Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

This is the second card that the 4th graders will be making with their senior buddies at the Jewish Home for the Aging. It is simple to make, yet elegant, with a choice of sayings so they can personalize it. The three sayings included in the set are “Birthday Celebrations,” “You’re on my Mind,” and “Thank you for your friendship.”

Stamps: Upsy Daisy
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Tea Party Designer Series Paper

I am excited to be accompanying the 4th graders once again this year on their service learning trip to visit Senior Citizens at the Jewish Home for the Aging.  For their first trip, the fourth graders will be making cards with their senior buddies. This gives them a nice project to do together, and leaves the seniors with cards that they can send. Below is the first card they will be making. Each person will be able to use their choice of sayings from the Sincere Salutations set, to make the card one they can use.

Stamps: Flower Fancy, Sincere Salutations
Ink: Regal Rose, So Saffron, Old Olive, Basic Black
Paper: Regal Rose, Old Olive, Whisper White

This is an easy two-step stamp set, because the outlines do not need to be exact to look great. I recommend stamping the insides first.

Sincere Salutations $23.95 ©Stampin Up

The Pals Paper Arts challenge this week is a sketch challenge. I gave it try yesterday, while making my husband Steve his birthday card. (I figured I better take advantage of his going fishing for the day and get his birthday card done!)

As I tried to figure out what to put in the three circles, my mind kept on drifting back to the Beer mug in Cheers to you. It was a touch big, but ended up working perfectly. I popped them up on Dimensionals. I also embossed the chocolate chip cardstock with the Perfect Details Texturz plate. One of the tips for getting a deeper impression with the Texturz plate is to spritz your card stock with water first, before running it through the Big Shot. I gave this piece a few good spritzes, and it worked great!

Stamps: Cheers to You, Heard from the Heart
Ink: Chocolate Chip, More Mustard
Paper: Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Whisper White
Accessories: 1 3/4″ Circle Punch, Earth Elements Brads (More Mustard)

I spent most of today working on designs of cards to do when the Fourth Graders go to visit the Jewish Home for the Aging in October. ( You’ll be seeing those cards, as well as hearing more about that Community Service field trip, within the next week or so.) One of the sets I was using was the beautiful Harvest Home. As I finished up the card for the field trip, I realized that set would make a great choice for today’s Stamping 411 Saturday Sketch Challenge. Here’s this week’s sketch:

My focal image was wider than it was tall, so I tweaked the sketch a little. Overall I’m pleased with how it came out.I really like Soft Suede as a fall color.

Stamps: Harvest Home
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Stampin’ Write Markers (Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, Ruby Red, Really Rust, More Mustard)
Paper: Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla, Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper
Accessories: Soft Suede Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon

I heard the leaves are already starting to turn colors back in Massachusetts. Sure wish we could get some fall like weather down here in Los Angeles!

One of the women at work was looking through my box of cards for sale the other day and wondered if I could make a Happy Birthday card in Spanish. Of course, I exclaimed! Stampin’ Up has a fabulous line of Spanish language stamps! Her mom’s name is Rosa, so she wanted something with roses and also somewhat of a  shabby chic look to it. She also asked for a little bit bigger card then I normally make. So I grabbed my Rose is a Rose stamp set, and put together a 5 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ square card.

Stamps: A Rose is a Rose, Flores Llamatives
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip
Paper: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Accessories: Regal Rose 5/8″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Chocolate Chip 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Clear Rhinestone Brad, 1″ Circle Punch, 1 1/4″ Circle Punch, 1 3/8″ Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch, Crop-a-Dile, Stamp-a-Ma-Jig

My friend was so pleased with the way that it came out, she even bought her mother flowers to match! She sent me a picture of the card and flowers! I’m so happy that she liked the card so much.

Eve loves the these new Build-a-Bear Stampin’ items, and has been wanting to stamp with them for a while now. We had some stamping time this weekend, and this was the first set she reached for. She wanted to have plenty of space for her masterpiece, so she chose just to use a white card base without any matts. We did end up matting the “Happy Bearthday” because she stamped it upside down the first time. Two lessons learned from that — One, always check which way the letters are facing and Two, there are very few things in card-making that can’t be fixed with a little embellishing! Crisis averted, phew!

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: StazOn Black
Paper: Whisper White, Pink Passion
Other: Watercolor Pencils

Stamping — it’s fun for the whole family!

The Stamping 411 Sketch Challenge this week just calls out to have a Stampin’ Around wheel used as the main image. That is a really neat change for me. Usually I use wheels as an accent or a background. Take a look at the sketch, and you’ll see what I mean.

It was tough decision for me whether to use the Cheers Wheel or the Cupcakes Wheel. I decided to go with cupcakes, figuring it could be used for a kid’s birthday in addition to an adults. If I have time, I may have to try another one with the Cheers wheel. It is a fairly simple sketch, but looks fabulous! (Just what I love!)

Stamps: Heard from the Heart, Cupcakes Wheel
Ink: Basic Black, Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, (with a little bit of Crushed Curry, Real Red, and Green Galore)
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, Whisper White, Tea Party Designer Series Paper
Accessories: Melon Mambo Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon

Great Danes? What do Great Danes have to do with rubber stamping? Well, when you are going over to meet another scrapbooker’s Great Danes, they have everything to do with rubber stamping! My husband Steve has been thinking about Great Danes a lot lately, and is exploring the idea of getting one. Norri, a fabulous scrapbooking friend of mine, invited us over to meet her Great Dane Stanley and his sister Annie. Wow! They are beautiful dogs! I didn’t want to go over there empty handed, so I made her a clear envelope brag book for pictures of the gorgeous Stanley. He is a fawn colored Great Dane, so I chose colors to match. Neither of the dog stamp sets show a Great Dane, so I chose to use paws and a quote instead.

Stamps: D is for Dog, P is for Paw wheel
Ink: Creamy Caramel
Paper: Creamy Caramel, Basic Black, Whisper White
Accessories: Jumbo Eyelets, Basic Black 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon, Crop-a-Dile, Clear Translucent Envelopes (inside)

It will hold ten 4″ x 5 1/2″ pictures. (You can get 4″ x 6″ pictures and crop them.) And since I know you want to see this gorgeous dog, I’ll leave you with a picture of Steve and Stanley.

The long awaited My Digital Studio is finally here! It is currently available to demonstrators, and will be available to everyone else on October 1st. I haven’t had much time to play with yet, but from what I have seen so far it is super easy! I’m thinking this will be the perfect way to make gifts for the grandparents and so much more. You can make scrapbooks, cards, calenders, and anything else! You will be able to print through Stampin’ Up on specially calibrated printers that match their colors exactly — that way you can add ribbon and other embellishments afterwards. You can print at home. Or you can export your file as a .jpg and print anywhere you’d like! Here is the first page I made. I used one of their pre-made layouts, took out the birthday parts, and put in some pictures of Eve. Voila! A fabulous scrapbook page in minutes!

You have the freedom to either start from one of the pre-made layouts or start from scratch. You can add or remove elements as you wish, and easily change colors, too.

I’ll be offering one-on-one and group classes on how to use this fabulous software. Contact me for more information.

Wow! I just love this Build-a-Bear stuff! Stamps, die cuts, embosslits… They are all so much fun! When I saw this week’s color challenge at Pals Paper Arts I knew it would work perfectly with the boy bear.

Then of course came the question — do I make one on the Big Shot, or use the stamps? Oh the dilemmas! I was more in a mood to color, so I chose the stamps.  I used my Stampin’ Write markers to get nice bright colors. Of course I had to add some Creamy Caramel for the bear.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: StazOn Black, Stampin’ Write Markers (Creamy Caramel, Brocade Blue, Ruby Red, Crushed Curry)
Paper: Brocade Blue, Ruby Red, Crushed Curry, Whisper White
Accessories: Rich Regal Brads (Brocade Blue)

I love how it came out! These are fabulous colors together!