More Notepad Gifts

I had the best time making all these little convention gifts!

PLEASE check the last couple of days postings for links to the directions and sources for these projects before e-mailing me.

Play Date DSP and Riding Hood Red cardstock. This one has the lid off the paint can so you can see the flower on top.

Marina Mist cardstock and Elegant Soiree DSP.
Play Date DSP and Pear Pizzazz cardstock.

Love Letter DSP and Riding Hood Red cardstock.

BFF Gifts

The last time I posted about BFF, I had three e-mails asking what is BFF? Well...best friends forever, of course and my BFF's name is Kim, you know her! She is the Queen of black and white, or in this case, black and cream. I love to make her cute things, but always have to think in black and white. This year Stampin' Up! created Love Letter DSP just to help me. Wasn't that nice of them?? tee-hee! I had to add a few zebra things too. Ü

I made her a note pad and a tiny paint can that is only 2" tall and 2" wide and is to-die-for DARLING!!! I got the paint cans HERE. They literally hold 4-5 Hershey kisses, so tiny.

The notebook is a take on this one I posted HERE, only I adapted it to fit the notepads I purchased from Andrea Walford at Christmas time. I have no idea if she still carries them, you will have to contact her.

Inside of notebook. The pencils are white golf size pencils. I bought them online at a wedding or baby shower site over a year ago and have no idea where it was, sorry.

Purse card is made from the Oval Scallop Frame die-cut. I made some of these for Leadership and still love making them!

So, do you think she will like these gifts?? I bet she does!

You're One Of The Good Ones!

I love that saying! In fact, I love the whole Smarty Pants stamp set...especially the one that says, "If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything." How many times have you thought that to yourself? Love it!!

I made about 20 of these for general swapping.

Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Early Espresso, Play Date DSP (Designer Series paper)

Accessories: Large Scallop Punch, 1-3/4" Circle Punch, Corner Rounder, Early Espresso Grosgrain Ribbon, branch from the Bird Punch

Greenhouse Gala Gift

This handbag is for Lisa Pope at the home office.

I decorated up a few peppermint candies. They look cute if you just look down on them and never, ever view them from the side! I need to find some white ones or else save these for Christmas colors only. :) Oh well, they look cute when you open the purse.

See that black smudge on the tag? I guess I slid it though my black stamp pad and didn't notice it until I posted this picture. Arrrgh! That mad me so mad, I had to redo it...and I already had it packed!!!!
This photo was sent to me by Tiearra Burbee of Tiearra's Stampin' Corner. She made this bag to look like the turquoise bags that Stampin' Up! demonstrators received on the Hawai Incentive Trip. Pretty darn cute!! Thank you Tiearra !

Matchbook 3x3 Card Holder Tutorial

As promised, here is a quick tutorial on how I made the Matchbook 3x3 card holder I posted last week.

Cut cardstock to 3-1/2" x 8-1/4". Score the length at 3-1/4", 3-1/2" and 7-1/4".

Use the Scallop Edge Punch along the end that is to be folded up. Staple that in the center after you scallop the edge. Staple towards the bottom so you don't interfere with the placement of the cards. You'll cover up the staple with ribbon.

Get all the accessory pieces cut and ready for assembling. I used the Scallop Circle #2 die-cut and Circle #2 die-cut. Stamp is from All Holidays. I used the paper piercing tool to poke holes in the scallops.

The 3x3 cards are the same as I posted last week. Remember I said I have hundreds of owls? More owl projects to come this week. Ü

Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Early Espresso smooth and textured, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive

Accessories: Boho Blossoms Punch, little flower punch from that trio set (highly technical explanation, I know), Old Olive brads Early Espresso 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon, Play Date DSP

Welcome Paper Crafts Readers!

If you are visiting for the first time from the Paper Crafts newsletter, hello and welcome! I hope you spend a few minutes looking around! Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions, yasou@cableone.net.

Here's another version of the Tres Chic Handbags. I've got lots of little gifts made for friends at the Stampin' Up! convention so you'll see a few of these over the next week. Ü

Both of these are made of Basic Black cardstock and the new Love Letter Designer Series Paper. These papers are just beautiful!!

Tune in every day this week so see all the things I made for convention.

If you are placing tutorial orders, no worries, my husband will be sending out orders...and I will be monitoring his every move via BlackBerry. :)

Owl Punch Post-It Notes

I'm still working on little convention gifts. I have a dozen of these little Post It note key chains to share. Don't get sick of the owl punch yet...when you have 2 punches and 2 kids and you tell them to get punching, you have a LOT of owls...so I have several more projects to share with you.

I took each pad of Post It notes (1-1/2" x 2" size) and divided them into 3. Three projects from one pad of Post It notes is a good deal! I made a cover for them, decorated the cover and added the owl. Then I used my Crop-a-dile to punch a hole through the whole thing and inserted a binder ring. (I used 3/4" binder rings from Office Depot online a couple years ago).

They're so quick and such a fun gift to receive.
I keep a few in my purse all the time with my contact information on the back of them and hand them out to potential customers!

Two Million Hits! Thank you!

In the middle of the night while I was sound asleep, my blog hit two million hits!! That's incredible...I would have never guessed that would EVER happen to little old me! By the time I woke up I had already passed it by 535!

Thank you a million, no...two million to every single person that ever stopped by for a visit!

I started my blog three years ago just to keep in touch with my California customers during our move and transition to Idaho. I didn't have much faith in the fact that I would keep it up for long since I didn't know a thing about doing it myself. My son uploaded everything and helped a lot. I was scared to death!

Now look at me go! I do it all by myself!!

I made this a while ago with intentions of making several for convention gifts. I have since scrapped the idea, I didn't really like it that much. I bought the little notepads from Andrea Walford at Christmas time and hand drew the pattern for the purse to fit around them. The pencil kept falling out so I built a little box. It was just too much work for this late in the date and I have a waaay better idea for the notepads that I will share later. I wish SU! still had the Colluzle. I like that so much better than that stupid Circle Scissor!

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Lookie at this! ManLe sent me a picture of the class she taught with the Tres Chic Handbag tutorial. Aren't they cute? You can check out her blog HERE.

Owl Punch Matchbook

I love this owl punch! He is so easy to punch and easy to assemble. My first project with him is a matchbook that holds 3x3 cards. I haven't decided if this is one of the things I may use for convention, so I'm not giving out any measurements just yet.

Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Early Espresso, Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise, Play Date DSP

Accessories: Owl Punch, 1-3/8" Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch, Tiny Tag Punch, 1/8" Early Espresso Ribbon

Aviary Love Notes

I broke out the new things this weekend...oh what fun!!! This Aviary set is so darling!

The love notes fit right inside the handbag!

Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Chocolate Chip, Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive
Stamp Set: Aviary
Accessories: Tres Chic Handbag tutorial, Big Shot (you seriously need one of these!!), Vintage Wallpaper Embossing folder, 1/8" Early Espresso Ribbon

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Stampin' Up! is giving you a chance to do it again!

Stampin' Up! has a great deal for former demonstrators to return to the Mothership! For just $35 you can rejoin Stampin' Up!. The kit does not include any stampin' stuff since you probably have all that, just the catalogs and paperwork you need to get started again:
2010-2011 Idea Book & Catalog (8)
2010 Summer Mini Catalog (8)
Guest invitation postcards (100)
Customer order forms (50)
2010-2011 Definitely Decorative catalog (1)
Celebrando Creatividad (1)
Two months free Demonstrator Business Web Services (DBWS) subscription
For just $35, wouldn't you love to give it another try? Come on, join my team, we will do it together!
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E-mail me if you have any questions, yasou@cableone.net.With a brand new catalog to share with your friends and family, this is the perfect time to re-sign up with Stampin' Up!

July Stamp Clubs Purse-onally Purse

This month for stamp clubs we made the Purse-onally Perfect Purse. I've had so many demonstrators write to ask me how long does it take to teach this as a class, how do you set it up, how many people can you teach at a time, etc. that I decided to take some pictures of how I do it.

Thursday night I took pictures of the finished projects to show you a few. For the two clubs I cut 20 purses and 20 sets of 4 note cards. It took us about 2 hours to complete at each class with plenty of visiting in between. This class was all designed around the Greenhouse Gala Designer Series Paper.

Didn't they turn out great??!!

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Friday night club was at my house. Not all the supplies fit on the tables, so to give them more room to assemble their projects, I set up stations.

I set up a central stamping station for the note cards in the kitchen. When I have several steps to a project, I always try to set up some instructions for them to follow.

Sunglasses Station where they cut out their pattern and traced it onto cardstock to complete their sunglasses.

Flower station is where they punched out the flowers for the pocket on the front of the purse.

Buckle station is where they punched for the buckles and picked up the brads for their purse straps.

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Both evenings went very smoothly with having stations and directions to follow as they work independently. We completed 20 gorgeous purses over the two evenings! So much fun!!