My Digital Studio

Starting October 1st, everyone can purchase My Digital Studio. This software is SU's new digital crafting technology. With it you can make cards, scrapbooks and pages, calendars, and even dvd's and such. I've been playing with it for about a week now when I get a chance and I hope to download some of my items soon. In the mean time I wanted to show you this page from Regionals. It is not my creation and it is what they call a hybrid page. Hybrid is where you mix traditional scrapbooking with digital. Most of the items on this page are flat - printed from a printer. There are a few items popped up on it that give it that feel of a regular 3d page. This program is especially great for altering sizes such of your pictures, papers, etc and for moving things around without wasting product and pictures and such. So far it has been fun to work with and it has commands that are similar to most other products out there so I didn't have a huge learning curve really. If you are like me and have thousands of digital pictures then it might help you catch up. If you are also like me then you can choose to print pages separately if you want and then enhance them with items you can touch and feel. I almost feel a little like Hannah Montana - it's almost like the "Best of both Worlds". haha. Can you tell what my kids watch. Anyways, I hope you have a great day. If you have questions about the new digital software just ask.

ornament flower

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a great day today. Sorry I didn't post much this weekend. We had another busy weekend. I have my biblestudy scrapbooking class tonight so I was working on that. I also have been playing a lot with our New My Digital Studio which comes out this week for the general population (Oct. 1st). It's been really fun playing with it. I'm trying to put together an album to print out, so I 'll have it in time for club and such. So I've been working on that a bunch this weekend. It hasn't been as fast as I had hoped because we have our pictures on two different computers in three directories on two floors and it's been interesting getting them all to connect. My husband is working on simplifying it, but we've been learning as we go. It just means we take way to many pictures lol, as they don't all fit in one spot. So far though the program has been really cool and easy. It allows you to make cards, scrapbooks or pages, calendars and dvds. So far I've played with the scrapbook and the cards. After I get my album done I hope to work on the other two. Anyways, I hope to share some pages or some cards I make with it shortly.
so onto this card. This is a card they displayed for us for regionals that I took a picture of afterwards. Do you see what it's made of? That's right the ornament punch that several of you like. It's a non-traditional way of using the ornament punch. So I just had to share another use for that. I hope you like it and it stirs some creativity. So have a great day today.

petals a plenty

One thing I missed at first in the new mini catalog was this embossing folder. I looked over it several times. There is just so many great items in our mini. It's hard to get or see everything in it. It is so pretty. I like it plain on cards, but I also learned this trick from demonstrator Patty Bennett. If you take a wood mat or thin frame of some sort you can create an oval (non embossed area) on your card front like the area in the middle of the card where the reindeer is placed. The mat you have decides your shape. You could probably find some circle ones and square ones too. This embossing folder actually covers the full sheet of paper when used by itself. If you place the mat in there, it creates this effect. I then stamped my Dasher stamp in Silver and embossed in silver. I then took a sponge dauber and used our new shimmer paint (also in mini) to highlight the petals on the flowers. I then matted that onto Basic gray paper and then onto real red. I also embellished the card with the new red polka dotted ribbon. Isn't it so much fun? I like our new polka dotted ribbons. Not to mention the folder and the new shimmer paint. So much fun. I love trying new things. Out of the two shimmer paints I've tried, the platinum is thicker and bolder. The white is more opaque and gives a hint of sparkle. It's subtle but very pretty.
So I hope you enjoy seeing the idea today. Now I'm off to play with my new digital software. This comes on sale October 1st. If anyone is interested let me know and I can share what I know about it so far. There is also a hostess special for October. Host a party in October and if it reaches $400 in sales you can earn it at half off as well as get a $10 item out of the mini as part of your hostess benefits. If you have any questions, just ask. Have a great day.

cute vampire card

Okay, I have another cutesy Halloween card. No we don't believe in vampires here, but when I decorated this card I just couldn't resist making him. I thought he fit just right with this card front. He's really cute and he lifts up off the back of the card when opened (see last picture).

I thought the front looked a little creepy with the From the Crypt set, so I had to make it cute inside. Since it has a bat on it, I thought it would be cute to have a little vampire on the inside. I could just see some little kid knocking on our door with a costume looking like this vampire. So that's what you get when you open the card a cute vampire saying, "Trick or treat, smell my feet give me something good to eat". Okay, he only says Trick or treat, but I could just seem some little kid saying that with a horrible vampire accent to boot.

The front is embossed in black embossing powder and smudged with black ink. The base of the card is Chocolate chip but the front is covered with old olive.


The inside sayings are from Teeny Tiny wishes (Happy Halloween) and then the Trick or Treat is from the hostess set Holiday Best. It's inked with Old Olive, pumpkin pie and basic black markers. The cape is an old olive rectangle and I angle cut the top, flipped the cut off piece over and added it to the right side. I curled and roughed up the bottom corner a little to look like it was moving. The head is circle punched, then I did another circle in black and then took the smaller circle and punched twice to make the part in the hair. The teeth are from the small star punch. The eyes are just basic black marker.


To make the card I measured over 1 inch from each side at the top. Then down an inch and cut that corner (both sides). Then I measured over an inch on the bottom and cut from the side to the inch mark on the bottom. I cut a slit in the back of the card to make the vampire stand out. The saying at the top is punched out with the Word Window punch and then matted with the modern label punch.

So I hope you enjoy my card. Different for me, but I thought he was really cute and couldn't resist sharing him.
Hope he makes you smile.
Have a great day today.

build a bear - regionals

I have to admit when I was at Regionals last week and they started showing us some of the Build-a-Bear items it reminded me of my childhood some. Mom would buy us paper dolls from time to time and we got to color them or swap clothes with them etc.
So they brought out some bears and showed us some accessories, how to alter some pants, etc and it did bring out the kid in me a bit. See this first bear he was placed on a book for a kid. See how they shortened his pants and made them more like shorts.




I just thought this second picture was fun. It was a card they had on display. It was hilarious. They mixed the Sizzix with the stamp set and made a disco theme. I had to laugh when I saw this. I thought it very creative and fun.






Then lastly they showed us several of the paper dolls showcasing the paper in the mini and the holiday sets. Aren't these fun too. They added headbands, bows, bags, etc. Lots of fun stuff. I started wondering what punches would fit and what more I could make to go with it.
If you get inspired by the pictures and come up with some ideas you will have to share those with us as well. I was thinking a punched bag or a hat. I wonder if the top hat would fit.... hmm. I see I will have to play soon.
So I hope you enjoyed seeing some Build-a-bear items. I hope it brings out the child in you too. Hmm... maybe I'll have to go color something. :) Have a great day everyone.

regional swap - ornament card

Last weekend I got the pleasure of going to one of SU's regional meetings. It was very informative and they showed us lots of fun ideas. I'll have to upload some pictures to show you some of the stuff they showed us. One of the fun things about an SU event is that you get to have swap time (where you excange one of your cards for someone else's card). You get some fun ideas that way. So I thought I would show you my swap card that I took to regionals. I thought this was a different but cool color scheme. It uses glorious green, rich razzleberry and Brilliant Blue. Each of the ornaments are stamped on white and then punched out with the coordinating ornament punch. The white paper is matted with rich razzleberry. I used the new fun razzleberry polka dotted ribbon. The saying is from Teeny Tiny wishes and is stamped in Razzleberry and punched out with the word window punch. It is then mounted on a Brilliant blue piece punced with the modern label punch.
Can you tell I've been working on Christmas? I love Christmas stuff. I can't wait to do some more. Hope you all are having a great day.

halloween triangle box

Last year I showed on the blog a triangle box that we had made in club. It was hunter colored and reminded me of a tree. I saw a somewhat similar idea recently (sorry it was several weeks ago and I'm terrible at writing down where ) and thought it was a fun idea to use the same box for a Halloween project. It almost has a feel of a witch's hat. It was a quick and easy project. If you don't remember how to make it you score your paper in half and then score points to the center of each end (the old entry has a pattern). Just fold the box, punch holes and tie closed. Of course you should always fill with your favorite candy or small gifts etc first before tying it together.
I used Basic Black paper, pumpkin pie and Basic Black grosgrain ribbon. I stamped the saying on white with old olive, basic black and pumpkin pie markers. I used the Eat, drink and be Scary and From the crypt stamp sets (stamped in white craft ink). I punched out the saying using the tag punch (small I believe, but would have to double check and I'm not currently home to do that). So I thought this a fun little treat pouch for Halloween. I hope you enjoy the project and the new twist on an old share. Have a great day.

fancy favor simple snowflake box

This is the new fancy favor box. It's really easy to put together. I love die cut boxes. It saves so much time. I also used the new simple snowflake stamp set and matching snowflake punch. They fit really well together. I rolled the bag with the jumbo Whimsy wheel with brocade blue before putting it together. I thought it went well with the snowflake, kind of like wind blowing in the background. I can see this being useful around Christmas time for some little gifts. Maybe a gift of tags, jewelry, candy, etc. Choices, I like them for sure. So I hope you enjoy my little box and have a great day today.

Here is what I used:
paper: Brocade blue, whisper white
ink: brocade blue (pad and roller ink)
stamps: simple snowflake, jumbo Whimsy wheel
accessories: Big Shot, Fancy Favor box, sticky strip, Cropodile, white grosgrain ribbon, snowflake punch, jumbo wheel

Christmas thanks

I thought this would make a really pretty Christmas thank you card.
I didn't come up with the design of this card and if I could find where I put my printout I'd like to give credit for it (some days I wish I was better organized). I made this a few weeks ago but I am just now posting. If I remember right it wasn't a thank you card, but I thought it would make a really pretty thank you card. I thought this would make a nice set of cards to give someone as a way to say thanks. So since I can't find my printout, if you know who first colored in the snowflake and put a ribbon behind it like this let me know please.

This stamp set is called Serene snowflakes it is in the new mini catalog and I think it's really pretty. I used my Real Red marker (you have to use skinny edge in parts). I stamped it with stazon. It's mounted on real Red and Old Olive. It's backed with the Real Red polka dot ribbon (turned backwards) and then I stamped A note of thanks in black at the bottom (from the Thank you kindly set). There is a crystal brad in the center, but if you want to mail these I'd switch it out or just use the gem to make them mailable.
This card is a 4x4 card, so it's smaller, but can still fit in an envelope.
So I hope you enjoy my card and have a great day today.

serene snowflake Christmas card

I been taking a short break from Halloween the last day or two. I finished my swaps for regionals, figured out my club items and my syf project for the month wanted to start on some Christmas ideas and thought this was a nice clean and simple card (well sort of).

The snowflake is from Serene Snowflakes from the new mini catalog. Hopefully all of you on my mailing address have yours now. It is embossed using a Night of Navy craft pad and clear embossing powder on Whisper white. It's mounted on Night of Navy paper and then on Bermuda Bay. It is on a Whisper white card and is finished with Bermuda Bay Polka Dotted Ribbon with a Christmas saying punched with the wide oval punch and inked with navy. The saying is from a set called Christmas punch (hostess set). I liked the clean look of this card. It would also be very mailable, as I've heard of some having issues mailing cards under the new rules now.
So I hope you enjoy my easy Christmas card. I'm excited to be going to Regionals tomorrow (well I guess it's today now - lol). Hope to learn lots more to share.
I hope you have a great and safe day too.

punched spiders

I was working on making some items using my new sweet centers stamp set and treat cups. I thought it would be cute if you could put some Halloween type stuff in there (something besides candy that is). So I was trying to figure out some smaller punched items to fit and I decided on a spider (although I might have to try some pumpkins too), so SU doesn't have a spider punch, so I need to stamp and cut one out or make spiders to fit in it and the smaller one shown actually fits into the cup. both of these were made using circle and square punches or corner punches. Basically you start low on your paper with the punch and you just ease up a little each time and snip off a narrow leg (not the whole corner/square). Then you just trim to the desired size (length) and glue to the back of the circle. I then added another circle to the back to finish it. I haven't put on eyes yet as I wasn't sure if I would want punched eyes, white gel pen eyes or googly type eyes, but I thought I'd show you a punched spider you can make fairly easy. I thought the thinner the legs the cooler it looked, so punch really close together. Each punch gets bigger too so that helps with the placement. So I hope you enjoy my little spider and it gives you some ideas. Hope you have a great day

Trick or Treat matchbox and a feedback question

Wow, I don't know if my counter is off or if I actually got that many hits in one day. Kind of cool if it's right though, but I'm not sure what caused the jump. Made me wonder what exactly caused the spike. I didn't know if you guys thought the spider or card was just super uber cool or if it was something I said or something else all together.
I'd love to hear from some of you to hear what you are checking out, so feel free to post a comment (please keep it friendly as my kids check out my site from time to time) or you can email me suggestions/comments more privately. I realized my email address wasn't on here, so I thought I'd add that just in case someone did want to respond more privately (share opinions but please be kind in the way you phrase your comments).

I'm really interested in what you all think of my blog actually. I typically enjoy feedback. Now if it's critical type feedback you might have to throw in some chocolate to soften the blow maybe (milk not dark :) ) or even salty snacks help sometime too, but I'm always asking my customers, family and friends for input and like to hear honest feedback.
I'm curious if you'd like less commentary or more? More stories or less? More instructions and creative projects or is that about right? So if you get a chance, post a comment or send a quick email and let me know what you are liking please.
I'm also curious if you liked the Halloween item or not? If you did, I made some more items that are Halloween, more cutesy I believe, but definitely and totally Halloween. Like I said before I struggle with that one some, but for some reason I enjoy the fun/funny, cute parts of the holiday.

Okay, enough of the babble and onto the project.
This project is a Big Shot Matchbox. I used olive paper to make the box. I then cut a small piece of the Cast a Spell paper to add to the top and then placed a black mat on top of that. I then stamped the image (from Holiday Best Hostess set) using Pumpkin pie, Old Olive and Black markers. A really quick box to put together. It folds together really easy and you basically just use a small piece of sticky strip to hold the top together and the bottom typically just holds itself together, although a little snail helps on the two sides sometimes if needed. You can get two boxes and 6 tags out of 1- 12 x 12 sheet of paper.
You cut your paper at 6 1/2 x 5 1/2 but you alternate how you cut it, in order to get 4 cuts out of it. You end up with just a little square left over in the middle when you are done cutting. If you need a visual let me know and I'll take some pictures of cutting the cardstock for you.
So I hope you guys had a great day today and leave some feedback when you get a chance. Thanks.

creepy halloween?

Okay, I debated for a while whether or not to post this card. Partly why it took me so long to post some things this weekend was I was debating what to post and the issues the Halloween items might bring up (Some people just don't like Halloween or what it represents). I bought the Halloween set From the Crypt this year. It's creepy and I had no idea why I liked it. I never buy anything creepy for Halloween. Since I spent almost half my life (yeah, I'm getting old now and can't say half anymore) as a non-Christian I grew up loving Halloween - at least the fun dress up and get candy, nothing creepy part. My kids love dressing up in costumes and pretending and love to get candy. Besides putting out some regular pumpkins or a spider (my daughter loves bugs) that's about all we do. Of course, my kids will dress up throughout the year (I have a great picture of my son trying to be three characters at once one day - Spiderman, Luke Skywalker, and Indiana Jones). He had parts of each - a spiderman mask, a skywalker light saber and an Indiana Jones hat. It was hilarious. He was a super, super hero. lol. He even dresses up into different characters and then gives me autographs from that character he's dressed as like they do at Disney World. He's really cute and creative and to watch him do that is really fun.

So I really have no idea why I like this set. The bat and spiders my daughter and I both like as they are normally found in nature, but the skull- it's so unlike me. So I started thinking about it and here is a little of what I came up with after thinking about it. Artistically I think I like how they have all the little drawings coming out of it (a little hard to see in this picture), but it has pumpkins, bats, trees, etc - all kinds of things around it. I think hidden pictures are cool. If you look closely at the left eye (it's right eye, but to the left), it looks like a little mouse sitting down. My sister sees that most of the time, just like the other image she sees a mustache guy, so go figure. So I kept trying to figure out why I'm interested in this set, since all the others before have been cutesy that I have gotten, as I like the spirit of Halloween but tend to shy from the creepy or some of the creepy history surrounding it. We just like the costumed/candy part of the holiday really and being with friends.

I'm not totally sure of my answer and it may evolve even over time, but I think it also reminds me of how thankful I am. Really. When I see this skull - which those types of things typically remind you of death, I realize how thankful I am. I don't really see creepy (ok well it's creepy), but I also think thankfulness. I'm thankful, because I know of the hope I have in being a Christian. That when I die, I'll be with my heavenly father. Now I know my body left behind will end up looking like this, but I won't. That to me is something to be thankful for.

There are even crosses in this picture if you look closely at it. Now they are more the graveyard type, but still they are there to help remind me. So when I see this picture I'm reminded to thank God for the blessing He has given me. I'm grateful that I won't be separated from Him when I die, but will live forever with Him eternally. So that's some of my thoughts on this set and why I think I like it.

So if you see more of this stamp set on a card, I hope you remember to also give thanks too or if you aren't a Christian and want to learn more, please feel free to ask. We are always open to questions. So that's some of my thoughts on why I bought this set. It may not make sense, but I get myself most of the time, so if you have questions ask. Print doesn't always describe things well. I have another item I made that I might show later too using this set again, I'm still thinking about it though.

so anyways, since the card was "creepy" on the outside (to most) , I had to cutin (is that a real word?) it up a little on the inside. This spider actually hangs. It folds up inside the card and when it gets opened it swings a little, which you don't expect in a card. It's made by using the 1 3/4" circle punch and then I just cut 1/8" strips and fan folded them and glued them to the circle, then put another circle on the back to hide the attachments. I added linen thread in between too, to hold it onto the card. The saying uses the hostess set Holiday Best and is colored in with black, pumpkin, and olive markers. It's stamped on whisper white and backed with pumpkin paper and I used the ticket corner punch to create the corners. They eyes are just punched circles and I used a marker to make eyeballs.

The front of the card I backed the skull with the stamp set Extreme elements from the growing up section. I didn't plan it that way, but it's cool how the pumpkin almost fills the face, but that was totally by accident. Those elements could be used for all kinds of background, but thought it cool to use for Halloween too. The saying on the front is from Teeny tiny wishes stamp set and the actual skull is heat embossed with black embossing powder.
So I hope you like my spider idea. I think I need to make my legs a little shorter to close better, but for a first try I think it came out kind of cute as a moving type card.
So I hope you enjoy the card and if I shared something that doesn't make sense let me know. Thanks and have a great day today.

scrapbook your faith friends class

Hey everyone,
Sorry I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. We had a busy weekend or I should say we made it busy. Not doing all the stuff we should have been doing - like cleaning house and such, but we took some time and had a little family time. We actually had a few hours to eat dinner without kids one night, which rarely happens and I was also trying to catch up on all the stampin stuff I was behind in. Luckily my husband is really nice and I got to spend a big part of today stamping. I did take some time out to be with my kids some, but for the most part I was trying to play catch up. I worked on swap cards (this coming weekend is regionals). I also worked on my club projects and my next syf class pages. I'm still debating on a couple of choices there, but I kind of got the pages laid out sort of so that was good. I've also been working on various seasonal projects too, so I hope to show you those shortly too. So now that I've caught you up on what I've been doing, here are the pages that we did for the scrapbooking your faith class.

Our subject this month was Friends and we learned more about David and Jonathan, as well as various verses throughout. We also talked about who I refer to as Rack, Shack and Bennie (Veggie Tales does that to you - it's just easier to remember) also known as Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego. I hope I spelled those right it is getting really late. We talked about friends who stick by us no matter what. Ones, who are there for us, encourage us, pray for us and want the best for us no matter what, even if it means giving up something for us (as Jonathan did) or risking their life for us (as in Rack, Shack and Bennie's case). Someone who will stand up with us for what we know is right and who will help hold us accountable. Those are the types of friends we talked about. So I hope you have friends like that that come to your mind. Maybe over the years they have changed somewhat, but hopefully you have experienced that.

We also discussed God as our friend and how he wants us to come to Him with our concerns and how he is there for us too.

So these are my pages for this month. The designer paper is unfortunately retired (demos I believe can still buy it in bulk). I just couldn't work in all our beautiful papers before they retired and I really liked these bold colors so I wanted to use them.
The non-designer papers are Tempting Turquoise, Summer Sun, Chocolate chip and old olive. Everything is inked with chocolate chip (all the edges and such). I used Chocolate chip ribbon, Schoolbook Serif alpha (stamped in olive) and the Big Shot die called sparkle. We stuck the ribbon on with glue dots.

So I hope you like the pages. They are really bright in person, which is a little different for me, but I do like them. So I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend and got to spend time with your family or friends as well. Have a great day.

this month's special

Sorry, I don't have a picture for you. My daughter got hold of my camera and between that and vacation it filled up our camera. I've been waiting for my husband to download and recharge my camera. So I thought I would tell you about this month's special.
First: you can still buy the decor element growth chart until the end of the month. If you do, then you receive a free applicator with it.
Second: the special is a hostess special. If you host a workshop with customer order over $250 not including shipping and tax then you can get any item from the mini for $10 (excludes hostess and my digital studio) as part of your hostess incentive. Now what this means is that you have to use some of your hostess money to get this incentive. So you either use it straight out or you have a hostess benefits less then the minimum and then pay the $10 difference that comes up. If you don't understand that please ask and I'll explain it.

Now if you are interested in hosting a workshop in October. The $10 special is still available and then if your workshop reaches $400 in sales before s&T, then you qualify to earn the new My Digital Studio for half off. How cool is that.

My Digital Studio (a digital software to help scrap, make calendars, cards, dvds etc) will be available October 1st.

So I hope you have a great day today. Sorry I don't have a picture for you today. Hopefully it will be done and I can post tonight or tomorrow.

Christmas convention swap

I got to sit by a very nice lady on the plane ride back home. Okay, my dd was in the middle and next to her, but she was extremely nice and put up with both of us talkers on the way home. It was nice to talk to her and cool that she was a demonstrator. It wasn't until later that I realized her bag was a Founder's circle bag that she had with her which means that she is doing really well with SU. It was a new bag and I don't know anyone that has reached that so I didn't realize it. So little did I know or I would have congratulated her. Anyways, we started talking about convention and thoughts about it and the new stuff. We talked about swaps briefly and she was nice enough to give me one of her swaps even though I was out of mine. I thought that a really nice thing to do. So this is the card she swapped me. It's a Christmas card and I'm so starting to get into the Christmas mood already. I think it's helping that it's been unusually cool here, but I am starting to get psyched about it already and it's only September 1st. I've been working on several projects and can't wait to finish them.
So I hope you enjoy my share today. This card was made by Laura Barto and the following is what she used to make this card.

stamp set: teeny tiny wishes
ink: basic brown, whisper white craft ink
paper: real red, old olive, chocolate chip, very vanilla
Accessories: modern label, word window, scallop edge, jumbo snowflake punches; SU Background #1 textured plate, brayer, gold brads, pennant die, dimensionals