Create With M.E.

Quick Post~Home Decor Alteration today!

I am working on getting ready for my Open House/Retired Stamp Sale on Saturday down in my family room.  I just moved a cabinet down there from my mudroom last week.  My Father-in Law made this cabinet years ago before he passed away.  He used an antique hoosier cabinet my husband and I had purchased at a sale as his pattern/model.  After my Father-In-Law passed I asked my husbands mom if we could have it.  She graciously said YES!  We have used it in so many places in our house and out in our Deer Processing shop over the years.  I just love it! 

So this morning when my daughter Abby and I were laying out the room for the sale I told her lets use the cabinet for samples and why don't you set it up. (She has a great eye for design) I walked over by her, and have you ever had a conversation where one person is talking about one thing and you are talking about another thing and they both make sense but neither are related?  That is exactly what happened to us this morning.  She said the words, you could put DSP inside....I thought she was talking about the panels on the cabinet while she was talking about something completely different but Wowee the idea was born!  What a GREAT Idea we had collaboratively!!  So I got busy and put some of the new Spice Cake Paper from the Holiday mini in each panel of the cabinet and absolutely love it!  I used Dotto so I can change it up regularly. 

Here is the cabinet it wasn't what I had planned to show you today but I just couldn't resist. Click on the photo if you want to see it a little closer up.  Imagine it plain jane...this is Much better trust me!

My wheels are turning now.  I have matching fabric of course and now I can open up some of the panels and drap it with fabric or products showcasing the Spice Cake Suite of products. 

So if you are in my area and would like to attend my Open House/Retired Stamp sale here are the details:

Huge Retired Stamp Sale and New Catalog Open House

Saturday August 13th

10am-Noon

2pm-4pm

Shop til you drop in my 8 years of accumulated Stamps and accessories area.  All items are priced to sell.  I need the room!  Then received a Gift Certificate for 30% of your retired purchases to go toward a shopping spree in the new 2011-2012 Idea Book and Catalog!  Yep the more used stuff you buy the more NEW stuff you get for FREE!!

I will have 2 make n take projects for you to create along with lots of goodies to see so bring your camera with you to gather plenty of ideas!

Giveaways throughout the day!

Receive a FREE stampset (up to $45 value) from my "New Stamps" box for:

1. Booking a workshop in August, September or October of this year. Bring your calendar! you won't want to miss out on the great hostess dollars and any 1/2 price item from the catalog deal! Also take home your own Idea Book & Catalog that day! ($10.00 value)
2. Sign up to be a part of the Create With M.E. team!
3. Join my newly forming Daytime Stamp Club
4. Join my newly forming Evening Stamp Club
5. Purchase $50 in New Catalog merchandise over your Gift Certificate amount (before Tax, S & H)
6. Joining my next round of Marker Club
7. Do all 6 above and go home with 6 new sets! 

Love to know your coming so drop me an email at: [email protected]

Okay off to make busy!

 

Blossom Box~It IS the gift!

I'll tell you what my first impression of this new Big Shot die was not favorable. Yes, I admit it. I thought to myself, that looks very fussy.  It looks like it will be difficult to put together.  Do I really want to spend that much time fussing with a box?  Then I went to convention and one of the presenters demonstrated the box.  She even mentioned the word fussy. Nope haven't changed my opinion yet. Then last week I was able to get one item out of the catalog at half price.  Okay, I thought, for half price I will see just how fussy this box really is.  Well, I am getting ready for an upline meeting this Friday and my 12 year old Daughter Abby was wanting to "craft" with me.  She has her own desk in my studio and frankly could be a Stampin' Up! demonstrator as she has been doing it as long as I have which is since she was 3.5.  She often times will sit next to one of my customers gently giving them tips and hints when they are struggling with an element.  She joins us at all of my downline meetings never skipping a beat, or slowing things down when we are working on projects, sometimes even teaching us a trick or two, but I digress here.  She was looking for a "project" as she calls it.  I said "here" and handed her the unopened die.  Her eyes got really big and she said "Really?"!  I said "yes", give it a try with a piece of retired Designer Series paper as a practice.  So off she gets to work.  She carefully read the directions (something we often forget to do) and with a little help locating my crease pad (I highly recommend it for this die) she was off to work.  She needed very little help.  We discussed which way the creases should be folded and she was off and running.  The box went together beautifully.  So guess what I did.  I handed her some new DSP from the Well Worn packet and said here make it out of this for me.  Here is the results.  I did a  little sponging on it and added a few elements. Voila'  Adorable! 

So the moral of the story is....yep, if a 12 year old can do it...so can I! I mean YOU!

The flower is one we made at my downline meeting last week.  At convention I purchased a DVD that was available to us called Workshop Wow. It had demonstrations from all over the country.  This was one that Sharon Cheng showcased at the Fort Worth regional last year.  The flower is created using Coffee Filters.  Yep you heard me right.  It is a coffee filter flower. Of course as I do I took her idea and tweaked it.  We used Aqua painters to give our flowers more of a watercolored look.  Here are some of the flowers my girls made that evening. I took the picture with my iPhone so forgive the quality. But you get the idea. 

Isn't the variety gorgeous?!  I love the choices of color and the difference between the number of petals and if you scrunch this way or that.  My daughter Abby really loved them and this week she has really gone to town creating.  I challenged her to think outside the box with color and punches.  She stepped it up to the Big shot and yesterday when her Aunt was visiting she said..."Just a minute" with her finger raised high and ran to her craft area. She came back with a flower magnet for Aunt Joy's fridge.  It was beautiful!  I didn't get a picture of it but I know Aunt Joy will love seeing it on her fridge every day!  Makes me long for those days before Stainless steel! Ha Ha.

So, if you want to give it a go or want to learn how to earn it for half price too, click on my signature box to go to my Stampin' Up! website. 

Blossom Box Die #123127

Watermelon~Don't Swallow the Seeds

I received a swap at the Stampin' Up! convention last month that intrigued me.  I was not super excited with the card as a whole because to me it lacked a little something.  A greeting for one but what I was intrigued by was a little watermelon image on the card and I loved the colors! This is how I get inspired. It used one of our new punches and I could see the possibilties in it.  So I did what I usually do when I need to be inspired I got on a terrific resource available to me as a Demonstrator called Stampin' Connection.  It's chock full of samples, thousands and thousands actually.  I just searched watermelon and hundreds of samples came up.  Most were nothing like I was looking for but one was very cute. A card by demonstrator Jenny Medcalf.  I changed the colors around, added a ribbon and a few "seeds" of my own and this is the card I came up with for last weeks Forget-Me-Not card class.  The ladies loved it!  Such a summery card to send to someone who just needs a smile. 

Button Buddies~You can't deny it's simplicity!

I have only just begun to play with this set.  I am seeing the possibilities already!  Of course I know Stampin' Up! has such beautiful buttons already and now to have this cute little set to showcase some of them.  Oh yes, it's going to be fun "playing around" with it.  Here is my first sample using the set. 

 

So why did I say something about it's simplicity in the title?  It's because really with just a stamp and a cute little button you have an adorable project you will be proud to send to someone.  Although you can step it up with punching and embellishing it's not necessary to make it work.  Watch for more samples using this set coming soon.  I can already see it spending a lot of time on my desk this year!

Field Flowers~Two Step Stamping at it's BEST!

One of my new favorite sets in the catalog is Field Flowers.  I love the two-step stamping element to it.  This is one of the cards we created using the Field Flowers set at this months class.  I was inspired by a swap I received at the Stampin' Up! convention last month and I tweaked it.  Calypso Coral is not one of my favorite colors.  I never say that about Stampin' Up! colors because I just LOVE color and usually love them all <call me a color hound, I'm okay with it> but coral just  has never been one of my favorites. When I said that to someone recently they told me it was because I was a redhead.  Well not sure if that is true or not but I will accept that reason.  Actually when creating this card for class I fell a little in love with it.  Well, in-like anyway!