Archive for July, 2009:
90 Candles???
Aloha, all!
Yesterday I shared the front of the card that I made for our friend, Marian’s, 90th Birthday. Today I’d like to share what I did with the inside.
For starters, I used the Sizzix Pop Up Three Tier Cake die to make this simple but lovely cake, featuring the Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper.
The Sizzix Die cuts one candle for the cake, but I just put a couple of scraps of paper over the candle part of the die and cut two more for the top. Actually, I had envisioned myself making NINETY such candles and affixing them to the cake. But I could see right away that that was going to be (1) hard work (which I shouldn’t shirk, of course) but (2) kind of sloppy looking. Can’t have that!
But I definitely could STAMP that many candles! That’s what’s on the strip on each side of the inside of the card, on both the top and the bottom. Using the candle stamp from the set, On a Pedestal, I stamped 90 candles in a variety of colors–Rich Razzleberry, Crushed Curry and Melon Mambo, mostly the former two colors. But the Melon Mambo made a nice accent.
A couple of comments about the Three Tier Cake Die. The instructions call for 7/8" wide strips of paper to go around each layer. I’ve found it a lot easier to use 1" wide strips when I’m making this as a Three Tier cake. When you close the card, it always folds very neatly AND pops up very neatly. When I’ve used the 7/8" wide strips, sometimes when it pops up, the card stock that makes up the top of the layer pops up over the edges of the strips. Another thing that I’ve been doing with this die, no matter how fancy I might want to make the tiers, is to fold the card closed as I make each tier and before I start decorating. Trying to make these pop up dies do too much at once is a bit of a challenge.
Tomorrow we’ll look at those medallions on either side of the cake!
Subscribe to the comments for this postHappy 90th Birthday, Marian!
Aloha, all!
I’ve been busy this week getting ready for my trip to the Stampin’ Up! Convention is Salt Lake City next week. I’ve not planned a lot of swapping, but I have been working on projects to submit to the Marketing booth once I get there. Next week I’ll share some of those projects with you. 
But for today, I’d like to share a project whose design puzzled me a bit, but which I finally figured out. I couldn’t believe it was as simple as it turned out to be.
The card is 5-1/2" square, and features the new Stampin’ Up! In Colors and the new Designer Series Paper, Razzleberry Lemonade. The body of the card uses Rich Razzleberry card stock, and the Razzleberry Lemonade DSP is mounted on a square of Crushed Curry card stock. The card stock is also featured on the band punched with the Eyelet Border Punch.
I stamped the "9" and "0" with stamps from the Taffy Numbers stamp set using Rich Razzleberry ink on Crushed Curry. I punched the numbers with the Curly Label punch, and matted that with card stock cut with the Sizzix Movers and Shapers Stampin’ Up! Punch Windows die.
I tied it all up with Whisper White Organza Ribbon.
Most important–I made this card for our friend, Marian, who turns 90 this month! She’s going to have several birthday parties, none of which we’ll be able to attend, unfortunately. They’re in Minnesota and we’re in Hawaii. We’ve made that trip once this year, and a second time would be just too much traveling for this summer. Harry still hasn’t recovered from being ill on the last trip!
Tomorrow–the inside of the card and how I resolved my problem!!!
Our Split Coast Stampers Name Tags
Aloha, all!
If you’re enjoying making cards, gifts, and scrapbooks in today’s internet-connected world, you’ll want to check out the website, Split Coast Stampers. There are galleries, forums, and advertisements of all kinds–even some Stampin’ Up! ads these days! Lots of resources for designs, tutorials, and templates, too.
My sister-in-law, Deb, who is also my Stampin’ Up! downline, and I are going to the Stampin’ Up! convention next week. And one of our planned activities is the Split Coast Stampers Dinner the night before the convention starts. This year there is a "standard" Split Coast Stampers (or SCSers, as we call ourselves) name tag. What we’ve all done is to make our own name tags using the materials that we choose, but keeping the whole idea intact.
Today the count-down begins for me. One week and I’ll be on a red-eye flight toSalt Lake City–and to the craziness that you might imagine will happen with thousands of stampers in one place! Believe me, I will NOT be at the doors of the convention center when they open on any given day. At my age, I’d be trampled!!
Oh–and the names on the name tags. They are our SCS "names." Mine is my original stamping name from years ago (and you can still find me by e-mailing robin@robinstamps.com, believe it or not!). Deb’s derives from my niece’s screen names in various places. Joey’s a horse–and a gorgeous one at that!
The three colors are all 2009 In Colors: Rich Razzleberry is the background; the SCS lettering is on Bermuda Bay card stock punched with the Scallop Oval Punch; and our names are printed on Crushed Curry. It’s all tied together with some Whisper White Taffeta Ribbon.
And the "marks" on the background paper–are in the paper. It’s one of the "Naturals" papers from Stampin’ Up! I thought I’d grabbed some Whisper White cardstock for the photo, then wondered what all the "dust" was about. I kind of like it!
A Hawaiian Touch
Aloha, all!
One of my favorite flowers in my husbands spectacular garden is the Hibiscus. We have at least half a dozen varieties, and they never cease to catch my eye when I happen upon them.
A stamp in one of Stampin’ Up!’s brand new stamp sets, Greenhouse Garden, is a 2-Step Stampin’ Hibiscus.
In 2-Step Stampin, you first stamp the background stamp in a light or medium range color. Then you stamp the foreground stamp in a darker color. In the first Hibiscus, I stamped the flower itself in More Mustard, then I inked the stamp that contains the stamen as well as accent lines for the petals, in Really Rust. You really do need a Stamp-a-ma-jig for this particular stamp set. Some 2-Step Stampin’ Sets have a very "loose" design, and, as long as you hit the paper in the vicinity of where the stamped image should be, you’ll have a nice looking picture.
After I stamped the first flower, I realized that the Hibiscus that we have in our garden have more variety in the coloring of their leaves. The photograph at the right is a flower that blooms pretty regularly for us. So my next try, in the photo at the left I did on Stampin’ Up! Watercolor Paper. I stamped the petals in Summer Sun. Then, while the stamped image was still wet, I used an Aquapainter and blended in some Really Rust, working from the center out. Finally, I stamped the stamen in Really Rust.
Once I get everything done that I need to do for Convention (my gosh–it’s just 10 days away!!) I may try some flowers that are a bit more colorful!
Meanwhile, if you’d either like to buy some of the great Stampin’ Up! products I’ve been showing off; OR visit our garden, just give me a call (808.854.6145).
Butterflies for Billie
Aloha, all!
Earlier in the week I shared a LARGE card I made for the going away dinner for my friend, Billie. Today’s card was the original card I’d made. But it turned out to be much too small for the occasion, even though it was 6" wide x 9" high.
The background paper for the card is a sheet from the new Designer Series Paper set, Cottage Wall. The band in the front is another sheet from the same set.
Both Butterflies are cut using the Sizzix Stampin Up! Exclusive Die, Beautiful Butterflies. Connecting the two Orchid Opulence Butterflies is a saying from the stamp set, "Flight of the Butterfly": "If nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies." I thought that was appropriate for a going away card! It’s all tied up with some Whisper White Organza Ribbon.
Billie left our lovely island yesterday, bound for Arizona. I hope it’s not too very long before we get to meet again.
This Week’s Special – Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware
Aloha, all!
Finally one of my very favorite Stampin’ Up! Embellishment sets is on sale as one of Stampin’ Up!’s weekly specials during the month of July.
Styled Vanilla Hodgepodge Hardware.
Looking back over some of my posts this year, I found quite a few cards that I’ve shared with you that use these embellishments. My favorite is the frame that coordinates with the Designer Label Punch, featured on this card. Tomorrow I’ll share another card made with something else from the kit.
The Hodgepodge Hardware set comes packaged in a tin, and includes 50 frames of 5 different designs, 40 Designer brads in 4 different designs, 10 flower ribbon slides, and 100 Vanilla brads. I’ve used two of them to attach the Designer Label Frame in this card. The stamp is from the stamp set, One of a Kind, and I’ve used the Designer Series Paper, Bella Bleu, as well as Not Quite Navy and Very Vanilla Cardstock, and some Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon.
So now the price: The Hodgepodge Hardware kit normally sells for $29.95; but it’s on sale this week for just $18.99 – over a 30% savings!!
You can order this online, or call (808.854.6145) or e-mail me, and I’ll be glad to place an order for you!
Aloha, Billie!
Aloha, all! And especially Billie and Don, who are leaving Hawaii this week to move to the mainland. We’ll miss you!
Billie is a member of the Puna Wahine Family and Community Education Club to which I also belong. Our friend, Karolyn, has organized a going away dinner for Billie and her husband, Don, and asked me to make a card that was "big enough for all of us to write good long notes." My first effort seemed to be a bit small once I heard that there were going to be 26 people at the dinner and we’re still counting! So this card, which we’ll be giving to Billie tonight, is 8-1/2" x 11", and is plenty big for all those notes (well, once I add in the extra paper on the inside!).
The colors for this card are Regal Rose, Rose Red, Apricot Appeal and Whisper White. The stamped images are from the Wonderful Favorites stamp set.
I used the Sizzix Big Shot quite a bit with this card. First I cut daisies in all three main colors, using the Flower Daisies #2 Bigz Die. I arranged them into the two floral motifs, and placed a large Whisper White Jumbo Brad from the 5/8" Neutrals set. I attached the flowers to the card using Pop Up Glue Dots, which seemed to work better with this type of embellishment than the Stampin’ Dimensionals. I did use the Dimensionals under the central stamped image, though.
The other Sizzix Big Shot item I used was the Friend texture plate from the Sizzix Texture Plate #4 set, to give some background interest to the Apricot Appeal card stock.
Later on this week I’ll share the first card that I made, that turned out to be just a tad too small!
Betting on Stamping 411
Aloha, all!
Herewith another challenge for the week. This week the Stamping 411 Challenge was a really simple design. 
The bad news was that I knew exactly what I wanted to do, then I couldn’t find the stamp set I wanted to use!! Where is it??? I cleaned up my stamp room before my trip to Minnesota, and, now that I think about it, I don’t remember ever seeing the set. So–it’s in a tote bag somewhere, and it’s going to drive me nuts until I find it!!!
But I digress. I still wanted to do the challenge to keep my hand in my stamping until my box of new supplies arrives tomorrow afternoon (yay!!). So I reverted to a card similar to one I made when the stamp set, Tart and Tangy, first came out in 2008. While everyone was making shiny oranges and lemons and limes, I kept seeing those cherries on Vegas slot machines! Couple with that was my need to find something to use with the stamp in Sincere Salutations that said "Good Luck." I mean, when do you use that greeting on a card?!
To add a bit of newness to this card, I used the Sizzix Stampin’ Up Curly Label Movers and Shapers die to make an opening in the top Real Red layer of the card. I punched the cherries with a 1-1/4" Square Punch and the Glorious Green mat squares with the 1-3/8" Square Punch. Before I affixed them to the card front, I stamped the cherries using VersaMark to make a watermark on the Real Red layer.
Now I’ve got to go look for that stamp set (will tell you what it is when I find it!)
A Week for Challenges!
Aloha, all!
This past week’s challenge in the group called Stampin Up Late Night Stampers is for a card that is any size or shape other than a standard A2 size card (the kind that’s 4-1/4" by 5-1/2." I think that it became the "standard" back when we were marking printed cards out of business sized paper that you could fold in half vertically and horizontally to make a great greeting card. Back then anything that you could print on your computer in color was great!
I have ended up making 4 such cards, each of them a different shape and size.
Today’s card I made just for the challenge, not having any idea that I would be making more non-A2 cards the rest of the week!
To make this card, I started with a piece of cardstock 4-1/2" high and 9" wide. I folded it to make a 4-1/2" square card. I then ran the folded card through my Sizzix Big Shot using the new Stampin’ Up! Scallop Square die. I set the folded edge just inside the left scallop cutting edge of the die.
The colors are Crushed Curry, Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive, with some Crushed Curry 1/2" Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon. The stamped image is from the Oval All Stamp Set, on Whisper White card stock, punched with the Scallop Oval Punch. I made the larger Scallop Oval with one of the pieces from the Sizzix Stampin’ Up! Movers and Shapers Punch Windows die set.
Monday I’ll send this out to a friend!
Happy Birthday to my Favorite Son!
Aloha, all!
No, I don’t play favorites. He’s my ONLY son!! But he’s still my favorite, especially now that he’s married and has provided me not only with a grandson, but with a step-grandson. How cool is that!!
For his birthday card this year, I figured that candles had to be the key, for this is his first (of many, I hope!) 39th Birthday. I settled on a candle in one of the new stamp sets in the 2009-2010 Stampin’ Up! Idea Book & Catalog is On a Pedestal. Believe me when I tell you that this is not a set that I would have had on my "must have" list for the new catalog. So why, you might ask, do I have it? Because it was a bonus given to those who attended a regional seminar this past spring with their first $400 order after the regional. Having that kind of an order was no problem with my great customers and my own "need" for all things new in Stampin’ Up! The Occasions Mini-Catalog (just past) helped with the order, too.
So–On a Pedestal has been sitting idle in the Craft Room every since March. And now I had this July Birthday card to make. The little candle was perfect for making a couple of rows of candles that add up to 38. The candle on the "cake" is number 39!
To make this card, I stamped the rows of candles on Very Vanilla and cut them to fit on either side of the center motif. The "cake" in the center motif is made up of 4 of the stamps in the On a Pedestal set. I stamped the plate and the cake image in Brilliant Blue, and Brillian Blue cardstock is the main background color card stock for the card. I punched some Real Red cardstock with the Scallop Edge Punch and adhered that behind the Very Vanilla layer that had the stamped image. The "flame" (lots of quotation marks in this description, huh?) on the center candle is from the Fire Circle Rhinestone Brads set, and the brads along the scallop of the cake plate are Real Red from the
