Wish big

Here is another birthday card I made for a January birthday of a special guy turning 2!  Happy Birthday Max.  If you have visited my other/first blog you saw the baby blanket I made for this young man who is about to become a big brother in a few months...need to start working on another blanket I guess.  I love making punch art and this Elmo is perfect for a little boy's birthday.  It goes with the real red and tempting turquoise in the DSP from last year called Big Top Birthday.  The sentiment came from the single set you could order a while back but i think the response was good enough and SU will continue to offer this periodically.
In other great news Sale-a-bration starts soon (January 22) which is a favorite time of year on the SU calendar.  For every $50 spent (before tax and s&h) you earn one free item.  There are some really cute sets which I hope you have seen either in the brochure or on the SU website.

To celebrate this event the Glitter Queens are organizing a blog hop for January 22-25 so stay tuned for more info on that.

Candy Birthday Card

I think I've said before that one of the great things about being a Stampin' Up! demo is a website where we post our cards and idea.  The idea for this card came from a demonstrator in Germany.  So since we're in Germany I thought I'd give it a try.  Check out this post for directions.  The measurements are in centimeters but just flip a ruler over and you should be good.  This card is for my FIL so I think it is a good masculine card.  The sentiment comes from Curly Cute and is heat embossed in black.  The DSP is from Summer Smooches.  The box opens up for the candy to come out.  Thanks for looking.  Check back soon I have a cute kid card to show you and I'm in the final phase of a re-do of my craft space.  Have a good weekend.

Not totally Stampin' Up! but...

One benefit of having a child with a birthday close to Christmas is that I can usually get away with one thank you note for both birthday and holiday gifts.   This year I made 2 thank yous one that is 80% SU and the other is 60%.  My non SU items are the airplane scrapbook paper and both feature some Quickcutz dies I bought in the clearance section at HL.  I've had the ice cream one for a long time and this is the first time I've used it.  This is my favorite size for cards lately 4 x 4 (actually this one is 3 3/4 square).  I used mostly the 2011-2013 in colors for the ice cream one with Sweet Shop designer series paper.  The planes varied in color the body of the plane matching the base scallop card.

The sentiment is from Storybook friends the other is from Itty Bitty Banners but in German.  I hope most of my relatives/friends know that Danke means thank you.  If you have any questions please feel free to email me or leave a comment.

Happy New Year

Happy 2013!  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and new year holiday.  We enjoyed lots of family time but suffered through a nasty head cold.  School is back in for the little guy and we are getting back into a routine.  I sure have been in my craft room and have a few things to show you over the next few days.  In the new year I have a few friends expecting new babies and my first project is a hat and card.  Below is the inspiration for my project...the bedding for the new little one.

Here is the hat.  I have used the pattern from this blog for all the baby hats I make...and I make a lot of hats. this one is for a baby girl so I added a flower.

And here is the card to go with it.

The base is Daffodil Delight embossed with the chevron folder.  Then a layer of basic grey (quickly becoming a new favorite color of mine) and a layer of basic grey DSP.  Some ribbon and some buttons finish the embellishments and the stamped images are from the new Spring Catalog.  The set is called That's the Ticket.

I hope you've enjoyed this project.  I could easily see this card as a gender neutral baby card.  Oh and before you get jealous of my ribbon and DSP stash I have a secret for you....product shares.  I totally take advantage of when other demos offer product shares it is a great way to sample new things or just have a little bit of everything...come on who doesn't want it all.  Right now I know of four demos having product shares for US folks plus each of these ladies have great blogs.  Check out Erica, Sarah, Angie or Patty.

later!

Last of the tags

OK the wait is over here is the last of 12 tags made.  As all card makers know the first one you make always takes longer so i'll be reproducing a couple of the simpler tags for the rest of the gifts we are giving.

***The first card is a gift card holder.  I folded a 3" wide piece of whisper white and put the fold just above the bottom edge of the die.  This created a pocket.  I punched the front with the 1 3/4" circle punch.  I put a small square of Candy cane fabric (currently on the clearance rack) in between and sewed it shut with a zig zag.  To my utter surprise....seriously a happy accident...I found a gift card will fit in it.  I used the ornament top from Sweet centers and embossed it in silver.  I added the tree branch from Watercolor Winter.  The ribbon is retired baja breeze accented with a candy cane button and some real red ribbon.

***The folded tree is half of the scallop circle die.  There are several folks on line that have tutorials how to fold them.  The base is a piece of wood veneer.

***I love the next tag it uses my latest purchase Watercolor Winter.  The base is very vanilla and uses an embosssing window.  The DSP is from Festival of Prints and a new wood button.  Makes it more masculine I think.

***The snowman is a combination of ideas from Heather Summers and Shana Gaff.  Isn't he too cute!

Pool Party and Cherry Cobbler go great together.

***The Santa tag is great example of making Christmas out of non Christmas DSP...this is Summer Smooches DSP.  The ruffle is whisper white in the vintage wallpaper embossing folder with 3 brads.  The belt is scalloped ribbon and the buckle....yeah you have it...a pop can top (or soda or Coke....depending on wherever you're from).

I hope these have inspired you to make some of your own tags.

2012 tags...who has time to wait

With only a few weeks ( like 3 weekends) left to shop, bake, wrap, mail, create and whatever else I won't make you wait to see a tag per day.  I still have a few to show you so stop back by again.  The ones I have left include a masculine one and a gift card holder.  Here is an MDS page with 4 tags on it.  Just click on the page to make it larger to get a better look at these tags.

The tree card is made using the pennant punch and the festival of prints DSP pack.  The "tinsel" is using the scalloped pennant punch and a sliver of the glimmer paper.  I highlighted the embossed texture with some white ink to make it look like a frosty tree trunk.  I hand drew the lines in the scrap I used for the tree trunk itself.

The tidings of joy is another single stamp embossed in white.  More DSP and glimmer paper with gumball green ribbon.

The mitten one was SO easy because SU did the work for me.  I think these are still on the clearance rack.

The bird is so cute he even has his tiny wing popped up on a dimensional.  He is from the set for the birds.

I hope you enjoy these tags.  I can't tell you how much fun I had making them and each made the gift the went on that much more special.

2012 tag day3

Sorry I missed posting yesterday.  I felt horrible with a tummy bug (empathize with the Duchess of Cambridge although mine is a different reason) then as I started to feel better from that... Mr. Headache came along to let me know a big snowstorm was coming.

Anyway-here is another favorite.  This tag ended up being huge and I wasn't sure how to use it but when I wrapped a gift I could not find any ribbon that looked nice on it.  Ta-da- just the tag looked great.  The base is 2 pieces of soft suede.  I punched the snow flake and sandwiched a piece of pool party in between before sewing it together.  This tag shape is from an old template I had (so you don't have to have the two tag die but it sure is nice).
I made the reinforcing hole out of pool party.  Start by punching the small hole with your hand held punch and then center a 1/2" punch over it to get the perfectly centered circle.  A piece of pool party ribbon tied with pool party bakers twine is at the top.
I wrapped some more bakers twine around the tag and added a pool party brad.....ooops moment...I didn't want the brad to go all the way thru and I already sewed it shut so I cut off the prongs and used half of a really big glue dot.....crisis averted.  The tag is inspired by another stamp set that I don't have but what I do have is Pennant Parade and I stamped merry twice in pool party and used the banner framelit to cut it out.  I'm so pleased with how it turned out I might make these for teacher gift tags.  I hope you enjoy...come back tomorrow I have a couple more tags to share.