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Thanksgiving Spice Cake

Aloha, all!

     Do you ever think of having cake for dessert on Thanksgiving?  Not me, either.  Dessert is definitely pie:  Pumpkin, Mince Meat, Pecan – any kind of pie at all.  But not cake!

     Except that this year Stampin' Up! has decided to name its fall Designer Series Paper in their Holiday Mini Catalog "Spice Cake."  So Spice Cake it is this Thanksgiving – for my greeting cards, that is!

     I am crazy about this color combination!  It really does look elegant when I think of decorating my holiday tables with something other than traditional fall colors, even if the names of the colors don't have a traditional Fall ring to them – Early Espresso,  More Mustard, Pear Pizzazz, River Rock, and Pool Party. 

     One of the papers in this set has a design in it that is reminiscent of the Triple Treat Flower Stamp that I used to accent the front of this card.  But using that paper was going to make this card a bit too "busy."  So I decided on the three papers that show off three of the main colors in the paper set (Espresso, Mustard and Pool Party) along with the Very Vanilla in the Victoria Lace Ribbon and the paper on which I stamped both images.

     The Triple Treat Flower stamp (an "a la carte" stamp because you can buy just this one stamp by itself) is called "Triple" because there are three different Stampin' Up! Punches that you can use to punch out pieces of the flower:  the Fancy Flower Punch, 5-Petal Flower Punch, and the 1/2" Circle Punch.  To make my flower, I stamped the image three times in the three colors in my card and then punched a different part of the flower for each of the three layers.  The final bit of accent for this card is a bow pulled together with one of the new Designer Printed Brads – the "Pool Party" color.

     This paper really is fun to use, and I hope you've had some fun playing with it this fall.  I know I have and probably will continue to play with this for as long as the holiday mini catalog is active.  Yes, there will be Christmas Cards using Spice Cake!

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My First Card with Holiday Mini Products!

Aloha, all!

     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!

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All Those Thanksgiving Cards…

…are in the mail!

Aloha, all!

     I'm finally finished with my Thanksgiving Cards and they're all safely in the mail.  Some of them I've posted here since this year's Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini Catalog was published in September, whle some managed to slip through the blogging cracks.  I thought I'd share a few of them here with you today just in case you have a last minute card or two that you might want to get in the mail early this week!

     This first card uses the Rock and Roll Technique on the large motif.  Otherwise, it's about as simple a layout as you can get!  I will feature more information about this card in my upcoming sketch book.  The stamp set for both the large motif and the greeting is Day of Gratitude from the Stampin' Up! 2010 Holiday Mini Catalog.

     This little girl is from the Build-A-Bear-Workshop collection from Stampin' Up! and was featured in my blog of September 15, 2010.  Her basket of goodies and the sentiment are from the Holiday Mini Catalog set Season of Hugs.

     The leaves for this card are from another stamp in the Day of Gratitude Set.  I colored them in with Stampin' Write Markers and then cut them out to overlay the sentiment on the card. Notice that in both this card and the one at the beginning of this post, I've sponged ink around the edge of the white or vanilla card stock – it gives it some nice texture, I think!

     While the greeting for this card is from the Day of Gratitude Stamp Set, the other elements on the card aren't!  These are all cut or punched from a sheet from the Autumn Spice Specialty Designer Series Paper Set.  I love the colors in this paper set, and will be using some of the sheets long after Thanksgiving is over.  Not too many, though, as we used most of it up during my class this past Saturday. 

     Day of Gratitude wasn't the only set I used for Thanksgiving Cards this year.  For this card I used an "oldie but goodie" stamp set, Loads of Love, along with the companion set, Loads of Love Accessories.  The "accessories" part of this includes the pumpkins and the woman sitting in the cab.  I colored her hair to look just a bit like mine and actually sent this off earlier this season as a harvest card.  Fun to make!  More information is in the original blog post.

     This card, as well as the first in this post, were parts of classes that I've taught this fall.  I love the layout with four squares (or even circles) grouped together to allow you to show off a stamp in four different ways.  In this case, there are four different colors of ink used in the leaves, and the leaves face in four different directions.  Lots of ways you can do this!  More information, and a picture of the class, is in my October 1, 2010, Blog Post. 

    So there you are!  Hopefully if you have some last minute cards to make, I've given you some ideas!  In fact, as I was writing this, I realized that I missed a few people in my hurry to get things out in the mail at the last minute.  So I'll be making a few more cards myself to mail on Monday – I'm glad I have some ideas for layouts!

     Whatever you're doing this Thanksgiving week, have fun with it!

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Thanksgiving is Getting Nearer!

Aloha, all!

     We're getting down to the wire when it comes to getting our Thanksgiving Cards ready to mail here on Hawaii's Big Island.  It takes an extra day for just about everything that gets mailed from here to get to anywhere on the U. S. mainland.  So I'm scrambling to try to get as many done as possible over the next couple of days.

     That's why I was happy to see that today's Divas Coffee Break Design Team challenge was a sketch challenge.  With a sketch, I can making a card of ANY theme!  And with the Autumn Spice Specialty Designer Papers right out in front of my on the craft room table, it was a given that it would serve as the basis for whatever I did today.

     I haven't used this particular sheet of paper (well, for this set, it's really card stock) much at all.  For one thing, it just contains Early Espresso, More Mustard, and Cajun Craze colors in it.  And I really like using some Old Olive with these fall colors.  But with the sketch with which I had to work, I could see the opportunity for adding some Old Olive in several places. 

     To begin, I stamped the Old Olive images on another piece of the card stock from this that just has the pale background color – almost a So Saffron, though perhaps closer to a Very Vanilla.  Whatever.  That's what I used.  The image is from the stamp set, Day of Gratitude, and it really stamped very well on this textured paper – I was pleasantly surprised!  After that, I punched some holes in the Cajun Craze strip in the middle of the design with the 1-1/4" Circle Punch, punched out the Old Olive stamped images with the 1" Circle Punch, and then put all the pieces together.  The Cajun Craze strip is layered up on a larger strip of Old Olive punched top and bottom with the Scallop Edge Punch, and I placed the 1" punched circles on the Old Olive layer with Stampin' Dimensionals.  But before I actually adhered them to the card stock, I decided I needed just a bit more texture for the circles, and added some Cajun Craze Brads.

     The final touch was the Happy Thanksgiving greeting from the Stamp Set, Teeny Tiny Wishes.  What a versatile stamp set!  I've been using it since it first came out and hardly ever put it away!  I made the layers for the greeting with a Word Window Punch (the stamped layer); the Modern Label Punch (the Old Olive Layer); and the coordinating die from the Sizzix Punch Windows set that goes with the Movers and Shapers die (the Cajun Craze Layer).

     Here's the sketch from the Divas!  If you'd like to try it out this week, be sure to upload a copy of your card on the Internet and then post a link to it on the Divas website!  We'd all love to see what you do.

     Have fun stamping for Thanksgiving!

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Day of Gratitude – It’s Not Just for Thanksgiving!

Aloha, all!

     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.

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Another Thanksgiving Card

 Our Stamp Club meeting last week was so much fun!  The club is supposed to meet from 3:30 – 5:00 pm.  But two of my stampin’ friends didn’t end up leaving until after 6:30!  The good news was that Barbara (this month’s hostess) brought some delectable crustless mini quiches, so my wonderful husband, Harry, didn’t starve waiting for his dinner   Of course, the rest of us didn’t starve, either.  Yummm!!

As with the first club project, I found a design for the second project on Split Coast Stampers.  This time, my inspiration was Debra Erck, from Austin, Texas.   She used a medallion design featured in a Split Coast tutorial, using Stampin’ Up!’s new Scallop Edge Punch.(112091).  She used my absolute favorite sheet from the Autumn Vine Designer Series Paper (112995), so, of course, I had to use it, too.  I used a different stamp, but from the same stamp set, Thoroughly Thankful (107383).  Thanks, Debra, for this great idea!

If you place an online order for the any of the products used in this or yesterday’s featured card, I’ll send you detailed instructions for whichever card  you’d like!  If you have any questions, please call (808.854.6145) or e-mail me today!

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It’s Thanksgiving Day’s Month!

I am not sure how I got to be so busy in the two weeks since we’ve been back from North Carolina.  But I have not had a minute to myself!  Not only that, with my blogging over the same period, I’ve been focusing on Christmas gifts so much that I almost forgot about Thanksgiving!  In fact, I would have passed it over entirely before it was too late had it not been for my wonderful Stamp Club.  They’d insisted that, this month, I have some Thanksgiving projects for them. 

Naturally, procrastinator that I am, I waited until the last minute to come up with some fun projects for the club.  What to do, what to do!?   Of course, I knew "what to do."  I went to Split Coast Stampers, where there are so many ideas for cards and gifts and scrapbooks that the mind boggles!  And there I found just the projects for my little group!

Today, I’ll share a project originally designed by Stacy McCain of Idaho.  In her card, she used the Autumn Vine Designer Series Paper (112995).  I changed that out a bit and used the Juntos Designer Series Paper (112457), along with the same stamp set, Thoroughly Thankful (107383).  My stamp club loved using the Watercolor Wonder Crayons (I used the earth elements, 106696) and the Aqua Painter (103954) to blend the colors.

If you place an online order for any of the products I used in today’s card, I’ll be happy to send you a set of instructions for making either today’s card, or the card that I’ll feature in tomorrow’s post.  If you have any questions, just call (808.854.6145) or e-mail me and I’ll get right back to you!

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