gifts and talents - scrapbooking your faith

Wow, I can't believe I let the time slip by me. I didn't realize it had been since Monday since I last posted. This week has flown by. We had something every night this week. A lot of the week was taken up with school tours. You would think picking a middle school would be easy, but each one is different and offers different items depending on your child's interest. My child has several interests so we get to tour several schools and we aren't done yet. It's very overwhelming some days, but I know God will see us through it.

I also hadn't realized until just recently that I hadn't posted my last scrapbooking your faith pages that we did last month. Our theme last month was gifts and talents. I saw an idea in our Stampin' Success magazine and I modified it some to make two pages out of the design. I thought they came out kind of fun and different. It was a little out of my comfort zone, but I like them. I actually found several pictures for my pages and it was really cool to see the progression of how my talents and gifts have evolved over the years. My evolution started with me thinking I had very little to offer, so I worked mainly behind the scenes or behind the stage. The next thing you know I was performing, then leading, then mission teams, then actually planning and helping lead ministry work. It was cool looking back on it seeing the transitions and where we were at the times and what what we were doing. God can work that way though if you let him and are open to His will.
In our study we basically talked about various gifts and talents mentioned in the bible. We also talked about some different bible characters and their gifts and talents, like Moses for example. We talked about what he did, but also how he felt - inadequate. Even he questioned his abilities, but with God's help he made it through and God gave him the resources to get what he needed done. I asked the ladies to think about their respective gifts and talents - from small to big. I reminded them that not all talents are performance oriented or big. Even something like sending cards to people to encourage them is even a gift or fixing a sick family a meal, etc. I then challenged them to figure out what their gifts were and look for ways they could use their gifts. It ended up being a good lesson time.
So now on to the info about the pages:
One thing I did differently on these pages was on the Soft Suede but it's a little hard to see. SU's paper is solid all the way through. I found if I rip a side of my paper and then ever so gently take my paper piercer and pick at it a little I can actually separate the sections of the paper. I then ever so gently pulled back a little of the top layer (once it starts it's easy to keep it going) and rolled it a bit. To highlight it I just rubbed it over the ink pad to make it darker. You can see it a little better in the top picture. I then used my Extreme Elements and Extreme Guitar to stamp my images. I actually let the ladies pick other items beside the guitarist if they wanted too to represent their talent, but this was my page, so I picked the guitar because I liked him. Not that I have musical ability, but I thought he went well with - you rock. The words are stamped using the Just Perfect Alphabet in Crushed Curry. The guitarist is also popped up on dimensionals too, so you can slide pictures under it if you needed too. So I hope you enjoy them and it encourages you to scrap about your gifts and talents too. We focus so much of our scrapbooking on others or events, so I like being able to share parts of me with my family too. So that's why we are doing them.
Here is what I used for these pages:
stamps: Extreme Elements, Extreme guitar, just perfect alphabet.
inks: Brilliant blue, crushed curry, soft suede, garden green
paper, kraft, whisper white, crushed curry, garden green, brilliant blue, soft suede
accessories: both star punches, circle pundhes, dimensionals, silver brad, paper piercer, snips, Crushed curry polka dotted ribbon

table setting die

Stampin' Up! has a great hostess incentive right now. If you host a party that has $250 in sales you get to pick an item out of the mini for $10 and if your party hits $400 in sales you get the $10 item and the new My Digital Studio for half off (used as part of your hostess benefits). So it's really cool to host a party right now.
One item that is in the mini is this new table setting die (which could be a $10 item). I decided to show a couple of projects off using it at my last club. I made a place card for each member and I made them this little treat bag using the swirl cut out image. The swirl part can be used to make flowers or pine cones or little ornaments, whichever you prefer. I chose to make a flower using our new Rich Razzleberry paper. I used the hostess set Holiday best for the words colored with Razzleberry and Old olive. The leaf is also cut out with the die. It can be used as a leaf or petal. The rest of the bag is made using the Top Note die and a cello bag.
So I hope you enjoyed my little treat and I hope you have a chance this week to share a little something with someone - even a little thank you encouragement email is a great way to think of someone and so easy or better yet a hand made card or a phone call even. We have so much to be thankful for - how about you?

more my digital studio

Here are a few more scrap pages. Some of the nice features are you can change the colors of pretty much everything. You can add shadow effects so items look 3d like I did with my words on the stamps on the top page. You can also change the colors and sizes of the punches too. As in the wide oval on the bottom page.
I can't remember if I said this before, but there are some stamp sets in the studio that aren't in the catalog. One of them is a cute cats stamp set. In that set is a mouse and on every page in my book I hid a mouse. In these two pages he's easy to find, but others are very difficult because I color matched them. So I hope you enjoy the pages and get some ideas for some of your own pages. Have a great day today.

another mds

Here is another page I did with My Digital Studio. I added some stamps from the All in the family set. I just used a basic design since I wanted to show off the pictures and the special bond between father and son.
It was so quick and easy to do.
I hope you enjoy the page. Sorry, I've been a slacker. It's been crazy this week. One thing after another. Hopefully I'll be back on track more next week. I'll try to sneak in some more time to spend on here soon. Thanks for being patient.

my digital studio

I'm so enjoying My Digital Studio. I've already created some cards, a book, scrap pages, a flyer and I'm working on a calendar. It's been really fun to play around with. It's easy to work with too.
I put together a couple of pages of our trip to Salt Lake city this summer. This is some fun we had in our free time.

These two pages are in my book. I tried to put on each of my double layouts at least one rhyming thing and then I hid a mouse on each page. There is a stamp set in the digital studio that you can't buy and it includes cats and it has a mouse in it. My kids like the story Good Night Moon, so I did something similar and put a mouse on each page. The fun thing was that you can color match stamp sets, so sometimes I made the mouse really hard to find. Hey, I couldn't make them all easy. Gave them something to look forward too. :)

Also, didn't this paper match her shirt so well? I couldn't resist using it. Besides Designer papers and cardstock you can also use your own pictures as background.


Sorry I haven't posted as much lately. I'm having 5 events this month which is a lot for me especially when you add on work and all the kid's stuff too. It's no excuse, but it does take time away from my creative side some. Anyways, I hope you enjoy seeing a couple of my sample pages.
Hope you have a great day.

celebrate your day card

This weekend was busy for us. We had at least 2-3 items every day this weekend. We got to spend time with friends and family both days. I got to have my first Stamp-a-stack yesterday for this Christmas season. Today, I got to celebrate my nephew's 16th birthday. They are involved with a lot of sports and are really busy, so we got to celebrate his birthday early. So in about a week, another teenage driver will be on the road. I hope my sister survives :)
So I made him this card using the extreme elements and Celebrate Everything stamp sets. I thought it somewhat fun and the brown spots almost reminded me of tire treads, so we got a kick out of that a little, since he will be driving soon. On the outside it says, "Celebrate your day" and on the inside it said, "Celebrate you, happy birthday" (this saying is from a little birthday cheer stamp set.) He's a great kid and I hope he has a great day on his birthday coming up soon.

This card is made on Whisper white and is matted with brilliant blue and garden green cardstock.
The elements and saying are stamped in the following colors: Soft Suede, Garden green, brilliant blue, & crushed curry. I also used the crushed curry polka dot ribbon (turned to the backside - since it was a guy card).

So I hope you enjoy my little card. Remember to be kind to young/new drivers today too because in a little over a week, there should be another one. Have a great day today.

mummy card for club

Several members saw a card using a mummy last year and talked about how cute it was. So this year I decided to come up with a card and let them do the actual mummy. I'm not the originator of the mummy, nor do I know who first created it. I've seen it on more then one site over a couple of years, so I really don't know who to credit for it.

Now the coffin, I played around with a couple ideas for it. Like the little kid vampire, I thought about having it open at the bottom, but I wanted to change some stuff up so this one opens to the side. It's a little more boxy looking because of the attachment to the back. If you like the more pointy style then you will have to have one that opens like the little vampire. To make the coffin you measure in from the top 1" and down 1" and that gives you your corner cut. Then you measure 1 1/2" down from the 1" cut and then also 1" in from the bottom corner and cut between the two.
I stamped the front using batty for you using black It's punched out matted with black and then a pumpkin pie scalloped circle. The scallops on the circle are also pierced with holes. It is raised up with dimensionals. The background is stamped with the sanded background.
The inside is made the same way, except I started with a slightly smaller piece of paper for the backing. Just cut the edges the same way you cut the front. Next I took a 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" piece of white and then tore it into strips. I also had a small white piece that I tore and very easily tied into a knot. I inked all edges with caramel ink using a dauber. I then laid them on the mat and trimmed the excess to fit and then re-inked those edges. I added the little knot with a glue dot.
I added the mummy to the back of the card. I stamped Happy Halloween from Teeny Tiny Wishes in black. The eyes are punches. I punched out a pumpkin pie piece for the back of the eyes, white for the middle and black for the fronts. I placed the eyes before laying down all the strips (so you do it as you go).

So I thought this would make a fun card for Halloween, but if you don't send halloween cards but scrapbook you can use it too. I thought you could cut the card apart and this would be fun on a 12 x 12 layout about Halloween.
Hope you enjoy. Have a great day.

club extra - sweet treat

This is the little extra thing that I gave club members this month. It uses the sweet treat cups. I stamped the image from the Sweet Centers set in Elegant Eggplant and punched out with 1 3/4" circle punch. I added candy to the cup, popped it through the hole and added a olive background piece to help hold the candy in. Before I added candy though I lined up the cup with the back green piece and added the saying part that I punched out to the back of the piece, so when they open it they will also see the saying. I then added a pumpkin pie piece of cardstock as the final background. I added a sucker stick to the back with pop up glue dots stretched around and then placed another piece of cardstock over that to help hold it down.
I like the little sweet treat cups. They were fun to work with and easy. They even come with adhesive attached, which makes attachment a breeze.

If you wanted to you could make a little escape hatch for the candy using another hole punch and tag, but I let these be the way they were.
Hope you enjoy my little treat and have a great day.

club project card halloween

I know a lot of people don't send Halloween cards anymore, so I opted not to put Happy Halloween on the front of this card, although you could. I thought they could put a thank you or thinking of you sentiment on the inside of this card and it would be a good one to send in October. I couldn't resist using these cute witch hats though. Of course I had to make one a little more girly then the others to make it "one of a kind", but if you didn't like the flower a small star should work too. The olive hat is also on dimensionals so it is raised up above the others.
We used the Eat, drink & be scary stamp set to stamp the hats in black and old olive. They are on whisper white and cut out. We then wrapped either pumpkin pie or basic black grosgrain ribbon around them. I used the trio flower punch to punch out the flower and the paper piercer to poke a hole in the center and then added on with a glue dot. This is all placed on whisper white, backed with pumpkin pie and then basic black. It's mounted on old olive. I then stamped "You are one of a kind" in basic black on the bottom from the One of a Kind stamp set.
I thought this was a cute card. Now the question is who would be the recipient of it? Who gets the one of a kind witch hat? haha. Back when I was younger I would have had great fun with this card antagonizing my friends.
Of course back then I would have been right there with them seeing what we could get into at the time. Now I'm older and more of a home body, but I'm sure all of us have some humorous or almost humorous stories to tell of our past. So I leave you with those thoughts - pondering who would be the recipient of your "One of a kind" card.
I hope you have a great day today. :) Enjoy your memories.

September club project 1

Here is one of our club projects last week. It's called a peekaboo box because when you open it you can peek at the candy inside. I hope give dimensions to this box later. It is made with the web roller on olive paper with a black roller ink. I used the batty for you stamp set and punches to decorate the front. I punched the spider out and lifted him up with a dimensional. The inside has a window sheet covering the hole and all the items were punched with punches. I'll try and type up more later as my kids need to get off to school.
Have a great day.