Stamp By the Light of the Moon

Christmas Present: This year's Christmas card unveiled

Today my Christmas cards went in the mail! It's right on schedule for me, I'm always a day or two before Christmas Eve, sending mine out.  Every year I think I'm going to get them out earlier, but every year it's almost the exact same day.

Each year I start thinking about my Christmas card in the summer. Not because I'm a long range planner, but because the new catalog comes out in the summer and I start checking out all of the new holiday stamp sets and accessories and trying to think of the card that will top last year's. Once the Holiday Mini comes out, I usually have a pretty solid idea of what I'm going to do. This year, as soon as I saw the ornament punch, I knew I'd use it on my cards. My original idea to do three ornaments, one for each child, changed quickly when I thought of punching out 375 photos for 125 cards! 

Without further ado, here's some photos of our card making nights from last week:

When we first started, I hadn't even finished cutting all my designer series papers yet, so I gave each daughter a job to do while I kept cutting.  Caroline's job was to cut the foam tape and hand it to Elizabeth. Elizabeth's job was to put it on the back of the ornaments I'd punched out, which were all face down on the table. Alexandra's job was to turn them face up when they were done and ready to go onto cards.

 Once we had everything cut and ready to go, we started to assemble. I taped the designer papers to the card stock and they peeled off the little pieces of backing from the foam tape and taped the ornaments to the front of the card. I realized a little bit into it, that I didn't tell them to put the ornaments on straight. I had to do some fixing later on.

 

The night we did the stamping was a little bit tense. It took us a few minutes to get the right kid using the easiest stamp for them. Ultimately Caroline stamped the inside, Alexandra stamped the back with Created By, and Elizabeth stamped the Very Merry on the front. We used various shades of greens for the stamping. At one point we realized Alexandra was stamping Created By upside down. When I said something, she said, "Hey, I can't read, it all looks right to me!"  I had to laugh. It was quite an accomplishment when we finished, and the girls were so proud of all our hard work.

 I had each daughter grab one card to hold up, to show that they were all slightly different. I used a combination of Old Olive designer papers and some leftover Merry Moments designer papers (seen here) from a class I'd taught. I loved the Merry Moments cards the best, but I knew that I wouldn't have enough in a pack to do all I needed to do because I didn't want to use the brown patterns on my cards, just reds, greens and ivory or white.  

Of course, when I signed the cards on the inside, I was sure to put the all important message on the back as well. I couldn't let their hard work go unnoticed!

A couple of little secrets to working quickly and efficiently:

1) I had a local office supply store cut my 3 packs of Real Red card stock in half for me, it's only $2.00 per cut and they cut it all at once for a grand total of $2.00. Then I only had to score.

2) I cut the designer papers and then just folded a portion of it back. Because our designer series papers are printed with an alternate design on the flip side, I only needed one piece but was able to showcase two patterns. So although it looks like two cuts of paper, one strip and one larger, it's just one and a fold, which I scored for neater folding.

I think those are the only little secrets I have this year. The rest is pretty straightforward. If you are someone I normally exchange cards with each year, I hope you enjoy yours. If you are not, I hope you've enjoyed seeing them here, and knowing what went into them!

To me, making the card is fun, but taking the time to make it with the girls, no matter how hard that is, is what makes it special. I know that I'm instilling a love for cardmaking and putting their heart and soul into each card, in each of them and I know we're making more than just cards, we're making memories too. That's what it's really all about. When we see our family and friends this holiday and they tell the girls how wonderful the cards are, that will make their day and I will know that it's all been worth it.
 

Cards of Christmas Past: Waterfall Card

The girls and I have been working diligently on our Christmas cards for this year, and they're going in tomorrow's mail.  I will share those photos in the next day or two, as I do our final holiday preparations here at home.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share one of my all-time favorite past Christmas cards from 2005, when my youngest was a baby.  It was a Waterfall card, where one photo falls behind the other.  Here are step by step photos of the card, starting with the front of the card:

I made 100 of these cards that year, and it remains one of my favorite Christmas cards ever.  Everyone loved it.  I used the two square punches for the photos and their red mats, and I used the gorgeous brushed gold metallic card stock for the base of the photos. I even used half a circle punch for the pull tab at the bottom.  This was a fun card to make! 

Be sure to check back this week to see the unveiling of this year's Christmas Cards!

Cards of Christmas Past

Well have you missed me? It's been quite some time since I've done a blog post, although I always have the best of intentions. November is notoriously a crazy-busy month for me with Stampin' Up! parties, classes and clubs, and this year was no different. I also celebrated one year with my newspaper job the first week in November, and after working there for two Novembers, I have determined that November is notoriously crazy busy for the newspaper as well and I was just swamped all month. My Thanksgiving was wonderful though, stress-free, and I hope that all of you enjoyed yours as well.

I thought that since we're in the thick of things in mid-December now, I'd focus on Christmas cards, but with a twist. Everyone always asks me what my Christmas cards have looked like over the past nine years that I've been with Stampin' Up!, and I have tried to save one of each of them each year, so I thought I'd start sharing them, one at a time. I'm going to do them in no particular order.

This is a card I did a few years ago. I liked this card because it was very easy to do. That year, we'd learned something called Double Time Stamping. It's basically a very efficient way to stamp a large amount of cards.

Here's how it worked for this card: I took about 12 sheets of Whisper White card stock and spread them all over my dining room table until the table was covered. I then took my desired stamps, one at a time, and stamped the images all over every sheet of card stock. So for example, I most likely did the red circles first. I inked up my circle in Real Red Classic Ink and just stamped a ton of circles so that every sheet had red circles on it, randomly, and leaving enough space for the green ones and the silver ones. Then I switched to the smaller green circle, inked up my Glorious Green ink pad and stamped all of my green circles until every sheet of card stock had green circles randomly mixed with the red ones. Finally, using the silver Encore metallic ink pad, I inked up my open circles and added them into the design. I had no planned pattern, just random stamping. 

After I was done, I collected all of the sheets and cut them to 3 3/4" x 5" (Real Red card stock was cut to 4 1/4" x 11, and Glorious Green to 4 x 5 1/4".)

After that, most of the work was just assembling. I did have to punch out all of the red and green circles for the little tags, but that I did in the car one day on the way somewhere, when I was *not* the driver. I do that often, I can work in the car without getting sick. I can remember also, taking all of the cards with me in a photo storage box, and sitting in the waiting rooms of various places my kids go, tying all of the ribbons. 

Because it was so easy to make a ton of these cards, I have a bunch left over, and I like to send them out if I need an extra Christmas card. 

Next time I'll post another card from a Christmas past. In the meantime, if you'd like to see last year's cards, click on this link and you'll see our card-making extravaganza. My girls are awaiting this year's extravaganza, and it's coming soon!
 

The More the Merrier: Christmas Card class sample

Tomorrow I am re-teaching my August Christmas Card Class. After I taught the class this summer, I had several people who'd missed it express interest taking the class. I decided to offer it again this November, and tomorrow's the day.

I know that when I taught the class this summer I started out posting the samples one by one, but I believe I had one or two left to post so I thought I'd post one today.

This card uses the stamp set The More the Merrier, which is a set that I love because it has stamps for several holidays in it, and because it was free as a hostess set. When it's free, I love it that much more! I also used the snowflake from Holiday Blitz, another well-used stamp set on my shelf.

The card stock colors are Brocade Blue and Not Quite Navy, with Whisper White. I also used Brocade Blue Classic Ink.

As you can see, I used Dazzling Diamonds glitter, found on page 180 of the catalog. I applied it with a Two Way Glue Pen (page 192.) I love the sparkle and shine that it gives the card. I colored the little snowmen with my Many Marvelous Markers. It was a very simple card to make. I added a white grosgrain ribbon knot and it was done.

Here was my inspiration for the layout of this card:

  It came out small here, but it's a card I found on Stamper's Showcase on the Stampin' Up! Demonstrator website. You can see that I kept the same layout but changed the set and colors, but it's virtually the same card. It just takes an ounce of inspiration and you can be off and running!

Looking forward to tomorrow's class!
 

A beautiful card for the Thanksgiving season: Lovely as a Tree

The other day I did a post about using retired stamp sets. Today's post is about a stamp set I hope Stampin' Up! never retires! Each year when the list comes out, I scan it first, looking to see if Lovely as a Tree is on there. Thankfully it never has been. This is a stamp set I use all the time. I've used it for holiday cards, fall cards, cards for men, gift tags; the list could go on and on. Most recently I used it for my card swap for the Maine Regionals and my Stampers' Club project for the next day. I used a tried and true favorite technique for my swap: thumping. Here is the card, and then I'll explain the technique:

 

I thought that since Regionals was in Maine, where the foliage was in peak season, a card such as this was appropriate.

Thumping is the technique that allows the trees to look as if they have individual leaves on them, in a variety of colors. It's the first technique I learned at the very first stamp camp I attended as a new demonstrator, and it's been my favorite ever since.

To do this technique in these colors, you need the More Mustard Classic Ink pad, and a variety of Stampin' Write Markers in Earth Elements colors. I like to choose shades of oranges, reds and greens because they show up nicely. Choose about four or five colors.

Ink up your stamp using the More Mustard Ink. Then, taking the brush end of the markers, one at a time, you tap (thump) randomly on the branches of the stamp, leaving what looks like dots on the stamp. Repeat the process until you've used all of your chosen colors, working randomly and evenly. When you're finished, take a deep breath and breathe onto your stamp, re-moistening the ink, and stamp your image onto your cardstock.

Easy peasy!  I encourage you to try out this technique this fall!  It gives a *wow* every time!

Girlfriends Tenth Birthday Invitations for Caroline: making use of retired sets

Customers who know me well know that I sell off almost all of my retired stamp sets once they are no longer demonstratable. I keep very few and I use nothing retired in my work. Usually.

My daughter Caroline is turning ten on Tuesday and I made her two separate invitations: one for her family party and one for her friend party. Being ten, double digits and all that, was a big deal for her. I wanted invitations that reflected her new-found sense of self. I decided to use the old Girlfriends stamp set. The funny thing is, I've never owned that set. My friend and former demonstator, Jessica, knew I had girls and had stamped a whole bunch of the images for me before giving the set back to another friend. I held onto the stamped images knowing I'd find the perfect use for them one day. I felt that this occasion was the day.

Here are her Family Party invites:

The great thing about these invitations is that I photocopied the original images that Jessica had stamped for me, onto a separate piece of card stock so that I wouldn't use up the images and I can save them for future use (thank you's, the next 10th birthday in our family.)

The colored images are colored by my girls. We sit at dance lessons each Friday for a few hours as one daughter and then the next two, rotate in and out of the studio for lessons. I brought the images and some colored pencils with me to the waiting room one week and I cut paper while they colored images. We got the work done in half the time and it's personalized from them, which I always prefer.

Here are her friend party invites:

I used the same basic layout but used a different image, thinking that this one was more appropriate for this type of party. Again, the girls colored these images that same day at dance.

I used Green Galore, Pixie Pink and Whisper White card stock and retired grosgrain ribbon. Very simple and yet very cute.

Best of all, they show that there is a time and place, even in my life, for retired stamp sets!

Stampin' Up! Regionals: a recap

I had a very exciting weekend! The Stampin' Up! Maine Regionals were on Saturday. Two weeks' prior, I got a call from the SU home offices in Utah, asking if I'd consider being a presenter at the Regionals. I said that I absolutely would love to do it. The person on the phone, Donna (she's pictured on pages 8 and 10 of the catalog) said I'd be presenting a "Wow" technique or project. I had to keep my presentation to just five minutes. I also needed to prepare 2-3 other samples using the same technique, to show during my presentation and for SU's display boards.

And so, the pressure was on: think of something I've seen or shown that gets a "wow" from the audience, and that hasn't been done over and over before.  I wanted my presentation to be something new to the audience. I had a stampers' club meeting the next day, and I wanted to also be able to do the same project for them so that I could do all my prepping and packing at the same time, working smarter, not harder.

I went through all my past posts. I looked through all my samples in my office. I finally came across a shadowbox type of card with an accordian fold, that I'd learned from a customer in a past stampers' club, several years ago. I'd always loved that project. It was not a full card, but more of a box that could sit on display. I decided that I could create a similar project using the basics she'd taught us, but making it a full card instead. With the holidays coming up, I decided to do a Christmas card. Here it is:

I used Snow Swirled for my stamp set, one of my favorite snowflake sets. As I've said in the past, I love sets that include background stamps (the snowflakes,) a main image (the tree,) and greetings (there's this outside greeting that is visible on the front of this card and an inside phrase that I used inside.)

Now, I had to step it up and come up with some other samples. I worked backwards, starting with Halloween:

This card was simple. It used The More the Merrier for my stamp set, the jackolantern faces are from Holiday Blitz (I love that set!) and the greeting is from Holiday Best. Note that both The More the Merrier and Holiday Best are hostess sets and I earned them for free with past orders! I added some detail with my Stampin' Write Markers and some black gingham ribbon for effect and viola! Done.

The next holiday up was Thanksgiving. This would be my Stampers' Club card for the day following Regionals. Since it's October, the focus for my project is November's holiday. Next month they'll do a Christmas project. Here's what I came up with for them:

This card used Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red and Very Vanilla paper, Very Vanilla Craft Ink, and one of my all-time favorite sets: Lovely as a Tree. The Give Thanks stamp is also from Holiday Best. This card used the Watercolor Wonder Crayons, which one of the club members had asked for last month. I wanted to be sure to incorporate them into the project so she'd get to see how they are used. We painted them with the Aquapainter brushes and made a beautiful New England foliage scene, perfect for what we're seeing around here these days.

And finally, I made a stepped-up version of a Christmas Card that takes longer than the five minutes my presentation card takes.

 This card incorporates several stamp sets and the Big Shot for my snowflake. I used Holiday Blitz, Snow Swirled, and The More the Merrier, White Craft ink and Not Quite Navy Classic ink and paper. You may be able to see the Dazzling Diamonds Glitter on there too. I used the Stampin' Write Markers as well, for my coloring. Here's a look at the inside, from the top down:

Tomorrow I'll post my card swap for the event, as well as some photos of me doing my presentation. 

If anyone is in need of the directions for how to make this card, email me at jencowart@yahoo.com and I'll send them to you. I have them in a word document, ready to go. 
 

This week's Deal of the Week: if you have the Big Shot this one's for you!

As you know, each week Stampin' Up! will be posting a deal of the week through the end of this month.  Here is this week's promotion:

This week's deals run from October 12, 10 AM (MT) through October 19, 9:50 AM (MT).

Item	Page	Description	Regular Price	Special Price
115961	200	Perfect Setting Bigz XL die	$42.95	$25.99
114515	195	Flower Burst Embosslits die	$11.95	$5.99
116760	201	Pop-Up Three Tier Cake Bigz XL die	$39.95	$25.49

Great prices on great items! You can order them on line through my Demonstrator Business Website by clicking on the blue Order button in my right hand side bar. Be sure to take advantage of these special prices this week before they are gone!!

Black Magic Anniversary Card

Last Sunday night I got together with my friends and fellow demonstrators, Lena and Renee and our friend Carolyn. Lena had promised to teach us a new technique called Black Magic. I had heard of it, but didn't know how to do it so we got together to learn.

This was my first attempt at a card and it came out nice enough that I've decided to give it to my parents for their anniversary. They are celebrating 40 years on October 18 and are just returning from a trip to Prague.

Here is how my card turned out:

The Black Magic Technique was easy and so pretty! You need a Whisper White Craft Pad, some colored pencils (she had Prism pencils I think) and dark colored card stock. 

First, stamp a solid image onto your dark card stock using the white ink pad. We used Night of Navy card stock. You then need to either let it dry or heat it with the heat gun until it is dry.

Next, take several coordinating pencils that come in a light shade and then a darker shade. Color your image with the lighter shade first and then go over it with the darker shade. 

Finally, we used the white gel pen to highlight our images. I used mine to make the insides of the flowers. My friend Karen Barber calls this "Black Magic with a White Twist."
 
Lena also had the new eyelet punch for the edges, similar to my scallop edge punch, so I got to use that as well. I found it very easy to use.

I took some of her white tafetta ribbon to add to my card and then I was done. At home I added the Happy Anniversary stamp from Teeny Tiny Wishes. I love that set; it literally has a stamp for every occasion. It reminds me of the All Occasion stamp sets we used to have: All Occasion I, II, and III. Each one had some occasions, but to have them all you had to buy all three sets or else choose the occasions you thought you'd use the most. This new set is comprehensive and really does have all the occasions!

To stamp the Happy Anniversary, I used my favorite red: Rose Red Classic Ink. Very simple, but very pretty.

Over the next few days I will be working on my presentation for the Stampin' Up! Maine Regional Trainings. I'm very excited to have been asked to do a 5 minute "WOW" project presentation. I will also be working on my swaps this week, so I will have tons to share with you after Lena, Renee and I return from our trip!

October brings lots of great specials, promotions and new products!

Happy October everyone!  Welcome to a new month of specials and new products!  Thanks to my friend Jen Foley, my blog has been updated with everything new in the right hand side bar.  Click on any of the specials to see the complete details.  There's a new product: My Digital Studio, a hostess special and a deal of the week every week this month!

Keep in mind also, sign ups for my November 15 Christmas Card Class are happening right now.  The deadline to register and pay is October 15.  Looking forward to seeing everyone then!

If you would like to watch a video about the My Digital Studio scrapbooking software, check out my Demonstrator Business Website under "products."  There are so many capabilities this software has, it's amazing! 

There's also a new Digital Scrapbooking Starter Kit for just $185 that includes the new software PLUS traditional rubber stamping & scrapbooking supplies!  Be sure to check it out and sign up today!