Still Hanging in There!

Aloha, all!

     Oh, my, am I tired!  But today I managed to squeeze in enough time in the craft room to actually design and make a whole greeting card!  Where did I get my energy?  From reading the Stampin' Up! website and realizing that tomorrow is the brand new Stampin' Up! year.  And I've managed to lose the last two months of the last year.  I'm really hoping that it won't be too long and I'll be back in the craft room on a daily basis, especially as I'll have all kinds of new toys with which to play!

     Among the new toys are the new Designer Series Papers for which Stampin' Up! is deservedly famous.  We had a few from the new catalog that we were able to pre-order to show off as teasers.  Well, I sure haven't been showing off much.  But today I really needed a break and broke open the pack of paper called Newsprint.  There was a design challenge today that called for a project using some of the Stampin' Up! Decor Stencils.  Like many of you, I was a young homemaker when stenciling was all the rage.  We stenciled walls, dressers, cabinets, chairs – if it was in the house and didn't walk, it got stenciled!

     And now here I am stenciling cards.  Lots more fun and lots less work for sure.  "Vintage" is the word around Stampin' Up! these days, and this cards has lots of it.  The stencil is from the set, Vintage Ornaments I; the stamp set that accents the card is Vintage Vogue; and the old style Newsprint paper and the distressing all around contributes to the "vintage" look.  Oh, and one last thing:  I used the Color Spritzer Tool to blow a bit of Cherry Cobbler ink onto the Newsprint, also.

     The colors that I used for this card are both brand new colors:  the red is Cherry Cobbler, which is one of the newest colors in the Stampin' Up! permanent collection.  The other is Pear Pizzazz for just a touch of accent color.  This color is one of the newest In Colors for 2010-2012 (yes colors will last for two years from now on!).  I would love to have accented the Hodgepodge Hardware frame with some Cherry Cobbler brads.  But those won't be available for us to order until July 1st (oooh, that's tomorrow!)

     Overall, this is a very simple layout for a card.  It's great for highlighting Designer Series Papers of all kinds.  You may see it more as the summer goes on and I try out all the new papers from the 2010-2011 Idea Book and Catalog!