Category Archives: Cards

Hand-Penned Floral Thanks Card

I think there is something about this paper I used on this Hand-Penned Floral Thanks Card that is just enchanting! You can’t really grasp how pretty it is until you see it in person! I know we say that all the time, but I think the catalog doesn’t do it justice. I hope you won’t pass it up! And if you order it today, August 2nd, you can get it at a 15% discount on this the LAST DAY of the Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper Sale! Look for the Hand-Penned Designer Series Paper.

To make this card, I used Garden Green for the card base. The sheet of paper I chose is the one on the right side of the card with the Pale Papaya flowers and blue and green leaves. The other side of that paper is the green print you see on the left side of the card! I thought both were pretty and obviously would go perfectly together for a two-paper card! That strip is cut at 1 1/4″ wide but you could make it a little wider or a little narrower if you wanted. I adhered the strip to the side with all the colors and then adhered the ribbon before adhering the whole piece to the card base. I tied the bow separately and attached it with Mini Glue Dots. This beautiful ribbon is one of the new In Color Ribbons, the Pale Papaya 3/8″ Woven Ribbon. All these In Colors ribbons are sheer and beautiful! I love all five of them!

The greeting is in the Hand-Penned Petals Stamp Set. I stamped it on Basic White in Garden Green ink. I found the Garden Green die cut rectangle in the bag with the cardstock so I just found another shape die that I could layer over it. This one in the Stitched So Sweetly Dies worked fine because the die for the Garden Green die-cut is also in that set!

That’s it! Very easy card! Be sure to look at all the papers available on the Designer Paper Sale today and save 15%!

Here is another card I made with the Hand-Penned Designer Paper, plus this one. Don’t tell me you can resist this pretty paper!

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Don’t Miss Any Stampin’ Up! News!

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If you aren’t already on my Stamping With Karen Mailing List, consider this a personal invitation to join us! Receive my weekly newsletter every Tuesday afternoon with at least one project idea with complete instructions plus the latest Stampin’ Up! news about new catalogs, special offers, news about products, and more.

This week will be the release of the July-December 2021 Mini Catalog (I call it the Holiday Catalog!) on Tuesday, August 3rd PLUS the beginning of a second Sale-A-Bration! That is a FIRST! We have never had two Sale-A-Brations in one year! Sale-A-Bration is a period of time when, with every $50 purchase, you get to choose a FREE item in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure! No limits! If you are on my Mailing List, you will be sure to know all about this!

Also, keep up with news about the new Paper Pumpkin Kit every month and any new updates with Stampin’ Up! each week!

If you are on my blog, you will see a red sign-up box in the top right corner where you can simply put your name (or first name) and best email. If you are on your phone, you probably need to scroll way down to get to the sidebar things. OR you can go to my sign up page HERE.

You will receive an email with a link to a FREE GIFT from me, as a thank you for signing up with me!

Starting in the fall, as a thank you to my mailing list subscribers, I always send out a special email called “The 12 Weeks of Christmas” with an exclusive holiday idea for each week leading up to Christmas. You can only get these ideas if you are on my mailing list. I value my subscribers and have fun sending out these holiday ideas.

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Beauty of the Earth Fall Card For a Friend

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Continuing with a fall card to mitigate the summer heat (!), this Beauty of the Earth Fall Card for a Friend is easy because of the designer paper. The other day when I was making another fall card, I saw this paper in the package and wanted to use it next.

This designer paper, Beauty of the Earth Designer Series Paper, is very interesting and different. You can do so much with it. This particular sheet of paper is like a reflection, with the images strongest at the top and bottom and more white space in between. So I just cut the sheet in half at 6″ x 12″, then at 4″ wide, and then trimmed it down to 5 1/4″ long to fit on my card. You can trim off a little of the white area or a little off the bottom leafy area, depending on the look you want for your card. I trimmed off some of the white at the top. You can see on my card how the coloring fades at the top and is darker at the very bottom. Very interesting to use.

The card base is Merry Merlot. I could have chosen from a lot of colors, but I rarely use Merry Merlot so thought this was a good chance! I just adhered the designer paper to the card base and added the greeting. So easy!

Now I did make a little fancier greeting, but I could have just stamped on a rectangle and been done. The greeting is in the Beauty of Friendship Stamp Set. I stamped on Basic White with Merry Merlot ink and die cut it and a piece of Merry Merlot with dies in the Tasteful Labels Dies and layered them. Just for something different, I took two pieces of the 3/8″ Fine Art Ribbon and frayed them at the ends to put underneath the greeting. And then I couldn’t resist adding some Genial Gems to the greeting.

Here is the card I made the other day with some other paper patterns in this Beauty of the Earth DSP. It didn’t work to cool me off, but I liked it anyway, especially the red birds, just as we were seeing cardinals in our backyard!

Remember that this paper is on sale through Monday, August 2 along with eight other select papers at 15% off in the Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper Sale! I hope you will be inspired to make something like my Beauty of the Earth Fall Card For a Friend.

Pansy Petals Just a Note Card

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The Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper Sale has less than one week to go! This Pansy Petals Just a Note Card was made with the Pansy Petals Designer Series Paper, one of the nine select papers you can buy at a 15% discount, but only until August 2. Don’t miss out if you would like to stock up on some really pretty papers!

This card starts with a Pale Papaya Cardstock base with a layer of Pansy Petals Designer Series Paper. Really, in designing this card, I played around with some scraps I had in my package of paper. You don’t always have to stew over a card design before you start making a card. Just get out some designer paper, coordinating colors (I rewrite them on the back cardboard in black marker so I can read them instead of squinting to read the tiny print on the label!) and put different things together! Just play! Don’t be so serious and looking for perfection. Something will show up for you and it might surprise you! In fact, the center piece of designer paper, which I thought was mostly a scrap, turned out to be the inspiration for the card design! Before adhering this first layer of designer paper to the card base, I adhered a piece of the Pale Papaya & White 1/2″ Woven Ribbon around to the back.

For the center of the card, I had chosen this “scrap” piece of designer paper, the one with the dark background and a million tiny pansies all over. As I was about to put glue on the opposite side to adhere to the Calypso Coral Cardstock layer, I thought the Bumblebee-colored side would maybe be prettier on the front! So I just flipped over the idea I had and used the side that wasn’t going to show!

Next, I cut out a pretty pansy image on another piece of designer paper and popped it up on Stampin’ Dimensionals on the side of that center panel. The greeting is stamped from the Encircled in Friendship Stamp Set with Calypso Coral Ink and die cut with a Tasteful Labels Die. The card still needed a little something, so I found another small pansy and cut it out to adhere to the die cut greeting. And for a final touch, I added one of the Bumblebee Trinkets.

I think this card turned out well even being inspired by scraps! You never what you will come up with when you sit down to make a card, so just let the ideas flow even if it is a change you didn’t anticipate! That’s how this Pansy Petals Just a Note Card came about!

Beauty of the Earth Fall Trees

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It is SO hot here in Houston today, I thought if I made a card with the look of fall, like this Beauty of the Earth Fall Trees card, it would cool me off! No such luck, but I still like the card! This is actually pretty much a copy of a card sample in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog on page 10, showing off the Beauty of the Earth Suite of products.

Another reason for using this beautiful paper on this card was to remind you that the Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper Sale is going on just for this week, until August 2. If you want to stock up on papers you love or get some you don’t have yet, be sure to take advantage of the nine select papers discounted 15%. Don’t miss the Christmas paper, the Tidings of Christmas 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper if you would like a good Christmas paper pretty quick!

I chose Sahara Sand for the card base just because I don’t use it very much! It’s a great neutral color to use. I just have to think of it more often! The catalog sample probably uses Crumb Cake Cardstock. It’s a little darker. I cut a piece of Basic White at 4 1/4″ x 4″ for the background, although after I decided to use a piece of Cajun Craze underneath as a narrow border, I cut the Cajun Craze at 4 1/4″ x 4″ and cut the White down 1/8″ on two sides.

For the sky background on the Basic White, I used my Blending Brush with Pool Party Ink and also Balmy Blue Ink. I wanted the sky to look a little varied in color and I’m happy with the way it turned out. I didn’t want it too dark. Be sure to blend a little on scrap paper or your Grid Paper just before you apply it to the cardstock.

The two trees are diecut out of Soft Suede Cardstock with the Beautiful Trees Dies. The “leaves” on the trees are cut from two different sheets of the Beauty of the Earth Designer Series Paper. I wanted to use one that was colored leaves and one that was mostly green as if the leaves hadn’t all turned color yet. The die was great for cutting these out!

Since these trees are actually pretty large, I could see on the catalog sample that they would each hang off the side of the card. It’s a little tricky because you want to adhere the tree trunks to the sky background piece but it will also hang off that onto the bottom Sahara Sand card base. So I just saw where I wanted the tree trunk placed on the sky piece and so it would be properly placed on the Sahara Sand and glued it down only to the sky piece (which wasn’t adhered to the card base yet). Then I cut off the overhanging branches on the side. Then I added the leafy piece. Decide which tree you want overlapping the other one so you get them placed properly! This was another time I should have used the Adhesive Sheets so I didn’t have to use teeny tiny drops of Multipurpose Glue carefully on the trees! However, the leafy part has larger areas for applying glue!

I also added a stamped image of dirt or a shadow along the bottom of the card. It’s best to stamp this under each tree before you glue them down, as long as you know where you want the stamping to go. I stamped more than the catalog sample because I liked the look. I used Crumb Cake Ink.

The greeting is in the Beauty of Friendship Stamp Set and was die cut with a die in the Beautiful Trees Dies. It is popped up with Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals. You can purchase the Beauty of Friendship Bundle at a 10% discount if you want the stamp set and dies together!

And to finish off the card, I die cut the two red birds. One die cuts both birds at one time which is great! I think they are the perfect finishing touch for this card! We have some cardinals flying in our backyard. I think they have a nest in the tree in the yard behind us. One was caught in the netting around our tomato plants in the backyard, which is supposed to keep birds and squirrels away from our homegrown tomatoes! My husband lifted up the net and he eventually found his way out!

Remember to check out the Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Paper sale! You may want this paper when fall arrives so you may as well save some money while you can! The sale ends on August 2.

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Check out the Stampin’ Up! Kits Collection!

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Stampin’ Up! has a new line of creative products called the Kits Collection by Stampin’ Up! Stampin’ Up! has taken the guesswork out of creativity and done the hard parts, and you get to do the fun stuff: craft! Each kit is all-inclusive and includes the predesigned projects, preprinted pieces, and even the adhesives you need to complete the projects. You also receive an acrylic block plus an ink spot, not to mention an exclusive stamp set with each kit!

There’s a wide variety of kits for all different occasions, and new kits are being added regularly. Some are called Card Kits because you make cards with them.

Others are called Crafting Kits because they might be packaging or home decor or a gift set of cards.

Some kits do not even require any stamping! Just put the pieces together for your project! It doesn’t get any easier than that!

You can shop the current selection at www.stampinup.com/kits. But hurry! Kits are available only while supplies last!

Pick the kit that’s right for you. The kits are designed for beginners so no worries if you are new to crafting. But stampers of any level can have fun with the kits too!

Watch the videos below to see how it all works, especially if you are new to papercrafting! It’s really fun and easy!

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Heartwarming Hugs Christmas Tree Card

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If you are anxious to get started on Christmas in July but you can’t order the new things yet in the Holiday Catalog, see if you still have some Heartwarming Hugs Designer Series Paper from last year’s catalog and make a card like this Heartwarming Hugs Christmas Tree Card! The paper is coming back in this current Holiday Catalog, going live August 3!

I still had some of this Heartwarming Hugs Designer Series Paper and I really like it. Lots of different plaids and stripes in traditional red, green and white! It’s just cute paper without having any special designs. Great for backgrounds on cards or other projects. Cute for making boxes and gift bags with both the inside and outside matching and looking like the holidays! Check your stash and see if you still have some.

The Pine Tree Punch is still current in the new Annual Catalog so get that out too! You can punch out lots of Christmas trees to your heart’s content!

To make this card, I started with a base of Real Red Cardstock (my favorite color!). I chose this red background paper with white dots to see what I could do with it or if it would work with the punched trees. I started with a vertical card, but when that wasn’t quite coming together, I turned it sideways and that worked, of course!

I went back to one of the first techniques I ever learned in stamping – tearing the cardstock! Hold the paper in front of you and pull down with your right hand as evenly or unevenly as you want. You want that torn edge look with kind of the underneath layer of the cardstock showing. That’s the best I can describe it. You don’t necessarily want a very straight, even, perfect edge. I used Basic White to make a snowy base for the trees.

I punched out several trees with the Pine Tree Punch and just placed them along the “snow”, popping up a few with Stampin’ Dimensionals® and some just adhered flat on the card.

The greeting is from the Perfectly Plaid Stamp Set. This is another product carried over into the new Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog that you may already have. I think it’s been around a couple of years now, which is nice. I stamped it in Real Red Ink and then cut it out with one of the Ornate Frames Dies. It seems to fit perfectly on the card! I love the little stitching around the edge and the shape of the die is already cute.

That’s all there is to this card! I could have added some sparkle to the trees or on the background. Sometimes all I can think of is adding bling to a card, and sometimes I don’t think of it at all – until after I have taken the photo for my blog! Either way, keep it simple or jazz it up, this Heartwarming Hugs Christmas Tree Card is a fun and easy card to make.

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Sweet Symmetry Thanks Card

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I passed up this new paper in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog at first, but decided that might have been a mistake so I ordered it recently on the Designer Series Paper Sale! Now I can use this cute paper to make cards like this Sweet Symmetry Thanks Card. The designs on the paper are really cute, I think, and fun to make cards and projects with.

The designer series paper is called Sweet Symmetry. It has traditional, symmetrical folk art images and florals in soft colors. One side has bolder floral designs and the other side has more generic designs. You can use them together or separately.

Although it looks black in the photo, the card base is Night of Navy, but you can see the dark blue background in the paper. I added a layer of Bumblebee cardstock underneath the designer paper just for fun. Since Bumblebee is one of the coordinating colors I thought it could add a little something to the card.

For an embellishment, I wrapped a piece of Bumblebee 1/4″ Gingham Ribbon around the designer paper and also adhered the separate bow. Sometimes it is easier to tie a bow separately and adhere it to the ribbon with Mini Glue Dots than to try to tie it to the base ribbon.

The greeting is from the Artistically Inked Stamp Set and stamped in Night of Navy ink. It is cut out with a Stitched Rectangle Die. I was going to cut out a layer of some kind to go underneath it without covering up too much of the paper, but in the end, I decided the greeting looked fine as is, especially with the Bumblebee Ribbon going underneath it. It is popped up with Stampin’ Dimensionals®.

This is such a basic, easy card design! It’s good for beginners as well as experienced stampers. Use just a card base, a layer of designer paper, and a greeting. That’s really all you need, but as you see, I added an extra cardstock layer and the ribbon for the embellishment.

I think the patterns on this Sweet Symmetry Paper just make you feel “happy” whether you are the cardmaker or the recipient! The Designer Series Paper Sale runs through August 2 so stock up or add to your collection of papers!

Peaceful Prints Deer and Trees Christmas Card

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My inspiration for this Peaceful Prints Deer and Trees Christmas Card came from a sample in the Sale-A-Bration 2021 Brochure! Sale-A-Bration begins August 3 along with the Holiday Mini Catalog so it will be a great time to shop! With every $50 you spend, you can choose a free product in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure!

This card uses a really new product that we have never had before! In fact, I didn’t know it even existed! Cork Specialty Paper! I knew I was going to use the Peaceful Prints Designer Series Paper which is a product you can choose free in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure with a $50 purchase! I knew I was going to cut out two of the deer, by hand, on the paper and use the deer something like in a sample on that page. In the Holiday Mini, you can purchase a punch that I believe will cut out some of the deer on this designer paper, of course only the deer looking in one direction.

The card base is Real Red. Then I got the idea to use a piece of the Cork Paper for the first time for a background layer and I added a layer of Basic Black behind it to match the plaid on the deer. I cut the two deer out by hand from the Peaceful Prints Paper, leaving a small white margin around them. Someone said to do that at a Stampin’ Up! Convention years ago, I guess it makes cutting easier and you don’t have to be perfect! But when I flipped the paper over to put glue on it, the other side of the paper was the red and black plaid, so I just as easily could have had deer with no white margin around them! So funny! I used Stampin’ Seal to glue down the cork and the black layers onto the card. It seemed to work fine on the Cork Paper. The Cork Paper is surprisingly very thin! It’s amazing!

The trees are stamped from the Whimsical Trees Stamp Set and die cut with one of the dies in the Christmas Trees Dies. I die cut one just plain green and sponged some ink on it for interest. You can buy both the Stamp Set and Dies together in the Whimsical Trees Bundle and save 10%! (see pages 24-25 in the Holiday Catalog). I adhered two tree trees flat on the cork paper and one is popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals. Then both deer are popped up on Dimensionals, except the one on the left overlaps the tree which is already popped up so I only put a Dimensional under his rear and the front end is glued down to the tree!

The greeting is in the Whimsical Trees Stamp Set. I stamped it in Real Red Ink and die cut with a die in the Stitched So Sweetly Dies. You might not recognize which one because I trimmed off the top and bottom rounded edges so I could layer it on a Real Red piece cut with the exact same die. Really, you can’t recognize either of them the way the top one covers up the bottom layer, but at least I got two colors for the greeting!

On the inside of the card, I added a Basic White layer, adhered a strip of the red and black plaid design at the bottom, and also adhered another die-cut tree! Then I can stamp or write a message on the inside on the white cardstock!

This was a fun card to make as I went along! I started by looking at the sample that looks like a tag in the Sale-A-Bration Brochure and came up with this card! Just play when you are stamping and see what you come up with! Maybe you will choose this Peaceful Prints DSP when you place a $50 order during Sale-A-Bration so you can make something like this Peaceful Prints Deer and Trees Christmas Card.

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Save Tax During Sales Tax Holiday!

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SU Sales Tax Holiday 2021 — **Click on Chart to Read!**

It’s that time of year again when some states have Sales Tax Holidays on school supplies in time for Back to School! Once your kids are grown and out of school, you won’t know when school starts or ends or what is happening! And certainly this past year, I didn’t know if kids here in Houston were IN school or doing virtual school or half and half or what was going on. But at least we can ALL benefit a little bit, even with our stamping supplies, if they are listed on the chart above because they really can be classified as school supplies! And you know that is true if your kids have come to you with a school project and asked if they could use your markers or glue or something else!

Eleven states will be offering a sales tax holiday for school supplies during the months of July or August. Products that are eligible according to the statute include “items normally used by students in a standard classroom for educational purposes.” To see the names of participating states, products exempted from tax, and sales tax holiday dates, click here.

Please note that you must place your order with Stampin’ Up! during the tax holiday period in order to receive these items tax-free (which is midnight on the first day to midnight on the last day of the tax holiday). Also, keep in mind that this is a state sales tax holiday; the state statute may not apply to county, city, and special jurisdiction taxes.

Note: Georgia, Louisiana, and Wisconsin have suspended the sales tax holiday for this year.

Look over the list of products that qualify and if you were going to order anyway, this will save you a few pennies, depending on your sales tax rate! Remember, the July-December 2021 Mini Catalog (Holiday Mini) and Sale-A-Bration both begin August 3, if that helps your planning!

Be sure to read at the top of the chart about the exemptions and details for your state and what the dates are.

For the clearest copy, click here: Sale Tax Holiday PDF

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Quick & Easy Whimsy & Wonder Christmas Card

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If you are looking for a simple card to make for the holidays, look no further than this Quick & Easy Whimsy & Wonder Christmas Card. It probably only took a couple of minutes to make! The paper is so pretty you don’t really need much other than a greeting.

This card starts with a base of Polished Pink, although there are many colors in the packages on the paper that you could also choose. If you were making several cards with this designer paper, you could make each one with a different color card base!

The designer paper is the Whimsy & Wonder Specialty Paper in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog, coming August 3rd! That’s not far off anymore! When I saw this paper being shown in some videos, it sold me on the whole Suite! Just looking at the catalog online, I completely dismissed this Suite! This paper has beautiful foil accents and is very Christmasy except with non-traditional colors. But I think it might be good to break out of our box and change things up a little. I still will make some red and green cards, the traditional colors of Christmas. This paper is SO pretty that I think it will be a hit as more people see it in person! This paper might even remind some people of the silver aluminum Christmas trees of years ago. I think they’ve even made a nostalgic comeback in recent years. Since you couldn’t put lights on these trees, some people had a multi-colored light that turned to give the tree different colors. Anyway, the silver in this paper reminds me of those vintage trees!

I used the In Color Polished Pink 3/8″ Open Weave Ribbon on the card. Originally, I planned to have it go vertically on the left side of the card with a bow. But after stamping the greeting from the Whimsical Trees Stamp Set in Polished Pink Ink and cutting it out with one of the new Tailor Made Tag Dies, I decided to pull the ribbon through the tag, tie a bow and secure it underneath the designer paper layer. I wish I would have popped up the greeting with Stampin’ Dimensionals, but I just adhered it flat to the card.

If you want a quick and easy card to make in multiples for Christmas, use this very basic card design of designer paper on a card base, a greeting, and a piece of ribbon and a bow for embellishment. You could add a little sparkle and bling, but really the paper with its foil accents can stand on its own. When your Holiday Mini Catalog comes in the mail, give a good look at the Whimsy & Wonder Suite.

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Stampin’ Up! Joins Back to School Bash For the James Storehouse Organization

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The other day Sara Douglass, CEO of Stampin’ Up!, did a Facebook Live video as a part of Jamie Albanese’s Heart of Stampin’ Up! Award Project along with Stacy DeWitt, Executive Director of the James Storehouse organization. Jamie is a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator who said she was a foster child herself so she understands this situation. The James Storehouse organization is located in the Los Angeles, CA area (the area with the most foster children) and provides resources to children in foster care and those aging-out of foster care.

Stampin’ Up! will donate backpacks and school supplies and we invite demonstrators and customers to join the fun! There are two ways to support Jamie’s project for James Storehouse. First, you can check out the Amazon Wishlists to donate backpacks or school supplies for foster children of all ages. The backpack wishlist can be found here and the wishlist for school supplies can be found here. Or second, you can send cards to add inside the filled backpacks. Please include a short, encouraging note and sign with your first name only. Send finished cards to:

JAMES STOREHOUSE
3543 Old Conejo Road #105
Newbury Park, CA 91320
USA

The deadline for donation purchases and cards is 30 July 2021.

I encourage you to watch the Facebook Live video Sara did, whether or not you want to make a donation. It will warm your heart that there are people out there trying to help these children, young and older, even into college age. The basic message is these foster children sometimes leave their home or school with only the clothes on their back, sometimes are moved around a lot, and all they want is to know that something belongs to them, hence the backpack. The organization will fill each backpack with school supplies, surprisingly the same items for all ages because that is what they have found kids of all ages need to do school projects. That was amazing to me.

If you want to do a little something, just mail a card you have made. Just write a brief, uplifting, encouraging, happy message. They said don’t mention their circumstances or anything like that. If you watch the video, they give some examples. Just sign your first name. No envelope, please, because obviously, they will go through the cards to make sure they are appropriate before putting them in the backpacks. I think they would rather have someone send just a single card or a few cards, not a whole box full of cards like some of us might have stored away. They aren’t equipped to handle quantities like that.

We all know the joy even we feel when we get a card in the mail or we have heard how much it means to others to receive a card we send. Imagine children in very difficult circumstances find a card or two in their new backpack wishing them well! Watch the video to understand what Stampin’ Up! is helping with and to bring joy to your heart!

Whimsy & Wonder Christmas Trees Holiday Card

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There is a new Suite in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini Catalog called the Whimsy & Wonder Suite which I totally passed over the first time I looked through the catalog online. When I saw some videos of the package of the designer paper and the pink color scheme for the holidays I fell in love with it although the first card I made, this Whimsy & Wonder Christmas Trees Holiday Card, doesn’t even have those colors! Go figure! But this is what I came up with at the time!

The Whimsy & Wonderful Designer Series Paper is so stunning! If you don’t mind using some non-traditional colors for Christmas, even for a few cards and projects, I think you will love the designs and colors on this paper! All the sheets have foil accents on one side of the paper. Along with the pinks, blues, light greens, and images it is beautiful! It’s probably my favorite in the Holiday Catalog and I’m usually pretty traditional.

This card starts with a Mossy Meadow Cardstock base. Then I chose the dark green side of one paper with white dots, like snowflakes. I simply turned the paper over and saw the diagonal silver foil stripes on the other side and used that for the bottom portion of the card layer.

Some of the whimsical trees on another sheet of designer paper can be cut out with the dies in the Christmas Trees Dies. Of course, you can’t run the whole 12″ x 12″ sheet of paper through the Stampin’ Cut & Emboss Machine, so you need to cut out portions of the paper to die-cut. You want to leave a generous enough margin around the tree so the die can cut it correctly without ruining too much of the rest of the paper! On my card, the middle tree in the background was actually at the bottom of the page, not the full image, but I was able to die cut what was there and still use it! Some of my trees were glued directly to the card front and some are popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals®. Most of the trees have foil accents in tiny dots or garlands.

The greeting is in the Frosted Gingerbread Stamp Set. I either didn’t have space for this card or didn’t care for the greetings in the Whimsical Trees Stamp Set. After looking through all my dies and judging the space on my card, I finally had to just stamp the greeting on a narrow strip of Basic White Cardstock and layered it on Mint Macaron Cardstock which matches the ink color. I used the silver pieces in the Silver & Clear Epoxy Essentials on each end of the greeting.

Maybe I should have stopped myself, but I added some Subtle Shimmer Sequins on page 37 in the Holiday Catalog in the upper background of the card. I couldn’t help myself even though with the accents on the trees and the stripes on the bottom paper, there is pretty much sparkle on the card already. But can we really have too much sparkle??!

The Holiday Catalog will come out on August 3rd! The online catalog will go live on that day for you to view. August is not too soon to begin your holiday cardmaking and crafting! Then you’ll be able to start making Christmas and holiday cards like this Whimsy & Wonder Christmas Trees Holiday Card.

Here’s the New August Paper Pumpkin Kit!

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Paper Pumpkin Aug 2021 Hope Box Banner Shelli dates

Here’s the new Paper Pumpkin Kit for August 2021 and for a big surprise, Shelli Gardner, the cofounder of Stampin’ Up! helped design and create this kit!. For those of us who have been around Stampin’ Up! for awhile, Shelli has been the face of Stampin’ Up! and someone we have loved and been inspired by. If you are new to Stampin’ Up! then you are more familiar, probably, with Shelli’s daughter, Sara Douglass who is the CEO now. Besides the products, the Gardner family is one of the reasons we all love Stampin’ Up! So if Shelli had a hand in designing something, you can believe it will be something special! If I were you, I would sign up for this kit today! Maybe order two – one to keep and one to give away!

Paper Pumpkin is a papercrafting kit that comes to you in the mail, mid-month with a surprise project inside. We get clues about the kit, but it’s still a surprise to actually see the kit when we get it. Inside you will find all the supplies to make the cards or different project, instructions, an exclusive stamp set, an ink spot, and information on a video to watch if you like to see how it goes together. You can make the kit as designed or you can change it up or add your own extra cardstock or embellishments to make your own creations. It’s your kit when it shows up in your mailbox and you can play with it however you like!

The Hope Box is designed to be a keepsake box—keep mementos of cherished memories or reminders of what’s yet to come. Collect treats and trinkets that represent what hope means to you in your Hope Box and look inside for inspiration or share it with a friend who could use some uplifting!

What will you put in your Hope Box? Letters, song lyrics, inspiring quotes, and photographs are powerful reminders of hope and connection—and great additions to a Hope Box. For more inspiration on how to build your Hope Box, watch Shelli herself put one together in this video.

This month’s Paper Pumpkin kit includes supplies to create nine encouraging cards and coordinating envelopes in an inspiring color palette, and a specially designed Hope Box!

Coordinating colors are Bermuda Bay, Blackberry Bliss, Bumblebee, Melon Mambo, Petal Pink, Pool Party, and Poppy Parade. Sounds lovely!

If you would like to find this treat in your mailbox in August, just click the link below to go to my personalized Paper Pumpkin page. You won’t have to look up my name. OR if you are putting in a Stampin’ Up! order, particularly if you are or trying to earn Stampin’ Rewards, maybe a Paper Pumpkin subscription on your order would earn you some rewards. This is called a Prepaid Subscription and just goes on your Stampin’ Up! order like any other product. You can choose various lengths, even if you are already paying a monthly subscription. Stampin’ Up! will send you a code to set up your account. No risk or obligation to continue for any length of time. You can even skip a month if you don’t have time or aren’t attracted to that particular kit. Then resume your subscription when the next month’s kit comes out.

JOIN PAPER PUMPKIN TODAY AND GET SHELLI’S KIT!

Gingerbread & Peppermint Christmas Ornament Card

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Here is my first Christmas card of the season, the Gingerbread & Peppermint Christmas Ornament Card! It doesn’t seem like it should be time to be thinking about Christmas cards, but the Holiday Catalog will be coming out in August so the fall and holiday craft season is beginning! You can see it already in the craft stores! There is no summer!

One of the sets of products I think a lot of people are going to love in the Holiday Catalog is the Gingerbread & Peppermint Suite. There are a lot of products in this grouping! You can choose stamps, dies, designer paper, ribbon, pillow box dies, Memories & More cards and envelopes, and more! This card doesn’t use all those things!

The card base is Real Red Cardstock with a layer of the Gingerbread & Peppermint 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper. This green design with white lines and red dots is actually the reverse side of the ornaments! I wanted a Real Red background for the ornaments I would die-cut, but I also made a layer underneath of Old Olive to help the Real Red stamp out a little more.

I used the Gingerbread Dies to cut out the ornaments, although you could do it with Paper Snips pretty easily. I popped them up with Stampin’ Dimensionals® and tied a little bow with Linen Thread on top of each ornament. You could use whatever twine or narrow ribbon you have. I might have used silver if I had some handy!

The greeting is one in the Frosted Gingerbread Stamp Set. I stamped the entire greeting a couple of times and tried different dies and ideas, but it was just a little too large for the space I had on my card. I thought about only stamping it on the inside of the card and not having any greeting on the front of the card. In the end, I used my Stampin’ Write Real Red Marker to color just the “Merry Christmas” portion of the stamp and used a small die in the Ornate Frames Dies. It just fit!

Then for a little bling, I tried out the new Subtle Shimmer Sequins on page 37 of the Holiday Catalog (when you get one!). They don’t have holes in the center so the glue doesn’t squish out when you adhere them! They come in two sizes and four colors: Matte Silver, Matte White, Metallic Silver, and Pearl White. I just used three Metallic Silver ones. I think it’s perfect!

Once you make a Christmas card design you like, make several more cards exactly the same….five, ten, whatever number depending on how many you think you will send out. That way you can have fun making cards of several different designs. That’s what I like to do. When you have the design figured out, the supplies out, you might as well make a batch of cards! Do it assembly-line style – cut everything, stamp everything, assemble everything, etc.

The July-December Mini Catalog (delayed a month due to shipping issues) will begin August 3 so get ready! It will also be Sale-A-Bration (yes, a second one this year!!) so as you purchase holiday items, you will earn free product with every $50 purchase! Something to look forward to during this hot summer!

SHOP STAMPIN’ UP! ONLINE HERE!