Boy, have I been busy!

Happy Saturday. I've been so busy this week. I had to take my mom to radiation 3 days in a row for about 2 1/2 each day. That is rigorous and tiring--for both of us. I did get some of my swaps done while waiting for her. At home I've been working on swaps too. I plan to make about 250 items for Convention. Most will be card swaps, but I also plan to make 3D items and I'm in several different events that require me to make stuff to share.

 Last night when I was working on my swaps I discovered something neat. I stamped the star shaped flower from Flower Fest and punched it out. After looking at it for a minute I thought, "Why not?" and used the Boho Blossom punch to punch out the centers. It looks like a completely new stamped flower. What do you think?

 

I'm finally able to access the pictures on my camera thanks to DH. Here are the word plaques I made for my friend, Celia a few weeks ago. I think they turned out nice. She likes them a lot. Sorry the pictures aren't the best quality.



    

And finally, here is the graduation present I made for my son's girlfriend, Lexi. She is in Army bootcamp now. She says she loves it. She signed up for the National Guard, but likes it so much that she wants to be full time active duty.   

Hope you have a wonderful weekend filled with stamping fun.                                                                             

Stampin' Retreat

Good day everyone,

Our local group of demonstrators, INK Demos, is having a retreat this weekend. It starts Friday evening and goes through Saturday late afternoon. We are doing a shoebox swap and a regular swap of 18 + 1. I made these little gift card holders for my swap. Inside is a folded envelope that forms two pockets. One pocket is for a gift card, the other is for the note card below. I saw these online at Chicken Scratch's blog and thought they were so cute. She used "Happy Together", but since it's retiring, I couldn't use it. Anyway, I thought it was something different.

The retreat is titled "Surprise and Delight" so there are going to be surprises for all of us. Thanks so much to Jann, Leslie, Margaret & Connie for putting this get away together. It will be so nice to have my own hotel room and get away from housework for a day. I'm looking forward to all the stamping and gabbing that we girls are so good at. We are even supposed to stamp together in our PJs. Of course, I do that at home all the time. My husband doesn't understand why a bunch of grown women want to get together in their nightgowns. Oh well, men don't understand a lot of what we women do. They are easier to figure out I think. What do you think? Are men easier to understand than women? Is it easier to figure out what motivates them?

 

Now that the retired list is out, I've finally decided what I want to do for my Convention swaps. No peeking! I'll share them later. I have a bunch to make. I'm doing about 150 just for myself to swap. Then I have 3 shoebox swaps to do, a gift swap, a 3D swap and another swap with the INK Demos. I'm going to be one busy girl for the next 3 weeks. In addition to all that, I have to take my mom for radiation treatments for 3 days next week--she has lung cancer. Also, on Monday, I'm having the nerves in my lower back burned to try to relieve the horrific pain I suffer daily. Please pray that it works for me.

My closest friend, Celia, has 3 huge bulletin boards in her kitchen that are full of pictures. She wanted to put something decorative above them, so I made these placards for her. She was very happy. I used the retired Creamy Carmel because it's very close to one of the walls in her kitchen.

Sorry it's so blurry. I took it with my cell phone and it doesn't have the best camera around. I used the large serif alphabet dies and covered the letters with Red Riding Hood DSP. Made little flowers from Basic Black & Creamy Carmel (to cover my screw ups LOL) and mounted them as shown. I'm really happy with the way the project turned out.

Thanks for looking. Have a blessed day.

Stamped Tiles

Greetings
Here are the tiles I made for the craft show last week. I'm very happy with how they turned out. I stamped them with craft ink and then baked them at 350 for 30 minutes. To be sure the design wouldn't fade I sprayed them with clear sealer. These are also going to the boutique.

Hope you enjoy them.

Wedding Bells are Ringing (Somewhere)

I've been making wedding cards today. Yesterday I sought advice for making a groom out of punches. The sweet gals at SUDSOL and Late Night Stampers helped me get some ideas by sending me links. Thanks girls, Anyway, here is the result. I changed him quite a bit. It's still not my ideal, but he'll have to do. I guess the perfect man doesn't exist in the paper world either!

I don't know anyone getting married, but it's June so I figured they might come in handy for the people who shop at the boutique where I'm going to sell my cards. I'm taking my first batch of stuff up there tomorrow. The cute little girl who owns the shop is only taking 20%. I think that's a good deal for a consignment store. I'm just guessing though--I've never sold anything on consignment before.

I got an email today from a woman on Meet Up who wants to come to my new stamp club--Paper Capers. There are a few others who want to come too. So this might be the real deal.  My BFF, Celia, bought some of my cards to give as a gift. She said everyone oohhed and aahhhed over them. They were also fascinated with the boxes I made for the cards! One lady wants to come buy some cards and also have a workshop. YEAH! That's what I like. I've been really busting my behind to get this business going and I'm finally seeing some fruit from my labor.

On to the cards:

The Bride & Groom: The first one is a little rough. I embossed vellum with the swirls from Priceless and then used the large scalloped circle die for the gown. Then I trimmed it to the shape you see. The groom is a combo of word label, large tag, and large star punches. The second groom has the decorative label punch for his lapels. Also, on the second card I lined the gown with Very Vanilla and used DSP from Elegant Soire. I like the second one much better.

                        

 The next two cards have wedding rings made with the large and small oval punch & gold paper (so sad the little one is retiring) : ( I used mini glue dots to hold them together after I cut one so they could be joined. When I did the embossing with the folder the back got a little bit of embossing too. I don't know how to prevent that--do you know? Will you please tell me? Oh well, I'm not perfect and I can admit it! The second ring card uses the same heat embossed paper as the wedding gowns. I put Blushing Bride behind it. It's hard to see, but I put Perfect Pearls on top of the gold brads. I think it tones down the bright gold of the brads some.

     

I hope I've inspired you to make some wedding cards. I thought about making a funny card with a knotted ribbon that said " Congratulations for Tying the Knot." Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Have a great weekend

Alison



                    

Woo Hoo!

It's been a while since I posted--nearly a month. I guess I got discouraged because my blog doesn't look very good and I haven't had time to fix it.

Anyway, I made a bunch of stuff over the last few weeks for a sale at a local church, I made some neat tiles using the new Flower Fest set and Open Sea. They came out very nice. It's late and I haven't taken any pictures yet. I will post them tomorrow. I also made big magnets with the Big Blossom die--50 of those suckers. I made earrings and of course cards. I sold about $30.00 worth of stuff, which isn't much, But the big news is I made an actual catalog sale and the lady wants me to do a workshop next month. Finally, something is happening with my business. I've been busting my butt trying to get this thing off the ground. I'm so excited and will have a hard time waiting for June to pass.  My friend, Julie, knows her and says she and her friends will be a good group and I may even get a club started with them. So you know I'm saying, " Woo Hoo" all day.

The new CATALOG is coming out July 1st, so I hope you're as excited as I am, I've had a sneak peek and I know you're going to LOVE. There are several wonderful sets retiring : (. But something has to give to make way for the new. Check out the retiring list at my Online Shopping link. Those sets that are retiring will never be available from Stampin' Up! again--GET THEM BEFORE THEY'RE GONE!

I hope everyone has a blessed week and that you get a lot accomplished.

Blessings,
Alison