Category Archives: Cards

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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Circle of Spring Wreath Easter Card

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

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?

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 SetYou 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

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!

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Birthday Bouquet Ice Cream Cone Card

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

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 StampI 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 PunchFor 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

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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Fabulous Four It’s Your Day Card Idea

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.

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Birthday Blooms For You Card

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!