Birthday Gifts Galore

Remember I got myself roped into doing Teacher Appreciation? You're going to be seeing a lot of those projects during this school year. Today I am showing all the teachers birthday gifts. They are all the same, just different colors so here are a few.

These are the Cupcake Takealong projects from Nichole Heady's blog. You can see all the details in this posting here from the last time I made them.
Cake mix, frosting and an apron card in Razzleberry Lemonade DSP and Rich Razzleberry, Crushed Curry and Melon Mambo In Colors.

Frosting lids stamped with the adorable Birthday Bliss stamp set.

Open House Favors

If you have been thinking about Joining the Stampin' Up! family as a demonstrator and becoming part of my Inking Everything Team, this is a perfect time to sign up!
Right now you can buy an exclusive Starter Kit that contains the NEW In Colors and an awesome stamp set and all the business supplies you'll need to get started, for ONLY $85 !!
This special ends Monday, August 31 !! Don't delay!

CLICK HERE for more info from Stampin' Up! on the $85 kit or the standard $199 kit which comes with 6 FREE In Color Stamp pads and a FREE pack of In Color assorted cardstock!

Please e-mail me if you have any questions; I would {♥} to have you join our group!

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BFF is having an Open House in Billings MT, for those of you in the area...give her a call!

I was helping her with the invitation and I told her to add, 'bring a friend - receive a special gift'. A conversation ensued that went something like this...'Becky, if you are going to offer a special gift, then I think you should make the special gift!!'

So this is what she should have received yesterday in the mail! I made a bunch of In Color/Incentive Stamp Key Chains for her!
Super easy to make if you have a drill.

Drill a diagonal hole through the wood of the incentive stamp, add key chain.

Punch In Colors with punch shape of your choice.

Cut In Color ribbons 2-1/2" long. Fold in half.

Punch a hole through all the pieces with your Crop-a-Dile.

Add to key chain.

Don't forget to include your contact information!

I've made 100's of these for Catalog Kick-Off's and Open Houses of my own and my customers love them! Good luck Kim and I hope your customers bring lots of guests to your Open House!

Sweet Centers Card

Yesterday while playing with the treat cups, I messed up on one of the embossing pieces I was using for the lollipop. Instead of throwing it all away, I cut out the little Halloween characters in the piece and made them into a card. Kind of weird for a Halloween card, I know but none the less it is another card finished!!!!

Cardstock: Perfect Plum, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Basic Black

Stamp Set: Sweet Centers, Teeny Tiny Wishes, Itty Bitty Backgrounds

Accessories: Versamark, Black Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, White Craft Pad for the words, Watercolor Crayons and Blender Pens, 1", 1-1/4", 1-3.8" Circle Punches, Scalloped Circle Punch, Paper Piercing Tool, Pumpkin Pie Grosgrain Ribbon and Cast A Spell DSP

More Treat Cups

Still playing with the new treat cups!

I used the Texture Plates and the Big Shot to get the polka dot embossing on the bottom of this card. We learned at convention that if you lightly mist your cardstock with water before running it through the embossing templates you get a crisper, deeper definition of embossing. It works like magic!

Cardstock: Basic Black, Perfect Plum, Old Olive, Whisper White
Stamp Set: Sweet Centers
Accessories: Big Shot, Texture Plates, 1-3/4" Circle Punch, Treat Cups, Perfect Plum Craft Pad, Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, eyelet Border Punch, Black Grosgrain Ribbon, Jelly Belly Candy

This one is mounted on a stick with Scotch Tape...hey it's better than the duct tape which they use to hold cars together here in Idaho! Just kidding, sort of...don't send me e-mail!

Cardstock: Whisper White, Old Olive
Stamp Set: Sweet Centers
Accessories: Versamark Pad, Black Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Stampin' Write Markers for coloring in, Treat Cup, M&M's Pumpkin Pie Striped Grosgrain Ribbon

My First Treat Cup Card and a Winner!

Congratulations to Valerie Durham!!!

Valerie is the winner of a FREE UStamp pass!

Valerie Durham said...
Well, congratulations on being selected as a designer (although, I must say I am not at all surprised with all of your talent!)I know you don't know me, but I check your blog every single day! I just love your ideas!1. Mini Starter - $852. Founders - Dawn Rapsas and Heather Summers3. Mr. Eric was in your magnificent Purse-onally Purrfect (I mean Perfect!) tutorial

There were a lot of right answers but Valerie was the lucky drawing winner! Enjoy your month with UStamp Valerie!

I finally cracked open the box of Sweet Treat Cups and made something! When I get new things, I have to think about them a long time before I get started...another strange fact about me... new things makes me nervous! :)

They are so easy to use. Just poke a hole with the 1-3/4" Circle Punch and pop them right in. You could use these on about anything you can get a hole in. The Sweet Treat Cups are $2.95 for 12 of them (that 's 24 cents each) and will be available in the Holiday Mini Catalog on September 1st.

One of the things I really like about this years Halloween DSP, Cast A Spell, is that Stampin' Up! is using Perfect Plum. They were trendy before they knew it! I see this color popping up everywhere now and I'm so glad to get back to the core colors.

Cardstock: Old Olive, Perfect Plum, Whisper White

Stamp Set: Sweet Centers

Accessories: Big Shot, Textures Plates (Backgrounds1), Pumpkin Pie Striped Grosgrain folded in half, Sweet Treats Cups, 1-3/4" Circle Punch, Cast A Spell DSP

A Massive Sea of Backpacks!

I somehow got myself assigned to Teacher Appreciation for Nicholas' school this year! I knew all summer I was going to make backpacks of chocolates for the teachers on their first day back to school, but as usual put it off and ended up making them all this weekend...and, 40 of them in one day is a lot in case you were interested!!! Why do I do this to myself??

I hope this makes their first Monday back to school a little brighter!

I was so happy to use up some of the In Color papers I still had from last year.

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Friday, my sisters and I decided to travel over and visit our little Grandma who is 93 one last time before school starts. Here she is with all her great-grandchildren. Yep, we are a pretty small family!

Top- my sister Cindy's kids, Matthew, (grandma) and Emily. My sister Kerry's son, Cody

Bottom- my boys, Benjamin and Nicholas

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These three beautiful Milk Carton Containers were made by Cheryl Wilcox. You can see more details on her blog here. I {♥} the Halloween one, Cheryl!!

Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper

Cast A Spell Designer Series Paper

Bella Bleu Designer Series Paper

Tiny Composition Notebook Tutorial

I LOVE school supplies! Weird, I know...but I could stand in those aisles for hours and look at all that stuff. This year I found a couple of little composition notebooks to make purses out of. I've done this before with the large ones but I knew these little ones would be cute!

While at convention I posted this photo and have received a LOT of e-mail on it, so I decided to make a little tutorial for you all to make your own!
Here we go...

The little composition notebooks are 2/$1.00 and are about 4-1/2" x 3-1/4".

Measure the top and sides at 1" from the corner and draw a diagonal line on the cover only. The corners are rounded so just get a close measurement, it won't be exactly perfect. With a pair of scissors, start cutting pages, 5-6 at a time using your cover as a pattern.

This goes very quickly, you literally have this part done in under a minute! It takes longer to clean up the clippings!

All done!

Cut 2 pieces of DSP to 4-1/2" x 3" .

I used Night & Day Specialty DSP to make a Herringbone purse.

Cut 2 pieces of Black Grosgrain Ribbon at 6-1/2" . Attach to the inside of the front and back covers with Mini Glue Dots.

Glue the DSP to the front and back covers. I used Tombow Multi Purpose Adhesive. Trim the edges.

For the closure on the purse, I punched 2 Basic Black Designer Label punches and glued them together with Sticky Strip. Attach to the back of the purse with Mini Glue Dots and secure the front with half of a self-adhesive Velcro circle.

For the embellishment on the closure, I put a rhinestone brad through one of the new Real Red buttons in the Playground Button Assortment. Attach the button to the closure with Mini Glue Dots.

The pocket is not hard, just tiny and hard to hold on to while folding. :)

Cut cardstock to 1-7/8" x 4-1/8"

Score at 1/4", 3/8", 1-7/8", 2", 2-1/8", 2-1/4", 3-3/4" and 3-7/8".

Score along the bottom of the pocket at 1/4" and 3/8".

This will give you a series of 1/8" and 1/4" score lines to fold forwards and backwards to form two pockets out of one piece of cardstock. Just work with it and use the photo above for direction, it's not hard to figure out once it's scored. Cut out the areas shown above to make folding into a pocket shape easier.

Cut 2 pieces of DSP 1-3/8" x 1-3/8" to put on the pockets and a trim of scalloped edge punch in Basic Black.

Back view of the pocket.

Finished project. Pretty cute and easy, huh??

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Nancy Horn, my fellow Idaho demonstrator friend sent pictures of her suitcase made with the Traveling Trio tutorial. You can see more photos on her blog here.

Thanks A Latte

I love the new black and white DSP in the Holiday Mini Catalog called Night & Day Specialty. The elegant, symmetrical designs of this paper compliment any project. The packet also contains 2 printed window sheets of tiny black polka dots. So cute!

I paper pieced his pants and jacket with the Designer Series Papers

Cardstock: Old Olive, Whisper White, Basic Black, Night & Day Specialty DSP
Stamp Set: Viola and Sip by Sip
Accessories: Small and Large Oval Punches, Scalloped Oval Punch, Non SU! black rhinestone stickers, Old Olive & Basic Black Stampin' Write Markers

Another beautiful project sent in by Heather Heroldt. She used the Purse-onally Purse tutorial.

Isn't this Traveling Trio darling?? It was done by Sherri at Roses In My Heart. Love these papers!

More Cool Sharing!

A couple more swaps to share with you.

I loved the colors of the leaves in this card and the darling use of the Build-a-Brad with the squirrels. This card is from Denise Jorgensen. It was nice to meet and visit with you Denise!

I love cards that have moving parts and although you can't see it in this photo, the acorn inside the Build-a-Brad swings. It looks like it is suspended on dental or embroidery floss. Super cute card by Beth Daniels.
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Natasha Zandberger of Canada sent me photos of this AMAZING Christmas suitcase she made with the new Traveling Trio tutorial. I love this one more than the one I made and you can bet I will be CASEing this... in the nicest way :) Please click on her name to visit her blog and the other photos she has of this project. It is DARLING!!!

Convention Sharing and A Traveling Trio

Oh what a week! I'm still processing all the wonderful things from convention... I held this months stamp club last night, have almost all the back to school shopping done and guess what????... I was asked to be a guest designer for UStamp! I am so excited.

I am so excited to tell you that Dawn asked me to be part of UStamp with Dawn & Friends for the fall session! I get to be a guest designer! WOWIE-WOW-WOW!! The Fall UStamp will start September 4th and end October 1st.

How would YOU like to win a FREE PASS??? Yep, Dawn gave me a free pass to give away! All you have to do is leave me a comment below answering these 3 questions and I will draw a winner on Tuesday August 18th at 7 pm MST.

What is the price of the current Mini Starter Kit?

In which of my tutorials does my cat Eric make an appearence?

Who are the two demonstrators that founded UStamp?

____Drawing is now closed _____

Today I want to share with you a few of the fantastic swaps I received at convention. Trading cards with other demonstrators, called swapping, is one of THE most fun parts of convention. You never know what you get and sometimes they are little gems like these! Remember there are just a few weeks left take the plunge and join me next year at convention as a DEMONSTRATOR with the current Stampin' Up! promotion! Check out this posting for all the details.

Photography does not do this card justice! It's beautifully designed and created by Stephanie Ferrera. I'm not sure if you can see it but the half circle has transparency paper behind it.

Again, the one looses something in the photography also, but the trees are embossed and the sponging is smooth as satin. Great card by Michelle Vernaus!


This is a really cool side step card by Emily Turner using the Autumn Leaves DSP.Then there was BFF...every morning when I got out of the shower she had a little surprise waiting on my bed! God love that girl, she is so creative!

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I've been receiving some pretty cool pictures of creations made with my latest tutorial, Traveling Trio!



This one is beautifully done by Heather Heroldt. She did an awesome job using the Winter Post stamp set. She also sent me photos of her Purse-onally Perfect Purse that is equally awesome but I'll show you that another time. Excellent work Heather!