Glitter Ornament

I've seen these beautiful glitter ornaments around on several stamping blogs lately and this week found a video tutorial by Tami.  I love the cute box she made for the ornaments, too.  I have the envelope die on order and it'll hopefully arrive in time for me to use it for my stamp camp on Friday.  Either way, we're going to make these cute ornaments as one of our projects.  I tried one using clear glitter, but I wasn't too happy with the results.

For this one, I used turquoise Stampin' Up! Fine Cosmo glitter with a Tempting Turquoise reinker.  I LOVE how it shimmers!  I used a white Icicle rub-on to decorate it, and turquoise grosgrain ribbon and silver elastic cord tops it off.  It looks darker than it really is - when will I learn to photograph my projects during the day?!  Anyway, I hope you like it!

Hershey Bar Pull-Up Treats

Last year I saw a tutorial for these cute treats over at SplitcoastStampers.  Don't know why I didn't give it a try last year, but I didn't... but I did this week!!  Here's my first attempt.  I used Brocade Blue and Night of Navy card stocks (I love those two blues together!), Snow Buddies level 2 hostess from the Holiday Mini catalog, There are a few things I'd do differently next time:

1.  NO GLITTER - well, at least none on the cover itself.  A little to glam up the snowman is fine.
2.  Add something to the belly band - maybe a piece of Brocade Blue DSP or something.
3.  Pierce around the scallop circle punch instead of using Night of Navy marker to color in dots.

I'm thinking of going to the Ladies' Luncheon after the late church service next week and they are asking for all types of demos/reps to show their wares so that the ladies attending the luncheon can do a little Christmas shopping.  I thought I might participate and bring some stocking stuffers like Snowman Soup (I've got nine made so far), maybe some matchbox die nugget boxes and these cute pull-up treats.

November Stamp Camp Buffett

This month I repeated three projects for my stampers and added two new ones.  I think everyone liked being able to pick and choose what they wanted to make and to make as many as they wanted.  From last month, I had the Big Shot Owl Treat bag, the cute Sweet Treats Turkey from Connie Collins, and the three-drawer Matchbox Die Dresser.  New this month was the Christmas Card I redesigned based on Dawn Olchefske's original card, and an oldie but goody - Snowman Soup.

Isn't this turkey just the cutest?  I saw him on Connie's stop on a blog hop about two months ago.  I ended up participating in her Big Fat Ribbon Share, and much to my surprise, she included that cute turkey in my ribbon envelope!  I knew my stampers would get a kick out of him, and I finally got to make a few myself this time around.  I couldn't find the Jelly Belly Autumn Mix that Connie used in hers, so we ended up with another Jelly Belly mix that had some browns and reds in it (Soda Shop, I think it's called).  Darla made 8, Laura 5, and 6 for me.

Maddie and Holly each made the Christmas Card and both made several packets of Snowman Soup.  I forgot to take a picture of the back, but I used My Digital Studio to type out my poem and used some of the graphics from Christmas Jingle on MDS to decorate it.  I found these cute tree and star marshmallows at Walgreens early this month and thought they'd be cuter than normal marshmallows (although I did give the gals the option of using regular mini marshmallows - they both chose to use the special ones).

I always love it when I can get together with the ladies at work to spend some stamping time together, and it was great to have four of them join me yesterday, even though it was the Friday afternoon before our week off for Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving Card - MDS Style

Wanted to play with My Digital Studio tonight since I can stay up a little later than usual due to the Veteran's Day holiday tomorrow.  I'd found this wallpaper that I've been using on my computer for a few weeks now, and decided to feature the image on a card.  I toned down the image by setting the opacity to 80, added some ribbon and a sentiment (strangely, I couldn't find a Thanksgiving sentiment in MDS).  The sentiment I chose is in Pumpkin Pie, with an opacity setting of 70 to better match my image.  I'm so glad I made the plunge and bought MDS - love it, love it, LOVE IT!

Christmas Card for 2009

Today I had my first workshop at someone else's house in a LONG time!  We made the brag book I posted last month.  While the gals were making their brag books, I decided to work on my Christmas cards.  I was so impressed by this one that Dawn made (scroll to the bottom of the post to see it), I wanted a variation of it.  This is what I came up with, and it'll be our Christmas card this year.  Simple enough to mass produce, as we only send out 25 or so cards a year.  I managed to get most of the pieces cut out during the workshop (Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, and Very Vanilla cardstocks).  I love this pinecone stamp (from Autumn Days) and the glitter just adds that little extra touch.  I used Chocolate Chip and Old Olive markers to color the image, punching it out with a 1 1/4 inch circle punch and framing it with the 1 3/8 inch circle punch.  The pinecones are popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals, as is the square behind them.  The sentiment is stamped in Chocolate Chip and is from the level 1 hostess set, Holiday Best.  The embossed image is from the Petals-A-Plenty embossing folder.  Love it!

Matchbox Die Chests

I had fun making these cute matchbox die chests for my next team swap.  We were supposed to meet today, but two of us weren't feeling well today, so we had to postpone.  I hadn't used my matchbox die yet, and it's SO EASY!

This was also one of my stamp camp projects this past Thursday.  I used a clear rhinestone brad and the small filigree brad piece for the drawer pull (although it's more decorative than functional).  I used retired Parisian Breeze specialty paper, and I'm so sad it's gone!  I bought three packs of it, and it's quickly dwindling.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a GREAT week!

Some My Digital Studio Cards

Feeling a bit under the weather this weekend, but thought I'd share with you a few cards I've made recently using Stampin' Up!s new software, My Digital Studio.  The first is a card I created for Halloween:

It was fun to make!  The Upsy Daisy card I've shared before, but I made it before watching all of the training webinars that SU! provided it's demonstrators, and I've fixed a few things that I'd done wrong.  I also added some drop shadows to give more of a dimensional feel to my card.  I really like this one and will likely change the color scheme a few times and have several of them printed up to have on hand.

The holiday card will likely be our Christmas card this year.  This one is a 6 x 6 card.  I just sent it to SU!s printing service to see how it looks, and if it comes back as great as my calendar did, I'll be ordering more.  The way things are going, I don't think I'll get any cards made the old fashioned way this year (although I do have the ones I made last year and never sent out!).

Last up is a card I made using a new image download for MDS, the Medallion stamp, my favorite from the new SU! catalog:

I really love My Digital Studio and wish I could play with it all day, everyday!  There's just so much you can do with this program.  I'm anxious to work on a multimedia project, but that will have to wait until Thanksgiving break when I have some time to sit down and be creative.