I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  I had actually meant to post a card for you Friday since I actually did have one made, but time just got away from me.  This week Soph and I (and our families) are visiting our parents. While it’s good to be “home” and wonderful to see our parents, going away is always a challenge.  There’s just so much packing and preparation, not just for going away, but in prepping to take what work we can with us.  These are the times that Soph and I wish we could hitch up our stamp studios to our vehicles. 

Anyways, we did pre-make all our projects for the blog this week so we will have a project to share with you every day. 

Today’s card is a bright and colorful birthday card made with the Sweet & Sour Specialty Designer Paper.  I have to tell you I just love the bright bold colors and patterns of this paper, in particular the dotted pattern I chose for this card.  It’s at times like this that I wish I could buy singles of our papers, because if I could, I’d for sure stock up on these two patterns.

1. Take a 5 1/4″ x 10 1/2″ piece of textured Very Vanilla CS and fold it in half with a bone folder to create a 5 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ card.
2. Cut two 2″ x 2″ squares of the orange dotted DP and two 2″ x 2″ squares of the Rose Red DP.  Stick the DP squares to the card front, leaving about a 1/8″ space in between the DP squares.
3. Cut a 1 3/4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of textured Pink Pirouette DP and stamp the greeting “birthday” in the bottom right corner of the CS in Basic Black Classic ink.
4. Center and stick the Pink Pirouette CS strip to the card front with SNAIL adhesive.
5. Punch a scrap of Pumpkin Pie CS with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch.  Stick the punched border to the Pink Pirouette CS strip just above the greeting using Tombow Multi-purpose adhesive.
6. Gather up some chipboard letters that spell the word “happy”.  Ink them up with Pumpkin Pie Craft ink.  Sprinkle on Iridescent Ice embossing powder and heat with your heat tool.
7. Stick the letters onto the Pink Pirouette CS strip with Tombow adhesive.
8. “Thread” two Pumpkin Pie buttons with small sliver of Pumpkin Pie CS.  Stick the buttons to the card front with mini glue dots.  You’re done!

Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s card, and we’ll be back tomorrow!

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All products are Stampin’ Up! unless otherwise noted.

Stamps: Fundamental Phrases
Ink: Basic Black Classic ink, Pumpkin Pie Craft ink
Paper: textured Very Vanilla CS and Pink Pirouette CS; Pumpkin Pie CS, Sweet & Sour Specialty DP
Accessories: SNAIL adhesive, mini glue dots, Tombow Multi-purpose adhesive, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch, Brights Designer Buttons, heat tool, Iridescent Ice embossing powder, chipboard letters

Happy Friday everyone!  Today I wanted to share with you a card I made for the Embellish Magazine Color Challenge.  I stumbled upon Embellish Magazine one day when I was blog hopping, and immediately fell in love.  Remember last Thursday when I was talking about ways to keep up on trends?  Well I’ve added the Embellish Magazine to my arsenal.

You can read all about the details of this challenge HERE. As part of the challenge you had to use the colors shown in the Polaroid swatches, and you had to incorporate some form of embossing whether heat embossing or dry embossing.

When I created my card I decided to kill two birds with one stone.  I decided to make a card for my youngest son’s birthday (he’ll be turning two in July), while following along with the challenge.  I did use all four colors for my card, but also added in orange. As the challenge didn’t say anything about not adding in extra colors I figured it should be okay. The other thing is that it also didn’t say anything about using the exact same shades they did, so hopefully that’s okay too.  For the embossing, I dry embossed the card front with the Polka Dot Textured Impressions folder and I used heat embossing with craft ink, heat & stick powder, and aqua glitter on the chipboard number.

You can download a pdf handout for this card HERE.  The handout gives you a full supply list, dimensions and written directions on how this card was made.

Well I hope you enjoyed today’s card.  And now, as promised, I’m announcing some Secret Comment Patrol winners.  If you’re new to my blog you may be wondering what the Secret Comment Patrol is.  It’s our way of saying thank you to those of you that not only stop by the blog for a visit, but take the time to leave a comment.  On the last Friday of the month we are going to pick 2 names from those that have left comments the preceding month. If your name is picked you get to pick a digital product of your choice from the Sunny Stampin’ Store.  What that means is that the more often you comment the more likely you are to win.  Soph and I read each and every comment, so when we see the same name in the comment section of each post, you can bet you’ll be seeing that name announced as a winner. 

Drumroll please……..and the winners are:

1. Alita Long
April 30th, 2010 at 4:00 am  
Hi Andrea and Sophia!
Wow – this is one LOVELY Box!
Thank you for sharing.
Alita

2. Isabel Z
April 28th, 2010 at 11:27 pm  
This is stunning. The attention to detail is fabulous.

3. Stephanie Pézolet
April 27th, 2010 at 11:15 am  
What an inspiring picture! You created a fantastic card. TFS!

4. Roberta Smith
April 27th, 2010 at 12:05 pm 
Very pretty card! I have this DSP but haven’t quite figured out how to use it. It is very bright and busy. This is a great way to tone it down. Thanks for the inspiration!

5. Desirée
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:03 pm 
How cool! I will DEFINITELY check out that website – gotta stay current 

To claim your prize please email me at andrea@sunnystampin.com.  In the subject line please put “Secret Comment Patrol Winner”.  In the body of the email please let me know what you would like as your prize.  Remember, you can pick any digital product from the Sunny Stampin’ Store or a registration to an online class.

Have a great weekend!

All Supplies are Stampin’ Up! unless otherwise noted.  The * denotes retired items, however they can be substituted with Old Olive products.

Stamps: Look Who’s Turning, Animal Stories,  Hoppy for You
Ink: Basic Black, Crushed Curry, Tempting Turquoise, Kiwi Kiss*, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo Classic inks, Tempting Turquoise Craft ink
Paper:  Whisper White CS, Tempting Turquoise CS, Pumpkin Pie CS, Melon Mambo CS, Kiwi Kiss CS*
Accessories: Snail adhesive, Dotto adhesive,  Stampin’ Dimensionals, paper snips, Stamping Sponges, Big Shot, Polka Dot Textured Impressions folder, Heat tool, Heat & Stick powder, Fine Supernova glitter, Polka Dot Melon Mambo & Crushed Curry ribbon, ¼” Tempting Turquoise & Pumpkin Pie Grosgrain ribbon, Kiwi Kiss Striped ribbon*, Kiwi Kiss Corduroy Buttons*, On Board Lots of Letters

Today I wanted to share with you a simple card that uses Stampin’ Up!’s felt flurries.  The felt flurries were available in last year’s Holiday Mini Catalogue, and then Stampin’ Up! made them available on their clearance rack about a month ago (or a couple of month’s ago? – I don’t remember).  I had some left over from last year and decided to pull them out and make some projects with them. Today’s card is one of them, and I’ll share another one of them with you another day this week.

You can watch a video on how this card was made below:

Directions:

1. Take a 4 1/4″ x 11″ piece of Real Red CS and fold it in half using a bone folder. Set it aside for a moment.
2. Run an embossing buddy over a 3 3/4″ x 5″ piece of Chocolate Chip CS.
3. Stamp the swirl from the Baroque Motifs stamp set in VersaMark ink onto the top half of the Chocolate Chip CS.
4. Sprinkle on Heat and Stick powder and melt it with a heat tool.
5. Sprinkle Champagne glitter onto the Heat and Stick powder and then heat set with a heat tool. Brush off the excess glitter using a stipple brush.
6. Stick a 2″ x 5″ piece of the Chocolate Chip snowflake DP from the Merry Moments DP along the bottom edge of the Chocolate Chip CS using Snail adhesive.
7. Take a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla CS and sponge the edges of the CS
8. Center and stick the the Chocolate Chip CS onto the Very Vanilla CS. Center and stick the Very Vanilla CS
9. Take a 1″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla CS and Stamp the greeting onto it in Chocolate Chip Classic ink. Sponge the edges of the CS strip with Chocolate Chip Classic ink. Stick the Very Vanilla CS piece onto the Chocolate Chip CS piece – make sure it covers the seam of the DP.
10. Stick the felt flurry onto the Very Vanilla CS strip using a mini glue dot.  Stick the large cream half-back pearl onto the center of the felt flurry with a mini glue dot. You’re done!

Just a note – Soph will be posting the winners to the workshop planner a bit later below this post.

Click Here to Order your Stampin’ Up! Products Online 24/7! (Canada Only)

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Four the Holidays
Ink: Chocolate Chip Classic ink
Paper: Chocolate Chip CS, Very Vanilla CS, Real Red CS, Merry Moments DP
Accessories: Bone folder, embossing buddy, Heat and Stick powder, Champagne Glitter, heat tool, Stamping Sponges, felt flurries, Pretties kit, mini glue dots, Snail adhesive

I hope all my fellow Canadians had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We had a wonderful but VERY busy Thanksgiving. I hosted this year and we had both sides of the family & although there were a few missing we still had a whopping 25 people. By far the largest single room in our house is my stamping studio, so my husband and mother-in-law thought it would be a great idea to have Thanksgiving dinner there.  Although I thought it was kind of a funny idea at the time, it worked out great.

As you can see we stretched from one end of my 26 foot studio, all the way to the other *lol*. 

Here you can see us all gathered together – well, you can see almost all of us – with such a long narrow table it’s hard to get a good group shot.

I was very impressed with myself this year, because I did our 22 lb turkey all by myself! My grandmother has always been in charge of our turkey and did a phenomenal job of it – in fact we all thought she made the best turkey ever.  As many of you know she passed away this past March, so the “turkey legacy” was passed on to me (well, at least this year it was because I hosted). I’d been watching her for years but had only every made a turkey by myself one other time – and it certainly wasn’t anywhere near 22 lbs!  You can see me and my turkey in the picture to left.  Of course I had to have my dad take a picture of ”us” for posterity *lol*.  As you can see, it turned out beautifully –  the turkey, my grandmother’s stuffing recipe and the gravy.  In fact everyone said it tasted just like Mama’s so that was high praise indeed!

Anyways, it was a busy, crazy weekend, with a few stressful moments, but all in all, it was awesome.  And yes, I think I’d host for that many people again *lol*

Okay, and now on to today’s card. I designed this card to be super simple so that if you had to, you could easily whip off a whole bunch. You can see a video of how it was made below:

Directions:

1. Take a 5-1/4″ x 10-1/2″ piece of Whisper White CS and fold it in half to create a 5-1/4″ x 5-1/4″ card.
2. Take a scrap of Whisper White CS and pat a VersaMark pad all over half of it.  Sprinkle on Iridescent Ice embossing powder and heat emboss.  Punch a snowflake out of it using the snowflake punch.
3. Mat a 4″ x 4″ piece of Christmas Cocoa DP onto a 4-1/4″ x 4-1/4″ piece of Soft Suede CS.  Temporarily center and stick it to your card front with Dotto adhesive.
4. Take a 1″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Christmas Cocoa DP in the Soft Suede pattern and place some Snail adhesive in the center of the strip. Center and stick it to the snowflake DP.
5. Remove the matted DP piece from your card front and lay it onto a foam mat.  Lay the snowflake towards the left edge of the Soft Suede DP strip and piece a hole through the center of the snowflake and the DP using a paper-piercing tool.
6. Insert a large clear rhinestone brad.  Open up the prongs on the back.
7. Die cut the word “joy” out of white fun foam using your Big Shot and timeless type alphabet.  Stick the letters onto the Soft Suede CS strip with Tombow Multi-Purpose adhesive. 
8. Run your 2-way glue pen over the letters and then sprinkle on Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  Tap off the excess glitter.
9. Center and stick the matted DP/greeting onto your card front.  You’re done!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Click Here to Order your Stampin’ Up! Products Online 24/7! (Canada Only)

Ink: VersaMark ink pad (102283) 
Paper: Whisper White CS (100730), Soft Suede CS (115318), Christmas Cocoa DP (116770)
Accessories: Bone Folder (102300), Snail adhesive (104332), Paper-Piercing Tool (116631), Mat pack (105826), Clear rhinestone brads (113144), Jumbo Snowflake punch (116628), Iridescent Ice embossing powder (101930), Heat tool (100005), Tombow Multi-purpose adhesive (110755), 2-way glue pen (100425), Big Shot (113439), Stampin’ Up! Timeless Type alphabet (115951)