My new purse!

I love, love, love the fabric from the Holiday Mini catalog! I am working on several projects using it and I can't wait to show you. Today I am going to share with you a purse that my Aunt and I created using the Deck the Halls fabric. I cannot sew well, but my Aunt can so I cut and she sews. A win/win for us. We created the pattern just by copying some purses that we already owned. We added the ruffles by using the Scallop Circle die and sewing them together. I do not own the table setting die yet so we improvised. I saw a purse very close to this on the Stampin Up! demonstrator website so we made our own version. I am working on a felt flower to go on the straps. That will be posted shortly. I would love to know what you think!

We added a zipper because I need a zipper or everything falls out. My Aunt tied a little scrap of fabric on the zipper pull. Too cute!

We added 3 pockets on the inside along with another piece of the Deck the Halls fabric. It is sort of quilted a la Vera Bradley, but better because we made it ourselves! ")

Here is a close up of the ruffles. If you look closely at the ruffles you can see green ribbon. We used Always Artichoke 1/4 inch grosgrain ribbon to finish the ruffles. You can't really see the ribbon when you are carrying the purse, just at this angle. Of course we used the Chantilly Lace to finish the top.

I cannot wait to use the new fabric in the 2011 Occasions Mini! Sooooo many possibilities!!!!!

I would love to know what you think and answer any questions that you might have.

Happy Stampin and Sewin!
Melissa

More Great Gifts for Giving!

Hello Stampers!

I hope you enjoyed yesterdays projects from my Great Gifts for Giving Class. Today I am going to share 2 more projects. If you haven't already signed up, now is the time to do it!

These little wooden block are great. I am already imagining a ton of other uses for them. These feature our Jolly Holiday DSP. I LOVE this paper! So versatile and not just for Christmas. I am planning on putting my sons' picture in them and giving them to family. I think this is something that is not just for Christmas. Don't we all need a little J O Y in our lives all year round, not just a Christmas?

This is my favorite gift of all. I love snowmen. He is just too cute! I can't take credit for him though. He was created by another wonderful Melissa (") The Stamp Doc. You can check out her blog here. She has a great tutorial. I think she is wonderful and she is so generous to share her creations and tutorials! I LOVE THAT!!

Join me tomorrow for some more Great Gifts for Giving! It is not too late to sign up for my class. You can check out the details here!

Happy Stampin'
Melissa

Great Gifts for Giving Class

Hello Stampers,

This Friday and Saturday I am having my Great Gifts for Giving class. Last year it was a success so I decided to continue it. We will be making 8 Great Gifts for Giving (or keeping). It is not too late to sign up. Just email me to let me know what time you will be coming. Classes are help 9-11 and 6-8pm. Hope you can be there!

One of the 8 projects we are making is this cute little brag book! I made one of these last year for my Mom for Mother's Day and she loved it. She will be getting another one this year for Christmas!

I used Baja Breeze card stock as the base. Whisper White and Blushing Bride to coordinate with the Candy Cane Christmas DSP. I won the new Northern Frost die from my Upline so I had to use them to coordinate with the paper and a little Rhinestone bling to make it shimmery.

Our next project that we will be making are these great coasters. I love the Dasher stamp and had to use him this year. These are very easy to make and I love the simplicity of them.

These were stamped with Chocolate Chip craft ink.

Check back tomorrow for some more projects from my class and don't forget to register today!!

Happy Stampin'
Melissa

Keep It Simple Silly!

Hello Stampers!

I know we can all relate to the saying, "Simplify". I see that word all the time on cute little signs. I, myself wanted to put that on my walls to remind myself to just keep it simple. I find that as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator that I cannot just keep it simple. I have to add something, just one embellishment at least. Well ladies, today I DID IT! I just kept it simple, real simple. One layer card and no embellishments or bling of any kind. I really liked the results. What do you think?

Just a simple Thank You card using the Day of Gratitude stamp set. I just used Old Olive ink and stamped on Very Vanilla card stock. Simple!

I liked these so much that I made a box and some more cards and gave them to my hostess on Thursday night. I hope she liked them! Tell me what you think Debbie!

The box was very simple and just used a regular sheet of card stock. I added the bow and sentiment to give it a little extra something (it was for a gift after all!) and I really liked the way it turned out. Simple.

I made more of these cards in different colors to send out to customers. I used Cherry Cobbler (my new favorite red) and Rich Razzleberry. I love them! Simple!

To order supplies to make these cards, please click here.

Happy Stampin!
Melissa

P.S. Check back on Monday for the projects that we will be making for my Great Gifts for Giving Class this weekend.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone! Today I thought I would share a few things that we made at Club night last week. I am not a big Halloweeny person, but I thought these were cute and when I saw them I had to run out and get some little Hand Sanitizers and make some for friends. Of course I made some with a Twilight twist for my fellow Twilight Moms, but I forgot to take pictures so I will make another one for me and share later on! You can find a tutorial and some other ideas here.

Here is a cute card I found while blog hoping. I was so excited about it that I forgot to write down who created it. If it was you please let me know. I just love the Owl and the Ghosts! Too cute!

And what is Halloween without pumpkins? They are even better because they have candy in them! These will be given out to my family for Thanksgiving, but we made these for club. The tutorial for this can be found here.

And last but not least the last little goodie. I found this one here. I thought it was a great way to give a little treat and use up some scrap paper. It just uses a 3x6 piece of paper. Easy peasy!

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Batty For You, All Holidays

Paper: Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black, So Safron,

Wicked Fun Designer Series Paper

Accessories: Scallop Circle Punch, 2 step Owl Punch, 2 step Bird punch, 1 1/4 circle punch, 1 3/8 circle punch, 1 3/4 circle punch, Boho Blossom Punch, Large Oval

Ink: Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Rich Razzleberry.

Can you believe that I didn't use my Big Shot? I almost did on the card for some swirly texture but we got to talking and forgot! I still can't believe it!

Have a Happy Halloween. I am ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!

Happy Stampin'

Melissa



I know! I know!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth! I am still alive! Things got crazy busy after the wedding with school and playing catch from the wedding. I have been busy stampin too! I went to Regionals in Baltimore which was AWESOME! I got some great swaps and learned some great techniques that I have been practicing. I also signed up to be a Tastefully Simple Consultant. I love their products and thought that it would be a great way to earn some extra money to support my Stampin Up! business and pay some bills! We all need that, right? If you want to check out what Tastefully Simple is all about, visit my website here. I also will be starting a Tastefully Simple Blog that will have recipes and tips for using your products. That is currently under construction, but I am working on it! I promise!

Here is a card that we made at Regionals. I just love the simplicity of this card. Easy peasy! You can stamp a bunch of these at a time and have Thank You cards on hand and ready to go!

Supplies: Days of Gratitude Stamp Set (I used Clear Mount as usual!)

Card Stock: Old Olive and Whisper White

Ink: Old Olive

Punches: Decorative Label Punch (2010 Holiday Mini)

Ribbon: Old Olive 5/8 Grosgrain

If you would like to order any of the products to make this card, please click here!

Happy Stampin'

Melissa

A cake or a box?

Or a cake box? Actually this is a box that looks like a cake that can hold cards. A card cake box. I feel a Dr. Seuss moment coming on. I must stop now! I have not posted for a while because I have been knee deep in wedding stuff. Favors, Rehearsals, Programs and Card boxes (Oh my!)

My lovely sister Sarah blessed our family with Jason. He is the coolest Uncle ever according to my 3 boys who totally ADORE him! Plus I finally have a little brother to tease! he-he! Anyway...I am rambling. The wedding was wonderful. Everything came together and the night (and day) was perfect. So my baby sister is a married woman now. sniff, sniff!

We needed to come up with a box to hold cards and I had not clue how to make one so we ordered the cake box from Oriental Trading Company. If I had more time I would have painted it Ivory because that was the color of my sisters dress, but I had less than a day to rock out this cake box.

The cake box was already "decorated" according to Oriental Trading company but I ripped off all the ribbons and crappy cheap flowers and started with a bare box. I wanted to add the yummy Rich Razzleberry Ribbon from Stampin Up! but I didn't have enough and I couldn't use Very Vanilla because the cake box was still white so I came up with using Rich Razzleberry Card Stock and punch using the Eyelet Lace border punch. I actually used the scalloped edge punch but my sister liked the eyelet lace punch and since she was queen of the day, she got what she wanted. I used Tombo Mono Adhesive to glue everything down and it worked like a charm.

The paper roses were a cinch to make and I made these up ahead of time to make the process move quicker. I did make A LOT of these but it looked a little busy so we paired it down. I found a great, easy tutorial here. I ran a strip of Old Olive card stock through the crimper and cut out leaf shapes and just added them in as I went along.

For the top of the box I put 4 of the roses around a little styrofoam ball and then added a bigger rose on top. Again I just stuck the leaves in where I thought they should go.

I was really happy with how everything came out. I have never done anything like this before and I only had a few hours to really make it come together. I did receive a lot of compliments from the staff at the reception so I am going to play around with some other paper flowers and designs and make more of these to sell if requested.

I would love to know what you think! Please leave me comments (and please be kind!) I am new to this!

Toodles,
Melissa