Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

Welcome to the Stampin’ Addicts Birthday Blog Hop! Can you believe this fabulous stamping community is one year old this weekend? As part of the celebration, we will be featuring a wide variety of birthday themed projects.

You may have come from Trina’s blog and her fabulous birthday gift ensemble (love those charms!) or you may be starting here. Either way the hop goes in a circle and you can start in either direction!

My daughter Eve is in first grade, and believe it or not she has THREE birthday celebrations this weekend to attend. Because of this, my projects are birthday cards for young girls — preschool to second grade. Interestingly, when I finished them I realized that every single one uses the color Melon Mambo! It’s such a great, festive, young girl birthday color!

This first card is my favorite! It is an easel card and uses Dazzling Diamonds glitter to make it so fun and sparkly! I’m not sure if you can tell, but they are covering the mane, wings, and tail.

Stamps: Pony Party
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink, Taken with Teal
Paper: Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink, Taken with Teal, Whisper White
Other: Scallop Trim Border Punch, Scallop Trim Corner Punch, Modern Label Punch, Movers & Shapers Punch Windows Die, Big Shot, Stampin’ Dimensionals

My second card is my husband’s favorite of the bunch. The great shape at the top is made by running the Top Note Die through the Big Shot once, then turning your paper 90 degrees and running it through again. The dress on the paper is paper pieced.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: StazOn Black, Melon Mambo
Paper: Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Welcome Neighbor Designer Series Paper Pad
Other: Water Color Wonder Crayons, Melon Mambo Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon, Top Note Bigz Die, Big Shot

My final card for today works not only for a young girl, but one of  any age, because really, who doesn’t like cupcakes?

Stamps: Crazy for Cupcakes
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink, Sahara Sand, Old Olive
Paper: Kraft, Pretty in Pink, Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Welcome Neighbor Designer Series Paper Pad
Other: Melon Mambo Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon

Thanks so much for joining us on the Birthday Blog Hop today! Your next stop is Mary’s blog, where she is featuring super cute birthday favors for both boys and girls.

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The third grade teachers came to me for some ideas for a project their students could make at their Valentine’s Day party. We tossed some ideas around, and decided on having each child make two 3″x 3″ mini cards – one for each of their parents. I put together a supply order for them, and because of Sale-a-Bration and Stampin’ Up’s generous hostess benefits, they managed to get four free stamps sets with their order! We decided to stick with Real Red, Pretty in Pink, and Basic Black as our ink colors, combined with Real Red or Pretty in Pink as their card base. They will be encouraged to use their own creativity to create their cards, but I put together a few samples to get their juices flowing.

Here they each are individually:

Stamps: I {Heart} Hearts, Whimsical Words
Ink: Real Red, Pretty in Pink, Basic Black
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Whisper White

Stamps: A Happy Heart
Ink: Real Red, Basic Black
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White

Stamps: A Happy Heart, Sprinkles
Ink: Real Red, Pretty in Pink
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Whisper White

Stamps: I {Heart} Hearts, Whimsical Words
Ink: Real Red, Basic Black
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White

Stamps: I {Heart} Hearts, A Happy Heart
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Basic Black
Paper: Pretty in Pink, Whisper White

Stamps: You & Moi
Ink: Real Red, Pretty in Pink
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White

I can’t wait to see what cards the kids come up with!

Wow! Today is the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street. It is amazing to me to think that it has been around for almost my entire life — I was 1 month old when it started! I grew up watching it, I watched it as a babysitter, and finally watched it with Eve as a toddler. One of my most vivid Sesame Street memories was when Snuffleupagus became visible to the grown-ups on the show. What’s yours?

In celebration of the 40th anniversary, I created this punch art card of Sesame characters. I don’t know who came up with it first, there are a lot of versions out there! I was inspired by Sarah Wills version. This card is a 5″ square.

Paper: Only Orange, Basic Black, Old Olive, Brilliant Blue, Real Red, YoYo Yellow, Whisper White, Pixie Pink
Other: Scallop Circle Punch, 1/2″ Circle Punch, 1″ Circle Punch, Small Oval Punch, Slot Punch, Crop-a-dile

Happy Birthday, Sesame Street. Here’s to 40 more great years!

My in-laws were out of town for about five weeks on an amazing vacation. Eve made them an adorable card for my husband to bring with when he picked them up at the airport. That’s Eve in the middle, with Grandpa and Grandpa on either side. Eve did all of the stamping and coloring herself, except for the arms. I stamped the arms, since they can be very frustrating. Especially when they are the last thing you stamp. She blended the Yo-Yo Yellow and Only Orange Watercolor Wonder Crayons to make the skin on the faces.

Stamps: All in the Family
Inks: StazOn Black
Papers: Pixie Pink, Orchid Opulence, Naturals White
Accessories: Watercolor Wonder Crayons (Bold Brights), Aqua Painter

Grandma & Grandpa were thrilled to get this card, and I was happy to have some stamping time with Eve!

I found yet another great plus to using Stampin’ Up’s My Digital Studio. You can take it anywhere! I am currently in Charlotte, North Carolina for the American Association of School Librarians conference. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have brought any stamping stuff with me, because it is too hard to figure out what I want to do, and how much to bring, and what if I don’t have time, etc, etc. But not this time! Nope! I simply loaded My Digital Studio on my laptop, and I can relax in the evenings by playing with it and creating a few pages! (I love that when you purchase MDS you are licensed to install it on two computers in the same home, so I can install it on both my desktop and laptop computer without a problem.)

I had some spare time this morning before I have to head out to the conference sessions, so I put together a scrapbook page for this week’s Pals Paper Arts Color Challenge. The colors are:

I used some pictures from last December, of my Dad and Eve building a hot air balloon out of her Mega Fort Builder set. I substituted Tempting Turquoise for the Taken with Teal, because the background paper I wanted to use was not available in Taken with Teal.  I’m very happy with the way it came out, and I may use it as one of the pages of the calender I am making for my parents for Hanukkah. (Another great feature of MDS — you can import pages from one project to another! It saves time and effort, no duplicating work!)

Happy Stampin’, whether it is real or virtual!

Eve was invited to a birthday party last weekend, for two of the girls in her class. I figured that was as good as time as any to break out the Pony Party stamp set! Pink, Purple, and Ponies — really, what could be bad? Here’s what I came up with:

Stamps: Party Pony
Ink: StazOn Black, Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Razzleberry Lemonade Designer Series Paper
Other: Melon Mambo Polka Dot Grosgrain Ribbon, Word Window Punch, Modern Label Punch

If that doesn’t scream 7-year-old girl, I don’t know what does.

Eve had her first field trip of the year last week. They went up to TreePeople to learn about the urban forest and taking care of our environment. We were requested to send a bag lunch with, so they wouldn’t have to carry anything back with them. I wanted her lunch to be easily identifiable among the other lunch bags, so I pulled out my stamps and jazzed it up a bit! Really, it took about 5 minutes to roll the wheel across and stamp her name. And look how cute it turned out!

Stamps: Jumbo Outline Alphabet, Dream Stampin’ Around Wheel
Ink: Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry
Other: lunch bag

Eve was super excited when I showed it to her in the morning. And it was so fast to make, I didn’t even mind the idea of it being thrown away. Just think, you could make personalized theme lunch bags for all occasions!

Eve, who is 6 1/2, decided to give the Stamping 411 Saturday Sketch Challenge a try this morning. She wanted to make a card for her cousin Sophia who will be 2 on Monday. She liked this sketch a lot.

What could be better for her two-year-old cousin than a Build-a-Bear card? Eve did all of the designing, stamping, and coloring herself. I just helped by cutting the layers.

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: Basic Black, Orchid Opulence, Pixie Pink
Paper: Pixie Pink, Lovely Lilac, Whisper White, Pawsitively Prints, Designer Series Paper
Accessories: Watercolor Wonder Crayons

I love stamping with Eve! She’s so much fun — and talented and creative besides!

One of the most amazing things about rubber stamping is that anyone, of virtually any age, can do it. I was privileged today to accompany our fourth graders on their service learning field trip to the Jewish Home for the Aging. They were paired up with senior citizens, asked them questions about their lives, played a word game, and stamped some cards.

(thanks to Samantha Alvarez  for the fabulous photo!)

It was truly amazing to watch them stamp cards together. They shared in the joy of creating together, and the finished project was beautiful.

If you are looking for a way to connect people regardless of age, rubber stamping is certainly one answer. Everyone enjoyed today — the 4th graders, the seniors, the teachers, and the parent volunteers.

Eve loves the these new Build-a-Bear Stampin’ items, and has been wanting to stamp with them for a while now. We had some stamping time this weekend, and this was the first set she reached for. She wanted to have plenty of space for her masterpiece, so she chose just to use a white card base without any matts. We did end up matting the “Happy Bearthday” because she stamped it upside down the first time. Two lessons learned from that — One, always check which way the letters are facing and Two, there are very few things in card-making that can’t be fixed with a little embellishing! Crisis averted, phew!

Stamps: Beary Best Friends, Beary Nice Wishes
Ink: StazOn Black
Paper: Whisper White, Pink Passion
Other: Watercolor Pencils

Stamping — it’s fun for the whole family!