Creative Pressure Cooker

This week has been NUTS! I had an ordering frenzy with Stampin' Up! last week, and between my workshop, my Consistency Counts incentive, my Great Rewards redemption, and the new Love Notes I simply HAD to have, well, let's just say it has been a veritable Christmas in July here! I have had packages delivered to my door - sometimes multiples! - every day this week! I loooove being a Stampin' Up! Demo!

Now add to that excitement the latest shipment of Belly Flops that arrived Thursday night, and I was in heaven! (I should get a commission from this place, or at least a discount!)

But back to stamping. I live to stamp these days. I cannot wait to come home from work and play, especially now that I have all this NEW STUFF! I have all these ideas of what I can do with all this NEW STUFF, but apparently no time to actually play.

Part of this week was dedicated to a Beginner's workshop for three co-workers. This was originally scheduled for last Tuesday, because it immediately followed my Sunday workshops, and it was very easy for me to leave everything set up for a Tuesday session. But car trouble ensued (not mine, thankfully), and we had to postpone until this week. I am NOT whining about having the workshop - not one bit! (It was really a lot of fun!) What I am whining about is the pressure having to keep everything set up and CLEAN for a whole week! It was sheer torture! Well, in truth it lasted about 3 hours, as I took that cancelled workshop window last Tuesday and STAMPED! I covered most surfaces in minutes, and had to clean frantically before this week's workshop. Truly sad.

I did manage to do a card for this week's SCS Sketch Challenge. I thought it would be a most excellent opportunity to use up the wide ribbons from last year's SU Ribbon Originals I bought in a Good Demo moment. Now that the ribbons are retired, I am trying to use them up.

So this card is my entry for the Sketch Challenge. When I bought these ribbons, I loved the classic colors, but I never figured out how to use the wide ribbons except as a layer or a small piece of trim. ANYway, I thought it was perfect for this layout. As a fellow stamper commented to me this evening - looks kinda military. Yeah, I guess it does!

Recipe (All products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - All About U, Circle of Friendship, Flannel bg; Card Stock - Always Artichoke, Basic Black, Really Rust, Whisper White; Ink - Really Rust, Basic Black; Accessories - Vintage Brads, 1 1/4" circle punch, 1" circle punch, 1/2" circle punch, Linen thread, Rhinestone brad, Copper circle tags.




This next card is really a gift from two of my new victims...er, I mean stamp customers. ;-) After the Beginner workshop on Tuesday (and a very nice order - thank you!), I promised to show them how to mount stamps. So today I took this set in to work and we had a lunch-time stamp-mounting session. Two bennies came of this effort: (1) I eliminated any fears they had about the stamp-mounting process, and (2) my whole set is mounted! (Thank you RH & JK!) So all the way home from work today I was planning my first card with this set, and this is what came out.

I think it is FAB-ulous. ;-) It was inspired by several samples posted on SCS. I had always thought to stamp the flower somehow with good contrast between it and the background card stock, but when I saw how someone had white-embossed it on black, I was sold! The center part of the flower did not come out too well in the photo, but it is clear-embossed Versamark on Purely Pomegranate, cut out, and then I went back with the black marker and colored in between the petals and around the edges. It has a black brad in the center, and is attached with a Dimensional for some depth. The red added the little splash of color the card needed. I think I am really going to like the possibilities with this set!

Recipe (All products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Fabulous Flowers; Card Stock - Soft Sky, Basic Black, Purely Pomegranate; Ink - Versamark, Basic Black; Accessories - Vintage Brads, White EP, Dimensionals.


Then I made myself use the new Rosie's Roadshow stamps that jumped off the shelf and into my arms while I was in the local stamp store yesterday. This card is my Ode to Washington, DC, Summers. If I could figure out how to depict the humidity level where you start sweating the moment you step outside, and your clothes are stuck to you before you even get to your car ... do you get the picture? So you can see that when I saw this Polar Bear, I had to have him! Especially since I immediately saw the Fan and the sentiment on the neighboring shelf. (Do you think it is a conspiracy that they do this to us?) I thought of the A Muse small oval I had at home which had yet to see ink, and a sale was made! I actually had this whole card in my head before I left the store, and just now had the chance to put ink to paper. I love him!

Recipe: Stamps - Oval by A Muse; Sun, Bear, Fan and sentiment by Rosie's Roadshow; Card stock - SU Whisper White, Soft Sky and Soft Sky Designer Paper; Ink - SU Soft Skyand Basic Black; Accessories - SU Ticket Corner punch, SU Mini Glue Dots (popping up the bear a bit), Blender Pen Soft Sky "marker", Basic Black marker, sponge.


This moose ... well, the moment I saw him in my first rampage through the new SU catalog, I knew he would be mine. As is my nature, I "see" a stamp on a card, but when I get the stamp in my hands, I tend to get half-way and then get stuck and stop. I played with this guy for two evenings before this card came out.

In one of my earlier attempts to get him 'brown enough' I inked him with Chocolate Chip Craft ink and embossed him with clear EP, and he was very brown, but his teenie tiny eyes disappeared with all the embossing, so I bagged that idea. I decided that he worked best when well-inked with regular Chocolate Chip ink and stamped on Whisper White.

I am really liking the Outlaw Designer papers, and I am not a 'Western' gal - at all! I think the patterns and colors are very nice; they are subtle, and they lend themselves to a lot of possible uses. I will probably have to get more. Oh, darn!


Recipe (All products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Moose You; Card Stock - Kraft, Really Rust, Very Vanilla, Outlaw Designer Series paper; Ink - Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Versamark; Accessories - Chocolate Chip Taffeta ribbon.