More is More

Happy Wednesday!  It’s happy indeed as I have some stamping time scheduled into my day!  YEA!  Today I wanted to share with you the wedding card that I created for our niece and her new hubby!  It uses TESC131, but I didn’t complete it in time to play with the Sketch Crew that week.

I used the same colors for this card as we used for her wedding invitations (photos of those soon – I promise!) – chocolate, burgundy and ivory.  Stamps,  embossing folder, and fancy brad are SU.  Border punch is EK Success Arbor and the main panel was die cut with Spellbinders Label 5.

The Rocket Scientist helped me figure out how to have the best of both worlds when posting photos to my blog.  Now I can post them the same size I always have, but you ALSO have the option to click on them and see them even larger!  Pretty cool, huh?  Thanks Honey!

ETA:  Hmmmm…maybe not…I’ll need to work on that some more apparantly.

ETA:  FIXED!!!  YEA!  Thanks Honey!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I can’t be gabbing away here when there’s stamping to be done!  😉  Have a great day!

Happy Thursday!  Tomorrow night I’m holding my monthly stamp class, but this one is a little different since it’s a Stampin’ Up! New Catty Night.  Even though I’m no longer a Demo, there are still things I want from SU, so I figured I might as well host a Stampin’ Up! Class and take orders as hostess.  *SPOILER ALERT* If you are attending class tomorrow night and don’t want to see the projects we’ll be making, then close this window NOW!  Everyone who wants a peek – stick with me. 🙂

These cards are SUO – something I rarely do anymore.  First up is a pair of samples featuring my favorite stamp set from the new catalog – Aviary.  Card base is Daffodil Delight and dp is Sunny Garden.  I must say that Daffodil Delight really is a very nice yellow and a great replacement for YoYo which was so rarely used because it was just too primary and bright.  These are not *my colors* at all, but I do try to step oustide my comfort zone for classes as I realize not everyone is all about reds and pinks like I am!  LOL!  I do think these cards are cute and fun!

Since I am going to have such a full house tomorrow night I created 2 versions of this card so I could split the images and inks a bit.  Each person will make just one of the two shown above.  Inks are Peach Parfait, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz and Daffodil Delight.  Sentiments are from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

The next sample features an a la carte stamp called Elizabeth.  I fell in love with this image the moment I saw it.  Here it is paired with Shimmery White cardstock (my fave!) along with Rich Razzleberry and Old Olive for an elegant feel.  Again the sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

The frame image was stamped in Old Olive and then lightly watercolored with Old Olive ink and an aquapainter.  Satin ribbon in Razzleberry and three SU self-adhesive rhinestones finish off the design.  Can I just say HALLELUJAH that SU finally got with the program on the self-adhesive rhinestones and pearls!!!  I think that was the missing element that drove me the most crazy when I was a Demo and doing all SUO classes.  I cannot live without my bling!  I must say that these rhinestones are top quality and super shiny.  I wonder if they’ll ever add colored ones?  Baby steps…baby steps!  LOL!

My class is 100% full, but if you’re a SoCal local and would like to be on my e-mail list to be notified about future classes – or if you’d like to place an order through my SU class –  just click the *contact me* button in my sidebar and shoot me an e-mail.  Thanks for stopping by.  I’ll see you tomorrow with the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge.

Happy Friday!  It’s time for another fun sketch from Taylor – TESC118.  This week is extra FUN because there are prizes up for grabs!  You can check out Taylor’s blog for all the deets.  Everyone is welcome to play and TE stamps are NOT required.  This week we have another great and really versatile sketch to play with.  For some reason when I saw it, I immediately wanted to use a sentiment as the focal point.  So I dug through 2 drawers of sentiment sets and ended up with this 4.25″ square SUO card (it’s SUO except for the buttons).

I decided to use these felt flower elements for the little circle portion of the sketch and that’s what determined my color scheme.  Designer papers are from the Melon Mambo Designer Series pack and the Cottage Walls collection.  Cardstock is Old Olive and Chocolate Chip.  I don’t know about you, but I find felt embellishments can be difficult to adhere to projects and in this case I was attaching it on top of ribbon which is even worse.  I used Zip Dry and it worked like a charm, so I was really happy with that.  I decided to try it for the buttons as well and it worked great!

This card is really simple – in fact I had a little battle with myself over maybe adding some more *stuff* LOL! – but in the end I really like how it turned out.  🙂

Here’s a view of the inside.

I kind of flipped the sentiments and used what would traditionally be thought of as the *inside sentiment* on the front of the card.  I am NUTS about having inside and outside sentiments to coordinate with each other, so I’ve purchased a number of stamp sets over the years for that purpose.  I really believe you can’t have too many sentiment stamps.  😉

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Now it’s time to see what the rest of the sketch crew has cooked up for us today!

• Alice Wertz
• Lisa Hjulberg
• Lori Craig
• Monika Davis
• Sherrie Siemens
• Taylor Van Bruggen

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a fantastic weekend.  I have what seems like a million errands to run today, but that will be punctuated by lunch with a wonderful friend.  Really it doesn’t get much better than lunch with a friend on a Summer afternoon, does it?

Poppin’ in for a quick post.  I’ve been sick on the couch since Friday.  Curt was sick all last week starting Easter weekend and I started feeling it last Thursday (just as he was starting to feel a bit better)…woke up with it in full force on Friday.  I don’t know what the heck it is/was, but today was the first day I’ve even felt like sitting up at the computer or stamp table for a little while.  I grabbed the opportunity to stamp and worked with the Sketch Challenge today on SCS.  I have a class coming up on Friday evening and I thought this sketch would be perfect for a class card.  I so loved that yellow/gray/white card I posted a couple of weeks ago that I decided it would be fun to do something along that line for class too.

It’s not the greatest photo as I really didn’t feel up to fiddling with it a whole lot, but hopefully you get the idea. The daffodil image is from the SU Easter set, the sentiment is retired SU and the circle frame image is PTI.  Cardstock is white, Basic Gray and Barely Banana.  Image was colored with watercolor crayons and a little Smooch Illuminate was added.

I still have a couple spots open for class, so if you’d like to come please let me know by Thursday evening.  Registration is $15 and we’ll be creating 3 projects.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you’re having a great week!

Happy Friday!  I am looking forward to my stamp class tonight and I decided to use the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge for one of my class cards.

The designer paper on this card all comes from the 6×6 pad that’s available from SU as a SAB freebie with order.  I used Pretty in Pink and Bermuda Bay cardstock to coordinate with it.  I’ve been dying to make one of these scalloped poofy flowers ever since I saw one on Cindy Lawrence’s blog.  She linked over to a tutorial by Dawn McVey which makes it very easy.  I’m looking forward to teaching the girls how to make these in class tonight.

Let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has come up with this week:

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!

I’m here to share a quick preview of one of the cards we’ll be making in my stamp class tomorrow night.  I’m just tickled with how this turned out!

These fish and the stamped background are created with the SU Christmas stamp set Delightful Decorations along with the coordinating ornament punch. YES those are Christmas ornaments turned into FISH!  How stickin’ CUTE is that??  I had 2 inspiration cards saved to my favorites gallery in SCS (’cause you KNOW I don’t think out of the box like that!) – this belated birthday card by stampinmutt and this Just Keep Swimming card by Vonda Thomas – and I kept thinking I had seen the kissing fish idea somewhere, but I could not find it for the life of me.  After my card was finished I started looking through last month’s Stampin’ Success (SU Demo mag) for some possible inspiration for another card and lo and behold there was the Kissing Fish card by Rebecca Franks.  My overall card is a lot different from hers, but that is definitley where the idea came from.

My card features SU In-Colors and used the ornament punch, the modern label punch, the 3 heart punch, and a couple of small circle punches along with the new SU border punch from the SAB catty.  I just love how the background turned out using the swirly image from the same stamp set and simply stamping it 3 times for each inking to get the varied tone.

The other two cards we’ll be making feature a combo of TE images and SU papers.  I’ll try to get back to share those over the weekend or early next week.  I’ll be here tomorrow morning with my sample for Taylor’s 100th Sketch!  You don’t want to miss the celebration we have planned for tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by.

After over 6-1/2 years, when I wake up tomorrow I will officially no longer be a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator.  This is something I have chosen not to talk about on my blog up until now, but honestly it has played a big part in my lack of consistent blogging in the past few months.  I did NOT want to give up being a SU Demo.  I have loved SU for many years – several even before I became a Demo.  I love my customers.  But it came down to the fact that I just could not sign the new agreement put forth to us last Fall.  While I could have *technically* continued both with SU and with TE it would not have worked on any practical level and bottom line – I just could not stomach having my speech regulated on my personal blog.  I had every intention of cutting the cord with my resignation letter before the end of 2009, but I found that I just couldn’t write the letter.  And today was my very last chance.

This has been a very emotional thing for me.  I have not wanted to badmouth SU in any way and yet I feel hurt and disappointed.  I’ve heard some other Demos describing it like being asked for a divorce.  Yep, I feel like I’ve been a good Demo with consistent sales who has always tried hard to abide by all the rules and now I’m being kicked to the curb. In all my time as a Demo, I’ve never even been on the pending list until this past quarter when I was locked out of the ordering system for failure to sign the IDA.   “Drink the kool-aide or get out!” 

I know that I must trust the Lord and be aware that He has a plan for me in all of this.  Over the past few months I’ve been able to focus on that sometimes better than others.  Sometimes I have felt ok and ready to move on and other times I have just been so sad.  I am not someone who embraces change in general and certainly not when it goes against my preference, but the Lord has been working with me on this and I am looking to Him to help me embrace the change and look to whatever may be ahead.  I know many Demos who have cleared out and sold off all of their SU product never to be touched again.  I am certainly not there.  I do intend to continue being a customer of SU albeit in a very limited capacity, but right now it’s just hard to stamp with SU.  I just got an order of new goodies from the Mini and I’m hoping I can have some fun playing with it next week.

I am very thankful to the Demo friends I have who have helped me and are helping me to finish out the committment I have to my wonderful Club customers.  And to all of my friends who are remaining Demonstrators – I want you to know that I hold no resentment toward you and I’m truly happy that you could remain unaffected by these issues.  I hope you will not be upset with me for expressing my feelings here. I mean no disrespect to you.

To anyone who has ever been a customer of mine – I want you to know that I truly appreciate you.  I have had a wonderful ride!  I plan to continue teaching stamp classes since that’s the part of being a Demo that I loved most!  My future classes will be NVR (No Vendor Restrictions) and I’m guessing that they will mostly be a combo of TE, OCL and some SU.  I promise they will continue to be high quality FUN and I hope you will continue to attend.  There’s a big wide wonderful stamping world out there and I now have the freedom to show it all to you!  Also I will be e-mailing out info soon to all customers on my mailing list regarding some area Demos who are friends of mine so you can continue to shop SU if you’d like to.

I never got around to sharing the project we created at my December Club meeting, so now seems like the perfect time.  I won’t go into a lot of detail, but we made card sets using the SU Sunny Day Scrappin’ Kit and a coordinating ribbon share.  We also decorated a TE Perfect Package.  I love the Sunny Day SSK and had a lot of fun creating this class.  If you have questions about it, let me know.

To all of my blog readers – wow – you just have no idea what it means to me to have people reading my blog.  I was stunned when several people came up to me at the SuperShow last weekend and said they knew me from reading More is More.  Wow.  I am so humbled.  Thank you!  I hope you’ll stick with me even if I’m not a SU Demo.

I have so much more to say…I could go on and on…but it’s very late and you don’t need to hear me ramble any more than you already have.  I’ve got a busy week ahead.  Did you know that it’s almost time for another Taylored Expressions release?  Yep – this Friday…some super cute new stuff…forging ahead!  🙂