My 6 year old's Birthday card

When I made my hubby's Valentine's card with the Take a Spin set, my son told me I "HAD" to make him a card with a spinner for his birthday... of course he got his wish, because this set is SO much fun to work with ;) Oh, and because I love him like crazy!

Update: better lighting this morning :)

My 2nd Workshop Make n' Takes

I am SO excited about this one! We're doing Luminaries to go with any decor, and semi-custom Make a Monster cards... guests will have a choice of 3 color schemes for the paper, and can create and watercolor their monsters however they like... here are my samples

The luminary is still a work in progress. I'm not completely happy with the ribbon placement, or the Itty Bitty bird in the brad... just seems a bit out of place? I think I'll do a bow, with the brad in the center, and I'm still deciding what stamp to use in the brad. [EDIT]: I added 2 pics (the top 2), of the final result...

And for the monster card, the other color schemes I'm offering are Tangerine Tango Cardstock with Daffodil Delight DSP, or Rich Razzleberry with Regal Rose.

Hubby's birthday card

He's been into playing poker games on the iPod and DS lately, so when I got this paper in a grab bag at a local store, I knew it would be perfect, and the Lucky You stamp was an excellent match.

My Favorite Valentine's card EVER!

I just made this one for my hubby... took me MANY tries to get the spinner circle right, as I'm still trying to figure out how to get crisp, solid images with markers, but I am SO in love with the final product! This Take a Spin set is definitely going to be frequently used... SO much fun!

Finished Make n' Takes from my first Workshop

6x6 Scrapbook Layout... great for framing for gifts too! We had so much fun doing this one :)

A nice simple Valentines card... unfortunately, I was a bit heavy handed with the Itty Bitty's so the stamp edge is showing :(

Valentines for school

Okay, so I have to come clean... even though I was into cardmaking last year already, I still bought licensed cards in a box for school Valentine's... I just couldn't imagine making 19 cards for a bunch of kids who would throw them away or trash them. Well, this year, I bit the bullet and am nearly done making 39 (now that I have TWO kids in school). I came up with a simple, assembly-line friendly design, and got to work. I did decide to leave some of the stamping and assembly for tomorrow though, so that the kids can help with at least a few each ;) I must admit, it was fun, and even if they all get trashed right aways, it was worth the extra effort :)

And here's the complementary card I made for the teachers...

My Digital Studio

Stampin' Up!'s digital studio is SO quick, easy and fun!!! As much as I love working with paper, the MDS is great for catching up on years worth of neglected scrapbooking, in a fraction of the time, and for making photo postcards for Christmas, new baby, etc... here are some samples of what I've done in a very short amount of time. The Christmas card, and all but the last 2 scrapbook pages, (as well as the title image for this blog), are all Stampin' Up! stuff, and on the others, I used images from other digital sources, along with some SU digital elements. You can use any digital scrapbooking stuff, (with the right file extensions), in the MDS program, and any MDS files that come with the software, or that you download from Stampin' Up! can also be used with other digital programs interchangeably. Each of these pages took 5 minutes or less!

My creative progression... so far!

I was always a creative person, and have had my hands in many different outlets from as far back as I can remember... crosstitching, knitting, writing songs/stories/poems, designing clothing on paper, sewing, and scrapbooking, to name a few. And then I had kids, and that all went out the window (except for knitting, which I actually started FOR my kids, to make wool covers for our cloth diapers).

Then, my sister invited me to join a Stampin' Up! monthly club with her. I hesitated at first, because I always thought stamps weren't versatile enough, and I had NO interest in making cards... I rarely even remembered to BUY cards for people. But, the Demonstrator and some of the other club members were my sister's close friends, whom I'd always really liked, so I thought it would be fun. And I SWORE, I would just make the cards in class, and stick to just buying papers and embellishments for getting back into scrapbooking. That lasted 2 months... I was hooked! And thanks to the fact that cardmaking is a small, quick and personalized project, I've really been able to reclaim the creative spirit I'd been losing over the years, even without large chunks of time to work with.

So, to show you how I got from square one (ie. super simple, sometimes embarassingly horrid cards) to now, where I have a new level of confidence and pride in my projects, while still striving to learn and master new techniques, and one day, make stuff that I feel is up to par with my sister and my upline... here's my visual progression... (minus 2 of my favorites, which I forgot to take pictures of. My Brother-in-Law's 30th bday card, and a goodbye card to my friend/SU upline)

1st Bday

Father's Day

8 year old Bday

Wedding shower

Baby boy

I loved this one so much, I did 3 variations

Birthday

Baby shower (gender neutral)

Wedding

My son's bday

Stepdad's 60th (should have said 60, not 06, but I got them backwards)

Baby girl

Boys's bday

Boy's bday

Dad's bday

Baby shower favors

Baby shower prizes

1st bday

Baby shower

Boy's 5th bday

Dad's bday

Chipboard Christmas ornaments

Christmas card

Christmas card

Christmas card

Stampin' Up! Starter Kit Contest card (only allowed to use stuff from my Starter Kit... I loved it, except for the faux stitching I did on the ribbon)

Christmas card

Baby girl

Sister's bday