Artful Avocations

Happy Secretary's Day!

Happy Administrative Assistant's Day!  That's such a mouthful!!  I like Secretary's Day better...much easier to get out.  Anyhow...here is the card I made for our megafabulous school secretary for her day, yesterday.  We know who really runs the school.  *wink wink*

I used all Stampin' Up! products for this card except for the green brad flower button and inside sentiment from Karen Foster.  I started with a card base cut from Certainly Celery CS to make a 5-1/2" square and used a Fiskars embossing template to dry emboss the grid background on the front half of the card.  I thought that looked kinda "office-y."  Then I cut a square from Notations designer paper, making sure to capture the alphabet on the side.  Stamps sets used were Office Accoutrement, So Very, Sweet Shapes, and Warm Words.  I kissed the little dotted background stamp in Sweet Shapes to the inked (in Marigold Morning) large flower from Office Accoutrements, although you can hardly see the dots on the flower in the photo.  The large flower is popped with Dimensionals.  I also stamped one of these flowers in Old Olive and cut off two petals to use as leaves.  The little flowers on the element with the words and parentheses were inked in Old Olive and stamped off once before stamping on the element to give a lighter shade.  I also used Certainly Celery ink to stamp the calendar and the word elements.  To create the "torn-out-of-a-notebook" look, I used the Spiral Punch.  The tab attached to the side is punched from Whisper White CS using the Round Tab Punch and stamped using an Old Olive marker to color just the "Important Message" part of the stamp.  The yellow brads are from the Soft Subtles assortment.  The inside is lined with Whisper White CS and I used Karen Foster snap stamps to create a "Happy Secretary's Day" sentiment.  I made an envelope for the card from regular bond paper.

Thanks to everyone for leaving the nice comments!!!  It inspires me to do more.  *grin*

You Make Me Happy

I needed to have time with my new SU! Double-sided Designer Paper Sampler, so last night (when I heard that little pad of paper calling my name) I ran to my stamp desk and began concocting.  I used one of the So Saffron sheets as a backdrop/pocket for the front of this card and the small flower from the You Make Me Happy set.  Two of the flowers are stamped with So Saffron ink and the one in the back is More Mustard.  The tag is stamped in Old Olive and punched out with the large tag punch.  The stems are from Big Blooms and they're stamped in Old Olive.  The gingham ribbon is from a craft store in SLC, Utah...picked up about 10 yards while there for the 2005 SU! Convention.  The color is a very close match to More Mustard.  I am very tempted to put something in the white space at the top, behind the flowers, but I kind of like that blank clean space.  The front of the card is a pocket, so something could be stuck in the there.  I hear my paper calling me again and I have just enough time to make something before I have to run off again.  Thanks for looking!

Sweet Paper Sampler!!!

Did you get your Stampin' Up! Designer Series Double-Sided paper sampler pad yet?  It's so cool!!  I can't wait until we can start ordering this paper in 12x12.  I received my paper sampler yesterday and just HAD to make something with it.  I used one of the sheets of Certainly Celery (yes, as difficult as it may be, I've decided NOT to hoard this paper) and layered it to a card base of the same color.  I found a flower on my desk (how did that happen?!?) that I stamped and cut out the other night when making the Office Accoutrement birthday card, so I used it along with a flower button brad from Karen Foster that I picked up at my LSS.  The "ribbon" is the backside of this background paper and was part of the scrap leftover from cutting the 6x6 sheet to size for the card front.  I popped the flower with Dimentionals.  "Sweet" is from Sweet Shapes, stamped in Certainly Celery ink on Very Vanilla cs, punched out with 1-1/4" circle punch and mounted on a 1-3/8" circle punched from Certainly Celery cs.  This was a super fast and easy card to make, especially since the flower was already stamped and cut out....I love it when I find things that get lost on my work area!  ; )  Gotta run...the boys aren't home and I have some paper to play with!!  :D

Office Accoutrement Birthday

Our church secretary's birthday was this week, so here's a card big enough for everyone on the faculty and staff to sign to wish her a happy birthday.  Everything is Stampin' Up! except for the ribbon and pearls.  The card base is an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of Very Vanilla cs scored and folded in half.  The background cs is from Simply Scrappin' set Today and Always.  The flowers are stamped in Blush Blossom and Creamy Caramel using the flowers from Office Accoutrement.  Some of the flowers are popped with Dimensionals.  The Happy Birthday is stamped in Creamy Caramel using Happy Everything words.  The tag is pierced to add that extra something that just seemed to be needed.

Big Blossom Card

I almost made a BIG Blossom mistake!  I originally was not going to buy this set, thought I did not need it.  Boy am I glad I snapped out of it!  This is a really fun set!  The card base is from a box of cards I got at Michael's.  It's a muted orange on the outside with a linen texture and it's white on the inside, so perfectly suited for the sanding technique.  I embossed the sides and corners with a Cuttlebug corner embossing folder.  Then,of course, I sanded the embossed area and card edges to pop the design.  I stamped the three BIG blossoms in Really Rust, More Mustard, and Apricot Appeal, cut them out and stacked them with Dimensionals inbetween.  The brown micro dot ribbon is from Offray and I bought that at WalMart.  The pearls are from Joy Crafts and I bought them from  Ellen Hutson's Store.  The happiness stamp is from SU! Warm Words set and is stamped in SU! Chocolate Chip classic ink.  Thanks for looking and God's blessings to all of you!

Another Mini Scrapbook

Well, I got up at 5:30 this morning  all gung-ho to clean up my stamp desk and here's the result!  Yep...the gung-ho part didn't last very long.  As soon as I sat down my mind immediately forgot (how convenient) that I was supposed to be cleaning the desk and somehow automatically (honest - I don't know how it happens) my physical being just started stamping and cutting and sticking and punching and putting something together!  I know I'm not the only one that does this...confirmed by those of you who are chuckling at this and saying to yourself, "Whew!  I'm not the only one!" ; )

I used two chipboard coasters from the Outback Steakhouse for the front and back, covered them with Stampin' Up! Designer Series Notations paper.  I used SU! Accents & Elements to decorate the cover and the tabs.  The tabs were punched with the SU! round tab punch, scored, folded, and adhered to the inside pages.  The twelve inside pages are cut from SU! Whisper White card stock.  I used my Bind-It-All from Eclectic Paperie to punch everything and bind it.  I am really loving that toy!  I hope everyone has a nice weekend.  Thanks for taking a peek at my blog!

Snappy Birthday

Last night I cut out and mounted 12 stamp sets, so tonight I was able to play with one of them.  I need a birthday card tomorrow for my pastor, so here it is.

I used SU! sets Crab & company and Sweet Shapes.  The card stock is Taken With Teal, Cool Caribbean, and Whisper White.  I used the Marvy Mega scalloped square punch, Bold Brights mini brads, Basic Black, Taken With Teal and Cool Caribbean inks.  I used SU! Watercolor Wonder crayons to watercolor the images.

The inside background behind the cutout is stamped randomly with the scallop shell and the starfish in Taken With Teal ink, but they are hard to see in the picture.

Mini Scrapbook for Baby

My very good friends, John and Jennifer, are going to be grandparents next month!  The baby is a boy who will be named Phoenix.  I made this little scrapbook for them as a brag book.  I used all Stampin' Up! products except for the Bind-It-All, chipboard, button, and magnetic closure.  The button is a button brad from Karen Foster, but I took the brad off because it was too thick for this application.  The magnetic closure is from Basic Grey.  I bought the closers and the button brads from my LSS.  Inside the book is just a bunch of blank pages in Barely Banana, Gable Green, and Bashful Blue card stock to fill up with pictures of the little bundle of joy when he arrives.

Doing the Hula at 50

A friend of mine is turning 50 and joining the ranks of us fifty-somethings.  Tonight she had an awesome Luau themed party complete with hula dancers...and she was one of them!  She had a Beatle's tribute band provide music for dancing and entertainment...okay so it's not exactly what comes to mind when you think of luau music...but they were a great band!  Well, I HAD to break out my very well used Do The Hula set and make her a card.  Really, is there a better set to use for this occasion?  I think not!   I used all Stampin' Up! products, except for the burlap paper which I picked up a couple of years ago and the Karen Foster snap stamps to stamp the words.

Prom Time Approaches

Just thought I'd dig up one of my younger son's prom scrapbook pages to get the ball rolling and the ideas flowing for those of you that will be making prom scrapbook pages this year.  Boy, time sure does fly!  I can't believe it's been four years already!  Don't you just love how the girls' dresses just happen to be SU! Brilliant Blue and Green Galore?  It certainly made it easy to decide what colors to use for my page layout.  :D  And Jamie, thanks for picking out a black and white tux and wing tip shoes....really "ties" in great with the black and white gingham ribbon.
I used all Stampin' Up! products to make these pages.  The Tag Alphabet is now retired.  Too bad, it was a lot of fun!