RobinsCraftRoom.com

A Winter Storm Watch in Hawaii

Updated November 16th–Quite a few people said my first photo looked more like blue and pink.  Not!!!!  Here’s a picture I took in daylight.  Definitely Handsome Hunter and Bravo Burgundy!

Aloha, all!

Oh, my, how the rains have come these past few days!  And now that it’s November, we here on the Big Island of Hawaii are all wondering if, when the clouds clear, we will see snow on the peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa!  An exciting time each year as we anticipate the first snows of the winter.  One tradition here is for people to take their pickup trucks up to Mauna Kea, fill them up with snow, and bring them down the hill.  I live far enough away that I’ve never seen a pickup arrive in our neighborhood still filled with snow.  After all, it is Hawaii, and it really isn’t all that cold – except up on the mountains.  But I have seen the neighbors all sunburned from their snowboarding trips because they forgot – it is Hawaii, and the sun is always hot!

All of this winter speculation has been enough for me to look for snowflake stamps to use this weekend!  The first is one of the snowflakes from the stamp set, Snow Swirled.  I especially love to emboss snowflakes on dark colors of card stock.  This time, rather than embossing a white snowflake, I chose Bravo Burgundy and Handsome Hunter (nicely embossed with the Sizzix Stampin’ Up! Petals a Plenty Embossing Folder), and added a bit of gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder and some Brushed Gold card stock.  Finish it off with some Gold Brads, and there’s a lovely Holiday card. 

The design for this card is part of this week’s Stamping 411 Challenge!  I just love this site because they not only give you a sketch to follow, but they also suggest measurements for the various layers.  If you have a stamp set you’re trying to figure out how to use, you should go to their website, pick out one of their challenge designs, and figure out how to use YOUR stamp set with THEIR design.  It really does get the creative juices flowing!

I’ll let you know when the clouds clear if we have snow!

Subscribe to the comments for this post

A New Stamp Set from the Holiday Mini

Aloha, all!

The 2009 Holiday Mini Catalog is still alive and well, and still providing me with much inspiration.  Finally last week I broke down and bought the set, Berry Christmas.  For one thing, I’ll need it when I do a program for some fellow Stampin’ Up! demonstrators next month.  So I figured I might as well get the set sooner than later and use it for something fun.

The fun for this card was a Chat and Challenge on the SUDSOL website.  If you’re a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, it’s really a fun place to hang out to learn lots of great ideas and stay on top of what’s going on in the world of Stampin’ Up!  If you’re not a demonstrator (and why not???), it’s good for you that I belong because I get some great ideas and creative challenges to share with you.

I did get somewhat carried away with this card, though (and I’ll share another "carried away" card with you later this week!).  The stamp set comes with a wreath shape and some berries that you can use either with the wreath or with a poinsettia that’s also in the set.  In this case, I wanted the wreath to be a bit thicker than just the one layer of greenery.  So I tried putting two, then three different colors on the wreath.  Finally, I decided it really needed some holly.  Then I stamped red berries.  But, hey, they were overwhelmed by all that green.  So I added some bling in the way of some Red Chunky Glitter.  Whew! 

The greeting and the bird are also from the Berry Christmas set.  You’re going to see more of this set as we get into December!

For now, enjoy your holiday stamping!

Subscribe to the comments for this post

An Old Stamp Set with some New Colors

Aloha, all!

Yesterday I brought out the stamp set, Fun and Fast Notes.  While I had the box still opened (and lots of other stuff still not put away from my last couple of projects–what a mess!) I was reminded about a sketch challenge that had been posted on the website, SUDSOL, which is a site for Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators.  Rather than reuse the Tea Cup (my favorite image from the set), I decided on a Christmas theme, and took out the Christmas Tree image. 

Then the challenge (for me, at least) was which papers to use for the project.  I looked through all my Christmas papers, and settled on Holiday Lounge.  The colors in this Designer Series Paper set are Taken with Teal, Rose Red, and Sahara Sand.  One of the papers in the set has row upon row of Christmast trees, and I decided that would be my middle horizontal element, with the Teal on the top and Red on the bottom.  To spice it up, I added some Crushed Curry ink for the star and the garland on the tree, one of the central element layers, and a piece of the 1/2" Polka Dot ribbon in the same color.  Voila!  Truly a fun and fast card!

Now this is one other "fun" thing about this card.  Another demonstrator, at the same time as I, was reminded about the sketch challenge.  She used the SAME set of Designer Series Papers, and put the trees as the central horizontal stripe and the Teal for the top piece.  Check out what Mary Jo Price-Williams did with her card!

Tomorrow I’ll share yet another challenge card, which is also a Christmas card.  Boy, I sure am building up a supply!  I think everyone will get a different card from the Craft Room this year!

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Discovering An Old Stamp Set

Aloha, all!

Sometimes I’m so intent on using the latest "thing" in stamping, that I forget all those stamp sets that I have that, while still current, have been around for quite awhile.  Today I rediscovered one of these sets, and ended up making two cards for two entirely different purposes from it.

Today’s card was one commissioned by a friend who needed a quick, pretty, but large card as a get well card for a friend who had been taken seriously ill.  She wanted lots of people to be able to sign it; but it wasn’t to be TOO big.  So I settled on a 5" x 8" card, for which I have some envelopes in stock in the craft room.

The stamp set – the "old friend" of a stamp set – is Fun and Fast Notes.  There are 8 different designs, and each has a greeting with it.  I knew right from the start that I wouldn’t necessarily be using the greeting that came with each image with that particular image.  So, when I mounted the stamps, I cut the greeting away from the image, and mounted the greeting on the SIDE of the same block on which I mounted the image.  This way I could at least find the greeting if I needed it!

In the case of today’s card, the greeting that went with the image is actually the one that I used.  But I used the greeting in a different spot, so the separation of the two worked out well in this case, too.

The background paper for the card is from the Designer Series Paper set, Cottage Wall, and includes Rich Razzleberry, Orchid Opulence, Old Olive, and Whisper White.  I colored in the teacup with the bouquet with the Razzleberry, Olive and Orchid colors.  I made the two butterflies by first running the Orchid Opulence card stock through the Sizzix Big Shot with one of the Stampin’ Up! Backgrounds I texturz plates, and then with the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die.  I decorated each with a few Ice Circle Rhinestone Brads (as I also did with the flowers in the Teacup).  I added a bit of interest by using the Scallop Edge Punch on the Old Olive card stock behind the Whisper White layer, and I finally added a bow made with Whisper White Organza Ribbon.

I think this is a lovely card, if I say so myself (or, in today’s language, IMHO!)

While the stamp set was out, I was reminded of a sketch challenge that was currently being run on the SUDSOL website (a site for Stampin’ Up! demonstrators).  I’ll share that card with you tomorrow!

Have fun stamping!

Subscribe to the comments for this post

A Wedding Greeting for My Son and Daughter-in-Law (Finally!)

Aloha, all!

Towards the end of June, our son called and said that he and his fiancée were going to get married–like the NEXT DAY!  And I didn’t even know his friend, Sonya, had graduated to the rank of fiancée.  Now she was going to be my daughter-in-law!  But I have to tell you that I could not have been happier – unless they would have had a formal wedding, where I could have played mother of the groom properly.  But that was not to be.

In the midst of everything, we had some travel planned, my husband became ill on the trip; he got well and I went off to the Stampin’ Up! convention; he became ill again while I was at convention, and – all of a sudden it’s November!!  Now, it’s not like I haven’t been paying attention to them – I have visited them on the mainland and we text about every day.  But I never sat down and made them a card.  And making cards is what I do!!!

The reason that I finally made this card today is that, while there won’t be a formal wedding in the United States, my son and his bride will be celebrating next month with a wedding in Indonesia which her father and stepmother will be giving them.  Unfortunately, with uncertainly about my husband’s health (we think the docs have fixed him up now, though!), I couldn’t plan for us to go that far.  So I thought I’d send a little wedding gift inside a handmade card.  With all the greeting card design challenges going on this week, I decided to pick one of them and use it for the wedding card.  (I have no worries about my son seeing it early as I don’t think he ever visits my blog.)

This challenge is from the Stamping 411 group, who do a great job in coming up with designs for everyone to use.  What fun!  Thanks, ladies!  And the card will go out in the mail on Monday.

The colors for the card are based on the Designer Series Paper, Thoroughly Modern:  Rose Red and Bermuda Bay (one of this year’s In Colors).  I stamped the heart from the stamp set, Love You Much with Rose Red and colored in some of the flowers with Bermuda Bay and Soft Suede Stampin’ Write markers.  The greeting is from the Level 3 Hostess Stamp Set, Kind and Caring Thoughts.  Embellishments include three small Clear Rhinestone Brads and some 1/4" Very Vanilla Grosgrain Ribbon.  A really fun and simple card to make!

Subscribe to the comments for this post