Back to Real Life

I am back home in Maryland and the weather is PERFECT! I love the Fall! I do not think I could live in Florida where it is 90+ degrees with 90%+ humidity in the middle of October.

I have unpacked the clothes - had to do them first to get the nasty suitcases out of sight so the cat stopped checking them out. I need to leave the house to go to work tomorrow, and I cannot have her freaking, ya know?

Today I unpacked the stamps and supplies I had taken with me. As I did, I rediscovered the card fronts I made in FL and realized I had a few I have not shared yet.

I found this stamp in a gift shop. My Dad and I were looking for trinkets to bring back, and there was a whole rack of stamps "Made in Florida", so I grabbed this one and one other that has not seen ink yet.

I never had the SU flamingo stamps, so this one just called to me. If you look closely, he looks a bit under the weather, so he would be perfect for a Get Well card. For this one, I just paired him with some Basic Grey papers I had out.

I brought my Supersize Snowflake stamps with me and mounted them. This stamp is the same size as our background stamps, and has both a solid and an outline snowflake in the set, in addition to a sentiment that I cut off and mounted on the end.

As with the Pick A Petal set, I like these large images to hang off the edge of the card. It lets me use the image without overwhelming the card, and leaves room for a sentiment or for some bling.

I got the idea for using the Joy sentiment with the snowflake from a post on Julie Ebersole's blog where she showed the cover of the latest Paper Crafts Holiday Cards issue.

Recipe (all products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Supersize Snowflake, Love & Joy, Short & Sweet; Ink - Versamark, Old Olive; Paper - Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Retired DS paper; Other - Silver EP, White gg ribbon colored with Old Olive marker, silver brad from retired Vintage Brads, Dimensional.

One of the things I labor at is serious cards. I like the whimsical and full-of-attitude ones much better! I know several sections of my Craft Show offerings are thin, and Baby cards is one of those areas. I bought the Everything Baby set because I have been looking for an "Oh, Baby" sentiment for a while now. I know it does not meet the 50% rule, but hey, I am my own best customer! I packed it for Florida so I would use it!

I paired the sentiment with the Lockhart baby carriage, which I inked in Basic Gray and stamped off once to soften it a bit. I did not color the carriage, just the blanket. I colored the ribbon by rubbing it on the Soft Sky ink pad. It came out a little dark, but it gives some contrast that way. I made two more of this design...one in pink and one in apricot.

Recipe (all products except the carriage are by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Everything Baby, Carriage (Lockhart); Ink - Basic Gray, Soft Sky; Paper - Soft Sky, Whisper White, Soft Sky DS paper; Other - White gg ribbon, Ticket Corner punch.

One other area of my offerings where I could use some more designs are Wedding cards. People seem to look for more traditional, serious, classic-type cards, so I thought I'd work on that. I actually have a Happy Anniversary card similar to this design and someone asked if I had any that said 'wedding' instead. Well, now I do!

I had forgotten what the Anniversary card looked like, so I had to wing this one. I knew I wanted to use the flourish from Baroque Motifs, and I looked and looked for a Stampin' Up! wedding sentiment but had none with me, so I broke open my Impression Obsession clear stamp sentiments I had packed. I like how it came out!

Recipe (All products by Stampin' Up! except the sentiment): Stamps, Baroque Motifs, sentiment (Impression Obsession); Ink - Sahara Sand; Paper - Very Vanilla textured card stock, Sahara Sand, Very Vanills; Other - Vanilla Tafetta ribbon, Ticket Corner punch.

This is the one card I managed to do today amid all the unpacking. I saw the directions for making this snowflake on SCS and I just had to try it! It uses both the small and large Tag punches - so simple! The original card and a link to the instructions can be found here.

I can see the possibilities with this technique. I used Shimmer Paper for the tag punch-outs, but it is difficult to see in the photo. I plan to try other variations of this design, like using patterned vellum or adding glitter so it is more showy.

Recipe (all products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Short & Sweet; Ink - Sage Shadow; Paper - Sage SHadow, Soft Sky, Wintergreen DS paper, Shimmer White, Vellum; Other - Lg & Sm Tag punches, Snowflake punch, Ice Rhinestone brads, Soft Sky double-stitched ribbon, Dimensionals.

Enough creating for today. I have to go finish the laundery so I can go to work in the morning. ;-)