Author Archives: Karen Fontinelle

A Fun Spider Card for Halloween

You never know where creative inspiration will come from! I got an email advertising Halloween gifts. The designs on the items were so cute, and I thought, “I could make a card using that idea!” So here is a fun Halloween spider card!

The Halloween spider is made by cutting a Gumball Green circle with one of the Circle Framelits. In order to get the stripes, I used a technique I’ve seen a million times but hadn’t tried myself. Before I embossed the circle with the Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, I inked the inside stripes of the embossing folder with a darker green color, Garden Green. That made some of the stripes colored! It looked really neat when I took it out of the folder! For the eyes, I punched two Pumpkin Pie circles and smaller Basic Black circles and colored in the whites with the Signo Gel Pen. I hand-drew the squigly mouth with a black marker and just hand-cut two little triangles for his teeth. Do you know what the legs are? They are punched from the new Chevron Border Punch!

The card base is Elegant Eggplant layered with a piece of the new Witches’ Brew Designer Series Paper. For a little greeting I used a stamp from the Halloween Bash stamp set and punched out with the Ticket Duo Punch. You could use this stamp and this card as a Halloween party invitation! Since the card is such a dark color, I put a Whisper White layer on the inside and stamped with a another greeting from the same Halloween Bash stamp set.

It’s fun to spot something cute that you know you can duplicate or at least copy to some extent with your stamps, ink, and paper. Keep your eyes open for ideas in unusual places for papercrafting inspiration!

New Circle Card Thinlits Die Halloween Card

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I LOVE the new Circle Card Thinlits Die! And I loved making this first Halloween card of the season for me! I didn’t even know what, exactly, I was going to make so actually what I came up with was a pleasant surprise! I knew I would start with a card base of Basic Black card stock with some Witches’ Brew Designer Series Paper. Then I got out my new Halloween stamp sets in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog to see what I could use. I decided to stamp the flying witch in the stamp set Halloween Hello on a piece of Summer Starfruit punched with the 1 3/4″ Circle Punch. It is layered on a scallop circle die cut which comes with the Circle Card Thinlits Die and that is layered on a 2 1/2″ Circle Punch of Champagne Glimmer Paper. The die also comes with a small star die but for this card I used the star punch in the carryover punch pack from last year’s Holiday Catalog, Merry Minis Punch Pack #126882.

The Halloween greeting on the front is part of a stamp in the Halloween Bash Stamp Set in the Holiday Catalog. I covered up the top part I did not want to ink up with a part of an old business card and inked the bottom part with Versamark. Then I embossed it with White Stampin’ Emboss Powder.

For the inside circle, I thought a surprise was in order since it is a Halloween card and what could be a better surprise than a ghost! Do you know how I made that ghost? Just use the Stampin’ Up! Owl Punch! Snip off the feet of the owl and turn him upside down! You could punch out some eyes and mouth but I just used a black marker. The “Boo” is handwritten with the brand new White Stampin’ Chalk Marker in the Holiday Catalog.

Here is a close-up of the focal point of the card. The scallop circle die cut does not come with the holes in the scallops. I wanted more of the Glimmer Paper to show through so I grabbed a hole punch in my stash and punched those holes. I had also considered doing some doodling with the Chalk Marker. So whatever works for you! The Summer Starfruit circle is also sponged with some Pumpkin Pie ink and even a little bit of Gumball Green.

I hope you enjoyed my first Halloween card. You know the fall season is fast approaching!

Go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store and check out the products in the Holiday Catalog and get yourself in the mood! I’m sure you will want and enjoy the new Thinlits Dies, too!

Pop’ N Cuts Dress Form and Card Base Birthday Card

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These Pop’ N Cut Dies were introduced in the Stampin’ Up! Spring Catalog and honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to them. I think I had already added so many things to my order that by the time I got to their page in the catalog I wasn’t interested. I didn’t take any time to see what they were about, although I did order the Dress Up Framelits Dies. Those seemed easy enough.

But then as so often happens, I started to see really cute things other people made and also watched some videos made by the designer of the dies, Karen Burniston. That’s when I put them on my next order! The shape of the Card Base Pop’ N Cuts Die is a Stampin’ Up! exclusive, made with the decorative edge and made so you can tuck it into the slits to close. You can use just this without the pop up portion.

The pop up portion is easy to do once you get the hang of it. You want to be careful not to fold things that shouldn’t be folded. In order to get the pop up going, it works best if you get your fingers behind that table part and then you will see and feel where the score lines are and how to get the pop up to pop up!

Once you get the pop up popped up, you can adhere it to the card base. Just be careful to see where the adhesive should go and shouldn’t go. I haven’t gotten the hang of that yet! Even though I think I’m being careful, I always get adhesive where it shouldn’t be! But as long as you pay a little bit of attention, you’ll be okay! Then you can embellish and decorate your card however you like on the inside and on the front!

This is what the pop up looks like from the side. You want to get that rectangle shape from the side. That’s how you know you have it right! Once you get that shape, then the rest will take care of itself.

These Pop’ N Cut dies are easy enough to use and fun besides! You can also trim that dress shape off the pop up and add another piece of card stock for a gift card holder or for a message or other design.

Here are the Pop’ N Cuts dies I used plus the framelits:

Just go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store any time! Just think what magical cards you can make with the Pop’ N Cuts Dies!

Daydream Medallions Birthday Card

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The Daydream Medallions stamp set I have thought is a beautiful one. And this birthday card my longtime dear friend made for me for my birthday with Daydream Medallions is certainly a beautiful card. She always makes a beautiful card in a simple elegant style.

Don’t you love the cupcake on the envelope, too?! Always stamp something on your envelope! We don’t want to send a naked envelope! If that cupcake wasn’t stamped on that envelope, wouldn’t you just toss it out right away?

My friend also sent me a funny book with quotes about old age! My favorite one I’ve found so far is one by Ann Landers, the advice columnist. Let me first state that I did NOT turn 70! Just to be clear!! But whatever decade below that it was, this describes exactly how I feel!

“Inside every seventy-year-old is a thirty-five-year-old asking “What happened?”

Maybe the essence of ourselves doesn’t age past thirty-five and that’s why we don’t feel as old as we get!

The book is called Old Age Is Always 15 Years Older Than I Am by Randy Voorhees if you need a funny gift for a middle-aged friend!

Gold Embossing on Modern Medley Designer Series Paper

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At the Stampin’ Up! Convention this past July, Pam Morgan from the Stampin’ Up! Home Office demonstrated on stage embossing in gold stamped images on the trendy Modern Medley Designer Series Paper. I even won that Prize Patrol, winning Gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder and a pack of the Modern Medley paper! Pam was using a lot of the images from Gorgeous Grunge, a stamp set we got free at Convention. On this card I stamped the beautiful flower from Blooming with Kindness and added some of the small splatters from Gorgeous Grunge off to the side. Kind of different, but I think I like it! This time I purposely chose a light colored background thinking the gold embossing would show better, but I think next time I will try a dark background.

For a greeting I punched a piece of Brushed Gold card stock with the Scallop Oval Punch and layered a piece of black card stock punched with the Large Oval Punch. On top of that is the sentiment embossed in gold from Itty Bitty Banners and die cut with the Big Shot and the Bitty Banners Framelits.

If you would like to try your hand at the magic of heat embossing, you’ll need a Stampin’ Up! Heat Tool and your choice of embossing powder! It’s easy and amazing!

Shop at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store or email me with your order!

A Birthday Jar of Notes!

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My daughter, last weekend, did so many things to make my $%&^th birthday the best one I ever had! I’ll just say it was one of the milestone ones! She took all the sting out of turning this age with all her surprises, the best one being her flying in from California and surprising me! In addition there was a beautiful birthday cake and a mother-daughter cooking class at our neighbor’s house. I couldn’t have imagined anything else, but she had one more surprise up her sleeve!

I don’t even quite know the FULL story, but apparently months ahead of time she contacted friends, neighbors, and relatives and sent them packets with colored note cards and asked them to write some special memory or story or birthday wishes to me or about me. Then they sent them back to her and she put them all in this jar she decorated with a ribbon and button.

It was SO much fun to read all of them, see who they were from, and see the old photos some people included! Even all 8 of my brother’s children wrote notes! My one long, long, long time friend and college roommate even copied excerpts from her diary when we were in college and about when I met my husband. My other equally long-time friend sent photos of when I was a bridesmaid in her wedding and our story about how hard we’ve laughed over all my Quilt Show purchases through the years (before stamping) that I would drag out when she visited. Some neighbors talked about all our activities with our kids through the years; swim team, Cub Scouts, even college graduations! My sister-in-law mentioned her visit when our girls were little-bitty and I bought them matching outfits. Not only were the memories and nice notes great, it made clear the connections I have with all these people, built up through all these years. If you are looking for an exceptionally special gift to give someone for whatever occasion, this idea is certainly it!!

Surprises Galore for My Milestone Birthday

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What a weekend and what a birthday! I went from not having anything special planned at all for my birthday except probably my husband and I going to a nice restaurant for dinner, well not probably, for sure!!

My one son emailed and said he and his brother were coming home for the weekend (they live about 3 hours away). On Friday he emailed again that he and his girlfriend were coming that night but Steven would come on Saturday, and Eric was staying over Monday and Tuesday, but Steven and Heather would drive back on Sunday. Ok.

Everybody arrived Friday night and Saturday at the designated times. Steven’s car needed to go in the shop for a new battery and oil. Since my back had been acting up for two weeks as well as our new refrigerator, I hadn’t done any grocery shopping and didn’t. But Steven is sticking to his food allergy diet right now which means Mom needs to cook food at home so he doesn’t get any offending substance. Since my back was doing better I made a quick trip to the grocery store and bought some very nice beef tenderloin steaks and other stuff for a nice dinner. When I got the groceries put away, Eric told me he and his girlfriend were meeting a high school friend at 6:30. I thought that was a bit early and wondered how I was going to get this expensive dinner I’d just bought prepared very quickly so they could leave and besides, Steven’s car needed to be picked up at the shop. But I’m pretty good at that so I got dinner made fairly quickly and as soon as they were finished eating they left, ignoring my suggestion to let their friend know they were going to be a little late rather than rushing through dinner. But moms are used to being ignored with advice.

When Eric and Heather came back home, a little earlier than I expected, I looked up, and here was my daughter Amy who had flown in from California for my birthday!! Eric had gone to get her at the airport, not visiting his friend! I haven’t had a surprise like that since my bridal shower! I was completely stunned! She usually isn’t home except at Christmas. And that was just the day before my birthday!

On Sunday besides birthday phone calls from friends and family, I got red and white roses from my husband, large fancy chocolate bars from Eric, fancy brownies Steven had baked himself, and and a beautiful chocolate birthday cake Amy had ordered from a really good bakery here.

Cooking class photos are still on Amy’s camera so I don’t have them yet!

This was a birthday I’ll never forget and what could be better than spending it with all three children (plus my son’s lovely girlfriend!)! I would never have dreamed this big birthday was going to be so wonderful and memorable and fun!

Projects on Display at the Stampin’ Up! Convention

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I can’t get enough of these photos I took of the display boards at the Stampin’ Up! Convention! Such creative projects and cards! It’s amazing! You should be able to click on each photo to enlarge.