Fingernail Fun

Well, I was just sitting at my stamp desk looking at my nails, thinking, I need to get my nails done. Then, (LIGHTBULB CLICKS ON) why not stamp on my nails? I always get a flower on my toes when I get them done. Hey, tissue paper works on candles, why not with fingernail polish??? Ok, I tried it. Not bad. I just stamped the little flower row from All in a Row with White Craft ink onto a piece of white tissue paper. Dried it with my heat tool, cut it out, applied the clear fingernail polish to my nail, laid the tissue paper on my nail, put a clear coat over it and WOW! Too cool! Ok, I'm a little bit excited but I'm sure it's not that great! Sorry for the over excitedness (is that a word? LOL). Let me know what you think!

Birthday Scallop Flower

This is a birthday card I made for a very good friend. It's a pretty simple card. I used the Scallop punch for the pink flower. Just punch and cut slits in at every scallop. There's black scallop under the pink one but it's not cut. I tied some embroidery floss to a black button and attached it with a glue dot. The ribbon is from the SU! Ribbon Originals Fairy Tale collection. The Oval punches hold the sentiment from Happy Everything. The black and white patterned paper is from a package of Prima Flowers. Isn't that so cool? I first used it to line the envelope then had some left so I added it to the card. I sure hope my friend likes it as much as I do. Thanks for stopping in to see me. Have a great day!

Faux Shaving Cream Circle Card

This is the make n take I am bringing to my SU! meeting tonight. I was supposed to do the Faux Shaving Cream technique and then I decided to make it a Circle card too. That's 2 techniques, 2 techniques in 1! LOL Ok, the colors are Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate and Wild Wasabi. The ink is Purely Pomegranate and Groovy Guava and the ribbon is Purely Pomegranate Double Stitched. The Rhinestone Brad is from our Ice Circle collection. All products are Stampin' Up! I've curled all 3 flower layers up on the ends but I know it's hard to tell here, sorry. I've included all the instructions below. I hope you like it because I really had fun making this one!!CIRCLE CARD
Cut a sheet of cardstock in half lengthwise (to 8 1/2”x 5 1/2 “). This is your regular old card size. Fold in half. Place the circle template of the Coluzzle Cutting System so just a scant 1/8 inch will go outside the fold. I used the largest circle on the SU! Circle template. Cut out the circle – there will be a small folded area that remains uncut, allowing the card to fold. Press hard as you are going through 2 layers. After cutting the circle with the Coluzzle you’ll need to use an exacto knife to cut it out completely. You may need to sand those cuts with a nail file, very gently to make it a smooth circle. Make a pumpkin, flower, ladybug, Christmas ornament, snowman and more with this shape of card. Have fun and send me your creations, I'd love to see them!

FAUX SHAVING CREAM
(KISSING GONE WONG)
Ink a solid stamp in your lighter color ink. Ink any wheel or small stamp in your darker color. Tap and wiggle/twist the wheel or stamp onto the solid stamp. Re-ink the stamp several times as you twist and wiggle. Huff and stamp the marbled image. If you’re making more than one image clean off both stamps before repeating.

Another Ornament

This ornament came about through a mistake I made. I wanted to try to make an ornament using the paper lantern technique but not a round ornament. Well, I played and played with it and just didn't like it. So, I was just about to throw this away when I realized I could try something different. I had the paper lantern already made, then pinched the centers together, tied knots at both ends and then cut the loops. I hope you're following me so far. Then I just spread the pieces out, alternating the paper design and glued them together. Added some red Stickles, punched a Scallop out, glued a Prima Flower to it, added a glass bead to the center of that with Crystal Effects, and glued it to the center. Then I tied a ribbon to it and voila, it's an ornament. I might try this a little smaller and in white next time. This one is 5". Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer you. Thanks for being here!

Oval Flower

I saw a picture in a stamp magazine of a flower that looks similar to this one. It was a die cut flower. I thought I could do that with my oval punches. So I got out my punches and started playing. It took a while to get to this final flower but I think I'm finally ok with it. I used a circle cut using the Coluzzle then just glued the ovals to the back. Then I had some extra flowers punched from a previous project just laying on my desk so I thought I'd glue them to the center circle. That still looked a little odd so I punched a circle using my 1 1/4" circle punch, stamped it with the dots from the Three For You punch box kit. Then I was happy. It has polk a dots, that always makes me happy. Of course it needed a little ribbon and a sentiment and there you have it. The sentiment came from the Happy Everything set. The colors don't show up too well but they are Purely Pomegranate and Pretty in Pink. The ribbon is retired but was from the SU! Ribbon Originals Flirty group. I hope you like it. Thanks for checking in!

1,000 Hits-BLOG CANDY

Ok, I NEVER thought I'd get to 100 let alone 1,000 hits!!! Thank you all for visiting my little 'ol blog. When my counter hits 1,000 I'm giving away some treats! For your wonderful support I am going to give out some blog candy!! All you have to do is tell me what you look for in a blog. Do you want pictures, new techniques, cards, scrapbook pages, non card items, a lot of writing, a little writing??? What ever you look for in a blog, I want to know. SO, leave me a comment on this post and I will pick a winner by random on Friday 10/26 (26 is my favorite number). Good Luck and thanks again for stopping by, I appreciate it more than you know!
Lorraine

This blog candy consists of:
SU! Ribbon Originals-Prep School Retired-2 yards of each ribbon. Although this is not in it's original packaging, it is NOT used!
Art Accentz Terrifically Tacky Tape-1/8"-5 yards
3 yards each of blue, yellow and white 5/8" ribbon non SU!.
Mod Design accents - 6 pieces, 5 are double sided
5 Prima Flowers

Ornament

Here's a Christmas ornament I made using the paper lantern and starburst techniques. (both techniques are here on earlier posts) Nothing fancy but I think a tree full of all white or all bright colors would look great!

Snowman/Paper Lantern

Here's a snowman I made using the Paper Lantern/Pumpkin idea. Now, don't laugh or be scared at his face...LOL...I'm just not very good at faces. Sorry about that. Otherwise I hope you like it. Have a great weekend. (what's left of it. :0))

Celebrate Fall Transparency Book

Here's a project I made at Scrapbook U last Wednesday. The project was designed by Veronica Leggitt. I love this book. I don't usually add pictures to these books I make but I am definitely going to add fall pictures to this one. Who knows, maybe I'll start adding pictures to all my other books too. :0) I hope you like it. Have a great weekend! Oh, by the way, I've got an awesome snowman project to share. I'll try to post that this weekend.

Wedding Dress

My Sister got engaged in July of this year and we have been out looking at wedding dresses. Then I saw this card in the "Beautiful Cards to make and send" magazine. I had to try it. I used the SU! Spring Flower Bouquet punch to fill a dress form I cut freehand. Then I used Crystal Effects to add some little glass beads I had stashed in a drawer. The ribbon is our Whisper White Taffeta and the flower is from our Pretties Kit. I used the Large Oval Punch for the sentiment which came from the Baroque Motifs stamp set. The cardstock is Pretty in Pink and Whisper White. I wanted to keep this card very simple so there's no layering. This isn't anything like the dress my Sister chose for her wedding but I think it's pretty anyway. Have a happy day!

Oval Thanks

I used the Best Friend Upper case alphabet set. Certainly Celery and Whisper White Card stock. Petal Patch Designer Series Paper. Chocolate Chip 5/8" grograin and Chocolate Chip Taffeta ribbon. The 1/8" punch with the Earth Elements Eyelets. I popped up the letters with dimensionals. I got this idea from a card I saw in the "10 Minute Cards to Give & Share" book by House of White Birches. It did only take 10 minutes and I think it would be great for a man or a woman. Hope you like it. Have a great weekend!

Pumpkin Patch

I've been seeing this technique used to make paper lanterns quite a bit but, have you seen them as pumpkins??? Well, Tracey Roy (Lakeshore Stamper) made some and they are beautiful. I finally had to try it. I used non Stampin' Up! paper for the big one and retired paper for the two others. All you need to do is decide how big you want your pumpkin, that's the height (mine are 12", 8" & 6"), then cut a 12" piece of paper/card stock into 1" strips. Stack your strips and use your Crop A Dile to punch a hole at the bottom and one at the top. Thread ribbon through the hole in the bottom pull it through the top and tie it off, after you have decided the shape you want your pumpkin to be. Spread out the strips and you have your pumpkin! You can add leaves and little tendrills too. I just cut some leaves freehand and then used some scraps for the tendrills and wrapped them around a paintbrush. Each one litterally only took me 5 minutes to make. I hope you get a chance to make some this Fall. Oh, the real pumpkin came from the pumpkin patch yesterday. My son's preschool class had a field trip to Perry Farms (Ardenwood) in Fremont but because it rained the night before we couldn't go into the patch. We did get to go on a hay ride and pick out a small pumpkin though. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. I hope your day is just as beautiful!We even saw a couple of Peacocks. I've never seen one in person. The blue on their necks was a color you could never imagine. It is the most beautiful, brilliant color I've ever seen.

Got Scraps!!

Ribbon scraps that is. I walked into my office last night after my SU! meeting and saw all the scraps of ribbon laying on my desk from the water bottle holder I had made earlier and thought...I can't throw these away. They're too pretty. I have to come up with something to do with these scraps. Here's what I did. I used my 1 1/4" Circle Punch and just punched a piece of Whisper White card stock (a scrap too). Covered the back withe SNAIL and arranged the ribbon scraps. I punched another circle, stamped dots from the Three For You set with Pink Passion and added white dots with the Uni Ball Signo White Pen and glued it to the top of the ribbon scraps. Pretty simple! I really liked how the flower turned out. I've got some others already made using more ribbon in other colors and some paper scrap flowers too. I'll post those after I create a card or something with them. I hope you like this little tip and just think, this is a great recycling idea. I used every piece of ribbon scrap I had and threw nothing away. Happy Stampin' or Scrappin'!! LOL!! Get it, Scrappin' - ribbon SCRAPS! HA HA HA HA HA I just crack myself up! Ok, I'm a dork, I can admit it! :0)

H2O to GO

Ok, here's something I made out of necessity. I am trying to walk every other day and yesterday I was just tired of carrying my water bottle. So, I came up with this water bottle holder. It's all ribbon and knots. There is no SU! ribbon this time. Instead, I just used some cute ribbon I had stashed away. It was so simple to make. I just pulled a piece of ribbon out and hung it around my neck to see how long I wanted it. Then I wrapped a piece of ribbon around the bottle and tied a knot. Then tied the neck piece to opposite sides of that the piece wrapped around the bottle. Ok, next I tied a piece to the one wrapped around the bottle and went under the bottle and back up to the other side and tied it off to the same piece. Did that 2 other times for a total of 3 pieces of ribbon tied from one side, under the bottle then tied to the other side. Then I didn't think that would hold so I wrapped another piece of ribbon around the bottom 3/4 of the bottle and used little scraps of ribbon to tie that piece to each of the 3 other pieces. Then I tied another scrap to the bottom of the bottle where all the ribbons crossed to keep them in place. I think that's it. I hope all this makes sense. If not, just let me know and I'll do my best to clarify. Anyway, now my hands are free when I'm walking...WOO HOO!! And the great thing is, I don't have to take it out of the holder to get a drink. It stays in the holder until I add another bottle. I hope you like this idea and that it inspires you to make your own or to just get out and walk.

Have a great day!!

Monthly SU! Upline Meeting

Last night was my Upline's monthly SU! Meeting. There were only 6 of us there but we made 9 projects. They were all amazing. I hope you like them. I'm only showing 6 here because the 3 I did are all on previous posts. The Photo Corner Punch Christmas Tree, The Tag Punch snowflake and the Pumpkin Trio. Enjoy the eye candy and have a great day. Thanks for stopping in.

This first card was designed by my Upline, Colleen Becker.

The next 2 cards were designed by Korrin Lucca.

This card was designed by Lori Owles.

This card was designed by Gina Cardera.

This card was designed by Valerie Cooke.

I didn't give you any recipes or instructions because I need to go fold some clothes :0) but, I'll try to add them later. Sorry about that. If you have any questions, just let me know. Thanks!

Tag Punch Starburst

This is a project that I just had to try. It was designed by Donna Moore. Here are her instructions and a link to her blog with pictures of what she did with it.

SU Tag Punches Starburst

She could only upload 3 photos, so she tried to pick the most important ones. Enjoy! Please let me know how it goes. Her card is posted at: Splitcoaststampers Gallery - WT106 Tag Punch Starburst Donna's sample also has glitter applied to each punch out.

SUPPLIES:

Large SU Tag punch

Small SU Tag punch

Circle punch for center

Paper snips

2-way glue pen

Dimensionals

Cardstock for frame

Desinger Series Paper, Vellum or other paper for inner parts of the starburst.

Embellishments for center of starburst

Step by Step Instructions:

Step 1: For a two-tiered star, punch out 16 small tags leaving about 1/4” between each one.

Step 2: Using the large tag punch, go back over the holes made by the small punch. Line up the punch so that you can see an evenly spaced frame around each hole. Punch out 16 frames.

Step 3: Each layer consists of 4 frames. Apply two-way glue evenly over the back of a few frames at a time. Put the sheet of lighter weight paper face-side up and carefully apply your frames in a cross-shaped pattern. Line up the inner diagonal sides of the frame.

Step 4: Follow the same process for attaching the next layer of 4 frames to the base layer. The second layer is attached to fill in the empty areas of the first cross-shaped layer.

Step 5: The points of the star will be visible when the second layer is attached. Use paper snips to trim away the excess.

Step 6: Repeat entire process to make another star, to mount on top of the first one. Use Dimensionals to separate the two stars.

Step 7: Embellish center of star and finish card.

Here is the star I made. It's only one layer and I used vellum stamped and embossed with the White Craft pad and Detail White embossing powder. I used the swirl stamp from the Season of Joy set found in our Holiday Mini Catalog. I also made mine like a sandwich. I glued the punches to the vellum then glued another piece of vellum over that, then cut it out. No glitter on mine but the next one will definitely have some! It was pretty simple and Donna's instructions are great! I could see a whole Christmas tree full of these!

Altered Tea Can

My DH is a tea drinker and for some reason he was saving these tins his tea came in. I was cleaning out the kitchen cabinets yesterday and found them and thought what a great project these would make. I was thinking they could be altered as new with the tea still inside and given as a little gift. Or, they're a good size for some cookies or candy or even a pencil holder for my son's teacher's desk. I'm sure there are a ton of ideas for this little can. So, I made one. There's no stamping on this one, just designer series paper from the Dashing collection and some ribbon. I didn't have a lot of time to make this one so I kept it pretty simple. I did get to use my Crop A Dile though. It went through the sides of the tin like butter!! I love that tool. Then I thought the top needed a little more so I found this button in my stash and cut off the shank and used a glue dot to stick it to the top. Thanks for stopping by and I hope your Friday is wonderful and that your weekend is even better.

Pumpkin Trio

This is a card I've been wanting to make for a while. Actually I've really been wanting to make pumpkins with my Large and Small Oval and Key Tag punches. The stems were made with the Horizontal Punch too. So, here it is. I did use the faux stitching stamp from the All In A Row set. (Thank you Beate for the obsession with this stamp :0) ) I also used the Hugs & Wishes set. Other than that it's all punches. Happy Fall!

Corner Punch Christmas Tree

I got this idea from Catherine Brown (click here to see her blog: Catherine Brown Blog) who got the idea from a card she saw at the SU! Regional Convention in Orlando Florida. As soon as I saw that card I had to try it. This just might be the Christmas card I send to all of my family and friends this year. HEY, if you want to come over and make your Christmas cards just email me or give me a call and we'll make it a date! Email: Ltrain26@aol.com Phone Number: 510/440-9053 Hope to see you soon!

Now, this is how I made the card: I used the Warm Words stamp set for the sentiment. I used the Photo Corner Punch for the branches of the tree (Did you realize the Photo Corner punch has 2 different sizes?? I didn't until I made this card. It's like 2 punches in one. What a deal!), the Word Window Punch for the tree base, the small and large Oval Punches and the 1/8" circle punch for the Fire Circle Rhinestone Brad at the top of the tree. The cardstock is Real Red, Wild Wasabi, River Rock, Confetti Cream and Chocolate Chip. The tree is punched from the Dashing Designer Series Paper and the ribbon is our 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon in Real Red. I popped up the Wild Wasabi base and the sentiment with Dimensionals and used our SAIL adhesive to stick everything else together.

Birthday Circle

I made two more of the flower circle cards. One for my friend Melony for sending her retired Bubble Queen set to one of my customers (Hi Mel and Jen!) and one as a birthday card for my friend Special K (Katja Pastor, Hey Special K, sorry this card is a bit late but I wanted it to be as perfect as possible. I'll never be as good as you but I do try). I hope you like this one. Here's a big hug for you all, now pass it on and have a great day!

I used the Three for You set polka dot stamp and the Vases in Vogue Hostess set (you only need a workshop of $500 to earn this set for FREE) for the sentiment. I used Real Red, Green Galore, Only Orange, Summer Sun and Whisper White Cardstock. Real Red and Only Orange Classic Stamp Pads. White Craft Pad. The 5 Petal Flower punch, Looks Like Spring Flower Punch, Small Oval and Large Oval Punches. I used the Coluzzle kit for the base circle and Dimensionals to pop up the flowers. I also used our SNAIL adhesive to stick everything together.