I can't believe it's Wednesday again already – and time for another Divas Coffee Break Design Team challenge!  This week's challenge was a sketch, and I decided to use a stamp set from the Stampin' Up! 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog, Day of Gratitude.  This stamp set is a great set for Thanksgiving – but it also has a design that allows it to be used for so much more!

     For today's project, I paired Day of Gratitude up with the Stamp Set Vintage Vogue, as well as some of the newest Designer Series Papers, Autumn Spice.  Again, while the colors are just perfect for fall (though not a Hawaii fall!), they also do well making a card that doesn't scream, "Autumn."

     There are so many parts of the large circular stamp in Day of Gratitude that it just cries out for lots of different colors in it.  I've seen all sorts of combinations and haven't seen one that I didn't like.  So much imagination among Stampin' Up! demonstrators and customers!  For this card, I first inked up the stamp with a More Mustard classic Stampin' Pad.  Then I used a Sponge Dauber to add in first some Old Olive, and then on the edges, some Cajun Craze, one of Stampin' Up!'s newest colors.  Before mounting this on the background of one of the sheets of the Autumn Spice Specialty Designer Series Paper set, I cut the stamped design out very close to the edge of the stamped image.  I sponged the edge of the smaller square element (with the stamp from Vintage Vogue) with  Cajun Craze, then matted it with Old Olive Card Stock.  The main part of the card, again sponged with Cajun Craze, is matted with Cajun Craze card stock.

     There are more embellishments from the 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog on this card – both are Glimmer Brads from the Brights set of Glimmer Brads.  I wasn't sure at first that I would like these brads because they're so much bigger than regular brads.  But now that I've seen them in "action" quite a few times, I've ordered up samples of all of the rest of the colors.  Look for them in more projects over the next few months!

     Oh, and you'll very likely be interested in the sketch from the Divas Coffee Break Design Team.  Here it is.  Best of all, YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE!  Just make a  card using the sketch, and add it to the Links at the bottom of this week's post! We'd love to have you join us.

     When I was a little girl (loooooong time ago!) one of my favorite toys was paper dolls.  I'd love it when my mom would bring home a book or a box with the doll and her clothes all ready for me to cut out.  I was in little girl heaven for days!

     And here I am at it again!  The minute that Stampin' Up! came out with the Build-A-Bear line, I knew I'd be playing paper dolls again!  Later in the season I'll probably bring out the Sizzix Die Cut Bear and make her some clothes.  But for today, I'm just going to play with the Beary Best Friends Stamp Set from the Idea Book and Catalog, and the brand new Season of Hugs Stamp Set from the new Holiday Mini Catalog. 

     What I love to do with the little girl bear is make her dress out of Designer Series Papers – just like I used to do when I cut out clothes for my paper dolls!  Except, I can glue the dress to this little "doll" and not have to worry about making sure I don't mistakenly cut off a tab.  I just have to call this sweetie Glenda, because she looks like such a good little witch all decked out for Trick or Treat.  The paper that I used for her dress is, appropriately I think, from the Wicked Fun Specialty Designer Series Paper set.  The witch's hat, the star and the bear "pumpkin" are all from the Season of Hugs Stamp Set, from the Stampin' Up! 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog.

     What I have been doing with the little girl bears is putting a coordinating Flower Brad above their ears.  However, this card was part of a swap in which I had to make 21 cards.  I did not have 21 of those brads to coordinate with the dress.  But I wanted something more than just a punched out flowerette.  So I took a piece of Pumpkin Pie Card Stock and ran it through the Petals a Plenty Embossing Folder.  I then used one of the punches from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack and punched out the centers of all the embossed flowers.  Nice!

     I had lots of fun coloring in the candy in the pumpkin with matching colors.  But rather than just color in the pumpkin, I stamped 21 of them on Cajun Craze Card Stock and cut all those little critters out just like I did the dress.  Oh, and the Witch's Hat – I stamped the hats and cut them out.  But I used the back unstamped side of the Rich Razzleberry hat for Miss Glenda.

     The greeting is also from the Season of Hugs Stamp Set, and is just too perfect for this sweet cutie.  I tied the card front all up with a piece of Old Olive Taffeta Ribbon, and stamped a few stars in the "sky."  It's all ready to send off to some sweet little girl for this Halloween!

     Here's the sketch for this card – Have fun with it!!

     One of the sets in Stampin' Up!'s newest catalog, the 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog, is called "Tags til Christmas."  You might recall from reading yesterday's post that I said I'd include a project from the Holiday Mini with a definitely non-Holiday feeling.  So Tags til Christmas it is!  Except that this is not a Christmas card – not even near to it!

     Here's the Tags til Christmas stamp set…  It coordinates with 9 punches, including three that are just being introduced in the Holiday Mini – the 2-1/2" Circle, Decorative Label and Medium Oval Punches.

     And here's my card…

     I cut a bit of the bottom off the Ornament Punch Stamp, and I eliminated the "dec.25" from the inside of the Decorative Label Stamp.  I added a greeting from the Stamp Set, Simply Said, and put flowers from the Stamp Set, Flower Fancy in the "vase."

     A couple of hints about how make the most out of this project:

1. When you cut the Top Note Die with the Sizzix, cut a 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" piece of card stock and make sure that it's centered on the die both vertically and horizontally.  I have made marks on the edge of my die with a Gel Pen to show the middle point on all sides.  When you finish cutting, you will have both the "outside" or "negative" piece of the Top Note Die as well as the Top Note piece itself.  In this case, I'd cut a Top Note out of the Melon Mambo card stock for another project.  When I was ready for this one, I took the "outside" piece of the die and placed it over a piece of Very Vanilla card stock.  Then I ran the whole piece through the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder.
2. To make sure that the inside letters of the Decorative Label stamp don't appear on your project, cut a small oval out of the sticky end of a sticky note.  Place that over the words "dec. 25," and ink up the stamp.  Be sure to remove this paper when you use the stamp!  A piece of sticky note is not good for more than 2 or 3 times being inked up before it lets the ink through to the words.  How do I know this??  Guess!

     More projects later this week.  I'm going to take a day or two off to try to fight a bit of a bug – hope it's not the flu!  Too early for that!!

     In finances, "Triple-witching" day is the third Friday of the month that ends each quarter. It marks the simultaneous expiration, at the close, of stock options, index options and index futures.  What can result is volatility in the market.

     OK, stop!  What does this have to do with Stampin' Up!  What it means is that there is excitement on September 1, 2010, for three different reasons:

1. The Stampin' Up! 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog is here!!
2. It's Diva Coffee Break Design Team Wednesday!!
3. There's a Fantastic New Recruit Promotion!!

     So lots is happening in the world of Stampin' Up! today.  For here at Robin's Craft Room, I can tick off the first two items of excitement with one word: Merry!

     That's in "Merry" as in "Merry Christmas" or "Make Merry."  That's what we're going to be doing for the next four months as we start into the fall and winter holiday season in earnest.  My preference for today would have been to go for the fall holidays first to show off Holiday Mini products, and start with some of the fabulous new fall stamps and papers that Stampin' Up! has ready for us.  But the color challenge for the Diva Coffee Break Design Team just didn't seem to fit.  Herewith the colors:

     Now, I really like these colors – I like pretty much ALL of the Stampin' Up! colors (there are retired that I wish we had back, but that's another story).  But how to use these for a fall project just escaped me.  So directly on to Christmas I went with this one.  The first thing that came to mine while I was trying to come up with something is that I didn't want snow!  I moved to Hawaii to escape snow, and I'll wait just a teensy bit before bringing snow to my blog.  After that, absent any really Christmas-y colors, I decided on a gift wrapping.  I love to decorate the heck out of my Christmas packages, so decorate the heck out of this card I did.  Buttons and bows and pearls sure seemed to do this trick for this "package." 

     Where the Holiday Mini Catalog comes into play here is with the great new punch, the Decorative Label Punch, that's being introduced with this catalog.  Tomorrow I'll share with you a card that uses not only this punch, but also a new "Christmas" stamp set – in a definitely non-Christmas-y way.  Then it will be back to the fall holidays.  And do I have some tricks and treats for you!

     Meanwhile, please go visit the Diva Coffee Break Design Team blog for samples from all the other Divas.  Just in case you might not have guessed, there are a couple of cards over there with snowflakes!  Brrrrr!  (But they're fabulous designs!)  And try this color challenge yourself!  No need to use products from the holiday mini (you probably don't have them yet if you're one of my customers – but soon, huh?).  Just have fun with the colors!

     Oh, and check out the New Recruit Promotion link over to the right!!!  Great gift for new demonstrators this month and into October!

     Well, we're almost there – many great Stampin' Up! products are going to be unavailable for purchase as of close of business tomorrow, Tuesday, August 31, 2010.  Sniff!  I'll really miss them!

     I made today's card with a set that I fell in love with at the beginning, but then didn't use nearly enough – Bouquet Bunch.  It's so sweet!  Maybe it's just because I haven't been in a "sweet" mood this summer with my husband's illness.  But now that he's better and the "sweet" is back, the set is going away!  I hope you don't let it get away from you if you've been eyeing it for yourself. 

     Can you look at that little bird on the potted tree and not just think, "Cute!"?  You can't really see the little squirrel over there in the bottom right corner so I made a little photo just of him.  He is definitely putting on a "Thinking of You" look – and wondering why I've been ignoring him.  I really miss the little critters here in Hawaii, pain in the rear though they may be when you have birds to feed on the mainland.  But (as is common) I digress!  This set is made to order for those of us using clear mount rubber stamps.  Nothing has to fit really close when you are putting all the elements of the stamp set together.  So just having the clear mounts works well in making cards with this set   If you purchase a wood mount set, you probably should use a Stamp-a-ma-jig to line them up. 

     There's another product that I first thought of when I started putting these colors together – that's the 5/8" Satin Ribbon in Chocolate Chip.  Yes, it's in the Summer Mini Catalog, but it's NOT in the 2010-2011 "Big" catalog.  So my assumption is that this is going to go away with the Summer Mini, too.  I could have sworn that I bought some of the Chocolate Chip ribbon, but it's nowhere in the Craft Room to be found.  And, while the Early Espresso ribbon is definitely brown, it's definitely a lot darker than Chocolate Chip.  So another thing to consider if you're planning a last minute order from the Summer mini.

     Here's what the Bouquet Bunch Stamp Stamp Set looks like.  If you'd like to order it, you can do that 24/7 on my website.  Or call me (808.854.6145) and I can place the order for you by Tuesday!

     Oh, and I just had to let a bit more of our garden show as the card's backdrop.  It just seemed to be made as a backdrop for this picture!  Great view from the Craft Room!

     Day 3 of my Summer Mini Catalog Countdown brings me to the Stamp Set July Fourth.  If you're like a lot of us, you looked at that set and thought, "Great set for July 4th; but can I use it any other time?"  OF COURSE YOU CAN!!!  There's only one stamp in this set that limits us to July 4th – and it's the stamp that says July 4th!  Otherwise, those stamps have uses all through the year.

     Today I'm going to share two cards, both of which use the July Fourth set, but both of which are very different.  This first card is a card you can make with the July Fourth set and with any number of other sets to construct a fun birthday card.  I chose Pacific Point and Pumpkin Pie because the combination is so NOT Independence Day.  But those stars are from the July Fourth stamp set, and they look just perfect on a birthday card.  I added a few stamped images from the Stamp Set On A Pedestal because it trims up so nicely with a bit of a white edge, and because there are polka dots on the stamped images similar to the small stars that are in the star stamp from July Fourth.  And I didn't have to cut out those stars because they are made to fit the Star Extra-Large Punch.  The greeting is from one of this year's Hostess Sets Occasional Quotes, and the printed paper is from the Brights Patterns Designer Series Paper Stack.  So, lots of products on this card, but I think that the stars make it "pop."

     My second card is one that I shared in one of my recent newsletters.  It's a New Year's Card!

     New Year's Eve has become a great holiday for fireworks lately, and this card, with the Rich Razzleberry, Gold Stampin' Glitter and Brushed Gold Card Stock seems perfect for that time of year – a good 6 months on the other side of the summer holiday for which the stamp set was designed, and a nice, warm set of colors for those cold winter days (oh, yes, I do remember those cold winter days, even though I don't experience them much any more here in Hawaii!)

     Just two more days until this set goes away with the stamp sets I shared the previous two days!  Here's the ordering information, which you can use to order online at my website, or by calling me personally (808.854.6145) to place your order!

     What would summer be without travel?  Of course, it would still be summer.  But if you have kids, there just isn't anything better than a road trip!  OK, I know that there are those of you who might have had some, well, disasters doing this.  But by and large, it's a great time for everyone. 

     And what would Stampin' Up!'s Summer Mini Catalog be without something related to travel or vacations.  I think that they outdid themselves this year, with the Travel Journal Designer Series Paper and the coordinating Stamp Set, Sentimental Journey. 

     Our daughter and her family took a road trip this summer from their home in North Carolina to our family's cabin on a lake in northern Minnesota.  What a trip they had – and grandma will be making a scrapbook of that trip for sure!  We'll be visiting later them later this year and everyone will get involved in putting the pictures in the scrapbook.  What fun!  I think I will have to take several packs of this paper with me!

     BUT – I'll have to buy it soon!  Because this paper set and the stamp set will disappear from Stampin' Up!'s repertoire on Tuesday, August 31st!!

     All kinds of travel are covered in both the papers and the stamp set – planes, cars, boats – and the colors are perfect for whatever activities and scenery you found to photograph while YOU were traveling this summer!   Here are pictures of the products that you can buy, but only until August 31st!

     Oh, and just like yesterday, a bit of a sneak peek at some 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog products!  Yup, there's that Decorative Label punch again!  What you probably can't tell at this small a resolution is that this scrap page is 8" x 8"!  That's new for Stampin' Up! AND there are two brand new albums in the Holiday Mini from which you can choose!  I can hardly wait to get mine!

     I knew from the beginning that many of the products in the Stampin' Up! 2010 Summer Mini Catalog were going to be long time favorites, but that they would be gone in 4 months.  That time is HERE!!!  If you don't purchase them by Tuesday, you won't be able to buy them from Stampin' Up! again.  So beginning today and for the next few days, I'm going to highlight some of my favorite products from the Summer Mini, just to remind you what you might be missing.

     Of course my most very favoritest (as my little girl persona would have me say) is everything tropical!  How can you live in Hawaii and not want to have a perpetual supply of Island Oasis Designer Series Paper?!  The front of this card shows off just two of the 12 designs from this set of papers; and they are all wonderful!  Add to this fab paper set some images from the Tropical Party Stamp Set, and you have the makings of a perfect Hawaii style card.  If you don't live in Hawaii, think about that Luau party you'll be having!  Scrapbook a vacation in the Caribbean (or Hawaii!).  Super designs all.  If you'd like to see other posts that include these papers and stamp set, just click on this link.

    The greeting on this particular card is from an oldie-but-goodie Stamp Set, Simply Said.  What's nice about this greeting is that it fits inside a stamp that's (shhh) part of a new stamp set in the soon-to-be-released 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog.  Ooooh, and can you see that it's punched?  With a brand-new punch also in the Holiday Mini.  Stay tuned, because I'll be sharing tons of stuff over the next few weeks.

     But for now, don't forget about the soon to disappear Island Oasis Designer Series Papers and Tropical Party Stamp Set.

     I am so enjoying being on the Diva's Coffee Break Design Team!  I have found myself making cards that are SO different from what I might usually make.  For one thing, I really do have to make a card look like I paid attention to the sketch.  In some challenges, I take a lot of liberty with the sketches because I feel that they're really there to stimulate my design thought process.  I hope that you'll feel this same way when YOU make your own card for the Diva's Weekly Challenge (yes, that's what I'd like you to do – make a card that's inspired by the challenge and post a link to it on the Diva's web site!)

     This week's challenge was a sketch.  I have to tell you that this was a sketch I really had a tough time getting my brain around.  I didn't just want to cut rectangles of paper and plop them on a card.  But what to do?  I thought you might be interested in the steps that this card took.

• I decided that I wanted to use some of the Patterns Designer Series Paper Stack because I could use it in at least two of the layers without the card getting too "busy."
• I decided on the colors:  Daffodil Delight and Rich Razzleberry.
• I wanted to use a new stamp set that I hadn't used before.  I found the Friends Never Fade stamp set in its original package.  OK, had to stop to get the stamps all set up and ready for stamping.
• I envisioned stamping the stamp that you see in my sample on the top horizontal piece, which I decided would be one of the pieces of the Daffodil Delight patterns papers.  Problems: (1) the stamp doesn't stamp well on that kind of printed paper; and (2) to make that stamp fit would have meant making that horizontal layer a lot bigger than I wanted it.  It was at this point that I turned the design 90 degrees. Problem (2) solved, but there was still the matter of what to stamp on.  OK, Whisper White it was. 
• But the white flower really wasn't the effect that I wanted.  So I went digging through my waste basket and dug out one of the images I'd stamped on the Daffodil paper.  I cut out the flower and adhered it to the image stamped on the Whisper White.  Nice!
• When I started laying out the sections of the card, I realized that no matter how I laid them out, I was going to have some Razzleberry layered on Razzleberry.  I didn't like the look.  Needing another color, I found the Pear Pizzazz out on my work table from another project (you might recognize it from Monday's project?)
• Now we're cooking!  Got everything laid out, and it was STILL too plain.  Aha!  What about some scalloped edging.  Now, there are only a few greeting card sized measurements that work well to use both the Scallop Trim Corner Punch and the Scallop Trim Edge Punch.  Unfortunately, none of my current layout elements were that size.  So I resized the Daffodil layer and punched it – one layer done! 
• I laid everything out again and figured out how I was going to layer up the Pear Pizzazz and Daffodil for the central motif.  But now those three pieces of Razzleberry card stock in the background looked so, well, plain. That's when I realized that the 5/8" strips were the same width as 5/8" Rich Razzleberry Satin Ribbon.
• Now I was on a roll and found some Razzleberry brads to finish it off and DONE!!!

     Something else that I did as I was going along was to cut out the Razzleberry Designer Paper that's in the background so that it was symmetrical both vertically and horizontally.  I really think that taking the time to do something like that really adds some "class" to a project.  Especially when you're making a special card, it's well worth the effort and just the teensy bit of possibly wasted paper.

     Have fun stamping – and don't be afraid to be creative!

     Last week, I was so bogged down with a bunch of different complicated projects that I needed some time just to make something simple.  Some rectangles with one mat layer each – stamp, stamp, stamp.  No ribbons or knots or bows or funny angles.  At just this point, I happened upon a chat room that had a quick and easy challenge going on.  Bingo!  There was my layout.

     It took me no time at all to make this card.  I didn't agonize over where the flowers were going to be and where the stems would land.  On the other hand, I was using the Cottage Garden Stamp Set in the clear mount form.  So I could see pretty well where the flowers were being stamped.  I wasn't quite so accurate with the stems.  But remember that this was supposed to be simple and I was NOT going to stress over it!  For my background, I used a sheet from the Designer Series Paper set Sunny Garden.  (Can you tell that the papers and stamp set were meant to be coordinated?  If not, the names of the products would give you a hint!)  I chose the colors not only based on what colors were in the papers, but also on colors I might expect to be in a "sunny garden."  Daffodil Delight, Peach Parfait, and Poppy Parade.  For the mats for all the stamped pieces, I chose Pear Pizzazz, and that's the color I used to stamp the stems for the flowers. 

     Here's a stamper's hint:  When you're a bit too relaxed, you might just get a little sloppy.  We all do.  When quickly thinking out the colors for this card, I intended for the darker of the three flowers to be in the center and coordinate with the color in the stamped sentiment (also from the Cottage Garden stamp set).  But I started flinging things around and, oops!  I got a smudge on the bottom of the Daffodil flower strip.  Sigh.  But not to worry (this was a "no worry" day).  Just rearrange the flowers, and suddenly that smudge gets covered up by the sentiment strip. 

     I really did intend for there not be any embellishments on this card.  But those Daffodil Delight Flower Brads kept calling out to me, so I let them decorate this card.  Heck, all I had to do was punch some holes!

     Here's the layout for the card.  Any time you want to make something simple, just cut the stamped paper the size you want it, then add 1/8" to the height and width to get the size for the mat layer.  So simple!  For this particular layout, the only stamped layer that you need to be a bit more careful about is the center vertical layer.  Lay your card out on your working grid paper (or put a ruler up against the top edge) and find the center of the card (at 2-3/4").  Then arrange that center vertical layer so that ITS center is at the card's center.  Then arrange the two outer vertical pieces the same distance from the center piece.

     Have fun stamping!