Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

Would you believe that 3 out of 4 of the second grade teachers said their favorite color was purple? Crazy! Must be why they work so well together as a team. For this set of purple cards, I decided to use Concord Crush as the purple. The front of each card uses a different design from the Hostess Level 1 In Color Designer Series Paper Pack. I tried a new technique on these, well, new to me any way. I wanted to make the “K’”s stand out a little, so I heat embossed them. But I don’t have a Concord Crush craft ink pad, so how did I do it? Well, if you first ink your stamp up with VersaMark, then in your regular ink pad, you can use Clear Embossing powder, and have it embossed in whatever color you like! It worked great! You can see it better if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

Stamps: Lovely Letters
Ink: Concord Crush, Versamark
Paper: Concord Crush, Whisper White, Hostess Level 1 In Color Designer Series Paper Pack
Other: Concord Crush Poly Ribbon, 1 3/8″ Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch, Clear Embossing Powder

Be sure to come back and see the third purple monogram card!

This Valentine’s Day, give your loved ones a beautiful handmade gift using products from Stampin’ Up! December 17, 2010  through January 24, 2011,  get a FREE package of Bitty Buttons when you purchase a Filled with Love Bundle, including the Filled with Love Stamp Set and exclusive Love Patterns Designer Series Paper Pack—only available through this special promotion! Contact me to place your order, or visit my website to order at your convenience. (This bundle is available in Spanish and French as well.)

Eve’s other second grade teacher is always so elegant and put together, that I knew I wanted to make a card that would reflect that. Her favorite color is purple, and since I had Rich Razzleberry satin ribbon, I figured that would be a good starting point. I had a hard time deciding what color to pair with it, and quite by accident I hit upon Pink Pirouette. I really like the way they look together! It’s hard to see in the picture, but the Pink Pirouette card stock is textured.

Stamps: Lovely Letters
Ink: Rich Razzleberry
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Brights Designer Series Paper Stack (Rich Razzleberry)
Other: Rich Razzleberry 5/8″ Satin Ribbon, 1 1/4″ Circle Punch, 1 3/8″ Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch

I wanted to put either pearls or rhinestones on this, but I just couldn’t find a good place to add them.

I made all four second grade teachers monogrammed note cards for their holiday gifts, and since they have already received them, I can share them with you! Eve’s second grade teacher is super sweet, and not at all sour, but I knew that the Sweet & Sour Specialty Designer Series paper would be the perfect mix of patterns and colors to make her monogram quilt cards as a holiday gift. She’s so fun and kind that I felt this reflected her personality really well.

Stamps: Jayne’s Type Alphabet
Ink: Rose Red
Paper: Rose Red, Very Vanilla, Pumpkin Pie, Sweet & Sour Specialty Designer Series Paper
Other: Top Note Bigz Die, Big Shot, Pumpkin Pie 5/8″ Satin Ribbon, 1 1/4″ Circle Punch, 1 3/8″ Circle Punch, Scallop Circle Punch

To make the quilt card, cut 12 squares that are 1 1/4″ each, and adhere them to a 3 3/4″ x 5″ piece of card stock. Run this through your Big Shot with the top note die, and viola!

What a fun group of Extreme sports digital stamps released today, along with one gorgeous pack of paper! These downloads work with My Digital Studio and any other digital scrapbooking program that allows you to import PNG and JPG files.

Item Description Image Price 124215 Extreme Snowboard Stamp Brush $0.95 124218 Extreme Surfboard Stamp Brush $0.95 124217 Extreme Skateboard Stamp Brush $0.95 124219 Extreme Dirt Bike Stamp Brush $0.95 124216 Extreme Guitar Stamp Brush $0.95 123991 Style Beautiful Stamp Brush Set $3.95 123992 Lap of Luxury Designer Series Paper $4.95 123990 Elements of Style Stamp Brush Set $3.95 123989 Teahouse Stamp Brush $1.95 123988 Charming Stamp Brush Set $3.95

You can purchase these or any other digital downloads through my online store. They great news is that they are available for immediate use, with no shipping charges! Just click on Digital Crafting, then Digital Downloads, then Newest Downloads to see all of the recent additions!

There is a My Digital Studio tab to the top right hand corner of this blog. It is a handy reference to a variety of My Digital Studio resources, including a list of all of the downloads and a break down of the printing costs.

Eve had the hardest time deciding which of the Decor Elements chalkboard pieces she wanted for her new room — the hippo or the owl? After much careful thought and deliberation, she went with the owl. We finally had time to put him up over the weekend. (This is the largest size.)

These go up just like regular Decor Elements, but are an actual chalkboard material that you can write on!

Eve just loves her new owl.

Our only disappointment is that the walls in our new house are EXTREMELY textured. Decor Elements are not recommended for textured walls, and we are a little concerned about how well this will actually stay up. We bought the speech bubble as well, but are waiting to put that up until we see what happens. If this doesn’t work, we’ll move on to plan B, which is to put the Decor Elements on some kind of canvas or frame, and hang that. In the meantime, it looks super cute!

The minute I saw Jen’s gorgeous card, I was amazed at how great the snowflakes looked in Melon Mambo & Old Olive! I immediately had to make one myself, and loved it so much that we made it at the after school class on Thursday as well. I changed mine up a little, to make it easier for the kids. It’s the perfect winter thank you!

Stamps: Northern Hearts, Heard from the Heart
Ink: Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink, Old Olive
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo, Whisper White
Other: Old Olive 5/8″ Satin Ribbon

I guess when you live you in Southern California, you can make the snowflakes any color that you want!

Below is the February page for the desk calendar I made for my dad. (See yesterday’s post for more info.) The picture was taken on the Fourth of July, but I thought the colors worked pretty well for Valentine’s Day as well. The picture is my daughter holding my nephew. He’s about 10 days old there.

Do you see how the picture is in a heart? This is actually the heart punch, filled with a photo. Some of my very clever fellow demonstrators figured out that you can trick My Digital Studio into thinking that a picture is actually a piece of Designer Series Paper, and make your photo into any shape that we have a punch for! What you want to do is to make a new folder inside the folder where the Designers Series Papers are kept, and put your pictures inside that.

On a Mac, double click on your hard drive (usually Macintosh HD) –> Applications –> My Digital Studio –> Components –> Backgrounds –> Designer Series Paper

On a PC, click on the Start or Windows button on the bottom left, then go to Computer –> Program Files –> My Digital Studio –> Components –> Backgrounds –> Designer Series Paper

Make a new folder there. I called my __Photos, with two lines in front so it would always be at the top of the list. Put any pictures you want to use in the punches into that folder. Then, when you are working in MDS, simply insert your punch, then act as if you were filling it with paper, but use the folder with your pictures instead! Easy Peasy! Just image what you can do with all the different punch shapes!

Stampin’ Up added a new calendar format to My Digital Studio a month or so ago. It’s a super cute 5 ½” x 6 ½” easel desk calendar. I thought this was just perfect to use to make my dad for Hanukkah. It features pictures of him with my daughter Eve and my nephew Leo. I don’t have the actual calendar — that shipped directly to him. I’ll take pictures of it when I go back East in a couple weeks. I did want to share with you a few of the pages I made for it. This is the cover. Don’t the rhinestones look sparkly?

The title is the new Decorative Label Punch, the background paper is from the Celebrations Kit.

Tomorrow I will show you a super cool trick in My Digital Studio that I learned from some other demonstrators.

I can’t post some of the cards that I’ve been making lately, since they are gifts that have not yet been given. Instead, I have a special treat for you, a fantastic card made by Eve! First, I am happy to tell you, she can now use the Stamp-a-ma-jig by herself for perfect placement. Not bad for a 7 year old! She had a couple great ideas for this card. One is the girl bear’s tiara, which was stamped in Versamark and then embossed in silver. The other was to stamp the trophy separately, then cut it out and raise it up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. She drew the speech bubble freehand.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Versamark, assorted Stampin’ Write Markers
Paper: More Mustard, Whisper White
Other: Silver Embossing Powder, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Stamp-a-ma-jig

I love stamping with Eve! She’s so clever and creative.