Hello stampers and happy Friday to you! Did you know that Stampin’Up! is making a huge difference with the Trimming the Town suite? Well, actually it is the Coming Home stamp set in this suite that is the fundraiser. This makes me so very happy! If you purchase the Coming Home stamp set Stampin’Up! will donate $4 to charities devoted to adoption, foster care and infertility. Together we can make a difference today.
Trimming the Town Suite
Let’s Raise Money for Families!
Here is a look at the stamp set that is the actual “vehicle” for the fundraiser. If you purchase this adorable stamp set you will help raise money for adoption, foster care and fertility. This is the most Stampin’Up! has ever donated to a charity, $4 per set! I would love to encourage people to ALL buy this great set. I think it is the perfect set for this cause. Do you know why?
What is one of the first things that you ever drew as a child? I think the top three are 1. a sun, 2. a tree and 3. a house! These images are perfect for colouring for all ages. Are you going to buy this set?
Some Cute Cards with Trimming the Town Suite
This cute card comes straight out of the catalog and uses both our new festive felt sheets and the adhesive backed snowflakes. I accidentally bought the snowflake sequins instead of these beauties. I love the convenience of having them be adhesive backed already. No need to struggle with glue dots!
My Card!
Finally you get to see my card. It is an amazing surprise gatefold card that I showed in my Facebook live video which I will also share here. I hope you subscribe to my YouTube channel so that you don’t miss any of my videos. When I am finished my quarantine I will be getting a new phone so that I can do my live videos in landscape mode. Won’t that just be fantastic!!
Here is the inside of the card, but the best thing will be watching the video to see all the surprises inside!
Trimming the Town Video Tutorial
If you want to see how to make this surprise gatefold card, just watch this video. We will also be making this style of card in my Online Christmas Bingo which is going to be so much fun!! I hope you consider joining in too, you have until September 15 to register for this event on October 8 at 7pm. You can read all the details here.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for joining me today, I had a lot of fun playing with this fun Trimming the Town suite, but more than that, I really, really hope you get on board with the fundraiser. I love it when I can use my business to help with an important cause. Families are everything! I hope you have a super day!!
Hello stampers and happy Monday to you. Stamping with littles has been on my mind lately. Have you ever stamped with “littles”? It is my pet word for children and it is an inclusive and endearing term. I think it is super important to do meaningful activities in intergenerational groups. This used to happen in the distant past with quilting bees and baking events, but it is quite rare today.
Let Me Tell You About Stamping with Littles
This past Saturday I had a “Littles and Me” class and I really had no idea what to expect as I did not set any age specifications. It was the first of two classes and the second class was full with four adults and eight littles. This one was only one adult and two littles, but then one more adult and one more little came for a well rounded class. The youngest little was four and the oldest was twelve. One of the adults was a young mom, the other an oma. It was lovely to see everyone interact! Like all stamping events, it was about so much more than just making cards! It warmed my heart to see the quality time and the relationships that were strengthened through doing a meaningful and fun activity together.
Cheerful Chick
One of the cards that we made at my “Littles and Me” class was this cheerful chick card. It is perfect for all ages and everyone was delighted to see the chick take shape as we added eyes, beak and feet. Oh the joys of two step stamping!
Even the four year old was able to make this card with a bit of help. She stamped her background flowers all by herself and then chose to put the sentiment on her egg since she didn’t want to cover any of her flowers. Perfectly adorable!
Dino Days
The second card for my Littles and Me class featured the dinosaur set. The reason for that is because the die for the egg in the chick card comes from the Dino Days bundle! I also thought the littles could personalize their card by choosing which dinosaur to put on their card. This is a super fun set with adorable coordinating paper.
The littles were true to my expectations. They switched around the patterned paper, the placement of the hearts, their choice of dinosaurs, it was great! Children love to do their own thing much more than adults. They have confidence in what they like and are not at all worried about doing it “right”. We can learn from them. My next Littles and Me class is Saturday March 21 at 10am.
Memories and More cards with the Littles
If you want to create with the littles in your life, I highly recommend our Memories and More line of products. There are ready to go whisper white Memories & More cards and envelopes so that you do not need to cut and score them yourself. Match them up with the Memories & More card pack of your choice and you will have hours of easy fun with your littles. In the card pack there are also stickers and special cards. They are also perfectly suited for pocket card style scrapbooking, where you slip either photos or these cards into the various sized pockets. There are journaling cards included as well.
Tropical Oasis Memories & More tutorial
I have made a tutorial that includes 15 cards made using Memories & More cards. There are five “normal” cards included as well. If you love the Memories & More cards but need a help getting your creative juices flowing, then this tutorial is for you. Cheaper than a class and you can stay home in your pajamas to do it! Here is a photo of all the cards. You can examine them closely and probably figure it out on your own and that is fine too. The tutorial is there for instant gratification! Sometimes we need that. This will last longer than a bouquet of flowers, so indulge yourself.
If you want to purchase the tutorial, just click on the buy now below and when I get the PayPal notification I will send you the pdf.
Paper Pumpkin for Cancer Campaign
This blog post is all over the place today! There is just so much that I want to share with you. As you may know, Paper Pumpkin for March will have a bonus stamp set in it. What you might not know is that I was inspired by a fellow team member who is battling her second cancer right now. First she conquered breast cancer, now she is dealing with brain cancer. She is in the hospital right now and when I was chatting with her I found out that as she is pain free she has hours in the hospital spend sleeping and reading. What she needed was some paper crafting distraction! Paper Pumpkin to the rescue. It didn’t take much time to gather a few Paper Pumpkins, some extra ink spots from previous Paper Pumpkins, some scissors and some adhesive.
This made me think that it would be great to distribute more Paper Pumpkins to the cancer ward. Cancer patients and their families could benefit from having a fun and meaningful distraction. With March having a bonus stamp set I thought I would ask people to sponsor a Paper Pumpkin. The bonus stamp set would be mailed to them and that way people from all over the world could participate. You can too!! You have until tomorrow to do it! Time is of the essence. After the tenth there will be no more bonus stamp set. You could still sponsor a Paper Pumpkin but there would be no perk for you besides the joy of doing something special for someone.
I love it when I can use my business for the greater good and can mobilize other people to join me.
Thanks so Much!
Thanks so very much for joining me today and also for participating in fun ventures with me. I really hope that this impulsive, last minute idea to spread joy to cancer patients with Paper Pumpkin gets a lot of involvement, together we really can make a difference. On a personal note, keep those cards coming for Gerard and you will be in a draw for a masculine stamp set. Read more about it in this blog post. There is also the Honour and Remember event happening for our veteran community. You can read about that here.
Only three weeks left in saleabration so be sure to take advantage of the free products or the starter kit opportunity. More info on that in this post, OR if you are ready for the best deal in the catalog, simply click this link to get started.
Hello stampers. You have heard me talk a lot about Paper Pumpkin. One of the many things I love about Paper Pumpkin is that it makes it easy for me to help charities like Hospice. Our Chatham-Kent Hospice has a beautiful program where they send a handmade card on the one year anniversary of the death of a loved one. This is such a thoughtful thing to do and when I heard about it I knew it was the right fit for me. What a great way to use my business to bless others. Studies have shown that the one year mark in grieving is a tough one. Most people have forgotten your loss and moved on, so it can be very touching to receive a card on that anniversary. Paper Pumpkin is different every month but every once in a while it is perfect for my Hospice cards. That means I can make beautiful cards with my team of volunteers with very little prep time involved. It is also wonderful for the volunteers because the cards are easy and beautiful. Here are some of the cards we made today.
All the sentiments that we used came from different Paper Pumpkin kits. Paper Pumpkin is a monthly subscription that comes in the mail and includes a stamp set, a mini ink pad and all the supplies you need to make great cards. All you need is a tape runner. Glue dots and dimensionals are included as well. Paper Pumpkin is going up in price in June, so if you want to lock in the savings you would be wise to get a 12 month prepaid subscription. This will not only save you $3 per month (when the price goes up) it also gives you a free month as well as $27.50 in host benefits. You can skip a month at any time with no penalty and you can activate your subscription whenever you like. Don’t you think it would be a wonderful Mother’s Day gift?
See all the details in this card? Everything was included in the kit. Lovely colour coordination and such great textures too.
Do you see the sentiment on this card? It is from next month’s Paper Pumpkin! How on earth did I get my hands on that so early? It was my prize at OnStage in Quebec City where one of our make and takes was a Paper Pumpkin card from the May kit designed by Shelli herself. You are not going to want to miss out on this beautiful Paper Pumpkin kit.
After I took the picture of this third card I realized it would be fun to daub a little daffodil delight in the centre of this grey granite rose. It really did look great, so I took another picture to show you. I just changed this card up a little from the original in the kit. I centred the middle panel and added some baker’s twine. So simple and so pretty.
Don’t you think these cards will be perfect for Hospice? I love the soft spring colours, just like a bit of sunshine after a long dark winter. I thought you might like a glimpse of my table as I was prepping for the Hospice card making class. I pre-stamped the sentiments to make it easier and faster to get more cards finished.
I took one more picture to show you a little trick of mine. Whenever you are trying to adhere something to a surface that is not smooth such as ribbon or corrugated paper or glimmer paper it is a good idea to have your dimensionals on a smooth surface, not on the other stuff. Take a look:
Do you see how I placed the dimensionals above the corrugated banner? That way the sentiment will not only be offset, it will also be on firm footing and not fall off in a few days. I hope you enjoyed these cards and that you were also inspired to either come and help out with making cards for Hospice or starting some kind of community service in your area. Share what you love and spread joy with your hobby or your business. Together we can make the world a better place. Have a super day and thanks for dropping by.
Well hello stampers! The thing I like best about what I do as a Stampin’Up! demonstrator is that I can make a real difference in people’s lives. So can you. Through the inspiration of a fellow demonstrator who attended my retreat in Tennessee, “Dixie Sue”, and through two requests from the community, C.A.R.E. was born. It stands for Cards Are a Real Encouragement. Both the local hospital and the hospice approached me about making cards and I was thrilled to be able to say yes! The cards we will make together will let people know that they are not alone. Someone cares about them and they have not been forgotten. Their sorrow and their pain will be acknowledged. Yesterday I was busy all morning creating these simple but beautiful cards.
Some of these cards use retired stamp sets, but since they are still beautiful and not being used in a “real” card making class, I have no issue with that. Even the beautiful Serene Scenery paper is now sold out. I still have four packages unopened!! The birthday cards you see will be for those unfortunate people that have to celebrate a birthday in the hospital.
Even though this beautiful paper is no longer available, the stamp set used here, Sunshine Sayings, is still current. I love this set as it is so versatile and combines so beautifully with the Sunshine Wishes framelits. Right now it is still a bundle so you save 10%. When the new catalog comes out June 1 it will no longer be a bundle so you will have to pay more!
This card was made using leftover scraps from another card. The heart is from Sunshine Wishes framelits and the saying is from Weather Together, which will only be available until May 31. The card itself measures 4 1/4″ square. The patterned paper strips are 3 3/8″ x 1″. The black mat is 3 5/8″ x 3 3/8″. The following card sort of sums up my motivation for C.A.R.E. “be the difference you want to see in the world”.
The way that C.A.R.E. works is that we will make three identical cards, perhaps switching up the sentiments. One card will go to the hospital, one will be for hospice and one will be for you to keep. You pay only $5. We meet each Saturday morning at 10am at The Dutch Market at 80 William Street south in their bistro. Of course we will take time to enjoy their famous pastries and Charlie is always so kind and generous to provide us with coffee on the house. Space is limited to be a part of this group, so be sure to let me know if you want to be a part of it. This last card was the brain child of Julie Scaparra. I love it so much. The saying is from a retired stamp set called Love and Sympathy. the lighthouse is from the stamp set High Tide, one of my favourites from the Occasions catalog.
It truly is amazing that stamps, ink and paper can make such a difference in people’s lives. It really is true. I have heard it over and over and it makes my heart smile. The simple act of making something for someone with your own two hands while thinking about them is a very profound act of love that does not go unnoticed. People feel the love. I will end with the Stampin’Up! statement of the heart:
