Mothers Class Magic Cards

Diane and Jackie proudly show off their handiwork at Mothers Class yesterday.

Magic Cards are fun to make and even more fun to send or give to someone. What a fun way to end the year of Mothers Class projects!

For easy-to-use kits, check them out at the Paper Cut. I got mine for $8 with directions and all you need to make 8 cards, including envelopes. It definitely made my class easy for all of us!

WHAT A MESS!

Here's what my stamping table looked like today after designing and preparing kits for the Tuesday class. Don't worry--it'll be all cleaned up shortly!




Meanwhile, here is the card I came up with. They'll be doing two; one in Rich Razzleberry and the other in a grayish blue cardstock from my stash. The kits are all pre-stamped and pre-cut. They will first stamp a background with Versamark. After coloring the images and adding a gem in the center of the blossom, they'll round the top right corners and assemble as shown. To finish, they'll stamp a greeting on a piece of scrap cardstock, use the word window punch and mount with glue dots.

For Mothers Class this week, we'll be doing Magic Cards. Should be fun!

SIMPLE SATURDAY #16

TUESDAY GROUP

Although a little out of focus, here are three of my "students" showing off their cards on Tuesday morning. They were so proud of how they each colored their image. I must say, their cards turned out great!



The card featured a special panel that was held closed by the oval on the lower right. For my version, I used my Cuttlebug for a woodgrain-ish texture to highlight the wooden chair. The inside says "With God all things are possible." So true...

SCRAP DRAWER #8

This one took all of 3 minutes to make! All I did was trim the flower portion to fit the left side of the card. I then cut out the butterfly, taped the bottoms of the wings down, added antennae with a marker, and embellished with black pearls.

All that remained was to stamp the sentiment--easy peasy!

VIEW FROM THE TOWER!

From the top of the stairs outside my stamping "tower" you can see through the windows around the front door. With the flower beds recently mulched, there is good contrast with the plants peeking through: hostas, day lilies, and small shrubs. The pansies in the pots below are still in bloom, and the white azaleas along the driveway are loaded with buds this year. In our third year of deer fencing, we're looking forward to lots of color from plants that have been able to mature. (finally!)

Once the weather warms up again, and we have the windows open, we'll be able to hear the many birds singing their praises outside!

MY PINK MEXICO Blog Hop

Yes, I still hate pink (and "hate" is not too strong a word here) but My Pink Mexico is a fabulous blog filled with lots of good ideas. Check it out! (Use link on sidebar at right.)

You can also join the blog hop from her site.

SCRAP DRAWER #7

Since I had four coordinated greens to use on this one, I decided to make a gate card. The plainest went on the inside and right panel, the little leaves on the left panel, the large square of alphabet background dsp on the front and the small piece of brushed green for the flower and stem.

After taking the photo, I added some white lines around the button with my gel pen to brighten it up a bit.

This was fun and easy to make!

Shaker Card

Here's a card I CASEd from Dawn Lusk's blog. Unfortunately, I forgot to add some blue background before sealing it up, so the color looks a bit washed out. Next time, I also plan to give the bird a little more color to warm it up. I do like the dsp, though. The twine and birdseed also give it some added interest.

Thanks, Dawn, for the inspiration! (See Dawn Lusk link at right.)

STAMP SHOW -- Final Thoughts

Having brought my list with me of items I wanted to purchase, one of my first stops was at the Our Daily Bread Designs booth. Much to my delight, I found a rack of single image stamps that could be purchased; so I picked up three of my favorites. In addition to the other items I purchased there, I qualified for a free stamp set of sayings which will work out beautifully with each of the three shown. The quality of their stamps is excellent!

I love to look for the things that are new, and this year it was the shaker packets being sold by The Paper Cut. They had ovals, small squares and large squares along with the matching overlays. We also bought some clear micro beads to color ourselves and use in our cards. Shaker cards have never been so easy!

Finally, going to a show with stamping buddies makes it a lot of fun, and we all had a great day. There were demos to learn from, displays to photograph for future reference and all kinds of new products to try. It was well worth the wait all year. The only down side is that we now have to wait another full year for the next show!

More Stamp Show News to Come

Did I mention that I was exhausted from all the excitement of the show??? Today is Bible Study with card-making class, so yesterday was spent getting their kits ready for today. We'll be making pop-up cards, which I will post some photos of later when I get home. They're going to be great!

I'll also post the last Stamp Show report so you can see what I came home with. See you later!

ALLENTOWN STAMP SHOW--Part 2

I am exhausted from having woken up at 4 am in anticipation of the show and been on my feet almost all day. It was well worth it, though. Got home around 4:30, made dinner and will now settle down in front of the TV for the Nascar race.

Two things made this year's show extra special: First, showing Jackie around the floor and watching her reactions to all the booths for her first time at a show--and second, meeting a fellow blogger face-to-face! Cheryl Sims, of Cheryl Stamps and Scraps, found me from my photo at right and introduced herself. She was there with her daughter.

Check back tomorrow for more news of what we saw and the purchases we made!

ALLENTOWN STAMP SHOW -- Part 1

Today was the class Jackie and I signed up for at the Stamp Show, and it certainly was well worth the time and money!

Shown here is just one of the cards we made using the new Shaker Pouches that are all the rage across the country. In fact, they are sold out already! The sponsor of our class has one last batch they'll be selling at the show tomorrow. The next shipment won't be in their store until May or June. It's easy to see why, too--they're extremely easy to use and are flat enough to send through the mail!

Jackie, (in blue jeans and blue/white shirt) did really well on her cards. In the background, some of the vendors were setting up for tomorrow's opening. We had a chance to peruse the goods being put out. Since this is Jackie's first time to a show, she was amazed at the huge bins of ep and glitter containers for sale. Not just one color of light green for example, but 10 or 12 shades of every color imaginable!

More updates after the Show tomorrow, so stay tuned!

TOWER VISITORS

Archie and Jenny are regular visitors to the Tower--just thought you might like a glimpse of them!

They are 5 years old now and are litter mates. Jenny, the tuxedo cat, is my most frequent visitor and loves to sit on my lap while I'm stamping. Although it's very sweet of her, it doesn't work too well. Archie usually drops in later in the day while I'm on the computer, which works out much better.

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE STAMP SHOW!

This Saturday is the annual Stamp Show in Allentown, PA; and we're looking forward to it! Joan and I will be going, along with several others whom we'll meet there. In addition to the companies that are usually there every year, we'll be able to see Our Daily Bread Designs "live" for the first time at the show. I have my list all ready! Included will be some oval globes to use with a bird set I plan to purchase at their booth.

In addition to new products, there are always new techniques to try at the make and take tables. Last year was my first introduction to Flower Soft, which has been a plus. This year I'm also interested in new ways/products for making easier shaker cards. We never know what we'll learn there along the way, so it's worth all the anticipation and the year-long wait.

I still remember the first show I attended several years ago. There was so much to see and learn, I had to leave early in the afternoon due to sensory overload! Truly, it can be overwhelming the first time. Now that we're "old pros" at it, though, we head straight for the most popular booth as soon as the doors open and start picking out the items on our (sophisticated?) lists! Then we bring things back to the car, lock them up and go back for what's new. We split up until noon when we meet for lunch and compare notes on what's hot and what's not. Then we shop for another hour or two before heading for home.... Gotta have a method, right? Not to mention, plenty of $$$ which I start saving right after Christmas.

Check back here for what we came home with (April 10th) and the deets on what we did all that day!

New Hero Arts Set

Now that Easter cards have all been sent, it's time to play with some new stamps that arrived last month from Hero Arts and have been waiting here to be inked up.

Although most blossoms don't grow multicolored on one stem, I couldn't resist watercoloring each petal with a different pastel. Using green for the accents tied it all together. I especially like the evergreen "Mini Mosaics" I used for the center -- just enough sparkle without a lot of glitz. The blossom shape is repeated with Versamark on the green strip across the bottom, using the smaller version in the set. (H.A. Big and Small Flowers.)

The yellow paper-pieced blossom is enhanced with a clear green button in the center, with three of the petals raised using dimensionals underneath. The greeting, which I curved on the acrylic handle to follow the doily shape, is from another Hero Arts clear stamp set.

I really do enjoy using clear stamps, plus they take up a lot less room here in the "tower."

BIRD PUNCH CARDS

Somehow, the other day I stumbled upon a blog where there were several variations of birds made with the Extra Large Bird Punch. This is my version of one of them, and I love the way it turned out!

I'm looking forward to trying the cardinal, blue jay and gold finch that were also shown. What a treat to find all these birds on one site, and so simply done, too. Thank you, Lynn Pratt, for these wonderful designs! (See www.stampndesign.blogspot.com)

NEWS FLASH

This decision has been a long time coming, but it's time I let you know. Since blogging takes up so much of my time and energy, and since I'm not getting any younger, and since we have to tighten our belts and cut back on stamping expenses, and since keeping my house in order is so much more important, this will be my LAST POST! That's right--I'm shutting this blog down...forever...

Now if you believe all that, you have fallen for my April Fool's joke! (especially the part about housework being more important--HA!)

Have a great day!