Fresh Cuts

I am loving this new color, Cherry Cobbler. I looked at this stamp set and knew I wanted to make it look like Christmas even though it is not a Christmas stamp. I paired it with Garden Green and it certainly says Christmas to me. How about you?

Fox and Friends

I decided that I wanted to use the lion stamp from this set but I did not have the saying that I wanted so I made it on the computer. When I printed it, it came out on top and I just worked with it. I can always use thank you notes so that is what it became.

P.S. By the time you see this, it will be my birthday (the 30th). So, a shout out to me!

Four the Holidays

This is another of those essential word sets that has no pictures with it. I was stumped again and then decided to make it a collage of words. It took me quite a while and it still is not perfect! But, I am going with it. I picked what I thought were Christmas colors and stamped away.

Forest Friends

This is a cute little set of 4 stamps. The little animals really remind me of the movie "Bambi." I can just hear bunny saying..."They call me Thumper!"

A Birthday shout out to Beth, Scott and Marissa.

For All You Do

I am Casing a card seen on page 17 in the catalog. Now, I do not have the DSP they used to make the bird, so I made my own. Baja Breeze, Old Olive and Whisper White.

Flight of the Butterfly

I CASED this card, but I cannot remember who from??? Anyway, I loved their layout so I made mine the same changing colors completely to make it my own. So, the card is Baja Breeze, layered with Chocolate Chip, Greenhouse Gala DSP, and Pumpkin Pie. I used Dazzling Diamonds on my vellum butterfly. Gotta love glitter!

Fifth Avenue Floral

I found this sketch on an old 411 challenge and used it for my card shown here. Colors I used were Pear Pizazz, Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze, and Very Vanilla. I just love the textures you can get with the Big Shot. Who knew such a simple thing could make such a big impact??

Elements of Style

And for my last E stamp set I used the Elements of Style. I have been using a lot of reds lately so I decided to go with blue for this card. The colors I used were Not Quite Navy, Marina Mist and Whisper White. I used the highlighting technique. For the background I used Not Quite Navy over Not Quite Navy. The ribbon is the new 1/8" Taffeta Ribbon seen on page 191 in the catalog. I stamped the flowers with Black Stazon and water colored them using Marina Mist, Not Quite Navy and Garden Green. See you tomorrow when I start with the F stamps!

Elegant Thank You

This is one of the simple, single stamps that Stampin' Up! carries. It is a great single stamp for thank you notes. For this one I used Cherry Cobbler, Basic Black and Very Vanilla. I chose designer paper from Love Letter and Newsprint. I just kind of cut it and laid it out.

Eastern Blooms

Onto the E stamps. I only have 3 current E stamp sets. The first is this one, Eastern Blooms, seen on page 112 in the 10-11 Idea Book and Catalog. It has 5 stamps in the set and I have used it for card classes in the past. I love the look of this Cherry tree stem. And just look at the new basic pearl jewels I added to the flowers. I almost missed these new babies in the catalog. I did not see them until I had been through the catalog at least a dozen times. Then I saw them on someone else's blog and said, Wow! Does SU have these? Sure enough, on page 188, and they come in rhinestones and pearls for only $4.95 for 150 of these adhesive backed jewels!

I embossed my Whisper White and then used a sponge to add the Pink Pirouette to the embossed images. I used a scalloped oval for the focal point and the sentiment is stamped in Early Expresso from the Elements of Style set.

Dreams Du Jour

This is the last D set that I currently own. It is about 3 years old and I have not played with it for a while. I was looking around and came upon an old sketch, SC187, and decided to give it a go. Sketches are such an easy way to create. Once you have a basic format all you have to do is decide and colors and a stamp set. This one is very simple...Whisper White, Pretty in Pink and a touch of Pear Pizzaz.

Delightful Decorations

I am into the Very Vanilla card stock lately. It seems to be the new white! Not really, but it is very popular this year. I used 3 of the new In Colors to make this card. I am not sure they are very "Christmasy" but I am going to just go with it. They are Pear Pizzaz, Poppy Parade and Concord Crush. I added the Bashful Blue snowflakes to the background using a stamp from Snow Swirled. This is a fun set to play with, Delightful Decorations, because there is a punch that just cuts out the ornaments for you. No muss and no fuss! The sentiment on this one is from Four the Holidays.

Define Your Life

Again, an all words set with no images. For this one I just chose a sentiment...simple...and let my mind make a simple card around that sentiment. I kept to a monochromatic scheme in its simplicity. The little background is from Pocket Silouettes. The colors I used were: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla.

Dasher

Dasher is a great single stamp that costs less than $10. He will make beautiful Christmas cards and I am pondering using this single stamp for a card class. I used Very Vanilla, Old Olive and Real Red to match the new Jolly Holiday designer series paper. I stamped Dasher with Early Expresso. The ribbon is from last year's mini catalog and the sentiment is from All Holidays. This is a very easy sketch that anyone could copy!

Christmas Greetings

This is my last C stamp set and I have to admit, I was a bit stumped on this one because it is a set of 2 with words and no images. I was tempted to skip it, but I surfed around and spotted one done by "peebsmama" that I was able to CASE. I did make a few changes. My card is Cherry Cobbler layered with Very Vanilla. I then used pieces from the new Designer Series Paper, DSP, called, Jolly Holiday for the focal point. Thanks for the inspiration. I really like how it came out.

Circle Circus

I was running through my local Target during pre-planning and saw this cute little .49 bag. It reminded me of the stamp set, Circle Circus and I grabbed it. So, I have to say this one was really simple. I added a topper to the bag and was finished. How about that for a quick and neat gift bag?

P.S. Happy Birthday shout out to my beautiful 20 year old daughter. No more teenagers in the house for us!

Cheep Talk

I did a cute card with this stamp set recently so I was a little stumped on what to do with it again so soon. I started with a Marina Mist card, I then used my Big Shot to cut and emboss the Wild Wasabi. The stamping was done on Whisper White of course. I set it off a little to call attention to the ribbons and just to do something different (at least for me).

Charming

This is a beautiful little set that first showed up in a mini catalog and is now in the big Idea Book and Catalog on page 130. I used Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red and Chocolate Chip card stock. The inks are Crumb Cake, Almost Artichoke and Riding Hood Red. I also used Chocolate Chip to distress it a bit. This one is destined to be a favorite of mine for sure.

P.S. If you are checking, Happy Birthday to my sister, Vicki on this Friday the 13th.

Cardinal Christmas

Moving on to the C stamps I own. I don't own that many C stamp sets. 5 is what I counted. I found that I did A Cardinal Christmas 1st. I know it started with A but I did it as a C. This one is a project, not a card. I made a box using a tutorial from Splitcoast. I then embellished it using sever of the dies from SU and my Big Shot. Finally, I stamped the cardinal on Real Red using Early Expresso ink. I cut him out and layered him as shown. I hope you like it. You may be seeing this one in an upcoming class.

Birthday Bliss

This is my last B stamp set. It has 4 little stamps in it and since I couldn't just pick one, I used them all! I made a cute little set of gift tags. Can you believe what people are paying for these little tags/enclosures?!! More than a dollar a piece at Target or Wally World.

You may recognize the card in the back. I CASEd it from Stampin' Up! Then I used the 4 colors from the 1st card to make the other 3 cards. I have a friend who loves tags and will love this set. come back soon to see what I do with the C stamp sets I own.

Birthday Bakery

This is another one of the fun hostess level 1 sets you could earn. With this one I wanted to do something with the cakes images. I colored each one with a different marker then huffed and stamped. I layered the images on the Melon Mambo, added a Tempting Turquoise ribbon and then stamped the saying. In case you can't read it, it says...

"if you are what you eat, eat something cute!"

Big on Christmas

I almost forgot about this one. Just when I thought I was finished with the B's I scanned my shelf and found this one trying to hide. Well, you can run but you cannot hide. I found and and quickly stamped this Noel card.

Bella Toile

This is a beautiful background stamp but I wanted to use it for more than just a background. First I decided what colors I wanted to use. This is the new Blushing Bride with the Basic Gray. I stamped the Bella Toile on both the Whisper White and the Basic Gray. I then put it together with a ribbon. The sentiment comes from an A set I missed...All Holidays. The butterflies are, of course, done with the Big Shot and the beautiful wings embosslit. I know exactly who I am going to send this one to. See you tomorrow.

Because I Care

This is one of the level 1 Hostess sets you could earn this year with a minimal party. It is a beautiful stamp set. I wanted to make a card to match my hydrangea blooms this year. They were the most beautiful blue. I stamped this on whisper white and marina mist. Then I used a piece of the vellum over the image to soften the look. The sentiment is over the vellum and the flowers were added using dimensionals for a little pop.

Batty For You

I almost missed this one. I thought I had all my B stamps out when I suddenly remembered this little stamp set. I chose to stamp using only 1 of the 8 great designs. Since I don't have the new Halloween DSP I used a piece from last year. My card is Tangerine Tango, layered with the DSP. I then stamped Frankie 3 times with 3 colors. Layered, added a cute sentiment and then did direct to paper to add a little to the sentiment. Fun and not so spooky.

Baroque Motifs

I got my inspiration for this card from here. I changed it a little, added the red and made it my own. It was inspired from the dress Audrey Hepburn wore in Sabrina (the original movie). It is dressy and sophisticated. The sentiment came from Oval All. Those were much more elegant days/dates!

On a different note, we went back to school today with students. It has been a short, short summer! I am already counting the days until our September break and my cruise!! P.S. It was a hot one today...99*.

A Wish for Peace

Is it an A or a W stamp set? I decided to go with the A. This was a real quickie. I already had to focal point stamped and glittered so I just added a piece of DSP some Riding Hood Red strips and voila...A new Christmas card. That makes 8 "A" stamp sets. On to B!

Awash with Flowers

Well, this is more fun and challenging than I thought it might be. I mean, maybe no one is looking but I am challenging myself to stamp alphabetically through all the current Stampin' Up! stamp sets that I own. And today, I just acquired 5 more sets! This is the last of my A stamp sets...Awash with Flowers. This is a fun 2-step stamp set. What is a 2-step stamp set? It is a stamp set that has an outline and a separate stamp that fills the outline stamp in. They are fun, quick and easy to work with. No coloring involved.

The colors I used on this one came straight from the DSP I used - Real Red, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White. I cased the sketch from eured99.

Autumn Splendor

Aren't the leaves in this stamp set beautiful? I am really enjoying my backyard this year, especially since it is all natural and I don't have to rake the leaves! I cased this card from "lacystamper" on Splitcoast making mini changes to call it my own. Colors used were: Chocolate Chip, Garden Green, Pumpkin Pie and Confetti White card stock. Since I did not have any DSP, I stamped my own.

Autumn Harvest

ABC wise, autumn comes next. Of course, it is 100* outside while I am stamping. Fall is no where in sight yet. But then again, I already had to go back to school for pre-planning! Here is a water colored card for your viewing pleasure. I stamped the pumpkins and masked them for the sides. I used retired DSP for the background and the Dusty Durango ribbon. Start thinking cool, fall thoughts!