Earlier in the week, I shared a sample of a Thank You card that I'd made with all NEW products – from the 2012 Sale-a-Bration catalog.  But today I'm taking a hint from fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator (and my 2nd upline) Sandy Hancock, and using up some of my left over Christmas paper to make those Thank You notes!

     This was a quick card that I made last night with scraps from the Letters to Santa Designer Series Paper that is featured in the 2012 Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog.  While you and I know it came from Christmas paper, there's no design that requires it to be used on a Christmas card (no santas or ornaments).  But sending it out this time of the year, with red and green as the main color, still feels holiday-ish to me!

     The red here is Riding Hood Red and the green is Old Olive.  The Taffeta Ribbon is also Riding Hood Red.  My first go round with this card had the background Riding Hood Red Card Stock looking awfully plain, so I pulled out the Snow Burst Textured Impressions Embossing Folder to give it a bit more interest.  Good News – this Embossing Folder will still be available after the Holiday Mini expires next week!

     Here is the sketch that I used for this card.  It's not a new sketch, but it's been awhile since I used it.  I just love having sketches around and this one was on page 43 of my 2010 Greeting Card Layout eBook, which is still available on a CD.  Just check over on the right for more information about both of my Card Layout eBooks!  Of course, the sketch in the eBook has all the measurements included!

     I hope you're having fun making your own Thank You cards after a fun holiday season!  I still have a couple more to make and hope to be able to share them before the year is out!

     It is truly hard for me to believe that a week has gone by since I checked in with you to let you know what's going on in Robin's Craft Room.  I can tell you this – a LOT has been going on!  Let's see what I can tick off quickly:

• Orders for my CD are coming in and CDs are going out in the mail!
• We had the last of the Stamp-a-Stack of Christmas cards class (whew – 21 cards took some work!)
• I received my pre-order products from the Occasions Mini Catalog and just could not resist trying some of the fabulous new products Stampin' Up! will be offering!  I can hardly wait to show them to you, too!
• I spent a whole morning with one of my downline members just having fun learning about a lot of new and old Stampin' Up! products.
• I'm planning my projects for the Create With Connie and Mary Occasions Mini Edition (I'm so excited to be back designing for them again!)
• I've been planning for next week's final Christmas Card class in Robin's Craft Room!
• And I finished the tutorial that I promised in my last blog post!  If you're on my newsletter mailing list, it's probably already in your e-mail box!  If you're not on my newsletter mailing list, if you sign up this week or next, I'll be sure to get the newsletter out to you, too!

     One of the cards in next week's class will be this one!  I've seen so many versions of this great card design around the Internet that I don't know who's idea it was originally.  But, while I can't take credit for the design, I can take credit for my own interpretation of it!  For my card, I used Very Vanilla Card Stock for the door panels and Cherry Cobbler Card Stock for the card base.  I used some Cherry Cobbler ink to sponge the edges of all the Very Vanilla pieces as well as to stamp the greeting. 

     The Wreath on the "door" is one of the pieces from the Winter Wishes Stitched Felt packet featured in the Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini Catalog.  There are four of the wreaths in the packet and I bought two packets – so there's plenty for whoever signs up for my class!  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be sharing projects with the rest of the pieces in the packet.

     I added a medium size Clear Rhinestone Brad for a door knob and, as I frequently do, I tied this all together with Stampin' Up! ribbon – this time with some of the luscious Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding.

     And here's the sketch for today's card (or should I say, "This week's card"?).  I have just got to make more time to share with you – and that's what I'm going to work on THIS week!  Ah, a New Year's resolution early.

     Wow, have I been busy this week!  Not only have I just about completed my new 2011 Card Layout CD, I'm also on the verge of having a real eBook ready to publish on Amazon.com.  I still have a couple days of work to finalize everything and proof both "books."  But I'm almost there!

     And there I was last night looking forward to a productive morning with my editing when I realized that I had a challenge to work on for my online group for Stampin' Up! demonstrators, SUDSOL.  Like I had time to come up with a sketch and card on that short notice (my fault, not SUDSOL's for sure)!  But I did what I'm encouraging you who buy my eBooks to do – I went looking for a sketch I'd done before and then quickly made up a card with the products that were out on my work table!

     Getting ready for Thanksgiving, I'd been using a lot of the Stampin' Up! Designer Series Paper, Spice Cake.  It's really grown on me as the fall season has developed.  But today I used a winter figure to "spice" it up – one of the stamps in the Stampin' Up! Stamp Set, Gift Givers.  That set has seven (7!) stamps in it all of which can be punched out with one of Stampin' Up!'s punches.  This little lady, all wrapped up for the snow that some of you have seen lately, can be punched out with the smaller of the two Scallop Circle Punches.  I stamped her on Very Vanilla Card Stock with Soft Suede Classic Ink, and then colored her in with More Mustard and Pool Party Stampin' Write Markers.  Voila!  There are four of the colors in the Spice Cake papers!

     One of the fun parts of this project are the two Spice Cake Designer Buttons on which the scallop circle punched element sits.  I used Stampin' Up!'s 1-1/4" Circle Punch to punch out two pieces of the Spice Cake paper to glue into the centers of the buttons.  A fun use for the buttons!

     As I frequently do, I tied this card together with Stampin' Up! ribbon, in this case some More Mustard Scallop Dots 1/2" Ribbon.  A fun way to finish this card off!

     You may have seen this sketch before – I haven't had time to search my blog archives to see if I've ever used it.  But even if I did, it bears repeating because it turned out to be so easy to use! The layers are the basic 5-1/2" w  x 4-1/4" h card, folded at the top, with a bottom layer 5-3/8" w  x 4-1/8" w and the top layer consisting of two pieces of 5-1/4" w x 2" h Designer Series Paper.  I hope you have as much fun with it as I did!  

     You know you are a lucky paper-crafting grandma when two of your grandsons with birthdays within weeks of each other are both really into the same childhood interest!  In my case, my grandsons Jadon and Carson are both REALLY into dinosaurs!  One lives on the west coast (Washington) and one on the East Coast (North Carolina) and they're 4 years apart in age.  But both are really going to like this special card that I made for them this year!

     The stamp set from which these happy looking guys came is called Dinoroar, and I think it is one of the cutest Stampin' Up! sets to come out for little boys in a long time.  I wish I could take credit for the color job on the two critters, but that credit has to go to fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Cindy Elam, one of my fellow design team members on the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge blog.  Not only did she reveal the colors that she used, but she also shared that she used Shimmery White Card Stock.  Wow does that card stock make it easy to blend in colors!

     I colored each of the dinosaurs using a different technique.  I wanted to see how it would work if I used the Stampin' Write Markers themselves to color them in as opposed to how Cindy did it using Blender Pens with classic ink pads.  The guy on the right is colored with the markers and the one on the left with the blender pens.  My conclusion is that you can use either, but using the markers is going to create a deeper image than using the blender pens.

     The colors that I used are the same colors that Cindy used.  The dinosaurs are Garden Green, with Peach Parfait accents.  I added a bit of So Saffron to blend in the Peach Parfait.  I painted their little toenails with the Peach Parfait, too (bet no real dino ever had a pedicure!).  The mouth of the dino on the right is colored in with Calypso Coral.  Nice touch that, Cindy!

     Cindy made her card with papers that are no longer available, and she had only one of the cute dinos on the front of her card.  So my sketch is a bit different from hers – but not so much that I can claim credit for that either!

     All that has to be known about this card is for Jadon and Carson to know that Grandma Robin made it!  I'm going to have fun giving them these cards in person this week (yes, we're traveling AGAIN!) along with a dinosaur gift for each.  A bit of grandmotherly heaven for me!  I can't imagine that you can have as good a week as I'm going to have!

     But just in case you'd like to try your hand at this card, here's the sketch I worked with:

     This weekend's challenge at Create With Connie and Mary was a bit of a different kind of challenge.  We were to make a "one of a kind" card for someone special.  Hmmm.  One of a kind?  What in the world did that mean?  No hints out of Connie and Mary, though.  So I had to figure my own particular "one of a kind" out myself.

     As I looked around at all the Christmas products I've purchased from Stampin' Up!'s Holiday mini, I started to think about using some of the embellishments of which I'd purchased limited supplies.  Then I started to think about techniques that were very time consuming.  And of course, I considered color combinations that were a little bit "different" from those which I was most comfortable using for Christmas crafts.  Finally I had to decide who the special person was that would be the recipient of my card.  It had to be someone who would appreciate all the thought and work that went into the card. 

     Once I had that all figured out, the card started slowly coming into focus.

     All of these elements didn't pop into my mind in a neat sequence.  That would have been too easy!  But once I had them all out on my work table, they just all seemed to meld together perfectly into just what I wanted.

     There are two somewhat time-consuming techniques in this card.  Heat embossing required some planning – making sure that I close the window at my work table to make sure there is no embossing powder blowing all over the place (ask me how I know this happens!); having my Embossing Buddy and Powder Pals at the ready and making sure that the embossing gun is plugged in and ready to go.  That worked out really well – the Dove stamp from Comfort and Joy is a joy to emboss!  Then I wanted a sentiment with a bit of a fancier font than the "Peace on Earth" that came with Comfort and Joy, so I hunted down my Christmas Set, Four the Holidays (I knew it was around somewhere!).

     Then on to the Mini Jingle Bells.  I decided that the best way to attach them all around the central motif was to sew them to card stock.  That meant that I had to have some evenly-spaced holes around the edge, so I had to make sure that the size of that card stock fit with what I could do with the Paper Piercing Template in the Mat Pack.  I punched holes for my needle and thread around the perimeter of the Real Red card stock (layer 4 in the sketch below) and sewed a Jingle Bell on at every second space.  I love how they came out – and how good they sound when there are so many of them on one card!  But I used a good percentage of my supply of bells, so I won't be teaching this in a class any time soon!

     The Silver Glimmer Paper was the perfect finishing touch for this card.  It accents the silver embossing so very well.  I almost wish I could have made a larger card to fit more of Stampin' Up!'s silver products in it.  But I do like to keep my cards to sizes that fit into Stampin' Up! envelopes.  This 5-1/4" card fits beautifully into the Stampin' Up! Medium Square Envelope.  But I do have to tell you that, with all those bells, it weighs well over an ounce even without the envelope!  I probably won't be putting this card in the mail, though; at least not in an envelope.

     And who's going to get this special card?  I'm not telling because I think that there's a good chance that person reads my blog!  It's got to be a surprise!

     Oh, and don't forget that you can still sign up for the Create With Connie and Mary Holiday Edition!  There are tons of fabulous projects already published and more to come.  This is just the end of week 3!  And you'll have access to the full tutorials for every single project for a year after the subscription series is over!  I loved the Summer Edition and still go back and check out some of those projects (though I've downloaded most of the tutorials already).

     Here's the sketch for this card – would you believe SIX LAYERS besides the basic card!  That's something I don't do often, either!  No wonder this card weighs a ton!  But it was a lot of fun making it – and I'm sure you'd have a lot of fun trying something with the sketch, too!

     This week's challenge from the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge blog was to have leaves as a main feature in our project.  I originally thought about using these leaves in my project for the Fall Colors challenge last time around.  But when I started to add them to that card, I decided that I'd rather use it for THIS card and do something else with the fall colors.  Still Fall colors here, though – for sure!  I just LOVE the colors of leaves in the Fall.  I also love that, here in Hawaii, I don't have to rake them after they turn brown and "fall" to the ground!

     The leaf for this card is a stamp in one of this year's Hostess sets called Faith in Nature. And the leaf, along with the other two images in the set, have words running through them that give them a sort of vintage look.  As I'm not too bad at reading French, I determined that the words SEEM to be in French, though some of the longer ones have their letters interrupted with the leaf lines.  But they sure do look nice, especially when you do as I do and sponge them up and wrinkle their edges a bit.  At first I considered just layering these stamps using a masking technique.  But once I started cutting into the first stamped image to make the mask, I realized how relaxing that effort was and I really like the end result.

     The colors in the leaves are More Mustard, Lucky Limeade, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry Cobbler and Cajun Craze.  All Fall colors where I grew up on the east coast of the United States!  The card stock colors that I used as a backdrop for the leaves are Lucky Limeade, More Mustard and Cajun Craze.  I finished the card off with a variety of colors of brads – Cherry Cobbler, More Mustard and Old Olive.  The Old Olive seemed to match the Lucky Limeade well enough to carry that color combo off. 

     And, of course, "tying" it all together is some of the fun new Lucky Limeade 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon. 

     It's been awhile since I've had a sketch for you in one of my blog posts.  So I "leave" you today with this one!  Have fun with whatever you do with this sketch!

     As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be one of the Senior Designers in the Create With Connie and Mary Holiday Edition program.  So I'm hard at work on the projects that I'll be doing for the program.  That means that, at least for the next 4 weeks, all that will be out on the Craft Room work tables will be Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini Catalog products.

     My first project for the program will be my preview project, which I'll be featuring right here on Monday, September 12th.  So, when I found an online greeting card sketch challenge in which I wanted to participate yesterday, I selected one of the stamps that I'll be using in that preview project (it was out on the table!).  Believe me, this card is nothing like the Create With Connie and Mary preview project!  That definitely will not be a greeting card.  But you will see this stamp, and ALL the stamps from this set, Gift Givers, in the project.

     Isn't that Designer Series Paper luscious?!  I just love that Pool Party, one of Stampin' Up!'s 2011-2013 In Colors, is part of the paper set, Spice Cake.  (Yum, spice cake – may have to make some this weekend!  But I digress….) I also love this 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon – I find it so easy to tie a bow with it because loops and ends don't slip out of the way and the bow is almost painless.  The card stock elements are More Mustard, and Soft Suede, both of which, along with Pool Party, are colors in the Designer Series Paper.

     Mr. Turkey is stamped on Very Vanilla card stock, which makes the colors that I used to color him in look a bit different than if they were on Whisper White card stock.  So I added in some Peach Parfait and Daffodil Delight for the leaves and tail feathers.  I punched the stamped image with the Curly Label Punch, and matted it with some Pool Party card stock cut with the Curly Label Sizzix Die from the Movers and Shapers set.  EVERY STAMP in the set, Gift Givers, is made to go with one of Stampin' Up!'s punches.  On the other hand, those stamps don't HAVE to be used with punches.  That's what I'm going to show off in my Create With Connie and Mary Preview Project.

     Next time I make a card with this layout (and I will be as part of my Fall 2011 Card Layout eBook!) I plan to texturize the card stock elements to give the card a little more pizzazz.  But I was being timed on this challenge and didn't have time to go back and redo any of the pieces.

     You know, even when I'm making a card on a deadline (or a project – I definitely have a deadline for the Create with Connie and Mary projects!), I really do have fun coming up with ideas of colors and embellishments to use.  When you use today's sketch, imagine that you have a deadline to meet and just go have fun with whatever's out in your crafting area.  You may be pleasantly surprised at what you end up making!

     One of the groups to which I belong challenged us to use the same stamp set to make both a masculine and a feminine card.  Well, that felt just too easy to me, so I challenged myself a few steps further – use the same colors, paper and layout, too!   The stamp sets I chose – yes I chose TWO stamp sets – are new this year:  Perfectly Penned for the greeting and Raining Flowers for the floral stamps.

     You might be able to tell that I was kind of stuck on what kind of Designer Series Paper that's already in my stash had a prayer of being considered masculine.  I decided on one of the designs from the Well Worn set and then I set out to feminize it a bit.  I actually gave this card to a friend who needed a get well card this week, and when I wrote my note in it I felt the femininity in the lace and pearls, and a bit in the roughed-up edges.

     To make this a bit more masculine, I switched out the pearls for some Crumb Cake Brads and left off the lace.  I also just tied a plain knot; substituted Soft Suede for the Not Quite Navy Card Stock, Ribbon and Ink; and left the edges of the Designer Series Paper alone.

     So if you've got a limited selection of papers and stamps from which to choose, just a little bit of changing things around can turn a masculine card feminine or the other way around!

     The layout of this card is pretty simple.  It's a sketch that can work with so many different designs and is pretty stress-free.  It's good to be stress-free when you're supposed to be having fun making cards!

     When I initiated a scheduled design challenge on one of my online Stampin' Up! Demonstrator websites recently, one of my fellow demonstrators, Maria Pobre, called me to task for showing my age.  I entitled the challenge, "Be There and Be Square," a slight deviation from the apparently really old saying, "Be There or Be Square."  After a bit of research on that, I did indeed date myself with that – except that the younger demonstrators would probably have not had a clue that it was an old saying!

     But then there was the whole point of the challenge – everything was supposed to be square!  I'll share the challenge sketch with you in a minute, but I'd first like to share why I decided on a square, and how I ended up using this Designer Series Paper for the card.

     One of the cards that I received in my 2011 Stampin' Up! Convention swaps was a standard shaped card (fits in an A2 envelope) with a piece of designer paper cut into 1" squares.  The paper was one of the florals from the Hostess Designer Paper Set, Cheerful Treat.  While it was a cute card, I wondered what the effect would be if I cut out a piece of designer paper that had a large image on it.  And then I wondered if the whole effect would be enhanced if the little squares were on a square card.  So, for this card, I ended up using a sheet from the paper set, Paisley Petals, and I really like the whole effect.  So did the people who participated in the challenge!

     To set off the print, I used card stock in three of the colors featured in this set:  Cajun Craze, Baja Breeze, and Always Artichoke.  I stamped the Thank You greeting (from the stamp set, Pretty Postage) using Always Artichoke ink on Baja Breeze Card Stock, matted with an Always Artichoke "stamp" punched with the Postage Stamp Punch from Stampin' Up!'s 2011 Summer Mini Catalog.

     One bit of warning about cutting up a piece of paper such as this one:  Keep the pieces lined up while you're cutting them or you're going to find yourself with a puzzle to be solved!  It took me 10 minutes to put these pieces back together in the right order.  And even then I managed to adhere one 90 degrees from the direction it should have been (fixed it before I took the photo, though).

     As I do like to do, I tied the whole design together with some ribbon, in this case Always Artichoke Seam Binding.  So easy to tie a bow using this ribbon!

     Here is today's sketch.  A card cut with these measurements will fit in the Stampin' Up! Medium Square Envelope.  One of my fellow demonstrators said this would be fun for a scrapbook page, and even fun using a photograph!  I hope you find something fun to do with it!!

     I think it will be a long time before I leave home for a 3-week stint!  I can't believe it's taken me over a week to get my act back together, and I'm not sure I'm quite there yet.

     BUT, there is now room in my craft room to start being creative with my stamps and papers and stuff again, although Cholla, the cat, has decided that it's nice my crafting table is cleared off again so she has a place to curl up and sleep.  So I'm having to pull cat hairs off adhesive and pick up stuff she's pushed off so she can be comfortable.  If she wasn't such an old cat who may not be around that much longer, I'd just throw her out into the living room.  As it is, she's got me wrapped around her little paws.

     One of my online challenge teams this week has a challenge to use my favorite new stamp set from the 2011-2012 Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog.  As I've not bought that many new stamp sets, you'd think I could say that one is my favorite.  But I've been waffling back and forth about that.  I think I've finally figured it out, though, and I'll be posting that card on Tuesday for the SUO (Stampin' Up! Only) challenge.

     For today, though, I'll share one of my other favorites.

     I'll bet that a lot of you who've looked through the new catalog haven't even noticed this one.  But I spotted it my first time through.  The stamp set is called, "Borderlines," and has three long and thin stamps that coordinate with the Hostess Designer Series Paper Set, Cheerful Treat.  The images on the stamps are 6" long, which makes them perfect for stamping just once on most greeting card sizes.  They're also great as a border for scrap layouts.

     For this card, I used two of the stamped images to accent the piece of the Cheerful Treat paper that I used for the top layer of the card.  The paper colors are Melon Mambo, Concord Crush, and Lucky Limeade.  I wanted to provide an accent for all three colors, so I stamped in both Lucky Limeade and Concord Crush and then added a bow using the brand new 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon in Melon Mambo.  I accented the card with some Melon Mambo and Concord Crush Card Stock, with a teeny "thank you" greeting from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

     I hope that those of you who have a copy of the newest Stampin' Up! catalog have noticed that the whole Hostess Rewards program for Stampin' Up! has changed.  Now it's more in line with how many other direct sales companies operate their purchase rewards programs.  When you have a workshop – or even spend enough yourself to qualify for workshop rewards! – you can choose some products that are available ONLY to hostesses at a special price.  For example, while other Designer Series Paper sets sell for $10.95, if you have a $150 order, you qualify to use only $8 of your $25 hostess dollars for the set I used today !  And you'll still have 17 free $$$ left to spend, either on hostess products or on ANY OTHER PRODUCT IN THE CATALOG!  I am so in favor of this program because I tend to spend a bit myself on Stampin' Up! products (maybe you've noticed?).  By January or February of any other year I'd have all the hostess stamp sets and just have to get duplicates.  No more – and no more having to select a stamp set that's not really your style, either!

     OK – off the sales kick and back to what I like most – making designs for you to enjoy and, hopefully, copy!  Here's the layout for today's card.  It really is fun to make with all those horizontal shapes!  I hope you have fun with it, too!