More is More

Thought I’d share just a few notes on the Accessories section of the new catty (to read my thoughts on the main part of the new catty please scroll down a couple of posts.)  This is by no means an exhaustive list – just a few things that caught my eye…

designer papers – there are 16 different packages of designer paper plus 14 colors of Patterns Designer Series.  But in addition to that SU has introduced 3 packages of Specialty dp in textured cover-weight cardstock and 1 in gloss.  I’m very interested to see and feel these in person!

scrappin’ kits – I’ve never ordered one of these, but I’m seeing lots of possibilites for Sweet Nothings which coordinates with the new stamp set Friends 24-7 and features Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Kiwi Kiss and Chocolate Chip.

simply sent card elements – love the printed and embossed notecards.  I probably won’t buy them, but the set with the little *thank you* stamps would make a great gift or a good purchase for someone who is a little tentative about getting started in stamping.

rub-ons – Bright Delights comes in COLOR (Rose Red, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip) and goes with the Retro Fresh Trend Watch.  Very cool!

brads – Jumbo in chocolate, vanilla, white and silver.  Flowers in Pumpkin, Saffron, Chocolate, Pretty in Pink.  Rhinestone brads in CLEAR – finally!!!!

buttons – corduroy in 6 different single color packs – designer buttons added in a latte assortment.

fleurettes – crocheted flowers – pink/red/white

on board chipboard – So Tweet – yep you guessed it – birds!!!!

 MY TOP PICK – the Eyelet Border Punch – that will be on my first order for sure!

I’d love to hear your thoughts and faves!

  As a card-maker I love Valentine’s Day and stamping for it, but coming so close on the heels of Christmas it seems I rarely get nearly as many Valentines done as I’d like.  This candy box is one of my favorite images from the new SASI set Love is Sweet.  I stamped the image on TE Choice Snow White cardstock, colored with Copic markers and  die-cut it with Nestabilities Labels 2 die and my Cuttlebug.  The edging is done with the gold end of a Ziggy Paint Pen and the top of the box was stamped and colored twice – the 2nd image being cut out and popped up on foam tape.

I had the image colored and layered onto black with a completely different card base and background for several days and just couldn’t seem to finish it.  I finally decided to set aside that other base and background and go for a completely simple and elegant look.

The dp is Stampin’ Up! from the hostess Patterns pack.  The black crystals at the bottom are Zva Creative from TE.  This is a Z-fold card and one of my favorite folds to work with.  It’s so easy, but looks very impressive.

It’s just a standard card fold with the front of the card folded back in half on itself.  Then the focal image is centered, but only attached on the left side.  The trick is to layer the dp or stamped background so that when the card is closed it almost looks like a solid piece and the special fold is not obvious.  It’s a little hard to photograph…looks much better IRL I think.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Hope you are having a sweet weekend!

This post will contain spoilers, so if you don’t want info till you see your new SU catalog for yourself (like me) then skip over this post.  I so wasn’t expecting to have my catalog this weekend…I hadn’t even thought much about it and didn’t think I would be nearly as excited as I am.  But I have to tell you that I found plenty to love in the Spring/Summer Idea Book and Catalog and it makes me remember why my heart is still with Stampin’ Up!

I just wanted to share a few of my first impressions and things that jumped out at me.

***lots of sets have really beautiful sentiments.  My favorite is “JOY is to behold GOD in everything.” from Wonderful Watercolors on page 85.  This set is in the same stamp style as Heartfelt Thanks, but I think the images are actually prettier.  The set also has the sentiment “Thinking of You”

***several new masculine sets including: Totally Tool (with cute punny sayings), Backwoods (includes a cabin, pines trees, fish, bird, buck all to be watercolored), Hit the Road (includes a cute off-road jeep driven by a dog), Hoppy for You (a super cute frog set – not traditionally masculine, but I can imagine possibilities.  Love the sentiment “times fun when you’re having flies”  LOL!)

***a few more vintage style sets have been added.  Vintage with a little different twist perhaps, but it’s nice to see some more sets in that vein.  *Friends 24-7*  and the coordinating jumbo wheel are my favorites of the vintage lot and I plan to get them.  I love the beautiful bird on the branch and the shabby flourish.  Plus the floral image is one that can stand alone on a card.  Another wonderful sentiment here “The happiest business in the world is that of making friends – Anne S. Eaton”  The jumbo wheel Friendly Words has the look of a background stamp with words like “confidant, kindred spirits, true friends” and so on in varying fonts.  Other vinatgey sets are: Ever After (heart made of floral vines, flower stalk, “L”- Love), Bird on a Branch (kind of a cross between Eastern Influence and Eastern Blooms – silhouette of a branch and a bird with separate flowers for the branch.), Music Expressions (a large violin with a flourish of flowers), Classic Sketches (Greek/Roman looking colums and sculptures.  Reminds me of the travel set from a few years ago.)

***for those that like the Magnolia/Sugar Nellie/Holly Hobby look that has become popular from European companies there is a set that might appeal called A Kind Word. It includes two images of little girls – one of them is on a swing the other has a basket of flowers.  There’s also an image of kittens in this set.  It’s not my cup of tea, but I can certainly see why others would like it.

 ***dogs – everyone is always begging SU for a cute dog set.  The new one this year is cute I think, but still not *doing it* for me.  The dogs are solid and stylized (like Wild About You) and there are 4 of them (weiner dog, chihuahua – looks more like a fox to me, scottie, and I’m not sure about the 4th – maybe a lab?).  There’s also a fire hydrant.

***scary stuff – seems like every new catty there is one *what were they thinking* set.  For me this year it’s Animal Crackers.  It reminds me a little bit of You’re Neat – which I bought.  There are 5 cartoon animals with balloon-like heads and I honestly thought it was cute till I looked at the last one which is a giraffe and he’s just disturbing.  And the more I look, the scarier he gets!  Yikes!

 ***missing – we are down to only 11 full sized background stamps and none of them are new.  We have no fabric/texture stamps like Canvas, Linen or Twill anymore.  Sanded is the only thing that comes close.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as I find myself using dp so much now and background stamps not nearly as often.  Still I have always LOVED background stamps and looked forward to the new ones.  I guess I need to make a point to actually use the ones I have.  At least I won’t have to deal with the storage issue of where to put more since that drawer is full to the gills!

***coffee – I love the new set Sip by Sip.  It has a retro lady very similar to the Crafty Secrets set I always wanted but never got.  It also has: percolator, 3 cute coffee cups in a row, a cofee cup stain/ring, sentiments (enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp  AND Chocolate, coffee and men – some things are better rich.  That made me LOL!)

***favorite – my very favorite two-page spread is pages 90-91 which includes: Petal Pizzazz (got it in my preview order), Cheep Talk, Good Friend, Trendy Trees, Funky Forest Wheel. These are all solid sets with a funky retro style.  Trendy Trees is small in size and has 2 different tree trunks to be used with 4 different tree tops.  Funky Forest is basically the same images only smaller and in a wheel.  Cheep Talk and Good Friend are coordinating sets – Good Friend being much larger in image size.  Cheep Talk is my absolute favorite set and will be on my first order no matter what!  It includes two adorable funky birds, a branch, a flower, a pear, a heart, and 3 sentiments curved to go with the branch.  There is also a set of On Board chipboard that coordinates with these sets.

There’s lots more, but that’s enough typing for me for now.  I’m anxious to hear what your favorites are when you see the catalog.  Let me know!  I’ll be back later with a sweet SASI Valentine.  Thanks for stopping by.

Got my catty!!!  My new Spring/Summer SU Catty!!!  Got my catty!!  Got my catty!!!

Happy Friday! 

Curt took our Canon Rebel in to see about getting it fixed and they wanted $200!!!  Ouch.  But the gal immediatley diagnosed the problem as a bent sensor (or something or other LOL!).  So Curt brought the camera home and straightened out the little bent doohickey and saved us $200!  WooHoo!  I love that Rocket Scientist!

It’s time for another one of Taylor’s fun sketches in the weekly Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge (cupcakes not required).  Click here to get all the details and come play along.  When I first saw this sketch all I could think of were Christmas ornaments, until I opened up this package of chipboard buttons.  They are Colorbok and came from the Dollar Bins and Michaels.  I was looking for a place to put them in my organizing frenzy and they sat out on my table for a few days.  I had the sketch printed out and sitting there too.  *lightbulb*

Aren’t these fun?  The package had different shapes of chipboard buttons so I layered a circle or square over each heart and bound them together with chocolate taffeta ribbon.  They are popped up on foam tape over Chocolate Chip circles and they are *suspended* from Riding Hood Red taffeta bows.  The sentiment is from Love is Sweet by SASI and it’s punched and layered with SU oval punches.  The Blush Blossom layer was embossed with the Textile folder in my Cuttlebug and adhered to a Chocolate Chip mat over the Riding Hood Red cardbase.  I’m very happy with how this turned out!

Now let’s check out what the rest of the Cupcake Crew has cooked up this week:

and this week’s Featured Sampler is Renee Van Stralen at Stamping for Sanity.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have a great weekend and make some time to stamp!

Super quick post because I’m experiencing blogging withdrawals but I need to get out the door to work.  I haven’t been stamping much because I’ve been focusing on organizing my stamp room for the past couple of weeks and I’m about 95% there!  More on that later.

Yesterday I had 3 friends come over to stamp.  These are girls I’m in a Bible Study with and they are all interested in getting started in stamping.  One asked for and got a bunch of papercrafting supplies for Christmas (including a Cuttlebug and SASI stamps), one stamped for a little while over 10 years ago and has some SU supplies from that time period, and one has never stamped but wants to make gifts for people at her husband’s work.

I was so excited to have them come over that I got a little carried away and planned 3 projects for them as though it were going to be a class.  Thought I’d take just a minute to share 2 of the simple cards we made.  First this Stampin’ Up! card was made with some supplies from my Demo pre-order and it was inspired by this card I saw on SCS by debils.

And second is this SASI card.  I had them each choose an image from the new sets just released last week and a CB embossing folder from my basket and we colored with chalks which I hadn’t done in quite awhile.  I forgot how quick and easy they can be.   It is soooo much fun to see someone brand new to stamping create a cute card!  I just love the joy on their faces!!!

I apologize for the quality of the photos – still using my back up camera.  I’m off to work – thanks so much for stopping by.  I’ll be back tomorrow for the TECC.

-Jami

I mentioned yesterday that I received my Stampin’ Up! Demo pre-order earlier this week and I’ve been dying to dive into that box as well as play with my SASI stuff…so when I saw Taylor’s sketch for TECC49 I knew it was the perfect excuse chance to mount one the new SU sets and get it inky.

This is a very simple sweet card.  I modified the sketch just slightly by mounting the basic square layout to a hing top standard sized card.  My original intention was to tie a knot with a wide ribbon across the top, but I didn’t have anything in a coordinating color so I used the Bella’s Border wheel.  I can’t remember the last time I used a wheel, but I love it here.  I feel like a cheated a bit in the way I executed the layout.  Normally I would have cut the SU Parisian Summer dp into 4 squares and layered them onto the Perfect Plun square, but I took a little shortcut and mounted a full square of dp onto the Plum panel and then added 1/8″ strips of plum to create the look of smaller dp squares.  Super easy.  The flowers from Sweet Stems (available in the new SU catty mid January) were watercolored with inks from my pads and punched with the 1 1/4″ circle punch then layered onto Plum scallop circles created with a Marvy punch.  The one on the bottom right is popped up on a dimensional.  Stardust stickles were added for a bit of sparkle.

I hope you’ll play along with us in the TECC this week.  Get all the details on Taylor’s blog here (it’s at the bottom of the SASI New Release post).  And check out the samples from the Cupcake Crew:

and this week’s Featured Stamper Carolina at Carolina’s Creative Pad. 

Happy Friday and I hope you have a super weekend!