Category Archives: Cards

Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Balloon Birthday Card with Envelope

Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Balloon Birthday Card with Envelope

One of the items on the final week of Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals is the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits! That is what I used to make this Mini Treat Bag Balloon Birthday Card!  I used the Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper to make the treat bag. Then I punched a matching “real” balloon with the Balloon Bouquet Punch. To turn this into a birthday card, I added a card of Whisper White to slip inside and stamped with the smaller balloon from the punch adhered to the card. The larger balloon is on the bag.  And to finish it off, I used the Envelope Punch Board to make a matching envelope with another pattern in the pack of designer paper.

The Mini Treat Bag Thinlits DIes have been one of my favorite dies!  Be sure to check it out and perhaps add it to your next order!

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Balloon Celebration Regals Colors Birthday Card

Balloon Celebration Regals Colors Birthday CardOne quick and easy way to make a birthday card is to use the Balloon Celebration Photopolymer Stamp Set and the Balloon Bouquet PunchFor this card, I simply chose to use colors from the Regals Family just because I don’t use those colors as much. But I’m happy with the colors when I look at this card!

To keep it easy, I just used the Whisper White Thick Cardstock for the card base. If you don’t have this paper already, you should add it to your next order.  It just is a little heavier than the regular Whisper White and you don’t feel that you need to add a layer for a little more heft in your card.

Then I had fun punching lots of balloons with the Balloon Bouquet Punch!  If you want to, you can stamp the shading on the paper first and then punch, or punch first and then stamp. Once you start punching balloons, punch extras because it is fun and because you might want to use them on another card or project!

The stars stamp and the greeting all come in the Balloon Celebration Stamp Setas well as the balloon strings, so you are all set!  You will be able to many kinds of cards with this stamp set to cover almost all occasions!  Have fun making this Balloon Celebrations Birthday Card!

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National Beer Day Beer Stein

National Beer Day Beer Stein Card

Today is National Beer Day, in case you hadn’t heard so I made a Beer Stein card to celebrate! It’s also a good card for a man in your life who likes beer (or even a woman) for a birthday or other occasion. Very easy to make with some paper trimming and punches.

My stein base of Whisper White is 3″ x 3/4″ with strips of Hello Honey cut to fit inside.  They are about 7/8″ wide and 3 1/2″ long.  I chose to put a piece of Vellum over the top to make it look like a frosted glass like you might get in a restaurant.  The foam bubbles are made with punched circles and I even punched some Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper for some tiny sparkly bubbles.  The handle is the largest oval punch with the Large Oval Punch punching the inside out.  My bubbles don’t show up very well on this photo.  You might like to sponge the edges a bit to make them stand out more.

I was wondering who thinks up all these “days”, but this one is actually rooted in history. National Beer Day is linked to the end of Prohibition and if you would like to read more about National Beer Day, check out this Fortune.com article HERE.

Whether you are a drinker or not, beer drinker or not, you might want to make a beer card to keep in your stash in case you have the perfect person to send one too!

There are some new items on the Clearance Rack so be sure to check that out! And all the Weekly Deals!

I wish you a Happy National Beer Day and I hope you celebrate at least by making a Beer Stein card!

Rose Garden Thinlits Flower Card

Rose Garden Thinlits Flower Card

These Rose Garden Thinlits Dies are on the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals this week, along with many other items. You can make beautiful cards and projects with these dies, even if you don’t own the coordinating stamp set, Rose Wonder Photopolymer Stamp Set. On this card, I used the large flower and leaf die twice, once with the Hello Honey card stock for the flower and once with the Mossy Meadow card stock and then cut the leaves off the flower and added the green leaves on the card to the yellow flower.  You could also make a monochromatic flower with the same color leaves and have a beautiful card as well.  So many possibilities!

This was a very simple card to make.  It helps to have the Precision Base Plate to use with this die since these thinlits are rather intricate. And then the Big Shot Die Brush is REALLY handy to have to help remove all the small pieces from the die.  I use the Die Brush a lot.

Be sure to check out the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals because there are a lot of items on there this week.  But this is the last two weeks for the Weekly Deals, to be replaced with less frequent “Special Offers”, as I blogged about yesterday.  You might enjoy the Rose Garden Thinlits Dies that I used to make this flower card, especially at a discount!

Shop HERE for great Stampin’ Up! products!

Final Four Houston Basketball Card

Final Four Houston Basketball Card

If you are a college basketball fan, then you might be interested in the Final Four this weekend here in Houston, Texas, and if you are not so much a college basketball fan, you might like to just make a Final Four basketball card! Of course this card isn’t just about the basketball tournament, but can be for any basketball fan. It was an easy card to make. Change the greeting for a birthday or congratulations or whatever you need!

I used Whisper White for the card base with a layer of Pacific Point blue embossed with the Lucky Stars Embossing Folder. To make the basketball, I die cut a circle of Pumpkin Pie cardstock with one of the Circles Collection Framelits Dies. Then I drew on the markings with a Basic Black Stampin’ Write Marker  and embossed with the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder to make it look like a basketball. The tiny Gold Glimmer stars are punched with the Confetti Stars Punch and adhered with the Fine Tip Glue Pen so that you can get the tiniest dab of glue.

The greeting is stamped with the Layered Letters Photopolymer Stamp Set. Love that set! I used Tuxedo Black Memento Ink.

Make a card like this Final Four Houston Basketball card for your favorite basketball sports fan! You can change a few things on it to make it in your own style!

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Don’t forget the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals and Clearance Rack!

April Showers Bring May Flowers Card

April Showers Bring May Flowers Card

We have had a couple of gray days in Houston of drizzly, barely-there rain, but today we have had heavier showers, which, being April 1st made me think of “April showers bring May flowers”. Here in Houston we actually have already had March and now April flowers! Texas wildflowers are already blooming, like the beautiful Bluebonnets in our backyard!

So here is a card made with the beautiful English Garden Designer Series Paper with some pretty flowers!  This style card is so easy to make, one you want to keep in your creative mind as a go-to layout. The card base is Mossy Meadow Cardstock, but it could be any neutral color. I did use a layer of Whisper White Cardstock underneath the designer paper because I wanted to tie a ribbon around this front layer. The two patterns you see are the opposite sides of the same paper.  I thought they looked great together on the same card. The ribbon tied around is the Whisper White 3/8″ Stitched Ribbon.  The greeting is a stamp from the Tin of Cards Photopolymer Stamp SetEven if you don’t have the Tin of Cards Project Kit (very cute, by the way!), this is a great stamp set to have on hand.  I was keeping it simple so I just stamped directly on the designer paper. (Better to do before you have the card finished and everything glued down, but I got lucky and didn’t mess it up!)

If you already have a lot of designer paper, stop and look through your stash and be reminded of the pretty patterns you have and get them out and use them! Or look through the catalog and refresh your memory about the designs available and remember that all of it looks better in person!

I hope you are having a safe April Fool’s Day and that no one is playing pranks on you! And if you are having April showers today, remember that they do bring May flowers – or even April ones!  Make a card to celebrate!

Texas Bluebonnets

In Color Birthday Blooms Monochromatic Cards

In Color Birthday Blooms Monochromatic Cards

This is the last week (only today plus three days!) for Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration, and I was also thinking about how soon the current Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog will also be coming to an end. It’s almost April, for heavens sake! One thing to think about, ahead of time, are the In Colors. These are the trendy, up-to-date colors that Stampin’ Up! chooses to be available for only two years in the catalog and introduces a new set every year as the old set goes out. The colors you see on the cards above are going to be the retiring 2014-16 In Colors:  Blackberry Bliss, Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow, Lost Lagoon, and Tangelo Twist. Based upon previous years, I would guess that as soon as the Retirement List comes out, the In Colors may be the first to go, especially the ink refills. Once they are gone, it is difficult to find ones that are available, unless, perhaps, you pay a premium price from someone selling theirs.

So if you want another FREE item from the Sale-A-Bration Brochure or the extra new SAB products and maybe you don’t really have anything in mind right now you are dying to order, you might consider stocking up on any of the In Color 2014-16 products that you want. If you already have the ink pads, I would strongly suggest getting the reinkers. If you have one of the colors of cardstock that is just about out and you like to use it, then order an extra pack or two.

It’s also a good idea to stock up on adhesives during Sale-A-Bration or basics like Whisper White card stock. Sometimes we are so excited about the new stamp sets and accessories that we forget to check our core supplies.

But back to the In Color cards I made in the photo—I probably made those all in about fifteen minutes! I made a card base for each of the In Colors, cut layers of Whisper White card stock, and stamped with the same color inks. The Birthday Blooms Stamp Set is perfect for this because the flower is large and beautiful. There’s really no need to do any coloring or extra embellishing unless you want to! You’ll see on the Tangelo Twist card I decided to make a smaller one (3 3/4″ x 3 3/4″) and stamp with the single flower in the stamp set. I also added a layer of Silver Glimmer Paper for a little pizzazz!  The stamp set comes with those three perfect greetings plus two little accent stamps, a little flower and some dots.

If any of the 2014-16 In Colors are favorites of yours, be sure to check your supply and consider ordering extras before the retirement rush. I don’t know if Stampin’ Up! will do anything different this year, but I’m going by what has happened in the past. And don’t forget, Sale-A-Bration will be ending on Thursday, March 31.  Don’t miss it!!

For quick and easy cards to make, try the In Color Birthday Blooms Monochromatic Cards, even if you use different colors!

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Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card

Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card

This Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card was fun to make! The other day I got out the Stampin’ Up! Watercolor  Paper and played with it. On some pieces I stamped with Versamark Ink and heat embossed with Clear Embossing Powderthen watercolored with reinkers and my Aqua Painter. When you use Watercolor Paper you can move the color around and work with it, which you cannot do with regular cardstock.  I also spritzed the Watercolor Paper with water to help move the color. You can use the Stampin’ Spritzer or any plastic spray bottle. A couple of the pieces of Watercolor Paper I just spritzed with water, dropped on some reinker colors, let it flow around, maybe spritzed some more, and dabbed the excess with a paper towel. This resulted in just multicolored paper, which I then die cut with the Oval Framelit Dies for the “plain” eggs on this card.

The card base is Daffodil Delight cardstock.  The background layer is a piece of the Sale-A-Bration Perfectly Artistic Designer Series Paper. The grass is the Cherry on Top Cotton Paper, cut with the Fringe Scissors. (Even though the Perfectly Artistic Designer Series Paper is one of the Limited items, at this point in time it looks like they still have inventory so you can still choose it as your FREE Sale-A-Bration item.)  The Happy Easter greeting is from the Easter Lamb Wood-Mount StampLove that lamb stamp! It will still be cute to use after Easter on baby cards or other things!

Order some Watercolor Paper and start playing!  You may end up with ink on your fingers but it sure is fun! Add some emboss resist techniques for special designs like this Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card.

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Watercolored Egg Easter Card

Watercolored Egg Easter Card

Remember when you were a child and colored Easter eggs?  You put the egg in a little wire holder and dipped it half in one color and then half in another color.  Maybe you dyed the whole egg one color and then dipped each end in other colors. That is what I was thinking about this morning when I made this card. Usually a little white crayon came in the egg coloring kit and you could color a design on the egg first and when you dipped it in the color, the crayon resisted the dye. It was a fun surprise to see how the egg turned out after it was dipped in the color and removed from the cup!

To make this card, I used Watercolor Paper, which, obviously is the best medium for watercoloring!  If you don’t have Watercolor Paper, our Shimmery White card stock is the next best thing. And sometimes you can get away with using Whisper White if you don’t use too much water or work the color too much and get the paper all pilly. I didn’t use a white crayon, but instead I stamped with Versamark Ink and embossed with Clear Embossing Powder and the Heat Tool. I spritzed the watercolor paper with water so the color would move around easier and used my Aqua Painter to color the different areas with ink in the lid of the ink pads or by adding refill ink in the lid. The great thing about using Watercolor Paper is that it is more forgiving, you can move the color away from where you didn’t want it to go, or add more color when you wanted it. I should perhaps have done a better job of taking a paper towel to wipe off the ink from the embossing earlier, but I really wanted it to look imperfect, like the colored Easter eggs we all used to make or still help our children make now.

The egg shape was die cut with the Big Shot and Oval Framelit Die. You can color a sheet of Watercolor Paper and then punch or die cut many shapes from it.

The Easter greeting is from the great stamp set Teeny Tiny Wishes. I have used it so much! The designs on the egg are from the stamp set Work of Art. And the chick, of course, is from the Sale-A-Bration stamp set Honeycomb Happiness.

We have just ONE MORE WEEK of Sale-A-Bration! It ends next Thursday, March 31! If you want to qualify for a free Sale-A-Bration product with every $50 purchase from Stampin’ Up!, better get your Wish List out and see what you want to order and what Sale-A-Bration item you want to choose.  Remember, no limit!  One FREE item for EVERY $50 you spend!

Have fun making Easter eggs, whether it is a watercolored Easter card or the real things! Those were the days!!

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Stamping An Easter Egg Card

Easter Egg Card

This is a fun and easy Easter Egg card to make! Fold a Whisper White card base in half as you would normally do to make a card. Bring over the Oval Framelit Die you wish to use on the card and lightly pencil where the die will fit on the card.  You want the right side of the card to be just inside the die so that the fold will not be cut. Lightly put some pencil marks so you can see how far over to stamp the curved image from the Work of Art Stamp Set. Depending on the size die you use (I used the largest one below the scalloped edge oval die.), you may need to extend the stamping off to the side. Even if you overstamp the stripe you made, it won’t really make that much difference. Or you can stamp the stripe again to balance it out.  But this technique is very forgiving.

In this photo below, you can see how I did the stamping, although it didn’t extend to the left side far enough so I had to make the area larger.

Stamping an Easter Egg Card

Once you have enough area inked up with the Work of Art stamp, use the Big Shot and Oval Die to die cut the oval Easter Egg shape.  Be sure you have the middle of the card fold INSIDE the edge of the die so it won’t be cut to hold the card together. Otherwise you will end up with two die cut ovals! See photo below.

Die Cutting Easter Egg Card

Add a greeting.  I inked up the Happy Easter greeting on the Easter Lamb Wood-Mount Stamp and stamped just the words on a strip of Whisper White.  You can curl it a bit with a Bone Folder if you want it to look like a banner. Then I added some sparkly silver sequins to the card for some bling!

Have fun making a card like this!  Use various colors, adhere the egg to the front of a card, whatever your imagination comes up with! Try stamping an Easter Egg card before Sunday!

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Punch Art Tulips with the Bird Punch

Punch Art Tulips with the Bird Punch

I was simply going to make a card for spring using the Bird Builder Punch to make punch art tulips. All you have to do is punch three of the leaves and layer them to look like tulips! As I started making the tulips and placing them on a Whisper White background, I somehow came up with this idea, tulips in a window box perhaps hanging on a wooden fence!

I put my Whisper White cardstock away, and got out Crumb Cake. I stamped with my Hardwood Background Stamp to make it look like a wood fence (everyone has wood privacy fences in Houston). It wasn’t quite wide enough so I did have to stamp again on the edge, but I got lucky and was able to line it up perfectly (or you could cut your paper a little narrower!). For the flower box, I used Sahara Sand cardstock and sponged it with a little green ink and Sahara Sand to give it that distressed look, like it had been hanging outside for awhile and had some mold or whatever growing on it! You can just clip the ends at a little bit of an angle to give it that look of a planter. For the scalloped edge, I used the scalloped square framelit in the Squares Collection Framelits Dies.  You could also use the retired punch with the scallop edge if you have that.

For the tulip leaves, I punched more leaves with the Bird Punch and just hand cut them about in half to look like those long narrow leaves tulips have. And to maybe look like some vines hanging out of the planter box, I punched some of the stems with the Bird Punch also.

I hope you had a nice first day of spring yesterday, but it sounds like lots of parts of the country were not so springlike, including here in Houston where it had been in the 80’s just a couple of days ago. Yesterday it was pretty chilly, and this morning it was even colder! But I’ll be wishing I could have that cold weather in August when the heat is unbearable!

Sometimes you just have to get out your stamping supplies and tools and see what happens!

Don’t forget, today is the last day for the current Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals! Check them out and add them to your order. And Sale-A-Bration is quickly coming to an end, so make sure your order is at least $50 to earn your FREE Sale-A-Bration product – or $100 for two free SAB products and so on.  No limit!

With it being spring officially and Easter coming up on Sunday, it would be perfect to try your hand at making some Punch Art Tulips with the Bird Punch.

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A Paper Quilt Card for National Quilting Day 2016

A Paper Quilt Card for National Quilting Day 2016

Here is a paper quilt card to help celebrate National Quilting Day 2016 today! This card demonstrates that we cardmakers can make something resembling a quilt. This is just a simple square block pattern I chose to make, but you can also make cards resembling the more complicated quilt patterns that are out there. If you look closely at the card photo, you will see that I also embossed the “quilt” with the Lovely Lace Textured Embossing Folder  and the Big Shot.  I think this gives the paper the look of actual quilting – but certainly is a lot easier on a card than a real quilt!  I urge you to use a quilt pattern today or sometime soon as inspiration for a card you are making!

The card base is the Lost Lagoon Card Stock with a Whisper White layer. I punched squares of paper with the 1″ Square Punch and adhered the squares to the Whisper White.  The greeting at the bottom is from the stamp set Birthday Blooms.  I love the greetings and design in this stamp set. The designer paper I chose to use for the “quilt” is from the Sale-A-Bration Brochure on page 12 called Wildflower Fields Designer Series Paper (#141022). You can earn this paper FREE with a $50 Stampin’ Up! purchase!

If you are a stamper or papercrafter, I bet, like me, you have also dabbled in other crafts, perhaps quilting. I did make a quilt years ago for my son when I found some antique-looking baseball fabric in a quilt shop. It is rather unusual to find fabric for boys so this caught my eye. I made the quilt top and had it machine quilted. The quilt top wasn’t perfect, but it was the one and only quilt I made from “scratch”.  I was just glad to get it completely finished! I think a lot of crafts have cross-overs, so it is possible to honor quilting on National Quilting Day even if our craft is stamping. Make a quilt card with your paper, ink and stamps instead of fabric! It certainly is easier!

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Stampin’ Up! Garden in Bloom Thank You Card

Garden in Bloom Thank You Card

This Garden in Bloom thank you card was not what I planned to post today, but a catalog I got in the mail yesterday gave me all kinds of inspiration, and this is one of the cards that came out of that. The catalog has a lot of bold designs, lots of black and white and bright colors with some pastels. There is often gold as an accent. I actually made another card with black and white and red with gold. But as I was digging through my stack of card stock sitting out, I saw this Pool Party card stock and decided some Pool Party flowers would be pretty for spring along with gold over the Pool Party color. So even if you think you have an idea in your head, your idea can go in a different direction in a second! Who knows?!

This card is made with the Whisper White Thick Card Stock and opens on the side, for a change. I layered a 2″ strip of Pool Party at the bottom and overlaid with a piece of Gold Fancy Designer Vellum Foil. I stamped some flowers from the Garden in Bloom Stamp Set and adhered a strip of Gold Foil across the middle. (The Gold Foil Sheets are on the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals this week!)

The greeting is from the One Big Meaning Stamp Set and was perfect to use since it was little and could fit on the vellum without covering up the little gold hearts. You could use this card for any occasion!  The layout is one of the simplest you can do when you are making a card.

If you need any supplies to make a card similar to my Garden in Bloom Thank You Card, just shop my Stampin’ Up! Online Store!

Make a St. Patrick’s Day Card

St. Patrick's Day Bloomin' Love Heart Card

It’s time to make some St. Patrick’s Day cards if you are Irish or have some Irish friends or family! St. Patrick’s Day is Thursday, March 17 so it is coming soon! You don’t always have to have the exact stamp for the theme. If you just look through your supplies, you will almost always find something you can substitute that will still express the occasion. For example, I just had this Bloomin’ Heart Thinlit Die in mind for a St. Patrick’s Day card even though you might think it’s not quite the right thing.  But I colored it green, so I think it works perfectly!  And certainly is pretty in person!

I die cut the Bloomin’ Heart out of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper and then colored the heart with my Aqua Painter and Cucumber Crush Ink Refill. You can experiment with how light or dark you want to color your heart because it likely will dry a little lighter than the color goes on. But you can go back and add more color if you want. Most likely, it will come out a little varigated because you won’t get the exact amount of color over each area.

The card base is Cucumber Crush with a Gold Foil Sheets by Stampin’ Up! layer and Shimmery White on top of that.  I liked the Shimmery White to match the glimmer paper.  I also stamped some flowers from the Bloomin’ Love Photopolymer Stamp Set and die cut with the Bloomin’ Heart Thinlits Dies. They are adhered to the heart with Mini Glue Dots. To add a little bling, I added some Rhinestone Jewels to the flower centers.

I didn’t have an shamrock stamps, but you can make your own shamrocks with hearts as I did on the bottom portion of this card. They are punched with the Hearts Border Punch. Just put three or four together and draw in the stem with a green Stampin’ Write Marker.

The greeting is from Teeny Tiny Wishes, one of my favorite stamp sets! It DOES have a “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” stamp, but if you don’t own this stamp set, you might have a difficult time finding that greeting. In another stamp set, I found the words “Lucky You” and I thought that would work also.  So if you ever don’t have the exact right thing, just look and see what you do have that will work just fine!

Remember, today is the last day for these Stampin’ Up! Weekly DealsPick up several packages of Rhinestone Jewels at a discount! Just add these deals to your order, and when you reach $50 or more, choose a FREE Sale-A-Bration item! And remember, there are three NEW Sale-A-Bration products you might like as well!

Sale-A-Bration New Products 1

Sale-A-Bration New Products 2

Shop at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store for your papercrafting supplies!

Balloon Celebration Congratulations Card

Balloon Celebration Congratulations Card

I always say it’s good to have stars for making all kinds of cards and now I think I could say the same about balloons, such as this Balloon Celebration Congratulations Card. Balloons can be used for birthdays, for congratulations, for a party invitation, for kids, for babies, for all kinds of occasions! Whether you have the Balloon Celebration Photopolymer Bundlecomplete with the Balloon Celebration Stamp Set and the Balloon Bouquet Punch, or even just one of those, you can stamp or punch balloons for cards or gifts or other projects with so many themes.

For this card, I stamped the balloons by “stamping off” one time on scrap paper to make the ink lighter and then overstamped with the shading dots. Then the balloons were punched out with the Balloon Bouquet Punch. You can get two sizes of balloons with this punch! The strings are stamped or you could just draw them in, depending on your placement. I stamped the word “Congratulations” from the stamp set and made a banner, inking the edges a bit.  For a bit more oomph, I punched some Gold Glimmer Stars with the star punch in the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack. I could have also stamped some very small stars included in the stamp set.

Just a couple more weeks of Sale-A-Bration, the biggest Stampin’ Up! promotion of the year! Spend $50 in Stampin’ Up! products and choose a FREE Sale-A-Bration product! How much fun is that??!

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