Final Four Houston Basketball Card

Final Four Houston Basketball Card

If you are a college basketball fan, then you might be interested in the Final Four this weekend here in Houston, Texas, and if you are not so much a college basketball fan, you might like to just make a Final Four basketball card! Of course this card isn’t just about the basketball tournament, but can be for any basketball fan. It was an easy card to make. Change the greeting for a birthday or congratulations or whatever you need!

I used Whisper White for the card base with a layer of Pacific Point blue embossed with the Lucky Stars Embossing Folder. To make the basketball, I die cut a circle of Pumpkin Pie cardstock with one of the Circles Collection Framelits Dies. Then I drew on the markings with a Basic Black Stampin’ Write Marker  and embossed with the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder to make it look like a basketball. The tiny Gold Glimmer stars are punched with the Confetti Stars Punch and adhered with the Fine Tip Glue Pen so that you can get the tiniest dab of glue.

The greeting is stamped with the Layered Letters Photopolymer Stamp Set. Love that set! I used Tuxedo Black Memento Ink.

Make a card like this Final Four Houston Basketball card for your favorite basketball sports fan! You can change a few things on it to make it in your own style!

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Don’t forget the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals and Clearance Rack!

April Showers Bring May Flowers Card

April Showers Bring May Flowers Card

We have had a couple of gray days in Houston of drizzly, barely-there rain, but today we have had heavier showers, which, being April 1st made me think of “April showers bring May flowers”. Here in Houston we actually have already had March and now April flowers! Texas wildflowers are already blooming, like the beautiful Bluebonnets in our backyard!

So here is a card made with the beautiful English Garden Designer Series Paper with some pretty flowers!  This style card is so easy to make, one you want to keep in your creative mind as a go-to layout. The card base is Mossy Meadow Cardstock, but it could be any neutral color. I did use a layer of Whisper White Cardstock underneath the designer paper because I wanted to tie a ribbon around this front layer. The two patterns you see are the opposite sides of the same paper.  I thought they looked great together on the same card. The ribbon tied around is the Whisper White 3/8″ Stitched Ribbon.  The greeting is a stamp from the Tin of Cards Photopolymer Stamp SetEven if you don’t have the Tin of Cards Project Kit (very cute, by the way!), this is a great stamp set to have on hand.  I was keeping it simple so I just stamped directly on the designer paper. (Better to do before you have the card finished and everything glued down, but I got lucky and didn’t mess it up!)

If you already have a lot of designer paper, stop and look through your stash and be reminded of the pretty patterns you have and get them out and use them! Or look through the catalog and refresh your memory about the designs available and remember that all of it looks better in person!

I hope you are having a safe April Fool’s Day and that no one is playing pranks on you! And if you are having April showers today, remember that they do bring May flowers – or even April ones!  Make a card to celebrate!

Texas Bluebonnets

Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration Videos of Newest Products

Tomorrow is the last day for Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration! In case you missed the three new products Stampin’ Up! added to the Sale-A-Bration choices, maybe you want to take a look at these videos! Check out the flyer of the products after the videos down the page!

Sale-A-Bration New Products 1

Sale-A-Bration New Products 2

Sale-A-Bration New Products (February 2016)

Original Sale-A-Bration Brochure

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Stampin’ Up! News and Deals


To celebrate ONE MILLION PAPER PUMPKIN KITS being shipped, the April Paper Pumpkin Kit will have a special gift in it!  An bonus stamp set, called “All About Everything” valued at $17! If you want to receive this April kit and the surprise stamp set, be sure you sign up by April 10th! Don’t delay and forget! Join Paper Pumpkin HERE for the monthly kit OR purchase the 3-month Prepaid Subscription on your regular Stampin’ Up! order to get Sale-A-Bration credit. No risk, no obligation. Pause your subscription for a month or two if need be and then resume! Every month is a surprise and a crafting treat in the mail for you!

Try Paper Pumpkin in April and get an extra free stamp set in your kit!

Once you are a Paper Pumpkin subscriber, you can purchase any past kits or refills that are available!

Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals

Stampin' Up! Weekly Deal Mar 29 2016

Here are the new Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals for today, March 29 – April 4. If you like making little boxes you are in luck with the Gift Box Punch Board and the Hamburger Box Bigz XL Die. So many fun things you can make with these! The Leaflets Framelits Dies are great to have especially is you are making any fall scrapbook pages and the Hearth & Home Thinlits are fun to play with as you make scenes out the window! And for some bling, how about some Metal Rimmed Pearls for your projects?!

Stampin’ Up! says changes are coming to Weekly Deals so stay tuned next week when we find out what they have in mind!

OMG!  Sale-A-Bration ending March 31st!

Just purchase $50 or more from Stampin’ Up! by March 31 and choose a FREE Sale-A-Bration product!  No limit! Shop in multiples of $50 and get more free items!!

Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration Brochure

New Sale-A-Bration Items Added in February

In Color Birthday Blooms Monochromatic Cards

In Color Birthday Blooms Monochromatic Cards

This is the last week (only today plus three days!) for Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration, and I was also thinking about how soon the current Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog will also be coming to an end. It’s almost April, for heavens sake! One thing to think about, ahead of time, are the In Colors. These are the trendy, up-to-date colors that Stampin’ Up! chooses to be available for only two years in the catalog and introduces a new set every year as the old set goes out. The colors you see on the cards above are going to be the retiring 2014-16 In Colors:  Blackberry Bliss, Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow, Lost Lagoon, and Tangelo Twist. Based upon previous years, I would guess that as soon as the Retirement List comes out, the In Colors may be the first to go, especially the ink refills. Once they are gone, it is difficult to find ones that are available, unless, perhaps, you pay a premium price from someone selling theirs.

So if you want another FREE item from the Sale-A-Bration Brochure or the extra new SAB products and maybe you don’t really have anything in mind right now you are dying to order, you might consider stocking up on any of the In Color 2014-16 products that you want. If you already have the ink pads, I would strongly suggest getting the reinkers. If you have one of the colors of cardstock that is just about out and you like to use it, then order an extra pack or two.

It’s also a good idea to stock up on adhesives during Sale-A-Bration or basics like Whisper White card stock. Sometimes we are so excited about the new stamp sets and accessories that we forget to check our core supplies.

But back to the In Color cards I made in the photo—I probably made those all in about fifteen minutes! I made a card base for each of the In Colors, cut layers of Whisper White card stock, and stamped with the same color inks. The Birthday Blooms Stamp Set is perfect for this because the flower is large and beautiful. There’s really no need to do any coloring or extra embellishing unless you want to! You’ll see on the Tangelo Twist card I decided to make a smaller one (3 3/4″ x 3 3/4″) and stamp with the single flower in the stamp set. I also added a layer of Silver Glimmer Paper for a little pizzazz!  The stamp set comes with those three perfect greetings plus two little accent stamps, a little flower and some dots.

If any of the 2014-16 In Colors are favorites of yours, be sure to check your supply and consider ordering extras before the retirement rush. I don’t know if Stampin’ Up! will do anything different this year, but I’m going by what has happened in the past. And don’t forget, Sale-A-Bration will be ending on Thursday, March 31.  Don’t miss it!!

For quick and easy cards to make, try the In Color Birthday Blooms Monochromatic Cards, even if you use different colors!

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Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card

Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card

This Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card was fun to make! The other day I got out the Stampin’ Up! Watercolor  Paper and played with it. On some pieces I stamped with Versamark Ink and heat embossed with Clear Embossing Powderthen watercolored with reinkers and my Aqua Painter. When you use Watercolor Paper you can move the color around and work with it, which you cannot do with regular cardstock.  I also spritzed the Watercolor Paper with water to help move the color. You can use the Stampin’ Spritzer or any plastic spray bottle. A couple of the pieces of Watercolor Paper I just spritzed with water, dropped on some reinker colors, let it flow around, maybe spritzed some more, and dabbed the excess with a paper towel. This resulted in just multicolored paper, which I then die cut with the Oval Framelit Dies for the “plain” eggs on this card.

The card base is Daffodil Delight cardstock.  The background layer is a piece of the Sale-A-Bration Perfectly Artistic Designer Series Paper. The grass is the Cherry on Top Cotton Paper, cut with the Fringe Scissors. (Even though the Perfectly Artistic Designer Series Paper is one of the Limited items, at this point in time it looks like they still have inventory so you can still choose it as your FREE Sale-A-Bration item.)  The Happy Easter greeting is from the Easter Lamb Wood-Mount StampLove that lamb stamp! It will still be cute to use after Easter on baby cards or other things!

Order some Watercolor Paper and start playing!  You may end up with ink on your fingers but it sure is fun! Add some emboss resist techniques for special designs like this Emboss Resist Watercolor Easter Egg Card.

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Watercolored Egg Easter Card

Watercolored Egg Easter Card

Remember when you were a child and colored Easter eggs?  You put the egg in a little wire holder and dipped it half in one color and then half in another color.  Maybe you dyed the whole egg one color and then dipped each end in other colors. That is what I was thinking about this morning when I made this card. Usually a little white crayon came in the egg coloring kit and you could color a design on the egg first and when you dipped it in the color, the crayon resisted the dye. It was a fun surprise to see how the egg turned out after it was dipped in the color and removed from the cup!

To make this card, I used Watercolor Paper, which, obviously is the best medium for watercoloring!  If you don’t have Watercolor Paper, our Shimmery White card stock is the next best thing. And sometimes you can get away with using Whisper White if you don’t use too much water or work the color too much and get the paper all pilly. I didn’t use a white crayon, but instead I stamped with Versamark Ink and embossed with Clear Embossing Powder and the Heat Tool. I spritzed the watercolor paper with water so the color would move around easier and used my Aqua Painter to color the different areas with ink in the lid of the ink pads or by adding refill ink in the lid. The great thing about using Watercolor Paper is that it is more forgiving, you can move the color away from where you didn’t want it to go, or add more color when you wanted it. I should perhaps have done a better job of taking a paper towel to wipe off the ink from the embossing earlier, but I really wanted it to look imperfect, like the colored Easter eggs we all used to make or still help our children make now.

The egg shape was die cut with the Big Shot and Oval Framelit Die. You can color a sheet of Watercolor Paper and then punch or die cut many shapes from it.

The Easter greeting is from the great stamp set Teeny Tiny Wishes. I have used it so much! The designs on the egg are from the stamp set Work of Art. And the chick, of course, is from the Sale-A-Bration stamp set Honeycomb Happiness.

We have just ONE MORE WEEK of Sale-A-Bration! It ends next Thursday, March 31! If you want to qualify for a free Sale-A-Bration product with every $50 purchase from Stampin’ Up!, better get your Wish List out and see what you want to order and what Sale-A-Bration item you want to choose.  Remember, no limit!  One FREE item for EVERY $50 you spend!

Have fun making Easter eggs, whether it is a watercolored Easter card or the real things! Those were the days!!

Shop Stampin’ Up! Online HERE!

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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Stampin’ Up! Deals and Paper Pumpkin News!

Stampin' Up! Weekly Deals Mar 22 2016

Here are the new Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals for March 22 – 28, 2016. If you need something new to pretty up your cards and projects, here are some fun embellishments – or maybe you want to stock up! Gold Glitter, Pearls, Satin Ribbon, White Accents and a very pretty corner punch! These embellishments are all very inexpensive, so add one or more to your Stampin’ Up! order to reach $50 or $100 or $150 or any multiple of $50 to qualify for FREE Sale-A-Bration items. Hard to believe, but Sale-A-Bration ends on March 31 and that is in only a bit over a week!  Where has March gone??!

One Million Paper Pumpkin Kits!!

Paper Pumpkin Million Kits

Congratulations to Paper Pumpkin! Not only was it Paper Pumpkin’s 3rd Birthday, but the millionth kit was shipped this month!  I wonder who got it! Maybe it was mine (we all said!!)!

To celebrate, the April Paper Pumpkin Kit will have a special gift in it!  An bonus stamp set, called “All About Everything” valued at $17! If you want to receive this kit and the surprise stamp set, be sure you sign up by April 10th! You have some time to think about it but don’t delay and forget! Join Paper Pumpkin HERE for the monthly kit OR purchase the 3-month Prepaid Subscription on your regular Stampin’ Up! order to get Sale-A-Bration credit. No risk, no obligation. Pause your subscription for a month or two if need be and then resume! Every month is a surprise and a crafting treat in the mail for you!

Once you are a Paper Pumpkin subscriber, you can purchase any past kits or refills that are available!

JOIN PAPER PUMPKIN NOW!

 

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.

Shop Stampin’ Up! Online HERE!

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!

Shop Stampin’ Up! for all your papercrafting supplies!

Coaster Board Magnets

Coaster Board Magnets

These little Coaster Board magnets are an idea that I found in our latest issue of Stampin’ Success, a magazine sent to us demonstrators every quarter. I’ve mentioned this magazine a lot in the past, one of my favorite perks of being a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator!  We used to get an issue every month, but unfortunately, times change, and now we get it once a quarter. But it is still a fun source of stamping ideas and business tips.

You might not even know what Coaster Board is or that Stampin’ Up! carries it! What in the world is Coaster Board??! Stampin’ Up! describes it as thinner than chipboard but sturdier than cardstock. It makes it the perfect material for any projects where you want something stronger than cardstock. You can stamp it, die cut it, and make 3D projects with it.

These magnets are cut 2 1/2″ x 2″. Of course you can make yours any size you want. I was going for small and cute! Decorate the front like a tiny card or adhere a photograph, attach embellishements or do some stamping on them! Then just attach a magnetic strip on the back (you can pick up all kinds of magnets for crafts at a craft store). This is a good way to use up some of your small scraps, leftover embellishments, etc. etc. Just have fun with it!

Coaster Board also works really well with the Berry Basket Die to make baskets that are stronger than cardstock. You can see the basket I made and the details HERE in this post.

Berry Easter Basket Wildflower Meadow

And if you would like to receive the magazine for Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators, Stampin’ Success, plan to join the Stampin’ Up! family yourself, especially now during Sale-A-Bration! Purchase the Starter Kit for only $99 and during Sale-A-Bration, get an extra $30 in product! Than means you will get $155 in product for only $99! Run your business as big or little as you like. You also receive some Stampin’ Up! Catalogs and business supplies to get you started!Sale-A-Bration Starter Kit Special

For more information and to answer your questions, just email me at Karen@KarenStamps.com or click HERE on the website for more information.  Signing up is easy!  You can do it online in a matter of minutes and have your Demo number to start looking around the Stampin’ Up! website for Demonstrators while you wait for your Starter Kit to arrive!

Put some Coaster Board on your next Stampin’ Up! order and make some cute Coaster Board magnets and other projects with it!

St. Patrick’s Day Gift Bag and Tag

St. Patrick's Day Gift Bag and Tag

If you have a little treat for someone today on St. Patrick’s Day, you might want to make a little St. Patrick’s Day Gift Bag and Tag like this one!  I pulled out the Stampin’ Up! Gift Bag Punch Board and the Shine On Specialty Designer Series Paper.  This paper has a printed pattern on one side and shiny pattern on the other side, so that presents a dilemma of which side to use because you will like both sides! This is heavier kraft paper so great to use for boxes and bags and such.

The tag is first punched with the Scalloped Tag Topper Punch with Cucumber Crush card stock which matches the Shine On DSP. To make the little pot of gold, I punched a circle of black with the 1 3/8″ Circle Punch and cut it in half. You could use a larger circle punch or even a large oval punch if you wanted a bigger pot.  The rim and two legs on the pot are punched from the Word Window Punch.  What would we do without the Word Window Punch?!! For the gold coins, I pulled sequins off the Gold Sequin Trim.  The greeting is from the Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp Set and the word “lucky” is from the And Many More Stamp Set. I inked up only the word Lucky on the stamp (it says Lucky You) and punched it out with the Word Window Punch. To make it smaller, I inserted the punched out piece back into one side of the punch coming in from the top so just the one end would get punched. It fits perfectly on the pot of gold!

So there you go! Make someone a St. Patrick’s Day Gift Bag and Tag and surprise them!

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