What fun!

The Stepper Box & Gift Bag Class was a lot of fun. Here are four attendees showing off their beautiful work.

Happy Stamping! Mary

Stepper Box & Gift Bag Class

My Stepper Box Class is Friday 5/29/09, yahoo! We'll make this cool stepper box and a matching gift bag. I redid the bag. It now has an embossed image on the front.

Happy Stamping! Mary

Track Coach Thank You Card

I made a bunch of ty's for the primary track coaches to be given at the end of the year picnic this Sun. I made pretty ones for the female coaches, and one of these for the male coach. My son said it should be sort of "trackish". I didn't have any "track" stamps, but this old soccer one works ok. It's not the greatest, but oh well. I have to get to a dentist appointment, so I'm not listing supplies. Happy Stamping! Mary

Decor Elements on Scooter

I put Decor Elements from SU on my electric scooter. Don't you like how I "pimped my ride"? You can even try putting them on cars! I haven't done it, but know some demonstrators who have. Ruth shows a tutorial on how to do it on her blog. She said her husband even washed her car several times and the images are ok. Let me know if you try it and how yours turns out.

Rhett's Birthday card

My nephew turned 13 yrs old last weekend. I dug out this old card that I made at a demonstrator event. I don't remember the name of the set, but it was fun to make. I thought the "attitude" part fit a teenager. My son will turn 13 in Nov. I need some sets for teenage boys. I hope there's some good ones in the new catalog that comes out in July! I hope there's some good fishing sets, too. I have a number of brothers that love to fish.

Happy Stamping! Mary

Ben's Confirmation

Last weekend my nephew got confirmed. My husband and I are the Godparents and I made him this card. It's fairly simple and only took a short time to make it. I think it would have been prettier with shimmery white cs, but it was for a teenage boy and I didn't think he'd appreciate the specialty paper enough to warrant its use! lol

Supplies:
sets- celebrate everything, dove image is from a retired set
cs - whisper white, brushed gold
ink - gold encore pad
accessories - 1 3/4" circle punch, gold ep, narrow white organdy ribbon

Happy Stamping! Mary

Cards for Heros

My friend Lisa has a cool cause on her blog. It's a link to a website of an organization called Cards for Heros. Sat, 5/30, they are having a blog hop all day showing cards people have made for the servicemen and women of our country. So check it out and be patriotic for the weekend! I will be at my son's soccer tournament in Tracy all day, but I hope I can catch some of it in the evening.

Technique Class

I have four cards to share today that we made in yesterday's technique class. These cards were so much fun! I've seen various versions of the face card and have wanted to make my own for a long time. The first card uses the Pick A Petal set in a very unconventional way (to stamp a face). Class attendees had the option to turn it into a b-day card or a get well card. My 10 yr old son didn't understand why it said smile if he wore a frown. I told him that's the irony of the card. The layout came from Ruth Norton. The fudgecicle card (card #2) came from Mary Jones, who comes from Sac to make cards at "shoebox events" I attend for demonstrators. She always has cool stuff to share. Card 3 is a Big Buckle graduation card. The congrats image is embossed with gold, but it's hard to tell in the photo. Finally, the tree card uses a technique called "magic pastels" that I learned from a video I bought at convention last summer. It looks better IRL and I just love the way the colors pop. It truly is magical the way it goes from an ugly pastel blobbed image to something crisp and almost 3D looking.

If you'd like to make these fun cards with a few of your friends at your house or mine, just send an e-mail to me at mtmuhl@pacbell.net and ask to repeat the 5-21-09 technique class.

Supplies:

Card 1:
sets- pick a petal, a beautiful thing, on your birthday or sincere salutations

cs- tangerine tango, pacific point, yoyo yellow, whisper white

ink- pacific point, tangerine tango, yoyo yellow, basic black pads

access- 3" sq env, round tab punch, 1/16" punch, silver brads

Card 2:

sets- on your b-day

cs- close to cocoa, very vanilla

ink- basic brown pad

access- scallop circle & horizontal slot punch, corner rounder, dimensionals, choc gg ribbon

Card 3:

sets- say it with scallops, button bear access (retired, can sub sock monkey access), congrats (retired, can sub great grads)

cs - basic black, whisper white, brushed metallic gold

ink- gold encore, basic black pads
access- corner rounder, word window punch,black & white narrow gg ribbon, gold ep, dimensionals

Card 4:

sets- lovely as a tree, sincere salutations, all year cheer II (retired, can sub All Holidays or thoughts of father)

cs- kiwi kiss, riding hood red, summer sun, chocolate chip, very vanilla

ink- sahara sand, chocolate chip, ridinghood red, kiwi kiss pads

access- ticket corner punch, paper piercer & mat pack, gold brads, cutter kit, pastels, stamp-a-ma-jig (SAMJ)

Check back tomorrow for more stamped cards. Happy Stamping! Mary

Cheryl's Cards

My friend Cheryl came over last week and showed me these great cards she made. The first one uses the Playful Petals set and the Tea Party dsp. Don't they go great together? The last card has a window sheet over the fish and it looks cool in real life. I keep forgetting that I bought some of the new printed window sheets that are in the Occasions mini catalog. Maye I'll play with them tomorrow.

Happy Stamping! Mary

Thoughts & Prayers Card

Here's another version of that fold over layout that's so fun! I just love the Thoughts & Prayers set. It has a number of great sentiments. I made this for a friend who has cancer & liked it so much I made a sample for myself! The sentiment is "Sending thoughts of love and praying for the Lord to sustain you with bright and restful days." The flower on the front is part of the three flower image from Eastern Blooms.

Supplies:

sets - Thoughts & Prayers, Eastern Blooms

cs - pacific point, baja breeze & whisper white, urban garden dsp

ink - pacific point pad, baja breeze pad, regal rose pad and marker, old olive marker

accessories - dimensionals, circle punches

Glad you stopped by! Happy Stamping! Mary

Flight of the Butterfly double opening card, May Club

I just love the way this card opens. The front tucks under a circle punchout that's popped up on a dimensional. Club members had two sentiment choices to make their card either a b-day or ty card. I saw this layout on another demonstrator's blog (Ruth Norton). Here's the link to see her card that inspired me. You might also recognize a couple of her cards that I cased for my SAS class

Happy Stamping! Mary

Under the Stars Matchbox Photo Card, May Club project

Since it's National Scrapbooking month, I thought we should do a card that includes a "scrapbooking" element for our May Club project. I wanted to use some of the In Colors since they are only available until the end of June.A piece of kiwi kiss is punched with the slit punch and then attached to the front portion of the card and acts as a tab to hold the top part down.When you open the pacific point 4-1/4" x 11" card there's a confetti white sheet that is folded in half and attached with a piece of hemp twine. When it's folded it creates 4 "pages" and pieces of Baja Breeze are layered on it. You can add photos to these pieces. I stamped the bear image holding s'mores on kraft cs and added that to the back inside cover because he's just so darn cute! These little photo cards can hold 4 photos from a memorable camping trip and you can keep it in your purse. It will also fit in an envelope to mail to grandma or a friend. You can change the images and colors to incorporate photos from a trip to the beach or a holiday, etc.

Supplies:

sets - under the stars, expressive flexible phrases

cs - pacific point, baja breeze, kiwi kiss, confetti white, kraft
ink - basic black, pacific point, baja breeze, kiwi kiss

access - natural hemp twine, 1/8" handheld punch, slit punch, snail

Happy Stamping! Mary

Stepper Box Class

Gift bag with Notecard and Stepper Box shown above. Open Stepper Box shown below.

Make this beautiful gift bag with note card and this cool matching Stepper Box at my Stepper Box Class, offered on 2 dates. The first date is Fri May 29, 2009. Time: 9 am to 12 pm. It will take you about 3 hours to complete both projects. The class fee is $17. Save $2 if you bring your own snail adhesive. Paper patterns for boxes will vary. Please bring a bone folder if you have one.

I will hold a repeat of this class on Sat May 30, 2009 from 11 am to 2 pm

Hope you can come to one of these creative classes. Please RSVP with the date you'd like to attend to Mary at mtmuhl@pacbell.net

Happy Stamping! Mary

Heidi's Stepper Box

Here's a photo of the Stepper Box my friend Heidi made for me. Sorry I didn't get a chance to post this last week as I said I would. She used the Autumn Vine dsp that was in the mini catalog last quarter and chocolate chip cs for the inside stepped boxes. Remember you can get FREE DSP or Textured Cardstock from SU this month! Check this link for details on this fabulous promotion: http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/marym/promotions.

Here's a closer look at the top. Heidi used a Build-A-Brad, which you can find on p.174 of the SU catalog. Isn't it cool? She used a punch out of the leaves image from the dsp that is on the inside of the box.

Happy Stamping! Mary

Shannon's Stepper Box

My friend Elaina's daughter Shannon celebrated her First Communion last Sat. I made this Stepper Box for Shannon and filled it with little goodies. At first she didn't know how to open it, so I told her just lift off the lid and unroll it. It wasn't really that had to make, but involves a lot of folding and unfolding. My friend Heidi made a gorgeous one for me that I'll post tomorrow.

Made with all SU product: Polka Dot Punches stamp set, Delicate Dots dsp (from SAB), so saffron & lavendar lace cs, full heart punch, 1/8" handheld punch, fire circle rhinestone brads, dimensionals, bone folder, snail, anywhere glue stick

Happy Stamping! Mary

Technique Class 4/24/09 with Rasberry Tart dsp

These are the four cards we made in my technique class on 4/24/09. They all used the Rasberry Tart dsp and two cards also used the Elegant Thank You stamp from p 208 of the SU catalog.

SU currently has a promotion where you get a free packet of designer paper or 12x12 textured cardstock (cs) when you buy three! It's a pretty sweet deal.

The card on the lower right corner (of top photo) uses the emerging colors technique, but on dsp. I think it looks pretty cool. I had never tried the emerging color technique on dsp before. I cased this card from Julie Davisson, another SU demonstrator. It has crimping on the cameo coral layer, which is almost the only change I made to her gorgeous card.

I don't know if there's an official name for it, but I call the layout for the card in the bottom photo, "Crossover DSP." I just love the way it shows off both sides of the gorgeous double sided dsp. I actually took a photo of 3 of the same cards to show how it opens up. We made a card using this layout in my Club last year. I think everyone agreed that it's a very easy layout.

As always, Happy Stamping! Mary

Welcome to My New Blog

Well, I did it. I entered the blogging world. I'm new to this, so bear with me as I try to figure it out. I will post photos of cards from my classes and clubs here and various other cards for creative inspiration. Hope you enjoy my site!