The Three Amigas Are At It Again!

The Three Amigas are at it again.  Another virtual playdate ... another three-way challenge.  Here are the challenges ... I'll try to complete them all today and get them uploaded here.  Please join us, post your projects on an online gallery and comment with a link to them.  

1.  My challenge:  something old (that's been in the catalog forever) and something new (that you've bought but haven't used yet).  Extra points for adding something borrowed (like a layout, technique, etc.) and something blue.  

2.  Sharon's challenge:  make a quilted card.  Here's a link for the instructions http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/quiltedcard/

3.  Joanne's challenge:  an Easter treat holder of any kind. 

So, what are you waiting for?  Let's play!  

Blessings,

Julie   

Using Up the Leftovers

Ever wonder what you're going to do with all of your leftover pieces?  I do!  The center pieces of Blushing Bride and Shimmer White are leftover from a workshop where we made tags.  I've added the punched edges, the butterfly, and the back two pieces.  That nice frame is the Framed Tulips embossing folder from SU!, available in the Occasions Mini Catalog.  I sure hope they keep it around, because I love it!  I sponged over the tulips after embossing them so that they would stand out a bit.  We stamped the heart in StazOn Black (the only black ink that I use now because it's waterproof) and colored over it with Celery, Blushing Bride, Peach Parfait, and Bashful Blue Stampin' Write Markers. 

Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station.

Blessings,
Julie

My Laptop Is Back!

 First off, sorry that I've been MIA this week.  My laptop finally came back and it's been time consuming, to say the least, to get everything back on it!  Since I've been busy with that, I decided to treat you with more My Digital Studio scrapbooking.  :-)  These pages are all from the book that we put together as a thank you to my in-laws for taking us to Hawaii. 

 And yes, we bought our own copy, too!  These pages were predesigned.  We took off a lot of the accessories and left it a bit plainer so that the photos would take over the pages.  I love the scroll in the background, which you can do by making something opaque, but the same color so that it appears lighter and of the same color family.  Isn't that lovely?  And the little flower is a stamp, colored, a brad added in the middle, and a shadow of 100% behind it.

 This page started out a different background color.  We kept the Kiwi Kiss and changed the other color to Melon Mambo.  Isn't that a great combo?  I really like the brightness of it.  We thought it would be fun to surround the family photo with individual shots of each grandchild.  The wording was fun and I love being able to journal in white over the background papers!  (Aren't those kids adorable?!)  To line up all of these photos, I used the rulers and zoomed in to about 200%.

 Need I say anything about this one?  I love this photo and the book is 12 x 12, so can you imagine how wonderful this picture is IRL?

 I had to show you these two pages because of the flowers and strips that I added.  the flowers have a white shadow behind them and pearls in their centers.  I love the soft look that they create.  Oh, see that handsome man standing second from the left?  That's my wonderful husband, Ron.

 Another wonderful thing about My Digital Studio is that you can have your opposing pages match!  All you have to do is design your first page, then add a duplicate page or duplicate mirrored page from the menu.  It's so easy. 

 And this is to show you what else has been taking so much of my time.  We had to paint our bathroom because it still stank like cigarette smoke from the previous owners.  The wall color is Jamaica Bay from Sherwin Williams.  We have a fish theme in the room, so my 14 yr. old painted seaweed on two walls.  The sweet thing is that we were able to use leftover paint for the seaweed!  I love being able to finish a project with leftovers!

And yes, this is my 10 yr. old, swimming underwater.  What a nut!  He actually wanted to pose for this!  :-)

So, I don't have everything loaded up yet, but I hope to finish that in the next few days ... just in time to do my taxes!  Blech!

Ok, enough blathering for today.  Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station once again.  I wish you a wonderful and peaceful Sunday.

Blessings,
Julie

Ribbon Punch Frame

Linda posted this card on SCS and I just had to try the technique.  I also thought it was a great use of the SAB DP.  This card will be for Thursday's workshop and used the Poppin' Pastels technique.  The guests at th workshop will be able to decide which sentiment they want on this one.  It could also be an Easter card or a birthday or thank you.  Don't you just love it when a card is appropriate for so many occasions?!  The rhinestones finish the card off nicely.  My square is just a tiny bit larger than Linda said to use, because I thought it was easier to line up in the punch.  She suggested using a 3" square, while mine is 3 1/8".  Isn't it amazing what a difference 1/8" will make in the usability of a technique? 

Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station again.  Take care of yourselves and don't forget to drink enough water.

Blessings,
Julie

Recipe:  Silhouette Sentiments, Teeny Tiny Wishes, and Itty Bitty Bits stamp sets.  Ribbon, Teeny Tiny, Ticket Corner, Word Window, and Modern Label punches.  Basic Rhinestones, Versamark, SU Pastels chalks.

Bring on the Cake With Pompom Trim

Isn't this a fun card?!  It's a combo of two cards that I found online.  I put the ideas together from this card and this card.  I love this birthday stamp set.  It's so versatile!  Man, woman, child ... stamps that are appropriate for all of them!  The cake is stamped in Pacific Point and colored in with Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango, and Old Olive.  I also loved the idea of making balloons out of circle punches.  White Gel Pen was used for the shinies on the balloons and the strings were drawn on with my Pacific Point Stampin' Write marker.  The Designer Paper is from the Sale-A-Bration catalog.  After gluing on the balloons and DP and drawing the strings, the entire piece was run through the Big Shot with the SU! Lattice embossing folder.  I really love that quilted look.
Sale-A-Bration is almost over, people, so quick, make your purchase before you miss out on all of the lovely free items!  You have a week left.  And Bring on the Cake is from the Occasions Mini Catalog, so it's only available through the end of April. 
Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station once again.  I'd love to hear from you.
Blessings,
Julie

Quick and Easy Cards

 I really love this image of the Eiffel Tower.  I also love the simplicity and elegance of the Black and White combination.  So, here you go ... a card that is simple, quick, elegant, and most importantly, an all occasion card.  I think the Black Narrow Taffeta really sets this card off. 

And this card is a current card being made at our workshops.  I totally love these chocolate stamps!  The background is stamped with Always Elegant, a freebie for me through Sale-A-Bration rewards.  I love that FREE stuff!!!!  The punch used here is the Spiral punch and the designer paper is Woodland Walk.  The button was cut with my new embosslit and sponged with Chocolate Chip ink.  Isn't that fun?! 

So thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station once again.  I'm going to try to get a few new cards made for tomorrow, using the suggestions left by comments on this post.

Until then, blessings to you and yours!

Julie

More Boyish Birthday Cards

I promised to show this one awhile back. My apologies for the delay.  I had to figure out why blogger was turning the image sideways.  This is a card that I made for our youngest son, Zach.  He really likes the Sonic the Hedgehog characters and this one, Silver, is one of his favorites.  I printed this image off of the internet and then cut it out with my Circle Scissors Plus and then cut a black circle mat for it.  I used my Tasteful Trim XL die to cut out the zig zag, but then....yes then....I saw the leftover pieces.  Ha!  I used the leftover pieces instead!  Needless to say, my Zachboy loved it. 

 And this is a card I made last night for a party that my oldest is going to today.  What to do for a 14 yr old's card???  I embossed the Extreme Guitar image with clear EP and then sponged around it with River Rock and Old Olive, then rubbed the edges of the Very Vanilla cardstock on my Real Red ink pad.  The background is some leftover strips from a pkg. called Dasher, which was from a few years back.  Doesn't really look like Christmas when you put it with these other images.  After gluing the strips of DP onto a piece of Old Olive, I ran it through the Big Shot with my Lattice embossing folder.  Doesn't that look cool?  You can't even tell that it's separate strips glued on!  The "party hearty" greeting is mounted on a tag from the Lots of Tags Sizzlits, an exclusive to Stampin' Up!

And what does a teenager want?  Money!  I think all of the card that I've made in the last 6 months for birthdays have been money holders.  I guess that means that the kids are getting older.  On this one, I stamped the cake and words from Birthday Bakery and colored it in with my SU markers.  The money holder was stamped a few times with the Extreme Guitar image and then sent through the Lattice embossing folder.  It's attached to the inside of the card with Sticky Strip, to make sure it stays on tight.  Oh!  But before I stuck it down, I took a bite out of it with my oval punch.
So there's your trip into my world of boys.  Definitely, they're harder cards to make and not quite as fun, but I DID have some fun, so that's ok.
Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station!
Blessings,
Julie

Another Challenge Complete!

Two challenges in one!  The first challenge was to get this uploaded, edited and published on my husband's laptop, instead of my own!  (My new laptop had a bad hard drive and Blu-Ray player, so had to go in for some repairs :(  )  I'm seriously missing my photo editing program!  And I don't have my copyright image on this computer, so pretend that you see a copyright by Stampin' Up! on this photo, k?  The second challenge was the colors.  It's from Stampin' Addicts' SACC85 to use Pacific Point, Garden Green, Rich Razzleberry and Basic Gray.  Two of my friends sent me a link to this cross image, made from the lattice die, so of course I had to try it!  Isn't it beautiful?  The Easter Wishes was stamped on the scallop square punch, but I sent the square through the punch a second time to punch off the first layer of scallops.  The little flowers are from the Tiny Tags stamp set and the greeting is from All Holidays.  The back layer of the greeting was cut with a Lots of Tags sizzlit and finished off with some Basic Pearls.  (I'm on my third package of those already!  That's how much I love them.)  The background is the Sanded BG stamp. 
Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station once again.  I hope you have a fun weekend planned.
Blessings,
Julie

Two Challenges in One

Sorry that I've been MIA over the last week.  My new laptop has a hard drive problem.  We had a new one shipped to us and then we found that the Blue-Ray drive was also bad, because it couldn't get the discs for the operating system loaded.  Grrrrr....  Anyhow, I'm on my old one, so this is a bit more time-consuming and cumbersome, so thanks for bearing with me. 
I combined two challenges from SCS last night to make a swap card.  It's so wonderful to have a couple of suggestions to get you started.  I used CAS110 which was called Out of the Box.  Yes, exactly...it means to have your image extend outside of your background piece of cardstock.  In this case, the flowers are popped up and reaching out over the Pear Pizzazz.  The other challenge I used was CC313, a color combination of Concord Crush, Bashful Blue, and Pear Pizzazz.  Since the first challenge was a Clean and Simple challenge, I just have a few layers and not much stamping.  The lattice fills in the open space nicely without having to use a designer paper or stamping the background. 

Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station.

Blessings,
Julie

Teenage Boy Birthday Cards Are Not Easy!

My nephew's 14th birthday was this past week.  And if you know teenage boys, cards for them are not easy to come up with!  But I have a new stamp set in my arsenal ... Bring On The Cake!  It's in the Occasions Mini Catalog.  Both of these images are from that set.  I spritzed the background with my Log Cabin Smooch Spritz (which I like to call Lincoln Log Spritz) and then I was trying to figure out how to dress it up a little when I thought of using the ribbon punch on Not Quite Navy and layering it with the Old Olive.  The other color used is Cajun Craze.  Yes, it's also difficult to come up with a color combo for a teenage boy, but I think I succeeded here.  In fact, I'm thinking that I'll have to use this combo again.  I like the way the Cajun Craze pops the NQN and Olive.

Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station once again.  I'm going to try to post for the next couple of days, but there might be some silence.  The hard drive on my new laptop is dying and HP is sending me a new one to install.  Unfortunately that means having to reload all of my programs.  Grrrr.....  At least it was still under warranty!

Blessings,
Julie

CAS with Baby Blossoms Mini Set

This very simple card was made with the flowers from the Baby Blossoms stamp set, available from the Occasions Mini Catalog.  It's a really, REALLY fun set to play with and is so versatile.  As you can see, a bit of stamping, some bling and a tag, a bit of piercing along the bottom and we have an adorable card.  I think it took me 5 minutes to make this one.  I really love the White and Razzleberry combo...it's so delightful in it's contrast.

Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station once again.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Blessings,
Julie

p.s.  be warned...posts might become more erratic again because my oldest son is on the high school baseball team!  I really LOVE being a baseball mom!

Scrapbook Flip Up Book

 Oh yeah!  It's a Flip Up Scrapbook.  I made this one for a friend as a swap.  I kept the color scheme and decorations simple so that there would be plenty of room for photos, journaling, and embellishments on top of the photos. 

 This Soft Suede Designer Paper is retired, but it is still available in other designs in the Idea Book and Catalog.  HOWEVER, the gorgeous red glitter paper that I used to decorate with?  Well, that's only in the Occasions Mini Catalog. 

 You know what that means, don't you?  You have to grab some in case it's not available in the next mini catalog or in case it doesn't make it into the new Idea Book & Catalog!  (I just bought two more packages of it.....) 

 And don't forget the pretty butterflies from the butterfly embosslit and the flowers...both only available through Stampin' Up!  As you can probably see, the bottoms of these "rooms" fold up...

...and then you can tie it closed to put out on your coffee table or to send as a gift to a proud grandparent or dear friend.  I've ordered a Simply Scrappin' Kit that I think will work quite nicely with this scrapbook.  If it works out as well as I think it will, I'll be offering a class in April or May, so be on the lookout for that announcement.
     I gave one of these to my last hostess.  It was made with pink and purple because she has 3 daughters.  Her comment to me was that she felt spoiled!  Now wouldn't you want someone to feel like you spoiled them too?  So go for it!  Make a special gift for someone instead of buying something and see how their eyes light up and how their heart shines in their eyes.  I dare ya!  :-)

Thanks for stopping by the Stamping Station.

Blessings,
Julie