Freebie Set

Here is another one of those sets that I earned for FREE during Sale-A-Bration. This was a set I had been eyeing for quite a while. So it was really great to get it for FREE. I was excited to use it for a birthday card I need for a friend.

Here is the inside of the card. I love to decorate the inside too. Why stop at the front of the card!?! I hope to have more creations with this set soon. See you tomorrow!

Bye Bye Sale-A-Bration

Here is a card I demo'ed at a party recently. This is a quick and simple card. I really like how it came out, but some of these supplies will be leaving us soon. In 2 days to be exact! This Welcome Neighbor DSP pack and the sentiment used on this card are both found in our Sale-A-Bration catalog.If you still have items on your Sale-A-Bration wish list now is the time to act. Click here to start shopping.

But don't worry too much when one promo is ending a new one is just around the corner. Stampin Up is always so good to us! A new Mini will be starting May 1, our new Catalog will be here in July and I am sure there will be even more goodies in between. In fact I will tell you about a new sneak peek set from our July Catalog on April 1st. Stay tuned..........

Green Tip #8

When going green don't forget about all those things you are probably recycling anyway. Glass jars such as baby food jars are perfect for giving treats. But the larger jars work good too. Remember to open all those mini fruit cup tins from the bottom and you can make some great "pop top" treats. You can even save those twist ties from your bread to close your cello bags.

Then just fill and embellish and there you go! I cant tell you how many baby food jars I have! I knew I would used then for something but after two babies those things sure pile up. Just remember to wash them good. The last thing you want is to give a yummy treat and have it smell like one of those baby food meats.......yuck!!!!!!

Another Birthday Card for Brandon

Here is another card we received for Brandon's birthday. Do you like how I say we? Well , usually when Brandon or the girls get cards that are SU! after they read them they become "property of Mom." I really do keep all the cards. I use them as inspiration. I really like this card. It was made by Lorraine. This is it a good masculine card. I think we all know those are hard to do. But the clean and simple layout makes it work. I also love this size card. It is fun to change things up a bit from time to time. And yes, SU! does sell the envelopes to fit this card too.

Here is an up close of the card detail. Now go and enjoy your Sunday. Thanks for stopping by!

NEW Toll Family Member!

Say hello to our newest family member. Harvey! As of yesterday, we are officially cat owners. The girls are so excited. We had played around with the idea of getting the girls a kitten for Easter. We thought that would be so exciting and cute. But yesterday while on walk we decided to go into the Pet Store and "just look." But there he was, looking so cute and staring down our dog! Our first thought was, well he looks tough, which he will need to take on our Husky. Then we went in to meet him. Harvey perked up and started rubbing on the fence and puring louder than any cat I had ever heard. That sold me. So we walked home and thought about it.

So, back to that cute feeling of an "Easter Kitty," I don't think that could even compare to the feeling of rescuing an animal from a shelter. It also gave us an opportunity to let our girls feel like they helped out and are doing the right thing by giving a home to a kitty that really needs one. If you are thinking about getting an animal I suggest going this route. This is the first time we have rescued an animal and it feels great (this in only our second pet too.) There were also lots of benefits to rescuing Harvey too:

He is fixed

Litter box trained

Has his shots

and he came with a ton of coupons! (I love coupons!) we got FREE litter and food and discounts on everything else (toys, collar, tag, bed, and we even got dog coupons too.)

Now, I just hope this video works so you can see how cute he is:

April Class and Updates

***Easter Kits are now SOLD OUT! Thanks to everyone that swooped those up so fast. I hope to do something similar again soon. So stay tuned.....
Our April class is a perfect one before Mother's Day. This nice fold out album will make the perfect Mother's Day gift for yourself, Grandma or any Mom that you would like to give a gift to. For my example book I chose the Cool Kids Simply Scrappin Kit. I love it because it has great stickers for journaling some of my girls favorite things such as pets, movie, friends and more. You really have to see these in person to see how cute it is.

During the class we will make one book together and you will take home the remainder of your supplies to make more projects.

Fold Out Album
Thursday, April 15th at 6:30

RSVP by April 5

Cost of class is (1) Simply Scrappin Kit of your choice

No minimum order the day of class

Save the date for these upcoming classes too:

Punch Art #4- Thursday, May 20th

Techniques Class- Thursday, June 24
It's in the Bag (back by popular demand)- Saturday, July 10

Green Tip #7

Have you ever had an idea for a card in your head but when you go to make it it doesn't seem to work out? You play around with the idea to get it to work but all you seem to be doing is wasting supplies? That happens to me a lot. That is the most frustrating feeling. Maybe Green tip #7 can help with that.......

Before you create, design a "scrap map" on My Digital Studio. When creating a card or project on your MDS all stamps and embellishments are true to size. That means that if the layout works in MDS it will work on your card. Now, if you are making a digital card then you can always change the size of your graphics (I like that feature.) But if you are just using the layout as a map so you can make a card with actual supplies then this is a great tool. This step was especially helpful on today's card. While creating this layout I was able to move my flowers around and around to make sure they looked perfect. Then when I found the arrangement that I liked the best I recreated it with my SU! supplies. No waste at all!

Birthday Goodies

I just realized I forgot to show you some of the birthday goodies from my nephews birthday party a few weeks ago. This party was at Go Bananas too so it had a monkey/ safari theme as well as Sammie's party (only boy-ish of course.) Look at this Fab cupcake tier. It was calling my girls' names the second we walked into the party room. Don't you love those cupcake toppers made with the Fox and Friends set? Lions and Monkeys and Turtles..oh my!

And here are the goodies bags. Lorraine gave out some serious goodies in these bags. Ava and Sammie are still playing with all the stuff in them. But of course these have some SU! flare too.

Here is an up close view of those cute tags. Nicely done Lorraine. I even had to hang onto the tags and cupcake toppers for myself. I know Jenn did too (another SU! mommy that was at the party!)

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! We got to spend a really nice day with her with weekend that ended with a nice dinner out. At dinner we gave her a give from all of us this was the card I made for her. I forgot to snap a picture of the bag but I decorated a plain white gift bag to match the card.

For some detail on this card I distressed the edges of the card stock and I popped up our little bunny with a dimensional. This Forest Friends set I got FREE with my own Sale-A-Bration order.

Just a reminder. We only have 8 days left to Sale-A-Brate. Did you get everything you want? Now is the time to order if not. Remember you can always combine an order with a friend too.

I just love the new Sale-A-Bration boxes! Caution: opening box may cause extreme excitement........yeah, to say the least! That's funny!

Green Tip #6

Well this first picture is not the greatest: a little blurry and sideways. Not sure why. But I am using it to show you Green tip#6. Do you use that thin card board that comes in the back of your DSP packs? I do.

I love that card board because it is thick enough to use in helpful ways and thin enough to cut with you paper cutter or punch with your SU! punches.

As you can see in this picture I added a middle layer of punched cardboard to the middle of my tag. The DSP is covering the front and back so you don't see the cardboard but it helps to add some firmness to my project so my tag wont get squished while in transit.

Also try adding a larger cut piece of cardboard to the inside of a DSP tote to add some extra support. Or cut a piece to add in with your big shot die when you need just a bit more thickness.

More Recipe Pictures

Here are the final pictures from the Recipe Exchange Party. Here you will see my demo. I showed the ladies how to make a little bunny out of a washcloth. I paired the bunny with a Bath and Body Works soap and embellished them with our Easter stamps. This was a project I saw at Leadership. This is a nice alternative to candy for Easter.

This is one of our guests, Nina, modeling Lorraine's demo. This is a quick carrot made with our Scallop Circle Die perfect for holding some Easter candy.

And here are the final recipe cards that I was dying to show you. Jenn made this punch art pot of Chili to go with her delicious Chili Recipe. I just love that she used the jelly bean from the Something Sweet stamp set as a Lima bean. Too creative.

And how cute is her recipe card for her Shrimp Dip? I love the shrimp rolling across the card. She also added a crab to let us know that the recipe could be made with crab too. You cant see it in the picture but all the shrimp and the crab are popped up with dimensional. I love it!

Recipe Exchange

I just love these Recipe Boxes. They are too cute and super handy. Before handing them out to the ladies we also embellished them a bit with the stripped So Saffron Ribbon and name tags. It was a yummy night! I ate way too much but it was so worth it! We all left with the most delicious recipes. I am going to make each one for my family to try.

Not only did the ladies bring yummy recipes but there were some of the cutest recipe cards too. Here is one made by Alyssa. She used the Voila set to make a perfect recipe card for her BBQ Chicken sandwiches. Yumm-O! That is my favorite. Just ask my hubby. I order it every time I go out. Now I can make it at home. Thanks Alyssa! I still have two more cute recipe cards to show in a few days.

Here is Jenn trying my Taco Salad. A great summer recipe, if I do say so myself.

An here is Lorraine trying an Egg and Sausage Biscuit with a glass of wine;) That is another "must do" recipe. Perfect for breakfast. Thanks to all the ladies that joined us. We may have to do this again. It was too much fun!

Easter Kits!!

Do it yourself Easter Kits!!!

Need a cute Easter gift for your kids or a friend?

Our Easter Kit is the way to go.

Kit comes with everything you need. Just add adhesives and Candy!

Only $5.

Or $5 plus $3 for shipping if you need it mailed to you.

(shipping may cost more if being shipped outside the U.S.)

Kit also comes with instructions and measurements for you the recreate the design again and again. By one or as many as you need. Place you orders fast these wont last long and Easter is just around the corner!

Stay tuned for some great pictures from last night's Recipe Exchange. I was a blast and so yummy!!!!

Up! Inspired

My girls just love the movie Up. ........"Squirrel!" So here is my version of a Up inspired Birthday card. I am happy with the way it came out. I mailed this one out a few days ago but I am not sure if it has reached the recipient yet. I have to slap my own hand on this one because it is getting to the Birthday girl a bit late. I hate that!.....No excuses. I am sorry. But I hope you like the card.

Here is a closer view. The house is from one of our sheets of DSP in the Welcome Neighbor pack. The balloons I made with my favorite Small Heart Punch. Just a few of that balloons are popped up with dimensional. What do you think?

Green Tip # 5

"Top of the morning to you!"or Happy St. Patrick's Day! Don't forget to wear green today and especially don't forget to dress your kiddos in Green. Kids are tough! Anyway, Green tip #5 is to use the card stock scraps around your punches to make your own stencils.

Here is a little Easter Gift tag that I stenciled some clouds in the background on. I know this is subtle but I hope you can see it.

Here is a closer view. I know it seems silly to show an Easter creation of St. Patrick's Day but Easter is just around the corner. Time to start thinking about those kiddos and all the fun treats we can make for them. Don't worry I have some tricks up my sleeve too. Including a special treat I will show you in a couple days.

Cards from Paula's Party

These were some of the cards that we did as "make and takes" at my last party. Now normally I don't do two "make and takes" but for this party it was a special treat. The top card was our original "make and take" card. I know you can't see it in the picture but the Pocket Silhouettes are Heat Embossed. That was the new technique that I wanted to show the ladies.

This bottom card was added in because some of the ladies had their younger daughters with them. I was a bit nervous about the girls using the heat tool so their card was more "little" stamper friendly. Plus the girls got to do a lot more stampin on this card. I really loved working with the young girls. It gave the moms some time to shop our catalogs while the girls were creating too. I should have snapped a picture of the finished cards. They were too cute!

Wedding Shower Set

Friday night I got together with one of my husbands co-workers to help her with a wedding shower set she wanted to do. She solicited my help and told me what she wanted. I was thrilled to help. Step one was picking the card. Christina found the perfect card she wanted to send out and I recreated it using our SU! supplies. Click here to see the original card.

And this was my version of that card. Once I got the okay on the card, I ordered the supplies, invited her over, and we quickly whipped these out. 25 Invitations in total.

Christina also wanted to have matching thank yous to give to her friend as a gift. I always love that idea. So here is the coordinating card to match the invites.

And here are the thank yous finished. 25 again in total. We still have favors to make. So I will be sure to post those when they are done.

Party for Caleb

Today I have two cards for you. The first is the little birthday invite we received for my nephew's birthday party. This card was made by Lorraine. I encourage all of you to hop on over to her blog to she her creations as well. She is super talented. I love the way her invite came out. She also had her party at Go Bananas so she had a monkey theme too. Boy monkey theme, that is. There were also more cute decorations Lorraine made for the party. I snapped a few pictures of those too. So stay tuned to see more from the party.

And here was the card I made for Caleb. This was not my original design. I totally copied it. But once I saw it, it had Caleb's name written all over it. I was just hoping that Lorraine hadn't seen it herself. Caleb is a huge Handy Manny Fan. Some of these tools would be cute to recreate on a guys card too. Just omit the cute eyes and mouth. All of these characters are created using punch art and SU! punches. Here is the original card I cased. And the best part is, if you click here you can learn how to make each of these little guys. Thanks Wendy for an amazing tutorial!!

Green Tip #4

What do you do with those ribbon scraps? Of course you can always hang onto them, place them in a jar that sits on your desk. That always looks pretty, but do you want them to get used? Sure. You can always add a knot or a bow to an existing card, depending on how much scrap you have, but here are some of my other favorite ideas for ribbon scraps.

Tie them to your tools to help you identify which tools are yours. If you come to classes or get together with friends to create, the last thing you want is someone accidentally walking off with your stuff. This is a quick tip to make sure that doesn't happen. You can even take it one step farther and hang a tag with your name on it too.

Cover some of our small punches with your scraps. Wider ribbons and smaller punches work best for this technique. But what a neat look, right?

Add a scrap piece of ribbon to your little ones jacket. This makes getting dressed yourself a little easier. I love this idea. You can even change up the color or make it seasonal. How cute would it be if you added a Rhinestone Brad and some Flower Fusion?? Cute, huh?