Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

I volunteered to make the card for my daughter’s preschool teachers last year (big surprise). It was a group gift, from all of the kids. She went to a Jewish preschool, so I had fun making a kid-friendly, fun, Hanukkah card. The kid stamps are from All in the Family, the menorah is from Holiday Blitz, and the “Happy Hanukkah” is from the now retired Hebrew Holidays. I used the dazzling diamond dust technique to make the entire white piece sparkle. (Sorry about the flash, it is really sparkly!)

Stampin’ Up is currently running one special — spend $20 and you get 20% off any of the stamp sets in the Catalog Sampler! Pretty nice deal! These are the stamp sets:

Let me know if you are interested in purchasing any of these, or feel free to order directly from my website.

Stay tuned! On December 9th Stampin’ Up will announce which sets will be retiring at the end of this catalog in January. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know as soon as I do!

This Hanukkah card is quick and easy! It uses the whole menorah from the Shalom Sayings set. I used my Stampin’ Write markers to color directly on the stamp before stamping it down on the paper. It’s a great way to get multiple colors in one fell swoop. I’ll be making up a bunch of these for sale at the Hanukkah Craft Fair as well.  I’m pleased to let you know that this card was featured on Stamper’s Showcase last week!

Shalom Sayings $15.95 images©Stampin' Up

I have to tell you, when I saw these colors on Kristina Werner’s blog, I really didn’t know what I was going to do with them. They just didn’t go together well in my head.

So I flipped through my handy dandy Stampin’ Up catalog until I saw the animal sets — Zoofari and Wild About You. I love these sets! I hadn’t made anything with them in forever! I decided to use Wild About You because I didn’t feel like coloring in today. Here’s what I came up with:

Stamps: Wild About You, Sanded
Paper: Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White
Ink: Certainly Celery, Taken with Teal, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: Spiral Punch

I’m pleased with how it came out. Thanks Kristina, for stretching my use of colors! Don’t think I would have put these together!

I don’t usually put my book reviews on this blog, I have a children’s book blog for that specific purpose! However, since this book is not for children and is about stamping, I thought I would share it with you!

Stamped Out, by Terri Thayer, is like a dream-come-true for me! It is a murder mystery featuring rubber stamping! I mean really, the only thing they left out was free chocolate! April Buchert returns to her hometown of Aldenville, PA to escape her failing marriage. She creates her own stamps to refinish and restore walls. Her father, also in the restoration business, has offered her a job on the town’s largest mansion. However, when the abandoned guesthouse is demolished, and a skull is found among the ruins, it is April’s father that comes under suspicion. And it is up to  April to clear his name. There are quite a few scenes that revolve around rubber stamping — several stamp club meetings and an all-night crop, to name a few. April’s childhood best friend, Deana is a rep for Stamping Sisters (could that be Stampin’ Up? I like to think so!) and brings April into the world of rubberstamping, card-making, and scrapbooking. Stamped Out is a fun, light read. I hope that more follow in the series!

Ever since I saw these boxes (sometimes called fantasy boxes, sometimes called stepper boxes) on Caroline LeBel’s blog, I knew that I wanted to try one. So when I found out that I had to donate something to the raffle at the National Council of Jewish Women’s Hannukkah craft fair, I thought that this would be the perfect thing! I filled the boxes with dreidels and Hanukkah gelt!

Stamps: Festival Fun (retired)
Paper: Yo-Yo Yellow, Brilliant Blue, Jersey Shore (retired)
Ink: Yo-Yo Yellow, Brilliant Blue
Accessories: Tag Punch, Small Tag Punch, Gold Brad, Sticky Strip, Dimensionals

It was easier than I thought it would be. I found two great sets of instructions here and here. For the cardboard pieces, I cut up a corn flakes box that I pulled out of the recycle bin. I still have half the box left to make another one!