This card is stamped with the Work of Art Stamp Set and will be available in the NEW STAMPIN’ UP! CATALOG later today!!!  You have to sit on your hands all morning, but at Noon Stampin’ Up! Time (Mountain Time) (1:00 pm Central Time) the catalog should go live! Keep your fingers crossed that all goes smoothly with technology today as thousands of Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators and customers want to get online and place their first orders as quickly as possible! Those internet wires are going to be humming and soon the UPS truck wheels will be rolling delivering those much anticipated Stampn’ Up! boxes!!

This Work of Art Stamp Set is one you will probably want to put on your list!  It has proven very popular already as demonstrators received it at the Catalog Premiere event and it was a set we were allowed to preorder.  Mine was backordered for awhile. It’s just going to be a fun stamp set to work with!

Why are there two hearts at the bottom?  Well, because “There are no mistakes in stamping!” And I had a mistake on my beautiful card – a little ink from an edge of the stamp! There were a couple of ways I could have fixed it – added more little lines like squiggles around the heart with a marker, or put a rhinestone at one end of the wayward line as if it was supposed to be there, but I decided to play with the hearts some more and cut some out to cover up the line. It worked, I think.

Get your Wish List ready and start the countdown to the new Stampin’ Up! catalog today!! And be sure the Work of Art stamp set is on it!

Shop at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store HERE starting this afternoon!  Let me know if you have any questions!

Stampin’ Up! asked on their Facebook page the other day what we thought the top-selling stamp set was in the 2013-14 Annual Catalog. It turns out, in spite of lots of guesses for Lovely As a Tree, that the top seller was Mosaic Madness! It’s an interesting set and definitely trendy, but I wouldn’t have guessed that stamp set! Of course it does have a matching punch, the Mosaic Punch and you can buy the stamp set and punch in a bundle if you prefer. It was fun making this card with the Quatrefancy Specialty Designer Series Paper and punching out the stamped images.  The greeting is from Four You, also in the new catalog!

TODAY, SUNDAY JUNE 1st: Last day to order from the Occasions Catalog (that’s my understanding now!)

June 4th:  Last day to order retiring products (while supplies last). You’ll have a couple days overlap (that’s my understanding now!)

***Important Note: Online Ordering will be down on Monday, June 2, from midnight to noon (MDT) while we transition the system to the new 2014-2015 annual catalog. During this time, no orders can be placed in Online Ordering. We look forward to taking your orders from the new catalog beginning Monday at noon (Mountain Time)!

Monday, June 2:  Weekly Deals for week of May 26 Last Day!

Be sure to order at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store or contact me and I can put it in for you.

Are you making out your Wish List for the new Stampin’ Up! Catalog??!

Be sure to look at the Watercolor Wonder Designer Note Cards and Envelopes in the Stampin’ Up! Occasions Catalog before they are gone. You get a nice variety, plus envelopes, and you can do a little or a lot to decorate the front of the cards! They are printed on watercolor paper and coordinate with all the other items in the Watercolor Wonder Suite in the Occasions Catalog. On this card, I stamped the vine with the the flourish in the Everything Eleanor stamp set. Then the really easy and fun part – I punched the flowers out with the Petite Petals Punch from the Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper! If you poke the flowers in the middle on a foam pad, such as the Stampin’ Pierce Mat with the opposite end of the Paper-Piercing Tool, it will make the petals of the flower pop up, making them 3-D.  It’s very cute and just adds a little something than just being glued down flat. Add a Candy Dot to the center.

Here are some of the other cards I made for fun! Just use various stamp sets with greetings or images.

This card was almost a loss, I thought!  I dropped the stem stamp on the edge of the card which I thought ruined it.  But no!  I decided to stamp LOTS of stems so the wayward stems would not be obvious. It worked out well, especially stamping off and stamping the lighter stems just for them all to blend in together. The stems and flowers are from the Too Kind Stamp Set.

Such a cute border on this card, already printed for you! I added a banner stamped from the Perfect Pennants Stamp Set as well as the heart.

This card was so easy to make, yet so beautiful!  The flowers are already printed on the card and I just stamped the greeting from Four You and added a small rhinestone jewel to the end of the word.

You will find the Watercolor Wonder Designer Note Cards at this link and the entire Stampin’ Up! Online Store HERE.

Sympathy cards are a fact of life and we all need to send them eventually. This card is rather monochromatic with Wisteria Wonder card stock and Wisteria Wonder stamped flowers from the Flower Shop Stamp Set. The Wisteria Wonder background is embossed with the Fancy Fan Embossing Folder. The Whisper White strip across the bottom of the card is embossed with the Delicate Designs Embossing Folder.  My favorite ribbon is across the front, the Whisper White 5/8″ Organza Ribbon. It is not tied in a bow – a strip of ribbon is placed across the front and adhere to the back of the card layer and then a separate bow is tied and adhered to the top of the ribbon with a few Mini Glue Dots.

The Flower Shop flowers are stamped with Wisteria Wonder ink on Whisper White card stock and then punched out with the coordinating Pansy Punch. In fact, you can purchase a Bundle of the Flower Shop stamp set, in wood-mount or clear-mount Bundle and the Pansy Punch and save 15%. But you have to do it while the bundle is still available because the Bundle is on the retirement list. However, the stamp set and punch are both available separately in the new catalog. Yeah!

The sympathy greeting is from one of my favorite stamp sets, Teeny Tiny Wishes. You can find almost any greeting you need in this stamp set, and then you can easily punch it out with the Word Window Punch or others. I recommend getting the wood-mount in this stamp set because all of the greetings are rather small and I think easier to handle in the wood.  There is a similar new set in the new catalog and that will definitely be on my list!

I love the Flower Shop flowers and the Pansy Punch. You can make lots of pretty cards with this stamp set.

If you are interested in this Flower Shop Bundle, be sure to order it in my Stampin’ Up! Online Store before June 4th.

Here’s another card we made at my stamp camp on Sunday with the Petite Petals Punch and the new In Colors 2014-16. It was a last minute creation and my mojo wasn’t working. But then – in the end it came together and I think everyone liked the card! It’s just a simple Whisper White card base with the top wrapped in Gold Baker’s Twine three times and tied. The flowers are punched with the Petite Petals Punch in all the new In Colors:  Mossy Meadow, Hello Honey, Lost Lagoon, Tangelo Twist, and Blackberry Bliss. The center of the flower is Crumb Cake punched with the new Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack, a set of three small punches of the flower, a star and a heart! And for an embellishment I used some Candy Dots in the center of each flower.  LOVE THOSE CANDY DOTS!!!

Here’s a flower tip:  To make little punched flowers like this look a little 3D, poke them in the center with something like the Paper Piercing Tool or a Bone Folder or a pencil eraser or whatever you have. It will make the petals stand up just a bit.

The little greeting “hello” is stamped in the beautiful new ink color Blackberry Bliss with the stamp set A Dozen Thoughts. We all found we loved the new Blackberry Bliss ink! The color is beautiful!

I know May has sped by, but it still seems like the debut of the new catalog is eons away on June 2nd. But it will get here! If you don’t have a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator that you work with and are interested in Stampin’ Up! products, please email me and I can send you the new catalog that is coming soon! It will be available online starting June 2 at Noon MT, but most people like having the hard copy in their hands!  I know I do! Just email me at Karen@KarenStamps.com if you have an interest.

The Hearts A Flutter Clear-Mount Stamp Set is on the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals this week, today being the last day to order it for that discounted price. The Hearts a Flutter stamp set is on the Retired List, too, so if you like it, you better get it! At this moment, anyway, both the wood-mount and clear-mount are available, with just the clear-mount being discounted today only. Tomorrow a new Weekly Deal list will come out.

As you can see, hearts are not just for Valentine’s Day.  I think hearts are like stars – everybody should have some!  They are so multi-purpose! This card I made can be used for any occasion, all you have to do is put the appropriate greeting you want. I used the Hearts A Flutter Framelits Dies to cut out an assortment of hearts and a banner. That made it so easy. Although the Primrose Petals card stock is no longer available, it looks like the ribbon and ink pad are, of course that can change in an instant, so don’t delay. The other color I used on this card is Bermuda Bay.

If you have a small budget for stamping supplies, think about sets like this that are versatile when you order so that you can use them in many ways for cards, projects and scrapbook pages!

If you want to check out the Weekly Deals that end late tonight, please go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store. Be sure to check out all the categories in the left sidebar!

If you need an easy to make Mother’s Day card idea, make a Mother’s Day card with hearts! Hearts are kind of like stars – they can be used for many occasions and are easy to use to design a quick and easy card. For a card like this, just make the card base and adhere as many or as few hearts as you like.  You can cut them out with various of our Stampin Up! Framelits Dies or punches or cut out with our Paper Snips. I used the Retro Fresh Designer Series Paper, but of course you can use any paper, even solid color card stock. Adhere flat on the card, layer, pop-up with Stampin’ Dimensionals, whatever you like.  Stamp a greeting somewhere on the card. This one comes from the Geometrical Stamp Set in the Occasions Catalog. If you don’t have a “Mother’s Day” greeting, use something else, like this one. Leave as is or add a little bling like I did with the Gold Baker’s Twine and some individual sequins from the Sequin Trim. (Did you know you can just pull off some sequins from the trim to use individually? Or wait until the new catalog comes out and see what’s in there!)

I hope all of you mothers out there are having a very happy Mother’s Day! And if you are fortunate enough to still have YOUR mother, I hope you are spending some time with her, even if by phone.

Make your mother a quick and easy card, even if you already bought one at the store. You don’t know how much that might be appreciated! Just like when you were a little child!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Stampin’ Up! held its Leadership Conference back in January here in Houston, TX and one of the displays was for the Celebrando Creatividad Catalog which is all in Spanish and has Spanish Stampin’ Up! stamps, plus a few unique sets. Click on the catalog photo below to view the Celebrando Creatividad PDF.

Here are some photos that were on display there using stamps from the Celebrando Creatividad Catalog.

Images copyright Stampin’ Up! 2014

Today on Cinco de Mayo, take a look at the Spanish stamps offered by Stampin’ Up! Just go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store and look under “Stamps” in the left sidebar, then “Translated Stamps”, then “Spanish” – or click HERE. Click the dropdown box to show ALL and you will be able to scroll through more easily. If you are interested in receiving a new Celebrando Creatividad Catalog for 2014-15 when it comes out, please send me an email at Karen@KarenStamps.com.

Whether or not you are a Star Wars fan, apparently May 4th is Star Wars Day to celebrate all things Star Wars! The date was chosen because, well, how fun is it to say, “May the 4th be with you!” (I didn’t even get it when my husband said he was disappointed it wasn’t a work day so he could say that to his co-workers.) Of course it is a pun on the real Star Wars famous saying, “May the Force be with you!”

If you are looking for things to do on Star Wars Day you can watch any of the Star Wars movies, have a Star Wars party, get special deals on Star Wars merchandise, play with Lightsabers, dress up as your favorite Star Wars character, build a Star Wars model with Legos, or read all the Star Wars posts on Facebook and Twitter.

But what better way to celebrate Star Wars Day than to try your hand at making one or more of the famous Star Wars characters for a card or scrapbook page?! I found this Yoda made by a UK Demonstrator, Sarah-Jane Rae with punches, the Labels Collection Framelits Dies, and the Lattice Embossing Folder. I followed her tutorial for making Yoda ,and then I designed the rest of the card myself. Here is the link to her blog post because she explains so well how to make the Yoda. It really is simple.

I remembered that sometime in the past I had found a website that would “translate” something you said in English into “Yoda-Speak”. Not sure if this is the same one or not, and there is more than one, but here is a link to the Yoda-Speak Generator! Have fun with it!  I just printed out my greeting on the computer. I even found that I had a font called “Star Jedi Rounded”. Then I cut it out with a Word Bubbles Framelits Die which was perfect! Almost forgot I had those! The little stars are punched with the star punch in the Merry Minis Punch Pack and Champagne Glimmer Paper.

How will you be celebrating Star Wars Day?

Owl Punch

$16.95

1-3/8 Inch Circle Punch

$15.95

Word Window Punch

$15.95

Merry Minis Punch Pack

$16.95

Labels Collection Framelits Dies

$26.95

Word Bubbles Framelits Dies

$24.95

Bird Punch

$16.95

Square Lattice Textured Impressions Embossing Folder Die

$7.95

Boho Blossoms Punch

$16.95

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