Making this Honeycomb Happiness Ice Cream Cone Card sure made me hungry for ice cream! This stamp set is one of the free Sale-A-Bration stamp sets you can earn with a $50 Stampin’ Up! purchase, a special promotion going on right now!

The Honeycomb Happiness Stamp Set on page 15 of the Sale-A-Bration Brochure comes with the ice cream cone, the chick (or bird?), and balloon plus three greetings. I’m sure it is destined to be one of the most popular SAB stamp sets. The little Honeycomb Embellishments (page 9 of the Occasions Catalog) are perfect on each of these images and I intended to put one on the ice cream cone, but I forgot! I had already applied my Wink of Stella Brush to add some glimmer, so I’ll just have to make another ice cream cone card and use one of the honeycombs!

This card base is made with the Thick Whisper White card stock. The ice cream cones on the background are stamped with Soft Sky, Pink Pirouette, and Crumb Cake. The ice cream cone for the focal point is stamped with Stazon Ink and colored in with a Blender Pen and So Saffron and Pink Pirouette Ink. On the greeting for a little oomph I used the Subtles Candy Dots.  Love the Candy Dots!!

Shop Stampin’ Up! Online and then choose your free Sale-A-Bration product with a $50 purchase!  No limit!

One of the beautiful new stamp sets in the Occasions Catalog is Bloomin’ Love, and with the little banner and words in the set, you can make a Bloomin’ Love Card for a friend or for someone you love. This card is so simple yet turned out very pretty. I don’t have any of the new paper yet in the catalog so I made my own background with one of the stamps in the set by stamping randomly with Blushing Bride ink on Whisper White.  The card base is 8 1/2″ x 4 1/4″, Blushing Bride, folded in half, just for something different than the usual size. The heart is stamped and just cut out with Paper Snips, my favorite scissors for trimming small images. The banner and the word “Friend” comes in the stamp set and adds a nice dimension to the card. I just popped the banner up with Stampin’ Dimensionals on the back.

The card still needed a little pizzazz and I achieved that with the new Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Brush.  I hadn’t tried it yet over the holidays, but wow!  It is addictive!  So easy to use and so pretty!  It dries really fast and adds sparkle while being completely flat. No feeling of glitter or anything. The brush tip is fine so you can add small amounts or outline images easily. I love it already!  It also comes in Gold. And I couldn’t resist adding some little Rhinestone Jewels to the banner!

I think this stamp set is going to be one of the most popular sets in the Occasions Catalog! It can be for valentines, but hearts, like stars, can be for lots of occasions and projects. Be sure to check out the Bloomin’ Love Photopolymer Bundle and save 15% if you buy the Bloomin’ Love Stamp Set plus the Bloomin’ Heart Thinlits Dies!

(c) Stampin’ Up! 2016

Remember, with every $50 purchase from Stampin’ Up! you qualify for one free Sale-A-Bration product! Need a catalog?  Please email me and I will mail one to you!

Shop for all these new products to make the Bloomin’ Love Friend Card and many other projects at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store!

Yes, who can believe it that today is the last day for the beautiful Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog and one day away from Stampin’ Up!’s biggest promotion, Sale-A-Bration, one of the free stamp sets being this Honeycomb Happiness!  If you aren’t familiar with Stampin’ Up!, Sale-A-Bration is when for every $50 you spend on any Stampin’ Up! order, you will be able to choose one free product from the special Sale-A-Bration brochure! There are special Sale-A-Bration stamp sets and paper to choose from, plus a special Project Life by Stampin’ Up! Card Collection. Everyone loves Sale-A-Bration and getting “free stuff”!

One way to qualify for free Sale-A-Bration products, is to place an order from the brand new Stampin’ Up! Occasions Catalog for spring!  That also begins tomorrow, January 5th! Lots of new goodies in there for you to enjoy! My regular customers should have received their catalogs in the mail by now – if not, please let me know – and if you don’t have catalogs and would like hard copies (catalogs will also be available online tomorrow!), just email me at Karen@KarenStamps.com and I will get them out to you!

This Sale-A-Bration stamp set, Honeycomb Happiness, is one of my favorites with the cute chick, balloon, and ice cream cone plus greetings. I kept the card simple, copying the sample, but adding a strip of Kraft Corrugated Paper to the side and tying on some Whisper White Baker’s Twine. I could also add a little Honeycomb Embellishment.

Get ready for the new Occasions Spring Catalog and Sale-A-Bration tomorrow!!  One more day!

Shop Stampin’ Up! Online HERE!

Christmas is over, sadly, and now it is time to make thank you cards with leftover Christmas paper, such as this thank you card made with a piece of the Season of Cheer Designer Series Paper. I think it is sold out now, which means you probably have some!  Whatever sheets you have left over, turn them over from the Christmasy side and you might find a plain pattern you can use for any other cards.

This is the simplest kind of card to make.  The card base is Soft Sky because it coordinates with the designer paper (remember, colors are listed on the back of every package of designer series paper by Stampin’ Up!) . I cut a layer of Whisper White card stock and adhered a strip of the designer paper to the bottom. Then I stamped a thank you from the very useful One Big Meaning Stamp Set, full of different styles and phrasings of thank yous! Rather than tying the whole piece of the Whisper White 3/8″ Stitched Satin Ribbon all around, just adhere the ends around the back with some SNAIL Adhesive, then adhere that whole piece to the card.  Tie a little piece of ribbon on just in a knot for an accent.  Or do a bow if you are more adventurous! Very quick and easy and done!

Some of the “Christmas” paper isn’t necessarily Christmasy.  Here is the backside of the same striped paper.  Perfect for winter (if you are having winter where you live!).

Remember your manners and send those thank you notes, not just an email!  It only takes a few minutes to make a card like this and you KNOW you have paper in your stash you can use! Go ahead and use up that precious, pretty Christmas paper we had this year because you know next year will be even better! I’ll have another idea for you another day!

Don’t forget the Year-End Sale!  Great discounted Stampin’ Up! products!

Are you going to see the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, soon?  I may go with my family over Christmas on the one day that everyone is here and not flying in or out.  I’m not that excited about it and may prefer some peace and quiet at home, but then again, I should probably go so I know what everyone is talking about! So in honor of the new Star Wars movie that I guess began showing last night, I thought I would post some of the Star Wars themed cards I have made.

The photo above is from Death Valley, where we visited last spring (awesome place, by the way, as long as you go when it is not too hot!!) and thought some areas of the park looked like Star Wars could have been shot there.  When we got home, we found out they HAD filmed some scenes there so I took this photo of my son, perhaps in the area where they did film (not the new movie, the original!) and through the magic of the now defunct My Digital Studio gave him a light sabre!  You can read more in this post HERE.

Here’s a Yoda card I made last year for Star Wars Day! It was an idea I got from a Demonstrator in the UK. You can read about this card in my blog post HERE.

Here is my most recent Star Wars card, a punch art R2D2 that I made for my son-in-law.  Of course I found this idea on the internet and then figured it out to make this card. You can read about it in THIS POST.

This Star Wars card with Darth Vader and Yoda is probably my favorite since it is the first one I made and because I found something to help with Yoda phrasing! If you want to have your wording sound like Yoda, use this website:  http://www.yodaspeak.co.uk/  . This is really fun! Try it several times and see what your results are and then you can pick the best!

Here is a link to this older blog post about my Darth Vader and Yoda card.

So using the website, I would say, “I am going to the new Star Wars movie!” and Yoda would say, “Going to the new star wars movie, I am!  Yeesssssss.” Maybe you will want to make some Star Wars cards yourself, even for Christmas or use them as tag ideas or as gift card holder designs! Whether you choose to speak as yourself or as Yoda, let me know if you are going to the new Star Wars movie and how you liked it!