Stamping with Karen

2010 Winter Olympics Opens Tonight

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada kicks off tonight with the Opening Ceremonies!  It's always fun to watch the Olympics, so we've been looking forward to this for awhile.  Here's a simple card inspired by the Olympic rings.

 

Supplies

Stamps:  Well-Scripted (#117072, #118501)

Cardstock:  Whisper White, Real Red, Brilliant Blue, Basic Black, Yoyo Yellow, Garden Green

Accessories:  1 3/4" Circle Punch, 1 3/8" Circle Punch, 1/2" Striped Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon

Ink:  Stazon Black

Don't forget, you'll be able to shop online any time during the Olympics at my Stampin' Up! Online Store.

 

Star Card for a Star!

Last week my son called to say the results were posted and he had indeed passed his first level CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exam that he took last December in Houston!  This is a self-study, graduate level program for investment professionals with three levels of exams, and if you do take and pass all three exams and meet the other professional and ethical requirements you will have earned for yourself quite a credential in the investment field.  There is an enormous amount of study required, on your own, for each exam, so it is quite a commitment and we were hoping all the time he had put in had paid off for him.  The results say that 34% of the 44,000+ candidates worldwide who took the test successfully passed it.  Of course, I thought, at a minimum, he deserved a special card of congratulations!

 

 

 

 

Now in Houston if you have an important event coming up, you have to hope that we don't have heavy rains which make the streets flood and become impassable at times....unless it is hurricane season....but flooded streets are much more likely.  As luck would have it, though, we had SNOW!  

 

 

The day before the exam it snowed like crazy, beautiful and fun!  It was great to have him home to share the excitement with (during his study breaks!).  But who would have thought the day of the exam we would have to worry about ice on the roads in Houston, TX?!!  We offered to drive him downtown so he wouldn't get lost or have to worry about parking, etc. since this test was SUCH A BIG DEAL!  We were lucky because we had no trouble, although we saw some accidents from icy spots going the opposite way.  Who would have thought!

 

 

 

 
 

 

Two Anniversaries Today.....Mine and Apollo 11!

Thirty two years ago today (I have to do the math, I can't believe it has been that long!) I awoke to an 8 am call from an out-of-town well-wisher on my wedding day and the phone never stopped ringing all day!  Friends called from as far away as Hawaii who couldn't come for the wedding, my bridesmaids and other girlfriends called to see how things were going, it's a given I talked to both of my grandmothers, and even the groom called (although things were a bit quieter at his house).  It was about 100 degrees outside and the air conditioner wasn't working very well, so my dad would have to go down in the basement and pound on something every little while to make it cool better.  The best man (who was moving) brought his dog over to stay in the yard next door, but while we were all trying to get dressed, the dog got loose and my dad had to go out and find him, making my mother frantic that he was going to have a heart attack in the heat, but fortunately the dog really was still in the side yard.  The limo came and we really did all make it to the church on time!  My dad asked me teasingly before he walked me down the aisle if I was sure and I happily said I was indeed SURE!  I think you have to be "sure" if you want to stay married this long!

So after all that reminiscing, here is the anniversary card I made for my husband....who will look at it, put it down, and then I will confiscate it for my samples!

 

Another Movers and Shapers card with the new Soft Suede.

Using the Stamp a Ma Jig to get the birds centered inside the cut out heart (or you can eyeball it through the heart).

 

A little "Happy Anniversary" from the new "Teeny Tiny Wishes".

 

And another anniversary today is the launch of Apollo 11 forty years ago, the first manned mission to land on the moon.  I was quite interested in the space program, having grown up with it, and remember getting up very early in order to watch this launch from the very beginning because I knew it was historic.  I even used a reel-to-reel tape recorder to record the audio from the TV to save "for posterity"!  Who knew forty years later the tape recorder wouldn't work anymore and that style wouldn't even exist!  And I sure didn't know that in another eight years I would be getting married!

Graduation Time

Here's another graduation card (or for any occasion) made following almost the same idea as THIS card in a previous post.  This time I wanted a money holder.  This card is not as wide as it should be to hold the money, but in this case I wanted it to fit in a certain envelope....so I'll just have to fold the money in half!  The card front measures 3" x 6" with a fold up pocket on the inside of 2".  Therefore, you need to cut your cardstock at 8" x 6", scoring at 2" and 5" so you can fold the 2" pocket up inside the card and then the 3" top folds down.

 

The star actually spins on the front!  I found the design by Dawn while browsing on Splitcoast here.  It adds a fun little element! 

If you need the star punches to make a spinning star, just place your order here on my website.

Need Another Graduation Card?

 

This is a pretty easy graduation card to make.  I admit to using some retired paper and stamps, but the color, Cranberry Crisp, seemed to match the school colors pretty well.  The retired stamp set is "In the Stars" but I thought that words on the star were perfect for graduation.  I stamped the star on the ivory cardstock twice, cutting out one image and popping it up with dimensionals.  I had embossed the little stars on the card with gold embossing powder, but then added a couple of star punches out of Brushed Gold cardstock.  The gold-embossed "Congrats" is from the current Ronald McDonald stamp set, "Say It with Scallops", found on the inside of the back cover of the catalog.  Stampin' Up! donates $2 for every one of this set sold to RMDH.....it's a great stamp set and while you're stamping you know you're also helping out a worthy cause.

It's Graduation Time

A year ago we were looking forward to our son's college graduation and now that first year post-college has really flown by.  If I can offer a few words of advice to those of you going to graduation at a large university.....Don't park in the garage!  Not that we knew that, but we happened to see a spot on the street as we were dropping him off for the ceremony and managed to parallel park there.  That saved us at least an hour of time trying to get out of the parking garage after the ceremony!  We know because we were waiting for his friends to join us at lunch and they had parked in the garage!

Another tip would be to make sure your graduate is awake and AT the ceremony before you sit there with the whole family waiting for that glorious moment of seeing your child walk across the stage, only to find out that he overslept and isn't even there!  Thankfully that isn't a personal story, but I heard other parents recounting that story while I waited to be seated at a restaurant!  Just a college thing, I'm sure!

So here's a sample graduation card made with the "Great Grads" set and a rub on from "A Perfect Day".  Gotta love those rub ons!  Of course you would want to use your school colors or favorite combination, but I used Brilliant Blue, Whisper White, Basic Black, and Brushed Gold.  The cap is stamped twice, cut out, and popped up with a Dimensional.  I colored around the white area a little just to help it stand out.

If you need supplies to make a graduation card, hurry and contact me so we can get them ordered and in your hands.  You might not think that high school or college kids would care that their card was handmade by you, but they do!

For the Graduation "Star"

I have to say I made this card up myself, this morning, so it can't be too hard!  The card is 4x4, so cut your base cardstock 4"x8" and fold in half.  Then your Whisper White layer is 3 3/4" x 3 3/4".  You could do this card in whatever colors match your school or personality!  After embossing the word "Congratulations" from the set "Hugs and Wishes" in gold, I just punched out some stars with our two star punches on pages 184-5 in the Idea Book & Catalog.  You can punch out the little star first, then place your Large Star punch around the small punched out star and punch and get the star with the little star in the middle.  Or you can layer the solid stars.  Just play with it!  You can even just stamp the Congratulations in black or another color rather than emboss.  Have fun!