Floral Thanks - Feb 2007

A long time friend of mine bought me a really pretty pair of earrings while on her honeymoon in Alaska, so I made this card to say thanks. Once again I started out casing another card design but as usual I didn't have the exact items to make it look the same as the card I was going off of so it looks really very different, but it turned out pretty good. It's pretty simple. Though it isn't as elegant as the paisley design series cards, it still doesn't look cheap in my eyes. The only thing I would change would be to make it a little smaller. I made it a 1/2 sheet. Basically, I took a full piece of card stock and folded it in half to get a 1/2 sheet. I'm not sure what made me make it so big but I did and since then I have thought I should have just stuck with the 1/4 sheet size cards. Those seem to look better to me for some reason. I'll just use the bigger envelopes I bought for the mini catalogs that I send to my good friends to look through and drool on. LOL.

Spring Birthday in Winter - Jan 07

I created this card for my cousin's birthday after looking through a card design magazine. I didn't have the right size flower shaped punch and since I didn't have my cricut or any die cuts for my cuddlebug at the time I was forced to improvise. I ended up using a snowflake stamp for the SU set "Merry" and cutting out around it. They didn't look half bad. I used light pastel colors even though her birthday is at the beginning of January because I thought... she's probably use to getting the short end of the stick and getting Christmas/winter type themes on her cards since her birthday is so close to Christmas and is in January.... so why not make something that is cheery and springy. I'm not sure what she thought of the card though since she's never said anything about it. My aunt did say that my cousin got it, but nothing else was said about it. This cousin doesn't care for me a whole lot because of a grudge she's decided to hold. I don't even remember what I did or said 2 years ago that made her mad. Oh well... her deal I guess. I'm over it and am just doing my own thing. Even though I knew I probably wouldn't be given any appreciate for having sent the card I didn't want to send all my other cousins and aunts and uncles cards on their birthdays this year and not her, so I sent her one too. No big deal really in my eyes. The card was really easy to make and didn't cost much in supplies so if she just threw it away... I wasn't out much, and I had fun making it so that's what matters the most.

Save the Date - Jan 07

As a result of my instant obsession and addiction to stamping I volunteered to make my newly engaged friend save the date cards for her upcoming wedding. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. It was alot of fun though I'm not sure if I'll do that much embossing every again. I still seem to get glitter/embossing tinsel on me everytime I enter the craft area of my basement. Here is the design I created and I want to give a special Thanks to Nikki who helped me make these. I ended up making about 100 of these cards.
They were really easy to make once we got the hang of it and formed our little system. The tricky part was the snow flakes on the background. We used the SU Stampin' Around Snowflakes wheel for that part and rolled it in clear embossing ink. We had to do 2 sides at a time since we had no way to hold the paper we did all 4 at once. We also ran into a similar probably for the middle part where I used a store bought stamp saying Save This Date. The heat tool gets so warm that you can't really hold the paper yourself when it's this small. I cut all the pieces first. I ended up using a wooden cloths pin to hold the paper and then heat the embossing tinsel. This was the only way at the time I could come up with so that my fingers didn't get burnt from holding the paper so close to the heating tool. I've since been told that if you put alumnimum foil around a wood clipboard that you can just lay the items you're heat embossing flat on it and it won't scrotch the table underneath it. I wish I had know this then. LOL. The cards turned out very good I think, especially for someone who was just beginning. Any of my friends who see these and would like me to help them for any of their upcoming events let me know and we can work something out.

Paisley Design Series

All the following cards were made over the past few months after creating the Engagement card in my previous blog. I decided to come up with names of all designs I came up with and since I seem to make several similiar designs that coordinate I decided to make them into a series. The following cards are part of what I call the paisley design series. I used the Stampin' Up "Paisley" Background Stamp as the main stamp and then used different stamp sets for the middle. For the most part I used the SU set "In My Thoughts" but there is at least 1 that used a different stamp set. I hope you like this series because I really do and there will probably be more cards created for it as time goes on, even if SU retires these stamp sets.

These cards are really easy to make because you can have them made up without the message in the middle before you need them and then just add the appriopriate message on at the last minute. As you can see I have one picture showing a blank middle. I took the picture of it before I customized it for a friend. I then forgot to take another picture of it once it was customized, but that's okay. This is probably one of my favorite designs. Now that I have more colors of paper and ink I will making some more of them in different color combos. I hope everyone enjoys them. They're simple yet elegant in my eyes.

Long Week

It's been a long week without going into too many details... I was very close to landing myself in the hospital because of my blood pressure being so high. Why you ask was it so high... well all I am going to say is WORK!!! Thank God for WEEKENDS and SICK DAYS!!! I'm feeling much better now and that's a good thing because I wouldn't have made it through another week if my blood pressure didn't get back under control. Anyway... I just wanted to say why I hadn't posted much lately and that is why. I'm going to try to post some more pics of my creations today to make up for the recent slack in posts. Hope you enjoy.

New Link Website

I recently noticed in some of my emails where people were posting shorter URL's for websites that had really long address. For example... my gallery is located at ... http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=111706 That is a really long URL and hard to type and link to. It becomes especially difficult when an email cuts it in half and only one part is hyperlinked. Anyway, I noticed the other day that a girl was linking to her gallery at splitcoaststampers with a much shorter link, so I decided to ask about it. She gave me the following link to use.... http://tinyurl.com/ All you have to do is go to this website and put in your long link and it will create a shorter link for you. Now my shorter link is... http://tinyurl.com/33zq6x . Much better don't you think??? Anyway, I'm excited about this new discovery and hope that others will benefit from me sharing here.

Engagement Card Needed - Dec 2006

Shortly after starting my stamping adventure a friend of mine told me she was engaged. I was so excited for her and decided that I wanted to use my new found skills of stamping to design a congratulations on your engagement card. This is what I came up with with the help of my upline Conny. Since making this card I have ran with the pattern design and made several more in a whole array of colors. The background is always the same just different colors but the ribbon, hardware, and message in the middle have varied a great deal. Most of the cards I have made since this one with this pattern have been with a birthday message. To see the others with this similar design ... check out my gallery at... http://tinyurl.com/33zq6x

Blog Layouts

So I've noticed after posting two blogs with multiple pictures in them that this blogs layout is sort of tricky. I have to fiddle and adjust and fiddle some more to get the pics to situated just right and even then it's not quite right. If anyone has any tricks please share. At least for the next few entries there shouldn't be too many pics post in one blog. Hopefully this will help in the layout issues.

My First Technique Class - Nov 2006

Shortly after attending the stamp camp... like 3 days... I signed up for a techniques class in Springfield. I thought if I was going to take the hobby of rubber stamping seriously and continue to make cards that didn't look like cheap art projects that a
2nd grader might have done then I as going to have to learn some of the fancy techniques and get into some groups with other stampers. It was clear to me after attending this class that I was hooked and there would be no easy escape from the stamping world. These are the items that I created at my first techniques' class. I had a blast and of course I ordered more supplies so I could duplicate some of the projects. Though I haven't created any duplicate items I have used the pattern layout of the snowman bag and the candy baggie to make items that are similiar yet very different. Those pictures will be showcased in another blog entry.

My First Stamp Camp Experience - Nov 2006

I am finally getting a chance to post some of my past designs and current designs for everyone to see. This will be broken down into several entries based on when I created the design.

These first pictures are of the first cards I made at the November Stamp Camp. Unfortunately the stamp sets used were only available until the end of November or December and I didn't get a chance to order them. It's okay though because since then I have ordered several different stamp sets that are just as great as the ones used for these projects.

This second set of pictures are from the second set of cards I made at the stamp camp. I liked the hostess's sample card a lot but wasn't as happy with the way mine turned out. They're pretty good still though. I definitely liked the first set better though. I also didn't get a chance to buy the stamp sets used for this card. I did however manage to get some of the paper though.

The last card I made at Stamp Camp is my favorite. I liked it so much that I bought all the supplies necessary to make more cards just like it. I have yet to do so because of all the new cards and stamp sets but that's okay. I still like it a lot. Not bad for 1 day's work and being a rookie... if I do say so myself. If you like what you see here and are interested in finding out more on how to become a Stampin' Up Customer, Hostess, or Demonstrator check out my website at... http://fayemitchell.stampinup.net/