but was sooo worth it!

The Stampin' Up! Convention is currently under way in Utah so all demonstrators who were not able to attend (me!) are anxiously awaiting news of fun changes to the company we love! So I will keep you posted on anything that will make your stamping experience better. Speaking of better, if you haven't tried the NEW Stampin' Up! Foam Stamp Pads, you are really missing something! It is taking me a little re-learning but I LOVE them! You just lightly tap the stamp on the pad not press and grind like the old ones! The coverage on the stamp is great and the stamped image almost looks printed. They are truly amazing!

Well, that's it for me today! I have a house to clean and some food to cook:( Guess I should be happy I have a house and food, right?!!! Anyway, join me on Sunday evening for the Sunday Night Chit-Chat and I will have our third Stamping Club project for you on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend! Kat