Thank You - Inspired by Nature

I love the stamp set Inspired by Nature.  I purchased it in September or October, but I haven't had a chance to use it until yesterday!  I needed to send some Thank you cards out, so I decided to inaugurate the stamp by using it to create my cards.  

Here's the design I came up with.  The stamp is quite large and double-sided.  The background grass is on one side and the flower is mounted to the other side of the wood block.  I inked the stamp with VersaMark and then I inked my brayer with Early Espresso so I could apply an even coat of ink over the VersaMark before stamping my flower image.  I embossed the image with clear embossing powder.  I used daubers of Always Artichoke, More Mustard, and Cajun Craze inks to apply ink to the Very Vanilla card stock.  The edges were inked with Early Espresso also.

 Early Espresso card stock is layered with Autumn Spice DSP which frames the completed stamped image.  The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes, stamped with Early Espresso, and punched out with the Word Window and Modern Label Punch.  The completed sentiment is attached to the stamp image with Dimensionals.

I highly recommend adding Teeny Tiny Wishes, Word Window Punch and Modern Label Punch to your arsenal of stamping supplies--they are must haves!  You can purchase them on-line from Nanci's Stampin' Up! site 24/7.  As for Inspired by Nature, I cannot wait to use this stamp again!

Happy Stamping!

October Stamp Club

We celebrated the arrival of Fall at our October Stamp Club meeting by making 4 cards using Stampin' Up!'s gorgeous Day of Gratitude and French Foliage stamp sets.  Both of these beautiful sets are featured in the Holiday Mini Catalog.  Our DSP for the evening was Autumn Spice.  With all of the rich colors and texture, this specialty paper is the perfect choice for Fall and Thanksgiving projects.  Combined with card stock and inks in Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive, Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake, our fall color palette was complete!

For our first card, we used the French Foliage stamp set. 

We used every stamp in this set to create our background paper and then inked the edges in Early Espresso.  We lightly sponged More Mustard throughout our image to give a more aged look.  Our sentiment from the Holiday Best set was stamped in Cajun Craze, layered on More Mustard and Cajun Craze card stock and popped up with Dimensionals.  For our simple embellishment we cut out a few more stamped leaves, inked the edges for a crisp look, added an antique brad and a twist of twine!  All of our ladies LOVED this card!

For our second card we used the awesome medallion stamp from Day of Gratitude.  This stamp is so bold and versatile!  It can be used for all seasons with  just a change of ink colors, and looks great stamped with multiple colors or in just one tone.  It's perfect as a background stamp using tone on tone, or embossed with Versamark.  It's hard to go wrong with this fantastic stamp!

For our project, we went for multiple colors using our Stampin' Write Markers.  We cut out our medallion and layered it on Early Espresso, More Mustard and Cajun Craze.  Our sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and punched out with Word Window and layed on a Modern Label punched out in Cajun Craze. 

For our next card we made a gate fold and featured a beautiful patterned paper from the Autumn Spice DSP on one panel and complimented it with a leaf image stamped in tone on tone on the other panel. We Ticket Corner punched our layered panel for added dimension.  Our Day of Gratitude sentiment was punched out using the Decorative Label and made for the perfect card closure!

For our last card we created a quick and easy background using the Bright Blessings Jumbo Wheel rolled twice across our paper in More Mustard ink.  Our three simple images were colored using our Regal markers and punched out using the 1 1/4" Square Punch and then layered on Early Espresso.  We used Crystal Effects on the center of our flowers and added 3 Rhinestones across the bottom for a little sparkle and shine!

We ended our evening by making our Turkey Treat Bags, which have become quite a hit!  You can view these cute little guys in our previous post! Thanks for looking at our projects and Happy Crafting!



Craft Show Recovery!

We survived the craft show!  Sunday, October 10, 2010, we participated in the 29th Oktoberfest at Marion Catholic High School.  What a great experience!  

The event is run as a fundraiser for the band.  The band members help the vendors with set up and tear down before and after the event.  They also bring coffee and donuts around in the morning and provide a lunch menu pick up and delivery service.  Everyone was so helpful!  We had a great time!

Nanci's son-in-law and husband built this great display for us!  It folds in half and we can change all the  shelving around to fit the display each time we exhibit.  At the craft show we were invited to three other events.  We will be participating in two other craft shows in November, Miss Nikki's Craft Fair and Ladies Night Out 2010 at the Chicago Height's Country Club! 

We sold out of one item at the craft show--our Thanksgiving hostess gift wrapped chocolates.  Luckily we took pictures of them before the show.  We love the Autumn Spice DSP.  It really has the flavor and feel of Thanksgiving! :)

Nanci's Turkey Treat Bags were popular also!

Nanci's stamp club is meeting on Tuesday, so we will have some sneak peeks for you tomorrow! :) 

Harvest Time Delights

 Our 1"X8" and 2"X5" clear bags arrived and we immediately put them to good use!   We punched out Cajun Craze tags stamped in basic brown with happy harvest from Loads of Love Accessories stamp set.  We layered a small More Mustard card stock oval stamped with Cajun Craze pumpkins from the same stamp set on top of the tag.  The edges of both punches were inked with Basic Brown to give added dimension.  The Sizzix Bag with Scallop die was cut using the Big Shot. 

The pumpkins were made with Cajun Craze and Autumn Spice DSP.  Punches used were the Medium Oval and 1" Circle punches.  The leaves are punched from the Two Step Bird punch.  Sentiment is stamped from Teeny Tiny Wishes and punched out with Word Window punch.

   
 Here are some close ups of the completed treat bags.  Both projects would make excellent table decorations and/or hostess gifts for your holiday dinner table.   These treats will also be for sale on our table at the 29th Annual Oktoberfest Marion Catholic High School Craft Fair.  We hope you will stop by and visit with us.  We will also have information about our weekend craft retreats at Lake View Lodge in Dowagiac, MI!