Tiddbits from Dawn

Pocketful of Sunshine

Today our grandson, Will, turns 7! It's hard to believe but it's true! He is so sweet, loves to kiss the dog and then me! :) He finds that hilarious but he's such a little charmer I'll take those hugs and kisses too. We won't see him until sometime this weekend and we'll give him his book pillow that I made him. We sent his card on early so he would have it on his birthday and my daughter let me know it had arrived. I couldn't quite decide what to do for his card and finally chose the Pocketful of Sunshine stamp set and Pocket Framelit Dies to make this card especially for Will.

I covered a Thick White card base with a piece of Designer Series Paper from the Bubbles & Fizz DSP in the Sale-a-Bration catalog. The pocket was die cut out of Dapper Denim card stock and heat embossing stitch lines make it seem almost real. Two Silver Foil circles, punched with the circle framelit in the coordinating framelit pack, were added on either side of the pocket before putting the goodies inside the pocket. In addition to the fake money and sunglasses was a real Gift Card. We'll take him to spend his gift card when we arrive this weekend! 

Inside the card I used a sentiment put together using the Happy Celebrations stamp set. 

I also finally finished the baby quilt, washed it and shipped it off yesterday. I'm hoping it will be well-loved.  I did remember to take a picture before mailing it and I'll share one tomorrow. Today I'm cutting pieces for a another quilt project or two. Hope you day is full of happy things! - Dawn

I also wanted to let you know that Stampin' Up! has added even more offerings to the Sale-A-Bration products you can earn FREE with a purchase of $50 minimum product purchase. Click here for the scoop!

 

A Valentine Soda Pop

Ten year old boys are getting sort of difficult to create Valentine cards for but the Bubbles & Fizz Designer Series Paper, free with a $50 purchase during Sale-A-Bration, came to my rescue!

I didn't purchase the suite of stamps and dies that coordinates with the DSP but with my paper snips I didn't need them! I snipped out two bottles of "pop" from the DSP and paired them up with some non-traditional colors for a card that I think are suited to ten year-old boys! The "fizz" coming from the bottles are hearts from Heart Happiness and they make perfect bubbles in my opinion. The sentiment is pieced together using stamps from, can you guess? My go to Labeler Alphabet stamp set stamp and Thoughtful Banners. What would I do without them?

Inside is another fizzing bottle and sentiment created with the same two stamp sets mentioned above plus Teeny Tiny Wishes.

I'm getting ready for a rainy day today. Those days are the kind when I can usually get a lot done. I'll see if that works today because my list is long! I hope whatever your weather you have a great day! - Dawn

 

 

Nuts!

You're probably wondering what in the world nuts have to do with today's card. It's all about that little squirrel image found in the We Must Celebrate stamp set. The squirrel found in it helped me create two Valentine cards that I'll be sending to two of our grandboys.

That's one talented little squirrel on my 4" x 4" card! He can handle a whole pile of cute little acorns and juggle them in the shape of a heart! We have some talented little squirrels around here too! They could, until we finally have everything squirrel proofed, get into every singe bird feeder we have an clean us out of seed in a skinny minute! Once we finally foiled their free, no work involved food source they started chewing off all of the bulbs to our outdoor patio lights we only purchased last summer. Prior to that they chewed up the arm on one of our adirondack chairs, made of aTrex-like wood and chewed up one side of the deck box where we store our deck chair cushions! If they only knew that if they showed me their juggling skills, like this squirrel is, I may give them a few peanuts! 

Inside the card is another of those cute creatures with a big "U" from the Large Letter Framelits. 

p.s. This post is not sponsored by the letter "U"! :)

I'm entering this card in both the Freshly Made Sketches 322 and The Paper Players 379 challenges this week. I'm nuts about both of them!

                         
 

I've got a lot of projects on the tables around my craft room. I also taped a video of a Valentine treat holder that I hope to share this week. I guess I better, right? I hope you have a day full of doing something you love! - Dawn

 

The Stamp Review Crew: Any 2018 Sale-A-Bration Stamp Set Edition

A bonus hop is up for The Stamp Review today and we're all using any 2018 Sale-A-Bration stamp set for our cards. Our regular hop days are the first and third Monday of each month but if there's a fifth Monday we pop in with something special. Sale-A-Bration is certainly something special! Before moving on I'll tell you a snippet about The Stamp Review Crew. We're a group of Stampin' Up! Demonstrators who are located around the globe and our hops usually showcase one stamp set so today is a bit different. You could be here with me in South Carolina one minute and with someone in Australia in the next to get ideas from around the world. Fun, right? If you want to find out more about us or if you get lost along the way click on either the banner or link above and you'll find everything you need to know along with a list of this week's hoppers so you don't miss anyone. If you start hopping on Sunday we go live a little early so we can work out the kinks. Be sure to come back tomorrow if someone's blog is not live yet!

If you didn't start with me you may have come from Nikki Spencer's blog, My Sandbox! I'm sure she's had fun playing with the 2018 SAB stamp sets and has inspiring ideas all ready for you like she always does!

The cute SAB set that helped me with today's card was Party Pandas and the Celebrate You Die Cuts added to the party. I think it's a favorite for a lot of us!

Party Pandas and Flirty Flamingo teamed up to make a fun card to mail to the cutest little girl. She is the nine year old daughter one of our daughter's childhood friends. She did a fantastic job, from the YouTube video I saw, singing at her school's talent show last week. I wanted to let her know that I thought she was amazing. I would have never done that at nine years old but I've never had a singing voice like her's either! :) These pandas were so impressed that they're doing a trick to hold up that "YOU" die cut cut from the Pick a Pattern Designer Series Paper. The Panda on the bottom is balancing the "amazing" to finish the greeting. Every little girl needs a bow to tie it together and this one is tied with the Flirty Flamingo 3/8" Striped Ribbon.

Inside the card there's one more panda holding a paper pieced ballon and plenty of white space for note writing.

You're all done here now and ready to hop on over to Debra Burgin's blog at Heartfelt Inkspiration. Debra always has amazing creations to share!

Party Hat!

I managed to get Lucy's, our youngest grandchild, birthday card made yesterday in between appointments. It was a bit of a crazy day but I was pleased with how her card turned out. I used one of my new favorite stamp sets, Party Hat Birthday to create it.

Some colors not often used lately came off the shelf for Lucy's card; they're Rose Red, Perfect Plum and Tangerine Tango. Gosh, I really like this stamp set. It is so much fun to layer up those images and watch how they line up just right. After stamping all three of the images for the hat the big "3" was cut from hat. Then four Perfect Plum "3"s were cut out too. They're layered under the stamped "3". That "3" was first covered in Dazzling Diamonds Embossing Powder to make it nice and sparkly. I remembered I had some mini pom-pom trim somewhere and I managed to dig it out to add around the bottom of the hat. That's how the Tangerine Tango actually got into this color trio! The hat was added to a Rose Red card stock base that had been embossed with the new Scattered Sequins 3D Embossing Folder. They really look like sequins, don't they?

Inside the card I used a row of party hats from Party Hat Birthday stamped along the bottom and the sentiment came from Sweet Cupcake stamp set.

This year I decided I was going to make all nine of our grandchildren book pillows for their birthdays. Since Lucy's birthday is the first one of the year her pillow has been the one on which I'm learning to make them. They're really cute and about 24" square with a pocket for books on the front. I'll show you Lucy's next week. I'm making them from fabric of something that each child likes and Lucy's is ballerinas in tutus. She loves princesses, much to her mother's chagrin, but I couldn't find any princess material that I thought was suitable for her. Of course, the pillow will include a book in the pocket! So you can guess what I'll be finishing today? Tomorrow a friend is coming to stamp with me. I'm really looking forward to that! Monday I'll be hopping along with The Stamp Review Crew so be sure to come back and see what we'll be sharing. Have a wonderful weekend! - Dawn

Hearts on a String

This little card I'm sharing today is one for our three year old grandson. I had a lot of fun making this one and loved how it turned out. I did use some retired Valentine Designer Series Paper from last year called Sending Love. I just fit with the card. You see what you think...

The bear from We Must Celebrate was colored with my Crumb Cake Stampin' Blends and fussy cut from the Whisper White card stock. Next I figured out which square framelits from the Stitched Shapes and Layering Squares framelits would work to make a frame in which to place him. Two plain square framelits were placed on the inside and outside of the stitched square framelit and held together with a piece of tape and run through the Big Shot like this...

This set up cut a perfect frame for that cute bear. He went onto the Whisper White panel with some Fast Fuse and some Adhesive Strips were used to pop that frame right over him. Next the little Real Red hearts were die cut with the row of heart dies from Everyday Jars Framelits. Five of them were added between his waiting hands with a tiny dab of Tombow Multi-Purpose Glue behind each of them. All that was left to do was add tiny pieces of string in each of his hand with a Basic Black Marker. The sentiment was then added underneath the frame with my well-used Labeler Alphabet stamp set. I always leave an extra clear block on the craft table when I'm using this set. If I'm going to use a letter multiple times I put it on that extra block so I know where it is. That helps me keep up with the letters.

Inside the heart I added another colored bear who holds a bit bigger heart this time...and the sentiment fits!

I've got a few more Valentines card left to make but at least I've got a start! It's going to be another cold day around here so I'll continue to work on the projects we started over the weekend. That should keep me warm! Have a lovely day! - Dawn

 

Bikin' Valentine Wishes

I'm really trying to get my Valentine cards going so yesterday I got one done  for our oldest granddaughter. I knew I wanted to use the Bike Ride stamp set and had it on my craft table for inspiration. Do you ever do that? Inspiration finally came! The wheels! I know, right? Just check it out...

Wheels for the background! They're all stamped in Memento Black ink and I then used Versa Mark just to give it a hint of color to it. Wanting to use Valentine colors I chose Berry Burst for the card base. Next the bike was stamped with Powder Pink ink and Lemon Lime Twist was used for the accent color. Again, the Labeler Alphabet helped me with the sentiment that "popped" into my mind!. It was stamped on Basic Black card stock and heat embossed it in White embossing powder. That bike is pulling balloons on the back and a basket of tiny little hearts on the front it that cute little basket!

Inside the card is really simple...

The same die from Sweet & Sassy Heart Framelits was used to cut hearts across the top of the Whisper White card stock and the sentiment is from the Bloomin' Hearts stamp set.

I'm off early in the cold this morning! I have a couple of appointments I can't miss. I hope my car heats up fast. When I get home I have another Valentine card idea I might try. Have a warm day! - Dawn

Let's Celebrate

I hope everybody had a very merry Christmas and a happy start to your New Year yesterday! We sure did! It was a busy week last week and we were up and down the interstate several times but we got it all done and it was fun. We even had a few days at home which was nice. I started the new year with a cold! I seem to be shaking it pretty quickly, thankfully. We're still enjoying our indoor Christmas decorations. We took our outdoor decorations down yesterday. I'm gearing up to think about Valentine's Day now. I started yesterday with this card using the Eclipse Technique.

I used the heart cut from the Whisper White stamped images with the rest of the Real Red panel for another card.

A cute new set from the new Occasions Catalog, which goes live tomorrow, called We Must Celebrate helped me create this Valentine card. It was so much fun coloring the images while I watched the Rose Bowl Parade yesterday. First my Misti was employed to stamp the images all at one time on the Whisper White card stock and then on the Real Red card stock. That way there was no mistaking getting them stamped in the right place to line up when I cut out the hearts using the Sweet & Sassy Framelit Dies. All of the colors of the Stampin' Blends except Pumpkin Pie and Night of Navy were used to color the images. The Labeler Alphabet stamp set is my "go to" stamp set when I want to create sentiment. The little heart at the end of the sentiment is included in that set as well. After cutting the stamped hearts out 4 more plain hearts from Real Red and 4 from Thick White card stock were cut. Those were stacked under the stamped hearts before adhering tot he card to complete the eclipse look! I did the eclipse technique on several Christmas cards and really like it! It's quick, easy and gives a fun look to your card. What more could you ask for?

Inside both of the cards you'll find the same stamping. The arrow with the center heart is from Better Together and the sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes. The Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set pulls through for me with its little sentiments quite often.

I guess it's time to get back to reality today! My husband goes back to work today and I'll make my "to do" list for the rest of the week. Have you got your list ready for your Occasions Catalog order when it goes live tomorrow? I may work on some more Valentine cards today and try to get ahead of the holidays for a change! :) Make it a great day! - Dawn

 

Birthday Pandas

Who wouldn't have fun celebrating with pandas on their 1st birthday? Since I can't provide pandas I'm sending a card with cute pandas stamped with the soon to be available Sale-A-Bration set, Party with Pandas.

These party pandas are adorable! I stamped this duo in Memento Black ink so I could use my Stampin' Blends to add some more color to the balloon and party hat! I pulled out the Picture Perfect Designer Series Paper Stack and used a scrap left from another card along the edge of the card and to bring in the color for the card. I've said it before, no party is complete without some bling and I used some Adhesive Backed Tutti-frutti Sequins to give this 1st birthday card its party bling. 

Inside the card I printed out a sentiment that was appropriate for a 1st birthday and added a "happy birthday" from Birthday Banners. The sentiment was then cut out with the Lots of Labels Framelits along with a frame for the sentiment cut from Lucky Lime Twist.

This card is going out the mailbox today because I have a feeling with all the Christmas mail it may take an extra day to reach its destination!

It's supposed to rain all day today and that's a good excuse not to leave the house today! I hope to get my list all crossed off today. If you have a list I hope that there are lots of crossed off items on it too! - Dawn

Twirling Fox

Friday is our youngest grandson's 3rd birthday and he's coming to visit Saturday. I'd been thinking about what I would do for his card for awhile now. I finally decided to try a spinner card and got it all ready yesterday. I watched a video Jennifer McGuire posted last week here about making Z-Fold Spinner cards and decided to give it a try for Weston's birthday. It was fun to do!

I followed Jennnifer's directions in the video and stamped the entire Crumb Cake card base with the Hardwood background stamp. I knew I could use the Foxy Friends stamp set and Fox Builder Punch to make two foxes that would work on the spinner. The foxes were punched out from Cajun Craze card stock and the tail switched on one of them to the opposite side to make them match when they were layered onto the fishing line. The stamps from Foxy Friends were used to add legs and eyes and also the circle of leaves behind the fox. You'll see that better when the card is opened.

Little Numbers was used to cut a "3" from Pumpkin Pie card stock. It's hidden right behind the fox when the card is closed. Finally, the "Happy Birthday" from Number of Years was formed around the punched out circle from the front of the on a clear block, stamped and embossed in White Embossing Powder to finish off Weston's card. I'll put a piece of Whisper White card stock on the back of the card for signing.

We are supposed to have great weather today after a rainy day yesterday. I'm glad because it's errand running day for me. I may even have to pick up some special cupcakes for someone's birthday! Hope you have a sweet day too. - Dawn