Happy Snowy Saturday!!

I am happy to be snowed in–at least it gives me a legit reason for not going anywhere on the weekend for a change LOL

I wanted to share with you a little project I put together for a few Christmas gifts (and made a few today in fact for some coworkers since I have no excuse of “I didn’t have time” HAHA).

Here are the ones I made today that used the Love Blossoms DSP stack:

And here’s another I made last weekend to give to a friend whose birthday was yesterday (you can’t see, but the Hello Honey butterfly has been given a glimmer bath with the new Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Pen).

I’m part of a group (within the RemARKables that I do the blog hop with every month) where the demonstrators come up with a project and provide project sheets for  all of us to share with our customers. This was my December project.

Here is the PDF with the dimensions and instructions on how to complete this! There are 2 more DSP/color combinations in the PDF as well

Stand Up Butterfly Calendar

The idea wasn’t original (I’ll give props to Kelly Kent for the inspiration), but as the OP lives in Australia, and their paper size is altogether different, I had to come up with the dimensions to use for our US cardstock size! (as you can see, we have a little less space to work with to show off the beautiful DSP 😥 but I made it work! 🙂 )

Enjoy!!

Happy New Year!! I hope you all had a great holiday season and are starting the new year full of hope and promise 🙂 Since my 2015 did NOT end as I’d hoped, 2016 can only be better and I’m trying to be optimistic! 🙂

Welcome to the first RemARKables Blog Tour of 2016! You probably hopped here from Anne‘s blog. If you get lost, all the links are at the bottom! 🙂

One of my favorite parts of the Stampin’ Up! year (next to the new annual catalog and the reveal of new In Colors) is the start of the Occasions catalog and Sale-A-Bration (SAB)! 🙂 They always just outdo themselves!!

This month, we’re featuring bundles in the new catalog. I didn’t think I was going to be able to participate this month, and one of the ladies graciously sent me a few items! 🙂 But, I wound up having a little extra to splurge on 2-Day shipping on my last order, so my new goodies arrived JUST in the nick of time!! 🙂

The first thing that drew my eye in the new catalog that I HAD to have right away is the Botanicals bundle. For the first time, SU! has bundled a stamp set, coordinating framelits, AND matching DSP all in one save-you-some-dough-cheese bundle! 🙂 How awesome is that?! 🙂  Most of the sneak peeks I’ve seen have used this set in the colors of the DSP, but I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum a little bit and I had branch out.  I was cleaning my craft space (more like reorganzing! I’ll share pictures when it’s all done!) over the weekend, and I saw a scrap of some of the first DSP I ever fell in love with years ago– it was called Island Oasis.

I just LOVE tropical flowers, so I opted to sort of recreate this paper using the same colors! Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, Pumpkin Pie, and Daffodil Delight (the original paper used So Saffron). I heat embossed the centers in white. I was so happy it worked just right! The sentiment is from Perfect Pairings (one of the SAB offerings this year). I’m not so good with masking, so I just stamped and cut them out individually and then layered– I guess I should practice my masking skills! 🙂 Oh… and looky-there– the Pool Party Glitter Ribbon!! It is GORGEOUS!! It just reminds me of a sparkling water on a sunny day! 🙂

Next up, I found this little frame (from IKEA) when I was cleaning over the weekend and decided to tear off what was on it and use my new stuff! It has a piece of paper from the retired Painted Blooms DSP, HOWEVER– SU! in their infinite wisdom, added the Brushstrokes stamp set to our collection, and you can easily create your own striped DSP that looks just like it! My color combination came about because I wanted to use the Watermelon Wonder Striped Satin Ribbon, so I chose colors around that, but I wound up being unable to work it in! So, I just used the Pool Party Glitter Ribbon again (well, actually the above project was using it “again”– I created the frame first 🙂 ). Colors are Watermelon Wonder, Pool Party, and Crushed Curry. And I used lots of Glue Dots!

Last up is a project made with SAB products– both available for a limited time only!! So get them while the gettin’s good! 🙂 This card is for a friend who just started his first real-world job post-military at the FAA. I wanted to congratulate him! 🙂 It uses the Sky is the Limit (SAB) stamp set and the Perfectly Artistic DSP (SAB). I put it on a Soft Sky card base. The sentiment was stamped really close to the edge of the paper, but never fear– I just snipped the top off of the piece to match (after running it through the Big Shot with the Deco Labels Framelits)

I hope you’ve enjoyed what I had for you today! Ann-without-an-e had to take a break this month, between holidays and feeling under the weather, but I’m sure she’ll be back next month! 🙂 So, you’ll be hopping along to Ms Audra today!

Nancy Amato
Melissa Bolinger
Tamra Davis
Arden Dougan
Tracie Langley
Anne Matasci
Heather Mathieson <- You Are Here
Audra Monk
Maria Pane
Michele Reynolds
Pam Staples
 Janet Wakeland

Okay, so this is NOT the typical kind of spoiler alert, but I just wanted to share a bit about a couple of pieces I made for Christmas for my nieces and nephews who I LOVE to SPOIL! 🙂 LOL see what I did there? 😉 I’m the spoiler HAHA

First, I have to be a proud Auntie and show pictures of the adorable little rugrats with my Peepaw (Left to Right: A is 14 mos., E is 12 mos., G is 2 yrs, and J is almost-4 yrs). Trying to get this picture made was a bit like herding cats, so we all just stood there clicking the camera button over and over–I only wish we’d had a video, though the 6 or 7 pics I have on my phone make for an entertaining flip book!  The little in the middle (aka my Mini Me) was having none of it…

The first project I did for the girlies was the most time-consuming, and nearly ZAPPED all my mojo for a lot of last year after it was complete (I actually made 5 of them!). I did all the cutting and piecing at my RemARKables team’s semi-annual retreat, but I did the planning at home, deciding what colors and how many pieces I needed… Amazing that somehow THIS:

Became THIS! (And yes, this configuration is the only way all 13 would go! LOL):

They are all the princesses produced by “The Mouse.” Can you name them all??? (Answer key at the bottom 😉 also individual thumbnails you can click to take a closer look) The frame above is pre-glitterblasting! I spray painted the frames with Krylon Glitter Blast in Diamond Dust as if there wasn’t enough sparkly inside the frame LOL Lots of Dazzling Details were used on this project!

On this kind of project, it’s just the added little details that really “make” it!  My cousin (the father of the middle little above) was actually the one most fascinated by the project, especially Pocahontas. When I was working on them, there were 70 or so other ladies in the room, and I don’t even remember who or why, but someone brought me a container of seashells, and I was able to add that to Pocahontas’s necklace for the perfect touch (a rhinestone just wasn’t quite right); it also fascinated him that I hand-snipped the fringe on her dress!

I was inspired by several different punch art pieces out there, but I didn’t CASE any one design/er or follow any tutorials. I often went to the actual cartoon images themselves for ideas! The base for all them of course comes from the retired Dress-Up Framelits (I can’t be Elsa and “Let It Go” HAHA)

The next little project (same 12″x 12″ frame, wholly different content!) was for the almost-4yr old who started PreK-3 this year! 🙂 This uses 2 current stamp sets, Layered Letters and No Bones About It. It is inspired by the frame featured on pg. 39 of the 2015-16 Annual Catalog, but as per usual, I had to “kick it up a notch!” BAM! (a la Chef Emeril LOL).

I used dimensionals to pop up the dinosaurs (these frames are shadow boxes, so why not?!), added fussy-cut leaves (one of which was to hide an ink “shadow” 😉 ), added footprints around the edges, and added the cute little palm tree at the bottom! Look closely:

I used the Perfect Pines Framelits to add a little extra dimension! 🙂

Thanks for letting me share! I hope you enjoyed it! 🙂

Princess “answer key”:: Top L to R: Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Ariel (Little Mermaid), Jasmine (Aladdin), Rapunzel; Middle L to R: Anna, Elsa (both from Frozen), Merida (Brave; all the curly red hair!), Mulan, Tiana (Princess and the Frog); Bottom L to R: Snow White, Cinderella, Pocahontas, Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

~Heather