C IS FOR CAT!

Recently my good friend Lisa Chattergee had to put her cat to rest. I was so sorry to hear this. For those of you who have a beloved pet friend, you know how difficult this can be. I made Lisa this card using the C is for Cat stamp set and the Thoughts and Prayers set. The brad is a chocolate chip flower brad made exclusively for SU!
I love the little paws on this card. You can get them in either the C is for Cat or D is for Dog stamp sets. They are a must have for stamping projects including our little friends. Oh, and the heart stamp came from the stamp set Things I Love. I added dimension to my card and envelope with SU! crystal effects.

GORGEOUS CARD FROM YOUNG BROWN

This is another great card by Young Brown using the Cottage Wall papers. I love the dimension of this card and if you look at the photo below you will see how nicely this card has a recessed section. Young Taught us this style card at class at Cathy's last month. It was a true "wow" card.
I love how Young used the Big Shot Butterfly Embosslit - exclusive to SU! inside the card. These butterflies go so well with the Cottage Wall papers.

COOL HANDMADE GIFT I RECEIVED

I wish I could remember who gave me this great paper craft. I was in a swap at the Remarkables Retreat last August and I received this with some chocolates inside. All handmade and uses the set Friends 24-7 and the set Great Friend. I love both of these sets. Since Soft Suede and Rich Razzleberry - 2 of the 2090-2010 IN COLORS - will be returning in July, I thought I would show you how well they go with Kraft card stock. By the way...SU! is going to rename the Kraft card stock - crumb cake...how luscious is that?

LINDA KINCAID'S ON BOARD BOOK BIRD

Linda Kincaid designed this adorable bird using SU! designer sweet pea papers. We first got the idea from Lisa Chattergee to take the book apart and just use the bird as a stand up 3D project. I'm not sure if Lisa originally came up with the idea or she cased it, but it is clever! You get 8 birds for your book, and they make a nice mini scrapbook/giftbook, or you can do what Linda and Lisa did and make them stand up birds. They would be great on the mantle during spring or summer. Put a mini tear away calender on the body and sit it on a desk. What a great teacher or secretary gift! The On Board Bird Book and Sweet Pea designer papers are only available until April 30th. Go to my website to order them on or before that date! For those of you who want more sweet pea papers, you can download the whole pack in digital format as well - also directly from my website. Note above how Linda embellished the bird with Big Shot die cuts, SU! corduroy buttons, and brads. Some of these are also available digitally from my website also. Check them out!

GREAT DESIGNER DRESS CARD BY HSIAO-HUI

I love this card! Hsiao-hui demonstrated this card at class last month and she also brought it to the Remarkables retreat, where it was a real "wow" card. She showed us how to cut with a craft knife so that we cut the dress so it pops up a little behind the satin ribbon. She also taught us how to make the satin roses. Very clever. This designer paper is the spring paper in the SU! Occasions Mini. You have only these last 2 weeks to order some of this great paper.

OFF TO THE CARIBBEAN!

Courtesy of SU! My husband and I and our son JP are off for a great week of fun in the sun! We are cruising on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line -Adventure of the Seas - from San Juan. Below are the islands we will be visiting. We are so excited. I'll be sure to show you lots of photos when we return. In the meantime, enjoy my card samples on my blog this week!

LINDA MURPHY DESIGNS A GREAT BIRTHDAY CARD

EditI can't remember if this card was made for Dale or Cathy, but I know who made it - LINDA MURPHY! What a gorgeous card. Linda used our rose red card stock and designer papers to make this card and to die cut the butterflies. I taught this style card at a class last year and it is so nice to see my fellow crafters CASING the card ideas and making them their own. Linda has done a super job with this card.

BIG SHOT DAISY CARD BY KATIE FORD

This is a great card designed by Katie Ford. Katie used the Big Shot for this card and it is really clever. First, she die cut the daisies and layered them. The big summer sun corduroy button in the middle of the flower is a real highlight. She also die cut a piece of old olive so swirly sizzlet to act as the stem. Now...what is really clever is that Katie ran the background ultra smooth white card stock through the Big Shot using the petal die that we all thought was a christmas die with poinsettia's on it. Katie showed us that these are flowers and by simply highlighting the centers of the flowers, she made them daisies. Very very cool.
The card base is one of our IN COLORS - melon mambo, that I'm happy to say will be returning to us on July 1st. I truly love this color. Great Job Katie!

MY MATRYOSHKA AND GREENHOUSE GARDEN

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT PYTASH

Pat Pytash is a good stamping friend of mine. Her birthday was this past Saturday and I didn't get the card off to her in time, but she is going to be at stamp class tonight so I'll give it to her tonight. I love this stamp set called My Matryoshka. It is in the Occasions Mini Catalog and is only available until April 30th. The flowers were dimensionalized. I punched them out with the 3 flower punch. Their centers are rhinestones from the egg kit SU! had for purchase while supplies last (supplies are depleted now, but I was lucky enough to snag a few of these kits!)
I colored the doll with my stampin write markers and then added crystal effects for the lacquered effect. The card stock colors are bermuda bay, gable green (shucks it's retiring June 30th), whisper white and melon mambo. I used the jumble alphabet for Pat's name and also used the dotted embossing folder for texture on the card.
The rose red flowers on the envelope are from Greenhouse Garden. This set is 20% off until April 30th on special with some other spring sets - Manhattan Floral, Trendy Trees, and Fancy Flowers.

NEW ADDITIONS TO MDS

OVERLAYS, STAMPS, PUNCHES, PAPERS -
ALL BRAND NEW

Whether you have MDS or not - you can get the new overlays (lace and more), punches (pinking hearts - including border punches and the new bird and leaf punch), papers and more! They are for use with any digital program. Look at my card above! I made it in no time! It was slightly pre-designed (a great thing about owning MDS). I just changed the overlay, the paper, and the colors. I added the pinking hearts border and moved around some of the stamps. I love it! I'm going to have a class on MDS on May 12th in Hunt Valley totally Free and Fun! Let me know if you can attend as class is filling very fast! We will do another MDS class over the summer or I'm happy to arrange with you a time to set one up if you are in the local Baltimore area! In the meantime, click here ---> my new website and click on the shop now section so that you can see what is new for all your digital crafting and for all brand new ideas for all types of crafting!

LATTICE FLOWER AND MORE RHR PHOTOS

Paulette came up with this fabulous idea. She used the leftovers from the lattice die and put them together to make the flower above her nametag. So neat. I love her use of dazzling diamonds to glitz up the flower.
Here Paulette is proudly displaying her flower.
This is our lovely craft group who attended the RHR. Cathy Weir must have taken the photo because she is not in it. Seated from left to right are Sharon Liberto, Linda Kincaid and Paulette Hall. Standing are Diana Hnat and Maria Pane.
Some more Remarkable stampers at the retreat. My good friend Lisa Chattergee has the purple scarf on. She is a dear sweet friend.
Janet Wakeland is the owner of the Remarkable Stampers and was a fabulous hostess for the retreat.
Diana Hnat was gorgeous in her outfit. I love the red in it. Look at Diana's large ruby ring courtesy of Janet. Necklace is from Janet also.

Sharon, Linda and Paulette enjoying the retreat around dinner time.

"WOW" SU! CRUISE CARD SWAP

I'M CRUISING TO
THE SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN IN 4 DAYS!

We leave for the cruise on Sunday. I can't wait. This is the cruise I earned from SU! based on my sales lasts year. I'm so grateful to be going. Last year I earned the SU! Hawaii trip. It is a tradition to swap cards, scrapbook pages and crafts at SU! events.

This was my entry for the "wow" card swap for the SU! Cruise to the Southern Caribbean. So that we can just relax on the boat, we entered the swap before the cruise. What a great idea! Saves a lot of room in my suitcase. The swap was hosted by Cindy Peterson from Salt Lake City. This is my card and it is a trifold card. I chose the card stock colors - sahara sand, melon mambo, barely banana (I'll miss this color when it retires at the end of June) and ultra smooth white. I ran the card through the Big Shot to get the dotted swiss back ground using a SU! embossing folder. The circles were also die cut with my Big Shot, and I used scallop circle number 2 die for the Big Shot to cut the scallop circle. I stamped my image from the stamp set Friends 24-7. The flowers on the front of the card were stamped with Black staz on ink and water colored using my SU! aquapainter and SU! water color crayons. I added crystal effects onto the "popped up" flowers and the stems for a lacquered "wet" look.This card has such a cool way of opening up and it opens up in 2 different directions that you can see in both the photo above and the photo below. I used the rose red wide stitched grosgrain for the one side that flips up. I got the idea to wrap it here from my good friend and downline Linda Kincaid. She taught me to cut the half circle in the card stock so that I can bunch the ribbon and tie it together with linen thread. A really cool idea for wide ribbon so that the card is not too bulky.
The bird is stamped in sahara sand and so too is the 24-7 circle above on the flip up. The flowers in the background are from a brand new stamp set coming out May 1st in the Summer Mini Catalog. I stamped them using barely banana classic ink. Remember that we have some great colors retiring soon, so stock up on your inks and refills and card stock before the end of the current SU! catalog year.
Also, on the front of the card, I cut out each of the little flowers and "popped" them up with SU! dimensionals. There is a lot of texture to this card. I must thank Linda for this card idea. She came up with most of it. This is certainly a great card idea and if you are careful when you cut your card base out, you can get 2 cards from one piece of card stock. I promise I'll teach this card at one of the future classes. Be sure to check out my upcoming class schedule for April and May on my website. I can't wait til Cindy swaps out the cards. Once I get mine in the mail, I'll be sure to post some of the cards for you.

SU! CHALKBOARD VINYL - COOL MINI PROJECT

This is such a fun and quick project and you can make it any size. I was over at Jan Wakeland's home last month and she had us make this adorable mini chalkboard using SU! chalkboard decor elements vinyl and coasters (you could even use our chipboard - as we sell that in packages also!) You could make this as large or as small as you want. And you can even cut out die cuts with your Big Shot! And GUESS WHAT? You can erase it!!!! it is so cool!
Add this product to your next SU! order! There are so many great projects you can do with it.

Chalkboard Décor Elements Vinyl Sheets	118815
Price: $14.95
Make Décor Elements your own by creating your own vinyl images using the Décor Elements sheets and your Big Shot. ■ Each package comes with two sheets of vinyl, along with two sheets of transfer tape (approximately 14-1/4" x 24" ) ■ Instructions for use are included in the package

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA KINCAID

I can't remember who I cased this card from, but I received the original in a swap last year at the SU! convention. Well, I'm so happy to be casing this style card for my dear friend Linda Kincaid. It is her birthday today! I used the iridescent ice embossing powder to make faux diamond dust paper. Just love the sparkle.
This card features the stamp set eastern blooms and is really cheerful and colorful. I used retiring colors on this card - in particular the pink passion card stock as the background.
Linda likes cards that have unique folds and this one is no exception. I like that there are several layers for different messages.
This is a close up of the inside birthday wish. Do you like my use of the boho backgrounds stamp?
Here you get a better idea of how this card folds.

I hope Linda receives her card by today so that it is in time for her birthday.
Happy Birthday Linda!