Holiday/Fall Open House is on!

Open House today from 4 to 7 p.m. and tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon. Come and see a ton of new product from the new Holiday catalog which launches on September 1st!  You will be able to place an order if you desire at the Open House! Hope to see you there and bring a friend for a special gift!

Thankful and Grateful!

I'm always excited to see what Stampin'Up! has come up with for fall designs and Thanksgiving. It's such a great motivation to send a card, work on a photo/memory keeping project, do some home decor, etc.  The color palette is lush and gorgeous and the theme of being thankful and blessed is number one!  Here are some sneak peaks!

 Don't forget about my Holiday Open House this week!  It's Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to noon.  There will be lots to look at  and play with, some prizes, some freebies and some treats!  I've planned several classes for the fall and there will be samples and sign-ups for those as well. Even if you only have a couple of minutes, I hope you can stop by!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Halloween Sneak Peaks

I'm back with some more sneak peeks from the upcoming Holiday catalog!  It will be "live" a week from today and I can't wait!  We are heading into such a fun time of year for creating special projects and memories. Stampin'Up! can help!

Here's a few ideas for Halloween....

Many of these cards will be available to make at my upcoming Fall Card Buffet, scheduled right now for October 15, 16, 17.  I'll have more information as it gets closer but it's a fun event where you can come and make the cards you want and need, at your own pace. I'll be featuring fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as some all-occasion cards/projects. 

Happy Tuesday!

Sarah

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE ~~ THIS WEEK!

I'm excited to announce I'm having a Holiday Open House this week featuring the new Stampin'Up! Holiday catalog which goes live on 9/1/15. You will be able to get a copy of the catalog if you don't already have one and also be able to place an order!

This catalog is one of my favorites, especially the combination stamp/framelit sets!  Need a fireplace?  Need a window?  Need some hill side scenes?  We have them!  Please stop by and see alot of new product, many samples, try out some gadgets, sign up for classes for this fall and eat some snacks!

The Open House is on:
Thursday, 8/27/15, from 4 to 7 p.m. 
and 
Friday, 8/28/15 from 9 to 12 a.m.

I have alot of fun and exciting things to show you and all who come will receive a free stamp, catalog if they don't already have one, coupon good for one free card at my upcoming Fall Card Buffet in mid October and a paper apple with a treat inside!

The Open House is at my house (contact me if you are not sure where I live) and don't worry about parking... I will have called the parking/police department so you can ignore the no parking signs on our street ;)

Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Sarah

Thank you "beary" much

Couldn't resist the pun, sorry....

Watch for upcoming details about my holiday Open House where you can get your very own catalog and see these samples and many more in person!

Sarah

Sleigh ride, anyone?

These are the coolest ever!

When you live where it snows, you might as well enjoy it!
Sarah

Fall leaves and trees

Can you spot what is new?

#nevergetsickofautumn

Sarah

Windows: Looking out or looking in?

I was very excited about this new framelit!

More tomorrow!
Sarah

A week of sneak peeks!

I am on vacation this week, but wanted to whet your appetite with some beautiful new goodies from the Holiday Catalog, coming up on September 1st!  As a demonstrator, I've been able to purchase some things during the preorder and I've been having a great time figuring out what to do with what I've bought!  I've scheduled some posts for the whole week. See if you can pick out what might be new, and start making your wish list!  I  won't be saying much and can't give any detailed information out until the catalog goes live, but you can window shop!

Aren't you just nuts about fall?  ;)
Sarah

Dino-riffic!

Normally, I don't pay too much attention to dinosaurs. I've known about them my whole life because I lived close to Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, SD. They were cool to sit on, but lots of times were just concrete animals with peeling green paint.  When I had a son (almost 21 years ago), they were a little more on my radar but still.... Now, I'm crazy about this stamp set called "No Bones About It!. I'll show you the card I made and then the stamp set too!

Yes, that is sand paper where the bones are buried!  My husband helped me out in the garage to find the finest grit sandpaper we had and I was curious if I could stamp right on it. Turns out you can!  The rest of the design came together after that. I also know a biologist/scientist would tell me this card makes no sense at all, but that's okay with me. I'm pretty sure if they could have,  a dinosaur would have worn a birthday hat ;)

Here's the very fun and very numerous stamp set!



Isn't that great!  There are endless things you can do with this set and I'm sure some of the little boys and paleontologists in your life will be very happy!

Keep stampin'!
Sarah

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Go See Do

I'm back to my travel theme!  I love to travel, even though most of it is with a camper and not very far from home. In fact, I've never really traveled on a train or an ocean liner, but it looks like fun to me!  That's why I've come back to a favorite stamp set in the annual catalog, "Traveler" . It's a more vintage, nostalgic style which I also love. For my card class, I let each person pick a piece of a map which I had cut up. Depending on whether they picked alot of ocean or more land, they chose either the train or ocean liner for their stamped image.   Here's the card:

Maps are great for backgrounds and I also worked with it to get my color scheme. This was a fun card and there was alot of joy around the table when people found a part of the US that meant something special to them.  Got any maps hanging around your house?

Happy Stampin'
Sarah

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Birthday Blossoms

I always need birthday cards!  I am horrible at getting them in the mail on time, but they are fun to make!  The second card we did at my class this past week featured a fun set from the new annual catalog, Birthday Blossoms, page 8 in the catalog.  There are alot of ways to color or even watercolor these beautiful flowers and we used Aqua Painters and a couple of shades of pink.

Watercoloring is a sweet past time pleasure that will take you back to those childhood coloring books!  If you haven't tried it and aren't sure where to start, let me know and I'll get you going ;) The trickiest part is managing the flow of water so you don't get too much! Using watercolor paper really helps, as is absorbs that water and your work of art dries more quickly.

Don't forget to check out the annual catalog, available  just one click away on the right, for this stamp set and many more!

Happy Stampin'!

Sarah

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

They Say It's Your Birthday!

I wanted to share the cards we recently made in my card classes last week!  We had a great time with some fun products, lots of conversation and laughs!  Here's the first one:

For this card, I wanted to feature three things; 1)  Some brand new washi tape in the 2014-2016 colors (on sale this week in Weekly Deals!), 2) A cute stamp set and the "Handpicked Framelits", and 3) bubble wrap!  Yep, that's right!  If you look closely at the base piece of the card, it looks a little bit like I hand stamped a bunch of coffee beans onto the card. What I did is much quicker... I used bubble wrap!  I inked up the bubble wrap directly with the ink pad, in this case, "Hello Honey" and then placed the paper on the bubble wrap and used a brayer tool to transfer the ink from the bubble wrap to the paper.  

I had no idea what it would look like and was really happy with the result!  I'll be trying this again with a different color scheme in mind. in fact our "Early Espresso" ink would create the coffee bean look!  Here's the  inside of this card....

This card was fun to design and make. I used  the diagonal stripes embossing folder to give me some guide lines for laying down the washi tape and also tried out our new star punch!  All the products are listed below in case you would like to make this card!

Check back again this week for more cards and ideas!

Happy Stampin'!

Sarah

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Camping season!

We love to camp!  It has just gotten better and better every year we've been married, but that's probably because we have upgraded 2 times now... tent to pop-up camper to hard-sided all the conveniences camper!  When you have it this good, why would you stay home?  I love a fun new set in the Annual Catalog that features a retro-shaped camper and couldn't wait to make a card with it. This one is simple!

The paper and ribbon are retired, but the stamp is available  ("You're Sublime"  #139309, $19). There are some other really cute images with this stamp set as well. You can see it here:



I hope these whimsical images catch your fancy too!  One of the things I love about Stampin'Up! is all the different styles their stamp sets reflect!  I am constantly drawn to completely different things and I love switching it up alot! I hope you can get some stamping and some camping in while it's still summer... or better yet, do both at the same time!

Happy Stampin'!
Sarah

Using up leftovers

Are you a leftover lover? My husband sure is... me, not so much!  There is some satisfaction in not letting things go to waste and there also is the joy of discovery in the "I forgot all about this" moment!  Whether it's food or craft supplies, you will have leftovers!

I've been making an effort to clean out my room a little bit and get into those neglected drawers and corners and boxes and see what's in there and whether or not I can create something wonderful with it!  Today's card is a product of leftovers!

The patterned Designer Series Paper is from last spring so it is still fresh and doesn't have that stale, old feel to it. My super old leftover is the gold doily. I cut this with a big shot Thinlit  and used envelope inserts from a card kit from Sale-A-Bration 2 years ago. I have no idea why they didn't get used then, but I save everything, figuring some day, I'll want it!  It's hard to see in the picture but the confetti paper behind the birthday sentiment has some gold foil speckles in it as well.


So, my tip for today is don't forget your leftovers! There may be some real treasures inside there !

Happy Stampin!
Sarah