On Monday I shared the invitation I made for my sister’s wedding. For the day of their wedding I wanted to make them a card. I thought it would be fun to give them the same card as their invitation except change out their first names to their official married name! I hope they liked it!
Thanks for stopping by today!
Product List – Click on any of the items below to visit my Stampin’ Up! online store.
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New Items Added During Sale-a-bration
Since Blendabilities are no longer available as a Sale-a-bration item (and have been discontinued from the catalog), Stampin’ Up! has added more products that you can earn for free with a $50 order! Click here to see the flyer as a PDF.
Sale-a-bration will be over in 2 short weeks! You can place your order at my online store or email me and I can place it for you!
My Digital Studio
Last week I shared several items I had made for Erin’s Baby Sprinke with My Digital Studio (MDS). It was announced this morning that as of May 31, 2015, MDS will be discontinued. For those of you that use MDS, be sure to check the digital download offerings and purchase the ones that you would like before they go away. The program can still be purchased until May 31st but after that date any MDS products as well as the Stampin’ Up! professional print service will no longer be available.
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The Weekly Deals are here! These prices are good until March 23rd or while supplies last. Click on any picture below and you’ll be taken to my SU! online store.
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If you’ve followed my blog for some time you know that I am not always consistent with my blog posts. When I retired almost three years ago from being a full time elementary school teacher, I thought that I would have oodles of time to do EVERYTHING, including posting to my blog seven days a week! What was I thinking???!!!! If anything, life has become even busier!! Three months after retiring, my first grandchild, Audrey, was born. And in a few short weeks, my grandson will be born!!!! As with any major life changes (in my case, retiring and grandchildren), you have to figure out your new direction in life. You have to find balance and decide what’s most important to you.
I love being a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator. I love seeing the excitement when my stamping friends come over and we create. I love when those same friends text or email me cards/projects that they’ve made with their SU! products. I love sharing on my blog and especially love when my blog followers reach out and tell me that they love something they’ve seen on my blog or that they’ve recreated one of my projects.
I also LOVE spending time with my family. Being retired has allowed me the freedom to spend more time with family and that has been absolutely wonderful! Trying to find the balance between spending time with my loved ones and my Stampin’ Up! business has been tricky. Both are important to me but as I am sure you would agree, family is always at the top of the list.
I would love to be in my craft room daily but at this point in my life, it doesn’t always happen. When I babysit my two year old granddaughter, I am bone tired at the end of the day. Now I know why you have children when you are young! Ha ha! I wouldn’t give up spending time with Audrey for anything.
I recently heard a successful blogger mention how important it is to post to your blog consistently. Okay, this isn’t new information to me. But, then she said, it can be as often as you want, as long as it IS consistent. The light bulb went off. I thought about it and tried to think what I could do consistently and the schedule below was born! I am sure there will be weeks when I can share more, but I will consistently post on the days noted below. This will give me the flexibility I need to juggle my crazy life these days!!
Monday – post a card/project
Tuesday – post the Weekly Deals any other important info
Thursday – post a card/project
Saturday – post a card/project
For several years now I’ve also had some ideas for offering an online stamp club. I’ll be able to work on this idea with my new schedule in place!
Thanks so much for reading this far! Since I’ve spoken so much about my family, I’d like to end this post with pictures of my loved ones. I’ll be back later with the Weekly Deals!
Audrey
My oldest daughter, Jenny
My youngest daughter, Erin, and my grandson (she is also Audrey’s mom)
My husband, Mark – our 35th anniversary is coming up in August!
My sister, Lisa, Mom and I
My son-in-law, Tyler, and Audrey
Jenny and my mother-in-law, Pat
Lisa and my brother-in-law, Dan
On Saturday I attended my sister’s wedding! Lisa is now Mrs. Nelson which is funny because Nelson is our maiden name! Both my mom and my sister are Mrs. Nelson! That doesn’t happen often! It was a lovely ceremony and my sister looked beautiful. We are very happy to have Dan in our family!
My dad passed away six years ago and he was greatly missed at this family gathering. My mom did a wonderful job walking my sister down the aisle. My daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter (Erin, Tyler and Audrey) were unable to attend the wedding as they live out of town and Erin is pregnant, due next month. They were very missed!!
When Lisa and Dad became engaged, she asked me if I would make their wedding invitations. It took many months to decide what design we wanted and which colors to use. Dan always gives Lisa beautiful flowers so we tried to make a photograph of a rose he had given her as the focal point of the invitation but we just couldn’t make it work.
We then went in a different direction and Lisa decided that she would like to use gold paper. So, I checked the Stampin’ Up! catalog and found beautiful gold satin ribbon and gold paper. This was a shock to me as I have gone through our catalog from cover to cover (more times than I can tell you) and had no idea we had these two products! The Brushed Gold Cardstock is tucked away in the catalog on page 193 in the far bottom right corner, if you want to take a look (along with several other specialty papers)!
I made several prototypes for Lisa and she chose the one you see above. It is much prettier in person as you can see the flecks of color in the gold paper and the shiny ribbon. The finished card measures 5″ x 7″. I printed their names for the front on my printer using Whisper White cardstock. I did this on the inside as well with the invitation information.
My Whisper White embossed piece measures 4-1/4″ x 6-1/4″. The one “problem” that I had to figure out with the card was how I was going to emboss this piece since our embossing folders are much smaller. Here’s a picture tutorial to show you how I did it. I’m using a piece of Hello Honey so that it’s easier to see.
1. First I placed a pencil mark where I knew my ribbon would be (you can see it in the far right corner at the bottom of the embossing folder). I then placed my paper inside the folder with the last row of dots aligning with my mark.
2. I turned the paper around and inserted it back into the embossing folder with the piece already embossed sticking out. If you look closely, you can see my pencil mark (it is still on the right hand side).
3. The next step is to run it through the Big Shot with the end not yet embossed, going through the Big Shot. The part already embossed WILL NOT be run through again or else it will be flattened! Roll it through and once you see that you’ve embossed the new part, run it backwards and out again.
4. Here’s the finished piece. You can still see my pencil mark. It is flattened a bit in this area but this is where the ribbon will go and it will be completely hidden. I did this 40 times on Whisper White and after doing it so many times, I was able to do it in such a way that I couldn’t even detect a line. I made the invitations in January so I am out of practice.
If you give this a try, let me know how it goes!
Product List – Click on each item to view at my Stampin’ Up! online store
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Happy Friday!! Do you have fun plans for the weekend? My sister is getting married tomorrow!
My last Baby Sprinkle post is the sign I had to welcome our guests. I used My Digital Studio, the same program that I used to make my water bottle labels. I was again able to match the paper I used on the favors but I could print it out on my computer. The Brights Paper Pack that I used for the favors comes with two sheets of 12×12 paper in each pattern. The fact that I could recreate this paper on my computer was a definite plus!
I purchased the digital download, Something For Baby Brush Set, which includes the baby onesie and tie. Everything that comes in the actual stamp set can be purchased in the download. I used Pacific Point, within MDS, to color the onesie and Daffodil Delight for the tie. I love that I was able to use all of the same colors throughout my projects! I printed it on Whisper White cardstock. Once it was printed, I attached it to a piece of 12 x 12 cardstock. So easy!
Have a terrific weekend! I’ll be back on Monday! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
Product List – Click on a product below to be taken to my Stampin’ Up! online store
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