Category Archives: Cards

Circle of Spring Wreath Easter Card

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Circle of Spring Wreath Easter Card

If you are looking for a nice card to make, you might have overlooked the stamp set with which I made this Circle of Spring Wreath Easter card. The stamp set Circle of Spring is in the main Stampin’ Up! catalog on page 77. It’s a beautiful spring-like flowered wreath stamp and plenty of greetings as well as a bow and a flower.  Just stamp the wreath as I did on this card and color in or stamp it and die cut with the Wonderful Wreath Framelits Dies.

On this card, I simply stamped the wreath with Stazon ink on Whisper White cardstock and colored in the leaves and flowers with various Stampin’ Write markers.  Sometimes I used the marker itself to color and sometimes I scribbled marker ink on an acrylic block and picked it up with my Aqua Painter and watercolored. I stamped the bow, die cut it with the framelits die, and used Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere to the card.

The Whisper White layer was to go on the So Saffron card base, but I felt it needed something. I decided to cut very thin strips of Melon Mambo card stock and very carefully glue the strips down on the card front. My Grid Paper sure came in handy to line it up.

Happiness is having a table full of markers and cardstock on the table and just coloring and relaxing! And at the end, I had this easy Easter card made with the Circle of Spring stamp set.

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March Comes in Like a Lion Playful Pals Card and Pyramid Box

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March Comes in Like a Lion Playful Pals Card and Pyramid Box

The saying goes, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” I don’t know if that saying will be true today or not for where I live and where you live, but I made some lions with the Playful Pals Photopolymer Bundle of stamps and dies in honor of March 1st.

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Help Bring Birthdays Back!

Maybe you recall THIS STORY posted on the Stampin’ Up! blog a little while ago about Shannon West, an employee at the Stampin’ Up! Home Office, realizing that people were just posting their holiday and birthday greetings on social media and not sending cards, and she decided to do something about it.  Stampin’ Up! joined in and now we have a new stamp that you can purchase and use on your cards or envelopes as Shannon is doing!

Here is a photo Sara Douglass, Interim CEO of Stampin’ Up!, posted on Facebook yesterday of the new stamp.  You can put Item #143573 on your Stampin’ Up! order.  The cost is $12.00. Right now it says the stamp is on backorder, but if you want it, I would put it on your order anyway. Maybe they just don’t have them all delivered to the warehouse yet for shipping.

imbringingbirthdaysback

 

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Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals
Stampin' Up! Weekly Deal Mar 1 2016

Here are the new Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals for March 1 through Monday, March 7, 2016. I think the main thing I would want if you don’t already have it is the Tin of Cards Project Kit. This kit is featured on the front cover of the Annual Stampin’ Up! Catalog. As soon as I saw the tin, I knew I wanted the kit, and the cards are cute too!  You can make the cards and then wait to attach the greeting for when you need a card and then you can choose what you need. The tin also has dividers so you can store additional cards.  All the other products make stamping more fun, too!

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Is Today Your Leap Year Birthday?

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Playful Pals Frog Leap Year Birthday Card

Is today your Leap Year birthday? If it is, then here is a Playful Pal Frog Leap Year Birthday Card for you! The rest of us can just celebrate having an extra day to do all those things we always want more time to do! It’s hard for me to believe it is the end of February already, even with the extra day.

I made this Playful Pal frog sitting on a lily pad using the Playful Pals Photopolymer Stamp Set. You can purchase the stamp set and the matching Pyramid Pals Thinlits Dies in a Bundle and save 15%. If you like either one, you will want both!

The card base is the same card stock as the lily pad, Mossy Meadow. The lily pad is punched with the 2 3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch. The frog is made by stamping pieces with the stamp set and then die-cutting some of the pieces with the Big Shot using the bright Cucumber Crush card stock. The background layer of the card is stamped with Soft Sky Ink on Whisper White with the Watercolor Wash Background Stamp.

Now to make the greeting, I happened to think of my Alphabet Rotary Stamp! Admittedly, I haven’t used it much, but it’s one of those things that comes in handy in the right circumstances. I just stamped each word on scrap paper and cut out each word. I think it’s a fun way to add a greeting to something, to just paste the single words.

I hope you will consider the Playful Pals Bundle which can be used for cards and projects such as my Playful Pal Frog Leap Year Birthday Card and of course the actual 3D pyramids for favors, gifts and treats.

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Birthday Bouquet Thank You Card

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Birthday Bouquet Thank You Card

An easy way to find ideas for cards to make is to look in the Stampin’ Up! catalogs and copy, or copy some things and change others! I saw a sample card in the Occasions Catalog on page 8 that inspired this Birthday Bouquet Thank You Card. This photo looks like it is layered on a Whisper White base with the usual margin, but that is just the background, the designer paper actually covers the front of the card with no margins. This is a great way to use up some scraps of designer series paper.  Just cut strips of various widths, play around and see what order looks good to you, and adhere! On this card I used the Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper and a strip of Gold Foil. The greeting is from the Fabulous Four Stamp Set.

To embellish the card I used a small gold foil doily in the Metallic Foil Doilies cut in half and just stuck underneath the greeting strip.  I also added a Bow Paper Clip Embellishment. Since it is a paper clip and has that extra piece on the back, I cut that part off with my old Stampin’ Up! Rubber and Craft Scissors, if you have those. I used the tiniest dabs of the Tombow Multipurpose Liquid Glue on the back of the Bow Paper Clip to hold it on the card.

Just look through your designer paper or scraps and see what you could to make a card like this one!

Order your Stampin’ Up! supplies HERE at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store!  Every $50 purchases earns you a FREE Sale-A-Bration product!

Birthday Bouquet Ice Cream Cone Card

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Birthday Bouquet Ice Cream Cone Card

If you want to make a very easy card, this Birthday Bouquet Ice Cream Cone Card might be one you could make! It’s as simple as a card base, a layer of card stock, and a diagonally cut piece of designer paper! Stamp a greeting and you’ve got a card.  I added the ice cream cone but you wouldn’t have to if you want to keep it super simple!

The card base is the new Thick Whisper White Card Stock. It is just a little thicker than regular Whisper White so it makes a sturdier card base like other colored card stock.  Regular Whisper White is fine, but the thick is just a little bit nicer. The layer is Pool Party, one of the coordinating colors with the Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper. I diagonally cut the designer paper.  Not a difficult job when you have the Stampin’ Up! Paper Trimmer! Just line up the opposite corners in the channel where the cutting blade will slide and you have your diagonal!  See the photo below.

Diagonal Paper Cutting

I stamped the ice cream cone from the Sale-A-Bration Stamp Set Honeycomb Happiness, in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure on page 15 on Whisper White, colored it in with markers and cut out with Paper Snips.  Then I added a Honeycomb Embellishment in the Occasions Catalog. These are self-adhesive, just peel off the backing. Not that I realized that at first, but you can also add Glue Dots instead if you want or for extra stickiness.

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Easter Lamb Easter Card

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Easter Lamb Easter Card

I thought one of the cutest stamps in the Occasions Catalog was the Easter Lamb stamp I used to make this Easter Lamb Easter card. It actually comes with the Happy Easter greeting attached, but I cut it off to place it elsewhere on the card. It is just this one wood-mount stamp, and I think just the stamp itself would be cute set out for an Easter decoration when you aren’t stamping with it!

For a background I used my Watercolor Wash Wood-Mount Background Stamp. I mostly buy the clear-mount stamps because, well they are cheaper and they take up less storage space. But some stamps I do like the wood-mount, like these large background stamps so they are mounted and ready to go and just sturdier to use on the wood-block.  I also like wood-mount for very tiny stamps. I inked this stamp with Soft Sky ink, stamped off a bit and still had plenty of color on my Whisper White paper. It is easiest to lay the paper onto the stamp which is face up on your desk, and then lay scrap paper, like computer paper or your Grid Paper over it so you can rub the paper on the stamp without getting inky fingers.

The lamb is stamped with Stazon Jet Black ink and I colored in a bit with a Pink Pirouette Stampin’ Write Marker and Smoky Slate. I also colored the grass green with a marker.  I punched out the lamb with the 2″ Circle Punch and layered it on the 2 3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch. For a little glitz, I also punched a piece of Gold Glimmer Paper to layer behind.  I love that touch!  Then for a little more interest, I added a strip of Jute Ribbon and Venetian Crochet Trim.

It’s time to start making Easter cards, so use this Easter Lamb Easter Card as an inspiration to get started!

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Easy Masculine Birthday All-Occasion Card For a Man

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Easy Masculine Birthday All-Occasion Card For a Man

Yesterday I made a card very similar to this one HERE in this post, and then I thought about changing it up in color and texture to make an easy masculine birthday all-occasion card for a man.  I just used Chocolate Chip cardstock for the card base, making it open at the top instead of the side.  Just cut the full piece of card stock lengthwise at 4 1/4″ and then score in the middle at 5 1/2″ for the fold. I used a piece of the Kraft Corrugated Paper (you also get white sheets as well in the pack!) for the layer. The Whisper White banner is stamped with several different inks in the Neutrals family. I adhered a piece of cardstock at the top of the banner and stapled it (for that “masculine” texture!) with the Stampin’ Up! Handheld Stapler. Be sure to order a box of the Silver Mini Staples so you will have some on hand. And it all counts toward your $50 order for Sale-A-Bration!

Don’t forget to check out the Weekly Deals this weekend if you are ordering!

Weekly Deal Feb 16 2016

If you are new and need catalogs (and a Demonstrator!), please email me at Karen@KarenStamps.com.  I have a few left on hand I can mail to you.

If you are reading this and are NOT on my mailing list, be sure to sign up in the box in the upper right of my blog or in the pop-up. I hope to have my mid-month newsletter going out today, but the gremlins may have run off with it overnight!  Yikes!  I may have to start over! Gotta love computers!!

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Order online at my Stampin’ Up! Store for all the supplies to make cards like the ones I have on my blog!

Fabulous Four It’s Your Day Card Idea

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Fabulous Four It's Your Day Card Idea

One of the many things I love about stamping is that it is okay to copy an idea, as I did with this Fabulous Four It’s Your Day Card. While a birthday card might come to mind, I think this card with this greeting could be for lots of occasions. I saw this idea in the magazine we receive as Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators and I changed it just a little bit.

The card base is Pool Party card stock stamped with an outline flower from the Garden In Bloom Photopolymer Stamp Set in Pool Party ink for a watermark effect.  The center banner is stamped with the same greeting from Fabulous Four multiple times in multiple colors. I chose Calypso Coral, So Saffron, Wisteria Wonder, Wild Wasabi, and Pool Party. At the top of the banner, instead of card stock, I put a strip of Cherry on Top Designer Washi Tape around the top and tied on a piece of Whisper White Baker’s Twine. For some extra pizzazz, I used my Botanical Builder Framelits Dies to cut out a little flower and its center to put on the banner. I also added one of the It’s My Party Enamel Dots to the center.

This is an easy card to make and can be copied and changed up a bit in colors or texture to make a card for anyone and any occasion. The Fabulous Four stamp set is one I have used a lot, especially the It’s Your Day greeting.

Shop Stampin’ Up! Online HERE for the best in cardmaking supplies!

Birthday Blooms For You Card

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Birthday Blooms For You CardMake an easy all-occasions card with the Birthday Blooms Stamp Set and some pretty paper and card base. This stamp set just is “pretty” to me! I love the font style and the pretty flower designs. The single flower is just stamped on Whisper White card stock with Black Stazon Ink and punched with the 2″ Circle Punch. This circle then layers on the 2 3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch  on a piece of Calypso Coral card stock.  The flower is colored with my Aqua Painter and some “ink” from the Calypso Coral Stampin’ Write Marker.  I just scribble the marker on my plastic stamp case and pick it up with my Aqua Painter or a Blender Pen. When I am finished, I just wipe off the stamp case with a paper napkin or towel, which I am probably already using with the Aqua Painter. The leaves and stem are colored with Old Olive in the same manner but you could also use Pear Pizzazz or another green of your choosing. If you don’t have the right markers, you can use a drop of ink refill or pick up some ink off your ink pad.  So many choices and ways to do things in stamping!

The card base is Crumb Cake. The designer paper is the Wildflower Fields Paper, FREE in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure on page 12 with a $50 Stampin’ Up! purchase.  I hadn’t looked closely at all the patterns in the package, but wow, when I did, I fell in love with this pattern of stems and a little bit of color on white! I love the simplicity and easy look of it!  I thought it would go perfectly with this simple, pretty single flower from Birthday Blooms.  I added a piece of Pear Pizzazz 1/4″ Cotton Ribbon across the top of the designer paper and tied on a small knot.  The greeting is also from the Birthday Blooms Stamp Set and stamped on Calypso Coral.  I thought I would just keep it simple by not layering or anything else.

At the last minute, I decided to stamp some flowers in Versamark Ink on the top part of the card base, which is not a good idea when you have the bottom paper already adhered.  I couldn’t space the flowers out very well and a few overlap as you can see – but, oh well, handmade doesn’t mean perfection! And probably no one else will notice but me! So don’t let your mistakes stop you. There ARE no mistakes in stamping!

Remember, there are 3 new Sale-A-Bration products to choose from as of yesterday! See them HERE.

Shop Stampin’ Up! Online HERE and get a Birthday Blooms Stamp Set for making cards or any other wonderful Stampin’ Up! products – and with a $50 purchase, get a FREE Sale-A-Bration item!

 

 

Paper Strip Quilt Valentine Card For Valentine’s Day

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Paper Strip Quilt Valentine Card

It’s Valentine’s Day, and if you need to make a last minute Valentine card, this paper strip quilt valentine idea is very easy to make. It may look involved, but it is a good way to use up your designer paper scraps.  I happened to have a bunch of paper strips from a project with the Love Blossoms Designer Paper Stack. They are about 1/2″ wide, you can use whatever measurement you like. The basic idea is to lay down some strips of paper side by side on the cardstock and then trim off the overhanging strips.

I suggest starting with a piece of cardstock such as Whisper White, larger than what you ultimately want (to allow room for trimming). I adhered one paper strip at an angle that didn’t go all the way across. Then start adhering strips side by side (or leaving a margin in between if you want) going in different directions and varying the paper patterns. Where you end up with the eensiest empty space along an edge, you could color in with a marker, but if you make your base cardstock larger, you will be trimming the edges off anyway.

This is what your strip piecing will look like:

Paper Strip Quilt Valentine Card BackPaper Strip Quilt Valentine Card Front

Paper Strip Quilt Valentine Card Trimming

And then you end up with this paper strip layer that looks like a quilt perhaps!

Paper Strip Quilt Valentine Card pieced

It’s best to make this layer larger than the size you need so that you can trim it down and get rid of any little empty spaces along the edge.

If you wanted to make this look like a quilt or to add extra texture, you could now run this layer through the Big Shot with an embossing folder of your choice.

To finish the card for Valentine’s Day, I punched three Whisper White and three Rose Red hearts with the Sweetheart Punch. You can’t really layer the hearts properly but you can make it look a little bit layered by just staggering the punched hearts one on top of the other. The hearts are stamped with images from the Bloomin’ Love Photopolymer Stamp Set.

Of course this card is not just for Valentine’s Day.  You can do this paper strip technique for any occasion with any papers. It’s a great way to use up scraps with an impressive result! If you need a last minute Valentine card, try this paper strip quilt technique.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Making a Valentine Birthday Card With Paper Pumpkin

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Making a Valentine Birthday Card

Although the January 2016 Paper Pumpkin Kit had an obvious Valentine theme to it, you can also use hearts for a birthday, especially a birthday for Valentine’s Day. When you receive your Paper Pumpkin papercrafting kit in the mail, you can follow the enclosed directions and/or you can make your own alternative Paper Pumpkin ideas. There often are enough materials to do some of both! And some people subscribe to two kits so they can make the project as designed and then play around with the second kit to make other creative ideas!

There are always alternative ideas out there and I saw other ideas of making cards with the hearts. Since I didn’t really need another Valentine, I decided to make a birthday card with the big Paper Pumpkin heart.  If you aren’t getting the Paper Pumpkin Kit, just cut out your own heart out of cardstock or designer paper.  Perhaps you have the retired Hearts Framelits. (How could they retire those?!!) It’s okay for the heart to be too big for the card, just cut off the overhanging part and it still looks fine. I stamped this heart with a greeting from the Big News Stamp Set.  The background paper is from the Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper.  If you are using two patterns on your card, have one be big and bolder and one smaller to make them work. My little banner also comes from the Paper Pumpkin Kit. The smaller hearts are punched with the Sweetheart Punch.  I just punched three so I could get sort of a layered look even though they don’t really “layer”. The beautiful sequin trim also comes in the kit and I made it look like a bow, adhered with Glue Dots. I pulled off a few sequins to adhere randomly on the heart. Easy with the tiniest drop of glue on the paper and then place the sequin on the paper, don’t try to put glue on the sequin.

I hope this gives you an idea for a Valentine card, alternative ideas for your Paper Pumpkin Kit or an idea for using hearts for other occasions like a birthday, rather than just Valentine’s Day.

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(Last weekend to get the three limited edition products pages 16-19!)

Super Bowl Sunday 2016 Football Owl Punch Card

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Super Bowl Sunday 2016 Football Owl Punch Card

Today is Super Bowl Sunday 2016, so before the game or during the game, why not celebrate with a little stamping?! Gotta love the Owl Builder Punch for making just about anything you need, including football players! I don’t know of any punch more interesting and versatile than the Owl Punch!

The football is made with the Oval Punch, but I stuck one end back in the punch from the top (not the side as usual) to make the oval shorter.  Then I had to trim the sides just a teeny bit and I added the stitching with the White Gel Pen.  The greeting is from the stamp set in the Occasions Catalog, Enjoy the Little Things .  The goal post I made with the Square Punch and some hand trimming.

Whatever you are doing today, whether it revolves around football or not, have a fun Super Bowl Sunday!

Birthday Builder Card #ImBringingBirthdaysBack

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Birthday Builder imbringingbirthdaysback

Yesterday Shannon West, from the Stampin’ Up! Corporate Office, was on a local Utah morning show with some stamped birthday cards with the Build a Birthday Stamp Set talking about her idea called #ImBringingBirthdaysBack. Shannon West is one of our favorite presenters at Stampin’ Up! events and on videos, etc.

Shannon was feeling that social media, with its quick and easy way to just type a birthday greeting online to friends, was ruining birthday cards, so she decided she wanted to send a birthday card to anyone who wanted one!  She even made her own hashtag stamp #imbringingbirthdaysback. If you aren’t familiar with hashtags, they really are kind of like search terms that group those certain terms together. Sometimes they are specific and sometimes they are just funny or silly. Of course Shannon was deluged with requests.

Stampin’ Up! got behind her movement since making and sending cards is what we do!  At least we intend to!!  So maybe this will spur more of us on to not just type a birthday greeting on social media but to send a card, especially a handmade card! Let’s make the post office busy again! Stampin’ Up! is going to manufacture Shannon’s hashtag stamp! I can’t wait!

You can see Shannon on the local show, Good4Utah, yesterday HERE.

I made a card similar to the ones she showed, as you can see in the photo above.  I also loved the idea of how she stamped the back flap of the envelope!  Remember, we should not be sending out “naked envelopes”!  Stamp something on them!

Let’s all get those birthday date books out and start making cards, or pull out the ones you have made but not mailed, and start sending real birthday cards, IN THE MAIL, to your friends and loved ones! Bring back the good old days when postmen delivered cards and letters in the mail!

Shannon West BD stamp

Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Valentine Heart Treat Bag

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Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Heart BagIf you have ever considered getting the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies from Stampin’ Up! now is the time because they are discounted on the Weekly Deals! Quickly and easily make cute little treat bags for candy, gift cards, small gifts, or even as an envelope to hold a card. They can be for any occasion and thanks to creative people who figure these things out, you can even make them into different sizes!  You just need to die cut with the Big Shot the one main front piece that has one of the back sides attached, plus the other back side. Score, fold, and glue and you have a cute treat bag!

As a bonus, you get all kinds of extra pieces to die cut to make embellishments for your treat bag or to use on other projects.

Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies Pieces

My Mini Treat Bag I made with Rose Red card stock because it coordinates with the Love Blossoms Designer Paper Stack that I used inside the heart window.  I used the heart die to cut that window and then just adhered a piece of the Love Blossoms paper on the inside before I glued the bag.

Mini Treat Bag Window Inside

Mini Treat Bag Window

Next just decorate your treat bag with any embellishments or die cut some of the pieces that came in your set for whatever occasion you are making this for! This bag I made could be for Valentine’s Day but doesn’t have to be. Make a separate card to slip inside and have the whole thing be a card rather than a bag. Fold over the top and make a bellyband to make it an enclosure. Just have fun with it and you will!!

Check out the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals and all the good products of Stampin’ Up! HERE in my Online Store!

Love Blossoms Heart Valentine Card

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Love Blossoms Heart Valentine Card

It’s February so here is an easy valentine card you can make! As long as I was punching hearts from the Love Blossoms Designer Series Paper Stack, I just punched some extras and made this card. The large heart is punched with the Sweetheart Punch and the smaller ones with the heart punch in the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack.

Since it is Valentine’s Day, why not have even more hearts on this card by using the Happy Heart Embossing Folder for the background?! First I made a card base with Whisper White and then embossed a layer piece of Whisper White with the Happy Hearts Folder, so we have white on white.

The banner is stamped from the Bloomin’ Love Photopolymer Stamp Set. I used Garden Green ink since that matches the Love Blossoms Paper.  You could also use Black or any other coordinating color.  The coordinating colors are listed on the front of the Paper Stack pad!  How handy! There are several greetings to choose from in the stamp set, so pick what you like. Then I just cut it out with my Paper Snips.  Paper Snips, rather than regular scissors, make really easy work of small trimming like this, so if you don’t have Paper Snips, I would put those on my next order.  Sometimes you don’t realize how much of a difference a certain tool can make until you use it.

Rhinestone Jewels always come in a handy for just a little bit of bling on the hearts!

Get out some paper and stamps and have fun playing to make some valentines!

If you need any supplies, check out my Stampin’ Up! Online Store HERE!  Let me know if you need a copy of the Occasions Catalog or Sale-A-Bration Brochure.  Remember, with every $50 you spend, you choose one free product from the Sale-A-Bration Brochure!