Slacker, but good news too!

So I am such a slacker for not posting on my blog for almost a month!! Those of you who know me know why I've been in sort of a stamping slump. I'm 3 1/2 months pregnant! :) I am expecting my first child on April 19th and so excited!!! The first few months took their toll on me with the tiredness and constant queasiness. I still get tired pretty early in the evening, but for the most part I feel great! Any time that I was feeling well, I spent getting ready for parties or going to Seattle to see my Mel Mel. I hope to have pictures up this weekend of my trip. I had so much fun! So now that I'm feeling better and have energy I decided to break the stamps out last night. It was a co-worker's birthday on Monday so I made this card for her. Do you know that feeling when you sit down to make a card and get overwhelmed by all the stamps you have? Well, I did last night and so I ended up with a very simple, but elegant card. I also realized that I really need to work on my scanning/picture taking skills. I scanned this one since it was too late to take a picture and get good lighting. On the inside of the card I stamped 'Birthday Wishes' and used the same swirl from the front underneath it. I've always looked past this paper not knowing what to do with it, but this time I saw it I immediately thought of this swirl stamp. I plan on doing some more stamping tonight, so we'll see if I remember to post tomorrow!

Have a happy Wednesday!

Wendy

Afternoon Surprise

Yes ladies and gentlemen, you are seeing two posts on one day. I know for my few followers(Hi Mom and Mel Mel!) that this is a rare occasion, but I have several cards that I have made and hope to post them over the next few days. So today I will post another card. This is a thank you card that I created for one of the customers of my first party. All she ordered was a catalog and I needed to get her copies of her receipt, so I thought this card would work perfectly to hold those. My party was her first Stampin' Up party to attend and I think we have her hooked. I was so excited to introduce someone new to stamping that it made my day. She is planning on ordering stamps, but is waiting for the World Card Making Day special in October where the Simply Sent kits will be 20% off from Oct 4-8. If you are interested in ordering one of these kits please let me know. I wish they would have offered something like this when I first started. You get a little bit of everything with the paper, ink, and accessories. The 'Thanks' on the front of this card doesn't show up very well in my picture, but it was really pretty in person. This is my first card to make with the 'Heartfelt Thanks' set and I really like the way it turned out. Can you tell that I am enjoying my new Always Artichoke ribbon and stamp pad??

Just think... the week is already half way over and we're on our way towards the weekend! Have a happy Wednesday!

~Wendy


Stamps: Canvas Background, Heartfelt Thanks
Paper: Always Artichoke, Pretty in Pink, Passion Pink
Ink: Always Artichoke, Pretty in Pink, Passion Pink
Accessories: Artichoke Grosgrain Ribbon

September Birthdays

Hey guys, I know it's been a week since I posted, but I have been stamping. For some reason I can remember to scan my cards, but it takes me forever to get them posted up here. Well, the week before last was my mother-in-law and sister-in-law's birthday. In case you can't tell, I just got the 'Happy Birthday' embosser for my Cuttlebug and also got my recent order of Bellas. I just love this birthday

Bella with her cute little hat! The card on the left was for Kellie(sister-in-law). I tried glittering parts of the embossed words on the background for a different look. I tend to be very messy with glitter, so one card of glitter was enough for me. On my mother-in-law's card I used my glitter pens to accent Bella's hat and present. Both cards turned out really cute and they both loved them. Hope you enjoy them too!

~Wendy

Birthday Monday

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Chris and I had so much fun in Houston watching the Red Raiders beat Rice and hanging out with all our friends from college. Houston is a great place to visit, but I could do without the humidity! Today is a co-worker's birthday so I stamped her a card last night. She is a fellow Red Raider fan, so I thought she would appreciate the red and black. I used my new Cuttlebug 'Happy Birthday' plate that I bought last week. I am still playing around with how to use it, but I love the embossed look and it is so easy to use! One this one I embossed on white paper and then ran my red ink pad all over the paper for a different look. Of course I had to use my scallop circle punch and those It's All Good stamps fit just perfect on the scallop circle. I added a little doodling to the bottom to give it a softer edge. I hope to have some pictures of our weekend up in the next couple days so be ready for more red and black!

~Wendy

Happy Friday!

I am so excited that it is Friday! Work has been really busy as we are closing our fiscal year and I have barely had time to touch my stamps. Yesterday was my niece's sixth birthday and I made this card over the weekend for her. The candles stamp was only 5 candles, so I stamped it again and then cut them out to put on the cake. Before attaching to the cake I covered them in pink glitter. I also went over some of the polka dots in a glitter gel pen. On the inside it says 'Birthday' in pink glitter. I know how much my niece loves pink sparkly things so I thought this would be perfect for her. I hope she had a wonderful day yesterday!

This card is just something else I threw together while I was playing with my new scallop circle punch form SU! You can never have too many birthday cards hanging around. I did notice that I need to get a little better at scanning my cards so that they are not crooked. For some reason mine also look a little off. Maybe if my readers will just tilt their head to the left a little that will solve my problem much faster. :)

I told Mel that I was going to be better about posting everyday, but this weekend I am going to be gone. Chris and I are going down to Houston after work today to visit some of our friends from college and go to the Texas Tech vs Rice game tomorrow. I am so excited since Tech is now 2-0. Go Red Raiders!!! I am also very excited to see our friends from college. I plan on doing some stamping when we get back Sunday because I have lots of September birthdays that I have not made cards for yet!

Have a very happy Friday and a great weekend!

~Wendy

Bella Birthday Card

My sister-in-law had me make one of her girlfriends a set of my martini coasters and needed a card to go with them. You can check out my coasters and other creations at my website. I threw this card together Friday night, but love the way it turned out. The bellas are just so much fun to color and if you haven't heard about them, go over to Stamping Bella right now and check them out. I just love all the different personalities that she has in the Bellas.

Stamps: Cakeabella, Simple Saying II
Paper: All non-SU! so I have no clue what colors they are
Ink: Black for the bella and Chocolate Chip
Accessories: glitter, white grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals

~Wendy

First SU Party

Well I promised Mel that I would finally post some stuff that has been going on lately. She gets onto me when I haven't posted in a few days and I think it's been over a week since I last posted. Saturday was my first SU! party and it was so much fun. Thank you Beth Ann for being the brave one and letting me try out on her party. Everything went great and we had so much fun. The ladies who came were so much fun and they made me feel so comfortable as I made two different cards and one non-card item. I have another party in little over a week and plan on doing the same things for them since these were such a hit. Plus the kitty from Haunting Halloween is precious and on sale this month as part of the Fall Frenzy sale that SU! has going on.

This my first card that I did and also the make 'n take for the party. In case you aren't familiar with SU!, this would be the card that you get a chance to make yourself and take home. I can't take complete credit for this card because I started with someone else's idea off of Splitcoaststampers and added my own touches. I included a second picture so that you could see the way I punched a hole in the front of the card for the snowflake to show through.

Stamps: Season of Joy
Ink: Brilliant Blue
Paper: Whisper White, Brilliant Blue
Accessories: White Grosgrain Ribbon, Brilliant Blue Brad, 1 1/4" circle punch, paper piercer, craft knife(to slit side of card), dimensionals


My second card was a non-typical card size. I cut this card to 5 1/2" x 6" and scored it on the 3". I think this kitty is so cute and I love how this whole set works together and doesn't need any other sets to complete a card. I stamped the inside of this card with the 'a Haunting Halloween' saying to finish it out. This was my first creation, but for the party I mounted the kitty on black before adding it to the card.

Stamps: Haunting Halloween
Ink: Basic Black
Paper: Lovely Lilac, Whisper White, Basic Black, Only Orange
Accessories: SU! Pastels, dimensionals


I wanted my final creation to be something non-stamped and I wanted to use one of the new In-Colors from SU! So after much deliberation and one creation that lacked some pizazz, I decided to do a 2-4-6-8 box. If anyone else is like me, I have 13 ladies in my group at work and that gets pretty expensive at Christmas time. I love little treasures like this that you can fill with chocolate. Everyone in my group appreciates having a little bit of chocolate on hand when it gets stressful and this is just the perfect size. I also couldn't resist using the new double stitched ribbon. I tried my hardest to use the scallop circle punch somewhere on these three items, but couldn't figure out where. The tag is not actually attached to ribbon, but adhered directly to the box to make it look like that. Just in case you were curious, the box is about 3 1/2" tall and 2" wide. If you want to make your own boxes you can find the instructions here.

Stamps: Year After Year, Warm Wishes, Hot to Dot wheel
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Ruby Red
Paper: Whisper White, Wild Wasabi
Accessories: Word Window Punch, Small Tag Punch, Double Stitched Wild Wasabi Ribbon, Slit Punch

~Wendy

September Stampin’ Up! Special - Fall Frenzy

The Fall Frenzy Promotion runs from September 1 through September 30.

Spend $30 in regular priced merchandise and qualify to purchase one of each of the six promotional stamp sets listed below at 30% off!

#105355 - Bitty Boos Too (page 26)
#109284 - Haunting Halloween (page 29)
#107383 - Thoroughly Thankful (page 30)
#109373 - Autumn Fest (page 108)
#109421 - Elementary Essentials (page 91)
#110366 - Stem Silhouettes (Holiday Mini page 17)

The World Card Making Day Promotion runs for ONLY 4 DAYS from October 4 through October 8. World Card Making Day is the 1st Saturday of October (which is on October 06th this year).

To celebrate, Stampin’ Up is offering 20% off of ALL of their Simply Stampin’ Card Kits (See pages 12-14 in the Fall-Winter 2007 Catalog).

These kits are wonderful for busy stampers. You will get instructions as well all the supplies to make at least 10 cards, including ink, paper, embellishments and even envelopes.

SU Goodies

I promise that this is the last one for the night and then off to bed for me. I got my first order of supplies/toys from SU today. I've had fun with my kit, but a girl needs accessories and I had to order from the Winter Mini that will be available to customers September 1. I also got the Haunting Halloween set so that I could demo it at my parties in September. Stampin' Up! has a great special going on in September if you spend $30, you can get one of several sets for 30% off. Man they pamper their customers! Check out my goodies because you will be seeing creations from them soon. Can't wait to play with those In-Colors!

~Wendy

Plumeria Flowers

So, for those of you that know me, you know that I have a yellow thumb. I don't kill all my plants, but I don't have beautiful gardens that I dream of. Last year, my husband's co-worker brought us a branch off his Plumeria plant. I looked at Chris wondering how long it would take me to kill this thing too. Well... with a little love and all of God's rain this summer I have kept this thing alive. I keep it in the driveway right in front of where I park my car so that I can remember to keep it watered and the past few days have been really exciting. Most of the time it's a green stalk with a few leaves coming out of it and a few brown ones on the ground. A few days ago this bud stalk thingy started to grow out of the top. Each day it's gotten bigger and yesterday the buds grew and looked pink on the outside. (Now remember that I kill most plants, so I didn't bother to ask what color flower would grow on this thing.) I went around all day today telling everyone that my Plumeria plant was growing pink flowers and check out what I saw when I got home today
Yellow! Yes that's right, not pink at all like the bud behind them shows to be. But let me tell you that these are the prettiest and sweetest smelling flowers every. They remind me of being in Hawaii where we got married. I did a little zooming in the flowers so that you could see how pretty they were. Now comes the fun part of being outside trying to take pictures of my flowers. Sadie, our black lab, had to come play out front too. It's funny that she has a huge backyard to play in all day long, but seems to save all her energy for when we get home. She was running around the front yard like a mad woman until she figured out that I was taking pictures. I guess I've made her sit still for too many pictures that she now needs to have her picture taken every time the camera comes out. So here is Sadie trying to look cute for the camera. While Sadie is posing, the kitties decide to come out from inside the garage and get attention too. Here is Tessa rolling on the concrete like she loves to do. Can you tell that she's lost weight since becoming an outside kitty? She used to be even fatter if you can believe that! Well, SC couldn't miss out on getting attention too, but she doesn't like to get all the licks that Sadie likes to give her, so she kept popping in and out of the garage. This is all that I could catch of her. If you look really closely you will see her little nose and whiskers sticking out. Both kitties have become so much friendlier since going outside. Good thing, because I like having my laundry room back! Well that's enough animal and flower talking for me. I promise that this weekend I will have more stamping to show. Stay tuned!

~Wendy

Kellie's Cards

My sister-in-law began her third year of teaching this week and I could not let her do it without creating a 'Good Luck' card. I just love how cute the Teachabella is and how non-traditional she is with her heels and cute hair. This one says 'Good Luck' on the inside, but I also made her a set with 'thanks a bunch' on the inside. Kellie always says that she can't have enough thank you cards, so I made her some cute ones to start the year off with. I choose red and black because Red Raiders have to stick together in this town of Longhorns! Plus it looked really good with the chalkboard look for the alpha-background.

Stamps: Alphabits, Teachabella from Stamping Bella,
Paper: Red, Black, & White
Ink: Basic Black, White
Accessories: White Grosgrain Ribbon, Prismacolor Markers, SU Pastels, Dimensionals

Birthday RAKs

I have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to stop and thank Jackie Randolph and Tammy Miller(from my bellaholics group) for the beautiful Bella birthday cards. I was so excited to get these and feel so bad that it's taken me so long to get them up here. Please take a minute to check out their creations and how cute they are! I definitely have to get more Bellas! Thanks for making my birthday even more special Jackie and Tammy!

~Wendy

New Colors

I decided to change things up and use new colors for my blog. What do you think? Is it hard to read, easier, or about the same??? I just felt like it was time to update. I hope to do some stamping tonight, so check back tomorrow for more creations.

Wendy

Baby Card

I love, love, love, love my new Cuttlebug! It is so much fun to play with and I love finished product. But, I did learn to use good paper and not cheap paper when it comes to the Cuttlebug. If you use thin paper it tends to tear on the deep embossing.

This card is way late, but I still wanted to create something for my husband's cousin's third child. They now have a little girl and two little boys. Those little boys are going to have so much fun together. Hopefully there next one is a little girl because I know how much Morgan would love a little sister! I wasn't crazy about this elephant at first, but it is so cute!!! My inspiration for this card came from Jen's challenge. Go check out her creations, because they are wonderful!!!

Enjoy~Wendy

Stamps: Year after Year
Ink: Basic Black
Paper: Bashful Blue, Mint Melody, Barely Banana
Accessories: Corner Rounder, SU Pastels, Cuttlebug, Grosgrain Ribbon