Trains!

My son Braiden who is 3 has always loved trains. Even at the age of destruction (you know the age where you build it and they destroy it) he never took apart a train track. I have built a wooden train track every day for the last two years at least! I love these pictures I took of him at the train tracks and had to scrapbook them when I saw this weeks Mojo Monday! They just worked so well with the outline provided. Of course I used Stampin' Materials, Real Red ribbon, Retired paper (sorry), black and grey cardstock. I love scrapbooking with the 81/2 X 11 paper as the focus seems to be more on the picture this way plus it can be a little faster to put together.
I hope to be posting more, but we have been soooo busy with our house. We are getting into the fun part, floors, paint, kitchens!! yahooooo!

 Sorry I haven't been around for a couple of days. Had to run a bunch of errands for the house and to top it all off got a flat tire with two kids in the car and had to ask my husband for help while he was sheeting the roof! gotta love it :)

One of the benefits of being a Stampin' Up demonstrator is that I get access to a website called Stampin' Connection where demonstrators share ideas. I saw this great idea. It is a gift card holder, now who doesn't like giving and receiving gift cards for Christmas, birthdays etc....?

This is the front of the card. It is actually the top note cut out of paper that had been folded and is glued/taped onto just one sheet of paper decorated with DSP. You take a piece of paper cut to 12X5, crease it, and fold it. The DSP is retired, but I am excited to say that my new Christmas DSP arrived today! wahoooo

On the inside fold you cut out the place for the gift card using your Word Window Punch. I marked with the size with a pen and then punched.

The folded top note stays shut with the Filigree brad which I should of put in the centre to hold it shut better.

You could use ribbon to tie it shut or a jumbo brad as well would look really cute. I am
thinking of doing a class where we make two different gift card holders, one Christmas and one birthday. What do you think?

Scrapbook, Nate 2 months

So tonight I was talking to my friend on the phone and she reminded me that it was Monday, which meant Mojo Monday! I love participating and following these great sketches but really felt I needed to make a scrapbook page. I made a book for my first son, Braiden and completed at least one page per month for the first year. When I had my second son, Nate I promised myself I would do the same. I have to admit I am already 1 month behind! I will catch up. My mom thinks this is funny as I have boys and she keeps telling me that the boys will not care to look at the scrapbook when they are older but hey their wives will enjoy it! Or maybe I could just display them at their weddings :) Wait a minute there are no girls allowed around my precious boys :)
Anyway I thought why don't I use the Mojo Monday sketch to complete a scrapbook page instead of a card and it worked out pretty good. It was also very fun to use a sketch for this as well as cards. For this page I used the Well Work paper, and the retired yet beautiful Botanical Gazette, and the new blue Jean ribbon all from Stampin' Up. Don't you just think that Nate is the cutest baby ever! Of course I do.
Have a good night and I hope I have inspired you to create a great scrapbook page or card!

Rosettes

Believe it or not I made this card this morning! My two lovely little boys had me up at 5:20 AM. Yes that is AM! It feels like late afternoon right now. Oh well on the bright side I got to play and make a card while the littlest one is sleeping.
My friend told me last night about this blog called Mojo Monday where they provide a sketch and you can follow it to make cards. I have always found following sketches difficult, but I needed a new way to create a card so I tried it. Here is the card I came up with. I have seen many cards lately using the rosette so I googled it and followed a video. In the video they use tissue paper, but I used DSP (designer series paper). The paper I used for this card is Timeless Portrait and I used the new Stampin' Up In Colours Pool Party and Island Indigo. I am going to give this card to a special little girl for her birthday tomorrow!
Happy Stamping.

This idea I got from a dear friend Brenda Reed at www.sweetsevenstamps.blogspot.com.  I used the brayer for the background and then embossed the sunflower in white. Love this stamp and I have some fun ideas for a scrapbook page as well.

I used the texturz plate, coloured the stamp with my pens and then stamped the image over the textured paper. The centre of the sunflower was created using the buttons #5 tied with hemp twine. The saying "wish big" is from the Pennant Parade set.
















This was a simple card to make. I coloured the stamp with cajun craze, more mustard, and so safron. I made sure to blend the colours together on the stamp itself. Remember to "huff" on your stamp after colouring to refresh the colour before stamping as it will begin to dry.



I am really enjoying playing with the sunflower and it is turning out to be much more versatile than I originally expected. I have seen so many different things be done with this stamp and I can not wait to explore more!



Have a good evening and I am hoping that my little 3 month old who is nursing right now! :), will go to sleep so that I can go and play some more!

Double Embossing

I just love this technique! You take a bold printed paper, rub the Versamark onto the negative side of the embossing folder (I used the vintage wallpaper). Than you run it through the Big Shot, cover it with embossing powder (here I used black because of the black and white paper), heat with the heat gun and like magic you have a funky bold paper to add to your cards. You can also do it in reverse where you runt he paper through Big Shot with the embossing folder, cover the raised image with the VersaMark and heat emboss. Also a really cool effect!
Hope you all have a great day and I look forward to your comments!

Pennant Parade Fun

I have been having some fun with the Pennant Parade stamp set and the matching punch available in the 2001/2012 catalogue! I am impressed with the multiple uses of this stamp set and can not wait to explore some more. I have some fabulous Christmas card ideas and baby card ideas. I was going to post about these cards last night, but the fatigue of building a house on our own and being a mother of a three year old boy and 3 month old boy caught up to me last night! If you want to order from me you can visit the link to my Stampin'Up website or visit the Stampin'Up site to view the wonderful product. Please note that they are having a Designer Series Paper sale! If you buy three packages of paper you get on package free!
Happy stamping,
Erica