More is More

Oh my heavens!  I had so much FUN on my trip to Iowa!  Unfortunately I was having so much fun just living in the moment that I hardly took any photos!  Here we are in the entry to the Taylored Expressions Store.  Isn’t that mural so cool?  I’m with Sankari, Sharon, Taylor and Lori.  Talk about kids in a candy store – wow!  I got to stay with Taylor and Jon and they were such wonderful hosts – I felt truly spoiled.

And guess what people???  I am FINALLY Copic Certified!!  See the litte badge in my sidebar?  I have proof!  LOL!  Lori and Sharon team taught the class and it was great!  I’m looking forward to teaching more classes involving coloring with Copic markers.

On Friday afternoon, before Sankari or Sharon arrived, Lori and Taylor and I had a couple of hours to just hang out in Taylor’s stamp room.  We ended up all using the same paper line for our cards – Basic Grey Green at Heart – with three very different stamp sets.  I thought the results were so fun that I wanted for us to all post our creations today – a little Triple Take – so you can see how you can go in such different directions with one 6×6 pad of paper.  Green at Heart was my CHA favorite and I was so excited when I saw that Taylor had received it and had it available in the store along with some of the coordinating embellishments!

I made my card with the new set Favorite Peeps.  This is my very favorite image from the new release and I couldn’t wait to ink it up!  The image was cut and framed with Nesties Labels 11.  I used a Martha Steward fence border punch, some Tiny Twinkles and KaiserCraft pearls and check out that Basic Grey Bloomer that coordinates with the Green at Heart paper!  It is layered felt and a button and it’s self-adhesive!!

Here are all three cards:

Taylor used the bunny from Sweet Spring and Lori used the new Easter Blessings.  I apologize that the photo is not the best.  Taylor takes such amazing photos in her set up, but her camera battery was dead and we wanted this photo at the last minute so I used my camera and I obviously had no idea how to use her light box set up.  Be sure to hop over their blogs to see their individual photos.

Taylor at Taylored Expressions and Lori at Make a Difference.

Can you believe that I forgot to take any pictures of the snow?  D’oh!!!!  It was the first time I had ever seen in person lawns covered in snow.   i was just so happy to be with these sweet friends!  There’s nothing like *chick time*, kwim?  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to get back to more regular creating and blogging soon.  I have a stamp class at my house this Friday evening and I currently have one spot open…wanna come?

 When the Stampin’ Up! retirement list was released there were a few sets on the list that really made me sad.  Don’t get me wrong – for the most part I’m just excited for new rubber and am ready to let a lot of the sets go – but Roses in Winter?  That’s a tough one and one I will certainly be keeping!  But the set I felt the most sad for was Stampin’ Fun For Everyone.  It was brand new last year and I wanted it from the moment I saw it, however it didn’t make it’s way to my house until January.  I just love the retro feel of it and the tongue in cheek aspect of the sentiments as well as her white gloves. *chuckle*  Now I realized that not a lot of people were *feeling the love* for the June Cleaver Demo when I looked at her gallery on SCS and saw just how small it was.

It was then I decided that she needed to go out with a bang!  Hmmmm….how to populate her gallery with fantastic cards and projects when hardly anyone I know has the set?  My wheels were turning.  Just about everyone loves a little friendly challenge now and then, right?   Well I know that my fellow Dirty Dozen Alumni do, so here’s the plan I cooked up.  I stamped up a bunch of images from SFFE and popped them in the mail to 11 Dirty Girls (and I would make the even dozen *wink*) along with a note explaining my challenge to make a project with some of the images and upload them by May 30th to the SCS galleries and personal blogs.  It’s a Cyber Retirement Party!

I shared my first sample in yesterday’s post and here’s my second

This card measures 3 7/8″ x 91/4″ to fit into a standard business sized envelope – a tall card.  The cute little purse template was cut out of SU Loves Me paper (from the Winter Mini) when I was playing with Joy’s Cricut and was the inspiration for this card.  I stamped June on confetti white cardstock and paper pieced her dress – with a different paper for the pocket.  I just love the look of paper piecing!  The remainder of the image was watercolored.  This card is *almost* SUO (Stampin’ Up! Only)…except for the ric rac, the K&Co teal rhinestones and the teeny tiny Queen & Co. Brads.

You can view (and comment on please 🙂 ) all the projects made for my challenge by clicking here or by going to the SCS gallery and typing in the keyword JCMAY07.  Or you can go to individual blogs as listed below.

I just had to do one more card for this challenge and it is based on this week’s SCS Sketch Challenge which comes from a card by my friend StamperSharon.  This card is a classic example of my More is More philosophy.

I still had this Crate Paper (Birdie Collection) out from making Joy’s box last weekend and I thought it would be perfect for this layout…and of course the whole color scheme then came from the paper.  I decided to pull out my huge package of Prismatics cardstock and was thrilled to find matches to the Crate with Desert Coral Light, Frosted Kiwi (similar to Gable Green – maybe a little brighter) and Frosted Teal (very similar to Cool Caribbean).  The Prismatics cardstock is lighter weight than SU and it is smooth on one side and textured on the other and obviously comes in some very yummy colors.  Although I am really a die-hard SU cardstock devotee, the weight and texture of the Prismatics seemed a perfect companion to the textured Crate.

So I started out by just cutting the pieces for the basic layout according to the sketch.  This time June was stamped on Shimmer White cardstock, watercolored and punched with my Marvy Mega Scallop Circle punch.  That was layered on the Kiwi Giga Scallop Circle.  Coordinating Daisy Crazy Primas were chosen and then the fussing began.  LOL!  It was one of those *just one more thing* sessions….flowers from Mixed Bouquet stamped in white for the background…sponging white edging around the teal square and cocoa edging on the circles…a little doodling…the ticket corner punch and some kiwi rhinestones…some paper piercing in those corners and on the scallops…hmmmm….some dots from Itty Bitty Backgrounds in cocoa over the white flowers…some cocoa edging on the card base….still needs just a little something else…ahhh….a tiny solid matting behind each of the patterned paper pieces….done?  *phew* DONE!  And I have to say I’m quite happy!  🙂

Please visit the blogs of my players by clicking on their names below:

Anna Wight – Anna’s card has a mod feel to it, I think, with that FUN big flower background!  And boy oh boy was I doing the happy dance when I found it in my mailbox!!!

Cambria Turnbow  Cami Baby gets the award for using ALL the pieces I sent.  I had to copy you and use those same adorable tiny brads!

Jen del Muro  Genie-Jen made wall art that made me slap my forehead and say “why didn’t I think of that?”  GJ – I’m puting in my order for a pink and yellow one of those for my stamp room!

Jenn Balcer  It’s the perfect gift bag for any stamper!  Martha would be proud Jenn!

Leslie Miller  Leslie pulls June out of the 50’s and into a fresh and funky artist’s studio – at least that’s what her card makes me think of.

Linda Bullard (no blog – but here’s her awesome gallery)  You’ll have to see Linda’s clever bookmark card design to believe it.  She may come in at the last minute, but I knew it would be worth waiting for!

Lindsey Botkin  Linds did her tall card first, but I swear I was already thinking about making one!  Red and yellow is one of my favorite combos, but I managed not to copy that part!  LOL.

Sharon Harnist  Sharon shares a little secret about using ribbon to hide a seam on her beautiful rich looking creation.  “Share your secrets over stamping.”

Taylor Van Bruggen  you’ll have to scroll down about a dozen posts or so on her blog – for some reason I can’t get a direct link to the post.  Taylor is the only Current Dirty Girl I asked (’cause we hang out) and I know it was extra hard for her to find time – but I happen to know she’s an incredibly fast stamper which just makes me crazy! – Oh and I stole the glowing catty idea from her.

Valerie Stangle  Val was so excited she couldn’t wait and posted her card first!  I knew this would be a little out of her *comfort zone* but am so glad she’s such a good sport and played anyway – you could never tell by her adorable card that this set isn’t her cuppa!

 And my 11th player had to pass because she lost the images!  LOL!!!

And now that you’ve seen them all – how many June’s were blond and how many brunette???  Thanks so much for playing ladies!  This has been blast!

For any of my readers – you can now play too – just upload a card or project using Stamping Fun for Everyone to the gallery at SCS using the keyword JCMAY07 and come back to this post and leave me a comment with a link to your card.

My challenge to everyone is to pick a favorite retiring Stampin’ Up set and issue a challenge to 5-10 friends during June.  If you do that please leave me a comment with your SCS Keyword so I can check it out.

I’m teaching my monthly Stampin’ Techniques Class tomorrow night and still have lots of prep work left to do and this blog post took me forever!!!   Thanks for stopping by!